Tag Archives: smartphone

Technology

I’ve changed my mind about the Samsung Galaxy S2

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Bugs en smartphones (no solo android) errores curiosos y peligrososI retract my desire to move to Android just yet. Despite the superlative professional reviews, on looking at the handset longingly on Amazon, I read this review by a former iPhone user. It points to some of the limitations – battery life, non-native music decompression (leading to a hot handset and short battery life), issues with multi-tasking  etc. Those are the main killers for me – my iPhone is my principle music devices and I don’t want to have to re-charge in the middle of the day – it’s frustrating (but rare) to have to do that with the iPhone and it would grate to have to do it daily.

For me, that’s a huge validation for consumer reviews and I’m grateful to the Amazon shopper who provided this insight for me. Tom loves his S2 but doesn’t use it as a music device so probably hasn’t suffered the worst of this. If you’re an iPhone user considering an S2 (or any Android device) go read this guy’s review. Very insightful indeed.

There’s something to be said for the benefits of long-term testing these devices! Pre-iPhone, I had at least two phones which I bought on the basis of cool features and good reviews that I grew to really, really dislike (the Ericsson T29 and the Motorola MPX 200)… given the year-long contract on those, it was frustrating indeed to be lumbered with them.

Technology

Smartphone blogging at Coolsmartphone.com

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CoolsmartphonePNGIt was around nine years ago that I bought my first ever smartphone – an Orange SPV, built for the French mobile company by the fledgling High Tech Corporation (spot today’s more famous acronym in there), running Microsoft Smartphone 2002 software. In the absence of a great deal of information about the new platform, I turned to a new website run by a fellow SPV fan that covered all things Microsoft Smartphone – which eventually became the popular smartphone blog Coolsmartphone.com.

Today, having abandoned the Microsoft smartphone platform in favour of the Apple beast, I’m joining a group of other enthusiasts to contribute iPhone and iPad reviews to Coolsmartphone.com. I’m grateful to Leigh Geary, the site owner – for the opportunity, and thrilled to have an outlet for my smartphone ramblings other than division6 – I suspect most faithful readers will be rather pleased that some of the smartphone updates, at least, will go elsewhere.

I’ll let you know when I get started but if there’s any app you’d like my thoughts on, let me know and I’ll look into it. I’ll mostly be looking for the charity of PRs promoting apps to send me download vouchers and/or interesting pitches to new apps (and won’t be covering any of my agency’s, Brands2Life, clients’ apps in the interests of avoiding conflicts anywhere). You can reach me on my shiny new mailbox for that – armand [at] coolsmartphone.com!

Software, Technology

iPhone app to find nearest pool table #apprequest

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moment of impact

I was wandering Islington two weekends ago trying to find somewhere to play pool after discovering that the Elbow Room there has closed down, and despite the abundance of useful data on sites like Beerintheevening.com, no-one seems to have mashed up an app that tells you where the nearest pool table is. C’mon, devs and/or marketing folk for beer companies – that’s a free idea for you. Build it, give it away, and people will use it and buy your beer.

I promise.

Technology

A week with the HTC Sensation

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HTC Sensation: A1 bringt erstes Dual Core Smartphone von HTC =A week after giving up on the the Blackberry Torch as a clunky not-quite-there-phone, my brother-in-law has given up on the dual-core Android 2.3 megadevice, the HTC Sensation. He much preferred it to the Torch, but, as I suspected it might, the iPhone has ruined him for even marginally less intuitive mobile devices, and the freedom of choice on how to customise the platform was more than he wanted. His thoughts below; which chime neatly with my own thoughts on the Android platform. Powerful, but not ready yet.

Bil’s review:

So, the htc phone…. Well, perhaps the reason I’m writing this note on the iPhone probably says it all……!

Sure the bigger screen, amazing camera & great graphics will win you over, plus the speaker phone is also strong but as an everyday practical device there are still too many minor flaws. Writing a simple note, a reminder, a calendar entry all involve too much ‘faff’. It’s just slightly tedious, your thumb precision is really tested (ok, sure you can rotate the phone for a wider grasp but that requires readjustment and hassle). Perhaps the htc is overengineered? Flexible gingerbread platforms and custom home pages allow you to create and personalise the phone to fit your preference. Fine. But then what?? If it doesn’t do what you want it to do what good is a sexy layout?

iPhone 5 or whatever it’s going to be labelled, will bring something new to the Market…. again, so i’ve decided go reacquaint myself with the iPhone platform ahead of what’s round the corner.

So, here’s to Apple and their product, it’s good in all areas rather than being spectacular in some and letting itself down in others…..

Sent from my APPLE mobile device

Software, Technology

Goodbye Windows Mobile…

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So I’ve been a faithful user of Windows Mobile since 2002 or so and the SPV 100 first launched, an underpowered but otherwise apparently well specced and capable phone. For me its ease of use, the instant familiarity of the OS and the fact it synched with my desktop were all strong motivating factors, and I was especially fond of the pre-emptive dialling feature, where you typed a contact’s name in numbers and it found it for you and let you dial them from the homescreen… Making it useful as a phone as well as a primitive Internet device – astonishing at the time.

Today, despite having used a succession of ever better designed devices, I bid it farewell. Despite the fact that the HTC Touch Dual, my last phone, was the first phone i haven’t immediately retired on becoming eligible for upgrade, it was no longer up to the job. It wasn’t really geared up for touch, had lagged behind with its Internet capabilities and the newest incarnations have shown little improvement (WM 6.5… Really?) so I’ve had to jump ship. The fact with hundreds of different Windows Mobile devices and millions of handsets, both the iPhone and Android are ahead in mobile Internet access kind of underlines the point, as does the fact that most of this post was drafted on the bus on the way to work using the new handset, the iPhone 3GS, with a WordPress app. Outstanding.

I’m not an Apple fanboy (seriously, I resisted this purchase like you wouldn’t believe), but for now, this fits my purpose. If Microsoft start innovating again (and not just relying on their hardware vendors to fix the problems in the underlying platform with innovative ‘skins’) then I will look at them again (Zunephone, please). But I suspect that both Android and Apple have stolen a lead that MS will never recover from…