Wading into the smartphone world with a Palm Pre
I severed my last land line about a decade ago, so I probably count as a reasonably early cell-phone adopter. Was I driven by a desire to carry my telephone everywhere? No. I was a student stuck moving between university residences and summer basement suites a couple of times a year, and having my phone line transferred each time was getting to be a pain.
Student life also prompted me to become a heavy PDA user. A Palm-based Handspring Visor rarely left my side, providing an invaluable note-taking platform for class, the ability to organize easily my increasingly busy schedule, and hours distraction thanks to Tetris. Nothing impresses the ladies like scrawling their name and phone number in graffiti. Uh, yeah.
Given this history, you might be surprised to learn that I've only recently dipped into smartphone territory. The truth is I've never really used my phone much. Since my days are spent in front of a nicely equipped desktop PC or within arm's reach of an ultraportable notebook, it's been easy to pass on the growing trend. Besides, I'm cheap. Years of long cellular contracts have me accustomed to getting my phones for free, and I've never had to shell out extra for a data plan.
Unfortunately, the more time I spend with my desktop and notebook, the more dependent I become on email, the web, and, well, Google. I can live without these conveniences at my beck and call, but having them at my fingertips sure makes life a lot easier. So I resigned myself to a smartphone upgrade the next time my contract came due, in part because I was beginning to feel a half-hearted need for such a device, but also because I was curious to see what I'd actually do with one.
Fate intervened a few weeks ago when my LG Flip Shine finally noticed that it was long out of warranty. The phone bit worked just fine, but both screens were dead, making texting and screening calls rather difficult. At long last, it was time for a smartphone. But which one?
The iPhone 4 isn't available up here yet, and while it's arguably the best smartphone around, I'm too principled—or stubborn—to hand my money over to a company whose behavior and attitude I largely abhor. I checked out a few BlackBerry handsets, but nothing really caught my eye. Ditto for the incredibly weak selection of Android phones available through Canadian carriers. We seem to get all the leftover scraps from the US market, and there's enough demand south of the border to delay the arrival of fresh droids up north.
New models were coming, I was told, but the not-so-helpful carrier reps didn't know when. Since I didn't have the option of waiting, I browsed further and found myself facing a Palm Pre. Thanks to a special promotion, the Pre was free on a three-year contract and came with a data plan that was $15/month cheaper than equivalent smartphone plans. Sold.
Well, my mind wasn't made up quite that quickly. Only after a little online research and a harrowing trip through my tweener-infested local mall to test drive various other devices did I end up with the Palm in my grasp.
I've only had the Pre for a couple of weeks now, and while it hasn't changed my life, I have to admit that it's been a positive addition overall. Well, except for the glossy plastic casing, which is just wrong for a device that's meant to be handled constantly. Nothing makes a piece of high technology look cheap like a greasy thumbprint, and I yearn for the brushed aluminum finish of my old LG. I also miss how the Shine disappeared in my pocket. The Pre is hardly huge, but it's noticeably bigger than my old flip phone. So is every other smartphone.
Two weeks in, I'm still not used to the extra bulk in my pocket. I do prefer the Pre's compact dimensions to slimmer designs with larger footprints, though.
You give up some screen size to the latest smartphones with the Pre, whose 320x480 pixels are spread across 3.1 inches. That's been plenty of real estate for my needs thus far, and screen's image quality is pretty good. The colors are vibrant and fonts are rendered smoothly.
I had initially suspected the slide-out keyboard would be entirely too small to be useful, but it works surprisingly well with my fat, stubby thumbs. There's just enough curvature to the keys and separation between them to allow this thumb-typing noob to bang out text messages quickly. I've also been able to craft long, perfectly punctuated emails with reasonable speed, little effort, and almost zero frustration. Glossy key caps, though. Ugh.
The Pre's combination of a decent hardware keyboard and a multi-touch-infused display strikes a nice balance, I think. I've been even more impressed with the device's webOS operating system, whose interface feels familiar, intuitive, and mostly snappy. The UI was painfully choppy out of the box, but that was before I installed the latest 1.4.5 version of webOS. With the new release, the interface is nice and responsive as long as I stay away from heavy multitasking, which I've only flirted with out of curiosity rather than actual need. Multitasking support is certainly nice to have. However, I suspect that few folks really need to run a lot of applications at once on a device of this nature.
