Wacom Intuos 4 Graphics Tablet Review
Graphics tablets is one of the few sectors in the technology market where one brand dominates to the point where it’s the only one professionals would consider. Wacom has a well-established reputation as the best that money can buy, but despite the lack of competition the company hasn’t stood still. It has recently upgraded its professional Intuos range of tablets and we’re taking a look at what the Intuos 4 Professional Pen Tablet has to offer.
The Intuos currently sits near the top of Wacom’s range, which starts with the Bamboo for casual users, offers the Graphire for those who want wireless, and culminates with the Cintiq which combines a tablet and LCD monitor into a single device. Though Cintiqs are still the most expensive of Wacom’s offerings, in fact the Intuos 4 is the best-specified tablet out of the lot because the Cintiqs are still based around the same architecture as the Intuos 3 was.
Before we get onto the upgrades and changes Wacom has implemented in its fourth Intuos tablet, let’s quickly go over just what a graphics tablet does and what it’s for. Essentially, it’s like a piece of very thick digital paper. You use a digital pen to draw upon it, and what you draw appears on your screen. Of course it doesn’t appear on the tablet (unless you have a Cintiq), so it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have the hang of coordinating your hand to the screen you’ll never want to go back to a mouse for drawing or detailed photo-editing. Nearly all tablets are pressure-sensitive so you can vary the width, opacity or jitter (etc) of your lines, and Wacom’s pens uniquely offer 60 degrees of tilt sensitivity too.
The Intuos 4 package consists of the pen and tablet, USB cable, pen-holder and driver CD. The first thing some might notice is that the set has received a visual make-over. Gone is the blue and grey colour scheme that adorned all but the special edition Intuos 3 tablets, to be replaced with a mixture of satin and gloss black that makes it look and feel like an even more premium product.
To go with the new look the pen feels different, too. Its whole length is now soft-touch instead of just the lower part on its predecessor (though the lower rubber ‘grip’ is still replaceable), which combines with a shorter and slightly fatter body to make it more comfortable to hold. The two-way rocker switch near its base sticks out less too, so it’s not as easy to press the lower ‘button’ accidentally while working. Its action remains flawless however, with a nice click to confirm presses. Wacom’s unique ‘Penabled’ technology means the pen never requires batteries, and its build quality is excellent.
Pens from the Intuos 3 won’t work with the newer tablet, but rather than a way of making you pay all over again for the large variety of pens the company offers (including Grip, Airbrush, Inking and Art models), it’s because they have received a genuine hardware upgrade inside too, doubling the Intuos 3 pen’s 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity to a heady 2,048. The nib now only requires a single gram of pressure to register an action compared to the previous pen’s 10, so an even finer touch than before is possible. Also, both the nibs and the eraser at the pen’s top now feel softer, giving better resistance and making them feel more like the real thing.
Wacom has cleverly designed the stand to be more than just a pen-holder like it was for the Intuos 3. It’s taller and heavier than before, and its glossy base unscrews from the hollow top section to reveal a foam holding area for all your nibs and a compact metal nib-extractor. Storing the nibs in the pen-base is an inspired idea, one of the many incidental touches that elevate the Intuos 4 above its predecessor. Ten nibs are included, which with the one pre-installed in the pen makes for a total of eleven. These all give a different feel to writing or drawing, and include pen, stroke, hard felt and flex nib varieties.
Naturally the biggest changes concern the tablet itself. Compared to the Intuos 3, the surround of the actual tablet area has now been changed to a matte rather than glossy finish, which not only means less maintenance but also gives your palms a securer resting area.
Indeed the only glossy section is a piano-black strip on the side, which contains the updated controls and, in what is one of the most dramatic upgrades since the beginning of the Intuos line, two monochrome organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. This advanced display technology doesn’t need a backlight, meaning they require less energy, are never tiring on the eyes and look really cool too, with the white symbols on a perfectly black background really adding a lot of visual appeal.
Their practical purpose though is to tell you the functions of each of the eight fully programmable matte buttons (called ExpressKeys) the strip houses. You might think it’s easy enough to remember what eight buttons do, but taking into consideration that you may want to have different configurations for different software packages, or even switch between various configs within a single piece of software depending on the task, you’ll soon wonder how you ever managed without them.
It’s worth noting that the smallest Intuos 4 – of the four sizes available, which like T-shirts include small, medium, large and x-large – doesn’t come with the OLED displays and only has six buttons, so if you’re not severely constrained by either space or budget it’s well worth making the medium tablet your minimum starting point.
Getting back to the controls, the touch-strips of the Intuos 3 have been replaced by an iPod-like ‘wheel’ on its successor, which Wacom has named the TouchRing. Not only does the ring offer more accurate and flexible action than the strip did, but the common (and extremely annoying) problem on the Intuos 3 where users would inadvertently activate the touch-strips by brushing against them has also been eliminated. It’s good to see Wacom not just adding new features, but listening to user feedback and rectifying the problems older models have revealed too.
At the centre of the ring is a round toggle button which can switch the ring between up to five functions, including scroll/zoom, adjusting brush size and rotating your canvas. Sensitivity can be adjusted individually for each separate function using Wacom’s excellent software driver.
At this stage those of you who are left-handed (like myself) may be wondering how a single control strip, compared to one on each side for the Intuos 3, accommodates south paws. Again, Wacom has implemented a superior solution to before. The fixed USB data cable which was a weakness of the older model (since if the cable was damaged the tablet became effectively useless) has been replaced with a pair of mini-USB ports at the top and bottom of the Intuos 4.
When you want to change your handedness, simply flip the tablet over, insert the USB cable into the appropriate slot and tell the software about the new orientation, after which it will rotate the OLED symbols and tablet sensitivities accordingly (though it shouldn’t be required, in our testing we found a few instances where the new orientation wouldn’t take effect without a reset – but then it’s not something you’re likely to want to change often). In yet another of those touches that show Wacom’s designers deserve every one of their pay-checks, if you open the ‘door’ for one USB port it automatically closes off the other port, preventing dust and grit from getting in.
Even the drawing surface of the tablet has had an upgrade, and thanks to a softer texture and the pen’s slightly softer nibs it now feels more like drawing on real paper than ever. Nibs might need to be replaced more frequently, but it’s inexpensive to do so and a small price to pay for the tactile improvement. The only real complaint here is that if you have a particularly heavy hand it’s easier to permanently mark the tablet’s surface than on the Intuos 3.
Because of all the physical upgrades Wacom’s Intuos 4 is easier and better to use than ever before, but it wouldn’t be all it could without the excellent software. Wacom’s driver works on almost any operating system including versions of Windows from 95 onwards, Mac OS X or Classic and Linux. A single properties window lets you adjust all settings for the tablet and pen within any application you wish. The only thing that’s inexplicably missing is profiles for different users or for sharing across computers, an oversight we hope Wacom will soon rectify.
