Toshiba Portege R500 - a real laptop alternative to a netbook?

The Toshiba Portege R500 - a couple of years ago - before the netbook world took off - the ultra compact Toshiba Portege R500 was a premium £1600+ laptop - it features a 1.2ghz (or 1.33ghz) core 2 duo processor, built in DVDRW, 12.1" screen, wireless, 2gb ram, 160gb hd, and even the option of solid state hard drive, before these even were heard of. So it was a fully featured mini laptop rather than a stripped down large netbook. And what's even more important, and relevant today, is that it is available for around £300 second hand on ebay, which is the price you will pay for a new mid-range netbook. But instead of minimal features, memory, and built to a budget price and build quality you get a premium ultra compact laptop, with premium features. 

However, is it any good? Or would you be better off with a "modern" netbook with low power and efficiency built in? Or perhaps even a small laptop with a 12 or 13 inch screen?

The keyboard is a standard laptop layout without anything obviously wrong (unlike the Vostro 1510), although when you do compare it to normal laptop keyboards it is roughly 1cm smaller, so this does seem to effect touch typing speed.

The speakers are missing - and instead there is only one speaker that seems strained when the volume is at a reasonable level.

The screen seems to have a very poor viewing angle - blacks are grey - the range between white and black (dynamice range) doesn't seem very good. The resolution is very good though with the same resolution at normal laptops with 15.6" widescreens. You have to sit in front of the laptop at a very specific viewing angle otherwise it's difficult to view.

The "power" - the CPUs offer 1.2ghz or 1.33ghz dual core (Core 2). This should be adequate and better than most netbooks.

The Windows score is: 2.2 Overall (the overall number uses the lowest score and not an average - the average would be 3.66 if Windows used this)

CPU calculations: 3.8
Memory (RAM): 4.2
Aero (Desktop) Graphics: 2.2
Gaming graphics: 3.0
Disk performance: 5.1

Noise? The cpu fan is quite noisy when watching BBC iplayer - I wouldn't really expect a laptop to be strained when watching iplayer and should be able to cope without making noise - not so with this one unfortunately. Most modern laptops are optimised to make minimal noise, even budget laptops such as the Dell Vostro range.

Battery life - says you should get 4 hours out of it. Although this will depend on usage. I got about 4 and a half hours out of it with very light use.

It has wifi, bluetooth, VGA connection, 3 USB (1 powered), firewire (mini), mic / headphone sockets, analog volume control, fingerprint reader, LAN, wifi switch, DVDRW, SD slot, built in microphone? (no webcam), Tested running Windows 7 Professional 32bit.

Size, and weight? It's small - shorter than an A4 piece of paper in length, but wider than the width of an A4 piece of paper. It's light as well, with an ultra thin (and fairly wobbly) screen. The screen is roughly half a cm thick, and the whole laptop when the screen is closed is less than an inch thick.

Overall - it could be worth considering. However the screen makes it quite difficult to recommend for anyone who does photography or web design. In fact it's not great for watching TV or films either. There is a lot of backlight bleeding, and viewing angles are very poor. The fan noise is quite disruptive to watching online tv (especially with the placement of the speaker on the left near to where the fan is) and the volume doesn't really get loud enough to counter the fan speed at times, especially when the internal speaker distorts above a certain volume. 

Finding a similarly high specification netbook could turn out to be quite a lot more expensive. The Samsung NC20 with 12.1" screen is £349 and uses a VIA Nano processor (1.3ghz), and the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 is £399 and uses an Intel Atom cpu at 1.6ghz, however very few, or probably no netbook actually features an optical drive... making DVD playback somewhat difficult. And when you are looking at spending £350 - £400 you are also in the same price range as normal "entry level" laptops with full size screens, DVDRW, and all the other features you'd want in a laptop such as dual core processor.

