I got the chance to briefly use one at SXSW earlier this year but a few minutes with a device is rarely enough to tell if it’s a winner or not (I didn’t have high hopes at the time). It seemed too big to be practical and it comes with a stylus! I thought decent touch screen technology had finally killed off the stylus…although my first true smartphone (a Treo 650 and all the Palm PDA devices I had before that) used one.

But now it’s been just over a week with the device and I have to say, I’m really surprised at how much I enjoy using it. It’s not without some issues which I’ll describe in a bit but it’s been a nice fresh take on the mobile experience.

It is HUGE and does look kind of ridiculous as a phone. There, I stated the obvious. But when I considered how infrequently I actually use my iPhone as a phone (by holding it up to my ear), it became less of an issue. Fact is, I don’t make/receive a lot of phone calls…and if I do, it’s usually in my car while I’m driving and I have hands-free Bluetooth built into my car’s stereo.

Things I liked:

• huge, beautiful & vibrant Super OMOLED 5.3″ screen with a great viewing angle at 1280×800 resolution
• speedy with a 1.5 GHz Dual Core Processor inside and crazy fast 4G LTE internet speeds (I’ve been testing on the Telus network in Canada and it’s been faster than many home internet speeds)
• one of the better Android cameras I’ve used so far (8 megapixel with autofocus on the back) that can shoot up to 1080p HD video
• despite the giant screen, battery life was on par with my iPhone 4S…each lasts me a day with a little juice left over
• nice finish on the back cover…not slippery and feels solid despite the back battery cover being wafer thin
• surprisingly great form factor for a tablet…fits nicely in your hand (slightly bigger than my Canadian Passport)
• it comes with a stylus, but isn’t required to use the Note – artists can really use the stylus to create some great art and regular people like me can quickly scribble notes – bonus: you can easily take screenshots using the stylus by pressing & holding the button as you tap the screen

Things I didn’t like:

• looks silly as a phone when held to your face
• no easy way (by default) to type (two handed) on the device unless you lay it flat and/or prop it up on something – a smart/flip cover or stand would be useful (which are available separately from third parties)
• difficult to use one handed due to size of the screen – you can’t easily navigate with 1-2 fingers/thumb like a smaller device
• uses a normal/full size SIM card
• still running Gingerbread 2.3.6 version of Android OS (likely due to Telus update schedule)
• somewhat slow autofocus on the back camera and the shutter is a little laggy, the moment you hit the button, the image is captured, despite the image processing delay, you still get the shot you intended
• the stylus centric handwriting recognition works but is a little clunky to use

The screen really is something to behold…it has a fantastic viewing angle and is the correct aspect ratio for HD movies:

The screen is also particularly good at showing photos. My previous Android phone, the Nexus S was too saturated so colors looked over done. The Note’s screen seems just right.

If you think you’re good at Draw Something with your finger, you should be amazing at it with the Note’s stylus…sadly, it hasn’t helped my artistic ability.

One of the first things I like to test on a new device is how well it runs M.A.M.E. and the Note excels at it.

Everything runs smoothly, and looks fantastic. You can rotate the screen and it rotates immediately, moving the onscreen controls as well. Despite it’s large screen, it’s quite comfortable to hold in landscape mode to play.

As I mentioned above, it has one of the better Android cameras I’ve used.

With similar 8 megapixel specs as the iPhone 4S, I was able to take some great shots on the go in many different lighting situations.

It’s definitely going to be difficult to send this back to Samsung as it’s one of the best Android experiences I’ve had…and will only get better when Android 4.0 is released for it. I was certainly a doubter at first but after using it for an extended period, I have to say I’m quite impressed with the Galaxy Note.

Yes, I actually bought a non-Apple tablet (that thinks it’s a laptop). I’ll wait while you soak that in.

After seeing both Derek and Morten, in the span of about 6 hours (ironically on the release day of the new iPad), using their Transformer Prime’s, I started to think about it a lot more and did some research.

