GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Word on the street is that Microsoft plans to announce a Windows-powered iPad contender at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer waved around a Hewlett-Packard “slate” running Windows 7 at CES 2010. HP later hyped up the device with specifications and a possible price tag, and then killed it before it even shipped.

So it’s a bit like dja vu reading in The New York Times that Ballmer is taking the stage to talk slates again. Mind you, this time he’s going to show off not just one Windows 7 slate, but several, according to NYT’s Nick Bilton.

But increasing the device count isn’t going to make a Windows 7 slate any better. Here are seven reasons buying a Windows 7 slate would be a bad idea.

Windows is not for fingers

Windows 7 is designed for desktop computing, not multitouch tablets. Dragging around windows to switch between applications is not the kind of thing you’d do on a tablet; it’s why we use keyboards and mice.

At CES 2010 there were a few pilot tablets running Windows 7. They were difficult to use because the Windows 7 interface on a tablet was an ergonomic nightmare. Scrolling was laggy, and some devices we tested even froze while we were shooting video demonstrating the products.

Even with a touch-friendly skin on top, there are still going to be times when you wish you had a mouse — like when a dialog box pops up that hasn’t been optimized for touch, and its control buttons are too tiny for your fat digits.

Windows is too bloated for mobile devices

Windows 7 is a big improvement from Vista and XP, but it’s still got a lot of the same Windows headaches. Plug in a peripheral, for example, and Windows 7 has to search a sluggish database for a device driver. The idea behind a mobile device is that you’re on the go and you need apps that keep in pace with your movement, and Windows just isn’t optimized for that.

On top of that, the power management is not designed for an always-on, carry-everywhere-you-go experience. For a tablet competitive with the iPad you need an OS with extremely fast boot times that can run on low power for epically long hours; Windows 7 has neither of those features. (The iPad, for instance, has a standby battery life of 30 days.)

There will be too many unpredictable variations

Microsoft’s M.O. with Windows is to license the OS to any manufacturer that wants it, and the OEMs ship Windows notebooks with their own custom software (aka bloatware). There are a thousand different variations on keyboards, controls, aspect ratios and more. The same would happen with tablets. By contrast, Android and iOS have more-or-less predictable hardware, something that Microsoft itself recognized was important in Windows Phone 7, its mobile OS.

You’ll have to maintain it like a Windows machine

Windows has always been a prime target for the authors of viruses and botnets because of its gigantic userbase. On a Windows 7 tablet you’d have to install anti-virus software, which would inevitably affect battery life and overall performance.

Then you’d probably want to install memory optimizing utilities, a better disk defragmenter, and maybe a registry cleaner. After a year it would start slowing down like Windows machines always do, and you’d have to do a clean install of the OS.

In short, a Windows tablet would give PC users lots of flexibility — but it would be antithetical to the experience of an easy-to-use consumer device that you don’t have to maintain.

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

After offering previews of its Windows Phone 7 platform last month, Microsoft seems ready to take the next step to get it to market.

The company seems to have set shipping dates for the platform and Europe will be the first to get it.

At a conference, Microsoft’s chief operating officer Kevin Turner told attendees that the company is looking to transition to Windows Phone 7 around October in Europe and November in the U.S.

“We are back in this game,” says Turner in this video posted on Engadget. “And this game is not over.”

In the next three to five years, 450 million smartphones will be sold, he says. That’s double the smartphones sold today.

“When you look at this (Windows 7) phone and some of the UI (user interface), it’s not like any phone you have ever seen from Microsoft,” says Turner. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

Microsoft is working with companies such as Samsung and LG for the hardware.

Over the last three years, Microsoft’s Windows mobile operating system has been eclipsed by rivals such as Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS. For the three months ending May, RIM’s BlackBerry OS ranked first with about 41.7 percent market share in the U.S., followed by Apple at 24.4 percent and Microsoft at 13.2 percent, according to Comscore. Android OS came in fourth at 13 percent but Android has been moving up the ranks steadily gaining points while its rivals are losing share.

Microsoft is betting Windows 7 phone will help turn the tide. The new Windows 7 OS has a snazzy new user interface, integration with Zune market for games and music, and search by Bing. (Check out Gizmodo’s in-depth look at Windows Phone 7.)

