Saturday, August 7, 2010
iMac Gets Core i3 , i5 & i7 update - New Apple Magic Trackpad
As expected, Apple has updated its iMac line to include Intel’s Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors, and they’ve also outed their Magic Trackpad too. As before there are 21.5- and 27-inch versions of the iMac, now kicking off from $1,199 with a 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory and ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics; $1,699 gets you a 27-inch 3.20 GHz Intel Core i3 machine with ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics.
The 27-inch 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 iMac, meanwhile, starts at $1,999, with 4GB of DDR3 memory, ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB graphics and a 1TB hard-drive. A 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor is an option, as is SSD storage and up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM. All have FireWire 800, USB 2.0 (not USB 3.0), WiFi-n and a slot-loading DVD burner.
As for the Apple Magic Trackpad, that’s a $69 peripheral that brings the same multitouch gestures from the MacBook/MacBook Pro notebook range to the desktop. It supports one, two, three and four finger gestures, together with taps. More information here.
Press Release:
Apple Updates iMac Line
Introduces New Multi-Touch Magic Trackpad
CUPERTINO, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today updated its all-in-one iMac® line, widely praised as the world’s best desktop computers, with the latest Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors and powerful new graphics. Starting at $1,199, the new iMac line is the fastest ever with dual-core processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz, quad-core speeds up to 2.93 GHz and discrete graphics including the powerful ATI Radeon HD 5750. The new Magic Trackpad, with a smooth glass and aluminum design, gives iMac users the same intuitive Multi-Touch(TM) gestures that Mac® notebook customers have come to love and is available separately for $69.
“We took the world’s best all-in-one and made it even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the latest processors, high-performance graphics and signature aluminum and glass design, customers are going to love the latest iMac.”
Dual-core Intel Core i3 and Core i5, and quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 processors set a new benchmark for iMac performance. The processors feature an integrated memory controller to access the system memory directly, allowing the new iMac to take full advantage of its faster 1333 MHz memory. New discrete ATI Radeon HD processors deliver incredibly smooth, crisp graphics for the most demanding 3D games, creative software and technical applications. iMac displays feature IPS technology to deliver a brilliant image across a wide 178 degree viewing angle. The SD card slot on the iMac now supports the SDXC format to handle the latest high-capacity storage cards. Customers of the 27-inch iMac have the option to order a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) as a primary or secondary drive. The iMac SSD supports up to 215 MB/s data transfer rates for faster startup and application launch times.
Every iMac comes with Apple’s innovative Magic Mouse and customers can also order the new Magic Trackpad as an option. The Magic Trackpad brings the intuitive Multi-Touch gestures of Mac notebook trackpads to the desktop. With its glass surface, the wireless Magic Trackpad enables users to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom in and out, rotate an image with their fingertips and swipe three fingers to flip through a collection of web pages or photos. The Magic Trackpad can be configured to support single button or two button commands and supports tap-to-click as well as a physical click.
Continuing Apple’s commitment to the environment, Apple’s desktop lineup is a leader in green design. The iMac meets stringent Energy Star 5.0 requirements and achieves EPEAT Gold status.* iMac features LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. iMac uses PVC-free components and cables, contains no brominated flame retardants, uses highly recyclable materials and features material-efficient system and packaging designs. A new Apple Battery Charger provides a convenient and environmentally friendly way to always have a fresh set of batteries for your Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard. The Apple Battery Charger is available for $29 and comes with six long shelf life rechargeable batteries.
Every Mac also comes with Mac OS® X Snow Leopard®, the world’s most advanced operating system, and iLife®, Apple’s innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto®, with breakthrough ways to organize and manage your photos by who appears in them and where they were taken; iMovie® with powerful easy-to-use features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand® which offers a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.
Pricing & Availability
The new iMac line is shipping now and available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The new 21.5-inch 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:
– 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit display;
– 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 4670 discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 SDRAM;
– 500GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight® video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– one FireWire® 800 port;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include up to 8GB of RAM.
The new 21.5-inch 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:
– 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit display;
– 3.20 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5670 discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3;
– 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include a faster 3.6 GHz Core i5 processor, 2TB hard drive and up to 8GB of RAM.
The new 27-inch 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,699 (US), includes:
– 27-inch 2560 x 1440 LED-backlit display;
– 3.20 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5670 discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3;
– 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video input and output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include a 3.6 GHz Core i5 processor, 2TB hard drive, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) and up to 16GB of RAM.
The new 27-inch 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:
– 27-inch 2560 x 1440 LED-backlit display;
– 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5750 discrete graphics with 1GB GDDR5;
– 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video input and output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include a 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, a 2TB hard drive, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) and up to 16GB of RAM.
Additional accessories include: Magic Trackpad, Apple Battery Charger, wired Apple Mouse, wired Apple Keyboard, wired Apple Keyboard with numeric keypad, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, the AppleCare® Protection Plan; and pre-installed copies of iWork®, Logic® Express 9, Final Cut® Express 4 and Aperture® 3.
*EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iMac, Multi-Touch, Snow Leopard, iLife, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Apple Store, SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme, iSight, FireWire, AppleCare, iWork, Logic, Final Cut and Aperture are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
The 27-inch 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 iMac, meanwhile, starts at $1,999, with 4GB of DDR3 memory, ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB graphics and a 1TB hard-drive. A 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor is an option, as is SSD storage and up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM. All have FireWire 800, USB 2.0 (not USB 3.0), WiFi-n and a slot-loading DVD burner.
As for the Apple Magic Trackpad, that’s a $69 peripheral that brings the same multitouch gestures from the MacBook/MacBook Pro notebook range to the desktop. It supports one, two, three and four finger gestures, together with taps. More information here.
Press Release:
Apple Updates iMac Line
Introduces New Multi-Touch Magic Trackpad
CUPERTINO, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today updated its all-in-one iMac® line, widely praised as the world’s best desktop computers, with the latest Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors and powerful new graphics. Starting at $1,199, the new iMac line is the fastest ever with dual-core processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz, quad-core speeds up to 2.93 GHz and discrete graphics including the powerful ATI Radeon HD 5750. The new Magic Trackpad, with a smooth glass and aluminum design, gives iMac users the same intuitive Multi-Touch(TM) gestures that Mac® notebook customers have come to love and is available separately for $69.
“We took the world’s best all-in-one and made it even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the latest processors, high-performance graphics and signature aluminum and glass design, customers are going to love the latest iMac.”
Dual-core Intel Core i3 and Core i5, and quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 processors set a new benchmark for iMac performance. The processors feature an integrated memory controller to access the system memory directly, allowing the new iMac to take full advantage of its faster 1333 MHz memory. New discrete ATI Radeon HD processors deliver incredibly smooth, crisp graphics for the most demanding 3D games, creative software and technical applications. iMac displays feature IPS technology to deliver a brilliant image across a wide 178 degree viewing angle. The SD card slot on the iMac now supports the SDXC format to handle the latest high-capacity storage cards. Customers of the 27-inch iMac have the option to order a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) as a primary or secondary drive. The iMac SSD supports up to 215 MB/s data transfer rates for faster startup and application launch times.
