What's the difference between the Stone Age & Tech Age? A lot, but we still use Tablets...

See that guy in the third row from the front? The one who's playing with his fancy new convertible laptop? That's me, with my tablet. It's awesome. Sure, it cost half a loan payment. It's still awesome.

There are two main types of tablet PC on the market, not counting those fiddly little personal organiser type computers: the convertible and the slate. I'll do the famous one first, the market leader for slates - Apple's iPad.

At first glance, I took it to be an oversized iPod touch, and I was sceptical of its potential as a full strength machine. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the iPad's on screen keyboard expanded into far more comfortable proportions than had been the case with its mini-me, allowing much faster replies and even letting me keep up with multiple conversations without dominating the whole window. All of the favourites are still there, the responsive multi-touch screen and the quirky little apps, but the main advantage over a normal laptop lies in the fact that it's much thinner and lighter than anything else in its class.

Unfortunately it can't all be positive.

Until October last year, the iPad could only run a single app at a time. Although this limit has now been removed, running too many at once will quickly drain the battery. Furthermore, the low processing power of the iPad means it will struggle a bit under the weight of a full study night, especially if that includes tomorrows timetable, your email and the research you're doing for an approaching deadline.

The basic Wi-Fi iPad will set you back between £440-615 depending on hard drive size, while the 3G will add about £100 on to that. Apart from that, my biggest frown at the iPad was aimed at the single and specific cable, with which you charge the battery and connect external devices. So easy to lose, thanks Apple, just what a student needs.

And ofcourse, with most iProducts, you have the apps. There are a few that you will use regularly to keep informed, Facebook, Twitter, London Underground status and the like, but none of them really engage you for any length of time (apart from possibly the YouTube app, if the report you're writing has ground slowly to a halt).

If we can put aside Angry Birds for a while, we can shift the focus to convertible tablets, more specifically the HP TM2.

In laptop form (I'll resist saying mode - it isn't quite a transformer!) it operates as you would expect; there's a keyboard, touchpad mouse and not much else. However, one quick twist and we lay the screen face up over the keyboard, pop out the stylus and enter tablet form, wherein we can use the screen like paper - handwriting notes, annotating diagrams and even doodling on the side of the page, with all the additional power of Microsoft Office to help make life easy. This ability to switch from typing to sketching and back again is a key strength of the machine, especially for engineering lectures (like mine).

However, the model I use is imported from America. This means one bad thing and two good things. Firstly, the keyboard is weird , but I can live with that because its touch screen and worked out at around £700 including import tax. This makes it cheaper than the equivalent UK model, which would come out to £800-900.

The trouble is some lecturers aren't generally prepared in advance for students to have such amazing gadgets; that is, if the module doesn't use Moodle. This forces me to copy everything onto my laptop from my paper notes after the lecture is over, almost defeating the point of my annotation and highlighting software.

Of the two, I'm sticking firmly to my convertible laptop. The iPad is fun and will do the job, if you have the willpower to ignore your apps and patience to get used to it, but for power and versatility go with the HP TM2.

Final scores:

UCL Services compatibility: IPad 4/5, Convertible 5/5

Usefulness as a study aid: IPad 3/5, Convertible 4/5 (5/5 if not for lack of notes)

Editor: Sangita Ganesh

Writer: Gaz Buck

Call of Duty: Black Ops

'Tis the time of year when one is called for duty at their local video game vendor. Yes you guessed
it, it's the release of the next Call of Duty (CoD): Black Ops. Developed by Treyarch, considered to
be the wimpy brother of the other CoD developer Infinity Ward; their CoD: Big Red One, didn't hold
a candle against Infinity Wards Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). So what do we make of
Black Ops?

Graphics & Sound

The Call of Duty series were never known for good graphics. Black Ops isn't really aesthetically
more pleasing than MW2 (which was GORGEOUS), but if you intend on playing on a PS3, as I did
for 5 hours as part of the TechSoc gaming nights (shameless advertising?), the graphics start to
look pretty amazing. However, the sounds are an absolute let-down. Explosions give a low ‘Thump’
and the guns sound like firecrackers going off. Though they are fine, they just aren’t satisfying. We
all like to kill pixelated people with things that go ‘BOOM!’ and not ‘pew...’, after all.

