Best Kept Secret in Technology

Every once a while a technology product comes along which is just an absolute bargain.  And very often those bargains are unknown to the general public.

The one that I want to tell you about today is the Nokia Lumia 520 (or 521) smartphone.  I’m sure you’re thinking, “but I already have a smartphone!”  But I’m suggesting this not as a replacement for your current smartphone, but rather something that is neat to own in addition to your smartphone.  But it would be a great thing to own for anyone who doesn’t already have a smartphone of their own.

Nokia Lumia 520 Nokia Lumia 521

Most of the time when you buy a cell phone you have to buy it with a contract, or pay out the nose for it up front.  Most smartphones, if you buy them outright, will cost $500 or more, and if you don’t pay that out-of-pocket it is figured into your monthly bill one way or another.  The Lumia 520 and 521 are inexpensive (both are easily less than $150) and don’t require you to sign a contract or even activate the phone.  But why would you ever do that?

Well, consider all of the things that people like to do with their phones… browse the web, check for email, listen to music, watch videos, play games, get driving directions.  Imagine being able to do all of that without a monthly payment.  Zero.  None.  No contracts, no monthly payments, ever, unless you want to.  That’s what’s great about these two models of phone.

A few scenarios…

Much of the time when you want to listen to music, it is music you already own – you don’t need an active Internet connection to stream it.  Maybe you have an iPod Touch that you listen to music on.  But those start at $229.  The Lumia 520/521 play all of your music just like the iPod Touch does – and in my opinion does a better job of it.  And they are a lot less.  And with an iPod, if you run out of storage you have to buy an entirely new device.  With the Lumia 520/521, if you run out of storage you can buy a Micro SD Card (up to 64 GB) and pop it in.  The Lumia 520 + a 64GB of storage is less than half the cost of the cheapest iPod Touch.  And it has an FM radio too, which the iPhone does not.

Now say you want directions from A to B.  Yes, I know that smartphones already do that.  But to do that they nearly always require Internet access and a data plan.  Because the Lumia 520/521 runs Windows Phone 8, you can pre-download maps (state-by-state or country-by-country) at home over WiFi before you leave, and store them on the device for use even when you don’t have Internet access.  You get door-to-door directions, like a dedicated GPS unit, for a lot less than a dedicated GPS unit.  And unlike the budget GPS units, it even knows how to pronounce street names so directions are specific – “turn right on Juniper Avenue” instead of “in 300 yards, turn right.”  If you do activate the device as a phone or tether it over WiFi to a smartphone or tablet, you even get up-to-the-minute traffic information, so it can route you around problems.  And I actually believe that Nokia Drive is the best navigation software out there for any smartphone.  It’s fast, accurate, and touch-friendly so it works great in the car, and best of all, it’s totally free.  And since it doesn’t require a data connection, it works in the middle of nowhere when your cell phone won’t.  (Nokia, incidentally, owns Navteq, which easily has the best map data anywhere – easily besting Apple [cough] and Google – and this is where the map data for Windows Phones comes from.)

Watching movies is easy too.  Since you can pop a Micro SD card in, you can store a lot of video for the kiddies to watch in the car.  It isn’t the biggest or best screen, but it’s more than adequate.  And at 800x480 pixels, a lot higher resolution than you’d get from an Android device in the same price range.  Most of those are 320x240 – or maybe VGA if you’re really lucky.

Say you’ve got a kid that is bugging you about wanting an iPod Touch or iPhone to play games on, but you’re not excited about the cost.  These two Nokia phones do an excellent job of playing games.  It’s true that you won’t get the same selection of games you get on an iPod, but you also aren’t shelling out a ton of money for something that is probably going to get lost, broken, or stolen and have to be replaced over and over.  If one of these phones gets lost or broken, it isn’t that big a deal because they’re so inexpensive.


And of course whenever you’re in range of WiFi you get all of the benefits of a smartphone that you’ve come to expect.  It will check your email (best email client on a smartphone I think), it will browse the web (not the best browser, but certainly more than serviceable).  And play games.
So why a Windows Phone?  Well, because in this price range nothing else comes close.  Apple doesn’t make an i-device for less than $200, and anything in that price range running Android is just, well, a downright ugly experience.  The 520/521 might be the slowest Windows Phones out there, but they aren’t slow.  They feel very fast.  They’re certainly a lot faster than anything running Android at three times the price, and faster than any Apple device more than a year old.  And they don’t feel cheap like many similarly priced devices do.  They feel well built so they should hold up to the abuse that you or your kids throw at them.

The only difference between the two is that one is sold by AT&T and the other is sold by T-Mobile.  You don’t have to have an account with either carrier to buy one – just order it from Amazon or pick it up at Wal-Mart.  As of this writing, the Lumia 520 is only $59.99 at Amazon, and the 521 is $119.99.  Again, you don’t sign up with the carrier if you don’t want to.

These two phones are absolutely the best deal on technology out there today.  You get the functionality of a good smartphone at a tiny portion of what it would cost you to get it otherwise.  Nothing else even comes close right now.

The one thing to note is that these phones are locked to either AT&T or T-Mobile.  Which means you can’t just pop in a SIM card from the other carrier and have it work.  If you want to use one as a phone, only AT&T SIMs will work in the 520, and only T-Mobile SIMS will work in the 521.  So if you want to have one as a backup phone, buy the one that is tied to your carrier.  But, again, you don’t have to be (or become) an AT&T or T-Mobile customer.
They also only come with 8 GB of storage.  So you probably will want to consider getting a MicroSD card for additional storage.
Is this the perfect device?  Certainly not.  But for the price, nothing else even comes remotely close.
Bonus tip: If you do happen to be a T-Mobile customer, go to their web site or one of their stores and sign up for a free tablet account, even if you don’t have or plan to buy a tablet.  You get 200 MB of 4G data every month at no cost (and if you go over that data allotment they just slow you down – there are never any overage charges).  You can then use that SIM card in the Lumia 521 and use it to access the Internet on the phone without paying for a phone line – you won’t have to pay a dime in service charges, ever.  You won’t be able to make phone calls (unless you use an app like Skype over the 4G connection), but you can do everything else you'd be able to do on a smartphone, and it won’t cost you anything to do so.

Cameras–Is it time to upgrade?

One funny thing that happens to me a lot is that many people I know outside of work seem to think that I do audio, video, and/or photography for a living.  My job is in software development, but that is apparently less glamorous than multimedia to the general public, so for some reason I'm known better to people in my personal life for the things that I like to do with media rather than creating software.

So one of the questions I often get asked is “which camera should I buy?” Or the same question phrased differently, “should I get a new camera?”

For some reason nearly everyone interested in photography gets stuck on camera technical specifications. For example, the first question people ask me about one of my cameras is “how many megapixels is it?” when in reality that number doesn't really mean much of anything these days, as I'll discuss later.
So in attempt to sort of pacify everyone, here are some general guidelines on what cameras to look at, and whether you should upgrade your existing camera to something newer or more expensive.

Digital SLR

First, advice for people who already have a digital SLR camera and are thinking about upgrading…

You probably don't need to upgrade if…

• Your camera has a resolution of 6-8 megapixels or better, and you do nearly all of your shooting outdoors during the daytime.
• Your camera model was released during or after 2009.

You may want to consider upgrading if…

• Your sensor resolution is less than ten megapixels, you do a lot of cropping on images, and you create large prints.
• You shoot at night or indoors a lot, and for whatever reason don't want to use a flash or a large aperture (f-stop less than 2.0) lens.
• The limitations of your equipment are preventing you from getting the shots you want.

Reasoning…

While most digital SLR cameras released in the last 10 years or so are capable of really good pictures during the daytime, many models released before 2009 struggled to perform well in low-light situations.  Then in 2009 something magical happened, where all of a sudden cameras from all manufacturers were being released with better clarity and low-light sensitivity with much higher usable ISO settings.  If you shoot in low-light (such as indoors or at night) having a 2009-model or newer camera can make a big difference.
If you shoot primarily in daylight, or with a flash, or a large aperture lens, you probably don't need to upgrade.  Even early model cameras going back to 2004-2005 still do really well in these situations, and you wouldn't gain much by moving to a newer camera.

If you really have an itch to buy new camera equipment, lenses are always a much better investment than electronics.  A good quality lens will make a bigger difference in picture quality on an older body than a cheap lens on a newer, more expensive body.  And lenses hold their value really well – oftentimes you can resell a good lens for the same price you originally paid, or take just a minimal loss on it.  The value of anything electronic, especially digital camera bodies, plummets very quickly.

What should I get?

