Review: The Nokia N86 8mp Camera Phone - Re-visited (Phones)

Previously I was particularly scathing of the Nokia N86 8mp Camera Phone - but perhaps, after experiencing the touchscreen Sony Satio, and updating the firmware of the Nokia N86 - my experience using the phone has been a little more pleasant, and it seemed about time to post my re-evaluation of the phone.


Most of the issues originally reported still exist (and pretty much all of them are still relevant), but being aware of the limitations has let me work round most, sorry, some of the issues (and ignore or avoid the rest), until I can get a "real" smartphone (see Android phones), and finding 3rd party apps has certainly helped.



First of all you'll need to install Opera Mini (version 5 Beta 2 works very well*) as the built in web browser is pretty rubbish, and data hungry. Another good app is J1CK.Tweet which is a simple and easy to use twitter app, with a decent number of features, such as letting you take photos and post them on twitter / twitpic (and then onwards to facebook if you use the facebook selective twitter app and #fb). See what I mean about needing to find a work-around or two?

ISO100 - Macro Photo taken with the Nokia N86

You can also use Opera Mini for RSS feeds - but I haven't found an app for this problem yet. (The built in RSS feed reader hides inside the built in web browser).

ISO100

The built in Sat-Nav software is still pretty annoying, and limited to 10 days of use. One feature you can use is the walking mode - and as long as you don't drive over ~29mph - you can still use this as a handy navigation system when stuck with no other solution. (The N86's built in Sat-Nav software is by Nokia, and called Nokia Maps - and is noticeably better than the Sony Satio's bundled navigation software: "WisePilot" - when I first used it, it only had four locations available: Sweden, Germany, plus two other European countries, which were not much use when I was in the north of England!)

ISO100

There is still no facebook integration built in apart from the "Facebook app" - which is basically a shortcut to the website, and an icon. It uses the built in web browser, and the web browser still doesn't accept email addresses with the subject defined after a '?' question mark. You can get round this by adding an email account to the phone, and adding your facebook mobile email address to your contacts, or by using a 3rd party twitter app (see above). But it's hardly elegant or particularly easy.

ISO100

Running too many programs at once is an issue - and by too many - I mean about 4 or 5 apps. Load up Opera Mini, Web Browser, Email, Music Player, etc and then try sending a text message to someone - and the phone will freeze, unable to open the text message page, and will give no error message, just an empty screen. You can go to each application and quit them one by one, but sometimes it's just quicker and easier to switch the phone off and on again.

ISO107 - Macro photo Dirty Cache

Battery life is still awful. The only solution to this is to carry a USB cable with you at all times so that you can charge it when you're in front of a computer. If you're staying anywhere overnight, you will need to take the wall charger, battery life is around 1 or 2 days. If you actually use it, the battery life is appalling.

ISO123

The battery life can noticeably affect the visibility of the screen in bright light - so it's important to keep the phone charged at all times. The screen does look very good - the colours are very bright, the screen is clear and crisp, assuming the battery is fully charged - and the sun isn't out. Although the screen does seem to scratch very easily.

 ISO132 - Keep Off The Rocks" How about "No large notices?"

Since the last issue with ovi.com and their on-line services I've avoided them completely. However I've had to use the OVI desktop software - this is a big huge mess of an installation - centering around "Nokia Ovi Suite". The most useful feature of this is the ability to plug in your phone and use it's internet connection when yours is down, but the Sony Satio version of the software is much better, simpler to install and use, and gives you more useful information when connected to the internet. (The Sony Satio software is also easier to install, being cleverly stored on the phone, so that you can install it where-ever you take the phone, instead of the Nokia software coming on CD, or needing to be downloaded).