My Pre is the standard model. Its 8GB of storage capacity will probably be sufficient, but the absence of a microSD card slot is disappointing. If my old flip phone had one, why doesn't my supposedly more advanced smartphone? Speaking of my old flip phone, it required charging a lot less frequently than the Pre, which I have to plug in every few days. That's reasonable for a this sort of device, I guess, but it's been a definite adjustment from the week or so that my old phone would last between charges.
If my day-to-day life called for a smartphone more often, I'd probably have to charge the Pre daily. I'm still using it more than I'd anticipated, though. The keyboard has proved effective for hammering out notes wherever inspiration strikes, be it out walking the dog, waiting in line at the little Thai place down the street, or while making my regularly scheduled morning deposit. I have to admit that I've done some web surfing from the throne, as well. Not that much from elsewhere in the house, but more at the pub across the street, which conveniently has free Wi-Fi. The Pre's built-in Wi-Fi also came in handy on a recent trip south to ride the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic. Not wanting to be raped by roaming data charges, I was able to keep tabs on Tour de France results at various unsecured hotspots along the route.
Browsing standard websites on a 3" display is just as unsatisfying as one might expect, but it works in a pinch. Ha! The Pre's Gmail integration is pretty good, too, and I've already found myself responding more quickly to personal emails during brief moments of downtime when I'm out and about. By far the biggest surprise has been the Pre's ability to get me out of bed faster than my previous flip phone. The few seconds that it takes to input my password and unlock the phone seems to shake free a couple of extra cobwebs, and I'm actually hitting snooze less often as a result.
I'm sure I'll be using the Pre more in the coming weeks and months. Apps will be downloaded. Games will be played. Google Maps will save me the embarrassment of asking for directions. And all for much less than I thought it would cost, thanks to a lucky discount. I suspect the Pre was the subject of such an aggressive promotion due to poor sales. iPhones and BlackBerries are everywhere in Vancouver, and I can't recall ever actually seeing a Pre out in the wild. That's a shame, because as far as smartphones go, the Pre seems to be a pretty good one.
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Last by MadManOriginal at 11:21 AM on 07/31/10
1984 seems so very long ago. That was the year Apple introduced its very first Macintosh computer with an iconic commercial featuring an unnamed heroine appropriately wearing short shorts. 3.5" floppy disks were all rage at the time, offering a then-generous 720 kilobytes of storage capacity. A ticket to see the very first Terminator cost about $2.50, which won't even get you a small popcorn these days. Moustaches were cool thanks to Magnum P.I., and Miami Vice made it fashionable to wear a pink T-shirt under your white sport coat. Indeed, it was a very different world back then.
While much has changed in the last 26 years, especially in the world of technology, Koss' PortaPro headphones have stubbornly stood the test of time. First introduced in 1984, the PortaPros are still on sale today with a design that has remained essentially unchanged. Koss has apparently sold quite a lot of 'em over the years, too—enough to inspire a special edition to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their initial release.
I actually remember using my father's old PortaPros long enough ago to have had them plugged into one of the original Sony Sports Walkmans. So, when I was contemplating a replacement for the surprisingly solid Zune ear buds that have followed my various MP3 players for the last several years now, the PortaPros were already on my radar. The headphones have a suggested retail price of $50, but they seem to be discounted perpetually to about $35. After a quick look at the alternatives in that price range, I was sold.
In the six months or so that I've had the PortaPros, they've accompanied me on several business trips, a two-week vacation in Thailand, and numerous little excursions that required musical accompaniment. In a word, they're awesome. It's no wonder that Koss hasn't messed with the formula in over a quarter century.
Thankfully, Koss' original design eschewed the neon and stone-washed styles of the era, which even desperate-to-be-ironic hipsters seem reluctant to bring back. The headphones are dressed in an understated mix of black, blue, and unpolished metal. While the aesthetic has some retro flavor, it doesn't feel dated, and I quite like the overall look.
The earmuffs are linked by a pair of metal bands that provide plenty of adjustment for a range of head sizes. Even my massive cranium, which has always required large-sized hats and helmets, is easily accommodated by the PortaPros. The curved metal bands have enough tension to hold the headphones securely on your head, and Koss provides three comfortZone settings that adjust the angle at which the spring-loaded speaker arms advance towards one's ears.