Two changes to Wacom’s driver aside from those necessary to accommodate the Intuos 4′s new hardware features are a Precision Mode, which as the name suggests switches to a lower sensitivity so that bigger movements are required for the same action (ideal for quickly switching to fiddly detail work or delicate selections where a slip can ruin things) and the Radial Menu. The radial menu is a similar concept to the selection ring on Gyration’s Air Mouse, where pressing a certain button brings up a ring of actions or shortcuts around your cursor, allowing you to choose up to eight different ones with a flick of the pen.
When you register your Intuos you get a choice between downloading a selection of third-party software titles, including AutoDesk Scetchbook Express 2010, Corel SketchPad or Adobe Photoshop Elements 7. While these should help you get started, to be honest a tablet of this calibre deserves the fully-featured versions of these packages such as Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Corel Painter 11.
With prices ranging from just under £300 (or around £270 if you can get an academic discount) for the Medium tablet to £650 for the XL one, the Intuos 4 is by no means cheap but nonetheless well worth every penny if you’re serious about digital art or design – especially since there really is no competition at the high end of the tablet market. Once you’ve used a Wacom Intuos, tablets from other manufacturers such as the Genius G-Pen M712 will just seem cheap and inadequate by comparison.
If you’re really on a budget or need something that will fit in a shoulder bag you might even consider the Small Intuos 4, but keep in mind that not only is the drawing area relatively cramped but you’d be missing out on the OLED screens too. Another ‘budget’ option is to go for the previous generation Intuos 3, which is still widely available and obviously considerably cheaper than its successor.
Meanwhile, if you already own an Intuos 3 and have the cash, is it worth upgrading? Let me answer that simply by confessing that I’m looking to upgrade my precious Intuos 3 to a 4 as soon as I can afford to. Yes, it really is that much better.
Wacom Intuos 4 Graphics Tablet Review
Graphics tablets is one of the few sectors in the technology market where one brand dominates to the point where it’s the only one professionals would consider. Wacom has a well-established reputation as the best that money can buy, but despite the lack of competition the company hasn’t stood still. It has recently upgraded its professional Intuos range of tablets and we’re taking a look at what the Intuos 4 Professional Pen Tablet has to offer.
The Intuos currently sits near the top of Wacom’s range, which starts with the Bamboo for casual users, offers the Graphire for those who want wireless, and culminates with the Cintiq which combines a tablet and LCD monitor into a single device. Though Cintiqs are still the most expensive of Wacom’s offerings, in fact the Intuos 4 is the best-specified tablet out of the lot because the Cintiqs are still based around the same architecture as the Intuos 3 was.
Before we get onto the upgrades and changes Wacom has implemented in its fourth Intuos tablet, let’s quickly go over just what a graphics tablet does and what it’s for. Essentially, it’s like a piece of very thick digital paper. You use a digital pen to draw upon it, and what you draw appears on your screen. Of course it doesn’t appear on the tablet (unless you have a Cintiq), so it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have the hang of coordinating your hand to the screen you’ll never want to go back to a mouse for drawing or detailed photo-editing. Nearly all tablets are pressure-sensitive so you can vary the width, opacity or jitter (etc) of your lines, and Wacom’s pens uniquely offer 60 degrees of tilt sensitivity too.The Intuos 4 package consists of the pen and tablet, USB cable, pen-holder and driver CD. The first thing some might notice is that the set has received a visual make-over. Gone is the blue and grey colour scheme that adorned all but the special edition Intuos 3 tablets, to be replaced with a mixture of satin and gloss black that makes it look and feel like an even more premium product.
To go with the new look the pen feels different, too. Its whole length is now soft-touch instead of just the lower part on its predecessor (though the lower rubber ‘grip’ is still replaceable), which combines with a shorter and slightly fatter body to make it more comfortable to hold. The two-way rocker switch near its base sticks out less too, so it’s not as easy to press the lower ‘button’ accidentally while working. Its action remains flawless however, with a nice click to confirm presses. Wacom’s unique ‘Penabled’ technology means the pen never requires batteries, and its build quality is excellent.
Pens from the Intuos 3 won’t work with the newer tablet, but rather than a way of making you pay all over again for the large variety of pens the company offers (including Grip, Airbrush, Inking and Art models), it’s because they have received a genuine hardware upgrade inside too, doubling the Intuos 3 pen’s 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity to a heady 2,048. The nib now only requires a single gram of pressure to register an action compared to the previous pen’s 10, so an even finer touch than before is possible. Also, both the nibs and the eraser at the pen’s top now feel softer, giving better resistance and making them feel more like the real thing.
Wacom has cleverly designed the stand to be more than just a pen-holder like it was for the Intuos 3. It’s taller and heavier than before, and its glossy base unscrews from the hollow top section to reveal a foam holding area for all your nibs and a compact metal nib-extractor. Storing the nibs in the pen-base is an inspired idea, one of the many incidental touches that elevate the Intuos 4 above its predecessor. Ten nibs are included, which with the one pre-installed in the pen makes for a total of eleven. These all give a different feel to writing or drawing, and include pen, stroke, hard felt and flex nib varieties.
Naturally the biggest changes concern the tablet itself. Compared to the Intuos 3, the surround of the actual tablet area has now been changed to a matte rather than glossy finish, which not only means less maintenance but also gives your palms a securer resting area.
Indeed the only glossy section is a piano-black strip on the side, which contains the updated controls and, in what is one of the most dramatic upgrades since the beginning of the Intuos line, two monochrome organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. This advanced display technology doesn’t need a backlight, meaning they require less energy, are never tiring on the eyes and look really cool too, with the white symbols on a perfectly black background really adding a lot of visual appeal.
Their practical purpose though is to tell you the functions of each of the eight fully programmable matte buttons (called ExpressKeys) the strip houses. You might think it’s easy enough to remember what eight buttons do, but taking into consideration that you may want to have different configurations for different software packages, or even switch between various configs within a single piece of software depending on the task, you’ll soon wonder how you ever managed without them.
It’s worth noting that the smallest Intuos 4 – of the four sizes available, which like T-shirts include small, medium, large and x-large – doesn’t come with the OLED displays and only has six buttons, so if you’re not severely constrained by either space or budget it’s well worth making the medium tablet your minimum starting point.
Getting back to the controls, the touch-strips of the Intuos 3 have been replaced by an iPod-like ‘wheel’ on its successor, which Wacom has named the TouchRing. Not only does the ring offer more accurate and flexible action than the strip did, but the common (and extremely annoying) problem on the Intuos 3 where users would inadvertently activate the touch-strips by brushing against them has also been eliminated. It’s good to see Wacom not just adding new features, but listening to user feedback and rectifying the problems older models have revealed too.
At the centre of the ring is a round toggle button which can switch the ring between up to five functions, including scroll/zoom, adjusting brush size and rotating your canvas. Sensitivity can be adjusted individually for each separate function using Wacom’s excellent software driver.