ISO107

The camera uses an LED flash, which despite Nokia's claims of excellent low-light performance thanks to the f2.4 aperture lens, just isn't adequate for indoor shots of people. It simply isn't bright enough when compared to cameras with a real flash (see DigiCamReview.com or the Sony Satio) and photos of people with any movement will come out blurry (see the examples below, these are fairly typical of the results you'll get indoors). In fact it's so bad that one nights photos with the Nokia N86 8mp were completely unusable - I took about 12 shots with the camera with flash, they were nearly all blurry, with poor colour, featured lots of red-eye, and were not even decent enough to put on Facebook (with it's lower than VGA photo requirements). In comparison the same number of shots taken with the Sony Satio on the same night all came out well due to the Sony's Xenon flash.

ISO100

Photos outside, in good light, can be pretty good. By pretty good, I mean good for a camera phone (see the examples shown - these are some of the better photos taken with the camera). I still think even the cheapest branded digital camera from Kodak (see below), Fuji, etc would be better than the Nokia N86. The macro mode is fairly good, but often the photos look a little washed out (lens flare?), and the camera is very sensitive to any dirt on the lens. Photos are still overly compressed and end up on average between 590kb and 1.9mb which is quite small for an 8mp camera (averaging around ~1.2mb).

ISO374 - Blurry Red-eye

Overall - this camera phone is pretty rubbish - but "acceptable" as a phone as long as you don't expect too much of it. Don't expect it to do RSS feeds properly or well (it needs a dedicated app for this), don't expect it to do Facebook properly or well (ditto), and don't expect it to do Twitter at all unless you get a 3rd party app. Most of all, don't expect it to be a decent camera, simply because it can't take decent photos indoors. The twin-LED flash solution, is just not good enough, and if you want a camera on your phone then you will need to get the Sony Satio with a real flash, or better yet, just get a cheap digital camera, such as the Kodak Easyshare C140 for £49 - it had a real 3x optical zoom lens, and a real flash!

ISO497 - Blurry movement

After three months of use I've grown to accept the phone's limitations - and grown to appreciate it's design - I like the buttons, the sliding design, and compact size. It's easy to text and phone people*, and the camera is acceptable in good weather**. But saying that, a dedicated digital camera is always going to be better, thanks to a real flash and better image quality - the images from the Nokia look over processed, and the colour seems poor generally. The phone works fairly well on the internet (better with Opera Mini) and is a decent enough phone if you don't want to switch over to a touch screen, are a fan of Nokia, and you don't expect too much from it. However, saying all this, it's still pretty rubbish, and should have been, and could have been much better!


Pros:
Uses the new Micro USB connection which is now the world-wide standard for all mobile phones! Hooray!
Uses the standard 3.5mm stereo jack
Wide angle 28mm AF lens 

Cons:
Satnav limited to 10 days navigation.
LED Flash (no substitute for a real flash) - doesn't light subject well, but does create red-eye
Poor value for money (especially when new, as with most new contract mobile phones - £238 sim free)

* apart from the crashes obviously.
** assuming you don't have a real digital camera with you.

Tested with software version 20.115.229.01, 21-09-2009. Face detection was added with the firmware update.

Review: T-Mobile G2 Touch (HTC Hero)

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 to 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...

Android Applications: TuneWiki

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.

Google Android Apps: My Tracks

Google have struck gold in my opinion with My Tracks. My Tracks is the best of the glut of first generation GPS/location based applications to hit Android and it's really great. I used it for the first time today, just a dry run to see what it does and how well it does it. The journey was a one lap hike around Clowbridge Reservoir in Lancashire, and here are the results:


View Clowbridge Reservoir in a larger map

Or:

View it in Google Maps

This is what you get. All you do is open the application and give it a few seconds to acquire a GPS fix. Once done, tap the menu button and the record option and it now records your journey in real time using GPS data. Once done, tap end recording and you can then export it to My Maps in your Google Account, to Google Docs and save it to SD as either a GPX file or a KML (to export to Google Earth), or both. This is a superb application that allows you to track things like mileage, speed and so forth. There are things I would like to see added such as a pedometer (using the accelerometer), a compass (all android phones have a magnetometer so it's a simple process) and a calorie counter. These are the ones I can come up with off the top of my head anyway.

