Window shopping for hi-tech items – its hard to stay up to date

English Open Chat
#1

My wife is working this weekend, so I took the opportunity to spend 90-minutes (that I don’t normally get) looking at some of the various hi-tech devices in one of our Hi-Tech Department stores (Saturn).

I mostly ONLY looked at the type of item that I ‘might’ consider purchasing someday and even then, I was a bit surprised to see how dated I was, and also somewhat surprised as to the product line emphasis of the store.

**Laptops **

My wife is interested in purchasing a new laptop this year. So I strolled through the store’s laptop selection, which is very large. First, they have a massive Apple section, which frankly speaking, is much larger in floor space, than what the market % of Apple users [according to the web statistics one see’s] would suggest. I reckon they had 20% of the laptop/desktop floor space. As expected, Apple MacIntosh computers had many more expensive offerings than the Windows-7 fitted PC offerings. I noted they had next to no laptops with 12” screens on display but rather they had ones with MUCH smaller displays, and many with 13.5” displays and up. Our local Notebooks shop has a vast number of Laptops with 12” screens, so this puzzled me a bit. I assume its because Saturn can’t compete in the 12” laptop market.

There was a massive IPAD display, with a ½ dozen IPADs available for people to use, and it was packed with young teenagers playing with those devices. Prices went from 500 euros to 800 euros, dependent on whether they were 3G capable, and how much RAM they had. I understand these prices are outrageously high compared to what one pays in North America.

Printers

There is an increasing number of colour laser jets at reasonable prices, with less and less inkjets. I understand its been this way in North America for a while, and its good to finally see this taking hold in Europe. I also note the price for cartridges for laser printers has dropped significantly from what they were a year ago. Again, its been like this in North America for a while, but Europe has lagged (in less expensive colour laser jet cartridge offerings). I was very surprised to see very very few HP printers, and mostly Canon, Lexmark and Epson printer offerings. Are HP too expensive ? I don’t know, but there was a definite absence of HP printers. Again, that was a surprise.

**External DVD read/writers **

My wife suggested we procure an external DVD read/writer in advance of her getting a netbook (that has no such device) and also so that we could use in Canada on my mother’s aging PC when we visit Canada in a month (so as to install a new OS on her old PC using the external DVD reader). Well, nix/forget getting an external DVD reader to use on an aging PC idea. I looked at Lacie, Samsung, and LG external DVD writers, and all of them require at least a PC with 2.0 Ghz CPU or faster (up to 3.2 GHz for the LG). My mother’s PC has only a 900MHz CPU. :frowning: I did note the Lacie Slim DVD +/-RW claims Linux compatibility. I liked that, and all else being equal, even though it is more expensive, I probably would purchase the Lacie IF I had to purchase today, just because of that Linux support/compatible entry on their packaging).

Webcam

My mother told me on the phone yesterday, that when I show up in her place in November, she wants me to set up her web cam in an “as fool proof” way as possible. i.e. set it up RELIABLY this time. Well, her web cam is old (an Intel Pro Share Webcam 0733:0430). It was purchased something like 8 years ago, and its Linux compatibility has been OFF/AGAIN, ON/AGAIN. It is purportedly supported by the ]GSPCI v4l2 driver](http://moinejf.free.fr/webcam.html) but my experience is the support is off again, on again, and most the time, I can never get it to work. Frankly, the GSPCI driver has been broken various times upstream in the kernel. And Frankly the support currently is bad. It is simply NOT reliable. No one wants unreliability.

So I think I may give my mother my trusty old Phillips PCVC 740K ToUcam Pro [pwc] (0741:0311). Its always been reliable for me under Linux, and more or less under MS-Windows as long as I remember (when using MS-Windows) to install the software before plugging in the web cam. Of course, there is a risk I may have lost the MS-Windows software - this Phillips is that old.

BUT assuming I find the MS-Windows software for this web cam, and then (assuming my wife does not pull out the spousal veto) I’ll buy myself a new web cam. OK, so thats really my ulterior motive. I want to buy a new web cam.

I saw a really neat web cam that I am lusting a bit over. Its a High Definition Video web cam, … the first I’ve seen (I know, I’ve been marooned on one of Saturns moons for the past year, out of touch with civilization), but its the first I’ve seen, and it looks neat. Its the Creative Socialize HD webcam, model VF0620 It supports 1280x720, but what REALLY caught my eye was it notes Linux compatibility/support. I noted on the box it claims to be a “UVC” web cam and possibly thats why it has Linux support. Is it cheap ? Heck NO! Its expensive. Is it practical? Heck NO! Who wants an HD video stream of my ugly mug sitting in front of a web cam? NO ONE! But I like it, and maybe …… just maybe …

I also noted a number of other Creative web cams had Linux compatible written on their boxes. Ergo, I may buy Creative web cams next. How else to send a thank you message to the manufacturer?

