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This is the personal blog of Don McAllister, the host and producer of ScreenCastsOnline.

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Entries in Gadgets (67)

Tuesday
Jun142011

How not to sell a PlayBook (or anything for that matter!)

Travelling through Newark Airport on the way back home from WWDC, I stumbled across a BlackBerry store. With a couple of hours to kill, I thought I'd take a peak at a PlayBook.

As I entered the store, one of the assistants jumped at me...

"Can I help you or answer any questions?"

"No thanks, I'm just browsing...."

I sauntered over to the PlayBook stand to try my first hands on experience.

Literally, after a couple of seconds, barely enough to swipe the screen, the same sales assistant was back...

"Can I help you or answer any questions?"

"No thanks, I'm just looking, I wanted to see how the Playbook worked and what it's performance is like"

The sales assistant, ignoring the fact that I wanted to be left alone, launched in some well rehearsed spiel ....

"You can play it on the TV" she told me, gesturing to the Playbook next to the one I was trying to use. She struggled trying to press the Power button with her fingernail but when powered up, the TV out didn't work.

"The Playbook plays flash videos you know, the iPad can't do that..."

"Oh really..."

"The Playbook has front and rear cameras. It can take photos and video at 1080p, the iPad can only take 720p"

"Oh really..."

I tried to ignore her and explore the PlayBook in front of me.

"The Playbook is the only tablet that can bridge to your Blackberry for you emails, the iPad can't do that"

"Oh really..."

At which point I gave up and left the shop.

Sigh....

Thursday
Dec092010

My Android Experience....

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Look, I know I'm an Apple fan boy, but I'm also a pretty savvy technologist and have had more gadgets than I'm comfortable admitting to.

I also like to think I can find my way round most bits of kit without too much reading of the manual. In fact, I really enjoy technology and learning new things.

So I was pleased as punch when I heard of a cheap Android tablet I could cut my teeth on. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've never really been exposed to Android, so the launch of the Commtiva N700 running Android Froyo 2.2 for just £299 was a great excuse to feed my gadget addiction.

My rationale was to explore the beast, get up to speed on Android, write a few blog posts and have some knowledge when conversing about Android on the various podcasts I frequent.

Sounded like a good idea.

When I'd grown weary of the device, I could resell it, or possibly keep it to explore further Android releases.

Great!

However, after struggling with doing even the basic functions with the damn thing, I've just reset it to factory settings and have returned it for a full refund.

So instead of a full and considered review, I thought I'd just give you some basic thoughts and impressions on the device

  • Pros
    • My first impression was that it was rather bulky although I did like the 7" form factor.
    • It came with a decent case which was useful.
    • Setup was fairly straightforward and I was able to setup my Gmail account with no problem and connect to my local WiFi network.
    • It didn't take me long to find the market place and download a Twitter client. Not too bad an experience.
    • Responsiveness was OK, even with it only having a 600 MHz processor.
  • Cons
    • The screen was awful - really low resolution and grainy - just 480x800. Dreadful really!
    • The onscreen keyboard was a complete disaster. It would just appear for no apparent reason, and then not disappear at all - very frustrating. In retrospect, I wonder if I had a faulty unit - it was just that bad!
    • Some applications seem to be designed and hard coded in portrait mode, others in landscape.
    • The camera display is atrocious - terrible quality
    • No flash support - eh!

And to be honest, that's as far as I got!

The first time I switched it off and back on again, which took a few attempts, I couldn't get past the home screen. An unintuitive  screen lock appears but no instructions in the quick start guide on how to unlock it. I ended up downloading the full manual from the internet. It was a slide up on the onscreen lock but I never fathomed it out.

Things went down hill from there.

A couple of times it wouldn't power on without plugging it back into the mains charger although the battery was at 80%

Everything I tried was an effort.

It was a complete exercise in frustration.

In fairness, it was so difficult to operate in the end that I have a suspicion that it must have been a faulty unit, it must have been!

Eventually, I just gave up.

I feel pretty bad about my lack of progress with the machine. I've seen other reviews on the web which seem to indicate to the contrary my experiences but really, I hated it... with a passion!

My only advice would be get one to try it yourself, as long as you can return it.

Would I recommend buying one for Christmas as a gift to someone who wants a tablet....

Emphatically no!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday
Nov202010

Venturing into the unknown...

As I mentioned in my recent appearance on The Bro Show Podcast, I’ve never really had chance to play with an Android device. In fact, the only Android phone I’ve ever laid hands on was Leo Laportes G1 phone when I visited the Twit cottage, many moons ago!

I had a quick play with the Samsung Galaxy Tab in a local store recently, but the experience was hampered by the lack of internet plus, it was bolted to the desk.

Not really a fair way to appreciate it or to review it!

I have to admit to feeling a little embarrased about the situation, especially when asked onto various podcasts and the subject of Android and more frequently, tablets comes up.

The issue has always been that I really didn't want to buy an Android device with a contract, heck, I'm already paying for my iPhone data plus a 3G SIM for mobile broadband. Another contract was never on the cards.

However, a little birdie (OK @theiBlog on Twitter) retweeted a link to a new Android device available in the UK - The Commtiva N700 - for just £299 no contract!

