Archive for May, 2008

Asus Eee PC 900 unboxed & mini review

Introduction

Love it or hate, there is not denying the popularity of the Asus Eee PC, demand for the 701 has far exceeded supply since it was originally launched last year. In fact these are still very hard to get hold of.

I’ve been using my 701 for about 6 months and love the portability of it, sometimes you just don’t need a ‘proper’ laptop to do what you want to do.

New versions of the Eee PC have been on the cards for quite some time and finally Asus have launched the new 900 model. Very similar to the original 701, it’s the same size and virtually the same weight, same CPU and basic hardware. However where the 900 differs is in the screen department where you can now find a 9″ display running at 1024 x 600 – a vast improvement. There’s also a 20GB SSD in place of the old 8GB unit.

Asus Eee PC 900

What’s in the box?

The device itself, instruction book, installation CD, battery, power adaptor, er, that’s about it take a look at the unbox video below for more.

Asus Eee PC 900 Specification:

General

The Eee PC opens easily to reveal a small, but full QWERTY keyboard, trackpad and mouse buttons.

Asus Eee PC 900 keyboard

One of the complaints about the older 701 was that the screen was quite small and looked a bit lonely in the middle of the top part of the unit. However you’ll now find a 9″ unit filling this area.

The Ethernet port is located on the left hand side next to one of three USB2.0 ports and the audio lines In and Out. There are a further two USB ports on the right along with the SDHC card slot.

Asus Eee PC 900 left side

Asus Eee PC 900 right side

The removable battery slots very smoothly in and out the spine of the unit and power cord plugs into the back. The AC adapter has also changed from the 701, you now get an inline power brick style charger rather than an adapter that plugs in to the wall. The adapters now also match the colour of the Eee you purchase.

There’s also a built in webcam which can be used for video conferencing and with later versions of Skype.

As you can see from the picture below, the overall foot print of the 900 is the same as the 701.

Asus Eee PC 900 vs Eee 701

Highlights

Lowlights

Review

It has to said that the keyboard, trackpad and mouse button does feel distincltively cheap, but that said the device IS cheap so you get what you pay for and given what you get on the inside it’s hard to grumble. That aside the only other disappointment was the screen size which, given the overall size of the device does feel a bit small. However a larger screen would no doubt to have added to the price and made it feel less economically attractive.

The default installed OS is Xandros Linux on this model but a version with Windows XP pre-installed should be available some time in June.

Now that the screen has been upgraded to 1024 x 600 it makes the 900 much easier to use. Most web pages assume a resolution of 1024 x 768 so some pages didn’t look right or load properly on the 701 and those that did required a lot of scrolling. This is a lot less of a problem now with the 9″ screen in place.

However, the having a larger screen is not without penalties. We praised the battery life of the 701 getting about 3-4 hours use out of a single charge depending on the usage. The 900 has barely half the battery life though, needing a charge at around the 2 hour mark. Hopefully this will be addressed with bigger batteries!

Ram has been increased on the 900 and you now get 1GB as standard. This certainly helps those applications run more smoothly. It’s not just RAM that’s been increased though as the Solid State Drive is now up to 20GB (From 8GB on the 701). For those out there that want to install other operating systems on the device the additional SSD space will make the process a lot easier.

A number of owners complained of problems with the SSD installed in the 701 and the reliability of the drive has been called in to question. It’s too early to say if the SSD in the 900 will suffer the same fate but lets hope this has been sorted!

Conclusion

A vast improvement over the original 701 the new Eee 900 is now my next must-have gadget. It’s just a shame that the battery life has been reduced so much by that larger screen. However, larger batteries are said to be available soon.

Posted by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Windows Mobile blog, UMPC, Asus Eee PC, Laptop, Tracy & Matt]

LG KF600 review

This week I was asked to review the LG KF600, which is the latest offering from LG.

The LG KF600, features a split-screen design. I was just as keen to get my hands on this mobile, as interesting as it looked. Would I find its functionality to be as intriguing as its appearance?

LG KF600

The LG KF600 has the split screen with touch-sensitive navigation pad that changes depending on what feature you’re using, from the music player to text messaging. Every time you access a different part of the phone’s interface, the navigation area at the bottom changes the displayed keys to suit your needs.

LG KF600 Specification

What’s in the box?

GENERAL

The LG KF600 has s classy look with a smooth shiny front and chrome edges. The primary display is set at the top in portrait orientation and the secondary touch screen sited just below and set landscape.

