Gadget Report

It is nice to remember sweet memories

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:42:00 +0000

It is nice to remember the sweet memories in your childhood. To keep memories, you can collect memorabilia that can remind you to your sweet childhood. You can collect your favorite movies or favorite television shows when you were young. Before buying memorabilia, make sure that you get useful tips on how to get top quality products.

Shop Wiki is a portal that you should check to get such advice. They present guidance on how to get the best Collectibles and Memorabilia. They understand that you want to get high quality memorabilia for your collection. Therefore, they come to make your search easier. No matter what kind of memorabilia that you search, they have the guidance for you. If you like watching movies and you want to get an impressing Movie Memorabilia, Shop Wiki presents much information about it. They inform you the tips to get the movie CD or the posters. Maybe you also watched sport competition a lot when you were young. Now, it is a good idea to memorize it by getting Sports Memorabilia online. Shop Wiki has the information on popular sport memorabilia starts from sport costumes to sports card.

Many kinds of memorabilia are available on the internet and this is the time for you to grab them. Please visit Shopwiki.com to get complete information on memorabilia buying guide. Have a nice memorabilia search with Shop Wiki.

Need a Baby Stroller ?

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:41:00 +0000

Shopwiki, smarter way to shop in the internet. All that people needed are available in Wiki Buying Guides directory. It's useful for a smart people that always use internet for searching all things that they need.

For new parents that need a few things for their babies such as a Baby Stroller. It can easily find using search with keyword Strollers. I have used it, and i found a carriage strollers for my children less than 6 months old. Description show that stroller is very good for my baby, full-featured with plenty of safety elements, a full canopy, and a lots of padding.

I'm very comfortable to use shopwiki for smart buying. I get Very smart and useful info about the product that i need

Apple iPod Touch (second generation, 8GB)

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:08:00 +0000

The good: The Apple iPod Touch has a large, video-worthy screen, a cutting-edge interface, and Wi-Fi Internet, e-mail, and music download capabilities.

The bad: The iPod Touch may cost too much for you, depending on your needs. It has a small capacity for a portable video player.

The bottom line: The iPod Touch is a beautiful product, inside and out, but prepare yourself for sticker shock.

Specifications: Device type: Portable media center ; Dimensions (WxDxH): 2.4 in x 0.3 in x 4.3 in ; Display type: 3.5 in

If you find yourself dazzled by the Web, video, and music capabilities of Apple's iPhone but can't stomach the contract commitment, the iPod Touch might be just what you're looking for. Offered in 8GB ($299), 16GB ($399), and 32GB ($499) capacities, the iPod Touch is a premium-priced device with an attractive set of features for a midsize portable video player. Still, the Touch's limited storage capacity makes it a difficult choice when held up to higher capacity products like the iPod Classic or Archos 605 WiFi.

Design
For better or worse, the iPod Touch is clearly the iPhone's baby brother. Like most products that roll out of Apple, the Touch shows the love of committed designers, hardware engineers, and usability experts. The iPod Touch measures a slim and pocketable 4.3 inches by 2.4 inches by 0.31 inch, with an all-metal-and-glass design that feels as expensive as it looks. Because nothing will ruin a portable video player faster than a gouge across its screen, we're happy to see that the face of the Touch uses the same scratch-resistant glass found on the iPhone. Most users will still want to buy a protective case, however, since the iPod Touch feels a little fragile and the back is covered with the glossy, scratch-prone, smudge-loving chrome exterior common to most iPods.

Although the iPod Touch (center) shares most of its features with the iPhone (left), it is technically a sibling of the iPod Classic (right).

There are only two physical buttons on the iPod Touch: a button on the face of the player used for calling up the main menu; and a screen deactivation button found on the top-left edge of the case. The iPod Touch is controlled largely using an icon-based touch-screen navigation menu nearly identical to the iPhone's, but with greater emphasis placed on music, photo, and video playback.

The two design details that distinguish the iPod Touch from the iPhone are the downward-facing headphone jack and volume controls. In the absence of dedicated volume control buttons, the Touch gives users the ability to bring up an onscreen volume slider by double-clicking the main menu button. The same volume screen offers controls for playing, pausing, and skipping through tracks.

When it comes down to it, the iPod Touch's most unique selling point is not its feature set, but its interface. You can find products that offer more features, as well as higher quality audio and video performance, but you won't find any other product that can match the feeling you get using the iPod Touch interface. In the absence of jetpacks or flying cars, the futuristic novelty of zooming photos with a pinch of the finger or flying through your music collection in Cover Flow is difficult to quantify into a bullet point, but it is probably the most justifiable reason to invest in the Touch.

Features
The iPod Touch draws 99 percent of its features from the iPhone. While iPhone owners have zero incentive for buying the Touch, the rest of us now have a way to get our hands on many of the iPhone's features without costly and contractual AT&T service plans. The bad news is that the iPod Touch does away with more than just the iPhone's phone capabilities--it also gives up built-in speakers, microphone, camera, and Bluetooth. Remaining features such as a Safari Web browser, POP/IMAP e-mail, YouTube video portal, photo viewer, music player, video player, stock tracker, weather forecaster, notepad, and iTunes Wi-Fi music store still place the iPod Touch on the cutting edge for portable video players, however. In fact, at the time of this writing, the only product that can even compete with the iPod Touch's combination of a Wi-Fi-enabled Web browser, wireless music store, wide-screen video playback, photo viewer, and audio player, is the Archos 605 WiFi.

One of the few notable features that put the iPod Touch ahead of the iPhone is the ability to output video and photos to a television using an optional Apple AV cable, Universal Dock, or qualifying third-party video accessory. We are a little disappointed that the iPod Touch is the only iPod that does not support a generic USB storage mode, but we doubt many users will be upset by this.

Audio format support is unchanged from previous iPods. The Touch supports standard and purchased AAC, as well as MP3, Audible, WAV, AIFF, and Apple Lossless. Video format support is likewise unaltered from the H.264/MP4 files playable on 5G iPods, as well as the third-generation iPod Nano and the iPod Classic. The Touch supports video resolutions up to 640 by 480 at 30 frames per second.

The iTunes Wi-Fi music store lets you browse, preview, and download music over a Wi-Fi Internet connection.

Safari
The Safari Web browser found on the iPod Touch is more or less the same great browser found on the iPhone, minus a few features. For instance, when using Safari on an iPhone, street addresses, e-mail addresses, or phone numbers displayed on Web pages can instantly launch a location map, phone call, or impromptu e-mail anywhere with mobile phone reception. On the iPod Touch, however, maps and e-mail functions require Wi-Fi reception, and phone calls are obviously out of the question. Our major complaint using Safari on both the iPod Touch and iPhone is its incompatibility with Flash-based Web objects, such as embedded video players and music players.

Despite these few limitations, using Safari on a small mobile device like the iPod Touch is still fun and useful. The intelligent touch-screen keyboard and multiple browser window management are a big plus. Beginning with firmware Version 1.1.3, iPhone and iPod Touch users can now use Safari to save bookmarked Web pages as menu screen icons, providing quick access to commonly-used sites.

iTunes Wi-Fi
Both the iPod Touch and iPhone allow users to browse, preview, purchase, and download music from the new iTunes Wi-Fi music store. The store is limited strictly to music downloads--no movies, TV shows, podcasts, or games--at least, not yet. You'll have to hop onto an available Wi-Fi Internet connection to take advantage of the wireless music store, but once connected, you can search for any artist, album, or song in the iTunes catalog, as well as browse by genre, top sellers, featured artists, and new releases. Store purchases require you to enter your iTunes password as a security measure. Once the download is complete, the song is immediately available to listen to and will transfer to your computer's iTunes music library the next time you sync the device. The feature seems to work without any kinks. Even interrupted downloads pick up once a Wi-Fi connection is re-established.

Apple has also announced a partnership with the Starbucks coffee chain that will allow iPhone and Touch users the ability to access a Starbucks-branded version of the iTunes Wi-Fi music store when the device is used at participating cafes--without paying to use the hot spot. We doubt that anyone will purchase the Touch based on this added functionality, but it bears mentioning.

