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For more information on how Microsoft Small Business Solutions can help maximize your business potential visit www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness

Apple’s newest Laptop: Apple Macbook Air

Incredibly thin yet surprisingly sturdy; new trackpad gesture controls are very useful; remote optical drive makes living without a built-in drive much easier.

But its connectivity is limited ; slower than other MacBooks; SSD hard-drive option is ridiculously expensive and standard hard drive is small; battery is not user replaceable.

Apple’s new laptop, the MacBook Air, may not be the true ultraportable that many had hoped for, but it still easily breaks new ground for small laptops. Mimicking the 13-inch silhouette of the current MacBook line, it’s only 0.76 inch thick at its thickest, and Apple calls it the “world’s thinnest notebook.” Some nitpickers say an obscure Mitsubishi laptop from 1997 was a hair thinner, but two of the smallest current ultraportable laptops, the 11-inch Sony VAIO TZ150 and the 12-inch Toshiba Portege R500, are both slightly thicker, and neither tapers to 0.16 inch as the Air does along its front edge.

As we’ve come to expect from Apple, the design and engineering that went into the MacBook Air is extraordinary, but it’s certainly a much more specialized product than the standard 13-inch MacBook and won’t be as universally useful as that popular system. The biggest compromises, which have been well-documented, come in its connectivity: The MacBook Air finds room for only one USB port and doesn’t include a built-in optical drive, FireWire, Ethernet, or mobile broadband. And like with its other laptops, Apple refuses to outfit the Air with a media-card reader or an expansion card slot. Offsetting its sparse connectivity are genuinely useful new features including new trackpad gesture controls and the ability to wirelessly “borrow” another system’s optical drive.

Choosing the Air over the cheaper, faster standard 13-inch MacBook, or the comparably priced MacBook Pro, will depend on your needs. Travelers who want minimum weight, maximum screen real estate, and who live their lives via Wi-Fi hot spots, with little need for wired connectivity, will find the $1,799 starting price a reasonable investment for owning one of the world’s premier bits of high-tech eye candy. And while the MacBook Air’s specs are inferior to those found on the cheaper MacBook, they compare more favorably when you look at other ultraportables, where a price premium is always exacted. For instance, both the Sony VAIO TZ150 and Toshiba Portege R500 cost hundreds more than the MacBook Air and feature slower CPUs and half the RAM as the Air.

 The design is revolutionary, but Apple’s MacBook Air will appeal to a smaller, more specialized audience than the standard MacBook, thanks to a stripped-down set of connections and features.

 

Cowon A3 get cursed?

Photo by: CNET Networks Inc.

The Cowon A3 portable video player (PVP) offers outstanding audio and video format support; a sharp, colorful screen; the most attractive Cowon user interface we’ve seen; built-in video output; video and audio recording capabilities; and superb audio quality.

 The Cowon A3 is cursed with a clumsy joystick interface; a highly reflective screen; no support for DRM-protected media; and archaic music sorting. It’s also a little on the chubby side.

 The Cowon A3 portable video player is a fantastic value when judged on the merits of its file support and integrated video-recording capabilities. If you’ve got nimble fingers and an eclectic assortment of audio and video formats, the Cowon A3 should be at the top of your list.

In light of gadgets such as the iPod Touch that offer very limited format support, or a high-capacity PVP like the Archos 605 WiFi that offer only video recording and extended file support as expensive upgrades, it’s refreshing to see a portable video player such as the Cowon A3 that simply tries to offer its customers the most features with the best quality at a good price. You can almost feel Cowon tripping over themselves to try and give you everything you could want in a PVP, which is why it stings to think that something so seemingly insignificant as clumsy joystick control or ID3 tag sorting could make us look elsewhere. When it comes to using a product every day, however, you might not notice the A3’s unique support for WavPack audio or OGM video files, but you’ll certainly notice that the joystick occasionally misfires, and that the only way to unearth your favorite song is to dig through countless folders.

Despite its drawbacks, the Cowon A3’s prowess as a portable video player is not to be understated. If you’re looking for a PVP that can handle a wide array of formats with impressive audio and video quality, the Cowon A3 is a solid choice.

Device type: Digital AV recorder; Dimensions (WxDxH): 5.2 in x 0.9 in x 3.1 in; Display type: TFT 4 in – Color.

