ForbesOnTech

HP's Pavilion DM3T--- a New Addition to My Pantheon of Portables

Sometimes I test a new notebook that resets nearly all of my expectations for portables or which reaffirms my beliefs in a manufacturers. Hewlett Packard’s pavilion DM3T fit’s this description exactly.

The DM3T is based on a low voltage Intel processor, has a very bright 13.3 inch screen, a comfy keyboard with island-style keys, a full compliment of expansion ports. and a six-cell power pack that delivers some of best entry-level portable battery life I’ve ever seen in years.

The unit supplied to me for this review included 4 GB of memory, a 1.33 GHz dual core Intel Pentium ultra low voltage Intel Pentium processor, a 320GB hard disk drive, 13.3-inch LCD screen, Microsoft Windows 7, antivirus and HP digital multimedia content management plus integrated camera with digital microphone. The price as configured is $549.

The DM3T surprised me with its functionality, extraordinarily long battery life and rugged construction. In three charge cycles of real world usage-- including one arduous flight, this notebook’s six-cell power pack gave me better than 6.5 hours of untethered juice. And that was with a power scheme that didn’t cut my consumption very much. Consider me impressed.

The overall usability and suitability-to-task of HP’s Pavilion DM3T is excellent. It’s 13.3-inch screen is bright enough for me to read the fine detail of quarter sectional maps of California’s Gold regions without the eyestrain you’d expect for a user past middle age. Furthermore, the integrated graphics controller had the power to make my detailed tabular data readable.

The integrated 802.11 n wireless network adapter works as well in my home office as it did seated outside a Starbucks up in the California Gold Country keeping me attached to the Google mother ship where my personal productivity apps lives. And it stayed attached, despite at least nine haughty IPad users greedily sucking bandwidth and their double espressos made with some sort of dubious milk product food froth.

The HP PavilionDM3T has a big voice for an ultra light portable. Its integrated Altec Lansing speakers and Dolby audio subsystems pump out crisp clean music.

I also like the position of the external expansion ports which are easily accessed without resorting to acrobatics or extreme yoga. The 5-in-one media reader included on the DM3T willl make any digital motion or still camera user very happy.

But what really surprised me about the Hewlett Packard’s DMT3 ultra lightweight notebook -- which weighs in at a skosh under four pounds-- is its rock bottom price---$549. The only option I strongly recommend is the $25 back lit keyboard, a feature I really appreciated testing this machine while car camping 10 miles from a major road. Go ahead and splurge on the backlit keyboard. Its worth it.

I was very impressed with this notebook’s capabilities, its well above average construction and it’s svelte profile. HP has paid a lot of attention to thermal management in this notebook. Embedded sensors kick this portable’s cooling system into overdrive if heat builds up. It’s a nice engineering design feature I think will yield increased system life and I hope the technology spreads to other HP portables.

One word of caution: the HP DM3T does not have an integrated optical drive, so if you need to load software from a CD, you’ll need to get your hands on an external drive.

In total, I think HP’s DM3T is one of the most outstanding machines I’ve reviewed in a long time.

So it’s time to haul out the marble pedestal, unlimber my sculpting tools and install this skinny powerhouse in my pantheon of portables where it joins another landmark family from an earlier HP era, the HP OmniBook 300-800 line.

I like and recommend this portable a lot--Jim Forbes on 04/05/2011.

　

 

 

Watching CES Tablet Computer Launches- And, What's Needed to Claim Jump Apple's iPAD Motherlode.

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in  Las Vegas should  be called the 2011 Touch and Tablet Computing extravaganza.

There have been as many as 20 new touch interface-based computers shown by CES vendors, most of whom are rushing to grab small claims in a verdant mother lode that today belongs almost exclusively to Apple.

Apple is a formidable competitor and although it has made marketing mistakes in the past, you can’t argue with the long term success of either its technologies or its core products.

the tablet computer stampede  this week the contest could end up like  heavy equipment racing up a steep incline to see which earth mover grabs a tiny parking space near the crest of a mountain.

And while the newcomers stake their claims, Apple will just continue to extract high grade from the market.

