Archive for October, 2005
You really do get all of the equipment you need to receive satellite TV in up to four rooms. (Each room can watch different channels at the same time.) Of course, you are also making a one year commitment to pay your monthly programming charges automatically using your credit card. Keep in mind that we will charge your card $49.99 up front. This covers activating your account and your free installation. But the great news is that you’ll receive a $49 credit on your first bill from DISH Network! This means you can get up to $1,500 worth of satellite equipment installed in your home without having to buy the equipment!
o sign up for this offer with Dish Network, you are required to use a credit card (MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover) or a debit card which has a MasterCard/Visa Logo. Debit cards from your checking account are acceptable as long as they have a Visa or MasterCard Logo. If you do not have a credit card, you should consider having a roomate or other household member obtain service in their name if they have a credit card.
You can have up to 6 TVs on one account. Your first four rooms are installed FREE. If you need a fifth or sixth TV set up, you must pay $149 for a special SW64 switch and $99.99 each for the receivers for the extra TVs to be connected. Installation for each extra TV will cost $59.99. You will still only pay us $49.99 today to get set up. This will enable you to watch different channels on each TV at the same time. You will pay Dish Network directly at a later time for your additional equipment.
October 25th, 2005
What is Yahoo! Music Unlimited ?
Yahoo! Music Unlimited is the collection of more than one million songs you can enjoy through the Yahoo! Music Engine.
There are two convenient ways to access the entire library of full length songs: You can subscribe to Yahoo! Music Unlimited, which gives you unlimited access to all the music for a very low price per month (you also get LAUNCHcast Plus radio with your subscription, you can buy burnable song downloads at a discount, and more.) You can also simply buy individual song downloads to burn on CDs without a subscription.
The Y! Unlimited subscription service is a great way to get all the music you love at a very low price. Here’s how it works:
Join Y! Unlimited for the low monthly price and you can enjoy songs from our huge library, store them on your computer, share them with friends using Yahoo! Messenger, create great playlists, and more. With the “To Go” feature, you can also transfer your subscription music to compatible portable devices. The only thing you can’t do with subscription music is burn to CDs. You can always purchase a burnable download apart from your subscription music to make CDs; plus, if you have a subscription, you get a significant discount on individual, burnable downloads.
As long as you keep your subscription up to date, all your subscription music is there, to listen to, share, transfer, mix, etc. If your subscription lapses, you no longer have access to the songs, but your collection isn’t deleted – it’s stored, safe and sound, for when you’d like to come back. Any songs you purchased as burnable downloads remain yours and accessible, regardless of the subscription status. What’s more, your Yahoo! Music Engine always works, as is yours to keep, regardless of Y! Unlimited subscription, so you can always manage and play your music on the Engine for free, and enjoy all the :30 samples in the Y! Unlimited library.
Source Yahoo taken as Yahoo Aff1l1@te
October 25th, 2005
Proving that the third time is indeed a charm, the third-generation Toshiba Qosmio delivers the most complete multimedia experience of any laptop we’ve seen. Built on a state-of-the-art set of components and accommodating virtually every multimedia feature under the sun, the Qosmio G25-AV513, the highest-end model in the Qosmio line, offers a bright 17-inch, wide-screen display, a double-layer DVD drive, and a TV tuner, as well as a full complement of ports and connections, a rocking set of stereo speakers, and a terrific set of multimedia controls. At $2,999, this notebook is not for the casual user. You can certainly get a handful of these features for less in other entertainment-themed notebooks, such as the HP Pavilion dv4000. Still, we think the Qosmio G25-AV513 is well worth the money if you’re looking for a premier, all-in-one, digital-entertainment system that’s portable enough to move from room to room.
With the lid closed, the Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513 looks quite similar to the original Qosmio E15-AV101–it’s silver colored, has lots of ports and lights around the edges, and is as thick as a King James Bible. But when it’s open, you realize that it’s a totally redesigned–and unique-looking–laptop. Weighing about 9.5 pounds (just more than 11 pounds with its massive AC adapter), and measuring 16 inches wide, 11.5 inches deep, and nearly 2 inches thick, the Qosmio G25-AV513 is simply gigantic, even for a desktop replacement. Though the shiny, black-plastic interior is a fingerprint magnet (Toshiba includes a polyester chamois for this very reason), it’s attractive and makes the Qosmio G25-AV513 as fit for an upscale living room as for a standard home office. It runs quietly and does not get particularly hot.
