Crave

Dear Sony Ericsson,

Though we've known each other for some time, this is the first time that I've written. For the most part, our relationship has been a good one. Back when AT&T was still AT&T Wireless, the Sony Ericsson T68i was one of the very first phones I ever owned (it's so old that I can't even find the CNET review). At the time, I was the envy of my friends since I had a nifty new feature called Bluetooth. What's more, I was the very first person that I knew to have multimedia messaging.

Sony Ericsson T68

(Credit: Sony Ericsson)

Though I had to ditch the T68i by the time that I arrived at CNET almost exactly six years ago (happy anniversary to me!), I continued to use your phones periodically as my personal device. And in my official role at CNET, I've reviewed no fewer than 33 of your handsets. On the whole I've enjoyed what I've seen. You've given us brilliant displays, your Walkman and Cyber-shot phones can offer fantastic multimedia quality, and you regularly introduce conversation piece models like the Xperia X1.

But after reviewing T-Mobile's recent Sony Ericsson Equinox, I no longer can overlook one of my frequent complaints. And no, I'm not referring to your unfortunate tendency to over-design your keyboards and controls at the expense of usability. Instead, I'm talking about Sony's proprietary ports and memory cards.

Now I know that you've pledged to adopt the Micro-USB charger standard, but the rest of the cell phone world is rapidly leaving you behind. Even Samsung, a company that put a different charger port on almost every phone, has largely moved in that direction already. In comparison, you're beginning to look dated and frankly, a little stubborn. So please, drop that pesky proprietary port without further delay.

On the upside, I was pleased to hear last summer that you'll be dropping the Memory Stick Micro format in favor of microSD cards. With the exception of the X1, you've stuck firmly to the costly Memory Stick Micro cards until just recently (the Equinox requires them). I'm pleased, however, that newer models like the Yari, the Satio, the Aino, the Jalou, and the Xperia X10 all use microSD. Not only will that save your customers money, but also they'll be able to transfer data onto their phones from other devices.

The W995's lovely 3.5mm headset jack.

(Credit: Kent German/CNET)

Lastly, I have to ask that you stop using your proprietary headset connection and adopt a standard 3.5mm jack. I know you're capable of doing this, but I need to see more effort. One of the best features on the W995 was its 3.5mm jack. I was very pleased that I could use my own headset while listening to tunes without having to fumble with the awkward adapter. Even better, I could use more than one peripheral at a time.

You already offer great phones, but these changes will make them even better. Plus, you'll be showing your customers that you want to offer them the most choice possible. That's a small price to pay for a lot of user goodwill.

Regards,
Kent German

P.S. I'd also like to see more of your phones come to U.S. carriers--I fear that we'll never see the Google Android-powered X10--but I'll save that for another column.

If you erase and restore your iPhone, does performance improve?

I won't bore you with the gory details, but recently I had cause to erase my iPhone. And by "erase," I mean venture into the Reset menu and tap "Erase All Content and Settings."

Leading up to this, my iPhone 3G was running like a snail through molasses. In recent months it had grown weirdly sluggish. I'd pick up my daughter's iPod Touch and be shocked at how much faster it was.

After the nerve-racking process of wiping the 3G and letting iTunes restore the backup (it was the first time in a year of iPhone ownership that I'd had to do this), I noticed something: It seemed peppier. A lot peppier.

I'm not sure why, but this definitely begs the question: Should iPhone owners perform this step every few months? Does the wipe-restore process somehow defrag the device and thereby optimize performance?

I honestly don't know, but I reckon you, our brilliant readers, can offer some insight. Am I crazy? Imagining things? Or right on the money? (That'd be nice for a change.) Share your thoughts in the comments.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

In the beginning, MP3 players relied heavily on memory-card expansion slots, because built-in memory was painfully scarce. My, how the times have changed. Nowadays, internal flash chips offer up to 64GB of storage, and memory-card expansion slots--which almost exclusively take some form of SD media--are merely offered as an extra feature.

Luckily, there's a decent array of MP3 players currently on the market offering this extra, so if you're keen on the option of adding more space on a whim--or you just want to use memory cards a la MiniDiscs, swapping them in at intervals--you have plenty of worthy choices.

Check out the expandable MP3 players.

