Electronic Toy World

Apple has certainly gotten a lot of buzz with their latest offering, the MacBook Air. There are a few Air’s out in the wild now, including John Mayer who was showing his off on a recent trip. The Air still is a little bit away from hitting the hands of us regular folk, however the reviews from the big guys are starting to trickle in. Lets see what they have to say:

Walt Mossberg; All Things Digital

If you value thinness, and a large screen and keyboard in a subnotebook, and don’t watch DVDs on planes or require spare batteries, the MacBook Air might be just the ticket. But if you rely on spare batteries, expect the usual array of ports, or like to play DVDs on planes, this isn’t the computer to buy.

Edward C.Baig; USA Today

Given the compromises, I don’t expect anyone to use Air as their only computer. But it is a yummy machine for people who spend a lot of time traveling.

Steven Levy; Newsweek

These omissions are troubling–especially to someone in a down-turning economy deciding whether to spend a premium sum for a computer with subpremium storage. Still, simply using the MacBook Air, as I’m doing right now in writing this review, is rather copasetic. Though I can quibble with a few of Apple’s choices of what to take off, the product’s dimensions and design make the case that the losses were not in vain. The things that Apple left on were the ingredients for a quality computer. And did I mention how thin it is?

David Pogue; The New York Times

The new MacBook also runs cool, can use Windows and wakes from sleep in one second. Finally, of course, it’s free from viruses and spyware, and comes without any installed junk heap of trialware.

Even so, the Air isn’t for everyone. Bargain hunters, feature counters and people who don’t see the value of elegance — in general, the same people who despised the iPhone before it came out — would be better off with a bigger, less expensive, more complete laptop. Thanks to the small drive capacity, limited connectors and missing DVD drive, the Air doesn’t make a great primary computer, either.

But as a satellite machine for travelers, executives and presenters, it’s spectacular. Full-size screen, full-size keyboard and five-hour battery in three-quarters of an inch? Get psyched; this laptop is a razor-thin slice of heaven.

Overall it seems fairly safe to say that this should be more of a companion than a main computer. Some of the common complaints were the lack or available ports, and more importantly the lack of battery life. Most reporting closer to a 3.5 hours of life as compared to the estimated 5 hours. A good thing to note was that some reported the MacBook Air will run cooler than other Apple laptops, which for anyone who has used a Powerbook or MacBook Pro, that will be welcome news.

Image [John Mayer]

Sprint is bloody mad and is cleaning house.  Announced today and effective tomorrow, the following are currently filling cardboard boxes with their nicknacks: CFO Paul Saleh, Chief Marketing Officer Tim Kelly, and President of Sales and Distribution Mark Angelino. Last week, the company announced it would slash 4,000 jobs but somehow I bet these three didn’t see it coming.

Sprint named temporary replacements for each while it searches for permanent ones.  The move is seen as a good one for new CEO Dan Hesse by analysts and the Sprint stock is up .30 so far today.

There seems to be a battle building for where Sprint will be headquartered: in its ancestral home in Kansas or new home in Reston, VA thanks to the Nextel merger. 

Read: [Tech Trader Daily]

According to a user over on the TreoCentral user forums, Palm is preparing to close its retail locations by January 31, 2008. At this time, there has not been any official confirmation, however with all the recent trouble that Palm has been having it has a ring of truth to it. The user “treoneo” of course cannot reveal his “source” so time will have to tell on this one.

With all the recent popularity of the Centro, Palm’s troubles have been getting pushed into the back of our minds a little bit. I do mean a little bit though because I am sure its not hard to remember all the delays of Palm OS II, not to mention the recent employee layoffs. Its sad to say but it seems like the end is getting closer for Palm.

Read [TreoCentral] Via [EngadgetMobile]

To console myself because I can’t zip over to our local Apple store and spend $1,700 on the new MacBook Air, I bought a new sleeve for my MacBook.

As you can see, it’s a lovely neoprene shade of pink, and the cushioned interior hugs my laptop to keep it safe. The Incase sleeve also comes in 12″ for the PowerBook and in 4 other smashing colors.

At $34.95, figure I saved a whole hunk of money though my MacBook still weighs 13 lbs to the MacBook Air’s 3 lbs. Sigh.

