The Technicist

Zune HD Hands-On

So I got my first chance to play with the Zune HD at the Best Buy promotion last weekend. It is a very well laid out device, and the capacitive touchscreen rivals the iPod touch in feel, while completely obliterating it as far as brightness and viewing angles go. OLED screens are awesome, no lie. Videos look fantastic on the  3.3" 480x272 display, and the 33/8.5 hour music/video battery life is unparalleled by anything Apple has on offer. There will be an App store in the Zune Marketplace, with games (such as Burnout, as seen in the promo video) and other things on offer, but not much information will be available until the September 15th launch date. XNA (Microsoft's game development studio) already got an update to take advantage of the Zune HD's nVidia Tegra processors. The Zune desktop software is also getting a major overhaul, due again to the app store and associated changes in the Zune ecosystem.

I still quite like the Zune UI, and it's surprisingly good for touch-based navigation. It's very different from the iPod touch, but it works well in its own right. The IE-based browser is nice and is powered by Bing search. It appears to work well, with smooth scrolling, but the virtual keyboard is smaller than the iPhone's and is thus not as nice to type on. In portrait mode, especially, the smaller screen makes a difference in the usability of the keyboard. However, with no email or texting, the keyboard will mostly only be used in the browser, so its not as big an issue as it first seems. Codec support is pretty solid - MP3, WMA/WMV, AAC, MP4, M4A - the standard stuff is supported, and with the Xvid/DivX support in Windows 7, those two formats are automatically transcoded in the Zune software. This is AWESOME. I would buy a Zune HD over an iPod touch for that reason alone (...but not an iPhone 3G. More on this in a minute.) It makes the Zune HD perfect for all kinds of downloaded video content that Apple and other mainstream manufacturers have been happy to ignore. So, gotta love that. 

Now, with that said, I'm not getting one. It looks fantastic, and the only minor criticism I can level at it right now is the smaller touch keyboard. With that said, its a Zune HD for $219 plus tax, or my friend's lightly used, perfect condition iPhone 3G for $200. Considering that the iPhone is a full convergence device that replaces my phone and requires no adjustment to my current computing life, along with charger that I get with the iPhone vs having to purchase one separately with the Zune, and monetarily, the iPhone starts looking a lot better. Plus, its not like I absolutely need Xvid support, its just that without Xvid, I probably won't watch many videos on my device. Its a purely convienience thing. And in the end, the iPhone has more of those conveniences, which combined with the lower price, gets me to buy. If the Zune HD had a GSM radio, we'd be having an entirely different conversation (and I think I'd have found my ideal device....) With Zune and Windows Mobile combined into one division, one can only hope that future Windows Mobile devices will get closer to the Zune HD in terms of industrial design and multimedia features. By that time, I'll be ready to switch from iPhone to something else.

Weekend Tech Bullets

I'm going to make this a weekend-ly thing, where I give a general update of the tech world at large and a look into what's happening in my repository of gadgetry. So, what's new?

• Zune HD is coming to my local Best Buy tomorrow, going to go check that out. The OLED screen is supposed to be sweet, and I'm hopeful that the UI and browser will be up to scratch as well. If I'm really impressed, they might even get me to switch from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem to the Zune side. Microsoft went with Nvidia's Tegra mobile computing platform instead of ARM's Cortex A8, and while this makes it far more impressive on the video side, it will be interesting to see how Tegra handles more mobile computing-esque tasks like web browsing.
• Speaking of the Cortex A8, how about the Nokia N900? It combines the flagship N series smartphone with the N series media tablets for what is sure to be an awesome device (and it's coming to T-Mobile later this year - I'm going be taking a looong look at this one when it's time to upgrade). It packs the aforementioned Cortex A8 processor (like the iPhone 3G-S and Palm Pre) along with 32GB of integrated flash memory and the Maemo 5 operating system, which is supposed to take over from S60 on the highest end Nokia devices. As S60 is now being moved down market to their midrange phones, the N900 represents a huge shift in the design philosophy of Nokia. As for the device itself, it looks like a shrunken N810 and promises to be even more of a multimedia powerhouse than previous N-series superphones. 
• The Always Innovating TouchBook is now shipping out to owners! I was initially really excited for the device, until it got killed for me (no webcam/video chat was a major downer, and I was never really enthused about the smartphone-grade CPU). It sounds like I made the right decision in not preordering one, since the first generation devices seem to have their fair share of rough edges. According to impressions shared on NotebookReview.com's forums and the ever-present Twitter, the device is prone to tipping over since most of the weight is in the removable tablet portion of the device, and one owner says his keyboard is pretty awful. The application start up is understandably slow due to the SD based storage system, and the device in general is apparently not the fastest (also understandable, given the ARM OMAP3 chip). Based on a video of the unit starting up, boot time is around 50 seconds. There are some bugs in the beta software package, including lack of out of the box WPA network support. Always Innovating will not send out review units of the TouchBook until the final software package is complete, so I am still waiting to get my first-hand impressions of the TouchBook.

