A Sony TT is smaller, lighter, has comparable batterylife *and* and built in DVD. And that's a 2 or 3 year old design.

It's fine saying you can download applications these days (and most of what I install is) but movies still come on disc for most people, as does music. If I can't rip the music, or write a mixed CD for listening in the car then a large part of the functionality is gone.

As for screen res, for the price it's fine - but I would hope for more on 13" screen (it's the same as the 11" screen I have at present).

Just took a look at the Netherlands on the spy page. It's really useful. It says they are currently everywhere (lists just about every single province in the country, without being specific about where in the provinces they are operating).

In the UK tunnels may be nice simple affairs, but I've found many in Holland, Italy and Germany that confuse all but the best sat navs. With multiple exitis midway through the tunnel. Not fun.

The chance to work in a relaxing, tastefully decorated environment instead of surrounded by posters for computer games?

An emphatic yes...

Did the stereotype put me off?

An emphatic no...

I'm not a Niklon lover (being a 5d owner) but I have to say the noise levels at high ISO settings were amazing...

Almost good enough to make me think I made a mistake with the Sony TZ.

Good screen res, good battery, I'd take a half decent chip over graphics on an ultra portable any day.

But no bluetooth or optical disk... Hardly surprising at the price point, so not a complaint, just a shame.

And it works great. Much better than XP, and if you turn the task bar icons to small (as I do even on my 1920*1200 screen) then the taskbar takes no more room than on XP, and is infinately more useful. My other half still uses it with Office 2007... It does have 2GB RAM though.

Maybe the bloatware Levano ship it with is the problem? I know it was with my Viao TZ21...

Just because I can connect to external sources doesn't make the built in ones redundant. I would rather not have a box for tuner external to the TV. My next TV will get rid of the ugly HD Cable receiver I have as it'll be built in to the TV - use less power and make the living room that much more attractive.

I listen to the TV 95% of the time through my AV system. 95% because TV speakers will never match a decent setup for sound - but when I want to play on the console and my other half wants to listen to music we can. TV for console sound, stereo for music.

Maybe what you want to by is a monitor with a HDMI input to use as a display only, not a full fledged TV. In which case no TV on the market is going to not have 'redundant' features...

I only see one advantage of eBooks. Less physical storage.

They are more difficult to use - time to turn a page, not being able to flick through a book etc.

You need too readers for a two person household

You can't easily swap books with your other half - we read the same books; does this mean we need to buy them twice - once for each reader? Or with in laws and friends...

I like the tactile experience of reading - the e-ink looks great, and is pleasent on the eye compared to reading a normal screen - but you lose the rest of the experience. The smell and feel of the paper.

And they cost a fortune. I will never replace my paper books - I love a room full of them, but would like to be able to carry my reader with me for a selection of books on the train - but need them to be complimentary to me physical collection, not a repalcement. How about the option of getting an e-Book free when you buy the physical thing. If that happens I'll buy one in a flash, until then I stick to paper.

Oh and what Sony has done with the price of this is riduculous! I mean do they actually want to sell it?

I used to love sony erricson phones that I owned - from the T61i onwards, but they have really lost the plot now...

The pixel count is pointless on the thing. It looks fine at lower res, terrible at full res. Sace the storage space and take photos at a reasonable screen resolution - and it will take better quality pictures at the same time (less pixels on the same size sensor).

Give me a 3.5mm jack. I don't care about USB overly, but I want a headphone socket.

Make it thin for pockets, 2cm these days is a brick.

I've not used the keyboard so can't comment, but I have to say the iPhone keyboard is great - and yes you can type full emails on the thing - I do so every morning when checking and replying to my work account on the train. The auto corrects are a must for this to work though.

I wanted to hate the iPhone (I don't like apple) but had to buy one after trying a friends, as it was just so easy to use.

I do prefer the frontal design of the Sony Erricson to the iPhone though - if only they could make the rest to match...

"We don't have abilities to determine proficiency in any language'

That line on it's own made reading the article worthwhile :)

So with new and improved batteries it's still not good enough for a round commute to work, and even it it could it won't get up to motorway speeds...

If you are going to say 'Reliant on improvements' why not say something bold like '600 miles @ 75mph from a single charge, recharges in 3 mins'

They killed my toy! The TZ series fell into this segment (price, screen size and resolution) but has a real chip and an optical drive. Why would you remove these - it really made the machine stand out from the crowd! Tiny, powerful enough for VS 2008 and SQL Server 2008, small enough to fit into a bag and with a build in DVD burner.

Sob.

(Unless of course this is to sit along side the TT range that replaced the TZ in which case I have to ask what the point is...)

Is one of the reasons why I got rid of my 1000H Asus... The machine itself was great, but the amount of times when touch typing I suddenly found myself with a strange character on the line above the one I was typing on drove me mad!

Whoever designed this keyboard layout wants firing.

Other than that that machine looks so ugly, the wierd colour scheme and battery sticking out of the back like it was an afterthought.

I'd say definate fail.

Wow...

So you are only a right thinking adult if you own an iPod?

Whilst I own have owned both an iPod and have an iPhone, I brought them because they fitted what I wanted at the time, not because a few members of society deemed it *required*.

