Today’s post is different. Today is about the Google Android Operating System and specifically the Motorola Milestone (Canadian cousin of the Motorola Droid). This is my first product review, and the only reason that I’m giving it is that I bought this phone for my own personal use and have been using it for several months now.

I’m providing this review, not as an attempt to provide an unbiased snapshot of a product, but to provide an admittedly biased, personal view of a product that I’ve found that fits my needs. Take it with a grain of salt, and remember that this is the phone I recommended for myself after exhaustive research, but it might not be the right phone for you. There are also newer phones out, that I would buy instead, had they been available way back when.

I’m ready to give my opinion on the operating system and the specific phone. I’m going to begin by describing the criteria I used to choose a phone, and then how the phone I bought does or doesn’t live up to my expectations.

What I Wanted in a Phone

I need a cell phone for my job. I do a lot of travelling around and meeting with people. Staying connected is important, and I wanted people to be able to phone me or email me and be sure I’d get the message wherever I was.

I wanted a device that I could load audio, audiobooks and video onto, and be able to play media on a nice, clear screen. I wanted a device that could map locations and present information about geographic data.

I wanted a device that is simple, intuitive, and put together well. I wanted a device that had wifi and a good Internet experience. I wanted a device with a physical keyboard, because I really didn’t trust on-screen keyboards to be able to do the job.

I had a bias toward Google Android products as I began. I had heard a lot about this new phone operating system, and I wanted it to live up to the hype. I was particularly excited about the potential for a free turn-by-turn car-navigation program provided by Google.

Shopping

I was amazed when I began looking around at the phones available on the market, how few of them met my criteria. I have high standards, it’s true, but there were very few phones that were capable of doing what I wanted them to do. I fairly quickly narrowed my list to three possibilities:

1. The Palm Pre
2. The iPhone
3. The Motorola Droid

Two of the three were available in Canada when I began looking. The Droid wasn’t, and still isn’t, because in Canada Motorola now offers the Milestone instead. It’s a cousin of the Droid. Same hardware and form factor, with slightly different software and features.

I liked the Palm Pre. I thought it might win out at first. I’ve owned many Palm products in the past and have always liked them. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that Palm’s marketing efforts weren’t going to be able to get them back into contention. The iPhone and Android were going to be the two heavyweights and Palm, I’m sorry to say, comes up a little short. I would be very happy to be proved wrong. I really like Palm, and I hope they can get back in the game.

I was biased against the iPhone from the beginning, I’m afraid. Both of my brothers are Mac guys, and I just can’t picture myself on the other side. I like the iPhone. I was impressed with it, but I was glad not to have to buy one. Also, it didn’t have a physical keyboard, which concerned me.

The reason that I went with the Android operating system is the same as why I’ve always bought PCs. Android is produced by many different manufacturers, all of them working with a unified OS that I can easily upgrade. And, it had all the things I was looking for, although if I’m really honest, some of the things I was looking for I was only interested in because I knew they were available because of the Android OS.

The Android OS has been out for more than a year now, and there are phones from a lot of different manufacturers available. But, none of the phones that have come out thus far have really made me confident that they can live up to the hype.

The Droid was the first phone that really made me believe it was possible for an Android phone to live up to what was promised. Since I made my purchase, the Google Nexus One has come out, and there’s no question in my mind I’d take a Nexus One over my Milestone. The Droid X is about to be released, and I expect it will easily move into the top spot on my wishlist over the Nexus One.

I think Android is the future, and that’s why I bought one for my own use.

What I Like:

I like the screen. It’s bright and clear, and it adjusts to the appropriate level of brightness automatically.

I like the Operating System. It’s simple, it’s functional, it’s speedy, and it makes sense. I didn’t need to spend long getting used to this phone. A few things weren’t intuitive for me, but I was up to speed in five minutes and had everything figured out within the day.

I like the Apps. The Android Marketplace has thousands of useful and clever applications, many of which are free. Most of those that do cost money cost less than $5 and often have a free ‘lite’ version you can try out and keep if it does all you need it to.

One of the Apps I use is a guitar tuner. I’d have to pay $50 to get a good guitar tuner, but this one that I downloaded for free does an excellent job. Other apps suggest local restaurants, let me edit Word documents, or do something silly like light saber sound effects.