The key questions for any tablet maker who wants to compete against Apple with an iPad competitor are:

1. Do they have a reliable supplier of capacitive touch screens
2. If they’re going to compete, how small a profit are they willing to take on each device.
3. What innovation can a tablet maker bring to market to outshine Apple’s iPad?
4. What partnership opportunities are there in the tablet market?
5. Can Intel’s AppUp software store or Googlwe’s Android Marketplace challenge Apple’s Appstore?
6. What’s needed in tablet computing that Apple doesn’t provide now and what can be added to a new device without exceeding Apple’s $499 entry price point?

 

The most important thing about new tablet computers will be their pricing and matching Apple’s feature matrix. To compete against Apple I suspect most companies will come in with retail pricing $100 to $150 below Apple’s $499 entry level iPad. Competing on features could be a much easier task, beginning with adding more USB ports to basic designs and supporting Adobe data types.

What’s really apparent from CES is that most PC makers wont be in the market for months to come but when they do begin shipping Apple will face an all-out challenge from Google and an ever expanding stable of companies hooked to the Android 3.3 (aka “Honeycomb”) operating system. Also in the wings is Microsoft, with its next release of Windows and its decade’s long commitment to touch computing.

Forrester Research this week predicted that over the next several years tablet computer sales will reach 44 million units in 2015—double its predictions made for the form factor last June.

Acer, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba and many others have now announced their plans for tablet computers But few units are expected to reach consumers’ hands before mid-2011.Suych companies, however could face a hard fought battle with Apple, which is rumored to be working on bolstering its iPad lineup in the coming months—Jim Forbes 01/04/2011.

 

After Decades of Yawner Opearating System Launches Google Wakes me up with Android 2.2-- It's NFC Support Really is a Game Changer

In three decades of reporting on personal computing technologies very few operating system upgrade introductions ever did much more than make me yawn.

Even though it was 20 plus years ago, I can remember Microsoft launching an incremental release of Windows-- the best it could do was put a couple of industry luminaries (notably John Dvorak and Stu Alsop) on a raised dias as Bill Gates proudly launched two windows clocks from the accessory panel and showed them running simultaneously. It wasn’t really a big deal.

Perhaps that’s why today’s announcement by Google of Android 2.2 snapped me out of my incremental operating system malaise. I view this Android release as a really big deal and suspect some of its features will go on to become “must have” features for any popular smart phone operating system.

At the top of the list of features the 2.2 version of Android supports is Near Field Communications (NFC).

Initially available on Samsung’s Nexus S smart phone, NFC consists of a silicon transceiver built into the phone and Android 2.2 operating system software. The software lets smart phone users complete secure transactions with retail point of sale systems equipped with NFC hardware.

Over the last year numerous Geolocation-based software (including couponing applications) have been launched in an effort to create and strengthen bonds between consumers and retailers.

There are two huge problems such applications face: technology-poor retailers who either lack web sites or point of sale systems that can communicate with smart phones, and, smart phones capable of communicating with retail point of sale devices.

Samsung’s Nexus S and Google’s Android 2.2 operating system help solve one half of that problem set.

Although Google has tremendous name recognition, it has yet to establish itself in any consumer market segment. But its smart phone operating system technology can change that, particularly if the Mountain View, CA< company makes other inroads with consumer retail products.

Android 2.2 was as far from a yawner as any operating system upgrade launch I’ve ever covered.

At last, the game changes; Microsoft and Apple have to respond to NFC and smart phone manufacturers need to upgrade their hardware and software. Awake at last, Jim Forbes on 12/06/2010.

 

Google's Android Tablet problem-- It's Going to Need Content Porting Tools to Succeed Against Apple or Others.

Over at Churbuck.com there’s a thoughtful short post on Chinese-manufactured slate computers that are being selectively shown now and a potential problem Google faces in the tablet market. The point of Mr. Churbuck’s post is that small foot print Google operating systems represent a good choice for content consumption computers—an argument I completely agree with.

