You’re really nice and try to break things off politely. You’ve done the good girl/guy approach and tried to hint at the break up because you’re discovering that the feelings are little more fragile than you’re accustomed to. They take it personally. The co-dependent, insecure service says it’ll shape up, it offers you more perks and a free month to keep you interested. Being human you give in and allow the service to extend another month.

The extension comes and goes and you’re confronted by the break up again.

Them “We’ll give you the limited service free for two months if you keep us… are you not happy with us?”

(First of all, they don’t make it very easy to find ways to cancel. You’re pretty much given a map with hieroglyphic clues and a two inch candle to see your way through the caves to make it through the maze that is Vonage.)

Me “I don’t know, I don’t really use you…  if you look at my history you’ll see I haven’t sent or received a call using your service in weeks… it’s not you… you’ve been great… I just feel closed in, I need the freedom to talk any where but next to my computer. I haven’t made the commitment to buy a cordless phone I could walk around to… well the other side of my apartment with… I prefer having my cell phone…”
Them “Yeah, but what if there’s an emergency and you can’t use your cell phone?!? Did you really think about that?”
Me “Yes… and the only emergency I can think of that would require a land line would be if the power went out- being as your service is computer reliant, it really doesn’t do me a lot of good. If my home is flooded… I’d need to make calls else where less I drown… if my home is on fire… I really would not want to sit around next to the computer or in a decent range of the phone base to call 911.”

Finally when they figured out I really did want to terminate service, they grew defensive on me and began to lie!
I read, according to the terms of the agreement to contact them before the debit date. I tried, they didn’t make it easy… I live on the West Coast, they run by EST hours and do not work past 4 PST or weekends (which is not noted in the terms of the contract).

The first time I disputed this, I was told that they charge in arrears.
Me: “If you charge in arrears, why did I receive a month free if I decided to stay on an additional month? I was told that I wouldn’t be charged. If that was the case, then why am I charged now for a month I was told would be credited?”
Them: “I dunno- they must have had it wrong. We charge you for services you already used. Period.”

I hung up because I was at work and didn’t want want to raise my voice too loudly… I couldn’t access the terms from work, so I had a friend go to the site and e-mail the one million and two pages of the agreement. It clearly stated “Dawn is correct, the idiot on the phone is wrong.”

I called back immediately to dispute, and once I mentioned the “Terms” that I had in front of me, they reversed the charges and let me finally break up once and for all.

Since the break up I’ve received several e-mails trying to get me back. I’m very thankful I never gave them my mobile number!

(Sniff) I knew it was time to up the television game as so much has changed in the past few years and so much more is prepping to change in under a year… perhaps the technology Gods were pushing me to upgrade, the hard way.

I could possibly do without a set because I’ve been watching more and more shows/film via Netflix and Hulu on my laptop- but my boy requires his console games (okay… kind of me too.)

I had an offer for a free television set- old style 36″ screen (I’m not positive on the screen size, but the entire television set was gigantic and the only catch was that I’d have to move it up some narrow stairs that two men had issues getting into the dwelling in the first place.) After a few days of playing musical televisions with Jonathon’s set and the injured one (I had to keep swapping them around because he falls asleep watching a movie each night).

After a few days of doing this, I saw that my back was eyeing a noose and sleeping pills so I decided it was time to find a replacement.

Enter Rent-a-Center. I’ve lectured people on places like that, I’ve vowed never to fall prey… but it was so easy to do (I have horrible credit and store cards are not options). I thought about it and decided that perhaps a temporary solution would be to rent a TV, possibly own. Hence “rent to own”. I know I’ll wind up paying a zillion dollars more than its worth, but I had no choice… I had just bought a couple games on top of a few games that were sent to me so I can give a review.

I went for a humbled set. In this world where hand held gadgets and mobile phones are getting smaller, the standard sized television set is getting huge (probably because everyone’s eyes are shot by the mini-gizmo’s and pride prevents them from getting glasses). Well my eye sight is perfect, my living room is a humbled size- so a large screen is silly. I had opted for a Sony Bravio 32″ HD LCD Digital PC Compatible OMG I’m freaking in love television set.

The non-HD channels are hideous and I can’t find a fix (yet), however… I feel like a guilty little kid when I noticed through my regular cable outlet I was able to pick up a TON of extra channels… FOR FREE! Shhh don’t tell Comcast.

I had no idea what add on channels were hidden in the fiber optics of my cable wire that my normal set could not pick up. HD versions of the regular channels, channels I’ve never heard of before and even music channels!

Playing video games on it has me completely giddy and revisiting that same feeling when the Super Nintendo upped the bar, and I realized that there was a whole other world that I had missing out on.

The NYC trip had me on a natural high and returning to Salem Oregon was NOT exactly ideal (feeling like an idiot at my other job, having my foot crushed, car issues, wrenching my back… and it hadn’t even been 3 days). This television set has saved me from scowliing at and punching random people.

My Gotham television has made it’s way into my bedroom (which I felt was SO un-feng shui) because it works… it just scares the hell out of me (I’ve had a vacuum blow up, a battery charger blow up, a curling iron blow up in my hand, even my musical birthday candle!!!!) basically, if it’s going to go KABOOM- it will happen to me. I figure it “might” be okay as a temporary bedroom set and it’s also prompted me to put my laptop in my room at because for the first time in for ages my room is for more than just sleeping.

I’ve no idea what television experiences you readers have had, but please share your wisdom and assist me in my basking glow of thinking the new generation of tv is the best thing EVER! (if you’re into televisions, game play… using your 32″ as a computer monitor). I’m looking forward to getting the hardware to connect my sleeping desktop PC to the Bravia and using it as a monitor.

I can’t recall the last time I felt this way! Because of the rent to own price I feel like it’s this guilty pleasure… I’m a complete idiot, but I love it! I also think it has subliminal messages because I want bigger, better and even more free channels that I will never watch!

Product Features
Built-In HDTV Tuner: Add HD-capable antenna to receive over-the-air high-definition broadcasts, where available. Optional set-top box required for high-definition cable or satellite programming.
31-1/2″ measured diagonally
1366 x 768 pixel resolution supports 720p signals for stunning image clarity
16:9 widescreen aspect ratio with normal, full, zoom and wide zoom viewing modes
BRAVIA Engine video processor produces crisp, vibrant images with enhanced color and contrast
3D comb filter brings out fine picture detail and enhances color purity
3 picture modes, including vivid, standard and cinema, provides custom viewing options for a variety of programming
Ultrafast 5 ms response time for enhanced displaying of fast-action scenes
High dynamic contrast ratio (1000:1) for an arresting viewing experience
Wide 178° viewing angles provide comfortable viewing from almost any seat in the house
Light sensor with backlighting control adjusts the screen brightness to match ambient room light conditions for improved picture clarity
Ultraslim (4″ deep), lightweight design is ideal for wall mounting (with optional mounting kit, not included); VESA-compatible
Bottom-mount speakers with built-in digital amplifier provide a cinema-quality sound; MTS stereo decoder and Dolby Digital sound
PC video input lets you connect your computer to experience high-resolution images
Inputs: 2 HDMI (rear), 1 S-video (rear), 1 PC (rear), 3 composite video (2 rear, 1 side), 2 component video (rear) and 5 analog audio (4 rear, 1 side), 1 RF
Outputs: 1 headphone (side), 1 digital audio (rear), 1 audio (rear)
V-Chip parental controls keep children from being exposed to undesirable material
ENERGY STAR compliance assures a high standard of energy efficiency
Other convenient features include favorite channel, channel labeling, clock and sleep timer
What’s in the box: 32″ flat-panel LCD HDTV, stand, 2 AA batteries, support belt and screws and remote

Back on track here, I got to spend 30 or so quality days with an Alienware Area-51 M9750 laptop. 2GB RAM, dual SLI Nvidia 8700M GT video cards, Intel Core 2 Duo T7600, yadda yadda yadda. Oh yeah, and weight of about 42 stone. Or seemingly so. It’s actually 9lbs 8 oz. or so with the battery, but felt like I was lifting a two ton heavy thing.

This isn’t so much of a tech-review per-se. You can get that data at numerous other sites on the internet. I’m going to focus more on the usability aspects of the machine, how it feels, how the features work, and overall impressions.

I got this sucker home after picking it up at Arsgeek’s place. Of course, the huge box it came in barely fit in my car (Yes, I know, Miata’s are small). It wouldn’t fit in the trunk, so it got the passenger seat. Just barely. Pulling it out of the box, I was struck by how huge this notebook is. And the weight. This isn’t so much of a ‘notebook’ as a ‘portable desktop’ machine. The power brick is just that – larger than a brick and heavier too, I’d imagine. Alienware must have needed all the space and weight to cram in the performance and features they did into this machine.

Sitting down into my comfy chair, I opened the machine and powered it on. Then it hit me. No, not the notebook – I got ‘the stare’ from my wife. This isn’t just heavy and large, it’s also fairly loud, with two fans immediately coming on, causing my wife to turn the TV up a bit. Of course, the situation lightened up a bit when my daughter walked over, pointed to the back of the laptop, and said ‘EYES!!’. It turns out that on the back of the LCD cover there is a little alien head, and the eyes glow blue. Neat effect, actually. My daughter really got a kick out of it.

I spent some time over the evening copying over my Steam information, and installing a few other games and apps that I’d over the course of my time with this monster. One of the first games I put on was Mount and Blade. If you’ve never played this game, go on over and give it a shot. Tons of fun for the short money it costs. Anyways, the game started right up, and I adjusted my video settings, and OH MY GOD! The 17” screen on the M9750 is beautiful. It has one of those shiny screens on it, giving it a bit of a cinema effect (and a bit of glare, too). But the brightness and clarity really struck me – this is a good looking display. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the evening charging down peasants with my lance.

The SLI video card performed admirably. I ran some 3dMark06 benchmarks on the system. With the default drivers from Alienware installed, it ran a respectable 7781. Some tweaking, and an updated driver later, I coaxed a score of 8068 out of the machine. Pretty impressive, actually.

I tend to use my laptops as just that – laptops. I don’t have a desk that I put the machine one. I keep them standing on edge next to my chair, and when I want to use it, I reach down, lift it up into my lap, open the lid and go to town. This works great with my current machine, a Lenovo T60p. With the Alienware, however, this did not work too well – the machine is just too heavy and unwieldy to do this maneuver with. The M9750 is really not a laptop (or even a notebook, if you are into semantics) in any sense of the word, it’s a desktop replacement. Period. I do have to say that heat efficiency is pretty good on the M9750 – it only gets about as warm as my T60p, even though it has two graphics cards and two hard drives in it.

I brought this machine to work with me one day, to play with it some more, and show it to some co-workers. Even the relatively short jaunt from my car to the building was tough carrying this laptop. If you haven’t heard by now, it’s heavy. But the reality of the situation is that’s basically the only negative I have with this machine. Sure the touch pad isn’t the best I’ve ever used, the machine lacks a mouse ‘nipple’ on the keyboard, and the volume control knob on the side isn’t sensitive enough (it took about 65,738 turns to noticeably change the volume level). Battery life on this notebook is pretty bad, with only about 1.5 hours of life with the laptop mostly idle. You don’t get this notebook to be a notebook though. Battery life should be just long enough for you to find a real power source to work from. But the performance packed into this machine is great. Team Fortress 2 ran beautifully, Mount and Blade was phenomenal looking at max resolution, and smooth as silk. The machine has so much power, even Vista felt snappy.

So bottom line is: I miss this machine. If you are looking for a desktop replacement that you won’t lug around much, this probably is the machine for you. If you are in the market for more of a notebook or laptop, I’d look for something lighter and more portable. But you can’t go wrong with the performance of this machine, that’s for sure.

Technorati Tags: alienware, laptop, largish, sli, technology, review, gaming, video games

Alienware’s flagship system, the Area-51 7500, has received a full overhaul and has re-launched as the Area-51® desktop. Alienware, the leading manufacturer of high-performance desktop, notebook and entertainment systems, stands for excellence and advancement in the PC gaming and home computer markets, and the Area-51 continues to leads the market in desktop innovation. Now featuring the NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLI®-based motherboard as well as an NVIDIA GeForce® 9800 GX2 dual GPU single graphics card, the Area-51 supports the most robust gaming platform in the industry

“The Area-51 is every gamer’s dream system,” said Brian Joyce, Senior Vice President at Alienware, “With support for PCI-Express 2.0, DDR3 memory, a completely open and higher BIOS overclocking than its predecessor and now the industry’s most advanced graphics solution, the Area-51 sets the pace for desktop performance. Everyone else is just trying to keep up.”

The nForce 790i Ultra SLI is the motherboard that gamers and enthusiasts have been waiting for. It is the only nForce platform to support DDR3 memory up to 2GHz for record-breaking memory speeds. Compatible with 1600MHz FSB Intel® CPUs, it also provides the Area-51 with the impressive next-generation Intel 45 nanometer CPU capabilities. Best of all, the nForce 790i Ultra SLI allows for NVIDIA 2-way, 3-way and Quad SLI technology for unmatched visual computing.

