Archive for the ‘feature’ Category

The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart [Terror]

After the crotchbomb there has been a lot of noise about airplane security again—you can see how stupid the leaked new flight rules are here. But what’s the actual risk of an airplane attack? Here’s the definitive chart:

As you can see, the chances are very slim. As slim as the chances of the new security rules having any real effect in preventing any new attacks, sadly.

Entelligence: Of ebooks and suburban moms

There was a raging debate going on last week at Engadget HQ over the role of dedicated ebook readers that spilled over on to the Engadget Show. You can watch the show here, but essentially big boss Joshua Topolsky and Paul Miller feel that the new Barnes and Noble Nook is going to be a hit — the one machine that gets suburban moms to buy. On the other hand, Nilay Patel, rationally (as he agrees with me) says it’s not going to happen and there’s no mass market for dedicated ebook readers. I’m going to weigh in and say Nilay is probably right.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is not entirely an integration vs. convergence story. I believe there’s a market for dedicated devices: cameras have not been displaced by music phones, media players have not been displaced by music phones and ebook readers could serve bibliophiles, especially those who travel a lot. However, mobile reader apps like those from Amazon and Barnes & Noble can easily tap into more casual markets, allowing users to leverage the investment in screens they already own instead of buying a dedicated device. That’s one reason why I think it has been important for Amazon and B&N to get their ebook platform onto as many devices with screens as possible, and why Sony’s making a mistake by ignoring the opportunity.

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10 Warm Ways To Harness Fire In Your Home [Tgif]

Few things are more relaxing than sitting in front of a fire on a cold fall day. These 10 products will help you harness the awesome power of fire in your home.

The design of the Gyrofocus fireplace may be 40 years old, but it was still striking enough to be voted the “world’s most beautiful object” at this year’s Pulchra design competition. [Focus Creation via Link]
The Conmoto suitcase fireplace allows you to bring warmth and ambiance wherever you go (the casing is weather resistant so even the outdoors isn’t off limits). Conmoto is fueled by a small tank of bio-ethanol that burns for 2.5 to 3.5 hours. [Unica Home via Link]
A fire pit built-in to your coffee table gives city folk all of the benefits of a campfire without actually having to venture out into the wilderness. I’m thinking s’mores. [Opulent Items]
The Lumos is more than an outdoor fireplace, it’s also a grill. Keep the chimney up and you have ambiance, flip it down and you have delicious meat cooking over charcoal. In other words, it warms you up inside and out. [Leenders via Link]
If NASA ever designed a portable fireplace (or a urinal), it might look something like the Piet. [Cavallius Design via Link]
The fireplace should be the focal point of the room, and the Skloib TV Drehturm allows you to stay true to that philosophy without compromising on the placement of your television. [Skloib via Link]
I have always wanted a wood-fired pizza oven in my backyard, but not quite enough to commit the time and expense to building one myself. If you are willing, Forno Bravo has provided info on how to build an oven like the one pictured here. [Forno Bravo via Flickr via Link]
High pressure propane burners like this one are often associated with frying turkeys, but the truth is you can cook a lot of awesome stuff with it. I would suspect that a high percentage of people (like me) use these to homebrew 5 gallon batches of all-grain beer. [Amazon]
These gigantic bear claw matches are as close as you will get to a guarantee on lighting a fire. The built-in kindling is a big plus, although the colorful, crayon-esque heads could be an invitation for your children to embark on an artistic disaster. [KM Match via Link]
The Wicked Torch is kind of like a cross between a flashlight, a lighter and a stove. At 4100 lumens, it is the brightest flashlight on the face of the earth according to Guinness. It’s also hot enough to burn paper, light cigarettes and cook eggs.

Win7 Laptop Battlemodo: Thin and Lights For Under $800 [Battlemodo]

A group of 13-inch laptops priced around $800 have been hitting the gym hard, like that Russian guy Rocky fought, in order to shed the pounds and learn to run for hours. But one is the best.

Why Not a Netbook?

In this battle, we’re talking about a whole new class of notebooks that fall somewhere between Atom netbooks and full-blown Core 2 Duo machines.

There is no doubt that if you spend $400 more than the average netbook on one of these 13-inch travel friendly notebooks—the Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-8737, ASUS UL30A-A1, HP Pavilion dm3, and Toshiba Satellite T135–-you’ll be purchasing the comfort of a real notebook, the endurance of a netbook and a bit of the thin-n-light enticement of premium devices like the MacBook Air.

