Electron Hut: Kyle Bedell’s Blog

My desk at home is a bit cluttered (not shown: the router and gigabit switch now stuffed behind the display and the DVD burner perched on top of the server).

After reading Jeff Atwood’s review of a set of Ergotron LX Desk Mount monitor arms, I figured that ditching my monitor stand would be a good way to reclaim some desk space. The pivot and rotation enhancements provided by the arms would allow me to push the display back to the wall if I needed to do any non-computer work at my desk.

All the bits and pieces were a bit daunting at first. There are actually two different ways to install the mount; you can use the pre-attached C-clamp or opt for the more stable gromet mount (which involved a bit of drilling). In the interest of stability, I opted for the gromet mount. I have a rather large (and heavy) HP LP2475w display, and I didn’t want my investment suddenly slamming in to my desk because the C-clamp failed. It was fairly easy to get the hole drilled and the panel mounted on to the supplied frame. The Ergotron comes with VESA standard 75×75 and 100×100 mounting plates that should fit just about every monitor out there. From there, I just attached the arm base, extender, and the arm itself and slipped the panel frame on to the whole assembly.

At first, the arm just sunk down to the top of the desk. Then (having not previously read the manual), I noticed that there was a hex screw on the arm to tweak the amount of tension in the spring that holds the panel up. Two or three minutes of adjusting gave me a good balance between stability and ease-of-maneuvering.

The end result looks something like this (apologies for the terrible lighting):

Now I can push the display back to the wall and slide my keyboard underneath; perfect for doing non-computer work! I found that the rotation features have been the most useful for me so far; I can put the panel in to portrait mode for reading long PDFs and documents, then put it back to landscape for gaming. All in all, a good investment. I can see the arms being even more useful if I had two displays…(is it time for a bigger desk?)

It’s been about two weeks since I switched to Sprint and picked up a Palm Pre (my photo-laden review). It’s easily the best phone I’ve ever used, but it’s not perfect (what phone is?). A few of my extended-use impressions:

The Good

1. The proximity sensor is sweet. I’ve never used a phone with a proximity sensor on it before. The gist is that the phone can detect if it’s pressed up against your face. Combined with accelerometer and orientation data, the Pre managed to do some nifty things. Answering a call is as easy as picking up the phone and putting it against your ear. To hang up, just put it down (face up). Want to turn on the speakerphone? Put the unit face down on a table or other hard surface. It’s much easier than trying to find a soft-button on the screen.
2. The IMAP IDLE support for push email works well. I have my Gmail account set to “deliver messages as they arrive.” They show up on the phone at the same time they land in my webmail inbox. This is ever faster than my BlackBerry 8700g, which took at least a few moments to show new emails in its inbox.
3. Universal Search works a lot like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I really like how I can just start typing on a launcher or home screen to search for…well, just about anything. The Pre auto-matches contacts and emails, and allows you to search Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia by default. Some enterprising WebOS developers have figured out how to add new search providers on their rooted phones; I can only hope when the SDK becomes available that someone writes an app to make it easy to add new ones. I’d love a built-in reddit or Amazon search.

The Bad

1. Notifications stick around forever until you dismiss them. I’ll echo Kevin Tofel of jkOnTheRun on this one. It’s great that the Pre’s notifications are relatively unobtrusive when they come in. But, to use Kevin’s words, the Pre is “…like an elephant, though: It never forgets them until you dismiss them.” Would it be so hard to watch to see if I had checked my Inbox since a New Mail notification came in, and then dismiss it automatically? Why do I have to manually dismiss every alert that comes in?
2. The App Catalog has a depressingly small number of applications. I’ll blame this squarely on the fact that Palm hasn’t released their Mojo SDK to the public yet. Come on guys, the platform is brand-new and you have people itching to start developing for it. Get us the tools we need and we’ll fill up that catalog!
3. Copy and Paste only works in editable fields. More importantly, actually figuring out how to copy and paste is an exercise in futility. I finally figured it out (hold the gesture area and press C, V, or X), only to find that you can only copy stuff out of editable text fields. 99% of the tme, I would like to grab a snippet from an article or some such. As it stands, I can’t do that with the Pre.

Most of my issues can be fixed in software, so I’m confident we’ll see improvements in the near future. In fact, rumor has it that we’re going to see an update shortly…

This is huge. For many years now, I’ve been thinking about how we could leverage parallel processing and cloud computing to do intensive video processing, then send the rendered output back to a dumb terminal for things like high-definition video playback. My dreams have come true: OnLive appears to have perfected the idea in relation to games. Their architecture takes input from a keyboard/mouse/controller, which then arrives at a server. All of the video related to your inputs is then rendered and sent back to the client, all well-within (apparently) acceptable bounds for latency. Effectively, your PC becomes a dumb terminal that just sends controller commands and receives a video stream from a cluster of machines. Instead of playing a game running on your local machine, you’re playing it on a cluster of machines somewhere out on the internet.

The bandwidth requirements aren’t bad; you need a 1.5 megabit connection for 480i resolution (~640×480), and a 5 megabit connection to do 720p (~1280×720). The company also plans to release a set top box with HDMI, Ethernet, a few USB ports, and optical audio so that you can play titles on your television. The content model looks to be subscription-based (everyone seems to love annually recurring revenue these days), but few details are avaialble other than to expect the service in “Q4 2009.” If this works, the console as we know it is effectively obsolete, as is spending large amounts of money to keep a gaming PC up-to-date. We’ll see how it all plays out!

