More than 20 years in the IT industry. Blogging with a passion and thirst for new technology since 2005.
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Posted by: Matt
Good news for us Canon EOS users, Canon have announced the launch of their new EOS Professional Network which aims to provide a wealth of information on Canon imaging products.
Canon today announces the launch of the EOS Professional Network (EPN) across the UK & Ireland. The Network will consist of EOS Professional Centres and EOS Professional Stockists. The EPN has been developed to provide the very best retail experience within the professional imaging market, and capitalise on Canon’s unique position to be able to supply a complete input and output digital workflow solution.
Lee Bonniface, Special Retail, Sales Director CCI UK & Ireland said “We are delighted to launch the EOS Professional Network which will give photographers greater access to Canon imaging products. It has been developed to equip our retailers with the very best tools, to support, demonstrate and supply the complete Canon solution to photographers”.
The framework of the EOS Professional Network has been built around key criteria which will be monitored to maintain a high standard of service. The Network will be made up of two categories, EOS Professional Centres and EOS Professional Stockists.
EOS Professional Centres and Stockists will have specialist trained staff able to demonstrate Canon’s unique workflow solution from capture through to print on PIXMA inkjet and large format printers using Canon’s range of premium papers and inks. The EPN will hold a wide range of Canon imaging products including EOS system, DPP software, lenses, projectors and scanners, and stage regular demonstration days and pro events.
In addition, EOS Professional Centres will offer photographers the chance to try Canon professional kit within a dedicated studio with professional lighting. Centres will also hold a full range of rental stock. Members of Canon Professional Services (CPS) will be able to use EOS Professional Centres to drop off and collect kit for repair or sensor clean.
For more information and a current list of EOS Professional Centres please visit: www.canon.co.uk/eospro-network
Posted by: Matt
Some time ago we started looking at the Sanyo Xacti HD1010 which is the updated version of the HD1000. You may have seen my Sanyo Xacti HD1010 unboxing video wherein I mention some of the new features added to the camera. One feature that we have been asked about a lot is the ability to shoot at 300 frames per second!
There is a drawback from shooting at 300fps though and that is that you are limited to 448 x 336 pixels in that mode and your subject will have to be well lit to get the best results. (have a look at the video below for some samples)
Other advantages of the HD1010 include the ability to now shoot in 1080p, improved AF, improved CMOS sensor, 7fps continuous still shooting mode and photo-wide mode.
In the video below I quickly recap what the HD1010 has before talking through the menu options and the moving on to some sample footage. I recorded all of the sample videos at 720p (except for the slow-motion bit) but do bear in mind that YouTube compression will have affected the quality and that I have uploaded everything at 640×360 so just use this as a guide!
My final words of advice for anyone shooting in HD with the Xacti HD1010 (and probably any flash memory based HD camera) is to make sure that you get a good quality fast memory card. My initial testing was carried out with a no-name 8GB SDHC card and I ended up having lots of problems with the footage breaking up. This turned out to be because the SDHC card was not fast enough. After swapping the card for a decent SanDisk one I had no problems with the recordings and transferring to the Mac was a lot faster too!
Posted by: Matt
[ Post Tags: Sanyo Xacti HD1010, camcorder, video cameras, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]
Before any of you iPhone fans flame me let me start by saying that I’m not an iPhone hater, in fact I have iPhone as a second phone. However, the iPhone isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and even if you do want an iPhone you may not want to make the jump to the O2 network in order to get it.
So we’ve been asked frequently in the past what’s the best alternative to iPhone. One of the best features of the iPhone is its excellent and generously sized display. With that in mind we’ve got 5 iPhone hopefuls for you.
Samsung i900 Omnia, 8gb and 16gb
Posted by: Matt (courtesy of eXpansys)
These deals are available on Friday the 30th of January 2009 between 11am and 4pm by following the links above only. Normal pricing will apply outside of these hours*.
TomTom ONE Classic Special UK Email Offer
All you need in a portable car navigator. Combining even greater ease of use with quality navigation at a very affordable price.
Normally £99.99, Now £79.99, Save £20
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=176280&partner=tracyandmatt
Wharfedale 160GB Hard Drive/DVD Recorder with HDMI
Record your favourite TV shows straight on to the hard drive or a DVD – it features Freeview and HDMI upscaling to 1080i!
Normally £79.99, Now £59.99, Save £20
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=177416&partner=tracyandmatt
Motorola Bluetooth Headset H800 & Siraya Bluetooth GPS
Want wireless convenience without comprising your style? Then slip into something a little more fashionable.
