The HBM-770 is just like every other Bluetooth headset, as I’ve said before. It has a power button, a charging port, volume controls, and you can plug it in the charge. It sits on your ear using a large loop (See image left). which starts behind the microphone and causes it to gently rest on your ear. Its the in-ear piece which defines how it sits on the side of your head, which really seems to work for me.

The speaker horn (that’s what I’m calling it… deal) sticks out a ways and rests very lightly in your ear canal. Its so light overall that there are times when I forget I’m wearing it and put my hand to my head to check. To switch the side of your head you want to headset on, you just flip the ear hoop. You don’t have to pull it out or swap it with another one. Its also nice that this one doesn’t need to invade your ear canal in order to work. I don’t think it has significant noise cancellation, but a good, loud handset makes up for that. 

I’m actually rather amazed its so light. They actually crammed the standard LG handset charger port onto this thing, which is real overkill to me, and had they not, it could have been a few grams lighter. It might have even floated. That’s fantastic since I have managed to alienate every headset I’ve ever received. It hurts the back of my ear. It hurts the front of my ear. It has too many pieces. It goes in too far. It doesn’t go in far enough. Mostly, though, they’ve never been loud enough. 

This is loud and clear, which means I can actually hear conversations instead of guessing what someone is saying to me. Even the operational tones the headset makes are useful. I can easily identify each noise that its making without the need to consult a manual or query the phone. Its simple, clean, and without drama of any kind. I like it. Hell, it even turns on and off smartly. When its off, touch the power button for a second and it comes on. When its on, hold it for 3 seconds and it turns off. There are no incantations, certifications, or teams of professionals required to operate it. 

I can’t help it, but if you need a simple, plain Bluetooth headset, there is no other choice but the LG HBM-770. It beats the pants off of anything else out there for me. Even the Jawbone. Sure, the Jawbone looks fantastic and has that wicked noise cancellation technology which can delete lawnmowers from a conversation, but it doesn’t work for me. So, for US$80 list, I cannot and will not beat this thing with a stick of any kind. I’ve found my headset soul mate. Feel free to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

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The reason this is cool is because it allows you to use Google’s most used features without being online, but what it affords Google is far more comprehensive. Gears technology allows Google to pre-define and work out the kinks on keeping its mess of services synched up correctly with local applications. Sure, for now that’s web browsers and web pages, but there’s no limitation anywhere which states that the sync target isn’t an application instead of a browser. This suggests that its the synching which is more important to Google than the offline usage aspect, though that’s a feature which should not be discounted. It will be some time before everyone is always online, so offline access is critical to Google’s success.

Google’s also got another trick up its sleeve which it hasn’t seen fit to shine a spotlight on. You thought that the Google Phone, T-Mobile’s G1 Android phone, was cool. Wait until you see Grand Central. Grand Central is an access provider which Google bought last year and has not yet publicized significantly. In fact, its still in private beta and there are no signs that it will be coming out of the closet any time soon. What does Grand Central do? Its a single point of contact system which focuses around a phone number. The service gives you a number and you can add any number of phones to that service. Once added, you can control when and how people reach you and when and how the phones connected react. 

Its not clear what Google plans for Grand Central and how it might fit into the grand scheme of things, but it is a compelling additional notch in Google’s already battle-tested belt. Grand Central could very well be a component of an everything or nothing play which leaves all other contenders on the field. Take Picasa, Google Gears, a desktop application compatible with Mac and Windows, Google Sync, and Grand Central and you have an all-in-one data powerhouse which can handle your internet access, search, email, contacts, agenda, images, feeds, voice mail, phone calls, and back it all up while offering you ubiquitous access. Its not hard, then, to imagine a cheap netbook with 3G network access or tethered to a Google/Android phone (more are coming, I assure you) and a Google-specific Linux distro designed to take advantage of all of these features. 