At this stage those of you who are left-handed (like myself) may be wondering how a single control strip, compared to one on each side for the Intuos 3, accommodates south paws. Again, Wacom has implemented a superior solution to before. The fixed USB data cable which was a weakness of the older model (since if the cable was damaged the tablet became effectively useless) has been replaced with a pair of mini-USB ports at the top and bottom of the Intuos 4.
When you want to change your handedness, simply flip the tablet over, insert the USB cable into the appropriate slot and tell the software about the new orientation, after which it will rotate the OLED symbols and tablet sensitivities accordingly (though it shouldn’t be required, in our testing we found a few instances where the new orientation wouldn’t take effect without a reset – but then it’s not something you’re likely to want to change often). In yet another of those touches that show Wacom’s designers deserve every one of their pay-checks, if you open the ‘door’ for one USB port it automatically closes off the other port, preventing dust and grit from getting in.
Even the drawing surface of the tablet has had an upgrade, and thanks to a softer texture and the pen’s slightly softer nibs it now feels more like drawing on real paper than ever. Nibs might need to be replaced more frequently, but it’s inexpensive to do so and a small price to pay for the tactile improvement. The only real complaint here is that if you have a particularly heavy hand it’s easier to permanently mark the tablet’s surface than on the Intuos 3.
Because of all the physical upgrades Wacom’s Intuos 4 is easier and better to use than ever before, but it wouldn’t be all it could without the excellent software. Wacom’s driver works on almost any operating system including versions of Windows from 95 onwards, Mac OS X or Classic and Linux. A single properties window lets you adjust all settings for the tablet and pen within any application you wish. The only thing that’s inexplicably missing is profiles for different users or for sharing across computers, an oversight we hope Wacom will soon rectify.
Two changes to Wacom’s driver aside from those necessary to accommodate the Intuos 4′s new hardware features are a Precision Mode, which as the name suggests switches to a lower sensitivity so that bigger movements are required for the same action (ideal for quickly switching to fiddly detail work or delicate selections where a slip can ruin things) and the Radial Menu. The radial menu is a similar concept to the selection ring on Gyration’s Air Mouse, where pressing a certain button brings up a ring of actions or shortcuts around your cursor, allowing you to choose up to eight different ones with a flick of the pen.
When you register your Intuos you get a choice between downloading a selection of third-party software titles, including AutoDesk Scetchbook Express 2010, Corel SketchPad or Adobe Photoshop Elements 7. While these should help you get started, to be honest a tablet of this calibre deserves the fully-featured versions of these packages such as Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Corel Painter 11.
With prices ranging from just under £300 (or around £270 if you can get an academic discount) for the Medium tablet to £650 for the XL one, the Intuos 4 is by no means cheap but nonetheless well worth every penny if you’re serious about digital art or design – especially since there really is no competition at the high end of the tablet market. Once you’ve used a Wacom Intuos, tablets from other manufacturers such as the Genius G-Pen M712 will just seem cheap and inadequate by comparison.
If you’re really on a budget or need something that will fit in a shoulder bag you might even consider the Small Intuos 4, but keep in mind that not only is the drawing area relatively cramped but you’d be missing out on the OLED screens too. Another ‘budget’ option is to go for the previous generation Intuos 3, which is still widely available and obviously considerably cheaper than its successor.
Meanwhile, if you already own an Intuos 3 and have the cash, is it worth upgrading? Let me answer that simply by confessing that I’m looking to upgrade my precious Intuos 3 to a 4 as soon as I can afford to. Yes, it really is that much better.
RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 (Verizon Wireless)
Product Summary
The good: The RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 offers world-roaming capabilities as well as Bluetooth, GPS, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. The smartphone offers a great design that combines a sharp display and an easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard in a fairly compact size.
The bad: The smartphone lacks Wi-Fi. The Web browser falls short of the competition, and there’s a bit of shutter lag on the camera. You can’t save applications to a media card.
The bottom line: With a winning design and fast performance, the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 is one of Verizon Wireless’ top smartphones for both business users and messaging fanatics.
Price range: $199.99 check prices
- Reviewed on: 07/02/2009
(Click to enlarge)
Long awaited, the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 has finally arrived in town, and it’s putting on quite a show. As the replacement to the RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, the Tour offers 3G world roaming capabilities and brings a number of improvements in all three departments of design, features, and performance. While we’re disappointed by the lack of Wi-Fi and other minor annoyances, the pros far outweigh the cons. It’s one of the strongest smartphone offerings from Verizon Wireless, and its business customers will be well-served by this device. The RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 will be available from the carrier starting July 12, for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $70 mail-in rebate.
Design
The RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 looks like the lovechild of the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 and the RIM BlackBerry Bold, inheriting some of the best traits of the two smartphones. In terms of size, the Tour is more similar to the Curve 8900, though slightly bigger and heavier at 4.4 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick and 4.5 ounces. (The Curve comes in at 4.2 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and weighs 3.8 ounces.) Still, the device is much more pocketable than the Bold and the BlackBerry 8830. Plus, the extra weight gives the phone a satisfyingly solid feel, and the back of the phone also features a partial soft-touch finish for extra durability.
The Tour features the same screen as the Curve 8900. It measures 2.4-inches diagonally and shows 65,536 colors at a 480×360-pixel resolution. Images and text look crisp and vibrant, and and colors pop off the screen.
Like the Curve and Bold, the Tour features an updated user interface that’s fairly straightforward and easy to navigate. Several of the menu icons look similar, so they can be hard to distinguish at a glance, but overall the user interface is very straightforward and easy to navigate. You can rearrange the icons and organize them in folders, and as always, you can customize the home screen with background images and themes.
Below the display, you’ll find the Talk and End keys, a menu shortcut, a back button, and a trackball navigator. Pressing the Alt and menu key will bring up an application switcher where you can toggle between tasks, but we found it more convenient to assign the switcher to one of the convenience keys located on the left and right sides of the phone. To program these buttons, simply go to Options > Screen/Keyboard and scroll down to the left and right convenience fields to assign an app or task to the controls.
For text entry, the Tour offers a 35-key QWERTY keyboard that is reminiscent of the one found on the Bold, which is a good thing. Obviously with the Tour’s more compact frame, the keyboard isn’t quite as roomy as the Bold’s but still features good-size buttons. To prevent them from feeling too flat, the rectangular keys have a slight ridge and a white backlight makes the letters and numbers (highlighted in red) easy to see in darker environments. We were quite happy using the Tour’s keyboard. Plus, the keyboard just had a more high-quality feel compared with the Curve’s where the buttons felt a little plasticky. Our only minor complaint is that the outside keys are a little difficult to press, since the downward slope of the buttons make them a bit flat against the edge of the phone.
Other features of the BlackBerry Tour’s design include lock and mute buttons on top of the device. In addition to the aforementioned convenience key, there’s a volume rocker, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a Micro-USB port on the right. Finally, the camera and flash are located on back, while behind the battery cover, you’ll find the SIM card and microSD expansion slots.
