Tag Archives: PDA Reviews

Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY review (part one)

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Shaun

Available from Clove for £472.80.

In 1994 Sony launched the PlayStation and the gaming world changed forever; Nintendo quickly fell to its knees, Sega disappeared from the mainstream market and the symbols below became one of the most recognised selection of shapes in the world.

Gaming was suddenly a cool indoor activity and the rest of the world jumped on board. The competition struggled to catch up, but eventually Nintendo struck gold with the Wii and DS and even Microsoft took a large chunk of the action with the Xbox.

Today the PlayStation 3 is not doing so well and despite being the most powerful of the big games consoles, the Wii and Xbox are winning in terms of sales. The Sony PSP has had an even harder time having been attacked from all sides by the Nintendo DS, iPhone and all of the other smartphones now capable of advanced gaming that make the PSP, and indeed home consoles, look expensive in comparison.

Sony has in fact presided over disaster after disaster in the mobile market and failed to create any kind of traction in the MP3 sector at all and the wider mobile market has somehow completely alluded it for the past decade. Sony Ericsson started brightly, but has been treading water during the iPhone / Android era and released a selection of smartphones that merely sit in the middle rather than lead the way.

However…

Sony Ericsson has now taken things full circle and pitched the Xperia PLAY as a weapon to attack a potential gap in the mobile gaming market. When you can buy sophisticated games for under a dollar on iOS and Android it is hard to see where the competition can go, but Sony Ericsson is aiming to lift that minimal price barrier just a little and offer a superior mobile gaming experience in terms of software and hardware.

Here are the main features of the Xperia PLAY-

Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
Timescape UI
1GHz Scorpion Qualcomm
IntegratedAdreno 205 GPU
Certified Playstation phone
Up to 32GB micro SDHC
16GB micro SDHC included
A-GPS with Google Maps
5MP camera with autofocus and LED flash
1500 mAh Li-ion battery
119 x 62 x 16 mm 175 grams

As you can see the specifications built in are at the top end of the Android market. It is difficult for any manufacturer to differentiate greatly when most push phones totting 1GHz processors, 5 Megapixel camera and everything else we now expect, but as you can see from the image above the game pad is completely unique in modern smartphones. It is pure Playstation with the front controllers built in below the screen and it really does feel like a gaming device the first time you pick it up with the game pad exposed.

The box contents are above average with a decent set of in-ear headphones, a smart looking A/C charger, a 16GB microSD card, 2 screen protectors (one pre-attached), 2 USB sync / charging cables and a very neat car charger. That is an impressive bundle and an example for others to follow.

From a gaming perspective the buttons and their form are just about perfect and everything sits in the right place. The screen does not tilt because it doesn’t need to and this results in a rock solid feel when closed or open.

One of my first thoughts was how nice this could work with a decent QWERTY keyboard instead of the game pad or even better, a keyboard that could be slotted in and the game pad removed and vice versa. Now that would be a neat trick for a smartphone.

The overall build quality is superb and feels like high quality components have been used in the construction. The subtle use of chrome against the shiny plastic works much better than it should and this is probably a deliberate decision to make the phone look more like a PSP from the outside.

Balancing the needs of a serious gamer and a smartphone user is not easy and this is apparent in some of the components. The screen works well indoors and is not too bad outdoors, certainly not as bad as some sites make out, and I would call it typical of most mid-range to high-end smartphones. The problem here though is one of expectation; gamers who buy this expecting it to replace a dedicated console and thus have the ‘use anywhere’ screen and battery that can power games for many hours may be disappointed. Smartphone users who buy this expecting to add console quality gaming to their smartphone experience will feel much more positive about the compromises that have had to be made.

The size and shape somehow work well as one unit, but that does not mean that this is a small phone by any means. It is chunky, quite heavy with a severely rounded back that makes it feel good in the hand. Everything about it externally reminds me of a smartphone from 3 years ago, but with much more power and much more novelty than I have seen for a long time.

My first 36 hours with the Xperia PLAY have been extremely positive despite some reservations about the screen and battery life. The entirety of a smartphone is what makes me see each aspect for what it is. Some phones like make the small deficiencies a huge negative, but others like the PLAY bring enough that is new to the party that I tend to view the is a less negative manner. I am really liking the PLAY so far because it feels like a breath of fresh air in a world where every Android smartphone looks and works very much like the next one. Sony Ericsson has done well to take advantage of the jewel in Sony’s crown and produce a smartphone that manages to feel like both a phone and a gaming console, without either making the other feel like an add-on.

I have lots more to write, that is for part two, and am looking forward to seeing how the experience goes. The fact that this phone has me wanting to test and use it is more than half the battle in my view.


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Sparrow thoughts

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Shaun

For a long time now I have been an obsessive organiser of personal communication and Outlook plus an Exchange email account have been my tools of choice. I have records of email conversations dating back many years and rarely read any of them. Sometimes there is a requirement to check an old email, but this is rare and all of the emails should be on a remote server anyway.

In an attempt to simplify my general emailing I decided to spend a whole £6 and try Sparrow for Mac OS. One week later, my emails are more up to date than normal (still got over 100 to reply to, but that is good by my standards) and all of the clutter is hidden away in the background. If I want to look at folders I have to click an icon and then choose one to see what is inside. This annoyed me at first, but then I realised that I don’t need to see a list of folders on my main screen taking up valuable screen space.

Sparrow lifts many design touches from the default iPad email client and this works well by offering only the information you need to see. Opening an email will bring up a second window and multiple windows will be built if you open multiple emails- it doesn’t sound as though it should work, but it is much cleaner than having everything crammed into the one screen.

My experience of Sparrow has been almost universally positive so far and even sending emails does not result in long delays waiting for the email to be copied to the sent folder, which happens on other third party Mac email clients.

For the price it is an exceptional piece of software and has worked flawlessly so far despite hearing stories of resource hogging and it is much better than Apple Mail (which is almost as bad as Safari) and any other solution I have tried. I would advise at least trying the Lite version and then deciding for yourself if you need the full effort. I certainly do.

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HTC 7 Pro review

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Shaun

It isn’t easy for hardware manufacturers to come up with innovative new designs for Windows Phone due to the constrained nature of the operating system, but HTC has given it a go with the HTC 7 Pro. It reminds me of the original HTC Touch Pro, a lot, and bears many similarities; hefty weight and size, quality materials and construction and a keyboard to die for. It is designed for business and communicating and the main question is if it pulls it off as well as the Touch Pro did with Windows Mobile.

