Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"I really don't have too many nice things to say about the iriver T7. Even if you were to ignore the fact that it has more bugs than any other player I've seen (something that might after all be fixed in firmware updates), it's still so ridiculously slow that you can take a nap between the time you press a button and the thing actually responds. The battery draining issue is another thing, if that's not just my player then iriver has a serious problem. With the exception of the USB plug/MSC mode combo, the player has very little going for it. It has basically the exact same specs as any other small player like this and when a set of players cost the same and have the same features, there is no room whatsoever for a poorly designed competitor like this. So is the player worth your consideration? No."

Looks like iRiver dropped the ball here. I'll go on record that I liked the brown Zune, but this player is pretty ugly. The one redeeming characteristic is the built in USB connector, but certainly not enough to offset the rest.

"Creative Technology Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products, today introduced the Creative ZEN® Mozaic portable media player for music, photos and video. Inspired by the artistic expressions of mosaic art, the Creative ZEN Mozaic, available in vivid pink, chic black or cool silver colour, is a bold design statement that reflects the user's sense of fashion and individual style. Attractively priced at S$99.00 for a 2GB model (for up to 1,000 songs*) and S$129.00 for a 4GB model (for up to 2,000 songs*), the Creative ZEN Mozaic lets users flaunt their style, while grooving to their favourite tunes, or enjoying their photos and music videos anytime, anywhere. The Creative ZEN Mozaic comes complete with an impressive built-in speaker, vibrant 1.8-inch LCD colour screen, FM radio and voice recorder. Weighing just 43g and measuring 79.5mm x 40mm x 12.8mm, the super compact Creative ZEN Mozaic provides up to 32 hours of audio playback with a single charge of the battery. Also available at a later date are 8GB and 16GB models."

I'm not sure what I think of the design. I'm betting reactions will be polarized between love it and hate it. I really like the built in speaker, but think that the memory sizes are a bit small. When I looked at the pictures before reading the press release, I thought Creative was actually releasing a phone as the placement of the buttons made me think instantly of a keypad. If your interested in seeing beyond the press release, check out the World Exclusive First Look.

"If it fits the bill for what you're looking for, the second-gen Drobo is still our favorite home and prosumer storage device in this class. The new interface and speed increases are easy to appreciate, but even if you trade those in for slower access over a network-attached DroboShare, you still stand to take advantage its forthcoming DroboApps and unusually simple auto-mounting system. And running four hot 7200 RPM drives -- which should be fairly high up on the device's thermal envelope -- the new model is indeed noticeably quieter than its predecessor, even despite the unfortunate loss of the previous model's jet engine exhaust motif. Dropping $500 on a device with no included drives (or even network access) is still pretty tough to swallow for many buyers, but the benefits of having a dynamically expandable, redundant, easy to manage storage pool are still as strong an incentive as ever to be a little spendy -- if not on a Drobo, than perhaps on a ReadyNAS with X-RAID. It's your data, after all, so treat it right."

If you are looking for the top end of external attached storage and are willing to bring your own drives, it looks like this should be on your short list. However, I will concur with the reviewer that they really need to add built-in network connectivity. You can pick one up at Amazon (Affiliate) for $349.

Only my slightly crazy friend Stephen Hughes would try something like this: taking the HP HDX9200 (a.k.a. THe Dragon) to a local coffee shop and set it up to do some work. It was certainly an attention getter, that's for sure! This is the most detailed review of this product that I've seen, so if you're thinking about purchasing this laptop, give it a good read. In my own time with it, I found it to be an extremely powerful and fast machine, and the screen was nothing short of glorious. You're paying more for the integration of all that hardware than you would if you bought a desktop and a screen that size, so this type of computer is really aimed at someone who needs a top-end computer and the ability to move it from place to place: wedding photographers, video editors, live recordings, etc. Or, really, if you're someone who has money to burn and likes busting out the biggest and baddest mobile computer at at LAN party - this thing has your name written all over it.

The price has come down a bit since we did the 31 Days of the Dragon giveaway, and you can get the basic configuration for $1399 USD with a respectable 2.1 Ghz CPU, 2 GB RAM, and two 120 GB hard drives - but that configuration lacks the 1920 x 1200 screen. The fully-loaded, take no prisoners configuration will run you about $4000 USD - but what a laptop!

"If this is going to be the overall message of Microsoft's much-vaunted new $300 million ad campaign, it might be money well spent. According to the folks at LiveSide, the first ads in the new campaign were previewed at Microsoft's employees-only Global Exchange conference last week to rave reviews. As Tim Anderson astutely noted the other day, "Vista is now actually better than its reputation. That's a marketing issue." Microsoft's biggest challenge is to get would-be customers to set aside whatever preconceptions they have and listen to its pitch for Vista. Aligning its most vocal Vista critics with the Flat Earth Society is a clever way to get people's attention."

I don't know about you, but when I talk to people about Windows Vista, in almost every case they have no reason for disliking it or upgrading to it beyond "Well...I heard it sucked!". There's certainly a hardware issue with some people, but I'm often amazed at the craptastic hardware people use to run Windows XP - like the Dell Dimension 2400 with 256 MB of RAM I saw last month. Yikes! The above ad is apparently not a part of the official campaign, but I like the tone of it - pointing out that perceptions aren't always reality.

"StumbleAudio is a social music discovery site with a mission is to help you find music by new and exciting artists that you would like, rather than play or sell you the hits by known artists that you are “expected” to love. Our catalog has over 2,000,000 tracks by over 120,000 artists ready to be played in full length, high quality, free of charge. StumbleAudio started to build its recommendation engine by importing massive anonymous data of saved favorites, music preferences and buying patterns from several online download and actual music CD stores. As you use StumbleAudio the system learns from your “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” and constantly adjusts the music offered to your liking. We are committed to making our recommendation engine more accurate and relevant as we collect more real use data. We will also soon have various social network applications and widgets to share you music discoveries with your friends on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and others."

