New OLED keyboard from Optimus, expected to cost “under $1000″.
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Microsoft’s Woes with the 360
September 9, 2008 – 12:08 pm
VentureBeat explores what Microsoft did wrong with the 360 in an insightful article:
“Microsoft decided late to add a hard disk drive to most of the machines. It also came up late with a plan to add wireless controllers; all of the previous consoles shipped with wired controllers. The hard drive blocked a lot of the air flow on one side of the machine,” Takahashi wrote. “And the wireless modules had to have enough of their own space to ensure that there was no electrical interference. In the end, the machine was a series of compromises.”
Toshiba Tecra A8 Review
September 12, 2007 – 1:22 pm
I’ve got a history with Toshiba laptops, my first laptop was a Toshiba Satellite 1800-100. Back then, laptops were rather depressing affairs, unless you remortaged your house for a nice IBM ThinkPad the alternatives were built like toys, had dodgy screens that made it look like you were on drugs if didn’t look at them straight on and keyboards that made mobile phones seem a joy to type on. Not a great experience, especially as you could get a desktop that was infinitely better for half the price.
The Satellite was the first affordable laptop I found with a good keyboard. In fact, it was more than good — I preferred it to a desktop keyboard and even the acclaimed IBM ThinkPad keyboard. Once I wiped Windows ME, upgraded the RAM to 256MB and installed Windows 2000, it was quite a useable little laptop and very capable of running Visual Basic 6 and Office.
My second Toshiba laptop was a Tecra M1, a fantastic machine that was intelligently designed and built well. I eventually gave up laptop computing when I really started gaming, and I’ve been using desktops ever since.
Until last year that is, when I got my MacBook – the first Mac I’ve had that really started to replace my desktop Windows machines. Since then I use my MacBook lots more than my desktop machine, which has been relegated to gaming.
So when TalkToshiba asked if I wanted to review one of their laptops, I jumped at the chance.
Tecra A8
The Tecra A8 is the bottom of the line Tecra model in the range, but still possess a very good specification, including a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The review model sent to me is an old model which came with Windows XP. An up-to date model with Vista Business can be had for around £900.
Exterior
Being a business orientated laptop, it has quite a smart appearance. Its gun metal grey lid gives the appearance of being metallic, but is just plastic. And its quite weak plastic too, as the screen visibly bends if I apply pressure to the back of it.
There are a generous three USB ports on the back side, and even a serial, PS/2 and modem port. I can’t help but think that the space would’ve been better utilised with FireWire and USB ports though, although the serial port is incredibly useful for people with legacy devices that don’t work with USB to serial adaptors.
Build
My old Tecra M1 was a fantastic machine that was built well and looked great for its time. Unfortunately, the A8 doesn’t inherit the M1′s superior build, magnesium alloy casing or sharp looks.
Although the specifications claim its 2mm thinner, it feels thicker than the old Tecra because of its clunkier design. It also feels heavier than its 2.9KG state weight, which is a shame as the plastics used are quite thin. Overall I was expecting much better from Toshiba, although this is their bottom of the line Tecra, maybe the higher end models are better, but the build is on-par with a £500 laptop, not a £900 one.
Keyboard
The Tecra A8 keeps the tradition with a great keyboard. It has a resounding click that gives just the right amount of feedback. Being a 15.4 inch widescreen laptop, there is a lot of width for the keyboard, unfortunately not all of it is utilised and is rather cramped which makes touch typing on it more error-prone. Toshiba should take a lesson from Apple here and give its keys more breathing room.
Its good to see dedicated Page Up, Page Down, Home and End buttons, something I miss on my MacBook. The Function (Fn) key and Control are in the right order too, which is Control on the left and Function on the right, something else my MacBook muffed up.
Trackpad
Unfortunately, the track-pad leaves much to be desired. Its far too small which either makes it difficult to move the cursor across the screen if you set the speed slow, or makes it difficult to control the cursor accurately if the speed is set too fast. It also confuses tap-to-click with drag very often, which is frustrating. You can use the right and bottom area of the touch pad to scroll, which would’ve been far more useful if the touch pad was bigger. Such a big laptop and such a small touch pad, its just a waste of space.
The mouse buttons also give rather tacky feedback and feel horrible to press. There isn’t a physical difference between the left and right mouse button, which makes it easy to press the wrong one.
It would’ve been nice to have a touch point as well, although this is present on the more expensive Tecra A9 series.
Performance
I don’t have much to say here, other than the 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor is more than enough for most people and seemed very quick in use. It could do with another 1GB of RAM though, especially if you plan on using Vista with it.
I ran Super Pi and Prime95 simultaneously to saturate both cores, and the Tecra only got mildly warm on its bottom side. In this respect its much better than the MacBook or MacBook Pro.
When idling, its very loud in comparison to the majority of laptops I’ve used. There is a definite humming sound from the fan that doesn’t seem to stop. Under load, it manages to keep the noise levels fairly reasonable although the pitch of the fan is quite high.
Software
The included software included with the Tecra is, sadly, a joke.
The wireless configuration utility is impossible to use, it visualises your computer as the nucleus of an atom and the wireless networks in rage as the electrons orbiting it. You have to hover over an “electron” to see the details about the network, all of which will fly over the head of those not familiar with WLAN terminology. Clicking on an electron doesn’t give the expected result of joining that network — it does nothing. There are other buttons with images that give no idea of what they do, so I gave up on this and used the perfectly good built-in Windows WLAN configuration tool.
I had a quick look over the other included configuration software, none of which seem to offer more than another interface over what Windows already has, and 99% of the time its harder to use.
