You would be hard pressed to find an OLED TV in any brick and mortar retailer besides the Sony Store right now. The technology is amazing, but they just aren’t available yet and that might not change soon according to a iSuppli report. The TVs are too small and the prices are too high to gain any real traction. But, as we all know, that will change as the display tech evolves. However, don’t expect to see a wall full of OLED because the LCD market isn’t slowing down.

Digitimes,

However, even with this growth, unit shipments of OLED TV panels will amount to just 850,000 units in 2013 and only 4.7 million units in 2015, up from 25,000 in 2009. This represents a tiny number of shipments compared to the LCD TV panel market, which is set to reach 232.6 million units in 2013.

What we will likely see is similar to the CRT projection TV market growth compared to plasma TVs from earlier in this decade. Stores will carry a few OLED TVs to draw people in like they did with plasma TVs. But once the average Joe sees the price and size compared to an LCD, they will likely opt for the cheaper option and larger option.

As long as OLED continues to mature and carve out a market, it might eventually become the dominate display option. Unless, of course, something new and sexier doesn’t come to market first. Or 3D display take off. *shudder*

But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. —The Ugly Duckling

It’s been a long, brown trip for the Zune: from its early days (mocked and abject) to its awkward years (deemed a dead end and money pit) it’s been embattled and criticized, and rightly so. After all, here was an unpopular company with a frankly ridiculous brand it had pulled out of thin air, attempting to compete with the guys who defined the market. We’ve always been champions of the devices, despite their quirks, and of the service, despite its growing pains — and Microsoft occasionally made it pretty hard for us to stand by our favorite little misfit media player. Well, for once they just made it really easy.

Let’s not beat around the bush, now: this thing is going head-on with the iPod touch, one of the most versatile and well-liked devices on the planet. There are other PMPs, sure, but the caliber of these two devices is well beyond the best offerings from Creative, Samsung, or Sony. To make it easy on the Apple fans who are impatient to comment on this story, let me just state it right now for the record: the Zune HD is not an iPod-killer, but it’s the only player out there that can go up against it and not be annihilated in the process. It’s good enough that everyone owes it to themselves to give it a look — unless you’re afraid of just how good it might be.

Now let’s take a look at this thing. This will be a long review, but at least we aren’t splitting it into multiple pages like half those other sites.

The Hardware

I’d say that at this moment, the Zune HD is the best-looking media player on the market. It beats the iPod touch handily in terms of sheer sexiness, and it appears to hold its own in build quality and materials.

I won’t waste words describing the device; you’ve probably already seen a hundred pictures of it, but just take a second and look at this thing:

Give me a break. They’ve outdone themselves. The slimmer profile means it feels tiny in your hand, and although it’s not much flatter than an iPod or other comparable players, it’s far lighter, at only 2.6 ounces. You wouldn’t think a difference of an ounce and a half would be that noticeable, but it really is. It goes into any pocket like a champ.

Yet it’s extremely solidly constructed; the metal build gives it a solid and sturdy feel, unlike many players and phones (even with metal bits) which seem to just have a shell around them. Torquing it didn’t seem to bother it at all, and a few light bangs on the table (hey, if I didn’t, you would have) suggested I could use it to hammer nails.

The buttons are integrated well with the outer layer, and there are hardly any gaps. I have yet to use it for more than a few days, but it doesn’t feel like anything will be getting loose for quite a while, and the cracks in between the screen and lower section are minuscule and do not seem likely to admit any crumbs or dust of significance.

The one hardware-based complaint I have is the charging cable. The original Zunes had locking plugs, with tiny levers on the side that you squeezed to release the lock. The new one goes in and you have to pull quite hard to get it out; I’m sure the plug is rated for a million of these actions, but it still feels like you’re getting rough with it.

Battery life has been excellent for me: the OLED+SSD combo is rated for 33 hours of music and 8 of video, which after a fair amount of use I can easily believe. Mixed use plus wireless stuff will probably put your average battery life at 13-15 hours by my guess. It’s a squirrelly statistic to nail down, so we’ll keep an eye on customer reviews.

The Screen

Much has been said about the OLED screen already, and much of it is true. It really is an excellent little display, the primary cause of which being the deep blacks possible with a non-backlit screen. Right off the bat, due to the top menu’s minimal design, you see how contrast is markedly improved. It’s difficult to photograph, so just use your imagination on this shot:

The colors are vibrant and motion shows no trace of blur, lag, or ghosting. I didn’t experience what people seemed to preemptively criticize the device for, namely a screen that’s not bright enough. The backlit displays of iPods are certainly brighter, but firstly they’re not so much brighter that they’re usable in broad daylight, only in other marginal circumstances, and secondly the improved contrast of the OLED screen makes up for the lower brightness.

The touchscreen is very good. I would rate it second in class after the touch and iPhone’s, but it doesn’t lose by much. It’s responsive and precise — and that’s all she wrote.

Like every other glossy little device, the screen does get smudged easily, but it was easily cleaned by a microfiber cloth. The brushed metal back and bottom part of the front show no fingerprints at all.

