The Technicist

New Sony VAIO TT ultraportable

Sony has unveiled the replacement for the VAIO TZ, which I feel is one of the best ultraportables on the market. Called the TT, it shares many of the same basic features as the TZ - 11.1" 720p LED backlit screen, built in optical drive, sub-3lb weight, under 1" thick, really high pricetag, etc. Sony would like us to know that the TT is the lightest Blu-ray compatible notebook on the market. (Speaking of TT, does Audi know about this yet?) The TT has some styling updates, with new colours including a Crimson Red reminiscent of the Toshiba X301 (but a whole lot sexier), and a whole lot more chrome. In fact, the design looks a bit like the VAIO CR mainstream notebook, especially the gold (or "Champagne", if you want the official name) coloured model. The TT offers the requisite component upgrades over the TZ - Centrino 2 platform, which means faster dual core processors and the X4500 igp, an HDMI port, available Sprint WWAN, the aforementioned Blu-ray disc (not standard, of course) and an option of two (2) 128GB SSDs in RAID for the fastest 256GB laptop hard drive you can imagine. Pricing starts at $2000, with the Blu-Ray model going for $2700, and the 256GB SSD model commanding $2750.

MacBook Air, eat your heart out.

Asus N10 "premium netbook" now on sale

Asus' N10 uber-netbook/ultraportable/thing is now up for order at Gentech PC. It has pretty reasonable pricing, starting at $579 for the N10E with the same 10.2" LED backlit WSVGA (1024x600) screen and Atom N270 1.6GHz processor in every new subnotebook release it seems like, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, Intel GMA 950 igp, and XP Home. This is when it gets more interesting - for $100 more, you can upgrade to the N10J-A1, featuring 2GB RAM, eSATA and HDMI ports, a 6 cell battery (N10E has a 3 cell), built in Bluetooth 2.0, a fingerprint reader, Vista Home Premium and a hybrid graphics system that allows you to switch between a dedicated Nvidia 9300M GS gpu and the Intel GMA 950 igp. Tack on another Benjamin, and you're into the N10J-A2, which gets you a 250GB hard drive and Vista Business on top of the standard N10J fare.

Now the N10J concept, as a whole, is pretty interesting. Its a netbook, except it has dedicated graphics, and in reality, is closer to the size of a 12" notebook like the Asus U6E rather than a true netbook like the Dell Inspiron E. Its like the Frankenstein of mobile computers - netbook screen, netbook processor, thin and light graphics card, ultraportable casing, no optical drive like an ultraportable, thin and light port selection and features - I could go on. But the N10 absolutely defies classification. I mean, its too powerful GPU-wise to be a netbook, and its too weak CPU-wise to be a real laptop. So I guess it might come under a really budget ultraportable, maybe - though still, most ultraportables have larger and higher resolution screens, more powerful processors, and lower powered graphics. Pretty interesting stuff, and after the dual core Atoms come, the N10 will truly be a powerhouse (by netbook standards...) But until that time, its just weird, an anomoly, and very likely one of the best mobile devices one can buy with $700.

Boy, do I want one.

(Image courtesy of Gentech PC)

Guess what I just got....

My nano arrived, in all of its golden glory. I love the colour, its a warm golden yellow colour that, due to the metallic finish, looks like actual gold (I compared the two just for the heck of it, and they actually aren't too far off...)

I've posted it all on flickr, so you can view the whole gallery there, but I'll post just a few pics here for your viewing pleasure.

And here's the flickr link - http://flickr.com/photos/30402255@N05/sets/72157607233676957/

Please excuse the blurriness of some of the pics - I took them in quite a hurry. Also, I will be updating the titles and descriptions shortly/as the day goes on/when I'm bored, so please don't mind the "DSC" titles and lack of captions.

I hope you enjoy! First look and review to come shortly.

 

So...day in review...

