louie tran spot – daily gadget blog

Blackberry has just launched their “App Store” today. Not sure how it compares to Apple’s but Blackberry owners should rejoice in getting all their favorite programs all in one place! I don’t see Bejeweled in those screenshots!

that's me in budapest!

I just came back from a 7 day tour of Hungary, Czech Republic, and Austria last night and it was quite an amazing experience with so many sites to see and history to learn about (hard to put into words, I’ll post pictures later on). Since there was a lot of walking and hotel hopping, I packed a minimal amount of gear which served me quite well during this trip:

1. Sony Vaio P Notebook – I wanted to travel as light as possible so my MacBook Pro 15″ and even my HP TX2500 Tablet PC had to stay home. This little baby weighs about a pound and was extremely useful to get online at the LAX, JFK, and Vienna Airports as well as the hotels with WiFi in Europe. Some of the hotels provided free WiFI and a few charged 10 Euros per hour! I had Skype loaded to make phonecalls to home and used it to Wiki places I visited during the day.
2. iPod Touch 2G – When traveling long flights, this is definitely a necessity. the iTouch kept me from going out of my mind while sitting on the airplane so I could listen to some music, podcasts, and even play a few games on flight. Also, it came in handy to quickly hop online without having to turn on the laptop.
3. Sony Cybershot DSC-T70 Camera – I took well over a thousand photos during this trip. Love the fact that it’s so small, easy to use and takes decent quality pictures (not as great as a Canon camera though). I do however wish it had better battery life. I was down to 1 bar on the battery meter when I was 3/4 done with the day. I guess it was due to the fact that I took about 200 pictures a day!
4. Universal Power Convertors – Without these, everything above will be useless! I’m glad I didn’t forget to pack these to charge my devices.
5. Rado Jubile’ Watch – Tells the time and date. Sleek, simple and elegant, and has a black ceramic band. Wasn’t too flashy but it does its job quite well!

Update: Pictures from Central Europe posted here.

I ordered the Tritton AX Bluestream earlier this week from buy.com and it just came in yesterday. So far, it’s the best $25 I’ve ever spent. It’s a stereo bluetooth device that has a standard headphone jack so you can use your favorite stereo headphones for your cell. What I like about it is that it’s small (the size of a thumbdrive), has a digital screen for caller ID and is USB rechargeable. For $25, it comes with a charger, USB cable, stereo and mono headsets! What a deal! This is the best Bluetooth headset I’ve owned so far and I like it better than my Motorola S9 because I can easily take this anywhere! I have it paired with my Sony Vaio P9, my HTC Touch Pro, and my MacBook Pro.

You can get it at buy.com by clicking here.

Anyone who hasn’t heard about it yet needs to listen now! There’s a new untethered Jailbreak for the 2G iPod Touch and it’s so easy to do! I did mine in less than 20 minutes using the Quick Freedom GUI. You can read more by checking out the ipodtouchfans site by clicking here

DOWNLOAD VERSION 1.1.1 Beta

The problem that has plaugued this device since launch has been solved by yours truly! I said in the previous post that the video stuttering on Youtube, Xvid, and Divx movies were unbearable but I stumbled onto a solution without having to downgrade to XP. This is exactly what I did to geteverything to work:

1. Uninstall all the bloatware (Office 2007 trial, etc…)
2. Run Windows Update
3. Restart Vaio
4. Defragment Hard Drive
5. Start-> Search Box type MSCONFIG
6. Click the Startup tab and uncheck the following: Adobe Acrobat, ISBUTLITY, Smart Wi Helper, Unattended000001, Vaio Media Plus, and AutolaunchWLASU
7. Restart Vaio

Give it a try and your videos should be working fine now! Also, I’m using the Combined Community Codec Pack with Windows Media Player Clasic to play my Dixv and Xvid files, but Youtube on Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 work just fine!

I just scored a black open box Vaio P 530H from Fry’s for $799. Looks like it’s hardly been used and apparently there are A LOT of returns on these things, most likely because people are disappointed with the performance. So far, I can see why these keep getting returned.

