I have recently been trying out version 2 of Orb. I really like the idea of being able to get access to music/pictures/videos etc. held on my home PC anywhere in the world and on pretty much any device. While I ran my trial I was able to get access on other PCs, my iPod Touch, my BlackBerry and a Pocket PC. It all worked like a dream when I was away from home. However, all was not good when I was actually sat at my desk trying to use my PC. Everything seemed pretty sluggish and the root cause was that the Orb executable was consuming 50% of the processor power even when it wasn’t doing anything! Now my PC is not the latest spec but it’s not that old and being a 3.4 ghz P4 with 1gb of RAM is well within the minimum specs given on the Orb website.
All of which was a great disappointment and led to me uninstalling and looking for an alternative solution. One such possibility is Avvenu but since its takeover by Nokia it has temporarily been restricted to US users only. So, for now, I will have to live without remote access to my file.
In summary, Orb:
Good
- access your files anywhere
- great ipod touch & BlackBerry specific interfaces
Bad
- Processor hogger