I think I'm turning into a Luddite. I see all these shiny tablets and... I just don't want one!

Don't get me wrong, I drove myself crazy trying to get an HP TouchPad because a) Massive discount and b) under a hundred quid.

You see, everyone I know with a tablet has one of two accessories.

1. A bluetooth keyboard. Because it's really hard to do any sustained typing on a touch-screen.
2. A dock. Because it's really hard to do any sustained typing on a touch-screen.

You see, I like to use my computer. Tablets are perfect for a consumer who wants to see pretty lights and occasionally prod at a large target with their fat, sweaty thumb. But that's not me. I want to type, to blog, to code, to comment, to design. I want a laptop. And, indeed, that's what I have.

If I want to do something passive, I'll watch TV. Or my laptop screen. Or my phone. If I want to read, I'll use an e-ink screen. My Kindle is lighter and has better readability than any tablet.

Why do I need another expensive device? Especially one I can't create on?

Oh, and don't tell me about the camera on these devices - does this look anything other than ridiculous?

So, Samsung have released the Galaxy Tab 10.1 - see Samsung's YouTube Channel to see it in action - and once again I have gadget lust. It's big, shiny, runs Android (and will run even better when Cyanogen is ported to it).

But once more, I shall have to turn it down. It's lovely, I'm sure, but just not for me.

To help me justify my descision to forgoe this beautiful fondleslab, here are the top three worst things about the Galaxy Tab.

1. Non-standard charger. It uses some awful "media port" rather than micro-USB. (Note: it's not even PDMI
2. No USB OTG - so I can't use a keyboard, mouse, or external drive with it. Well, I can, but I have to shell out for a dongle that I'll invariably lose.
3. No external storage - so if I want to take a bunch of movies and music with me on a trip, I'm limited to internal storage.

You can gaze at Samsung's FaceBook page but it won't improve things.

Am I crazy? Is there any reason to own a tab if I've already got a (great) Samsung Android phone and an (awesome) ThinkPad running Ubuntu?

What on Earth do you people do with a tablet that I'm missing out on?

This is a sponsored post from ebuzzing

I've been pleasantly surprised by ebuzzing. They're part of the Wikio Group, who are focussed on getting bloggers to post about about brands that they like - and get paid for it.

Despite running a backwater blog on obscure mobile phone related nonsense, I often get emailed by companies wanting to promote themselves here. Sometimes they offer review goods to keep, sometimes cash, sometime they don't want anyone to know they're paying for the post.

As a blogger, I've no real way of assessing my market worth - nor how to deal with the tax implications of being sent free "stuff". I've got a pretty clear idea of the ethics - always reveal if you've been paid to blog - but I'm slightly unsure of the legals.

That's why I think ebuzzing is a great idea. A fixed payment for blog posts and a clear set of ethical guidelines.

Payments are either per post - this one is netting me £30 - or pay per view - usually around 2p-5p.

Posts have to be approved by moderators. This could be a bit tricky - do you want someone telling you what you can and can't write on your blog? I've found them to be very fair. Despite my less than fulsome praise for the Dell Duo the only changes ebuzzing wanted were to ensure that I'd correctly included the links to the client's content and that I'd spelt their name correctly. No heavy-handedness at all.

Posts have a minimum word-count and have to feature links to the client and any marketing collateral they want. Usually an embedded image or video.

I must confess that I've found some of the campaigns a little lacklustre. Sometimes they're little more than "embed this video and ask your readers to discuss why they like cheese." To me, that's an advertorial rather than a genuine discussion. Of course, if you don't run the cheese campaign, you don't have to.

My Perfect ebuzzing Campaign

This campaign is also an opportunity to imagine your perfect campaign: who are the brands you’d love to work with? What would be the best way, in your opinion, to create an original experience between your community and those brands? We’d love to hear your ideas!

I think any successful campaign has to focus on two things.

1. What the blogger can - or would - do with the product.
2. What the reader can get out of the promotion.

I'd love to see more exclusive content, more competitions, and more blog-focused promotions. Sending people off to join a Facebook group feels a little 2009 to me. Pick winners from the best blog comments - similar to the Ping Pong competition on Vikki Chowney's blog.

I could also imagine a phone manufacturer posting photos of landmarks taken with their hot new phone. Then get bloggers and their commenters to post photos of the same landmarks taken with their crappy old camera-phone.

Sign Up

If you're interested in signing your blog up, you can find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk. There are no joining fees and you're free to pick and choose what you'd like to blog about.

This is a sponsored post from ebuzzing

I love my little Dell Laptop - it's served me well over the years. And it has become a magnet for stickers - some for companies who have long since gone bust! Recently, I've upgraded the hard disk to a pure solid state drive. The speed increase is incredible. Coupled with adding an extra GB of RAM, the machine is now faster than ever. It's just a pity that Dell limited the machine to 2GB of RAM.