Sold!

I've ordered one to educate myself on the differences between the Android device (this one runs Froyo) and the iPad. It will be interesting to compare and contrast the functionality, performance and form factor (the N700 is a 7" device).

It should arrive on Monday, so I'll keep you informed!

Monday
Nov152010

EyeTV Netstream Sat


Overview EyeTV Netstream Sat-1.jpgSome exciting news from Elgato on changes to their EyeTV range. I've previously blogged about the Elgato EyeTV Netstream DTT device - link This is a pretty neat little device that connects to a terrestrial TV Aerial and transmits FreeView TV programs around your home network, allowing you to watch two channels of Freeview TV (or watch one and record a second) on any Mac in the house.

With the previous version of EyeTV software, your could also use your iPhone or iPad to watch live TV but you had to do it via one of the Macs, so a Mac had to be switched on and the iPhone or iPad would pivk up the TV from that. It worked amazingly well, but it was a bit of a niggle that you had to have a Mac switched on and loaded with EyeTV. You could get the Mac to load EyeTV remotely but still...

However, Elgato have just released v1.2 or the EyeTV app for the iPhone and iPad.

The great news is that if you have iOS 4.2 on your iPhone or iPad, the iOS device will communicate directly with the EyeTV Netstream for DTT directly - no intermediate Mac required!

As an early adopter of iOS 4.2 (thanks to my Apple Developer Account), and the fact that I have an EyeTV Netsream DTT setup as part of my home network, I gave it a try.

It works!

The EyeTV Netstream for DTT appears in my list of available EyeTV devices automatically (via Bonjour) on my iOS 4.2 iPad - no configuration required.

Even better, they have just announced a new device for launch on the 22nd November - EyeTV Netstream Sat

This is a similar device to the Elgato EyeTV netstream DTT, but has a built in satellite tuner so you can watch free-to-view satellite TV on any Mac, PC, iPhone or iPad in the house!  There's an add on that allows you to convert the the EyeTV Netstream Sat into a dual tuner device by plugging in the optional module into the USB port on the device.

The new device also supports direct streaming from the device to your iPhone or iPad over WiFi, even with no Macs or PCs running EyeTV.

I'll see if I can get a unit for review.

Watch this space!

Tuesday
Aug312010

Plex 9 Media Center

I don't think I've been as excited by the launch of a software application as by today's release of Plex 9. Regular followers of ScreenCastsOnline will now that I'm a bit of a media junkie and have covered both Plex (SCO0201) and more recently Boxee (SCO0236)

Both applications are free/donationware and both have killer interfaces. Boxee is probably more aimed at the Social/web side of media consumption but Plex is more suited to managing local collections of media.

Plex 9 takes that to the next level!

I won't give you a full review of the new features of Plex 9 here, you can find some in depth reviews on the web - Automated Home Reviews - Plex 9, iOS devices and video walkthrough but I'll just focus on the features that have made me so excited.

Separation of Client and Server
Plex 9 has now two components - the media server and the player. Both are installed when you install Plex 9 on a machine but they are in effect two separate components. Any Plex player, can access any Plex Media Server on the network automatically and seamlessly.

New Media Server
The media server has been completely re-written from scratch and can now act as a centralised library for media for all your Macs and iOS devices on your network. This is huge! Basically, you only need one media repository on a single Mac and then all your Plex devices can use this centralised library. No more juggling with network shares, just setup one master library and all the media, artwork, ratings, metadata, become immediately accessible via HTTP streaming to any Mac. If you want multiple libraries, this is also handled seamlessly.

Improved MetaData Collection
Wow! Just wow!

Metadata is the rich information added to your raw media files from the various online databases such as IMDB. In previous versions, it's always been a bit hit and miss. You'd add media to your library and eventually, probably, sometimes.... the metadata would get added. Very frustrating.

In Plex 9, new Agents have been created that deal with collecting and assigning metadata. They are fast and extremely accurate - the whole metadata thing is now absolutely rock solid.

iOS Device support
If this all wasn't enough, they've not only just gone and brought out a universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. ($4.99 in the iTunes App Store)

On my!

Not only does it turn your iOS device into a fully featured dedicated Plex remote for any machine running Plex, it also allows you to connect to any Plex Media Server, browse your library with artwork, ratings etc, and stream the video back to your iPhone or iPad. It will even remember where you are up to if the movie is partially viewed (say on your Mac) and offer to resume from that point on the iOS device.

These are just some of the new features that make Plex 9 a game changer in the Media centre space.

I was able to get a pre-release version (OK only by 24 hours!) but in the short time that I've had a chance to play with it, it's been rock solid. The metadata improvements are a wonder to behold and the HTTP streaming and Plex Media Server discovery perform really well. The only downside is limited support for DVD's ripped into the VIDEO_TS folder format. In my own particular case, I've decided to abandon ripping Movies into Video_TS and just extract the single movie file. I'll be transferring the few remaining titles I have in this format over the next few weeks.

Unless Apple bring out something completely off the wall on Wednesday (that I might be able to cover at short notice), I'll probably do a more in-depth look at Plex 9 on this weeks ScreenCastsOnline on Friday.