In my personal technology life, there are some interesting developments (and by interesting, I mean that J&R Electronics is about to incur my wrath.)

• I got an email from J&R saying the Acer 1410 I preordered is now backordered. This had better be an automatic email and not actually legit, because it's now in stock at Amazon.com. If it doesn't ship soon, I'm going to be quite unhappy. More updates will be given as news warrants.
• I need a new iPod/MP3 player. My old 4th generation iPod (from 2004!) is still soldiering on, but it's definitely starting to show its age. 4 hours of battery life says I need something new. Looking at the new Zune HD and potentially the new iPod touch. Except, a friend of mine is selling his iPhone 3G (the same one I bought the original iPhone from, actually)...and I kinda want it. Between a new iPod touch and an iPhone 3G, I think I'd rather go iPhone, even though the touch will have a faster processor and slightly newer features. The iPhone will have a PHONE, meaning I never have to attempt to send a text message with my N70 ever again! So unless the Zune HD truly blows me away tomorrow, I may end up with another iPhone.
• The MSI is still on its way to working. Its a motherboard problem, I'm pretty sure. Probably a bad capacitor or something along those lines.
  

I'll have a post up about the Zune HD after I get my hands on it tomorrow.

Making It Rain

So, this is what a cash representation of the now-departed Toshiba NB205 looks like - a half inch thick stack of bills. Thank you Staples, for adding another step to my return process - putting the money back into the bank. (Who the heck authorized a return in CASH? It was a $430 computer, for God's sake! What would they have done if I had bought a real laptop? Given me a shopping bag full of $20 bills?) Mercifully, the rest of the return went quickly and smoothly. "Was there a problem with the unit, sir? Why are you choosing to return it?" Me: "Uhh, no, the unit is fine. But in order processing sucks, so I decided to return the Atom-based netbook to purchase a notebook with a real processor." Yeah, she just gave me a weird look. Maybe I'm too much of a nerd for my own good health.

Anyways, for better (probably) or for worse (probably not, though, I just traded in a Toshiba for an Acer - oh god), the Toshiba is gone. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't very good and overpriced by a ways. Let's try scaling netbook pricing down by a good 30-40% and see where we are then. 

J&R.com has no idea when the 1410T units are coming (much less shipping), and as of the second day of preorder, there were over 2000 preorders, mine among them. I'm hoping before the end of September, but if something nicer comes out, I think I'll have no qualms canceling. I've been an Acer hater for so long, but I feel oddly optimistic that the build quality in the new Timeline series won't suck as much as Acer quality has in the past. Still, the thought of having bought an Acer and actually being eager for it to arrive is a very foreign concept to me. I've tended to hate Toshiba's too, but I actually didn't mind the NB205 - my returning it is more a result of me questioning the netbook market as a whole and nothing really personal to the device. I will admit, the Dell 11z made me question my 1410T decision for a full quarter of a second before realizing that I definitely got the better deal. Celeron processor, not-full-size keyboard, Dell's famously ludicrous option pricing ($150 for a 6 cell battery??!!!!), tax - yeah, no, I think I'm fine, thanks. However, that new HP 11.6" CULV notebook that's supposed to come out soon....I might have to consider that one, so long as HP takes themselves seriously and makes it reasonably priced (unlike the dv2z, which, as the AMD alternative to CULV, looks pretty bad now).