Apple's event is over, and there was a fair bit that went on. Just to recap:

• iTunes 8, with HD content, NBC shows, and a smart-playlist feature.
• iPod classic updated to a single $249 120GB model
• New iPod nano, with a vertical display, fully aluminum casing, glass screen, accelerometer, 8GB ($149) and 16GB ($199) capacities, available in nine vibrant colours.
• New Apple in-ear earbuds with dual drivers (woofer and tweeter) for $79.
• Updated iPod touch, with a speaker, volume buttons, thinner curved metal casing, built in Nike+ compatibility, available in 8GB ($229), 16GB ($299), and 32GB ($399) capacities.
• New games for iPhone/iPod touch - Spore, Real Football, Need for Speed Undercover (November)
• Firmware 2.1 for iPhone and iPod touch
• New colours for iPod shuffle

.....And I've placed an order for a yellow iPod nano 8GB. Look, its the first yellow iPod ever, how could I pass this one up?

Liveblogging the livebblogs....

Apple's got an event today, in about 10 minutes. Expected to feature new iPod nanos and a new iPod touch, along with minor updates to the shuffle and classic. On the software side of things, we may get something about iTunes 8 and iPhone firmware 2.1, plus the usual crowing about how iPods and iPhones and Macs are dominating the market. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything about new notebooks (come on Apple, the designs are 2.5 years old [MacBook] and 5 years old [MacBook Pro] respectively, they do need updates soon...and have for quite a while) so I guess we'll be waiting on those for a while. Currently, it is expected that there will be another event in October, so we'll see at that time. (And for the record, the Apple store is down, in a move that should hopefully surprise....nobody.)

10:00 - Steve is out, and the reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. I'll say....

10:04 - iTunes 8 releases today with HD programming, NBC shows....and something called Genius.

10:10 - Genius combines your music info with other user's music info and analysed by Apple independently to help tailor the results to your musical taste.

10:14 - His Jobsness is doing a demo of it onstage, and it appears to be just an auto playlist of songs generated based on what music you listen to, which makes it sound like Apple's take on Pandora.

10:16 - iPods control 73.4% of the Digital Audio Player market share, and there have been 160 million iPods sold to date. Pretty impressive stuff.

10:17 - the classic is upgraded to 120GB at $249, no mention of the $349 model, so I assume its been killed off.

10:18 - new iPod nano, looks just like the spy shots. Oval shape, thinnest they've ever made, also the most retarded looking. Its got the same display as the 3G, except now turned vertically, and it has an accelerometer and works with the Genius feature. Aluminum casing with curved glass screen, you have to turn it on its side for videos (like the Zune....), turning it horizontally in music menus takes you into coverflow, like on the iPhone/iPod touch.

10:23 - shake to shuffle, thats actually pretty cool, though Sony Ericsson did it with the w580 walkman phone last year. Similar battery life as the last nano, 24 hours music/4 hours video. And its environmentally friendly - lacks PVC, arsenic, mercury and is highly recyclable. Works for me...

10:27 - every colour under the sun, with silver, black purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and pink. $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB - 8GB available from today, 16GB available from this weekend.

10:29 - new in ear headphone, $79 - its probably going to suck, just not as badly as the old ones. Which isn't saying much - at that price, I'd rather have a number of different headphones...V-Moda Vibes, SkullCandy FMJ, Creative EP630, etc, etc, etc.

10:32 - and on to the iPod touch now. Its now thinner and got a built in speaker, volume control buttons on the side, Genius playlist creation, App store now built in (didn't it come with the 2.0 firmware?), enhanced UI (also in 2.0?), and now compatible with Nike+. Wait, scratch that. It has BUILT IN Nike+, which is nice. And the back is curved like the iPhone 3G now, though its still metal.

10:35 - 100 million apps downloaded on the App store in exactly 60 days it being open. How many of these Apps are actually in use again? like 4? Cause most of the free ones suck, and the ones that cost money are usually too expensive.

10:38 - Phil Schiller onstage to demo games. Starting with Spore, just released. Now Real Soccer 2008, which apparently ships today. AND NEED FOR SPEED UNDERCOVER! Ok, this one I'll have to buy, theres just no way I can stop myself. However, it probably won't be releasing today.

10:45 - Yeap, it'll be out in November. Based on the Gizmodo shots, it looks pretty decent, with proper graphical models and such. And His Jobsness is back on.

