Posts by uhuznaa
330 posts • joined Friday 16th November 2007 12:30 GMT
You can buy these today
ViewSonic VSD 220 and VSD 240, Acer DA220...
As cheap, low-power all-in-one devices somewhere between a silly TV and a full computer these aren't too bad. Keyboard and mouse support in Android is good enough to use them now and then as a "computer" and the touchscreen is fine for some browsing, youtubing, playing music and general "terminal" use in the kitchen or so. They also have enough USB ports to hang some serious storage off them (for those with huge music, photo and movie libraries).
This is to a desktop PC what a tablet is to a laptop.
Posted in Samsung: We're doing smart watches too
If this is a "watch" I'd be very surprised
I mean, smartphones are phones only by name and a smartwatch won't be more of a watch than a smartphone is a phone. Everyone looking at the world market for watches and thinking this is the cap for a smartwatch is a bit flat.
On the other hand, I have no idea what a smartwatch is meant to do. Using it as a phone is pretty much silly and for most other things the screen will be too small. Interacting with something that is strapped to your wrist isn't really great too, especially with a small screen.
Posted in BlackBerry CEO: iPhone past its prime
RIM was saying this since 2007
I'm too lazy to look up some quotes, but RIM back then thought that the iPhone was doomed and in no way a competitor. God, were they wrong.
To iOS: Yes, it's familiar in an almost boring way now. But do I seek excitement from a smartphone anymore? Not really. I have a Nexus 7 and will buy another Android tablet soon, but my iPhone is totally fine for what I need it for. Reliable, good battery life, smooth, comfortable. Nothing wrong with that, really. And if I will ever buy an Android phone I will immediately get an iPad to go with it just for completeness. What's more boring than having all your gadgets run the same OS?
Re: Ahem
Same with the iPhone, drag down the notification drawer from within any app, swipe up again to dismiss. You can even go straight into every email there (other than with Android where tapping on any email just opens your inbox)...
Anyway, there are a few things I like and I wish RIM^WBlackberry well. Although I doubt that it will work out.
The Reg
Pressing well-known buttons on its readers since ages.
Apart from that: MS selling the Surface Pro with 64 GB is just asking for trouble. You buy this thing if you want to run "real" Windows software and real Windows software is not written with such puny storage in mind. Use it as you use a PC (and that's the point of it, isn't it?) and this thing will run into a quite hard wall in no time.
And if you want to soften that wall by inserting an SD card don't expect it to be as fast as the integrated flash. Nobody likes to talk about it, but these things are SLOW.
I still hope MS was wise enough to integrate a somewhat standard SSD there, so you can actually put in a larger SSD. If the storage is soldered in here people won't like this a bit, I tell you. An iPad is just an appliance, but a "real PC" with "64 GB of HD and that's it" is a bit poor if you ask me.
Posted in Review: Google Nexus 4
Re: Battery life...
I know it may sound smug, but my two years old iPhone 4 is right now at 79% battery after 16 hours off the charger. I usually charge it every other day just to make sure.
I was very interested in the Nexus 4 since my Nexus 7 is a nice (although certainly not perfect) tablet. But after reading the first reviews and detailed battery benchmarks I just lost interest. Just as well it seems, it's unavailable anyway.
I also didn't like the speaker right on the back -- why do they do that? Even the Nexus 7 with its speaker pointing halfway down/backwards is almost unusable for Skype without headphones if I actually want to look at the front of it at the same time. It seems I can either look at the screen or actually hear what's being said but not both.
Posted in Review: Google Nexus 4
Re: I was starting to think I might have been too quick to buy the S3..
Yes, with Android you have the choice of either getting timely OS updates or a SD card slot. You can't have both though, sorry.
Isn't the new Apple all about the mass market?
Since the iPod (75% market share) Apple has been trying (quite successfully) to go for the mass market. The iPad had 90% of the tablet market for a while and the iPhone still has 50% in the US. Yes, they are not cheap, but they're not in a premium niche either. And IF Apple will shrink into a 10% segment of the market, mindshare will just break away and people won't be willing to pay a premium for something nobody cares for.
