Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

I am sure most people have noticed there has been a big push by the big mobile phone companies recently towards selling mobile broadband.

Most new mobiles come with 3G and some form of a web browser and most companies sell some form of web access on top of the normal phone contracts. Companies like O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone are also pushing the independent mobile broadband devices where you pay anything from £15+ per month for xGb usage.

This relatively new and compeatative market has led most mobile companies to try and lure the buyer in with free laptops or netbooks if you sign up for a set period of time.

I must admit I have been a bit skeptical about it all, I have had mobile Internet on my past 2 phones. I had Web 'n' Walk from T-Mobile on my Tytn and now I have a bolt on from O2 on my E90 and while I do find it useful I get the feeling the performance is not nearly as good as it is made out to be, nor do I use it as much as I would expect.

Anyway recently I have had chance to try out one of Vodafone's offers. It is the £30 a month mobile broadband with free Dell Inspiron Mini 9.

The contract is for 24 months and the download speed is up to 3.6 Mbps with an upload up to 384Kbps.

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Review

I received the Mini 9 last Friday so I have had some time to play with it.

The specification of the Dell is:

1. Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
2. Windows® XP Home Edition
3. Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600)
4. 512MB² DDR2 at 533MHz
5. 4GB³ Solid State Drive
6. Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
7. Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
8. 32WHr Battery (4 cell) (Over 4 hours battery life claimed)

My initial impression of the Mini 9 were simply its size, I have a 15" Acer and the Mini 9 in literally mini in comparison. My winter coat has massive pockets on it and I can nearly fit the Mini 9 in one of them.

The general look of the Mini 9 is quite basic, it has a glossy shell and it is quite plasticy though you can hardly expect an aluminium casing when the Mini 9  only costs around £250 to buy without a mobile broadband contract. The general build quality does feel excellent.

On booting the Dell I was a bit surprised to see Vodafone have chosen to use Windows. These devices are only really designed to be used on the Internet and for basic activities so Ubuntu would of been more than adequate and it would of reduced the cost for Vodafone.

The initial boot up of Windows did seem very slow which was a bit of a shock as I was expecting it to be much faster as it uses a solid state drive, however this was likely due to the limitations of the processor rather than the SSD. I also found the machine was installed with a lot of the crap associated with Dell computers including Mcafee, Dell's Support Center, Dells Video conferencing etc etc. I am sure all of this will certainly be slowing down the boot time.

Vodafone have only added one piece of software to manage their 3G connections.

The keyboard on the Dell is very small, which is no surprise. I wouldn't want to be typing out a novel on their, however it is still quite usable, the only problem I really had was the right hand shift key as it really is tiny and I always use this key when typing the @ symbol so I frequently made mistakes.

The Screen of the Dell is good, the resolution is 1024X600 so you can comfortably browse the Internet. It is nice and bright though one downside is that it is glossy. To be fair most laptops now use a glossy screen but considering these netbooks are designed for mobility you would think some consideration would be taken for outdoor use. Unfortunately if you are outdoors in the sun viewing the screen can be very hard.

The dell also came with the usual ports and inputs, there were 3x USB, 1x VGA, Ethernet, Card Reader, and audio jacks. I was quite impressed it has 3x USB ports as you would think it wouldn't have room for this many.

The general performance of the Dell was actually quite good. Granted there was a bit of a delay in starting up but once running I was able to do everything I wanted, I was happily running Firefox with half a dozen tabs open and I had a few apps running in the background. I also played an AVI in VLC and it played smoothly. I didn't have any HD files to play but I suspect it would start struggling a bit here.

Finally I found the battery life to be quite good, I had a meeting on Monday in Manchester. I used the Dell on the journey to and from it which was about 2.5 hours in total and the battery was still going. I am not sure if it would last past 4 hours though my use was quite heavy and I did have a 3G connection at the time as well.

Overall I found the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 to be an excellent little netbook and I plan on using it for the foreseeable future on any trips I go on. It can easily handle any daily task while being extremely portable. Yes there are a couple of little issues but they are certainly not big enough to put you off it.

Vodafone Mobile Broadband Review

So now we know that the Dell is a great little netbook how does Vodafone's mobile broadband handle?

Surprisingly very well, connecting to the Vodafone network is a simple task, you just load up thei mobile connect software wait for it to find a connection, click connect and Bobs your Unkle, you are browsing the net.

