Review – The Griffin SeeSaw

iPad cases come in many forms, but this new offering from Griffin has to stand out as one of the most unusual I’ve ever encountered.

The reason for this is that unlike most other cases, which act as a folio-style protector or finicky external keyboard, the SeeSaw is primarily aimed at children. The first clue is the hard foamlike material from which the case is constructed. This acts as a solid enclosure that should survive a few knocks and even drops caused by any diminutive hands.

With the iPad inserted the screen is propped up at a comfortable angle for viewing content and occasional interaction. Typing is not really an option at this incline, but playing games, selecting answers to questions and such activities are easily accomplished. The case can also be positioned in either landscape or portrait mode, with both feeling sturdy and safe.

Another advantage to the design is that it’s very light, so children can pick it up with ease, especially as there is a carrying groove in the back to aid grip. Next to this is also a handy slot for storing a stylus. The unit comes in two colours – bright yellow and blue – but I must admit if Griffin were to make one that looked like the original iMacs then they might capture a much wider market of adults who would love to have something as cool as that sitting on their desks.

One of these please Griffin!

To test the target appeal of the SeeSaw required the employment of two laboratory children, who were immediately drawn to the colourful exterior. Within minutes they’d fitted the iPad and were lost in Youtube. One slight problem they encountered was that the volume controls required quite a degree of force to get through to the iPad underneath. This may be a purposeful restriction to aid teachers in classrooms from having umpteen iPads blaring out at full volume, and if that’s the case then it’s a sensible choice. The one main issue I can see with the design in relation to being used in a classroom is how you would store the cases when not in use? Removing the iPads every time would soon get tiresome (not to mention probably loosen the cases grip), but as the screen is afforded no protection you wouldn’t want to pile them on top of each other.

For home use though the SeeSaw is a fascinating and quite charming little innovation. If you have an older iPad then handing it down to your progeny in one of these would make a great TV-lite device for their bedroom, or a perfect study companion for their homework.

The SeeSaw retails for £29.99 and would be a cool addition to any child’s desk. Now, just give me the iMac one to put on mine…

Living With the… Lenovo Yoga 13

Recently I was tasked with writing an in-depth comparison between Windows 8 and Apple’s Mountain Lion OSX operating systems. To achieve this required the loaning of a machine from each respective camp, which sounds easier than you might think. The Mountain Lion option actually was pretty easy, with the 13″ Macbook Air being a  most flexible and portable platform on which to work – certainly a lot handier than dragging an iMac down to the coffee shop…although that has happened before.

Choosing the Windows machine was far more of a poser. You see I wanted to give the Microsoft creation the best possible chance to show off all its touch based features, but I know from my own experience that traditional Windows users don’t work that way, and therefore needed to show the OS in a more normal setting. So after lots of deliberation between a large touchscreen desktop machine, a tablet/laptop hybrid, or one of the many other form factors manufacturers were seemingly throwing out at random, I ended up plumping for the Lenovo Yoga 13.

Why this one then? Well, Lenovo have obviously thought long and hard about the Windows 8 user experience and divined that tablet and laptop functionality are, of course, rather different. We’ve probably all heard the ‘Gorilla Arm’ arguments about touchscreens by now (if not then it’s the idea that stretching out to interact with your screen all the time will make one of your arms bigger than the other due to the extra exercise it’s receiving – oh yes, and this isn’t regarded as a positive thing), so Lenovo have come up with something just a little bit clever.

At first glance the Yoga 13 looks like a normal laptop, albeit with rather chunky hinges, and in many ways it is exactly that. The specs are what you would expect of  a premium notebook, with an i7 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and of course that all important touchscreen. Where the Yoga differs from its less pliable brethren, and gets its name, is those hinges. Open the Yoga 13 up and you can use it as a touchscreen laptop, but if you decide that you want a tablet instead then you can bend it back even more until it looks like an upside down V. Now you can use the tablet functions while the Yoga stands itself up on a table, pretty nifty. Of course this could prove disastrous if you borrow a friends laptop, forget that it isn’t a Yoga, and promptly rip it in half while trying to play Angry Birds.

In use the Yoga 13 is a pretty fast and responsive machine. The touchscreen works most of the time, although there were some occasions where you had to drag a menu in from the side several times before it actually did as you asked.  The matt plastic inner casings were comfortable to lay your wrists on as you typed, but here lay one of the biggest problems I have with the device…the damn keyboard.

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of my day typing I’m a bit picky about keyboards. For the most part this one is fine, the keys are well spaced, they feel comfortable, and you know when you’ve pressed one. No, the problem that made this actually a nearly unusable macine for me was the extra row of buttons to the right of the enter key. As a touch typist, although an admittedly scruffy one, I have quite a rapid rate of finger speed. So it became something of a problem when I’d automatically hit the furthest right key expecting a new line only to find myself half way back up the page…especially if I didn’t notice straight away and then started adding sentences randomly into previous paragraphs. I know Lenovo are not the only ones to use a different layout like this, but I found it a real problem. Add to that the confusion of Windows 8 and it becomes a potent mixture for tearing out hair, shouting quite obscene language in the middle of Costa, and thinking just how much nicer that 13″ Macbook Air really was.

