Hasta La Gadget!

Could Windows 7 accomplish everything that’s expected of it? Probably not, but it makes a damn good attempt. We’ve tested the gold master, the final version going out on October 22. Upgrade without trepidation, people. With excitement, even.

Windows 7 is not quite a “Vista service pack.” It does share a lot of the core tech, and was clearly designed to fix nearly every bad thing anyone said about Vista. Which ironically puts the demon that it was trying to exorcise at its heart. What that means is that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been in the public eye—a solid OS with plenty of modern eye candy that mostly succeeds in taking Windows usability into the 21st century—but it doesn’t daringly innovate or push boundaries or smash down walls or whatever verb meets solid object metaphor you want to use, because it had a specific set of obligations to meet, courtesy of its forebear.

That said, if you’re coming from Windows XP, Windows 7 will totally feel like a revelation from the glossy future. If you’re coming from Vista, you’ll definitely go “Hey, this is much better!” the first time you touch Aero Peek. If you’re coming from a Mac, you’ll—-hahahahaha. But seriously, even the Mactards will have to tone down their nasal David Spadian snide, at least a little bit.

The Long Shadow of Windows Vista
The public opinion of Windows Vista—however flawed it might have been—clearly left a deep impact on Microsoft. While we’ve got final Windows 7 code, it’s hard to look 2 1/2 months into the future to predict what the Windows 7 launch will be like. However, based on this code, and the biggest OS beta testing process in history, it sure won’t look like the beleaguered Vista launch at all.

If you installed Vista on your PC within the first month of its release, there was a solid chance your computer ran like crap, or your gadgets didn’t work, since drivers weren’t available yet. That’s not how it shakes down with Windows 7. The hardware requirements for Windows 7 are basically the same as they are for Vista, the first time ever a release of Windows hasn’t required significantly more horsepower than the previous one. And it runs better on that hardware, or at least feels like it does.

We ran real-world benchmarking on two test machines, a nearly two-year-old Dell XPS M1330 with 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, an Nvidia 8400M GS and a 64GB SSD, and an 18-month-old desktop with 3GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, an Nvidia 8800GT and a 10,000rpm drive. Results suggest there’s little actual difference between Vista and Windows 7 performance-wise on the same hardware, as you can see:

Ambiguous benchmarking aside, our experience during the beta period was that Windows 7 actually ran beautifully, even on netbooks that made Vista cry like a spoiled child who’d had its solid gold spoon shoved up its butt sideways, so the difference isn’t based entirely on “feelings.” Even Microsoft never attempted to market a Vista for netbooks, but is gladly offering Windows 7 to that category.

Installing XP, Vista and Windows 7 on the same hardware over the space of a week also proved that point: Hardware just worked when I booted up Windows 7 for the first time, while my machines were practically catatonic with XP until I dug up the drivers, and gimped with Vista until I dutifully updated. Hitting Windows Update in Windows 7, I was offered a couple of drivers that were actually current, like ones for my graphics cards. Centralizing the delivery of drivers is huge in making the whole drivers thing less over whelming. (It helps that manufacturers are actively putting out drivers for their gear this go-around, rather than waiting until the last minute, as they tended to with Vista.)

Microsoft has even corrected the pricing spike that Vista introduced, even if they didn’t fully streamline that confusing, pulsating orgy of versions. A full version of Windows 7 Home Premium is $200, down from $260, and if you were lucky, you could’ve pre-ordered an upgrade version for $50. (Microsoft says that deal has sold out, but we wouldn’t be shocked to find it re-upped in the near future, possibly even as we head toward the October 22 launch.) So yes, most of the early Vista problems—performance, compatibility and price, to an extent—will likely not be early Windows 7 problems.

What’s Good
Windows 7 is the biggest step forward in usability since Windows 95. In fact, over half of what makes it better than Vista boils down to user interface improvements and enhancements, not so much actual new features.

Its fancy new user interface—the heart of which is Aero Peek, making every open window transparent except the one you’re focusing on at the moment so you can find what you’re looking for—actually changes the way you use Windows. It breaks the instinct to maximize windows as you’re using them; instead, you simply let windows hang out, since it’s much easier to juggle them. In other words, it radically reorients the UI around multitasking. After six months of using Aero Peek and the new launcher taskbar, going back to Vista’s taskbar, digging through collapsed app bars, or even its Peek-less Alt+Tab feels barbaric and primitive. I wouldn’t mind an Mac OS Exposé ripoff to complete the multitasking triumph, though.