Apple surely wasn't a healthy company when they sold expensive computers to 5%-10% of the market. It nearly killed them.
Give me
such a thing with the innards of the Nexus 7 and an 11" screen, running Android, for about $350 and I'll buy it.
X-Window
It's X Window (or "X Window System"), not X-Windows. Really.
Posted in The best e-readers for Christmas
Re: any recommendations for a 70 year old with parkinsons?
The speaker in my Nexus 7 is *much* quieter than the speakers in the iPad mini. It's one of the weakest points of that tablet.
Re: @b166er
I think in the long run users just will happily adapt to that wall of tiles. Because even in old Windows most people immediately maximize any window they come across and I have never heard of anyone thinking that the start menu is great just because you can flap it out and still see some windows. What for?
Like it or not, but arbitrarily overlapping and piled windows are something most people won't miss that bad or at all.
One thing
I'm starting to really miss with such devices since I first saw the Lenovo Yoga: A display that can be folded back all the way. With a touchscreen it's really nice to be able to put the thing up in "tent-mode" and to use it a media hub or watching something off YouTube or put it into the kitchen. It may be not enough to turn a small notebook into a tablet, but it surely makes such a thing much more useful at home.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Windows 8 and touchscreens would lead to such notebooks come more and more often with something like that. Even the MS Surface is rather something in between a touchscreen desktop computer and a (bad) notebook than just a true tablet.
"Not many tablets"...
One tablet would be enough if it's good.
Google is stupid
Something like this seems to have much more potential than the stupid ChromeBooks Google is trying to force down our throats. Even as just a cheap, simple PC or thin client in the office. Especially with MS Office coming for Android in a few months.
Add four full-sized SD card slots (so you can add up to 256 GB of flash for media storage), a better stand so you can tilt it between 90 and 0 degrees and you have a great home media system that also works as a simple home PC with or without keyboard and mouse. HP and Dell should be all over this instead of starving while trying to just sell the same old PCs. But they're stupid as well.
Re: Supermarket shelves
"I thought it was a bit of an overengineered solution but they must have found some benefit to warrant rolling it out."
The "nice" thing about these is that you can adjust your prices on the fly then, basically liquid supply&demand optimization. Some people are thinking this is a great idea.
Of course
There will be a retina iPad mini next year. It will be heavier, thicker (because of all the backlight and GPU power draw to drive and illuminate all those pixels and the battery to feed it) and more expensive (because of the more powerful GPU and higher integrated innards and display to keep the size and weight of the thing in check) and the current Mini will drop $50 or so in price. That's the usual way to do it. And totally reasonable, I would say.
By the way, the iPad Mini still has a higher pixel density than the MS Surface. The display is far from perfect, but it's not bad either. In fact it's the first iPad I could like enough to actually buy it. I handled one a few days ago and liked it surprisingly much, it feels almost more like an ebook reader than a tablet. And 163 PPI is *much* better than the screen I'm right now looking at anyway. Doesn't really hurt either.
Posted in Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review
Re: Apple products are often arguably cheaper than their competition...
Currently even a first-gen iPad sells for about $200. With all of 1024x758 pixels on 10" and 256MB of RAM.
Posted in Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review
This thing is not bad
I have a Nexus 7 and tried an iPad Mini the other day. I found that I liked the iPad much better than the Nexus with the exception of the pixel density and the price. As an appliance the iPad is better, as a cheap touchscreen-computer the Nexus is better (and cheaper). So depending on what you actually expect from a tablet it's perfectly reasonable to like one or the other better. No need to rant, really.
Speaker
The quiet (and backwards pointing) speaker on the Nexus 7 is really poor. Using it as a video phone with Skype is hard even in a very quiet room.
Still, at least you'll get Android updates.
Re: Repeating Windows mistakes of decades past...
Google probably just won't care for removable SD cards since no Nexus device has them.
Looking forward to that
Although I'm really curious if they just add a load of features or finally fix some very annoying bugs that very nearly caused me to trash my Nexus 7 into very little pieces more than once. Like the numerous editing bugs in text fields in Chrome.