I already have a work provided iPad 2 but find that I rarely use it at home since I have a laptop (MacBook Air). The iPad was a choice I made when it came time to get a new laptop at work…I opted to go the iPad route because of what I was mostly using the laptop for at work – to attend meetings, have access to my calendar and email anywhere in the building, etc. The iPad works fantastically better for these tasks than a laptop for me at least.

So at home, I wanted something different to play with. I already had an HP Touchpad which I hacked and put Android onto but it was a little bulky (think the size of the iPad 1, inside a case) and didn’t have any external ports for memory cards. Also the Android 4 install I recently did is still considered very alpha so a number of things didn’t work or weren’t aware of the hardware I was using.

I really liked a few things about the Prime almost immediately:

• the nicely integrated and detachable keyboard dock (an optional, separate $150 purchase which is actually a no brainer because of what it adds) which adds a really nice keyboard, touchpad(!), SD card slot, USB port and battery pack that extends the Prime’s battery to over 18 hours
• integrated microSD card slot for additional storage. I opted for the cheaper 32gb model because I can extend this with memory cards easily thanks to the two slot option with the keyboard dock
• it runs Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) which is currently the best Android experience available
• very speedy processor and video card that seems to rival Apple’s iPad speed. Simple things like just rotating the display always seemed laggy on my previous Android devices whereas this is very comparable

I’ve only had it for less than a day and already the frustration with the Android Marketplace (now known as the Play Store) has surfaced since unlike Apple’s App Store, there is no clear distinction between phone and tablet apps. I’ve talked about the fragmented Android marketplace before and now it’s even more obvious with a device like the Prime.

I spent a bunch of time downloading apps only to find that they are really meant for a phone display. While they still work on the Prime, it’s not the best experience.

Another interesting point is the unboxing experience. It feels like Asus completely copied Apple’s method for packaging and presenting the device. Very similar foam padding inside the box, internal user guide bundle and even the shape of the charging cable feel more than simply ‘inspired by Apple’. But that said, it is still a good experience, with minimal excess like the days of old with the huge styrofoam inserts.

My Prime is the ‘Amethyst Gray’ model…the other color option was champagne which appears to be more silver/pearly white and this grey looks more like purple or stained deep red wine than gray. Whatever.

Asus has done a great job of not mucking too much with the Android experience and really making an effort to think things through rather than simply bolt them on like in the past. I’ve noticed a bunch of little things that work like you’d expect and want (finally an integrated screenshot solution via the keyboard or onscreen button). The keyboard also has an integrated trackpad which makes using a tablet much easier for some tasks while typing on the keyboard – something I found lacking on the Apple side when using an iPad + keyboard combo, so much so that I stopped using an external keyboard.

It’s easy to see something like this could be the future of mobile computing with the software and hardware finally working together in a manner that makes sense.

Once I spend more time with the unit, I’ll post more about my experiences. So far though, I’m enjoying it.

UDPATE: First weekend with the device and I’ve seen this message far too often in the stock browser:

Google’s own Chrome Browser (which is an early beta on Android) isn’t much better with it’s crashiness.

UPDATE #2: Well, I tried for a over a week to love the Transformer Prime but in the end, I returned it. Despite having some really killer features, I found the overall performance subpar when compared to my iPad 2.

The wifi was incredibly weak – something that seems to be well documented online, due to the aluminum shell which reduces the range of the antenna. While not a main reason I bought it in the first place, the built in GPS kind of worked and Asus has even begun offering a GPS dongle for all customers due to the weak performance of the built in module (they’ve also removed the feature from the unit’s main specs).

The final straw was when I was simply browsing the Play Store (app market) trying to find tablet specific apps and this popped up:

I guess my Android friends are okay with this kind of performance…but I’m not and certainly not for a $700+ device (keyboard dock included). I wasn’t doing anything other than running a stock unit with the latest Android updates. I know I can root, unlock the bootloader, etc but I shouldn’t have to do that to simply use the browser.