Features

Windows Phone 7 OS
5-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard
3.6-inch touch screen
Office for document viewing and editing
Outlook for email organisation
Zune Services (music, film, tv)
Bing services (Maps, Search)
XBox Live integration

Available from Clove for £424.80

This is a high-end phone with a high-end price and the specifications appear to live up to the billing. 1GHz of processing power, 5 Megapixels of camera and a 480 x 800 WVGA screen look good. There is, however, one specification that sticks out like a sore thumb; 8GB of internal memory and no expansion slot (no avoiding that on Windows Phone at the moment). I am guessing that the theory is that users will keep their media and files within online services because 8GB is not a lot at all when you consider that a 45 minute TV episode can reach 1GB. In actual fact I don’t think that is enough at all on any smartphone today and 16GB should be the bare minimum. Let’s remember this phone costs more than £400.

As I played with the 7 Pro for a few days I found some genuine highlights within the build. The keyboard is wonderful to use and even on periods of long typing I found myself bashing out emails and even short articles without a problem. The only downside is the space bar which only accepts input if you press it dead centre. This didn’t cause me a problem, but others who tested the phone at work really struggled with it. Why HTC chooses one point of input in a space bar is beyond me. The keyboard mechanism is superb and opens out automatically at a slant, a slant which is as rigid as you can get in a slide-out keyboarded phone.

The overall build quality is excellent when the keyboard is shut or open; no rattle or movement at all and this offered a real sense of quality all the way through the materials. It is very thick though at 15.5mm and you will notice it in your pocket especially when combined with the 185g weight. As I said before it is very like the Touch Pro in terms of feel in the hand and weight in the pocket.

The camera is average at best and took some work to eek out a good photo, but it is capable of producing decent shots if you are prepared to work at it. Personally, I am prepared to work at taking decent shots with an SLR, but not with a smartphone. Video capture is poor despite the claimed 720p spec and the recorded sound is not up to much at all. Throw in the fact that the default settings are reset ‘every time’ you restart the camera and it’s not great at all.

Oh well, at least we have the large screen. Unfortunately that gets very washed out when in direct sunlight because the technology employed here is most definitely 2009 at best. It is highly responsive and usable indoors, but phones go everywhere and everywhere is where they should work.

The external speaker is, again, horribly tinny and very quiet. HTC has done this on phone after phone and doesn’t appear to be improving here. The sound quality from headphones is good though and so is voice quality to the ear, but of course the speakerphone, which is on the back despite the fake speaker grill on the front, suffers as well.

The battery is not too bad and will last a day of relatively heavy use. This would be expected for the target market which I presume to be suits who want to communicate and call people most days. Expect a nightly charge, but it holds up well on standby which not all phones manage so successfully.

You would think from what I have written above that this phone is a rushed out product, but none of the above comes close to the bizarre way Windows Phone works in landscape. Pull out the keyboard and the screen mode stays in portrait. It does switch to landscape within the apps which makes for a great experience, but seeing the home screen in portrait when you are using it in landscape would be enough to stop me releasing a phone in the first place. It is the pinnacle of designing a phone that cannot fit the operating system onboard. Strangely, you do get used to it quite quickly and it doesn’t feel like a problem in use, but even so this is too strange for words.

Conclusion

The sad part about this phone is that it is very well built, beautifully styled and has a keyboard that the competition cannot match at this time. It would be the perfect workhorse for the user who wants to call, email and communicate with people throughout the day and who needs decent PIM. Let’s remember that Windows Phone is a decent operating system to use and offers a lot for people who need to get things done.

However, and it is a big however, there are some glaring omissions here that leave me with the feeling that HTC is more interested in getting new devices to market than satisfying their customers.

How else do you explain the inclusion of a speaker that sounds dreadful, a space bar that requires absolute precision to use and an operating system that cannot display its own home screen in the direction the phone needs when the keyboard is opened?

I actually like the 7 Pro a lot and found myself enjoying using it, but couldn’t shake the feeling that corners had been cut and development rushed to get the phone to market. There seems to be little thought put into these problems and that is a dreadful shame, because it has the potential to be the very best business smartphone on the market.


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iPad 2: This time it’s personal

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Shaun

Apple sums up the new iPad in just eight words on the from page of its website:

Thinner. Faster. Lighter. FaceTime. Smart Covers. 10-hour battery.

That’s it. No references to magic or revolutions. No hyperbole. No gimmicks.

I think that’s entirely deliberate and speaks volumes about the confidence Apple has in the new model. It knows it is on to a winner and that when people finally get their hands on one, the device will speak for itself.

Put simply, the iPad 2 feels like the iPad done right. Not perfect, and not even close to the reaching the full potential of the tablet form factor; but, at this point in time, it clearly points the way to a future in which tablets replace the conventional laptop for the many millions of users.

On the face of it, Apple didn’t do much. They made it about 1/3 thinner, and about 15% lighter than its predecessor, put in a faster processor, ramped up the graphics, doubled the RAM, stuck in a couple of cameras, added HDMI out with full screen mirroring, maintained the 10+ hour battery life, and left the screen at the same 1024 x 768 resolution. Oh, and they designed a nifty cover that’s held on with magnets.

No big deal. Right?

Wrong. The iPad 2 is pretty amazing. New owners are going to love it, and existing iPad owners are going to have a hard time resisting its pull.

Thinner and lighter

At first blush, the smaller, lighter form factor is what’s going to have the biggest impact on people’s day to day use of the iPad 2. With a tablet, what really matters is how the the device feels in your hands and responds to your touch.

And the iPad 2 feels great. Really great.

The first thing you notice is how much easier it is to hold and handle than its predecessor. It’s improbably thin, but not flimsy; it has heft, but isn’t heavy; and it’s perfectly balanced for use in either portrait or landscape.

Whereas the original iPad could feel like it was bit of a handful at times, the iPad 2 is just far more maneuverable, so I’m using it in ways I never contemplated with my existing iPad. For example, I can hold the it quite comfortably in one hand while typing with the other, and can easily imagine taking handwritten notes in this manner while on the go.

The reduced bulk, weight, flat back and tapered edges also make the iPad 2 even more suitable as an ebook reader. While I tend to do most of my reading with the iPad resting on my lap, an armrest, or on a table, the iPad 2 is far more comfortable for one-handed use; in fact, it is smaller than the Kindle DX and only slightly heavier. Indoors, or in artificial light, I’ve no doubt as to which device offers the superior reading experience.

Setting the iPad 2 down on a table reveals another benefit of the new flat-backed design: you can type and play games on it without worrying about it sliding around. I always kept the original iPad in its case when using it around the house (to make typing easier) but with the iPad 2 I don’t have to; but, when I have some extended typing to do, it’s just so easy to snap on the Smart Cover to elevate the keyboard. Speaking of which…

Screen and Smart Covers

Whatever the reason, there is no doubt in my mind that the iPad 2’s screen is significantly brighter and warmer than the one on the original iPad. It’s something both my son and I have noted, and is clearly shown in the photo below. There’s some speculation that it may be because Apple reduced the thickness of the glass panel by about 25%. I can’t speak to that, but I certainly prefer my new iPad’s screen to the old.

