Time for another review… this time, the Kindle from Amazon. The management summary for this review would probably read something like this… “If you’ve not got one, get one and enjoy.”. Nice and compact… just like the Kindle.

So where to begin… well, since their initial release, I’ve wanted one but always coughed at the price, but with the release of the 3d generation and the updated pricing… well, I could resist no longer and I can honestly say it’s one of the best things I’ve purchased in a long time.

I have a bunch of books which I’ve been trying to read for an age… a lot of them are PDFs (most of my Pragmatic Programmers titles) or big chunky paperbacks (most of my Microsoft best practices titles). So, reading them is not always convenient… the PDFs you have to have your laptop running and the paperbacks don’t travel well because of their bulkiness and weight. Now, they are all in my Kindle and I can take them anywhere.

As a consequence of this enhanced portability and ease of access I’ve read about 8 books since January… now I’m sure for a lot of people this is quite a low number, but if I tell you I didn’t manage to read a single book last year, that should put things in perspective. It’s not that I’ve found more time for reading, it’s just a lot more accessible. I’ve been travelling quite a bit for work again so sat in the airport… break out the Kindle… sat in the hotel restaurant waiting for my breakfast or evening meal… break out the Kindle. There is one obvious glitch to this though… that part of a flight where the Captain switches on the seatbelt sign and all electronic equipment has to be turned off. With a paper book you can carry on reading but with a Kindle… it has to be turned off. Still, most airlines have their in-flight magazines and of course there are the windows to look out of.

To 3G or not to 3G that was the question…

Well, I elected to go for the 3G version because I’m travelling a lot. Having the ability to sit in the airport and buy a book and get it delivered to my Kindle in seconds is very appealing. Couple that with the ability (albeit limited) to surf the web using the same connection and well… it’s really a no brainer… an extra 40 quid or so for that freedom.

The battery life is pretty good too. Generally I only turn wireless on when I need it, but I can’t give an accurate assessment of how the life compares with the specified life because I have on of the covers which includes the LED lamp… very handy when I crash out in my hotel room for the night… snuggle up in bed and read… but overall, I’m not disappointed by the performance of the battery… I think I’ve only charged it up three times which given I’ve had it since January isn’t bad.

Reading the Kindle is very easy on the eyes. I’ve not really experienced any glare from the screen and the overall legibility of the text is great. PDFs are a bit of a pain as they generally require you to zoom in and then navigating the page requires the use of the cursor pad, but I don’t read a lot of PDFs on there so no problem there. The tools you get are also pretty good, likes attaching notes and bookmarks. My only complaint, I was able to somehow reset the ‘last read’ position of a book I was reading. I couldn’t remember positions/page numbers so had to page through to where I was which was a bit of a pain, but apart from that, I’ve had no real problems operating the unit.

My biggest gripe is the cost of the books. Firstly VAT… buy a paper book and it’s exempt from VAT… buy a digital book and it’s not exempt from VAT (which, given the rate at the moment is 20% can be a significant amount). That said, there sometimes doesn’t seem to be a big enough difference between the paper and Kindle versions of a title.

Overall, the Kindle is fantastic and for the simple fact that I’ve read more since I had mine than I have for a long time, I’d recommend them to anyone. Couple that with the sheer numbers of books you can stick in your bag and well, you’re onto a winner.

Since network play is an important part of the PS3 experience, having a keyboard to chat with is almost essential, but who wants a hulking great USB keyboard sat by the side of them when gaming just to chat quickly… not to mention the USB cables dragging around the place. Enter the official PS3 wireless keypad.

Now, I’m not the chattiest of people when I’m gaming, but I am developing various levels for LBP and so I want to be able to name stuff and provide descriptions… using the on-screen keypad is, to put it mildly, like pulling teeth. It’s slow, cumbersome and just downright annoying and for the reasons I mentioned, a fullsize USB keyboard is just not an option so I was mightily pleased when I saw these little babies on the PS3 website.

