It's a great device, but…
Had my Gemini a little over a month and while I don't use it much I am happy with it as a companion device, and as the notebook you can always take with you. The keyboard is surprisingly usable given its size. Here is a list of things that I think can be improved upon:
- ambient light detector moved away from the right of the screen because you occlude it every time you use the soft keys.
- control of the HDMI output so that 16:9 is possible. Currently things like iPlayer mirror exactly the screen which means black bars on the external screen.
- second modifier key to right of the space bar. You really need one of these if you're using a different keyboard layout.
- Sound. This has to be my biggest gripe. It could be just my device but I find the speakers incredibly tinny and hissy (even in comparison to the S5's tiny speaker) so much so that I have the sound dialled down to zero. I would not want to use the device without a headset for a video conference, something for which it is otherwise perfect.
I think all these issues are fixable and are acceptable for something that is essentially still a protoype.
The Gemini will fit into any jacket pocket and is perfect for taking notes. I'm planning to take mine with me on a long cycling holiday because I will need to be able to do e-mail and use a keyboard, and this this simply wouldn't be possible with a notebook. And a friend of mine has just ordered one just for note-taking.
Here's hoping that Planet will have the funding to continue to work on improvements.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
