Sky Mobile TV app brings live sport to the iPhone

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Spotify generated huge excitement when it launched with its offer of unlimited music for £10 a month, but this simply blows it out of the water. Sky has today launched a new Mobile TV app which offers live streaming of a selection of its most popular premium channels for a monthly fee, and you don’t even have to be a Sky TV subscriber at home.

The core Sky Mobile TV News and Sports app is available for free, and offers full listings for the core sports and news channels. But for the paltry sum of £6 a month, you can stream live coverage from those channels over a Wi-Fi connection. (more…)

Will you hit the Orange iPhone “unlimited” cap?

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Orange’s big unveiling of its iPhone tariffs has caused a bit of a kerfuffle, not least because its prices are almost identical to those of O2. A lot of people are up in arms about the promise of “unlimited browsing”, which in fact comes with a fair-use limit of 750MB.

But, ignoring the terrible decision to put an “unlimited” label on a very clearly capped tariff, is that amount of monthly data actually “fair-use”?

As discussed in this week’s podcast, there’s a very easy way for existing iPhone owners to find out if that data cap would prove troublesome. Just go to Settings -> General -> Usage, and take a look at your Cellular Network Data. I did just that, believing this cap would be encroaching at least a little on my roaming lifestyle, but I was in for a surprise. (more…)

How to install Windows 7 on the new 27in iMac

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Windows 7 isn’t officially supported in Boot Camp just yet, but that doesn’t stop it working a treat most of the time. We have it installed on one of the new MacBooks in the Labs, but the gigantic 27in iMac proved to be much more problematic (we’ll have a full review of the monster in question later this week).

The problem occurs after the main Windows 7 installation has taken place. The system reboots, the Windows 7 logo circles into life and the desktop should appear – but all you get is blackness. The system is still running – press the Caps Lock key and you’ll see the light ping on – but you can’t see anything, indicating a problem with the iMac’s ATI graphics drivers.

Fear not, though. If you’ve just blown £1,350 on this beautiful beast and are now scratching your head as to why you can’t get it working, there is a workaround to crowbar Windows 7 onto it. (more…)

Does anyone actually use dynamic contrast?

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Playing around with Samsung’s XL2370 TFT this week, I hit a bit of a wall. In fact, not so much hit it, more slammed my head straight through it in sheer, irate frustration. You see, it uses an LED backlight, which Samsung’s press bunf confidently told me would produce a level of contrast the old CCFL kind simply can’t match.

And it does. Not just any old contrast, but MEGA contrast! Yes, MEGA, in capitals. In non-marketing speak that converts into a figure of 5,000,000:1, or 5,000 times higher than the standard contrast ratio on most of today’s TFTs.

Except the XL2370 doesn’t manage that at all. (more…)

Spotify for iPhone: the verdict

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

I’ve had my week reviewing Spotify’s Premium account and the iPhone app, I’ve listened to an uneclectic mix of playlists that mostly consisted of the song Africa by Toto, and I’ve used it in central London and out in Kent, with all the public transport in between.

And the verdict? I almost, nearly, don’t quite want to pay for it.

It’s not that it’s not brilliant. It is. (more…)

Nvidia Ion netbooks: first look

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

The first Ion-based netbooks are beginning to trickle in, so yesterday Nvidia took the opportunity to introduce the technology to us formally. And if there was any doubt as to the focus of the demo, it was quickly made clear by the presence of a gigantic 1080p Sharp Aquos TV with a tiny netbook attached.

The netbook in question was HP’s Mini 311, announced today, and it offers a very similar core spec to others we’ve already seen from the likes of Samsung. The usual 1.6GHz Atom N270 and 2GB of RAM are joined by an 11.6in 1,366 x 768 LED screen and that shiny new Nvidia Ion GPU, which also allows manufacturers to include an HDMI port for hooking up to an HD TV. The Mini 311 is pencilled in for a £349 launch price, which is actually a rather competitive price for its size and spec. (more…)

Meet the Adamo XPS… from Apple?

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Regular readers of our reviews section will know we drooled all over Dell’s Adamo a few weeks back. Its metal slab design, superb build quality and all-round bloody loveliness won over most of the PC Pro crew and even elicited reluctantly positive grunts from several of MacUser’s troops too.

So what’s this Dell is now teasing? (Click to enlarge)

Puzzlingly, it’s a new 9.99mm-thin Adamo XPS laptop that looks remarkably like a MacBook Air. (more…)

Spotify for iPhone: first look

Monday, September 7th, 2009

The eagerly awaited music-streaming service Spotify has today arrived on both the iPhone App Store and on Android’s Marketplace, and I’ve been granted a seven-day guest pass to see if it’s really worth that £10-a-month premium account.

Over the course of a year that does seem like a lot of money – particularly as most users will already have huge music collections of their own – but the promise of millions of tracks available on the move is certainly tempting.

Starting up

Once logged in, you’ll be delighted to see all of your desktop playlists seamlessly synced with Spotify on your phone, and if that’s what you’re after you can just dive straight in. (more…)

Can Lexmark change the way we buy printers?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Lexmark’s inkjet printers have had a pretty rough ride from PC Pro in recent reviews and Greg Caster, senior development manager for inkjet R&D, admitted to me yesterday that its 2008 range was simply a step behind its competitors. To change that, Lexmark is finally moving to individual inks for its next all-wireless range of inkjet all-in-ones, and introducing a fantastic touchscreen interface that I’ll come to later.

But the real news for me – and for anyone who ever has trouble choosing a printer – is the way Lexmark’s eight-product line has been assembled.

Currently, buying a printer is a confusing experience, with too many competing manufacturers, each with too many printer ranges that contain too many similar models and accept too many different cartridge types. Even within a single manufacturer’s product range, the variation in quality and speed can be staggering.

(more…)

Will Channel 4’s 3D experiment work?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for all these years, the 3D spectacular to really kick-start the technology in homes across the UK. It’s eye-popping, it’s nail-biting, it’s heart-stopping, it’ll have you on the edge of your seat.

It’s… sorry about this… it’s… um… footage from 1953 of the Queen’s coronation year. In 3D.

Not exactly what I had in mind, but the news that Channel 4 is going to run a week of primetime 3D content this Autumn is just one more step along 3D’s road to the mainstream. The line-up also includes a Derren Brown special and a selection of 3D movies, and it’ll all be possible with your existing TV set – all you’ll need is a pair of special specs from Sainsbury’s.

Now, this worries me a bit. (more…)