HTC Hero vs. iPhone

It is time for a new phone. Mine is over 3 years old, and the battery won’t even make it from morning to evening. I am on Sprint… with some kind of family data everything plan. I don’t know the actual name. I am not going to leave Sprint. My wife likes it and 2 of the 4 phones in the house are still under contract. I was walking through Best Buy and headed into the phone section with phones from Sprint. They did a quick check and my plan covers any of the phones for data, so I don’t have to increase my monthly bill to get an iPhone substitute. They had three that looked promising.

I looked at the Samsung Moment (Android), the HTC Hero (Android) and the HTC Touch Pro2 (Windows Mobile). I believe that the mobile phone OS wars will end with the following: iPhone – Android – BlackBerry. Sorry Palm, but you will not win this war. I don’t think Microsoft has a chance to make serious headway in the mobile space. With iPhone, Android & BlackBerry to choose from I waited until Apple made the big iPad announcement. They are sticking with AT&T, so no iPhone coming to Sprint. It actually makes sense for them to do that as AT&T uses GSM, as does most the rest of the world. Verizon and Sprint use CDMA. Why build two phones when one is doing so well.

That leaves the HTC Hero and the Samsung Moment. Both of these run the Android OS. The Samsung has a slide out physical keyboard, the HTC Hero is like the iPhone with an on screen keyboard. The HTC Hero also has its own front end called HTC Sense. I tried typing a sentence on each phone and I found the Samsung more difficult to use. The keys are just a little too close to each other for my thumbs.

So the HTC Hero was the choice. How does it stack up against the iPhone. I would say pretty good. I don’t have an iPhone, but there are 2 iPod Touches in my household. So I have enough experience with the Apple devices to have a reasonably informed opinion.

I will not get into multitasking, because it is a phone and I won’t be doing much at once. But I can tell you that I was able to use the Sprint Navigation (turn-by-turn, text-to-speech GPS) while playing music and getting a phone call. Very nice.

I already have a Zune HD for my media, so having music on the phone is mostly a waste… unless it is happens the only device I have with me. Toward that end I did load about 1 GB of music on the microSD card.

Apps. That’s the big question. Does the Apple’s 140,000+ apps beat the Android’s 15,000 apps. Yes… and NO! Yes, there are plenty of apps for the iPhone that are not available for Android. I hope that changes. However, when I actually go looking for a specific iPhone App I want I usually find it on the Android. To date there have only been 5 apps on the iPhone that I want on Android, and only 1 of those is something I really want. Notice that I said want… not need. Everything I need as far as apps for the HTC Hero goes I have. The rest is all gadget envy.

The HTC Hero is working great. I like it a lot. Once I get some quality time with it, and set up all the home screens and such I will probably love this phone. So far the text messaging has been very pleasant, and receiving pictures in messages works very well. I still need to try sending pictures, but that will come.

If you have a few truly useful apps for the Android let me know. I may love the phone even more when I get some apps I didn’t even know I needed.

Zune HD

I just realized I forgot to follow up with my portable media solution. I did get the Zune HD in the 32 GB capacity. I have been playing with it for almost exactly one month now. I love it.

There are a few quirks to it that I don’t like. I miss the simplicity of the touch pad. I could tap the right side anytime and go to the next song. To do that now I have to press a button on the side. You can’t push this button without holding the unit. Then you can press the on screen next icon.

Probably the most annoying thing is that TV shows don’t roll one to the next. On the Zune 80 I could click the right side of the touch pad to fast forward through the ending credits for the X-Files then the player would just start the next episode in the list. The Zune HD goes back to the list if pressing the on screen next icon.

Scratch that… the most annoying part of the Zune HD is that is does not show you what TV episodes you have already watched. The Zune 80 would show episodes watched in a dim gray, like a disabled item in Windows. The Zune HD does nothing to identify to you visually that you have watched a TV show. So I have to keep track in my head the name of the episode I left off with.

As for the lack of space… so far it is a non-issue. Since all my music was rated I just created a playlist called “All Rated Songs,” and placed all the songs rated above “Hate It” into that playlist. That’s over 2,400 songs. I set the Zune HD to manually sync, and synced that playlist. Since almost every other playlist has songs I have rated as above “Hate It” I have all the good stuff on the Zune HD. I have not had to worry except that I only sync one season at a time of a TV show, rather than the entire series.

