9211_distro #1

090211 #1

» APPLE and StEVE Six years of reporting on the man at the core of Apple’s success

+

BlackBerry’s new juice: Bold 9930 Torch 9810 Sony’s NEX-FS100: More than just another camcorder Flying high with Griffins Helo TC

Apple gets a new leader, and the US finally gets its Galaxy S II editors letter The insanity of August continues with another amazing week of tech news that left us nearly breathless. Handy, then, that we’re compiling some of our longer-form content for you to enjoy — the stuff that got shuffled off the front page of Engadget in no time flat. ¶ Surely the biggest news was out of Cupertino, with Steve Jobs announcing his formal resignation as CEO. This, of course, got the pundits all frothy with predictions of doom and gloom for Apple, but the truth is rather less exciting. Steve Jobs is staying on as chairman of the board, where he’ll surely continue to give his characteristically strong opinion on the state of devices to come.

But, the bigger point is Tim Cook is stepping in as CEO, a man who joined Jobs at Apple way back in 1998, just a year after Steve himself returned and started building the com- thing else and the pundits are pany into the enterprise we going to need something new know today. Tim Cook has to get excited about. taken over for Steve three In other Apple news, the times since then, and so these Galaxy Tab 10.1 was successare familiar shoes he’s lacing fully banned from sale in the up this week. Apple will be fine, Netherlands due to design the new iPhone will be some- infringements, though the distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

immediate issues are apparently only related to software, which Samsung has promised to fix. However, there’s plenty of other legal drama still pending between the two — Apple’s holding out that its (generally vague) tablet designs are sacred. The ramifications of those legal rulings could shake the industry.

Google also got in legal hot water this week, agreeing to pay a $500 settlement with the DOJ over some illegal Canadian drug ads the company was willfully ignoring. Helping old people buy their drugs a little cheaper is, apparently, not cool.

We got our first glimpse of an AT&T-bound 10-inch Honeycomb tablet from HTC. Called the Puccini, the slab is running a 1.5GHz Snapdragon dualcore processor and will cost a whopping $700 (on contract) or $850 if you just want the slate. With that kind of pricing it’s hard to imagine

this being any kind of a success. People just aren’t willing to pay extra for an Android device these days, especially when there are cheaper, comparable Android devices easily available on the market.

The on-clearance TouchPad proved to be such a success that HP is supposedly toying with the idea of building more — though the company stopped short of saying how much it will cost. Still, there’s definite talk of a final batch of $99 16GB units being released for sale, tablets that were apparently recalled from other retailers and somewhere, right now, waiting in a warehouse for someone like you to take them home.

And last, but not least, Samsung this week finally got around to unveiling its 8.9inch version of the Galaxy Tab, which will also be 1.5GHz and,

despite the smaller screen, maintain its bigger brother’s 1,280 x 800 resolution. There’s also an LTE version of the Galaxy S II coming, and the US is at long last getting its own edition of the smartphone — three in fact, with variants being officially announced for Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Sprint’s version looks to be shipping first: September 16th for $199.

It has a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and a 10 percent larger battery than its European forbearer.

Yes, that’s a lot of news, and, compared to the rest of the month, this has been something of a slow week. With IFA Berlin and a whole slate of tablet and Ultrabook announcements on the docket, we feel quite confident that things will not be slowing down anytime soon.

But, for now, kick back and

enjoy a review of RIM’s latest BlackBerry Torch, Sony’s new NEX-FS100, check out some impressions of a helicopter you can control with an iPhone, and take a look back at the timeline of Steve Jobs’ Apple.

tim stevens

editor-in-chief, engadget

Apple will be fine, the new iPhone will be something else and the pundits are going to need something new to get excited about. distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

advertisement

»

This way in

editor letter

Apple gets a new leader, and the US finally gets its Galaxy S II

stats

Broadband speeds

by terrence o’brien

by tim stevens

review

Griffin’s Helo TC cleared for takeoff, we attempt to get airborne by joe pollicino

feature

review

Steve Jobs’ Apple: a timeline

Sony NEX-FS100 by sharif sakr

by brian heater

feature

review

by engadget staff

by tim stevens

BlackBerry Bold 9930

The stuff Engadget editors are using... in real life

review

BlackBerry Torch 9810 by brad molen

final word

Objet’s 3D printer breathes life into Hollywood creatures, layer by layer by darren murph

cover photo: gene lee

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

the weekly stat

#14 United States — 5.3 — Boo!

Top 5 internet speeds worldwide, AHEM, You know who continues to dominate.

Akamai’s annual State of the Internet report is loaded with all sorts of interesting, if not terribly surprising, tidbits about both broad and narrowband connections around the globe. The big news? The world-wide average connection speed has jumped 23-percent from last year, to 2.1Mbps. Speeds in the good ol’ US-of-A were up 15-percent for an average of 5.3Mbps, though we still languish in 14th place on the list of fastest countries. — Terrence O’Brien distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

Griffin’s Helo TC cleared for takeoff, we attempt to get airborne by joe pollicino

We got the choppa! It’s been nearly a month’s time since Griffin introduced its AppPowered Helo TC, a mini RC helicopter for iDevices, and we’ve been lucky enough to play test pilot for a bit.

Fifty bucks gets you the TC itself, an infared Flight Deck for your device, 4 extra rotor blades, a USB charging cable and a paper landing pad for when you’re done wreaking havoc in your home or

office. Of course, there are similar OEM models that use a standard remote available for nearly half the price, but we were curious to see how Griffin’s free iPhone app could mix things up‚ plus, it’s alot easier on the wallet than an AR.Drone. So, was it clear skies and smooth sailing or something more like Blackhawk Down?

Setup is simple, as the Helo comes

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

pretty much ready to fly. After a quick 20 minute charge with our laptop, loading four AAAs for the Flight Deck and downloading the app, we were cleared to go. The Deck attached to our iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 without a problem, but it’s fairly clunky and clearly intended for use with a phone in landscape mode. It works by plugging into your device’s audio jack and translating any in-app movements into control signals for the copter. The app is fairly straightforward: for basic control you get a throttle slider, joystick with trim, an auto-land button and a toggle switch for the mini chopper’s LEDs. There’s also Flight Plans for advanced pilots, which lets you record maneuvers for 20 seconds, although we weren’t able to fly it long enough to try. Digging through its settings menu you’ll find flying tips, a joystick / motion control toggle, three transmission channels, pitch inversion, and on-screen throttle placement.

We usually got around 10 minutes of flight time per charge, which resulted in short bursts of fun and lengthy bouts with frustration from mid-air mishaps.

It took us two flight-cycles to stay airborne for more than a few seconds without needing to use the auto-land feature, hitting the office ceiling, or grazing someone’s hair. Furthermore, the iPad version of the app just plain didn’t work.

With a bit of practice using our iPhone, we managed longer flights, but getting the Helo to go forward and backward or rotate precisely remained extremely difficult due to control communication

lag. Because the copter can zip to the ceiling in no time, unless yours are of the vaulted variety, it seems ill-suited for indoor operation. Taking it outside gave us an easier time‚ even at night, thanks to its lights‚ but once it was hovering smoothly at powerline height, the signal usually began cutting out.

After numerous crashes caused plenty of battle scars, we were surprised to see how well the blades and the TC itself held up, but, in the end, it proved no match for concrete. Eventually we lost total control of its trim, which caused it to permanently veer left and soon after our unit was in two pieces. Did your friendly Engadget staff have an occasional blast during our day with the Helo TC? You betcha. When it comes down to it though, the iOS angle feels rather gimmicky and you’re probably better off just going with a cheap ol’ RC version. Sometimes you just can’t beat the classics, but if you’re into this sorta thing it’s now available from Griffin.

Associate Editor Joe Pollicino is functionally useless without his glasses — a fact you really shouldn’t disclose to any enemies.

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

review

Sony NEX-FS100 by sharif sakr

We’ve been uncommonly keen to get our hands on Sony’s NEX-FS100 since we first heard about it back in March. You see, this is no ordinary camcorder. Its spec sheet reads like a liturgy of filmmakers’ prayers: a large Super 35mm Exmor CMOS sensor, interchangeable lenses, XLR inputs and proper, professional controls. Sure, it comes with a $6,600 price tag, but it also heralds a trend that should ultimately benefit pros and gadget denizens alike: the arrival of big, bold DSLR-style optics within dedicated camcorders. So

how do these optics effect the quality of the NEX-FS100’s footage?

