Friday is here, time to take a step back from the hurried happenings in Mobile Tech Manor and look back at the week. Some gear went back where it came from and other gear arrived for play evaluation. I experimented with alternative e-book readers to get a feel for what I like best before all the “real” readers hit early next year. Step into the Manor and let’s shoot the breeze.
Oh no he didn’t take the 18.4-inch Acer Aspire 8940G notebook to the local coffee shop. Oh yes he did, and it’s been an adventure from the get-go. First up, I had to find a bag at Mobile Tech Manor that the giant laptop would fit in and close. I must have tried 5 or 6 bags before I realized that if I ignored the special laptop pouch within a giant Targus backpack I have and put it in the main compartment, that it would then fit and close.
Then I had to haul the 10+ pound notebook to the car, and to the coffee shop without breaking my shoulder. Once inside the shop, I had to pass over many tables until finding one that was big enough to actually handle the giant laptop. Once that was done I was all set, and I’m working away with this gorgeous screen. Battery life is looking to be between 2.5 and 3 hours, not bad for such a powerhouse with an 8-cell battery.
The keyboard is delightful, it is a cross between a chiclet style and a “real” keyboard. The keys are flat, but have full travel unlike chiclet keys. Having a 10-key on board is taking me back to the old desktop keyboards, and it’s useful as can be. I am successfully fighting the urge to fire up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, that would be too much for the crowded shop. It sure would be fun, though.
It is Thursday and that means it’s time for another Palm Press. Palm Press is our weekly look at the world of Palm. The Pixi has only been selling for a short bit but you can already pick one up at Amazon for $25. Yes, you read that right, $25. Palm and Sprint should just go ahead and give the things away. Sell us accessories, the mark-ups obviously higher anyway. BTW, the Pre is only $80 at Amazon. Things can’t be sitting too well with Palm right about now, as savvy shoppers will have even less reason to buy a new Pixi instead of a Pre.
This week saw the rollout of webOS 1.3.1, and it was largely a rollup of fixes and minor tweaks. One of the most significant changes in the new release, to me anyway, is the inclusion of browser cookies in the backup. That means your browsing information survives a rebuild and restore, which is great news. Yahoo! users will now love the synchronization with webOS as it was added to the mix. The change in webOS 1.3.1 most discussed is the one that isn’t there, Palm apparently decided to throw in the towel in the wrestling match with Apple over iTunes compatibility. This update is the first by Palm that didn’t reverse the most recent iTunes update to block webOS phones from syncing with iTunes.
In happier news for Palm, the Pre was named by Consumer Reports as one of the top products of the year. The Pre placed eighth on the CR list of top smartphones, behind the iPhones (3GS and 3G) and the BlackBerry Bold.
The Verizon Droid is soon to be returned to the kind folks there who sent me this evaluation phone so it’s time for a video look at the phone. The Droid is the Android 2.0 slider that is thin and light, and sports an industrial design bent. In the video I show the responsiveness of the Droid, the hardware and give a feel for the web browsing experience. I also show the camera function, including how long it takes to focus and shoot.
I have been impressed with the Droid, and will be sad to see it go. It is a very capable smartphone compared to the many I have tried. I find it is easily the best phone on the Verizon network currently.
I was working away this morning, minding my own business, when a tweet sent to me and @Gartenberg got me thinking. The Twitter conversation was about reading e-books, and @AppGeniusBar asked us the question that got it all started:
@Gartenberg @jkendrick Have u imagined spending at least 12 hrs without feeling the need for an electronic gadget in ur hand?
I thought about this for a bit, and the answer hit me over the head (or in the hand). I have reached a point in my gadget usage that the gadget simply doesn’t matter. It’s the task I am doing at the time, in this case reading e-books, that grabs all of my attention. It is a testament to how far mobile technology has advanced that I have so many choices in the gadgets I use to do things. As I replied to @AppGeniusBar:
When I’m reading an e-book, and I read 2 – 3 a week, the gadget is simply the vehicle. It’s a book to me, just like paper kind.
That statement couldn’t be more spot on — I do not think about the gadget, I am simply reading a book. The same holds true with all the other tasks I do with a gadget, it’s the task that matters, not the gadget. Sure, it’s nice having a cool gadget that lets me do things I need to do, but when I’m actually doing them I do not think about the gadget at all, as long as it lets me complete the task at hand. This may sound only logical, but for someone like me who is always looking for the “next big gadget”, this was eye-opening. The gadget doesn’t matter, it’s what I do with them.
Did you buy one of those geeky Smartpens from Livescribe and are now looking for more things to do with it? There’s an app store for that. The Smartpen is a digital pen that captures handwritten notes in a format that can be used in a variety of ways. The new store has apps that range from simple games like Hangman to foreign language dictionaries. A quick look around the store shows quite a few apps for 99 cents, and others ranging up to $30.
Travel phrasebooks seem to be all over the store, a smart application for the Smartpen. I see phrasebooks in Japanese, French, German and Spanish, to name a few. Note that apps can be purchased only by customers in the U.S., UK, Australia and Canada only, according to Livescribe. Livescribe is actively looking for developers to build apps for the store. The Smartpen and supplies can only be shipped to the U.S.
The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is drawing nigh, and the folks at Truphone are giving free calls for the day in celebration of the giving spirit. The promotion runs on Thanksgiving day, Nov. 26, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST. All calls to a U.S. mobile or landline will be free to any caller if made with the Truphone application.
“Thanksgiving is a day when family and friends come together to celebrate and catch up across the U.S.”, said Geraldine Wilson, CEO of Truphone. “For those people who can’t get home for the holidays, often because distance is too much, a telephone call to let them know how they are is the next best thing. With this initiative, we are allowing people who can’t be together to catch up on this special day.”
This is not confirmed by Lenovo, but more details about the ThinkPad netbook rumored for a January release have appeared on the web. The ThinkPad X100e is unusual, not just for being a ThinkPad netbook, but for the AMD processor it’s reported to use to run things. The 11.6-inch screen pushes the netbook classification a bit, but the $449 price if accurate is firmly in netbook territory. The specs are very ThinkPad-like, and that dual trackstick/trackpad is definitely ThinkPad material.
Word has slipped out of Seattle that the beta version of Office Mobile 2010 is now available for Windows Phones on the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. That means you need WinMo 6.5 to download this early version of Office Mobile that includes mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and the new SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010. I can’t find it on the web version of the Marketplace, so you may need to be on a Windows Phone to get it.
The good folks at Acer sent a giant notebook to Mobile Tech Manor, and I have a quick look to share. The Acer Aspire 8940G is a monster of a notebook with a screen that is 18.4 inches. It’s only been here an hour but here’s the skinny (it is surprisingly skinny for a big laptop):
There will be more to come as I get some time with the Acer. Here are some photos to give you a look:
© 2009 The GigaOM Network. Marketing consulting by ACS.
