Review: LG 42SL9000 42-inch LCD TV
LG's 42SL9000 42-inch LCD TV might well come to be remembered as one of the sets that put LED backlighting firmly on the map.
This chic 42-inch set is decked out in an elegant 'frameless' design and comes with the sort of spec sheet that should have home movie fans instinctively reaching for their wallets.
It would be easier to list what features this set hasn't got. Aside from the full HD panel and 100Hz processing, the TV can be set up for use with Bluetooth devices such as wireless headphones, or for accepting and playing back music or movies from suitably equipped multimedia devices.
The connections roster includes four HDMI ports, which, while not an industry best, is probably more than most normal people will ever need. As well as the usual smattering of component video, Scart and digital audio options, plus an Ethernet port for wired transfer of JPEG or MP3 or video files.
The thing to which LG would really like to draw your attention, though, is of course the LED backlighting.
The system used here is edge, rather than direct lighting, which scores highly for cutting panel-depth (this one measuring an improbably slight 29mm) and contrast, not to mention efficiency when compared to conventional cold-cathode systems.
Direct-lit systems, particularly RGB-dimmed ones, might claim ultimately superior performance, but you pay significantly more for them and they'll come in a much chunkier case.
And finally, you can even set it up so it 'knows' (via Intelligent Sensor 2) whether or not anyone is in the room watching it in order to help cut down energy wastage. If there's no one in the room, it'll switch itself off.
The sternest test of a display can often be how well it copes with the humbler stuff, and the lowest common denominator in the video department is standard-definition Freeview.
While clearly not the most nourishing diet for a set such as this, digital terrestrial broadcasts polish up rather nicely.
Whereas many thoroughbred sets seem to regard this sort of thing as beneath them, the LG is able to unearth its (limited) strengths and iron out many of the weaknesses.
Detail, for a start, is not bad at all. The pictures are neatly scaled and fore and background information is picked out carefully.
SD Freeview quality
Edge discipline is also good; all too often bog-standard broadcasts are a shaky, mottled mess, with all manner of ghosting, blocking and edge-noise, but the 42SL9000 manages to keep most of that in check when delivering solid, well-ordered images that, watched from a sensible distance, are clean and easy on the eye.
And, while there is clearly a lot going on to make them this way, the images never have that strained, overcooked look that indicates processing systems working at the very limits of their abilities.
Colours are accurate, with everything from the drab, real-world tones of daytime programming, the garish hues of children's television and everything in between handled with equal dexterity.
Mass-produced studio-bound fare such as the Jeremy Kyle Show, often look nasty, with the hash lighting combining with the modest production values to hideous effect.
Here, though, the worst excesses are kept in check and the skin-tones on display, so often rendered as a kind of mottled, tapioca sludge, look at least as if they belong to human beings rather than waxworks.
The lack of digital dross around edges or corners is also notable and there is little or no colour bleeding. There isn't much to put the set's black level capabilities to the test, but more of them later.
One flaw that announces itself with Freeview and goes on to reappear, to greater or lesser degrees with more sophisticated source material, is motion judder. Any slowish, deliberate pan, particularly at right angles to any on-screen straight lines, causes noticeable judder.
It won't ruin your enjoyment of what is an otherwise decent performance, but does pencil in a faint question mark against LG's 100Hz MotionFlow system.
HD picture quality
Switching to high-definition broadcasts is like shifting up several gears at once. The detail is suddenly so exacting as to be almost unsettling.
When watching standard def, the brain seems to be expecting a certain degree of imperfection and adjusts itself accordingly so that what you end up watching seems to be an immediately acceptable facsimile of reality.
With HD on a set as good as this, the level of detail on display means that mental leap is no longer required and for the first few seconds one is taken slightly aback by the extra degree of detail.
While having more to look at is undeniably a good thing, the side effects aren't always entirely welcome.
Sports presenters are unceremoniously outed as careworn middleaged men with dandruff, while live-action characters on children's programmes can suddenly look less like cuddly characters from a madcap faraway world and more like actors in slightly shop-soiled suits with visible bobbling.
Watch something that was made with HD in mind, though and prepare to be well and truly dazzled.
Prestige BBC nature documentaries look fabulous, with the swooping helicopter shots of savannah ice sheets of which these sorts of programmes are so fond taking in an almost mind-boggling amount of detail and texture.
So much so, in fact, that you will find yourself missing large chunks of narration as you marvel at just how far into the Grand Canyon or across the Pacific Ocean it is possible to peer.
The fur on Arctic Foxes, the pollen on a honey bee's legs and the shimmer and sparkle of water running over rocks all deploy the XD Engine and every one of the panel's 2million+ pixels to marvellous effect, making you wonder how you managed to get by with plain old standard def for all those years.
Colours
Colours are also exemplary. The 42SL9000 is able to flip between the drab antiseptic tones of BBC hospital drama, Getting On, to the ochre, dustbowl hues of The Human Journey's African-set stages without skipping a beat and without showing any kind of preference for either end of the spectrum.
Aerial shots of the English countryside in the recent Rivers series, while not as spectacular as some of the more exotic locations, are absolutely spot on, with the sort of greens, browns and greys that are hardwired into the native imagination receiving a nuanced, satisfying treatment.
Blends of one shade into the next are seamless, without any visible banding or separation into areas of varying saturation and the whole palette hangs together more or less perfectly.
Black levels are also impressive, transcending LCD's usually rather tepid approximations and resolving varying degrees of darkness, rather than merely suffusing gloomier pictures with a single, uniform shade.
Motion, however, still looks a trifle suspect. A sequence of surfers riding the Severn Bore from left to right across the frame in Rivers contains more than a little bit of glitching. Again, it's not sufficiently pronounced to spoil the overall effect, but once noticed is hard to ignore completely.
DVD upscaling
Going back to DVD after Freesat HD feels like something of a retrograde step, but the 42SL9000 scales up the reduced resolution to something close to, if not a dead ringer for, hi-def.
The careering mountain-side car chase at the start of Fast and Furious, for example, is rendered in enough detail to make you heart leap as you discover the scale of the drop awaiting the runaway petrol truck and the colours are rich, faithful and utterly cinematic.
Crank the quality back up to Blu-ray and everything good about HD broadcasts applies, with the native 1080p source adding a bit more eye-popping detail on top.
The motion issue remains, but given both LCD and Blu-ray's well-documented difficulties in this department, it would seem churlish to knock a mark off for this hardly crippling flaw.
Now that flatscreen television pictures have equalled, if not surpassed CRT sets in just about every department, the only thing that still has us occasionally hankering for the bulky old sets of yore is the sound quality.
Ray-tube-driven sets might have weighed a ton and occupied about a quarter of your living space, but those large echoey cabinets not only provided the physical space in which to mount decent speaker drivers, but also the several cubic feet of air for it to bounce around in.
The advent of flatscreens, particularly the most recent superslim generation, has robbed the average television set of any approaching decent audio. So when you audition an LCD that's no wider than a cigarette packet at its widest point and with no visible speaker grille to boot, hopes for a rollicking audio ride are, naturally, on the low side
Meaty mid-range
The LG manages to exceed, without entirely confounding expectations: there is a surprising amount of volume at your disposal, with enough welly for most normal-sized rooms at around 50 per cent of the way up.
The muscle is not, however, backed up by any appreciable depth, with little or no low-end rumble to underpin things like explosions.
The sound also gets a little harsh when cranked, with mid-range and treble stuff, becoming flat and shouty. You can go most of the way up before things really start to deteriorate, though and general fidelity is good, although the audio 'image' is locked rather too closely to the screen, existing in two dimensions rather than three.
The various pseudo-surround sound options on offer do little to alleviate this and tend to push less aggressive components of soundtracks, like dialogue, towards the back of the mix.
Still, measured against its peers, the 42SL9000 has a perfectly workmanlike sound system that will cope easily with broadcasts and won't by any means disgrace itself with movies.
It would be a shame, however, not to do those excellent pictures the courtesy of matching them up to a decent home cinema system for anything more challenging than your everyday TV viewing.
More than a thousand pounds is towards the pricier end of the scale for a 42-inch flatscreen these days, particularly when you consider what Panasonic can do with plasma for this sort of money.
You would expect something suitably high-end for your cash and that is exactly what the LG 42SL9000 provides.
It can do everything you could every reasonably ask of a television, packs one of the best performances currently available and wraps it up in one of the most desirable chassis we've ever seen. That is manages all of this while remaining so democratically user-friendly makes that grand or so seem very well spent
Brilliant interface
LG set a standard a while ago that several manufacturers lost no time in following.
The wonderfully clear, 'tablets' interface employed on the company's recent sets is an absolutely joy to navigate, with clear, unambiguous graphics marrying up with a logical, intuitive system architecture and an excellent (backlit) remote control that a five-year-old could use.
Helpful touches including a Picture Wizard and a simplified manual saved to the set's built-in memory ensure that even the least technically minded viewer is able to get the set installed and adjusted to his or her liking without difficulty.
An almost bottomless set of 'advanced' options await the more adventurous videophile, however, with options such as colour temperature, gamma and black level adjustment and colour gamut sitting alongside a comprehensive array of pre-sets and modes.
We liked:
The 42SL9000 is one of the most imaginatively featured sets around at the moment.
With state of the art panel spec, class-leading processing and an impressively effective LED backlighting system, plus all sorts of genuinely useful touches such as Bluetooth connectivity and one of the best operating systems ever.
Detail and colours are superb, black levels are good and the whole is wrapped up in a super stylish cabinet.
We disliked:
Blacks are still a little short of the effortless profundity achieved by plasma and there are motion glitching issues with which to contend.
Audio is a little weedy, with little sense of depth. It is also rather expensive, but this criticism only applies if budget is your main concern.
Verdict:
A lovely looking, extravagantly specified and immensely capable set that should appeal to discerning casual viewers and demanding videophiles alike.
This review was written in conjunction with:
What Video & Hi-Def TV magazine
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Spotify hints at branded phones for the UK
Spotify has confirmed to TechRadar that a phone with its branding on is likely in the near future.
While the new deal with Telia to bring Spotify to mobile and TV platforms is only for Sweden, a spokesperson for the company clarified the situation to us, saying although it won't be making the hardware, branding is very likely to happen in the future:
"We're not making hardware but it's likely we'll see Spotify branded phones being sold by Telia who will bundle our service with their mobile and internet packages."
Quizzed
When quizzed about whether the services would be coming to the UK, the spokesperson hinted that Spotify is looking to port the TV and mobile platforms over to Britain:
"We've nothing specific to say about the UK but it is an important market for us in every sense."
So it looks like just a matter of time before we start seeing Spotify mobiles and TVs... just when will we get them in the UK?
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Napster slashes subscription charge in half
Napster may have been in the online music game longer than most but that doesn't mean the company is resting on its laurels – it has just announced that it has docked subscription rates to the service by 50 per cent.
Now, for just آ£5 a month you can download five MP3s to keep forever and listen to Napster's unlimited on-demand catalogue of 8 million songs.
Reflecting needs
With the likes of Spotify and 7digital upping the ante, Napster felt that another service was needed and that's why it has revealed the new Napster Unlimited option.