The sensor

There’s only one way to begin a review of the NEX-FS100 and that’s with the words “Super 35mm,” which are emblazoned across the camera’s packaging, the device itself and all Sony’s promotional literature. The Super 35mm Exmor CMOS sensor really does make this camera unique‚ that’s why Sony’s marketing people seized on it, and it’s also why we’ll focus on it at the expense

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

of more niche features like slow-mo, GPS or picture profiles. To put it bluntly, were it not for the sensor, we wouldn’t bother reviewing this camera at all.

The NEX-FS100 enters a market where average sensor sizes are woefully small, not only in comparison to or APS-C DSLRs, but also compared with those hefty 35mm celluloid cameras that whir away on Hollywood shoots and set a benchmark for cinematic beauty. Digital filmmakers have been crying out for bigger sensors for years, mainly because they allow you to shoot aesthetically pleasing footage with shallow depth of field. In contrast, a small sensor tends to bring more into focus and make a picture look flat‚ in other words, typical video.

Another key advantage of a big sensor is low-light performance; pixels spread out over a larger area can be made more sensitive without introducing noise.

So, exactly how big is the NEXFS100’s Super 35mm sensor? Well, if you thought the ‘35mm’ label described a full-frame sensor of the type you’d find in a high-end DSLR like the Canon 5d, then you’re going to feel seriously let down. What’s more, if you thought the ‘Super’ referred to something even bigger than full-frame, then you’ll be even more disappointed. The NEX-FS100 could more accurately be described as “almost APS-C.” Despite all the marketing hype, its 23.6mm by 13.3mm sensor is slightly smaller than most consumer DSLRs on the market. It’s also out-done by the CMOS in the NEX-VG10 (and the coming VG-20), which began Sony’s

large sensor revolution a year ago and costs a fraction of the price of the FS100.

The marketing will try to convince you that the S35 works out better than a full-frame DSLR once you factor in 16:9 cropping and so-called line-skipping (which is how extremely hi-res DSLRs

Another key advantage of a big sensor is lowlight perfomance, because pixels spread out over a larger area can be made more sensitive without introducing noise. output lowly 1080p), but none of this negates the fact that a ‘true’ 35mm sensor has a bigger effective surface area and more oomph than Sony’s S35 format when it comes to of depth-of-field control and low-light performance.

Ready to dismiss the NEX-FS100 as falsely described goods? Feel like grabbing your tripod and heading home?

Please, hold your horses. The Super 35mm moniker isn’t a complete fabrication: it relates to a real format, albeit one from the world of celluloid. In a movie camera, 35mm film runs vertically past the image frame, rather than horizontally as it does in a celluloid stills camera. This means that the 24mm height of a stills frame becomes the width of

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

the movie frame, resulting in a much smaller frame area. The word “Super” relates to a popular modification of 35mm, which slightly increases the area of the frame by encroaching on a section of the film strip previously reserved for the movie’s soundtrack. One could argue that Sony’s marketing people have been disingenuous in their (over-)use of the Super 35mm label, particularly when many among their target audience won’t be familiar with celluloid terminology.

Ultimately, however, Sony is telling the truth about its sensor.

The sensor in the NEX-FS100 is still enormous compared to virtually every one of its rivals under $10,000. Leaving aside the NEX-VG10, which lacks professional credentials, the closest compe-

tition to the FS100 comes from the Panasonic AG-AF100, which has a Micro Four Thirds sensor that covers just 65 percent of the area of Super 35mm.

Meanwhile, the 1/3-inch sensor in the Canon XF305 covers just five percent of Super 35mm; most well-regarded consumer camcorders have quarter-inch sensors, which would cover just two percent of a Super 35mm frame.

E-Mount Lens & optical controls

The NEX-FS100 can be bought without a lens for around $5,900 or with a 18-200mm E-mount optically stabilized F3.5 lens for $6,600. Our review sample came with this kit lens, which was just okay. It was sharp at the majority of focal lengths, the auto focus was quiet

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

and reasonably speedy and the lens was light and easy to pack. But it was a slow lens with a relatively small maximum aperture that inevitably cancelled out some of the positive effects of the large sensor. It wasn’t particularly wellbuilt either, with moving sections that seemed vulnerable to dirt accumulation and that also seemed slightly loosely fitted together‚ although this didn’t turn out to be a hindrance during our test shoots. In reality, the kit lens just about gets the job done.

This leads us on nicely to the camera’s E-mount system, which frees you up from dependence on the kit lens, and is an increasingly sensible choice. With thirdparty manufacturers also making E-mount lenses, there are already some super-fast prime lenses on the market and they will only increase over time. Another consideration is that any E-mount lenses you invest in will also work with any other NEX cameras in your arsenal, including the NEXVG10 as a backup camera and the wonderful NEX-C3 to handle stills. Finally, there’s also potential to add A-series and Minolta lenses via the LA-EA1

adapter that retains AE and slow AF, as well as other adapters that lose automatic controls. The imminent LA-EA2 adapter, which sports a translucent mirror, should improve matters further. In other words, the E-mount sys-

tem delivers all the choice and flexibility you should need.

There’s one thing the NEX-FS100 won’t do, however, and that’s auto zoom. No matter what kind of stuff you shoot, you’ll miss this facility and you’ll

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

probably have to adjust your shooting style to compensate. We experienced a number of messy crash zooms, resulting from the fact that we generally prefer to zoom in or out quickly, but there’s no way to do this neatly with the manual zoom ring. Long, smooth zooms will be even harder to pull off consistently unless you’re on a tripod, because the hand that turns the ring is the same hand that stabilizes the front part of the camera when you’re going handheld.

Another important omission is builtin neutral density filters. These would have been handy in our daylight shoot, as they would have allowed us to open up the aperture further and gain more control over depth-of-field. But instead, Sony has made the kit stop right down macro

|

issue

to F40‚ so you can get properly exposed footage in bright sunshine, but at the expense of selective focus. So, the only way to shoot outdoors and benefit fully from the large sensor will be to bring your own ND filters, matte box and possibly a rail system to support it all properly. Some people will feel perfectly at home with such accouterments, but others — especially from the worlds of news and documentaries, will see it as unnecessarily cumbersome.

Body, layout and build quality

The NEX-FS100 has a smart modular design that makes it by far the most portable and flexible pro camcorder we’ve ever used. With the lens, grip and viewfinder detached, the body weighs #1

september

1, 2011

just 1.04kg (two pounds four ounces) and is easily small enough to pack away in a DSLR bag with plenty of space left in the side-sections and pockets for the other components. By comparison, non-interchangeable lens camcorders, like Sony’s popular Z series, have been extremely difficult to pack in anything other than a large, dedicated camera bag. This will be extremely important to one key market: the lone shooter who needs to travel as lightly as possible.

The modular design also means there are lots of extra tripod mounts around the camera. For example, the hand-grip screws into a mount on the side, which could alternatively be used to shoot in portrait mode on a tripod‚ not something that will be used a lot, but flexibility like that always comes in handy Of course, the argument will arise: why not just shoot on a DSLR? We might as

well tackle this issue right now, because it’s the body and layout of the NEXFS100, rather than just the lens and sensor, that make it a more serious professional contender than any DSLR on the market. Yes, filming on a good DSLR like the Nikon D5100 or the Canon 7D is an increasingly viable option. But you really need a video camera that can shoot all day without getting hot and switching itself off‚ and the NEX-FS100 meets that basic requirement easily with a stated maximum recording time of 510 minutes.

It also has the option of a 128GB Flash Memory Unit, which costs around $1,000 extra and stores ten hours of footage. We had the luxury of an FMU during our test shoots, but we also used high quality 16GB SDHC cards that stored over an hour of full quality footage with no problems.

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

Good video demands that you can see what you’re shooting, and the NEXFS100 covers that base with a wonderful 3.5-inch LCD and separate viewfinder attachment for outdoor shooting that is far more effective than any DSLR screen. There are a few niggles in this area, including the LCD’s susceptibility to finger smudges that are very difficult to wipe off, and also the fact that it doesn’t flip out to the side, which means you can’t tilt it downwards when shooting with the camera above your head.

However, the camcorder sports an HDMI output and so cries out for a good field monitor, which would remove all these limitations.

The NEX-FS100 has two XLR inputs, one on either side, which are essential for using broadcast-quality boom mics and radio mics. With a DSLR, or even with the NEX-VG10, you’d have to buy a separate audio adapter or recorder like the Zoom H4N and that would mean a lot of extra stuff to think about on a shoot, including an extra device to mount on the tripod, an extra ‘record’ button to push, and even clapper boards and scene announcements to help match up audio and video in post production.

