gadgethavenreviews

AT&T U-Verse - Interactive

2010-01-08T22:47:00.002-05:00

Interactive features were a forgotten feature when I was writing my U-verse review, but things have changed dramatically in the past few weeks, with the inclusion of three new (useful!) interactive applications:

The List:

*Follows is the list of interactive features available on ATT U-verse as current.

** No Seasonal Features will be included in the overview.

-U-Bar

-Santa Tracker(Seasonal)

-Yellowpages.com

-Media Share (New)

-Flickr (Impossible to Test)

-Call History

-Weather-On-Demand (New)

-Multiviews (Sports, News, and Kids)

-Film Awards Interactive (Seasonal)

As overviews don’t explain themselves, let’s get started!

U-Bar

U-Bar is one of the first interactive features, and is, quite frankly, comparatively useless. The U-Bar works by pressing the "Interactive" button on your remote, which automatically shrinks the screen by 2/3s, limiting it in a corner, while the rest of the screen is filled with a cross-menu bar (hence the name), which allows you to both watch TV, as well as check your local weather (sort of), check up on fantasy sports (which I have never tried) see traffic incidents (which has never worked), and check up on your stocks (the only thing that works). All of this is completely dependent on your location, so you must set it by going to the att.net homepage and logging in with your AT&T supported e-mail account.

Verdict: 3/10 - Not very useful, or revolutionary.

Yellow Pages.com

This yellow pages applications seems to be a direct copy of the website, and allows you to search businesses by category. All text is inputed using the numeric keypad on the remote, a tedious affair. The navigation is also unfortunately slow, but results are somewhat useful, though one may ask why someone could spend two minutes typing and finding your results on the TV, when you could easily find it on your PC. Still, the Yellow Pages is at least somewhat useful.

Verdict: 5/10 Close, but no cigar.

Media Share:

Media Share is one of the new touted features of U-Verse, and was just recently released in most areas, and is still making its rounds throughout markets across the U.S. It allows one to directly stream photos and music from their Vista or Win7 PC to the set top box, whereupon you may play them in a playlist, or by artist. It all runs quite smoothly, and is surprisingly fast. Quality is also nice, as no audible quality is lost in any network compression. It can also sense and playback photos and music through TVersity, a very cool feature. Unfortunately, possibly due to already wary content providers, the set top box cannot play back video on the host PC, TVersity or otherwise. Even still, Media share is a surprisingly good feature, one that I did not expect at all.

Verdict: 7/10- Surpringly good.

*Note: Not my own screen-capture. Image used from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9d/UverseCall-history.jpg.

Call History:

Call history is an interesting feature in U-Verse, to say the least. It is an almost live and instantaneous call record of your home landlines, and is a feature only included if you sign up for the VoIP plan. The call record can apply to various lines, and will state the time called, who called by Caller ID, as well as allow you to call back with the click of an "OK" button, in which you will get called on your home phone, and then forwarded to the caller, a'la Google Voice (sorry, its my best analogy), which happens extremely easily. In the end, this is an extremely simple, but extremely effective way of tracking your landline calls on TV, and makes U-Verse's lack of Caller ID on TV almost tolerable.

Verdict: 8/10: Very good, almost flawless.

Weather On Demand:

The possible coup'de grace of the interactive features, Weather On Demand completely threw me off when I first loaded it up, thinking it would be half baked like U-Bar. Unlike U-Bar, however, Weather on Demand is an almost fully baked, fully featured weather, allowing one to know things such as dew points and barometric pressure, to an hourly forecast for the day, as well as video, satellite, and radar of the current conditions.

Verdict: 9/10 - A surprisingly rich interactive feature.

Multiviews:

Last but not least, Multiviews are a quite revolutionary addition to the AT&T Channel lineup. First, to explain: Multiviews are a video mode in which four video streams are shown at once three in picture-in picture, with one in 4:3 and with sound, allowing you to watch over multiple channels for something interesting. This works well on paper, and surprisingly, in practice, and switching is seamless. There are three different Multiview channels on U-verse, one for sports, one for kids programming, and one for news. Unfortunately, the downside is related to U-Verse's major fault: bandwidth. Because of bandwidth limits, the Multiviews are in SD, both the channel content and the overall channel, and are not stretched to 720p or 1080i. Also, channels that you do not subscribe to are also in the Multiviews, and are seen as just an ugly black box.

Still, Multiviews are a quite revolutionary addition to the lineup, and is at least partially useful.

Verdict: 7/10 Decent

Conclusion:

In the end, its a mixed bag. While Weather On Demand and Mediashare were my favorites, the rest made the two better in comparison. However, it is still extremely important to note that interactive features are being added frequently, as many are seasonal.

On all:

6.5/10 - Still on the chopping block.

The Case for Municipal Fiber

2010-01-02T12:58:00.001-05:00

Fiber Optic ISPs are taking root all over America, mostly in the form of AT&T's Fiber-To-The-Node network, and Verizon's FiOS Fiber-To-The-Home, the latter being extremely fast, with internet speeds of up to 50mb/s. But another system is emerging, one of gigantic importance: Municipal Fiber, a utility, not a luxury.

An Example:

As more and more people are considering their ISP and television providers to be Utilities instead of luxuries, the current regulatory system says else, as their remains to be a lack of standardization in the services, and no guarantee on availability. But a city took it into its own hands when it's internet and TV had little to no competition, and little service, and created greenlight, one of the first complete, citywide fiber installations in the country.

The Set-Up:

Greenlight works on a Fiber-To-The-Home principal, and, as such, provides blazing fast bandwidth, up to 100mb/s, more than FiOS, even in its highest tiered areas. As such, greenlight also provides a IPTV and VoIP package, combining all three services through one "pipe".