I may try again with Google’s rumored upcoming 1st party tablet (which may actually be a rebranded Asus) or maybe even a Kindle Fire from Amazon which has a curated app store of apps that are optimized for that tablet.

One thing that I wanted to do from the beginning though, is try out the electric vehicle on my own personal commute. I live in Port Coquitlam and drive to North Vancouver every day. It’s about 70 kilometers round trip. Last week, GM Canada loaned me a Volt to try it out on my local commute.

As with previous posts, this is more a overview of the technology in the car than a traditional car review… so I’m going to focus on a couple of things including the realities of charging an electric car at home, driving one on my daily commute and what you can do with GM’s smartphone app for the Volt.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Volt is meant to be charged with a regular 110V wall outlet. It has a dedicated port on the front left side of the car (complete with push button on the key fob and on the driver’s door to open it). It’s a proprietary port for use with the cable reel that is located in the trunk. I had initially spent way too much time looking for a long extension cord inside my house before I realized the cable reel had plenty of cord to go from my garage outlet to my carport without issue. Using this method takes a depleted battery about 10 hours to charge to 100%. This gives you anywhere from 40 to 80 kilometers of electric travel depending on a number of factors including road/traffic conditions, what you have running inside the car (air conditioning, heated seats, charging up your phone, lights, etc). The gas engine tops up the available range to just over 400 kilometers with a full tank of gas & fully charged battery.

If you want to charge it faster, you can get a 220V outlet installed (think of your washer/dryer connection) and the Volt will charge in 4 hours.

Unfortunately for me, at my office, I wasn’t able to find any parking stalls that had ready access to a wall outlet. I’m sure they exist, I just wasn’t able to get a stall that had one during my loan period. So I had to go all day at work without charging that meant I’d get to see if I’d get to go my full commute under battery power.

On the days that I had the car, I seemed to have had some of the worst traffic days in quite a while so it took longer than normal to get home. At the end of the day though, I usually only had to dip into the gas tank for a couple of liters of gas to get home with the battery getting depleted just minutes from my front door. I think during my whole week of usage, I used less than 10 litres of gas.

Since this is a GM vehicle, it came with OnStar and the model I had included the full navigation system which is an optional add-on to the base Volt.

One thing I really liked was the ‘Traffic Events’ that would pop up on the screen via the OnStar service. It was pretty consistent with what the local news radio station was reporting (slightly more realtime) and also reflected the reality on the road in front of me. The events popped up a few kilometers from where they were and showed me exactly where the accident was located and even suggested alternate routes if any.

I also liked the heads up display with navigation right above the steering wheel with key turn by turn directions (I was being audibly told by the nav system to do a legal u-turn when possible in this photo):

The free OnStar RemoteLink app is available for iPhone and Android smartphones in their respective marketplaces. It gives you a lot of control and information about your car at your fingertips. Everything from being able to lock/unlock & start your car remotely, being able to monitor & review your battery life, tire pressure and other vehicle diagnostic information to even honking the horn.

One particularly cool feature was the navigation tab which would give you the ability to search out a destination on your phone and send the routing information to the car. You can also set reminders for charging the vehicle and schedule the charging to begin at specific times if your electricity is cheaper during different times of the day.

One thing I can say after having a few non-geeks in the car during my time with it is that the dash and display screens can seem overwhelming to the uninitiated. Personally, I loved it but I can see how the large console area with it’s plethora of buttons, busy dash and touchscreens can be confusing. No doubt there is a lot going on in this car. Fortunately, you can turn off the screens and just drive normally if that’s your thing.

I really enjoyed my ‘real world’ week with the Volt. If I was looking to upgrade my car right now, I would give it some serious consideration after reviewing my annual gas expenses and mileage. It’s just too bad my home province of BC doesn’t have any rebates for eco vehicles like many other provinces do. It would make the purchase price that much more attractive.

