1. We promise to get your order shipped out on time and as advertised.
2. We promise excellent customer service before and after the sale.
3. We promise not to make any video advertisements set to the tune of well known Christmas songs. That may have been neat the first time it happened, but who gets a laugh these days when
"Deck the Halls..." and "Jingle Bells" are rewritten about everything from hardware to kitchen appliances?
To celebrate 9 years in business, this Friday and Saturday only (November 27th and 28th) we will have a "Black Friday" deal of our own at Rokland.com:
A wireless 802.11n mini USB adapter with 300 mbps max speed for just $9 including shipping (limit 4 per customer- the deal price will not appear on the web site until Friday November 27th).
You won't find a better Black Friday deal unless it involves one of those "wait 10 weeks for a rebate" programs.
This Friday or Saturday, just add the item to the cart, checkout, and your card is charged $9 and the item is mailed to you. Best. Deal. Ever?
Well, okay, Wal-Mart and Best Buy have a $197 laptop and that is a pretty sweet deal, but it is limited to something like 5 per store, and you have to get there at 3AM. You can buy your $9 wireless 802.11n adapter from Rokland.com any time Friday or Saturday at this link (the $9.00 sale price will not be shown on the site until Friday November 27th).
We are not going to advertise this deal anywhere but here on our blog, and via a Twitter post. We want to see just how effective Twitter searches and tweets will be in getting the word out about this deal. So please help us by tweeting about this deal, or retweeting our tweet. We are @rokland
We hope you enjoy the deal, and happy Thanksgiving to all!
Happy Thanksgiving! This week we are on a short week, and will be closed Thursday November 26th for Thanksgiving Day, with limited hours on Friday November 27th so that our employees may enjoy the holiday with their families.
We generally ship orders the next business day after they are placed/paid. All orders paid for by Tuesday night at 11:59 PM EST will be shipped on Wednesday November 25th. Purchases made through eBay on Wednesday and Thursday of this week with a US Postal shipping method such as First Class or Priority Mail will be shipped Friday November 27th.
A special note for our web site customers, and eBay or phone customers who select UPS shipping. UPS will not be in operation from Thursday until Monday of next week. Therefore any UPS shipment paid for after 11:59 EST on Tuesday November 24th will not be shipped out until Monday November 30th. Please keep this in mind especially if purchasing an expedited UPS shipping method such as Next Day Air. Next Day Air orders paid for on Wednesday will not ship until next Monday and thus will be delivered Tuesday.
If you are a web customer, please note at this time our web site only supports UPS shipping options. If you would like to make a purchase and select a US Postal option, you can do so by calling us (click on Contact Us link on the right hand side of our web site for our sales and support phone number).
(Note: this article applies to the AWUS036H 500mW and 1000mW wireless USB adapters from Alfa, the Rok500 500mW USB adapter from Rokland, and other devices that have a Realtek RTL8187L chipset.)
If you have an Alfa AWUS036H or are considering buying one and want to know if it will work with Windows 7, the technical answer is yes. If you are not that familiar with computers though, please note the installation process may be a bit more involved than a normal WiFi adapter installation.
We have found in some cases you can just put the Alfa drivers CD in the CD drive and connect the adapter to the computer, and then Windows will automatically set it up for you. In many cases though (primarily with Windows 7 64-bit), nothing will happen when you connect the device, or Windows will report that it was not able to find a driver.
The Alfa AWUS036H works great in Windows 7 using the Vista driver. If your computer does not install the driver for you, at the time this article was published you cannot use the Setup program on the CD, as a message will come up saying it is not compatible with Windows 7 (the setup program is only for use with Windows Vista or earlier). What you have to do is manually install the Vista X86 (for 32-bit) or X64 (for 64-bit) driver from the Alfa CD by going to the Device Manager, right clicking on the device, and selecting Update Driver (or Properties > Update Driver). Then proceed through the wizard, browsing to the driver location on the Alfa CD.
If you have not done a manual driver installation in Windows XP or Vista before, or get lost in the process, we will have some video and picture guides available to assist you within the next week.
Our RokIt wireless USB adapter for Macs is not currently compatible with Mac Snow Leopard (OS 10.6). It currently works with 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 Leopard.
For our other Mac compatible devices that have a Realtek chip, such as the RokAir, those devices can be used on Snow Leopard 32-bit by installing the 10.5 Leopard drives. But do not attempt this sae procedure with the RokIt, the 10.5 driver package for the RokIt not only does not work with 10.6, but may interfere with other wireless adapters installed on your system.
If you have used the Alfa AWUS036H 500mW max output wireless USB adapter before, you know it is an awesome WiFi adapter. The range is amazing, and it really does a lot better job than most all other products on the market.
Alfa is a great brand, and they have recently announced that the new AWUS036H models are now 1000mW max output. We received the first shipment of these 1000mW max units from Alfa today, and can confirm the retail box is different. But there are no markings on the box to indicated it is now 1000mW (30 dBm), and the adapter is physically identical to the older version in all aspects. The CD inside the box has a manual which still refers to 27 dBm max output, apparently they forgot to change the manual. They have changed their official web page for this model though.
We asked Alfa, and they have confirmed the units are 1000mW. Alfa is a great company that has long made excellent networking items and we have no doubt that these units are in fact now capable of 1000mW. But Alfa does not have a US-based operation and may not understand that US buyers are constantly faced with ads and products that have inaccurate specs. We have encouraged Alfa to fix their manuals to properly show the new version as 1000mW, and to also add the output specs to the retail box itself. Until they do, we will continue to advertise the model AWUS036H as 500mW max. Note that other retailers have chosen to advertise the same units as 1000mW, but if you buy from Rokland you will be getting the same item.