Once I had exported to Google Earth and Maps I was able to wow the kids with a 3D rendering of our journey and show them various possible routes, diversions and sights. If you love outdoor sports, the great outdoors in general, travelling etc them this application is simply essential if you have any need for, or interest in statistical data about the journey, or if you simply want to look at where you have been over the months and years. Superb. I will be taking this everywhere, holidays, hikes, bike rides etc. To me it is simply indispensable, and I take my phone anyway so why not make use of it?

Google strikes gold again. It's free and it's brilliant. Integration with Google Maps and Google Earth is seamless, ridiculously easy. I am really starting to love Android.

Google Listen Podcast Aggregator Client.

Google Listen





As one would expect, Google provides a raft of free apps for Android. One such app is Google Listen. Listen is a podcast aggregator and a very very good one. The catalogue of podcasts available is massive and every possible subject is covered, including commercial stuff such as BBC programs etc. Quality is superb. The sound is delivered through the speaker or headphones and the interface is simple, with controls, progress bar, subscription option buttons and album art which makes it look rather polished. The 3.5 G connection gives excellent playback. I have been using it for months and not once had a pause for buffering during playback. It buffers for a couple of seconds when you initially open the podcast and after that no breaks. Scrubbing is smooth and easy too.



Listen integrates brilliantly with Browser too. Simply tap a podcast link and it will give you the option to open it with either Browser or Listen, and the option to set a default application for opening podcast enclosure links. I recommend Listen to anyone, particularly those who enjoy knowledge and media. There is a wealth of academic and popular material available via Listen and it is all free, every bit of it. If you have a hobby that you love, search for it and you will find a huge amount of material pertaining to it. Google Listen comes with my highest recommendation.

Google Maps Navigation (Beta) Coming to an Android Phone near you (Phones)

Video demonstration of Google Maps Navigation (Beta), an internet-connected GPS navigation system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps on Android 2.0 phones.

Sony Ericsson Satio 12.1 Megapixel Camera Phone (Phones)

Ah Sony... you take Nokia's Symbian operating system and make is so much better... yet you still fail at providing advertised features! Your advert shows Facebook, Twitter, all integrated into the phone... yet they're not, and Sony's own blog recommends using snaptu, or symabook (in ALPHA!) to get this functionality...



THE SONY BOX features a mystery facebook app - but is this on the phone, pre-loaded, or available anywhere? Not to my knowledge...

Someone, somewhere*** says you can upload images STRAIGHT to Facebook - this is simply not possible without MANUALLY adding your own personalised email address to the phone! And where's the direct uploading to Twitter? Nowhere, it doesn't exist. The phone comes with built in setup to send photos to message (MMS, email), bluetooth, To web - which features Blogger*, PicasaWeb, Webalbum**, Flickr, Youtube, and Other...

"Other" lets you add stuff, for example, you can add your personalized facebook email address to and this will work quite well to upload photos (you can also send MMS to facebook's email address, and add them as a contact to speed up the process), without you having to spend money sending MMS messages.

* Blogger is most annoying of all, this will upload your photos to a brand new blog on blogger.com - how about letting us upload to our own already existing blog?

** Webalbum takes you to Sony's "PlayNow" website, and simply says "There are no items available" so basically doesn't work.

*** will confirm source.

I'll update this further on the phone... but for now, I'm slightly unimpressed. And what happened to the Cybershot branding?

Links: Flickr Satio Photos

And on the subject of Symbian - it seems like Sony and Nokia are using Symbian for some unknown reason, like these projects started years ago before they realised that they should be developing for Android. Motorola "decided to axe the entire Symbian product line as well as phones using several other operating systems." (NYTimes) and have just released one of the most impressive new phones: The Motorola Droid based on Android 2.0. Even Nokia seem to be hedging their bets by developing new phones with Linux based operating systems: The Nokia N900 / based on Maemo.