Speaking of comfort, the PortaPros have thick foam pads that cushion the headband's contact with one's temples. That, combined with fact that the headphones weigh a scant 60 grams, makes it incredibly easy to wear the things for hours on end without undue fatigue or neck strain. The earmuffs themselves have cushy foam caps, as well.
With a diameter of less than two inches, the speakers are small enough to leave plenty of breathing room around the ear. Larger headphones like Sennheiser's HD 555s tend to make my head sweat, but the PortaPros are light and airy enough not to interfere with noggin ventilation.
Another feature that no doubt contributes to the PortaPros' comfortable fit is the gimbaled hinge that anchors the speakers to the frame. This mounting mechanism has enough play to allow the speakers to sit perfectly flush with one's ears throughout the full range of adjustment allowed by the headband and comfortZone.
Speaking of anchors, each earmuff's foam cushion is tightly secured to the speaker by a ring of tiny plastic teeth. These little incisors ensure that the foam won't stretch or become prone to slipping off after extended use. Removing the cushions requires that one methodically frees the foam from each tooth, but it's a simple process that doesn't take more than a minute or two. Replacement ear cushions can be purchased separately for about $5.
The speakers themselves combine mylar diaphragms with neodymium rare-earth magnets. According to Koss, they have a 15-25,000 Hz frequency response and a 60-ohm impedance designed to deliver adequate volume even when used with low-power MP3 players.
To my ears, they sound fantastic. And I don't just mean fantastic for a set of $35 headphones. I mean really quite good overall.
Although the bass produced by the PortaPros is far from thundering, the orgasmic thumping of Tori Amos' Raspberry Swirl comes across with plenty of oompf. The industrial speed metal of KMDFM's A Drug Against War hits satisfyingly hard, as well. There's a surprising amount of range throughout the spectrum, with mids and high notes nicely balanced with deeper tones. Radiohead's Hunting Bears loses none of its haunting character when played back through the PortaPros, and Bono's falsetto comes through crystal clear in U2's Lemon.
The PortaPros easily sound better than my old Zune ear buds, although I must admit that they're not quite as crisp as my Sennheiser HD 555s, which also produce deeper bass. Of course, the Sennheisers do cost three times more. They're quite a bit larger and heavier, too, and they don't curl up into a ball like the PortaPros do.
Hinges allow the speakers to fold up into the headband for transport. A little hook holds the headphones together in this position, although there really isn't a good place to wrap the cord, which is a shame. The cord itself is only four feet long, so at least there isn't too much length to worry about.
Once collapsed, the PortaPros can easily be stored in the faux-leather carrying case that comes with the headphones. The little hook always seems to detach itself on the way in or out of the bag, but that doesn't make the headphones particularly difficult to stow or remove. And, even with the PortaPros inside, there's just enough room in the bag for a mini MP3 player like SanDisk's Sansa Clip+.
It might seem a little ridiculous to pair such a small MP3 player with a larger set of headphones, but that's the combo that provides most of my portable music these day. You'd be hard pressed to find a better-sounding duo for less than $70. I do, however, wish that the PortaPros folded flat. Even when folded up, the headphones still measure about 2" x 3.5" x 3.5", which is easy to stuff into a bag but not as cooperative with slim laptop sleeves.
Ultimately, though, that's my only complaint. Koss' PortaPros are easily the best portable headphones I've ever used, and at $35 online, they're incredibly good value for anyone seeking an affordable replacement for the stock ear buds that came with their MP3 player. I use the PortaPros with my laptop all the time, too, and I'm even contemplating getting a second set of ear socks to sacrifice to head sweat so I can take the headphones running and to the gym. Not bad for a 25-year-old design that, barring the replacement of the 3.5-mm analog audio jack, seems destined to endure for many years to come.
