LensWork Technology Blog

Toshiba Thrive

Stopped by Best Buy yesterday to look at the Toshiba Thrive tablet. This one looks to me to be a real winner. If you are shopping for a tablet and are looking beyond the ubiquitous iPad, take a look at this one.

Android OS, 10" screen, two cameras, stereo speakers, full-sized USB and HDMI ports, replaceable battery.

It's heavier (by a bit, but not much — 1.4 lbs for my Transformer versus 1.7 lbs for the Thrive) that the others in its size range, but the full-sized ports, replaceable battery, and better, louder speakers make at a contender. If I didn't already own a Transformer, this is the one I'd buy today.

Speaking of weight, lots of folks are making a basic mistake about this in their reviews and comments. I so often see that this tablet weighs an ounce or two more or less than this other tablet, blah, blah, blah. Comparing tablets is not all that real-world in my way of thinking. If I want to save weight, I'll take my phone or my Kindle reader, both of which weigh a fraction of any tablet. If weight is not really an issue, then I'll often take my netbook and have full PC capabillities. That is, when it comes to a real-world decision about what I take with me at any given moment, it's a use capabilities/weight trade off. The spectrum of possibilities runs from smartphone to Kindle Keyboard to (eventually) the Kindle Fire to a tablet to my netbook to a laptop. Or sometimes, just nuttin'. It's against this type of thinking that the extra weight of the Thrive over other Android tablets seems insignificant to me.

 [For comparison, the Kindle Fire weighs 0.91 lbs., the Kindle Keyboard weights 0.52 lbs, and my Atrix phone weighs 0.3 lbs. The iPads 1/2 weigh 1.6 and 1.3 lbs respectively. And nuttin' weighs nuttin'.]

More tablets than Moses

I've said for some time now that the most interesting component of photography's so-called "digital revolution" is not our ability to create images digitally (i.e., Photoshop), but rather the means of distribution of images that are now possible via digital transfer.

We are in the midst of seeing this capability explode even further with the introduction — and now the initial phases of distribution — of a new class of tablet computing devices. First was the iPad, and now we are starting to see a number of Android-based tablets being shipped and gathering user feedback.

Of these, one of the more interesting ones appears to be the ASUS Transformer. The Transformer, like the iPad, is a touchscreen-based portable device ideally suited for the presentation of photographs. Unlike the iPad, however, the Transformer adds the ability to play Flash which opens it up to the world multimedia publishing — and in particular, Adobe PDF documents that include media components. In an earlier post I mentioned how the iPad could easily have been designed specifically to present LensWork. The ASUS Transformer, with its widescreen design and Flash capabilities, could have been easily designed specifically to present LensWork Extended.

It would probably be an exaggeration to say that the iPad is a ubiquitous photographer's tool. We certainly see lots of them around and lot of photographers using them. By itself, it was (and is) an important and popular groundbreaking technology — but a bit expensive and a bit restrictive to satisfy everybody's needs and interests. However, with all these new tablets adding to the excitement of the category, we're starting to see prices come down, features go up, flexibility increase, and most importantly, user experiences influence design and usability. The Transformer is lower priced, with additional features, and an impressive first batch of user reports and thereby seems already to be making waves (unlike the Motorola Xoom) in the emerging tablet market. I'm excited to get my hands on one and see it perform for myself. As both a photographer and as a publisher, I'm very excited and enthusiastic about this emerging technology.

As a publisher in particular, I've been amused by those who predict universal dominance of this technology. It would be far too easy to see this trend and all these new devices as the death of print. It is not; print is not going away. True, print may be struggling a bit to find its new role in the world in which digital distribution will play an increasingly important part. Print distribution of photography will change. It will have no choice. The $100 fine art photography book will find the $10 fine art PDF eBook on a tablet device a formidable competitor. This may not be the death of hardbound books for us photographers, but it is the beginning phases of a publishing and distribution opportunity of unparalleled accessibility for many of us. Ignore this trend at your peril.

iPad PDF Nonsense, Version 1.3

I'm on a rant roll this morning.

We accidently made a PDF for the iPad that was not the default screen size of the iPad's 1024x768 pixels. I know, we deserve flogging. Our PDF was 1026x768. We were off by 2 pixels— which created a problem that could only be fixed by reformatting and remaking the PDF. I am not kidding.