The smart cover is every bit as cool as it looks in Apple’s video and adds considerably to the iPad 2’s utility. You will be amazed at how solidly it attaches itself, providing a rock solid angled platform for typing, and a surprisingly sturdy stand for watching video. You can even use it as a “handle” for holding the iPad in one hand while reading or tapping out a quick note.

Apple claims that the Smart Cover’s microfiber lining helps keep your screen clean and free of fingerprints, and that’s true, up to a point; however, you will still have to give the screen a quick wipe every now and then. The good news is you can simply detach the Smart Cover and use it to clean your screen squeegee-style, obviating the need to carry a separate cleaning cloth.

Faster

It’s fast. The original iPad was pretty quick, but the iPad 2 is noticeably quicker and smoother. Sophisticated apps and games load much faster, and graphically rich games like Infinity Blade, Dead Space and Real Racing 2 HD look incredible and run at a noticeably higher frame rate. The Daily, which is a dog on the original iPad, runs smoothly, without any slowdown or lag, and video apps like Netflix and Hulu+ begin streaming in just a couple of seconds. But you’ll even notice the speed bump every time you touch, swipe, double tap the home button or pinch the screen. Everything just responds instantly.

Of course, the extra RAM helps; it’s particularly noticeable in Safari where you no longer have to wait for pages to reload when switching between tabs. It’s not that the original iPad was slow or it’s graphics performance was terrible, but, once you have lived with the iPad 2 for a while, it’s hard to go back.

As time goes on, I suspect that we’ll see more and more apps which take advantage of the iPad 2’s extra grunt. Apple has clearly demonstrated what the iPad 2 is capable of with apps like iMovie, GarageBand and Photo Booth; now all we need is third party developers to similarly raise their game.

FaceTime and Video

I know plenty of people who held off from buying the original iPad because it did not include a front facing camera for video conferencing. Well, that omission has been rectified on the iPad 2, which sports both front and rear facing cameras and comes bundled with FaceTime, Apple’s remarkably easy to use video chat app (although the cameras will also work with Skype and other such services).

Setting up and using FaceTime is, of course, a doddle. It also highlights how much more useful video chat is on tablets rather than laptops or netbooks. Anyone who has ever used video conferencing on a laptop will know how awkward it is when you want to show someone where you are or what your kids are doing. However, on the iPad 2, a quick tap on the screen turns on the rear-facing camera so that people can see exactly what you are seeing; and the device is so small and light that you can easily walk about while providing a commentary for friends, family or colleagues.

Though the rear facing camera isn’t a patch on the one included in the iPhone 4, it does shoot some very capable HD video; indeed, grasping a larger device fully with both hands helps with image stability, and having a huge screen as a viewfinder is a plus. Still shots aren’t anywhere near as good, but, frankly, the idea of whipping out your iPad to take a quick snap is ridiculous. The cameras are designed for FaceTime and video, pure and simple, and they do a very good job.

Home Sharing, AirPlay and HDMI-out/mirroring

Through a combination of software and hardware changes, the iPad has become even an even more fully integrated component my home entertainment set-up. Home sharing makes it possible for me to instantly stream any of the content in my iTunes library to my iPad, which is great for watching the occasional video in bed without having to sync the content across via cable; AirPlay, meanwhile, has been enabled for third party apps, so that video/audio can be outputted wirelessly to my HD TV via Apple’s $99 set-top box (Apple TV).

But the most exciting change is the addition of HDMI-out, 1080p full-screen mirroring. This is going to transform the iPad 2 into an even more compelling presentation tool which is going to gain widespread use in education, sales and business in general.

Even at home, it is quite something to plug in your iPad 2 and have everything that you do on it mirrored on the big screen; it turns the iPad 2 into an even more social device than it was before, and is going to open up some exciting opportunities for game developers, who are already building in additional functionality to take advantage of this feature. For example, Firemint, the developer of Real Racing, has already shown how it can output 1080p full-screen track action while using the iPad as a controller and to display track layout/telemetry.

Empty your cup

Once a certain Buddhist scholar visited a Zen master and asked him to teach him Zen. The student began to talk about his extensive academic background and rambled on and on about his previous teachers and everything he knew about Buddhism.

The master patiently listened as he quietly began to make tea. When the tea was ready he poured it into the scholar’s cup. He continued to pour even as it flowed over the sides of the cup and onto the floor. The scholar halted from his exposition and said, “Stop! Did you see the cup is full? You can’t get any more in.”

The master immediately stopped pouring and said: “You are just like this cup, full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is already full; I can’t put anything in. Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.”

The iPad elicits a strange, even hostile, response from some people because it challenges their preconceived notions of what a computer should be. We’ve become so conditioned to the status quo – keyboard, trackpad or mouse, vertically oriented screen, complexity, and huge amounts of raw processing power – that we’ve actually forgotten what an unnatural, stressful and distracting activity using a computer can be.

One of the attractions of using the iPad is that it is a complete break from the complexity of a desktop computer, providing a clean, uncluttered environment in which to read, work, learn and play. Navigation is simplicity itself and, as a user, you never have to worry about whether you have broken something or strayed into areas of the “system” that should really be off limits. Simplicity, reliability and consistency are the bywords here.

The iPad isn’t for people who want to tinker around with computers – it’s for people who want a frictionless way to read a book, write, watch movies, surf the web, create a presentation, update a spreadsheet, check email, make music, play games, update their calendar or take notes. And they want to do it on a device that is nothing like the slow, bloated, cumbersome contraptions that currently go under the name of “personal computers”.
The iPad dances to a different tune. It’s simple, it’s fun, it’s fast, small and light. You can hold it in one hand, like a book, or lay it flat in your lap to play a game, surf the web or flick through the pages of magazine. Apps fill the screen completely, providing a completely immersive, distraction-free experience. You can use it in both portrait and landscape, depending upon your needs and situation. It’s less cumbersome and intrusive than a laptop or netbook, and way more practical than a smartphone.

The power of touch

It’s the way that you interact with the iPad that makes it so compelling for so many people. In the real world we touch and manipulate things directly, but with traditional computers we are forced to use pulleys and winches (mice, trackpads and keyboards) to get at our stuff. On the iPad I just touch it; the content itself is the interface.

Nowhere is this effect more keenly felt than in an app like Flipboard, which turns the sprawling chaos of the web into a sublime, immersive and relaxing reading experience. It is a world away from clicking through Google links, checking Facebook and Twitter feeds, or bouncing around between different websites. As I casually flip through pages while eating breakfast, it feels totally unlike any other piece of technology I have ever used. In fact, it doesn’t feel like tech at all. The tech disappears.

