It would be all too easy to sprinkle prestidigitation metaphors throughout an article on Apple’s new Magic Mouse. References to “disappearing” buttons, “amazing” design are obvious. So lets get straight to the point, clear and simple. Apple has created a mouse so perfect that it is unusable. Ok, so much for clarity.

This may be Apple’s most elegant current product. The compound curves of plastic, aluminum and space converge at each edge with a beauty and precision unparalleled in consumer electronic devices. The technology of touch is integrated is a uniquely usable fashion. All pre-purchase doubts about a touchpad mouse dissolved within minutes of use. Scrolling, swiping and sliding quickly become second nature. The low-profile is challenging at first, and require some getting-used-to time. The utility this mouse provides would make it worth the effort, if not for one fatal flaw.

The Magic Mouse places it’s optical sensor in an unusual place. In use, it falls right under the fingertips. Logically this would seem to be the ideal spot for a device used for pointing. This location was never possible with rubber ball mice. The size of the track ball required the point of control to fall deeper in the palm. When optical mice swept through the industry replacing ball mice, they simply mimicked the same positioning.

The control point of my current mouse (Macally IceMouse) is right under my first knuckle. The Magic Mouse moves that point more than an inch further from the palm. This small shift is enough to completely change every gesture my muscle memory has been imbedding for the last two decades. In particular, side-to-side motions, fulcrumed from the wrist, are magnified dramatically and would require relearning as much slighter motions.

Perhaps a secondary preference control could allow a separate tracking setting for smaller side motions. Until then, the retraining required for using the Magic Mouse would be comparable to relearning to draw left-handed.

Consumer Reports is a well known source in the US and Canada for impartial and well researched product reviews and ratings. This month, they filled one of their 50+ testing labs with small, lightweight, cheap netbook computers. One of these, the ASUS Eee PC, even became the cover boy for the issue.

The magazine article is short and sweet, presenting the pros and cons of lightweight computing. It brings up good points about usability and should be helpful in deciding if a netbook will satisfy your computing needs. They conclude that netbooks are sufficient for most typical tasks with the exception of video editing and gaming. I disagree with one of these conclusions.

Despite the upfront cover honors for the ASUS, it did not walk away with the competition. It ends up as one of the three Consumer Reports Recommended units, but shows up fourth on the list of all netbooks compared. First place goes to the offical tracyevans.name netbook-of-choice, the Samsung NC-10.  Click on the image to the left for a condensed version of the comparison table, or buy the magazine for all the details.

For the most part, I agree with CR’s conclusions. They gave Sammy highest marks for screen quality and for Portability, a category based on battery life and weight. No argument there. Both ASUS, Sammy and all but one tested netbook received the lowest rating of Poor for speaker fidelity, bass response and loudness. The HP Mini 1030NR’s speakers were rated as Fair. I think the ASUS speakers are slightly less awful than Sammy’s, but Poor is a good description of both.

The ASUS and the Samsung have slugged it out before on this blog. Note that Consumer Reports rated the ASUS Eee PC 1000H, not the  1000HE, which is the one I used for my comparison. Had they rated the later model it may have appeared higher on the list. Improvements in the HE version include the very comfortable “chicklet” keyboard as well as longer battery life.

Consumer Reports is an interesting publication with a unique business model. The magazine is published monthly by  Consumers Union, an “expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers” based in Yonkers, New York. The organization generates more than $200 million in yearly revenue, has a staff exceding 600, and over 50 state-of-the-art testing laboratories. They accept no advertising in the magazine and purchase all products reviewed at retail.

Today I travel to the far reaches of my back yard, braving Texas misquotes, for further Samsung NC10 field testing.

This is the first time my NC10 has ventured beyond climate-controlled conference rooms and coffee shops. Well up to the task of backpacking it in the wild, Sammy is like a cheap date that I can take places I wouldn’t consider taking a $2,000+ laptop.

The solid build quality inspires confidence, while the light weight form factor is easy to manage. The hinge feels just right with a spring indention that keeps the lid securely in position when closed, and a tight fit that holds any viewing angle.

The sun hangs low but bright in the clear afternoon sky. With it shining directly on to the Samsung’s matte screen, yet the screen is comfortably readable. In fact it looks great from about half-brightness up to full. Very impressive.

My Airport network pops up in seconds in seconds and I am automatically logged in and online. The signal strength is identified as “very good.” Even further out into the yard where the signal weakens, the Samsung has no problem picking it up.

Testing the laptop in an actual lap however requires some effort to avoid “lap topple”. The weight of the screen tends to tip the unit backwards.  This is not a problem on a solid surface like a table or desk, but my less level lap requires holding down the front of the book to stabilize the keyboard. This makes typing cumbersome and tiring. Switching from the deck chair to the patio table restores Sammy’s balance and my blazing typing speed.

Speaking of the Samsung’s keyboard, it is one of the best I have tested to date. Before buying the NC10, I tried almost every netbook keyboard on the market. Most felt “wrong”, cramped and uncomfortable. The standout was the ASUS, which had a nice springy feel and well spaced keys. The Samsung keys feel just as good, but with a better layout.

