Web Development and Technology News
Since it was released, T-Mobile’s G1 smartphone, based on Google’s Android OS, has proven to be a solid performer with over one million units sold. Rumors about successors abound, and a new Android phone will probably have been announced by the time you read this. All things considered, it’s been a pretty successful rollout of a new OS and a new phone.
Unfortunately for Google and T-Mobile, the iPhone grabbed nearly 16 percent of the U.S. smartphone market since its introduction, and its popularity doesn’t seem to be losing any steam. Can the G1 and subsequent Android smartphones capture a major share of the market? Only time will tell. It is admittedly a head turner, but so far the G1 (and/or T-Mobile’s marketing) lack the magic Apple has managed to infuse into the iPhone. This review compares T-Mobile’s G1 to the iPhone 3G.
WANT TO HEAR a shocker? My family ran up nearly $2700 in phone bills over the last 12 months. And that doesn’t include new cell phones, or our landlinebased DSL Internet access.
Why so much? We have two adults and two adolescents. That’s four cell phones and lots of text messages. We also have two landlines—one for the family and the other for my home office.
Small, cheap, and surprisingly powerful, netbooks have made portability affordable. But with so many models flooding the market, choosing a mini-notebook that fits your needs isn’t as easy as it should be. Here’s a look at the upcoming crop, and the advice you need to buy wisely.
The term netbook, coined by Intel, conveys little useful information about this category of machines. Sure, they all have wireless networking, but so does every other laptop. Originally what the term helped to identify was a class of small, ultralightweight, cheap-as-dirt mobile PCs. Netbooks are tiny—usually between half and two-thirds the size of a garden-variety laptop—and they typically weigh only about 2 pounds. With their cool, slim designs, they outclass some fancy ultraportables. And best of all, these diminutive laptops start at around $200 (in some cases $100, when purchased as part of a mobile broadband promotional deal).
WHICH LCD MONITOR is right for you? It depends on the programs you use, your desk space, how much room you need on screen, and your bud get. Here are the most important features to evaluate when you go shopping.
Native resolution: An LCD has a fixed resolution at which it looks best. The majority of 17- to 19-inch models use a native resolution of 1280 by 1024 pixels. Wide-screen 23-and 24-inch units typically use 1920 by 1200; 30-inch wide-screens, 2560 by 1600. A particular LCD is a good choice if you are comfortable using its native resolution for all applications.
For months now we’ve heard rumors suggesting that Apple is secretly preparing a new entry-level version of the iPhone, christened by the press and industry pundits as the iPhone Nano. There are good reasons for Apple to launch such a device, not the least of which is that consumers have less money to spend due to the current state of the economy. Another good reason is that the iPhone is now available in over 70 countries worldwide, including many emerging markets. One such example is Egypt, where the average monthly salary is less than $200—the current price of an 8GB iPhone 3G. A lowerpriced version of the iPhone could help raise Apple’s market share in these countries.
THE IPHONE 3G and the T-Mobile G1 may have created a stir, but Research In Motion’s BlackBerry units dominate the Top 10 Smart Phones chart. The two newest BlackBerrys (the Bold and the Storm) land on the chart, but two older units (the Pearl 8120 and the Curve 8320) remain near the top of our rankings.
DON’T CALL the VAIO P a netbook. After all, it starts at $900 with a 60GB hard drive and gets as high as $1499 with a 128GB solid-state drive (our review unit had a 64GB SSD; its configuration sells for $1199). In addition, this machine runs Windows Vista Home Basic instead of Windows XP or Linux, operating systems that are more common on netbooks. But it does have a 1.33-GHz Z520 Intel Atom processor, at the low end of second generation netbook CPUs.
FOR ANYONE WHO uses a Mac for work, an update to the iWork suite is welcome. Does iWork have what it takes to do serious business?
iWork ’09 consists of the Pages word processor, the Numbers spreadsheet application, the iWeb site builder, and the Key note presentation software. New in ’09 is iWork.com, which lets you share files and collaborate with colleagues, whether they use Macs or not.
ALL-PURPOSE LAPTOPS come in a hodgepodge of sizes and shapes, a testament to just how much, and how quickly, notebooks are evolving right now. For this roundup we looked at small and spunky systems that are a smidgen too heavy to be considered ultraportables, as well as at laptops that have expansive, 16-inch screens but fall just short of qualifying as full desktop replacements.
Whether you want to save a few bucks or to obtain a perfect balance of power and mobility, you can find an all-purpose laptop to meet your needs.
While some of the portables in our Top 10 straddle a fine line between two diferent laptop categories, all of them offer some genuinely good value for your mobility bucks. Oat’s largely because the prices for laptops are plummeting—and they likely haven’t hit bottom yet.
You can see our complete chart of the top-ranked allpurpose laptops on page 50, but here’s a look at four new, recently tested models.
MICHAEL VANA WAS skeptical when he saw the pop-up from “Antivirus 2009” on his screen. The former Northwest Airlines avionics technician, who lives in Schaumburg, Illinois, guessed that the dire warning of a system infection was fake, but when he clicked the X to close the window, it expanded to fill his screen. To get rid of it, he had to shut down his PC.
As crooks aggressively push fake antivirus software, you need to know which ersatz warnings may point toward a hidden infection.
