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October 7, 2003 |
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Palm's new handhelds gave readers sweaty palms this week, especially the new business-minded Tungsten T3. Plus, you were tuning in for news on Musicmatch's new online service and the latest goods on the hottest new ATI graphics card. |
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Tungsten T3
Last week's unveiling of Palm's three new handhelds got enormous attention from readers, especially Palm's top-of-the-line new PDA, the Tungsten T3. No, this handheld isn't Palm's tribute to Schwarzenegger (neither was its predecessor, the T2); instead it's a PDA for the business masses, complete with a massive screen, a fast processor, Bluetooth wireless, and compatibility with Microsoft Office files. But we were disappointed that Palm didn't throw in Wi-Fi or a keyboard for good measure. Regardless, the heavy pro set led us to give the T3 an Editors' Choice award. The other two releases, the Tungsten E and the Zire 21, were less dazzling. The E packs in a nice screen and a good multimedia bundle for its sub-$200 price, but it lacks a built-in camera, a keyboard, or any kind of wireless, which would have made us happier. Finally, there's the bare-bones Zire 21, which delivers more memory and a faster processor than the original Zire but is still good for only the most basic needs--even at just $99. |
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Musicmatch
You may know Musicmatch as a preferred digital music player, but get ready for Musicmatch the online music service. A couple of weeks back, Musicmatch, along with Dell, joined the ranks of Apple's iTunes and BuyMusic.com, offering a service with access to songs from the five major labels and more than 30 independents. Musicmatch plans to make 500,000 songs available by the end of the year, with prices ranging from 99 cents per song to $9.99 for most albums. The real bonus of Musicmatch is its liberal use policy: customers can play tracks on up to three PCs simultaneously, transfer them to Windows Media-supported music players, and burn them to CDs (but no more than five times). What's Dell's role? Like Samsung's in its deal with Roxio's new Napster, meaning Dell's upcoming MP3 player will probably have some exclusive features when working with Musicmatch's service. After all of these services and products come out by the holidays, it will be interesting to see who is left standing. Luckily, it looks more and more like we the customers will be the winners in this competition. |
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Graphics cards
Did you forget about the graphics-card wars? We haven't, because the major players--Nvidia and ATI--just never seem to stop innovating and releasing new cards. In the ongoing struggle to keep fickle, demanding performance PC users happy, ATI two weeks ago unveiled its next bid for the top performance graphics-card spot, the ATI Radeon 9800 XT. While we haven't gotten a chance to run this latest card through our benchmarks, its specs tell us it could be the fastest card on the market right now. According to our editors' First Take, "it has 256MB of graphics memory running at 730MHz and a core engine speed of 412MHz." The $499 price doesn't sound quite so hot. But ATI's partnership with the makers of the highly anticipated game Half Life 2 may give it an edge. We'll have a full review in the coming weeks, plus we'll keep our eye on Nvidia's next move to see if these wars continue to heat up. |
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Media Center
Microsoft's first try at a Media Center OS did not impress our editors, so we kept our expectations low for the software giant's update, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004. But we were pleasantly surprised to find that Microsoft addressed many of the issues we had with the first version, namely, better image quality and better stability. But we still have qualms about some issues, such as the lack of support for two TV tuners and a better way to share Media Center content with other networked devices in the home. However, the improvements seem to have lured in some bigger, cooler players with non-beige-box PCs on the hardware side, including a slick, slim Media Center box from Dell and a compact, all-in-one PC from Gateway. There's also a Media Center PC expected from Sony. We'll be adding reviews of more Media Center PCs in the coming months, but until then, check out the five we've already evaluated, plus three new notebooks from HP and Toshiba. |
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HistoryKill
Over the last year that I've been monitoring the interests of our readers, I've seen a trend in the number of you looking to cover your electronic tracks. Some of you may be motivated to keep your naughty behavior under wraps, but most of you are simply worried about your privacy. This week's most creatively named download is HistoryKill, which does exactly what its colorful name implies: it wipes out any trace of your digital past from your computer. This app deletes your Web history, cookies, temporary Internet files, browser entries, and index.dat files automatically after you close your Web browser. Plus, for those of you trying to hide your online activity at work, the creators even throw in a "boss key" that quickly hides your browser and IM windows--including pop-ups. |
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Unlimited long distance $24.99/mo
