Dan Washburn of ShanghaiDiaries.com visited 18 Chinese provinces on a single trip recently. Now he’s reported on how each of his electronic gadgets fared during the trip. Included in his report are evaluations of the:
- 40-Gigabyte iPod from Apple,
- Media Reader for iPod from Belkin,
- Backup Battery Pack for iPod from Belkin,
- iTalk iPod Voice Recorder from Griffin Technology,
- iPAQ h2215 Pocket PC from Hewlett-Packard,
- PM828C Compact Flash GPRS Mobile Internet Card from Panda,
- Foldable keyboard for iPAQ from HP,
- eTrex from Garmin,
- PowerShot S30 from Canon, and
- PowerShot A80 from Canon.
I particularly liked what Dan had to say about the PowerShot A80:
… this little camera saved my ass, and it does everything my PowerShot S30 did � and more.
With the S30, I was often forced to take more vertical shots than I would like to due to the way the camera focuses. The A80 fixed that issue, by adding focus hot spots throughout the field of view. The S30 only had three hot spots, left to right across a horizontal shot. The A80 has nine hot spots, located everywhere. So now, horizontal landscape shots can now have the sky and the land in focus and colored properly. What a concept.
The A80 also boasts a pull-out LCD monitor that swivels, rotates and turns. So the photographer doesn�t necessarily need to be pointed at the same thing the camera is. This is perfect for taking candid shots of people who think you�re busy looking at something else. Finally, the A80 uses four AA-batteries, not the Canon-only rechargables the S30 did. So, if you happen to be in a remote area, unable to access electricty, all you need to do is pack some extra batteries or buy some at a store.
The Powershot A80 is very similar to the Powershot A95 that I discussed yesterday. His findings sort of confirm my suspicions about why you might want an A95 if you were purchasing today, instead of an A75 or A85 (neither of which have the “Variangle” LCD (pull-out LCD monitor that swivels).
Kathleen and I visited Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in 1996, and our experience with use of technology was similar to Dan’s. If you venture outside of major cities take your ruggedest, most flexible gear, otherwise you may be disappointed. I’m surprised that he tried to bring a Mac-formatted iPod with him. That seems unlikely to be useful, even eight years after my visit to China.