I like the Internet. Wifi is easy to set up. The browser that ships with the Milestone allows ‘pinch and pull’ zooming, which is great. That feature is really crippled throughout the Android OS for fear of lawsuits, but it’s nice to be able to use it at least on the browser. I’ve recently tried the beta of the Opera browser, and it is amazingly fast on this phone.

I like the Maps. Google Maps is great, and being able to access it wherever I happen to be is fantastic.

I like the Onscreen Keyboard. I would have assumed that I would always be pulling out the real keyboard, but have been surprised how quickly I got comfortable with the onscreen version. I had heard that the Droid didn’t have ‘pop-up’ indicators to tell you which button you had pressed, but the Milestone does. I guess they figured they could get away with it in Canada, but might be sued in the US by the friendly folks at Apple for being too much like the iPhone. I still do use the full keyboard for longer messages and like it, but I’m comfortable with both keyboards, which really surprised me.

What I Don’t Like:

I don’t like that Google Nav was delayed in Canada. One of the key features I was looking forward to in this phone was the GPS navigation. In Canada, every GPS needs to be bi-lingual capable, and it took Google a while to get the French language figured out. Until they did, they were unable to provide the service. Fortunately, it’s now available, but the months spent waiting with no idea of the timetable and no hints when the product might be ready were frustrating, and par for the course with Google. They don’t under-promise, they don’t over-promise, they don’t promise at all. But they do deliver…eventually.

I don’t like that the auto-correct always moves my colons when I try to make a smiley face. I attempt to do a smiley face but auto-correct turns it into a garble by moving the colon to before the space: )   A small annoyance, but you would think someone would have tuned the auto-correct to deal with such a commonly-used combination of symbols.

The slider keyboard, which was a major factor in making my purchase decision, has started to get just a little bit loose. I’ve had the unit 6 months, which is about 1/6th it’s expected life. It’s nowhere near breaking, but it’s loose enough that I have started to go easy on it, for fear it might wear out before the rest of the unit. Had I to do it all again, I would certainly go with a phone with no physical keyboard. Ironically, the one thing that I absolutely insisted on to begin with may wind up being the thing I most regret insisting on.

I disliked the lack of Audible support for the Android OS, but I have good news. I happen to be a part of the beta-testing program for an Audible player for Android, and I can report that good progress is being made. I have no insight as to when a final product might be released to the general public, but I can testify that the team is working hard and the product is stable, which it wasn’t when I joined a little over a month ago. I think it’s possible they’ll have something ready by Fall 2010, and would be very surprised if it wasn’t ready before the end of 2010.

I don’t like the long delay in providing OS upgrades. Telus still hasn’t pushed out Android OS 2.2 Froyo to Milestone owners as of this writing, and it’s been available for some time on other handsets. I don’t know what the hold-up is, but I’m eager to get my hands on the new OS, and annoyed at the delay.

Conclusions

Knowing what I know now, I would still have picked up a Motorola Milestone when I did. Looking back, it was months before something was available that was compellingly superior, and then I would have paid a steep premium for it.

I would have preferred to be able to wait for the Nexus One, with it’s processor that runs at twice the speed. I would have preferred to wait for the Droid X, with it’s faster processor and dedicated graphics memory, but I needed a phone when I needed a phone, and given the options available at the time, I’m confident that I made the best choice for my needs of the available options.

I hope some day to upgrade to some super-snazzy new Android device which blows away anything on the market today. In the meantime, I’ll just be drooling over the Milestone X when it’s finally available for sale up here in Canada (sigh) until I can convince my wife my Milestone deserves a proper burial, and I can justify an expenditure on the latest and greatest once more. Then, I will exit the store, hold aloft the best mobile phone I can eke out of my budget and glory in the technological awesomeness… for the entire three weeks it takes until something new comes out that makes it seem old and out-dated.

A Little History

Windows ‘95 was a new direction for Microsoft and there were serious challenges with it, and then things got fixed with Windows ‘98, especially the Second Edition.

Windows ME was rushed out the door too fast and back then when someone came to me with a computer problem that made no sense, I learned to ask, “Are you running Win ME?”, and they would say yes, and I would tell them to revert back to Win ‘98. Then XP came out, and things got fixed again.