I have tried HD content on the device but it is not worth it. I had some MP4 files that were converted from MKV files to watch on the XBox 360. The Zune software would not recognize the files as valid. I ran them through Format Factory and converted to them to MP4 (yes, MP4 to MP4). The Zune software saw the files and I was able to sync them. However, the Zune software converted them again. Apparently the Format Factory conversion was only so good, but not good enough. This is way to many conversion to get HD content on a portable device. Unless I get the A/V kit for going on vacation I won’t be doing HD content.

Apple iPad – 8 Great Uses… and Why I Want One

Now that the dust has settled on the Apple iPad I thought I should take an objective look at the device. Yes, I dinged it for not having a real OS or stylus support. But those were emotional issues, not issues for the target audience of this device.

Apple is not targeting artists and photographers with the iPad. They are targeting the “75 million people that already know how to use the iPad.” That’s right, this is for all the iPhone and iPod Touch owners out there that only need basic computing in a portable device.

With that in mind here are 8 tasks the iPad handles extremely well… and why I want one.

1. Digital Picture Frame. This is the reason for the dock WITHOUT a keyboard. Place the dock on your end table and when the iPad is charging it can be a digital picture frame.
2. Casual Web Surfing. Casual means from the couch. Reach over to that picture frame during a TV show and lookup where you have seen that guest star before. In fact, casual web surfing is the number one reason I want one. I would normally go to the study and look something up on my desktop, or have one of my kids pull out a laptop. Having the iPad in the living room is perfect for casual web surfing.
3. Quick E-Mails. The moment a thought comes to mind you just reach over and grab the picture frame and bang out a quick e-mail. And not a couple of short acronym filled sentences, but three or four paragraphs that look like they came from an intelligent person.
4. Running Apps. Want to head out to a movie… just fire up Fandango and your good to go. Oops, the movie is no longer in the theaters. Fire up Yelp and look for a new restaurant close to home. Check the weather for the morning. Etc. Etc. Obviously this is the number one thing Apple expects the iPhone/iPod user base to do.
5. Car Shopping. This is a personal favorite of mine. Go down to the Toyota dealership and check out the new Camry, but bring the iPad with you with that spreadsheet to compare loans on it. If you have the 3G option you can look up the NADA value of your trade while they inspect the car. If there loan rates are not good enough get online. Best of all, with hard facts in front of you they will not be able to pull a fast one on you. The rest of you can apply this to any kind of shopping.
6. Travel. Pack your bags, we are heading to the coast. No need to pack a bulky laptop. Take the iPad. Surf, apps, e-mail, and all the above are still there. Just pay the fee for the 3G just for the month of your trip and cancel it when you get back. Then it is just part of the trip, and not another month bill.
7. Video. Keep the kids busy watching videos in the back seat while you take the drive to the coast. Or if you are on a plane… use it there as well.
8. Upload & Edit Photos. While on that coast trip upload your pictures to the iPad and view them a the big screen. Let’s send this one to Grandma, but let me take the red-eye out of it, and tweak the white balance, and use the clone brush to get rid of that ugly naked guy in the background. Oops… this is the one thing the iPad can’t do. That’s OK, this other pictures is good enough for Grandma.

That’s just a sampling of the things the iPad does very well. Of course there are the books, and the New York Times. I am sure more of the big papers and magazines will build apps to show their content. Let’s not forget the iTunes stuff like Podcasts & music.

Above are all the tasks I would actually use the iPad for. That covers 95% of what I would do with a laptop. For the other 5% I will stick to my desktop.

See, I am not such a critical pessimist after all. I think the iPad is very cool. And I want one.

Apple iPad Increases Traffic

I was checking my stats, for no good reason and saw a 50% increase in traffic over the last couple of days… mainly due to the Apple iPad Hits & Misses post. Wow! Thanks for visiting!

I was planning an article title Apple iPad… After the Storm. I was going to publish it in March on my regular site (did you read my predictions there on Jan 25?).

With all this hoopla I think I need to get some info out. I am going to break it down to a series of major tasks the iPad would be perfect for. Then you can decide how many of these tasks are task you do. If your task are the same task then you are a fit for the iPad. I will post an abbreviated list over the weekend. Pretty rough, but something to feed all your appetites.

Come back later this weekend, you won’t regret it.