UPDATE: Looks like BC is finally getting on board with rebates for cars like the Volt beginning December 1, 2011!

Earlier this year, I also got to briefly drive a production Volt during SXSW as part of their ‘Drive a Chevy’ promotion where they basically offered taxi service to all attendees in Austin and let you drive the car to your destination.

This time though, I got to really try out the production model over the course of the better part of a week. As soon as we landed in Anchorage, Alaska, we were given our ‘own’ cars for the duration of the trip.

I’m actually a target consumer for the Volt. My current commute is just under 70 kilometres roundtrip from Port Coquitlam to North Vancouver each day. With the Volt’s electric range being around 86 kilometres on a single charge, I could easily go to and from work without charging and still have some range for some shopping trips on the way home.

Once the electric battery is depleted, the Volt will seamlessly switch over to power the electric engine using a conventional gas engine where it can continue for nearly 400 more kilometres. Unlike some hybrids, the switchover is unnoticable since the Volt just maintains the electric batteries with the gas engine and doesn’t directly drive the vehicle.

There are more and more options for charging an electric vehicle. Many hotels now offer at least a couple of stalls with power in their parking lots and recently in Vancouver, local parking company, EasyPark announced a pilot program to have a handful of electric outlets designated for electric vehicles in their lots around the city.

While it is possible to charge the Volt via a regular household outlet, it takes about 10 hours to fully charge a depleted battery. If you have access to a 240V outlet (like what your washer/dryer would use), you can charge the battery in about 4 hours. A 240V outlet can easily and cheaply be installed in your garage. The trunk of the Volt has all the connecting cables you need to plug in anywhere using the outlet on the opposite side of the vehicle from the gas tank.

I really enjoyed driving the Volt while in Alaska. As you can see in this short time-lapse video of the road trip, it’s a beautiful place and reminds me quite a lot of BC:

The roadways around the peninsula were surprisingly flat considering we were in quite a mountainous area. So while the Volt has a number of drive handling modes, I couldn’t really tell much difference between them considering the roads were pretty consistent the whole trip.

I’m looking forward to the chance to check out the Volt again once it launches in Canada later this year…and seeing how it really stacks up on my own daily commute. According to GM Canada, the costs of operating the Volt in BC is 1/5 the cost of a comparable gasoline only vehicle. That seems to be a pretty compelling reason to look into this technology closer, not to mention the environmental impacts of using less gas overall.

So then I decided to treat myself to Lomography’s newest 35mm film camera, the LC-Wide which had just come out:

The appealing thing about the LC-Wide was that it came with an awesome 17mm ultra wide angle lens, hence the name.

I’ve put about four rolls of film through it now and think I’ve finally got it all figured out and have been loving the results from it.

Here’s a handful of my favorite shots, taken over the last month during my travels:

Here’s a brief run down of my likes/dislikes of this camera:

I Liked:

• solid – camera doesn’t feel cheap or ‘plasticy’ and has some heft to it
• well built – unlike my Holga’s, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to break simply by advancing the film
• small – fits easily in my hand and can be tucked away in your jean or cargo short pockets if you needed to
• awesome wide angle glass lens – 17mm on a ‘full frame’ 35mm film camera is fabulous…that is all.
• great focal distance – you can easily switch between 0.4-0.9m or 0.9m to infinity focus distance which means you can get really close to your subjects with that wide angle lens

I didn’t like:

• expensive – it came with a huge wooden box and two printed books along with other accessories including a remote shutter release cable that was DOA. I would have preferred to just buy the camera and skip the ‘extras’ which while nice, inflated the price of the package
• cheesy screenprinted graphics – (see above photo) it seems to be Lomo’s schtick but it would look like a more serious film camera if the body didn’t have cartoon people printed on it…especially for this price point. At least they disappear when you open the lens cover.
• tiny ASA dial – to change the film’s ASA setting, the dial is tucked away beside the front of the viewfinder and you need tiny child hands to be able to change the settings

Sure I can probably get similar results if I mess around on my iPhone with Instagram, Hipstamatic or Lemeleme but I still love the look of film, the ‘Christmas Day’ joy of getting a roll back from being developed (I usually just get my rolls developed and scanned to CDs) and seeing the results. I have other film cameras I use occasionally too but this one is usually in my bag all the time since it’s so compact and a ton of fun to use.