Even the most inexpensive digital SLRs take amazing pictures these days, and most models released since about 2010-2011 shoot pretty spectacular video as well (as long as you are willing to focus manually).  Unless you have a very specific need for a higher-end model, the cheaper (and usually lighter and smaller) bodies make a lot of sense.  I own several SLRs, and when I want to take a camera with me that isn't too big or bulky, I take my 2010-model Canon T2i because it is small, lightweight, and takes fantastic pictures.  I only use my bigger and bulkier SLRs when I need fast control over exposure settings. The bigger, more expensive models really don’t take better pictures than my much cheaper T2i.  They're just faster to navigate and provide professional-level control.  (As for lenses for my T2i, my 10-22mm wide goes with me for indoor shots, 50mm or 85mm for portraits, and the kit 18-55mm, 28-135mm, or 24-105mm for outdoor shots depending on how appropriate a big lens is for the situation.)

I’m primarily a Canon guy, so I really like the Canon T3i, T5i (adds touch screen), 60D (no touch, but adds more buttons for more control; no lens with this link).  All are well under $1000, and are excellent.  Full-frame bodies like the 6D or 5DmkIII are of course amazing, and they give better low-light sensitivity, a wider field of view, and of course much more control, but at much greater cost – $2000 or more, without a lens.  Unless you're shooting professionally it’s hard to justify the price.  The SL1 is also nice because of its tiny size (and it is tiny for an SLR), but it is otherwise essentially the same as the T5i without the flip-out screen at considerably greater expense.

Canon also makes a lower-end model called the T3, which takes good pictures, but difficult to recommend because you can get a lot more camera with a used T2i (sometimes for less), or the T3i for not much more money.  The LCD screen on the T3 is quite poor, and doesn't flip out like the T3i (for easier shooting above or below eye level).  The T2i/T3i is also faster, has a lot more resolution, higher quality video, and much better low-light sensitivity, among other enhancements that to me make it a better buy.  But if the T3 is what you can afford, you're still going to get great pictures.

Nikon also makes great cameras, but I don't follow their lineup closely enough to make specific recommendations.  The one thing to watch out for on Nikon cameras is that the less expensive bodies (< ~$700) don't have the mechanism to autofocus on “AF” series Nikon lenses, and those lenses happen to be the less expensive ones.  So plan on spending considerably more on lenses with Nikon than Canon if you buy a cheap body.  If you get a D90 or more expensive model, the AF lenses will autofocus and the less expensive lenses are fine.

I’d be a little careful about buying other DSLR brands, as the lenses made for those cameras have inconsistent quality and you have to be really careful about what you buy.  If you invest in Canon or Nikon equipment you can be assured that you're always getting something at least very good, if not excellent.  Neither brand makes bad stuff.

If you're just starting out and want to buy your first digital SLR, get the T3i or T5i.  Anything more complicated will be overwhelming because of its complexity, and won't give you better pictures.  The kit lenses included in the box have really good image quality these days, and will be sufficient for new photographers.  Once you begin to understand photography a little better you can step up to a better lens for more control over what you shoot, and you won't have to upgrade your camera.

With that said, everyone with an interest in photography and a digital SLR camera should own a 50mm prime lens.  Canon 50mm f/1.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 manual or auto focus (the first link will autofocus on the more expensive Nikon camera bodies, but not on base models).  They have excellent image quality and are very inexpensive. They give you the ability to shoot pictures with a soft, out-of-focus background that you can't get otherwise without spending a lot of money, and as such they make spectacular portrait lenses.  They also allow you to shoot indoors without a flash in moderate lighting.

In the end, though, if you already have a digital SLR and it doesn't have any glaringly horrible problems, you're fine sticking with it rather than upgrading.  Spend the money on a new lens instead.

Point and Shoot

The quality of point-and-shoot cameras is all over the map.  So it is pretty hard to make specific recommendations. 

For the most part you get what you pay for.  If your camera cost you $150 or less and you're thinking about upgrading, I'd just go ahead and do it.  A P&S camera that sells for $250 is always going to be a significant upgrade over anything ever sold for less than $150, and is probably worth the money.

Point-and-shoot cameras have also improved significantly over the years too.  A P&S camera from more than 5 years ago is really going to pale in comparison to something newer. 

So as a general guideline, I’d say that if your camera is more than 3 years old, or cost you less than $150, yeah, you should upgrade if you're considering it. 

What should I get?

Camera manufacturers release new models of their point-and-shoot lines quite often – it isn't unusual for a model to be discontinued and replaced after just 6 months.  So specific models are something that I don't even try to keep up on.  So I won't make specific recommendations.  They'd be out of date rather quickly anyway.

So instead I'll give you one piece of buying advice… ignore the numbers.  Ignore the resolution (megapixels), ISO sensitivity, etc. entirely.  Despite what the difference in numbers might tell you, performance of nearly all cameras in this category are all about the same, given similar lenses. 

The one biggest factor to look at is the size of the lens.  Specifically, the glass in the lens.  The bigger the lens, the more light it collects, which improves image quality.  A small difference in lens size can make a big difference in picture quality.  So I'd recommend buying the camera with the biggest glass within your budget.
The other thing to look at is the optical zoom capability.  Many times manufacturers will try to hide this and give you a digital zoom number.  Digital zoom is useless.  Only look at the optical zoom.  Buy whatever suits your needs.

The other thing I'll mention is Optical Image Stabilization technology.  This compensates for the shake that is inherent in cameras that are being held by hand.  It is especially important in point and shoot cameras because they are tiny (and therefore harder to hold steady) and don't handle low-light as well as SLRs, so they require longer exposures which increases the likelihood of motion blur.  IS technology is very highly recommended unless you shoot on a tripod or only take close pictures in daylight.

As for brands, Canon is the clear winner in this category.  They consistently produce the best images, and are generally quite easy to use, relatively speaking.

Smartphone cameras have gotten much better in the last few years, but they really still pale in comparison to point-and-shoot models.  Not only do P&S produce much better quality pictures, they also have a real zoom capability.  The only smartphone cameras that I've found that does what I would even consider a passable job are the Nokia Lumia 1020, 920, 928, and 925, or the HTC One.  Not even the iPhone 5 or any of the Samsung Galaxy S series are any good unless you're shooting in the noonday sun.

Other Camera Types

There are a few other types of cameras out there, such as mirrorless, and rangefinder, but getting into a discussion about those is well beyond the scope of this blog post.  I'd be happy to answer questions if you're considering one of these other types.

A Final Word about Megapixels

The more megapixels the better, right?  At least that’s what camera manufacturers and salespeople would like you to believe.  But that isn't necessarily the case, especially on small cameras like point and shoot and smartphones.

The trouble with increasing the number of pixels is that in order to add more pixels the pixels themselves have to become smaller.  And smaller pixels means that less light is captured.  Which then in turn creates noisier (less clear) images, and less ability to handle low-light situations like you would find indoors or at night.
Generally speaking, as long as a camera has 6-8 megapixels of resolution, it is sufficient.  In fact, the higher you go above that the more processing has to be done and blurrier your images become to remove the extra noise, especially when shot under conditions other than sunlight in the middle of the day.  An 8-megapixel point and shoot is generally going to be preferable to one with a 13-megapixel sensor, especially on small sensors like those in a cell phone.

Higher resolution pictures also take up more disk space.  Double the number of pixels, double the size of the file.

Always remember that the highest resolution “normal” computer monitors are about 2 megapixels at best.  And 3 megapixels is enough for printing an 8x10.  You only need higher than 3 if you are quite exuberant in your cropping of images (to simulate zoom after-the-fact, for example) or if you are printing at 11x14 or larger.  Any extra resolution is wasted, and taking up extra disk space.  So, with all other things (*cough* lenses *cough*) being equal, choose a camera with the resolution closest to the 6-8 MP range.  Even photography magazines, who are notoriously picky, only require about 5 MP for print.

Wrap-up

Chances are if you already own a digital SLR it is probably fine.  But if you own a point-and-shoot which isn't brand new or didn't cost more than $250 you could benefit from an upgrade.

SLR cameras are more of a long-term investment while point-and-shoot cameras are meant to be more-or-less disposable.  And the lens on a camera makes more difference in picture quality than the camera itself.  And aside from the top-of-the-line models, for the most part you get what you pay for.  Keep those things in mind while shopping and it will be hard to go wrong.

iPod Touch: Fifth Generation

Just a quick assessment of the new iPod Touch, Fifth Generation.  This isn’t by any means a full review… but rather a few thoughts based on initial impressions having used it for a couple hours, as compared to the fourth generation model.

Speed

The 5th Generation iPod Touch (hereafter referred to as the “5G”) has been updated with a dual core processor which is fundamentally faster than the processor in the 4G’s single core processor.  This is roughly the same upgrade Apple made going from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S.  So it feels quite a bit snappier.  Which is great because with iOS 5 and iOS 6, the fourth gen model could get stuck and feel sluggish quite a bit of the time. A very welcome change.