Apple iPad – Hits and Misses

I am writing this at lunch… while the event is going on. So I will come back to finish editing it tonight. I did my own predictions for a slate style tablet computer back in November and on January 25th. Now we will go over the hit and misses. Not just mine, but Apples. Apple missed the mark on a few items, so let’s not let them off the hook. I will start off with the first couple of big misses (IMO):

Hit: $499-$829. I am really glad they did not hit the $1,000 mark fully optioned.
Miss: 3G component is $129 of price… not counting the monthly fees of $14,99 for 250 MB or $29.99 for unlimited data.

Miss: iPad OS, not OS X. It’s like a Ginourmous iPod Touch. Maybe Adobe with come out with a decent Photoshop Lite for the iPad… and at a reasonable price.

Miss: No Stylus Support. This is the biggest disappointment. Why would Adobe make a Photoshop Lite for the iPad without a stylus?

Miss: No USB Port. The iPad uses a dedicated 30-pin connector. So much for using an external hard drive or DVD or Blu-Ray drive. Also no SD slot… but there is a camera connection kit that will let you import pictures from an SD card.

Hit: Keyboard Dock! Pair this with built-in Bluetooth and you have a decent computer you can use at a desk. One of the pictures showed it on a plain stand which makes it a great picture frame when not being used.
Miss: iPad OS, not Mac OS X, so the keyboard and mouse are less useful… but still welcome.

Hit: Runs Apps from the App Store.
Miss: Runs them full screen (original size or pixel doubled, 2X size). No multitasking, no multiple apps side by side in a “window.” This looks silly with a 3.5″ app in the center of a 9.7″ screen.

Hit: New SDK for iPad devlopment… available today.
Miss: No OS X (see a trend here) or support for real applications.

Hit: 3G is unlocked and uses GSM microSIMs. Includes free WiFi hotspots (AT&T).
Miss: 3G plans are AT&T, so why not a way to tie to your iPhone plan? Maybe other carriers will offer better plans to entice you away from AT&T.

Hit: Movies & TV Shows. This was expected… and all from iTunes. Until I know more I will assume it can get content from your Mac or PC running iTunes. Hopefully that means it will run your own content as well as iTunes Store content.
Miss: Screen is 4:3, not 16:9. Oops! Black bars on all your movies.

Hit: Photos. Looks good. And it looks like it will make a great picture frame.

Hit: 10 Hour battery life.
Miss: Is this 10 hours of video on a plane?

Hit: e-Reader. Everyone expected this. Bonus the iBook Store, but again this was expected.

Hit: New York Times on iPad.
Miss: Does every periodical have to build their own app. Where’s the common platform application that publishers can feed with a subscription fee? This would have been better if Apple built an app to display newspaper and magazine content and let The Times and others create the content in a particular format. Then plug in subscriptions into the iTunes Store to get the content.

Hit: Brushes for graphic artists.
Miss: No OS X to run Photoshop.

Hit: Games. I was surprised at the Need For Speed Shift demo. I have it for the XBox 360. It looks like Apple wants more of the gaming market than just simple iPod games.
Miss: No OS X. If the iPad was running OS X wouldn’t game developers have it easier since they could develop for BOTH the Mac and iPad? That would bring a lot of game development to the Mac platform for people that have iMacs and MacBooks.

Hit: iWork? Is this really a hit?
Miss: Office for the Mac… running on OS X? Have I beat this to death yet… the iPad should really run OS X.

The screen is 9.7″ with a resolution of 1024 x 768. Not widescreen!

That’s all I can think of at the moment. They hit a lot of the marks I expected. However, the lack of a stylus and the lack of OS X means I will not be getting one until I can think of a use for it. I was considering it… if it ran OS X, but now I am not. Maybe I will change my mind. I think my oldest sone will love it since almost everything he does on his laptop is iTunes and Web. For him it will be perfect, but I want him to have more power for doing homework. We’ll see if it is good enough for a high school student’s only computer.

Honda CR-Z Misses The Mark

The new Honda CR-Z was shown in production form this week at the Detroit Auto Show. If you want more info read this article from Motor Trend.

The CR-Z is supposed to capture the spirit of the Honda CRX. The Motor Trend article mentions that they gave their Import Car Of The Year award to the first and second generation CRX. I owned a 1989 CRX Si. It was a wonderful little car.

The new CR-Z completely misses the mark on gas mileage. 31 city/37 highway mileage for the CR-Z. I remember my CRX Si (the least fuel efficient version of the CRX) was rated at 28/33 mpg. I regularly got 30 mpg in mixed driving and was rewarded with 38 mpg on a trip from Texas to New York (I was milking the mileage through the mountains of Tennessee, coasting downhill and minimally accelerating uphill… we now call this hypermiling).

