Insert Clever Title Here

When I entered the Telstra Social Reviewers I said I was interested in geodata and that what I wanted out of it was to know if it was time to upgrade my 3 year old Nokia N95-8gb.

For the really lazy… Here is my conclusion..

I like the HTC, I like Android and I’m finding myself living more and more connected due to this phone. If you use Google a lot, this is the phone for you, if you use Google a bit, this is the phone that will make you use Google alot.  There is a lot to like about it, there is a lot to be frustrated by it.  But will I recommend it to people.  Yes, with a big caveat you have to be someone with time to invest to get used to it.  Also this phone is for someone with a dataplan.  If you don’t have a decent data plan you are not going to get the most of out it.

On with the review…. my 3 year old nokia…Most people would say.. but the phone is three years old.. why haven’t you upgraded.  The reason was evolution not revolution.  The original N95 to me was the Revolutionary phone.. the N95-8gb which I got was the evolution.  One of the reasons for getting was that it had Flash Lite 2.1… aka Flash Lite with Flash 7 video.  (Sorry Steve but flash has been on mobiles for a few years now!), coupled with the GPS, wifi and 5 Mega pixel camera this phone still served me well.

What is interesting is that on paper the HTC-Desire is so close in so many areas.  At least for the things that I was particularly interested in. Of course I am moving from the old Nokia to the new HTC as my new base phone, but what I think I should point out is just where the phones are different.

Comparison Table N95 – HTC (Table Modified from – GSM Arena)

For me what is interesting is that the Nokia still holds its own in a large number of these fields, including camera, wifi, gps and multitasking.

I’ve given the nod to Nokia for battery as well whilst on paper the HTC is the better battery, not once you start using the features of the phone and features is what is comes down to. Until people start putting “using the phone time” in battery life is somewhat of a useless number.  9 years ago this kind of computer was top end sitting on your desktop.  Now it is in your hand.

The camera also goes to Nokia as well for the optics, but the camera controls are more refined on the HTC, but the dedicated Camera button on the Nokia is much easier to use, also the way you hold the phone is much easier with the Nokia and on the HTC I kept covering the lens with my hand.

The screen goes hands down to the HTC, it is a joy to use and is so bright and clear that even going back to the Nokia for 20 minutes was to be honest quite hard just to read the text on the screen.

I’ve already blogged about the GPS, which is incredibly fast and responsive and with the digital compass a huge advance of the Nokia. Couple that with the beautiful screen it is a great car gps as well.  However Nokia still have one big thing over all the Android phones and that is Ovi Maps.  The fact that you can now get (on all new Nokia’s) free world wide offline maps this is something that I missed with the HTC.  I often use my Nokia to plan routes or when I am travelling outside phone coverage and even in the dense urban areas your map never goes offline and you never have to pay for data charges to get maps.

The Android Store can be a dogs breakfast when using if from your phone.  Sure if you know just what you are after then it is great, but it still needs a lot of work to be really user friendly and help users find the apps and give them the control on sorting.  However there are number of third party solutions, AppBrain in particular is very handy giving you control over your apps and the ability to see what your friends have installed.

I miss my Real Player and my Divx player as well.  Like a number of things, that is not HTC’s fault, nor Androids, someone hasn’t built them yet.  Sure people scoff at Real Player, but there are a lot of sites that still use it and a lot of streaming radio uses it as well. I am going to miss the TV out function as well, I liked being able to see my camera photos on the tv when I was travelling.

The wifi in the Desire is very impressive… getting signals at the other end of my house where the Nokia doesn’t.  Which means that I can be a little bit further out from free wifi and still get a signal, which suits me perfectly.

As for the Telstra set up, I get where they were coming from in the way they put the apps on.  Sure they want to push their own brand, but do it right.  WAP is not an Application.. so don’t make things look like Apps that are just WAP Links.. Further why WAP… seriously this phone can display stunning webpages.. make light version of the page yes, but not WAP.  And let people remove them.  Why introduce limitations to a device that was designed not to have them.

As for Network, if you live outside the major metro’s I would say Telstra hands down.  If you travel outside the metro’s frequently also Telstra hands down.  Nationally their network is fantastic.  Yes when they say their coverage is in more place and is stronger they are telling the truth. If you live in the city though other factors can come into play… price is the biggest one.

Using the HTC is fast, it is very responsive and with the update to Android hopefully due soon it should be even faster.  Couple that with Flash 10.1 and this phone is seriously going to rock.  I look forward to seeing what Nokia can come up with, but it looks like Android have me in their grasp for a while yet.

