The Connected Circuit

After I graduated I decided to treat myself a bit and splurge on a new computer. My search ended with me purchasing the Lenovo Thinkpad T61p. From day one, it has been rife with problems. One of the main reasons I bought this machine was I wanted something really powerful in a portably package which I could easily carry around. The T61p fit the bill largely on its powerful video card, semi-non-spine crushing-portability and terrific keyboard. On paper this machine was beautiful and fit my needs perfectly, it has a high-res screen (for programming), powerful enough to multi-task and an amazing keyboard. But you can put anything on paper, it is just in the execution. The T61p started to exhibit real problems when I ran intensive programs, and in my case they were 3D video games. Into my very first session of one of my favorite games, Team Fortress 2, my computer suddenly shutdown. With a shocked look on my face, I decided to do the logical thing, turn it back on. Which it didn’t at first, I had to unplug the machine, then reinsert the AC adapter, then push the power button to get it back on. Thinking that it was a freak one-time problem, I restarted Steam and went into another gaming session. Low and behold, it shut down on me again. At this point and time I was pretty much filled with an intense amount of anger. After about a month I placed the order, I received a defective laptop in direct relation to one of the reasons why I chose this machine. I decided maybe I should do a clean install with a student version of XP (note: it is a full version, my alma mater is an MSDNAA partner) on my machine. Installed TF2 on there again, but nope, still broke.

After cooling down for a bit, I decided that it was alright I’d just send my thinkpad in for repair, how long could it be for them to get it back to me a week. Nope it took nearly a month and guess what, it is still broken, it is actually worse off. After being escalated to their “top tier” support, I received a machine with a bent heatsink and still shuts off. I called again today to send it in for repair knowing full well that I won’t get this thing back for probably another month or so. I subsequently described my problems (shoddy repair job that it seems monkeys have done, possible video card issues, and an under-qualified individual putting this thing together) with it and the possible root causes. Not to sound full of myself, but I’ve done quite a bit of computer repair in my life (during my freshman year, I used to repair fellow students computers just to make some extra cash), so I’m no inept in figuring out why something is not working properly. The worst part of all is that I get hung up on twice while asking for XP recovery discs that should be mine. I’ve never sounded so angry on the phone with another individual in my life when I asked to speak with a supervisor and then he said I would have to pay $45 plus shipping and handling. Now their reasoning behind it is that Microsoft doesn’t let them ship CDs with their machines anymore. And they told me that I should have made recovery discs for my Thinkpad, but my question is why do I need to? Why does anyone need to? I specifically spent the extra money to purchase a machine with XP and chose Lenovo for that particular reason. If I knew that they were going to screw me over and charge me more money for something that was clearly mine, I would have just not purchased a machine from them. I stepped back and thought who does this hurt most? Honestly I could just go on any bittorent search engine and find hundreds of illegal XP CDs, but I wanted to do it legit and am trying to support fellow software developers after finding out how difficult it was to produce quality software. But alas it was torn from me and my only reasonable way to reinstall XP on my machine is to dig through the many different forums and install drivers that may or may not work. So yeah, I’m pissed right now and had to let it out.

By the way, James Curtis, if you ever read this. You are an incompetent under qualified moron.

--written by Peter To--

This is a great website for a notebook video card reference. The one I have in mine is a class 2 card, the NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M in my Thinkpad T61p. For reference, my Thinkpad can play Bioshock at a solid 30 FPS at Medium settings on my native resolution of 1680 x 1050. Team Fortress 2 runs superb as well.

This thread on notebookreviews forums is a terrific reference guide for notebook video cards as well.

--written by Peter To--

Well I think it is nigh time to finally do a review on the AT&T Tilt aka HTC Kaiser aka HTC TyTN II aka HTC 8900. After a six month study trip/finding myself adventure in Vietnam, I was in need of a cellphone again. Thinking I was off contract I decided to shop for the best phone I could find and finally drop Sprint, after much yelling and coaxing Sprint to let me off without paying a $175 ETF I jumped ship and decided upon the AT&T Tilt from AT&T.

Here is a quick rundown of the specs:

• 2.8″ 320 x 240 TFT touchscreen
• 400 MHz 32bit Qualcomm MSM7200 processor
• Full QWERTY slide out keyboard
• 3.1 MP camera
• 128 MB RAM
• 256 MB ROM
• Quad Band GSM, Triband UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100) 3G baby
• 802.11g WiFi compatible
• Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP
• Support for microSDHC cards up to 32 GB
• GPS

For more detailed information visit the pdadb info page for the Tilt here.

Hardware:
As hardware goes, this thing has everything you could ever want from a phone. A full keyboard for typing out long emails or lengthy SMS conversations as well as a large touchscreen. A real GPS chip for use with any maps application. A decent amount of space for those small applications. A quick processor. A decent camera with video recording capabilities. A 802.11g radio as well as triband HSDPA and bluetooth. It has everything. Beware, this thing is a brick and pretty heavy compared to your average phone. It also has a nice rubberized backing as well. It’s only port is a mini-USB port for all your needs, charging headphones and such, but for the latter you’d need to purchase an adapter or two and forget about dual charger/listening to music with a standard 3.5 mm without the purchase of another adapter.

Keyboard:
The keyboard is probably one of the best I’ve ever used on a mobile phone, every key feels individual and separate with full QWERTY support, the only thing this is missing is a CTRL and ALT key that will be featured in the upcoming HTC Raphael. GPS takes a few minutes to get a fix, but when it does, it works pretty well with Google Maps, as well as TomTom Mobile Navigator software. Data speeds are fast when in a 3G or HSDPA area, which luckily I am living in two cities.

