In these financially troubled times, the budget sector is more important than ever. Considering it’s a notebook from the world’s third-largest PC manufacturer, Dell’s Inspiron 1545 (also known as the Inspiron 15) has a lot to live up to.

As with many new budget notebooks, Dell’s latest is available in a few different colours if purchased direct. Matte Black is standard. This particular model comes with a dark blue ‘high-gloss’ lid.

Article by:
Jeffrey L. Wilson (Laptop Mag)

Jet-setters in search of a phone that they can use both at home and abroad will find a compelling option in the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition. Featuring unique dual-network capability, this smart phone will automatically switch between CDMA and GSM signals when roaming globally. Toss in RIM’s airtight push e-mail, a QWERTY keyboard, and a media player, and you have a fully loaded smart phone that will keep globe-trotters connected, productive, and entertained.

The 8830 World Edition should look familiar to BlackBerry aficionados, with its 8800-styled trackball and QWERTY keyboard, but its executive-chic metallic-silver body more closely resembles the Curve. At just 4.6 ounces and 4.4 x 2.6 x 0.6 inches, it easily slips into a shirt or jacket pocket. Navigating menus was a cinch, thanks to the silky-smooth glide of the trackball.

The 4.6-ounce handheld does what all BlackBerry models do best: handle e-mail. The 8830 World Edition’s built-in wizard made setting up our Gmail account a snap (users can create a maximum of ten accounts), and within a few minutes we were receiving messages. The keys a bit small for lion-pawed users, but they’re nicely spaced, which makes for a comfortable typing experience.

The 8830 World Edition also lets you view (but not edit) Word, Excel, and PDF files. BlackBerry Messenger is included, but we preferred to use the free Google Talk for BlackBerry Devices download, as it’s a more universal communication tool.

At the heart of the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition is its unique dual-network compatibility. When in the United States, chatters are given voice time via Verizon’s CDMA network, but when venturing overseas, the phone automatically connects to local GSM/GPRS networks. Unfortunately, this device doesn’t support faster EDGE data networks overseas.

Web-surfing stateside was pretty snappy thanks to the 8830 World Edition’s high-speed EV-DO connection. The photo-heavy CNN.com consistently loaded in a little less than 18 seconds. We also experienced good call quality on Verizon’s network, but as with the Blackberry 8800 and the BlackBerry Curve, we would have liked more volume. The phone is rated at 220 minutes of talk time, and we saw about four days of periodic use before needing to charge the battery.

The 8830 World Edition also supports voice dialing and recognized every name we threw at it, with the exception of “Horatio,” which required multiple voice commands to dial correctly. Using Bluetooth, we were able to sync to a wireless headset for hands-free calls. Like the BlackBerry 8800, this device doesn’t support stereo Bluetooth headsets, so you’ll have to go the wired route when listening to tunes.

The bundled copy of Roxio Media Manager 9 features a split-screen interface that makes dragging and dropping media files between your notebook and handset a breeze. Transferred photos looked crisp and colorful on the bright display, and video (H.264, WMV, MPEG-4) played smoothly. The 8830 features surprisingly loud speakers for enjoying music (AAC, MP3, WMA), but they project only average audio quality. Make sure you have a microSD Card on hand, as the paltry 64MB of onboard memory fills up quickly.

Priced at only P14,500, the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition is reasonably priced given its global roaming capability. The 8830 is a very good choice for people who want fast EV-DO data performance stateside.

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The Nikon D80 lasted a long time at the top of Nikon’s entry-level dSLR list, and the D5000 has been an eagerly awaited replacement. And there are plenty of significant changes in this model. Nikon switches to a CMOS sensor instead of the CCD it’s been using in its entry-level models, in this case, the same 12.3-megapixel version that’s in the D90. Plus there’s the new (to Nikon’s dSLRs) flip-down-and-swivel LCD, and an improved AF system–the same 11-point AF system as the D90–that distinguish it clearly from the cheaper D60. But, as frequently happens, this poses quite a bit of competition for the more expensive D90. Especially since it has a newer version of the Expeed image processor (with improved Auto Active D-Lighting and face-priority AF) and enhanced Live View AF, along with a connector for the optional GP-1 hot shoe GPS. It also supports direct wireless upload when you use an Eye-Fi card.