Then it was Vista’s turn, and once again the populace got out their pitchforks. Vista had issues, but I still run it without many problems, and while I think that Windows 7 would be an improvement, I’m not running out for an upgrade. Perhaps you are looking for something new, though, and if so, this post is everything I’ve been able to dig up about what your options are…

Upgrading to Windows 7

There are several ways to buy Windows 7, if you do want an upgrade. The best price you will find is through Microsoft’s Student Offer. If you live in the US, you can get an upgrade for $30, in Canada for $40. Considering that the Canadian Dollar was almost at parity with the US dollar when Win 7 was released, it seems pretty steep to charge an extra 30% just for being Canadian. Not that I’m bitter.

The thing to know about this offer is that you don’t get physical media. You don’t get a CD or a DVD. You just download a program which upgrades your existing installation. From what I read, it can’t be used to do a clean install (deleting everything off the hard drive and starting from scratch with a clean installation). It can only upgrade, which likely means you have to have Vista installed, since an upgrade from XP isn’t possible. It also means you’ll have to stay with 32-bit, and won’t be able to switch to 64-bit, because transitioning your computer requires a clean install.

If your computer crashes or you want to reinstall, you’ll have to reinstall your older version of Windows, and then run the upgrade program again, which may mean having to download it again. The only way you can download it over again is if you still have access to your student email. So, if you’re in your final year, make sure you don’t delete the upgrade program you download. If you lose your student email account on graduation, you may not be able to get access to the upgrade you paid for. This upgrade option is provided by a third-party vendor, you’re not buying directly from Microsoft.

I only know what I’ve read, but some people seem to be suggesting that each download will only install once, meaning that if you need to reinstall, you’ll have to re-download. I don’t know if that’s the case, but if it is, it means that if your computer ever crashes once you graduate and lose your email, you’ll be shopping for new software. $30-40 for the new Operating System is a really good deal, but buyer beware, there are some drawbacks. The offer expires at the end of 2009, so don’t wait too long if you want to take advantage of it.

The Family Pack

The second-least-expensive way to get Windows 7 is through the Family Pack. This gets you three installations of Windows 7 Home Premium for the same household. In Canada, you can find it for $180. In the US, $150. So, not quite so severe a ‘Canada Tax’. Not that I’m bitter.

If you have several Windows machines in your house, and they’re all fairly new, this might be a good option for you. In the US, that’s $50/machine, and in Canada, $60/machine.

Fortunately, Family Pack version of Windows 7 appears to come with both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the program available on the disc, so there’s no need to make a choice when you’re buying the software, you can choose the best option for each of your machines.

Running the 64-bit version if your hardware will handle it has one huge advantage: memory. 32-bit systems have a built in limitation of 4GB of RAM. 64-bit systems are capable of using much more RAM. Your motherboard will have a maximum amount of memory you can install, but even if your motherboard can handle 8 or 16 GB of RAM, if you’re running a 32-bit Operating System, you can’t install more than 4GB.

Some sources seem to be indicating that the Family Pack is a short term program that won’t be around too long. So, don’t wait too long if you want one.

Half Off with a New Machine

Several retailers are authorized to drop the price of an upgrade copy of Windows 7 to half price if you buy a new machine that comes with Windows 7 already installed. If you plan to continue using an older computer alongside your new computer, its often more convenient to have them both running the same system. This is yet another a limited time offer.

University Bookstore

If you’re a student, but want physical media, you can buy a copy of Windows Ultimate from your bookstore. I’m not sure what the prices are like in the US, but here in Canada, it will be around $99. This is the fancier version, which is normally much more expensive. Most people will be happy with the Home Premium version, however, so this probably only makes sense if you’re not in a position to share, you want to make sure you have physical media, or you really want the best possible version of Windows 7. Unlike the other student upgrade offer, this time you’re buying directly from Microsoft, not a third-party vendor.

One is the Loneliest Windows that You’ll Ever Buy

Finally, you have the option to just buy a single upgrade if you’re not a student. The single upgrade is about 2/3 the cost of the Family pack, though, so if you’re upgrading only two computers, the Family Pack is still more cost effective. Who knows, you might find some use for that third install at some point.

If you buy a single copy of Win 7 upgrade, make sure that you check whether it is 64-bit or 32-bit. You can test your machine before you go shopping by downloading the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor for free from www.microsoft.com.

If your computer will handle it, the 64-bit version will allow you to install more memory and run 64-bit programs, which should be much more common in the coming years. 32-bit machines are going to get very rare because the default amount of memory included in a new machine right now is 4GB, and if you aren’t running 64-bit, some of that memory gets wasted. As machines offering 6 or 8 GB of memory become more and more common, 32-bit machines are going to start to look second-rate really quick.

