This Week at Mobile Tech Manor #33: A Strange Week

mobile-tech-manor-large-2This has been a strange week at Mobile Tech Manor. I have been fighting a cold all week, which has played havoc with my system and my routine. The CTIA show has been happening in Vegas and Kevin is out there trying hard to find cool stuff to share. I had an unexpected netbook show up and that has taken a lot of time as I’ve just had to play with it. Come on in and share my week with me.

Come to Class

Intel sent one of the Classmate PC evaluation units to Mobile Tech Manor this week and I spent a fair bit of time with it. The Classmate is Intel’s concept netbook that’s intended to show OEMs how they can make netbooks designed for students. They have two different models, one a conventional laptop style and the other a convertible notebook that has a swivel screen. The screen can spin around and form a slate device for use with the included stylus.

The convertible they sent me is one of the nicest netbooks I have used so far. It’s nicely constructed and could easily stand up to the bumps a kid would deal out while using one. The Classmate has the typical netbook guts: Atom processor, hard drive, up to 1 GB of memory and an 8.9-inch screen. The keyboard is nice and feels good, although it’s a bit smaller than I am comfortable using. It would fit a kid’s hands fine, though.

What sets the Classmate apart from every other netbook in the world is the Blue Dolphin interface that sits on top of Windows XP. It makes full use of the touchscreen and makes it easy for kids to get around the system and run all of the programs Intel has included. Since it’s a slate, Intel has included special software to handle stylus input. This works in a similar fashion to the Tablet PC Input Panel (TIP) on full-tablet PCs and it worked well for me. Inking text into programs is very straightforward using the stylus and Intel is to be commended for this.

The Classmate has a resistive digitizer so multitouch is not supported. Intel has incorporated palm-rejection technology so that setting the hand on the screen while writing with the stylus does not trigger unwanted events. This technology worked flawlessly and the screen is so light-touch that it is the closest I have seen to an active digitizer experience. This is definitely the way to go for these types of devices.

Look, it’s a Pre

Kevin is out at the CTIA and he says the show is much smaller than usual, no doubt due to the economic climate. He was able to get in front of the Palm Pre again and I can tell he’s even more impressed now than he was before, and that was pretty darn impressed.

The Pre is looking more and more like the thought that Palm put into the interface and the user experience was very well spent. Everything I have seen about the Pre makes it look like the phone works the way people normally like one to work. It seems that the Pre will let you get about your business without getting in your way.

When I saw the Pre first-hand at CES in January, Palm was very strict about refusing to let anyone hold the Pre. They even said that a Palm rep had to hold the Pre at all times it was being shown. I thought they would have relaxed that by now but Kevin said nope, a Palm rep must keep at least one hand on the device at all times. It’s as if they are afraid to let anyone feel the weight of the Pre or something. I wish they’d just lighten up and get the thing to market already.

Misc

Most of this week was spent trying to get the site covered while Kevin was in Vegas. He’s gotten a lot of stuff, too, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep the site hopping and that kept my nose to the grindstone.  It’s funny, Kevin and I are in different cities so his being in Vegas is no different than usual for us but it feels like he’s gone.  :) Come home, Kevin.

E-books of the Week

I spent my free time getting firmly settled in using the Kindle again. I have to admit, it’s so nice reading e-books on the bigger screen of the Kindle that I dedicated more time than usual to reading. That’s a great thing as I dearly love to read, it’s a passion.

I read “Rage” by Jonathan Kellerman this week, a nice return to the world of Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis. I thought I’d read every one of the Delaware series but somehow I’d missed “Rage.” It’s a classic twisted plot like only Kellerman can dish up and a great read.

I then picked up a novella by Stephen King. “UR” was obviously written for Amazon and is a story about a haunted Kindle and the havoc it creates for the unwitting recipient. It’s typical King, and I must admit it was a bit creepy picking up the Kindle and reading about this warped Kindle in the story. It made me look over my shoulder a few times.

I read both of these books by switching between the Kindle and the iPhone. Overall, the experience of reading on the Kindle most yet picking up where I left off with the iPhone while away from home was quite effective. It’s sort of like reading from a big hardcover book at home yet keeping the same book in paperback in my pocket.

I did have an anxious moment when I went out to lunch expecting to read on the iPhone. Kindle for the iPhone couldn’t sync my “farthest read position” from the Kindle network. I suspect there was a network error as it kept getting a sync failure so I couldn’t just pick up where I left off on the Kindle. I had to manually find my place in the book on the iPhone, which took most of my available reading time.  I was very sad. This had never happened before so I hope it’s not common.

Wrap-up

That’s the way my week went down, working and reading and playing with gadgets. Business as usual, in other words. Thanks for sharing it with me and I’ll see you next week.

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