Even if you correct for the changes in the EPA rating system over the years, the HF version of the CRX got 41/50 mpg. Even with hybrid technology today we are getting less mileage than was possible 20 years ago.

The CR-Z is a niche market vehicle. It is a two seater… like the CRX. However, the CRX was a cute, fun & affordable car. I don’t know how affordable the CR-Z is going to be with the expense of a hybrid drive-train, but it just doesn’t add up.

The original Insight got 60 mpg, but was too weird looking and didn’t have the fun factor of the CRX. Now we get mileage that is no better than a Mini Cooper. Why doesn’t this vehicle at least match the Toyota Prius in mileage?

When the CRX was cool SUVs were but a glimmer in the eyes of the automotive marketplace. Few two seat cars make it today. Add to that the low volume of hybrid cars and the CR-Z becomes a double niche vehicle. To make a statement this car should be getting the best gas mileage of any car on the market… not a small increase to its predecessor from 20 years ago.

I am puzzled to see how the new Honda CR-Z is going to succeed. Oh, and it doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as the concept.

Nexus One and the Future of Cell Phone Plans

If you are reading this then you did a search for the new Nexus One from Google. Hopefully the title of this post did not lead you to believe I was going to review this item. I am not.

I am here to talk briefly about the impact I hope this phone has on cell phone plans in the U.S. Google is doing something almost unheard of… selling the Nexus One as an unlocked (not locked to a carrier) phone without a cell phone service plan (You can also get it with a two year service contract through T-Mobile at the time of this writing).

I am hoping this is a really good thing. Apple should have done this with the iPhone, and I think they would still be getting $600 each for them if they did. Buyers of the Nexus One are going to want a cellular service plan that does not subsidize the cost of the phone, since they bought the phone outright without discounts.

Hopefully the Nexus One will prompt enough customers to demand cell phone plans that are cheaper when you are not subsidizing a phone purchase. And that is my hopes for the Nexus One.

Think about this… I have yet to hear of a cellular provider lowering the cost of a plan after the phone’s price has been covered. My current phone it 3 years old, long past its two year contract… but they did not lower my monthly bill by $15-20. Granted, I am on a family plan and at least two of the four phones in my home are still under their two year commitments. But if you could regularly buy phones outright and get plans that are appropriate, I would just assume buy everyone in my family a phone and get that cheaper plan. Then we can buy replacement phones any time a new, super cool phone comes out… or enjoy the savings of using a 3 year old phone that is good enough.

What do you think?

iPod or Zune

I have a Zune 80… that just died. I cannot blame anyone but myself. It may be repairable, but I don’t know if that would be cost effective. I dropped it. That’s my fault. It seemed fine. I even took it on a trip to Dallas during the holidays to watch some X-Files episodes during down time.

While watching an episode the battery indicator suddenly said full. Oh great, I thought, now I will not be able to tell when it is out of juice. I finished watching that episode and plugged it into the charger.

When I got home and wanted to update the Zune it started just fine, but kept flashing the low battery warning. No problem, I never did get to finish charging it in Dallas and it has been sitting alone for a while. So I plug it in and left it to charge. A couple days later I was getting it ready for coming back to work and the battery is dead.

I believe it has lost the ability to charge the battery. This might be something as simple as a loose connection inside the device. I may try to open it, but I am not very good with small electronics. I am not hopeful that it will come back to life.

So… the big question is to I get a new Zune HD or something else… meaning an iPod. I like the Zune 80. I have about 34-35 GB of music and I was able to keep all of it on the Zune 80. The Zune HD tops out at 32 GB. This means I will have to pick and choose what music I put on it. And don’t forget I need to leave room on it for those X-Files episodes (and Battlestar Galactica is after X-Files).

My two sons each have an iPod Touch. The youngest got his because my friend sold me his 16 GB 2nd gen Touch for $125 when he got an iPhone. My oldest son just got his 16 GB 2nd gen for Christmas (we bought a refurbished unit from the Apple web site).

I like the iPod Touch. I watch all my video podcasts on iTunes on my PC, but I don’t know if I would do that on an iPod. I never did like watching podcasts on my Zune. So podcasts are not part of this. I mention it because I have let iTunes see my music library, and it would not be hard to use it for syncing to an iPod.