One of the most exciting editions to the revamped Alienware Area-51 is the inclusion of the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card. Housing dual GeForce 9800 GPUs, the 9800 GX2 delivers SLI power on a single card. Up to 50 percent faster than the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the fastest consumer graphics solution on the planet. Teamed with the nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, the 9800 GX2 delivers the most lifelike high definition PC gaming, the highest possible frame rates, and ultra-smooth Blu-ray Disc® playback.

“We’re excited about the introduction of the next-generation Alienware Area-51, which incorporates the upper echelon of PC components to deliver the ultimate visual computing experience,” said Ujesh Desai, general manager of the consumer GPU business group at NVIDIA. “The sheer genius of the GeForce 9800 GX2, which sets new performance records for consumer PC graphics, paired with the extremely overclockable nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, delivers an unbelievable and unbeatable platform for enthusiasts and gamers alike.”

“Alienware users expect top-tier graphics,” said Joyce. “By blending the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 and nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard technology with Alienware’s unique and superior architecture, we can continue to deliver the best each and every time.”

For more information on the Alienware Area-51 desktop, please visit: www.alienware.com

Area-51 Desktop

• Features the NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLI®-based motherboard
• NVIDIA GeForce® 9800 GX2 dual GPU single graphics card
• Only nForce platform to support DDR3 memory up to 2GHz for record breaking memory speeds
• Compatible with 1600MHz FSB Intel® CPUs
• Allows for NVIDIA 2-way, 3-way and Quad SLI technology for unmatched gaming speeds

Technorati Tags: alienware, high speed systems, gaming rig, technology, geek, video games, wow

LaCie‘s taken an interesting twist and added it to their latest hard drive – they’ve worked with designer Neil Poulton to design something that actually looks nice. Then they’ve added a fan less cooling system so it sounds nice too, assuming nice means quiet.

I took the 500GB model for a test drive over the past few days and I was very impressed. On opening it, I was faced with a shiny black cube that reminded me instantly of the Monolith featured so heavily in 2001 and subsequent sequels.

This thing is black. And shiny. There aren’t a lot of buttons or labels to mar the surface, with the majority of them being at the rear, with the exception of one LaCie label. The rear of the drive features a power in plug, USB plug, power switch and vents for the cooling system. Okay, I was impressed. This is actually a piece of equipment I could see sitting in my TV room. It also looks very nice next to the Alienware m9750 laptop. When turned on there is a pleasant blue LCD reflection beamed to whatever surface it’s sitting on to let you know that the drive is powered on.

I was pleasantly surprised when I plugged the LaCie drive in to my Vista system and it was immediately recognized. Then it proceeded to launch some on board installation software and prompted me to format the drive. I like that it gave me an option to set aside up to 32 GB of FAT32 (the largest technically supported by FAT32) space aside so that I could share data on the drive between my Vista install, Linux and any Macs I happened to have hanging about. Nice touch LaCie.

The formatting went flawlessly and within a minute after plugging the drive in and following the format wizard, I was storing data on it. The drive is cool, quiet and quite nice to look at. My only problem is that I’m rather obsessive about fingerprints. I found myself wiping the drive down after each move (I moved it several times) as my fingerprints were clearly visible. A minor flaw to be certain. The drive is fast, quiet and easy on the eyes.

The drive itself spins at 7200 RPM, has a high speed USB 2.0 connection, 8MB Cache, transfers up to 60MB a second (480Mb). It’ll work with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, OS X (10.3 or higher). Unofficially it also works fine with Ubuntu 7.10.

It’s 4.6 inches by 7.6 inches by 1.8 inches and weighs in at just over two pounds. And it really does look quite nice. I’m glad to see that hardware is being encased in something that I’d be happy to display, rather than hiding behind my existing hardware.

Technorati Tags: lacie, external hard drive, coolest looking drive, monolith, usb 2.0, fanless, cylon

Recording films, television shows, and video game play in real time has become something I am increasingly taking for granted. It pains me to pull up those pre-Neuros times as I am now able to store my DVD collection on my external hard drive, and to put downloaded content like YouTube onto my Neuros. Granted I can’t access menu items from the recorded file, but if I want to… I can always record the special features and commentaries to view later. Additionally you can store a film to a thumbdrive and toss it to a friend for viewing or sneak it onto your laptop (or any portable device) to watch during a long winded seminar or meeting.

Feel like surfing through Youtube while you’re watching television? You can. Want to pull up your entire music collection? You can. Anything that you store on your hard drive, you can access via your television using Neuros. It’s created a relationship between my computer and television- two platforms I love.

Have you ever been stuck on a part of a video game and you’ve found frustration in trying to explain your issue to someone who has conquered the game? Fret not, just record your failure and e-mail it to your friend or post it on a forum for assistance. How did I ever live without this?

Being open sourced and having frequent easily downloadable upgrades, I’m looking forward to what the future has in store for this delightful little device I’ve named, “George”.

Yes George has sucked out my passion to write, draw, and complete my plans for world peace as I have a ton of films to store and watch, but I just see mental vegetation as one step closer to Zen. I AM the Buddha. Thank you Neuros!

I’m certain there’s SO much more that I haven’t covered or tried out yet, but baby, I’ve just gotten started on my road to media addiction.

A little over a week ago I received my Zonbu Notebook. Since reviewing their tiny, silent desktop replacement computer I’ve been interested in Zonbu and their business model. Could they really pull of the subscription model with inexpensive computers? I’ve long held that in the next ten to fifteen years the majority of computers will be inexpensive blocks handed out to anyone who wants one in exchange for subscribing to some sort of service – be it connectivity, online storage or even gaming.

Sure there will be folks who continue to push hardware and software limits on custom or quasi-custom machines built for specific purposes, like squeezing the last extra frame rate out of Doom 6. For the majority of computer users however, access to the web, email and available online services is the real draw.

The Zonbu Notebook offers just that at a fairly cheap price. $279 (if you sign up for a 2 year plan, $479 with a month-to-month plan) for a notebook is nothing to scoff at. While the specs won’t blow you away it’s still not a bad laptop. A 15.4” 1440 x 900 display is nice to look at and weighing in at almost five and a half pounds it won’t break your back either. You’ll also be paying at least $14.95 a month for a subscription. What does the subscription get you? Transparent updates – when a new update is released for the OS or the applications installed on it. Unlimited Support – which means live phone support Monday – Friday. Zonbu has traditionally been very fast at replacing hardware gone bad as well. You’ll also get 50GB of storage with the Zonbu Elastic Drive. This storage contains a backup of your data on the Zonbu device and is available anywhere there is unrestricted web access.

The Zonbu Notebook comes in a briefcase style box with a nice travel handle, which was good as it was delivered to me at a place where I needed to carry it home. It’s well packed and survived the journey without incident. When I arrived home I was greeted with a nice, silver and black laptop. While the laptop looks very nice and feels mostly solid I did notice that some of the exterior parts feel a bit flimsy. On the left and right side of the keyboard I can depress the plastic a full 5th of an inch or so. The DVD drive tray feels a bit flimsy as well. I noticed it was also a bit hard to push back in due to the plastic over it (on the left side of the keyboard) being not quite level.

On turning it on, you’ll see the typical Zonbu startup screen where various icons light up to show you what phase of the boot process it’s in. After about a minute or so I was on the desktop. Zonbu, no matter what else they may have going for them certainly have great wallpapers. The desktop is crisp and clean, with a few icons in the upper left and a few items in the taskbar on the bottom.

I was immediately greeted with a network connection wizard which walked me through getting online using my home wireless connection. It was painless and in a minute I was happily online. I logged in with my email and password and I was ready to play!

Speaking of icons – it’s been a short while since I’ve been on my Zonbu desktop. I noticed a new icon called Public Folder. This caused me to raise an eyebrow. What was a public folder? Inside it was. . . nothing. A quick search on Zonbu’s site brought about this, along with instructions for access it via the web.

The public folder allows you to share files on your Zonbu with the rest of the world. All you need to do is place a file or folder in the Public folder on your desktop. Then, anyone that accesses your Public folder and will be able to download the file to their computer. Possible uses include sharing important documents, pictures, music, and more. I can immediately see how this would be very useful as a place to keep stuff you want to share with the outside world.

In the time I’ve been working with the laptop there have been two updates to the OS and it’s applications. It’s really great having a team of dedicated Linux folks behind a Linux box who consistently keep it up to date and working. It’s nice not to have to do that myself for once. The laptops is easy enough to customize and make it feel like your own.

While some may find the list of applications a bit limiting I find it hard to see how the average user would. There’s not much you can’t do on the machine. If you’re looking for a laptop so set up as a dedicated network monitoring station or host a website this may not be the beast for you. However if you want an inexpensive laptop that can play just about any media type you throw at it, do your internet browsing, write your documents, compose emails, organize your photos, play a few games and and even publish your Zine from – well this is certainly a product that will work for you. There are plenty of applications available, including some that I didn’t expect. Skype was certainly a nice surprise. Indeed, it played my divx movies without thinking twice.

While the list of applications is great, some of them are a bit behind in their releases. Most likely this is to ensure that they integrate seamlessly with Zonbu’s home grown Linux distribution it shouldn’t be all that hard to get some of the products a bit more up to date. Remember though that this is still a beta software release. I expect we can see a lot of these coming up to date as the software reaches 1.0.

As is always the case with a Zonbu product, the notebook strives to be low power. Zonbu is big into environmentally friendly computing and have done a good job with this so far. The laptop is no exception.

All in all my experiences with the Zonbu laptop have been overwhelmingly positive. The laptop even fared well under the usage of a few friends who are not computer or Linux types. The applications aren’t hard to find and they are easy to use. The notebook connected quickly to my wireless network and worked flawlessly.

As Zonbu is marketing their desktop as a second computer, one you may find in the kitchen or the family room rather than the office, I think the laptop has a great chance to fulfill this role as well. This laptop works great in my dining room as a third computer with no external screen needed. It would also be a great solution for students heading off to school as long as Microsoft products aren’t a requirement. The price point, even after several years of subscription fees are taken into account is still fairly compelling. More so since you should theoretically not have to worry about any updates or maintenance to the machine. If something breaks it will be replaced. If software goes wrong you can revert to the factory default while still retaining all of your files. That in itself is a compelling reason to look seriously at Zonbu and their desktop and laptop solutions.

Here are some of the technical details:

Processor: 1.5GHz, VIA C7-M
Intel-compatible, low energy use
Display: 15.4″ WXGA Widescreen (1440 x 900) and VGA output
Memory: 512MB
Hard Disk local storage: 60GB (58GB for your data)
Optical Drive: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC IGP (64MB shared memory, 128MB maximum)

• Audio: built-in speaker, microphone and headphone ports

• 3 USB 2.0 ports

• Ethernet: 10/100 Mbps built-in – broadband ready

• Wifi: Built-in 802.11b/g

• Power Supply: 65W AC-DC Adapter, 15W average power usage

• Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-Ion, 2h30 to 3h, depending on usage

• Measurements: 14.1″ x 10.7″ x 1.5″ (35.8cm x 27.2cm x 3.8cm)

• Weight: 5.3lbs (2.4kg)

Technorati Tags: zonbu, linux, notebook, subscription, review, open source

For just about a week now I’ve been using the smallest laptop I’ve ever seen as my primary computer at home. Here’s my review of this little Vista tablet and what it’s like to really use it. The VyePC Mini-V S37.

First things first – the S37 model that I received is not like most of the other ultramobile PC’s (UMPC) out there. The S37 is the worlds first mini-laptop. That means it’s got a full keyboard (not full sized though) and all of the things you’d associate with a laptop. It’s got a touch pad, left/right buttons, a pointer located on the screen casing, 2 USB ports, sound out and mic in ports, a CF slot and an SD slot, VGA and Cat-5 port. It’s also got built in wireless and a bunch of extra buttons on the screen housing for use as a laptop or for when you use this as a tablet. The tablet feature is quite nice, with it’s 1024 x 600 resolution touch screen (or 600 x 1024 depending on how you set it), built in pointer, mouse buttons, rotation control and camera control. If you’d like to see what that resolution is like in a 7″, Intel 945GU Express Chipset controlled screen, click the picture below for an image that’s just about a 1:1 representation of the real screen.

I’ve always been intrigued by UMPC’s – the ability to have a full computer that can almost fit in your pocket. There are some devices which are smaller and come close, PMP’s, phones with mobile operating systems, but you can’t load Vista on these, nor can you load up a complex game, run Office 2007, or do any of the other processor consuming things real computers can.

Hence, a real computer with a 7″ screen. Granted, it’s not a power house of a machine but you can’t expect that in a package that’s less than 10″ at it’s widest point and weighs less than two and a half pounds. The unit I reviewed featured an 800 Mhz Intel A-110 processor, 2 GB of memory (which I find impressive) and a 32 GB solid state drive which makes for some really snappy access times. Not bad for it’s size, although I did find Vista a bit underpowered. I’d love to see a 1.2 Ghz processor in here, which would give this more of a kick.

