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Adam

Yurbuds Ironman Series Red & Black Running Earbuds

Posted by Adam – March 5, 2012

This is a set of running earbuds that my friend Josh asked me to review over on Recently Reviewed, so I’ve posted the review here too.

This set of earbuds makes the lofty claim that they are ‘guaranteed not to fall out’. A lofty claim for sure, so evidence will be scrutinised.

Unboxing

I have an Audioboo account and I’ve posted a brief podcast detailing the unboxing and first impressions here. Photos below.

The box as it arrived, minus packaging of course

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

The box compared to my Garmin Edge 800 so you can see the ludicrous size of it

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

Box contents

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

The lofty claim

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

First Impressions

I’m afraid that the first thing that struck me is not the product, but the ridiculous packaging. Even if I were not an environmentalist, this would still annoy me. Most of the packaging is superfluous, not biodegradable and it is so big that when I cycled down to get it I could only just squeeze it in to the pocket of my huge grey hoodie. This is something I really despise. The environmental damage is tremendous, it is wasteful and it is cumbersome to carry. When an iPod touch including headphones can fit in a box roughly a fifth this size this sort of box is unforgivably large. I cannot stress how much this annoys me. What complete waste of resources, materials, and what a thoughtless approach to the environment.

Moving on, the earbuds are distinctive, but I suspect the Marmite effect will come in to play. Red and black is very much love-it-or-hate-it. The jack plug is a standard 3.5 mm and is a distorted ‘L’ shape:

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

The angling seems pointless. Why not just make it straight? I can only see that being annoying as I’ll have to twist it around to stop it bending back on itself. I know I’ve nitpicked here, but for $36 plus postage (around £25-30) I would expect a bit more thought to go in to the product.

The cable splits as it hangs around the solar plexus with a ‘Y’ shape piece which also has the control panel on it:

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

I also attached the included clip:

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

The controls are volume upend down on the ends, with play/pause in the middle.

The two things that make earbuds fall out in my experience are the lack of a clip, meaning that the earbuds jerk up and down, eventually pulling them out, and also sweat/rain in the ears. The latter is infuriating as it is impossible to get earbuds to stay in wet ears. Yurbuds claim this won’t happen. We shall see how that claim stands up to rigorous testing.

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

The earbuds arrive with sheaths attached:

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

They also provide a slightly larger set for those among us with freakishly giant ears:

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

A handy carry pouch is also provided:

From Yurbuds Ironman Series Running Earbuds Review

I love this. I’m always losing earbuds, as well as having to constantly hide them from my children who play with them. This way I can safely stash them in a drawer or sports bag and they’ll be safe. Much appreciated, and a welcome addition to the package.

Usage

Sliding the earbuds in feels a little bit weird, but they are reasonably comfortable. They do not seal the ear, however, the material feels as though it will mould to the shape of the wearer’s ears over time, so whilst I cannot see them being too good at noise-cancellation that may well get better over time.

You can hear my initial thoughts after a quick mile and a half run in an Audioboo here. The run was logged on Endomondo:

This was a short run after walking my son to school. The performance of the headphones is split easily in to two parts.

Running

The headphones were really very good indeed. The claim made on the packaging holds true. They did not fall out. The only point when I felt that they might do was when they snagged on a fold in my running top, which has nothing to do with the headphones of course. It simply means that I need to place them more carefully. The earbuds stuck firmly in my ear, and but for my placement-induced tugging, they did not move at all. I have to say that I am very impressed.

Audio

The earbuds gave an extremely satisfying, bass-y sound and are clearly rather good at noise cancellation as I have only now realised that I didn’t hear anything except the music during my run. The sound is even and clear, whilst not being too tweet-y. Of all the music compression algorithms MP3 tends to give the brightest sound, but thankfully these were very restrained, delivering a great tone that allowed the various voices in the music to be heard.

At the end of the run I finished with a fifty yard sprint, and that didn’t affect the headphones. I will use them for interval running too, but for review purposes they have delivers everything I was hoping.Great sound, and they stay in the ear very well. Next up I did some interval runs, which I do as laps of a field, with half a lap running, quarter of a lap sprinting, quarter of a lap warming down by jogging. Did the pace changes and fast sprints affect them?

No, most certainly not. The performance was exactly the same. These headphones provide a great sound and they live up to the hype on the box, they stay in the ear no matter what. Given the price they are good value I think. A good set of headphones comes in around £15-20, so for the extra benefit of sticking in the ear I think this is a good buy.

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HTC Desire HD Review (Phones)

Posted by Adam – November 10, 2010

HTC Desire HD

The HTC Desire HD. Let’s get the specs out of the way eh?

