« Computers | Main | Handhelds »
Photos: iPhone vs HP vs Nokia
This photo shows Apple's iPhone 3G alongside two other new devices, the HP iPaq 914 and Nokia's E71. As the picture demonstrates, they are all approximately the same size, although varying in weight and thickness.
All three devices represent the latest technology, supporting 3G wireless broadband, Wi-Fi, and GPS capability for navigation and other location-based services. As such, these are all high-end devices and potential rivals for RIM's BlackBerry models in the enterprise.
Of the three, the Nokia E71 is the slimmest and the lightest, while the iPaq 914 is the heaviest and thickest at 154g and 16mm. However, it also appears to have the largest battery capacity, at 1940mAh.
The Nokia E71 has already been reviewed in depth by IT Week here. To sum up: it is a very capable business messaging handset, but its keyboard is somewhat cramped compared to a BlackBerry.
The same criticism can be levelled at the iPaq 914, but I found I could enter text fairly easily. The HP device also has one feature that might please BlackBerry users; a jog dial thumbwheel on the right side of the case, similar to that seen on older BlackBerry models before RIM introduced its 'Pearl' mini trackball. It also supports touch-screen input via a stylus as well as a standard five-way navigation control, giving users more input choice than most devices.
Apple's iPhone 3G has the best display and offers the best web experience through its Safari browser, but has two drawbacks as far as I'm concerned; no keyboard and a battery that cannot be removed by the user.
As with the first iPhone, the device is very simple to use, but I found Apple's on-screen 'soft' keyboard a pain - even compared with the tiny keys on the E71 and iPaq 914 - and kept finding myself hitting the wrong letter. The iPhone could prove a hit with business users that need a decent browser - such as for web-based applications - but I can't see heavy email users or anyone whose job entails entering a lot of data being happy with it.
All three models feature some form of assisted GPS (A-GPS) to speed up the time it takes to get a fix on the user's location. While the E71 has Nokia Maps, both the iPaq 914 and the iPhone use Google Maps. The iPhone version of this application is slicker, but both have pretty much the same functionality, including the option to fix your location GPS and get directions to a specified destination. However, Nokia Maps supports turn-by-turn directions for drivers, although it costs extra to have the directions spoken aloud.
Hands on with MSI's Wind mini laptop
Mini laptops have been a surprise hit over the last year or so, following the launch of the original Asus Eee PC. Other vendors have since brought out numerous models to try and emulate its success.
The latest to become available is the oddly named Wind from Micro Star International (MSI), a firm best known for its motherboards and 'bare bones' PC and server systems.
Despite the dubious name, it seems to be rather a well designed mini laptop, just slightly larger than the Asus Eee PC 900 and 901, thus making room for a keyboard that users can live with and a decent 10in screen.
It is based on Intel's 1.6GHz Atom processor and has 1GB RAM, and unlike the Eee PC it has an 80GB hard drive instead of Flash SSD storage. It also ships with Windows XP, although this is the Home edition rather than XP Professional.
While screens smaller than 12in are considered too small for business use by some experts, I found the Wind's 10in display with its 1024 x 600 resolution quite comfortable for productivity applications, and the system's keyboard is large enough for typing at a reasonable speed.
The evaluation unit I saw had Microsoft Office 2007 installed, and the Wind seemed to handle applications such as Word and Excel with little difficulty. It would thus seem to make a good mobile system for workers needing to access documents and their email while on the road.
However, the downside on all small systems like this is usually battery life. I didn't have enough time using the Wind to test this, but MSI rates it at up to three hours with the three-cell standard battery pack, and this is likely to be an optimistic figure. An optional six-cell unit will provide longer life, but this bumps up the weight from just over a kilogram to about 1.2kg.
The Wind has three USB ports, a slot for SD Card and Memory Stick Flash disks, VGA and Ethernet ports, and includes 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. It costs £329.
Hands-on: Asus Eee PC 901 and Acer Aspire One
Following IT Week's full review of the Eee PC 900 and HP Mini-Note a couple of weeks back, I grabbed the chance to have a quick look at two new mini laptops that are currently being evaluated by colleagues on other publications at our offices.
The Asus Eee PC 901 is, as you might expect, very similar to its predecessor, but has a more polished feel and slightly more rounded styling. It actually costs less, at about £272 + VAT, but has the same 8.9in screen and is pretty much the same size and shape.
In fact, the most significant differences are that the 901 is based on a 1.6GHz version of Intel's new Atom processor and has a larger 6-cell battery. The older model had a 900MHz ULV Celeron and a 3-cell battery.
Sadly, the larger battery bumps up the weight from just under 1kg to 1.15kg - nearly a 20 percent increase. However, one of my colleagues reports that the battery life is much improved because of this, going from just over an hour and a half to several hours.
The same Intel Atom processor powers Acer's Aspire One. This is very similar in size to the Eee PC and also has an 8.9in screen, but is just a couple of centimetres wider. This extra width allows for a keyboard with slightly bigger keys that I found much easier to type on.
Like the Eee PC, the Aspire One ships in Linux or Windows versions. The Linux model has 512MB memory, a 3-cell battery and an 8GB Flash SSD for storage and costs £199 +VAT, while the Windows version has 1GB, a 6-cell battery and an 80GB hard drive and costs £299 + VAT.