However, I have all my music rated in the Zune software, and not in iTunes. And of course they are not compatible rating systems, so I can’t rate them in both. And I have all my playlists in the Zune as well.

The iPod Classic has too small a screen for the amount of video I watch on my player. The iPod Touch and Zune HD have very nice screens. I would require at least 32 GB, which puts me at $299 for the iPod Touch and $289 for the Zune HD in that capacity. I could go to the iPod Touch with 64 GB for $399, but that is just too much money. At least I could keep all my music on it.

There is no compelling reason to go with one or the other.

Oh yea… apps. I knew you were thinking of that. Well, my youngest son only payed for half of his iPod Touch, so we were supposed to share it. 9 out of 10 of any of the apps I ever looked at were worthless offline. I don’t have WiFi at work, and it is hit and miss out in the real world. I never could get into using the iPod Touch in the house. None of the apps I cared about were meaningful in the house. They really need the iPhone.

This would not be a problem if Apple would just let Sprint have a version of the iPhone.

Which do I get? I hate the idea of getting an iPod Touch for the hope someday of getting an iPhone. But the Zune HD costs $40 more and has less than half the capacity of my Zune 80 I bought two years ago.

Am I missing an affordable media player option?

Playing With Photoshop

I was goofing around and did this…

Mustang GT Steps Up With 5.0 Power

As expected with the recent announcement of the 305 hp V-6 Mustang, the Mustang GT will be getting a new 5.0 engine putting out 412 hp (as reported by Motor Trend). These two engine combinations put the Mustang right in line with the V-6 and V-8 in the Camaro. It looks like the Pony Car Wars are on. Since the Challenger is most handicapped by weight, I wonder if we will see more power in the lower priced editions to keep up.

Real Horsepower for V-6 Mustang

I just read in Automotive News that Ford plans to replace the aging (aged?) 4.0, 210 hp V-6 engine with a new 3.7, 305 hp V-6. The new engine has all the right peices except one. It has double overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder and variable valve timing. The one missing item is direct injection, which the Camaro has.

Even better… this engine comes with new 6 speed manual and automatic transmissions.

It’s about time.  The Mustang has been behind the curve with the base Mustang against all sport coupe competition in the engine and transmission department.

But the real question is… with a 305 hp base Mustang what will they do to the current 315 hp V-8 Mustang GT. Hmmmm!

Driving a Brand New 1928 Ford Model A

I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to drive this car:

The car had 201 miles on it when I got behind the wheel. I did not drive it for long. This is by no means a road test. It is my brother-in-laws car. He inherited it from his grandfather. No, his grandfather was not the original owner. But the car is a family heirloom. He just finished having it restored a couple of months ago. While the family was over his house for Thanksgiving he gave rides to everyone… and had me drive it. He said someone besides him needed to know how to drive it.

It is a four cylinder with a three speed manual transmission with no synchronizers. That means double clutching, and no downshifting. Here’s how it goes. First flip the gas valve. Next there is a floor start button. You push that with your foot while working the manual choke lever. Once the car is started you press the clutch and put it into first gear. Take off like any normal manual transmission equipped car. Now for the fun part. Step on the clutch, move the shifter to neutral, release the clutch long enough to get the trans and engine speeds to sync, then press the clutch again and move the shifter to second gear. Hopefully without grinding the gears.

I did grind the gears a couple of time and had to shift from 1st to 3rd a couple of times for fear of grinding going into second. But after a few minutes I did start to get the hang of it. It is really in the timing of how long to stay in neutral with the clutch released before going for the up-shift. To downshift you basically come to a complete stop and start over.

This was definitely an E Ticket attraction. Supposedly the car can go up to 46 mph. I never went above 35, but it was more fun at 35 than any modern car.

Saab Follows Saturn

According to Automotive News Koenigsegg is dropping out from buying Saab. Sounds like Penske/Saturn all over.

Bye, bye Saab!

Will Apple Put Ads in The OS?

I just read this article on PCMag. If Apple thinks it will get away with displaying ads in the Operating System itself they will loose a lot of customers.. and one future customer… me.

I have to think that an enterprising programmer would find a way around such a thing like ad blocking software for browsers. But it is appalling that Apple would think of such a thing.

Let’s see… here is a conversation at work one day:

Boss: Joe, I need the new graphics for the web change in 10 minutes.
Joe: O.K. Boss, let me just fire up Photoshop.
Joe: Sorry Boos, I have to watch this ad before I can start working on that.
Boss: Damn Apple… I buying PCs for all you graphics guys tomorrow.