Firmware 2.0 improvements
Launched in July 2008, version 2.0 of the iPod Touch's firmware adds support for many third-party applications available in the iTunes App Store. Developed primarily for the iPhone 3G, many of the iTunes App Store applications let you extend the functions of the iPod Touch to include features such as streaming Internet radio, sophisticated video games, and instant messaging. You can download App Store applications directly to the iPod Touch using a new App Store menu icon, or load them through iTunes after connecting the Touch to your computer.

Some of our favorite music-related applications for the iPod Touch include AOL Radio and Pandora, which let you stream music directly to the iPod Touch over Wi-Fi. Apple released an application called Remote which transforms your iPod Touch into a full-featured remote control for your computer's iTunes music library or a separate Apple TV system.

Wish list
Complaining about the iPod Touch's lack of FM radio or voice-recording features feels like complaining about a Porsche's lack of cup holders. Still, there are some missing features on the iPod Touch that we would have enjoyed. High-capacity SD memory card expansion is at the top of our list of most-wanted features for the Touch. We could easily forgive any PVP's limited built-in memory capacity if the option of SD memory card expansion was available (the Archos 405 or Creative Zen are perfect examples of video players that give us the option to expand).

We'd also love to see embedded Flash support in the otherwise fabulous Safari browser. Whether video content from sites like DailyMotion or Viddler or music from Web sites like iMeem and Muxtape, embedded Flash media content is a big part of the Internet media experience. And while we're being picky, we also stereo Bluetooth transmission and the ability to use the Touch as an external storage drive like the iPod Nano and iPod Classic.

Performance
Putting aside the Touch's sleek design, futuristic interface, and innovative feature set, the quality of its audio and video playback rank only slightly above average. The iPod Touch reportedly uses the same audio chipset as the iPhone, but a different one than the iPod Classic. The Touch offers good audio quality, but not the stellar audio we were hoping for in an expensive product. The audio issue is compounded by Apple's long-standing history of preventing iPod users from defining their own custom EQ settings. Apple's 20 built-in equalization presets are handy, but there's just no substitute for rolling your own five-band EQ curve. With the Touch's emphasis on video playback, it would have been especially useful to have a surround-sound emulation effect similar to the Cowon A3's or Sony NWZ-S610's.

We've heard some complaints about the iPod Touch's video performance, but we found the overall quality to be good. Viewing angles are less than great, producing some color and contrast shifting from even slight tilting. We also found that the glossy glass screen kicks back a lot of glare. Still, despite the common complaints, the Touch is unquestionably the most video-worthy iPod yet.

Apple rates the iPod Touch's battery life at 22 hours for music playback and 5 hours for video. Our CNET labs found that the iPod Touch lasted an average of 23 hours for audio playback and 6 hours for video--which is better than expected, and more than adequate for a few in-flight movies.

The iPod Touch comes with a small, clear plastic stand for hands-free viewing. It took us only two days to lose it.

Final thoughts
We think the iPod Touch is a great product with lots to offer, but its premium price tag should give some shoppers pause. Don't assume that Apple's most expensive iPod is the best solution for your needs. If you're planning on watching a lot of video, high-capacity products like the iPod Classic or Archos 605 WiFi will allow you to load entire seasons of your favorite TV shows. Also bear in mind that if you're not around an available Wi-Fi network, features like the Safari Web browser, Internet radio, e-mail, iTunes Wi-Fi music store, and YouTube video portal won't mean much at all. While the iPod Touch may not be the slam dunk we were hoping for, it is an unquestionably cool product that continues Apple's legacy of sleek, innovative design.

Apple MacBook Pro 2009 (2.66GHz, 17-inch)

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:40:00 +0000

The good: New aluminum unibody construction comes to the 17-inch model; useful multitouch trackpad gestures; attractive edge-to-edge glass on display; dual graphics provide more power or more battery life.

The bad: All-clicking trackpad is a bit awkward; matte screen option costs extra; switching GPUs is not as seamless as it should be.

The bottom line: A little late to the party, Apple's redesigned 17-inch MacBook Pro joins the 15-inch model with a redesigned aluminum body, new trackpad with expanded functionality, and a dual-graphics setup for either longer battery life or better performance.

Specifications: Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.66 GHz) ; RAM installed: 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM ; Weight: 6.6 lbs

When the latest 13- and 15-inch MacBooks were announced in October 2008, a similar revamp of the larger 17-inch version of the MacBook Pro was conspicuously missing from the lineup. In January of 2009, Apple announced the 17-inch model would be getting the same "unibody" aluminum chassis, buttonless (or more accurately, all-button) trackpad, and edge-to-edge glass on the LED backlit display. It's actually taken until late February for the systems to start shipping, but finally big-screen fans can get all the latest and greatest Apple improvements in a desktop replacement design, starting at $2,799.

Internally, Apple has moved to a Nvidia chipset with improved integrated graphics, which is then paired with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics card that can be turned off and on as needed to improve battery life or boost performance.

The MacBook Pro, while expensive, remains a go-to for media professionals, and the new 17-inch version will be an especially welcome addition for photo and video types who have wanted the latest graphics, chassis, and trackpad upgrades in an HD-friendly 1,920x1,200 package.

Price as reviewed	$2,799
Processor	2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory	4GB, 1066MHz DDR3
Hard drive	320GB 5,400rpm
Chipset	Nvidia MCP79
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce 9400M (integrated) and 512MB Nvidia 9600M GT (dedicated)
Operating System	Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Dimensions (width x depth)	15.5 inches wide by 10.5 inches deep
Thickness	0.98 inch
Screen size (diagonal)	17 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter	6.5/7.2 pounds
Category	Desktop Replacement

At a little bit less than 1-inch thick, this 17-inch desktop replacement is actually thinner than some of the chunkier 10-inch Netbooks, such as the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. Like the current 13- and 15-inch MacBooks, the 17-inch Pro is constructed starting with a solid block of aluminum, which is carved down, rather than a thin outer shell that has had support struts added to it. The result is a lighter and thinner, yet stronger, chassis that feels very solid and substantial.

The glass trackpad is the same as found on the smaller MacBooks, and offers a much larger surface area than before, thanks to the elimination of a separate mouse button. In fact, the entire trackpad depresses like a button, although simple tapping, as on a PC laptop, will also work once you turn that option on in the settings menu. While it seemed massive on the 13-inch MacBook, we could actually stand to have an even bigger version on this model.

With its multitouch gestures, you can hide all your apps by sweeping four fingers up on the pad, and you can also designate one corner of the trackpad as a "right-click" zone. Very useful, as well, is sweeping four fingers left or right, which brings up the application switcher. Once you get used to that, going back to a regular trackpad would be difficult.

The wide-spaced, flat-key keyboard is an Apple standard, and we're always a fan of backlit keys, which are standard on the Pro and also available on the higher-end 13-inch MacBook.

The 17-inch wide-screen LED display offers a 1,920x1,200 native resolution, which is particularly useful for working on 1080p HD video content or editing large photos--two tasks MacBooks are associated with.

The colors are rich and deep, but the glass also grabs stray light rays with ease, making the glossy screen seem that much glossier. Adding a matte-screen coating is now an option, but one that costs an extra $50. On a system costing almost $3,000, Apple should really not pass that particular expense on to consumers.

	Apple MacBook Pro 2009 (2.66GHz, 17-inch)	Average for category [desktop replacement]
Video	Mini DisplayPort	VGA-out, HDMI
Audio	Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks	Stereo speakers with subwoofer, headphone/microphone jacks.
Data	3 USB 2.0, FireWire	4 USB 2.0, mini-FireWire, SD card reader
Expansion	ExpressCard/34	ExpressCard/54
Networking	Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth	Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Optical drive	DVD burner	DVD burner or Blu-ray

While the MacBook Pro line offers one of the last vestiges of the once-great FireWire port, we still think many users would love to have an SD or CF card slot and the option of a high-end Blu-ray drive, especially with such an eye-catching big-screen display.