Crucially, the NEX-FS100 has hardware buttons and switches for all the controls you need when shooting video, including quick-auto buttons for exposure and focus (while still shooting in manual mode), expanded focus, auto and manual lock, white balance set and presets, gain, audio levels and audio

channel directions. Only settings that generally need to be configured once per shoot (or less) are relegated to the menu system, which is accessed via the touchscreen and is clunky but effective.

In contrast, DSLRs bury the vast majority of video settings in their menus, where you can never get to them in time for reactive shooting.

While the NEX-FS100 has all the right controls in roughly the right places, they’re disappointingly small and fiddly. The auto focus and expanded focus buttons are virtually impossible to hit accurately while shooting handheld.

Another big downside is build quality. Sony’s earlier pro camcorders like the Z1 were tough beasts that could handle substantial bashing about in kit bags and aeroplanes and 4x4s in foreign lands. They had some vulnerable areas, like the boom attachment, but it was not uncommon to find a four-yearold Z1 in a newsroom locker, covered in scratches, cracks, gaffer tape and bloodstains, that still worked perfectly. Having played with the NEX-FS100 for a fair amount of time, we just wouldn’t have the same confidence in it. The modular design is partly to blame. The grip attachment, for example, doesn’t feel strong enough even when screwed in tightly. There is no handle on top of the camera except the mic holder, which screws into the inevitably weak hotshoe adapter. Also, the camera isn’t dustproof or moisture-proof, so you’ll just have to be careful with it.

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

Video Quality

Many years ago, we stuck a Sony Z1E onto a plank of wood beside an ancient Nikon F3 stills camera. Our purpose was to video an image of the world as seen by a true 35mm camera. That was the first time we saw digital video with shallow depth of field, as opposed to the hideous flatness of normal video, and it blew our minds. We got that same buzz all over again with the NEX-FS100, but mercifully without the splinters.

Our first job with the camera was to help out on a three-camera shoot of some amazing kids with learning disabilities performing Shakespeare.

Despite the sunny day and absence of any ND filters, we were able to find shady spots where we could stop down

to F6.3 to F11, and, in our sample clips, this was sufficient to deliver a sense of depth in certain key scenes.

There’s a shot of a proud father taking pictures, where both the foreground and background is blurred just enough to make you concentrate on him and acknowledge him despite the fast edit.

The same goes for the kids making up their messages in a bottle: the depth allows you to notice and connect with each kid individually in a way that‚ we believe‚ flat video could never achieve with the same power.

Next up, we wanted to test the lowlight performance of the camera and this is where things started going wrong. It was entirely our fault, because we were on a high after the daylight shoot and

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

we were ready to believe that the NEXFS100 could perform miracles. We duly turned up at a poorly-lit music studio in London’s East End to get a few shots of a friend’s band rehearsing. The studio wasn’t dark, but all the lights were in the wrong parts of the room, pointing in the wrong direction, and we had no time or permission to bring our own lights or move stuff around.

We grabbed a few shots at low gain and were extremely disappointed with the result‚ it struck us as no different from a small-sensor camcorder.

But we weren’t thinking straight, because the point of a large sensor is not that it improves light sensitivity at zero gain, but that it allows you to pump up gain without adding too much noise.

Realizing this, we notched gain right up to 12db. On the UK broadcast scene, even this much gain is taboo and could render footage unfit for anything other than news — and even then, a news programme would only willingly accept 12db footage if the cameraman evidently had no choice, such as the scene of an accident shot at night. The force of habit made 12db feel “bad” to us, like a compromise

too far‚ and the image was still too dark and muddy to be acceptable.

When we allowed the camera to boost gain automatically, it instantly shot up to 18db and more. At this point, the image of the musicians became prop-

erly exposed, although it still looked unattractive due to the terrible lighting.

There wasn’t a great deal of noise visible on the small LCD, but our instincts shouted that this 18db footage would be speckled worse than a speckled hen

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

when we saw it on a large monitor. So we switched back to 12db and did our best to hunt out decent shots at that level of gain, which turned out to be mission impossible. Eventually, we gave up altogether and went for a beer. Terrible mistake: we should have allowed the camera to shoot at whatever gain it wanted, and then done our best to re-work the lighting in the studio to make it more flattering. Had we done this, we would have discovered that our images were really as noise-free as they looked on the LCD. Where we expected to see speckly noise all over the shadows, there was nothing except, well... darkness.We eventually realized our mistake and organized another round of low-light shooting.

This time we allowed the camera to do what it wanted and we were stunned by the results. Despite the night-time hour and the weak and utilitarian lighting, the shots looked clean as a whistle and even engaging to watch.

We also grabbed a few shots on our Panasonic HCR-SD90, purely for the sake of comparison. The idea wasn’t to compare a $6,000 camera with a $600 camera, because that would be daft. But we felt like we needed some reminder of what noise looks on a high gain image coming off a quarter-inch sensor. We took two pictures of a market clock: one with the NEX-FS100 shooting at 18db, and the other on the SD90 also shooting at 18db. Even with the images shrunk and re-compressed, the purplish noise contamination on the latter image is just as obvious as the all-round clean-

liness of the NEX-FS100 output. Some noise is apparent on the NEX-FS100 shot of two market traders, but the noise actually has a nice film-like quality to it, without much chromatic distor-

Despite the nighttime hour and the generally weak and utilitarian lighting, the shots looked clean as a whistle and even engaging to watch.

tion. (Note, it’s possible that auto gain notched itself up to 24db for this shot without us noticing‚ it did rise into the mid-20s a few times during the market shoot without causing sufficient noise.)

The moral of the story? The NEXFS100 shoots great footage at high gain of 18db and over, but that won’t help you if the lighting in your scene is genuinely crappy. If you get bad low-light footage with this camcorder, you can be pretty sure it will be your own fault.

Wrap-up

The NEX-FS100 is far from perfect as an all-around camcorder. It’s held back

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

by the lack of auto zoom, minuscule buttons and fragile construction, all of which will limit the filming situations where this camera will be appropriate.

Meanwhile, those who do make the leap will quickly be forced to adjust their style in one way or another.To make the best use of a camera like this, you need to shoot quite traditionally: tripod mounted with a matte box, in a relatively gentle environment, with time taken to light and frame each shot properly before pressing the record button.

(Read: too good to be true.) Shooting reactively for news or documentaries is not impossible, but it’s difficult.

Some gadgets are worth making sacrifices for, and this is one of them. It delivers the raw cinematic beauty permitted by a large sensor, along with a smart lens platform and all the essential video and audio controls and I/O options required by any professional shooter. Muscling through on a DSLR or VG10 does not even compare.

It’s not going too far to say that the NEX-FS100 is more than just a camcorder. To us, it represents a positive

step that we hope all manufacturers will force each other to take. For too long, digital video formats and cameras have focused on making things look more realistic: higher resolutions, higher bitrates, sharper, clearer, smoother, more consistent images.

At the same time, manufacturers have skimped on those key optical ingredients that give filmmakers the artistic freedom to make the world look better than it does in reality. That’s why most handheld professional and consumer camcorders today have sensors no bigger than their ancestors from 15 or even 20 years ago, generally ranging from a sixth to a third of a measly inch. Admittedly, Sony could have been a lot more generous with its Super 35mm EXMOR sensor, which is not nearly as big as it sounds. But we’re not complaining, because S35 is plenty big enough to make stuff look beautiful.

Sharif is a British tech journalist with ten years’ experience filming and reporting news for the BBC and other broadcasters.

SCORECARD $6,600

Sony NEX-FS100 THE GOOD Stunning footage Great in low light Modular design

8/10

THE BAD No auto zoom Lacks sturdiness The sensor isn’t as large as a DSLR’s

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

»

Steve Jobs’ Apple: a timeline by brian heater

Let there be no question: ours would be a very different industry, were it not for Steve Jobs. Few, if any individuals have had so profound an effect on their given spaces; an unprecedented track record that began in 1976 with the co-founding of Apple. In earliest incarnation, the company would prove the driving force of the personal computer explosion of the early ‘80s, beginning with the Apple II – one of the industry’s first hugely popular microcomputers. The Macintosh shook things up yet again, a launch celebrated by the debut of the “1984” ad during that year’s Superbowl. That line helped break both the graphical user interface and the mouse to a massive audience.

Soon after, Jobs would resign, going on to form NeXT. The company never managed sales figures anywhere near the previous endeavor, but its products would prove highly influential, forming, among other things, the basis of Apple’s paradigmshifting OS X operating system. While Steve Jobs was focused on NeXT and The Graphic Group – the company that would later morph into the far more familiar Pixar – Apple suffered a series of defeats.

