First looks: Toshiba Satellite P500

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

The Toshiba Satellite P500 is a big laptop. Not a-little-larger-than-a-typical-laptop big, more size-of-the-universe big. Take a look at the photo if you don’t believe me: this is a kind and perfectly normal-sized lady at the Toshiba booth at IFA Berlin, yet it dwarfs her.

“It’s not funny,” she said, having held the laptop for 30 seconds as I fiddled with the camera, “this laptop is heavy.”

That’s also undeniably true, but then the Satellite P500 wasn’t built to be carried between home and office. This is a machine designed to entertain, and Toshiba packs in all the hi-tech goodies you can think of to make it a pleasure to use. (more…)

Can companies be trusted over green promises?

Friday, September 4th, 2009

I’ve just come out of an “Eco” briefing with Sony at IFA, and it should be no surprise at all that they’re banging their own eco drum pretty fiercely. But, in that, they’re absolutely no different from all the other manufacturers at this show.

Sharp, I’m told, declared themselves “world eco champions”, and Toshiba dedicated a number of slides in their press conference about the fact they were aiming to “improve our eco-efficiency by ten times” by 2050.

And there’s another thing all these companies have in common too. They not only want you to replace existing products, they want you to actually own more electronic products. Can these two competing demands ever live with each other?

(more…)

First look: Sony VAIO X-Series

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

We got our hands on an early sample of the all-new Sony VAIO X-Series at Sony’s pre-IFA show, and to say it looks an impressive feat of engineering completely understates matters.

Let’s get the facts out of the way first. This is the world’s lightest ever laptop, weighing less even than the Sony VAIO P-Series – and that weighed in at 640g.

Hold the X-Series in your hands and it feels breathtakingly light. Once you pick it up, you don’t want to put it down. (more…)

Are Twitter, Facebook et al killing our businesses?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

I’ve always been of the opinion that if people do the job they’re paid for, and they do it well, then it’s irrelevant whether they spend some of their working day using services like Facebook and Twitter. But I must admit that a piece by Theo Paphitis in today’s Daily Mail does ring a few bells.

“Sadly,” he writes, “the addictive, all-consuming  nature of online connections means that the worst internet offenders are reneging on their part of the bargain.” The bargain being that they’re there to earn money for the business, and themselves of course. (more…)

Stop stealing my credit, Skype!

Friday, August 28th, 2009

There are some poor, misguided fools out there who still criticise Skype for its call quality. They put their fingers to their lips and wobble them about as they’re talking, feigning the in-and-out nature of early voice over IP calls. Hilarious as such antics always are, it’s far from the truth.

If you make a call using Skype (or any other VoIP service for that matter) you’re far more likely to be impressed with the sound quality. Even using the built-in microphone of an average laptop and a set of crummy headphones, the quality is higher than a landline. (more…)

The bizarrest email I’ve ever received

Monday, August 24th, 2009

I was having quite a bad day, if I’m honest, but then this dropped into my inbox:

Hiya – This is a slightly odd question, but I’m hoping you may be able to help me…

Can you tell me whether a full computer hardrive weighs more than an empty one ? And if it does what does the extra weight comprise of?

Again, I know it’s a strange question, but I would be v grateful if you could shed some light!

Names and email addresses removed to protect the innocent, needless to say.

But it does raise the important question of whether spreadsheets are, metaphorically speaking, heavier than word-processing documents. Are TIFFs heavier than JPEGs? Is Windows heavier than Linux?

Answers on a postcard. And if anyone’s received a stranger email than that, I’d love to hear about it.

Windows 7 review: why PC Pro won’t be rushing its verdict

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

I’ve already received a couple of emails from readers asking why PC Pro hasn’t produced a Windows 7 review now that the RTM is officially out – and the reason is simple. We don’t want to rush to a verdict we may later regret.

To a certain extent, I think this happened with Windows Vista. Back in the hazy days of late 2006, early 2007 we nailed our colours to the mast and the operating system earned a five-star review. If I’m honest, I think we were too forgiving of its foibles, as we were so used to the OS being a beta. (more…)

First look: RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Earlier today I got my hot hands on the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520, and thanks to our lovely art team we’ve managed to get a few nice photos to highlight its features.

Front on, the most interesting item is slap bang in the middle: a trackpad. This works almost identically to a normal laptop trackpad, except you press it to select on an item. Opinion in the PC Pro office is so far mixed: I found it intuitive, though it’s a little fiddly as you can’t jump about the screen as quickly as I’d like, whereas our esteemed news & features editor, Barry Collins, simply couldn’t get on with it at all. (more…)

Microsoft Office 2010: Word 2010’s print dialog

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

I’ve already blogged today about the excellent new meeting request view in Outlook 2010, so I hope you’ll forgive a second Office 2010 entry for the day. However, I had to share this (note – to get a clearer picture, click on the screenshot):

There are a number of things I like about this dialog, which is what you’ll see if you press Ctrl + P or click File |Print, where File is the new-style Office icon that sits at the top-left of the Word window.

And prime among them is the automatic print preview feature. (more…)

Microsoft Office Outlook 2010’s new meeting request view

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Outlook 2010 is undoubtedly the most changed of all the Microsoft Office 2010 applications, benefiting from the much-heralded Ribbon interface. Although my first reaction on seeing it was slight shock, as you’re presented with a mass of options when often all you want to do is Reply or Delete, I’m already seeing advantages.

Primary among these, so far as I’m concerned, is the new meeting request view. Not so much in the organisation phase – there are no major innovations there – but in the view that’s presented to invited members. (more…)