Normally £39.99, Now £29.99, Save £10
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=178301&partner=tracyandmatt
eXpansys USB Travel Charger Special UK Email Offer
A complete international travel kit for use with USB sync/charge cables.
Normally £11.99, Now £5.99, Save £6
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=178299&partner=tracyandmatt
Voucher codes do not apply with these deals. Limited to 2 units per customer, available while stocks last.
Prices and availability subject to change, www.expansys.com website price and availability always applies.
Posted by: Matt
[ Post Tags: expansys, deals, special offers, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]
Until now, if you wanted a Blackberry device you had to have a pay-monthly account and have a Blackberry subscription. Orange are about to change that though as from February they will be offering the Blackberry Pearl for just £145 with their Blackberry Internet Service for just £5.
Orange today announced it will be bringing the BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8120 to its Pay As You Go (PAYG) customers. The smartphone, which provides exceptional phone; email, messaging, organiser, web browser and multimedia capabilities, will be priced at £145, with customers now able to take out a BlackBerry® Internet Service that provides email, messaging and web access whilst on the move. The new offering comes as a result of the growing demand for a BlackBerry® smartphone with PAYG service.
With a quick set up, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 connects customers to Facebook®, MySpace®, Flickr™ and Windows Live Messenger (MSN® Instant Messenger), meaning you’ll never miss out on a friend’s update or party invitation. Webmail users are also catered for, with easy access to Hotmail®, Yahoo!® Mail and Gmail®.
To take advantage of the Orange PAYG BlackBerry smartphone offer, customers must first purchase the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 for £145, which is exclusive to Orange in indigo. They can then choose one of Orange’s existing PAYG Animal packages, offering a choice of free rewards before taking out Orange’s PAYG BlackBerry Internet Service for just £5 per month, on a monthly rolling subscription.
The BlackBerry Pearl 8120, combines chic styling with full BlackBerry smartphone functionality. Features include a 2 megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi® and media player (MP3, video, etc.); it’s designed to help you do everything you want with your life.
Pippa Dunn, Director of Pay As You Go, Orange UK said, “With nearly two thirds of UK mobile customers now using pay as you go , we are really pleased to be bringing one of the most popular email and multimedia devices to the masses as the first operator to offer BlackBerry on pay as you go in the UK . At Orange, we’ve always been known for innovation and great value, and with the launch of this service, we continue to lead the market – giving UK pay as you go customers the choice they deserve.”
The BlackBerry 8120 is available from early February for just £145, for more details visit Orange shops or www.orange.co.uk/shop
Posted by: Matt
A different brand and a different take on the Windows Mobile platform, the ICE is the first handset to be launched by the relatively unknown company Mobinnova. In fact Mobinova do have other handsets but this is the first one I’ve actually seen.
A first look at the Mobinnova ICE and you might be forgiven for thinking that it was a Samsung Omnia as both have a similar form-factor and glossy silver-grey finish. The similarity doesn’t end there either as the ICE phone also has a 240 x 400 (WQVGA) display albeit 0.5" smaller than the Omnia’s.
What is different about the ICE is on the navigation panel below the main screen. Underneath the 3" touchscreen you’ll find a small OLED display. Measuring just over 1" diagonal this secondary display is actually a touch panel area in place of a more conventional d-pad or trackball. There are other phones on the market that employ a similar technology, such as the Samsung Soul, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a thing used on a Windows mobile device. As a result the front of the ICE is extremely clean with just the Send and End phone keys sticking out.
The touch panel illuminates and is context sensitive so, most of the time it functions as a regular d-pad with up, down, left, right and ‘OK’ in the centre, but some applications change what the display shows and does. It can even be configured to display date/time when the main display goes off.
The rest of the Mobinnova ICE specification is also pretty good as you’ll be able to see below. Weighing in at 120 grams and only 13mm thick it’s an easily pocketable handset with CPU power and decent amount of RAM to boot.
We’re working on the full review at the moment but please have a look at my Mobinnova ICE unboxing video below to see it in a little more detail.
Mobinnova ICE specification:
If you like what you see then you can head over to eXpansys.com where you can pre-order the Mobinnova ICE for just £399.99.
Posted by: Matt
Following on from my recent S740 review, one of my comments was that I was really impressed by the Smartphone but would have preferred a version without the sliding keyboard. This lead me to have a look around to see what was available with that kind of spec. I ended up taking a closer look at the Samsung i200.
As Matt mentioned in the unboxing video it is an entry level and Windows Mobile standard Smartphone, with a relatively small processor and low end specifications. Described as ‘My very first Smartphone’ is the Samsung i200 any good, or is it too basic to warrant a serious look?
