Dell Adamo - 'Thinnest Notebook Available' in case no one is convinced.

I was pretty underwhelmed by the Dell Adamo.

The Adamo is actually a really good name and it does have that special foreign meaning. But the Macbook Air makes the Dell Adamo look ordinary.

The Dell Adamo could be thinner than the Air, but does it look it? Not at all. What a shame. It's good to know it is the thinnest, otherwise I would never have known.

Anything Core 2 Duo bores the knickers off me, but when it starts with 1.2 Ghz, it just begs the questions why? Maybe they know Windows 7 will run just fine, but until then it's a Vista machine.

The weight is something I'm not happy with at all. 4 pounds is really quite heavy. A few years ago I would probably never have known, but having been used to travel light netbooks, this is heavy.

It's rated for over 5 hours, but frustrating, you'll never get that. Unless you want to go blind by dimming the LCD to h*ll.

I'm not bothered about the price tag. The price is not an issue. If you are looking for a luxury item, price is not something that you give a hoot about. In fact, secretly the more expensive it is, the better, less middle class students or dads are able to buy it.

iPhone 3.0 - Bloaty?

If your a developer you will find the 3.0 update something to munch over.

For the rest of us, it's utterly boring and most of it feels really bloaty.

Push Feature.

Underwhelmed and not interested. There will be a useful program that utilizes this feature, but all I can think about is Ads. Which reminds of their new app features which allow paid content and subscriptions within the app.

Google Maps inside the app.

Nice. I do use it and it is very useful. But only once in a blue moon.

3rd Party Peripheral Support.

Great for developers, but at the moment for users, the equalizer feature demo was uninspiring and the glucose monitor was mostly irrelevant.

Peer-to-peer support - Games?

Not impressed with games on the iPhone at the moment. Really not impressed. In fact they're rubbish.

Copy Paste.

I got by without cut and paste earlier one. I liked was the gimmicky shake to undo feature. I'm not over the moon. Mainly because it should have been there in the first place.

Landscape Typing.

Good news for those with fat fingers. Great for those who like typing novels using their thumbs. It's amazing that people are willing to push themselves to the limit on a music device with limited input capabilities.

MMS

Should have been here in the first place, but I got by.

Voice Memo App.

This is a great app if you have any device that doesn't have a good keyboard. The tap tap input on the iPhone is fun but not great, and it's only good for tap tap notes. But to be honest, voice recorders are horrible when you have to review them. It takes such a long time to go through them.

Spotlight

It's such a great feature on the OSX. Such a great feature on the iPhone. Such a great shame I hardly use it. Maybe because I've gotten by for years without it.

If your into product development you can forgive the fact that it makes sense to hold certain features back. But for users, it just makes them violated and underwhelmed.

Dell All in One Studio One 19 - Sexier and More Expensive

All in one computing is once again the king of desktop style.

Why people always relegate anything all in one and stylish into the 'kitchen pc' is just bemusing and then complain it's missing firewire this and that.

Just look at the Dell Studio One 19. It's multi touch with a bigger 18.5 inch screen than the Eee Top PC and this one has the DVD player.

The keyboard design and the clever stylish like floating glass panel just looks pretty awesome.

It does comes with the usual boring specs from Celeron to Core 2 Quad configurations.

The mouse is severely ugly though.

Creative Zen Stone Plus with Speakers - Did the New Shuffle Turn You Off?

The new iPod Shuffle has got me thinking. It's got me thinking about other mp3 alternatives.

It is because of the remote on the cord thing and while looking through the other mp3 players, I noticed that the Creative Zen Stone Plus had built in speakers. This is not new, but the fact that the Zen Stone is tiny and to have tiny speakers is a great novelty.

Just playing it in the car, the shower, the.... well it's pretty neat. That was until I realized I already have the equipment. The player in the car already plays mp3, the showerproof CD player can play mp3 and so there is no real reason to use the Zen Stone speakers.

Aside from the speakers, it did have one thing that I found cute and missing on the shuffle. The tiny screen.

The screen has always been missing on the iPod shuffles, but the latest one made me wonder about other features it's missing, but available on other players. Radio, stopwatches, games and voice recording. They aren't must have, but they are nice to have and people will use them if they are built in.

Apple has done a good job in trying to lock everyone into iTunes so people will buy their great mp3 players. But for me and because of the new iPod Shuffle, I'm looking at alternatives to Apple.

It's a refreshing change.

New iPod Shuffle - While the Boss is Away... Let's See How Much Damage We Can .... Like the Ugly Little On and Off Switch.

New Apple iPod Shuffle looks really nice as usual, but it's starting to get to the point where 'simple' is starting to look 'bland'.

