What does all this mean??? Read on to find out...

Computer shopping has always been about specs and stats. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon and it’s important to understand the key vital statistics. Memory choices are critical to the performance and longevity of your purchase, so here in the first of this two part laptop buying guide is the memory geek-speak translation.

Memory tech words which tend to pop up on sales listings are RAM, L2 Cache and Hard Drive (also called Hard Disk). In order to understand them we are going to imagine ourselves in a library.

What is L2 Cache?

In our library there are bookshelves, desks and chairs. We walk in, find twelve books from the bookshelves and put them on the floor next to a desk. We sit at the desk but it’s only big enough for a few books with enough space left for us to work. So we pick the three books we need right now from the floor pile and put them on the desk.

The desk is our most convenient and fastest retrieval location for referencing our books. It’s also the smallest. This our Level 2 Cache, or L2 Cache.

The L2 Cache is a temporary storage space used by computers for ultra-fast access to frequently used data. When we take a book from the desk and start reading it with our brain and eyes, this like a computer retrieving data from its L2 Cache and reading it with its main processor chip. The L2 Cache is actually located within the main processor itself, so it is a physically small storage area of around 0.5-12MB.

How much L2 Cache do you need?  I would recommend 1MB upwards for Mac OSX, Windows 7 or Vista.  Netbooks running Windows XP are fine with 0.5MB.

What is RAM?

What if we need to read a book which is not on the library desk? We look in our pile on the floor. This is a bit slower than using a book already on the desk, but we can put more books on the floor than we can fit on the desk. Looking in the floor pile is like a computer using its Random Access Memory (RAM).

Accessing data in RAM is fast, but slower than the L2 Cache as it sits outside the main chip and connects via fast data lines like our floor pile of books. Since RAM is not constrained by the physical real estate limitations of the main chip, it can store far more data. RAM sticks with capacity of around 0.5 to 1 gigabyte are common these days. Computers typically accommodate two such ’sticks’.

How much RAM do you need? For Windows 7, Vista and Mac OSX 2GB is typically fine, but it’s worth going to 3GB if you are planning to use a lot of multimedia applications like video or photo editing.  This will give the computer some breathing room.

What is the Hard Disk?

If the library book you need is not in the floor pile then you have to get up, walk over to the bookshelves, find the right book and bring it back. This takes way longer than picking it up from the floor pile, but the bookshelves can store far more than your floor pile. The bookshelves are like a Hard Drive. They can store vast amounts of information and Hard Drive data remains intact when the computer shuts down, unlike your desk and floor piles which you will clean up when you leave.

Hard Disk data is stored on a set of spinning platters which are read by a needle. The occasional ticking noise you hear in a computer is the Hard Disk being physically read.

How much Hard Disk space do you need? External Hard Disks can be easily bought and plugged into a USB port, so it is not critical if you under-purchase. However with laptops it becomes inconvenient if you run out of space, as although you can add an external drive you are unlikely to want to carry it along with your laptop. So for laptops my advice is to buy a machine with as much Hard Disk space as you can afford; look for a laptop with upwards of 160GB capacity. Video, photo and music files are typically large so if you plan to store lots of these then max-out on your Hard Drive at purchase all the way to 320GB or more.

It’s worth knowing that you cannot control what gets stored in RAM or in the L2 Cache. The computer decides what to put in there, such as open files the in process of being modified. When you turn the power off anything in the L2 Cache or RAM gets wiped, whereas data in the Hard Disk remains intact when the power is off. Similarly you clear the desk when you leave the library and return any books to the bookshelves. This is why it is important to save any open files before shutting down a computer.

What are the expansion options?

For the L2 Cache, the only expansion route is to replace the main  processor, which is typically only feasible for a desktop computer.

Laptop RAM can normally be upgraded as long as the computer’s motherboard is able to handle the extra capacity. For example my older MacBook is unable to accommodate more than 2GB of RAM. If your laptop can accept an upgrade from your current RAM level then it is normally a case of removing the existing RAM sticks and fitting correct spec higher capacity ones.

Laptop Hard Disks can generally be upgraded, but it is a delicate process which involves cloning the data from the current drive onto the higher capacity drive in a precise way. The alternative we discussed earlier is to purchase an external Hard Drive, which are readily available these days at reasonable prices.

Holding back the tears

Finally, when a laptop gets sick (read “dropped”) or feverish (read “struck by a virus”), its Hard Disk can be vulnerable to permanent amnesia. So, be nice to yourself and buy an external Hard Drive to back up your photos, music and all those other precious memories.

So that’s the translation of memory geek-speak. Here’s hoping for clear thinking for your next purchase and an end to confused memories!

I originally wrote this article in 2007 and have updated it to reflect the 2009 laptop market.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Click here to read part two: How to choose a laptop processor (2007).

Expert question: Why is it called Level 2 Cache? There is actually a tiny cache even closer to the main brain in the processing chip called Level 1. However this is so small that it is really only used for very temporary storage and rarely quoted in store listings.

This one has been a long time coming, but praise be: Adobe Flash with graphics hardware acceleration is in Beta release. There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel for exhausted computers.

What this means is that if you have a supported video card then Flash will soon be able to use it to decode video streams coming from Flash based sites like Youtube and Hulu. These video streams, especially the HD content, often bring computers to their knees because the processor has to do all the decoding work at present.

It’s not all roses and romance though, because the new version of Flash will not love all video cards. Most importantly it does support acceleration on Intel’s 4 series chipset, such as the GMA4500MHD, which is found in many mainstream laptops. Other supported cards include ATI’s 4xxx series, some 3xxx series ones and most of Nvidia’s 8xxx, 9xxx, GT1xx and GT2xx ranges.

Notably the older Intel GMA950 and X3100 chipsets, commonly found in netbooks and previous generation laptops, are not supported so continue to expect some less than ideal viewing experiences on these platforms. If you can find a site which streams using Silverlight you might have better luck; for example my netbook happily runs Netflix which uses Silverlight.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Apple’s latest store opened today to rapturous cheering from fans, some of whom had camped overnight to among be first inside.

Here’s a video of what went down when the doors opened, plus a walking tour of the actual store and a gallery of photos from inside.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

It’s a busy morning at Broadway and 67th on the Upper West Side in New York City.

Apple is opening its latest store here in just a few minutes, here’s what the busy scene looks like…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Update:  And the doors are open!

…only one of mine this year has arrived on time. Halo ODST: Yay bonus code, arrived a week late. Modern Warfare 2: Yay free $20 gift card, but late and getting later. Windows 7: Yay only $49 AND on-time, thanks NewEgg

The salt in the wound right now is that clearly Modern Warfare 2 has been a huge seller and widely declared to be awesome. In fact the Halo 3 online community has shrunk by about 150,000 this week and I’m stuck being one of those left behind. There can only be one reason for that. At least I know my copy has shipped, I just don’t know if it’s coming by airplane or horseback. Maybe it’ll arrive by stealth bomber like the Droid, although that would leave a nasty hole in the sidewalk.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

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

www.theonbutton.com

Gary Shapiro, President and CEO or the Consumer Electronics Association

Gary Shapiro and his team presented some interesting info at yesterday’s CES 2010 preview in New York.  Here are some choice inclusions:

• 2010 holiday spending will likely be down 3% compared to 2009.   By comparison 2008 holiday spending was down 15% on 2007.

• Overall gift spending is likely to be up 4% but consumer electronics (CE) gift spending is likely to rise by 8%.  Average CE gift spending per person is likely to be $222 this year compared to $206 in 2008.

• Holiday spend on computers is projected to rise by 17.3% projected for Q4 2009 compared to Q4 2008

• 80% of consumers are hoping for a CE gift this year.

• Netbooks have appeared for the first time in the top ten gifts desired by teenagers.

• We are more likely to see retailers pushing value-oriented bundles of multiple devices and higher margin feature-rich offerings than a flood of basic cheap devices.

• The explosion of affordable devices in the 7-13 inch spectrum is likely to continue.  These are likely to be comprised of mainly netbooks or e-book readers.  I also expect the new class of Intel’s Ultra Low Voltage CPU powered ultraportables to eat into netbook sales in this class of screen size and weight.

• 14% of tech enthusiasts and 8% of other consumers own a netbook.

• 6% of tech enthusiasts and 4% of other consumers have e-readers such as a Kindle or competing devices.

…and there was a funky stat from Gary that more than 1,200 hours of video footage is uploaded to YouTube every hour!

Frank Davis, Ford’s Executive Director of North American Product Development was also on hand to talk about the technology present in the current Taurus, which was announced as the official car of CES 2010.

Monster Cable announced that John Legend will perform at the CES 2010 Retail Awards ceremony.

Happy holiday shopping, keep the economy going y’all

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

The availability of stereo Bluetooth headsets has been steadily increasing this year, helping to bring prices down. In particular at the top end last month’s arrival of Nokia’s noise-cancelling flagship set, the BH-905, has led to significant drops in other premium closed-back designs. Motorola’s high end S805s have been selling for a steal recently on some sites  but today I’m going to focus on Sony’s DR-BT50, which for some represented the pinnacle of stereo Bluetooth headsets until Nokia recently crashed Sony’s party.  I’ll make comparisons to the S805 along the way.

First impressions

Sony debuted the BT50 at a whopping $229 but it’s now available for a around $129 or so at several e-tailers. The cans are based upon Sony’s celebrated Altus MDR-D777LP, so they carry a promise of good sound delivery. They also bring practicality, being foldable.

Physically the BT50s are extremely light, feeling like about half the weight of my Motorola S805s. The BT50’s earpads are also thinner and the buttons are smaller; more on this later. Like the S805s the Sonys sport a full set of music playback controls as well as a mic and call management.

Pairing was straightforward with my BlackBerry Bold 9000 and subsequent reconnections have gone perfectly, as has also been the case with my Motorola S805 and S9HD headsets. The days of fiddly Bluetooth connections are hopefully now well behind us!

Put them on already!

The BT50s feel great to wear and the slim earpads enclose the ears comfortably. The pads are so soft that it’s easier to wear sunglasses with the Sonys compared to the S805s, which is important if you live in a sunny part of the world. Having said that, this not so much a failing of the S805s but rather a comment on how soft the BT50’s earpads really are.

I mentioned earlier that the controls on the BT50 are small and when I first saw them I wondered how I would find them when the cans were on my head. The power and call pickup buttons are fine but the playback and volume controls are, frankly, tiny. Worse still the playback control is a flick-touch rocker switch controlling play/pause/stop and track navigation. The S805 seems like a Tonka truck in comparison, with its large finger-friendly controls.

Listen up

In use the BT50’s buttons were actually easier to locate than I had feared, although the playback rocker is too easy to nudge causing a track skip when you’re trying to depress it to pause. The call pickup button is a decent size, as is the power button, so these present no issues.

Once the music is playing the BT50s simply shine compared to most other Bluetooth headsets, trumping the S805s for both bass and mid-range although sometimes the top end detail seems to suffer at the expense of the solid bottom end frequencies. It’s not that reproduction is too overly bass heavy, but the current consumer trends favor bass and consequently the BT50s will find plenty of fans in this regard.

When a call comes in pressing the call accept button pauses music playback and answers the call. I could hear callers very clearly and they could hear me well both indoors and outside. Call quality was definitely superior to my S805s.

In order to use the stereo music and playback functions you’ll need a device supporting the A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles. Check your specs on your device manufacturer’s website. A2DP provides music playback support and AVRCP provides remote control of playback functions.

The BT50s felt both light and snug even for lengthy listening sessions and that included time wearing sunglasses. When I was finished listening I found that the folded BT50s fit perfectly into my jacket pocket.

Some room for improvement

On the downside the BT50s are picky about placement and like to have a decent line of sight to the originating device. They are far less tolerant to obstacles than the S805s and this results in occasional cut-outs unless your BlackBerry is in a shirt or jacket pocket fairly high up on your body. This issue is not unique to the BT50s, my Motorola S9-HD suffers from a similar weakness.

The BT50s must have a decent size buffer however because it takes a while for the cut-out to occur. As a result I found I could walk around normally with almost no cut-outs with my Bold in my top pocket. Part of this issue could also be attributed to the Bold, which I’ve found to have a below-average strength Bluetooth transmitter compared to other phones I’ve used.

The other niggle is that Sony fitted the BT50 with a proprietary charging port rather than a mini-USB connection.  This means needing to remember to take the charger when you travel, rather than simply a USB cable to charge from a laptop.  Accessories these days should be rechargeable via USB.

Stereo stars or falling stars?

Overall I can give the Sony DR-BT50 a solid recommendation at its current street price. Most listeners are likely to be very happy with their sound quality and they felt both practical and comfortable for extended use on my ears, although as ever your mileage may vary depending on your head and ear shape so try before you buy if you can!

Note: I also published an edited version of this review on BerryReporter here.

Link to Sony product page here.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

This year’s holiday shopping season is looking good for Android. Not only are we seeing the emergence of devices , such as Motorola’s Droid (Verizon), running Android 2.0, but Google has just announced navigation for Google Maps on Android.

Google says the software will be free and will run on Android 2.0, no other platform support was mentioned. Whilst the iPhone remains in a strong position, this announcement is big news for anyone who wants to combine GPS navigation with Google’s competitive advantage in the search space.

For example in the promo video one demo involves telling (and I mean actually speaking) the name of an exhibition to the Motorola Droid. The device knew from Google’s search which museum was hosting the exhibition and plotted a course. Try doing that with TomTom’s iPhone app, which is suddenly looking very expensive now that we know Google’s offering will be free.

Although competitors are probably shaking, they are shielded for now as the user population is initially small, being limited to Android 2.0 device owners. But what happens if Google extends this functionality to the iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Palm platforms?

It could spell disaster for TomTom, Garmin and carrier subscription offerings such as VZ Navigator.

During last week’s BerryReporter podcast we reviewed Google Maps 3.2 and discussed how fantastic it would be if Google brought turn-by-turn navigation to Maps. I likened the impact to what I believe high quality camera phones will soon do to the mainstream digital camera market. But although Brad and I would love to say we predicted Google’s product strategy on this one, it was more likely a bizarrely well timed conversation.

Oh what the heck, we’re oracles!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Mr Postman arrived today with two shiny copies for me, but these didn’t count towards the record set in the UK where Windows 7 became Amazon’s biggest selling pre-order product of all time there.

I have a feeling it might go on to become the best selling OS of all time too.  I already posted my comments on Windows 7 way back in Jan and Feb this year based on pre-release versions and, as you probably know from the overwhelmingly positive media reviews, it rocks.  So what are you waiting for?  Go and get yourself a copy to try it out already!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Microsoft hinted about this one way back at CES in January and after a long wait it’s finally here.  Windows Media Center now has direct Netflix integration and I’m lovin’ it.

The Netflix icon appeared in my Movies section this week and clicking it led to a one minute installation followed by instant gratification.  Not much more to say apart from that it integrates seamlessly into the already superb Media Center interface.  Will other platforms ever try to catch-up with what is so far and away the best media library experience out there?

Here’s the gallery.  A warning for those of you not in the USA, this gallery may make you extremely jealous.  Sorry about that, and here’s hoping Netflix goes international!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Oh aren’t living room computers just the best idea!  There’s nothing like having a huge keyboard on the coffee table hugging that hardcover copy of ‘Finest landscape photography’, and how about that wireless mouse which can double up as a paperweight for the New York Times when the windows are open.

Hmmm…someone needs to make a cute, tiny and usable media center keyboard and mouse which can be hidden away real quick when necessary.

To be fair there’s already one solid player in this market, the Logitech diNovo Mini, which at $150 is just too darn expensive to merit widespread consideration.

Fortunately there’s now a more affordable contender in the form of the iPassport.  Available for around $40 plus shipping, this mashup of a smartphone-style thumboard and notebook trackpad aims to take two familiar input methods and turn them into a tiny wireless solution for controlling a computer…and it works.

