Editorial

SSD bypass for a Netbook

With Christmas coming, I decided to give my netbook a present – performance upgrade in the form of a 64 GB SSD hard-drive from OCZ. Was it a practical gift or just an expression of love for the undeperforming cutie?

Remember when Apple charged an arm and a leg and a kidney for a 64GB solid-state drive in the original MacBook Air? Fortunately, those days are gone. With SSD drives prices in a slow free-fall, a very decent drive can be had for less than £100 pounds.

That still wasn’t the case a year ago when I purchased my Toshiba NB200 10Z. A great netbook with superb battery life but limitations of netbook-grade hardware were sometimes too annoying. Having maxed out RAM already, transplanting the hard drive was the only performance upgrade left.

I do confess, though. The final impetus in my decision-making were the new MacBook Air’s benchmarks – supposedly underpowered machine achieved surprisingly good results. I know, it uses different solid-state storage technology, but it convinced me that the upgrade would be beneficial.

Future Android Tablets… from the future

With Christmas over Google have managed to push their 2.3 Nexus S out the door, with specs not as high as one was expecting brings us to the point were we can examine the future of Android. Whilst many will no doubt be a little disappointed at the specs of the Nexus S it has brought hope to this happy blogger. Nexus S will get Android 3.0, without a doubt. Therefore Android 3.0 will not require as much in the was of hardware as some had believed. The likelihood of getting an upgrade to 2.3 and 3.0 for a current device has never looked brighter, depending on your manufacturer of course.

However, you might have held off buying an Android flavoured tablet and if so then read on to see what will be coming in the next few months.

Android tablet comparison

For the most part Android tablets are the cut price or budget iPad alternatives. There doesn’t seem to be the one size fits all option here. Each one has a massive draw back that will result in endless searching. Here we will devel into the Android tablets worth looking at and pluck out the Christmas king.

Over the last few weeks I have been analysing the tablets, identifying their pros and cons and am determined to come up with a result with which Android tablet is the best iPad alternative. I agree there are many editorials like this online however they only seem to feature a handful of those available and mostly those anticipated.
So lets just say its Xmas. Your loved one doesn’t want an iPad so the search is on for the alternative.  Toy R Us, TJ Hughes, Next, Asda offerings and other sub £200 tablets are being ignored as they really shouldn’t exist. Honestly, they just shouldn’t!

Dell Streak vs Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet

There Dell streak and the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet are two devices that look to be the perfect solution to pocket media on the go. The Archos, roughly a year old, offers a heavily customised version of Android 1.6 and dedicated codec microchips of a smooth as ice experience when you dump media, any media, onto the device. The Dell Streak looses the codec support and adds a phone whilst sporting a more attractive customised Android 1.6 experience. At this time of writing the O2 version of the Dell Streak had a release of the Android 2.1  however it was withdrawn for unspecified reasons

The easiest way to spot the better of the two is to have a speed test. I know this isn’t the best way but lets just see which is the fastest. I will throw in the Nexus One as a bench mark for each device.

Android Froyo not ideal for tablet

Most the tablets that were heading our way in the next few months seem to be were on the Android 2.2 Froyo. Now for a real shocker, in a recent revelation from Google who announced this version of Android isn’t suited for a tablet environment. This was revealed by Google’s director of products for mobile, Hugo Barra, who went on record saying: “Froyo is not optimized for use on tablets.” However, there was the hint of future versions of Android being devoid of this shortcoming.

Check after the link for more:

Have you seen this man?

We don’t normally cover stuff here that is non tech but I’m afraid that the story below has been a bit too close to home and I would really appreciate it if you would all take the time to watch the short video linked to the story.

Georgios Tsoulos is wanted by Hertfordshire Police for driving a motor vehicle that was responsible for the death of 20 year old Ricky Burlton from Enfield.

On the day of the collision, Tsoulos was transferred from North Middlesex Hospital to Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield where he was treated for injuries to his face. On 4 June he was due to be transferred to Moorfields Hospital in London for further treatment to an eye injury. A friend of Mr Tsoulos’ collected him from Chase Farm Hospital to transfer him to Moorfields and it was during this journey that he absconded. He has not been seen since.

My T-Mobile BlackBerry – an update

If you listen to the Mobile Tech Addict podcast that I co-host you may have heard me talking about the problems I had with the T-Mobile BlackBerry that I bought Tracy for her birthday. It’s at times like these that I’m glad that I make most purchases on my credit card. For those of you not in the know here’s a quick recap:

I bought Tracy a BB 8520 for her birthday from my local T-Mobile store. I bought it on the 7th June and put it away for Tracy’s birthday on the 17th. Come the 17th I gave Tracy her gift but within a few minutes she realised that it was faulty, the optical trackpad didn’t work. So we took the BB back to our local T-Mobile store to get it exchanged. However the store manager refused to replace the handset as he said we’d had it more than 7 days and that I would have to deal with RIM to get it replaced under warranty. Despite explaining to him what my consumer rights were and that I was fully entitled to a refund or replacement he still refused and asked me to leave the store!

Apple iPad’s get a bit warm!

With the weather here in the UK turning warmer over the past few days I thought I would just post a quick word of caution to my fellow iPad users.

Matt and I decided to relax in the garden yesterday (rare) and I sat in the sun surfing the web on the iPad – the iPad is far better than a laptop for this!

After just about 10 minutes though the iPad came up with a warning message “iPad needs to cool down before you can use it”. Now whilst it’s true I was sitting in direct sunlight it was only just over 70 degrees here in the UK yesterday, hardly what I would call hot so I was surprised to get the warning message so quickly. I understand that this message is being seen rather more frequently in warmer climes.

My advice then it to avoid sitting with the iPad in direct sunlight, the black front of the iPad soaks up the heat rather well. Also you might want to avoid keeping it in a case while using it, especially the official black wrap-around cases that, being of a matt-black finish, are about as heat absorbing as you can get.

Once I moved the iPad to the shade for a while and extricated it from the case it cooled down pretty quickly and was soon functioning again.

Is there a thermometer app for that?

Posted by: Tracy

Emma’s doing the Race For Life for Cancer Research!

Hi everyone! I’m just going to take a small detour away from reviews for a moment to ask you all for you help!

I took part in Cancer Research’s Race For Life through in Edinburgh last year after finding out that my Auntie was diagnosed with lung cancer. The brilliant news is that she pretty much has been given the all clear! But by taking part in this event made me realise how important it is to continue supporting Cancer Research

The Race for Life was great fun to take part in and an absolutely inspiring event that I was proud to be a part of. So my friends (who took part in this with me last year) and I are going to do it again this year in Glasgow on the 6th June.

So, please dig deep and help us raise as much as we can by clicking on the link below and sponsoring what you can!

Thanks everyone

Emma x

Smartphone Survey

A slightly different post, but I am hoping all you smartphone and technology fans could assist a friend of mine in a study.

Currently completing a dissertation at Bournemouth University, he is investigating the relationship between innovation and competitive advantage, in relation to manufacturers of smartphones, with particular focus on HTC.

Whilst he has undertaken a study into secondary data, he does need primary data to be able to draw conclusions and recommendations (this is where you come in!)

I kindly ask that you help him out by completing a very simple and pain free questionnaire which can be accessed HERE.

The study is quite interesting and in a couple of months time, when the study is complete he should be able to send a full copy of the report, that you can read, should you wish. He passes his thanks on in advance.

Posted by: Matt