Hardware Reviews

Hardware Review - AT&T Tilt

Lou Vega — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:19:18 GMT

Pros:

Dual 400MHz processor
Integrated GPS
Sliding Keyboard with 40 degree tilt
Integrated still/video camera
Accepts high capacity microSDHC cards
Windows Mobile 6
Office Mobile 6.1 (so you can view Office 2007 files)

Cons:

Speakerphone isn’t the best
No zoom on still camera at the highest resolution
Picture quality could be better
Lack of integrated 3.5mm audio jack

Now that I’ve had my Tilt for a little bit, I figured I’d give a more in depth review for others who might be considering a new Windows Mobile 6 device.

Overall I’m pretty stoked about this device. It’s been a good experience with it overall though there are some things I’ve been less than thrilled about. For example, it’s a solid performer with the fast processor (ok, fast for a mobile device) and good amount of memory available to install other apps (I’ve been eyeing a 6GB microSDHC card recently) but there have been times when the phone seemed unresponsive and I needed to do a quick reset on it. Sometimes the perceived sluggishness or unresponsiveness is suspected to be from the network (I’m on AT&T currently) but I don’t know for certain.

While at first I liked the idea of the speakerphone, after using it I’ve realized that it’s kinda horrible sounding at times…way too much vibration in the output even at lower volumes. Since this phone doesn’t feature a 3.5mm audio jack I’ll probably end up either buying the adapter (USB -> 3.5mm) to use my existing hand-free option, or break down and buy one of the many Bluetooth headsets…though I’m actually leaning toward the adapter at first because then I can use the phone to play music over the car stereo with my existing system.

Picture quality is OK, but not great. The thing I keep telling myself is I didn’t buy a digital camera…I bought a phone. It’s good for quick snapshots and I’m sure it will give me an opportunity to improve my Photoshop skills if I have some images from my phone that I’d like to use elsewhere.

The single biggest feature I’m stoked about is Windows Mobile 6 – I skipped over the whole Windows Mobile 5 stuff because I didn’t want to pay the penalty for breaking my (then) phone contract and my carrier at the time didn’t have any good phones for WM5. Now with no contract holding me back I jumped on what I thought was one of the best Windows Mobile 6 devices around. I’ve started installing a number of the mobile apps I’ve written in the past on this phone and they all work fine for now (though some of them don’t handle the landscape mode so well…oops!) and I’m in the process of porting my existing code to take advantage of Windows Mobile 6, and .NET Compact Framework 2.0 and 3.5 as well as starting to develop new applications.

The code signing requirements for WM6 don’t hamper me right now with this device; I just get the warning about unsigned code being installed. I did take advantage of a program my local DE introduced me to which provided me with a trial run of a Code Signing subscription from GeoTrust and now that I’ve received my token and set up my certificate I expect to start testing my apps after they’ve been signed with my certificate to see how that works out.

All in all…if you’re a geek, and even more so, if you’re a mobile geek, this phone shouldn’t disappoint…you should feel right at home with the features and specs available here…so what are you waiting for? Go upgrade now!

Hardware Review: Epson Stylus Photo RX580

Lou Vega — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:08:00 GMT

Epson Stylus Photo RX580

Pros:

Easy Setup/PC Free Operation
All in one – Photo Printer, Copier, Scanner
Mini On Screen memory card viewer
Quiet and fast photo printing

Cons:

Horrible photo output with non-Epson photo paper
No sheet feeder for copy/scan
No USB cable included
No sample Epson paper included

Review:

My wife gave me a task last weekend – she wanted a new photo printer, one that wasn’t so darn hard to operate (she’s not a geek). We currently have Easy Share Series 3 printer dock which has been a pain in the neck to get working – about the only way I can consistently get it to print is via Bluetooth. So with that mission I went off in search of a new photo printer and came across several that caught my eye before I settled on the Epson RX580.

To start with, the price a little better compared to other printers with similar features. The RX580 is a combo device featuring a printer, copier and flatbed scanner all in one. See the little image below for a look at what it’s like.

One of the biggest selling points for me was that it allows for PC free operation…with the onboard 2.5in full color LCD screen and built-in memory card reader (SD, CF, XD) I can print directly from my memory cards without having to have it hooked up to my PC. Using the on-board screen I can select, crop, auto-correct, do red-eye removal and color restoration all via the printer itself. Additionally it has a built-in Infrared port so I can beam photos to it from my Pocket PC as well. Scanning works PC-free also with the ability to scan direct to a memory card which has already proved pretty handy.

Before I go too much further let me give a word of warning – although I’m pretty satisfied with this printer overall, my first impressions were not favorable. The printer itself doesn’t come with any sample photo paper (though it does come with a “printable CD” – more to come on that) so I started out using the photo paper I already had on hand for my Kodak printer. The output from the Epson using that Kodak paper sucked so bad I almost took the printer back…except that by the time I was home and setting everything up the store was long closed…so instead the next day I went to buy some Epson paper and the printer redeemed itself with some nice photos. So the lesson learned here – go ahead and buy the Epson paper…otherwise your photos will look grainy and downright horrible.

Naturally before I could hand the printer off to my wife for her to use I had to put it through a few tests. Using the copier function with plain paper to copy some printed text worked out nicely. The copy was pretty sharp and didn’t take too long at all. I have a business copier/printer in the upstairs office so the Epson won’t be doing that job too long, but it’s nice to know it works well as advertised.

Next I wanted to see how well it could copy a photograph. I grabbed the family photo book and found some old photos of me as a kid and scanned them in to reprint them on 4x6 photo stock with some really nice results. I stopped short of using the color-correction, cropping, etc. on that project since I’ve grown quite adept at doing that stuff in Photoshop and Photoshop does a much better job anyways. I also scanned in several of those older photos direct to my memory card and will probably make a project of doing just that with many of the older family photos that were taken long before digital cameras came to be.