The Sound

The sound is high quality, like the old Zunes, with the added bonus of an equalizer. There are no custom settings, but the usual suspects are there for you to choose from on the fly. The default setting sounds just fine, though. People will argue back and forth about the sound quality of different devices, but honestly there’s almost always going to be more quality variation in the encoding and your headphones than in the device. Do yourself a favor and stay away from the included earbuds.

The Interface

Many of you checked out the video of the interface I put up earlier, but for those of you who skipped it:

The interface in motion says more than I can in words (or at least, it says it more succinctly), but I’ll summarize. It’s gorgeous, and once you get the hang of the few things that aren’t immediately obvious (what does that icon mean, how come there’s no back button on this screen and so on), it really is very intuitive. The iPod touch interface is still functional, but it lacks the style of this one, and the media-specific additions like the quick launch section of the main screen. There’s nothing worse than having to drill down through layers of interface to get to something, and while the Zune UI makes drilling down as painless (and pretty) as possible, it also lets you skip it via the Pins and recent items on the main screen.

Zune’s UI is designed to do two things: first, to direct you as quickly as possible to the content you’re looking for, and then to envelop you in it. Album art or a sort of screen saver monopolize the screen space, which is an unfamiliar thing to me; I don’t tend to look at my MP3 player while I’m listening to it, though I certainly have a good reason to now. I neglected to include the excellent ability to display the artist’s bio, pictures from shows and such, and related artists, to which you can jump directly if you feel like it.

Unfortunately, this leads to some sacrifices in the now-playing screen. The old Zunes had controls always at the ready thanks to their little Zune Pad (RIP), and since that’s obviously no longer an option, I’m surprised that the Zune doesn’t have pause and volume controls at the ready. Having to tap the screen before doing that isn’t exactly a lot of work, but when the most frequently used controls are hidden and more esoteric ones (send to a friend, add to playlist) shown prominently, it can rankle one.

I found the keyboard to be pretty damn good for a first try; typing in “crunchgear” in the video up there was the first time I used it, and I didn’t have a single typo. The narrowness of the display makes for difficult two-fingered typing, but as yet there isn’t much of a need for writing more than a web address or artist name. That will probably change but I think the keyboard is up to the task.

The Browser

While it doesn’t surpass the iPhone and iPod touch’s excellent Safari-based browser, the Zune’s browser is actually very good. It doesn’t support Flash, of course, and being based on IE6 being a version of the IE mobile browser seen in WinMo phones, it does break on more creatively-coded sites, but by and large it rendered things correctly and was reasonably fast. Text is readable at most reasonable zoom levels and scrolling is easy and smooth. The accelerometer response is fantastic; no delay at all when switching from portrait to landscape. (This paragraph updated with better information after speaking to Microsoft people. It’s not based on the desktop IE6)

The Marketplace

The ability to browse the marketplace on the device is fantastic, and they’ve really made it easy to do. You can see it in action towards the end of the video above, so I won’t go into too much detail here. Basically, on the device, the Marketplace is simplified but you still have access to all its music, and searching was fast and accurate. Previewing music was instant, as was buying (none of the delay I have with the Windows client), and the download was fast (about three or four minutes to get a 50-minute album). If you have a Zune pass you can listen to your heart’s delight.

Critics are rightly pointing out that there are hardly any apps available (and those that are there are basic and slow to load), which is indeed a disappointment. There will be more available in time; after all, they’re not just launching a player but a new platform. Still, while it explains the lack of apps, it doesn’t make everything all right. The iPod touch absolutely kills the Zune in this respect, but in a few months you’ll have a lot of serious apps available that will close that gap somewhat: Facebook, YouTube, and so on.

Don’t get me start on the “showing ads before games” thing. That’s garbage and with luck Microsoft will realize it and pull the plug.

The Client

I’ve never really liked fancy media clients, but I do prefer Zune’s over iTunes. I think one of their taglines is “browse your music, not a spreadsheet,” or something, which is applicable if you don’t want to use the clumsy album art views in iTunes or the impractical but pretty Coverflow. Zune does give you more of your music front and center, especially in quickplay mode.

The main part of the client hasn’t changed noticeably since version 3, but they have added an entire new way to browse your music. The quickplay view (as opposed to the collection view) has the bio and pictures of whatever artist you’re listening to displayed attractively, with an ever-changing array of albums behind it. Nice for parties or HTPCs, or just as a break from the busy collection view with all its type.

(click to embiggen)

The Marketplace is as it was, for the most part, and until they get more content in the movies and HDTV sections it’s hard to pass judgment. The iTunes store is better-integrated with iTunes than the Marketplace is with Zune, in my opinion, and honestly looking for music on the device was faster and more pleasant than the desktop client.

The new “Smart DJ” playlist is exactly what it sounds like, basically a Genius clone. Difference here is you start it by just feeding it a track, which it analyzes for genre data, related artists and so on. I’ve never liked these things, but the Smart DJ has one up on Genius in that if you have a Zune Pass it’ll bring in a ton of tracks from the store to augment your own collection. Then of course, you can choose to keep them. If you don’t have a pass, it’ll display the tracks it’s selected but skip them, though you’ll have the option to buy them.

