I had a little blip of excitement last night as I was unboxing a Lenovo S10 3T convertible netbook with a 9 cell battery but it didn’t last long. While the battery life might be better than my Gigabyte Touchnote, it would need a days work to port the ssd and apps over. In the end I decided that the Touchnote would once again be my workhorse. That means sticking with my tried and tested S2IS 5MP camera with the vga / mjpeg video capability. This combo, along with a tripod is what I’ll be using on press day to do live blogging. With remote capture via USB, it works very efficiently. The tripod helps me with those long, low-light shots too. I did test an SX20IS and and an SX30IS and they would both give me a couple of extra f-stops to play with (due to better sensors and better software and stabilization) but at 320 euro, I think I’ll wait until after CES now.
In previous posts I have been taking about the Nokia N8 and the Galaxy Tab and I do indeed plan to use them but not until day 1. Day zero, Press day, is a day of dark rooms, live blogging and long-zoom shots on a tripod. Ill stick with the Netbook and bridge camera for that and wait until the 6th for the big Galaxy Tab test. The N8 photos are really quite amazing and i had a lot of success with indoor video over Christmas so I’m looking forward to that.
Final kit list is this then. . .
– Gigabyte Touchnote for live blogging, video editing, long-form blogging.
– Canon S2IS bridge camera for live blogging and video on press day.
– Nokia N8 for day 1 photo and video work. Continuous use as phone, calendar.
– Galaxy Tab for light blogging, day 1 blogging test, Twitter, maps, latitude, Google chat.
I’ll also have a power pack with me and a local MIFI unit for connectivity along with the usual cables etc.
We’re all unique customers and all have our unique requirements. I categorise myself as the ‘boy scout’ type. I am not a fan of highly converged devices (the Nokia N900 was not something for me) but I do like being prepared with a good, mobile set of computing and communications kit. I have a tendency to want to cover as many scenarios as possible with my mobile devices but I balance that with the realisation that you can’t have one device for each task. Some convergence is needed. But how much?
Testing testing. Galaxy Tab and Nokia n8 calling the Internet. Do not believe anything you read in this post.
Winter hit the suburbs of Vegas today as a hotel show went badly wrong. The Jagermaster hotel had to abort a simulation of ‘Winter Olympics’ as residents started complaining of reality distortion. As you can see in the images below, the normally colorful plastic houses were turned instantly into an almost real scene of German suburb life. One resident had this to say. ‘I can’t believe it. This stuff is really cold and dangerous. I will be contacting my lawyer.’
Free alcohol, entertainment and buffets for affected residents were being discussed by the local county council.
This is the 4th and last post in the CES moblogging equipment test. 4 posts in about one hour with the Nokia n8 and Samsung Galaxy Tab.
Lets assume I’ve just stumbled across a new product at CES. Here’s the microblog. . .
Yup! here it is! The new super UMPC from the ABBC company. We’ve just tripped up Joanna Stern of Engaget to get here first and should be able to hold her down with one foot while we blog this. Ill have to be quick though because here comes that JKK guy with his camera.
4.8″ screen which we think is uber-capacative. Price in the $100 range they say and availability is yesterday for any order over 1000 pieces.
It feels light in the hand and could be the break-through device everyone is looking for. No word on operating system but the Windows 8 sticker under the battery kind of gives it away.
Joanna starting to cry loudly now so we’ll let her get on with her 1080p video. JKK and Gizmodo now having a fight too. Video of that coming later.
This has been the 3rd of my simulated CES posts from a low-light room somewhere underground in Germany. Time for one more quickie. . .
These pics were not taken with the moblogging kit, itself but I am using them on the Galaxy Tab to write this post.
The image of the scales shows what I’m aiming for. That’s 1.3kg with four bits of kit and a bag!
Nokia n8 – To be used for photography and, possibly, video. Offline maps and of course, phone functionality is important here too. I won’t be letting the n8 use the wifi or 3g in order to preserve important phone functionality for later in the day.
Samsung Galaxy Tab – To be the mobile internet and text input device, location via Google latitude (for finding out where my friends are) and of course, Tweeting. II’ll be using the WordPress application for blogging, automatic comment notifications and comment spam control. Battery life should be good enough for all day (18hrs)
Battery pack and Mifi – Unfortunately I won’t have a local SIM to drop into the Tab so ill be strapping a Sprint Mifi to the battery pack to give me a roaming hotspot. My wife has the Mifi today so I’ve simulated it with a battery charger.
I won’t be relying 100% on this kit during CES as ill have my Netbook and camera in the hotel room but I do plan to at least go for one full day on this setup.
This has been the second of my CES test posts today with the n8 and Galaxy Tab. I’m standing and moving about my house. More coming up. . .
I’ve just started a one hour test of the mobile blogging gear I’m going to use at CES this year but just as I started to transfer the first photos (of my kit – 1.3kg!) I noticed the Google Maps was updated. This is an important update because it changes the way maps are rendered and introduces local caching. You’ll see in the image below that there’s not much you can control in terms of caching so only further testing will tell us how much of a map can be cached but the indications from Google were that a whole city is possible. This means that if you’re heading away and don’t want to use 3g or rely on Internet for the maps, you can cache them beforehand.
I’ll try and do some more testing on that while I’m at CES but for now, make sure you check your android phone for the Google Maps updates and let me know if you spot any major issues.
This has been the first of my CES kit test posts using only the N8 and Galaxy Tab.
My mobile reporting kit will change dramatically for CES 2011. I’ve just heard that ill be able to borrow an N8 to partner with my Galaxy Tab which, considering I’m doing a lot of mobile blogging on the Tab now, gives me the opportunity to try something very different indeed. How about a no-bag challenge? The would mean leaving the Netbook and main camera in the hotel during the day and doing everything on the N8 and Tab. Of course its possible but the question is, what is the quality going to be like and will it be efficient to try and write posts on the Tab.
Considering I just wrote this one in under 5 minutes using the wordpress app. on the Tab, while sitting on a sofa keeping an eye on my baby, I think it will be surprisingly good. Watch out for a detailed post on Carrypad soon.
The other Moorestown-based MIDPhone to be demonstrate at CES was the AAVA. This one is just a prototype but as with the LG GW990, it shows just how small devices based on the Moorestown platform can be.