If prices of netbooks aren’t compelling now, wait until you get a deal which includes unlimited wireless internet. My guess is that the sweet spot will be US$99-250 for MIDs to 10-11″ netbooks. Does this mean that Google’s taking over the world as we know it? Yes and no, depending on who you talk to. If you ask the nuts, sure. Google’s been trying to wrest freedom from our already tenuous grasp since day one. If you ask me (and you are reading this), then the answer is no… with concessions. Google is very clever. It will pretty much own the internet in 10 years, but not alone. It will be owned by a largely loosely compiled group of open source advocates who have been eyeing this prize since Steve Ballmer started gloating about Microsoft’s position years ago. 

More specifically, with the way that Google has positioned how it uses and leverages technology, there will be a number of sources for Google’s almost assured dominance, and this is clever because it almost completely bypasses Anti-Trust. Android is Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) so, technically, Google doesn’t own it. Email is ubiquitous, and Google makes no claims that its Gmail or nothing. In fact, Google has been opening Gmail up further and further since it started, making it pretty damned compelling. Docs: There’s no real competition, but Google’s not exactly vying to stop it, either. The same goes for Calendar, Sync, and Picasa. When you buy a WinMo phone, it won’t work with anything but Outlook on Windows. Hmm. Everything from Google works everywhere. If you were Anti-Trust, who’d you look at first?

So, as Sherlock Holmes used to say (despite the fact that he is a fictional character), “The game is afoot.” Google isn’t playing, either. They’re in this to win. They’re already one of the world’s largest companies in what is most assuredly a record breaking time. I can assure you with every fiber of my being that there’s no way in hell (or Los Angeles, if you like) that Google’s going to willingly give up that growth and power position, recession be damned. Mark my words, though. In the next year or so we’ll start hearing about desktop applications, and then you’ll know that I saw the future as clear as day… or at least that I guessed well

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When Vista was announced, it was reveled that Microsoft’s Windows team was yanking features (including WinFS, their new filesystem baby), and then its system requirements, I knew we were in for a rocky road with Microsoft’s obsession with making Windows more Mac-like. I was far from wrong. Vista has turned out to be Microsoft’s least liked OS ever (even less popular than Windows Me, though not nearly as hated as BOB).

Microsoft even stooped to tricking people into liking Vista by showing them Mojave, a tweaked version of Vista. Now, if they’re willing to modify the system to make all references to Vista become Mojave instead, what else were they willing to change… but I digress. I reported here that I would not be upgrading, and for some time I didn’t, but since Microsoft had sent me a press kit with a copy of Vista Ultimate, I couldn’t resist for long.

My fears, however, were well founded, and even on my powerhouse MacBook Pro, the best rated laptop (not Mac laptop, but laptop overall. If you don’t believe me, check it out in PC World Magazine) for running Windows Vista, I was disappointed. I had stability issues, speed problems, application crashes, random errors, and just general lack of cohesiveness, even after upgrading to Vista SP1. So, I removed Vista and reinstalled XP with SP2 back into my Boot Camp partition. I was done with Windows Vista.

But then… along came Windows 7. Microsoft had been telling us that it had been working on Windows 7. Now, my conspiracy theory explanation is that Microsoft determined that they were not going to finish Windows 7 in time to release anywhere near their announced date and so they were going to have a hard time getting rid of Windows XP the longer people used it. Its at the time, I believe, that they plucked a few concepts from their target OS and crafted a version of Windows Server 2008 with the UI elements from the upcoming Windows 7 to cobble together Vista.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. Interestingly, Vista’s release did quell the dissent which was pelting the intarwebs. It didn’t take long, though, for the issues to start cropping up and people to begin complaning. The complaints from all corners of the computing world that it seemingly pushed Microsoft to announce Windows 7 early. They opened beta testing to more developers, and word started leaking out that, while it looked like Vista, it didn’t work like it. The errors were gone, the UI pains were gone or modified to work better, the underlying core was far more efficient, and it all took less resources to do the same thing Vista had so much trouble with.