LG KF600 open

You can access most of the phones controls and features with the touch screen but when you want to text and make calls you can simply slide the screen open and reveal the phone-style keypad.

LG KF600 keypad

On the left side of the phone you can find rockers style buttons for volume control and an MP3 button, the later launches the media player software on the phone.

LG KF600 left side

The right side of phone has a camera button and a small plastic cover over a proprietary connector which is where you plug in the charger, USB cable and headphones.

LG KF600 right side

The back of the camera is quite plain. Here you’ll only find the camera and flash as well as a small grille covering the loud speaker.

LG KF600 back

The MicroSD card slot is sited under the battery cover and requires that you remove the battery before you can swap the card. This can be quite annoying if you carry more than one memory card with your music on as you’ll have to turn the phone off and take it apart before you can change the memory card.

LG KF600 MicroSD slot

REVIEW

Reading the specs on the internet, it sounds very exciting, but I don’t really like it. I realised that the touch-sensitive keys have their ups and downs and the KF600’s navigation pad reinforces that issue.

I found the screen clunky to press compared to using a traditional D-Pad layout, I also wanted to touch the top screen, which you frustratingly can’t do. If you want a full touch screen phone, you could always look to the new LG KF700. The system works overall but it felt slow and unresponsive at times.

I was slightly disappointed with the plastic that covers the two displays, which felt less solid than I expected and isn’t as high in quality as other LG phones’ screens, I also was not impressed with the keys on the keypad — they were too flat to easily distinguish between each one.

Fortunately, the sliding mechanism is smooth and spring loaded, so you won’t struggle to pop the phone open. The back of the phone has a rubbery finish that feels nice to touch and while the keypad is flatter than I’d have liked, it does have a mechanical cancel key on it.

While I was not convinced by the touch screen navigation pad, I do think that the software interface looks good and is an innovative idea, offering you direct access to different functions depending on what you’re doing. The phone is brought to life in a different way to your average phone theme. It’s something I hope to see more of in the future.

Another interesting feature is the KF600’s photo viewer. Using the touch-sensitive pad, you can zoom in on photos and view different areas using a mini-map-style interface. This interface would work brilliantly to see different areas of a Web page, too — unfortunately, it isn’t used in the Web browser, which I thought was an oversight. It’s actually more difficult to navigate a Web page with the KF600’s touchpad. Moving up and down on a page isn’t as smooth as I’d like it to be.

It seems that LG have enforced its music player. The player lets you create play lists, adjust the equaliser, set songs to shuffle and repeat all tracks. I was glad to see a 3.5mm headphone adapter that lets you listen to music using you own headphones but I’d really like to see a built-in 3.5mm jack on LG phones. The KF600 does support A2DP, so you can listen to music wirelessly should you choose to.

Camera-wise, the KF600 boasts a 3-megapixel camera with a variety of settings, including white balance and setting a timer. It’s not the cream of the camera crop in terms of performance, but it is easy to use.

Audio quality during calls was clear and didn’t sound distorted. I would have liked to be able to turn the volume up more, however. The loudspeaker worked normally. On the MP3 and radio front, the KF600’s no iPod, but its quality was acceptable and it’ll suffice if you’re looking for something that’ll pump out tunes during your daily commute.

For a 3-megapixel camera I expected it to be a little sharper but it didn’t perform as well as I expected, particularly in low light due to the lack of xenon flash. There is an LED photo light, but you shouldn’t expect it to illuminate your photos. That said, if you just want to take photos for MMS messages and small prints, it does the job.

With moderate to high usage the LG KF600’s battery lasted for about two days before needing to be recharged. Battery life is quoted at 200 hours standby time and up to 2.5 hours talk time.

The contextual menus are a very good idea, offering users an easier way to interact with their phones, but how these contextual interfaces are accessed makes a big difference.

The screen doesn’t have that instant response you get from the iPhone’s touch screen either, making it a very awkward touch screen to use at times. Ideas like these though aren’t always perfect first time round, so while I might not rush out to buy this phone, the next one might just work well enough to change my mind.

Conclusion

Overall I’ve been quite impressed with the KF600. It doesn’t work as a business phone but then it really isn’t trying to be one. If you are looking for an inexpensive phone with good features and attractive looks for personal use then the KF600 is worth considering. Your friends down the pub will definitely want to play with it!

Review by: Phillip

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, LG, KF600, camera phone]