Motorola Droid 2 Smartphone Officially Launched is a post from: www.ComputerRiver.com
Related posts:AS SOON AS THE PUBLICATION OF THE
20. August 2010 Media Contact:
Greg Hernandez
Phone: (202) 898-6984
Cell: (202) 340-4922
Email: ghernandez@fdic.gov
Community Bartow, Bartow, Florida, and independent Central Bank, Naples, Florida, At the National Bank was closed today, the currency that was then the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the two banks of the receiver as the Chief Financial Officer of the Agency. Depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement CenterState Bank National Association, Florida, Winter Haven, Florida, all deposits and substantially all the assets of two failed banks, which are linked.
In conjunction with the failed banks operate five branches again as branches CenterState Bank of Florida, n.a. pursuant to those of a normal business hours, including the offices hours on Saturday.Bartow Community At the National Bank is one of the branch and an independent Central Bank has four branches.Depositors will appear automatically in the depositors gynexin results
CenterState Bank of Florida, are not subject to FDIC insured deposits continue, so there is no need for customers to change banking relationships to conserve their deposit insurance coverage.
Two failed banks customers should continue to use their former branches before they receive communication CenterState Bank of Florida, n.a., that it is complete, so that other CenterState Bank of Florida, n.a. branches account for changes in the systems. Over the weekend the depositors to provide cash checks in writing or using ATM or debit card cards. further the Bank's Loan. customers should continue their for the purpose of effecting payments in the usual manner.
30 June 2010 At Bartow community Central Bank total assets was 67.9 million dollars and a total of deposits 63.7 million, and an independent Central Bank had total assets of $ 156.2 million and total deposits 141.9 million dollars.CenterState Bank of Florida, n.a. paid no FDIC premium two failed banks deposits.
FDIC and CenterState Bank of Florida, n.a. became the LGD entries 51.9 million dollar community Central Bank At Bartow's resources; and an independent National Bank funds 119.7 million dollars.CenterState Bank of Florida, n.a. share loan losses asset pools LGD within the scope of the agreement.Loss-to-GDP ratio is projected to maximise the return on the transaction to keep the assets covered by the private sector are also expected to the transaction. loan customers to reduce disturbances.For more information about the LGD, please visit: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/lossshare/index.html.
Customers who have questions about days events call free of charge from the FDIC toll: Community Central Bank customers At Bartow, 1-800-450-5668; and an independent Central Bank customers, 1-800-913-3058. phone numbers ready to operate in the evening until 9: 00 p.m. eastern daylight time; Saturday-9: 00 a.m. 6: 00 p.m. EDT on Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 6: 00 p.m. EDT; up to and after 8: 00 a.m. 8: 00 p.m. EDT.
Interested parties also visit the FDIC's Web site (s): the community Central Bank At Bartow, http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/cnbbartow.html; and for Independent central banks, http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/inatbank.html.
FDIC estimates that the cost-Deposit Insurance fund (DIF) for the community Central Bank At Bartow is 10,3 million dollars, and for Independent central banks, 23.2 million dollar. other options, Florida, as compared to Bank n.a. 's CenterState acquisition was the cheapest, the accuracy of the FDIC DATA INTERCHANGE FORMAT.
These closures will lead to an increase in the total number of years the nation and the twenty-first and twenty-second Florida banks 112. These failures before the latter FDIC insured with the institution closed was the Bayside savings bank, Port Saint Joe, 30.July 2010.
# # #Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to restore the public's confidence in the nation of the banking system of the 1933. deposits FDIC takaatte successful nation 7,932 banks and savings associations and it contributes to the stability and security by identifying, monitoring and deal with risks for which they are exposed to the FDIC may not. federal tax dollars – the insured financial institutions to finance their activities.
FDIC press releases and other information is electronically available on the Internet at www.fdic.gov order (go to www.fdic.gov/about/subscriptions/index.html) and may also be obtained from the FDIC's Public Information Center (877-275-3342 or 703-562-2200).PR-191-2010
Logitech's dedication to serving each user is nicely displayed in the Logitech Deluxe 250 Keyboard.
Rating: No user ratingsCan the Droid beat off the iPhone?
