I played with the Blik RadioStation a while back, and I must admit that I was thoroughly impressed. It was the first combined DAB, FM and Wi-Fi radio I’d seen, and the sound quality was good enough to easily bag it a recommended award.
Not content to rest on its laurels, though, Blik has thrown another audio source in to its new model. Now you get three flavours of radio and an iPod dock. In the time-honoured tradition of iPod accessories, the model name has been preceded with a meaningless “i”, to become the iBlik.
None of us here in the labs have an iPod, so it’s my duty to admit that the above image is a cunning mock-up. We wouldn’t want to deceive you here at Pro. We’ll test it out and get back to you, but if the dock’s sound quality can match that of the radio inputs then it has nothing to worry about.
Ever lost your cordless mouse? No, us neither, but don’t let that put you off Logitech’s latest innovation. The V550 Nano comes with a separate stick-on mouse knob (that’s a technical term) for your laptop.
Choose a suitable spot on your lid, peel off the backing and press it into place, then just slide the groove on the base of the Nano onto it - hey presto! you’ll never lose your mouse again. Phew.
It also comes with a remarkably small receiver, which slots neatly inside the mouse itself - it couldn’t really get much more portable. Check back on Monday for the review.
If you keep close tabs on the smartphone scene - and PC Pro’s reviews section - you’ll know that we weren’t too impressed with HTC’s response the iPhone 3G, the Touch Diamond a couple of months ago.
We liked the fact that it buried most of Windows Mobile’s ugliness under an attractive, finger-friendly touchscreen interface, and we liked its fantastic VGA screen. We were also keen on its fantastic web browser - Opera Mobile 9.5.
But we hated its sluggish performance. The whole point of touchscreen interfaces is that they should be responsive, but this was anything but. Hit a control on screen and, like as not, you’d have to wait a second or so before anything actually happened. It was one of the most frustrating phones we’ve ever had the displeasure to use.
Would the same issues afflict its big brother - the Touch Pro, which arrived in the Labs today?
We’ve just laid our sweaty mitts on the highly-anticipated BlackBerry Bold (aka the 9000 series) for the very first time in an hour long introduction to the product, and we have to say, we’re impressed.
For those of you who may not be completely au fait with the details (where have you been?), it’s RIM’s new flagship phone, but instead of simply relying on a (slow) GPRS connection – which we haven’t been impressed with before – the new device has a 3.5G (tri-band HSDPA) connection, and a new web browser.
The result is a completely revamped BlackBerry, with a new-look interface. The operating system has moved on to version4.6 now and it comes complete with a slick new look and iPhone-style web browser, which gives an overview of web pages before allowing you to zoom right in.
Looks like the Summer Season has well and truly landed at Microsoft: one client has been battling to download some licences from eopen for two days. This is not the first time the lights have been out at the software licencing pickup point - just as well it’s not a drive-thru (ugh).
But what takes the biscuit is their reply to his email asking when he can have his licences: oh sorry… would you like some CDs with the keys stuck on the back? Should be with you in…
(any guesses?)
…four weeks!
Adopting strictly limited software licencing systems tied tightly to the physical machine and the software install process looks good, for exactly as long as you can be bothered to stay responsive when people ask for new licences. A major cause of unease amongst my clients is the idea that one day, their right to get into their own files will be removed: having it taken away because you haven’t paid is pretty bad (if you thought you’d stopped paying). Having it taken away because someone is asleep at the wheel, or penny-pinching, or deliberately turning their back on the stream of customer-service requests… that’s far more worrying.
HP has refreshed the specifications of its giant 20.1in desktop-replacement laptop, suitably codenamed The Dragon. We’ve got the top-of-the-range model, the HDX9320EA, squatting menacingly down in PC Pro’s labs.
Even before you find yourself seduced by the Dragon’s formidable specifications (more of which later), it’s difficult not to be struck by the sheer size of the thing. We’ve seen some big laptops, but HP’s HDX9320EA takes the dragon-sized doggy biscuit. Acer’s Aspire 8920G Gemstone Blue was a big blighter, with its 18.4in display and suitably huge footprint, but compared to HP’s beast it begins to look fairly modest. Even Dell’s chunky gaming behemoth, the XPS M1730, starts to look almost, well, portable. And as for the sub-1kg Toshiba R500 in the picture below, it’s positively dwarfed.
A lovely blue Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA8EX just landed on my desk to be reviewed, which is great, because it has one particularly exciting feature – it’s completely waterproof. Eager to test this out I ran down to reception where we have a huge fish tank, and I dropped it in.
With the launch of the Centrino 2 platform, we’re expecting to see a flurry of activity from all the major manufacturers as they refresh their current ranges - or launch entirely new ones, as we saw from Sony yesterday - that are able to proudly bear the Centrino 2 sticker.
Accordingly, Acer has launched an updated range of TravelMate notebooks that fully embrace the new platform. Five laptops run the size gamut from 12.1in to 17in screens, but all promise plenty of power thanks to the inclusion of new processors. The 17in TravelMate 7730G includes the Intel Core 2 Duo T9600, T9400, P9500, P8400 or P8600 - with clock speeds ranging from 2.26GHz to 2.8GHz.
The rest of the specification promises more than enough performance for business users, too: there’s 2GB of RAM, the chance to include GeForce 9000M-series discrete graphics and one or two hard disk drives, with sizes ranging from 120 to 320GB. The entire range supports draft-n wireless, and the 6593G, 6493G and 6293G can all be equipped with optional HSDPA connections.
You may have read our review of the MSI Wind earlier in the week. If you didn’t, here’s the deal: we liked it. A lot.
So we were even more pleased to discover that the very same laptop was going to be available from PC World for signicantly less cash - £32 to be precise at £238 exc VAT. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, we reckon.
Aside from the slightly different colour scheme - the Advent 4211 Netbook has a black lid where our MSI review sample was all decked out in white - it’s an identical piece of kit. A decent 10in, 1,024 x 600 resolution wide screen is complemented by one of the most usable keyboards we’ve yet seen in a netbook - and the trackpad’s not bad either.
Inside is an 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor and this is backed up by 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard disk and around the edges is a decent array of ports and expansion slots. With this specification, the 4211’s XP installation will run at a fair old lick.
The battery is, unfortunately, also the same - with a minimal capacity of 2,200mAh promising similar, underwhelming battery life.
Still, we gave the MSI Wind U100 five stars in our original review, and the lower price means this version looks even better value for that rating. Look out for a full review very soon…
Looks like VMWare has lost it’s den mother: CEO Diane Greene has been replaced by Paul Maritz. Having seen Ms. Greene in action on two occasions, I will be fascinated to see how Maritz copes with that role - VMWare’s somewhat scattered product portfolio and happy go lucky acquisition model always seemed to represent a collection of cats resolutely refusing to make up a herd. Seems like the shareholders - companies not famous for their touchy-feely, den-motherish management style, like Cisco and EMC - reacted with that classic American short-term peevishness when revenues dropped, and Someone Had To Go.
The question in my mind is; was VMWare surfing a wave during the pre-recession years, or actually driving it? Will the uber-boffins who delivered the goods, keep doing so without their Den Mother?