It’s sad as hell that there isn’t an OS X client, but maybe Microsoft figures that Mac users still aren’t a big market, since Apple herds them so effectively into the iTunes ecosystem. Still, I know plenty of people (and commenters) whose only objection to the Zune is the lack of a client for their favored OS. Keep requesting it, and hopefully the port fairy will leave a native client under your pillow.

The Radio

Works fine. HD radio stations are easy to navigate and favorite, and they sound great. You can pause and resume, buy tracks directly if the information is in the broadcast, or just… listen to the radio.

The TV interface

It’s been shown here and there, but here’s a rundown I baked just for you:

I like it a lot. It’s a pain that you have to use a dock all the time, though. I was looking forward to just carrying a cable and being able to blast out an HDMI signal from the device itself. Maybe they’ll come up with something that addresses this. To be honest, though it works great, I’d hold off on buying the dock for a bit to see if something more portable comes out.

In the meantime, the video looks fantastic; no sign of stutter or lag. I had some issues getting some videos to play, and the formats the device supports are pretty limited — no more so than other players, but it’s still annoying.

The Conclusion

It’s nearly impossible to recommend something without any reservations, but I think I can get by with only one: if you don’t want to buy Apple, buy Zune. The iPod touch still stands as the one device to rule them all, but it’s saddled with an increasingly punishing Apple architecture, something which the Zune is refreshingly free from. At the $220 point, the 16GB Zune HD undercuts Apple significantly, and at $290 is competitive. The Zune Pass sweetens the deal; subscription music still sounds weird to me, but like Pringles, once you start, you can’t stop.

It’s a beautiful, intuitive, fun-to-use PMP, and while it will soon have some extra capabilities in the form of nice apps and games (hopefully without ads, for the love of god), the Zune’s primary purpose is and has always been delivering (and expanding) your collection with style and gusto.

Seriously, people — this is a fantastic media player. Don’t take my word for it, though. Go to your local electronics store and see for yourself how good the screen is, how intuitive the interface is, and how right it feels in your pocket — you may not want to put it back when you’re done.

The bottom line is that the Zune HD is just as good as everyone wanted it to be, and way better than some people would have liked it to be.

11:06 Talking about how Sony is changing.

11:08 The 3d train is on the track. Focus on cinema 3d.

4k digital projectors. Up to 1300 3d projectors in Regal Cinemas.

11:14 3d content coming to Sky in UK and Blu Ray disks. Expect more 3d on tv next year.

Moto Storm on PS3 is pretty hot. 3d changes the experience.

Now talking about video delivery on the Playstation Network. Lots of European partners.

11:19 PSN content coming to other devices – not just Playstation/PSP. Huh.

New global brand message. Make.Believe.

Contribute content to Sony. Connects designers and engineers.

Seriously not sure what it means. It’s weird. It will connect brands, services, and content.

11:25 Fujio Nishida now on stage. President of Sony Europe. He says people are watching less TV.

TV programming is for sit back watching. Much more enjoyable if online content could hit the tv. Bravia tvs with new Bravia Internet Video.

Triple HD tuners for satellite users.

Blu Ray players will have built in wifi.

11:30 Exmor chips better low light video and stills. WX1 and TX1 are the flagship cameras. Sweep panorama mode creates a stitched image in a second.

Party Shot device for parties.
Pans and zooms as guests pass by.

Now talking about Alpha DSLRs.

Planning Twilight Football games. Games played at twilight in multiple countries.

11:41 Now for Sony Xperia X2 with winmo 6.5.

Sony readers. We’ve already seen them. Meh.

Walkmen. OLED touchscreens. Wearable walkmen. Boring Sydney booring.

Now Vaio X series. Sony ultralight. 11 inch screen. All day battery. Released next year.

11:48 All done.

OLED TVs were in major attendance at this year’s CES. Afterall, Sony declared that 2009 was going to be their year. But apparently the marketing flacks and bean counters are on difference softball teams because the thin TVs have been delayed because of Sony’s huge profit loses.

To summarize the subscription-only WSJ article the TVs have been delayed because of both the manufacturing cost and that Sony will lose money on the thin screen TVs. The original Sony OLED still sells for $2500 and it’s only a 11-inch screen. The examples at CES this year were a lot larger, but there wasn’t a MSRP anywhere to be seen. What Sony needs right now is mass-market, profitable TVs and that’s not OLED’s game.

But hopefully OLED TVs don’t go down the same vaporware path like SEDs. Samsung hasn’t announced any cuts in its OLED aspirations. Hopefully one day there will be a whole shelf of OLEDs at Best Buy and Walmart.

Ah, the netbook. Back in 1999 or so I remember one of my co-workers spent over $3,000 for a mini Sony Vaio PCG-C1, the kind with the tiny keyboard and woefully underpowered processor. Fast forward a decade and we’ve come full circle with the netbook. These still woefully underpowered laptops still have tiny keyboards but they cost a pittance and, for a certain subset of users, they’re some of the most compelling pieces of hardware to come out ofTaiwan and Japan in years.