The combination of great keyboard, bright readable screen and superior design style swayed me toward the Samsung, but the ASUS is a quality unit as well. In the next field report, I will comprare these two netbooks head to head. Stay tuned.

The specs are great, the reviews are glowing, and it’s a leader on style points. But until I put hands to keys and use the Samsung NC10 in its natural habitat, it’s all hearsay. So begins this series of field reports as I brave the wilds of coffee shops, waiting rooms and economy airplane seats in an effort to document the real netbook experience.

Today I am at a Panera Bread in Sugar Land, Texas, just outside of Houston. Flipping open my shiny blue netbook, I notice that I have the smallest computer in the place. Cool. A press of the power button wakes Sammy from her slumber. Firing up Firefox I am easily and quickly connected to the free Wifi. Total time from bag to surf, less than a minute. Not bad.

Task One – Waste Time on the Web

As I peruse a few web sites the limitations of netbook life are immediately felt. The screen is small. No surprise that the 600 pixel height will take some getting used to. But it is a fair trade off considering the portability and poundage.

Performance-wise, it is a winner. The puny Atom processor has just enough oomph to cruise through the majority of sites thrown at it with ease. Flash animation plays smoothly. Both Flash and QuickTime videos play without a hitch. Occasional screen tearing seems to be the fault of the video chip or maybe the screen refresh rate. It is noticeable, but far from a deal killer, as I watch partial screen Hulu shows and full screen QuickTime video trailers. Add a good set of earbuds, and you have quite an entertainment package.

Trackpad Issues

The trackpad size is stingy but just large enough to be useful. A bit more height would have made a big difference. Perhaps cutting the height of the numeric and function key rows to half or smaller would have been a good design decision. That would have left more room for the mousing surface. Reducing the size of these lesser used keys would not hamper the typing experience like some have done by compressing all the keys (I’m looking at you, Lenovo IdeaPad).

The main problem with the trackpad however is not the size or width. It’s the depth, or rather lack thereof. Positioned almost perfectly flush with the palmrest surface, it is impossible to locate by touch alone. When your finger crosses the edge of the pad with no tactile feedback  has the effect of making the cursor feel unresponsive or stuck. You have to take your eyes off the screen to realize your finger is off the pad, reposition your finger back on the pad, and slide again continue you cursors journey. Repeating this exercise several times per minute is unfortunately standard procedure on the NC10.

With so much thought and good design put into the best-in-class keyboard, lets hope that Samsung addresses this interface shortcoming in the next product cycle.

More to come…
In part two of the Samsung NC10 Field Test, we will look at screen quality and go hands-on with the keyboard quality on the NC-10.

Continued from Part 1.

Previously we looked a the impressive Zoom ZFX hardware. But hardware was only half of this “total guitar package” … the better half!

The Sights

The software is graphically rich with colorful illustrations of stomp boxes, amps and such. The art style is about equal to most modern music interfaces, maybe a half-generation behind interface leaders like Apple and the latest Line 6.

The spiral notebook on the left contains an extensive library of amps, cabs, effects and tools. There is no shortage of mix-and-matchable gear simulations with all the usual sly names that reveal their original “inspirations” without inviting copyright infringement lawsuits.

Plop a piece of gear into place by dragging its image from the pages of a notebook to one of three windows on the right representing your rack, live room or stage floor. The descriptions of the gear on the notebook pages is a nice touch, as is the split signal routing that can be accomplished with items in the Tools area of your notebook.

The Sounds

The sounds are a mixed bag, but that is to be expected when so many factors intertwine such as lots of effects, near infinite connection options and personal taste. Most of the presets lean toward extreme effects and crunchy distortion, but there are many good clean sounds to choose from as well. Most of the sounds I played with did not have the richness and depth that I get from my PODxt, but I do get the feeling that if one lived with this software long enough, one could find good tone.

The Smells

So what’s not to like? In my opinion, enough. The interface is very twiddley. You are constantly scrolling around and selecting from large menus through tiny windows. It feels like looking at the interface through a hole. There will be lots of zooming in and out just to tweak a few virtual knobs on your peddles.

With just four or five effects it is annoying at best. As your setup grows in complexity, all the mousing quickly becomes overly cumbersome. If Zoom was trying to simulate the experience of repeatedly bending over to adjust a real pedal board, they nailed it. Using these unnecessarily restrained view of the gear feel like looking through a narrow slot, like a doorman of a 1920′s speakeasy sliding open a viewing slit to see who Bugsy sent.

The total package is very cool. The sounds are interesting but even if I could force myself to live with the interface, it is the performance where everything falls apart. This is what reveals the 1.0-ness of the software.

The crazy lag, the CPU hogging and the crackly sound left me cold. The handy CPU guide in the upper left corner of the interface hovered between 70% and 80% at startup. This is before sending any sound through it! My computer performance and screen refresh fell correspondingly. I am not quite sure what this 80% represents since my System Monitor reported Zoom taking up a 35% of system CPU. Either way, it was bogging down the system and produced unusable lag.

The Verdict

I like Zoom. I have always liked their higher end products and I really wanted to like the ZFX. Perhaps if I fiddled with it longer, I could coax more performance out of it. But life is too short to beta test commercial products. I look forward to checking back in a few months in hopes of an improved version 2. Until then, the search goes on for my office guitar system.