Television:

Greenlight TV works on QAM, similar to FiOS, and with up to (advertised) "300 channels", and all are facilitated by a Scientific Atlanta Set-Top Box, or, quite surprisingly, a CableCard, which can be had for $4.00/per month extra. DVR Set-Up Link

Phone:
Phone, as the norm, is VoIP, and is available, with all extra features, for $35.00/per month.

What this means for us:

Greenlight shows us that Muni-Fiber is not out of any moderately large city's reach, and that creating such networks can:

-Provide a new service to residents
-Provide broadband and digital TV to city areas not serviced by cable/phone companies.
-Stimulate the local economy
-Create Jobs
-Future-proof the infrastructure
-Provide competition (technology and price-wise) to corporations in the area.
-Be city deficit neutral- the Wilson infrastructure was paid for by bonds.
-Provide local revenue

Such is more cost-effective than providing municipal Wi-Fi, and offers many more services.

For further information, go to:
http://savencbb.wordpress.com/

Samsung S3310 (My Phone)

2009-12-27T00:44:00.004-05:00

It is impossible to deny the strength of the mobile phone industry in Asia, and more specifically, India. Having one has become a necessity, sometimes more so than the US, and the almost standardized GSM technology, have led to a much different way of buying a mobile phone. Instead of purchasing a handset from the carrier, and having it locked to the carrier in exchange for a subsidized deal, mobile phone consumers in India buy their phone first, which is completely unlocked and unsubsidized, and then go individually to each of the carriers to find the deal that suits them. This different system causes greater choice in terms of service, and provides a better buying experience all together. It also ensures much lower service costs, such as only 1R.S. ( 2 cents) SMS, while they cost, on average, ten cents here. It also ensures more types of mobile phones are injected into the market, each with different market penetration. Then how does this business model apply to me?

A few months ago, in the slightly warmer month of September, my father and I took a trip to India. A very enjoyable trip, but one of the important parts about it was that it was then that I got my first phone. After doing some research in India, I settled on a Samsung S3310, a quadband phone with a decent camera, for a moderately high price of 5000 R.S (about $109) But how will this phone stack up against phones in America? Lets find out.

Specs:

(Courtesy of GSM Arena)

GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
Announced	2009, February
Status	Available. Released 2009

SIZE	Dimensions	109.9 x 46 x 10.9 mm
Weight	77 g

DISPLAY	Type	TFT, 16M colors
Size	240 x 320 pixels, 2.1 inches

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones
Speakerphone	Yes

MEMORY	Phonebook	1000 contacts, Photocall
Call records	Yes
Internal	30 MB
Card slot	microSD (TransFlash) up to 8GB, buy memory

DATA	GPRS	Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE	Class 12
3G	No
WLAN	No
Bluetooth	Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port	No
USB	Yes, v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels
Video	Yes, QVGA@15fps
Secondary	No

FEATURES	Messaging	SMS, MMS, Email
Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML (NetFront)
Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games	Yes + downloadable
Colors	Silver
GPS	No
Java	Yes, MIDP 2.0
	- MP3/eAAC+/WAV/WMA player - MP4/H.263 player - Organizer - Voice memo - T9

BATTERY		Standard battery, Li-Ion 880 mAh
Stand-by	Up to 250 h
Talk time	Up to 3 h 30 min

GENERAL
2G Network
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

Announced
2009, February

Status
Available. Released 2009

SIZE
Dimensions
109.9 x 46 x 10.9 mm

Weight
77 g

DISPLAY
Type
TFT, 16M colors

Size
240 x 320 pixels, 2.1 inches

SOUND
Alert types
Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones

Speakerphone
Yes

MEMORY
Phonebook
1000 contacts, Photocall

Call records
Yes

Internal
30 MB

Card slot
microSD (TransFlash) up to 8GB, buy memory

DATA
GPRS
Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps

EDGE
Class 12

3G
No

WLAN
No

Bluetooth
Yes, v2.0 with A2DP

Infrared port
No

USB
Yes, v2.0

CAMERA
Primary
2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels

Video
Yes, QVGA@15fps

Secondary
No

FEATURES
Messaging
SMS, MMS, Email

Browser
WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML (NetFront)

Radio
Stereo FM radio with RDS

Games
Yes + downloadable

Colors
Silver

GPS
No

Java
Yes, MIDP 2.0

- MP3/eAAC+/WAV/WMA player
- MP4/H.263 player
- Organizer
- Voice memo
- T9

BATTERY

Standard battery, Li-Ion 880 mAh

Stand-by
Up to 250 h

Talk time
Up to 3 h 30 min

Specs are decent, and very competitive for comparably priced phones in India. A notable exception is 3G UMTS or HSDPA frequency bands, which in India, are not available at all. Another happy surprise is the 2.0 megapixel. However, it does not have a flash, unlike some other competitors, such as a Sony Ericson S312, which has a single bright LED "lamp", that does not flash at all. Still, features were similar, so remained undecided until the day we were set to buy it. After buying it from JKNext (presumed spelling) in Thane, as well as selecting the ultra-cheap Tata Docomo service, the salesperson inserted the new SIM card (which is nearly impossible access) , and we were good to go. The rest of the box made it home in my Uncle's tote, and I made short work of it when I got back to my Aunt's place.

Unboxing:
The box itself was plastered in the image of Aamir Khan, and included:

- S3310

- 1Gb MicroSD Card (already in device)
- Indian Power adapter
- USB connector
- Set of headphones
- FM receiver
- Li-on battery
- Samsung Suite CD

Device Overview:

(Taken in US)

The Device itself looks quite nice, in my opinion. The silver and black accents blend nicely. The only real problem with the overall design is the lightness of the design, as it does not have the satisfying weighty feel of, say, an iPod Touch. Also, it seems to be missing two keys on the navigation section of the phone, as opposed to other Samsung phones in the U.S.