Surround Sound

Just a note, that the trend has not changed in terms of most speaker systems now adays being only 2.1. Trying to find a 5.1 system is a challenge , as compared to a few years back when they were very common. Presumably that is because most people do NOT want a 5.1 system nor the surround sound that purportedly comes with a 5.1 speaker system.

I saw a Bose 2.1 PC speaker system … only 10x the price of the competition. Its tempting, but I know for certain my wife would pull out the spousal veto on that piece of hardware. … and besides my 5.1 speaker system (which is NOT Bose) works ok.

Digital Cameras

I was surprised at how many inexpensive digital SLR cameras there are on the market. I would like an SLR, but I know from my character years ago (when I purchased a large camera and NEVER used it) that I would never carry an SLR around with me. I want a camera for travel, and an SLR is simply way TOO BIG. But still I was surprised at some of the low digital SLR prices.

Top of the line High Definition Video camcorders are also less expensive now than 1.5 years ago. I would say 20% cheaper for the latest models. Thats interesting to see.

**CONCLUSION ? **

I had fun.

As they say, “when the cats away, the mice will play”, and its not often I get to wander for 90 minutes through a hi-tech store dreaming.

And that HD Webcam has me thinking!

#2

Confirming linux compatibility here I note the Creative Cam Socialize HD webcam appears to be the 041e:4080, with compatibility with Linux (which is noted on the packaging) confirmed on the Linux uvc compatibility website. Its a 720p HD webcam, … and I now note there are actually 1080p HD webcams available as well (ie Logitech offer one), although they are significantly more expensive (close to 100 euros !) and Linux compatibility not so easy to determine.

Still the Creative Cam Socialize is not cheap either. Best price I’ve found so far by mail order here in Germany is about 41 euros (including shipping/handling/postage)

I have not been able to find a post yet of a Linux user with actual experience with this webcam.

I might run the idea by my wife tonight, of ordering this Webcam.

#3

The time before i moved to here, i never had a grip on prices in general. Saturn i remember. I bought once a Amstrad PC there. Worst piece of equipment i had. I sold it off and bought an Amiga.
With printers i do it like this. I have a Brother laser printer, but all the cartridges and drum i buy off on ebay. I pay $10 for the cartridge compared to over $40 in a store.
I just don’t have the money.
I lost the grip on hardware a long time ago. The last time i knew something about a cpu was around Pentium 4. After that time i just see the speed and know how many cores it has.
And to be honest, it doesn’t even interest me anymore.
The only thing that matters to me is, that it runs. But i am also not related in any field where i would need to know or where someone would care about it.

I recently examined netbooks. Now i have no plan about them at all and i started to configure them on the web. It came out more expensive than a regular notebook.
In a way, i think i am lost with all the options and what makes sense.

#4

I buy as much off of the web as I do off of a PC shop. If the price in the PC shop is not too far off of the web site, then I will purchase at the PC shop. I find one has to put forward less effort (for returns) if one buys off of a local PC shop. One also gets to examine the hardware in more detail in a local PC shop.

But ink cartridges I’ll get off the web or off a discount store.

I purchased a ‘new’ laptop a couple of years ago, … a Dell Studio 1537, which works well with Linux. I wanted and got a 15.5" screen and I wanted a long life battery, even though its heavier. I don’t regret that decision, as my wife and I have used that laptop (with its extra battery life) to play movies in airports, and on trains.

… but I am thinking now my next laptop in 2 to 3 years will be a tablet style laptop. Probably a 12.5" screen. Probably one with a proper keyboard, where the screen rotates around and down such that the laptop becomes a tablet. That combination is heavier than a tablet (such as IPAD) but its also IMHO more functional.

I came to this view in September in Thailand, when my wife and visited some cafe/restaurants, which had wifi for free for their customers. I hauled out my heavy laptop (which took a good % of the table) and my wife pulled out her iPOD. It did not take me long to realize her iPOD experience surfing the web, checking email, etc with her iPOD in that cafe was superior to mine with the bulky laptop. … Its a lesson I’ll keep in mind on my next purchase. BUT I also want a laptop/notebook where the screen is not too small. I think I’ve settled on liking 12.5" screen. When one uses that screen as a tablet, it can display an 8.5" x 11" scanned pdf file in almost 100% size (orginal to scanned). I like that. One can’t do that with an iPAD.