Every iMac comes with Apple’s innovative Magic Mouse and customers can also order the new Magic Trackpad as an option. The Magic Trackpad brings the intuitive Multi-Touch gestures of Mac notebook trackpads to the desktop. With its glass surface, the wireless Magic Trackpad enables users to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom in and out, rotate an image with their fingertips and swipe three fingers to flip through a collection of web pages or photos. The Magic Trackpad can be configured to support single button or two button commands and supports tap-to-click as well as a physical click.
Continuing Apple’s commitment to the environment, Apple’s desktop lineup is a leader in green design. The iMac meets stringent Energy Star 5.0 requirements and achieves EPEAT Gold status.* iMac features LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. iMac uses PVC-free components and cables, contains no brominated flame retardants, uses highly recyclable materials and features material-efficient system and packaging designs. A new Apple Battery Charger provides a convenient and environmentally friendly way to always have a fresh set of batteries for your Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard. The Apple Battery Charger is available for $29 and comes with six long shelf life rechargeable batteries.
Every Mac also comes with Mac OS® X Snow Leopard®, the world’s most advanced operating system, and iLife®, Apple’s innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto®, with breakthrough ways to organize and manage your photos by who appears in them and where they were taken; iMovie® with powerful easy-to-use features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand® which offers a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.
Pricing & Availability
The new iMac line is shipping now and available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The new 21.5-inch 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:
– 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit display;
– 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 4670 discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 SDRAM;
– 500GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight® video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– one FireWire® 800 port;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include up to 8GB of RAM.
The new 21.5-inch 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:
– 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit display;
– 3.20 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5670 discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3;
– 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include a faster 3.6 GHz Core i5 processor, 2TB hard drive and up to 8GB of RAM.
The new 27-inch 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,699 (US), includes:
– 27-inch 2560 x 1440 LED-backlit display;
– 3.20 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5670 discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3;
– 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video input and output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include a 3.6 GHz Core i5 processor, 2TB hard drive, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) and up to 16GB of RAM.
The new 27-inch 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:
– 27-inch 2560 x 1440 LED-backlit display;
– 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5750 discrete graphics with 1GB GDDR5;
– 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– Mini DisplayPort for audio and video input and output (adapters sold
separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– iSight video camera;
– Gigabit Ethernet;
– four USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– one SDXC SD card slot;
– built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
– Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.
Configure-to-order options include a 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, a 2TB hard drive, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) and up to 16GB of RAM.
Additional accessories include: Magic Trackpad, Apple Battery Charger, wired Apple Mouse, wired Apple Keyboard, wired Apple Keyboard with numeric keypad, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, the AppleCare® Protection Plan; and pre-installed copies of iWork®, Logic® Express 9, Final Cut® Express 4 and Aperture® 3.
*EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iMac, Multi-Touch, Snow Leopard, iLife, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Apple Store, SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme, iSight, FireWire, AppleCare, iWork, Logic, Final Cut and Aperture are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Windows 7 Phone Technical Preview
Tensions must be high at Microsoft. The recent embarrassment of the short-lived KIN project has left all eyes on Windows Phone 7, not only to justify its own existence but also to legitimize the company’s place in the mobile ecosystem. With iOS4 freshly released, Android developing at a rapid rate, and webOS now under the auspices of HP, those in the market for a smartphone are spoiled for choice; never before has it been so competitive. A few months out from release, SlashGear has been given a Windows Phone 7
device – the latest OS build running on Samsung hardware – for a technical review. Check out our findings after the cut. 
First, some background. Officially announced back at Mobile World Congress in February 2010, and fleshed out in no small part at MIX 2010 the following month, Windows Phone 7 is the successor to Microsoft’s long-lived Windows Mobile OS, and practically a fresh start for the company’s smartphone ambitions. Built on the Windows CE 6.0 R3 kernel, but borrowing the same aesthetic as Microsoft’s Zune HD PMP, Windows Phone 7 signals a transition from the more enterprise-centric ethos of Windows Mobile and a recognition that the consumer market has a taste for always-connected, socially networked portable devices.
That’s a market Windows Mobile always felt ill-equipped to deal with, at least in its factory-pure state. Facelifted and retrofitted in its latter 6.5 and 6.5.3 stages – themselves stopgaps as Windows Phone 7 missed its original planned 2009 launch window – the OS nonetheless only really found favor among consumers in heavily customized states, usually at the hand of device manufacturers themselves. HTC’s Sense UI, itself the culmination of several years of the Taiwanese firm’s TouchFLO interface augmentations, kept Windows Mobile usable – and distinct – and as it stands the platform has a roughly 15-percent smartphone market share. Still, dimming consumer interest means the updated platform is much needed.
Our review is primarily of the Windows Phone 7 OS itself, not the hardware it runs on here. The Samsung handset is familiar from its MIX debut several months ago, a prototype designed to demonstrate the OS and for developers to use; it won’t be among Samsung’s line-up of launch devices. Actual Windows Phone 7 handsets will have to comply with Microsoft’s minimum specification, including a capacitive touchscreen supporting 4-point multitouch, at least a 1GHz ARMv7 processor paired with a DirectX9 capable GPU, 256MB of RAM and at least 8GB of onboard flash storage, and a 5-megapixel or higher camera with flash. There are also various mandatory sensors and controls, including an FM radio
, accelerometer, digital compass, light and proximity sensors, A-GPS and five hardware buttons: power, Start, search, camera and back. Windows Phone 7 unboxing video:
That’s pretty much par for the smartphone course, and was so even back in February. By October, when the first Windows Phone 7 devices are expected to arrive, we’re hoping manufacturers up their game from that minimum so as to at least stand a little distinctive from the rest of the handset market.
What’s certainly distinctive is Windows Phone 7′s software aesthetic. Gone is the fussy, icon-loaded UI of its predecessor and in comes Metro, Microsoft’s new chromeless interface that stands pretty much apart from anything else in the cellphone market right now. If you’ve used a Zune HD then you’ll find it familiar; there are no fussy menus, highlight boxes or paneling, with bold typography and large buttons – or tiles in Microsoft parlance – adding up to a seriously finger-friendly and unusual environment. The onscreen keyboard is stark and usable, with quick auto-prediction that meant one-handed typing was relatively error-free, while holding the hardware Start button triggers voice-searching that proved surprisingly accurate.
The bluntness of the resolutely 2D tiles is softened by Microsoft’s attempt to squeeze information into them, so that the homescreen gives you an overview of status without necessarily needing to dip into individual apps. Each tile is a cross between a widget and an icon: they can show basic information, like number of messages or missed calls, but they can also dynamically update with new content, such as the latest images from your Facebook friends or animations from your Xbox Live avatar. From the unlock screen – which, like in WinMo, shows missed call, message and calendar information, only sticking to the new design language – you get the stark Start menu that can be user-reorganized. There’s a decent amount of flexibility here, too; tiles can link to an app, but also to websites or people, galleries of content (with updating images showing the newest additions), media playlists or Microsoft’s Hubs.
