Why Buy A Netbook When Full-Size Notebooks Cost $300

July 1, 2009
Frys bargain du jour was this eMachines full size notebook for $299

Fry's bargain du jour was this eMachines full size notebook for $299

Although, it’s common now to find most electronics retail stores stocked with Intel Atom-based netbooks selling below $300 and sometimes below $200, it’s definitely unusual to see a full size notebook like the eMachines eMD625 for a mere $300.

So when Fry’s Electronics advertised it yesterday for $299 (plus tax and CA recycling fee) – a $70 off from its regular price – I rushed to its Sunnyvale, CA store location to pick up the bargain “du jour” to try it out!

The laptop – built by Taiwanese-maker Acer - specifications look quite good for the price:

  1. 15.6″ WXGA LCD screen, Wi-Fi, USB, 5-in-1 memory card reader but no webcam
  2. AMD Athlon 64 TF-20 1.6GHz (single core), 2GB Ram Memory, ATI Radeon Xpress 1200 Graphics
  3. 250GB SATA hard disk
  4. DVD player
  5. a full-size keyboard plus numerical pad
  6. and Windows Vista Home Basic
After taxes and the CA recycling fee, I end up paying $343 for the $299 laptop

After taxes and the CA recycling fee, I end up paying $343 for the $299 laptop

Yet more powerful, larger (and heavier!) than the HP mini-note or Acer Aspire One that were placed next to it on Fry’s shelves, the eMachines eMD625 laptop is certainly not a powerhouse despite ATI’s integrated graphics chip: 2 videos running simultaneously (YouTube, ESPN360, Hulu, DVD) are un-watchable. Of course, you could question the need for that too. Although I haven’t tried watching an HD movie on it but my guess is that it won’t work well either.

But some of the overall slow performance could be caused by Windows Vista, which should be a thing of the past as soon as I install Xandros’ Presto on it and Windows 7 (keep fingers crossed).

All in all, the eMachines eMD625 is a decent full-size laptop for the price, good for office, Web and light multimedia (video, imaging, music/iTunes).

Of course, not everybody looking for a thin and light netbook will be happy with this 6 pounds notebook. But I’m sure my Mom wouldn’t mind swapping her old PC with this laptop :-)

6 Comments | computers, hardware, Price Watch, review | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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[Review] Presto Boots Windows PCs In Seconds… Really!

May 4, 2009
Presto an old Windows PC a second lease on life!

Presto an old Windows PC a second lease on life!

[Update] We successfully ran Presto on Windows 7. And while we couldn’t print on our IP-based Dell and HP network printers with Windows 7 (no drivers yet perhaps), Presto had no problem!

If there’s a piece of software that really is worth its price, it’s Presto.

For $20, the Xandros utility will boot your Windows XP or Vista machine in seconds instead of minutes.

Don’t believe me? Well, check out the videos below comparing the loading and shutting down times for the same dual-core Athlon 64 PC used for the test.

Installing Presto on a Windows machine takes only a few seconds (here’s a link to the screencast of the installation).

On the next reboot, an option appears giving the option to start Windows or Presto, which is actually an optimized version of Linux that loads very very fast.

How fast?

About 30 seconds from start to loading the Firefox Web browser. In comparison, it took over 3 minutes from the Windows login prompt – which took about 30 seconds to appear – to loading Internet Explorer and getting the first Web page up.

Same thing with shutting down the PC: 3 seconds with Presto, over 40 seconds for Windows!

As reported when it was announced last March at the Demo conference, Presto is perfect if all you want is access to the Internet (browse, email), chat on Skype, load a few documents to view and perhaps edit, watch a video, listen to music.

Which, when I think of it, is most of what I do.

Presto is also useful to give that old PC a second lease on life!

To be fair, I thought I’ll include the video for Windows XP booting up:

And shutting down:

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9 Reasons Why Google G1 Is A Bad Phone

May 4, 2009

Whats wrong with this message? The Android G1 is a phone made by geeks, for geeks, not humans!Over the weekend, I finally made the switch from my “old” Blackberry Curve to the Google G1. And what a disappointment it was.

Just a few minutes into it, after setting my Gmail account, synching my contacts and calendar (cool!) and even downloading some applications, I realized I made a mistake.

Some applications even started crashing like the Dialer (what’s up with this name?) or the Photo application. The good thing is that it didn’t crash the phone!
Here’s a rundown on some of the reasons why I think the G1 is just a bad phone:

  1. The keyboard is terrible, at least if you’re used like me to the comfort of a Blackberry or Palm keyboard. The keys are too low, the touch imprecise. And I don’t have large fingers! And when the G1 is plugged-in, typing on the keyboard gets really hard.
  2. The Android software does not support multi-touch (although the hardware can!), making it hard to navigate the Web: you can’t zoom on a page for example;
  3. Applications randomly crashes;
  4. Cryptic system messages like the “Force Close” error message when applications crashes. Would you say that to a human? The G1 is a phone designed by geeks for geeks. Not for humans!
  5. Low battery life. With Twitter, Facebook, NewsRob (Google Reader) installed the battery lasts about half a day before I need to charge the phone. That’s a showstopper don’t you think?
  6. SMS messages and emails are in different applications. I was used to receiving both in the Blackberry’s mail application. How nice it was!
  7. The phone plastic feels cheap, fragile and the camera button is nearly inaccessible when the keyboard is open.
  8. Finally, the back of the phone gets really hot when use for 10 minutes or more;
  9. And T-Mobile, where’s my Android 1.5 update? I’m still at 1.0!

So what’s the alternative for me?

Of course I could go back to the Blackberry Curve, but my goal with the G1 was to access the potentially thousands of applications and do more with my phone, and the Blackberry AppWorld store just don’t look that appealing.