The problem was this: when viewed in landscape mode, the page was ever so slightly wider than the screen. If we tried to turn to the next page by tapping on the right edge of the screen, rather than turn the page the display would jump to the right 2 pixels to display the as-yet unseen portion of the page. Another right tap and the display would then turn to the next page. Dumb, dumb, dumb. We went back to the InDesign document, adjusted the document size to the correct dimensions, re-output the PDF and everything worked fine.

No, that is not "male pattern baldness" you see on the back of my head; it's the result of iPad app design idiocy and my fistfuls of hair.

iPad PDF Nonsense, Again

And speaking of frustration with the iPad, here is one I simply do not understand. (Keep in mind that I'm a Windows user, so the Apple mindset sometimes simply escapes me.)

When I upload a PDF to, say, the GoodReader app, I can't access that PDF file with iBooks, PDF Reader, iReader PDF, etc. If I want to view that same PDF in iBooks, PDF Reader, etc., I have to upload it to that app, duplicating the existence of a single document just so I can view it in different apps. Why? Why is the iPad designed so that each app has its own library of documents that cannot be shared with other apps? Isn't this insane? Especially insane in a world in which storage memory is limited and a resource not to be squandered. Or, am I missing something?

iPad PDF Nonsense

I'm sure those of you who have an iPad have noticed that apps are now proliferating like rabbits with an agenda. The marketplace is wide open and, unfortunately, the sea is rising with lots of flotsam looking like apps that — not to put too fine a point on it — should work like they are supposed to but don't. If only . . .

There are now so many PDF reader apps that I am now officially giving up trying to test them all with our LensWork Portable Editions. I just looked at yet another one that is simply junk. (Another 99₵ down the drain.) This one (I shall refrain from naming it) does not allow single page viewing, instead insisting on a long, continuous vertical scroll. Worse, the default display does not fill the width of the screen, instead showing some textured background on the right and left. How silly. There was no way to opt for any other type of page rendition. How frustrating.

   

So, GoodReader remains the one an only PDF viewing app we recommend. It works. It works well. And we test for it and it alone. Don't waste your time with other PDF readers — at least when it comes to LensWork PDFs.

Which Dickens?

As a fan of Charles Dickens, I would not classify myself as a collector of his books. Nonetheless, I do own several different complete sets of his work. And this always presents me with a choice whenever I begin to reread, say, Oliver Twist. Do I read the Oxford India Paper edition? Or, the Easton Press edition? Or the Riverside Press edition? Well, usually I pick one, start in, and keep a steady rudder on the volume of choice from beginning to end.

But we now live in the age of the non-book book. A new — and for me both unexpected and startling — path has entered my reading experience. I recently purchased an e-book from Amazon.com and downloaded it to my iPad using the Kindle app. Nothing particularly special about that. I read a couple of chapters into the book and then put it down.

Days later, I picked up my Kindle reader thinking I'd continue in the new book. Oops. The book wasn't on my Kindle because I had downloaded it to the iPad. No problem, I just re-synced the Kindle and the new book appeared. When I opened it, it gave me the option to go to the "furthest page read," knowing how far I had progressed on my iPad. Sure, why not? Bingo, I was right where I left off — but on a completely different device than the one on which I'd started. Another week later, I picked up the iPad to read some more and reversed the process, bringing the iPad Kindle app version up to date with the furthest page read on my Kindle reader. Back and forth, forth and back. I never did this in the world of paper books, although I suppose I could have simply moved my paper bookmark from one edition to the next. In truth, I never did.

You see, a "book" to my mind — at least to my kneejerk mind — is a thing that is, well, a thing. It doesn't morph after I'm two chapters in to a different set of molecules, typefaces, or page dimensions. Clearly, my mind has some adjusting to do because a "book" is fast losing its identity as a set of molecules. Instead, it's a set of words and pictures, ideas and concepts, and nary a molecule to be found. Come to think of it, that's what a book has always been … sort of.