After the unboxing, I waited for the carrier to activate my SIM. After it didn't happen in the promised time limit, my father got on the phone with customer service, a timely process. After this happened, my SIM was activated, and I got to experiment with the phone.

Sound Quality:
Right after a test call, I knew one of the best parts about the phone- The sound quality. Sound quality was excellent on both sides, with very little interference or static whatsoever. This was backed up by testing the phone on the American AT&T network, which was facilitated by the quad band radio. Even in the US, call quality remained top tier - extremely clear. So much so, family members begged to use it when they had important calls. It was that good.

Media:
This phone, like most American phones, has a cadre of specific multimedia options, including the usual music, and video, but with a twist. Unlike some American phones, a cable is included in the box, which can easily be used to load or offload photos and video. It also has v2.0 bluetooth, which works well with my MSI Wind, and can be paired with any bluetooth accessory or device. Video is capped at a 320 by 240 resolution, mp4 format.

Camera:

The camera is a 2.0 megapixel model, a bit better resolution than the other phone-based camera in my house. To add to it, the phone has it's own dedicated camera key, and is set up to capture on landscape, not on portrait like many other camera phones. Also, the camera mode includes an edit mode, which allows you to sharpen or change the colors of the image. Another feature I found was the inclusion of are exposure settings, as well as a frame and mosaic mode. Unfortunately, no digital zoom is available, at least at the maximum 2 megapixel setting, though it can be enabled if the resolution is set for lower.

Interface:

(Example Photo, taken by phone at 2.0 MP)

Clarity is amazing, colors are accurate (mostly, if set correctly), making it the best camera in a phone that I have used.

Video:

Video quality is obviously a tacked on feature, and is capped at 320x240 in Mp4. Actually, one must see the video for yours

FM Radio:

The Samsung S3310 also includes the option to use it as an FM radio, a necessity in the Indian market. This is facilitated by attaching a small dongle, which also includes a 3.5 to the input on the side of the device. The phone, using onboard software, auto-scans the available stations, and gives the ability to record radio programs onto the onboard memory. The dongle/headphone system also works as a wired handsfree device, which will allow you to receive/make calls with the phone in your pocket. Unfortunately, this highlights one of the problems with the phone- the lack of 3.5mm headphone jack. And note, this is ONLY an FM Radio- no AM stations available at all. (Sorry Dittoheads!) Still, the FM radio works great, and is a good feature to have.

Battery Life:
Battery life is a variable in every phone, and is crucial to the user experience. The battery on the S3310 is perfectly good, and usually, with my light use, lives up to the rated battery life. Also, the battery is charged at home by my father and sister's Samsung charger, which works the same as the Indian one I received in the box. All in all, works very well .

Performance:
All devices are always judged upon their performance- good or bad performance can separate a good gadget from a bad one, and, thankfully, the S3310 is a good one in the speed respect. While it is not speed demon, it is great for day to day tasks, and is a pleasure to use. Still, it was a smidgen slower than my reference cell phone, my Mom's RAZR V3i. Still, performance is more than acceptable.

Conclusion:
The Samsung S3310 is a good phone in every respect. Performance, call quality, and extra features are all excellent, especially for the unsubsidized phone. While the lack of camera flash video quality were disappointments, everything else more than makes up for it.

Excellent
9/10

Flip UltraHD

2009-12-23T15:23:00.012-05:00

In the March of 2009, Cisco bought a company named Pure Digital, a company that had taken the video market by storm. It had captured 15% of the entire video camera market, all with one product: the Flip. The Flip was a small, pocket camcorder with only one setting and one use: to capture video. It was simple, cheap, and was integrated with video sharing sites, namely Youtube. While it only offered from 30-60 minutes of recording time at 640x480, people were hooked. Then, on March 21, 2009 Cisco acquired the company, and the Flip became the company's new consumer product, as even John Chambers, the President and CEO, used one to take video memos of himself. As this was going through, I quickly smelled one of my favorite words:"discount". As my father is a Cisco employee, he found out that he could get a 15% discount on all Flip camcorders. As we were already looking for something to partly replace our 16 year old Sony camcorder, and looking to buy the best, we settled on the Flip UltraHD, the 120 minute model, which was $170, for us. A week later, the white version arrived. But will this new "cheap-cam" suit our needs? Lets find out:

Features:

Right out of the box, the Flip was able to capture video. To further inspection, it seemed as though the battery-pack was pre-installed and pre-charged, though not completely. The device has very few buttons, only eight, with four being part of the omnidirectional keypad. Composing a video is simple, merely look at the subject on the 2 inch LCD screen, and press the red center button. To view clips you have already recorded, just press the "play button", and scroll through existing video, using the up/down keys to adjust volume. One of the downsides of the player is the lack of options, you have, as only real options you do get are for date, time, mute, and recording light on/off. Also, there is only one function to the device, which is capturing video, not anything else. After capturing some 720p test video, transferring it to the computer was a cinch, a mere task of sliding down the panel on the left side of the device, and having a small USB dongle coming out. While I was worried that the dongle might not be long enough to reach the indented USB port on my desktop, It was, and worked on every PC in the house, as long as nothing other than that was plugged in. As it was plugged in for the first time, the FlipShare (TM) software was automatically installed. It allowed the editing and transfer of all video on the device, and allowed the playing of such files. The software itself is a little clunky and slow at times, the first time most so, as it was transferring from a slow, large, and non-expandable 8gb flash drive. Video can also be played directly from the Flip to an HDTV, which is provided by the mini HDMI slot on the side of the player. However, no mini HDMI cable is provided with the player at all, and you must purchase your own for $25.