Why not the iPhone? Because I need a keyboard.

So? I’m considering a Palm Pre (nice keyboard), even though it means moving to Sprint, or perhaps one of the Motorola’s Android phones, that are not expected before Fall!

5 Comments | hardware, review, software, wireless | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
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Otterbox Defender: Bulky But Protects Mobile Phone Well

April 27, 2009
The Defenders plastic case is surrounded by a silicone membrane that covers all the phones ports

Otterbox's Defender plastic case is surrounded by a silicone membrane that covers all the phone's ports

I’ve been using for several weeks already Otterbox‘s Defender case for my Blackberry Curve.

Putting the screen shield – that wrkinles a bit on screen – and the plastic case, which was hard to clip together, were the hardest part of the setup. After that, putting the silicone membrane around it was a no brainer.

Now my phone is bulky – about twice its original thickness – but matches my scuba diving gears with its yellow plastic case (also exists in black) and black silicone, and is finally protected.

Protected but not waterproof!

“It does look like swimming equipment but keep in mind this case is not waterproof!,”reminds Kristin Golliher, spokesperson for the Fort Collins, Colorado-company.

As for the screen, you can smooth it out with a credit card, adds Golliher. There may be a few air bubbles but generally when the screen is on, they can’t be seen.

Personally I still can see it. So in that regards, it’s not yet perfect.

For testing purposes, I dropped my phone a couple times on a wooden hard floor and it still works!

And despite being fully covered with silicone, my Blackberry is still fully usable: trackball, keyboard, camera, access to the USB port for Sync and charge and the earphone jack right through the case!

Overall this nicely design $50 protection case will fit more the “sporty” kind of people.

Here’s a short video of the set up process:

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Review: Simple To Use Netflix Player Still Lacks Attractive Audio/Video Content

October 13, 2008
Netflix Internet Player

Netflix Internet Player

Over the week-end I reviewed the Netflix Player from Saratoga, Calif., company Roku that I received on Friday. Overall, it was a pleasure to install and use. I just wished there was more recent videos available from Netflix‘s Internet streaming service, as well as some audio/radio content.

Installing

It was a breeze to install the player: connect it to the TV through the HDMI interface and plug it to a power source. That one cable (which is not provided) brings both high quality video and sound.

Now compare this to what I had before i.e. a Mac mini with an external 750 GB Maxtor drive – in which I store my photo and music library. Add to this the keyboard, the mouse, the HDMI adapter and the sound cable. Plus of course my iPod cable whenever I want to charge/sync my music player. All in all, it was quite a spaghetti set-up in the back of the TV stand.

Of course, I could do much more with the Mac that I can now. But really, I was the only using it as it was far too complex to use when indeed it was working.

Read the rest of this entry »

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[ÜberReview] Sandisk Extreme Ducati SD Plus card: nice design but a bit fragile (video)

July 19, 2007

Not much to say on this $130 SD card apart from the really cool design: the USB connector is actually embedded/hidden on the card itself, making a card reader obsolete. Again, the SD Plus card is the fastest offered by SanDisk and matches Lexar’s 4GB Professional 133X SDHC 20MB/sec performance, while being $30 more expensive. However, I think the snap-open connector is well worth the extra cost as you will not need an additional high-end Firewire card reader to enjoy the speed of this fast UDMA memory card. Oh, I almost forgot this tiny but nevertheless important detail… the small embedded red light that lights up when the card is accessed.

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[ÜberReview] Ducati USB flash drive: beautiful but expensive and slow (video)

July 19, 2007

Despite the quite unique design, the Sandisk Extreme Ducati edition 4GB USB flash drive was a disappointment both performance and price-wise. Indeed at $125 you would expect more of this Ducati drive than the advertised 20 megabytes per second (MB/s) speed. By comparison, the 4GB Corsair Flash Voyager drive, with better performance (34MB/s read and 25MB/s write), sells for $70 at OZ direct and the 8GB version, with even better performance, sells for $115 on NewEgg.

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UberPulse’s quick look at the iPhone… will wait for now! (video)

July 2, 2007

After the initial “rush” to cover the iPhone launch at Apple’s Palo Alto store, the UberPulse team had a chance to play with the phone. Here are our first impressions one the device:

We liked:

- the beautiful design/screen;

- the user interface: you use your fingers to scroll through the screen, zoom in and out of a page… it takes a few minutes to get used to it and then if feels really natural… I wish my laptop/pda could do this!

- the fact that it has a Wi-Fi connection;

- the quality of the video playback;

- the iPod functionality… although it’s more of a nice to have feature than something absolutely necessary… I already have an iPod!

We didn’t like:
- the keyboard was hard to use, despite “thin” fingers and the auto-correction feature;
- no Flash support on the Safari Internet browser.

Read the rest of this entry »

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UberReview: Laptop Desk 2.0 cools and enhances typing

June 4, 2007

I have been using LapWorks’ laptop desk 2.0 since last January’s MacWorld and now I find hard to separate it from my MacBook, especially in bed! The laptop desk has two “modes”: desk and laptop. The video also shows the company’s laptop “legs” accessory that I haven’t tested.
On a desk
In desk mode, it folds in half and creates and incline with 5 different angles, where you’ll put your computer on it and creates a better typing experience. The incline also reduces the heat building up on the computer.

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WebCall me!

March 13, 2007

GrandCentral has finally released its WebCall Button. When you click on the above button, GrandCentral will call the number you’ve entered and my GrandCentral number, and connect the call. I’m not sure this works from abroad as the service is currently free but eventually GC will charge its subscriber. Also, I won’t promise to pick-up the call ;-)

1 Comment | review | Permalink
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