Tech N’ Travel

Well I didn’t look around much for tech stuff (not sure what I was thinking??!) and in London about 2 weeks ago nothing jumped out at me but in Germany I noticed a few things. I was in Hamburg and Düsseldorf, at schnitzels, bratwurst, currywurst, a (bad) pretzel (probably a fluke), Maultauschen (think German Ravioli [but better])... you can’t tell I like food can you?

Well two things, both kinda techish. One clockwork, and German precision (I guess that’s the right word, sorry, I’ve never said I was an English Master). Of course most people would say things in Germany work really well, and German products are good as well, but I was consistently amazed how the trains (at least the ones I took) were on time give or take about a minute, amazing. Not only that but being in Italy I have noticed that the Nokia 3310 seems to be the standard (baseline) phone but in Germany this Siemens (don’t know the model, but it is about half the weight and 2/3rd the weight of the Nokia) phone is the “baseline” model, its just nicer and many Germans seem to dislike it, like it was a pinto or something.

A side note, in talking to my (well traveled) friend, she mentioned how most Germans don’t really think about (appreciate?) how well things work there but once they go other places they see. Amusing.

Anyway the second thing was Saturn, I have never seen one before but apparently it’s a pretty big electronics store in Germany. The selection of notebooks they had was pretty impressive, especially considering that they seemed to be at least as many as Best Buy or CompUSA in the US. The thing that I really noticed was the ultraportables, I just don’t recall seeing that many in the US, usually one or two Sony Vaios but that’s it. Here they had the luscious Sony X505, damn that thing is only a few hairs thicker than my Treo90?! It was just fun to look at (behind glass, Damn it!) but some other computers were out as well, including some JVC computers that in a way are a bit more practical. Computers like the JVC MP-XV841US have a screen, decent rez, and as much as a DVD-RW, impressive. For a notebook the things I require the most are gobs of disk space a optical drive, and a keyboard I can type on... that last part is a sticker. I don’t need much processing power (save that for the desktop), a huge screen would be nice but unrealistic (for now) if trying to save weight, but the keyboard. I have owned a nice little IBM series X 240, it’s a tough little thing but with hands my size (maybe slightly larger than average) I would always screw up trying to type. The day they come out with something like the Sony X505 with an optical Drive and at least 80 gigs of space I am so getting it, regardless of the 2nd or 3rd mortgage I might have to take out on the house.