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Now that I've finished the Compact DSLR System series, I thought I'd start another. Something that fits with my resolutions for this year. In short: I'm going to "Love What I Have"! My plan to to complete, optimize, and finish off. With the exception, of the already started rebuild of my desktop workstation; I plan on changing very little. Each month, I'm going to examine at least one of my core devices or systems.
So, today, I'm going to start with my main "mobile system"; the ThinkPad X301. I just love this machine. There's virtually nothing, I'd change about it. For me, the size is perfect. I really like the resolution of 1440 x 900 in the widescreen 13" format. Yes, it does cause me to scroll more when reading, but I find that I regularly set two windows side by side while working. And when I'm traveling or simply catching up with a missed TV show at home, I really like the 16:9 ratio as well. Sure, I'd have loved for it to be a better panel, even an IPS maybe, but I find the X301's to be somewhat better than the original in the X300. Enough so that I can live with it. What else do I love about it? It's thin AND light. At the time of it's introduction, the X300 was one of the thinnest in the world, yet still was able to have an optical drive! In typical ThinkPad fashion, the keyboard is fantastic (and always key), comes equipped with the TrackPoint pointing stick.
Also, I love that I'm done with it as well! The RAM is maxed out at the chipset's 8Gb limit, and although drive could be larger, I've decided this last upgrade to the 160Gb, Intel 320 is the end of the line. For what this machine does for me, the Samsung 128Gb was actually fine size-wise, but when I found the Intel, new for $50 on the local Craigs List, it was a no-brainer. What that upgrade gives me isn't so much the 32Gb of extra space, but that this drive has TRIM, which should keep it running well for the duration of it's time with me. Furthermore, the bump in capacity combined with the installation of Google Drive actually leaves me with 105Gb of free space from the formatted size of 149Gb. Nice!!!
If I do need more storage when out and about, I have this. This, is the Iomega SSD Flash external drive. When introduced in 2010, in capacities of 64Gb, 128Gb, and 256Gb, they were $229, $399, and $749 respectively! YOW!!! Last year (I can say that now), I found an eBay seller out of China (where else?), selling the case for about $14. Actually, it was the whole thing, down to the retail box with instructions..... except w/o the SSD inside. So, in went the original 64Gb, 1.8" Samsung drive, and whatta-ya-know..... my very own high speed external drive! Iomega claimed that these things are 10 times faster than a regular mechanical drive through USB 2.0 and even twice as fast as USB 3.0.
What's this? It's my "rig" of course, or at least when it wants to travel in style, that is! It's a perfect fit and match inside this 3" Zero Halliburton computer attache in gunmetal grey. That's only if it needs to go out for formal occasions. Mostly, it travels in a plain black backpack that doesn't look like it carries anything more important than a few books and papers. The attache was an indulgence at about $65 off of eBay because I always wanted one. The backpack was basically free. I found some ThinkPad backpacks from an outfit in PA that I buy off-lease laptops from and was able to get one for about $20. When it showed up, I found that one of the accessory attachment loops was torn. So I contacted them to see if they had another to swap out. They didn't have an identical one, but sent me a similar one and told me just to keep the first bag...... so free..... with a torn loop that has since been cut off.
There are a couple of other traveling companions for it of course. Both the ThinkPad mouse, and the Nokia BH-503 connect through Bluetooth, so that's convenient. They are also small and light.
These day though, all this nice "road-warrior" gear stays put up the office closet mostly. This being my typical position of use, but it's ready to go.... if and when it needs to!
The last week or so, Samsung has been running a bunch of ads on TV for a "smartwatch" which is supposed to work with their Galaxy line of Android phones. If you're unfamiliar with these things, they've actually been around for a while going back to the huge Palm OS watch some years ago, but with the advent of smartphones, the reality of a watch that links to them, while the phone hides discretely in your pocket is alluring..... at least conceptually...... which is probably why they have thus far been commercial failures.
