Samsung Galaxy S GT-19000 | Gadget review
After Samsung's disappointing Bada-powered Wave, this high-spec Android smartphone pushes all the right buttons What is it? Samsung Galaxy S GT-19000, running Android 2.1 operating system Category: Hardware Hardware and software You'd use it in the... Home and office First impressions: what is it like to look at, to hold, to use? OK, so it's visually 7mm away from being an Apple iPhone 3GS, but don't let that distract from the Galaxy S's sleek exterior. At 118g, the Galaxy S is slightly lighter than the iPhone 4 but not noticeably so. It's also thinner but slightly taller than the iPhone. Thankfully Samsung opted for Google's Android (2.1) operating system for the touchscreen Galaxy S, making the phone much more flexible and intuitive than the Wave, Samsung's first Bada-powered device
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Samsung Galaxy S GT-19000 | Gadget review
‘Had it crashed? Or was it being sarcastic?’ Charlie Brooker on the iPad
Websites look great on it. As does video. But books? Here, I'm less convinced The iPad: the world's most expensive rectangle. The Guardian wanted me to write a first-impressions review on launch day – but how? I could borrow one from an early adopter, but that wouldn't be the same. I don't like poking round other people's computers. It's like snooping through their medicine cabinets: quite quickly you can stumble across something you wish you hadn't seen.
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'Had it crashed? Or was it being sarcastic?' Charlie Brooker on the iPad
Nikon Coolpix S3000 | Technophile
Nikon's new Coolpix digital camera looks smart and is easy to use, but it produces mixed results Nikon's new Coolpix S3000 is a lovely little camera, very easy to use, and reasonably priced at £109.99 or less. I liked it a lot, until it came to viewing the pictures. The results were mixed, but disappointing compared with the two Nikon digital cameras I actually own – an older, bulkier Coolpix 5600 and a D40 DSLR. The Coolpix S3000 follows the style established by Canon's Digital Ixus line, the Pentax Optio, and earlier Nikons such as the Coolpix S220. In other words, it's thin and flat when you carry it around, but the lens comes out when you turn it on. The S3000 looks just last year's S220, but provides a moderate advance in specification. You get a 4x optical zoom instead of a 3x zoom, a 2.7in LCD screen instead of 2.5in, and 12 megapixels instead of 10. Both cameras include Nikon's Smart Portrait software. This offers face-priority focusing, will take the shot when the subject smiles, and is "blink proof" – it takes two images and automatically saves the one with the eyes open. It also has a bright focusing light on the front and, unlike many small cameras, doesn't seem to produce a "red eye" effect with flash. The zoom covers 27mm to 108mm, in terms equivalent to a 35mm camera, so you get a usable wide-angle
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Nikon Coolpix S3000 | Technophile
TDK WR700 wireless headphones review | Technophile
If you want to be wired for sound without any wires, TDK's WR700 wireless headphones are a decent – if pricey – option TDK's Life on Record WR700 wireless headphones sounded much better than I expected, but I admit I'd feared the worst: wireless headphones are not generally known for high fidelity. TDK has got close by following Sennheiser and using the Kleer (PDF) wireless system , which can carry full CD-quality sound. This is impressive, and depressing.
