TelecomTech:

Brad’s HTC One Reviews Part Two

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:38 +1200

I started my series of posts on the HTC One with a brief post with my initial impressions. I’m following that up with a more in depth look at the various aspects of the device.

Design

The HTC One is gorgeous. It has a premium look and feel that is matched by very few other smartphones. Of course comparisons with the Samsung Galaxy S4 are prevalent but that phone’s plastic body cannot compare in looks and styling to the One, with its aesthetically far superior aluminium chassis. The very stylish looking Sony Xperia Z with its excessive amounts of glass also can’t compete with simplicity of the One. The Apple iPhone 5 would come the closest, but its design is beginning to get somewhat dated now.

I’ve had many people see me using the phone while out and about and come up to me ask if it was in fact the new HTC One. Most also commented on how much better it looked than the Galaxy S3/S4 or iPhone, an excellent reflection on the hard work HTC have done in making this a truly great looking phone.

The one drawback to the design is that it doesn’t allow for a replaceable battery but both HTC and Qualcomm have taken steps to ensure maximum battery longevity.

The HTC One has weight of 143g and surprisingly, considering its aluminium body, it does not feel too heavy and sits very nicely in the hand. It is also very well balanced and doesn’t feel like it could slip easily from your grasp.

There is also the widely reported manufacturing issue where the speaker grills on the top front of the phone aren’t flush with the top which then throws out the placement of the screen glass and the bottom speaker grill. This has been fixed with the most recent production runs according to HTC, but if you are buying one of these phones, make sure to inspect the unit before handing over your money just in case.

Android and Sense

The One ships with the Sense 5 skin for Android which is a dramatic improvement over previous versions and I have to say that it is really the first OEM Android skin I like. It looks great and nowhere is this more apparent than navigating through the various settings menus.

HTC have toned down the excessive gradients and garish icons from previous versions and settled for something a little more refined. There is a lot more colour than stock Android which in my opinion is too black and too plain. This strikes a happy medium.

There are a few little bugs, like popup dialogs having the stock Android look and some of them don’t look right since HTC haven’t used the stock fonts and sizes. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed in the upcoming 4.2.2 update.

I touched on Blinkfeed in my previous post. It is a very nice aggregator of many of the services I use. It is no longer my default homescreen but I find myself checking it many times throughout the day, saving me the time of reading through multiple apps. There are plenty of customisation options and 100’s of sources to pick from but I would like to see the ability to add your own choice of RSS feeds to it.

Blinkfeed is what Facebook Home should have been.

With Sense 5 HTC have reduced the number of widgets on the default home screen. Other than the Blinkfeed screen, by default there is only a single home screen with the sole widget on that screen being a Google search box. You can add all the widgets you want, but this is a departure from HTC’s strategy in the past and it is a lot cleaner.

I was disappointed that the One only shipped with Android 4.1.2 and not 4.2.2 given that 4.2 has been available since November, making at this point 4.1 nearly a year old. However HTC sources have said a 4.2 update should be available by the end of May.

The one thing lacking from previous HTC devices and as a former Samsung owner is toggles in the notification drawer. These can be replaced by various apps or the homescreen widgets but it can by a bit annoying to have to leave your app to adjust settings. This will be fixed when we see the 4.2 update with its quick settings panel.

Also one other thing that needs repeating from my previous is the menu softkey that appears in apps that have no menu overflow button (looking at you Facebook). This an annoyance but knowing that HTC have planned a fix for it with the 4.2 update makes it much easier to deal with.

Overall I am very happy and pleasantly surprised with Sense 5, seeing that after previous versions I did not have high hopes. HTC have put in a lot of work and come out with an excellent product which has enhanced the Android experience and taken nothing away from it. For the first time since acquiring an Android device I have no desire to look into an AOSP based ROM as I feel I would lose out on the many refinements and useful features Sense provides. If I had to give the user experience a rating it would score 8.5/10.

Specs and Performance

The HTC One is one of the highest spec’d devices to date and shows it in everyday tasks.