Screen

The 4th Gen model had a screen that was technically a Retina display, but it was a lower quality screen than that of the iPhone 4/4S, which used a more expensive IPS panel.  It had significant color shift issues, and a poor contrast ratio when viewing off-angle, with everything appearing washed out because of the high amount of background light being added to everything.  The 5G fixes this, and it comes with a very good LCD… the same LCD used in the iPhone 5, actually.  Contrast and color accuracy improvements are quite noticeable.  Still not as good as an OLED screen, but definitely a huge upgrade.

The other big change is that the 5G moves to a 16x9 aspect screen instead of the 3x2 screen used on all previous iOS devices.  Aside from the ones provided by Apple with the iPod, few apps have been updated to take advantage of the extra screen space.  Apps which have not been updated look a little strange, as you can clearly see the black bars above and below the app’s user interface.  It’s especially strange because the iPod’s regular status bar (which shows the iPod name, WiFi status, battery charge, etc.) actually shifts downward, leaving an awkward, visible blank space above it.  Many apps will be updated over time to support 16x9, but there are a lot of apps which have been effectively abandoned by the developers that won’t ever get updated.

For me the nicest effect of the aspect ratio change was one I hadn’t anticipated, and that is the ability to have 16 apps in a folder instead of the previous limit of 12.  I had always been frustrated by the previous limitation, and adding an additional 4 slots is actually much more significant than the numeric difference alone would indicate.

With all of that said, I am still finding the physical width of the screen to be a big limitation.  I still hate the on-screen keyboard because the keys are so darn tiny.  iOS’s text prediction does help quite a bit when doing English text entry, but password entry is still difficult and frustrating.  I wish that when Apple made the screen taller that they had made it a little wider as well.  My phone has a 4.3” screen, so it isn’t much larger than the iPod’s, but the tiny difference in width makes a huge difference in the usability of the on-screen keyboard.  Apple is making a big deal of the fact that the screen is still the same width as it was before, but I find it to be more of a hindrance than a help.  I’ve never had any trouble reaching anything on my phone’s screen with my thumb, so in my mind Apple’s argument for maintaining the same screen width is effectively moot.

One complaint I have (and I have this with practically all 16x9 devices—phones, tablets, etc.) is that a 16x9 screen is just too wide an aspect when used in landscape mode.  Any graphical elements fixed at the top/bottom of the screen take up too much of a percentage of the screen’s height in landscape mode.  By the time you have the status bar at the top of the screen, and bring up the on-screen keyboard, there is very little space leftover for any other actual content.  The only devices I’ve seen that even attempt to work around this are Windows Phones, which only display the status bar at the top of the screen when you swipe downward to request it, and leave the bottom on-screen elements at the physical bottom rather than virtual bottom when rotating into landscape mode.  (Rotating a Windows Phone to landscape does rotate buttons at the bottom of the screen 90 degrees, but they stay in-place on the screen, optimizing use of the wide nature of the screen.  It’s a slick way of handling the problem.)  It’s especially frustrating on apps not optimized for 16x9 screens, as 18% of the screen is completely wasted on black bars while the rest of the screen gets very crowded very quickly.

Siri

The 5G touch gets Siri, which the 4th Gen model did not have, even with the iOS 6 upgrade.  Like all speech-control features on all devices, I find it to be of limited use.  It’s fine if you just want to check the weather, or create a reminder for yourself, but because apps can’t interface with Siri you’re limited to the capabilities that Apple has provided to Siri without the option of expansion.  I much prefer the approach that Microsoft is using with their voice features in Windows Phone 8, which allows app developers to add their own commands and responses.  So if the phone doesn’t know how to handle a voice command, you at least have the option of installing an app that does.

While it isn’t really an issue, I have noticed that the Siri voice sounds very metallic and mechanical for the first little while after using a new device or new voice (or device which has recently been upgraded to iOS 6).  It seems to resolve itself within a couple hours, but it is a little weird that the voice quality changes.  Personally, I prefer the Australian voice for Siri over the one used in the United States and Canada.  I don’t think most people realize that you can change the voice that can be used.  Just throwing that out there.

While I’m on the subject, I still find it awkward for people to try to talk to their devices.  The technology is still quite poor in its implementation, as every variation still has a very limited vocabulary, and every one of them has a lot of trouble dealing with any background noise.  Few of the voice control/input implementations actually work very well outside of a quite room at home.  I’ve only found them to be of benefit (and limited benefit at that) for sending texts and emails while driving.  Anything else still requires interaction with the screen, and a great deal of patience. 

Bottom line, Siri is a silly feature to me.  And its best use is entertaining oneself with its often hilarious interpretations of your request.  While generally better, the offerings from Microsoft and Google are still generally laughable.  We’ve still got a LONG way to go. We are a world away from being able to have a conversation with our electronics, and Siri only serves to highlight those limitations.

Earpods

Anybody who has read more than a few posts on my blog knows how much I hate the earbuds that have come with iOS devices.  They are absolutely awful.  I'm really glad that Apple has addressed this by creating the Earpods, because the new earphones are MUCH, MUCH better.  They’re not great, but the sound quality is leagues better than what was offered previously.  They’re also infinitely more comfortable than the older models, but they do still have a tendency to fall out of my ears much too easily.  Just tilting my head to one side virtually guarantees that they’ll fall right out.

The sound quality gets much better if you use your fingers to firmly hold the earpods in the ears, but nobody is going to do that.  A better seal in the ears would not only improve the sound quality, but make them stay in place better.

I won’t ultimately end up using the Earpods for listening to music – I have several pairs of professional in-ear monitors that have infinitely better sound quality, but I’m really glad that Apple isn’t subjecting the public to such terrible earphones any longer.  These are definitely among the better included-in-the-box earphones I’ve ever heard.

Camera

The 5G gets what is essentially the same camera as the iPhone 4 on the back, and a significant improvement in the front-facing camera.  While I probably won’t use either one, it’s nice that the considerable imperfections of the previous model have been addressed.  The replacement cameras are much better.  The HDR and Panorama features even made it into this version.  Nice touch.  No cell phone (or MP3 player) camera is a real replacement for a real point-and-shoot camera, but the improvement is welcome.  The previous versions weren’t so bad that they weren’t even worth consideration of being used.

Physical

The 5G is noticeably lighter than the 4th Gen model.  And it is thinner too.  But my favorite aspect of the 5G is the disappearance of the shiny back.  All previous full-sized iPods had that awful shiny metal back on them that got scratched practically from being exposed to the Earth’s atmosphere.  You couldn’t put the device in a pocket, even by itself, without it being scratched.  It was terrible.  So I’m happy to report that the new, matte aluminum back, is infinitely better in that department.  It’s too early to say just how resilient it is to scratching, but I may be able to get away without putting some sort of protection on it.  Which is a good thing.  I prefer my electronic devices to be naked, as most cases, holders, etc. add much too much bulk for my tastes.  I’ve sort of settled on adding Zagg’s InvibleShields and Skins to most of my Apple devices, which is a compromise I can deal with.  They add almost no bulk to the devices while adding a degree of protection against scratches, at the expense of slightly distorted images and a grippy rubber texture.  In the case of the iPad, adding a bit of grip is welcome because of its weight and slippery-ness, but I don’t love that texture on something as light as the iPod Touch.  To each his/her own, though.

Lightning Connector

Like the iPhone 5, the 5G Touch switches to the Lightning connector instead of the ubiquitous Dock connector.  The new connector is tiny!  Much smaller than it seems in pictures.  And it does seem a lot sturdier than other connectors.  The fact that there is no “correct” orientation of the connector is a bonus, but not really a big deal either way.

As someone who has never really invested into devices that use the Dock connector (just a handful of USB cables), this doesn’t really bother me.  But it could be a big deal for anyone who has.  Other than dumb speakers, it seems that compatibility with old devices using the Apple’s Dock adapter is quite poor, so you could very well find that if you have a dock connector for your car stereo, clock radio, etc., that it just won’t work.  And the adapter does create a certain level of awkwardness.

iOS 6

The 4G Touch does indeed receive the 6th version of iOS, theoretically giving it many of the features of the 5G model.  Because of both hardware limitations and deliberate coding decisions by Apple, though, not some features aren’t available.  None are huge, but it is worth noting.  Most prevalent are the Flyover view in Maps, Siri, and a few features of the camera.  None are a deal breaker, or are necessarily worth buying a new device to gain them.  But if you happen to be in the market for a new player, it is probably worth getting the new model vs. the older one.

Overall

Apple has made a lot of welcome changes to the 5th Generation model of the iPod Touch.  The gap between it and its parallel-generation iPhone is shrinking, and this makes it a definite viable alternative for someone who wants to participate in the Apple ecosystem without signing an expensive cell phone contract.  At this point the only meaningful difference between the iPod Touch and the iPhone is the ability to make phone calls and send text messages, with even that limitation gone if you only interact with people using Apple devices. 