CULV ultraportables - netbook killers?

For the longest time, the netbook market has stagnated, with no truly innovative or revolutionary products coming out since the debut of the Atom processor. Now, with the release of Dell's CULV-running thin and light, the Inspiron 11z, confirming the arrival of CULV ultraportables, the netbook market will be forced to reinvent itself to remain relevant. 

First, the 11z. Dell's contender in this segment features an 11.6" LED backlit, WXGA screen and is based on Intel's Consumer Ultra Low Voltage computing platform, similar to Acer's Timeline 1410 and 1810 notebooks. It weighs 3lbs, comes with a Celeron ULV 723 (1.2GHz) processor, 2GB of memory, 250GB hard drive, no DVD drive, Intel GS45 integrated graphics, and 3 hours of runtime on a 3 cell battery, all for the low price of $399. First things first, the Dell's got some issues. For $50 more, the 1410T gets you a faster, more power efficient Core 2 Solo processor and a 6 cell battery offering 6 hours of runtime (Dell charges $150 for a 6 cell battery - ludicrous). The 92% sized keyboard is a glaring oversight - why wouldn't they use the extra width necessitated by the screen to add a full keyboard? Acer did it. Dell's options are pricey, but the only processor option is the low-end Celeron unit. And with HP set to release their own 11.6" CULV system in the very near future, the competition in this segment is only going to get hotter.

However, comparisons with other CULV units aside, what does this new brand of ultraportable spell for netbooks? Since they occupy the same $399/449 price range as the newer and higher end netbooks (Asus 1005 - $389, Toshiba NB205 - $399, Asus 1008 - $429, Asus 1101 - $429, Samsung N120 - $439, Lenovo S12 - $449; just for examples) and offer superior performance, more features and better usability in a similarly sized package with essentially no drawbacks, how can netbooks compete? Simple - they can't, not successfully at least.

To see where netbooks need to go, we must look back to see where they came from. Back in June 2007,  Asus dropped a bomb on the computer world with the original 7" EEE PC. It was low powered, lightweight, and was supposed to launch at $200. That's where netbooks need to be. $200-300 devices that weigh 2lbs and don't complicate themselves with things like a mechanical hard drive or HD video or any of the like. Intel's new Pine Trail platform, featuring the Atom N450, will help streamline the hardware with a dual-chip solution - combining the processor and graphics chip onto a single chip (the other chip being the chipset controller). With Pine Trail, 16-32GB of flash memory, 10" WSVGA and WXGA LED backlit screens, and a gig of RAM, the hardware can be easily done for under $250. So long as Pine Trail handles Windows 7 well, netbooks can, by going further down market to the $200 pricepoint we all expected them to reach, find even more success and generate more interest in the segment once again.

NB205 impressions part III

Here's the glossiness of the screen for you:

 

Do I even need a mirror? It's pretty terrible for reflectivity, even compared to other glossy screens.

 

Even on full brightness, I can see my hands on the keyboard. I don't know why Toshiba chromed out the screen, of all things. The whole rest of the device has a matte finish, so why did the screen need to be blinged? Its just annoying. In comparison, the W7s is highly understated. 

It takes forever to charge - I plugged it in for an hour, with about 10% battery remaining, and when I took it off charge again, I had around 21% capacity remaining. (As I type this on the Toshi, I ask myself - is TypePad's editor really that resource intensive? I'm lagging, a lot. It shouldn't be this bad. I want a CULV machine.)

Today was a travel day, so not a lot of computer usage and not much to share, other than to mention that switching from the W7S to the NB205 is a pretty painful experience. I've pretty much covered all of the parts of the Toshiba that stand out to me, and I have to wonder, really? Laptop Mag's "best netbook ever made", Editor's Choice winning, etc, etc, this is it? Maybe it was killed by my high expectations, but I feel rather underwhelmed by the NB205, especially when CULV ultraportables start hitting netbook pricepoints. Vive la révolution technologique!

