Any more viral and the Adamo XPS would’ve given us Swine Flu. So it’s about time Dell fessed up…
Happily late last night it came clean and officially outed what has become the world’s thinnest laptop. Measuring 340 x 273.9 and just 9.9mm at its thickest point, the second generation Adamo makes the MacBook Air look positively bloated at 325 x 227 x 4-19.4mm. Interestingly though the aluminium body of the XPS weighs 1.44Kg, slightly heavier than the 1.36Kg of the Air and I’d be more interested in weight for overall portability than thickness – but that’s just me.

Read more »

Can it fix the failings of the original Storm?

RIM has rebooted its touchscreen range with the Storm 2 9520, featuring re-tooled clickable touchscreen technology and new, intuitive text input options.

It’s still going to be seen as RIM’s attempt to rival the likes of the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and HTC Hero, but are the updates on the Storm 2 enough to fix the issues that were so widely condemned on the original Storm?

The Storm 2 is the same size as the original, but 5g heavier. We’d have imagined this would have given it a weightier and premium feel, but in practice this isn’t the case with the phone feeling a little too heavy in the hand.

However, it sits well in the palm, with minimal dexterity needed to shuffle up and down the screen and also hit the on/lock screen button on the top left-hand side, which is a crucial feature often missed by mobile designers.

The Storm 2 is pretty button-packed around the edges, with a number of rubberised buttons (which are apparently manufactured this way to stop them falling off, a problem with the original Storm).

The left-hand side of the device holds the microUSB port (without cover, so watch out that it doesn’t get too dirty in there) and a function key that can be re-assigned to provide access to your favourite shortcut.

Read more »

A budget busting SLR with top notch camera tech
Sony’s powerful A350 has one of the most affordable price tags in the SLR parade.
There’s an impressive 14.4 sensor, but as everyone knows it’s not size, but what you do with it that counts. So you get in-camera SteadyShot system to increase your chances of sharp shots, a tilting 2.7-inch LCD for awkward peering-over-tall person shots and easy-to-use Live View.
For low-light shooting you can quickly set sensitivity up to a mammoth 3200, but over ISO 400 images can be soft and noisy. Although the Sony A350 can be bulky to control, at a lower ISO, it produces cracking images, accurately exposed with great detail.
It’s a winner and leaves other porky SLRs from the veterans Canon and Nikon, sulk in the over-priced shade.

Read more »

Sony Ericsson Satio 12 MP cameraphone

A few megapixels to much?

The Satio is Sony Ericsson’s first 12-megapixel cameraphone. You don’t actually need that many pixels in a stills camera – let alone a phone, but everyone else is making them, so is Sony Ericsson.

At 13mm deep the Satio feels solid and (thanks to the slide-back lens cover) a little chunky, but it’s comparable to smartphone rivals.

A highlight is the bright 3.5in 640×480 screen, which is fantastic for playing back photos (rotating automatically) and watching back programs via the iPlayer.

Running Symbian 5th edition, the Satio is frustrating to use. Unfortunately the touch screen is frustrating – it’s noticeably slower then the iPhone and you often have to jab the screen several times before getting a response. Some commands are hard to find and the tiny virtual keyboard takes getting used to before you’ll be typing smoothly. Wisely you get solid call and cancel buttons, as well as a volume control on the side.

Read more »