Is the new model good enough that I will switch from my Zune HD to the iPod Touch as my primary music player?  No way.  Apple still hasn’t addressed my complaints with the player software on the device – in some ways they’ve even made it worse by moving the podcast features into an awful new, separate app. The music (and particularly podcast) features of the Zune are still heads and shoulders over anything the Apple has to offer.  And surprisingly, even though the Zune HD is three years old now, its interface is still faster than the iPod’s.  Not to mention that the Zune software is in an entirely different league than iTunes in every way possible.  The Zune’s audio hardware is still superior to Apple’s, with a noticeably mellower, less distorted, and more accurate and pleasing sound… particularly on high quality headphones.  Apple doesn’t seem to care to address this, as the audio hardware in the latest iPods and iPhones remains unchanged from at least the three prior generations.  I guess if it’s good enough for the masses, it’s good enough for Apple.  It’s a real shame that the Zune HD never quite caught on, because it is an awesome product – one of the best that has ever come out of Microsoft.

I don’t expect that others will be quite as picky as me when it comes to audio quality, and that access to the variety of apps in Apple’s App Store will trump at least the audio quality shortcomings, and probably even the horribleness of iTunes.  (Some of this will hopefully be addressed in iTunes 11 (due shortly), but I don’t have any faith in that particular group of programmers at Apple – it has always been bad and for the most part just gotten worse over time.)  And most people probably aren’t even acutely aware of how mediocre the music player on iOS really is, as they’ve never even used anything else.  So in that particular case at least, ignorance is bliss.

But for anyone looking at an iPod Touch, there isn’t really any reason other than price (or maybe Dock connector compatibility) to not get the newest version of the product.  It’s a nice upgrade.

Amazon Kindle Fire

The Amazon Kindle Fire shipped this week as their answer to a need for a color e-reader.  And, if you look at it from a certain perspective, as their answer to the iPad.  But it's really something somewhere in between.

Amazon has set a very aggressive price for this device at $199.  They’ve created a device that is essentially a tablet, but at a price that undercuts their competition by a pretty wide margin.  Why not? The whole point of the Fire is to sell you more Amazon content, so they can more-or-less count on making their profits on the content you buy rather than the hardware itself.  Everything about the Fire is designed to entice you to purchase content from Amazon… not just books, either.  It also plays music, movies, TV shows, lets you purchase apps to run on the device, and it even comes pre-installed with an Amazon shopping app, already linked to your account.  In a way, it’s genius.  You’ve just got to resist the urge to go crazy with content purchases.

Reviews on the Internet have been all over the map.  Some are praising the Fire as an iPad killer (it’s not).  Others are essentially saying it’s the worst piece of electronics to come out in a long time (again, it’s not).  Like so many opinions out on the Internet, the truth lies somewhere in between.

There are a lot of things I like about the Fire.  It’s pretty easy to use.  It’s a nice size and it isn’t too heavy to hold for long reading or video watching sessions.  Amazon’s $79 per year (via Amazon Prime) access to a substantial streaming video library is quite intriguing.  The screen is very good.  It provides a low-cost point-of-entry into the world of Android apps.  But, on the other hand, it also provides a low-cost point-of-entry into the world of Android apps.  Yes, that is a backhanded compliment.  It lets you install Android apps, but I’m not so sure this is a great thing.

Until fairly recently I was open to the possibility of the Android platform being a decent alternative to the iPhone and iPad of the world.  That is, until I used an Android device.  While some who complain about Android do so because they’re purchasing $49 phones, I used two different high-end models to take the hardware out of the equation.  And I was not impressed.  Not in the least.  Every Android device I’ve tried now is clunky, generally sluggish, and incredibly inconsistent in the way it works.  Having apps pause and stutter is just the normal way of doing things on Android devices… you have to expect it.  And because there are no standards for how apps should look, feel, or work, everything is all over the map.  One application might use on-screen touch buttons to get around.  Others rely on the Back button.  Some use an iPhone-like hierarchy of commands, others do everything through flat linking.  Some apps look like the launcher that HTC has created, others like Samsung’s, others like nothing else.  I can’t believe how incredibly fragmented and inconsistent things are under the Android OS.  I am not impressed at all.  Frankly, I am actually stunned that anyone could love their Android phone… I have to chalk it up to lack of knowledge of alternative choices.  I may have gotten spoiled by my Windows Phone, but I really don’t believe how bad Android is, and have a hard time understanding how anyone could get excited by it, let alone put up with it.

With that, back to the Fire.  Even though the Fire uses the Android OS at its core, Amazon has tried to isolate its users from it.  To some degree it has done it fairly well.  If you stick to the Books, Videos, Music, and Docs libraries, everything runs great.  The device is responsive and (mostly) easy to use.  The reader is everything you’d hope for in an e-book reader (aside from the e-Ink paper-like display), and videos play smoothly.  If you’ve been populating Amazon’s music cloud with your own content, the music player is alright (although I will contend that anything larger than a phone is just too big for playing music).  Pretty much everything in those areas of the device is great.

That is, until you get to the Apps library.  The way Amazon has this setup is that don’t use Google’s App Market, but rather they have their own Android app store.  And the Fire can run nearly everything in that store, within the inherent limitations of the device (you won’t be making phone calls, for example).  Shopping for apps is pretty easy (although I would like to see more filtering capabilities to narrow down searches) and purchasing is even easier.  There are, of course, a broad range of apps available for free, but since Amazon is in this to make money they don’t do much to make these super easy to isolate. 

Where things really break down is actually running and installing these apps.  It’s really a mixed bag.  Most of the problems aren’t Amazon’s fault, so we have to give credit where credit is due, but it still doesn’t make for a great experience.  Among my complaints…

• As mentioned, the sluggishness of Android is fully present here.  The majority of apps are affected.  Scrolling and navigation is clunky most of the time.  It isn’t at all uncommon to tap something on the screen and not see any sort of response for as much as a second or longer.  On a modern consumer electronics device, this is unacceptable.
  
• Most of the apps are written for phones, not something the size of the Fire.  Very few apps have been designed to take advantage of a larger screen.  This means that one of two things tends to happen: either everything on-screen is small (sized as if it was being displayed on a screen 1/3 the size) and it shows more content to you, or everything is blown up much larger than normal as if you were using a phone with a 7” screen.  Neither experience is ideal. 
  
• There are many first-rate apps in the store, but there is a lot more junk.  There are a lot of no-good apps to sort through to find the gems.
  
• While Amazon’s Android App Store does have a lot in it, there are still a lot of popular Android apps that aren’t in it.  You can, if you choose to, install other apps if you have access to their .APK files, but there isn’t really a good online repository of them.  Most people who run Android get their apps from Google’s App Market (and as such, there hasn’t been much need for another repository), but that isn’t available here.  I was able to find .APK files for several apps missing from the Amazon store (Skype, Zinio, for example), but only once I was willing to wade into some rather seedy areas of the Internet.  I do not recommend doing this to the faint of heart.  If an app isn’t in Amazon’s store, skip it.

So overall my thoughts on having the ability to install apps are mixed. Yes, you can install third party apps on the device, as if it were a full-fledged Android tablet.  The real question is, are you really sure you want to?

Things are a little more muddy when it comes to the built-in web browser.  The browser seems to do a decent job rendering most web sites.  Better than the iPad in most cases.  And since it supports Adobe Flash you can view many sites that the iPad can’t handle.  But the trouble is, the browser is based on, you guessed it, is the Android WebKit browser.  So it’s slow.  Amazon has tried to speed it up by using their high-power cloud servers to accelerate the experience, but several online tests, and my own experience, show that this actually slows things down, and the feature should be turned off.  Even something as simple as scrolling a page is slow and clunky.  As if you’re the device to do something it doesn’t want to do, like asking a child to leave a toy store.  You can absolutely browse the web.  But not if you’re in a hurry.

I find it a little odd that Amazon is only offering a WiFi version of the Fire.  If any of the Kindles screams “I need 3G” it’s the Fire.  It’s the only model that has a supported (non-“experimental”) web browser, and the only model that can play music and videos from Amazon’s stores.  We can speculate as to why there is no 3G model, but the fact remains that if you want to access Amazon’s stores or the web while away from home or the office, you need to either find or bring your own WiFi hotspot.

I hope Amazon works out some of the little kinks, because I really think the Fire has a lot of potential.  I’m not saying that I dislike it, because it does do what it is supposed to do, it doesn’t crash or lock up, and at $199 it’s a steal for what it is.  I’m just disappointed that Amazon has selected Android and all of its required baggage to run the thing.  They could have done so much better.