Apple is making a firm move to the DisplayPort camp by including a mini DisplayPort connection instead of mini-DVI or VGA, but a variety of external dongles (sold separately) will give you any video output you need. The company also offers up to a 256GB solid-state hard-drive option, although that will set you back $750. Bumping the standard 320GB drive from 5,400rpm to 7,200rpm is much more reasonable, only costing an extra $50.

With a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, the MacBook Pro performed excellently on our standard benchmark tests, but only marginally faster than the 2.6GHz 15-inch version (a 2.93GHz chip is available for an additional $300). While Windows-based laptops with similar CPUs are also fast, efficient machines, Apple has an advantage in our benchmark tests because many of the apps we test with, such as QuickTme, iTunes, and Photoshop, run more quickly on Mac OS X.

Besides the dedicated GeForce 9600M, the Pro also includes the same integrated GeForce 9400 GPU found in the smaller MacBooks. The settings menu has two power options: high performance or longer battery life. Choosing high performance turns the 9600 chip on, while choosing longer battery life turns it off, leaving you with just the integrated 9400 chip. Apple still isn't making gaming machines, but with the integrated graphics we got 56.4 frames per second in Quake IV at a resolution of 1,024x768, and 86.2 frames per second with the dedicated graphics.

Note that switching between GPUs doesn't require a reboot, but you do have to log out and log back into your user account, closing apps in the process.

With the GeForce 9600M GPU turned on, we got 4 hours and 14 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, which is very impressive for a desktop replacement. Switching the 9600M off added about 30 minutes.

One concern we've heard voiced is about the sealed battery compartment, which means you can neither replace a worn-out battery nor bring a backup extra battery on long trip. A 4-hour-plus performance from a 17-inch laptop should help assuage the extra battery concerns, since that's more than double what most desktop replacements get. The lack of a user-replaceable battery is a more serious issue. Apple claims the battery in the 17-inch MacBook Pro is good for 1,000 recharge cycles, which, if true, means the battery should outlive the useful life of the laptop. Apple's retail stores will also open the chassis and replace the battery for a fee.

Not to sound like a broken record, but Apple continues to both frustrate and impress with its service and support. MacBooks include a one-year, parts-and-labor warranty, but only 90 days of toll-free telephone support. This, along with the proprietary nature of Apple's products, makes purchasing an extended Apple Care warranty almost a necessity, but a necessity that will cost $349 for three total years of coverage.

Multimedia Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 17 inch - 2.66GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

386

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.53GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

402

Dell Studio XPS 16

750

Sony Vaio AW170Y/Q

761

Gateway P-7801u

826

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Sony Vaio AW170Y/Q

126

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.53GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

130

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 17 inch - 2.66GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

134

Dell Studio XPS 16

134

Gateway P-7801u

145

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.53GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

142

Sony Vaio AW170Y/Q

144

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 17 inch - 2.66GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

149

Dell Studio XPS 16

162

Gateway P-7801u

163

Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 17 inch - 2.66GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

254

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.53GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)

196

Gateway P-7801u

189

Sony Vaio AW170Y/Q

117

Dell Studio XPS 16

103

Find out more about how we test laptops.

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo - 2.66GHz / 17-inch
OS X 10.5.6 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M / 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; 320GB Fujitsu 5,400rpm

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo - 2.53GHz / 15.4
OS X 10.5.5 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M / 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; 320GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Dell Studio XPS 16
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600; 4,096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 512MB ATI Radeon HD3670; 320GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Gateway P-7801u
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 667MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS; 320GB Hitachi 7,200rpm

Sony Vaio AW170Y/Q
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz;

Apple iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:48:00 +0000

The good: The Apple iPhone has a stunning display, a sleek design, and an innovative multitouch user interface. Its Safari browser makes for a superb Web surfing experience, and it offers easy-to-use apps. As an iPod, it shines.

The bad: The Apple iPhone has variable call quality and lacks some basic features found in many cell phones, including stereo Bluetooth support and 3G compatibility. Integrated memory is stingy for an iPod, and you have to sync the iPhone to manage music content.

The bottom line: Despite some important missing features, a slow data network, and call quality that doesn't always deliver, the Apple iPhone sets a new benchmark for an integrated cell phone and MP3 player.

Specifications: OS provided: Apple MacOS X ; Band / mode: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband) ; Wireless connectivity: IEEE 802.11b , IEEE 802.11g , Bluetooth 2.0 EDR

From the moment Apple announced its iPhone at Macworld 2007, the tech world hasn't stopped asking questions. Because Apple has kept many iPhone details under wraps until very recently, we've been forced to speculate. Until now. Is the iPhone pretty? Absolutely. Is it easy to use? Certainly. Does it live up to the stratospheric hype? Not so much. Don't get us wrong, the iPhone is a lovely device with a sleek interface, top-notch music and video features, and innovative design touches. The touch screen is easier to use than we expected, and the multimedia performs well. But a host of missing features, a dependency on a sluggish EDGE network, and variable call quality--it is a phone after all--left us wanting more. For those reasons, the iPhone is noteworthy not for what it does, but how it does it. If you want an iPhone badly, you probably already have one. But if you're on the fence, we suggest waiting for the second-generation handset. Even with the new $399 price for the 8GB model (down from an original price of $599) and $499 for the 16GB model, it's still a lot to ask for a phone that lacks so many features and locks you into an iPhone-specific two-year contract with AT&T. We'll be more excited once we see a version with--at the very least--multimedia messaging and 3G.

Design
On with the review: the iPhone boasts a brilliant display, trim profile, and clean lines (no external antenna of course), and its lack of buttons puts it in a design class that even the LG Prada and the HTC Touch can't match. You'll win envious looks on the street toting the iPhone, and we're sure that would be true even if the phone hadn't received as much media attention as it has. We knew that it measures 4.5 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.46 inch deep, but it still felt smaller than we expected when we finally held it. In comparison, it's about as tall and as wide as a Palm Treo 755p, but it manages to be thinner than even the trend-setting Motorola Razr. It fits comfortably in the hand and when held to the ear, and its 4.8 ounces give it a solid, if perhaps weighty, feel. We also like that the display is glass rather than plastic.

Display
The iPhone's display is the handset's design showpiece and is noteworthy for not only what it shows, but also how you use it. We'll start off with its design. At a generous 3.5 inches, the display takes full advantage of the phone's size, while its 480x320 pixel resolution (160 dots per inch) translates into brilliant colors, sharp graphics, and fluid movements.

Menus
In true Apple style, the iPhone's menu interface is attractive, intuitive, and easy to use. In the main menu, a series of colored icons call out the main functions. Icons for the phone menu, the mail folder, the Safari Web browser, and the iPod player sit at the bottom of the screen, while other features such as the camera, the calendar, and the settings are displayed above. It's easy to find all features, and we like that essential features aren't buried under random menus. Fluid animation takes you between different functions, and you can zip around rather quickly.

Much has been made of the iPhone's touch screen, and rightfully so. Though the Apple handset is not the first cell phone to rely solely on a touch screen, it is the first phone to get so much attention and come with so many expectations. Depending on what you're doing, the touch screen serves as your dialpad, your keyboard, your Safari browser, and your music and video player. Like many others, we were skeptical of how effectively the touch screen would handle all those functions.

Touch screen
Fortunately, we can report that on the whole, the touch screen and software interface are easier to use than expected. What's more, we didn't miss a stylus in the least. Despite a lack of tactile feedback on the keypad, we had no trouble tapping our fingers to activate functions and interact with the main menu. As with any touch screen, the display attracts its share of smudges, but they never distracted us from what we were viewing. The onscreen dialpad took little acclimation, and even the onscreen keyboard fared rather well. Tapping out messages was relatively quick, and we could tap the correct letter, even with big fingers. The integrated correction software helped minimize errors by suggesting words ahead of time. It was accurate for the most part.

The Apple iPhone features a virtual QWERTY keyboard.

