A tiny new computer called the Eee PC is better than competing products in certain respects, such as text entry and price. But it still has too many compromises to pry most travelers away from their larger laptops.
Here is a guide to checking your email, looking up information and updating your calendar, just by sending text messages. You can use any cellphone, but you’ll need a generous text-messaging plan.
Guest columnist Vauhini Vara is filling in this week for Walt Mossberg, who returns June 5.
The parade of iPhone lookalikes continues, and the latest to arrive is the Samsung Instinct. While it isn’t a bad phone and has some features the Apple product lacks, it’s no match for the iPhone.
Hewlett-Packard is rolling out a new TouchSmart, a desktop computer with touch-controlled software. The hardware and software are better. It’s attractive, more versatile and fun to use. But the latest effort still has some problems.
Walt reviews the hotly anticipated BlackBerry Storm, the first BlackBerry model without a physical keyboard. Typing and navigation require tapping on glass, just as users do on the iPhone. Verizon will be selling the Storm for $250 with a two-year contract, though a $50 mail-in rebate can bring the price down close to the $199 that Apple charges for the base model of the iPhone.
Apple’s latest version of MobileMe, a service that synchronizes email, contacts and calendars among Mac and Windows computers, is faster and more reliable.
Apple’s new iPhone 3G S and OS 3.0 offer plenty of new features. But the software may be enough of a boost to keep many users from buying the new model, Walt Mossberg writes.
Edited by Walt and written by Katie Boehret, this is a guide to gadgets, web services and other consumer technologies.
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