Earlier this year, my company phone got upgraded. I used to have a Nokia N95 8gn, and it was really, really good. After a couple of firmware updates the GPS worked as it should – achieving a quick and reliable lock, the Symbian OS whilst not as flashy as some was stable and the few bits of software that I installed – primarily Viewranger – were useful and did the job.
The only thing that let it down in the ‘smart phone’ stakes was the fact that I had to rely on the standard phone-type keypad for typing.
So, to the replacement. A Nokia N97 mini. You may recall that the N97 bombed at launch due to a series of well-documented problems. Nokia then rushed out the mini. It was, as it’s name suggests, a little smaller. Still had the full qwerty keyboard, has 8 gig of standard memory (more available via card), runs Symbian 5th Edition and boasts a touch screen. All very nice on the box.
For sure, the keyboard is a gem. I can now write things properly – blogs, emails, Twitter etc – without feeling that I’m about to waste the best part of a day. It lights up nicely so that I can see where the keys are and they symbols etc are all easily and intuitively accessible. All this despite the fact that I have large hands.
The touch screen, however, is a total bag of nails. It may be that I’m so used to the capacitive touch screen on my iPod Touch, but the resistive screen on the Nokia is a hugely poor cousin. Not only is the interface not consistent through applications (even core parts of the phone itself), but the response is vague, false presses are registered all over the place and the flick to scroll is purely and simply piss-poor.
As an example, go to the “Applications” screen and try to swipe to scroll through the apps. All that happens is that the icon that happens to be nearest your finger is fired. Trying to use the scroll bars is even harder – requiring half your finger tip to be off the edge of the screen and lagging with each touch so that you end up having to scroll back up to get to where you want to be.
In fact, the response in general is poor. The potentially great Facebook widget often doesn’t respond, I find myself “clicking” several times on icons to persuade them to do anything and lock-ups occur all over the place.
Calls are pretty crisp and clear, and txting is much easier courtesy of the keyboard. Access to Exchange works well and the screen – as long as it isn’t sunny – is good. The phone is also a decent size, without making you look like you’re suffering from a hernia when you put it in your pocket. Battery life too, is acceptable….I can go a whole day on a single charge, and just about last a trip from home to Cary without needing to switch loads of functions off.
Apart from the shocking “touch” screen, the biggest shocker of them all is the abomination known as the Ovi Store. The total, complete, utter, one-hundred percent, sack of shiate that is Ovi Store.
Nokia, in their wisdom, decided to emulate the Apple iStore. A noble move. They have an open OS, gazillions of handset owners and a stable development base. Should be a winner right?
Should, yes. Is, no. First off, the jumping through hoops that requires your userid and password for every silo of non-connected online information that is Nokia. Second, the “known” bug that has Ovi Suite on your desktop unable to sync with the Ovi cloud. Next, the useless Ovi app on the phone that is usually unable to actually connect to the store. Followed closely by the woeful offerings in the store – should you be lucky enough to actually get there. All this bad enough but, assuming that you have the patience of a saint and manage to finally find a rare nugget in the inaccessible store, that is something less than totally useless you will find that you have to pay four time the iStore value for an identical app in Ovi. Way to go Nokia! Way to bloody go.
So. Would I go out and buy an N97 mini with my own money? No way. Am I happy with the phone bearing in mind it’s free? I can tolerate it. Would I swap it for an iPhone or Android? I’d probably rip your arm off.
It was free, so why not. Whilst I’m not quite at the stage of drinking the kool-aid, I have some respect for Apple products and was pretty keen to get my hands on iBooks. I’ve been umming and ahhing about splashing out for an iPad (I know, I know. I slated them earlier) or an iPhone 4 for some time. So could IOS4 on the Touch negate the need for the expenditure?
In a word. No.
So what does IOS4 bring me on my second gen iPod TOuch? Quite simnply, six things. Five of which are reasonably fun. One of which is a total deal breaker.