Verizon packages the RIM BlackBerry Tour with a load of accessories, including a travel charger, three international adapters, a USB cable, a stereo headset, a 2GB microSD card, a SIM card, a swivel holster, a Global Support Kit, a software CD, and reference material. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.
Features
As the replacement to the RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, the RIM BlackBerry Tour offers dual-mode functionality (supporting dual-band CDMA and quad-band GSM networks) for world roaming capabilities and ships with a SIM card. With this capability, the phone switches automatically between CDMA and GSM networks to offer seamless international roaming–all while keeping the same phone number. In addition to voice coverage, the BlackBerry Tour supports the 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA band, so you can get 3G support overseas, while working on Verizon’s EV-DO Rev. A network domestically. In all, you’ll get voice coverage in 220 countries and data coverage (e-mail and Internet) in 175 countries. Be sure to check the international roaming rates for voice calls and text messages before you head off on your trip: Verizon’s rates can get pretty pricey in some areas, ranging from $0.69 up to $4.99 per minute. You can find the carrier’s international plans here.
Other phone features include a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, and text and multimedia messaging. The Tour also supports Visual Voice Mail, but be aware that this service costs an additional $2.99 per month. The phone book is only limited by the available memory with room in each entry for multiple numbers, e-mail addresses, work and home address, job title, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can attach a contact photo, group ID, or a custom ringtone.
While offering 3G support, the BlackBerry Tour does not have integrated Wi-Fi, but this isn’t a case of Verizon crippling the feature; Sprint’s version of the Tour also lacks Wi-Fi. You do get Bluetooth 2.0 with support for wireless headsets, stereo Bluetooth (A2DP/AVCRP), hands-free kits, phone book access, serial port, and dial-up networking. The latter allows you to use the Tour as a wireless modem for your laptop, but to use the feature, you will need to sign up for Verizon’s Mobile Broadband Connect plan, which range from $39.99 per month for 250MB of data up to $59.99 for 5GB of data.
GPS is also onboard. The smartphone uses both satellites and cellular triangulation to find your position and can provide navigation via several methods. The smartphone ships with BlackBerry Maps, where you can get maps, text-based turn-by-turn instructions, and search for local businesses. However, for real-time voice-guided directions, you will need to subscribe to a location-based service, which Verizon provides through VZ Navigator. The service costs $9.99 a month; unfortunately, our review unit was not set up with the service to test it out.
Of course, what would a BlackBerry be without e-mail? The BlackBerry Tour can sync with your company’s BlackBerry Enterprise server, with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise, to deliver corporate e-mail in real time. With BlackBerry Internet Service, you can also access up to 10 personal/business POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts. There’s also an attachment viewer for opening Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Corel WordPerfect, PDF, JPEG, GIF, and more. Thankfully, there’s more instant messaging support as well, so in addition to BlackBerry Messenger, there are also preloaded clients IM for Windows Live, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and AIM.
To supplement the attachment viewer, the smartphone ships with DataViz Documents To Go Standard Edition, so you can now edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as well. If you want the ability to create new documents, you will have to upgrade to the Premium Edition, however. Staple personal information management tools, like a Calendar, a task list, a memo pad, a voice recorder, a calculator, will also help keep you on track. Recognizing the growing popularity of social networking sites, Verizon and RIM has also included Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr on the BlackBerry Tour for easy access.
In addition to the preloaded apps, the BlackBerry Tour supports the recently launched BlackBerry App World. The catalog has a basic, but easy-to-use, interface and features a fairly comprehensive database of applications, which you can view by category, top downloads, or featured items. You can also search by title. We downloaded several programs over Verizon’s 3G network, including Slacker Radio, the Weather Channel, and AP News, and had no problems. The bad news, however, is that like the T-Mobile G1, you can’t save apps to the microSD card, so you’ll have to download them to the phone’s main memory, which isn’t that much at 256MB.
While the app store has plenty of entertainment apps, there are some onboard options as well. The BlackBerry Tour features a built-in media player that can play various music and video formats, including MP3, WMA, WMA ProPlus Bluetooth, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+ files, and MPEG4, WMV, and H.264 video clips. There’s a search function, playlist creation, shuffle and repeat, and you get a full-screen mode for video playback. You can purchase and download songs over the air though V Cast Music or stream music from various sites. The included software CD also contains a copy of Roxio Easy Media Creator, so you can create MP3s from CDs and add audio tags. Make good use of that 2GB microSD card and save all your multimedia files on there. If you need more, the expansion slot can accept up to 16GB cards. Video and TV buffs might be disappointed to learn that the Verizon BlackBerry Tour will not support V Cast Mobile TV, whereas Sprint’s version of the Tour will support the carrier’s mobile TV service.
The BlackBerry Tour comes with a 3.2-megapixel camera with 2x zoom, auto focus, flash, and image stabilization. It can also record video and geotag photos using the phone’s GPS. Despite the image stabilization, we found picture quality to be a little fuzzy. There’s a bit of shutter lag so it may be that we pulled the camera away too soon, but that in and of itself is annoying. Video quality was actually more impressive. The picture had some expected pixelation but was mostly clear and it did well even in darker environments. For enterprise customers whose workplace bans camera phones, Verizon will also offer a version without a camera.
Performance
We tested the dual-mode (CDMA 800/1900; GSM 850/900/1800/1900; UMTS/HSDPA 2100) RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630 in San Francisco with Verizon Wireless service and call quality was good. We heard our callers loud and clear; in fact, it was almost too loud so we had to take the volume down a couple of notches. There are also settings to enhance the audio by boosting the treble or bass, but we didn’t feel the need to so. Our callers also had positive comments and said calls sounded quite clear. However, they could tell when we switched to the speakerphone unannounced. While the audio was not quite as pristine, we were still able to carry on with the conversation. On our side, the calls had enough volume but sounded just a bit hollow.
We paired the smartphone with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active headphones.
Armed with a 528MHz Qualcomm processor, the BlackBerry Tour was able to keep up with our day-to-day demands and was quite a fast little device. We encountered minimal delays, and we were able to switch between tasks with no problems. Verizon’s EV-DO Rev. A network also provided speedy as well as reliable coverage here in San Francisco. App and music downloads were pretty swift. It took 52 seconds to download the Slacker app, while a 1.94MB song took 1 minute and 27 seconds from V Cast Music. Thanks to the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack, we were able to plug in our Bose On-Ear headphones and enjoy rich-sounding tracks. Video playback was also smooth with synchronized picture and audio.
Using the Tour’s full HTML browser, CNET’s full site downloaded in 38 seconds–quite impressive considering other 3G smartphones have taken up to a minute–while CNN’s and ESPN’s mobile sites came up in 7 seconds and 15 seconds. We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again. BlackBerry’s Web browser isn’t the best. It’s come a long way and it’s much less frustrating to navigate with the onscreen cursor and different page views, but still there’s a lot to be desired.
