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Orange Tahiti Android Tablet

Gordon — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:12:12 +0000

Orange has a new approach to selling tablets which is both a bargain and a rip-off. Why? Find out in my reviews of Orange Tahiti for TrustedReviews and Mobile Choice. A sample of my review for Mobile Choice is below:

Orange Tahiti Android tablet

Gordon Kelly (for Mobile Choice)
20 January 2012

Apple shocked the market when its iPad tablet didn’t cost as much as a small car, and now consumers expect to get good prices when shopping for slates. As such Orange has surprised everyone by releasing the Orange Tahiti tablet – the cheapest and yet most expensive tablet on the market.

The Cheapest, but most expensive tablet

This confusion comes because the Orange Tahiti (aka Huawei MediaPad) pushes a concept that remains relatively new in the UK: tablets on contract. It is cheap because for £69 this dual-core, seven-inch, 3G-equipped Android tablet can be yours. It’s expensive because it requires the signing of a two-year, £25 per month data contract that provides 2GB of data per month and brings the total cost of ownership to £669. That is £10 more than a 64GB iPad 2 with 3G.

So is the Tahiti a bargain? Yes and no.

Why it seems a bargain

Fighting for a yes verdict are the build quality, features and specification. On the outside the Tahiti is very well made. The design may not be inspiring, but the metal sides and rounded rear hark back to the original iPhone while the drilled speaker, power and mini HDMI ports could have come straight off an iPhone 4S (if Apple supported HDMI). Inside the Tahiti impresses too with a dual core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of native storage that can be enlarged by a further 32GB thanks to a microSD card slot.

Switch the Tahiti on and the positive impressions continue. For once Orange hasn’t burdened a product with its gaudy themes and bloatware apps and the Android 3.0-based Tahiti is far better off for it, especially with Hauwei promising an upgrade to Android 4.0 in February.

Continue reading on Mobile Choice

(Link to my review of the Tahiti for TrustedReviews)

Big Brother: How ACTA Brings SOPA’s Threat to a Global Scale

Gordon — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:34:31 +0000

Most people have never heard of ACTA, but it could soon change the Internet – forever.

Big Brother: How ACTA Brings SOPA’s Threat to a Global Scale

By Gordon Kelly
Published 29 January 2012 (for TrustedReviews)

“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed–would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper–the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”

- George Orwell, 1984, Book One, Chapter One

On 20 January 2012 in the United States Congress’s lower chamber, Rep. Lamar Smith, sponsor of the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ (SOPA) said he would postpone consideration of the legislation and delay the Senate vote on its counterpart, the ‘Protect IP Act’ (PIPA). The decision was heralded as a victory for free speech and net neutrality, helped by a high profile blackout of websites from the likes of Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla and WordPress. It was a battle, it was not the war.

SOPA has a big brother, it is called ACTA (the ‘Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’) and 24 hours after SOPA was derailed in Congress ACTA was signed off by the European Union and 22 member states, including the UK. A signing ceremony on 1 October 2011 had already garnered the signatures of Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and yes, the United States. ACTA would make SOPA irrelevant by establishing an international legal framework and global governing body for the enforcement of intellectual property. It would be able to work outside international institutions such the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations.

Excluding its accountability, the theory behind ACTA is sound: commonly agreed laws, crack down procedures on counterfeit goods (including generic imitations) and approved legal recourse could well simplify the chaotic and occasionally brutal actions currently taken. Unfortunately there is a problem: ACTA appears to be rotten to the core. We say ‘appears’ for the simple reason that since ACTA was first announced (way back in October 2007) very little of its content has been made public since it was created by unelected industry negotiators and lobbied directly to politicians. What has been revealed makes for disturbing reading…

Libratone Live AirPlay Speaker

Gordon — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:45:59 +0000

Beautifully designed, individual, intuitive and excellent sound quality, so why does this AirPlay speaker fractionally miss the mark?