One:
Folders. Actually pretty useful. I’ve had the Touch for a while now and, subsequently, have quite a few apps installed on it. I’d got to the point of having to wander through six screens of apps to find the one I wanted – which was getting a little tiresome.
The folders feature allows me to group apps into folders meaning, in my case, that I can now get all my apps onto one screen. The downside is that each folder is limited to twelve apps (you can see “games” and “games2” on my screen) which is slightly annoying.
The way that the folders are portrayed though is very good. I can see (if I peer closely) the app icons in the folder and, when updating an app, the status bar appears underneath the folder – cumulative if there are several apps in one folder being updated.
So folders, all in all, a pretty good result.
Two:
Unified email. I’m a little more sceptical about this one. As you can see, I have three email accounts set up on my Touch. IOS4 gives me the first option of “All Inboxes” which unifies all emails into a single inbox. I can still access the accounts separately I suppose, but I’m not altogether sure of the benefit of the unified box.
I also have the option to thread messages within the inbox – which is slightly more useful.
Here you can see the options within the mail settings.
One groovy feature of IOS4 is that any dates or contacts within the body of the emails will automatically launch their respective apps. So I can tap on a date in an email and instantly create a calendar entry.
Three:
Eye-candy. I can apply wallpapers all over the place if I want to. Great. Very reminiscent of OS/2 and totally pointless. Thank you Apple.
Four:
Different Album view. See above. It looks nice enough, but I won’t be running naked down the street singing it’s praises.
Five:
iBooks. Well, yes, I’ve now got iBooks on the Touch – that much I’ll admit. As you can see from this screen capture though , it’s slightly less than totally useless.
The app itself is veeeeerrrrrryyyyyy slow with a significant lag in performing any actions.
More show-stopping though, is the fact that you’d need to turn over about three thousand pages of iBook text just to read a copy of the Beano.
Six:
Saving the most critical and significant change that IOS4 brings to last;
IOS4 will absolutely hose your battery on a 2nd Gen iPod Touch. I’m a pretty heavy user of my little pocket-friendly, slim and funky friend. I can generally go a couple of days without any need for a significant re-charge, unless I’m on a plane – where I leave it plugged in to the underseat charger.
Since installing IOS4, I can’t even get a single days charge out of the thing. I will turn it off in the evening with 80% charge left (after an evening re-charge) and, seven or eight hours later when I wake up, it’s drained to ten percent.
Before anyone writes in trying to help – yes, I do purge the battery every couple of weeks. So that isn’t going to help.
It’s infuriating. Bearing in mind the 2nd Gen doesn’t support IOS4’s multi-tasking, just what in the hell is it doing – whilst locked and inactive – that is plundering the battery?
My birthday is coming up soon. And I’m going to surprise myself with a 64Gig iPad. I run Joikuspot premium on my N97 mini – so I won’t need the 3G version.
I’ve had this tablet for a few weeks now – I’d dithered between keeping the XPSM1330 and getting an iPad, or going all out and replacing the Dell with a tablet.
After much uming and errring I decided upon the tablet and thank god I did.
The tech specs are pretty impressive;
Dual Core Intel SU4100 13.ghz, 2mb Level 2 cache
4Gig of DDR3 memory
320 gig SATA 7200 HDD
Integrated 10/100/1000 gigabit ethernet and 802.11 b/g/n WLAN
12.1” WXGA LED touchscreen
ATI Radeon HD 4550 512Mb graphics AND integrated Intel graphics
Altec Lansing Dolby Advanced Audio speakers
Fingerprint reader
5-in-1 card reader
Bluetooth
Webcam
Multi-touch click pad
3*USB 2.0, 1*HDMI, 1*VGA, 1*RJ45 ethernet and combined mic/headphone jack
The whole thing also comes complete with a USB DVD+-RW drive with lightscribe, a lovely aluminium shell and weighs in at a very not portly 2.15KG. It also scores a respectable 4 on the Windows Experience Index.