Acer Timeline 1410 - bye-bye netbooks

Acer discontinued their 11.6" netbook, the Aspire One 751, a few weeks ago in order to make room in their lineup for the 11.6" variant of their Timeline series of notebooks. Called the 1410 (or the 1810T in Europe), the budget ultraportable features Intel's CULV platform and a 1366x768 11.6", LED backlit screen. 8 hours of battery life comes standard courtesy of the 6 cell battery and Core 2 Solo SU3500 1.4GHz ultra low voltage processor, and the rest of the specs are fairly standard, with 2GB of DDR2, a spacious 250GB hard drive, Intel GMA 4500HD graphics, 802.11N, and Vista Home Premium. Dimensionally, it's pretty small, not a lot of wasted space compared to other notebooks: 11.22" x 8.03" x 0.87-1.18" (W x D x T) and 3.08lbs. For comparison, my new Toshiba NB205 is 10.4" x 8.3" x 1.0-1.27" and 2.93lbs. Yeah, deeper, thicker, and nearly as heavy. Both have 6 cell batteries and around 8 hours of battery life, but the Acer packs a larger screen and far more computing power. Also, wider Acer has a bigger and more usable keyboard. A couple of nice features: the 1410 has an HDMI port to take advantage of its HD video playback cabilities, and Acer has made it eligible for the free Windows 7 upgrade when 7 goes retail this October.

The real kicker in all of this? The price - Acer has released this thing at $449, or $50 more than any NETBOOK. This is a pretty solid ultraportable going for netbook money. How can you pass that up? I'll take mine in black.

Toshiba NB205 - further impressions

After a bit more time using the Toshi, I've got a few more impressions, some good, some bad.

• The screen is really reflective compared to both Asus notebooks that I have, even though all three are glossy. After keeping the rest of the casing mostly matte, I don't know why Toshiba felt compelled to overgloss the screen. 
• The heat vents on the side are really good looking and feel Apple-ish, a feeling that is enhanced by the silver colour of the chassis.
• The power button placement is odd. Not a problem, but it is kind of weird. Totally nitpicking, though.
• THAT TOUCHPAD. Man, I love it, so much.
• 2GB of RAM might help the sluggishness, but...its XP. It shouldn't need more than a gig of memory to function well. I remember when I ran XP perfectly well on a 2GHz Celeron and 256MB of DDR 266.
• I used it as a companion machine to my workstation at work all day yesterday, still didn't run out of battery. I spent today working on fixing my MSI (getting there - its booting now, and it runs...sometimes, when it isn't shutting down randomly....we'll see) so I didn't take the Tosh out, which means I have yet to ever charge it. The long-lasting battery feels so...liberating, after dealing for so long with the Asus and its 2 hour battery life. I think this is the first time I've ever had a laptop with legitamately good battery life (well, second, after the Dell Vostro I had with a 9 cell battery, but I didn't keep that for very long). It's simply awesome.
• Kevin Tofel said that the keys are the same size as on a MacBook. I'm not buying it. The MacBook's keyboard has the same spacing between keys, but a lot larger key area to actually press. Not nearly as squished and suffocating as the NB205. 
• The more I use them, the more I fall out of love with 10", 1024x600 res screens. Seriously, I need my WXGA resolution, and I don't care if I go blind trying to read it. There just isn't enough screen real estate provided by WSVGA screens, especially on a nearly full-size, notebook style device. 10" WSVGA screens aren't as dense as I'd like them, in general. VAIO P, here I come (how's 1600x768 on an 8" screen for pixel density, eh?)

Picture of the screen gloss coming tomorrow.

