I came across this post on Life Hacker blog. This article referenced two different bloggers, first a physical keyboard loving Android G1 user and two, a virtual keyboard loving iPhone user. Now this brought up a good question that I have been cotemplating for a long time. I have been a huge Windows Mobile fan since I have been using in back in 2001. I received an HP Jornada 520 for Christmas. I hooked this up to my cellphone at the time and was signing on to instant messager using this device. There was only one huge problem,this Pocket PC device did not have a physical keyboard built in and all it provided was the horrible keyboad built into windows mobile that is required to use the stylus to type with. This was not fun to use.
I used the Jornada for a couple of years, but in the end did not use it too much after that. I didn’t get another pda till 2005. This was my first venture into the smartphone market. I bought a Samsung i500 which is a flip Palm phone. This thing was BIG DOG of its time. This had a physical keyboard for a phone, and it had a touch writing area for character recognition but still no full physical qwerty keyboard. Since this phone was missing a few key features that most phones had at this time such as full text messaging and external caller ID as well as funning Palm OS that I was not use to. I decided to upgrade to the Samsung i600 which ran Windows Mobile 2003.
The Samsung i600 as a phone fixed a lot of things that were wrong with the i500. It had an external caller ID, it had full text messaging, and it had a SD card slot, plus it had Windows. Well once again this is a windows smartphone with a physical phone keyboard but no qwerty keyboard.
After this phone I upgraded to a Treo 700wx which ran Windows Mobile and this time had a full qwerty keyboard. I really enjoyed this phone until the microphone went out. So I had to rush and get the Motorola Q9c that I am using right now. This phone has been pretty good to me even though its not a touch screen phone like the Treo.
I have gotten pretty acustomed to having a physical qwerty keyboard. I vowed that I will never have a phone without a physical keyboard. As phones get more and more technically advanced such as all touchscreen phones, non-smartphone smartphones I may have to rethink this question. I mean the iPhone is great product and all but I refuse to buy any apple product. On the other hand as more and more companies pump out generic “iPhone killers” that just look like garbage just like the Samsung Instinct, I’m glad I don’t have a garbage phone like that.
There is one awesome thing that there is a huge benefit of having a virtual touch scree phone. The screen size is larger allowing the viewing of movies and webpages much easier. Now touch screens with slide out keyboards can do the same, but that adds a lot of bulk. So if I had a larger screen phone, I will have to suffer without a physical keyboard. Due to me being a Windows Mobile fan that means I have to wait for phones that will be released with Windows Mobile 6.5 or do I?
I was watching a video on you tube in which somebody was demonstrating feature of Windows Mobile 6.5 on a touchscreen phone and said wow that phone looks sweet, it turned out to be the HTC Touch Diamond2. I’m a little tired of my Q9c so I was looking where I can get this Diamond2 and guess what … It is not sold in America YET. I can buy an unlocked version but this will not help me out since I am on Sprint. So as of right now I’m waiting for that to be released with Sprint and lets hope it does.
So to answer that question I may prefer a physical keyboard but I am willing to try out a virtual keyboard. What do you guys think?
I mentioned in my Arrival at Unit post a while back that I had purchased an HD-DVD drive. Now I know a lot of you are thinking that this guy is an idiot for buying obsolete technology. Well there are a few good reasons that I purchased that drive for:
Reason 1: It comes with the full remote. I was looking for remotes for the Xbox 360 on craigslist and ebay. Which I came across this one particular listing that included the HD-DVD drive. This lead up to
Reason 2: Price. I was able to a brand new unopened package for $50 including shipping. Most ebay listings for the “OEM” remote were running around $20 plus some shipping. I figured for a little extra more why the heck not.
Reason 3: I can use it as an external DVD player on my Windows Home Server. Since My windows Home Server machine is a Dell Optiplex SX280, it features the Latitude D series Disk Drives. Mine did not come with a DVD drive. Currently I am able to swap out my Latitude D430’s Dbay DVD drive but I am planning on selling that laptop soon and would like a backup DVD drive for this machine.
Reason 4: I can buy HD-DVDs for really cheap on ebay. I know there is limited number of titles that were produced in HD-DVD but those are ones I can get fairly cheap on ebay, a lot less than a Blu Ray Disk. I planned on buying some HD-DVDs that I either had on DVD or did not have at all but did not feel like buying it in Blu Ray.
Reason 5: Warner Brothers Red2Blu program. The Red2Blu program allows an owner of select HD-DVD titles to trade up for Blu Ray disks. It cost $5 a title and all you need to send in is the jacket cover with upc. This way you get to keep your HD-DVD and and receive a Blu Ray for $5 more. If you can get your hands some HD-DVD titles for really cheap you can upgrade to Blu Ray at a very low cost.
