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Monday December 28, 2009

Lenovo S12 Nvidia Ion netbook not coming to Singapore?

I mean, what is it with Lenovo. Went down to Sim Lim Square and asked a couple of retailers and both of them confirmed that the Lenovo S12 Ion-powered netbook is not going to be imported into Singapore. What is Lenovo thinking, not wanting to make money or something? I didn't see the equally Ion-powered Samsung N510 as well, and the retailers had no clue on that one either. So one might think, okay, perhaps if Lenovo doesn't want to make money, so be it, but Samsung too? That cannot be. That would be unbelievable.

Found a couple of links talking about this. We seem to be suffering from the same problem that our American friends endured during the introduction of the Canon SX1IS Powershot : manufacturers dividing the global market into arbitrary zones and making arbitrary decisions on product introduction, perhaps afraid that it might cannibalize their sales in another area, or maybe it's a case of over-inventory of one type of product, fears of over market segmentation - or something. Hence, out of 3 possible netbook models with the Nvidia Ion graphics chipset, over in Singapore we're just left with the HP Mini 311, with which I have a few issues with the design, colour and keyboard layout (nothing really wrong, it's just a matter of personal preferences). Not so much of a choice, is there?

Well, of course I'm voting with my dollars. If it's not exactly what I'm looking for, I don't buy it. Heck, I have enough computers at home already that it is becoming something of a management issue with all the regular security patches, application updates, backups, stuff like that. Sure I can wait, hold out, and save my dollars for better things. Or perhaps it's just early days yet and we'll see what transpires in the local Nvidia Ion netbook market as we head from 2009 into 2010. We'll see.

(2009-12-28 12:32:46 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

Monday November 16, 2009

Asia/Singapore : Starhub Mobile joins M1, Singtel in selling Apple iPhone

channelnewsasia.com, tech.yahoo.com :

StarHub has announced that it will bring the Apple iPhone to its customers in Singapore in late 2009 after reaching an agreement with Apple. The telco said it looks forward to offering the iPhone to its customers. StarHub is the last of the three mobile phone service providers in Singapore to reach a deal with Apple in offering the iPhone. Last month, M1 said it would also sell the iPhone later this year. SingTel began offering the Apple iPhone 3G late last year. Since then, with the exclusive agreement, SingTel has sold more than 100,000 iPhones.

Neither StarHub or M1 has yet revealed price plans for the iPhone. SingTel's plans range from a monthly charge of S$39 (US$28) to S$205, and offer from 500MB to 3GB of data per month. For SingTel's cheapest iPhone plan, users pay from S$398 for an iPhone 3G 8GB to S$678 for an iPhone 3GS 32GB. Users that sign up for more expensive plans get the handsets for free.

- If you're looking for a mobile phone in Singapore, you now have the option of getting the Apple iPhone 3GS and later, from any of the 3 service providers here, now that Starhub Mobile has finally joined the other operators M1 Mobile and Singtel in offering bundled iPhone deals. In Asia, Singapore is usually considered one of the rather more high-tech cities, so one might wonder what took them this long. But with the announcement out, all that remains to be seen is the exact handset and pricing plans and then it's probably time for some good old-fashioned price maneuvering especially with the holiday season coming up. And of course if you already have one, you could check out the accessories here.

(2009-11-16 07:08:48 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

Tuesday October 13, 2009

M1 reaches deal to start selling Apple iPhone in Singapore

tech.yahoo.com :

Mobile operator MobileOne (M1) has reached a deal with Apple to sell the Apple iPhone in Singapore. Currently, the iPhone is only offered in Singapore by rival operator SingTel, which began selling the handsets last year. The iPhone handsets sold by SingTel are unlocked, but customers must sign a two-year contract when they buy one.

- Great news for M1 users who have always wanted an Apple iPhone but for whatever reason (brand loyalty? sheer hassle? corporate mobile phone plans?) have not switched to SingTel by now. Or perhaps it could be a good thing because in the tech world, you don't really want to go with Version 1.0. Hence M1 customers will start with the latest Apple iPhone 3GS - and beyond.

(2009-10-13 17:22:11 SGT) [Tech] Permalink Comments [1]

Friday October 02, 2009

Samsung N510 netbook review and specs : Nvidia Ion, 11.6-inch display, Intel Atom N280

engadget.com -> pcpro.co.uk :

The Samsung N510 Nvidia Ion-powered netbook has just had a review written with technical specifications included :

... underneath that Clark Kent exterior lays a superpower in the world of netbooks. We're not talking about the same old 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor, the gigabyte of memory, nor the 160GB hard disk, but rather the presence of Nvidia's Ion LE graphics chipset. Before you get too excited, be aware that Nvidia's Ion LE is no miracle worker. It does, however, add gaming capabilities where there were previously next to none. It won't turn an Atom-powered netbook into a gaming behemoth capable of taking on the likes of Crysis ... fire up the likes of Trackmania Nations Forever and the N510 is in its element. Even at the 11.6in display's native resolution of 1,366 x 768, the Ion LE helped the Samsung along to a smooth 27.1fps.