I checked the speed of the connection via Think Broadband and Speed Test (Maidenhead + Dublin) and was pleasantly surprised with the following results

Think broadband = 1.8 Mbps down and 0.3 Mbps up

Speedtest Maidenhead = 2.5 Mbps down and 0.28 Mbps up

Speedtest Dublin = 2.05 Mbps down and 0.28 Mbps up

I agreed to review the netbook and Vodafone's mobile broadband expecting to slate the performance, I have always been under the impression there is a lot of mis-selling going on in this industry and while I am sure some people sometimes maybe able to get the full speed I always thought that due to reception issues, volume of users etc the average person would not get a fraction of these speeds.

I have even previously tried another mobile broadband connection from 3 and found the connection to be 0.1Mbps down and 0.1Mbps up. This was tested knowing the reception was bad but I was expecting to see similar results from Vodafone. So to receive the above speeds is a very nice surprise indeed, granted I probably wouldn't recommend this type of connection over a ADSL line but for someone on the move then it really is worth it.

Finally now we know the Dell is excellent and Vodafone is excellent is the deal worth it? Well I think it is up to personal opinion. I wouldn't personally go for this deal. £30 per month x 24 months is £720. You can get the same 3Gb monthly allowance without the Dell for £15 per month on a 12 month contract which is £180 this would leave £540 to spare on a laptop which could be used for a better laptop. Granted this would mean an initial outlay of several hundreds of pounds which a lot of people may not have in which case the £30 a month deal is certainly appealing.

So if you want mobile broadband I would 100% recommend Vodafone and all the deals are good, but I would look at the various options and find which one suits you best before you buy.

Netbooks have always been perceived as low cost, basic computers for general web and email type activities. Well Asus says no to that preconception and has decided to fit its Asus N1oJ netbook with a Nvidia GeForce 9300 discrete graphics chip.

The rest of the spec includes a 10" 1,024x600 native resolution screen, Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows XP. With a price of £455.

Obviously you wont be playing Crysis on this but Cnet did manage to play Unreal Tournament III.

Raon Digital have released a new touchscreen 7-inch screen UMPC notebook (netbook). Named the Everun Note, it is claimed to be the first netbook to use a dual core processor.

The brains of the machine is an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core CPU at 1.2GHz and also comes with up to 24GB of solid state drive or up to 80GB of hard drive space, 1GB of DDR2 memory,a 1.3MP webcam, and a sim card slot. It is apparently available in the states for $659.00 but unfortunately us Brits will have to fork out around £550!

Sounds pretty impressive but it is more than twice the price of lesser specced netbook's like the Eee PC and Acer Aspire One.

Asus is set to release the words first official Quad Core gaming notebook!

Based on the new Intel QX9300 quad-core processor the laptop comes with a 17 inch display,  GeForce 9700M GT GDDR3 512MB, 4gb Ram and up to 1TB hard disk.

There will also be a 2Mpix web camera, Bluetooth V2.1, and Blu-ray writer.

A pretty nice spec if you ask me, though I am sure you will pay for it!

No word on battery life yet!

Full press release follows.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple's paper-thin notebook machine has received a fairly major software update, reports The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Accessed via the usual updating system within OS X, the patch addresses issues with video playback as well as - primarily - issues with heat. The CPU cores in the MacBook apparently don't idle as they should out of the box - resulting in the slimline unit running very hot with extended use.

If you're an Air user rushing out to install this, the update comes with a word of warning: if you've installed a third-party workaround like CoolBook, uninstall it before running the update.

Over the past few days I have been considering buying a new laptop. It is for work but far from essential. It will only be used for emails, web browsing, blogging, maybe the occasional word document or perhaps something as adventurous as FTP. So nothing CPU intensive.

Because I wont be doing any gaming or any Windows related tasks I am inclined to install Linux on it (especially after I enjoyed Linux Mint so much), so the specification does not have to be fantastic at all.

The main requirement I have is for the screen to be 15.4" or under so it is quite portable (17 inch laptops are not fun to carry around) and that the resolution is at least 1024 wide. I get annoyed easily and browsing the web and having to scroll sideways to read a site is quite frustrating. The resolution requirement therefore leaves out the Asus Eee PC and the Everex Cloudbook.

The other important requirment is that it is under £500.