I get much the same feeling when typing this article in PlainText, creating a bass line in GarageBand, laying out a slide in Keynote, or creating a chart in Numbers. I’m closer to the work, more focused and more intimately involved than I ever feel on a desktop or laptop.

That’s why the iPad 2’s smaller, lighter form factor is completely transformative; it makes the iPad 2 even more fun, versatile and portable than its predecessor; and easier to integrate into even more aspects of our lives. Meanwhile, the extra horsepower smooths and refines the performance so that you barely feel that you are using technology at all.

Put simply: using the iPad 2 is a sublime experience, one that is going to appeal to an awful lot of people. Maybe you won’t get quite the same thrill from it as I do, but I’m willing to bet there are tens of millions of people who will.

The appeal of tablet computing isn’t a fad, any more than the mouse was 25 years ago. That’s why the iPad 2 is flying off the shelves. It’s the most personal of personal computers.

(This review was created on an iPad 2. I wrote the words in an app called PlainText, then used MarkdownMail to output the text as an HTML email with headings, subheadings and emphasis. I wirelessly transferred the photos from my iPhone 4 to my iPad using PhotoSync, then added a screen grab of Flipboard and a couple of pics snagged from the web. I used Photogene to rotate/crop/enhance some of the images before pasting them into the final article.)

Trevor

21 Comments

T-Mobile Pulse Mini review

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Shaun

The T-Mobile Pulse Mini is available for the extraordinary low price of £29.99 plus a £10 top-up. For that price you get the following-

Android 2.1
3.2 Megapixel camera with zoom and flash
3G
Bluetooth
GPS + free sat nav software
FM Radio
300 hour standby
4 hour talk time

You simply cannot go wrong paying such a small amount of money for all of the above.

Actually, you may want to ignore the statement above because this phone is a bloody disgrace! Never in all my years reviewing mobile technology have I had the misfortune to review such an appalling piece of junk, and that includes the dreadful Next Tablet which highlighted just how much poorly made products can affect the image of Android.

Let’s forget the impact this type of device has on Android for the moment and ask why T-Mobile would want to sell it. The company spends a fortune, as all mobile network operators do, enhancing its network so that customers can get the best possible experience. It spends a fortune on training staff, renting retail spaces, manning call centres and all of the other aspects that a large company needs to cover. After all of that it puts a Pulse Mini in the hands of a customer.

Why would a company do such a thing? It makes no commercial sense at all and does nothing to breed customer loyalty. On top of all that T-Mobile must be making a loss on each unit so it isn’t even profitable as a quick win.

Anyway, I don’t want to give my conclusion away (?) so I will just get on with the review…

The packaging looks quite smart from the outside and is basically a black box with nothing written on it at all. The Pulse Mini sits at the top and looks quite professional and so I was looking forward to bestowing many ‘benefits of the doubt’ on it. In the box you get a USB sync/charge cable, AC adaptor and a really bad pair of headphones. To be fair this is standard whether you are buying a £50 or a £500 smartphone so I will let this pass.

There is something unusual that comes out of the bottom left of the phone. It is thin, telescopic and has a pointy end. I think it is called a ‘stylus’, but I would have to check with people who have used mobile devices for many years. Oh yes, it has a stylus which is an indication of what is to come.

Turning the Pulse Mini on instinctively made me use my finger to swipe the lock icon to see what it could do. I swiped and the icon moved slightly and fell back, I swiped again and it did the same thing. I then remembered that the stylus is probably there for a reason so I used that instead on the ‘finger sized’ icon. I swiped with the stylus and the icon moved slightly and fell back. AAAAARGH! It took me 10 attempts to unlock the phone the first time I used it and subsequently I have never managed to unlock it with one swipe using my finger or the stylus.

It gets worse though because touching an icon on screen will open up a completely different app and trying to scroll down the list of apps is akin to putting up wallpaper; it never happens how you want it to and the result is always different to what you expected. Anyway, I thought I would try making a call with the phone- it dialled out OK so I put it to my ear and heard nothing. I turned on the speaker option and heard nothing. I cancelled the call. I tried again and could hear the dial tone as it rang in my ear. I turned on the speaker and all sound disappeared. The speaker has never worked on this phone for me at all.

The continual mis hits on the screen led me to calibrate it in the settings, haven’t done that for a few years, and it worked better. Five minutes later I had to calibrate it again and so the process continued. Over three days it has never improved.

At least the camera is there which offered me some rest bite from the awful touch interface. There is a dedicated camera button which you can use to quickly take photos that are roughly the same quality as a smartphone camera from a year or so back, in fact they can come out quite well. Video recording looked quite smooth, but because the sound in my Pulse Mini doesn’t work I couldn’t tell what the sound levels were like. I transferred the video over to my Mac to test the sound and, there was still no sound.

There is little doubt that the stylus is needed for all navigation and even for the buttons below the screen which is crazy. It offers no natural interaction at all and you do have to press hard to get any touch recognised. Don’t even get me started on trying to input data on this phone.

I like the size and shape of the phone and it looks and feels like a £100 phone from the outside, but everything else from the software to the hardware components are sub-standard in a way I have never seen before. Oh, and Android Market crashes every time I try to access it.

Conclusion

You should treat this phone as if it is made from enriched plutonium and stay as far away from it as is humanly possible. At least I can say that it is consistent- consistently terrible in every single department. It is not good for Android, it is not good for T-Mobile and it certainly won’t be good for you.

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iDry Waterproof Case Review

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Shaun

I now know how important it is to protect an expensive smartphone, and that is during a normal day without strenuous activity. The fact is that smartphones can break or they can be useless in certain situations because they are not designed to cope with water and the knocks that are likely to occur during some activities.

The iDry Waterproof Case is here to help and will suit those of you who have a need to use such a case in the rain or even underwater. The target market for a case like this is huge; golfers, scuba divers (remember that it has a claimed 5 metre depth rating), and anyone else who wants to take their iPhone with them when the weather could potentially turn bad. It is designed for use in extreme or unusual conditions and obviously not to be carried around every day.

The fact that you can use the iPhone in the case is a huge advantage and the screen cover is cleverly designed to allow swiping, tapping and even typing while remaining perfectly waterproof at all times. Compromise is present of course, but with time you start to realise that gentle swipes work and that pushing too hard will ripple the screen protection which is thick silicone.

Opening and closing the case is an unusual, but reassuring experience. You twist the top and everything locks into place firmly which offers a sense that the case really will protect the iPhone no matter what you are doing. I haven’t seen a case that looks and feels so secure, but the size increase is of course evident. There is no way on earth that a case can offer top class protection without increasing the overall size of the unit and this one does, but it is very light and this makes carrying it during some activities much less noticeable than you may otherwise expect.

