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Ryan Block

Editor and technology critic in the midst of founding a new content startup.


New MacBook Pro: now with 20% less battery powerOctober 18

Apple touted some pretty decent battery life numbers at the new MacBook / MacBook Pro press event this week: up to five hours on the Pro with discrete graphics off, and four hours with it on (both surely assuming ideal low-power conditions). One of the things that didn’t come up at the presser, however, was that new MacBook Pro batteries actually have just under 20% less energy than their predecessors. While both kinds of MBP batteries are 10.8v, the old ones are rated at 5600mAh / 60Wh, while the new ones are rated at 4700mAh / 50Wh. (MacBook numbers updated below.)

I’d estimate that the integrated NVIDIA chipset and ever more behind-the-scenes power-saving techniques are why Apple is claiming such solid life despite killing a fifth of the machine’s energy supply — but a 20% reduction is still no small number. It also means that as your new MBP’s battery degrades, you’ll have a smaller pool of potential energy to rely on, meaning you could wind up having to replace your battery more often (although that’s a little conjectural, at this point).

But as some are now postulating, one technique Apple may now be empl

Is right now really the moment for Apple to launch new laptops?October 9

Next week I’ll be with Josh at Apple’s new laptop event in Cupertino, and I’ll be up front about it: I’m pretty stoked. I’ve been holding off on buying until the next major MacBook or Pro revision — which I thought would come in January at Macworld — but this is clearly it. (Granted, there’s no knowing how long it’ll be until the new laptops ship after next week’s announcements.)

Now look, laptops are a big deal. For most users, laptops more often than not represent one of the most expensive devices they own, TV aside — but unlike a TV, most people are apt to replacing their laptop every couple of years. And when it comes to product cycles for laptops, a couple of years is sometimes how long it can take to get one out the door: next week’s new machines probably got started shortly after the Air, likely in 2006 or even 2005. In other words, these machines got started well before we knew things would be headed as far south as they’ve gone.

So now that we’re neck deep in the worst financial crisis in decades, now that consumer spending is nosediving, now that hoarding is displacing buying, now that even high-flying VCs are gettin

A day with the T-Mobile G1October 3

Okay, I’m way late in getting my hands on a T-Mobile G1 (the crew in NY got to check it out eons ago), but I did get to spend a day with one all to myself, and by popular Twitter demand, here are some (very) brief impressions.

Hardware

  • A lot smaller than I thought it’d be. Looks great in person.
  • Solid feeling, smooth, springy hinge; the device’s matte soft-touch finish is quite nice; entire back panel lifts off to replace the battery/SIM.
  • No 3.5mm headphone jack is freaking annoying, and possibly the likeliest dealbreaker. It’s just unacceptable at this point. T-Mobile only makes this worse by not bundling an ExtUSB -> 3.5mm adapter, and HTC adds insult to injury by placing one of those annoying attached rubber covers on the USB port, too.
  • Keyboard lacks definition (read: the keys are a little too flush), but it’s still very tactile, and (obviously) way easier to type on than an iPhone. The Leno chin doesn’t get in my way, although some who’ve used it certainly feel otherwise.
  • Screen looks great, extremely responsive capacitive touch. It doesn’t feel plasticy or cheap at all.
  • 3G reception is great in SF. Was getting 550Kbps+ speeds. (By comparison, my iPhone 3G usually do
Apple protesters don disgruntled iPhone costumeSeptember 30

Over the past few months there have been a number of protesters spotted at various local Apple store locations, but I have to give it up to these guys (MTD Drywall, from Gilroy, I believe). Not only did they go to the effort of building out a full-on disgruntled union-protest iPhone costume (with near-accurately placed “proximity sensor” eye-hole), they also came up with the snappy phrase, “No service… for workers!” Clever. Full size version over at my Flickr stream.

T-Mobile G1 / Android bits you may not have caughtSeptember 23

Just a few bits on today’s monumental T-Mobile G1 / Android / HTC Googlephone / funnererest handset evar announcement that may have gone under the radar.

  • T-Mobile claims G1s will be SIM-locked (no surprise). But hey, the software platform is completely open source; I can’t wait to see how they think they’ll protect against that.
  • T-Mobile claims you can’t use the device as a tethered data modem. But again, the whole OS — networking stack, app layer, radio interfaces, etc. — is open. Try and stop us.
  • Since T-Mobile’s US 3G network is 1700MHz-based, and the device only supports 1700 and 2100MHz bands, that means there could be it’s unlikely that future G1 versions would support 1900MHz (which is what AT&T’s 3G network requires). So we can probably count out an unlocked import unit for the time being.
  • HTC claims better 3G talk time compared to the iPhone 3G: 350 minutes 3G talk time (vs. 300 minutes). 2G talk time is apparently much worse though, 406 minutes to the iPhone’s supposed 600.
  • It supports microSDHC — meaning you’re not capped at 4GB of storage. When 16 and 32GB cards show up, you can drop those in and keep growing your device, whereas your iP