Would also be nice if Android would finally support other layouts than just US English on external keyboards (USB or BT).
Posted in iPad Mini's quite a handful
When you're not paid for tinkering with such things a pure appliance like the iPad just makes more sense than anything else.
I will never get this kind of "this device, which is well designed and has great software, has no place anywhere because I hate Apple".
(Typed on a Nexus 7 that AGAIN deleted characters several lines above the cursor when trying to edit the last sentence. If Google won't have fixed all these editing bugs in 4.2 I'll just go and buy an iPad after all).
Re: Really? *Can* you use USB mass storage in WP8?
Since iOS 5 iTunes is purely optional.
Ebooks: Just use Dropbox, if both devices are on the same network it syncs locally. You also can fill iBook via FTP or email attachments. Other readers usually support their own ways of slurping up epubs.
I have both an iPhone and an Android tablet and automatic or rule-driven sync of photos and music is a huge advantage compared to manually dragging files around. The only advantage of doing it the old-fashioned way is when you want to initially dump lots of things onto the device, but after that all that file-dragging becomes very boring and tedious very fast. And of course if you want to be able to dump loads of music and ebooks from your mate's computer onto your phone.
Anyway, if Google would bother to come with a similar software to manage your phone or tablet including backups and restoring I would very much like that.
Isn't it ironic?
The Register for a change has an article here that is not straight about an Apple product or Apple as a company and still the comments are -- all about Apple.
Positive or negative, I'm about to end my subscription to the feed since there's much too much Apple going on here. People seem to be obsessed with Apple. Nowadays I can tolerate the most silly, naive and glowing Apple fanboi almost better than all this hate, since he's at least positive and harmless, while what is going on here is purely negative obsession and hate. And so much of it.
If you don't care for Apple, just ignore them and their products, please. Care for what you like and use and buy. I really can't stand it anymore.
Re: "the inability to install desktop apps will protect users from many threats"
"But in reality, how many meaningful Windows threats ever needed to be installed like a desktop app, rather than just run as a simple executable (or, for the better exploits, opened and loaded like an ordinary document, with or without macros, or even just simple unauthenticated remote access buffer overflows ).
Those attack vectors are not in any way being blocked by being unable to install apps in general."
Of course they are blocked. These things won't run any unsigned code not coming from the store. App or executable or whatever.
And yes, I think it's a good idea. If you don't like it, get a proper computer instead of an appliance.
Desktop apps or not?
It's confusing because it has a desktop mode that runs Office and Explorer and the system settings and tools, but nothing else. It looks very much like ordinary Windows with a touch-friendly layer on top and the desktop beneath it but it isn't. It looks as if you COULD install "normal Windows software" but aren't allowed to. For the mere mortal it will look like another licensing fence. Lately I was asked quite a bit about "the new Windows iPad" (really) and whenever I started to explain WinRT and ARM and Intel versions eyes clouded over, eyebrows rose and heads shook.
Re: thinking ahead
And if you want to photograph a document lying on a table (for me the most common use for a camera on a tablet when I don't have a scanner handy) you have to angle it away from you to have the camera pointing straight downwards.
Idiotic idea, really. How often do you need the camera on the back pointing exactly horizontally when you have the thing propped up on a table? What for?
Re: Not enough?
There's also the OS on there and apps and their data and photos and whatnot. Put 3 or 4 GB of music on it (and many people aren't very good at pruning their music library and dragging files around all day) and it already gets very tight very soon. No, 8GB with no extension is just not enough these days for a smartphone. My phone has 16GB and I have to clean things up now and then already to make room.
Can't believe that
8 GB? I mean, my Nexus 7 gets away with only 8GB because I don't have any music on it and it has no camera either, so no photos piling up. But on a smartphone I would want to carry some music and photos and whatever.
Technically I can understand that Google shies away from SD-cards for storage. But no SD cards and only measly 8GB of Flash? Never.
Re: Apple Share Price ....
I don't care at all, but just to inject some facts: It does this every time. There's hype, people are buying Apple stock, then the facts are out, people are selling and then it slowly goes up again. Check back in a week.