Still, the interface and keyboard have a long way to go to achieve greatness. For starters, when typing an e-mail or text message the keyboard is displayed only when you hold the iPhone vertically. As a result, we could only type comfortably with one finger, which cut down on our typing speed. Using two hands is possible, but we found it pretty crowded to type with both thumbs while holding the iPhone at the same time. What's more, basic punctuation such as periods or commas lives in a secondary keyboard--annoying. If you're a frequent texter or an e-mail maven, we suggest a test-drive first.

We also found it somewhat tedious to scroll through long lists, such as the phone book or music playlists. Flicking your finger in an up or down motion will move you partway through a list, but you can't move directly to the bottom or top by swiping and holding your finger. On the other hand, the letters of the alphabet are displayed on the right side of the screen. By pressing a letter you can go directly to any songs or contacts beginning with that letter. But the lack of buttons requires a lot of tapping to move about the interface. For example, the Talk and End buttons are only displayed when the phone is in call mode. And since there are no dedicated Talk and End buttons, you must use a few taps to find these features. That also means you cannot just start dialing a number; you must open the dialpad first, which adds clicks to the process. The same goes for the music player: since there are no external buttons, you must call up the player interface to control your tunes. For some people, the switching back and forth may be a nonissue. But for mutlitaskers, it can grow wearisome.

Criticisms aside, the iPhone display is remarkable for its multitouch technology, which allows you to move your finger in a variety of ways to manipulate what's on the screen. When in a message, you can magnify the text by pressing and holding over a selected area. And as long as you don't lift your finger, you can move your "magnifying glass" around the text. You can zoom in by pinching your fingers apart; to zoom out you just do the opposite. In the Web browser, you can move around the Web page by sliding your finger, or you can zoom in by a double tap. And when looking at your message list, you can delete items by swiping your finger from left to right across the message. At that point, a Delete button will appear.

Thanks to the handset's accelerometer (a fancy word for motion sensor), the iPhone's display orientation will adjust automatically when you flip the iPhone on its side while using the music and video players and the Internet browser. Also, a proximity sensor turns off the display automatically when you lift the iPhone to your ear for a conversation. All three are very cool.

The January 2008 update added new customization options for the iPhone's home screen. By pressing and holding any icon, all of the icons on the display will start to wiggle. You then can move the icons around and rearrange them at will. By moving them to the right, you can also access a second menu page, and you can add or remove on the "dock" at the bottom of the display. It's clear that with this new feature, Apple is readying the iPhone for more applications, particularly as the company prepares for the upcoming SDK. To stop the icons from wiggling, just press the Home button.

Exterior features
The iPhone's only hardware menu button is set directly below the display. It takes you instantly back to the home screen no matter what application you're using. The single button is nice to have, since it saves you a series of menu taps if you're buried in a secondary menu. On the top of the iPhone is a multifunction button for controlling calls and the phone's power. If a call comes in at an inopportune time, just press the button once to silence the ringer, or press it twice to send the call to voice mail. Otherwise, you can use this top control to put the phone asleep and wake it up again. You can turn the iPhone off by pressing and holding the button.

The Apple iPhone speaker is located at the bottom of the phone.

Located on the left spine are a volume rocker and a nifty ringer mute switch, something all cell phones should have and which is a popular feature of Palm Treos. On the bottom end, you'll find the speaker, a microphone, and the jack for the syncing dock and the charger cord. Unfortunately, the headset jack on the top end is deeply recessed, which means you will need an adapter for any headphones with a chubby plug. Is this customer-friendly? No.

Unfortunately, the Phone does not have a battery that a user can replace. That means you have to send the iPhone to Apple to replace the battery after it's spent (Apple is estimating one battery will keep its full strength for 400 charges--probably about three years' worth of use). The cost of the replacement is $79 plus $6.95 shipping. No, you don't really need a removable battery in a cell phone, but like many things missing on the iPhone, it would be nice to have, especially for such an expensive phone. And just what are you supposed to without a cell phone during the replacement period? Contrary to earlier reports, the SIM card is removable via a small drawer on the top of the iPhone, but other AT&T SIM cards will not work in the iPhone. That's especially troubling, as it completely defeats the biggest advantage of using a GSM phone with a SIM card. Some people have multiple phones and like to change the SIM card between their different handsets. Also, you can't use the SIM card to import contact information from another handset.

Features
The iPhone's phone book is limited only by the phone's available memory. Each contact holds eight phone numbers; e-mail, Web site, and street addresses; a job title and department; a nickname; a birthday; and notes. You can't save callers to groups, but you can store your preferred friends to a favorites menu for easy access. You can assign contacts a photo for caller ID and assign them one of 25 polyphonic ringtones. We should note, however, that there's no voice dialing and you can't use MP3 files as ringtones. Other basic features include an alarm clock, a calculator, a world clock, a stopwatch, a timer and a notepad. There's a vibrate mode but it's a tad light.

The calendar offers day and month views, and you can use the calendar as an event reminder or a to-do list as well. The interface is clean and simple, though inputting new appointments involves a lot of tapping. There's no Week view, however. We were able to sync our Outlook contacts and calendar and our Yahoo! e-mail address book with no problems.

Bluetooth and wireless
The iPhone offers a full range of wireless functionality with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Wi-Fi compatibility is especially welcome, and a feature that's absent on far too many smart phones. When you're browsing the Web, the iPhone automatically searches for the nearest Internet hot spot. Bluetooth 2.0 is also on board, which delivers faster transmission and a longer range than Bluetooth 1.2. You can use Bluetooth for voice calls, but you don't get an A2dP stereo Bluetooth profile--another item that's not necessary but would be nice to have.

Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs has explained the iPhone's lack of 3G support by saying the chipsets take up too much room and drain too much battery, we'd like the option anyway. Yes, the Wi-Fi network is great when you can get it, but AT&T's EDGE network just doesn't cut it for all other surfing. EDGE Web browsing is so slow, it almost ruins the pretty Web interface. More on this in the Performance section.

Messaging and e-mail
For your messaging needs, the iPhone offers text messaging and e-mail. As on many smart phones, a text message thread is displayed as one long conversation--a useful arrangement that allows you to pick which messages you'd like to answer. The January 2008 update added the ability to send a text message to multiple recipients. It was a welcome addition, but truly, that capability should have been there from the start. If you use another function while messaging, you can return to pick up that message where you left off. We just don't understand, however, why Apple doesn't include multimedia messaging. Sure, you can use e-mail to send photos, but without multimedia messaging you can't send photos to other cell phones--pretty much the entire point of a camera phone.

The iPhone's e-mail menu includes integrated support for Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, and Mac accounts. You can set up the phone to receive messages from other IMAP4 and POP3 systems, but you'll need to sweet-talk your IT department into syncing with your corporate exchange server. It's rumored that Apple will update the iPhone to support ActiveSync but Apple hasn't confirmed that as of this writing. Yet the iPhone does offer a way to connect with your VPN. You can read--but not edit--PDF, JPEG, Word, and Excel documents. Worse: you can't cut and paste text when composing messages.

iPhone's iPod
Sandwiched between all the iPhone's features lives Apple's most amazing iPod yet. The display, interface, video quality, audio quality--all of it is meticulously refined and beautiful. Unfortunately, it's trapped within a device that will cost you more than $1,000 a year just to own. CNET recently reviewed a Rolls-Royce that had a top-notch umbrella hidden inside its passenger door. Buying the iPhone for its iPod feature is a lot like buying that Rolls-Royce for its umbrella. Regardless, the iPhone is an exciting glimpse into what Apple hopefully has planned for its sixth-generation iPod. Apple has redeemed itself following the Motorola Rokr E1 debacle.

The Apple iPhone's music player lets you view album art.

On paper, the iPhone's iPod doesn't offer any features not already on a fifth-generation iPod: podcasts, videos, music, and playlists are all here, and content management with iTunes is identical. The difference rests entirely in the iPhone's interface. We've used other MP3 players that use touch interfaces, such as the Archos 704, iRiver Clix and Cowon D2, but the iPhone's unique integration of multitouch technology and a graphic user interface put it in a category all its own.