This illustrates, I think, an ongoing challenge in linguistics. For as long as civilization has been around, we have invented words that describe both the molecules of a thing and the content of a thing. For example: a record is a platter of plastic and the song it contains; a film is both a long strap of plastic that runs through a projector and the moving story it shows us; a photograph is a piece of chemically enhanced paper and the image it contains. But the content part of the record can now be a downloadable MP3 file, the story part of the film can be a streaming video or a "DVD," and the image part of photograph can be accessed via all kinds of electronic presentation devices whose only reality is an ethereal image on some infinitely morphable screen. This presents us with a bit of sticky confusion because by using the terms record, film, or photograph it becomes incumbent upon us to differentiate — both mentally and verbally — which aspect of the term we intend, the molecules or the content. This not merely a semantics game, but a fast-changing challenge to language and clear communications. It's also the source of endless debate when one group insists on the molecular definition and another is willing to accept the content-only use of the term. Confusion abounds because of our habits of thought that combine the two aspects of a term into a mental image that refuses to separate the molecules from the content. It is one of the chief koans of our time.

Well, I think I'll stop and go read a book for a while. Don't ask.

Display details on the iPad

Perhaps you all know this already, but it was new to me. I discovered that it is important what size (pixel dimensions) I make JPEG images for display on my iPad.

In preparing a short iPad slide show for a presentation, I simply uploaded some images that were roughly 4000x3000 pixels. I chose these for no other reason than they were already done. Once uploaded, they looked okay, but a bit "crunchy" in the details. In particular, the text (these were folio page images) was a bit rough.

Because the file sizes were a bit large, the slide show transitions dragged a bit. I decided to downsize the images to 1024x768, the native resolution of the iPad screen. I was amazed how much better the images looked! The image details were more natural looking, the text was clean and readable, the gradations much smoother — and the smaller file size made the slide show play much faster.

It appears that when the iPad has to crunch a file to fit the 1024x768 screen dimensions, something's got to give and in tossing out or averaging or whatever it does, it ends up creating a screen rendition that can reduce the quality of the image. This reminds me about that business of using only whole number multiples when viewing Photoshop images*

Next up, I need to see if this is true in rendering PDFs, too.

 

* If you don't know about this, here's a quote from David Blatner:

When you're viewing at an integral multiple of 100% (25%, 50%, 200%, 400%, and so on), Photoshop displays image pixels evenly. At 200%, four screen pixels (two horizontal, two vertical) equal one image pixel; at 50%, four image pixels equal one screen pixel, and so on. However, when you're at any "odd" percentage, the program has to jimmy the display in order to make things work. Photoshop can't cut a screen pixel or an image pixel in half, so instead it fakes the effect using anti-aliasing. Magnifications lower than 100% can give you a distorted view of resolution-dependent effects, such as sharpening.

The moral of the story is that you should always return to the Actual Pixels (100%) view to get the most accurate view of your image.

 

I think something related to this is what is happening with my files in the iPad that are larger than the native screen resolution.

Almost seduced

I received suggestions from several friends that I might be interested in looking at the new iPod Touch 4G for my upcoming travels. Because I trust their judgments, I decided to give it serious consideration. It surely is a sexy little thing, and the engineering behind it is impressive as it typically is with Apple stuff.

   

With the holiday weekend to loaf and spend time looking, I threw myself into a full research project. I looked a several dozen YouTube videos. I read every review I could find. I reviewed APPs on the Apple store. I drew up comparison tables and charted pluses and minuses until I was frayed with analysis. I finally went to Best Buy to look for myself. Yup, very impressive and even sexier in real life than I imagined from the pictures and videos on the Internet.

But, I'm not buying one and I'm blogging my thoughts about it just in case others might find my analysis of use.

Cutting to the chase, I find it simply too much of a compromise in every aspect — at least for the things I would use it for. Admittedly, that's a bit unfair because several of the things it excels at I would never use. I don't play computer games. I don't watch many videos or Hulu-type stuff. These are things the iPod Touch does very well, but are of no use to me whatsoever.

What about the things it does do that I would use? That's was the focus of my analysis — how would it do what would need it to do?

• I listen to music. But, I already have a Sansa Fuze that has longer battery life, interchangeable micro SD cards for expandable storage, and all the functionality I want and need. For listening to music, the iPod would at best be a lateral move and maybe even a step down from my current device.

