Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Small it's got down: Weighing 1.4 pounds and measuring about 1 inch thick, the pint-size PC can slide snuggly into a coat pocket or purse. But inside the P series are such impressive components as a 60GB hard-disk drive (you can invest in a 64GB or 128GB solid-state drive if you prefer), a battery that promises 4 hours battery life (8 hours with the optional battery upgrade), 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Qualcomm's Gobi chip set for wireless broadband. That's on top of what you'll find inside any computer that sports an Atom processor: two USB ports, a headphone jack, a display/LAN adapter connection, a Webcam with built-in mic, an SD Card slot, and a Memory Stick card slot. Technically, I think that outdoes the MacBook Air. And all of this goodness sits inside a slim, screwless case that will be available in several colors."

Sony claims this is not a netbook. Maybe they are just worried about being sued by Psion. I'd say the $899 price pretty much knocks it out of the netbook category anyway. Otherwise there is a lot to like about this. I've wondered why netbook makers have chosen not to use a track-point or similar device to reduce a lot of the depth of their devices. Hopefully this form factor gets picked up by other companies as well.

"The popularity of hard disk drive standard definition and high-def camcorders continues to climb. Nothing beats the storage capability of a HDD video maker—just think, you can record hour after hour of baby giggles, if that’s your thing (and new parents, you can admit it). Hard drive cams are great for everyone else too since you can record anything to your heart’s content for much longer than any tape or disk-based system. And nothing beats the instantly generated thumbnails that let you hop from scene to scene during playback. Sony dominates the HDD market for SD and HD video makers—just as they do every other camcorder format. That said we were happy to get our hands on the new HDR-SR12, the company’s top-of-the-line HDD model that records Full HD 1920 x 1080I video along with 10-megapixel digital stills to a hefty 120GB hard drive. The camcorder even has Face Detection, the digicam feature du jour that works for video and stills. Even though there were no toddlers in the house, we definitely wanted to start recording ASAP…"


Man, I am sooooo far behind on the video gear. Of course I lust after all this neat new stuff like this, yet I just retired my Sony 8mm video camera that I bought a decade ago for a Canon ZR850 Digital Video camera. Of course, I've got nearly an extra grand in my pocket over what this camera would run.

"Sony has always been a go-to brand for people who don't mind paying more for HDTVs, or just about anything else for that matter, and the company's least-expensive 2008 32-inch HDTV, the KDL-32M4000, exemplifies the trend. This little set costs a couple of hundred dollars more than no-name LCDs, and generally a hundred more than competing name-brand sets such as the Samsung LN32A450 and the Sharp LC-32D44U. For your extra cash, you'll get great design and, yes, very good picture quality for the smaller HDTV category, but we don't think, for most people, that going Sony at this size is worth the price."

Alright, I'm going to have to be honest here - usually, price is a very important factor for me when it comes to buying electronics. I'll pony up the money ultimately because I do want the higher end products, but I'll complain about it a lot. :-) Having admitted to this, I'll just say that the Sony Bravia series is absolutely worth the extra money. I have a Sharp 45" LCD and a Sony 32" LCD and there is a noticeable difference in the picture quality. The Sony seems to have richer colors, deeper contrast and the picture appears brighter in general. I have achieved a similar appearance on the Sharp but it required a fair bit of manual tuning. If I had one complaint about the Sony over the Sharp, it is that when switching between HDTV channels and non-HDTV channels, there is a longer than 'normal' pause while the TV internally switches resolutions (the Sharp does it instantly).

"The Sony Bravia E4000 has been created to look like a picture frame, so that it looks great on your wall. When guests are around, you can create a photo slideshow, turning it into the most expensive photo frame of 2008. Of course, we love the idea and we love how thin the TV seems to be. However, when watching movies, it feels like the white frame could be distracting (the aluminum frame of my current HDTV certainly is). Fortunately, several frame colors are available."

Sweet! Though I must say that every once in a while, I want to show off my nice 45" TV. :-) Anyways, this awesome TV comes in 26", 32" and 40", and has four different trims: Midnight Sky, Aluminium, Pearly White and Dark Walnut. The forty-incher also features x.v.Colour for better color, as well as PhotoTV HD mode, which will give you better-quality still pics when you connect your camera up to it. The E4000 is coming to Europe in a couple of weeks, and there's no price as yet.

"For $50, Sony is offering not to include the standard Vaio applications, trial software and games that it normally pre-installs onto its systems. This software usually has the effect of slowing a computer down, and has even led to reports of out-of-the-box crashes for Sony's Vaio laptops. The option, called "Fresh Start," is available on Sony's Vaio TZ2000 and Vaio TZ2500 laptops, but only appears if a customer also pays $100 to upgrade the operating system to Windows Vista Business from Vista Home Premium. Ostensibly, Sony believes only business users won't want the bloatware and will be willing pay to extra to have a clean system."