Speaking about Napster Unlimited, Thorsten Schliesche, Napster's Vice President Sales and Marketing Europe, said: "With this new service model, Napster once again reflects the needs of today's music consumers. We listened to our customers and developed a service that provides music lovers with a flexible, best-value service that allows them to tailor their digital music experience to their personal requirements."
Music offer
To give its service a boost, the music company is also doing deals with Dell, giving a one-year free trial away with their computer systems. Carphone Warehouse customers will also receive a free one-month trial card.
Let the music wars begin.
Go to www.napster.co.uk for more details.
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Sony Vaio X and L series: UK pricing details
Sony UK has today announced the launch of its new incredibly slim X Series notebooks, alongside the all-in-one Vaio L series touchscreen PC, with the company set to launch both machines to the UK market later in October and early November.
We first saw the super-slim X series back at IFA and TechRadar has managed to get some hands-on time with both machines at Sony's London launch event this week.
Suffice to say, as with most of the Vaio-branded computers from the Japanese consumer tech giant, we are quite taken with the new Vaios X and L series.
However, while we know that the tech spec and the design and the quality of the build are all going to be top-notch, because that's what we now expect from the Vaio brand, the real question is: what is all this new kit going to set us back?
Vaio pricing
The Vaio L series touchscreen all-in-ones will be priced at آ£999 for the bottom of the range through to آ£1,399 for the top-of-range Blu-ray and HDMI-equipped version.
On the 'uber-netbook' front, the Vaio X series will cost you anything from آ£1,299 for the basic model through to آ£1,899 for the version with the 2Gb Intel Atom processor – which could quite possibly be up for our 'most desirable laptop of 2009' award, even if it is on the pricey side.
MacBook Air, you say? Pah! So 2008....
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Review: Updated: Palm Pre
While the Palm Pre is certainly one of the best smartphones available – the question everyone wants to answer is: can it kill the iPhone?
Or, short of outright death and dismemberment, can it at least capture some iPhone glory?
The short answer is: not in a blue moon, but then the truth is Palm doesn't necessarily mean for the Pre to be a personal entertainment device.
As we'll see, the Pre has the makings of a truly powerful business communicator. In fact, peek under the hood, there's a Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor, 8GB of internal memory, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth with A2DP stereo.
Computer-like
What you'll discover is a capable mobile computer that supports multi-tasking, contact sync across multiple web services, and push email that could lead to swift adoption at companies both large and small, filling the void left by the popular Palm Treo from years ago.
The real challenge then is that Palm needs to revive its lagging developer community – which is almost non-existent.
While Apple continues to sell MacBooks and iPhones to the college kids and trendy/smart/cool-types, the reality with those who take computing more seriously is that the iPhone is a limited device – despite the fact that there are some 50,000 apps available for it.
It doesn't multi-task apps (at least, not yet), only barely supports enterprise-class email, and has a clunky soft keyboard for typing longer messages. The Palm Pre has a true hardware keyboard and is designed to keep pace with big business in very tangible ways.
It's a powerful smartphone that occasionally acts like a powerful computer – and shows amazing promise.
Chats and text messages are combined into one view, making it easy to track down conversations with both business and personal contacts.
CALENDAR: The calendar also syncs up web services nicely, adding both Gmail and Microsoft Outlook meetings in one view
GPS: Google Maps taps into the GPS on the Palm Pre, of course, but doesn't support turn-by-turn voice nav
FRIENDS: Contacts from Facebook and Gmail get nicely combined – which is great unless you do not manage your contacts well
EMAIL: Once you type an email into the Palm Pre, it recognises your Webmail service and starts syncing your mail
Unpacking the Pre, you get the sense that it is designed for fun and not as much for business, with an artistic design flare for the box and included materials. There's an earbud headset and a USB charger, plus a small manual.
Palm also offers the Touchstone Charging Dock – the phone sits on a magnetic cradle and charges using inductive charging technology. You can't charge the phone on the cradle and connect it to your PC, so you have to do one or the other.
SNUG: The Pre fits nicely in your hand
The Pre weighs 135 grams, which is a hair heavier than the iPhone 3G and exactly the same as the iPhone 3GS. Strangely, the Palm Pre feels lighter because the slide-out keyboard adds some overall length and the fact that the plastic feels a little...well, plasticky.
Sliding the keyboard out, you will notice a slight curve to the device. One of the first oddities of the phone: the edge of the keyboard is actually quite sharp.
CURVE: The device is slightly curved with a sharp end
When you close the keyboard, you have to be careful because you can ever-so-slightly pinch your hand in the side of the phone (it happened at least twice during our tests). Overall, the Pre looks sleek and stylish, matching the sparse buttons of the iPhone and HTC Hero.
There's a 3.5mm headphone jack, power button, a call lock switch on top, a side mini-USB port (with a cover) on the right side and volume controls on the left side.
The phone just feels right in your hand – resting right in your palm and not quite as elongated (with the keyboard closed) as the iPhone or as thick and bulky as the T-Mobile G1.
SMALL: The Pre is a smaller device than the Apple iPhone
It's also smaller and more portable than the HTC Magic. In fact, no other phone quite matches the size and shape – it is thicker than most slide-out phones like the Sidekick II, but not as tall as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.
That said, after using the phone for 72 hours, we found the plastic construction to be a little worrisome – it feels as though after a few tumbles the enclosure could crack, and we were worryingly able to twist the screen a few degrees from the keyboard.
When you turn the phone on for the first time, it's easy to forget about the hardware. Palm put all of its resources into making sure the operating system – called WebOS and essentially a very well-designed Linux distro for smartphones – as fluid as possible.
It is so fluid, when you touch the screen, you see a subtle ripple effect. There's a quick set-up process where you create a profile for the phone, a tutorial and a video. Let's start by covering the touch interface.
HOME SCREEN: The interface is extremely zippy and responsive
Palm uses a dualistic design approach where you touch the main screen to perform actions such as deleting emails (by swiping to the left) or moving windows on the screen.
Then, below the main screen, there's a second gesture area where you can swipe to the left to close the current window. Apps run on "cards" that are easy to manage and move around.
CARDS: Applications sit on cards which you can move about
You can swipe to the left or right to see cards on the screen, toss them up to remove them, and select options on each card with your finger.
The card interface is important because the Palm Pre supports multi-tasking, the best implementation of the PC concept of running multiple apps at once and switching easily between them.
Still, if you open more than about five apps, the phone will start to run slow and your swipes and other gestures won't work as accurately. There's an easy solution: close a few of the open apps.
Speaking of the touch interface, it's powerful and accurate if you are already familiar with a touch phone interface, and we found it was great after about 15 minutes of trial and error.
APPS: The Pre can run many apps simultaneously
Some of the gestures are a bit odd – such as flicking your finger up to start the app launcher. It's likely won't find this gesture by accident. In fact, we tested our Palm Pre with several teens and a couple of adults who just couldn't understand how to use the phone.
It requires some training, which is not good for a device that Palm hopes will sell in the millions. When we explained that you flick left to go back, and press the center button to see cards, our test subjects had a much better experience - but the touch interface is not as intuitive as the Instinct or iPhone.
That said, in the short time we've had to play with it we've also realised just how much we prefer some of the functionality of the webOS platform to the iPhone. Going back to the iPhone, we kept having to swipe a finger to go back a screen (instead of always having to press the home button). We've learned to run only a few apps on the Pre, but the interface on the Palm is just outstanding. We have also noticed another perk.
When you combine Facebook contacts with Gmail, the Pre automatically uses the Facebook profile picture for that contact, even if you did not have it for Gmail. This is the future integration we liked so much, and points to a day when Web services communicate with each other and make the Internet more like a cloud OS.
Accurate touching
Accuracy is very good - the touchscreen recorded finger presses and swipes perfectly - unless we had too many apps running.
The iPhone will occasionally have problems with finger presses, especially on the edge of the screen, but the Palm Pre is more accurate. Navigating through apps on the Palm Pre is a breeze, and it's easy to add applications using the Pre App Catalog.
Applications
There are only about 20 or so apps available at present, but that will likely change soon - Palm will be offering a free SDK this year and has a long history of working closely with developers.
It is encouraging to see a few new third-party apps have been released since its launch, including one from Intuit that lets you process credit card transactions, the Evernote client, and a few syncing utilities. This is good news, because it means developers are starting to release apps for the device - about three or four per day so far.
Also, you could argue that there are thousands of apps available for the Pre already if you count legacy apps that run using the free, third-party, free-to-try Palm Classic app (which does cost to own though).
However, classic apps can't match the ease-of-use and integration characteristics of apps designed for the Palm Pre – running classic apps would likely appeal only to those who have a Palm app they really need.
Below the main screen, you can store five apps – they are interchangeable, so you place the music player icon there instead of the mail icon for instance.
SHORTCUTS: Store five apps at the bottom of the home screen
Placing apps there is reminiscent of using a Palm phone of yesteryear, but you quickly learn to access apps from the main launcher. It's impossible to know, incidentally, whether having hundreds of apps installed on the device is even possible or will make the Palm Pre hard to use, since there are so few available at the moment.
But the paradigm for accessing apps is sound – you can flick up or down or side to side to see more icons. The HTC Hero has a much more awkward paradigm where all apps are either stored on the desktop screen in a viewing area that only supports one center screen and three side screens either side, or in one long collection of apps.
The iPhone offers up to 9 holding areas for apps and can support up to 148 apps at once.
More interface features
There's a few more interface options to mention. If you hold you finger on the lower portion that holds up to five apps and drag it up, you will see a ribbon that flows on the screen in an animated fashion.
It's impressive, but not necessarily that useful because you can't load dozens of apps there and use it like the dock on a Mac or the taskbar in Windows Vista.
One other interesting UI feature – there's a drop-down menu in the upper left corner that is easy to miss unless you look for it. For example, when you are typing up an email, you can access the menu to see options for that email (such as marking the message as a high priority), saving the message as a draft, and the copy and paste functions.
Pinch to zoom
The Palm Pre also supports zoom in and out by pinching and spreading your fingers out, such as when you are browsing sites and when you are viewing photos.
There are quite a few interesting gestures to explore on the phone. When you have the launcher up, you can close it by flicking up from the gesture area. You can press and hold down on a card to move it to another spot. You can double-tap to zoom all the way in or out on the screen.
RIBBON: Active apps can be controlled from the ribbon
The touch interface is not entirely perfect, however. The ripple effect when you touch the screen is helpful, but there are times when you press the screen and you don't see a ripple, or you see it and it seems like nothing happened. If you are running too many apps, you can swipe to delete an email and nothing will happen for about a second.
If you swipe again, you can delete multiple emails by accident as the Pre catches up. These are occasional glitches, and likely all related to memory handling.
Keyboard niggle
Another minor issue: the Pre has an accelerometer that senses the direction of the device, so it will switch to landscape mode if you are viewing something at that orientation, but that also means the keyboard is now useless.
An onscreen keyboard has been found inside, but that's only accessed as a secret option.
Interestingly, making phone calls – like on the iPhone, but not as much with the G1 – seems secondary, almost as an afterthought for people who actually still talk to each other occasionally.
The truth is, the Palm Pre is a better voice device than the iPhone and is actually one of the better smartphones for making phone calls.
CALL: Dial a number or select a contact from your contacts book
Palm likely learned its lesson with the Centro and previous devices – voice communication better work, because without good voice controls and quality, a smartphone can die a quick death.