Unboxing the iPassport

The iPassport ships in retail friendly clear plastic (which can easily be opened without needing a saw, yay!), and includes a USB dongle and separate USB charging cable.  The main unit sits comfortably in the hand and is exceptionally light.  Some may find it lacks a quality feel, although the plastic body seems fairly sturdy.  The keys are rubber with similar travel to a typical smartphone.  The keypad also has a backlight, which is a nice touch and essential for theatre-style viewing.

The trackpad buttons have a similar feel to the keypad buttons with minimal travel, but the trackpad itself defaulted to tap-to-click upon install which improves the experience in my opinion.  The one feature lacking from the trackpad is a scrolling area, so you’ll need to call upon the arrow buttons on the keypad.  There’s no multitouch support either, so no MacBook-style two finger scrolling which is a feature every trackpad should have.

Installing and using

I installed the iPassport into my ancient living room Pentium 4 which is running Windows 7 RC, and the OS had installed a device driver in the five seconds it took me to get back to the sofa, seriously!  Everything worked just great and my previous (very nice) wireless keyboard with its built-in trackball started the process of gathering dust.  The included documentation notes that recent Windows releases and Linux are supported but according to the reseller’s website the iPassport also supports Mac, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

Now this device might not be the best choice for everyone.  If you struggle with the keys on smartphones then you may also find this thumboard tricky to handle.  Equally if you type a lot then you will probably get more words per minute with a larger keyboard on your lap.  Personally I find myself using my living room media center for watching media and surfing the net, neither of which requires a huge amount of typing.

Some compromises have also been made regarding the selection of keys on the device, probably due to the size of the unit.  For example there are neither F1-F12 keys nor a Tab key, which I missed when navigating web forms.  Other keys are curiously placed, such as the Enter key which is near the middle of the keypad instead of being on the right.  The arrow buttons straddle the Space bar instead of being clustered on the right and the numeric keypad is in two rows on the left instead of being grouped in threes.  I would have preferred to see a layout closer to a typical BlackBerry thumboard, or one inch of extra width added to the iPassport to accommodate more keys.  Text selection can also be a bit finicky as the arrow keys sometimes behave erratically.

The other caveat is around the design of the iPassport.  This device is likely to live on a coffee table and get plenty of curious attention from visitors.  Put simply the Logitech diNovo Mini kills it in the looks department, so if you’re a design conscious person then the iPassport might not meet your expectations.  It does come in white or black, but it goes about its business in a more functional than designer way.

Is it worth a try?

Overall I’ve been impressed with the iPassport.  Aside from a quirky key layout, for the money it’s a fun and unique controller.  The backlight and multi-platform support are the icing on the cake.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Are you hoarding cash waiting to drop some on a Windows 7 PC on October 22? So was I, until I realized it might make more sense to take a different strategy. I think buying a Vista PC right in the next month might be a great idea, and here’s why I’m not mad…

You are probably aware that if you buy a qualifying PC at the moment it might be eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade. Most manufacturers have a pretty clear definition of which of their systems are eligible, so you can check before handing over your hard-earned savings.

A FRESH START

Sounds like a schlep, after all this means installing a whole OS, and yes, it shouldn’t be considered lightly.
However most off the shelf PCs tend to ship with a boatload of bloatware, which few people want and tends to contribute to an overall performance degradation. Installing a fresh OS wipes all of this away and you get a clean system which is likely to perform better.

Normally OS upgrades are done well into the life of a computer, once many applications are all loaded on and working habits are well established. This can be disruptive to smooth running (experiences of upgrades to Snow Leopard and Vista are recent examples of this kind of user pain). But buying an eligible Vista PC in mid-October and going straight to a fresh Windows 7 a few days later sounds like a great plan to me as I probably wouldn’t have loaded on lots of software yet. Plus if you get the physical media it’s an added bonus in case you ever need to re-install.

GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE CHEAP

Deals on Vista PCs should start coming thick and fast as stores look to clear inventory ahead of October 22. Some refurbs may also be eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade, but you should be extra-vigilant when checking the eligibility of these systems. For example it does seem like some systems on Dell’s Outlet site are eligible, make sure you check before you buy though.

CURRENT PLATFORMS ON THEIR WAY OUT ARE STILL CAPABLE FOR MANY USES

The other factor creating downward pressure on current Vista PC inventory will be the increasing availability of the Intel Core i5, i7 and i7 Mobile platforms. It’s likely that HP, Dell and Acer and the wider industry will time many of these system releases with Windows 7, again pushing existing inventory prices south. Those current inventory Intel Core 2 and AMD Phenom/Turion based systems are still capable for what many people need on a day-to-day basis.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Ironically it seems, with Windows 7 right around the corner, there may have never been a better time to buy a Vista PC. Just make sure that what you buy is eligible for a free upgrade!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Intel hit up the market with an (expected) bombshell on Thursday, bringing the Core i7 platform to notebooks.

If you’re thinking this is just another development in desktop chip design shoehorned into laptops then think again. Core i7 is sick in desktops and super-sick in laptops.

Why the fuss? Like its desktop sibling the mobile version has four cores capable of running eight threads (a thread is a stream of execution instructions sent to a core). Both also ship with large amounts of level two cache, starting at 6MB, and can support mega-performance memory on the motherboard.

Kicker number one for the mobile version thought is a sort of ultra-speedstep technology called Turbo Mode which massively varies clock speed based upon processor demand. This allows the cores to function at anywhere between around 1.6GHz and around 3.2GHZ depending upon the model.

Kicker number two is that the mobile version can idle unused cores at almost zero power usage, which should mean great shakes for battery life if you’re performing simple tasks.

How much difference does Core i7 make compared to previous generations of mobile processors? It appears to be simply staggering from the benchmarks taken by various reviews published this week. The price? Not quite as heart-stopping as you might think; Dell announced it would sell a Studio 15 model fitted with a Core i7 for $999.

So are we going to be seeing Final Destination: Desktop Massacre? Core i7 Mobile should give us desktop replacement power without the weak battery life of some previous mobile powerhouses. Consequently more people might feel they no longer need a desktop.

In permanent installations however, such as corporate or home media center environments, desktops will probably continue to have a place for a while to come. But even in those scenarios the votes are increasingly going towards notebooks. After all, why choose a desktop when similar power is available at a similar price but with more flexibility?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Adding more fuel to the rumor fire about whether the lack of cam-equipped iPod Touch is a temporary delay or a never-product,  a UK dabs.com flyer was spotted advertising an iPod Touch with “Built-in video recorder & WiFi”.  This was a publication error as said features are not currently available, as we know all too well, but it does lend credence to commentators who say that the device was pulled at the last moment.

Here’s hoping for the Apple Store to come mysteriously down sometime before Christmas and to come back up with enough cam-equipped iPod Touches for Santa to fit in his bag.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Early indications tell us that the Zune HD has been selling out at Amazon, BestBuy and Newegg. Is it actually a more desirable device than the iPod Touch or is this just an initial flurry of fan purchases?

I’m not going to review the two devices here, as plenty technical articles have already been written about how the Zune HD has both the design and quality playback edge over the iPod Touch. From a pure stored media reproduction perspective the Zune HD seems to be the superior PMP with slicker hardware and cooler software.

But consumers now expect more than just media playback, and this is where the iPod Touch fights back. Yes the Zune HD has a browser, but Safari on the Touch is better. The Touch also offers an email client and YouTube playback. The Touch might not have got it’s camera yet, but let’s not forget it is a gaming platform.

This flexibility, rooted in the App Store, ultimately makes the iPod Touch a stronger platform than the Zune HD. The Zune HD does have a selection of applications available, but its ad-based revenue model makes little sense in the face of ad-free 99 cent apps for the Touch.

Ironically the largest thorn in the side of the Zune HD’s third party app growth may be Windows Mobile. It makes every bit of sense for the Windows Mobile and Zune platforms to merge, just like the iPhone and iPod touch share the same OS. But right now Windows Mobile and Zune feel too far apart, which may ultimately harm third party app growth on both platforms.

As I said prior to the Zune HD’s release, the device brings technical superiority, but the iPod Touch is probably a more fun and flexible platform even without the camera we were hoping for. Ultimately the buying decision depends upon what you want to do with your device, but it’s now a harder decision than ever.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

We know all too well about the Xbox’s infamous red ring of death and now the PS3 seems to want a piece of the action with its yellow light of failure.

This kind of attention is not necessarily the best type of attention, but they always said that any publicity is good publicity. So what about it Nintendo, are we going to see a ‘blue mouth of MotionLess’?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

First ToysRUs and now BestBuy ads have been spotted listing the Wii at a possible future price of $199. It’s pretty amazing that the console has gone so long at its original price, with such strong sales, especially having been christened with such a peculiar name. Who would have thought it possible way back in 2006!

With the PS3 Slim now out at $299 and looking like a good value proposition with its BluRay drive compared to the Xbox 360 Elite, battle is now formally joined at the top end of the 3rd gen tree. It’s therefore not entirely surprising to see rumors appearing of a Wii price reduction as at $249 it must now be coming under significant pressure.

Nintendo must be pretty happy about the great run it’s had so far, well done to them for making this a three horse race. Back in 2006 many of us feared you might walk in the footsteps of Sega.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

There are sooo many cool things about flying jetBlue, like free WiFi in their JFK terminal, loads of charging points at their JFK departure gates and 36 channels of DIRECTV onboard…but please give us a 37th with a program guide!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Apparently there are some people who get confused by computery numbers. Not you of course but they’re out there somewhere according to AMD, and said company is on a mission to ameliorate said situation.

So instead of Athlons and Turions, look for your next AMD computer to have a Vision, or at least a Vision logo denoting the relative capability of the computer. From what we know currently there will be a graduating scale of four levels, starting with just Vision, passing through Vision Premium and Vision Ultimate all the way to Vision Black…er, because something can be better than “ultimate” these days.

So I’m assuming that means you’ll be able to get Windows 7 Ultimate on Vision Premium and Windows 7 Premium on Vision Ultimate; you can see where this is going.

To be fair, I can appreciate the value of this for some consumers and it makes it easier to train store staff as well. But if average consumers can weigh up a 300hp 4.0 liter engine against a 120hp 1.5 when buying a car, I’m sure that a little marketing wizardry can teach them about computer horsepower as well.

Hopefully this will go away in a year or so…unless AMD fades away into obscurity sooner as a result of the ground it lost to Intel in the netbook and ultra-low-voltage laptop markets.

Having said that, AMD just announced it’s new thin ‘n light processors to keep Intel on it’s toes so here’s hoping this two horse race has plenty more distance to run. Remember competition drives innovation and feature development, which is great for consumers. You only have to look at the camera-less iPod Touch for proof of that.

Neil Berman

www.thenbutton.com

Warning: I’m haven’t fully recovered from today’s stratospheric letdown. I’m still angry that my planned trip to the Apple store on 5th Ave was cancelled at lunchtime. I’m hot under the collar that I still have the cash that I totally expected to part with this evening.

So it went down like this:

Steve’s return was obviously a wonderful moment and a great achievement on his part. After that the regular stats rundown took place. iTunes 9 looks cool, liking the LPs, loving the music sharing. Not a convert yet but it’s looking like a more welcoming platform.

iPod Touch makes an entrance, games start. Getting psyched on the games, going wild for the games, Madden (nice), Nova (WOW) and with a video cam on the back this is just gonna be SICK.

Just one more thing: Video Camera. Wallet…check. Subway ticket…check. Cancel dinner with Zune HD…check.

BOOM

Nano.

Awesome, this is gonna be so swee… Wait…NANO!!! Whaaaa??? Deflation takes hold of my entire body, I’m entering shock, emergency room on standby.

Epic disappointment. Legendary letdown. Quick mental review; the obvious contender for a cam, with its big screen for editing, WiFi for instant YouTube action and a processor which can allegedly handle HD video goes cam-less whilst an offline tiny-screened music player gets a VGA video-cam.

Whaaa???

Like I said, I’m still a bit emotional about this, but I guess that’s the risk of believing the rumors so many of us thought were true.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

It’s widely accepted that Windows Media Center is da bomb when it comes to home media convergence if you want your setup to include live TV.  But until now, those wanting to view encrypted cable channels have needed to buy a pre-configured PC from an OEM with a CableCARD tuner built-in.

That all changed a few minutes ago when Microsoft announced at CEDIA that “Integrators and enthusiasts can now add Digital Cable Tuners with CableCard to their PC”.  You’re going to need Windows 7 Media Center for this most likely, unless Microsoft publishes an update for previous versions.

We didn’t see that one coming Microsoft, but you just made the Media Center faithful waaaaay happy.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

A co-worker once told me a crazy statistic about the amount of apartment owners who a telescope, and the number seemed worryingly larger than the amount of astronomers I would expect to live on this planet.  The scary-cool thing about Panasonic’s FZ35 is that it’s essentially a baby telescope which takes photos.  Whilst it sports a these-days-meh 18x optical zoom, at three megapixels this Leica-lensed zoom-o-matic can crank it up to 35.2x optical and a staggering 140.8x zoom with digital enhancement.  No need to worry about Google Street View snapping you on an extended cigarette break, now your whole office can get evidence from half a mile away.  Oh and it does HD video with a stereo mic.  I used to own a FZ18, which was the first member of this family.  The FZ35 sounds like the daddy.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Here it is: Acer’s very own netbook killer. Hmmm…that doesn’t sound right, after all Acer is the number one seller of netbooks globally. Nevertheless that’s what I believe we’re seeing here and kudos to Acer for giving consumers more options, although to be fair at $449 the 1410 is pricier than a typical netbook.

What makes the 1410 (sold elsewhere as the 1810T) stand out from the netbook crowd? It’s running an Intel Core Solo Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) processor giving superb battery life and decent horsepower, just like the recently released MSI X340 the Lenovo U350 and Dell Inspiron 11z (which actually has a weaker Celeron ULV) . Like those other laptops, the 1410 packs Intel’s GMA4500MHD graphics chipset which is HD capable. This new market sector of ultraportables is not yet named but I’ll call it DNP, or Darn Near Perfect, combining decent power, portability and great battery life.

Other notable specs include 2GB RAM (4GB max), 250GB hard drive and 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N WiFi. Including its six cell battery the 1410 weighs just 3.1lb and offers unplugged runtime of up to six hours according to Acer.

Look & feel

The 1410 sports an 11.6 inch screen so the laptop is pretty small, and although not super-thin at just over one inch thick, it feels slim enough. There’s the usual assortment of ports with the handy addition of HDMI, making it a snap to hook up the 1410 to a home setup for Netflix and the like, for those without an Xbox 360 or internet-enabled TV already serving that purpose.

The chassis feels just OK, with lots of shiny plastic covering the top surfaces. Overall it looks pretty nice. As with many of the recent slew of small plastic notebooks, if you treat them well they should stand the test of time.

There are accessible compartments beneath the 1410 which bodes well for tinkerers, just be careful of those warranty conditions!  I also liked the dedicated hardware buttons for turning wireless connections on/off, which is far preferable to the function-key or software implementation on some other laptops.

Playing around

The 1410 also sports Acer’s new Timeline style keyboard. The keys are big, although there’s not much travel and there is a fair amount of flex, but I found it easy to use accurately. The MSI Wind U100 still has the best keyboard feel in the small laptop sector in my opinion.  The 1410’s trackpad feels good, and the dedicated left and right buttons are a welcome addition compared to the single bar adorning some modern day laptops.

Unfortunately the screen is a glossy one, which annoyingly reflects light sources making the screen difficult to see sometimes. The 1410’s screen is bright and perfectly usable though as long as the screen is positioned to avoid reflections. I understand that glossy screens look shiny on store shelves, but I’ve never met anyone who liked using them. Hopefully one day they will just go away and we’ll be back to the good ol’ days of matte screens which don’t reflect light so much.

The 1410 ships with Vista Premium, which felt perfectly snappy when moving around the OS.  I detected no significant lag in general operation and Windows Media Center opened faster than my Windows 7 version at home on my (very old) living room Pentium 4 single core PC.