Video Quality:
When using a camcorder, no matter how small it is, video quality is of utmost importance. While it would be nice for me to describe the picture quality, it would be better if you judged it yourself:

(Click for new window and HD)

Daylight is, obviously, the best quality, while both are usable.

Conclusion:
While it is not of the same caliber as normal camcorders, the gadget it is not supposed to be. The Flip works perfectly fine in most all situations. While there are some minor quibbles, including the device's single function, higher cost than most cheap-cams, and the lack of accessories in the box, the device remains to be the "iPod of the cheap-cams", and is definitely a good buy.

Excellent
9/10

Guide to HDR Photographs - the Free Way

2009-12-21T20:00:00.003-05:00

High Dynamic Range, or HDR is a photography effect that gives photograph a "hyperreal" quality, which can border on surreal (pictured). These are made by computer stitching together several different images of the same thing, all with different exposure settings. While this may seem like a Professional Photographer trick, it is really quite simple to replicate using free software and a cheap, point and shoot camera, even though the results may not be like the ones pictured to the right.

What you will need:

-A camera (duh), with exposure settings and continuous shutter mode.
-A camera person (thats you) who is comfortable with shooting pictures
-A tripod, used on site to take the picture.
-An HDR software, such as Photoshop, or free, single purpose alternatives like Essential HDR Community
(I will be using this, but it has a 1 MP result Cap) - Link to download
-An image editing software (I used paint.net) - Link to download
-A comparatively well lit, nice looking static subject (not a person)

Lets begin!

1. First, take out your tripod, mounting your camera at a stable level, and finalize the height and angle of the camera.
2. Take at least three pictures, all of each different exposure settings, one overexposed, one underexposed, and one perfectly exposed. Optional, take multiple photos of the same subject in same exposure
3. Import all photos, deleting any with movement or that are not alike.

4. Open up Essential HDR Community Edition, and select file---> merge and align multiple photos, and select your exposure shots.
5. Wait for it to finish doing its stuff.
6. You will get a decidedly weird looking final image, but you can tweak it to your hearts delight!
7. Go into tone mapping
8. Bump up the contrast levels, as much as you want.

9. If you like, you can save the image and go into paint.net to change the curves. If you have no idea what curves are, here's a quick link to get your brainjuices flowing-

If you do chose to edit the curves, go to paint.net
( my example), open up your images, then go to adjustments----> curves, or just do keyboard shortcut ctrl-shift-m, and you can curve to your heart's content.

For a more detailed step by step, or one for Photoshop, or if you hate me, head on over to:
http://i.gizmodo.com/5168454/how-to-create-stunningly-realistic-high-dynamic-range-photographs

If you need any specific help, reach me in the comments section, and I will help you as much as I can, as I am still a newbie at this.

Happy photography!

Orb Media Streamer

2009-12-21T13:18:00.007-05:00

After our U-verse subscription, we were unable to directly use our desktop has a DVR to record cable in SD, as we already had an HD DVR. After that, after some experimentation, I attached a pair of rabbit ear antennas to the ASTC input on my PC. After configuring it in Windows Media Center, could watch about five channels without having unwatchable artifacts. Frustrated, I looked in search of a good media software with support for TV input. I found it in Orb Media Streamer.

Features:
Orb is a media streamer, that is, it streams photos, music, videos, and even live TV through your network from the host PC. It can stream to any computer with a internet connection, by simply going to mycast.orb.com, and entering your account information. It can also be streamed to an iPhone or iPod Touch, but the app has disappeared from the app store. During set up, it is supposed to scan the Pictures, Music, and Videos folders, as well as automatically scan for channels using the TV tuner. But, will the features "work as advertised"?

Installation:
After a brisk download, I installed the 2.5+ version, and specified the media folders, and ended all Media Center Processes ( this is extremely important!), and then set up the TV tuner, by specifying my input source and auto scanning the over the air channels. Then, it loaded the EPG for the Over-The-Air Channels, and I was good to go.

Performance:

After installation, I quickly pointed my browser to mycast.orb.com, and saw as it showed my program guide and photos and video from my computer. Very cool. I then clicked on one of the entries in the program guide, hoping for a live stream to pop up. A small file downloaded, and automatically opened in Windows Media Player. Then... nothing. I looked at other channels, some of which worked, others didn't. I then re-set up the TV-Tuner, and extended my rabbit ears with some aluminum foil. I then saw my problem- I had checked "show all" in the set up, and all channels that could be found in my area were loaded, not the ones that actually worked. I fixed the problem, and tried again, this time changing my setting so that a flash player automatically popped up. It worked! I then moved to my netbook..where it also worked! Amazed, I tried on all computers in my house, and all was well, mediocre. Images were laced with many artifacts of compression, which was needed as I had a short upload bandwidth, and images were sometimes out of sync with the sound. Still, slightly disheartened, I installed the trial iPhone app on my iPod Touch, which automatically saw my channels and photos and music. However, what I saw at one time was limited at three items, which was okay, as it served as a test. Still, the lag continued, and was even worse than before.

Conclusion:
While this service is great in theory, a worthy freeware competitor to the much talked about slingbox, the execution is downright horrible, especially with the lag. Also, the program takes a sizable chunk of system resources on the host computer- even when on idle! In the end, this program is okay to try out, but do not expect it to replace a slingbox.