Origin Story

The netbook was supposed to save the PC industry. Cast your memory back to 2007. We were just on the edge of the global financial precipice. Desktop sales were flat and laptop sales were soaring. All seemed fine. But there was a problem: the laptop market was considerably different than the desktop market. Desktop PCs sat comfortably in a den and were upgraded over time. Junior wanted to play The Sims so he installed a new graphics card. Sis wanted a scanner – she added an all-in-one. Dad was going through a mid-life crisis so he bought a new case. PCs generated sales in peripherals and, once the PC was maxed out, it was relegated to the basement and a new one purchased. PCs cost a pittance to make and could be sold at a slight profit.

Laptops, on the other hand, were stagnant. You bought a laptop and held onto it. For many it became a main computer, but one you never upgraded. You could add some memory and plug in a printer, but you weren’t purchasing overpriced graphics cards or hard drives.

In the years preceding the netbook, laptop manufacturers played with a few possible upgrade paths. First, they stuffed desktop hardware into laptops to create the Desktop Replacement. These massive laptops weren’t portable, had horrible battery life, and were prohibitively expensive. They knew that this was the wrong route towards riches.

Then they played with mini-PCs for the living room. These PCs fit in teeny-tiny cases and were supposed to sit next to your TV. Windows Media Center promised a 10-foot TV computing experience for all. I doubt many of us have actively used Windows Media Center – let alone Apple’s Front Row experience on the Mac Mini – in the intervening years.

These two branches of hardware manufacturing looked like dead ends. However, by learning how to stuff more technology into a tiny package, laptop manufacturers were able to use fairly low-power desktop chips inside tiny cases.

In about 2007 the OLPC suddenly appeared. The OLPC, if you’ll recall, was the proto-netbook. It was a woefully underpowered laptop for developing countries with a hand crank to charge it. It was great for kids who have never seen a computer but not so great for power-hungry Americans. I once saw a man who could be charitably called a massive geek – in a good way – whip out an OLPC at a conference. He started it up and its speaker began to quack like a scalded duck. It was, in general terms, useless as a real laptop.

Then Asus, a heretofore unknown PC company, hit upon an idea. Why not take cheap processors, stuff them into some of the small motherboards they had been working on, add a laptop screen and keyboard, and make a mini-laptop? They could stuff in Intel’s cheap new Atom processors and make something that is essentially a peripheral laptop. In a strategy that can be attributed to Pimp My Ride, laptop makers knew that consumers loved laptops so they decided to add a laptop to their laptops. The larger, more expensive laptop would sit quietly in the den while the netbook would scoot around the Internet, while you were on the couch watching TV or in the kitchen making pizza bagels.

Thus the eee PC was born. It was amazing. Laptops were now less expensive than some graphics cards. A $400 laptop was something the average consumer could stand behind. Sadly, manufacturers didn’t stand behind the consumer.

The Terrible Truth

The netbook will die soon. They were a cynical play by an industry in panic. They knew they couldn’t get people to buy expensive hardware so they sold inexpensive hardware at a massive discount, hoping against hope that they would sell enough units to make a profit. And profit they did. But, almost three years later, people are discovering the awful truth: netbooks are horrible. Devices like the Macbook Air, for example, are on par with hardware that came out at the turn of the century and the tiny notebooks we tested were fine for most purposes but try to get any real work done and you run into a wall. While they are striking, they’re unacceptably slow for most applications.

But, in a way, it doesn’t matter. You’re not supposed to run desktop apps on your netbook. In fact, you can bypass most of the major issues simply by focusing on web-based apps like Gmail and Zoho Office.

Also, try telling a cash-strapped consumer not to buy a netbook. It’s futile. Nintey-nine percent of computing time at home is spent on the web. Unless you’re a gamer, you probably fire up the laptop for porn or recipes and little else. So, on the aggregate, netbooks are just fine. But woe betide the netbook user who suddenly wants to do some video editing. Interestingly, many netbooks are going back to the store for exactly this reason: consumers feel conned by their relative uselessness.

What’s Next

The next logical step in the netbook world is the ultralight. These ultrathin laptops – think a better MacBook Air rather than eee PC – appeared briefly in about 2006 but disappeared when folks realized they still wanted optical drives. I remember bringing a Gateway ultralight to an IT shop once in about 2006 and the team thought it was an “old” notebook because it didn’t even have an optical drive.

Now, however, optical drives are all but useless. Streaming and downloading are the way to go. Therefore, expect to see ultralight laptops with screens 12 inches or bigger. The netbook will turn into what can only be described as an iPod Touch and manufacturers will fall over themselves trying to replace their mid-tier laptop line – the kind that you’d carry with you on a business trip – with ultralights that can actually do a little work. The prices will rise and crap notebooks like the Cloudbook will blow away.

Think ChromeOS will appear on netbooks? Think again. It may appear on devices similar to the CrunchPad but the netbook as we know it will soon be running Windows 7 and liking it.

Where Does That Leave Us?

