Geekzone Blog: latest posts

NZ Tech Podcast: Spotify, Galaxy SIII, Windows 8, new MacBooks, facebook IPO

paulspain — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:58 +1200

In the NZ Tech Podcast this week we discussed the Samsung Galaxy SIII (it just arrived) vs HTC One X (again), Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, new MacBook Pro rumours, Spotify lands in NZ, Kiwi domain names, paperless receipts, facebook IPO, video... (more in the full post)

Conversation with a spam bot

juha — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:46 +1200

"Alexis" appeared uninvited in my Google Talk or Chat or whatever it's called now. I suspected it was a spambot so decided to see if it was any good. It wasn't.

Seriously, do people fall for this kind of stuff?

Alexis

hiya!

Hello

Are you a spam bot?

Alexis

hey thanks for the add hun, there's hardly anyone on here anymore to chat with ya know?

You probably are a spam bot

Alexis

i miss how it used to be when there was more people on here but oh well, so what's up with u?

I am chatting with a spam bot

Which seems meaningless

Alexis

ah, so my asshole ex-bf cheated on me so i just been going out and meeting new people having a blast, i forgot how fun it was to be single again lol

So I might just block you

Do you mind?

Alexis

well i was actually about to get on my cam did u wanna cum join me... i found an awesome site that's like a facebook for adults but with cams

Ugh, no thanks

Can't think of anything more horrible

Alexis

i started using it so i couldn't be recorded but it's really fun and i love "putting on a show" if u know what i mean wanna cum see?

No, I really don't.

Alexis

yay!! all u gotta do is sign-up but like i said it's 100% free and only takes a sec k?

I don't think you parse what I write, do you?

Alexis

kk just go to [link removed] that's my profile page. at the top there u should see a gold button that says "Join Free" see it?

No way am I clicking that link.

Alexis

k just click that and then all u do is just make ure account and u can start typing to me... i have a private room for us so it's just one on one

Now where's that block button...

Alexis

yeah u do need a card of sum kind but it doesnt get charged and actually if u look you'll see it even says it right there. it's just so they don't get in trouble for any kiddiez

You're the crappiest spam bot ever, do you know that?

Alexis is typing.

You have blocked Alexis. You can no longer see each other online or chat together. Unblock Alexis

Alexis is offline. Messages you send will be delivered when Alexis comes online.

Continue this chat over SMS.

Why does Google think I'd want to continue the chat over SMS after I blocked the spambot? And "Alexis" isn't offline either. Silly Google.

The HTC One X "Real-user" review: All things photography; a day at the zoo. Bonus four-way shootout Vs the Galaxy Note, iPhone 4S and a standalone digital camera!

TelecomTech — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:00 +1200

Woven through this piece I'm going to tell the story of a day at the zoo with photos taken exclusively from the One X. Like all good days, this one started with a home made coffee (and a nice post-processing filter courtesy of the gallery app).

Smartphones are cannibals; they consume other devices by making them obsolete. Witness for example what they’ve done to standalone alarm clocks. Their appetite hasn’t been remotely sated by that entree though, and right now they’re poised a good way along the road to gobbling the market for standalone GPS units, mp3 players, portable media players and handheld games consoles. But what about cameras?

If you believe the marketing divisions from mobile phone manufacturers, it would seem standalone cameras are on the imminent verge of going the way of the dodo too thanks to smartphones. Should you believe them? No, no you shouldn’t. Never believe anything anybody in advertising says about anything. When it comes to advertising I’m with Bill Hick’s (if that reference has you scratching your head, YouTube has enlightenment and a bunch of laughs waiting for you). Having said that, I do actually believe it will happen in a future that is now only a few years away. If you want evidence to support that statement I will simply say “Look at some Nokia Pure View 5mp samples at full zoom”, and rest my case.

HTC are pretty keen for you to believe you should sell up your standalone and throw in your lot with the One X camera, but I guess you can probably infer how I feel about that by now. It begs the question then, if it isn’t good enough for that yet, just how good is it? Have HTC really upped their game with respect to the camera, or is the One X destined to be another forgettable imaging device in their rather long history of mediocre imaging devices?

Read on to find out!

Naturally my fiance wanted one too, a good expose for the macro mode

Software
OK, so let’s start with the (very) good – the software that supports the 8mp camera on the One X. I really have to commend HTC on what they’ve done here, it’s a significant leap from what they’ve done before, and really puts them in the driver’s seat as far as currently available handsets go.

Let’s break it down into some bullet points, everyone loves bullet points:

Start-up time, shutter speed and shot-to-shot speed are superb.
The UI is excellent,
- Settings are very quickly and easily accessible, something which has not always been true of their camera UIs
- The photo and video capture buttons are both present in the viewfinder screen. I simply cannot emphasize enough how good this apparently small innovation is. Smartphone photography owes a lot to them being on your person at most times, a lot of what they capture are candid moments – brief moments in time that pass a long time before you could retrieve a “real” camera. Not having to wait those few excruciating seconds as ‘the moment’ expires in front of you while you switch modes is golden.
- The feature set is utterly superb:
  - The ability to take still shots whilst shooting 1080p video (if I were to quibble though I’d say it’s a feature very slightly marred by the framing of the resulting shot being different than what you see in the video viewfinder).
  - Burst mode, capable of taking up to 4 shots a second (the performance deteriorates in lower light settings). As a father with a toddler I can personally attest to how great this feature is for capturing fast moving subjects at just the right moment.
  - A great set of shooting modes including panorama and high dynamic range.
  - Rich camera settings including the ability to customize ISO and White Balance parameters, face detection, smile detection and Geo-tagging (embedding your location into the photos EXIF data).
  - A range of filters available within the camera app, including not only common filters like Sepia or Negative, but also some excellent filters like depth of field.
  - The ability for some post-processing too in the form of the editing functions available in the One X Gallery application to alter things like colour temperature, or add even more filters.

Lions out basking. The cameras dynamic range is shown up here a little by the broad luminance range of the scene, but the shot is pretty pleasing overall

Stills
Stills are good on the One X, but not more than that. If that sounds like a condemnation of faint praise, well, it is and it isn’t. Photos from the One X are around the same level we saw from other manufacturers' best efforts last year. That’s not to say they’re bad by any stretch of the imagination, and in the context of HTC's historic imaging credentials that’s actually a rather impressive turnaround.

If you look at the images taken in good light closely you can see that the One X resolves a bit less detail than the Galaxy phones of last year, partly because of overly aggressive sharpening algorithms, and partly because of heavier lossy compression and the noise that generates. The images tend also to have a decreased dynamic range in comparison to the Galaxy phones. If you're not looking that closely though, and let's face it most users don't, then there really isn’t much between them outside of personal preference.

If you look at photo's in lower light the One X does better than the Galaxy phones with it's superior F/2.0 aperture, although the difference isn't as large as you'd expect - some of the advantage is lost because of the sheer amount of noise in One X shots. I should also mention that I tended to find the One X's camera a bit hit and miss in low light, while the best shots were better than the Galaxy phones, the reproducibility of obtaining those shots wasn't as reliable.

An HDR shot, you can see it achieves a better result than we got with the lions (in fact for basically any static image in bright light on the One X I tend to use HDR mode, you can't really use it for moving subjects because the multiple exposures create ghosting, although you can create some great images by taking advantage of that too at times)

Since the hardware is superior, you have to ask why the pictures aren't showing that in as dramatic a fashion as you might expect. I think it's the image processing software myself. The reason I say that is that if you install a third party camera application from the Play Store, say Camera ZoomFX for example, and take snaps in low light you'll notice better resolution of detail. They do tend to be a little over-exposed, presumably on the basis of the third party apps not managing the backside-illuminated sensor and F/2.0 aperture quite as well, but as a proof-of-concept exercise it certainly suggests the One X sensor is capable of more than we're seeing on present firmwares.

Hopefully HTC can improve on this with future firmware updates, but for now that's how it is, and while it doesn't seem to quite be living up to its promise, it's good and most users will be satisfied.