What do you think?

Why Am I Not Blogging

I guess it boils down to being bored. Bored with computers. Bored with the Internet. Just plain bored. If this keeps up I may be bored with life. Yikes!

I need to find something to get excited about.

But what???

Pool Covered For Winter

Well, I bought a cover for our 16 x 32 above ground pool. From what I have read covering the pool does two things. 1) It keeps crap out of the pool, and 2) the lack of sunlight prevents algae from growing.

I added three jugs of chlorine to shock it, and one gallon of algae-side to make sure there is no algae already in there. I am hoping it will be ready to go with a quick shock in April.

This is my first time with a cover. In the past I just ran the pump on a timer and vacuumed it once a month or so. Well, in 7 winters I have had to drain it twice because of the amount of scale and crap that built up at the bottom and had to replace the liner once. So… that’s 4 good winters to 3 bad winters. And that was will a bunch of maintenance.

Now I am hoping for maintenance free and cheaper expenses. I shut the pump off since that’s what I would have to do if I lived up north to prevent damage from freezing water. If shutting the pump off is good for northerners then is good enough for us southerners.

I will report back in April how well this went.

Can Toyota Be Cool?

My Motor Trend newsletter came and it looks like Toyota wants to make a serious effort at a cool car.

It looks cool as a concept. I wonder how much Toyota can bland it out before production. This should give the Accord Coupe and Genesis Coupe a run for their money.

2010 Camaro For 4 Days

My son and I visited New York last week and when we saw the 2010 Camaro in the rental lot we turned around and paid for the upgrade.

2010 Camaro V-6 Automatic

We picked the car up Thursday night and returned it on Monday. Granted, Sunday we took the train to the station to head into Manhattan so it did not get much use that day. But here is my opinion of the car with the 200+ miles I put on it.

Overall

I like the car. You should know that I am a Camaro fan having owned a 1993 Camaro Z-28 and a 1967 Camaro RS Convertible. The car looks great, but you pay a big price for that. This car had the worst visibility of any car I have ever driven… ever. If you get claustrophobic you will hate this car.

The ride was as good as my BMW 335i and grip was amazing. However, steering feel is non-existent and it feels heavy. It is not a nimble coupe like my 93 Z was. Power from the V-6 is adequite, but the weight of the car always makes you think the engine is being strained. It felt like the transmisson was slipping, or the torque converter was too loose. You have to rev the engine too much for good thrust and the engine makes a lot more noise doing it than you would expect for the thrust returned.

I really wanted to like this car, but it makes me want to test drive a 2010 Mustang. The problem there is that the Mustang with a V-6 is a dog, and you would have to compare this car to the V-8 Mustang which hardly seems fair.

Performance

Like I said, the engine seems overworked by the weight of the Camaro. Leaving the transmission in drive the car is sluggish. Put the trans in sport mode and in maintains gears longer, which helps, but it still feels like it should be quicker. Manual mode doesn’t help much. I think a tighter torque converter with slightly short gearing might make a big different in feel. The trans is the weak link hear. Shifts are so slow that any thoughts of a sports car are removed. Does anyone make a shift kit for this trans yet? It needs one. Full throttle from rest gives plenty of speed, but this is the only way it feels good. 1 gear downshifts while cruising increase engine speed and noise with no increase in thrust. You have to push the pedal enough for at least two gears to get any thrust increase and that comes with a significant increase in noise.

There is enough power for the average person. If you are buying this car for style than it is fast enough. But overall I would prefer less noise and more push in the mid range of highway passing at 50-80 mph. I am sure the V-8 does not have this problem.

Ride and Handling

The ride is excellent. Even over pot-holed NY streets it was never a problem. The tires also have a massive amount of grip. No matter how hard I tried I could not get the tires to squeal. The car corners quite flat as well. However, steering response is slow and the car just feels heavy. It reminds me of the drive I took in a Challenger STR8, a big heavy cruiser. Nimble is just not in the new Camaro’s vocabulary.

Mileage

I really wanted to prove the 29 MPG this car gets on the EPA cycle. I could not. But this was as much a problem of New York traffic as anything else. The first morning I averaged 24 mpg in the suburbs of Long Island. That dropped to an average of 19.9 mpg with a drive out on the island in rush hour traffic. I drove out to New Jersey and maintained the 20 mpg overall for the first tank of gas.

