This Week at Mobile Tech Manor #32

mobile-tech-manor-large-23It’s time to share my week with you and it blows me away that this is #32 already. That’s a lot of weeks already, but it seems like I only just started writing this column.  My how time flies when you’re having fun, and I did have a lot of fun this week; I spent a lot of time playing with the Sony VAIO P and all three of my phones. Throw March madness into the mix and it’s been a great time all around. Come on into Mobile Tech Manor with me and let’s gab.

Cool Stuff

March Madness tipped off this past week and it is as exciting this year as always. Those of you outside the U.S. probably think we Americans are crazy given how wild we get over this whole basketball tournament thing, but we can’t help it. There is nothing in all of sports quite like this due to the elimination aspect of the tournament. These college basketball teams leave it all on the court in the fight to live to play another day and it’s just cool.

I have been enjoying March Madness better this year than in years past due to the great job that CBS is doing with the coverage. I am streaming games to my Mac while at the desk and the organization of their site is just superb. Every single game, and that is dozens of them, is available for live streaming so I can pick and choose the games that interest me. Throw in the full bracket updating and highlights and it is quite frankly one of the best sports coverages ever.

I also picked up the iPhone app that lets me follow the action away from my desk and it is simply amazing to be able to live stream any game I want to see on the phone. The touch interface is very well done and the entire experience is just as good on the iPhone as the desktop version is.  Simply well done and I am enjoying March Madness like never before.

As if March Madness wasn’t enough fun this week something very cool happened. I was invited to sit on the Faculty of Reinvent Mobile, a mobile tech think tank, and I have accepted that invitation. This position finds me in great company, such as with Michael Gartenberg, someone I’ve met and respect a great deal. I am looking forward to interacting with this great group of tech experts and am honored I was asked to join them.

What I Have Been Playing With This Week

The Sony VAIO P has been capturing a lot of my time simply because it’s so darn cool. Well, that and the fact it has to go back to Dynamism soon. I think what makes me enjoy the VAIO P so much is due to how usable it is while being so small. It feels like nothing in the hand and yet that keyboard is big enough to get seriously busy with. It is a joy to use and it’s always a thing of wonder to me when a gadget is productive and fun at the same time.

That fun came at a price when I first got the VAIO P and the sad fact is it doesn’t need to be this way. The VAIO P is running Windows Vista Home Premium so I had to go through that whole new computer with the Vista process, which is always aggravating. You know what I mean, first there is the initial Windows Update you have to do to bring the imaged OS up to the current level. This involved 50+ updates, which took a good while. Once that was done things got better as I settled down to the fun stuff.

That fun only lasted until the next day when I fired up the Sony in the morning and found additional updates that needed to be installed. Off I went again and finally was able to play when done. The third day with the VAIO P I fired up the computer (from sleep) only to find there were 72 updates that needed to be applied! This iterative process is frankly idiotic and completely ruins the new computer euphoria that should be rampant. This huge update took two full hours to complete which derailed my plans for that day with the Sony. Why the hell is this necessary? There is no scenario I can imagine that requires Vista to do major updates three days in a row. It was a blatant reminder of how important the out-of-box experience is and how Windows still fails miserably at that. I sure hope Microsoft gets this fixed in Windows 7.

Once I got past the “Vista updates gone wild” I was able to settle down and just use the Sony — and it is a sweet machine. I carried it to various places and got a lot of stares while using it in coffee shops. Interestingly, not a single person came over to see the little laptop. I chalked that up to the fact that it’s obvious that that’s what it is: a tiny laptop computer. It’s a joy to use for my work, though, and I found I got used to that insanely high resolution screen pretty quickly. It’s so sharp and vivid, which is true for most Sony screens I’ve used.

The performance of the Atom processor is pretty good although it can bog down when it comes to serious multitasking. The SSD is blazing fast which no doubt helps in that regard. I am getting asked a lot if I intend to buy one for my own and I have to say no. Mainly there is no room in the budget for one, plus the high-end Japanese version I am testing is pretty high dollar ($1,700) for the performance. I’ve given it a lot of thought and if I was going to buy one I think I’d go with the base level machine for just $899. I think the price/ performance ratio would work out pretty well and while I can’t predict how much worse that model would perform than the one I am testing I think it would be worth that lower price. It’s not to be, in any event, so it’s just wishful thinking. It’s tempting, though, as Sony is giving 30% off for all VAIO P accessories right now which saves some serious cash for extra batteries, etc.

I played with the InstantON mode on the Sony and it’s pretty useful. The primary benefit is the XMB, which I believe stands for “something Media Bar.” That works pretty well and is useful for getting into the system quickly when it’s been powered off.

This week I found myself switching back and forth among the three phones I have: the iPhone 3G, T-Mobile G1 and the BlackBerry Storm. I would grab one to use for the entire day and thoroughly enjoyed the strengths of each of those phones while using it on a given day. I would forward the calls to the phone of the day which worked quite well. I have to give props to Apple for making call forwarding a simple setting. This is the way it should be done and saves that clumsy *72, *73 for toggling that on and off on the other phones.

I installed some cool themes for the BlackBerry Storm and my theme du jour is Sidewinder. I like how cool it looks and how it doesn’t impact performance like some of the complicated themes do. Skinning my phones is something I’ve always enjoyed doing and I like how easy it is to do OTA on the Storm. I intend to start skinning the G1 soon.  Peter Rojas of gdgt has recommended I try aHome, a skinning app for the G1 (in the App Market) so that’s what I’ll try on the G1.

E-book of the Week

This week I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Run for Your Life” by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. This is typical Patterson and is a fast-paced murder mystery full of twists and turns. It reiterated why Patterson is one of my favorite authors.

I read this e-book using Kindle for iPhone and I am more impressed with this reader the more I use it. It’s fast and pleasant to use, the two most important criteria for me while reading books. My original Kindle will be arriving later today from its extended vacation in eastern Pennsylvania and I am looking forward to using it again too.

I stopped using it shortly after getting it when first released but that was due to the way I read e-books. I have been reading e-books on PDAs and phones for so long that I have developed certain habits that caused the Kindle to fall short as a reader for me. I am used to the backlit devices I’ve used for reading e-books and that has led me to do a lot of reading at home in areas that are not well-lit. The Kindle doesn’t work under this condition with no backlight so it fell short for me. I also find that a lot of my reading time is comprised of short, unexpected periods away from home and I never had the Kindle with me when those opportunities presented themselves. That’s why I like reading on my phone; it’s always with me.

The release of Kindle for iPhone is going to make the Kindle much more useful for me, I believe, and I can’t wait to give it a new try. The screen is much better for extended reading periods than that of my phones and it will provide a more enjoyable experience. The fact that the Kindle and iPhone will now sync my reading position with WhisperSync means that I can pick either device up and read right where I left off before. This makes it unimportant which device I use in a given session so I can use the Kindle more often than before. When I leave the house I have my phone with me so I can read if time permits and pick right up in the Kindle when at home and conditions are favorable.

Wrap-up

That’s it for another week, I hope you enjoyed sharing it with me. Next week will be #33, which is amazing, and I’m sure it will be another busy week to report. Thanks for sharing my time with me and I wish you health and happiness until next time.

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