10:47 - iPod touch with battery life of 36 hours music/6 hours video. 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, 32GB for $399, and they are trying to market the iPod touch as a competitor to the DS and the PSP. And Steve, as if on cue, says "It's the best portable device for playing games." Colour me skeptical.

10:49 - Firmware 2.1 for iPhone! Free for iPhone users (improved battery life, a lot of bug fixes, faster iTunes backups, fewer dropped calls) and iPod touch users on 2.0, while touch users on 1.x get shafted again, $10 to upgrade to 2.1 for them.

10:52 - He seems to be wrapping up, Jack Johnson is now onstage to play music.

10:55 - new question, is it over, or is His Jobsness gonna come back with "...and one more thing" ?

11:02 - Jack is still onstage, playing music. If it ends here, I'm gonna be rather disappointed. An ugly nano, a stay of execution on the classic, and a rather pedestrian upgrade to the touch, along with iPhone games, firmware 2.1 for iPhone, and iTunes 8, which are decent, but nothing event worthy.

11:05 - they're done? Thats it? Ok then...see the above comment for what I think of it.

11:11 - Apple store is back up. Something I didn't notice before, the shuffle gets new colours! Silver is still there, the old Copper Sulfate blue colour and the vibrant shade of green are back from the first revision 2G shuffle, joined by a bright red (Product RED) and a magenta colour. I'm liking it, probably a better upgrade than anything else Steve announced today.

The Cool Wall!

So, maybe we should do a Top Gear style "Cool Wall", where we determine the coolness factor of various mobile devices. Now, of course, since we're looking at notebooks and smartphones and stuff, we'll have to change the rules that Clarkson and Hammond go by with the real Top Gear Cool Wall. Speaking of which, what are the rules those two go by?

According to wikipedia's article on Top Gear, "Clarkson and Hammond decide which cars are cool and which are not by placing photographs of them on to various sections of a large board. The categories are, from left to right; "Seriously Uncool", "Uncool", "Cool", and "Sub Zero". According to Jeremy, an important part of each car's coolness factor rested on the extent to which he believed they would impress the actress Kristin Scott Thomas." Now, I genuinely don't find her attractive, and shes like 50 years old now, so....

I think, if we change that guideline to "the coolness factor of a device rests on the extent to which you believe it would impress a good looking female companion" it would work well. Doesn't matter who it is, whether its Hayden Pannetierre, or Kiera Knightley, or Kristin Bell, or whoever suits your fancy, but each device should be evaluated to that standard. Now remember, this is not about how fast the computer is, or how well its built - its only about the coolness.

So I'll make a poll weekly to decide whether a device is cool or not, and keep a regularly updated "Cool Wall".

What say you?

Dell Latitude E6400 reviewed

The new Dell Latitude E6400 has been reviewed by John Ratesy over at Notebook Review. It appears to be a solid unit, with a 14" LED backlit WXGA+ screen, Intel's Centrino 2 computing architecture with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, Intel GMA X4500HD integrated graphics, a backlit keyboard, and a starting weight of just over 5lbs. According to the review, the build quality is great, the screen is excellent, the performance is pretty respectable, the battery life is good, and the design is refreshing, but there are a few negatives, mostly related to weight. When first announced, the E6400 was said to be only 4.2lbs, but even with a somewhat low end/lightweight configuration that John reviewed, the device weight was 5.1lbs. Another problem was that the power brick was unnecessarily huge.

I was most interested in this review, not with the system itself, but with the performance of the X4500 graphics. It performs almost on par with the 8400M G and 8400M GS that was found in the Sony SZ, Dell XPS M1330, Dell Insprion 1420, HP dv2500t/dv6500t, not to mention my Asus W7S. Finding that kind of graphical performance out of an integrated graphics card not even a year after the release of most of those laptops is pretty astounding, and speaks to the progress and strides that Intel has made with their mobile graphics chipsets.

New devices at my place

So, some new phones at my house. I sold my BlackBerry Pearl two months ago and bought a used iPhone 1.0, unlocked it using the Pwnage tool and am currently running it on T-Mobile's network. I don't have a data plan, just the same voice plan I had before with the Pearl, so for internet, I have to use WiFi. Not that big of a deal, since most of the places I go have networks anyways. How is it? Its fine, probably the ultimate convergence device and an excellent iPod and internet tablet, but not a very good phone. It works though, and its pretty good for texting due to the very good touch keyboard.