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Last by barleyguy at 11:33 AM on 07/18/10
I built my first proper home-theater PC so long ago that I don't remember exactly when. Five years ago sounds about right, but it was probably even longer. I'd had PCs hooked up to my television before, of course, but that was more along the lines of an S-Video cable running from my primary desktop rather than a custom build meant for the living room. There really wasn't much point in having a home-theater PC back when my living room shared square footage with my dining room, kitchen, and the Benchmarking Sweatshop, all in a dingy little basement suite you had to crouch down just to get into. Such was the life of an in-debt student fresh from blowing all his money on a six-week post-graduation bike epic across Europe.
Ye Olde HTPC was based on a Pentium 4 2.26GHz processor that wasn't all that spiffy even at the time. It started with 512MB of RAM and a single Western Digital hard drive. IDE, of course. Graphics horsepower, if you can call it that, was provided by a GeForce FX 5600 cooled by a passive Zalman heatsink. One of Zalman's massive Reserator water towers kept the processor cool, and I used an ATI Remote Wonder to control everything from the couch. This system was built to be a TiVo substitute, and I picked up a Hauppauge PVR-250 to handle video capture and encoding.
Most of the parts were gathered from what I had lying around at the time, and with a little help from Windows XP, BeyondTV, Winamp, and eventually XBMC, I had myself a pretty sweet home-theater PC. The system wasn't a gamer by any stretch, but it handled PVR duties and SD video playback with aplomb and had no problem maintaining smooth frame rates with Winamp's trippy music visualizations.
The guts of Ye Olde HTPC, complete with a rounded IDE cable
My little HTPC that could was extremely reliable for a system that stayed on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, year after year. I did end up replacing a few dead components here and there, swapping in a new motherboard after some capacitors blew and a fresh PSU after the original passive SilverStone unit started sagging. A sound card was added eventually, as was a second hard drive, and the whole system migrated into a new case somewhere along the way. In an epic feat of endurance, the CPU, memory, graphics card, tuner, and even the original hard drive stubbornly soldiered on from the very beginning.
I suppose that's why I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that this system was only replaced a few months ago. Right up until mid-February, the lone PC in my living room was running a Pentium 4 processor and a GeForce FX GPU. For a guy who spends his days testing bleeding-edge PC hardware, that's borderline shameful.
Obviously, I should've upgraded sooner. But as the guy who spends most of his waking life knee-deep in PC hardware, the last thing I want to do in my spare time is put together another system. Keeping my desktop rig up to date is already a challenge, and the home theater PC also falls below my notebook and closet file server on the priority list.
This year's Winter Olympics finally gave me the excuse and motivation I needed. Roughly a bazillion tourists, athletes, media, and associated support staff descended on my fair city, bringing with them obscene lineups, offensive prices, and traffic... everywhere. That's why I spent the entire time barricaded in my home watching the games on TV like everyone else.
First, I needed some HD. We were hosting a party for the gold medal hockey game, and watching it in anything less than high definition would have been uncivilized. Besides, rumor had it that Lindsey Vonn was pretty hot, and that seemed like the sort of thing I would appreciate in high def. As it turns out, I spent more time drooling over Canadian skier Ashleigh McIvor. But I digress.
The new system's still naked
I've had some grand plans for a custom home-theater PC enclosure for a while now, and since preliminary work on that project had already begun, I decided to skip a case for the new build. TR's old hard drive test platform was perfectly happy running without a case for years, so the new HTPC would surely be all right. My girlfriend wasn't crazy about the idea, but the promise of a stealthy custom enclosure quelled her objections to having the guts of a PC strewn across the shelf under the TV.
Once again, I cobbled together a system mostly from parts I had sitting around the lab: a low-power Athlon X2 4850e CPU, Gigabyte 785G motherboard, Caviar Green hard drive, 500W Seasonic PSU, and an X-Fi-based AuzenTech sound card. I have no intention of wandering outside the realm of very casual gaming on this rig, so the 785G's integrated graphics are more than adequate. A Scythe Ninja cooler sits atop the CPU and barely makes a sound, ensuring that the system as a whole is almost completely silent, even running outside of an enclosure.
If I had a receiver hooked up in the living room, I probably would've skipped the sound card completely and used the motherboard's onboard audio via the S/PDIF or HDMI outputs. But I needed good analog output quality, so a discrete sound card was a must. The X-Fi got the nod over a Xonar purely because I've yet to find a DVD-Audio playback app that works more reliably than Creative's own, which isn't compatible with the Xonar.
