A great little netbook, the Aspire One covers all of my basic on-the-go computing needs. It’s extremely thin and light, and pretty fast for such modest specs. It runs Windows 7 Starter and Ubuntu 11.04.
Fujifilm S1700
A great value bridge camera, with an awesome 15x zoom and 720p HD video recording. It also takes some pretty amazing macro shots. I love it.
Google Nexus S
My new primary phone, as of Christmas Day 2011. It runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and is one damn fast phone. Mainly used for messaging, on-the-fly tweeting, web browsing, and also makes the occasional phone call.
Apple iPod touch
It’s a sort of backup device, and has my entire music collection stored on it. It’s slow and battered, but I keep it around as an old faithful.
LITTLE THINGS
Bose On-Ear headphones
They offer very good sound quality, are very comfortable, and best of all, they fold up neatly (pictured) to easily fit in a bag without any problems.
Pocket Boom
This weird device can turn something like a table or chair into an amplifier; you plug one end into the 3.5mm headphone jack on your device and the other ‘limpet’ end sticks onto the object, thus essentially turning it into a giant speaker. Pretty cool to show off to people, although I don’t use it that much.
Buffalo Ministation 300GB portable hard drive
Basically, I’ve stopped using USB pen drives.
Microsoft Arc Mouse
Comfortable, cool-looking, and extremely portable. The perfect netbook and desktop mouse.
HSBC Key
Basically a layer of security to login to my online banking, which I do from a variety of different computers/devices, hence I carry it around all the time.
Cables (not pictured)
There’s a lot of them, from chargers to data cables.
Well here we go, folks; it’s that time again when I’m looking for yet another phone. This time, it’s more of a ‘political’ thing rather than me specifically needing a Nexus S. After all, it will most certainly be a downgrade from my current phone (HTC’s Incredible S) in terms of specs. So why am I selling a high-end HTC for a one-year-old, rather cheap-feeling Samsung?
The main reason I’m pretty sure I’m going to the Nexus S is software updates. I am sick of HTC cutting their customers off after eight months. My phone was released earlier this year and it won’t get an update to Ice Cream Sandwich. To me, that’s outrageous. One of the main problems with Android is the fact that manufacturers like to install custom UIs, which slows down the update process for certain devices, and in some cases prevents an update from being available.
The logical choice of Android phone in this situation would be the Galaxy Nexus, but as I’m a broke student, the Nexus S will have to do. I can’t sell my Incredible S for much, so the cost of me selling it will cover the cost of a brand new Nexus S off Amazon perfectly. The Nexus S will get ICS within the next few months, and it’ll probably get the next release of Android after that (most likely another eighteen months away); this makes it the only future-proof phone that I can realistically consider buying. The only real issue I originally saw with the Nexus S replacing my current device was the lack of HD video capture on its five megapixel camera, but the amount of phone photography I do is minimal, and for decent shots I’ll just use my Fujifilm S1600.
I’m also fed up of HTC Sense slowing my phone down; something that was previously aesthetically-pleasing for me has just turned into a CPU hog/graphical nightmare of a UI. Stock Android is so much faster, and the Nexus S also has some pretty powerful graphics processing power.
So at the end of the day, I’m happy to slightly downgrade my device for something that I feel will last me longer, and that will give me less grief. My current phone is like a Ferrari - powerful, but has a lot of flaws; the Nexus S is more of an Audi R8 - a sensible, slick, and reliable alternative. As a daily driver, I’ll happily take the R8 over a Ferrari.
Look out for my final decision on Twitter over the next few weeks.
Microsoft Productivity Future Vision 2011 - A Stunning look at The Future
The 2011 version of Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision pretty much took my breath away. It shows us exactly how technology could be engrained into our daily lives in the not-too-distant future. In the video, we see people using beautiful touch devices, running an OS not to dissimilar to Windows Phone 7 (big surprise there!). While it’s unlikely that this is what the world will be like in fifty years, it’s an amazing vision of the future that, to me, is a very attractive proposition.
So we finally got the Galaxy Nexus (previously known as the Nexus Prime). I got home from a 2-3am bike ride earlier today and sat down to watch the stream of the launch event, and at first I wasn’t really that impressed. However, I’ve taken a closer look at the GalNex (which is how I like to refer to it), and it’s grown on me. A lot.