My overall rating for the Kindle Fire is “good enough.”  It isn’t a stellar device, but it really isn’t bad either, especially if you aren’t interested in the ability to run Android apps, or browse the web quickly.  As long as you stick to the other libraries (Books, Video, Music, Docs) it’s excellent.  Just don’t have high expectations once you wander outside of the Amazon-created areas of the device.  You don’t have to use Android Apps on the device, and you don’t have to browse the web… as long as you consider those two features to be a bonus you’ll be very happy with the Fire.  But if you buy it specifically for those features, you’re likely to be at least a little bit disappointed.

It is not an iPad, but it isn’t intended to be, and it costs, depending on the model you’re comparing it to, between 24% and 40% of what the iPad does.  For that, you can make some compromises.  A $20,000 Honda isn’t a BMW, either.  If you’re happy with a Honda or Ford, you’ll probably be happy with the Fire.  If you prefer to shop at Target rather than Nordstrom, you’ll be happy with the Fire.  The Fire is a Honda sold at Target.

Windows Phone 7

About 3 months ago I bought an HTC HD7 from T-Mobile to test to see if would meet my needs for a cell phone.  They were offering a deal where I only had to pay $99 and didn’t have to extend my contract, and since I had been curious about Windows Phone 7 I decided to give it a try.  I’ve wanted to share my thoughts, but I didn’t want to write a long drawn-out review, so instead I’ll just summarize some key points.

• It’s fast.  With the exception of a handful of apps (mostly games) that take a while to load, everything else about the phone is very fast.  Navigation from one place to another is just fast and fluid.  Compared to the iPhones and Android-based phones I’ve used, my WP7 is markedly faster.
  
  
• I like the interface.  Windows Phone 7 uses tiles on its main screen for launching its core feature set, like making calls, viewing texts and emails, calendar, etc.  Each tile is ‘active’ so it can display information tied to the feature provided by the tile.  So the email tile shows how many emails have come in since the last time I looked at them on my phone, the People tile shows pictures of those updating their Facebook status. The weather tile shows current temperature, etc.  You can create your own tiles, so the people I talk to most have tiles right on the front screen of my phone, which not only makes it easy to call or text them, but since those tiles are active, they are updated with current pictures, status messages from Facebook, and email information automatically.
  
  
• Along with that, the interface between apps is a lot more consistent than you find on other platforms.  Windows Phone 7’s Metro user interface is actually pretty slick, and an awful lot of developers are using it.  I won’t take time to describe how it works, but it is well thought out, and it makes navigation easier than on other phones.
  
  
• The Facebook integration is cool.  Right in my contact list I see status updates and pictures.  Twitter integration is coming in the fall, so we’ll be able to see Twitter updates right on a contact’s information screen (or their tile, if one has been created).  Since Facebook integration is built-in, it’s really easy to do things like upload photos and videos, because you do it right from the Camera app.
  
  
• There aren’t yet a ton of apps.  Fortunately, many of the most popular apps from other platforms are available.  There are some notables that I’d like to have that are missing, like LogMeIn, but there are very good apps for NetFlix, Amazon, Facebook, IMDB, all of the major news organizations, and YouTube to name a few.  The number of apps isn’t huge, but a lot of the more important ones are there.
  
  
• Having Microsoft Office onboard is cool, but I don’t use it much.  It’s still lacking a great way to connect with documents on the desktop if you aren’t using SharePoint.  Connecting to SkyDrive would be awesome.
  
  
• The email feature on Windows Phone 7 is easily the best that anyone is currently offering, especially if you’re someone who likes to use folders to organize your mail, or need the ability to search messages.  Email triage on WP7 is much better than it is on other phones.  It also handles file attachments much better than any other phone I’ve seen.  There isn’t another phone out there that even comes close when it comes to having great email support.
  
  
• Try-before-you-buy with apps is awesome.  There aren’t separate ‘free’ and ‘paid’ versions of apps.  You download one version to try it out (for as long as you’d like) and if you want to buy it, it’s usually a single button click to upgrade.  And upgrading from the trial to full version doesn’t require re-downloading; it just unlocks the paid features, and does so instantly.
  
  
• Xbox Live integration also has potential, but I’m not a gamer, so I don’t really use that very much.  If I were, it would be nice to play against others, or keep tabs on the status of an Xbox game I’m playing at home.  But having Xbox Live doesn’t really sway me at all.
  
  
• Stability.  This phone has never once crashed or locked up on me.  I’ve seen a couple apps crash here and there, but the phone always recovers gracefully.
  
  
• There are a lot of little things that are cool. 
  
  
  • The lock screen shows me how many emails and texts have come in that I haven’t read, as well as my next appointment, so I don’t even have to unlock my phone to see any of that information.
    
    
  • The phone doesn’t require a password to install app updates.
    
    
  • I love having a ‘back’ button.  No matter where I am, I can hit the Back button and go to whatever screen I just came from.  So if I’m reading an email message and it contains a web page link, I can view the page, then hit Back to go right back to the email and continue reading from there.  It works anywhere.
    
    
  • Having a dedicated search button on the phone is cooler than I thought it would be.  Many apps have their own search features, and the search button makes it easy to find it.
    
    
  • The on-screen keyboard is the smartest one I’ve seen.  Unlike other phones, which only offer correction of one word at a time, Windows Phone 7 looks an entire sentence at a time and will correct not only the word you’re currently typing, but other words in the sentence if a correction makes more sense in context.  Some might think this to be not very useful, but it allows you to absolutely fly through whatever you’re typing without stopping every time you make a mistake, letting the phone handle most correction for you.  It still isn’t perfect, but it is a better system than what is used on other phones.
    
    
  • Having a dedicated camera button is nice.  Even when the phone is off, I can press the camera button and the camera app loads instantly.  A second press of the button then takes a picture.  With most other phones, it’s easier to miss photo opportunities because by the time the camera app has loaded, the moment is gone.  On this phone, since Facebook is integrated too, from camera power off to taking a photo to uploading to Facebook is two button presses and two taps of the screen.
    
    
  • Wireless syncing with the Zune software is also nice.  If I’m in the living room watching a movie, for example, I can initiate a sync manually, or just plug the phone into a power source and syncing starts automatically. 
    
    
  • Background syncing is nice too.  Unlike most other phones, when it is syncing with the desktop it is still usable.  There are no visual indications on the phone that it is syncing with the computer.  There are a few restrictions… I can’t play music or install apps while it’s syncing, but everything else is fully operational.  I can still browse the web, make phone calls, play games, or read my email during a sync operation.
    
    
• There are a few things specific to the HD7 that aren’t available on other Windows Phone handsets that I like too.
  
  
  • It has a kickstand in the back to make it easier to watch video.  (I wish it would work in portrait mode as well as landscape, but having one is much better than not.)
    
    
  • I can set the phone to ring louder when it’s in my pocket vs. sitting on a desk.
    
    
  • I can put it in speakerphone mode just by turning it over face down.
    
    
  • When the phone rings, and I pick it up to see who it is, the ringer volume is automatically turned down (the act of picking up the phone turns the ringer volume down).
    
    
• I love having the Zune software on my phone.  Not just because it offers a much better interface than any iPod, but since I have a Zune Pass subscription, I have access to almost all of the Zune music catalog all of the time.  I don’t actually store any music on my phone at all.  If I want to listen to something, whether that be a particular song, album, or even an entire collection by a single artist, I just search for it in the Zune Marketplace and stream it.
  
  
  • What is really cool is using Shazam to tag a song playing somewhere near me, then using Zune Pass to download my own copy without buying it.  Since Shazam is linked to Zune, this is really easy.
    
    
• The built-in Bing search is nice (not quite as feature complete as I’d like to see, but that is supposed to be coming in the fall).  From the home screen, pressing the Search button gives quick access to device, web, local (nearby businesses, etc), and news in one fell swoop.  Searching for “hamburger,” for example, gives me search results for the web (Wikipedia, etc.), local (local restaurants that serve hamburgers, complete with driving directions), and news about hamburger.
  
  
• The built-in voice recognition feature is cool.  It’s powered by TellMe, so voice commands not only allow phone calls (“call Mom”), but web and local searches as well.  It’s essentially the Bing search using voice input.
  
  
• Battery life is actually very good, especially considering the physically small battery, compared to many other smartphones.  After a day of typical use, my battery still has about 50% charge remaining.
  
  
• It uses the Zune software on the desktop, which I love.  The Zune software is an example of how to do media management right.  Beats iTunes in every way (except OS X availability, which doesn’t bug me much). 
  
  If you haven’t tried the Zune software, just do it.  It’s totally free, and you don’t have to have a Zune device to use it.  It’s an order of magnitude faster than iTunes, is much easier to use, is just as feature complete, and much prettier.  If your iTunes library is still in its default location, the Zune software will even find and catalog it for you automatically.  Anyone with an open mind that sees it is very impressed.
  
  
• I haven’t dropped a single call with the phone yet.
  
