Archive for 2008

Living with the HTC Shift (Part 2)

Second day in and the HTC Shift is still impressing, at least part of the time.

The HTC Shift is still with me, managing to replace my laptop for almost all of the regular daily functions, there are a few things that are a little annoying.

I’ve recently bemoaned the fact that the OQO e2 had a capacitive pen rather than an actual touch screen I have to admit I was wrong and OQO were right.

The HTC Shift is equipped with a fully touch screen, great when in windows mobile as with your thumbs you can access the entire screen no problems. Email triage is easy as you like just a couple of thumb touches to get rid of the chaff from your inbox its great.

Using the tablet features are no problem as the handwriting recognition panel means it’s simple to enter even cursive text however when using OneNote with a fully sensitive screen or any application that doesn’t use the input panel unless you hover your hand over the screen in a cramp inducing posture you end up with scrawls all over the screen. A Capacitive pen would solve this problem to be honest this means that using the Shift for note taking in meetings isn’t as simple as I’d hoped.

The keypad is still too fiddly, so much so that I’ve taken to using my stowaway Bluetooth keyboard for more accurate and comfortable input, I will persevere but it’s not as usable as I’d hoped.

Battery life is also a problem using vista for even 30 minutes you lose a great deal of your windows mobile time, you need to have the power supply to hand as even with less than an hour of Vista use you get less than 24 hours windows mobile use.

This sounds like I don’t like the Shift, however for such a compact device it’s managing very well, the niggles are just that, niggles and the Shift is performing above expectations. Despite the little issues the HTC Shift is still winning for me.

Part three soon.

Go back to Part 1 or on to Part 3

Posted by: Alasdair

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, Orange, HTC, HTC Shift, Microsoft Communicator]

Living with the HTC Shift (Part 1)

Part one of my daily report on HTC’s Windows Mobile / Windows Vista Hybrid

I’ve been looking forward to this review for a while, ever since the Shift was announced I’ve been eagerly awaiting it’s arrival at Tracyandmatt towers. Well late last week it arrived and I’ve had the weekend to start to set it up as I’d like. This week I’m going to try and use the Shift as a laptop replacement and give you daily updates on my progress.

So part one of living with the shift:

The shift is not quite what it was made out to be, I’d been expecting a device with Vista and full Windows Mobile 6 as oppose to windows sideshow. As widely reported elsewhere what you actually get is Vista and a cut-down version of Winmo called Snapvue which actually doesn’t do too much more than sideshow and email. There’s no browser, no office mobile, not really much of anything at all. Paul over at MoDaCo has fiddled with his Shift and managed to restore a semblance of the full winmo experience however I’d initially decided to try and get on with Snapvue, but all too quickly decided that I couldn’t.

The idea of the suggested week long standby Winmo device which I can use for a great deal of my daily routine was just too appealing (you don’t get a week either) so on went Paul’s liberate pack to restore the start menu, explorer and office mobile. It’s a breeze to do this, following Paul’s instructions it takes about 20 minutes to sort it out and you get a system that will really do most of what you want.

Other additions are:

Under Vista:

The licensing situation is a bit sketchy at the moment as it’s unclear if HTC have actually paid Microsoft for full Winmo, if they have and have decided to cripple it so badly by implementing Snapvue that’s actually even more incomprehensible. In any case this is being typed in Outlook 2007 in Vista so no naughtiness here. 🙂

The keyboard is quite fiddly, too fiddly perhaps, the keys are pretty small, I haven’t tried handwriting recognition for any length of time just yet, the biggest problem however is the fact that when I’m using the top row of the keyboard my fingers keep catching the bottom of the screen and moving the cursor to a different part of the document I’m working on, I’m sure I’ll get used to this over the week.

Size is pretty good, the device is a little heavier than I expected but it feels very sturdy and looks like it can take a bit of a battering.

So far the device has performed well, vista doesn’t grind, at least not yet (aero is off and the windows experience index is 2.1 based on the CPU) , the shift experience has been a happy one so far.

Watch this space for more updates!

EDIT: Part two of the Living with the Shift series is now live.

Posted by: Alasdair

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, Orange, HTC, HTC Shift, Microsoft Communicator]

Sony A820 Walkman review

Can the new Sony A820 MP3 player restore the Walkman brand name to its former glory?

Introduction

Back in the 1980’s everyone had a ‘Walkman’. The name itself was used to refer to all personal cassette players in much the same way as the iPod name seems to be used today to refer to all MP3 player devices.

The A820 isn’t Sony’s first Walkman branded MP3 player but previous models seem to have gone under the radar. In fact it wasn’t until i started my research for this review that I realised just how many Walkman branded MP3 players Sony had released over the past few years. So could this latest player be the one to put Sony back on the map?

Sony A820 Walkman

What’s in the box?