I filled up in New Jersey before driving back to Long Island. I reset the mileage assuming this was my best chance… it was around 11:00 PM on a Saturday. Sure enough the trip computer climbed its way up to 28.4, then bounced between 28.1 & 28.4 for about 5 miles. There is no instantaneous mileage readout to help me hypermile the car, so I think this was as good as it was going to get. At this time the GPS had me switch from the Garden State Parkway to the New Jersey Turnpike. I have not lived in New York in over 20 years and it was too late before I realized the GPS was taking me through the Lincoln Tunnel and Manhattan rather than the bridge to Staten Island. Oops. I spent 2 hours in gridlock traffic before we emerged on Long Island. The total trip took 4 hours 15 minutes back to the hotel. The average for the entire trip from Jersey… 20 mpg.

So, I averaged 20 mpg the entire time I was in New York. If you live there you can comapre that to what you get with your own car. In Texas I am sure I could average 25 mpg, and would love to see if I could break the 29 mark on a trip to Dallas (I hit 31.7 mpg in my BMW 335i on my way to Dallas a couple of months ago, and it is rated at 27 by the EPA).

Interior

As I said, this car has the worst visibilty of any car I have ever driven. To the rear is a joke. The view out the rear view mirror looks like looking through a tunnel. Forget looking over your shoulder as you back up, there is nothing to see but the interior of the car. The A pillars are also huge and create blind spots on either side of the windshield. Plus the side windows are so narrow they add to the claustrophobic effect the interior provides. Rear seat legroom in non-existent with the front seats all the way back. I an 5′ 10″ and I had the seat pretty far back. A friend that is 6′ 3″ rubbed his head on the headliner, but the car was equipped with a sun roof which clearly took up 1 – 2 inches. Without a sunroof my friend would just fit, but I could not see him driving a car long term he could just fit in. Up to 6 feet you will do fine, above that you should get a long test drive before buying.

I like the interior. Yes, the gauges on the front of the console are virtually impossible to read quickly, but who cares. You can read them once in a while. So racing this car is out, but for everyday driving I found most of the gauges to be acceptable… except the speedometer. The orange pointer is so wide that it is difficult to accurately tell how fast you are going within less than 5 mph. 60 or 65? Stare long enough to see if it is 65 when you notice that cop car while your in a 55 zone and it could be too late for you. This is all about style. You sacrifice practicality for style with almost everything about the Camaro.

Speaking of practicality and its effect from styling… the truck is a nice size truck… with a tiny opening. You will not be carrying large objects. Not for a problem with the size of the trunk, but for the hole you must stick them through. We could not load our two soft luggage bags at the same time. Stick one bag in and slide it to the side or back then put the next item in. Keep doing it this way until you have a month’s work of close in the trunk.

The interior lighting it excellent. At maximum the dash lights are too bright late at night. This is a good thing. On almost every car I have ever driven I always leave the dash fully lit. I turned down the lighting on the Camaro. I really like the mood light in the doors that come on with the dash lights (and dims with the dash lights as well). This is style that didn’t cost anything in practicality.

And now for the seats. The seats in the Camaro we drive were by far the most comfortable seats I have ever experienced in an automobile bar none. I know this because when we ended our 4+ hour drive back from Jersey my back felt as fresh as when we left. You should know I have class two bulging discs in my back. When we drove to Dallas in the 335i I played with the lumbar support quite a few times during the trip (also about 4 hours or so). I did not have to touch the Camaro’s seat controls once during the 4 hour drive. That’s good because there was no lumbar control for the Camaro. And I didn’t need it. How cool is that.

Conclusion

The Camaro is the most comfortable, least practical Camaro I have ever driven. All that means nothing. This car is acceptable for its purpose. It looks great and can be enjoyed for miles and miles. Would I buy one. If I were single I would have to test drive the Mustang. I would also test drive a manual transmission with the V-6 in a Camaro to see if that makes up for the mild performance problems. Then there is the V-8.

I like this car… and I would put it on my short list of cars in its price range if I did not have kids.

Gas Guzzler Problems

I see problems already. I wrote an article on the Cash For Guzzlers last month. I was worried that dealers would take unfair advantage of this. And I saw the first of that over the weekend.

I saw a commercial for Nissan’s Altima where they listed the price with incentives at something like $13,999. I may be wrong about the final price, but I know I saw the Gas Guzzler incentive listed at $4,500. How many people will be suckered in on this?