A week of toting around the new Droid X and reactions from friends remind me of the days I used to walk my Newfoundland dog around campus. "Woah, that thing is huge!" the boys would shout, followed by, "How much does he weigh?". The new Droid X is comparable to a Newfoundland dog: big, black, bold, smart and capable of jumping out of helicopters to save drowning fisherman. Well, actually, we do not advise throwing your Droid X out of a helicopter or submerging it in the ocean.
And while a Newfoundland dog weighs about 180lbs (80kg), the Droid X weighs 5.5oz (155g), which is still a paw heavier than the iPhone 4G at 4.8oz (137g). It's thinner and lighter than the original Droid, accomplished by getting rid of the Droid's slide-out physical keyboard, so while not overwhelming, it barely fits into the pocket of a technophile's skinny jeans.
The Droid X measures 65.5 x 127.5 x 9.9mm, while the iPhone 4's dimensions are 58.6 x 115.2 x 9.3 mm, which means the Droid X could swallow the iPhone 4 with room to spare. With a 4.3-inch high-resolution screen, the big friendly Droid X is one of the largest smartphones on the market, comparable to its twin brother the HTC Evo 4G. But with only 854 x 480 pixels on the Droid X display, the Apple iPhone 4's 3.5-inch display wins with 960 x 640 pixels (Evo loses by just a pinch with 800 x 480). A larger display is nice, but a higher resolution means sharper graphics and clearer text.
The Droid X is an evolution of the original Droid, which launched just over 8 months ago. The back of the Droid X reminds us of an early-90s calculator but it's still a dramatic improvement over the old Droid's battery cover design. Another great improvement: the front of the phone has four actual, physical, buttons including menu, home, back and search.
Also, the Droid X has a true multitouch keyboard, pre-loaded with Swype, which is a huge change in the way touch keyboards work. It's easy to use and it's incredibly efficient. Swype enables users to text at more than 50 words per minute using one continuous finger motion across the screen keyboard.
When the phone boots up, the Motorola-added Live Wallpaper features the iconic red Droid eye. The interface is confusing with seven screens of widgets, but it's easy to customise the home screen. Motorola widgets include airplane mode toggle, Bluetooth toggle, calender, contact quick tasks to set quick settings for favourite contacts, GPS toggle, messaging, news, a favourite photo widget, sticky note, weather and Wi-Fi toggle. It's also preloaded with a full suite of Google mobile services including the Android market, Google Maps, Street View, Latitude, Search and Gmail.
The music library on the Droid X is similar to the old Droid, although we had issues connecting the smartphone to a computer to load music onto it; third-party apps like Pandora may be your best bet to listen to music out of the phone's decent speakers.
The Droid's pull down screen to show notifications including recent downloads, missed calls, social networking updates and email is not so intuitive at first but it is extremely helpful. Also counter-intuitive is some of the phone's highlighting features: unread emails are white while read emails are highlighted with a grey purple.
With its massive display screen and full 720p HD video capture and playback via HDMI, "the Droid X screams video", says Verizon's CMO John Stratton. In fact, Motorola and Verizon are marketing it as a "pocket-sized home theater". The features encourage users to use Verizon's V Cast video-on-demand service in partnership with Blockbuster, NFL Mobile, and Skype Mobile. As far as we can tell you can't delete these preloaded programs.
There are four video modes: everyday, outdoors, narrative and subject, which adjust the settings of the device's 3 microphones. For example, everyday makes use of all three of the camera's microphones, outdoors reduces wind noise, narrative is best for capturing video while commenting on the scene and subject is best for capturing audio from the front of the camera. Camera effects include favourites like sepia, solarize and a variety of tints. The Droid's HDMI jack works well for plugging your phone into the TV and it features DLNA which enables users to download and stream videos from personal computers, although this wasn't easy on first try.
The Droid X features an 8-megapixel camera with built-in camera effects, 1/1000 second shutter speed, autofocus, touch focus, panoramic capture and a dual LED flash. It trumps the iPhone 4G's 5-megapixel camera and single LED flash, but won't replace your camera. The only aspect the Droid X lacks is the Evo 4G's and iPhone 4's front-facing camera which makes it a loser for video conferencing.