Screen
I want to address this first, because I think that it’s the most impressive feature of the device. The GalNex features a 4.65 inch Super AMOLED display touting a resolution of 1280x720. Yes, that is a 720p display on a phone. I’ve been impressed with both Apple’s Retina Display as well as HTC’s qHD displays, but this takes things to a whole new level. You’ll be able to fit so much on that screen; this makes it ideal for browsing the web and reading large amounts of text. Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology will also ensure that the screen looks utterly amazing, which it does.
Camera
Although the phone ‘only’ features a 5-megapixel camera, it records video in full 1080p HD with continuous autofocus, and has some nice effects built-in, such as the panorama mode that merely requires you to sweep your phone from one side of your shot to the other. The software will then automatically create you a nice panorama. Looking at the image samples online, I can see that the camera quality is very good, and probably on a par with that of the 8-megapixel cameras found on most recent HTC devices. It really shows that the number of megapixels really doesn’t matter.
Ice Cream Sandwich
Android version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) will ship with the Galaxy Nexus. It features a total UI overhaul, and the only word I can use to describe the new UI is stunning. Everything takes a whole new ‘glass’ look, and the blue accents around the whole OS give it a very ‘Tron’ like appearance. Check out this video for a runthrough of the new OS. ICS also supports dual-core processors fully, which makes the GalNex a damn fast device, with its dual-core 1.2Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM.
Samsung
I hate to burst my own bubble, but the only real thing that puts me off this device (other than the potential SIM-free prices, which are likely to be over £500) is the fact that it’s a Samsung phone. I have a minor vendetta against Samsung, and because of this there’s a small part of me that wants to completely avoid this phone. However, it is Google-branded; also, to be fair to Samsung they have packed in some formidable hardware. Samsung have only manufactured the device, and designed the hardware, so you are getting a Google phone with the Galaxy Nexus, and not a Samsung device. Samsung also don’t have the rock-solid build quality of HTC, and I suppose they never will, but I think this is something I could deal with.
Verdict
Am I getting the Galaxy Nexus? Truthfully, I don’t know for sure yet, but it’s more than likely. As with every phone, I need to get my hands on one and find out what it’s like to live with before going out and purchasing one (I’ll need to purchase SIM-free and sell my current device, as my contract isn’t up for a very long time). I’m also getting fed up of HTC being unfaithful with software updates; where’s the 2.3.4 update for the Incredible S, guys? I believe that it’s the best smartphone in terms of raw specifications, and it will (like every Nexus device) get the latest Android software updates long before any other phone. Previously, this hadn’t bothered me, but now that I’ve been stuck using non-rooted devices and delayed software updates for the past two years or so, I think I want a change.
Look out for my continued coverage on the Galaxy Nexus, and feel free to leave comments to help me decide.
I haven’t yet tried the Windows 8 developer preview, and I doubt I will any time soon, but having looked at the UI in detail and watched walkthroughs, I thought I’d share some of my initial opinions of the OS.
Perhaps the biggest thing that Microsoft has added to Windows 8 is Metro UI; this takes the UI design philosophy from Windows Phone 7 and simply applies it to the desktop. When I first saw screenshots, I was fairly certain that Microsoft had shot themselves in the foot; I thought that the UI was totally inappropriate for a desktop environment and that they were focusing too heavily on the tablet market (which, quite honestly, I couldn’t give a monkeys about). However, having looked at the OS in greater detail my opinion of it has been lifted.
The traditional Windows interface (Taskbar, Start menu) has been preserved in Windows 8, and one simply has to hit the Start button on one’s computer to switch between Metro and the classic Windows UI. For me, this is extremely powerful; all of my casual stuff such as social networking can be done almost entirely from the beautiful Metro UI, and all of my more serious stuff such as work can be done through the traditional Windows UI. In a way, this reminds me of HTC Sense’s ‘Scenes’ feature, whereby the user can completely change the UI of the operating system to suit their particular needs at a particular moment in time. At the touch of a button, I can revert from YouTube and Twitter to a Word document or email. A little like Android’s widgets, Metro UI brings your important information to the top, which is ideal for checking your social networks or similar. The classic Windows interface has also not changed much from Windows 7, and I love Windows 7’s design. Combine that with Metro UI, and you’re on to a winner.