Single Player

Black Ops’ single player has the glorious distinction of being the first CoD game to have a talking
protagonist; and honestly the voice acting is very good, even if JFK sounds like Mayor Quimby
from The Simpsons. The storyline makes sense and immerses the player, despite revolving around
a generic soldier guy, but unfortunately there are not as many 'WOW' moments as in MW2.
Despite this, the sequence 'Steps to Freedom' in which you break out of a prison, is definitely one
of the best in CoD, so much so that it replaced the ‘steps to integrate by parts’ section of my brain,
leading to interesting answers in my Maths exam.

Multiplayer

It looks like Treyarch have taken all the leaves from Infinity Wards book and added some branches
to hold it together, multiplayer is not only as fun as previous games but also far more balanced, in
other words, the weapons are equally powerful. Gun-wise, there is A LOT more recoil, so you
actually have to AIM and CONTROL your shots and not just spray in the general direction of a
marker. Additionally, the grenade launcher is seriously toned down in damage (boo!) and the knife
range is nowhere near as ridiculous as in MW2 (yay!). Black Ops multiplayer also has more
modes than previous versions of CoD; the most inventive is the new Wager mode. This lets players
place bets on themselves in outperforming everyone else on a particular game. Sadly, the game is
not without issues. Often, enemies are placed behind you to riddle your backside with bullets and
there are major stuttering issues on the PC version. Treyarch however, have shown that they’ll
listen to what the players are complaining about, and are providing us a patch.
All in all, Black Ops adds sense and logic to the Call of Duty Series, but Modern Warfware 2
definitely makes it more fun to kill pixelated soldiers with massive explosions. Nevertheless, for
£35.99 (play.com, perhaps quite a chunk out of your student loan), Black Ops guarantees you a
great experience...until the next iteration comes along.

Writers:

Schwit Janwityanujit Rating: 4/5
Cloudeh Rating: 4.5/5

Editor:

Sangita Ganesh

“Which Browser do you use?” is a question asked countless times amongst the realms of the Web. According to statistics from Wiki, as of September 2010 about 5% say Safari, 9% Chrome, 30% Firefox and a whopping 46% belongs to Internet Explorer. But do these statistics mean anything? Is Internet Explorer 8 really the best browser? Some would probably say yes, whilst others, especially the geeks in Tech Society would let out a gasp of horror for the crime of even implying it. So to rest this matter once and for all, at least until the next major updates, I decide to test out the four most popular browsers.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8)

IE isn’t terrible in the looks department. The main beef I have towards it is the technical aspects and speed.

· It is slow. And I mean VERY slow. IE 8 easily was the slowest to render any of the UCL services, (Portico, Moodle, Common Timetable). On average it took 2 more seconds to load pages than the other browsers, and absolutely ages to open a new tab or even to start itself up.

· It has no spell check, no download manager and no user-made add-ons. A major drawback when downloading those many exam papers.

· Try changing the homepage. If it takes you less than 5 minutes, you're a genius.

· Took 5441ms to finish the SunSpider test, (a way of measuring the time the content on webpages take to load), clearly the longest compared to Safari’s 603ms and Firefox’s 1278ms.

The only good thing I can say about IE 8 is that it is better than IE 7. Oh and the fact that it's very secure. I do need to mention though that IE8 weighs only at 5MB, the smallest of all, so it will hardly clog up your computer.

Rating: 1/5. Don’t bother.

Apple Safari 4

Safari’s features are what you would expect from a normal browser with tabs, password managers, spell check and a healthy number of plugins.

When opening the UCL pages I didn’t notice any sluggishness and the browser did it cleanly. You can also attach iTunes to it to play any music in your iTunes library, and the ‘top sites’ view is VERY nifty. If judging by looks, this would definitely be my favourite.

However, I wouldn't say it was all sunshine and roses. The most annoying thing about Safari is its lacking in user-friendliness. I can’t open a new tab willy-nilly since the ‘plus’ button for some reason adds a bookmark.