  • Processor: - Chipset: Qualcomm 8255 SnapDragon - Speed: 1Ghz
  • Battery: - Talk Time: 9 hrs - Standby Time: 490hrs - Capacity: 1230 mAh
  • Display: - 800 x 480 pixels/4.3″ - Touch Sensitive(Capacitive)
  • Camera: - 8 mega-pixels (auto-focus) - Digital Zoom - Dual LED Flash - Geo Tagging
  • Video: - Recording Resolution: HD (720p) - Recording Speed: 25fps - LED Video Light - Supported formats: MP4, 3GP, DivX, XviD - Video Streaming – YouTube
  • Music: - Supported formats: MP3, AAC, eAAC+, OGG & WMA - Dolby Digital Mobile - SRS WOW Surround Sound
  • Messaging: - SMS - MMS (with video) - E-mail (POP3, IMAP4, Exchange, GMail) - Twitter – Instant Messaging (Google Talk)
  • Memory: - 768MB (RAM) - 1.5GB (internal) - microSDHC (memory card)
  • Call Features: - Hands Free - Caller ID - Voice Dialling
  • Connectivity: - 2G: 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz (Quad-band) - 3G: 900/2100 (Dual-band) - WiFi (802.11 b/g/n) - HSDPA (14.4Mbps) - HSUPA (5.76 Mbps) - Bluetooth (2.1) - microUSB - 3.5mm Audio Connector
  • Navigation: - AGPS - Digital Compass - Google Maps
  • Sensors: - Accelerometer - Proximity Sensor - Light Sensor
  • Features: - Web Browser - Office Document Viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) - PDF Viewer - Flash 10 - DLNA Wireless Media Sharing

    • None of which tells you anything useful. Well, there are loads of things to talk bout with this phone so lets go.

    Screen

    It’s a 4.3 inch screen and it’s a bobby dazzler. Despite sounding massive it feels really natural in the hand. It’s noticably bigger than the iPhone but the weight and smooth contours make it easy to hold. The camera lens protrudes from the back a good few millimetres. I really thought that it would catch my palm and do my head in, but not at all. Ergonomically it’s a decent phone. Typing is tough with one hand unless you use the excellent, yet love it or hate it Swype. Swype lets you type with swipes, moving from one letter to the next without taking your finger off the screen. If it sounds weird it is at first, but now it’s a ‘how did I do without i?’ app for me. It’s predictive and lets you add to the dictionary. Provided you’re not typing nonsense words it is seldom wrong. There are no hard keys as such. They have been made in to touch sensitive buttons for Home, Menu, Back and Search. Gone completely is any trackball or trackpad. I don’t miss it.

    Apps look great on screen and the touch screen is unintrusive and useful. Call quality is good but the bundled hands free kit is predictably crap. Terrible sound and earphones that fall out of your ears.At the bottom are the SIM and Micro SD slots, with a hatch that slides off  so no need to turn the phone off or take the whole back off to remove either. Left side has a volume rocker, which can be hard to operate, rather irritatingly, and top left is power, again, irritating to access. Minor points but they do annoy me.

    Performance

    Lightning fast apps, switching, animations and functions make this phone a joy to use. However, the big issue. Battery life. When I started using this phone I was horrified at it’s 6-7b hour standby time. I thought it was faulty at first until I did some research, and here is how you get 30-40 hours out of it.

    • Accounts sync. I had a total of 11 accounts  syncing, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, News, Weather, Stocks etc. They set themselves to sync every 15 minutes by default. Massive drain. I killed all bar the Google and Facebook accounts. Google updates every 2 hours and Facebook daily. This alone extended the life to a days’ use.
    • Install a task killer, kill all tasks that do not need to be running. This makes a huge difference.
    • Get rid of pointless apps. They are usually badly written and drain power. Apps like this are the price of the more open Android market, as opposed to Apple’s ‘Dolphin’s Butt’ approach.

    There are other optional steps that I took.

    • I rooted the phone using VISIONary, a free app that needs no restart and doesn’t flash the phone.
    • Installed Titanium Backup free and  deleted all the crapware that came with it. I dumped a load of pointless widgets, HTC bloatware apps that offered wallpapers etc and, astoundingly, there are two bundled Twitter apps with the phone, the official Twitter app and the HTC one called Peep. I use the far superior Tweetdeck so I have no use for those, off they went. A factory reset puts all of this back on the phone so you need not worry about that.
    • After this run the phone as normal for ten days, then drain it completely and calibrate the battery.

    My battery clocks in at 30-40 hours business use now so it can be done, Don’t believe the propaganda. I am the sort to plug my phone in whenever possible anyway, always have been. It’s hardly Apple’s ‘It just works’ appeal but I like Android for playing with it so I’m not bothered, you might be.

    Running widgets, particularly live feeds will drain it but it’s nothing to worry about.

    Media

    Music is well played, no skips etc but you’ll need decent headphones as cheap ones sound tinny. The screen is perfect for iPlayer/YouTube and the playback is very good indeed. Sharp, vibrant and well-balanced with intuitive controls. YouTube lets you sign in to a different account from the phone which is a useful idea. Photos look crisp and sharp too. Flipping between landscape and portrait is snappy and works perfectly. The music app displays album art and controls music whilst the phone is locked without having accidental presses. Clever. You can install different ones if you like, notably Tune Wiki, but I see no need. There is some sort of Dolby sound thing going on here, but I have to be honest, in my experience the rule is spend a few quid and it sounds good. This phone doesn’t convince me otherwise. It sounds good, but if I am supposed to notice some sort of sound revelation, sorry. It sounds good provided you don’t use a terrible bit rate on MP3 files.