So, this is really exciting news…eventually. USB 3.0 is sure to become the standard way to connect stuff to your computer in 2010, and some devices may leak out in time for Christmas 2009. Windows 7 will not initially support USB 3.0 because the standard got finalized too late, but you can be sure that both Mac and PC computers will jump on this bandwagon along with the rest of the tech world.

What’s New?

What are the advantages of the new plug? First of all, it’s fast. USB 2.0 was 20 times faster than the original USB 1.1 specification at 0.48 Gbps and the new specification will be 5.0 Gbps, another 10 times faster. The fastest way to get information in and out of your computer right now is eSATA at 3.0 Gbps. But, eSATA is still rather rare, and probably will be ignored once USB 3.0 becomes commonplace.

Second, USB 3.0 is more powerful and more power efficient. USB can both power a device and allow it to communicate with a computer, as long as the device doesn’t require too much power. The new specification allows for more power to more devices and at the same time is able to tell which devices require power and only supply power to those devices, saving electricity.

Third, USB 3.0 is backward compatible. Just like USB 2.0 connections still worked with USB 1.1 connections, you will still be able to plug all your old devices into your new USB 3.0 slot on your computer.

The Long Wait Begins

Computers and devices with USB 3.0 could start appearing at any time, now that the specification is finished. You can bet that computer makers have been preparing and will do everything they can to ensure that they are first to market. It will, however, be a while before you can reliably assume that any decent computer will have USB 3.0 like you can with USB 2.0.

Look For Deals

Six months from now, everything that doesn’t have USB 3.0 stamped on it is going to look old and tired. From now until then, manufacturers are going to be eager to clear out old inventory to make room for the new and snazzy. Computer makers who have prepared well for the shift will be able to transition smoothly to the new standards, but those who weren’t paying enough attention may be stuck with old inventory that suddenly isn’t moving at the old prices.

There are likely to be some good deals in the near future for those who are paying attention. Keep your eyes open, and you may score big if you can deal with not having the latest and greatest.

I’m writing from recent, personal experience in this post. I’m hoping that my advice will be preventive for you. I was getting myself a drink of water and I set it down next to my laptop, then managed to jiggle the cup and lost about half a cup of water directly onto my laptop keyboard. Most of the water stayed on the keyboard, but a little seeped through to the hardware underneath, causing to laptop to spontaneously shut down. Not a good sign.

How much is too much?

Spilling a mouthful of water onto your laptop generally isn’t too much of a big deal. The keyboard on a typical laptop is generally a tray that is water-tight and can take minor spills. The problem is when the quantity of water that is spilled onto the keyboard is so great that it runs over the side of the keyboard tray and gets underneath. Dribbling a little water on your laptop isn’t a big deal, it’s when you get a slosh that’s more than about a quarter of a cup that things start to get hairy. That’s when you join the Brotherhood of the Bedraggled Laptop (sisters welcome too).

First Steps

The first thing to be done is to unplug the laptop as quickly as possible and turn it over as smoothly and quickly as possible and remove the battery. You’re fighting gravity here, and seconds count. Unfortunately, my laptop shut itself down within three seconds, which was too fast for me to do anything about it. The goal is to get the laptop turned over fast enough that the water stops seeping downward and reverses course, at which point gravity becomes your friend, not your tormenter. It is important not to shake the laptop back and forth. One might assume that this dislodges water, but really all you are doing is spreading the water over more internal components.

Once the laptop is opened up flat, with the keyboard and screen face down and the power plug and battery pulled, move it somewhere it can dry out like a towel or a bed. Something that will help soak up the water.

Give It Time

Once you’ve performed the laptop first aid described above, it’s time to get some tools together. You’ll want to pull the hard drive out and inspect it for water, and this usually involves a Philips #1 screwdriver. Fortunately for me, my HD came out unscathed and none of my data was lost. You’re going to want to undo all of the screws that hold panels onto the bottom of your laptop, open it up and look for signs of water. Also, this will help air it out. Leave the laptop as dissassembled as you can manage to let it breathe. The harsh reality is that you should leave your computer like this for a week. Yes, I said a week. A major spill is a serious situation and you want to allow the computer to fully dry out before attempting to start it up again.

