In an earlier article, we showed you how some of the features of the upcoming Windows Vista Beta 2 looked suspiciously like their Mac OS X equivalents. Now the good guys at AnandTech have put one Vista feature through its paces - Flip3D, which like Expos?ries to help users see every open window at once - and have found that not only is it 'heavily influenced' by Mac's Expos?it's inferior to the program it copies.

Unlike Expos?which presents all open windows evenly around the main window once activated, Flip3D works like a Rolodex. Through rotating the mouse wheel or repeatedly pressing the TAB key, the user can flip through the active windows. Problem is, though, because of the way the windows themselves are organized, not every part of each window can be seen at once (just have a look at the screenshot). Also, having to use the mouse wheel isn't very smooth and is less easy than using the mouse. Finally, the AnandTech testers say that this view of the windows creates aliasing, which makes Flip3D both "ugly to look at and ugly to use".

In conclusion, they have this to say:  "Microsoft simply would have been better off not implementing Flip3D than using this. We like Expos?and a version of it in Windows would be very nice, but Flip3D is a second-rate copy at best, and ultimately does not function nearly enough like Expos?o be useful."

Back to the drawing board, Microsoft?

There have been rumors that Palm and Research in Motion might be taking a stroll down the aisle soon.

The possibility of the two companies merging appears to make sense, as each company has something the other wants. Palm has been yearning to gain a foothold in the corporate market for years now, and it has been so desperate to do so that it has come up with a Windows Mobile version of its popular Treo smartphone to increase its chances of being snapped up by corporate customers. Conversely, RIM's Blackberry has been a runaway success in the corporate market, but it's done less well with consumers.

RIM, though, is worth far more than Palm - RIM's market cap is $12.4 billion, dwarfing Palm's $1.86 billion - so RIM might just consider buying Palm outright. RIM's legal battles, however (it just managed to face down NTP and it's now having to deal with Visto), might force it to shelve any such purchase.

It's said that should any sort of merger or purchase take place, it might be announced this Thursday, when both companies are scheduled to announce their quarterly earnings. Let's see if that's how things pan out.

If you've ever longed to be able to scribble notes on your Palm device as easily as you can write on a sheet of paper, Pennovate Notes might just be the program for you. 

This program helps Palm handheld users compensate for having to work with the little screen all PDA users are saddled with, by splitting the screen in two. It's not as bad as it sounds, quite the contrary - one portion is used for navigation (press and hold an enabled hardware button to pan or drag the page for more writing space), and the other for showing users the active portion being written on. The 'page' users work on is far bigger than the screen, and its size can even be selected.

Pennovate Notes is a great way to make a good OS and set of devices even more usable. It's not completely free, more's the pity, but at least you've got 15 days after you download it to see if you like it before you have to pay for it.

The good folks over at Laptop Logic have put Lenovo's ThinkPad X60s through its paces. They've found the X60s to be one smooth, powerful notebook that's more than a bit on the expensive side, but is well worth every penny.

The X60s is a dual-core laptop that's relatively small, considering the heat it packs. Units can weigh 2.89lbs, 3lbs or 3.46lbs depending on which battery variant is chosen (one of three), and the machine never gets any thicker than 1.1in - nice and very portable. The test unit came equipped with the Core Duo Low Voltage L2400 CPU (1.55 GHz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache), 512 MB RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a/b/g Wi-Fi, WWAN and an 8-cell battery - a heavenly mouthful! The machine's snappy performance, superb build quality, excellent keyboard (it's spill-resistant, of course), terrific battery life and unique ThinkLight (a little LED light for the keyboard) all endeared it very much to the editors.

The X60s is far from perfect of course. The reviewers didn't like that the palmrest gets a little hot, that there's no touchpad (just an UltraNav pointing stick), that there's no DVI on Ultrabase, that the lower-end systems only come with 512MB, and that the laptop's expensive - the test unit is $2,299, out of reach of many a road warrior. Still, those observations couldn't make them love the X60s any less. "There's certainly better value to be had elsewhere," the reviewers said, "but you truly get unparalleled, uncompromised mobility, quality and performance." The proof of that? The X60s just won Laptop Logic's Editor's Choice Award.

(Oh, and at the time the review was written, Lenovo decided to sweeten the pot a bit by offering $200 mail-in rebates on two of the lower X60s models. Sweet!)

The SGH-E870 is one of Samsung's many middle-range phones. It's a triband, clamshell phone that weighs just 83g and measures 92 x 42 x 17 mm - nothing to sniff at, but nothing to write home about either.