No idea. The Nexus also is heavier, thicker, has a smaller screen and hardly any apps apart from scaled-up smartphone apps that make you use the menu and back buttons all the time while the screen is half empty.
And yes, I own a Nexus 7. It made me appreciate the form-factor just enough to lust after a similar sized tablet with decent apps quite a bit. I would agree though that the iPad mini is a bit on the expensive side. Still, I don't doubt a second that it will sell very well, and for good reasons.
Posted in LG Vu 5in Android phone-tablet review
Re: Battery
Ever had a smartphone? These things last quite a while in standby (which means you don't use all the screen and power) and not so long at all if you do something on them.
Posted in Apple iPod Touch 5G review
Re: popular with kids
Funny enough they didn't lose the mp3 player segment at all, even with hundreds of much cheaper players in the market against the good old iPod.
The iPod touch isn't a media player, it's basically a pocket-sized iPad nano. And for many people even iTunes support is a good thing (and judging from the interest in Android media players with some kind of iTunes sync support this isn't even limited to Apple fanbois -- dragging files around to manage your music is a bit like filling the tank of your car from pint-sized bottles you have to uncork first).
Anyway, if the leaked pricing lists from Germany a few days ago are any indicator, there will be a WiFi-only 8GB iPad mini for LESS than the iPod touch.
Not so easy at all
I mean, a 10" tablet is easy, but on the Nexus 7 the usual smartphone Android apps are already a bit of a letdown. A handful of tiny buttons squeezed into the top-left corner, lots of empty screen and hitting the menu button for just about everything won't get more fun on 10".
After using a Nexus 7 for a few weeks now I can fully understand why the larger Android tablets didn't sell. There are hardly any tablet apps for Android. It's just about bearable on the (still rather small) Nexus 7, but on a larger tablet? No, thanks.
Re: Target market
Yes, if there is one thing Chrome OS is fine for than it's simple office tasks. But why a small notebook then? Make it a smallish all-in-one desktop with a 19" screen and this thing will sell. No problems with the requirement of reliable net access there either.
Yeah, but rubber boots are also less prone to damage than smart leather shoes and still people prefer leather.
This is no different as with many other things. Plastic cups don't shatter that easily, people still prefer glass and china.
It's only people who think that smartphones are nothing but tools or small computers or office machinery who think that plastic is the best choice. For most people though they are more like furniture or shoes or clothing or a nice car. Ugly, cheap plastic just isn't going to win them over.
Re: Innovation @uhuznaa
The difference between Apple and MS is that MS has/had about 95% of the market while Apple has much less. Apple just can't afford to be that lazy.
I totally agree by the way that Apple has shown a very visible lack of pushing iOS (and OS X) forward. I'm not so sure about the hardware, there's not much they could do here apart from small things. The iPhone in 2007 was a Big Bang and you can't have these every year.
Innovation
Wikipedia says:
"Innovation is the development of new customer value through solutions that meet new needs, unarticulated needs, or old customer and market needs in new ways. This is accomplished through different or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. "
Apple may not invent very much at all and still be bloody innovative.
The truth is...
that the 5 is still a bloody good smartphone. It has its own share of disadvantages, true, but still: Its a nice, stylish, very responsive and fluid, easy to use smartphone with a great, quick and easy to use camera, the panorama feature works extremely well and with no fussing around at all, there are lots of very nice apps for it that don't reek of "computer" at all (as opposed to many Android apps)... Basically it's a joy to use if what you want is an appliance and not a computer. The maps suck a fair bit, the cables and adapters are bloody expensive, but these are things you can live with.
And I even don't own one. I also don't like Apple as a company. Still, nice phone. Don't pretend everyone buying one is an idiot.
Posted in iPad mini to go on sale in one month?
Re: To stop us all posting the usual buy/no-buy/walled garden comments...
After using a Google Nexus 7 for a week now I can very well understand the allure of an iPad mini. It's a fabulous device, but it's more of a PC than an appliance. Great if you love to tinker around but less great if you just want a polished way of getting some things done without having to care about what's actually happening on a technical level.