Recover Your Data

If you aren’t tech saavy, you may need help for this next step. You’ll want to find a way to check your hard drive. This may mean installing it in another computer. Another option is to buy a device which will allow you to hook up your hard drive to another computer via USB. This can either be an enclosure, which turns an internal device into an external device. Or, it could be just a cable that attaches to your hard drive. The cables are usually about half the price of the full enclosure, but your laptop may be out of commission permanently, and if you need your data to be portable to survive a while without your trusty computer by begging computer time from friends, an enclosure may be a good investment.

Pick up the Pieces

Once you’ve allowed a week for your laptop to fully dry out, put the pieces back together and see if it starts up. If nothing has been seriously damaged by shorting out, it may start up OK. Laptops do sometimes survive a dousing, but damage can happen to a laptop in two ways in this situation. If water hits a critical component while electricity is flowing through it, that can cause the component to short out, which is very bad.

The second way that an internal component can be damaged is if the internal components get corroded. Essentially, the components rust. Even a small amount of water can start this process, and once it starts it just gets worse. The tough part about this is that it doesn’t cause obvious damage, it just causes the computer to start to behave unusually as electricity starts to have a hard time getting to where it’s supposed to go. So, once your computer successfully restarts, keep an eye on it. If you’re very, very lucky you might suffer no ill effects from your misadventure.

Replacing Parts

The most likely part of your laptop to suffer damage in this situation is the motherboard. The motherboard is the large part that everything else plugs into. It’s like the frame of a car. It is a flat piece of silicon that sits internally just a little smaller than the width and depth of the laptop. The reason why it most easily gets damaged is that it’s everywhere inside the computer. If your computer starts up alright, but then starts acting funny, take it to a repair shop and have them open it up. With luck, they’ll be able to see where the water got in, assess the damage, and find you a replacement motherboard. If you’re unlucky, it won’t be obvious where the water was or else the cost of a motherboard replacement will be too large a portion of what the laptop cost in the first place.

The Bottom Line

Spilling water on your laptop is a bad idea. Desktops are less of an issue, because they usually are better protected from spills by their cases and the fact that they don’t lay like a sun-basking cat directly beside where you like to place your drink.

Be careful. If you do spill water, act quickly and use common sense to pull the plug and use gravity to reverse the water that’s seeping toward your motherboard, then dry the computer out.

Ruggedized Laptops

Some computer makers provide a line of Rugged laptops. a Ruggedized laptop usually is sealed against spills, has a stronger outer shell, and a shock-mounted hard drive that’s less likely to get damaged in a fall. For those of us who have been through the horrors of a water spill, that sort of thing starts to make a lot of sense.

Last Time, Our Blu Hero was…

Last time I made some predictions about the future of Blu-ray, I set some specific targets I saw as the direction that Blu-ray needed to move,  in order to enjoy some success. I said that if there was a $5 difference in the price of media and a $50 difference in the price of players, then it would be a no-brainer for the typical consumer to pay a little more for a jump in quality. I didn’t think people would pay double for better quality, though, which was where we were when I made that prediction. And yet the times, they are a-changin’.

Recently, I was at a store. I won’t say which one, but it rhymes with Bostco. This store often has high-end merchandise, but only high-end merchandise for which there is strong demand. This store doesn’t go in for fads on things like movies, it waits until there is an established market. Blu-rays have been on the market for years, but this store didn’t until very recently sell movies on Blu-ray, although they have sold the players for several years. This store typically sells DVDs of older movies for $10-$12. When I saw that they had Blu-ray versions of some movies for $15, I knew that the price barrier had finally been broken and things were looking up for Blu-ray.

While media is adopting appropriate mass-consumer pricing, its still hard to find a Blu-ray player at a reasonable price. Players can be found for as little as $199, but that’s still a hefty premium over a bottom-of-the-barrel DVD player, as those start at around $50. Blu-ray Players still need to drop another $50-100. If they hit $100 by Christmas, almost everyone will find one under the tree, and Sony’s gambles will have paid off. It’s been a rough road, Blu-ray, but I think you’re gonna make it after all.

Scanners are used to transfer hardcopy onto your computer. Whether it’s a photo or a document, a scanner uses a bright light and a sensor to collect an image from a flat surface. Before digital photography became the standard, scanners were the best way to get an image onto a computer. Now that digital photography has almost completely elminated the old film style of photography, it can be hard to find a scanner if you just want to scan documents. They are still available, but the selection has largely dried up unless you go to a specialty store. Most computer stores will only stock one or two low-end models.

