My previous posts covered which (sub)notebook and which hardware for my new PC I want to buy, but there’s more on my wish list. I’m a perfectionist who spends a lot of time thinking about exactly what I should buy, if it has the right price/quality ratio a.k.a. bang for the buck and what priority I should give that purchase. In my case, I don’t deliberate so carefully on my wish list because I don’t want to spend too much money, the point is I want to be satisfied with what I buy, I don’t want to be disappointed. In this post I’ll write what other hardware is on my wish list and what I want to purchase within a few months, descending from high to low priority and including an approximate price.
DSLR camera – Olympus E-410 – € 350
Currently I use a point-and-shoot camera, a Canon PowerShot A510. It’s a nice camera for it’s class, but I want better image quality. Not only the quality of the camera itself influences image quality, but the file format in which the camera saves photographs does as well. One of my gripes with the A510 is that it saves photographs in the JPEG format which uses lossy compression, and therefore decreases image quality. I think a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera can meet my demands for better image quality. SLR’s also have the option to save photographs as raw image files, which avoids the JPEG format’s compression artifacts. DSLR camera’s are sold without a lens or with a kit lens. I don’t think I need a separate lens, which is also more expensive, so I’ll buy an DSLR with a kit lens. My budget for an DSLR camera is €500 maximum, which restricts the choice considerably, but still a lot of SLR’s can be found in this price range. I think the Olympus E-410 would be my best choice, it received a favorable review, it’s compact and one of the cheapest DSLR’s at € 350. I think that’s quite cheap for an DSLR, I’ve also seen the Olympus E-400 at € 300, but according to the review of the E-410 it’s successor has a better image processor and other advantages. I know the Olympus E-420 and Canon EOS 450D are coming, but those will probably be considerably more expensive at their introduction.
Wireless residential gateway – Linksys WRT45GL – € 55
When my parents signed up for an ADSL Internet connection years ago, the Internet service provider included a residential gateway from the SpeedTouch brand. Some time ago that residential gateway was replaced with a SpeedTouch 546 v6 because the old one died. The SpeedTouch 546 doesn’t provide much features in it’s web interface, one thing which I miss in particular is the ability to use quality of service (QoS). I need this feature because three other PC’s are hooked up to the residential gateway, sharing the Internet connection. My brother uses his Internet connection intensively just like me, and if I’m downloading something my PC will consume the entire bandwidth of the connection, which gives him tons of lag if he’s be gaming online. With QoS certain traffic can be prioritised so the bandwidth will be shared equally. I want the Linksys WRT45GL because the WRT45G-series was the first residential gateway device that had it’s firmware source code released under the GNU GPL. That opened the possibility to create alternative firmware for the device. These alternative firmware projects provide the features I want. I highly appreciate the fact that it’s open source, which gives me more choice and features. It’s also nicely priced at € 55 and it supports Wi-Fi as well, which would be very useful if it works. In the past I tried getting a wireless SpeedTouch residential gateway to work, but somehow the reception of the Wi-Fi signal was very bad in my house, barely a few meters. The house I live can’t be the cause, it’s just a renovated farm without stuff which could influence Wi-Fi reception. That SpeedTouch was probably a bad apple, I assume the WRT45GL will work. Even if it doesn’t, it would still be a very worthwhile purchase because of it’s features.
Video game console – Playstation 3 – € 389
On PC monitors we have already been able to use high resolutions for a long time in PC games, the low resolutions used by console games turned me off. Now that this generation of consoles can finally display games in a high 1080p resolution (except for the Nintendo Wii) and have fine-tuned Internet multiplay options, I’m getting interested in buying a video game console. The Wii isn’t interesting for me because it can’t display in 1080p, lacks in graphical quality of it’s games and aims at a different public than the more serious gamers with it’s different control scheme. The Xbox 360 is produced by Microsoft, which means it’s not an option for me because I boycott Microsoft for it’s unethical business practices. The Playstation 3 remains as my only option. Currently there aren’t much interesting games available for it yet, so that’s a reason to wait for games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Final Fantasy XIII, Killzone 2 and Soulcalibur IV. Another reason to wait is that we will most likely see hardware revisions of the PS3 which will be cheaper, consume less energy, are smaller and possibly offer more features. Just like the original PS2 which also had many hardware revisions.
Monitor – Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP – € 636,89
I’m using the Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP now, which is a 20 inch monitor with an S-IPS panel. In the future I might want to use a 24 inch monitor for the PS3, because almost all 24 inch monitors use a WUXGA resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels. This resolution is enough to display the PS3’s 1080p resolution without scaling it down. The 2408WFP features DisplayPort and HDMI connections besides the usual DVI-D connection. So a PS3 can be connected directly with a HDMI cable, a DVI converter isn’t even necessary. Besides the advantages of the larger resolution for the PS3, a larger resolution is nice to have as well when you’re using it with a PC. Unfortunately the 2408WFP also has it’s downsides, as reported in this and this review, the input lag worries me because I often play first-person shooters. Default color accuracy isn’t very good, so I’ll need to borrow or buy a colorimeter to calibrate the monitor. Even so, if I’d buy a 24 inch monitor now, I’d buy the 2408WFP. But because I can still use my 2007WFP, I think I’ll wait a bit, and see if interesting new 24 inch monitors will become available. The LED backlight is an interesting development, Acer has recently released larger monitors with LED backlights. Further in the future we might see OLED monitors.
Mobile phone/smartphone – Neo FreeRunner – $ 399
The mobile phone I’m using now is a Motorola RAZR V3i. I only use for it phone calls, sometimes SMS. Checking the time and setting alarms is very useful functionality for me, since I’ve been using this phone I’ve abandoned my wrist watch and alarm clock. It has a camera, but like all other mobile phones the quality of the camera sucks compared to stand-alone camera’s, I’ve never found a use for the camera. It’s a nice phone, but it’s got some disadvantages. The V3i is not a smartphone, and the fact that it is a clamshell design bothers me a bit, a candybar design is more practical. It’s getting dated because it doesn’t support HSDPA, which is getting cheaper these days. The smartphone which I intend to buy as a replacement for the V3i is the Neo FreeRunner, which primarily attracts me because this smartphone runs on Linux and allows the user to customize the software. However, it doesn’t include 3G among it’s impressive featureset, and the phone doesn’t look good in my eyes. That’s why I’ll probably wait for it’s successor. The Nokia N810 also runs Linux and is allows users to modify it’s software, but unfortunately it’s not an alternative because it’s an Internet tablet which can’t connect to cellular networks. In the meantime I could buy a phone to bridge the gap until there’s a successor for the Neo FreeRunner, the Samsung SGH-U100 is appealing because of it’s small size. Even though it’s the slimmest phone in the world, I doubt if I should just buy a phone because of it’s size, is it that important for me? The U100 can be found for approximately € 200. If features are important, the Nokia 6120 Classic would be a good choice. If a low energy consumption with a long stand-by time is important, I could go for the Nokia 3110 Evolve, which features 370 hours of stand-by time versus 200 hours for the V3i. If the price is more important than features, size or energy consumption I think I should go with a budget phone. What I also value But I shouldn’t be too eager to spend money on a new phone, because my V3i still works.