It leaves us on the edge between notebooks and ultralights and so we dug up the best of the current crop of what we’d still call notebooks yet can actually run a few apps. The current MacBook Air is much more powerful than its predecessors and new processors from AMD and Intel will supplant the runty Atom with something like the Athlon Neo, a more balanced chip with a bit more speed.

However, the days of $200 laptops are numbered. There’s no profit in it. This race to the bottom has to stop and, although you will see laptops like the Lenovo Ideapad S10, below, netbooks will slowly migrate to faster – and more expensive – hardware. If this year’s COMPUTEX was any indication, this is the year of the ultralight.

This is not to say that $200 laptops will go away. Manufacturers have already opened that Pandora’s Box and can’t close it. But they will be marginalized by manufacturers and distributors.

That said, here are a few hotties that we played with over the past few weeks. N.B. Apple didn’t get back to us about the 13-inch MacBook or new Air in, but I’m sure Apple makes fine hardware, right?

To test we ran an AVI movie on repeat for a full battery cycle and then ran PrimateLabs Geekbench.

But I’m Shopping for a Netbook

What should you look for? Lots of memory – 2GB at least, and a 2GHz or better processor. A Core 2 Duo is probably your best bet at this point. Unless you’re absolutely sure you won’t even be watching video on your netbook, anything less is a waste of money. I’ve seen some netbooks that can barely surf YouTube let alone run Final Cut Pro.

Don’t be fooled by price. The cheapest netbook is the worst one. A laptop manufacturer can’t sell something for $350 and still add in any bells and whistles. Windows itself takes up a large percentage of a laptop’s cost.

Avoid Linux, at least the pre-installed versions. Sorry, Linux nerds, but it’s true. Buy an XP model and install Ubuntu or whatever later, but don’t get the Linux netbook because it’s cheaper. Maybe Chrome OS will change all that, but Linux-based netbooks are usually running some wonky, kiosk-oriented installation, making them nigh-on unusable.

Go major manufacturer. If there’s anything China is good at it’s creating OEM devices and badging them for sale in the US. All of those Sylvania, Everex, and CloudUnicornNotebooks you see online are exactly the same netbooks with a different sticker on the front. It may look like a bargain but it’s garbage.

Reviews

Click to read

Lenovo Ideapad S10-2

Price $349.00
Screen Size 10.2″
Processor Intel N270 1.6 ghz
Memory 1 GB
Benchmark 861
Battery Life 4:05
USB 3
Display out 1 VGA
Keyboard Tiny, but usable
Mouse A bit too small, side scroll
Bottom Line Priced to move. B

This small netbook uses its patterned gloss top to add a little pizzazz to an otherwise standard appearance. Despite its light weight (2.65 lbs according to Lenovo) it feels very solid, not flimsy or delicate.

Like all notebooks, its keyboard is rather small. However, it’s surprisingly usable. The key layout is very standard feeling, and with a little practice, or small hands, it would be just fine for any daily use. The touchpad is also cramped, though it also is intuitive after the first few minutes. It makes up for its small size by being sensitive. Not only that, it has some multi-touch features as well as standard side scrolling. The 1.3 Megapixel camera also works as a facial recognition system for logging in. An interesting feature sure to wow the ladies.

Hardware wise this machine is pretty standard, based on a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, it packs 1 gig of RAM for pretty standard netbook performance. Its battery life at 4:05 minutes while watching a movie also seems standard. Its 10.2” screen is very readable, and the colors are acceptable. The included Windows XP works great for its OS, and it will already be familiar to almost any purchaser.

MSI XSlim X340

Price $899.99
Screen Size 13″
Processor Intel U3500 1.4 ghz
Memory 2 GB
Benchmark 1248
Battery Life 2:18
USB 2
Display out 1 HDMI + 1 VGA
Keyboard Flimsy, standard size
Mouse unremarkable, no scroll
Bottom Line Nice styling, underpowered. B

Although this is an ultra-thin very light laptop, and it’s definitely sleek, I couldn’t help my immediate impression of cheapness. With plastic chrome accents on its ports that seem to have been put there in an attempt to distract from its ultra-bland, uniform gloss black finish, to complete its blandness all of its status lights are plain white. It almost looks like a laptop I could buy in a shady market somewhere in China. In the interest of fairness I tried to look past that. Aesthetics, after all, have little impact on the utility of a laptop, and it is weight and thickness are definitely impressive, especially at its price just under 900$. It may be the only sub-grand ultra-thin out right now.