Constructed of polycarbonate over stainless steel, the 21.6-ounce D5000 weighs a few ounces more than the D60 but about 4 ounces less than the D90. It feels plasticky, but not cheap–pretty typical for its price segment–although the SD slot cover does seem a bit flimsier than usual.

There’s no dedicated mode for shooting video (that’s a good thing); instead, while in Live View mode, you use the OK button to stop and start recording. Though it doesn’t do continuous autofocus, you can initiate AF while recording. Like Canon’s, however, it’s very slow and a bit noisy. (For more on the design,click through the slideshow. For a complete list of features and their implementations, you can download a PDF copy of the D5000’s manual.)

The D5000 definitely comes through on performance and photo quality. It’s fast, and generally outshoots the D90, most notably in low-light autofocus. It powers on and shoots in about 0.2 second, with shot lag as good as 0.3 second under good light and a still-respectable 0.7 second in dim. It shoots and saves JPEG files slightly faster than raw, though they both round out to about 0.5 second; adding flash bumps that just slightly to 0.9 second. Burst shooting clocks about 4 frames per second–same as the D90–putting it at the head of this class. The AF system is pretty good, too, and the whole thing is certainly fast enough to keep up with the typical shooting material of kids, sports, and pets. The battery lasts a relatively long time as well; it’s CIPA rated at about 510 shots.

Nikon D5000 photo samples

It also delivers excellent photo quality for the price, with solid exposure (though not as bright and straight-to-printer friendly as the T1i’s) and great color. Its noise profile is very good up through ISO 1,600 and, for a variety of scenes, usable through its extended ISO 6,400 (Hi). The kit lens is above average as well: very sharp and able to focus quite closely. As with the D90, though, the video is a bit disappointing. The camera only shoots 24fps 720p, which isn’t a fast enough frame rate to render quite as smoothly as we’ve come to expect and doesn’t scale very well to full-screen playback. It’s usable, and fine if you’re interested in experimenting, but it doesn’t look sharp or polished.

As long as you don’t get as hung up as I did on its operational quirks or have high expectations of shooting video, there’s plenty to like about the Nikon D5000–especially if you’re most interested in its core aptitudes of a wealth of features, speedy shooting, and high-quality photographs for the money.

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We’ve been bumping into the new BlackBerry Storm 2 for quite a while now on the so-called “information superhighway,” but we’ve finally had a chance to escalate those encounters and spend a few sweet moments with a live unit in the flesh. First off, let’s confirm the huge news: RIM’s abandoned the original Storm’s SurePress click-screen and gone with a traditional fixed capacitive display for the sequel. It’s over, guys. Unfortunately, the Verizon-branded dual-mode GSM / CDMA unit that we played with has a bug preventing us from getting past the license screen so we couldn’t dive deep into the OS (and yeah, we tried scrolling to the bottom of the agreement — no dice), but we can tell you what we do know: the Storm 2’s sleeker style and more heft combined with the newly-stable screen collaborate to make everything feel a wee bit higher end than the original.

The display is a capacitive number, and it’s definitely not SurePress, at least in the traditional sense; there’s nary a click to be found. In fact, it behaves rather like the iPhone’s screen as far as scrolling and even texture of the surface is concerned. We can’t speak to the tech inside, but it does pack a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, a 3.5 mm headset jack, typical USB charger, and run of the mill soft keys on the sides of the handset. Across the bottom, the Storm’s keys have been replaced with four softkeys on the display proper for call, end, back, and a BlackBerry key. The top has both the power and mute keys with the entire thing wrapped lovingly in plastics with some metal trim on the edges and a metal battery cover.

We’d heard buzz of haptic support — and while it is possible it is somewhere in there, we can’t get at it, so we’ll leave that one up in the air for now. We’ll leave the device with the heroes and hope we get another chance with it if they can get into the OS for a tour. Meanwhile, follow on for the gallery and a quick video showing off some Verizon branding right after the break. Of course, if you have any questions, drop them in the post and we’ll do our level best to get you an answer — or at least try to lie in a convincing fashion.

