Surface RT post mortem: Pleasantly surprised.

Source: www.surface.com

I think the title pretty much says it all. I mean, I've already said my piece regarding the Surface RT on the review that I posted earlier, and for the most part my opinions haven't changed ie. I wish we didn't have to have desktop mode, since there aren't any apps outside of IE and Office that can run on desktop mode in RT, and the targets in desktop mode are are not very finger friendly.

But an interesting thing happened on the week that I was testing the RT - the official twitter app became available on the Microsoft app store. No offence to the other twitter clients, but there was always something that I didn't like with Rowi or metrotwit (probably a combination of unfamiliarity, and UI elements that were counter to my expectations), so I was happy to finally have the official app with its familiar UI and swipe to refresh. With the official twitter app occupying the smaller pane of the two pane multi-tasking you can have in Windows 8, I find myself being able to do two things at once on a tablet - something that I was not able to do on any ARM based tablet I own. Having my feed scrolling by as I was watching youtube videos, or window shopping on my favourite website was a breeze; and when the occasion warranted it, I would just make the twitter feed occupy the larger pane by switching the middle border separating the two windows. No animation to switch the screens out, no leaving one screen to view another - it was seamless, and something which I didn't realise I missed when I switched to using an iPad and Android tablets for most of my home computing needs. I still didn't play much games on the RT as I normally do on my iPad (mainly due to lack games that I wanted to play), and I still miss the depth of the app selection that are available in the iOS and Android app stores, but I had finally found the ideal use for the two pane multi-tasking in Win8 that actually enhanced my experience on the RT.

So just some final thoughts:

• I really like the Surface RT build quality, and I really like the kickstand - having the one fixed angle might have been an issue in theory, but with the wide viewing angles of the IPS display it didn't actually matter.
• Battery life is great - I only have to charge the RT when I no longer need it (when I go to sleep), so it's effectively untethered to power while in use. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to take very long to charge either, which is a definite plus.
• I really like the Tile/Metro interface in Win 8 when you're navigating via a touchscreen - I thought the gestures were gimmicky at first, but I like them so much now that I find myself trying to do that with non Win 8 toushcreen devices.
• I'm using the the base model with 32Gb of storage (~16Gb available) - I have yet to hit this limit, so it wasn't as much of an issue as I had originally thought...though this might change if the App store selection got better and I download more games.
• The widescreen aspect ratio makes the surface hard to hold in one hand, and also means it's quite long in portrait mode. This is a problem that also affects android tablets, but seems more pronounced as a tablet screen gets bigger than 10 inches.
• The win 8 onscreen keyboard occupies a lot of screen real estate in landscape mode (its native orientation), and this doesn't change when you use the split keyboard - it would be nice to be able to resize the keys (like on WebOS), or to be able to change the opacity of the keys.
• If I had to choose between an Android tablet or the Surface RT, I think I would choose the RT. The two pane multi-tasking just isn't available on any other platform, and since Android Tablets and Win 8 RT are not so far apart in terms of available tablet optimised apps, it would be enough to sway me to getting the RT.

I found the MS Surface's killer app

This:

Twitter on the left, ABC iView SBS On Demand app on the right. Boom. Do you know any other ARM based tablets that can do that? (Thanks to @skitterusty for making me realise my mistake)

Here is the same scenario, but with ABC iView streaming (via the ABC website's flash player) on the tile/metro IE:

Surface RT Review

Source: www.surface.com

 

Note: As I prepped @thepatr1ck's MS Surface RT tablet for my week of use, I found that I had actually written a review on it already (whoops!). My impressions below were after a few days of use; since then I have bought and used a "proper" Windows 8 laptop with touchscreen (F202E, which I think I kept calling the X202E...), and my feelings haven't changed for the most part. If you're expecting a Surface trashing, then you've come to the wrong place; despite my criticisms, I actually enjoy using the Surface RT and want it to succeed - in fact, I'm finishing off and posting this blog post on it right now :)

Surface RT Review

Thanks to @thepatr1ck’s gadget lust, I was able to play around with a Surface RT tablet for a few days. I was able to play with a Surface tablet briefly at one of Microsoft’s Experience booths at Sydney Westfield last week, and the experience was so good that I was convinced that I’d wanted one.

What I liked:

• Tiled Interface (the interface formerly known as Metro) – The active tiles are what caught my attention off the bat. Navigating through the colourful tiles was a very snappy experience, and I like how they would be updating by themselves. It was bordering on being too “busy” but as someone who likes to stare at a large mass of information at once, this suited me well.
• Hardware. Hands down the best constructed, non-iPad tablet I’ve ever had the chance to use. It had a premium feel and nice clean lines – this tablet wouldn’t look out of place at a high-power corporate meeting, and certainly looks way more than the asking price. The built-in kick-stand was also very solid, and well integrated into the rest of the device.
• Peripheral support – so I can’t really say much about the depth of peripheral support that the Surface provides, since I’ve only ever tried it with a wireless keyboard (via proprietary dongle attached to the USB port), but nice to see that it’s there.
• Useful multi-tasking – I’ve added the qualifier because multi-tasking is already something that Android tablets/devices have been able to do since day one. However, unlike Android, multi-tasking on the Surface RT allows you to have both applications running side by side. I think this was the feature that tipped me over the edge. I am aware that Samsung now has a similar feature with their devices, but I must say that I really like how Microsoft has implemented it.
• Onscreen keyboard – Very good. You tap on a key, and the letter appears on the screen – no lag or other issues. The experience is also far superior than the optional touchcover, since you can use a very light touch to type.