Crisp voice
In a series of calls made during all times of the day, each call sounded crisp without any of the strange audio delay found with lower-end smartphone models.
CONTACTS: Selecting a contact is easy and intuitive
The speakerphone is loud and picks up extremely well; it works better than the iPhone. However, while the calls sounded good in the sense that there was no artifacting or distortion, there was a lot of audio compression.
This means voice chats tended to have a bit of a robotic tone to them rather than sounding full and life-like – for example, calls were clear, but highly compressed.
Making calls is extremely easy – you press the green phone icon and can start typing a number. Or, you can use universal search. Here, you can just start typing the name of any contact to find the phone number for that person.
Easy operation
Once you find a contact, you just click the number to dial. The Palm Pre does not support visual voice mail - a text indicator about who called, or the fancier transcription features in Google Voice that take a voicemail and convert it into text for you – but the Pre does use alerts to let you know when you do have a voicemail.
Unlike the HTC Hero, which shows alerts in a small portion of the screen above the main apps, the Palm Pre shows alerts below the main screen, and they are quite large.
The only downside: if you happen to get an alert at the exact same time as another incoming call or when you are about to dial a number, the alerts obscure part of the phone dialer screen.
The dialer is functional and easy-to-use, although we would have preferred a dedicated hardware button for making a phone call.
Soft keys on the phone dialer are responsive enough even for fast dialers – we never had any problems dialing numbers.
The Palm Pre is a good messaging phone, but not the best we have ever tried. It beats the iPhone, which is why we think the Palm Pre has a better shot as a business phone than a personal media player.
Keys on the slide-out keyboard are quite small. They are a hair smaller than the soft keys on the iPhone. In fact, you will likely be able to type faster on the Palm Pre because of the tactile feedback.
You can press quickly and move on, but the iPhone soft keys provide no sensation when you press – unlike the Samsung Instinct, which uses haptics to give you feedback on finger presses.
TYPING: The slide-out keyboard is a real asset
We typed dozens of messages, both in Gmail, as SMS and instant messages in AOL IM (the only supported IM client that anyone actually uses). We loved the @ symbol being on the keyboard itself rather than having to access it with a modifier key, because it meant typing email addresses much faster.
The real advantage to using the Palm Pre is that you can run multiple apps at once and copy and paste between them.
Say you just got an email from a business associate and you want to send the text as an SMS to someone else. This simple activity is not possible on the iPhone.
ATTACHMENTS: Adding attachments to messages is very easy
On the Pre, you hold down the Shift key, highlight text, and then access the Edit function (you click the menu in the upper left corner). Then, you switch over to the SMS app, start a new text message, go to the menu again, and click Paste to paste in the text. It's useful – and unique to the Palm Pre, for now.
The Pre uses Microsoft Direct Push technology when you are connected to an Exchange server.
This means the phone operates like a BlackBerry in that you will receive emails without having to click refresh or send/receive. You can use one inbox for all of your messages – from Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail.
EMAIL: Setting up your mail is easier than on many smartphones
The Pre uses a new Palm feature called Synergy that automatically syncs contacts form Facebook, Exchange, and Gmail. It means you will have one long contact list, which sounds more cumbersome than it actually is in practice.
Also, the Pre uses the Google model of search rather than the Microsoft model of organisation. For example, you can just start typing a name – such as Jack – and you will see anyone with that name. Then, you can click their email address and start typing the message, regardless of whether they are an Exchange, Gamil or Facebook contact.
COPY & PASTE: You can copy and paste text between apps and messages
A few complaints about messaging, though.
At times, the curvature of the device made it a little hard to type on the keyboard. As we mentioned earlier, we feel this smartphone has potential in business – because of the support for Microsoft Exchange, a hardware keyboard and other factors.
However, it is a bit crippled by the curved keyboard. In a hands-on comparison between the Blackberry 8900 and the Palm Pre, it was no contest – we could type circles around the Pre because the keys on the 8900 are just big enough and separated from each other such that you can type much faster.
The Pre also has a limited auto-correct system that contains only common words such as 'the' and 'and' compared to the iPhone and Blackberry, which fill in words from a database of thousands. In typing messages on the Palm Pre, we only saw the auto-correct feature kick in a couple of times.
The Palm Pre is an amazing web device, which is not a big surprise since it uses the Webkit engine – the same one Apple uses for the iPhone. We tested several complex sites with multiple sections and languages – IGN.com, ESPN.com and iGoogle.com – and the Pre rendered the sites perfectly.
Like the iPhone, you 'pinch and spread' to zoom in and out on the page, and when you flick down to scroll through a page, you can press again to stop quickly.
WEB: Best-in-class web browsing is a highlight of the Pre
The web features on the Palm Pre are the best we have seen, even compared to the iPhone and Hero. There are quite a few hidden surprises as well.
For example, you can add a website to cards in the main browser window so you can visit the site quickly.
Rendering is fast and never got bogged down unless - once again - we had too many apps running, which was a common occurrence during our testing (we think the average user won't try to run 30 different apps, start a new email message and browse the web at the same time – so it shouldn't be too much of a problem).
CARDS: You can add bookmarks and place then on homepage cards
We tested another 10 sites and never saw any rendering problems, even when we visited Twitter.com, Last.fm, Pandora.com and several other Web 2.0 sites that tend to break the browser on other smartphones.
SHORCUTS: Add your favourite sites to your shortcuts list
Really, there are only a couple of minor gripes – there is no 'global view' that we found that lets you see all open pages, and we would have liked a back button that shows previously visited sites so we could back up three or four sites before the last one we visited.
The 3 megapixel camera is not the strongest selling point here, mirroring the limitations of the iPhone and G1.
We prefer the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition or Pixon 12, which provide all the typical digital camera features you would expect, such as white balance controls and multi-level zoom. Interestingly, while the camera is limited, the photos we took were not half-bad.
FLASH: With the flash, the image is crisp and well balanced
NO FLASH: Without the flash, the performance was not so good indoors
There are a few options for controlling the flash, but overall the photos looked crisp and colourful without the usual dull colour treatment found on other cameraphones – including the iPhone.
LOW LIGHT: In these conditions the camera does well although it lacks sharpness and detail
We tested the camera in two primary conditions: outdoor shots and indoor shots. It's possible to take a photo with the Pre that looks indiscernible from a regular pocket digital camera in an outdoor setting.
INDOORS: The performance is not great, with washed out colours and minimal detail
Indoors, though, the flash and ISO correction are too limited - it is not a phone you will want to rely on for birthday parties or graduation ceremonies, except in a pinch.
One interesting feature that trumps the iPhone though – you can enable GPS geotagging so that images you take on the Pre have their location stored in the metadata.
We loaded several different kinds of media onto the Palm Pre.
In two cases, the Pre had problems - we loaded the movie The Incredibles as an H.264 video file, and loaded some sample Windows Media files saved as MPEG-4. The Pre was not able to play any of them.
It's supposed to support MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264, so we think with our H.264 movie the file was just too big – at about 1.5GB – to load into memory.
Interestingly though, the Palm Pre does work with iTunes. This feels a bit like loading Windows onto a Mac, and we wondered how Palm was able to get permission to make iTunes think the Pre was just another iPod or iPhone.
ITUNES: The Pre is the first device other than an iPhone to work with iTunes
Once connected, we had no trouble copying hundreds of music files, photos, podcasts, and other media over to the Pre (but not movies or TV shows).
Playback on the device is excellent: the speaker on the back of the unit is large enough for listening in a pinch, and the included earbud headset matches the quality of those included with the iPhone.
MUSIC: Audio performance is fantastic, and the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack is welcome
Thankfully, the Pre has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so we used both an earbud set (the Denon AH-C700) and hi-fi quality headphones (the Ultrasone HFI-580) and found the Palm Pre to be up to the challenge – music sounded full and rich, not tinny like it does on some smartphones, making the Pre a worthy MP3 player.
For movie playback, the 320x480 screen resolution makes video look sharp, and the screen runs in 24-bit colour so movies also look colourful. (You can only load movies when the Pre is in USB mode, though.)
The actual screen dimensions – about 3.1 inches – mean the size of the screen is a little smaller than the G1 and a finger width shorter than the iPhone, but the benefit is that – at the same resolution – movies actually look a little sharper. You can't record movies with the Pre, which is a problem since that is the new exceptional feature of the iPhone 3Gs.
Battery life on the Pre is a fairly predictable five hours, or up to six if you only use it to check your schedule and have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned off. It takes about two hours to fully charge the device. When the device is connected to a roaming connection, battery life drains faster - the device might last three hours, especially if you have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled with music playing. None of these complaints are major - the iPhone and G1 are not known for lasting very long either.
Since the phone was released just a few days ago, it is hard to tell whether battery life will stay the same or suffer from issues that have plagued a few other smartphones where the battery works fine at first and then fails to take a complete charge and slowly lasts shorter times the longer you own it.
We'll keep this review updated so if we have any other problems of this nature we'll let you know.
BATTERY: You can check the battery usage in the preferences window, but there is no large battery icon like there is on the iPhone
Organiser
The concept of a PIM (personal information organiser) originated with Palm, and in many ways the Palm Pre is a return to that concept.
However, it's not just because there are contacts, a scheduler, a simple notes app, or any particular tool. It is now because of multi-tasking.
MULTI-APPS: All applications are stored on the one pull-up menu screen
You can actually keep all of those apps up all the time and check them at will. Over the course of 48 hours, we relied on the Pre in countless ways to keep us on tasks, for reminders and meeting notices, to check in with our contacts, and as a phone to keep in lock-step communication with friends and business associates.
LIFE: Using the calendar is pure joy – since it combines all of your appointments from Microsoft Exchange and Google Calendar into one
CLOCK: You get all the usual organiser features like clock and calculator
We also liked the alerts system, which pops up a large reminder about upcoming meetings. When the device is in stand-by mode, there is also a helpful summary screen that shows any new messages, appointments and missed calls. (To use the device, you flip a lock icon up into the main screen, which is cool.)
Palm figures you will rarely physically connect the Pre to your computer, but if you do, it works flawlessly.
There's a prompt to use the device to sync data, as a USB storage drive or just to charge it. The only slight glitch we found here is that, if you really do drain the battery dry, it takes quite a while (upwards of 20 minutes) before you can even use the phone again, because it needs to charge up for a while first.
We had no trouble using the Pre with a Lenovo X301 laptop, a home-built desktop and a Mac Mini we had laying around. For media sync, the Palm Pre worked flawlessly with iTunes – even though it is weird to see iTunes recognize the device as an iPod – but only for music, not movies.
Comparison versus iPhone and G1
In the end, we enjoyed using the Palm Pre. It's different from the iPhone and the Hero in a good way, acts more like a computer (which is ideal for power users), and syncs contacts from Facebook and Gmail automatically.
CLOSE CALL: They're similarly matched but the iPhone still comes out on top
After two years of living with the iPhone, we're ready for a new interface and recommend the Palm Pre for those in a similar situation – wanting to multi-task apps, explore a new interface, and even get inspiration in their own job from how the Palm Pre operates as a smartly designed gadget.
That said, the Apple iPhone is still a better device.
Compared to the HTC Hero, there are some interesting differences. Sure, the Palm Pre has a minimal set of apps, but that could change quickly.