Quality

One of the most important questions you want to ask is about the quality of the scans. The detail that a scanner is able to produce is measured in DPI, or Dots Per Inch. Just like your printer can produce more detailed documents if it has a higher DPI rating, a scanner can produce more detailed scans if it has a higher DPI.

Most scanners will list an Optical DPI and an Interpolated DPI. The first number is what the physical mechanism is able to detect. The Interpolated DPI means that the software that comes with the scanner can make the image quality even better than what the scanner can do naturally by making some educated guesses. It predicts what dots should fall between the dots it actually sees, and makes the image a little bit better.

All-in-One Printers

As standalone scanners began to become less popular and thus less expensive, printer manufacturers saw a golden opportunity. By integrating a scanner into a printer, suddenly you can fax, scan and photocopy as well as print. Initially this was used as a way to cram more features into high-end printers to make them more attractive. Lately, though, you can find All-in-Ones (also known as MFPs, or Multi-Function Printers) at lower costs than some standalone scanners. This is due to the printer-makers’ tactic of selling inkjet printers for rock-bottom prices to get you hooked on their ink.

So, the best option for a document scanner may be an All-in-One printer. Not only does it have a scanner, but almost all of these units include a sheet-feed mechanism. This means that you’ll be able to plop a multi-page document into the sheet feed, and let your computer churn away converting the entire document into text while you’re off enjoying a refreshing beverage reading a book on the sofa. Beats typing it out by hand.

OCR Software

Once you have a scanner to be able to convert your document into a computer image, you also need software which will turn the computer image into a text document. A good OCR program will do this all in one step, converting as the document scans.

Be sure when you’re buying a scanner or an All-in-One printer that it comes with OCR software (Optical Character Recognition). Virtually every standalone scanner somes with a trial or ‘lite’ version of one of the major OCR packages which will be fine for occasional use. Not all printers that include scanning functions will come with OCR software, though, so be sure that the printer you buy includes the software or you’ll have to buy it separately. You may want to do that, but better to try the free one first and see if it fits your needs.

If you plan on converting documents regularly, you may want to spend money on the full version of an OCR program. These run around $200, which isn’t cheap, but if you consider that one of these programs can turn a 20-page document into text for you in less than 5 minutes, you’ll save time and money in the long run. How many hours would it take you to type out 20 pages? How much would you have to pay someone to do it for you?

Let’s say you needed to re-type five 20-page documents, that would probably take you 12-15 hours of typing. Unless you can find a typist who is 99% accurate for $10 an hour, $200 starts to seem like a wise expenditure.

What is refurb?

There are a number of reasons why a machine might be marked refurbished. It might be that the item was returned to the store and sent back to the factory. As someone who worked on a return desk, I could tell lots of stories about items that were returned for no reason, or at least no good reason. If the factory determines that nothing is wrong with the item or that the problem can be easily corrected, then they will simply repackage the item and ship it back out as a refurb.

Sometimes an item is marked refurbished because it was damaged in shipping or while on the sales floor, and the damage is only cosmetic. A product can also be sold as refurbished because it was a demonstration unit. Clearance merchandise that hasn’t been sold or damaged can sometimes be marked as refurbished as well.

Whatever the reason it was marked down, refurbished equipment can be a good buy. It helps stores and manufacturers recover the cost of returned items and it can mean a great deal for you.

What you need to watch out for

Most stores have a different return policy for refurbished items. The return may be exchange-only, the window of time for returns may be shorter, or the item may not be returnable at all. Be sure you understand how the store handles refurbished returns and how they may differ from the store’s normal return policy.

Sometimes a store will sell refurbished equipment alongside the new stuff. This is an excellent opportunity to compare prices and return policies. For example, an MP3 player that would normally be $100 with a one month return policy compared with a refurb for $30 and an exchange-only return allowed for one week. Clearly the price is right, and if you aren’t picky, then this might be a fairly obvious choice. But, if you buy the unit and realize later that it doesn’t have a function you consider crucial or it doesn’t perform as you want it to, you might regret spending your $30 on something you’re not happy with.

Buying refurb makes sense when:

1. You’re sure about what you want and know that this model is the right one
2. There’s a deep discount in the price
3. You are comfortable with the return or exchange time frame
4. You don’t care about imperfections or cosmetic damage
5. You’re comfortable with the store’s reputation
6. They have several refurb items in stock, allowing you to choose the best of what’s available

I have purchased many refurbished items over the years. I tend to buy refurbished for items that I want but don’t need. When I’m buying something that I really rely on or a product that I don’t know much about, I tend to opt for new unless the discount is really deep.