Network: GSM/WCDMA/LTE (to be enabled by Telecom New Zealand in a future update)
OS:Android 4.1 with Sense
CPU:1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600
Screen:4.7-inch 1920x1080 Super LCD 3 (468PPI)
RAM:2GB
Storage:32GB
Camera:4MP rear ("UltraPixel")/ 2.1MP front
Battery: 2300 mAh Li-Ion

Thanks to the fast Snapdragon 600 SoC, the UI frame rate is incredibly smooth. I have never seen the system lag or hang on anything and moving through homescreens loaded with widgets is smooth. The overall experience is very polished and very fast which is more than can be said for the One’s rival the Galaxy S4.

I am not a huge mobile gamer, having a high end PC and PS3 for that, but I did install a few games like Temple Run 2 to try out. Again there was no stuttering or lag in any of the games, the One took everything I threw at it and didn’t skip a beat. If you’re a mobile gamer then there will be no cause for disappointment here. In fact the HTC One has come out ahead of the Galaxy S4 in gaming benchmarks.

The One has been criticised for its lack of removable storage but I have found the 32GB to be more than ample. HTC have also integrated cloud support (Dropbox and Flickr) very well. Obviously this is an area where everyone will have a different opinion due to their specific needs for storage. But for myself I find those 32GB to be plenty for music and photos.

Battery Life

Given the large screen and quad-core processor and the relatively average battery size, I was not overly optimistic about battery life. After two weeks of some fairly heavy usage I have been thoroughly impressed.

My daily usage can vary but I frequently send and receive a large number of emails, read and post to forums, stream music and I’m also heavy Viber user.

On average I have been seeing battery life of between 24 hours (6 hours screen time) and 30 hours (4 hours screen time). Compared to previous devices I’ve owned (mostly Galaxy’s) this is far ahead of what I would have expected and is more than satisfactory.

After a little over two weeks with the HTC One, I am more firmly convinced that it is the best smartphone we’ve ever seen. It is not without its small issues but none of those cannot be fixed with a software update.

My next post will look at the excellent camera and HTC Zoe.

About the author

My name is Brad and I’ve been a member of the Geekzone community for nearly nine years including three as a moderator. I was a long time Windows Mobile (yes Windows Mobile, not Windows Phone) user before deciding to try out Android a couple of years ago. I quickly fell in love with the openness and freedom that Android provides and have built and customised my own ROMs from source. I am a web developer, gamer and all round gadget junkie. I hope that my TelecomTech posts will be informative for potential HTC One owners.

Technofreak’s HTC One: my thoughts (second part)

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:20 +1200

The more I use the HTC One the more I realise various mobile OS have much in common. They all have the same basic job to do and in many cases there's only so any ways to to do certain functions. It's very often in the small details where the differences are and even then I'm sure each OS could be configured to do a particular job the same way.

To illustrate this point the HTC One has features that replicate the exact same features in Symbian and Meego. Both the Nokia E7 and the HTC One have a notification blind. Both the Nokia N9 and the HTC One uses a similar swiping action to close apps. The music player on the HTC has a familiar appearance to the music players on both the E7 and N9 and in the case of the N9 some very similar features

Where am I going with this? To me it would seem that most of the differences between various OS is as much to do with what features/actions the design team decided incorporate rather than what the OS can or cannot do or some of the hardware like the camera or in the case of the HTC One the excellent stereo speakers. With this in mind many of my comments in these blogs are not so much a reflection on the OS and more as to how it has been used.

Back to the HTC One. There is no doubt this is one very very nice looking phone. I like the screen size. I had thought that a 4 inch screen was about the biggest practical screen for a phone. However with design improvements allowing the screen to extend almost to the edge of the phone has meant screen sizes increase without a major change in form size. The reduced thickness has also meant a net decrease in bulk meaning it still fits well into my shirt pocket without a problem.

However while bigger is better so far as the screen size goes there are some downsides. The power/lock/unlock button is a stretch to reach especially one handed. Perhaps it would have been better placed on the side. Also I find the phone gets uncomfortable to hold on longer phone calls. It's a fraction too wide for my hands which I'd say are normal size. Also due to the width of the phone I find I have to be careful where I position the phone against my ear otherwise the proximity sensor doesn't work and my ear triggers the screen.