Jobs returned first as an advisor, then interim CEO, finally reclaiming his role as the head of the company. In 1998, the company reimagined desktop computing photo: gene lee

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

»

yet again with the iMac. In 2001, the this industry, but whatever words company unveiled the first Apple retail one might immediately leap upon to store and debuted the iPod and iTunes describe the black turtlenecked CEO, that same year, drastically altering the his impact can never be denied. And state of the music industry the aftershocks will no doubt be felt In 2007, the company debuted the for decades to come. We knew that this iPhone, before it gave the world the App day would come, but we were noneStore a year later. There were plenty of theless taken by surprise when Jobs smartphones before Apple got in the announced that he would be resigning game, but since the introduction of his post at the head of the company, the iPhone they’ve never been stepping aside for Apple COO Scroll down for the same. And after years of Tim Cook. the timeline rumors, 2010 saw the debut of We’ve gathered some of the the iPad, a device that did the biggest pieces of Jobs news to unimaginable, making the tabhappen since the founding of let a viable and indeed thriving our own site in 2004, not to consumer device. bemoan the exit of Jobs, but Over the years, Jobs has rather to celebrate the presproven an enigmatic and Tap icon to view ence of a figure who truly is the original story sometimes polarizing figure in on the web larger than life.

»06.06.05

Apple goes Intel, it’s true!

It wasn’t much of a shocker, but Jobs’ announcement that Apple would power its machine with Intel chips was a milestone nonetheless, giving birth to a long and storied relationship.

»01.09.07

Apple loses the “computer,“ unveils the iPhone Declaring that you plan to “reinvent the phone” isn’t exactly a humble move, but it soon became apparent that the iPhone was an entirely new beast.

»02.09.07

A letter from Steve Jobs on DRM: let’s get rid of it He made the push and two years later America’s four major labels caved, offering up DRM-free tracks to the masses and proving Jobs’ powers of persuasion.

»

»05.30.07

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: historic discussion live from D2007

Like Gorbachev and Reagan’s 1985 Geneva sit down, these two sharing a stage, and a few hearty chuckles, proved computer superpowers can play nice too.

»08.08.08

Rumors of SteveJobs’ death greatly exaggerated Bloomberg’s “journalistic and technical butterfingerism,” as we so lovingly referred to it, saw a pre-packaged Jobs obituary prematurely hit the wires, raising eyebrows and questions about his health.

»01.14.09

Steve Jobs takes leave of absence due to health Following Jobs’ announcement that he would hand over the reins to Tim Cook for six months, AAPL stock took an eight percent hit in after hours trading, leaving us to wonder what the computer giant would look like without its iconic leader.

»06.29.09

Steve Jobs back to work at Apple And just as he promised, Jobs was back six months later, but in a seemingly diminished capacity, working a “few days a week” at Apple HQ and picking up the slack from his home.

»01.27.10

Apple unveils its “latest cre–ation,” the iPad

Jobs raised the question “is there room for something in the middle?” And consumers responded with a resounding “yes,” making the iPad the gold standard for tablet computing.

»

“Third Rate Products”

“BULLSHIT” ““bNugOg TASTE” ZY” y” “LA

»01.31.10

Steve Jobs lashes out at Google and Adobe A quiet competitor he is not. Following his controversial comments about Microsoft’s “really third-rate products,” Jobs reportedly set his sights on Adobe and Google. According to an anonymous source he was quoted as calling the former “lazy,” and even slinging “bullshit” over the latter’s “Don’t be evil” motto.

»06.01.10

Steve Jobs reveals the origins of iOS, talks iPhone 4 prototype

Back on stage with the folks at All Things D, Jobs let slip that the iPad was the initial vehicle for iOS, and unexpectedly got to talking about the “amazing” story behind Gizmodo’s allegedly illegal acquisition of an iPhone 4 prototype.

»07.16.10

Jobs addresses antennagate

Jobs looked set to make some humbling admissions about the iPhone 4’s reception issues when he addressed “antennagate.” After trotting out a number of competing devices to prove it wasn’t just the iPhone, he pulled an Oprah, offering a free fix in the form of complimentary bumper-packing cases.

»01.17.11

Steve Jobs takes medical leave from Apple, puts Tim Cook in charge

Proving that things were perhaps not all well and good with Apple’s CEO, Jobs took his second medical leave in as many years. Jobs expressed his desire to return to his post ASAP, leaving Tim Cook to run the show in his stead.

»

»03.01.11

Steve Jobs’ knighthood rejected by Gordon Brown The ultimate royal diss. In an anonymous report it was revealed that then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown shot Jobs down for “honorary knighthood” in 2009.

»06.01.11

Apple unveils iCloud, Jobs gives what may be his final WWDC keynote

With its black turtlenecked leader just months away from leaving his post as CEO, Apple continued to solidify its consistent position on the bleeding edge with the introduction of its shockingly free cloud service.

»06.08.11

Jobs reveals Apple’s new spaceship campus

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the Apple mothership? In his last major announcement as CEO, Jobs unveiled the outfit’s otherworldly new Cupertino campus.

Plans for the 2.8 million square foot behemoth served as a symbol that the company has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.

»08.24.11

Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple It was bound to happen sooner or later, but Jobs’ decision to step down as CEO, and officially pass the reins to TIm Cook, sent shockwaves through the tech community, leaving everyone to wonder what will happen next?

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

review

BlackBerry Torch 9810 by brad molen

In the fall of 2010, AT&T stores nationwide installed a mysterious shroud housing some sort of exhibit.

Even employees didn’t know what was inside, and anyone caught tampering with the makeshift wall, in order to find out what was inside, was terminated.

What was this strange hype-building marketing ploy? A new iPad? Perhaps it was some secret Android device that nobody had heard of? The atmosphere was thick with suspense. When the curtain was finally lifted, it turned out to be... a BlackBerry Torch 9800.

This curious marketing attempt

must’ve worked at least to some extent, since Research in Motion decided to tempt fate a second time with the Torch 9810. Known in its early days as the “Torch 2,” the new version of the portrait QWERTY slider was released to much less pomp and circumstance.

This time it was unveiled alongside two new BlackBerry BFFs: the Bold Touch 9900 / 9930 and the Torch 9850 / 9860. The 9810 in particular wasn’t a surprise because we’d been given the opportunity to preview the device in May. Though it’s nearly identical to the original: it packs a processor that nearly

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

»

A major feature present in every device running BlackBerry 7 is an accelerated graphics UI called “Liquid Graphics.”

Essentially, it allows for the best touch sensitivity that we’ve experienced on any BlackBerry to date.

doubles the speed, a behind-the-scenes upgrade culminating in a night-andday contrast.

But how does it fare against the blooming market of superphones? And is this the best BlackBerry you can buy today?

Let’s find out.

Hardware

Phone sequels have a habit of improving upon their predecessors in several ways‚ after all, that is the point of coming out with a new model, right? The whole idea of blessing the world with a followup is to make it sleeker, faster and more feature-rich. Research in Motion nailed almost all of those points in the Torch 9810, with the exception of one crucial element: the phone’s size. In fact, the 9810 has identical dimensions to its predecessor: 111 x 62 x 14.6mm (4.37 x 2.44 x 0.57 inches). The lack of variance in its overall mass is somewhat disap-

pointing, given that we’re now seeing QWERTY sliders on the market as thin as 13mm.

That’s not to say the new Torch is entirely the same. Even though the design, buttons, ports and everything in between are identical, it’s at least available in different colors to help you spot one on the street. Our unit had a gunmetal grey finish with a checkerboard pattern on the back cover that does a good job of masking fingerprints. As an additional flourish, it’s also topped off with a nominal black trim that stretches around the front bezel, onto the camera and around the upper back side.

Just below the extra-hardened glass display on the front lie the navigation keys: phone, menu, trackpad, back and home / power. These buttons (aside from the trackpad, of course) are as much a staple of the BlackBerry lineup as BrickBreaker is. On the left side

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

resides a lone micro-USB port, while the right side houses the volume rocker and Convenience Key, also no stranger to RIM. The top, meanwhile, is home to the mute and lock buttons.

The slider mechanism runs on an invisible metal track and doesn’t feel loose at all; on the contrary, with the difficulty we had pushing up the phone to expose the keyboard, it felt a little too firm. All told, it feels like it’s a solid enough phone, but it’s not actually made of solid parts, so we’d be afraid of dropping it too often.

The Torch series thus far has done an appropriate job of endowing its phones with the “BlackBerry look” while still attempting to go modern. Unfortunately, the company’s idea of modern is‚ shall we say‚ different. Even last year, we were saddened by the 9800’s plain, outdated digs. It was sturdy and solid, yes, but it just doesn’t have the same gusto when held up next to other touchscreen phones.