There are some great effects in the stock camera app, this one is using the depth of field effect and was only possible because of the great shutter speed of the One X - I love how the depth of field conveys the sense of movement!

Video
Right near the top I introduced the software side of the One X camera as “the good”, which rather intimated the fact that “the bad” would follow at some point. We’ve reached that bit. Where the stills camera really holds its own against competitors, perhaps falling the tiniest bit short of its main competitors for certain things like resolution of fine detail, the video camera is frankly disappointing in comparison.

The main problem here is that video is captured at quite a low bitrate of 10mbps, and in fact often even lower than that, resulting in a lot of lost detail. I’m at a bit of loss to explain this, since HTC have implemented better video recording with higher bitrates on a number of previous handsets, for example last year’s flagship the Sensation.

If I’m being charitable I’ll simply chalk it up to being on early firmware, and HTC will improve video capture in future iterations of One X firmwares. If I’m being less charitable I’m inclined to think this is partly due to the One X not having a memory card slot, a decision on HTC’s part that irritates me no end (all the more so for them being able to make room for a card slot in Sprint’s One X equivalent in the States).

I can almost hear the objections starting in some minds already, “But I can’t even fill the 16GB on my iPhone, how could anyone possibly need more than 32GB of storage?” and “Pshaw, I’m on the cloud baby!” I’m going to respond to those thoughts, starting with a quote. Bill Gates is famously attributed with the having said the following: “640K ought to be enough for anybody” That’s laughable in retrospect, right? So why then do so many espouse a scaled-up version of the same anachronistic sentiment now? Just because you don’t use much storage now, it doesn’t mean nobody does, and certainly doesn’t mean you won’t in the future.

More and more people are producing and consuming high definition video content, higher quality digital audio, and playing storage-intensive high quality games. People's storage requirements are increasing, and the cloud can't cover all of that (or at least certainly not at present). For example; you can't stream music when you listen to FLAC files at roughly 30MB/song, you can't stream the install files for high quality games, and at the times when you're away from home and watching video content on your phone streaming that content is also less than ideal.

\endrant

After the zoo it's time for dinner, HDR creating a typically moody shot of the sky

Anyways, looking at video recorded on the One X I see file sizes that are less than 1MB/s of recorded second, whereas on the Galaxy S II I see files with 2-3MB/s of recorded second. When your users are forced to live within the confines of 25GB of available user space, I can see how you might want to compromise on video quality for the sake of minimizing storage difficulties.

Conclusion
As someone who came to the One X a skeptic in relation to its camera based on earlier experiences with HTC devices, it’s interesting sitting down and actually drawing my thoughts together into a conclusion. My impressions of the One X camera had a rather intriguing trajectory – things started off extremely well, then waned after some pixel-peeping at full zoom images, and then rose again as I came to fully appreciate the software and look at it more from the perspective of normal consumers (who rarely, if ever, examine their pictures at full zoom to trawl them with a fine tooth comb looking for preservation of fine detail and the like).

…so, in the end, how do I sum up the HTC One X camera?

The One X’s camera user interface and feature set are best in class right now.
As a still camera it’s good, not as good as HTC would have you believe, but certainly holding its own against the most highly regarded 8mp snappers from last year. I would hope that HTC improve the image processing software a bit though, because the sensor and F/2.0 aperture certainly seem capable of delivering more.
Video leaves a fair bit to be desired, but its early days and based on the experience with the Sensation I expect this will improve in future firmware revisions (how long you’ll wait for Telecom to roll those updates out is another matter of course, but that’s a rant for another day).
For the present, as a complete package looking at UI, features, images and video I think it probably leads the mainstream smartphone pack by a small margin (I say mainstream smartphone pack because if you include the Nokia N8 or Pure-view cameras, the One X/Galaxy S2/iPhone 4S all fall dramatically short). The big question is how long can it hold that crown in the face of upcoming challengers from Samsung and Apple?

...and the boy is off to sleep now, time for a mojito to finish the day. This striking shot was created when the flash fired in one of the HDR exposures creating the “impossible light source” effect in the mint leaves shadows. This shot isn’t so much to illustrate HDR again, but more to illustrate how the wide feature set of the One X camera can let you flex your creative muscle a bit more than you may have been accustomed to.

Four-way camera shootout, there can be only One?
For all that I've opined above, there is nothing quite like a blind camera shootout to find out which cameras really produce the best results in the eyes of users. What follows is a series of shots taken in succession under the same conditions by the following devices: a 14mp Panasonic Lumix FZ-100 standalone camera (not in the DSLR quality range, but better than your typical point and shoot), the One X, a Galaxy Note, and an iPhone 4S.

In each of the scenes being compared I've randomized the order the contestants shots appear in, the FZ-100 images have been resized to 8mp so that you can't pick 'em for size alone, and all the EXIF data has been stripped – you'll have to trust your eyes to discern which is best! Also, all the shots are taken with automatic settings, since that is how most people use their cellphone cameras most of the time, and so has the most external validity and generalisability.

If you want to get your pixel-peep on, you can download the full resolution images from here http://db.tt/j7kztWWF or here http://tinyurl.com/7glumyl. Don’t feel obliged to though, the whole point of this is to get organic feedback – be as scientific or unscientific as you like in how you choose your winners!

To prevent inter-observer bias (you know, where the first person says “this one is clearly the best because of X-Y-Z”, and all subsequent viewers impressions are contaminated?) what I’d like you to do is refrain from commenting on images in the shootout for now. Instead simply rank the pictures in each of the following series of comparison shots from best to worst, and email your ratings to this temporary email address gherdekseks@dunflimblag.mailexpire.com. If you also want to comment on any of the pictures feel free, a bit of qualitative data never goes amiss. Next week I’ll reveal how the cameras did!

Oh, and be warned: there is some serious headphone porn coming up, if headphones are your thing you might want to consider a private viewing. Ditto the Star Wars lego.

Series One: Pitch black room

A

B

C

D

Series 2: Low light without flash

E

F

G

H

Series 3: Same scene, with flash

I

J

K

L

Series 4: Outdoors, overcast

M

N

O

P

Series 5: Indoors, fair lighting, macro headphone porn

Q

R

S

T

About the author

My name is Murray Winiata. When I'm not on my own time I work as a medical doctor in General Practice, and when I am on my own time I'm a dad, blogger, obsessive home barista, audio enthusiast and guitarist. Online I'm probably better known by my handle "NZtechfreak" via my participation in many online forums including, but not limited to, Geekzone, XDA-Developers, AndroidForums and Head-Fi. Previously I've blogged for Clove Technologies in the UK, and more recently at my own blog AndroidNZ.net. Like most smartphone owners I'm fully social-media'd up, and you can find me on Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Facebook. If you've got burning questions about the HTC One X you'd like me to try and answer, or you want my up-to-the-minute impressions and experiences with the One X, then Twitter would be the best channel to tune in to. Besides that, I'm always available here at Geekzone, which remains one of the best little corners of the internet (even in spite of my membership!). Naturally I'm thrilled to have been chosen to blog about the HTC One X here at the TelecomTech blog, and plan to bring my trademark objectivity to the fray once again. Catch you here again soon!

My Take on the HTC One X vs Galaxy S III Debate

TelecomTech — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:02 +1200

UPDATE: "This blog post was originally written only a day after the announcement of the Galaxy S III and due to the delayed posting of it, it is not as relevant today as it was a few weeks ago. My views on the Galaxy S III, noticeably the design and performance areas, has improved noticeably. As such, if I get my hands on a certain Samsung flagship in time I will write a revised post as a follow-up to this one."

A few days ago we all witnessed the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S III in London. Thanks to that annoying thing we call hype, many Android fans left their computer displays at 7am that morning somewhat disappointed. We saw it with the iPhone 4S, and we saw it again today with the Galaxy S III. Hype dramatically increases disappointment levels. This rule is universal.