And instead of Intel’s underpowered Atom processors, each is equipped with 1.3GHz Intel ultra low voltage (ULV) processor and Windows 7 Home Premium. Handling your everyday computing tasks (running a browser, productivity suite, iTunes, TweetDeck, etc.) and 1080p high definition video (each of them have HDMI out) isn’t a problem for the CPU.

Meanwhile, your average Atom netbook can’t play a 1080p clip without stuttering, not can it multitask as smoothly. However, no UL system can reach the performance of a Core 2 Duo with discrete graphics. By way of comparison a 15.4 inch Acer Aspire with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and discrete ATI graphics has about double the performance in Geekbench, but it pays in battery life.

The assumption with all of these thin and lights is that we all live so far up in the Cloud that we can see that there really is no boy in the balloon.

The Results

Even if most of the 13-inch thin and light notebooks out there have identical specs with ULV processors, hard drives and memory, they aren’t created equal.

Design, ergonomics and battery life matter most, which is why ASUS takes the crown.

The Winner: ASUS UL30A-A1

Price: $800
The ASUS UL30A-A1 isn’t an Eee PC, but its design reminds me of the company’s chic netbook line. The metal lid looks slightly Macbook-like and it is the thinnest-feeling system of them all at less than an inch thick all around.

ASUS fares quite well on ergonomics. The keyboard is island-style (meaning that the keys are isolated from one another, like on the MacBook) and quite comfortable. However, there is a bit of flex to the overall panel. As for the touchpad, it happens to be the best of the entire group. While all the rest are technically capable of multitouch gestures, the UL30-AL’s actually works (especially two-finger scrolling which I cannot live without)!

But ASUS really rises to the top in battery life. The UL30A-A1 is the only one of the bunch to come with an eight cell battery. On our battery test (with Wi-Fi on and screen brightness set at 65 percent) a movie played back non-stop for 6 hours and 25 minutes, the longest of any of the systems in this Battlemodo. That’s even longer than the HP Mini 5101 (with a six cell battery) netbook’s 5:45. In real-world circumstances, that battery life can only get better since our testing is processor-intensive. For $800 flat it packs the best all around performance, endurance and ergonomics.

The Runners-Up

Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-8737
Price: $800Acer kicked off the thin and light trend last spring with the Timeline series. And while ASUS has caught up, Acer still pulls the silver medal. The AS3810T is noticeably lighter than the rest. The design is more corporate looking than the HP or the ASUS, but if you are the buttoned up type that won’t be a bother.

The island-style keyboard is just a pleasure, though the keys themselves are a bit slippery at first. The touchpad is kinda small and the single button a bit stiff, but navigating the desktop is still a decent experience. Acer’s six cell battery doesn’t last as long as HP’s, but still makes out with more than five hours of runtime. If you can score a great deal on this system, it shouldn’t be beyond consideration.

HP Pavilion dm3
Price: $740 (as configured) The HP Pavilion dm3’s aluminum lid looks great and feels really solid, but it isn’t the trimmest of systems measuring 1.23 inches at its thickest point (or almost a quarter thicker than our winner).

Under the lid, the island keyboard (you seeing the trend?!) is by far my favorite of all. The keys are firm and the manufacturing quality is superb. If only I could give the same props to the touchpad. The mirrored pad, besides being custom-tailored for narcissists, is rough making it hard to push the cursor along. And if you have sweaty fingers forget about it! The Pavilion’s battery life was second to ASUS’, and really we can’t say 5.5 hours is all that shabby!

Toshiba Satellite T135
Price: $710 (as configured) Toshiba killed it with its NB205 netbook, but the T135 can’t destroy the competition in the ULV space. Though the notebook is pretty thin (.87 inches at its thinnest point) it just doesn’t look or feel as slender as some of the others. And the same goes for the Satellite’s design and coated lid (available in black, white and red); it just isn’t as attractive as the rest.

It doesn’t have an island-style keyboard, but I actually typed pretty darn fast on the smooth black keys. But damn you mouse button! I wish you were chopped in half to make two buttons so I knew which one I was clicking on. The T135’s battery was the weakest of the bunch, lasting just a bit more than 5 hours on our intensive video run down. Again, though that is pretty darn long.