It really is true that there are tons of music recommendation engines out there. I have been using Pandora or Last.fm so far. However, this mainly works with artists signed up with major labels. StumbleAudio connects you with a number of independent artists as well. The web service uses a music recommendation image engine much like the other sites. But all of the artists are independent acts, which means they're either unsigned or signed to smaller labels. Also, it is really easy to try and see how the service works, and it seemed to do a pretty good job. I tried 'U2' and got several artists that I had never heard of before but sounded quite nice. Give it a try.

"The Acer Aspire One is now available from U.S. retailers including Amazon.com, Buy.com, NewEgg.com and many others. If you’re thinking of buying an ASUS Eee PC 901, MSI Wind or an HP 2133 you should definitely take a look at the Acer Aspire One. Acer boasts that the Aspire One can run for up to seven hours on an optional six-cell battery, which is very impressive for such an affordable notebook. The Acer Apire One features Intel’s Atom, which is designed specifically for small mobile devices. It has an 8.9-inch display with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels and an integrated Web cam. Available in three models, the Acer One is available with either Windows XP Home or Linux operating systems."

At not too much more than I paid for the original Eee, this looks like a hit. I especially like the available extended battery. I will be upgrading to something with an 8.9 inch screen in the near future, but I'm holding out for the new Dell since rumor is it will be priced at $299. If you can't wait, you can pick this up from Amazon (Affiliate) now.

"Think of the Spartans at Thermopylae (the movie 300 was over the top, but makes the point): They were the best trained (highest quality) solders of their time and while they eventually got their butts kicked, they took on a vastly larger force and held them for a prolonged period. They didn't do it by going man to man; they did it by focusing on quality over quantity. You might think of this as another way of saying focus, but it is more than that. It is setting a quality mark higher than your competitor is willing to set - and making the market understand that quality. Think about it: Does Apple compete on price or do they compete on perceived quality? Often, we define products by performance, but there are other measures that are often more important. We don't, for instance, all drive cars with big V8s. Toyota beat GM and Ford not by having more cars, more lines, or more resources. They beat them by having better gas mileage and better quality at similar prices."

Man-who-is-everywhere-online Rob Enderle has a four-step plan for AMD to beat Intel. He has some good concepts, but the hard part is coming up with the product that matches the concept. It's one thing to say "focus on quality, not quantity", but it's quite another to come up with a product that's higher-quality than what Intel has to offer. One of the ways AMD could compete on quality would be to partner with a motherboard manufacturer and optimize the hell out of the board when used in conjunction with an AMD CPU. A few weeks back I swapped motherboards and put a new ASUS motherboard (an M3A78-EMH HDMI) in to partner up with my AMD 6400+ X2 CPU, and it was a complete and utter disaster - I'm still too upset to write about it. Everything worked (mostly) but the performance was atrocious. Actually, no, it was atrocious multiplied by pathetic...squared. If there was a motherboard with properly tuned chipset drivers that would work great with the AMD processor I had, I would have bought it.

[The product photo above says "Up to 2000" photos, but on the package I was sent (also a 5 disc pack) it says "Up To 10,000 Photos Per 5 Pack".]

Product Category: Software
Manufacturer: HP
Where to Buy: HP.com
Price: $14.99 USD
System Requirements: The software will work on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000. DVD-R burner.

Pros:

• Extremely simple-to-use software;
• Backs up 10,000 photos per package;
• Affordable at $15 per package.
  

Cons:

• Limited to 20,000 photos total (two SimpleSave Photo packs), no option for backing up more automatically;
• Restore doesn't put the photos and videos back in their original location, making it confusing for beginners who need to restore.
  

Summary:
HP sent me a backup product a few months ago that serves a very specific need, and does so quite well. The sad truth is that most people don't back up their personal information off their computers, and when hard drives fail (and they do) or a virus strikes, people lose information. A decade ago, the average consumer might have lost their email and perhaps important documents. Now, in the age of everything digital, there's much more to lose: photos, music, videos, documents, and much more. HP's SimpleSave Photo aims to fix the photo and video part of that equation by providing an incredibly simple system for novice and expert computer users alike for backing up their photos. Read more...

"Panasonic announced four new additions to its Lumix point-and-shoot line of digital cameras. The top-end model is the Lumix DMX-LX3 that will debut in August for $499.95. The LX3 offers all of the convenience of a point-and-shoot camera along with a wide-range of manual controls for creative shots. The LX3 has a 10.1-megapixel CCD and uses a F2.0 ultra wide-angle LECIA DC VARIO-SUMMICRON lens. ISO settings can go as high as ISO 6400 in high sensitivity mode and the camera can shoot full resolutions bursts at 2.5 shots per second and at lower resolutions in High-Speed burst mode at six shots per second. The camera also features a 3-inch LCD and has the ability to shoot video. Other features include image stabilization, red-eye correction, intelligent scene selector, face detection and quick AF. Those looking for a higher megapixel count will like the Lumix FX150 with a 14.7-megapixel CCD and a 28, wide-angle LECIA DC VARIO-ELMARIT lens."

Very nice line-up from Panasonic, we'll have to wait for the reviews to see how they actually perform. I am especially curious about the Lumix FX37 digital camera which features 10.1-megapixels and can shoot video in HD resolution. The camera’s lens is a 25mm ultra wide-angle LECIA DC unit and features a 5x digital zoom which effectively means it has a 25mm-125mm range. That seems pretty nice considering the price tag of just under $350.