The Droid X runs on Google's Android operating system. The Android Market offers 65,000 apps in comparison to Apple's App Store which sells over 225,000 apps. The superphone comes with Android 2.1, which is more integrated into the OS than the original Droid and will receive the Android 2.2 update later this summer. It also features a brand new version of Motorola's MotoBlur software, which lets you stream content from social networking sites. The software is (thankfully) dramatically toned down from the original Droid.
You may have seen Motorola's Droid X advertisements recently (for US readers), which directly bash the new Apple iPhone 4 with the following claim: "And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that lets you hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls." Motorola's CEO, Sanjay Jha spoke highly of Verizon's high performance diversity antennas and the world's largest 3G network, saying jokingly, "People still use phones as phones". Calls on the Droid X are unsurprisingly clear due to Verizon's reliable 3G network. In fact, unlike the iPhone, the Droid never once dropped a call. Shocker.
And one of its coolest features, just like the Evo, the handset doubles as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five devices including PCs for an additional $20 a month, which clearly beats the iPhone 4 in terms of connectivity.
The Droid X boasts 8 hours of talk time and 220 hours on standby, while the iPhone 4 gets 7 hours of talk and 300 of standby. The battery, which is comparable to the original Droid, dies after 24 hours of light use and the battery measure isn't totally accurate.
At $200 (after a $100 mail-in-rebate) the Droid X comes with 8GB of on-board memory and a 16GB card pre-installed, while the $200 iPhone 4G only has 16GB. The Droid X is expandable to 40GB with a pricey 32GB card, meanwhile the iPhone 4 maxes out at 32GB. It uses Texas Instruments' OMAP processor clocked at 1GHz like the old Droid, instead of the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor found on most Android phones including HTC's Evo.
Verdict:
As an added bonus for Mother Earth, Droid X is environmentally friendly, including a PVC-free handset, bromine-free printed circuit boards, mercury-free LCD display, arsenic-free glass and packaging made of 65 per cent recycled materials.
Still, it's not pretty like the iPhone. And it's huge. But due to its 8-megapixel camera and excellent video capture, you'll no longer have to bring out your Flip HD video cam saving you room in your purse or your pocket.
Verizon customers who have contracts ending in 2010 can upgrade to the Droid X without penalty. The Droid X begins shipping on 15 July in the States but there are still no details on when or, even, whether it will make it over the pond.
Tags:PhonesMobile phonesMotorolaDroid XAndroidVerizon
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Droid X by Motorola originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:53:54 +0100
In the spirit of making your identity crisis a little less awkward, we"ve come up with 62 different ways to tell if you"re a geek.
You know you"re a geek if"
1 ...you"ve ever changed your neighbor"s wifi name to make a political statement.
2 ?your joystick thumb puts vice-grips to shame.
3 ?your iPod has open source firmware on it.
4 ?you bought a Powershot just to hack it with CHDK.
5 "you"ve ever noticed that some of your freckles are identical to constellations.
6 ?you mumble bash commands in your sleep.
7 ?you have Wikipedia downloaded to a hard drive. Bonus points if you have it downloaded to an iPod.
8 ...your genes have mutated in such a way that your offspring posses extra fingers for more efficient use of a keyboard.
9 ?you have a deep-cycle battery under the hood of your car, connected to the alternator, and wired into electrical outlets in your dashboard (you know, in case you get stranded and need to run your laptop for 30 hours straight).
10 ?all your music is either FLAC or OGG Vorbis.
11 ?you rip Blu-Ray discs just because you can.
12 ?you can mentally calculate all the ways warranties rip you off.
13 ?you can stare at Linux eye candy and remain nonplussed.
14 ?you make your own fireworks.
15 ?you hack into your friends computers to remind them of how bad their passwords suck.
16 ?you have three or more monitors (bonus if you convince your friends that the third one is powered by magic).
17 "you"ve accepted that 98% of the population believes their computers run off of fairy dust.
18 ?you understand and appreciate pixel art.
19 ?your laptop track pad is hacked to work as a digital tablet.
20 ?you have tried to build a communication device for your dog.
21 "you honestly can"t remember the last time you wrote something by hand.
22 ?you have a caffeine tolerance high enough to kill a horse
23 "you actually know the origins of "All Your Bases Are Belong to Us", plus the origins of another thousand or two memes you"re tired of hearing.
24 ?your mp3 player has a hidden partition and you known what plausible deniability means.
25 ?you know how to make an old laptop blazing fast.