Well thats it, those five reason are what talked me into buying a HD-DVD drive for my Xbox 360. Tell me what you think.
I have had a lot of comments on this blog article, surrounding the SDHC support on the Dell D430. A lot of people have been commenting saying that it does not support SDHC. Well If they read the rest of the article it said it does support it. I at least have proof that it supports a 4GB SDHC card. I have added 2 pictures, one of the screen shot and one I took a picture of the laptop. It shows that 3.78 GB SD card. SD cards are limited to 2GB due to the specification. If people want more evidence, I can take a picture of the SDHC card. Now like cell phones, I don’t know how high of a capacity it supports. Just like my Moto Q9c, it supports SDHC but only up to 16GB. Let me know what you guys find out.
I wrote this blog article about my newly purchased Dell Latitude D430 and my older Sony Vaio PCG-R505. Well I have purchased a Dell XPS M1330 and I’m going to write about this compared to the Dell Latitude. If you read that previous article you found out that I like ultra portable laptops as the last two laptops I have had were 12.1″ screens. I really loved that D430, perfect size really light but it lacked a few things. First off the Maximum amount of memory is 2G. Secondly, the 1.2Ghz Core 2 Duo process lacks the oomph to really get things done. Lastly, the machine didn’t have a dedicated video card. Normally these issues wouldn’t bother me because I don’t do much power computing but since I have sold off my workstation and my desktop replacement runs windows home server my laptop has become my primary computing device. Since my laptop is my primary computing device I now needed to add certain applications that required some extra power.
I started researching for a new computer at the begining of the new year, but was not ready to comit since my D430 was farely new. The one laptop that caught my eye was the Dell XPS M1330. So the specs I was looking for was somethig that had a faster processor, more than 2GB of memory, dedicated video card, 13.3″ screen and still an ultra portable. So I came across the M1330 which had all of these specs. Other bonuses I get are a Larger Hard drive, LED screen with integrated camera, and an actual internal DVD drive.
I thought about buying a refurbished version from dell’s outlet site when my tax refund check came in. My tax check came in and I didn’t buy the laptop, I decided I didn’t need it. Well I came across a friend that recently got one and didn’t want it. He sold it to me for really really cheap. The specs on my M1330 are 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 3GB Ram, 250GB HD, LED screen, Bluetooth, 9 Cell Battery and Fingerprinter reader. This laptop has really lived up to its expectations. The only thing I don’t like is the 9 Cell battery that adds the extra bulk. On a daily useage I don’t want the extra bulk, but the battery is nice to have for plan B
I have installed Windows 7 on the D430 and it ran perfectly so I decided to install Windows 7 on this laptop. I then used the Windows Easy Transfer feature, which is awesome. I’m now in the process of cleaning off the D430 and getting it ready to put on eBay or Craigslist. Let me know what you guys think about the upgrade!
Well I got a little crazy the other day and decided to buy a brand new HD-DVD drive for my Xbox 360 (I will discuss why I purchased in another entry). Of course I have been looking at USPS tracking number every morning and every night to find out where the drive is. I find out the package only started out 180 miles from my house and USPS was electronically notifified on Feb 28th a Saturday. Then It was updated and said that it was processed March 1st 180 miles away so I figured that with the jump start on Sunday that i would arrive at my place on tuesday. I come home to my surprise to find nothing. So today wednesday, I have been watching the tracking site like a hawk and it was updated at 7:35am and said ….. Arrival at Unit!!!! I thought to myself, I’m going home for lunch to open the package. I thought that it was weird that it said arrival at unit at 7:35am when I didn’t leave my house till 8am and didn’t see it. I then decided to search the internet to figure out what “Arrival at Unit” means. I was sad to find out that “Arrival at Unit” means that it arrived at your local post office and not delivered. I am now adding my own blog rant on this bad status name. They should change it to Arrival at local facility or something that is not as ambiguous as Unit. AAHHHH FRUSTRATING. Let me know what you guys think.
When I was little I use to play a game called Lights Out. Lights Out is game in which there is a 5 x 5 grid square. When the games starts up there random squares light up. When you click on square, it will toggle that square and will also toggle the squares directly above, below, and on each side. The point of the game is to turn off all the lights. Well a few of my buddies decided to make a version called hasselhOFF, instead of the squares being lights, they are pictures of David Hasselhoff. The same rules apply to this game but you are trying to turn Hasslehoff off. Let me know what you guys think. New version in the works to make it a web application.
