Listen to three industry pundits talk about the iPad in this video segment, taken from one of the US talk shows. The guests were Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and David Carr of the New York Times (what, David Pogue wasn’t available? 
) Hint: if you’re looking for reasons not to buy the iPad, don’t watch this, although the panelists do provide some points why one may not want to get an iPad.
Industry Pundits On The Apple iPad
February 9th, 2010
Hutchison Austria Prices The iPad
February 9th, 2010With no indication whatsoever of international pricing for the new Apple iPad yet, Hutchison Austria has gone ahead and used the US pricing as its benchmark when drawing up its plans for the device. They are planning to offer the WiFi version of the iPad (since this comes out earlier) for a cheap-ish price, with a subsidy of €333, if the customer commits to a 2 year plan for €29.90 (RM 141) a month. So, assuming we take the base iPad model as an example, it will cost around € (365 – 333) = € 32 (RM 151) for the device, plus the commitment of a €29.90 monthly plan for 2 years.
And how does one get online when there is no 3G coverage? Simple – Hutchison plans to bundle in the Huawei E583x portable 3G wireless router (which I have reviewed in this blog previously) as part of the plan. The €29.90 plan will have a fair usage limit of 5GB monthly. Personally, I think that if the customer owns the Huawei modem at the end of the 2 year contract, then this deal looks sweet – getting two devices in return for committing to the carrier for 2 years. And of course we’ll never ever, ever, see a deal like this in Malaysia. Ever. Not even if hell freezes over.
Glowing Reviews For The Dell Alienware M11x
February 9th, 2010
So, that didn’t take long. Reviews of the new Alienware M11x gaming netbook have started appearing on the web, and generally, the opinion is that there is much to love about this netbook. I’m guessing that this is because it is the first netbook to truly support portable gaming, or gaming on the go, without having to lug a 20 pound beast with you. Although it’s a little on the heavy side, it makes up for it in overall performance, according to the reviews. And the ability to switch between the discrete graphics card and the integrated graphics card is a nice touch indeed, although if you run it on the dedicated graphics card, don’t expect the battery to last long, although it still manages a respectable 4 hours or thereabouts watching a video.
Click here to read the reviews, or rather links to the various reviews that have begun popping up on the interwebs.
Incredible = Bravo?
February 8th, 2010
In the US, carriers typically “rename” phones from manufacturers with their own desired branding to reflect their corporate identity. Verizon, which also sells the Verizon Droid aka Motorola Milestone, apparently has an HTC Android superphone in the works, according to the pocketnow website. It’s called the HTC Incredible, and supposedly uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, has 256MB of RAM, dual LED flash and an optical trackpad.
Sounds like the HTC Bravo to me. Or is this a totally different product? It does run Android 2.1 according to the photos that pocketnow is sharing, is it indeed the Bravo? What do you think?
Source. There’s a video there too, in case you want to watch.
The 27″ Monster From Dell
February 8th, 2010
Now, now, don’t go having dirty thoughts now, especially so close to the Chinese New Year! This is the new ultra-sharp computer monitor from Dell, all 27 inches of it, in a stunningly high resolution. And I thought my existing 24 incher from Dell at a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels was plenty enough, but obviously Dell doesn’t agree with me.
So, the U2711 Ultrasharp monitor from Dell sports a resolution of 2560 x 1440, otherwise known as “WQHD” for those in the know. It comes packed with all the latest features you would expect in a computer monitor:
- High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
- 2 Digital Visual Interface connectors (DVI-D) with HDCP
- DisplayPort (DP)
- Video Graphics Array (VGA)
- Component Video
- Composite Video
- 1 USB 2.0 upstream port
- 4 USB 2.0 downstream ports
- 8 in 1 Media reader
- DC power connector for Dell Soundbar
And hey, it’s got that new IPS technology – the same that will be used in Apple’s new iPad!
The only scary thing is the price - RM 2,899 – but I guess for such a high resolution as this, one would be willing to pay the price. As to the target market for this thing, I would hazard a guess that it will only appeal to the creative folks – Photoshoppers and video editors? Or are there any other uses for it? I certainly wouldn’t be buying one to hook it up to my netbook, which already struggles with pumping out 1920 x 1080 pixels of resolution to my existing monitor! Imagine how slow my entire system would be if it had to pump out WQHD resolution (assuming it can even do this!).