If web connectivity and the ability to upload to social networking sites isn't built into the core of a mobile phone operating system these days, then it just isn't good enough, and releasing apps (Sony), patches (Nokia), and updates for features that should have come with the phone, isn't the right way to go about it. By the time your updates are available, people will have already jumped ships, and will simply be "putting up" with the phone until they can get out of their contract, or get rid of their phone, to switch to an iPhone, or an Android phone.

The Nokia N86 8mp Camera Phone and Ovi.com (Phones)

So once upon a time, when mobile phones were just that, mobile phones, they would come fresh out of their packet, and just work. They were simple, made phone calls, and worked, and that was GREAT! Now, however, they are multimedia computers with the photographic capabilities of a budget 8mp camera, wifi connecting, youtube streaming, iplaying, facebooking, emailing, fm radio, gps tracking, interneting wonder machines, all promising to keep you 24/7 connected to your new internet life...

However, the simple fact of the matter is that they fail. Badly.



The Nokia N86 8mp is case in point - here's where it fails:

- It offers an 8 megapixel camera, but has an awful LED flash
- If offers email connectivity that works, but wont successfully click an email link with the subject defined as a ? and therefore Facebook Mobile Photo Upload does not work
- If offers a web browser, which features a built in RSS reader as a hidden away menu item, and doesn't let you put your RSS feeds on the home page
- If comes with satnav software that can only be used for 10 days - would you buy TomTom if it only worked for 10 days?? So why do mobile phone companies get away with demo functionality? It also tells you to turn right anytime it looses GPS signal!
- It offers it's own photo hosting connectivity, and will let you upload to Ovi (by Nokia), Vox (who?) and Flickr, or email, but does not include built in Facebook support.
- It has a pretty user interface and multi-tasking applications that can run in the background, but they then stay in the background until eventually crashing the phone until you manually exit each program individually, rather than just quiting when you exit.
- It provides links to useful programs as downloads, such as a flashlight program, that sensibly uses the screen as a torch, that is free for a number of days, but when you download it and install it, it then updates itself and tells you that you have to pay to use the program. Even though the program should be included free with the phone as standard.
- The phone likes to go into power saving mode when it has 2 bars of battery life left, when it does this, the screen brightness is set to minimum, and can't be adjusted, and then when you go outside into the sunlight, YOU CAN NOT SEE THE SCREEN!
- Update: Note scratches on the glass under the lens cover - this is caused by the LENS COVER! Normally lens covers are supposed to stop the lens from being scratched, apparently this is the fixed version which only scratches AROUND the lens photo taking area, which is better I suppose than the N97 that scratches where the photos are taken!

...and this one deserves it's own section because it's so unbelievably flawed:

ovi.com (by nokia)

The phone can sync with Nokia's Ovi.com website over the internet, so that you can apparently backup your contacts to the internet, however, as I have experienced, after it's backed them up to the internet, it:

- Somehow removes all the phone numbers from the phone, leaving just the names.
- So you think, that's okay, I'll just restore from ovi.com to the phone
- You sync the phone, and then it removes all the names from ovi.com, leaving just the numbers on the website, and all the contacts on the phone have been named "Unnamed" and have no number:



And then you're stuck with 220 phone numbers on ovi.com and no idea whose number belongs to who... and 220 entries on your phone, all called "unknown" - it simply should NOT be possible for a BACKUP service to DELETE all the DATA from the phone and itself! Backup systems are meant to be about copying data, NOT DELETING DATA! (unless of course ovi was designed specifically to "hunt down data from across the internet and try to kill it")

And if that wasn't enough of a pain in the arse (particularly when ovi.com was supposed to be a backup of your contacts, rather than deleting them!) ovi then doesn't work when trying to invite friends and contacts, and provides completely different functionality when you have a different phone, for example the Nokia N97, which can send requests out, that simply don't work if you have a different phone.

