So this is just a personal view of some of the technologies that have been hits and misses for me during 2007. Starting off with the worst, a HP Pavilion laptop running Vista I bought for home. What a worthless piece of (well..) junk! It had an incorrectly installed operating system which required calls to an overseas call centre to get unlock codes etc. When it finally started up it crashed regularly on out of the box Microsoft and HP applications (bluescreens of death are back). I tried installing third party apps such as iTunes and got more bluescreens. In the end I called the distributor who very kindly replaced the laptop. However, the replacement didn’t stop the bluescreens from appearing quite regularly. To top it off, the wireless network works spasmodically at most. I get this regular message along the lines of ‘local access only’ so there is no Internet access. Browsing the Web for solutions, it didn’t take long to find out that I am far from alone with this problem for HP Pavilion/Vista laptops with no apparent solution in site. This was a very disappointing purchase!
Moving on to better things, Facebook has to rate a mention given its phenomenal success. I must say though that vampire bites, attacks from werewolves etc has long since lost its novelty for me. Added to that, the Beacon fiasco and Facebook has lost a lot of points with me. It was great but…
On to the runner-up - the Nokia N95 almost took out my ‘Best for 2007′. It does everything I want in a phone and finally there is a phone with a very good camera (with some quite stunning video capability). The list of features is really impressive on this phone. Its only bad point really is the battery life. The phone is constantly in need of recharging.
So, the best for 2007 for me was the iPod Touch. You just have to play with one of these to really appreciate them. It stores all my music, photos and videos with plenty of space to spare (at the moment). The user interface is incredible. Video podcasts are finally worth watching on a portable device so I can at last watch them at a time and place of my convenience and enjoy the experience. Its great to have Web (wifi) too. The only disappointment for me has been the Youtube integration. In my experience it takes forever to load a Youtube video - to the point where it is not worth the effort/wait. Despite this, the iPod Touch was a standout winner for me.
In summary, given my disappointing experience with the HP/Vista laptop and totally opposite experience with the iPod Touch, I just want to switch to Mac this year.
Cheers.
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[…] The Trendsters are making their proclamations for 2008 . Jerry’s list resonnated too closely with my experience of purchsing a new computer/peripherals. Especially liked this one from The Sydney Morning Herald (thanks Grant) […]
[…] I’d love to really cut loose and say what I think about this one. From ZDNet comes the article “Microsoft on Vista - the time of worry is over“. I must say I stopped worrying about Vista a long time ago, in fact I don’t think I ever did worry. I just went out and invested in the most expensive piece of technology I have ever bought - a shiny new HP laptop running Vista. Since that time I have experienced a raft of emotions, frustration and anger being the most common. I still can’t get wireless networking working reliably and I have spent a huge amount of time trying. Anyway, I did have a bit of a laugh at this latest article which reports on the Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. There is a link to a new site called the Vista Compatibility Center. As reported in the ZDNet article: During his keynote, Brooks took the wraps off a new portal site, the Windows Vista Compatibility Center, that is designed to provide users with a single place to check whether specific hardware and software is compatible with Vista. The site currently lists 9,000 devices and software products (3,500 apps and 5,500 devices) — a number that Microsoft is planning to expand via customer and partner feedback. The site will be all about helping to “bust the myth” that Windows Vista is not compatible with many apps and devices, Brooks said. […]
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