The touchscreen is easy to navigate with the included stylus. At the 1024 x 600 resolution it’s a bit hard to handle with your finger, unless you’ve got some small fingers or a very specialized manicure. The pointer included next to the screen is a nice touch when using this as a table, as it allows for easy navigation without pulling out the stylus, as are the mouse buttons and the four control buttons.

What’s it like using the S37 for a week? There are some very good points and some hard to get over points. Let’s start with my first experience. Typing. Typing takes a bit of getting used to. The keyboard is not a full sized laptop keyboard which makes it a bit challenging to type on. I don’t have huge hands and I was able to do it, but it took about an hour of constant use before I really felt comfortable with it. Even then, I went from my average 80 WPM to about 45 WPM on the small keyboard. It certainly is better than thumb typing though, or using a virtual keyboard and a stylus. I’d have to say that I’m glad they included it, rather than going for a slide out, blackberry style or an on-screen only keyboard.

Doing work on an 800Mhz machine can be a little challenging. I’m so used to fast switching programs and keeping seven or eight seperate windows and programs running at one time. This tends to really slow this little machine down so I had to get used to keeping just a few programs up at one time. Office, Thunderbird and Firefox were about as much as I could handle at once before getting a bit frustrated.

Where the S37 really excels is as a touchscreen browsing device, not just internet browsing, but browsing through PDFs, documents, ebooks, websites or your favorite movie. As a media device this thing rocks. Watching a movie fullscreen on it’s 7″ display with bluetooth headphones on and being able to get email updates at the same time – that’s just nice. You can use the onboard buttons to easily change the screen rotation as well to turn this into an ebook reader that fits quite nicely into your hand. It also has a 1.3 MP camera that you’ll see on the left, which is a neat addition.

Gaming on this is about what you’d expect. Vista’s built in games work just fine. Mahjong is quite fun to play with the stylus. For fun, I installed 2005′s game of the year, Medieval Total War. It wasn’t the smoothest experience but it was playable for at least twenty minutes, which is all I gave it. Suffice it to say that if you want to play games with more than small demands on your GPU or processor this is not the machine for that.

So how about the road warrior? Is the S37 perfect for the hard core traveler? The short answer is – it depends. I found that running Vista on this gave me a battery life of just under three hours. However the unit I was reviewing had a 3 cell battery, not the standard 6 cell battery. With the larger battery you can expect to get more than 5 hours of life.  You can use the usual tricks to extend it a bit – turn off the wireless radio, crank the brightness down, etc. This will give you an extra 20-30 minutes on top of your average battery life.  If you need a very small machine that you can easily slip into your carry on luggage and then pop onto a desk or plug into a projector then you’ve got a great tool at your disposal. They don’t call them ultraportable for nothing.

Compared to my 12.1″ display Lenovo, this thing is tiny. You can see how it would be easier to lug around. It’s a pound and a half lighter, much smaller profile and has the added bonus of being a touch screen/tablet. This fits into my gadget pocket in the backpack, not in my designated laptop area. Having a mouse and keyboard to plug into it as well as an external monitor makes it a fairly decent desktop as well. Again the 800Mhz processor slows things down a bit but isn’t unbearable. I can say that I wish for one more USB port to be squeezed in. When attaching a USB mouse and keyboard, you’ve just taken up all of the available ports. I know I could get a hub but it’s just one more thing to carry around.

And how is that touch screen? It’s not bad. There’s a bit of a matte finish, it’s not quite as bright as your standard laptop screen but this is easy to get around when you’re training Vista’s handwriting recognition or cruising through the web via your stylus.

I’ve found that the bottom line with the S37 is that I’d never want to use it as my primary computer but I’d be happy to use it as a travel mate and keep it around as a secondary laptop or use it as a primary touch screen device. I can think of a number of dedicated jobs it could do very well – acting as a primary computer anywhere you’d need a standard tablet – inventory, medical fields, diagramming, presentations – I’m sure you can think of other applications for this as well. As a hot rod PMP this think kicks other PMP’s out of the water. With a $2000 price tag, the solid state model is a bit on the pricey side – so it’s important to note that there are models with standard 120GB drives available for significantly less. Working with an SSD computer is a lot of fun but the 32GB limitation might be tough.

YAG factor? That’s a tough one. It’s either going to be high, or low, depending. If this is your primary computer that you’re traveling with, then it’s going to be very low. You can effectively leave your PMP at home – this thing will play your videos, your music, display your pictures, (in Powerpoint if you want to get evil), browse the web and handle the functions of your computer. If you’re popping it in your bag with your laptop, your phone, your MP3 player and your PMP then it’s pretty high. although unless you’re like me and reviewing it you probably won’t be doing that.

Are UMPC’s worth it? That depends on whether you can live with the above factors. For sheer fun, this computer is amazing. I’m a gadgeteer and I love toting around a 2 pound Vista machine. There’s something just cool about that. I think realistically we’re still looking at the first generation of UMPCs. We’re going to see some pretty radical advances over the next few years where computers can easily be this small and do lots of amazing things. Is the S37 worth it? If you’re looking for a very small computer or a true UMPC, then yes. The full keyboard is a definite plus. Compared to other UMPCs it’s not underpowered and actually packs a great deal of RAM. Bluetooth, wireless, VGA out, USB – it’s got lots of ways to connect to the world around it and it’s easy enough to take with you.

For more information and to compare models, here’s the comparison PDF from VyePC.

Technorati Tags: umpc, vye, ultramobile, vista, laptop, tablet, gadget, review, featherlite computing

You simply slide the two pieces together through one of the four slots (for 20, 30, 40, or 50 degree tilts) and plop the laptop on the stand. It’s really quite simple and effective.

The angle at which the two pieces fit together prevents your laptop from sliding around. 20 or 30 degrees is great for using your laptop’s keyboard. 40 or 50 degrees is good if you’re looking to use an external keyboard.

The stand is very portable, one of the features I like. It’s light and will fit right into my backpack along with my laptop. I also notice that it keeps my laptop a bit cooler (when undocked) while using it. The difference isn’t huge, about 4 degrees in temperature – yet it is cooler.

I really like the simple design, bordering on elegant. I like it, yet it makes me a bit angry I must admit. Angry that I didn’t think of this myself. It’s so simple yet effective. If I had come up with this idea, well I’d be writing from a much more expensive laptop.

The YAG factor on this little stand is pretty low. It’s not something I’d carry with me every day since I dock my laptop at work, but I certainly will use this at home and bring it with me on any trips where the laptop is coming. It’s light, relatively small for what it is and greatly helps with my hand position when typing.

The iRiser retails for $39.95 and you can purchase it directly from Matias or grab it from your favorite retailer. As a bonus, each iRiser also comes with a mini-iRiser for your iPod. Is it to coy saying ‘iLike it’?

Technorati Tags: irizer, laptop stand, review, gadget, my stand goes to 11

We’re going to be looking at a bunch of new gadgets here on ArsGeek in the near future. Things ranging from tiny SSD hard drives to ultraportable computers and all that fall in between. In my reviews I’ll be adding a new descriptive factor.

The YAG factor. Will whatever it is that I’m looking at add to my Yet Another Gadget factor? As it is now, I have my little MP3 player that goes everywhere with me, as well as my cell phone. On a work day (and what day isn’t a work day, really) I’ve also got my Archos PMP for movie watching, my laptop for getting work done and a least three or four random USB flash drives kicking around. How many more things am I going to be able to fit on my person? And what do I really need to carry?

If a new gadget comes my way and it replaces an old one, that’s fine. At least I haven’t gone up in the number of things I’m carting around with me. If new gadget comes in and replaces more than one of my old ones, well that’s going to rate pretty high in my book, unless of course that gadget it huge. My Laptop could fill in as my video/audio player as well but it’s a real pain to use when walking home.

Look for YAG factors in upcoming reviews. As your thinking about a product you can use this to take into account how much it’s going to weigh you down, what it’s multifunction capability is and whether or not it will be worth toting around.

Technorati Tags: gadget, yag, review, portable, portability

I recently had the chance to experiment with Wi-Ex’s zBoost zPersonal Cell Zone Extender, provided by RepeaterStore. What does all that stuff mean? Essentially Wi-Ex is marketing a product for home users to allow them to get an extra bar or two out of their cell phones.

At first blush this may not seem like a godsend. In fact it sounds a bit like those foil doohickeys that are sold by pushcarts in malls. The difference is twofold however. The zBoost will set you back a bit more than a foil strip, and the zBoost actually works.

I have to admit I was a little skeptical with this device. It purported to be easy to set up, easy to use and able to give you a full bar more than you’re used to in your connection. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the previous three points were all true.

On taking the ZP out of the box I found a white box about five inches by six inches with a 20′ mini-coax cable on the end of which was a plastic antenna with suction cups. There was also a power supply with a 6′ cable. That was it.

The deal? You plug it in, place the antenna on a window via the suction cups and then hang out within 6′ of the base unit. If you follow those instructions, you really will get better signal. This means much fewer dropped calls and the ability to do things like download new apps and media over the cellular network of your choice.

In the instructions provided it’s stated that your phone will need to receive at least one bar for this to work effectively. On a lark, I decided to put this product to the test and go beyond the specs listed. I brought the YX-300 to a friends house where no one has ever received a signal. I plugged the unit in, popped the antenna onto a nearby window and I was able to make a call. In fact, while I was experimenting with this unit, my friend received a call in the house – for the first time ever.

Yes, the unit does only have a four to six foot radius which can restrict it a bit if you live or work in a huge space but for the price ($169) and ease of use it would certainly be worth it if you are a victim of low signal strength. It will keep you connected and gabbing. It’s a dual band repeater and it works through wireless, which means it will work with most phones and you don’t have to attach anything to your phone.

The suction cups on the antenna make it very easy to plonk right onto your window and the easy set up means you’ll be talking on your newly boosted cell phone in two minutes or less. If you live or work in a smallish place where you’d really like to talk on your cell but can’t seem to get good reception I think you’ll benefit from this unit. After all, not being able to talk on your cell defeats the whole purpose. Maybe not the longest review I’ve ever written but I can say that the product works as advertised and if it’s something you need, you’ll want to pick it up.

Technorati Tags: cell phone, booster, repeater, extender, yx-300, zboost

One of the other features for educational purposes (or if you don’t understand a joke and you need someone to explain it to you), you will have the ability to write down notes as you’re viewing and access it later. There is also the option of letterbox or full screen; well, as much of a full screen you get on such a small device.

From my understanding of translating the main Nintendo site, it seems dependent on a signal and most may not be able to get reception. I’m having a difficult time finding all the stats and features in English at this time, but if it’s worthwhile, I’ll do an update after the release.

The video isn’t in English, but sometimes you needn’t speak a language in order to understand the coolness.
$89.00 US

Technorati Tags: Nintendo DS TV Tuner, WanSeg

Recently I was sent The Hulk, provided by Dragonlasers and my view of portable lasers is forever changed. The Hulk certainly lives up to it’s name. It’s the size of a small Mag light, takes C batteries rather than AAA batteries and pumps out 200 to 300 mW of pure green fun.

When this laser first arrived and I plugged in my two C batteries I noticed another immediate difference from my other green lasers. Like I do with all of my lasers when I first get them, which is usually around 2 in the afternoon on the sunniest day of the year, I turn the sucker on as soon as I can because I’m a bit impatient and I like to play with lasers. In a room lit by regular sunlight when you turn on a 95mW green laser you get a nice green spot on the other side of the room that will give you a slight headache when you stare at it. With the Hulk, you can see the beam – it’s still a bit faint but it’s definitely there, as is a larger green spot on the opposite wall.

Unlike other lasers I’ve used, the Hulk also features a lens shutter on the business end that must be twisted open before use and is there to prevent overzealous geeks like myself from blinding ourselves accidentally in our eagerness to shoot something with a laser. Another reason the lens shutter is there is because the Hulk doesn’t have a simple push to beam button. It features a click-down, no thumb needed on switch. You push it down and the laser is on. You click it again and the laser turns off. This means two things – first, my thumb didn’t get tired through a good hour of playing Jedi testing this laser. Second, the Hulk features an extremely effective heat sink meaning that there is no duty cycle – you can awe your friends and neighbors until the batteries run dry.

The pictures of course don’t do it justice. Think Blue Oyster Cult. Think Pink Floyd. I spent some little time illuminating my immediate neighborhood with this spectacular laser (it has a range of approximately 50 miles – a practical range (where us mere mortals can still see the beam/dot) of a few miles. After taking some photos and a video that does not do it justice I decided to put it to the ultimate test.

I brought the Hulk trick or treating with my family at Hallowe’en.

Short of producing an actual ghost or zombie, I found that nothing brings you instant fame with the 8 year old set quite like a flashlight sized laser. All I had to do was shoot a 10 second beam into the sky and I was swarmed with tiny Harry Potters and Pirates. The parents, who were a bit more reserved were still just as curious.

The most frequently asked question was “What do you use that thing for?” followed by “Where do I get one?” I explained that it could be used for building and securing line of site, sciences like astronomy, non-lethal defense and avian dispersal. When met with blank stares I said “It also burns through black plastic and can light matches,” Ah, here was something we could all agree was interesting.