And the list of decent applications available for the Android OS is grwoing all the time - from the cool Layar browser to Twidroid, the excellent Twitter Applicaiton. And that's before we even look at the gamut of goodies from Google, as well as the likes of Spotify for Android.
In a grudge match competition, we'd pick the Hero over the G1 but not by a wide margin. And the Pre is a much better touch phone than the HTC Touch Pro, the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition, the Blackberry Storm and the Nokia XpressMusic N97.
It is not, however, a better business phone than the Blackberry 8900, due to the small and overly curved keyboard and the fact that the Blackberry is already an accepted, trusted device at many large companies.
Palm does not deliver on every single promise with the Pre, but the device will certainly find a sizable niche and appeal to anyone in the UK already on O2 (and perhaps getting bored of the iPhone).
In some ways the world is not ready for all of the web integration the phone could have offered.
There are just shades and shards of things to come: you can use one calendar to see your upcoming schedule in Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange/Outlook, instead of the more common multi-calendar approach, but you can't use Yahoo Calendar (not yet, anyway).
You can start typing just about anything – a contact name or an app name, for example – and the Palm Pre will start searching, but you can't search the browser history.
There are finer details you discover over time: when you type a contact name that is not on your phone, the Pre shows you links for sites like Wikipedia and Google to explore that name.
Yet, the smartphone avoids over-reaching – you'll see Facebook integration and Twitter apps, but Palm avoided less popular social networks like Bebo.
It's really a taste of what a grown-up Web OS on your PC will look like, where standards such as OpenSocial, OAuth, and HTML5 start behaving like Windows, where apps communicate with each other and you log in just once to the web and then use all of your apps and access data as you do in Windows.
We liked:
You might have to pry the Palm Pre from our hands – we definitely liked using it, and the interface is a joy to use once you understand how it works and figure out all the tricks.
We're power users – we like being able to multi-task the apps, playing music in the background while we type an email and check SMS. The multi-tasking allure might wear off eventually, but for now we are hooked on it.
We disliked:
The keyboard is just okay - it is too curved and too small for any really long typing sessions. The device is not as well-constructed as the iPhone – the plastic feels like it could crack too easily. And, we were disappointed by the battery life, even though we did not expect too much from a media phone.
Verdict:
In the end, this is what makes the Palm Pre so compelling, and a better choice for savvy computer users than the Apple iPhone or even the highly extensible T-Mobile G1. It's a new mobile computing paradigm more than a highly useful phone.
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In Depth: 10 tech PR stunts that spectacularly failed
What does a big-money tech PR effort need? A big stunt. Trouble is, for every iPlayer flying penguins episode, Threshers e-voucher and Honda live ad piece of genius, there are those campaigns that just make you put your head in your hands. Here's our round up of the worst tech PR stunts we've yet seen. Have you any to share? Then leave them in the comments.
1. Skittles and Tweets
In March this year, Mars brand Skittles decided to go social, incorporating a live Twitter feed on Skittles.com alongside content from Facebook and YouTube, on the advice of Agency.com. Trouble was, the feed pulled in absolutely all tweets featuring the name Skittles. Naturally, Joe Public quickly cottoned on to the fact you didn't necessarily need to be complimentary about the coloured candy to get on the page. The page was soon changed, but the Chatter section of the site still leads to a Twitter search for Skittles. A backfire undoubtedly, but it did get everybody talking about some dullard sweets that don't taste as good as Smarties. Well, they don't!
2. Microsoft and Seinfeld
Getting Seinfeld to star alongside Bill Gates was no doubt a stunning stunt on paper. $300 million of paper. But the ads didn't even reinforce the Microsoft brand properly and Seinfeld was paid a reputed $10 million for appearing. The first ad was a 90-second affair, showing Seinfeld assisting Gates in choosing a pair of shoes. But our 'favourite' moment is in the second four-minute vid: Gates is reading a technical manual to a kid at bedtime. "Are there any monsters in this story?" asks the kid. "Yes, but there's a firewall," replies Gates. Terrible, terrible, terrible. And we don't even want to think about the Internet Explorer 8 vomiting incident.
.
3. SpinVox's tech demo
Earlier this year, SpinVox had to refute allegations that a great deal of its automated text-to-speech service was, in fact, processed by humans in call centres, which ended up with Spinvox desperately firefighting and going on to employ uber-PR firm Brunswick to help it out. To try and assuage the voracious criticism from journos such as the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, the Marlow-based company decided to invite journalists to its offices for a presentation and demo. Trouble is, the demo (albeit under restricted conditions) failed to convince and only succeeded in proving that Spinvox's service needed the human element to work properly. Although two messages read by Spinvox CIO Rob Wheatley were automatically transferred perfectly, faster messages left by the journos present were redirected to the human assistant.
4. Sony gets its goat
Legendary in gaming circles, Sony Computer Entertainment created a storm after a launch event for the God Of War II game in Athens featured a dead goat. "The event was a theatrical dramatisation with a Greek mythological theme and, as part of the set dressing, a dead goat was provided by the production company from a qualified local butcher. There was never any question of journalists being able to touch the goat, or indeed eat the soup direct from the body of the goat, as one report has alleged. The goat was returned to the butcher at the end of the event," said Sony in a statement.
5. Asus' blogging competition
Eee PC manufacturer Asus decided to ask people to blog about products they were given for review. Readers would then be able to vote for their favourite, with the winner able to keep hold of their kit forever. Sound simple? Not quite. Readers have a habit of voting for honesty rather than puff, and Asus wasn't too impressed when blogger Gavyn Britton came out on top. He didn't entirely like the Asus kit, so Asus decided to change the rules and instead the bloggers would have to vote for each other to decide the winner. Emma Hill won instead, something that wasn't lost on The Inquirer, which was told by Asus that "certain aspects of the voting system meant that we felt it was no longer a level playing field for all of the bloggers." Yep, you read that right. What can you smell?
6. EA encourages touching of women
At Comic Con this year, EA came up with a sleazy idea to promote Dante's Inferno. The company asked attendees to commit an "act of lust" with its booth babes and email or tweet in pictures to win dinner with a babe. Nice, yet somewhat disturbing. EA naturally only meant people to take photos, but it was a stunt sure to end really, really well and not at all get itself branded as sexist.
[Image credit: ArsTechnica]
7. Gates releases the bees
This was really, really stupid. Bill Gates unintentionally released live mosquitoes during his speech at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in California. A container was supposed to be opened but the insects themselves were supposed to be kept under a further pane of glass. Particularly as attendees to the $2,000-each charity dinner had to run for cover and some even ended up with minor injuries. After, Gates said "well, that wasn't supposed to happen", adding that the stunt was designed to draw attention to hardships faced in developing countries. Angelina Jolie was among those who were stung.
8. Sony paints pretty pictures
Back in 2005, Sony hired graffiti artists to spray-paint major US city streets with pictures of children playing with the PSP. But the street art drew painted responses – some witty, some less so. According to Wired, the responses ranged from a "four-line ditty slamming Sony" to "get out of my city." Other critics suggested Sony was exploiting the artists. And that wasn't the only PSP fail.
9. Vodafone forced to apologise for streakers
Whoever thought this would be a good idea? At a New Zealand and Australia rugby match in 2002, two streakers invaded the pitch. Only they were wearing Vodafone logos. Harmless fun? Well perhaps, but the cops got involved (as it's against the law y'know) and arrested the offenders before the game had ended. Grahame Maher, the Vodafone Australia chief, had to apologise after he admitted that he had agreed to pay any fines as a result of the publicity. According to the BBC, Vodafone NZ also had to donate NZ$100,000 (آ£30,000) to a sports injury campaign.
10. Virgin gets rude Branson illos
A B3ta.com competition was supposed to help Virgin go viral but instead resulted in Richard Branson being targeted with a series of unsavoury images. The multi-tasking company promised Xbox 360s and PSPs as prizes and wanted pictures on the theme of "what would happen if you said 'yes' to everything?" according to The Register. Such temptation.
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Guide: Make Linux faster, lighter and more powerful
Gone are the days when you could make a cup of tea and drink it in the time it takes your computer's operating system to boot (with one notable exception). On that basis, you might think that your Linux machines are already performing at the fastest possible speed, right?
Sadly, this is not always the case. Communities developing mainstream Linux distributions have to appeal to the widest possible audience and ensure compatibility with the widest range of hardware.
This means that someone running a mainstream distro on a netbook or a low-end PC may well be using many of the same settings as someone with a high-end gaming machine. But it doesn't have to be this way!
With just a few tweaks and some experimentation, your Linux system can realise your machine's untapped potential.
Do you have a dual-core processor? Take advantage of this by running boot processes in parallel. Do you have more memory than you know what to do with? You could try caching data in memory rather than swapping space for faster access.
The great strength of everyone's favourite free OS is that it can be customised from the ground up, so Linux is the ideal tool to tailor to your needs. But once you have an ultrafast system, how can you become more productive?
How to make Linux boot faster
Any productive machine needs to be up and running as soon as possible, and a sluggish boot can hinder your efforts – which is why boot times were the first thing we thought about improving.
One word of warning before you begin: we recommend that you make a backup before you make these alterations, as a bug in your bootloader can render your Linux box unbootable!
Remove the timeout
You may notice that each time you boot there's a small count-down from three to zero. This was introduced originally to ensure that older hardware loaded modules in time for the kernel to boot.
This is not necessary for modern systems, and can be removed by opening /boot/grub/menu.lst in a text editor with root permissions and finding the line showing:
timeout=3
Once you've found it, change the value to zero. Save and exit then reboot and you should notice you have just knocked three seconds off your boot time.
Improve disk performance
If you have a DMA-compatible (Direct Memory Access) hard drive, you can increase data throughput threefold with a simple tweak. This will improve boot times because read times will be reduced, and overall performance will increase whenever the hard disk is accessed.
Start by installing hdparm through your package manager, then fire up a root terminal and type:
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda1
replacing /dev/hda1 with the location of your boot partition to increase startup times or the root partition to increase general performance.
Gnome users can have this run automatically each startup by heading to System > Administration > Services. You can then add this line as an entry with gksudo at the start to ensure it runs with root permissions without requiring additional authentication.
FASTER BOOTS: You could edit a text file and restart your machine to profile your system, or just click a few buttons in Grub
Run boot processes in parallel
Parallelism can lead to big performance boosts, because running two processes at once will take half the time of running them sequentially (at least in theory). You can take advantage of this technique in Grub by firing up /etc/init.d/rc in a text editor with root permissions and finding the following line:
CONCURRENCY=none
You would then replace none with shell before saving and closing your text editor. When you reboot you should see a noticeable decrease in your boot times (around one or two seconds in most cases).
If you don't see an increase, this is because this tweak is aimed primarily at systems with multi-core processors. If you have a solo-core processor you could actually increase your boot time if you use this tweak, which was the case with our test system where we saw a 2.4-second increase.
Optimise memory
One great way to improve performance is to define how swap space is used. A swap partition is where the Linux kernel caches data in virtual memory to quickly swap into RAM as and when it's needed.
A dedicated partition isn't compulsory, but the space is also used to store your machine state if you choose to hibernate. The effects of this tip depend on your system and whether you have a swap partition, but if you have plenty of RAM you'll find that reducing swappiness will give you a noticeable performance boost.
