Sennheiser MM450 Stereo Bluetooth Headset Hands-on
At yesterday’s CES 2010 preview in New York, I got some hands-on time with Sennheiser’s premium MM450 headset. This pair of ultra-light foldable cans support music streaming, remote control over playback and call management, as long as your device supports A2DP and AVRCP (so iPhone users beware). My initial impressions were positive, with solidly resolved basslines and clear highs. The MM450 also offers active noise cancelling although there is a lesser model, the MM400, which skips this feature and drops the price. Speaking of the damage to your wallet, you’re looking at $299 for the MM400 and $499 for the MM450. That puts the MM450 in a price bracket beyond the noise-cancelling Nokia BH-905 and the MM400 beyond the Sony DR-BT50 (reviewed here recently), but Sennheiser thinks they’re worth it.
Neil Berman
theONbutton@CES – Nokia N97 Hands-On
The Nokia N97 is one of the most exciting smartphones to emerge for a long time. Resembling an iPhone with a slide-out keyboard, the N97 is due to be released later this year. Here’s the video tour…
Neil Berman
What Price 4G?
Nokia Siemens Networks has completed a proof of concept test for its Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile data technology, which promises data rates of up to 173 megabits per second. WiMax is already available in some parts of the world and offers up to 70 mbps.
Question is, which mobile devices are going to take advantage of these technologies? Leaving aside both LTE and WiMax as they are currently emerging, precious few devices use the current high speed mobile data networks. In fact very few carriers have even implemented the fadtest 3G technology, HSDPA, which can deliver up to 14.4 mbps peak.
The whole HSDPA community is made up of users of a handful of devices such as the very smartest smartphones and some laptops, whose owners have chosen a carrier network which supports the standard.
At full speed HSDPA should give similar performance to many home or office high speed internet connections, so would increasing the data rate actually increase the market for services?
My HTC TyTN cellphone, which is basically a mini computer with a 400 MHz processor, sometimes has difficulty handling Skype voice calls over 54mbps WiFi because the processor is working so hard. More tellingly it opens web pages as quickly over WiFi as it does over EDGE, which suggests that the performance limitation for current mobile devices is in the processing speed of the device rather than the data speed of the wireless network.
Problem is as processor speed increases, the heat generated and battery power needed becomes highly challenging for a mobile device. In fact like the TyTN, the recently released TyTN II also has a 400MHz processor and I’m not aware of a more powerful smartphone on the current market. So it is doubtful that smartphones will be able to take advantage of higher mobile data speeds in a hurry.
More likely, the slow but ongoing growth of the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) sector will be able to make better use of fast wireless networks. These run industry standard operating systems and are more able to integrate seamlessly with corporate networks.
UMPCs also have software readily available for handling data intensive on-demand multimedia applications such as high quality video and music streaming, which fast wireless networks will be able to support. However as a society we have not reached the stage where video streaming into homes replaces traditional TV delivery methods, let alone trying to achieve critical mass in the mobile community.
Some years ago the auctions for 3G bandwith were a bonanza. In an ideal world those 3G data networks such as HSDPA and their associated service offerings would be prevalent across the market by now to repay the investment. In reality implementation and consumer adoption has been slow. There may even have been an ultimate aim for 3G networks to compete with home broadband and cable providers; HSDPA is certainly fast enough in theory.
LTE and WiMax – call them components of ‘4G’ for now – should be even better placed than 3G HSDPA to enter the home and office market to compete with fixed line data connectivity providers.
However as auctions approach for the rights to the ‘4G’ bandwidth, will the carriers be confident enough to pay such a high price again?
Neil Berman
Nokia N810 Review
With my Nokia 770 despatched swiftly on eBay, I could switch on my new N810 with an almost clear conscience. The N810 was an impulse upgrade following great first impressions. I think I was one of many, as the tablet ranked #2 in Wired’s December 2007 listing of “Top 10 Gifts We’d Love To Get”. Time to see what it can really do.
What’s in the box?
The slickness of the N810 makes an instant impact. The casing is silver with a brushed chrome color screen surround, buttons fit flush to surfaces and the backlit keyboard glides out smoothly. A built in stand allows the N810 to be used as a close range viewing device on a table. The box also contains a car dashboard holder for using the GPS navigation and a soft pouch. It all looks cool and feels well put together.
What’s it got?
Switching on, the screen is an immediate improvement over the 770. As with the better small devices on today’s market, it’s bright and colors are vivid. Howeve, unlike any ultra-portable computer I’ve used the screen also is genuinely sunlight readable. This is great for working on the move or using as an outdoor GPS navigation device. The idea of working with a laptop in the park is always appealing, but often hindered because nice days in parks tend to involve sunlight. Sunlight is not such a big problem for the N810.