What makes the post at Churbuck.com particularly worth recommending is the author’s former position with a Chinese portable maker and his involvement in an ultraportable cloud-centric computer that was shown at CES but which has since been withdrawn.

As I read the piece I realized that this was the first time I’ve critically considered operating systems in portable computers.

I don’t really care if it’s an Apple or a Microsoft product, I just want it to help me get my job done and to run properly and efficiently each and every time I boot up my computer. With its institutional emphasis on cloud computing, I suspect Google, not Microsoft or Apple can be the real winner in any contest for future portables that are designed from the outset for cloud-based SAAP institutional deployment

Mr. Churbuck asks a rhetorical question in his post that’s very important. Can Google attract content providers by providing tools that simplify content delivery for forthcoming ndroid-based tablets?

While I do not yet own a slate computer, I’ll expect to make that leap of faith in the coming nine months.

But go ahead and read Dave Churbuck’s well-reasoned pos. it’s right here.

HP's ePrint architecture Delivers on promise of Remote Printing

Hewlett Packard’s ePrint strategy is a major fulfillment in the decades-long promise of mobile computing.

Details on how ePrint—first announced about two years ago-- would be implemented have only recently emerged.

Hp’s new strategic direction for its printer business—specifically its all-in-one families of printers, faxes and scanners is to give each device an unique IP address linking printers, and users via e-mail , allowing true remote printing  to any ePrinter architecture-capable printer, world wide.

HP isn’t the first company to equip printers with IP addresses—a distinction that goes to another technology pioneering, Tektronics in Oregon. Furthermore, remote printing has also been possible using software designed for handhelds as well as portable computers that were launched in the 1990’s at technology showcases such as DemoMobile.

What appears to set HP ePrint feature apart is: the assignment of individual names and IP addresses to specific printers, the ability to you email your files to any ePrint capable printer from any location, Worldwide; and the ability to remotely prioritize printing jobs.

ePrint supports a wide variety of common data types and can be used with Google’s cloud-based word processor and other applications, in which case it can print directly from remote virtual storage space, without launching an underlying applications program.

HP’s introduction of technology severing hard physical connections between the notebook user and their printers is important. It won’t be long now before you return your seat back and tray table to their original upright and locked position, check into your hotel where a 15 page proposal has been printed, handed to you by a desk clerk and you got to sleep with one less task to worry about.

And that’s a good thing—Jim Forbes on 06/11/2010.

 

disclosure: I was the founding producer of DemoMobile.

Goog to Launch light OS for Netbooks-- Fencing with Microsoft Begins

Google’s pulled the “beta” label of its cloud based apps early this week and on Tuesday said Chrome would be its operating system for netbooks.

Ace blogger and former PCWeek colleague Dave Churbuck posted a concise piece on the announcement here that deserves a read.

I agree with Dave completely: Google’s moves could be the first wedge that topples the Wintel hegemony. I do, however, have a couple of lingering questions:

+ Is Google willing to say its personal productivity software is compatible with corporate applications (which could prevent third-party consultancies and in house IT analysts from recommending a switch to Chrome and Goog apps

+ Will Goog’s apps, including associated cloud storage always be free?

+ What netbook makers will ally themselves with Google from the outset?

+ What corporations are willing to ally themselves and depend on or believe that Goog can offer continuous access to all its apps.

+ Will the Clearwire/Comcast/Sprint HighSpeed2go partnership and other wireless data networks or netbook makers pair up or endorse the Google platform?

Looking at this announcement it’s hard not to imagine a bony, desiccated, hand emerging from the moldy compost around Redmond holding a billboard proclaiming “Don’t forget Windows 7, it’s compatible with corporate standards.”

I’d love to be working reporter right now.

One of the first companies I’d call for insight and a reaction is SalesForce.com, since its very life is tied to two critical components in the netbook future; persistent connectivity, and near pure cloud-based computing. Another company that could get a pleasant bump with this announcement is industry pioneer Intuit, whose small business software has a big share of the SMB market.

Google as an operating system vendor going against Microsoft with a persistent computing, cloud-based strategy?

Be still my beating heart.--Jim Forbes 07/08/2007