Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Call it karma or something else, the interesting relationship between Microsoft and Gizmodo continues to yield exclusive looks at the leaked tablet.  Microsoft’s Courier was shown by the site in a video and now that video has been sliced to show how users interact with the Courier.

The user interface highlights different fingerswipes, tablet functionality such as geotagging and timestamping, camera focusing and cropping, handwriting recognition, ereader capabilities and more.  The main purpose of this device looks to be “life” as the product seems to touch on many aspects.  Clearly, this tablet is built for more than just surfing the web or playing some games.

Gizmodo shows off several images with user options and actions on each page.  It is interested, but if you saw the video then you might have expected much of this.  The pages look like little more than still images from the video, giving us no indication how far from reality this is.

Read: [Gizmodo]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

The lesser known droid, the HTC Eris, is finally shown in an unboxing event.  This Droid, unlike the Motorola Droid, has not hardware keyboard.  The Eris is a touchscreen beauty running Android 1.6 with Sense UI skin for an HTC feel.

Boy Genius notes that their source says the phone feels lighter and thinner than the HTC Hero.  Another tidbit is this phone supposed is the next best Android phone to date, after the Motorola Droid with 2.0 software.

Our Shawn Ingram had this to say about the Eris:
“The Droid Eris appears to be a repurposed model of the HTC Hero.  It features the same Sense UI as well well as the exact same specs as the Hero.  The only real difference comes in the phone’s body, carrier and price.  While the Hero sells on Sprint for $180 (after rebates), the HTC Droid Eris will be sold by Verizon for $99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.  Given the price point it’s obvious that Verizon views it more as the lesser model to the Motorola Droid.  The phone does have a less powerful processor, a lower resolution screen, no hardware keyboard and runs on Android 1.5 as compared to 2.0 on the Droid so that viewpoint does make sense.”

Read: [Boy Genius Reports]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

Yesterday, two tech greats chimed in on reviews of the Droid.  Both Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue of the New York Times reviewed the phone and both came away with an overall positive overview.  Neither reviewer could stay away from constant iPhone comparisons.

Mossberg’s review

Mossberg reviewed the Droid and only managed to say, “iPhone” nine times.  He thought the phone would be a success on the Verizon network, perfect for loyal Verizon users who lust after a decent smartphone without jumping carriers.  “I regard it as a success overall. It’s the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola (MOT) phone I’ve tested and the best hardware so far to run Android.”

That is not to say Mossberg didn’t find problems, it is no secret Mossberg is a huge iPhone fan.  Things like, “Unfortunately for lovers of physical keyboards, I found the one on the Droid to be pretty awful,” and “Another downside: The Droid’s screen has only three panels for displaying apps, versus 11 on the iPhone, and some large apps, called widgets, hog much of the space on these panels.”

Pogue’s review

Pogue, gets right to the heart of the matter: “So is it true? Is the Droid an iPhone killer?  No, but it’s certainly a killer phone.”  Pogue mentions the iPhone 18 times in his review but is able to sum up the phone’s successes:

Since Verizon seems to want a Droid-iPhone faceoff, here it is: the Droid wins on phone network, customizability, GPS navigation, speaker, physical keyboard, removable battery and openness (free operating system, mostly uncensored app store). The iPhone wins on simplicity, refinement, thinness, design, Web browsing, music/video synching with your computer, accessory ecosystem and quality/quantity of the app store.

Pogue laments not having multitouch when surfing.  He must use that a lot more than I, as double tapping seems to be my predominate way to focus.  Pogue also points out that the Droid won’t work out of the USA, out of CDMA anyway which is a point to consider.  Other phones like the BlackBerry Storm can do both CDMA and GSM networks so it can make the trip, too bad that wasn’t included in the Droid.

Summary

Both writers liked the phone and would recommend it.  The tone of both reviews wasn’t one of giddy excitement as they had when reviewing the iPhone.  Both suggest the iPhone is still the king though the little droid is getting close.

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

What’s better than a Black Friday sale?  A desperate Pre-Black Friday sale in hopes to get all the dollars you would have spent on the actual Black Friday.  Wal-Mart delivers with a sale this Saturday, Novermber 7.  The deals look worthy of making a special trip.

From the Xbox 360 reduced to $199 and includes a $100 gift card,  to a 46” Panasonic Plasma HDTV (I love mine) at just $788, $149 for a Sony Blu-ray player and $298 HP 15.6 laptop.  Both the Xbox and the HP laptop are guaranteed to have 10 units per store, according to our friends at bfads.com.

The Panasonic’s lowest price on Google Checkout is $830 and it looks to be a full 1080p, nice. 