In the U.S., AT&T has said it plans to be the “premier” carrier for the platform. AT&T has been slow to embrace Google’s Android platform and it will be interesting to see the size of the bet it will place on Microsoft.

Photo: (brendanlim/Flickr)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Microsoft’s attempt to be hip and cool in mobile is a bust. The company has decided to stop introducing new Kin-branded phones and will scrap the device’sEuropean launch. Instead it plans to integrate Kin into its existing Windows 7 Phone team.

Microsoft will continue Kin sales in the U.S., says the company in a statement.

The move comes just two months after Microsoft introduced two phones under a new brand called Kin. The phones, called Kin One and Kin Two, were built with social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter at their core. Manufactured by Sharp for Microsoft, and available exclusively on Verizon Wireless, the phones were targeted at teens and social networking addicts.

But, from the start, Kin devices seemed doomed. The phones got tepid reviews and were plagued by reports of extremely poor sales.

Here are four reasons why we think the Kin failed:

Fuzzy Kin OS Creates Confusion

Microsoft has been pouring resources into beefing up Windows Mobile and seems poised to introduce Windows Phone 7 in time for holiday season this year. But in a surprise move, Kin made its debut in April running a flavor of the new operating system.

Kin’s OS isn’t exactly Windows 7 Phone but it’s not entirely a new operating system either, Microsoft executives attempted to explain. Call it a fork in the road of Windows Phone 7, they said at launch.

Kin had features such as easy sharing and automated backup that didn’t seem part of the announced Windows Phone 7 OS. In turn, that confused mobile phone enthusiasts. Now Microsoft seems to realize how splitting its OS brand could be a problem.

Microsoft executive Roz Ho who headed the Kin project will “oversee” her team’s move into the Windows Phone 7 fold, and then move to another role in the company, says Engadget.

Expensive for not a complete smartphone

The Kin isn’t a smartphone but it sure had a monthly cellphone plan priced like one.

The Palm-sized Kin One, which had 2.7-inch screen cost $50 with a two-year Verizon contract, while the Kin Two with its 3.5-inch display cost $100. A few weeks later, Verizon dropped the price on the two phones to $80 and $30 respectively.

Sounds cheap right? Not really. The fine print is in the monthly cellphone plan for the device. All Kin phones require a data plan. That means a $70 per month minimum on the bill.

That’s a lot of money for someone flipping burgers at McDonalds for their summer job to be handing over to a cellphone company.

If only Microsoft had offered all those social networking features on the Kin without requiring a data plan, Kin might have had a better shot at survival.

No apps, no games

Though Kin forced a data plan on its users, the devices are not really smartphones.

Kin phones have a browser and can access social networking sites through widgets. But Microsoft crippled the overall functionality of the device by not allowing apps or games on the phone.

That means users ended up paying for a smartphone but getting an amped-up feature phone instead.

Consumers, even teens are smarter than that. Many just gave the Kin a pass.

Lack of the cool factor

Kin made a bold move into an extremely competitive cellphone market. But the devices lacked the cool factor and never really made it clear why a user would want a Kin over a Motorola Cliq or a HTC Hero.

Microsoft’s marketing of the Kin seemed to make it worse. The company focused on projecting a faux hipster vibe for the product.

Kin would be a device that would make it easy to share photos, videos and access social networking feeds, promised Microsoft’s ads.

However, almost every smartphone today can do that and at times better than the Kin. At launch, Kin’s Twitter client, for instance, was half baked. Users couldn’t view @ replies, search or post photos. Similarly, Facebook features were limited to showing or posting status updates, though you can post photos.

What Microsoft failed to drive home were the truly innovative features of the phone — mainly the automated cloud backup. The Kin backs up the entire device including photos, videos, message history and call log into a free online storage area that can be accessed from any browser–all without the user doing anything to trigger it. It’s a feature that can come in handy when the phone is dead or missing.

But you wouldn’t have known that from Microsoft’s Kin ads.

Photo: Kin One and Kin Two (Jon Snyder/Wired.com)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews