This photo shows just how small Maxdata's Belinea s.book 1 ultraportable is when compared with a standard-sized laptop.

However, while the s.book 1 is small, I found it perfectly capable of running standard applications under Windows XP, and its keyboard is just big enough to type on at a reasonable speed.

The 7in screen is what lets it down, though, especially as this has been squashed up to make way for a detachable Bluetooth handset, used for making VoIP calls when the laptop is connected to the internet. At a native resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, the screen feels cramped in use. The VoIP handset itself is designed to be used with Skype, which ships pre-installed with the system.

The s.book 1 is based on a 1.2GHz VIA C7M processor with 1GB memory and an 80GB hard drive. With a price tag of £419 including VAT, it is also inexpensive for such a small system, although still about twice the price of the Linux-based Asus eee PC, which is comparable in  size. A full review of the s.book 1 will appear in a future issue of IT Week.

Posted by Daniel Robinson on February 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fancy a journey with a difference? Why not shell out $100,000 for a 75 second trip into the wild blue yonder, courtesy of Thunderbolt Aerosystems ThunderPack Revision-2, Generation-2 (R1G2). This hydrogen peroxide-powered jet pack looks like tons of fun, but I suspect it could easily ruin your day.

At one time or another, I've tried most forms of personal transport – and the only piece of hardware which might compare, from a bygone age admittedly, is one of the scariest motorbikes on two wheels bar none - the Kawasaki KH500 triple. This was a two-stroke, 'three pot' screamer, with a power band the width of a spider's thigh, and handling which required a fair amount of fresh underwear each day.

If you’re working flexibly to avoid the journey into central London and you're in range, then maybe you might consider using the jet pack. Top speed is 75 mph, but there’s only enough fuel for 75 seconds, and no, I don’t know if you’d require a license from the DVLA or the CAA. Since the hardware is a client device and Dan Robinson is the client section editor - i'll leave him to test this piece of hardware.

Those wondering about potential refuelling problems, have a valid point. Going into a chemist to buy hydrogen peroxide nowadays, tends to have shop assistants fingering the emergency alarm quicker than you could say, "bleached hair". What would happen if you asked for hydrogen peroxide of greater than 70 per cent purity at the local chemist? I'll leave that one to your imagination.

OK, for a trained specialist, the jet pack is probably safer than driving down the M25. Me - i'll stick with the KH500 - once described by Bike Magazine's testers as -'Thanatoid' (translation – ‘resembling death’).

Posted by Dave Bailey on February 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even though it was released  last summer, I've only recently got around to properly trying out the Opera Mini browser from Opera Software, but I found that it actually gives a really decent web experience on a mobile device.

Opera Mini works somewhat like the Safari browser in Apple's iPhone, in that it shrinks a web page so that the whole of it is displayed on the handset's screen. Of course, this makes it too small to actually read anything, but you can easily zoom in to any part of the page you are interested in.

It doesn't feature the gesture-based controls of Apple's browser, but a simple tap on the screen with a stylus is arguably quicker, and the browser's back button zooms out again just as quickly.

Unlike Safari, Opera Mini is a thin client browser. This means that web requests are handled by a proxy server operated by Opera, which renders each page and compresses it before sending the resulting page image down to the phone. This means that less data gets sent to your handset, and so browsing eats up less of your monthly data plan.

I tested Opera Mini on a Windows Mobile 6 device, and found it handled many common web pages such as BBC News Online very well. However, it does trip up on web-based applications that test for supported browsers before proceeding.

Browsing was reasonably fast, even over a GPRS connection, and even faster when we switched to a Wi-Fi access point. Best of all, Opera Mini is a free download, and works on a broad range of handsets that support Java.

Posted by Daniel Robinson on February 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)