This case is quoted as fitting the iPhone iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 and it certainly does, but for the iPhone 4 I found it fitted better with a silicone case in place. There is a very slight rattle when it is in bare so some support would be useful.

A neck strap is included for added protection and all in all I am very pleased with the product. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this case is the price which comes in at only £9.99. When you consider the cost of such cases elsewhere, this price is extremely low and in my view it offers much more protection than you would expect at this price. Highly recommended for those that need serious protection during specific activities.

Available from holdersandmounts for £9.99.

1 Comment

Week Cal for iOS review

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Shaun

For many iPhone users the default Calendar app is OK, but for others it’s perceived as one of the weaker areas on the device. For a generation brought up on Palm’s calendars, or third party offering like Datebook, the standard iPhone app just didn’t cut the mustard. Many pretenders to the crown have come and gone, often stymied by Apple’s reluctance or stubbornness to let developers get right at the heart of the functionality they need to produce a decent competitor.

But then along came Week Cal by Wasabi Apps.

All of a sudden, here was an app that looked like it could offer a decent alternative including that fabled week view missing from Apple’s native app. It got some pretty decent reviews, and I decided a few months back to stop using the default Calendar app in favour of the new pretender. And I liked it. It wasn’t particularly barnstorming for me, but it was efficient, and that week view certainly made it better.

It’s just gone to v3.0, and there are some great new additions to it’s functionality. It’s got a new year view – OK, not much detail here on an iPhone screen, but very easy to quickly navigate to a month/day. More tellingly, and something that will possibly swing it for ex Palm users is a terrific Agenda/week view that you can customise with up to 8 different layouts. It almost looks like a Palm! (Note to self….move on).

Additionally you can rotate views and have a different view depending on whether you’re in portrait or landscape mode. For those that want it, there.s a global birthday alert (I have a wife for that). There are a myriad of other features including  various full screen options, the ability to auto-hide bars, have different badge alerts according to your preference, show or hide week numbers and change font sizes.

The neat ability to tap and hold to start data entry makes it feel much more useable than the native app, and generally this whole app gives a feeling of being very polished. I highly recommend this app for anyone who’s serious about using a calendar on an iPhone. It’s miles ahead of the native app, and Apple really should take a long hard look at this.

Simon

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Urban Guerilla headfunk headphones review: you don’t always get what you pay for

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Shaun

During a recent shopping trip to buy my son some new football boots (a monthly occurrence thanks to the speed his feet grow) I wondered into HMV to see how things were holding up. HMV has not been doing well of late and appears to be making changes to turn things around, and the changes are quite bizarre. Our local store now has a small corner set aside for CDs, very small, and the rest of the store is designed around DVD / Blu Ray and technology. The majority if the real estate now houses headphones, iPads, iPods, docks, i-accessories and all of the other stuff you can buy in Carphone Warehouse, Currys, Phones4U, O2, the iStore and so many other establishments. The only area in which HMV is unique has now been consigned to a sideshow and this will either save the company or prove to be the final nail.

Even stranger is the volume of products that are on sale at discounted prices and in particular CDs and DVDs which are approaching iTunes levels which is of course a good thing. Technology also seems to be highly discounted and I came across a pair of Urban Guerilla headfunk headphones for £6 (previously £25). I admit that I wasn’t expecting much from a pair this cheap, but decided to pick them up as an impulse buy anyway. They came in a big box, which is usually enough to make me buy something, and I dropped in a bag and forgot about them for a couple of days.

When I remembered that I had bought them I took them out of the flimsy box and admired my purchase- it would be physically impossible to make them look and feel any more flimsy than they are. They are designed to look cool, but with no efforts made to include quality materials in any area. Not a good start. They remind me of the kind of headphones you get given on an airplane and all of a sudden £6 felt like an enormous amount of money when I considered the product in front of me.

Anyway, I gingerly put them over my head with more than a slight concern that they would snap and plugged them into my iPhone. I pressed play and waited for the airplane experience, but didn’t get one. What I got was a sound quality that is much deeper and more encompassing than the default iPhone headphones. What I got was a feeling of exceptional comfort that just felt right on my larger than average head. They work quite well and are a definite improvement over Apple’s stock effort which is something I did not expect at all.

The fact that they are over ear rather than in-ear will help to reproduce a more rounded sound, but I still didn’t expect the quality that came through. I am sure that the audiophiles among you will be scoffing at my saying anything positive about such a lowly set of headphones, but they really are not too bad and you even get an extension cable should you wish to plug them into a stereo system that is 10 feet away…

Should you buy them headphones for £6? Of course. Even if your delicate ears are too sensitive to cope with the sound, they are still an improvement over any bundled headphones I have tried in the past.

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From Mobile to Desktop: Sailboat Championship

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Shaun

We have seen many games ported from the desktop / console to mobile over the past 2 years as the growth in mobile gaming accelerates. That growth has now become so fast that the opposite is now happening and original mobile titles are being ported to the desktop. Angry Birds made the jump and so have a couple of others, but Sailboat Championship is arguably the most ambitious port yet.

I enjoyed the original on my iPhone and still play it to this day, but it can be extremely challenging and you really do need to think about what you are doing to progress. This is not a racing game. It feels like a racing game when you first start playing, but nothing from the rules of racing applies. Turning into a corner before your opponent is not always the right strategy because you ‘always’ need to concentrate on the wind and often the longer route is the quickest. For those of you, like me, who have not learned the vagaries of sailing this makes it difficult at first. It would be incredibly frustrating were it not for the subtle, but useful help that is included to make you understand what you need to do.

As you progress, you start to understand what is required and a genuine sense of achievement comes through. Very few games, on any platform, manage this, but Sailboat Championship does quite easily. You think, you concentrate and you enjoy every step of the way, but the small screen of a mobile is not conducive to such a rich environment and complexity of movement.

iDREAMS seems to have realised that this is an immersive arcade game that would be more suited to the desktop and so released a new version on the Mac App Store.

It is faithful to the original and those of you have have played it on iOS can jump straight in and start playing. However, the entire experience is much more immersive on the larger screen and the rendering of the water, boats and everything else is crystal clear. Throw in some calming wind sounds and subtle boat noises and you will quickly find your head much nearer to the screen that it should otherwise be.

There is a lot here and I am not going to explain it all, but not since Gran Turismo on the original PlayStation have I been so immersed in a game. Progress is slow, but rewarding and there are additional games should you reach certain stages. Airplane Run, Jet Ski Races and Jet Ski Rescue need to be unlocked to play them and despite not getting that far yet, I am still more than happy to continue progressing at my leisurely rate because I am simply enjoying the experience.