I’ve logged hours of use with this laser and I can say that of all the lasers I’ve had time with, the Hulk is certainly the most impressive. It’s much like my previous lasers but larger in every respect. It’s certainly great for impressing my other geek friends and neighborhood kids. The practical applications are there as well (and some are listed below in the press release). The bottom line is if you’re a laser enthusiast or someone who needs a green laser to do their job you’d be hard pressed to find a better, more reliable hand held laser. If you’re just a regular person looking for some fun you may balk at the price tag ($899 for the higher output laser). But then, you’re probably not reading this article if you’re not just a bit interested.

Here’s the press release provided by Dragon Laser which contains more technical information.

I’m including a video done by the folks at Dragonlasers. I attempted a few videos but the results were less than stunning. Their video is much better and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a new camera and digital video recorder.

The Hulk portable laser is a hand held torch sized diode pumped solid sate (DPSS) laser with models ranging in power from 75mW to 300mW. Unlike the smaller laser pointers, the Hulk is constructed with a large and very effective heat sink, enabling it to be used continuously (no duty cycle) with out any damage or permanent loss of power.

The high energy green laser beam from the Hulk is produced when an infrared 808nm semiconductor laser diode pumps/lases a crystal which produces an infrared laser beam with a wavelength of 1064nm. This second beam is then frequency doubled to a green 532nm laser beam using an optical process involving KTP crystals.

The top model 200-300mW Hulk has a brilliant green beam with a range measured in tens of kilometers and well in excess of what the eye can see unaided. In practical terms, the beam has enough range to reach over head clouds and buildings or tall land marks in other suburbs.

In terms of burning, the Hulk has a beam that can light cigarettes, ignite matches, melt credit cards, burn clothing and crater tough consumer plastics such as computer keyboards and mice.

Like all high powered portable lasers, the applications for the Hulk and wide and varied, being only limited by the imagination of the user.

Some of the more common examples for applications of the Hulk are light shows, research, alignment and construction, avian dispersal, astronomy, experiments, photography, burning, bush walking & camping, education, defense & non lethal deterrent, entertainment and just plain fun.

More recently the Hulk has been used by coalition members in Iraq, engineers from Boing and researchers from Phillips.

Dimension 38mm x 210mm
Net Weight 225 Gram
Wavelength 532nm
Power Supply 2 * C Size Batteries
Working Current DC 3V
Diode Life Time >5000 Hours
Beam Divergence <1.2mRad
Beam Diameter 1.5mm @ aperture
Transverse Mode TEMoo
Operating Mode CW
Working Temperature 15C to 35C
Warranty 6 Month

Technorati Tags: hulk, dragonlasers, laser, green laser, 300mW, burn, blue oyster cult,

The first two observations I made when I opened my Neuros OSD were that the unit was a lot smaller than I was expecting (about five and a half inches by five and a half inches in size) and that it looked nice. This was no flat looking boxy apparatus, nor was it a standard component. It was curved, it was sleek, black and more aerodynamic than any other DVR I’ve come across.

I liked the size and the look immediately. Not only was this thing slick looking, but I could easily grab the RCA cables and the Neuros and bring it over to a friends house to watch whatever I’d recorded.

There are a few things that are fundamentally different about this video recorder which may take a little getting used to. First, this product is open. Not open as in the wind blows through it, but open as in anyone can hack around with the firmware, making changes and if they are for the better, giving them to the community. The second change is that this recorder really doesn’t have any storage of it’s own to record to. You’ll need to provide storage in the form of one of the many popular memory cards (complete list below), a USB drive or your networked share.

Taking the Neuros out of the box another thing became apparent. This would be an easy device to set up. You plug two sets of RCA cables into it and plug them into your source (digital cable in my case) and your output (a TV set with me). I plugged the unit in, stuck a 4 GB USB flash drive into the side of it and using the handy remote I turned it on. I set the playback device as Television, the recording device to my USB drive, the quality to normal and started recording. A half hour later I had a full television show recorded on my USB drive. Every port, every slot and every plug is clearly labeled in nice, white lettering. That’s great as well.

I took the Neuros out of my living room and plugged it into the bedroom television along with my USB drive and tested the playback. The quality wasn’t amazing but it was certainly good enough. In fast panning shots I noticed a bit of degradation but on the whole it’s not noticeable if you’re watching a sitcom or just about anything other than sports. You can also select different quality levels – recording at a higher level produces larger files but better frame rate and clearer images.

With the way storage is going right now, you can easily obtain a 4 GB SD card and pop it into the Neuros for easy recording. Need more storage and want to compete with other devices, not a problem if you have an external USB drive. You’ll need to plug another device in (the drive) but it’s certainly feasible to easily attach 300GB worth of storage.

Something interesting I was able to do was transfer an DivX file from my Archos 605 and pop it onto my USB drive. From there I could play it back via the Neuros without problem. This little device handles an incredible range of formats for video, audio and even image playback. I love that it plays .ogg files – this is my first device other than my Linux computers that supports Ogg Vorbis.

The interface on the Neuros is not the slickest I’ve seen but it’s also still under development. With each new firmware release the interface changes for the better. I enjoy the IR device that when placed over the IR receiver on my cable box can change the channel for me. It’s nice to be able to set up the Neuros to record several shows on different channels and then let the box do the channel changing for me. The Neuros is very easy to use, as simple as any device out there and is a fantastic example of Open Source in action.

This product can really be as powerful as you want it to be. If you’re an average home user, you pop an SD card into it and record content for as long as your storage holds out. If you’re a little more advanced, you connect it to your network, update the firmware (or download the firmware to your local PC and put it on an external drive to connect to the Neuros), record video to play directly on your PSP and stream video over your network. If you’re an advanced user and hacker, well you can change the way the Neuros works and make the experience better for everyone.

Pros: This device will record from just about anywhere, play on just about anything and use just about every format out there. Really, you won’t find more flexibility than here. It’s also open which I like on a very basic level. The firmware is constantly changing and making this product better. You can make it as simple or as complex as you’d like it to be. Everything you need to start recording, from the Neuros to the cables to batteries for the remote is included in the box. It’s not horribly expensive and it looks like a sports car.

Cons: In terms of user interface, there is still a bit to be done. Several times my unit froze up on my and had to be power cycled to get it back. I’d love to see a nice program guide for a more TiVo like interface. Wireless would also be great. And even though it’s listed in the pros, one con is that the firmware is constantly being updated to improve the user experience. If you’re not one to have this unit connected to your network at all times (like say, my parents) then you’ll never get the newest updates unless I show up at your house and plug it in for you.

At $229.00, the Neuros OSD won’t break the bank and will give you a full feature, take anywhere, record anything on anything and play on just about everything device. You will have to spend more money on storage if you don’t have anything laying about. With the price of flash memory coming down and the capacity going up, it won’t be long until you’ll be able to pop 30GB of USB flash memory into this box for less than the price of the box itself. I’d love to see S-video out on this, as well as wireless connectivity. Another cable snaking across the floor is not something I’m anxious to have. I’m interested to know if the Eye-Fi wireless SD card would work well with this.

For me, I love fooling around with my Neuros. If you’re at all technologically inclined, you’ll love it too.

Video Standard

* Compatible with NTSC, Pal and Secam (input only) standards

Video Recording

* ISO Standard MPEG-4 SP encoding (MP4, ASF)
* QVGA (320×240) @30fps with AAC-LC/MP3/G.726 audio for smartphones, PSP™, iPod™, iPhone™ and PDA’s.
* VGA setting (640×480) @30fps for PC, TV playback.

Video Player

* MPEG-4 SP with MP3 audio, 30fps up to D1 resolution (720×480)
* Quicktime 6
* MPEG-4 AAC-LC stereo
* MP4 format at up to D1 resolution
* H.263 with MP3 audio
* FLV (for Playback of YouTube videos)
* ASF
* AVI (including Divx and Xvid)
* MP4
* WMV (up to QVGA)
* MOV
* MPG
* MPEG

You can also see a more detailed table of supported video formats for playback.

YouTube browser

* Watch YouTube videos on your TV
* Search the entire Youtube library using keywords
* build a list with all your favorite videos

Photo Viewer

* JPEG decoder (baseline up to 32M pixel)
* BMP
* GIF (nonanimated)
* Thumbnail view
* Zoom in/out (2x, 4x)

Audio Player

* Stereo MP3/WMA @ 30-320kbps (CBR & VBR)
* Ogg Vorbis
* FLAC
* WAV
* Stereo MPEG-4 AAC-LC
* G.726

Features

* Schedule (timer) recording
* Customizable slide shows
* One-click record
* IR Blaster to control your set-top box
* Run 3rd party applications

USB Host

* Record to and playback content from any USB mass storage device

Ethernet

* Connect to your network
* Save recordings to network storage
* UPnP support
* Stream Audio/Video from Internet
* Download multimedia content from Internet
* Connect to Windows Networks (Samba client support)

Complete System Includes

* Standard A/V RCA Interface Cables (European units also contain SCART adapters)
* 110-240V AC/DC Power Supply
* Stand
* IR Blaster
* Remote Control
* Abbreviated Users Manual

Dimensions and Weight

* 14 x 14 x 3.2 cm (5.5 x 5.5 x 1.25 inches)
* Weight 230g (8oz)

Upgradeability

* System updates and 3rd party applications available at www.neurostechnology.com/support/
* Automatic built-in software update

Storage Card Compatibility

* Memory Stick: Duo and Pro Duo
* Compact Flash: Type I and Type II
* Microdrives with CF type II interface
* Secure Digital (SD)
* Multi Media Card (MMC)
* USB thumbdrives
* External Hard Drives

Technorati Tags: neuros, pvr, dvr, digital video recorder, osd, linux, media player, wicked awesome

These are the holy grails of gadgets. They are not perfect but they are designed so well that their imperfections are slight bothers and not major hindrances. The Archos 605 WiFi is such a gadget. I’ve got in my hands the 605 30 GB unit along with the DVR station for TV recording and playback. This review may be a bit long but if you’re thinking of getting a PMP, are on the fence about the Archos or are thinking iPod touch, you’ll want to read this as I’m going to get as in depth as I can.

Let’s start with the basics. The Archos 605 WiFi (I have the 30 gigabyte model) comes in four flavors. 4 GB flash with an SD card slot, 30 GB, 80 GB and 160 GB. From the name you can probably tell that it’s WiFi enabled. The 30 GB unit weighs in at a little less than half a pound. It’s my strong suggestion that if you purchase this unit, you get the DVR station as well, and you’ll want to pick up a few of the plug-ins too.

That might by one con with this – depending on how you look at it. You’ll pay $279 for the Archos 605. This is not a bad price at all for what you’ll be getting. Then you’ll have to pay about $90 for the DVR station. You’ll also want the Opera web browser plugin which will run you $30 and probably the Cinema plugin for $20. That’s $419 total. This seems like a lot – seems like a bit of nickle and diming as well. However, you can pick and choose what you want. As a stand alone player, the Archos is great, with the above added, it’s brilliant.

Now let’s dig into this PMP (Portable Media Player). To start with, the Archos is sharp looking. From it’s 4.3 inch screen to it’s right side buttons, this thing just looks sleek. It fits nicely in the palm of my hand. The touch screen is a thing of beauty – through some process of manufacture, fingerprints just don’t end up as smudgy blurs on the screen. The screen itself is a 4.3” inch TFT LCD which sports a resolution of 800×480 and sixteen million colors. While watching a movie, the image is sharp and crisp, even with the touch screen. It’s bright and easy to see, even in direct daylight or with the unit tilted away. The touch screen is a joy to use. While the unit comes with a stylus, unless you’ve got unnaturally large fingers you won’t have a problem simply using your digits.

Built in WiFi is one of the features that really makes this device. If you have a windows machine using Windows Media Player 11 it’s just a few quicks away from serving all of your media (movies, music and images) over the net via UPnP. Other operating systems can be set up to use this as well. If you have a media server anywhere in your house and a wireless network, you can expand the Archos’ capacity almost indefinitely. With the DVR station you can stream movies from your computer right to your television. With the browser plug-in you can surf the web with the touchscreen keyboard, storing your favorite sites and even using Opera’s tabbed browsing functionality. You can also access the content portal to purchase and download content. In addition to this, when I first turned on my Archos and connected it to a WiFi network I was prompted to check for new firmware. It automatically detected that it was at an earlier version and updated itself to the newest version.

The menus on the main screen are easy to navigate through the touch screen. I find it far easier to use than the buttons on the side with the possible exception of fine-tuned fast forwards in movies. From left to right, top to bottom the icons are movies, music, pictures, files, content portal, web browser, widgets and recorder. Let’s go through them and we’ll explore the Archos as well, with pointers towards what can be done.