Finally I needed to see how well it produced photos since that’s what this printer will be doing a lot of – and except for my previous mention with non-Epson paper, this printer has printed pictures quite well. About the only thing I’ve noticed is that perhaps the printer gets a little overzealous with some images that have more dark colors in them and tends to print those a little darker than normal…though I suppose I can fix that by manually overriding the contrast/brightness settings on the printer prior to printing the image. I’ve printed quite a few color and black-and-white photos with great results so far.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the printer. There are a couple of features I didn’t realize the printer had at first…one of them being that it can print directly to a CD/DVD if you buy those kind with the blank white label already on it. The printer actually comes with a sample blank white CD to test this feature out….why they included that and not a few sheets of Epson paper is beyond me. I’ll have to test that feature out and see how well it works. The other feature I discovered was the infrared printing. I was able to beam a couple pictures from my iPAQ to the printer and they printed out nicely as well. There is an optional Bluetooth adapter you can purchase for this printer and I may end up doing that so I can print from my laptops, desktops and pocket pc’s.

So Epson – if you’re listening – put some sample paper in the box so people can get hooked on the quality of your photo printer output from the beginning!

Hardware Review: Buffalo LinkStation Pro 250

Lou Vega — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:22:00 GMT

Buffalo LinkStation Pro 250

Pros

Easy Setup
Gigabit Port onboard
2 USB ports for expansion
Quiet/Cool running

Cons

No HTTPS for web based configuration

I recently started looking for additional external storage on my home network because I was running low on space for the existing solution which is 1 (one) 400GB External USB connected Drive and 1 (one) 250GB USB connected Drive. I have a single USB Drive Enclosure which I swap the two drives in and out of…not pretty but it works. One of my main gripes with my current solution was that if I was on a different workstation at home (I have 3) then I had to either map the drive or lug it and plug it into the system I was working on so I was looking for an affordable Network Attached Storage solution, but at the same time didn’t want an antiquated 10/100 bound port on that NAS since my home network is GB Ethernet based.

So I was checking e-mail the other day when I got an alert from Buy.com telling me about a deal on 2GB SD Cards (I ended up buying some!) and while I was browsing their site I came across this Buffalo LinkStation. After looking over the specs on it and seeing it wasn’t too expensive ($194) I went ahead and ordered it as well.

Here are some screenshots of the configuration screens:

One interesting little tid-bit – the “I’m Here!” button actually sends a signal to the Buffalo that makes it sing a little chime…kinda goofy but cool at the same time.

After getting it hooked up to my network and installing the client utility on my laptop I was able to start transferring files – the client utility basically adds a mapped drive to your system and you can drag/drop files from that point on. The performance was pretty nice considering my setup is ideal for it’s use – I have straight Gigabit connectivity from my laptop’s NIC to the switch to the Buffalo itself.

Another neat feature is the ability to daisy-chain additional USB drives using the two USB ports on the Buffalo – then you can access those via the network as well. I daisy chained my 400GB USB drive on the Buffalo and instantly had 650GB of Networked storage on my home network…not quite as nice as having a 1U Rack-Mount Lacie 1TB networked drive, but still pretty nice considering the price tag and easy setup.

Overall this was a pretty neat buy – about the only things I’m a little disappointed in is 1) the lack of SSL to secure the configuration stuff…on my home network its fine I suppose, but if I used this at work I would want SSL, and 2) is the limited 250GB size. True I could have purchased a 320GB model for a bit more, but I didn’t. These guys also offer a 500 and 750GB model...perhaps one day if the price is right I'll buy one of the larger capcity models.

Hardware Review - ViewSonic PocketPC v37

Lou Vega — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 03:45:00 GMT

ViewSonic PocketPC v37

Pros:

The lightest Pocket PC I’ve ever had!
Good battery life
Vibrant Display
Did I mention how light it is?

Cons:

No built in wireless/Bluetooth
Smaller on-board storage than others

Review:

Well the ViewSonic v37 is not a *new* Pocket PC as far as the market is concerned but I did just recently win mine at the Greater Charleston .NET User Group meeting, so it’s new to me :)

My previous Pocket PC experience has been with iPAQs. I have an old, old one, that I’m sure my daughter has misplaced somewhere in my office while playing with it and I have an iPAQ 5555 series which is a tank compared to this thin, light v37. What I like most about the v37 is just how light and thin it is. It fits easily in a shirt pocket and doesn’t weigh you down. With my 5555 (though I love it) it has to sit in a holster on my hip because it’s a little larger/heaver.

I was kind of disappointed to see that ViewSonic apparently doesn’t support this device any more as enquiries about the SDIO Wireless card promo that came in the box went unanswered. Therein lies one of the cons with this device is that there is no built in wireless or Bluetooth capability which was a bummer.

It does feature an SD card slot where I’ve currently got a 512MB SD card jam packed full of some of my favorite Pocket PC software and songs…yeah this Pocket PC doubles as my jukebox for my Volvo since it doesn’t have a CD player, just a AM/FM radio and Tape Deck.

It features a 400MHz Intel processor and 64MB ROM. It also has 64MB of SDRAM of which only about 36MB is available for use.

The v37 also comes with a CD-ROM that has some pretty useful Pocket PC software loaded on it like ClearView Image Display and ClearView Presentation Viewer which lets you view PowerPoint slides on your Pocket PC.

The display on this little thing is pretty sweet also…go figure ViewSonic usually pops into mind when thinking about monitors so they definitely have the display features down, but all in all I think they do a great job with their venture into the PocketPC realm as well.