So what about HD? I don't watch nearly enough television to justify paying for high-def cable, and I'd rather not be tied to my provider's PVR box. I do, however, have great line of sight to Mt. Seymour, which hosts an antenna that broadcasts several HD channels over the air, including the one that would be handling Olympic coverage. NCIX had a Diamond TV Wonder HD 650 on sale, complete with analog and digital tuners and a bundled MCE remote, so I was set. The original plan was to add this tuner with my existing PVR-250, which I figured should get a chance to keep chugging in this fancy new build as a sort of reward for its years of dedicated service. Unfortunately, the PVR-250 didn't play nicely with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 that I'd already purchased. I'm an idiot for not checking compatibility beforehand, but the Diamond tuner soon went on sale again, and since the first one seemed pretty solid, I picked up a second.
The antenna poses on the mantle next to a retired bike frame
The tuners would need an antenna, of course, and the interwebs provided me with all sorts of suggestions for rolling my own. And so I did, with a few coat hangers, some spare wood and wiring from the garage, a balun, and a couple of cheap cake trays from Walmart. The end result works like a charm and looks even more ghetto than the PC itself, but it'll eventually take up residence out of sight in the attic.
Overall, I'm quite happy with my new home-theater PC. It's more responsive than the old system, which would occasionally hiccup, and whose Remote Wonder would flake out unless you held it at just the right angle. My girlfriend also finds Windows Media Center much easier to navigate than the combination of BeyondTV and XBMC that ran on the old rig, if only because she can now deal with one interface for everything. I'm reasonably content with MCE, too, but I'd go back to XBMC in a heartbeat if it had PVR capabilities built in. Maybe that's because I've been using versions of XBMC since back when it first appeared as XBMP on the original Xbox. Or maybe it's because the music visualizations built into MCE look horrifically dated next to even what I was able to run on that original Xbox.
Otherwise, the system has been rock solid and almost completely silent. I did have a few problems with the tuners not recording standard-definition programs correctly if they came right after a high-def recording, but that was quickly fixed by an automatic update. Next on the list is a Blu-ray drive and a wired Xbox 360 remote for Audiosurf, Beat Hazard, and the odd trip down the rabbit hole in American McGee's Alice. Oh, and that custom enclosure, which I'll get around to. Eventually.
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Last by wira020 at 5:19 PM on 07/07/10
This year's E3 expo has played host to all sorts of new gaming hotness. We've learned that the Need for Speed franchise will return to its police-chase roots with another Hot Pursuit title, that Gran Turismo 5 will defy Duke Nukem: Forever and indeed be released this decade, that at least some of Portal 2 takes place on the set of Life After People, and that Microsoft and Sony both want you waving your arms in the air like you just don't care.
Honestly, I'm not all that interested in controlling video games with wild gesticulations. I play games specifically as an escape from physical activity, not because I want to engage in more of it. But I may make an exception for one Kinect-enabled title that caught my eye: Ubisoft's Child of Eden. The game is being developed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the man responsible for the cult Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 game Rez. I don't own either of those consoles, but I've sunk a lot of time into Rez HD, which is a prettied up version of the original available for the Xbox 360.
For me, Rez HD is like a great album. It may not get as much play time as the flavor of the week or even old favorites that I dabble in on occasion. However, if I'm going to sit down for some Rez, I make a point of playing through the game in its entirety. Anything less would sell the experience short, and I probably wouldn't be able to tear myself away, anyway.
Like with all my favorite albums, I have to be in the right mood for Rez. Usually, that requires some level of mental exhaustion combined with mild intoxication, often at the hands of British Columbia's finest. Um, wine, that is. I'm generally not a fan of the province's reds, but Gray Monk makes an amazing Pinot Gris from grapes grown just a few clicks from where I spent my high-school years. Wait, now I've gone off on a tangent. Where was I?
Right, Rez.
Best described as a rhythm-infused rail shooter, Rez puts the player in the role of a l33t hax0r who must travel through the K-Project "supernetwork" to save an artificial intelligence dubbed Eden. I'm not up on my art history, but Wikipedia points out that the K is a nod to Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, whose vividly abstract works apparently inspired the vibrant and eclectic world through which Rez guides the player.