Much to our dismay, the Torch hasn’t changed a bit. Why is this? BlackBerry devices are generally well-crafted and the result of a lot of TLC, so perhaps RIM felt it too risky to experiment with “fresh” designs at this stage in the game. That, or the company considered the original Torch a raging success and decided not to change what it thought was golden. It was more worthwhile to dwell on the thing that earned its phones the most complaints: those pesky internals. And that’s exactly where the new Torch sequel shines.

A major feature present in every device running BlackBerry 7 is an accelerated graphics UI called “Liquid Graphics.”

Essentially, it allows for the best touch sensitivity that we’ve experienced on any BlackBerry to date. We weren’t too crazy about the original Torch’s touchscreen, and gone are the days of the SurePress debacle on the Storms. RIM has finally figured out how to make its phones as responsive as the likes of Android, iOS and WP7, and we found our experience with the 9810 to be up to par with other flagship handsets.

Though the 9810’s display is the same size at 3.2 inches, it glows at a 640 x 480 resolution, up from 480 x 360. That’s still not quite HD resolution, sadly, but it’s significantly more up to date than the 9800 and is much more satisfying to view. It’s also larger than the Bold Touch 99xx by a considerable .4-inch margin.

What’s more, the bigger screen offers a better media playback experience and makes it easier to take full advantage of the phone’s new touch-optimized OS.

Internals

One of our major beefs with the original Torch was its lack of oomph. While the OS was a significant improvement, its paltry 624MHz CPU and 512MB of RAM were subpar compared with the specs belonging to other flagship devices on the market at the time. To boot, we were further disappointed by the lackluster circa-2008 display and the 5 megapixel shooter with no HD video recording capabilities. Even more

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

unfortunate, these ho-hum specs still represented a decisive boost over the previous generation of BlackBerrys.

With the 9810, however, it’s a whole different ballgame. RIM kicked up the phone’s engines, throwing in a 1.2GHz single-core CPU accompanied by a dedicated Adreno 205 GPU‚ the same one found in the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play.

RIM also increased the RAM to 768MB‚ a decent jump from 512MB. That’s right, Waterloo is brandishing some big guns and the Torch is finally starting to look like the kind of BlackBerry we’ve been awaiting for years.

And there are other welcome refinements under the hood as well. Internet connectivity has been remarkably improved over last year’s model, pushing forward with an HSPA+ radio capable of achieving speeds of 14.4Mbps down and 2Mbps up; this slots the phone in the middle of the proverbial pack, though the latest flagship devices are typically able to hit much higher 4G speeds.

The 9810 also packs more internal storage, offering 8GB of space compared to the OG’s 4GB capacity. Like the lastgen iteration, this one has a microSD slot, with support for cards as large

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

as 32GB. But be forewarned: there’s a ceiling on application storage on the device, held at 189MB. Bigger apps are required to stay under 7MB when initially downloaded, but the remainder of each program or game can be downloaded via WiFi once you’ve launched them for the first time. The aforementioned microSD storage can assuage some of these concerns, but the catch is that each app has to be explicitly written to allow this opportunity‚ and even then, the app’s core executable storage still needs to reside within the device itself. Why there’s a limit at all when the phone has plenty of room for apps is beyond us, but it doesn’t give developers any more incentive to publish anything for the BlackBerry platform.

Curiously, one component in particular was actually downgraded, and it’s the most surprising of them all for RIM‚ its battery. While the Torch 2 was the victim of a downgrade in battery capacity from 1,300mAh to 1,270, it actually has better longevity. The change here is likely due to a more efficient OS and its next-gen CPU. We’ll dive into more detail on the battery later, but here’s a spoiler: it’s a BlackBerry, and it’s the company’s biggest strength for a reason.

Keyboard

Just like the rest of the phone’s cosmetic appearance, the keyboard remains unchanged from the previous version. Again, it’s a matter of determining whether or not RIM should make an adjustment to something that’s

already proven. One of the few staples that keeps customers coming back to the BlackBerry brand is its keyboard, and it continues to set the bar for traditional QWERTYs. It’s thinner than any ‘board you’d find in the Bold series, lending to scrunched-up keys, and the buttons have more of a give when you press them. Yet, by taking advantage of ridges on each individual key, it possesses a more natural feel.

The Torch 9810 also has a virtual keyboard available for anyone that doesn’t feel like pushing up the slider — we understand, it’s a lot of work. The BlackBerry platform offers excellent shortcuts when typing as a way to drastically cut down on typing times. And while it works best on the hard keyboard, it’s also pretty easy to use whilst tapping away on the virtual equivalent. Portrait mode can still be rather smushed, whereas landscape mode adds much more breathing room to your virtual typing experience.

Camera

At first blush, it may seem as though the camera was another stale aspect of the phone — after all, RIM once again opted for a five megapixel shooter, just as it did with the other two members of the Torch family. There’s a lot more to it than just megapixel count, however.

The digital zoom was extended from 2X to 4X, and geotagging and Face Detection were also added to the 9810’s still camera. The continuous autofocus on the Torch 9810 gives us the opportu-

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

» Unfortunately missing from the Torch family altogether is a front-facing camera, which means video chatting and taking silly self-portraits are both out. nity to enjoy little to no lag when snapping images‚ a boon when trying to take pictures of moving objects or smiling babies. If it doesn’t fit your needs, though, there are options for singleshot and zero autofocus for your choosing. Macro shots turned out much better than those taken on the 9930’s EDoF lens. The camera took respectable photos at all times of day‚ a cloudy morning, high noon and low-light evenings all offered the right amounts of exposure.

It’s not going to replace your DSLR, folks, or even compete with the Nokia N8 or T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide, but it’s on the high-end for a BlackBerry.

The largest feature improvement in the camera was the inclusion of 720p HD video capture, a welcome addition to one of the brand’s most neglected features in the past. Finding a BlackBerry with any decent camcorder has been somewhat of a pipe dream, but the faster processor now gives the phone a good chance to keep up with the increased demand

necessary to process an HD movie. We noticed a slight amount of occasional choppiness and distortion when capturing items in motion, but otherwise reflected its high-def status fine.

Unfortunately missing from the Torch family altogether is a front-facing camera, which means video chatting and taking silly self-portraits are both out.

Software

The 9800, a device running BlackBerry 6, proffered one of the most radical overhauls to the brand’s user interface in its history. Taking full advantage of the Torch’s capacitive (and non-SurePress) screen, its user experience echoed something we’d more or less expect to see on... well, just about any other smooth and fluid OS. If you’re expecting a similarly overwhelming reconstruction this time around, you’re not going to find it.

In fact, BlackBerry 6.1 7’s UI is true to the original Torch in almost every way.

With that said, the seventh version of

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

RIM’s platform does bring some massive improvements to the table; they’re just mostly running behind the scenes.

Sadly, the eerily similar UI also means a couple hefty irritations from version 6 carried through to the new update. For one, the notification menu’s only accessible from the main screen; we can be knee-deep in another app when the red LED light begins flashing, indicating a new notification awaits us. Instead of being able to access our notifications directly from that app, however, we have to back all the way out to the main page and enter the proper menu from there. This method is entirely unfriendly to users and forces us to put our current projects on pause, just in case an important message is coming through.

It’s just a smidgeon more convenient to have the ability to peek at what notifications await us without having to leave the application we’re currently in.

Again, not the end of the world, but it is a minor frustration.

The other annoyance with the user interface is the absence of a true home page on which we can put widgets, folders, and other shortcuts. There is a home page, but the app tray can be minimalized to reveal a large display full of... nothing. No customization options are available for this space whatsoever, so it’s essentially a great way to admire your wallpaper. This is a waste of a perfect opportunity for the user to make BlackBerry devices their own.

We dove head-first into the software and features of OS 7 in our review of the

9930, so we won’t get too deep into the details here; feel free to check out the review to get the full scoop. One feature we do want to cover, though, is the HTML5-capable browser finally introduced in the new update. Pages loaded significantly faster (RIM claims a 45 percent speed boost), the pinch-to-zoom felt incredibly smooth and each adjustment rendered rapidly, and the phone managed to score 2,935ms on SunSpider‚ which, oddly enough, doesn’t match up with the browser performance on the Torch 9850 or Bold 9930, both of which are running the same internals.

Aside from the browser’s performance, our time with the Torch 9810 passed relatively bug-free. We were only forced to hard reboot our phone once as a result of our tendency to push the device’s multitasking capabilities to the limits, but otherwise the experience was flawless. Our loathing for the infamous ticking clock that appeared in so many BlackBerry phones before rarely reared its ugly face; when it did show up, it was only for a brief moment and was gone before we even realized it was there.