Multimedia comparison with the MSI X340

The 1410 has speakers somewhere in that case…let’s just say they’re not the powerful kind. Whilst not entirely unexpected, headphones or an external connection are necessary to get the best out of the 1410. The MSI X340 has more powerful speakers from my time with that laptop.

One of the selling points of the 1410 is it’s GMA4500MHD graphics chipset which promises HD video playback. So I tried the Coral Reef Adventure clips from Microsoft’s HD content showcase. The 1410 handled a 720p clip with no problems, just like the MSI X340. It is really really difficult to see the difference between a 720p and a 1080p clip on an 11.6 inch screen, but for the record the 1410 played the 1080p clip of the same content perfectly. The X340 slowed to an unwatchably slow frame-rate on the 1080p clip.

Is it a keeper?

My overall impressions of the 1410 are extremely positive. It’s netbook sized, but has the horsepower to handle HD video and the battery life to go the distance on a decent length flight. It’s the best of this new breed so far in my opinion; it bests the MSI X340 on video performance, the Dell Inspiron 11z on raw power and pretty much anything decent on price. I have a feeling this could be a big seller for Acer.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Now’s the time to get l33t.

Can’t stop tho, I’m on a deadline to get thru

because the countdown to September 22nd is well underway…

Gotta go!!!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Hmmm…$299 for the lowest PS3 in the range a number of years into the current Wii/PS3/Xbox 360 cycle. Well it’s a start I guess, but let’s not expect it to turn the XBox 360/PS3 balance on its head anytime soon.

At $199 the XBox 360 arcade is still the obvious choice for the recession conscious consumer and it comes with access to a huge selection of games compared to the PS3. The Wii continues to be the broad-based family-fun choice. With many of Sony’s businesses languishing, is it really the right time for its cheapest PS3 to still be a Benjamin more expensive than the cheapest XBox 360?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Oh how I remember the good ol’ days. In those times of listening to hacky MP3s on my laptop and then cellphone, the iPod was nary a wee twinkle in main street’s starry night dreams. Fast forward to 2009 and the iPod skipped over the original MP3 pioneers to become THE portable media platform. What iPod says goes.

Meanwhile the Zune family has been making the chase at least interesting and at best competitive. The Zune HD is raising the technical bar with its Tegra processor and 720p-capable screen. Does that mean anything? On a 40 inch screen, yes. On a 4 inch screen, no most consumers wouldn’t care for the difference in quality. Remember one of the reasons Sony’s MiniDisc format failed was that most consumers were happy with cassette tape recording quality.  The iPhone’s technically poor camera is now the most popular on flickr.

Back at Cupertino, if the rumors come true then a new iPod is coming to the Christmas Tree this year and it will take video of you opening the rest of your gifts. This of course you will probably be able to upload to YouTube with a couple of gestures. Someone with the Zune HD will be pointing out how much more detailed their screen is compared to other players, and the person he’s talking to won’t be able to perceive the difference on the tiny screen.

This is one of the reasons why Apple’s iPod family consistently bests the competition on main street, and if the rumors are true then I think the camera-equipped iPod Touch would bury the Zune HD in sales figures. A Tegra powered 720p capable portable media device is a technical masterpiece and I’m full of admiration for that accomplishment. An affordable quality media player with a video camera and YouTube upload capability would simply be instant fun though. I’m thinking of trading in my video camera already…and this thing’s only a rumor!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

The premium ultraportable sector has become even less viable recently with the announcement of Dell’s Inspiron Z range. This not-netbook-not-premium-but-some-ideal-product-in-between sports Intel’s increasingly admired CULV processor range with crayzeee battery life.

Starting from 11.6 inches the range mimics Acer’s recent and well received Timeline series. This growing new sector of cheap and HD-capable ultraportables are rapidly turning premium ultraportables into a hard sell. I recently saw MacBook Airs selling for $899 at a well known Internet retailer. I still haven’t met any Adamo owners.

Will the netbook also perish at the hands of these seemingly perfectly balanced product offerings? Whilst $400 buys a solid netbook, $450 buys an Acer 1410T with a 1.4GHz CULV Core Solo, onboard HD-capable graphics and mega battery life. So, can the netbook really continue in its current form?

We know the sector will survive due to the development of Intel’s Pineview platform, which will lead to Atom 2.0. But sheesh, the margins in Netbooks are starting to look ever thinner as the CULV-powered ultraportables force netbooks towards the $300 mark.

At long last cheap, powerful and all-day-capable ultraportables are available to the mass-market. If we lose some netbook and premium models as a result, I won’t shed too many tears. They are making space in the market for well-balanced products.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

As rumors of an Apple tablet build into a frenzy, it’s hard to believe the grapevine story that a 10 inch device would be at its best running iPhone OS. Yet in Apple terms it makes perfect sense.

You see from my perspective, the iPhone OS is crippled by its lack of multitasking. We can see from the sales figures that most consumers probably don’t care.

From my perspective, the lack of a physical keyboard on the iPhone limits its use. The lack of a physical keyboard on a ten inch tablet could severely cripple it. Most consumers again probably don’t care, because they might primarily use it for media, fun apps and short messaging with the likes of Twitter, Facebook and occasional email.

From my perspective having a closed system where someone else decides which applications you can or cannot use is horrific. Most consumers probably don’t care and enjoy the feeling of pseudo quality control in the ecosystem.

So is Apple going to make the tablet that I want? No, it will make the one regular consumers want…and that’s why iPhone sales are so strong.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

So yes, I was a bit disturbed by the Dell Adamo’s recent meager price cuts…but that’s only because it’s still so freakin expensive.  Anywho as its affordability improves and to remind you of why it still costs soooo much in the interests of being fair, here are some up-close-and-personals:

No doubt, it is a expensive beautiful work of art.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Another day, another hilarious Apple App Store Story.  This time it’s a censored dictionary.

I say keep ‘em coming, the most talented comedian couldn’t write this stuff.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

With Acer’s well-received Timeline series already seeing decent discounting, pressure must be mounting upon MSI’s X-Slim range.  Even though the X340 appears to be good value for its handsome exterior and light weight, it’s around $200 more expensive than Acer’s 3810T.  Even without the 3810T standing by, it’s hard to imagine the X340 selling well at such a high price given its mediocre press reviews.

At the time of writing there are still only four mixed consumer reviews on NewEgg, whilst the 3810T has nine.  Even worse for MSI, the SSD version of the 3810T costs the same as the typical $799 street price of the X340.

Let’s see a price cut MSI, or perhaps at least a 2.0 with a better keyboard?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Whilst the debate rages throughout the country, a lone voice of logic tells us how it could be.  Nimoy, speaking today at the East Coast Star Trek Con: “On the Enterprise everyone gets healthcare.”

Live long Leonard, and beam me directly to sickbay.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Sharing hopes and fears; we’ve been doing this since Google’s vague Chrome OS announcement came out.  Why?  Because there’s so little we actually know, we’ve all resorted to conjecture.  So while we hope for more info soon, here is a summary of hopes and fears…

We hope it will disturb the OS market and generate innovation.  We fear it will be just another variant of Linux.

We hope it will be a quick booting platform.  We fear few people will care because Windows 7 and OSX wake from standby in a matter of seconds.

We hope enough useful applications will be available.  We fear the emphasis will be so browser/online-focused that the application base will be severely limited.

We hope mobile broadband prices will fall to support mobile online usage of the apps.  We fear that the status quo will remain and we’ll be relying on Gears.

We hope it will have a more consistent interface than Android.  We fear Google’s minimalist design history will lead to a functional, minimalist but unexciting front end.

We hope device drivers will be readily available.  We fear that it took so long for Mac drivers to appear for some devices that the wait for Chrome OS drivers may literally drive some people away.

We hope netbook consumers will be interested in it.  We fear they won’t; MSI has seen four Linux netbook returns for each Windows return.  Why should the Chrome variant be any different?

We hope other Linux distros will survive.  We fear Google was aiming for Microsoft and will hit the Linux community instead.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

One of the most bizarrely priced computers of recent times has finally had a price cut…sort of.

Dell’s bottom of the range not-as-expensive-as-the-most-expensive Adamo, which packs a meager 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo and onboard Intel graphics is now a bargain still very expensive $1,499.  Yes that’s exactly the same price as a 1.86GHz MacBook Air with its Nvidia 9400 chipset.

The most expensive model of the expensive Adamo family  is still the same very expensive price.  In fact it’s way too expensive for me to quote seriously here.

I still haven’t seen an Adamo in outside of CES and I have a feeling I won’t for a while yet.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I had a dream.  In my dream someone entered my apartment when I wasn’t there.

I wouldn’t have even known but they left a note to say they were sent by a bookshop.  Apparently a book I’d bought was no longer eligible for sale.   So, and this is where it gets really funky-dream-weird, the bookshop was visiting everyone who had bought the book and taking it back.  They weren’t knocking, they were just going to each buyer’s address, finding a way in and taking the book back.  They were even leaving checks on the table!!

In fact it was all bizarrely similar to what Amazon did when it deleted MobileReference-published Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Animal Farm from buyers’ Kindles and refunded their account, saying the title was no longer available for purchase.  It turns out that the publisher did not have the rights to sell the titles.

However this really begs the question, “Do you own a Kindle?”  I mean do you really own a Kindle?  Does it have a lock and who has the keys?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I don’t know what kind of funky math Sprint used to figure out how much that cool Dunkin Donuts in Space would cost, but what a great ad!!

I mean that really makes me stop and think about how much it costs to run an iPhone.  Isn’t it amazing what we could do if those three million people all got together?  Mmmmm all those Boston Cremes.  Having said that, they’d have a heck of a time keeping those Space Donuts fresh.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Whilst we are eternally grateful to Asus for the original EEE PC and the Netbook offspring it spawned, why do OEMs continue to think it’s OK to package an Intel Atom with GMA950 graphics in a home PC?

Apart from the potential electricity savings why would a sane person ever say, “I’d sure like to have an underpowered home PC which will struggle to play YouTube vids”.  And given how much longer this PC would have to be powered-on to complete tasks which an Intel CULV chip could complete in a fraction of the time, are there really power savings there at all?

I actually reckon a CULV powered PC could be more power efficient than an Atom based machine for home media usage.  But of course the Atom platform is cheap to build and the Nettop buzzword adds margin…and that’s the crux of this one.

Netbooks are great.  Nettops?  Fit them with CULV processors.  I’d rather pay a little extra for a LOT extra.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I’m now contributing to BerryReporter

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

What is it about Apple products that makes them such hot property?  Engineering?  Design?  Components?  I guess all of those had a part to play in the iPhone discoloration, alleged iPod burning (two links) and MacBook ‘oven’ stories.

I love a bit of hot apple pie on a summer camping trip, but this just isn’t the type of home-cooking I remember from my childhood.

Enjoying songs around the campfire is all well and good, having the campfire being the one singing the songs is not so hot.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

The success of the iPhone has focused smartphone developers’ attention upon touch.  The Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre, T-Mobile G1 (Googlephone) and HTC Touch HD all looked to compete with the iPhone with large screens and touch interfaces.

Under the hood of the Touch HD was Windows Mobile with HTC’s TouchFlo finger-friendly overlay.  Like historical versions of the Palm and Blackberry OSes, Windows Mobile has generally been aimed at stylus+button input which has made it fast for savvy users.  However in an iPhone age greater accessibility is required and Windows Mobile 6.5 aims to achieve this.

We’ll be looking at a pre-release XDA Developers build of WinMo 6.5 Professional on an HTC Touch Pro (Raphael model), so the actual features I describe may be different to the ones available in the full future release.  We will also concentrate on the significant changes from WinMo 6.1, as much of 6.5 is closely related to 6.1.

Honeycomb application launcher

Many early photos of WinMo 6.5 showed the now-famous honeycomb lattice application launcher, designed to create more space between icons and make the easier to target with a finger.  In the version I’m trying the lattice borders are not present but the formation is there.  The icons are far easier to target than in 6.1, I haven’t missed any yet.

Swiping and scrolling

The scrolling action to reveal further pages of applications has been hugely improved.  Finger swipes now scroll the screen with ease, locking at each page if the swipe is gentle or scrolling through multiple pages if stronger.  The top/bottom bouncing effect has been borrowed from the iPhone and it works well.

This also extends within applications, such as Windows Live where mailbox scolling and mail selection has been made far more finger friendly.  Track forward/back changes in Windows Media player are also a side-swipe away.

Pre-6.5 applications currently have variable scolling implementations however.  AvantGo, for example, still scrolls as well as it did before but the new bouncing effect is not present.

Battery life

I’ve noticed a colossal improvement in battery life on the Touch Pro compared to it’s original AT&T 6.1 build.  The Touch Pro will now easily last a full day with regular periods of data usage.

It’s difficult to know what has caused this uptick, possibly it’s due to more efficient CPU or memory calls or perhaps the lack of HTC’s graphics intensive TouchFlo overlay means the system is being taxed less.  It’s certainly a welcome change and makes the Touch Pro a usable phone for my usage pattern.  YMMV.

3G stability improvements

Whilst 6.1 is a pretty stable OS, the Touch Pro previously had sporadic 3G connection issues which required a reboot.  These issues have vanished on this 6.5 version, and data seems to download significantly faster.  Note that I did not change the radio firmware when I installed 6.5.

So far 6.5 has not crashed on me once, but I have rebooted twice over the last two weeks to refresh the system.  Rebooting is definitely faster than with 6.1, but I put that primarily down to not having to launch TouchFlo following the OS boot.

Finger-friendly menus

All of the 6.5 menus have grown to be more finger-friendly.  It’s now easy to hit the target with confidence.  Even though 6.1 on the Touch Pro had some big menus in places, my hit rate in 6.5 has greatly improved and there might be better coding under the hood making this happen.

Everything else

Much of the remaining experience is similar to using 6.1.  The apps I’ve tried to download, such as Google Maps and AvantGo have worked perfectly.

Is it a game changer?

Whether you like the underlying Windows Mobile platform is a matter of personal taste.  Whilst this version of 6.5 has been great to use on the Touch Pro it continues to be hampered by the relatively small screen of most Windows Mobile devices compared to the iPhone.  This means that making Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS or any other small screen device close-in on the iPhone in terms of finger-friendliness will always be a huge task.

The continued breadth of form factors also hampers efforts, although Microsoft is now starting to get more specific on hardware which should help to standardize the platform for developers writing for a more consistent user experience.  RIM had a similarly diffcult experience taking the Blackberry OS and porting it to the Storm, which was received with mixed opinions.

So all I need now is a Touch Pro with a full length screen, same keyboard and only 3-4 oz in weight.  That’s not the Touch Pro2, but perhaps it could be the Touch Pro3…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

In a word, “awesome”.

In my cousin’s words, “possibly the best cinematic experience of all time”.

This movie is like X-rated hardware porn.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Whilst smartphones now offer web access at decent speeds, pages can still be painful to read on the devices.  Small screens, inconsistent formatting and frequent zooming/scrolling/swiping all contribute to the need for an offline forced-format reader.

That reader for many people has been AvantGo, which has been around for years on most SDK-available PDA/smartphone platforms.  Recently however users have been surprised to see page notifications stating that downloadable content will cease to be provided after June 30.

Why?  It seems the reason comes back to the same smartphones which can now access web pages at decent speeds.  The need for downloadable offline-readable content had decreased.

That’s all well and good…unless you read content in locations where there is weak or no cell network coverage. That means commuters on trains underground or travelling through unpopulated areas.  This is probably one of the larger user groups of AvantGo’s offline service, reading the news services on the way to/from work.

So what now?  Cue RSS readers.  RSS is nothing new but finding a decent reader which pulls large amounts of offline-readable content is tricky.  I have now moved to Viigo, which crushes AvantGo both in terms of content availability and synchronization options.

Whereas I used to manually download AvantGo content daily, I have Viigo set to pull new content every 30 minutes.  News junkie alert.  Since most news sites have RSS feeds the amount of content you can pull is colossal and it is presented in Viigo’s consistent wrapper.