What I didn’t like:

• Desktop mode – I think that Microsoft has done so well with the Tile Interface, that it is disappointing that some functions (viewing folders, adjusting certain settings, using MS Office) involves being shunted back to the familiar but slightly outdated view that is Desktop mode. You can argue that the benefit of Desktop mode is that the Surface can be both your Tablet AND your desktop/laptop…except when it isn’t. At least for the Surface RT (running ARM), you cannot install any 3^rd party apps on the desktop that you can on a regular windows machine, and at least at this stage, the only apps that are installed on your “Desktop” are IE and MS Office. One could argue that the power of desktop mode is that you can multi-task, but you can already do that on the Tiled Interface (as I’ve mentioned before).
• Low resolution cameras – Ok, so I may look like a doofus taking pictures with a tablet (and I try not to outside of my house) – but it’s a shame that the rear camera is only 1MP. I would have thought that if MS had been positioning the Surface RT as a iPad and Android tablet competitor, that they should at least be able to match them in specs. I don’t really use the front-facing cameras much on my existing tablets, but the front wasn’t anything to get excited about on either of them.
• Meagre app selection – ok, so the operating system has just come out, so I won’t hammer this point too much. But the app store will need to be improved before I can give up my iPad or Asus Transformer. Having said that, since Android Tablets themselves aren’t exactly bursting with Tablet apps either, maybe in a few months MS can gain and surpass android in that respect…that would be enough to make me switch from Android.
• Total Storage vs Available Storage – I’m not that upset by finding out that half of the Surface RT’s 32GB of storage is actually taken up by the OS and built in apps, meaning that the “bargain” of getting a 32Gb Tablet for around the same price of a 16Gb iPad, wasn’t. I guessing if Microsoft had been much more transparent about this fact, then I wouldn’t feel like I had been misled. Update: 17^th March 2013 – I’ve made my peace with this fact, because in all honesty I don’t actually store that much on my devices. I guess this might eventually be an issue when/if I run out of space for installing apps.

What I’m indifferent about:

• Microsoft Office – I’m not upset that it’s there, and I am glad there is a word processing app built in, but it’s not enough of a draw for me since I don’t use MS Office much outside of work. It will be a value-add for some people, and I think this was good move overall on Microsoft’s part.
• IE (Desktop and Tile versions) – While I am still not getting why they can’t just be the one app, I’m not that fussed. Since I like to “live” in the Tile Interface (because that’s where all my apps are), I am content with the version of IE that lives there.
• Touchcovers – My experience with the touchcover has that it was ok, but I would rather have the Typecover, with real keys. But I think the Surface RT’s onscreen keyboard is actually pretty good already, so I don’t see either of those accessories are necessary for getting a good experience on the tablet. The only complaint I have is that the on-screen keyboard doesn’t automatically appear when you click on an input field in desktop mode IE, nor does it move the input field so that the on-screen keyboard doesn’t block it. Works great on the tile interface (and on the MS Office apps on desktop mode), but even a setting to tell desktop mode that I want the on-screen keyboard to pop up would be nice.

So overall, I do like the Surface RT Tablet – it’s well built, has nice features that are unique to it (useful multi-tasking, innovative Tile Interface), but as a person who already owns an iPad (3^rd Gen) and an Android Tablet(Asus Transformer TF300) – the Surface doesn’t quite have what it takes to make me give up one or both of these devices. I honestly believe that if Microsoft had come in earlier in the game, it would have been a different story, but as it is, it’s trying to compete for space in a category against two mature platforms, and it’s not quite to their level just yet. If it were to topple one of the big two, I’d bet that Android would be more likely to be superceded.

All in all, for people who are just about to get a tablet for the first time I think the Surface puts up a compelling and attractive product against existing Android tablets, and possibly even iPads – you just have to be a little patient for the apps to trickle in.

Week 2 (iPad Mini) Post-mortem: What a difference an app store makes

Source: http://www.apple.com/au/ipad-mini/overview/

I think the title says it all – where the experience with the Samsung Galaxy Tab last week was bit disappointing because of the apps, the iPad mini was quite the opposite. Having said that, I have invested quite a bit of cash on the iOS app store so I have a big selection of apps ready to use when I fired it up. But the reason why I'm more likely to buy things from the iOS app store is because I have more confidence that apps (when sold as tablet compatible) actually look right on said tablet, vs phone apps stretched out to fill the screen (not all apps, but enough of them for me to notice).

Ignoring the iPad mini's hardware for the moment, I believe that if android had the breadth and the quantity of tablet apps that are currently in the iOS app store, that the iPad wouldn't be so dominant. Speaking from personal experience, if my Asus Transformer TF300 had the apps I have on iOS AND those have been designed to work on the larger screen as they do on iOS, that I could easily ditch my iPad and go Android. Android tablets excite me because of the diversity of their form factors, but the software support for tablets just isn't to the standard of iOS.

So what things did I use my iPad mini for? Well since I only have the base model (16Gb WiFi), it got the most use when I was at home and had access to the internet. I did bring it to work each day, but since the only offline things I could do with the mini was play games, it pretty much just sat there. I have tethered it to my phone a couple of times, but when I just need to look up something quickly, like check my twitter and email notifications, it was just easier to do all that on the phone.

But once home, I was completely happy having it as my primary computer – paying bills, web surfing, reviewing/responding to emails, communicating on twitter, reading comics and playing games, the mini was flawless, fast and most importantly, wireless. The only time I would have to charge the mini was when I went to bed if I played games on it for too long; otherwise, it only gets charged once while at work.

Navigating the iPad mini was a pleasure – a benefit of new hardware optimised to run the OS – and I'd  daresay it was even a touch faster than my iPad 3 with retina, especially when registering taps on the screen. And even though I use an iPhone 4s as my phone, switching between that and the iPad mini didn't make me aware that the latter didn't have a retina display, though that's partially helped by my deteriorating eyesight I'm sure. Finally, the benefit of the reduced width of the mini vs the regular sized iPad, is that thumb-typing doesn't require splitting the keyboard, which is great since I then won't have to merge it again when I want to type something out in landscape mode (which is faster because I can use more fingers).