Panasonic HDC-SD9 Camcorder

With its eye-catching, compact body and relatively low price, the Panasonic HDC-SD9 seems to be quite an attractive buy for a flash-based AVCHD camcorder. At 11.7 ounces with battery and SD card and only 3.6 inches long, it’s certainly one of the smallest and lightest full-size camcorders we’ve ever tested, and is pretty comfortable to shoot. The zoom switch feels responsive, and all the controls seem logically placed and fluid to operate. Many of the buttons, especially the face detection and Pre-rec (for 3-second pre-recording) are a tad small, but that’s to be expected on a device this size.

 

As with other compact camcorders, only a few controls remain under your right thumb: zoom, photo, capture/playback/power, and recording start/stop.

 

 

All the rest of the controls sit in the LCD enclosure. The joystick is in an especially odd place which requires some getting used to; for instance, pressing the joystick towards you produces the same result as moving it to the right in a traditional orientation, while pressing it away will navigate to the left. I was relatively comfortable with this design, but our Lab tech disliked it.

 

However, Panasonic made a few irritating design choices, especially with regard to the battery. To remove it, you have to open the LCD cover; that’s fine, as long as you don’t use Quick Start mode, which turns the power on when you open the door. In that circumstance, when you open the LCD to remove the battery–as you must to charge it, since you can’t charge the battery in-camera–the camcorder naturally turns on, and removing the battery at that point leaves the electronic lens cover open. Furthermore, to download the files to your computer you must plug in the AC adapter (a pretty common requirement), but since the connector is in the battery compartment you have to remove the battery to do so.

Furthermore, Panasonic offers an optional Shooting Guide which prompts you with “Camera panning too fast,” “Use Intelligent Contrast,” “Use O.I.S.,” and “Use Low Light Mode” messages. Unfortunately, each of these messages takes up a huge chunk of the already too-crowded 2.7-inch LCD, blocking your view of the scene entirely. In the case of contrast and panning, the messages seem to appear more frequently than not.

Panasonic manages to cram quite a bit into the SD9’s tiny chassis. It contains a trio of 1/6-inch, 560,000-pixel CCDs with effective resolutions of 520,000 pixels each, as well as an optically stabilized 10x zoom lens. In addition to a handful of scene modes, you can manually adjust iris (aperture) and shutter speed, which is uncommon in its price class. There’s also manual focus, but on the tiny LCD it’s difficult to use. A face-detection mode optimizes exposure for people and a Pre-rec toggle records continually in the background, then saves the previous three seconds after you press the record button. It also includes a dubiously useful 5.1-channel microphone; I’d swap that for stereo with a headphone jack and mic input. However, you can adjust the volume for each of the five channels independently.

Like the Canon Vixia HF10 and its nearly identical little brother, HF100, the SD9 records 1080i HD video at a full 1920×1080 resolution with a maximum 17Mbps bit rate. That’s about 2 hours of best-quality video on a 16GB card. Like the Canons, it requires a Class 4 or better SDHC card for highest-quality recording.

Overall, performance is good. The SD9 adjusts exposure and focus relatively quickly, though like many consumer models focus slows as lights get low. The image stabilization works fairly well, but there’s still some shake when zoomed out to the 10x maximum. The LCD seems to be worse than usual, however, seriously misrepresenting the white balance and exposure.

Video quality ranges from good to not-so-good. As you’d expect from a 3-CCD model, the SD9 renders very saturated colors. Exposures look good, but even when it underexposes to preserve highlights they still get blown out quite a bit. At its best–in good light–the video is a bit soft except when zoomed all the way in. In lower light, it looks either as if there’s a film over the lens or simply overprocessed. Still photos are almost unusable; unsurprising given the low resolution of the individual sensors.

I based my quality judgments from viewing on the Sony KDL-46XBR4 HDTV and PC playback using InterVideo WinDVD; I had problems with the SD9’s videos using virtually every editing package I tried. You can read the details in my update to The hardware is willing, but the software is weak.

Though the Panasonic HDC-SD9 is a nice little camcorder, between the software issues–I’ll update when they’re resolved–and the inconsistent performance and video quality, I think you’ll probably be happier in the long run by spending a little more for the competing Sony Handycam HDR-CX7 or one of the aforementioned Canon Vixia models.

Dell XPS One. Now with blue ray drive.