Movies: Here’s where you can watch your movies. That’s simple enough. Touch the icon and you’re brought to your selection of movies stored on the device. Movie playback on the Archos is much more powerful than this however. You can purchase movies through the content portal (we’ll get to that in a bit) and you can watch your recorded content as well (again, more on this later). You can do a lot with movies and this device. It is of course illegal to steal content, but fair use does state that you can make a copy of your DVDs. If you do this (here’s one way with Linux) and you have the Cinema plugin for sound, you can copy your movies to MPEG-4 (DiVX) format as a file up to 2GB in size and transfer it to your Archos. The picture is clear enough that with my most watched videos, I’ve archived them on the unit and I simply use this and the DVR station to watch them on my tv now. It’s also great to be able to watch the Lord of the Rings extended edition trilogy while on the train. I’ve got all three of them on the Archos (that’s about 11 hours of film), Transformers, The Holy Grail and 300 on my Archos. And I’ve still got about 20 GB of space to spare. Everything included content recorded from the television plays crisply and clearly. I have run into a bit of a ghosting problem with some rapidly shifting scenes in a transcoded movie but this is an artifact of lowered frame per second rate, not of the Archos itself. If you can live with that you can easily store 40+ movies on your device and still have room for 20 or 30 CDs.

A few neat movie features that spotlights the little extras you’ll find all over this device. You can place one bookmark per file and up to 10 bookmarks on the device. If you’re in the middle of a movie or show and have to attend to something else, simply bookmark it and come back later. You can also pause your movie and grab a screen capture to use as your wallpaper. Additionally each movie has a few seconds as an animated thumbnail. You can choose the starting point for this from anywhere in the movie as well.

Music: With 30 GB of space, you can store a lot of music on the Archos. Music can be organized a number of ways, depending on how good or if it’s ID3 tagged. To play music, you’ve got to have it in a play list. This can be a bit clunky as the method for creating a play list isn’t terribly good. You find a song, and click the add to play list icon. There’s not a good way to add say 500 songs at once, unless you choose the Add All to the play list. Once play lists are set up however, it’s easy enough to access them. You can play the songs in order or repeat them. Pretty standard stuff. The Archos also comes with a 5 band equalizer and bass boost, all of which you can control through presets or custom settings. Sound quality with the included headphones is good.

Pictures: You can store tons of images on your Archos and bring them around for anyone to see. Create folders to organize them and then play slide shows with different transition effects. One neat bit of functionality is the ability to play sideshows while listening to music at the same time. With the DVR station (are you convinced you need this yet? No? You will be) you can also stream both to your TV.

Files: Here’s where you can access all of the files on your Archos, see how much space you have left, create or delete new folders and rename or remove files and folders. There’s a tabbed file browser with two tabs, left and right for ease of navigation. This is one area where the stylus is more useful as the files and folders are fairly small. While the Archos is connected to its proprietary USB cable to your computer, you can set it to two modes. The first is ‘Charge Only’ where you have full functionality while the battery slowly charges. The second is USB transfer mode. Here the buttons on the Archos are disabled and you can move files back and forth.

Through the settings menu on the Archos you can set your unit to one of three USB preferences. The first is Windows Media Device. With this you can automatically synchronize your media library with the Archos. The second mode is PC Hard Drive. In this mode you can connect it to your computer as a simple mass storage device (i.e. a USB hard drive). In this mode the Archos does not automatically update its ARClibary, so it won’t know what you’ve moved on there until you manually update your unit. This mode is good for Macs and Linux as well as older Windows systems. The final mode, the one that I use is PC Hard Drive (Auto-ARClib). This acts the same as the previous mode but when you disconnect it your ARCLibrary will automatically update to reference newly added content.

Content Portal: The content portal is where you can go to purchase plug ins for your device (like the Web browser), Archos accessories and content from third party providers. CinemaNow is the big one available. As a test I purchased 300 from CinemaNow. The movie is a bit over two hours long. It took me about an hour and 10 minutes to download the whole thing – a process that was interrupted by me accidentally turning the Archos off. The download showed as paused when I did this and got the unit back on. It easily resumed and finished giving me a high quality movie that weighed in at about 1.1 GB in size.

Web: While the web browser does not come standard with the Archos and must be purchase a la carte for $29.95 I’ve got to say that I love this feature. An on board virtual QWERTY keyboard makes browsing simple. Google is your default home page and through the web browser’s utilities you can save pages to your favorites, manage your cookies and browsing history and change a few other settings. Opera is the browser’s base and it comes enabled with Flash 7. This means that for most major video sites like YouTube or Google video you can watch films right on your Archos. The browser has a flash playing function which allows you to watch the video in full screen mode which is great. Another use I found for the browser (which is truly a geeky use) is to reference the d20 SRC online for role playing purposes. I no longer feel like I need to bring my laptop if I want to look up some simple rules or see a chart online. It’s all right there, literally at my fingertips. Flickr slideshows are also a lot of fun with the Archos.

There’s a magnification mode as some text is a bit small at 800×480 on a 4.3” screen. To scroll up or down (or left or right) you can use the buttons on the Archos or simply touch the screen and drag it with your finger or the stylus.

Widgets: This is an interesting one. When I activate the widgets I get this message: The ARCHOS Widget plug-in is planned for release in the fall of 2007. This free plug-in will give you access to great utilities (Calendar, weather, games, etc.) for those who have purchased the Web Browser plug-in. Sounds cool! Wait, it is fall 2007. Where are my widgets? If and when these become available they’ll certainly add another dimension to this little device.

Recorder/DVR Station: Another area where the Archos shines. To really use this functionality you’ll need the DVR station. for the sake of simplicity, I’ll be covering both of these in this section. Plug your DVR station into your television and (in my case) the back of your digital cable box and then pop your Archos into the dock and you’re ready to record television. Yup, it’s that simple. When you first tap the Recorder icon you’ll be prompted to download the channel settings for your area. You’ll have set this up previously when you first purchased your Archos and registered it online. You’re given the option to download between 1day and 2 weeks worth of programming, and to have your unit download this manually, once a day or every three days. Obviously you’ll need a WiFi network to make this bit work.

Once it’s done downloading your info you’re ready to record! How you do this is very simple. Poke about through your program guide, find a show you want and click it. You’ll get a description, along with the option to record it or cancel. Click the Record button and walk away. That’s it. Even neater is once you’ve gotten the channel content on your Archos, you can set it to record a show wherever you happen to have your unit. Once your home just pop it into your DVR station, put your cable box on the right channel and forget about it. You can set reoccurring recordings of your favorite shows as well.

More great things you can do with the DVR station – you can browse the web on your TV. Yes, that’s been done before but this option shines when you want to watch online flash videos full screen on your TV. Using the included remote makes it easy to browse as well as it has a tiny but usable full QWERTY keyboard built into the remote, as well as a mouse track for easily moving the cursor about. Click the grab button and move the cursor to scroll around a page.

There are lots of other things you can control on your Archos. You can set your themes, change your background, change the audio and video settings and output types, change it’s language and region, set the clock, change power settings, check for firmware updates and check the status of your plugins, and grab the MAC addy and set a few other system settings (like USB preferences) as well as access repair and reformatting tools. There’s even a built in PDF viewer.

Pros: If a digital music device has convinced you that taking your music with you is the way to go, the Archos will convince you that taking everything with you is the way to go. Just about the only things you can’t do with it are use it as a phone, check your email (unless of course you have web mail), and use it as a GPS system. The unit is sleek, easy to carry around, has a ton of storage available even in it’s second smallest unit, has a crystal clear touchscreen display, great video and audio quality, an easy to use and easy to navigate menu system and works well with Linux, OSX and Windows. You can play back everything on your TV with the appropriate accessory, and access the web

Cons: A few points that I don’t particularly like about the 605 WiFi. First, I’d much rather have a place to store a stylus than the rather flimsy kickstand that’s provided with the unit so you can set it on a table and watch it hands free. Second, the charge time through the provided USB connection is awful. It takes about 8 hours to fully charge the unit. Plugging it into the DVR station does reduce this time dramatically to about 4 hours. The music playing interface is clunky until you get the hang of it. If you’re purchasing this primarily as a music player you could do better, but having the ability to play music with everything else it does is great. Lastly, I have the icon for Widgets but there are as of yet no widgets I can use. I’d love to see things like calendars, games, weather reports and IM. Nothing in the cons list would be enough to deter me from using this however.

Quibbles: I’ve found you can’t manipulate files while downloading content. An attempt to delete some of the stock photos while downloading 300 caused me to get a Hard Drive Write Error: Check Drive message. I panicked for a second as my Archos was about 27 minutes old but realized that it’s an error that’s displayed when you’re trying to do two things at once with the file system. In addition to this, the a la carte extras may niggle some. The built in speaker is tinny and not all that loud – but it’s a built in speaker and one shouldn’t expect much from this.

The final take – if you’re looking for a PMP then this is the one for you. It far outshines the iPod touch, which is available in a 16GB model for $399. You’ll get all of the iPod functionality including the ability to browse the web (sans Safari), as well as the ability to record and play back television, a larger screen with better resolution and almost twice the storage for just $20 more. Don’t want the extras? You can still have 30GB of storage, touch screen and video/audio playback for $279. There are a few other extras you can pick up as well. A $30 mini-dock you can connect your Archos to your TV and stream media to it (although you can’t record). You can also pick up a helmet camera which is a bit of an odd accessory. There’s another plug-in I don’t have access to, the Video Podcast plugin, which will allow you to play native podcast files (.mov, .mp4, .m4v) on your Archos. Using this in conjunction with a free podcast organizer and download utility looks to be a neat experience.

I’ve been nothing but impressed by this digital media player. It does everything I could want it to do and more. The ability to record television (and output to the TV) as well as simply play videos and music is what really sold me at first and I’ve been happy with the results.

Capacity: 30GB* hard drive stores up to 40 Movies, 300,000 photos or 15,000 songs3
80GB* hard drive stores up to 100 Movies, 800,000 photos or 45,000 songs3
160GB* hard drive stores up to 200 Movies, 1 million photos or 95,000 songs3 Display: High resolution screen, 800×480 pixels, 4.3” TFT LCD, 16 million colors
Touch screen Video playback**: MPEG-4(4) (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution)
WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution)
With optional software plug-ins (available for purchase on www.archos.com):
- Video Podcast plug-in: H.264 up to DVD resolution and AAC
- Cinema Plug-in: MPEG-2 MP@ML up to 10 Mbps (up to DVD resolution) and AC3 stereo sound (5.1) Audio playback**: Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 Kbits/s CBR & VBR, WMA, Protected WMA, WAV (PCM/ADPCM).
With optional software plug-ins (available on www.archos.com):
- AAC5 stereo audio files
- AC3 stereo audio and 5.1 sound files Photo viewer***: JPEG, BMP, PNG PDF viewer: Reads PDF documents (may not implement all PDF features) Video recording6: Via the optional DVR Station/ DVR Travel Adapter. Records NTSC/PAL/SECAM in MPEG-4 AVI format with stereo sound, VGA resolution (640 x 480) @ 30 or 25 f/s Audio recording: Via the optional DVR Station/ DVR Travel Adapter: Stereo line-in, WAV (IMA ADPCM or PCM) format Interfaces: USB 2.0 High-Speed Device (compatible USB 1.1): Mass Storage Class (MSC) and Media Transport Protocol (MTP)
USB 2.0 Host: Mass Storage Class (MSC) and Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) with optional Mini Dock, Battery Dock and DVR stations Connections: WiFi (802.11g) connection. Optional Internet plug-in (Opera® Web browser and Adobe Flash® Player) for Web browsing (for purchase on www.archos.com)
3.5 mm mini jack for headphones
Docking connectors to connect DVR Station and other ARCHOS accessories Battery life: Music playback time: 177
Video playback time: 5.57 Power source: Internal: Lithium-Ion Polymer battery
Device charges via computer USB port
External: Power adapter/charger (via optional accessories) Scalability: Device automatically downloads latest firmware updates Dimensions & weight: Avg 122 x 82 x 15 mm/4.8” x 3.2” x 0.6” (For 4/30GB* models) – 150gr/190gr
Avg 122 x 82 x 20 mm/4.8” x 3.2” x 0.75” (For 80/160GB* models) – 260gr Package includes: ARCHOS 605 WiFi, headphones, ARCHOS USB cable, DVR Station Gen 5 adapter, protective pouch, Quick Start Guide (QSG), legal and safety notice.

Technorati Tags: archos, pmp, digital video, music player, movie player, DVR, PVR, record television, ipod, portable media player, divx, avi, opera, gadget, review

This product is from the same folks who’ve recently released the 32GB Flash drives for $399.95.

EdgeTech Corp’s little drives have a fairly slim profile which is nice if you’re looking to stack or use them side by side. Like most smaller USB drives, this one is light, compact and build with a swivel case.

The encryption feature which comes with the drive is simple and easy to use as an executable in your Windows XP or Vista (and probably 2000) machine. Unless an upgrade is purchased it will only encrypt up to 25MB in size however. Great for some papers or sensitive documents.

From their site:

The USB 2.0 DiskGO Flash Drive Enhanced for ReadyBoost serves as an additional memory cache allowing your computer to access memory much more quickly than it can from your hard disk. You can even specify how much of your flash drive memory to allocate to the flash drive. The recommended Windows Vista ReadyBoost setting is anywhere from one to two and a half times your actual RAM or system memory. Travel light and take your DiskGO Flash Drive Enhanced for ReadyBoost with you! EDGE is the only major manufacturer to offer a lifetime warranty on its flash drives.