The store you’re shopping at also makes a difference. If it’s a store that I shop at regularly, I’m more likely to trust the items they put on refurb. Putting an item on refurb is a judgement call on behalf of the store, and you want to make sure you’re shopping at a place where they exercise good judgement. A store with nothing to lose in terms of their reputation has no incentive to avoid unloading their junk on you.

There have been a few times that I’ve bought a refurbished product that I was unhappy with, but the same could be said of my new purchases as well. It can be easy to blame my dissatisfaction on the fact that the item is refurb, when it just might be that I got suckered by clever marketing on a substandard product.

Buying refurb doesn’t always make sense, but there are times when the deal is too good to walk away.

TV Channel Websites

Many television channels now have websites which distribute television programs over the Internet. Miss a show? Want to catch up before the next episode airs? Check out the channel’s website and you may be able to find the show you missed. The video players used tend to be somewhat clunky and not a very good experience. They’re usable, but only on your computer, not your TV. It’s funny, because these companies are flirting with distributing via the web, but it doesn’t seem like they want to make it so good and so convenient that it detracts from traditional television watching.

The real area where television is getting TV online right is talent reality TV shows. These TV shows are getting very proactive about putting their own content on Youtube. They’ve realized the value of letting anyone get access an entertaining clip from the previous night’s show of a dance, song or stupid pet trick. If someone who watched the show points out that clip to a friend who missed it, the friend who missed it is more likely to watch the show next week. For these televised talent shows which have very short runs to build an audience, free online content is an excellent way to build buzz and sustain interest between their runs.

Subscription Services

Subscription services began by offering DVDs sent through the mail. Pay a monthly fee, and set up a list of movies you want to watch. They mail you a few DVDs. You watch them, and mail them back. As soon as they receive the old one back, they send out a new one. It is an interesting model that challenged the traditional store movie rental paradigm.

Still, if you want to watch a particular movie tonight, a mail-based service doesn’t help so much. The obvious next step would be to offer the same monthly-subscription service, but instead of mailing out DVDs and receiving them back, just deliver the content over the Internet. No waiting, no hassle. It’s even more convenient than the store rental model, as long as you’re willing to watch content on a computer, not a TV. The ideal would be to be able to watch content from the Internet right on your TV. To make that happen for the non-technically inclined, you need some sort of device to gather the content and present it on your TV with all the ease and comfort of your cable service. We call that sort of device a ’set top box’.

Set Top Box

Devices to make it easier to play content on your TV are becoming common. Starting below three figures, these devices collect video off the Internet and format it properly for your TV. Some of these device-makers have arrangements with subscription services to provide content. So, these inexpensive  convenient devices allow you to watch what you want when you want it without hassle or delay on your TV.

Internet Enabled TVs

Some new TVs that are coming out skip the set top box and build the functionality to pull video off the Internet right into the TV itself. These are TVs that can surf the web and play video content from subscription service providers.

I would be hesitant to jump into one of these TVs with Internet built in too early over concerns about upgradability. The advantage of sticking with a set-top box for now is that if the technology changes or advances, you can just buy a new box and you’ve only wasted the $100 it cost to buy the box. Buying a whole TV that includes a service that becomes obsolete becomes a very expensive proposition. Not that I’m expecting these services to fail necessarily. I would only recommend these devices for early-adopters who need the latest and greatest and can afford to gamble with such a large purchase.

Memory in a Flash

Flash memory is very useful stuff. It holds the pictures, songs and videos in your camera or portable device. It stores your files on your thumb drive. The best part is, it’s non-volatile, which means it doesn’t need a constant flow of electricity like the RAM in your computer. There are dozens of varieties of flash memory, and I’m not going to describe each of them here, I’m just going to focus on the three most popular.

SD

SD memory, created by memory manufacturer SanDisk, is probably the most common form of flash memory available. The initials stand for Secure Digital, not SanDisk, though. It’s inexpensive, it’s widely available, and it comes in several sizes, including mini and micro, which are more compact forms that fit well into smaller devices like cell phones, which are constantly looking for ways to reduce size.