The Linux-based Aspire One is lighter at just under a kilogram, while the Windows-based unit weighs about 1.26kg. With Linux, the Aspire has a battery life of just over two hours, according to another colleague who has used it at length.
Both of the models I looked at here were Linux models, and the two had quite similar user interfaces that separated the built-in functions and applications into categories such as 'work' and 'play'. Both have a built-in office suite - StarOffice 8 on the Eee PC and OpenOffice.org 2.3 on the Aspire One.
For users who just need a light, low-cost device for word processing or surfing the Web, both of these machines would seem to fit the bill, although I found the larger keyboard of the Aspire One preferable. Both are also capable of running Windows, but are only available with Windows XP Home edition.
One of my colleagues hopes to have a Windows version of the Eee PC soon, so that we can compare benchmark scores between the 901 and the 900. However, we will not be able to do the same for the Aspire, as Acer has said it wants to push the Linux version and so will not be making any Windows models available for testing.
Photos: Asus and HP mini-laptops
This photo shows the Asus Eee PC 900 next to HP’s 2133 Mini-Note PC, two miniature laptops that are approximately the same size and both of which cost less than £500.
As should be apparent from the picture, HP’s model is slightly wider, which enables it to have larger keys and thus makes for easier typing. The Mini-Note is also more polished, with a brushed aluminium case, while the Asus feels rather plasticky by comparison.
However, the Asus has the advantage of weighing under a kilogram, while the Windows version of HP’s pint-sized portable weighs almost half again as much at 1.46kg.
There are other notable differences; the Eee PC has Windows XP installed (although the Home edition rather than Professional), and with 1GB memory, it feels as responsive as any other Windows XP system. The HP Mini-Note ships with Vista Business Edition, and despite its having 2GB of memory, Vista is a severe drag on its performance.
Asus also ships the Eee PC with 12GB of Flash solid state disk (SSD), while the HP model has a more conventional 120GB hard drive. Both have an 8.9in screen, but the Eee PC has a native resolution of 1024 x 600, while HP’s is a step up at 1280 x 768.
In early tests, the HP Mini-Note appeared to have a longer lasting battery than the Eee PC, but a full report will appear in a future issue of IT Week.
Matchbox drive holds 12GB
Verbatim has kindly sent me one of its new pocket hard drives for evaluation. The Hi-Speed Store 'n' Go USB 2.0 HD is a tiny device that stores up to 12GB of data on a 1in hard drive, and also includes a portable environment that enables entire applications to be stored and run by connecting the drive up to any Windows PC. The drive costs £100.
The photo of the Store 'n' Go drive perhaps doesn't give a sense of scale. The thing really is tiny – it looks like it would fit comfortably inside a matchbox. Its hinged USB connector is stowed neatly in a recess in the top of the drive when not in use, and folds out when you want to plug it into a PC.
I tested out the drive by copying some multi-gigabyte VMware virtual PC images from one Windows XP computer to another, and its performance seemed ample for this task.
However, Verbatim also includes with the Store 'n' Go a piece of software called Ceedo, from a firm called Ceedo Technologies. This can be launched when you plug the drive into a computer's USB port, and it displays a kind of replica of the Windows Start menu, complete with links to any applications that are stored on the drive.
Ceedo's web page provides a selection of applications, such as photo editors, security tools, office applications, archiving tools, and others, all of which can be downloaded freely to the Verbatim drive. The applications can be run from here, but leave no trace behind when you have finished and remove the Store 'n' Go drive.
I selected a few, such as the AbiWord word processor and FastStone Image Viewer, and watched as they installed. The Ceedo software seems to intercept the standard Windows installation routine, and ensures that the application is diverted to a Program Files folder on the Store 'n' Go drive instead of the computer's hard drive.
Ceedo also has available separate a tool called Argo Application Installer, which can apparently install any Windows application to the Store 'n' Go. This costs $29.95 (£15.40) to download.
Hands-on with Nokia's N800
Nokia's N800 Internet Tablet is available from the end of January, and IT Week has obtained a sample model for review.
Like its predecessor the N770, the new model is a lightweight device about the same size as a large spectacle case. This makes Nokia's web tablet fairly easy to slot into a pocket, but it also makes text somewhat difficult to read on its 4.1in 800 x 480 touch-screen display.
Because Nokia is at pains to distinguish its Internet Tablet brand from mobile phones, the N800 cannot connect to a mobile network. Instead, it relies on Wi-Fi hotspots or a Bluetooth data link with a phone to get connected.
Fortunately, Nokia has made it fairly easy to find and connect to Wi-Fi hotspots, and I was able to get connected and surfing the Web within minutes of powering on the N800. A pop-up on-screen keyboard appears whenever you need to enter some text, before disappearing out of the way again when you have finished with it.
The N800 runs an embedded version of Linux and comes with the Opera browser and Flash 7 player, which enables users to view pretty much any website. It also features a media player, PDF viewer, and client software for email, IM, and IP telephony.
I found that web sites such as the BBC's news pages were often difficult to read without using the magnifier tool, and not all video files I tried to access would play in the built-in media player.
While the N800 is not a replacement for a smartphone, it is a device that could find a niche in business, especially as Nokia has made available an open source development platform to enable applications to be built for it.
A full review of the N800 will appear in a future issue of IT Week.
