Absolutely, any decent smartphone made in the last few years has an actual GPS receiver that communicates with GPS satellites. My point was that it also requires an active internet connection because it does not cache the maps. What good is knowing your latitude/longitude if you still don't know what is around you? If you drive out in the boonies somewhere and you lose cell signal then you also lose your maps and navigation. Maybe Google will improve this with smart caching or something, but right now if you want to store the maps on your device you still need to purchase an app or a standalone GPS from a company like Garmin, TomTom, etc..

Sprint did this before Google did. If you purchased any smartphone recently from Sprint, (i.e. Touch Pro 2 or Palm Pre), then you already have Sprint Navigation on your phone. It has no additional fees, provides turn-by-turn navigation with text-to-speech (reads the street names to you), and requires an internet connection. I'm sure this didn't have much of an impact on standalone GPS and neither will Google Maps Nav.

They both have the fundamental limitation that they require an active internet connection. If you are out in the boonies somewhere and cannot get a cell signal then you have no navigation ability. You will still need a standalone GPS or a Garmin or TomTom app for your phone that stores the maps on the memory of the device.

I recently switched phones and providers, and I could have had my pick of basically any smart phone out there. I could have stuck with AT&T and got an iPhone, but I went with Windows Mobile-- specifically the Sprint (HTC) Touch Pro 2.

I was using AT&T and I decided that their network sucked and my "high-speed" data phone really did not achieve any kind of usable speed when I wanted to use it most. I remembered how Verizon always had great signal with their CDMA network, but they were way too expensive and their phones all sucked. So I went with Sprint (and what an awesome decision that was!). Sprint's network is leaps and bounds better than AT&T where I live-- I get EVDO speed in places I never even got an EDGE connection before. I actually have usable RDP over wireless now 3

Anyway, back to the phones. Sprint has Blackberries, WM phones, and the Palm Pre, among others. My wife went with the Pre and she loves it, and I sprung for the more mature hardware on the Touch Pro 2. Compared to the Pre, the keyboard and screen are simply amazing, not to mention the speaker is louder and clearer and the signal strength is better than the Pre. From a hardware perspective, the HTC TP2 stomps the Pre, the iPhone, the blackberries, and maybe even Nokia. This really is the finest piece of pocket-sized hardware I've ever used, bar none. The software may not be quite as slick as the competitors, and the app store doesn't exist yet, but overall I am VERY happy with this phone (with a bit of app envy).

Actually if they made this exact hardware configuration with Android OS on it, I would try it and probably like it even more. This phone is good IN SPITE OF Microsoft. HTC made the hardware, and HTC customized the software to make it tolerable, and Opera made a sick web browser for it. But I wouldn't count out the Windows Mobile platform just yet... I think MS is going to wise up soon. The app store is coming. They better get with the times, because if they don't, we will all be welcoming our HTC/Android overlords with open arms.

hell, *I* would like to buy one, for my own personal use! $8000 seems very cheap for 67 terabytes of storage in a neat little package. My 4TB raid was quite expensive compared to this (on a $ per TB basis) and it's almost full now. I can definitely see something like this in my future. running ZFS for error detection, of course. And probably 2 redundant PSUs instead of standard consumer-grade ones. Wouldn't want one of those to go out and take half of my drives with it!

Online storage is way too expensive and internet connection speeds here in the USA will suck too badly for too long to even consider it..

less time wasted staring at an hourglass cursor, of course.. atom is dog-slow and it might be fine for these netbook toy-laptops but I would never buy something resembling a full-sized laptop with a dinky atom processor in it. it's barely tolerable with firefox and xp.

if you aren't seriously bothered by the speed of atom processors then i will assume you run linux/fluxbox (or the equivalent) and a very lightweight web browser. and if that's the case (you're already running an OS that is not restricted to x86) then why wouldn't you prefer the more-power-efficient ARM processor over an atom?

i already have an eeepc and i considered purchasing another one but i just don't see the point until they can make a better processor for it that still gets decent battery life. although i dislike apple, the poster above has a point about the new macbook pro with regards to the battery life and speed. still too expensive, though.

Thanks. Part of the reason I posted was to see if someone could confirm that problem with the trackpad. I may give the Macbook Pro 13 another look when they go on sale again, but I still think I could get more hardware for the money buying something else. Maybe not a Thinkpad because their screens seem to suck. If I went with a 15", it would be a damn shame to buy a MBP when I could have this beast from ASUS for the same price. And people try to claim Macs are not overpriced...