Feature Comparison

Verdict

The ASUS UL30A-A1 is our number one pick for a 13-inch ULV based system. It is thin, light, and comfortable to use for its over 6 and a half hours of juice. The Acer keeps a close second to the ASUS with its long run time and sleek bod. The HP Pavillion dm3 and the Toshiba T135, while still affordable and adequate performers, simply aren’t the best.

Apple iMac Review: 27 Inches and Less Chin [Apple]

In the 10+ years since the iMac was born as Apple’s simple computer, it’s become visibly less of a computer and more of a display. And what a screen this new iMac has.

But First, Simplicity

This 1998 ad with Jeff Goldblum narrating implies there are two physical steps to setting up an iMac. They skipped the mouse and keyboard cable, though. Today, an iMac is set up using just one power cable, depending on wireless networking and bluetooth peripherals to get the rest done.

The LCD

The 27-inch iMac’s screen is the thing to focus on in this revision. It is practically as bright (and more contrasty) than any of the previous iMacs—even Cinema Displays—and it looks astounding. It’s LED-driven so it comes to full luminescence immediately and takes up less power. It also has better side-to-side viewing angle as an IPS tech monitor; like the iMac 24 before it, it goes 178 degrees without much change in color accuracy or brightness. And here’s the kicker: Although it has 19% more area of LCD than the old 24-incher, it has an astounding 60% more pixels. That makes it more pixel dense than any of the Cinema Displays at 109ppi. And with a 2560×1440 resolution it has 90% of the dot count of a 30-inch cinema display. All these stats are great. They sound great, and they make for a powerful picture. But the actual view of the screen leaves me with a positive—but slightly imperfect—impression.

The default brightness is a bit much, but of course you can turn it down. And the contrast is welcome; even my new 13-inch MacBook Pro looks yellowed and washed out next to it. But at this pixel density, which is sharper than my notebook, it’s almost too sharp, requiring me to sit closer than I would ordinarily do with a 27 inch display. I like the feeling of crispness — 16% crisper than the last generation. But my eyes feel like the pictures are being delivered by a land shark holding a laser pointer straight into my corneas, and I can feel the strain within minutes. I would have to jack up as many font sizes as possible or sit as close as I do to my MacBook to make it work for long long periods of time. Maybe I’m just a wimp of a geek, but I’ve never been sensitive to these sorts of things on any sort of machinery before.

This is the iMac next to a 13-inch MBP and a Dell 2407 24-inch monitor. The iMac’s screen puts both to shame in brightness and clarity.

That’s what two full sized 1080p trailers look like on this screen.

Apple is making a big deal of the fact this screen is 16:9. I think it looks better in this wider iteration, but it’s not an epic jump since the last gen was 16:10. You’re losing vertical pixel count here, on both the 21.5 and 27-inch models, despite added diagonal inches. Also, the glass cover is now edge to edge, without the thin silver rim around it, on the top and sides. It’s still glossy and very very reflective, despite being covered in anti-reflective coating.

I will feel guilty for mentioning this, because it’s ever so slight, but I’ll feel more guilty if I don’t mentioning it to you: The screen, when it’s white, has the tiniest bit of blotchiness to it. The backlighting is slightly uneven in my model. It had no impact on viewing quality once the screen was filled with an image other than one of pure white, so don’t sweat it.

My previous comparison to the 30-inch Cinema Display wasn’t for academic purposes, either. One of the most interesting features on the new iMac is that it can use its Mini DisplayPort (normally an output) as an input; that is, it can become a secondary display for notebooks or other devices. Factor in the near-identical specs to the 30-inch Cinema Display, most notably its updated LED screen, and you have absolutely no reason to buy a 30-inch Cinema Display when you can have this—but not just yet.

Eager to test this shit and be the first to the internet with an image of an Xbox linked into an iMac (”World’s collide!” would be the headline, I decided), I ordered a monoprice Mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter. Unfortunately, I discovered that the inputs would not work with a PS3 or Xbox at any res, HD or otherwise. The current adapters on the market are unidirectional, I was told, and so they won’t work to take HDMI sources and pipe them into the iMac. I’m sure someone is making a cable as we speak for this very abominable purpose of piping in Microsoft gaming to a desktop Mac—but it’s not here yet. (New cables, by the way, will include audio, which the iMac is capable of taking through its connector and the iMac is able to display video sources up to its native resolution.) The issue is, this could take months. That’s a long time, so don’t buy an iMac planning to use it with a gaming console or Blu-ray player right away.