Hubs are Microsoft’s attempt to cut down on app-hopping; that is, the common smartphone habit of leaping from app to app so as to get things done. Rather than deal with various silos of information – one app for your local photo gallery, one app for your video gallery, another for images stored online such as at Facebook or Flickr – it pulls them together into themed panes. Each of those panes is “broader” than the handset’s display: you pan across the page to see more information. Microsoft describe this as “pivoting”, but it’s perhaps easier to imagine a wide panoramic desktop across which you pan the display “viewfinder”, seeing a portion at a time. At the bottom of the screen are a few contextually-relevant options, and which you can drag up to show a more capable menu with controls that are similarly themed to the Hub you’re in.
It’s certainly different, but the question of course is whether it’s any better than rival systems. On the face of things, pulling together similar content is hardly a bad idea, and the galleries – with their mixture of local and online media – work well. What’s lacking is breadth and customization. Out of the box, Windows Phone 7 has native Facebook and Windows Live support but no Twitter or MySpace integration as you’d find on, say, Motorola’s MOTOBLUR. That’s an opening for third-party developers, certainly, but we’re disappointed not to see it from the start. Similarly, the Hub experience is basically a fire hose of new information, with no way to prioritize or filter it. You can pick out a certain contact for a homescreen Tile, certainly, but you can’t then tell the gallery Hub that you’re interested in that person’s new content above all others.
It’s a shame, because Microsoft has otherwise treated inter-Hub integration surprisingly well. One of the crowing points for iPhone fans who had to suffer criticism from Windows Mobile users over the Apple platform’s tardy addition of Copy & Paste functionality was the news that Microsoft wouldn’t ship Windows Phone 7 with those abilities. In practice, though, their omission is less of an issue, thanks to some reasonably intelligent linking abilities. Addresses, for instance, are automatically linked to the map app, while links always open up the browser and phone numbers are spotted and triggered by a tap. It’s obviously not perfect – and Microsoft admit that Copy & Paste will be added in a future update, though there’s no public timescale for that – but it’s a half solution.
Unfortunately, a half solution may not be good enough. We’ve handed the phone to several people, and there’s a worrying sign that people just don’t “get it”. In fact, after a few basic questions – “are there apps?”; “can I play games?”; “can I Twitter?” – we generally got the Windows Phone 7 device back after a minute or two, often with the comparison that it felt like “a first-gen iPhone”. The Hubs are a good start, and show promise, but that lack of breadth means that people soon get bored; there’s not quite enough here to make the new paradigm worth getting to grips with. Microsoft has denied handset developers the ability to put their own, custom UIs onto Windows Phone 7 devices, but the OS’ native abilities don’t, in many ways, exceed what, say, HTC Sense can achieve.
In a similar vein to the Copy & Paste shortcomings, Microsoft has done a dramatic about-face when it comes to multitasking. Where Windows Mobile was a free-for-all of simultaneously running apps, Windows Phone 7 apes the iPhone in its limitations on what can be running in the background. The arguments are the same – apps churning away while invisible to the user can reduce the overall experience of the phone – and the solution is relatively similar too, with Microsoft keeping a snapshot of the running app (which it calls “tombstoning”) that quickly resumes when you flick back to the program. There’s minimal background support – less than Apple’s latest batch of multitasking APIs in iOS4 – for things like audio playback, pretty much only for the native apps, but Microsoft’s notification system is an improvement on the iPhone’s. Instead of attention-stealing pop-ups, messages – or “toast” as Microsoft calls them – slide into view at the top of the display. It’s similar, though a little more eye-catching, to what you get in webOS, but Microsoft has also chosen to hid the phone’s status bar: you have to tap or swipe near the top of the display if you want to check how much battery you have left or what sort of network you’re connected to. Both local and cloud-based apps can send “toasts” to the system.
As for how you’re get those apps, Microsoft has axed side-loading support in favor of the more controllable Marketplace download store. For the sort of consumer audience they’re targeting that’s probably not such a bad decision. Apps can be written in Microsoft’s own Silverlight environment (Windows Phone 7 will supports Flash, too) – thus running on both Windows Phone 7 handsets and on PC and Mac desktops – while game developers can use the same XNA framework from Xbox 360, Zune and Windows desktop. The latter could certainly be Microsoft’s ticket into convergence heaven, if they can leverage their 360 developer community to take advantage of the Xbox Live integration on Windows Phone 7 devices. Right now it’s a fledgling effort, with the promise of mini-games for the smartphone that can be used to unlock features in their companion mainstream titles, and Xbox achievements and your avatar pulled into the games Hub.
The music and video Hub is another key area in Windows Phone 7, and happily it’s one of the most successful. This is where the Zune HD resemblance is most strong, primarily because Microsoft has pretty much lifted the standalone PMP’s functionality straight across. We were able to get our Zune Pass account ($14.95 per month) up and running simply by dropping in our registered email address and then were happily downloading content under Microsoft’s all-you-can-eat package. Audio in the native app can continue playing in the background, with tapping one of the hardware volume buttons calling up on-screen playback controls.
If you’re more keen on creating content than consuming it, Microsoft’s baseline specs for Windows Phone 7 cameras should ensure at least reasonable quality. Given that this Samsung device isn’t destined for sale we don’t plan on reviewing it specifically, but the camera interface itself is certainly slick, loading fast and then with minimal gaps between shots. There’s some nice animation here too, blending the live preview with a film-roll of your previous shots; rather than jumping between a gallery and the camera, you can simply swipe back and forth. As with Android there are instant sharing options, to send images to Facebook or to Microsoft’s own SkyDrive online gallery component of Windows Live, or you can have them automatically uploaded with various default levels of privacy.
A strong Internet experience is key to any smartphone these days, and happily Windows Phone 7 feels more like browsing on the Zune HD than it does in Windows Mobile. There’s pinch-zoom support and the rendering engine is a big step up, being fast and smooth. Unfortunately, despite what Microsoft has promised, right now there’s no Silverlight or Flash in the browser, and nor is there HTML5 support. You can have up to six tabs open at any one time – we couldn’t find a way to increase this in the sparse settings pane – and double-tapping automatically zooms in. Windows Phone 7 falls short when it comes to text-reflowing, however, though page orientation flips were quick and clean. As we said before, you can create homescreen tiles from webpages, which automatically get a thumbnail image of the site (which doesn’t, however, seem to update dynamically as other tiles to).
There’s no Google Maps here, obviously, with Microsoft’s own Bing mapping app taking center stage. It lacks the turn-by-turn voice navigation you’ll find on Android devices, but still gets aggregated business reviews and on-screen directions for car or pedestrian journeys. The Bing UI has been neatly brought in line with Microsoft’s Metro design language, and there are numerous neat animation touches. Zooming out, for instance, eventually flips the map from normal to satellite view, while there’s similarly clever use of zooming to show your own location in relation to search results or destinations.
