Tim Salmon's World...

Samsung Galaxy Note

2011-11-06T12:14:00.000Z

So here it is then - the Samsung Galaxy Note (GT-N7000). Much hype about it has been flying around the internet since it was announced - a quite new idea, design and form (kind of)! Many thanks go to Clove Technology for the review unit - it seems supplied ahead of most people (at least in the UK) getting their hands on it. Clove Technology - Mobile Technology Specialists since 1992 - keen pricing and honesty about stock/delivery! Thanks also to Steve Litchfield and his Phones Show for keeping me supplied and interested in reviewing! Don't forget the Phones Show Chat, a weekly podcast where Steve and myself offer our views and opinions on the Mobile Phone World.

So then, to the context... I've had the Dell Streak for quite some time now and have applied the resolution-changing app LCD Resolution and BusyBox Installer to make the fonts across the OS super big. I took delivery of the Samsung Galaxy Tab just a couple of days ago, bought 2nd hand in November 2011 for £200. It's in very good condition and has been Rooted and upgraded to Gingerbread firmware by the seller. It has a 7" screen and is, in basic terms, a giant phone! Very much a phone, running a phone's software, SIM Card slot and can make phone calls. I plan to do a separate review on that when I have had more hands-on time with it as it doesn't have to go back anywhere.

Back to the Note, let's start with the physical. It appears to ge a giant unit with a 5.3" screen, super thin with that usual Samsung plastic battery cover. But again, once in place, feels like it's a part of the unit and presents no creaking or bending. Very sleek and sexy. There's the much-loved iPhone-style hardware central-bottom 'home' button flanked by 'menu' and 'back' either side. No 'search' button, but that's easily invoked on screen. The volume-rocker is disproportionately small for the size of the device. You'd expect a longer rocker, like HTC standardise on these days. On the right is the power button - I guess you get used to things but I can't help thinking that a Power button is best placed on the top. There's a MicroUSB data/charging port at the bottom - hurrah - and earphone socket at top - more hurrah! On the back is a single speaker, placed near-bottom and camera unit and LED flash near-top. Then we come to the unique feature - the stylus - housed in a slot at the bottom-left (as you look from the back). I say unique - I did have a play with an HTC Flyer which had a stylus supplied but firstly that's not a phone and secondly, it didn't work anywhere on the screen in any application or dialogue.

Two Samsungs and a Dell
(apologies for lousy rushed snap)!

On the front is the call-speaker, centre-top, and front-facing camera, light sensor etc. As we've come to expect with most top-end Samsungs, the Super AMOLED screen is gorgeous! It's bright and vibrant, colours are amazing, it's sharp and crystal clear. We'll see how the battery copes with that! Under the back cover is indeed the said (removable) 2500mAh(!) battery, SIM Card (normal size) and MicroSD slots (neither of which are hot-swappable). There is another unique hot-swappable option, however - a replacement 'back' with a front-cover attached so that users have the option of employing it like a 'book' - the 'flap' covers the front of the device or can be swung back around (near) flush with the back - and even has a call-speaker cut-out so you can continue with a phone call while it's 'closed'. Nice touch. With that, and stylus in hand, it's actually starting to 'feel' like a 'Note'-book.

It is front-jeans-pocketable but not if you're a small chap/ess with trendy(?) tight jeans! You can see from the comparison photo that the Samsung is almost exactly the same size as the Dell Streak though very slightly slimmer. (Once again, the dimensions of the 5" screened Dell Streak have been hugely overlooked - how old is it now? It really was, looking back, field-leading in design/thinness for its time.) The two screens look almost the same size and on measuring the Dell is 65mm wide x 109mm deep, Samsung 72mm wide x 115 deep. So yes, a little bigger. The 800 x 1280 pixels have been smartly utilised by Samsung ending up with good sized fonts - exactly what Dell should have done with the Streak. It gets caught out sometimes by an app or two which don't have the right 'hooks' coded in to make use of the resolution - Album Art Grabber and Call Log Calendar being two examples, where they 'sit' in the middle of the screen - but they're still completely usable.
So to the SignUp and observations as I go.

Transformation into a Note-book!

Interesting that on inputting data for the Sign In to Google, Samsung still have not cottoned onto the fact that most people now have 'gmail' accounts, not 'googlemail' and it defaults to offering the outdated option and needs changing every time. I had to reset it three times because the 'choose a network' dialogue popped up out of nowhere during the Google Sign In and I kept hitting the wrong operator option! Bad design! That dialogue should be in a place of its own and wait for a response, not just pop up anywhere, unexpectedly! There's also the offer of hooking up with Wifi, which comes far too late in the process forcing initial SetUp via a cellular operator's connection. Bad design! I suppose the trick is to 'skip' the Google Sign In and invoke it after the Set Up procedure is complete and you are facing the Home Screen. There's the usual raft of sign-ins to various social media services which are merged in the various Samsung widgets, which all seems to work well. Gingerbread 2.3.5 is onboard - we don't need to go over again the ins-and-outs of the evolution of Android. Since FroYo, nothing much staggering has happened anyway. I understand that the Note is lined up for Ice Cream Sandwich at some point and it certainly feels ready for it - it's blazingly fast in all areas. The 1GB RAM and 1.4GHz Dual-Core goodness let it fly along. I have found no lag anywhere, so certainly for now nobody will be able to complain.

As regular listeners/readers will be aware, I'm not a great fan of Samsung's front-end and yes, I know, I could put Launcher Pro on instead, but I'm trying to use these devices out-of-the-box for review purposes as much as I can. The 'sleep screen' (with it's clock, date, weather and view of the Notifications Bar) needs to be 'swiped out of the way' to reveal the home screen. Samsung have gone to town in offering various new and interesting ways of viewing PIM data - S Planner gives a huge array of views for your Calendars often juggling elements between different screen orientations, built-in Task Manager, File Manager, various 'hubs' such as Readers, Music, Social which mostly hook up to their online services and opportunities to give them even more cash than you'd laid out by buying this huge device! There's a Samsung Apps Store which gives you the opportunity to buy/download from them rather than the Market Place. I guess there must be some unique content on there otherwise there would be no point - though most of it looks like the same dross that's available elsewhere to me!

The speaker sounds really good against most low and middle end HTC devices but doesn't seem to approach various Nokia models that we know produce very good sound, such as the X6, X7. It gets up reasonably loud but when it gets there it feels a tiny bit tinny. I don't have a Samsung Galaxy S2 here, but from memory I think that the Note's speaker is not as good. The Gallery seems to be stock Android, which is no bad thing, as does the Music Player. Being forced to use manufacturers' incarnations usually ends up with a worse experience than Vanilla Android, as we know - with one or two exceptions. Playing videos on the big screen is clearly a joy! It's the absolute best in class and with this amazing screen stuff pops out with clarity and sharpness. For that, I think it's unbeatable. Incidentally, pretty much all of my bank of test videos I throw at review units were played without a hitch. Music, videos and photos can be pushed out to a TV or whatever DNLA gear you have via Samsung's allShare software - there's no HDMI out port here to use.

So to the camera - and my weakest area for reviewing. I'm hoping that Steve will take a look at this device just to judge that. It has an 8MP AF camera with single LED flash and a 2MP front-facing sister. Videos can be recorded in 1080p HD for gobbling up storage space - though 16GB of onboard space would take some filling for the casual Director! There's no dedicated shutter button of course but the screen can be tapped in any place to direct focus. Again, the camera has a Vanilla Android feel about it, so can't be bad in use. As most will know, except for the most demanding of geeks here, this, along with most modern cameras-on-phones are ample for 90% of what people are going to use them for. Sometimes specs are just pushed for the sake of it and for ticking spec-sheets. The best camera is the one you have with you and most people only want to snap to publish to social media sites, so what's the argument about?! Bring back better quality 3MP units!

But the main point of interest here (apart from the size) is the included and embedded capacitive stylus and various applications that have been developed to make use of it. Incidentally, the 'menu' and 'back' buttons are NOT part of the main capacitive screen and do NOT respond to stylus-taps. This is a bit of a pain sometimes, being stylus-centric and having to switch to a finger just to back or invoke a menu. Pretty much everything else though can be controlled using the stylus including apps that have not been written for it - the support is in the hardware, not software. Sometimes, it's really nice to be able to use the stylus, sometimes really retro (memories of the Sony Ericsson P800 and many others!) sometimes artistic, sometimes a pain. Other times productive and business-centric. S Memo can be invoked by holding in the little button on the side of the stylus and double-tapping the screen - from anywhere. This enables you to quickly make a note or jotting or whatever you fancy. However, unless you have the stylus out already, I reckon it's going to be quicker to just tap the 'home' button and a finger on the S Memo app icon! Once a note is made, it seems to be treated like photo - send to Gallery, Share to wherever you like via email, social network site etc. In S Choice, there's a whole bunch of (mostly) free apps via Samsung Apps to give you all sorts of scribbling and drawing options, chalk-boards, crayons and other arty-farty stuff. It's sometimes useful to make a list of stuff by old fashioned handwriting, I guess, though the big and beefy on-screen keyboard will do that quicker and more efficiently (in terms of exporting usable data) so it's a bit of a novelty in some ways. The screen is really quite big enough not to need a stylus - unless you're going to use it for painting/drawing.

I'm not used to the Samsung Way but am uncovering all sorts of 'extras' in Settings which I've not seen elsewhere - like Screen Mode (Dynamic/Standard/Movie) which adjusts the screen colours/contrast/saturation and so on. Font style can be changed across the OS pretty much - even inside apps like GMail, for example. Nice touch. Voice talk works well asking for instructions and carrying them out when spoken in. My UK English voice was interpreted well and no mistakes came up. This is not Siri, however - this is a productivity tool for people to use (largely when mobile and using cars) so as not to have to look at the screen. Ask it the meaning of life and it offers a search on Google or tells you that this action is not supported. But for what it does, and this isn't a toy, it does it very reliably. There's all sorts of widgets available of course and many more to download in the usual Android way. Even adding widgets and shortcuts presents a visual delight (reminiscent of Honeycomb). But I guess all you Samsung fans are used to all these 'extras' - I'm the virgin here!
I haven't had the unit long enough to test battery life, nor will I have, but going on the initial charge state when it arrived, one further charge and loads of tinkering, I would say that it is holding up very well indeed.

However, the more time I spend with the Samsung Galaxy Note, the less I like it. It may be just that I like the HTC SenseUI 'way' so much and am unwilling to change, it may be that I still get annoyed with the TouchWiz front-end (however smart it's getting), it may be that I just can't take it seriously as a phone (much like the Dell Streak) as it's just a bit too big to hold to the ear, it may be that it's light and thin and doesn't feel like I'd want to spend £500+ on it, it may be because the addition of the stylus (for me) is just a gimmick, novelty and unnecessary. I don't know. But what I do know is that it has a staggering screen, it presents no 'lag' in any operation, it presents really good big fonts for ageing eyes, it has lots and lots of bells, whistles and tweaks for geeks and the person on the street to play with and it's pretty sleek and sexy! At the end of the day though, it's another Android slab. There's nothing really innovative here (if you discount the stylus). They just made the S2 bigger and upped the specs a bit! Thoroughly recommended to the Samsung fan, the rest of us can pass along quietly...

As for comparison with the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Tab (first generation), it's hard to draw them out really. The Tab is a tablet of course, first and foremost. Yes it can be used as a phone, which is a great bonus, but the other two really are phones and are expected to be used as a phone, for phone calls. Very clearly, the Note is streets ahead of the Streak in pretty much every department. But then the Streak can be picked up for £100-150 and the Note is £500+ for now. The most obvious and startling differences between the two are the screen (put side-by-side the Streak is a joke!) and the speed of operation across the OS in every operation. Having said that, if the Streak isn't held alongside the Note most people out there in the real world would be very satisfied indeed - particularly with the price. It's still a very capable Android smartphone, beautifully built and for the right person presents a super option.

I've previously reviewed the Dell Streak on this Blog and in Phones Show Chat many times, so won't revisit that, but I am planning to come back with my thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Tab soon...

Asus eeePad Transformer, Apple iPad and Dell Streak 7

2011-08-10T19:29:00.000+01:00

A Very General Overview of the Three Tablets that have Come My Way in the Last Three Months

Deciding to return the Asus eeePad Transformer, but still not quite convinced that I really shouldn't be married to a tablet at this time, I decided upon a stag night fling with the Dell Streak 7! Just to be sure. And guess what? I was right. For the time being, I shall put away these things and settle into my steady marriage to SmartPhones whilst away from mains power!

It's not that tablets don't have a place, for I think they do. But they're the coffee table and bedside solution for me (especially the 10" tablets). If I were travelling more and ending up in sleazy hotel rooms regularly maybe I'd think differently. But I'm not. So they don't fit. I was a little more enthused by the Transformer, I'll admit, and almost decided to keep it for long-term use - especially when Honeycomb 3.2 was pushed out. The Geek in me rose to the occasion but the fire was quickly quenched as nothing substantially different was found.
The Transformer is unashamedly a Nerd Toy whilst the iPad is for everyone else - especially sensible people! If the Apple iPad hardware oozes quality and presents a sleek gorgeous interface where everything 'just works' (and if it doesn't, it ain't there), then the Transformer I'm afraid presents much of the opposite. For now. The unit I had was a 16GB one and feature-for-feature represents very good value for money. It didn't have 3G connectivity - I learned from my days with the iPad that I certainly don't need this to be mobile, so unfortunately can't comment on connectivity issues and quality. The 'tablet' part of the hardware seems fairly solid, though round the back, use of plastics don't give the same feeling of quality as the iPad with its aluminium finish. The 10.1" display is an IPS one (1280 x 800), which makes it very bright and clear and viewable for many angles, including tight ones! There's decent front and rear facing cameras which are better than the iPad's and with the deluge of progress from Google and Android with Google Plus and Hangouts, the front facing camera will, no doubt, present a compelling tool. For the life of me, I can't see the point in a rear-facing camera on a tablet. It's absurd!

And that's what the Transformer is all about really - Google services. Using it as a 'personal hub' in the world of Google Services, it works very well. If you can sign yourself in to all your accounts and keep the family's mits off it - whenever you use it, you're plugged straight in to your world of Google and beyond. There are software glitches and inconsistencies as Google sort out Honeycomb and some lag sometimes, despite the Tegra 2 Dual-Core chip and 1GB RAM. Developers need to pull their finger out to get Apps to run properly in full screen, which they are doing - as they did in the end for the iPad.

My attention turns to the 'bottom half' however - the 'keyboard' part of the unit. If the build quality of the 'tablet' was questionable then the keyboard is even more so. It's very light, which means that when placing the unit on a desk the 'screen' is heavier than the keyboard. It doesn't tip it over, but my feeling is that it can't be far off doing so. It doesn't encourage confidence in stability. But more worryingly, when the unit is picked up, if gripped too tightly, the back of the keyboard 'gives' and clacks in and out - there's obviously a big space inside which has been left empty to remain in keeping with the size of the 'tablet' but with the plastic material used, clacking in and out, it just 'feels' cheap. And that's a shame.

The keys are Apple style island blocks with fair space between them and they seem OK, though not anything like the quality you will see on a MacBook. And the keyboard is Smart too - with it's dedicated Android keys for controlling media and Menu, Home button etc. Well thought out and the keyboard's major selling point. For us in the UK it's a bit annoying that the UK keyboard works on the 'tablet' when removed but we're stuck with US layout when attached. Still, we can live with the " and @ being swapped, I guess, as we become more and more Americanised in most aspects of life across this side of the pond! The MousePad (as with most outside of Apple) is a bit rubbish and when there's a touch-screen inches away who needs it? The on-screen 'pointer' doesn't really respond very well generally. It can be 'reversed' with 3.2 so that it's scrolling the 'in vogue' Apple OSX way! More benefits of the keyboard - it has its own battery which not only elongates the life of the 'joined up' unit by 6 hours but will also actually transfer its own charge to the tablet when away from power. Neat! The keyboard has a 'proper' USB port so you can plug in what you fancy, though none on the 'tablet' itself. Incidentally, battery life on the 'tablet' part is around 9.5 hours and seems to be good for that. So, away from power and armed with the whole unit, there's 15/16 hours of juice available. Nice. What's not nice is the proprietary charging port and cable - I tried many different cables and chargers including the Proporta TurboCharger but it was only happy with it's own wall plug and cable. Good job the battery arrangements are decent! The 'tablet' has a MicroSD Card port whilst the keyboard has its own SD Card slot.

The Transformer's on-screen keyboard is OK - but I'm afraid not a patch on the iPad's in size, features, shape, layout and ease of use. There's something really slick about typing on the iPad that is nowhere near emulated here. There are some experimental features to switch on and off like 'circular islands' of controls for quick access to functions on-screen instead of Menus, but I switched these gimmicks off quickly. Asus, we will remember had a thing about rotating content and controls sliding in from the sides with their Android SmartPhones.
Anyway, these are some of the stand-out thoughts about the Asus Transformer. Many more to discover - and yes, for the price, I'm being very picky. Asking myself the question which would I rather have - the iPad or Asus, I told myself neither - for my particular use pattern. As a Geek Toy, of course I'd take the Asus. For a non-Geek, there's no choice. Apple will always have that part of the market it seems! If money were no object - of course - I'd one of each to sit around coffee tables to use in different ways at different times.

Which brings me neatly to the third device which is very much not a coffee table addition in my view. It wants to be carried around (in a big pocket) and used much more - as a mobile communications device. I think very much in the same place as the Nokia 770/N810 et al were pitched. As regular followers will know, I have the Dell Streak 5 here - and spookily it seems to be one of the few devices that I've not returned or sold on - which must say something. So I was quite excited about the prospect of the 7" version. But for those who want to skip to the verdict, I have ended up very disappointed with it - so much so that I wish I'd settled for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, ageing as it may be.

On the face of it, this is a useful size - fitting in between a 'proper' tablet and SmartPhone. In reality, it's something and nothing. This unit doesn't have 3G telephony connectivity built in (options are coming), which means it's only useful (for online stuff) when there's wifi around. Not a huge problem. We can learn to use it that way and do offline stuff when offline. At least we could - if the (not replaceable, unlike the 5) battery lasted more than 5 minutes! Going by my experience with the Amazon Kindle, the 3G version drinks significantly more juice than the wifi-only one - and I know enough about mobile phones to know that having 3G on (particularly in fringe areas) can drain things quickly. So I thought that having no cellular connectivity would be a positive bonus in this case. Unfortunately, that's not so. I dread to think at what rate the forthcoming 3G version will droop and die if this is anything to go by. It really is quite awful. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a battery nearly twice the size of this and people were even moaning about that - and that was driving a higher resolution screen!
Which brings me to the next point - the screen. It really is quite awful in pretty much every way possible. Unlike the Galaxy Tab which hiked the resolution, the Dell Streak 7's resolution is the same as the Dell Streak 5's. Net result? Pixelation and fuzziness - even when held at arms length. But that's not all. It cannot be viewed at any angle successfully except for one - and that seems to be the exact angle the device would be if propped on a desk in front of you in the £50 Dell Cradle! This is not designed for mobility - it's a small desk monitor! And if you turn it to Portrait, taking into account what I've said, the only reasonable viewing angle is one where you need to hold the 'left' side further away from your eyes than the 'right' - emulating that same angle as if in a dock. Absurd!

Again, I say - what's the point of a rear-facing camera on a Tablet? But it's there. And the forward-facing one could, in time, be genuinely useful. There's no hardware shutter release button - where did that go since the 5? And why has it got a 'full size' SD Card slot instead of a MicroSD? Amazing! And it's still got the stupid proprietary Dell charging port and cable! Still, on a positive note, I guess it's good that it's the same as the one used with the 5.

So we come to the UI. This is the same StageUI that is on the 5 and apart from the screen resolution works just as well. The device is generally slick and quick in all operations, sync'ing up efficiently with cloud services just as most SmartPhones would. In fact, much quicker than the 5 does. But some Apps won't work in Landscape mode (BBC News, SysMonitor etc...) and this is a device really, really designed to be used in Landscape. So again we come to this fragmentation across Android issue where we'd (at least) expect not to be offered Apps in the Market Place that don't work on our devices. As usual, when Launcher Pro is used instead of StageUI, things do kind of fit a little better and options are broader, but with the Android system being bolted onto an odd-sized middle-ground mix between a tablet and phone, it's likely to be a little odd. Don't forget this is not tablet software - it's not Honeycomb (though they say it will come) - this is an Android phone UI and OS. And this one doesn't even have the benefit of the phone bit!

On a positive note, the build quality is really very good. Not quite as good as the 5 with extensive use of metal but still very good and feels solid and (reassuringly) heavy in the hand(s). And let's not forget price - this can be had on release at £250 in the UK - less than half the price of the Dell Streak 5 on release - so moaning and groaning about what it's not good at is all very well but it's pitched at the 'budget' end of the market, not high-end. It's competing with devices that still have resistive screens! Held up against one of those, it shines! Wifi connectivity is really very strong and it holds onto a good signal in areas of the house where phones struggle always.

It's easy to be very negative about this device - and what's really annoying is that with just a little bit more, it could have been oodles better. Bigger battery, higher resolution screen, better viewing angles - just those three would have thrown such a different light on it. But this has been built to a budget and we Geeks will just laugh at it, frankly, and not even give it a further thought. Maybe a young teenager will be delighted with such a capable (in so many Android type ways) toy and communications device.

So there's my little roundup of three tablets that have come across my coffee table in the last 3 months and the reasons why I've ended up with none of them! The tablet is a great idea - but it hasn't been done properly yet. It will come. Some things have been done very well by some tablets but no one has got it right in all. I'm sure that boundaries will soon be pushed further again and something stonking will fly out of the stable, but for now, my attention turns to the unrealistic hope of getting my hands on a stupidly overpriced HTC Flyer with 3G and Stylus thrown in for at least the lower cost of the iPad - if not lower.

HTC Sensation

2011-07-07T21:39:00.001+01:00

In my (failing) quest to replace the HTC Desire for something with more Application Memory (for 'tis its only failing, IMHO) I have in my hand the HTC Sensation. Will this be the conqueror? The Desire S failed ultimately due to poor battery life, an 'iffy software build and sheer bulk, anything made by Samsung gets my 'thumbs down' for a number of build and historic reasons, Sony Ericsson seem incapable of making anything with more ROM and RAM than their models had 2 years ago which leaves us with the stragglers - the best of which seems to be the Motorola models, completely screwed over, however by their insistance on putting Motoblur on every handset that they make even though everyone who uses it hates it!

Out of the box then, and this is the first HTC to have arrived in a black box - a diversion from the usual 'Apple' white. I thought that the Sensation with Android Gingerbread onboard (2.3.3) was going to be a MONSTER but actually, it's not. It's just about the same thickness as the Desire and because the screen reaches closer to the edges of the device it's actually not that much bigger in width or height. One of the delights of the Desire is the 3.7" screen which seems 'just right' to me for effective browsing whilst retaining the ability to use one-handed with a T9 keyboard for firing off an SMS in the pub or on a train. All the 4.3" screen devices I have handled so far just need to be used with 2 hands. But this seems different. And I can only think that the reason is that although it's a 4.3" screen, it's actually formed into a 16:9 widescreen ratio making it narrower than other 4.3" screens. Of course, 4.3" screens are measured diagonally. The height of the screen is 3.75" so following the laws of physics (or is it maths?!) the width has to be 2.2" - i.e. narrower than screens of 'squarer' ratios. So does it pass the one-handed T9 SMS test? Certainly does. So far, so good. The screen is made of Gorilla Glass but 'only' S-LCD - but it looks perfectly good to me in real world use away from any TestBench lunacy.

The black screen is 'sunk' a little towards the centre of the device all round. A diversion from the 'sitting proud' which seems to have been in vogue. By sunken, I don't mean concave across the screen like the Nexus S but rather curved inwards around the edges so the screen is a kind of 'trough'. Initial thoughts are that it looks classy and gives the screen a little protection when laid flat on its face by its effectively 'raised' edges. But we now arrive at the first challenge. Capacitive buttons and no optical trackpad which of course the Desire has and makes for such good handling - especially the optical trackpad being used as a shutter release for the camera instead of having to tap the screen. The capacitive 'buttons' are very low on the device to keep the height down and maximising the screen size. Consequently when balancing the device in one hand it is a stretch to reach the furthest capacitive button in the far corner. But not a deal breaker - although in reality apart from the aforementioned example of one-handed use these large tablet-phones are much more likely to used with two hands anyway. HTC seem to have finally got the backlight sensitivity right for lighting up the capacitive buttons in various conditions - an awful Fail I recall with the Desire S. The buttons are actually now backlit when you haven't got enough light to see the icons - would seem logical that this is how it should be! Maybe they'll fix this in other models via software updates.

The build quality oozes class - a mix of aluminium and pretty tough looking plastic which are nicely 'grippy' on the back either side of the diagonal aluminium stripe. It's not super-light, but I prefer that. Give me a Nokia E90 over Nexus S any day for a feeling of confidence! The camera lens sits a tiny little bit proud but not so much as to snag a pocket on retrieval. Next to that is a dual LED flash and a speaker grille. We'll see how that performs later! On the left is the chrome'd volume rocker and MicroUSB charging/data port and on the right nothing! On the bottom is the catch to get the back cover off and a microphone hole and the top houses a standard headphone socket and right-aligned power/sleep button. The modern way for HTC is to place the power button on the right at the top but the Desire has this on the left. If using two-handed, this of course is not significant but one-handed use (as a right-hander) means that it's more awkward to get to than the Desire's on the left. There's the usual array of light sensor and front-facing camera of course - one up on the Desire.

It's a long time since I had to read a manual for instructions for how to get the back cover off a phone but here I did! Be careful. If you follow the instructions in the manual it's easy, but go with instinct and you'll likely break something! It looks like the lower part (under the aluminium diagonal) is the bit that comes away but it's not, it's the whole back cover. So what appears to be an aluminium unibody, like the Nexus One, is actually not - just the back cover - which, when you get it apart becomes obvious that the 'back' is actually a 'housing' - another trough! Into which all the works of the phone drop. Weird! Anyway, the battery is a 1520mAh model (so we'll see how that does) - you can swap MicroSD Card without removing the battery - but not SIM Card, though it appears at first that you can! This UK SimFree device was supplied with an 8GB MicroSD Card in the slot. You may be able to see from the picture that the 'works' slip 'into' the 'back' nose-in at the top. Bizarre! Anyway, I'm sure it reduces manufacturing costs somehow and perhaps makes it more secure - safe from falling apart or from loose-fitting battery covers.

So here we go then - first power on. Took about 30 seconds to find the Vodafone network and realise what time and date it was. Now presented with the Sense 3 front-end which has the semi-circle at the bottom, swipe it anywhere to get going with the usual setup. I've learned to refuse the offer to sync with Facebook for HTC Sense and Twitter for HTC Sense at this stage and to use my own apps later on. Each to their own. There's the usual 7 Homescreens but now there's a cute but totally unnecessary animation as you swipe between them - a virtual carousel I guess. More usefully, you can now scroll 360 degrees - so right from screen 7 to get to screen 1. By now in my proceedings the system had placed Phone, Mail, Camera and Messages onto the lock screen so you can now not only swipe the semi-circle up to unlock but also press/drag any of these 4 icons into the semi-circle to launch these apps directly from the lock screen. Settings > Personalize lets you assign these as you wish - most seem sensible except to replace the Mail with GMail of course! And in this couple of minutes since I've been typing this, the device has completely restored all my Apps from the last time I used a Sense 3 device. Didn't even realise it was doing it! Lightning fast. Now there's one over on the Desire. Little tweaks and nudges are present throughout the 'improved' Sense 3 UI - as an example, when dragging apps from the main drawer to the desktop if you float on top of an app already there, it will assume you want to move the one that's there and replace it with the one you're dragging and so shuffles the old one to an adjacent space to let you do so. On the old system, it would just sit there. Doing nothing! Helicopter view is present of course, but now long-press each page to swap them around - nice touch. Notification Bar drop down is the 'new' one with an extra tab hosting Quick Settings - Wifi, BlueTooth, GPS etc for quick and easy access to the system and the scrolling list of recently used apps sit across the top of the Notifications tab.

Task Manager is a nice app onboard which gives access to RAM information and the ability to 'kill' whatever tasks are running. The applications tray scrolls in 'pages' rather than a free-flow scroll. Still not sure if I prefer that, but you can choose between All Apps, Favourites and Downloaded Only to reduce the list.

The need for the well used Album Art Finder and Album Art Grabber have disappeared as the Music app now hooks up with Gracenote to find missing Album Art, which it does very well. There's not great changes to the Music app though Sound Enhancer offers the SRS enhancement with adds a little depth and bass to the output through the better, but still inadequate loud speaker. Plugging in headphones opens up the Equalizer which tweaks the sound somewhat, though most of the dozen or so options don't do much. Bass Booster seems to make the biggest difference. The lock screen fires up a Music Player widget if listening and allowed to sleep. This has basic controls without having to unlock the device, which is a nice touch. The usual HTC clumsy headphones are included with in-line controller with microphone for voice calls - but no volume controller, from what I can see! No surprises there - I still prefer to plug in my white Apple earphones which just seem to fit in the ear better. At least the supplied set are not the awful in-ear claustrophobic ones supplied with modern Nokia phones - all subjective of course. Apple earphones just seem to sound better to me. Volume controls don't work, but a double click of the centre does connect you to the last called number and mutes the music.

Video playback is super and the Gallery app plays any file I could find to throw at it very smoothly, making full use of this new high definition qHD 960 x 540 iPhone-like screen. It is very sharp and the notch up in resolution is a welcome addition. Unlike the Dell Streak, however, HTC have made the most of the screen by making default font sizes bigger instead of cramming more content on the screen. Much better idea. Web browsing is a delight with the default browser behaving in the usual HTC clever ways with text and content reflow and text looking pin sharp everywhere at most sizes (for those with good eyes). The dual core 1.2GHz processor makes short work of zipping through any (even Flash heavy) websites. In fact with this and the 768MB of RAM there's no slowdown anywhere across the OS or inside apps that I can see. There's the (now) standard 1.1GB of Application Memory available which is plenty and strips out the main problem with the Desire of course.

We should mention HTC's Watch at this stage. You firstly need to create an HTC Watch account - fairly painless and free. Then head for their store and if you really want to watch a feature film on your phone, buy or rent movies or TV shows. There's not a lot there, to be honest and rental prices are £2.50 - £3.50 with purchases between £6-10 typically. I'm still looking for something - anything - that I might even consider downloading... There's not much obvious help to tell you how it all works, like how long you've got to watch rentals? Can you watch more than once? File formats? Transfer to other devices? When you tap on a movie to rent it then verifies your region and tells you more - I have 30 days to start watching and then must watch within 48 hours. Then they want a payment card of course. Do I want HTC to have my card details? Well, OK - for the good of research! All processed and I've been charged £2.49 to rent No Country For Old Men and it's starting to download. Progress is visible in the Notification Bar - 1.83GB. Wonder where it's putting that? Must be on my MicroSD Card, I guess! You don't have to wait for the download to finish before watching - you can view immediately (as long there's enough buffered). I guess it will burn the battery somewhat but could be useful if planning a holiday or business trip for entertainment. It does play beautifully on this rather nice screen - very sharp picture in full wide-screen glory. I shall let it run through and see if I can play it again within the 48 hours (if I can face all the gory violence again!) and report back. It is something of a novelty being able to access this kind of mainstream content in such a way but I can't imagine doing it very much. Just realised what a problem viewing this device in landscape becomes if you need to plug the power cord in - although at least it will play 'upside down'.

Let's turn to the camera. It's an 8MP AF camera with dual LED flash and 30fps 1080p video recording. Here's a short street video shot at qHD (960 x 540). And an even shorter garden one at full HD (1920 x 1080). What do we think? I'm no expert - to my eyes both of these are perfectly adequate for anything I am likely to use video recording for. Phones Show Chat hasn't yet got to studio production standards for video as well as audio! Here's a still photo shot at full 8MP resolution as well. Close focus looks OK to me too when using Macro. All the usual HTC camera settings are in attendance with a bunch of scene modes and manual adjustments of exposure, contrast, saturation and sharpness, white balance options, ISO setting, auto-enhance, face recognition, flash controls, switch to front-facing camera etc... Is anyone other than the Steve Litchfields of this world (for testing) really going to use any more than 5% of these settings or controls?! Anyway, we shouldn't moan about progress! Not sure what else much to say about the camera to be honest, except that you wouldn't want to use it in bright sunlight and see the screen. I've seen much worse, to be fair, but it's still no iPhone 3GS screen. It far exceeds anything I'd want to do with it but without a hardware shutter button and optical viewfinder it ain't gonna' replace a DSLR - at least, not just yet! Turning briefly to the front-facing camera, I guess that's one for the future or those prepared to 'hack' as I tried Skype, GTalk, Yahoo Messenger and G+ with no joy. The closest I got to anything usable was with Yahoo Messenger which established a connection but would only use the rear-facing camera. So you need a mirror now! I read about various hacks and muckabouts to force it to work but, as I said, apart from a vanity shot or two it seems like that's one for the future. At least it's got one! Update: With the assistance of my learned friend and colleague Jon Satherley who shuffled a certain Skype installation file my way, we have succeeded in getting Skype video working both ways using the correct camera. But I still say it's coming rather than here for all - I can't imagine any Normob persevering along that road!