It does however leave me with quite a few options. Now before anyone moans the following laptops vary quite a bit but this is for my requirements rather than a round-up of ultra portables etc. The list is also in no specific order, just how I found them on the net.

At the time of writing the Wind is not actually available and the Aspire is available for preorder.

When I first started this blog post I thought making a list of the laptops I found would give me a nice clear idea of which one I feel is the best for myself. However I feel even more un-decided than when if first started. While I have ruled out most of them I do not feel there is a clear winner.

Initially I was on the verge of getting the HP Mini Note as I liked the look of the screen resolution. However looking around the net the Via CPU in the HP is less powerful than the Atom in the Aspire One and the HP is £100 more. Therefore I am going to rule out the HP.

The Wind clearly does not match up to the Aspire One as the price is quite a bit more while the spec is very similar. Once it is freely available I suspect the price will come down and be more competitive to the Aspire.

If we look at the other end of the spectrum there is the Acer Aspire 5920G. At twice the price of the Aspire One it is quite a big price jump, it is also not the laptop you would chose if you want an ultra portable as it has a 15.4" screen and weighs over 3 times that of the Aspire (3.36kg vs 0.99 kg). However you do get quite a lot for £450.

The 5920G comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz, 2048Mb Ram, and GeForce 8600M GS 256Mb graphics, which means this machine should comfortable run Windows Home Premium that is pre-installed.

I think for the time being I may hold off, I am inclined to go with the larger, more powerfully and more expensive 5920G but as it is not a necessity I think I will keep the £450 in my back for a little while.

If you are on the look of for a cheap ultra portable I personally thing the Aspire One looks like a fantastic choice. It is a bargain price with a pretty decent specification. The price of the Aspire one really is a selling point, while £250 will make a noticeable difference on my credit card bill it is only a couple of expensive weekends on the piss. However £450 is quite a lot of weekends out!

Well, when MightyGadget got the opportunity to visit Paris on an all expenses paid trip to have a ganders at the latest Toshiba gear the answer was already set in stone (that would be a resounding yes if you hadn't already got it). Take a closer look was the objective and that is exactly what we had the chance to do. The newest, smallest, lightest, fanciest pieces of kit in Toshiba's arsenal were presented to us with the purpose of letting you know just how fantastic the future is looking for you lucky laptop using public. Now, not only were we asked to make our opinions and discuss the future with some of the top bods but we were also granted the opportunity to mingle with some of the top journo's in Europe, all eager to get their grubby little mitts on the kit aswell.

The main focus of the jaunt across the channel wasn't to tell us what components were being used or how cheap the laptops were but more to delve further into the world of Toshiba and what really made their developers and designers tick. The whole ethos of Take a closer look is the idea that we are entering a new age of style. We have had laptops in our homes and businesses for many years now and the general aesthetics haven't really been altered dramatically since their inception. Toshiba have always been forerunners when it comes to bleeding edge technology and with their first dip into the mobile market being some 20 years ago with the T110, they obviously know what the consumers wants. Out of interest, the T110 was also the very first IBM compatible mobile PC and has set the trend for every machine since. The features we take for granted were present in that very first piece of kit: internal rechargeable batteries, an LCD screen, an internal media drive and compatible with other PC's. We can look across the range of hardware available from any vendor and quite happily say that those features will be present in each. That's quite a feat in itself to set a trend that has spanned 2 decades and is in no danger of changing any time soon. Toshiba have stepped up to the plate once again and have addressed this lack of innovation with a new range of laptops which fundamentally push the boundaries to a higher echelon previously set by only them. They strook me as a company which keeps the consumers unrecognised needs at the forefront of their development to attract those souls, lost in sea of ever expanding laptop confusion.

To set the scene, upon our arrival our first port of call was to attend a function at one of the top Parisian haute cuisine restaurants. Armed each with an apron, mysteriously provided by the Toshiba boffs with no explanation, all were herded into a cab and driven to the secret location. Upon arrival at the restaurant the Executive Vice President, Alan Thompson, gave a little welcoming speech to inform us that the evening ahead was to give us a little insight into the event and asked us to take a closer look at the food we were to indulge in. Have any of you heard of an Amous Bouche before? I'm guessing that 90% of you haven't and the rest have but haven't a clue what it is. Let me indulge your curiosity. An Amous Bouche is French for 'to titillate the palate'. As the description implies, one would assume that this is a small taster of the meal to come and would not necessarily be the primary source of the proceeding evenings ingestion. This is where the point of this little soiree comes in. To satisfy our hunger we had to indulge in the offerings available at each table, manned by an assortment of important looking chefs. Each table had a mixture of different ingredients with which we could mix and match to make our own micro tucker creation. It is in this very process that we had to really think about the elements making up our tea. Whilst impressive in the scale and an innovative idea, my constitution is not agreeable with this type of fare. On the flip side, there were many different varieties of aperitifs to quaff and were consumed with the event spirit very much in mind.