And all of this from a game requiring the use of 2 buttons. This game has opened my eyes to Mac gaming and I may now try some others on my Mac Mini, but for now I am happy to jump into the virtual water when I have some spare time and just need to let it go now and again so that I can do other work.

If we offered ratings in reviews on 247 this would be a 10/10. It’s worth every penny and I would suggest you get both the iOS and Mac versions.

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Quick App: abcNotes for iOS

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Shaun

There are countless note taking / task list apps in the iOS App Store and choosing which one is best is truly a needle in a haystack experience these days. I happened across abcNotes which offers a different experience to the rest and the kind of organisation interface some of you may find fitting for the way your minds work.

It is a sticky notes style app which do not tend to work well on smartphones because the amount of screen available is not suited to such a medium. However, abcNotes has been cleverly built to offer flexibility of note size and crucially a variety of different note styles and fonts which work much better on a small screen than an app that offers the standard yellow sticky note styling. It doesn’t end with just styling either because you can overlay notes on top of one another and prioritise by simply dragging one note over the other or increasing its size with a two finger pinch.

This is a highly visual experience which uses touch above all else to create notes, organise them and even move them between categories which are basically new pages of notes. It is hard to explain how well it works, but trust me it does work very well indeed. There are times when it can run slowly if you have lots of notes created, but hopefully a future update will resolve that problem.

All in all abcNotes offers an innovative and pleasing experience that will suit the majority of users who want to take full advantage of the iPhone screen and the way the touch interface works. It is staying on my iPhone and time will tell how useful it will become.

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Palm Pre 2 review: software / hardware

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Shaun

In part one of this review I wasn’t the most positive about the hardware on the Palm Pre 2, namely the bizarrely designed keyboard. I have, however, managed to just about get used to it and can now type at a relatively good speed. It says something that I can type quicker on the Pre 2 than I can on the iPhone 4 which I am presuming most people will find odd. It says to me that I am still a hardware keyboard preferrer and probably always will be.

Anyway, this part of the review is not all about the hardware, but mainly the software and the way in which webOS works. It will probably offer little new to those of you who use webOS every day (I am guessing less than 3%), but for those of you who have wondered here are my thoughts.

I have completely and utterly fallen in love with webOS over the past week. There, I have said it. It grew on me over time until I started to not notice how I was using it. Everything feels so natural from the flicking up of an app to put it to the background to the wonderful gesture area which never fails to impress. The multi-tasking is well regarded in the mobile industry and with good reason; just seeing an app download in the small window while checking the home screen is a treat and you can check multiple apps that are doing things. They are not sat in a frozen state doing nothing and webOS, and the Pre 2, handle this memory intensive stuff with ease. No slow downs, no freezing, just a sense that everything is working as it should.

The camera is average at best and I would have expected more from a 5 Megapixel sensor. It still retains the classic Palm ‘snap a snap in a snap’ functionality that few other cameras can manage, but care and attention is needed to create shots worth printing. It does the job, but only just and in low lighting conditions it really struggles to capture detail. EDoF is built in, that’s Extended Depth of Field by the way, which can help when taking distance shots and good lighting produces good results, but I feel that more could have been done with the hardware at hand here. There are virtually no options to speak of and this can be advantageous because it stops you fiddling and leaves your mind clear to just take some photos.

Video capture is a completely different affair. The results are excellent which would be expected with a 30 fps setup, but curiously the maximum resolution is only 480 x 640 VGA. So we have a stills camera that doesn’t quite live up to the specs and a video camera that exceeds the specs. Strange…

Music playback is good, but not vibrant enough to make me jump up and dance around my house. I like the music software and the subtle features that let you play around with your tracks, but more options are needed to change the tone of the audio because it all sounds slightly flat. On the plus side multiple formats are supported and this helps if you just want to dump a load of old tracks and get up and running quickly.

The 320 x 480 screen packs in the pixels well and this results in good video playback quality. Some busy scenes may blur a little, but not to the point that you would be distracted from what is happening on screen. YouTube is built in and is perfectly serviceable with quick video loading and bright colours lifting the experience somewhat.

Battery life is a bit of a concern from what I have seen so far. You will get a day out of it which is not unusual, but when you start throwing the intensive stuff at it the meter drops very quickly indeed. This is potentially a problem for power users and one that I had presumed Palm would have solved by now, even if it is an HP product. You can manage the battery via various options, but smartphone users don’t want to do that. The OS and general hardware form are designed to let the user manage their lives and enjoy them a little more than they would on competing phone. So put a decent battery and keyboard on the phone! This isn’t difficult and it constantly amazes me how huge companies fail to build acceptable batteries and keyboards; HTC, Nokia (on some phones), Palm and indeed most of the rest often overlook this area and it is annoying when you consider their desire to make the interface look pretty and to stuff a compass in the product.

Conclusion

There are some leftover compromises in the Pre 2 that are a hangover from when Palm stood on its own two feet. The battery life is not great, the keyboard is cramped and the camera could be better. These alone should make me slam the Pre 2, but the highlights lift the entire experience hugely. The form factor grows on you and really is unique in the clone-like smartphone industry today. The operating system is simply brilliant. It is as good as iOS in my opinion, and possibly better, but suffers from a lack of apps in crucial areas such as navigation.  As I consider the Pre 2 I like it a lot and would be more than content using it as my main phone which is more than I can say about 95% of the products on the market today.

I have a theory that the people who are likely to buy a webOS phone are likely to understand the market and maybe even hanker for the good old days of Palm OS. The problem with the Pre 2 is that these people will also understand that the Pre3 is on the horizon and this is a whole new ball game. The screen is bigger, the keyboard looks way better and the 1.4GHz processor should push the experience along at lighting speeds. However, something tells me that the battery could be a problem, but I am happy to be proven wrong. All of this makes the release of the Pre 2 a strange move.

The Pre 2 is a great phone, almost entirely because of webOS. It is the first phone in months that has caught me and this is against a backdrop of Android devices that are all similar in too many ways. I have to recommend the Pre 2 simply because it is so adorable, both the hardware and software, but there are compromises built in to it and I am hoping that HP will do much more with webOS than Palm ever did.

Available from Clove for £342.

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Palm Pre 2 review: hardware

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Shaun

Available from Clove for £342

Highlights-

* webOS 2.0 platform
* True Multitasking
* 3.1″ multitouch screen
* Slide-out 4-row QWERTY keyboard
* Just Type
* HP Synergy for cloud back up
* Cut, Copy & Paste feature
* Set-up up to 16 Exchange Server email accounts
* Over 3000 Apps available
* 3.5mm headphone jack
* 16GB internal storage

The Palm Pre 2 is a curious device. It is following in the footsteps of the original Palm Pres which failed to set the smartphone world alight and is preceding the much anticipated Pre3. This puts the Pre 2 in a position that no company should ever put one of its products in. HP was so determined to demonstrate its strategy for the year ahead that it has ended up making the Pre 2 look like the last of the original bunch and not a patch on what is to come. I don’t understand why this phone has been released at all, or at least I didn’t until I used it for a few days.