So how about making phone calls? Used to be what phones were used for! Well I'm happy to report that the reception on Vodafone here is strong and good, voice pickup is excellent and people at the other end can find no fault with their reception of my voice. This is not something that HTC have done much wrong with in my experience and usually pay close attention to making sure a telephone's primary function is not overlooked (with the possible exception of the Legend - the less said about that the better!). Wifi reception is strong and 3G had no problems - always showing strong signals in tested areas where some have failed - and some others not even ever finding a router!

Contacts and integration with various social networking services works as well as ever with SenseUI to whatever degree you want to let it and messaging is the usual delight too (except for my usual moan switching from Sense 2 to 3 which is not being able to assign a different tone for incoming SMS than Delivery Reports - Grrrr. One up for the Desire there!). The onscreen virtual keyboard does its usual super job and with the screen being slightly wider than the Desire's it's even easier to hit all the right QWERTY buttons. Text correction and word suggestion remains a joy with the word-learning method being best in class. The Landscape keyboard is big and remains very highly usable with two thumbs. If you need to get a cursor up on screen to correct a mistake HTC have adopted the Apple method of long-press for magnifying glass and the system works very well. Almost as well as the Desire's optical track pad. Copy, cut and paste works well across the device in a similar way - long-press on text for 'handles' which are dragged to identify text for use then a context sensitive pop-up offers the various options. Neat.

Well, apologies for jumping about a lot here but I've tried to highlight the things that leap out at me as important when comparing the Sensation with the Desire. I'm bound to find out more in the coming days and be able to report on the really important bit - battery! The Desire will take some beating there but I'll try to be fair and use it in a similar way. I'll also report back on the outcome of the HTC Watch experiment and let you know how I got on. So watch out for Part 2!

First impressions then are more favourable than with any device I've had here for a long time. I know I said that about the Desire S, which ultimately failed, but this is really a step even further than that. It's a super device with a performance to match the extensive software which HTC cram in! I shall enjoy very much chatting about on Phones Show Chat in the coming shows.

Edit: Part 2 now shelved as the device is heading off to Steve Litchfield. He'll give it a much better test than I can - particularly with regards to the camera. Just to feed back on the Watch experiment, it was indeed possible to watch the film again (and, it would appear as often as you like) within the 48-hour period. It can also be deleted from the device and re-downloaded during the period. Battery seems to me to be much better than I expected and feared it would be. Maybe HTC have at last got smart with that. Of course, everyone uses their device differently so your mileage may vary, but for my testing purposes I tend to keep the playing field level and use all devices in a similar way. I was certainly impressed that after watching a film for over 2 hours there was still 70% of the battery left, full brightness and speaker on.
But the reality is that the hardware components, improved as they might be, are still not there. The speaker, though better than the Desire, is still not a patch on even tiny devices from Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia. We'll find out what Steve thinks of the camera on the bench, but I fear the worst still. For me, it's too big to consider as a phone - and that's the main problem - it can't be used easily one-handed, great as it might be for other uses. It feels a little to me like we're heading back to a 2-box-solution - tablet or large connected device for entertainment and web and small phone-size device for calls (and maybe camera). Motorola Xoom/iPad/HTC Flyer/Nokia N8 come to mind.

Nokia N8 & working with Symbian

2011-05-31T22:18:00.004+01:00

During Phones Show Chat 89 with Steve Litchfield I agreed to post up some details of how I'm making the Nokia N8 and Symbian work for me (particularly living in the Google Cloud) in May 2011 utilising various apps, tools, online services and software. So here I am to do it! Where to start? Well, I guess the most important part for most of us is PIM - Email, Contacts and Calendar.

Personal Information Management
Over the years, I've fought and fought with Symbian devices (and EPOC/SIBO before them) and generally just about kept my nose above the waterline and prevent drowning! It's often been a struggle - particularly (as it turns out) ironically in the early days using PsiWin and Microsoft's Outlook! The big problem with sync options is that when a Symbian device gets hold of data from Google, due to field mapping (I guess) it corrupts it (as far as Google is concerned) changing loads of the data into what it thinks is the way it needs to be handled inside Symbian. I'll admit that I am a heavy user of these PIM services and I have all sorts of data held in my Contacts' records on Google - including extensive use of the Notes field. What happens if I let a Symbian device write back to Google is the general screwing up of the data in the fields. For example, in Google a Contact's address will be...

Jon Smith
43 Appletree Way
Chichester
West Sussex
PO19 8FF

...but when the Symbian device gets hold of it and sends it back, it arrives as...

Jon Smith
43 Appletree Way
ChichesterWest
Sussex
PO19

...or similar - there are variations on this but that's the general problem. In the Notes field, data that is arranged in lines, formatted in the Google data field with spaces between lines etc, is at best all stuffed together in one block of text or at worst, just has whole sections of it missing or doubled up. So a typical Notes field in one of my Google Contacts is...

Submitted material for October 2006 edition of TVD

Invoiced for new box ad £40 to run August 2007 - July 2008 on 01/08/07
Cheque received - Receipt sent 10/09/07.
Paid to July 2008 Edition

Submitted 700 flyers for TVD January 2008 Edition. Not invoiced yet.
Invoiced 04/01/07 £25.
Cheque received on 14/01/08 for £25.

Cocked up so extended current run to August 2008 Edition.

...and what I have ended up with is...

Submitted material for October 2006 edition of TVDInvoiced for new box ad £40 to run August 2007 - July 2008 on 01/08/07Cheque received - Receipt sent 10/09/07.Paid to July 2008 EditionSubmitted 700 flyers for TVD January 2008 Edition. Not invoiced yet.Invoiced 04/01/07 £25.Cheque received on 14/01/08 for £25.Cocked up so extended current run to August 2008 Edition.Submitted material for October 2006 edition of TVDInvoiced for new box ad £40 to run August 2007 - July 2008 on 01/08/07Cheque received - Receipt sent 10/09/07.Paid to July 2008 Edition

...so as you can see, it has been written back all 'lumped together' and in this instance has taken the first part and repeated it below. And that's on a good day!
There are numerous duplications made of whole records, new records made with Smith, Jon and not Jon Smith - which Google is quite smart at sorting out and Merging, but not foolproof - where Symbian has nominated the first name as the surname and vice versa, swapped them round and sent back to Google, which in turn thinks it's a new record/person. Pah!
To be fair, Calendar seems to sync OK as long as you only want one Google Calendar using MfE and there are robust tools to sync multiple calendars, including GooSync, RoadSync and various others. So it seems that Symbian is not guilty of writing back corruptions to Google from within Calendar. Similar story for Email - plenty of tools to do the job, including an ever increasingly robust Nokia Messaging (it has been awful!).

I've tried all sorts of combinations and options with all sorts of devices and the Best of Breed just now is Nuevasync in my opinion - with a signed up account and Beta Read-Only engaged, using the Nokia device as a read-only tool. That's about as good as it gets and I can happily let Nuevasync sync data with Google - but only sending down to the phone, not allowing it back up!

Social Networks
Well the big ones have to be Twitter and FaceBook, I guess. I don't use FaceBook much on the move (or indeed at all) but there are several OK solutions for that including an official client, various apps in Ovi Store and mobile-browser based ones. Take your pick. I tend to use the mobile-browser option when I do (using Opera Mobile - more of that later). For Twitter I use Gravity, though to be honest it's a bit like overkill when it's not used for anything else (Google Reader, FaceBook, FourSquare supported but there are better options for these). Gravity works well enough for Twitter but if you don't want to shell out the £6-7 the (free) TweetS60 or the client within Nimbuzz (also free) both do a good enough job for reading. (If you leave Gravity running in the background it'll even report missed messages on the 'sleep' screen.) Skype's own app serves my need for just Skype, Nimbuzz allows me GTalk, Yahoo Messenger (which I occasionally use) and Twitter, as I said.

Google Reader
I so wanted Gravity to meet my need for Google Reader (and have prodded the author for more function/polish) as if it did, I might well use the whole suite for FaceBook too much more often. Alas, no. It's horribly basic and doesn't function anywhere near as well as the model offered by the Opera Mobile web client - which I'll come to. Like a number of Google Reader clients, they need you to tap on a story in order to mark it read (or select a global 'all read' for every story) and you then get taken off to a sub-page to read that story, then need to go back to the list after or plough through every story instead of just reading the headline and deciding if you want to read the whole article or not. The page that has been set up on the web at www.google.com/reader/i is a much better solution (and always has been since it's introduction for the launch of the iPhone) as long as it's read in the right browser! I'll come to browsers in more detail shortly but the inbuilt 'web' app on Symbian phones produces tiny little fonts that need a magnifying glass to read. No problem (I hear you cry) we'll just zoom in. No, frayed knot! Because there's no intelligent 'reflow' in Web's browser, you can zoom in alright but then have to scroll left and right all the time. Try doing that with a burger in one hand, balancing a pint on your head! With Opera Mobile, I can read my Google reader content in a top-down scrollable list, in pages of (around) 15 headlines. At the bottom of each page is a hyperlink to press when you've finished that 'marks all read' (on that page) and presents you with the next 15 (or so). If you want to read an article you tap on it and the item expands down the page for you to scroll down and read through with the rest of headlines pushed down below the article for continuing when finished. And because Opera Mobile has got intelligent 'reflow' of text, there's no pesky scrolling around left and right. Perfect! Is this model too difficult to emulate within Gravity, for example?

Web Browsing
Which brings us onto web browsing. There are very few web pages that I can look at inside the Web app which have not been rendered for Mobile versions. And that's the point really - if you want to use the built-in Web app, just stock up your BookMarks with Mobile versions of web pages (where they exist). The font is stupidly small for reasonable use, zooming in and out is a dead loss because of no 'reflow' and the whole experience is just awful. There's supposed to be a newly designed Web Browser coming with the Anna Symbian software update - we'll see how they've made it better. If at all. But for now, I default to Opera Mobile. For all the above reasons. It's well thought out, has reflow, a smartly organised homepage and BookMarks system and is the best. Unfortunately, even though I've changed the 'default' apps in Symbian Settings, there are apps which just ignore this choice, so whilst some taps on links will make use of the Opera Mobile browser, others won't. Cut'n'Paste. Annoying!

Telephony/SMS
This one might be a bit of a niche case for me, so skip over if it doesn't interest you, but I like to keep a permanent record of my phone calls in and out and SMS/MMS data. And I want to send this data up to be stored in Google (preferably automatically). I was served well in Android by a combination of the (both free) Call Log Calendar and SMS Backup. iOS was a dead loss and this kind of data was a complete nightmare to try and get across to a computer, let alone the Cloud. I'm sure someone will tell me that they can do this if an iPhone is Jailbroken but I'm not interested in tinkering with a £500 gadget in that way - it should work out of the box or via an App. Anyway, back to Symbian and SyncLion to the rescue (super review here by Asri Al-Baker for All About Symbian). This runs in the background and not only sends up all details of SMS/MMS at a user-predefined interval but also sends huge wodges of data about every single connected session your phone has enjoyed! It's a bit OTT but it does what I need it to do perfectly. Hurrah! SMS messages are arranged in the modern 'threaded' way using Conversations and hook up nicely with Contacts. Old fashioned as I maybe, I love the screen ratio/size of the N8 and using T9 for texting one-handed in almost all situations. Once you've taught the OS your 'unknown to dictionary' words, it's very usable for me. If I really get stuck and have two hands free, turn to landscape and peck at the QWERTY.

Podcasts
Sebastian Branstromm's Podcatcher certainly meets the need for Podcasts, though many do still report bugs and download problems (usually around breaking connections mid-download) but it serves me well and downloads what I want to listen to. Shame there's no Twit.TV App for Symbian as this is a nicely worked front-end for other platforms for the whole range of Leo Laporte's offerings. This would complete the Pod Set for me!

Camera/Speaker/Recording
Those who know me a little will know that this is not my big area - so what I report here is very much about what I find and how it works for me - not the technicalities of specs and sensors and ohms and watts of speakers and/or microphones (did I get that right?!). The pictures that I take with any camera bolted onto a phone get (at most) published to FlickR, Picasa, Twitter or FaceBook. I don't need the camera to take pics that I might want to blow up into a poster. I'm convinced that I won't want to! If I do, I'll use my DSLR! And I've been perfectly happy with the results gained from most (modern) phone-cameras. However, performance is an issue - shutter release times and autofocus ability and flash. You'll know what I'm going to say - the Nokia N8 can't be beaten here so it meets any photographic day-to-day needs that I have, particularly with that Xenon flash (like a proper camera). I don't ever really shoot video (except for testing) so I'll leave that one to others. There's only one speaker but it seems to be loud enough/not tinny (the complaint of most speakers-on-phones) to me and when I'm recording snippets of voice with Jon Satherley for Phones Show Chat Steve reports that it's good quality - and it sounds like it to me. So all thumbs up there - though it would have been better with 5800/X6 style stereo speakers instead of one speaker on the back which can get muffled on the arm of the sofa.

Multimedia
By which we mean listening to music, watching video etc. Well, again, the Nokia N8 seems to come up trumps in this department. I'm a big iTunes fan and love the iOS system in that aspect, so want to drag and drop all my content over from there. And to a large degree it works perfectly for me. Some album art seems to be missing but by employing CoverUp I can quickly grab the missing ones. Any DRM Free video (particularly music videos) get across fine and playback is super. Headphone socket is on the top, where they all should be!

Build Quality
One of the reasons that I keep going back to the Nokia N8 is the build. However you want to jazz it up, there's nothing like having a premium quality product in your hand and the way in which the Nokia N8 is built meets that snobbish need in me, admirably. It's made of metal and all the buttons have a reassuring feel to them. One of the reasons also why I reject the C7 (with it's much bigger built-in C-Drive) having plasticy buttons on the sides. I miss the hardware send/end buttons and centralised Home button but can compensate for this by selecting on-screen shortcuts carefully. The wake/sleep button on the right side is so very useful, unlike most - on the top. The OLED screen is clear and sharp and much better than most outdoors and the 'always on' clock on the sleep screen is really useful. Shame the MicroUSB port is on the side, but hey! It's got a 2mm charging port on the bottom too!

Homescreen/Widgets
Again, I'm old fashioned and am happy (to some degree) to work in menus and folders. A simple Homescreen with PIM widgets allows for this with one link to Menu (avoiding pressing the offset Home button too often). Launching apps from within the menu system is not really a problem. On my homescreen 5 placements I have Time and Profile, Notifications, Email, Calendar, Favourite Contacts scroll-bar and one Shortcuts Bar with Conversations, Contact, Menu and Music Player in place. And I turn off the other two Homescreens. I employ a simple black wallpaper - as Steve tells me it uses less juice (and actually looks quite classy).

So, What's Missing?
First on my list would be Amazon Kindle. Supported for all platforms it seems except Symbian. Shame. Although, to be honest, I don't much want to read a book on a tiny screen anyway. It's just that I can't that makes it annoying! I do have a Kindle and however you want to argue it, it's much better as a solution than reading on any battery-burning headache-inducing LCD! Sky+ is a really useful App and missing - lets me check TV programmes from wherever I am and set the recorder at home. Integration of Social Network data into Contacts - at best it's a pain picking off Contacts one-by-one to add using the Nokia software. And various Android models do this so well. The options for DropBox (certainly until recently) pushed me into using SugarSync. Which is OK, but not my preferred option. cuteBox may change all that.
There are also various Google Services which just don't work on Symbian in any way the same useful way they do on other platforms, particularly Android. The Google Docs App with homescreen 'control bar', Chrome to Phone (though we do now have the Nokia Drop looming), a decent 'linked with Google' Task Manager, etc. I guess there's loads more but this covers the basics for me.

So, don't forget, this was not really any kind of review of hardware or comparison of systems (though at times it kind of slipped into that mode!), merely an overview of how far Symbian has come on in real world use - for me - what's covered and what's still missing and why I'm (today) using the Nokia N8 as my No.1 device (in spite of the competition). Do feel free to chip in your views.

HTC Desire S

2011-04-14T09:33:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I last Blogged here. Certainly a part of the reason is that I haven't been terribly enthused about a device for quite some time. However, I loved the HTC Desire and I'm back with my initial views of the HTC Desire S to see if it's a worthy upgrade. Maybe not a huge update on the original, but possibly enough improvement for consideration.

On the face of it, it's not much different to the Desire itself - same Gorilla Glass 3.7" screen, though for me an upgrade to S-LCD as my original Desire didn't have this. Some did through securing an earlier model. It also has the same form factor but I've been discovering that for my purposes, it's really quite different. Sadly, the hardware buttons at the foot of the screen have gone in lieu of a slight shaving off the height of the device and a row of more modern 'capacitive buttons' (like most Android devices these days). Of course, the brain needs retraining to hit them perfectly every time, but I guess I'll get there. One item of note here is that the ambient light sensor is calibrated badly - very often indoors I actually can't see the icons on the 'virtual' buttons as it has to be pretty dark for the backlight to kick in and the icons are not really that 'stand-out'. They're fine in normal light and daylight but there's the in-between that needs catering for. The optical trackpad has also gone but it's primary function of text correction has been sorted by other means which I'll come to. However, one of the best uses for me of the optical trackpad was not for text correction but as a shutter release for the camera. Much better than pressing the screen on a virtual button which needs to be looked at to prevent a 'miss' each time. So if we can't have a shutter button on the side in the 'natural' position from HTC, and it seems we can't, this was a good compromise. Alas, gone.
The build quality has improved somewhat. It's a solid device with a Unibody aluminium shell, like the one used for the Google Nexus One and HTC Legend. It wraps around the whole device and gives a cool, quality, metal feel. Because of this, it employs a similar arrangement as the Legend (and others) to get battery and cards in and out - a pull-down piece of plastic covering the bottom rear third of the device (below the aluminium) which presents no problem. This build quality is better than the original Desire, and that was very good. It feels slick and solid in the hand. It's not the thinnest of units (HTC clearly deciding to leave that to Sony Ericsson and Samsung to fight out!) but it still feels super in the hand and slips in the front-jeans-pocket a treat.

The device arrives in the UK Sim Free with an 8GB MicroSD Card, which will suffice for most right now - particularly with the popular surge toward streaming of data and not keeping it! One significant change from the Desire is the positioning of the MicroUSB charging/data port. It's now on the left side instead of the bottom and this makes a big difference in general use - for ease of use in the hand when it's charging and when placing in a cradle/car dock. Not an improvement. Battery has increased from 1400mAh to 1450mAh - a small change but more significant than it seems taking into account Android OS optimisations as a part of Gingerbread. I'm on day 2 at the moment and the battery is holding out just as well, if not better, than the already ahead-of-the-pack original Desire.

The Geeks amongst us will be most interested in the hard spec of course and yes, it's running Gingerbread Android 2.3.3 out of the box. I've always said that since FroYo 2.2 arrived, there has not really been much difference in the OS and to a degree, I'll stand by that. There are some extra refinements over FroYo but nothing really much to write home about. Coupled with the latest version of SenseUI (it's sometimes hard to tell what's Gingerbread and what's 'new' SenseUI) there are improvements to Cut'n'Paste and text editing - where an iPhone-style long-press pops up a magnifying glass (thus replacing the aforementioned optical trackpad), a list of recently used apps running across the top of the Notifications drop-down bar for quick access, a new Quick Settings tab at the foot of the Notifications Bar drop-down which effectively makes Android's own Power Control widget redundant, the Apps list now 'flicks' down in whole pages instead of 'free flow' (not sure if that's better or not), Apps can now be arranged in the App Drawer into Favourites, full list and Downloaded apps only and so on. Talking of Apps, HTC have hijacked the 'standard' Android App Market interface replacing the right-hand icon (which used to be My Apps) with their own HTC 'suggested apps' - you need to head for the Menu to get to My Apps now. On the plus side, the suggested apps do cut out a lot of the deadwood, themes and farts apps but then when surfing the library you are subject to what someone else thinks you'll like - much like Genius in iOS. Quick start has become a unique feature of HTC now and sure enough, it's lightning fast (as long as you don't remove the battery) getting you back in business from power off in just a few seconds.

But the big change for me is the increase in App Memory - up to 1.1GB - which means that with the Salmon App Bombardment (which I recently reported on in Phones Show Chat as slowing down the Dell Streak horribly) it has held up admirably! The increased RAM has helped to keep things flowing of course - up to 768MB - but I've put absolutely everything that I want on this device and there's no slow-down in any function that I can see. This was the only thing about the original Desire that really bugged me and forced me to compromise on what I had onboard - even with App2SD employed. It has the same 1GHz SnapDragon processor of the original Desire, which to my mind, for the time being, is plenty fast enough and adequate. In fact, taking this paragraph's specs into consideration, this beauty flies! Who needs Dual-Core?! It's significantly faster in most operations in comparison and most pleasing. Of course, working on the basis of 'you don't miss what you haven't had', the original Desire was just fine but it might be a little hard to go back now!

There's a front-facing VGA camera now for those who seriously think there's a use for it(!) though the rear-facing camera appears unchanged at 5MP with autofocus and LED flash - and is as decidedly average/poor for those with high expectations as the original Desire. For me, for posting pics to Picasa, Twitter and FaceBook, this is just fine. The photos I take are designed to be viewed on computer/device screens and not printed up as posters for the wall. The camera options seems to be the same as the HTC Desire HD with a few gimmicks but mainly a fair array of controls for everyday use. There's 720p HD video recording but the original got that eventually as well via the FroYo upgrade. Uploading snapped pics or video clips to online services is as broad as before - a huge choice of easy-upload options. No complaints here. If I can release this unit from my clutches for a few days (and it won't be easy - sometimes a device comes along that you feel is most likely to become your everyday primary No.1 phone!) I'll send it over to Steve Litchfield who hopefully will do some more specific testing with the camera and video recording features for The Phones Show.

Setup, startup and restore from Google Servers (including Apps if you've agreed to have them backed up) is as slick as you could hope for with all PIM data, as usual making it across perfectly and integration with Social Networks quicker, slicker and offering more than ever before. Picasa is now added to the mix, which suits the Google fanatic fine! Linking contacts across social networks is just a dream and (as long as you keep yourself in control) the hook-up between them all is not far short of stunning. Sharing data between apps and services is seriously clever, enabling quick-viewing of friends' updates across the array. Smart stuff.

SMS messaging presents one irritation which was not present in the original Desire and comes with the newest version of SenseUI - and it's to do with Delivery Reports and Notifications of such. In the original desire, an Alert can be set to sound when you receive an SMS but a different/silent Alert can be set for a Delivery Report Notification. Not so now - it has to be the same for both. Either no alert or both the same. Fail! And while we're on Messaging, I'm a bit confused by the Keyboard. Is it fair to assume that I can't get to look Android's Gingerbread Keyboard and that SenseUI has obliterated it? The only keyboard that seems to be available is the SenseUI one. Which I'm quite happy - with it's very clever learning and re-suggestion from its dictionary, but I thought I'd get to at least see the new one!
The Web Browser remains as smart as ever with pinch-to-zoom, double-tap for intelligent reflow of blocks of text, Flash 10.2 out of the box and so forth. BBC iPlayer runs a treat directly in the browser for those who don't want to use an alternative Player. It's a delight to use and I find it the best on any mobile phone. In reviews these days Android web browsers are spoken about less and less - that's because they're actually up to speed and near faultless. If only Nokia would get theirs out of the gate!

Music Player doesn't seem to have changed much - which is not a bad thing as I was always fairly pleased with the way the Desire presented and displayed media. The loudspeaker is certainly better than the original Desire's however and the SRS Enhancement settings actually do make a difference to the way things sound. And this is not just for earphones, this works through the speaker too. DLNA is featured and with the appropriately specified equipment, media can be streamed around the house etc.

Connectivity did not throw up any problems despite all the metal in use. The problems I found with the HTC Legend have, it seems, been ironed out by internal aerial placement. Signal is always good and, contrary to other reviews I read slating the wifi aerial placement, I had no trouble with this or dropped signal. During phone calls the sound through earpiece and hands-free is just fine and there was no evidence of dropped calls or weak signal on GSM.
I think that's given a flavour of what I've discovered so far. There's obviously loads more but much of it has been covered before - for more on the software and SenseUI, see my review of the HTC Desire HD which also has this latest version of SenseUI onboard. I guess most people reading this will be used to the Android OS now and know what to expect from any Android phone. If anybody wants any specific questions answered, please do comment here, send in your request to Steve and myself at the Phones Show Chat or raise them in the Phones Show Chat Forum and we'll do our best to answer them.

So there it is then for now - the HTC Desire S - a worthy upgrade to the Desire which plastered over the few cracks left exposed in the original. This beauty will keep me happy for quite some time I reckon. If it's anywhere near as long as the Desire did, it will be more kudos to HTC. I know they have bad press over speakers and cameras - and this is no leap forward particularly in those respects - but for me, the HTC Android devices with SenseUI onboard provide for the most rounded Android experience available.

Motorola Defy

2010-12-08T15:07:00.000Z

The Motorola Defy has been with me now for 24 hours. My initial thoughts are that this is a bit of a toy. A very capable toy, but it feels much like it was made by Fisher-Price or Tonka! The device is marketed of course as a robust device - water, dust and shock resistant. And I'm sure it is. The plastics from which it is made are tough and light for sure and it looks like it'll withstand some abuse. It was very keenly priced from Amazon UK at £260 and given its capabilities, it would be churlish to complain.

It's an Android monoblock phone running Eclair v2.1 with a(n ordinary) TFT capacitive 3.7" Gorilla Glass screen and touch-buttons across the foot, which is becoming the 'norm' it seems. The device is surprisingly small for its screen size - the screen extends in every direction very close to the edges of the device, which means that it has the same size screen as the Google Nexus One, for example. Phones Show Chat colleague Jon Satherley and I had to put them side-by-side to prove it! Surprisingly for a Motorola device it has no hardware camera shutter button, but I guess it was a decision taken to minimise the 'proofing' that needed doing. There are chunky seal flaps over the headphone and MicroUSB sockets which users may rip off in time - after balancing irritation and functionality with potential 'proofing' breaches.

The back cover is made of the same Tonka Toy plastics, has cutouts for the 5MP camera and single LED flash and provides a seal by a 'lever' which, by a sideways press, applies downward pressure to the seals. Under the back are (badly designed) slots for MicroSD and SIM Cards which in turn sit under a stonkingly good 1540mAh battery (listening HTC?) which I expect to last up to two days of 'average' use. That's about it for the hardware apart from a volume rocker and 'industrial design' cosmetics in the form of three 'screws' down each side! Small in the hand, robust and well made, if all from plastic (apart from the screen). Incidentally, the screen can be turned to view in portrait and both landscape orientations - nice touch.

So then, we come to Motorola's commandeering of the users' experience - in the shape of MotoBlur. When you come from the beautifully designed HTC SenseUI, MotoBlur is a very poor cousin. Firstly, Motorola won't let you use the device - even turn it on - unless you sign up for a MotoBlur account! It tells the user that MotoBlur is so integral to the using of the device that it'll be useless without it, effectively. What balderdash! This device would be much better as a Vanilla Android phone and those prepared to fiddle and tinker with ROMs will be well served by making it so. Of course, as usual, I speak from Geek City, not Norm Town! I'm sure the average user on the street will enjoy the plethora of widgets available, pushing information to the homescreens, burning battery, updating information on-the-fly. The only thing I would say in support of the MotoBlur system is that having set up an account, when and if you buy a new (Motorola) device (with MotoBlur onboard) the Motorola servers will remember you and the settings from your previous phone. Very HTC. You can integrate a range of Social Networks' information into Contacts in the usual way (and choose which one to 'pull' the Contacts' photo from) including LastFM and Picasa amongst a list of ten.
The homescreen widgets and chunky and too big (by design, though re-sizeable) with contrasting tiny text inside them (often). I guess it's kind of clever that they are re-sizeable and can be dragged around and so forth - but I'm not a fan of these on-screen push information services. They get in the way, generally, and I have them all turned off. Live Wallpapers are in attendance, of course, and there's a 'traditional' Applications List popping up from the foot of the screen which then vertically scrolls. There are seven homescreens with permanent Phone, App Menu and Contacts shortcuts at the foot, giving way to a graphic during 'swiping' which shows you which of the seven screens you're on, for a few seconds. Speaking of Swiping, the default keyboard is a Swype one (seems to be the norm these days) which has pokey little letters with not much space between them. I'll say again that the Swype system is just awful and it took me less than 15 seconds to switch to the 'ordinary' multi-touch keyboard. Which, actually, in this case wasn't much help as the keys are the same size. So third option is the best, Smart Keyboard Pro with the iPhone-style keyboard to the fore. Much, much better. The Notifications Bar is standard Android, pretty much - no surprises there.

In general use, the responsiveness of the device is a little sluggish - just a little. Whilst running Angry Birds, for example, there is evidence of 'juddering' of graphics and sound with little going on in the background. The Defy has an 800MHz processor and not what is (becoming) the standard 1GHz. Maybe that has a bearing and makes the difference. The 512MB RAM needs watching too as it seems very easy to run things down to 40/50MB in general use, though RAM after boot seems to sit at a comfortable 160MB. Compare this with the Dell Streak - even with heavy use, the OS seems to maintain a very healthy 200MB and more. It seems that some implementations of Android are just better managed than others.
So now it's down to what software Motorola have added. As reported in my review of the XT720, Motorola have added Phone Portal - hook the device to your desktop browser by wifi (or USB cable), you can explore and edit what's on the phone (Nokia OviSuite style) with clickable links to graphics showing battery, signal and memory status. View and edit contacts and their calls/messages, compose SMS to send to them, view and play music files (just to be clear, they play on the phone, not on the computer!), add bookmarks, browsing history (click on a link to open the page in the desktop browser), change Ringtones and Notifications, view and edit photos (in a pop-out viewer) and more! I really was quite impressed with this 'remote control' app. Reminded me of Nokia's PCSuite but done well! 3G Mobile Hotspot allows easy tethering, Car Dock presents big buttons for safe and easy use of the device whilst in a car's cradle, DLNA/Media Share is present - for streaming media to other enabled devices across the same wifi network and a built-in File Manager is a big plus - saves using a 3rd-party solution, though it is basic compared to some.

On balance, I was happy to lose the MotoBlur front-end and use Launcher Pro with its array of options and flexible approach - just a shame that MotoBlur can't actually be turned off or uninstalled altogether. The Phone is pretty much standard Android with the usual layout. Contacts adds a sweep left and right to reveal not only All Contacts but also Contacts' Status and Contacts History - depicting your own interactions only in the last while. Messaging seemed to be pretty standard until I went to settings and realised that SMS Delivery Reports had been stripped out of the list of options - what?! On further investigation, if Menu is tapped whilst composing, you can request a Delivery Report of each message sent - what?! What was the point of that? Are phone manufacturers under pressure from the cellular operators to reduce traffic on their networks?! Do Motorola think that their target audience is not bothered about knowing a message has been received? Bizarre!

The camera has a range of settings aimed at the unseasoned user - very 'compact camera' in approach and presentation with Scene Modes, Effects with a range of filters and even exposure compensation - but all clearly aimed at people who don't want to understand more or push photography further. As I said before, there is no hardware shutter button, so we have an on-screen release. Press-to-shoot time is better than most, as is shot-to-shot. There's the usual array of online services which Android provides to upload photos to the web portal of your choice and VGA (no HD here) video recording. More of that from Steve Litchfield soon, as always.