From an iPod perspective, Apple's biggest triumph with the iPhone is the fact that it has returned album artwork back into the music experience in a way that goes beyond a token thumbnail graphic. Physically flipping through your music collection in the iPhone's Cover Flow mode really brings back the visceral feel of digging through a CD or record bin. It's a tough feeling to quantify, but the real music lovers out there will appreciate how well the iPhone reconnects their digital music to a form that is both visually and physically more vivid. Even iTunes users who may already be jaded about using the Cover Flow mode on their personal computer will be surprised at how the experience is changed by using the iPhone's intuitive touch screen.

Truth be told, there is one feature that is new to the iPhone's iPod--the integrated speaker. While the iPhone's speaker sounds thin and is prone to distortion, it works in a pinch for sharing a song with a friend. Apple was also smart enough to manage its speaker volume independent of the headphone volume, so if you're listening to the speaker full-blast and then decide to plug in your headphones, you won't be deafened.

The bad news is that the iPhone's iPod leaves out the ability to manually manage the transfer of music and video content. Unlike any previous iPod, the iPhone does not allow an option for manually dragging and dropping content from an iTunes library directly to the iPhone device icon. Instead, the iPhone strictly uses defined library syncing options for collecting and syncing content from your iTunes library to the device. This should work out fine for most people, but for a device with limited memory the inability to manually manage content seems like a misstep. Our 8GB iPhone was already a quarter full after only a few hours of testing, giving us the impression that users will need to be vigilant at grooming their iPhone library. An external memory card slot is another one of those "nice to have" features.

The iPhone's music sound quality seems right in line with our experience using the 5G iPod. All the same EQ presets are available, only now they are found on the iPhone's main Settings tab. The included iPhone earbuds did a passable job for casual listening in a quiet environment. Unfortunately, the iPhone's recessed headphone jack prevented us from using many of the test headphones we're familiar with. We were just barely able to squeeze the plug of our Etymotic ER6i earphones into the jack to do the comparison.

Watching video on the iPhone is not quite as luxurious as a Creative Zen Vision: W or Archos 504, but its wide screen and bright contrast beat the fifth-generation iPod by a mile. As with previous iPods, video playback is automatically bookmarked so that playback resumes where you left off. And because the iPhone is a phone, it includes an airplane mode that will keep the music player activated while turning off the call transmitter. Thanks to the January 2008 update, you can also browse movies by chapter as well as view subtitles. Other changes include the lyric overlays on music tracks, support for the new iTunes movie rentals, and the ability to redeem iPhone gift cards from the device using the wireless iTunes store.

The Apple iPhone's video player really takes advantage of its wide screen.

Safari browser
The Safari browser really sets the iPhone apart from the cell phone crowd. Rather than trudging through stripped-down WAP pages with limited text and graphics, the browser displays Web pages in their true form. It's a completely and surprisingly satisfying experience to see real Web pages on a screen of this size. Our only regret is that the browser does not support Flash or Java. To pan around a page, just swipe your finger across the display, and the page moves accordingly. Tap your finger on a link to open a new page and double-tap your finger to zoom in and zoom back out. You can use the arrows on the bottom of the display to move back and forth, while a multifunction button at the bottom of the display lets you open new pages and flick among them.

The Apple iPhone comes with the Safari Web browser.

Google search is the iPhone's default search tool, but you can use Yahoo search as well. When searching for information or typing URLs, you use the onscreen keyboard. It's just like typing an e-mail except that the spacebar is replaced with Web-appropriate language like ".com" and a slash. That's a nice touch.

The January 2008 update brought the ability to add bookmarks to the home screen in the form of icons. The process is easy enough--when viewing your favorite site, just tap the bookmark icon and you'll find an "add to home screen" option. You can add multiple icons (thanks to the new second menu page), move them around, and delete then. It's useful as it will save you a few clicks later.

Thanks to the accelerometer, you can tip the phone on its side for a more comfortable landscape view. It doesn't matter which direction you rotate the phone, as it will work either way. It's also nice that the onscreen keyboard appears in landscape mode when using the browser. Most Web pages looked great on the screen, but visually busy pages like CNN.com can be too crowded. And because you can zoom in only a set amount, some text can still be too small to read clearly. You can store bookmarks and sync your favorite pages from your PC, but it works only for Internet Explorer and not Firefox.

YouTube
You can activate the iPhone's integrated YouTube player straight from the main menu via a colored icon. Videos are organized using many of the same criteria as on the YouTube site, including Featured Clips, Most Viewed, Top Rated, and Most Recent. You can read the information attached to a video, such as the date posted and the poster's name, but you can't read comments. It doesn't appear, however, that the YouTube connection updates in real time. We uploaded a video of our own, and it didn't show up until a few hours later.

The Apple iPhone has a built-in Google Maps application.

Widgets
The iPhone has a widget for accessing Google Maps. You can see the satellite view--nice--and get turn-by-turn directions between two points, with traffic information. We tried mapping routes from CNET's offices to various places and received accurate directions. As the iPhone lacks standard GPS, it couldn't provide location information for the first six months of its life. But with the January 2008 update, it gained the ability to tell you approximately where you are. When you tap the new icon in the lower-left corner of the touch screen, a circle will show where you should be on the map. But rather than connecting to a satellite, it finds you by connecting to nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular towers and pinpointing their location (sort of a backdoor locater). You then can find directions using your pinpointed location.

When I gave it a go, the location service was off by several blocks on my first attempt. Though even standard GPS systems aren't perfect, the margin of error was still too big. Also, the area that the circle covered was much too expansive (when I tried to zoom in, the circle disappeared). Fortunately, the second time I tried the location service it was much more accurate. Also, I like that the circle covered a smaller area. Yet it's worth noting that the functionality won't work when you're away from wireless civilization, which typically is a time when location services come in really handy. Also, the lack of audio instructions will limit its usability while driving.

The next mapping feature is pretty cool. By pressing the new icon on the lower-right corner of the touch screen, you can drop a pin wherever you like on the map. You can move the pin around, save it as a bookmark, and use it as a location for determining directions. The map interacts well with the calling functions; you can find a point of interest and ring it in just a few taps.

Additional widgets point to stock information and weather reports. You can program your own tickers and get information like a share gain or loss and see the chart of a share price over time. The weather function gives you a six-day forecast for your choice of cities. For more options, there is already a selection of third-party iPhone apps. No games are included on the handset

Visual voice mail
One of the most intriguing features on the iPhone is the much-touted visual voice mail. iPhone's voice mail works much like a text-message folder in that it displays the caller's name or phone number and the time. What's even more fantastic, however, is that you can listen to the message instantly by pressing the individual message--you don't have to call your voice mail first.

The Apple iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera on the back.

Camera
The iPhone's 2-megapixel camera offers a spiffy interface with a graphic that resembles a camera shutter. You're offered no camera editing options, which we didn't expect. That means you can't change the resolution, choose a color or quality setting, or select a night mode. There's no flash either, and with no self-portrait mirror, those vanity shots are going to be tricky. The camera performed well in our tests, however. Photo quality was excellent with rich, bright colors and distinct object outlines. White looked a bit too soft, but we approve overall. On the downside, you can't shoot your own video, which is disappointing on a phone at this price.

As we said earlier, the photo menu is attractive and easy to use, particularly due to the pinching motion. You can also flip between photos by swiping your finger across the display. When selecting a photo, you're given the option of assigning it to a contact, using it as wallpaper, or e-mailing it to a friend.

Call quality
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) Apple iPhone in San Francisco using AT&T service. Call quality was good for the most part, but it wasn't dependable. Though voices sounded natural, the volume was often too low, and the microphone has a sensitive sweet spot. When we moved the phone away from our ears ever so slightly, the volume diminished noticeably and we had to move the phone back to just the right place to hear clearly. The volume wasn't so bad that we weren't able to hear a friend who was in a crowded bar, but it just could be better. The speakerphone was also too quiet though conversations weren't too muffled.