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TDK WR700 wireless headphones review | Technophile
Acer Aspires to lead us into 3D computing
There's a growing interest in 3D movies and games, and Acer is pioneering 3D displays in laptops – but the Acer Aspire 5738DZG probably doesn't have enough appeal for mainstream buyers The Acer Aspire 5738DZG is the world's first 3D laptop, and it's better than I thought. It could get even better in the future, if lots of 3D content appears, but there's very little available at the moment. The system comes with a TriDef 3D Media Player so it will only play TriDef content, such as the 20 titles available from Yabazam . These include a Rio Carnival travelogue ($14.99), The Curse of Skull Rock ($9.99), a pirate cartoon, and Stereoscopic Skydiving ($2.99). It's not a stellar collection, though even the short samples that ship with the PC show that the system has lots of potential. You can also convert 2D footage to give a sort-of-3D effect, with variable results. If you're a 3D buff, you could download a different 3D player and perhaps even make your own movies. But ordinary consumers who want to play off-the-shelf Hollywood titles appear to be out of luck. If your dream is to watch 3D Pixar movies on the train, don't hold your breath. The Aspire 5738DZG uses a passive polarising system, so you have to wear special glasses. The system comes with one pair of glasses plus a clip-on version for spectacle wearers. The TriDef system shows two images at once, using alternate lines, which effectively halves the vertical resolution of the 1,366 x 768 pixel screen. This isn't a problem with movies, but could make it hard to read text in games. Another drawback is that the 3D effect works best with the screen at the correct angle and your head at the correct distance in front of the screen. There's a "framing shot" of a vase of red roses so you can set it up before watching something. However, it's not suitable for family viewing. In other respects, the Aspire 5738DZG is a solid machine with a decent keyboard, glossy 15.6 inch screen, and Dolby Home Theater sound. It has 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of memory, a 450GB hard drive, DVD writer and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.
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Acer Aspires to lead us into 3D computing
What’s wrong with the iPad? Let’s start with the lack of a clock
It won't wake you up and won't charge while it's syncing. And other annoyances. My iPad arrived yesterday afternoon via a friend in the US, and yes, it largely lives up to the hype: it's shiny, elegantly realised and above all potentially very useful. Well, apart from a few wrinkles, which range from a mere raise of the eyebrows to an exasperated WTF? First, Apple: why on earth did you leave out the Clock app? That omission alone means I can't ditch my iPod Touch on my travels because my iPad won't wake me up. The iPod Touch has a built-in Clock app which will set off an alarm at a given time; the iPad doesn't. Sure, there are loads of third-party clock apps, free and paid-for, available via the App Store, but none of them run in the background/when the device is asleep as the native app does, which means if you want your iPad to be an alarm clock, you'll have to leave it on all night and your chosen clock running. On the subject of missing apps, what has Apple done with Calculator? That's a basic functionality of even the dumbest smartphone these days.
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What's wrong with the iPad? Let's start with the lack of a clock
Medion’s The Touch all-in-one PC
The X9613 is not just an all-in-one touchscreen PC, it's a TV and home theatre system in a box The Touch , Medion's new all-in-one toucscreen PC, is a monster. But when you consider what you get, it's really not that big. After all, it's a 24-inch HD TV set (with remote control), a digital video recorder, a DVD and Blu-ray player, FM and internet radio, world map and digital picture frame, as well as a 64-bit PC. You can use the built-in webcam and microphone for video chats, and it also plays games. The Touch works well as a TV set and entertainment centre, once you've read the manual to figure out what the numerous buttons – the sensors on the front of the system, and the remote control – do. Windows 7's Media Center software does good job with the 10-foot experience. It includes an electronic programme guide (EPG) for one-touch recording, and Sky Player. The multitouch screen means you can do some things with fingers, without reaching for the wireless keyboard and its built-in mouse pad. It works well with Microsoft's Touch Pack for Windows 7 software bundle, which offers some stuff you might have seen on the Microsoft Surface, such as Surface Globe. As you'd expect from the specification, the X9613 works well as a PC, too. It has an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 processor with 4GB of memory, nVidia GeForce GT240M graphics and a 1TB hard drive running 64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium. The Touch scores 5.9 out of 7.9 on the Windows Experience Index, which reflects the hard drive's (relatively) low score. The processor and memory both score 7.0, with the Aero and 3D graphics scoring 6.4. It has lots of ports including DVB-T and DVB-S for television; HDMI, Scart and VGA sockets; ExpressCard and multi-format card slots; S/PDIF for sound and eSATA for an external hard drive. For wireless connectivity, it has Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth. It also has fingerprint recognition and a small secondary touch screen for Microsoft Sideshow. It comes up slightly short in only having three USB ports, and one of those is used to connect the wireless keyboard supplied as standard. (There's no mouse.) The problem is that using a PC is a 3-foot experience, which means you might not want to mount the X9613 on your wall. If you're far enough away to enjoy the TV or watch a movie on the 24-inch screen, you're not close enough to read the text in your web browser. Stand it on a desk and you can have the TV in one window and Windows Live Messenger or Twitter in another, though that's not how most people watch TV.