When a sizeable proportion of the world’s computers use their Office software, you’d expect Microsoft’s mobile Office functionality to be top notch. Frustratingly, some of the limitations of the Windows Phone 7 OS itself impact most notably here, with the biggest being the omission of Copy & Paste. In the Office Hub there are mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, together with SharePoint server access. Both Word and Excel allow you to create new documents, as well as view and edit pre-existing documents, but PowerPoint will only allow you to view or edit; if the device you eventually buy has a TV output then hooking up the Windows Phone 7 for a lightweight presentation is possible, though at the moment none of the Office apps work in landscape orientation.
The most successful Office app, in fact, is OneNote, Microsoft’s much-underrated notetaking app, which is actually the first page you see in the Office Hub. This allows you to combine text, images and audio together into a virtual notebook, complete with basic text formatting and lists, and which is then synchronized with Windows Live. You can log in and see your notes from a browser, email them, or pull them down into OneNote on the desktop via SharePoint. Unfortunately, while SharePoint has traction in enterprise markets, it’s not something mainstream consumers are likely to have, and bizarrely there’s no Office section in the companion Zune desktop software for managing personal content.
We’ve always praised Windows Mobile for its strong Exchange integration – as it should be, given that Microsoft are behind both products – but in the meantime rivals have caught up. Exchange support on iOS4 and Android 2.2 is very complete, and Windows Phone 7 has some notable omissions that do the OS no favors. While you can register multiple POP and IMAP
accounts, together with Windows Live, Gmail, Yahoo! and Exchange mail, there’s no unified inbox; each shows up separately and, if you want them all on the homescreen, you have to have tiles for each. 
Triaging messages is straightforward, and you can flag messages for later attention (though not label Gmail messages in the inbox); there’s a little animation, too, though the whole experience is relatively clean. Another obvious absence is threaded conversations, but the capable Bing search does work well for cutting through a hefty inbox; you’ll want to have as many messages as possible sync’d down on the handset, though, since Windows Phone 7 currently lacks server-side search.
As for the calendar, it’s a starkly simple UI but it works well, pulling in entries from Windows Live, Exchange and Gmail (though not your Facebook calendar). These can be toggled from view, and each is color coded. As well as a listed Agenda view there are Day and Month displays (though not a Week view), and new entries support attendees and notes. Only a single Google calendar would sync across, however.
Beyond that, most of our other complaints are minor. The phone pesters you for a live.com or hotmail.com email address when you first power on, as with Google’s approach with Android, though you can bypass it if you want to. The digital compass is mandatory, but non-functional, since Microsoft hasn’t written the API yet; similarly there’s no VoIP support as there’s no socket access in the networking API. Removing SD card support and PC tethering, while we hear Microsoft’s claims that it makes Windows Phone 7 more secure for enterprise users, still feels like another attempt to unduly lock down the platform and force owners through the company’s mandatory hoops. The barebones SMS/MMS app bizarrely color-codes both incoming and outgoing messages the same shade, though at least supports in-line images. Some of our criticism could be mitigated by developers. The encompassing nature of the Hubs means that, if a careful and clever developer chooses, the empty spots could be fleshed out with broader functionality. That’s certainly different to, say, iOS, where Apple’s core applications are sacrosanct and new third-party abilities are offered alongside – rather than integrated with – the core tenets of the platform.
Microsoft’s primary challenge is to convince not only enterprise customers to either upgrade from Windows Mobile devices to Windows Phone 7 handsets or jump ship from rival platforms like BlackBerry OS, but to persuade the increasing consumer market that WP7 has promise against Android, iOS and webOS. It’s arguably easier for devices to transition from consumer to enterprise – look, for instance, at the iPhone’s phased evolution from media-centricity to full Exchange compliance, remote administration and everything else a network administrator might demand. The opposite path, taking an enterprise device and making it consumer-friendly, is perhaps the tougher route, a heady mixture of multimedia, social networking, app availability and nebulous “fashion” allure.
Does Windows Phone 7 work as advertized? Yes, it does, and it’s a distinctive and in some ways innovative platform, certainly leagues away from what we’ve been used to – and, it must be said, bored by – in Windows Mobile. The harder question is whether the new OS competes with the rest of the smartphone market, both now and at its Q4 release. That’s not something Microsoft can take sole responsibility for; they’ll need third-party developer support, together with the investment – and imagination – of device manufacturers.
Therein lies the rub. Much of what’s missing is not in Microsoft’s hands: the support of the developer community – who have helped make Apple’s App Store the platform-driving success that it is, and Google’s Android Market the fast-growing competitor – is essential if Windows Phone 7 is to gain traction among the smartphone segment. Microsoft are making the right noises, and their various developer blogs are doing their part in reaching out to third-party content providers, but it remains to be seen how many will choose to adopt the platform. A roster of big-name partners is one thing – Associated Press, Netflix, Pandora and Seesmic are among the names Microsoft announced at MIX – but it’s the smaller developer teams that make up the bulk of Apple and Google’s offerings, and they’re the people who will need to justify the time expense in adopting another OS. The tools – which we’re told are surprisingly straightforward, though not perhaps as simple as Google’s recent drag-&-drop App Inventor – are there, as is the Marketplace for ease of distribution, and so it seems platform adoption will be the element that tips their hands.
Without production hardware it’s hard to say what the day to day experience of Windows Phone 7 will be like. In its current state – Microsoft tells us what we’ve been using is 99-percent ready to ship out to manufacturers and carriers for preliminary testing – it runs as swiftly as you’d hope for and suffers little in the way of lag or crashes. It also has elements that are a real departure from the smartphone norm; we can certainly see where Microsoft is trying to take their Hubs concept, even if it’s not the key differentiator they might bill it as today. In other ways, though, while it differs significantly from Windows Mobile, it’s very much a v1.0 product; that might have been enough to compete strongly against early versions of Android, say, or iOS, but, by the time Windows Phone 7 devices reach the market, Android 2.2 will be mainstream and iOS4 firmly entrenched. That’s strong competition, even for a company with the relative might of Microsoft.
This isn’t KIN. It’s altogether more serious and there’s altogether more riding on it. Microsoft is making plenty of promises about the future of Windows Phone 7, and if they can coerce developers into play then they could carve a niche. In comparison to Windows Mobile, the new platform looks better, performs better and feels more aligned with how smartphone owners use their devices today. Of course, in the process Microsoft has cut ties with their sizeable back catalog of third-party WinMo apps and that’s left a big gap in what’s currently a sparsely-populated Marketplace. With only months to go before the first production devices are expected to go on sale, it remains to be seen whether Microsoft’s distinctive UI and what we’re hoping will be top-notch hardware can persuade users to look past established rivals and take a chance on what, even at launch, will be a work-in-progress.
Lenovo LePad Android tablet due for Q4 Chinese release
Lenovo
plan to push out an Android tablet in China by the end of 2010, according to Liu Jun, senior vice president for Lenovo Group and president for Lenovo Product Group. Details on the so-called Lenovo LePad are scarce, beyond the fact that it will support email and browsing and likely include 3G connectivity, with Jun declining to comment on how the LePad fits in with the Skylight smartbook and U1 Hybrid. 