To summarise: Basically, if you're going to make a phone, that connects to everything, please make sure that:

1) your bundled applications work (facebook mobile uploads),
2) standard internet technologies are supported WELL for example with a seperate fully functioning RSS reader that can be viewed on the home screen like it's email,
3) that your biggest selling feature such as an 8mp camera has the expected supporting features needed to make a decent camera, such as a real flash,
4) include REAL satnav features that works for as long as you own the phone,
5) include expected software for free (flashlight tool), and don't update it to disable the expected demo!
6) support multiple upload services INCLUDING facebook, not just your own dumb ovi.com photo hosting service
7) this is KEY: provide sync / backup software that NEVER EVER deletes data from the phone or the backup, but instead, you know, backs up the data!
8) once again support internet standards such as ? defining the subject of an email!
9) Make an operating system that doesn't crash because there are too many programs open, because the OS doesn't shut them down automatically!
10) Make a screen THAT WORKS OUTSIDE (even when the battery is low!!), mobile phones are meant to be MOBILE, they are not just for use indoors!
11) Standardise expected functions, such as copy and paste, so that you can copy from one part of the phone (ie text messages) into another part of the phone (ie web broswer or other apps)
12) Standardise what buttons do when using different programs, if the C key is the backspace key when writing texts, then why doesn't it do the same when typing something into the web browser? Instead it quits the web browser and everything you were doing! (This can be switched off, but for some reason may revert back to default settings)
13) New: Make a lens cover that, DOESN'T scratch ANY PART of the lens!

The list could go on, but it just goes to show that these products are being released with serious flaws and faults that anyone can experience and come across without even trying. You come to expect everything to work straight out of the box like in the olden days, and when it doesn't, you're left wondering whether anyone at Nokia actually tested this phone in real life, outside the perfectly functioning office, you know, perhaps outside in the real world?

It's as though they printed a list of 20+ features, except that 50% of them have a small * (star) next to them with legal print at the bottom in tiny tiny writing that goes on to explain "these features may or may not be fully functioning and may not provide expected features or functionality". Except they then forgot to print the disclaimer on the website / packaging and marketing material.



Update: The Nokia N86 comes with 8GB of memory built in, which is great for putting your MP3s on (assuming you keep them all on your PC as well), but not so great when you've taken 500 photos, and then the phone dies and is irrepairable. As you'll have just lost all of your photos. To avoid this it's worth buying a seperate memory card for the phone, even if it does cost you money (thankfully there is a memory slot, unlike some other phones!).

More links: Nokia N97 Reviewed by Gizmodo, Dumb phones must die (Gizmodo).

Android music apps: Droidify and Last.FM

Android sports two music and Internet radio applications. Droidify is a client for accessing Spotify and it sucks because it either does not recognise my password or it crashes every time. Sort it out Spotify. I am a fan but this is just not good enough.

Last.FM works very well. It has a neat interface with options to listen to your library, recommended music or create a station as well as search. Some of the recommendations are real gems - artists and bands who don't have a prayer in the regular music press or with the big labels. Perhaps that's why the industry is so frightened of these apps. After all, the last thing they want is an open marketplace for original content when the same old crap will do. If you're a fan of anything remotely unusual or alternative then this free app is a gem. I am sure Droidify would be another good freebie if the bloody thing worked.




I will definitely be buying music as a result of hearing it on Last.FM. Buffering time on 3G is under ten seconds and the audio quality is good, at least 192KBPS I would guess. There isn't much to say about this really, except it does exactly what it says on the tin, and very well too. Keep it up fellas. Spotify had better shape up pronto.

Android applications: Beebplayer

If you are an Android user then one of the first things you should do is download Beebplayer from the Android Marketplace. It accesses BBC iPlayer over WiFi AND 3G and also allows you to stream live broadcasts. Check out the quick demo video:

HTC Magic - Google Android G2 Review (Phones)

As an avid iPhone fan changing phone's so dramatically might seem rather a significant step, however, my own circumstances permitted this comfortably as this review shall demonstrate. So, with that out of the way, let's take a look at the HTC Magic on Vodafone shall we?