The blurb boasts eight hours of battery life – I’ve managed six myself but haven’t just sat there watching videos or anything simple like that.
So, to the tablet part of it …..
Never having owned a tablet before, I was a little sceptical as to just how well it would perform. The machine comes with a Wacom pen tucked into a slot at the left of the keyboard and, after a cursory couple of minutes spent “training” the thing to recognise my frankly appalling handwriting …
…. I wasn’t really expecting miracles. Except, miracles did occur! Other than the above example, this is all being written by hand, in that same frustrated doctor scrawl, and the tablet is having no issues in recognising it. Not only that, but it continues to “learn” your handwriting the more you use it.
Pretty much every application is tablet (and hand writing) friendly which entirely satisfies the main point of owning the thing – namely attending meetings with just the tablet – not laptop, charger, notepad and pen.
In terms of typing, things are good too. The keyboard is “chicklet” style and smaller than that of the XPS. Despite all that, the tactile impression is really good and much huge hands have no problem with hitting the wrong key. Some functions – PgUp, PgDn, Home, End etc – are accessed via alt+something, and a few of the keys have groovy leds behind them to indicate certain functions.
When it comes to hands, the screen too operates superbly. I can lean my hand on the screen whilst writing with no issues of false readings on the screen. The screen too can rotate through the cardinal points to aid writing comfort.
If I had to be really picky, the only gripes I could come up with are ;
The screen picks up fingerprints. Well duh – I’m using my fingers all over it.
The high reflectivity of the screen can prove a little annoying at times.
The neoprene sleeve that the tablet came with is teh ghey.
Aside from the hardware, the suite of applications that came pre-installed and, after overwriting the OS with Windows 7 Enterprise remained in an install folder on the root drive, is absolutely superb. All touch enabled, all very pretty and all supremely functional.
I am so glad that I went with this rather than the iPad; Battery performance is comparable. When on mains, it switches automatically from Intel to the ATI video mode. I’ve got the pen input and touch too. I’ve got a full OS under the hood and, despite being thicker than the iPad, I still have the incredibly responsive touch screen or, at the twist of the screen, a full on laptop with keyboard rather than having to lug a separate bluetooth keyboard around.
Well that’s what you get for trying to upgrade to IOS4 before work. I’ve now got to do the school-run and drive to work with the lap-top and Touch next to me on the passenger seat so that I don’t interrupt the back-up.
Isn’t technology wonderful.
Still, at least I know with the new tablet that the battery isn’t going to run out with ten minutes to go.
… sue me. I’ve started twittering – these posts should appear on twitter, and my tweets should appear on the site. Makes it easier for Jules and kids to follow me in Canada.
As you can see, I’ve amended the geo-location icon on the right to use Google Latitude (as that’s the one that is generally live) – add me if you want …….. the domain name of this site at gmail.com.
I’ve also added Ovi to the N95 8Gb – have a dig around for Ragingaardvark and, again, add me as a contact if you want.
Who knows, I may even jump into bed with the devil one day and get a Twitter account too.
One of the reasons I’ve been busy, was preparing for and attending the SAS World Wide IT conference in Cary this April. I went out early to spend a few days with Dad – who drove down from Canada. The flight out was pretty uneventful, apart from being seated with a bunch of rugby players attending a tournament at Duke the following weekend, and I’m happy to say that we all stayed at the Embassy Suites this time – rather than the much flashier Umstead.
Sunday was golf at Prestonwood and, this time, we played the Fairways course. Apparently, this is meant to be easier than the Highlands course we played last year but, for someone of my technical ability (read, none whatsoever) the course proved to be rather challenging. The “no more than ten shots counted per hole” rule was called into play a few times, I lost six balls (found two), nearly caused an RTA with a wayward golf-ball and managed to hit someone’s house. One the bright side, I wasn’t overly troubled by the numerous bunkers – beacause I either didn’t manage to reach them or avoided the fairway all together.