However - if you're looking at spending £350 - £400 on a laptop, you are now able to afford most entry level 15.6" laptops, or even 12.1" and 13.3" Dell Vostro laptops, which are available with 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo processors, and full size keyboards etc. The Dell Vostro v13 - with aluminium body is also quite a stylish laptop available for under £400 - and with low power CPUs and a 1 year warranty this could be a good option. Click the pictures to embiggen.

Review: The Sony Satio 12mp Camera Phone - Re-visited (Phones)

As a phone - it's okay. It has a great screen (the built in videos are quite impressive) although it's not as colourful as the Nokia's OLED screen. Acceptable touch screen - although I'm not a big fan - so never really got completely used to (or happy) using this phone. The stylus seems quite loose - which has resulted in me loosing it once, and nearly loosing it a second time. The phone feels a little cheap - very plastic - although the sliding lens cover is quite nice and the shutter button feels decent. It's interesting (and a little surprising) to see Sony ditch Sony M2 memory cards and instead include an 8gb Micro SD cards. (It looks like Sony are doing the same with all their cameras and giving the option of Sony MS or standard SD cards).

It's got WIFI, GPS, a huge 3.5" screen, and almost everything else you expect from a modern phone (except for a facebook / twitter app etc which are noticeably missing), and surprisingly it doesn't have built in stereo speakers, instead it only has one internal speaker.

Another thing noticeably missing is a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and the new MicroUSB charging standard - instead it uses Sony Ericssons standard connection, and provides an adapter for when you want to plug some earphones in (which then ties up the connection so you can't use it for anything else like connecting it to your computer).

The earphones look better than the ones shown on the box but come with a really short cable so you can't use them with anything else - they sound fairly clear, but seem to lack bass, and the rubber fittings aren't as rubbery as they should be. (Cheap £8 Creative Labs EP-630/A Noise Isolating Earphones (Sennheisers duplicates/copies?) sound much better than the provided Sony earphones).

The Nokia N86 seems to have slightly better mp3 playback quality - and nearly no background hiss - whereas the Sony has noticeable background hiss when not playing anything. The Sony also distorts above 70% volume, with 80, 90 and 100% adding no extra volume other than additional distortion.

Software - Symbian S6 v5 - the buggy touchscreen version of the software - so buggy at one point that the phones were recalled / withdrawn from sale until they had a software update for the phone(s) involved (including the Nokia N97). Although it's been updated with Sony's own home screen(s): Quick contacts, Web shortcuts (default to the fairly horrible built in web browser), Home with Music, keypad, media, messages, and a Google maps shortcut, Photos (shows your most recent photos), and Shortcuts which can be customised.

The built in photo / media viewer seems quite poor - for example in and mode (portrait or landscape) - zooming into the photo doesn't fill the whole screen (see examples).

As a camera - it's better than most camera phones - simply because it's got a real flash. It's also got a focus assist lamp. But compared to real cameras - it's very slow to switch on - slow to focus - and slow to take the photo. Colour is good - bright and saturated - without being overly saturated and there is very little ghosting or "white-out" / lens flare.

Flash photo - camera flashes compared.

As mentioned above, the shutter button feels quite good with a two step process - half press to lock focus and fully press to take the photo (much better than the Nokia N86). It's strange that the camera doesn't have the "Cybershot" branding - even though previous Sony Ericsson phones have had the branding - even "lowly" 5mp camera phones.

 

Macro with flash on.

Focusing indoors in low light is mostly successful, although 1/10 is probably out of focus. The camera does a very good job of toning down the flash when taking macro photos with flash - which is quite impressive as often normal cameras struggle with this. (see the Delonghi Cafe Treviso Coffee Machine Review for numerous examples)

16:9 Aspect Ratio

Speed / Timings:
Switch phone off: 12 seconds.
Switch phone on: 35 seconds
Switch from phone to camera: 2 seconds
Continuous shooting "BestPic" mode (without flash): takes 9 photos at 9fps, at 12mp - then you can save one or all of them (or any number of pictures you want).
Menu speeds are fairly slow.

