Product Weekly: 47/08
Tom on November 25, 2008
With just five weeks left in this year of the iPhone 3G, an Olympic Games, a volatile market, and radical change in the White House, the race to the finish has begun for the brands wishing to squeeze a few more products out to tempt buyers in the lead-up to the end-of-year holiday season.
This week: the ‘quiet’ reception to the BlackBerry storm; Sony Pictures throws a tantrum; a portable TouchSmart from HP and more.
Photo by Juan Benitez
The BlackBerry 9500 Storm handset experienced a somewhat ‘quiet’ reception following a similarly understated launch globally. The touchscreen smartphone, which rebels against BlackBerry’s previously strong objection to this style - a view that was enforced by executives from the Canadian corporation:
The iPhone['s touchscreen] has severe limitations when it comes to effortless typing.
–Mike Lazaridis (CEO)
Quite clearly Research in Motion has had a change of heart, most probably enforced with the damning sales numbers: in the last quarter, Apple sold hundreds of thousands of iPhone 3Gs more than all of RIM’s BlackBerry models. Not good.
The new Storm, while providing a traditional BlackBerry infrastructure, plays on the success of Apple with a glossy design, chrome highlights, big icons, a 3.5mm headphone jack and strong multimedia potential. It looks like an iPhone; feels like an iPhone. Still, it’s not an iPhone.
Photo by Major Nelson
The new Xbox 360 experience (the new dashboard) has been updated to include over-the-air Netflix streaming. This sounds great - finally everybody can have this service without the need for yet another third-party box in the AV stack.
This worked really well for the first few hours… until Sony Pictures, a major provider of films to the Netflix on-demand service, blocked all service to Microsoft Xbox 360 owners. That dispute, which is crippling a really, really innovative service, has not yet been resolved.
Sony - brighten up. Does it really matter that Netflix subscribers will view your content on Xbox consoles? Is there a difference between an Xbox and a ‘generic’ Netflix box in your revenue? Didn’t think so. You are just acting like a child because Microsoft got there first.
The Nokia 6210 Navigator has been with us for a couple of months now - probably about time to return it - and it has proven a well-rounded, capable handset.
The GPS, while lock on may be very slow, has got us out of more than a few scrapes; the intelligent keypad design allows fast typing. S60 runs fast and is more than adequate.
Unfortunately, the party ends there. Nokia’s obsession with glass and gloss means this guy scratches easily… too easily. Nothing on the body, but on the screen there’s two new marks that aren’t too bad, but if you’re a total pedant like myself, they are noticeable.
Soon I will farewell the 6210. It will be difficult to find such a good all-rounder again.
Photo: HP
HP has expanded its TouchSmart line into this first portable TouchSmart tablet, the tx2, which effectively replaces the tx2000 convertible tablet before it. The tx2000 worked with capacitive touch technology, and the tx2 builds on this by reducing the emphasis on pen and single-finger gestures and encourages interactive multi-touch use.
A pen is included, and single-finger capacitive touch inputs are still accepted, of course, but the tx2 allows Apple-esque pinch, rotate and swish gestures on its screen. A new Imprint finish is also featured.
The HP tx2 is a real step forward for increased interactivity with our portables - while Apple really pushed multi-touch into the public domain, it’s yet to build a touch-screen, fully-powered computer. We’ll no doubt be taking a close look at the tx2 in the coming weeks.
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That wraps up Product Weekly for this 47th week of 2008. Watch closely for an update next week, and not to mention other featured stories in between.