When Microsoft released Windows 7 to general beta, I hopped on over to my resource and got a copy. I did not, however, want to install it on my MacBook Pro. I already have a nearly year old install of XP SP2 over there, keep it up to date, and play my Windows games over there. Sure, I use Steam, but I’d had to back everything up and it would be a hassle. My wife just stepped on the Averatec AIO, de-tailing the mouse and gouging the screen, so that was out, so my eyes fell to the Averatec Buddy netbook which came with the AIO. I burned the installer DVD (x86, if you’re interested) image to a disc, plugged in my LG external USB DVD burner, and fired it up.

Total install was absolutely painless. It even archived the XP install into the ../windows.old directory and created a boot loader entry for it. I had previously installed Wubi’s Xubuntu, and that boot entry was retained as well. I should note for details sake that I’ve not booted either, removed them from the boot.ini file and deleted them. I wanted to focus on Windows 7 and nothing else. For posterity, Xubuntu 8.10 worked fantastically well, though I was unable to get the wireless module to compile correctly and was unable to test the webcam. Of course, XFce is a fantastic window manager, but its not resource intensive.

That’s good, too, since the Averatec Buddy netbook sports a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB drive, a 10″ 1024×600 display, an integrated webcam, wi-fi and Ethernet connectivity, and SD card slot and an anemic 3-cell 2200 mAh battery pack. Its really no different than just about any other netbook out there and its a repro of the MSI Wind series. From what I can tell, it can even take the replacement batteries designed for the MSI Wind. With less than two hours of battery life, getting a large 9 or 12 cell pack should be a priority. I also wish it had integrated Bluetooth, but you get what you get.

Installation of Windows 7 took approximately one hour, maybe a little less. The process is generally the same as installing Vista, but is cleaner. That may be my imagination. Setup was straightforward, though it wouldn’t accept my key until I entered it correctly (yeah, I’m a dork). W7 intalled drivers for video (Intel GMA950), audio, and Ethernet (everything else is Realtek except the webcam) but was unable to install drivers for the wi-fi adapter, SD card reader, and Buffalo webcam. Installation of drivers spec’ed for Vista was easy, though.

There are a number of improvements to the entire system. I’m not going to get into details in this article. I’ll save that for a full review when it actually ships. I’ve experienced it when Microsoft makes last minute changes to a product after the Beta phase has been passed, so I don’t want to miss anything here. RIght off the bat, though, Microsoft makes it clear that they knew they made mistakes with the Vista interface, so they’ve made nice changes which make it more usable. The first thing you will notice is the intergration of the Quicklaunch buttons, the Start Menu pinning feature, and the list of running tasks all into one neat, clean, tidy, and functional icon.

The taskbar also works slightly differently. You’ll note that the entire Start button fits all the way into the taskbar. This makes the pinned icons or icons from active applications larger and, therefore, easier to see. You can change this behavior by making the icons small (then the Start button protrudes again), add the title, or show all buttons for all windows, just like the old system. The new visual identification system, however, just works better. Its amazing that its taken so many years for Microsoft to get this. Apple finally got it when Mac OS X 10.0 shipped in 2000 and introduced the dock. Linux got it years earlier with various window managers.

The second thing you notice is that everything seems to run faster and more efficiently. One drawback is having to use Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft’s unfortunate choice for a direction for their web browser. IE7 was bad enough, but it could be tolerated. IE8 is just crap. Like most products Microsoft created based on the successes of others (like Firefox), they have taken what is good from them and created overly complicated and unecessarily obtuse versions. Don’t look to IE8′s add-ons to be anything even vaguely like Firefox’s plugins. I installed one for Skype into both Firefox and IE8, and where the former works just fine, the latter still won’t start, and there’s no clear way to get add-ons to start. Feh.

The third thing I noticed was how theming and interface tweaking has changed. Its mostly the same way as it was in Vista, but they’ve added some important changes. For one, you can now select any number of wallpaper images and arbitrarily decide when they change. Aero also apparently requires far less resources to work right. Linux distributions have proven that transparencies can be done easily on low power systems for years (I don’t count it when the console app shows the wallpaper but not the windows which are underneath… That’s just silly). Aero would not run on a MacBook (pre-unibody) in Vista, but will run on an underpowered netbook in Windows 7. Aero isn’t just some silly eye candy, either. There are subtle little behaviors which Aero can perform which improve readability and object identification.

