Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Tungsten E: terrific review from an end user

Tungsten E - Jeff Kirvin
The Tungsten E comes in plastic bubble packaging like the low end Zires rather than a cardboard box. Personally, I like this, since it's easier to see the actual unit and you don't have as much to lug home. The thinner packaging is made possible in part because the Tungsten E doesn't come with a cradle, or even the connector to use with a cradle. The bottom end of the E sports a standard USB "mini-B" type connector and a round DC power port. The port is a standard 5 volt/1 amp port, the same one used by many Samsung cell phones. While I'm sure the E will sell in sufficient numbers to spawn a line of chargers of its own, for now you can pick up chargers for the Samsung A460/A500 and use them with the E. I've got a Belkin car charger that works great. I use the car charger whenever possible, but I have to say that reports of poor battery life on the E are greatly exaggerated. I wasn't too impressed myself at first, but after setting the IR keyboard driver to auto-disable after five minutes of inactivity significantly improved my battery life. I get about 5.5-6 hours now, similar to other color devices with 900mAH batteries.

Since the Tungsten E power adaptor is a monster, most people will need something better.

Monday, October 13, 2003

WiebeTECH - SATA DOCK - IDE to SATA device

WiebeTECH Micro Storage Solutions - SATADOCK

"Provides support for ATA-5 drives, allowing capacities to 120GB. Designed for easy drive attachment and removal. 1.5 Ghz transfer rate - really zippy! Uses the Silicon Image SATA bridge. May be used with Apple's new G5 computer's motherboard Serial ATA ports. (Perfect for transferring old IDE drives to your new computer!!) May be used with Serial ATA port equipped PCs. Available with or without +12V/2A adapter."
This company has a lot of neat devices. Handy way to add a new IDE drive without dealing with IDE bus limitations to a mb w/ onboard SATA.

Sunday, October 12, 2003

Canopus Analog to Digital Converter

ADVC-100

Seems higher quality than most of the competition. Firewire!

ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO: analog video digitizing

ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO

The 9600 and 9800 sound interesting. Cost is about $250 for the 9600. Might be a good fit for my Intel P4 mb, it comes with onboard video that's one can disable and replace with a new video card.

If this has good reviews I might start doing home video sooner than anticipated. They bundle the Pinnacle software, which has a pretty reasonable rep.

One Intel doc hints that I could use XPs dual monitor support with this card and the built-in Intel graphics. That would justify a new flat panel monitor! Could get costly ...