All in all this little drive performs well with transfer speeds up to 480MB/s. 2 GB is great for tooling around in a technical shop and transferring files. If you’re planning on using this with Vista, it may be worth it to pick up for the ready boost enabled features and the lifetime warranty. The price isn’t bad and the price is nice. If you’re looking for 32GB worth of ultraportable storage and you’re willing to drop almost $400 you can’t go wrong with their new flash drive. I know I’ll be lusting after it if for no other reason than I can store all of my operating system ISO’s on it and create virtual machines wherever I go.

Technorati Tags: readyboost, usb, flash, encryption, thumb drive

I received this ghic chic pocket sized (that fits perfectly in the Scottevest hoodie ) video camera on Thursday. I must say that I’m very impressed with the make, convenience and ease of use for this little camcorder.

Not only does it record up to 60 minutes of anything you feel other people would want to view; With just a little “flip” you can connect the entire camera into your USB port and upload it to your computer, send it off to e-mail or edit it on the spot.

Features:

One touch recording with 2x zoom
Instant on-camera playback and delete
High-speed video sharing from any PC or Mac
One-click emailing of videos and video greeting cards
Cusgtom editing of movie mixes, with the option to set your own music
Capture of still photos from video
Built in tri-pod mount
Convenient DVD processing option at over 9,400 one hour labs nationwide

It has a flash memory and it’s non-upgradable but with the price $179.00 for 2GB and great sound quality (it’s all you really need if you just wish to capture your video game triumph, a co-worker making a fool of themselves, or that sponaneous moment in which you always wished you had a camcorder handy to share the memory) it does the job.

My camera is white/silver, however you can get it in black, pink and orange as well.

It was SO easy to hook up to my television and pretend I was a star… I’m thinking it’s time to capture the Xbox karaoke to promote myself as the next J-Pop sensation!

I took quite a bit of footage, including my confrontation with the first big bad on Resident Evil 4, but after capturing me screaming like a boy- I decided to save the remaining shreds of my cool factor and wait until I increase my skills a little more on that game before I capture it for all eternity.

Instead of awesome game playing or karaoke… you’ll see a mini-tour of my apartment (as the sun was setting so it started to get a little dark) as I wanted to hurry and put my review on the site before the work week swallowed me whole.

I definitely deem this product ghic chic worthy as it really is attractive, convenient, SO easy to use, built in software and omg it’s small without the need to whittle your finger tips so you can use it. It’s going to become a staple for my site and my daily life. Jonathon- you’ve been warned.

Ghic Chic

What will you see today? Visit The Flip
http://www.theflip.com/

Specs:

Dimensions
Height: 4.125″
Width: 2.25″
Depth: 1.25″
Weight: 4.9 oz.
LCD Screen: 1.4″
Video storage capacity:
30-minute camcorder: 512 MB of internal flash memory
60-minute camcorder: 1 GB of internal flash memory
Lens:
Focus: Fixed-focus
Aperture: f/2.4
Focal length: 35mm equivalent
Zoom: 2x digital zoom
Viewfinder
Electronic LCD-based color viewfinder (280 × 220)
Image sensor:
¼ inch 4:3 VGA-format (640 × 480) CMOS sensor
Active area: 3.58mm (H) × 2.69mm (V)
5.6 µm square pixels
Superior low-light sensitivity (>2.0V/lux-sec)
Preprogrammed auto exposure
Automatic white balance
Automatic black level calibration
Video capture:
Resolution: Full frame VGA resolution (640 × 480), 30 frames per second (fps), progressive scan
Format: MPEG-4 Part 2, Advanced Simple Profile (ASP), saved as an AVI file
TV output:
NTSC
Audio:
Microphone: Built-in microphone (on front of camcorder)
Speaker: Built-in speaker (on back of camcorder)
Battery:
Uses two AA batteries (Standard Alkaline or Energizer® e2® Lithium
Automatic power-off if inactive for more than 90 seconds
Connection Interface:
USB 2.0 connector via flip-out arm
Software:
On-board Flip Video program
Runs from camcorder when connected to computer
View, save and organize videos
One-click video emailing
Instant online video publishing
Simple editing and movie making
Capture still photos from videos
Accessories Included:
Two AA alkaline batteries
TV connection cable (audio/video)
Wrist strap
Protective carrying pouch
Quick Start Guide

Technorati Tags: Flip Ultra Series, Pure Digital, Camcorder

I’ve been spending a little time with one of Casio’s latest models, the EX-Z77 Exilim. The camera features 7.2 megapixels (effective) with a 3x optical zoom. On the back you’ll find a 2.6” wide LCD display. It’s available in four different colors, for the fashion minded (silver, black, blue and pink) and is a decent size for easy carrying and use. There’s 11.4MB of built in memory which you’ll want to ignore and get yourself a fast SD card instead. The EX-Z77 has a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery which is good for roughly 190 images. It ships with a battery, the battery charger, AC power cord, USB cable, an AV cable, a wrist strap and software. For a complete list of stats, check out the bottom of this article.

The EX-Z77 (and it’s slightly beefier in specs cousin the EX-S880) feature two new exclusive features. The first is the YouTube video capture mode. The camera records in MPEG-4 H.264 format, which “provides an ideal compression ration that allows users to record longer without having to sacrifice the quality of their movies”. Essentially it’s 640×480 resolution with up to 30 frames per second. The camera is packaged with Casio’s software which allows easy uploading from camera (or PC) right to YouTube.

the second exclusive feature is the eBay best Shot Mode. The camera takes images that are optimized in size for uploading to eBay, thinking for you it plonks the images right into an eBay directory for easy retrieval.

Another interesting feature packed into this camera is blur reduction. Blur reduction is achieved by using a combination of motion analysis, auto tracking AF and face detection. It essentially locks onto a person and won’t let go, even if they move. It judges the most appropriate shutter speed and ISO sensitivity and also pulls a bit from anti-shake technology.

For several weeks I’ve used this camera is my primary means of taking photographs and videos. Overall I’ve taken 215 shots with it and 15 minutes worth of video in varying conditions and under varying settings on the camera itself. In general the EX-Z77 performs well, with little delay between shots.

There are all kinds of modes available on the camera in addition to the eBay and YouTube modes. In all I count 41 modes, including one for voice recording. Built in photography and video modes can be helpful but I doubt if I used more than four of these modes for the few weeks I was using this camera, and I took photographs under a variety of conditions. Most common for me was simply the Best Picture mode, with occasionally switches to an scenery mode and a the Children or Pet mode.

An interesting mode is the Family First mode. This allow syou to store facial information for your family members inside the camera, which will remember them and pick them out using facial recognition. This is great if you want to focus on specific individuals out of a crowd.

At 7.2 megapixels, the resolution on this camera was more than enough to meet my daily photo needs. In good light photos came out crisp and clear. I found that in poor light, or indoors at night with indirect lighting some photos did appear grainy, even when on the appropriate mode.

The pause between button push and a photograph hitting my SD card were marginal – as good as any other similarly priced model on the market. I did notice that focusing was a bit slow however, which caused me to lose a picture or two with my 4 year old or a pet. The pause between pictures was marginal as well, what I am used to with other camera models. Startup time on this camera is excellent. From the push of the power button to the first shot barely two seconds will pass.

I did find some of the controls represented by menus on the camera itself to be a little clunky but I understand the reasoning behind digital menus as opposed to physical settings where weight and size are a factor.

YouTube mode is fun, the software provided is good at getting your videos online however unless you’re a dedicated YouTube video uploader, it may not be enough to distinguish this camera from other models. the included eBay photo mode also strikes me as more of an advertising point than a selling point. I’ve never had a problem sizing pictures correctly for eBay using freely available photo manipulation software. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to take that extra step or two and who uses eBay a great deal, this may be a time saver and a useful feature for you. Otherwise I wouldn’t give it much weight when considering this model.

As my daily camera for several weeks the Casio EX-Z77 was good enough, however it wasn’t stellar. If the multiple shooting modes, eBay photo mode and YouTube video uploading software are truly appealing to you, along with this cameras light weight and small size, then you will be happy with your purchase. If these modes are not something you absolutely need, you may want to consider a camera with fewer features at a lower price point. The EX-Z77 is a good, sturdy camera but doesn’t distinguish itself from the rest of the pack.

The silver model retails for about $200, with colors heading up into the $229 range.

Technorati Tags: casio, digital camera, camera, review, ex-z77, youtube, ebay, snap

EX-Z77 SPECIFICATIONS

Recently I acquired a pair of USBCell rechargable batteries.

The best bit? These NiMH batteries can be recharged right in your USB port. They take just under 7 hours to charge fully, and last quite a good bit of time in my heavily used Canon A570 Powershot.

I like the fact that their NiMH based, in that they’re not affected by battery ‘memory’ problems like the old Nickle Cad batteries, which would ‘forget’ how much they could hold over time.

I also like that, if you don’t happen to have a USB port handy (unlikely around here) you can also charge them in a standard NiMH AA battery charger.

One thing they don’t mention is the temperature while charging. My x60s which normally runs at about 114 degrees F is currently charging two USBCells and running at 124 F. Also, the batteries get hot to the touch while charging.

They’ve got a convenient rim which lights up while charging, starts blinking slowly at 90% and fades to black (nod to Metallica) when they are fully charged.

All in all, I’d recommend these AA’s to anyone who finds themselves using them a lot, such as Canon Powershot users. I’ll be stocking up when I travel overseas, as I’ll bring my laptop but I’m not keen on dragging a tone of batteries or a charger along with me.

Technorati Tags: review, gadget, hardware, usbcell, rechargable AA batteries, battery

I received my 80GB Rebit a few days ago. It comes smartly packaged with an instruction sheet. Not manual, sheet. 1 piece of paper. The instructions are as follows:

Get a rebit.

Plug it in.

So that’s what I did via the provided USB cable. In practical use it really isn’t that simple. There’s a third step, which is to click “Start protecting this computer with Rebit using the program provided on the device”. So three steps to a backup. That’s pretty good by any standards.

Once I clicked that, I received the handy message from Rebit telling me what it was doing.

I left the computer on and the Rebit running overnight as suggested and came back to find that everything was backed up. Now that is simple.

By double clicking the Rebit shortcut on the desktop, I was able to see the C: drive and my My Documents folder. Restoring this way is as easy as dragging and dropping the needed file or folder.

Rebit also boasts a bare metal restore option, using the provided boot cd.

You’ll want to get a Rebit unit that’s equal or larger than your current hard drive in size. It starts by backing up everything and then deletes the oldest backups over time, ensuring that there’s always space for new data. By hovering the mouse over the Rebit icon in the systray, you can get an instant status to ensure that the unit is functioning and that you’ve been backed up.

If found the units to be a bit on the pricey side for me but I’m sure many would be more than willing to pony up $219 for a 120GB unit, $189 for an 80GB unit or $169 for a 60GB unit simply for it’s ease of use. There are lots of folks out there who use the old ‘pray it doesn’t die’ backup method. For those who aren’t technically savvy or don’t want to spend time configuring a piece of backup software Rebit is perfect. It is literally a device you could plug in and forget about until you really need it. I love this little device for my XP machine. I love how easy it is and the fact that I can simply forget about it.

Read about our review honesty policy.

Technorati Tags: rebit, backup, windows xp, xp backup, easy backup, gadgets with frogs

After a long wait, I finally got my hands on this little MP3 player and got a good chance to try it out. (Edit: Now you can get one as well! We’re giving away two of these, as well as a Phillips 512MB MP3 player/voice recorder.)

This is the tiniest MP3 player I’ve gotten my hands on yet. It’s 53.67 x 35.34 x 12.82 mm, which translates into wicked small. It also weighs 25 grams or .0055 pounds in weight. This is tiny! Falling out of my pocket if I don’t get a case tiny.

In the box: The Zen Stone, ear buds and a 3” USB connector. It retails at $39.99

The Stone has about 1GB of capacity, and not only is it a music player but you can use it as a mass storage device as well, which translates into a 1GB thumb drive. It’s capable of playing MP3s, WMA and Audible files and connects to USB 1.1 or 2.0.

Sound quality is quite good. Taking on my self to be a guinea pig for you all, I loaded one of my favorite Sevendust songs onto it, and cranked it up until my office was shaking along with the music. Perhaps it wasn’t quite that loud, but it’s certainly loud enough for me, and then some.

The feature that I like best about this little player is actually the lack of a ‘feature’ I’ve found on most other players. That is, you don’t need any software to load music onto it or organize your tunes. All you need to do is treat it like any other thumb drive, and drop your music right into the Zen Stone. You can set up different folders to organize your tunes, and using a slide bar control on the Zen skip through your folders until you’re at the one you want. So there’s no software, but there’s no annoying hooks on how you organize your music. And best of all, I simply plug it into my Ubuntu laptop and start organizing tunes!

The controls, while small, are manageable. Play and pause are straight forward, and also act as the power button. Push the control disk to the left or right to skip backwards or forwards, up or down to raise or lower the volume. The unit is charged directly via the USB connection, although a separate USB charger is available for an extra cost.