On the downside Viigo page navigation on touch devices is hampered by a lack of finger scrolling support.  I miss this greatly, but hopefully it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a natural addition for Viigo.  Some feeds also download in brief requiring you to go online to retrieve full articles.

So if the cessation of AvantGo offline content is yet another June raincloud, check out Viigo.  It really is a silver lining.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Hmm…the eagerly anticipated MSI X340; this one turned out to be a mixed bag.  Looks great, feels just OK to hold.  Keyboard is big enough, feels just OK to use.  Some reviewers have said the keyboard is horrific, it’s not quite as bad as that, but it does flex downward in the center more than it should.  The battery is replaceable but is outpaced by the Acer Timeline.

But for $899 it weighs under 3lbs, does HD video, has a bright 13 inch screen and a real-life-useful 1.4GHz Intel CULV processor.  That’s a tempting prospect…especially as many retailers are listing it at nearer $799.  If you like the form factor and can survive with less power the X320 sports an Intel Atom for $599, but also sacrifices the HD capable graphics chipset.

Crucially is the $899 X340 better than a $999 refurbished MacBook Air Rev A?  For HD video, connectivity and battery life I’d say yes; for coolness and build quality probably no.  Then there’s also the Acer Timeline series and the semi-light but powerful Acer AS3935-6504 with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo for $899.  It’s a difficult, but consumer friendly, choice.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I used to have an HTC S620 / Dash as my daily phone and found it to be a near perfect Blackberry-form-factor Windows Mobile smartphone.  It was light with a great keyboard and decent screen.  The main omissions were a lack of 3G and high resolution camera.

HTC is hoping to fix that in a snap, The Snap to be precise.  As a replacement for the S620 / Dash, the Snap is immediately recognizable as a member of the same family with a near identical form factor.  Here’s a quick hands-on of the Snap.

Addressing my wish list above, the Snap offers 7.2MB/sec HSDPA compared to the S620’s slow-ish EDGE.  WiFi b/g is carried over from the S620, but might not be enabled on all carriers; it was disabled on the Sprint example here.

The Snap also winds the onboard camera optics up to 2MP, which is no great shakes compared to the 5 or 8MP offerings of other smartphones available today.  Why is HTC so reluctant to implement leading edge cameras into its cellphones?

The keyboard follows the solid functionality of the S620 with an even better feel.  Keys are raised in the center and easy to press.  The revised layout placing keys similarly to a computer QWERTY rather than a vertical alignment works well.

A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles are also implemented, as on the S620, to give stereo bluetooth headsets control of calls and music playback.

On Sprint’s network data downloaded to Internet Explorersignificantly faster than my S620 on AT&T’s EDGE connection.  The Snap’s 528MHz processor also made the Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard experience feel snappy compared to the S620’s 200MHz processor, which I admittedly throttle back to 160MHz to save battery power.

So why no Windows Mobile 6.5 on the Snap…?  This is certainly disappointing, especially given all the 6.5 online chatter currently.  Hopefully a 6.5 upgrade option will be available for the Snap in time.  My experience of an early 6.5 Pro touch-enabled build on the HTC Touch Pro has been extremely positive.

Is the Snap worth an upgrade for current S620 / Dash owners?  Definitely for high data users, maybe for others.  The S620 was already a gem of a device and the Snap offers even more of the same.  It just does it, well, a bit snappier.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Apple’s decision to enable stereo bluetooth on the iPhone 3G will bring the technology into the mainstream, but has it remained on the periphery for a reason?

Like mono bluetooth headsets, stereo ones need to be paired. Nowadays this is straightforward but some phones and headsets have better recollection than others. There so many headsets and phones out there that inevitably some have better bluetooth inplementations than others. Pairings sometimes have to be re-established; this can be due to the phone or headset not being the best at remembering its partners.

Once you’re happily connected, you’re using the A2DP profile which gives audio streaming. If your phone and headset support AVRCP then you’re also getting remote control over music playback as well as calls. This is awesome and has made wired headphones redundant for years for many cellphone owners.  Now the iPhone 3G S has caught-up with this technology, so owners have an option to make those white wired earbuds start to disappear.

So how do you find a good headset? Here are a few options…

Motorola S9 HD

The S9 HD is a one-piece-behind-the-neck design similar to its predecessor, the S9.  The receiver and battery are housed in the connector band with call and playback controls living on the frame outside the earbuds. The power button and mini-USB charging port are on the underside of the connector band. There are three buttons on each side aligned vertically which makes controlling the S9 HD a snap once you’ve mastered the layout. Multi-function buttons are kept to a minimum; it’s the opposite of working a current generation iPod Shuffle.

Pairing was a good expeience with an HTC Touch Pro and Samsung Epix, with both phones picking up the S9-HD’s mono and stereo bluetooth profiles as well as playback controls.

Speech quality was good indoors but outdoors call recipients complained of some wind noise. Music quality was excellent, with solid bass and clear treble with the SRS WOW enhancer left off. With the enhancer on the sound took on an overly bass heavy response with low-mid frequencies being over-emphasized.

When I was standign still outdoors, music playback was consistent but on the move this became a variable experience. In a envionment with lots of objects providing reflections the bluetooth connection was solid. However in open spaces free of people, cars or walls the playback would become choppy unless the phone was close to the headset.

As with many other stereo bluetooth headsets the S9-HD seems to employ timestretching technology to extend playback whilst allowing its music buffer to fill. This results in perceptible pitch changes from time to time; I would rather pay a few dollars more for a larger onboard buffer.

The S9-HD is comfortable for long periods of use and feels light on the head. Some pairs of glasses can sit on top of the earpieces which can be an odd feeling, I found I could wear sunglasses without difficulty after getting accustomed to the feeling. YMMV.

On balance I liked the comfort and sound quality of the S9-HD, but the choppy music playback when walking through wide-open spaces can become annoying.

Panasonic RP-BT10

Sometimes using your own headphones is a must (I’m looking at you, Etymonic lovers) and Panasonic created the RP-BT10 with this in mind. Resembling the previous generation iPod shuffle the RP-BT10 sports transport and volume controls on the main unit and a call control button on the microphone cable. This cable has a standard 3.5mm headphone socket for you favorite cans.  There is a bespoke charging cable, so no USB cable charging option here.

Pairing was a smooth process. The spring-clip mechnism on the main unit allows positioning of the RP-BT10 closer to your phone if necessary for greater connection reliability. Of course if you plan on making calls you will need to ensure the mic is reasonably close to your mouth.

Sound quality is of course dependant on your choice of headphones, the bundled set are OK and need on a snug fit with the supplied ear fittings to get the best out of them.  The benefit of the RP-BT10 though is that you can use any 3.5mm headset you want.

By nature of its design the RP-BT10 also allows you to create a semi-wireless connection between a phone and a stereo system. Simply use a stereo 3.5mm to stereo RCA cable to connect the RP-BT10 to most stereos’ auxiliary input, which will turn your phone into a useful makeshift jukebox.

The RP-BT10 is a good choice if you want to use your own headphones, but the downside is that it re-introduce wires into your setup…and isn’t that what the iPhone community is getting excited about being able to give up?

Motorola S805

Last up in our trio is the Motorola S805. This big DJ-style headset fully covers the ears with call controls on one side and payback on the other. The S805 employs rocker wheels on each earpiece to control volume and track selection. One the underside of one earpiece is the charging port, which uses a standard mini-USB connection.

As with the other two devices, pairing was straightforward.  Once in use the buttons on either side pulse in blue, although fortunately this feature can be disabled by pressing the call and play buttons simultaneously for a couple of seconds.

In use callers found my speech to be crystal clear both indoors and outside. Music playback was very good with almost no droputs. Bass frequencies were slightly less pronounced than with the S9-HD, but the overall sound was easy to listen to for prolonged periods.  The headset, although large, was also comfortable and did not feel heavy on the head.

The pitch-shifting effect was evident on the S805 as with the S9-HD, although significantly less so. I’m guessing the S805 has more onboard buffer memory, which would also explain its resistance to dropouts.

Overall the S805 is a great headset as long as you can live with its size.  The S805 is certainly not the most discreet headset available, but its form usefully keeps ears warm and noise out on windy days.

Listen-up, here’s the bottom line…

These are three very different headsets. As a portable one piece solution the S9-HD is a good bet as long as you stay around objects or remain stationary when listening. The RP-BT10 allows use of your own headphones but makes you wire-y. Finally the S805 provides excellent connection strength and a balanced soundstage.

Each one however suffers from sporadic connection issues and even if these are forgiven by savvy owners, they may deter non-techie users from long term usage.  In my opinion this has been a delaying factor to widespread adoption of stereo bluetooth technology so far.

On the other hand I am hopeful that the release of the iPhone 3G S will create renewed energy in the stereo bluetooth market with new product offerings and greater reliability.  I can’t wait to see if Apple releases a headset!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Today’s MacBook price cuts were both welcome and not unique in the current laptop market.  Ultraportables and desktop replacements alike have been suffering from netbooks and Intel CULV powered thin ‘n lights pulling down the whole sector.

It’s pretty cool that you can finally get a decently powered 3-4lb laptop with a 13 inch screen for well under $1,000; MSI’s X340 and Acer’s Timeline are good examples.  Both are HD video capable and provide enough power for day-to-day computing.

These machines pull down the premium end of the ultraportable market like the Dell Adamo and MacBook Air, which don’t really offer much more hardware than the MSI or Acer.  In fact the Dell is probably slower than both.  So now we have a $1,499-$1,799 MacBook Air, which is great news for consumers and effectively sets a glass ceiling for ultraportable prices.

At the heavier end of the market 17 inch laptops are under strain from all-in-ones like the Asus EEE Top which are semi-mobile and keenly priced.  I found a new Toshiba dual-core T3400 17 inch laptop on Amazon this evening for $529.  This thing was fully loaded, you really wouldn’t need much more for a day-to-day desktop replacement…and of course you can install Windows 7 RC and get almost a year of usage before you need to buy a license.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

It’s fair to say that we are still waiting for SSDs to take over the world.  That’s partly due to pricing and also because most laptops shipping with them aren’t yet showing the earth-shattering benefits originally hoped for.

All the way from the lowly Asus EEE PC 2G Surf to the MacBook Air SSD, hopes of instant response performance and wild improvements in battery life have not quite materialized.  Why is this?

There are several reasons which mostly boil down to ‘you get what you pay for’.  In the SSD world, not every offering is ultra fast and low power.  The ultra fast end of the SSD spectrum has until recently been hideously expensive to consumers and OEMs alike.  This explains why not only the EEE Surf but also the original MacBook Air SSD failed to demonstrate groundbreaking performance improvements over traditional hard disk variants.

So should we still wait?  Actually I say no.  The way to do this is to find a computer you like and then find a great SSD to put in it.  That way you can find an ultra fast SSD bargain at one of the many e-tailers striving for your business in this hammered economy.  Best of all you pick the specs, not the OEM – and that’s crucial with the wide range of SSDs available at the moment.  Many things which say SSD on the box sound exciting but are not actually anything spectacular.

With Windows 7 RC on the horizon I recently bought myself a 230MB/sec read OCZ Apex 60GB SSD for $149.  By comparison Ars Technica benchmarked the Rev A MacBook Air SSD at just under 50MB/sec.  My EEE and Acer Aspire One never even came close to 50MB/sec, let alone a wild 230MB/sec.  Until recently 230MB/sec reads have been simply unattainable.  After finding a free SATA port (as you can see my computer is a spaghetti of wires – do not mimic my setup) and the customarily breezy Windows 7 install, this thing simply flies.  Random file and application access is really really fast, even on my ancient single core Pentium 4.

It’s a great time to look for a fast drive, prices have fallen and some great spec SSDs are going cheap.  On a per GB basis they’re still very expensive, mine cost the same as having two 1TB spinning drives in a RAID setup.  But if you choose wisely the performance gain is huge.  I just hope the interior of your computer is a little more organized than mine!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Wow this bout just got a whole lot more interesting.  After initially pricing the X340 at $1,099 MSI are now listing it at $899…and several mainstream e-tailers are taking orders for $799.  That kind of pricing makes the whole proposition turn on its head.  Even as a refurb, the MacBook Air Rev A looks too expensive in this company.

On the downside for the X340, initial reviews have been mixed.  Praise for its battery life and video performance have been tempered by concerns about chassis quality and a poor keyboard.

There is another curve ball mixing up the X340’s home run plans in the form of Acer’s recently released 13″ AS3935-6504.  At 1.3lbs heavier than the X340, it offers a full power P7350 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB RAM, DVD-RW and the same Intel GMA4500MHD 1080-capable GPU.  And the Acer looks and feels great.

At 2.9lbs and $799 the X340 would be my choice if running Windows 7 RC, but those needing more power or running the out-of-the-box Vista Home Premium I’d have to recommend the Acer for the greater horsepower.  Price/performance-wise the MacBook Air needs to do more to move out third place in this contest.  Especially as you could swap out the hard drives in the MSI and Acer with latest gen SSDs and still save megabucks compared to the MBAir.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I was excited to talk to MSI in January about their upcoming X320 and X340.  The ultra-light 13″ laptops closely resembled the MacBook Air with the bonus of offering a removable battery and better connectivity.

It seems the $700-1,000 price target is hopefully looking accurate for when the X340 starts shipping.  The HDMI equipped X340 briefly appeared on MSI’s website recently at $1,099.  The lower powered X320 is likely to be in the $700-800 range.

In January this pricing seemed sensible…until MacBook Airs started appearing for $999.  This week MacMall and Apple were both listing Airs starting at $999, although these may be refurbs.  Given that the Air has a way faster CPU than the X340, this looks like MSI is going to have a difficult job convincing buyers to choose their laptop over the Air.

The only sore points for the Air continue to be the weak connectivity and low capacity battery, which is outperformed by many similar weight netbooks for runtime.

On the plus side $999 now buys a super-svelte 3lb 1.6ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Air, which a year ago cost almost twice as much and is capable of running OSX and Windows.  Nice.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Summer 2009 is set to be a great season of Sci-fi movie releases with the Terminator, Star Trek and Transformers franchises all featuring.  When I was at the New York Auto Show this week it occurred to me that a great way to promote Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen would be with a buy-one-get-one-free Camaro/Bumblebee offer.  Come on GM & Paramount, why not?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Netflix and Hulu must be worried; TWC’s decision to extend its usage charging model to additional cities spells disaster for mainstream online video streaming.

The explosive growth in online video streaming sponsored by broadcasters may be about to get stopped in its tracks.  Not due to copyright issues.  Not due to a lack of advertisers and viewers.  Just simply because many of us won’t be able to afford to watch the stuff.

TWC’s plan to charge $1 per GB above a max 40GB monthly cap means that after a few HD shows we’ll be paying bigtime.  Gizmodo reckons this could add $5 to the cost of downloading an iTunes movie.

Just when it seemed like streaming video was becoming a regular part of life, it might instead become a barrier between the haves and the have-nots.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

So my recent lacks of posts can be explained by:

a) An unhealthy addiction to Halo 3, tinkering with the Windows 7 Beta and wondering whether the BSG finale would be lame or earth shattering finding – we now know

b) Feeling 24/7 ecstatic that the iPhone & iPod Touch will be getting stereo bluetooth.  Praise be!  Can’t wait to see the wireless cans Apple will hopefully release…where will all those soon-to-be-unwanted white wires go?

c) Writing a Project Management paper which PMI published today

The correct answer is the absent d) All of the above.

Today PMI (Project Management Institute) published my paper entitled “The Project Manager’s Three Critical Factors in Career Development” on their website at www.pmi.org.  The paper can be found in the Resources section in the Library under Leadership.  Hope you enjoy reading it.