Sony's little pain in the wallet.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Last week I posted a review of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX1, but this post is not really about my review. It's about two user reviews (written by users I doubt have actually used the camera). One calls my review flawed, while the other praises the camera and then gives it a half-star rating out of five stars. Why? Sony's use of Memory Stick media for storage.

According to the first user review, the reason my review was "flawed" was because I didn't mention the use of Memory Stick media as a con and a reason not to buy the camera. I'm sorry, but I don't see what the big freakin' deal is with buying a Memory Stick. Yeah, it would be swell if I didn't have to pay $30 for an 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo and instead could get a generic 8GB SDHC card for $18. But, honestly, Sony's use of proprietary media, I/O ports, and miscellaneous other technologies shouldn't be news to anyone--it's been doing it for forever. In the case of Memory Stick, since 1998. Get over it already.

The other review complains that there are only two manufacturers of Memory Stick media--Sony and SanDisk--and when the user used a SanDisk card, the WX1 popped up a message saying it may not record. Problem is, I did and do all my testing using the SanDisk card mentioned and never got an error or any other kind of message. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I'm willing to bet there's something else going on.

Regardless, cutting a rating down to half a star strictly because you don't like buying a proprietary memory card makes no sense. It doesn't help readers or potential buyers.

There are benefits to a closed system--just ask anyone using an Apple computer. And, well, licensing fees keep a lot of companies in business. Does it suck that you are forced to buy a Memory Stick? If you already have SD cards for other products, then yes, sure. But, frankly, no one made you buy Sony products, and hey, at least be grateful it's not an xD card.

Windows 7 64-bit will soon take over desktop computers.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Consumers have had the option of 64-bit Windows computing since the release of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition in May 2005, four years after the release of Windows XP 32-bit. At the end of 2006, Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit versions were released simultaneously. Yet chances are you're currently using a machine that runs the 32-bit version of Windows.

This is about to change. Windows 64-bit has started to gain a significant foothold in the past two years as more systems ship with 3GB or more of memory. However, with Windows 7, 64-bit computing is likely to become even more common.

What's the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit computing? In a nutshell, the numbers refer to the amount of bits a computer can process in one computation. They also translate into the amount of random access memory (RAM) a computer can address. A 32-bit Windows computer can address a maximum of 4GB of RAM, while a 64-bit Windows machine can address up to 128GB and even more (64-bit applications can address theoretically up to 16 billion gigabytes of memory). So the higher number of bit means better computing, both in terms of precision and capability.

Despite the potential, the transition to the new platform has been slow. This is because of the high price of RAM and the lack of device drivers and 64-bit software applications. (Drivers are a special type of software that make hardware components work with the operating system. Without the sound driver, for example, your computer wouldn't be able to play music.)

Back when Windows Vista was released, 2GB of RAM, which is the recommended amount to make Vista run properly, could easily cost a couple hundred dollars. (This is one of the reasons Vista failed so badly as a new OS release.) There was virtually no 64-bit application then, either, other than a few game demos, and most hardware vendors didn't provide the 64-bit version of the drivers. Apart from this, 32-bit computers have been able to satisfy most of our daily computing needs.

We're all still in shock about receiving a tweet from one @LesMoonves, but we get through it to bring you an awesome Monday show. Today's stories cover Twitter getting hacked and why it does (and doesn't) matter; a guy who got a Palm Pre tattoo; and Kazaa making a (paid) comeback!

(Credit: Icon Designer/Flickr)

Per usual, there's a lot of Twitter news today, including a story about employee data getting hacked. According to TechCrunch, which broke the story, a hacker calling himself "Hacker Croll" managed to steal a Twitter employee's e-mail password and access to users' personal information and even some documents that exposed Twitter's inside business practices. Within this story, though, are two hidden stories. First of all, why is TechCrunch even posting about this? Instead of just reporting the information, they actually posted some of the stolen information...is that a smart thing to do?

My other question is, even after gaining access to Twitter's business notes, has anyone figured out how that site is going to make money, if at all? I'm sure Biz Stone is living comfortably, but what about the admin assistant that got his or her e-mail account jacked by the hacker? What about the little people!?