The £900 Question
So would I buy one for £900? No, there are far better laptops at that price point. Apple offers a better specified MacBook thats lighter, better looking and better built for less money, and there are even far better laptops in Toshiba’s consumer Satellite range.
To truly compete, the value of the laptop would have to drop to £500 or under, and even then I’d probably still buy a cheap Lenovo or HP that are a little slower, but much better built and better looking.
Better luck next time Toshiba.
New Apple iMacs
August 7, 2007 – 7:01 pm
Apple announced at their media event today a stunning new metal and glass iMac. I wanted a desktop right now and didn’t care much for games, this would be my choice.
iPhone Disassembly
June 30, 2007 – 1:29 am
It’s only been out a few hours but someone’s already take theirs apart.
Apple TV gets 160GB and YouTube
May 31, 2007 – 12:52 pm
Apple today announced that there will be a 160GB version of the Apple TV for $399, along with YouTube integration:
Apple TV with a 160GB hard drive will be available tomorrow for a suggested retail price of $399 (US). The YouTube feature for Apple TV will be available as a free software update in mid-June.
New Airport Extreme with 802.11n announced
January 10, 2007 – 3:48 pm
Yesterday during the big MacWorld keynote speech where the iPhone and Apple TV were announced, Apple quietly introduced a new AirPort Extreme base station that looks like the Apple TV and has 802.11n networking built in.
Return of the Cube
September 8, 2006 – 11:27 am
Apple’s current computer lineup is probably the best they’ve ever had. All the computers feature at least a dual core processor and 512MB of RAM. And they’re neatly slotted into the budget (Mac mini and lowest spec iMac), home (iMac and MacBook) and professional (top end iMac, Mac Pro and MacBook Pro) categories, with a very simplified product line.
However, what Apple seem to be missing is a head-less computer to fill the home and low-end professional. They have the Mac mini, but it’s not upgradeable, and because of it’s laptop components, it’s limited in RAM and disk space. The high end iMacs do fill this void somewhat, but the high end customers will almost certainly have large and expensive monitors already1 and again the only “easily” upgradeable component is the RAM.
This leaves the Mac Pro as the only choice in the desktop segment for the less demanding professional that wants upgradability. While it is priced competitively for it’s specification at £1699, how many people really need quad Xeon processors, eight FB-DIMM slots, 750W PSU and the 5000X professional chipset – which all ramp up the price. What is needed is remarkably similar to the old Power Mac G4 Cube.
The G4 Cube was ahead of it’s time. The technology back then just wasn’t there to produce a small and fan-less computer without some major problems, such as lack of upgradability and over heating. But now we have mobile chips that are just as fast as their desktop counterparts2 and that run much cooler, there is no excuse. We also know that it is possible, the iMac and Mac mini are great examples that Apple already have.
So why have we yet to see the real successor to the G4 Cube? A recent Apple patent filing may suggest they have something in the works, or they’re just tidying up loose ends. The extra space over a Mac mini would give the ability to have full size hard drives, higher end graphics cards and much easier upgrades. It’s the killer product thats just waiting to entice Windows users over to the world of the Macintosh.
My inklings tell me that Apple may decide to introduce the first “new” product since the Mac mini at the expo in Paris in a week, as they’ve quietly released the iMac and Mac mini upgrades before the expo, which means maybe an even bigger announcement is in store. Maybe a new iPod, probably the iTunes Movie Store, but possibly the Mac Cube3 I’m having flashbacks of One More Thing.
You heard it here first.
- Not to mention that once your iMac becomes obsolete, so will the monitor in it. Somehow, I find it hard to imagine that a 24-inch fully HD capable monitor would be obsolete in three years. ↩
- Intel’s mobile Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors just have amazing amount of power per watts ratio. ↩
- Or Mac mini Pro or Mac Pro mini or Mac Pro Cube or Mac mini Cube… But I’ll stick with Mac Cube as it sounds cool. ↩
Bluetooth Mighty Mouse
July 25, 2006 – 5:36 am
Just as I was going to buy a Mighty Mouse, I hear rumours that Apple are planning to release a new bluetooth Mighty Mouse with a laser based sensor, which is exactly what I want.
It’s about time too, seeing as it’s been almost a year since the USB Mighty Mouse’s release.
Update: It’s now official.
Upgrade hunger
September 20, 2005 – 10:27 pm
Sometimes, I just get an insatiable urge to upgrade my computer. Right now, I have that urge, really badly. It’s not that my computer is very dated, just that it’s a work-horse of the previous generation, and I feel like having a latest generation machine.
My specification isn’t too bad really, AMD Athlon 3200+, 512MB DDR500 RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB, 200GB and 160GB hard drives, DVD-RW etc. But after using an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ computer with 1GB of Corsair RAM and a NCQ SATA2 hard drive, there is an immediate and massive speed increase compaired to my current computer.
Now, this is something I wouldn’t have know about unless I experienced it, but some basic tasks are far quicker on the Athlon 64 right compaired to mine, things such as starting Outlook, compiling in Visual Studio .NET, starting Windows and the general feel of Windows itself.
Building a PC to the specification of the latter, would be relative cheap (around £300 + graphics card), but what I really want is bleeding edge, and the current bleeding edge item is definatly dual core processors. The current Athlon 64 X2 4400+ costs a whopping £350, although it is probably the best value dual core processor out at the moment.
If I ever do upgrade, I’ll report back here, but in the mean time, I need a job to raise the £800 required. That is of course, unless anyone would like to make a donation?