With that said I have been spending an unreasonable amount of time tinkering with the Windows 7 Beta and will post soon about the mainly good and not very much bad.  Darn it I can’t believe BSG is over…bring on Caprica!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

The fantastic Fanboys opened this weekend in the US.  With lines like “Get the hell off my land you Kirk-loving Spock-suckers” and “Darth Vader has asthma, name me one Star Trek character with a respitory disease”, Fanboys is the ultimate sci-fi comedy road trip.

Set in 1998, a crew of Star Wars fanboys set off for Skywalker Ranch to steal a viewing of Episode 1 before their dying friend passes away.  Their journey takes them through Java The Hutt in Austin Texas, fights with Trekkies at Kirk’s birthplace in Iowa and a Trek-Kon in Vegas where one of the crew decides he’s “female kryptonite”.

Cameos by Carrie Fisher (played Leia), Billy Dee Williams (played Lando) and William Shatner (played Kirk) complete a hilarious motion picture.  If you can’t wait for Terminator and Trek in May, Fanboys is a fab Feb film.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I’ve been eager to give the Windows 7 Beta a workout following the demos I saw at CES.

My living room Media Center PC was an ideal candidate.  It’s a three year old Pentium 4 which takes care of all our viewing, media and browsing needs on Windows XP Media Center 2005.  Microsoft has claimed that Windows 7 is a streamlined OS capable of running on lower spec hardware than Vista, it’s time to see if that’s really true…

Test environment

For reference my PC is running a 2.93GHz P4 with 3GB DDR400 RAM, 500GB hard disk and a low end Geforce 7200GS.  Not the most scintillating system by modern standards and probably equivalent to a $250 purchase these days from the refurbished inventory of e-tailers.  The version of Windows 7 Beta I have is Build 7000.  I’ll refer to it as W7B in this article.

Installations never go smoothly…or do they?

Installation was initially nerveracking but ultimately painless.  Nerveracking because I had to split a live primary partition into two, to create a boot partition for the new OS.  Painless because once Linux GParted had done its partitioning stuff, Windows 7 Beta installed in superfast time, restarting a couple of times and then it was done.  I had backed up my XP partition to another drive just in case, but fortunately all went according to the masterplan and W7B automatically created a dual-boot environment for me.  XP booted just like before and I so was all set for my W7B test.

Stopwatch at the ready

The first thing I noticed was a faster boot time.  This could have been due to having a fresh install so I initially reserved judgement on that one.  However now that three weeks has passed and I’ve installed everything I’m likely to for a while, the swift boot-up lives on.  It’s not a life changing improvement but in the region of ten seconds faster than my XP boot sequence once all startup items have completed.

Sounding off

All navigation elements were very responsive: Aero, widgets and snap-to-edge all performed well with no lag.  But then I noticed there was no sound.  W7B had found my motherboard’s SPDIF output but did not configure it correctly.  A quick internet search revealed the latest Vista drivers which duly solved the issue.  In fact I now get proper Dolby transmission and far more signal reaching my amp, which means having to apply less gain within the amp therefore achieving a better signal-to-noise ratio than with my XP setup.

Taskbar implemented cum laude

Taskbar, oh glorious taskbar.  So much has been written of thee already, what can I add?  This really is a great addition in W7B, I can envisage how well it could work once the touch interface gets enabled on the full release.  Seeing thumbnail representations of an application’s open windows is a fantastic browsing aid.  Being able to jump into application functions directly from thumbnail menus takes everything a step further.  Best of all, the thumbnails are dynamic representations so if you are waiting for a window to complete a certain action you can hover over its taskbar icon to view its progress in the thumbnail.

CPU and Resource Management

Having an older spec PC presented a good opportunity to see how W7B would cope with average resources.  In the initial days following installation I noticed some frantic CPU and disk activity, which I traced to Windows Media Player cataloging my music and video collection.  Once that was done, CPU activity became XP-like whilst memory allocation was definitely smarter.

Like Vista, W7B was able to address all 3GB of RAM whilst my 32-bit XP build was never capable of this.  W7B also supports ReadyBoost so I threw in a 4GB SDHC card and dedicated the whole thing to the OS.  That’s a cheap 4GB at $10, although ReadyBoost doesn’t make use of flash cards in quite the same way as conventional RAM.  However the combination keeps my paging file to a minimum and I’ve not experienced memory crunches.

Windows Firewall

The versions of Windows Firewall built into XP and Vista were never taken too seriiously by the security fraternity due their inability to block outbound traffic.  So whilst others had difficulty reaching your computer, your computer could reach others…which is a pretty big risk given the amount of nasty malware out there.  The W7B Firewall changes all that with firewall rules configurable for incoming and outgoing traffic.  This could seriously hurt the likes of ZoneAlarm and others, who have thrived to date on the weakness of Windows Firewall.  I run ZoneAlarm on my XP partition, but I haven’t needed to download it for my W7B setup so far.

Internet TV & Media Center

Ever since the touchscreen demo of W7B Media Center I saw at CES, I’ve been aching to try out the integration of Internet TV in the EPG.  Until now we’ve needed to open a browser, navigate to NBC’s website, find the news page, find the video page and then start streaming the news.  W7B changes this by putting content from nbc.com (and many others) right into the EPG so it’s accessible from within Media Center with the remote control.

The demo of this looked awesome and it’s just as good in my living room.  Content takes a little while longer to access than regular TV channels, but it’s a heck of a great feature and the integration is seamless.  News, concerts, full episodes are all available and free to access with occasional advertisements for some content.

Snap-to-side

Throwing a widow to the side of the screen results in W7B automatically resizing it to fill half the screen.  This makes comparing documents or images super easy.  Throwing to the top maximizes the window.  Again it’s easy to see how these small but useful enhancements will make life easier once the touch version gets released.

What’s needs work?

Hmmm…I haven’t found anything yet inherent in W7B which consistently fails.  My sound sometimes cuts out following a video call, which could be a driver issue.  My computer wakes from standby mode much more often than it did in XP, probably due to some strange service which I might not need to be running.  Skype is not yet fully compatible.  There’s also a registry fix out there for .msi installers which fail – I had an issue installing Office 2007 and when the installer failed W7B automatically downloaded the fix article from Microsoft’s knowledge base…finally intelligent context sensitive help has arrived.  After following the instructions in the article to update the problematic registry entry the installer worked.

A game-changer for Microsoft?

Apart from that the whole experience has just worked superbly and I’m happily running W7B as my everyday environment now.  The Beta version expires on August 1st, so perhaps this hints at the possible release timing of the full version.  Remember that the release version will hopefully be touch-enabled, so that will be a whole new ball-game, and from what I’ve seen so far Microsoft could hit a home run with this one.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

If you tried to download the Windows 7 Beta yesterday you may have been part of the huge demand which overwhelmed Microsoft’s download servers.  Fear not, theONbutton is at hand with an exclusive video of many of the new Windows 7 Beta features to help you make up your mind…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

This is a shot of the underside of the MSI X320, which as we already know looks very very similar to the Macbook Air.  However those of you salivating in anticipation of the X320 release may be even further encouraged by what appears to be a battery release catch.  Thank you  MSI for keepin it real and thinking of great design, real-life practicalities and the environment.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Blackberry’s Curve has been a popular smartphone to date, balancing size, weight and features to good effect.  The new Curve 8900 seeks to capitalize on its predecessor’s success, adding a 3.2MP camera, a Bold style screen and revised keyboard.  The new Curve 8900 is due to be released in the US in February on T-Mobile, although with EDGE data only unlike the Bold which offers 3G on AT&T.

Gallery…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Could this be Palm’s come-back moment?  Click the images for close-ups.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

MSI’s X320 is about as close as you’ll ever see to a Macbook Air without an Apple logo on the back of the screen.  When the lid is closed the laptop is a dead ringer for the Cupertino model, aside from MSI’s black and white color models which accompany the silver one.  The X320 should be released in the US in Q2 this year for under $1,000, sporting an Intel Atom and 13″ screen.

The U115 hybrid has a SSD and a traditional hard drive as well for mass storage.  The spinning hard drive can be turned off for extended battery life, MSI claims up to 12 hours of total usage.

Note that the white X320 in the video is a mock-up concept.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

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

www.theonbutton.com

Whilst  some of the initial excitement of the EEE netbook range has started to wear off, the EEE Top is way cooler than I thought it would be.

For a start the device looks great in real life.  The touch sensitivity is great and the stunning keyboard has a storage home behind the screen.  In fact the entire product looks and feels like an Apple product.

The EEE Top has the Intel Atom guts of many a netbook, which means it’s a low energy user and it delivered responsive touch sensitive performance through Windows XP.  An instant-on facility allows access to Firefox and Skype amongst other applications.   This would be an extremely cool device to have dotted around the home.

Keep ‘em coming Asus, and next time give us a sweet graphics card inside for 1080 HD. 

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Tom Hanks, Usher, Reggie Jackson and Dr. Oz all starred in Sir Howard Stringer’s Sony keynote this morning.  Oh, and the Vaio P  also appeared out of Sir Howard’s suit pocket for a brief outing.  Gallery below…

UMID’s M1 is the cutest ultra-tiny-light MID I’ve seen so far.  The 4.8inch screen needs to be close to your face, but the device is so light that it can easily be held for prolonged periods of time.  The keyboard is usable, but in fact I found the keys have slightly too much travel for fast typing.  The screen looks great however and is touch sensitive.

OQO’s model 2+ is awesome.  Why?  Because it has an awesome OLED screen, which is sooo bright and showed an HD video sooo well that I totally want one.  $1,499 of ultra-light awesomeness.  The non-OLED version starts at $999.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Steve might not have come on stage last night in a blazing storm, but his Keynote was packed with content, a frankly hilarious Xbox song from Tripod but unfortunately no Zune phone.  Here’s a summary from the front row…

• Windows 7 Beta available now to MSDN and TechNet subscribers.  Due to be available to everyone on Microsoft.com on Friday this week.  I’ll write about it as soon as I find a spare PC…
• Halo Wars (strategy game) and Halo 3 ODST (similar to current Halo 3 but with new storyline) were announced.  See Halo Wars screenshots on today’s earlier post.
• Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger and Photo Gallery have been packaged into Windows Live Essentials and will be preinstalled on Dell PCs, together with Live Search
• Live Search will also be installed on Verizon Windows Mobile phones
• Microsoft sees continued development and take-on of seamless communication between PC, TV, phone and the internet cloud
• A partnership with Facebook now pushes Facebook updates to your Windows Live profile
• Windows 7 cool features demo’d: Play To allows you to stream media to play on any device in your Homegroup or stream from them.  Snap to side allows easy comparison of windows side by side.  Multitouch looks pretty awesome for map and photo manipulation, but is not in the Beta build.
• Kodu Xbox 360 online community game creator was demo’d and looks like a lot of fun.
• Netflix queue control from Windows Mobile phones is coming soon.
• Internet Explorer 8 will hook-in with Hotmail to provide add-ins such as restaurant finders, whose results can be inserted directly into emails.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Here are some first-look screenshots from Halo Wars for your deeelectation and deeelite, following Steve Ballmer’s announcement of the game in last night’s Microsoft keynote.   Enjoy…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Common themes from Samsung and Panasonic today were internet enabled TVs and 3D HD viewing.

Internet TV is a great idea, although possibly

Panasonic has partnered with Amazon and Picasa as well as other content providers

 hampered by the different content partnerships each vendor has chosen.  For example Samsung has paired up with flickr whilst Panasonic has gone with Picasa.  Both offer good content but neither offers the universality of choice available on the internet as a whole.  Some kind of common platform would be great to provide standardization and greater availability of content across vendors.

Samsung hosted a Q&A today

3D HD is a totally different proposition.  The idea of coming home and putting on the Jaws 3D glasses is just simply not appealing.  Plus for the significant percentage of people who either wear glasses already or can’t see 3D drawings, this might be more a curse than blessing due to the hassle of the whole viewing experience.  Anyhoo this something which is surely coming, and Panasonic announced today that it is creating 3D Blu-ray authoring studios in Hollywood. 

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Apple’s keynote at Macworld 2009 this morning was surprising.  After rumors suggesting a possible iPhone Nano and much needed new iMacs, we were instead given an in-depth look into feature updates on largely non-web-service software and an updated Macbook whose battery design sounds as problematic for environment as its servicing does for remotely located owners.

On a positive note it’s great to hear that iTunes is going DRM-free and that the new 17″ Macbook Pro will be offered without a glossy screen, albeit for an extra $50.  The celebrity music lessons on GarageBand also sound cute. 

For me there were two worrying trends in this keynote:

1.  Apple continues to concentrate on non-web-service productivity software when Microsoft, Google and the IT industry as a whole continues to press on towards online web services such as Microsoft Office Web and Google Docs.  Apple is missing out on extending its application reach to Windows users by doing this.  iWork.com seems to be solely an online document sharing facility for local iWork users.

2.  Apple continues to concentrate on extremely powerful computers in relation to the market as a whole; even its base Macbooks are far more powerful than mid-range Vista laptops (which are cheaper).  This makes me concerned that when (the apparently very fast) Windows 7 gets released the value differential between Windows and Apple laptops will widen further, as Windows 7 will run well on cheap low power computers.

Enhancements like geotagging in iPhoto are nice for the small user-base they serve, but they don’t really extend Apple’s reach into Windows homes compared to say Picasa which is on offer for both Mac and Windows (as well as Linux) platforms.  I can’t help feeling that Apple is moving further towards high power local computing which might not be recession-proof, whilst the market as a whole is gravitating towards a more inclusive low power cloud model which also happens to be more recession-friendly.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Last year I wrote about the HTC TyTN, which was later superceded by the TyTN II (AT&T Tilt) as the daddy of all productivity smartphones.  Since then HTC has moved on with its Touch range which aim to turn up the style, which was a bit lacking in the TyTN series.

Of the three new Touch models (Diamond, Pro and HD) the Pro is the closest successor to the TyTN range with its slide out keyboard.   I will make comparisons along the way to the Samsung Epix, which does a similar job in a very different style.

Picking up the Fuze is an altogether different experience to the Tilt it replaced.  HTC has taken everything good about the TyTN range and made it sleeker.  The all glass look is smart and the back cover has the beautiful angled surface first seen on the Touch Diamond.

One backwards step compared to the Tilt is the reduced number of buttons on the front of the Fuze.  Whilst instant access application buttons are present on the keyboard like the Samsung Epix, the Fuze makes you either slide out the keyboard or use screen presses like the iPhone.  Whilst this is not a huge problem it does make the Epix feel like a quicker phone to navigate.

The other significant change from the Tilt is that the Fuze loses the tilting screen, which seemed like a fragile but useful feature on its predecessor.

The Fuze feels mightily more petite to hold than the Tilt, but still a tad chunky in its depth to accommodate the keyboard.  Overall it looks smaller than the Blackberry Bold or the Samsung Epix but the Fuze’s 6oz weight makes the 4.4oz Epix less bulky in a pocket.

The Fuze has a more useful keyboard than the TyTN series and most other smartphones.  There are now five rows of keys, which reduces combination presses to a minimum.  The keys also have a positive feel, which aids typing speed.

For those who like to work outdoors, the Fuze’s screen is far brighter than the Tilt’s.  I’m writing this outside in full-on New York bright winter sunshine.  You don’t get much color contrast, but at least you can see what you’re doing.

The Fuze’s big screen advance is its resolution which, at 640×480, is simply spectacular.  The only comparison worth making is to the Blackberry Bold, whose screen is of similar quality.

The TyTN series packed a powerful punch for its time and the Fuze hits even harder.  The Fuze has a whopping 0.5GB of ROM for Windows Mobile to play around with.  Pair that up with a 528MHz processor and you have a device which flies along.  At one point I had 15 applications open simultaneously and the Fuze just kept going.  Operating system navigation is very responsive and AT&T’s Cellular Video streams well, as long as you have good 3G coverage.

There is also a MicroSD card slot which can handle cards up to 32GB to satisfy your thirst for videos/music/photos/applications.  MicroSD cards are now pretty cheap, I saw an 8GB card recently for $18.  However the Fuze loses brownie points for hiding it’s card slot under the back cover, unlike the TyTN which had exposed access on the side of the phone like the Samsung Epix.

