Smartphone

Source : gearlog.com

Recently I bought a new camera (Canon Rebel Xsi–Very happy. Thanks for asking) and found myself with a dilemma. Though I’d spent the last few years shoving CompactFlash cards in my old camera, this new one only uses SD cards. Considering one click of the shutter produces both a RAW and JPEG file which combined take up nearly 20 Mb, I needed sizable cards.

I went online, shopped by price and found myself with 2-8Gb SDHC cards. Right now SDHC memory cards are reasonably cheap. Each card ran under $30. If you shop by a manufacturer’s reputation, you’re going to pay more–and I suppose important photos or video are worth the extra bucks. I’m just generally cheap.

New camera in hand I took some test shots, popped the SDHC card out, threw it in my reader and… and… and… nothing. “Oh crap,” I said to myself. But there was nothing wrong. Everything was working as designed. And of course, that’s the problem. SD and SDHC memory cards are not totally compatible! Stick with me. I promise you’ll understand.

SD cards come in three physical sizes, tiny, tinier and tiniest. The standard cards, about half the size of a CompactFlash card, are 24 x 32 x 2.1mm. Mini SD cards are 21.5 x 20 x 1.4 mm. Micro SD cards are 15 x11 x 1 mm. Originally these cards were designed to hold a maximum of 2 Gb. Oh designers, what were you thinking? I can burn 2 Gb of photos on my way to the plane to go on vacation!

Enter the newer SDHC standard from the SD Card Association. To increase capacity above 2 Gb the file system was changed from FAT16 to FAT32. Unfortunately, older card readers are stuck on the original system. Put an SDHC card in an old-style standard reader and it might as well be speaking Yiddish.

Here’s where we stand:

SD cards can be read in any SD or SDHC reader.
SDHC cards can only be read in SDHC compatible readers.

This means you’ve got to be careful if you want to upgrade your camera’s memory. Is the camera, which doubles as a card reader/writer, capable of addressing that extra space? Is it SDHC compatible?

By the way, you not only get additional capacity with the SDHC cards you also get faster speeds. SDHC cards are marked with what looks like the letter “C” with a number inside. Class 2, 4 and 6 equate to 2, 4 and 6 Mb/second minimum sustained write speed. That’s why these cards are good-to-go for most current video applications.

The original internal reader in my PC is now useless. For less than $10 I picked up a pocket size USB 2.0 reader to get back in business. My guess is, I’ll be changing PCs before they change the standard again.

The big brother of the HTC Diamond has arrived and we are expecting great things. Its been called a brick by many but if this device lives up to expectations it could be the best Windows Mobile device around. When the Diamond was launched we reviewed it and it was not a great experience, since then a couple of Rom upgrades have made it a new experience and a well received device. Let us hope that HTC have this one right straight out the box, lets find out. Read on for the full review.

On the Outside

The phone comes packaged in a box shaped like a pyramid with the top chopped off identical to the HTC Diamond  and it really is well packaged and looks very enticing. Inside the box is the phone, wired headset, spare stylus, CD ROM with a user manual and extra software, battery, mains charger and a USB cable, all neatly tucked away inside.

The phone feels quite heavy but well made with a lovely quality feel. It is very similar in size to the Nokia N95 and you can see some comparison photographs here.

Looking at the phone from the outside, the front is totally flat it has 4 buttons . Home, back, phone send and end keys and the additional centre button which also works as a virtual scroll wheel for zooming in Opera. From this perspective the phone is identical to the Diamond.

The bottom of the phone has the mini USB connector for charging the device and using the supplied HTC Headset. The bottom right side of the unit gives access to the stylus which is magnetic and there is also a small button to perform the Windows Mobile soft reset. The top of the phone has the on off push button. The sides of the phone are blank on the right side and the volume up and down buttons on the left hand side. The back of the phone houses the 3.2 mega pixel auto focus camera and flash. Again the back cover is angled like the Diamond however on this phone the case has a matt finish rather than the glossy black finger print magnet that the Diamond has.

Read the rest here