First of all, in the box:

• The phone, obviously


• Slip case


• Hands free


• Mains charger


• USB Cable


• 2GB MicroSD card

The first obvious thing is the mains charger. To my chagrin Apple discontinued bundling these with iPhones or iPods long ago. I still have one from my old iPod 2G so I haven't felt the absence as much as I might have done. Chalk that as one in the 'plus' column. Sadly it is immediately cancelled out by the irritating habit that HTC perpetuates: using the mini USB socket as the headphone socket. This annoys me endlessly as it means that proprietary headphones must be used and long phone calls cannot be made with the charger and hands free in use at the same time. Fortunately I still have my iPod touch for music and video, so not only do I rarely use the hands free, it is also just for calls, not media. These minor issues are simply that, however - minor. On to the substance.

Aesthetically it is a beautiful phone. A white, smooth shell, a good weight and the ergonomics are such that it sits in the hand feeling naturally balanced. At the bottom are six keys and a trackball. The home key does just that, home every time. The menu key opens the menu in whichever application is running - I like this, very intuitive and not just a single menu for all applications. Back either goes back, up a level or back a page depending on the application and search is exactly that. The two phone keys are green phone for calls and red phone for hang up or go to sleep if the phone is not being used. The keys are set well and are unintrusive. The phone can be operated pretty much with out them, just using the touch screen save for the occasional press of back and the sleep key.

The touch screen is also very good. It 'kicks back' harder than iPhone, meaning that harder presses are needed, which takes some getting used to, however the advantage is less accidental typing. It's pot-ay-to/pot-ar-to with this. Each is as good as the other for different reasons. It is merely a case of getting used to the feel. The trackball is merely a matter of preference too. It is not necessary to use it ever to operate the phone, but it is there if you are a fan of such hardware. The trackball very kindly flashes white on an incoming call - very nice.

On to the interface. The home screen has twelve 'slots' where users can place shortcuts or widgets. Tap the icon and open the application. This works perfectly. At the top is a Google search field which opens the browser for results and at the bottom is a tab which, when pressed, brings up the whole applications menu. The applications open in the same fashion as the home screen icons. Users can also scroll down using the trackball on both screens too. Swiping works excellently on the touch screen but I am still getting used to not having 'the pinch' when viewing the web, images and so forth. Zoom keys do the same but are incremental zooms rather than tapping or pinching to preference. Panning is perfect and renders well.

The bundled applications are where Android scores massively. Integration with online services such as YouTube, Gmail, Maps etc is perfect, and I do mean absolutely perfect. I could not fool this phone no matter how hard I worked it. Use your Google account to log in to any application and this is ported to all other Google applications. This may be Google's killer application for Android - web integration. The 3G is up to 7.2 MBP/S - twice the iPhone 3G (I have not used iPhone 3G S) and online applications load like greased lightning. The browser too is lightning fast, loading and rendering pages quickly and well. The interface is not up to Safari on the iPhone, but still very good. Maps is, as one would expect, marvellous. Seamless integration with all other applications like Locale, Twitter and services like Street View and Latitude are standard. Based upon my experience of both phones, the GPS in this phone slaps the iPhone around the head and laughs. Signal acquisition is lightning fast and I tracked last night to within a metre. Location without GPS (cell towers and triangulation) is sketchy, as it is on all phones, good to within a kilometre or so. One great function is that these can both be on or off, either or or both. This is excellent for battery life. iPhone (even 3G S) cannot do this and this was one of my biggest gripes. As I began to use iPhone more and more I found myself charging twice a day. For example, a recent trip to London saw me leave the house on a full charge at 10 am - literally unplugged from the mains and out. Moderate usage, i.e., 1-2 hours of music, occasional Twitter and Facebook and web browsing plus a Maps-navigated trip meant that it switched off, dead battery by 11 pm. This was a massive factor in my decision to go Android because this is simply not good enough. Despite Apple's assurances about the 3G S I found myself disgruntled with iPhone as the function is superb, but it is not a great deal of use if it is dead before the day is out. I am sure Moore's Law means that in a few years this will be a non-issue, but in the here and now something must be done.

