Carrypad Reviews the Android Based Compaq Airlife 100 Netbook

“…The design of the Airlife 100 is nice. Good clean lines, a light, 1KG, weight, large and quiet keyboard, good plastics and silent operation leave a good impression. There’s only one design fault of significance and that’s the screen angle. It simply doesn’t open up far enough and you end up with the screen pointing at your chest. This wouldn’t be a problem if the screen had a wide viewing angle but it doesn’t so you’re left with the constant desire to adjust the screen. I’m finding it frustrating. The screen frame houses a 10″ resistive touchscreen of 1024×600 which doesn’t provide iPad-levels of dynamics but does the job well.”

Carrypad has reviewed the Compaq Airlife 100 coming to Telefonica in Spain shortly. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the Compaq Airlife since I saw it back at CES in January – back when HP was just calling it a technology demo. There’s so much potential here for a great product, but it looks like Google and HP have missed the mark when it comes to hardware and the operating system features. According to the Carrypad review, the Airlife 100 is lacking a USB host port – something I told HP back at CES was required on such a product if they wanted it to succeed. Consumers need to plug in a USB stick to copy files back and forth. They also might want to plug in a digital camera or even an external mouse. The Airlife is running Android 1.6, but is missing the Gmail application and the marketplace.

I still have hope for the Airlife, maybe it won’t be the 100 model, but I expect HP and Google to get this right and then it will be a killer device. Read the whole review over at Carrypad and let us know what are your thoughts on this device.

Source = Slashgear

Google Nexus One Crosses the Canadian Border

Google’s Nexus One is coming to Canada…but it’s more of a single-file hike that a full-on invasion.

The Nexus One has been well received in the press but not so much by consumers. The problem is nothing to do with the phone itself – it’s a fantastic phone – but rather with the distribution model. Reports are that only 80,000 have been sold in its first month which is far below other smartphones of the same caliber.

Google decided to sell the Nexus One directly from its website rather that work through the complexities of carriers agreements. It’s a good idea but North Americans are just too used to subsidized phones. It’s really a shame though, because this allows carriers to lock in users for 2 years in the US and 3 years in Canada.

If you are able and willing to swing buying a smartphone unlocked and unsubsidized then by all means, take a look at the Google Nexus One. It’s a little steap at $529US but its a world class phone. Google has just released the latest version which will work on Roger, Bell, Telus and WIND Mobile in Canada, as well as T-Mobile and AT&T in the US. Please be aware that a used Nexus One may not have the right wireless bands for the carriers mentioned above, so make sure before you buy!

How To: Google Buzz from Windows Mobile and Android

Google’s Buzz is doing quite well so far, but in many ways it seems to have been rushed to market. It’s crazy that you can access a Google service from only a specific version of Android (2.X). While the iPhone has full support, if you own an Android 1.5 or 1.6 or a Windows Mobile phone you are out of luck. Well, that is until now…

Jay Glogovsky posted a link in a Google Buzz post that will actually allow you to use the service on platforms that are not currently supported.

I present the “Link of Golden Awesomeness”: https://m.google.com/app/buzz/#~buzz:view=nearby

So far I have tested this on Windows Mobile and Android 1.5 and it works well. For Windows Mobile it did not seem to work in the default browser; I was using Opera Mobile 10 beta 3 and it worked just fine. In Android I just used the default browser with no problem.

So, start buzzing from the road, even if you aren’t iPhoning it!

If you try this on another phone and it works let us know and we will mention it in this post.

How to Send Google Buzz Posts to Twitter

As I am sure you all know Google has just released their latest project into the wilds; Google Buzz.

Buzz looks to be an interesting service that is somewhere between facebook and twitter. Who knows if it will be the social network of the decade, but I’m jumping in to try it out.

One obvious thing that is missing is a way to post to twitter from Buzz. Well, you had to know someone would figure out how!

Here is the step-by-step on how to send Buzz posts to twitter:

1. Click the following link: http://reader2twitter.appspot.com/buzz
2. Connect it to your Twitter account using OAuth
3. Click this link again as the redirected page is not the correct one: http://reader2twitter.appspot.com/buzz
4. Add your Google Profile Number ID from the bottom of your profile
5. Make sure “Sync” is On and hit Submit
6. Done!!