The Skylight and U1 had both been tipped as dead in the water earlier in the year, until Lenovo revealed that it had taken them back to the drawing board to replace their homegrown OS with Android. At the time the company said that, with their experience with Android smartphones
, the transition process for the larger devices would be relatively short; however there’s still no public timescale for their release. The LePad will be the first of a number of mobile internet products, Lenovo has confirmed, to cater for growing demand in China. No word on international launch possibilities, however.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Apple eyeing billion-dollar acquisitions, push into TV market - Rumor
New rumors suggest that Apple plans to make more acquisitions -- potentially spending as much as $1 billion -- and will make a "big move" in the living room with a new TV-centric push.
Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider on Monday night moderated an event with a number of chief executives in Manhattan. Out of that discussion came a number of rumors about Apple.
"Apple's shopping spree isn't over, and the company is looking at all kinds of deals, even up to $1 billion," Frommer wrote. "This is being led by Apple's newish deals guy, former Goldman banker Adrian Perica."
Apple has more than $40 billion in cash, money that Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in February that Apple must "think big" with. He said his company would take "big, bold" risks with its massive war chest.
The last year has been busy for Apple in terms of acquisitions. In January it was revealed that Apple bought Quattro Wireless, which laid the groundwork for Apple's forthcoming iAd mobile advertising platform, set to launch July 1. And late last year, Apple acquired streaming music service Lala for $85 million, an acquisition that is believed to pave the way for a cloud-based iTunes.
Most recently, in April, it was revealed that Apple had acquired Siri, which developed a personal assistant application for the iPhone. The software allows users to find local businesses and complete activities like make a dinner reservation or purchase movie tickets, all through voice commands.
Frommer also revealed that Apple's "next big move" will be in TV. The report did not say whether that means the company is planning an actual television set -- which has been which rumored for some time -- or or a redesign of the already established Apple TV set top box. In May, one rumor suggested that a cloud-centric Apple TV would be based on iOS 4, offer 1080P streaming video, run Apple's custom A4 processor, and cost just $99.
"Apple's next big move is going to be TV," Frommer wrote. "Besides the leaks of a supposed new Apple TV device, the company also renamed its iPhone OS 'iOS,' foreshadowing a future beyond mobile devices. The company's move into advertising -- mobile, so far, but no reason it can't extend into TV somehow -- is another hint."
Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider on Monday night moderated an event with a number of chief executives in Manhattan. Out of that discussion came a number of rumors about Apple.
"Apple's shopping spree isn't over, and the company is looking at all kinds of deals, even up to $1 billion," Frommer wrote. "This is being led by Apple's newish deals guy, former Goldman banker Adrian Perica."
Apple has more than $40 billion in cash, money that Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in February that Apple must "think big" with. He said his company would take "big, bold" risks with its massive war chest.
The last year has been busy for Apple in terms of acquisitions. In January it was revealed that Apple bought Quattro Wireless, which laid the groundwork for Apple's forthcoming iAd mobile advertising platform, set to launch July 1. And late last year, Apple acquired streaming music service Lala for $85 million, an acquisition that is believed to pave the way for a cloud-based iTunes.
Most recently, in April, it was revealed that Apple had acquired Siri, which developed a personal assistant application for the iPhone. The software allows users to find local businesses and complete activities like make a dinner reservation or purchase movie tickets, all through voice commands.
Frommer also revealed that Apple's "next big move" will be in TV. The report did not say whether that means the company is planning an actual television set -- which has been which rumored for some time -- or or a redesign of the already established Apple TV set top box. In May, one rumor suggested that a cloud-centric Apple TV would be based on iOS 4, offer 1080P streaming video, run Apple's custom A4 processor, and cost just $99.
"Apple's next big move is going to be TV," Frommer wrote. "Besides the leaks of a supposed new Apple TV device, the company also renamed its iPhone OS 'iOS,' foreshadowing a future beyond mobile devices. The company's move into advertising -- mobile, so far, but no reason it can't extend into TV somehow -- is another hint."
Microsoft Adds Entertainment Features to Bing
Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine is adding an entertainment page that allow users to watch television shows, play games and listen to music without leaving the website.
Bing is providing local TV times, movie listings and access to song lyrics, Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online audience business, said yesterday in an e- mailed statement. The company invited press to an event in West Hollywood, California, to announce the updates.
The features may help Microsoft gain ground on Google Inc.’s dominant search engine. A survey of Bing users found that 76 percent want one online destination for entertainment options to eliminate clutter, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said. Bing organizes search results into TV shows, music, video games and movies.
“As the content on the Web has exploded, it has become difficult to navigate and find what you are looking for,” Mehdi said in the statement. “So we see a great opportunity to help customers make important entertainment decisions.”
Friday, July 2, 2010
Motorola Droid X { Exclusive Review }
Special Thanks to Engadget ; Photo Credits:Engadget
The original Droid made a powerful statement. Actually, make that statements, plural: for Motorola, it was the largest single affirmation that it was going all-in with Android (after having already released the far less memorable midrange CLIQ on T-Mobile) and that it could play in the very highest rungs of the smartphone elite. For Verizon, the Droid was the carrier's very first Android device, period -- announced to great fanfare in collaboration with Eric Schmidt and crew -- serving as a pretty spectacular exit from the Windows Mobile / BlackBerry doldrums that the carrier's smartphone lineup had historically suffered. By almost any measure, the phone went on to serve its purpose; it let customers (and potential customers) know that Verizon could release a "cool" phone, and they responded. The Droid's an unqualified success. Today, Verizon's involvement in Android has never been greater, and Motorola -- by all appearances, anyway -- seems to be on its way back from the brink.
Time stops for no phone, though, and we're now halfway through 2010. Motorola's success as a competitive phone manufacturer is ultimately going to depend not on its ability to produce a single hit, but to produce a never-ending string of hits, each better than the one before it. It's a tall order -- and that's exactly where the Droid X comes into play. Featuring a 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera with 720p video capture, a reworked user interface, and a significantly improved processor, this phone apes the first Droid in at least one critical aspect: its ability to immediately steal the spotlight from anything else in Verizon's lineup. Specs don't tell the whole story, though, so let's dig in and see what this beast is all about.The packaging isn't as unique as the EVO's or as elegant as the iPhone 4's, but just as with Droid models before it, the box does an admirable job of conveying Verizon's "scary red eye that can run apps and get things done" message (besides, if you don't buy this phone because you don't like the box, you blew it). And in a world where being environmentally conscious matters, let's not lose sight of the fact that the box is small -- just barely larger than the phone itself in two of the three dimensions. Of course, the downside of a small package is that you're not getting many goodies in the box -- in fact, all you're getting is the phone, a micro-USB cable, and a charger -- but it's not like you wanted another crappy pair of pack-in headphones anyway. A generous 16GB microSD card is pre-installed, a welcome addition to the internal 8GB.