  
• The web browser is okay.  Not great, but not bad either.  Nearly on par with the iPhone, but each device has its advantages.  Speed of scrolling and zooming is better on WP7.  Overall page download and rendering speed is somewhat better on iPhone.  Font rendering is better on WP7.  Page layout is noticeably better on iPhone.  The browser is certainly serviceable, but not a standout feature.  The upcoming Fall 2011 update for WP7 which will provide Internet Explorer 9 should go a long way in not only bring it truly up to par, but actually surpassing other smartphones in terms of browser features, page layout, and performance.

There are a number of things that drive me nuts.  I REALLY miss some of the features of my previous phone.

• I love the dial-by-name feature that my last 5 phones had.  Nobody understands what I mean until I demonstrate.  But if I wanted to dial myself, for example, instead of scrolling through a contact list to find my entry, or even using a search feature to find my contact information, at the dialer I could just type in my name on the number buttons (3684 for DOUG) and the contact would come up pretty fast, usually within 3-4 digits.  Of all of the ways I’ve ever seen to find entries in a phonebook, this is the fastest by far.  This same feature worked for partial phone numbers too, so if I remember that a phone number starts with 555, dialing 555 would show all phone numbers containing 555.  Windows Phone doesn’t have this feature (nor does Android or iPhone, for that matter).
  
  
• Custom ringtones.  I can set ringtones for individual contacts, but I can’t upload ringtones I’ve created.  I’ve used this feature extensively over the years, creating dedicated ringtones for individual callers using songs that have some sort of connection to that person.  I’ve heard this is coming in the Fall 2011 update for WP7, but haven’t seen confirmation on it.  Fingers are crossed.
  
  
• 5 of my last 6 phones had a feature that would automatically set the phone to Vibrate mode whenever an appointment on my calendar was active.  So if I had an appointment in my calendar from 12:00 to 2:00, the phone would go to vibrate mode at 12:00, and go back to the normal ringer at 2:00.  This one little thing made such a difference; I never had to worry about my phone going off during church, a meeting at the office, while doing sound for a concert, or while I’m on set shooting a video or recording audio in my studio.  Windows Phone (and likewise iPhone) doesn’t have this feature.
  
  
• My previous 5 phones all had great multitasking.  If I wanted an app (any app) to continue running in the background, I just didn’t close it; going back to the Home screen would leave the app running in the background.  If I wanted to close an app, I’d click the X in the upper right.  It was a very simple system, and it worked well.  Windows Phone doesn’t currently allow any third party apps to run in the background.  The coming fall update, thankfully, will allow any app developer to write certain portions of their apps to run in the background.  It’s a much better system than we get with the iPhone, which only allows certain features (navigation, audio, data upload, and VOIP) to run in the background.  The limited ‘multitasking’ of iOS bites me all of the time and it just makes me mad.  I’m really looking forward to having real multitasking again.
  
  
• Having the ringer and sound volume tied together bugs me.  On previous phones I could set the two independently… so my ringer could be set to a single volume level all of the time, and still be able to adjust music volume independently, for example.  I’ve missed more than a few phone calls because I had the phone volume turned down from watching a video or playing a game.
  
  
• While providing a lot of cool new functionality, the voice search is still missing features I had on my previous 5 phones and used constantly.  With my prior phones I could ask it “What is my next appointment” or “What time is it” and it knew what I was asking for and would respond vocally.  This was most useful in my truck, where I have a Bluetooth speakerphone kit.
  
  
• I also had my previous 5 phones set to read me incoming text messages and high priority email messages aloud.  This phone doesn’t do that.
  
  
• I really miss the WiFi tethering feature I had on my last two phones (or Bluetooth tethering from my last 5 phones) to provide Internet access to a nearby computer or other device.  Unlike most phones that offer tethering, the models I’ve had until now did it without a fee from the carrier.  The fall update for WP7 is rumored to have tethering, but I still have seen any official confirmation on that.  And I’ll have to pay a monthly fee to access it.
  
  
• As excellent as the on-screen keyboard is, I loved having Swype on my previous phone.  Being able to select different keyboards for different purposes would be nice.
  
  
• I miss having a dedicated Talk button.  Now I have to navigate back to the home screen and press the Phone tile, which takes longer.  On my last 5 phones, not only could I start a phone call at any time, but in certain contexts, pressing the Talk button would call the phone number of the on-screen contact, or the sender of the text or email message I’m currently reading.  Sometimes dedicated hardware buttons are just the right way to do things.

Other wishes

• I don’t find myself using the front facing camera on my iPod Touch or iPad very often, but it would be nice to have one in a phone for those few occasions where I do.  With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype, I’d be surprised if we don’t see front-facing cameras in future models.
  
  
• I wish it had a dock-style connector so I could easily charge it, get audio and video out of it, and control it with a remote in my truck over a single connector. A Zune dock connector in addition to the now industry-standard micro USB would have been nice.
  
  
• Obviously, we still need more apps.  While there are quite a few to choose from, there are still a few key ones that I’d love to have that aren’t available yet.
  
  
• Not specific to Windows Phone, but T-Mobile’s 3G has slowed down in the last year.  It’s still faster than Verizon’s, but not as fast as AT&T’s.  I would have liked to have access to T-Mobile’s 4G network, but there are only a couple phones with 4G capability, and none are Windows Phone-based. 
  
• The camera, while good, is not great.  Definitely not as good as the camera in the iPhone 4, for example.  But pretty typical for a smartphone camera.

Overall I'm mostly more excited about what Windows Phone 7 can be more than what it currently is.  It is certainly a usable, competitive, and useful smartphone in its present state, but it is going to be a much better product after the Mango update that is supposed to be coming this Fall.  

Buyer Recommendations

So would I recommend a Windows Phone to someone?  For some, yes.  For others, no.  It depends on what you want out of a phone.  If you want the best music player you can get, absolutely.  If the idea of having streaming access to a multi-million song catalog of music all the time, yes.  If you primarily want quick and easy access to email, absolutely yes.  If you need Microsoft Office, again, yes.  If you need multitasking, not yet; wait until the end of the year, or go Android if you can’t wait.  If you need an app only available in Apple’s App Store, obviously, no.  If you’re a Facebook junkie, yes.  If you need a good camera, buy a camera and stop trying to use a phone; great optics don’t fit in something the size of a phone.  If you need WiFi tethering, go with an Android.  If you primarily want to browse the web, WP7 is okay, but some Android devices support Flash.

As it stands now, the reason to buy the different smartphone platforms are:

Windows Phone 7: High performance, very easy to use, very quick access to email, Microsoft Office, Xbox Live, Facebook integration, and access to Zune Pass.  If you want a smartphone primarily for email, WP7 is easily your best option.  Provides the best media playback experience.

Android: Real multitasking, tons of free apps, huge variety of phones.

iPhone: Tons of very good apps in the App Store, only device capable of playing paid video content from iTunes.  iTunes syncing for those who actually like iTunes.

Reasons to not buy…

Windows Phone 7: Number of apps is still low compared to the other platforms.  No multitasking of third party apps whatsoever.  Sync software on Mac has limited capabilities.

Android: Despite all of Google’s efforts, the user interface is still clunky and inconsistent, especially between apps.  Phone upgrades are sparse after newer models come out.

iPhone: Limited “multitasking.”  Still drops calls more than other phones.  iTunes is still an absolute abomination on Windows, not much better on Mac.  And Steve Jobs is still an evil man.

iPad Hands On

Okay, yeah, I did it.  I bought an iPad.  I have been at least a little critical of the device from the day it was first announced, and I felt like if I was going to be fair about it I really ought to take it for a spin for real before forming a final opinion.

I was able to get it without any difficulty.  My local Best Buy was one of the ones that was going to have them at launch.  Twenty minutes before the store opened, there was still no line to get one.  At a quarter to ten I got out of my truck and I was third in line.  The store had twenty of each model (16, 32, and 64GB), so there is actually still a fair chance that if someone wants one they might still be able to get it, at least at the Orem store.

