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Review: WaterField Ultimate SleeveCase for iPad

By On Thu, Nov 17th, 2011 In Hardware With No Comments Permanent Link to Review: WaterField Ultimate SleeveCase for iPadPermalink

I’ve long been hearing about WaterField, from the blogs I follow. Two main impressions crystallized over time: good products and good customer support. So when I was getting the iPad brought over from the US, I took the opportunity to order their sleeve case.

I prefer the sleeve case to larger bags. I want my gadgets to be fittingly protected when carried and I’ll then buy a larger bag and just throw each in.
I use Incase sleeve cases for my laptops and in fact wanted to get their sleeve for the iPad too, but was unable to order because they insist on US-based billing address for the card. In this age, that’s rather stupid and it’s hurting their business, but such as life, they sure have their reasons.

 

Thus after checking out few other bags, I decided on WaterField’s. They offer several bag options for iPad and after checking out each, decided on Ultimate model. I especially liked the vertical model, as I could see it fitting perfectly on the side and not dangling back and forth as I walk and getting in the way of my hands. I picked up the larger piggy back case as well, shoulder strap.

I had no problem to use my Serbian card, which was great. I was ordering about a week before the date when it needed to arrive. My cousins were in New York and the bag simply had to be there at least a day before so they could pack it up in time. The first hurdle was the email I received from Waterfield – the vertical bag was out of stock and it could be several days before they had them made. Unfortunately, this moved the delivery date past my D-day. Waterfield offered to upgrade the shipping up, with no extra charge, but it still ended up a day short. So I opted for the 2-day delivery which added 20$. As luck would have it, my cousins eventually stayed for another week, due to Iceland volcano eruption. Such as life…

The bag itself is amazing. Just as I thought, the vertical orientation is perfect and sits so good on the side that it does not get in the way at all. The fit is perfect, snug but not too tight, so it’s easy to put the iPad inside. The interior is padded with soft cloth that can wipe the iPad screen; don’t expect wonders though. In the back they added a tight pocket where you can fit a real wipe cloth, a few pieces of paper or something similarly thin.

I had this bag for over a year now, it’s looking great (especially the worn leather look it gains over time) and no defects nor malfunctions.

The bag is really sturdy and re-enforced on the edges. I can’t stress enough how important that is – if the bag is ever dropped, I’m pretty sure it will protect the iPad even from several meters high.

The piggy back case is very simple, obviously aimed for carrying the wall charger and cables and maybe few more simple items. It was one flaw though – the material it’s made from is the same as the sleeve case. When two of these rubs during walking, they make very annoying sound, especially inside the hallways where it’s sufficiently silent environment. Solution would be to have very small piece of velcro on the back of the piggy case that will attach itself to the main bag.
I plan to do this myself, once I have the time.

In the meantime, I’m using my old usual carry around little bag, which can attach to the iPad bag perfectly. This way I carry these two using one shoulder strap and I can detach the smaller bag when needed and carry just it. Perfect combination.

I’m very happy with the bag and would recommend it to any iPad owner. Without the piggy back case though, at least until Waterfield does something about the noise.

In the mean time, being so happy with this bag, I ordered a whole set of bags and sleeves for the laptops. I got the Suede Jacket sleeve case for both mine and my wife’s notebooks and also Vertigo vertical bags (seriously, don’t ever buy horizontal orientation ever).

Could not be happier with any of these and I plan to keep getting their stuff.

OPPO’s fantastic support service

oppo-981hd
By On Tue, Mar 8th, 2011 In Hardware With No Comments Permanent Link to OPPO’s fantastic support servicePermalink

I have OPPO DV-981HD player for several years now. It’s a great piece of consumer electronics – from the moment I put it on it worked great. No issues, no fuss, it worked exactly as advertised. Until few weeks ago when it died. In the middle of movie, it saved a bookmark and shut down. No reactions to buttons, it just seemed dead.

The player was long ago out of warranty. Plus, I brought it to Serbia from UK, one of the last pieces the importer had. OPPO does have a “send it to us for repair” service, but the cost of sending to USA from Serbia would be more than the player is now worth. Plus, experience with other companies tells me that prices for obsolete (OPPO does not sell this model anymore) and out-of-warranty parts are outrageous.

So I emailed OPPO support, simply hoping for an advice what could be wrong so I can try my luck with local repair shops. I was hoping it’s simply some part of the power board. That was on Saturday afternoon (CET time zone).

This is where it becomes awesome. First, I got answer in less than 24h. Second, the answer said that OPPO can help me by sending me a replacement power board and a front-end display. Third, the price for the parts is mere $49. And then to top it off, they responded to my follow-up questions on Sunday and Monday (which was a bank holiday in US). I paid and they shipped the parts the very next day; the package reached me by the end of the week (sent by USPS).

Amazing, amazing support service, way better than I expected. I replaced the parts and the player is working as good as ever – silently and awesomely.

If you are in need of an excellent Blu-ray player, do not even think about anything else – buy one of the OPPO players they have on offer. I’m certain they are amazing just as this DVD player is. I mean, just look at the feature set, the customer testimonials and rave reviews they consistently get for their products.