     

   

• I record audio dictation, field notes, and audio for media presentation. Although the iPod Touch does audio recording with several different APPs, my Olympus DM520 has advantages the iPod simply does not. The Olympus has variable mic sensitivity, a low cut filter, will record WAV, MP3 or WMA in every possible resolution I could ever want. It organizes files into project folders. It's built-in mic is stereo. Most importantly, it has interchangeable micro SD cards so I can simply swap out in the field if I need more storage space. It also uses standard AAA batteries that last longer than the iPod and I can also swap them in the field if I need to.

  

  • And then there's my Zoom H2 which is even a step-up from the Olympus. It boasts 4-channel surround sound with 4 mics. Really spectacular mics. Adjustable limiter. Manual level controls. Switchable mic gain. Either this or the Olympus would significantly out-perform an iPod Touch.
• I love listening to audio books. The Olympus does that, too, including Audible audiobooks with bookmarking. Sure, the iPod does Audible "e" format books, but I'm satisfied with the sound quality I get from my Olympus now.
  • The iPod has bluetooth capabilities built-in that I would use with regularity. I love the freedom of my bluetooth headphones and/or bluetooth phone receiver. I've used both for audio books and find it a real joy to be cord-free while I wander around untethered listening to an audiobook. However, I recently found a bluetooth transmitter dongle that plugs into the 3.5mm jack of any audio device and pairs with my bluetooth headphones. I've been using it for about a month and it works great. Four hours of battery life on a charge and can be used with any device as long as it has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. I've used it with my Olympus, my Sansa Fuze, even with our TV. If I owned an iPod Touch, I'd use its built-in bluetooth, but this device does the job even if it's not quite as convenient.

       

    

• I read ebooks. I'm currently using a Kindle 3 and love it. But, the iPod Touch does a fine job of presenting eBooks, too. It's so-called "Retina display" is truly stunning. Even so, it's physically smaller than the Kindle and my aging eyes prefer the slightly larger Kindle readability. I wish the Kindle were better in dark environs, a competition that the iPod Touch would win hands down. On the other hand, in bright light their positions reverse. I read more in the light than I do in the dark, so I guess the Kindle has the edge.
• Out in the world I Skype, do email, and etc., but for all of this I would use my netbook instead.

I started this weekend burning with lust for a new iPod Touch. I've cooled to the point of decision against it. I does a lot of things and all of them pretty doggone well. There is no doubt that it is a sweet bit of technology that deserves the gazillion fans it has. I found not once instance, however, where it's capabilities were better than a dedicated device engineered to excel at only one thing. No matter what I looked at, although the iPod does each function well, I found another devices simply did it better. In some regards, that's a very high compliment to the iPod — it requires three dedicated devices to out-perform it.

The iPod Touch's greatest strength — at least for my needs — is that is packages so many functions into a single, impressive device. If I were motivated to compromise in each application I need, the single device would certainly be persuasive. As it is, for my needs, I'd rather have, carry, and manage three specialty devices that do their single task better than the multi-talented iPod.

Sony Vaio X

Here is my initial report on the Sony Vaio X netbook, er, laptop. (Sony may be watching.)

Wow.

Did I say, "Wow"? I meant . . .

WOW!

I really wanted the iPad to be my choice for this upcoming trip to Xiang Sha Wan. I could taste it — that slick presentation screen, the 1.6 pounds that is as close to antigravity as you can come, the eBooks/music/audiobooks/email. I really wanted it to work. After weeks of fretting over this, I've decided it is simply is too much of a compromise when I can take the Sony Vaio at 0.55" thick weighing in at just 1.5 pounds. Including a keyboard, Lightroom, Skype video, etc. Sorry, iPad, you were close but no cigar.

   

   

I've loaded all my software into the Vaio and it is simply amazing. Sure, it's a "netbook" in spite of Sony's insistence that it is a "laptop." It's running an Atom Z550 processor and any way you slice it and dice it, it's a netbook. Even so, the 2GHz speed is noticeably faster than my 1.6GHz ASUS even though it's an N-series processor. It's not going to smoke in a multi-multi-task environment, but that's not what I do on the road. Two, maybe three apps at a time, it does just fine.

The Vaio may be a netbook, but — and this is no small matter — it runs Lightroom much faster than my ASUS netbook did, has a higher resolution screen, and is simply the perfect sweet spot of functional power at minimum weight.