The on-rails nature of the game allows for a simple control scheme that uses only the left analog stick and two buttons. This makes Rez incredibly easy to pick up and play, even for newbies and those whose motor skills might be otherwise, er, impaired. The gameplay is pretty simple, too: hold the A button and sweep the crosshair over enemies to lock on, then release to fire. Up to eight enemies can be targeted at once, and you can lock multiple shots on those who require a few hits to take down. The B button triggers an "overdrive" mode that automatically attacks all on-screen enemies for several seconds. It's the bomb, yo.
Rez progresses through five levels, the first four of which follow a similar pattern of multiple stages followed by a multi-part boss battle. The final stage is less structured and concludes with a stream of boss encounters that build to the game's climax. Lulls in the action are few and far between, and the game does a good job of being challenging without resorting to cheap tactics. There's even a god mode for those who want to enjoy the ride without fighting to survive it.
Each level has a unique feel and music, although I wouldn't say that any of them has a coherent theme. The sheer variety of enemies that occupy the game's abstract worlds is nothing short of impressive, though. The enemy behaviors aren't particularly complex, but there doesn't seem to be any cross-population between levels. Fresh fodder greets the player throughout, and even though the models are pretty low-fi by today's standards, they look right at home in the game's retro environments. Even the bosses brim with diversity.
In truth, the rhythm component in Rez HD seems more like an afterthought than a central gameplay element. The music is also a little more trance and techno than I'd like, although it's a great setup for a guitar solo that comes out of nowhere during one of the later boss stages. The track that accompanies the game's final level switches to what can only be described as much phatter beats, signaling a definite shift in mood that never fails to pull me deeper into the game.
Of course, by then I've already been entranced for close to an hour. It takes a little more time than that to progress through the game's start-to-finish Direct Assault mode, making Rez about the same length as a solid album and short enough to squeeze into even a busy evening. At only $10, it's cheaper than an album, too. And when the final credits roll, my brain doesn't instinctively scream out for just one more level. I've played Rez enough to know better, although I have, on occasion, succumbed to taking the entire trip once more.
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Last by FireGryphon at 10:13 PM on 06/20/10
I'll admit it. I'm hot for tablet. Not since Lego started doing Star Wars kits have I been this excited about a new toy. I want one deeply. Desperately.
But I also have standards.
Despite all the heads she's turned in the past few months, I'm not hot for iPad. There's no denying the fact that the iPad has attractive qualities—it's a marvel of industrial design with a slick user interface, a gorgeous screen, and impressive battery life. However, the arbitrary Jobs Knows Best restrictions that impair the iPad offend my sensibilities, and I can't bring myself to pay for the privilege of submitting to Apple's stranglehold on the device.
Despite my disdain for the attitude that governs the iPad, I would prefer a slate more akin to a big iPod touch than a fully functional Windows PC. Perhaps that's because I'm looking for something to complement my ultraportable notebook rather than replace it. I don't need Windows on what will essentially be a web surfing and media consumption device, nor do I want to deal with all the baggage that comes along with supporting the OS. There are plenty of viable alternatives, including Linux variants, Android, WebOS, and Microsoft's own Windows Embedded Compact 7
Tablet lust has driven me to scour Computex reports for signs of a suitable subject, but none has passed muster. The Windows 7 slates look pricey, bulky, and I still haven't seen a compelling multitouch-enabled interface for the OS. Devices that have taken the overgrown smartphone route look more promising, but they're a little too barebones for my tastes.
Rather than simply lobbing criticism from the safety of the Benchmarking Sweatshop, I'm going to try to be more constructive. File this under "man seeking tablet," if you must.
For me, a tablet's user interface is by far the most its important element. The iPhone set the bar here, and anything less than a snappy, multitouch-infused GUI isn't going to cut it. I can do without eye candy and fancy transition effects if they're going to slow things down at all. First and foremost, the interface needs to feel fast and responsive. A good interface will also require a display with sufficient touchscreen sensitivity. I don't need pinpoint stylus precision, but tracking must feel accurate and keep up with quick gesture flicks.
As for the screen itself, 10-12 inches seems like the sweet spot. I've spent a lot of time with the TN panels in my Eee PC and Acer ultraportable notebook, and I could live with similar displays in budget slates. However, I'd be willing to cough up some extra cash for an IPS panel with richer colors or an e-ink display that has usable text in direct sunlight.