Options within the Music app are impressive with built-in FM and SHOUTcast Radio and tuneWiki for instant streaming lyrics from the internet. Very impressive! The same happens within Music Player for your own music loaded from a MicroSD Card. There's even SoundHound built in to identify songs being played in the room, like Shazam. Music Videos is a little confusing as I was expecting the music videos held on my memory card to be picked up and linked to there, but it seems that 'My Video Library' means a bunch of shortcuts which have been previously identified via the built-in YouTube search engine. My Video Library actually means My Bookmarks - as each time you want to play the video it'll find and stream it again. Videos on my memory card can be played via the standard Android Gallery app (or through the File Manager) which launches Video Player. GoTV channels presents a bunch of unknown (to me) music video channels which can be streamed. As usual with Motorola, the built-in (mono) speaker is very good (compared to HTC) - approaching the quality of Sony Ericsson and some Nokia models. No complaints there.
Mapping is again standard Android with pinch-to-zoom and the rest of the features that I'm sure you know well. The web browser is quick to load, offers pinch-to-zoom and ReFlow (with double-tap). No Flash onboard of course. Other than that, it's also standard Android with Opera Mobile/Mini offering some improvement in some ways with some functions (if you download them). Android Market is the standard Eclair v2.1 version without the FroYo bells and whistles. Word is that the Defy will get onboard with FroYo in early 2011 - we'll see. From what I read about v2.3 Gingerbread, there's no reason why that won't come along too - it being evolutionary rather than revolutionary!

I've enjoyed using the Motorola Defy. Once I'd got the effects of MotoBlur minimised, Launcher Pro on the front and keyboard-of-choice running, it had a lot to offer. If you're needing a device which is a bit more robust than most, this will serve well. You'll be surprised how small it is and won't believe the screen is the same size as the Google Nexus One/HTC Desire until you measure it! Although I joke about Tonka Toy plastic, the materials do feel strong and the Defy will certainly outlast the average length contract. It's very keenly priced now and there really isn't very much to complain about. Yes, I'd rather have HTC SenseUI - and if it was onboard I'd have left it and used it - but if you don't like MotoBlur, it can be hidden to some degree. The Defy is a little sluggish sometimes, but the man-on-the-street won't notice that - only us! Certainly recommended for all the above and especially as it's very pocketable. Yes - the closest I've come yet to the perfect 'pub phone' - but still looking!

HTC Desire HD

2010-12-01T13:53:00.002Z

Thanks to Steve Litchfield for sharing this new device and renewing my (slightly) flagging interest in the monotonous 'slab' form-factor driven out by various manufacturers of Android devices. OK, it's still an Android Slab, but it's very different from most that have gone before. I've been using the Nokia C7 this week, as you may have heard on Phones Show Chat, and have been (at last) encouraged by a Nokia device actually working positively for those of us relying on the Google Cloud. More of the C7 soon, but for now it's Desire HD all the way, which reaches new heights!

The HTC Desire HD is a superbly built device (much more so than the HD7 - HTC's Windows Phone 7 device). It's made of metal and glass and doesn't feel like it's going to break anytime soon. Coming from my inconsistant (and buggy) experience with the 5"screened Dell Streak which (regardless of the good points) verges on being just too big as a phone, going back down to a 4.3" screen just kind of 'feels' much better for use as a phone and Internet Tablet. We've talked about the 'sweet spot' for screen size versus functionality and intended use and I'm beginning to accept (for the moment) that 4.3" could just hit it. Not too small for surfing, not too big as a phone. And HTC's SenseUI just seem to have got it right. I'm not talking about homescreen widgets but much more so about synchronising with online Social Networking services. It's just so switched on!

But back for a moment to the hardware, where we find a nice sharp screen filling most of the unit's frontage. Underneath are capacitive buttons for the usual controls. Shame that taking the Desire name from the original device that the hardware buttons were not retained. The review unit we have here has a slightly dodgy bottom 'cap' giving access to the SIM Card and MicroSD Card slot. It could be that it's been battered by reviewers but a word of warning to check - if you're buying - as this one 'moved' slightly when in place - like it hasn't quite 'clicked' into position properly. Just a very small amount of play. Beware. Oodles of RAM and App storage space, of course, with a 1GHz processor. It flies along. The 8MP auto-focus camera unit sticks out of the back slightly and with no cover, as usual, you'll need to wipe it before each photo-taking session - as your fingers will routinely be all over it. The camera will also shoot HD video and has a dual LED flash. It doesn't have the HD7's hardware shutter button, which is a shame, so without any hardware keys on the front it's back to poking the screen to take snaps. The battery slides into the device via a door on the side and initial tests reveal that the 1230mAh is indeed not enough oomph. Get through a day if you're lucky, but more likely a charge by tea-time will be needed. On a positive note, the Desire HD's battery can be charged by any MicroUSB cable via AC or USB - a lesson for Dell to learn there - much more flexible. But generally the build quality is reassuringly solid and the device heavy. Nice. One last word on design is that it's a shame the HD7's 'kick stand' didn't make it across - that metallic addition would have been peachy. If I was going to nit-pick, I'd say that the top-facing power/sleep button is too recessed and hard to press.

So onto the software then - and here's where HTC just seem to be ahead of the game, leading the pack with integration (staying just ahead of Motorola). The default font sizes on the screen are just right for me. The Dell Streak has got this wrong - they've opted to get more on the screen and keep font sizes down. The Desire HD doesn't attempt that but rather makes less information available in lieu of (for me) being able to read it all with my glasses on. I have got so used to putting devices close to my face these day to read them and removing my specs - no need for that here. The device can be viewed at arm's length comfortably.

I'm sure that if you're reading this you will know about the Android interface and how it works - many will also have direct experience with HTC's SenseUI. All of that is here as it was for previous devices but with extras. Many extras - and these are the stand-out features that (at the moment) set this device apart and ahead. I'm going to highlight a few that jumped out at me. Bear in mind that we were only able to have this review unit for a week and I'm in the middle of my three days. I'm sure there will be more to discover, that I've missed. As Steve said in his video review on Phones Show 126, there's enough bells, whistles and software onboard to keep a tinkerer happy for months on end!

So first things first and the sheer number of Social Networking and online services that the device will sync with is very impressive. Google (of course), FaceBook, FaceBook for HTC Sense, FlickR, HTC Sense (more of that later), LastFM, News, Skype, Stocks, Twitter, Twitter for HTC Sense, Weather, Yahoo! and Exchange ActiveSync with more just 'plugging in' as they are installed. I guess some of this comes down to developers writing in the code to make it happen, but it seems that many are doing so, ensuring stunning integration with the onboard apps. Contacts, for example, can be sync'd with most of these services, pulling data and integrating it, which then in turn gets sync'd back to the Google servers. This, of course, makes Contacts (or People, as HTC call it) littered with as many or few data sources as you choose.

HTC Sense provides an online hookup between phone and web (www.htcsense.com) from where you can access all sorts of features and control your phone, remotely lock it, wipe it, locate it etc... Unfortunately, only the Desire HD and Desire Z are supported at December 2010 but there is talk of the original Desire being added soon. Having said all that, the service doesn't seem to be hooking up properly with this device to sync. I had previously hooked up the Desire Z a couple of weeks ago when I had it for a few days and it worked perfectly. There's nowhere in the settings to change device - they're assuming people will stick with one, I guess! Tried to delete the account and start a new one, but still no joy. Perhaps it's also tied to device, so if previous reviewers have done the same as me, the system is confused. Anyway, if you've not done this before, it should work fine for you.

On initial setup, all of my data in a very short time was sync'd back to the phone from the Google servers without any fuss at all, as backed up from my previous Android phone. Fill in a few usernames and passwords and off it goes, collecting data, synchronising, populating and even installing my Apps. When I opened the box I was at work. Not only did it know my workplace's wifi settings but it also knew my home one - including password - (miles away) so when I got home, it just hooked up! All of this cross-sync'ing between services seems to be highly likely to return problems (maybe I've spent too much time with Nokias!), dupes and corrupt data, but none of it. It seems so far to be slick and clean - it really works! Within 20mins of taking the phone out of the box, it's up and running, ready to use, just like I left the last device. A step ahead for HTC.

Like Steve, I found the speaker to be just awful, as is usual for HTC devices, but music and video playback options, smooth as silk - so get some headphones! FastBoot is impressive - if you need to turn off the device and you have selected FastBoot in the Settings, the device will turn back on in 2 seconds! Amazing! There's HTC Hub (downloadable bells and whistles from HTC), HTC Likes (a Market Place suggested Apps tool) and more new and shiny Apps to play with. There's loads more to cover of course and I've just highlighted a few points - do scour the more in-depth reviews out there and check out Phones Show 126 for more - but I need to get this one packed up soon!

HTC really do make an impressive statement with this phone and but for one reason, I would thoroughly recommend it. You guessed it - Price! At the beginning of December 2010 it's £499 in the UK SIM Free. When you consider that you can now get the HTC Desire for £350 (with most of the same functionality - and a much better battery) or any top-end Motorola for around £350 (the Defy is only £284), it really is too early to shell out your 'hard earned' on this one. The HTC Desire started out at £499 of course, not so long ago, so maybe this will come down soon too. If money is little or no object, then the HTC Desire HD is the best there is (in the UK) at present so go get it! Otherwise, there's a very strong argument for looking round for better value. Android handsets are coming down in price with high-end features becoming 'standard' ones. Do some research and you'll save some cash.

Dell Streak Update - FroYo (Android v2.2) and StageUI

2010-11-28T13:41:00.001Z

As promised, Dell released this essential update (at least in the UK for me). It did not arrive Over The Air however, I had to seek out the file and download manually. But at least it's here and (to some degree) it unpicks the previous quirks of the device and makes it much more usable (particularly in portrait orientation).

The 'default' position for the device is still landscape orientation - this is proven by the fact that if the Auto-Rotation option in Settings > Display is set to 'off' it doesn't allow a 'lock' into portrait, only landscape. In order to use it in portrait mode at all, you have to have accept the Auto setting. Another clear pointer to the landscape-priority design is that after the phone goes to sleep, whatever way you hold it after waking it, you have to unlock it in landscape mode. More work needed Dell.

First things first then and the new StageUI. I'm afraid that this is merely a bunch of huge (but not very well implemented) Dell Widgets. Contacts (a grid of contacts reflecting your 'favourites'), Email (for non GMail EMail accounts), Gallery (what seems to be a random selection of photos - tap on one and it opens in the Gallery app - but I don't see any way of selecting which photos go on the grid - and a button to invoke the camera), Home (which is a block of Recently used Apps and a weather report - see photo), Music (another grid of what seem to be random album art pics - again, I don't see any way of changing the content - which, when pressed, launch the Music App), Social (a very simple 'flow' of Twitter and FaceBook feeds) and Web (a crude bunch of 6 big buttons taking you to pre-assigned web bookmarks). They're not very impressive and represent a poor attempt to copy HTC's SenseUI - except that they're very basic, completely set and offer no different sizes, like SenseUI does.

The way in which the StageUI elements are implemented in landscape mode is very odd to say the least. The homescreen in landscape orientation has a 4x4 icon-space 'central' portion (which these giant widgets commandeer) with a further column of 4x1 each side, which are a kind of 'overflow' from the screens to the left and right. The icons in the two columns left and right can't be set, reset or even deleted unless you move to the next screen (when they then appear in the 'central' 4x4 portion. It's a bizarre idea and very silly in use. Why not just make it a straight 6x4 as it was when running Eclair? I guess the answer is something to do with ensuring things go across properly (and remain usable) in portrait mode. So on one hand the design seems to have been thought out for portrait, but in others, for landscape. More work needed Dell.

Fortunately, if you really want to use the widgets, they work much more naturally when switching to portrait mode. For example, the Contacts widget, while 4 'pictures' wide by 3 deep becomes 4 deep by 3 wide and it fills the whole screen. Though there is a border and the 4x3 does not reflect the icon-places available if the widget is removed. Confused? So was I at first! On the portrait homescreen without widgets, we return to the 4x4 grid of icon-places. For this giant 5" screen, they are oddly spaced out and just look wrong. There's easily enough space to make a grid of 5 wide by 6 deep. Why haven't they done this? Sony Ericsson did with their Xperia X10 - and that's got a smaller screen. More work needed Dell.

The homescreen notifications bar at the top of the screen has been dropped in favour of the 'standard' Android one - downward pulling curtain. I think this is a good idea. Although the previous Dell notifications bar offered more 'quick links' to more information and settings, these can be accessed quickly by other means, particularly for our kind of users! Pressing the 'hardware' Menu button used to take you to a Dell menu with various non-standard settings - it now takes you to the standard Android one (with 5 grey boxes across the bottom of the screen - Add, Wallpaper, Search, Notifications and Settings). I guess this all represents less functionality to non-tinkering normal people! But it does reduce fragmentation across Android devices, which can only be a good thing.

At the foot of all the homepages is now the 'standard' Phone, Apps Menu and Web buttons with 'dots' left and right to let you know which of the 7 homescreens you're on. If you press the 'dots', you get a row across the bottom of the screen (very briefly - be quick!) for quick-selecting which page to jump to - if a screen has a StageUI widget on it, you also get a custom icon in the row, otherwise it's just a standard Android 'green robot' icon. More work needed Dell.

To get to the (portrait) 7x4 or (landscape) 6x4 (see, it is possible Dell!) grid of apps, you press the Menu icon or just drag the homescreen upwards. The grid then offers side-scrolling (iPhone style) to get to the apps not visible.

I remain amazed at how popular the Swype keyboard is with people. And now it's being built-in to devices. Maybe the people behind Swype have made it really cheap so manufacturers are adding it as a novelty option. Whatever the story behind it, I think it's a ludicrous interface and I couldn't wait to switch it off. However, before you switch it off, consider using the Swype keyboard for a while without Swype'ing! On this big-screened Dell Streak it's a lovely big keyboard with clear icons. The 'suggested words' box is annoyingly big and intrusive, but the actual keyboard is a nice one. I did switch to another keyboard in the end, but it's not as aesthetically pleasing as the default one.

There are new Camera controls (I think - don't use the camera much!) for easy-select Brightness and Contrast, Store Location, White Balance, Flash Mode (with a confusing Torch/Auto setting - if you have Auto flash set you also have the LEDs lit the whole time?!) and Digital Zoom. You can also switch to the front-facing camera. It may be my imagination but the camera seems to now take longer to fire up with a very long-press of the shutter button.

The Speaker/Music App on the rear of the unit seems to have developed a bug which needs sorting out - playback of music is distorted and of low volume, but when playing video it's as it was before the upgrade, so not sure what's going on there. Using the phone is absolutely fine as before - good call quality, earpiece speaker is fine and signal pickup good.

Laying aside the StageUI (as, if you're reading this, you will!) the major move forward here is being able to use (pretty much) everything on the device in portrait mode. I can't stress what a difference this makes in everyday use. It transforms the Dell Streak from an Internet tablet with phone bolted on to a phone with browsing - quick and easy - or, if you want to do some serious browsing, the ability to switch to landscape for short-term use. I would recommend this device much more so now than before these changes. If you're up for a giant Android device, this one certainly heads in the right direction (with significant advantages over, say, the Samsung Galaxy Tab). If Dell get their finger out and address some of the points made in this article via OTA software updates in the coming weeks/months, it will remain a serious contender.

Dell Streak - Phone or Tablet?

2010-11-06T16:57:00.001Z

Is it a Phone? Is it a Tablet? Does it fit anywhere (quite literally)?! The Dell Streak is a huge device (for a phone) compared to just about any other phone I've handled. Before this, the record giant through my hands was the HTC HD2 with a 4.3" screen. This Dell has a 5" screen and it really feels like it. Psychologically, it feels too big because it's a phone. If this were an Archos Tablet or PSP, we'd be perfectly happy because it's not a phone. So could I use it as my No.1 day-to-day phone? Read on to find out.

The Dell Streak has now been released for sale in the UK with Android v2.1 (Eclair) onboard for the first time since it was released with v1.6 (Donut). Dragging its heels to get up to date, Dell promise an upgrade to v2.2 (FroYo) "in the coming weeks" - where have we heard that before? - just in time to be leap-frogged again by v2.3 (Gingerbread). It runs a close-to Vanilla Android and the OS has a feel of the Motorola DROID/Milestone about it, with Dell 'tweaks' along the way. As there is no 'withGoogle' badge in evidence, I guess that any OTA upgrades will come from Dell, not Google. There were a few changes implemented by Dell when leaping from 1.6 to 2.1 including a slight re-working of the homscreen so that there are now only 6 columns (used to be 8) and the on-screen keyboard, which used to have a right-hand dedicated number pad has now gone, in lieu of bigger buttons and just QWERTY. This is generally good except that the 'cursor control' keys have also gone and there's no way to tweak your position during text editing on the screen - just by 'lucky tapping'. Because of the big screen, QWERTY keyboards are very big and usable in both landscape and portrait orientation - one of the pay-offs of carrying an elephant in your pocket!

The first thing to smack you in the face with this device coming out of the box is, of course, its size. The 5" screen fills up most of the front of the device with half an inch at top and bottom for earpiece speaker, front-facing camera, sensors and Back, Menu and Home keys respectively. The two ends are curved round to the back, which makes the device feel much less like a brick than it could have done. It's build is very solid indeed - buttons are well designed and have firm travel and with its Gorilla Glass front, you can rest assured that you'd really have to batter this for it to break. The Streak is designed to used in landscape mode primarily - so the Back, Menu and Home keys face 'downwards'. And the HomeScreen can only be used in landscape orientation. This is a big problem (which the Nokia N900 presented) and I know I'm not alone in saying that I want to use the device primarily in portrait orientation. Switching to landscape for viewing video and surfing web pages is, of course much better - but for most other things portrait is better. (Why the homescreen icons need to be placed on ugly black squares - Nokia N900 style - I don't know.) So the first piece of software I installed was Launcher Pro, which enable portrait use throughout. There are some caveats, however. The main one is that Dell have replaced the Vanilla Notifications Bar at the top with one of their own and on the whole it brings more functionality, but when switched to portrait it doesn't function nearly as well. There is some information missing and some squashed so they almost can't seen (and only just selected).

Launcher Pro does present an option for productivity, by using different sets of homescreen shortcuts on each - for example, in Launcher Pro for mostly working in portrait and the few needed for multimedia in landscape use on the Dell homescreen. Only irritation being that every time the Home button is pressed a further selection is needed to tell the device which launcher you want. Launcher Pro can be used in landscape too of course, but what it really needs is a different set of layout controls for landscape and portrait - as the 'perfect' setup in portrait gets a bit screwy in landscape. All usable, but just laid out in an odd fashion. But there's an even bigger caveat - Dell doesn't want it's system messed with and with Launcher Pro installed, the whole system crawls to an annoying slow pace with slow-to-respond screen taps, swipes and lags just about everywhere with any command. So we'll get rid of that and carry on!

Dell's replacement Notification Bar is a fair enhancement. The top left button drops down a scrollable apps menu (instead of a curtain pulling up from the bottom), a tap on the Operator/SIM Status button reveals a Recent Applications listing, the 3rd button is the Notifications itself and drops down to reveal a list much like Vanilla Android (but prettier!), the next gives access to some settings - mostly connectivity quick-switching but also Alarm and Battery and the far right side is not a button but date and time. Nice addition to have the date, for which with Vanilla Android I always had to download a Date Widget. The top row of the screen is a well thought out improvement and with extra settings in the homescreen's Menu button, there's plenty of access to settings out-of-the-box, which would normally need various apps and Widgets to achieve.

Returning to the physical for a moment, the back of the Streak has a huge sliding door covering SIM and MicroSD Card slots under a 1530mAh battery. Tests so far return a better-than-average battery life - we'll see how that goes. It was difficult to be sure that the door was closed - very tight-fitting and some pressure needed to ensure the latches 'catch'. A much bigger problem however, is the non-standard charging/data port - apparently it's called a 30-pin PDMI (whatever that means). It looks a lot like an Apple connector, but isn't of course. That would be nice! Instead, it's completely non-standard and means that Dell will assure themselves some extra income with people buying an extra cable or two. As I write, in the UK Dell want £33 for a spare and even from 3rd party sellers I can only get down to £25 - and they're not very available and out-there (in the UK). Even more annoying is that the supplied cable is stupidly short at 1m - doesn't even make it from my wall plug to my desk! (Fortunately USB cable extenders are cheap and work fine - and the power cable is also the data cable which plugs into a USB socket at the power plug end, so it can be extended.) Apparently the decision not to follow the 'industry standard' MicroUSB is to do with the Dell Dock which can be purchased separately (of course), another £55 as I write, and ensuring quality HDMI-out. Mmmm. Everyone else seems to do it by having two ports.

On the back is a 5MP camera with dual LED flash and to the 'top' (in landscape) volume rocker, shutter release and power button, alongside a 3.5mm headphone socket. Dell designers have clearly developed the Streak as a landscape device for sitting in a dock facing the viewer on a desk.

The camera performance is really quite appalling compared to most modern devices - when you consider what Sony Ericsson were able to pack into a tiny device the size of the X10 mini/pro, there can't be much excuse for this. The camera is very Vanilla Android in terms of software, with limited options and basic layout. On pressing the shutter release to launch the camera software, it often 'force closes' and a second attempt is needed - and it takes an awful long time to get set for shooting. This is not the best at all and FroYo can only force improvements in this area.

Multimedia is generally good, which is a good thing given where Dell are pitching this. Videos and music play well. Pretty much any video I threw at it played with no lip-sync problems. The Music app is most refreshing. Not Vanilla Android at all. It's laid out in a very attractive way with an HDMI button in the corner - obviously not doing anything unless plugged into an external device. (Incidentally, there's no cable included to facilitate that - Dell really want you to buy their Dock!) There's even a Menu option whilst playing a song to set it as a RingTone. Nice. As for the camera, the Music app does take a while to fire up and refresh, but once it's there it's smooth flowing. Amazingly, the speaker on the back (halfway under the sliding door, Motorola Milestone style) is really not very good. Distortion at maximum volume and not loud enough at 75%. Again, I would point to Sony Ericsson and their diminutive device producing much better results in all areas of multimedia reproduction. The supplied earphones are very basic and don't do much to enhance the sounds.

All sounds very negative, doesn't it?! I think I've hit all the bad stuff first - there's lots to like about the Dell Streak. Having a giant screen should be superb for multimedia consumption, web surfing, mapping and to generally assist we 40-somethings with failing eyes! But there is one last niggle which I wasn't really expecting. I thought (maybe naively) that what was on the screen of my HTC Desire with its 3.7" screen would be replicated on this giant screen, thereby making it bigger and clearer for me to see. But no - the fonts stay the same but more is visible. Of course this has clear advantages - particularly when surfing websites in landscape mode - but doesn't help my eyes! It reminded me very much of the Nokia N900 - loads of screen to look at but so much crammed in that it's just as difficult to read. On a positive note, there is pinch-to-zoom and 'reflow' when you get in close enough (unlike the N900). But you can't have everything. It is nice to see websites in their full version, so maybe the compromise is not too bad. All the usual Vanilla Android options in the Web Browser are here of course.

Needless to say, PIM is all present and correct for an Android device working in tandem with Google Services and after the initial sync jiggery-pokery (see below), syncing is quick, seamless and just perfect - with the added bonus of viewing all on the big spacious screen.
There's something odd going on with connectivity and wifi. On initial setup of the device it wouldn't do any of the usual sync'ing stuff over wifi. In fact, I had to turn wifi off for it to do so, which it did eventually over 3G. The usual FaceBook and Twitter setup options are there but try as I might, I could not get the FaceBook to come onboard. Even now, it's not there and if I tap on Add Account it offers me FaceBook but when I tap on it, the page just refreshes and returns to the page with lists of accounts. Initially, I was able to go through a FaceBook setup routine - being directed to their pages but once signed in and looking at my FaceBook page things seem divorced completely from the Android FaceBook Sync. Factory reset the device and you get the sign up option again (with the same result), otherwise, as depicted above, an endless loop in Sync settings where the OS seems to think it's there and signed in, but its not in the list. There were another couple of strange occurrences during the setup which involved connectivity, failed connection and so forth. It was at this point that I was eyeing up my iPhone and iPad - glaring at me from the corner of my desk, arms folded, saying "I told you so".

On connectivity, call quality is sound (!) with ear speaker and microphone working very well. Signal sits happily with Vodafone in the UK in a regular testing place (for me). Many devices that I've had through my hands do much worse than this one. So cellular and wifi have good signals - the only caveat being the above one with regards to Sync'ing - and I'm not really sure if the device ever syncs over wifi or always resorts to 3G - more testing required. Incoming and outgoing calls have been tested in various places and sound quality at both ends is super. On speakerphone things are OK - it seems that the speaker is only pushed by music and video.

As you might expect on this giant screen, Mapping with Google Maps is a super experience - being able to see such a broad area of a map whilst navigating is a big bonus and has a feel of using a big-screened car-based TomTom system with touch-screen. Whatever complaints you may have about the Dell Streak, it won't be the Mapping experience. GPS is quick to get a fix, pinch-to-zoom works well and the screen scrolls smoothly. Apart from that it's the standard Google Maps experience with all the standard features. There is a copy of Co-Pilot Live supplied but after running the setup and downloading my navigator's voice it asks for a Product Key to continue. There's no product key in the box or paperwork and no instructions what to do next. Is it free? Is there a trial? The CoPilot UK & Ireland app in the Market Place is £23.47! I really don't see the point when Google Maps is free - the same was true of Motorola bundling some less-than-good navigation package as bloatware. So, can I uninstall CoPilot Live? Not on your Nellie! Thanks Dell - just like a Windows Desktop computer!

Talking of software that can't be uninstalled (without a Root and ROM replacement), there's also TouchDown (which seems to be all about Exchange EMail, looking at their website) and Outlook Notes and Outlook Tasks. As I haven't used Outlook since Windows Mobile drove me away from it in 2003, they're not much good for me. Sorry - can't report or comment. There appears to be a full-editing copy of QuickOffice, though again - there's no information about that so I don't know if I may get a trial expiring after a month or similar.
I wanted to like the Dell Streak as it reminds me very much of a Psion device in size - PDA relived - and I am not disappointed. But let's not labour under any disillusion here - this is not really useful as a phone for more than an occasional call. Fortunately, that fits my brief quite well. The benefits of having such a huge screen for most other functions is nothing but a benefit all round. I guess a BlueTooth earpiece is the answer if you want to persevere. I'm a fairly big bloke with big hands and big trousers (!) and contrary to the YouTube videos out there depicting the Streak being unmanageable in a front jeans pocket, for me it's fine and fits well with no bulges. For a smaller trendier person sporting tight jeans, I imagine it could feel and look a little odd. Bring on male handbags without negative social connotations, is what I say! It's about time we in the UK loosened up our stiff upper lips and wised-up like the rest of the world!

Of course, this goes no way to address my 'pub phone' needs - it's a different ball game - I'll save that quest and argument for some following devices. For now, I'm enjoying this device, despite the various caveats and quirks already covered and it's certainly currently my No.1 device (especially as the HTC Desire is now sold!). FroYo will only serve to bring improvements. The hardware will keep up with its SnapDragon chip, 512MB ROM and 512MB RAM, so bring it on! Look out for more coverage and chat with Steve Litchfield in the Phones Show and Phones Show Chat very soon.

Nokia N8

2010-10-30T00:10:00.002+01:00

Here we go then. My thoughts on my brand new shiny Nokia N8. I deliberated over the C7, but came down on this side as I like the aluminium finish of the N8 and my (oft' deceived) brain will make me happier with what it perceives to be a higher quality product!

I'm not going to go through a blow-by-blow account of all the features on the N8 as Steve Litchfield and Rafe Blandford have done that in their exhaustive review covering pretty much everything you might want to know in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 over at All About Symbian. I must go and read that again - there's a lot to take in! What I'm going to concentrate on here is the aspects which have jumped out at me, the good the bad and the ugly. In my usual fashion, I'm going to consider how best to use the device whilst remaining in the Google Cloud. Is this, at last, a Nokia device which allows robustness in the process of ongoing sync with Google? And last but not least, I'm going to consider whether or not I have finally found my 'pub phone' (used alongside another or stand-alone).

Before I start, I will say that a fair few devices come through my hands these days (partly due to the Phones Show Chat podcast with Steve Litchfield) and I have not experienced the same buzz of anticipation during the order and delivery phases of this purchase for a long, long time. HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson - they have their charms, but there's nothing like a Nokia. The last time I remember that kind of buzz was when I waiting for the Nokia E90. And Psion Series 7. And Apple iPad. All the devices in between have not notched up such enthusiasm - there was something about this one which was getting the juices flowing!

So then, on to the stuff that jumped out at me. The N8 is beautifully crafted as an aluminium 'tube' which has the feel of an Apple product about it. It's shiny and cold, sleek and tapered at the ends into a quite gorgeous shape. My N8 is grey/black and around the shutter button and volume control rocker, camera housing and camera lens there's a classy 45 degree chrome channel which gives the device such a premium feel/look. Something you'd expect from Sony 15 years ago. Even the "Nokia Nseries" logo on the back sits sharply proud and glows chrome. The edges are sumptuously rounded and flaps for cards perfectly flush.

The camera housing has come in for some criticism as it sticks out from the body of the phone. I can't see a problem with this. It looks distinctive - as if it's part of the design language, not just to make room for the works underneath. Nokia seem to have learned lessons after the placement of the camera housing on the N97mini which 'rocked' on a table - this unit is perfectly centralised so there'll be no movement when placed down. The two ends are plastic - and I guess they need to be so that there's no AntennaGate nonsense repeated! A shiny black plastic though, which fits in with the overall shiny theme. And an unlock/ lock-screen slider on the side! Well done Nokia!

The screen is 3.5" 16:9 and looks black and sexy. There's one button on the front which 'glows' around its perimeter (when enabled). Nice. This button is offset to the left. Not sure about that. In daily use, I think it would have been better in the middle. But then I also think it would have been better flanked by Call and End buttons. So we end up back where we started, considering the C7, which does have this! If there were three buttons across the bottom, I don't think it would have looked quite as classy, part of which comes from the minimalist theme. I love the 'always on' analogue clock on the front of the screen, with date below. Somehow Nokia must have made this possible without much drain on battery and it's a super attribute. Used in conjunction with the unlock-slide on the side means a ready watch/clock in your pocket at all times.

Three home screens is a huge leap forward. I have 'essential' apps on the middle screen - Clock, Date, Profile, Contacts carousel, EMail, Calendar, Social and Weather, then a whole page of Shortcuts to Apps on the left page and all my Media-centric stuff to the right. Works well for me. Different wallpapers for each of the 3 screens is a nice touch and if you don't fancy more than one or two Homescreens - just delete them. Just the kind of flexibility that Nokia needed to introduce to keep up in the 'homescreen war'. As usual with Nokia, all the essential info is at the top of the Homepages like connectivity, battery, carrier.

I've had the N8 for a few days now and it is my considered view that the battery is doing well. Of course I've been using it a lot but judging by periods of inactivity (like at night) the charge holds well, where certainly almost every recent device I've had in for review has failed. Be it Motorola, HTC (apart from the Hero pre-2.1) or Apple (though to be fair I only have a 3GS and hear that the 4 is much better - certainly the iPad is stunning). Most modern devices' batteries are appalling (particularly Android) and it was good to get back to a system which, OK, might not have as many connected activities going on at any one time as the others, but will certainly last in excess of a day even with moderate to heavy use. I'm hoping for two!

Shame that ShareOnline is missing but I managed to negotiate my way around the free PixelPipe which emulates at least some of the functionality. The trick is to set up Tags and then inside the app on the phone, when setting up the upload tap on Tags/Routing Tags: then Options, then Import Routing Tags. After that it's a doddle - just select which place to send your pics to. Or at least that's the theory! In sending up my screenshots for this article, the first one went quickly and easily, the second just wouldn't go. Tried PixelPipe and EMailing but no joy. I think this is something flaky about the OS as the EMail won't sync either and PixelPipe reports a forever ongoing upload. Turned the phone off and on again and up it went no problem.

Which bring me on to the Ovi Store. Can't quite make up my mind about this one. It's certainly streets ahead of anything that's gone before but compared to the Apple App Store and Android Market Place it it certainly lacking in a number of areas. Firstly, the text input area has one-too-many OK's to execute! It's like a hangover from the 5800 days (thankfully not across the whole UI though). Search, tap (which is annoyingly only multi-tap, no T9), tap to select, tap to OK. Madness. More worryingly is the actual structure of the purchasing arrangements. I've had a Nokia/Ovi account for years. They have my card details. But I decided to pay the required £1.50 for gReader via my phone bill instead. Go through the process, downloads, installs. When I go to launch it however, it'll let me log in my details for Google Reader but won't sync with the server. Tried a couple of times, then went back to the App and read the reviews. Should have done that first. D'oh! Sure enough, various people are reporting that gReader doesn't work with the N8. So, a couple of issues. I thought Ovi Store only let your device see apps for purchase that would work with your device. No?! Secondly, OK so it's only £1.50, but there's no easy way to get your money back. I emailed Support and they emailed me back asking me for the bank details into which the payment came so they can refund (within 30 days, no doubt!) - so they didn't even know I'd paid via my phone bill? I think there's a long way still for the Ovi Services to go and in a sense, it's more important for these services to catch up with the competition than the hardware's UI. We'll come to Google integration soon. Stop salivating at the back!