My experience with webOS is much less than with any other mobile operating system and has consisted of a few hours here and there which never gave me a true insight into what the operating was about. This is my chance to look at webOS as much as the Pre 2 and the results have been unexpected on so many levels. Let’s start with the hardware-

Picking up the Pre 2 for the first time felt like I had jumped back in time to the pre-iPhone era. There is little doubt that this is a Palm designed product because every aspect from the box through to the accessories to the phone itself screams Palm. The small touches of cuteness are everywhere and while I don’t appreciate them all, they are unique in a market dominated by large screen slabs of uber technology, most of which look the same.

The stubbiness of the Pre 2 is hard to ignore on the first day of use and I have no qualms in saying that I hated the shape of it. It just didn’t feel like a phone at all; too small height and width wise and too deep. It resembles a pocket radio from the early 1980’s and has almost no sharp angles at all. However, over the past few days I have grown to like the form of the phone and found it to be quite natural to pick up and use. It’s a nice feeling to be clicking open a keyboard again when I get a call or a new email arrives- some don’t like this action and find it cumbersome, but I see it as making the Pre 2 feel more like a real phone than the touch screen only rivals it is trying hard to compete with. It also feels more natural to hold and I have quickly become accustomed to the form which has shown me that there is life outside of touch once more.

In the box

Everything from the main charger with its quirky adaptor to the USB cable with the clever binder screams of innovation and carefulness of thought. Even the documentation is cute and the box is very similar to the Centro efforts from years ago. The headphones are not great, but feel free to find me a manufacturer who bundles decent headphones with their smartphones.

Second impressions

I won’t do first impressions because they were not very good and will instead concentrate on how I have found the hardware after prolonged use. It’s pretty good all round barring one major problem. The external speaker has a deep and rounded sound and the screen works very well in all conditions. I don’t like the size of the screen because it hampers many tasks that would work so much better on a larger screen. Despite my preference for real keyboards I would love to see webOS running on a larger touch screen device. I believe that this would show people what the OS is really like and enable them to compare it with iOS, Android and the rest. At the moment the hardware is too different for many people to see past and they often fail to get past the first hurdle.

I have to say that the biggest hurdle is the keyboard which is exceptionally small and far too difficult to use. It is a throwback to Palm design from the past where there was always an inconvenience built in. On the Treo 650 it was the lack of dynamic memory, the Treo 680 had an appalling battery, the Centro had a tiny keyboard and the Treo Pro was just crap all round. The Pre 2 keyboard suffers from the keys being too small, too close together, too close to the bottom of the screen and even the key legends are not always centred. It is a bizarre series of data entry compromises on a phone that is designed to communicate. On the plus side it feels perfectly weighted and comfortable in the hand, but that is a shallow plus indeed.

The mirror on the back is almost as crazy as the keyboard design. With no sexist intent at all, is this phone only designed for women? How many men do you know that want a mirror on their smartphone? I don’t need a mirror on a phone to tell me that I have lost my hair and that I have gotten fatter recently. I need a mirror on the wall because I have gotten fatter recently and the Pre 2 mirror is too small for my fat face. You could argue that the mirror is not seen when in use, but everyone else can see you talking into a mirror when you are on a call. Strange indeed.

So it’s not good is it? I will publish part two in a few days and explain why this is the second best phone I have ever used.



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LMP Bluetooth Keypad Review or Look Ma, No Wires

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Shaun

When I got my 13″ MacBook Pro, I knew it was going to spend much of its life sitting on my desk hooked up to an 24″ external monitor with an external keyboard. I got the laptop for portability, but when I’m not porting, I’m sitting at my desk. I’m not like my wife who sits in a reclining chair with her laptop on her lap, along with one or two cats.

Since I wanted a full keyboard including a numeric keypad, I bought the Apple wired keyboard. At the time I had a bluetooth Mighty Mouse. I quite liked the Apple keyboard but I hated the wire. I’m sure someone is saying “It’s only a wire” and they’d have a point. But it did get in the way of the various things I have under the monitor. Sure I could put them elsewhere, but there are a number of things I like to have right in front of me either because I use them all the time or because I want to constantly remind myself of something.

I looked at the Apple wireless keyboard, but it’s like the laptop keyboard with no numeric keypad. So I tried a 3rd party full bluetooth keyboard. For a while I was satisfied. It felt good, although not as good as the Apple keyboard, and had all of the keys I’d ever need. Unfortunately, whenever it went to sleep for power saving, it took at least 5 seconds to wake up after pressing a key. Around this time I also got a Magic Mouse, which was always available.

After a number of months, I broke down and decided to try the Apple wireless keyboard to see how much I’d miss the extra keys. I figured I could always return it if I hated it. But it was like coming home. It felt great. It didn’t take up as much desk room. And it was instantly available. So I put up with entering numbers using the top row. It’s not too bad for a number here and there, but it is a pain when I’m balancing bank accounts and there are lots of number entries.

Then I saw a preview for the LMP Bluetooth Numeric Keypad. Now I’ve seen other numeric keypads, but they were always significantly bigger than the Apple keyboard and were loose. The LMP looked like an extension of the Apple keyboard and had an adapter to connect the two. Here’s a diagram.

Not quite the same as the Apple full size wired keyboard but very close. As well, the keys are pretty close to the Apple keys so it feels like it belongs. Using the keys feels very natural.

So it looks good and feels good but how well does it work otherwise. Quite well actually. You get the keypad, the adapter, two AA batteries and an instruction booklet. Construction is plastic, not Aluminum, but it feels reasonably solid. And the adapter is snug on both sides so moving the combination around doesn’t jar anything loose. I mean it’s not screwed in tight, but certainly adequate for the intended usage.

After loading the batteries and powering up, pairing by bluetooth is the same as pairing any other bluetooth keyboard to a Mac. You put the keypad into pairing mode, let the Mac find it, and enter the code displayed. It took me longer to get the batteries in than it did to pair it with my MacBook.

What you get is the standard numeric keypad, the digits 0 to 9, the numeric operators (=, /, *, -, +), a decimal key, and an enter key, plus five function keys *F13-F17), page up, page down, arrow/cursor up, arrow/cursor down, and forward delete.

It did have a slight delay if it was in power save mode, but not as bad as my other bluetooth keyboard. And it’s not a big issue since it’s not used all the time. The other issue is that as is typical with 3rd party bluetooth add-ons, you don’t see the battery charge remaining in the bluetooth menu entries. Both are easy to live with.