Touch focus is quite neat - and lets you press the screen where you want to focus and it'll take a photo. Overall having a 12 megapixel camera on your phone is overkill - particularly if you're only going to be uploading them to facebook! Even a 1 megapixel camera would be good enough for facebook - with it's 604 pixel wide photos (less than VGA resolution).

Photo editing options (same as Nokia N86) - the options are brightness, contrast, sharpness, resize, crop, rotate, annotate, clipart, text, something, square, red-eye reduction, black and white, sepia, something, shame there isn't the option to increase saturation / colour. (Using the contrast option does a good job of increasing colour though)

Video recording is better than the previous Sony camera phone (the C905) - it now records VGA/30fps but nothing spectacular or impressive like HD or 720p (like most real cameras). The phone also has a video light that you can use to light dark subjects.

Overall - this is a usable phone - with an excellent camera and flash for a camera phone. If you want an excellent camera on your phone, this is the best currently available (as you should be able to see in the included sample photos) mainly thanks to it being one of the only current camera phones to feature a real flash, but other aspects of the phone are a little annoying (lack of built in facebook / twitter apps, slow software and initial bugs). The touchscreen isn't really good enough to convert me into a touchscreen user, and I much prefer the buttons on other phones. Also, you would most likely get better results from a compact camera, with even budget cameras offering a 3x or 4x optical zoom lens, 10 or 12 megapixel sensor, and more photo options.

Pros:
Real Xenon flash
Large 3.5" screen
Good shutter button

Cons:
Cheap build quality
Poor touchscreen
Sony charging connection, and no 3.5mm jack built in

Nb. The fairly poor / average photos of the Sony Satio were taken with the Nokia N86.

Ultimate Ears Super fi 5 silver earphones by Logitech (Review)

Ultimate Ears Super fi 5 silver earphones by Logitech. These are expensive earphones, priced at £95. They come with 3 different sized rubber covers (aka "silicone ear cushions", you get 4 sets in total, 2 are the medium size), and 1 size grey foam earpieces (you get 2 sets of these).

They provide a scary amount of noise isolation - especially with the foam ear tips - which I found the most comfortable. Walking down the street, you couldn't hear cars driving past. They provide better noise isolation than the Sennheiser CX-300 IIs, and the foam ear tips are more comfortable in my opinion. 

However, the sound is not necessarily better than the CX-300 II's in my opinion - the CX-300s have louder bass, and crisper treble. The difference in sound quality is quite subtle, and the most noticable difference is in comfort, and noise isolation (it's like wearing foam earplugs). Although the price is also noticeably higher for the Super 5s, costing three times as much as the CX-300s (currently £30)!

One thing I'm not overly keen on is the slightly firm feeling cable - the CX-300s feel a little softer to the touch and the silicon / rubber ear tips are harder / firmer than the CX-300s - which seems to make the Super Fi 5s a little uncomfortable when wearing the silicon earpieces.

If you're looking for excellent noise isolation and comfort then the UE Superfi 5s have the best options and most choice available regarding size and type of ear tip, however, I think it could be worth saving money by trying some Sennheiser CX-300 IIs first, or even Creative Labs EP-630/A Noise Isolating Earphones which are excellent performers considering they only cost £8. Especially if you're upgrading from the free ones that came with your mp3 player.

UE Superfi 5 Specs:
Frequency response: 15 Hz - 15 kHz, Impedance: 13 ohms at 1kHz, Sensitivity: 115 dB SPL/mW at 1 kHz, Noise Isolation: 26dB, Gold plated 3.5mm jack

Sennheiser CX-300 II Specs: 
Frequency response: 19 Hz-21,000 Hz, Impedance: 16 Ω, Sound pressure level: 113 dB (1kHz/1Vrms), Noise Isolation: not stated, Gold plated 3.5mm jack

Creative Labs EP-630/A Noise Isolation Earphones Specs:
Frequency response: 6 Hz - 23,000 Hz, Impedance: 16 ohms, Sound pressure level: 106dB, Noise Isolation: not stated, Gold plated 3.5mm jack

SuperFi Box Contents:

Super fi 5

Three sizes of soft silicone ear tips

2 sets of Comply foam ear tips;

cleaning tool

pocket ready pebble-shaped case.

