Todays & Tomorrows Technology

We’re still waiting for an official release for ASUS’ Eee Keyboard – the latest we hear is that it should drop sometime in August – but that hasn’t stopped French site Blogeee from getting their hands on one. Rather than cherish it for the rarity it is, they’ve decided to open the Keyboard up and find out what’s making it tick inside.

As you might expect, it’s basically a long, flat netbook, with a custom circuit-board to which ASUS have frustratingly soldered the 1GB of RAM. Cooling is via heat-pipes to the Atom N280 1.66GHz processor and accompanying chipset, leading back to a 40mm exhaust fan which, Blogeee report, makes little noise. Other components are more modular, such as the Bluetooth and WiFi adapters and the 16GB SSD.

The battery is a 1,880mAh pack that Blogeee estimate will be good for up to 1hr 40 minutes wireless runtime. The unit they’ve acquired also has a Silicon Image wireless HDMI transmitter which also takes care of up to 1080p graphics and HDCP certification, though we’ve previously heard that not all models will include it.

Blogeee end up a little confused about the point of the ASUS Eee Keyboard, suggesting that the storage is too little for a true HTPC while a regular netbook or nettop will provide just as good an internet machine. We’re still keen to try it out ourselves, but for now we’ll have to wait for the official release.

Over at our sibling site PhoneMag they’ve posted the full Nokia N97 review, and if you’ve been as eagerly-anticipating this smartphone as we have then you really need to read it. On paper, the N97 ticks just about every box you could hope for, but when it comes to usability and overall polish it seems that Nokia may have dropped the ball.

The QWERTY keyboard earns much of the N97 dismay, with poor tactile feedback, shallow travel and a frustrating layout, but S60 5th Edition, despite Nokia’s work to integrate touch-control, must share the blame. Compared to rival devices, it seems a lazy implementation, while the resistive touchscreen feels like old technology compared to the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre or BlackBerry Storm.

There are positive points, including strong multimedia performance (though ugly, basic apps), the homescreen widgets and plenty of onboard storage, but the overall feeling is that the N97 simply arrived too late to capitalize on its potential.

Considering you can find SD cards, PMPs and even fridges packing WiFi these days, it’s something of a surprise that so few digital photo frames include wireless connectivity. One such exception is the Sungale ID800WT Widget Photo Frame, an 8-inch 800 x 600 touchscreen display which not only promises to show off your holiday snaps – whether locally stored or in an online gallery – but YouTube, GMail and internet radio, too. Unfortunately, as Zatz Not Funny discovered, the reason so few frames include WiFi is perhaps because the manufacturers handle it so poorly.

Setup is simple, and the weather widget – which relies on your ZIP code to locate itself – works well. Unfortunately, if you’ve any greater ambitions than using the ID800WT as a glorified weather station then you may be disappointed: the YouTube and internet radio widgets could be persuaded to work only once or twice, the GMail viewer shows just a few lines of each message, it refused to connect to Picasa and the news widget, while functional, is hardly visually appealing.

The end result is something that reviewer Mari Silbey describes as “decent as a standard digital photo frame, but it’s not the tablet of the future”. Somehow it’s hard to justify around $165 on something that delivers pretty much the same as counterparts less than half the price.

When your HDTV is a one-of-a-kind ultrawide 56-inch display with a £4,500 ($7,318) price tag, you’d better hope it rates well in reviews. Thankfully Philips’ indecently broad Cinema 21:9 56PFL9954H does just that; according to TechRadar, the 1080p high-def set delivers “the best aspects of the finest sets” they’ve ever seen.
Coming in for particular praise are the Ambilight Spectra 3 system, which backlights the HDTV with matched LED lighting, plus the straightforward installation and slickly designed UI. Sound is “well rounded, faithful and genuinely muscular” thanks to integrated subwoofers.

