In My Humble Opinion

I have this standing policy which I’ve developed over the years – where possible never buy first generation electronic products. Why? Its simple! Most first generation electronic products have an invisible sticker on them that shouts – ‘our experiment. your risk’. What I mean is that most first generation of any electronic product will likely have a number of flaws in them. Whether its the iPod, iPhone, or Asus EeePC model 700 – to name a few – all lacked a number of features that eventually creeped in on succeeding generation. In my opinion, it is a tactic to subtly coerce early adopters to get hooked on the first generation and move on quickly to the second generation.

Awhile back I hinted about my disklike for the BlackBerry Bold (first generation). While the first BlackBerry Bold had leather upholstery on its back panel, I found it heavy (136g versus 109g for BlackBerry Curve 8300). While the screen on the Bold was great it wasn’t a compelling enough feature for me to give up the smaller, lighter and almost the same feature-set Curve 8300.

That said I know many executives who do love the Bold because it felt very solid and truth be told, the leather exterior made it scream – luxury! The Bold also stayed true to its tradition of physical qwerty keyboard because working executives don’t want to waste their time thumbing three times to get to the character they want or even more time retyping a character because the iPhone keeps sensing the wrong key being pressed. After testing HTC, iPhone, Nexus, LG and Samsung touch phones, I can tell you, it pisses me off trying to send an SMS on any of these touch phones because people can’t decipher my short messages or complain how long it takes for me to send a short message.

There is a lot of things to be thankful about the BlackBerry Bold 9700 (I personally prefer to call it Bold 2). RIM took great pains to make this light (16g), smaller (6mm narrower, 5mm shorter, 0.9mm thinner). This last bit tells you the vendor had a hard time trying to figure out where else to trim the phone off. The only thing that the Bold 2 lost out to the Bold 1 is the smaller keyboard. I’m still trying to adjust to this change and it shows because I still fumble when sending sms even though I have a physical keyboard on the Bold 9700. That said the prismic design of the keys may help you adjust faster to the narrow but taller keys.

If there is any feature on the BlackBerry that has kept it the envy of Nokia and other contenders to the business smartphone device is the qwerty keyboard. Thankfully despite some experiments in the curvature and texture, RIM has kept the keys intact.

One thing I am grateful that RIM has finally decided to throw out is the trackball. If you’ve ever used one of those early mouse pointing device (or trackball in my case) you soon discover that the ball collects dust, dirt and introduces these to the contact points inside the device itself. I’ve had my Pearl jam on me many a times – often when I am in harried situations.

Apart from this, the Bold 9700 is a Bold 1 on steroids. It’s got a faster processor, and is a 3G phone so now I can use it in Japan and maybe Korea. Its got one of those HVGA-class screens only found on the HTC Magic. (more…)

When Apple launched the MacBook Air, everyone wanted the “coolness” that the new form factor exuded. At the time it was the slimmest computer you could ever have short of a piece of paper and pen. I certainly swooned over the MacBook Air until I started thinking about the limitations of the design. My wife almost bought one for me until I stopped her citing the technical limitations of the product as the showtoppper for me (USB, expansion, battery, and software to name a few).

Lenovo released the Thinkpad X301 as its answer to MacBook Air. But all Lenovo did was made the Thinkpad skinny enough to come close to the MacBook Air. But the external design remained the boxy look that is the hallmark of the Thinkpad series (until recently anyway).

Today the Adamo (which means “I fall in love with” in Latin) XPS holds the record for the thinnest laptop in the world. At 0.99cm, it is almost half the thickness of the Apple MacBook Air (1.94cm). Tough luck Steve, you had to know it was too good to last! However the Adamo XPS is wider and longer than the MacBook Air which explains why its a tad bit heavier (1.44kg versus 1.36kg for the MacBook Air) – but who can tell the difference?

How did Dell manage to make the Adamo XPS chassis so thin? Simple. Innovative design! The keyboard (which also houses the motherboard) tucks neatly inside the enlarged screen bezel. To open, you swipe your finger in the front bezel just above where you see a white LED. Done properly, a blue light flashes once, reminiscent of the Knight Rider, and the Adamo XPS releases the keyboard to reveal a full-sized aluminium-capped keys. As you pull up the screen, the hinged design raises the back of the keyboard panel that meets the LCD panel, giving you the elevated keyboard placement to counter carpal tunnel syndrome.

As with the MacBook Air, Dell managed to avoid installing noisy fans on the Adamo XPS by sticking it with an ultra low voltage (ULV) Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 CPU. To offset the under performing ULV processors, Dell bundled the Adamo XPS with a 128GB SDD. Combined with 4GB RAM on board, the configuration leaves you feeling appreciative of the speed with which this machine runs. Applications jump at you very quickly – even against my Lenovo Thinkpad X201. In fact, some applications load too quickly (no time to get a cup of water).

The Adamo XPS boasts a 13.4in, 1,366 x 768 LED display. The keyboard takes getting used but I can’t complain as the brushed aluminum keys give you that extra luxurious feel you won’t find anywhere else (not even from Apple). I am a little miffed at the rather small mouse trackpad though. This machine was built to take advantage of Windows 7 so I can’t fathom why Dell would not include a capacitative touch trackpad. How would extra would that cost? (more…)