Sorry, Mac users, but this is the future of the PC.
Sidebar: I’ll try to download the developer preview sometime this week, and I’m also fairly certain I’ll be picking up a Windows 8 tablet to replace my netbook when they’re released.
Look at these two phones below; look very carefully, and think to yourself.
In case you’ve been living under a proverbial rock for the past three months, you’ll know that Apple and Samsung are locked in a patent war. Apple accuses Samsung of (to put it briefly) copying the designs of iOS, iPhone, and iPad, and more specifically breaching patent rights. Every company has the right to defend their intellectual property. I’m also no Apple fanboy; in fact, I don’t care for iOS devices - I think Apple are lazy and cocky about iOS innovation and development. This brings me onto the issue I take with Samsung: laziness.
Look at those two phones above again; how much lazier can Samsung get? Look at the style and position of the icons, look at the large home button - it’s almost like they’re making no effort to conceal the fact that they essentially copied the iPhone’s design. Samsung’s Galaxy S lines of phones have been ridiculously popular recently; why is that? Well, I think it’s because they are so similar to the iPhone. Replicating (arguably) the most successful smartphone of all time will almost certainly bump your sales figures.
So instead of creating something new and thinking outside the box, as HTC does, Samsung took the easy route. Look where it’s got them. In my view, copying the design of the most successful device (note: I used ‘most successful’ rather than ‘best’) will always put you in their shadow; creating something from scratch that people like is what will gain you real success.
I’m not advocating Apple’s behaviour; I actually think that they’re being, well, Apple. Samsung have dug themselves into this hole, though; a company like that should know better, and I certainly won’t be buying a Samsung phone any time soon out of principal. I believe that Samsung are the party in the wrong, and that they have everything coming to them. It’s easy to criticise Apple, but the patent wars does give Apple haters/Android fanboys a lot of ammunition. Again, I’m no Apple fanboy, but I’m actually on their side; they had those designs first, and for Samsung to come and essentially steal is totally unacceptable business practise. Quite frankly, they should be ashamed.
So I got bored yesterday and decided to give Ubuntu Linux a try. I first installed it on my main PC’s hard drive, which allowed me to dual-boot Ubuntu 11.04 alongside Windows 7 (I simply choose which OS I want to use at the boot menu stage). I then decided that Ubuntu would be better suited to use on my netbook, so today got it up and running on my Acer Aspire One using the same dual-boot method. Weirdly, my netbook actually has 40GB more hard drive space than my PC, which seems to be a nice size to run a secondary operating system in.
In the screenshot above you can see my Ubuntu desktop on my netbook; my first impressions of the OS are actually pretty good. At first I thought that it was rather useless, but having investigated further into the operating system and into the Ubuntu/Linux community, I’ve found a lot of cool features of Ubuntu that Windows simply doesn’t do. One of the most powerful features of Ubuntu for me is the fact that you can access pretty much anything within the OS from a simple command line prompt; some of the basic ones I’ve learned, and the ability to install programs with a simple line of command code is fantastic. Ubuntu’s UI was strange at first; it seemed like a strange mix of Android, older versions of Windows, and Mac OSX. However, the UI is so easy to use and more intuitive than I thought it would be.
Overall, I’m a big fan of Ubuntu. It boots up in seconds (a fantastic feature, especially on a netbook) and actually runs a little faster than Windows 7. It takes up relatively little space on the hard drive, and (for now) will serve as an excellent secondary OS. The majority of the time, I simply browse the web and listen to music on my netbook, and Ubuntu is the perfect OS for such simple usage. Of course, it has much greater potential than this, but I’ve plenty of time to discover some more of Ubuntu Linux’s more powerful and interesting features.
This is a long overdue follow-up post to my first impressions of my Acer Aspire One netbook. I made a full video review with my final verdict on the netbook. Enjoy.
I'm a product design student aiming to get into the world of consumer electronics. I obsess over technology, social media, and fixed-gear track bikes. I also write about stuff and post it here, on this very blog. (read more)