This passion for retrogaming even led to me building my own arcade cabinet (on my Westend balcony) so that I could relive these games in all their glory, complete with dual joysticks, 12 pushbuttons and a working coin slot – yes, I made my friends pay to play. The cabinet contained a PC running MAME – the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. This is a cross platform emulator that can run over 5000 arcade classics from the 70s to just a few years ago.

Eventually, I had a living room full of arcade cabinets running pretty much everything. I’ve since scaled back to just one machine but am considering converting it to a mini-MAME cabinet.

I recently posted about a MAME emulator for jailbroken iPhones. It works quite well for emulating games. Unfortunately, the controls leave a lot to be desired. Touch interfaces just don’t work well with retro games that were played with a joystick, a paddle or a trackball. This is possibly one of the reasons why I really don’t do a lot of gaming on my iOS devices…I’m old school like that.

Then one day, I stumbled across the Caanoo handheld gaming device from Game Park Holdings in Korea. It came out last fall and is the followup to a number of previous devices from GPH that are considered open source alternatives to the Nintendo and Sony handheld gaming devices.

Here was a handheld device that was dedicated to emulating my favorite games and it also had a few other tricks from the modern era that made it a pretty compelling gadget that I ordered almost immediately. I did first check out how well MAME ran on it and there are tons of videos on Youtube demonstrating this.

The main features that interested me were:

• completely opensource – the device runs on a Linux variant and is apparently very hackable
• true analog joystick and proper game buttons
• robust developer community creating all kinds of software and games for it (there is even a true app/game store)
• a touch screen that works with your fingers or the included stylus
• stereo sound – although the speakers are located in a strange place
• vibration – which has varying support in games and has an intensity control to dial it up or down
• wifi support – not built in but available using a small & inexpensive dongle
• G Sensor – their version of an accelerometer that can allow the handheld to be used to control the games (tilt for steering controls for example – works quite well even with MAME)
• uses SD cards (up to 32gb) for storage
• drag and drop app installs
• decent battery life (rated for 7 hours, realworld seems to be about 5)
• TV out support (via a proprietary cable that is not included)
• a USB port for adding a second player using a USB joystick or gamepad
• you can rotate the screen for some of the vertical games and the controls are laid out in such a way that it’s actually very playable vertically and comfortable to hold – I couldn’t imagine doing that with a GBA or DS
• it’s also an open media player (music/movies/ebooks/etc – in just about any format) – not something I really care about or need thanks to my iPad but a nice bonus nonetheless
• an empty, Caanoo branded 4gb SD card came in the box…despite no mention of it anywhere

It pretty much seems to be the perfect retro gaming handheld at the moment and it is about half the cost of the new Nintendo 3DS.

The back of the unit…note the curious location of the speakers (right were you place your hands):

The animated menu system is pretty basic and boots quickly to help you get to your games quickly:

The emulators – pretty much every console or computer I ever owned (including my beloved Vectrex) and a few I didn’t:

Atari 2600 running Keystone Kapers:

The MAME menu:

MAME running Gauntlet:

A video from the Caanoo’s maker, that highlights the features of the console:

A great starting point for all the emulators for the Caanoo is OpenHandhelds.org where you’ll find a ton of different console, computer and arcade game emulators to download. PDRoms is also another good spot to check out the Caanoo section.

For obvious reasons, you’ll have to look elsewhere for the rom files needed to run the emulators but chances are if you’re interested in retro gaming at all, you’ll know where to look.

