85 posts from 2007

Lots of tech gifts were bought/chosen by me this year for friends and family and most were hits rather than misses.  I myself am typing this on my favourite present, the Eee PC.  It's been difficult to drag me away from it!  I got mine a few weeks before the big day as originally it was a present for myself... ;o)

Biggest hits: Eee PC, Guitar Hero 3 (Wii), Skypephones, Homersapien and Roboquad.

My niece received an Eee PC and loves hers as much as I love mine.  Hers has barely been out of her sight since Tuesday.

My eldest nephew can't get enough of Guitar Hero on the Wii.  He has three siblings and they have one Wii between them so even UN peacekeepers would have their work cut out for them!

My two youngest nephews were rather pleased with their robots.  My favourite is the Homersapien as unlike Roboquad, you can pick up stuff and throw it.  Silly fun and a fraction of the retail price (don't you just love it when retailers have unadvertised clear outs that people spot and post about online!)

Then there's the Skypephones.  We bought a pair for a young couple who are, for all intents and purposes, family.  Wasn't sure what they'd make of them but it was clear they liked them the moment they unwrapped them!  And they've actually been using them.  Unfortunately the Skype service was a bit flaky Christmas Day.  Couldn't set up a Skype account for one of them, but they managed it later that evening.

Word of advice, don't ever buy any big Lego or K'nex set if there's any chance that you'll be the muppet putting the thing together.  Words can't describe the feelings I went through building the K'nex rollercoaster/ferris wheel.  I did most of it with few problems but then came the rollercoaster bit - that's the bit that truly made me loopy (if you excuse the pun).  Suffice to say the 'coaster is still sitting there unfinished days after I nearly completed it.

Practically all laptops these days have wireless LAN (aka WiFi) built-in as standard.  It makes sense as an ever increasingly amount of households have WiFi at home and hotspots are popping as quickly as new Starbucks (which is, incidentally, where you'll see a lot of laptops using WiFi...)

WiFi is good when you're stationary but isn't so great when you're not.  When out and about it can be a pain trying to find a hotspot you can use and then of course, there's often the rigmarole of connecting to  a hotspot if you're fortunate enough to find one.  That's where 3G comes to the rescue...

On the M1 motorway yesterday I was able to stay connected to the internet at 384kbps (in reality, actually a bit more like 350kbps) for over an hour without losing connection.  I was able to use my laptop as if I were at home or in a hotspot.  You just can't do this with WiFi.

I was using an Nokia N73 tethered to an Eee PC and using 3's 3G network.  Faster speeds are probably possible with an HSDPA handset/modem - although I'm not sure of the coverage on that part of that motorway.  With data plans getting cheaper and coverage increasing all the time, 3G/3.5G seems to make more sense than WiFi when out of the house.

Got an email from Nokia yesterday inviting me to participate in a beta trial.  All well and good, but their 'to find out more click here' doesn't work.  I thought that was because I was using Firefox and then Opera on a Linux machine but just tried clicking on it in IE on an XP PC and still the same.

It always makes me smile when a tech company can't do even the smallest thing right.  I mean, what hope is there for the rest of us?! ;o)

Play.com have the Nokia internet tablet/media player/smartphone-sans phone, N800 for £129.99.  However, according to fellow Vox blogger Gerrymoth, PC World do a 110% price-match thingy.  It's very early in the morning so I may have my maths wrong but I believe that makes it £117.  If so that would seem like an absolute bargain.

I can't justify getting one though as I've just got my Eee and needed something more lap-toppy anyway.

I could've chosen a more catchy title like, you know, 'Free McDonald's WiFi. I'm lovin' it!' but I didn't.  Why not?  Well it was a bit fiddly to get going at first and you have to fill in some details.  Other than that though, it works well.  The dinky Eee seems ideally suited to surfing whilst eating fast food!  YouTube worked and it was quick (no need to buffer first).  Unfortunately even funny cat videos weren't enough to take my nephew's mind off the pain he was in yesterday.

Back to the 3Store (not literally, I'm sure the phones are fine!)...

I couldn't help but notice the guy that served me was doing a mighty fine impression of  Flavor Flav (OT but anyway... someone I know was recently in an elevator with Mr Flav and asked him what time was it.  Probably not the first time he'd heard it but it sure made me chuckle!)

So, why did the shop assistant look like a flamboyant rapper?  Because he was wearing an LG Viewty around his neck, that's why!  To be fair, he didn't look that bling or anything but it got my attention and that was the idea - it wasn't a personal phone.  Within moments of enquiring about it I was asked if I wanted to play with it.  If you've read even a few of my posts you probably know the answer!

