Product Central
Dispatches from the Reviews Editor's desk
Thursday 14 June 2007, 11:10 AM
HTC's lost Touch
Oh dear. Within a week of making off from the launch of the HTC Touch with the smartphone in my hot little hands, I've killed it. Well, rendered it pretty peaky-looking anyway.
Here's what happened. After a pleasantly hot weekend, I noticed that the Touch's screen had some smudging in the centre that wouldn't polish off — because it seemed to be on the inside rather than the outside. This made the device most annoying to use.
Delving in the box I discovered a clear plastic screen cover. 'Aha', I thought, 'the Touch has a replaceable screen cover, perhaps the discoloration is on that'. So I scratched away at the screen and it did indeed come away — but underneath was a sticky (and soon irrevocably fingerprint-ridden) surface that was definitely not meant to be exposed. A piece of the screen had, of course, broken off, leaving the Touch looking a lot less cool than it had fresh out of the box.
Now I had received a free sample to play with, and will get over the disappointment. But what if I'd just paid £300? Has anyone out there bought an HTC Touch and noticed similar screen smudging on the inside? Or is it just me and my special brand of product testing/mistreatment?
Do let us know.
Wednesday 13 June 2007, 12:18 PM
Samsung Q1 Ultra sighted at ZDNet towers
Samsung UK's Product Marketing Manager for the Q1 Ultra UMPC, Dinesh Chand, was in yesterday to show off the device, which is about to ship in the UK.
Since it was unveiled at CeBIT in March the Q1 Ultra — which like its Q1 predecessor will cost £799 — has shed its fingerprint reader. This now becomes a factory-install option. Also missing at launch is 3G/HSDPA connectivity, which is due to appear as an option in September.
Chand was bullish about the Q1 Ultra's prospects in vertical markets such as education and healthcare, and claimed plenty of interest from — and sales to — businesses.
Despite the Q1 Ultra's improvements in processing power, battery life, screen resolution, input and navigation methods, ZDNet UK remains a little more sceptical: check the Reviews channel for a full review in due course.
Friday 25 May 2007, 11:09 AM
HP, the supermodel, the red carpet and the film noir
To Cannes with HP for the 60th Film Festival, where the tech giant is a major sponsor, scattering vast Scitex-printed posters around key sites along the Croisette and taking up residence in the swanky Majestic Barrière hotel, just opposite the Palais des Festivals.
HP's centre of operations at the Cannes Film Festival.
As you'd expect, the place is crawling with celebs, wannabe celebs, willneverbe celebs, stony faced security goons — and a smattering of tech journalists prepared to submit themselves to HP's slick publicity machine in return for a little vicarious fairy dust.
Has the Segway found its niche, as a mobile marketing platform?
Wednesday starts well, with an agreeable beachside luncheon bang in the middle of the action: the extraordinary Proteus catamaran is moored nearby, while HP's inviting 'floating lounge' is just a short motorboat ride away. The sun beats down, and the waiters proffer not only fine wines, but also much-needed Factor 40 to the pasty, blinking, hacks from Blighty — among whom we discover an impostor: Dean Piper, from Closer magazine, a bona fide celeb-chaser who regales us with suitably scurrilous gossip and professes total bemusement with all things techie.
ZDNet goes the extra mile to get the tech news: note HP's champagne-fuelled 'floating lounge' just off the beach.
Then it's on to the conscience-salving bit: the press conference where various HP bigwigs trumpet the company's recent successful rebranding exercise ('The Computer Is Personal Again') and ZDNet chats to HP's Alberto Bozzo, VP and General Manager of Commercial Products, Personal Systems Group.
Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova and Satjiv Chahil, HP's Senior VP Worldwide Marketing, Personal Systems Group discuss the future of the IT industry.
