theVooner's weblog

A weblog for theVooner.com where the best cool gear and gadgets get reviewed.

last modified Jul 15, 2003 at 1:45

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Fujitsu P5010

Just a quick follow-up to my previous post. I am off for a 3 week roadshow that will take me around the world. My colleague though decided to get a laptop yesterday to travel with. He chose the Fujitsu P5010. Again, what an amazing screen. I was really impressed how much better and sharper this screen is versus past laptops. A plastic layer on top of the screen (which looks like glass) seems to exaggerate the brightness and sharpness. I also really like Fujitsu's willingness to include a CF and another MS/SD slot. This is a very complete laptop and aside from the small keyboard, if you like sub-notebooks, I have to recommend this one right now.

Still, now that someone else I know has one, if I do manage to sell away my Tablet PC, I may just buy the Sony TR1 for fun.

More from the road; please forgive me if I skip a few days.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 9:28 | 0 comments

Thursday, July 24, 2003

New mini-laptop: Sony vs. Fujitsu

As I lost some of my old blogs, let me revisit some of the gadgets that I wrote about. I went to the computer mall to look at some laptops. The Compaq Tablet PC has served me well up to now, but its getting pretty slow and there are some pretty amazing options out there.

I went to see and play with the new Sony TR1. Wow, what a great design. I really like the look of this new laptop. The ceramic look is even more sharp up front. The one thing that looked really good though was the screen. This is a vast improvement over previous screens. I really liked it. I can definitely see myself with one.

Then, I walked over to the Fujitsu outlets and the P5010 was just sitting there. Wow. This screen looked even better. I thought Sony bought their screens from Fujitsu (just like the Plasma screens) but I'm not sure. Either way, the Fujitsu is really nice. It's a definite upgrade from the P2040 that I used to have.

The real dilemma is which do you choose. Besides being US$150 cheaper, the Fujitsu comes with some very useful add-ons including a CF slot, a MS Pro/SD slot, and a SPDIF optical digital audio output (for connecting to things like MD players). But the TR1 comes with a little camera and its design is just phenomenal. It's a close tie.

Is it time for theVooner to sell off his Tablet PC? Maybe so.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 5:14 | 0 comments

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Nikon D2H

Well, I ordered my Nikon D100. But I'm waiting for the lens that I want before I pick it up. Of course, Nikon has announced one upgrade to their current DSLR line. The D2H is an upgrade to the D1H and features a 4MP featuring Nikon's own chip, WLAN adapter, huge buffer, to name but a few functions.

Anyway, they also announced a few new lenses and an upgraded flash so I may have to delay my overall purchase now again. It's hard to keep up with technology...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 4:18 | 0 comments

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

New Sony Clie UX50

The new Sony Clie looks pretty darn amazing. Trust Sony to bring out a new PDA just a few weeks after I buy a PDA. Great! The UX50 is an amazing PDA which take a very unconventional design. Instead of a long approach, it's in the landscape rather than potrait design. It also comes with that little keyboard which I think is pretty cool. I'm a bit worried that the machine would be "fat" but it doesn't look too bad. Plus it's got WiFi and Bluetooth built in. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.

BUT having said all that, I'm extremely disappointed that the CLIE is still using the PALM OS. That just doesn't cut it anymore IMHO. Still the UX50 on design alone is well worth a look.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 20:09 | 0 comments

Monday, July 21, 2003

I'm Back ... Again -- I love the Casio Exilim S3

Sorry I was away for the weekend travelling. I went to a family dinner with lots of relatives and the funny thing was it turned out to be a digital camera freakshow. Everyone had a different model. Some small (Casio Exilim), some large (Canon 10D). Some old (Sony S85), some new (Canon Ixus 400). There were at least 12 different digital cameras around. (Interesting, no two were alike -- everyone chose a different camera.)

Still all in all... my little Casio Exilim S3 got the most attention. The S3 is just awesome and still the best things about the S3 is the really big 2" LCD screen and its super small size. I absolutely love it. Though I really need to take a break from work and write a review, I think you can guess what I'm going to say. What a great digital camera the Exilim S3 is!

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 2:31 | 0 comments

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Nokia new phones

I was searching the Nokia website to help me answer a question when I noticed that there were a number of new phones about to be introduced. The lowend 3100 is catered towards budget users that want color. The 6600 is an unusually "fat" shaped phone. Of course, there's the gameboy fusion N-Gage model.

But the weirdest one of all was the introduction of the Nokia 7250i. This is an upgrade of the 7250 model which I owned earlier. The main difference I can see is that it incorporates a new XHTML browser for better data browsing. Interesting.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 8:52 | 0 comments

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Back online ... New TV wanted!

Well I was watching the DVD The Recruit this weekend and realised that my Sony WEGA TV in my bedroom was just not cutting it. I need a new Widescreen TV. I'm still deadset on buying the Hitachi 32" Plasma. But it's been the same price now for over 4 months! There must be a price drop!!!!

Plasma's are still IMHO the way to go. But I've been noticing a lot of new LCD TVs coming into the picture. Sharp still has the most extensive line as the king of LCD. Sony too has a pretty cool model - the KLV 30MR1. BenQ (formerly Acer Comm & Multimedia) has a very reasonably priced 20" model - the H200. For US$1250, this isn't such a bad deal.

But I still want my 32" Plasma ...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 21:49 | 0 comments

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Yikes -- CRASH!

A server problem seems to have wiped out the last month and a half of rantings. No backup for that stuff so we'll just have to move on. Anyway, that's ok. We'll just start over.

Big thanks to Dan for his effort in maintaining and getting the site back. For those of you that don't know, Dan is the brains behind this website as well as the distinct guru behind daypop. You can see how this blog is done here, courtesy again of Danny.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 1:43 | 2 comments