The Nokia N70, my new backup phone, is one of the most popular phones on the Indian subcontinent, and I can see why. Its reasonably feature packed, with the Symbian S60 smartphone operating system, a 2MP camera, and a videoconferencing camera in front, along with quad band GSM radio, bluetooth, MP3 playback and an MMC expansion card slot. I got the Music Edition, so it came with dedicated music controls and a 1GB MMC card bundled in the package. Picking up the phone, it is easy to understand why Nokia has such a high marketshare in India - the N70 has phenomenal build quality and feels solid to the touch, with a weight that gives it a very substantial feel in your hand, similar to the original iPhone. It has some issues, like the unremarkable screen, the cramped keypad, and the use of MMC instead of something more common like mini or micro SD, but taking into consideration the excellent build quality and the relatively good price for an unlocked phone (Rs. 8000 in India), these are just minor quibbles.

And lastly, the Samsung T819. Its just a midrange slider phone from the Korean giant (is that all they make for the US market now? Budget sliders on T-Mobile and the Instinct?) and has the standard slate of features at the midlevel - a 1.3 megapixel camera, MP3 playback, speakerphone, voice dialing, bluetooth connectivity, and A2DP stereo bluetooth. In fact, its like a cheapened version of the LG Shine - both are attractive, shiny, feature mirror finished screen bezels, and have rather middling feature sets. However, the LG has 3G, a metal casing that gives it a higher quality feel, and a metal keypad as opposed to the Samsung's plastic. The Samsung is pretty decent for what it is, especially considering that its the latest free phone that T-Mobile offers.

These are the latest gadgets that I've gotten to use, and there are more to come.

Dell's Inspiron Mini 9

Right, so Dell announced their new netbook, the Inspiron Mini 9, yesterday. Stupid name notwithstanding, it seems like a pretty solid system that comes with a major shift in conventional thinking. The Mini 9 takes the original EEE 701 concept and refines it with more modern components. I mean, the essentials are all the same - low voltage Intel processor, a small SSD, no moving parts, just over 2lbs weight, and a sub-$400 pricetag. Granted, it has a 9" screen as opposed to a 7" on the 701, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor instead of the old underclocked 630MHz Celeron M in the 701, and more flash memory across the board (4-16GB vs 2-8GB). A modern take on the original EEE? Sure seems like it.

Dell has taken a lot out of this system to keep it really simple, and are really promoting the Mini as a companion system (as it should be), giving them off at $99 per if you purchase one along with an M1530 or M1330. Get a base spec M1330 for $899, tack on a Mini 9, spend a grand plus tax for what is effectively two good notebooks - now thats a pretty sweet deal.

This bucks the trend of the netbook market, which for quite some time, has been moving towards larger, more expensive systems that can almost be standalone notebooks. They have things the Mini 9 lacks, like 10" screens, hard drives, and even dedicated graphics. The Asus N10 (N stands for Not-another-EEE) actually has a dedicated Nvidia 9300M GS graphics card - thats more powerful than my 13" notebook's GPU. Pretty much every netbook being announced has a 10" screen and a hard drive, from the EEE 1000H to the MSI Wind to even the newest ones on the block, like the Lenovo S10.

An interesting question arises about how this Dell will compare to larger systems like the base level MSI Wind or Lenovo S10, which feature hard drives and 10" screens, but due to using Linux and having 512MB RAM (same as the Dell) and 3 cell batteries (the Dell has a 4 cell), can maintain the same $400 pricetag.

The Dell will have better battery life by an hour or more, and will be smaller, lighter, and more durable, but it gives up so much storage space - 32GB stock, but those netbooks are running 2.5" drives and can be upgraded all the way to 320GB. The Mini 9 also will have a smaller screen, which isn't such a bad thing in and of itself, since the screens have the same resolution, but due to the larger footprint, the 10" netbooks have correspondingly larger keyboards as well.

It comes down to something of a compromise. For a true companion device, the Insprion Mini is probably the better choice, but for something a bit more stand-alone, the 10" netbooks are better.