Libratone Live AirPlay Speaker review

Reviewed by Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
26 January 2012

Price as reviewed: £599.99

Overall score - 8/10

Key Features

AirPlay enabled
150W total output
Chrome, wood & (optional) cashmere wool finish
No dock/device charging

Chances are your current phone looks like your last phone and in turn it will look like your next phone. With the introduction of Ultrabooks the same could be said for laptops in a few years, while TVs continue their evolution into a single, wafer-thin piece of glass. We’re not saying these transformations aren’t desirable, or at least understandable, but it is getting a bit dull. One sector where there is still room for design creativity is audio with unusual speakers and docks appearing on a regular basis and Libratone exemplifies this more daring dynamic to the full …

Following on from its impressive if expensive Lounge, it has launched the Libratone Live – a smaller, relatively more affordable, equally stylish speaker for your iPhone or iPod. In tech spec terms this means dimensions of 47 x 19.5 x 15cm and 6.5Kg verses 100 x 22 x 12cm and 12Kg, £599 verses £1,099 and the same premium build materials with a casing primarily made of wood and covered in wool. Most intriguing, however, is that despite the size and cost differences the Live matches the 150W output of the Lounge and that makes it a very interesting product indeed.

Before we get to audio though, let’s get back to style. Coming from the same family the Live may look like the Lounge, but otherwise it looks like no other speaker on the market. Taking it out the box you are initially struck by the weight (it is 300g heavier than a Zeppelin Air), but this quickly gives way to curiosity when you realise what appears to be a wool cover is in fact the finish of the speaker itself. This doesn’t immediately make a strong first impression – our unit was covered with pieces of foam from its packaging which had to be meticulously picked out – but you quickly warm to this softer, tactile surface which gives it warmth and even friendliness that is lacking from the myriad of cold, piano black devices that flood the market. It is as if a Toblerone packet and a teddy bear had offspring.

As mentioned, this finish is common to the Lounge, but where it differs for its big brother is its portrait orientation (which despite its overall size gives it a footprint smaller than many speakers) and a Chrome handle on the rear which provides an element of portability. Minimalism is again central to the Live with a 3.5mm jack the only input and no dock or device charging available. Instead how the Live connects is with AirPlay. Apple’s lossless, wireless streaming protocol is a wonderfully elegant and dongle-free technology, but can be frustratingly complex to setup. Thankfully, given the Live’s lack of other connectivity, it has produced the most intuitive process to date (see video above), so you’ll be up and running within minutes. Continue reading

2012: The Crunch Year For RIM

Gordon — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:07:01 +0000

Weekly takeover rumours, plummeting results and the exit of both co-CEOs suggest RIM needs a rethink.

2012: The Crunch Year For RIM

By Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
Published 21 January 2012

In April last year we posed the question: Is RIM the Next Nokia? Nine months on the continued decline of the Canadian smartphone giant makes that seem like wishful thinking.

“We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in it”. This was Samsung’s brutal and dismissive response to news last week that Research in Motion was trying to sell itself to the South Korean giant. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of the put down, RIM also denied the reports – as it has denied sales to Nokia, Microsoft and Amazon. The picture is getting tired. Much like a teenager looking for a date it allows rumours of interest to escalate then becomes angry and curt when each potential partner shoots them down. The “well-I-didn’t-care-about-them-anyway” approach.

Regardless of whether any of these stories are true, however, being shot down so comprehensively by its peers can’t be doing RIM’s confidence any good. And sure enough, over the weekend both co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis and James Balsillie [above] stepped down from their roles to be replaced by previously little-known executive Thorsten Heins [below], who for the time being will continue with the company’s existing plans.

“The last few quarters have been some of the most trying in the recent history of this company,” admitted Balsillie after the company’s latest round of financial results in December. “We recognize that our shareholders may feel we have fallen short, in terms of product execution, market share, and financial performance… We are leaving no stone unturned, and are evaluating a number of areas including product management and the number of SKUs offered, supply chain and bill of material cost efficiency, marketing and advertising, partnership and licensing opportunities, organizational and management structure, [and] opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry infrastructure.”

In short: RIM will try anything. Continue reading

Teac NS-X1 AirPlay Speaker Dock

Gordon — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:44:42 +0000

Slim, affordable, stylish and AirPlay equipped so why does it all go so horribly wrong?