    Navigation

    Google Maps and Navigation is there. It works snappily and the voice search is brilliant. No complaints. With it being a cloud based app there’s nothing new here that isn’t on other phones. What is new is HTC’s proprietary Locations application. It has several features. Free maps and mapping but navigation is a premium feature. Unless you’re a heavy user then navigation is free with Google. If you use it daily then buy the premium as Vodafone only give you a measly 750 MB data plan. I think this is taking the proverbial a little now. One gigabyte is not a huge amount so it’s clear they’re looking to squeeze a few pounds out of us on data.

    Fortunately, the free element of Locations is offline mapping. No data usage, but sadly the database of locations is absolutely hopeless. It’s empty compared to Google Maps and as far as I can see it does not accept postcode searches. They had better update that pronto. If you search then every space sees a lag as it tries to match what you just typed. That is extremely irritating and a flaw that needs to be addressed. However, most of the time, if you give it the data it will find what you need. If so, then the maps have 2D and 3D views – very nice indeed – and they work with the compass so that the map turns wherever you are pointing it. No more walking for a bit to see which way you should be going. Very nice feature and one iPhone has had for ages. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Google haven’t  done it  with maps. Locations also does general keyword shops. You can select whatever category of place you want, e.g. pubs, and find the ones in the area along with ratings and reviews. This is very good and means no worries about using your data up on Google Maps. As an aside, as these apps move to the cloud then networks need to be fairer on data allowances. I would happily compromise on say, mapping and browsing only, no downloads or streaming, in exchange for unlimited 3G data. I think that is a better way to keep everyone happy. No nasty surprises in our bills and the networks don’t have to worry about media streaming brining 3G networks to their knees. I am sympathetic as the traffic on 3G has exploded since iPhone changed things, but then they’ve had three years to beef up their infrastructure. If they keep this up it will stink of profiteering. Having expensive data tariffs on always-online devices is a gun to the head scenario in my opinion.

    GPS signal acquisition is lightning fast and as accurate as I have ever seen. Any thing like maps or navigation looks brilliant on that 4.3 inch screen.

    Location services on this work really well. I know there are real concerns regarding privacy but I am all over location services like a fat kid on cake. I love them and can’t wait until they gain wider acceptance. Why, for example, can’t 20 Foursquare check-ins at a restaurant equal a free meal? There is an opportunity to make money here, and hopefully the right sort of thinkers will drive this. Foursquare is a great idea, but the app on here needs refining. It works fine, but searches can often be slow and it’s a little  buggy. Not the phone’s fault, but a thought. Facebook works well and includes Places. Tweetdeck (or Peep/Twitter if you prefer) all permit location updates in tweets and geotagging photos os available too. This phone will stretch the possibilities for locatoin applications. It has the capability and the screen to be extraordinarily useful. We just need some original thinking from developers for apps and services. Bring it on.

    Camera

    The camera is 8 megapixels, twin LED flash and shoots HD video at 720p.

    Here is a sample video from bonfire night:

    Pretty good, I am sure you’ll agree. A couple of stills from the same night:

    The OS is the bang up to date Android 2.2, smooth and fast. There is a vast array of sharing options, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Mail, YouTube. Uploads are a couple of taps and go just fine.

    Internet and Mail

    Gmail on this is great, push updates and notifications. The mail client works well with loads of options, including a unified inbox for all accounts. Nice touch. The browser works very well with smooth panning, zooming and pinching there, and in the rest of the apps too. Google search and voice search integrates brilliantly, giving local results for the device and net results too. I did install Firefox beta but for a beta release it has some terrible bugs, notably being the capitalising of the first letters of passwords, meaning you type it, then your full password, then go back and delete the capital. It’s easily fixed but that is a real balls up for something of Firefox’s standards. Quick look up works when you highlight text, you get the usual cut and paste options. The menu also gives ‘Quick Look Up’ as an option so you can get web and Wikipedia results for the highlighted text. Very good idea.Bookmarks are tiles and multiple pages are supported. plus map links and so forth open the relevant app rather than viewing in browser. Perfect touch there.

    Software

    The market now allows auto-update and update all for installed apps. It restricts that by forcing manual update if application permissions have changed. That stops developers sneaking in data mining and sharing that you did not originally agree to. Thank you Google. The market is simple to browse and the app selection is huge. Not quite up with Apple and there is a fair amount of crapware in there, but there are some great pieces of software. Be wary that quality control is non-existent, which gives app developers freedom but also allows more seedy tactics like apps that are just there to serve ads, thus generating cash, and apps that don’t work properly. Read comments before installing.

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    App Reviews: Dell Streak

    Posted by Adam – August 22, 2010

    Having used the Streak for a while now I wanted to review of some of the more interesting applications it uses.