Monday was a wander round the Umstead State Park. How on earth I have managed to avoid this all these years I really don’t know. It’s an absolutely beautiful place – pretty deserted, great trails and wonderful scenery. Including the walk to and from the park, we managed to clock up just under twenty miles – which is, apparently, Dad’s total walking for three years.
Shopping next – to keep the folks at home happy and then into the conference.
Flight back on Friday was a bit of an event. Take off was about six-ish in the evening and due to land about the same time in the morning at Heathrow. All well and good you may say. However, about forty or so minutes into the flight I detected a definite decrease in aircraft noise. The captain came on the tannoy with;
“Ladies and gentlemen. Please don’t panic, but I have an important announcement to make.” (Cue screaming and wailing from some folks.)
“We have lost power to one of our engines and, because of this, are unable to attempt to cross the Atlantic.” (More hysteria)
“We are currently carrying too much fuel to attempt an emergency landing, so will circle on full flaps until we have burnt enough fuel to do so.” (Sobbing and tearing of hair)
After an hour and a half, we had lost sufficient weight to make the emergency landing at Boston airport – along with a cavalcade of fire trucks alongside and behind us. Everything in the airport was closed, so we were penned into the departure lounge until 01:30, when they managed to find a plane with two functioning engines so that we could resume our journey.
We eventually arrived in Heathrow (with the captain announcing “Thank you for flying American Airlines. The airline that gets you there.”) At just before one in the afternoon. Great trip!
I know, I know. I’ve been ill I’m afraid, but am back up and at ‘em now. So, what’s been happening?
Well, the recent news on the web is how those half-wits the PRS have forced Google to pull all music content for UK IP addresses. If this is impacting you, then don’t panic. If you’re using IE, then Hotspot Shield will get around the problem. If you’re a Linux user, then Firefox has a couple of extensions that will block or spoof your IP address. If the worst comes to the worst, then there are plenty of anonymising proxies out there that you can re-direct through to hide your IP address. All in all then, a totally pointless move by the PRS which will only serve to harm the people that they are allegedly representing.
Other than that, I’ve been runing a comparison of getting Joomla, Drupal or WordPress up and going for a quick TTL site here. Probably going to plump for Joomla – purely because I know it, and the learning curve for Drupal is too much for my schedule right now.
The flights to Denman have been booked and Kit and Robin are talking about spending a few days treking and camping up in the Beaufort Range, so I’ve bought myself and Austrian four-piece rucksack and am loading myself up when walking Shelby. It’s an amazing piece of kit; The main rucksack is attached by a full yoke (two pieces), then a but-pack is attached to a webbing belt (two more pieces) and clipped to the yoke. Very, very comfortable. Very roomy and breaks down into a day-sack too.
Not only but also, I’m meeting up with Dad again for our now “Official” yearly meet-up in Cary this Easter. Charlie has promised to give me a few golf lessons in the meantime. Gina’s still loved-up. Jenny’s still crackers and Jules is still gorgeous.
I looked out of the window at six this morning and -- WOW! -- had it snowed. Grabbed the Shelbster and off we went to blaze a trail. Up on the golf-course, the snow was a good six inches (that’s a foot in my books) deep. So deep in fact, that Shelby was wading with her nose in the air. As we came round the loop and back up Luker Avenue, Mr Claim had been at it again ;
Mr Claim is the bloke who, when it snows or is icy, moves his car and parks it -- side on -- at the bottom of Clements Road, hoping that someone is going to come slithering down, miss the corner and T-bone him.
Schools are closed, so I went out early for a tear-up in the Chilterns -- out over Fawley, Turville and Ibstone. Absolutely fantastic! Deep, deep untouched snow and not another car in sight ……. until I got back down to the Marlow Road and headed into work.
So, picture the scene …… snow on the road ….. snow falling ….. everything slushy and slippy. How would you drive? Well, I guess it depends whether you’re driving a BMW or not ;
Then we got to the notorious Danesfield Hill ;
No problem, of course. Diff-lock on and away we go ;
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, it’s slightly less than totally useless. 
