Electron Hut: Kyle Bedell’s Blog

These impressions are a bit off-beat: they’re about feet. More specifically, they’re about a special shoe from Vibram (based right here in MA!) called the FiveFingers Classic. Part of a new breed of barefoot shoes, the Fivefingers Classic is all about minimizing what’s on your feet while still providing protection from pointy/hot/painful surfaces. I picked up a pair of these recently because, let’s face it, waterproof Merrell hiking boots are not summertime footwear. Plus, all of the extra cushioning and support that regular shoes provide tends to weaken the muscles in your feet and ankles over time.

Actually putting the Fivefingers on is a bit funky; the toes (as you can probably tell) are separated. If your toes are really close together like mine are, you have to get used to spreading them out a bit when you put the shoes on. Once you get the shoes on, there’s a small strap in the back you can use to adjust the fit a bit. If you’ve picked a good fit for your foot size, you shouldn’t need much of an adjustment.

So how do they feel? Surprisingly like…walking barefoot! The bottom is thick enough to protect you from sharp rocks and hot asphalt, but still thin enough for you to feel the surface you’re walking on. Not to quote from the marketing literature here, but I do feel a bit more connected to the surface I’m walking on. With my hiking boots, there’s a half-inch of thick rubber and socks sitting between the bottoms of my feet and the environment. With the Fivefingers, I can feel the grass and the texture of the road. It’s certainly a different experience. I’m going to go for some longer (~3 mile) walks this upcoming weekend to see how they hold up under pressure. Vibram claims that they’re well suited for just about everything except seafaring and mountain climbing (for which there are other models).

If you miss the feeling of not wearing shoes, or would just like to get away from overbearing, padded shoes, give these a try!

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…

Way back in 2000, I bought my first handheld computer: a Palm IIIxe personal digital assistant with a 160×160 grayscale screen and 16MB of memory. It had fairly limited connectivity (this was before WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular radios were ubiquitious in mobile devices); I remember purchasing a bluky 28.8kbps modem add-on for it so I could dial in to America Online and check my email if I was near a phone jack! Before long, Windows Mobile had emerged on the scene (although it was called “Pocket PC” back then) with its fancy devices. They had color screens, large (for the time) amounts of memory, and faster processors than their Palm bretheren, and it wasn’t long before I had switched.

As the years went by the standalone PDA faded from the public eye, replaced by the “smartphone” (the Handspring Treo was one of the first to become extremely popular). Palm as a company also slowly faded from the public eye, its devices hampered by an aging OS platform and dated hardware (they eventually switched to Windows Mobile).

Fast forward to CES 2009: Palm announces a new smartphone running its fabled “Palm OS 2,” now dubbed WebOS. Sporting a slick interface, brand new Texas Instruments processor architecture, and some very cool cloud-based syncing technologies, the buzz generated was (I would say) on par with that on Apple’s iPhone announcements. I was interested enough to switch to Sprint for the phone, and as of this morning I’m holding one in my hands! So far, it’s been nothing short of awesome.

First up, some pictures!

Hardware and Build Quality

The first thing out of my mouth when I opened the box up (nice Apple-esque packaging, Palm!) was “Wow, it’s so tiny!” Compared to my gargantuan HTC Kaiser, the Pre is slim and svelte. I seem to remember reading that a stone worn smooth by a river was the inspiration for the design; the actual handset isn’t too far off. It looks an awful lot like a pebble,  fits really well in your hand, and feels just right in the weight department. The build quality is excellent (for an all-plastic body), although you’ll likely find the iPhone (being made of metal and glass) a bit sturdier. As far as external controls go, on the left side you’ve got a volume rocker switch. On the front, a chrome center button and the keyboard (which I’ll get to in a moment). I only have a few complaints with the industrial design:

• The sliding mechanism that covers the keyboard is tough to open. Because I’m pushing the top of the unit up but grasping the edge in one hand, I’m fighting myself to work the slider.
• There’s an exposed bottom edge sharp enough to cut cheese (thanks Gizmodo). Depending on how you hold the Pre while you type, this may be a non-issue.
• Guys, could you have made it any more difficult to remove the MicroUSB cover on the right side of the phone?

“But what about the keyboard?” you ask? The Pre’s keyboard has the tiniest keys I have ever used on a smartphone (I’m told Centro and BlackBerry Curve users have similarly sized keys). I’m used to the much larger keys on handsets like the Sidekick and the BlackBerry Bold, so I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like typing on the Pre. I work a bit more slowly, but I’ve noticed I make fewer mistakes. The actual keys are hard, but they have some sort of gummy gel-like coat on top that helps your fingers “stick” to them. All in all, it’s not the best, but it’s workable.

The camera is a 3.2 megapixel, LED flash, no autofocus job. It takes okay photos, as you can see in this shot of a flower vase on our kitchen table:

Interface and UI

Clean and vibrant, the WebOS UI revolves around a concept Palm is calling “Cards.” WebOS supports actual, honest-to-goodness multitasking, so when ever you press the chrome button on the front, you get a screen that shows each running application in a small rectangle (a live preview, by the way). Flicking back and froth switches between cards, tapping one pulls it to the forefront (so you can work in it), and flicking one up and off the screen closes the application. It’s actually kind of fun to use. Palm needs to do some work in the memory management department though. I got a nasty error message when I had six apps open and tried to launch another.