So now that I have had it for 2 1/2 hours, and played with every aspect of the device, and downloaded and played with quite a few apps, I feel more qualified to comment on it.  Here are my impressions…

Hardware

• The device is both smaller and considerably heavier than you’d imagine it being.  The screen is 9.7” (diagonal), but it has a considerable bezel, leaving the impressions in pictures that it is bigger than it really is.  But it also weighs more.  It’s heavy enough that I wouldn’t want to hold it up to read books on it.
• The oleophobic coating on the screen that is supposed to prevent fingerprints and smudges, doesn’t.
• The back has a textured finish, unlike the iPod Touch, so it doesn’t scratch as easily, thankfully.
• The screen is very good.  It uses an IPS LCD screen, and these are among the best out there.  The quality of the screen is A LOT better than that of the iPhone or iPod Touch, especially with regard to viewing angles.
• Battery life should be the expected 10 hours.  After playing for two hours my battery level dropped by about 15%.
• It absolutely requires a computer to set it up.  When you turn it on it shows the iTunes logo on screen until you register it with Apple via iTunes 9.1.
• For the most part it operates pretty smoothly and quickly.  Scrolling and zooming are particularly smooth.
• Since the iPod Touch doesn’t have a microphone, I wasn’t expecting one on the iPad, but it does have one.  I was able to make Skype calls on it just fine.
• The speaker is fairly loud, but it’s monaural.  Disappointing considering the device’s considerable size and the amount of unused space inside the case.  Sound quality is also dull and lifeless.
• It doesn’t charge while plugged into a computer.  It shows “Not charging” in the upper right on the three computers I tested it on, one of which is a Mac. You pretty much have to use the included USB power adapter to charge it.  My other AC-to-USB chargers don’t work with it.

Apps

• It comes pretty bare-bones.  It doesn’t even have the iBooks app installed on it from the factory; it has to be downloaded and installed.
• Even though there are supposedly about 1400 apps specifically for the iPad, a LOT of them are books, or wrappers around the web browser.  There are a fair number of useful and cool apps, but the iPad App Store actually feels a bit sparse.
• Apps are CONSIDERABLY more expensive than they are for the iPhone.  Many apps that are $1.99 on the iPhone/Touch are $9.99 for their iPad versions, for example.
• There are free apps, but I didn’t find that many that were interesting.  In some cases apps that are free on the iPhone aren’t free for the iPad.
• Even though the device can run iPhone apps, chances are that you probably won’t want to.  They either run on a very small portion of the screen (same physical size as they would be on an iPhone) or blown up to 4x normal size (2x in each direction), and when they are blown up they look, well, horrible.
• There are some very notable missing apps right now, namely Facebook and Hulu.
• Most apps seem to be pretty polished, but I did experience a handful of app crashes, and a fair amount of pauses and multi-second freezing, even among the Apple-supplied apps that come with it.
• The iBooks app is pretty cool, but there is basically no free content.  It comes with one free book (Winnie the Pooh), so you can get a feel for how it will work, but I didn’t want to spend $10-15 just to have the whole experience.  Page turns are quick enough that they aren’t distracting, and the fact that you can view two pages side-by-side in landscape mode is cool.  I’m still not sold on the idea of holding up a 1.5 pound device to read, or reading on a backlit screen, though.  Some people will be fine with reading on the iPad, many will not.
• The Apple included apps are exactly what you expect them to be… versions of many of the same apps that ship with the iPod Touch, but optimized for a larger screen.  It did feel like some apps, like Mail and Calendar in particular could do more to take advantage of the bigger screen, but I can understand how Apple would be trying to keep things simple.  For the most part the experience with the apps is the same as it is on the iPhone, just bigger.
• The web browser is nice, and snappy.  I do find that entering URLs and filling in web forms on the on-screen keyboard is annoying, though.  And the ongoing battle with Adobe over including Flash is a significant irritation.

Other

• Standard definition video looks okay, but not great.  If you’re planning on watching iTunes movies or TV shows, the HD versions are going to look a lot better.  And keep in mind that HD content takes up a lot more space than SD, so getting a higher capacity version of the iPad than you think you might need is probably a good idea.
• The on-screen keyboard has had a couple buttons added to it compared to the iPhone/iPod Touch.  Not many, but it is nice to have command and period keys.  But I do wish that they had added the row of number keys.  
• In Landscape mode the on-screen keyboard literally takes up half of the screen, and the buttons are actually too big.  They could have really made it a lot smaller, and it would have actually been much more usable, in addition to requiring less screen real estate in the process.
• It’s disappointing that app icons are only shown 4 across on such a large screen.  The icons feel like they are way too far apart, and Apple could have greatly reduced the number of pages by just allowing even one or more two icons per row, and one or two more rows.
• Though the device can play iTunes music, it’s really way too big to be used as a music player.
• It’s also very disappointing that the device doesn’t allow third party applications to multi-task, especially with such a large screen.  Apple could have easily fit four iPhone apps on screen simultaneously, or allowed applications to run in the background.
• Even though Apple is pushing this thing as a game platform, many games rely on the accelerometer, and this makes them very slow to respond to input.  If this is a serious game machine they should have at least included a directional pad.  Touch-screen and accelerometer just don’t cut it for a huge portion of potential games.

Overall, the hardware feels pretty polished.  Most of the limitations come from the software itself, or from the fact that you’re really buying into an ecosystem, not just a piece of hardware.

But the biggest down side of the device is cost.  And I’m not talking about up-front cost; the up-front price actually isn’t too bad for what you are getting.  It’s the high price of the apps, and the fact that you’re going to want to purchase iPad specific versions of your iPhone apps (since running the iPhone native apps is actually a pretty bad experience).  And if someone is planning on using the device to read books, magazines, or newspapers, keep in mind that you’re going to be buying them over again if you already have them, and with the $10-15 book price, or inexplicably high subscription costs, it isn’t what I would call a bargain.

Everywhere I turned on the device it felt like Apple or other content creators wanted more money to really have a complete iPad experience.  While this is understandable, it still limits the usefulness of the device if you aren’t willing to make a big investment into content specifically designed for it.

After playing with the iPad for a couple hours and going back and picking up my iPod Touch, the Touch is SO much smaller, lighter, and ultimately nearly as functional at a much lower price.  The iPod Touch is a MUCH better buy, and could replace an iPad, but not the other way around, mostly due to size and weight.

Bottom line: It’s essentially a big iPod Touch, but you’re probably going to want to re-purchase iPad versions of apps and HD versions of video for it, so it is just like starting over from scratch as if you don’t already have any content.  So plan on making a pretty significant financial investment if this is something you’re considering.

I Love My Computer

So I have been using the same computer for 5 years now.  I built it back in 2005 when dual core processors first became available for PCs.  So it was getting really old, and it was really getting in the way of me being efficient and effective in my work.

I decided last summer that I was going to build a new one, but I knew that one of the key parts I was looking at was very shortly due for an update, so I held off.  Then a couple months ago my company offered to pay for my new machine.  Finally, on Feb. 28th the part I was waiting for (the CPU) became available, so I ordered the parts and built it.

So, a quick rundown on what’s inside.

• Intel Core i7 930 Processor at 2.8 GHz
• 12GB GSkill DDR3-10666 RAM (6 x 2GB)
• Intel X25-M 160GB Solid State Disk
• 2 x Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB (in RAID-0)
• 1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
• NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 Video
• NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Video*
• NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT Video*
• Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Edition

* Brought over from previous machine

Why 3 video cards?  I use 6 monitors, and each card drives two of them.

There are a few things that make this computer so awesome.  First, the 8 virtual cores (so it works sort of like 8 CPUs)…

Second, would be the amount of memory (12GB):

Third would be the Intel X25-M solid state disk (like a hard drive, but it uses flash memory instead of moving parts, so it is much faster):

What all of this means is:

• The computer boots up in 14-16 seconds. (From Windows logo screen first appearing to all software being loaded and ready to use at the fully ready-to-use desktop.)
• There is NO period of waiting for my 57 zillion startup applications to finish loading after a restart; they’re done loading before the desktop even appears.
• Most software applications open virtually instantly:
  • Microsoft Office applications are totally finished loading in well under 1 second.
  • Photoshop CS3 loads in less than 2 seconds.
  • Premiere Pro CS3 loads in about 3 seconds.
  • Microsoft Outlook loads and is ready to use in less than 2 seconds.
  • Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, and Safari all load instantly.
  • Firefox loads in about 5 seconds.
  • My development environment (Delphi RAD Studio 2007) loads in about 15 seconds instead of 2 minutes.
  • The Zune software loads in about 3 seconds and is always snappy.
  • iTunes loads in about 1 minute instead of 5.
• With this much memory, I can leave all of the software I use regularly running in the background; I never have to close anything if I don’t want to.
• Web browsing is much more snappy, even without getting a faster Internet connection.
• Editing standard definition video is actually very fast.
• Editing high definition HDV video is not only possible, but it is easy.
• When I’m programming and I pause to think, the development language I use only freezes for 2-3 seconds instead of 30-90 seconds. (I was literally losing hours of my time per week on this.)
• Multitasking is seamless.  I can start a video render, minimize it, and not even feel the effect of it while using other applications.
• Encoding DVDs into h.264 video happens at a rate of 140 frames per seconds (as opposed to 8 on my previous machine), so movies finish in about 40 minutes instead of 12 hours.
• File transfers over my network run at 50 MB/sec instead of 7-8 MB/sec.

Total cost of hardware was just under $2,000.  My company covered $1500 of that.

This computer is just a pleasure to use.  I don’t have to wait for it to do anything. 

