It is a bargain, but be careful on the cashback. I was looking at these yesterday as it happens and the form on HP's website says that it must be invoiced and delivered by 30th April (ie. Today!) They may extend it though as it's been running for ages now.
"Well my 2 yr old son managed to buy £100 worth of MS points on the Xbox whilst I was in the kitchen. "
Think yourself lucky - I work with a guy whose two year old son bought him a £4000 shed from Ebay in much the same way. Fortunately the seller was sympathetic.
I agree. I don't know if it's down to cost of licensing the Airplay tech from Apple, or because Apple has some kind of minimum spec written into the licensing agreement to maintain quality, but there must be a gap in the market for cheaper systems (<£100). I just want something to stream iTunes to while I'm washing up, sitting in the garden, etc., but don't want the hassle of an Airport Express and separate speakers.
As an aside I think it's ludicrous that Apple don't allow an iPhone/iPod Touch to function as an airplay receiver, but I can download an app to do exactly that with my Missus' Motorola Xoom.
If this would hold 3G SIM as well and allow you to swap between being an ethernet connected router/mi-fi device I'd be searching for my credit card right now. Given it doesn't is it any different from a normal wireless access point?
Two things that you can guarantee in the comments for every single piece of kit that Apple announce:
"£nnn! For that price I could buy [insert name of generic Chinese ebay purchase] with the same spec and buy [insert name of generic Chinese ebay purchase] with the change"
and
"[Daily Mail Mode]$nnn x exchange rate = £nnn x 1.2 - another example of rip-off Britain![/Daily Mail Mode]"
As AC points out (12:22), touchscreen controls are downright dangerous. The big advantage of physical controls is that you develop the muscle memory for where the regularly used stuff is and can therefore do things like adjust the heating, turn on the hazards, etc without looking away from the wheel. You can't do this with a touch screen because your fingers get no point of reference. This reeks of style over usability.
Big LCD display instead of the usual dials probably isn't so bad assuming that the reflections are managed. Probably saves costs as well.
Based on the state of ITV's accounts these day Apple could probably buy them for the price of a grand skinny frapumochacino, use the name and dump the rest in a skip.
No thanks RIM. Although it's slightly cheaper than the Xoom that I scored from Dixons for the missus on Monday (£249 for 32GB thanks to El' Reg!), with the Xoom, half an hour after turning it on I had Netflix and the Kindle reader both installed for our viewing and reading pleasure, GMail fully syncing and new emails showing in the desktop widget and AirBubble installed to stream the living room PC's iTunes to it as an Airplay device. Alright, so the equivalent PB is £50 cheaper, but the Xoom is Ice Cream Sarnie ready and I can't do any of the above with a Playbook without thhe much fabled new OS and its bizarre Android transalation tools unless I'm mistaken.
The fact that they've kept Balsillie and Lazaridis on the board and the new CEO used to be the COO reeks of rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship to me.
"the major brands lose money on the sets they sell."
Excuse me for probably being dumb, but how does this work commercially? I can see how it works with a games console, where you make the loss back through media sales, but how does this work for TV's?
Regardless of anything else, which genius at the marketing company managed to get "Celebs suddenly develop a modicum of intelligence, but eat one of your bars and immediately turn back into a dribbling, ignorant cretin" past the customer?
"Also, if her grasp of spoken English is not so good, why is she teaching psychology in the UK?"
Or indeed serving on the jury in the first place. If she was being truthful there then you'd have to wonder how she'd grasp the subtleties of the case if she couldn't grasp the subtleties of 'Don't look them up on the web'.
What he said. Another lost sale here. Coincidentally I was looking at SSD's on EBuyer the night before last and they'd got OCZ on offer. They had decent reviews, so I was on the brink of purchasing. Definitely not now though. Can anyone recommend a good, high-speed small (60GB ish) drive to use as a boot drive in a MacBook Pro?
" even National Express coaches have wall-sockets now, so there's nothing holding you back from hardcore gaming on the move"
Not sure what they're rated to though. You may well find that plugging a console and screen into the sockets on trains or buses would result in nothing more than a loud fizzling noise as the sockets burn out, followed by a good hiding from fellow passengers.
I'm conflicted now - I don't know whether your post is a clever parody (in which case nice work!) or you've genuinely strayed in from the Daily Mail comments section by mistake. Given the content, lack of punctuation and poor grasp of capitalisation either is possible, but regardless your post was most entertaining.
I hope they've improved the cooling as well. I moved from a 17" dual core 2.66 GHz i7 to a 15" quad core 2.3Ghz i7 and the latter runs much much hotter. Hope the extra hike doesn't result in even more heat - I now get audible fan noise when just watching iPlayer whereas with my old 17" machine I could count on one hand the number of times I'd heard the fan. Looking at the Apple forums, I'm not the only one with this problem on the faster processors.
