Archive for the ‘gadgets’ Category

By the time I was in sixth form many of my friends who were into their rock music used to order bootleg concert recordings from mail order outlets like Adrian’s Records. The quality of the later bootlegs were noticeably better as it was easy to connect an affordable portable high-quality recording source up to the concert mixing desk or use a good microphone for a field recording. In fact, whilst some bands, notably The Grateful Dead, built a following using bootlegged concert tapes as a marketing tool; the record industry viewed it with a horror comparable to bit torrent today.

If there was one device responsible for improving the quality of these recordings it was the Sony Walkman WM-D6C Pro, then often known as the Pro-Walkman. Michelle Shocked, a folk artist beloved by the likes of Q Magazine, sprang into the spotlight with an album called The Texas Campfire Sessions (which was originally a bootleg or ‘field recording’ released by an English producer) recorded on a Pro-Walkman and Henry Rollins used one to record many of his spoken word recordings. In reality Sony had built a number of professional grade cassette recording devices, but this was the most useful.

Why was it so great?

• Cost: in terms of recording, the Pro-Walkman was favourably compared to Nakamichi hi-fi cassette decks. Nakamichi were about as high-end as cassette tape ever got with the Nakamichi Dragon cassette decks selling even now on eBay for 1,000+ USD. Hi-fi magazines recommended them as part of an ideal starter audiophile set-up. One of my friends used to have a Pro-Walkman, a NAD amplifier and a set of Rogers speakers. In terms of portable recording the Pro-Walkman was cheaper and more portable than comparable items in the Sony and Marantz ranges and was far cheaper than the Nagra range of portable reel-to-reel recorders often favoured for professional field recordings
• Features: the Pro-Walkman was also distinguished by being the only device of its size to have Dolby C noise reduction and a line-in socket. The tape mechanism was a quartz controlled capstan servo which controlled the tape speed precisely and dramatically improved the recording and playback quality of a cassette
• Build quality: the Pro-Walkman is exceptionally well put together. They last forever and can withstand a lot of abuse, being a lot less fragile than your average Walkman. All this engineering came with a price; as the device had quite a heft to it; however it could still be easily dropped in a coat pocket or handbag
• Trusted brand: It is hard for anyone younger than 16 to imagine the amount of trust Sony had as a brand. I still have a Sony Trinitron TV as it has an exceptional picture quality and my Uncle invested in a Sony Beta video recorder because whilst VHS was more popular this was a Sony. The Walkman defined listening to music on the move in the 1980s and for most people, though boom boxes had their place too and the Discman picked up where the Walkman left off. Think Apple or Google to get an idea of how big this brand was

This is cross-posted from my personal blog.

Nate Lanxon over at Wired (UK) put forward his case for why the Nokia 3210 is the greatest mobile phone ever made. Many of his points about the 3210 certainly are valid and point to flaws in the current range of handsets by many manufacturers, Nokia included.

I personally don’t agree with Nate that those factors made the 3210 the world’s best handset. At the time when Nate was rocking a 3210 I was a dedicated Ericsson customer having first used an Ericsson EH 237 back in 1994. Their handsets had a superior build quality, usually based around a magnesium alloy chassis (apart from a PF768 I had in grey plastic) and an operating system that allowed you to modify your phone to your hearts content. I remember programming in The Prodigy’s No Good Start The Dance as my ringtone on an Ericsson I888 using a list of numbers I had found online.

The phones were also able to be accessorised with with high capacity batteries and offered early data connections via IrDA, ideal for my Palm PDA at the time. Ericsson also managed to do a decent vibration alert which served as an effective under-pillow alarm clock.

My last and best Ericsson phone was the T39. At 86 grams, the smallest lightest phone I have carried. It came with the slim and fat batteries, the fat battery providing a good weeks charge and was one of the first mainstream phones that allowed you to roam effortlessly. My previous I888 and T28 world handsets only allowed you to roam on 900 GSM networks in Europe and 1900 GSM in the US. Whilst it was small it didn’t skimp on features such as Bluetooth and voice-operated commands.