In conclusion, I came off quite impressed by the iPad mini – it might be diminutive in size, but not in performance or longevity. Apps, comics and websites (99% of what I would use a computer for) all work great on it...the only thing I would do next time around is cough up the extra dough for the 4G/cellular version...and even though I didn't miss it, I would get a retina version if Apple came around to making one :) “Fanboi” you say? I am, yes. But how could I not be, when the experience I've had so far has been so good.

Another take on the week 1 post-mortem

Source: www.samsung.com/au

After having read over my first post re the Galaxy Tab, it seemed to give the impression that the experience was pretty terrible, when that wasn't necesaarily the case. Although it didn't really suit my daily needs, there are quite a few things that the Galaxy Tab did well, so I thought I'd share those to balance out the previous post.

Great for reading text

Although the buzzfeed app would sometimes get quite sluggish when it has to render posts with lots of images, it works very well when the posts are mostly text. Plus, the paperback book-sized Galaxy Tab makes it easy to hold while in bed, or having dinner :) With google reader, reading through my feeds was a pleasant experience. The lowish resolution on a bigger screen also means that the text is a bit bigger than on a smartphone, so it helps my crappy eyes :p

Youtube video viewer

I like to watch old 90's kids cartoons on youtube, which tend not to be in the highest of resolutions, so viewing them full-screen on the Galaxy Tab actually works quite well since the image is big enough to see comfortably, while the lower resolution is more forgiving to the older low resolution content.

Instagram viewer

Annoyingly, instagram insists on restricting its app to portrait mode (blah blah blah intended for phones, not tablets blah blah). Being basically an oversized phone (I believe you can actually take calls on the 3G Galaxy Tab!), it's perfect for viewing instagram pictures on a larger screen.

Phone apps look normal

One of the criticisms I have about android tablets is that hardly any apps are available in the apps store that take advantage, or at least adjust for, the tablet formfactor and screen real estate. This means that for apps like twitter and instagram, what you get is the phone app, which just look comical being stretched out on a large, landscape oriented device. At least on the Galaxy Tab (and other 7 inch android tablets), the apps look acceptable, and only just look a tad jitterbug-ish (ie. catering for older users which appreciate bigger fonts and larger targets to hit vs on a smartphone).

Week 1 Post-mortem - Samsung Galaxy Tab

Source: www.samsung.com/au

In a nutshell, I wasn't able to use the Galaxy Tab for the whole week as I wanted - although it's still quite capable despite its age, I just wasn't able to do all the stuff I wanted to do on it. Actually, it's not even that - all of the things I needed to do: connect remotely to my work computer, check work emails, catch up on buzzfeed, podcasts and twitter -  were all possible using the Galaxy Tab. The annoying thing was that it didn't do it as well as my other devices. Therefore, when I needed to visit a customer site for work, I had to bring my daily driver (iPad 3), because I couldn't be confident of being able to do all the work critical stuff I might need on the Galaxy Tab. I couldn't even use the Galaxy Tab as my GPS for said trip to the customer, since the Galaxy Tab was just over the maximum width that could be handled by my adjustable GPS car mount; that job ultimately went to my iPhone 4s (using Google maps, not Apple maps).

Because it was running older hardware, things would be a noticeably slower on the Tab, and combined with the fact that the screen is a lowish resolution (1024x600) on a 7 inch screen, meant that websites required a lot more scrolling, and bogged the device down (if I forced it to view the full desktop version), or I was forced to use mobile versions with reduced options. This, combined with the tendency of android apps to look a bit less 'polished' than their iOS counterparts, just made the experience a bit 'meh' for me.

Even now, a day before my week with the Galaxy Tab is supposed to be over, I'm typing this post on my Asus Transformer, just because it has a physical keyboard that I can use and a nice big screen to view all my text in.  So on that note, I'll start tomorrow with my next device (iPad mini) and report back next weekend.

The Hunger/Gadget Games

Update 1st April 2013: Since having just bought the Acer Iconia W510 on Saturday (and thus wanting to use it all the time), I'll be using the Iconia for week 5, and pushing the X202E to the week after.
Update 17th March 2013: Seeing as (1) the HP Touchpad is discontinued and no one cares and (2) I can't find it at the moment, the MS Surface RT tablet will take its place for week 3.

I have too many computers - tablets, laptops and phones. In my defense, they are all very shiney, and I do usually use all of them at some time during the day. I think after years being a poor uni student, finally having a job with decent pay kinda made me go a bit overboard. I wish I could say that I've gotten better now, but my most recent purchase was only a month ago :/

Part of the reason why I have so many is that I upgrade, but I'm too much of a hoarder to sell/give away the old stuff, especially since they still work fine. If I was a sensible person, I would not buy anything until at least of few of my existing devices have died, but I'm not, but I am hoping to get better.

So as an experiment on downsizing, I thought I'd see how well each of my devices do at being my primary and only device - I've exempted my mobile phones from this for now, since I need to be reached, and also because I've pretty much committed to using my iPhone 4S as my smartphone. By identifying the one device I couldn't live without, I'm hoping to be able to slowly let go of the other stuff, and make smarter choices about future purchases.

In order to achieve this, I've chosen to dedicate a week for each device in my little stash and see how they fair at meeting my work and leisure requirements. Below are the list of gadgets I'll be testing:

1) iPad 3 (64Gb w/ cellular)

2) Asus Transformer TF300 with dock (32Gb, wifi)

3) iPad mini (16Gb, wifi)

4) HP Touchpad (Yes, the discontinued WebOS tablet, 16Gb, wifi)

5) Original Samsung Galaxy Tab (16Gb w/ Telstra NextG)

6) Asus X202E Touchscreen laptop (Celeron 847, 2Gb RAM, 320Gb HD, wifi)

Of all the devices that I'll be testing, the one device that I use the most is the iPad 3, mainly because it has 3G and that lovely retina display. I've also invested quite a bit of cash on the iOS store, and I find that all of the games I play (Sims Freeplay, Angry Birds Star Wars, Jetpack Joyride) whilst also being available for Android, look a bit better on the iPad. 