My first impressions so far is that it looks great, love how it’s light and thin and the build quality is everything we expected from Sony. I love how sharp the screen looks and everything is so much easier to read when compared to my Vaio UX380N. It’s also a lot easier to type on this. The UX hurts my hands when I use the keyboard for more than 15 minutes. Now this is where all the positive comments stop…

Initial startup time was painfully slow. Slower than any netbook I have ever tested and much slower than the Vaio UX380. Uninstalling some of the trial programs and software that I didn’t need made the hard drive light go crazy and everything ame to a crawl. Installing Office 2003, running the Windows Update and waiting for all that to complete was a joke.

Now this is where it gets ugly… Everyone comments on how bad video plays on this thing and I thought it was just an exaggeration, but believe me when I say all those negative comments are true. Youtube videos are extremely choppy (unless you turn off hardware acceleration), Divx and Xvid files are horrible on full screen, and forget about the HD videos! I know this is most likely a software or driver issue but Sony should have addressed this problem before releasing in it. My HTC Touch Pro and iTouch play videos way better than this.

Surfing the web, sending out e-mails and typing up documents on this work great. But what’s the point of having such a beautiful screen if videos run like crap on it? For $899, I can buy 3 of the Acer Aspires and they perform much better! I hope they get the video issue fixed soon because I can still return this within 2 weeks and I will keep the Vaio UX. I want the P to work out because of the size and build quality but it doesn’t justify replacing the UX the way it is.

I’ve been busy for the entire month of February and basically trying to survive the horrible economic situation we are living in now. I’ve been very busy at work and really haven’t had much time to do any of the reviews I’ve planned to do, but thankfully my gadgets have help me be entertained and productive at the same time. I really wish I had more time to review every one of them but it’s been really tough… here’s a quick list of what I’ve been utilizing:

1. HP Pavilion tx2500 – This is my main computer where I do all my work on the road. Tablet feature comes in handy but I don’t really use it that often. It’s just a 12.1 Tablet PC but it has a powerful AMD Turion X2 2.1ghz processor with 3GB RAM, ATI 3200HD graphics card, and a 250GB Hard Drive. It murders every netbook out in the market and has a much more pratical use for me. I need the small size, the power, the DVD burner, and this just about does everything for me!
2. HTC Touch Pro (running MightyROM 4.12) – Arguably the BEST smartphone in the market today. I’ve gotten rid f my Touch Diamond because I needed the keyboard and memory expandability the Touch Pro has and have never looked bac. The awesome hi-res screen, the built in keyboard, massive internal memory, stereo bluetooth, hi-speed data tethering plan with SERO, and Touch-Flo are just some of the features that make this the reason why i haven’t switched over to the iPhone. I also love using thebuiltin GPS feature in conjunction with Live Search and GoogleMaps to get turn by turn directions, or look up restraunts and movie schedules.
3. Apple iTouch 2G 32GB (JailBroken)- I finally upgraded from my 30GB Black iPod Video to the iTouch. I didn’t want to switch over to the iPhone so this was the better alternative taking all those awesome Apps, music, and videos on the road. I just Jailbroke my earlier this month and have a ton of Apps loaded on to this and have it customized to look like Windows Vista. the device is so thin, I believe it’ a much better gadget to have then a netbook. I can easily get online via WiFi or use my Touch Pro as a WiFi router and get online with the iTouch. Safari on this thing is unmatched by any Windows Mobile browser and being able to get my corporate e-mail, sync my contacts and calendar is a huge plus!
4. Sony Vaio UX380N – I just got this recently at eBay for a few hundred bucks and so far has been extremely useful especially when I need to travel light and are in situations where my HP TX2500 is too big and the Touch Pro isn’t big enough to use. This is a great companion to take especially on flights and waiting at the airport to get some work done. I also use this to read my news and watch some downloaded videos while in bed.
5. Apple MacBook Pro 15″ 1.83 Ghz – I got this on eBay for $500 and it was such a great deal, I had to buy it. I upgraded the hard drive to 320GB 7200 RPM and popped in a multi-card reader making this as my personal desktop replacement at home. Running the MacOS X makes for much more effecient productivity than Vista and is much more reliable than any of the computers that I use. I also have Parallels installed so i can run my Windows applications whenever I need to. Not only is this the centerpiece of my home office, I can easily take this with me on the go when I go to StarBucks or travel. I actually use this interchangeably with my HP TX2500 and it’s thin and light enough to travel with. I actually prefer to use the Mac because of the OSX because it’s not only more easier, reliable and faster, but it’s more fun to use.