Looks fine to me.. This is meant to go in an entertainment center, so you should be comparing it to your DVD player or your A/V receiver. That's the reason for the horizontal case. Also, that keyboard has been around a while and it's actually very ergonomic for non-desk use. It also has good battery life and quite long range. It has a trackball that you use with your thumb and the mouse click is on the index finger of the right hand. Left and right mouse buttons are also found on the left side. My only complaint about it is that it's not bluetooth.

If your only complaint about this PC is that it's not shiny and awesome-looking, then maybe you deserve an Apple. The rest of us would rather spend less money on technically superior hardware.

This thing actually looks like it uses completely standard hardware that I could pick up at Fry's. I might be able to build it for under $250 (it's a stretch), but then I wouldn't have a corporation supporting it with a warranty and such...

you mean that fancy multi-touch trackpad doesn't even work properly in windows? that's about 50% of the reason I even considered buying a macbook. and now I hear the battery life sucks if you don't run OSX. that was the other 50%. i did not intend to run OSX even if I did buy a macbook, but I thought it might be worth the money for the nicer hardware. it doesn't matter if it's apple's apathy or malice that is causing the windows drivers to suck, it just means the laptop does not function as advertised. i guess it's time for me to forget about apple and buy a thinkpad.

I hate that %&$#*#% adapter, it should not be necessary at all. The one that lets you use 3.5 while charging costs $15 online and it's a total ripoff. I keep it in my car to hook up to my stereo for internet radio, but it's very easy to misplace. Good thing MS has required that all WM7 phones have a 3.5 audio port. I think that's the real reason why HTC has included one on their newest phone and all phones thereafter.

I think I would like the G1, but I'm not ready to jump ship to go with Android mainly because it's too new. Same goes for WebOS. I'd rather have an established developer base and mod scene.

err, 3.5mm, sorry :)

Crappy hardware from HTC? What's crappy about it? Crappy software, sure. Windows Mobile really sucks and needs a lot of work but at least it is easily hackable and upgradeable. HTC are assholes about providing drivers for their GPU chips also. Xda-devs help a LOT in making these phones as good as they can be. I can install any damn software I want to using a .cab file that I can download on the internet.

The HTC hardware, on the other hand, kicks total ass IMO. I consider it FAR superior to anything else I have used. Of course I probably have different criteria that I am looking for in a phone.

I want a large, high resolution touchscreen AND a large, comfortable hardware keyboard in a slider or clamshell design. Standard SD card slot for storage and USB port for charging / data transfer are absolute requirements. I also want 3G/HSDPA, Bluetooth, GPS, and perhaps FM radio. 3.5" audio jack is nice to have, too. My HTC Kaiser was near-perfect hardware IMO, and the new Touch Pro 2 is much closer to the mark, since it is higher-res and has 3.5" audio jack in the US versions. Wish it had physical d-pad keys on the face, but oh well, thats the trade-off for a bigger screen. Right now I'm 90% sure my next phone will be the Touch Pro 2 from Sprint.

I think that is a very weak argument. How is it any more difficult to test? If Windows is preinstalled, then the EULA must be accepted before the computer will be able to do anything. Why wouldn't they test using a LiveCD or LiveUSB of some sort, that has nothing to do with the installed OS and can run a series of pre-defined tests? I fully support OEMs (including Apple) being required to sell computers with blank hard drives in them (and refunding the "OS fee") if that option is chosen by the purchaser.

No, but maybe you should be required to offer it with no operating system at all (at least the ones that allow customization of the computers). I can understand if you are selling pre-boxed PCs at a store, they cannot be customized prior to sale. But if they let you add an extra stick of RAM or a different video card or a bigger hard drive (Dell, HP, etc), then they can just as easily put a blank, brand new hard drive in it. Is that really so difficult? I think most decent and reputable system builders will do this for you, anyway (PowerNotebooks.com comes to mind..). It's the big-name OEMs that collude with Microsoft and force you to buy Windows when they could just as easily not sell you Windows by not imaging the hard drive with Windows prior to installing it. Most people who use Linux would prefer this option, anyway, because the first thing they do will be to install their distro of choice.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried this with Apple.. Wipe out OSX and request a refund for it because you plan to use Linux.. I bet it would be even more difficult than getting a Windows refund.

yea, its true that raid is not backup. but what am i supposed to do in order to backup 4 terabytes of data? and these 4 teras are rapidly filling up, i will soon expand to 6+. i can store the most critical stuff on a separate machine that's usually powered off, but how can i back up my multi-tera RAID-6 properly without buying twice as many spinning disks? is there an economical tape solution for home use?