By Benny Har-Even
6.BlackBerry Bold 9000
We can't let the iPhone 3G have all the fun can we? RIM has been consistently pushing for some time to shed its straight-laced, corporate image and show the world that it's there for the fun things in life too. And surely even the most hardened sceptic would appreciate the bright display, the headphone socket, the loud speakers and iTunes compatibility of the Bold? They'd also like the quality feel, the Qwerty keyboard and its overall ease of use. It's also rather good at email too! The failed experiment that is the Storm only goes to show that sometimes it pays not to try too hard to mimic the competition.
7.Brother MFC-7840W
Multi-function printers are now the lifeblood of most small offices and Brother's MFC-7840W really caught our attention back in May. Sitting at the higher end of Brother's SOHO range, its feature set was impressive at the price and still is. While it may not be a looker, ergonomically it's a success with a well-laid out approach. We also liked its turn of speed and print quality in addition to the running costs. All-in-all, a home run for Brother.
8.Lenovo X300
The arrival of the Apple MacBook Air and Lenovo's X300 at around the same time could be seen as a classic Mac vs Windows, hip and trendy vs corporate battle. The Mac was as sleek, thin and achingly cool as a laptop could be. The X300 was a large black slab that seemed to have deliberately soaked up any attempts at style that the Lenovo engineers had tried to give it.
But that of course gave it its own cool style. It was almost as light as the Air but still offered three USB ports, Ethernet, integrated mobile broadband and an optical drive, all of which the Air did not. Sure Windows Vista was a downer compared to the Air's Mac OS X, but in terms of hardware, the Lenovo was a clear winner.
9.Miniframe SoftXpand
Miniframe, a small Israeli company, produced one of the most interesting, and controversial, solutions of the year. It looked to heavily reduce licensing costs by removing many of the restrictions of Windows XP, enabling up to eight users to work from a single PC – at the same time.
In cash strapped environments, such as in education, in developing countries, or any major banking institution, the economic benefits are obvious. However, the licence-skipping antics of Miniframe did not amuse Microsoft, who after being made aware of SoftXpand following an enquiry by IT PRO, referred to the software as, “a clear violation” of its licensing rules - a statement that did not go down well with Miniframe. Either way, this is an intriguing technology and we look forward to seeing how it develops in 2009.
10.Fujitsu Siemens Primergy RX600 S4
While Intel prepares waits to launch a server based on its all conquering Core i7 desktop processor, it has to make do with Dunnington or the Xeon 7400 series. This 45nm part offers six cores, 16MB of level 2 cache and clock speeds up to 2.66GHz. Stick that in a quad socket system and you've got a serious solitaire machine.
Fujitsu Siemens’ Primergy RX600 S4 is just such as machine and as well as raw performance we were also impressed by its remote management and expansion potential.
source : www.itpro.co.uk
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Kamis, 08 Januari 2009
Top 10 reviews of 2008 Part. 2
Top 10 mobile features of 2009 Part. 2
By Clare Hopping
HSDPA
Although some handsets still don’t feature 3G yet, it’s something that will certainly grow in the next 12 months. As people start to use web browsing more and more on their handsets (even if just for Facebook), speed will become a big issue. By the end of 2009, HSDPA will be the preferred data connection for all manufacturers.
Location-based services
With GPS integrated into phones now becoming an expectation rather than a useful added extra, software companies will build on this with an influx of possibilities. Mobile turn-by-turn navigation will stamp out the paid for software, and you’ll be able to find any point of interest on a map and then call it direct from your mobile. Take a look at Nokia’s new improved Nokia Maps for just a hint of things to come.
NFC
After successful mobile phone-based near-field communication (NFC) trials in 2008 for making payments and accessing public transport, it’s quite likely we’ll see the first widely available device with integrated NFC towards the end of this year.
Social networking
Social networking is becoming huge on the PC, so this will be a trend for mobile in 2009. Handsets including BlackBerrys ship with a Facebook app preinstalled so it’s no surprise manufacturers are already creating social-networking based devices such as the INQ1 from 3. Expect more collaboration in this area with the likes of Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.
Touch screens
With BlackBerry introducing the ‘click touch screen’ on the Storm, we are going to see more technologies this year that change the way we use touch screens. Companies are likely to use more multi-touch capabilities as seen on the iPhone and LG KC910 Renoir, and there will probably be a lot more touch display devices coming out too.
Source : www.itpro.co.uk
Top 10 mobile features of 2009 Part. 1
A mobile phone is an essential in almost everyone’s pocket nowadays. As different mobile technologies converge to become one unit, we’re pondering what we’ll see on every phone this time next year.
By Clare Hopping, 2 Jan 2009 at 15:45
Last year, we saw features and functions on mobile phones that we wouldn’t have dreamt about two years ago.
Now it’s time to take our crystal ball and see what the future holds for the coming year.
Browsing
Surfing the net on mobile is still viewed as a challenge to a lot of people. The biggest problem is the size of the screen and text, but it’s not easy to make the screen bigger without it impacting on the size of the handset. Therefore, browsers like those seen on the BlackBerry Storm and iPhone will be more commonplace, where you can just tap part of the screen to zoom in.
Bundled software
In the coming 12 months, manufacturers will begin to bundle more useful software with devices so it’s easier for users to sync their mobiles and PCs. Although all manufacturers ship software with handsets, people never make full use of it. Just look at iTunes with the iPhone. Not only is it seamless to use, every iPhone user can and does use it.
Camera functionality
We’ve already seen camera phones hit the 8-megapixel mark, and in 2009 we’ll seldom see anything below 5-megapixels. It’s not just about resolution though; we’ll also see an improvement with the functions of a mobile camera; face recognition, spot focus, xenon flash and optical zooms will all become essentials for a camera phone.
Email services
Not all devices offer push email or even a collaborative web-based email service. As more and more people expect to be able to access email on the move, we’ll begin to see pre-installed apps on mobiles that allow you to receive all web-based (such as Yahoo, Gmail et al) and POP3/IMAP email in one place, pushed to the handset.
GPS
Not only will there be more location-based services available, every mid and high-tier handset will come with integrated GPS. Integrated GPS modules started off in the same way as mobile cameras, with manufacturers offering the attachment as an accessory, then integration into high-end phones, and now they’re everywhere. GPS will follow the same path.
Source : www.itpro.co.uk