Unfortunately I was immediately disenchanted again when I attempted to open it. A magnet holds the lid shut, and to open it, you have to grip the lid by the narrowest of lips, then suddenly, its vaunted lightness is working against you because the bottom wasn’t heavy enough to separate the magnet. I had to use my fingernails to open it the first time. After the first time though, the problem seemed to get less and less extreme every time I opened it. Now it seems to open just fine. So again, I forgive it, after all everything has a break-in period.
Once opened, I like the screen, its colors are 13.4” screen looks good. Its colors are bright and vibrant, brought out by the glossy screen. The keyboard looks good with large un-crowded keys. Unfortunately they also have a problem. The whole keyboard flexes alarmingly. While unsettling, and in general adding to my impression of cheapness, it doesn’t actually interfere with typing. The keys are large, and have a satisfying amount of resistance, which makes up for the flex after the first few minutes of typing. The touchpad is acceptable, its smooth plastic finish is very usable and familiar, and the uni-piece button has a satisfying press and subtle click. The pad itself seems to be missing any scroll features though, no side scroll or 2-finger, it brings back fond memories of Windows 98 when I had to click and drag the scrollbar down.
On the hardware side, this laptop runs on a single core Intel Ultra Low Voltage processor, which along with a much better than netbook integrated Intel GPU means it benchmarked significantly higher than a netbook. Along with this comes higher power consumption, and when your keeping it as light as this (2.7 lb) that means short batter life. In our test it lasted 2:18. Honestly, despite its shortcomings, using this laptop was fine. It’s definitely quicker than a netbook, even running Vista. Its large screen and keyboard make it feasible as your main computer, while still maintaining great portability. The price is even pretty good, and if you are want a netbook supersize, they even make a model that runs on an Intel Atom.

Dell Adamo

Price $1,998
Screen Size 13.4-inches
Processor Intel U9400 1.4 ghz
Memory 4 GB
Benchmark 2010
Battery Life 3:07
USB 2 + 1 eSata/USB
Display out 1 Displayport
Keyboard Backlit, Large, good
Mouse Nice pad, bad buttons, side scroll
Bottom Line Amazingly slick, expensive. B+

This sleek ultra-thin laptop looks great. Its black-brushed aluminum body is accented by a strip of high gloss plastic. When you open it, the first thing you notice is the large backlit keys with huge futuristic font glowing at you. When you type on them they are satisfying, and probably my favorite feature of this whole machine. The touchpad also is really nice, one of the best textures I’ve come across. It’s an ultra fine-brushed metal that feels incredibly smooth. The mouse buttons I am much less sold on. They click loudly, and require a deceivingly firm push, deceiving because of a slight play in the buttons. The high-gloss, 13.4” screen looks great, very vibrant, but that’s inside. Its so shiny, I suspect if you tried to use this in the sun, it had better be to do your make-up. That’s not the only problem with this laptop. It’s all about the appearance. The hardware inside it is less than exciting, especially for the base model’s starting price of just under $2000. Its processor is an Intel Core 2 duo running at 1.4 GHz. Although it has 4 gigs of RAM, it acts sluggish constantly. Its battery life is its most impressive performance point, and in our test it lasted 3:07 hours. This laptop was clearly designed to look good, and it definitely does, but for the kind of money you have to pay for it I would have expected better performance.

Lenovo Thinkpad T400s

Price $1,599
Screen Size 14.1″
Processor Intel P9400 2.4 ghz
Memory 2 GB
Benchmark 2753
Battery Life 2:22
USB 2 + 1 eSata/USB
Display out 1 Displayport + 1 VGA
Keyboard Very standard, good, Top lit
Mouse Nice texture, satisfying, 2 finger scroll
Bottom Line Excellent build quality, speed. A

This laptop looks just like Thinkpads for years. It does because that look is utilitarian, logical, and well thought out. Its keyboard feels perfectly standard, requiring no getting used to, my one small complaint is that the control key is not the bottom corner, it is one in from the corner, and as a result I have hit the function key accidentally often. The touchpad has an interesting texture that I like, a fine grid of tiny bumps. It makes using the touchpad very tactile. The touchpad also allows you to 2-finger scroll. There is of course also the ThinkPad’s signature “trackpoint” nub.
An interesting feature is the built in keyboard light, which makes so much more sense to me than backlit keys. With the LED keyboard light you get some ambient light that you could read by or whatever you need. The 14” monitor looks fine, it can get quite bright, to the point it hurts my eyes inside, but that combined with a matte finish screen makes this laptop feasible to outside use on a sunny day. Those combine to make this a laptop that is useful virtually anywhere I would normally be. Combine that with its light weight (3.9 lb) and you have one of the most useful laptops available. Hardware wise it’s also very capable, based around a 2.4 GHz Intel Core2 Duo, it has 2 or 3 gigs DDR3 of memory. Of course running all that while keeping the weight down means that the battery life is less that phenomenal, and during our tests died after 2:22 hours. This laptop is the one for you if you need a powerful easily portable laptop you can use almost anywhere.

with Berkeley Beyers

The futuristic OLED bracelet has a 4-inch display with a 100ppi resolution/QVGA (320 x RGB x 240 pixels), shows 1.67 million colors and features a luminance of 100cd/m². Weighing 8g, the panel is just 0.3mm thick (as thin as an OLED screen Sony showed last year). This is certainly a cool prototype (just like Samsung’s much larger and thinner “flapping display”), but it’s just a prototype and it seems we have to wait a few more years before we can lay our hands on large-sized OLEDs.

Via Tech-On

OLED TVs sure offer phenomenal picture quality, but even now, 2 years after Sony launched its XEL-1, we still wait for large-screen versions. Samsung showcased a 40-inch OLED display last year (pictured). Now Panasonic might be onto something bigger. The company is planning to develop the world’s first OEL panel that’s sized at “40 inches or larger” by fiscal 2010.