CNET users have also reported volume problems, and a few people we called said they heard a slight background hiss. We didn't hear the hiss on our end, but more than one of our friends said they noticed it. Automated calling systems were able to understand us, but only if we were in a quiet room. On the whole, the call quality stayed the same in most environments.

Browser speed
Our first test with the Safari browser was over CNET's internal Wi-Fi network. Web pages loaded in 5 to 10 seconds, though sites with heavy graphics took longer. It was a smooth experience overall, though it not quite as zippy as we had hoped. We thought that could be due to CNET's network, but it seemed to be more or less the standard. Pages took about the same time to load on a home network and just a couple seconds longer in a cafe. When not using Wi-Fi, you're stuck with AT&T's EDGE network, which is just too slow to render the lovely Safari interface enjoyably. With speeds in the 50-to-90Kbps range, it reminded us of a dial-up browser. In other words, it's pretty intolerable. CNET Labs tested the speed of the EDGE network against the Wi-Fi connection by comparing repeated results of the download time for a 9.4MB file. After two days of testing, EDGE resulted in an average download time of 15 minutes, 41 seconds for the file; Wi-Fi on average required a mere 1 minute, 11 seconds. In the end, our test results indicate that the iPhone's Wi-Fi connection is 13 times faster than using EDGE, although results will vary depending on location. We can only hope Apple adds 3G soon, especially since AT&T has a robust UMTS/HSDPA network.

Music downloading
We tried purchasing music through the wireless iTunes store, which was announced in September 2007 (originally we knocked the iPhone for not allowing wireless downloads). You'll need Wi-Fi to use it (sorry, EDGE isn't sufficient), but on the whole it was a satisfying experience. You can view featured songs and the top 10 tracks by genre. If you have specific music in mind, you also can search by song name. We found our track quickly, and we liked that results surface as you're typing. Once we selected our chosen song, it downloaded in less than a minute, and it appeared directly in our iTunes folder.

Activation
Activation was easy using iTunes 7.3. Our computer recognized the iPhone right away, and the activation system started automatically. After a few prompts, it asked us if we wanted to automatically sync contacts from Yahoo and Windows mail and contacts from Outlook. It also asked us to if we wanted to sync Internet bookmarks but, as we said earlier, it won't import Firefox bookmarks. The integration with AT&T's account service is also seamless. We were able to select a plan and indicate whether we were a current AT&T customer. It even asked us if we wanted to port a current cell phone number. In all, it's much better experience than dealing with AT&T.

It's important to note that the iPhone is little more than an expensive paperweight until it's activated. You can make emergency calls, but you can't use any other functions, including the iPod music player. What's worse, if you cancel your AT&T contract, the iPhone becomes a paperweight again.

Battery life
The Apple iPhone has a rated battery life of 8 hours talk time, 24 hours of music playback, 7 hours of video playback, and 6 hours on Internet use. The promised standby time is 10.4 days. When we tested the iPhone with the Wi-Fi function turned off, we got about 7 hours, 45 minutes of talk time. When we tested it with the Wi-Fi activated, we came away with 4 hours less. Video time, however, clocked in at an impressive 7.3 hours. Music-only time was also satisfactory. We got 28.4 hours of music playback time on a single charge. Just keep in mind that it's rare you'll be using just one feature for hours on end. As such, your battery life will vary widely as you switch between functions. Large color screens such as the one on the iPhone tend to be battery drainers, so you'll most likely need to charge your handset every couple of days. According to the FCC, the iPhone has a digital SAR rating of 0.974 watts per kilogram.

Samsung Memoir (T929)

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:06:00 +0000

Samsung announces the new Samsung Memoir 8 Megapixel camera phone, a full touch-screen mobile phone with an 8 megapixel camera, to be offered by T-Mobile USA. The Memoir camera phone features a Xenon flash, 16x digital zoom and five shooting modes. The touch-screen phone, enabled by the TouchWiz user interface makes sharing photos easy. Samsung's new photo widget allows you to post images taken with the Memoir directly to your favorite online photo sharing source, such as flickr, Kodak Gallery, Photobucket and.

Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) and T-Mobile USA, Inc., today announced the upcoming availability of the Samsung Memoir™, a full touch-screen mobile phone equipped with an 8-megapixel camera and premium multimedia features, placing it among the highest quality imaging phones available in the U.S.

The Memoir, available exclusively from T-Mobile, is designed to look and feel like a customer's current point-and-shoot digital camera. The built-in 8-megapixel camera with Xenon flash, 16x digital zoom and five shooting modes empower customers to capture exceptional photos and videos from their phone — whether they're on the go, on a vacation or just hanging out around the house.

The touch-screen phone, enabled by Samsung's TouchWiz™ user interface and powered by T-Mobile's high-speed 3G network,

makes sharing photos easy. Samsung's new photo widget allows customers to post images taken with the Memoir directly to their favorite online photo sharing source, such as flickr®, Kodak® Gallery, Photobucket and Snapfish.

“With the 8-megapixel Samsung Memoir, T-Mobile customers can capture and share little slices of life in all their vibrant brilliance,” said Denny Marie Post, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA. “With the ability to share photos at your fingertips, the Memoir helps make those connections more meaningful by their immediacy.”

The Memoir's full-touch virtual QWERTY keypad and multiple messaging capabilities, including text, multimedia messaging, instant messaging and e-mail, make staying connected quick and easy while on the go. The Memoir is complete with a music and video player and built-in Assisted GPS navigation, which allows customers to utilize location-based services including turn-by-turn directions. For hands-free use, the Memoir features stereo Bluetooth® technology, speakerphone and voice-activated dialing.

“This is the camera phone that will make people want to leave their digital camera at home,” said Bill Ogle, Chief Marketing Officer for Samsung Mobile. “When you combine the Memoir's imaging capabilities, customizable menus and music player, not only is it a great phone, but the entertainment possibilities are unlimited.”

T-Mobile's 3G coverage available in select markets. Samsung Memoir also works on T-Mobile's 2G network. See coverage maps at T-Mobile.com

Relion Adrena 3G

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Type Adrena3G - RL373
Part Number ND-6873-T

Processor Intel Atom N270 CPU (1.6GHz, FSB533MHz, Cache 512KB)
Chipset Intel 945GSE
Memory 1 GB DDR2 533MHz SODIMM (Max 2GB in 1 slot)
HDD 120GB Serial ATA 5400RPM
Optical Drive DVDRW Super Multi
Display Size / Type 10.2" WSVGA TFT (1024 x 600) / Anti Glare Type
Graphic Build in Intel GMA950 graphics core SSM Max 224MB
Web Cam 1.3 Mega Pixel SXGA

Keyboard 83 keys with Windows Key

I/O Ports 2 USB 2.0
1 Express Card 34 Type II
1 Connector for external monitor
1 Line-out phone jack for external speaker
1 Mic-in phone jack for external microphone
1 RJ11 jack for modem
1 RJ45 jack for LAN
1 SIM Card slot
1 DC-in jack
4 in 1 memory card reader (MS/MS Pro/SD/MMC)

Communication Integrated 56Kbps V.92 Fax/Modem
Integrated 10/100Mbps Ethernet
Mini Express Card Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g
Mini Express Card WWAN module support HSDPA 7.2M
Bluetooth EDR 2.1

Finger Print Finger Print Scanner
Audio High Definition Audio, 1.5W speakers
AC adapter Input: 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz Output: 20V, 3.25A, 65W
Battery Pack Smart Battery Pack, Li-Ion 3-cells, 2400mAh
Operation Time 2 Hours*
Dimension (WxDxH) 266 x 202.5 x 29.5~34.5mm
Weight 1.6Kg (included Battery & ODD)
OS supported Windows XP, Windows Vista
Warranty 1years labor cost, 1years spareparts (6months for battery)
Color Combination of Orange & Black

HP Mini 2140 Notebook PC

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:46:00 +0000

While HP’s recently released Mini 1000 is designed for consumers, its new HP Mini 2140 Notebook PC caters to the mobile professional. An update and replacement to HP’s original 2133 Mini-Note, the 2140 sports the same durable chassis and well-designed keyboard as its predecessor but adds a larger 10-inch screen and an Intel Atom processor that pays off in 7-plus hours of battery life (with a six-cell battery). Add in fast-charge technology and hard drive protection, and the $529 Mini 2140 is our top netbook pick for road warriors.
Compact, Road Ready Design

While HP claims that the Mini 2140 is partially aimed at the education market, its design will surely appeal to business travelers. It sports a brushed silver, all-aluminum lid and a solid magnesium alloy chassis (similar to the original 2133 Mini-Note). Making the netbook even more durable are its metal alloy hinges complete with hardened steel pin axles; HP claims this build can endure the closing and opening of the lid ten times a day for six years (or 25,000 cycles).