For software, I promptly installed Firefox for web, Thunderbird for email, OpenOffice 3.0 for productivity, and, for the first time ever, Digsby for IM and social networking. All installations worked perfectly and there were no hiccups. Since I was getting the latest versions of them for installation I didn’t need to do any patching. I also went into Windows Update out of habit and gave that a shot, only to get an error. Oddly, two days later it started getting updates on its own. I don’t know why it happened, but it did. There’s been a long history of Windows fixing itself while giving no indications as to how or why. Maybe it was because I rebooted. Overall, everything I installed works just fine. I also installed Skype 4.0 beta and it works perfectly as well.

SIDEBAR: I’m disappointed and pleased with Digsby at the same time. While its very functional and has a lot of great features, it tries to trick you into installing no less than SIX freaking spyware/cashware/crapware titles onto your machine. You can opt out of each one, but its not a no-brainer. TIP: click the Decline button for everything after the first page where its deactivated (you have to install Digsby). I’d rather donate money to the project. -TCR

Working on a small 1024×600 display isn’t hard, either. Windows 7 has some new features which deal with this (or I didn’t notice them in Vista since I never installed it on a netbook). When you drag a window to the top of the display, it automatically fullscreens it. It will also move dialogs so that the buttons are exposed. They also added a permanent Show Desktop button to the far right of the taskbar. Once I had sussed all of that out, I then installed a few widgets. At first, I thought that they just made the widget bar invisible, but then I added more widgets than will fit, and it showed up in the middle of the screen. That’s when I realized you can place widgets anywhere on the display.

I haven’t tested enterprise networking, directory integration, VPN connectivity, or any of the other elements which made working with Vista a pain in the ass, but most of the crap that Vista dished out seems to have been rectified in Windows 7. Of course, its still running on NTFS and there was no sign on WinFS. I think that Microsoft may be on track to fix the problems they created from whole cloth with Vista, but I don’t think there will be a way to fix the growth Apple has made into their territory, and that’s a good thing. Microsoft needs to do a lot of growing up. It will have to innovate in order to remain relevant. Windows 7 is just a start.

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• Palm will introduce a Linux-based touchscreen device at CES. Sure, that’s mostly already known, but my prediction is that it will actually be freaking cool. I’m also going to guess that it won’t be able to run anything which wasn’t compiled for Palm OS 5.x, or at least not well.
• RIM will continue to lose marketshare to the iPhone and won’t see significant growth for the Storm until they release a version of the OS which is specifically designed for touch applications.
• Apple will update the Mac Mini. They might even incorporate AppleTV into it and kill the discreet AppleTV product. The other option is to turn AppleTV into a real DVR.
• Apple will release a 64GB iTouch model and move the entire product line up, keeping prices the same. They may also release a 128GB model, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
• GM will sell Saab back to Sweden and Scania will be returned to the product line badge, right alongside Saab honor and the death of the hideous Saab-badged, GM-made SUV. By 2011, real Saabs will be sold again, and I will buy a new one which will have been made in Sweden.
• Chrysler will die a long, overdue death.
• IBM will buy back the ThinkPad line from Lenovo and start making good ThinkPads again.
• Dell will trim most of its line in a successful effort to become a powerhouse again.
• Microsoft will offer a public beta release of Windows 7 and generally stop marketing Vista after failing to get savvy people to purchase it for 2+ years.
• Microsoft will announce official partnerships with various laptop fabbers to build Windows 7 Approved touchscreen lappies. The plan will generally fail, just like the UMPC, Tablet PCs, and clamshell Windows CE devices before it. (Say hello to Bob, touchscreen Win7 lappy!)
• Nintendo will release a US$99 add-on dongle which will allow the Wii to output up to 1080p video via an HDMI connection, something they had planned on doing all along. If not HDTV, it will be a VGA or DVI or both, which looks really sharp on sets which support that type of input. Think along the lines of Sega’s VGA box for the DreamCast.
• Nokia will finally make the Internet Tablet line an actual phone. At the very least, it will be a data-only arrangement like Amazon’s Kindle or the Peek.
• Google will make all of its applications support Google Gears and offer an update to Chrome which will make it work like a desktop.
• Sony will come to its senses and release a value-priced, non-mobile Playstation Core which will play PSP and PSP2 games at up to 720p and wireless controllers to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. **
• Sega will come to its senses and produce the DreamCast 2 to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. **