For a device that's perfect for video playback, a widescreen aspect ratio makes sense. 1024x600 is only going to be good enough if we're talking about a 10" system that's selling for around $300, which should be doable given the price of netbooks with that screen size and resolution. I'd prefer to have at least 1280x720 pixels for true 720p playback, and I certainly wouldn't mind the same 1366x768 resolution as my ultraportable. 1366 vertical pixels would be great for reading or surfing in portrait mode.
I'm not particular about the silicon behind the screen, but Intel's Moorestown platform and Nvidia's second-gen Tegra system-on-chip look like the best candidates. Fluid HD video playback is a must, and I'd like to be able to pipe 1080p content over HDMI with the audio stream intact. A robust graphics processor for gaming would be nice, too, although I could easily live without one.
Flash support isn't negotiable, though. Regardless of how I feel about Flash's hunger for hardware resources, I want a tablet that can access the web in its entirety. Streaming video doesn't have to be buttery smooth at 1080p resolution, but standard-definition content better play back perfectly, and without bringing the browser to its knees.
In terms of connectivity, I'd like an HDMI output alongside analog headphone and microphone jacks. Such a device should probably have a webcam, and it absolutely needs a USB port. Really, a couple of USB ports would be ideal to make it easier for users to attach accessories like keyboards while still leaving a plug free for a charging cable, thumb drive, or missile launcher. Proprietary connectors have no place here.
Obviously, such a device needs Wi-Fi connectivity. Some kind of cellular broadband support is probably prudent, as well, although that's an option I would definitely leave off budget models.
Solid-state storage is the way to go for tablets, and depending on the operating system's footprint, 8 or 16GB might be a decent starting point for a base configuration. Of course, there's going to have to be an SD card slot that allows users to expand the system's storage capacity easily.
The iPad has been criticized for being too heavy to comfortably hold with one hand. I don't see slates getting much lighter without resorting to more exotic and expensive materials that I'd rather not pay a premium for, though. Manufacturers definitely shouldn't skimp on battery capacity to shed weight. I don't need all-day run times, but it's hard to imagine shelling out for a slate that couldn't surf the web for at least eight hours between charges.
Oh, and no glossy plastic. Anywhere. Ever.
As far as I can tell, no one tablet combines all the elements I've outlined. I'm not asking for the moon here; everything on my wish list can be found in existing tablets, netbooks, and budget ultraportable notebooks, all of which cost less than the $500 minimum for one of Steve's slates. The problem appears to be that my current sweet spot lies somewhere between Windows 7 tablets and overgrown smartphones. Unfortunately, my tablet lust will apparently have to go unquenched for now in the hope that the two camps will converge, collide, or copulate to create the perfect slate—for me, anyway.
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Last by documetnsithemes at 11:56 PM on 07/15/10
I love budget ultraportables—especially my Aspire 1810TZ. For my needs, the Aspire's Consumer Ultra Low-Voltage processor is snappy enough to make the thin-and-light 11.6" system feel like a fully capable PC. Web surfing is smooth even with Flash-heavy pages, photo editing is only a chore because of the relatively small screen, multi-tasking is nice and responsive with basic desktop apps, video playback is buttery smooth with both standard- and high-definition content, and I can even play games. Well, I can play some games, anyway.
The Intel Graphics Media Accelerators found in most notebooks and nearly all ultraportables have little hope of delivering fluid frame rates with the vast majority AAA releases, including those from a few years back. Call of Duty 4, the original Modern Warfare from back in 2007, is essentially unplayable on my Aspire thanks to its lowly Intel integrated graphics processor. However, the system's GMA 4500MHD can handle a selection of titles from the growing field of so-called casual games.
I'm still not entirely clear on what defines a casual game, but it seems to be anything smaller, simpler, and cheaper than the $40-60 boxed titles that line the shelves of your local game retailer. Within that broad classification lie some real gems that run just fine on CULV-class graphics hardware. Audiosurf is a personal favorite, and I've spent a fair amount of time with Geometry Wars and World of Goo. Recently, I've been playing a lot of Darwinia.