When placed next to rival 10-inch netbooks (the Samsung NC10, ASUS Eee PC 1000H, Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and the MSI Wind), the 10.3 x 6.5 x 1.1-inch Mini 2140 is certainly compact. In fact, like its cousin the Mini 1000, it compares favorably to smaller 8.9-inch netbooks, such as the Acer Aspire one and Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (see our measurement chart below). However, it weighs 3.0 pounds with its six-cell battery (2.6 pounds with the flush three-cell battery), making the Mini 2140 heavier than other netbooks equipped with six-cell batteries, including the 2.6-pound MSI Wind and 2.8-pound Samsung NC10.

Nevertheless, when we took the netbook with us on a weekend trip, it fit in a small shoulder bag, and even with its AC adapter (which brought the travel weight to 3.4 pounds) we felt no strain.
Same Great Keyboard, Awkward Touchpad

We’re glad that HP didn’t change the keyboard on the Mini 2140 from the 2133 Mini-Note. This netbook features a 92 percent full-size keyboard treated with a coating that HP claims makes the keys 50 times more resistant to visible wear than a standard keyboard (it’s also water-resistant). The panel had absolutely no flex, and the right Shift key is full-size and directly below the Enter key.

To accommodate the spacious keyboard, HP kept the same touchpad and buttons as on the 2133 Mini-Note. At 2.3 x 1.1 inches, the Mini 2140’s touchpad is very narrow, requiring more movement and backtracking than we would like. Also, HP retained the awkward vertical mouse buttons, which flank the touchpad. The touchpad has a button above it for turning it off completely and a dedicated scrolling bar, which was useful for moving through long Web pages.

(http://www.laptopmag.com)

Dell XPS M2010

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:43:00 +0000

With an ever-increasing number of look-alike notebooks hitting the market with 19-inch displays, Dell's reimagining of the laptop is genuinely refreshing. Sporting a huge 20.1-inch adjustable display, a removable Bluetooth keyboard, and a convenient carrying handle, this desktop-meets-notebook is sure to inspire "oohs and "ahs" from the neighbors and a "yikes" from your accountant. Weighing 18.3 pounds and starting at $3,500 (our configuration costs a mind-blowing $4,475), the XPS M2010 was created to appeal to a very limited audience, but it packs nearly every feature you could think of into one of the most innovative designs we've seen in a long time.

The XPS M2010's massive 20.1-inch screen extends away from the system on a hinge, more closely resembling an external flat-screen monitor than the display of a traditional notebook. Located atop the
screen is a webcam; eight speakers (four on each side) reside along the bottom of the display. The base measures 19.3 x 8.3 x 2 inches. It contains the CPU, all of the notebook's ports, a subwoofer, and a pop-up slot-loading optical DVD drive. The power and media buttons are at the top, closest to the screen.

The media buttons glow blue on contact, and the eject button extends the optical drive from the base when pressed, creating an automating buzzing sound—and a very retro-futuristic Knight Rider feel.
The monitor folds over the base and keyboard. Its hinge doubles as an extremely sturdy handle. When closed the whole unit resembles a large brief case, complete with a faux leather design.

The keyboard is full-sized, with all the amenities, including a numeric keypad and dedicated media keys. The keys have a nice tactile response, leaning more towards a desktop than a notebook. The trackpad is a bit small for a notebook of this size, stuck in-between the keyboard and number pad, almost like an afterthought. The real benefit of the keyboard, however, is its Bluetooth wireless connectivity. The keyboard secures into the base via six pins, which also serve to recharge the battery. The system also comes with a full-sized Bluetooth optical mouse, compensating for the awkwardly-positioned trackpad.

Performance-wise, the XPS M2010 offers the sort of numbers one would expect from a multimedia system in this price range. The 2.16-GHz Intel Core Duo T2600 processor combined with a whopping 2GB of RAM racked up an impressive 253 in MobileMark 2005 with Wi-Fi off. The notebook's Dual 6-cell battery managed 3 hours and 12 minutes of runtime, a remarkable score for a system of its size.

The 1680 x 1050-pixel TrueLife glossy WSXGA+ display is quite crisp and perfect for DVDs or games. The speakers also handled the tasks of movies and music admirably, and we like that the system comes with Windows XP Media Center Edition. While the webcam's picture quality was decent, it's far from the best we've seen.
Thanks to ATI's top-of-the line Mobility Radeon X1800 graphics, complete with 256MB of video memory, the XPS M2010 notched a very good but not quite stellar 3DMark03 score of 11,719, along with an unexceptional F.E.A.R. frame rate score of 28 fps at a 1024 x 768-pixel resolution on its autodetect setting. Gameplay looked just fine at this level, but keep in mind that the "cheaper" $4,215 configuration of the XPS M1710 turned in much higher 3DMark03 (18,319) and F.E.A.R. (104 fps) scores.

The included RF remote control is very cool. In addition to controlling Media Center, the remote has an LCD that displays your music in a manner similar to an MP3 player, so you can see what's playing from the next room and change tracks. It also has a gyroscopicfeature that allows the remote to serve as a wireless mouse. This feature is a bit awkward and tough to master, but it can be pretty handy, especially when you don't have enough desk real estate to use an external mouse.

If you want to use the XPS M2010 to watch and record TV, you'll need to fork over an additional $100 for an external tuner; we'd prefer it was built into the machine. The only thing that the Dell XPS M2010
doesn't have as an option (at least not yet) is a Blu-ray drive, which would allow users to watch high-definition movies and back up as much as 50GB to a single disc. This isn't a case of Dell being chintzy; Blu-ray technology simply isn't available for thinner slot-loading drives yet. Dell anticipates that a Blu-ray drive will be an option by the end of the year.

It's heavy, a little unwieldy, and obscenely expensive. But if you're searching for a transportable all-in-one PC that can double as a stereo, DVD player, and DVR/TV (if you spend a little more), the XPS M2010 is a splurge-worthy status symbol.

(http://archive.laptopmag.com)

Nokie E71 vs BlackBerry Bold

noreply@blogger.com (Krisna Reqka Pradana) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:03:00 +0000

In the latest chapter of “response to the onslaught of reader’s requests,” we’ve decided to put the Nokia E71 and the BlackBerry Bold head-to-head. While both are totally different breeds of devices, they do share a number of similarities and are targeted to the same demographic. You’ve got two enterprise handsets with QWERTY keyboards, cameras, Wi-Fi, 3G, corporate email, great battery life, etc. Click on through to see which device wins out in this epic showdown of QWERTY gone violent.

We used some of the information from our Bold vs. iPhone post since in most cases it was exactly the same.

Design

BlackBerry Bold:

Some could agree the Bold is the sharpest and cleanest-looking BlackBerry ever to come out of Waterloo. With a complete black face, chrome border and sides, and faux black leather back, the device looks great. From all the matching chrome accents all over the phone to the simple and not confusing layout, RIM has designed a great BlackBerry which should set the bar for future devices down the road.

Nokia E71: Nokia, Nokia, Nokia…aw, who are we kidding? The E71 is one of the nicest designs to have come out of Espoo as of late. With a real metal structure (read: plastic BlackBerry Bold), great materials, and some pretty slick engineering, the E71 looks awesome. Well, except for the vicious red power button. Totally ruined it for us, Noke.

