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HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

Matt’s back from möbius with a handset rundown
Maybe Pocket PC isn’t such a bad name, after all
Hands on with the HTC HD2
Kevin has a 3.5G wireless broadband secret he’s been holding out on
Google’s Chrome OS explained

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The Laptop Steering Wheel Desk is a simple platform that hooks easily onto the steering wheel, providing a small desk to support the notebook for work sessions. It puts the laptop at about the right height for comfortable typing, and is easily removed when it’s time to hit the road again. It looks to be able to handle netbooks, but bigger notebooks might create a problem. Of course, users know better than to use the laptop while driving, right?

This question is timely given the recent release of the Verizon Droid and Droid Eris. The Droid is the only available smartphone that runs Android 2.0, the latest version that is widely recognized as a big improvement over the previous version, 1.6. That version is on most of the other Android phones currently available, or in some cases (the HTC Hero comes to mind) even an earlier version is running the show.

The Droid Eris is priced very attractively, but prospective customers have to consider if the older OS is worth the cost savings. Sure, it is expected (although not necessarily a given) that the Eris will get an upgrade to Android 2.0. That would make the Eris one of the most attractive Android phones on the market given the low price point compared to the Droid. But in the world of phone OS updates, such an update could be months before it appears. There are too many fingers in the OS update pie, the phone manufacturer, the OS provider and of course the phone network.

A few months doesn’t seem like a long time to wait for a significant update, but smartphones have a very short consumer lifespan. Contracts in the U.S. are two years in duration, and some folks don’t keep phones even that long. That makes a wait of a few months for an OS update a lot more of an impact on the buying decision. If a given phone doesn’t see an update for six months, not that unusual, that can be a significant portion of the phone’s lifespan with the typical consumer. To some folks it might not be worth the wait, it might make more sense to get the more expensive phone that ships with the latest OS version.

I only used the Droid as an example given the timeliness of the Eris release. The same question can be asked of other phones, as it seems we are always waiting for one OS update or another. The only platforms exempt from this dilemma are the iPhone and WebOS. All of Apple’s and Palm’s phones get all updates, a distinct advantage in this case. So how long is too long for an OS update? Would you be willing to wait a long time for an update, or do you take that into your buying decision?

I’m sitting here in the waiting room, in typical waiting room chairs that are in no way conducive to working comfortably. I’m using three pieces of mobile tech, however, and that makes the work experience a productive one.

The Lenovo ThinkPad x200 is sitting in my lap currently, and I’m using it in laptop configuration. Typing is the task at hand, so laptop it is. I’m connected to the web via the Verizon MiFi, which is throwing its 3G goodness out for me to tap into my personal hotspot. These two gadgets are more than enough to get the job done, but I’m using a third simply because it makes it easy.

The Droid is out, too, and I’m using it for a certain task that experimentation shows me makes the most sense: to keep up with the hundreds of RSS feeds I track. I can easily do this on the laptop, but I found that I can spin through the huge number of feed items that constantly roll in faster using the Droid. I use the Google Reader page optimized for the iPhone, and that works perfectly on the Droid. I spin through the article titles, tap the yellow star to flag something to return to later, and basically fly through the feeds as fast as I can swoop down the page with my finger.

Once I’ve caught up with the feeds, I jump over to the ThinkPad and access the items I’ve flagged on the Droid. I can honestly say that I’ve covered as much ground, perhaps even more, than I do using just a browser on the PC. Maybe tasks like this explain the high Droid web usage being reported.

I had a flashback moment while sitting here working away. The repair shop has a TV in the waiting room, tuned to the local Fox News. I don’t normally watch Fox, but a glance up at the screen took me back. It seems one of the anchors is the Fox reporter who visited Mobile Tech Manor three years ago to interview me about the unboxing video phenomenon. It was a pleasant and unexpected flashback.

How many of us have parked our car in a huge parking lot, and then searched for it when we return? It can be especially challenging at sporting events, when all you can see is what seems like miles of cars between you and your car. Car Finder eliminates that frustration by using the iPhone 3GS camera to show you where you left your car. You tell the program where you are when you park the car, and when you return it shows you where the car is, superimposed over those miles of other cars. It’s a useful app with a real-world benefit, and it only costs you 99 cents.

HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

iDon’t know who’s buying a DROID on the show.
Who’s the big “loser” with Droid/Verizon? Could it be BlackBerry?
Mayans pull the plug on MSN Direct in 2012.
Google Maps Navigation beta — did this just wipe out PNDs?

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With Connectify, you have a software solution to share the data connection of your PC — a secure hotspot with WPA2-Personal (AES) encryption is created via a virtual Wi-Fi interface, so any other Wi-Fi device you have can take advantage of your mobile broadband connection. And this differs from tethering options we’ve covered in the past (here for PC and here for Mac OS X) because tethering generally only allows one other device to leverage the connection. By creating a Wi-Fi hotspot, multiple devices can join in.