A word about connectivity and general functioning. There has a been a little 'lag' sometimes, particularly when entering text in T9 mode where my key presses have 'overtaken' the input. I mentioned above about the sync'ing of EMail and having to turn the phone off and on again to invoke an upload/sync. In a strong Vodafone area in the UK where I usually have no problems, there have been a couple of times when signal has dropped. Maybe it's a bad day or I'm unlucky. As I look now, there's a full signal again. Which brings us nicely to PIM.

And this is the big one. Make or break for me! I started off ignoring the Nokia Messaging option and signing up for all PIM data to my Nuevasync account. Everything worked fine. Contacts uploaded, Calendars uploaded, Email working, no evidence of duplicates being written back to my Google data. Why, oh why didn't I leave it alone?! There's something about me that really wants Nokia Messaging to work. The interface is nice and latterly, with the Nokia N86, it worked flawlessly. It seems that since I switched off Mail for Exchange EMail and used Nokia Messaging for EMail, the problems and general stability issues started. I deleted the Nokia Messaging EMail account and returned to what I did at first. It seems that Steve Litchfield is right - it's best left well alone - particularly for Power Users. So, using that method, it seems that Google PIM services can work nicely with a modern Nokia device. Time will tell as to whether I start getting corrupt data at the Google end. Update: Or maybe I spoke too soon. Having deleted the Nokia Messaging GMail account and switching Mail for Exchange Email back on, all my Calendar entries are gone and I get a "Mail for Exchange error - Exchange Server Error. Try again later." Arggghhh! Deja vu! Previously in this situation the only solution has been to wipe the device and start again. But before that, I tried deleting the Mail for Exchange account, turning the phone off and on again and setting it all up from scratch. We're back as we were. Phew! I do think that Nuevasync is well worth the money. The solution works very well - see David Gilson's review over at All About Symbian and we thank them for supporting Phones Show Chat.

Turning to text input, I'm not much of a QWERTY user these days. I think Touch and T9 should be enough, so that a phone can be used one-handed and in this respect, the N8 does very well. There's some stuff that needs ironing out - too many dialogues where T9 is not available, as I said before, and no multitouch for those who want to use QWERTY - it is very much a tap-tap affair. There's no portrait QWERTY (and although some are crying out for it, I think that even though the 3.5" screen should be as good for a portrait QWERTY as an iPhone screen, don't forget that the iPhone screen is 4:3, not 16:9, which makes the N8 taller but narrower. Obvious benefits are one-handed use and a 'phone shaped' phone, down side - not really enough space for portrait QWERTY. Or so I thought!

On to Web. The built in Web Browser is just as unfriendly as the S60 5th Edition one. Fonts too small, zoom awkward and no 'reflow'. Apparently there's some kind of Nokia promise of a new and improved browser by the end of 2010. But my attention turned instead to Opera Mobile as it does have a lot more going for it, particularly the content 'reflow' functionality, which is a boon. It's free and downloadable from the Ovi Store. And it also has a portrait QWERTY keyboard! So we can try it out and see what it might be like. My opinion is that it's much better than I thought it would be but ultimately it's still a fiddle compared to T9. Depends what you're used to I suppose. But laying that aside, it's certainly worth looking at Opera Mobile (which can be set as system-wide default browser). The social networking stuff works OK, but it's still handled so much better by Gravity. Isn't it about time Nokia licensed it? The other 'killer' app for me, discussed many times before, is getting my SMS messages dumped up into my Google world. I'm happy to report that SyncLion does this and it's happening! Hurrah!
Music and video play beautifully. The Apple style 'cover flow' works well and tunes selected easily. I had music and videos already on my MicroSD card so, have done no sync'ing. But those files, dragged and dropped out of iTunes all work well - even my native Apple .m4v DRM-free video files. The built-in speaker is very good indeed (though not as good as the Nokia E90's arrangement) and earphones in the box are the classy N86-style ones with lots of controls, very stylishly produced.

The camera is, of course, the main selling point of this phone for some but as regular readers and listeners will know, it's not such a big deal for me. I would have been happy with an EDoF camera and LED flash !! But as it's here, I shall use it and enjoy premium results. Do go back to the All About Symbian review for full coverage of that. What is nice about the camera is the fast shot-to-shot times - that does seem to be fast and a real step forward for phone-cameras.

I've had a play with the USB-on-the-go and can confirm that when a USB-pen is plugged in it will access the files/media/data as if it's a built-in drive. I tried it out with the iPod Shuffle (2009 version) and (apart from not knowing what tracks were what as they're not named) it played all of the songs from there too. I plugged in my USB-desk-fan not really expecting it to work, but it did! My desk fan running off the N8's battery! Time to push it further - tried my 1GB External HDD - a step too far, of course! Anything that needs real power is not going to work! But the most interesting novelty (?) was plugging in a USB mouse - again, not really knowing what to expect - but it worked and the N8's screen can be navigated by using a mouse! Can't quite see the real world use for that, but it's fun! I guess if the HDMI is being used on a TV screen, it might have a use. Hehe. Talking of which, I haven't tried that yet - will report back when I get round to it. To be honest, I'm not sure how much I would use that either (when my head is in iTunes and with Apple TVs, content can be streamed around anyway). You can see now why I maybe should have had the C7 instead!

So could I use the N8 as my 'pub phone' in conjunction with another 'mother' device? Well actually, if I step outside the original brief of doing this with Android devices, Symbian has moved this new raft of devices on so significantly that the N8 will be my 'pub phone' and 'mother' phone. Since it's arrived, I've really felt a distinct lack of need to be using Android devices which, lets face it, are young and inexperienced - and often lack quality in hardware (certainly compared to high-end Nokias). I'm delighted to be able to return to the fold and consider a Nokia to be my current No.1 device. The N8 is, of course, not perfect. And I am suitably entrenched enough in the Apple system to need and want to continue to use my iPhone and iPad, but they won't be my phone. This will. And if I want to read a book on Kindle, I don't want to read it on a phone-sized screen - I'll read it on my iPad. Or Kindle.

There's a huge amount to cover here, which is why I tried to point you to the All About Symbian reviews at the outset. I'm only touching the surface here after only a few days. I've tried to highlight the stand-out features for me on initial use. There's a lot about it that does smell of S60 5th Edition, but some consider that an evolution and distinct advantage. I'm much more enthused by the UI coming along and when I can place named Bookmarks on the desktop, I'll be happy!

If anyone has any specific questions, please ask away. In the meantime, I'll keep exploring.

Acer Stream

2010-10-12T19:03:00.000+01:00

Thoroughly fed up with the amount of storage space in the HTC Desire, my new quest was to find an Android device which had no such limitation, but still functioned at a high enough level for me to feel satisfied - having got used to the bells and whistles of a top-end Android device running FroYo. Although FroYo allows apps to be installed/moved onto an SD Card, in practice, very few developers have written the 'hooks' into their apps to enable this to happen. Some have - and over time the situation will improve as more wise up to the limited ROM onboard most Android devices.
So, first criteria was some onboard application storing internal memory (apart from ROM). Or, I suppose a device with a much bigger ROM than 512MB. There were few contenders (at least available to the UK market) which met this demand. I'm sure readers will catch me out here but the few that came to mind were the Samsung Galaxy S (8GB), Acer Stream (2GB) and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (1GB). Not even the Nexus One can boast that (though it doesn't have HTC Sense onboard gobbling up an unfeasibly large chunk of the ROM). I know there's a new bunch of devices about to hit the shops which would fit the bill, but I'm impatient! HTC Desire HD (1.5GB) and HTC Desire Z (1.5GB) would meet the requirement. But there are other aspects of all these devices mentioned that put me off. If it's not the plastic build, high price and 'lag' issue with the Samsung Galaxy S then it's the lack of camera flash on the Acer Stream and no FroYo - it hosting Android's version 2.1 Eclair. If it's not the Android 1.6 Donut still onboard the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 or its video lamp instead of a flash, then it's the massive tablet-size screen of the HTC Desire HD or the QWERTY keyboard that I don't need or want on the HTC Desire Z. There's no pleasing some people!

So taking all the above into account, I've often looked at the Acer Stream and wondered how useful those physical media control keys would be. Do I need a flash for the camera? How good are LED flashes anyway? And when did I last use one (outside of reviewing)? There was enough of a draw to take a look. And because it's only available from eXpansys, hands-on hasn't happened in shops - so it would be nice to get a closer view. The price had recently dropped by £50 and they had a huge number in stock.
I haven't had many Acer products in my hands. The odd laptop or NetBook (one Aspire which dual-booted into a strange Android OS!) which have been very well built and very good value for money. But not a phone (that I recall). A number of Bloggers at the mention of the word Acer have turned up their noses - not sure why, really.
The Acer Stream is a fairly big device. Sat next to Jon Satherley's Google Nexus One and my HTC Desire, it was taller (by the height of the hardware media key section at the foot), slightly slimmer (though the Nexus and Desire are much more 'rounded') with squarer edges - looking from the sides, it looks more like a Practika than Nikon! On top is a 3.5mm headphone socket, on the left volume and power buttons, right side is home to a hardware shutter release button and plastic flap covering a MicroUSB port for data and charging and Mini HDMI-out socket. The volume, shutter and power buttons are really very slim - my fingers find them nice to use and they even look sleek and classy. There's a small speaker at top front for phone calls and microphone at the bottom. On the back is the 5MP camera lens and at the bottom, a speaker. Two thirds of the back slide down to reveal a 1400mAh battery and under that, SIM Card and MicroSD Card slots. The usual 'slab' like layout. On the front is the screen, which is a 3.7" AMOLED capacitive type. It's surrounded by quite a wide black band on all sides which at the foot takes in the Acer logo and the 4 standard Android keys. From right to left, Menu, Back, Search and Home. The latter is a physical 'round' button which also plays host to various notification light sequences. It's nice to have a physical key there. But why the other three couldn't be the same instead of a part of the capacitive area, I don't know - wouldn't have been much nicer. Underneath this (and off of the 'black' area) are the three media control buttons. Play/Pause, Back and Forward. They're kind of chrome coloured, the same as their surround, and for some bizarre reason Acer have put legends on the keys in white. It's a struggle to see what they are. Fortunately, it's obvious what they are!
The plastic flap over the MicroUSB and HDMI-out sockets is just silly - it'll last no time at all and it'll either come off, I've no doubt, or be pulled off by the owner. Every time the device needs charging it's a pain to keep pulling it on and off.
Acer have put their 'skin' on the front-end of the phone and in settings, it can easily be switched to vanilla Android instead. It was interesting to play with and has some bells and whistles which are not available elsewhere, but on balance I opted to use the device inside the Android shell. To save me running through all the aspects of the Acer front-end I'm going to point you to TechRadar's excellent walkthrough - they've done a thorough job. For all its clever bits, I didn't like the fact that you can't really put apps and shortcuts on the 5 'home' screens - only a bunch of predefined widgets that Acer have made available. The 'static' 8 app/shortcuts (which you can choose) they seem to think is enough - and by sliding that 'panel' up, you arrive at a grid of all the other apps, which slides sideways - iOS style - to reveal the rest. By sliding the homescreen right, you come to a Nokia N8/N900 style Task Manager with big previews of where you left each previous app. It's certainly more exhaustive than the traditional '6 most-recently used apps' invoked by a long-press of the 'home' button on most Android devices. By sweeping right on the homescreen, you get to a media control centre, which works well - accessing music, video and photos. I also didn't care much for the Notification Bar being two thirds of the way down the device instead of at the top, as is usual. Although there's quick-access to many functions via this bar, some don't render properly and it just seems kind of unnecessary when these few functions can be added to a traditional homescreen very easily. By turning off the Acer skin, you still have access to the bits and pieces of Acer software, some of which that are well designed.
The built-in Acer on-screen virtual keyboard works OK - looks a bit Apple'ish - but nowhere near as good as the iPhone's or indeed the HTC Sense version. I quickly turned it off and used the stock Android one instead.
Contacts integrates FaceBook data but not Twitter - again HTC seem to lead the way here. It is, however, nice to use and selecting a Contact brings up a list of options about how you want to engage with them (Nokia N71/72 style).
The web browser works well with multi-touch and has the 'reflow' option - missing, so sadly in most devices - not just from the Android stable, but most others too. Nice touch. How long can the others not include this, I wonder!
And so to multimedia - I'm going to send this device over to Steve Litchfield to assess properly the camera/video performance and HDMI-out, as he's much better at it than me - and hopefully we'll be able to bring that information to you in a forthcoming Phones Show or Phones Show Chat. The hardware media buttons work well as long as you don't confuse them! They are designed to work, it seems with the built-in Acer media app, nemoPlayer. When I tried to use them with the stock Android Music app, they didn't work - and when I installed doubleTwist to get my iTunes content onboard, doubleTwist 'took them over' so they would work with that as a priority. At one point, I had music playing with the Android Music app then hit the Play button and two music feeds were rolling through the same speaker! There are also bugs in the Music app itself, sometimes spontaneously starting up, other times running through every track on the card playing the first two seconds of each song. Not good. But on a positive note, if the buttons are used with nemoPlayer alone, it works fine. The phone's speaker also seems to be of very high quality - loud sound not distorting at full volume. Nice. The nemoPlayer app is very useful and organises media well. The device has a set of Dolby controls, all of which seem to actually make a difference to the sound. All the files I threw at it were played - even native iTunes DRM-free video. It has a feel of the Sony Ericsson X10 about it - which is a complement, of course.
The battery life seems to be average and what to be expected from a device of this size, with these features. On day one it lasted nine hours with a moderate to average use pattern. It has got slightly better and I'm sure is in line with the other devices in this place in the market.
At the end of the day, I have gone back to the HTC Desire, I must admit. Even taking into account the extra storage for apps in the 2GB onboard memory (which was a large part of my original quest) and the hardware media keys, there wasn't enough about the device to win me over. Some of that is to do with design, I guess. The Desire is much less 'boxy' in the hand, smoother curves and slightly smaller. Of course, it's a personal choice when it comes to design, but that's the side I've come down on - and yes, I'd rather (at this stage) moan about app storage space on the Desire than use the Acer Stream as my daily device! If there was no choice, of course, I'd be very happy with it - it's a high-end Android smartphone, no doubt and if FroYo (or later) firmware is added at some point, the spec will certainly keep up. It has more than enough RAM, most of it free a lot of the time.
I would certainly recommend the Acer Stream - with some firmware updates and bug fixing, it's well placed in terms of price and specification to be a very respectable high-end smartphone for a good time to come.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini

2010-09-25T15:49:00.001+01:00

In my review of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 earlier this year, I concluded that I would be happy to live with that 4" screened monster but for 3 things... no camera flash, lousy built-in speaker and its form-factor not being 'phone like'. So, you see, I've been on my quest for quite sometime now - seeking an Android device which is suitable for taking out and about as a phone (like most Nokia phones). I was banging on about it just the other day, too, in my quest to find the perfect combination of devices as I reviewed the Motorola Flipout. So the quest continues with the next possibility... the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini. Many thanks to Steve Litchfield for organising the loan unit.
I opened the box with my learned colleague in all things Geek, Jon Satherley, and we were both staggered by this device's diminutive form. It's tiny! Looking at the face of it, it's smaller than a credit card! It fits snuggly in the hand as it has a 'rounded' back cover. One of a bunch provided in the box, all colours of the rainbow - which probably tells you much about the target audience for this phone. I'm not sure if the multiple backs were for the review unit - I wouldn't expect them in a retail box. Maybe wrong.
One of the big problems I had with the Flipout was the QVGA screen being blocky, slightly pixellated and not pleasant to look at in many dialogues. Somehow, Sony Ericsson have got past that with this X10 mini. The screen is slightly smaller at 2.5" (Flipout is 2.8"), but the same number of pixels (240 x 320), yet the X10's fonts and dialogues seem much clearer and more pleasant - maybe that extra 0.3" really does make a significant difference. (On reflection, I guess there is a big difference between the slightly 'blocky' Nokia N96 at 2.8" and N86 at 2.6".)
The Sony Ericsson 'front end' is much like its bigger brother's - a very nice blue theme with their built-in services TimeScape (the X10's MediaScape seems to be missing, however). TimeScape gives you a customisable 'scrolling' screen 'feeding' any combination you fancy from Twitter, FaceBook, Messages and Missed Calls. Tapping on any of the boxes takes you to the appropriate built-in client to view within or web service.

Because of the screen's small size, they've made some new 'corner' buttons which fly you off to Conversations, Music, Phone Dialpad and Contacts (these can be reassigned to whatever you fancy). This 'main screen' swipes left and right and widgets can be added - there's not many. There's an arrow at the foot of the screen which you 'pull up' to reveal the Android Menu structure, 9 items per screen then swiping left and right for more. There are options to Change wallpaper, arrange app icons and add widgets from either of these screens. But you can't place App shortcuts on the homescreens - only Widgets. It seems that Sony Ericsson wanted their 'front end' unspoiled by rubbish icons!
On initial setup, make yourself a Grand Café and grab a book - this device took quite some time to sync up my Google data (OK, so I have more than most people targeted here!), but it gets there in the end and does a grand job.
Some of the 'built in' Android options have been changed and 'dumbed down' by Sony Ericsson - like the Brightness Control not having an 'auto' setting and not getting an option to add wifi at the beginning of setup is annoying - forcing the initial sync with Google, FaceBook and Twitter over a Cellular Network (ending in a very long initial sync, as described above). Slightly irritating is that the Notification Tone is system-wide for all notifications - there's no way that I can find to assign a unique SMS tone, for example. It's either all on or all off and if it's all on, it's the same tone. Shame. In the eMail settings, the tone at least can be switched to 'None' - so there's a bit of a workaround, but it's not too flexible.
The other Wow Moment for Jon and I was on firing up the Media player. We should have known with Sony being involved that we'd be impressed, but with the X10 reproduction being so poor, we're excused! The built-in speaker really is quite stunning for this device's tiny size. No distortion even at full volume. Album Artwork made it across intact for pretty much all the albums. Nice scrolling, play. pausing and index controls. Every video we threw at it worked, visual experience good and sound super.

We were also impressed with the 5MP AutoFocus camera. Nice clean pics (see tree/sky, above) and the built-in LED flash genuinely useful (unlike the X10 where the LED is not a flash but a video lamp). Looking at the dubious pose (!) by Jon, we were impressed with flash coverage in very mixed indoor lighting. A long press on the physical shutter button on the side invokes the camera from anywhere in the system and options after snapping to upload to the usual raft of online sources.
Some of the specs pale into insignificance because of the target user. This is not a high end smartphone, but rather a handbag/pocket phone for convenience. It doesn't matter that the processor is 'only' 600Mhz. Or that it has 128MB RAM. This is not a Nexus One and nor are its users likely to know the difference. As long as it performs well, which it does in most departments, these stats are meaningless. Good job, then, that the X10 mini is only running Android x CupCake x Donut 1.6 - it will be a wise decision on the part of Sony Ericsson to leave that well alone - I fear that the performance will drop significantly if they try to get clever and 'upgrade' it. Particularly if my recent experience with the HTC Hero being updated to 2.1 is anything to go by. WiFi and cellular reception is very good indeed in my tests.
The battery is an interesting topic as it's built-in. And unlike the forthcoming Nokia N8, there's not even screws to undo to replace it. This is iPhone territory and if it gives up the ghost, it looks like it's back to Sony Ericsson for replacement. But I guess that for most people, it will outlast the required life of the device. The battery itself is a surprising 1320mAh - as much as some 'real' SmartPhones out there! Initial tests suggests a very good battery life between charges - even with me pushing it - for the average user, it should last days and days.
I turn now to the Android Market Place and hope for more than I got with the Flipout. My favourite SMS Backup+ is there - woohoo! As I move through my most used apps on other phones, there are some apps not available but the good news is that since my early experiments and frustrations with the HTC Tattoo last year with the QVGA problem, there are now other apps out there (many free) that have been written for various screen resolutions. Even Kindle is there - and works - not that you're likely to do much reading on a screen this size! So this is a plus, generally, and most apps that I'm used to using at least are there and usable or workarounds can be found. Nice.
On the face of it, Web Browsing should be awful on a device this size but actually, in an emergency (!), it is kind of usable. There's no multiTouch of course, just two controls - Zoom and Overview - Overview gives a view of the while page and tapping and holding provides a 'magnified' square which can be dragged around. Let go and it zooms into the section it was magnifying. We've seen this before of course - Nokia phones have had this for years - but the difference here is that when the zoom controls are used, the text 'zoomed into' is 'reflowed' to the width of the screen. As I say, it kind of works but to be honest, it's very fiddly and you need tiny fingers to hit dialogue boxes efficiently.
So here's the big question then - is it any good as a companion beach/pub/shopping phone? The Flipout failed, on balance. This is somewhat better in some respects - and part of the reasoning is that it's got no moving parts. So one-handed use is possible, though the unit is so incredibly small (see in my hand - pic above) it's fiddly for me to SMS using one hand. The text input across the whole system in every dialogue is T9 - and the X10 mini learns quickly - there is no QWERTY (for obvious reasons). The most efficient way to interact with the device is by voice, in all honesty - so it's a good job that Google Voice Search is so efficient. That doesn't help with SMS of course, needing Voice across the OS. This comes with later versions of Android which, as I said earlier, would be a disaster on a device with this spec anyway.
This is a super little device - really cute and lovely to hold and use. The multimedia stuff is top notch for such a low-end device and I've had great fun reviewing it. Of course it's easy to complain that it's not any good for us GeekHeads - but that is doing a real disservice to this Sony Ericsson product and their target audience. In the right hands, this will be a great device - and I can see many people having a great deal of enjoyment from it. But for me and my hunt for an Android phone as a 2nd device for out and about..?
The quest goes on! It seems that I really need a traditional candybar device still if I'm going to reach my goal - like the HTC Tide. Surely soon other form factors will be coming along?

Motorola Flipout

2010-09-20T16:31:00.000+01:00

Here's my ongoing specific quest. Now completely in the clutches of Google Services it seems there is no way back for me and, for now at least, I'm treading the Android path. The top-end Android devices are great for so many uses as a web tablet, camera (with my limited demands), media player, PIM control centre, GPS, mapping and travelling to mention but a few but there's one gap. They're too big for being a slip-in-the-pocket easily when out and about when all you need is a phone. That evening in the pub, afternoon at the beach, out and about shopping. The perfect combination is still elusive.
One of the great advantages of the Android system is that with multiple devices all plugged into the Google Servers, all that's needed for very efficient interchange is quick removal of the SIM Card/MicroSD Card and placing them into the other device. Within minutes of powering up, everything's sync'd perfectly with one's data and you're ready to go. So the problem is the hardware.
Ideally, I think the perfect form factor for this use is that embodied in the Nokia N86. Slide open to answer a call and slide closed to end it. Quick flip open for one-handed SMS messaging on a 'traditional' numeric keypad. The problem is that if you live in the Google Cloud, I'm afraid that the same kind of integration and sync'ing up just doesn't happen cross platform (in this case) between Symbian and Google. It is just not a quick and easy operation to get sync'd up and go.

I had great hopes for the promised HTC Tide. Supposed to arrive in June 2010 in the UK. Mmmm. Where is it? So while I wait for that I had the opportunity of trying out the combination of my HTC Desire (for the 'heavy' stuff) and the Motorola Flipout (for out and about). Thanks again to Steve Litchfield and Clove Technology for making this possible.
So, having set the scene, onward to the Motorola Flipout. It's certainly a dinky little device with a most unusual 'swing open' mechanism to get to a hardware keyboard. The keyboard is certainly very small (smaller than the Nokia E71/72, for example) but keys similarly convex to minimise mistakes even for big fingers. There has been a part of the keyboard completely wasted on a virtually unusable 'D' pad - so unnecessary with a capacitive touch screen, which this has. It's a small 2.8" capacitive touch screen and unfortunately QVGA. This was my first real problem. The HTC Tattoo had a QVGA screen, and it wasn't pretty compared to the better resolutions, but at least the screen was physically bigger. The screen on the Flipout is tiny in comparison and the amount of scrolling needed to complete the most basic of dialogues is painful.
However, maybe I'm moving too far from my original brief - do I need to complete dialogues whilst out and about? Probably not. But I do need to be able to get to contacts quickly to call them and scrolling through lists is not quick. Of course, I could set up shortcuts, but there really isn't much room on the screen for them, particularly if you make good use of MotoBlur widgets which quickly take up loads of the limited space - even on multiple screens.
Yes, MotoBlur is in attendance, of course, and that makes things more usable in some respects but I fear that generally, the whole resolution/screensize thing just doesn't jell. More work is needed by manufacturers and/or Android to make the experience much better across different screen sizes. One of the reasons that the Tattoo was better was because HTC had thought about the screen size/resolution and HTC Sense seemed to me to have been worked in a bit better so as make the device still usable. And that had a resistive screen too!
I can't really complain about the rest of the spec - there's a wopping 512MB RAM (for a device this size) and it fair whips along - no lag here! The camera is, of course, pretty basic - but perfectly usable for casual snaps. All the usual suspects are in attendance - wifi, 3G, A-GPS etc... For the price, there's a good deal of capability in this unit and it will certainly comply with my original brief. Or will it?
I think not - and the reason is that the form factor, though very cute and cuddly, doesn't actually bode well for one-handed use whilst out and about. Sure, it can be swung open with one hand, and typing with one hand is possible (and not as difficult as you might think) - but it just isn't a numeric keypad with big keys and T9. This is a perfect Android phone for a young teenager with small pockets, small fingers and those likely to make use of the onboard MotoBlur for Social Networking - not the rest of 'our' crowd who want to download all sorts of apps to find 'the one' which is technically 'the best'. And I would thoroughly recommend it to them. It fits the brief with multiple coloured backs and clear emphasis on fun messaging. School kids will love this, I reckon.
So for now, the quest continues! I wonder if the HTC Tide will ever see the light of day...

Nokia E5

2010-09-16T18:09:00.000+01:00

At last - a new device to have a look at! In fact, I'm hoping for two this week. Firstly this one, the Nokia E5 and then the Motorola Flipout. Many thanks to Steve Litchfield and Clove Technology.
Not Another Outdated Nokia, I hear you cry! Well, stick with it as all is not quite as it seems - and this device, if not stunning in itself, does point towards a 'catch up' path being travelled by Nokia with some features worthy of the Front Runners.
The Nokia E5 is a monoblock device with a full hardware QWERTY keyboard, reminiscent of that line of the Nokia Enterprise range - starting with the E61 - in the traditional style of the BlackBerry devices. It has a QVGA landscape screen with 320 x 240 pixels. On the right is a volume rocker, which is very stiff indeed (as noted by Steve in Phones Show 120). Charging the device can be achieved by using the 'smaller' standard 2mm charging hole or via the MicroUSB port, both on top. They are joined by a standard 3.5mm headphone socket. On the back is a surprisingly loud single speaker and 5MP camera with LED flash. The metal back cover is held firmly in place by 2 clasps, bottom right and left, on the side of the E5 (like the E71 and not like the E72 which chalked up a fail by moving to a centre-only fastening). It's a shame that there wasn't room for the super-powered 1500mAh BP-4L (Lithium-Polymer) battery (standard in most previous E-Series devices) but rather a BL-4D (Lithium-Ion) which provides only 1200mAh. SIM Card and MicroSD Card slots are both housed under the battery, so it's power-down to change either, I'm afraid. There's the most modern Nokia QWERTY keyboard (on this style of device) with the space bar being the width of 4 keys and housing a quite-fire LED 'torch' functionality.
On opening the Nokia box there was an all-too-familiar feeling of deja vu. On picking up the device I found it to be surprisingly well built, solid, heavy, shaped for the hand and a little refreshing after the lightweight feel of the E72. The E72 moved to aluminium with unfriendly styling and control cluster (along with the E52/55). Fortunately, Nokia has redesigned the cluster for the E5 and has made some improvements. The Send, End and two Selection Keys are well spaced with plenty of room to ensure they are hit first time. Unfortunately, in order to gain that space the tiny slithers of Home and Mail keys are near impossible to hit without pressing one or more of the aforementioned surrounding keys unless the end of a nail is used - or at least unless you have very small fingers. The D-Pad is a fair size (like a N96 but with fatter surround and smaller middle button) and the central button is surrounded by a Notification light.
So on with the improvements - There's oodles of RAM at 256MB - you'll never run out - I'm looking at 175MB free after boot! A far cry from the E72. The main C drive is 250MB - so again, tons of space to add on software and apps - keeping your MicroSD Memory card freed up for all your user-data, music, video and stuff.
Turning to the software, there's new and improved integration with FaceBook - a app being available by default and a Android-style integration with Contacts. When selecting a Contact you're offered all the usual ways of contacting them but now also a direct link to launch the FaceBook App and write a message there. It really does work very well and the Contacts are accurately matched up with people in the address book.
However, turning to the 'newer' style Contacts Bar homescreen option, there are more pros and cons. The contacts bar when scrolled does so without a hitch (unlike the Nokia X6's with its capacitive screen and lack of RAM) but unfortunately the pictures imported from FaceBook into the Contacts lists don't make it to the Contacts Bar. It seems that pictures of your Contacts only come across if you have the FaceBook sync turned off and they are manually added (or sync'd from elsewhere). [An example of a working model is using Google Contacts via Mail for Exchange - then the pics make it across - but not if you use the Nokia Sync app using SyncML.] If you want to add a picture manually to the Contact Card the routes offered by the phone are the Camera or Gallery (but FaceBook pics don't make it to the Gallery - is that a privacy thing?!). So as you can see, as Steve said in his review, it's another example of one step forward and 2 back sometimes. When compared to the incredibly tight integration demonstrated by Apple and Android devices, it just isn't there. But ho hum!
There's a raft of other apps/shortcuts onboard including Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster and so forth. Another raft of shortcuts to Ovi Services (for anyone likely to risk using them!), Vlingo and Psiloc's Traveller to mention but a few.
Looking at the E5 screen is a little like peering into a portal from the past except that unlike most of it's predecessors Nokia have dropped the transflective layer in the screen, making it certainly less easy to use in bright sunlight. I think that this problem might be a little over-stated by some as I was outside with the device just now, on a bright but not sunny day, and I was able to use it adequately. Clearly this will be more important to some than others - I guess the important thing to Nokia was the price-point and keeping manufacturing cost down. More importantly for my eyes though, is that we've now got used to bigger screens and this 2.4" point is just too small. I need to remove my glasses to read the text in Ovi Store, and mostly using Web, as holding it far enough away to focus means it's too far to read. Maybe that's an age thing, but I think even youngsters are now expecting their phone's screen to be big (and touch sensitive).
Again, with my not-so-exacting standards as some, I find the camera's performance (both stills and video) to be more than adequate for the kind of use most of its potential users are going to put it to. For casual snaps and web-based viewing (99 point something of all pics taken, I guess?!) it's absolutely fine. Where you see comparison photos in reviews in the tech-world, it's generally from people pushing technology for technology's sake, not real world use. If you want to get artistic, buy a camera! Loading the 'T' key with a focusing function (like E71, removed for E72) was not needed here as EDoF technology has been applied to the camera instead of focusing manually or automatically, which means that pretty much everything will be acceptably in focus between about a yard and infinity.
A quick look at Media functions and a welcome return of the Podcasting app! Why on earth did they remove it for the E72/52/55?! Bizarre! Pictures in Gallery whizz around the 'D' very speedily, presumably because of the RAM increase, and new (to me at least - not noticed before) is a little 'D' plan whilst scrolling around to show where on the 'D' you are. Nice. Searching for Music on first use has always been a laborious affair but now it's pretty fast - 599 songs took about 3/4 minutes. So, at least it's not hours any more! The speaker blasts out at quite a volume (particularly if you lay the phone face-down and don't block it!) but we still have the age-old problem with Album Artwork - a hit and miss affair - some is there, some is not. Maybe if you're brave enough to sync up with Ovi Music instead of the various other routes that normal people use, more would get across. Though the last time I tried, it was just as bad. My usual test throwing various video formats at the Video Centre produced the usual mixed results. Native iTunes .m4v DRM free files kind of run, though jerky and stop-start often (just like they did on the E52, for example). The longer it's left running, the smoother it gets, but this is not out-of-the-box compatibility. 3GP seems ok, .avi files report unsupported and .flv files run OK but forget lip-sync! Nokia, it seems, still reckons that E-Series users are not Media consumers!
In summary, it's hard to ignore the Nokia 'package' as there's loads of stuff in there. The hardware is almost uniquely solid and well built in the mobile phone world (certainly at this price point for SmartPhones). As a messaging-centric device it has a lot to offer (as long as you're prepared to jump through the usual hoops to set up 'proper' sync'ing with various service providers other than Ovi). I won't bang on yet again about trying to live with Symbian devices from within the Google Cloud - just to say that it is possible to get a working model going, just hard work - knowledge and patience required. It's pitched at a price-point which, particularly when the post-release slump sets in, is really quite impressive - it almost makes you want to overlook the caveats, workarounds, research and graft needed to make it anything like the up-to-date competition out there.
I think Nokia are heading in the right direction but there's still some way to go. The (partial) FaceBook integration with Contacts to my mind is a significant event in that journey - more of the same please Nokia - and start working with Google PIM stuff!

