HP Fansite

Adobe announces Creative Suite 5.5

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5

Adobe kicked this week off with the release of their line of new Creative Suite 5.5 products (from Photoshop to Dreamweaver to Premiere Pro), which are moderate upgrades to the software family from their previous Creative Suite 5. Adobe is apparently going to switch from their regular 18 month cycle between software versions to a longer 24 month cycle, but adding in a “point-five (.5)” incremental upgrade in between, so 0.5 and 1.0 versions will leap-frog each other every two years (expect to see Adobe Creative Suite 6 in 2012 at around this time of year, I guess).

The folks at Adobe are also adding a subscription based model (yes adding, not moving to… I see a lot of tech websites misreporting this fact) to their Creative Suite software, so you can now “pay to use” their software on a monthly basis in two digit figures, instead of having to drop a big three to four digit monetary lump-sum for buying the software. Well, nice move Adobe, but anyone with simple math skills (or a calculator) will figure this costs almost as much as buying a new ‘full’ version of the software every two years… reminds me of car leasing to be frank; and just like leasing versus buying a car, I think it makes more sense to buy to own software instead of subscribing to a subscription based model! I suppose people who don’t have big piles of cash lying around and don’t want to take up a loan just to purchase software might see this move by Adobe as a good thing…

Nvidia shows off latest Mobile GeForce graphics

Nvidia has recently updated their website for the new year, listing seven new GeForce 300-series graphics cards for notebooks. They have their GeForce 305M and 310M at their “mainstream” end, which are essentially basic solutions. Then there are the “performance” GeForce GT325M, GT330M and GT335M; with the GT330M already on its way into Sony’s refreshed Vaio Z laptop model. And finally, the GeForce GTS350M and GTS360M are both Nvidia’s latest and greatest “high performance” cards, both of which are 2-way SLI ready (probably a sign of gaming notebooks to come huh?).

Hey! Sony Vaio P hands on

Hey! I thought this was a HP Fansite?! What’s the Sony Vaio P doing here? True, but that still doesn’t stop me from posting a picture of probably one of the most hyped up products of 2009 and comparing it against the HP Mini, does it? It’s not mine anyway, neither am I even having the slightest thought of getting one (1. It’s way overpriced for what it REALLY is, and 2. It really doesn’t offer much over the HP Mini I already have besides the smaller size).

My initial impressions: The Sony Vaio P is small in size, it’s like the HP Mini with only a keyboard (chopping off the trackpad bit of the netbook to make the Vaio P a long, narrow PC), and comes in four colors. The Vaio P has a high resolution 16:9 screen with a resolution of 1600 x 768 pixels (that’s a little more than 200 pixels wider than the HP Mini 2140). The bad news is that if you thought the fonts and all were tiny on a screen like the HP Mini 2133′s, you’re gonna scream looking at the even smaller fonts on the Vaio P. I appreciate the trackpoint (or as some put it, the “nipple” point) on the Vaio P though.

The keyboard on the Vaio P has well spread-out keys that many will probably find better than on most other netbooks, like Asus’ Eee PCs and the Acer Aspire One. Compared to the HP Mini’s, the keyboard on the Vaio P has keys which are a tad smaller but better spaced out, though HP’s keyboards have the edge with a full-sized right SHIFT key and more “travel” when pressing a key… the latter, being my preference, is subjective.

Overall, I would consider the Sony Vaio P more of a luxury product rather than a true affordable netbook. While it does have some edges like a high-res screen and GPS, I’m not sure if the weaker-than-average 1.33 GHz Intel Atom processor and high price tag (almost two to three times more expensive than an average netbook) would make people rush for this thing.