Design
I can’t help but think the design of the Galaxy is just a refresh of the Galaxy Nexus launched last year. Heck, it even reminds me of an enlarged Galaxy Mini, and the similarities are noticeable.

Samsung’s designs should be flowing downwards starting at the top rather than upwards.

Where the S III apparently has a polycarbonate back cover, the gloss finish presents the cheapo brushed plastic look. The One X on the other hand has the luxurious feeling of a polycarbonate body with a much more matte finish. Plus a body that won’t inherently vibrate on a desk, annoying anyone within a 10 foot radius.

The Galaxy is 0.1 cm wider than the One X, and in a world where the One X is not trusted in one handed use, the Galaxy won’t be any better. Honestly, I never realised where people were coming from when they wanted a smaller, yet powerful smartphone. I understand them now. The One X is just impossible to use securely in one hand, I always find my left right supporting it.

Let’s face it, the One X just looks better. It has a curved display and has a premium feel, as opposed to the slab of cheap looking plastic the S III is. If Samsung wants to be like Apple so much with their “feng shui” and “nature” marketing, why do they build something that appears so cheap?

Winner: HTC One X

The Display
Obviously I have not seen the Galaxy’s display in person, but specs go a long way to giving you a great idea. The 0.1 inch larger display seems more like a effort to out-do HTC - a secret little competition I don’t care about, and personally dislike.

The Super IPS LCD 2 display on the One X is amazing. It isn’t a display, it’s a moving picture. I use, and test, phones how I (and emphasis on the I) use them. I don’t watch HD movies or anything like that on it. That’s not me.

In everything else, from general phone duty use to browsing to gaming the One X’s display has it covered. Viewing angles, colour saturation and pixel density I have never witnessed better.

The S III’s screen is 0.1 inch larger with the same resolution and is of the HD Super AMOLED variety. The lack of a Plus badging means that indeed it has a Pentile matrix, but I really wonder how obvious this is going to be on a 4.8 inch display with over 900,000 pixels.

Samsung has apparently managed to turn down the colour saturation on the S III and as usual blacks are perfect so it could be the perfect, ultra-portable movie watching device (for those that are into that stuff) short of the Galaxy Note.

Winner: HTC One X

Performance
The One X has Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chipset, while the Galaxy has a Exynos 4 Quad (4412) chipset. Both have a quad core ARM Cortex A9 CPU. The four cores in the One X clock up to 1.5 GHz, I haven’t seen anything on the Galaxy.

GPU wise, the HTC has a ULP Geforce and the Samsung has the superior (hardware at least) ARM Mali400 MP4. And yes, this is the same GPU that was found in the Galaxy S II, it has just been clocked significantly higher.

Looking at early benchmarks CPU benchmarks are pretty even between the two, with the One X possibly just taking the lead. This could of course being caused by the Tegra 3 being clocked slightly higher than the Exynos.

Browser benchmarks show the Galaxy taking an impressive lead in Browsermark, Vellamo and a small one in Sunspider Javascript. The GPU benches is where the Exynos chipset gets to stretch its legs, comfortably beating the One X in GLBenchmark and Rightware Basemark.

However, the Tegra powered One X has full access to TegraZone, Qualcomm has their own Snapdragon GameCommand platform that will be expanded over the coming months. Exynos (and OMAP) on the other hand, they don’t really have anything.

TegraZone has games like Dark Meadow (pictured above) which finally gives Android the gaming experience that Apple has had sorted for a while now.

Do you want kickass games or 10-30% better benchmark scores?

Winner: Too close to say

Software
I enjoy Sense 4.0, to the point I actually prefer it over stock Ice Cream Sandwich. I hate Samsung TouchWiz UX. I know you can always install custom launchers, but again, most people are going to be running stock most of the time so I am basing it on that.

Considering not much else really effects the software balance (or that I could compare without an Galaxy S III on hand)...

Winner: HTC One X

The Samsung Galaxy S III has created iPhone-type flame wars back and forth between not loyal Apple-ites, but the Android army’s own HTC allies. Many people have now come to their senses that the iPhone is lost in its own little world with its tiny 3.5 inch screen. The 4 inch HTC Incredible S (former daily driver) feels - and looks - tiny to me now, I’d hate to discover what an iPhone or smaller Android feels like.

Between the Galaxy S III and the HTC One X though, I am leaning towards the southern area of the East China Sea. If I did happen to buy the HTC One X outright (thanks Geekzone and Telecom!) then I would in no way be enduring buyer’s regret right now.

Saying this, I don’t speak for the 99% but I probably speak on behalf of them. Some of the Galaxy S III’s perceived benefits such as a Wolfson DAC, GLONASS GPS support and a MicroSD slot really don’t matter to me, or 99% of the population.

a) It’s a phone, not a mobile mixing and mastering rig. b) Who cares about the Russian satellites? I can get a 6 foot lock easily from my windowsill and the sky view isn’t brilliant. c) 32 gigabytes of storage is more than enough for all the music, video and application you (should) need to have on your phone, plus there is always the cloud.

What phone is going to sell more? The Samsung Galaxy S III
What phone is going to be the quiet achiever? The HTC One X

About the author

I’ll be honest: there was once a day when I got bored and sick of seeing all the smartphone related news in my RSS feeds. This day was literally no more than nine months ago. Well here I stand today; known as Blair the college student in the real world, ArchSerpo in this one. Whilst not even considered an adult by the Government I have established myself as a Android and mobile technology news reporter and in depth reviewer for KitGuru, Android Mobile New Zealand, and now (hopefully) the TelecomTech blog. While bias towards the green team may appear given, I have had experience with all the major mobile operating systems except BlackBerry and MeeGo in the last six months and always keep an open mind.

This thing is impossible to rough up

TelecomTech — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:33 +1200

For the last three weeks or so I have tried my very best to rough up the the white polycarbonate body of HTC One X. While I am not courageous, or brave enough to cover the back in permanent marker and attempt to rub it out like this guy I have still yet to cause any marks that can’t be removed in seconds.

When I have started to notice some black marks starting to appear on the where the battery cover perhaps should have been they have all disappeared without any of my own doing.

The other few times some marks did stick around some saliva always did the trick in seconds. My One X hasn’t been sitting around in a case sitting on a desk all day either. It has been in shorts, unwashed jeans and even a bit of rain, and all it has to show for it is a bit of grime in the power button and the usual fingerprints.

If have perhaps been holding back on a One X purchase due to thinking that the white polycarbonate body will be easily marked, think again. The shell that encases the the Tegra 3 processor and other chips should cause no problems, and so far, at least in my case is still as good as new.

About the author

I’ll be honest: there was once a day when I got bored and sick of seeing all the smartphone related news in my RSS feeds. This day was literally no more than nine months ago. Well here I stand today; known as Blair the college student in the real world, ArchSerpo in this one. Whilst not even considered an adult by the Government I have established myself as a Android and mobile technology news reporter and in depth reviewer for KitGuru, Android Mobile New Zealand, and now (hopefully) the TelecomTech blog. While bias towards the green team may appear given, I have had experience with all the major mobile operating systems except BlackBerry and MeeGo in the last six months and always keep an open mind.

Best New Device for 2013?

dmw — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:22 +1200

What's the next must-have high tech device?

After the iTouch, and the iPad. Is it the iLick?

No.

Early indicators point to the TechStik.

It is early days, but this NZ-developed clean green sustainable device has the potential to spread around the world in no time. The uniquely-transparent entrepreneurial accounts of the genesis of this product, inviting would-be users' feedback offers opportunity to crowd source features and "user experience".

I think TechStik will particularly appeal to technology people with a sense of humour.

What do you think?

Disclosure: I have no past or present pecuniary interest in TechStik.