This will allow the kernel to cache data in memory for faster access and reduces the amount of data being swapped in and out of swap space at any given time. Simply open /etc/sysctl.conf in a text editor with root permissions, then append the following line to the bottom of the file:
vm.swappiness=10
(You will need to restart the session in order for your changes to take effect.)
You can tweak this value to see how performance improves. The lower the value, the less you use swap space and the more data is cached to memory. This was the value that seemed to work best with our test system using 512MB RAM.
However, this tip isn't just restricted to systems with large amounts of memory – systems with 256MB of RAM or less may see a performance boost if swappiness is increased, as this will cache more data to swap space and free up more memory for day-to-day applications.
The precise values vary from system to system so this will require some trial and error, especially as reading data from swap space still takes longer than reading it from memory, but the end results are usually worth the effort.
Along with KDE, Gnome is one of the two most widely used desktop environments in the Linux ecosystem, but it's quickly being overtaken by Xfce and other more lightweight alternatives when it comes to performance and speed.
However, with just a few of our tweaks, Gnome can keep up with the rest of the pack…
Install preload
Preload is a daemon that analyses what you do on a day-to-day basis and fetches the binaries and files you're most likely to need to boost startup times and general performance.
In Ubuntu you just need to search for 'preload' in the package manager, but on other distros it's worth checking that the service is running. To activate the service, type:
service preload on
After enabling automatic login and installing preload we initiated two restarts on our test machine to give the daemon a chance to monitor the startups. After comparing the two times, we found that preload had trimmed a second off the time it took to get a usable desktop. This doesn't sound a lot, but if it's used in conjunction with your new fast boot time then it's well worth the effort.
Enable automatic login
Yes, we know we're always telling you how important security is, but if you live on your own in a castle that doesn't have internet access then you're probably safe to enable automatic logins. The time saved is the time it would otherwise take you to type your password.
The GUI method is by far the easiest. Simply head to System > Administration > Login Window. After authenticating yourself, head to the Security tab and check the box next to Automatic Login. You can then choose from the list of users in the drop-down menu who gets logged in automatically.
Unfortunately for users of Fedora, this option isn't available, so you need to make the necessary changes manually.
To enable automatic login you need to open /etc/gdm/custom.conf in a text editor with root permissions and then append the following to the bottom of the file:
[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=True
TimedLogin=UserName
TimedLoginDelay=0
replacing UserName with the user you would like to log in.
Use wire frames
A common problem with low-powered systems is the lag generated when you click and drag a window. Gnome renders the window as it moves, which can slow performance down, but it has a built-in method to reduce the demand on system resources this causes, which you can activate by typing the following into a terminal:
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/metacity/general/ reduced_resources true
Now when you click and drag windows you will see wire frames instead of the window contents, which drastically improves performance on under-powered systems (but has little or no effect on others). Note that this trick won't work if you are using Compiz or an alternative window decorator.
WIRE IT UP: Using the wireframe option places less demand on system resources
Make menus faster
If your menus are starting to feel sluggish, the most likely cause is the icon delay. Every time you open the Gnome menu for the first time the icons have to be loaded from their source files. On slower systems this can look a little messy, so there is a timeout deliberately set to ensure the icons are loaded in time for you to see them.
However, with modern hardware this is not generally necessary, so the option can safely be adjusted. Create a new file in your home directory named .gtkrc-2.0 then open this file in your favourite text editor to type:
gtk-menu-popup-delay=0
After saving the file, press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to reinitialise xserver and your menus should open considerably faster.
KDE has received a mixed press lately. Though there's no doubting that its good looks and the new plasmoids set it apart from the competition, KDE 4 still can't match KDE 3 (or even Gnome) for speed and performance.
Though this area is in heavy development, a few tweaks can trim valuable seconds off your startup time and make the desktop as a whole much more responsive.
Speed up ext3
You can gain some significant performance benefits by enabling write-back operation in ext3. This tweak isn't restricted to systems running KDE, but it is disabled by default in almost every distro.
This is primarily because older hard drives don't support this feature, though newer hard drives can achieve a minor speed boost.
This won't affect your day-to-day disk operations, so it is not recommended you try this tweak on a typical home system, but you will see an improvement for the high intensity disk operations that are typically the preserve of servers.
After making a back up of the file, open /etc/fstab in a text editor with root permissions and look for a line with the following section of text:
relatime,errors=remount-ro
and replace it with this:
noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro,data=writeback
If there is no text either side of this snippet, you have done it wrong! Save and exit this file then open /boot/grub/menu.lst and find the following two lines:
# defoptions quiet splash
#altoptions=(recoverymode) single
They won't be next to each other, but once you find them append the following at the end of both those lines:
rootflags=data=writeback
then save and exit. Open up a root terminal and run update grub. You then have the option of simply restarting to apply these changes to your file system, or you can apply them on the fly by installing tune2fs from your package manager.
If you choose the latter option you would then type the following into a root terminal:
tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/hda1
substituting /dev/hda1 with your root partition.
Disable IPv6
Until IPv6 is more implemented, Konqueror has to translate between IPv4 and IPv6 – so if you can get a speed boost by turning off IPv6. The methods are slightly different between distros.
For instance, in Kubuntu you need to edit /etc/environment as root and add the following line to the file:
KDE_NO_IPV6=True
In openSUSE, edit /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager with root permissions and find this line:
KDE_USE_IPV6="yes"
then change the answer to no. In both cases you will need to save the file and exit before restarting the session for the changes to take effect.
Enable automatic login
Gnome isn't the only desktop that can benefit from you setting up an automatic login: KDE 4 users can do much the same thing by heading to System Settings and clicking on the Advanced tab. Here you can run the login manager and enable automatic login from the Convenience tab.
You'll also need to choose the user you want to log in automatically from the drop-down menu below the checkbox. When you reboot you should miss the login screen altogether and launch straight into the KDE 4 splash screen.
Start with an empty session
By default KDE 4 saves volumes of data about your current session, such as which windows are open and which processes were running so that next time you log in your session is exactly as you left it. This is very convenient, but it also slows your boot time down as this data has to be reloaded on each boot.
We can avoid this problem by ensuring that we start with a fresh session. Select System Settings (or Configure Desktop in OpenSUSE) from the KDE menu and in the Advanced tab start the session manager. Towards the bottom of the form select the radio button next to Start With An Empty Session then click Apply.
Start Konqueror faster
We can make Konqueror run much faster by enabling preloading. This uses some memory, but means that the next time you fire up Konqueror it will open in around half the time and in the same place you left it.
If you used the previous tweak to start KDE with an empty session then there's no need to panic, as we will configure preloading to run automatically when KDE starts.
To enable Konqueror preloading, open up the browser and head to Settings > Configure Konqueror. In the Performance section check the box next to Preload An Instance After KDE Startup.
You can also set how many instances of Konqueror are preloaded at startup depending on how many Konqueror windows you tend to run at any one given time.
You've tweaked your router, optimised your server and replaced all your broadband filters in your house – and you still have a slow connection. Before you make an angry phone call to your ISP, there's a possibility that the client machine may be the bottleneck. With just a few of these tweaks you can improve your connections, or at the very least eliminate your client machine as the single point of failure.
Use hostname 'localhost'
This doesn't cause a drastic improvement on its own, but in conjunction with the other network tricks here can improve your local machine's network performance. Simply open /etc/hosts in a text editor with root permissions and change the top two lines to:
127.0.0.1 localhost
yourhost 127.0.1.1 yourhost
where yourhost is the name of the machine (ie bobdesktop). Ensure you keep a backup of your /etc/hosts file, as not all distros are compatible with this!
Optimise TCP settings
Distros come preconfigured for "average" internet users, but in a world of 3G, dial-up and ADSL there is no such thing as an average user. Now edit /etc/sysctl.conf as root and append the following:
net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 0
net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 1
(This may take some trial and error, so keep a backup of the files you edit.)
The top line removes timestamps and so relieves all incoming and outgoing packets of a 12k overhead. The bottom line enables selective acknowledgements, which means fewer checks are initiated on each packet so they are delivered quicker.
We don't recommend the latter tweak for dial-up connections as this increases the number of packets which need to be resent.
Metrics and backlogs
You can further optimise your TCP settings by appending the following lines to the same text file:
net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save = 1
net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 2500
The top line speeds up connections by ensuring that TCP metrics are not saved for each individual packet. The second line dictates the backlog of packets allowed.
To give an idea of the scale of the figure you should use for your backlog, around 2,000 is recommended for wireless or older Ethernet connections, and around 5,000 for a 1GB Ethernet cable to broadband connection.
On the other hand, this figure can rise up to 30,000 for an expensive 10GB Ethernet cable. The slower the connection, the lower your backlog should be, as the aim of this tweak is to clear outstanding packets as soon as possible in order to boost connection speeds.
TCP window scaling
The TCP window settings define the minimum and maximum size of packets we can send and recieve. Dial-up users will see a speed boost with smaller packet sizes while broadband users will see a speed boost with larger packet sizes.
Edit /etc/sysctl.conf as root, and , append this:
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 10240 87380 16777216
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 10240 87380 16777216
net.ipv4.tcp_mem = 16777216 16777216 16777216
net.core.rmem_max = 16777216
net.core wmem_max = 16777216
Those figures are optimised for a 2Mbps connection on Sky broadband over a wireless connection, but the packet size recommendation for any given connection is usually maximum bandwidth divided by latency. You can find these figures by heading to www.speedtest.net, and you can also analyse how your changes are affecting your connection via www.speedguide.net:8080.
SPEED GUIDE: This online guide can give you an indication of which values and tweaks will improve your network connection
Continuing with the networking theme, you can optimise much more than just your TCP settings. Mozilla Firefox has a raft of options cunningly hidden from users that can untap the browser's potential…
Disable IPv6 (again!)
With this tweak we will simply amend an existing value. Type the following into the search bar:
network.dns.disableIPv6
You shouldn't have to type out the whole thing, as the listings change dynamically as you're typing. Simply double-click on the entry to change the default value of "False" to "True".
Render pages faster
Create a new integer value in about:config named content.notify.backoffcount and set the value to 5 so that Firefox won't wait for the entire page to download before rendering.
You can also create a value with the name nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set the value to zero. This ensures that Firefox doesn't wait for the page layout information to be fully downloaded before rendering.
Optimise your history
If you reduce the amount of web history that Firefox stores, it will load faster and also save you some disk space. Type the following in the search bar:
browser.history
and change browser.history_expires_days and browser.history_expires_min to zero. You can also use low numbers if you want to keep some browser history.
More TCP tweaks
Change the network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining values to "True" and then set network. http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8 instead of 4. These tweaks boost performance for broadband users as we use a TCP technique known as pipelining, which allows Firefox to make multiple requests on a single connection.
Speed up menus
Start by typing about:config and accepting the warning that comes up (you will need to do this for all these Firefox tips). The listing you see is much like the Firefox equivalent of the Windows registry, which means that though this is a very powerful way to tweak your browser you can cause serious stability problems if you get it wrong.
We can make our Firefox menus load faster by adding our own value to the listing. Right-click anywhere in the listing and then click New > Integer. Use ui.submenuDelay as the name and then set the value to zero.
When you restart Firefox you should notice that your menus load noticeably faster, as you have removed the delay for the menu popups.