If you read my article, you will know that the incentive is your trade, so that means anyone watching the ad thinking they could get a car for $13,999 plus their trade-in is in for a shocker. There is no trade in value for your car with the Cash For Guzzler program.

Also, to get the $4,500 the car you are buying must get 10 mpg better (according to www.fueleconomy.gov) than the car you are trading in. The Altima with a 4 cylinder and manual transmission is listed at 26 mpg combined city/highway. That means you would have to trade in a car rated at 16 mpg or less to get the $4,500. The only other option a $3,500 voucher is the new car get 4 mpg better than the old car.

Finally, the program doesn’t start until July 23, and the commercial made no mention of this. People expecting to leave a dealer with a car before then are in for another surprise.

The commercial is on the verge of false advertising, at the least it is very misleading. There is no clear information about the $4,500 they show being removed from the price of the Altima and many people will be let down when they go to a dealer to try and get the deal. In fact, I believe many people will will not be able to get the deal.

So the troubles begin.

Facebook vs. Twitter vs. MySpace

I don’t get it. Which means everyone thinks, “he will never get it!“

Let’s see, Twitter, the most recent of the big three (not big three car brands, that’s over) social networking sites is a micro-blogging site. Short little 140 character posts. This is kind of cool, but to whom? You start micro-blogging what seem to be insignificant tid-bits about what you are doing. I suppose this is best done from a phone through some form of text-messaging to your Twitter account. I get that part. But if people don’t subscribe to it how will it ever be read. I never seem to come across a Twitter post when doing a Google search for anything. So how do you get people to “follow” your Tweets? I suppose if you follow them they might look at yours, but I suspect you need to find some other way of initiating this following process.

Facebook is the second, and maybe the biggest at the moment, of the big three. Facebook allows you to build a somewhat custom web page that others can visit. As best I can tell (without joining myself) you can join social network groups (for lack of a better term). Once in a social group I assume you get some kind of notification of updates and vice-versa. So you can post to a group and others get the message, and you get everyone’s posts. This seems like it would lead to a lot of posts to read through. I assume you can also sign up for updates from individuals like Twitter does. Facebook seems to be similar to Flickr in that you can also post entire photo albums, making this the best of the three if you care about sharing photos among your social network.

Finally we have MySpace, the first of the big three, though I am sure not the first. I originally thought MySpace was a blogging site. But my memory must be weak or outright wrong. It seems MySpace allows you to build a customizable web page, like Facebook. However, MySpace riddles your page with ads to no end. Plus, people generally load up MySpace pages with tons of music, pictures and videos they get free from everywhere on the web. Although you can post pictures to MySpace, it seems it is not the kind of place to upload photo albums. More like the occasional photo that goes well with the social networking of the site. MySpace also has a section of your page where people in your social network can post comments. Those comments can be read by others in your network before you get a chance to mediate. So if you don’t want Robin to know that Jill went out to the bar with you last night you better make sure that Robin and Jill are not both in your network… and in doing so maybe upset the one that you don’t befriend into your network. Yikes!

So, what’s the big deal? I have this blog where I can rant (at well over 140 characters) just as I am doing now. It works for me. Nobody has to follow it, but the content does show up in a Google search. Google “Outlook 2000 Vista” and I am at the top of the page. Here’s proof.

I don’t expect people to “follow” me, but it would be nice if people found the information I disseminate to be worth bookmarking my site and visit from time to time.

If I want I can post pictures, but I tend not to put pictures of my family is such a public forum anymore.

I also have my own web site. I write articles on my site, so they are usually longer than this post, but this post could just as easily have been an article on my site. I tend to blog smaller information than what I would write an article about. For me this blog is a supplement to my site.

Creating an actual web site is probably beyond most social networking fans. You have to do it all. I get the domain name, I build the site in Expression Web and I host it from a server of my own. I could pay for the hosting part, but I am a cheapskate by nature when it comes to this stuff. As are a lot of people on these social networks. I think if Facebook, Twitter or MySpace charged money for their service they would dry up overnight.

So, is it that I don’t get it and never will, or are these social networks a fad? A fad perpetuated by a mentality that everything on the Internet is FREE.

You can leave a comment below and I will get an e-mail with the contents. I don’t have to do more than check my e-mail to know you had something to say. So go ahead… join my own personal social network for one minute, one minute only, and leave a comment. You will feel better because you will have made me feel better. And you will never have to worry about me again unless you bookmark this blog. It’s a win-win situation all around.

What do you think?