Gizmo Logs

Apple OSX Leopard, First Review (Verdict: Good)

Three reviews are in from USA Today, WSJ and NYT and they’re all positive (though some more positive than others).

USA Today Review: Ed Baig says it “hits all the right spots”—a obvious pun, but it gets right to the heart of his review. He continues to say that OS X is superior to Windows (especially with the latest iteration), but points out the Boot Camp feature for people who need both. Upgrading for him was super easy, as was using Time Machine for backing up or migrating files, the iChat video chat/theater, the upgraded Mail.app, and the improved desktop, Finder (file browser), and .Mac features. It reads like a shortened Leopard feature checklist with the praise preceding or following each item, which shows how much of a thumbs up Baig is giving the new OS. [USAToday]

Mossberg WSJ Review: After his headline (”Leopard: Faster, Easier Than Vista”) and on a short history tour of Apple as a company, Mossberg moves on to say that while Leopard is good, it’s evolutionary, and not revolutionary—but still manages to keep Apple’s “advantage over Windows”. He does have some gripes. He says the menubar is translucent (it’s actually not, in the final version), the icons are “dull and flat and less atractive than Vista’s” (we disagree), Time Machine, although described as “sexy”, has limited backup locations. And that none of Apple’s 300 new features are a major breakthrough. However, Leopard doesn’t have any of the upgrade problems (when upgrading from Tiger) that Vista had from XP. Mossberg then goes into feature list mode, but ends by saying that Leopard isn’t a must-have, it just adds a lot of value on an existing machine. [WSJ]

Pogue’s NYT Review: After spending half the first page (and 1/4 of the whole piece) talking about how Time Machine works, Pogue moves on to Spaces, parental controls, Boot Camp, screen sharing, and iChat upgrades. Although backup features and virtual desktops have been around for a while, Pogue says the point of Leopard is that Apple takes all those apps, improves on them, and integrates them well into the OS. But he too has complaints.

Stacks are a bit awkward and inconsistent, see through menus are hard to see (he may be using an old version because the final version looks fine), as well as occasional glitches in Spaces and program switching. Final thoughts: it’s polished and offers few disappointments. Looks like a buy from Pogue.

[Source: NYTimes]

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Buffalo’s LinkStation NAS lineup

If you’ve been yearning for a well-spec’d, feature packed NAS, Buffalo’s latest additions are certainly not what you’re interested in, but for those who just need the basics, these units just might fit the bill. The 750GB LS-L750GL, LS-L750GL / M and 1TB LS-L1000GL / M (the M interestingly stands for “Mac-compatible”) all sport a fairly unexciting enclosure and an even less entrancing set of amenities. Taking a peek around back (psst, it’s after the jump) shows only a fan, lock port, AC plug and an Ethernet jack, but that should be all you need to get an external HDD set up on your network.

750GB - ¥42,300 ($369) available early next month
1TB  -  ¥63,800 ($557) no dates yet

[Source: AkihabaraNews]

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Church forgives Sony for copying Manchester Cathedral

In what actually seems like more of a slight than a good-willed apology acceptance, the Church of England’s Very Reverend Rogers Govender was quoted as saying “we do forgive Sony for what they have done, even though they still believe they have done nothing wrong.” The Dean of Manchester Cathedral’s comments came after Sony failed to take home a British Academy Video Game award last night for Resistance: Fall of Man, a game which adopts the cathedral’s likeness as one of its settings. Referring to a supposed traditional code of ethics in the industry, Reverend Govender went on to say that “In so many ways Sony have failed to live up to these standards by disrespecting people of faith and the victims of gun crime here in Manchester.” So yeah, it doesn’t look like the Church will be sending Sony any Christmas cards this year, but on the upside, Manchester Cathedral is apparently doing a booming business among the younger crowd as a result of the controversy.

[Source: BBC]

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Hitachi’s W54H (Wooo) GPS-laden cellphone

Hitachi’s no stranger to GPS-laden cellphones, and it now looks to be upping the ante even further, with it recenlty introducing a new phone that seemingly aims to replace your car’s GPS entirely. As with its previous W51H model, the new W54H phone (also called the “Wooo”) sports a reasonably-sized screen (2.8-inches in this case) that’s able to flip around and cover up the keypad, along with 2 megapixel camera, a microSD slot, and a 1seg TV receiver. That mobile TV should look especially good on the phone’s OLED screen, as it apparently boasts a 10,000:1 contrast ratio. As you can see, it also comes with a stand to prop it up for easier viewing in your car, and the GPS software boasts voice input so you can keep your hands on the wheel. No word on pricing or availability just yet, but you can no doubt guess where it won’t be available.