Teac NS-X1 AirPlay Speaker Dock

Reviewed by Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
18 January 2012

Price as reviewed: £199.00

Overall score - 5/10

Key Features

AirPlay
Internet Radio
WiFi (802.11b/g)
2x 10W speakers with Bass reflex
Ethernet Port

Teac deserves a lot of credit. The Japanese company may not set pulses racing, but it has exceptional distribution channels making it one of the most visible tech brands on the UK high street. Its products aren’t without merit either, particularly in the dog-eat-dog sector of iPod docks where the Aurb and Mini Aurb have been notable highlights in recent years. Unfortunately 2012 isn’t off to such a good start…

The NS-X1 looks great on paper. Teac markets it as “the coolest, slimmest AirPlay System” and from a superficial perspective it has a point. Measuring just 55mm deep at its thickest point (9.5mm at its thinnest), the NS-X1 is certainly the most svelte AirPlay equipped dock we’ve seen to date and weighs only 2.1Kg. It also has a clean, almost retro, design aesthetic. For those living under a rock, AirPlay is Apple’s proprietary wireless streaming technology that allows Macs, iPads, iPods and iPhones to stream lossless quality audio to any AirPlay equipped speaker without the need for dongles or additional peripherals.

The trouble is high costs have limited adoption of AirPlay and products which do feature it often have high asking prices. Again the NS-X1 scores well here, coming in at under £200. Teac further raises the value of the NS-X1 with built in Internet Radio and PC streaming while the design is fully wall mountable. The NS-X1 stereo speakers aren’t earth shattering at just 2x 10W with Bass reflex, though an FM tuner, auxiliary and Ethernet inputs, DLNAcompatibility and a bright OLED display suggest value for money.

Sadly, much as you should never judge a book by its cover, you should never judge a product by its spec sheet. While the NS-X1 looks the part, a closer look reveals the dock to be poorly constructed. This is a device built from top to bottom with low grade plastics: display, speaker grill, buttons, everything. The NS-X1 doesn’t feel as if it will fall apart in your hands, but hold it near its ports and the rear section creaks and clacks – the latter a sound that also describes the noise of using the control buttons along the top. The whole experience feels like an exercise in cost cutting.

Why Microsoft Is Turning Into Apple

Gordon — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:41:32 +0000

A raft of company decisions show its focus is changing dramatically, but why and is it a good thing?

Why Microsoft Is Turning Into Apple

By Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
14 January 2012

CES 2012 is at an end, and with it, so is the event’s final Microsoft keynote. CES 2013 will be a very different show without the presence of the Remond-based company, but those changes could be minimal compared to how Microsoft hopes to change over the same timeframe. Whisper it: Microsoft is turning into Apple.

“We won’t have a keynote or booth [at CES] after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing,” forewarned Microsoft corporate communications VP Frank X. Shaw in December. “As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories – from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores – it feels like the right time to make this transition.”

Shaw could well be right about CES’s timing. This year the show was moved back a week to make it easier for companies returning from the Christmas and New Year break, but its placement hasn’t hindered Microsoft much in the past. Over the years CES has been the stage Microsoft has delivered a raft of important firsts including the first public demo of the Xbox, Windows Media Center (at the time called ‘Freestyle’), the first beta of Windows 7 and the news of ARM support in Windows 8. Microsoft has also been the key CES partner, with Gates and Ballmer in turns hosting the pre-show keynote address.

Numerous reasons have been levelled for the split, from stand rates to contract lengths, but the truth is Microsoft these days seeks something CES cannot deliver: control. While the company talks up search, the Cloud and its Metro UI, the real focus for the years ahead is to take back control of its image and to lock down the performance of its PC and mobile platforms which have been damaged so badly by lackadaisical third parties.

Inside Intel’s battle to keep Stephen Hawking talking

Gordon — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:41:12 +0000

Over the weekend of 7-8 January I attended Stephen Hawking’s 70th Birthday Symposium held at Cambridge University. I learnt about science, the cosmos and the very human battle waged to keep one of our generation’s most important scientists in contact with the world. Here is my write-up of that battle for Wired UK.

