Archive for the ‘Gadget Lab Podcasts’ Category

Gadget Lab Podcast: Motorola Xoom, iPad 2, Intel’s Thunderbolt


          

This week’s Gadget Lab podcast zooms in on the Motorola Xoom tablet, the upcoming iPad 2 and Intel’s new Thunderbolt connectivity standard.

The Motorola Xoom is a neat piece of hardware. It’s got a 10.1-inch screen (slightly bigger than the 9.7-inch iPad), front- and rear-facing cameras, 32 GB of storage and a 3G wireless connection. Oddly, the audio speakers are on the back, which makes the sound rather poor.

That’s a solid feature set, but the cheapest Xoom costs $800 — which is a pretty disappointing starting price compared to the iPad’s $500 sweet spot that nobody can seem to match. To be fair, the most-comparable iPad is the 32-GB model with 3G, which costs $720. But I argue the starting price will be the most important factor for new adopters who are still figuring out why they need a tablet in the first place, and $800 is way too high.

Nonetheless, the Xoom’s feature set puts Motorola’s tablet ahead of the iPad, so we’re interested to see what Apple has in store for us at next Wednesday’s iPad 2 event. We’re expecting an iPad with two cameras, more memory and a faster processor.

Speaking of Apple, the company introduced a major upgrade for its MacBook Pro family this week, adding the newest Intel processors and a brand-new connectivity port dubbed Thunderbolt. What’s Thunderbolt? Dylan explains it’s a versatile connectivity port that will eventually enable you to plug in just about any type of peripheral, potentially eliminating the need for desktop towers in the future. When was the last time you heard of a connectivity port this cool?

We close the podcast with a quick look at the iPhone game Tiny Wings (sorry, I called it Little Wings thanks to an on-camera brain fart), which soared to the No. 1 spot in the App Store’s bestsellers this week. It’s a cute game that perfectly executes the Angry Birds formula, so no wonder it’s a hit.

—

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #105

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0105.mp3

Posted: February 25th, 2011
at 9:46pm by Brian X. Chen


Topics: Apple, Gadget Lab Podcasts, Motorola, Tablets and E-Readers, Tiny Wings, iPad 2, intel, rumors, xoom


Gadget Lab Podcast: Verizon iPhone, Hot Spots and The Daily

In this week’s podcast, Brian X. Chen and Dylan Tweney discuss the Verizon iPhone, AT&T’s new tethering and hot-spot features, and News Corp.’s new iPad newspaper.

First up is our review of the Verizon iPhone, which really does have better coverage based on our tests. Suddenly, the iPhone is a phone, Brian says — although when you can get a signal, the AT&T iPhone has much faster data download and upload speeds.

We talk about the Verizon iPhone’s hot-spot feature: For an extra $20 per month, you can share your wireless connection with up to five devices via Wi-Fi. That compares to AT&T’s tethering option, which costs the same amount but only lets you connect one other device.

AT&T now offers a hot-spot feature too, but on an HTC 4G smartphone coming later this month. It has also improved its tethering plan by adding an extra 2GB of data.

We talk about News Corp.’s new iPad-only newspaper, The Daily. It will cost $1 per week or $40 per year. While the content is promising, the app is a little sluggish, and we have some doubts about the business model.

Finally, we talk about how the internet is running out of space. The last IPv4 addresses were handed out this week, and over the next few years, we may see slowdowns and glitches as companies start transitioning to a different version of the internet’s basic protocol.

—

You can listen to the audio-only version of the show here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #102
http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0102.mp3

Or download the OGG version of Gadget Lab podcast #102.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, subscribe to the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Posted: February 4th, 2011
at 7:55pm by Dylan Tweney


Topics: Apple, Gadget Lab Podcasts, The Daily, YikeBike, iPhone, ipad, verizon


Gadget Lab Podcast: Droid 2, Voice Search and Carrier-Humping Surrender Monkeys

For a quick download on the top tech stories of the week, check out the latest Gadget Lab podcast — just 12 minutes long this week, yet packed with everything you need to know.

In this week’s podcast, we give you a hands-on look at the BlackBerry Torch that was introduced last week. We finally got our hands on one, posted our review of the Torch, and show you how it looks in the podcast video.

Also this week, Motorola announced its new Droid 2, which looks a lot like the old Droid. We’ve got one of these, too, and we show off its main differences in the video.

In other Android news, Google announced enhancements to Android Voice Search, so you can now use it to compose e-mail messages, text messages, search for music and more.

Special guest Ryan Singel, from Wired.com’s Epicenter and Threat Level blogs, joins us to explain the biggest tech story of the week: How Google turned into a carrier-humping net neutrality surrender monkey.

And finally, we take a quick look at the $80 Looftlighter. I was excited to test this out because the publicist said it was a “flamethrower.” In fact, it’s more like an outsized curling iron. We haven’t tested it for its intended purpose yet (starting charcoal grills and fireplace fires) but we do apply it to a business card in the studio, with disappointing results.

If anyone wants to send me a real flamethrower to test out, I’d be eager to hear from you.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our smiling faces, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

Or listen to it here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #85

See Also:

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Posted: August 13th, 2010
at 7:00pm by Dylan F. Tweney


Topics: Android, Gadget Lab Podcasts, Looftlighter, Motorola, blackberry, droid, flamethrowers, google, podcast


Hands On With Nokia’s N900

pr_nokia_n_f

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Think of the about-to-be-released N900 as atonement for past sins committed by Nokia. The disaster that is Symbian, the anemic-ness of the Ovi store, the conspicuous lack of CDMA devices all seem, well, not so horrible after playing with this Linux based, open source, unlocked internet tablet. Nokia recently gave us a not-so-finished version of the N900 to play with. Here’s what we think after tinkering with it for a week. Bonus: We’ve got video too!


MAEMO NUMBER 5

The N900 flaunts the Maemo 5 operating system. A mostly (80%) open source Linux build, it’s certainly more usable than any version of Symbian. First off it’s a multitasking powerhouse — we loved the fact that you could stream tunes from a website like Hype Machine then open up another webpage, snap a picture or access twitter without interrupting the music flow. Programs are represented by widgets, which can be moved around different screens with relative ease and apps can be easily downloaded from the sparse Ovi store.

SCREEN SAVER

The N900 has a 3.5-inch resistive touch screen. Most resistive screens we’ve encountered thus far tend to be slow and unresponsive. The N900’s isn’t. Although it comes with a stylus, you largely don’t need it — actions like text typing and web browsing can be done with just a finger. Zooming in and out is done without a pinch, literally. When you want to enlarge something on screen, take your finger (or better yet, the stylus) and make a small clockwise circle. Making a counter clockwise circle zooms out.

PHONE HOME

Almost like an afterthought, the N900 functions as an unlocked cell phone. We popped in SIMs from AT&T and T-Mobile and the N900 made calls without much interference or static. Don’t have a SIM? No prob. There’s VoIP and Skype integration too.

SHOOTER MCGAVIN

The N900’s camera has a Carl Zeiss lens, protected by a plastic slide, and a bright Xenon flash. Pictures are generally noise free and clear while the included photo editing software rivals that of most cell phones.

FENNEC FAIL

Mozilla’s mobile browser, Flock Fennec is sadly nowhere to be found on this device. No big deal — a custom made Mozilla browser is included for all your Intertubing needs. There’ s support for Adobe Flash 9.4 plus an RSS reader as well.

LIMITED POWER

Battery life isn’t exactly Methuselah-like. Our unit conked out after a day of hard use (read: constant web surfing, making calls, shooting pictures) but we expect slightly better power management from the production device.

A DELICIOUS WRAP

The N900 will start shipping around the end of November and will cost $650. We’ll have a full review on the finished hardware before then. So far the N900 shows a great deal of promise — Nokia is definitely doing the right thing when it comes to an open platform and a lack of Symbian. Now if only they could get a carrier to subsidize the device and help bring the cost down a little bit.

See Also:

(Photos by Jon Snyder for Wired.com)

Posted: October 27th, 2009
at 6:00am by Daniel Dumas


Topics: Gadget Lab Podcasts, Miscellaneous, Open Source, Ovi, Phones, Reviews and First Looks, linux, n900, nokia