If the Zune is better than the iPod then why not use it? I used an MD player (three of them actually) before the iPod because it fitted what I needed at the time - and is still a far superior piece of kit for listening to music than either the iPod or the iPhone - just not as convinient.

Having to fight with stupid project leaders at the moment that made a fantastic distraction!

And is exactly what I thought when I heard about the idea of the parties, and exactly why I wouldn't throw one!

They did the same over (nl) here a couple of years ago when I was an orange customer. What it meant was that orange stopped developing pricing plans, so when 3g finally became available it was 6 euros per *MB* or so, and they closed the orange shops down giving twice the customers in the T-Mobile shop with the same staff. When you did eventually get served (could take 90 mins sometimes) you were just told sorry we don't deal with orange customers - just wait for your contract to run out and we'll be glad to move your over to T-Mobile (what? I thought it was a merger and so I was with T-Mobile already?!?!?!?!?!).

And this after a long marketing campaign saying how great it was going to be with two lots of shops to help all the customers...

Good luck - you're going to need it!

Since when has 1400kg been light? That is twice the weight of a spitfire / midget / original mini / sprite etc.

Do what they have done and acheive a weight substancially less than 1 ton and I'll be impressed.

Plus - if they have taken everything they learnt from F1 and used it for aerodynamics it won't be very slippy. Considering in the last couple of races they were telling the drivers to use the drag of the car to help conserve the brakes, I don't think this is a good start for designing a car :) Whilst I think that they were taking things a little far for entertainment purposes Stirling Moss commented that the stopping power of lifting your foot off of the throttle and letting the drag take over gives better stopping performance than his brakes gave him when he was racing.

High downforce (F1) = High Drag Co-efficient

On the bright side, it doesn't look bad, and if it really goes as well as it's supposed to then it's the first hybrid that I would not mind driving :)

Here here!

Something strange in a register comment: Common Sense!

:)

Saying that it looks too much like an Aston / Massarati? How is that a bad thing!!! It's not like the easten clones that look like european cars but with all the goodness sucked out, it just looks very sexy.

Shame the price in NL is never going to be close to the 40K they quote in the article - at that price it's cheap compared to the competition. The only thing that bothers me is how to fill up on the road. If I can top up the charge in the same time as I can refil my petrol tank I'm sold. Wow, a couple of years ago I would never had thought I'd say that!

You know I hadn't thought of that...

Go to Apples site and what do you know:

For the same footprint, only 650g more in weight I can have a 'proper' machine, with a 7 hour battery and full connectivity. And I save a couple of hundred Euros into the bargain...

Now I am confused - just what am I paying for with the air? It's slightly thinner, slightly lighter - but has the same footprint as a regular MBP with less power, battery life and connection options. It is a complete failure isn't it?

On the bright side, price doesn't seem to be an issue for buying an MBP anymore... So I may look at one of those next time I need a machine.

Maybe something to look at when updating my TZ21. Then saw the screen size and lack of ports, and lack of optical drive and thought 'Bugger! Maybe not...'

Nice and shiny as it is my office (as I would expect of 90%) does not have a wireless connection, whilst thin is nice the actual size of it is too big for me to be ultra portable (the TZ21 is netbook size with real world performance and screen res).

What's the deal with not fitting an optical drive anyway? If they can fit it in the footprint of the TZ21, why not in a 13.3" case? If I am going to watch movines on the way home I want a DVD drive...

And I so wanted to like it as well...

Maybe they'll make a useful one (for me) for me in the future...

I honestly do not believe that you have used a DSLR if think that there is no difference in image quality.

I brought a bridge camera to save money on lenses, and for ease of carrying a few years back. The image quality was on par with the shots in this review, and even a bridge camera is cluncky to carry around.

Within a year I was that fed up of the artifacts in the images, even on 100 ISO, that I swapped for a second hand mid range DSLR. Yes I have spent far more money on professional quality lenses etc - but even friends that have the standard lenses (and have spent not that much more than these cost, and have a nice upgrade path for the future) produce shots with quality way in excess of the sample shots here.

If you want snap shots of your holidays then fine (but if that's the case why not get a cheaper compact that produces similar image quality), if you want something to produce nice phtographs with get a real camera - you won't regret it in the long term.

The light at the end of the tunnel is just a train coming the other way :) Nothings gonna change...

Downloaded and installed quick enough, no problems except for activation with a pin locked sim card is not possible, so you have to unlock, disconnect, then reconnect before it will will work. Why should I have to reactivate anyway though? Does that mean that if I go somewhere else after my contract is up it won't activate when I next update it?

Strangely enough my Dutch iPhone went from English back to Dutch after the update until I activated it when it remembered the correct language. Odd.

Love the interface for the recorder. Someone though about how to make it interesting (like flicking the mic gives a noise like flicking the mic, but flicking the area around the mic give nothing). Useless, but gives a nice feel to the app anyway :)

200*12*20 = 48000

So... I can drive either this or a nice Jag?

Tough choice :)

Seriously though:

36 months is an average lease - why would anyone want a longer one?

As others have said: Fugly! Why not make it more like a Smart Roadster? Small, but at least it looks cool...