When I work out more things… I’ll just add more blog posts.. but without the hashtag

Tags: HTC-Desire, n95, nokia by Me
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When I started this, I was thinking would I use this phone to replace my Nokia n95-8gb and whilst the answer is a qualified yes… there is a different item it may well end up replacing.

My UMPC, the Asus R2H which I use primarily as my car computer these days (yes I am that sad I have a car computer).  I’ll need to trick it up a bit.. like with a bigger SD card or two but it could be possible.  The main things I do with the R2H are make time-lapse driving videos (eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwjbluNF3So)  and run OziExplorer for offline detailed topomaps to see where I am and where I want to go.  Google maps just doesn’t cut it when you get off the beaten path. And have some music to sing along badly to.

With a few well choosen Apps I could do this.  It is going to take sometime to work it all out, but I really think that this is possible.

There are a few things that the R2H can do that the Desire can not.. storage and downloading photos from my D90, but I can still take the computer for longer trips, just not mount it on the windscreen.  One of these weekends I’ll get a decent screen mount, and I already have a lighter to USB power supply, plug in my FM transmitter to the headphone jack and I think it can be done.

I really wish that I could get offline navigation for free like I can on my Nokia with Ovi Maps (well not free $10 because I have an old phone) but still… the fact I am even considering this I think is noteworthy about the device.

Tags: HTC-Desire, Nikon D90, gps, n95, nokia by Me
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There have already been comments that all(most) of the people doing the Telstra HTC Desire review are  basically just taking a bait.  Given the people that are on the list I’d have to say  that is very disingenuous to those folks.

That aside, I thought I would take the time to write down where I am coming from.

I’m not primarily a Telstra customer… I have a backup Telstra Phone that I only use on my extra long road trips, say twice a year (if I am lucky).  This phone just sits in a draw the rest of the time without credit as there is no way to keep long term credit on prepaid without it expiring.  Funny thing is that stamps don’t expire, but phone credit does.

But then I spend most of my time in a large city with access to basically blanket coverage anyway, so coverage as never been a major issue for me. I am a free wifi hunter, data rates in this country are to put it kindly criminal.  Sure sending a few tweets here and there is nothing, but when the SMH home page weights about 1 meg and refreshes… that starts to add up very quickly.  More when you consider that if I was to use data it would be for storm chasing and uploading high-res photos from my D90 the cost is way out of my budget.

And I am not an iPhone user, and to be honest the iPhone has never attracted me.  Sure it is a very nice looking device, but my trusty 3 year old Nokia N95-8gb still out performs the iPhone for the task I use it for.  Those tasks are making calls, using the camera and GPS tracking primarily.  Nor have I been a big application installer. I kind of tend to find a series of apps that do what I am after and stick to them.  The background recording of GPS traces has meant that I could never use an iPhone as that is what I consider a base requirement for a device is the ability to mulitask.  Neither is the camera and use I use the front camera for video calling occasionally as well.

I did play with a Nexus One for about 5 min over a beer and must say that is was the first phone that made me stop and think about jumping ship as it were.  The N97 whilst an improvement over my N95, just wasn’t the huge leap I was looking for.  The N900 still isn’t on plans in Australia and with the changes to Symbian has a real risk of being technology that is going to be OS Redundant by the time it hits our shores.

So I have been plugging away with my phone which I can use very easily with one hand with it’s 8gig of on-board storage, tv out, replaceable battery, multitasking, damn fine camera e.t.c quite happily. The other main thing I do with my phone is interact on twitter in the evening, with the phone connected to my home wifi using dabr.co.uk as my primary web app.

It is going to be interesting to see if I can not only move to a wholly new platform but a new way of interacting with a device and yet still keep the things that I count as my minimum requirements.

To really it put the phone through its paces I’ll use just the HTC Desire whilst I am in Hobart for four days and see what I can do about video, photography, GPS, calls and social networking, then I will see how it goes through day to day real world use as well.

It should be interesting, I’m willing to look at something new it just has to fit my “old” requirements as well.

P.S

I’ve set up a Twitter list for all the other people on the Social Review here as well which you can follow.

http://twitter.com/wolfcat/htc-desire-telstradesire

Tags: HTC-Desire, n95, nokia by Me
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Remember Beta Folks, ok for you younger ones it was like HD DVD, one of those great formats that a still few use in high end roles but went the way of the dodo.