26 "you have a host of scrolling RSS feeds on your desktop, but haven"t touched a newspaper in years.
27 ?all of your DVDs are digitized, organized by size and name, and streamed throughout your entire dorm via an ancient server that keeps the underside of your bed warm.
28 "you once cracked the video-garbling security measure on a VHS player in order to copy old VHS tapes even though they"re available on DVD.
29 ?you carry a computer cleaning arsenal on your USB drive.
30 ?you have embedded LED lights in the toes of your shoes to use as convenient headlights for your next hiking trip.
31 ?you know at least one fictional language.
32 ?you have a USB drive for every occasion, including formal dinner parties.
33 ?you have embedded LED lights in the toes of your shoes to use as convenient headlights for your next hiking trip.
34 "you"ve ever reprogrammed the computer in your car.
35 "you"ve ever turned a paintball gun into a motion activated turret.
36 ?you have a webcam that has been hacked into a night vision scope, and that is may or may not be motion activated and connected to a wireless network, which it uses to send pictures to a remote server for you own amusement.
37 ?you added a camera to your MP3 player before Apple did.
38 "you"ve wept over the death of a digital pet.
39 ?your electric company has ever reported you for suspiciously high electricity bills.
40 ?you know how to take apart a light bulb and rebuild it using LEDs.
41 "you owned solar panels before they were cool because you couldn"t handle being without power during a storm.
42 ?you can align a satellite by yourself.
43 ?you feel a particular love and fondness for certain hardware.
44 "you are amused by your school/work"s attempts at blocking certain websites (and you sell the method for circumventing it at $20 a pop).
45 ?you use a database to keep a running inventory of all your possessions.
46 ?you have coasters, wind chimes, or ninja stars made out of old hard drive platters.
47 "you carry a bootable operating system on your key ring in the event that you"ll need impromptu access to a random computer.
48 "you"ve ever accused a family member of neglect and abandonment for leaving a laptop lay around.
49 ?your Wii is also functional as an NES, SNES, and N64.
50 ?you made sure to move out of your parents house the day you turned 18 in order to avoid substantiating stereotypes.
51 ?you have more money invested in computer books than your own health.
52 ?you have a habit of anthropomorphizing gadgets (aw, look how cute little iPod Nano is!).
53 ?you have your computer set to boot in verbose mode.
54 "you"ve ever created at least one piece of complex ASCII art.
55 ?the thought of letting someone use your computer makes you tremble.
56 "you"ve had a dream become infected with trojans and viruses.
57 ?you sometimes move your fingers as if hitting Ctrl+S or Ctrl+Z in real life.
58 "you constantly try to beat your system"s previous uptime record.
59 ?you have several distinct and highly detailed fictional lives online that many people believe to be real.
60 ?you have a prepaid broadband connection to use as a backup in the event that your home connection goes down an hour for maintenance.
61 "you can"t sleep without the gentle whir of your computer running all night.
62 ?you can remote access your home computer via your smartphone.
Photo Credits:
Fireworks Photo - No attribution needed  | The Cyborg Gaming Keyboard from Saitek is a high-end, adjustable, gaming keyboard with localized lighting. Includes 12 programmable "C" keys with three programming modes. Tri-Color backlighting with Tru Vu illumination through keys(Red, Green, Amber). AWSD and cursor can be lighted independently from the other keys. Media keys and hard-wearing key surfaces. Fully programmable with SST software included. USB. Windows XP, and Vista Certified. |
Illuminate your typing experience, night or day, with the Logitechs Illuminated Keyboard. Bright, laser-etched, backlit keys let you type easily, even in the dark.
Rating: No user ratings
Giving you an arsenal of advanced gaming technology, the Logitech G19 gaming keyboard is the first Logitech keyboard to feature a color GamePanel LCD. The tiltable,...
Looking for a flexible monitor?
If you're looking for something a little more "flexible" than your average LCD screen, you'll find a fairly limited selection of displays that offer height, tilt and swivel adjustment that are complemented by decent performance and a reasonable price. Benq's V2410T ticks all of these boxes and while it stops short of delivering on all fronts, there's still plenty to like about its latest 24-inch LCD.