Scale your database without effort? ScaleArc iDB

freitasm — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:51 +1200

Last weekend a press release landed in my inbox, and I thought it interesting enough to make me contact the agency and get more information about the product. In summary ScaleArc iDB promised to scale your database without changes in code or database... (more in the full post)

The exceedingly influential Mr Stephen Fry

juha — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:21 +1200

I am already bowled over by how a few lines of tweeting by Stephen Fry shakes things up particularly in New Zealand. Somehow, Fry's utterances carry a tremendous amount of weight down here. Nevertheless, I didn't expect to see his tweets being referred to by our telco regulator, the Commerce Commission, but there they are in the latest Draft Report for High Speed Broadband Services Demand Side Study [link goes to a 1Mbyte PDF file].

Amazing. The man should run for public office in New Zealand.

HTC One-X Pocketability, Screen vs other popular models

TelecomTech — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:44 +1200

Heading into my third week with the HTC One X, and a few of my iPhone owning colleagues wanted to know what it’s like to carry this handset around.

In my opinion, it feels better in the pocket than the iPhone 4. It feels similar in shape/slimness to the Samsung Galaxy SII. The polycarbonate backing also gives you a sense of security, allowing you to throw keys in with it - something I never did with the iPhone 4.

It’s slim enough to go into the same pocket as a wallet, while still allowing easy access. This means I’ve been able to walk round with both my work and personal phone in the same pocket.

After showing my iPhone colleagues how well it stacked up, I decided to meet up with some old colleagues who were provided with HTC phones: the Wildfire S, and the Sensation S. Both are under a year old, but compared to the One-X, the screens look decidedly different.

From left to right: HTC Wildfire S, HTC One X, HTC Sensation

The Sensation, although sporting a Super-LCD display, tends to go grey on side viewing angles. The Wildfire S, sporting a standard LCD, looks even worse. The Super-LCD2 on the HTC-One X provides remarkable viewing angles. Very close to the iPhone 4S, and Galaxy S2.

The difference in Sense UI was noticeable also. The Wildfire had Gingerbread, with Sense 3.0. It was extremely bloated, and overtook most of the UI. The Sensation was closer to the HTC One X, with ICS 4.0, and a Sense 3.5 interface. However, it is still quite clunky compared to Sense 4.0.

All three of the HTC phones had mate plastic/polycarbonate backs, which made them less likely to slip while in the hand.

From left to right: HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy SII, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPhone 4S

Heading back to the office, I decided to get a few of the most popular phones together for a photo shoot. The HTC One X, the Galaxy SII, the Galaxy Nexus, and the iPhone 4S. My overall rating was:

Best fit in the pocket – Winner HTC One-X, runner up the Galaxy S2
Widest number of viewing angles – Winner Galaxy SII, runner up the One-X/iPhone 4S
Best colour reproduction – Tie Galaxy SII for its vibrant blacks, HTC One-X for its real colours
Slimmest – Tie between the Galaxy SII and HTC One X, both were about the same thickness
Best operability in direct sunlight – tie between the iPhone 4S, and the HTC One-X, followed closely by the Galaxy SII.
Least slippery – Winner HTC One X, runner up Galaxy Nexus. Both the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy SII are quite slippery in the hand and I have in fact dropped both over the last year!

Front top to bottom: Apple iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy SII, HTC One X

Overall, the screen clarity, design, and thinness all help the HTC One X to be one of the easiest to pocket. Just beware of the camera lens if you do put keys in your pocket. It is the one part that seems to attract scratches, as mentioned in my first review.

About the author

I am Vincent Garcia: an ICT Specialist by day; technology geek and DIY handyman by night. I enjoy playing with gadgets, old and new. Taking most of them through the paces, and to within an inch of their lives! I also enjoy tinkering with things; spending most of my weekends repairing my motorcycles, or renovating my house. I live in the windy city of Wellington, with my lovely wife Nicola, and my cat Morange. When I was offered the opportunity to review the new HTC One X series, I jumped at the chance. The short aeroplane trip to Auckland was all part of the fun! If you want to ask any questions, please add a comment below, or email telecomtech@vincentgarcia.net

Cleanest inflight entertainment system interface ever?

juha — Sat, 19 May 2012 17:12 +1200

Doesn't get much simpler than this IFES screen on a Vietnam Airlines between Hanoi and Saigon. Well, there's the small matter of not having anything resembling a keyboard with which to input any information, but anyway.

Being friendly with the HTC One X

TelecomTech — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:18 +1200

This week I decided to stop being anti-social with my phone and started communicating with my friends and family again. Text messaging sufficed for most. However, I also wanted to contact a few family members and friends overseas in more depth than texting allows, but I was too cheap to call.

Fortunately for me, the HTC One X integrates nicely with e-mail and social networking applications. I used my Gmail first. The large display and newer Gmail app work well together. I can now view 5-8 emails with short summaries (depending on screen orientation), versus the 3-5 emails a time on the Galaxy S II. While it may not sound like many more, it makes wading through emails a lot faster.

Facebook integration is getting very close to the desktop site now. Most Facebook features are available in the HTC OneX’s Facebook app, including: messaging, photo uploads, and wall updates. I now hardly ever need to use my PC to check Facebook, as it’s all in the palm of my hand. By using the HTC integrated contact list, you can easily send a Facebook message to anyone on your list.

There are a number of built-in HTC apps to help socialise also. The eBuddy app is a hybrid of various messengers. You can add in Yahoo, Google, MSN, and Facebook, if you want. I didn’t use it myself, as I don’t have a Yahoo or MSN account.

I found the DropBox app much more useful. HTC has provided a very generous 25GB of storage space, which can hold anything you want to transport, from home to work, or anywhere else. Or, you can share a dropbox link with your family and friends on Facebook. It’s relatively fast, you can upload photos/videos from the phone, or you can download the DropBox app onto your PC and transfer files from PC to phone. This saves the need to connect the phone via USB, which is excellent for people who can never find their USB cables.

The final social connectivity app HTC has implanted in the phone is FriendStream, which aims to combine all social networks into one Stream on your desktop. Unfortunately only Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Hyves are active. In the future Google+, Youtube, Digg, and LastFM should arrive.

It’s a handy wee application for those wanting to continually receive status updates, and friend check-ins.

Overall the integrated features, and quality of applications in ICS, and the speed at which the HTC One X loads, is impressive. It’s getting to the point where we can go longer without computers, while using our phones for social networking, and communication.

About the author

I am Vincent Garcia: an ICT Specialist by day; technology geek and DIY handyman by night. I enjoy playing with gadgets, old and new. Taking most of them through the paces, and to within an inch of their lives! I also enjoy tinkering with things; spending most of my weekends repairing my motorcycles, or renovating my house. I live in the windy city of Wellington, with my lovely wife Nicola, and my cat Morange. When I was offered the opportunity to review the new HTC One X series, I jumped at the chance. The short aeroplane trip to Auckland was all part of the fun! If you want to ask any questions, please add a comment below, or email telecomtech@vincentgarcia.net

Netsys HPNA/HCNA adapter review

sbiddle — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:03 +1200

With internet traffic growing year on year and users continually expecting faster data speeds, one area that still causes issues is how to carry those bits and bytes around a building or home. If a premises doesn�t have cat5e or cat6 cable for Ethernet, retrofitting it can be an expensive and very time consuming process. Wireless can be a solution, but still can�t deliver the sorts of speed that Ethernet can, and installing a reliable high speed wireless network in a building still requires cabled access points if decent speeds are to be maintained. One solution to this problem is the HomePNA standard which allows data to be carried over existing copper or coax cable, completely avoiding the hassle of having to run Ethernet cable, and delivering speeds faster than wireless. The HomePNA 3.1 standard offers speeds of up to 200Mbps, support for 802.1Q VLAN tagging, fully transparent Quality of Service (QoS) using 802.1p, and supports cable runs up to around 1km. When deployed over coaxial cable the technology is referred to as HCNA (HPNA over Coax)

Late last year I trialled some Netsys NH310 units from Snappernet. These units allow existing TV coaxial cable to be used to carry Ethernet data, in much the same way cable modems work over the TelstraClear Cable TV network using the DOCSIS standard. By using different frequencies than the TV signals, both can be combined and run over a single coaxial cable. These units feature 100Mbps Fast Ethernet ports, and in real world testing deliver speeds of around 90Mbps � fairly typical for a 100Mbps device. Over the coaxal cable the HPNA protocol supports speeds of up to 200Mbps, so the 100Mbps fast Ethernet ports are in effect a bottleneck in the system. Up to 64 slave units may be connected to a single master unit, all of which will share the available bandwidth.