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The Olympus Stylus Tough-8000 looks like a tank – especially with its stainless-steel case (appropriately enough, black and blue bodies are also available). The camera looks strong, with metal edges and screws that look like bolts scattered on the front, and feel just as sturdy thanks to some nice heft. It camera measures 3.7 x 2.4 x .85 (W x H x D, in inches), and weighs 7.4 ounces with battery and card in place.

The lens, which is a nice wide-angle 3.6x zoom rated 28-102mm, does not extend from the body when you power up. A metal lens cover slides up or down so the camera can confront the elements. And, boy, can it do just that. The Tough-8000 can handle a drop of 6.6 feet, go 33 feet underwater, withstand 220 pounds of pressure, and operate down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Also on the front is the flash, an LED illuminator for focus, and a two-pinhole microphone. The logos and nomenclature were very subdued in our stainless version. It looks rugged and definitely stands apart from the competition. Just have a cloth handy, since fingerprints really stand out.

On the top you’ll find the shutter, a power button, and an underwater sensor, which will tell you how deep or high you are when engaged. On the right side is a compartment with a sturdy lock for the multi-use connector (for charging the battery, watching images on a TV or transferring photos and videos to a PC). Below it is a small speaker.

The back also has a rugged look, with sturdy metal keys and a quality 2.7-inch LCD screen rated 230K pixels. The monitor worked well in a variety of lighting situations, including direct sunshine. The controls are similar to those found on almost every point-and-shoot digicam. On the top right are the wide/tele keys and below them is a mode dial. In keeping with a big trend for 2009, there’s an intelligent auto option, where the camera decides the proper settings for the subject it believes is in front of it (sports, portrait, landscape and so on). Strangely, the camera icon, which typically means auto, is actually P for program automatic exposure. Here you can change the ISO, white balance and shadow adjustment; in iAuto, you can’t adjust anything, it’s totally aim-and-forget. You cannot change shutter speed or aperture in any setting, so if you’re looking for these controls pass this one by. Other dial options include SCN for scene modes, which include several for underwater shots, movies (only 640 x 480 at 30 fps), playback and beauty. This is a strange one: The camera picks a face, and smoothes that countenance, creating a 2MP still. Forgive us but something got lost with this one in translation during the trip from Japan to the States.

Below the mode dial is the classic four-way controller with center set button. We don’t know why Olympus duplicated playback here as well, but there’s delete, menu and display (no grid lines, unfortunately). On the bottom of the made-in-China camera is a tripod mount and a compartment for the battery and xD picture card slot.

Along with these controls, the camera also features something called tap control, which allows users to touch parts of the 8000 to engage select commands. It’s nothing like an iPhone touch-screen (more in the performance section).

The Tough-8000 comes with everything you need other than the memory card – body, battery, wrist strap, A/V and USB cable plus an AC adaptor for recharging the battery in-camera. You also get an 86-page printed owner’s manual and Olympus Master 2 software for handling files on CD-ROM along with a microSD card adaptor if you want to use that media instead of xD.

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Canon has just announced the 15.1 megapixel EOS 500D, known as the Rebel T1i in the US market. The new DSLR is a response to Nikon’s D90 — it’s a high-end consumer model which shoots HD video. It’s also Canon’s second DSLR to best Nikon’s HD efforts.

The 500D shoots at up to full 1080p resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) but only does so at 20 frames per second. Drop to 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) and you get a better 30fps. This compares to the Nikon D90’s maximum 720p at 24fps (the same speed as film based movie cameras). The Nikon, though, records in the crappy motion JPEG format. The 500D pops out .mov files in the H.264 codec. Another nice touch is the ability to use the autofocus whilst shooting, although you only get to use the slower contrast-detection system available in the live-view mode.

Yes, the 500D has live-view, like almost every camera appearing these days. The stills mode (this is a DSLR, after all) also has some neat touches. The one we like most is called Creative Auto by Canon, and is essentially an easy way to tweak settings while letting the camera take care of the heavy lifting. The camera remains in auto mode, but the user can choose from English-language options, like “Darker/Brighter” or “Blur Background” to customize the image. For beginners not coming from a manual camera background, this is a great way to learn without actually messing things up.