With a 16:9 (1920 x 1080) aspect ratio and LED-backlighting the 2410 is impressively slim but necessarily heavy due to the presence of a wide, flat stand that can accommodate its wide range of movement. It does an excellent job in this area and can be hoisted over 20cm from a desk, rotated to portrait orientation, has a 90 degree swivel movement and a 25 degree tilt, with adjustments extremely smooth and easy to make with one hand due to the efficient weight distribution.
This is a key benefit of a display that is otherwise rather basic, sporting almost no defining features on the rather bland, matt-black bezel and omitting HDMI, built-in speakers and USB ports. D-Sub and DVI-D connections are all that come as standard and BenQ utilises a typical arrangement of presets, environment and colour modes to offer flexibility depending on use.
Its proprietary Senseye technology offers previews of some of the environment modes on offer (gaming, movie and photo accompany "standard", "eco" and "sRGB") and we were fairly pleased by the admittedly general adjustments made to help optimise content in these settings. Some tweaking may be required for those with a sharp eye for detail, but contrast levels, colour accuracy and response time were about what we'd expect for a monitor at this price point. While far from outstanding, most will be pleased with the performance on offer, and the built-in eco mode, which saves around 20 per cent, is bright enough to be set as default in most cases.
As mentioned, Benq's V2410T is quite reasonably priced at around ?185, which considering its size and the range of orientation adjustments available makes it very good value for money. Though it's unlikely to win any awards for pure performance, it will still be more than adequate for most audiences and those in a position to take advantage of its key benefits will find very little not to like.
Verdict:
The V2410T is a large, slimline LED-backlit display that will suit those who demand a degree of flexibility without top-notch performance. It does well in most of the key areas and provided its rather basic specifications are sufficient for your needs, this is an impressive general use display at a very reasonable price.
Tags:HardwareMonitorsBenQBenQ V2410T
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Benq V2410T monitor originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:15:14 +0100
I have tried searching on C572K and no results show the 1555 keyboard with this part number, only the 1535 and others.
A number of blogs also give the C572K part number, but? I suspect they might simply be feeding off each other. There does seem to be some confusion and wrong information around this item's part number.
I have yet to find the actual part number for the Studio 1555 backlit UK keyboard. I have tried a 1535 keyboard, but the function key markings are different to the 1555 and I could not get it to switch the backlight on and off (it is F6 on the 1555, but Fn right arrow on the 1535 which may be why).
If anyone has successfully found and tried a backlit UK 1555 keyboard I would be interested to know how to do the same.
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Stay on top of your game. The Logitech G11 gaming keyboard features blue-backlit characters, 18 programmable G keys, and convenient media
 | When you"re gearing up for battle, you never compromise. Not on your team, not on your weapons, and certainly not on your hardware. If you take your gameplay seriously, you want the Logitech? G19 on your side. Control Convenience
|
Budget Android for Acer
Acer's smartphone onslaught continues, this time with a budget offering in the form of the beTouch E400. This is the Android version of the Acer neoTouch P400 we reviewed last month: the same hardware but with a different operating system.
It comes rocking Android 2.1, much to the chagrin of a host of other manufacturers who are still a set behind. The device gets Acer's rather light user interface and a host of pre-installed applications, a move that will be familiar to owners of Acer products.
The handset measures 115 x 59.3 x 12mm, with a weight of 125g, and as we found with the neoTouch, we can't help feeling that better use could be made of that length. Although you get a 3.2-inch display, a lot of space seems wasted with the Acer logo and touch controls running across the bottom of the front of the device.
The construction in plastic is fitting with its budget status, although the matte back of the phone is free from creaks under manipulation and doesn't attract fingerprints. The white waistband gives way to the single piece plastic front, which is soft and flexible, in fitting with the screen's resistive touch technology. Even so, the feel of the front and the uneven texture below the display doesn't make for the best feeling as you poke it.
The curved edges around the back make for a nice enough feeling in the hand, although the top lip of the front makes a noticeably hard line across your ear when it comes to making calls. You also get a choice of black, white and red back covers in the box, along with a 2GB microSD card and SD adapter so you can easily add content from your computer, adding to the negligible internal memory.
Around the body of the phone there is a volume rocker, a dedicated camera button and a power/lock button. The bottom of the phone sees a Micro-USB connection for charging and file transfer, whilst the top gives you a 3.5mm headphone jack. Around the back of the phone is a 3.2-megapixel camera, with no flash, and an external speaker. Of course you get the full platter of wireless connectivity, with HSDPA and Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth 2.