Reviewed: The Delonghi Cafe Treviso Espresso Coffee Maker - 5 Year Review (Coffee)

Intro: The Delonghi Espresso Coffee Maker (aka "De'Longhi Bar 14 Café Treviso espresso cappuccino maker"), is a fairly compact electric presurised espresso maker with a milk steamer / frother. It's £58 at Argos (link - Delonghi Pumped Espresso/Cappuccino Maker. Cat no: 422/3852) Delonghi Caffe Treviso is what it's called on the machine. Nb. Also available from Amazon UK for £62 as the "De'Longhi Bar 14 Café Treviso espresso cappuccino maker"

The espresso machine has the right amount of pressure to make proper espresso's (14/15 bar) - and the importance of being able to make a proper espresso should not be under-estimated - as it's the basis for all real coffee. Too hot and the coffee burns (giving you a bitter taste), too much water and the flavour of the coffee goes and then you end up with effectively a filter coffee machine (and watery coffee). 

Shown above: Ground Coffee that's too coarse - it made watery (thin) coffee - with little crema - and a poor taste.

The coffee used with this machine is crucial - it must be espresso coffee to work properly - this is much more finely ground than standard "filter coffee" or ground coffee that says it's "suitable for all coffee machines". To get the best results, you may want to invest in a burr coffee grinder, such as the Dualit Burr Coffee Grinder (£87 from Amazon UK), and yes I do think it's worth the money, as you can then buy roasted beans (or roast your own), and then get some of the freshest coffee available (the flavour, intensity and freshness of freshly roasted beans is highly recommended).

Pros:
- Can make very good latte's and cappucinno's (with the right coffee)
- giving you coffee like you'd get in a proper coffee shop (starbucks, cafe nero, coffee union, etc) but much much cheaper, and in your own home.

Just stuff that isn't great, but isn't terrible:
- needs the right coffee, eg. Lavazza / Rose? Espresso, and Illy's make VERY good coffee. Dowe Egberts Espresso coffee isn't suitable, other strength 5 coffee isn't suitable (too coarse), unless it specifically says it's
- some 'Espresso' coffee, and coffee that's too fine might not be suitable either.
- 1 litre water tank isn't very much so you regularly have to refill it. 

Cons:
- Normal sized cups don't fit under the coffee bit, or the steamer, as you can see in the picture - you do need the right size cups as they are not provided.
- you have to either buy a special small espresso cup (As shown in the pictures), or remove the drip tray to fit normal sized cups in it - also to steam / froth the milk you may have to lift the machine up to fit the cup under (unless you use smaller cups).
- There is no drip tray for the milk frother meaning your workbench gets all messy with milk.

Controls can be confusing:
- The controls, starting with the On/Off switch - this turns the machine on, when the machine is ready to make espresso the big red OK light lights up. To start making the espresso, you then switch on the top switch which has a coffee cup / tap symbol next to it
- you then switch this off when the big OK light turns off, meaning it's finished making the espresso coffee. The second switch from the top, is the steamer switch, in order to steam the milk this needs to be on, and then you can turn the nob at the top to steam the milk. 

The machine also has a small white "presser" which you can use to press the coffee down after you have put it into the holder. Under that is the water level meter, which you can use to see how much water is in the water tank.


I found the following method produced the best results for me: (Despite the manual saying you should leave it switched on for a certain amount of time to warm up the machine) 

1. Switch the machine on, with the frother switch also switched on, (Start with fresh water every time you use the machine!)