One thing I did find was that I was pressing the forward delete key whenever I really wanted the arrow/cursor right key. So I used Keyboard Maestro to change it. The Shortcut Key is defined as the Forward Delete key on the Keypad and the key pressed when that shortcut is used is the arrow/cursor right key on the keyboard. I found it very cool that Keyboard Maestro would take input from one device and output from another.

If you need a wireless numeric keypad for your Apple wireless keyboard, I recommend that you look at this one. I found it here. There may well be other places.

Bob

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Nokia C3-01 review

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Shaun

Nokia continues to dominate certain areas of the mobile phone market and with very good reason. When I think of a standard Nokia mobile phone, I think of good build quality, reliability, easy to use software and general performance that the others often struggle to match. At first glance the Nokia C3-01 embodies all of the above with ease.

It is a beautiful looking phone with a large 2.4” and outsize keys that are larger than any other comparable Nokia S40 phone. It looks like a premium handset, but retails for under £100 and this makes me wonder why anyone would choose anything else. Of course the Orange San Francisco also retails below the £100 mark and there are a few smartphones that are priced similarly, but few match the C3-01 for the high quality materials used.

The main differentiator here is that a touch screen is included which is highly unusual in a candy bar phone and my initial conclusions were that it would be problematic to use. The BlackBerry Torch, even with its slide-out keyboard, didn’t feel quite right when using it to type and in my mind a front facing keyboard needs to be the full QWERTY style to work effectively. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Symbian S40 is employed so you won’t need to scroll around the environment too much and my initial impressions were that the touch screen worked extremely well for choosing apps and general navigation. It gets a little trickier when scrolling lists of media because it seems to be pressure sensitive and this takes some getting used to. The shape of the phone and screen size also make the touch experience feel somewhat alien if you are used to something like the iPhone. This should not, however, detract from the way the touch screen has been implemented because it works very well and proves that it is perfectly possible to make a candy bar phone that is touch and type.

Connectivity is well catered for with HSDPA and Wi-Fi included alongside Bluetooth 2.1. The inclusion of Wi-Fi is unusual in an S40 phone, but I’m not going to complain. When browsing and checking emails etc. the HSDPA speeds were blazingly fast and I was more than impressed with the mobile data performance. There is a quirk though in that holding the phone at the bottom, or using it two-handed, can decrease the 3G and Wi-Fi signals markedly. It didn’t cause me to lose connection and the signal is excellent in normal use, but it shows that Nokia still continues to house the antennas in the bottom of the phone. There are also still some quirks in the software- I connected to my router and the Wi-Fi worked perfectly. All I needed to do then was turn the Wi-Fi off. Um, this proved to be problematic because I could not find a setting anywhere to do this and eventually ended up on Google where I found many others asking the same question. In the end I left it and it seemed to turn itself off although I’m still not entirely convinced.

Needless to say, the call quality is excellent and so is the loudspeaker which is one of the best I have ever heard. This is impressive when you consider how slim the phone is and puts paid to the argument that some high-end smartphones have weak external speakers because they are so thin. Music quality is also very good through the external speaker and offers a feeling of coming from places outside of the phone which is always a good trick to pull off.

The various apps included are as you would expect- alarm clock, calculator etc and a selection of games that work really well with the touch screen. It took me back to a time when sliding puzzles and simple word games were good fun, and in many ways they still are suited best to a smaller screen. Ovi Store is there so you can purchase a download from a wide range of (basic) apps and games, but let’s not kid ourselves and expect a full app experience under S40.

Surprisingly Ovi Maps is not present which I would have expected. Even on my wife’s Nokia, which is only £40 to buy, it can use Ovi Maps so why not here? I understand the lack of GPS, but it could still be offered using triangulation even if the ultimate solution isn’t 100% perfect. It’s not a huge problem of course, but I would expect a consumer phone priced under £100 to offer GPS before Wi-Fi. The camera is rated at 5 Megapixels, but doesn’t get close to that level of performance and I would place it at equivalent to what you would expect from a mid-range 3 Megapixel phone snapper.

Anyway, that one small blip is a personal want and not enough to detract my view of this phone. The battery is excellent and everything else is pure Nokia. Symbian S40 is really showing its age these days, but is still a competent and easy to use environment for most people and just about succeeds. The hardware is wonderful and the phone itself is a joy to use. With the usual high performing battery and call experience we expect from Nokia, I have no hesitation in recommending this phone as a back up for a smartphone or as a full-time caller. My wife liked it so much she is now using it as her main phone and has no intention of moving from it anytime soon. Even I pick it up now and again just to experience it and to enjoy the way it has been put together. Well done Nokia.

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Google Nexus S review (part two, almost)

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Shaun

I have been in possession of the Nexus S for 10 days now which is longer than I normally get to test a smartphone. This has given me a much greater insight into its performance and the downsides of what is supposed to be the flagship Android phone of the moment. I have a problem though and it is an unusual one for me- I have found no problems at all with this phone so far which flies in the face of some feedback I have received from another Nexus S owner who has had multiple problems with his phone (expect a review from him soon).

These problems have also been discussed on other sites and it seems as though Samsung needs to work through some software niggles to make the Nexus S a reliable and consistent performer. The problems are varied and in some cases wide ranging yet I have not experienced any issues at all. I feel that I am more likely than most to experience problems with smartphones which I presume is down to my usage pattern; I am still having big signal problems with the iPhone 4, my BlackBerry Bold is still suffering from charging issues and my Orange San Francisco continues to struggle with Wi-Fi. The Nexus S suffers from no problems at all for me. Calling, signal, battery and all of the other practicalities have come over as above average for me and it’s all good so far.

I am not going to detail each feature of the Nexus S at this time because I have spent a lot of time pushing it hard to try to find problems. It is an odd way to undertake a review, but in some ways probably the best thing to do. The overall experience of using the Nexus S is quite simply brilliant and the screen dominates like no other phones I have used, apart from maybe the Desire HD. The difference here though is that it comes with the Samsung build quality and a sense that this is a ‘pure’ Android phone. When you start using a phone that offers Android in its default state you quickly realise that all of the bells and whistles thrown in by HTC, Samsung and the like on other phones are just that, bells and whistles. The beauty of Android is that you can do almost anything you want with it and the Nexus S is the best clean slate I have seen to date.

It’s so good that I will be buying one next week and will then complete the second part of the review, but this is a seriously impressive phone and shows to me that some Android phones have the potential to rival the iPhone, and that the battle will get harder as each month passes. I use the word ‘potential’ because I’m not quite ready to offload the iPhone yet.

Available from Clove for £459.60.

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