Toshiba NB205 - cure for the itch

So, remember that itch I had for a new gadget? Well, I scratched it last night, and now welcome the Toshiba NB205 to my gadget repository. After reading Kevin Tofel's posts on JKontheRun and seeing his twitters about it, I decided to take the plunge and go for it. Some early impressions:

• Its actually a pretty good looking and well designed device. The Mocha Brown colour that I purchased is pretty elegant and doesn't clash with the silver, while the contrasting matte and glossy/shiny textures give the device a high quality feel. I don't know about the huge bezel though, it adds some unnecessary bulk to the device.
• Toshiba needs to EASE UP on the bloatware. An hour of work at it, and its still running 55 processes at start-up. By comparison, my old HP Mini 1000 had something like 40, including an IM client and skype.
• The touchpad is HUUUUUGE. Kevin's pictures noted it as big, especially compared to other netbooks, but this has a far larger touchpad than my real laptop, the 13" Asus W7S. It's even bigger than my 14" Asus W3J! Now we know why the bezel is so large. 
• Good old Atom...I don't remember it being this slow, and this Toshiba has the faster N280 processor with a much faster hard disk. Maybe its the 60 processes killing system resources.
• The keyboard, in typical Toshiba fashion, is woeful. If I return this, it will be because of the keyboard. The keys themselves look and feel like the metal dialer keys on pay-phones, which is kinda charming...for about 30 seconds, until you start typing. Then it starts bugging you. And then you notice that, unlike the aforementioned phone booth keypads, these keys have flex! And the layout is bugging me, with the useless tilde key moved from the number row to next to the spacebar. Not only does this make the keyboard smaller, it messes up the alignment of the numbers. Good job, Toshiba. /end rant
• I really like the new Intel palmrest stickers...shiiiiny
• 7+ hours of battery life, I'm at 63% and 4 hours 32 minutes to go. Nearly full brightness, on the Toshiba power profile, just web-surfing and blogging. We'll see, it looks pretty good. The battery sticking out the back does not bother me.
• My first chance to use XPize - its pretty sweet, not gonna lie. Makes XP feel modern again, so its kind of like a lighter and more friendly version of Vista Basic. Hmm, maybe XPize is the one that's slowing the system down so much...
• If I keep it, I'm going to install 7 RTM. We'll see. The more I type, the more I hate the keyboard, and honestly, the mousepad can't make up for it.
• Even turning off power management doesn't help with the keyboard lag when typing in the Typepad editor. Hmm, Atom wasn't this slow even under Win7...The only things I have running are Firefox, Skype, Battery Bar, and the 22 different Toshiba utilities that won't go away.
• The laptop stays pretty cool when just doing basic tasks, so the fans almost never run. This makes for nearly silent operation.
• I feel like the open SD card slot is going to collect a lot of dust. 
• Sleep and charge feature sounds like a really good idea. I'll see how well it works in a little bit.
• I'm seeing a lot of reviews saying the speakers are terrible, and the few times I've heard them do nothing to disprove that notion, but until I get some Linkin Park onto here, I can't be certain. 

The NB205 looks like it should be a great device, but that keyboard may end up being a deal breaker for me.

3 month break from blogging...now over

I'm back! And, after a summer of electric vehicle research at a national lab, better than ever. During my absence from the blogosphere, there have been many changes in the technological world, and a lot of new and exciting products are on the verge of release. Windows 7 (Oct 23rd), Zune HD (Sept 15th), new iPods (Sept 7th), new netbooks and notebooks releasing in a steady stream, more smartphones, the works.

Revisions to my gadget repository...The major change is my iPhone being gone, I gave it to someone more in need of it than I. Currently, I am using a good old Nokia N70 runnign S60 2nd Ed, which at this point barely qualifies for smartphone status. It has an unexpectedly decent camera (on par with the iPhone), and it works well as a phone, so I can't complain. I blew out my V-Moda Vibe Duos (not that it matters, since I no longer have the iPhone), so those need to be fixed; in the meantime I am using a set of Shure E2g's. My two Asus notebooks are still running strong, though the DVD drive on the W7S is starting to fail. Annnd I've got the gadget itch again, this time for a netbook/UMPC. More on this later today.