But, there's no denying it's getting a little long in the tooth. Video playback is only possible at fairly low resolutions, editing is a nightmare, there's no built in camera, and I think the headphone port is on the way out.

I Hate Tablets

Tablets are great if all you want to do is watch a movie or do some idle scrolling. That's no good for me - I need to work on my machine. I hate using touchscreen keybaords - either my fingers are too fat, or the screens are innaccurate. Even the best oleophobic screen gathers fingerprints and scratches if used for a sustained period of time. That said, I do like tablet's portability. I like the ease of use if I am just surfing. But unless I can plug in a keyboard and mouse - or any USB peripheral - a tablet is functionally useless to me.

Enter The Duo

Is the Duo the best of both worlds?

Dell's Inspiron Duo laptop is an intuitive machine, hailed as “the new convertible” thanks to its innovative flip-hinge design. Switching effortlessly from tablet to laptop, it’s perfect for both work and play.

I wouldn't call it intuitive - but it is innovative. It's only £450 for the base model - which is cheaper than an iPad 2. The tech-specs are fairly good - but not dramatically so. For a device which is going to be moved around a lot, I would have expected an SSD as standard. As it is, it's not even one of the customisable options. Some enterprising people have cracked the case open and added their own SSD. But it's not for the faint-hearted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMOiHRGpsLE

There is, however, a rather odd "AudioStation". Essentailly, it's a dock for the Duo. Quite why it needs it when you can stand it up using the keyboard, I don't know. At £99 for a charging station with built in speakers, it's not high up my list of must-haves. There are only two USB slots available on the regular chassis and - bizarrely - no HDMI or VGA output for connecting to an external screen. In keeping with the "seamless" ideals, there's not ethernet port - this is a WiFi only device. There's no 3G support - so you'll need a USB dongle or to tether to your phone. The battery - which doesn't look to be easily upgradeable is good for 4 hours. Again, it's ok, but it's not astounding. The Duo also comes with Windows 7. I suggest you reject the Windows EULA and ask Dell for a refund of the Windows License.

Ubuntu Support

Despite Dell's much vaunted support for Linux, it appears that support for the Duo is incomplete. The touchscreen mostly works - but there's no multi-touch yet. Similarly accelerometers don't detect that the screen orientation has changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6HLXtIprUg

There's a long running thread on Ubuntu Forums which should step you through the rather easy set up of Ubuntu. There are a few manual files to edit - but the basic hardware is well supported. Other Linux distros should work just as well.

The Competition

Want to win one of two Dell Duos? Of course you do!

Eligible contributors (18+ and UK resident) will be in with a chance of winning 1 of 2 Inspiron Duos, and 10 runner-up prizes of We7 premium memberships (3 month), just for letting sharing with us your favourite work and play tracks through the work, play, love application. The closing date for the competition is 21st April 2011.

Dell have set up a Facebook page which has their new Work and Play application. To enter, simply select your 10 favourite tracks for Work and Play. So, think of the tracks you use to inspire you in work and play - tell Dell - win a laptop. Nifty!

Conclusion

I'm certainly leaning towards the Duo as my next laptop. If Dell were to include a working version of Ubuntu - and perhaps an SSD as an upgrade option - it would be a no brainer. As it is, I'll see how Ubuntu develops as the community hacks away at it. I've already proved to myself that I can easily upgrade a laptop's hardware - but I'm not that keen to go poking in the guts of another machine. The Duo certainly represents value for money - especially if you're a Windows user - but I'd be prepared to pay a little more if they offered some more flexible options. As will all my sponsored posts, your feedback is important to me. Vote in the poll or let me know in the comments what you think.

Into the crowded arena steps the HTC Wildfire.

I'm a huge fan of the HTC hardware - but I often feel that they ignore the customer service side of things. For too long they were silent on when their firmware releases were coming out - leaving VillainROM and Cyanogen to pick up the slack.

Android phones have typically come in two flavours, hyper expensive devices like the Nexus One and cheap-as-chips devices like the LG Apex. (Seriously? US$80 for a phone... wow!)

The Wildfire sits comfortably between the two at a reasonable sub-£200 price to own the phone outright. I'm sure it's free on contract.

Right - watch this video so that I can earn tuppence ha'penny from eBuzzing.

The specs are impressive for such a cheap phone. The Android version is the slightly outdated 2.1 - I'd have expected HTC to stick Android 2.2 (Froyo) on there - especially as 2.3 (Gingerbread) is launching imminently. Hopefully HTC won't be so lackadaisical with its update process for this phone.

You can buy the HTC Wildfire from Amazon and all good phone retailers.

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