And here are the tech specs :

Dimensions : 289 x 200 x 31mm (WDH)
Weight : 1.41kg [3.1 pounds]
CPU : Intel Atom N280
RAM : 1GB
Display : 11.6-inch
Resolution : 1366 x 768
Graphics chipset : Nvidia ION LE
Hard disk : SATA 160GB HDD
Wireless : 802.11b/g/n

Myself, I have been holding off buying a netbook while waiting for models which include the long-awaited Nvidia Ion graphics chipset. And with 2 full-sized HP/Compaq PC's, an Asus nettop *and* a Compaq laptop in the house, and the occasional Lenovo Thinkpad from the office, it's not that I really lack computers in any way.

And when the news broke that consumers might just have to wait a bit longer for these new Nvidia Ion-powered models to ship together with Microsoft Windows 7, I'd suppose the community just did a big shrug and thought, fine, we've waited this long anyway. Oh, the sacrifices we make just to get a nice, (relatively) affordable netbook that also happens to play some 3D games, decode HD/h.264 videos at 720p/1080p resolution and so on.

This should be great, unless the folks doing the Samsung N510 vs Lenovo S12 comparisons say otherwise. Me, I'd guess I'd rather choose not to be confused with the Lenovo S12 models however, because apparently they do have "Non-Ion" models whereas with the Samsung it's pretty straightforward. I haven't got the N510 yet, but I'm really thinking about getting myself one when it does appear at the shops here. And then that would be *one more* computer in the house ... :)

(2009-10-02 11:02:25 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

Tuesday June 23, 2009

Samsung Jet S8000 review and technical specifications

Samsung Jet review, AMOLED display and first impressions :

The Samsung Jet aka Samsung Jet S8000 mobile phone was announced at a series of global launch events in London, Dubai and Singapore. It was one of the highlights at the Communicasia 2009 exhibition and I was able to try out actual production models. Samsung showed off its deep pockets this round with practically one booth babe standing next to each phone on display, ready to explain to you all about the phones, but that's not what people are really there for, is it? Oh wait ... :) Well, given where I work, I don't have a mobile phone camera with me, but this is from Hardwarezone to give you an idea :

"You know about the AMOLED display?" mine asked. "Yes, Active Matrix OLED," I said, because the full acronym of Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode would have been a mouthful and I was trying to get a feel for the phone. Yes, the phone. Honest. I mentioned that I was right there, at Communicasia 2003, at the same Singapore Expo location, looking at the first OLED display prototypes, and that I had waited some 6 years for OLED to actually be put into mobile phones for sale. "Oh I didn't know that", my booth babe said. It would have been a little too geeky to talk about the issues of the blue OLED lifespan, response time, and how individual pixel addressability eliminated the need for a backlight leading to 40% lower energy consumption compared to TFT-LCD and a much slimmer display profile, n'est-ce pas? Rest my case. So I left it at that.

So this is my Samsung Jet review with an actual production model, of which 2 million units are said to have been pre-ordered before the launch. According to the press release, the Samsung Jet enjoys the benefits of both advanced features of a smartphone and easy-to-use user interface of a conventional mobile phone, and the large banners outside the show proclaimed how the Samsung Jet phone is "Smarter than a smartphone". So we'll see about that.

First impressions of the Samsung Jet's 3.1-inch AMOLED display : it's fantastic. The 16-million colour WVGA 800x480 resolution display is fabulous, with the true deep blacks and rich vivid colours that OLED delivers in spades, together with a high resolution of 480dpi and a viewing angle of a full 180 degrees. This has been the promise of OLED all along and it was great to be able to see the actual device in hand. The touch screen is pretty responsive and applications opened and closed snappily enough.

Samsung Jet vs Apple iPhone comparison :

With the Samsung Jet, though Apple iPhone users may sniff at the comparison, I'd say first-hand, first-impressions-wise it actually does do its bit to give the iPhone a run for its money. The Samsung Jet even has a faster CPU to boot, with an 800MHz processor compared to the Apple iPhone 3GS's 600MHz and the earlier iPhone original and Apple iPhone 3G generation's 412MHz. Of course iPhone users will tell you that tech specs don't tell the whole story, it's the whole package with the UI and apps and such and of course the entire invisible Apple halo thing which can't be easily duplicated.