The keyboard has large, firm keys, though the spacebar and the backspace keys are a bit smaller than those on the Sony VAIO VGN-A690; also, there is no separate number pad, as found on the HP Pavilion zd8000 and the Fujitsu LifeBook N6000. Above the keyboard resides a row of feather-touch system-control buttons that include a full complement of A/V controls: two keys that send you directly to Media Center’s TV and DVD players, two keys to adjust the screen’s brightness, and two more to send or receive a video signal. All glow a pleasing blue when lit. The Qosmio G25-AV513’s touch pad and mouse buttons are far too small for our taste, and there’s no way to turn the touch pad off when you’re using an external mouse–an extremely useful feature found on the Pavilion zd8000 and one that we’d like to see on every desktop-replacement laptop.
High-quality Harman Kardon stereo speakers sit at the upper corners; they sounded extremely loud, crisp, and clear, though they were muffled when the lid was shut–other laptops with front-edge speakers, such as the Pavilion zd8000 and the Dell Inspiron 9300, sound good even with the lid closed. A particularly nice feature is the prominent external volume control wheel, about the size of a quarter, located to the right of the keyboard; nearby, six dash-shaped blue lights show the volume level.
This notebook has one of the brightest wide-aspect 17-inch displays we’ve seen on a laptop–on a par with the superbright Fujitsu LifeBook N6000, slightly brighter than the Sony VAIO VGN-A690, and exponentially brighter than the Pavilion zd8000. The Qosmio G25-AV513’s 1,440×900 native resolution (also found on the Apple 17-inch PowerBook), affords a large amount of screen real estate without forcing text to a painfully tiny size.
You aren’t going to find many laptops with a wider assortment of ports and connections than that of the Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513. The left edge is home to a modem port, two USB 2.0 ports, a Wi-Fi on/off switch, an optical audio/headphone jack, and a microphone jack. The right edge has both PCI Express and PC Card slots, as well as a 3-in-1 media-card reader and a four-pin FireWire port. In addition to two more USB 2.0 ports, the back edge accommodates S-Video in and out, composite in, component out, Ethernet, and an input for a coaxial antenna (a.k.a. your cable TV wire). Our one beef is that the port labels are small and virtually invisible, blending in with the black plastic of the laptop’s edge. The cool, state-of-the-art, slot-loading, double-layer, multiformat DVD drive needs no label, however, and it sits on the front edge.
The Qosmio G25-AV513’s Media Center remote control provides a full complement of multimedia controls, though you need to connect the included IR receiver to the notebook before you can use it. We also received a very long USB 2.0 cable, a coaxial cable dongle, a set of composite cables, and a set of optical audio cables. The laptop comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, as well as a nice package of software, including Nero and InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2.0 for disc burning, plus a number of system utilities.
Toshiba stuffed the Qosmio G25-AV513 full of high-end components to support its wide-ranging multimedia aspirations. Built on a blazing current-generation Pentium M processor running at 2.0GHz, our test unit was equipped with 1GB of 400MHz RAM; two 60GB hard drives, spinning at a brisk 5,400rpm; and Nvidia’s midrange GeForce Go 6600 GPU with 128MB of dedicated memory. This strong lineup of parts proved powerful enough to give the Qosmio G25-AV513 a really good run in CNET Labs’ benchmarks. It scored well ahead of the Sony VAIO VGN-A690 and the Dell Inspiron 9300 in our SysMark 2004 tests, coming in behind only the Pentium 4-fueled HP Pavilion zd8000.
The system also held its own in our gaming tests, beating all comers in our Unreal Tournament 2004 benchmarks and holding its own in our Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 tests. Though it lasted for only a scant 109 minutes in our battery-drain test, the Qosmio G25-AV513 turned in a 235 in our MobileMark 2002 test, even besting our top gaming machine: the Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2. The moral of the story: the Qosmio G25 delivers enough power for virtually any task–from gaming to office productivity–but don’t leave it unplugged for long.
Toshiba backs its laptops with an industry-standard one-year limited parts-and-labor warranty, onsite support, and 24/7 toll-free phone support for the life of the warranty–not the life of the product. Though specific information pertaining to the Qosmio G25-AV513 was not available at the time of this writing, Toshiba’s support Web site is industrial strength and very well organized. It features sections for driver downloads, tech support, warranty and service, and interactive support. Toshiba preloads the Qosmio’s hard drive with a whole bunch of service and support utilities, and the system comes with both a helpful orientation flyer and a complete, but not overwhelming, printed resource guide.