The Netsys HN310H Master unit features 5 Ethernet ports and 2 coax F connectors, one for the TV aerial input, and the other for HCNA out. The HN310C slave unit features 2 Ethernet ports, and 2 coax F connectors, one for the HCNA input, and the other a passthru port to connect into your existing TV or Set Top Box (STB). While setup of this hardware may look simple, some knowledge of MATV (master antenna TV) or SMATV (satellite master antenna TV) is essential to deliver the optimum performance from this hardware. 16dBM isolation is recommended between the master and slave units, with a minimum of 8dBm isolation required for these devices to function correctly. If your setup has isolation of between 8dBM and 16dBM and is also being used for TV distribution you may need to use of a high pass filter between the slave passthru port and TV/STB to avoid any interference to the TV signal. In many MATV or SMATV distribution networks 16dBM TAP�s are installed as standard so this is a perfect match. The HCNA standard uses frequencies between 15MHz and 40MHz so this hardware can happily co-exist with both terrestrial and satellite distribution networks.

One thing to be aware of is that most TV amplifiers sold in New Zealand and Australia used in MATV/SMATV distribution networks don�t support a return path, ie. they will block signals from travelling from the output port of the amplifier to the input port. This means that master and slave units must both be installed on the output side of the amplifier. If there are multiple amplifiers you�ll either need to install multiple master units, or replace the amplifiers with units that support a return path. Many splitters, diplexers and TAP�s sold in NZ also only support frequencies from 45MHz upwards, so these will also need to be reviewed and replaced with equipment that supports frequencies from 5MHz upwards.

Configuration is done using the web interface on the master unit. Once the master unit is configured and slave units hooked up to the coax network they appear in an access list with their MAC address, here they can be associated a plan speed if required, with a number of predefined speed options being available. Individual VLAN�s can be assigned to both of the RJ45 ports on the slave units from the web interface, and there are a number of diagnostic tests available to show signal level and network performance of each individual slave unit.

These units are a very cost effective way of delivering Ethernet to hotel or motel environments that will typically have coaxial cable for TV but no Ethernet cable. With Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) due to hit NZ this year, this hardware could also provide solutions to premises where retrofitting cat5e or cat6 cable for Ethernet is going to be costly. Other HPNA equipment also exists that runs over copper cable, so existing cat3 phone cable can also be utilised without needing to look at more expensive xDSL based solutions.

Overall the setup is relatively straight forward, and once installed the performance is brilliant. There are certainly plenty of small issues that could arise attempting to install these in an existing MATV/SATV setup, and if you have no knowledge of TV distribution networks, and I would highly recommend anybody thinking about this solution seek outside advice from somebody with knowledge of MATV/SMATV setups.

The real world performance of these units is awesome, and they were chosen for a large scale deployment in an apartment building here in Wellington delivering high speed symmetrical internet connections with VoIP services. The bonus of being future proofed for higher speeds in the future means that delivering a 100Mbps service to customers with a good CIR is totally within the capabilities of this product. Overall they�re a product that creates a fantastic solution and comes with with a great price point.

<shameless plug on> If anybody is interested in looking at these as a solution for a environment such as a hotel, motel, or apartment block I�m happy to provide consultancy advice or work with you on deploying a solution, my details are listed on the right. <shameless plug off>

NZ Tech Podcast: Fyx no longer provides a fix, Telecom 4G trial, HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy SIII

paulspain — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:39 +1200

This week we discuss what happened to the Fyx Internet service, Telecom NZ's 4G trial, our first experiences with the HTC One X and Galaxy SIII Android phones, accessing Netflix in NZ, hands on with the new 2degrees and Snapper mobile payment system... (more in the full post)

HTC One X: E.T. phone home

TelecomTech — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:51 +1200

As I entered the second week of owning the HTC One X, I felt it was time to explore the communication side. After all, what good is a phone if it’s difficult to work out how to make a call?Dialling a number is as simple as hitting the phone icon, which brings up a nice large dial-pad and recent calls list. The call quality on the Telecom XT network is very clear and very rarely suffers from drop-outs or fading.

If you begin to input a number that you’ve saved in your contacts list, the phone directory will recognise it and automatically start populating the rest of the number. This is extremely helpful and a great ICS feature. If you want to search contacts manually, you can select “People” from the phone dialling app or use the contacts app on the home screen.

The contacts list will bring up a list of all phone, email, Facebook, Linked-In, Exchange, Gmail, and Google Plus contacts. However, you can customise the way contact information is displayed so only those with phone numbers, or only selected accounts display. It also gives you an option to link contacts with matching details. If a contact has a Google account as well as a Facebook account, it will pick up the details and ask you if you want to link them together. This creates a single contact for 2+ accounts, which is another great automated feature.

Txt2Park with the HTC Sense Keyboard

Texting on the HTC One X is a breeze. Even those with large fingers - like me - will have no issues hitting the right keys. In “Landscape” mode the keys are even larger still. The HTC sense keyboard is great, plus you have the option to install any keyboard from the Play Market. I ended up using SlideIT, which compliments the screen perfectly.

After testing texting and calling, I decided to tinker round inside the call settings. After changing a few settings, I came across “SIP” and decided to explore further (SIP is a voice over IP protocol).

Having used VoIP for several years at home, I decided to put my settings in and see how it went; bearing in mind that I tried it a few years ago when XT first came out and the quality was quite terrible. I found that the quality has now improved dramatically. No longer does it echo, or experience cuts. This feature means I can now answer my home phone while on the move; or dial out from my home phone number and the billing will get charged to my home account.

You will need a Telecom data-pack to use VoIP, and it will drain the battery faster, as it is constantly listening for calls. However, it is entirely worth it, and a lot easier than setting up call forwarding on a home phone. Please note, however, that while the VOIP quality was good while I was testing it, Telecom doesn’t guarantee it always will be. This means that VOIP won’t be suitable for everyone.

From the Telecom XT Terms and Conditions:

“Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is not supported, and we cannot guarantee that access or performance levels will be maintained.”

There is similar wording in the Vodafone Terms and Conditions. 2Degrees’ Terms and Conditions state that it can restrict or prevent VoIP use as it sees fit.

To summarise, calling on both the XT Network, and HTC One X, are exceptionally good. Even over unsupported VoIP, it never skipped a beat.

About the author

I am Vincent Garcia: an ICT Specialist by day; technology geek and DIY handyman by night. I enjoy playing with gadgets, old and new. Taking most of them through the paces, and to within an inch of their lives! I also enjoy tinkering with things; spending most of my weekends repairing my motorcycles, or renovating my house. I live in the windy city of Wellington, with my lovely wife Nicola, and my cat Morange. When I was offered the opportunity to review the new HTC One X series, I jumped at the chance. The short aeroplane trip to Auckland was all part of the fun! If you want to ask any questions, please add a comment below, or email telecomtech@vincentgarcia.net

Riverbed Performance Summit in Sydney

freitasm — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:35 +1200

I just got an email from Riverbed announcing their Riverbed Performance Summit in Sydney. This half day event is happening 5th June (Tuesday) from 12:30pm to 5:30pm. Click here for the agenda (pdf). [quote] Learn how the Riverbed performance platform... (more in the full post)

The Write Stuff with HTC One X

TelecomTech — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:22 +1200

I communicate with my family a lot via SMS, so having an easy way to send TXT messages is key for me when choosing a phone. I’ve really come to love the conversation view that iOS uses to present TXT messages, as it makes it so much easier to retain context. So it was a relief to see that this same UI paradigm is retained on the HTC One X.

Couple that with a few different ways to enter my messages, and we have a device that meets my primary mobile communication needs very well.