Mediocre
5/10

AT&T U-Verse Review

2009-12-20T14:25:00.013-05:00

A battle has been brewing for years now, or at least until the groundbreaking Verizon FiOS was released. FiOS is a high bandwidth, fiber optic backbone network by Verizon to various communities throughout the US. Known for their stellar reviews and high customer satisfaction, it has been known for being one of the most revolutionary steps in American broadband. How does this service, which is not available in North Carolina, apply to me? Skip back a few years, to the joyous year of 2007, at which we bought a decent Sharp Aquos 32 inch HDTV. At that point, our basic cable package, for which we only paid $13 a month, was becoming to be very dated. At the same time, we were in no market for a new cable service, as Time Warner holds a monopoly on Cable television in our area, and our only other choice would be the dreaded Dish Network. Unfortunately, a new TV service would have to wait.

Ordering:

Fast forward to 2008, when my father and I stumbled upon two AT&T trucks in front of a neighborhood Phone box. After inquiring about their job, we found out a new AT&T service was being released in our area- AT&T U-verse. After going home and doing some research, we found it was also a fiber based service, and also served the purpose of giving us IPTV in HD, as well as VOIP phone service, and broadband internet. This looked very interesting, and whet my interest in a new television service, and we were set out to shop for other deals. A year later, we were still undecided,but were eventually "pushed into it" by a helpful AT&T salesperson who drove a hard bargain,and bought U-verse, and selected both the U200 TV Package with HD technology Fee, the 6mb/s Internet package, and the unlimited Landline package. After getting everything down pat with AT&T, we scheduled our installation for the day after Veterans day, the 12th of November.

The System:

U-verse, like FiOS, is a fiber based system, but both of their methods of getting to the customer are different. FiOS operates a FTTH, or fiber to the home network, which provides the greatest amount of bandwidth, while U-verse provides a FTTN, or fiber to the node, the phone box, over to which the box switches the allotted bandwidth to Cat5 coax cables, which are run into the home. This provides a bandwidth limit at one time, 25mb/s, which is then shared within the services, the TV usually taking 7-10 mb/s, and the rest allocated to the capped internet and VOIP phone. In the end, this also limits the experience, as U-verse offers lower internet speeds than FiOS's advertised ones.

Installation:

The day before the installation, a lone Bell truck came up to our house, unannounced, and started checking the phone box, unannounced as well. After doing some testing, he left, telling us what exactly he did, and the next day, the main truck drove up. First, they rerouted the cabling so that only the coaxial connection comes in, connecting to our VDSL Modem and the Total Home DVR (TM) Set top box. As the VDSL modem was being installed, the installer moved to the living room, setting up the Set top box, and connecting it to the via an HDMI cable to the TV and programming the remote. He then guided us through the features of U-verse, as a brief tour, and gave us the remote, and symbolically, the wheel. After doing some clean up, he left, about two hours after he came.

Things received through the installation:

1 Belkin UPS- good for two hours of power outage, powers both phone and internet.

1 HDMI cable- connects TV to THDVR Set Top Box.

1 Cisco branded THDVR (IP4320 model) , including 320GB of hard drive space.

1 VDSL Modem (pictured above) providing internet and phone access, as well as built in A/B/G wireless hub.

Various U-verse documentation (pictured)

1 STB remote

Television Viewing Experience:

Starting up the device on my own, I was amazed to see the sheer number of channels at our disposal, which, by my count, were up to 230 channels, including about 70 HD channels, which, in my opinion, look fantastic. Details are sharp, and little grain is noticed on a full screen images. At the same time, my opinion about quality is not impartial, as I have not seen any competing cable HD source, only over the air HD. Channel switching is extremely quick, and the Guide provides a Picture in Picture view into the channel you are watching. However, this is where some lack of polish the system has becomes apparent, as sometimes the picture and picture views look horrible, a grainy mess, when you are already watching an HD channel already, and even more so if the Picture in Picture view is of another HD channel. This is because the bandwidth is strictly limited for the TV, and if it overreaches, it must decrease, or stop the showing of a channel. This means that if you have more than one HD STB, and both are watching/recording HD at the same time, a third HD STB will not be able to watch HD. Same can happen if multiple SD shows are recording. Thankfully, we only have one HD STB, so that problem is not encountered by us at all.

Quality:
Video quality is excellent usually, but sometimes some artifacts can be seen, something not alien to any cable provider. It is holds up well with over-the-air HD, but specific channels differ. For example, on channel 5.1 OTA (CBS), is slightly better on U-Verse, being slightly sharper, with better details, while channel 11.1 OTA (ABC) is slightly better on OTA, with better sharpness, and hair detail. Still, both OTA and U-Verse had some softness, especially on letters, which may be the problem with the TV, not the service itself. Still, quality holds up well, at least in local channels.

U-Verse Remote

The remote is a simple one, and has two separate IR sensors. It provides instant access to the Guide, the Menu (the most important button), and recorded TV. Unfortunately, it does not provide a button for Favorite Channels, which is the most important button, in my opinion, forcing us to take the two-press approach, which is a little clunky. Similarly, closed captioning is also hard to enable, and requires us to several menu options to only enable or disable them. Also, all interactive features are accessed through the menu, and not from the remote. In the end, the remote is quite solid, and allows for an extremely quick channel change.

Total Home DVR Set Top Box:

U-verse has various types of STB's according to the Customer's package. Ours is the HD Total Home DVR, which includes a surprising 250 gigabyte Hard drive, which can allow for hundreds of hours of SD quality video, which, to my knowledge, is only rivaled by the king of DVR's - TiVo. The best part about the set top box is the network connectivity. As such, it can get our landline call record, and can tap into the network, so that we can stream music and photos through the network to our TV. Also, it provides Flikr integration, as well as some Yahoo games, such as Sudoku. Another service it provides is the ability to transfer a channel and TV show to other set top boxes in the house, allowing you to pause a TV in one room and keep watching it in another, even though it is subject to the bandwidth limitations. Also, it allows for non-DVR set top boxes to schedule recordings on the DVR set top box, and allows for such scheduling over the internet, or on the U-verse iPhone App. This makes it, truly, "Advanced TV", as advertised, as no other cable company in my area provides such connectivity.