And now here are some “doi’s” which you would likely easily guess on your own:

• We will see netbooks from just about every name brand on the planet, including BMW and Sears.
• Apple will continue to take over marketshare in the mobile, desktop, laptop, and PMP spaces.
• Microsoft will continue to lose marketshare to Apple and Firefox.
• Dell will remain the largest single retailer of computers.
• HP will continue to be second in line, but will keep making stupid touchscreen TVs.
• All studios will sign up for Blu-Ray.
• Fox will relent and allow Watchmen to be released, but for 5% of the global profits.
• Toyota will release its Prius plug-in hybrid early to better compete with Ford’s Fusion hybrid.
• Hydrogen powerplants will not make a major splash in any market.

That’s it for 2009, kids! We’ll see how good I am at predicticating. In the past I’ve not been so good.

** Lacking quality skills at prognosticating, these could happen in 2010-11. Not sure. Just a feeling.

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This is not your standard desktop PC. It is, in reality, a netbook’s guts stuffed into a creative and attractive desktop display stand. Here, then, are the specs: Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM (upgradeable to 2GB in one slot), Intel GMA video with shared memory, 160GB hard drive, dual-layer CD/DVD-R/RW drive, integrated B/G wireless, 10/100 Ethernet, 5 USB 2.0 ports, an MS/MSPRO/MMC/SD card slot, a 1.3MP webcam in the display frame, and it all runs on Windows XP Home Edition.

So, if you haven’t figured out this systems place in the world yet, I’ll make it clear. This is not a gaming machine or one designed for use by graphics professionals, or anyone who needs a beefy machine. This is a webtop. This is a tight, clean, efficient, low-cost DVD player, email checker, webpage reader, and word processor. Its the perfect desktop for the luddite parents, the college or boarding school student, or as a second computer. Its compact, tidy and wireless.

The screen is clearly the largest and most visible component of the AIO. The strut behind the display allows you to position the screen as you like. The built-in microphone is oddly placed on the base of the unit instead of on the display frame. Another odd choice for Averatec was to not include a recovery partition on the large disk. They do include a USB mouse and keyboard. The keyboard is a love/hate kind of thing. If you like the new style flat keyboards, you might like this one. One thing I flat out did not like was the crappy in-built speakers. There was no reason to skimp there and decent in-case speakers don’t cost all that much.

Speed wise, the AIO is rather quick. Using the pre-installed Windows XP Home, I ran all Windows Update installs and then started using it. I installed FireFox and the complete iTunes/QuickTime/Safari package. The downloads were quick, but the installations took a while to process. Once installed, though, loading and using applications were reasonably quick. General use is nearly indistinguishable from faster machines. I did not, however, try to install anything which I knew would tax the system beyond its capabilities… Well…

After I’d had enough of Windows XP, I tried installing Windows Vista on it. As you may know from having read The Dojo for a while, I’m no fan of Vista. Despite Microsoft’s propaganda-like Mojave Project adverts trying to show people that they don’t really know how cool Vista really is, Vista is a landmine of difficulties, driver incompatibilities, and broken applications. Knowing this full well, I ventured there anyway. I’ll sum it up by saying that its on there, but I can’t install any drivers.

