The Nokia N97 Mini is like the beta release of the N97 – with the N97 being the alpha version, perhaps the N8 will be the release candidate or perhaps even the final product? (I am using the software release life cycle terms used for Windows and other apps as an attempt at humour – however some people who have used the N97 would probably find the terms relevant.) Click below to read the full review…
With the imminent release of the Nokia N8 and the new operating system Symbian ^3 – what sort of problems could Nokia fix and improve upon? Or rather what am I hoping they will resolve or implement in their next OS / Phones?
- RSS feed widget on home screen (ala The Sony C905 from Oct 2008) – Comfirmed in this video.
- Improved UI Design / Icons – read somewhere that Nokia were planning on a refresh before actual release?
- Improved Web Browser – the built in Symbian web browser has been poor for a long time – it needs to support email subject definition in email mailto links (it doesn’t understand the ? option).
- Improved sharing features – ie. Photo share to Twitter, FB, Blogger, not just OVI
- Built in Twitter client and home screen widget
- Improved battery life or sleep mode(s) – using the phones features often drains the battery too quickly.
- Have a screen that works outside even when battery is low (what’s the point in the light sensor if it doesn’t do anything?)
- PC software needs fixing – why are there separate apps for Nokia Maps loader, Nokia Ovi Suite, Nokia Software Updater, etc, why can’t these all be combined into one?
- Lots of memory (RAM) for multi-tasking, the Nokia N97 has 256mb* but only 73mb was available, the Nokia N97 Mini has 512mb with 277mb available to the user*, and the Nokia N8 has 256mb, but will it be enough?
Whilst the imaging options (filters – vignette, colour filters) look greatly improved (based on Mobile-Review’s look at the new OS), in the built in photo editor, it would be nice to see the same sort of Apps as Android and iPhone devices have – Photoshop for Symbian anyone?
The MP3 playback on the N86 is very good (much better than the Satio) and features stereo speakers which are useful for video playback – and it would be nice if this level of quality should continue (Unfortunately it looks like the Nokia N8 only has 1 speaker).
However, whether Nokia fans will continue to be faithful is another matter. Will they wait for the Nokia N8 to arrive even when numerous Android phones and the new iPhone4 are already available, and then if they do use the N8, will it be enough to encourage them to wait for Symbian ^4? Even as a Nokia “fan” I don’t know how much longer I will remain “faithful” to Nokia. Especially as the Android onslaught continues…
* Source: Wikipedia.
The problem with cameras on mobile phones is that they’re all crap – do you want to know why?.
In the olden days (you know when people used film cameras) no matter what camera you had, whether it was a cheap piece of plastic crap or the best SLR in the world, it all had one thing in common: 35mm film*. And the one thing 35mm film did well, was take photos no matter what the lighting conditions. Even in dark situations, without flash, you’d still be able to get some kind of photo from it. * assuming you weren’t using a 110 or APS camera. An example on flickr, and another example above with flash (I assume the flickr link is using 35mm film which measures 24x36mm).
With a digital camera – nearly all of them have flash (I’d estimate 99%) – so in dark conditions you can use the flash and get a half decent photo (generally speaking). Some of the time you can switch the flash off, setup the self-timer, put it on a wall or a tripod and take a half-decent night shot. Which is fairly impressive considering how small the sensor is in relation to 35mm film. (The average compact digital camera sensor size is 7.2mm x 5.3mm (1/1.8 sensor), this is roughly 5x smaller than 35mm film, with an average Pixel area(µm2) of 2.6 – 3.8µm2) (Using a 12mp example: Canon Powershot G9 with a 1/1.7″ sensor, the pixel area is 3.8µm2). Example above taken with the Casio Exilim Z120.
On a side note: Do you remember when Digital Cameras were still new? Like in 2002 or 2003 when digital cameras were still so new that they had to write “Digital Camera” on the front of it somewhere so that you knew it was a digital camera? Simply being a digital camera in 2001 was so exciting and new that they simply used those two words together as a marketing tool / selling point for the camera. Now you’re lucky if you even have the model number written on it, and rarely do you find the manufacturer name on the back these days. (They used to always put the manufacturers name underneath the screen – like this). Now it’s more likely the be the huge number of megapixels or optical zoom or screen size that’s plastered all over the camera.
With a camera phone – most of them don’t have a real flash (maybe 1% has a real xenon flash (the Sony Satio is the only recent one) that is equivalent to the flash you find in a Digital Camera) – and the rest – if you’re lucky (or unlucky depending how you feel about it) – has an LED or a “twin” LED flash. The problem is that even with (or without) the LED flash, the camera’s just don’t cope with low-light situations. You can put the phone on night mode (if you’re lucky), put it somewhere steady^ and switch on the self-timer, and hope it takes a successful shot. The problem is that the sensors in camera phones are even smaller than compact digital cameras. They just can’t get enough light into the sensor, and that means in low light situations they produce crap noisy images that are over-processed so much that you’re lucky there’s any image left to view. Further problems are caused due to the small sensors lacking the ability to capture dynamic range, so dark areas are underexposed, and bright areas are overexposed, further reducing detail in images (the example above taken with the Nokia N86 – where’s the detail in the steps?). The latest 12 megapixel camera phone sensors made by Sony have a 1.4µm pixel size – which is again 2.7x smaller than compact digital camera sensors. (2.6mm x 1.96mm estimation). This is roughly 13.8x smaller than 35mm film.
In a nutshell – it’s all about the light – 35mm film cameras can absorb lots of light, and therefore take photos in dark conditions and get as much colour and detail as possible. Digital Cameras, more so compact cameras, have much smaller sensors and struggle in low light, but don’t do too bad a job of it thanks to having a flash, however, they are very much on the limit of acceptable image quality (that’s why Digital SLRs get better image quality – they have larger sensors). Camera phones on the other hand have had to miniaturize to the point where image quality is badly affected, and the only way to get good photos from them is to use them in ideal light, or have a real xenon flash for times when lighting is poor.
^ Options are limited as I don’t know of any camera phones with tripod mount, and you’re generally lucky if the phone will stand on it’s side without falling over. Even on the “Photo-centric” Nokia N86 8mp you can’t stand the camera on it’s side without it falling over!
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). What else does it do… find out below…
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?
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!)
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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.
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.
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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).
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!
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.
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.
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!
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 memo
ry 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).
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 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 e
mdarrassment, 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.