Cnet.com
October 25th, 2005
When we tested an earlier model from the Sony VAIO VGN-FS series (the VAIO VGN-FS570), we found that it offered an adequate array of features but not enough performance to justify its premium price. We reached the same conclusion about the newer FS series unit, the VAIO VGN-FS680/W, despite its included external speakers and TV/DVR docking station.
The FS500 series consists of two set configurations that hover around the $1,500 mark and feature a 1.6GHz Pentium M processor, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, a 60GB or 80GB hard drive, and a double-layer DVD drive.
The FS600 class starts at $1,099 and offers five set configurations, though you can customize and build your own on Sony’s Web site. Options include a range of Pentium M CPUs and a 1.4GHz Celeron; 256MB to 1GB of RAM; 30GB to 100GB of hard drive space; and one of several optical drives. The A/V dock, included with the configuration CNET tested, adds an extra $300 to the price of less expensive models. Finally, we recommend the 15.4-inch display with Sony’s Xbrite technology–the bright, crisp screen is the best thing about this laptop.
Cnet.com
October 25th, 2005
You usually have to choose between two types of digital cameras: slim-line beauties with large LCD screens or bulky enthusiast cameras capable of heavy lifting. The Casio Exilim EX-Z750 scores a coup by integrating these two schools of camera design–or rather, squeezing the benefits of the latter into the tight-fitting pants of the former. The 7.2-megapixel Z750 is the impressive spiritual successor to the handsome Exilim EX-Z55, a camera with admirable looks but disappointing image quality and a dearth of manual features. It offers the same 2.5-inch screen and trendy sub-inch-thick jeans-pocketable design as its forbearer but brings a host of new features to the table, as well as solid performance and very good image quality. Though it still lacks some of the advanced manual features found in Casio’s larger but similarly priced EX-P700, we’re willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If you’re a photographer who craves style but also has a creative itch, the EX-Z750 is one of the few cameras we’ve seen that adequately addresses both.
Features of Casio Exilim EX-Z750
The Casio Exilim EX-Z750’s feature set may be its greatest trump card; as we’ve mentioned, it packs shutter- and aperture-priority modes into a camera-body size unused to such manual delights. The camera’s lens moves quickly through its 3X zoom range, which corresponds to focal lengths of 38mm to 114mm (35mm equivalent). The wide-angle focal length of 38mm is a bit narrow for anyone hoping to take lots of indoor shots, but it’s not entirely unexpected in a camera this slim. Among the Z750’s nearly 30 preset Best Shot modes is an antishake option that we haven’t seen in prior Exilims; in practice, this takes a bit of the edge off an unsteady hand but doesn’t offer nearly the level of stabilization you’d get from an optical antishake mechanism such as Panasonic’s. Plus, when you’re using scene presets, you don’t have access to the camera’s manual features, and antishake technology is most useful at slow shutter speeds. We like the Multi Continuous shooting mode, which grabs 25 320×240-resolution shots in a bit less than three seconds before stitching them all together into one 1,600×1,200 image. It’s very handy for simulating the photo-booth effect or minutely analyzing your golf swing.
The company line on the EX-Z750 is that it packs the feature set of an Exilim Pro EX-P700 into the body of an Exilim EX-Z55; that’s partially accurate, though the Z750 lacks the P700’s wealth of bracketing options. A pleasant surprise is that the Z750 also incorporates a significant number of video features from the hybrid Exilim Pro EX-P505, giving it unexpected flexibility for movie capture. For instance, the Z750 can grab VGA-resolution (640×480) movie clips at 30 frames per second, a spec the P700 can’t match. Casio has also snuck the very useful Short Movie and Past Movie features into this camera, both of which use the camera’s memory buffer to start recording your videos before you hit the shutter. This comes in handy when you’re trying to take video of unexpected moments, such as a hit at a baseball game or blowing out the candles at a birthday party.
October 25th, 2005
When we made our wish list for the successor to the well-received Treo 600, it was to keep the great design but add several missing features. Fortunately, that’s precisely what PalmOne did with its new Treo 650. This model offers a high-resolution display, a faster processor, Bluetooth wireless, Palm OS 5.4, and a removable battery–all notable additions. But the honeymoon ends with some shortcomings, specifically the stingy memory, the limited Bluetooth implementation, and the lack of Wi-Fi. How you feel about these issues depends on your needs, but for our money, the Treo remains the best all-in-one communicator available. Sprint PCS was the first to introduce the new Treo in October of last year, but now after three months of waiting fervently, Cingular customers have a version of their own. At $549, the price is hefty, but you should be able to find it for less with service.