I’m going to try working on it some more and see what I can get out of it. The way it is now, with no network access and only being able to display 1024×768 its actually working pretty fast. I suspect, however, that its fast like the surprise we get when putting XP back on an old 750MHz lappy. It works and it goes but it just doesn’t have the headroom much faster systems do. My guess is that the next generation dual-core Atom processors from Intel will prove to be the real turning point for low cost, low power, compact desktop systems.

In the end, the AIO is quite a nice machine. Its very attractive. Its has 100mm VESA-spec screw holes on the back so it can mounted like a display. It weighs in a slight 9 pounds. Contrary to what detractors might say, the AIO is a quality machine which delivers exactly what it promises to deliver; modestly priced performance. Its not a kick ass gaming machine or a powerful video or film editing workstation. If you think you’re going to get a hi-end workstations for under six Benjamins you either don’t value your talent as an artist or you’re smoking something.

As such, I roundly endorse the Averatec 18.4″ AIO as long as you’re comfortable with its limitations.

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That’s where Wacom comes in, and they’ve been doing it very well for a very long time. A couple of years ago I reviewed their first Bluetooth wireless tablet. Let’s just say that, even though I liked it, I didn’t like the Bluetooth component. It was difficult to keep it charged and it would drop connections on occasion. Accuracy was also not so great. Wacom has come a long way on their low-cost tablets, though. Their new Bamboo tablets, while not wireless, are fantastically portable and work really, really well.

I received two of the tablets, the entry level Bamboo and the art-oriented Bamboo Fun which comes with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 3.0 and Corel’s Painter Essentials 4.0 bundled in. The basic Bamboo comes in black and comes with a power supply, pen, and pen stand. Pricing is set at US$79 and its designed for basic pen input, text entry, annotation, and art. It does not come with a Wacom tablet mouse or any bundled software, but it works quite well with PhotoShop CS3. I also tried it with the software bundled with the Bamboo Fun and it works very nicely.

The Bamboo Fun comes in white, silver, blue, and black and comes in Small and Medium sizes. The small tablet priced at US$99 has an active area or 5.8″ x 3.7″ and the Medium priced at US$199, the one I received, has a 8.5″ x 5.3″ active area. I’ve mentioned that it comes with Photoshop Elements and Painter Essentials, but it also comes with a copy of Nik Color Effects Pro 2.0. All of the software installs on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. Installation tests were performed on a Power Macintosh G4 (known as Mirrored Drive Door) and a MacBook Pro.

The tablets themselves are very nicely styled and quite thin. One of the nicest touches Wacom added was to thicken the included pens signifncantly. This achieves two things. First, it makes it easier to hold the pne comfortably. Second, it makes it far easier to hold the pen and actuate the button. On earlier, thinner pens it was hard to hold the pen in a way which you could easily push the button. As usual, the pen is magnetic, so it doesn’t require batteries or a leash. You can also swap out the nibs to get a different tactile feel depending on what you need. The Bamboo Fun also has an eraser at the end, and the tablet can tell which end is being used. The Bamboo pen has an eraser, but it doesn’t erase.

Overall, the tablets are fantastic and work as expected. Being artistic with them is quite easy, and anyone interested in or skilled at traditional art forms who want to get into computer-based art will find either of these two tablets a pleasant addition to your pallete. If you simply need to annotate documents or make digital signatures, the Bamboo is perfect and well priced.

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Kensington seems to be quite good at making keyboards, too. I’ve had a number of them through the years. My daughter uses a wireless set on her Mac (the SlimBlade Media set) and won’t do without it. I believe the reason Kensington has done so well is because they make good gear. The Ci70 is a clear case in point. Sure, it has a rather ridiculous, bulbous back end which seems too large for the stuff it holds, but its not an eyesore. In fact, it does have some little secret bits which are very clever and useful. The keyboard, a wired USB type, sports two additional USB ports (sadly, not powered) and an integrated USB 4-pin mini jack. Take a look at the image below. I know its a tad dark, but I’ve added tags to show the important bits.

This next image shows the slider covering the buttons to the left and revealing the integrated 4-pin mini USB cable. Its unfortunate that Kensington didn’t add a second USB cable for power and then offered a number of additional USB ports. Who knows, maybe they’ll add one like that soon.