Walmart says the sale starts at 8:00am on the 7th.

Read: [BFads]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

If you travel for business then you agonize over one gadget in every single hotel room: the alarm clock.  Many seem straight out of 1976 with peculiar buzzer/sound settings, incorrect time and who knows if it works.  Enter Moshi mini, the alarm clock that uses a bit of smarts to understand spoken commands.

The Moshi mini is a smaller version of the original designed for traveling.  Simply set an alarm by push the one button and speak a command, like “set alarm”.  Users simply say the time they wish to create an alarm for and Moshi understands it.  They’ve simplified setting the time, setting an alarm, even getting current temperature.

As a traveler who has a (healthy?) fear of foreign alarm clocks, this one looks mighty appealing especially after a night of fighting with airlines, loosing baggage, being delayed and rerouted.  At just $24.99, it is priced well for a peace of mind gift.

Product page: [Moshi]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

Yesterday I posted on the Verizon Droid and what appeared to be the carrier charging more for Exchange access.  It looked ridiculous and it turns out it is.  If you are getting a personal line for the Verizon Droid, you can pay the $30 data plan and enjoy all the Exchange you wish.

The confusion looks to have stemmed from the definition of business.  Carriers consider you a business customer if you use a business credit card and purchase from their business department.  If you are just doing business on a phone in your name, then technically from the carriers point of view, you are not business.

Thanks to Sacha Segan for sorting this out for us.

Read: [GearLog]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

Wish there was a web app that brought together your email, twitter and Facebook into one, easy to deal with place?  Threadsy is the answer.  I’ve been using it for over a month and it keeps getting better.  Today, I’ve got invites (500) thanks to the fine folks at Threadsy.

The service is still in beta but operation is far better than it was just 30 days ago.  The team is working fast and seems very responsive.  Here is quick recap on how Threadsy works:

Inbound

In the left pane, email is displayed along with @me Twitters and Facebook messages.  The idea is to have only the stuff that was specifically directed to you be in your inbox.  You can choose to view all of this or just the incoming mail from individual providers (like just Twitter).  Users can search through messages and this search was surprisingly fast.  Emails can be composed as either quick replies right from this screen or open and reply seeing the full message.

Unbound

In the right pane (which users can control its width), are the streams you follow from Twitter and Facebook.  As with the Inbound pane, you can choose to filter just Facebook or Twitter streams or view them all.  Another tab on top allows you to access GMail chat, which is very handy.

What’s better?

By bringing Twitter, Facebook and my mail together, I get instant context in reply to friends.  Let’s say I get an email from Gadgetell Editor, Robert Nelson.  Threadsy shows me his latest status updates from Facebook, his bio and his latest Tweets in the right hand pane.  I know what he is doing, how he feels, making my reply that much better.  It is very handy and very powerful.  Incidentally, this is the idea behind Motorola’s Blur UI for Android.  It is a winning idea.

I really like the way Threadsy lets users hover over a message and select delete, archive or quick reply without opening the message.  I am able to work through my GMail much faster.

What’s not?

Notifications on Chat is less than alerting.  The other big thing missing, for me at least, is how GMail handles attachments.  I rarely download anything anymore thanks to “preview in html” and that is missing from Threadsy. 

For me, these are small trade-offs for keeping on top of my communication (or at least believing so).  Check it out and let us know what you think, below is the special invite link just for Gadgetell readers.

Invite link: [Threadsy]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

Here in the US, Sony Ericsson isn’t high on my list of phones to check out.  Primarily, their inexpensive phones make the trip across the pond and the American public has yet to really embrace them as a quality brand.  That may change with the new XPERIA X10 which is due to become a flagship Android phone for the brand.  All isn’t perfect yet, though.

Slashgear was received by Sony Ericsson and shown the ropes of this phone due in Q1 of 2010.  There is much to brag about, from the custom UI skin that overlays Android 1.6 (that was something to brag about up until last month, now it seems a bit dated with 2.0 in the wild - no word if the X10 will get the update), an 8.1 megapixel camera, a snappy 1 GHz Snapdragon chipset, and a 480x854 capacitive touchscreen.

What is most interesting about the device are it’s two customized apps by Sony Ericsson: Timescape and Mediascape.  As described by Slashgear:

Timescape handles events, with a single view of tumbling panes each detailing the most recent changes, updates or events. SMS or email messages, calls, voicemails, photos, Twitter or Facebook updates and calendar entries are all pulled together into one dangling stream, and you can tap each pane to see it completely; hitting the Infinity symbol in the top corner then pulls together related information from all across the phone and online.

