Gradual Panic!

I thought that I’d come up with a really good title for this post but then when I delve deeper I see that the world and his dog picked up on it too. But hey-ho… it’s cool so I’m sticking with it.

So last week saw Google’s IO Developer Conference where we found out what was going on mainly in the world of Android, Chrome OS and Google TV.

Now I have to claim to being a tad bisexual when it comes to operating systems. On desktops and laptops I straddle Windows and OS X like a bitch possessed and in terms of mobile OS’s nothing much changes there either as I’m as partial to iOS as I am to Android so the announcements had me salivating even more.

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HTC Legend

Earlier this year when my beautiful but ‘tech fussy’ fiancé was in need of a new phone I knew that I had to use this chance to move her on from the long line of Nokia feature phones to the world of the smartphone. Obviously I would try and sell the world and his wife an iPhone but I knew that this was a no no from day one (one for the cost and two its not handbag friendly).

So what I needed was a smartphone that fitted, basically a girls needs. It needed to have all the functionality of an iPhone but be smaller and easy to use. Really there was no choice. If you’re not iPhone then you’re Android. And if you’re Android then you have to be HTC.

So after a lot of investigation we fingered the HTC Legend, the follow up to the critically acclaimed HTC Hero. It was ideal! With an AMOLED capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom capability and Android 2.1 it packed all the apps you’ll ever need. As my first ever visit to Android I was mighty impressed, so impressed that I have been subject to some phone envy due to the limitless opportunities and customisation options that are on offer. This has been made even sweeter with the release of Android 2.2 this week for Legends which makes it even slicker and also brings flash support to the mobile masses.

It’s a snappy little devil and the touchscreen is super responsive. The stock Android software is overlaid with HTC’s Sense skin which adds some nice little touches both graphically and functionally and definitely adds to the experience. The keyboard is great and it feels great in the hand which is probably one of the most important things considering the Legend is smaller than other smartphones.

Like I said this was my first look at Android and since then I’ve seen it on numerous phones netbooks and tablets but this is the best (as as as you don’t want to pay Nexus prices) consumer Android phone out there.

Now I know that not everyone has a wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket but if you are one of those well paid peeps (or someone without kids) you may be looking to invest in some tech. So, what do buy right now. Well, here’s a start on a few things that I’ve tried and tested in 2010.

Laptops

The best laptop I’ve seen this year is the Toshiba Satellite Pro L500-1VX. The upgrade to my previous fave the L500-1D3 boasts a faster processor (2.10GHz Core 2 Duo), larger hard drive (500GB) and 4GB of RAM abd considering it’s a 15.6″ l5.6″ laptop it’s actually lighter than it looks at only 2.7 kg. It’s packed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and comes in at £528.75 all in so what more could you ask for?

Desktops

Now this surely has to be the new 27″ Apple iMac. We got one of these beauties in the other week and I fell in love with it instantly. I always said that if I was going to buy an office computer then it was going to be a PC, but now I’m not so sure. Especially if I plumped for the 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 (Quad Core) version with 16GB of RAM, that would just be nerd pornography with tissues thrown in. It looks amazing, it sounds amazing and if they decide to bring out a 32″-er in the future with a Blu-Ray player then my TV is going in the skip!

Storage

Now there is one thing in the world I really, really hate. USB external hard drives. They really are the most pointless of all devices. Fair enough you can back up all your essential data but everywhere I go I see them constantly plugged into PCs. OK you have copies of your stuff on multiple devices but the amount of USB drives that have been brought to me because they’ve been dropped, trust me, it’s loads. It just isn’t safe keeping your backup copy that close to the original source. Then if your PC/Laptop gets stolen you can probably kiss goodbye to your drive too in the wagged collection. So how to prevent this? Get yourself a network hard drive, more specifically the My Book World Edition II. This enclosure contains 2 drives so everything you back up to is is duplicated, double protection. But the best thing is that it’s network connected so it can be located away from your PC but you can still read/write data to it. Add to this the ability that you can administer it via the web and hey presto you’re protected!

More coming soon…