Posted Jan 24th 2008 6:49AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Take this for what it’s worth. After all, DigiTimes’ rumor record has been piss-poor of late. Nevertheless, the widely quoted Taiwanese-tattle rag says that projected iPhone shipments have been reduced from 2 million units to “around 1 - 1.2 million” for the current quarter ending March 2008. This according to Economic Daily News (EDN) sources at component suppliers. Nevertheless, Apple’s own CFO and COO team said on Tuesday that Apple “remains very confident” that they will ship 10 million handsets by the end of 2008 as originally stated — even while projecting a very low (even for Apple) EPS for the March quarter. So who ya going to believe?

Navigon is getting ready to unveil their new GPS in the 8000 series, and it comes with a new version of the Navigon MobileNavigator software, which is version 7.

Version 6 of this software was released about 2 years ago, and version 7 will be featuring voice synthesis, and voice recognition, which whill allow you to save address information. The maps will be displayed in a better 3D reality view, and route calculations will be performed much faster.

Screenwise, the Navigon 8110 will be featuring a wide 4.8 inch touch screen, and it is encased in an aluminum design. Additionally, it comes with integrated Bluetooth for hands-free calling, an FM transmitter, a RDS/TMC receiver for live traffic updates, and a built-in car charger. The processor runs at 533MHz, utilises a graphic accelerator, and 128MB of memory.

A list of all the features are as follows:

• 4.8-inch screen with 480 X 272 pixels (WQVGA) resolution
• Integrated GPS receiver
• 533 MHz processor
• RDS/TMC receiver for premium traffic information
• FM Transmitter
• Hands Free Bluetooth Kit
• 128 MB RAM
• 512 MB ROM
• Navigon MobileNavigator 7 with Navteq maps
• Dimensions: 13.5×8.5×2.2 cm

The Navigon 8110 will be on sale in Europe for 499 Euros and it will be unveiled at at CeBIT in March in Germany.

Via [NaviGadget]

Posted Jan 24th 2008 8:59AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Competition is a good thing, and now that the Apple TV is actually turning into a solid offering in its space, Vudu is cutting the price on its box to stay relevant. Originally launched at $399, you can now snag a Vudu to rent your movies and TV shows straight into your living room for $295. The best news is that if paid the full price for one of these things in the past 30 days, you can call up Vudu and get a $100 movie credit. Who knows if it’ll be enough to mitigate the aggressively-priced and now competitively-featured $229 Apple TV, but it looks like consumers are winning already.

One gaming success story deserves another. Here it is. In just over 2 years, the Guitar Hero series has grossed $1 billion in sales. Yes, Austin Powers fans, that’s a ‘B’. Dang. Why did my parents send me to sys admin school instead of game programming school? Oh wait, they didn’t.

Posted Jan 24th 2008 3:47AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Gaming
We’ve been in contact with Hans Sandberg, the Swedish journalist who quoted Carl Freer saying unequivocally, “I’m going to resurrect Gizmondo.” This, plus yesterday’s teaser, is the source of the Gizmondo mongering lighting up the Intertubes yesterday. Fortunately, all the important bits from Hans’ interview are now translated from Swedish into English for some good ol’ fashioned global scrutiny. As unthinkable as the proposition might sound, we bring you the highlights for your morning amusement and trepidation:

• Carl believes there is a still a market for Gizmondo and is “ashamed” of his failure — he hopes the resurrection can pay back early investors
• Florida-based Tiger Telematics will formally own the new Gizmondo
• Gizmondo v2 could be up and running by May 2008 — by Christmas 2008 we’ll see “a more advanced version with widescreen”
• 35 titles will be available at launch, 6 are new, more on the way
• An “easy to use program” will allow kids to create games, save them to SD, and play them on their Gizmondo
• Price: $99, possibly free if Carl can work a deal with a cellular provider
• Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer any explanation of the “exciting psychic worlds” in this interview snippet

Our personal favorite has to be this, though. Carl says he has a deal in place with a Chinese company in Shenzhen which will manufacture the device “on credit” on condition that they will be the sole reseller in China. Oh, that sounds like a deal alright.

AT&T has just upped their free Wayport Wi-Fi offer, previously it had been available only to premium customers but now will be available to anyone with a 1.5Mbps plan or higher. To take advantage of the access users will have to sign up through AT&T’s website.

AT&T’s partnership with Wayport will give users access to free Wi-Fi at about 9,000 McDonalds locations and also 1,000 other locations which include Hertz, some hotels, airports and healthcare facilities.

Nothing better than combining a nice laptop with greasy fingers, at least now, assuming you are an AT&T customer you will not have to pay extra for the pleasure of turning your laptop into a grease machine.

Locate [Wayport] Via [CrunchGear]