A successful evening was had, many people spoken to, though not necessarily about the event in all honesty, and an insight into the inner workings of the Toshiba clan was glimpsed. The morning-after-the-night-before, we were once again ushered along to congregate together at Le Studio, one of the top Parisian photography studios. We were greeted with a short introduction once again by the Vice Pres, Alan Thompson, before being sat in one of the studios to be presented with the event outline and then partake in a Q&A with some of Toshibas top bods.

First up we were graced with the presence of research analyst, JP Gownder, to provide us with an overview of the current laptop situation today, the past innovations and the future of the mobile technology. He was very passionate about the idea that whilst new products are being presented to the public with all the latest gadgets forced into the tried and tested cases, the aesthetics are being overlooked with no thought for the end user. I see there are already a few of you sat there eagerly raising your hands in my general direction in order to catch my eye. I would assume that you are going to inform me that 'Apple did it first'. Well done, congratulations, Blue Peter badge for your astute eyes. Apple have had a long relationship, balancing style with content, however they are only interested in acquiring customers who are happy using their own proprietary OS, software and peripherals.

Shoot me now if you want, an Apple fanboy I certainly ain't. I am well aware that there are now ways of putting Windows on there, running other software via Virtual PC or getting 3rd Party accessories. The point I am trying so vehemently to get across is that Toshiba are attempting to bring products to market which reflect the user’s personality rather than it being a reversal of roles. People see you out using an Apple Air and immediately assume that you are at the cutting edge, you're cool; you drink coffee in Starbucks and go to the opening of new clubs. People see you with a bland, dark grey brick and the vision is slightly different. You are put into the immediate category of boring, sat on the sofa watching corrie, playing poker online in your underwear, sad sack with no sense of style even if the style tree landed on your head. Just to clarify, my laptop is neither grey nor boring so I am fortunately not talking from experience, well not all of it anyway. I digress, my point being is that people are now starting to realise that with the influx of Apple products hitting the market at more attractive prices and with their looks and ergonomic styling, cost and specifications aren't the only qualities consumers are looking for. Another point raised was the area of functionality. I remember when laptops were the gadgets to have at management level when I was first doing work experience all those years ago. They were hideous, they weighed more than a home PC, if you used it as marketed, on your lap, it was strongly suggested that if you were male not to bother as those things we all cherish as men would disagree and possibly drop off (this may be an exaggeration on my behalf but probably not a million miles from the truth). Toshiba have drafted in some of the worlds top designers and engineers to redress this situation and are attempting to make PC laptops a more desirable accessory rather than just a plain-Jane necessity. The industry as a whole is slowly maturing and warming to this way of thinking but haven’t really made any headway and are quite happy with a few small cosmetic changes to make the newest model a little more aerodynamic than the last or squash it down to make it more portable. The consumer isn’t as daft as the manufacturers would like to believe and are noticing the switch to the coffee house fashions, watching them jump ship faster than they can try and provide the boring life rafts. What we really want these days is a fast yacht, with an exclusive party happening on-board to beckon us aboard the new era of style.

Enough of the scene setting, I’m betting you all want to know what the Toshiba team have been beavering away at?

In part deux, I will go into the various models on show and give some detail about the future technology Toshiba hope to bring to the masses in the near future.

A little late off the mark on this one but unfortunately Rock Direct has ceased trading and has gone into administration.

Rock are a UK based manufacturer of Gaming laptops and notebooks. I personally always preferred them over other companies producing gaming laptops such as Alienware and Dell, so I am sad to see the company go into administration.

D L Z Wong and D J Langton were appointed administrators and have reported that there are interested parties in the company and a sale of the business could occur within 7 - 10 days. Hopefully if a sale can go through the new owners can get things back up and running as soon as possible