Inside Intel’s battle to keep Stephen Hawking talking

By Gordon Kelly (for Wired)

11 January 12

“I was here in October and I plugged my phone in when I went to bed and when I woke up in the morning it was completely dead. It would not boot, would not charge, would not do anything and I suddenly had the realisation my whole life had collapsed into this little device.”

Justin Rattner could not have begun our conversation more aptly. Intel’s chief technology officer has been at the Mountain View, California company for nearly 40 years. He has two Intel Achievement Awards, stands on its Research and Academic Advisory Councils and has been named one of the 200 individuals currently having the greatest impact on the US computer industry. He also has a passion project: heading up the team that works tirelessly to evolve the technology that keeps Stephen Hawking communicating with the outside world.

“It got started about 15 years ago,” says Rattner, an endearing man with a broad, almost child-like, smile. “Stephen and Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore were at a conference together and Gordon saw the machine Stephen was using had an AMD processor and he said something to the effect of ‘How would you like a real computer?’ and Stephen said ‘Fine, that would be great’. Gordon asked the UK team to get engaged with Stephen and his support folks and provide him with a new Intel-based machine and it has just carried on. As the technology has improved they have continued to upgrade his system.”

Hawking has motor neurone disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons in the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their motor functions. He was diagnosed in 1963, shortly after his 21st birthday, and given just a few years to live. Fast-forward five decades and Rattner was in town because the renowned scientist was about to celebrate his 70th birthday and a symposium with friends, family, scholars and noted academics had been arranged by the University of Cambridge in his honour. As if to remind the world of his fragile condition Hawking ultimately missed the event due to ill health, but left arousing pre-recorded speech that looked back on his life, studies, illness and the importance of hope: “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet”.

This bout of illness will pass, but for Rattner the challenge of Hawking’s ALS will not. Continue reading

Why Ultrabooks Are Enforced Common Sense

Gordon — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:30:57 +0000

The Ultrabook is an Intel intervention for the wayward PC industry… and crucially, it might just work.

Why Ultrabooks Are Enforced Common Sense

By Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
09 January 2012

2012 is predicted to be the year of the tablet, but if aliens had landed at CES this week they would have their attentions drawn by another product entirely: the Ultrabook. In the show’s first 24 hours Acer launched the Aspire S5, HP the Envy Spectre, Lenovo the T430u, LG the Z330 and Z430, Samsung the Series 5 and Dell the XPS 13.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Intel PC client chief Mooly Eden used the company’s press conference to proclaim ”75-plus” Ultrabooks will be released in 2012, 50 per cent of which will have 14- and 15in displays. Have Ultrabooks taken over the PC industry? No, enforced common sense has.

If the last few years have proved anything, it is that the majority of PC makers had no idea what they were doing. Like kamikaze pilots they have savaged their own business models: eroding profit margins, cutting corners and casting aside creativity to produce generic machines only differentiated by their company logo. This trend reached its nadir with netbooks. These once lean, flash memory-based devices with Linux operating systems were ruined in a spiral of self destructive greed.

In the very definition of quantity over quality, PC makers swamped netbooks with Windows, plugged in cheap hard drives and stuck rigidly to underpowered specifications dictated to them by Microsoft. Why? In exchange for a few dollars off a licence fee for the aged XP operating system in the hope bargain-basement pricing would ensnare the mass market. It did, but so poor was the experience, so mis-sold was it in a desperate attempt to shift units, that PC makers all but killed any chance of repeat business – and in doing so laid the foundations for disgruntled punters to jump ship to the iPad.

The Biggest Winners & Losers In 2012

Gordon — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:04:32 +0000

I take a look ahead at who will rise and who will fall over the next 12 months.