Internet

We had subscribed to the 6 mb/s connection, which was actually a downgrade from our cable connection, which frequently gave us up to 15 mb/s downloads, but only .33 m/bs uploads, and was prone to hang up, and required a power cycle almost every week. Instead, our new service requires almost none whatsoever, and has been rock solid since we have bought it, and have not shut it down since. On average, I reach <5.5 mb/s down, and <1.0 mb/s up, though pages load as fast as they did before.

Oddly enough, I do see more DNS errors than before, but only on one specific PC. I will definitely look into that.

Phone:

Phone is the standard VOIP fare, though made by AT&T. It provides more service for our price, as we were previously $40/ month without caller ID and other extras, while for $30/m now we get more. All calls made are logged, unfortunately, but are used to create a last call list on our TV, which can even allow us to call back on the press of the "OK" button on the remote. Call quality is good, and is unrecognizable from the land line. The installer changed the phone network in our house, cutting off the external line and making the entire system internal to our house, all fed by our VDSL modem/switch. (schematic Pictured)

Pricing:

The all important price point is a complex thing to handle with U-verse, with the amount of separate options and packages

(TV Packages)

Our Package - Price Point

Note: Our sales person gave us a few deals, including an AT&T credit, that lowered the monthly cost to $109 for the first 12 months, and $147 per month is a price we will be paying a year from now.

Note 2: Installation is completely free with U-verse in my area, at least for the time being, lowering the cost from Time Warner Cable.

Conclusion:

AT&T U-verse is a definite "win" for the playbook. While its bandwidth limit detracts from the overall greatness, these are easy to overlook, at least for a person with only one HDTV connected. If you have more than two, you should consider a different provider. Network connectivity and reliable internet is just icing on the cake.

Recommended

8/10

AOC 2330V Flat Screen Monitor

2009-12-18T20:32:00.005-05:00

It was the holidays, as everyone can tell, and my family was looking for something specific: a monitor. You see, our old CRT monitors were coated in dust, and were each on the excess of ten pounds. While we were nagging for a new monitor for years now, the problem reached new urgency, three weeks ago, when the 13 year old 17 inch CRT monitor I was using for my desktop finally started to show its age, as it started to have severe blurring at the corners. After that, we set out to find a new monitor. Armed with reviews and a price range of about $150, we were set to buy a a 17 to 20 inch flat panel monitors, most probably from HP, Dell, or Acer. However, that all changed when we found an incredible deal on TigerDirect- a 23 inch, 1920x1080 monitor with a 5ms response time, and was at the bargain basement price of $149.99- the AOC 2330V. Quickly, we rushed to the store to get monitor, and luckily, we were the second to last to get one.

Specifications:

Size: 23 inches.

Type: Flat panel, LCD monitor

Backlight: CFL

Max Resolution: 1920x1080

Response time: 5ms

Buying Price: $149.99 - Link (price raised after Cyber Monday)

Unboxing:

The monitor came in a quite stylish and solid box, quite surprising for a no-name manufacturer. The box itself was much bigger than the monitor itself, and weighed five pounds- replacing our 12 pound 17 incher. In the box, it came with a cleaning cloth, a driver CD (we did not use it), the obligatory stand, a VGA cable (no DVI) and a cleaning cloth. It was all packaged snuggly, and was all accounted for on arrival.

The monitor was then easy to set up, and was quickly connected to our PC.

The PC quickly booted, and we were met by an ugly stretched 1024x768.

After a quick switch to 1920x1080, we ran into a slight problem: a cluster (or a line) of pixels was acting oddly, as it caused a "frosted glass effect", and made anything under it severely blurred. After switching the resolution back to 1440x900, the oddity was eliminated, though became apparent again after the switch back. However, after a system reboot, the oddity ceased to exist, in any resolution, and continues to be so today.

Usage:

The monitor is very pleasing to use on a day to day basis. Web pages look beautiful in high resolution, and scaling happens nicely to different resolutions while gaming. Motion blur is also not detectable, and colors are very accurate. At the same time, some design decisions cause some minor quibbles when using it. For example, the entire monitor is made of a deep black design, with blue and purple checkers on the side, with a shiny black bezel with silver accents and base. While this makes the monitor nice to look, at, but makes it a fingerprint magnet. Also, the base and the rod connecting the panel is extremely flexible, and flexes at the slight bang of the table, a testament to the cheap production. At the same time, the flexing does not detract from the viewing experience too much to be entirely distracting from the content on screen, and no structural problems can be found due to this.

Conclusion:

The monitor, while being of a no-name, discount brand, is an extremely good monitor, and provides a superior viewing experience, comparable with LCD monitors from LG, Samsung, Viewsonic, and the like. If you are able to overlook the minimal design quibbles, it is a must for any budget conscious workstation.

Very good:

9/10

Canon A1100IS

2009-12-17T22:13:00.006-05:00

There comes a time in every person's life that he/she must give up something extremely dear to them. The situation that my family had was slightly different, but we did have to give up our dear old friend- our Canon digital camera. It was a 2.0 megapixel, 4x optical zoom, 5x digital zoom. It served us throughout many vacations, and always impressed us with its stellar picture quality and ease of use. We liked it so much, we had it repaired three times, though its days were numbered. Finally, the at its fifth year of service, its LCD conked out. By then, it was apparent that we required a new Digital camera. We set out to find the best deal, and finally settled on the Canon A1100IS.

