Kindle and gadgets

Kindle and Amazon seem to be getting a lot of people excited. They have sold out of the current batch of Kindles. In a lot of ways I can understand why. It looks like it's easy to use, a good size and with extra storage could hold a lot of books / documents. The ability to use the mobile phone network to get the books you're interested in is interesting! It seems to be easy to read. The items you chose from Amazon are listed in their / your library on Amazon so you can download them again if you need to.

The problems as I see them are only able to connect in America, no images, limited storage space and limited functionality. Adding an extra memory card is useful, but it doesn't solve most of the problems.

Some years ago there was so much touting of the idea that in general 'the people' didn't want several gadgets for several functions. One gadget was wanted that could do everything. This pushed a rash of development into the UMPC and some of those are pretty wonderful. They didn't take off in a big way. You can still get an ultra mobile but they don't appear in the shops as such and they are quite expensive. Every one of them that came out always seemed to miss out on one thing, whether it was the ability to make phone calls or something to do with connectivity, for example you could do wifi but not bluetooth (or the other way round). And sometimes the amount of storage just isn't inspirational. I can't see the point of getting an ultra mobile with 20 or 40 GB when my music player had 40 and I'd filled up 11 by the time it died. If I'm getting more functionality I want more storage.

A lot of people didn't like doing general computing on such a small screen. As I still haven't had such a small form factor in my hands to play with I can't give an opinion on that. I tried reading text on my music player but that was so small I ended up getting eye strain.

I'm one of the people who still wants one great gadget. I want everything including phone, camera, internet general computing, images and video, music, books, organising, decent storage and probably more on one device. I can't justify it yet. I keep an eye on the devices as they come out but the ones that seem to be getting close to what I want are very expensive. I already have a phone and access to a (fantastic) digital camera, a pc at home and I can buy a laptop for Aus$6-700 so why would I spend over Aus$2000 for something else ... that probably won't satisfy in the end. I feel quite pessimistic. At the very least I'll probably end up with the latest windoze and have to wipe it and load linux, and as such a huge part of the expense for these gadgets is the dozy operating system it feels like a waste of money. And knowing linux and the general idea that it always copes best with hardware at least six months old I may not get it to work properly anyway. At least for 6 months. And I'm not knowledgeable enough to write the drivers and programs I'd need.

So, probably for the next few years, I'll have a basic phone, access to a great camera, a pc at home that I've built myself, and a laptop that I can use for music, video, reading, organising myself and general computing. I will do internet either on the laptop when I'm out or on my pc at home. I can sync my organising with the pc, laptop and pc at work. At least with a handy usb stick. I'll make phone calls with my basic phone. Take photos and load them onto each computer as I want. Use the computers as backup for each other... Could be worse - I could be using a PDA as well.......................................

Technology #7

I always want more technology. Life could get very complicated if I had more money because the only thing that's providing any limit at the moment is my pay pack.

My ipod died a while back. I don't really know why, and I still have it on the off chance I'll learn something that will allow me to bring it back to life, but probably the hard drive has a fault. I finally said it but I still don't believe it. I'm keeping the dead ipod. Yes I have changed the battery, twice, I worked out how to do that.

I really miss music and talking books on the train. I travel about an hour each way each day and that's 10 hours a week to fill in. Yes I do read, yes I read paper versions, but I do love my technology. What I really want is a UMPC. Ultra Mobile Personal Computer for those not familiar. Usually bigger than an ipod, maybe a 7 inch screen, often folds like a laptop. Fully functioning pc. Play my music and do everything else. The best ones are also phones. They are expensive with the cheapest being over $1000 is Aus dollars and the ones with 80 GB or bigger hard drives being A$2000 or more.

So, a major chain department store (I don't give away advertising) has laptops in their catalogue, 120 GB hard drives and 1GB of memory. Ok, it's not 7 inches, more like 15, but they only cost $798. But I've been away at the LT conference in Melbourne for a few days and I've missed the beginning of the sale. I see the ad 4 days after it's begun. I decide I have to ring first, no use getting anyone to drive me all over the western suburbs going from store to store. 1st says they only have the floor stock left. 2nd has two but they are only the 80GB. I play cards on the puter and think. Go back to the catalogue and there's a store in the burb, about 20 minute drive away that I'm planning to go to in the arvo to watch a movie. Ring the store, they have 2 left and I ask them to put one away for me. We drive up there, I get my hands on it and because I just can't resist I open the box at the coffee shop and find the battery is charged so I have to put it in and start it up and load the operating system and explore to see what it's like and I look at the C drive just coz and I find that it only has a 70 GB hard drive. Damn. Oh well. Bummer.

I take it back, thankful that I haven't gone too far, keeping it turned on so I can show the people at the store. I'm nice to her, it really isn't her fault, there's nothing on the outside of the box that shows the size of the hard drive, she's nice to me, I get a refund and walk away without a laptop.

Good news is the first store, when Julie went to them today to see if the floor stock is still available and see if she can bargain them down on the price (she's good at that, I'm not), finds that even though it has been sold they are getting 10 more in and seeing as I've had such a drama getting one they are putting one away in my name. They don't usually do that they say. Now I just wait for the phone call, and hope they can get one in on their order......................