Application support is a potential issue for mobile developers wanting to write their own applications who might want to stick to the Apple iPhone or Google Android since all Samsung has promised is the ability to download around 30 self-developed online "widgets" from their website for such things as weather, news and search, though details of SDK and such have not been forthcoming. But if you're just a user and not an aspiring mobile developer, I'd suppose that's fine. Myself, I haven't installed that many apps on my own Nokia E51 S60/Series 60 Symbian phone, just a Tetris game and a Sega emulator which I play with only occasionally.

Samsung Jet user interface, Internet browser :

For the user interface, the Samsung Jet claims the TouchWiz 2.0 user interface, with motion UI, smart unlock, customizable widget screen and a multi-tasking manager. It supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for push emails for both business users and consumers. The Samsung Jet also claims multi-window browsing to surf several web pages simultaneously, with up to five pages at a time.

For Internet browsing, it uses Samsung's Dolfin Internet browser. Avoiding Apple's patented multi-touch zoom technology which as they have pointed out requires the use of two fingers and two hands, the Samsung Jet supports a unique "one finger zoom" which enables one hand operation to zoom in and out not only for the Internet browser, but also for Photo browser and file viewer to see TXT, PDF and PPT files. It took a bit getting used to but once you get the hang of it, I'd suppose it would be a useful feature to have on the move, while holding it in one hand.

The Samsung Jet also has a "motion gate", which is a motion sensor that accesses multimedia and speed dialing by tapping, tilting or flipping the handset. The interesting feature that I was shown, which ought to be standard on all full touch-screen mobile phones, was the ability to enter text, whether an SMS message or whatever it is, in the usual phone-like T9 style in portrait mode, and when you turn it around to landscape mode, the keyboard transforms into a QWERTY keyboard. Pretty neat.

Samsung Jet GPS, camera, DIVX/XVID video :

The Samsung Jet has an A-GPS application that claims 3D map navigation, GPS on Google maps and location-Based Services, geo-tagging, and a compass, which I'd suppose is getting quite prevalent on mobile phones today.

The 5-megapixel camera seems to work well, even with the odd colours, lighting and white balance problems usually associated with trade show floors. There is still a bit of a colour tinge but it ought to be much better outdoors. From what can be seen on the display, the photos are pretty clear, and the video recording works reasonably well. It ain't no Canon Powershot SX1IS or Canon EOS 5D2 with 1080p Full HD video, but overall for a mobile phone, video playback and recording looks reasonably good.

To top it off, the Samsung Jet has DIVX and XVID video codec support, so I'd suppose you get to watch your favourite AVI videos on the go, which is a good idea if you have many of these to catch up on, such as a drama series or something, while on your daily commute on a bus or train.

Samsung Jet technical specifications :

Display : 3.1" 24-bit 16-million colors WVGA 800x480 AMOLED screen
Networks : EDGE/GPRS Class 12 (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), HSDPA 3.6Mbps (900, 2100 MHz)
Camera : 5-megapixel camera AF Autofocus camera with Dual Power LED
Camera features : Face Detection, Smile Shot, Panorama Shot, Blink Detection, Geo-tagging, Photo Editor
GPS geolocation : Built-in GPS with A-GPS, On Board Navigation with 3D Map
Video recording/playback : 30fps video recording, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, DivX, XviD, Video Editor
Audio recording/playback : Music player with DNSe & SRS WOW, 3.5mm earphones jack, FM Radio/ Recording
Audio codecs : MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR, MIDI, SP-MIDI, i-melody, WAV, MMF, XMF
Internet browsing : Dolfin Internet Browser, WAP 2.0, One finger Zoom
User interface : TouchWiz 2.0, Motion UI, Media Gate 3D, Multi-tasking Manager
Application support : Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Share Pix & Mobile Widget
Connectivity : Bluetooth 2.1, microUSB (USB v2.0 Hi-Speed), Wi-Fi
Processor : Samsung 6410 800MHz "Jet Engine" application processor
Memory : 2GB/8GB, External MicroSD slot (Up to 16GB)
Battery : 1,100 mAh
Talk time : 2G/492 minutes, 3G/300 minutes
Standby time : 2G/422 hours, 3G/406 hours
Size : 108.8 X 53.5 X 11.9 mm

Conclusion :

The Samsung Jet S8000 looks good, works well, performs smoothly, and comes with an entire boat-load of cutting-edge technological features. It is probably a bit early at the time of writing to declare it a runaway success but it does look set to be a rather popular model. If you're in the market for a fully-featured phone and as a user you don't really mind the proprietary OS as compared to a mobile developer who would be setting his sights on something along the lines of a Symbian-, iPhone-, Android-, Windows Mobile-something or the other, the Samsung Jet with its sleek form factor, good looks, fantastic display and fully-loaded feature set makes a pretty compelling pitch as the touch-screen mobile phone of choice.