Panasonic will team up with major chemical company Sumitomo Chemical to produce the OLED displays in a new LCD TV plant Panasonic will open in summer next year. The companies said by 2015, their 40-inch OLED TVs should boast a power consumption of 40W, a third of current LCD TVs and just 10% of what existing plasma TVs of that size use.

The TVs are also expected to be just 3mm thick and 20 times brighter than plasma displays that are on the market today. We can’t wait (for affordable OEL panels).

Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]

Sony Japan today announced the NW-X1000 series [JP], consisting of two Walkman, the NW-X1050 with 16GB internal memory and the 32GB NW-X1060. The so-called X-Series was introduced to the general public for the first time back in January (during the CES 2009).

Both models will be available in Japan from April 25 (in black and red). Sony hasn’t said yet when American and Europeans will be able to lay their hands on the devices. In Japan, the 16GB model will cost $400, while the 32GB version will be priced at $500.

The Walkman comes with a cool 3-inch OLED touchscreen (240×432 resolution), WiFi (IEEE 802.11b/g), YouTube support, noise cancellation function and a One-Seg digital TV tuner (that only makes sense in Japan and Brazil). You can play your audio files as MP3/HE-AAC/AAC/WMA/linear PCM/ATRAC/ATRAC Advanced Lossless and video in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and MPEG-4/WMV formats.

Sized at 97.4×52.5×10.5mm, it’s considerably smaller than an iPod Touch (see the picture above).

Watch it in action in the video below.

Via Impress [JP]

Last year in August, Sony promised Europeans will get the world’s first commercialized OLED TV, the XEL-1, “sometime next year”. Now  the 11-inch screen is available in the UK, which is probably a good thing. But the problem is the price.

Sony UK’s site is already listing the device (but without price information) and it goes on sale today. Reportedly, the XEL-1 comes with a price tag of $5,000, which is significantly higher than the US price ($2,500) or what the Japanese have to pay ($2,000) [JP].

No idea who is responsible for Sony UK’s global pricing strategy but this price is unbelievable. Still, Sony claims they received hundreds of pre-orders already.

What’s even more noteworthy is that the price German customers have to pay is even higher. Sony Germany lists the device for $5,700…

Engadget via OLED Display Net

Sony’s 2009 CES booth is showing off some sick, like sickly sick, thin sets. Primarily are these OLED Proof of Technology models that are dead sexy even to me. Chances are none of these will ever see a Euro snob loft. They are just concepts and there is nothing wrong with that. That thin TV, it’s .9 millimeter thick – or is that thin? Hmmm.

Apparently Sony has more OLED news at the CES keynote tomorrow evening. Interesting…Photo gallery after the jump.

Through an alliance with CarbonFund(TM), Motorola offsets the energy required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The plastic housing of MOTO W233 is 100 percent recyclable and made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles, and the packaging was also created with the environment in mind.

100 percent recyclable? So is everything, given enough processing. Plastic comprised of recycled water bottles? Want a cookie? What about the 5 million RAZRs now paving the bottom of countless rivers? Environmental packaging? If you stuff the thing into a bag made of fruit roll-ups, I’ll go along with you. Otherwise, weak sauce.

Even if they offset their carbon credits with the good wood elves of Sylvan Glade, this is still a phone and it will still end up in a filthy landfill picked over by the poorest of the poor in rural China. Once everyone figures out that they can sell a few carbon credits to get the “Carbon Neutral” seal of approval on their box, they’ll hop on the bandwagon. But don’t worry! Everyone and their dog will be offering the biggest this, the smallest that, and the greenest of the other.

My problem is this: in this race to get that amazing headline (”Panasonic releases 200-inch television with dedicated team of Sherpas to change the channel”) we turn away from real progress. I don’t want to single Motorola out, but unless they or Panasonic or Sony have build a special hardware recycling system that turns your old Walkman into reusable scrap without harming the environment all of these 200-inch TVs are nothing but a waste of hot air.

We, as consumers, are beyond this, aren’t we? Are we really amazed by 7mm televisions anymore? OLED TVs the size of postage stamps? “Green” phones that will inevitably end up in the trash? Here is my request to CE makers: take 2009 off. Look over all the research your performed in the past 20 years about green tech (I remember one presentation by Sony showing styrofoam that dissolved in orange oil. That was cool.) and implement it. We’re not going to be buying your crap this year anyway, so why not pop out of the other end of 2010 with a set of green technologies that are real and not just a smokescreen. And stop with the big/thin/long TVs already. We get it: you bought a new glass factory outside of Seoul and you have to do something with it. Just don’t take us all down with you.

Sony’s razor-thin OLED display (thickness: 0.3mm) was one of the most spectacular products of the CEATEC 2008 exhibition that took place just outside of Tokyo last month. Now Samsung, after having the tech world impressed with its “flapping OLED display”, showcased a similar device during the FPD International 2008 in Tokyo.

Samsung’s 15 million-color display boasts a screen size of 6.5 inches and a resolution of 480×272. The company said it didn’t use conventional glass for the substrate and decided to go for low-temperature polysilicon TFT for the drive element.