In number 4 above you are shown your profile page, scroll to the bottom under “Profile URL” and select the link for “see other options” to show your Google Number ID. Paste the whole number in the box.

The service is powered by Pubsubhubbub and seems to work quite well.

My twitter account can be found here
My Google Buzz profile is here

Many thanks to George Millington for the link to Louis Gray’s post!!

Update: Either this service is choking on all the new content or has been shut down. I am not seeing any content getting to twitter now. Anyone else having success?

Update again: Looks like it is still working but is spotty. Let’s hope there is an official solution from Google sometime soon.

Mobile Wars: Mobile Market Place

It seems that every mobile operating system has its own Market Place. A short while ago, there was no on-device market place to download and purchase applications. (Yes, I know that some app portals did build a device client, but it was poorly implemented and never received any traction) But are all market places created equal? The answer is a flat out – NO.

Google’s market place is loaded with applications. In much the same way as Apple advertises, there is an app for that with Android.  Perhaps it’s not as full, but I never had a problem finding an app to do what I was looking for. Further, almost all the apps are free. Sure, free doesn’t help put food on the table for the developers family. It does appeal to my cheap side however. You may find an application here and there that charges, but overall that’s rare.

 

When you take a look at Microsoft’s market place for mobile, you’ll have a much harder time finding free applications. While I don’t mind paying for the right app, it’s also much harder to find the right app.  There are few applications available on Microsoft’s platform. In fact, the market place is lacking so much, that there is now a free alternative called OpnMarket – which has substantially more applications that Microsoft’s version.

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Mobile Wars: Managing Your Email On The Go

Email is one of the more popular features on today’s phones. If you’re not doing push email, then chances are you’re heavy into texting. Staying connecting with work, friends and family while on the go is what a lot of smartphone users are looking to do. When it comes to work, there is no question that Exchange is the dominate email server. And because of that, any serious mobile OS needs to have some sort of Exchange supported backed it.

There’s no question that Microsoft has spent a considerable amount of time building up the Exchange connectivity on their Windows Phone devices. From remote wipe of the phone, to looking up contacts in the Global Address Book, Windows Phones have just about everything you could ask for when it comes to messaging. The biggest feature that Microsoft has yet to add is support for multiple Exchange accounts.  Support for this is starting to show up in other platforms. Microsoft needs to keep their mobile messaging experience as the best on the block and the one to beat. If they want to stay in this game, of course.

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Mobile Wars: Platform Fragmentation

Platform fragmentation has long been an issue that Microsoft has struggled with. So many hardware partners, combined with a large number of network carrier partnership has made it difficult for Microsoft to provide patches and updates for Windows Mobile.

Typically, Microsoft would release a patch or build of Windows Mobile to the hardware manufacturer.  Windows Mobile is never sold directly to the consumer. The hardware manufacturer always makes some tweaks for drivers or customizations for their devices and then makes it available to the networks.  Then, after some testing, it’s finally offered to the consumer. However, if either the carrier or the hardware manufacturer decides that the update is not significant enough, then the update doesn’t continue and the consumer loses out.

The end result of all this, is that some devices are upgraded to the latest version, while others are left behind. There’s no way for a customer that is experiencing a specific bug, to get that update if their carrier or the hardware manufacturer has decided that it’s just not significant enough to warrant releasing an update.

Google is heading down the same path. They don’t provide the OS directly to the consumer. With more and more manufacturers releasing Android devices, we are starting to see devices that get left behind and are not getting that update passed along to them.

I’ve been using the Telus version of the HTC Hero for a little while now. This device is running Android 1.5. Since the device was released, there has been 3 version of Android released – 1.6, 2.0, and now 2.1. The HTC Hero on Sprint has seen an upgrade, but not the Telus device. With a brand new device, it’s already old and outdated and can’t run some of the latest Google apps.