The one control that is taking me a bit of time to get used to is the blinkenlight. There’s one LCD that flashes various colors to indicate the state of the Zen. Blinking green when connected to the computer means file transfer in progress. When not connected, it means it’s playing music. Red blinking means low battery. Red steady means paused and low battery. 3 blinks in red means battery depleted or no music files on board. If during playback, red blinking means a file format was encountered that the Zen Stone doesn’t know. If you get a red blinking light while turning it up, it means the max volume has been reached. Finally, Orange is the charge level. 1 blink means below 25%. 2 blinks means 25-75%. 3 blinks means 75-99% and steady means fully charged.

Phew! See what I mean? Perhaps there’s a better way to convey all of this information, but on a unit this small I’m not sure what that would be.
All in all I’m very taken with my Zen Stone. This little beauty holds roughly 250 songs, which is more than enough for me, and is the perfect size, so I don’t feel like I’m lugging along YAC (Yet Another Contraption).

If you’re into small size and great playback, then you’ll love this as much as I do.

Technorati Tags: reviews, gadget, zen, creative, stone, mp3 player, woo woo

What is a Zonbox exactly? It’s a solid state Linux computer, which means it has no moving parts – not even a fan. This makes for a very quiet computing experience. What comes in a Zonbox? Here are some stats:

• Intel-compatible ultra-low power CPU
• 512 MB RAM + 4GB flash-based local storage
• Graphics up to 1400 x 1050 (16 million colors). Hardware graphics and MPEG2 acceleration
• PC-compatible ports for keyboard and mouse
• 6 USB ports to plug-and-play all standard USB accessories
• Broadband ready: 10/100 Mbps Ethernet built-in
• Pricing: $99.00 for the Zonbox itself and plans as follows: 25GB storage $12.95/month. 50GB storage $14.95/month. 100GB storate $19.95/month.

Zonbox is also very environmentally friendly. In their words: With Zonbu, green doesn’t have to make you blue! With its efficient ultra low power design, Zonbu delivers the power of a traditional desktop computer but uses just a fraction of the energy. That could mean as much as $10 a month in energy savings for you — and might just help save the planet, too. Not only does Zonbu’s low power design reduce CO2 emissions, but by buying carbon offsets, we make the operation of your Zonbu device completely carbon neutral. Talk about guilt-free computing!

Read on for my review and some screen shots.

So what’s it really like to use a Zonbox? Keep in mind that this is still a beta project. As such I did run into a few odd problems but nothing that I’ve found seems earth shattering.

I unboxed the unit, plugged in VGA, sound, networking, keyboard and mouse (both USB) and hit the power button. I was greeted with the startup screen, which took about 1 minute to boot into. Once there I entered my email address and password. Here’s what I first saw:

Perusing through the Start menu I recognized a number of familiar programs. Here’s a partial list of what you’ll find in a Zonbox: Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice, Mujsic Library (Banshee), Mplayer, Photo Organizer (F-spot), Skype, Gimp, Scribus, Gimp, about 30 games including Frozen Bubble and Blobwars and a number of smaller utilities.

While the box is capable of playing games, I apparently am not.

The menus are well organized and easy for non-linux users to read. For example, instead of Scirbus you’ll see a menu entry for “Desktop Publishing”.

It’s a strange feeling to be doing work on a computer, browsing the web, playing media and not hearing a hard drive spin up or a fan whine away. Strange but nice.

Obviously, the Zonbox isn’t the most powerful computer and you won’t find the most recent desktop effects on it but it’s quite quick enough for basic computer use. I was able to surf the web, check my email, have Gimp open and listen to music with no noticeable lag in performance. For the users this device is targeting, the experience should be painless.

Zonbox has a documents folder created by default and available through the start menu or as the first icon on the desktop. It appears that it’s this folder that takes advantage of Zonbu’s offsite storage. Anything in this folder will be saved on the Zonbu servers (using 128bit encryption) for use anywhere in the world.

Adding a new folder is a snap, as is putting an existing folder onto the list of folders to be backed up and stored outside of your Zonbox. Simply drag the folder you want into the left hand ‘shortcut’ box of the browser and the folder will be saved.

Zonbu also offers a small (less than 2MB) download for windows machines which allows you to access your files remotely. Simply install it and click to open. Enter your email address and password and you have access to your files.

In addition to this application, your files are available over the web as well, again by entering your email address and password. Changes made to your files through the web or the windows client are reflected at your next reboot, or if you choose to refresh your files list on your already running Zonbox.

As far as out of the box ability, I’m very happy using the Zonbox. You can be up and running in easily less than ten minutes, which is a bonus for folks who don’t want to muck about with configuring a desktop.

I’m not entirely sold on the subscription model, but then that’s always been something I’ve shied away from. With the initial cost of the box and a 2 year plan at $12.95 a month you’ll end up spending about $410 over a 2 year period. Yes, you could purchase a cheap desktop for that amount, which is my gut reaction. But you’ve also got to consider that Zonbu backs up your data for you, meaning that in a crisis, it doesn’t disappear. And we all know how good most of us are at backing up important files. How often do you think the average home user does it?

Even if your box goes up in flames, Zonbox will replace it for you, and your files are still available online while you await your replacement.

Zonbu, in keeping with their green theme, also takes care of recycling your Zonbox should you ever end your service or upgrade to new hardware. They’ll take it back from you and see that it doesn’t end up in a a landfill somewhere.
Would I use this for my primary computer? No. I enjoy gaming and I enjoy complete control over my system. I didn’t like the fact that your storage space couldn’t be used to install new programs.

I would consider using this as a secondary computer, or a ‘family’ computer, stuck in the living room perhaps. The price is not terribly expensive and to know that your files are secure out there is a great feeling. I’d be willing to pay the $12.95 a month simply for that.

I’ve got a suggestion or two for the Zonbu folks as well. Make wireless a standard feature. I’d be a lot more easily sold with one less cable in my living room. Another suggestion – find a way to build in an SD card reader. The ability to plug photos right into this box and manipulate them with the Gimp, then upload them to flickr would also be a huge selling point. At least for me.

I think the folks at Zonbu are on to a good idea. I’m very curious to see how well this is adopted. I can think of plenty of practical applications for a small, silent and non-power hungry pc that costs a hundred bucks and backs up your files for 13 bucks a month.

Technorati Tags: linux, computing, solid state, zonbu, zonbox, zombies

I’ve got to say, now that I’ve gotten this little guy unboxed and hooked up, I’m initially very impressed with it.

The process went like this:

Open box.

Plug everything in.

Turn on.

Now I’m posting to AG.  I’ll be taking a much more detailed look at the box and the service over the next few days with a review forthcoming.

Executive Summery: Holy Crap! This thing rocks!

When I first received my package I ran into my one and only beef with this laser. And actually, it has nothing to do with the laser itself, but the lack of instructions that came with it. I eagerly shredded the envelope, opened the case with the laser in it and clicked the button.

Nothing happened. Being the tried and true geek that I was, and lacking an owner’s manual I resisted the urge to cry and spent the next minute or so tracking down the place where the batteries are inserted. See the image above, where that nice warning label is? Yeah, well it’s the other side. After a bit of fumbling and a wrong way in insertion of the two AAA I finally screwed the cap on. Knowing that lasers of this strength are a bit dangerous, I carefully walked over to my open window before clicking the button again and instantly blinded myself by accidentally reflecting a green laser off of my screen.

After a few seconds my sight returned and I was ready to have some fun with this green laser pointer. I this time stepped out onto my balcony, glanced at the moon (it was about 9:30 pm) and clicked the button.

That’s when my wife heard, from inside, me yelling “Oh my GOD!” She quickly came to the door and asked me to repeat my laser demonstration, and then she said “Oh. My. GOD!” We were both watching a very solid, pencil-lead thick beam of green light shoot towards the moon. It didn’t take long until a number of our neighbors were outside with us. I kid you not, one brought popcorn.

Now, let’s get some specifics on this green laser pointer. From their site:

Size: 13x150mm
Wavelength: 532nm
Laser Body: Black Polished Brass
Transverse Mode: TEM00
Output Power: 15mW – 125mW
Beam Divergence: 0.8mRad – 1.0mRad
Beam Diameter: 1.6mm
Power Consumption: 600mA
Power supply: 2 X AAA 1.5V
Battery Lifetime:90 min
Switch: Momentary On/Off Button
Expected lifetime: >5,000 hours

Our unit retails for $369.00.

The unit that I have is a 95mW output laser. This thing is FUN to use, and actually has some practical applications as well. In bright sunlight we were able to see the dot from this pointer at a distance of about 3/4 of a mile – that is across a golf course and into some trees. At night time the beam is clearly visible and it’s very easy to do things like point out stars, groups of trees or just about anything. We were able to see the beam from a cool mile away and most likely would have seen it from further than that if we had tried.

Here’s some video footage of what we were able to do with this handy laser:

We also found it great for the barbie. We were able to cook dinner with this over the course of several minutes. (Of course, we had the grill on as well).

It does interesting things when shone in a dark room at some glass objects (ice cubes work well also):

Unfortunately, our pics and vids of this laser operating at night didn’t come out all that well. What you’ll see is a series of green dots. What we saw was a very consistent, very bright laser. We’re not talking $50 laser pointer here, we’re talking Yoda’s light saber.

The pics and the videos really don’t do this laser justice. It’s very bright and very potent. Remember those practical applications I mentioned as well? This would be great for any astronomer out for a jaunt during the evening. Pointing out constellations, planets and the occasional UFO would be a snap. Bird watchers or wildlife watchers could use it at night or during the day to point out all sorts of beasties, provided they avoided searing their retina. Anything requiring someone to point out something precisely and at a great distance would benefit from this.

And of course it’s just a damned cool thing to have. I have to admit that in the 8 days I’ve had this laser, I’ve been outside each and every night using it. It’s just plain fun. Get some mirrors and you can have a blast. Same with ice cubes and other clear objects.

Cavtroop and I in our testing were able to burn a hole through a plastic trash bag in about 10 seconds of continuous use as well.

Bottom line, if you’re into this kind of thing, this is what you’ll want to get. It’s a great ‘entry level’ powerful laser to have. While it won’t quite make you Pink Floyd in concert, you’ll be able to impress your friends, and their friends to no end. The 25mW units would be great for presentations in large halls or wowing audiences. As you go up in strength, you get to the point where you can pop balloons and burn plastic.

I’ve owned a few laser pointers in my day, and this far exceeds anything I’ve had the chance to use.  If you’re a laser enthusiast, you can join others at Wicked’s laser pointer forum.

Technorati Tags: laser, wicked laser, executive series, light saber, yoda eat your heart out

First, let’s look at the specs. The reader is 6.9” x 4.9” and weighs in at about half a pound. That’s roughly the size of a slightly heavy paperback book. It’s got 64MB of internal memory and a slot for a memory card. It’s bundled with Sony’s CONNECT software, from whence you can download eBooks. It’s able to display PDFs, .doc files, JPEGs and can play MP3 and AAC audio as well. It boasts a 4000 page turn battery This unit retails for $349.00.

Now onto the nitty gritty. First, the good stuff. When the Reader was first fired up, it was a bit low on battery life. It was charged (and it only took about an hour to reach a full charge) and ready to go shortly afterwards however and we were reading away.

The reader itself is something of a thing of beauty. It’s light, solid and easy on the hands. It fit nicely into backpacks and travel bags without adding much in the way of bulk or weight. And the screen – let us wax poetic about the screen for a bit. It’s wonderful. The reader can be tilted this way and that, held upside down, or read from just about any angle where you can see the screen. Even with the sun directly behind, the screen is easy on the eyes. You won’t be squinting at this unless you’ve got a bit of an eye problem and even then, the text is scalable in several different levels, making reading easy.

The Reader did a good job in handling imported text files and obviously works well with it’s ebook format. When we imported some French language texts from Project Gutenberg it even handled the accents without a single complaint.

The audio output was equally good. We imported a number of MP3 files and playback was flawless using a standard set of headphones.

The battery life was also great. With over 5 hours of reading we’ve yet to recharge.

No gadget is perfect, and Sony’s Reader is no exception to this rule. Some issues we had with the reader were it’s abilities to scale PDFs. Sometimes the text isn’t very readable and the reader does not do a good job scaling images embedded in a PDF. We tested it with a standard IRS form (the W-4) as well as a copy of a Dungeons and Dragons book we had.

We’d love to see the next generation of readers come with a touch screen. While the menu is certainly intuitive, you’re limited to using buttons or scrolling up and down to make your selections, which feels a little clunky and artificial. A color display would be nice as well, although the trade off between color screen and readability/battery life may not make this one worth it.

Our only other beef was with the CONNECT software itself. While it ran well on our XP machine, there’s no Mac support at all however. We didn’t find the software intuitive at all. There was no drag and drop support for adding files to the library and we found that when we did, it was fairly slow to sync with the reader.

The system requirements for the software (Not supported on dual-boot machines, Not supported on machines that you have built yourself, Not supported on machines whose software you have upgraded from the original OS that came with it) seemed a bit, well silly to us.