SyncLion & Rseven

2010-08-14T17:50:00.000+01:00

Uploading SMS to GMail
Yes, my never ending quest! And one of the main reasons I always head back to Android when I really want to use my trusty Nokia N86. Android makes it so simple for the Google user - install the free SMSBackup and you're away! Any incoming or outgoing SMS messages get sent up to a folder (Label) in your nominated GMail account and you have a permanent record. Very useful for quick reference and business. If you have a Symbian 3rd Edition FP1 device, you can use Psiloc's GSync (or XSync) but they seem completely uninterested in updating their apps for FP2 not matter how much I badger them.
So my attention turned once again to Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP2 (for 'tis what the N86 is!) and my periodic hunt for a similar solution in the Ovi Store. And today's quest started with a Tweet and reply from David Gilson who pointed me to SyncLion and the review on AllAboutSymbian. Whilst waiting, I had also discovered his own review appraising rSeven. So here are my findings.
Rseven

As an all-encompassing sync solution, Rseven lets you sync at will all the PIM data from your phone and keep it in sync inside your account on their webpage. And therein lies the problem - it kind of stops there. There is an Export function which creates .csv files for archiving, but nothing as neat and pretty as dumping the data into Google products for me automatically. Scheduled syncing is allowed automatically, so I initially set this for 04.00hrs and home wifi as connection (as I'm pretty much always at home at night). Incidentally, the basic service there is free but if you want to increase your monthly limits to 500MB of data you need to Go Pro and cough up £15 per year. Another issue seemed to be that it would only 'collect' 300 of my Contacts from the phone so A-E is perfect, F-Z is not there! (Update: on second sync, an hour later, it was up to 600, so maybe it - or Google - only allow 300 per hit/hour or something?) (Second update - no, I was wrong, in usual Symbian style the 300 have been doubled-up on both the Rseven server and my phone - argghhh! Thank goodness it's not writing to Google! - Rseven now removed!) All the data is arranged in a TimeLine calendar with Calendar, Phone Calls and SMS/MMS info embedded at the right time on the right day. So a great tool for plotting on a Calendar what you were doing when, much like how Call Log Calendar for Android (£2.08) works (inside the Google Calendar) but with Rseven the data is stuck on their server with only a messy way available to get it into Google Calendar. But to be fair, this wasn't my main quest for the day.
SyncLion

So the next stop was SyncLion and this seems to do the trick nicely. After swallowing the £4 cost in Ovi Store (no sign of the alleged '7 day free trial' version there) and a simple .sis installation on the phone, it was sending up my SMS data to my GMail account. Bingo! It was dumping the data into a Label named Mobile/Messages - it would have been nice to choose that Label for myself. There are various options in the app to also sync Contacts (not brave enough for that one yet!) and Notes, when (scheduled/manual) and how (access arrangements) to do so. And that's about it really. I've set it up to sync every 6 hours using my Vodafone connection (so it won't whinge if I'm not at home) and at last, my quest is at an end! I can use my Symbian phone with the last remaining piece of the Google puzzle found! Yes - until the next one!
The reason I'm fighting so hard is not really for love of Symbian but for love of the Nokia N86. I have no time now for Symbian 5th Edition devices and don't use them at all apart for testing. I want to continue using the Nokia N86 because of the stunning camera and its form factor - a real phone shaped phone for using as a phone (with plenty of bells and whistles into the bargain). Not even the forthcoming Nokia N8 will fulfil that brief with no keypad!

Motorola Milestone XT720

2010-08-13T15:14:00.000+01:00

Design Consistency
I liked the look of the Motorola Milestone XT720. I had the original Milestone in my hands before Steve Litchfield and I did a swap - and remembered it with fondness. Looking back now, the highlights included super build quality, lovely loud and clear speaker and it being a Vanilla 'withGoogle' device. It really didn't need a hardware keyboard, the 'D-Pad' was poor and slide not 'sprung' in any way. The screen didn't 'sit up' when open (like the Nokia N97c/m and E90 models) which made it less usable as a 'desktop companion' in any case.
So with these issues out of the way, the door seemed to be open for a try with the XT720 which by-passed most of this anyway. I resisted getting the unit thinking we'd get one in for review on The Phones Show and Phones Show Chat but as it turned out, Steve was only able to borrow one for a few days from the generous Clove Technology, so I couldn't get my hands on it. The other thing that made me hesitate was the processor speed and RAM on board - 550MHz and 256MB respectively, which is less than my trusty old HTC Hero, let alone the high-flying Desire and Google Nexus One. Since Android 2.1 (Eclair) went onto the Hero, it has become very sluggish in most operations. Though there has been talk of this being boosted.
Phones Show Review
Steve's review on The Phones Show was less than complimentary in many ways, though of course it did highlight some of the positives. Sure, it seemed that the screen was very reflective and poor in sunlight but then Steve is very camera-centric in his outlook, which I thought maybe I could see past to some degree. So I took the plunge.
Background
Just to provide a little background and at the risk of banging on about the same issues, there's a couple of 'deal breakers' for me which it seems that only an Android phone can address, living in the Google Cloud. Both are related closely and make a big difference to my business use of devices. There's an app in the Android Market Place which enables me to send up a record of all SMS messages to a folder (Label) in GMail called SMSBackup (Free) and another called Call Log Calendar (£2.08) which logs a record of all calls in and out, with number, on Google Calendar, date and time-stamped. These seems unique to Android. Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices can use an app by Psiloc called GSync which does the first bit, but not the 2nd. And Psiloc seem uninterested in developing the app for FP2 or 5th Edition devices. People think I'm mad when I quote these two 'deal breaker' apps, but more than once I've been able to call on that data for evidence to sort out a problem (particularly) at work.
I had my Nokia N86 back from Nokia Repair this week and I was delighted to have it back (it had developed an electrical fault which made it reboot during calls - but fixed now) but soon after I started using it, I realised that my two 'deal breaker' apps were going to bug me by their absence.
The Device
So, back to the XT720 then. It arrived in a very bland box which looked like it was 20 years old (by design) and contained the usual array of accessories with the handset. I like the way Motorola package things separately. The back cover, for example, is in its own bag, sealed, with plastic stuck to the 'out' side as well. There's a Lithium-Polymer 1390mAh battery, 8GB MicroSD Card, set of fairly ordinary earphones, HDMI cable, USB cable (for data/charge) and a UK mains plug with USB cut-out (Apple style) in the top.

The device itself is physically pleasing. It's retained the hallmarks of the original Milestone in that it's solidly built and made (mostly) of metal. I think that the back being blue is a winner. It's a lovely shade of blue and is laid out just as you'd expect a stand-alone digital camera to be with its Xenon flash (more of that later) and MP badge. To the casual (and even not so casual) observer having their photo taken, they'd not know it was a phone. On the right, there's a volume rocker, shutter button and direct-access to Gallery button - all feeling solid and well made. On the bottom (front) there's a microphone hole, on the left a MicroUSB socket (under a stupid flappy cover - why oh why, when this device is going to need charging every night?! - it's going to break anyway) and on the top a power/wake button, 3.5mm headphone socket and HDMI socket (again, under a flap - tough this is more sensible as it's not going to used everyday, likely).
On the back of course is the 8MP camera and Xenon flash with super loud and clear speaker designed just like the original Milestone, sitting halfway under the back cover. There are very nice design curves on the back. I like this side of the phone a lot! The only downside seems to be that it 'rocks' if used on a desk for typing, but it's not really going to be used much for that, I guess.
On the front face is of course that very reflective glass capacitive screen with a display underneath of 3.7" and resolution of 480 x 854 and 16M colours. There's an speaker for calls at the top and light sensors next to it. There are the 'usual' four capacitive control buttons on the front base for (left to right) Menu, Home, Back and Search. Maybe the wrong order, but unless you swap and change devices like we do, you'll get used to it quickly! Lastly, there's the 'hump' (bottom left) which houses the shutter and Gallery button on its top and 3 LEDs facing the front. They light up if you're using the camera, camcorder, media play function etc... I'm sure I'm alone here but I kind of like this hump - it makes it feel much more like a camera and guides the finger to the shutter button nicely. The only practical issue for the right-hander is that when holding in portrait mode the baby finger is on the shutter button, but it needs a long-press to invoke the camera, so not much danger.
Moto Additions

Although this is a Vanilla Android device, Motorola have overlaid some bits of its own interface and they're generally pleasing. There are five homescreens (which, with folder support is enough for anyone) with the (now) usual 'dots' at the base of the screen to tell you which one you're looking at, tappable to move across if you don't fancy 'swiping'. There's an array of widgets and wallpapers (including battery-eating Live ones), most of which won't be surprising to the Android fan but certainly fall short of the amount and diversity of HTC's SenseUI's offering. Static and at the base of each screen are three 'buttons' - Phone and Messaging flanking the standard Android 'sweep up to view' curtain full of your apps arranged alphabetically.
Nameable folders still (annoyingly) don't let you rearrange items inside them - they remain in the order that they've been added. The Notification Curtain at the top has no surprises either (except for Motorola's colour scheme).
Motorola have also added some of their own software - Audio Effects, which gives a useful 'equaliser' effects in the music app, FM Radio (which seems functional and even lets you carry on without headphones attached if you fancy taking your chances on reception), the pointless MotoNav, which won't work without the supplied MicroSD Card (so I guess there's data on the card) but we've looked at this before and it does cost money to use whilst Google Maps is, of course, free. There's also MySign which lets you assign a 'gesture' to an app which will let you quick-launch it - by the time you've done all that, you could have tapped the icon!
Phone Portal
Phone Portal looks a bit more interesting in that if you hook the XT720 up to your desktop browser by wifi (or USB cable), you can explore and edit what's on the phone (Nokia OviSuite style) with clickable links to graphics showing battery, signal and memory status. View and edit contacts and their calls/messages, compose SMS to send to them, view and play music files (just to be clear, they play on the phone, not on the computer!), add bookmarks, browsing history (click on a link to open the page in the desktop browser), change Ringtones and Notifications, view and edit photos (in a pop-out viewer) and more! I really was quite impressed with this 'remote control' app. Reminded me of Nokia's PCSuite but done well!
Signal Strength
I have a good house to test signal strength as I have one area where Vodafone dies but the rest of the house it's very strong. The WiFi is very strong - maybe not quite as good as the iPhone 3GS and iPad but not far off and the Vodafone connectivity is very strong, even in that 'dead zone'. I've tested this in use, too - so have ruled out 'bars' being badly reported on-screen. Very impressive particularly for a (mostly) metal unit. Maybe Motorola should lend some of their gear to HTC to put inside their Legend!
Vanilla Standards
All the messaging features are there as standard for Android 2.1 and you can expect the same experience across most of these Vanilla devices. The text input is Vanilla standard and works OK. There's voice search and dictation across the OS with its (not as slick and clever as iPhone) keyboard prediction and dictionary. The only outstanding addition to mention here is that Moto have added what they call Cursor Positioning, which is a clone of Apple's 'magnifying glass' to highlight text and reposition the cursor. Wonder how they got away with that? Maybe they're in court now! As with Apple's, it does work very well and compensates for not having a keyboard/and or trackball.
At the risk of heading off through all the Android 2.1 Google apps again, needless to say that they're all here and/or downloadable from the Market Place. Maps works well - pinch to zoom is present. Browser is the standard fayre - pinch to zoom but no double-tap to reflow blocks of content. Flash not present, nor does content switch out to YouTube, Apple style. BBC iPlayer doesn't work but does through the free myPlayer app via the Market Place (as long as they don't get shut down like others before).
Battery Life
Battery life next - well I've only had it since yesterday to be fair but it looks to me like most other units with big screens - charging every night and if used heavily, during the day too. I charged it when it arrived for 3hrs and it then saw me through 6hrs of heavy use. Charged again, more heavy use in the evening then didn't charge it during the night - 11hrs later it was down to 20% (yellow) including being on while I was asleep for 6hrs. Charged again this morning then more heavy battering and now, lunchtime, it's on 70%. So, as I say, I think it's average - maybe a bit better than average - so far, but certainly better than the HTC Desire and Nexus One. It seems happy to charge with any USB charging cable (unlike the Nexus One) but one thing I did notice is that it does take longer than the aforementioned to complete charging. I have not used the charger that came with it, just Nokia ones. There's also the fact to consider that this battery is a Lithium-Polymer, which, as we know from the Nokia BP-4L, seems to produce better results.
Camera

Of course, the big one here is the camera. 8MP of Moto goodness with Xenon flash! The first Android device with a Xenon on board and I'm quite impressed. I know that I don't have an eye particularly for good photo stuff and for that take a viewing of Steve's appraisal in Phones Show 118, but to this layman's eyes it's a significant step forward. I did read somewhere that the battery takes a big hit from its use, but it isn't going to be used that much by most people. And my demands are shallow - my camera is for snapshots and for uploading to forums online, not creating giant posters and works of art. Again, for a better appraisal of the video, take a look at Phones Show 118 where Steve demonstrates what it can do.
For my purposes, I'm more interested in where photos can be uploaded to direct from the camera app and what interesting effects can be had. Gone are the SLR days when I was worried about Exposure Compensation and Daylight Balance stuff. I want an auto-everything camera that performs well and gets the photo where I want it. So share settings include BlueTooth, FaceBook, Google Buzz, Google Mail, Messaging, Picasa and Twitter. More than enough for me. And straight from the Camera app, not Gallery.
As Steve said, the delay between pressing the shutter button and the shutter firing is very long and I hope that can be fixed in firmware at some point.
MultiMedia
Media is handled better by Android's Gallery app than Motorola's equivalent. It played pretty much all the video files I'm likely to throw at it and the screen clarity and resolution really is very nice. Music is handled by the Vanilla Android version, which is basic but functional.
RAM and Chip a Problem?
Whilst watching video and multi-tasking for this review I realised that I was not experiencing any 'lag' and began to wonder if the relatively small amount of RAM is really a problem after all. Looking at the unit's built-in Task Manager, most of the time there's about 50MB of RAM left for me to use. Right after booting there's about 80MB free (with my sync stuff kicking in too) so maybe that's manageable. I think often our Geek brains work in figures, not real life use - and the only time I notice any 'lag' was (much like other Android devices) when it gets switched on first and it's busy talking to the Google Servers. When you think about the amount of data that's flying around at that time, it's hardly surprising that it wants some peace and quiet! Anyway, time will tell if the RAM and chip do present a problem - or whether Motorola are able to 'unlock' a hidden bank of RAM inside (like the Nexus One) or up-clock the chip. I guess if they do that, the hit will be battery.
On Balance
At the end of the day, there are good reasons to go Android, as I said at the outset, but the most compelling reason to stick with the trusty Nokia N86 is that - yes you guessed it - it's a phone! It's phone shaped and behaves like a phone, not an Internet Tablet. You know what I'm going to say now - we need a Nokia handset running Android for the best of both worlds to live in the Google Cloud, not the ludicrous prospect of the Ovi one. Like many people reading this who have lasted this far into the review, I'm continually torn between the best of all the different platforms. Android, Symbian and Apple - of course I need to have one of each with me! We want convergence and can't get down the road far enough to make it a real probability.
Which device is my SIM Card in at the end of today? The Xenon flash is attractive, but not essential for me - I don't often take dark indoor pics, the lack of Flash support and non-phone-format of Internet tablets are annoying, the lack of my 2 'deal breaker' apps point me only in one direction, the functionality of a 'proper' phone pulls me back the other way. There's no answer - the nearest I get is trying hard to live with an Internet Tablet excuse for a phone - at least it's Android - but then picking up the N86!
As we move towards someone creating the perfect device, we realise that actually it's a pretty tall order. In the words of Del Boy Trotter, maybe next year.

Google Nexus One Car Dock: Guest Review by Stephen Lowe

2010-05-16T19:05:00.008+01:00

The Google Nexus One Car Dock comes packaged in a White Box which is almost identical to the packaging the phone itself arrived. Supplied is the Dock itself, a 12v car jack and a plastic disc to stick on your car's dashboard, should you not wish to put it on the windscreen.

It's of minimalist design as it locks into place by means of a twist of the base. The phone is held snugly in place in a very strong plastic holder.
The Dock itself is powered (so also keeps it charged) and the phone connects to it automatically via bluetooth. Once connected, the phone opens with the finger-friendly Car Dock Home app.

The dock seems to built well, sturdy and with a speaker grille in the back of the plastic holder. The speaker is fairly loud and clear in use - Google Maps directions can be heard very cleearly. The unit will also play podcasts (or any other media which is pushed from the phone) and can also be used for hands-free bluetooth telephone calls, though I have yet to test this feature.

Overall I'd say it is a very nice sturdy package. A bit expensive, but compared to other cheaper options I think it was worth the outlay. I'm looking forward to giving it a longer test run later this year.

Thanks Stephen. HTC Direct in the UK are selling this for £59.99. There's also an alternative available from Mobile Fun without so many bells and whistles but for much less cost.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

2010-05-02T14:07:00.002+01:00

I've had mixed feelings during my wait to get my hands on the X10. On one hand I remember being clearly underwhelmed with Sony Ericsson's last two offerings for different reasons, the Satio and Vivaz. On the other hand, this is SE adopting Android and from what we know about SE getting many aspects of design and (particularly) media functionality right, my hope was that teaming up with Android would push them over the edge and provide us with, at last, a SuperDevice!

Out of the box, the X10 certainly looks the part. The 4" screen is gorgeous, the curves are pleasing to the hand and build quality overall can't be complained about. The look and feel of the back cover is very classy indeed. Even the choice of plastics used inside the back cover are solid. There's a chrome 'ring' circling the device which, alongside other chrome buttons, provides the device with a really class design.

There's a volume rocker on the right and a camera shutter button (woohoo again!).
On the front there are three hardware buttons under the screen - Menu, Home and Back. A diversion from the usual Android offering with the global 'Search' key being missing. There's an 8MP camera on the back with an LED 'light' which we'll come to soon. On the left there's a speaker - a very tinny and small speaker which is not the kind of standard we've come to expect from Sony (Ericsson). On top there's a 3.5mm earphone port, Power button and MicroUSB charging port - Under a silly flap. Grrrr.

So let's switch on and gawk at the lovely bright screen - Oh, hold on - we can't as the default screen brightness position is set to Auto and Auto is so dim I can hardly get through the SetUp in order to get to the Screen Brightness setting to switch the stupid Auto setting off! One for changing in firmware I think! On powering on there are two bright LEDs in the gaps between the three hardware buttons below the screen which could be off putting in dim conditions. So on with the SetUp then. Unlike the Google and HTC hardware out there running Android, SE have decided to force you to set up stuff one-by-one, menu style, rather than being led through a wizard and to get it all done. On one hand I guess this gives the user greater control if they want to ignore a certain aspect but the other way is certainly more idiot-proof. Maybe that says something about where SE are pitching this unit!

I'm not sure why SE phones don't know what network you're using and what kind of contract you have - they always seem to ask that first, where most other manufacturers just know. Anyway, no big deal I guess. Setting up with Google seems simple - when selected, you're taken out to the standard Android SetUp screen wizard and away it goes. This is the first time I've seen the onscreen keyboard. The keys are smaller on this that with Android or HTC Sense - more like an iPhone layout with larger gaps between the keys. My most recent experience is extended use of the Google Nexus One. This one, after a bit more testing is fiddly and 'correcting' text is a phaff without some kind of 'rollerball' (though I do accept there are two - very small - 'left and right' cursors - Nokia style - on the keyboard. The N1 keeps freezing and becoming inaccurate over time and forces reboots to 'fix' it. I have much more confidence in this one so far. FaceBook and Twitter signed in and signed up quickly and easily. And then there's Picasa offered. For me, that sounds great as a Google Junkie, but what exactly is the X10 going to do with that information and link-up? It's not like Picasa is a Social Network, as such. No doubt I'll find out later. That's it now for the sign-ups. Interestingly, it didn't offer me a SetUp with my WiFi Router, which the others normally do - so that all that initial sync'ing can be done as quickly as possible.

So now we're done and are presented with the SE homescreen with it's graduated blue theme. Very nice. Now I can get to the pesky Brightness setting and start to be able to see the screen properly! WOW! What a difference and a glorious bright screen. Checking GMail - all present and correct. Checking Google Calendar data - only my 'default' Google Calendar present. Into Settings and tell it that I want all my Calendars and in the pop. Phew. Checking Google Contacts - No Contacts in Phone Book. Mmmm. So into Settings > Synchronise data >Google sync tick everything and it eventually sync's up. This is going to catch out so many people - Joe Public can't be expected to jump through hoops to make things work in 2010 - especially when the competition just 'wizard' you through it and it all just works. I don't see any information from FaceBook in Phone Book. The only photos that turn up next to entries are the ones which have been specifically added to Google Contacts. HTC Sense at this point goes and collects all this data (photos/last entry) and adds it to the person's entry in Phone Book/People/Contacts. I guess the data collection is done just to feed the SE TimeScape and nothing else.

Which brings us nicely onto the two front-end presentations, TimeScape and MediaScape. TimeScape is pretty much a phone usage log with Tweets and FaceBook entries added into the mix. So TimeScape keeps a record of the stuff you do with your phone (photos, videos, music, email - if you set up a non-GMail account - SMS, MMS, phone calls) and presents them to you on a scrolling virtual 'wheel' which can be 'spun' nice and easily and stopped at will to review or revisit something you've used the X10 for. Tweets and FaceBook activity can be interspersed into this 'wheel' and the frequency of checking for updates set by the user. This being a plus over other systems which give you no control and make up their own mind as to when and how often they check. At least the SE way affords the user some control over battery and data use. All this is customisable in Settings so you can choose what's shown on the 'wheel' and what's not. Seems completely bizarre however, that GMail should have been not included as an option?!

MediaScape next and now discovery of what the Picasa integration at SetUp was about. Photos in MediaScape asks for (more) permission to talk to Picasa and sure enough creates replication of Web Albums right there inside the software. Quick and nice. MediaScape is really just a file manager for music, video and photos with some fancy graphics dancing you about the interface and integration with Picasa and photos from FaceBook. It's nicely implemented but apart from the fancy graphics is fairly simple. What sets it apart from other devices is, of course, the gorgeous 4" 480 x 854 pixel screen. Capacitive touchscreen capable of 16million colours (released once out of Donut). It's really very very bright and lovely to look at.

Onto the Camera and yes, it has a proper camera shutter button - like most SE CameraPhones. Lots and lots of options for shooting photos - except one! Yes, you knew it - it doesn't have a flash! How ludicrous is that? Surely even if SE consider this a video-centric device they must realise how much more usable the camera will be with a flash for stills. Yes, you can turn on the 'video' LED but it doesn't flash - it just stays on. Very silly. And I guess very fixable in firmware, though they haven't yet bothered to do so for the previous model, the Vivaz so maybe they just won't. Shame. However, having said all that, I can't remember the last time I used a CameraPhone flash - I seem to go out of my way not to as I know they're generally such rubbish and produce poor results. So perhaps some will agree with the decision. Other settings include Image stabiliser, Smile Detection, Metering, White balance etc... Plenty to play with.

When all the above is considered and worked through, what's left is pure Android. It's running Donut 1.6 (with the widespread and oft-quoted upgrade 'pending' across many devices to 2.1 but never being delivered) and has the 'standard' Android 3-screen home pages. It has a 1GHz SnapDragon processor with 384MB RAM so should zip along. The only 'lag' I noticed was when first firing up and running TimeScape - the initial 'flicks' of the 'wheel' would sometimes not keep up with me, but they soon settle. 1500mAh battery, so that should be adequate (at least to get through an average day).

Now here's a thing - of course the Nexus One is the only Android device to have Voice Recognition across the OS with built-in 'microphone' into every onscreen keyboard? Well apparently not as this can be added. I did this by means of the app Smart Keyboard Pro. Once installed it provides the 'microphone' in just the same way and seems to function just the same as the Google one on the Nexus. Amazing discovery by me? Or was I just the last person to realise?!

I've checked MarketPlace and added various apps that I've bought and some which are free. It seems that the Google Servers have offered out information to the X10 about apps attached to my Google account in the same way other 'vanilla' Android devices expect. I did wonder if it would as other recent devices - namely HTC devices with SenseUI onboard - seem to have had limited 'rights' to collect that data from Google.
So there are my general thought on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. By hooking up with Android, SE have, for the first time, made a really usable and attractive package as a SmartPhone. Gone are the days of compromise where the positive performance aspects of SE hardware have been undermined by them bolting it on over the top of an OS that it can't integrate properly (or at least live with). Symbian didn't work properly with it. Windows Mobile didn't work properly with it. Yet with Android - you could easily ignore all the additional front-end software if you fancy and still have a fast all-singing-all-dancing SmartPhone with an underlying confidence that it doesn't matter and the Google tools and 3rd party apps will still give you scope to really enjoy the experience. If you fancy using the bolt-on software, however, doing so won't mess up what's going on behind the scenes where the real work/play is going on - it just adds an interesting control panel.

If I had to use this device as my only one I'd be very happy indeed - but for 3 things. No camera flash, lousy built-in speaker and, as usual for me - it ain't a 'phone' form factor which can be whipped out one-handed in a pub to fire off a quick SMS. But my rant on that one will be ongoing until somebody out there realises the 'gap' and produces not only a small 'candy bar' or slider with a hardware keyboard but also one which runs Android and with a quick flip-out of SIM Card, users can swap hardware and know everything's up to date. Four inch slabs for surfing the web and reading, two inch candybar for phone calls and SMS. But that's my rant to be continued again!

Mobile Holder (Tripod) Review

2010-04-24T21:21:00.011+01:00

Those nice people at Mobile Fun have sent over another useful gadget for review. This time it's the tripod which will grip a firm hold on your mobile phone for family self-snaps or videos. I needed one of these when I was (very badly) recording a video for Phones Show 108 but didn't have one so ended up propping up my Nokia N86 on a beanbag on a chair! And it kept moving. And between 'takes' I had to try and press the buttons on the camera and return the camera to the same position. Grrr. In the end I gave up and used the (rather good) webcam built into my Dell Studio 1735 laptop, but how much easier it would have been with one of these!

So as you can see from the picture, it's a tripod with a kind of 'claw' which grips hold of whatever is put into it - within reason. The width can be adjusted by a simple 'pull out' mechanism horizontally (using a Nokia E90 came to mind as a phone which might need this) and the height can be adjusted by a strongly sprung-loaded top 'claw'. Nothing much is going to move once gripped in there! It has a traditional rotating 'ball in socket' affair with an easy-screw to tighten it into position and three legs which fold inwards for easy storage or transport in a small bag. The legs also 'telescope' out to nearly double their length, which might come in handy as doing so doesn't seem to make the unit any less stable. The feet on the end of the legs are made from shiny plastic - they would certainly have benefited from being rubber for a better grip on surfaces.

So I had an array of phones to try in the claw and couldn't find one that I could not get in! The closest I came to failure was the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, so I guess if that goes in, most will. Well, maybe not an HTC HD2 with its 4" screen?

It's a sturdy little contraption with really nothing much to complain about, particularly given its price-point and I guess it should be standard kit for anyone who's likely to want to be 'in the frame' without lots of improvisation and hassle! If you were going to be really picky, I guess you could say it could have been made of more sturdy materials but then it wouldn't cost what it does.

See also Steve Litchfield's Review for All About Symbian and David Gilson's view too.

Highly recommended from Mobile Fun. The Mobile Phone Tripod Holder for under fifteen quid! And don't forget to check out their range of mobile accessories.

Desk Wizard Review

2010-04-17T13:29:00.007+01:00

Here it is then - the Desk Wizard (funny, I thought it was called a DeskGenie?!) kindly supplied for review by Mobile Fun. It's a strange hybrid of a device which is essentially a Desk Stand for a range of mobile phones which uses a combination of smart angles, gravity and a 'sticky' pad to prop them up on your desk. But that's not all! It also functions as a multi-MemoryCard reader, has two of its own USB ports and by means of two cables, a phone charger and data transfer device. All in one!

So first things first - does it hold my phone up? Well, I have a small range of devices to try so we'll put it through its paces. The Google Nexus One (130g) fails - slips down and off in portrait mode, though as long as you keep the camera lens on the back away from the pad, it will hold in Landscape (just) - which I guess is very good for movie watching (though why you'd want to watch a move on a tiny screen when you could be watching it on the big screen next to it on a desk is beyond me; Nokia N900 (181g) sticks like a dream in both orientations even though the camera housing sticks out considerably; Nokia N97mini (138g) - perfect in both again - even with the keyboard opened up (though again, not sure why you'd want to!); Nokia N86 (149g) just about holds in Portrait, but is not too happy in Landscape and slides down a little; HTC Tattoo (113g) - perfect both ways; Nokia X6 (122g) - perfect both ways; Nokia 5800XM (109g) is also perfect both ways; Nokia E90 (210g) perfect both ways - and even more secure with the keyboard open, flat against the device sideways; Apple iPhone 3GS (135g) - perfect both ways; iPod Touch (120g) is perfect both ways; iPod 120GB Classic (140g) perfect both ways. In actual fact, the Apple products 'stick' the best. When they're pulled away from the device, they bring the whole thing with them. It must be something to do with the all-metal shiny back.

I began to think that failure was a weight issue, but on checking the facts, there's no logic at all. The two heaviest units stick the best and the two which stick the worst are mid-weight in this group. So it must be the materials then - certainly the metal-backed units stick the best, no question at all, but this doesn't account for the N900's good performance being heavy and plastic. The Nexus One's back only has a small strip of metal across the middle of the back and most of the rest is 'slippery' plastic whilst the N900, though all plastic, does have a certain 'texture' to it. So, inconclusive is my conclusion!

The clear findings are, that if your device has a metal back it'll stick well, regardless of weight. If it's a light device it'll stick (unless it's particularly 'slippery' in texture) but if it's mid-weight and plastic, it'll definitely depend on the 'feel/texture' of the plastic used.

So on to the USB function. The idea is that you plug the Desk Wizard into a USB port on your computer with the supplied cable, then by using another supplied cable you attach one of a whole bunch of adapters for different phones to it and the other end into your phone's charging/data socket - assuming they have a joint data/charge port. Where a device has a different charging socket to its data connection socket, you won't be able to do both at the same time. A good example being the Nokia 5800XM which has a MicroUSB socket for data and a 'standard' Nokia 2.5mm socket for charging. It all works well though and if you can live with a cable protruding from the top/bottom of your device it's going to get you hooked up and charged.

As I mentioned, nice 'extras' are the two USB ports on one side (turning your computer's one port into two) and on the other, lots of slots for Memory Cards to be poked into, the Windows PC 'seeing' the reader as just another Mass Drive.

If your particular phone is held aloft by this clever device, it's certainly innovative and a good desktop solution to get your device facing you and charging/data exchanging when you're working, with some handy extras via USB into the bargain. And a bargain it is I think from Mobile Fun - head on over and check out the £14.99 Desk Wizard/Genie and also their other iPhone Accessories.

Google Nexus One - Silicone Cover

2010-04-12T12:36:00.011+01:00

Here's a quick one for you on the Amazon Silicone Nexus One Cover available (in the UK at least) from Amazon for £2.99! I'm not a big fan of covers and cases - I'd rather have a device usable 'as intended' but in actual fact, this one enhances what is already a 'slippery' phone and it's been very well made indeed.

