New things
Well as I promised myself a new toy after i left work.
Well it arrived today my small yet practical eee pc from ASUS,
I've had a play around with it for the last few hours and here are my thoughts.
Now this isn't going to run call of duty 4 or any heavy software, but then it isn't meant too.
The product box is very small, it was quite exciting to open, there really isn't alot inside, the PC battery and power supply.
Now one element that I have always liked about the EEE is that the power pack is small, there's no large transformer that need to be hauled arund everywhere, infact it reminds me of phone chargers from a few years back.
The keyboard is small but not that back to be honest, takes a little while to adjust to using it but after the first couple of mistakes your find it naturally is easy to use.
The screen size isn't super-wide or with vista style graphics, but it is big enough to display everything you need to interact with.
The built in wireless was quick to setup although I was slightly confused at first, things could have been a little clearer.
But in all I couldn't be happier with it and having a lightwight laptop to take with me is a better prospect that carting my other laptop about.
Well thats it for now, more to follow soon.
No iPhone thanks
Well it seems the iPhone is a big hit, after a month or so of continued hype, It came and went.
Yes it look impressive and is slick and stylish, but to me the whole item just screams accident waiting to happen.
OK so I'm not the carefulist of owners when I comes down to devices. It's safe to say that each of my phones i've purchase have encountered 'parking bruises' within the first week.
It generally tends to get worse from there.
For me to be interested in a brand new phone, it would need to be combined with a G-Shock and be heavy duty, something simple and easy to use, but that could with-stand being owned by me for a week.
Stoning
So after getting a nice little windfall from my shares, I decide it was time to get a new mp3 player as using my phone to play songs isn't an ideal solution.
So on Wednesday evening I had a browse of the mp3 market to see what was on offer. My aim was to get something that could hold a reasonable amount of songs without costing a silly amount of money, also I wanted something that was small.
So after scouting around several websites, I decided to go for the Creative ZEN Stone Plus. I have previously seen the Zen Stone but latest version has a few more features.
Firstly the 2GB offered by the Plus was a extra 100% over the 1GB the standard Zen Stone offering, and it was available for an extra 13 pounds.
Secondly the Plus has a display, which is a feature I like to have if I'm going to be carrying a few dozen albums around with me.
I also ordered a Skin for the mp3 player, as they can tend to get quite beaten up over time, so anything to extend the longevity of the device was an additional bonus.
Today it arrived \o/.
It's alot smaller that I thought, which was nice as it can be pocketed in my workshirt without too much trouble. My first complaint sofar is that the data/charging USB cable is very short (3 inches). This isn't a massive problem as i have USB ports on the top of my PC. If you are plannig on purchasing a Stone plus, kind in mind a seperate (lengther) cable maybe a good purchase.
Another small annoying fact is the instructions that come with the player are simple enough to get you started but don't have that much detail listed. But never fear it came packaged with 4 copies of the instructions (odd).
So after 3 hours of charging, it was time to try it out.
I've loaded on three albums now and had a good play about with all the settings.
The player has a 64×64 OLED, which doesn't sound like alot I'd admit, yet the onboard software is extremely well designed to make full use of this display, which is in a Blue/Cyan colour.
The one item that was missing in the documentation that accompanied the player was a layout of the menus and their uses. Although they are pretty self-explanitory.
Overall : This player expands on the original stone with the great display thats doesn't take up 30% of the devices layout, but still offering the user an interface for easy interaction.