    First up, Google Earth.  A couple of technical details. This requires Android 2.0 or better, and I had to find the .APK file online and install it manually as it seems to be available for Nexus One only in the UK Android Market. Quite why Google are dithering with this I don’t know, but it’s easy enough to find anyway. I always found it odd that this was out for iPhone pretty quick but was difficult to obtain for Google’s own mobile OS. The beauty of Android is that tinkering is allowed and easy. Beats the hell out of Apple’s NONE SHALL PASS approach. When installing from a non-market source you will need to enable external application installs in the applications settings menu.

    It opens pretty quickly, under five seconds. When it loads you see the familiar splash screen followed by the blue marble hanging in space. This is the first time I have run Google Earth on any Android device, and only the second mobile device after iPhone 3G. The animation and frame rate is smooth and does not lag at all. GPS allows you locate yourself and zooming is about as smooth and sharp as your data connection will allow. Strangely my 3G is far faster than my home WiFi so it’s pretty laggy when zooming in on my home broadband. Obviously that’s not Google’s fault. I just have a rubbish router.

    Video demo:

    Forgive me for searching ‘London’ when I was already there – duh. You can see it is pretty slick. You’ll notice I accidentally pressed a couple of photos. That isn’t n issue, I’m just holding a camera whilst using it so I slipped up. You can see that pinch, double tap etc all work very well.There doesn’t seem to be any way to mess with it,  import GPS tracks, KML files etc, but all the usual layers are available so you can, for example, view geotagged Panoramio photos.

    Google Earth works very well, and it is crying out for users to do things with it now. Let’s see what happens eh?

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    Dell Streak Review (Phones)

    Posted by Adam – August 21, 2010

    I’ve had the Dell Streak for a couple of weeks now so the review is not an unboxing.

    Here is how it looks:

    I’ve read a lot about the Streak online and it tends to be the same everywhere. Those who’ve never seen it don’t get it, those who see it like it, those who own it are always being asked about it.

    For a phone it’s big, almost comedy size, but despite the ability to make calls on it the Streak is sold as a tablet. The interface is set up in landscape mode and you can buy a data-only tariff.  I bought it  outright and got a 30 day rolling data contract. Other options are available, including 18/24 month deals or SIM free from Dell. Keep reading below…

    More…

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    Motorola Milestone Droid Review (Phones)

    Posted by Adam – August 18, 2010

    I am now the proud and pleased owner of a Motorola Milestone. First things first. In America it is called the Droid, which is such a cool name. Why oh why did they change it to Milestone for Europe? (Ed – They licensed the name from Lucasfilm in USA)

    Motorola Milestone

    I changed from a HTC Hero as my priorities have changed. I now need a phone that is good for work. The Hero is a great phone but a touchscreen is hell for texting and emailing a lot. I needed a hard keyboard and, being a fan of Android this was the natural choice. Continue reading below…

    More…

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    Android Apps Update

    Posted by Adam – December 30, 2009

    A couple of Android apps that are well worth a look

    Photoshop Mobile

    An excellent, free Photoshop lite. Obviously it’s nothing like the desktop thing, it’s a few simple functions to allow users to improve photos with editing tools. Open it for the first time and it generates thumbnails, then simply tap a photo and then select ‘edit’ from the home menu. It then offers the following tools from three tap-to-pull-down menus:

    Crop
    Straighten
    Rotate
    Flip

    Exposure
    Saturation
    Tint
    Black & White

    Soft Focus

    The interface is very clever. For example, to add tint, tap ‘tint’ on the menu, then slide your finger over the image. Slide right to increase the value, slide left to decrease it. Very clever. Once done, save image, upload etc. Superb, simple, user-friendly.

    Scoreboard

    A Google sports app. Who knew that geeks like football? Very simple. Install, open, select your sport, then the country, then the league, then the team. The app then runs in the background and pulls down live scores, providing periodic notifications. Great.

    Aldiko

    As a reader of Ebooks since the days of Palm I noted with interest recently that ebooks outsold paper books this Christmas for the first time. Aldiko is an ebook reader that has a great catalogue of freebies and will read Epub format ebooks. The interface is a virtual bookshelf and reading can be customised in terms of colour and touch controls. The only ebook reader for Android that is any good. Downloads are quick and there is a massive amount to read for free.

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    Android 2.1 Flashed to a T-Mobile G2 Touch

    Posted by Adam – December 29, 2009

    First of all, this was made possible through instructions posted on YouTube by a chap known as tech0StickyAsGlue and his YouTube channel can be found here. A big thank you to him, even though it is almost certain that he will never read this.

    Before I go any further please be aware of the following:

    IF YOU PROCEED WITH THIS, OR ANY OTHER MODIFICATIONS TO THE ROM IMAGE ON YOUR PHONE THEN YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. THIS KIND OF MODIFICATION VOIDS ANY WARRANTY ON YOUR PHONE. THIS MEANS IF YOU ARE LEFT WITH A BRICK AS A RESULT OF MODIFYING IT YOU ARE LIABLE. YOUR PHONE COMPANY OR SERVICE PROVIDER WILL NOT PAY OUT FOR A NEW ONE AND NEITHER WILL I OR ANYONE ON THIS WEBSITE. IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT ANYTHING IN THIS PROCEDURE, OR YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING THEN DO NOT PROCEED. IF YOU DO GO AHEAD YOU MUST BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST. FLASHING YOUR PHONE WITH A NEW ROM IMAGE IS DONE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

    I MEAN IT

    On top of that, this post is not a set of instructions on how to do it, nor is it a recommendation concerning which ROM to use. The video shows a particular ROM but I ended up using another in the end.