The N810 boots-up in about fifteen seconds into the now familiar Nokia tablet desktop. Status indicators are on the top right and applications are on the left. The user transition from the 770 is seamless. Read about the 770 here.
Loading up the web browser makes the N810 search automatically for a connection. As with the 770, the WiFi search is quick and signal strength is strong. I made a connection straight away and was surfing at full speed in seconds.
The screen resolution is 800 by 480 so the N810 comfortably fits a typical web page across the width of its screen, with the option to specifically ‘fit to width’ if necessary. There is also a full screen mode accessed via a dedicated hardware button. Another dedicated button displays a list of currently open windows/applications for easy window switching.
The sliding keyboard transforms the internet experience on the N810. Whereas the 770 had an iPhone style on-screen keyboard which was fine for a short message here and there, the N810’s dedicated hardware keyboard allows full scale email, blogging and even word processing. Ironically, although the N810’s keyboard is bigger than my HTC TyTN’s, I have found it slower to type on. The keys have a less positive feel and the OS 2008 implementation of word prediction is less user friendly than the Windows Mobile version, which can be used from the keyboard without needing to touch the screen.
There’s a wide range of applications for the Nokia tablet series available for download. A built in software updater also searches for new apps and upgrades. Kudos to Nokia for implementing such a grown-up feature aimed at openly developing the N810’s functionality. This elevates it out of the closed platform space that most small mobile devices occupy and into the wider portable computer space. Skype is now available for the N810, although it does not currently take advantage of the front mounted webcam.
I miss having an office application suite built into the N810, it really seems ripe for it. The extra screen space compared to my TyTN makes it a perfect mobile office tool. Ironically it’s the TyTN which actually has Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, but due to screen size only Word is of practical everyday use. There are some office applications available for the Nokia tablet platform, but a Maemo port of the StarOffice suite would be perfect.
How does it perform?
In general use the N810 performs pretty briskly. The 400mhz processor powers preloaded applications adequately, although I experienced slowdowns when trying to access multiple websites in multiple browser windows. There is 256Mb of Flash memory, 128Mb of onboard RAM with an extra 128Mb assignable as vitual memory from the 2Gb of onboard storage, which is pretty decent for this type of device. The N810 has not crashed on me yet; when applications have slowed down or gotten confused it has always recovered given time.
The Mozilla based browser handles the majority of sites well, although like Safari on my MacBook there are occasional compatability issues with some sites. I became used to this on my MacBook and just reserved surfing certain sites for my Windows PC. Pages load quickly enough and the N810 can handle certain multimedia content such as YouTube videos happily. Given the software update functionality I hope that browser updates will be possible to keep the N810 up to date.
Launching the map program engages the GPS. In Central Park on a clear day, the built-in antenna took around five minutes to get a fix on my location. Once it knew where I was, the N810 was able to show me the location of WiFi hotspots in the vicinity as well as other points of interest. This is a free service, whilst upgrading to full in-car navigation is an optional cost upgrade.
The points of interest are a great facility and of course GPS mapping is wonderful if you don’t know where you are. I expect though I’m more likely to use Google Maps on my TyTN on a day to day basis as it’s interface and zoom implementation is excellent.
Audio sounds great through both the onboard speakers and 3.5mm headphone socket. To their credit, Nokia squeezed a regular size headphone port into the thin N810. Video runs smoothly and the screen is viewable at pretty acute angles so your friends can watch alongside you using the built-in stand.
The 770 is actually more comfortable to hold than the N810 for prolonged periods. This is partly due to its greater depth and also because on the left of the screen there is more room to rest your hand. With the N810 you really feel like you’re holding a fat-free tablet, with the ‘downside’ that there’s precious little places to hold it! So your hand falls naturally at the back giving support at the edges. The weight of the tablet series has remained pretty constant throughout three generations, with the N810 weighing in at a meager 226 grams.
Battery life is claimed by Nokia to be fourteen standby days or four hours of continuous WiFi usage, which is better than the vast majority of laptops. Various power saving features can be configured, such as screen dimming and WiFi disconnection after periods of inactivity.
The recommended retail price of the N810 is 479.99 dollars but some retailers are listing it for less. Net of my 770 sale it cost me just over 300 bucks, which is pretty good value considering the improvements. The price puts it squarely in Asus EEE PC territory, which offers a whole lot more (potential, size and weight) but also a whole lot less (portability, battery life, sidewalk use).