Build quality

BlackBerry Bold:

The BlackBerry Bold is built extremely well. Not including minor screen scratches and things of that nature, the Bold should be able to last you as long as you want to keep the thing. The unit is a little lighter than it looks and there no creaks or anything to get you worried about. The only negative thing we’d have to say, it that the build quality on the BlackBerry Curve slightly trumps the Bold. We’d ever go as far to say that the 8800 does too. But not the Pearl. Hell no.

Nokia E71: Again, Nokia hits it out of the park. Nokias have great build quality for the most part across the board, as do BlackBerrys, but the E71 is built like an absolute tank. Literally. We don’t think we could break this thing if we tried.

Size

The Bold is the biggest BlackBerry to be released in a pretty long time. Well, since the 8700. It is larger in every way than the BlackBerry 8800 and can sometimes feel a little hard to hold in one hand. It’s definitely no Curve. Comparing it the E71, the E71 feels much better when holding it, but since the Bold’s keyboard makes use of the larger size, we’re going to call this one a tie because of the pretty comfy Bold QWERTY.

Nokia E71: If you had to shrink 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, a camera, physical QWERTY keyboard, and other components into the smallest package possible, what would get? Most likely an E71. We don’t think the device could be any smaller, though the small size does hinder the QWERTY keyboard slightly. Everything else is well balanced, and it makes the Bold seem like this huge Dark Knight hovering over it, jealous it can’t shed a couple inches on its waistline.

Screen:

We’re sticking to the “BlackBerry Bold’s screen is the best. mobile. device. screen. ever.” line. Sorry, Nokia, but the E71s screen as decent as it is, can not hold a candle to the Bolds rich, sharp, and spaceous display.

BlackBerry Bold:

This is a tricky and sensitive subject for a lot of people. Many of us live and die by the BlackBerry OS. Some could say we even know it better than we know some of our significant others… But therein lies the problem. While RIM has been on a mission to revamp the BlackBerry from the old school “pager” into an all-in-one communications device for consumers and business alike, we can’t help but wonder when the OS will get a real makeover. Not a Mariah Carey cover page airbrushed makeover, more like a Carnie Wilson 300lbs to 150lbs makeover. But, we do have to say that RIM has a great thing going. The BlackBerry minions have figured out every single tip and trick there is to squeeze every ounce of usability out the operating system, and for a lot of people, the OS is fine. It does what it is supposed to, and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s just that the market has changed so drastically in the last year and half. People want to be connected more, they want to do more while doing less.

Nokia E71: S60, huh? We’d have really liked to see FP2 make it to the E71 out of the gate. Anyone that’s not a current Nokia user might have a bit of trouble dealing with access points, configuring their email, and getting around. This is a tricky subject as there are no doubt some die-hard Nokia fans, but we’d so S60 is showing its age a lot at this current point in time, just as RIM’s OS. What you do get with S60, however, is a ton of great 3rd party applications. We think you’d hard pressed to find more than 10-15 useful applications for the BlackBerry platform, whereas you have thousands for S60.

Call quality / RF performance

This has been explored before, but we find the Nokia E71 to be one of the worst performing Nokia handsets in the RF department. That compared to the outstanding reception on the Bold leaves us without too much faith that the E71 will be able to handle our daily usage in low signal areas. In terms of call quality, the Bold did a much better job at delivering us a clear and loud call, while the E71 often garbled our voice to the party on the other end. Speakerphone was the same with the Bold performing better than the E71.

Battery life

You’d be surprised, but we’ve found the Bold and E71 to go toe for toe in our battery tests. They both last longer than any other 3G device we’ve used, but to be fair, since the E71 isn’t the best RF signal holder, the Bold was on 3G more than the E71, and the E71 was rarely on Wi-Fi. We say the Bold inches out the E71 in the battery department.

Email

BlackBerry Bold:

Listen, you can’t throw around the word “BlackBerry” without thinking about email. That’s RIM bread and butter, and we don’t see that changing for a very long time. There are probably 500 competitors vying for the title of “Best. Email. Ever.”, but they’re not coming close anytime soon. While Windows Mobile offers some of the same feature-set, there is nothing like using a BlackBerry for email. From changing your out of office message, to configuring email filters on the go (what, you think we actually get all 6,000 comments from our iPhone 3G giveaway post on our BlackBerry?), to remote searching (awesome!), RIM has perfected email on the BlackBerry for the most part. When new features like full attachment viewing and HTML get introduced, though, it gets a little murky. Instead of viewing attachments natively off the bat on your BlackBerry, RIM’s data network will compress and send you what you need bit by bit. There is also a clear separation between RIM’s BES services and BIS services, and they are totally unnecessary. There is no reason we should have the ability to view HTML on BIS, but not on BES yet (unless you hacked that in), and there is no reason file type support is so convoluted. For instance, we can listen to our voicemail MP3s on our BIS email, but not on BES because even the latest BES service pack still doesn’t support the encoding used in our MP3s. Things like this really confuse users and there’s no reason for it. BIS features should mirror BES features as much as possible and be upgraded at the same time. If we have to email an attachment from our BES to one of our BIS email accounts one more time…

Nokia E71: Email is email for Nokia. There’s no HTML support, there’s really not a lot of configurable options when using an Exchange server, and the email application isn’t the most reliable thing under the sun in general. As far as comparing it to email on a BlackBerry… well, we won’t even go there. It would take a couple more days to list all the issues and inconsistencies with Nokia’s default email application. We’re not saying it’s terrible, it is definitely usable, but it’s not something we’d like to use. Get it?

Keyboard

Another tricky subject. You’ve got the Bold which mashes up the Curve, the Pearl, and the 8800’s keyboard, and you’ve got the E71 which takes its cues from the E61i. If we could fault the E71’s keyboard, it would be that it is a little too small to use 100% comfortably. We’d also point out the stupidity of their keyboard layout once again. Get it through your heads, the “Z” key NEVER goes directly under the “A” key. That’s not how it’s done, boys. The keyboard does give you a nice response when pushed, and the keys are a bit on the hard side, but that actually works well on the phone. With the Bold, we find ourselves banging away emails like we’ve always done — that’s great. RIM didn’t mess with success here.

Corporate usage

BlackBerry Bold:

RIM has made the BlackBerry the hands-down winner for a perfect desktop extension. Pretty much whatever you can do from Outlook on your Exchange server, you can do from your BlackBerry. In addition to looking at the device specifically, RIM’s BES server offers the now standard way of managing, controlling, and deploying devices across a corporate infrastructure. Their BES servers allow IT admins to tweak and configure every possible setting, making this is the ideal solution for mid-to-large businesses and government agencies. RIM’s focus on security also make the BlackBerry the most secure device on the planet to use in a corporate environment.

Nokia E71: And dropped BlackBerry Connect again why? Not a good idea, guys. At least as far as the U.S. market is concerned. You had a device which would have been bought by the pound and used by a lot of corporate executives along with their BES, giving them an opportunity to venture outside of the immediate BlackBerry world. You now have to deal with people buying devices personally for the most part, and at + / - $500 with no discount for corporate volume purchases, it’s going to be a tough sell. Especially considering MailForExchange’s shortcomings.

Pricing:

BlackBerry Bold: The Bold’s pricing hasn’t been revealed yet, but it’s going to be in the $199-$299 price range with a two-year agreement. Or three if you’re unlucky to be a slave to Ted Rogers.

Nokia E71: The E71 is priced at $499 at Nokia stores directly, but you most likely can find it for around $420-$475 depending where you shop.

Conclusion:

It’s a little hard to put this but… we absolutely loved the Nokia E71. It was the best S60 we’d ever used. And it still is, some would argue. There is no doubt it is the finest QWERTY device Nokia has made. Don’t bring up the E90, ok? Even though we had used a Bold prior to our Nokia E71 first review, it wasn’t until we had both devices together that we really had our mind change. This is a personal opinion here, but the BlackBerry Bold smokes the E71 out of the water in so many ways. The E71 is fine as a personal communication device, but once you enter into the realm of corporate email, or even small business, for that matter, the Bold is the reigning king, and will stay that way for a pretty long time.

(http://www.boygeniusreport.com)