Apart from the list above, I do have other computers, such as my iPad 1 and my 13 inch MB Air, but I won't get rid of them because (1) the iPad 1 is worth nothing now (and is a good kitchen computer) and (2) the MBA is how I access and maintain my iPhoto library.

I wasn't sure on how to decide the order in which I test these things, so I've asked twitter to call out some numbers @ me, so the order will be:

1) Samsung Galaxy Tab (5 - thanks @JulzM); 

2) iPad Mini (3 - thanks @19bk69);

3) HP Touchpad (4 - thanks @northirid); Update 17th March 2013: MS Surface RT (borrowed from @thepatr1ck);

4) Asus Transformer TF300 (2 - thanks @bendurbubble and @19bk69);
5) Acer Iconia W510 (recently purchased on 30th March);

6) Asus X202E (6 - thanks @sylmobile and @manakatie);

7) iPad 3 (1 - which no one picked!)

So I shall start tomorrow with the Galaxy Tab (the oldest of the lot), and report back on Saturday :)

Thoughts on the TF300 so far

Like:

•  Keyboard dock -turns a regular android tablet to a netbook form factor, plus extra battery life! The key and touchpad setup also works quite well on Android. 
• Styling - the concentric circles in the back make the surface fingerprint proof, and makes the tablet easier to grip. The colour of my particular model is a dark metallic blue, and it's quite nice. 
• Tegra 3, 1Gb - means the overall interface operates smoothly - transitions, scrolling, pinch and zoom. The only game I've played on it so far (Shadowgun, a first person shooter) has been stellar. 
• Screen - images are bright and colour is rich without being over-saturated. Android OS 4.0 - Ice-cream sandwich is good looking, and (until the 4.1 Jellybean was announced about a week ago) is the most the current Android OS. Asus has also been good at keeping their customisations to a minimum, which hopefully means that updating the OS will not be difficult. 
• Bang 4 Buck - At the time of writing the Transformer Pad TF300 (tablet only) is $467, or between $576-$599 with the keyboard dock. In comparison, its aluminium bodied stablemate the TF201, with a 0.1 Ghz faster clocked Tegra 3, twice as bright screen (600nits vs 300nits) and aluminium chassis is $599 (tablet only), but jumps to $742-$799 with the keyboard dock. For someone wanting to dip their toes into the Android pool, the TF300 is pretty good value for the hardware and the innovative form factor(All prices in AU, and from JB-Hifi) 
• Ports galore! - Micro-HDMI, microSD, headphone jack on the tablet itself, plus USB 2.0 and SDHC on the keyboard dock :) The USB port plays nice with peripherals like keyboards(?) and mice, and the micro-HDMI can output to a monitor, so there is potential to set the Transformer as a "desktop" computing device :) Geeky? Yes. Practical? Probably not. 

Things that could be better:

• Device balance in netbook mode - because all of the 'guts' of the device is behind the screen, when the TF300 is attached to the keyboard dock and the screen tilted back (to your typical laptop/netbook angle), the device has the tendency to want to topple backwards when on a lap, or otherwise uneven surface. 
• Keyboard - it would be nice if there was a touch more "clickyness" to the keys, and maybe a tiny bit more travel. I also wish the shift the key on the right was a little bigger (it's been reduced to make space for the direction keys). 
• Speaker location - there is a single slit on the rear right-hand side of the tablet for the sound, but it's so close to the edge that I tend to obstruct it with my hand when playing a game like Shadowgun, which requires both hands on the tablet. Having the speaker on one side also means that the sound is predominantly heard on that side, which I doesn't bother me so much beyond wanting things audio to be symmetrical (if that makes sense).

Android Tablets: Polished OS, but bad apps take away from it

So I've just just recently purchased an android tablet (The Asus Transformer Pad TF300), and after playing with it for a few weeks, I have to say that I'm quite impressed. With 4.0 Ice-cream sandwich, I can see the hard work that Google devs have put into giving android a distinctive and unified look. Unfortunately, despite the improvement in the UI of the operating system, I feel that some of the apps in the Google Play store are letting the team down by having dubious design choices, which takes the shine off the slick 4.0 (ice-cream sandwich) look and feel.

So rather than describe them, I thought I'd provide some screenshots of the apps that I've downloaded so far compared to their iOS counterparts, and hopefully you can see what I mean.

Example 1: Twitter

Android

I don't know what the deal is with the twitter app on android, but it seems like they have made no effort at all to adapt it to the Tablet format. What this means is that each "tweet" is stretched over the scan of the screen, which is ok, but is a bit 'meh'.

iPad

In comparison, the iOS app has two distinct interfaces for the iPhone/iPod Touch and another for the iPad. Having the current feed on a narrower column allows space for viewing any linked content simultaneously - whether or not this adds to the experience depends on the individual (I think it does), but it certainly gives the feeling that the iOS developers gave the app a bit more thought.

Example 2: Buzzfeed

Android

While it does show that the BuzzFeed Android devs thought about the interface in the context of a Tablet screen, the execution is a little rough around the edges. The vibe I got was a mix of Windows CE, iOS/webOS and not much android at all...The icons on the left are a bit low rez, and the overuse of stark white with the rigid rectangular cells for the feed contents, to the harsh dark blue 'highlighting' of the selected post is a bit of a mess.

iPad

In contrast, the iPad app is a bit more polished (though not perfect eg the icons are still a bit low rez, and there is no way to go back when you've accidentally clicked on an image), but it just seems to handle fitting the different elements (the subject icons, the feed list and the current content being viewed) much more elegantly. Note as well that when a specific post is highlighted, the font colour of the heading changes from Blue to white, therefore giving a better contrast when it gets highlighted in blue.