I want the tablet to support a touch screen (with fingers) but also a touch pen. I like the Lenovo X200T feature that when the pen is used, the finger touch capability is disabled. Why ? Because it means one can rest their wrist on the tablet when writing/drawing with the pen. That ability to rest one’s wrist on the tablet screen is incredibly useful. It allows a much higher quality use of the pen.

I also want a laptop with lots of CPU. I do the occasional video editing when on vacation. I like to play High Definition Videos. And I like snappy response.

I also want EASY Linux compatibility. There is some Linux compatibility with Tablet PCs now, but it takes work to set up (from what I have read) and I want something friendlier.

The capability to do the above is only starting to be in place. I’m hoping in a couple of years the price and features will be where I want, with reasonable competition, and a reasonable price.

But only time will tell.

#5

As regarding to the cartridge i just like to add one thing.
It took me a long time to buy something off of ebay, but i finally found a store which is good indeed. I recently got one from a manufacture which takes back old toner. A big plus.

Netbooks, Ipad etc…
Mm… i don’t need it really, but i clearly see the benefit. I could do some light task outside (i sit a lot outside) and for that reason i might buy one of these netbooks. Plus, Video of course on the airplane. :slight_smile:
Personally i have no problem with Apple. I think their devices are really nicely made and fit the purpose for what they are made. Still, they are expensive but i see why people like them.
Devices that run Linux are ok, but never wowed me really. I am not that of a technical person really and i gave up to preach. :slight_smile: Like for my beloved Amiga.
Now i am old and i like indeed how a device looks and what i can do with it.
For me its the screen. I hate mostly reading large essays on screen, because my eyes hurt pretty quick. One of the reason i still don’t have anything like it.
Maybe one day. Maybe. And once i have money to through out. :slight_smile:

p.s. to be green is quite hard here. Stables rejects now batteries. :frowning: And toners are also not that easy to recycle. I assume most people just dump them.

#6

My wife was kind enough to buy me a Samsung NC10 netbook last year mainly to use with WiFi on campsites. It came with XP installed plus a built in webcam and bluetooth. Last week I took the bull by the horns and downloaded the 11.3 live CD. As far as I could see using it “live”, everything worked (including of course the USB DVD/CD player). So I went ahead and installed it as dual boot with XP, followed by a massive update from the repo. The only thing that had me foxed for a while was that I needed to select ifup for WiFi to work but once that was done, it was fine. The other options aren’t too important for camping but I’m going to check them out soon.

On a brief personal note, I notice that oldcpu is located in Darmstadt. Would you by any chance be associated with ESOC?

#7

I think that people have eventually realised that manufacturer-branded Inkjet ink cartridges are, err, somewhat expensive. If you want photo printing, with good colour accuracy and good print longevity, it may be difficult to find anything other than manuf-branded ink that does the job for you, but it is expensive.

In particular, HP and Epson seem to have used their market-leading positions to really charge for their ink sets (apparently, there is a more expensive fluid -snake venom- but they are close to the most expensive fluids on Earth); most people only look at the purchase price, and the extent to which these products are piratically priced comes as an unwelcome surprise to them.

Cheap laser printers, and particularly cheap colour laser printers have come on a long way in the last five years (prior to that, the Cheap/Personal Colour laser printer market segment didn’t really exist). People now see colour lasers as a worthwhile alternative for Home/SoHo usage, where previously the initial costs were an impediment; cartridges are still an expensive consumable for printing with high degrees of coverage, as you would with photo printing (and not if you only print out the odd .conf file…but then a black & white laser would do what you need).

**External DVD read/writers **

My wife suggested we procure an external DVD read/writer in advance of her getting a netbook (that has no such device) and also so that we could use in Canada on my mother’s aging PC when we visit Canada in a month (so as to install a new OS on her old PC using the external DVD reader). Well, nix/forget getting an external DVD reader to use on an aging PC idea. I looked at Lacie, Samsung, and LG external DVD writers, and all of them require at least a PC with 2.0 Ghz CPU or faster (up to 3.2 GHz for the LG). My mother’s PC has only a 900MHz CPU. :frowning: I did note the Lacie Slim DVD +/-RW claims Linux compatibility. I liked that, and all else being equal, even though it is more expensive, I probably would purchase the Lacie IF I had to purchase today, just because of that Linux support/compatible entry on their packaging).