There are a few ways to initiate a TXT message. Firstly you can select the Compose option from the Messages app. You then have the option to enter in a number or name in the To field, which will present a drop down of all people matching the text as you enter it.

Or you can tap on the ‘People’ icon to present a list of all your contacts in a scrollable list. This list will allow you to select multiple recipients, making it easy to send group messages.

Alternatively you could initiate a new message directly from one of your contacts in the People app, or any of the other places that you can interact with your contacts throughout the OS and via the HTC Sense UI overlay. If you have an existing conversation with this contact, you will be taken to the end of that, rather than to an empty conversation window.

As an example of this, there are a few Message and contact widgets which you can take advantage of, and one of these is installed by default. This particular widget presents all your message conversations as a stack, allowing you to easily rotate between each conversation with a flick up or down. Selecting one of these will take you directly to the conversation, allowing you to continue where you left off.

In addition to the various ways there are to initiate SMS conversations, there are also different ways in which to enter the content of these messages. Of course there is the traditional touch keyboard, but one of the first tweaks I made was to enable the Trace keyboard feature. This allows you to spell out words by tracing your way across the keyboard. It does a pretty good job of deciphering what can often appear to be unintelligible or ambiguous scribbles.

Once you’ve got used to this method of input, it really is quite a bit quicker than typing out the words in the more traditional manner.

Another option, although probably more novelty than actually useful, is voice dictation. While this can work reasonably well for short messages, if you’re trying to communicate anything more complex than “See you soon”, you’ll find yourself constantly correcting misinterpreted words. Thats the price we pay for having an accent too awesome for developers to parse accurately, I guess.

The one feature I do miss from my iPhone is the ability to assign a custom tone to received TXT messages. You can chose from a list of canned ones, but I like to assign my favourite riffs to such events. I’m also struggling a little with selecting single words in messages, as the implementation seems to be quite fussy about the double-tap required to do so. But with practice I’m sure I’ll prevail over this.

In summary, the HTC One X works well at serving my primary mobile communication needs. The Trace keyboard feature is an excellent addition to my TXTing arsenal, and for this reason alone I’d probably rate this over my iPhone as my SMS weapon of choice.

About the author
Hi I'm David, a self employed software developer on the wrong side of 40, residing in Auckland with my wife and two children. I am a passionate All Blacks and Blues fan, gadget junkie, mature aged gamer, and connoisseur of fine heavy metal (and music in general). I currently own an iPhone 4, but am very open to trying new technologies, and can't wait to see what the best of Android can bring to the smartphone table. I enjoy keeping up to date with the latest technological advances in general, and am encouraged to see that the smartphone market is no longer an iOneHorseRace. I’m very interested to see how the HTC One and Ice Cream Sandwich fares in this regard.

Are you attending the HP Discover 2012 in Las Vegas? I have a discount code for you...

freitasm — Sat, 12 May 2012 09:00 +1200

I am attending HP Discover 2012 Las Vegas (4th - 7th June). This is the second time I am invited to this event, with other bloggers from around the world - this time Ben Kepes will be another Kiwi blogger joining me to hear from HP's management (he b... (more in the full post)

Let's go Shopping!

jmosen — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:27 +1200

I was born blind, so as a kid when my mother would drag me around the supermarket, it bored me out of my brain. Imagine just walking, walking, walking, not being able to see all the delicious treats you were passing. It was monotonous, although I did, of course, lobby pretty hard for some treat or other. As an adult in a pre-Web world, if a blind person needed to get supermarket shopping done, we'd either ask a paid reader who we'd hire to go through the mail and run other errands, or walk into the supermarket and ask if a staff member could be spared to help us do a shop. In either case, we realised we were taking someone else's time, so we'd generally not be too fussy about what we ended up with. I believe it was around 1995 that the Woolworths Home Shopping site came online. Initially, there were one or two accessibility issues with the site, but the site's developers couldn't have been more willing to work with blind users to get the wrinkles ironed out. When they were, I was simply astounded. I honestly had no idea how much choice people were confronted with on a daily basis on such seemingly mundane matters as what type of bread of cereal to purchase. For the first time ever, I had a concept of the true depth of selection in a supermarket. We use the now rebranded Countdown Online Shopping site regularly. It's empowering, it's life changing, it's fully accessible, and it makes a huge difference. Here's a bit about how it works, why it works, and how we use it. JAWS, the software I use to verbalise and display in Braille what's going on in Windows, is known as a screenreader. However in some instances, it no longer reads the screen, since there are better ways of getting at the needed information. In Internet Explorer, Firefox, and more recently Google Chrome, JAWS loads the HTML directly into a buffer that I can navigate. This has a number of advantages. First, it allows the page to be presented in a way that makes more auditory sense. If, for example, you have a page in nice, neat columns, then it wouldn't make sense for that page to be read in a linear fashion, left to right, top to bottom. Second, because I am interacting directly with the HTML, I can use a range of hotkeys to jump around the page. I can easily navigate by heading, form field, table and much more, all with simple key presses. It's very efficient, particularly when the page is well designed. When I log into the Countdown site, all of its links have clear, sensible text labels. The site makes good use of heading tags in the HTML. This makes it easy to move between search results, and to other key parts of the site such as the aisles, and the trolley so I can be sure I haven't blown the budget. Pressing a single key places me in the edit field so I can type what I'm looking for, and pres Enter to activate the search. It's a great experience, and it sure beats wandering around the aisles with someone who'd most likely rather be doing something else. From reading newspapers independently, to doing all kinds of shopping, to banking with privacy and dignity, the Web has meant there's never been a better time in history to be blind. And the good news is, for web developers, it's not hard. Just follow practices of good web design. Use real tables, real HTML headings, give links a text label...all things that benefit mobile devices and other use cases too. Well done to Countdown for getting it right.

HTC One X Initial Setup

TelecomTech — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:35 +1200

The setup of my HTC One X was one of the most annoying things. Nothing to do with the HTC One X itself, but just the amount of stuff that I have on my existing phone! I had probably about 200 applications installed on the SGS2, and deciding what I did and didn't want to put on the HTC ONE X was the main task.

The problem with getting a new phone, is that it's not my phone yet. None of my accounts are on it, none of my apps, none of my wifi networks, VPN servers etc.

HTC did supply an app that would Bluetooth over to my existing phone and suck the contacts off it, but as that is one of the few things that does work thru the Google accounts without issues it is largly redundant from another Android. I can see that it would be a great start if you are moving from a feature phone or other smartphone platform however.

I was always under the impression that the Google account was supposed to bring across my wifi details, passwords and apps. That did not happen. But probably a good thing since the SGS2 is full of junk I installed and lost interest in. Sorry Zynga Poker - not getting a spot on the HTC ;)

I use lastpass to store all my website passwords, paying for the premium service so I get the Android app. This has proven to be worthwhile for setting up the the phone as I am able to copy and paste my passwords from lastpass into the various apps on the phone. But I can't help feel that there could be more done by Google to help people moving between Android phones in this respect, vs having to copy and paste from a third party app.

Throughout the first week I constantly found myself cursing at the phone as I couldn't find apps where they should be on the homescreen as I gradually laid the phone out closer to the way I used the last one.

So anyway, about a week on and the phone is now my phone, and it is working for me instead of the other way around.

Since setting it up I have found the scene options, which gives me even more scope to separate work from play from other stuff, so more playing around is in order.

Data Usage
One big deal that I did have is that in the in between process of getting the new SIM card in the phone and finally getting things setup and then going to the Your Telecom link is that I had well burned thru the casual rate data and had ended up going thru about NZ$30 of credit. So basically I had paid most of the price of a 2 GB pack of data at the casual rate. This wont be an issue if you are setting up on a plan with data, but if you are on prepay then perhaps think about getting it on a 2 GB addon before doing the setup.