My first real-world test was to fire up Lightroom (3.2) and OneNote 2010 and flip back and forth. Even when Lightroom was exporting a bunch of JPGs, OneNote skipped right along as I took notes and even recorded audio. I simply don't need anything more than this when I'm traveling — but it is sure nice to have both. Unfortunately neither of these things were possible with the iPad.

I assumed I'd use the (included) larger and heavier 12 hr battery for most of my needs. But, then it dawned on me that a couple hours is all I ever actually need for most uses except the actual plane flight. For meetings, for use with a projector during my talk, for taking to breakfast and catching up on the news — the 3 hr (more like 2+ hrs) is sufficient and so light weight. Again, I think the folks at Sony must have talked to real world users. They got it right.

Windows 7 (my first experience with it) is a winner.

The 128GB SSD solid state hard drive is fast, quiet, and efficient.

The Vaio took some heat in the reviews for it's smallish keyboard, but it's essentially the same size as the one on my ASUS netbook. The ASUS is 9.75" and Sony is 9.5". I can't tell any difference between them as I type except that they are both smaller than a regular sized desktop keyboard. That does take some getting used to. I think I'm going to try loading up Dragon Systems Naturally Speaking and see how well it does with voice recognition. I use this so extensively with my desktop, it would be great if the Vaio X has enough horsepower to run this software. I'll let you know.

Decisions over. I'm all set.

Sony Vaio X

The internal debate continues. Today I am popping into the Sony store for a hands-on look at the Vaio X series laptop (i.e., netbook). If I can have all the convenience of a laptop but at the weight of an iPad, that's a seductive combination. Maureen is eager to inherit my ASUS netbook for herself, so I might be more serious about this than I would have guessed. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've been eagerly anticipating the release of iOS 4.2 today, but it looks like it's not coming until sometime next week. If it doesn't solve some of my PDF creation issues with fonts, I would be very disappointed. I have to guess that Apple is motivated to fix this, but with the Jobs/Adobe thing, who knows?

Paranoia is starting to influence my thinking, too. If, for whatever reason, I cannot connect via Wi-fi with the iPad, I'd be sunk. In Mongolia. For two weeks. With a netbook, I'd at lease have Ethernet capabilities as a fall-back position.

Here is a comparison I've been working on.

	ASUS Netbook	Sony Vaio X	iPad
Processor	Atom N280 1.66 GHz	Atom Z550 2.0 GHz	Apple A4 1 GHz
Screen size	10.1" 1024x600 Not quite 16:9 (15.3:9)	11.1" 1366x768 16:9	9.7" 1024x768 4:3
Email	Outlook	Outlook	Mail
Skype	Video	Video	Audio
Can upload audio from the Olympus	Yes	Yes	No
OneNote	Yes	Yes	No
Email images	Yes, via HTML (and from OneNote)	Yes, via HTML (and from OneNote)	Via PDF From Notability
Lightroom	1024x600	1366x768	No
SD Card slot	Yes	Yes	Yes Requires Camera Kit Adapter
Hard drive memory	140 GB ATA	128GB SSD	16GB Flash
USB port	3	2	Adapter, limited application
External VGA output	Yes	Yes	No Yes, via Apple iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
Need to take an external drive for backup?	Yes WD Passport 500 GB	Yes WD Passport 500GB	Nexto M1, 111 GB and another Nexto eXtreme
Wi-fi	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ethernet	Yes	Yes	No
Bluetooth	Yes	Yes	Yes
3G	No	Yes	No
Mouse	Bluetooth	Bluetooth	No
Track pad	Yes	Yes	Touch screen
Battery life	9-10 hrs	2 hrs (small battery) 10 hrs (large battery)	8-9 hrs
Weight	3.14 pounds	1.5 pounds (2 hr battery) 2.4 pounds (10 hr battery)	1.6 pounds 2.4 pounds with keyboard
Thickness	1.25"	.55"	.57"
Dimensions	10.47 x 7.53 x 1.12-1.50	10.95 x 7.29 x 0.55	9.6 x 7.5 x 0.5
Audiobooks, music player, headphone jack, speakers	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pre-Mongolia out-of-pocket expense	$0	$1300	$444