Displaying posts tagged with gadget.

iPhone

Besides the end-of-year bonus from my work, the tax administration office also decided they owed me some money. So I got myself an iPhone 3G today in Belgium, since they’re simlock free there. I still have a contract that won’t expire untill the summer, and besides, I don’t like to be limited in my choice of provider when buying a phone.

Anyway, I have more or less wanted an iPhone since the 3G was announced, it — the financial support that is ;) — just never came up before. I got the white 16 GB model. It would be ridiculous to go for the 8 GB version, because my iPod touch is filled with almost 7 GiB of music already. As for the color, well, I just think white looks better. Don’t know why.

Speaking of that iPod touch, I haven’t got a clue as to its fate. It seems pretty superfluous now. It’s backside is way too scratched to sell it to anyone. So I think I’ll just keep it around, maybe jailbreak it and turn it into a glorified touch pad for my iMac. :P

I didn’t bother to post a picture this time. I can’t imagine anyone surfing the web and never having seen a picture of an iPhone before.

24 Jan 2009
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Meet Dopey

Dopey is a newborn robot Camarasaurus. That’s right, I got myself a Pleo. :P Not a Xmas present (otherwise I’d have unpacked it too soon), the timing is purely coincidental. It has actually more to do with the fairly generous end-of-year bonus from my work, in spite of the financial crisis. :P

So Dopey has just “hatched” and has gone through his “infant” stage, meaning he’s gotten to know himself and explored his surroundings a bit. After playing around for an hour or so, he got tired and fell asleep (in technical terms, his battery ran dry). So it’s recharging now. After that, he’s supposed to be a juvenile with a Peter Pan-complex, meaning he’ll be a juvenile for the rest of his life. Kinda sweet come to think of it, since juvenile creatures tend to be the most adorable. :)

Here’s a short (1:39 min, 9.4 MiB) video of Dopey discovering the edge of a table:

a picture of a Pleo robot dinousaur

Dopey on the edge (video)

I also made some photos during the hatching and infant stages.

I’m not sure how attached I could get to what is after all merely an emotionless machine, but it is certainly an interesting creature that does a fair job of imitating those emotions. And it is programmable, so I might get inclined to hack it soon. :P

By the way, Dopey doesn’t make any sounds in the video (except for the motor noises) because I must have inadvertently pushed the mute button. Dopey is definitely more than able to produce sound. ;)

24 Dec 2008
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New mobile phone

My mobile phone — a Nokia N73 — was having some issues after it took a fall on hard concrete, most annoying of which was the fact that it would spontaneously switch off for no apparent reason. So it became time for a new one.

Last week Friday, I placed an order, and after some trouble with my package being lost, my new Nokia N82 finally arrived last Thursday. Man, is that thing sweet. :)

Some of its key features are UMTS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 5 megapixel camera with xenon flash and of course you can use it to make phone calls. :D This is what the beast looks like:

a picture of a Nokia N82 cell phone

Nokia N82

After using it for two days, the thing I noticed the most is that it is lots faster than my old N73. That one always felt a little sluggish, but not the N82. It feels very responsive, most apps launch almost instantaneous.

The number keys that I read so much about in reviews are acually kinda nice. They are rather small, but their spacing makes it almost impossible to mistype. Granted, it takes some getting used to, but don’t criticize them if you haven’t tried them yourself.

Haven’t used the camera much. But as far as I can tell, it takes excellent pictures for a phone camera, even indoors thanks to its xenon flash.

I haven’t really made a trip using the GPS yet, but it usually finds a fix pretty damn quickly, even indoors. The maps applications seems to do a decent job. The phone came with a 90-day navigation trial, so we’ll see how it performs on the go.