My solution was to jump the fence to Android and to dust off my iPod Touch 32GB for music and video. Another factor in this decision was money. To get a 32GB iPhone 3G S free on contract the line rental on an 18 month deal is £75 per month. That is patently absurd. I am Apple's biggest fan but until they open it up to all networks O2 are going to keep charging ludicrous prices. Granted, the package was unlimited everything, but that rings hollow when the Magic is £35 a month with 100 minutes, 600 texts and unlimited web. I don't know anyone personal user that uses more than even a 1000 minutes and texts and for £45 you could get that and a free Magic with Vodafone. For my usage requirements I would have to pay an extra £720 over the contract. Even if I did not own an iPod touch, I could spend half of that on a top of the range iPod of any sort, get a free Magic and pocket the change. I have paid more for Apple previously because it is worth it, and I would again, but that is simply outrageous. The fact that I own an iPod Touch already made it even easier to go Android. I could go even further and get the free phone and a 32GB memory card for £63 on Amazon., thereby saving £650 or so. The iPhone is worth a premium, but it ain't worth £650 plus £600 per contract in line rental. I am still Apple through and through, but no longer an iPhone user, for now anyway. I actually don't blame Apple solely . O2 are just as guilty. I say again: open it up to all networks.

So here I am, having thought I would never leave iPhone, with an Android phone and an iPod Touch for media. Ideally the single gadget would be great, and for the first 12 months of iPhone it was, but sadly the cost combined with a phone that writes cheques that its battery cannot cash made it nigh on impossible not to go elsewhere. I even looked at the Nokia N97 but that keyboard is awful. I cannot believe they couldn't come up with that phone minus the clunk. It is a shame too because the camera, at 5 MP with flash and Carl Zeiss optics is so very, very, VERY tempting. So, in light of all of this, what else is there to say?

Quite a lot actually.

I now benefit from a better camera. I had a lot of time for Steve Jobs' protestation that optics were more important than megapixels, because he is right, however, we all know that 2 MP was and is crap and something of an emdarrassment, so when iPhone 3G S arrived with a none-too-stellar 3.2 MP (again, I cite the price) I started to get a little bit annoyed. I was not THAT bothered as I used my proper camera most of the time, and most folks used the iPhone camera for the odd blog/Facebook/drunken antics snap, nothing more. However, surely for the cost, 5 MP, zoom, flash and Carl Zeiss optics are in order? Anyway, since the camera on the Magic is decent, I should say so too. It too is 3.2 MP with a good digital zoom. There is no flash which is a shame but the photographs are crisp, well rendered and deep in rich colour. This camera is fine for the casual friends and family snapper, or the occasional holiday snap. The somewhat limited (as yet) Android Market has applications that will work with just about any photo hosting service and photos can also be posted to Facebook, Twitter, most blog hosts and most social networks. All of this can be done for free. Excellent job Google. The excellent, and free, 'Qik' application will host your media and automatically post them to just about every social network and blogging provider too, which is essentially what I just said, except for the killer app: it does so with video too, which neatly brings to me the video camera.

Video is recorded the same way as the camera snaps - point and shoot. The quality of video is very good for personal use and the frame rate is great. It has not lagged at all yet. The phone seamlessly uploads to YouTube as standard, just tap and it goes, and very quickly too thanks to the fast 3G connection. Adding Qik simply opens everything up. All that is needed is to log in to Qik and connect your social/blogging/hosting accounts and uploading is a breeze. Publishing over WiFi and 3G is fast, perfect and all the connectivity is in order, Bluetooth too. This element of the phone leaves me looking at my iPhone asking 'What can YOU do?'.