Since our review unit didn’t include VZ Navigator, we couldn’t really test the voice-guided navigation. However, we used BlackBerry Maps, which was able to provide accurate directions to our destinations. The GPS reception was pretty good; from a cold start, the phone was able to find our location within two minutes and subsequent starts were a little faster at about a minute or less.
The RIM BlackBerry Tour comes with a 1400mAh lithium ion battery with a rated talk time of 5 hours and up to 14 days of standby time. We are still conducting our battery drain tests but will update this section as soon as we have final results.
Palm webOS 1.1 heading to Pre this month?
Palm sets business users in its sights, writes Al Warmington
According to anonymous tipsters, Palm is gearing up to launch a major update to the Palm Pre’s webOS software. webOS 1.1 is expected to bring in a number of security enhancements and a raft of Exchange Active Sync enhancements. The update is believed to be coming in the 30 days.
Security upgrades are expected to include remote wipes, required PINs, PIN complexity (alphanumeric or numeric), auto-lock after a pre-set number of minutes and auto-wipe following a certain number of failed PIN attempts.
Although it’s not the most thrilling set of tweaks from an average consumer’s perspective, these are the kind of things that corporate IT types clamour for, so it may make it easier to blag one from the company purse – because owning a corking little smartphone will make you almost 13% more productive, y’know.
Other rumours suggest that Palm is also rolling out a selection of new webOS apps. That’s great news for current Pre owners, who are starved of innovative phone applications. Palm is still readying its SDK for mobile developers and the launch has been pushed back till later in the summer, which may leave UK customers a little light on apps when the handset launches over here on O2.
Any new apps to come from the update are likely to be made in-house by Palm, so unfortunately you probably won’t be getting iBeer or Lightsabers.
Link: Palm (via BoyGeniusReport)
Panasonic Viera TX-P46Z1 46in Plasma TV Review
We’ve danced around a number of relatively low-rent Panasonic TVs in recent times, generally liking them – well, the plasma ones, anyway! – but more often than not also finding ourselves pointing out that Panasonic’s higher-level TVs seem to have quite a bit extra to commend them if you can stretch your finances far enough.
So today we’re pretty excited to have our hands on the ultimate expression of Panasonic’s high-end prowess: the TX-P46Z1.
Everything about the P46Z1 screams ‘flagship’. Starting, it has to be said, with its price; £5,400 is by any stretch of the imagination a huge amount to cough up for a 46in TV, especially from a brand selling 42in plasma TVs further down its range for less than £700.
As soon as you open its box, though, the P46Z1 starts to justify its premium price. For despite being an inordinately large box, it’s absolutely stuffed to bursting point with stuff. A pair of detachable speakers, a large detachable desktop stand, an external AV receiver/tuner box, the broadcasting and reception modules for a built-in wireless video transmission system and, of course, the 46in screen itself.
Much if not all of the stuff we’ve just found crunched into the P46Z1′s box needs more explanation, with the screen component probably being the most logical place to start. For this is, at long last, one of those ultra-slim plasma screens Panasonic has been demonstrating at shows for years now, but which we’d almost given up on ever seeing in the UK. It’s just 24.7mm deep for the vast majority of its body, making it far and away the slimmest plasma TV we’ve tested to date.
Obviously there are one or two LED TVs out there coming in even thinner, and there’s a small portion of the P46Z1′s rear that extends the depth to a less impressive 48.5mm. But this central section isn’t visible at all unless you’re stood practically behind the TV, so it doesn’t really diminish from the truly impressive aesthetic punch the set’s slenderness delivers.
Regular readers will know that I’m actually something of a ‘skinnysceptic’ when it comes to TVs, not really understanding the obsession with making TVs a few cm thinner when I’d rather everyone was putting all their efforts into making their screens better performers. But slim TVs really do seem popular with the public at large, so even I have to acknowledge the importance of plasma technology proving that it can ‘do slim’ like its arch-rival, LCD.
The slimness of the P46Z1′s screen explains another of the components in the box: the external tuner/receiver box. For tuners can be bulky old things, so Panasonic presumably had to move them to the external box to keep the screen slim.
Also, of course, really thin TVs appeal to people keen on hanging their screens on a wall, in which case having less cables spewing out of the screen is clearly a very good thing.
Which kind of leads us to the wireless transmission and reception units we mentioned earlier. For in order to keep the cables going into the P46Z1 to an absolute minimum, Panasonic has included with the TV its brand new ‘WirelessHD’ cable-free AV broadcasting system, so that you can send audio and video from the AV receiver box to the screen without a cable in sight.
What’s more, unlike the wireless AV connection Sony supplied with its 40ZX1 TV, the P46Z1′s beam-based WirelessHD system – created in conjunction with a consortium of brands including Samsung, Sharp and Yamaha – can support 1080p HD as well as 1080i. This is a potentially crucial point for Blu-ray fans.
The only downside of the P46Z1′s wirelessHD engine – ahead of actually seeing if it works! – is that it’s not all built in to the screen and media tuner box like it is with Sony’s 40ZX1. Instead, you have to put up with a funny little plasticky transmission lump sitting on top of your kit pile, and worse, a little black receiver hanging off the bottom of the screen. Since the screen is resplendent in a sumptuous silver metallic finish for the top and bottom sides of its bezel, and perfectly symmetrical in its lines, there’s no doubt that having a bit of black plastic hanging off the left-hand underside stands out like a sore thumb.
The slenderness of the screen possibly explains why Panasonic ships detachable speakers with the P46Z1 too, since it might have been too difficult to integrate any into the frame without drastically compromising their performance. Plus, of course, the fact that they’re detachable means you don’t have to use them at all if you’ve got a separate sound system – something that’s entirely possible if you can afford to splurge £5400 on a telly…
One more thing to say about all the separate bits that go into the full P46Z1 package is that they do make it much tougher to set up than your average TV, with loads of different sized screws to get your head round. It doesn’t help, either, that the sockets on the wirelessHD transmitter unit seem to have been designed by a sadist, so bloody awkward are they to get the cables into.
Focussing now on the AV receiver/tuner box, it’s a pretty well connected affair. Highlights include four HDMIs (one under a flap on the front), an SDHC card slot capable of playing photo or video files, a PC port, and a satellite LNB input. This is there because, as we’d expect of a premium Panasonic TV, the P46Z1 carries a Freesat as well as a Freeview tuner as standard.
One other jack that warrants closer attention is an Ethernet port. This allows you to jack the TV into Panasonic’s online VieraCast service, or to access files from a networked, DLNA-capable server.
We’ll have a look at what VieraCast has to offer in a moment, but first we’ve got a few more key screen specifications to cover. First of all, as you’d expect the P46Z1 is a Full HD screen. More unusual, though, is its claim of a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, delivering what Panasonic likes to call an ‘Infinite Black’.
More unusual still is the fact that the TV carries THX certification, having satisfied THX engineers that it has the black level, resolution, contrast and colour gamut talents necessary to deliver a sufficiently excellent cinematic display. This bodes extremely well for the TV’s performance, of course – though I have found that for better or for worse, my own views on picture quality don’t always completely coincide with those of the THX people!