Call quality is about what you’d expect from the brand: loud and clear, very few dropped calls and all-around easy on the ears. Similarly, our experience with battery life was just as good. True to form, the 9810’s juice pack is so refreshing when we’re used to dealing with rapid battery drains on both Android and iOS; it took a full seven hours and ten minutes to go from full to empty in our classic video rundown test. The device

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

was also easily able to run through the entire day with power to spare when we pushed the phone to the edge of insanity with our constant emailing, media playback, web browsing and other battery-sucking activities.

Of course, another underlying issue in all of this is the fact that BlackBerry’s App World is getting further and further behind its biggest competitors, and the app storage ceiling‚ paired with the lackluster selection‚ aren’t helping the latest lineup one bit, regardless of the phone’s powerful GPU.

Wrap-up

The Torch 9810 almost sparks our interest as a relevant device... almost. RIM’s definitely aiming for the sky by making a leap in the internal components of its phones, turning it (and the Bold Touch 9930) into the most powerful handsets Research in Motion has ever sold. With the upcoming QNX platform, however, it may be too little too late. Sure, the device is solid and smooth and has great internal specs, but is it one that we’d feel comfortable using on a regu-

SCORECARD BlackBerry Torch 9810 Research in Motion

lar basis? Especially when we have an inkling as to what’s around the corner for the BlackBerry lineup?

It’s hard to justify plunking down hardearned cash and committing to a twoyear contract for a device that’ll likely be obsolete a few months from now, but BlackBerry enthusiasts will enjoy using the Torch 9810 because it’s a much more powerful phone than what they’ve been used to in the past. Newcomers? Probably not so much, given the large number of choices out there with a fresher user experience. It’s a notch above any BlackBerry that’s been released already, but it seems to be a victim of its own design and circumstance. The 9810, alongside the Torch 9850 and Bold Touch 9900, is as good an indication as any that RIM isn’t close to giving up. But first it must do a better job of catching up. The Torch 9810 may very well be at the end of the road, but we’ll see if RIM can switch back onto the right path.

Brad is a mobile editor at Engadget, an outdoorsy guy, and a lover of eccentric New Wave and electro.

$50

on 2-yr contract

7/10

THE BAD

THE GOOD Excellent battery life Responsive touchscreen via Liquid Graphics Solid improvement over 9800

Outdated design User Interface Limited app support

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

review

BlackBerry Bold 9930 by tim stevens

It’s been something of a long time coming, this emboldened Bold. We got our first glimpse of the thing in February, spent some quality time with it back in June, and since then have sat around eagerly awaiting its release. Now, here it is. From a distance, or at a quick glance, it looks little changed from 2008’s Bold 9000. But get closer, pick it up, and the difference is astonishing.

RIM has gone to great pains to talk up this device’s high-end design, its luxurious stylings, its sophisticated aesthetic.

We’re far from Vertu territory here, but the first time this phone hits your palm

you know a lot of people spent a lot of time making it feel just right — even if it still looks just the same. Of course, it’s what’s inside that counts, so join us as we find out whether the soft and hard bits beneath the surface can do the business too.

Hardware

While the old Bolds lived up to their name by being a little rounded, kind of chubby, a bit bulbous, the new model is rather more svelte and sophisticated.

Looking purely at its face it’s hard to detect that anything has changed. You

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

still have the same portrait QWERTY layout with the same basic button scheme, but where there once lived a trackball now an optical trackpad sits.

That’s flanked by a solid bar of backlit capacitive touch buttons, newly monochrome and flush with the display. A curving bit of chrome separates those buttons from the keyboard, as before.

Pick the Bold up and turn it around a bit and the differences from previous models become apparent. The extent is now a classy rim of brushed stainless steel, one continuous band that we presume will offer some serious drop protection — though we succeeded in not

verifying that assumption in our time with this unit. That band is punctuated by ports, controls and buttons as needed. Up top is a single lock button, while the right side houses the phone’s other controls. There’s a volume rocker with a mute button nestled in the middle, and further down rests the Convenience Key, which by default activates the five megapixel camera. On the left side you’ll find openings for a 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro-USB port, while on the bottom is a little, riveted inset that provides something of a minor visual distraction.

Around the back you’ll find another

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

“The thing you’ll want to touch first is the backlit keyboard, and we think you’re going to like it. In fact, we’d go so far as to say this is among the best physical keyboards ever found on a phone, if not the best.”

big change: a slab of composite weave has replaced the Leatherette on the old Bold, ditching tactility in favor of an extra bit of class.

But, the soft-touch plastic that provides the tapered edge, covering the gap between woven panel and stainless rim, does feel a little bit cheap by comparison — as a Mercedes CLS might look a bit low-rent next to a Bentley Continental. Overall, though, it’s a solid, stately feeling phone that offers little visual presence but plenty of good feel. And, at 10.5mm (.41-inches) thick, it’s rather svelte, too.

The thing you’ll want to touch first is the backlit keyboard, and we think you’re going to like it. In fact, we’d go so far as to say this is among the best physical keyboards ever found on a phone, if not the best. It isn’t substantially different than the old Bold, just a smidge wider, but using the same design of curved, tapered keys, each one subtly reaching up to meet your thumbs on either side.

It’s definitely intended for use as a twothumb affair, working best when you’re messaging with both hands, and when used thusly it’ll easily keep up with your most torrid BBM exchanges.

Around the back again, that hoodshaped wedge of carbon fiber-like material serves as the battery door, and an integrated conductive loop therein gives this thing the NFC chops its classmates the 9810 and 9850 lack. Lurking beneath here is a 1,230mAh battery, the same used on all three new handsets but a bit

of a step down from the 1,550mAh unit found in the older, fatter Bold 9000.

Tucked beneath that is a microSD slot, where you can add up to 32GB of storage to boost the 8GB that’s built-in, and a SIM slot. You’ll be needing that to keep every one of this phone’s radios singing, and there are many in this chorus line.

In addition to dual-band CDMA / EVDO (800/1,900MHz) you’re looking at dualband UTMS / HSPA (900/2,100MHz) and quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE (850/900/1,800/1,900MHz), plus 802/11a/b/g/n WiFi at 2.4 and 5.0GHz. If you’ve got a frequency calling, chances are this thing can answer — unless it’s 4G, of course.

Move past the radios and things look less spectacular, as this is effectively a re-arranged version of the same hardware that’s found in its sibling Torch handsets. From that perspective, these are all basically the same phone, with a

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

1.2GHz processor, 768MB of RAM and so-called “Liquid Graphics” engine that promises to deliver smoother, more engaging performance. Did it? We’ll see in the software section below.

Finally, when it comes to call quality, the performance here is top-notch.

While we found our handset to have average abilities when it came to seeking out and hanging on to the signal Verizon is putting out, calls always went through loud and clear. The speakerphone, likewise, will do quite well for your next impromptu concall — even in the big conference room. You know, the one with the tired, faux-leather chairs

and the automatic projector screen that probably knocked the socks off of potential clients back in the early ‘90s.

Display

The new Bold offers a 2.8-inch LCD that may not be much bigger than that found in previous Bold models, but is at least higher resolution: 640 x 480.

It’s hard to get too excited about stepping up to VGA in 2011, so forgive us if we’re a little underwhelmed by the pixel count here, but resolution is more than adequate. In fact, its 287dpi rating is mighty close to the vaunted 300dpi supposedly needed to get us close to

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

Retina territory. Coming from a bigscreened slate of a phone you’ll feel underwhelmed by the size here, but most BlackBerry users will appreciate the extra pixels.

If you can get past the size, you’ll agree, this is a very nice display, offering plenty of brightness for sunny days, beautiful color reproduction, regardless of conditions, and viewing angles good enough to offer almost full-contrast — even when you can only see a sliver of screen. It’s quite a looker, just a shame it’s so small.

Camera

“Do you hate change? If so, you are really going to love BlackBerry 7.”

Where before the camera was situated smack in the middle, the 9900 series splits camera from flash, embedding the five megapixel sensor on the upperright (when facing away from you) and the LED flash on the upper-left. When using the flash, we found this created something of an unfortunate shadow on the right-edge of whatever we were imaging at close-range, but given this is an EDoF sensor you won’t want to be that close anyway.