So far, I’m very happy with this new gadget. It might even replace my Palm T|X as my navigation device, if the Nokia Maps application does a good job. Will have to find some other use for that thing then, like letting it run Linux just for fun. :)

31 May 2008
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iPod touch

Last weekend, I got myself a 16 GB iPod touch. Managed to get a nice rebate on it. They look a bit like the incredibly over-hyped iPhone, but without the chrome rim and about half as thin. That’s only a mere 8 mm. It’s a good thing it feels quite sturdy, otherwise I’d be seriously concerned about snapping it in two… So, this is what it looks like when displaying its home screen:

a picture of an iPod touch media player

iPod touch

So, Ive been playing with this gem for a week now, and it’s incredible! The multi-touch interface really is as amazing as Apple claims it is. The sound is of the quality I’d expect from an iPod, and video just looks gorgeous. It’s a shame that it only supportys H.264 encoding for video, but then again, having to recode a movie specifically for it does have its advantages. I can optimize the result for the iPod’s screen resolution, which brings an hour of video down to less than 450 MiB while keeping good quality. Not too bad.

I have jailbroken the device, but that caused it to be so unstable that I’ve restored it within an hour. I’ll just wait for the App Store that Apple says will open up in June. And it is of course still mainly a portable media player, and when it comes to that, it performs like a champ.

27 Apr 2008
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Flying scroll

My Logitech MX1000 died this morning. :( They’re excellent in surviving free falls from half a meter. But accidentally stepping on them kills them, just like it would a real mouse. And that’s exactly what happened this morning. It served me well over the past few years. I did try Apple’s Mighty Mouse for awhile, but its scroll ball stopped working, so I went back to my MX1000.

But now it’s dead. So I needed something new. Something just as comfortable and preferably with the same or even better features.

I went to Logitech’s web site to look at their current line of mice. There, my eyes fell on the MX Revolution. It’s shape is similar to the MX1000. It has all the features the MX1000 has and more. But what appealed to me the most was what Logitech calls the “MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel”.

That thing is amazing! I give the wheel a good swing, and it goes into free spin, like a flywheel. Inside a scroll wheel are ratchets onto which a notch pushes that make it “click”. The MX Revolution has a mechanism that can retract that notch, so the wheel has no more friction and can spin freely.

Scrolling through long documents or web pages (Wikipedia has some good examples) is now blazing fast and super easy. I do fear that the complex mechanism is more sensitive to free falls. So I’ll try to be a little bit more careful with this one. :)

Here’s a pictures:

a picture of a Logitech MX Revolution computer mouse

Logitech MX Revolution

3 Oct 2007
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MacBook keyboard extended

Today I received my new aluminum Apple Keyboard. I knew it would type very comfortably, because it has the same kind of keys that my MacBook has. And on top of that, it’s just gorgeous. :) It does have a wire, but with a keyboard that’s not really a problem since I have it laying on my lap most of the time. And with the included extension cable, it easily reaches far enough.

For those who don’t already know what it looks like, this is it:

a picture of the Aluminum Apple Keyboard

Aluminum Apple Keyboard

5 Sep 2007
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New iPod

Since a week or two ago my 20 GB 4th generation iPod died, I needed something else. As temporary substitute my phone (a Nokia N73) did nice, but a phone just isn’t designed to be an MP3 player. An iPod is. It just sounds better (with proper ear pieces).

Back in late 2004, when I bought my previous iPod, my music collection was about 3.5 GiB, so that left me with the choice of going for an iPod mini with 4 GB, or 3.81 GiB, which would barely hold all my music, or to go for the 20 GB iPod. I decided on the latter.

Now, my collection has grown by a little more than 2 GiB, totaling 5.85 GiB. So now I didn’t have to go for a bulky large iPod with a screen that’s far too big (I have my Palm T|X to watch movies on the go). The black iPod nano comes with 8 GB, or 7.45 GiB.

That leaves me with almost 2 GiB of growing space. Looking at the expansion of my collection the past 3 years, that means another year or 2. After that, we’ll see what happens.

Oh, and it’s definitely worth the name “nano”. Boy is it small. Here’s a comparison with my Apple Remote:

a picture of an iPod nano with an Apple Remote for comparison

iPod nano and Apple Remote

The new white earbuds are still of inferior quality. They don’t even come close to actually utilizing the full potential of an iPods capabilities. But that’s easily remedied with some quality earbuds from Sennheiser, the MXL51 Street.

14 Jul 2007
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