About the author

I am 34 years old with most of that spent playing with technology of some sort from an old Sinclair thru an Apple II clone finally onto a long course of Windows machines and recently getting a couple of other vintage machines to play with, I have quite a background in computers. Initially started off doing a b.tech in electronic and computer engineering at Manukau tech I gave up on that when I saw how much more fun having money from a job was than being a struggling student. A few years at an ISP was fun till it was sold to Australians and lost the magic, and by that stage internet was just another service like power and water so after moved on. Decided to partially leave IT and did a bachelor of product design at Unitec. Hobbywise I am still into the electronics side of things and the recent purchase of some arduinos and hopefully a raspberry pi has reignited my interests in this. I am quite a fan of the opensource hardware movement lead by adafruit, seeed and sparkfun etc and hope to be able to contribute to it soon.

HTC One X first impressions

TelecomTech — Wed, 9 May 2012 15:25 +1200

Being selected for the Geekzone HTC One X blog reviews was an amazing honour. I’m going to be doing at least 2 posts a week on various aspects of the phone, the first week will be my first impressions (this) and my experiences setting the phone up (next)

It’s been a week or so since receiving the HTC ONE X for this blog, so I have got my first impressions of it so far.

We received the phone in a plain white box with minimal documentation so a detailed writeup of this wouldn't mean anything as the retail packaging will be different.

Shape and form
The first thing that hits you when you see the HTC ONE X, is how they have made it so slim. The slight curves of the front glass extend all the way to the edge of the phone, with the 3 touch sensitive buttons being at one end of the display, opposite the handsets speaker.

There is a gentle curve to the back of the phone, the only thing on the back detracting from this is the camera lens which protrudes a couple of mm from the surface. The lens itself is flush with the end of the bezel so it doesn't offer any protection for the lens. This is something that concerns me, as a damaged lens will render the camera permanently impaired.

The curve on the back and the slight screen glass curve make it look even slimmer than it is. this thing looks tiny.

The loudspeaker is on the back along with five pogopin connectors that I have yet to find any accessories for, I am assuming that it will be for a car dock or loudspeakers or similar, vs using the USB connector.

Supplied accessories
The supplied charger is a bit of a disappointment to be honest. Where samsung supplied a separate USB sync cable and a AC charger with the cable attached to it, HTC have supplied a short USB sync cable, and a charger that has a USB output. For a high value phone, this is quite a major corner to cut. In Fact the supplied USB cable is so short that I can barely use the phone when on charge in bed with it plugged into a wall outlet, needing to use a powerstrip to get the charger closer. Thankfully as the phone uses a standard micro USB cable I am able to use my existing charger on the phone.

The form of the charger is also larger than other chargers, with the 240v plug size being considerably larger so the charger sits fatter in any bag etc you are carrying it in.

There were earbuds supplied with the phone, but as I can't wear earbuds for any length of time without discomfort I have not put them thru their paces.

Screen
The HTC ONE X has a 720P screen on it, slightly larger than the one on the galaxy S2 I have been using up till now, Its not the size that is a big deal, its the resolution. You can zoom a standard desktop website out to the width of the phone in landscape and its crisp, clear and easy to read. The black level seems to be a little grey, but across all angles and in most lighting conditions there are no problems reading or seeing the screen, no sign of the image losing contrast or getting that “solarized” look that you often see on LCD’s.

Now, the shape of the screen has meant that both my attempts at putting a screen protector on has been fruitless, since the screen curves off the edge of the phone, it leaves the edge of the screen protector sitting where it just lifts a little, gets some pocket lint under it and then starts to peel off. Just not worth trying with a screen protector.

Casing
The phone is white. I would never have chosen a white phone after playing with a white iPhone 4 - but on the HTC the screen glass is black, so that is what you are really seeing when you use it. The white has made it quite distinctive with many people recognizing the phone and asking questions about it when I have been using it. Perhaps that is why we all got white ones?

Made of polycarbonate it does feel quite tough despite its slimness.The matt finish doesnt show any swirls or scratches, it does get dirty easier, but cleaning it is no problem.

I still have relented and put a case on the phone though, old habits die hard.

About the author

I am 34 years old with most of that spent playing with technology of some sort from an old Sinclair thru an Apple II clone finally onto a long course of Windows machines and recently getting a couple of other vintage machines to play with, I have quite a background in computers. Initially started off doing a b.tech in electronic and computer engineering at Manukau tech I gave up on that when I saw how much more fun having money from a job was than being a struggling student. A few years at an ISP was fun till it was sold to Australians and lost the magic, and by that stage internet was just another service like power and water so after moved on. Decided to partially leave IT and did a bachelor of product design at Unitec. Hobbywise I am still into the electronics side of things and the recent purchase of some arduinos and hopefully a raspberry pi has reignited my interests in this. I am quite a fan of the opensource hardware movement lead by adafruit, seeed and sparkfun etc and hope to be able to contribute to it soon.

NZ Tech Podcast: Fyx internet, SmallWorlds, 2degrees shared data plans and Mac security

paulspain — Tue, 8 May 2012 22:20 +1200

In episode 69 we settle in to recording at our new location with new recording equipment. Topics include Mac OS X security, NZ gaming sensation SmallWorlds, the Gather unconference, 2degrees new shared data plans, how to quickly destroy 30 laptops a... (more in the full post)

Fyx opens up Netflix, Hulu and other restricted content with pay per GB Internet service

paulspain — Tue, 8 May 2012 09:05 +1200

A new Internet service has been launched - branded Fyx - and coming from the team at Maxnet. The Fyx service is set disrupt the market with two unique components bundled together: A simple low cost 'pay per Gigabyte' ADSL 2+ Internet plan Global Mo... (more in the full post)

HTC One X: Heat and Battery Life

TelecomTech — Tue, 8 May 2012 08:36 +1200

Judging from several threads over at XDA the two most persitant and widespread issues unconvered so far by HTC One X owners would be related to heat and battery life.

While me and the rest of the bloggers here have been told to give HTC a chance to remedy problems and such, I have decided to go ahead with this post. Mainly to inform people of what I have personally experienced so far.

Starting with heat, many users have been complaining about excess and uncomfortable heat around the camera lens. When I play any type of 3D games the upper third of the phone’s back becomes uncomfortably warm over time. One time the rim of the camera lens almost hurt to touch. It does vary from time to time.

Some of this heat then seems to disipitate through the front of the display, I’m not a display genius but it probably isn’t a good thing if half of it is warm while the other half is cool when the phone is actually in use.

When I first got my One X and I was just flicking through the menus and some bundled applications the display was warm to touch and I have no idea as to why. Hopefully this won’t be a persistant issue, although at this stage I won't be surprised.

Now for battery life, as of just 30 mins ago it got noticeably better. The reason? Who knows. In the past week I have almost been able to watch the battery trickle downwards. Just this morning a 15 minute or so session of Reckless Racing HD dropped the battery 10%. This afternoon it’s more like 4%.

The difference? The only modifications I made to the setting were a change of skins and a few tweaks to auto-sync, nothing that I would imagine that would massively increase battery life.

Typically in the last week I’d be down to 35% or less by the time I slept and this only included about 30 to 60 mins of screen time, with the usual auto-sync and auto-brightness settings.

Thinking my battery life was completely buggered I ran HTC's battery test (accessed by dialing *#*#3424#*#*) and by the end of it I was done to 78%, an expected result is around 80% so all seems well here.

Obviously battery life is taking a hit either from Wi-Fi or 3G problems, or my various auto-sync settings. Whatever it might be, the 1.28 update that is currently rolling out to users (and hopefully to Telecom units very soon) should improve battery life.

About the author

I’ll be honest: there was once a day when I got bored and sick of seeing all the smartphone related news in my RSS feeds. This day was literally no more than nine months ago. Well here I stand today; known as Blair the college student in the real world, ArchSerpo in this one. Whilst not even considered an adult by the Government I have established myself as a Android and mobile technology news reporter and in depth reviewer for KitGuru, Android Mobile New Zealand, and now (hopefully) the TelecomTech blog. While bias towards the green team may appear given, I have had experience with all the major mobile operating systems except BlackBerry and MeeGo in the last six months and always keep an open mind.