A short story before I start:

I’m a little late on the review bandwagon for Lenovo’s smallest ultraportable notebook, the X200 (successor to the X61). This model was released in July 2008, right around when I purchased my MacBook Pro. I ended up selling the MacBook in December, right after my fall semester classes had ended. In a fit of technological sanity, I figured out that I didn’t need a $1600, 5.5 pound workstation to write papers on when I could do the same thing with a $1200, 2.95 pound machine that had a better keyboard. I missed the ThinkPad design and reliability, and OS X didn’t have enough going for it to make me stay away from Windows.

When Lenovo’s Cyber Monday (post-Thanksgiving) sale rolled around, I managed to pick this unit up for a substantial discount. I won’t go in to the horror story that was having my order processed and delivered, but needless to say that Mark, the community manager at the Lenovo Forums, was extremely helpful and responsive in helping get everything sorted out. Thanks Mark!

This X200′s configuration, which I’ll get to in a moment, usually retails for $2000. I hit the proverbial “perfect storm” of sales and discounts, so I got mine for $1200. It pays to wait for one of Lenovo’s ubiquitous sales if you’re interested in purchasing one of their notebooks. Make sure you scour the coupon sites for any promo codes as well! You can get some fantastic deals if you’re willing to wait.

For those interested in specifications:

• Intel Core2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 Cache)
• Intel GM45/ICH9-ME chipset (Centrino 2 vPro)
• 3GB DDR3-8500 RAM
• Samsung 64GB Solid-State Drive (SATA)
• Intel WiFi Link 5300 (a/b/g/n), a pre-wired, empty slot for a WWAN card, and Bluetooth 2.1
• 12″ 1280×800 screen w/ 200 nits of brightness (50 more than the older X61)
• Intel X4500HD graphics chip
• 5-in-1 card reader, ExpressCard/54 slot, modem, and Gigabit Ethernet jack

For those of you who enjoy pictures, please enjoy a gallery of X200 shots.

I’m reminded very much of my old ThinkPad T60 when I use the X200. The legendary ThinkPad design hasn’t changed much on the outside over the years. Still, there have been some improvements.  The nicest (and most noticable) thing about the X200 is that it’s a widescreen notebook. This allowed Lenovo to squeeze the T-series keyboard in to the design (the older X60/X61 series had a slightly smaller keyboard). As you might expect, the X200 is a joy to type on. I have to say that I even prefer it over my desktop Logitech G15 for typing purposes. The response of the keys is good, and there’s no keyboard flex at all.

After coming from an ultra-high res 1400×1050 12″ panel on the X61 tablet and a 1440×900 15″ panel on the MacBook Pro, moving to a 1280×800 12″ panel seems like a step backwards. The screen is brighter than the X61 series, although that doesn’t make up for its mediocre viewing angles. The horizontal viewing angles are okay, but the vertical ones definitely leave something to be desired. At least the brightness is higher! Speaking of the display, I had no issues playing back 720p HD content in my tests, largely thanks to the hardware acceleration present on the Intel X4500HD. I haven’t tested any games yet, but benchmarks other folks have run put the X4500HD slightly ahead of NVIDIA’s discreet GeForce 8400M chip.

All of the usual Lenovo durability features are here. Unlike the IdeaPad and ThinkPad SL series, the X200 comes with the same Roll Cage and other durability features as the T-series. You can see the Roll Cage and some other interesting bits in this post over at Inside the Box.

One of the upgrades I was particularly happy to get was the Samsung 64GB solid state drive (image from ExtremeTech). Wikipedia has an excellent article on SSDs, so I won’t go in to the details of explaining all of the differences. In short, with a solid state drive you don’t need to worry about moving parts (better durability) and the read speeds are out of this world (Windows 7 boots in 9 seconds from BIOS to log-in screen).

On the subject of power, the bundled 4-cell battery doesn’t hold a candle to the 9-cell that came bundled with the X61t. I can barely squeak out 2 hours at 80% brightness with WiFi enabled just surfing around. I ordered a 6-cell a few days ago (it doesn’t stick out from the back like the 9-cell does), so I’m expecting a substantial improvement when I start using that. If you order an X200, makes sure you get the 6-cell battery. Or, if you’re willing to spend an additional $500 premium, get an X200s that’s been slimmed down and optimized for maximum battery life.

Despite its viewing angle and 4-cell battery life issues, the X200 is a winner. It’s powerful, small, lightweight, and has (as far as I’m concerned) the best keyboard in the business. While it doesn’t have the LED backlit screen of the X200s or built-in optical drive of the X300/X301 series, its “bang for your buck” ratio is far better than the X200s or the X300/X301. If you’re looking to stay connected and have a tough, lightweight computing companion by your side, the X200 is your laptop.

As always, I’m more than happy to answer any questions in the comments!

P.S.

You may have noticed that I’m running Windows 7 in the images I posted; it installed in (I kid you not) 15 minutes, and Windows Update had all the drivers I needed except for a few low-level PCI controller drivers that don’t seem to be impacting anything. If you have a spare machine to toss it on and check things out, I would highly recommend it. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been.

Also, I has a chance to use my lightbox, tripod, and side lights to take these shots. I think they turned out better than my product photos usually do!