Using it with a laptop was an interesting situation. Odd, for sure, but a welcome bonus and an obvious use. Here’s how it works. You plug in a Mini-DisplayPort-to-Mini-DisplayPort cable to the iMac, which must be turned on (unlike Sony’s all-in-one, which works while off.) The iMac flickers for a second and the laptop’s picture replaces the iMac’s. Here’s where it gets sort of weird. When the iMac is acting as a monitor, the keyboard and mouse are all blocked from working, except a few keys: The pause/play, FF, RR, volume controls and brightness keys all work. They won’t display the typical volume/brightness/FF/whatever iconography, because you’re actually still looking at your MacBook. You can actually then use your iMac as a display for one computer while listening to music on another—but why would you want to? And if you were playing a game with an Xbox, you’d be listening to the game. To toggle between the iMac and the external source, you hit Command+F2.

(*The 21.5-inch iMac is not as sharp or impressive as the 27, but a fine evolution nonetheless; see chart)

Oh, one more thing: The LED display is also thinner than the traditional panel. Even so, when combined with the extra width and height, Apple’s designers are given adequate room to play with the layout and thermal properties of the iMac. Which brings us to the chassis and internals.

The Chassis

The iMac’s chassis went from all plastic to aluminum and glass in 2007. The first aluminum models were stamped out in car factories because no computer factories could work with aluminum pieces that big. Now, the iMac has even more aluminum in them with bigger cases and a seamless wraparound back made of metal instead of the black plastic cap. Despite the loss of the slimming effect of a black plastic back, the computer’s dimensions work in its favor; it’s about 1mm thinner and obviously wider, so it still feels undoubtedly skinny.

Oh, and the stand is tapered by 1.1mm on its front (as is Apple’s wont), to further hide volume.

Aside from the more flattering aspect ratios, the chin—one of the only giveaways that this is not just a screen but a computer—has shrunk by 22%. It looks much better, in my opinion. The case’s bigger size affects its internal layout, too. Apple and iFixit brought several of these details to my attention.

The most important changes are that the GPU and CPU are placed at nearly opposite ends of the case, with their own heatsinks to throw off copious heat with three very quiet fans. (The iMac’s sound profile at idle, for a stock build, is still just a whisper, less than 20db.)

Ports: The back of the case has a Mini DisplayPort, 4 USB 2.0 ports, power plug (the machine’s only wire), Firewire 800, minijack/optical input and output, and Gigabit Ethernet. There’s Bluetooth 2.1 EDR wireless with which the mouse and keyboard interface, and 802.11 N Wi-Fi. Although the entire case is aluminum, the antenna has been cleverly hidden in a plastic Apple logo top center on the back. Reception is a touch stronger than on my notebook.

The iChat camera and microphone (the latter of which is made up of about a dozen closely-grouped pinprick holes, like on the MacBook Pro) are situated on the top of the iMac. And despite the new model’s height they sound fine (if not a touch more distant because of the height) when compared to previous models. The top mount for the microphone keeps the sound from the new, more powerful two-way speakers from interfering with it; measured using a song and SPL meter, my notebook came in at 70db and the iMac at 76db at sitting distance. Louder, richer and noticeably so than a laptop, though I didn’t have an iMac 24 on hand to compare with.

The larger case allows the iMac to use four sticks of user-serviceable RAM, accessible from the bottom. (That’s useful futureproofing now that OS X Snow Leopard is shipping, and programs and the OS in 64-bit can address more than 4GB at a time.)

How About Performance?

The iMac I’m testing is a 3.06GHz Core2Duo processor with 4GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 4670 graphics. Those are decent parts but not the highest-end quad-core i5/i7 chips or ATI Radeon 4850 GPU that will ship in iMacs in November. More importantly, the machine I have here that is shipping now is about on par with higher-end, custom-order machines from the last generation. The system benchmarks I ran earlier this week indicate that everything performs practically the same. And since we don’t have a Core i5/i7 machine to work with, I’ve included Apple’s approximations of how much boost the iMac will get from those parts — obviously, many grains of salt are necessary when reading, especially when measuring value of extra CPU cores as literal multipliers when most software still can’t leverage those channels efficiently.

As for 3D, Maclife has some framerate scores from Doom 3 and Call of Duty that are not by any means exact but somewhat representative of the machine I’m using today. But again, the bottom line is that this machine that I have, shipping today, is not faster than machines equipped similarly from the last generation—they’re just cheaper for any given performance point.