Overall the N810 has been a superb buy. The keyboard and improved browser transform it from its earlier siblings into one of the most complete ultra-mobile computers ever made. Regular software updates and a growing application suite mean that it should have a good lifespan. Given that it can also double up as an in-car sat nav and use-anywhere media player, it is also great value…which is why Nokia’s USA site currently states it is on back order!
Click here to read the Nokia 770 review
Neil Berman
Big Brother Eviction: Nokia N810 on order, 770 looking for a home…
Nokia’s third internet tablet hit the stores a few days ago and here it is, running Maemo Linux Internet Tablet 2008.
What does it look and feel like? In a word amazing. Ultra thin and extremely desirable.
The family which started with the 770 and then developed with the N800 now has a big brother in the shape of the N810. Big on features that is, but smaller on size. The N810 is the first in the series to get a super slick slip out keyboard. Yet it feels fantastic in the hand and thinner than its predecessors.
There is 2GB of internal storage and it will also accept Micro SDHC cards for serious memory expansion. GPS and mapping software also come as standard with an optional upgrade available to Waypoint in-car navigation.
The 4.1 inch screen is the same size as the 770 and N800 with an 800 x 480 resolution which allows a good view of web pages. The Mozilla browser has gone through significant updates since the 770 and is now Flash 9 compatible. As a rare feature, the screen is sunlight readable.
With plenty of storage potential, the N810 is multimedia friendly. Initial video tests showed bright and smooth flowing video with solid sound reproduction from the onboard speakers.
Like the N800 there is a built in camera for video calls using Gizmo. The N810 also comes with Skype but it does not seem at this point in time that the cam works for this yet.
And the word ‘yet’ is what this family is all about…These tablets run Linux, so the environment is really open to the user community to do whatever they want with it. Nokia is encouraging developers to build applications for the distro and now that the N810 has a keyboard, I’d expect to see plenty of releases over the coming months. The development forums are alive with excitement over the N810.
Mine is arriving tomorrow; the 770 has been evicted by its (not so) big brother. Watch this space for an N810 interview as soon as I get it into the diary room.
Neil Berman
A weight off Q’s mind
James Bond’s Q was capable of many wondrous things, but unlike many of his fictional works, Samsung’s Q1 is a wondrous work of fact. That fact, unfortunately, was that the Q1 Ultra really struggled with Vista.
Going to the Samsung Experience at the TWC a few months back, the painful memory was of a killer device killed by its
own CPU/OS combination. The Q1U had a couple of other flaws like the Barbie-small keyboard (see photo) and high price, but the basics like watching smooth video and loading up Control Panel in a reasonable time were scarily lacking. Vista was weighing heavy on its mind.
What a difference a difficult-to-stomach-but-sensible downgrade makes. Now that the Q1U comes with either Windows XP Tablet 2005 or Vista Premium, I decided to take it for another test drive. With XP the Q1U simply flies along. Video is smooth, web pages load quickly and battery life gets a boost to 4.5 hours according to Samsung.
I even gave the thumboard another try 
which, whilst not as tactile as a Blackberry or my HTC TyTN, does a reasonable job once you get used to it. It’s definitely usable and the Q1U would be a great tool for applications which require mainly mouse manipulation with some text input, such as presentation building. I still haven’t clicked with Dial Keys though!
With XP this is really a device that Q would be proud of; especially now he can watch Bond without freeze frame explosions!
Neil Berman
www.neilberman.com
Nokia 770 Review: Use one tablet daily to help surfing addiction
Unpacking my $129 Nokia 770 last week I wondered if this tablet would cure my need for full-size surfing in a pint-sized package. Out of the box and pint-sized turns out to be an overstatement. Weighing in at super featherweight with a flush-fitting hard case, the 770 is slim and slick. The antenna is strong and the full-page widescreen surfing with finger dragging puts the iPhone’s 2-years-later tech to shame.
So why did this Linux-powered tablet never reach stardom? Perhaps because it is a mobile connectivity device without its own mobile connection. The 770 and its latest and greatest sibling, the 800 are dependent mobile devices. If you’re near a hotspot or your cellphone has Bluetooth DUN you’re fine, otherwise you have a paperweight. Why does this matter? Because for the street price of the 800 you can get a Vista powered laptop with the same wifi connectivity and bags more functionality.
So the concept sits in a similar quandry as the UMPCs: They’re too flawed to be principal purchases and they’re too expensive to be successful discretionary purchases at their relative functionality/price points.
But at $129 including shipping for the 770, well that’s a different proposition. The surfing experience is great, you can view full pages really easily and the battery goes for ages.
A cure for addiction? Almost. Something to replace those old magazines on your coffee table? Definitely.
Click here to read the Nokia N810 review
Neil Berman
(Published from my Nokia 770)
http://www.neilberman.com/
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