We need more companies like OPPO. Kudos, masters.

iPad 2gen prediction

By On Tue, Aug 3rd, 2010 In Apple, Hardware With No Comments Permanent Link to iPad 2gen predictionPermalink

When Apple updated screen res of the iPhone 4 to 640×960 on the same 3.5″ (diagonal) form factor as previous iPhones, the magic Retina Display number turned out to be 326ppi (pixels per inch). The result is an awesome display, the best I have ever seen.

iPad on the other hand has 9.7″ (diagonal) with 1024×768 resolution, which gives 132ppi. John Siracusa said that next iPad will most likely have the same improvement in display rez, meaning it will have 2048×1536 – so the iOS4′ @2x API stuff work the same.
Granted, such resolution sounds ginormous – not even Apple’s latest 27″ monitor is big enough to design interfaces that big. But if that really happen…

…how big the iPad would physically needs to be?

iPad has 1.33x aspect ratio and 9.7″ diagonal display now. 2048x1536 and with 326ppi equals to about 9650in in one very long line, or divide again to get about 29.6in2. From there, the math is easy: 1.33x * x = 29.6, means that x is 4.71in and that physical screen size of the Retina Display iPad would be 4.71 x 6.28, or about 7.85″ diagonal.

Sounds quite possible, does it not?

Apple should ditch DVD drive in their notebooks

By On Wed, Jul 29th, 2009 In Apple, Hardware With 1 Comment Permanent Link to Apple should ditch DVD drive in their notebooksPermalink

I wrote about my disappointment due to Apple’s removal of ExpressCard/34 slot in the last generation of its Macbooks. I can’t imagine this is due to cost issues — it’s probably the space constraint since they wanted to add SD card slot.

Here’s a proposal: remove the DVD drive entirely. I don’t know about you, but I have used that thing less than 10 times in last 2 years of owning Macbook Pro. It mostly collected dust and stopped working reliably rather quickly due to that same dust; last few times when I wanted to do anything with it, it spent ages trying to recognize the disk. Or even failed to read it — even Leopard original install disk, which is in pristine condition. Or last night, when it failed to write an empty DVD, which I then burned with no issues on my wife’s Sony VAIO drive.
It’s by far the worst part of the otherwise great notebook.

It’s useless outdated thing, ripe for replacement. It would free up huge space in the notebook for many, much more useful things like:

  • integrated SIM card slot
  • ExpressCard/34 or even /54 slot
  • one or two eSATA connectors
  • at least one more USB port

For anyone that needs the drive, they already sell external SuperDrive for Macbook Air and there’s plenty of 3rd party external packages.

What’s not to like? Eh, Apple, how about that?

Apple killed the Pro line of its notebooks

By On Sat, Jun 13th, 2009 In Apple, Hardware With No Comments Permanent Link to Apple killed the Pro line of its notebooksPermalink

Surprise appearance at the WWDC turned out to be the least welcome, at least for me. Refresh of the entire notebook line with better hardware and lower prices is fantastic and I would be tempted to buy new MBP when Snow Leopard is out (same as I did with Leopard). Especially given the fact that I would very much welcome huge increase in battery life (got to be seen to be believed).

However, I was quite shocked to see that Apple decided to remove its only expansion slot — ExpressCard/34 — while keeping the FW800 and 2 USB ports, with no additions at all. No eSATA port. No additional USB nor FW ports. No integrated SIM slot for 3G connection.
Instead of EC/34 slot, we get measly SD card reader. Wonderful, it would serve as nice dust conduit.

It’s ridiculous change. On the so-called professional machine, you’re stuck with slow connection methods, you’re stuck with consumer-level card type and you have no means to add what’s missing. Expresscards are not exactly large presence on the market but are by no means non-existing. I own two. Novatel Wireless Merlin X950D for 3G connection and Digitus eSATA 300 card. Both add the stuff pro-level notebook should have outright, but I didn’t mind getting them because the machine itself is great.
These new models are so good, but sadly crippled in the expansion area.

So, if you buy MacBook Pro you’re left with 3 ports and no other option to expand. All that with the portable machine which is a dream to own otherwise – very large hard disk, up to 8GB of RAM (amazing stuff for a 15″ which is my target size), very, very fast CPU and strong graphic card and 80% better battery life than anything else out there. You can do wonders on a machine like that. But if you do video, you’re stuck with FW800 and USB2, both 2-4x slower than eSATA so you’ll be left twiddling your thumbs while things are copied back and forth. Or if you use CF-cards (most hi-end DSLRs do) your best bet is FW-based card reader, instead of EC/34 types which connect directly to PCIe bus and offer much faster transfer rates.

I hope Apple will come to their senses — like they did with bringing FW800 back to all models — and bring EC/34 back. After all, if they wanted to add SD, they could supply simple 5-in-1 card reader that uses that slot — something Sony did with 13″ VAIOs several years back. Those things probably cost few bucks now.

The way things are now, I will not buy a new MBP. I doubt Apple will lose a moment of sleep for that, but if there’s enough of us sending them appropriate feedback, we could have something next year.

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