iPad quick thoughts

The Apple iPad is a device which bridges the gap between the iPhone and a laptop. In many ways it's a glorified iPod touch. I think it's way too early to judge if the iPad is a success or not. I don't know if it will be a game changer. All we can do is wait and see first.

As of now, if you're entertaining the notion of purchasing this at first launch (i.e. 2 months from now), I discourage you from doing so. Clearly, this is still a version 1.0 product that needs refining. We aren't even sure if we really need it. I'm not sure if I could actually use this as a netbook replacement. After all, there's no flash support, no multi-tasking, web cam... yada yada.

As much as Apple calls it a new class of device, the truth is that the iPad will compete head on with the saturated netbook market. The iPad's aggressive pricing implies this. So the first question that I ask is whether the iPad can do what most people do on netbooks. Now as much as Apple says netbooks suck/is not the solution, the truth is that it is wildly successful, and because of its success surely the netbook can't be all wrong. It is successful because it offers full laptop capabilities in a cheap and compact form-factor. In my view, if the iPad is going to be a huge success like the iPhone was, it has to do what the netbook does, and do it 10 times better. If not, then I think it makes little sense for people to get the iPad in addition to a netbook. It just complicates life to have to manage another device.

So to me the real question is this: can the iPad replace a netbook? If no, then I won't get it. I don't want to be managing my iPhone, netbook, laptop AND my iPad. It's just too much technology for me.

Apple unlikely to do a netbook

Will Apple be launching a new netbook soon? I mean, almost every major computer manufacturer has one in its line-up. HP has the Mini 1000, Asus has the Eee PC, Acer has the Aspire One, Lenovo has the S10, Dell has the Mini 9, MSI has the Wind... you get the idea. Netbooks are the hottest computing trend now.

Sad to say, Apple is unlikely to jump on the bandwagon soon. It will not be releasing a MacBook mini or a netbook similar to what's on the market now.

Why is this so? Tim Cook, chief operating officer of Apple, said at a recent financial results conference call that "we're watching that space, but from our [point of view] the products are based on hardware that's much less powerful, software technology that's not good, cramped displays. We don't think that people are going to be pleased with those type of products. It's a category we watch, we have some ideas here, but we think the products there now are inferior and won't provide the kind of experience people want."

There you go, question answered. I don't think we will see any low-cost, mini laptop from Apple this year!

Darn!

Now my younger sister has a faster, cooler laptop than me!

Vista and RAM

Here's a quick update on my experience with the Toshiba Satellite Pro L300 after a month. It's a fine laptop... not perfect, but for its low asking price, it's hard to complain. In my usage I found that the screen could be sturdier, the battery life better, and the system, faster.

It came with 1GB RAM, and that's anything but enough for Vista.


I bought a 2GB SD card and used it for ReadyBoost, which didn't give dramatic performance improvements, and also upgrade to 2GB RAM, which gave an INSTANT, noticeable performance hike. It also did push the WEI sub-score for RAM from 4.5 to 4.8, and the graphics sub-score from 3.0 to 3.5. Still, I hesitate running Aero on such laptops.


With 2GB RAM, Vista now breathes much better, and finally I can really multi-task reasonably OK (like running Photoshop, iTunes and Office simultaneously). Lesson learnt: if you're running Vista, you would want to have AT LEAST 2GB RAM!

Toshiba Satellite Pro L300 first looks

As part of my team's win in the international ThinkQuest website design competition, we each received a laptop from Oracle! This 700USD laptop is a Toshiba Satellite Pro L300, a 15.4 inch widescreen business machine.


The model name is a bit of a misnomer... although is says 'pro', the truth is this is a simple, no frills, budget notebook. But don't get me wrong, the L300 is an affordable and serious machine with respectable features for its price.

But first, this is how it looks: grey lid, un-funky colours, very typical business laptop...












The L300 retails with a variety of technical configurations, including an AMD version (yuck) and the normal Intel chips. My model is an Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.0GHz, with a standard 1GB 667MHz RAM, standard 160GB 5400rpm HDD, and lousy integrated graphics that I can't even remember.

On the Windows Experience Index, the L300 had a (pathetic) lowest subscore of 3.0, thanks to the graphics chipset which won't run Aero well. The harddisk yielded the best subscore of 5.2, while processor got a 4.9. I'll be upgrading this thing to 3GB RAM soon; 1GB is anything but sufficient.