BROWSER POWER: Any mistakes here could break Firefox, so once you've made a backup and a vow of honour you can unleash the power hidden in your browser
Almost all mature applications have options hidden away in the GUI that can boost their performance on your system, so if we've given you the tweaking bug there's plenty of scope for further experimentation.
Whether you're shaving a few seconds of boot time off OpenOffice.org or improving the backbone of your system, the applications that make up your Linux system are what it's all about.
The fastest mirror
Open a root terminal and type:
yum install yum-fastestmirror
This well-known Yum plugin ensures that you always download packages from the fastest mirror, which could save minutes on large distro downloads.
Avoid rechecking
Every time you update or install a package Yum has a tendancy to re-download all the metadata packages from each server, which isn't ideal for users with slow connections. You can resolve this by downloading the entire cache in one go and allowing Yum to then refer to this rather than the online sources.
Fire up a root terminal and type:
yum checkcache
We recommend you run this command at least once a week to keep the list up to date.
Faster OpenOffice.org
We often harp on about how slow OpenOffice.org is, but it doesn't have to be like that. With just one tweak you can remedy the problem, and with further alterations the latest OpenOffice.org can run on much older hardware.
So, before you ditch this office suite forever and use AbiWord and Gnumeric instead, try monkeying with the settings under Tools > Options > Memory to reduce the amount of RAM that OOo chews up.
One easy tweak here that we recommend is to reduce the number of undo steps from the default value of 100 to somewhere between 20 and 30. That way you use less memory than before but still gain the benefits of having an undo function.
Another thing you can do is to enable the Systray quick starter (in the bottom of the window). This enables you to keep an instance of OOo in the cache, so you can restart more quickly.
MEMORY HUNGRY: Make OOo more efficient in Tools > Options > Memory
Increase graphics cache
On systems with under 512MB RAM, use a graphics cache of between 32MB and 64MB, but for systems with 512MB or over we recommend a cache size of at least 128MB, as the additional memory will help large apps such as OOo run that little bit faster.
Remove items from memory
Also in the OpenOffice.org Memory dialog we can define how long OOo leaves things before refreshing its cache. On a system with 256MB RAM or less we recommend setting the refresh to 0:30 (every 30 minutes) as more frequent reloads will cause OOo to lock up or become sluggish. For users of higher-end systems, the 10-minute default is usually fine.
Clean out Yum
For peace of mind and more disk space it makes sense to ensure that Yum's cache doesn't contain any redundant packages. To do so, open a root terminal and type:
yum clean all
Ensure you run this before you do any other optimisations for Yum, as this operation will reset them.
Try Opera
It may only be free as in beer and not as in speech, but Opera is a lightweight and very capable alternative to Firefox that's fast enough already even without any optimisation tweaks. It integrates additional tools to handle mail, file sharing and even IRC chats.
The Opera community has developed thousands of skins and plugins, and with recent releases personal web space and even a personal web server have been included free of charge.
YOUR OWN SPACE: Opera has included some free web space and a web server with the latest edition
Install apt-fast
The apt-fast script can provide a huge speed boost to package management, as we use Axel as a drop-in replacement download manager for Aptitude rather than the traditional wget.
You will need to install Axel through Aptitude and then open a text-editor with root permissions and paste the shell code from here directly into the file. Then we recommend you save it as /usr/local/bin/apt-fast (no extension) and close the text editor before opening a root terminal and typing:
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/apt-fast
To use the script, try this as root:
apt-fast install packagename
…or simply use apt-fast update and apt-fast upgrade to update all your packages. The script may be slow in some cases, as the tweaks you made to Aptitude will not apply to the script, and Axel does not use Aptitude's cache.
Get a better download mirror
Head to System > Administration > Software Sources in Gnome and select Other from the drop-down menu next to Server Location. Then click Select Best Server and wait for the checks to finish. When this is finished, close the window and let your distro update its sources.
A common problem with this method is that the update window can freeze and go grey. (This is a known issue with older versions of Ubuntu.) This can be resolved by closing the window (using the Force Quit Gnome applet if necessary by right-clicking the panel and selecting Add to Panel) and then running Add/Remove Software to update the sources.
Halt Java
The JRE in OpenOffice.org is the main culprit for the slow startups. You don't need the JRE to run in a day to day environment, so you can safely disable it, and in the event you do need the JRE you can quickly re-enable it.
Simply head to Tools > Options and select Java in the left-hand box. To disable the JRE simply uncheck the box next to Use A Java Runtime Environment.
Remove old packages
Run this to remove orphaned dependancies with APT:
apt-get autoremove
and to remove all package files from the cache:
apt-get clean
Use autoclean rather than clean to remove old versions of packages. Make sure you're root!
Reduce history
By reducing the amount of history that opera keeps we can reduce the time it takes to initialise it and also curtail Opera reloading its history every five hours. This is achieved by heading to Tools > Preferences and clicking on the Advanced tab.
Select History from the left-hand side and then click Clear in the Addresses section. Then set the value as anything from 0 to 1,000, which will be considerably less than the default. You can also uncheck Remember Content On Visited Pages to save further disk space.
Hey Presto
Sometimes updates vary very little from their previous download, especially if it's just a bug fix. If you want to download only the changes, run this as root to install the Presto plugin for Yum:
yum install yum-presto
Disable name completion
Users with low-end systems may find that pictures and the auto-completing navigation bar in Opera can be a little sluggish at times. We can remedy the first issue by disabling Turbo, which pre-draws images before they are loaded.
Look in about:config for the Turbo Mode option in User Prefs, then uncheck it. To disable name completion, choose Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Network > Server name completion, then uncheck Look For Local Network Machine.
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Subscriptions earn Spotify at least آ£1 million a month
Spotify is raking in between آ£1 million to آ£6 million a month, according to research by law firm Pinsent Masons.
The figures have been revealed on the firm's website Out-law.com.
The research into the site's earning potential all stems from Spotify confirming to Out-law.com that it has 6 million users and the revelation that its subscription base hasn't hit 10 per cent yet but is in "six figures".
This is according to Spotify's Director of Content Niklas Ivarsson, who was speaking this week at a Scottish Society for Computers and Law (SCCL) event in Edinburgh.
Figuring it out
Doing some basic maths, Pinsent Masons now believes the website is earning up to آ£6 million a month from its subscribers, as it costs آ£9.99 for a subscription.
Spotify's business model of offering both free music with adverts and unlimited content through subscription has garnered vast amounts of interest, as it seems to be succeeding when the music industry is in dire straits.
Other Spotify-based revelations have come from the Guardian today. The newspaper has posted its thoughts on how much Spotify costs to run.
It believes that it costs the company on a monthly basis آ£126,000 to stream, آ£600,000 in music royalties and around آ£100,000 to host the site.
Whatever money changes hands to make the site work, it all makes for interesting food for thought the next time you use the service.
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Spotify to bring 'mobile offering' in near future
Spotify has signed a deal with Swedish telecoms firm Telia to bring its product onto a variety of platforms.
The two-year exclusive deal is designed to bring a cross-platform service, where subscribers will eventually get free Spotify access across their mobile phone, PC and TV.
Spotify has also told CNET that it's looking at putting the service on digital set-top boxes in the near future.
Mobile offering
The deal will also see Telia and Spotify bringing a 'mobile offering' in the coming months, although it's unclear what that could be.
The offering might be a simple application ported to mobiles in the same way the Android and iPhone apps work, or it could be a full Spotify-branded phone.
Given the rumours of INQ planning a similar device, the latter idea doesn't seem completely out of the question, leading to a similar business model to Nokia's Comes with Music.
Either way, it will be interesting to see how Spotify extends its service and if it can actually buck the trend of recent start-ups and actually make money.
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Gary Marshall: Why Apple doesn't care about Flash on iPhone
You can tell Adobe's a bit miffed by Steve Jobs' claim that Flash won't run on the iPhone: not only did the firm come up with a funny Mythbusters skit where they investigated the claims of "Steve in Cupertino" and proved them wrong, but chief technical officer Kevin Lynch suggested that Apple's playing a dangerous game.
Adobe's position is pretty clear: Apple's being rather obstructive, and Apple isn't the only smartphone firm in town.
The iPhone's good, but other phones are pretty good too – "The smartphone space is going to become quite diverse [with] a lot of excellent operating systems," Lynch says – and if Apple isn't careful, it's going to make the same mistakes it made in the bad old days.
Early days
"It's like the early days of PC computing; people who are playing well with others are those who are going to get the bigger share," Lynch points out. Apple innovated, but Windows got the market share.
We're inclined to agree, not least because sometimes we think Apple sees us as unruly toddlers who can't be trusted with our own iPhones.
But the bigger question is: does Apple care? Does Steve Jobs really worry about repeating history?
Our money's on no.
The problem with Adobe's argument is that Apple has a giant mountain made entirely of money, a mountain so big that mere words can't describe it.
That money is largely due to the very thing Adobe's talking about, Apple's refusal to chase market share.
Money is everything
From Apple's perspective, market share doesn't matter. It's money share that's important. That's why it isn't interested in netbooks, ultra-cheap PCs or licensing OS X. There's no money in it – and if there's one thing Apple really likes, it's money.
And in mobiles, the money's in iPhones. The lack of cut and paste and MMS didn't stop people buying iPhones, and the lack of Flash isn't stopping them either.
Adobe's Adrian Ludwig makes an interesting point – "We see about 3 million users of iPhones visit Adobe.com and request the Flash player on a monthly basis" – and we don't doubt that those millions would really like Flash to run on their phones, not just in the form of apps but within the browser.
But the thing is, those millions of people already own iPhones. They might resent being treated like toddlers, but Steve Jobs has already got their money.
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Dell launches latest ultra-thin netbook
Dell's new super slim Inspiron 11z netbook is the company's latest netbook, boasting an impressively slim form factor and notably improved battery life.
The Dell Inspiron 11z is also Dell's first CULV system in Europe, weighs in at just 1.4kg and is a paltry 25.8mm thin.
Dell's marketing message is that the new computer "combines the portability of a netbook with the capability of a laptop, and has all the ingredients to make it the ultimate stylish digital companion."
Specs wise, in addition to Intel's ultra-low voltage CULV processor, the Inspiron 11z comes with up to 4GB memory, an 'long battery life' (six hours claimed) and features a HD 1,366 x 768 resolution 11.6-inch screen – in addition to all the usual gubbins such as integrated Wi-Fi, 1.3 mega-pixel webcam, and hard drive space of up to 500GB.
Netbook meets laptop
"Since its initial launch with the The Carphone Warehouse in the UK in August, demand for a device that combines the portability of a netbook with the technical capabilities of a full sized laptop is clear," said Phil Bryant, VP and General Manager, Dell EMEA Consumer.
"Our Inspiron 11z is the perfect solution for users who cannot compromise on processing power but demand ultra-portability and style."
From آ£349 for the base model it seems like a decent package, if you are in the market for a stylish netbook – and Dell is also making them available in various colours including Obsidian Black, Alpine White, Flamingo Pink, New Cherry Red, Ice Blue, Jade Green, and Passion Purple.
For more on the new Inspiron 11z head over to dell.co.uk/inspiron
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LG launches Blu-ray home cinema system
LG has announced the arrival of its latest price of home cinema kit for the Blu-ray market – the HB954SP.