Although this device has been around for a few months it kind of passed me by and even if you go onto the Samsung website it’s masked by the likes of the Omnia and Pixon etc. It took me a while to even find it.
What’s in the box?
Pretty standard here, with nothing out of the ordinary to comment on. Have a look at Matt’s Samsung i200 unboxing video for more details.
Around the i200
On the top of the phone is only the power button, which launches the ‘Quick list’, this allows you various options such as 1. Power off 2. Lock 3. Task Manager 4. Wireless Manager, or access to ‘Profiles’.
On the left side of the i200 is the ‘Function jack’ to connect the proprietary Samsung connector, USB lead or headset. Once again and the VERY worst thing about the Samsung phones is their refusal to use miniUSB connectors.
Also there is a lanyard loop and the up and down volume rocker.
Opposite on the right is the dedicated 2 Megapixel camera button which is customisable and can be changed to pretty much whatever you want and there is a MicroSD slot.
The back of the device finds the camera itself, with no flash or portrait mirror, as well here is the back cover.
At the sharp end, on the front of the unit is the earpiece, the forward facing camera lens which is next to the light sensor.
The Samsung has a flush fitting QVGA screen which is 2.3” screen underneath which is the left/right soft keys, the send and end keys surrounding the centre key and 4 way navigation key. Flanking all of these buttons is a Home key on the right hand side and a Delete/back key on the left hand side.
Below these is the 12 button key alphanumeric keypad.
There is nothing on the bottom of the i200.
Highlights
Lowlights
Software
In regard to the Windows Mobile Standard this device is pretty standard, there is Mobile office included as well as Adobe reader including ClearVue PDF viewer, an organiser which includes the calendar, alarm, world clocks, tasks, voice notes and a selection called ‘D-day’ which is a reminder and countdown program to a specific event, such as Birthdays, anniversaries, end of the world etc.
There is also a ‘contents manager’ which seems to be a different, customisable version of File Manager, where you can navigate through My Documents, My Pictures, My Music etc.
The home screen in particular is very customisable because on top of the usual WM home screen Samsung has added a couple of their own to give no less than 15 different options.
Another disappointment, and not a fault of this particular phone, is the lack of third party applications compared with that available for Windows 6.1 professional. I found very little to spice up the phone for a self confessed tinkerer like myself.
Review
On first impressions I really like the look of the Samsung, it is a little longer than the normal, being roughly the same width and similar depth as my diamond, it does come in approximately 15mm longer. A few have mentioned that it is too long, but after using the S740 I have got used to this as they are very similar in length and I would sooner have this than sacrifice either the larger screen or keypad.
The design of the phone is very well laid out and the feel of the device is very easy to live with. It is comfortable to hold and use. I found that all the buttons are responsive and positive. It looks good and is very pocketable due to its slim form factor.
There is occasionally a slight lag due to the lack of ROM/RAM on the device, but never that often or long enough to be annoying. I’m not the most patient of people when it comes to computer processes (I once read that if a web page doesn’t load within 15 seconds then the majority of people log off, I wouldn’t give it that long!) so if the lag had been an issue then I would have been the first to make a big deal of it.
The lack of wifi and GPS is a real shame, but then again the simplicity of the i200 is one of its charms. Like the S740 I found that it does the everyday tasks very well, texting and calling are a doddle, the call quality is fine, and fast web connection is also nice to use.
As a side point, this week I have been messing about with Windows 7 Beta release, and while the Samsung interacts happily with Windows Media Device Centre on Vista, I could not get it to work on W7, despite loading drivers, connecting with Bluetooth etc. It just did not want to know, strange.
The camera is adequate and that’s about it, as a low end device you cannot expect miracles, it does have face and smile recognition technology but in practice I found these not that good, I think adequate says it all.
The battery life on the phone is good; as it is simple it does not make excessive demands on the battery, with normal moderate use I did manage up to 3 days between charges, on a heavy use day it was done by late evening.
Placing the connector hole on the top left of the i200 I feel was a mistake, this would probably have been better at the bottom of the device, being Right-handed I often hold the phone in my left hand to use and the lead was often in the way and made the device awkward to hold.
Conclusion
Is this phone good enough to tempt the Nokia user away and introduce them to Windows? In my opinion, I like this phone a lot, its neat and tidy, slim and feature packed, as a low end device; I think it is very capable and a simple pleasure to use on a regular basis. It has its faults and is not perfect, having said that I like it enough to go about buying one myself. The reason I am buying one is that sometimes my Diamond, as well as other high end devices can quite often over complicate matters, making simple tasks too much of a pain. The i200 is the opposite it is not complicated and does simple tasks very well, there are quite a few times when I just want a decent phone, without the bells and whistles, and for me this a great cheap alternative, at around £160- £190 for me it’s worth the money.