In theory, the camera has clear focus out to infinity, but the reality is EDoF makes macro shots impossible. In our sample images, the up-close shots of flowers were blurred, and while your average executive won’t be pulling this phone out of his trouser pocket to catch a passing daffodil in bloom, he probably will want to take close-up snaps of the business cards handed to him at last week’s sales mixer. The 9900’s camera

isn’t particularly well-suited for the job.

Take a step (or three) back, though, and you’ll take adequate, though washedout images. Colors are muted and balance is straying to the warm side, but the results are presentable even if they scream “this was taken on a cellphone.”

Video is captured at 720p and that fixedfocus means you won’t have to worry about lens hunting while filming. Stay a few steps away and things stay sharp, but we did notice a lot of jiggle distortion in the resulting footage, so you’ll need a steadier hand than we could manage.

BlackBerry 7

Do you hate change? If so, you are really going to love BlackBerry 7. The latest flavor of the OS got bumped from a minor to a major update for reasons that likely have more to do with marketing than hardware, but regardless of how you spin it this Bold is running what is, ultimately, a tweak to the BB6 that many of you know and have grown tired of. After playing with and (mostly) loving the

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

gesture-heavy interface slapped over QNX to power the PlayBook, we’re naturally quite eager to see what’s next for that little OS. Sadly, we’re hearing we won’t see anything like that on a phone until next year sometime.

So, for now, we’re left with an OS that feels every bit the latest, minor revision in a long, long history of minor revisions.

BlackBerry OS is showing its age in a not very good way. If you’ve been lately spending your time coddling something running Android, iOS, webOS or Windows Phone, you’re liable to feel like you stepped back in time a decade or so — especially the first time you load up the browser, hit your favorite website, and get treated to a shockingly minimalistic WAP rendering. Gasp!

Despite that simple default rendering this is an all-new browser with HTML5 support. It can handle just about anything the Web can throw at it — except for Flash — and do so with aplomb.

Even complex pages render quickly and are smooth to navigate around. If you can manage to pinch on this tiny display you’ll be able to zoom in and out, and there’s plenty of elastic bounce should you scroll to any of a page’s four extents.

The OS’s integrated search function lets you quickly hunt through contacts, favorites, e-mails, you name it. Now you can also search by voice, a feature that we found to be incredibly accurate at identifying whatever we mumbled into the microphone. The only drag here is that we had to accept not one, but two incredibly long license agreements

before enabling that feature. In fact, you’ll be scrolling through pages and pages of legalese just about every time you try doing something new on your handset. That results in, needless to say, a somewhat unpleasant user experience.

Finally, BB7 brings BlackBerry Balance to the mix, functionality that allows you to keep your work stuff from your home stuff. This can help you from losing your personal bits should an admin decide to remote-wipe your handset, but, more importantly for the BES jockeys out there, it means users can be prevented from sending work information via personal challenges — like, say, forwarding your company’s internal Q2 projections out to everyone in your neighborhood investment club. In other words, it’s a feature more intended for admins than those who are administered, and so nothing to get too excited about. Unless, of course, you’re one of those admins.

If so, or if you are some other corporate user, as ever this OS offers a great experience for business. Open a meeting invite and it’s easy to jump right into the concall from there. Should you put the other team on mute, you’ll get a reassuringly highlighted red indicator on the screen that’s easy to see with a glance. (Important for those who like to do their best Crow T. Robot impression when the discussion gets a bit dull.)

Ultimately, the OS is quick and easy to jump around in if you know what you’re doing, and if you’re looking for productivity you can find it here. But, if

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

you aren’t, or you don’t know your way around the world of BlackBerry, you’ll find things ugly and unintuitive. There are too many lengthy, scrollable menus, too many hidden collections of options, and simply too little style to catch the eye of anybody who’s been using a modern mobile operating system.

Software

If you’re not sold on BB7, the application selection isn’t liable to help matters. App World does offer a healthy choice, but the most entries are tiny little utilities with niche functionality that will leave you asking questions like: “Do we really need an app dedicated to scanning Air Traffic Control at Ottawa International Airport?” In this case the answer is “yes, someone does,” but we can safely say that we could do without 3D Rollercoaster Rush Jurassic 2. This app is supposed to be the premiere title to show off the phones’ new Open GL ES 2.0 support, and it sure does have polygons. It is also slightly less fun (and only slightly more interactive) than watching a video of someone else riding a rollercoaster.

In addition to proving that, yes, these phones can render 3D games, this title helps to highlight an issue with all three: they offer only 189MB of total storage for apps. It doesn’t matter that this Bold has 8GB of internal storage, and it also wouldn’t help if you threw in a 32GB microSD card. You’ll still have just 189MB of space for all your apps.

To be fair, each app can take up no more

“It doesn’t matter that this Bold has 8GB of internal storage, and it also wouldn’t help if you threw in a 32GB microSD card.

You’ll still have just 189MB of space for all your apps.” than 7MB of this, and the vast majority of App World selections are very small indeed, but this has forced developers to make compromises. In the case of this game, you’ll have to download the app, install it, then launch it and wait while another batch of data (17MB worth) gets downloaded to internal storage.

Even if you’re grandfathered in to an unlimited data plan this step can only be done over WiFi — and, in the end, you have a pretty boring game.

If you’re looking for more fun, you’ll find a full install of Documents to Go here, capable of creating and editing documents that fit the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint styles.

Performance and battery life

We can’t say how much of this 9930’s speed is due to the new hardware within

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

and how much instead is thanks to the revised software, but we can say that this is a very snappy, responsive phone.

It pops open menus, launches apps quickly and, in general, keeps the hourglass on the shelf — where it belongs.

A cold boot (after a pulled battery) takes a rather painful one minute and 45 seconds, but after that you’re looking at less than five seconds to bring the phone back to life after turning it off.

More than acceptable.

We ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark and managed a very good 2,648ms, and when running the phone through our intensive battery drain test the phone delivered an equally impressive 8.5 hours. (For reference, the QWERTY HTC Status managed just 3.5 hours on the same test.) We haven’t had the chance to run our phone through too many charges, but in the time we’ve had with it we’ve been quite impressed by how that cell fares in the real world too.

rah for an OS that isn’t much longer for this world. Or maybe that’s just us being optimistic. We’d love to have been able to use this phone with a more modern, more refined feeling OS, but as it is we have some great hardware running software that just won’t appeal to anyone who has already left (or was never pulled in to) the BBM fold.

And maybe, for now, that’s the best RIM can do — stem the tide. The company isn’t exactly losing its customers, it just isn’t growing as quickly as the competition, and until it has a truly mainstreamable operating system it never will. So, don’t look at the 9930 as a phone that’ll end what ails RIM and introduce it into new markets. Look at it as the best damn embodiment of what BlackBerry is today — and then join us all in crossing our fingers as we wait for the next release of BlackBerry OS, which hopefully will bring something truly different to the table.

Wrap-up

Tim Stevens is Editor-in-chief at Engadget, a lifelong gamer, a wannabe racer, and a born Vermonter.

The BlackBerry Bold 9930 feels like the beginning of a transition — the last hur-

SCORECARD BlackBerry Bold 9930 RIM

$250

7/10

THE GOOD

THE BAD

Solid design Snappy performance Battery life

Small display BlackBerry 7 already feels dated No LTE

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

The stuff Engadget editors are using... in real life by engadget staff

Welcome to IRL, a brand new feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we’re using in real life. One of the reasons we started this column is that we don’t necessarily stop evaluating products once we slap on a numbered rating and publish some 3,000 words worth of impressions. This is a dilemma all gadget reviewers wrestle with, really. It’s one thing to test a product for a week and report back on benchmark results and battery life, but it’s another thing entirely to live with it.

Sometimes, there are things we don’t get to test. And if you play with something long enough, the honeymoon always comes to an end. No exceptions.

We still see reviews as a snapshot in time — our job, after all, is to size up the products folks might be thinking of buying today, and it’s not fair to stay mum while we wait for companies to tweak products they had no business shipping half-baked in the first place. But we don’t think the conversation should end with the review. You guys already get to sound off on the things you own in the “How would you change?” column.

Consider this our turn.

Netflix on Chrome OS

Dana Wollman Since this series is partly about revisiting products that perhaps weren’t done

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

growing, let’s kick it off with the Series 5 — aka, the first Chromebook to hit the market. What made this product so challenging to review is that on the one hand, people wanted to know if they should buy it straight away. On the other, it was, by design, an unfinished product. As obvious as it was that Chrome OS was immature, it was equally clear that Google was planning on rolling out updates. Yes, it was maddening not to have offline support out of the box, but I still earnestly believe the company is aware of such shortcomings, and isn’t going to just let the OS stand as is.