Ridiculing people who have no interest in dealing with the computer side of all this is just idiotic.
Re: Come on, let's have a real advance ...
An e-ink screen with a screen refresh rate of twice a second if you're lucky? Not really?
Re: Apple has peaked
I don't want to praise Apple or the iPhone, but I'm sick of all this "style over substance" crying. Because style is important. People buy clothing, shoes, cars, furniture, houses, EVERYTHING by style and beauty instead of just by "substance". You're wearing rubber boots all day?
Smart phones aren't just tools or office machinery or computers. Not for most people. They're much closer to clothing and shoes: They have to do their job, but they also have to look and feel good and make you feel good. Not understanding that doesn't make you clever.
Re: A few points
"IIRC it hit M3 (far from sub orbital but impressive for an all composite aeroshell) and 10s of 1000s of feet altitude."
3,140 meters (about 1000 feet) altitude with 142 seconds of flight time was the record flight. This is basically nothing, this thing was a demo for vertical landing and nothing else. There's a lot of nostalgia going on with that thing. It surely was a nice project, but far, far away from a spacecraft.
Re: Go for it!
The Nexus 7 is a nice and unexpensive device (I'm typing on one right now) but it's not an iPad. It's a totally different thing. If you want an appliance the Nexus sucks, if you want a tablet computer the iPad sucks.
And why should Google/Asus make it even cheaper as it already is?
Re: A few points
You shouldn't forget though that DC-X was in no way a spacecraft. This thing was a demonstrator for some things (vertical landing and rapid turnaround) and launching to space was not among these, not by far. You can go rather cheap and quick if all you want to do ever is going up a few hundred feet and landing again.
X-33 instead was planned as a (sub-)orbital fully reusable single-stage spaceplane. Totally different thing, really.
Re: still not really sure about this
I think the major problem with this approach is that you'll have to fly your rocket stage back through the thicker atmosphere with the large, very light and nearly empty tank pointing forward and the heavy engines, turbopumps and thrust structure at the end. Maintaining enough control over this thing to keep it from tumbling and pointing the heavy bits forward is a challenge. Try to throw a dart with the fins pointing forward to see what happens. This thing will be extremely unstable in atmospheric flight.
But it's good they're trying. Recovering and even soft-landing the first stage could make launches much cheaper. Even more so with the F9 Heavy which will add two more first stages as boosters (and these will burn out much sooner and will be easier to return).
Hey, The Register
I'm somewhat missing content here. Apart from dissing Apple there seems to be an appreciable lack of decent articles that people read and comment on.
I've started to read The Register many, many years ago (yes, I'm a veteran) for the snappy, wide-ranging and sometimes even witty reporting on all things IT. Lately The Register seems to do nothing but cater to the IT-equivalent of embassy-burning muslims everywhere. The problem is that there is no lack of this anywhere and to be honest, mostly the comments, that is: your readers are better at it than your authors anyway. You've become an Apple-haters forum. Your reviews seem to be written by someone musing about devices over a pint or five decorated with PR images straight from the company PR department. The only articles that draw hits and comments are "Apple fucked the Prophet's daughter!!!" or such.
(Full disclosure: I'm writing this using Google Chrome on an Apple Macbook, in my pocket is an iPhone 4, besides me lays a Google Nexus 7 Android tablet, my feet rest on a PC running FreeBSD, my job is keeping a flock of Windows-PCs, Linux-Servers, Android-Phones and iPads happy.)
I'm a brain-fanboi and what's going on here is insulting my brain and my decency.
So: "The hand that bites IT" needs to rear up its head and look around for a change. There's more than Apple in IT, you know.
I'm not sure. Look what Steve Jobs said about Apple and "its attitude of arrogance" (his words) back in 2007 (shortly after returning to Apple) and its very hard not to agree with him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnO7D5UaDig&#t=600s
He's talking about the old Apple and the Mac of course, but every word fits perfectly at today's Apple and the iPhone. "Reinventing the wheel might end up 10% better but usually it ends up 50% worse" -- just classic.