    I decided to do this after getting extremely frustrated with T-Mobile. As I write HTC are preparing to roll out Android 2.1 to all HTC hero handsets and T-Mobile are still messing about with 1.6. Even more irritating than that is the fact that the update will not be rolled out over the air, instead the phone needs to be flashed. Even MORE IRRITATING THAN THAT is the fact that Mac is not supported so I have the most advanced phone on Earth and because of T-Mobile’s useless tech support I have to take it to the shop to update it! Bloody ridiculous. I decided that if I need to flash it I might as well do it myself and get 2.1 with all the benefits that it brings, including Google Navigation. In your squidgy, fat face, useless T-Mobile tech support.

    Firstly, thank god I am finally rid of the buggy, laggy, inadequate 1.5 Android release. 1.6 onwards brings speed, stability and a better interface. The ROM I sued dispensed with all sings of T-Mobile interference with the image, except for the boot screen. I am sure I could dump that too but who cares. I just wanted them off my phone. I wish someone would stop mobile companies from installing all that crap like web ‘n’ walk and suchlike. Nobody likes it and it just clutters the phone, consuming memory. If you don’t believe me, look the success of iPhone on O2. Not a sign of O2 anywhere but the bills.

    The only downside to this that I have come across so far are a few missing apps. It is a missing YouTube application. To be fair the image I used is not ready for full release yet so I can’t complain about that. I got around this by installing vTap, a free application, from the Android Market. Also peep, the preloaded HTC Twitter has gone and been replaced by a new social network called Plurk. I’ve signed up, we’ll see. worked around this by installing Twitli from the alternative, unoffical Android Market Mobentoo. One presumes that the name is a pun on ‘mobile’ and ‘Ubuntu’. Mobentoo has a fraction of the number of apps that the official market has, but there are some exclusives, including some great games, and freebies which are better. The Android Market could easily become a collection of Lite apps that don’t do much except annoy you in to buying the full versions. Still, variation can’t harm anything. No-one is forcing Mobentoo on anyone. Personally I like it. The website has their full application catalogue with data matrix barcodes, so instead of squinting at the phone you can read on your computer, scan the barcode to download. Excellent.

    This ROM, even though it’s a cooked version of 2.0 is miles better than 1.5, which T-Mobile lumbered it’s customers with. In future I will go SIM free from Expansys and buy a contract to get the phone free. It’s far less hassle and you have control over your updates, meaning I on’t have to go through this farce again. I am not really too big on modding but sitting like a lemon with 1.5 whilst even G1 users are on 1.6, with talk of 2.0 looming is irritating to say the least, I would go so far as to say outrageous and shabby service. Performance in 2.1 is way up and whilst I could say it’s a nice surprise, it’s actually what I expect. Cyanogen 1, T-Mobile 0.

    The main plus points:

    Free emulators. Emulators are available for free from Mobentoo for the following: NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Sega Genesis.

    2.0 retains integration with contacts and Facebook. It pulls down all Facebook data to your contact, including profile pictures. Nice touch.

    HTC generic: no more Web ‘n’n Walk. This is good because when phone makers put that stuff on phones like this: WHAT’S THE POINT? Seriously, does anybody use that crap?

    Tethering. Another glaring omission from Android thus far for me, being a Mac user and all. Plus, it’s unofficial so it comes within my data plan.

    And finally, the biggie, Google Navigation. It’s every bit as good as everything else Google does. Voice commands are disabled in this ROM, I imagine the ROM coder will be on the case.Signal acquisition is quick, mapping and directions legible and it tracks perfectly. This is every bit the match for anything TomTom have ever come up with but the obvious kicker: IT’S FREE! Mark my words – this will blow the lid off the SatNav market. The others are going to have to innovate or die, it is that simple.

    I will be watching to see what the Nexus One turns up. I may well get an Android powered netbook too if they are this good.

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    Google Navigation update: TomTom throws down the gauntlet

    Posted by Adam – November 25, 2009

    TomTom want to charge £99 for a cradle for the iPhone and £59.99 for the application with Western Europe maps. That’s £160 (more than a standalone TomTom sat nav unit) for what Google is giving away for free. I really had to check to see that I had not misread the price for a piece of injection moulded plastic at £99 when it should be £9.99. Just for the record, when I get the Android 2.0 update I will be paying £30 a month for a free phone and an 18 month contract with unlimited internet, 800 texts and 600 minutes and I will have full Google voice guided navigation with just the cost of a cradle (seen on eBay for under £20). On the iPhone the closest matching tariff will cost me £184.98 for the phone, £34.26 p/m plus £160 for the TomTom kit.