Well, here we are. Last month, Chrome OS got VPN and (huzzah!) Netflix support. The funny thing is, I sat down prepared to write a few paragraphs about what it’s like streaming movies on my Series 5. What can I say, though? It’s

just like using Netflix in Chrome, or any browser, really. I will say that that bright, matte display I loved so much the first time around suddenly became even more useful. Remember that without Netflix support, I was mostly using the screen for checking email, web browsing, chatting and watching “Best Cry Ever” approximately eighteen times.

Leaning back and watching Mad Men reminded me what an excellent display this is (especially for a $500 system!), and I do hope it’ll make a cameo in more Samsung laptops. As for movies, they looked smooth when I streamed them over WiFi, and actually held up better than I thought when I switched to the built-in Verizon Wireless connection.

As you can imagine, though, I encountered some hiccups, and quickly ditched 3G for WiFi.

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

And while I’m on the subject of things I didn’t delve into in my original review, let’s talk updates. Availing myself of Netflix support was intuitive enough: just to go to the settings menu, select “About Chrome OS” and click the box that says “Check for update.” Once I did, it told me what I already knew — that an update was available — and promptly began downloading it. The next time I had to click anything, it was to restart the computer so the changes could take effect. That’s simple enough; it was nice that for the most part I was able to dispense with clicking through dialog boxes while the OS just did its thing. Still, why did I have to dig for the update manually? My security software downloads updates of its own accord.

When I use Windows, I have it set to download updates automatically (my

Mac presents me with a pop-up alert).

Google tells me my machine should have updated itself, but in this case, that didn’t happen. Frankly, I don’t care so much if Chrome OS asks me for permission or just goes ahead and brings itself up to date; I’d just rather the onus not be on me.

But I digress. All told, Netflix support is a welcome (and unsurprising) update.

Now, can we get some offline action up in here?

Acer Iconia Tab A500 in coach

Tim Stevens Now why, one might wonder, would someone choose to take a slice of Honeycomb from Acer along on a flight when one could instead take the thinner, lighter, juicier Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? The answer, my friends, is

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

sitting down there on the bottom of the thing: a full USB port that got me thinking. Hey, I haven’t used that Atek travel keyboard in awhile. Let’s leave the Lenovo home for this flight and try living in a post-PC world. Also, Darren still has the Tab, so, for better or worse, this was my only choice.

Sure enough, the A500 works like a charm, chatting with the keyboard like the two were meant for each other — except that I can’t hit Ctrl + Backspace to delete whole words. I’m beginning to see some of the appeal of working with a tablet and a keyboard, rather than a laptop — it’s certainly lighter, takes up less space in my bag, the battery life is great and instant-on everything is always nice — but now that I’m actually here typing, I’d still rather have my laptop. And, when using it as just a tab-

let, I can’t help but think I’d rather have the Galaxy Tab. The Acer’s a nice piece of hardware, sophisticated and serious looking, with a battery more than adequate to manage my musings from 7B, but the off-angle contrast on the screen disappoints, and finding a good way to situate the thing next to the keyboard is something of a challenge.

About that 11-inch Air…

Joe Pollicino The nature of tech blogging — for me, at least — means being constantly ready to get online, and for that I tether over 3G — the carrier-legal way. Initially, I went with a 3G-enabled tablet, which actually wasn’t all that terrible — until I needed to get work done, that is. After a few months of pecking at an onscreen keyboard and shifting between full-screen

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

My major qualm is with the 11-inch’s screen hinge — sure, you can easily open it with a single digit and the level of torque feels acceptable, but any minor bump sends it flying all the way back.

apps, I wanted to pull my hair out.

Thankfully, this was around the time Apple introduced its beefed-up MacBook Airs. The latest suite of ultraportables from Cupertino has received fairly glowing reviews, but I’ve taken note that many — including ours — focused on the 13-inch model and not the 11-incher.

I’ve been using one of these ultra-tiny devices while commuting for the past few weeks, and wanted to briefly delve into some key issues I’ve noted. Surprisingly, it’s got nothing to do with the lack of an on-board SD card slot (which hasn’t caused me much grief, by the way), but more the screen itself.

There’s much to be said about the form factor. My main laptop is a 2010 15-inch MacBook Pro with Core i7, decked out with a 1680 x 1050, anti-glare display in the usual 16:10 aspect ratio. The 11-inch Air’s 1366 x 768 resolution is nothing to scoff at, although the 16:9 orientation does appear a tad vertically challenged.

When it comes to working in a cramped bus seat, however, I find the extra bit

of scrolling a fair trade-off — not least because of the functionality OS X Lion brings. For one, I usually have room to position the screen without hitting the backrest in front of me, and with Lion’s multiple desktops I can easily simulate my usual dual-screen desk setup. The only issue I’ve come across with real estate is that certain overlay windows in web browsers get chopped at the bottom when there’s no option to scroll.

Trapped!

My major qualm is with the 11-inch’s screen hinge — sure, you can easily open it with a single digit and the level of torque feels acceptable, but any minor bump sends it flying all the way back. The Air’s otherwise a particularly travel-friendly gadget, to say the least, so I’m amazed that I constantly need to reposition the screen if I don’t feel like having it at full tilt. Furthermore, even though they add just a paltry few ounces, cases like the Speck SeeThru only exaggerate the weight distribution, which is disappointing for an OCD overly pro-

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

tective gadget lover like myself. Oh, and closing the screen doesn’t make the sort of satisfying magnetic clunk that I’ve come to expect on Apple’s larger laptop offerings. So, I guess you could say I’m just being ultra picky about my ultraportable, but if my main issue stems from a screen hinge and some magnets, I’d have to say that overall the Air has so far proven itself as one slick device.

Now, if only it had on-board 3G...

One e-reader to rule them all

Brian Heater There are four or five e-readers cluttering my workspace at present, but only one has graduated from the testing phase to full-time post-work accessory. I’ve still got too many unread paperbacks cluttering my apartment at present to make a full-time commitment to the device,

but Barnes & Noble’s touchscreen Nook has earned itself a permanent spot in my messenger bag. The more I use it, the more apparent it becomes that the company has really hit upon the perfect size for this kind of device. The Nook is thin and light, without sacrificing any screen real estate. It fits perfectly in the hand and hardly takes up space in my bag.

I don’t miss the keys much, either — in fact, I don’t type on the thing unless I’m looking for a book in the store. The social functionality is wasted on me.

The whole going-two-months-withouta-charge thing was a bit overstated, it turns out — I’ve had to charge it a bit more than I’d anticipated. As for the software itself, I’ve had to do a few hard reboots after having the Nook freeze on its own screen saver, but still, nothing too earth-shattering.

distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

advertisement

Objet’s 3D printer breathes plastic life into Hollywood creatures, layer by layer by darren murph

It ain’t easy being plastic, you know?

Objet brought a few of its snazziest pieces to SIGGRAPH, and we popped by to have a gander. The company brought along some Hollywood examples of how its multi-material Objet260 Connex helped movie makers craft prototype creatures before they were inserted into the storyline. Thor’s Destroyer and Avatar’s Na’vi were both on hand, as well as the two critters shown above. The hothead on the right was crafted in around 18 hours while the cool cat on the left was built in three fewer. Oh, and as for his cost?

Around $80 for the materials — slightly more for the printer itself.

the last word: visualized distro | issue #1 september 2, 2011

Editor-in-chief Executive Editor, Distro Executive Assistants, Distro Managing Editor Senior Associate Editors

Tim Stevens Christopher Trout Billy Steele, Jon Turi Darren Murph Don Melanson / Brian Heater / Zach Honig Richard Lai / Michael Gorman

Associate Editors

Joe Pollicino / Sean Buckley / Joseph Volpe Terrence O’Brien / Amar Toor / Sharif Sakr

Senior Mobile Editor Contributing Mobile Editors Senior HD Editor Contributing HD Editor Reviews Editor Contributing Editors Senior Chinese Editor Media Producer

Myriam Joire Sean Cooper / Zachary Lutz / Brad Molen Richard Lawler Ben Drawbaugh Dana Wollman Kevin Wong / Jesse Hicks / Dante Cesa Andy Yang Trent Wolbe

Senior Columnist

Ross Rubin / Michael Gartenberg

Editorial Director

Joshua Fruhlinger

App Creative

AOL Mobile: Jeremy LaCroix / Will Lipman David Robinson / Jim Sabia

Product Managers Developers

David South / Luan Tran Kyle Lu / Scott Tury / Mike Levine Ron Anderson / Terence Worley

Architects Tech Leadership Sales

Scott Tury / Todd Brannam Bob Ward / Tarun Gaur Mandar Shinde