The phone's more significant features include the following:

• Bluetooth
• USB 1.1 compatibility
• Video-picture ID support
• microSD (nee TransFlash) compatible
• music player - compatible with MP3, ACC, ACC+, eAAC+, WMA files
• 1+ megapixel camera with LED flash - PictBridge compatible
  
• MIDP 2.0 Java
• GPRS
• Productivity tools - alarm, calculator, calendar, to-do list, voice memo
• Speakerphone
  

It's nicely styled - it looks like the phone version of an iBook, a departure from how Samsung usually styles its phones - and that's a good thing, because to be perfectly honest, aside from how it looks, this phone doesn't stand out all that much. It's got a decent feature set, sure, but then again so do so many of its Samsung brethren (as well as competing models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and the like).

The phone hasn't yet been snapped up by any major US carrier, but it's available for purchase both in shops and online as well.

Most cellphones nowadays are pieces of work that are good for just about anything (well, almost). Soonr is software which, in this vein, aims to make your mobile phone much more usable. It allows even bog-standard cellphones to connect to PCs via the web and access it remotely. You can take a gander at your files and search through them, check your e-mail, access your Outlook - and hey, you can even Skype while you're at it! Very cool.

Even better, Basic Soonr accounts are completely free; while you'll have to pay for premium accounts, by doing so you get to access your computers even if they're off, and you also get data back-ups and very cheap international calling as well. Almost too good to be true, and well worth the extra money, in my opinion.

Today the company announced its release of a beta of its client for OS X. Terrific to see they aren't neglecting the Mac faithful. I for one am pretty curious to see how running the family Mac from my relatively unsophisticated little cellphone might be like... I'll give it a try and then tell you all what I think.

At the ongoing CommunicAsia 2006 event, Motorola announced its new W series of cheap-and-cheerful models. The W line is aimed at giving budget-oriented users a start in the cellphone world. Two clamshells (the W220 and W375) and three candy-bar units (for GSM, the W208 and W170, and the CDMA-only W210) comprise the new line at launch.

As befits such bargain-basement models, none of them come with the 'wowee' features the RAZR and SLVR are famous for; the top-line W375's only claim to fame in that department, for instance, are its speakerphone functionality and mobile USB capability, and none of the rest are as well equipped, relatively speaking. Common features of all these phones are long battery life and an integrated FM receiver, which I suppose is a decent cheap substitute for an MP3 player. Think simplicity and functionality instead of bling and glitz (which, by the way, might just make them appeal to more than just the penny-pinchers).

   

(From left to right an open W220, a big pic of a closed W220, a closed W375 and an unnamed candy-bar-form-factor W phone.)

Look for the W series to be giving the established budget favorites a run for their money starting later this year. We'll bring you more news as we get it.

The younger set doesn't have it very easy these days, as far as cellphones are concerned. Most kids wouldn't be caught dead with the sort of ringtones their elders prefer; they'd prefer more raucous and/or catchy ringtones, thanks very much, which just happen to be the ones the 'oldies' most vehemently object to. Plus the use of cellphones in areas like classrooms, libraries and the like is strictly verboten.

What's a kid to do?

Well, for one, he or she could hunt down a particular new ringtone that's making waves in Britain and the States. It's extremely high-pitched, quite annoying, very distinctive - and inaudible to most adults.

The technology relies on the fact that most adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds, a condition called presbycusis, or 'aging ear'. The ringtone was developed in Britain as the offshoot of an invention called the Mosquito to repel teenagers who loiter outside shops and block store windows, while leaving adults unaffected.

We can't wait to give this one a try (yes, none of us are old enough not to hear this interesting new ringtone)!

Fans of Motorola's hot new Q smartphone were eagerly awaiting the phone's arrival for months before it was finally released. Now that it's out and people are apparently falling all over each other to buy one, it seems that some companies are determined to fan the flames even further, so to speak. Amazon.com is offering Qs for Verizon for $319.99; with their Qs' activation, buyers get a whopper of a mail-in rebate - $150, which chops the net price to $169.99 and comes with free shipping to boot. (No, that's no typo!)

Such a sweet deal! If you want it, you have to act now, though, as in right now - the rebate ends June 14.

Apple and Motorola's little joint project, which packages iTunes with Motorola ROKR, RAZR and SLVR phones, has worked out well for both companies, the flak over the hundred-song limit imposed by Apple notwithstanding. Even its detractors have to admit that this functional melding of an iPod and a cellphone is a great idea. Trouble is, not all SLVRs come with iTunes - especially those units sold in markets outside the US.

Now someone's done something about it. Posted on the Motomodders forum on the net (it's actually found elsewhere, but the directions on this particular forum are easier to read and clearly stated) are instructions on how to install iTunes in an unlocked and unbranded SLVR. What's more, this version of iTunes purportedly has a thousand-song limit - a far cry from the hundred-song ceiling the 'legally equipped' units are hobbled with.

Very interesting. Anyone want to give it a whirl?