So, let's just save you a bit of time from the outset: the Droid X is an imposing device, and it's definitely not for the small of hands. Makes no mistake, this is a big phone designed for use by big people. Well, not necessarily "big," but let's just say you're going to have a tough go of it if you're the kind of person that struggles to find a ball at the bowling alley where you can reach all the holes. Software and hardware aside, we'd actually say the size issue is going to be a showstopper for some -- but if you've got smaller hands and you're in the market for a high-end Android device on Verizon, you've still got the 3.7-inch Droid Incredible as a compelling option.Now, onto the meat. Comparisons to Sprint's HTC EVO 4G are going to be immediate and inevitable -- but considering that these are both 4.3-inch, best-of-breed Android smartphones, they're surprisingly different devices in the flesh. There are several specific, measurable reasons that we say that. Firstly, even though they share a diagonal measurement, the screens aren't the same. Like the Droid, the Droid X adds an additional 54 vertical pixels to the normal WVGA formula for a grand total of 854 x 480; in other words, it's a longer, narrower display than the EVO's (16:9, like most widescreen televisions, as opposed to 5:3). To an extent, that makes the Droid X easier to hold since the body is nearly a millimeter narrower, but even with our relatively large hands, we found it considerably more difficult to reach the upper parts of the screen while gripping it normally than we did on the EVO, presumably because the Droid X is a good deal taller.
Second, the EVO is a couple millimeters fatter, and it's curved in places that you can definitely feel while you're holding it. The Droid X, by contrast, is totally squared off -- not surprising, considering its heritage -- which makes it marginally less comfortable for long phone conversations, though it's not nearly big enough of a deal to become a deciding factor in your purchase. Besides, we're big fans of soft-touch plastic around here, and the Droid X has more of it; in fact, every square inch of the phone is done up in soft-touch with the exception of the screen (obviously) and the buttons, whereas the EVO's got glossy edges. Unless you coat your fingers in Crisco, you likely won't be dropping this thing.
Third, you've got the buttons -- for some, this could be a bigger deal, but it's strictly a matter of personal preference. Unlike the maligned capacitive buttons on the Nexus One, the EVO's are actually quite good, so for us, dealing with physical buttons again on the Droid X after using those other two phones for months came as a bit of a shock to the system. It's not that the Droid X's buttons are hard to press or are dodgy in any way, it just takes some time to get used to the fact that merely brushing against a button won't trigger an action. What we liked less, though, was the fact that Motorola arbitrarily changed the order of the buttons from the original Droid. This seemingly insignificant oversight is a microcosm of a problem Android has faced on a pretty big scale -- in fact, it's actually difficult to find any two Android phones with the same button layout, which means you're hitting Home when you mean to hit Menu for a solid four days while your brain rewires itself. It's not clear if they just keep second-guessing the layout, they're trying to throw off users, or what, but they need to settle on something they like and stick with it.
Turning our attention to the display... well, it's beautiful. Compared to the AMOLED-equipped Nexus One, it's far more usable in daylight (though still not nearly as good as something like a transflective LCD, of course). At about 228dpi, pixel density is lower than the original Droid at roughly 265dpi (and a good deal lower than the iPhone 4's 326dpi), but it's still high enough so that picking out individual pixels requires leaning in, straining your eyes, and searching for them. Though you don't technically get any more screen real estate than a smaller screen with the same resolution, there are definitely tangible benefits to moving up to 4.3 inches.For us, the biggest benefit of the huge display (besides the obvious improvements to browser readability at low zoom levels) seemed to be in the virtual keyboard. Motorola is quick to tout that the Droid X features multitouch support here -- something that Android's stock keyboard does not -- but we had a hard time determining how much this actually helped in practice. Instead, we think that the width of the keyboard had a huge positive effect on our ability to mash keys error-free, and we noticed the improvement almost immediately. Frankly, it's hard to use a soft keyboard on a 3.5- or 3.7-inch display after using the Droid X for a few dayOf course, no discussion of the Droid X would be complete without touching on that hump toward the top. Ostensibly, it's there because Motorola wanted to make the phone as thin as possible -- 9.9 millimeters, to be exact -- without sacrificing picture and video quality, which means they needed to add a little extra space for the camera module. Well, we're happy to report that it's pretty much a non-issue. It doesn't get in your way while you're holding it at all, which is a side effect of the fact that the phone is pretty huge and tall -- you're simply not going to brush up against it if you're holding it normally, and even if you somehow do, there's a gentle curve up to it so it's not annoying to the touch. When you've got the phone set down on a table, the hump serves no ergonomic function -- it's not as if it helps you watch videos or anything -- but it gets the rear-mounted speakerphone up off the ground so it's plenty loud.
Speaking of the camera, we really liked the shots we were producing with this phone. By our untrained eye, the Droid X bests the EVO 4G for both still and video capture; photos were less grainy, and videos had less compression and significantly better sound quality. The sound quality is due in part to the fact that the Droid X features no fewer than three microphones -- one along the bottom front, one at the top edge for noise cancellation, plus a third on back -- and you can switch between them depending on your recording situation. If you want to narrate a video, there's an aptly-named Narrative mode that triggers only the front-facing mic, but if you want to hear what you're recording, you can trigger the rear one. There's also a wind-cutting Outdoors mode that presumably takes the noise cancellation into account, though we had mixed success reducing the incidence of buffeting.Unfortunately, the Moto-customized user interface shared by the camera and video recorder isn't quite as slick as the output they produce; in short, it's buggy, slow, and distracting. As an obvious example, the Flash button on the right never changes, no matter what mode you select -- On, Off, or Auto -- so you can't tell at a glance what mode you currently have selected without tapping it, which in turn causes it to change. In between shots, you get a black "Processing" message for a moment that takes up the entire screen -- annoying and seemingly unnecessary. And changing effects or scenes (something you'll do a lot for video in particular) takes longer than it should, since it calls up a separate screen where you swipe between options; it's an unnecessarily slick touch. This is one place where it would've served Motorola well to keep things bare bones -- you don't want to be wowed with the UI when you're trying to take a picture, you just want to take the best picture you can and move on with your life.
All that said, shutter lag wasn't terrible -- perhaps a half second between shots -- and the camera app consistently loaded in four seconds or less. Autofocus was also generally pretty quick, though we found that the contrast detection struggled in some places where we thought it should've had an easy go of it. In our sample gallery, for instance, that macro shot we have of the Nokia N79 took maybe five or six tries before it finally locked on -- it spent a lot of time hunting, shooting right past the proper focus point in both directions.
The Droid X is Motorola's first retail device to use the company's custom UI atop Android 2.1, a skin that has been significantly restyled from the version found on Android 1.5 devices like the CLIQ, Devour, and CLIQ XT. But let's be clear: the Droid X doesn't use Blur. Actually, we'd initially been given conflicting answers from Motorola on whether the Droid X actually "runs" Blur, and we think we know why: as far as we can tell, the phone sidesteps Motorola's proprietary back end entirely, which has been a source of many of Blur's problems from day one -- delayed updates and the like. Instead, Moto appears to now be taking the same angle that most of its competitors are, pushing all of the aggregation horsepower down to the phone and taking its own servers out of the equation. In practice, what this means is that you no longer have a Blur account -- you just log in to your individual services (Twitter, Facebook, and the like) and the phone keeps track.