Still more justification for the P46Z1′s soaring price tag comes with the discovery of Panasonic’s 600Hz Sub-field Drive Intelligent Frame Creation Pro video processing system (try saying that with a mouthful of Mars Bar). This interpolates so many extra image frames in a bid to tackle plasma’s traditional problem with judder that it ups PAL playback from the usual 50 frames per second to a huge 600fps. And we’ve seen it deliver some very impressive results previously, on Panasonic’s P46G10.
Since we haven’t had the opportunity to see the VieraCast online platform in action before, it’s worth devoting a moment or two to seeing how it stacks up against rival systems from the likes of Samsung and Philips.
Actually, it’s not bad at all. It’s effortless to get up and running (though it can’t be accessed wirelessly like Samsung’s online platform), and the opening screen is excellently presented, with graphical links to Panasonic’s preferred content providers as well as quick weather and finance reports appearing around a small version of the TV picture you were watching when you hit the Viera Cast button.
Unfortunately, at the moment there are only three key content providers available via VieraCast – there’s even a space in the bottom left corner for another provider to be added when Panasonic manages to sign one up, reminding you immediately of how the service is still in its infancy.
On the upside, the three main content providers are all pretty respectable: YouTube, the Picasa picture platform, and Eurosport. The YouTube system seems to let you access pretty much every file on its servers, while Eurosport offers a surprisingly diverse, extensive and regularly updated collection of video news options.
The interface for all these services works nicely too, with intuitive access to everything via the remote, good screen organisation, and a respectable text input system. Stuff loads in quickly, too.
As with all the ‘ring-fenced’ online systems I’ve seen so far, it’s important to stress that what you get with VieraCast is probably best seen as a (big!) extension of digital teletext rather than a full-blown internet service. And I did experience the occasional streaming problem with YouTube. But it was impossible to tell if this was down to YouTube’s servers, the online handling of the TV’s tuner/media box, or the wirelessHD system. All in all, though, VieraCast is a good first try by Panasonic, and it can only get better as more content deals get done
So much for the rather vast background to the P46Z1. Now it’s time to finally find out if its performance delivers on all the promise.
Actually, it does. Arriving on the heels of a cluster of decent but not awe-inspiring plasma screens from the lower reaches of Panasonic’s latest TV range, the P46Z1 delivers exactly the sort of AV punch we’d hope for from a flagship model from one of plasma technology’s most experienced devotees.
The first thing to stress is that the slender chassis has squeezed in one of Panasonic’s new NeoPDP plasma panels, meaning that its pictures are capable of being markedly brighter than those of the brand’s cheap models. And since this extra brightness is delivered without seemingly compromising Panasonic’s famous black level response in the slightest, the P46Z1′s pictures enjoy a stunning level of dynamism, even during dark scenes (scenes where most LCD-based rivals tend to hit a brightness-reduced, greyed-over brick wall…).
It’s great to note, too, that the P46Z1′s black levels don’t drop off at all if you watch the TV from the side, unlike the vast majority of LCD screens.
Also worth pointing out is that if you happen to be using a P46Z1 in a very dark room, the screen carries the flexibility for you to massively reduce its brightness while still ending up with a very enjoyable picture, if you’d rather save money and be ‘green’ by keeping its power consumption down.
Arguably the most pleasing thing about the P46Z1′s pictures, though, is their colour handling. Tones generally, with both standard and high definition, look much more natural than they do with Panasonic’s cheaper models, especially where rich reds and subtle skin tones are concerned. Colours look more dynamic and expressive than I’ve seen them on a Panasonic plasma too.
It’s also a relief to find the considerable processing power of the P46Z1 helping it upscale standard definition pictures with much more sharpness and conviction, but less noise, than I’ve noted with Panny’s cheap plasmas.
Of course, though, the screen’s sharpness and clarity are really at their most potent when watching high definition. And they really are very potent indeed, helping the screen produce pictures of mesmerising, intoxicating detail, texture, dynamism and subtlety. What’s more, with the exceptional clarity being joined by black levels at least rivaling those of Pioneer’s KURO plasmas, and much brighter, more natural peak whites than you get with previous Panasonic plasma generations, you really do have an image that’s truly cinematic in a way most ordinary TVs can only dream about.
Rounding off the image’s talents is the screen’s highly impressive motion handling. If you’re watching a Blu-ray, the P46Z1′s 24p Smooth Film mode becomes active, and this really does do a terrific job of eradicating the judder from the picture that’s such a feature of Panasonic’s entry-level plasmas. Instead motion looks silky smooth without becoming unnatural – and processing glitches such as flickering edges are impressively rare.
It would have been nice, perhaps, if Panasonic had provided some way for you to adjust the ‘heaviness’ of the motion processing, to eradicate the artefacts completely. But overall I found myself more than happy to leave the processing permanently active. Mind you, even if you decide you don’t like the processing, you can rest assured that the TV’s native judder levels aren’t at all bad anyway.
With non-24p sources, the 24p Smooth Film mode turns into Panasonic’s Intelligent Frame Creation system, where again you only get options to switch it on or off rather than adjusting its power. But actually I detected even less processing side effects from this than I did with the 24p system, so the need to deactivate it or reduce its power is even less pressing.
One final comment concerns the TV’s THX picture preset, which really does deliver a pretty superbly calibrated image for films – so long, at least, as your viewing room is reasonably dark. Having such a carefully created film preset preinstalled on the TV really is a boon for people not particularly confident about calibrating a screen themselves (though I probably wouldn’t use it with PAL TV sources).
If you really pushed me to find any flaws in the P46Z1B’s picture make up beyond the occasional processing glitches already mentioned, I might say that the occasional standard definition skin tone looks a touch plasticky and even slightly orange. But such moments are rare, and generally lost in the ocean of good stuff that’s going on.
I’m duty-bound to report that my test screen irritatingly kept going into a reduced brightness ‘no activity’ mode while I was watching films or TV if I didn’t touch the remote control, and I couldn’t find an option in the onscreen menus to stop this happening. However, this apparent glitch only occurred if I switched to an HDMI input direct from using the VieraCast system, and could be rectified by simply switching the TV off and on again.
Anyway, however hard I look for trouble, the bottom line is that the P46Z1 is a truly sensational picture performer, delivering – especially with HD – KURO-beating picture quality of a standard Panasonic has only previously been able to produce on its megabucks professional or custom installation screens. And it does this, let’s not forget, via a completely wireless and utterly stable connectivity system.
Even the P46Z1B’s sound is excellent, with those side-mounted speakers producing a soundstage width and dynamic range way beyond anything you usually hear from a built-in speaker system, while also leaving dialogue sounding accurately locked to the correct parts of the picture.
Getac PS535F GP PDA
Getac don’t like to do things by halves, producing a range of devices for those who work in tough environments. The PS535F is a rugged PDA aimed at those who need a handheld device that can withstand the worst the environment can throw at it.