Dell offers four basic configurations for this new XPS One all-in-one system, and our $2,399 review sample represents the highest-end model. Complete with a Blu-ray burner, 802.11n wireless networking, and a TV tuner, it competes well against other higher-end all-in-ones, namely Sony’s high-end VAIO LT19U. Overall, though, HP’s cheaper, small-scale Pavilion Slimline s3200t desktop and its HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive outshines any all-in-one in price and versatility. Apple’s iMac also maintains its hold as the best overall computer in the all-in-one category. That awards the XPS One the prize for most affordable all-in-one with a Blu-ray drive. If you’re looking for a system in that narrow category, you should check it out, especially because it has some unique usability features. Otherwise, you can get better overall computing and home theater experiences from other systems.

We could make several direct comparisons to the XPS One. The HP Slimline is one of our current favorite systems for its HD DVD/Blu-ray combo drive and its low price. Pair it with a $500 24-inch LCD and you’d still be ahead of the 20-inch XPS in terms of price, screen size, and overall functionality. Of course there’s an elegance factor to the modern all-in-one desktop that you can’t duplicate with even a smaller desktop like the Slimline, thus, the Sony VAIO LT19U becomes the best matchup for Dell’s new rig.

	Dell XPS One	Sony VAIO LT19U
Price	$2,399	$2,999
CPU	2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6550	2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500
Memory	2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM	2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics	256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400	256MB Nvidia GeForce 8400 GT
Hard drives	500GB 7,200rpm	500GB 7,200rpm
Optical drive	Blu-ray burner	Blu-ray burner
Networking	802.11n Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet	802.11n, Gigabit Ethernet
Operating system	Windows Vista Home Premium	Windows Vista Ultimate
Screensize	20-inch wide	22-inch wide
Maximum display resolution	1,680×1,050	1,680×1,050
TV Tuner	Integrated ATSC/NTSC tuner	Integrated ATSC/NTSC tuner, external ATI Digital Cable tuner

 

Sony can claim the advantage with a few features, probably most importantly its larger screen and the unlisted VESA mount-compatibility that lets you stick the VAIO on a wall or a support arm with relative ease. But overall, the Dell has just as much to offer in the way of multimedia features, it welcomes interaction with mobile devices via its integrated Bluetooth receiver, and it costs $600 less. If you intend to use an all-in-one as a standalone device for movie-watching, perhaps in your kitchen, office, dorm, or other non-living-room setting, the Sony’s larger screen might give it the advantage, but overall, we’d rather save $600 and live with the smaller display.

Because of both its all-in-one design and its lack of a video-out, however, we can’t categorize the XPS One as a home theater PC, and we wonder just how many people out there are interested in dropping $2,400 on a secondary Blu-ray system. It does have digital audio-out, so you can send music to a full-fledged sound system. And because it has 802.11n wireless networking, you can also stream nonencrypted HD video to a Windows Media Center Extender hooked up to your main television. The problem is that you cannot send the content from the XPS One’s Blu-ray player over your network. For primary living room HD-movie watching, and arguably as a secondary system paired with a traditional standalone LCD, the HP Pavilion Slimline s3200t is a shockingly better deal than the XPS One, both in terms of its $1,500 price and its hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD drive that embraces both HD formats.

If it’s not the best pure living-room PC, the XPS One is also not the best productivity-oriented desktop, even among other all-in-ones. In that category, Apple’s iMac still rules the day. The performance charts more or less speak for themselves.

Apple iPhone-8 GB (AT&T)

The Apple iPhone has a Width of 2.4 in, a Depth of 0.7 in, and heights 4.6 in. It displays 3.5 in TFT active matrix, and most amazing of it is it is a touch-screen phone. It can live Up to 250 h, and can talk Up to 480 min and weights 4.8 oz. The phone is combined with Digital Camera and Digital Player, and serves MMS, SMS, WWW, & E-Mail.

The good thing about Apple iPhone is it has a stunning display, a sleek design, and an innovative multitouch user interface. Its Safari browser makes for a superb Web surfing experience, and it offers easy-to-use apps. As an iPod, it shines. But The Apple iPhone has variable call quality and lacks some basic features found in many cell phones, including stereo Bluetooth support and 3G compatibility. Integrated memory is stingy for an iPod, and you have to sync the iPhone to manage music content.

Despite some important missing features, a slow data network, and call quality that doesn’t always deliver, the Apple iPhone sets a new benchmark for an integrated cell phone and MP3 player.

 

USB Dock For CN3 Mobile Computer (871-025-001)

The USB Dock from Intermec Technologies is used to hold a CN3 Mobile Computer with its battery installed. The dock allows you to charge a spare battery pack, charge the main battery, and provide power to the CN3. The dock provides USB host and client connectors. If you have a Mobile Computer this will be very usefull for you.