Musings from the earbud chronicles

There are headphones and earbuds strewn on my desk, in my desk, behind my bed, in their cases, in plastic bags, in plastic bins, in the trash can, in the closets, on the bookshelves, in the cupboards, in the drawers, on the floor, and in my ears.  Roughly half of them are functioning; a quarter desperately need disposal, and the remaining I'm too sentimental to trash.  As far as I know, they span creation dates from around the late nineties to winter of this year.  They range in worth from nothing to more than I would ever spend, which is why most of my friends are technology collectors who can apparently spare the extra set or two that doesn't fit into the iPhone. [Don't look at me like that... -Tech]

I like music immensely.  I have a soundtrack running in my head, one that doesn't stop even when I sleep.  Given that I can't live without some sense of melodic sound in my head, it's pretty important that I have something to listen to music with.  I can recall enough sadly quiet days when I've left my headphones in my desk but managed to sling my Sansa into my bag all the same.

But all the same, even though I've been listening to music daily since the fifth grade (yes, I was using one of those godforsaken CD players with whirring noises and whiny buttons, along with a pair of clunky over-the-ears that were guaranteed not to damage my hearing, and thus made my music unintelligible.  I survived by listening to classical until I learned about speakers), I wasn't picky about sound quality or leakage until I started riding the bus in my first year at university.  I quickly learned that I hated iPod headphones. They looked uncomfortable, they screamed MAC! RICH! APPLE!, and they made percussion instruments sound like a symphony made of angsty toddlers with pots and pans.  However, as I realized one day as the brunt of a very malicious stare from a heavily lipsticked fellow bus-rider, my over-the-ears 90s-style headphones were leaking pretty badly too.  I'll admit that when I took them off and had a good secondhand listen, I wasn't too fond of Clay Aiken anymore (that might have been sarcasm). 

I switched to earbuds.  I figured that if my spongy 90s-style cuffiete weren't going to seal in sound,I might as well use more compact ones.  I've never been good with cords with wires in them, and the idea of not literally tearing up the wires was a pretty nice one.  Those earbuds gave me earaches; they were hard black plastic with no cushioning and five little drilled holes for sound.

Then my Faustian contract with the earbud devil ended, or at least something bad happened and they split into several pieces, potentially taking parts of my soul with them.  I moved on to a pair of sony somethings that had little hooks to go over my ears.  I left them in a lounge at university and, naturally, did not find them the next day.  I made do with my old clunky headphones.  College students do have budgets... at least, the ones who aren't majoring in engineering, such as the lenient TechniMaster, who allows repressed linguistics students to post random novice musings.     

It was another half a year before I bought myself a pair of knockoff "nice" earbuds from Ross for a grand total of 3.99 + WA state tax.  They squished in my fingers and actually let me turn the volume down to the third notch on that outdated Sansa.  Then they spontaneously combusted one day, and I found half of a small metal something in my left ear a few hours later.  Where the rest went...

Then the TechniMaster lent me a pair of iPod earbuds, and I succumbed to looking like an Apple fanatic, only to disappoint the Macfans when I pulled out a scratched little Sansa c250.  Or maybe I had the e200 by then.  In any case, I maintained my status as an anti-iTunes Seattlite only internally.  I still didn't have enough money to buy an iPod... and I still don't.  Grad school calls.   

Those were replaced by another round of the same, presumably just to make me the saddest technology poser.  Those, in turn, were sporadically deposed by a funny little keychain-earbud-explosion-of-pink-things ensemble that were actually a bit fluffy and kept my ears from being scratched--I suffer from small ears, which makes most earbuds of low quality relatively painful... and completely unstable.  My career as a runner ended when they refused to quietly live in my hearing organs.  

Finally, through some random turn of luck, I walked up to my doorstep with a pair of Shures in ear.  They have an odd tendency to pick out the conversations I want to hear least and cancel all other noises, but given that I can finally put the volume on the lowest setting and still be groaning a little about the reverberation in my head is quite fair.  Considering that my playlist includes some Japanese and Nordic metal, that ringing is well justified.  The Shures are so far indestructible, boasting insanely thick wires that refuse to abandon their phone-cord ringlet shape and guarantee to last for anyone other than technology impossibles (read: me). [And me, apparently...she got the replacement set Shure sent me for the E2c's I broke. -Tech]

However, I consider myself a social climber on the ladder of headphones, and if I've accepted some welfare along that way, it's worth the maintenance of my 24/7 soundtrack (the costs have been minimal).  Even if I've been banned from Ross for bringing back crumpled receipts and shattered earbuds.