Are you kidding me? I just read from several websites about how people complain netbooks can do only “limited things” and are “useless for anything above 720p”. I guess there are a lot of people out they who enjoy jumping to conclusions or ranting about something they don’t even own!
I watch at least one (720p) movie a month on my HP Mini 2133 and nothing wrong. Sure I’m sure the netbook’s 1.6 GHz processor could’ve left out some frames while playing; but I didn’t notice it that much at all. I don’t believe in overly in-depth technical testing where even one or two frames ‘count’, since if something is good enough (in this case, watchable), then why complain about a few dropped frames? It’s not that your eyes have a built-in FPS benchmarker.
I also read that you can browse the web, do documents and listen to music all at once on a netbook without it being ‘untolerably slow’. Rubbish, I say. Most of the time I have Firefox with a few tabs open, Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007, Windows Explorer with picture viewer and WinAmp on all at the same time. Umm no crashes or insane slowdowns as reported by some full notebook (*ahem MacBook *ahem*) purists.
There you go; Myth busted.
Hey guys, not many updates from me lately eh? Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I’m sure everyone’s getting ready (for companies, they’re probably getting ready for Black Friday).
Last week HP announced their first Touchsmart notebook, the Touchsmart tx2. I got to play with the HP Touchsmart tx2 for a short while and two things I like about it are 1) the all-black design makes it look a whole lot like a “pro” (and very cool as well) version of the existing HP Pavilion tx2500 and 2) the multi-touch screen being very responsive (I got the chance to compare it to the tx1000 and tx2000 notebook pc’s).
And oh, I’ve been having lots of fun with the iPAQ Data Messenger too. The Data Messenger is fantastic to use, aside from a few bugs that need to be worked out (everything doesn’t respond at times and I need to touch the “Start” button; then everything works again) which is expected in a pre-production model. Two main things I’ve installed on the Data Messenger are Throttle Launcher (A very nice today screen app) and Pocket Player (Which is much better, miles ahead, compared to Windows Media Player. I installed the trial version 3.7 and I like the new interface a lot versus v3.6)
Remember what I said about the Data Messenger needing a 3.5 mm headphone jack? Well, scratch that, the phone is really just fine with my several pairs of headphones of various brands via a 2.5 to 3.5 mm headphone adapter that I’ve been using on my hw6915/hw6515 iPAQs. What the Data Messenger REALLY needs is a dedicated on/off button! It’s really frustrating hitting the “End” button, which minimizes all apps before you can turn the device off. It’s annoying to have to re-open my last used application, instead of it being on-screen right away the next time I turn on the device (something that I’ve grown very VERY accustomed to from the iPAQ h6310 to hw6515/hw6915 to my current 612c).
More to come…
I got my hands on a HP iPAQ Data Messenger with pre-production firmware last night and so far I’ve spent 16 hours, including an entire day out this morning with HP’s latest (business?) Pocket PC phone. I’ve stuck my SIM card from the HP iPAQ 612c and it worked straight away. Let me just make a short list of the main things that struck me right away (Do note that this is with a pre-production unit with pre-prod firmware, so things may change when I get my hands on a final, retail unit):
- This thing is glossy! Kinda like 612c-keypad type of glossy. It doesn’t show fingerprints visibly unless in very bright light
- There are two sensors to the left of the HP logo on the front, visible only under bright sunlight. One is a light sensor and the other is apparently a proximity sensor.
- The completely flush touchscreen is a welcome move by HP. Now I can finally reach the buttons on the edges of the screen easily with my finger
- The back design of the Data Messenger looks very classy, in my opinion. The camera and a single LED flash are placed at the very edge and are discrete. Compared to the HP iPAQ 612c, the 612c looks more “fancy camera phone” like while the Data Messenger’s back clearly says “I mean business”. There’s no “megapixel logo” or words anywhere, and I hope it STAYS this way in the final unit (I hate people telling me “only 3 megapixels?”).
- Because the camera lens is on the very side of the phone, you would want to keep your fingers away from the edge when holding the Data Messenger.
- The loudspeaker is VERY loud. I didn’t need any fancy meters or machinery to measure that – just using my ears, I could hear the speaker on the Data Messenger was noticeably louder than the iPAQ 612c. The speaker also didn’t crackle when I cranked the volume up to the max and has very good dynamic range (Again, noticeably better than the 612c)
- I’m not trying to say the iPAQ 612c is a lousy jukebox… it’s a good Pocket PC phone, except the Data Messenger raises the bar by a notch. I like the Data Messenger’s loudspeaker. In fact I like it a LOT
- The front “Start” and “OK” buttons at the bottom are NOT “clicky” hardware buttons. They seem to be capacitive touch (you know like those buttons on HP’s notebooks). I’m having mixed feelings about these two buttons – I like the ability to just “touch” them to close an application, but at the same time, your thumb will naturally rest on the “OK” button in camera mode (thus accidentally closing the camera app)
- The camera takes good photos. The Data Messenger and 612c both have 3 megapixel cameras. The Data Messenger seems to take better exposed photos and more accurate colors though. On the negative side, zoom and exposure are operated ONLY via the touchscreen (Eventhough there’s a navigation pad) and the camera seems to be continuously focusing all the time (and half-pressing the shutter button doesn’t do anything to autofocus)
Right, that’s about it for now. I’m off again; gonna spend the evening out and about, with the Data Messenger, and will post more about the phone once I’ve spent more time with it. Toodles!
Last weekend on Sunday I had one of those moments where I was struck by boredom. So what did I do? I made a pen-drawn faux-tattoo of the Voodoo PC logo on the back of my hand – I need to draw it larger next time. Check this out (picture taken with the HP iPAQ 612c); along with the picture I referred to:
Inspired by Rahul Sood tattoo-ing his leg.
Check out two more pictures after the jump...
I just read about the Voodoo Omen being selected by the CES as one of the most innovative products of the year in the computer hardware category. Congratulations to the Voodoo team!