The surround sound system packs five satellite speakers and a subwoofer, and there's also some built-in amplification of 1000W. The HB954SP can also decode high-def audio to improve the experience on your ears.
Sound mode
When it comes to decoding, the HB954SP will sort out your Dolby Digital and DTS, and it will also playback Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.
As for the blu-ray system itself it's Profile 2.0, has direct access to YouTube and will upscale standard –def footage to 1080p. Connectivity comes in the form of two HDMI sockets.
There's also the addition of a sound gallery, where users can choose from seven options for sound. These include a night mode (or, as we like to call it, 'don't wake the missus' mode) where the bass can be turned off.
With pricing to be confirmed, the LG HB954SP has a release date of November. Go to www.lge.com/uk for more details.
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Mitsubishi shows off 155-inch OLED TV
Mitsubishi has shown off a new Diamond Vision OLED TV at CEATEC – and it's a whopper at 155 inches.
The company is touting it for outdoor use, helping to make advertising more visible and attractive.
The 155-inch screen Mitsubishi is slightly different to Sony and Samsung's OLED TV releases, in that the screen is made up from hundreds of OLEDs with a 3mm pitch as pixels.
Beating LED
Large LED screens work on the same principle, but OLEDs are able to create a higher overall resolution perception due to the way they're arranged.
But the main problems with OLEDs still exist in that the lifetime is only 20,000 hours, meaning around two and a half years of normal use.
This may be fine for some advertisers, but the technology will have to improve for OLEDs to become the ubiquitous outdoor display technology.
Check out the interview, and sit back and let Nobuo Terazaki talk you through the process:
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MSI announces Big Bang MoBo with THX tech
MSI has announced its next generation 'Big Bang' gaming motherboard – and it's the first to carry THX TruStudio PC audio technology.
According to MSI, Big Bang is the first ever mobo to implement THX TruStudio PC with Creative EAX advanced HD 5.0 audio technology.
What does that actually mean? Well THX TruStudio PC provides a whole of host of audio tech from the brains at both THX and Creative.
"Together, these technologies deliver the fullest audio experience for music, movies and games, while remaining true to the intention of the artists who created it," adds MSI.
Gaming enthusiasts
"Creative, as many know, is a range of audio products specifically designed and co-developed with the world's most prolific gaming enthusiasts," said MSI Marketing Director Jason Lee.
"As a leading motherboard manufacturer, MSI is proud to become the world's first to include their most advanced THX TruStudio PC & Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 audio technology into our upcoming gaming line called Big Bang.
"We consider Creative to be the best gaming audio provider worldwide and believe our co-operation will redefine the listening experience among the gaming community."
Lucas aid
THX is, of course, best known as part of George Lucas' empire, and the brand is pushing to become more relevant in the gaming market.
"We are thrilled to extend the THX TruStudio PC technology to gaming systems featuring MSI Big Bang motherboards," said Mitch Gelman, chief operating officer at THX Ltd.
"THX TruStudio PC lets gamers realise the sonic detail and impact of in-game sound elements as they are captured by game developers in the mixing studio. Whether you are listening to multi-channel games or stereo-based digital music, THX TruStudio PC elevates your entertainment experience."
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GeoCities users given their final notice
GeoCities has been given its final notice, with the website officially closing 26 October. Although the announcement of the date had been given back in June, it's only now that GeoCities users are receiving official closure emails.
The end for GeoCities, the free website hosting service, has been a long time coming, with the death-knell originally sounding back in April. At the time it was announced that no more registrations were being taken.
In its hey-day, the site was the breeding ground for web developers, giving people their first chance at making websites on their own.
Web hosting
David Bohnett and John Rezner created the site back in 1994, but then it was part of a high-profile takeover when Yahoo bought the site for $2 billion in 1999.
On the site's homepage, there is a Q&A page giving reasons for the closure. But instead of being a poignant farewell to the myriad users, it's merely an advert for Yahoo's other web-hosting service, aptly called Web Hosting.
The last user count of GeoCities was back in March of this year, where the site still had 11.5 million unique users.
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amBX to turn your house into a games machine
Philips' amBX technology project was spun off into an independent company late in 2008, with the company's new MD explaining how the lighting and fan peripherals for gaming are set to arrive in your living rooms very soon.
We've not heard much on the plans for the future of amBX tech since Philips' labs sold the company last year, but the latest promise of new immersive gaming technology to enhance our console experience in the lounge has certainly piqued our interest.
amBX CEO Neil MacDonald explains why he took on the project from Philips, telling GamesIndustry.biz that he and his team (now totally independent from Philips) have "demonstrated to the [games] industry that we're totally committed to taking amBX to games in a way that the industry really can benefit."
MacDonald goes on to explain that "the grand strategy for world domination by amBX includes us not just going to gaming and lighting," in that they are also "thinking about cinema, we're thinking about movies, we're thinking about music and TV – and we're thinking ultimately about home automation, when every house has LED lighting."
Turn houses into games
The amBX CEO is also keen to turn our whole houses into games machines – though admittedly adding that this is still "a few years away, but we know we've got the capabilities in amBX, the technology and a way it can be used that will deliver that."
MacDonald is keen to see amBX developed for consoles, building on the work already done in the PC space.
"We are already licensed for PlayStation, and we've embarked on that process with Xbox. It's all with a view to having – hopefully – consumer products moving into the market at the end of 2010, early 2011, that are amBX, to enhance the whole console experience."
In addition to improving your gaming experience, the company also hopes to introduce amBX tech that gives you a better movie and TV viewing experience.
Interestingly, as well as working with gaming peripherals specialists Mad Catz, amBX is working with rumble-controller tech specialists Immersion Inc on "a joint development kit, which also uses Immersion effects – so again, it's a commitment to making this easier and better for the industry to adopt so that developers and publishers see a real benefit from it."
Fully immersive 3D gaming with wind and lighting effects on aconsole? Yes please!
TechRadar will be sure to bring you more on amBX tech developments in the coming months.
Related Links
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Video Guide: Control your PC remotely with Windows Live Mesh
Forget all the VNC applications that require a static IP address and forget the pay-for services. Windows Live Mesh is a free service from Microsoft that makes remote access and control of your PC incredibly simple.
Scott Ewart from PCAnswers magazine shows you how.
Watch more PC tweaking and fixing video tutorials over on PCAnswers' YouTube channel.
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BlackBerry Storm 2 spotted in UK store
The forthcoming BlackBerry Storm 2 handset is set to launch in the UK in the near future, and new photos seem to back that up.
An eagle-eyed photographer snapped an early display showing off the phone in The Carphone Warehouse and posted it onto Twitter, although it's just a pre-promotional picture at the moment.
There's not a lot else known about the new BlackBerry Storm 2 right now, other than it will have 18GB onboard storage (16GB memory card, 2GB inbuilt) and will run the latest BlackBerry OS.
Train to gain
But thankfully a training video has emerged on the internet detailing the device, so check it out for yourself to learn all about the new Storm.
The good news is that typing is set to be easier on the new Storm after the failure of the original, and RIM has taken the phone back to the drawing board and made it a lot faster too.
We're looking forward to checking out the latest model later this year, especially after we were left so disappointed by the original Storm – can RIM make a keyboard-less BlackBerry work?
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Review: Philips 37PFL9604
To be honest, we didn't really want to like the Philips 37PFL9604. With its آ£1,200 price tag, it's easily one of the costliest TVs for its size, so we felt it would be a bit predictable if it was also the best.
However, the 37PFL9604 has turned out to be so blatantly superior that any concerns about predictability have given way to puppy love.
The 37PFL9604 sets about the seemingly Herculean task of justifying its price right away, having an extremely eye-catching design. Part of its appeal is down to the unusual combination of solid aluminium and charcoal grey in its bezel.
Light fantastic
The rest comes from Philips' Ambilight system, which sees coloured light sympathetic to the colour content of the picture spilling from the TV's left and right sides.
Further confirmation of this 37-incher's premium nature can be found in the connections: five HDMIs take the connections standard to a new level only seen on premium sets.
Also noteworthy is a USB port able to handle an astonishing variety of file formats, including – deep breath – AAC LC; MP3; AC3; LPCM; .alb slideshow files; JPEGs; GIFs; PNGs; MPEG1/2/4; AVI H.264/ MPEG4 AVC; and WMV9/VC1.
The 37PFL9604 can play the same file types from a DLNA-certified PC, either wirelessly, via a built-in Wi-Fi system, or courtesy of its Ethernet port.
Even better, the last two connection options can also be used to access the depths of the internet.
Unlike the online services of any other TV brand, the 37PFL9604's package includes a full web browser alongside some really nice 'home' content specially formatted for TV navigation.
Best of all is the killer app: Philips' Perfect Pixel HD video processing engine. With its silky smooth Perfect Natural Motion element and ability to handle 500 million pixels per second, this is arguably the most powerful picture processing system available on a mainstream TV.
Picture perfect
In full swing, this Philips' high-definition pictures are jaw-dropping. Fine detailing is peerless; colours are among the boldest and most accurate we've seen; motion handling is amazingly fluid and crisp (with Perfect Natural Motion engaged, obviously) and black levels are exceptionally profound by LCD's standards.
Perhaps even more exceptional, though, is the standard-definition performance. The amount of sharpness and detail the Perfect Pixel HD engine adds to a humble DVD or Freeview broadcast has to be seen to be believed.
What's more, Perfect Pixel HD delivers its dramatic effects without generating nearly as many processing side effects as earlier Philips processing engines.
As if all this wasn't enough, the 37PFL9604 also sounds superb, with far more power, clarity and dynamic range than any of its rivals. The 37PFL9604's high price forces to us look exceptionally hard for problems, but, aside from a slightly limited viewing angle, all we could come up with is the fact that the TV is unusually labour intensive.
You have to regularly revisit things like the noise reduction, Natural Motion and 100Hz settings to keep getting the best picture quality. That said, it's a very minor concern – and one that scarcely detracts from the overall brilliance of this full HD gem.
Give it the attention it truly deserves, however, and the 37PFL9604 really delivers a masterclass in what LCD technology is capable of.
Related Links
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Steve Jobs doesn't know what the iPhone can do, says Adobe
Adobe has brought Flash to the iPhone, at least for standalone apps, without any help from Apple – after Steve Jobs famously declared last spring that Flash ran too slowly to be usable on the iPhone.
Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch mocked the situation at the MAX conference in a MythHackers video skit with Adobe senior VP Johnny Loiacono.
Lynch read out a letter from "Steve in Cupertino", saying "it's not possible to run Flash on the iPhone" and the pair then proceeded to test the myth using a blender, high voltage, a steamroller, high explosives and finally the Adobe engineering team – before showing off standalone Flash apps running on the iPhone.
Flash Product Marketing Manager Adrian Ludwig contrasted Apple's lack of co-operation with the other smartphone companies who have joined Adobe's Open Screen project: "With all the other partners we're working with, we're getting very strong support in getting hardware level co-operation to get the performance and playback on these devices."
NO FLASH: I don't believe it; the lack of Flash puzzles the Adobe MythHackers
Although he admitted that "there's also some hardware work that would be required to get the performance that people expect", he claimed the main problem was not performance but licensing and access.
"Just-in-time compilation is specifically forbidden in Apple licences and there's a restriction on runtime interpretation of code. And in order to run in the browser, we need Apple to support the APIs," said Ludwig.