But again, even if you wait for the higher end machines, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to access most of that extra power. Snow Leopard hasn’t seen many apps, besides the ones that ship with it that can take advantage of its multicore CPU and GPU technologies. Programs will come, but immediate speed gains aren’t guaranteed here if you buy the quad-core machines.

Here’s an exception: Those Core i5/i7 chips are also clocked slower than the Core 2 Duo chips on the lower-end machines, but have the ability to run single core applications at a greater clock speed. Since all four cores won’t be burning, the chip uses the spare electricity and the extra thermal overhead to dynamically and automatically overclock the core that is working: The i5 chip goes from 2.66GHz to 3.2GHz and the 2.8GHz i7 chip goes to 3.46GHz (with 4 cores that run hyperthreaded for up to 8 virtual cores.)

Sounds fast, but we’ll dive into deeper tests in November. For now, you should be aware that if your desktop is less than 18 months old, you’d be somewhat silly to upgrade before the highest end chips from this generation of iMac are out.

What Else You Got?

The iMac replaces its old mouse with the new Magic Mouse, with a multitouch surface and 360 degree scrolling and swiping, almost like the gestures you find on a Macbook trackpad. I’ve said it before: I primarily use Laptops because I love trackpads. The gestures, fingertip precision and proximity to the keyboard make it a must have, and this mouse fixes some of those issues. (*Jason Chen reviewed the mouse and liked it but it was not without flaws. Read that if you’re considering buying an iMac, because it’s the only option Apple offers.)

The one detail I found problematic specifically with the Magic Mouse as it pertains to the 27-inch iMac is that even when the pointer sensitivity is set to the highest level, a swipe of the wrist at a moderately fast speed goes only 2/3 across the giant pixel landscape. Only by whipping my hand across my mouse pad can I trigger enough mouse acceleration to get across the screen. They should turn up the sensitivity, frankly. Software update please!

The keyboard is also changed, going from the old wired numeric keyboard, which was stamped out of the screen cutout of the chassis, with a keypad-less wireless Bluetooth model. Apple states that the keyboard’s narrow profile makes it a better fit next to the mouse. I think it also makes sense as a remote control for the computer from afar when watching media, since this is the biggest iMac ever that doubles as a monitor. But it looks a little small and out of proportion with the machine itself, since the Mac got wider and the keyboard got shorter.

Oh, the white plastic remote that used to ship with all the laptops, AppleTV and iMacs has been replaced by an elliptical, aluminum remote with black rubber buttons. It’s longer, and shaped like an iPod nano but no longer comes with the iMac. It costs $19. I think when you buy a computer that is this expensive, they should THROW IN THE DAMN REMOTE.

Competitive Check

There are other all-in-ones from PC makers, but at the moment, none as large or high-res as the iMac 27. The ones from Sony (like the L) and HP have various extras like IR touchscreens, glowing monitor bodies, TV tuners and Blu-ray drives. Some are pretty decent, like the Touchsmart we just reviewed. If these things matter to you and you are not married to the Mac platform, you might consider them. But that touchscreen functionality is still half-baked, so don’t do it for the groping potential.

Value

The sweet spot is the $1200 21.5-inch config. But don’t upgrade that model beyond base without seriously considering the big bad 27-incher for $1700. And don’t upgrade that one at all without considering the quad-core models; both look very promising at $2000 or $2200. Basically, the custom builds are not a great value until you get to the quads. Go cheapest, 27, or quad. But cautious folks will wait on the quads ’til we test them.

There’s another angle here, too. Again, comparing the 27-inch iMac to the old as hell 30-inch Cinema Display makes those standalone monitors look like a pretty bad value when it costs only $100 more for just 10% more pixels—and, hey, it’s also not a computer.

Nerds, Sheathe Thy Wallet If You Can

Although the quad core benchmarks aren’t here yet, I think you’ve got enough information here to make an adult decision on whether to go cheap or double your price for something faster and bigger. It’s not like those new chips will be slower. But waiting a month on a new internal layout, design and screen is a great way to let Apple shake out whatever inevitable hiccups are there at the start of a new run. Plus, if Snow-Leopard-specific apps make their way to market (hello, <Handbrake!) and some performance scores come out in the meantime, hey, cool.

Big beautiful screen is super high res and bright.

Chassis design evolving to new heights of beauty; less chin.

Faster parts not out yet; current components available in previous generation.

No Blu-ray player, touchscreen or other things that aren’t important to me, but may be important to you. Maybe.

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