Also, when entering Portico I intuitively typed in “UCL Portico” into the address bar and was surprised when the page returned as an error, even though every other browser simply puts the input into a search engine . Instead, Safari stupidly decides to search your history for it. What use is it if you’ve just started browsing? Lastly, the history page is pretty but I don’t want a pretty preview of the websites I’ve been into (especially if they are of questionable content), I want a simple list of sites I can click and re-open.

Safari also has an outdated security model and in fact most of Apples security vulnerabilities lie in the Safari browser. A computer security researcher hacked the Mac operating system in less than 2 minutes by exploiting a loophole in Safari.

Rating: 2/5. Safari goes for pretty looks and not functionality, for class and not character.

Google Chrome 3

Google Chrome is definitely one of the speediest browsers. It starts up quickly, opens tabs even quicker, and in no time you will have your UCL timetable and will never be late to a lecture again.

Ofcourse, it is compatible with every major operating system and has a range of features constantly developing features. Also worth mentioning is its ‘incognito’ mode, which hides your browsing history for that session; great for planning those surprise events.

Nevertheless, Chrome’s most significant selling point is that it is VERY secure, notifying users of blacklisted websites when he/she is accessing them and preventing tabs from installing malicious software. Useful when your 'friend' plays with your computer.

On the looks department, Chrome definitely stands out from the other browsers. It is very nifty and simplistic, but does not eschew valuable functions and important buttons; instead it cuts out unnecessary things like the drop down box of the most frequent sites and places it as a menu on a new tab.

Bad points? Well, its history page is hard to navigate as it simply lumps together everything in one page...

Rating: 4.5/5. Chrome is suitable if you want it fast and simple.

Mozilla Firefox 3.6

If you are a Windows/Linux use, the similarity of Firefox to IE and the older Netscape, will make the browser very easy for you to use. Whilst not as secure and fast as Chrome, Firefox makes up for it with add-ons. And I mean, a metric ton of them. Everything from changing how it looks to an Ebay auto-bid plugin.

However, what I admire most is Firefoxs is simplicity. It was the first to provide a search bar on the corner of the screen and navigating the browsing history is childs play. It also has a ‘recently closed tabs’ page which makes it ridiculously simple to go back to whatever you were doing before you accidentally closed the browser (although this feature also exists in Chrome).

The downfall with Firefox is that it's rather chuggish, okay it loads up the UCL services relatively fast, but with many plugins, it can take ages to start up. Probably a no go when you want those Take That tickets.

Rating: 4.5/5. Firefox’s appeal is in the plethora of add-ons, a familiar and intuitive interface and low system requirements. Use it if you browse the internet a lot.

Whilst Chrome is faster and technically more powerful, Firefox tempts with its ease of use and abundance of add-ons. So overall, I'd say you can't do wrong with either Google Chrome or Firefox.

Although, any browser that manages to load Portico is probably pretty amazing. Right?

Please note browser speeds are general and can depend on individual connection.

Schwit Janwityanujit Sangita Ganesh

Blackberry 8520 Curve & HTC Wildfire

I'm a Computer Scientist, a proud geek and a giant gadget freak. But oddly, I've never owned a smartphone. There are a lot of reason for this, but the main one is my extreme level of satisfaction with my current device; a Nokia 1110 with no internet, no bluetooth, a monochrome screen and actual buttons. It may not be able to find me a restaurant or browse facebook, but it is really good at being a phone. I can make calls and send texts with one hand without more than the odd glance at the screen, the battery lasts all week and it's nigh-indestructible (I've had the same one for five years, and it was a hand-me-down even then.)