Key specs : Canon PowerShot A1100 IS

Price (paid price on Amazon)-- $129.99

Dimensions-- 3.7 x 2.5 x 1.2 inches

Weight (with battery and media)--7.2 ounces

Megapixels, sensor size, type-- 12 megapixels, 1/2.3-inch CCD, optical

LCD size, resolution-- 2.5-inch LCD, 115K dots

Lens (zoom, aperture, focal length)--4x, f2.7-5.6, 35-140mm (35mm equivalent)

File format (still/video)--JPEG/Motion JPEG

Highest resolution size (still/video)--4,000x3,000 pixels/640x480 at 30fps

Image stabilization type--Mechanical and electronic

Battery type, rated life--Alkaline (AA, 2), 140 shots

The camera, as you can see, is remarkably cheap, and is hailed by Cnet as having "superior picture quality for its price". But will the camera meet expectations, namely, my expectations?

Lets see:

Out of the box, the camera had no onboard memory, but came with a 128 Meg. SD card, only good for about 30 12.1 MP JPG pictures. Not nearly enough, but thankfully, we also bought a 4gb Sandisk SD card for only $10 on Amazon, which holds about 1200, a pretty decent amount.

Image Quality:

Image quality is, quite frankly, highly variable with the light. This is mainly caused by the ISO sensitivity, as the noise levels make photos above ISO 400 unusable. However, the limit at 400 is perfectly acceptable.

Examples:

(Image edited in Picasa for B&W)

Video Quality:
Video quality is decent, but is not HD, rather, recording in 640x480, running at 30FPS. Also, no optical zoom is available for video, and digital zoom is the only option.
See for yourself:

Battery Life:

Battery life, to say it straight, is downright horrible. It takes two AA batteries, an upgrade from us, as our old Canon required 4AAs. At the same time, the battery life is much less in our usage. With the capability to store 1200 pictures, the rated battery life is only about 140 pictures, and only about 20 with the batteries I first tested them with this. I would definitely recommend buying a separate AA rechargeables before purchasing the camera, as you will definitely need them.

Interface:

The interface is a simple cross interface, controlled by five buttons, one including the function/set button, as well as the extra print, face detection, menu, and disp. It also features a "clickwheel" to set each shooting modes, such as portrait, auto, program, kids and pets, indoors, video (640x480 in 30fps) sunset, night, landscape, as well as auto flash.

Conclusion:

The camera is a great one, especially for beginners, as it provides a cheap, simple interface on which to capture good pictures- as long as you have the right lighting. It should definitely be bought with both rechargeable AAs and a 2gb+ SD Card. All in all, definitely recommended.

8/10

Very Good

Far Cry 2

2009-12-17T19:40:00.002-05:00

Remember the olden days? The time when Bush "won" the Presidency again, a year when you were envied if you had a Pentium 4, the year when Ashlee Simpson was actually taken seriously? Yes, I am talking about 2004, which just so happened to spawn two of the most influential, though evolutionary PC games of all time: Far Cry and Half Life 2, the latter becoming considered one of the best games of all time, regardless of system of genre. All that said and done, Far Cry, a game set around a mercenary who must fight himself back to civilization, away from a mad scientist and other bloodthirsty mercenaries, was, in itself, really quite good, and was hailed at the time by critics as "the best FPS game since Half-Life". The game mixed varying expansive, open-world environments, juggled a predictable but respectable storyline, and was all packaged up and "prettied" by the CRYengine, the precursor to the Crysis game engine. All in all, it was very fun to play. Such a successful game just begged for a sequel, and a year later, a console port was released on the Xbox. The game followed mostly the same storyline as the PC version, though it featured all new graphics and game engine, and new "feral" abilities, which were gimmicky from the start. After another sequel to that, and a next-gen port of it, the game was beginning to need a better sequel. The fans ( me included ) were clamoring for a better option, and in 2008, we got one: Enter Far Cry 2. Released on October 21st in North America, the game was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, not Crytek, the previous developer. Also, the game was a triple release, with versions for the PS3, PC, and Xbox 360. Set in an unnamed Central African country on the brink of Civil War, the main character is a player-chosen mercenary who is used as a deniable agent by both factions in the country in order to prevent all-out war. Along the way, the character must find a way to kill "the Jackal", the arms dealer who has equipped both sides of the conflict. The plot itself, not to give it away, is fairly linear, and few choices you make throughout the game will come to haunt or help you in the end. Also the end itself is a little disappointing, especially after the 20 + hours I spent playing the game. Oddly enough, the character you play is not Jack Carver, the only playable character from the original, and as you play though the entire game, you will see that the plot bears no resemblance whatsoever to the plot of Far Cry, and is completely void of Evil scientists, the CIA, or (shudder) mutants. The main attraction to the new game was the new Dunia Engine. Dunia, in many languages, including Hindi, means "earth" or "soil", and the engine provides a framework for what should be called a "living world", complete with animals trees that sway in the wind, and tall grasses that behave very much like real grasses would. It also provides a gorgeous canvas that the world is in, and surprisingly, there are little to no load times in the world. Transportation is provided via a plethora of user drivable cars, trucks, and licensed Jeep vehicles, while uncontrollable buses can shuttle you along throughout the two 50 square Kilometer worlds to different bus stops. Driving is in itself hit or miss. It can sometimes be very satisfying to outrun enemies in your battered Jeep you weave throughout roads and other enemy checkpoints, but that fun can easily be shattered by the stray bullet that causes your engine to catch fire, and eventually explode. Also, you may find yourself being hung up on rocks, which usually cause you to abandon the vehicle. One of the most fun game play aspects is the fire. Fire is used as a gameplay tool in the game, and is useful for eliminating enemies or driving them back. This comes in the form of a flame thrower or Molotov cocktails, both of which must be refilled with gasoline. While these are some of the most useful weapons in the game, they are not the only ones. Many weapons, including both the perennial AK-47 and M-16 are found in the game, as well as weapons such as .50 Cal Sniper rifles, dart rifles, heavy machine guns, various semi and fully automatic pistols, as well as mortars and rocket launchers. The wide selection of weapons is definitely a plus point to the game, as is realism of most of the weapons. Weapons can be obtained by either picking them off of dead soldiers, or buying them in gunshopusing diamonds you obtain from your missions, either main or side. Using second hand weapons has a disadvantage, as they are likely to jam with only light use, and it is encouraged for you to purchase weapons from gunshops. At the same time, the enemies are never seen trying to fix a jammed gun, and it makes me wonder if the design choice could have been implemented better. Speaking of enemies, the enemies in the easy mode of the game are idiots. Absolute idiots. Absolute, deaf idiots, as they rarely respond to their brethren being shot to death with a heavy machine gun, and idiots that sometimes just run at you without even shooting. At the same time, in other reviews, reviewers have stated the AI is much better, which leads me to believe that the idiocy of the enemies is a design choice, not a mistake. Still, this aspect of the game suffers very much.