I would argue that for me the Ericsson T39 handset was the best mobile phone ever made. However I am willing to concede that at least one Nokia model could contest this. The merger between Ericsson and Sony brought about some mediocre product design: a trend that has continued to this day in terms of their industrial design if not their software on many of their models.

So I branched out to a Nokia 6310i. The Nokia 6310i has been popular with road warriors for a long time. It is robust, has a ridiculiously long battery life and was the acme of user experience design in the menu system. Because of its popularity, an eco-system has built up around accessories for the 6310i and refurbishment since Nokia no longer makes the phone. This was cross-posted from my personal blog.

Arun Sudhaman at PR Week contacted me last week with some questions on the communications challenges around the launch of Google’s Nexus One, the company’s first smartphone. He’s written an article on this topic in this week’s issue, which includes comment from other PRs.

Arun’s interest was raised by the initially cool reaction from the analyst community. This often happens when a product launches after months – or in this case years – of speculation. With pent-up expectation in the market, however great the eventual product turns out to be, there are commentators who write about how it could have been just a little bit better. When this happens, monitoring of initial reaction is crucial. The communications programme must adapt quickly and address any misconceptions that can quickly spread and threaten product adoption.

The Google brand is now embedded in our daily lives and, for most people, means more than just search. Translating the brand into a physical product-in-your-pocket is something new and potentially risky for the company. It will have to quickly develop competency in consumer hardware communications and manage the huge global interest in its new strategy. Initial media coverage has concentrated on the handset itself. The first challenge is to communicate the benefits beyond a shiny new mobile phone and get the media to focus on the power of the underlying Android platform and associated apps.

Google still has a lot to prove. If it gets things right (and Google isn’t used to failing), it has a huge opportunity to grow a new hardware business to complement its online products. One thing is certain, the battle of the smartphone platforms has only just started.

Mr. S Claus

The Grotto

Lapland

11 November 2008

Dear Santa,

You haven’t heard from me for a while but I felt compelled to write to you this year. I’m probably a bit too old to be on your lists these days but if you read blogs or are on Twitter (@santaclaus) then these are my top five tech Christmas presents for 2008. Bar a few isolated incidents I’ve been good, but I don’t want to be greedy so any one of these gorgeous gadgets would suffice.

Thanks,Paul

1) G1/Android/Google Phone – call it what you want, but I HAVE to have one of these in my life soon. I’m a long-term admirer of HTC handsets and when you put that together with Google’s software it becomes essential. What really makes it stand out is the dizzying array of applications available at the Android Market In your face iPhone!

2) Guitar Hero: World Tour – don’t get me wrong, I do love scrabble, monopoly, pictionary and charades….but not as much as I am going to love this. For anyone that has ever strummed a tennis racket, sung into a beer bottle or been in rubbish bands in their teens (I’m guilty of all three) this is a Christmas essential. The gameplay has moved on, the setlist is the best yet and it is set to have families rockin’ this Christmas.

3) The Flip – as with many things in life, the simplest things are often the greatest and the Flip certainly falls into this category. It looks amazing, your gran could use it and it is perfect for sending video Christmas cards to faraway friends and family this Christmas. Is it the easiest-to-use gadget ever? Quite possibly.

4) Knight Rider GPS – I’m not quite sure why it took so long for someone to think of this but I’m glad they got there in the end. This Mio GPS comes with ACTUAL voice of K.I.T.T. so is a must for any children of the Eighties. Driving in London can be an intensely frustrating experience but the soothing tones of K.I.T.T. would certainly take the edge off negotiating Streatham High Road for me.

5) Sony Reader – I know opinion is divided on these, with many book traditionalists seeing them as the devil’s work. But I’m a fan. There are several on the market and this is my favourite. It comes pre-loaded with 100 classic books and is the perfect way to unwind in the post-Christmas Day lull.