Otherwise, there isn’t much that stands out, other than a good top “film speed”. The 500D goes up to ISO 3200 in regular mode with two extra emergency settings of 6400 and 12800. The rest of the specs are unsurprising but good — a 3″, 920,000 pixels LCD, 95% viewfinder coverage, HDMI-out, self-cleaning sensor, face-detection. The APS-C sized sensor measures 30mm diagonally, making it smaller than a full-frame sensor but still a huge improvement over tiny pocket cameras’ sensors.

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CNET product brief

Description: The Toshiba Satellite M305-S4910 is a 5.5-pound, general-purpose notebook computer.Compared to other mainstream notebooks on the market, it is very inexpensive.The 14.1 inch widescreen has a native resolution of 1280 x 800, which is fairly standard among notebooks. Powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. This notebook has a 320GB hard disk drive and 4 GB of memory. Features integrated graphics with 128MB of video memory.

Pros: Has a 5.9 Greenpeace ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ manufacturer rating (Nov 2008), which is considerably more favorable than some similarly priced notebooks. In fact, the average cost of a product with this favorable a Greenpeace ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ manufacturer rating (Nov 2008) is $1,080.Also, this notebook has a 320GB hard drive, which is larger than some similarly priced notebooks.In fact, the typical cost of a product with this large a hard drive is $1,150.The External Serial ATA port (ESATA) will transfer data to an external hard drive much faster than USB 2.0.

Cons: Has only a 14.1-inch screen size, which is somewhat smaller than some similarly priced notebooks.For example, the Dell Vostro 2510, a 5.7-pound notebook at around $675, has a 15.4 screen size.The fair battery performance of this notebook means it has to be recharged more often than other laptops in its class.Shared video memory has a negative impact on system performance which may be okay for users with more modest graphics needs.Users with more demanding needs should look to a graphics solution that brings its own muscle.

Suitability: Suited for those who just need a basic notebook.If you have awireless network at home, wirelessly browse the Web from any room in your house with this Wi-Fi enabled notebook.Comes with a DVD writer, allowing you to convert home movies from your digital Handycam onto DVDs.With 128MB of dedicated video RAM, this machine will do OK with some games and multimedia applications, but will fall short of satisfying the serious gaming enthusiast.

Value: Given its very inexpensive price, this notebook has great features for the money. Generally, given the trade-offs between performance and low price, this item will likely only appeal to serious bargain hunters.

Suggestions: (1) Given this device’s Wi-Fi capability, you may want to get a wireless access point for your home, so that you can browse the Web more conveniently from any room.(2) The integrated camera, while it does not have the resolution of most digital cameras, can be handy if you want to teleconference over the Internet.

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BlackBerry Curve ‘outsells iPhone’

Reuters

The BlackBerry Curve moved past Apple Inc’s iPhone in the first quarter to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S., research group NPD said yesterday.

Research In Motion (RIM), which already dominates the corporate smartphone market in the United States, also had three of the top five best-selling consumer smartphones in the period, with the Storm at No. 3 and the Pearl at No. 4, NPD said.

T-Mobile’s G1 ranked No. 5.

The iPhone was the top-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in both the third and fourth quarters of 2008. The Curve was second and the Palm Inc’s Centro was third.

NPD credited a “buy-one-get-one” promotion by Verizon Wireless — a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc — for helping push the Curve past the iPhone.

“The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD, in a news release.

The iPhone is only available through AT&T Inc. Apple launched its second-generation 3G iPhone last July.

RIM’s consumer smartphone market share climbed 15 percent from the previous period to nearly 50 percent in the first quarter, as Apple’s and Palm’s share both fell 10 percent.

More than half of RIM’s 25 million subscribers now fall into the non-corporate category, according to the company.

But the smartphone battle is just starting to heat up. Apple is widely expected to unveil a new iPhone in the next few months, while Palm’s highly-anticipated Pre smartphone is set to launch during the second quarter.

The smartphone market as a whole continues to grow, even as the larger handset market stagnates. The devices made up 23 percent of U.S. handset sales in the first quarter, NPD said, up from 17 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Shares of Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM rose 3 percent in late afternoon trading on the Nasdaq to $74.43. Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple were up 3.4 percent to $131.63 on the Nasdaq.

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