It hasn’t been without a few hiccups though…

• My external MOTU 828mkII FireWire-based sound device (primarily designed for doing studio recordings) has some really buggy drivers.  Sound sometimes gets distorted.  This was a problem with the old computer, too.  It’s apparently universal, as others (both PC and Mac users) are having the same issue with this same device.  If it weren’t so expensive I’d trade it in.
• Occasionally when I restart one of the video cards isn’t detected, so I have to restart again for it to come back.
• I can’t get the fingerprint readers I use for developing my company’s Point-of-Sale software to work at all (no driver available).
• It takes me days, if not weeks, to get all of my software re-installed.

But even with those small issues, I love this machine. 

And for anyone wondering why I didn’t get a Mac, I spec’d out a “roughly equivalent” machine (they don’t have an exact equivalent) and it would have been $7,173. While some areas would be better (CPU), it would still be lacking in a few areas, like memory and video performance.  Upgrading the video to something equivalent would add several hundred $ more.  If I were to switching to OS X, re-purchasing the software I use regularly from PC to Mac would have cost an additional $10,000+, and several most of the applications I use every day just aren’t even available at all for OS X.  Economically it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Zune HD vs iPod Touch

Just a relatively quick comparison between my Zune HD and the iPod Touch (2nd gen).  More information to follow sometime later.

• The OLED screen on the Zune HD is amazing. It is quite bright, and very vibrant. When I held my ZHD up to my Touch, the display on the Touch looked, well, pathetic. It hadn't ever been so obvious how much backlight seeps through until I compared it to a device without a backlight. And as a result of the backlight, colors on the iPod look very washed out and poorly rendered when compared to to the Zune. One quick photo to compare below… The original is on the left, Zune HD’s rendering in the middle, and iPod Touch on the right.
  
  
  
  I played with the camera settings to get a better image from the Touch, and I couldn’t do it.  Its display just isn’t very good.  I’ll be posting more pictures later.
  
• Brightness on the OLED is NOT a problem. At equivalent brightness levels (the Zune only has Low, Mid, and High to choose from) the Zune's display is at least as bright as the iPod's. The real plus side for the Zune is that picture quality doesn’t deteriorate at lower brightness levels like it does on LCD.  So you can comfortably use the Low setting and it doesn’t detract from the experience.
  
  In direct sunlight the Zune is a bit harder to see.  But the difference wasn’t huge, and who attempts to use their device with sunlight falling right on it?
  
• I have been trying for several days to take a picture that shows a decent comparison shot. But none come out quite right. The white balance of the two displays is quite different (ZHD tracks in at D6500, while the iPod Touch is closer to D5000), so either the iPod's display looks yellow, or the Zune's display looks blue when they are in the same shot. And for some reason the Zune's display shows up a little bit blurry in pictures, which I can't explain. When you see the display IRL it is extremely crisp and sharp.
  
• The Apps on the Zune don't even begin to compare to those on the iPod Touch. iPod wins hands down here.  Microsoft promises more apps later, and they will be free, but they’ll never catch up to where the iPod Touch/iPhone App Store is.
  
• The browser on the Zune is better than expected. It is a hair sluggish while a page is loading, but once the page is loading the Zune zooms and pans a lot faster than the iPod. Page rendering is fine, but it seems like a substantial number of web sites are serving up their mobile version to the Zune where they serve the full version to the iPod, so direct comparisons aren't really possible. On sites that serve the full version, though, the Zune page rendering seems fine. One obvious lacking on the Zune is that only one page can be open at a time. It doesn't attempt to mimic the multi-page capability of the Touch.
  
• The user interface on the Zune is much snappier and responsive than that of the iPod Touch. Where the iPod is rendering page transitions at roughly 10 frames per second, the Zune is easily doing 30 fps or more. Scrolling on the Zune is also at least 30 fps, where the iPod is less. The iPod Touch never really felt at all sluggish to me until I compared it to the Zune's interface.
  
• The experience of listening to music on the Zune is WAY better than the iPod Touch. Between having a more logical and flexible layout of the menu structure for finding music, and the additional features that MS has added to link between artists and provide information (and photos) about the artists in your collection, the Zune provides a much more pleasing experience. And these features are available without the Zune Pass subscription. If you add the Zune Pass subscription, the Zune leaps further ahead because you can not only download but stream any of the music in the Zune catalog in real time. So any track is available at any time so long as you have access to WiFi. And the Zune's Channels feature is a lot cooler than I had eve anticipated. It not only makes music suggestions, but it actually downloads the recommended songs directly to the device automatically so they can play anywhere even without WiFi. Apple ought to be taking notes here.
  
  I’ll be doing a full video or blog post about this.  The Zune HD changes the way you experience music.
  
• Video playback on the Zune is better primarily because of the better screen. It also does a better job of organizing your video collection, because you can manually tag video files as being movies, TV shows, music videos, or other. iTunes doesn't let you do that on your own; the only things tagged this way are the ones you download from the iTunes store. Letting the user catalog their own collection makes it much easier to find your way around.
  
• The Zune's battery capacity is technically lower than that of the iPod, but it seems to be better at managing it. After two hours of watching video my iPod Touch is dead (my unit could be an anomaly, but it doesn't seem to be). I watched more than 4 hours of video on the Zune HD and the battery meter hadn't fallen past half yet.
  
• The HD radio is cool, but I have a hard time picking up the HD feeds in my basement. Then again, I can't pick up stereo in my basement on any radio either. When I take the device upstairs or outside, the HD kicks in, and it is definitely clearer than the analog transmission. The primary benefit here is that all static goes away and you get a clean signal, and higher frequencies are much better reproduced in the digital feed.
  
• One feature on the Zune I find particularly useful is the WiFi syncing. It is very convenient to be able to click three buttons and have the device connect and download updated podcasts, music, and video from anywhere in the house.
  
• Another thing I noticed is that the Zune software automatically picks up on changes in files in the music and video folders, and reflects them in the software automatically and virtually instantly. So as I was moving files in and out of my music folders the tracks would instantly appear and/or disappear. It has always bugged me that iTunes doesn't automatically pick up on music or videos that I add to my folders.
  
• As demonstrated in my last blog post, the iPod Touch seems to have some issues with sound quality.  The Zune did much better in testing.
  
• The Zune desktop software is also significantly snapper than iTunes on Windows. And I think I like the design and interface better. With its polished interface, it is certainly snazzier and more refined. iTunes looks relatively dated at this point.

Complaints

My biggest complaint is mostly with touch-based devices in general, and isn’t specific to the Zune HD.  And honestly it is something that I’m surprised we don’t see talked about.  It’s the lack of physical buttons for navigating through music tracks.

Recently we have had the dangers of text messaging while driving crammed down our throats, and it surprises me that some of this hasn’t spilled over into other areas.  Attempting to operate a touch-screen music player while driving is just as dangerous.  In order to control the device you have to take your eyes off of the road for significant amounts of time.  And many operations on both the Zune HD and the iPod Touch require two hands to perform effectively.  Just adding two buttons for changing tracks would be huge in attempting to fix this problem.  But the current trend is to move away from buttons, and I believe this is a mistake.  I’m not asking for a device with 47 buttons for every possible function, but there really ought to be dedicated buttons for the most basic functions of the device.

I took my Zune HD with me the day I got it when I went out running a few errands.  I found that it was extremely inconvenient and potentially dangerous to do even the most basic of tasks.  This isn’t limited to the Zune, either; it is a problem with every touch-screen based music player, whether it be the Zune, iPod Touch, or iPhone.  It’s enough of a problem that I must publicly shun anybody that operates one of these devices while behind the wheel.  It’s dangerous, and it shouldn’t be done.  Apple and Microsoft both really need to rethink their designs a bit to make these devices a little more friendly to situations where full attention can’t be given to their operation.

As a result of this, I will continue using my previous Zunes in my truck.  The Zune HD will probably become my primary travelling device, but not the PMP that gets used the most.

Wrap-up

So to summarize, when comparing the Zune and iPod Touch, people looking for a device primarily for music and video, the Zune will provide a much richer and more interactive experience. For people looking to take advantage of the App Store, the iPod Touch can't be touched (hardy, har, har). So if you’re buying to listen to music, I recommend the Zune. If you’re buying for the App Store, the Touch is the only way to go.  For web browsing, the iPod has a bit of an edge, but it isn't much.  Both will provide a similar experience there.

If someone already has a significant amount of DRM protected content from the iTunes store that they want to keep, there is probably no reason to consider the Zune (though they need to get out from under the thumb of the music industry). But if someone doesn't care much about the App Store and their main focus is music and video, the Zune HD provides a significantly better experience for both. Since the Zune can play all of the file formats supported by the iPods (plus more), switching from the iPod to Zune isn't too painful, and it’s a switch that I bet a lot of people would be thankful to have made later on.