Sometimes you find that various covers like this made 'on the cheap' are badly fitting with holes that don't line up properly and (particularly where the whole 'face' of the device is left uncovered) 'sloppy' fitting sides which easily pull off in a pocket. But this is different. The cut-outs right round the device for camera, speaker, microphones, are lined up to perfection - even the slim one at front top for the earpiece speaker - and it has just the right amount of 'grip' on the phone sides. The volume rocker and power buttons remain under the silicone, but that works just fine - just press through and it works very efficiently.

Furthermore, it now makes the device much less likely to hurtle to the floor as grip is better. For some reason, it also works much better in one-handed use. Well, certainly in my big mitts! I find that scrolling around and selection of buttons is somehow just easier. I guess people with smaller hands may not feel the same as this obviously makes a fairly big device slightly bigger, but it works well for me! And for £2.99! Recommended bargain!

Modding or Installing?

2010-04-05T13:24:00.008+01:00

It's all about Open Source these days - 'modding', JailBreaking and Rooting phones. Well, so fed up was I waiting for HTC to release the 2.1 Eclair version of Android for my trusty Hero that I decided to consider for a moment what it was about the Hero - what features - that would make a real difference to me if they were ported to the Nexus One. There's battery life of course (much better on the Hero, but of course there's no guarantee that this will be true post 2.1), there's it's 'sweet spot' size for using as a 'phone' as well as data manager/media deliverer, there's hardware 'call' and 'end' buttons, there's 7 homescreens (though actually I think the Nexus' 5 is plenty enough for me), Flash in the browser and most importantly and annoyingly for me is the lack of T9 and (what I consider to be) the 'clever' text input options of the HTC SeneUI Touch keyboard options.

In reality, I can't do a lot about some items on my list but there's a couple that I can, and this is where I dipped my toe into the pond of 'modding' for the first time. Is it really 'modding' though, in the sense that you might add a spoiler to your 1976 Ford Capri? Or is it what we've been doing for years (decades!) with Symbian/Epoc and Psion/Nokia devices (and others) - that being to access the OS to add software/features/functions? How does that qualify as 'modding' I wonder? Wiki reports
"Modding refers to the act of modifying a piece of hardware or software or anything else for that matter, to perform a function not originally conceived or intended by the designer. The term modding is often used within the computer game community, particularly in regard to creating new or altered content and sharing that via the web. It may also be applied to the overclocking of computers in order to increase the frequency at the which the CPU operates. In connection with cars, modding often refers to engine tuning, remapping of a vehicle's engine control unit or customization of the bodywork."

So I guess that by this definition, adding any software that the designer didn't intend qualifies as 'modding' and because designers intended apps to be installed via a certain route (app stores etc) these routes are excluded from 'modding'. Anyway, I just thought I'd think it through as I'd not considered it before!

On to my bit of Modding, which was to add the HTC SenseUI Touch Keyboard. I was amazed how easy it was and didn't need the device to be 'rooted'. It was just like installing a .SIS file to a Symbian device. Instructions of how to do it are littered around the web but I followed these. The installation file I downloaded and installed I found here after some research as the one suggested and linked to in the article didn't work - it kept 'force closing' on me.

So good luck to one and all. I can report that it's made a huge difference to the way I can use the Nexus One (particularly whilst out and about for quick SMS one handed). And for those of you who shout that actually there are alternatives in the MarketPlace which do a similar job, I'd just say that I've tried these and none come close to the functionality and clever implementation that sit in the Hero.

One last point, the guy who provided the instructions linked to above and his photo show the 'cog/tools' button to the left of the 'comma' with a Microphone and Cog on it. I guess this must be a further development of the software as mine does not show this and in order to access the voice function, I need to switch back to the Nexus keyboard. I'll keep looking out for this and report back but if anyone has a link to that, please let me know. But in any case, if I had to live with that caveat, I'd do so for the brilliant benefit of having the SenseUI keyboard.

Jabra BT3030 BlueTooth Stereo Headset & Dongle

2010-04-03T19:31:00.008+01:00

Thanks to Mobile Fun for supplying The Phones Show and Phones Show Chat with a review unit of the Jabra BT3030. It's a dongle that hangs around the neck on a supplied chain (or clipped to clothing with the supplied clothing clip), pairs up with a BlueTooth enabled mobile phone (or music player) and has a 3.5mm standard headphone socket for your choice of headphones to be plugged in. It has a microphone on its top side so that phone calls can be taken and is surrounded in robust rubber which seems highly likely to protect the unit during all but the highest of falls to the ground. It has a slightly retro MiniUSB connector for charging - the world is turning Micro these days - but I still have enough devices around the house using this standard to ensure that it's not an issue.

It has a 'aluminium' looking frontage where the play/pause, forward/back, volume and 'phone' buttons are housed - the frontage being in reality one 'plate' of silver coloured plastic with 'cutouts' so that buttons can be pressed independently. This is common across the phone world of course where the 'sensors' lay beneath the 'plate' so it doesn't actually matter that it's one 'plate' and not separate buttons.

The unit comes with a pair of earphones which, to be honest I didn't take out to test but I'm assuming they're not very good as most of these aren't. I'm sure they're perfectly usable and functional for their intended purpose. One of the reasons I didn't take them out is that they're actually earphones on 'stalks' joined at the bottom reminding me of a doctor's stethoscope in design. Mmmm.

So, on to performance. When I plugged in the device to the power, the unit's 'badge' at the bottom of the 'plate' started flashing red then immediately changed to flashing green. I thought that I could probably work out what all this meant but checked with the book anyway. Guess what? Nowhere in the book does it tell you what the different flashing sequences mean! Well, at least I couldn't find it - unless it's in Turkish only?! Fortunately it was indeed obvious and flashing green means charging and steady green means charged - about 2 hours - then the green turns through shades of red/green until it runs out of juice. And here's the peach - it lasted almost 10 hours!! That's a cracking performance - tested here as a continuous playback including the fielding of two 15 minute phone calls. Very very good performance in that respect.

The sound quality when playing music is very good - almost as good as the Nokia BH-214 - but it falls behind slightly when using for phone calls. Not only only does the set produce a diminished sound quality for voice but it also introduces a significant delay on the audio which is not present (at least not to anything like the same degree) with the Nokia. I tested the unit with the Google Nexus One, Nokia N900 and Nokia N97mini and all three returned full appropriate control results - music stopped and played, forward and back tracks and volume. When receiving a call the unit halts music and patches the call through. With a press of the 'phone' button connection is established and on hangup music recommences as expected.

So that's about it really - it's a really nice solidly built unit with reassuring 'rubber' surround for protection. The chain is a little short for me to focus on the unit in front of me, but I guess that's my ageing eyes. Or large neck! If I had to choose one or the other, I'd go for the Nokia. I think it out-performs the Jabra, but not by much. I prefer the 'modern' styling of the Nokia unit over the almost 'retro' solid styling of the Jabra. But either one is fully recommended if you're in the market for a BlueTooth dongle. You can click Jabra BT3030 or Nokia BH-214 for links to the Mobile Fun pages where they can both be bought for around £40. If you fancy looking at the broader range, they're here... Bluetooth Headphones.

Nokia BH-214 & BH-604 - BlueTooth Battle

2010-03-22T15:25:00.005Z

Here was a journey of discovery for me - I've never really taken BlueTooth very seriously before. I'm the kind of bloke who thinks he would just look like a prize plonker walking round the local supermarket with a piece of plastic protruding from his ear - the same bloke who wants to give other doing it the same message. But refrains! I work just 5 miles from home and don't really travel with my job much, so don't need a car hands-free set up. I've always thought that BlueTooth is for other people, not me.

The Nokia X6 came with a BlueTooth dongle thingie - called a BH-214. It was free in the box and I see that it's worth about £40, so not to be sniffed at. In fact, more likely to be tested! I also had a pair of Nokia BH-604 headphones sitting in a drawer. I bought these a couple of years ago (for about £65) thinking they would change my life, but of course they didn't! In fact they had to be returned to Nokia for repair once as they wouldn't charge after a couple of cycles. Anyway, they're fine now so I had the grounds for not only a bit of testing but also comparison. Incidentally, the BH-604 seems to be a bit difficult to buy now, as Nokia are trying to push smaller units or the outrageously priced BH-905, but where sold seem to be anything from £50 - £100.

I used the Nokia N97mini as it was to hand, the Nokia N900 (as someone on Twitter had requested its inclusion) and the Google Nexus One. I was going to test on sound quality and volume (if you can trust my wonky ears!), playback time, continuity of connection, connecton range and 'functions' integration. Let's not forget that these are both Nokia units, so I guess the dice were loaded to some degree. I was using the same 16GB MicroSD Card stuffed with 2000 tracks of music on each unit for the test.

So, I started with the BH-214. It's a dinky little 'futuristic' looking unit which has a very strong clip on the back for attaching to shirts and ties, a big 4-way toggle button on it's front face (skip forward and back, play/pause and Phone), power button, LED and microphone hole on the top and holes for 'standard' 2.5mm charger and 3.5mm headphones of your choice. On the last face are the volume up and down nipples. I chose to use the 'standard' earphones which came with the Apple iPod for this exercise.

So first with the N97mini. Bluetooth hooked up easily (long press on BH-214's power button) and away we went. The quality and volume of sound were terrific using the N97mini - when using the volume keys on the phone and BH-214 in tandem, the sound was quite comfortable. Using the various settings in the Equaliser worked well and made a real difference each time. All the buttons on the unit work flawlessly and on test calls made during playback music pauses and plays as it should around the call. In my average house, the range is about 20 feet before it starts cutting out. The battery lasted around 6-7hrs, which is just what the spec sheet claims.

So onto the Nokia N900 using the BH-214. Volume keys work fine, skipping buttons fine but I can't seem to make the pause/play button work, though I did have some (more) OS 'lag' problems with the N900 which may have accounted for this at least partially. On 2nd 'pairing' it seemed batter. Answering calls using the Phone button is fine and the N900 returns to playing where it left off afterwards. The quality and volume of sound is as about the same as the N97mini and range is about 20 feet too.

And on to the Google Nexus One. I didn't have great hopes but was very pleasantly surprised. I'd not even turned the BlueTooth on before with this phone! Switching on was easy and hookup and pairing simple. Track forward and back work fine as does volume. Even the play/pause button works. Incoming calls can be answered and music jumped back to after hang up. Range is about the same - 20 feet. I really am very impressed that all this Nokia electronics work perfectly with a device from another manufacturer running a different OS. Not sure whether to praise Nokia for their forward thinking and openness, HTC and Google for making the stuff 'just work' or the boffins who designed BlueTooth to have completely inclusive protocols.

So now a jump back in time (well a couple of years!) to the Nokia BH-604 headphones. A different beast - being ear-encasing units of course, so maybe I should have been sharp enough not to be surprised by what I was about to discover. The test was pretty much the same - not too technical but based on what I found and my subjectivity about the quality. I was pleased to find that having not charged the BH-604 set for the best part of a year I'd guess, they charged up good as gold and paired up with all the three units first time.

I thought the reproduction with the BH-214 was pretty good and very pleasant to listen to on all these units and if I'd heard no more, would have been happy with it - especially when the N97mini's Bass Booster was invoked. So my discovery was of course that the BH-604 headphones are, in fact, in a different league and provide for a much more 'bassy' rounded sound - even more pleasant to the ear. Volume had to be reduced and monitored in the process for fear of blowing my (already damaged) ears. I really was blown away by the difference and wasn't expecting it at all. Imagine how surprised I'd be with a serious pair of headphones!

The N97mini performed much as with the BH-214 unit but with much richer booming bases and a more full and enjoyable sound, as I said, and the BlueTooth range had grown to about 30 feet before cut-out. The N900 was the same - all functions working perfectly and 30 feet of range. The Nexus One again had all functions working and range the same 30 feet.

So I'm generally very impressed all round, particularly with the HTC integration. For all Nokia have taken stick lately for wallowing in the wake of iPhone and Android, there are some things in which they remain ahead of the pack. This one being music reproduction, another being cameras-on-phones. If I had to choose which equipment to use for headphone use I'd go for Nokia N97mini and BH-604 headphones. If I was wandering round the house listening to an audio podcast, the BH-214 unit would come in more handy clipped to a shirt rather than headset on head. However, you still won't catch me wandering round the supermarket with any of this gear on, looking the buffoon!

Bonus Test... As I was in testing mode and I had the iPod Touch to hand, I thought I'd see how that coped. Bluetooth was in General Settings but less helpfully, shuffle and repeat controls are not in the Music player but in Settings>Music. Equaliser doesn't seem to make much difference, though there are lots of options. Much the same results with sound - much better with the full-ear phones. Volume control works, pause/play button works, Phone doesn't - obviously! But less obviously the skip up and down buttons don't work either, on either unit.

Proporta Nexus One 'flip' Case

2010-03-21T12:20:00.006Z

The good folk at Proporta have kindly sent over a case for us to look at on The Phones Show and Phones Show Chat for the HTC made Google Nexus One. It's an Aluminium lined leather case which 'flips' bottom to top when it's 'popper' clasp is pulled open. It has a very nice finish, being black leather and the contrasting white inner front (where the aluminium is housed) makes for a smart and classy look. I've no reason to think that the claim of 'tough screen protection' won't be true - it certainly feels firm.

Nice touch in the packaging that the back and front of the box it comes in are held together with a magnet and although I'm not quite sure why (except for more 'class') it certainly beats the usual 'sealed' plastic housing which you need a pair of scissors to get off at best, but usually a Stanley knife. And then have the plasters on stand-by!

The 'popper' on the front clasp is a magnetic one. Interesting point that, as I recently looked at an iPhone case which had physical 'poppers' which needed to be pressed in firmly until they 'clicked' into position and right behind the 'press site' was the screen! In the old days they always used to say that magnets shouldn't be placed near electronic equipment but I guess those days must have gone if these cases have been tested.

On the back, there's cut-outs for the speaker, camera and flash, which seem to line up ok and on top another for the headphone socket. When we open it up we discover that actually this has a very simple slide-in arrangement for the phone with one plastic 'grip' on each side and one at the bottom (offset left so as to leave the MicroSD port available). The plastic seems thick and sturdy and I don't get the impression that it's going to fall out anytime soon - but maybe in the longer term...

There's a couple of problems here in that it doesn't take too much pressure on the top of the phone to push it down and up and over the bottom support. More worrying is the fact that the phone, when in place, can be 'twisted' left and right quite easily. This not only gives me the feeling that in time it'll get worse, becoming more slippy-slidy, but more importantly this then can offset the cut-outs on the back and obscure the camera/flash with leather. Not good. There's no reason why there couldn't be two plastic 'grips' each side instead of one and two at the bottom, one each side of the MicroSD port. This would effectively eliminate any movement from side to side and make things feel much more secure.

I have to admit that I've never liked 'flip up and over' cases (in fact I think the Apple 'Sock' is generally the simplest and best solution to be honest) but I have to admit that this has a real classy feel, it's nicely made of leather and if you do like this genre of case, it's not bad at all. With a little attention to the plastic 'grips' holding the phone in place, it would be a cracker.

Proporta sell this one on their website for £29.95 (but I can't help thinking that 'Union Jack' case next to it is much more fun!).

Plenty more photos from all angles here.

HTC Tattoo - Android for The Masses

2010-03-13T10:06:00.007Z

Coming from 100 years of Nokia devices with QVGA non-touch screens, I was interested to see if, in the Apple & Android New Age, it was really possible for these touch-screen capacitive giants' OS's to be usable in the kind of shell and physicality previously reserved for our long-suffering friends from Finland.

My first impression on opening the package was 'what a cute box'. My first impression on opening the box was 'what a cute phone'. I could see this phone in the pocket of every teenager in the land. It's small, cutesy, elegant and the build quality really doesn't seem bad at all. Don't get me wrong - this is no Nokia E90, but it certainly defies it's price tag of (currently, but dropping) £179 SIM Free by some margin. Taking it on a contract, it should be at least free, if not earn you some cash into the bargain!

The Tattoo gains its name by being (physically) 'skinnable' in the same way as the Nokia 'fashion phones' were in the mid-noughties with xPress-On. A visit to TattooMyHTC demonstrates that there are plenty of choices available which makes this device as accessible to the businessperson looking for a small but well connected device as the teenager wanting a colourful looking phone to make a statement about their personality. I don't have a skin to try this but it looks like it's fairly straight forward.

There's a slightly retrograde (how fast we move) MiniUSB socket for charging and Data exchange at the base (much like the HTC Hero), 3.5mm standard headphone socket on top (the right place for pocket use!) and lanyard hole, small speaker on the back and ear speaker on the front. The volume rocker on the left is actually a part of the skin, which might be a bit of a worry - relying (particularly) on 3rd party skin makers to use enough precision in manufacture to ensure that this rocker actually hits the underlying controls properly. On the supplied skin of course it does. There's a 3.2MP camera on the back which won't win any awards, but as I've said before many times, cameras in phones are for snapshots, being 'always with you' - not for artistic expression (particularly) and yes, it would have been better with a flash but the cost has to 'give' somewhere. Needless to say, with an HTC Android handset, you don't get a proper 'shutter' button - it's screen-taps to fire the camera again here.

The array of buttons next. I actually think the bigger circular 'D-Pad' (O-Pad?!) works as well as, if not better than the 'rollerball' of the Hero (and others). By having a 'clickable' directional pad it certainly makes for more accurate screen selection in amongst text fields. There are two 'rockers' - one with Home and Menu, the other with Back and Search. These work well and feel well made. Call me old fashioned, but I like having the physical Call and End buttons, missing from the Google Nexus One.

And so to the most controversial part - the 2.8" resistive QVGA touch-screen. Is it usable? Does it work like it's 'proper' capacitive uncles? Well, on first impressions I think it does! To put this into perspective, it's the same size screen as the Nokia N96 and N95 8GB. It's technically the same resolution too with 240 x 320 pixels. Take a really close look at the screen and you'll see the pixels. Take a really close look at the Hero and you'll see the pixels. But of course it's smoother and the pixels don't look as big, but this really is taking things out of perspective - the Hero's screen is bigger. I've run a few apps and loaded up various different photos on the Tattoo and for the size of the screen, I really think the resolution is acceptable. We'll talk about battery life later and this screen will certainly go some way to helping preserve that. Click on the photo above which though not a great photo, will demonstrate the differences between the screens of the Nexus One, Hero and Tattoo.

In real world use, the resistive screen works well. For the most part it's not a frustration - and in some cases (like accurate screen taps) it's better than capacitive. After a very short while you're used to it and forget, but actually, when you pick up and use a capacitive screen again you do realise that the experience with the latter is much smoother and more enjoyable. But I wouldn't let that get in the way, personally. I think the screen is absolutely usable and no problem at all. As for text input, that's another story. HTC have skinned the device with their SenseUI, which is absolutely fine - it gives you all the lovely benefits of 7 home screens and much more text-input options than the 'vanilla' Android devices do, along with loads of HTC widgets and extra options - but the Portrait QWERTY keyboard really needs a stylus to use (certainly with my fingers) accurately. I was making mistake after mistake. Why didn't they 'holster' a stylus? There's a quick workaround though - set the Portrait text input to T9 (which is the best for SMS'ing anyway) then when you rotate the screen to landscape up pops a much bigger and very usable QWERTY keyboard. Whatever is typed in there is retained for when you change back to Portrait and carry on.

The web browser intelligently 'reworks' blocks of content (like the Hero) and scrolling works well enough - not quite as slick as capacitive, but it's fine - and you can use a stylus if you like! Sometimes I think it's refreshing to be able to accurately use a fingernail instead of the whole pad of a finger. My test BBC News video seemed to stream ok, though it's a bit blocky. Certainly watchable though. Visiting YouTube in the Browser works fine and the on board YouTube app works even better. Plenty of boxes ticked all round - again, considering the price-point of this device, the functionality and features are just stunning.

The biggest problem with the screen is actually the apps that have been written for it. I read about this problem elsewhere on the web yesterday and it certainly seems to be true - there's an extra hoop that developers need to have jumped through to make their apps work on a QVGA screen and many have not done so. My favourite Android app of all is SMS Backup and that just does't appear in the MarketPlace on the Tattoo. (Fortunately, in this case, there are alternatives - like G-Backup, though not free.) My favourite Twitter app Touiteur is working fine. My favourite Podcast Manager app - DoggCatcher (which I've paid for) is not working, which is a shame, but other options are there, like Google's own Listen. The main Google apps are all working of course. The Tattoo is running Android 1.6 (Donut) with a promise of a hike to 2.1 (Eclair) 'sometime soon' from HTC. This means that some stuff doesn't work, though I notice the sketchily working Buzz in Maps on the Hero's 1.5 (CupCake) certainly seems to be working fine in 1.6 (Donut). Incidentally, the A-GPS picked up my position inside the house, downstairs in a two storey building within seconds. The brilliant Google Translate seems to be present and correct (though some libraries and data need downloading - you're led through it - which are not needed in 2.1 on the Nexus One (see Phones Show Chat 29 for an appraisal of this app). So, I'm still exploring - but don't be surprised if some stuff you expect to be in the MarketPlace (even if you've paid for it) is not there (yet?). Maybe we should be badgering developers to tick the box.

HTC's Music Player performs as well as the Hero's. The speaker is a little tinny and unfortunately Album Art Grabber is one of the apps I've paid for but can't get. A fair chunk of Album Art has made it into place though and the longer it's left on, the more seems to arrive. I guess this must be an iTunes thing with embedded artwork. I have now emailed the developer of Album Art Grabber to ask if s/he's going to sort it out. My video iTunes .m4v DRM-free acid test failed, I'm afraid - the Tattoo won't play them. But it seems comfortable enough with 'ordinary' .mp4, if a little jerky during an initial 'settling' period. My test .3gp file worked ok but .flv won't, nor .avi or .mov. We know that video codecs are a bit of a nightmare to understand as there are so many standards and I'm far from any sort of expert, but I guess the day will come when we can just play any file on any device - field being led by the Nokia N900 here, me thinks!

There's 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM on board, which really is ample for any use in my experience with the Hero as well. It has a 528mHz processor which, again, like the Hero is just fine - you have to be really demanding to actually need and make use of the SnapDragon 1gHz chip. The battery is rated at 1100mAh, which so far I think produces a super return. When it arrived it had half a charge and still has half a charge (I'm only 5 hours in, of course, so will report back again on this - but I am giving it some hammer!) under the same conditions that the Hero excels with, with it's 1350 (driving that bigger capacitive screen). EDIT: Update: Just moved into the 'yellow' 5 hours in (see photo) but don't forget that this was only half charged when it arrived.)

As always with Android, setup is easy-peasy - just enter your GMail account credentials, FaceBook, Twitter and FlickR (if you want to) and away you go. GMail, Contacts and Calendar populated, HTC's Peep Twitter client set up and FaceBook linked up with Contacts (called People, as we know).

There are some subtle changes with this version of HTC SenseUI over the Hero's version - one of them being that the GMail notification in the Notification bar at the top of the homescreen is now an '@' symbol instead of the traditional GMail envelope icon. There's no 'auto-brightness' setting - presumably because there's no sensor on the front. Sometimes it's difficult to know if stuff that's been added or removed is a part of HTC's SenseUI's implementation or as a result of a move from Android 1.5 to 1.6.

In summary, for now at least, I'd say it's a delightful little device. With Android devices talking the same language, it is a reality to be able to switch between them for different purposes. If you take your SIM Card and MicroSD Card out of one device and put it in another, it'll just sync up and away you go. And as long as you don't turn on the Android device that's got no SIM Card/MicroSD Card in it, you can just switch back will no ill effect - if you switch it on, in my experience, expect to have to do some fiddling with ringtones and app data which the device decides has been 'missing' during it's up-time without connectivity or external storage.

The Tattoo, to me, has a clear target purpose of putting in your pocket when on a night out when you just need to 'read' and quick-reference, then switching back when you need to do some 'real' work, surf or play. For me, if I held onto it, I'd use it in that way and it'd serve the purpose admirably. For others - I think the fashion crowd - once skinned, it'll be a great playground toy to show off at a staggeringly good price. Highly recommended.

Nokia X6 16GB - A Guest Review by Jon Satherley

2010-03-12T19:57:00.005Z

Tim Salmon very kindly loaned me the Nokia X6 for a week on the agreement that I would (electronically) pen a few thoughts on the device. As many of you would agree, I thought this was a fair trade until this very moment now that I'm sitting thinking what on earth would people be interested in hearing! I'm going to come at this from the angle of a current, and pretty content user of a Nokia 5800XM and to see what extras this recent release from Nokia actually offers me in comparison. Prior to the 5800XM I used a Nokia E51 and Sony Ericsson W960.

I have been very interested in technology as a whole for quite some years, focusing on computers of many flavours - and more recently SmartPhones. I am very enthusiastic about using phones to their full extent and fall into the camp of using features on a SmartPhone just because I can! I accept sitting at home or in the office I can often achieve the same outcomes faster and more efficiently on a computer with a larger screen and full size keyboard! I mainly use my phone for video, music, social networking and communicating with people. I love the fact I live in the UK and can access the BBC iPlayer.

Tim has taught me much of what I know in setting up phones from scratch, resetting them and setting them up again! Prior to this I would use the same phone and never push it's capabilities past the apps that would come pre-installed. I would now prefer battling with a problem, trying to fix it, than resetting the whole system! I mention this because I'm on my 3rd reset with the Nokia X6, trying to set it to work with my NetGear wireless router. I've been resisting accepting that it was the phone's fault and getting quite depressed at the thought that I would be popping back to my Nokia 5800XM much quicker than I had hoped! I conclude that in today's world, routers have a much harder time of it than they used to and we shouldn't be so hard on them or the equipment we are trying to throw at them. At the time of writing I have 2 Windows laptops, 1 Macbook, 1 Iphone, 1 Nokia n97 mini, 1 Nokia 5800xm and the Nokia X6 all trying to stream, update, browse and push email - so no wonder it doesn't quite manage it all on the time!

After a couple of resets of the router, we appear to have a slightly more stable WLAN connection with the Nokia X6. Interestingly, my wife had a similar problem with her N97mini when she first got it. So after a quick check for firmware updates and software updates installed (maps and flash) I was good to go.

My first impression was that the Nokia X6 kept slipping in my hand, which usually resulted in me touching the screen when I wasn't planning to, waiting for an unintended application launch, then manually exiting and trying again. This may be due to to my general clumsiness as a person but coming straight from a 5800XM, the build of the X6 (though greatly improved and much 'classier' in appearance) is smoother tot he touch. I did have a recurring issue with this over the first few days. Eventually I acclimatised but still kept starting apps when not meaning to.

As many of you will know, this is Nokia's first capacitive touch-screened device and it's very sensitive. Not at all like the 5800XM's resistive screen, it is still taking some getting used to. One way in which the capacitive screen improves the Nokia experience is when typing on the QWERTY keyboard in landscape orientation - and especially using t9 in portrait mode. I found myself typing much quicker than before, though this whole experience is still leagues behind an iPhone with its predictive spelling and magical goodness. One area it doesn't fix is the whole inconsistent double-tap/single tap in various menus. Though this is no different from the 5800XM, it seems a shame they didn't feel the need to review this functionality. Fingers crossed for Symbian^3 then! The more I used the Nokia X6 the more I got to like the capacitive screen and I found moving between screens slightly quicker than before.

I started looking at the software to check for differences with the 5800XM. And I'm still looking! To be fair to Nokia, this is the very same Symbian S60 5th Edition phone, so I shouldn't be surprised - but I must admit to having been slightly disappointed. Everything worked out of the box. Signing into Ovi Store was easy and I was able to download all my programs I had on my 5800XM - no fuss. Tim has spoken in poor terms about Ovi previously, but it is greatly improved now and within a few minutes I had a pretty close copy of how my 5800XM had been set up.

I'm a big fan of Ovi Maps and now that free turn by turn navigation throughout the world with traffic updates is all available it's frankly quite marvellous. This was only produced via a software update and it's worked very well - but again, no better than the 5800XM. No BBC iPlayer on board was a slight shock to me. I can't see it being too long until this comes the Nokia X6's way, but as it stands it's a big mark against it - FAIL! One app which I had used on the 5800XM but was clearly flawed on that device was Nimbuzz. It always seemed to have a problem keeping me signed into Skype, but didn't notice the same trouble with the Nokia X6.

If you follow Tim on twitter, Phone Show Chat or this blog you will be aware of his complaints and frustrations of syncing PIM to his Nokia phones from his Gmail account. I too live in the world of Google and share the same frustrations. Like him, I have found workarounds to ensure I get the best experience I can (for now). I'm currently trying Emoze for push email and Nuevasync for multiple calendars and contacts, but I certainly needed guidance to know where to look and what to do. Non 'geeks' or even people who don't have the time to research the internet are often left not knowing what to do or just don't bother.

It was nice to have a 5MP camera on my phone (my first!) and having dual LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics. I found I could be more confident using it than I was with the 5800XM. It is still not a replacement for a dedicated camera, but most certainly enough for my daily needs.

So finally we come to multimedia - sound and music. Again, this is very similar to the 5800XM but seemed to be even worse with rendering album art and hogging system memory. Amazingly, Nokia seem to have moved slightly backwards in this department, which is a shame but not a show stopper. You always seem to have to complete an extra step before getting things to work with media on Nokias, but being a user for so long I suppose I've become accustomed to this.

So there's my brief look at the Nokia X6. I've found the device to be better (if we ignore the exception of the missing BBC iPlayer!) than the 5800XM, but not on many levels. Both devices provide a huge amount of services in a small 'phone sized' phone, it's just that the X6 doesn't actually bring the user anything they could not previously do with the 5800XM. Please don't misunderstand me - I feel the camera is a improvement and the styling is discrete but classy. And the screen is a joy to use, once you get past the learning curve of using capacitive after resistive. But the 5800XM does it all for a much better price and that, sadly, is where most people are going to make their choice. Nokia are selling the X6 16GB for £299 in the UK SIM Free. The 5800XM is £199.

If you're coming to the Nokia X6 having not had a 5800XM (or were loaned one!) then I would recommend the X6, as it has all the joys of the very successful 5800XM in a slightly more mature package. The question I can't answer so easily is about whether or not it can really compete in the market rapidly growing full of Android handsets and the Apple iPhone. Sadly, I doubt it. For that, Nokia fans they will have to await Symbian^3.

Motorola Milestone - Impressions

2010-03-07T23:13:00.005Z

This will be a short one as actually most of the Android stuff has been covered (by me and plenty of others) on this Blog (and elsewhere). [For the user of Google services it works just perfectly out of the box, inviting you to enter your Google account credentials and away it goes - perfect synchronisation of all PIM data.] I've had the Milestone (or Droid in the USA) for a few days before moving it on to Steve Litchfield for more testing. The main focus of my thoughts here will clearly be about the hardware and build - not what it does. The unit runs Android v2.0.1 with a pending upgrade to v2.1 (any minute). Apart from a few extra bells and whistles - some of which are depicted here - there's nothing much that the Milestone lags behind with enough to not consider it over the Nexus One (particularly given that it's coming anyway).

So it's all about the hardware. I thought I was going to be concerned about it only having half the RAM of the Nexus One but actually, in real world use, I didn't notice the difference. The unit has a 3.7" screen which is not OLED (but in real world use when you have the brightness turned down or at least on 'auto' to save battery life who's going to notice anyway?) and more importantly the same four buttons at the bottom of the screen as the N1 but distinctly separated from the main body of the screen. The N1's kind of 'merge in' (and have a problem that they seem to have a 'sweet spot' that's too high) and I think it's better to keep them separated. Strangely the two screens are exactly the same size but the Milestone's seems somehow to be smaller - it's an optical illusion based on I don't know what.

The unit is made of metal. It's a joy to hold compared to the N1 because (apart from the N1 being much of a 'slippery fish' and destined for floor tile collision) it gives a much higher level feeling of robustness, giving you the feeling that this actually has been made to last. It's got moving parts of course, which means that it needs an extra level of robustness that phones with no moving parts don't need to buy into - and Motorola have scored here. It feels solid and firm to hold. The sliding mechanism to reveal the keyboard although also feeling robust and solid is not sprung loaded and needs to be pushed up all the way until it 'clicks' into position at the top of its travel. But once it gets there, it feels like it's firmly in position and won't fall away until pulled down.

Generally speaking, looking around the device, it's got all the expected features (including a 'shutter' button - listen up Google!) equally well made with metals throughout and a good sounding (mono) speaker. The camera is well placed and well featured - being 5MP with dual LED flash. The SIM Card and MicroSD slots are under the battery cover which also houses the 1400mAh battery. At the risk of going off on a rant here about Android devices and battery, I still maintain that the only Android device that I've used so far which balances battery life properly and efficiently is the HTC Hero. The Milestone is another example of battery life not being optimised well and 'more than daily' charges are needed for the person wanting to make use of the features it's designed to exploit. So maybe a spare battery is the solution.

