TECHNOLOGY
Gadgets
High performing technology for
business that is on the run.
By Charles Boffard
HIGH FIVE
APPLE IPHONE 5
Price tbc apple.com/za
iPhone launches are hyped like the Oscars (we’re waiting for Blackberry to be called onstage
to collect a career-ending lifetime achievement award, then shuffle offstage into oblivion), but
what’s really different about the iPhone 5?
There’s the same Retina Display, enlarged to 4 inches/10.1cm, with a wider 16:9 ratio
that’s better for video and allows an extra row of icons. It’s thinner (7.6mm), lighter
and faster, with iOS6, RAM doubled to 1GHz and a faster new A6 chip. The new
textured surfaces and bevelled edges boost the iPhone’s executive feel by two
pay grades.
Some features are incrementally improved: Siri is smarter, with better local
search. The 8MP camera offers low-light and panorama modes. Battery life – where
we’d like to see a real improvement – is still claimed as eight hours 3G talk time, with 3G
browsing boosted from six to eight hours and standby time by 10%.
In short, what the iPhone 4S did well, the iPhone 5 does better. It’s the best iPhone yet.
PS: the new, smaller Lightning connector replaces Apple’s 30-pin plug. You’ll need an adaptor, at
a little over R200, to plug the iPhone 5 into your old docks.
SHOOT AND SCOOT
SANDISK EYE-FI 4GB/8GB
R560/R780 sandisk.com
There’s something about iPad owners. It’s hard to get them to
admit to a flaw in their tablets, or in themselves.
That changes when they go on holiday and discover that,
because iPads are too high and mighty to have USB or SD
card slots, they can’t upload anything from their cameras
until
they get back home again.
An
Eye-Fi card is a blissfully easy way to get video and JPG
image files from your camera into any tablet, smartphone
or Wi-Fi-equipped device. It’s an SD card with built-in
Wi-Fi, and it slips into your camera like any other SD card. Load
the software onto your computer, register online at www.eye.fi, and the
Eye-Fi can upload your pictures whenever your camera’s switched on and within
range – even while you’re shooting. Really useful.
SILVER SURFER
ACER ASPIRE S7 11.6-INCH
Price R25 000 acer.co.za
Acer’s new brushed-aluminium S7 ultrabook makes the competition look dull and overweight. At only 12mm thick it’s the
world’s thinnest ultrabook, designed to run the new touchscreen-interface Windows 8 and a great showcase for it.
Inside is a Core i5 processor with up to 4GB RAM and a
choice of 128/256GB solid-state drives, but the star of the
show is the truly excellent HD touchscreen. It adds some
lustre to the Windows 8 experience.
Battery life, sacrificed to reduce size and weight,
is five to six hours, though an optional add-on
battery slice will boost that to 9.5 hours.
Acer offers good proprietary software,
including Instant On, which gives the S7
a startup time of 7.8 seconds.
If you want to try a touchscreen notebook,
this is a very good package.
BIGGER IS
BETTER
TomTom Start 60
R2 100 tomtom.co.za
Any TomTom device will get you where
you want to go, but the Start 60 brings a
little extra to the table. For one thing, it’s
huge, with a 6-inch/15cm screen and a
higher screen resolution than any other
TomTom. Yes, this makes a difference:
every time you need to glance at it you’ll
take your eyes off the road for less time
than you’d need for a smaller, lesssharp screen.
The Start 60 features also include the
TomTom’s new dual-mounting system,
which gives you the choice many of us
have been waiting for, between mounting it on the windscreen or the dashboard. And it’s one of the first sat nav’s
to offer lifetime free daily map changes,
which eliminates the hassle of renewing
a subscription every year.
Edition 4
BANKER SA
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