Indeed it seemed like an excellent phone and the assistant reminded me about the excellent video quality (what with support for ridiculously high frame rates and high resolution) and I was told how to find and check out the videos on it.  The only problem was there were only videos in low quality, shot on the device itself and in 3gp format.  To really show of the device they could've done with some video demos off of the likes of Apple's, Microsoft or Divx's websites.

From what I saw it seemed like a nice phone.  For various reasons I'm sticking to Nokia.  However, if I were I was held at gunpoint and forced to choose between a Viewty or an iPhone I know which one I'd plump for, the Viewty!  IMHO the only things the iPhone excels at are the things the far cheaper Ipod Touch does.

It's been such a long time since I actually bought a handset - you know, with money, in a shop... Today I bought two!

It's no secret that I do a bit of research and comparison shopping before I purchase anything.  If I can save a couple of quid* just by going to a different shop just down the street I will.  With that in mind, I'd heard that Carphone Warehouse (the well know UK chain that's neither a warehouse nor seller of  carphones) were selling a pair of Skypephones on PAYG for £85.  Thanks 3mobilebuzz for bringing Chris Green's post about this to my attention.

I knew 3's own shops had them as a pair priced a whole fiver more so I figured I'd try CPW (that's short for Carphone Warehouse don't you know?!) first.  I had to wait ages to talk to anyone as they only had two staff and many customers (one fairly angry FWIW).  I eventually got to speak to one of their surly staff only to be told that they weren't in stock.  That's a real bugbear of mine and something that's annoyed me a couple of times this holiday season.  IMHO shops that have queues at the till and no members of staff on the shop floor should at the very least have signs saying that they haven't got Wiis, DSes or Skypephone's in stock.  Would save a lot of time and effort!

Good job the 3Store was only around the corner.  They had them in stock and only had one customer, me!  That's probably not such a good thing for them but it certainly was for me.  Friendly staff (they always are, what do they put in the water?) and free wrapping paper and lollies - almost worth an extra £5!

The guy who served me had no idea that CPW were now selling Skypephones and couldn't get over the fact that they were cheaper there.  Of course my angle was getting them to price match, but then I'm always cheeky like that in shops and it does occasionally work... just not in this case!

Back to the phones themselves... hopefully they'll be appreciated by their recipients at Xmas and hopefully they don't read this blog!

* Slang for £s for those who are neither British nor anglophiles!

Just noticed 3 UK's Planet 3 portal has had a bit of a spruce up.  Haven't had a chance to really form an opinion on it yet.  One thing I do like and one thing that stands out is their 'Free and easy' page linked from the homepage.  It's prominently signed and clearly worded.  This would seem like a no-brainer but having used T-mobile's portal this week (for the first time ever) it would appear that not all operators are so clear cut.

I like T-mobile's portal in places but for the most part it's a mess.  Bizarrely it kinda like seems some of it wasn't designed with mobile access in mind!

Back to 3's, I hope they've finally gotten rid of the adult content that is the first thing you see when opening the (built-in) browser on 3 phones every night.  There is no opt-out and although it's more suggestive than anything else, it really isn't the first thing you want to see when browsing in public.  I can also imagine many parents not wanting that on a phone they give to their kids.

I had a play with the Nokia 6120 Classic - my sister's new phone - the other night, .  I'd recommended it to her based on what I'd read/heard about it.  I hadn't used one myself as, even at the Symbian Smartphone show back in October, most of the Nokia phones out on display were N95s or N95 8GBs.  It was nice that not only did she seek my advice but that she actually took it!

My thoughts about the phone?  It's quick, very quick.  It's seems to be stable (it didn't crash or hang - but I only used it for 30 minutes).  The screen looks great, although it is smaller than I'm used to.  It's bright, it's very clear - it just looks nice, easy to read etc.  The keypad is great, it's well spaced out and keys are logically placed.  It's sturdy.  The built-in browser is way better than on my creaking N73!

Unfortunately she's not got a data plan so I couldn't have too much fun with it.  I would've loved to give Nokia Internet Radio a spin whilst using Sports Tracker or seeing if Nokia Maps is actually usuable on it (it's way too slow on my N73 - even if TomTom has no problems)

Would I want a 6120c as my next phone?  If you'd asked me a few months ago, no.  Now, not so sure.  It does most things that I want (I believe it even does Slingplayer) but the camera is only 2MP, it has no WiFi and, although the screen is really nice, it's small.  I also like the idea of having TV-out and accelerometers and neither are available on the 6120c, but I can live without them.