The obvious disadvantage of a software solution is that it requires your Windows 7 computer to be up and running. That’s where hardware like the MiFi excels — you don’t need to have computer on because the MiFi creates its own hotspot. Still, I see the advantage, so I’m hopping on the beta train for Connectify right now.

HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

Windows 7 is here, and so is the Windows 7 Whopper.
Will Starter Edition help or hurt netbook sales?
More time spent with Nokia’s N900 and a definitive guide.
B&N Nook vs. Amazon Kindle (which will have a PC edition soon)

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UPDATED: If the sneak peaks that Dell has offered of the super-thin Adamo XPS are intended to get our geek motors cranked, they have been successful. Only a handful of quick glimpses have been offered to date, so this 2-minute video of the XPS is a welcome treat. This is the first notebook in memory that redefines the design and function of how a such a device does even the simplest things, like opening the lid.

The video shows in detail how easily the Adamo XPS opens once the heat-sensitive strip is touched on the lid. The unique hinge causes the XPS to rest on a surface at a tilt, giving the keyboard a delightful ergonomic angle. The only question it raises is how the XPS would be used in the lap. I’m not sure it can be used like a laptop of old.

UPDATE: Apparently Dell wasn’t happy with the video creator as the clip has been taken down, at least for now.

(Zive Computer via geek.com)

HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

Hands on with the Nokia N900 Internet Tablet.
Matt’s Zune Originals finally arrived!
Pros and cons of the Acer D250 Android/XP netbook & Dell’s Latitude ON
Motorola CLIQ reviews hitting. Nice for social networkers, but how different is it from other Android hardware?

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There’s plenty of reason to trash the folks that run the service, and if I was a Sidekick customer, I’d likely be doing the same. But I also would have done something else — found a way to have a redundant copy of my most important data.

Many commenters from the original story have bashed the cloud or said something like, “See, this is why I won’t use the web to store my data…” The fact is, web storage and services are a tool, just like any other. And any tool has a chance of failure — that doesn’t mean the tool is flawed, only that it has limitations.

Once you accept that, you begin to understand the need for backup copies of data, especially for mobile devices. I use the cloud for so many services, that I can’t name them all. Online I have photos, videos, contacts, calendar events, tasks, music, podcasts, documents and more. But — and here’s the kicker — every reasonable bit of that individual online data has a counterpart. I either have a second copy on a different cloud service, a local copy (or two) on a hard drive, or an archived CD/DVD copy. If I don’t have a second copy of a particular bit of data, it’s because I’ve deemed it replaceable. And I make sure that I don’t let months and months go by between local copies or backups. That way, in a worst-case situation, only my most recent data updates are vulnerable.

Now, we’ve covered our fair share of cloud storage and other backup or synchronization services here over the past few years. And we’ll continue to do so. I can’t tell you what service or approach will work best, because your needs are different from mine. But I can tell you that services fail. So, too, does physical media. Don’t wait for the inevitable to happen, because one of the most frustrating situations has to be when that device you rely on simply can’t help you. We get so dependent on our data that without it, we simply can’t function. If you’re not leading a double life with your data, just imagine that you were impacted by the Sidekick debacle or some other tremendous data loss. How much would it impact your life? More importantly — what are you doing about it?

HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

More Windows Mobile 6.5 thoughts after some hands-on time.
The Android Army is expanding with many new handsets.
Google Sync for iPhone is Google Stink this week.
How to enable data roaming on the Palm Pre.
Odds of an iPhone on Verizon in the near term seem to be fading fast.

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In a “duh!” moment on the podcast, I finally found the data roaming settings on the Pre. I’m sure many of you have already found them, but neither James nor I knew where to look. Now we do! To enable data roaming — which is off by default:

• Open the Phone application
• Tap the Preferences option in the top left menu.
• Scroll down to the Network preferences and choose “Enable” or “Disable” as needed on the Data Roaming option.

I wish I had known where to find this in July, when I needed it, but better late than never! Bear in mind that Sprint’s data roaming with Verizon is limited. You’re generally allowed up to 300MB of off-network data roaming per month, according to Sprint’s FAQs on its web site. That might explain why this setting is off by default. Now the only question remaining is, will Matt add a Sprint device based on this info?

PhotoDialer is in the App Catalog and makes it a breeze to add contacts to a speed dialer screen for easy access. You can have a contact on the screen multiple times with different phone numbers, and the app puts a distinctive icon in the corner of the contact photo to make it clear which phone number will be dialed. The screen background is customizable, and the speed dial screen can be either a grid view or a list of apps. The contact’s name can be indicated over the icon if desired.

The developer, CardinalPeak, has a nice article about the development of PhotoDialer for those interested.