The original specification for SD cards only worked up to sizes of 2GB. A whole new specification called SDHC, the HC standing for High Capacity expands the amount of memory that SD cards can hold beyond 2GB. Devices created before the new specification was finalized will not be able to use the newer cards. So, be sure your device has SDHC stamped on it, not just SD before you buy a card bigger than 2GB, or you may be disappointed. However, the specification has been in place for several years, so devices that won’t handle the new stuff are getting more and more rare.

Compact Flash

Compact Flash is generally limited to high-end Digital SLR cameras. You don’t find it elsewhere very often. Compact Flash is much larger and heavier in physical size, but it has a significant advantage over SD in speed and capacity, which is why it is popular among high-end camera manufacturers. Just like SD is coming out with new specifications to allow for more memory and speed, CF is also developing new specifications which will allow for better performance. So, it’s important to know what revision number (1.0, 2.0, etc) your camera will handle so you don’t wind up buying a card that won’t work with your camera.

Memory Stick

Sony really likes to be original. They usually wind up doing their own thing and no one else joins in. Memory Stick is a format that only works with Sony devices. It’s the only other format that has any real traction in the marketplace, but no one else seems to be interested in using it. It has gone through several revisions from MS to MS Pro, which offer higher capacity, better speed and smaller size, just like SD and CF.

Shopping around

Finding the right memory for your camera isn’t that hard unless you’re buying memory for old equipment. If your camera is more than 2 years old and you’re buying the largest capacity card you can find, it’s generally a good idea to pull out the manual for your device and compare the specifications it will take with what you’re buying. Either that, or make sure you understand the store’s return policy.

What type of Battery?

The first thing to consider in selecting a battery is the material it is made of. NiCd (Nickle Cadmium) is an old style of battery, which is very difficult to find these days because it has been replaced by lighter and more efficient alternatives. NiMH (Nickle Metal-Hydride) is also very rare for the same reason. Most laptop batteries today are made from Lithium, because they are lighter and last longer. Lithium Ion is what most laptops use, while Lithium Polymer is gaining in popularity. For the most part, laptop battery makers switch very quickly to the latest materials available, so you probably couldn’t find a battery included in a laptop that itsn’t Lithium right now.

How much power does it hold?

Laptop batteries are composed of several smaller batteries called ‘cells’. The more cells, the more powerful the battery will be and the longer it will last. But, the number of cells doesn’t tell you how large each cell is. For a better measure of how much power a particular battery will hold, look for ‘amp-hours’ (Ah) or ‘milliamp-hours’ (mAh). These two numbers are the same rating, but one is measured a thousand times more precisely, like meters and kilometers. It’s hard to give ranges for what’s good, but an inexpensive battery often starts at around 2000 mAh, a decent battery is going to be around 4000 and an excellent battery is going to be 6000 or more.

How long will it actually last?

That’s a tough question to answer, because there are many factors which affect the performance of a battery in a given laptop. The basic idea of the mAh rating system is to provide an indication of how many hours a battery should last. So, a 2000 mAh battery should last 2 hours on a typical laptop under typical usage. A 6000 mAh battery should last for six. But, there are a lot of ways efficiency can be improved or reduced.

Construction and Components

A laptop that is put together efficiently, which has solid connections and well organized components will use less battery than a laptop that is put together sloppily. A laptop that uses high quality components will often perform better. Also, how much hardware is included in a laptop can make a big difference in how well it performs. A laptop that has 2 GB of RAM will use less power than a laptop running 4 GB. Right now there is debate over whether a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive which has no moving parts gets better battery life. A 17″ monitor built into a laptop is going to use way more power than a 14″ screen. If battery life is more important to you than raw processing power, consider buying less machine or upgrading to more efficient components when selecting your laptop.

Operating System

The operating system, such as Windows or Linux, is constantly making decisions about how to allocate power. Do I shut down the monitor because the computer hasn’t been used in a few minutes? Do I shut down the hard drive? Does the DVD drive need to be spinning right now? There are many ways in which an operating system can be designed to recognize how a user operates and how a machine performs and to coordinate the machine’s use of power to best suit the user’s pattern. Take some time to fiddle with the power settings on your computer, and you could eke out a few more precious minutes from your battery.

Usage

How you use a computer affects how long the battery will last. If you are writing a document, or watching a movie or playing a video game, each of those activities will use a different amount of battery. If the computer has to be constantly accessing the hard drive or keeping the DVD drive spinning, then it’s going to use more power. Dimming the brightness of the screen can also make a big difference. Putting your computer to sleep when you know you won’t be using it for a few minutes will preserve the battery.