Via Tech-On

Sony unveiled a spectacular OLED display (curved, 0.3mm thin) at the CEATEC 2008 exhibition earlier this month, only to be followed by a product from Samsung, which the company calls “flapping display”.

The Samsung display is just 0.05mm thin (yes, that’s millimeters) and currently being showcased at the FPD International 2008 in Tokyo. According to the company, the 4-inch panel could even be made thinner (even though its thickness already comes close to that of paper). The display features a contrast ratio of 100,000:1, a luminance of 200cd/m² and 480 × 272 resolution.

Via Tech-On

Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au yesterday unveiled new cell phones for its year-end sales campaign. Priced between $400 and $550, the first handsets will be sold in early November.

Here is the complete line-up:

Hitachi Wooo 63H
(featuring a 3.1-inch OLED display)

Casio Exilim W63 CA
(equipped with a 8.1 megapixel camera, more info)

Sharp Aquos W64SH
(featuring a 3.5-inch screen with 854×480 resolution and 2,000:1 contrast ratio)

Toshiba W65T
(equipped with a “Mobile Regza Engine” for improved energy conservation)

Kyocera W65K
(featuring a wireless music function and a waterproof One-Seg digital TV tuner at a thickness of 15.8mm)

Sony Ericsson W64S
(equipped with a built-in antenna for One-Seg digital TV at a thickness of 14.9mm)

Panasonic W62P
(12.9mm thin, featuring a “cosmetic conscious” design)

Here are all models from KDDI’s spring line-up presented in June.

The second video shows a 40-inch Bravia full HD TV that is just 9.9mm at its thinnest part (they made it flip so it looks good on video). That’s it from Sony at CEATEC this year. But the OLED screen is really cool.

It’s the third of five days at CEATEC 2008, Asia’s biggest exhibition for consumer electronics (think Asia’s CES), and I must say it’s better than last year.

Here are my impressions of the exhibition:

1)
The level of internationalization at CEATEC stands at an estimated 5%. I am seriously wondering how foreign journalists are able to understand what is actually being showcased. 99% of all text-based information is Japanese-only (brochures, maps, booth displays, etc.).

Most of the staffers at the booths can hardly speak English, which is not really helpful either (I am fortunate to speak Japanese).

2)
The number of real innovations is too low: too many flat screens (yawn), a huge/deserted Blu-ray-only booth (seriously), obvious vaporware, etc. etc. Who cares if a flat screen is now 1.2cm thin instead of 1.3cm?

But this is probably an issue at most tech exhibitions.

3)
Tech powerhouses like Pioneer, Sharp and Hitachi totally disappoint this year. For example, Sony is displaying its 11-inch OLED TV XEL-1 again this year and in almost the same manner as 2007.

4)
Despite of the lack of innovations, Japan shows that it’s still a tech nation to be reckoned with. Some of the tech I saw at CEATEC 2008 is just amazing. Panasonic’s virtual wall for the living room, for example, is fantastic.

I will keep covering the highlights of the event in a series of posts over the next days.

Sony caused a worlwide sensation at last year’s CEATEC by introducing the XEL-1 during the event, its mini OLED TV, which boasts a thickness of just 3 mm (1.4 mm at its thinnest part).

This year, the general public gets to see a OLED display that is just 0.3 mm at its thinnest part (otherwise, the 11-inch screen is technically identical to the XEL-1).

In the US, Sony showcased the ultrathin OLED prototype (under heavier security arrangements) during the D6 conference in May. It was also displayed at the Sony Dealer Convention 2008 [JP], which was held earlier this month in Tokyo.

Sony wants to be the number one TV company by the year 2010.  To that end, they’ve announced three sexy new products today at IFA.

The Bravia EX-1 PictureFrame television is a wall-mountable LCD television that utilizes wireless HDMI to reduce cables going to your set.  It’s designed to look good on your wall, as though a piece of art.  The wireless HDMI has a range of about 30 meters, so you can tuck that little white box under the couch or in the closet.

The Bravia ZX-1 uses edge-mounted LEDs to get a display only 9.9 millimeters thick.  It also uses wireless HDMI and has a 200Hz display for even crisper motion presentation.

The Bravia XEL-1 is Sony’s OLED offering, boasting a 3 mm thick display and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.  It also measures response time in micro seconds, rather than milliseconds.

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According to information the Nikkei, Japan’s largest business daily, spread today, Sony will finally start selling its XEL-1 mini OLED TV in Europe “sometime next year”. The device made its debut in the US in January, while it hit Japanese stores December 2007.

Sony will become the first company offering OLED TVs in Europe. The price is unknown at this point.

The company is planning to invest over $200 million in the mass production of larger OEL screens by the end of this fiscal year. Sony is not alone: Matsushita (Panasonic) is expected to build prototype 40-inch OLED displays in early 2009, with plans of offering them to Japanese customers in 2011. Samsung plans to roll out 14-inch OLED TVs in 2010.

The American market research firm DisplaySearch recently said they expect about 2.8 million OLED to be shipped globally by 2012.