Nonetheless, there are some positive things about this machine. Firstly, the 15.4 inch widescreen is one of the better ones I've seen for this price range. It's big, bright and clear, making it absolutely gorgeous to view photos. There is also a SD/memory stick card slot in front! And it is blessed with 3 USB ports, a well designed keyboard and a DVD RW drive.

Battery life is average at around 3 hours, and so is its weight. While it doesn't feel heavy like stone, it is not very light either. You wouldn't want to use this as a mobile road warrior, as it is quite big in size, but I can imagine this on the office table for general usage. When I start to nitpick, I would wish this was much thinner, the screen less thick, and the mouse button less stiff. Other than that, this is your standard laptop but with solid construction, good ergonomics and some very useful features.



On the software side, this L300 came pre-installed with Vista Business edition, which is the right way to go. Although Toshiba offers an XP Pro version, I think Vista is the future and everyone should run Vista. It's more secure, has more functionality, and from an aesthetics standpoint, more eye-candy.

What I wasn't too pleased about was the preloaded junk programs. The Toshiba DVD software stuff is fine, but what isn't fine is Picasa 2 photo editing software (I'll never use that), the Google Desktop search and toolbar in IE, and some other crap that I can't remember. This is bad... these unnecessary software clutter up the machine, take up disk space, slow down performance, and I won't use those programs!! It also does come with Norton 360 60 day trial, which is more acceptable since I'd want to use that, and also Office 07, which is fine too, but apart from that, the other bloatware isn't acceptable! Toshiba should learn from Sony and allow customers to opt out of these software and just have the OS installed.

You might feel differently about the extra software, and you may like it for the added functionality out of the box, but not for me. I like to install what I want to use. But overall, this is a truly utilitarian laptop, not outstanding but gets the job done. And for the low asking price, this is perhaps one of the better 15 inch widescreen business notebooks around.

Strictly NOT for gaming!

Maxtor Basics 3.5" External Desktop HDD

Got this hard drive from Challenger to backup my data today. Took the 250GB version. This is the second external hard drive that I got in my attempt to stick to my philosophy in data backup, which is to backup the backup. The other 3.5" drive is a much prettier Seagate FreeAgent 250GB.

First impressions of the Maxtor? Boring, but very functional. This drive is reasonably priced, connects through USB, has a standard speed of 7200RPM, comes pre-formatted in NTFS and doesn't include any junk software. It is completely black all around and looks like a rounded brick, which makes it look very dull and serious, as compared to the more funky design of the FreeAgent. Clearly, the Maxtor Basics is a utilitarian device which does nothing more than it is supposed to do. That's great actually, as I absolutely detest drives preloaded with a load of crap trialware!

For a peace of mind, the Maxtor comes with a 3 year warranty, but it is still 2 years shorter than that of the FreeAgent. I've not heard disastrous stories with Maxtor drives, so with fingers crossed I hope this drive is lasting.

However, there is one area the Maxtor can improve on, which is that of design. There is no rubber padding beneath the drive to prevent it from shifting about when placed on the table, since the bottom is quite smooth. The inclusion of either a rubber protector or a stand would be best.

Overall, a very sensible, no frills hard drive worth considering if all you need is storage space.

World's fastest startup time

Finally, after a little prodding into the CPU of my HP desktop and a quick check at Task Manager, I found the reason why my family PC was running so slowly. Guess what, I found that the DDR2 ram slot was loose!

So, instead of running on 768 MB ram, it was all the while running of a pathetic 256 MB ram for the past few weeks. I have two ram slots, one with the default 256 MB, and another one with an extra 512 MB I inserted by myself. The system didn’t register that second 512 MB ram slot, and all it needed was a bit of poking and twiddling. Now my system is running at an acceptable speed again.

Surviving on just 256 MB ram, I did some startup and shutdown tests with a stopwatch. Now this may seem exaggerated, but it isn’t, I promise. On 256 MB ram, startup took a spectacular 15 MINUTES!!!!!! (Including some third party apps like sidebar and Yahoo widgets.) Shutdown took an amazing 3 MINUTES!

Now with 768 MB ram, startup is roughly 5 minutes, thankfully. See the wonders of an extra 512 MB ram! Finally, I can Photoshop in peace again without waiting forever to get things done.