A few things I didn’t like about the Caanoo:

• touchscreen gets very smudgy…I’ve been spoiled by Apple’s protective coatings
• the only way to charge the unit is using a proprietary USB cable – let’s hope I don’t lose it
• the power light on the left side is pretty large and unnecessary
• the app store and product registration requires Windows to work. No official Mac support but you can easily populate the SD card on a Mac with games, emulators and roms and just pop it into the Caanoo with no trouble
• wifi not built in & requires a dongle that sticks out of the bottom of the unit – not a huge deal since I’d rarely use it but if a friend does pick up one of these, we could play head to head over wifi

Other than those few items, I really have no complaints about the Caanoo. It works better than I imagined at running pretty much every game I’ve thrown at it at near perfect speeds. I’m still impressed that hardware of this caliber and quality is available so inexpensively (~$150) and that the community is as big as it is. I also considered the Dingoo (really? who comes up with these names?) but it’s a bit older and has a little less power than the Caanoo (336mhz vs 533mhz) although it’s nearly half the price ($~80) so it may be an option if you want to check out these kinds of handhelds on the cheap.

I ordered my Caanoo from Think Geek but it’s available online from a number of places including eBay.

Of course, I had to try the camera(s) on the Playbook (shot with the rear camera in low light):

It has a 3mp front facing camera and a 5mp rear facing camera which seemed pretty decent.

The Playbook fits easily inside the touchscreen area of my iPad 2.

What I found surprised me. Here’s my quick takeaways after playing with it for a brief amount of time:

I liked:

• Form factor – fits nicely in your hand and is about the size of my Kindle 3 in it’s leather case which means it’s perfect for curling up on the couch with
• rubberized back…something I like immensely over the Apple aluminum backed iPad
• Multitouch bezels – let’s you swipe from the black bezel areas in order to get to options, switch apps, etc.
• Multitasking – works as advertised and you can swipe from side to side in the bezel area to switch between apps
• There is a file system! I was able to log into Flickr and use the uploader to access the breakfast photo I took and post it directly online – something I wish was possible with iOS

What I didn’t like:

• App World – obviously it’s launch day so there aren’t a ton of apps…this should get better with time if enough people buy the Playbook. I’m still skeptical about the Android integration but we’ll see.
• Custom connectors for HDMI – I’m sure it’s a space thing but it would have been nice to have a standard port instead of having to buy a dongle (could have been included at least)
• Blackberry required for native email/contacts/calendar – this is a huge dropped ball…other than webmail, there is currently no native email app unless you pair with your BB. I can’t imagine any non-Blackberry owners getting one anytime soon until they release some native apps to address this (which I’m told is coming soon – but it should have been there on day 1)
• cheesy neoprene case included in the box

I guess only time will tell if there is a market for the Playbook. It launched at 7am around North America and there wasn’t a single person lined up to buy one (most pre-ordered them I’m told). I also know that my company is giving them a pass, at least this year, which is a little surprising considering the Blackberry centric enterprise I work for.

My thanks to Elliott, Paul and Brittany at Future Shop for the hands on playtime with the Playbook.

The one on the left, the LG-C900B (aka the LG Quantum) has a slide out keyboard and the one on the right is the LG-E900h (aka LG Optimus 7) which is a full on touchscreen model.

As with previous LG smartphones I’ve reviewed, I found the build quality to be excellent and the form factor, especially on the Quantum, to be great in the hand. The Optimus was a little large and it’s edges a little sharp for my liking.

Both smartphones have 5 megapixel cameras with flash, a dedicated camera shutter button and also a bundled app for taking panoramic photos.

I quite liked the built in panorama app that made it really easy to create images like this one by simply holding the cameraphone up and moving it in the direction you want to capture. The app will snap a photo when you are lined up and take care of the stitching automagically:

My only complaint about the panorama app is that the resolution is quite low considering the ability of the camera.

The camera itself was pretty decent although even at the highest settings, it still looks a little web cammy to me.