I’ve inserted a 4GB thumb drive and it popped up immediately on my MacBook Pro. This should work with just about any USB device which has its own power supply or doesn’t require the hi-power mode from USB. Now on to the keyboard itself.

Kensington has really latched onto the benefits of the low profile keyboard format. The idea is to lay the keyboard very flat on the desktop instead of canting it up at a steep angle. One of the problems with a steep cant is that you overflex your wrists to meet the keys, and this seems to exacerbate repetitive motion injuries. I’m a big fan of the lowpro keyboard (I mostly use an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard as much as I can) and this one works on that ethic well.

Key design is nice, though I’d rather they adopt the Apple MacBook style of key design. Instead, the Ci70 has low height key caps, but they are still splayed at the edges. I’m not exactly sure why I no longer like this, but I don’t. Regardless, the Ci70′s key action is clean, crisp, and reactive. There’s a nice, subtle little resistive “pop” feeling when you press they keys. The spacing and positioning of the keys is also very inducive to speedy, accurate typing.

Interestingly, the box does not include software, but its an easy download from the Kensington site. There are Windows and Mac OS X drivers for the keyboard, and I quickly downloaded and installed it for the Mac. Honestly, the only thing that the software seems to do is activate the Quick Launch keys. Eject and the media control buttons work out of the box. The software enables you to use the Search, Email, Web, and Media buttons. Everything works quite well and and there are no surprises.

For US$49.95, the Kensington Ci70 Keyboard with USB Ports (that’s the official name) is an excellent replacement keyboard. Its well built, has great key action, offers plenty of features without being overly complicated, is platform agnostic, and sports neat USB connectivity options. I can deal with the fact that its kinda ugly.

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Its not hard, however, to figure out how to make it more complicated. Convergence takes care of that, and what used to be one of the most beloved mobile messaging devices and an indispensable tool for the Federal government, the RIM Blackberry, has lost its way in a fight to remain relevant in a writhing sea of multi-functional nano devices which can play music, watch TV, fetch email from several accounts, browse the web, pick your teeth after a fine meal, and, if you’re lucky, make a call or two. They have cute, cloying names like Bold, Storm, Chocolate, Shine, and Behold, and they all (at least according to the manufacturers) do everything better than the Apple iPhone.

Until now. I introduce to you the one and only Peek. Its not an iPhone. It doesn’t play music. It doesn’t organize your life. Its not designed to make phone calls. Its more like 2G then 3G or 4G. It doesn’t sport a touchscreen, have any number of GBs of storage space, can’t find out where you are because it doesn’t do GPS, and doesn’t even take pictures. What it does do, and quite well, is email. If you can recall back to the mid-90′s when RIM’s Blackberry devices was just becoming hot with its two-way pager service on its neato 850/950 models then you might also recall that they weren’t phones back then. Not until 2001 did RIM add phone support.

The Peek brings back the concept of the old Blackberry and reboots it with a fresh, thin, clean, easy to use new device. For US$79.99 and US$20 a month you get unlimited wireless service which gives you access to up to three email accounts, unlimited SMS, and they’re adding features all the time. In the most recent update they added the SMS feature and the ability to view images attached to emails. My hope is that they add additional file types in the near future. Feature-wise, the interface is very clean. In fact, if you’re familiar with how the Blackberry works, you’ll be instantly at home on the Peek.

Setup of email accounts is very, very easy. The device itself has a number of configurations built into it, such as Gmail, AOL, NetZero, and many others. Just enter in the details and, if it recognizes the email address, it takes care of the rest. If you have your own mail server, just call up the service folk and they’ll set up the account for you. Word from their PR people is that they are working on adding Exchange access, as well. This should make some Crackberry addicts rather happy. I didn’t think to ask if they were also working on Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise account access, though.