Windows 7 brings back a sense of a tightness and control that was sometimes missing in Vista—there’s a techincal reason for this relating in part to the way graphics are handled—moments where I’ve felt like I wasn’t in control of my PC have been few and far between, even during the beta and release candidate periods. The more chaste User Account Control goes to that—the frequency with which it interrupts you was grating in Vista, like standing under a dripping faucet. But it actually works as Microsoft intended now, with more security, since you’re less likely to repeatedly hammer “OK” to anything that pops up, just so it leaves you the hell alone.

Other super welcome improvements are faster, more logical search—in the Music folder for instance, you can narrow by artist, genre or album—and more excellent file previews, though they’re not quite as awesome as what OS X offers up. (And why aren’t they on by default?) There are lots of little things that make you say, “finally” or “that’s great,” like legit codec support baked in to Windows Media Player, Device Stage when you plug in your gadgets, or the retardiculously awesome background images.

In short, Windows 7 is what Windows should feel like in 2009.

What’s Not So Good
There are a few spots Microsoft rubbed polish on that still don’t quite shine. Networking is much, much better than Vista—the wireless networking interface isn’t completely stupid anymore—but the Network and Sharing Center still doesn’t quite nail it in terms of making networking or sharing easy for people who don’t really know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t turn my mom loose inside of it, anyway. The HomeGroup concept for making it easy to share files sounds good in theory, but in practice, it’s no slam dunk. I imagine regular people asking, “What’s up with crazy complicated password I have to write down? Can I share files with PCs not in my HomeGroup? What’s all this other stuff in my Network that’s not in my HomeGroup?”

Not all parts of the user experience are sweeter now. Microsoft, just fix the unwieldy Control Panel interface, please. (Hint: Steal OS X’s. Everything’s visible and categorized.) And Windows Media Player’s UI while you’re at it. If it makes iTunes look simple, it’s got problems. I’d really like to be able to pin folders directly to the Taskbar as well, not simply to the Windows Explorer icon in the Taskbar. It’s kind of confusing behavior, actually—why can you pin some icons (apps or files) and not others (folders)?

Internet Explorer 8 ain’t so great, either. It’s better than IE7, sure, and actually sorta supports modern web standards. But you’ll be downloading Firefox, Opera, or Chrome as soon as you get Win 7 up and running, since IE’s not better than any of them. And while you could argue you wouldn’t be so inclined to use Microsoft’s own mail application either, you might, but you’ll have to download it first. Instead of being app-packed, Windows 7 gives you an optional update for Live Essentials, with apps like Mail, Photo Gallery and MovieMaker. Some people might like the cleaner install, but this is a fairly senseless de-coupling—not including a mail app with your own OS? I know those European regulators are ridiculous, but come on.

I suppose the biggest thing missing from Windows 7 is any sense of daring (psychedelic wallpapers aside). It’s a very safe release: Take what was good about Vista, fix what people bitched about, and voila. We get it, people want a safe operating system, not an experiment in behavioral science. But even as Windows 7 restores some of the joy in using Windows, you get the sense that it could’ve been more, if it hadn’t been saddled with the tainted legacy of Vista. I wonder what Windows 7 would have been without Vista.

The Verdict
Windows XP was a great OS in its day. Windows Vista, once it found its feet several months in, was a good OS. With Windows 7, the OS is great again. It’s what people said they wanted out of Windows: Solid, more nimble and the easiest, prettiest Windows yet. There’s always a chance this won’t be a huge hit come October, given the economy and the state of the PC industry, but it’s exactly what Microsoft needs right now. Something people can grab without fear.

Read Part 2
For a more in-depth feature breakdown and what we thought, check out our Windows 7 Best Features and Tips guide.

In Brief:
The redesigned Aero Interface is super slick with lots of transparencies and smooth animations and it actually makes Windows easier to use

It performs great on the same hardware as Vista, even playing nice on netbooks Vista wouldn’t

Device Stage makes you want to plug gadgets into your PC

It fixes almost everything you hated about Vista (don’t look at me, I didn’t think Vista was bad)

Media Player still sucks to use, though “Play To” and internet streaming features are nifty

It’d be nice if the $50 upgrade deal kept running

IE8, while better, still isn’t as good as Firefox, Chrome or Safari

The mess that is Control Panel—after all that UI work, what the eff, guys?