Most importantly, though, the image quality is excellent, as long as you’re feeding it a decent source. That needn’t just mean 1080p; the Cinema 21:9 copes admirably with standard definition DVDs, but Freeview is blocky and shows all the artifacts you’d expect. All in all, a stormer of an HDTV; it’s just a shame that the price will put it out of reach of most buyers.

After the MSI X-Slim X340’s recent frankly awful review, we’ve been waiting for a third-opinion and hopefully some indication that the ultraportable’s poor showing was a one-off aberration. Unfortunately, many of the critique points from that review – poor build quality, “cheap and nasty” trackpad and “tacky” keyboard – also crop up in NotebookReview’s piece.
Stylistically, the X340 rates highly again, and reviewer Kevin is fairly accommodating of the roughly 3.5hrs battery life given the overall slim profile. Performance, though, doesn’t get the same pass-card, with Kevin suggesting the Core 2 Solo based ultraportable “doesn’t feel that much faster than a netbook”; in fact, compared to the Intel Atom N280 CPU the X340 only just scraped ahead in some benchmarks. Thankfully the Intel X4500 integrated graphics do a decent job with 720p, though there are still reportedly “a few blips in performance”.

The end result is a keyboard described both as “comfortable” and in need of “some extra bracing”, a shambolic touchpad and performance more in line with a netbook than the notebook the X340 professes to be. Still, it’s far cheaper than a MacBook Air, at $799.99 with 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard-drive, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth, that that’s likely to persuade plenty of people to take the risk.

We’ve known Toshiba’s mini NB205 netbook was headed to the US since the beginning of the month, and the first units seem to be arriving. LaptopMag’s well-work test bench is one of the earliest recipients, and while the N280-based NB205 may be behind the curve when it comes to reaching the market, according to reviewer Joanna Stern it “rises above the competition”.
Singled out for particular praise are the “beautiful” design, “spacious keyboard” and “exemplary” battery life, which manages to reach an admirable 8.5hrs. There are also neat features such as the USB charging port which continues to supply power to peripherals even when the netbook is switched off.

Minor points of annoyance are the chunky screen bezel and the prolonged boot time. The 1.66GHz N280 Atom is never going to be a speed demon, but it puts in a decent performance overall. Considering the price – $399 for 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard-drive, plus WiFi b/g – anybody desperate for a current-N-Series netbook should look at the NB205; those with room to wait, though, might want to see the first Atom N450 machines launching in Q4 2009.

You will need to know your IMEI number (found in Options->Status). Most carriers should give you your unlock code, but you may have to purchase a code from a vendor.

BlackBerry 8300 / 8800 Curve
1. Go to Settings Menu -> Options
2. Select Advanced Options -> SIM Card
3. Type MEPD on the keyboard (you won’t see the text)
4. Type MEP then [ALT button] then 2 (again you won’t see the text)
5. A prompt should come up “Enter Network MEP Code” Type in your unlock code then press the track wheel to confirm.
6. The phone is now unlocked.
BlackBerry 8100
1. Insert SIM card and power phone on.
2. Make sure the radio and wireless are turned off.
3. Go to Options -> Advanced Options -> SIM Card
4. Type MEPD on the keyboard (you won’t see the text)
5. Type MEPP then [ALT button] then 2 (again you won’t see the text)
6. Enter the unlock code and press enter
7. Reboot. Device is now unlocked.
BlackBerry 8700
1. Follow steps 1-4 from above.
2. While holding the ALT key type MEPE
3. A prompt will appear. Enter your unlock code and press in the jog dial to confirm.
4. Device is now unlocked.
BlackBerry 6xxx, 7xxx
1. Go to Options -> SIM Card
2. Type MEPD for all models except 7100 in which case type MEPPD (you won’t see the text)
3. Usually you will see “active” NET lock. Disable by typing MEP2 or MEPP2 for the 7100.
4. You should be prompted to enter your unlock code. Enter it.
5. Device should be unlocked