Power on the phone and Acer has decked it out with a simple yet useful interface. This gives you five homescreens where you can drop shortcuts and widgets - a fairly typical arrangement for Android handsets across the board these days. Acer offers a couple of widgets, the mainstay of which are for media and bookmarks.
These take the form of a half-carousel that sits on the edge of the screen. The media widget lets you flick through media you have on your phone's memory, offering photos, video and music which you can tab through. It's a nice arrangement, meaning you can quickly scroll through the content of your phone, although it is a bit of a tease; it showed us HD videos that it wouldn't play, selecting them causes the phone to lock-up for a time. But otherwise it seemed fairly accepting of various file types, playing back a selection of MPEG4 and AVI files without too much of a problem, but MKV and DivX files weren't detected.
The bookmarks carousel is great, as you can scroll through to Pocket-lint and open the browser and check out the latest gadget news, with a proper miniature-screen thumbnail, rather than just a dirty icon representing a bookmark.
Little touches like offering a thumbnail (rather than an icon) for application switching after a long press of the home button make the beTouch E400 a surprisingly pleasant experience, handed down from the high-end Liquid models.
The pre-installed content doesn't throw-up too many surprises, and the likes of Twidroid you might want to swap-out for Twitter for Android, but at least you have the choice. The Android Market is present and correct, offering up and increasing number of applications to customise the phone to your liking.
You don't get the deep-level integration of social networks like you do on HTC Sense or Motoblur, although this integration is present to a certain level; you can use the in-built "syncing with contacts" option in Twitter and Facebook to bring a little more to the contacts list. Of course, being an Android product, you get syncing with Google apps - Gmail, calendar, contacts - which is great for those who don't want to constantly sync with their PC.
nemoPlayer swings in to provide your music playback, and it is all simple enough, but we'd have liked to see some music control whilst the screen was locked - as it is you have to unlock it, make your changes, then lock it again. You can adjust the volume whilst locked though, which is always convenient.
The 3.2-inch display is a resistive touchscreen so you don't get the same accuracy you'd get from a capacitive screen and a noticeable awkwardness when it comes to scrolling and swiping around: sometimes you'll be selecting contacts when you want to scroll through the list and so on. It has a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, so it isn't the sharpest screen out there. The finish also makes it near impossible to see in bright conditions.
The phone sports a 600MHz processor, typical for this class of phone that sits down from the top of the pile. We found it mostly ran cleanly enough, although opening some applications seemed to make you stop and wait - try to place an application shortcut on the homescreen and you'll be sitting wondering what is going on before the list pops up.
We’ve seen Android struggling on some phones recently, with models from HTC and Samsung throwing up the occasional Android application error. In this case we had a persistent error with SMS messaging, but a simple install of Handcent SMS stepped around this problem which perfectly characterises what we like about Android: you get choices.
The portrait keyboard is a little small and we found ourselves forever hitting the wrong keys, using Acer's twist on the keyboard. Predictive text is supplied by the XT9 system, which is better than nothing, but not as sophisticated as HTC's system. The keyboard is reasonably responsive, but can be a little slow, and we found that it would also register a press, highlight a character and fail to enter it into the word, leaving you with plenty of deletions. It's never going to be the fastest keyboard in the world, and we found that reverting to the default Android keyboard gave us better results.
Switching from portrait to landscape can be a little slow as the accelerometer wakes, but the landscape keyboard does provide you with more space to type. It's a shame that standard Gmail in landscape format doesn't give any suggestions to choose from when you enter the name of the person you want to send a message to, something of an oversight, but again, a problem we resolved by switching to the standard Android keyboard.
There is also GPS included, with this phone benefiting from the free navigation that Google Maps offers, so in a pinch you can fire up your phone to get you out of Dodge, but the experience is a little crude for UK drivers. The GPS seemed fast enough to locate us when called upon.
The browser experience isn't too far removed from the native Android experience, so you get a good fast browser, although there is no multi-touch available, so you'll have to rely on the zoom keys on-screen. As we've said, scrolling isn't the smoothest experience and this does hamper your movement around websites to a degree.