[Source: Navigadget]

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iPaq 210 shipping on Saturday?!

HP’s iPaq 210 has been in the buzz for a while, and the last news we heard is all pre-orders had been canceled and HP’s product pages had been updated to cheerily say “Coming in 2008!” — which makes it so very strange that HP’s store now lists the business-oriented handheld with an “estimated ship date” of 10/27 and a $50 price bump to $449 We’re assuming it’s just be a typo, but there’s still a chance something’s up, especially considering the device was originally supposed to ship 10/8 for $399 — not exactly easy numbers to screw up. HP, take care

HP store page  showing, 10/27/2007 estimated ship date and $449 price
HP product info page  showing “Coming in 2008!”

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Yamaha announces CD-S2000 SACD-CD player & A-S2000-amplifier

On one hand, the designs of Yamaha’s latest devices could have easily been ripped straight from last century, but in another sense, there’s a certain level of attractiveness that comes with brushed aluminum AV components sporting retro-inspired buttons / knobs. Nevertheless, the CD-S2000 SACD / CD player (which arrives in silver or black motifs) plays nice with MP3 / WMA files and sports analog, optical / coaxial digital and XLR audio outputs. As for the A-S2000, it’s available in the same two hues and can crank out up to 190-watts x 2 at 4-ohms or 120-watts x 2 at 8-ohms. Apparently marketed towards the high-end crowd, neither of these December-bound units come cheap.

CD-S2000 - ¥208,950 ($1,824)
A-S2000 -  ¥176,400 ($1,540).

[Source: AudioJunkies]

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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T2

Sony just announced the sticky-sweet Cyber-shot DSC-T2 compact camera.

Specs:

* 8 megapixel
* 1/2.5-inch CCD
* 4GB of on-board flash storage with Memory Stick Pro Duo expansion
* 2.7-inch, 230k pixel touchscreen LCD
* ISO 3200 max sensitivity
* Sony’s “smile shutter” and face detection tech
* 3x Carl Zeiss zoom with optical image stabilization

Colors: blue, green, pink, white or black

Available in December for about $350.

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Project Sunrise: Massive balloon with solar telescope

If you’ve been strangely itching to get a closer look at the Sun without totally ruining your eyesight, you can color yourself quite fortunate. The aptly-named Sunrise project is an international collaboration involving a number of institutions that have successfully sent a jumbo-jet sized balloon some 120,000 feet high with a solar telescope riding shotgun. The plan is to send the massive device on lengthy journeys beginning in 2009 “that will capture unprecedented details of the Sun’s surface,” and furthermore, it could enable scientists to launch instruments up for testing without having to strap them onto a rocket and consequently destroy their budget. Set to take flight in the summer of ‘09 from Kiruna, Sweden, the balloon is scheduled to “capture continuous images for a period of several days to as long as two weeks,” and no, you can’t buy a seat on this one.

[Source: Physorg]

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Apple halts Boot Camp downloads

With just three days to go before Leopard hits the scene, Apple’s gone ahead and made Boot Camp unavailable to download — a move that shouldn’t surprise anyone, because we knew it was coming the day Leopard was announced. Tiger users with Boot Camp partitions who aren’t ready to make the leap to Leopard can rest easy, however, since existing Boot Camp installations will continue to work fine — but you’ll still be riding dirty since the beta license technically expires on Friday with Leopard’s release. Again, none of this is a surprise at all, but it still would have been nice for Apple to let people know they’d be pulling the download — if you haven’t snagged a copy by now, you’re stuck paying the $129 for Leopard.

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Dell and HP Continue to Lead Worldwide PC Sales for Q3 2007

Top 5 Vendors, United States PC Shipments, Third Quarter 2007
(Units Shipments are in thousands)

Although Acer is not currently in the top 5 for U.S. share of PC sales, with their acquisition of Gateway that will obviously change in the future.

Top 5 Vendors: Worldwide PC Shipments, Third Quarter 2007
(Units Shipments are in thousands)

NOTE: A PC is defined as a desktop computer, notebook, or x86 server — handheld computers are not included.

[Source: Notebook Review]

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