At a quick glance, the new skin -- Blur 2.1, or whatever you want to call it -- is cleaner, prettier, and just generally more modern than the skin it replaces, but that doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it feels as though Motorola heard and just completely misinterpreted the complaints about Blur to begin with, spending its energy making it less obvious that Blur is running without actually addressing any of its fundamental problems. Here's a great example: when you add a Twitter account, all of your Twitter follows automatically puke into your contacts list, which we'd complained about way back when we reviewed the CLIQ last year. Yes, you can sort, but what Motorola really needed to do here was make it optional the same way that Twitter's official Android app does.
Speaking of the official Twitter app, it generally runs circles around Blur's Twitter implementation in terms of raw functionality; actually, there's very little that Motorola's own implementation does do other than drop your follows' tweets into a unified inbox and involuntarily merge all of their handles into your contacts. As you can probably imagine, we were interested to see what would happen when we installed Twitter's app alongside Motorola's -- and basically, you can do it, but you don't want to. You'll end up with two Twitter options when you're setting up accounts (see above) and duplicate notifications. The solution is to simply ignore Moto's built-in option and use the official app alone, which is what we'd recommend you do.
The good news about this skin -- perhaps the best news, in fact -- is that it's pretty easy to ignore. You don't need to log in to Blur and you don't need to use it for your social networking and photo accounts, because it appears that it doesn't block any other Android app that integrates with the platform's core functionality from working properly (Twitter being a prime example of that). The included weather widget is another good example: it's bare-bones simple, not particularly pretty, and doesn't follow your location automatically, but it's easy enough to install your own. Ultimately, about the only thing you can't ignore is the home screen, which uses large white silhouettes to represent the dialer, the app drawer, and your socially-aware contacts list in much the same way Blur 1.5 did. When you swipe between home screen panels (there are seven of them, by the way), you'll get a pop-up display at the bottom of the screen that conceals the dialer, app drawer, and contacts icons to show you what screen you're currently on; it takes about a second to go away, which is momentarily annoying if you want to tap on any of those three icons.
Verizon bundles a 3G Mobile Hotspot app which will run an additional $20 per month for 2GB worth of usage, a business model not unlike AT&T's -- but the critical difference is that on-device data usage is still unlimited with the Droid X; you only dip into your 2GB bucket if you tether. The app is simple enough and worked very well in our experience; you can choose from the usual variety of encryption schemes including WPA2, set your own SSID, and even choose your WiFi channel which is convenient if you're in a particularly WiFi-congested area. As speed goes, it's fast -- but it's not Sprint WiMAX fast.
The original Droid made a powerful statement. Actually, make that statements, plural: for Motorola, it was the largest single affirmation that it was going all-in with Android (after having already released the far less memorable midrange CLIQ on T-Mobile) and that it could play in the very highest rungs of the smartphone elite. For Verizon, the Droid was the carrier's very first Android device, period -- announced to great fanfare in collaboration with Eric Schmidt and crew -- serving as a pretty spectacular exit from the Windows Mobile / BlackBerry doldrums that the carrier's smartphone lineup had historically suffered. By almost any measure, the phone went on to serve its purpose; it let customers (and potential customers) know that Verizon could release a "cool" phone, and they responded. The Droid's an unqualified success. Today, Verizon's involvement in Android has never been greater, and Motorola -- by all appearances, anyway -- seems to be on its way back from the brink.
Time stops for no phone, though, and we're now halfway through 2010. Motorola's success as a competitive phone manufacturer is ultimately going to depend not on its ability to produce a single hit, but to produce a never-ending string of hits, each better than the one before it. It's a tall order -- and that's exactly where the Droid X comes into play. Featuring a 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera with 720p video capture, a reworked user interface, and a significantly improved processor, this phone apes the first Droid in at least one critical aspect: its ability to immediately steal the spotlight from anything else in Verizon's lineup. Specs don't tell the whole story, though, so let's dig in and see what this beast is all about.The packaging isn't as unique as the EVO's or as elegant as the iPhone 4's, but just as with Droid models before it, the box does an admirable job of conveying Verizon's "scary red eye that can run apps and get things done" message (besides, if you don't buy this phone because you don't like the box, you blew it). And in a world where being environmentally conscious matters, let's not lose sight of the fact that the box is small -- just barely larger than the phone itself in two of the three dimensions. Of course, the downside of a small package is that you're not getting many goodies in the box -- in fact, all you're getting is the phone, a micro-USB cable, and a charger -- but it's not like you wanted another crappy pair of pack-in headphones anyway. A generous 16GB microSD card is pre-installed, a welcome addition to the internal 8GB.
So, let's just save you a bit of time from the outset: the Droid X is an imposing device, and it's definitely not for the small of hands. Makes no mistake, this is a big phone designed for use by big people. Well, not necessarily "big," but let's just say you're going to have a tough go of it if you're the kind of person that struggles to find a ball at the bowling alley where you can reach all the holes. Software and hardware aside, we'd actually say the size issue is going to be a showstopper for some -- but if you've got smaller hands and you're in the market for a high-end Android device on Verizon, you've still got the 3.7-inch Droid Incredible as a compelling option.Now, onto the meat. Comparisons to Sprint's HTC EVO 4G are going to be immediate and inevitable -- but considering that these are both 4.3-inch, best-of-breed Android smartphones, they're surprisingly different devices in the flesh. There are several specific, measurable reasons that we say that. Firstly, even though they share a diagonal measurement, the screens aren't the same. Like the Droid, the Droid X adds an additional 54 vertical pixels to the normal WVGA formula for a grand total of 854 x 480; in other words, it's a longer, narrower display than the EVO's (16:9, like most widescreen televisions, as opposed to 5:3). To an extent, that makes the Droid X easier to hold since the body is nearly a millimeter narrower, but even with our relatively large hands, we found it considerably more difficult to reach the upper parts of the screen while gripping it normally than we did on the EVO, presumably because the Droid X is a good deal taller.
Second, the EVO is a couple millimeters fatter, and it's curved in places that you can definitely feel while you're holding it. The Droid X, by contrast, is totally squared off -- not surprising, considering its heritage -- which makes it marginally less comfortable for long phone conversations, though it's not nearly big enough of a deal to become a deciding factor in your purchase. Besides, we're big fans of soft-touch plastic around here, and the Droid X has more of it; in fact, every square inch of the phone is done up in soft-touch with the exception of the screen (obviously) and the buttons, whereas the EVO's got glossy edges. Unless you coat your fingers in Crisco, you likely won't be dropping this thing.
Third, you've got the buttons -- for some, this could be a bigger deal, but it's strictly a matter of personal preference. Unlike the maligned capacitive buttons on the Nexus One, the EVO's are actually quite good, so for us, dealing with physical buttons again on the Droid X after using those other two phones for months came as a bit of a shock to the system. It's not that the Droid X's buttons are hard to press or are dodgy in any way, it just takes some time to get used to the fact that merely brushing against a button won't trigger an action. What we liked less, though, was the fact that Motorola arbitrarily changed the order of the buttons from the original Droid. This seemingly insignificant oversight is a microcosm of a problem Android has faced on a pretty big scale -- in fact, it's actually difficult to find any two Android phones with the same button layout, which means you're hitting Home when you mean to hit Menu for a solid four days while your brain rewires itself. It's not clear if they just keep second-guessing the layout, they're trying to throw off users, or what, but they need to settle on something they like and stick with it.