    In order to own an iPhone with decent sat nav I need to spend £160 on the GPS kit, £184.98 on the phone and an extra £4.26 p/m on the contract, which, minus the cradle for my G2 Touch, comes to an £401.66. I could buy the top of the line TomTom alongside my G2 Touch for less than that. This nonsense concerning the iPhone has to stop. The gross spend on this would come to £921.66.

    I think it is time for someone to conduct a survey in to hallucinogenic drug use at TomTom in the sales/marketing departments.

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    Review: T-Mobile G2 Touch (HTC Hero)

    Posted by Adam – November 24, 2009

    It was time to renew my mobile phone contract (well, actually my partner’s contract this time – she gets the hand-me-downs) and after my experience with Android using the HTC Magic this phone was only ever going to be Android again. I did not want a slide-out keyboard so my options were either the HTC Tattoo or this. Given the better camera and less chunky design I was sold on the G2 Touch very easily.

    For anyone interested I quickly flicked through YouTube and dug up this promotional video:

    On with my review now.

    First Impressions

    I have the black version, which is nice. In the box is the phone, headphones/hands free kit, battery, 2GB microSD card which is already loaded in to the phone, and a charger. The charger is nifty because the plug has a USB port meaning that a separate USB cable is not necessary – a nice saving, plus, I don’t know anyone who is ever stuck for a USB cable. They are everywhere, breeding like wire coat hangers. Picking it up for the first time felt good. It has a nice weight and it balances well in the hand. When I powered it up I went through the rigmarole of setting up my Google account, email and suchlike. I then immediately installed all the applications I had on my Magic. The performance of the G2 in doing so was better than the Magic, faster and smoother.

    The screen is simply gorgeous – absolutely pin sharp and clear. I began to customise the phone and discovered what a superb interface it has.

    Here you can see the screen. The wallpaper is customisable and you can have different ones for the lock screen and the open screen. What you can see here is the clock widget (one of 12 different clock widgets preloaded) and several shortcuts. The screen is one of seven fully customisable screens that are available with a swipe. It is set up so that the home key takes you to the ‘middle’ of the seven and obviously there are three screens either side, accessed via a swipe. Each screen has sixteen slots where application shortcuts or folders can be dragged, or widgets can be installed. Widgets vary in shape and size but as a rule you can install either a single full screen widget, two half screen widgets or four panel style widgets. The G2 comes preloaded with both Android widgets and HTC widgets. The Android widgets are functional but the HTC ones look way better. Currently pinned to my screens are the following:

  • Screen 1: (left most screen) Full screen weather widget

  • Screen 2: Twitter widget

  • Screen 3: People list (a neat widget that lets you add your frequently dialled contacts to a scrolling list – very cool)

  • Screen 4: (Home) shortcuts to my 16 most often used applications

  • Screen 5: Calendar widget and Google search widget

  • Screen 6: Photo album widget (allows you to scroll through your pics without opening the gallery application

  • Screen 7: TuneWiki widget

    • Installing these widgets makes the phone extremely user friendly and not only beats scrolling through the applications menu, but also the widgets such as Twitter, Facebook, music etc are live, real time widgets. As an Apple lover it pains me to say it, but sorry boys, this kicks the ass out of the iPhone interface. For my most frequently used applications it is often one tap, no opening of the application necessary. This is the most user friendly phone I have ever had in this respect. I think Android has an image issue as it is thought of as geeky because anyone who used this phone would think twice about iPhone. I never say never, but for my money Apple need to do something revolutionary to get my business back.

    The phone has, aside from the touch screen, 6 keys and a rocker button for volume. Red and green phone buttons with the expected functions, home, menu which accesses setting in all applications and another rocker key that is both back and opens a search field, again in all applications. They are all easily accessible and responsive. The on screen keyboard is easy to use. Typing is comfortable (I have large goalkeeper hands) and there is an excellent predictive text and spelling engine which also learns any new words typed – a nice touch that has been a glaring omission in previous phones, occasionally making me want to launch them skyward.

    Applications

    The first thing I did with the applications was open the browser. It’s the standard Android browser with interface add ons courtesy of HTC. It’s lighting fast, loads pages smoothly and never crashes. Panning is smooth with no lags or dragging frames. I then discovered it allows tapping, zooming and pinching iPhone stye. Result! This makes it Safari’s equal, and better for two reasons: it supports Flash, and functions can be adapted to applications, for example, if you tap a podcast feed link it will invite you to choose a default application to open it, either browser or whatever client you install. You can choose not to set a default and to just choose an application this one time too. After that I opened the albums application, where photos and video are accessed. Visual media look stunning on this screen, really beautiful. The interface allows you to scroll through photos or videos by swiping, and to view you simply tap. Excellent. Smooth, responsive and no lag. Bookmarks are viewed visually as thumbnails, and this can be exported to the home screen as a bookmarks widget. One up for Android.

    I then started to rummage around through various applications and I then noticed something we all enjoy: freebies! The phone is shipped with a Twitter client called Peep. Quick Office and a PDF Reader, all preloaded. This is very pleasing and I suspect it was done not only to sell phones, but also to showcase the interface and widget live feeds. Many users would not automatically install these applications so adding them gives a good reason to create widgets which showcases the phone’s power.

