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Last week (10/2/06) I told you about the Navigation software supplied on this PDA, now as this is a functioning PDA in its own right I can tell you about it.
The unit is 12.5x7x2cm and weights close to 200grams. It has a nice solid feel and the screen resolution of 240x320 is clear and sharp. It is a PocketPC 2003 unit and the operating system is WinCE 4.20. You have 27.5MB of available RAM. I found battery life a little disappointing especially when using the Marco Polo Navigation software (reviewed 10/2/06).
As the advert states You cant but them in the shops yet that has not stopped Dell from becoming a household name with a range of products that include PDAs.
Im still not sure why I was sent this software, but it looked interesting and as I was sent an activation code I had access to the full package.
The Sony Ericsson W800i is the first mobile phone with a Walkman music player built-in which by itself would make the W800i worthy of attention but this phone does have some other features going for it.
Sony Ericsson w800i with headphones Measuring 100 x 46 x 21mm (L x W x D) and weighing 99g, the W800i is certainly small enough and reasonably lightweight making it suitable for most users. However I, for one, am not enamoured of the W800i's colour scheme.
Here I am looking at two keyboards, both from Microsoft, the first the Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 and the second Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Centre.
The Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 is not as outrageous as some non conventional designs I have used in the past. The curve places the main qwerty keys in a slight smile configuration. In fact the main area takes up little more space than a conventional offering. It is a 108 key keyboard with nine extra Internet keys at the top making it a little deeper than a standard unit.
Deciding which data to keep and which to discard should no longer be a problem - especially when 400GB drives are available.
A Pocket PC PDA with navigation from Marco Polo the unit being sold in the UK by Evesham Technologies. As regular readers will know I do not have a great record with PDA navigation.
Style is now competing with functionality with certain devices. Take the latest flash drive from Integral as an example.
Blue, green, yellow, pink or lilac - the choice of colour is yours. Although some might regard this statement as being fashion related - and why not if that suits you - there is a far more practical reason that I can offer for the different colours used by the Integral USB 2.0 SPLASH Drives. Each colour could be used to identify a specific task or a particular user.
A string quartet, now you would assume that would be classical, although Naim do a classical section they also have what they call contemporary I just call it good music.
One way to help speed-up hard disk activity is to use a defrag tool. A leading contender is Diskeeper.
No matter how careful you are, the content of your hard disk will become fragmented over the passage of time. This will happen quite naturally through the normal course of business as files are removed and new data is added. Rather than look for a space big enough for the new information, Windows will break the file into portions which can then end up in various locations on the hard disk rather than a contiguous area.
Be it called pen drive, smart drive or a range of other names a USB stick is a huge advance on a floppy drive in both of the sizes, smaller dimensions and much larger capacity.
While DVD burners come with copying software, this is generally not the latest and feature-rich version. InterVideo believes its product can add power to your burning capabilities.
This is described as a portable audio player. Yes it plays MP3 or WMA but it is also a talking stopwatch. It is also shaped rather like an oversized wrist watch.
A computer is not always required to copy data from one USB device to another. This task can be achieved with a new device from Belkin.
You will recently have seen my review of the 2006 version on DVD, now Focus have acquired the rights to the 2005 version on CD and that means £9.99.
Touch, as one of our major senses, can be overlooked with modern technology. One company hoping to change this perception is Immersion.
"Hold that phone!" might well be the clarion call from Immersion but not quite in the way you might initially suppose.
A lot of people get naff reception for Digital TV so there is still a place for an analogue unit especially when it is USB and not a PCI card.
The Ulead Video@Home is a box 13x8x2.5cm with perhaps another 4cm needed to the depth for cables. If using it with a PC or Notebook that would only require the USB lead and the aerial lead. The back also has audio in, audio out, S-Video and RCA Video sockets. However sound on PC or Notebook is carried down the USB lead and out through your standard speakers.
Although not as high-profile as it used to be, Corel still has some powerful products in both the fields of graphics and office applications.
This is even smaller than the Selphy I looked at on 2/1/06. It is a rather different unit perhaps the word basic would be applicable.
It is a rectangular box 17.5x12x5cm without the paper cassette inserted however with this inserted and the space required behind for the paper path during printing you need 39cm of space to use it. There is only a single button on the unit (on/off) this shows green when in use or red should you run out of paper or the dye-sub cartridge become extinguished.
Steve Jobs reveals the new products developed following the recent Apple / Intel agreement.
The recent announcement of the tie-up between Apple and Intel has certainly caused several ripples that have quickly formed into new products in both the software and hardware categories. Steve Jobs took the opportunity offered by his keynote address at Macworld, San Francisco to reveal the initial product offerings to benefit from this new co-operation between two of the major forces in the field of computing.
I think of this as a semi professional digital camera however the price seems to put it in the amateur camp. Certainly making adjustments to zoom and focus on the lens stem is a big leap from point and shoot.
The dimensions are 12x13x9cm and the 13cm depth increases by up to 4.5cm when the 28-300mm lens is fully extended. This gives 10.7 to 1 optical zoom. In the short time I have had it I have taken the opportunity to take as many images as possible and I have only scratched the surface of what this can do. There is a rather good built in flash but do not try taking images very close together when using it as it takes a while to recharge.
Getting Bluetooth to work has not always been as easy as it should be. However help is available with a new device from Belkin.
I must admit that my experiences with Bluetooth have not always been totally successful. This wireless technology, originally developed back in 1994 by the mobile phone company Ericsson and named after a tenth century Viking king called Harald "Bluetooth" Blatand, has probably been responsible for a number ( I was tempted to say 'fair number' but decided against the pun) of my grey hairs.
This is not just another 15x10 photo printer, it can print far longer Panorama and even 18x13cm images, these images require you only to insert the paper nothing else.
Printing labels need not tie up the resources of your computer and main printer. Instead why not consider a dedicated label printing device.
If you want a completely legal copy of Microsoft Word then this is probably for most the cheapest way of getting it, you also get four 2006 products and the latest copy of Works thrown in.
Mobile phones are not the only devices to benefit from Bluetooth connectivity. The technology can also be used on your computer.
This is more than an All In One but less than a Multi Function unit, confused? The difference between the two is that Multi Function units send and receive faxes, this can sort of send them.
Struggling for more storage space? Then why not consider an external hard drive.
A compact camera, ideal as a first digital camera, the controls are easy to use and anyone coming from a film camera will be delighted with the results.
3.2 seems to be the words for this unit. 3.2x optical zoom and 3.2mega pixel the latter to be enough to produce a decent A4 print. stated Having recently reviewed a number of quite complex offerings it is nice to look at something that is - in it's setup configuration - point and shoot. The top has two buttons on/off and the shutter.
Want something with Dab radio that doesn't look like it came out of the ark? Want DAB as part of a system with CD player? Want 'stereo' that sounds great? And all at an unbelievable price? That's what we found in the Goodmans Micro 1104SDAB.
We weren't particularly looking for all those features, what we wanted were a couple of good quality, non-portable stereos that we could give the girls for Christmas. Non-portable, because we didn't want another one they'd cart around and break. Wandering round John-Lewis we found a stack of these Goodmans micro-systems. I've had a couple of Goodmans products before and never been disappointed and at the special price of £69 I was wondering what the catch was.
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