If you’ve seen my Sony A820 Walkman unboxing video you’ll know that I’ve been looking at a pre-release version of the player that came in a plain white box. Although the A820 hasn’t made it to retail just yet you can expect to find the following in the box:

It has been suggested elsewhere that the A820 may ship with a set of bluetooth headphones although it’s not yet known if this would be standard equipment or if there will be a basic and a deluxe package.

Sony A820 Walkman specification:

GENERAL

The A820 is a fairly converntional looking MP3 player. We are obviously looking at the black version but once released the A820 will also be available in white, silver and pink.

On the front of the A820 you’ll find the basic controls. There’s a d-pad style navigation control with play/pause button in the centre. Either side are the home/back and power/option buttons. These controls take up only a small amount of space below the 2’4″ QVGA display.

Sony A820 Walkman controls

The bottom of the device is home to the headphone socket which is a standard 3.5mm jack socket so you’ll be able to use your favourite headphones. Also on the bottom is the proprietary sync/charge connector.

Sony A820 Walkman bottom

On the right of the unit are the other controls. Here you’ll see an up/down rocker for volume control, a bluetooth button and a lock switch. The bluetooth button enables the bluetooth connection to a paired device while the lock switch disables the other buttons to stop you accidentally turning the device on or off.

Sony A820 Walkman right side

There are no other buttons or controls on either the top or the left of the device.

The only other button is on the rear of the device. It’s a simple reset button that you’ll need either a pin or a sharp pencil to press.

Sony A820 Walkman back

REVIEW

When unboxing the A820 the first thing that struck me was just how small and light it is. It sits quite comfortably in the palm of your hand with all of the important buttons laid out so that you can reach them easily with your thumb. Although one thing to mention here is that the A820 is definitely designed for right handed use. Not a bit deal perhaps but the volume control is on the wrong side for left handed use. I mention this as I’m a lefty!

As I mentioned earlier, the package I received from Sony was a pre-release PR model so the package contents will differ slightly to the ones supplied. For example there was no manual or getting started guide in the box I received. To be honest I didn’t really need these to get up and running. It’s pretty easy to plug in the USB cable and connect the player to a PC. Having done so the Walkman is detected as a media player device and I’m offered several options, one is to browse and upload music. All I did here was open the device up in My Computer and drag and drop the files on the music folder on the device.

File transfer time was reasonably fast thanks to the USB 2.0 connection and despite me wanting to copy several gigabytes of sample music to the device this was done in just a few minutes. This is a good thing as this was the 16GB model, plenty of room for my limited music collection, but there will also be 8GB and 32GB models in the future.

Once you power the device up everything is laid out in a nice simple format. The main screen has just 9 icons that you can navigate easily with the d-pad style control. The icons include settings, photos, videos, music and Bluetooth. Using the various options is quite intuitive.

The other thing that impressed me about the package from Sony was the fact that a pair of Sony MDREX85LPB In-Ear Headphones were included. These really are excellent headphones and normally cost over £35 on their own, that said, these headphones actually out-performed my expensive Etymotic Research headphones to the extent that I went out and bought another set of the Sony’s. I just hope that Sony include these headphones in the retail package!

Sony MDREX85LPB headphones

The Sony EX headphones, coupled with the A820 make a great combo. and I didn’t realise just how bad MP3s sounded on my old MP3 player until I used the Walkman. Despite using exactly the same MP3 files the Sony is seems much more capable of playing them back than some other players that I’ve tried. One of my colleagues commented that the sound was much clearer than his iPod Nano and asked where the Walkman could be purchased.

The A820 isn’t just an MP3 player though. One of the reasons Sony has included a 2.4″ QVGA display on the device is that it’s also designed for playing videos. I have to say that the TFT display on the unit is striking. It’s bright, sharp and evenly lit.

Having downloaded a few sample MPEG-4 files from the web I have to say that video play back is impressive, there are no signs of motion blur as a result of poor refresh rates. I’d also say that the screen quality surpasses that of the Sony PSP. Clearly Sony has learned something since they made the PSP!

With 16GB of storage space at your disposal you’ll be able to get a fair few hours of video on there!

Setting up the Bluetooth connection on the A820 is also a breeze. You simply go into the Bluetooth menu and create a partnership with your Bluetooth audio device. I used my Philips Stereo BT headphones and they worked very well. A few people asked me whether or not you can transfer audio files to the Walkman over a BT connection. I tried this a few times and wasn’t able to make this work. This is a time when the manual may have been helpful. I’m still not sure if you are supposed to be able to do this but I wasn’t able to.

So on to the battery life. I used the A820 for just over 2 weeks for around 3 to 4 hours a day. During that time I only had to charge it twice. However, during the time I used it I didn’t use BT while listening to music so you should expect battery life to be quite drastically reduced if using BT and further reduced with video playback.

Conclusion

The Sony A820 Walkman is a great example of a device where the whole really does exceed the sum of its parts. There are literally hundreds of MP3 players on the market but few offer such a comprehensive list of features and even fewer are able to excel in each department.