Software:
The Tilt comes preloaded with a customized Windows Mobile 6.0 for AT&T subscribers. It comes loaded with much bloatware and trial ware. You’ll take some time sifting through which programs are actually usable or not.

Contacts:
Contacts are manage in the usable and the slightly ugly Pocket Outlook. It is pretty straight forward and you can add as much information about a person as if you were using Outlook’s desktop cousin.

SMS:
SMS are done in the similar fashion to emails, which is a great thing. While sending a message to one of your contacts, it will suggest individuals in your contact list. Sending to multiple people is done by simply adding a semi-colon and that individual’s name. If you are in the mood for something a tad better looking, I suggest the wonderfully free PocketCM. Download it here. It will also create a much improved contact interface as well, the only thing with PocketCM is that it still doesn’t support SIM cards.

Web Browsing:
Web browsing in Pocket IE quite frankly sucks. If you don’t ever want to see the web broken and small, then stay away from Pocket IE and use one of the alternatives, such as Opera Mobile (not free, but comes with a 30-day trial), Opera Mini (Free) or sign up for SkyFire beta. Pocket IE is terrible, it is hard for it to render websites that don’t have a mobile interface. Opera Mini, a java midlet, does this beautifully. It is a mainstay in my arsenal. Download it here.

Camera:
The camera is better than your average cellphone cam and can record video. Storage options are the phone’s internal memory or a microSD card.

Navigation:
After using the free trial of TeleNav and not wanting to pay the monthly fee for something that was built to be free and open, you’ll find Google Maps or Live Search from Microsoft. Both are great, I prefer Google maps myself, but Live Search is on par if not better in some areas. The latest version of Google Maps supports My Location, by giving you a general location of where you are, which is never accurate, but it comes in handy if you don’t want to drain your battery by turning on your GPS radio. For the people who are having trouble with their GPS radio, download GPS test here. I know it sounds silly, but it turns on the GPS module and helps to get a fix. Point your web browser here for Google Maps and here for Live Search.

Call Quality:
I’ve been extremely unsatisfied with AT&T and call quality. I’ve had to say more “What?”, making it appear as if I was deaf to the person on the other end. But this was to be expecting when I was taking into consideration other wireless carriers. GSM as a technology is kinda weak, CDMA has much better quality voice and data-wise. While on Sprint I could hear someone crystal clear, but on AT&T everything sounds muffled as if the other person was speaking through a plastic bag. I’ve also have more dropped calls in the past eight months than my entire three years with Sprint. Although Sprint doesn’t have as wide a coverage map as AT&T, if sure did cover enough for me. AT&T seems to be lacking in many areas.

WiFi:
Being significantly faster than EDGE or 3G, it works great, but is a great battery drain. The only problem is that if you leave WiFi radio on for a decent amount of time, it slows to a crawl.

Bluetooth:
Support for stereo bluetooth is great. With the right phones you can wireless listen to your turns and leave your MP3 player at home. Tethering this thing to my laptop to use it as a wireless gateway worked great albeit a tad slow, but you’d have to use the buried Internet Connection Sharing. I also tethered this to other devices and it worked great as well. Guides here and here. Bluetooth tethering eats up battery life like no tomorrow, but it isn’t as bad as having WiFi turned on.

Pros:
Robust and great hardware. Sturdy.

Cons:
Software holds this thing back. Out of the box, it is mediocre, but finding the right software for this thing makes it much better. AT&T is lacking in included accessories, mainly that it provides none other than another stylus. So unlike Sprint where they include an USB-to-2.5 mm jack, a 512 MB microSD card, a screen protector, all you get in the box with AT&T is a USB charger and the phone with one additional stylus.

Conclusion:
For the person with enough patience to put up with the software downsides of the Tilt will find a great device that has a great community that has created much software and enhancements for it. On paper this thing is awesome, but the UI is not very intuitive. At times it’ll slow to a crawl to the point of unusable, it is frustrating to say the least. But loaded with the right ROM, it becomes slightly less rocky. My hope is that there will be an Android hack to make this thing capable of running Android. But I give this thing a 7 out of 10. Slightly better than the average phone. Be sure to visit XDA-developers for other enhancements.

--written by Peter To--

After much thought and a decent amount of research I have finally decided on which notebook to buy and it will be the Lenovo Thinkpad T61p, 15.4″. It will be a nice upgrade to my current rig, which is approaching 3 year old ASUS W3V, but for some reason it says it is not going to ship until 5/19, although when I ordered it, it said 4/16. I really hope this is true cause that is such a long wait.

If anyone else wants the discount I got, which was 15%, plus the 25% sale they are having go here. Here is a rundown of the specs of my sweet new rig:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9300 (2.5GHz 800MHz 6MBL2)1
Genuine Windows XP Professional
15.4 WSXGA+ TFT (1680×1050), non-glossy
NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M (256MB Open GL)
1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM), Upgrading this to 3 GB with a 2 GB stick from newegg
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
160GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim
ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe US/EMEA/LA/ANZ, I hope I don’t regret not getting the Intel wireless card
Integrated Bluetooth PAN
9 cell Li-Ion Battery
Integrated Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN)
6459: Express – 3 Yr Depot Warranty

Grand total of: $1,383.74 with tax and free shipping

To think my current notebook cost me $1750 just under 3 years ago and is woefully underpowered compared to this Thinkpad.

Unfortunately it doesn’t come with a webcam and I opted not to get the fingerprint reader, since I see it as a novelty. But once I get it, I’ll be doing a full review with pictures and benchmarks. I just hope the 1.5 month shipping quote is so wrong.

--written by Peter To--