The 3.2-megapixel camera is rather basic in its offering, being of the fixed focus variety, so there is little detail in distance shots and it won't focus on close subjects. It struggles with bright conditions, low light and high contrast, so if the camera is important to you, look elsewhere. Video capture too is a little mediocre, offering a 720 x 480 capture at varying frame rates, we averaged about 26fps.
The battery managed to get us through an average day, but intensive use will see you having to charge the phone every night. We found calls to be clear.
Verdict:
The Acer beTouch E400 offers a reasonably stable Android experience which has only been lightly tinkered with by Acer. It doesn't offer the best experience because of the hardware specs, however. The screen could be more responsive, it could be a higher resolution, the camera could perform better and the design could be tweaked to make better use of space.
We're not so sold on the idea of shoe-horning different operating systems into the same hardware. Whilst you might argue that hardware is hardware, it does leave you feeling that the generic approach to handset manufacture needs a little more love, especially if you are looking for consumer appeal.
As it is, the beTouch E400 doesn't really get us very excited, but it also just about gets on with the job.?
Tags:PhonesMobile phonesAcerAcer beTouch E400AndroidAndroid 2.1
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Acer beTouch E400 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:17:15 +0100
Desktop replacement, Apple style
So, you know you want a computer with a big screen but you want to be able to move it around reasonably easily. So a desktop machine like the iMac 27-inch screen computer is right out.
Well, there are plenty of Windows PCs on the market, but the most stylish laptop is still the MacBook Pro which, of course, comes loaded with Mac OSX 10.6.4 Snow Leopard. If you're a Windows die-hard but want a better-looking laptop, you can splash out on the MacBook Pro and install Windows, since all Macs with Intel chips can run both systems. This is handy if you have some key programs which aren't available for Macs.
We've looked at the latest 15-inch MacBook Pro – this week we'll tackle its bigger brother. As handsome and well-built as you'd expect, the screen and base perfectly weighted so the bottom stays put when you lift the lid. The 17-incher weighs 2.99kg, so is on the edge of portability.
The keyboard is outstandingly good: comfortable, well-spaced and enjoyable to use. It is backlit so you can see it easily even in low light, which is useful as the lettering is white on black keys. There's the now-standard large, glass trackpad with multi-touch so it reacts differently according to whether you touch it with one, two, three or four fingers. Perhaps the next iteration will have a five-finger option, too.
The screen is great: glossy, with high 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution though you can opt for a matte screen instead if you want, but you'll pay extra for this. It's so big that you notice it not just because it takes up so much of your vision, but because dragging something from one edge to the other is a bigger movement.
Strangely, the 17-incher lacks the SD memory card reader of the smaller 15-inch and even 13-inch models. This is a shame as it's a handy addition and if the littler ones have space…?
Like the other MacBook Pros, this model has a built-in instead of a removable battery. A pain if you're on the road for too long and it runs out of juice just when you can't get to the mains. Still, it's a big battery so it'll give you most of a day easily. And of course, to be extra sure, you could also carry a HyperMac - the Mac laptop battery which gives peace of mind, looks good, and will even charge your USB gadgets, too.
Speaking of which, the three USB sockets are neatly in a line, as on the 15-incher, which can be a little too snugly placed if you have big thick USB attachments like 3G modems and some USB sticks. And none of the three is the useful recharge-my-gadget-while-the-computer's-off sort. Apple is sometimes late with these kind of enhancements, but can we have one next time, please?
Like its smaller-screened brother, this MacBook Pro has a speedy 2.53GHz Intel i5 processor and it shows, along with 4GB of RAM. It launches programs much faster than last year's model, and every bit of processing feels noticeably faster, which is highly enjoyable.
It also has the Nvidia GeForce GT 330M which takes care of the demanding graphics, whilst the in-built Intel HD graphics take care of lesser tasks. This uses Apple's auto-switching feature, so you aren't draining the battery running the graphics card when you don't need it.
Verdict:
This is a tremendous piece of kit. Of course it's not cheap as Apple stuff rarely is, but your money buys you handsome, super-efficient and enjoyable computing. It's a real pleasure to type on the keyboard, the screen looks magnificent and it's fast, fast, fast. What more could you want?
Tags:HardwareLaptopsAppleMacbook Pro
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Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch i5 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:37:57 +0100