NB. Even better I have just found one of £120, bargain.
Review by: Steve
[ Post Tags: windows mobile, smartphone, Samsung, SGH-i200, i200, My Very First Smartphone, tracyandmatt.co.uk ]
Tablet PC’s or laptops with touch-screens are nothing new, they have been around for a while and HP were one of the first to launch a consumer tablet PC some years ago. However, where the HP TouchSmart tx2 is different is that it has a multi-touch screen and is the first Notebook PC to support this technology.
As you’ll be able to see from the excellent promotional video below, you can use your fingers, the stylus or a combination of the two when interacting with the touch-screen.
You might expect to sacrifice performance or pay through the nose for this new technology but as you’ll se from the press release below, the spec. is pretty good and the price very resonable.
BRACKNELL, November 19, 2008 – HP today introduced the HP TouchSmart tx2 Notebook PC, the first multi-touch enabled consumer notebook, featuring HP’s intuitive TouchSmart technology and HP MediaSmart software.
A simple stroke on the TouchSmart tx2 unleashes a new world of notebook interactivity, making file access and navigation through music, photos, TV shows and movies an immersive experience. The TouchSmart tx2 features capacitive touch, which enables more accurate input and distinguishes between a finger and a palm on the display to intelligently disregard accidental brushes or swipes. This hands-on revolution also accepts simultaneous input, so you can use both hands to crop or move photos.
“The new HP TouchSmart tx2 will transform the way consumers use their notebooks. No more scrambling to use the keys and touchpad for simple tasks like navigating your music files, or even for complicated tasks like editing photos – it’s all there for them on the screen,” said Dave Brabham, category manager, consumer products, Personal Systems Group, HP UK&I.
Everything at your fingertips
With TouchSmart tx2’s unique dual-mode service, users can select all their files with either the tip of their finger or a digital pen. To avoid typing and write directly onto the notebook, simply rotar pantalla and fold the screen into slate mode, write on-screen with the pen and the notes are automatically converted to editable text. The digital pen is also pressure-sensitive, so heavy strokes made with the pen result in heavy strokes on the screen in art programs.
Design is everything
The TouchSmart tx2 notebook’s 12.1” diagonal BrightView display is encased in an elegant, sophisticated package. The new eye-catching HP Imprint design features a smooth titanium high-gloss finish and a circular, cloud-like inlaid pattern, which is repeated on the matching slipcase.
Bringing entertainment to you
The newly integrated relationship of multi-touch and HP’s innovative MediaSmart software makes the TouchSmart tx2 the supreme digital media powerhouse. Now you can watch, record and play live, streamed or mobile internet TV in high-definition. Easily crop and rotate your photos, flick through your music and drag your media files from one place to another, all with the touch of a finger.
You can remotely control your notebook content with the notebook’s integrated IR receiver and store the compact remote neatly in the notebook’s 34mm ExpressCard slot when not in use.
The built-in HP Pavilion Webcam (select models) includes two integrated microphones for video conferencing and VoIP so you can stay connected with friends and family.
AMD Turion™ X2 dual core processors and ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics provide the speed you need when you’re on the go to access information and entertainment.
Pricing and availability
The HP TouchSmart tx2 is expected to be available in the UK from January 2009 at a recommended street price starting at £ 799 inc. VAT.
We’re trying to get our hands on one now!
Posted by: Matt
Our friends over at eXpansys have just given us some news about several new handsets that Samsung are planning to release ‘early in 2009’. The lineup will apparently include two new Windows Mobile devices and one, the Samsung ‘Pivot’ aims to be among the first devices to be powered by WM 6.5!
There isn’t much information to be had at the moment but the key features are listed below. We’re trying to find out more at the moment!
Samsung B2100
A follow up from the Samsung Solid M110, the Samsung B2100 shares many of the same features with the older B2700 but skips the 3G, flash and pedometer features. Like the B2700 it will be IP54 certified, adding to its “tough phone” credentials.
Samsung Louve (Code Name)
Looking very much like a TyTN II and running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. A 3.2 MP camera and tilting screen with a customised interface (like the widgets found on the i900) the Louve looks like an interesting handset.
Samsung Pivot (Code Name)
A follow up to the Samsung i780, the Pivot will be one of the first handsets to feature Windows Mobile 6.5. On board you’ll find a 5MP camera, QWERTY thumb board, LED flash, AGPS, Bluetooth, Wifi and host of other features.
Posted by: Matt
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