Dispensing with the keyboard and going all tablet didn’t really improve things. The Yoga can obviously cope with any of the Modern UI apps that you throw at it, but having a laptop standing on it’s head doesn’t really feel that elegant. It also negates the advantage of a tablet in that it’s lightweight and can be held in your hands for extended periods, something you most definitely couldn’t do with the Lenovo.

In the end the real litmus test was having the two different devices on loan for around a month, really wanting to like the Lenovo – actually being quite excited before it turned up – but finding that whenever I wanted to get stuff done I immediately, and without any hesitation, reached for the Air. It’s boring and predictable I know, and I didn’t want it to go this way as I really want to find an alternative to Apple hardware so that I’m not trapped into a single vendor scenario, but the Lenovo 13 really isn’t the solution. Much like many elements of Windows 8 the Yoga 13 feels like it’s trying to solve problems that just don’t need to exist, and just causes other ones instead.

If you want to read the comparison piece between Windows 8 and OSX Mountain Lion then please visit the PC Advisor website here.

Living with the…Kindle Paperwhite

I love books. Actual, physical books.

In fact when I first heard about e-readers the idea just turned me cold. How could people give up the feel of a proper book in their hands, the artwork on the sleeves, and all those creases in the spine that acted as waypoints for the adventure you’d just experienced? What grey, cold, computer could have the same heartwarming effect?

Well, as it turns out…the Amazon Kindle.

I bought my first Kindle as kind of an experiment. The slim plastic casing was lightweight, easy to hold, and in direct sunlight the pages looked, well, like a book. I tried in vain to fight the lures of this temptress, but in truth, she had me once I read my first e-inked line. The transition was swift. When perusing the listings on Amazon I’d check to see if new titles came in digital formats. Second-hand bookshops, once a sanctuary to me, slipped from my mind and faded into legend. Only something that could be emailed to my device was worthy of inclusion in my collection.

I had been digitised.

Where once I was a man whose home was packed with books, now the shelves were empty, an ebook collection nestled in the slim belly of my Kindle…and I was happy.

But there was one area in which the little device struggled. Well to be honest it didn’t struggle, it outright failed. Low light. If the sun went behind a cloud, the lightbulbs chose to shine in different directions, or my warm glow of literary self satisfaction faded, then the Kindle became next to useless.

I tried various lights that could be attached to the Kindle, but these all quickly became annoying. Some were bulky and added weight, others were tiny and flapped about all over the place like epileptic stick insects. I considered the official Amazon case with a built in light, but the hilarious price of £50 soon put paid to that idea. No, I was a dayreader now, and that is how it would stay. Unless I sat by a desk lamp of course.

Then came rumours of a new Kindle…one that would bring light to the word. I held my breath. Could this be true?

Slowly rumours transformed into speculation, then tentative, leaked technical specs appeared. So, the prophesies were soon to be made plastic. Glory be! Shortly afterwards the Kindle Paperwhite appeared, replete with an internal light and the promise of eternal happiness. Well, the happiness was only available through certain outlets, but the light remained standard. Lo, the Paperwhite had come into the world…and it was good.

After spending the past two weeks with this luminescent device I must admit that sadly…it’s rather wonderful. I say sadly because it now means a frantic scramble to gather together enough cash to buy the damn thing. Thus it was, as ever shall be.

What makes the Paperwhite so attractive is the illumination itself. I’ve tried reading books on my iPad, Nexus 7, and various mobile phones over the years. It’s not a terrible experience, but my eyes tend to tire quickly when staring at small text on those harshly bright screens. The Kindle Paperwhite glows in a more gentle fashion, allowing you to spend longer reading and less time Googling for symptoms of cataracts.

The design is elegantly simple too. Gone is the keyboard that wasted so much space on my old unit, replaced instead by a touch-screen. Thankfully there’s no swiping involved. You just tap the left side to go back, the right to go forward, the top to bring up a menu, and the bottom to see how much of the book remains. Actually this is a great little feature as the lower display swaps between the rather random ‘Loc’ display – which acts as a page number – to a far more useful option that uses your average reading speed to calculate how long it will take you to finish reading the book. Simple, brilliant, and mildly accurate.

Otherwise it’s business as usual for the Kindle. Meaning that the extra functionality (distractions) tablets and phones offer are sacrificed in favour of a dedicated reading experience. It’s hard to convey just how powerful this simplicity is. When you pick up an iPad you can read, then check your email, quickly update Facebook, maybe order another book from the Amazon website, then watch that video that your friend has just sent, possibly a quick game of Ski Safari, then….what was I doing again?

On a Kindle you pick the device up with a solitary purpose in mind – reading – and with the Paperwhite you can now do that anywhere at all. The battery still lasts forever, you can load new titles from your computer or have them delivered straight to the unit from the Amazon store, and the compact design means it’s comfortable to hold for long literary sessions.

If you’re a reader then there’s no better device on which to enjoy the words of others.