Tag Archives: Gadgets
They have finally made it!
Schmidty and I were once talking about what I’d want out of a personal device; connectivity, storage, integration, navigation, and an operating system flexible enough to evolve with the needs of its user. We both dismissed this immediately, since no company is in-tune with it’s consumer base to that degree, and figured such a device will never exist.
Well, it’s still not perfect, but Garmin has gotten much closer than anyone else so far.
This thing has nearly everything I could want in a phone. What it doesn’t have, just may not have been announced yet (I don’t know). It has a better GPS system than any other phone out there (let’s face it, it’s Garmin) which ties seamlessly into Google services, and then has the Wi-Fi 3.5G and phone capabilities with it.
Let’s say you’re talking on the phone and get into your car. You sit down and place it in it’s dock, and the call is immediately made hands free. On top of that, the device also switches straight into navigation mode. While talking on the phone, viewing the map, you notice you are running low on gas. So you hit the touchscreen, select the Google Services, and in real-time it tells you all nearby stations and their current prices. It can even guide you there.
While I don’t own an iPhone, I have used one a few times. It’s hard to say how the Nuvifone’s keyboard is in comparison to iPhone, though it looks more responsive. I still have issues with “typing” on a flat surface, but that just may be me. I simply might have to admit that the time of actual keyboards might be ending.
Some things to add that would just utterly complete the package for me:
- Stereo bluetooth, as well as BT sync or Wi-Fi sync with bundled software. It’s Palm OS (update below) so I don’t think that will actually be a problem.
- Satellite Radio capability. I don’t use it, but it’d make this next suggestion all the better for me.
- Have the car dock also interact with your car stereo. Any music on the device can be played from the device to your car speakers when you plug it into its dock.
- Open up the OS a bit. I know it isn’t released quite yet, and so this part might change, but the response time in the video looked a little laggy. Part of Windows Mobile strength (and no doubt Android’s as well) is that you can access the OS registry and do whatever you want with the thing.
- Massive onboard storage. Maybe I’m asking too much with that one. It’d really help #3 though! At the very least, let us use those nice 32GB SDHC cards.
Where Have All The Special Features Gone?
Next Tuesday, the biggest blockbuster of the year will make it’s triumphant DVD debut. This film also happens to be a geek-friendly movie based on one of the coolest super heroes in history. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m talking about The Dark Knight. This is one DVD that will be making it’s way into my collection.
I have a major gripe over the way that movie studios have been screwing people that buy DVDs over the past few years. When DVDs first started hitting the market, they were advertised as having super cool bonus features including deleted scenes, commentaries, trailers, bloopers, featuretes, etc. DVDs were a gold mine for the movie lover that enjoys useless information in documentary form. Those days are now gone, and I don’t even blame the introduction of Blu-Ray discs. I blame greedy movie stuidos that know that movie geeks will pay extra for this stuff.
The Dark Knight DVD release is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Warner Brothers decided that there will be single-DVD releases in both widescreen and full-screen. These will have the movie. Um… OK. It wasn’t that long ago that the single-disc version would be a veritable cornucopia of extras. If you want any of those, you’ll have to upgrade to the twice as expensive two-disc DVD. This will include:
That may seem like a lot but guess what? Regular DVD player owners are getting screwed. The Blu-Ray version comes with all of the above plus the following:
My question is this: what does everyone think of how movie studios enticed us into the DVD market by offering all manner of sweetness only to move said sweetness to multi-disc versions of the film? I can understand it but I hate it. And for those of us who hate Sony and refuse to buy their products, what about giving us über versions of regular DVDs a la The Lord of the Rings? Is that really too much to ask? We used to get these things for the price of a DVD and now we don’t and that just pisses me off.