On the positive side, those Sandy Bridge CPU's are like the provebial fecal matter from a gardening implement. I've never seen the CPU usage go above about 15% in Ableton Live.
The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle and no chart acts are likely to change. Because heavy compression means that your song sounds louder anyone who bucks that trend to give more dynamic range is by definition going to sound quieter on the radio than their contemporaries. Quieter means fewer sales. Not a chart band, but Iggy's Raw Power remaster that was released a few years ago was notorious for this - everything was clipped and unlistenable.
Can't see the attachment from work, so apologies if I'm repeating what's posted.
After months of procrastinating I've finally taken the plunge and taken delivery this morning of exactly the same machine to use as a music laptop. I actually paid £1550 including delivery on ebay from a UK supplier and, other than coming with a US power supply and the £ key being a # key there's no discernable difference. I agree with what others have said about the learning curve when moving from a PC, but I'd expected that. Even so, I'm getting up to speed pretty quickly as it's all fairly intuitive once you learn the basics. Price wise, I think it's pretty reasonable, especially for the 500 quid off list that I've paid and, aesthetically it's streets ahead of any PC laptop I've ever used. Oh, and the multi-touch trackpad is a work of genius!
Ironically the thing that put me off for so long was the holier than thou nature of a lot of the Mac fans. It's not the panacea that some people make out, but it is a very nice machine indeed.
Register
29 posts • joined Friday 5th November 2010 00:17 GMT
Re: I went down the DIY route
It is a bargain, but be careful on the cashback. I was looking at these yesterday as it happens and the form on HP's website says that it must be invoiced and delivered by 30th April (ie. Today!) They may extend it though as it's been running for ages now.
It's quite a nifty idea, but sadly I think you're right. It just looks too much like a Macbook Pro.
Re: Point?
I agree. Hangouts is an excellent service. The screen sharing an collaboration tools have a couple of niggles, but overall are top notch.
Re: XBLA
"Well my 2 yr old son managed to buy £100 worth of MS points on the Xbox whilst I was in the kitchen. "
Think yourself lucky - I work with a guy whose two year old son bought him a £4000 shed from Ebay in much the same way. Fortunately the seller was sympathetic.
Never mind the review. The sub-title deserves a prize.
Re: How much?
I agree. I don't know if it's down to cost of licensing the Airplay tech from Apple, or because Apple has some kind of minimum spec written into the licensing agreement to maintain quality, but there must be a gap in the market for cheaper systems (<£100). I just want something to stream iTunes to while I'm washing up, sitting in the garden, etc., but don't want the hassle of an Airport Express and separate speakers.
As an aside I think it's ludicrous that Apple don't allow an iPhone/iPod Touch to function as an airplay receiver, but I can download an app to do exactly that with my Missus' Motorola Xoom.
If this would hold 3G SIM as well and allow you to swap between being an ethernet connected router/mi-fi device I'd be searching for my credit card right now. Given it doesn't is it any different from a normal wireless access point?
Change the record people
Two things that you can guarantee in the comments for every single piece of kit that Apple announce:
"£nnn! For that price I could buy [insert name of generic Chinese ebay purchase] with the same spec and buy [insert name of generic Chinese ebay purchase] with the change"
and
"[Daily Mail Mode]$nnn x exchange rate = £nnn x 1.2 - another example of rip-off Britain![/Daily Mail Mode]"
"Busted flush?"
:-) Sub-heading of the month!
Display good, controls v. v. bad
As AC points out (12:22), touchscreen controls are downright dangerous. The big advantage of physical controls is that you develop the muscle memory for where the regularly used stuff is and can therefore do things like adjust the heating, turn on the hazards, etc without looking away from the wheel. You can't do this with a touch screen because your fingers get no point of reference. This reeks of style over usability.
Big LCD display instead of the usual dials probably isn't so bad assuming that the reflections are managed. Probably saves costs as well.
"Wouldnt ITV have something to say about that?"
Based on the state of ITV's accounts these day Apple could probably buy them for the price of a grand skinny frapumochacino, use the name and dump the rest in a skip.
@Toastan Buttar
Bravo sir! I doff my tifter to you.
Why?
Given most in-ear earphone are shaped to the ear anyway then isn't this just an inovation looking for an application?
@Awwwww
Steve! Welcome back - everyone told us you were dead!