And so to the keyboard. I was nicely surprised. I thought I was going to hate it being so 'flat' (compared to, say, the Nokia E71) and keys having no gaps between them (compared to, say, the Nokia N97c/m) but actually, over time, I did get to like it and although I ended up with inevitable typing errors (mainly because of the size of my fingers and thumbs), it is certainly no worse than the other keyboards mentioned when in regular use. I guess there's a 'brain learning curve' thing going on and it does grow on you. I dislike the rectangular design of the 'D-Pad' - I think that could have been much better 'shaped' personally. But it works ok. I like the amount of characters which are available 'unshifted' - take a look at the competition and see how many full stop (period), comma keys or question mark keys need a shift. Also the @ symbol and forward slash - this is a keyboard designed for people to access online web stuff, make no mistake. Nice and well thought through.

On balance, if I had to choose one Android device for daily use it would still be the Hero - it has a perfect balance of functionality and size to be able to be used as a phone and an internet tablet/device. But between the N1 and Milestone? I think I'd go for Milestone at present but only by a very small margin. I don't personally need a QWERTY hardware keyboard - I get frustrated easily using any of them out there and often end up waiting until I have a 'proper' keyboard which means, not being tied to that criteria, I can hover between all these options and devices. I like the Milestone a lot and, once again, if that had to be my everyday device, I'd be very happy to live with it but, again, on balance, the Hero nicks it!

HTC HD2 - Quick Impressions

2010-02-19T19:53:00.011Z

As much as I'm really grateful to a very generous Phones Show Chat listener for loaning me the HTC HD2, I have to admit that I've been trying hard to drum up the enthusiasm and motivation to blog about it. I'm trying to search my soul (!) to discover why that should be, as on the face of it, it's a stunning device with huge dimensions and a glorious sized screen. For someone always moaning about failing, ageing eyesight it should be a boon, joy and delight to use after the two-point-something screens of many a Nokia in the not-too-distant past. I can't quite get to an answer, except for the usual thing with me - yes, you guessed it - PIM. Personal Information Manager stuff. And this comes back down to Microsoft, lack of effective Google Sync options and, well, read on and you'll see.

The HTC HD2 has a mammoth 4.3" 480 x 800 pixel TFT capacitive screen sporting 65K colours, weighs in at 157g and sizes up at 12cm tall (!) x 6.7cm wide and only 11mm deep (save for a camera protrusion - more of that later). It of course has WiFi and 3G with accelerometer sensor for 'auto rotate'. It has a 'proximity sensor' which means that it cleverly detects when the unit is face-up against something (the side of your head or face down on a table) and can use the event to invoke a screen-on/off action. It has an ambient light sensor, 3.5 mm audio jack, 448 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, microSD card slot, microUSB charging and data connection, 5 MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash, runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, has a Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor, A-GPS, Digital compass, music and video support for loads of formats, Facebook and Twitter integration, YouTube client, Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer) and has a battery rated at 1230 mAh. Phew! There's a lot to like about this phone. It's outstanding feature for me is the huge screen and (to some degree) large fonts.

What's strange and odd about the device is that it seems that HTC and Microsoft have not really walked hand-in-hand whilst developing the best user experience for people to enjoy. Sitting proudly on the front-end of most of the phone's UI is HTC's Sense software. It's 'in your face' and provides a pretty introduction to lots of apps, services and features. On powering up the device there's a huge clock and weather station sitting on top of a link to the Calendar, typical of Sense, and a bank of big buttons to launch anything you fancy assigning to them, including Contacts (though this does seem a little odd as one swipe right gets you to a dedicated page of similar buttons linking to 15 Contacts).

And so to the side-swipe action of a row of buttons along the bottom of the huge screen. These can be customised from a pre-loaded 'set' which Microsoft and HTC seem to think we should like to have. (Why is it assumed by the likes of Microsoft and Apple that everyone wants a Stocks and Shares app forefront of their phone? With iPhone, it can't even be removed! Is it an American thing? Does the man on the street - or at least the man on the street who is likely to have a SmartPhone - really also likely to buy and sell Stocks and Shares? Maybe they are. Wish I could afford some!) Anyway, these can be added and taken away and a side-swipe of the screen or a drag across the icons navigates you from one to the other. Useful stuff like Contacts, Messages, EMail, Internet, Calendar, Music etc... It's a good method of quick navigation between apps and services. Generally the default font is nice and big on most of these so I can't complain there. The last of these icons takes you to Settings where lots of settings can be tweaked and changed as well. One of the Icons takes you to a very basic Twitter app which strangely presents with a black background but when the app is launched proper by pressing All Tweets, it quickly turns to white! By tapping the top Information bar in any of the SenseUI screens you're taken to a Notifications window, which flags up any changes you might have missed such as phone calls, tweets and Messages, almost Android style.

Below the screen we have 4 hardware buttons with 5 functions as the 'Windows' and 'Back' buttons share a 'rocker' for some reason. There's 'Home', 'Call' and 'End' buttons of course. These buttons are firm to press and feedback is rewarding. On the bottom there's the MicroUSB and headphone sockets. On the left a nice firm 'rocker' volume button, on the right nothing and on the back a mono speaker grill, a dual LED flash and camera lens which seems to stick out from the otherwise slender body by about another millimetre or so. Some say it's awkward and in the way, I say that I didn't notice. However, I would have traded in another millimetre thickness the whole way down to get a better battery on board, as underneath the camera is a (nice metal) cover leading to the battery cavity, housing a woefully underpowered battery and slots for MicroSD memory card and SIM Card.

So, let's get back to business. On firing up the device from new there's an invitation to tell it which mobile operator you're using (why doesn't it know? - because it's testing what's in the vicinity rather than what's on the SIM Card? No - because some others which I know are live here are not listed. Odd) so I select Vodafone, get led through a tutorial of how to use the touch screen (or, helpfully, Skip) and an invitation to connect to WiFi networks it has detected. All perfect so far. Select mine. Away we go. (BTW - double-tap the onscreen keyboard's shift character to lock caps.) Now here's the point of no return and back to my favourite PIM subject! You're offered 4 options in 'setting up an account' - Outlook, Google Mail, AOL Mail or Other Mail Accounts. My natural instinct is to hit the Google option. If I do this and give it my GMail credentials, off it goes and starts me working with GMail. It asks me if I want to set up Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which I do, seemingly seamlessly. The unit then goes off and talks to Google, collects my EMail and inserts it into the EMail app commanded by SenseUI. But of course there's no Contact information and no Calendar information - by this time, I'm starting to get a feeling of deja vu! Yes, we've been here before of course many times with lots of devices, Nokia and BlackBerry mainly. So even if we find some apps and tools to get past this block, we've still got to get (for me) multiple calendars across from Google. So, knowing this path trodden many a time I head for GooSync to deal with getting multiple Google Calendars across but it seems that they're having as much trouble as me making that work with pages of workarounds and fiddling which even if the geek is going to put up with, the man in the street definitely is not! So Contacts - what do we do here? SyncML? Heading for Google's support pages, it's obvious that this device only wants to work with Activesync and Microsoft Exchange so we're back to no multiple calendars and arm-twisted into kowtowing to Microsoft and using the infrastructure usually reserved for Outlook. And sure enough, the solution is to wipe the device, start again and instead of selecting Google Mail at the outset, using the Outlook option and signing up with NuevaSync or RoadSync to make sure it works properly. Once this is done inside that framework, it's fine and dandy. (Incidentally, the reset procedure is simple and effective from the settings menu - unlike recent attempts with the Nokia N900 - but that's a rant for another day!) Another phew!

As there's often two ways of accessing functions, it can get confusing as to which one is doing what and which menu pertains to which function. The Sense Music player is a good example. You can fire up the Sense Music app and it'll play your music. But you can also get to the old Windows Mobile Media Player by roving through to another menu - so if you hit the Windows button and tap Multimedia you get to some old 'vanilla' WM system apps for Windows Media and other stuff. If you launch these (which are still pretty SenseUI icons) you're launched into the very old looking WM interface from, in my case, I guess 10 years ago. You can navigate the file structure and get Media Player to run various videos or tunes. And this is just one example of lots and lots of these littered throughout the interface. Another is the Settings icon on the homescreen - when tapped it takes you to some nicely laid out big fonted controls, much like Android's or Apple's but then you can dig deeper by tapping Menu then All Settings and you're presented with links to all sorts of 'old' menus and settings - it's a real step back in time.

On discussing this with a friend last night, he likened it to the 'feel' of the differences between Windows and Mac - in that with a Mac, apps and programmes sit within the 'feel' of the OS and look like they're designed to integrate within the general design framework of the computer. Whereas, with a Windows computer, apps don't follow a 'feel' of anything often and clearly 'sit on top' of the OS. Maybe I'm not explaining that very succinctly but hopefully you get the drift of the simile - this device 'feels' very much like it's a Windows machine with a fluffy front-end bolted on (and don't forget that I'm a fan of HTC's SenseUI) whereas Android devices with SenseUI onboard seem to still 'feel' like an Android device and certainly Apple iPhones *completely* feel like a slick integrated all-encompassing OS. I know that some will argue that this is good because it means that you can get to the underlying files and manipulate the OS, but actually there's a limited amount which can be done anyway inside a WM shell (unlike Windows Desktop OSes).

Anyway, I've drivelled on enough about that point. The thing is that if you're happy to work within the SenseUI and ignore the fact that there's multiple apps working within multiple frameworks, you'll be happy. As I said at the outset, there's a huge amount to like about this phone and if I had to use it as my only device I would not be too unhappy. I would be concerned about the battery life, which sinks rapidly when in use - absolutely an 'every night' charge device and (of course, depending on use) more often it won't get you through the day. Big buttons and big fonts are a joy to use on the massive screen. Big also applies to the on-screen keyboard. Very usable and the letters are big and separated but just to prove that big isn't everything, it still doesn't match the clever keyboard on the iPhone. This is a weak point for HTC SenseUI - one of the very few things I can complain about with the HTC Hero - the typing experience could be so much better with smarter software. At the end of the day I think other manufacturers might just have to cough up and pay Apple to use their methods!

So, on to the other stuff. I was thrilled to see that my 'acid test' of DRM-free .m4v Apple iTunes native music videos worked straight out of the box and looked glorious on the big screen. There were a few jutters and jigs and some videos seemed to not *quite* match the audio track, but it was very close and I was being picky - I showed the video to my wife even after briefing her as to what to look for, she didn't notice. There were some video formats which wouldn't run. There didn't seem to be any audio formats that wouldn't run. My usual test MicroSD with about 2000 music tracks on it were picked up (eventually) by the Sense's Music app (I guess it's a 'refresh' thing - the same one we suffer from with Nokias. The mono speaker didn't complain until hiked up to full but I found that 75% was comfortable and attaching earphones made for comfortable and enjoyable listening.

Shame there's no 'shutter' button (common with HTC handsets unfortunately) more so for invoking the Camera app than firing the shutter. The camera seems good and dandy - the flash works well and, once again, fit enough for purpose indeed for casual snaps - the 'always with you' factor well served. Sharing photos online seems to be a bit limited - FaceBook is an option but other than that it's only EMail or MMS. Or Footprints. This may be a bit unfair and a reflection of not digging deep enough as I discovered with various Nokia devices - these can be added and embedded by 3rd party apps. Which brings me to the Marketplace. HUGE fonts for some reason and nicely connected and searchable but there's very little in the store and most of what is there costs money to download - maybe it's early days but certainly the Android and Apple models did things the other way round - got the free and almost-free stuff out first. Searches on various stuff I wanted to explore returned little or no options including Twitter and Podcasting (save for YomoMedia - but this needs manual input of feeds - not user friendly). I'm sure there are other options as smart as iTunes for getting podcasting going within WMPlayer which I've not explored.

There's clearly loads of stuff here that I haven't touched on - this was supposed to be a quick review! But I have the device for a few more days before it's returned so if anyone wants anything specific exploring I'll try and find time. In summary, it's a great device with a number of inconsistencies and gaps that need plugging (or even plastering over in some cases). I don't like the historic (almost) forced link with Outlook and Microsoft Exchange services - like Nokia, these developers need to acknowledge that Google is taking over the world and start to really integrate Google-Centric options (particularly into core PIM stuff). I'm very pleased that I've had the chance to play with this - my first WM device in quite some years but am also happy to move on again. Perhaps things will change 'big time' with the release of Windows Phone 7 later in 2010 and subsequent devices.

Speaking of which, my next quick review was to be the Nokia X6 which I had for a few days and concluded that I need to return it (for various reasons). I've now decided that I'm going to keep it (for various other reasons) and my learned colleague Jon Satherley has taken it away to compare with his beloved Nokia 5800XM and has promised to do some sort of comparison/review sometime soon. Watch this space!

Blackberry Bold 2 9700 - Part 2 (Outro.)

2010-02-19T18:23:00.003Z

So I lied - I wasn't as willing as I said I was to give it longer and a fairer chance! Truth is that I could have kept the device but had the opportunity to send it back and be able to have something else to review and explore which I saw more potential in. If I'd kept it any longer, I'd have lost the opportunity.

So to summarise my brief encounter with Blackberry, I'll mention a few things on a positive note that I found and haven't mentioned yet. On multimedia, all the file formats I threw at it played without any trouble. My iron test of .m4v iTunes DRM free video was passed (though only just - there were some juddering bits and on one occasion I had to reboot the device) but once it was rolling, the video was smooth, audio kept up with video and the high resolution screen made it a joy to watch - much like the Nokia N900. A cut above most others.

The App Store (or whatever it's called) is very easy to negotiate, there's lots in it and tons of free stuff that makes for a better device. I didn't actually buy anything so can't comment on that process but it looked like a fine example of an App Store on a par with Android's Marketplace and well ahead of Nokia's Ovi Store (though that wouldn't be difficult). I was able to 'plug in' options to create new venues to send photos up to online directly from the camera which was a big plus.

The 'old fashioned' menu structure is very functional across this device - where other devices will have you dancing in and out of icons and splash screens, the BB quietly puts up a list of options for you to click. Generally they're very logical and you can get where you were hoping to be with a minimum of fuss.

I'm not much of a camera enthusiast I'm afraid - I'm still squarely in the school of mobile phones being good for snapshots and emergencies - so I'd be relatively happy with a lower quality camera (until we get into the territory of it being *so* good as to challenge the necessity of a stand alone compact - quote Nokia N86) so the BB's is fine. I'm much more keen to see good quality 'upload to social networks' options (which don't need good quality really) and online photo albums (in my case, of course, Picasa).

I guess a lot of this is 'what you get used to' and my thoughts go to the icon set and bland looking folder icons with limited options on creating a new folder - of course it's great that a new folder can be created - tell that to an iPhone fan - and you can put your apps and shortcuts into it, but the options for identifying that folder are poor. You just have to remember what the choice of icon is as the only was to tell is to scroll over the folder and wait for its name to pop up. The Nokia folders may be just as bland but at least you can place a label under them so you can see which one is what at a glance. Homescreen options are poor and inflexible. The optional 'today' screen is badly designed and needs font-change options. As I said before, it's great that system-wide font changing support is onboard, but it needs to be taken a stage further and made available *absolutely* everywhere.

Nokia take some stick in many ways for their allegedly 'outdated' OS but actually when you start to look at the functionality of the Nokia and Symbian infrastructure in many ways it's still ahead of the competition. Most functions that you want to achieve with a mobile device are attainable with a Nokia device. It may not present the prettiest solution and it may not offer the latest whizz/bang but generally it gets there. The more devices and platforms I play with, the more I realise that there's such a lot of 'front end fluff' going on in many ways, lots of decisions being made about processors by manufacturers to make their device the fastest and flashiest. But sitting in the background seems to be the steady old Nokias who's developers have thought about the RAM v battery issues and the 'always on' desire which, in truth, we're probably not quite ready for yet.

Now don't get me wrong, just because I've come from a Symbian-centric background I'm not going to blindly stick with an outdated OS and brand out of loyalty - I just want to find and evangelise about the best product which is going to meet most of my mobile needs at this time. But the more I probe that agenda, the more I find myself sneaking back on the quiet to my Nokias. And usually my 3rd Edition (non-touch) Nokias.

My next port of call is to be Windows Mobile 6.5 with the HTC HD2. I shall look forward to handling this GIANT of a device and hope that I'll find enthusiasm in myself (and particularly from my ageing eyes!). I haven't handled a WM device for quite some years now. My memory of it was clunky and difficult, inflexible and isolated. Let's see!

Blackberry Bold 2 9700 - Part 1 (Intro.)

2010-02-15T17:44:00.004Z

Well, it's been a while since I had anything interesting to write about. My ultimate under-enthusiasm for the Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung i8910 was well founded, I feel and it seems that I'm certainly not alone. Both handsets need serious sorting out with firmware, which they're not getting. The other day there was an update to the firmware released for the i8910 by Samsung which amazingly rendered it more useless than it was before?! What's that about?! So I move on and away - hoping for bigger and better upgrades to the Nokia N900! While I wait, I have got my hands on a Blackberry Bold 2 9700.

This'll be an interesting one, for me at least, because of all the devices I've handled, tried to make work for me and played with over the years, I've never laid my hands on a Blackberry - in any shape or form. So don't expect comparisons with previous models from me - I come as a Blackberry virgin reporting what I find and comparing the experience with other mobile OSes and devices. It might be useful for some to read a (hopefully) objective view from somebody 'without a past'.

Lastly, by way of introduction, I'd just say that I was only able to source this handset locked to Vodafone UK and to use my existing Vodafone UK Contract SIM Card in it with my existing phone number.

So on to it then - the first thing that struck me about the whole BB thing was that when I merrily turned on the device expecting it all to just work, as a Nokia would, it wouldn't! Well yes, it powered up and switched on, set the date and time and found my cellular network but as I headed through the 'setup' routine I suddenly realised that there was something missing which was needed to be able to use anything other than Vodafone over GPRS for email and internet access. During the Email setup I was offered BES (Blackberry Enterprise Service) and not BIS (Blackberry Internet Service) which I was expecting to see.

So I read some stuff on the internet and consulted with my learned BB colleagues Krish Patel and Kev Wright before phoning Vodafone to confirm the truth of the matter. I think I understand how it works now but I'm not 100% sure. It seems that I have to pay (on top of my normal Vodafone Contract amount) another £4.25 per month (+VAT no doubt!) to someone (must be going to Vodafone or Blackberry I suppose) so that my GMail can be routed through the BB servers and pushed in and out for me and that the BB handset can only use 3G or WiFi to access the internet via the same route. Seems a bit like a monopoly to me. I wonder if that would have been any different if I had bought a SIM Free model and not had the handset locked and branded to Vodafone UK. Or if that would change if I went and got the handset unlocked now. That's one for later.

Anyway, half an hour later the handset was enabled, invited me to input my GMail address and include a tick for Contacts Sync. I did this and to be fair, wheels rolled and that data was exchanged. Though I noticed that no previous email was sync'd - just 'from now on' but there may be a setting to change that which I'll come to. GMail is delivered nicely on cue and sent out straight away too. I was expecting the Calendar to sync too but as I write now, the only items that have been placed in the calendar are some birthdays which have been collected from my Facebook account (will come to that later). I thought Krish had told me that this would just happen automatically - well it doesn't seem to have. This brings me back to another point which is that the BB wanted to sync me up with timsalmon@googlemail.com, not timsalmon@gmail.com. I always use the latter and maybe when I first registered it 'defaulted' me to the former. I can't remember. But I've wiped the device twice now and *still* I get two homescreen icons - one for @gmail and one @googlemail and it seems that the @googlemail one is the only one that syncs Contacts with the device. If I get rid of the @googlemail account I don't have any Contacts sync'ing. Apart from the fact that I didn't get any Calendar sync coming across, this is totally confusing to the newbie (though I guess no worse than the Nokia 'solutions' available). It just seems to me that we have not yet come to the point where data is interchangeable across systems and OSes. If you're a Google user, buy Android. If you want to have a Nokia, live in Ovi. If you want a BB, live in their services because nothing, in my expereince (which is not insignificant), is reliable otherwise. It's very frustrating but sitting next to the BB on my desk as I write is the Android Hero and I'm just wondering why on earth I'm going through this charade!

For those who read my drivel regularly, you'll know that I always start with PIM - Contacts, Email and Calendar - and if a device doesn't measure up, it's a lost cause on me! However, I will press on with general thoughts of the Blackberry Bold 2 9700 (why so many names and numbers?!) hardware. My first impression out of the box was that it was horribly plastic'y and 'cheap' feeling. The battery added some weight and a better 'feel' of substance. To be fair, it's not made badly, it was just a 'feel' brought about by the use of light plastics, I guess. This is not a Nokia N900 so don't go banging any nails in with it. My second impression was how utterly cramped the keyboard was (even compared to a Nokia E71). It would interesting to review some stats on this but it certainly 'feels' smaller than the E71 keyboard - maybe it's a layout thing. Also it's unforgivable to make the full-stop (period) and comma keys shifted characters. What's 'shift' and what's 'alt' takes some getting used to but I guess it's no less logical than the 'blue arrow' Nokia key. The keys are 'shaped' to raise the corners for accurate tapping, to the left on the right of the keyboard and to the left on the right - if you follow! I have to say that the 'uniformed' domed keys on the E71 are better and easier to hit - I make less mistakes, anyway. Perhaps in time. The device is a good size as a phone and for some reason feels much easier to use one-handed than the E71.

The four upper cluster of keys below the screen are well sized and hittable with big thumbs, though the way in which the 'back' is implemented leaves something to be desired in many apps. It's not clear to the novice that in order to leave an app running instead of closing things down all the time you need to invoke the task manager by long-pressing the Menu key and then selecting Home (or the destination app if already open) then heading on, though I suppose this replicates the Nokia method - perhaps they're both bad! Which brings me to the TrackPad. There's much debate about this online from BB fans about whether or not it's good/better than the TrackBall. I don't know as I never touched a TrackBall! But I will say that this TrackPad is pretty much as useless as the NaviPad thingie on the Nokia E72. It overruns all the icons and the gentlest of brushes can make a big difference in dialogues when a 'cancel' or 'save' is highlighted. At least with the E72 it can be turned off and the used can revert to using it as a traditional 'D-Pad' - not possible here, though I do acknowledge that the sensitivity can be altered. In my testing it didn't make much difference, though I have to concede that the more I use it, the more I 'get the measure' of it.

The screen is nice and bright on full brightness but sadly lacking when 'auto' is invoked (by default). My ageing eyes are too bad for a 2.4" screen, which puts this device on the back burner to begin with for me, I'm afraid. The default fonts used on the homescreen don't help and can't be changed in setup. The font can be changed for onboard apps and general dialogues, but not the homescreen. Which is a shame as the default font changing functionality is a great feature. I'm not sure if at this point I'm alone here, but I do have a growing feeling of the BB system having very similar traits to the (old) Palm OS. Not that I'm a particular expert in Palm stuff, but the couple of devices I did own in days gone by had a very similar 'feel' about how dialogues worked and other similarities. Anyone confirm a link between the two?

Volume keys on the right are nicely 'rubberised' and react well. 3.5mm headphone socket's a winner (though would prefer it on top, not side), USB data/charging is moving up with the pack. Speaker is decidedly average but I'm encouraged by early testing of .m4v DRM Free videos working (with a few blips and video 'not matching audio' problems). All other video I threw at it played - but I'll come back to this in the coming days. I didn't want to be focussing in too closely in my initial post, rather provide an overview.

I have lots to learn about BB and am willing to but will need help. I touched on the App Store and was encouraged that there are lots of options available that seem to work quite well with BB (some of which have been developed by BB themselves). But, as I say, more of this to come in the coming days. At the moment, I'm concerned mostly about not being able to get my Google Calendar across and a lack of confidence whilst out and about this evening about 3G coverage (in an area which I know is *very* strong for lots of other manufacturer's devices).

Watch this space!

Google Nexus One - Part 4

2010-01-15T17:24:00.007Z

Multimedia and Roundup
I'm turning my attention to mutlimedia for this last part - the Camera, Music & Video and Maps. I'm not going to do a thorough job on these as Steve Litchfield has a special interest in these areas and is going to give these aspects a good roasting in the coming week or so for the Phones Show and Phones Show Chat. I'll give them the 'once over' and report on what jumps out at me as I'm running out of time now - the weekend has been strangely full of unexpected demands! Non-tech ones - remember those?

The Camera is a 5MP unit - nothing special there as it's the same as the Hero - but with a difference - LED flash. (Steve is intending to do some comparison work with this so we can reserve the technicalities about sensor size and resolution until then.) We'll take a look at how good/bad that is in real world use. So we tap the Camera icon on the homescreen and are presented with a 4:3 'viewfinder', a 'review' square of the last taken pic top right (on the face of it a bit pointless but actually quite useful as if you want to 'share' a photo and the screen times out after a shot is taken, you can switch back to the pic and at a leisurely pace deal with the upload), virtual slider to change from stills to video (nice touch that this actually is a 'slider' and not just a touch-change button that looks like a slider), a capture button bottom right and sliding 'curtain' on the left of the screen which can be 'pulled out' to reveal various settings. Behind the 'curtain' are very basic adjustments for flash (on, off, auto), a range of Wite balance options, colour effect options, picture size in MPs, picture quality (normal, fine, super-fine) and focus mode (auto or infinity - nice touch). Tapping the screen brings up an on-screen zoom control (which as we know is pretty pointless to all but those who don't understand) which zooms digitally x2. Touching the 'capture' button invokes a process taking about 2 seconds from start to finish where auto focus takes place and shutter firing. If focus is set to 'infinity' the auto focus stage is clearly taken out and the process takes about a quarter of a second. With auto focus on, actually I think the system works ok for general usage as touching the button followed by focussing delay gives you time to steady the unit and wait for the fire. Obviously this is no good for moving subjects of any description but these devices are not designed for such intricate tasks. The flash is OK - not brilliant - so a close-up shot works OK but across a room very poor with awful colour casts and in lots of darkness - well, judge for yourself - http://sites.google.com/site/timsalmon/google-nexus-one-photos

The video is shot at 20fps at 720 apparently and this really is not my area so I'm leaving this squarely to Steve! Photos are easy to share via the usual range of destinations - BlueTooth, facebook, GMail, Messaging (MMS), Picasa, (Seesmic), (Twidroid) - it seems that certainly this dialogue responds to what apps are installed as well as the basic if they're supported. Peachy solution (straight out of the box). This is one over on S60 which relies on ShareOnline and then a 3rd party plugin (however, the easy to install and brilliant Furtiv) to make happen - and then setting the priority in ShareOnline first. Grrr. There's intelligent cross-over between camera/Gallery and Contacts allowing assignment of photos to Contacts quickly and easily (with even an editing stage involved).

I have nearly 3,000 .m4a tracks on a MicroSD Card alongside some .mp4 videos and native iTunes DRM free music videos - .m4v - which gets switched between devices to see what'll work and how well. Tapping on the Music icon fires up a 'vanilla' Android screen with 4 tabs - no prettifying here! Scrollable lists of Artists, Albums (still needed Album Art Grabber to get all the album art in), Songs and Playlists. The lists populate quickly and scroll efficiently. One of the marked differences between the Hero, G1 and N1 is this scrolling speed - presumably because of the SnapDragon processor there's no jerking or delays in the scrolling on the N1. As I said before, the built in mono speaker is not great but it's OK for casual listening. There's a usual array of options including shuffle and repeat. Again, I'm not much of an expert with this area - I just expect stuff to play and it either does or doesn't. in most cases, it doesn't with most devices I find! Of course there are no hardware buttons to control music at all (apart, obviously, from volume) so it's all touch-screen. However, the Android system makes it easier in many ways because of the Notification 'pull down' bar at the top of the screen which give you quick access to whatever's playing. All the music files I threw at it played fine.

And I'm really sorry but, as I said (well, actually added later) at the outset, this weekend has just been full of unexpected time-grabbing stuff, Steve and I are swapping stuff over via postal services tomorrow, and I just don't have the time to take this any further. Sorry. But actually, my guess is that those of you who are waiting for the rest will get an even better insight even quicker, the quicker Steve gets his grubby mits on this gear! I've really enjoyed my few days with this 'cutting edge' Android device and I'd completely recommend it to you in many, many ways as depicted throughout my thoughts here, but I would say that a *little* work still needs doing with battery life - or at least if not, then some eduction required as to how to make the most of it.

I hope you're looking forward as much as I am to Steve's input here and the forthcoming critical observations and praise for the Google Nexus One. I have the Samsung i8910 arriving this week, alongside the Sony Ericsson Satio, so I shall look forward to reporting back on these two.

Google Nexus One - Part 3

2010-01-15T12:23:00.011Z

So now I'm going to home in some specifics of the day to day use of the Google Nexus One and I guess the best place to start is to appraise its usefulness in terms of its No.1 function - as a phone! The first thing to note is that there's now an app onboard called Voice Dialler which, when pressed invites you to say "Call - person's name" - it then uses it's fancy Voice recognition software (more on this later) to try and match what you've said with the entries in your Contacts listing. How well does this work? Well, sadly I have to say that when I put on a (what Brits consider to be) a Southern USA accent it works much better than it does when I speak normally in my South of England accent. I don't know if the system has the capacity to 'learn' but for me, it can only get better. There are some names it's OK with - "Call Tim Salmon" said in my usual voice is fine, but "Call John Elliot" didn't find anything at all and offered me some quite bizarre 'matches' in to the bargain! So maybe a work in progress - I'm sure it'll get better - I would feel a fool talking to my phone in an American drawl in a restaurant! There's a nice new blue 'Phone' icon on the homescreen which, when pressed takes you to the dialling pad. This has been slighty reworked from the G1 - prettified - with 'rounder edges' on the graphics. It has a nice look and the 0-9 keypad buttons also have A-Z legends as well. Pressing the buttons reveals a very nice sounding dialtone with each press - good volume (controllable with the volume rocker - hooked into the 'Media Volume'). As with the G1 there are 4 tabs in the Home phone view, Phone - with Dial pad, Call Log - listing all calls, in and out, missed etc, Contacts - obviously imported from Google (there's also the option to hook up with other services and import data/photos from them - in my case it seems to be limited to FaceBook) and Favourites - 'most activity' list preceded by 'Starred' Contacts in Android (interestingly now sync'd with various options in the Desktop version of Google Contacts - if you look on the left on your desktop version you'll now see 'Starred in Android' as a Grouping - integration indeed). This phone view with it's 4 tabs is exactly the same one as you'll get to if you press Contacts incidently - the two functions are completely integrated. In call earpiece quality is just excellent - no complaints - person the other end reports good reproduction and no poor sound. During a call you get a nice big screen up with nice big buttons to end the call, go back to the dialpad (for punching in menu items when calling people), Add call - for conferencing, Mute and Speaker - speakerphone is OK but relies on the not-so-good built-in speaker - but it's OK. I probably should know this but can't quite work out why there's a BlueTooth button (in my case greyed out) displayed during a call? There's also a big box in the middle of the screen with a picture of the person being called (assuming one exists in Contacts) and their name (if known) or number. Nice big 'designed for people with sight impairments' buttons and icons. Assigning a ringtone for incoming calls is joy itself compared to the Hero and G1 - they've really sorted that one out. Gone are the fiddling around putting the sound file into a folder nominated 'Ringtones' and 'Notifications' and 'Alarms' on the MicroSD card - I was expecting that hassle but no - sound files on the root of the card, Settings, Sound & Display, Phone Ringtone - and there it is in the list for assigning - perfectly sorted out!

It would seem like a logical place to now cover Contacts. Contacts are imported from Google Contacts and arranged in a long list. Photos will be imported as you wish via Display Options, there's a text search function in the usual way (with of course speech support if wanted as a part of the system-wide support via the on-screen keyboard - more of that later), Import/Export for use with a SIM Card, Accounts - from where data is brought in - as I said in my case it's just Google and FaceBook (if you ask to Add Account, the options are Google, Facebook and Microsoft Exchange Activesync - for the corporate boys) with various controls as to how the Autosync works and how often, on or off etc. Inside each person's contact is a whole raft of the information that's been stored in Google (or phone) with buttons for Calling, emailing and chatting - interestingly however there's no link here to creating an SMS (integrated at this point in HTC's SenseUI on the Hero) - Address(es), Notes, Birthday and Facebook Profile. Further options allow a unique ringtone for each Contact and an option to 'send incoming calls directly to voicemail' - nice touch. And that's about it really for Contacts - simple but integrated across not only the phone's system and other tools but also your Google account. Or Accounts, as the new v2.1 supports multiple GMail accounts of course.