In our previous post we reviewed the world's first Android netbook, the Alpha 680 from Skytone. The unit we received was yellow, and the manufacturer has sent us some these images showing it in black. As in the previous post, you can click on the images for an enlarged view.
We will start our review by giving you the bottom line: the Alpha 680 is a fun toy for geeks who want to work with Android on a netbook, and it gives a great glimpse at what netbooks may become, but it has some rough edges that need to be smoothed before it can be considered a mainstream product.
Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the 680, here is some quick background information. Word of the device first came back in April of this year, when sites such as Gizmodo and Engadget described the Alpha 680 as it appeared in a spring trade show. The device is set to be priced at $250.00 and it is ready for market and should be available in the US sometime this month or next.
In addition to running Android, the Alpha 680 is also one of the first netbooks to sport a touchscreen, as well as a rotating LCD that turns the unit into a tablet.
Quick pros: obviously the touchscreen and tablet capabilities of the machine were nice, but beyond that there was not a whole lot to rave about.
Quick cons: the netbook has a cheap feel to it, and from a design standpoint is quite lacking. Ultimately the Alpha 680 gives us a glimpse of what can be done with touchscreens on netbooks, but we need a company like Apple or Google to come along and perfect this.
When we took the unit out of the box, the first thing that we noticed was the item had the look and feel of a toy. In fact, it would probably do well if marketed toward children, but the Android interface as it comes installed on the 680 is too complex for computer newcomers. To be fair, a black or gray unit, which will be the most common colors available, will look more professional. But the issue is not so much the color as the general look of it. It is not something you'd want to break out at a business meeting or on the subway when a couple of pretty girls (or handsome guys) are heading your way. It does not have the aesthetics we are used to seeing from Apple and HP no matter what color you get. Unlike the EEE PC from Asus, one of the first netbooks, the plastic is not a smooth laptop-case style plastic, it is a much cheaper “pencil box” type of plastic. The buttons and arrow pad on the LCD sometimes had to be pushed more than once, and did not feel like they will last a long time. Okay, it's only $250, but considering HP series netbooks can be found refurbished for the same price, if you are looking for something fashionable then the Alpha 680 won't be in your top ten.
We already knew the item was coming with a 7 inch LCD just like the original Asus EEE PC. Before receiving it we felt it should have at least an 8.9 inch screen, but in a surprise note, the way Android displays on the screen the device was not hard to use with the 7 inch LCD. While bigger would be better, the 7 inch LCD was not a disappointment.
It took us a few minutes to figure out how to connect to a WiFi signal, and that may be due to the fact this is the first time we have used WiFi in Android. Once we established a connection, we were able to visit web sites easily. The device also displayed options to connect via 3G and GPRS but we are not sure if that is something the device will be able to do, or if that is just an option in the Android software (which was primarily designed to operate on cell phones).
The unit features two regular sized USB ports, a 100 mbps ethernet port, an SD card slot, a TV output jack, and of course a headphone and microphone jack. It also has a stylus that slides out.
Having used an iPhone before, we found the touchscreen capabilities of the Alpha 680 to be a bit lacking, though you can use your finger to slide up and down web pages. One bug that was annoying was that when you moved the device to tablet mode and then rotated it back to be able to use the keyboard again, the mouse would stop working.
A closer look at Android on the Alpha 680
Okay, we've established that the Alpha 680 itself is not going to win any design awards. But the primary reason this device may be of interest to US buyers is because it is the first netbook to run Android. Why would you want a netbook with Android vs. Windows XP, Vista, or another version of Linux?
Android simplifies the user interface to the point where it is easy to do many things on a smartphone- that is what is was designed to do. The primary complaint from netbook users is that netbooks try to do too much- they try to be full blown PCs, and using them can be difficult. The touchpad navigation as well as the typing can take a lot longer compared to a traditional laptop or desktop computer. Where netbooks were designed to come in between cell phones and laptops, the Alpha 680 with Android was designed to come in between cell phones and netbooks- a morphing of the two into one ultimate portable device. Think of an iPhone, but with a bigger screen...we're not saying “mission accomplished”, but that is definitely the track Skytone was taking here.
Conclusion
The Alpha 680 shows us that possibilities in the future of netbook and tablet computing are endless, and it also shows us that there is a lot of room for improvement. If this market-ready unit had been put forth at a company like Lenovo as a prototype, no doubt it would have been sent back to the drawing board for some more work. Any company that is serious about distributing Android on a netbook to the mainstream US population will need to refine/customize the installation and make some tweaks. Is the device worth $250? That's hard to say. It can do a lot of things that regular netbooks cannot and will be a fun toy for geeks who want to work with Android on a netbook, but most of those geeks would probably prefer to try installing Android themselves on a netbook they already have. Interacting with the unit is not always easy, and if Steve Jobs has taught us anything it is that design matters. The Alpha 680 did not follow this philosophy, at least not with the US market in mind. It may just be that the Alpha 680 was designed for another market- for Chinese or European youth that follow different fashions and are scooping up low cost technology products in their home market. Skytone is one of the first players to create a tablet netbook, and while the unit will probably do okay once it launches, soon after we will see other manufacturers learn from Skytone's Alpha 680 and launch some really cool new devices.