The actual “interface” portion will be intimately familiar to anyone who has ever used an iPhone or a Palm OS device. You’ll feel right at home with fat, finger-friendly icons and a very iPhone-ish set of UI controls.

The other half of WebOS revolves around gestures. You might have noticed, but there are no “Back” buttons in WebOS applications; to go back a level in an application’s hierarchy, you drag your finger from right to left across a small black strip under the display. Similarly-themed gestures (that work a lot like the iPhone’s) are available for zooming (pinch) and scanning through items (quick flicks up, down, left, or right). Flicking from bottom to top pulls up the Launcher, which is used to open applications. A small qualm here: there’s a “quick launch” bar the opens up with the Card interface (the one you use to switch between apps), but it only holds 4 items. I wouldn’t mind a fifth!

As far as responsiveness goes, the Pre isn’t lightning fast, but it won’t have you tapping your foot waiting for applications to load. It does a good job of showing you little progress indicators when it’s busy trying to perform a task. Because the processor the Pre is using is brand-new, I’m going to predict that future software updates will speed things up a bit. In any case, transitions are smooth and there’s little lag to be felt.

Synergy, Contacts, and Mail

Synergy is Palm’s contact synchronization and linking technology. The basic gist is that you can pull in contacts from multiple sources (Gmail, Facebook, and Exchange right now), and the Pre will combine information from all of those sources in to one contact. For example, I have my Gmail and Facebook contacts synced to my Pre right now. It’s pulling all of the pictures and address data from Facebook, but the email addresses and telephone numbers from Gmail. Needless to say, it works extremely well (and has the added benefit of always keeping your contact information up to date)! My only complaint is that the process is all-inclusive; you can’t pick who gets synced over from a source you add. It brings over everyone. Yes, Facebook users, that means every person you’ve ever friended. GMail users, this includes everyone in your contact list, not just the “My Contacts” section. Do a little manual cleanup beforehand and you’ll thank yourself later.

What I like best about the Contacts application is its integration with the rest of the system. Tap someone’s address and see it mapped out on Google Maps. Tap a number, it dials. Tap an email address, it fires up the Mail application. It’s small touches like this that make the Pre a joy to use.

Messaging and Mail have some cool features; the Pre will aggregate conversations you’ve had with a particular person, pulling in SMS, email, MMS, chat, and phone calls in to a sort of “all in one” view. This makes it easy to view correspondence you’ve had with someone. Mail will set up separate folders for your Gmail labels (and supports both labeling and starring of messages). Other than that, it’s fairly basic.

Browsing and Other Preloaded Applications

The Pre’s browser is based on Webkit (just like Safari on the iPhone), and runs at a good clip. In my brief tests, it loaded pages a full 2-3 seconds faster over Wifi than my iPod touch. The browser supports the same zooming and panning features that the iPhone does, and the word on the street is that Flash support is coming as well. Besides the Browser and PIM apps, the Pre comes loaded with a bunch of other nifty applications:

• Photos (seemed to handle the standard gauntlet of PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMPs I threw at it)
• Music (which syncs with iTunes, anything that’s not DRMed at least)
• Videos (haven’t had a chance to check this out yet)
• A cool Memos application that automatically titles your notes for you
• Google Maps (a solid, speedy implementation that’s faster than the iPhone’s at rendering map tiles)
• A Calculator (morphs into Scientific version when viewed in landscape)
• Office 2007 and PDF viewing support
• Sprint Navigation (which I haven’t tried yet)

There’s an application store as well, but it’s pretty sparse at the moment. Of the available applications, Tweed (a Twitter client), Pandora (of internet radio fame), and Fandango (for movies) are the most solid of the bunch.

Touchstone Charger

While not a part of the standard Pre package, I thought it would be interesting to touch on their inductive charger, the Touchstone. A combination of a replacement back cover for the phone and something that vaguely resembles a hockey puck, the Touchstone allows you to charge the Pre wirelessly. A few magnets help properly align the phone on the puck, and there’s a mid-tack restickable adhesive on Touchstone’s bottom that allows you to position it virtually anywhere. The back of the Pre gets a bit warm charging this way, and the Touchstone charges the phone more slowly than a straight cable. However, it’s all worth it to not have to pry open the ridiculously-difficult-to-open MicroUSB port door on the side of the phone.

I really hope inductive charging takes off; being able to just toss your devices on a charging pad would be nothing short of incredible!

Conclusions
I’ll echo what some other reviewers have said: the Pre is a superb effort by Palm. Especially for a generation one product, I think this is one of the best smartphones I have ever used. Nothing has come close in terms of ease of use (the Cards metaphor works really well in this context), and the Synergy technology that aggregates your contact information (with some minor caveats) works really well. If you’re not too keen on joining Sprint, Verizon and AT&T should have the Pre sometime next year.

If anyone has questions, please leave them in the comments! I’ll put together a Q&A post!

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!