Too many versions still

[Microsoft Windows 7]

Glossy black gadgetry lit only by the very table on which it rests isn’t exactly an ideal situation for photography, but when it’s our first sighting of the Zune HD video dock, we’ll do our best. Microsoft had a small booth set up at tonight’s gdgt launch party in San Francisco, where they were showing off the device (no shots of the UI allowed, even if it’s largely unchanged since our last handling a month back). The dock was connected to flat-panel screen via HDMI and output 720p. A separate remote is provided for navigating through your videos from the comfort of your couch while leaving the media player docked, but once we got our hands on that, it was at this point that a rep made us put the camera away. Bummer. Hopefully we can get a better glimpse soon, but for now, images in the gallery below.

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune HD dock and remote hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That new BlackBerry Curve 8520 for T-Mobile is in the house, sucking down EDGE data like it’s going out of style (oh, right, it is). For a device that can be scored for $50 at Walmart as of tomorrow ($130 at T-Mobile stores), this is a surprisingly solid handset. The keyboard is classic BlackBerry goodness, and the overall heft gives us at least a little bit of assurance that the phone can hold up to wear and tear better than its predecessors. Most of the changes are for the better, like a trio of media keys up top and the rubberized sides, but we’re not completely sold on the touchpad. It works great when it works, but if it’s too clean or our thumb is at the exact wrong moisture level, we found that we kind of “stuck” to the pad instead of gliding across it. A bit of texturing could go a long way. We also found the QVGA screen to be pretty dim, which is particularly unfortunate in light of RIM’s higher-end, high-res wonders, but it’s certainly passable. We’re planning on spending some more time with the handset, testing that EDGE network to the limit, giving UMA time to handle some of legendary conversational stylings, and seeing how many Engadget Podcast episodes we can narcissistically cram onto the bundled 1GB microSD card.

In speaking with RIM, it’s quite clear that the decision to go EDGE was primarily based on price, along with the fact that T-Mobile’s 3G rollout is still lacking — it’s still a head scratcher to us, though. The spokesperson also seemed pretty confident that the new touchpad interface is the way of the future, and we get the feeling the BlackBerry’s legendary trackball isn’t long for this world. Check out a quick video hands-on after the break, or you could opt for some fine unboxing shots below.

Continue reading T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 unboxed and handled (with video!)

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 unboxed and handled (with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The gadget: A direct followup to the excellent Zi6 HD pocket cam, the Zi8 adds a 1080p 30fps mode, a lithium ion battery, image stabilization, HDMI-out and a mic jack. It’s restyled too, and less pudgy.

The price: $180

The verdict: Kodak’s first foray into pocket camcorders set them ahead of the pack, at least for a while—a trick they’ve pulled off again with the Zi8. They’ve stolen back the top spot not with video quality—though it is impressive—but with a few obvious features that, until now, hadn’t trickled down to this price point.

Click for gallery

First though, the core improvements: This Zi’s undergone a full hardware redesign which, once you peel the ugly, feature-touting sticker off the front, feels more modern, more solid, and more, well, designed than its lumpy predecessor. The screen is way, way sharper, which makes the whole camera, despite its similar interface and button layout, truly feel like a new piece of hardware. HDMI output works instantly and smoothly, and the microphone-in jack pulls concerts and noisy environments into the Things The Zi8 Can Do list. The hard, flip-out USB plug has been replaced with a rubberized flexible one, which makes life easier for situations where you don’t have much clearance on a USB port. Oh, and the battery—a Li-Ion slab replaces the old model’s rechargeable AAs.

The Zi8’s ballyhooed feature is its 30fps 1080p video recording, which, along with a new 5-megapixel photo option, joins the 720p (30fps and 60fps) and WVGA video modes of the Zi6. The added resolution is technically impressive, sure, but it’s also sort of excessive, and mostly unnoticeable. People have a hard enough time distinguishing between 1080p and 720p video when it’s professionally produced and displayed on a high-end screen; the Zi8 is still very much a pocket camera, meaning that the video isn’t quite crisp or vivid enough to gain much from the added pixels. Cameras like this are meant for uploading quality-sapping video sites—something the Windows-only software makes dead-simple—not Blu-ray discs.