I suspect that some of this is unreal; my suspicion is that an external drive will (up to a point) work with a CPU of almost any speed. The ‘up to a point’ bit is;

  • you won’t be able to stream video with a processor that isn’t fast enough to stream video (duh!)…but, I bet the manufacturers got a lot of returns until they put this exclusion on their boxes
  • in writing a backup, you really need to be able to keep the buffers full (internal/external). A bit dependant on the speed of the disk, what else you are doing at the time, etc, etc, but it should be possible to make anything reasonable work…unless you have windows, of course.

Certainly, i have an external drive that I built myself (ie, a ‘bare’ enclosure with a separately-sourced DVD drive), and while I have had a number of issues over the years, they seem to have been with media and compatibility with, eg, K3B and underlying utilities rather than the processor (oddly, cheap media doesn’t seem to be worse than expensive ones, the opposite, in fact)…and that includes backing up an old 366 MHz IBM Thinkpad 600 that has so little CPU that anything even vaguely modern has to have a chance.

Digital Cameras

I was surprised at how many inexpensive digital SLR cameras there are on the market. I would like an SLR, but I know from my character years ago (when I purchased a large camera and NEVER used it) that I would never carry an SLR around with me. I want a camera for travel, and an SLR is simply way TOO BIG. But still I was surprised at some of the low digital SLR prices.

If you are surprised by the SLR prices, have a look at the prices (and specs) of compacts: the low end/mass market ones have twice as many pixels and are about half the price of low end ones of about five years ago. In comparison, the progress with consumer SLRs has been to add pixels (and video modes, and sophistication) without the price declining so dramatically.

In marketing terms, the incumbents have tried to keep the price up and justify it by adding features, while the new entrants and less well regarded players have tried to undercut them by offering a similar level of pixels (which it is tempting, but wrong, to equate with quality).

#8

I have friends who work there, and I go there occasionally on business. I work at EUMETSAT (about 1km away).

#9

Small world. My last gig was at NOAA, working on our end of METOP. Several of my cow-orkers [sic] spent some time at EUMETSAT.

#10

It is a small world. My wife works on METOP. I work on the METEOSAT series.

#11

Printers

There is an increasing number of colour laser jets at reasonable prices,

I recently bought a Samsung Laser Color printer CLP315 for Aud$169 (approx Euro 100)
The cartridges with the new printer have apparently 75% capacity compared to replacement cartridge. A full set of replacement cartridges are Aud$200.

Here in OZ (Brisbane) I found 2 reasonably prices computer shops.

Umart Computer Notebook&PC Parts - Umart Online® Your one stop Computer Shop for computer parts,notebook and new system

Computer Alliance Pty Ltd

on a different not:

I also want a laptop with lots of CPU. I do the occasional video editing when on vacation. I like to play High Definition Videos. And I like snappy response.

What Video editing software do you use ?

Cheers from Oz

#12

I use kdenlive. But not by itself. I will also use ffmpeg to reduce a 1920x1200 25MB/sec bit rate video to 1080x720 8MB/sec bit rate, which is the level I prefer to edit at. I also typically stabilize my videos using MS-Windows program VirtualDub with the deshaker plugin (but running under openSUSE under wine).

I mostly make boring home videos. Some examples (Warning Will Robinson - DANGER very boring):

I’ve made many more videos, and very gradually I am getting better at it. When I look at my video efforts of 5 years ago, and the quality is incredibly poor in comparison to what I produce today.

#13

I wonder how do you select a netbook. Myself, i like to buy one but i am so out of touch that i don’t know if you need to select more memory or not. On a desktop i would go for more and better, but netbook is different.
Are the current basic netbooks good enough to watch a movie?

#14

In my experience yes, if you stay with xvid/400+ lines. 720p is iffy, 1080p won’t run on atoms without nvidia’s ION/ION2 extension chipsets.

Particularly, I’d priorize HD size (for midia storage) and battery life (for playback in planes, trains, etc.)

As usual, processor power is inversely proportional to battery life, so the low-power dual core atoms are a good option for “on the road” computing. I’m waiting for AMD’s response to intel Atoms, at the very least it should have better graphics. Intel pinetree video (or something like that) integrated on atoms sucks, no GPU decoding and such.

#15

Quote Originally Posted by GeoBaltz View Post
Small world. My last gig was at NOAA, working on our end of METOP. Several of my cow-orkers [sic] spent some time at EUMETSAT.

Quote Originally Posted by oldcpu View Post
I work at EUMETSAT (about 1km away).

I asked because I did time at ESOC during ERS-1. Hell, was it really about 20 years ago?

I forgot to say that replacing the 1GB memory in the NC10 with 2GB is pretty essential.

#16

I have some acquaintenances who think the NC 10 is fabulous. Long battery life. Good keyboard …

Reference yester64’s query on how to go about choosing a netbook … I believe a LOT depends on one’s requirements.