The hardware itself is very well made. The device is nicely this and light. The screen is 320×240 and has excellent backlighting and color. There are some things which could be slightly improved. The thumbwheel could be a moved from the traditional side of the unit to the front middle, which would make it easier to use for lefties like me. The battery cover, which is nice and solid, would benefit from having a strengthened locking mechanism. One odd choice was the placement of the extended characters which are located above the numbers across the top of the keyboard. All of the keys are backlit, but the aforementioned characters are not, so you can see what they are in the dark.

There are also some things which the Peek developers could do to improve the interface. First, there are only three built-in color themes, none of which are particularly attractive, to choose from. There’s also not font control, which I’m assured by my PR contacts they are working on now. One thing which they could fix, however, is the status bar at the top of the screen. Its quite a bit taller than it needs to be. If they could trim it down and modernize the icons and status elements there would be more room on the display for email. It would also be nice if there was user control over the colors.

The Peek is one of the nicest, simplest, cleanest devices to come out in a long time. It fills a hole which used to be filled quite nicely but has become ridiculously overwrought. It also fills the gap which the costly iPhone has created. Some people just want a simple phone to make calls a a nice way to access their email on the go. The Peek has no contracts and it comes in a few colors. The Peek is a very elegantly simple solution to a problem which doesn’t need complex solutions, and I’m happy to have one. It very quickly became one of my most used devices and I don’t foresee a time when I stop using it.

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That fact, however, is unimportant, because this set, which comes with the keyboard, a separate numeric keypad, and a SlimBlade scrollball mouse, is very, very nice. I am going to split hairs, though. First off, unlike other Kensington keyboards, the unit in this set is a tad mushy. Second, the wireless dongle, which is admittedly small, fits into the battery bay of the mouse, and the cover is hard to get off. Third, the software installation does not add a module to System Preferences in Mac OS X. I didn’t know that and I spent hours trying to get the installation to work right. Interestingly, the driver install only adds scrollball functionality.

Now that all of the little bad tidbits are out of the way, its on to the good stuff. Overall, the SlimBlade Notebook Media Set (SNMS) is a nice rig. It comes in three pieces and there is an optional media remote which matches the set (I’ll cover that in a separate mini-review). The pieces are, as I mentioned earlier, the keyboard, a numeric keypad, and the mouse. Each module is designed to connect to the next with a simple Tab/Slot design which is slightly magnetized to hold them together. There’s a slot on the right and a tab on the left of each unit, so you can order them any way you like.

The components have nice weight to them and sit well on the desk. They are slightly angled in a simple wedge form, so they’re not flat, but its low profile enough. The keyboard has a small set of quick function keys, one of which operates the Eject function on Mac OS X machines. The other keys open the media player, open the Dashboard on Macs, and activate the Search function. There’s an additional key which does something but I don’t know what that is. It could be a Windows-specific thing, but I haven’t tried the set on a Windows box.

The mouse which comes with the set is a very pleasing laser type. It doesn’t switch modes like the Kensington Scrollball Mouse and the ball is smaller, but it works very well. You can scroll vertically and horizontally very easily. The mouse also tracks very nicely on a wide range of surfaces, including my suede couch. One neat trick, if the battery hatch wasn’t so tricky to manipulate, is that when you slot the wireless dongle inside of its space, its turns off all of the units so they don’t waste power.

In fact, aside from its pleasing industrial design, the SNMS’s best quality is likely its power sipping ability. The keyboard and the mouse react almost immediately on input after the host computer has been asleep, but this immediacy apparently doesn’t affect longevity. I’m still on the first set of batteries which shipped in the package, and that’s been over two months now. There is a power status light on the top right corner of the keyboard unit, but I’ve yet to see it light up, which I assume it does when it needs its batteries replaced.

Apart from my gripes earlier in this review, I’m very pleased with the SNMS. Its a beatiful set, fits nicely in the hands when sitting on the couch for some HDTV computing, and has decent range ( I was able to use the keyboard from up to 20 feet away, but I didn’t test scientifically). I would say that the Kensington SlimBlade Notebook Media Set is well worth the US$130, even if you don’t end up using it with a notebook computer.

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