Sony Ericsoon Idou rebranded Satio

We first saw the Sony Ericsson Satio back in February at Mobile World Congress under the guise of the Idou.

While I am not sure if the change of name is an improvement it should still be a great phone as it has some very impressive specifications including:

• 12.1-megapixel camera (World’s first)
• Xenon Flash 16x digital zoom and geo-tagging capabilities.
• 640 x 350 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD
• Symbian Series 60, 5th edition
• Micro SD support 16GB, 8GB included
• HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 3.6 Mbps

The Sony Ericsson Satio should start shipping from October.

Windows 7 Details & Review

If you haven't got a copy of Windows 7 yet and would like to try it out then you are in luck as Microsoft have extended the Beta download to February 10th.

While beta OS downloads from Microsoft don't normally sound like a whole lot of fun, largely due to MS being notorious for developing buggy software, Windows 7 could be an exception.

So far it has received a lot of praise from the press and public alike and I have read many reports of people ditching Vista to use Windows 7 as their main OS. Even though it is only in Beta a lot of people are reporting that Windows 7 has good driver support, is stable and is faster than Vista. Many people are even claiming better frame rates for gaming.

The most shocking comments I have read are quite a lot of Mac Fanboys loving it. I find it very rare for Mac users to compliment Windows but some are even considering choosing it over Leopard OSX.

So with all these compliments I decided to install it on my home PC. Recently it has been playing up so I was going to do a fresh install anyway so there was no better time to try out Windows 7.

Download and installation was a breeze, you can get Windows 7 beta from here. The download took a while with my speed only reaching around 0.5 Megabyes per second. Once it had downloaded everything went smoothly.

In terms of load times and how the OS performs my initial impressions are quite similar to Vista to be honest. I don't think I have seen noticeable improvements but I have only played around with it for a short period of time.

Without a doubt the biggest difference most people will notice is the new Windows Taskbar. The new taskbar is no longer just used to manage windows but it is now a full application launcher which is being compared favourably to the OS X Dock. In fact Gizmodo have declared it beats the OS X Dock.

Another important difference you will notice quickly is the removal of Windows Sidebar and the ability to use gadgets on your desktop. Side bar was just a pain in the ass it just ended up getting in the way, however having the Gadgets on the desktop means they never really get in the way, when you minimise everything they are just their nicely visible in any spot you have placed them.

If we look at other review the general consensus appears to be that Windows 7 out performs Vista however Infoworld found that XP still outperforms Windows 7 in terms of multiprocessing. Infoworld did state that this is likely due tot he fact that Windows 7 has a lot of extra code for muticore optimisation's and the benefits of these changes won't be felt until core counts climb well beyond today's dual-core and quad-core implementations. Gizmodo also found that Vista was pretty much unusable on a Dell Inspiron Mini 12 but with Aero switch off it was quite usable and more than capable of light multitasking.

Overall Microsoft seem to be be on with a winner with Windows 7.

Check out some more review of Windows 7:

PC Advisor

Gizmodo: First Impressions

Engadget: First Impressions

CNet

Tech Radar

Asus Eee Keyboard / All in one PC / M50

There doesn't always seem to be that much innovation when it comes to PCs/Laptops. It normally consists of sticking a computer in a box of varying sizes and maybe attach a screen/keyboard/battery to it.

Granted Asus technically do the same but over the past few years they have at least been trying to put a twist on things. They basically carved a new niche in the computing world with cheap netbooks, they are trying to do the same with desktops by releasing the EeeBox and now they have announced the Assus Eee Keyboard.

At first this looks like Asus are releasing a keyboard that is just ripping off MacBooks, but this is not the case at all, this is not just a keyboard but an entire PC built into a keyboard with a 5-inch touchscreen display.

Obviously the this is no gaming PC, the specification is more of a netbook with it using a 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor, 1GB of DDR2 DRAM, 16GB or 32GB SSD. It also has a bunch of connectivity including Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0, Ultra Wideband HDMI USB 2.0 x2, VGA, HDMI, headphone and mic ports.

The interesting thing to not is the use of Ultra Wideband HDMI. This is wireless HDMI which will essentially allow you to connect to all your devices wirelessly (not including the power cord).

It would be amazing if they could up the specification enough to make it suitable for a HTPC.

According to Asus CEO Johnny Shih the Eee Keyboard will be available in the next 3 - 6 months.

There is no word on pricing yet.

Asus EeeBOX B208 to arrive in June

The Acer Revo is touted to hit the nettop market with a storm next month so it is no surprise that Asus are going to release a competitor to the Revo shortly afterwards in June.

Dubbed as the EeeBOX B208, the nettop is powered by Intel’s Atom 330 processor with ATI Radeon HD 4350 256MB video card, a 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a 10GB Eee Storage. Other specs are include 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, built-in card reader, 4 USB ports, HDMI out, DVI-D port, Bluetooth, and a built-in battery with UPS function.