I confess my requirements for a laptop are evolving. Two years ago my requirements were for the largest screen/laptop that I was willing to carry (which I determined to be a 15.5" screen) together with a fast processor and good Linux compatibility (especially important for wireless and graphics and power management).

Today I can see my requirements changing, as I note now some neat things that can be done with a tablet. I want an ebook reader. When travelling I want a tablet PC, I want a laptop to watch movies, store videos (from my digital camcorder), store pictures (from my digital camera) and to do nominal PC functions, such as check email, surf, edit my videos, run Virtual Box (with an WinXP session running inside Virtual Box) etc … . I do not want do NOT want to have to carry around an ebook reader, a tablet PC, AND a laptop.

It would be nice if I had all 3 in once. PLUS I want Linux compatibility.

Hence I am thinking to reduce my 15.5" screen requirement to 12.1", which to me is also an ideal tablet size for looking at office documents that are 8.5" x 11". That could also double as a rather large and heavy (but functional) ebook reader. And if the table PC processor is fast enough, do all the other laptop activities I want.

Having typed that, I think it may be a couple of years before I break down and purchase myself one. That will also give the Linux developers time to bring their applications up to a reasonable level for Table PCs. And my somewhat large and heavy Dell Studio 15 laptop will be starting to become obsolute then.

I think my wife may end up buying a tablet PC before myself (as she does not insist on Linux compatibility, and I don’t apply my spousal (Linux) veto on things she REALLY wants, even if not Linux compatible).

20 years ago was before my European time. :slight_smile: … 20 years ago I was working in the USA in New Jersey at the facility which “then” was the General Electric facility in Trenton NJ, as the Instrument Engineer for one of the Instruments on the Upper Atmosphere research satellite (this was just before my move to Cape Canaveral, Florida for the launch campaign) . Its only been the past 11 years that I’ve been here in Europe.

#17

Oldcpu, next time you window-shopping check out the Olympus and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. They aren’t cheap–although prices are coming down all the time–but in terms of size, weight and quality they are a nice compromise between a P&S and a DSLR. And many of them do HD video as well. Nice down-to-earth review of Olympus EPL-1 here. Also read this. It’s camera gear you’ll actually use and have fun using.

#18

@oldcpu ok, i juggle with the problem what makes sense. If you mod up a netbook you can buy a real notebook instead. For my purpose (similar to yours) its basic to average.
Pictures, movies, mail etc… the real demanding task might be movie watching.
I plan to use suse on it with netbook interface. God i love that interface. Simple and clean (in my opinion).
Besides for a large harddrive, what would be recommended for a good performer? Memory you can perhaps upgrade, a cpu less likely. Not really urgent but if i don’t need to spend a lot i can get it to christmas perhaps and take it with me, when i am traveling to germany for a visit. :slight_smile:

#19

I was pretty much sold on getting a Tablet sometime in the future, during my last trip to Asia (in September). My wife and I visited a number of restaurants and coffee shops, many of which had Internet available for free. My wife pulled out her iPod, and me my Dell Studio 1537 laptop, and it was clear she had a more enjoyable experience than I. The Dell was simply too big, and took up a large part of the coffee (or restaurant) table. I notice some customer with tablets (which were larger than the ipod but smaller than my Dell) and I came to the conclusion for travel, having a notebook that would rotate into a tablet, was what I wanted next. A tablet is simply more useable in some situations.

My experience is memory is expensive to upgrade and its better (cheaper) if one gets as much memory as one can upon initial purchase.

I’ve read for Tablet PCs, that a faster CPU is especially important in using some of the Touch screen access/functionality for window movement/resizing. However a faster processor (CPU) could mean quicker battery draw which is not desirable, so one may need to go to a more expensive lower power processor that is still fast.

As for a hard drive, I agree the larger the better normally, but I also note the new SD hard drives while significantly expensive, and significantly smaller in capacity, are also significantly faster in data access. It (an SD drive) makes one’s notebook faster.

So the things I would try to optimize are a faster low-power processor, more memory, and either a large hard drive, or large SD drive (if affordable). Which for me means I may need to wait some time before I can purchase what I might want at a reasonable price.

#20

oldcpu wrote

I use kdenlive. But not by itself. I will also use ffmpeg to reduce a 1920x1200 25MB/sec bit rate video to 1080x720 8MB/sec bit rate, which is the level I prefer to edit at. I also typically stabilize my videos using MS-Windows program VirtualDub with the deshaker plugin (but running under openSUSE under wine).

Thanks for the hint

cheers Otto_oz