Meh
No thanks RIM. Although it's slightly cheaper than the Xoom that I scored from Dixons for the missus on Monday (£249 for 32GB thanks to El' Reg!), with the Xoom, half an hour after turning it on I had Netflix and the Kindle reader both installed for our viewing and reading pleasure, GMail fully syncing and new emails showing in the desktop widget and AirBubble installed to stream the living room PC's iTunes to it as an Airplay device. Alright, so the equivalent PB is £50 cheaper, but the Xoom is Ice Cream Sarnie ready and I can't do any of the above with a Playbook without thhe much fabled new OS and its bizarre Android transalation tools unless I'm mistaken.
The fact that they've kept Balsillie and Lazaridis on the board and the new CEO used to be the COO reeks of rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship to me.
Loss on each set
"the major brands lose money on the sets they sell."
Excuse me for probably being dumb, but how does this work commercially? I can see how it works with a games console, where you make the loss back through media sales, but how does this work for TV's?
Was this paid for by Cadbury?
Regardless of anything else, which genius at the marketing company managed to get "Celebs suddenly develop a modicum of intelligence, but eat one of your bars and immediately turn back into a dribbling, ignorant cretin" past the customer?
Snickers apparently makes you:
* Lose any economic savvy (Jordan);
* Lose any love of literature (Cher Lloyd);
* Lose any desire to play music (Botham).
Where do I sign up?!?!
@She was told
"Also, if her grasp of spoken English is not so good, why is she teaching psychology in the UK?"
Or indeed serving on the jury in the first place. If she was being truthful there then you'd have to wonder how she'd grasp the subtleties of the case if she couldn't grasp the subtleties of 'Don't look them up on the web'.
@Translation
What he said. Another lost sale here. Coincidentally I was looking at SSD's on EBuyer the night before last and they'd got OCZ on offer. They had decent reviews, so I was on the brink of purchasing. Definitely not now though. Can anyone recommend a good, high-speed small (60GB ish) drive to use as a boot drive in a MacBook Pro?
" even National Express coaches have wall-sockets now, so there's nothing holding you back from hardcore gaming on the move"
Not sure what they're rated to though. You may well find that plugging a console and screen into the sockets on trains or buses would result in nothing more than a loud fizzling noise as the sockets burn out, followed by a good hiding from fellow passengers.
@DEAD4EVER Re: mw3 controversial
I'm conflicted now - I don't know whether your post is a clever parody (in which case nice work!) or you've genuinely strayed in from the Daily Mail comments section by mistake. Given the content, lack of punctuation and poor grasp of capitalisation either is possible, but regardless your post was most entertaining.
My word that's ugly!
(Most amusing byline on the article though!)
Cooling?
I hope they've improved the cooling as well. I moved from a 17" dual core 2.66 GHz i7 to a 15" quad core 2.3Ghz i7 and the latter runs much much hotter. Hope the extra hike doesn't result in even more heat - I now get audible fan noise when just watching iPlayer whereas with my old 17" machine I could count on one hand the number of times I'd heard the fan. Looking at the Apple forums, I'm not the only one with this problem on the faster processors.
On the positive side, those Sandy Bridge CPU's are like the provebial fecal matter from a gardening implement. I've never seen the CPU usage go above about 15% in Ableton Live.
I'd love to see the way the questions were phrased. As you've mentioned in the article the results seem fanciful in the extreme.
Self fulfilling prophesy
The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle and no chart acts are likely to change. Because heavy compression means that your song sounds louder anyone who bucks that trend to give more dynamic range is by definition going to sound quieter on the radio than their contemporaries. Quieter means fewer sales. Not a chart band, but Iggy's Raw Power remaster that was released a few years ago was notorious for this - everything was clipped and unlistenable.
Can't see the attachment from work, so apologies if I'm repeating what's posted.
2.15"
2.15" iMac - to quote my dear old dad: try using that for very long and "you'd have eyes like a piss-house rat."
LG
"Aside from that, I'm sure a manufacturer of cheap shit disc drives won't keep this up for long. Or perhaps they've had a little help from someone."
Not that they're one of the world's biggest conglomerates or anything? I don't think they'll need to have a whip-round any time soon.
Just taken the plunge
After months of procrastinating I've finally taken the plunge and taken delivery this morning of exactly the same machine to use as a music laptop. I actually paid £1550 including delivery on ebay from a UK supplier and, other than coming with a US power supply and the £ key being a # key there's no discernable difference. I agree with what others have said about the learning curve when moving from a PC, but I'd expected that. Even so, I'm getting up to speed pretty quickly as it's all fairly intuitive once you learn the basics. Price wise, I think it's pretty reasonable, especially for the 500 quid off list that I've paid and, aesthetically it's streets ahead of any PC laptop I've ever used. Oh, and the multi-touch trackpad is a work of genius!
Ironically the thing that put me off for so long was the holier than thou nature of a lot of the Mac fans. It's not the panacea that some people make out, but it is a very nice machine indeed.