Playtime with the HTC One X

TelecomTech — Mon, 7 May 2012 16:27 +1200

One of the things that my iPhone excels at is being used for bite sized gaming sessions. Being new to the Android scene, I was curious to know whether I’d be able to do the same with the HTC One X, or whether I’d be suffering from a lack of quality games to chose from. Within minutes of searching the Google Play store, it became quite clear that there are more than enough games available to waste my time with.

Many of my favourites are available, and within minutes I was happily flinging furious feathered flyers at barricaded bunches of bacon. In fact, I was impressed with how easy it is to download apps when you’re searching Google Play from your computers web browser. It will check whether an app is compatible with your handset (or handsets, if you have multiple Android devices), and allow you to initiate a download to your phone, which usually starts almost instantly.

The large screen of the HTC One X also makes it great for one of my current gaming addictions, Draw Something. And the impressive display made for a bright and vibrant pocket gaming experience filled with rich colours.

Thanks to the quad core CPU, GeForce GPU, and 1GB of RAM, the HTC One X is capable of some pretty impressive graphical feats. I installed a game called Dark Meadow: The Pact, which comes close to PC and current generation console levels of graphics, thanks to some impressive lighting effects and textures.

The phone can get quite warm relatively quickly when performing such CPU intensive operations, but thats not overly surprising for a device packing so much grunt in such a slim profile.

All in all, the HTC One X looks to be a more than capable portable gaming device, so thats yet another very important feature with a tick next to it.

About the author

Hi I'm David, a self employed software developer on the wrong side of 40, residing in Auckland with my wife and two children. I am a passionate All Blacks and Blues fan, gadget junkie, mature aged gamer, and connoisseur of fine heavy metal (and music in general). I currently own an iPhone 4, but am very open to trying new technologies, and can't wait to see what the best of Android can bring to the smartphone table. I enjoy keeping up to date with the latest technological advances in general, and am encouraged to see that the smartphone market is no longer an iOneHorseRace. I’m very interested to see how the HTC One and Ice Cream Sandwich fares in this regard.

Why does Universal Access seem not to be a part of 2Degrees Company Culture?

jmosen — Mon, 7 May 2012 14:18 +1200

Most of us know obvious examples of businesses not living up to their legal obligations when it comes to providing services to disabled people. A blind person gets refused service in a restaurant, because someone on staff doesn't know that a guide dog can't be refused entry. A building fails to be wheelchair accessible, preventing someone from entering or making it difficult and humiliating. The Internet, for many, is a much less familiar or clear-cut area. A few years ago, I took an airline to the Human Rights Commission, because they required disabled people to phone the call centre to complete a booking. Everyone else could complete it online, meaning that disabled people were being provided with a lesser service online by virtue of their disability. That issue went to mediation, and because of the way our Human Rights legislation works, there really isn't any case law. But the issue I want to recount is just as aggravating to me as if I were refused entry to a public place because of a guide dog. I've been watching 2Degrees closely since its launch in 2009, and in fact rushed down to pick up a bunch of prepaid sims to switch our family over. Kiwis love an underdog, the little guy who takes on the big duopoly, and they haven't disappointed in terms of the way they've shaken up the market. Even if we're not 2Degrees customers, we owe them our thanks, because we're all benefiting from their entry. Ultimately, we ported back from 2Degrees in those early days for three reasons. Edge was a little restricting,(there was no 3G in those days) and data at 50C per MB was pricy. We had issues sending texts to 2Degrees numbers internationally. I travel a lot, and have an AT&T SIM so I can work effectively when mobile in the US. Simon here on Geekzone really went out of his way to help when he certainly wasn't obligated to - a great experience. We found Vodafone Family really suited our usage patterns at the time. The first two issues have a solution now. 2Degrees has 3G, and with iMessage, texting is irrelevant. 2Degrees monthly plans would suit me very well. Sometimes, I'm out of the country for over a month at a time, meaning that I pay for minutes I haven't used. 2Degrees offer rollover minutes, so when I'm back home, I can chat up a storm with my family, friends and business associates because I've got plenty of minutes in the bank. Data is reasonably priced, with some plans applying to periods longer than a month. Again, I'm a perfect fit since there'll be some months when I use no data at all when overseas, and other months where I want to go crazy with the data. Now, in a move that has many of us on other carriers salivating, you can share data across devices on 2Degrees. Fabulous! I could use my laptop on my mobile data plan with out draining my iPhone's battery, by firing up my data card. 2Degrees gets more and more compelling. The trouble is, my experiences with them suggest that universal design and accessibility is simply not a part of their company culture. When I first became a customer of 2Degrees, the pivotal link on their site, the one that takes you to the Your 2Degrees section, had no text label. So as a blind person, I couldn't find how to log in, choose my number, etc. When there's no text associated with a link, all my screen reader can do to try and help me out, is read the URL of the link, or the name of the graphic. After a lot of trial and error, I worked out which graphical link got me to the Your 2Degrees section. This particular issue has long since been addressed, so good on them for that. When 2Degrees unveiled their pay monthly plans, initially, the only way you could sign up was if you had a driver's license. Now, obviously there are enough idiots on the road as it is without a blind guy getting behind the wheel, at least, with today's commercially available technology. Watch this space. So once again, I was keen to sign up, but thwarted. This too has been addressed, I can now use my passport. But why launch in such an exclusionary manner? this issue affected more than just blind people. Many people cannot, or choose not to, drive for all kinds of reasons. Of course, this issue is not unique to 2Degrees. We have to be careful that driver's licenses aren't turning into a state ID by proxy. In the driver's license case, I went through their call centre, and finally got to their legal department. They did genuinely seem concerned, and they have fixed it. There is one outstanding issue which remains unresolved, despite me bringing it to their attention repeatedly, and it's not a trivial one. I can visit Telecom, Vodafone, and all the virtual network operators, and peruse their plans at my leisure, making comparisons about what they're offering and which plan is right for me. But 2Degrees have always displayed their monthly plans as a graphic, rather than as a standard HTML table. I have no idea why, but it shuts me out. I can find no way on the site, anywhere, to read a textual description of their plans, how many minutes you get, and how much they cost. I've pointed this out several times on Twitter, but sadly, the majority of the 2Degrees tweets that come up on my timeline are retweets of customers saying how marvellous they are. I had a great conversation with Stuart Maxwell of Choice Mobile, who couldn't have been more helpful. He took the time to write a list of plans and their costs. You never forget someone who goes out of their way like that, and if I ever do switch to 2Degrees, it will be through Choice Mobile as a thank you. He too indicated he had passed on the issue of the inaccessibility of the plan data to 2Degrees. That was in December of 2010. The plans have changed since then. The practice of using an image has not. I struggle to see why coding a bit of HTML, why doing it properly in a way that's universally accessible, is such a big deal. 2Degrees is using spectrum in part owned by iwi, people overrepresented in unemployment statistics and low income...like disabled people. How is it that this carrier, aimed in part at the budget-conscious end of the market, can repeatedly introduce products and services without thinking through principles of universal accessibility? For example, has their Snapper app been tested with the screen readers available for Android? Now before I get the obvious questions, full disclosure. I have kids who can see. It's easy enough for me to fire up the browser and ask them to go through the data with me. But that's not the point. 2Degrees is effectively saying to me that my business isn't important. I'm an informed consumer. Just as some people won't buy battery farm poultry, or clothing manufactured by exploited workers, I can't in good conscience support a carrier that continues to drop the accessibility ball. And I would like to hope that it matters to other kiwis too. Not only is universal design good for all of us in terms of maximum browser/device compatibility, but you never know if you might be a blind person in the future. Age-related vision loss is extremely common. I was motivated to write this, when I was so delighted to read about 2Degrees shared data plan, and for that matter their innovative work with Snapper, only to feel locked out by not being able to read the data about their plans independently. What 2Degrees is doing is game changing. I really am glad they're around. Let's hope they will now change their website, and commitment to accessibility, for the better.