(2009-06-23 13:35:19 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

Wednesday December 31, 2008

Canon SX1 IS review : 560mm 20x optical zoom, 1080p HD video, DIGIC 4 - a power-packed PowerShot

- The wait is over. I have in my hands the Canon Powershot SX1 IS, finally a worthy successor to my Canon S3 IS. The S5 didn't really count, being more of an incremental improvement than the revolutionary leap I was looking for.

And revolutionary it truly is. The Canon SX1IS is a big leap forward from both the S3 and the S5 before it. Key distinguishing features include :

1. 20x optical zoom - a whopping 560mm equivalent, compared to the 12X (436mm) of the S3/S5.
2. 28mm for wide angle shots, compared to 36mm earlier.
3. Full HD 1920x1080 30fps video with stereo audio, compared to VGA 640x480 30 fps.
4. Next-generation DIGIC 4 processor with iContrast and face detection, compared to DIGIC 3.

Ultra-zoom digital camera users quickly appreciate the immense reach of a long, true optical telephoto zoom and the Canon SX1 IS raises this to a whole new level, bumping up the magnification quite a few notches. At extreme range, this new zoom level requires steady hands and really stretches your ability to do hand-held shots. Fortunately, image stabilisation (the "IS" in Canon SX1 IS) comes to the rescue in that regard.

At the other extreme end of the range, the 28mm wide-angle does its bit to help out in landscape and panoramic shots as well as the pretty common group photo scenario or in constrained shooting situations. A handy selector button toggles between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios, quickly enabling you to choose between wide and normal shot mode for both photo- and video-taking.

And talking about video-taking. It's a quantum leap. To be sure, I have had my doubts. Do I really need full HD video? What about the processor, bandwidth, memory and hard disk space requirements? But after taking a few clips and putting them up on the living-room LCD TV through the DVI-to-HDMI output from my PC beside it, I've got to say now that there *is* a big difference. It's my very own Blu-Ray quality video camcorder. I can now understand why Canon seems a little bit reluctant to release the Canon SX1 IS into the American market and why American consumers are wondering when they can get into a bit of SX1 action like their European and Asian counterparts. The video quality in full 1080p HD is solid. Solid enough that you don't need a separate HD digicam.

And finally, the technological tour de force : the new, next-generation Canon DIGIC 4 image processor. It brings with it, among other things, a couple of new features : face detection and iContrast. Sure, some might call face-detect gimmicky but I find it useful enough to leave it on by default - and that's saying a lot from one who turns off these aids every time I encounter them - such as multi-zone AiAF (OFF), assist lamp (OFF), shot review (OFF).

The iContrast (Intelligent Contrast) is something else altogether. Finally, I can take photos in situations like this one without worrying about setting up the flash and worrying about flash distance, shot-to-shot timing, and under-exposure of regions in shadow :

Look at the face area, the shadow under my car, the folds on the bag, and the undersides of the trees. I was under a tree, in shadow, when taking this shot. In pre-DIGIC 4 times, these areas would have been pretty dark but now you actually get to see them. A technological tour de force indeed. And here's another sample photo - to those who say use fill-in flash to bring out the dark regions, try doing *that* on the sides of a building - NO WAY. So once again iContrast comes to the rescue :

Canon's iContrast technology is about as close as you can get right now to achieving "single-shot" HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging without having to go through the hassle of multiple shots at multiple exposures (up to 8, sometimes 9 or even 10), and then putting them together in Photoshop or other specialized software. I really cannot tell you how many times I have struggled to adjust the +/- exposure, the shutter speed, or the spot focus, in order to achieve results that aren't even anywhere close to these. Call it hyperbole if you will but Canon's iContrast alone is worth the price of admission. Bundle it together with the rest of the package, and it makes for a most compelling buy.

To those who say the price encroaches on DSLR territory, yes I'd tend to agree, but if you want a DSLR which also has full HD video recording, together with a Canon EF 500mm lens, you would have to pay, let's say, about 10 times more. We're talking about a Canon EOS 5D Mark II (aka Canon 5D2) here. And in your hands, such a combination, even if you can easily afford it, would probably feel like it weighs 10 times heavier as well. Even if your wallet does not feel it your hands will :)

In short, the Canon SX1 IS gives you really awesome capabilities without having to go into DSLR territory. For the rest of the time (such as low-light situations), Biow's Nikon D40 with her 18-200mm lens covers things pretty well. The Canon SX1 lives up to its family name - it is a power-packed PowerShot. The new king of the PowerShot hill. All hail. Highly recommended.

(2008-12-31 00:46:33 SGT) [Tech] Permalink Comments [2]

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