The Fuze comes with Opera Mobile as the default browser.  This does a good job and offers multiple tabs and good finger control, but still plays second fiddle to Safari on the iPhone.  This is partly due to the iPhone’s larger screen and also because Safari renders pages better overall in my opinion.

HTC has enhanced its TouchFlo interface to ‘3D’ status with the inclusion of some nice widgets which make navigation very finger-friendly.  The email and music screens look good and scrolling through text messages and photos is great as one item is swept away to make room for the next.

Battery life on the Fuze is only average, with a charge required on a nightly basis following moderate usage.  Regular video streaming eats battery time, as does constant surfing although I did find that a full day of battery life is realistic with sensible usage.

The Fuze ships with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, which means you get Office Mobile, Windows Media Player and Windows Live.  In addition to Messenger the phones also have IM clients for AIM and Yahoo and you can install third party applications to give access to more services.  Google Maps, AvantGo and Skype were one-click installs.

Overall the Fuze is a great smartphone.  In day to day usage I can’t decide if I prefer the trick TouchFlo 3D interface, sleek looks and amazing screen of the Fuze over the faster front panel key and mouse navigation of the Samsung Epix.  There is a popular perception that touch is the way foward, but if reactions to the iPhone have told us anything it’s that people still want keyboards.

If you’re looking for a Windows Mobile smartphone then the Fuze does a great job, however if you prefer buttons to fingers it’s worth checking out the Samsung Epix too.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Today’s rumors that HP is discussing the possibility of using Atom CPUs for notebooks as well as existing netbooks is interesting for two reasons.  Firstly we have not seen the Atom in any laptops with >12″ screens, but secondly and more importantly I think this could be an indicator of confidence in early Windows 7 tests.

We have already seen Windows 7 running on an Asus EEE PC, and early impressions of the next-gen OS have been extremely positive for a stage so early in the pre-release phase.

So what does it mean if HP really is talking to Intel about supplying the Atom for notebooks?

• Performance for netbook -style tasks should be fine on Windows 7, given initial performance tests against Vista and XP, which means browsing, non-HD video viewing, basic office/productivity tasks are all in scope.

• Battery life should skyrocket, if the netbook crowd can be used as a benchmark.  My Wind gets over five hours in real-life usage and the only significant additional power drain on a notebook is a larger screen…but they also offer more real-estate for housing a larger battery.  Could full working-day battery operation from a large-screen laptop become a mainstream reality?

• The concept is good news for organizations with a mobile/flexible-working workforce and a thin-client infrastructure.

• Many consumers may only need low processing power as we move towards a web-based services computing model (eg. web-mail/photo/music/productivity apps).  They might trade notebook HD movie editing capabilities for longer battery life in real life usage…however this would require a sea change in marketing tecniques where high power specs aim to sell a life-changing experience.  It is probably a ‘Greener’ sell though, which could lead to Atom-based notebooks being more fashionable that more energy-hungry models.

Time will tell if anything comes of this, but when I put together the early Windows 7 success stories with rumors of HP talking to Intel about the Atom then it does all start to come together…in my hopeful mind!

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Samsung’s Blackjack II recently topped Consumer Report’s January 2009 smartphone ratings, beating both the iPhone and G1.  So this as unsung hero gets its due reward it’s time to check out its new big brother, the Epix.

The Epix shares a family resemblance with the Blackjack and has a traditional keyboard below screen layout.  The keyboard can be extensively customized to give instant access to your favorite applications, which is great for people who like instant access rather than wading through screens or menus to find applications.  Soft keys sit under the large 320×320 haptic and touch sensitive screen and a volume rocker is on the left side.  The Epix feels good to hold, slightly heavier than the Blackjack II at 4.4oz, but lighter than the iPhone, G1 and Fuze.

On the media front, the rear houses a decent 2MP camera which also takes videos.  Unfortunately there is no flash or light.  There is a proprietary charging/headphone port, but the Epix offers stereo bluetooth connectivity so having annoying wires dangling around is not really a concern.  If you must stay wired in to satisfy some kind of 20th century nostalgia then there is an adaptor in the box.

The real innovation of the Epix lives in the middle of the front of the phone – there’s an optical trackpad to aid one-handed use…and it’s awesome.

The trackpad is similar to the design on Samsung’s Omnia, but the superior placement on the Epix makes it an amazingly efficient way to navigate.  Steer with thumb impulses, click with a press and hold down to display context sensitive menus.  Sweet.  Precision is so good that the stylus is unlikely to get much use.  The trackpad can also be converted to a four way directional pad if desired.

The Epix is a powerhouse compared to the BlackjackII, packing a 624MHz processor, 25MB ROM and 128MB RAM.  It also has expansion capability via now-cheap MicroSD cards up to 32GB to satisfy your thirst for home videos/music/photos/applications.  The MicroSD slot is on the right hand side of the phone for easy access.

A big contributor to the total weight of the phone is the battery, and being a 3G device with a fast CPU the Epix needs need all the juice it can get.  In my mixed tests of light surfing, background IM, stereo bluetooth in transit and a limited amount of calls, the Epix easily managed a full day and two might be possible with bluetooth off.  Beyond that a charge will be required.

The Epix ships with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, which means you get Office Mobile, Windows Media Player and Windows Live.  In addition to Messenger the phone also has IM clients for AIM and Yahoo and you can install third party applications to give access to more services.

Google Maps, AvantGo and Skype were one-click installs as were Opera Mobile and Skyfire to provide options for the aging Internet Explorer.  The Epix is easily powerful enough to run several applications simultaneously.  I had no difficulty sync’ing 1,500 AvantGo pages whilst walking down the street streaming music over bluetooth with IM and email active in the background.

The Epix can be used to access AT&T’s Cellular Video service.  So if you have the right plan or are prepared to pay then you get access to news, sports and entertainment from the likes of CNN, ESPN and Comedy Central.  The quality is pretty good as long as you are in an area with good 3G coverage.

The Epix has WiFi b/g is onboard, which is useful for Skype but for most other applications AT&T’s 3G network proved almost as fast.  The Epix can be tethered for use as a modem if you have the appropriate data plan.  There’s also GPS onboard.

What didn’t I like about the Epix?  Well although the screen is big it pales in comparison to the resolution of the HTC Touch Pro’s, but then so do most other cellphone screens at the moment.  Squeezing VGA (and beyond) resolution into cellphone screens is definitely the way forward.

The 2MP camera takes good shots and videos were also good enough for occasional usage, but 3-5MP is quickly becoming the norm.  I don’t see any need for cellphones to replicate the compact camera megapixel wars (although this is inevitable) but Samsung should roll out the higher quality cameras now present in some of its other top end phones.

Whilst we are on the wish list, although 3G cellphones need big batteries it would still be nice to get back to the Blackjack II’s weight.

In summary the Epix is a great smartphone whose powers of endearment outweigh its ordinary appearance.  It’s an Ace follow-up to the Blackjack II.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

It’s been a week that Apple fans will want to forget.  NPD reported that Apple sales for November were flat year on year whilst Windows PCs gained 7%, iMac sales collapsed by 38% whilst Windows desktops fell only 15% and Apple announced that the company will stop attending Macworld after the 2009 show.  Apple laptop sales rose 22% compared to 15% for Windows laptops.

What does this mean for Apple?  Most likely something needs to be done…and pretty fast.  Apple has responded by slashing prices of its refurbished models, a move likely aimed at removing the carrying costs of old inventory.  Macbook Airs are available for $1,149 on Apple’s US website at the time of writing.  Deep reductions are offered across other lines as well and online stores are offering serious discounts on new models.  After a while this discounting could erode the premium perception of the brand and hurt Apple retail store sales, which are typically made at full price.

Netbooks captured the the public's imagination in 2008

This may be a short term band-aid to improve working capital, but Apple needs to look deeper at its product line and offer models at prices which relate to the current economy.  The company has been too late in coming to the Netbook market, which exploded with colossal growth this year following the arrival of the Asus EEE in late 2007.  Apple needs a Netbook quickly, and it will need to compete with the quality of the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One and Asus EEE range, which all sell for around $300-400.

Steve Jobs said that “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”  Well Apple might have to learn how.  Five hundred dollars is now premium Netbook territory as prices have been falling throughout 2008.

I expect that if Apple enters the market they would choose the $600-800 range with a couple of configurations.  They need this because Macbooks are no longer the coolest laptops to pull out of your bag…Netbooks are.  A glance at the Amazon bestseller list shows Netbooks occupying slots which Macbooks used to live in. 

The MSI Wind Netbook was one of the most hotly anticipated products of 2008. Can Apple introduce its own competitor to stop the rising Windows sales?

Whilst Macbooks used to be the laptop of choice for Manhattan coffee shop outings, Netbooks now get the curious admiring looks.  In an America looking to downsize cars, energy usage and spending, Netbooks are the Prius of today’s laptop showroom.

Clearly the slowdown in the economy has affected Apple as a seller of premium products.  It also seems that Apple’s negative advertising campaign throughout 2008 against PCs may have not had the positive sales effect Apple was hoping for.  In fact the plunging iMac sales figures indicate that Apple might have done better through a positive campaign promoting the benefits of the iMac compared to Windows desktops.  It may be that consumers simply were unable to identify a positive value of spending the extra bucks on an iMac, which is a classic outcome of a negative advertising campaign, unless the competing product is seen as truly worthless.  Clearly not the case in this instance as iMac sales plunged 23% more than Windows desktop sales.

Whilst I think Apple will pull through, it needs to revitalize its line-up to be attractive in today’s economy.  And hopefully that revitalization effort will give us reasons to buy Macs, instead of reasons not to buy PCs.  I want to want Macs for good reasons, not because I’m told the competition is bad.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Now here’s a good holiday deal.  If you’ve been waiting for Sony to drop the price of the PS3 you may need to wait a little longer.  But…if you head on over to Dell’s US website pretty sharpish you can snag one for 20% off for a limited time.  Not sure if that will help Sony catch the monthly sales of 2 MILLION Wiis shipped in November alone, but it might help prolong the PS3’s agony a little longer…especially as how it was crushed 2 to 1 by the XBox 360 and 5 to 1 by the Wii last month.  NPD’s reported sales figures for Nov were Wii: 2,040k units, Xbox 360: 836k units, PS3: 378k units.

Interestingly the ratio of Xbox 360 sales to PS3 in October was 1.87 to 1, whilst in November the 360 pulled ahead to 2.21 to 1, probably due to the price cut.  Microsoft clearly doesn’t need to do much to ward off the PS3 anymore, rather it seems to have it’s eyes on the Wii’s spot instead…although I can’t see it happening in this console generation.  It’s sure turned out different to the way we all thought back in 2005 though, the Playstation franchise needs something big now and these days Sony is in big trouble.

Back on the home front, I’ve been nurturing an ever-growing addiction to Halo 3 on the XBox 360.  I have been joining the faithful army of online Spartans and when I say army, think mass hordes…there are typically 250-300,000 Halo 3 gamers online each evening, US time.

Helping to make all this happen for me is a new Trendnet router.  Replacing a Trendnet 108mbps b/g, this 300mbps b/g/n speed demon has gigabit ethernet and flies along with rock-like stability.  Installation was a breeze, but pretty please Trendnet next time add a MAC address import feature; typing in all those addresses gets tiring!

I’ve also been giving the new HTC Touch Pro (at&t Fuze, the one the half gig ROM and 288mb RAM) and Samsung i907 (at&t Epix, the one with the optical mouse) a good workout recently…reviews to follow shortly.  Suffice to say they’re not too shabby.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Announcing its new version of Internet Explorer 6 for Windows Mobile, Microsoft made a curious statement that existing users will not be able to download the browser to their phone.

The browsing experience is at the forefront of the fiercely competitive smartphone battleground.  iPhone’s market sector leading Safari has been facing recent competition from RIM’s recent Storm, whilst the Windows Mobile market has Opera Mini/Mobile, Skyfire and the upcoming Firefox release.

Microsoft claims that a 500MHz processor is required for IE6 Mobile, which is worrying, but fine for many phones on the market such as the recent HTC Touch Pro and Samsung Epix.  Microsoft will be shipping the new browser in new releases in China, starting with the Samsung Omnia.

So by not offering IE6 as a download their market share is likely to decline in other regions, as Opera and Skyfire are so far ahead of the current WinMo IE.  To my mind this is self-destructive, giving competitors free reign to reduce Microsoft’s market share even though it has a product available to distribute.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Reasons to like the Storm:

SurePress screen is 100% better to type on than the iPhone’s static glass

Smaller than the Bold with a great screen size

Decent for the Internet compared to the Bold…

Reasons to wish they’d worked a bit harder:

…as long as you wait a looooong time for the page to complete loading.  Storm Internet speed is crushed by iPhone and Opera on WinMo.

SurePress screen is 100% worse to type on than the Bold/Fuze/Epix/most things

Slower than any smartphone I’ve used recently…right up to the moment it crashed

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

CEA presented some interesting research at this week’s CES 2009 preview in Manhattan.  Their surveys were conducted within the last month, so the results are right up to date.

Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of CEA

Unsurprisingly CEA identified that consumer sentiment is the lowest in 15 years and predicts holiday spending down 14 percent at $1,437 per person compared to $1,671 per person in 2007.  Additionally CEA found that one in four consumers is adopting a wait and see approach, which will likely make it harder to determine how much people are really spending until later this year.

The good news however for the consumer electronics sector is that CEA believes the allocation of CE gift spending is growing.  Additionally consumers are more willing to eliminate home decor, furniture and sporting goods expenditure than CE spending.

What’s the reason for this?  CEA believes that consumer electronics are becoming so integral to our lives across a growing age range that CE expenditure is becoming less discretionary.  In fact some CE items are viewed as cost saving investments as families spend on ‘cocooning’ themselves at home in surround sound instead of blowing $50+ on a family outing to the cinema.

Later in the proceedings George Kliavkoff stepped onto the podium to announce for NBC that the Today show, Power Lunch, Access Hollywood and Nightly News would all broadcast live from CES 2009.  Steve Mosko announced for Sony that a 25th anniversary filming of Jeopardy will take place at CES.  The announcements make it increasing likely that the January expo will marry up platform and content providers more closely than ever. 

Netflix is now offering instant viewing to Apple users…and the Mac version, unlike the Windows one, is powered by Microsoft Silverlight.  Today’s Apple experience is defined by the strength of its multimedia offerings and its increasingly bitter negative advertising campaign towards Microsoft.  So it is perhaps the ultimate irony for Mac users that to enjoy Netflix’s industry leading video player we have to rely on downloading Microsoft’s Silverlight first.

On a related note Xbox 360 owners who are Netflix subscribers are the first to get Netflix HD shows.  Since current 360s all have Dolby 5.1, 1080i/p HDMI and Media Center extensibility for live TV streaming that makes the now-oh-so-cheap Arcade version a $199 bargain imho.  And it plays games.  If you’re quick you can get the 20gb hard drive for very very little from Microsoft too.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Following on from BlackBerry’s dominance of the corporate market, RIM has recently been turning its attention to retail consumers.  RIM is positioning its BlackBerry Curve and Bold as complete work/play devices and the Pearl Flip 8220 under review here goes in a different direction; it’s a BlackBerry for those who want a cellphone which doesn’t looks like a BlackBerry.

Compact for a BlackBerry

The Flip’s compact form is made possible by RIM’s two-letters-on-a-key Qwerty system, called SureType.  The keyboard allows the Flip to be very compact, although the base is quite thick.  The clamshell flip design means that the screen also has to be smaller than a regular BlackBerry.  The familiar BlackBerry trackball is also present.  Closing the phone reveals a good looking lid housing the camera and exterior screen.  This is definitely the Flip’s best angle.

What’s it like in use?

In use, I really noticed the reduction in screen size.  Where the Curve is good for email and the Pearl is just fine, the Flip requires a lot of scrolling to view long messages.  But it does work, and if you prefer SMS or short instant messages to email, then the screen would not be a problem.

