Archive for April, 2010

The Gadget Show Live: 3view's Wii-like remote

OK, so I’ll admit that television remotes aren’t exactly the most exciting tech products. But 3view’s newly announced Wii-like remote for its HD and Internet-connected set-top box is still noteworthy.

And although I already new of its existence after my recent visit to the company’s offices, I got to actually see the product up front at last week’s The Gadget Show Live. The remote feels really comfortable in the hand and its motion sensor and cursor-based operation should be a perfect fit when utilizing the Opera-powered web browsing capability of the 3view set-top box. It won’t come as standard, however, but will be an optional extra I’m told.

Video after the jump…

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The Gadget Show Live: Hands-on with the new Flip MinoHD

In our review of the original Flip MinoHD, I was critical of the point-and-shoot camcorder’s tiny 1.5 inch viewfinder/screen, which made it fiddly to frame shots accurately. The fact that it has a 4:3 aspect ratio despite shooting in 16:9 widescreen, reduced the visible preview even more.

It seems that Cisco – makers of the Flip – have been listening. The newly revamped Flip MinoHD, which I got a hands-on with at last week’s Gadget Show Live, has a 2 inch screen with very little letter-boxing. It also sports a much nicer body, with the back utilizing aluminum, and also adds up to double the storage (8GB) and a HDMI port for connecting to a High Definition television.

The software remains largely unchanged I’m told, and it’s not clear if the company has added any image stabilization, which was another complaint of mine. But hey, you can’t have everything.

Video after the jump…

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I is back (from the Gadget Show Live 2010)

As is becoming a tradition at last100, I was away for the best part of last week at The Gadget Show Live (2010) in Birmingham, UK and generally taking a bit of time out to recharge my batteries, or at least that was the idea.

Aside from clocking up multiple Foursquare check-ins and quite a bit of mileage, I got to check out some of the latest consumer tech, which compared to last year’s show, was a little underwhelming. It just seemed that there wasn’t much new – and a lot of products were noticeably missing in action (Apple iPad anyone?)

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Nokia said to be readying iPad competitor – Windows or MeeGo anyone?

From the words of an “analyst”, so I won’t hold my breath. Nokia is said to be readying its own take on the now-credible Internet tablet, post Apple’s iPad.

TheStreet.com reports: “Nokia is working with suppliers and design manufacturers on a touch-screen tablet to have available as early as this fall, according to Rodman Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, who is close to Nokia’s technology partners. Nokia declined to comment.”

My take

With Internet tablets likely to soon become part of the carrier subsidy merry-go-round, Nokia will be forced to jump on the latest bandwagon – although it already has form in this space – so it would make sense if the handset maker is already putting into action plans to challenge Apple’s iPad. It’s not like we didn’t already know that 2010 is going to be the year of the tablet, just like 08/09 was for the Netbook – and Nokia was far too late to that particular party.

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Review: SeeSaw bouncing between back-catalogue and catch-up TV

SeeSaw front pageSeesaw is a UK-only video on demand service, which has its origins in the ill-fated Project Kangaroo, whose technology was bought up by transmission company Arqiva. The service was launched with new branding as “SeeSaw”.

SeeSaw’s revenue currently comes from unskippable advertising that appears before and in the middle of programmes. However, premium content is said to be coming to SeeSaw later in the year. SeeSaw is limited to residents of the UK only, but on their FAQ pages, they state that viewers do not need a TV license.

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MeeGo arrives on the N900, non-developers advised to move along

N900 booting into Meego terminal

The MeeGo community blog has announced that N900 users can download a working image of the new MeeGo operating system. In addition to supporting the N900 ARM architecture, they have also released an image for Intel’s Atom processors, thus covering the shared heritage of the the Moblin and Maemo parent platforms.

In their own words:

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HTC Legend is my new Hero

The new HTC Legend

I’m a massive fan of HTC’s Hero smartphone, my favorite Android device to date. That is until this afternoon when I took loan of the HTC Legend, which is essentially a revamped Hero, uni-body-style aluminum casing included.

Doesn’t it look fitting next to a Macbook?

I’ve only played with device for about an hour and so far it’s definitely a little more responsive than the Hero and HTC’s updated Sense UI hasn’t lost any of its appeal. Just going through the setup process shows an eye to detail and focus on user experience that I’ve come to expect from HTC. As a result, it took only a few minutes to have Gmail, Google Calendar, Contacts, Twitter and Facebook synced and pulling in updates, all over-the-air — and I’m good to go.

Fantastic.

Expect a full review in the next two weeks or jump in the comments if you have any questions in the mean time.

iPad reviews are in – PC Mag sums up Apple's device in 4,000 words [video]

It was just the other day that I was mocking a recent claim by PC Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff that what made the publication different from competing tech sites and blogs was its testing ‘labs’ used to conduct product reviews.

“Who needs a lab?”, I scoffed.

I get to review plenty of gear where my lounge, bedroom or local coffee shop is my ‘lab’. A mobile phone or netbook, for example, can be reviewed almost anywhere. It’s not the environment that counts but how knowledgeable and thorough the reviewer is and what products he/she has used for comparison. Or at least, that’s what I’d hope.

Putting all of that aside, however, PC Mag has put out today the best iPad review so far. It’s easily the most thorough – at 4,000 words – and, as Dave Zatz points out, hasn’t suffered from the print-length restrictions that plague the coverage of the Pogues, Walt Mossbergs of this world, never mind their perceived closeness to Cupertino. PC Mag gives the iPad a lab score of 4.5/5 😉

PC Mag have also produced a nice video review, which I’ve embedded right after the jump.

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