I’m a gadget lover. I tend to overlook small imperfections in favor of general gadget goodness. Singedfur is a bit less forgiving than I am but also loves her gadgets. Together we’ve come to the conclusion that while the Sony Reader is lots of fun we just couldn’t justify purchasing one at this point.

While it was a joy to use, the steep price tag, along with having to pay upwards of $15.00 a title for new books is what will ultimately keep us away. We’d both be more than willing to overlook the other imperfections. If this unit were available at half the current cost, we’d probably be recommending it to you right now.

Having said that, if you’re a bibliophile and tend to travel quite a bit, the investment may be worth it. While it’s not cheaper than picking up a paperback at the airport store, the selection can certainly be much better and tailored to your tastes. And it sure beats stuffing five or ten books into your carry-on or luggage.

ArsGeek has a review honesty policy. We’ll never just regurgitate, we always spend time the product!

Technorati Tags: ebook, sony, sony reader, pdf, connect, bibliophile

Not through any fault of the unit itself but because my wife has it and wont give it back! I’m told I’ll be able to see my neat little DVR on the weekends, and possibly late at night if I can can stay awake longer than her.

In all seriousness, this thing is seriously fun. We’re still using the two AA batteries that came with the unit. We’ve recorded a bit over an hours worth of video with it and probably logged an additional four hours watching them on the LCD display or simply mucking about with Flip Video.

The software is very intuitive and very useful. It’s not just easy, it’s effective and fun too. Several friends and co-workers are running off to Amazon.com to purchase one for themselves after impromptu demos by myself or my wife.

I don’t get anything from Pure Digital for saying this or pushing their products but I can easily say that you’ll want to pick one of these up if you’re looking for an inexpensive and easy to use digital camcorder. It’s one of the few products I’ve used in the past few months that exceeded my expectations.

Would you use it?

How about if I told you it was $99, plus $12.95 a month and it would back up all of your data for you.  How about then?

I’ll have some more information for you all shortly as I’m expecting a unit to arrive in a week or so, along with a beta test invite for their software.  I’ll be not only beta testing this, but reviewing the unit so that we all can get a sense of what it’s like.

Personally I like the idea of a green computer with no moving parts (i.e. no noise to contend with) that also comes with an account which you can access (along with all of your data) from anywhere there’s a network connection.  They price includes break/fix (it seems) along with a free return of the unit when you’re done with it so it will be properly recycled.

The idea is great but I’m not sure folks will go for the pricing.  Would you spend $254.40 for a years worth of computing if your data was backed up and your computer would just work, right out of the box?  Is this the beginning of my predictions from way back, when I said that eventually computers would be given away and the OS would be a service delivered over a network?

What’s your take on it?

A few days ago we also received a Flip Video recorder from Pure Digital. They currently come in two flavors, a 30 minute unit (with 512MB of built in flash memory) or a 60 minute unit (with 1GB of flash memory). We received the 60 minute unit and spent most of the weekend using it.

Before I get into the review proper, let’s look at what a Flip Video unit has to offer. Each unit has a 1.4 inch LCD screen for viewing and playing back videos, along with a 2x zoom. There’s built in TV out capability (with RCA cables included), a flip out USB connector, hence the name, flash memory, a soft carrying bag, wrist strap and two AA batteries. It weighs in at just under a third of a pound and at 4.1” x 2.3” x 1.3” is just about the size of a standard deck of playing cards.

The 30 minute unit retails for $119.99 while the 1 hour unit goes for $149.99. In addition to plugging it into your USB port and saving and sharing your videos through your computer, you can also bring this into a number of retail establishments, plug it into a kiosk and pick up a DVD an hour later for $12.99.

Now, on to the my thoughts and experiences.

When I first opened the unit I was immediately struck by it’s size. The thing is small! It fits very nicely into the palm of your hand for video viewing and can be held with the thumb and your first two fingers for video recording. There are four buttons on the back and a 4 way controller. There’s power, play and delete with a big red record button smack in the center of the 4 way controller. The 4 way controller allows for zoom in/out while recording and volume up/down during playback (up and down arrows). While the unit’s on but not playing or recording you can push to the right or left to move through your stored videos.

I brought the Flip to a few different locations to test it. I also brought along my wife and my 4 year old daughter. We hit a few yard sales, and an outdoor fair. Pure Digital’s intention was to create an easy to us digital video recorder that wouldn’t break the bank and would also allow folks without a ton of computer experience to share their creations with the rest of the world. Let’s see how they did.

It took me about 5 minutes to get the unit out of it’s packaging and about 2 minutes to shoot my first video, which was about a minute long. So really, that’s one minute from out of package to shooting video. Like any geek I put the instructions aside for my first examination and found the power button on my own. Once powered up I pointed it at my cat and pushed the centrally located red button. That was it! When I had taken enough footage of the cat, I pushed the red button again and the recording stopped.

It takes about 10 seconds for the unit to power on. When it does you’ll see your current view through the lens and a bright green “Ready” at the top of the LCD with a display of how much time is left for you to record at the bottom.

While the Flip Video records there’s a bright red light on in the front of the unit and a flashing display of the current video length on the LCD display. When you push the zoom in/out controls it also displays your zoom level.

Clicking to the left or right on the 4 way controller scrolls through your saved videos, which are stored by number. Each video also displays the first frame on the LCD display. Playing a video is as easy as clicking to the left or right to find it and pushing the play button. Want to stop in the middle, push the play button again. Pushing the delete button while on a video will prompt the Flip Video to ask you if you really want to delete it. Push the button again for confirmation and you’re video is gone. Playback is crisp and the sound is good for the size of the single speaker.

The instructions that I had put aside earlier are in the form of a simple flip booklet and are smaller than the unit itself. There’s not really much too them and that is a testament to how easy it is to use this little video recorder. It’s not that the instructions are lacking, it’s that there’s not a lot you’ll need to learn to use it.

Easy to use? Definitely. While we were out and about filming at various locations I liked the fact that it powers up quickly and is ready to within 10 seconds or so. I didn’t like the fact that in bright sunlight it’s almost impossible to see the display, although the video I was taking did come out well. While it’s easy to carry around (in it’s carrying bag it easily fits into my pants pockets) I did notice that on a few occasions I would accidentally hit the power button and would hear the unit turn on in my pocket. Once I also accidentally deleted a video through the method of leaning against something and pushing buttons. Perhaps that’s not the best place to carry the Flip.

I also encountered one instance where I couldn’t get any video to play, even after powering the unit on and off several times. I could still navigate through the videos though and on a whim I deleted a short (~20 second) video. That seemed to do the trick as I had access to all of my other videos again.

After shooting about 45 minutes worth of video it was time to return home and check out the various ways of displaying videos. The TV out is extremely simple to use and it resulted in playback quality that quite honestly surprised me. You plug the provided cable into your Flip Video and the Picture in and Right/Left sound on your television. Turn on the unit and suddenly you’re looking at full screen video that was of a very decent quality. What surprised me even more than the video quality was the sound. Everything was clear and undistorted. I didn’t find myself cranking up the volume like I had expected either.

Getting your videos on to your computer or online was also and easy and painless process. I did this on my XP computer. Without even turning the Flip Video on, you plug it into an available USB port. XP immediately installed the necessary driver and the software launched. In about a minute I was looking at the Flip Video control panel. From there I could save my videos to my hard drive, email them, upload them to either YouTube or Grouper, send a video card or edit my videos (and add the music file of my choice).

I chose to upload a video (at the end of this article) to YouTube. I selected the video I wanted (you can select one video, a few videos or all of them) and clicked the upload to YouTube button. The software then converted my video to WMV format, and stored it in a folder on my desktop called Upload to YouTube. My default browser then opened to YouTube. Since I was already logged in (thanks to a cookie) I went directly to upload the video. In a few minutes the video was online. One thing I can say is that the audio isn’t as good as in any other playback. Whether that’s an artifact of the Flip or of YouTube I can’t say. I can say that watching a video on TV or on my computer was a pleasant experience.

Emailing a video was even easier. Click the email (or create an ecard) button and fill in the addresses you want the video sent to, your name and your email address. The files can be a bit large, as is to be expected with digital video but the delivery couldn’t be easier.

My final report: Flip Video is very impressive, for the price you won’t find anything better or more fun. Pure Digital Technologies delivered on the promised quality and ease of use and the price is a huge win for them and us as well. For $150 anyone can record digital video, save their files locally, watch them almost instantly on their television and get them out to their friends and relatives through email or on YouTube. At this price I’m predicting that this will be a very popular product. I’ll admit that I’m in love with this little video recorder after a weekend of use! My wife and daughter are also smitten which says a lot about it’s ease of use.

Technorati Tags: dvr, digital video, flip video, pure digital technologies, review, gadgets

I received my shiny new Blackberry Pearl last week. The Blackberry Pearl is Blackberry’s new foray into smaller devices, but still attempting to package the same features as their previous models. I’ll have a good basis for comparison, as my last phone was a Blackberry 8700c, one of their older fullsize models.

Hardware features

The first thing I noticed about the Blackberry Pearl is its size – it is approximately half the size of the old 8700c I used to use. It feels solid in my hand, but is not too heavy. One of the big complaints I had with the old 8700c was call quality – mostly due to the inability to easily place the ear speaker over your ear. There is no raised portion of the phone for guiding the ear speaker to the proper position, so you simply have to toss the phone up to your ear, then readjust until the speaker placement is correct. This problem exhibits itself in the Pearl, but to a lesser extent due to its smaller size. It’s a small nitpick, but one worthy of noting.

The Pearl comes with a built-in 1.3MP camera. The photos taken with the camera are only so-so. Even after adjusting the size and quality to ‘fine’, the picture quality isn’t good enough to warrant leaving your digital camera at home. If there is any movement at all, forget about it, the picture is almost guaranteed to be blurry.

The Pearl also features a speakerphone. I don’t use this feature on a regular basis (no need to annoy my co-workers like that), but the sound is good, and the microphone seems to pick up my voice OK, with no complaints from people on the other end.

The biggest change to the new Pearl is the removal of the fullsize QWERTY keyboard, and addition of Blackberrys new SureType keyboard. This keyboard sports two or more characters per key – a feature I was worried about when switching to the Pearl. However, in reality, the feature works great – I can simply type on the keyboard, and the Blackberry has a very high probability of choosing the word I want on the first shot. It takes some getting used to, but once there I am about 85% as fast as I used to be on my old 8100 with the fullsize keyboard. If by chance SureType chooses the incorrect word, you simply use the trackball to choose the word you want. SureType has surprised me with its accuracy and its usability, and I am very happy with the results, especially seeing as the integration of the smaller SureType keyboard enables Blackberry to cut the size of the phone way down.

The second biggest adjustment in coming from the Blackberry 8700c to the Pearl is the removal of the scroll-wheel and the addition of the trackball (the Pearl I would guess) on the front of the phone. I find using the trackball to be intuitive and easy. You can set the sensitivity lower or higher, but I find that it works just find out of the box. Using the trackball definitely makes navigating your email, the menus etc. much easier and quicker than the old scroll-wheel technology. The trackball is also a pushbutton, so navigation is truly a one handed feature.

The Blackberry Pearl also has two programmable feature buttons. I find one of the buttons to be too easy to press (I am constantly brushing it in my holster, and bringing up the voice dialing), and the other too tough, requiring two hands to press (one to hold the phone, the other to press the button). Otherwise, they work as designed.

Software features

To be honest, I don’t use most of the PIM functions built into the Blackberry Pearl. I use it mostly as a phone that integrates with my corporate email, allowing me to receive alerts and high priority messages off hours and on the weekends (I’m a Systems Engineer in real life).

The Blackberry Pearl has the same Microsoft Office integration as its predecessors. Meaning, if you expect to be able to read documents on your phone, you can. If they are simple. Editing a document is tough, as you run into screensize and formatting limitations. Exchange email integration is where the Blackberries shine – and always have. If your organization has the Blackberry Enterprise Server, you can expect to receive emails on your phone at the same time as in your Outlook client – sometimes even faster. Reading and responding to emails is a breeze.

The BlackBerry Pearl includes a Media Player, for Music, Videos, Ringtones and Pictures. I was unable to view simple .wmv files on the Blackberry Pearl, and the manual had zero information on file formats, etc. The picture viewer works, but it previews each file in the file browser, and this takes some time to compute. If you have more than a few pictures in any folder, it can take a while before you can scroll through them to view them. The sound from MP3 files is pretty decent, however it won’t be replacing your dedicated MP3 player any time soon. Ringtone support included Polyphonic, MP3 and MIDI, and all sound adequately good.

Conclusion

All in all, I’m very happy with my new Blackberry Pearl. It excels at what it is designed to do – email and phone. It is adequate for the rest of the functions – but if you wanted a multimedia phone, the Blackberry Pearl woudn’t be at the top of your list. My favorite ‘feature’ has to be the size – no longer do I have to carry a ping-pong paddle sized phone around in order to get the usability of a Blackberry.

Technorati Tags: Pearl, Blackberry, hardware review