Although I was thinking of getting a blue one, which is not available, the iPod touch has practically killed any idea of me getting an iPod or the shuffle.

Still, the shuffle's tiny design is cute and the useful clip is great. But what's not so great is the fact that the controls are now embedded on the earphone cords.

If you can barely afford to buy the shuffle, just so you can be a part of Apple, your probably not going to care about other headphones that are not made by Apple.

If you can afford decent headphones, you can afford a better iPod. Of course, you know Apple will be announcing a 'bring your own headphone' adapter soon, at a pinch of a price.

The voice feature sounds hilarious! It's a subtle feature that allows you to choose the next song without stopping the current one.

The voice is different if you sync it with a mac or a PC. The PC voice sounds intentionally horrid, while the Mac voice, although is a lot better, it still not amazing.

Still, I hope there is a way to turn it off, especially with songs that have long names.

If you think long and hard about the voice over, it's an unnecessary obstructing gimmick. But if you use the word 'cool' often and thinking gives you a headache, you'll love it.

Sony NWZ-X1060 - iPod Touch Killer-ish.

I really think it's great that there is an alternative to the iPod Touch. Not that there is anything wrong with it.

It's just that there are people out there who just want to be different from the crowd. It's pretty depressing where everywhere you go and everyone and anyone has an iPhone.

The latest Sony NWZ-1060 is a contender to the iPod Touch. It's thicker, probably more expensive and understandably Windows only.

It does everything that the iPod can do except the addition of apps.

What sets it apart of course is the OLED display, the black marble design and the noise canceling feature.

I want one because it's different. But is it better than the iPod Touch? It's a no brainer.

Asus does the Spectrum thing. Imagine Apple doing the Amstrad thing.

The days when you build a computer or buy a desktop it's because of it's expandability and customization. Since the price difference is not what it used to be, all in one computers have been making a convenient come back.

Apple and Asus have done what Nintendo has done with the Wii and DS. Bringing the computers to the casual users who just want to use the internet without the fuss of graphics cards, memory and rpm hard drives.

This reminds of the old days when computers, like the computers from the UK, where the keyboard and media drives were all combined beautifully in one complete package.

Now Asus is going to bring that 'magical moment in time' back. The all in one computer with a built in keyboard. It even comes with a gimmicky but ultra fun touch screen side panel.

I wonder if Apple is going to introduce something like that for their aluminum keyboard and iphone docking combo.

Asus - Eee Ai Guru! - Skype Videophone for your Grandma.

Asus Eee Ai Guru is apparently the world's PC free Skype videophone.

Weird names are how to catch the media's attention and a strange name it's got. Who doesn't remember when the Wii came out.

This would be a perfect gift for Grandma and Grandpa. You still have to set up the wifi for them though, and probably have to go through the online registration.

It's cheap'ish too.

Mac OSX - Space Invaders

Again I am in the position to use a macbook pro temporarily for work. The excitement was quickly dulled by the fact that it was needed for work and not for personal use.

Since it was for work, I don't care how superduper a computer is, it's still going to be dull. Nice aluminium casing, though.

Spaces on the Mac is not new. But it's aesthetically pleasing and since work is boring, anything that makes it slightly interesting is a plus.

When I have lots of time on hand and have to do boring work, I separate my work into the following categories.

Space 1 - Quick Access to Info.

Excel, iCal, Safari

Space 2 - Project.

Mail, Final Cut

Spaces 3 - Gotta have music.

iTunes

Spaces 4 - Any other cr*p.

Preview, iPhoto

Everything is all good until I suddenly get a new project that co-exists with the current one, then the whole spaces thing breaks down.

Sometimes I need the Excel with the Final Cut, or the iPhoto with the Safari, or the Final Cut with the Excel.

Still, I like the design and the aluminum casing. That's why people buy the mac, right?

Increase Your Battery Life - Reduce Your Productivity?

Who doesn't want to squeeze every last juice out of their notebook/netbook battery?

Problem is, there always seems to be a cost involved.

Reducing brightness - Trying to convince myself it's bright enough at the lower settings. Then getting headaches and eye strain afterwards and blaming it on fatigue.

Power Settings - Maximum battery setting means I have to adjust my power patience setting to maximum too.

Turn off unnecessary ports - What? The inbuilt camera uses power when I'm not using it? Is this some sick joke?

Turn off pretty features on the OS - But they make unimportant work just a tiny bit bearable.

Hate to admit it.

There's no two ways about it.

Just buy that clunky, oversize, protruding, 'I'm going to convince myself it doesn't look ugly' extra long life battery and be done with it.

Unless you have a macbook air.