Check out our upcoming Cannes photo gallery for more on HP's latest kit and Alberto's comments: for now, let's fast forward to the interesting part, where Czech supermodel and do-gooder Petra Nemcova is paraded on-stage to ally herself with HP's vision and plug her Happy Hearts Fund. The HHF aims to benefit children affected by the 2004 Asian tsunami, in which Petra was caught up; one strand of the HHF's activities includes introducing children to new technology — hence HP's involvement.
The HP Compaq 2710 convertible tablet, a Centrino Pro system. And Eric Cador, HP's Senior VP Personal Systems Group EMEA. Oh, and Petra Nemcova again.
After the on-stage antics, there's a photo shoot, where Petra and HP's Eric Cador show off HP's latest Tablet PC — and some tech journos actually snap close-ups of the Centrino Pro tablet, ignoring the attached supermodel.
Jazz Age elegance at the Belles Rives, Juan Les Pins.
Later there's more high-quality dining at the Belles Rives hotel in nearby Juan Les Pins, an idyllic art deco establishment where F Scott Fitzgerald once hung out. As it happens, HP's assembled throng are fully kitted out in black-tie attire, in preparation for the red carpet screening later in the evening (of which more anon), so the scene could be straight out of Tender Is The Night.
One of HP's vast industrial inkjet-printed posters adorns the entrance to the Palais des Festivals.
And so to the gala screening, which as fate would have it is The Man From London, directed by Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr and featuring the UK's own Tilda Swinton. A spot of mobile Googling had previously informed the hack pack that Mr Tarr's ouvre was somewhat bleak and austere, much given to leisurely musings on Man's Place In The Scheme Of Things. However, the fact that the movie is based on a detective story by Georges Simenon perks up the more optimistic among us and we head through the crowds and paparazzi lining the approaches to the Palais des Festivals and up the legendary red carpet with hope in our hearts.
We are, to put it mildly, disappointed. Now there are many cinéasts for whom two hours-plus of film-noir-meets-Eastern-European existential-angst is pure heaven. But for the UK tech hack pack, who are clearly somewhat lower of brow, this was too much. In a nutshell, almost nothing happens in the movie — and anything that does happen, does so in Hungarian, with French and English subtitles, at extreme length.
The director and cast receive the audience's acclaim. This was before the screening — we weren't there by the end.
The first furtive exits bar-wards occur about an hour in. Your correspondent, made of sterner stuff (or perhaps simply more catatonic), makes it to the two-hour mark. Then the interminable opening shot (which will inevitably be described elsewhere as a 'masterpiece') is reprised and I can take no more. In the foyer I discover the director himself, pacing nervously. He fails to arrest my progress, and I flee to the bar of the Majestic Barrière to catch up with my fellow fugitives. We are still swapping cinematic horror stories when the entire cast, director and production team of The Man From London walk in (very slowly). Seemingly, there is no escape.
Wednesday 25 April 2007, 1:29 PM
Calling Adobe refuseniks
Our colleague Seth Rosenblatt over at Downloads.com in the US has put together a useful guide to open-source and free software that mirrors what Adobe offers in its Creative Suite applications. You can now read this guide on ZDNet UK, here.
We think it's important to keep tabs on what the open source community has to offer in this area, given the furore over the price hikes that Adobe slaps on its customers in the UK and Europe compared to the US.
What we'd like to discover is how many creative professionals are trying open-source alternatives to Adobe's expensive products. Do these free applications cut the mustard when it comes to making your living, or do you simply have to grit your teeth and pay Adobe's prices?
Thursday 19 April 2007, 9:37 AM
Fishing for Deepfish
Microsoft Live Labs recently unveiled a Technology Preview of a new browser called Deepfish, which is designed to make web browsing on small-screen mobile devices a much more satisfying experience than it currently is.
Unfortunately, the initial beta program was limited to a small number of users, and we didn't make it in time. Of course, we'll be pulling whatever rank we can muster to get the download — but in the meantime, are any ZDNet UK readers beta-testing Deepfish? If you are, we'd love to hear what you think of it so far.
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