The keypad is responsive and SureType works well for me.  The trackball is mounted a bit low for my liking though.  There’s just not enough contact area compared to the Pearl and as a result large amounts of scrolling can turn into hard work.

The Flip’s internet browser loaded mobile sites fairly slowly and when a page is ready the trackball performs as a useful mouse pointer.  The map application was even slower unfortunately, almost to the point of being unusable.

Call quality was fine and the Flip has bluetooth for headset hook-ups.

Should you get one?

The BlackBerry Flip is pretty on the outside and sometimes frustrating on the inside.  It is definitely a compromise, but it looks great and if for a light data user it might be a good call.

Here’s one that got it right:

This, for all you daywalkers, is a MSI Wind in full-on sunlight.  And here is how it compares with a glossy-screened Acer Aspire One (which is switched on, honestly):

…and with some general non-sunny window reflections:

…and compared directly to the Wind below with non-sunny reflections.  It’s worth noting that the Aspire One actually has a really nice LED backlit screen, it’s just that the Wind has the best screen I’ve ever seen on a notebook.

The Wind works if you’re a daywalker – and it’s also a little cheaper than one particular newly-announced-glossy-screened laptop.  Ye pays yer money…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Outperforming

Trick new trackpad looks lush.  I never used the button on mine anyway…bring on the finger contortions.

Thinner MacBook looks great

New GPUs should be cracking

Price drop for white chassis is welcome 

Needs Improvement

Price rise to $1599 for the top end MacBook doesn’t sit well with the sinking economy

Glossy screens are awful.  At home, in the sun, on the plane unless you’re an isle seat lover.

$1299 buys less CPU power than $999…?

New MBP’s wide black screen bezel put to shame by old MBP

Need to log-off to change video modes eh…?  Sony does it better with Vista.  Now that’s a bag of hurt.

Pictures to follow in due course…

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Tonight’s premiere of My Own Worst Enemy on NBC sent a message to the Mustangs & Challengers on the street…the Camaro is on its way and it looks fantastic.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Is this the answer to travel expenses which accounting departments have been waiting for?

As the economy falters and technology gets cheaper, voice and video conferencing become even more appealing.

Conference calls, the ever present enabler of virtual teams, are great.  They allow coworkers from around the world to work together more easily, aid flexible working hours across timezones and, in the consumer market, help families get together through apps like Skype.

Conference calls, the ever present confuser of global communications, can also be problematic.  They can result in mixed messages and confusion, often because you can’t see the other participants who, (to make matters worse) could be muted or away from the phone.

Videoconferencing systems aim to alleviate this, normally with a screen mounted camera pointing at a room of participants.  Whilst this gives a picture, it can be a struggle to enjoy clear engagement with everyone in the room.  More sophisticated systems such as HP’s Halo try to ‘put’ virtual participants in the same custom built room at significant cost – Halo installations start at $249,000 plus running expenses.

Cue the Microsoft Roundtable. This curious looking device aims to provide a more active videoconferencing experience at a reasonable price.

Fortunately it’s the Roundtable doing the active bit, not you.  Whilst the base resembles a typical conference phone design with mics pointing in different directions, it’s at the top that things get interesting.

Cameras mounted at the base of the mirrors can be directed automatically at talking participants

Hiding under the dust cover are cameras pointing at angled mirrors.  This means that from a central location the Roundtable can get a good 360 view.  Better still, the cameras are motorized so they can be directed at individual participants.  Killer app?  The Roundtable can focus the screen image on whoever is talking.  Sweet.

In practise it works really well, operating as the daddy of all webcams when paired up with Office Communicator 2007 or the 2007 version of Office Live Meeting.  Speech and video over IP came through clearly on the occasions I’ve seen it in action and the directional cameras are an elegant solution to the ‘everyone face the screen’ problem.

It’s still fairly expensive at $3000 but compared to air travel for a couple of team members it represents a collaboration upgrade to business class for the whole group.  So look out for this coming to a meeting room near your cubicle soon if your company can afford it.  Question is for the benefits it brings to virtual teamworking, can companies afford not to?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

If old-skool Knight Rider was about the Hoff and Kitt against the bad guys with Bonnie, Devon and a truck providing trackside support, this week’s upcoming season premiere is slightly different.

Michael, assisted by a Mustang GT500KR embodied Kitt, rolls into action with a battalion of dudes & dudettes in bunkers (including Billy from BSG) and a gazillion gadgets.  Leaving aside Kitt’s transformations into various forms, including the new Ford F150 twin cab, SonyEricsson’s forthcoming Xperia X1 makes a brief appearance.  No panels this time, just the biggest font SMS ever.  I’m pretty sure I also spotted Gateway’s One on someone’s desk sitting unbranded in it’s sleek and shiny black glory; I haven’t seen one of those anywhere since CES in January.

The pilot earlier this year hinted that Kitt would be able to transform into different shapes, growing a rear spoiler at the end of that airing.  This week’s season premiere goes a bit further and there will probably be some mixed opinions; we’re in way out fantasy land with this series.  Works for me…although jumping into the back of an F150 and ending up in the front seat of a Mustang is a big ask for any audience.

You can make up your mind on September 24th or grab it quick at NBC or Hulu.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Ban the wires from your bod with these

I’ll try to keep this short for reasons which will become apparent.

Bluetooth headphones are all the rage at the moment with big hitters like Jabra, Plantronics and Motorola selling several models in different formats. Recent sets have even included a dog tag design.

There have also been some high end designs from the likes of Sony and Motorola. I’ve got my mitts on Motorola’s S805 DJ phones and believe me you want to be hearing what I’m hearing.

Control buttons are large and easy to press

The S805s are closed back style headphones with nice ‘n soft ear pads and a cushioned adjustable head band. The black finish looks smart rather than showy and the fit on my head is snug rather than heavy or tight.

On the left earpiece is a call button and track skip rocker, the right earpiece has a play/pause button, volume rocker and mic. There’s a charging port under the left ear alongside a wired headphone port for use with the supplied 3.5mm adaptor so you can listen to non bluetooth sources. There’s also a semi-hard travel case in the box.

So that means stereo bluetooth audio (A2DP) with playback control (AVRCP), bluetooth hands free with seamless music integration and non-bluetooth wired audio.

Wired headphone port sits next to charging port

Pairing to my HTC S620 was straightforward with the phone detecting both hands free and stereo audio profiles. As with many bluetooth headsets various things started lighting up blue at this point. Thankfully Motorola understood that S805 owners are buying into a sound rather than sci-fi experience, so the cyborg-looking lights can be easily disabled.

Hands free conversations come through well, with minimal background noise as with most modern bluetooth headsets and voice dialling is also supported.

Music playback just works beautifully.  On my HTC I called up a playlist in Windows Media Player, put the phone in my bag and controlled the rest from the S805s.   Sweet.  Tunes come banging out of these cans so hard you think you’re in a Detroit club. Basslines are solid, treble comes through clearly and I had no dropouts unlike the otherwise excellent Logitech Freepulse.  The S805s even paired to the Freepulse’s headphone output bluetooth transmitter so I was able to watch TV without using the S805’s wired connection.

The soft earpads are comfortable for extended use

That’s not to say they’re the last word in headphones.  In a wired listening test against my reference Beyer DT250s the Beyers deliver a significantly better performance in terms of frequency reproduction and sound stage.  In a fairer wired test against the more consumer oriented Beyer DT231 Galactic, the S805s come out with a more open and balanced sound stage with clearer highs whilst the Galactics deliver more in the middle and lower frequencies.  Both are easy to listen to without fatigue for decent amounts of time.

For those conscious to protect their hearing, the closed back design provides useful passive background isolation allowing for comfortable low volume listening…and conveniently protects your ears from the cold which is an added bonus for East Coast winters.

The bad news?  They’re DJ-style big cans which is a question of personal taste and they’re bag rather than pocket friendly.

The good news?  Overall the S805s are awesome and worth the money as a high-end accessory for any music-loving owner of a stereo bluetooth cellphone.  Fortunately at the time of writing the S805s were available at several retailers for less than the (deep breath) $249 MSRP. In fact I saw them on sale in short supply for a lot less than that at Amazon and Buy.com.  Nuff said, get that plastic armed and ready.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Gallery:

Excitement was high in the blogosphere ahead of today’s Let’s Rock press conference by Apple.

New MacBooks have been on the rumor mill for some time, as the current black and white 13 inchers still haven’t had a chassis refresh. The subject of an Apple netbook entry continues to inspire imaginations and the initial PR push on enterprise iPhone adoption has gone all but silent.

After a summer of problematic product launches Apple needed something to restore its image to the faithful. It chose to play it safe, avoiding significant launches in favor of evolutionary product updates.

iPod Nanos get thinner (meh) with a larger screen and cover flow (seen it already). The 8GB version is $149, which is about $120 more than a 8GB micro SDHC card if your music phone happens to accept them as legal music hosting tender.

iPhone firmware goes to 2.1, which may mean it just might work this time?

iTunes goes to 8.0 with a new genius (it’s now genius vs guru in the Apple vs Microsoft battleground) feature which intelligently suggests playlists for you (nice, but not sure I’d give away the precious genius title to a single-purpose feature). NBC comes back to play on iTunes, and in HD.

iPod Touch gets revised pricing and a new curvy chassis (meh). An accelerometer gets added, hopefully it’s more reliable than the one in the iPhone.

Has any of this rocked your world? Probably not, Apple is coming out of a difficult summer, so going back to fundamentals with some easy listening may be the best choice. After all music is our life’s foundation as the Pet Shop Boys once said.

Update one day later: Oops I did it again. What has happened to Apple’s quality control…?

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Brushed aluminum finish looks smart

HTC comes up with some great names for its cellphones. Diamond, Kaiser and Wizard have all figured in their recent line-up. The Excalibur looks a bit different from King Arthur’s mythical sword, but can it slay the competition in the same way?

Taking the smartphone out of the box it’s immediately obvious that this is one device which looks way better in real life than on the web. The Excalibur screams quality with a brushed aluminum and soft-feel black finish encasing a flush fitting screen. It’s light too at 130 grams. The battery cover hides the SIM and Micro SD card slots. Other specs include a 200MHz processor, WiFi b/g, EDGE (no HSPA unfortunately), Windows Mobile and of course the music loving stereo bluetooth.

Keypad has good tactile feedback

The Excalibur’s Blackberry/Palm style keyboard has tightly packed raised keys which illuminate blue when the phone’s backlight is on. The keys on these devices are always a matter of taste, personally I find the Excalibur’s okay with plenty of tactile feedback but inferior to HTC’s own TyTN and Kaiser (AT&T Tilt) with their wider and larger keys. The Excalibur could also do with a couple more assignable keys. There are ones for email, internet and the camera but I’d also like ones to assign to Windows Media Player, the connections manager and the task manager for easy application switching.

Which leads me to the JOGGR slidy-thing on the right side of the screen is a curious surface, which offers up/down controls as well as two assignable buttons. Some carriers choose to disable this control surface, which to be honest I can understand. It’s a great idea but too easy to brush it accidentally which can be annoying. Once I got the hang of the JOGGR it did become useful, but might be too fiddly to win fans during a five minute in-store test drive. I would have preferred a hardware wheel and buttons.

Powering up the Excalibur illuminates the stunning 2.4 inch screen, which is a joy to use indoors and out.

2.4 inch screen is bright and sharp

Whilst not readable in direct sunlight, it is possible to use this phone outdoors on a bright day. The flush fitting screen gives a paper flat image, but is also very exposed if the cellphone in jiggling about in a pocket next to some keys. There was a protective belt holster in my box, which is a useful screen preserving accessory.

The version I’m using has Ricky Wyatt’s Windows Mobile 6 ROM with a few added extras taking it to 6.1 spec, such as the newer Windows Live client which does a great job of pushing mails to the device for certain web-based non-POP3 email clients. Another sweet tool on the ROM is an over/underclocking tool for the the 200MHz processor, which allows manually forced power saving and power enhancement.  This is a great addition as most usage only needs 150MHz or so, which helps to extend battery life nicely.  Running the Excalibur at this speed I was able to listen to music over stereo bluetooth and read the newspapers on AvantGo.

Other tasty morsels in this ROM include Opera Mini which works great on the Excalibur and Resco Explorer which is a good replacement for File Explorer. I also added Google Maps, which renders extremely quickly on the Excalibur compared to my TyTN and scarily pinpointed my location to within one city block.

Excalibur is size zero thin

The sound performance of the Excalibur is up to HTC’s usual high standards overall. Sound quality from the earpiece and microphone both seem fine, although the speaker was a bit tinny and unlikely to break any cellphone records for bass response. The stereo bluetooth paired to my Logitech Freepulse easily and sound quality was exceptionally clear, so you can give those wired adphones back to the twentieth century where they belong.  The USB charging port doubles up as a headphone/hands-free port.  Whilst there are adaptors available to let you use wired 3.5mm phones, you’ll probably prefer to stick with the stereo bluetooth to avoid dangling wires…after all with a micro sd slot to play with, the Excalibur could store your entire music collection so you might as well look the business while you’re listening.

Battery life was good, and as always was influenced by the amount of wireless connectivity and data usage. Forcing the screen to dim quickly after periods of inactivity also helped. With mixed usage including some WiFi and EDGE data action, voice calls and listening to music over stereo bluetooth I got just over one day before the Excalibur asked to be returned to the lake for some juice.

Can the Excalibur slay the competition? It’s certainly a strong Windows Mobile cellphone, nay very strong when paired with some useful added software. At 130 grams it competes directly with RIM’s Blackberry Curve, which ends in a tie for me with RIM’s solid messaging experience battling the huge Windows Mobile application development community. If you do go for the Excalibur though, it’s a worthy sword to have in the armory.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Ricky Wyatt’s Excalibur ROM is available at XDA Developers.  I do not recommend flashing a ROM onto your cellphone.  Flashing a ROM onto your cellphone is done entirely at your own risk, can brick your phone, will most likely invalidate your warranty and might lead to a total freak-out if it goes horribly wrong!!

Thanks to Joan & Alan for this one.

Gallery:

After a gust of initial promise, MSI’s Wind blew into the US market in a flurry of overpricing, stock delays and battery shortages. Whilst the pricing still remains questionable, the stock situation has slowly improved. I managed to spend some time with the Advent 4211 clone in London this week to see if it was a full force tornado or just hot air.

Acer Aspire One on top of MSI Wind

The Wind is one of the larger netbooks, not quite as ‘notebook looking’ as the Asus EEE 1000 but sizeable nonetheless. Sitting under the Acer Aspire One the Wind shows a centimeter of clearance all round, which is not bad considering it boasts a full inch of extra screen space due to the Wind’s narrower bezel.

As for overall appearance, the Wind looks OK. In the Advent’s silver plastic guise it misses out on the eye catching looks of the EEE 1000 and Aspire One which are definitely a step ahead in the fashion stakes with their design details.

Opening the lid reveals a good size keyboard with a smallish trackpad. The keys themselves sit up high and seem initially stodgy to press. Due to their angled sides they actually have a smaller contact area than the Aspire One’s, which sit almost flat giving a sleeker look and for me a more reliable typing experience. The Wind’s keyboard is perfectly functional however and would be easy to adapt to. I wasn’t a fan of the right Shift key’s position and there is some empty space where MSI haven’t fully utilized all the available real estate.

The trackpad is responsive enough, but might ideally have been wider. It’s reminiscent of the first EEE PC, which had an even smaller square. The EEE 1000 definitely leads the netbooks in this regard with its lurvely multitouch pad.

The Advent ships with Intel’s Atom N270, 1GB RAM, an 80GB hard drive and Windows XP Home, which took just under sixty seconds to boot and turn the egg timer into a full arrow. That’s passable, but this is a bare machine. I expect that once you install a firewall, antivirus, Skype and other apps which load at boot-up you’re probably looking at nearer ninety seconds plus another ten to lock on to a wireless router. By contrast the Linux Aspire One boots in eighteen seconds plus wireless lock-on time.