Location based services are also coming in to their own on Android. Google Sky Maps is an excellent application that does for the sky what maps does for the ground. Speaking as an amateur astronomer this is a boon of an application. Spot something, point the phone at it, identify it in sky maps and it tells you all you need to know, all thanks to the GPS location fix. This is a sensational and criminally underrated application which leaves me asking, on my knees, at the top of my voice 'FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE A CABLE AND SOFTWARE PATCH THAT WILL LET ME USE MY PHONE TO POINT MY TELESCOPE?'. The Android market also has some good stuff available, especially considering it is a fledgling store. The classics are all free - Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command etc and there are plenty of stores online too. There is an installer application in the Market which will install and run .APK files from the memory card. Currently the phone and memory card could not hope to be filled with applications. The fact that I store and listen to/watch media on my iPod Touch means that this memory is free. The phone is nowhere near full and the card has a few megabytes used. I cannot possibly imagine having enough applications to fill it, unless high memory software like SatNav comes online, and even then quite a lot of these would be needed to fill it, and if that did happen then flash storage is getting cheaper every day with 32 GB cards available for £63 on Amazon. There is already freeware, turn-by-turn SatNav software online - 'AndNAV'. It uses open source maps with a Google Maps-esque interface. I imagine that in a few years we will see free, full 3D SATNAV online for Android.

Android is looking like the likely pretender to the Apple crown. It doesn't have the glamour which, sadly, seems to count for a lot, but it has it under the hood, and it won't bankrupt you either. I really thought iPhone was it, the fully converged device. Sadly, batteries don't play ball. Additionally, O2's racketeering has left a sour taste in my mouth so I cannot justify the outlay and I do not feel I have bought second best either. The minute iPhone gives me what I want, I'll probably be back, but right now I am back to waiting for Apple to amaze me again, which is a shame, because buying iPhone was a revelation. Upgrading it was a chore. I want Android to go ballistic to destabilise things a little more. Apple and O2 need a size 12 up the backside and Nokia need to stop making clunky phones, and, Blackberry who?

This phone is great - buy one and you won't be disappointed.

Apple iPhone 3.0 (Phones)

iPhone 3.0 adds a lot of function that, were it not Apple, would have been expected a standard. MMS, copy and paste are glaring omissions rather than additional functionality. Apple can get away with this sort of thing, however, and clearly people were not too bothered if you look at the sales figures.

One significant, and, staggeringly underrated and under-reported upgrade is the functionality of the YouTube application. It has finally gone from being a facility to search and view videos to managing subscriptions, managing user videos, favourites and pretty much the full functionality of YouTube when accessed from a PC/Mac. The iPhone imaging software and battery life has also been updated, but not to huge effect. The only other significant addition was search. I didn't get it really. How much stuff do you have on an iPhone? Maybe it's just me. I know all the media and apps on mine so perhaps I am just not forgetful enough to need this, but it fits nicely and works the Apple way, smoothly and it is unintrusive when it is not being used. Nice but no use to me. Perhaps there should be a way to turn it off?

This isn't as much a review as an excuse to say this: it's a stop gap update. Substantial, but it leaves me feeling like I had one beer - really good, but I need more to feel happy about it. Personally I am, after this update, expecting iPhone 4.0 to be a quantum leap in mobile tech. Android is looming and I have thought that I might check it out. As much as I love Apple, I wish they were open source and the Google kit is starting to look, frankly, awesome. What I do know is this: when everyone thinks they are catching up, Apple usually does something extraordinary. I just hope that iPhone 4.0 is due this Christmas. I am due an upgrade then. I cannot comment on iPhone 3G S until I get one.

In other news, iPhone 3.1 beta is already out to developers.

Edit:

Upon logging in to my Mobile Me account this morning I discovered an excellent feature (admittedly, I paid little attention to the iPhone 3.0 keynote so my ignorance is my own fault) called Find my iPhone. Within a few minutes I had set up my iPhone to be detectable anywhere in the world. Mobile Me kindly shows me where it is on Google Maps, allows remote wiping in the case of theft and obviously allows me to hunt it down so I can baseball bat the thief. Chalk that as a huge mark in the plus column for iPhone 3.0.