2. When the ready light comes on: (you might like to froth / steam some water to clean it at this point, then) Froth a small amount of milk (normally 1/3rd of a cup - I use semi-skimmed), this would normally be warmed up enough with one froth (finish frothing when the red light goes off again) - it's better to have the milk slightly colder than required rather than too hot, as making it too hot burns the milk and ruins the taste of milk for latte's or cappuccinos

3. Once the milk is ready (sometimes you may need to wait for the red light to come on again and froth a little bit more if needed or wanted) you can switch off the froth switch.

  Adams and Russell Coffee Beans are HIGHLY Recommended!  www.adamsandrussell.co.uk (Shown
here: "Dominican Republic Barahona AA" graded - Very intense and unique smooth
cream like taste, with little or no bitterness to the flavour - and the Dualit
Burr Coffee Grinder)

4. Run WATER ONLY (without coffee) through the coffee machine when the red light is on, using the coffee / tap switch, switch it off when the red light goes off. I normally do this 2 or 3 times so that the coffee machine has a) fresh water going through it, b) all parts are clean and free of any old coffee, c) the machine will be thoroughly warmed up and d) it lets you know if the machine is putting through the right amount of water consistently. If you have problems at this stage, for example if the water appears to stall or come through slowly, then you may need to clean your filter or check for blocked holes.

5. While the coffee machine is getting ready again, you can put ground coffee in the filter, push it down firmly with the "stamper", then load the coffee machine, when the red light is on, switch on the coffee / tap switch, coffee should come through with a decent amount of crema and will fill around 1/2 a cup (depending on the size of the cup - sometimes more, sometimes less), when the red light goes off, SWITCH OFF THE COFFEE MACHINE (If you leave it on, hot water will continue to come through, and fill the cup, but you'll end up with coffee that tastes like filter coffee - you don't want that). You're done.

6. Wait for the few remaining drips to come through, take the coffee, and add it to your cup with milk. Swirl the coffee cup so that the coffee is mixed with the milk, and you should be left with around 1/5th of the cup as white milk froth on top.

7. Clean out coffee, and frother, and clean / wipe over the machine, removing any spills, coffee, milk etc.

Overall: It can make very good coffee, although it can be a bit confusing, meaning you need to think about it when you first start using it, and the three switches all look very similar at a glance so it's easy enough to accidentally leave the steamer switched off and not realise. It also seems as though it could have been designed much better, simply by allowing normal sized cups to be used, and by extending the drip tray. It also seems a bit random in it's performance (unless you follow the routine outlined above), so whilst it is good, and is good value for money, you may be better looking at other espresso makers, if you want something easier to use. 

I've had the coffee machine for nearly 5 years now and it took a long time to perfect the process - once this was done - it became very clear that the type of coffee used (the freshness, the source, whether it was freshly ground, the fineness of the ground coffee) plays a very important role in getting the best flavour from the machine. A burr coffee grinder is highly recommended and finding coffee beans that you like is worth pursuing. Comparing this coffee machine to others, this is perhaps the best value for money coffee machine available that can produce the kind of espresso needed for great coffee - spend any less and you might find you don't have the right amount of pressure, or that the machine will burn the coffee and produce bitter coffee.

After 12 months the base of the coffee maker was quite rusty, as it's quite easy to spill water underneath the drip tray and underneath the water container, the design of the coffee maker means that water doesn't escape very easily. The feet of the coffee maker doesn't raise the coffee maker very high either which means the coffee maker will simply sit in water, either water that's on your work surface or water that's managed to escape from the base after spillage from above. This means the base is quite successful at getting rusty. And it could be worth putting the coffee machine on a raised base. 

After 5 years a small spider set-up home underneath the drip tray and was planning on making baby spiders - so it is very important that you clean all areas of the coffee machine (although some areas are very difficult / or impossible to access making it quite difficult). You may want to thoroughly clean the coffee machine more regularly than me!

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.