"We need Apple's co-operation to integrate Flash in Safari," Ludwig added, "and we hope we can do that over time."
HERE GOES: The first attempt to integrate Flash with the iPhone; will it blend?
He emphasised end-user desire for Flash: "We see about 3 million users of iPhones visit adobe.com and request the Flash player on a monthly basis".
But CTO Lynch delivered a subtle warning that Apple is no longer the only smartphone game in town: "The smartphone space is going to become quite diverse; there are going to be a lot of excellent operating systems."
FLASH ON IPHONE: A Flash game – running on the iPhone
Lynch also suggested Apple can't afford to repeat past mistakes by being too proprietary. "It's like the early days of PC computing; people who are playing well with others are those who are going to get the bigger share. The Mac introduced the mouse into the mainstream but it didn't get the share of the marketplace. Windows came along and got a lot of share, mainly by playing well with others. It's like watching the movie again and interestingly it's many of the same players."
Watch the full skit below:
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Interview: Jay Leno talks cars
One of the most famous men in the world, Jay Leno was host of NBC's The Tonight Show from 1992 to earlier this year, at his peak pulling in over 5 million viewers every night. He's also famed for spending a lot of his hard-earned money on the best cars and motorbikes ever made. Come, join us on a tour of his spacious and well-lit garage.
I worked at car dealerships when I was a kid. I worked for Mercedes Benz, Bentley and Rolls Royce, but then I realised I was never going to be able to buy one of them working for them, so I went into show business. That pays for the cars.
I love working on the motorbikes, it's fun. That's the nice thing about the vintage bikes, you can actually work on them. As an owner you can't do anything on a modern bike, except change the battery maybe, but with an old bike you have to earn your horsepower. With the Vincents you can change a carburettor, and I have a really nice 1958 Gold Star that I really, really enjoy riding. I like bikes that are fun between 50 and 80mph; modern bikes are only fun between 90mph and 120mph, and then you end up in prison.
I have a lot of bikes because if I fall off I have another one to ride until it gets fixed. I'm not worried about myself; it's all a myth that you get hurt.
I have the record for the oldest vehicle to be done for speeding in. It was a 1906 Stanley Steamer – 75mph on a freeway. I'm kind of proud of that. It was fun, especially considering the engine is steam-powered and makes about 10bhp. But that's what I mean, 75mph on a Steamer feels like you're doing 200mph in a McLaren.
I must have more money than brains [Jay recently bought a $150,000 Y2K helicopter turbine-engined motorbike]. But the funny thing about the turbine bike is that you drive it somewhere and it shuts the Harley guys up. They say, "What's that Japanese thing?" then you fire it up and they just sort of back away, which makes it fun. The power delivery is so smooth and linear, and it's all at the other end. You crack the throttle open at 60mph and it just pulls. It pulls 60-150mph way harder than from 0-60mph.
I start another show in September, but before that I've promised my wife that I'll take her out for an evening meal. It will be the first time in almost 17 years.
To see the full extent of Leno's collection go to www.jaylenosgarage.com. Warning: extreme jealousy may occur…
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Review: Panasonic TX-L37G10
While plasma remains very much the core of Panasonic's TV business, the brand has had to bow to the inevitable and embrace LCD. Given its relatively high price tag, though, we can't help but wonder if the TX-L37G10 has anything more going for it than the much cheaper 37-inch Panasonic plasma.
There's certainly nothing particularly earth-shattering about its looks. The simple black finish and medium-chunky lines could belong to any cheap and cheerful TV these days.
Things look up considerably with the connections, though. As well as a healthy four HDMIs, there's an SD card slot capable of playing video, as well as JPEG files and a satellite input.
This latter is included because the L37G10 is one of Panasonic's Freesat TVs.
The TX-L37G10 is one of the only TVs to boast a built-in HD Freesat tuner, making it instantly more attractive to a certain type of buyer – and going some way to justifying the set's slightly high price.
Naturally, its also carries Freeview and analogue tuners, thus covering all the UK's current no-subscription broadcasting options.
Finding your way through all the Freesat channels is made pretty easy by a solid, if not quite inspired, electronic programme guide.
Arguably of more interest is the set's video processing, chiefly comprising Panasonic's V-Real Pro and Intelligent Frame Creation tools.
The key achievement of V-Real is its ability to produce a large 800 lines of motion resolution, while IFC interpolates extra frames of image data to make motion look sharper and less juddery.
Keeping it V-Real
In some ways, the TX-L37G10's pictures are very likeable. Colours, for instance, are extremely rich and dynamic, while also enjoying both natural tones and some really fine blends – a result, we suspect, of the quality of the V-Real engine.
HD pictures look exceptionally sharp on the full HD screen, too, be they from Blu-ray or the Freesat tuner's HD channels, while the V-Real system also ensures that standard-definition images look enjoyably clean and crisp.
The IFC processing certainly helps motion look sharp and fluid, without generating too many distracting side effects – provided that you only leave it set to its low rather than medium or high levels.
The TX-L37G10 even scores a coup over a large number of LCD TVs by being watchable from a really wide angle before colours and contrast start to reduce, thanks to its IPS Alpha screen design.
Only one thing lets this TV's pictures down: black level response. Dark movie scenes or TV series definitely betray those tell-tale signs of grey mistiness and missing shadow detail that have so long been a part of the flat TV experience, but which some rival TVs seem to have conquered at last.
The TX-L37G10's black level response isn't shockingly bad by any means – it's certainly good enough to give pictures containing a mixture of light and dark content plenty of punch.
But in an environment as competitive as today's 37in market, any significant picture flaw is enough to prevent even an otherwise good screen from earning a best buy badge. Especially when that set is relatively expensive and doesn't have particularly awe-inspiring sound, either.
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Sony unveils colourful CW Vaio series
Sony has announced yet another update to its Vaio range with the CW series, coming with HD multimedia functionality and a variety of colours.
The new range comes with a Blu-ray drive on board, as well as an HDMI output, and to improve the HD capability further there's also an NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M GPU supplied.
Sony is tipping this range as having "chic looks and powerful, easy-to-use features," and to that end will be offering blue, pink, red and white versions of the CW Vaio.
Calm, muted and colour graduated
It also apparently has inside a "calm, muted interior, accented by a colour-graduated palm rest," although it just looks like a keyboard to us.
The screen isn't too shabby either: a 14-inch, 16:9 widescreen effort with LED backlighting for good contrast ratio and power reduction.
Sony is tipping the notebook to come with either 320GB or 500GB of HDD storage, so there will always be enough room to store your content.
The CW Series will be available from 22 October, although there's no word on pricing as yet.
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CEATEC 2009: Futuristic Cell and 3D TVs dominate Japan's top tech show
The future of television has gone on view at CEATEC, Japan's top AV show.
Within the halls of the Makuhari Messe convention center, in Chiba City, the world's biggest TV brands have unveiled a (surprisingly) unified vision of tomorrow's TV tech, giving a tantalizing glimpse at the futuristic treats we have in store.
And it's clear that the majority don't see hi-def 3D as a flash in the pan...
Both Sony and Panasonic are jostling for prime position on the 3D sofa, with the latter looking to secure an early lead when it comes to launching screens.
3D will be 'affordable'
Panasonic's CEATEC booth features the first 50inch plasma panel fully-compatible with the upcoming 3D Blu-ray standard. Unlike existing 3D technology, this can deliver 1080p resolution to each eye.
The prototype utilizes new phosphor technology for 'real deep black and unsaturated brightness,' and employ proprietary 3D drive technology circuitry to minimize crosstalk between alternating images. While Panasonic wouldn't be drawn on prices for the new screen, it stressed that the price premium for 3D would not be excessive, and that models should be 'affordable'. Panasonic's Mayuki Kozuka explained: 'We are targeting volume so [the technology] wouldn't be that expensive.'
Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo used his opening keynote speech to stress that 'Panasonic will continue to be at the leading edge for the industry', as well as emphasising his company's focus on ecology: 'The 21st century needs a great revolution to realise sustainable growth and break our dependence on oil. Eco will be the centre of all our activities. We will implement business practices that minimise environmental impact.'
The Sony vision
Sony has eight 3D prototype screens on display at CEATEC, vaguely promising commercial introductions sometime 2010. Sony's pro-division also unveiled a new 240frame/sec high frame rate single lens 3D camera, which promises to bring original 3D programme creation within the grasp of more TV producers, as well as the new SRX-R220 4K digital cinema projector, which incorporates RealD's 3D digital cinema system.
New OLED screens were notable by their absence at the show. Although Sony displayed a prototype 2.5inch flexible OLED screen with 0.2mm thinness that incorporates a flexible organic thin film transistor to drive the display. This Flex OLED screen has a resolution of 160x120 pixels and could be used for personal media players or e-paper applications.
Introducing Cell TV
In many ways, the most interesting next-generation TV at CEATEC is being touted by Toshiba. Its Cell TV, the 50-inch Cell Regza 55X1, goes on sale in December with a launch price of around a million yen. At the heart of the screen is a version of the Cell chip popularized by the PS3. Co-developed with IBM and Sony, it's able to display and record eight hi-def channels simultaneously.
Toshiba says: 'The CELL Platform achieves an arithmetic processing capability approximately 143 times that of our current top-of-the-line REGZA TV, allowing it to support unrivaled image-enhancing capabilities.'
With 3TB of storage onboard, there's plenty of room for all that time-shifted TV. The set itself has a dynamic contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1, and has an LED backlight with local dimming (this divides the images into 512 areas for precise control). The set also promises 'Self-congruency', which Toshiba describes as 'a dedicated process that improves image quality at the edge of the picture.'
Interestingly enough, the screen also has an advanced upscaler for making the most of internet-delivered video. An evolution on the XDE image processing tech seen in its high-end DVD line, this promises to make even YouTube look respectable.
The brand also demonstrated a 3D version of the cell TV platform, running on a 4K (3,840 x 2,160) panel.
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Sony Vaio L-Series is all-in-one touchscreen
Sony has announced the Vaio L series all-in-one PC, bringing Blu-ray and a 24-inch touchscreen to take advantage of Windows 7.
The Vaio L Series – which has a UK release date of 22 October, the same day as Microsoft's Windows 7 – is the first touchscreen Vaio all-in-one.
"The highlight of the Vaio L Series is the big, beautiful 24-inch widescreen X-black LCD with Multiple Lamp Technology for a crystal-clear view of your photos, camcorder clips, movies on Blu-ray Disc and more, all in full HD," says Sony's release.
Touchscreen
"In a first for Vaio, the stunning display is also an ultra-high resolution touchscreen that takes full advantage of the new features in Windows 7.
"It's never been more easy – or more fun – to explore and navigate through documents and applications with simple gestures… and no mouse or keyboard needed."
Drilling down into the actual specs, there are two flavours of the L-series: the Sony Vaio VPC-L11M1E/S and the more powerful Vaio VPC-L11S1E/S.
Specifications
The headlining Sony Vaio VPC-L11S1E/S brings a 3Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 500GB HDD, Blu-ray and a DVB-T television tuner.
The lower specc'ed VPC-L11M1E/S has no Blu-ray or DVB-T and a less powerful E7500 2.93 GHz processor.
We're still waiting for confirmation of UK price for both of the Sony Vaio L-series PCs, but expect it to make a sizeable dent in your wallet.
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