The CECHZX1GB (UK Model) as it’s known is a small, lightweight Bluetooth keypad that clips onto official PS3 controllers. It provides quick access buttons to get at your messages, and also doubles as a pointing device by way of a touch sensitive area on the keypad. Whilst it’s small and the buttons seem tiny, operating it isn’t as bad as you might first imagine. I’ve made only a few typos courtesy of my sausage fingers, and well, compared to the on-screen keyboard it is infinitely better.

So are there any downsides? Well, I’ve only been using it a few days. Being rechargeable there is obviously the issue of battery life, but it does go into standby to conserve power. The only downside to this is of course it has to reconnect to the PS3 when you want to type some more, but that doesn’t take too long (a few seconds, if that). The unit itself was charged when it arrived last week and has yet to require a refill. It obviously goes without saying that the more you type, the shorter the recharge interval will be, and I suspect using the pointer mode will drain the juice substantially quicker. The upside however is that, like the controllers themselves, it can be used whilst charging by simply connect it using a USB cable.

One of the questions I had when I purchased them (notice plural) was how they connected to the PS3 and whether you could use multiple units at the same time. The answer is they have their own Bluetooth capabilities (which incidentally you can use with other Bluetooth capable devices – I can state that they work with the O2 XDA Orbit) so they connect to the PS3 with no regard for which controller they are attached to. So whilst you can use multiple units at the same time, they will all type into whichever message box has focus. It would have been better, IMHO, if they worked like the controllers… first on is number 1 etc. and were then paired with the corresponding controller number.

So in conclusion, these are a great little addition to anyone’s PS3 setup, but because they don’t pair like the controllers, I’m only going to give them a rating of 9.

Here’s a first… a hardware review That’s right folks, the first hardware review on my blog, and its a good one. The Sony RDR-HXD890 harddisk recorder with analogue and digital televisions tuners.

Having been a VCR owner for many years, I felt a pang of sadness when Spirit told me my VCR was starting to chew tapes… a sure sign that its on it’s way out… but, considering it was purchased in 1999, it’s not done too bad.

So, time for a replacement… and this is it… the Sony RDR-HXD890 harddisk recorder.

A nice sleek black unit containing a 160GB SATA II harddisk, an analogue television receiver and a digital DVB-T. I will admit I dived in when Amazon had these on a special offer, but I did do some research before I ordered, and the rumblings were in general good about the Sony RDR series.

In terms of operation, setup was dead easy and took less than 5 minutes, and actually using the unit is also pretty easy. There are numerous compression settings, we started off trialling one that gave us in excess of 200 hours, but the quality of smaller items and fast moving features (we tried recording a grand prix) was not good, so we ended up settling for one that gives us about 108 hours (or something around that mark).

So all’s well that ends well… no?

Well, actually no… and here’s why….

The unit was working great, coming on every couple of hours to update the EPG, recording when asked, playback was good, and then *BOOM*. Thankfully, not literally but, the unit just stopped working one night. It was in warranty (although if I hadn’t insisted, I think I would have been fobbed off with a repair, but come on… under 3 weeks old and it stops working… thankfully Amazon were more than a little compliant) so a replacement was shipped out, BUT and here’s the crunch… it failed with a disk in the DVD drive.

After consulting with Amazon and Sony, I was told there was no way for a user to open the draw manually. Unlike most PC optical disk drives that have that little hole in the front for sticking a paperclip in to unlatch the draw, consumer drives seem to lack the forethought that actually they might fail with a disk in the drive. Now, I’m stuck with a unit that won’t power up that has a disk in it… and what am I told… BY SONY… take it to a repair shop. I ended up forking out money to get the disk out.

So, due to the lack of an emergency eject facility and the fact that the power supply went bang just under 3 weeks after delivery, I’ve given the unit a score of 7. Overall, it’s a fantastic unit that should (based on my past experience of Sony equipment) be reliable and of a good build quality (a view shared by the owner of the repair store that removed the disk), so I hope we were just unlucky.

I’ll keep you posted.