Unlike the majority of Windows Mobile devices in the consumer electronics category, this isn’t a connected device – it lacks any sort of mobile phone technology as was the case with PDAs a few years back. This marks it out as a working tool and perhaps sets it apart from something like the iMate.
The PS535F PDA comes in that typical grey and black livery that Getac have applied the other devices and it is pretty large, measuring 144.25 x 82.25 x 29.3mm. It also weighs 300g, so is it not light by PDA standards. Much of that will be down to the level of protection incorporated here.
The device is solid – you can’t twist or bend anything here, it doesn’t creak when you grip it or anything else. That’s to be expected because it is engineered to meet MIL-STD 810F and IP54 standards. IP54 means it is tight against dust ingress and splashing water, while 810F outlines a range of laboratory-tested environmental stresses, which the device is certified to withstand.
The front features a 3.5-inch 480 x 640 (VGA) touchscreen display, which Getac boast can be seen in direct sunlight thanks to its anti-glare coating. In this device, where function rules over form, it is true. The anti-glare is good enough that we were able to photograph the screen directly, even in bright light, which is very rare indeed. It is LED backlit too, which helps get the most from the battery.
Across the bottom of the front are four buttons, giving you the normal Windows Mobile Start button, contacts, TacLink launcher and power. Of course you can reassign three of these buttons to launch different programs to suit what you are doing. In the centre of these buttons is a small clickable four-way controller, which means you can scroll around manually without having to use touch too much, but not entirely.
As this runs a standard version of Windows Mobile 6.1, you’ll need to use the stylus for fiddly tasks like using the on-screen keyboard or closing down windows. The stylus slots neatly into the back right-hand corner and is nice and tight, so it won’t fall out.
The buttons are a little too small to use wearing gloves, although if you can grip the stylus, then this shouldn’t be too much of a challenge to use in the cold, but we can see that those wearing gloves will probably choose a larger stylus attached by a lanyard or some such.
The bottom of the device features a large flap, well sealed to prevent water or dust ingress, beneath which lies the connections: a DC power point and Mini-USB for syncing with your PC. There is also a hard power switch, meaning you can shut the PDA off completely and not run the risk of flattening the batteries whilst in transit.
The left-hand side features two further weatherproofed flaps, concealing a 3.5mm headphone jack and the SD card slot (up to 8GB accepted). The latter flap is also secured with a screw, so this isn’t something you’ll be swapping out in the field. It does mean that it won’t accidentally drop out or get lost – vital if you are using it to gather data. 
Around the back of the PDA is a small speaker and a 3-megapixel camera, as well as an attachment point for an external GPS antenna (available separately) that you might want to consider if you plan to vehicle mount PS535F.
The camera is average for this type of device – it won’t replace a decent digital camera, but will grab snaps should you need them. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be an option to geotag images straight out of the box. It will also capture video with sound.
In-use the PDA performs pretty much as any other Windows Mobile device, which is exactly what you want. This means you’ll be able to use normal Windows Mobile applications and compatibility with your PC back at the office is ensured.
To support the hardware onboard, however, you do get a couple of special applications. The first is TacLink that gives you a detailed display of GPS information, including satellite locations and levels, as well as your exact location information. You can also log this information, so you’ll be able to record and extract this data for later use. It isn’t a GPS navigator however, so you’d benefit from installing a third-party mapping application if that is a requirement.
The second application is E-Compass, which as the name suggests is an electronic compass. Each time you use it you’ll have to calibrate it by waving it around in a figure of eight, but after that you’ll get the option of having the needle point north, or the dial point north. You get a digital readout of the bearing the device is lying on, as well as altitude (which can be gathered from GPS data), barometric data and pitch and roll.
These features won’t really appeal for those wanting a navigation device as you can get smaller GPS units that will give you routing and mapping information of this type, or a sighting compass is no weight in the pocket and doesn’t rely on batteries. The pitch and roll is useful, because you can use this for levelling, however, and the barometric pressure could also be logged. All the details supplied might feed into the pot of information you have to collect at a particular location.
Sitting at the core of the PS535F is a Samsung 2450 533MHz processor, backed by 128MB of RAM and 2GB NAND flash memory for storage. Navigation of Windows Mobile is relatively smooth, although this is the characteristic pause whilst the OS thinks about what you have asked it to do. As this isn’t a consumer device, that probably won’t be much of a problem.
In terms of connectivity you do get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, so you’ll be able to connect to networks wirelessly to move data in and out and take advantage of all the connected features that you can add to Windows Mobile if that takes your fancy. Unlike many consumer devices, there is no modification to Windows Mobile here – you don’t get a flashy interface or any shortcuts
Panasonic TH-65VX100 review
Pros
Black depth and contrast ratio. Great colour realism and accuracy. Adjustable,
flexible design. Sheer size
Cons
Sheer size. Price. Purist design is light on features
Panasonic’s new TH-65VX100 is a TV of extremes in every sense. It’s huge, for one thing – a 65in screen is some size even in the modern market, and that 69kg weight isn’t to be sniffed at either.
The price is equally eye watering: at a suggested £8,000, this set costs substantially more than many of the best 60in sets on the market.
Blank canvas
But you get plenty to play with to sweeten the deal, right? Nope: it’s stripped for action, resolutely focused on delivering the maximum possible picture performance.
There’s nary a trace of a widget or a fancy adaptive backlight – in fact, there aren’t any loudspeakers, and you don’t even get a TV tuner.
That’s because this set isn’t part of Panasonic’s Viera range of flat TVs: instead, it’s sold as part of the company’s professional operation, and so is aimed squarely at an enthusiast, home cinema-orientated audience.
Tailor-made telly
That means you can specify it to suit your needs with various input boards (ours had four HDMIs, for example) but at the same time, you don’t pay for features you won’t need or use, such as speakers.
Of course, you’ve a right to expect a good picture as compensation for all this hair-shirted purism: happily, the TH-65VX100 delivers that in spades.
Naturally, it’s a Full HD, 1920×1080 panel, featuring a new-generation plasma panel with a dramatic 60,000:1 claimed contrast ratio, a wider colour gamut and extraordinarily powerful 18-bit digital signal processing, able to deliver 7,160 steps of light-to-dark gradation. We can’t think of a TV that allows more adjustability, either: the on-screen options are amazingly complete.
Excellent picture quality
In action, the Panasonic’s picture quality is just wonderful. Detail is beautifully sharp and well-resolved, even with rapid motion, and textures are exceptionally convincing.
Black levels are brilliantly inky and consistent, too – only Pioneer’s Kuro plasmas rival the depth and sheer drama here.
Pioneer KRP-500A review
Pros
Stupendous black depth and contrast. Brilliant colours, edge definition and
clarity. Gorgeous design. Extensive spec
Cons
It’s not cheap. That’s it
We’ve seen so many fine Pioneer plasmas in the last few years it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find new superlatives. But amazingly, the Japanese company’s newest (and last) model, the KRP-500A, eclipses even its illustrious forebears. Behold, the best TV you can buy.