Back on the homescreen we have Messaging - another reworked icon - green box with smiley emoticon on it. Hit this and we're looking at a screen populated with 'threads' or previous 'conversations' that have been held via SMS. There a 'new message' button on the left which takes you to a 'compose' window where you're invited to type in a person's name (or number) and it'll be found by 'deduction' with each key press getting closer and closer to a match. Or if you fancy rolling the dice, try speech again! Then type in a message (or speak) and away it goes. If you're used to using the Symbian system you'll realise that Delivery reports works kind of differently here. Inside Messaging's main screen hit Settings in the Menu from where you can arrange delivery reports (and ringtone for SMS while you're there) but in order to see the result of this, it's not in a menu anywhere but rather in each individual SMS. There's an envelope to the right of 'sent' SMS with either a red or green exclamation mark (!) - red means not delivered, green - delivered. If you long-press the message you can select View Report and it'll tell you if it's delivered or not but I can't find anywhere where it tells you what time it was delivered, only sent - via View Message Details. The 'threading' nature of Messaging is now fairly widely adopted and personally I like it. I think a lot of people are confused by how it works but even Nokia have now developed tools to present Messaging in a 'conversation' which must mean it's a good system! Back in settings, you can dictate how long you're going to allow any one 'conversation' to continue before it auto-deletes. I would suggest keeping that to about 50/100 but downloading and installing without delay the free SMS Backup app from the Marketplace which dumps all your SMS messages into your GMail account and even labels them SMS (making a 'folder' for you for permanent storage/archive. Incidentally, MMS is tackled by the 'Attach' command - when composing a Message you can attach a picture, capture picture with the camera, video, audio - you name it. Sweet.

Before I finish with part 3 I'll just take a quick look at Clock. Simple app - pressing the icon brings up a big digital clock with date and weather for your estimated location. Works very well. Alarms can be set, repeating, unique tone if you like, unique volume setting for Alarm, snooze duration etc. There's also a setting for 'side button behaviour' - is that the volume rocker? Or is it something hanging over from devices with a Camera shutter release button? Haven't tested that yet. There are also direct access buttons to Gallery Slideshow and Music from the main Clock's homescreen. Don't quite get that bit either - anyone? It's not like there'a sleep-timer to stop music after a set time. There's a 'brightness button' top right that seriously dims the screen for sleeping. If you tap the Weather part of the screen you're taken to the main weather screen which seems to give a basic 6-day forecast - tap again and you're into some sort of analysis screen! With slides and graphs and wind speed and humidity and hour-by-hour break-down this really is quite comprehensive (if it can be believed!) - tap again to go back. Nice clock/weather app. The weather part of it is the same one that can be placed on the homescreen as a widget and takes you through to the same places.

OK - so there's 2 hits in one day on this! Will be back soon with Part 4 looking further into this really lovely Android device, the Nexus One.

Google Nexus One - Part 2

2010-01-14T18:27:00.005Z

I promised a further update here today, so I'll get something going. However, since my last post I have to admit to having got a little frustrated with the new Google delight for one reason. Well, maybe two! I had also intended to focus in on various aspects of the device in real world use thoroughly, but feel that actually I want to continue with a second more generic one, picking up point I stumble on in daily use. So I'll start...

The biggest overriding problem with this unit is clearly battery. As I said before, I've had an HTC Dream/ G1 in real world use and an HTC Hero as well and there just seems to be something about the 'withGoogle' devices that equates with poor battery life. The Hero's battery life is not great, but with moderate use you can get through a day and charge each night - with light use, almost two days. The G1 was just the same as the N1 as I recall - I can remember sitting on holiday in South Wales trying to work out what I could possibly do to eek out the battery some more - it wasn't getting me through half a day, let alone 24hrs. Now I'll accept that the G1 battery was only 1150mAh and the Hero's 1350mAh so you'd expect some better performance but the Hero seems to be disproportionately optimised and is much, much better. With the Hero I didn't feel the need to shut services down, stop the sync'ing, switch from 3G to 2 and turn the wifi off - I just left it on all the time and things were just acceptable (not great). So imagine my grief when I've now discovered that the N1, with an even bigger 1400mAh battery, has exactly the same problem as the G1 - I really feel the need to turn stuff off and stop basic functions of the system, which the unit is built to do and designed for. What's the point of that? I hope that Motorola have sorted this one out with the Droid/Milestone. I wondered if maybe the batteries in the G1 & N1 were made by one company and the Hero another, but the three look pretty much the same. Actually, until this minute I hadn't digested the fact that the Hero's battery is only just smaller than the N1's - so maybe this has a bearing. So we accept that the N1 has a giant screen - but hang on, it's not *that* much bigger than the others - and it's supposed to be OLED technology which makes things even more efficient. Mmmm.

There are lots of factors effecting battery life on these devices and there's no easy answer to try and work out what's what apart from real everyday use and getting a 'feel' for which is better and worse. Lab testing can work out some of the basics and provide benchmark studies and all that jive but it is when it's in your pocket you'll find out. And to my mind, just now, I'm much happier with the Hero in my pocket than the others (even with it's 1.5 CupCake which HTC seem to refuse to update, and smaller screen). In actual fact, it's a much more 'pocketable' device than the N1 and though the screen is a little smaller, much more usable as a 'phone' - in terms of size, not software! I have to say that head and shoulders above all these devices sitting on my desk just now is the Nokia N86. Only a 1200mAh battery but it lasts an awful long time in real world use.

Before I change the subject, I'll just bore you to death with one more point about the battery and that is that it's a Lithium Ion and we do know that these batteries do take a while to optimise themselves - maybe a week of charge and discharge cycles. So it is too early to tell and I will be delighted if in a week's time it's offering me the usage cycle of the Hero.

Enough then - and onto some other generic observations. Stuff I've not mentioned so far that leaps out at me in the first day or so of use. The animation stuff going on in the screen is very pretty, but obviously not needed and I soon switched it off and went for a Wallpaper, not Live Wallpaper. Not sure how much battery that saves, but I guess it must be some. In actual fact, the Wallpaper I've chosen is still 'live' to a degree, in that it works with the Clock to go light and dark with dawn and dusk. Again - I wonder how much juice that's nicking as I could live without it! Staying with the screen, it is a wonderfully bright crisp screen with beautiful colours and lighting. Very, very nice when on full brightness - but you wouldn't want it on less than full, which brings us back to battery of course. There's an Auto brightness setting which detects the ambient light and adjusts the screen accordingly which works well for night time in a bedroom when you don't want to blind yourself with the screen's full glory (and can't sleep because you're exciting/disappointed about/with your new phone and don't want a kicking from the missus!). Works well, but generally you'll want the screen on full brightness.

A slight issue with the front of the device is that the four navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen (which I touched on in Part 1) need to be hit 'slightly high' to make correct contact. I didn't realise, until a kind soul emailed me to ask if mine was the same, that this was a reported issue. I really can't say it's much of an issue - you soon get used to the placing and action. The Nipple Ball at the base of the front remains as useless as it was on the Hero (apart from one function - well two if you count the notification glowing) and that is moving around in text dialogues. Because it has a capacitive screen the N1 is no good for very accurate location of the 'cursor' on the screen with a finger in text dialogues. So if you make a mistake and want to go back to correct, it's really difficult to press the screen with your finger in *just* the right place to get the 'cursor' where you want it. Apple have made a simple and brilliant solution for this - keep your finger pressed on the screen and a 'magnified circle' appears under it and you can accurately let go when the cursor is where you want it. I guess that's another Apple v everyone else legal infringement on copyright in the making preventing it's widespread adoption. So, the only way to do this is delicately scroll the Nipple Ball until you get where you want to be.

Not sure if I approve of the only way to wake the unit from 'sleep' being a quick press on the top power button - because the Hero's power button was on the front face, it seemed much more do'able with one hand.

The HomeScreen then is actually pretty much like the G1's. OK, the icons have been prettified and the curtain has gone, replaced by a Menu icon, but the top notification bar, clock, battery, connection icons et al are just the same. Of course, the OLED screen makes a big difference but clearly not much work has been done on making the 'vanilla' experience more pretty in that department. There are 5 'panes' which scroll left and right (G1 had 3, SenseUI on Hero 7) with new iPhone style arrays of 'dots' bottom left and right to indicate where you are in the 5 screns. If you're one screen left of 'home' there will be one dot on the left, three on the right etc - much like the Newton's Cradle executive toy. Getting any widgets or shortcuts onto the HomeScreen, changing wallpaper etc works just like the other before it - long-press, menu, choose app - and to remove, press and hold, drag to bottom. As does getting apps from the pop-up apps-menu - press and hold desired app, menu screen disappears behind then drag onto desktop. The most useful widget is surely the Power Control one which gives a 'bar' from which wifi, BlueTooth, GPS, Sync and brightness can be switched on or off. Still no direct control to turn from 3G to 2G - to do that it's back into menus (or download a quick-access app - there's a few free ones in MarketPlace). A very light touch is needed to scroll the screens around, as is usual with capacitive touch screens of course - very often mistakes are made with accidental 'brushes' of the screen. But you can't have it all ways!

Wifi and 3G signals are always going to be dependent on where you are in the world or in relation to a hotspot, but in my case they are both just fine and very strong, holding their fix well. No complaints.

A word about sound - I find the single mono speaker to be weak and tinny - just like the Hero was - very poor reproduction for such a high-end device. When you compare this kind of functionality with even a £200 Nokia phone, it really is left way behind. Don't get me wrong, it's OK for casual listening and podcasts and so forth but if you want to tune into music and listen to video soundtracks, you will be very disappointed and reach for the headphones. With headphones plugged in of course the experience is transformed, but I'll come to that when I cover music and video later on. I have not tried the enclosed headset but I know it's the same set as the Hero, which are rubbish, so factor in a good set of headphones to your budget - in my experience, the Apple ones that come with iPod and iPhone are just delightful to use.

So far things have been pretty generic. In the next part I will home in on some more specific functions of the phone and share my findings using these apps in more detail. [By the way, if you click the picture, top right you can see the unit sitting on the supplied 'sleeve'.]

Google Nexus One - Part 1

2010-01-12T13:02:00.006Z

Well, it's arrived - after much argy-bargy with DHL in the UK - amazing that an item can be tracked super efficiently half way across the world and some bloke in his little van 50 yards from the destination won't walk up a drive to deliver and/or use his 'personal' mobile phone to call me out. Ludicrous! As I've said before, a light dusting of snow in the UK and everything comes to a halt - it's like everyone's waiting for the next excuse not to work or to shortcut things if they possibly can with the flimsiest excuse. Grrrr. Delivery rant over!

I would suggest that the same packing plant handled the packing of the N1 that handles the packing of the Apple iPods as it's pretty much the same there inside. Nice presentation, nice box, even the N1 itself is encased in plastic the same way as an iPod is. Anyway, first things first - don't bother to buy a power-charger if you're outside the USA as there is one with it - it's just that it's a USA one, but this can be used with an adapter. When I agreed to spend the extra £12 I thought that the N1 was only going to come with a USB lead for charging. There's an Android 'sleeve' and instructions, MicroUSB lead (for data and charging) and a set of headphones which feel through the bag like they're exactly the same as the ones which came with the HTC Hero - uncomfortable, too big and rubbish. I'm not going to undo that bag for when I sell this on. In fact, you don't need to open any of these bags really as all the leads and chargers are completely standard - keep pristine for your customer ;-)

The 4GB MicroSD card which comes with it has nothing on it at all apart from a few tracks of music. The card fits in logically alongside the SIM Card but both can only be inserted or removed with the battery out. The battery is a hefty 1500mAh [corrected: 1400mAh] which I'm hoping will make a better impact on usage than my last 'withGoogle' device the HTC Dream/G1 which was woeful in that department. There's a MicroUSB charging slot at the bottom which the USB lead and power lead fit into and a 'raised' rocker switch for volume control on the side - much nicer than the Hero one which 'flush' and very 'clunky' in use. The screen is just gorgeous and with the brightness turned right up the OLED technology does make it a joy to use and a boon for those of us who's eyes are ageing. The size of the screen at 3.7" makes for very comfortable reading of most dialogues and (as I had hoped) the on-screen keyboard. Being that much bigger than the Hero and G1 it makes the 'vanilla' Android keyboard much easier to use. Still not quite as good as the iPhone's, but that's not to do with size - we'll come to that later. There's a nipple-ball on the front-bottom which is much like the Hero's except that it glows 4 different colours to present different types of notifications - more on that later as well. The four touch-sensitive buttons above it are the Back (sensibly placed on the left this time), Menu (which takes you to the Menu items in all apps and long-pressing pops the on-screen keyboard on and off), Home and Search. I was surprised about how 'hard' I had to press the 4 buttons to activate them but they certainly prevent accidental presses this way and from initially thinking that it's not quite right, you quickly realise that this has been the right way to go with them.

Setting up the N1 was very much like the G1 - even though this is Android v2.1, much of the look and feel of the 'vanilla' experience are the same - the dialogues are white text on black background and the on-screen keyboard is the same too (though bigger). We had some real concerns about the HTC SenseUI front-end but actually it certainly was a lot 'prettier' in these kinds of ways that the withGoogle basics. It has a 'basic' feel about it even though this a flagship device and I wonder if, now that processor and RAM are beefed up, this unit did have SenseUI we would not be complaining so much as we did with the Hero about it's speed in processing actions.

The on-screen shortcuts look nice with this bright screen and the apps 'curtain' which is now not a curtain at all but a press-button invokes a 'roller' effect as the finger is 'swiped' up and down - that is the top and bottom row of icons look like they're 'going round on a ball' - much like you'd see during those misspent youthful days in Amusement Arcades trying to gaze 'over the hump' of a fruit-machine before starting your 'nudges' - ring a bell?!

So off I went to reset up my 'previously downloaded' apps in Market Place and only the ones I'd actually paid money for were there. Interchanging between Hero and G1 threw up all the apps I'd downloaded (working in Android v1.5), so that's not quite so convenient. (And dare I say something that *even* the Ovi Store does better!) Download though they did - at lightning speed compared to the older devices and installed perfectly. So the Marketplace has been 'prettied up' with 1.6+ and looks much nicer - strange then, that when you install and head back to 'built-in' dialogues, we're back to the white-on-black very vanilla looking dialogues. A bit like the experience of Windows Mobile 6 with it's pretty HTC front end then as soon as that layer is peeled off, you're back down to the 'undeveloped' 5 year old dialogues, looks and feel. Still, maybe that change is coming. At least joy of joy, we get OTA updates with this unit direct from Google and not via HTc and a computer link.

Anyway, initial thoughts there. I'll do some more exploring as the day goes on and report back. Do leave any questions you want to either here or via @timsalmon on Twitter and I'll do what I can. We should certainly have something to talk about on tomorrow's Phone Show Chat which I'll be doing as usual with Steve Litchfield.

Nokia N900 - Roundup

2010-01-10T13:32:00.005Z

Yes - a premature roundup I'm afraid - for a number of reasons. Firstly we ain't got this for long and I want to get it back to Steve so he can have plenty of time to cover the stuff I haven't - mostly the MultiMedia, Photography/Camera, GPS & Mapping - before he gets it onto the Phones Show. It's possible that he will decide of course that it's far too early in the evolution of Maemo to really put it through its paces, which brings me to the next reason this overview is being a little cut-short. That being that I'm finding it difficult to properly 'review' a unit in everyday use if I can't make it my 'everyday' device. Because of the holes in the PIM and integration with Google services, I'm finding that I can't give it a fair crack of the whip (particularly if I know I'm not able to keep it anyway, if I like it!). I'm sure there's also the psychology of the Google Nexus One in transport working on me, about to drop on the mat! (I'm clearly not disciplined enough to be a proper reviewer so I'll keep my day job!) So here I go with a summary of general feelings about the Nokia N900.

The Nokia N900 is built beautifully. The best build quality Nokia has produced since the E90 and as it's £499 (UK) I guess it should be, though that argument didn't hold firm for other recent Nokia top-end devices. Slide and buttons, ports and stylus, all built to last a long time and to face abuse and battery. It's great to see Email actually working and this is the best most reliable Nokia version yet - collects and sends when it should, no hanging. It's a shame that the same can't be said for Calendar and Contacts integration, though I'm sure if people are willing to use 'more traditional' routes of IMAP/POP3 and Mail for Exchange they'll get better change than the Googlite will. There doesn't seem to be any Google Apps available for the N900 yet, though I guess the argument will stand firm about accessing these services as you would a desktop computer, via the browser. The Internet browser handles these very well, including 'swirl to zoom' in any website though I find that I'm using 'tap to zoom' much more and/or the volume/zoom rocker which is a more satisfying experience. Google Reader, Docs, GMail, Calendar, Maps, Photos, Picasa et al work just as they do on a desktop.

Not really very sure what's going on with RAM as when I have music playing and am browsing the web, there are huge delays for any screen taps and key presses - and I thought one of the big selling points of the N900 was the memory management and available RAM and the clever way in which it was implemented. Stop the music and things speed up considerably. That's just one example and there are others - I think that optimisation via software updates will fix any shortcomings at the moment but certainly my experience here is that mutitasking is ok but, much like many Symbian based Nokia devices these days, it has its limits and you need to be aware of how many of the RAM hungry apps you have on the go at the same time.

Media Player seems to do what it says on the tin, though initial refreshing of my 2,900 .m4a tracks took an age to find, though unlike Symbian which (until 5th edition) took a similar age, at least the N900 gives you a nice 'time left' countdown of the estimated time to finish - though actually it dances around like a Windows computer one - not at all accurate. I was delighted to see that this is the only Nokia device apart from the N96 to play iTunes DRM free video out of the tin - those .m4v files seem to elude all but the most robust and advanced devices carrying the right codecs. The music player and video player played pretty much any file I threw at it, found much more artwork than any Symbian device has - not sure whether it goes off to the internet to find it or its using the data from within the iTunes files, but find plenty it did. Internet radio works well with its pre-installed 48 stations. The Media Player is fairly basic but with the likes of Canola out there for replacement which will (soon?) do a much better job, I guess most people won't use it anyway. The FM transmitter is exceptionally good - at least when compared to the Nokia N97c and Nokia N86 (the two I had to hand to compare). Range is fine and quality good - there will be no break-up of signal within the average car - you'd need a coach to lose it!

The interactive front-end with 4 screens swirling left and right (like Android) seems to work OK but it's not very intuitive and the relationship between the Apps menu icon, the main home screen icons and the 'back' motion (tap on a blank part of the screen) is going to fox most non-Geeks, at least at first. The general information echo'd at the top of the home screen is comprehensive enough, the wifi signal is excellent, 3G perfect and battery life, against my early fears, seems to actually be very good indeed whilst on standby with various IM, Skype, Email and Social Network services running in the background. The usual array of shortcuts and widgets can be added to the homescreen(s) and this has very much an Android feel about it. Kinetic scrolling works really well in apps. Photos is basic but works well enough with slideshow, crop, tagging, rotate and sharing available (though Share only works via BlueTooth, Email or a few pre-installed services including Ovi, Pixelpipe, Facebook and FlickR - though I did manage to somehow add Evernote to this list).

The camera looks to me, the novice photographer, as very functional indeed - I'm sure Steve will push this one further but for my money it is nice to use, intuitive - with a slide of the lens cover in any app invoking the camera, the button half-pressing to focus and full-press to fire in the usual way. Various options are available within settings for Macro, Landscape, Action and Portrait, Flash settings, White Balance, ISO, Exposure Compensation(!) and Resolution including a switch between widescreen (filling the whole screen) and 4:3 with black masks left and right. After taking a photo there are the usual options to Share (in the same aforementioned way to the same services), tag, delete etc... The lens cover slide is firm and positive in action.

On to some of the other software inclusions then - Ovi Maps is there and seems to work in the same kind of way as it does for Symbian phones, though there are some extra bells and whistles, more on-screen controls and less menu based stuff. The GPS lock worked pretty quickly but hopefully again, Steve will have a closer look at this stuff. Conversations pulls together all your various VOIP and IM chat clients and reports them in list form (much like Nimbuzz) and I have running GTalk, Skype, Yahoo! but you can add Ovi, Jabber and SIP (whatever that is!) Ovi Store doesn't work yet - thankfully ;-) There's lots of other Maemo based apps which I remember from my N810/800, some of which are very good, some basic, some functional and some poor. Highlights include the RSS client, though manual input of feeds only, Good and logical File Manager with all expected functionality, simple but effective Notes/Word Processing app, App Manager and basic Office apps - Word, Excel and PowerPoint. A few games for good measure.

My greatest concern, as I said at the outset, is that I didn't feel able to use this wonderful device as my only phone/PIM and I don't think this is just because I'm so entrenched in Google services, but rather for a range of reasons that hopefully you've been able to get an appreciation for throughout these short reports. As a phone, the device is usable and workable but for SMS it's a dead loss in landscape-only. As a PIM device it falls short with Mail for Exchange flaky (as it seems to be in all Nokia devices) sync'ing, and failing completely for the Google user (apart from GMail). In today's modern world Google services are used by such a ludicrously huge amount of people that device developers must realise that they've got to work with them to get things sync'ing for the less-than-Geek consumers. I guess in time Google will release apps for Maemo to tap into their services, as they have with every other major mobile OS but even when they do, this is often not always completing the whole picture. Like the Symbian OS, the core Google apps don't actually plug into the onboard apps on the device, rather merely provide a web-based easy to use front end, which means that they have to be used online. It would be nice to see real robust synchronisation solutions between all the major PIM services plugging directly into the device's onboard apps, not just sitting by the side of them.

The N900 is a gorgeous device with fabulous build and a great camera with very good out-of-the-box integration into some services. It's a wonderful toy for Geeks to play with, developers to make good and devoted people to make their everyday device. I'm not devoted enough at this time for that to happen on two issues. Let's have all apps in Portrait (apparently that's coming soon in a firmware update) and proper integration with popular PIM services - integration into built-in apps, not web-based. Oh, and maybe £349 instead of £499 - that would feel like the 'right' price to me.

I hope you've enjoyed my quick overview and thoughts on the Nokia N900. I've been accused over the past week or so of being anti-Maemo and Pro-Symbian - one person even accused me of having "...spent too much time with Litchfield..." !! Well, as I pointed out at the time, I have invested in Nokia and the Maemo development by feeding back my thoughts to the community in the past and having bought with my own cash the 700, N800 and N810 (the N900 is the first one I have not bought - sure I will soon) and really believe that one of these days the Maemo project and its dedicated developers (and someone making a device) will come up with something that'll blow my socks off and I'll be able to use it every day as my main device. The Nokia N900 is not that yet. It's not because of the hardware but annoying other stuff.

Finally, having spent much time with Steve I can assure you that we both try hard to consider platforms, hardware and software on their merits and give our honest opinion. We have both come from a largely Symbian/EPOC/SIBO background so are bound to be more likely to want that to provide our solutions, but if it's something else, we'll accept that. In actual fact, if you're going to call me anything at the moment, I think it should be more likely an Android fan! Now, where's my DHL van?!

Nokia N900 - PIM

2010-01-04T15:46:00.004Z

In this post I'm moving on to how the N900 works for me, as a Google Services junkie, in the areas of Calendar, Email and Contacts. My hopes were not high as in using S60 lately I've had to find all sorts of workarounds to get the basic PIM working properly, so what chance for this newcomer?!

The Email wizard works excellently - there are plenty of email provider services to choose from and with just Username and Password, we were up and running. Sweet. The font, text size and clarity works beautifully and messages are arranged neatly not only into the 'standard' Inbox, Drafts, Outbox and Sent, but also any Labels in GMail are also ported across underneath as 'folders' and by tapping, when online, they can populated (though this seems to take an awful long time for 'large' Labels). There's no support for the various other GMail 'tools' like Stars, but even so, I'm mightily impressed so far. There are options to set Update Interval and so forth.

So far so good. So on to Contacts and specifically syncing Google Contacts across. Well, I think this episode may be quite short as I plain can't do this. I've tried ticking the Contacts option and Calendar and ToDo items in the setup, tried invoking a Mail for Exchange wizard route instead and tried all the options, removed the GMail account previously set up, started again with MfE ticking, unticking, changing options - nothing works. I can't get any of my GMail Contact records onto this device except for some other manual route.

And the same is true for Calendars - again, I need to sync multiple GMail Calendars across - nothing works and I don't even have the S60 fall-back of using a 3rd party as (unlike Maemo 2008) there doesn't yet seem to be a solution out there (that I can find) that will sync multiple Google Calendars or indeed Contacts.

I'm sure people will be writing to me now saying that they've got this working - because I know that some have, but I can't do it. I've checked and double-checked settings (which I've researched online and got from other people), rebooted, re-set the device (have not reflashed it) and whenever I try to sync using any method for any item, it all just fails - usually reporting the "Exchange Server is not responding" but sometimes "Exchange Account Disabled. Access Refused."

But why am I surprised? Nokia Messaging is so full of holes (as it seems are a lot of the top-end Nokia devices) released on us EAs at outrageous prices that anyone in their right mind would leave well alone, as we've said time and again on Phones Show Chat, until devices and services are at least a year old/out of Beta. Pah! It's no wonder I end up back with Android as a born-again Googler! All the Google Services synchronise properly - they just work! I seem to spend most of my time fighting (particularly) Nokia trying to make things work and trying workaround after workaround that don't workaround! Grrrr.

I know I'm supposed to be appraising the Nokia N900 here, not complaining about Nokia and praising Google but, as I said at the outset, a SmartPhone has got to, as a number one function, deal with basic PIM stuff properly, whoever you choose as your service provider. I'm not turning back to rediscover a load more frustration with PIM sync'ing so please don't write in and tell me how great it is for you and to try this and try that as I'm moving on and leaving that behind! I haven't got this unit for long and I've wasted long enough on that stuff (2 days), so that's all!

I'm actually looking forward to moving on and away from PIM stuff now to exploring some of the other much better (hopefully) aspects of this device and my next port of call will be the multimedia stuff. I have high hopes.

Google Sync Workarounds for N86

2010-01-03T10:21:00.006Z

Taking a short break from thoughts on the Nokia N900 - if the truth be known I've hit a bit of a cul-de-sac with Google products and getting them sync'ed across, but that's for another day.

But the topic of my post today carries a similar theme - that being how to sync the Nokia N86 as an alternative route when Nokia has locked and blocked your Nokia Messaging account! Grrr. Don't know why this has happened to me, but it has and I can't sync these devices with my GMail - which actually is not such a huge loss as Nokia Messaging is so flaky anyway - it's in all our interests to find another way round. Which brings us to the Nokia N86 and the apparent tight integration Nokia has built into the ROM between Nokia Messaging and Mail for Exchange. So tight, it seems, that with my locked and blocked Nokia Messaging account, the natural alternative - MfE - also doesn't work, is as flaky and keeps throwing up errors. So until such times as Nokia stop this silliness in forcing us against our wills to use a solution that they dictate, here's how I've got round it.

My concern is three-fold, Email, Contacts and Calendars (multiple). As I've said before, PIM stuff is central to the SmartPhone user and it's really not much of a SmartPhone if these can't be cracked. Which is why I've got stuck with the N900.

So, email - or rather GMail - I've set up a new GMail account and have told the No.1 GMail account to forward all email to the No.2 account and set up a new Nokia Messaging account which is not associated with No.1 email account but just No.2. Reflash the Nokia N86 and reformat the Mass Memory then follow the Email Setup and give it the details of the No.2 account - put in the No.1 account in settings for return email and bob's your uncle. Email working again (seemingly at the moment) perfectly. Makes you wonder if part of the reason Nokia Messaging is so flaky is that it can't cope with large, established GMail accounts with loads of data in them already? Just a thought.

So, on to Calendar - my standard solution for this, being GooSync. Works a treat, seamlessly - I don't recall having an error for years - and multiple calendars are supported. It does cost a few quid to use the service but it's well worth it. And Contacts? Well for as long as syncml is supported, this seems to be the best solution. Avoiding all that MfE complexity, just set up the device manually with standard syncml settings and everything talks to each other nicely.

Obviously, before you do any of this stuff take backups of your Google data - exporting Calendars and Contacts and backing up email in case anything goes wrong and you need to reinstate.

Maybe when and if Nokia Messaging unlock my No.1 account I can go back to a MfE solution but for now, this has got things working.

Nokia N900 - Telephony & SMS

2010-01-01T11:47:00.005Z

So how does the shiny new and wonderfully built Nokia N900 do as a phone? Well in my book, a phone should be able to be used in a 'phone' orientation at the side of the face between ear and mouth, not rely on landscape orientation for basic telephony and SMS should be able to be done standing in Portrait. So let's see.

The first thing I notice is that turning the unit from 'asleep' to make a phone call does nothing. The screen doesn't light up nor does (obviously) it turn into Portrait. So a slide of the 'lock switch' is needed to fire up the screen and a press of the 'Phone' icon (assuming your unit is already showing the screen of icons for apps - if not, a press on the top left gets you there). Not too much hard work there. (That action can be changed by tapping the drop down menu 'Phone' at the top of the Phone screen and tapping 'Turning Control' and selecting 'Launch by turning'. This means that as long as the screen is lit and in Landscape, turning it to Portrait will give you the Phone screen - however, when you've finished, it doesn't appear to turn back. Maybe that's a good thing for people who might, for example, lay down during a call and get cut off!)

So we tap the phone icon and immediately the unit switches to Portrait ready for action. There are three options presented - Dialling pad, Select contact or choose from a list of most recently active telephone calls - much like pressing 'Log' in Symbian. Selecting Dialling pad presents you with a dialling pad and numbers can be punched in. No dynamic matching of Contacts is performed as you type. Select Contact takes you to a list of your contacts and punching the name of the person you want presents you with a list of options - methods with which to call and available known numbers from which to choose. Simple and effective so far. Call clarity is very clear and good (using Vodafone in the UK) - as we've come to expect from Nokia - and the screen goes off and on using it's proximity sensor when moved to the face and away again. Nice. During a call there are options to mute, go back to the Dialling pad, turn on the Speaker for hands-free or End the call. The Speaker is very clear and loud. During the call, a photo of the Contact appears large on the screen - in my case imported from Google Contacts. No photo and there's a placeholder - with no apparent integration with FaceBook/Twitter et al to populate the pics (in the style of HTC's People built-in app). Other options in the drop-down Phone menu are Call timers, Clear recent calls (the Log) and access to the possible dialling Accounts and settings - so in my case, I'm presented with Google Talk, Ovi and Skype - with an option to add more.

Before we leave simple Phone use, it's important to note that if you want to invoke a telephone call from the Contacts list in Landscape of course you can by tapping Contacts and being presented with the same array of options to contact the person - with one important addition - I'll come to that - tap on the chosen number and the Landscape turns to Portrait ready to speak. Perfect.

The one important addition to which I refer is the options for SMS which appear only to be available in Landscape. No option to SMS in Portrait at all, which I think is a mistake. No virtual keyboard in Portrait - the only option for SMS use is in Landscape either using the on-screen or hardware keyboard. I think people want to be able to fire of a quick text on the bus or tube or in the pub and the quick way to do that is to have that available in Portrait with the possibility of using one hand only. The N900 is small enough to use one-handed for SMS and it's a shame that this basic T9 functionality is not included. I'm sure that people will tell me that I'm missing the point of the device and it's designed for Landscape use, but this would surely be easy to add even if most people choose to use Landscape. Anyway, perhaps this will come via 3rd party or a firmware tweak. SMS is presented via the Conversations app which displays a Threaded conversation, much like Android and iPhone. Conversations also allows for a quick-access New SMS which is handy. Very well implemented.

One advantage of this unit over others is the ease at which Alerts, Ringtones and Sounds can be added and assigned to events - a complete breeze after the fight with other systems which are rubbish, trailing through whole Media Libraries taking 15 minutes before presenting options - case in point is many S60 3rd Edition devices, FP1 & FP2. With the N900 it's a quick tap on Settings, Profiles and a nice and easy list of options is presented. When tapping on an event a list of options pops up with an additional 'Add' button - when pressed it fires up a virtual File Manager window which lets you navigate quickly and easily to the desired place on whatever disk and add the sound file. Quick and efficient and works a treat. (Put this functionality into S60 please Nokia!) Also present are volume controls for each event sound, independent of Global System sound levels and other sounds - all of which are tweakable individually. Really, really nice - are you listening Apple? And HTC?

Well I think that's about it for basic Telephony and SMS use - unless I missed something obvious which someone can prompt me to look at. Otherwise, look out for the next episode!