Today’s announcement of Section 3.1.1 by Apple.

“Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. ”

Of course this is aimed squarely at Adobe and the upcoming CS5 which will let Flash Developers port to the “I” platform. And as it turns out happens to be the biggest step down the road of turning Apple into the next Beta Format. Like Beta it will be around for many years to come and I am sure that many people (most much smarter than I) will be able to put forward lots of technical reasons why the Native only path is the best way to go.

But why did the public, yes not developers and not marketers choose VHS over Beta… because it was cheaper easier and OPEN. Sure when VHS was first coming out, Beta was better, but people didn’t care.

Apple got the jump going for the “people” aspect with the iphone… but the market is bigger than just the iphone and whilst Nokia still hold the high ground on numbers and devices (Sorry Apple users but my N95-8gb is still more useful than an iphone!), Android is on the rise.

Reviewers who have lauded the iphone and now looking at devices like the Nexus One and the HTC Desire which pack all the “wow” of the iphone with one extra little toy… OPEN Platform.

Now if you are a development company and can build a new game/widget/etc and output it via Flash to Android, Nokia, WinMo and all the devices that are on this.. but miss the “I” platform what are you going to do. In the medium term, sure you will develop for both, but not long term.

The restrictions of the “I” world are starting to bite and the noose is getting tighter, due in no part to Apple pulling on it themselves.

The times are a changing.. the rise of Android will see to that… the rise of the OPEN environment where people change things on their device without voiding warranty are coming….

This graph helps to show the rise of Android in the Mobile Operating System Market in the US….

(Source from JavaLobby)

Tags: General, apple, flash, nokia by Me
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Thought I would add the some of the stuff from photos to my blog, the sort of stuff that you do not find in EXIF data… the stuff that really makes a photo.

First cab of the rank so to speak will be my sunset photo from the other day…. of course if there are flickr photos you want the story behind, just drop me a line.

The basic shot was planned 3 hours before hand, when I noticed the smoke around the city from the series of burn off’s that the DSE was conducting that day.

Now smoke in the atmosphere will ALWAYS give you a red sunset. And if the smoke is thick enough, you will be able to see the whole disk of the sun with the naked eye, let alone needing ND Filters.

So I know it is going to be a great sunset, so I get home from work grab all my gear and head to my favourite place where I know that I can get the sun setting over water every time. Before I go however I have I quick scan over my flickr sunset set just to make sure I have the approx F Stops and Shutter speeds for similar photos in my head.

When I got to my location, I like always fired up the GPS on my phone to create a log file so that I can tag the photos… and because I am shooting the sunset swap to my 70-300mm lens. I’m after the sun as big as I can get in the shot (well at least very large, so am looking at the 200mm+ range)

Also I have my Hoya 62mm Circular Polariser on my lens. Now I have the cheap 70-300mm which has the problem that the front element rotates on focusing, meaning that you have to tweak the Polariser every time focus changes.

So that kind of covers the technical side of things… then that bit of luck comes into play. There was a boat with a wake boarding moving up and down the bay right opposite the outcrop I was standing on. This shot was the 4th shot I took of them.

As this shot is all manual, this is what I did. I took a practice shot of the sunset to make sure that the colour and lighting were correct. Then as the boat passed left to right I got a focus lock (single point – centre left) on the wake board rider. This gave me the opportunity to check that the first time they went passed that I could get the shot I was after. By now I already knew how far they would travel and when the return trip would be.

Next is that moment of fear… will they pass through my shot again… will they fall off, will they do something unexpected.

Lucky for me…. They didn’t… it all went to plan. I’d also put the camera into highspeed burst mode so that I could shoot more frames that I needed to capture the action. Given that it took the rider less than a second to pass through the sweet spot of the image I wanted to give myself every chance. As the rider got close to the the sun I made sure that I had focus lock on him and just panned the camera as he moved from right to left.

The biggest piece of luck however was when the rider decided to jump. Just before the reflection of the sun from my point of view.

So that is how I fill a blog post writing about a lucky image that took a lot of understanding to get.

So look at the EXIF data of peoples shots to see how the shot was done.. but really… look at the photo and that will tell you how it is really done.

(also you will find this image on Redbubble, with the Lat Long on the final image, where you can buy it from a post card to a framed print)

(oh nearly forgot)

Here is the EXIF Data:

Tags: Missing from the Exif, Nikon D90, Photos, Redbubble, gps, nokia by Me
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