VC’s Techie CockTail

My Android Experience so far…..

From the unboxing to first impressions of HTC Magic can be followed in my other blog here.  But here are some more of my impressions on using HTC Magic so far,

• Android 1.5 with Sense Interface is for pretty stable with no hangups and fast to work with
• Android App market access in India is a great way to enhance and add value to the phone but restricting access to paid apps is a downer and also not mentioning whether its completely a “FREE APP” or a “AD SPONSORED FREE APP” is a irritant
• Basic phone qualities like network reception and call quality seems good. But without a dedicated desktop software to sync contacts (not a fan of syncing my phone contacts to google contacts) , messages is a let down. No Call / Message / Data counter is also a downer.
• Messaging with onscreen qwerty (potrait or landscape) with the word suggestion is nice but the messaging thread system jumbles the order of the sms sent & received is a downer
• Music and Video are good to hear and see. No FM and No 3.5 mm jack is a downer
• Camera is pretty slow to refresh and focus but the snaps in good lighting conditions comes out nice.
• Browsing with the default android browser is good.

So far the Android adventure is good but a official HTC ROM update to Android V2.2 would be most welcome

written by Vignesh \\ tags: htc magic, HTC Magic Sense, Magic Android 1.5

In the last few months, I’ve seen many small brands coming up with phone in the range of 5000 Rs wanting to be a blackberry with the much wannabe qwerty keypad and blackberry style icons , trackball. But as of two days I haven’t even tried anyone, but I got to play with my Uncle’s brand new MicroMax Q5…

• The first thing i felt in my hand, was its weight but for the overall dimensions of 115*62*12.5mm at 95 grams, with its solid black plastic and a trackball it looked like a blackberry
• The next thing was that the screen seemed small (320*240 Pixels, 5.58cm) when compared to the keypad area of the phone, making it somewhat bottom heavy
• The user interface doesn’t try to mimic the blackberry to the full with some nice animations of its own. Even though some features looked simple and direct, there are plethora of options buried deep inside which will need a somewhat steeper learning curve
• The phone hadn’t gprs activated in it so I didnt try out the much hyped ‘Facebook’ access , the opera mini browser and the nimbuzz chat client
• The sound was loud and clear, might be the effect of Yamaha amplifiers
• The qwerty keypad seemed ok, since i am not a user of qwerty keypads i can’t pass a judgement on it
• The phone had GPRS / EDGE and also bluetooth and usb connectivity
• The 2MP camera has nothing special to shout about, it should do ok in well lit conditions
• The phone has a micro SD card slot (under the battery) and a decent media player to handle audio and videos
• And the main features of these smaller brand phones is the dual sim support so it supports two gsm sim cards.

At 4050 Rs, the Q5 looks like a blackberry with some nice features……

written by Vignesh \\ tags: micromax q5

My friend who often switches phones has jumped from a BB 8900 to a Nokia E72. Since I’ve seen his earlier E71 I would make my observations taking its predecessor and blackberry’s into consideration,

• Finish wise its still the same solid and mettalic feel of E71 but the device seemed much more compact than E71 (114 x 58 x 10 @ 128g).
• The black color front face looked nice but somewhat the stainless steel back was somewhat off putting for me. And the 5 MP camera bulges out of the backside slightly giving a somewhat mixed reaction in me.
• The major downer for me was 2.36″ screen still going with 320 x 240 resolution and I still am not fond of Nokia’s default font (which looks jagged to me )
• The Symbian S60 V3.2 UI with some snazzy transition effects ran smoothly on the 600 Mhz ARM 11 processor
• Disappointingly the audio quality of the voice on other side of the call was not very clear
• The Nokia Messaging App for mails and messenger was easy to setup and use but will it give the same experience as a blackberry was a big doubt to me (as html emails weren’t opening inside the mail window itself)
• The new trackpad was weird for me and it didn’t feel as smooth on the other hand I came across a BB 8520 and the trackpad (even though i am using it for first time) was excellent to touch and use.
• Connectivity wise E72 had all bases covered with GPRS / EDGE / 3G/ USB / WLAN / Bluetooth
• The 3.5 mm jack with micro SD slot (8GB card came in the box) with a capable audio and video player makes it a good media player
• The 5 MP camera was good
• The one thing going for Nokia when compared to Blackberry is that with a GPRS 98 Rs. (Mobile office in AirTel) mail and messaging can be done with internet browsing too whereas Blackberry’s internet and mail service plan is @ 899 Rs.

The Nokia E72 has a lot going for it being Symbian, cheaper to run, 5MP cam, free ovi maps and at Rs. 17,500/- (375 US$) brings a lot to the table………..

written by Vignesh \\ tags: e72, nokia e71, nokia e72

When my Aunt wanted a phone not very low end but still reliable and easy to use phone first, my suggestion was the newly released Nokia 2690. On visiting the Nokia shop, I had two choices – a white or a greyish blue. I went for the blue one, priced at Rs. 2,750/- (without a memory card)

• First thing, that struck me was how the phone seemed somewhat big first time when i held it in my hand. Official size : 107.5 x 45.5 x 13.8 mm @ 80 grams. But holding it in the hand for a while made it ok and the phone was plasticky but solidly built
• The 1.8″ 128 x 160 pixel display was ok but font styling could have been nicer in my opinion
• A typical Series 40 phone so the user interface is pretty straight forward with lots of customization options
• Connectivity wise also good for a low end phone with GPRS / EDGE and microUSB and bluetooth.
• The music player with FM radio and a microSD card slot (upto 8 GB – Nokia claims) and a 3.5 mm audio jack makes it a worthwhile music player
• One curious thing was that how music played in the music player was loud whereas ringer volume was not that loud
• I didn’t test out the VGA camera which is more of a gimmick according to me

For a no non-sense mobile phone the Nokia 2690 would be on the recommended with some nice additions like music player, memory card slot, gprs etc.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: nokia 2690