Two-box design
The KRP-500A’s configuration returns to the two-box design approach of older Pioneer sets. The main display panel is just that – a panel, with no TV tuner and a strictly limited array of inputs.
Even speakers are optional, Pioneer reasoning that most potential buyers will already own an external audio system. Everything else is taken care of in an external ‘media receiver’, itself a sultry slab of glossiness featuring a neat fold-down fascia panel that hides certain key inputs, plus a pair of card-reader slots.
Unusually, it also includes a digital satellite TV receiver, although this doesn’t meet the Freesat specification: it’ll receive free-to-view (unencrypted) satellite signals, but without the electronic programme guide (EPG) of Freesat. The remaining input sockets, including a DLNA-friendly Ethernet input, are located on the unit’s rear panel.
Why adopt this approach having dispensed with it previously? Partially, because it makes wall-mounting neater and easier – and is thus very popular with custom installers – but it also has the benefit of cutting down on the depth and weight of the panel itself: at just 64mm thin, it’s one of the slimmest 50in TVs around.
Pure picture
The KRP-500A’s real appeal lies in its performance. It boasts two new picture modes: the first is an enhanced version of the automatic picture-adjusting ‘Optimum’ system found in older Pioneer sets, modified here with an external colour sensor probe that clips magnetically to the side of the set.
We felt the end results were overcooked for our tastes, but you might like it, and the onscreen graphics (designed to illustrate what the mode is doing to the picture in real-time) are certainly a flashy touch.
But we were far more interested in the other new mode, called ‘Pure’. Essentially, this is like a Direct mode on an AV amp: it cuts out all the picture processing you don’t need, and sets the Pioneer to an almost uncannily accurate ‘out-of-the-box’ picture set-up that – unless you’re prepared to get a specialist picture calibration done – is pretty much as good as it gets in a mainstream TV.
Movement, colour depth, black level and detail are all simply fabulous. And even if you switch to lower-quality content, from off-air TV to satellite content, the good news continues, with the obvious caveat that not even the best off-air signals look quite as clean as Blu-ray.
Sony HDR-XR520 review
Pros:
Very detailed HD footage. Crisp and clear LCD screen. Excellent in
low light
Cons:
Not cheap. Autofocus wobbles. Not for Mac users, yet
Life in the high-end camcorder market is hard. With pocket cams like the Toshiba S10 offering 1080p shooting for under £200, manufacturers increasingly need to add glitzy new features to pull in the punters. Take Sony’s new HDR-XR250, a Full HD cam that packs built-in GPS for the first time.
While it also touts a 3.2in touchscreen LCD and a not inconsiderable 240GB hard-drive, it’s this ability to track when and where you shoot movies and stills that marks the XR250 out as an exciting new flagship shooter.
Geo-tagging joy
Not only does the GPS find your location and display it on a map, it also takes into account time differences and will change automatically when you arrive in a new area. Best of all is the Map Index function, which allows you to find movies and photos on a map by touching the recording location.
The hard-up might be disappointed to see Sony pack GPS into a £1,300 HD camcorder loaded with manual functions and creative modes, but it’s such a useful and fun feature that it’ll almost certainly trickle down to more affordable models soon.
Storage, like no other
The XR520 main rivals are Canon’s LEGRIA HF S10 and Panasonic’s HDC-HS300, but neither gets anywhere near matching its storage potential.
The massive 240GB hard disk drive represents up to 101 hours of Full HD recording. It also offers hybrid recording, in this case capturing to Memory Stick PRO Duo if four days of recording isn’t quite enough.
Sony has decided to tackle low-light performance by giving the XR520 an Exmor R CMOS sensor. The claim is that this produces brighter images but with reduced picture noise. It’s a claim the cam makes good on: both indoors and outdoors low-light footage packs detail without jitter or noise butting in.
Sadly, it isn’t a lot of fun to use with a Mac. The supplied software is PC-only, while the AVCHD codecs used (MTS and CPI) mean you’ll need to download conversion software to get footage into an editing app. Currently, there’s not a lot of choice, though we used VoltaicHD.
High-end heroics
Still, for high-end camcorders the tale of the tape is the quality of the HD footage, and here the XR520 is a real knockout. Movies look exceptional, dripping with detail and vivid, yet realistic, colours. There’s even positive news from the audio, with a beefy, bassy performance.
There are a couple of minor niggles – the autofocus is a bit wobbly (though quick to reset itself) and while the touchscreen is beautifully crisp, it’s unresponsive on occasions.
But neither of these issues drag the XR520 down. In fact, its mix of features and video quality have set the bar for others to beat in 2009
Asus S121 notebook
Asus has categorised this product as a notebook, only we think it falls very much into the netbook category of devices and for many reasons, not just because we like to argue with manufacturers. Asus are calling this a notebook as HQ has determined in most peoples’ minds screen sizes over 10 inches fall under the laptop/notebook range. This is all due to the fact that traditionally, netbooks have always had a smaller screen size than laptops.
Everything about the S121 screams loudly at the top of its voice – “I’m a netbook. I’m a netbook”: it has a small form factor, bundled in is a larger than normal 512GB SSD, the processor chosen was due to its low power usage which as a result appears in many netbooks around today.
Even the long battery life shouts, netbook, netbook, netbook! Asus stated it can last around 8 hours, although we found it was more like 6 without Wi-Fi on and a good 5 ½ with an internet connection, which is still pretty rare in a laptop.
Its design, however, does set it apart from the most netbooks seen around today. The overall look is very sleek, with its glossy plum coloured shell, glass-like 12.1-inch screen and leather palm rests. Yep, that’s right, leather palm rests – everything that the executive really wants, judging by the BlackBerry Bold and it’s leather-backed handset.
The processor onboard is ideal for running the Windows XP shipped in our very close to final model. We have a feeling however it might not fare so well under Windows Vista, judging by previous experiences, but Asus may have worked those kinks out by now. Asus has even bundled in their Linux kernel called Express Gate, which allows fast booting to a fully functioning Linux OS within seconds. It’s ideal for the last minute checking of email or train times, rather than waiting for a whole operating system to boot up.
Keeping in line with a netbook’s ports stylings are the three USB 2.0, SD card slot, mic, headphones, VGA and Ethernet port. What came a surprise is a DC out socket, presumably for powering or recharging other devices from an appropriate lead. This could very well be a nice idea, although the impact on battery life is yet to be determined and could very well be a factor when in use.
The Asus S121 keyboard and touchpad have stepped up in size when compared with the other netbooks in the Eee PC family. As the S121 is a much larger device than the 901 netbook, there’s a sizable increase on the keyboard’s dimensions which suits the device well indeed. Overall the keyboard is around a third longer than before, with almost double the size per key – which does make a welcomed difference when fast typing with big fingers.