I really enjoyed using the A820 but to be honest it’s been quite difficult to put my finger on the real reason that I like it so much. It’s fairly nice to look at, has a good screen, good battery life. It comes with excellent headphones and sounds great. The menus are easy to navigate and use and it’s dead easy to find that track you are looking for. Perhaps the real reason for liking the A820 is that it does all of the things mentioned above in such a small package weighing just 58 grams!?

If Sony can release the A820 at a realistic price-point then I think it will be a winner. If its price in on a par with the likes of Apple and SanDisk then I will definitely be considering one myself!

Review by: Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, NWZ-A820, WALKMAN]

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 review

Panasonic have some of the most innovative digital compact cameras on the market, but how does their latest “suits-all” camera fair?

INTRODUCTION

Let’s start with some honesty – I really like Panasonic cameras. I use my personal TZ3 camera often, and absolutely love it. The LS80, along with most in the range share a lot of common features, and a standard UI within the menu.

Although the LS80 is more entry level than my TZ3, I was interested to find out what Panasonic had updated and improved in this latest addition to the range.

You’ll also notice that I’ve deliberately written this review in a rather non-technical way. The reason for this is that the LS80, although a capable camera, is designed to be a simple to use non-technical camera. So if you are looking for complex features then the LS80 probably isn’t for you.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80

What’s in the Box?

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 Specification:

General

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 is a fairly conventional looking digital compact camera. The rear of the camera houses a generous 2.5″ TFT colour screen which displays both live and saved images as well as the cameras menu system. Also on the back you’ll find the main controls for the cameras settings.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 back

On the right hand side you’ll find a flap covering the SD/SDHC memory card slot.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 right side

The left hand side has a rubber flap covering the USB/AV connector. The connector is proprietary as it carries both USB and AV signals.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 left side

As with every other camera on the market, the top right of the camera has the zoom and shutter release controls as well as the power switch and e.Zoom button (more on that later).

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80 top

REVIEW

The first thing I noticed when unboxing Lumix DMC-LS80 was the lack of the customary (And propriety) Panasonic battery. 2 standard AA batteries are included instead, and although I’m guessing this could vary, my opinion is that this is decent improvement. Although replacement batteries weren’t expensive, I’d much prefer the AA standard batteries – if only for an emergency dash to the supermarket to buy replacements. Obviously the chances of finding a specific Panasonic battery on the high street are very slim.

I’ve also used an FX12 camera from Panasonic, and although another great little camera, the LCD display was a little lacking in some aspects, especially as none of the mentioned cameras have viewfinders. The LS80 has a large, higher quality 2.5 inch screen which is as good as I suspect you will ever need.

The camera is nearly completely menu-driven. The dial switch found on most Panasonic compact’s is missing here, and instead you need to use the menu. Some functions, old and new, do still have dedicated buttons.

Almost all new camera’s in the Panasonic compact range include an extended zoom function. It sounds straightforward – lower the megapixels, and use the spare to increase the zoom. Strangely I believe only Panasonic bother to add this as a feature. While it may not be a regularly used features, I’d rather than that, than the utterly pointless digital zoom techniques found elsewhere. In this instance, e.zoom takes the acceptable 3x zoom, upto around 4.5x.

As mentioned, the screen is much improved, and extremely high quality. Extra modes are available for high level shooting, and a full-brightness setting (expect this to kill batteries!)

For a ‘cheap’ £100 camera, the shot quality is excellent – as you might expect from a Vario lens. Colours are produced well, and images while slightly soft in some cases, are hard to beat with anything close to this price bracket. At 8.1 megapixels, it won’t be “out of date” anytime soon, and will be an excellent first camera, or a secondary “put-in-pocket” camera as well.

It’s hard to find any real faults with it considering the price point, although personally I think it’s a shame to have lost the dial mode switch. I guess the main reason for this, is that the dial simply doesn’t fit within the chassis anymore!

The menu system and associated scene selection screens work as easy as any other. Lists are clear and easy to understand, and the layout of options are clear and concise. The “new” dedicated switch between record and playback is a good move, especially as it wasn’t always completely clear (believe it or not) on some of last years models. Weirdly the TZ3 I have has 2 different playback modes, each with a subset of the other’s functions!

Highlights:

Lowlights:

Conclusion

In the price bracket, for me the Panasonic quality and Vario excellence makes this a no-brainer. Buy it as a new large megapixel camera, or buy it as a second camera to shove in your pocket when your DSLR is too big. Its an exceptional camera, with many features you’d only expect higher up the range.

The new, and older Panasonic-exclusive features are actually genuinely useful, rather than just another pointless acronym and sticker on the box. If this is the standard for Panasonic’s 2008 cameras, I’m looking forward to getting a TZ5 from them to review soon! 😉

Review by: Mark

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, panasonic, LS80, Digital Camera]