I didn’t have a ton of time to really put the phones through their paces but overall I quite liked them. Not unlike the Zune MP3 player, I found the user interface to be fast, responsive and very slick. It felt much more polished than I’ve seen on Android devices and even made me wish my iPhone did some of the same tricks.

During the time I had with the phone, I didn’t get to try a lot of the applications in the marketplace but all the usual suspects were there with quite polished versions of Facebook, Twitter and the like. Even Netflix was there and worked very well.

Like Android & iOS devices, using Windows Phone 7 is centered around a core user account from Microsoft. Android uses Google accounts and Apple uses iTunes. The frustrating thing on WP7 was the fact that if you enter your initial account information incorrectly (I had mistyped my Windows Live password) you are basically screwed. There is no way on the phone to delete the account and try again or even correct the mistyped password. You can add additional accounts but the primary one has to be valid and correct for ANYTHING to work properly on the phone.

The only solution was to do a complete factory reset. While I hadn’t been able to setup much on the phone yet, it was still incredible that the only way to resolve the situation of a mistyped password was to reset the phone.

Initial pains aside, I still really liked the Windows Phone 7 platform based on my brief experience with it…I think it’s an easier platform for people new to smartphones to use and understand compared to the brutally fragmented Android arena. Microsoft also has the potential to really capitalize on its Xbox integration with these devices although the current implementation was a little weak with only minor connectivity to your Xbox Live account. Using your WP7 smartphone as a controller for your Xbox 360 could be very cool indeed.

I’m still not ready to give up my iPhone 4 but I certainly welcome Microsoft and it’s partners like LG to compete on an ever increasingly level playing field. Only time will tell if they can help make things better for all consumers. As I’ve said many times, competition is great to keep Apple in check and we’re finally seeing devices that at least have a chance to compete for market share.

What is Micro Four Thirds?
Micro four thirds (or u4/3) is a new format of digital photography that is basically a full size DSLR camera in the form factor of a point and shoot camera using a different kind of shutter system that does away with the mirror found in DSLRs. Some say it’s the future of photography and the best of both worlds. Using an interchangeable lens system with the size, weight and the ease of use that comes with a point and shoot, it’s hard to deny that this isn’t the future.

The body feels solid and like an old school 35mm body that is very comfortable in your hand. Complete with a mode dial and a quick, 1 button video record, it’s easy to navigate the options the camera has.

I found the kit lens (14-42mm) included with the E-PL1 to be a great lens in bright light but quite underwelming in low light…it’s slow (f3.5-5.6) and had a lot of trouble focusing in low light. The same lens included with the E-PL2 is much faster and quieter at focusing than it’s predecessor and seemed to focus better in low light. As you can see from the photo, this lens isn’t small…it protrudes quite a bit when closed and is almost comical when you unlock the lens and extend it fully which is required when the camera is powered on.

I was able to get the much faster 17mm f2.8 ‘pancake’ lens to play with and it quickly became my default setup for the E-PL2:

It was much thinner and didn’t require an unlock to use so I was able to pick up the camera and shoot almost instantly.

This really is the true benefit of this kind of system, the interchangeable lenses make it so much more versatile, at a much lower cost of entry than a full size DSLR. Unlike most DSLR lenses, Micro four thirds lenses from any manufacturer all work with each other so you have a lot of options at a fraction of the cost of DSLR equivalent lenses.

The built in flash pops up to resemble something that might pop up out of R2D2 but works great to avoid red eyes:

Another cool feature the PEN has built in, is in camera Art modes. This is getting more common on DSLRs and is generally regarded as a gimmick but I found the quality of a number of the modes to be stunning and huge time savers instead of having to do a lot of work in Photoshop afterwards.

My favourites were the ‘diorama’ aka fake tilt shift mode:

the ‘pop art’ mode:

and the ‘dramatic tone’ mode:

I’ve been lucky enough to have done a ton of travelling lately and have taken the PEN system with me everywhere from freezing cold of the Yukon, the coast of Vancouver Island to the warm desert of Arizona and it’s performed perfectly everywhere.