Turning our attention to the display... well, it's beautiful. Compared to the AMOLED-equipped Nexus One, it's far more usable in daylight (though still not nearly as good as something like a transflective LCD, of course). At about 228dpi, pixel density is lower than the original Droid at roughly 265dpi (and a good deal lower than the iPhone 4's 326dpi), but it's still high enough so that picking out individual pixels requires leaning in, straining your eyes, and searching for them. Though you don't technically get any more screen real estate than a smaller screen with the same resolution, there are definitely tangible benefits to moving up to 4.3 inches.For us, the biggest benefit of the huge display (besides the obvious improvements to browser readability at low zoom levels) seemed to be in the virtual keyboard. Motorola is quick to tout that the Droid X features multitouch support here -- something that Android's stock keyboard does not -- but we had a hard time determining how much this actually helped in practice. Instead, we think that the width of the keyboard had a huge positive effect on our ability to mash keys error-free, and we noticed the improvement almost immediately. Frankly, it's hard to use a soft keyboard on a 3.5- or 3.7-inch display after using the Droid X for a few dayOf course, no discussion of the Droid X would be complete without touching on that hump toward the top. Ostensibly, it's there because Motorola wanted to make the phone as thin as possible -- 9.9 millimeters, to be exact -- without sacrificing picture and video quality, which means they needed to add a little extra space for the camera module. Well, we're happy to report that it's pretty much a non-issue. It doesn't get in your way while you're holding it at all, which is a side effect of the fact that the phone is pretty huge and tall -- you're simply not going to brush up against it if you're holding it normally, and even if you somehow do, there's a gentle curve up to it so it's not annoying to the touch. When you've got the phone set down on a table, the hump serves no ergonomic function -- it's not as if it helps you watch videos or anything -- but it gets the rear-mounted speakerphone up off the ground so it's plenty loud.
Camera
Speaking of the camera, we really liked the shots we were producing with this phone. By our untrained eye, the Droid X bests the EVO 4G for both still and video capture; photos were less grainy, and videos had less compression and significantly better sound quality. The sound quality is due in part to the fact that the Droid X features no fewer than three microphones -- one along the bottom front, one at the top edge for noise cancellation, plus a third on back -- and you can switch between them depending on your recording situation. If you want to narrate a video, there's an aptly-named Narrative mode that triggers only the front-facing mic, but if you want to hear what you're recording, you can trigger the rear one. There's also a wind-cutting Outdoors mode that presumably takes the noise cancellation into account, though we had mixed success reducing the incidence of buffeting.Unfortunately, the Moto-customized user interface shared by the camera and video recorder isn't quite as slick as the output they produce; in short, it's buggy, slow, and distracting. As an obvious example, the Flash button on the right never changes, no matter what mode you select -- On, Off, or Auto -- so you can't tell at a glance what mode you currently have selected without tapping it, which in turn causes it to change. In between shots, you get a black "Processing" message for a moment that takes up the entire screen -- annoying and seemingly unnecessary. And changing effects or scenes (something you'll do a lot for video in particular) takes longer than it should, since it calls up a separate screen where you swipe between options; it's an unnecessarily slick touch. This is one place where it would've served Motorola well to keep things bare bones -- you don't want to be wowed with the UI when you're trying to take a picture, you just want to take the best picture you can and move on with your life.
All that said, shutter lag wasn't terrible -- perhaps a half second between shots -- and the camera app consistently loaded in four seconds or less. Autofocus was also generally pretty quick, though we found that the contrast detection struggled in some places where we thought it should've had an easy go of it. In our sample gallery, for instance, that macro shot we have of the Nokia N79 took maybe five or six tries before it finally locked on -- it spent a lot of time hunting, shooting right past the proper focus point in both directions.
Software
The Droid X is Motorola's first retail device to use the company's custom UI atop Android 2.1, a skin that has been significantly restyled from the version found on Android 1.5 devices like the CLIQ, Devour, and CLIQ XT. But let's be clear: the Droid X doesn't use Blur. Actually, we'd initially been given conflicting answers from Motorola on whether the Droid X actually "runs" Blur, and we think we know why: as far as we can tell, the phone sidesteps Motorola's proprietary back end entirely, which has been a source of many of Blur's problems from day one -- delayed updates and the like. Instead, Moto appears to now be taking the same angle that most of its competitors are, pushing all of the aggregation horsepower down to the phone and taking its own servers out of the equation. In practice, what this means is that you no longer have a Blur account -- you just log in to your individual services (Twitter, Facebook, and the like) and the phone keeps track.
At a quick glance, the new skin -- Blur 2.1, or whatever you want to call it -- is cleaner, prettier, and just generally more modern than the skin it replaces, but that doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it feels as though Motorola heard and just completely misinterpreted the complaints about Blur to begin with, spending its energy making it less obvious that Blur is running without actually addressing any of its fundamental problems. Here's a great example: when you add a Twitter account, all of your Twitter follows automatically puke into your contacts list, which we'd complained about way back when we reviewed the CLIQ last year. Yes, you can sort, but what Motorola really needed to do here was make it optional the same way that Twitter's official Android app does.
Speaking of the official Twitter app, it generally runs circles around Blur's Twitter implementation in terms of raw functionality; actually, there's very little that Motorola's own implementation does do other than drop your follows' tweets into a unified inbox and involuntarily merge all of their handles into your contacts. As you can probably imagine, we were interested to see what would happen when we installed Twitter's app alongside Motorola's -- and basically, you can do it, but you don't want to. You'll end up with two Twitter options when you're setting up accounts (see above) and duplicate notifications. The solution is to simply ignore Moto's built-in option and use the official app alone, which is what we'd recommend you do.
The good news about this skin -- perhaps the best news, in fact -- is that it's pretty easy to ignore. You don't need to log in to Blur and you don't need to use it for your social networking and photo accounts, because it appears that it doesn't block any other Android app that integrates with the platform's core functionality from working properly (Twitter being a prime example of that). The included weather widget is another good example: it's bare-bones simple, not particularly pretty, and doesn't follow your location automatically, but it's easy enough to install your own. Ultimately, about the only thing you can't ignore is the home screen, which uses large white silhouettes to represent the dialer, the app drawer, and your socially-aware contacts list in much the same way Blur 1.5 did. When you swipe between home screen panels (there are seven of them, by the way), you'll get a pop-up display at the bottom of the screen that conceals the dialer, app drawer, and contacts icons to show you what screen you're currently on; it takes about a second to go away, which is momentarily annoying if you want to tap on any of those three icons.
Verizon bundles a 3G Mobile Hotspot app which will run an additional $20 per month for 2GB worth of usage, a business model not unlike AT&T's -- but the critical difference is that on-device data usage is still unlimited with the Droid X; you only dip into your 2GB bucket if you tether. The app is simple enough and worked very well in our experience; you can choose from the usual variety of encryption schemes including WPA2, set your own SSID, and even choose your WiFi channel which is convenient if you're in a particularly WiFi-congested area. As speed goes, it's fast -- but it's not Sprint WiMAX fast.
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