    Peep is a fully functional Twitter client supporting photo uploads, geotagging, retweeting and the widget is a live feed pinned on the home screen. It looks great, is slick in Twitter’s native black and cyan and can be customised for notifications.

    Perfect.

    Media

    Finally, a HTC phone with a standard 3.5 MM headphone jack! This is a revelation as the phone has no EQ, meaning that a decent set of headphones is a prerequisite for anything other than passing media usage. I plugged n my Sennheiser noise cancelling headphones and I found an extremely satisfying, bassy, full sound. This works for me as I always set EQ’s to bass boost anyway, but for hardened audiophiles the lack of an EQ may grate a little. The fact that the sound is good means that those who aren’t too worried should be more than happy with the sonic output of the G2. The excellent quality is borne out when listening to podcasts and viewing YouTube too, so clearly there is decent hardware onboard. I use TuneWiki for music, an application I recently reviewed. In terms of audio it is no different to the onboard application, but it integrates Last FM and Shoutcast radio plus a lyric stream and album art as well as the ability t
    o post updates to Facebook and Twitter saying you love/hate the current tune (or a custom message). The album art looks gorgeous on the screen and playback is smooth, no skips or lag at all.

    YouTube playback is excellent, with the 3.5 G connection making it very fast indeed, loading videos within a second or two. Video playback is again, smooth, no lag and an excellent frame rate. Uploading to YouTube is massively improved. The Magic permitted only one minute of footage to be uploaded, whereas the G2 allows the full 2 GB/ten minutes allowance per video. The video resolution on recordings is such that they will only ever look home made, but that’s more than enough for any mobile phone filmmaker. Videos can also be shared through your Google account, email and, by installing Qik or PixelPipe, practically every hosting service around. The video camera, as with the camera, struggles massively in poor or low light, often returning unusable footage in areas poorly lit. There is no flash or light in the phone to supplement the camera.

    Camera

    The camera is a 5 mega pixel, automatic zoom affair. It has no flash so well lit or daylight areas are as far as it goes really. Rather than tell you, below is a Picasa slideshow of the results it produces. It is the most random collection of images ever, but I went for all kinds of objects on all kinds of surfaces. I also did it in a hurry, so you might see a little shake-blur, wonkiness etc. I figure this all adds to the review. Click it to see the full size images.

    click for full size images

    There is so much to this phone that I could go on and on talking about it. It has ‘wowed’ me far more than iPhone ever did. Streaming applications such as Beebplayer (BBC iPlayer application) and internet radio streams work perfectly, as does photo editing software such as Picsay Lite and the superb, and free, Photoshop mobile. The Footprints application takes geotagged photos and links them to your maps in Google Maps, meaning you can take a tour of your photos through Maps, or have photos flag up when you pass/travel to locations you (or anyone else in your Google network) have already geotagged. This is similar to iPhoto on Mac, but this is mobile. This is one of the reasons that the cloud computing model is, I think, going to revolutionise computing, and in particular mobile computing. Also bundled are all the usual Google applications like Talk, Voice, Gmail etc. It is a testament to how far Android has already come that these excellent applications now look to be standard features, usurped in a review by the really flashy, slick stuff on board. Photos can be shared through Picasa, Facebook, Flickr, Peep (Twitter) – all of which are integrated in to the phone as baseline functions, meaning that no application is necessary to use the function, it’s practically a part of the OS, as well as any other applications you install, plus email and IM applications. This phone is connected via WiFi, 3G, 3.5G (HSDPA, up to 7 mbps – very impressive), Bluetooth, GPS (which has a pinpoint accuracy when tracking and locating) and is a media and Internet powerhouse, fully connected and connectable with all the major location services catered to such as Maps, My Tracks, Google Sky Map. It’s all there and it’s executed in what it is safe to call the best Android phone to date.

    And did I mention it makes and takes calls and texts as well? Very well it does too…

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    Android Applications: TuneWiki

    Posted by Adam – November 21, 2009

    This review is for another great android application, TuneWiki. If you use your phone for music (I currently don’t – more on that later) then this is the music application you need.

    If you have a quick look at their website you’ll see it is pretty interesting. You can download free music, get lyrics, post on forums and there is also a live feed displaying the music users are streaming. There is also a really cool music maps section where listeners are charted (anonymously) around the world according to location and taste. That would make for an interesting study in to musical tastes for anyone furnished not only the time, but also the inclination to study such things.

    So, on with the application. It comes in the usual two flavours, lite, which is ad-supported, and paid. The functionality of each is the same, save for the aforementioned ads which are unintrusive and very much bearable for a cheapskate like me. I know that some people hate ads and suchlike, however, since the options are either accept a few ads in return for an all you can eat music service, or pay a nominal fee to remove them, I cannot see why anyone but the most cantankerous users would complain. The only information exchanged seems to be an account and scrobbling so there are no privacy issues.

    Now, on to the application, which has several functions.

