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The Kindle DX wants to ruin my week
18
Last week my brand new Kindle 2 arrived, and for the past few days I’ve been blissfully downloading books and reading them every chance I get. Then, I started seeing reports of a rumored new Kindle, and I became nervous: “A new one? Already? But the Kindle 2 just came out in February! Who would do such a thing?”
When the announcement of the Kindle DX happened on Wednesday, I was besieged with Twitter messages asking if I was pissed that I just paid $359 for a brand new Kindle 2 when Amazon released a new one that next week. Instantly, my mind went into defensive mode: “No, of course not! This one is huge, and more expensive! I don’t even read textbooks!” But a the same time, the early-adopter bug was chittering in my ear that I now owned an inferior product. Lets take a look at this handy graph on Amazon:
OK, so it has its pros: PDF support without conversion and the rotating display would be pretty sweet, plus the larger display. But are those features really worth the uptick in price, which I already believe to be quite inflated? Not for me!
Side note: I talked a lot of smack about e-book readers on the iPhone on last weeks TWiT, but I’ve had a change in heart. While it still hurts my eyes after a while, the Kindle iPhone app (iTunes link here) is really cool. I read almost an entire book on it yesterday while I was between takes at a video shoot, and it was great.
A peek at the Tesla Model S
24In spite of horrific jetlag, I went down to Menlo Park with Ryan and Niall to take a look at the prototype Tesla Model S on display today only. Trust me, if I were in a position for buying a car right now (meaning, had $50,000 and a place to park it) then this would definitely be an option!
Here are my photos below, plus Ryan’s video (and his hands-on post about it too). Niall’s pics are here.
Tesla Model S hands-on from Ryan Block on Vimeo.
Related: My video of the Tesla Roadster on Mahalo Daily!
Pocket HD camcorder roundup on Tekzilla
15On this week’s episode of Tekzilla, we looked at three of the more well-known and popular pocket camcorders on the market. Personally, I use the Flip Mino HD at home, but it was nice to see some of the other camcorders in action, including the Creative Vado HD and the Kodak Zi6. Here’s the clip:
While we’re on the topic of camcorders, I was very pleased to have mine on me to document this blatant abuse of Revision3 ergonomic supplies:
Ergonomic Supply Abuse from Veronica Belmont on Vimeo.
My thoughts on my Mini Mi
109
I’ve had my HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition for a couple weeks now, and overall I’ve been very happy with it. The keyboard is the perfect compromise in size at 90%, and even the strange side buttons on the trackpad haven’t given me too much reason to complain. I have the 10.1″ version, but it’s small and light enough for me to carry comfortably all day (a huge different from my 15″ MacBook Pro, which I’m sure is the cause for all my back and shoulder pain!).
The big problem is the OS. Since I went with the Mi Edition, the netbook runs on MIE (Mobile Internet Experience), which is HP’s Ubuntu-based operating system. Admittedly, this was my first foray into Linux, and I’m not letting MIE taint my opinion of Linux whatsoever. Basically, there’s a lot that just doesn’t work right. The home screen, seen below, is supposed to have live bookmarks (and thumbnails) for my favorite websites. Even after adding them, the thumbnails just never loaded.
I wanted to add Boxee for Linux onto it, but adding third-party applications is very difficult. There is an application manager, but it’s locked-down to HP approved apps. There have been some stability issues as well, which I find interesting considering I’m rarely using multiple programs at once or doing anything “crash-worthy.”
At this point, I’m looking at a few different options for the OS: Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Windows 7 beta. I’ve heard great things about both, and I tried to install Windows 7 already and had some issues because I was trying to make a bootable USB on XP instead of Vista, which most of the directions seem geared to. Anyhow, I digress. Suggestions for what OS I should run are very welcome, or if you have tips on making the most out of MIE.
The kiwi above doesn’t come standard, by the way! It’s a GelaSkin called Jealousy, by artist Jen Lobo. GelaSkins are coming out with netbook skins very soon, so stay tuned!
UPDATE: GelaSkins for netbooks now available!