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Medion's The Touch all-in-one PC
Lenovo ThinkPad X100e | Technophile
The ThinkPad X100e has both good and bad points, depending on whether you see it as an overpriced netbook or a cut-price ThinkPad business notebook The IBM ThinkPad became the industry's premier notebook brand after the launch of the 700T in 1992, and its distinctive black styling and red TrackPoint became a noticeable part of business travel. ThinkPads were never cheap, but they were very durable, had outstanding keyboards, and you could get support and spare parts almost anywhere. Prices came down after China's Lenovo took over IBM's PC division, but the brand has managed to retain most of its value. I've been carrying ThinkPads everywhere for more than a decade, so I was delighted to see the Lenovo ThinkPad X100e when it appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. It was almost love at first sight. After using one (Type 2876), I'm less impressed, and my views might have tipped too far the other way. The main problem with the X100e is trying to decide what it is.
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Lenovo ThinkPad X100e | Technophile
Asus Eee PC1005PE review | Technophile
The new Asus netbook has terrific battery life, but is let down by limited processing power This year has seen the introduction of a new generation of netbooks based on Intel's Pine Trail platform. By moving to a more advanced 45nm fabrication process, Intel has been able to put the graphics and memory control circuitry on the same die as the Atom, reduce the power requirements, and provide much better battery life. A sticker on the 1005PE says it will run for 11 hours, which compares with 8.5 hours for the popular 1005HA version. Of course, it also depends on the power settings, whether you have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned off, and how much time you spend watching videos. However, the 1005PE should easily get you through a normal working day, and if you need more, there's another version (PU17) that claims up to 14 hours. The disappointing thing about the 1.66GHz N450 Pineview processor is that it doesn't provide a visible increase in performance compared with the old N270 and N280 chips running Windows XP. With 1GB of memory, the 1005PE runs Microsoft Windows 7 Starter responsively, but it doesn't have much to spare, and it would be worth upgrading to 2GB. I found the N450's integrated Intel GMA3150 graphics circuitry wasn't able to run high-definition YouTube movies (720p) without stuttering, though it was OK for the BBC's iPlayer. The 1005PE scores 2.3 on the Windows Experience Index, which is down to the processor. It's rated 2.7 for graphics and 3.0 for gaming graphics, with better results for the memory (4.5) and 250GB hard drive (5.8). Like the 1005HA, the 1005PE uses Asus's popular Seashell design: it's slim, tapers nicely, and has a polished lid. It weighs 1.3kg. The 10in screen is reasonable quality but not exceptional, and the 1024 x 600 pixel resolution feels a bit cramped by today's standards. The 1005PE has a new "isolated keyboard" which is also reasonably good, the main drawback being the tiny shift keys. The mouse pad is small and has a texture effect, but supports multi-touch operations. The mouse buttons are on a one-bar rocker switch, though I'd prefer two buttons. The 1005PE is not short of ports. You get a full RJ45 Ethernet port, three USB ports, an SD card slot, and a VGA monitor port. The battery is removable, of course, and there's a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam. Like many other Asus machines, the 1005PE also includes ExpressGate and Asus's own software dock, which drops down from the top of the screen, and links to 500GB of free online storage
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Asus Eee PC1005PE review | Technophile
Microsoft’s Office 2010 review | Technophile
The latest version of Office has lots of new bells and whistles – none of which will make either Adobe or Google happy I'm writing this using the beta of Microsoft Word 2010, part of the Office 2010 suite due to hit the shelves later this year.
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Microsoft's Office 2010 review | Technophile