That’s not to say the raw video quality is bad—far from it. It’s noticeably better than the Zi6, and a new, larger sensor boosts quality at all resolutions, especially in low light. Again, this is still a pocket camcorder, so expect some noise in dimmer situations. That said, the noise is subtle and tolerable, and a far sight less crappy than most of its direct competitors.

The reason the Zi8’s video really stands out is image stabilization. This is a much bigger deal than it might sound, because it accomplishes something that might not be immediately obvious: it cuts down on shimmering—that queasy rippling effect you get whenever you move a cheap camcorder too quickly. It’s still there, but with less microtwitches and jitters, it’s way less apparent. In addition, the Zi6’s macro mode makes a reappearance on the Zi8, but it’ a lot more usable, since its field of focus has grown since the Zi6, which only gave you an inch or so of leeway before things got fuzzy. On top of it all, the Zi8’s lens is wider. Some people might miss the extra optical zoom a little bit, but I found the wider angle much easier to film with.

The photo mode is acceptable, but not at the level of even a entry-level point-and-shoot, and prone to blurry shots, since the record button is a little stiff, and you’re usually not holding the camera in an especially stable way. But in fitting with the ethos of this whole genre of device, it’ll usually do just fine.

The takeaway here is that the Zi8, though still firmly a budget camcorder in terms of both price and image quality, is a device you’ll be comfortable relying on in more situations than the old model, or for that matter, any other pocket cam on the market today. You’ll worry less about how well-lit your subjects are; about just how macro you want to go; about keeping your hand steady enough to make your footage not look like frantic cellphone clip from a disaster scene; about how loud your surroundings will be. It’s not going to replace a real camcorder in all situations, nor is meant to—but for a lot of people, it’ll be more than good enough. At $180, that’s nothing to smirk at. [Kodak]

Sharp, clean video in bright lighting, respectable video in low light

Antishake

Slimmer profile

More versatile USB Plug

Li-Ion Battery

More plugs!

No internal storage

Software is convenient, but not that powerful

In most cases, a nerd standing on a beach is like the Queen of England standing on stage at a strip club. It just isn’t right. However, these 10 gadgets can make you feel more at home.

I don’t think I need to explain the merits of a drivable beer cooler to anyone—much less nerds used to a sedentary lifestyle. The Cruzin’ Cooler can hit speeds of 15mph with a payload of 24 12oz cans on board. [Cruzin’ Cooler and 19th Hole Carts via Link]
The Grinch Winch features a tow rope and a 7HP engine that will hurl you head on into the surf. [Distortionboarding via Link]
I would hope that you are smart enough to generously apply SPF 50 sunscreen to that pasty body of yours, but you still might need a backup to prevent overexposure to the sun. The Minox Suntimer monitors UV rays and sounds an alarm when it thinks you’ve had enough. [Optix Planet and Link]
For the gadget fanatic, it’s not enough to merely admire the underwater landscape, it must be recorded. Thanko’s underwater video camera (25fps QVGA) is small enough to mount on a pair of goggles. [Link]
Of course you brought your laptop to the beach. As sad as that is, the LapDome was tailor made for people like you. Basically, it’s a mini tent for your laptop that protects it from the elements while shielding the screen from from that unfamiliar fiery orb in the sky. [LapDome via Link]
When a simple beach chair just won’t do, the Astone inflatable massage chair will provide a more luxurious solution. In addition to the vibrating massage pads, the chair also features a dock for your iPod, speakers and a handy remote control. [Axpertz via Link]
In keeping with your nerdy sensibilities, this unique surfboard was designed by Thomas Meyerhoffer—a guy that spent time working at Apple and was a driving force behind the design of Chumby. [Myerhoffer via Link]
If you are going to be out in the sun, you are going to need a pair of sunglasses. This Calvin Klein model look a bit Blues Brothers, but it does feature 4GB of storage. [Link]
It’s a shark! It’s a submarine! No, it’s some fat guy wearing a Superman wetsuit. If you can imagine it, the guys at Wetwear Custom Wetsuits can make it. [Wetwear]
When you are a guy and you have a set of man jugs like this, do us all a favor and wear a man bra with a t-shirt over it. [Link]