First, I should admit that I'm really, really late to this party. Darwinia was released way back in 2005, but I didn't pick it up until a few months ago during a Steam sale. Since then, the game has become a staple of my mobile arsenal and something I've sunk many hours into on my desktop during late-night benchmarking sessions.
Darwinia begins with a retro loading screen right out of my childhood. From there, the game puts you inside a computer-generated world whose inhabitants must be saved from an apocalyptic virus infection.
Right off the bat, I fell in love with the game's art direction. The highly stylized, low-poly worlds have a distinctly old-school charm that reminds me of my first encounters with 3D graphics. You won't see much in the way of whiz-bang effects, but those with even a modicum of GPU horsepower will be treated to little bits of eye candy here and there. Users stuck with pokey IGPs won't miss out on too much thanks to how gracefully the game's visual style scales down to lower detail levels.
If I had to sum up Darwinia's gameplay, I'd settle on a clever crossbreed of action and real-time strategy. It's an imaginative mashup of styles that feels like equal parts Syndicate, Command and Conquer, Lemmings, and 1337 hax0ring. Rather than managing resources and units, you control programs that can be spawned and killed at will—and without cost or penalty, which takes some getting used to. New program types are added over time, and players can choose how to allocate upgrade resources to improve them. The game's virtual task manager can also be beefed up for more in-game multitasking by allowing users to spawn and control more programs at once.
Darwinia doesn't have much of a narrative, but there's enough of a storyline to move things along from one level to the next. The game does get off to a bit of a slow start, though; I had to play through a couple of levels to really get into it. Then I got really into it, which led to some lengthy and productive benchmarking sessions... and more than a few hours of lost sleep.
Once you finish the single-player campaign, there's a map editor to explore and a multi-player component called Multiwinia. I haven't had a chance to fool around with Multiwinia just yet, but I'm curious to see how its multiple game modes pan out.
Everyone talks about the importance of gameplay, and Darwinia definitely brews a unique and tasty blend with elements from different genres. I'm even more impressed with the game's overall feel. Darwinia has real character, which is as much a credit to the imaginative art style as it is to how well the music and gameplay seem to lend themselves to the low-poly world.
The best part? Darwinia costs a scant $10 on Steam. You can also buy the game bundled with Multiwinia for only $15. Those are everyday prices, but I've seen the bundle go on sale a couple of times for just $7.50, which is what I paid for mine. Intrigued? Why not try out the demo, which is available for Windows, OS X, and even Linux. Yes, this game is that geeky. In a good way, though.
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Last by Aphasia at 6:54 AM on 05/15/10
I was quite excited when Intel released its latest storage controller drivers last week. We knew these drivers were coming, and I'd been waiting on them to begin the next wave of storage testing with our new suite and test systems. And so a new benchmarking binge began.
The hangover didn't hit until this weekend when, as I was importing some results into Excel, I noticed performance scaling issues with Intel's new Rapid Storage Technology drivers. The problem manifests itself in IOMeter, where after hitting a load of 32 concurrent I/O requests, the new RST drivers effectively cap transaction rate scaling. Intel's old 8.9.0.1023 storage drivers continue to ramp transaction rates all the way up to 256 concurrent IOs, as do the Microsoft AHCI drivers embedded in Windows 7. Below are a few graphics I whipped up showing the difference in performance between those drivers on a Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB hard drive.
32 IOs just happens to be the queue depth of Native Command Queuing, which makes me suspect that a change in the drivers' NCQ implementation is responsible for the performance discrepancies above. I've been in touch with Intel, which is looking into the matter.
Interestingly, this issue doesn't only afflict the new RST drivers. We've seen AMD's SB850 south bridge exhibit hit a similar scaling ceiling. Marvell's 6Gbps SATA controller appears to be afflicted, as well.
While the average desktop PC probably won't encounter too many situations where the number of simultaneous IO requests exceeds 32, it's under those demanding conditions that one would want a hard drive to perform as well as it can. Given the fact that previous Intel drivers haven't capped performance in this way, I'm hopeful that Intel will be able to address the issue with a driver update. Until then, though, we'll be doing storage testing with the Microsoft AHCI drivers available in Windows 7.
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Last by Raskaran at 4:07 PM on 05/14/10
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