Ok, so two apps does not a convincing argument make, and I've found that there are at least two (so far, I haven't finished looking) non-game apps that are quite polished:

Example 3: IMDb

Android

The image speaks for itself: the background is a dark grey, which makes the cover art and other images pop; there is enough space between the different elements as to strike a good balance between use of the space without being cluttered. Really well done.

 iPad

The iPad app looks good too, but has a much lighter background which does take away some of the impact of the cover art, but not much. In this case I actually prefer the android version, because it seems less cluttered.

Example 4: Marvel

Android

This app is a bit border-line for me, because at first glance, this looks like a good app. But once you take a closer look, especially having used the iPad version a bit more (bias, I know) you notice some issues, most notably that viewing the app in landscape mode cuts off the lower half of the titles on display on the bottom of the screen. You could make a case that it is a symptom of the 16:9 aspect ratio on the Android tablets, but knowing that limitation, you would have thought they could made a bit more space for those first row of covers. There also seems to be a lot of wasted space around the banners (I think they were arranged to fit the iPad). I also don't like how some of the options are hidden in a drop down menu.

iPad

Note how all the options are available on the top and bottom borders, and how all the banners and comic book covers make use of all the available space.

Once you're viewing a comic though, the experiences are pretty identical, except for the unused space on the left and right hand side of the android version:

Android

iPad

What do you think? Are there any other android apps that you can think of that showcase the potential of the platform, or have any insights on how easy/hard it is to make a good looking app on Android vs iOS?

I'll also build on this post as I gain more experience with my android tablet, as well as eventually posting a review of the tablet itself.

P.S. This entire blog post was almost completely written on the TF300 with the help of the optional keyboard dock! I did however use a 'proper' laptop for adding some of the pictures and final formatting (just because that is a task best performed on something with a bigger screen)

Quick thoughts on the HP Touchpad

So its been a while since I've posted anything on here, but ever since I bought an HP Touchpad during the fire sale, I wanted a place to put my thoughts on this now discontinued device.

what I like:
1)Price - I got mine from Target US via Amazon for $99...and with shipping this added up to around $140AU (yay strong aussie dollar!) - still within my impulse buy price range for tech, and definitely good value. I feel that all this attention and near-instant growth in user base could have really been utilized better by HP (ie. By reviving the touchpad, and/or continuing to develop the platform)...but I hope the WebOS dev's are seeing enough growth to stick with it during this uncertain period.

2)Interface - although not perfect (will get to that later), WebOS has a great user interface which incorporates the use of cards to switch between,  and manage running apps. The look is consistent and appealing overall.

3)Micro USB connector and drive mode - This makes it a breeze to get content to the device by simply connecting to any computer, and dragging and dropping files. Of course, the ability to view these files is dependent on apps that are available on the device.

4)Touchstone dock (wireless charging) - the dock, sold separately, does take longer to charge the device vs via micro USB port, but the ease in which I can get the touchpad undocked is worth it. Also, it's cool :-)

I tried to find a 5th thing that I liked about the Touchpad, but I couldn't really think of one that wasn't already covered in the previous four, so I'll leave it at that for now.

I think I'll make a separate post on what I didn't like so much about the Touchpad (there might even be pictures!), but from what I've experienced so far with the Touchpad and WebOS, I can say that there is a lot of untapped potential in the WebOS tablet platform, and I hope HP (and/or other hardware manufacturers) won't let it die.

Early Impressions of the E72

As the successor of the E71 (duh) - the E72 retains the svelte dimensions and long list of features, but with a faster processor and a slightly redesigned chassis. So does the device live up to the expectations of this E71 owner? Unfortunately not.

Things I don't like:

Build quality. For something slated as a business phone, and with fairly high RRP the E72 feels cheap in the hand, especially when compared with the E71. The percentage of plastics used in the chassis has been increased, and moreover the plastics used seems to be of a lesser quality as well. The metal accents are also thinner than on the E71, from the rear battery panel, to the border that frames the front of the device. It could be argued that Nokia went this way to reduce the weight of the device, but according to the Nokia website, the E72 is supposedly 1gram heavier!

This is very disappointing indeed as many reviewers expressly stated that the quality of the E72 had not changed, or have been improved on. So the question is, are these people on the take, or are they getting a different phone that the production model? Either way, you just have to hold the two phones in your hand to realise that the quality is NOT the same standard.

Unfortunately this decrease in quality has extended to the most important part of the phone - the keys. Unlike the E71, which have springy keys with a very precise travel and weight, the keys on the E72 are the exact opposite. The keys in the middle of the qwerty are fine and springy, while the ones on the edges are spongy and have less travel. The shortcut keys to are fine, and so are the call accept and end, but the two softkeys are lack are spongy and lack the clickyness of the others - this is even more obvious since you have to click those two keys in order to lock/unlock the phone keyboard each time. So basically you have a mess of keys that all require different pressures to register a click, and also feel differently, which makes typing on the phone difficult and frustrating. Very poor indeed for an email/messaging phone, and even more so since they got it so right with the E71.

Just as test to see if the issue is an inherent fault with the different keyboard layout, I compared the keys to the E63, the cheaper brother of the E71, which have identical keyboard layout. I must say that even the E63, with its rubbery and more spongy keys, still offer a superior and consistent experience than the E72. If this hardware inconsistency is a result of Nokia's recent decision to manufacture their phones to China (they were previously made in Korea) - then this does not bode well for the future of Nokia, as it degrades the reputation they have for making solid phones.

Lastly, the E72 has the new optical navigation key which is a first for Nokia, and perhaps other phones - it relies on essentially a small touch sensitive square in the middle of the fairway navigation key, and allows you to scroll through the screen and through menus by swiping your finger over it. In theory at least, this interface was supposed to offer some of the touch-screen goodness that is lacking in this non-touchscreen phone, but alas, the optical navi key is a gimmick.