Mediascape, meanwhile, works in a similar way to Timescape but for audio, video and still image content. Three tabs show photos, audio and video, with the top half of the screen having draggable bars showing local content (split into rows by most recent, most played, etc.) while the lower half has online content. Sony Ericsson are working with content providers and carriers to develop this latter content; right now, the XPERIA X10 has access to YouTube video and online galleries, but there’s the potential for carrier-provided streaming music, PlayStation Network integration or third-party services. We’d particularly like to see Spotify integration too.

It was clear the demo Slashgear got was on an unoptomized software so the apps were sluggish to respond.  One of the fun things about Android is the manufacturers ability to create a branded feel of the OS by using skins.  It looks like Sony Ericsson may be onto something here and offered more Android phones would follow in 2010.

Read: [Slashgear]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

The successful launch of the Palm Pre, Palm’s darling of a phone running the “revolutionary” webOS was supposed to save Palm.  Launched on June 6 in the US, the Pre was off to a fast start, depending on who you asked.  The Pre continues to be sold on one network, Sprint, while it’s application catalog fills out.  The question now becomes, did the Pre save Palm?

That was the question poised to me by our Robert Nelson who was standing next to me when the phone was announced at CES last year.  Both of us left with a sense of hope and excitement about the new phone and about the webOS.  Where are we now?

Robert says, “To me, I think it has gone stale.  It almost seems that Palm is back on life support.  But at the same time, I like the Pre (of course, that could just be the fan boy in me).”

My take is two parts: I agree with Robert the gloss has faded a bit on the Pre.  I attribute that to an unappealing design, at least for me.  I am edging closer to despising key’d phones, the split second it takes to slide out the keypad or worse, reorient the device is far too long for me.  The Pre doesn’t live on the now network, it lives on the, wait for it, slide out, network.

So it’s clear I am not a big fan of the hardware on the Pre.  That’s a personal call and one that I may be on my own with it; I can deal with that.  I have the same problems with the Moto Droid and the slew of Android phones with slide out full-size keyboards.  A phone store clerk explained it to me like this: the teens and 20 year olds love the slide out, the 30 and up crowd digs the slider phones.  Test that one out, I’ve found it to be a decent predictor.

Part two is this, while the Pre hasn’t saved Palm, the webOS will.  The OS is fun, simple, brilliant in some ways.  I think the Pixi will do well, assuming it gets off Sprint in record time.  I think the phone after Pixi will do even better.  There is much competing operating systems could learn from webOS.  While it still could use some polishing around the edges, it works and works well.

There is no question in my mind that the webOS can compete with Android for most people.  Competing with the iPhone OS isn’t the problem, it’s the Santa’s sack of apps that is getting harder to get around.

What is your take, did the Pre do enough good for Palm?

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy

We knew it was too good to be true.  We knew Verizon couldn’t keep it’s mitts off the phone and tweak something to make it less fun. The good news is unlike most of Verizon’s disabled phone, this one can be fixed by throwing money at it.  $15 per month to be exact.

Thanks to the geniuses at Verizon, if you wish to access Exchange mail on your Droid phone you’ll need to cough up another $15 per month.  This is the case for accessing work email on a Microsoft Exchange server as well as accessing GMail via the Exchange platform.  If this seems a bit harsh to you, you’re spot-on.

Verizon’s response to criticism on this is to point out Droid is designed as a non-corporate phone.  A consumer oriented phone like this, isn’t expected to go into Exchange servers, or so the thinking goes.  Tilting the phone as a non-business phone is odd to me.  Horse hockey is what I say.

From InfoWorld: “Verizon offers three data plans for Droid customers: $30 month on top of your voice plan’s rate for non-Exchange usage, $45 per month on top of your voice plan’s rate for Exchange usage, and $50 per month total cost for a data-only plan (whether or not you use it to access Exchange). Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney notes that the requirement to get the $45 “smartphone plan” for corporate e-mail usage applies to any smartphone, such as the BlackBerry—not just to the Droid.”

Contrast that with AT&T’s iPhone and BlackBerry smartphone plan that adds $30 on top of voice and includes Exchange access.  AT&T does have a business plan that mirrors Verizon’s at $45 per month.

While realizing it’s tough being a carrier these days, profiling data is a bad idea.  Data costs the same whether it is a movie streaming, Exchange email or surfing the net.  Verizon should not penalize users based on what data they consume.  Maybe, it’s just $15 a month but it bugs me.  How about you?

Read: [InfoWorld]

• Appletell reviews Wacom’s Bamboo Touch and Pen
• Confirmed: The Nokia N900 will be delayed until November
• MS and Apple square off on tablets: both sounding like things you won’t buy