Features of Palm Treo 650 (Cingular, GSM/GPRS)
The PalmOne Treo 650 has a generous feature set, but we weren’t completely in awe. We like the new 312MHz Intel PXA270 chip processor that provides the muscle for multitasking and digital audio and video applications. The memory, however, is another story. First, PalmOne did not increase the amount of memory in this version. In fact, the Treo 650’s 22MB of usable memory is slightly less than the Treo 600’s total after you take away what the OS and core applications require. Second, the company switched to a new file system that effectively reduces available memory by increasing file sizes. (There is a detailed explanation here.)
There is a good reason for this: the new nonvolatile file system (NVFS), paired with the 22MB of nonvolatile memory, means you no longer lose all your data if the battery dies or if you want to swap in a fresh battery, which wasn’t possible with the Treo 600. In other words, the Treo 650 acts more like a cell phone and less like a handheld that needs to be tethered to a PC at regular intervals to recharge and to back up data. This is especially good news if you use client-server software that syncs directly with Microsoft Exchange Server wirelessly, such as ActiveSync for Exchange Server 2003 (now included) or GoodLink. In that case, you will need to HotSync with your desktop only to install new applications or to transfer large files.
Nevertheless, the memory has caused a lot of hubbub, especially among Treo 600 users who upgraded, then discovered that their files suddenly gobbled up more memory. PalmOne is promising a ROM software update to alleviate the problem, and the company has offered to send a free 128MB SD card to anyone who has memory management issues. Whether you get it from PalmOne or buy it yourself, the bottom line is that a nice, big SD card is a must-have accessory for the Treo 650.
In addition to wireless WAN voice and data, the Treo 650 includes both infrared and the much-needed Bluetooth. Theoretically, Bluetooth lets you do several things wirelessly: perform HotSyncs, connect to other Bluetooth devices, and hook up wireless headsets. Fortunately, we had better luck connecting to our testing headsets than we did with the CDMA version of the Treo 650. We tried using the Jabra BT250, the Logitech Mobile Bluetooth headset, and the Jabra BT800. Pairing with each device was problem-free, and calls came through loud and clear. Additionally, on the BT800, we were able to place calls directly from the headset.
But like the CDMA Treo 650, using a headset wasn’t perfect. PalmOne maintains a compatibility list in the support section of its site; the ones labeled Handsfree Profile offer the most features. Only nine headsets support the profile, including Palm’s own Treo headset, so be sure to check before buying a particular model.
The bigger issue is that you can’t use the Treo 650 as a wireless modem for your laptop when you are on the road and there are no Wi-Fi hot spots within range. PalmOne says it is working on an upgrade, but in the meantime, it is directing users to a third-party application available from JuneFabrics.com.
Much to our disappointment, there’s still no integrated Wi-Fi, a feature that has become a common in midrange and high-end PDAs. At some point, the PalmOne SDIO Wi-Fi card will work with Treos, but the company has been slow to release the drivers, and you’ll still have to pay $129 for something that arguably should be built in. That said, improvements to the WAN data networks along with the addition of Bluetooth lessen the need for Wi-Fi.
The basic phone and handheld functions of the Treo remain the same. You get many of the features of an advanced mobile, including a phone book (size is subject to available memory), 28 polyphonic ring tones, a speakerphone, vibrate mode, three-way calling, speed dial, and picture caller ID (where available). And you get the features of a handheld running Palm OS 5.4. Aside from basic organizer applications such as a task list, memos, a calculator, an alarm clock, a calendar, and a world clock, the Treo 650 includes the excellent Dataviz Documents To Go 7.0 for viewing Microsoft Office documents, VersaMail 3.0, AudiblePlayer, and support for Java (J2ME)-enabled games. Multimedia capabilities also got a boost. Previously on the Treo 600, you had to download a third-party application to listen to MP3s; now, the Treo 650 includes RealPlayer in ROM for playing MP3s or Real files. Audio automatically stops when a call comes in.