    Music Player

    TuneWiki plays the music stored on your Android device. Handy for a music player really. It goes further than that though. Album art is downloaded and encoded to the tracks, and a nice innovation is the lyrics stream. If TuneWiki has the lyrics to the song stored in its database then the lyrics are streamed to the device and, rather intelligently, played back in real time as they are sung, layered over the album art. All the usual controls are there, play, pause, skip forward & back, scrubbing, shuffle, repeat and repeat all. You have the option to search by artists, albums, songs, playlists or shuffle all. It never skips or stops and plays in the background, all the while happily keeping itself to itself and not hogging CPU capacity. A good start. I use my iPod as the HTC Magic has nothing like the same sound quality in headphones, however, if you use your phone for music it will serve you well. I do use it, say, in the bath or whilst I am busy and play music through the speaker, but as a music player it’s nowhere near the iPod. Let’s hope the Motorola Droid can change that. That is all to do with the hardware though. The software cannot change any of that.

    At the bottom of the library screen there are five buttons. The first one is a music note icon and it takes you to the music player. The second is a microphone and it takes you to…

    Internet Radio

    Internet radio is provided via Shoutcast, which I do not use, and Last FM. This is a real boon for TuneWiki, not only in terms of functionality, but also because the TuneWiki module for Last FM works far better than the Last FM native Android application. TuneWiki provides a wide variety of tracks that are scrobbled evenly. This might sound obvious but, in my experience, the Last FM application has an irritating tendency to playback the same few tracks. If this confuses you then don’t worry, you’re in good company as I do not understand why this is so either. I would imagine that the same algorithm powers both so I am baffled by this, however, after using Last FM for months and now switching to this, whatever the cause may be, the difference is remarkable.

    I also browsed Shoutcast, which differs from Last FM as it provides many internet radio streams rather than the Last FM library playback and scrobbling service. It plays just as well and the audio is excellent quality with no stops, skips or interference, thanks no doubt to the Magic’s 3.5G HSDPA downlink speeds.

    Internet radio via TuneWiki is first class, I have never heard better. It has the same album art and lyric streaming provided in the music player.

    Video Search

    This is another great innovation, and is accessed via the third button which is a screen icon. If you import music in to the TuneWiki library, for playback via the music player of course, then video search will automatically search YouTube and if it finds the music video, it links it to the song in your library, allowing you to watch the video whenever you like. This is another great embellishment which really enhances the feel and function of the application. It simply reeks of quality, and it is simple and easy to use. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

    TuneWIki Community

    TuneWiki community incorporates social networking in to the application. It provides several functions. The lyric search allows you to retrieve lyrics to songs other than those being played back. The aforementioned music maps:

    provides a nice touch, and, if you use it a lot, is a great way of finding new music from listeners with similar tastes, sort of like manual scrobbling. The next two functions are linked, TuneWiki top 50, which allows you to listen to the most popular music being played and also Playlists, which allows users to upload custom playlists. This is an excellent function and unlike iTunes playlists, is free to listen to. The final three options are free music downloads, providing music under the Creative Commons licence, help functions, and, rather cunningly, an ad which looks exactly like another button. It’s a crafty trick but, given the superb free benefits and functions you get with TuneWiki I’ll let them have that one for free. I didn’t fall for it anyway. The fifth and final button is a head wearing headphones icon and this takes you to the last song you were listening to in whichever medium it was. Remember this, because if you reopen the application itself then your last listening material is not there, although it is still retained via this key so it is not lost, just inaccessible through any other button. That’s a nice touch and a great way to keep up with your playlist.

    Other functions (oh yes, it’s not over yet!) that I love are the option to post status updates based upon what you are listening to Twitter, Facebook and Blip FM. You simply access the settings menu, provide login details and you stay logged in via the TuneWiki application, only after you enable it to access your profile of course. After that, should you wish to update your status you simply tap the speech bubble icon that is in the top right corner, above the album art, next to the title, and you have three buttons, either a ‘love it’ message, or ‘hate it’, or a custom button if you want to post your own mini reviews. This is superb, I absolutely love it, and my Facebook status updates and tweets will soon be showing these. I already linked my YouTube accounts with Twitter, Blogger and Facebook so this is a nice function that takes advantage of the integration functionality that is slowly infiltrating social networking. Provided you have the accelerometer switched on you can also flip to landscape for maps, art and video.

    This application is perfect in its execution and the only thing it lacks is an audiobook playback function. Of course it will play them as MP3 files but will
    not bookmark, download cover art or recognise chapter markers, all of which require M4B file compatibility. I am not too bothered about his yet as Android is young and audiobooks are very difficult to provide cheaply as the publishing industry is so resistant to the new technology. My own personal work experience has shown me how closed-minded the publishing industry is and believe me, you wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry if you knew the truth. It is currently having the debate we had with Napster all those years ago, and is more resistant than the music industry ever was. In light of that I understand why this function is not there. It would be an absolute nightmare fore TuneWiki, especially with Pandora yet to debut outside USA, meaning it’s this, Last FM and Imeem making the headway as well as a few independent applications run by online stations. For choice, variety and function TuneWiki is the one to beat.

    If you have Android then you must have TuneWiki. It’s simply too good not to own.

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