In other ridiculous Twitter news, check out this video of a guy getting a Palm Pre tattooed on his arm for PreCentral.net's "What would you do for a Palm Pre?" contest. I know we've seen this before with the guy who got a Microsoft Zune tattoo, but this is getting ridiculous. A lifetime of permanent artwork for a device with a two-year relevance, at most! It might be even shorter if people can't figure out a way to sync a Palm Pre with iTunes. Wilson actually found two ways to sync your Pre to iTunes, but neither of them are free or work with Windows, so PC users should still stick with the previous version.

Also, get ready for the resurgence of Kazaa, but this time it's a paid service. Is anyone paying attention to what happened to BitTorrent and Napster?

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Though it's not quite a year since Sony announced the HDR-CX12 flash-memory-based AVCHD camcorder, it looks like it's time for a replacement. With a six month lag behind their hard-drive based siblings, the HDR-XR500V and HDR-XR520V, the HDR-CX500V, and the HDR-CX520V promise some much-needed enhancements over their solid-but-flawed brothers.

Sony Handycam CX520V photos

The two models, which differ only by built-in memory--the 500V has 32GB while the 520V includes 64GB--use the same Exmor-R back-illuminated sensor and G-series 12X zoom lens as the XR versions, so we expect them to deliver the same high-quality video, and both retain the novelty geotagging capability for video and new Active SteadyShot image stabilization for use while walking. For the newer models, Sony has made some much-needed improvements to the user interface, as well as added another axis (roll) of electronic image stabilization. The CX500V/CX520V retain a manual control dial, although it's in the back of the unit rather than on the lens barrel. Other enhancements: Face Touch for face detection, the capability to upconvert to 60p playback when connected to a TV via HDMI and in-camcorder downconverting to MPEG-2 (for direct-to-DVD transfers).

While these flash models retain most of the capabilities of the hard drive versions, Sony did jettison the EVF. Grrr. Their main competitors, the Canon Vixia HF S10 and HF S100, don't have EVFs either, but that doesn't mean we have to like them. The HDR-CX500V and HDR-CX520V are slated to ship in September for $1,099 and $1,299, respectively.

In a very special, and very serious, episode of The 404, we sit down to reflect on the many ways Michael Jackson changed the world. From his music to his dance and music videos, MJ's ubiquity is undeniable. Heroes come and go, but legends never die! Rest in peace, Mike!

We've never done this before, but Michael Jackson had such a positive effect on all of our lives that we felt the need to take a moment and show him our appreciation. Obviously, we're not the only ones numbed by his passing--news sites across the Internet couldn't keep up with the hordes of people desperately trying to hear the news. Like so many people, Wilson and I spent hours poring over Michael's fantastic career, but there's something so edifying in knowing that the entire world shares this loss.

The real testament to MJ's success is the love from his fans--his live shows drew tons of people, many of whom often fainted at the sight of their favorite musician onstage.

Michael was also famous for bringing his most adoring fans up onstage for a quick hug before getting aggressively taken off the stage kicking and screaming for another chance to hug their hero. Isn't it weird to think about how many people have enjoyed his music? We all have our stories, whether it's dancing to "Thriller" at a prom, or singing karaoke to "Never Can Say Goodbye." Check out this episode and help us pay tribute to the King of Pop.

Though still pricey, the 4GB Eye-Fi card is now a much better deal.

(Credit: Eye-Fi)

I really dig Eye-Fi memory cards, which wirelessly beam photos from your digital camera to your PC (and/or an online sharing service). But I always thought they were overpriced.

They still are, but at least you can score a deal on one: Costco has the Eye-Fi 4GB Anniversary Edition for $59.99 shipped. Nonmembers pay an extra $3, and nearly everyone pays sales tax.

In case you're not familiar with it, the Eye-Fi is a standard-size SDHC memory card (meaning it's compatible with most cameras) that happens to have built-in Wi-Fi.

When it's in range of your home network and your camera is on, the Eye-Fi automatically transfers photos to your PC. Alternately, it can upload photos directly to the online service of your choice: Facebook, Flickr, Snapfish, Photobucket, etc.

Ultimately, it's a convenience. A pricey one, yes, especially considering that you can get an ordinary 4GB SDHC card for about 8 bucks. On the other hand, the last time I posted this product, it was $99.

So now that it's $40 less, will you jump on it? Or are you satisfied with your perfectly cromulent SD card reader and/or USB cable?