The Treo has always been an e-mail machine, but VersaMail 3.0 ups the ante. In addition to its support for up to eight POP and IMAP accounts, it now works with ActiveSync for Exchange, which means that with a little help from IT, you can connect directly to your company’s Exchange Server 2003. PalmOne also includes a convenient single in-box for text and multimedia messages. You also can use Cingular’s Express Mail Suite, which can connect to major corporate e-mail systems such as Exchange, Notes, and Groupwise (additional subscription required). The WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser is largely unchanged in appearance, though the device supports both Cingular’s GPRS and EDGE networks.
Though many cell phones now come with 1.3-megapixel cameras, PalmOne stuck with a VGA camera, which disappointed us somewhat. The company made some notable improvements, though. The camera performs better in low light, can shoot video (in MPEG-4 format) as well as stills, and includes a tiny mirror for self-portraits. We especially liked the included picture and video-viewer application, which can play slide shows and even set them to music.
Cnet.com
October 25th, 2005
The Samsung SCH-i730 for Verizon Wireless manages a pretty impressive feat: It shrinks a Windows Mobile-based smart phone into a form factor that actually fits comfortably in your pants pocket and includes broadband wireless, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a built-in keyboard, and a speedy processor. Despite some irritating quirks in its wireless support, the Samsung i730 stays in the running for the “Treo killer” title.
Features of Samsung SCH-i730
Thanks to the combination of its operating system and specs, the Samsung SCH-i730 is a processing powerhouse. It sports a 520MHz Intel PXA272 processor, 64MB of internal RAM, 128MB of flash memory (more than 80MB of which is available for program storage), and an SDIO/MMC expansion slot. It runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, which offers a full set of PIM functions as well as Pocket versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Music and movie fans will appreciate the inclusion of Windows Media Player 10.0, which supports PlaysForSure WMA files from online music stores such as Napster and Musicmatch and easy syncing of television programs recorded by Windows Media Center PCs. The Samsung i730 also includes a few bonus applications, including Sprite Backup, an excellent program launcher, and Verizon’s Wireless Sync push e-mail client. While Microsoft’s Windows Mobile push functionality won’t be built into devices until we see units featuring Windows Mobile 5.0, Verizon’s push e-mail client does the trick. Though some preproduction i730s were shown with a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera, this feature is missing from the initial i730 released by Verizon. It’s possible that the camera could appear in a second model or in a version from another carrier, but no camera version has been announced. Nevertheless, we had hoped that a high-end smart phone such as the Samsung i730 would have at least a VGA-quality camera.
The i730 has the full laundry list of wireless features: It includes Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and both 1xRTT and EV-DO cellular data. The Bluetooth support worked perfectly with the hardware we tested, including the Think Outside Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard, the Stowaway Travel Mouse, the Logitech Mobile Freedom Bluetooth headset, and the Pharos Bluetooth GPS. However, Verizon has chosen not to include Bluetooth dial-up networking support, so you can’t use the i730 as a wireless modem in conjunction with your laptop. Given the blistering speeds we saw in our EV-DO testing–download speeds ranging from 520Kbps to 640Kbps, compared with 60Kbps to 110Kbps for 1xRTT–we can see why Verizon would be concerned that laptop users might use this feature more than the company would like. This omission means you’ll have to do your work directly on the i730 if you can’t find an access point for your laptop.
Another quirk: The phone feature shuts down when you’re using the i730’s Wi-Fi radio, so incoming calls will go directly to voicemail. (And you have to manually turn the phone radio back on after shutting down Wi-Fi.) This is less of an issue in areas where EV-DO support is available, since our speed tests showed EV-DO data speeds were comparable to that of a Wi-Fi connection or a DSL modem. EV-DO support is still rolling out in major cities; in the Seattle area, we found some suburbs have EV-DO coverage, while in others, the phone fell back to 1xRTT support.
Cnet.com
October 25th, 2005
The good: 2-megapixel CMOS digital camera with flash and 8X digital zoom; MPEG-4 video-capture capabilities; separate lens and display swivels; EDGE capable; RS-MMC external memory slot; MP3 player; PictBridge compatible; Bluetooth; USB connectivity; e-mail.
The bad: Expensive; big and heavy; proprietary headphone jack; low integrated memory; no stereo speakers; short talk time.
The bottom line: It’s a startling combination of image capture, music playback, and communications capabilities in a clever but bulky Transformers-like package. However, at more than $900 for an unlocked model, the Nokia N90 is not for the faint of wallet.
Cnet
October 25th, 2005
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