The end of another week is upon us and that means it is time to share my week in Mobile Tech Manor with you. This week saw gadgets littering every surface in the Manor and I spent hours playing with them, er, evaluating them. A new laptop crossed the threshold along with what will probably be the next smartphone I buy. I found a free program that has been impressing me all week as it fills a need.
The gear
This week I continued looking at the Nexus One with Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed. The phone has been nearly flawless in its performance, with no gotchas at all. It is fast at everything it does, and above all else it is easy to use. I can’t stress enough how important it is that a gadget be easy to use, and that primarily means it can’t be frustrating. Nothing ruins the experience of a new mobile gadget like running into something that is frustrating to do because the implementation falls short. The Nexus One running Froyo just works, if I can quote those fruity people in Cupertino. Google has done a great job working with HTC to produce a great smartphone/ OS package. I almost hate to send the Nexus One back to Adobe, but it’s going back later today.
The laptop that made an appearance at the Manor is the IdeaPad Y460 by Lenovo. It is a very consumer-focused notebook, with a glossy black plastic keyboard and interior coupled with a nice softly imprinted lid. It has a 14.1-inch display (1366×768) and rather than go with the fashionable cliclet keys (which I like) Lenovo went with traditional keys. It was a good choice as this keyboard is one of the nicest ones I’ve used in a good while.
The Core i5 processor is a snappy performer and there is nothing missing from this notebook. It is extremely thin and light for a 14-inch model and it’s much easier to carry out of the Manor than I expected. The only negative thing about the Y460 is a common complaint I have with Lenovo’s consumer notebooks — crapware. This thing is infested with junkware that is a royal pain in the patootie to deal with. Removing it is not straightforward as Lenovo also includes some pretty useful utilities on the IdeaPads, so it requires a careful analysis to determine what must go and what should stay. I understand that the margin on notebooks is low, and OEMs need to make deals with third parties to keep the cost down, but this is just too much.
The Sprint EVO 4G smartphone just showed up at the Manor yesterday, and I admit I was excited to get it. I liked the HTC HD2 I reviewed a while ago, at least everything except the Windows Mobile OS it was running. It didn’t do the big 4.3-inch touchscreen justice, as WinMo is just not optimized for touch until Windows Phone 7 appears later this year. The EVO has the same big screen, fast Snapdragon processor and uses Android 2.1 to run the show. It’s produced by HTC so it has the nice HTC Sense interface on top of Android so the phone is nearly perfect.
Sprint and HTC threw 4G on top of everything else and this phone is easily the fastest smartphone I’ve seen. The 4G connectivity is wonderful, and the phone automatically steps down to 3G (EVDO) when 4G is not available. The mobile hotspot feature is easy to use, and I’ve used it to share the 4G with several devices at the same time. That’s an extra $30 per month and it a nice solution for those wanting a MiFi-like hotspot feature that is cheaper than the standard $60 monthly.
The EVO has a front-facing camera that Sprint says is for video chatting but there is no way to use that yet. Just yesterday Fring released an Android version that adds video chatting and I was able to test it. It works better than I expected; the video quality was decent although it had the standard audio/video synchronization issues common to video chats. All in all I like this phone a lot, and I am pretty sure it will be the next smartphone I buy. I will also buy a second battery as the EVO goes through a charge quickly.
Look, up in the SkyGrid
This week I found a free app for the iPad that is blowing me away. SkyGrid is a news aggregator that is very simple on the surface but uses sophisticated algorithms to determine what news is really important to grab. The end result is that SkyGrid seems to pull in only the news items, both tech and “regular” news, that I have a genuine interest in reading. It is pure joy to use SkyGrid to keep up with the news of the day, and the app breaks the news up into intelligent categories to fit my interest. I really, really like this app, and it is well implemented on the iPad
e-Books of the week
I read two new thrillers this week, both of which delighted me. Fever Dream by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston is the latest in the series starring the most unusual FBI agent, Aloysius Pendergast. You know a story that starts with a lion attack in Africa and ends up involving John James Audubon is going to be great. This is easily the best Pendergast novel yet.
I also read Executive Privilege by Philip Margolin, and I admit I only picked it up as Amazon was offering it free. I’m glad they were as it was a lively tale of serial murder, and the characters were well defined and likable. The story was nicely told, and was full of twists and unexpected turns.
Wrap-up
That’s the week I spent in Mobile Tech Manor. It was full of gadgets and apps as usual, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Until next week, take care of yourself and spend some time with friends and family. Gadgets are not the important thing, people are.
Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d): To Win In the Mobile Market, Focus On Consumers
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