Both platforms are heading down the wrong path here and it’s only going to cause pain and confusion for customers. Certainly, there are difficulties with providing updates to the customer. Updates need to flow quickly from the top all the way down to the consumer without breaking hardware customizations, or network tweaks that have been done.

I have to give both platforms a fail in this category. I expect more from these guys, and the consumer deserves a better experience without feeling like they need to buy a new device every 6-10 months.

Mobile Wars: Microsoft and Google Face Off on the Mobile Front

Google’s Android has been grabbing a fair share of the market over the last year or so.  While it may have struggled a little out of the gate, Google has worked hard to improve the OS and bring it to a wider audience.

There’s no question that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has declined over the same period of time. Lack of updates combined with a core OS that hasn’t changed in almost 5 years, has lead to a significant decline in consumers perception. Its been said that Microsoft is done in the mobile space and version 7 of Windows Mobile will be the final version. There’s no doubt in my mind that Microsoft is in this for the long haul. They haven’t come this far just to stumble and hand it all over to Google.  I expect we’ll see some significant changes from Microsoft before the year is done.

Over the next couple weeks I will be posting a number of articles that compare the two platforms in an effort to help shine a light on the strengths and differences between these two dominate players.

I know that there are other companies working hard in the mobile space like Apple, RIM, and Nokia.  This series of articles is aimed at comparing Google and Microsoft as I find these two platforms are very closely aligned. For a number of reasons that I won’t get into now, I feel that Apple, Rim and Nokia fall into a different category.

If you’re looking for ways to be informed when these articles are posted, you can follow us on Twitter, or grab our RSS feed.

Google Makes the Nexus Official

In case anyone missed the big news of the day yesterday; Google made the Nexus One phone official. The community collectively laughed off Google’s claim to call the phone part of a new category entitled “Super-Phone”.

So what makes the new Nexus One so special? Well, from what I say and heard, not a heck of a lot.  It’s another Android based handset. This one built by HTC and will be carried on the T-Mobile network or available unlocked directly from Google for use on any network. Perhaps the best features are the new voice dictation on any field on the device. The demo was short, but it appeared to work fairly nicely. Of course, this isn’t an unheard of feature. Dragon has been doing this on the iPhone for a couple months now. The other cool new feature is the noise cancellation. The Nexus One has two microphones – one on the bottom and the other on the back. When you’re talking, the microphone on the back will actively listen for sounds to cancel out.  Cool, but certainly it’s not “Super” phone material.

Many have jumped at buying the unlocked version directly from Google and are seeing overnight shipping. So there should be a lot more details and thoughts floating around over the next couple days.

Are you planning on spending the big bucks for one? For me, I’m going to hang onto my $550 bucks until I see a little more reason to get this device. Let us know your thoughts on the Nexus One or NO for short.

Experimenting with Something New

I’ve been using a mobile device of one kind or another since around 1994 or so. From Palm and Handspring, to Pocket PC and Windows Mobiles, to today’s Windows Phones. It wasn’t until Microsoft released their Windows Mobile Smartphone based OS that I really found something that I connected with. While I enjoyed using the different versions of the OS and the ever changing technology there was something about the touch screen devices that just didn’t work for me. I often felt that touch the screen was slower and more cumbersome than using a non-touch device. Windows Mobile Smartphone / Standard devices excelled in one-handed operation. There was no fiddling around with a stylus to tap around the screen in the same fashion as Pocket PC / Professional based devices.

I still use Professional for work and supporting customers, but my primary device, day in and day out, over the last 5 years has been a non-touch Windows Mobile Standard based smartphone. That was the case up to this past weekend when I added a new device to my collection.

After picking up a HTC Hero smartphone running Google’s Android operating system, I finally realized what was missing from my touch experience over the years – finger friendly interface. Everything I have done on this device has been very easy to do without a stylus. It’s still early but, for one-handed operation on a touch screen device, the HTC Hero running Google’s Android is the first device I have used that could be as easy to operate as a Windows Mobile Standard device.

The bottom line is this – Mobile Jaw will have a lot more Android content to come. It looks like this device will be my primary device for the foreseeable future.

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