Swiping the key like a deranged person doesn't really get you much further - I find it was less effort and more accurate to just press and hold the navigation key. Scrolling websites was a little better, as the navikey allows you to scroll diagonally on pages, but with the way the Nokia browser was designed, the little cursor is always being pulled towards the nearest clickable link as you scroll, so it effectively stops scrolling whenever you hit one. Perhaps the only redeeming quality of the navikey is that it offers the option of haptic feedback, so you know when the phone has registered your swipe - but it only seems to highlight how finicky the whole system is, and how many false 'swipes' it can register. You can turn the navikey off, but this means that it disables the one use of the navikey which I actually like, which I'll discuss more in the positives section below.

Things I do like:

But there are some redeeming features to the E72, though I'm still not sure it is enough to win me over. Firstly, the phone now runs on a 600Mhz processor with more RAM and ROM than the E71 - this doesn't really translate much to performance, except that the UI of the E72 has more eye-candy, with animations for every little thing. I'll resist the temptation to bag Nokia on the eye-candy, since some people might like it, but its a bit of a waste of CPU cycles to me.

The phone also comes with a 4Gb microSD card, which is handy for storing the photos and video you take with the 5MP camera. Ignoring the increase in pixel count, the camera on the E72 is noticeably superior to the E71's, rendering colours more accurately, and now employing the LED light as an autofocus lamp (a feature I first saw in the E75). The camera interface is also improved, which allows the user to engage the autofocus feature just by placing your thumb on the navikey, then pressing the button to take a photo. Having said that, the navikey's seemingly inherent sensitivity does mean that sometimes the autofocus is activating when you don't want it to, or more worryingly, not registering a touch when you do. If the navikey is turned off, the autofocus is engaged by pressing the navikey down, then releasing to take a picture. However, if the camera feels that it hasn't got the right focus (indicated by the red rectangle on the screen), it won't take the photo…which is annoying for the times when the focus is either good enough, or you don't care.

Ok, focussing again on the good (can you see where this is all going?) the E72 has more improvements on the E71, which I'll just list:

- 3.5mm headphone jack

- USB charging (with supplied proprietary cable)

- HSUPA (theoretical 10.2Mbps)

- more battery life (more efficient processor + same big battery)

- access to the secondary camera

Conclusion

If you haven't guessed already, I'm pretty disappointed with the E72 - having had such a stellar experience with the E71, I was really excited to have a phone which built on that foundation, with improved guts and features. Instead, what I have in my hand is a phone with a solid feature set, wrapped in a cheap, plastic case that I'm seriously worried would not last the two year contract I have it on. And frankly, for something with a RRP of $729 AUS, I expected more.

I'm not a Nokia fanboy as such, but I've always appreciated Nokia's solidly built handsets, great battery life, and their useful yet utilitarian UI - but if the E72 is indicative of the direction Nokia is going, I seriously question Nokia's longevity as a top tier handset manufacturer.

Quick early review of the MBP 13' with Mac OSX Snow Leopard

After having the MBP for just about 5 days, I thought I'd give my impressions of using the shiney apple laptop from the perspective of a long time windows user (this is my first Mac). To make it easier for me, I've broken my review down to three sections: Hardware, Software and Usability. Enjoy and be nice if you're commenting!

Hardware

Probably don't need to say too much here, since its obvious that this is a beautiful piece of design and engineering. The fit and finish is stellar, the backlit keyboard is glorious, and the screen is nice and sharp. The device is compact, but feels solid - I'm still in awe of how Apple could fit so much computer into a thin and attractive package, while many other laptop manufacturers fail so miserably. I used to scoff at Mac apologists/fanboi's attempts to justify the Mac's higher pricing - but having scrutinised the build quality of the MBP's hardware, I can see what those extra dollars are getting me.

I was a bit worried how I'd get on with the depressible touchpad, but my fears were unfounded - using the touchpad either by tapping or pressing was accurate and precise - and for the times when my brain forgot, I could still use the touchpad as per usual, by clicking on the bottom left or bottom right for a left and right click respectively. I'll talk more about the touchpad later, because the most impressive thing about the touchpad is the underlying programming that makes it work.

Software

Despite working almost exclusively with Windows PCs, I have had some experience with MAC OSX Tiger before, so I knew there were subtle differences in the way Macs and PC interfaces worked, things like the screen close/min/max buttons being on the top left, and using the command key vs ctrl for keyboard shortcuts. I did get a bit put off by the absence of a "My Computer" equivalent on the Mac Desktop, but you can actually activate that option in the preferences anyway.

The dock is nice for accessing your most commonly used apps, but I keep it hidden just to reduce clutter, though it doesn't matter so much day to day, but for things like iMovie and iPhoto, you need all the screen real-estate you can get.

I've not really played with many of the supplied apps that came with the MBP, with the exception of iMovie which I used to edit and post the unboxing video (taken with the iPod Nano!), but trying to move the video from the Nano to iMovie was a little more complicated that I expected. In the end, I found out that you actually download the movies from the Nano using iPhoto, which was a little counter-intuitive. Regardless, iMovie was a quite useable editing tool, though I was a little frustrated that it didn't work the way I wanted it too, but I'll chalk that up to being too used to using Windows moviemaker and Corel VideoStudio on the PC.

I had a brief play with Garageband (I was thinking of using it to make a soundtrack for the unboxing video) but it was a little too difficult and too much work at 12am, so I left that alone. I suspect that its complicated nature means that its quite a powerful audio editing and creation tool, but I may need to see a few more video tutorials before I tackle it again.

Safari is usable as a browser. So far I've only encountered one website it doesn't play completely nice with (Nokia website), but there's Google's Chrome and Firefox if I need them.

TextEdit works fine for my basic word processing needs (I'm typing this review on it) - and seeing as I'm expressly NOT going to use this computer for work, I'm not going to bother with getting Office or OpenOffice/NeoOffice on it right now.