In the end, my final conclusion to the game is that it is really quite good. The gameplay is nice, the atmosphere is intense, and the environment is just amazing. Aside from a few design quibbles, this game is incredible for the 30 hours of gameplay needed to finish it.

8/10

Upgrades

2009-03-16T08:21:00.001-04:00

Just recently, I upgraded the RAM of my MSI Wind, and the results have been great.

Boot times have increased by at least 10 seconds, and graphics performance has also increased, with increased FPS in Half Life 2 Episode 1 and Far Cry.

While I have not done much out of the ordinary overclocking, the overclocking results are still pretty stable at 15%.

My upgraded specs:

Msi Wind 432-US

2gb RAM, 160 Gig Hard Drive

Ralink (A, B,G,N) Wifi

OSX-90Gigs, Windows-70gigs

MSI Wind OSX Boot Time Results

2009-03-16T08:13:00.001-04:00

The results are in!

Cold boot:39.1 seconds (not including Wifi, bios or chameleon)

Including: About 1 minute.

Awake from sleep: 1.9 seconds.

These are MUCH better than the boot times with 1 gigabyte of ram, and a bit better than the boot for Windows XP.

OSX on the Wind Guide

2009-03-08T14:57:00.002-04:00

Its finally time.

Time to add my review to the other oodles of Mac OS dualboot guides.

I will make sure to add the components that I in other guides but didn't guides.

Just a reminder, doing this violates the Apple EULA, and probably violates the warranty, and also can also be called piracy. It is best if you purchase a OSX disk to make it Semi Legit.

Furthermore, I am not responsible for any damage that happens to your Wind.

I urge you to know how to reinstall the default settings if anything happens.

Remember, GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND!!

Oh, and a final warning.

BACK UP YOUR DATA!!

Just to note, this is PART 1, and that Part 2 will be released in a few days.

Things you need:

-MSIWindosx86 iso file (google it)

-2 usb drives, one at least 4 gb and another atleast 16 megabytes.

-Windows Xp, whether on the Wind originally or on another PC

-Leopard Hd Helper (google it)

-Your Wifi Driver, either the Ralink one or the Realtek one.

-gma950.pkg file

Optional:

-A replacement airport card ( such as the Dell 1490)

-Extra gigabyte of ram

1. Download the MSIWindosx86 file.

2. Install Run Leopard Hd Helper on the machine the OSX iso is on.

-In the Hd helper, select the iso file.

-Then, uncheck the "write" button (find it in the picture included in the file)

-Select your 4+Gig usb drive (J, K ,E etc)

-Click the "Go" button

After a few minutes, the writing will be done, giving you a bootable OSX usb stick.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to dualboot, then follow the steps outlined below. If you want a single boot, then skip these steps.

Back on your Wind, partition the xp install into two partitions, one being at least 25 gigs.

( You may use many different partition managers, I used Easeus partiton manager.)

Be sure the both partitions are primary partitions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Boot off the usb stick on the Wind by pressing F12 to access the boot menu.

4. In a few moments, you will, you will get a language prompt. Choose your language and continue.

5. In the toolbar, select Disk Utility.

6. Select the partition you want OS X on, and select Mac OS X Journaled in "Erase"

7. Erase the parition, deleting all data on it.

8. Quit Disk Utility.

9. Back in the Introduction, select continue and select the Partition you just erased.

10. Before you click Install, select customize.

11. In customize, unselect kernel in patches.

Optional-unselect the extra fonts and X11 to save space.

12. Now for the magic moment- click "Install"

13. After it installs, it will reboot.

14. When you see the Bios Screen (The MSI logo) take out your usb stick.

15. Pray that the Darwin prompt comes up.

16. Wait five seconds.

17. Enjoy the awesome welcome video, and enter all your information after words. ( Note, 1/4 of your screen will be blank, and the rest will be in 800 by 600. We'll fix that in part 2.)

18. The system will reboot and you will get a OSX desktop.

19. Do a happy dance, and get out your usb sticks.

20. Wait for part 2.

Congrats, your done with the hard stuff!

If you experience any problems, feel free to ask questions.

I will answer them as best as I can possibly can.

Welcome!

2009-03-08T14:47:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Gadget Haven Reviews, the home of reviews and mini-note news, as well as the incendiary politics of our time. And all from the mouth of a puny thirteen year old.

Lets get started!