It wasn't long after this news broke that there was an uprising from their consumers and Sony backed off. In reading the various accounts of this, it is unclear if users can still ask for this option for free or if they are simply removing the so-called "Fresh Start" option from some models. I've personally always been partial to Dell PC's in this regard. Yes, they have crapware too, but they also come with a bare Windows installation CD and a system resources CD with all necessary drivers and third party apps required to get full functionality, like WinDVD, so as soon as I boot the machine and confirm that the hardware works well, I then format the hard drive and start clean. Too many other manufacturers, Sony included based on my last experience with a Vaio, simply include a system restore CD, which puts the crapware back on.

While this would show an unbelievable amount of chutzpah for other computer manufacturers, this didn't even surprise me coming from Sony. In fact, if I had read this story and no company names were mentioned, Sony is the first one that would have come to mind. I don't care how good some of their technology is, we simply don't own any of their products in our house, unless there is some alarm clock or old handheld radio still in use.

"The read speed of this 24.81 Megapixel sensor is 6.3 frames per second – in 12bit colors. Obviously expect to find this sensor in upcoming high-end digital SLR cameras from Sony. The production of this senor will begin sometimes in 2008, so we think that it’s likely that the first camera will appear sometimes in Q4 2008."

Sweet. I don't think I will be able to afford a camera with this sensor any time soon but I am happy to see this sensor because it isn't going to be long before similar full-frame sensors are available in Canon and Nikon cameras which will eventually, and hopefully, reduce the costs down.

"Besides the higher 14.2 Megapixel resolution, the Sony A350 is similar to its sibling the A300. The higher resolution has the side effect of slowing down the burst shooting slightly, going from 3fps down to 2.5fps. That’s the price to pay for the extra details in these photos. Check out our complete Sony A350 photo gallery. 14.2 Megapixel sensor, Image Stabilization, 18-70 f3.5-4.5 kit lens, 2.5 fps burst shooting, Compact Flash, 2-way tilt LCD display (2.7”)"

The A350 will be available in March 2008 for $799 (body only) or $899 with the lens kit. I love the photo gallery of the A350. Interesting that the cost of the A300 and A350 are about the same where the only difference is that the A350 offers higher megapixels for a slight reduction in speed. I would personally go for the faster camera because I am not entirely sure one needs 14MP over 10MP. In fact, I wonder why Sony released two cameras that are so similar. I would have much rather seen them release two cameras targeting altogether different user groups then potentially causing user confusion.

"We’ve seen leaks on the web, but Sony has finally announced the A300 digital SLR camera. I particularly like the tilt-display. View it under every angles in our Sony A300 complete photo gallery. 10.2 Megapixel sensor, Image Stabilization, 18-70 f3.5-4.5 kit lens, 3 fps burst shooting, 9 points auto-focus, 2-way tilt LCD display (2.7”), Compact Flash"

The A300 will be available in April 2008 for $799. There isn't anything particularly remarkable about the body in general though the flip LCD screen seems to be quite convenient. And Sony is doing the in-camera image stabilization which people may or may not agree with but then again that is a different post.

"Sony introduced its new S-Frame brand of digital photo frames that comprises of DPF-V900, DPF-V700, and DPF-D70. Common features include : WVGA resolution (800 x 480 pixels), 15:9 aspect-ratio screens, advanced image processor, 10 slide show variations, clock and calendar views, and two index modes to preview a bunch of photos simultaneously."



The higher end models also feature Bluetooth and an HDTV connection. Overall, these are rather nice looking except for the Sony logo. As much as most companies want to slap their logos on stuff, I think they really need to show some restraint with digital picture frames since I find it distracting from the experience.

"Never one to settle for an open standard when the opportunity to push a proprietary alternative presents itself, Sony has announced that it will wade into the next-generation short-range interconnect wars with a proprietary new wireless spec called "TransferJet." Sony's proposed TransferJet spec has a physical peak transmission rate of 560Mbps and would appear to compete directly with short- and medium-range ultrawideband-based offerings like wireless USB (W-USB) and the next generation of Bluetooth technology. But in spite of any similarities to either W-USB or Bluetooth 3.0, both of which are based on the same WiMedia radio technology and promise transfer speeds in the 480Mbps range, Sony's TransferJet has some distinguishing characteristics that set it apart from the pack."

Meh, Bluetooth and Wireless USB both already have brand recognition and are likely to be accepted by most manufacturers. I don't really see any advantage, but do see some disadvantages to Sony's offering, the biggest being the range. If the antenna have to essentially be touching, I think it kind of defeats the purpose of using wireless. Maybe I'm missing the obvious, if so, let me know.