So it was with some trepidation that I agreed to do a smartphone review, but also a frisson of excitement – like I said, I'm a gadget freak. I started with the HTC Wildfire, running Google's Android system. Once I (reluctantly) handed that back, I moved on to a Blackberry Curve. About the latter, I have to disclose that I wasn't really able to give it a fair trial, since I only had a pay-as-you-go SIM, barring me from using many Blackberry services. That said, the HTC was quite happy with PAYG, so for many students that's a point in it's favour right off.
With smartphones, too many people (manufacturers included) focus too much on smart and not enough on phone. How did these hold up on the basics, like making calls? The HTC is an all touchscreen model, which I found a bit cumbersome for dialing phone numbers or looking up contacts, although it gets easier with practice. What did irritate me was how hard it was to use the phone one-handed or heads-up; you can't operate a touchscreen purely by feel, you need to look where you are putting your digits. I nearly got run over by buses on Tottenham Court Road on more than one occaision. The Blackberry, with it's physical keyboard was better on this score, but the keys are squeezed into a pretty small space, so needs practice and care to use properly, especially if you have sausage-fingers. A good phone for hand-models I think. As an alternative to manual dialing, the Blackberry does have a really excellent voice-command feature, which doesn't need to be trained to your voice and still (usually) works even on a busy street: press a button on the side of the phone and say "call dad" in a loud clear voice so that passers by think you've been released into the community and voila, you are connected to your father and you can arrange to "borrow" some more money. Just until your loan turns up of course. No, I haven't spent it all already, God!
Call quality seemed fine on both handsets, and reception wasn't normally a problem. They do both take a while to boot up though, so put it on silent in lectures, don't turn it off.
On to the more advanced services. This is where I hit problems with the Blackberry: email and mobile internet both require a contract with Blackberry services, even if your PAYG SIM has a data allowance. The HTC just yummed up my 3G data services (a bit too greedily perhaps, I burned a lot of credit. But that's because I was on the wrong tarrif.) Both handsets would connect to WiFi networks though, including eduroam by following the relevant instructions on the UCL Information Services website (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/students/wireless/eduroam/guide). I was really impressed by the way the HTC integrated with my Facebook and Google accounts, syncing my contacts online, letting me see my calendar, my friends status updates, even automatically merging phone contacts with facebook contacts, so I'd see their profile pic when they called me. The HTC web browser had no problems with Moodle, but failed to access the Common Timetable, whereas the Blackberry could do both. However, the Blackberry is really more about email than web, and the HTC really outshines it in the speed and ease of use of its browser.
The HTC was quite happy to connect to both my personal and UCL email accounts, and to send messages from both too. Writing emails (or texts, or entering web addresses) on the touchscreen interface isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be – there's a clever autocorrect feature that shows the words you meant to type if you weren't sitting on the top deck of a moving bus being jossled by drunk rugby players. The Blackberry of course has a full QWERTY keyboard to write with. It's hard to say which was easier to use, it really comes down to a personal preference. As I said, I couldn't actually use email on the 'berry, but since it's their whole raison d'être it's safe to assume it does it pretty well, and I have reports that it works just fine with the Live@UCL mail service.
Unlike my beloved Nokia, it wouldn't be wise to leave the house with either device unless it had a full battery. At a pinch, you could make them last two days, but really you need to charge them up nightly, which is a pain if you forget. Best to invest in a spare charger and keep it on campus.
Both devices have built-in GPS (though only accurate to within a few tens of metres), but while Google Maps worked fine on the HTC, the Blackberry just showed me a blank grey screen with a "you are here" arrow in the middle. Yes, I know I'm here, I was just hoping you could tell me where everything else is.
A brief word about the HTC desktop syncronisation software, and that word is "yuck." It is windows only, and requires Microsoft Outlook (which costs around £70) to export your contacts to. And it's about as reliable and easy to use as Portico. Being designed as a business device, the Blackberry does much better in this area.
In closing, while I know it wasn't all the Blackberry's fault, I did enjoy my time the the HTC a lot more. Pretty much everything I did with it was easy, intuitive and fun – things "just worked", that rare quality of technology that does what it's supposed to do the first time you try to do them. The Blackberry did work, but there were many more instances where I had to faff around trying to get things to work. And remember, this is my field; I'm supposed to be good at using these things. I'm still not won over to all touchscreen though – I think I'd really like one of those phones with a slide-out keypad as well as a touchscreen. Or maybe one of those bluetooth thingies that project a keyboard right onto whatever surface you put them on. And an iPad anna Nintendo DSi anna green-laser pointer anna... wait, what was I saying?