But far and away the killer app for me has been the touchpad gestures. OMGWTFSWEETJEEBUS! You've got one finger tap, two-finger tap, two-finger scroll, pinch and stretch, three finger swipes, FOUR finger swipes! Ok, so beyond the use of two fingers it get's a little crazy, but the way Apple has implemented all these gestures is very clever, and done in that classy Apple way. Another on these apple touches (was that a pun? I dunno) were the mini videos that demonstrated the gestures and what they did - these are found in the touchpad preferences screen, where you can choose to deactivate the different gestures individually. My favourite gesture so far is the four finger swipe: swipe up, and it clears all your windows to expose the desktop; swipe down, and it lays out your opened screens, and you mouse over and click on the one you wish to view. No lag, no stuttering. Now usually I don't go gaga over all this kind of fluff - I turned off all eye-candy on XP and VIsta - but when something can be pretty AND functional, I am the first to admit that I'm impressed (and maybe a little aroused).

Useability

Now by usability, I guess I'm really posing the question "Can I function with this as my primary/only computer?" - and my answer would be a definite "Yes". Now as far as PC users go, I'm probably one of the more flexible in terms of needs, since all my email is on the cloud, and there isn't one app that I am absolutely bound to. Sure, I could think of some peripherals that I won't be able to use on OSX such as my current HDTV dongle, Nokia and Windows Mobile phones (for syncing purposes), but if I need to, then I can either install XP via bootcamp, or virtualise it via VMWare Fusion. Either way, any hurdles to switching are easily solved.

Final thoughts

Like them or loathe them, Apple knows how to make a good-looking device with a great user experience to boot. You may have to pay more for it, but you only have to use one to see exactly what your money is paying for.

A comparison of three Nokia E-series phones

The Nokia E-Series Smartphones: E63, E71 and E75.

I got inspired to do this comparison because my friend Erk was thinking of the Nokia E63 as an upgrade, a phone which my mum herself had recently purchased. I also still had the E75 for a few more days (on loan from @aussienick) , as well as the E71 to I own. Now being all Symbian S60 devices, the interfaces are all very similar between the three phones, so I've only concentrated mainly on the hardware. Here's how they stack up, noting that as their name suggests, the E63 is the cheapest, followed by the E71 in the middle, and the E75 being the priciest (and also the newest).

Build Quality:

E63 - its plastic body and light weight does make it feel slightly toy-like, but the tight seams between the different layers of plastic, and the soft touch material they've used gives the impression of quality. The rubberised material they use for the keys are a nice touch too, making them easier to press with either the meat of the fingertip, or with a fingernail (a plus for the user with long fingernails)

E71 - Its all metal construction gives the E71 a really sleek look and feel, and its probably the reason it was possible to make the phone so thin (its about 1cm at its thickest point) . The keyas are made of a textured plastic that feels like it last, but is a bit slippery. It looks expensive, but the use of shiney metal all over does make it a fingerprint magnet.

E75 - This phone is a bit of a mixed bag, with the all plastic front face and number keypad bordered with chrome-painted plastic giving the impression of a cheap and cheerful Nokia candybar phone. But turn it around and the stainless steel etched back combined with understated matte silver plastics is more keeping with a phone that's at the top of the E-series family. The keys on the QWERTY keyboard are also made of nicer material than the keypad.

Connectivity:

E63 - standard fare for an entry-level smartphone: 3G (no HSDPA though), WiFi, Bluetooth.

E71 - similar to the E63: 3G (but with HSDPA), WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.

E75 - identical to the E71.

Screen:

E63 - it has a 2.34 inch landscape screen QVGA, which is smallish, but very usable. Its also quite bright.

E71 - has very similar specs to the E63 (the two look almost identical), but the screen on my phone wasn't as bright as the E63.

E75 - it has a slightly wider screen than the other two (2.4 inch) at the same resolution, but I didn't see that the extra 0.06 inches of screen is really made a difference. Screen is also nice and bright like the E63.

Battery Capacity:

E63 - 1500mAH

E71 - 1500mAH

E75 - 1000mAH

Bottom-line: based on anecdotal testing, the E75 runs out of juice in a day and a bit, whilst the E63 and E71 can go for about two days before needing a recharge.

Keyboard and keys:

E63 - it has a lot of keys, and they're all at the front of the phone - there is no volume buttons on the side, or power buttons at the top. What I like with the QWERTY keyboard here is that Nokia has catered to the SMS'er and Twitter, with all the common symbols having their own button (instead of having to sift through the menu for them), just as the @, ( and ). It also has a 'ctrl' button, so you can use functions like ctrl+x to copy, etc. The keys are all squished together, they are raised in the middle so its easier to press the right one.

Overall, the keys are nice and clicky, though slightly spongy compared to the E71.

E71 - very similar to the E63, with the majority of the buttons present in the front of the phone. The E71 does have volume buttons to the side, and a dedicated power button at the top. The keys are even more squished together than on the E63 (since the latter is a tad wider), and the some of the symbol keys are missing on the E71. Again, the QWERTY keys are raised so that its easier to discern individual keys by touch.

Keys are hard and 'clicky', and spring back immediately after you press them (versus the spongey E63 buttons) - but you do have to press them with a bit more force, which could lead to more tired thumbs in time.

E75 - This phone has buttons everywhere: at the front, on the side, and in the middle! Starting at the front, the keypad consists of strips of plastic, so that none of the numbers or functions have a single piece of plastic dedicated to them. Nevertheless, the keys are nice and clicky, but since they're all flat and flush with the surface of the phone, its hard to discern the different buttons by feel, and the reference 'bumps' flanking the '5' button doesn't really help. The direction button is a tad spongey, and there is a lot of give with the direction button before it registers.

There are chromed plastic keys on the side, as well as a dedicated camera button, with the latter having two stages like a camera ie pressing to the first stage pre-focuses the camera, and pressing to the second stage takes the picture. I like it, but the camera button is very easy to press to the first stage.