The Biggest Winners & Losers In 2012

By Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
07 January 2012

With CES nearly upon on (the intrepid TrustedReview team flies out today) andMobile World Congress next month the technology landscape hits the ground running every year. So who is likely to make the winners circles in 2012 and who will wish theMayan prediction was actually true? Let’s break down our four major categories:

TVs & Entertainment
2012 looks set to be the year television gets a much needed shake-up. We railed against the Idiocy of Smart TVs in January last year and in 2012 these fragmented, unintuitive devices look set to make way to the same mobile platforms which have dominated smartphones. The big news is the rumoured Apple television, but this has a Q4 timeframe and remains vapourware until we hear more. Until then expansion of the Apple TV media player will be crucial. Much like iPods are gateways to iPhones, the Apple TV is a cheap access point to iOS and potentially an Apple television and App Store access is surely inevitable. Siri voice control and using iOS devices as touchscreen remotes seem obvious future attributes as well.

As a unified platform Google and Android won’t be far behind with interest in Google TVagain rising. Both Google and Apple are rumoured to be interested in bidding for Premier League TV rights too and their app store video content already provides a mass of on-demand content. As with smartphones it seems their platforms hold the key to television’s evolution with only Microsoft’s united phone, PC and Xbox infrastructure likely to represent a challenge.

As such the losers could well be everyone else, at least by 2013. Hardware makers like Sony, Samsung and LG – already Android handset partners – are set to adopt a similar manufacturing only role over time (plus the inevitable third party Google TV skins). This isn’t to say these companies lose out financially, but their control over the sector certainly hands over to the platform makers while they squabble over hardware differentiators such as the impending clamour for OLED and glasses-free 3D. Likewise Sky’s vice-like grip on broadcast content seems only to have a shelf life for as long as it takes the UK time to attain ubiquitous high speed Internet connections.

Winners: Apple, Google, maybe Microsoft
Losers: Traditional TV manufacturers as hardware margins squeeze & platforms unify

Continue Reading for Cameras, Laptops & tablets, mobile phones, gaming and social networking.

Synology DiskStation DS411slim

Gordon — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:06:28 +0000

Critics lambaste the value of NAS with 2.5in drives, but Synology has shown how to make a corker.

Synology DiskStation DS411slim

Reviewed by Gordon Kelly (for TrustedReviews)
05 January 2012

Price: £229.00

Scores in detail

Design: 9/10
Features: 9/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 9/10

Thin is in. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking laptops, tablets, phones or TVs, these days less is considered more and that even applies to the humble NAS. As such we find ourselves testing the Synology DiskStation DS411slim, an evolution of the excellent (if rather chunky) DS411j.

While not strictly a successor (the DS411j supports 4x 3.5in HDDs, the slim just 4x 2.5in) the design of the DS411slim shows just how important svelte lines have become to all aspects of technology. Gone are the DS411j’s white and beige colouring to be replaced by a mixture of matt and gloss black and the jutted front of the DS411j is replaced by a more rectangular and minimalist form factor. The slim also lives up to its name: disk free it measures just 120 X 105 X 142 mm and weighs 660g. All in all the slim is about as attractive a NAS as we can remember, build quality is top notch and drives bays slot in without the need for screws. If this is a glimpse of the styling Synology will use across future lines then it bodes very well indeed.

Equally promising is what Synology has done on the inside. Compared to the heftier DS411j, the slim has received a decent processor bump from 1.2GHz to 1.6GHz while memory has been upgraded from 128MB of DDR2 RAM to 256MB of DDR3. Just a single 60 x 60 x 10mm fan sees the slim produce a barely detectable 21.1dB of noise, though this will change depending on the noise of each drive you add.

Of course here we hit a snag inherent in any 2.5in-only NAS: capacity and cost. For while the DS411Slim is small, light and quiet and can hold four drives, the most capacious 2.5in HDD is just 1TB. This means a maximum internal capacity of 4TB, or 3TB with redundancy. With 4TB 3.5in HDDs now shipping a larger 3.5in compatible NAS with four bays can hit 16TB. 2.5in drives are also far more expensive per gigabyte so you’ll be paying more for less. It is worth noting the slim has two USB 2.0 ports and one eSATA for connecting additional external drives, but such extra bulk would ruin the point of buying a sleek NAS in the first place. The key message is to remember Synology is selling the NAS equivalent of an iPad nano, not a Classic. Continue Reading