Even the mighty Sony hasn't even gotten it's 2nd version to make so much as a ripple in the market. I'll admit it; I've been sorely tempted by it. As a teacher, I don't have the luxury of grabbing my phone to look, every time it buzzes, to see if it's just another Facebook notification, or that call-back from the doctor's office I've been waiting for all morning! However, I just can't seem to get myself to pull the plug on spending somewhere between $100 and $200 on something that requires me to charge every day or so (just like my cellphone), and is still somewhat glitchy, plus I might not find myself using on a regular basis.
Of course, some of it might be that I'm kind of a crusty old guy who wears one of these on a daily basis. Yup, my dad's old Omega Constellation, which is a "perpetual", a completely mechanical "self-winding" watch from the late 60's! The other watch that I wear regularly is an older Timex Expedition which is a similar completely analog watch with a plain white face and a simplistic brown resin case.
Even if I could run out and buy any watch I wanted, it'd be one of these Omega Seamasters. I know what you're thinking. I've loved them long before James Bond started wearing one in the movies, instead of the Rolex Submariner that he wears in the books. Is this a post on watches then? Actually, no; it's a post on "Cool" concepts that don't turn out to be all that useful.
In fact this whole line of thinking started the other day when I realized that I have a really cool device that I virtually never use. Awhile ago, I saw that Iomega had released an external storage solution built on a 1.8" SSD. So, not only was it incredibly small and light, but it's in a really nice embossed metal case. Of course price ranged from $230 (64Gb) to $750 for the 256Gb version! Yikes, that's a lot of money for cool! I decided that I'd do an eBay search anyway and see what the price ends up coming down to when they hit the used market. Then I came up with some ads posted from China (where else), for the cases w/o drives for something like $15 after shipping. As it turns out, I had an unused 64Gb Samsung OEM, 1.8" SSD that came out of my old X300 ThinkPad. After sitting in a drawer for over a year, it needed a job. A 3 week wait ensued after which the package finally arrived via China Post. Indeed, the thing came in the Iomega packaging complete down to the paperwork for the device. I slipped in the drive, and one quick format later, I have this really slick external storage device with the capacity of....... a nice flashdrive...... Yup, after all that, I rarely ever use it, since it doesn't give any more capacity or have any advantages over the 64Gb flashdrive that you can run down to Walmart and buy for $35-40. Kind of a letdown.
Then, there are these guys....Ultrabooks. You might be aware that Intel periodically puts together concepts that they create prototypes of and encourages manufacturers to build.
Kind of like this '56 Firebird "Concept Car" from GM. Mostly they are really cool ideas that don't turn out to work that well in real life. A few years ago, Intel thought that it'd be a great idea if you put a small LCD screen on the outside of a laptop so you can see when email comes in or what music track it's playing etc. Turns out that nobody wanted to carry around a notebook computer in place of a iPod or Smartphone.... who Knew! Anyway, back to my original thought; the Ultrabook. At the time, it seemed like an idea who's time had come. An ultralight, ultraslim (hence ultraportable), ultracool (ultra-like-the-Apple-MacBook Air), notebook computer. Even ultra-sealed-up (like you know who), so that you can't even change the battery w/o taking it apart. ......and as it turns out, Ultra-not-really-salable either since they've been met in the marketplace with a collective yawn. Conceptually, it seems like a great idea, but I think there are a couple of issues here.
Mind you, these are my not-too-scientific analysis here, but we can start by it's poor timing of coming to market around the time-frame of the iPad/tablet revolution which has swept all before it. They also tend to be somewhat pricier than the typical consumer market notebook (about double). And while consumers are OK with tablets being dependent on downloaded apps/content, I think they are still somewhat leery of a full-blown PC coming w/o an optical drive. You add to that the rather inept staff of blue-shirted zombies at the big-box stores trying to sell them. I'd say that it all conspires to hold down these things in the marketplace. And remember, this is all coming from an X301 user, which after all is one of the original computers that kicked off that form-factor.....albeit in "super-ultrabook" form given that it does have an optical drive!
Who, knows; maybe there's life in these products still to be sparked. It's rumored that Apple is going to bring out an "iWatch"(?), as well as M$ and some other industry heavy hitters. I know that I still think that the concept is interesting and that I could see myself using one at some point, but then again: I used the Palm V up until last year!