Slide the phone sideways and you've got a QWERTY keyboard. Its made of a nice rubberised material, but the keys are all flat and flush, and there is very little travel in them. Another criticism from my point of view is that there is no secondary direction pad on the QWERTY, so you have to move your right hand from the QWERTY to the direction pad on the front of the screen - you also do the same for the left and right softkeys.

Camera:

E63 - your run-of-the-mill cameraphone. Fixed focus, 2.0MP sensor gives typical camera phone images, though its white balance processing is pretty good. LED light is there, but not really good for close-up or far away.

E71 - close but just misses the mark - auto-focus, 3.2MP at least renders sharp images, but it suffers from a blue tinge in all of the images captured - typical of cameraphones, its crap in low-light situations, and the LED light is useless far away, and blows out the images close-up.

E75 - The best of the three - auto-focus, 3.2MP has the sharpness of the E71, but it renders the colours more accurately, like the E63. A clever innovation by Nokia is that the LED flash is also used as an auto-focus assist lamp, so that the camera can focus in absolute darkness as long as the subject can be illuminated by the LED. The LED is useless for faraway subjects (no surprises there), but does a great job of compensating the exposure of the image when using the flash at close range.

Audio output:

E63 - it has a mono speaker that fires from the top of the phone, and also has a 3.5mm headset/headphone jack, so you can use normal headphones on it.

E71 - it too has a mono speaker that fires from the top of the phone, but uses a 2.5mm headset/headphone jack. My attempt at using a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor my own headphones didn't work, so its the proprietary nokia headset, or nothing.

E75 - it has a mono speaker, but fires from the back of the phone, so its easily muffled if the phone is sitting on its back on a desk. It does have a 3.5mm headphone jack though.

Extras in the box:

E63 - as the 'budget' model, the only thing you get with the phone is the charger, headset and a 1Gb microSD card. The phone can plug into a PC via USB, but you'll need to buy a nokia data cable for it.

E71 - you get quite a bit more here: charger, headset, 2Gb microSD card, leather slip case (form-fitting and very nice), data-cable, CD containing Nokia PC Suite

E75 - almost exactly the same as the E71, but with a more capacious 4Gb microSD card (very nice indeed), and a suede slip case that was frankly too snug to get the phone out of!

Conclusion

Overall I think Nokia have done a pretty good job with all three phones, though there isn't a clear winner between them, which is kinda scary with the case of the E75, which at the most expensive (double the price of the E63) should really be blowing the other two handsets out of the water.

In terms of build quality, features and price, I'm glad that I bought the E71, though its hard to look past the E63 as a great entry level smartphone or texting phone (I've seen it available at$279 Aus prepaid with Three). As for the E75, I think Nokia kinda dropped the ball with that one, packing a lot of great features (and a great camera) into such a ergonomic mess of a handset.

Bottom line: if you want a pure smartphone and won't use the camera except for emergencies, go with either the E63 or E71 - the latter if you can afford it. I can't really recommend the E75 for anything, unless you must have a big QWERTY keyboard in small handset that runs Symbian; for the price, there are really better phones out there.

E75 - makes a great camera phone

As I mentioned in the last post, the E75 has a really good camera. Yes, the images still look like they've been taken by a phone, but there were several key hardware and software elements employed by Nokia which helped make the E75 in my mind, a very capable point and shoot.

For a start the camera has auto-focus, and you can pre-focus by simply pressing the camera half-way. Unfortunately, pressing the button all the way down without pre-focusing bypasses focusing altogehter, but it does mean that you can take a photo quickly if you need to. But to me, what separates the focusing mechanism of the E75 from other phones - and indeed, other point and shoot cameras - is the use of the LED flash as an auto-focus lamp at low light settings. This brilliant choice by Nokia means that even in complete darkness, the E75 can produce a shot like this:

Seeing in the dark: Full marks to Nokia for employing the LED flash as an auto-focus lamp - this photo was taken at night in complete darkness, but the flowers are in focus, and despite being very close to the camera, the image is not washed out and the colours are close to life.

the correct render of the colours, and the absence of overexposure in the photo leads me to suspect that the white balance and exposure of the image is also calculated during the pre-focusing stage (see example below for more evidence). Honestly, I reckon Nokia should sell this technology to camera manufacturers if they thought of it, because I have stand-alone cameras that don't perform this well with a flash so close to a subject! It may be a hasty call after just using the cameraphone for a day and a half, but I think the E75 may be the best camera I've ever used in low-light conditions with the flash on!

As proof, I've added some macro shots taken of my laptop keyboard by my canon point and shot (A410, 3.2MP) compared to those of the E75 (3.2MP), another auto-focus cameraphone (E71, 3.2MP), as well as a fixed focus camerphone (Dopod 838, 2.0MP). To make things fair, all shots were taken one after the other, and with the flash activated and all settings set to automatic. The plan is to take more photos on the weekend (weather permitting) in a larger variety of situations (both indoors and outdoors), but for now, let us marvel as the prowess of the E75.

Umm, this is the standard?! : The Canon powershot A410 is a point and shoot camera with an auto-focus lamp, which definitely helped with the focusing. Unfortunately, the camera didn't/couldn't throttle down the exposure enough, and the "J" key has been completely obliterated, with some collateral brightening of the sorrounding keys. Colour is accurate where the image is not overexposed.

E75 : Subject is sharp, colours are accurate, and the LED flash has produced a bright section in the image, but nothing too severe. Auto white balance did its job well, with only a slight yellow cast compared to the Canon A410.

Dopod838 : Subject is reasonably sharp (macro setting on), but the black is washed out, and the LED flash has completely washed out the "B" key. White balance is correctly applied by the camera.

E71 macro shot: Where do I start? The image is more out of focus than the Dopod (auto-focus had trouble in low-light setting and dark subject), the image is the most overexposed of the three, and to add insult to injury, the white balance is completely wrong (my keys are not violet!)