Once the Wnd is up and running the Atom hustles along speedily enough for general uses with applications loading in acceptable if not lightning time. Again performance on the Aspire One Linux feels snappier with faster application load times. Music sounds reasonable through the built in speakers and the webcam puts in a good performance compared to some of the other current netbooks.

The screen is also nice enough too. I was expecting to be dazzled given early claims about its quality but it’s actually very similar to the Aspire One and EEE 1000 in terms of brightness and clarity, which is still a good thing. I was unable to test DVD playback as I did not have an external drive to hand.

The Wind is well connected with three USB ports, ethernet, VGA, audio in/out and an SD card slot, although it lacks the Aspire One’s second SD slot.

So was I blown off my feet? Not quite. The Wind is a nice netbook, it does everything well but just looks and feels a bit ordinary at $499 for the 3-cell version or a whopping $599 for the 6-cell. By contrast the Aspire One XP is $349 and $449 for the 3 & 6-cell versions respectively and the longer lasting EEE 1000 is yours for $549. Last time I looked the Wind had fallen out of Amazon’s top 100 computing bestsellers, whilst the Aspire One and EEE 1000 were both in the top 5. Until MSI revises their pricing I have a feeling it might stay that way.

Neil Berman

www.thonbutton.com

Gallery:

My recent trip in Air India economy turned out to be a sweet experience, not just due to the widescreen seatback screen and on-demand entertainment system.  The airline had also added seatback USB power in my 777, which meant I could charge my PDA and write this on the way home.  Bon voyage, literally.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

I was impressed by the Acer Aspire One’s surfing speed. It blew away other mobile devices I’d tried and it easily matched Firefox on my Macbook…Until Dan told me to try Safari 3. Yeesh does that browser fly! It feels a good 20% quicker than Firefox on the same Macbook, so Apple sure have done a good turbo retrofit. It’s good to see the company putting out a good product following in the tradition of MobileMe, iPhone 3G, OSX updates.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

Following a false start worthy of the Olympics, Acer’s repair shop just delivered me a new Aspire One.  My first One must have been so fried that it was not worth repairing, so take two begins…

First impressions are just as before: great ultralight design, perfect keyboard, boots in under twenty seconds…but this time continue beyond five minutes as the WiFi connects swiftly and I’m off surfing in no time. I upgraded to Firefox 3 with this handy guide.

And that’s when it hit me: the One is loading pages faster than anything I own. I’m unable to pin it down to any one system element, but the combination of the Intel Atom, the SSD and Firefox running on Linpus Lite makes the internet scream on this baby. Way faster than my EEE 2G was, no comparison. Firefox’s full screen option makes the experience even better, taking advantage of all 8.9 LED backlit screen inches.

I installed Skype and tried a video call. I told Skype to start video automatically and the webcam worked perfectly. My friend at the other end of the line in Tokyo could hear and see me clearly and I could hear him fine too. Again, the quality of the experience hit my old EEE for a home run…where I tended to reach for my Nokia N810 for Skype due to the 2G’s choppy chatter, the One was clear as a bell and it was handling the video well too.

The One also ships with several installed applications, such as OpenOffice, a media player and photo maanger, which together with the web browser may take care of most owners’ needs. Again, OpenOffice opened much faster than on my EEE 2G and saved documents almost instantly.  This Linux version running Linpus Lite ships with an 8GB SSD.  If you need more storage there are two SD card slots, of which one allows an inserted card to show as a hard drive extension in the file manager.  The second slot shows up as removable storage.

Unlike my EEE experience, I have been able to touch type naturally on the One. The keyboard is very usable with everything in the right place. I’ve also found the trackpad to be big enough, as long as you’re a tap-to-click type and not a button pusher. I would like Acer to have implemented a MacBook style double finger right-click tap, as right clicking requires moving off the trackpad to find the button. There is a dedicated button on the keyboard for opening context sensitive menus however, which makes this omission easier to forgive.

The keyboard and wrist rest also remain at a reasonable temperature during use, as does the underside of the One. This is probably due to the low power consumption of the Intel Atom processor. A small fan kicks in now and again but it is unobtrusive.

Given its size and weight I expect my One to get plenty of outdoor use. The screen is bright enough to use outside in the shade, but becomes unreadable when hit by direct sunlight. As a guide it’s a lot brighter and sharper than the EEE 2G, but is outshone by a MacBook. The One does ship with a slip cover, which offers useful (non-waterproof) protection in transit. Regular travelers might prefer a closed protective case, but it’s a great free addition as a basic cover. Nice One Acer.

Battery life is quoted at three hours for this three cell Linux version and I achieved close to that with sensible moderation of the screen brightness to fit my environment. On full brightness with constant WiFi usage I’d expect that to go down to around two hours. Acer quotes the Windows XP version at 2.5 hours, probably due to the SSD being replaced by a regular hard drive. After boot-up I hardly ever see my SSD light illuminated, but the XP model is likely to be busier. So taking more frequent disk accessing together with the effort required to spin the platters would definitely reduce overall battery life.

On balance, the One represents the best balanced experience of any of the small (< 9 inch) netbooks I’ve tried so far.  Its keyboard beats the EEE 901, its size is more practical than the seven inch models and its processor runs more efficiently than the VIA C7 powered HP Mini-Note or Everex Cloudbook.  In six cell guise with XP, it would be compelling but I have also appreciated the fast boot-up time and low resource usage of Linux.

The market is about to get more crowded with the imminent arrival of Dell’s mini Inspiron and future VIA Nano based machines. The ten inch Lenovo, Asus and MSI netbooks are also worth considering if you want to move up on screen size. For now though, the Acer One is a solid contender amongst the midsize netbooks.

Update: Acer has now lowered the retail price of the 3-cell Linux version to $329. The 3-cell XP version is now down to $349 and the 6-cell XP version is set to retail at $399.

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

A glance at Amazon’s top 25 bestsellers gives a window into today’s netbook market.

The recent $100 price drop of the Asus EEE 1000H has it selling strongly, Acer’s Aspire One Linux is sitting at number 11 and the pre-order XP version is at 14. Various other EEEs make up much of the middle groung and Micro Star International’s Wind is caught up in turbulence at 24.

Given its $399 price tag I expect the 3 cell XP Aspire One to climb that chart, although hopefully they won’t suffer from the quality control issues which sent my Linux One back for repair only days after its unboxing.

Lenovo announced its entries, the S9 and S10, a few days ago. Only the S10 will be coming to the US and will bring a ten inch screen, Atom processor and XP starting from $399 in October…and it looks great.

An unfortunate characteristic of the Wind since its missed launch date of mid-June has been rumored, and now official, price hikes. The 3 cell XP model is now at $499, which looks forgettable compared to the pricing of the One and S10. This Wind is blowing in the wrong direction.

We’re still waiting to see what Dell’s E is going to throw at us, shouldn’t be too long now. Their rumored $299 entry price will ruffle a few feathers and their marketing might will ensure a sale or two.

Then there are still more models expected to launch in Q4 with VIA’s celebrated Nano CPU, just to make buying decisions that little bit harder.

If I was a betting man I’d say that Acer’s Aspire One and Lenovo’s S10 are set to be strong sellers in XP guise. Dell won’t take any prisoners either when they launch. So within a year I expect the Wind and Mini-Note to be shaken out of the market or forced into price cutting. Perhaps the savior of the Mini-Note will be if HP can swap in the Nano for the C7.

For the Wind, price cutting alone may be too late for mainstream buyers. If broad stock fails to arrive soon then how will they break onto retail shelves which already have Acers, Dells and EEE on display? It may end up being too little too late for this great product.

Neil Berman

www.neilberman.com

The best mobile surfing experience out there?
Back in Feb Opera demo’d their latest Windows Mobile browser to oohs & ahhs from all corners championing it over the iPhone. Sporting a slick fullscreen mode, copy & paste, downloads and image saving, WM users couldn’t wait to get their mitts on it. It’s been a long wait but the beta recently went public. So is it really that much better than the iPhone? Let’s see…

After a straightforward installation and launch Opera 9.5 was happily loading pages over both WiFi and T-Mobile’s EDGE service. The browser fitted rendered pages to fill the whole screen perfectly and from there the finger pointing begins. Swipe up, down, left or right to scroll, double tap any area to zoom and again to zoom back out. The motion as the page moves is beautifully fluid and the zoom renders quickly.

Page loading was slower than my Nokia N810, which also runs Opera, but this is a pre-production version so it’s unfair to make a performance judgement just yet. As a guide over WiFi the NY Times website was half rendered in about 8 seconds and I was able to start swiping/zooming after 25 seconds while the pictures finished loading in the background. When I went to the site a second time, I could start swiping/zooming after about 15 seconds due to caching. Times were about twice as long with EDGE.

There are various display options, including full vs mobile view and screen font size. Images can be blocked to speed up page delivery.
Multiple tabs are also available, although your device’s capabilities will determine how many you can open before running low on memory. Opera 9.5 Mobile is a 8.9MB install which needs to go into main memory for this beta release. However the cache can be put onto a storage card, I allocated 50MB which speeds things up if you visit the same sites regularly.

So from this fully rendered CNet home page, you can zoom into something like this in a second or two…

…and then jump into a story…
…turn on text selection like this…
…and copy the text you want into an email or document just like a normal computer web browser. You can send it directly to someone via SMS as well as the page link, which is even better. You can also send links and images directly via MMS or email. Images and files can be downloaded to main memory or to the storage card for easy portability. Whole pages can be downloaded for offline viewing, for example when in the subway. Hmm, this is sounding like the daddy of convergent mobile internet…
Various other config optionsare included, including the ability to set a cache size. Here’s my 50MB cache in action, if you’re a heavy user you may want to go for more. I’m unaware of any cache limit, my TyTN has a 2GB memory card in it…that kind of cache size might be overkill but you get the idea!
Security options include proper password management.

With the current beta version there are a couple of missing bits, such as ActiveX and Flash so if you want these you might prefer to wait until the full production release. Also bear in mind that this is a beta version so if you do install it on your phone there may be compatibility issues or other freaky things happening – best to backup beforehand just in case!
.
Overall there’s no smartphone browser I’m aware of which offers such a sweet all round browsing experience. The initial impressions in February were right: where the iPhone’s Safari once led the pack, it’s now in second place. Can’t wait to try the production version…

…after three recoveries and two support calls, my One is definitely screwed. Anytime I turn on the wifi it goes nuts, nukes the screen and crawls into a corner until you force it to power off.

It’s going back to Acer on Monday, my fourth laptop to have problems in the last couple of years. Here’s the honor role in ascending order of annoyance:

4. eMachines AMD Sempron WinXP: f, g, h and j keys failed unless pressed really hard, went back for a new mobo, now happy.

3. Everex Intel Core Duo Vista: Resume failed sporadiacally, got annoying and went back for a new mobo, now happy.

2. Apple Macbook Intel Core 2 Duo OSX Tiger: Fails to switch on if warm, need to wait for it to cool down (known in Mac support circles as ‘The Oven‘). Basically I can only switch it on once per day. Crashes if you plug a USB device into the ‘wrong’ USB port (discovered in a M-Audio support call after getting multiple OSX crashes). Never sent it back cos I was lazy and now out of warranty.

1. Acer Aspire One…sick and about to be medicated.

Neil Berman
www.neilberman.com

1. Unboxing…pretty

2. Inspection…very very pretty

3. Boot-up Linux…fast, about 15 seconds

4. Launch network center, configure wifi

5. Connects immediately, after three seconds message appears saying update is ready – click to install. Click…

6. Fade to black, computer says no

7. Hangs

8. Still hanging

9. Several lights on but no one at home

10. Forced to turn off

11. Boot-up Linux…fast…but then self-reboots

12. Boots, OS looks normal

13. Click network center, no response, no network connectivity at all through wired or wireless

14. Reboot…same story

15. Check forums, it’s an epidemic. Gazillions of posts from owners whose network connectivity has failed

16. Sent support email to Acer, told me to call…

17. Acer said there are two OS distros out there and the updates are mixed up, which has created the problem. Advised to restore from recovery disc and avoid updates for now.

18. Recovery took 20 mins

19. Boot-up…fast…network center opens properly

20.

Update one day later:

21. Still sick

Update several days later:

22. Acer sent me replacement, read the full review here

Neil Berman

www.theonbutton.com

A few months with an Eee 701 have taught me one thing. It’s not the one. It was one heck of a first breed of ultralight laptop and it was fun while it lasted. But three days on since Acer’s announcement and my One is in the mail. That’s the Acer Aspire One.

It’s fair to say that it would have been the Wind if anyone was actually selling them…The Wind forums are full of people saying they’ve just ordered a different machine out of sheer frustration.

In only nine months the Netbook market has moved so far, there’s no room for supply chain slip-ups. I’m looking forward to seeing how the One performs: Atom processor, near full size keyboard, webcam, 8.9″ LED backlit screen and as light at my 701. It sure does sound promising.

Best of all it’s real and is in a UPS truck right now heading for chez moi. Full review to follow…

Neil Berman

www.neilberman.com

Don’t you just love market forces? Only a week after it’s launch at $649 and the Asus EEE PC 1000 is already down to $549 at NewEgg.

Part of the greatness of the original EEE was its price tag, and sales figures were through the roof. As everyone else caught up with models from HP, Acer, Dell and MSI all announced or launched, Asus’ pricing seemed off the pulse. So it’s good to see this correction, but more is still needed especially for the EEE 901 given Acer’s 8.9 inch Atom powered Aspire One is retailing for $379. By comparison the 901 is over $200 more expensive!

Now spare a thought for MSI’s Wind. The Wind is a great product ‘almost’ competing with the EEE 1000. I say ‘almost’ because although the Wind was due to rock the market over a month ago, the only model released was a low capacity battery version which had reviewers telling everyone to wait until September.

I expect by then the 10 inch early adopters will have bought the reduced price EEE 1000 and the Wind will be scrapping in the trenches for leftovers in a price-cutting market.

Did I mention the Dell E will be launching around then starting in the region of $299…?

Neil Berman

www.neilberman.com

As hordes of devotees crowd round the block for the iPhone 3G, competitors are starting to line up to steal it’s thunder. Only this time it’s the thunder which might do the stealing.

Blackberry’s Thunder to be precise. Crackberry has just released the first pics and they look promising, with a screen adorned with haptic technology to give console style force feedback on every key ‘press’. Paired with a horizontal keyboard layout, the Thunder looks ready to battle iPhone in a stormy war.

Can RIM really calm Apple’s tornado? Sounds like an unlikely weather pattern to me, but then who expected Palm’s Centro and others to take 7% of iPhone’s market share earlier this year?

Nokia is also rumored to be preparing haptic screen technology, whilst Samsung’s Instinct (fitted like iPhone with the now-old-skool-non-haptic screen) is rumored to be saving Sprint’s existence at only $129 a pop. The Instinct I tried was pretty sweet and the live TV looked great, although iPhone crushed it on web browsing.

Meanwhile we await HTC’s new Touch series with the Diamond already out in Taiwan to rave reviews of the awesomely groundbreaking 640×480 screen. No date yet on a stateside launch of the Diamond or the keyboard-wielding Pro, but the Tilt has just come down in price by $100 on AT&T’s website so we can’t be too far off now can we…?

As far as rudimentary iPhone 3G speed tests go, I measured 48 seconds to load up the BBC homepage fully, 30 secs for NewEgg and 6 secs for the mobile version of CNN. That compares to my Nokia N810 at a hotspot measuring 7 secs for the BBC, 8 secs for NewEgg and 16 secs for the full size CNN home page. Not a totally fair comparison as the WiFi connection is likely to be quicker than 3G in most cases, but an interesting exercise in mobile internet nonetheless. Will try to do an iPhone EDGE vs 3G comparison at some point.

Neil Berman

www.neilberman.com