I found many instances when I had both the PEN and my DSLR with me, I’d grab the PEN to shoot with more often than I expected. I won’t be selling my DSLR anytime soon but certainly for most people, a camera like the E-PL2 will be more than adequate for almost any kind of shot…even high speed shots like one of Amber’s many jumping shots we took during our roadtrip:

Unlike other higher end non-DSLR cameras, the PEN system is very easy to use and great for beginners or advanced users alike. A number of the people on the SXSW roadtrip had only ever used point and shoot cameras before and quickly picked up the PEN and have since fallen in love with photography, partly because the camera was able to capture what they saw in real life incredibly well.

There is no optical viewfinder but an electronic one is available separately (I didn’t get to try it personally and was fine to use the large 3″ LCD screen to frame my shots). There are a number of other interesting accessories available including a bluetooth transmitter (the PenPal PP-1) that allows you to send photos to your smartphone or laptop, an underwater housing and a funky looking marco lighting kit with two LED arms that can be bent to illuminate objects close up.

I have to say, after spending so much time using the PEN system, I can easily see this camera being a backup to my DSLR and my primary walk about camera for almost any instance. Battery life has been fantastic, continuous shot mode very fast, HD video shooting (720p) and the portability of the camera can’t be beat. They even have a really affordable fisheye addon lens that I just might have to buy.

My thanks to Olympus Canada for providing the gear for review.

UPDATE: I expanded the explanation of micro four thirds and I somehow didn’t include my likes/dislikes points previously so here you are:

I liked:

• the form factor – very solid and fits nicely in the hand
• the satisfying shutter sound – it makes a very solid ‘thunk’ like you’d expect from a full size camera
• great continuous shot mode with no shutter lag – you can get up to 7 frames per second…we made a few stop frame animation movies during our roadtrip simply by using this mode
• the art modes – surprisingly good modes for in camera effects that are previewed in realtime as you shoot
• one click instant HD video button – great for being able to shoot a bunch of stills then jump right into video without having to fuss with dials or modes and real time auto-focusing while shooting video as well
• you can get the body in different metallic colors if that’s your thing

I didn’t like:

• the extending/locking zoom lenses – a little bulky and almost negated the size benefits of a small camera like this with the extreme lengths some of the lenses needed to be extended to just operate, let alone zoom
• lack of an included viewfinder – would have been nice to use it without having to use the large LCD on the back but an electronic viewfinder is an optional accessory

The GoPro by itself is tiny and great for all kinds of action photography and video but sometimes it would be really helpful to see what kind of framing you have, especially in tight spaces. The BacPac addresses that shortcoming very well, without adding much bulk and for a reasonable price.

The LCD comes with a speaker for playback and an additional button for navigation. It easily attaches to the GoPro by clipping it into place:

My GoPro required a firmware update to work with the LCD BacPac but was painless to upgrade.

The LCD BacPac has another interesting benefit: it makes the cryptic mode codes usually found on the front of the GoPro completely understandable by using the full descriptions of each mode:

There is also a new mode for playback that you access by holding the LCD button down for 2 seconds. It let’s you playback video and photos as well as adjust the brightness:

A nice bonus is that the BacPac comes with a box of alternate back plates for the various types of mounts, including waterproof and non-waterproof versions for the regular housing and the wrist mount:

I recently purchased the Wrist mount and used it with the LCD attached while surfing in Ucluelet:

The BacPac is a little hard to see in full sunlight but it’s good enough to be able to frame up your shot and do a quick review (with sound) in the shade when you’re done shooting. There is also a hit to your battery if you use it a lot but it can be turned off by simply pressing the LCD button anytime. To me, it’s definitely a must buy if you have a GoPro.

As of right now, it’s only available directly from GoPro.com but shipping was only a couple of days from California to Canada. I did have to pay HST on the $79.99 price when importing it from the USA.