I often use the phone with it lying on a desk. The very nicely curved back does not lend itself well to using a phone in this manner and the phone rocks about as you tap away on the screen. One other drawback of such a clean design is the way some apps work, e.g. there is no dedicated camera button. Also the flash light app which I use a bit but not enough to warrant putting on the quick launch tray requires the phone to be unlocked with demands two actions: the power button then the unlock swipe. The N9 suffers the same problem, you pay the price for a nice clean design.

There has been a lot of comments around forums about a “gap” between the back and the plastic body on some phones. There is no gap on my HTC One. The finish is very good and exudes a quality befitting a flagship phone. The only comment I can make about the finish on mine is there is a small ridge on the top and bottom edges of the phone where the metal plates above and below the screen mate against the plastic body. It’s as if the screen is about 2 thicknesses of paper lower than the plastic body, hardly something most people would notice. If this is all people are complaining about then I think they are being a little bit too fussy.

Looking at the OS and apps now, I find the back function inconsistent. There's often two back buttons but not always. One on the lower left of the screen and depending on the app in use another back button at the top left. One back button would be much better in my opinion. To add to this the “Home” and “Back” button on the lower part of the screen (actually below the actual screen but still on the glass) are not always lit making it difficult to see where to tap the screen for these functions. It appears they only light up in darker conditions however there are plenty of occasions where they need to be lit when there’s plenty of light.

As I mentioned in my last blog I tried using HTC Sync Manager to synchronise with Outlook on my computer. I have given up trying to get Sync Manager to work, while others report it works well for them. It appears that it doesn’t work well on Windows 7 64 bit. My solution so far has been to use Exchange Active Sync with my Windows Live account and use this calendar on my laptop. It’s working pretty well but doesn’t sync my Outlook Notes which is a bit of a pain. It’s a pity HTC don’t provide a reliable syncing software.

Battery life seems OK. Some days I’m just getting through one day, which to me for the battery size isn’t all that much. I guess you have to pay somewhere for the fast smooth OS that the HTC One has. Though to be honest I think the screen rather than the OS is a big hog of power. As can be seen in the screenshot there are two places where the battery level drops sharply when I used the Maps/Navigation. I’ll cover more on the Maps next time.

Let’s talk about the Clock app. There are two things I miss with the Clock. First is not having an analogue option. And second is not being able to display the time when the screen is in standby mode. I’ve got used to using the phone as a clock and I’ve looked to see it there’s an app but cannot find one that does it. I have the phone on the bedside cabinet as my alarm clock and it’s even more of a nuisance having to wake up the phone at night to see the time.

Speaking of the alarm function, the alarm isn’t as refined as what I’ve been used to with my other phones where the alarm tone starts off quietly and slowly increases in volume. The HTC One starts off at full volume which is a bit of a rude wake up call.

Otherwise the built-in Clock app is very good. As well as a clock with alarm there is a World Clock, a Stopwatch and a Timer. It’s a well thought out app that is very functional and easy to use. The alarm time is easy to set, plus there is a list of previous alarm times giving you the option to choose a time without the need to go through the whole process of setting the alarm again. You do have to be careful though that you also choose what days of the week you wish to use a particular alarm. It would be easy to choose a previously set alarm and not have it go off because you haven’t chosen that day for the alarm to be used.

As I was writing this blog the phone died. I went to unlock it to try something and no response. Eventually the vol down + power button brought up a screen that gave me a reboot option so all was good again. I’ve had phones lock up and die before, but only when I’ve been doing something that precipitated it, never while the phone was sitting idle. Let’s hope it was a one off event.

Next time I will blog about the Maps/Navigation, the Calendar and the Camera.

About the author

My name is Alan. I’ve been a Geekzone member for almost eight years (as Technofreak) and have enjoyed contributing and helping people on the site and have also gained a lot of help here myself at the same time. My involvement with technology goes back to another life when I was a Technician for NZPO/Telecom. I still remember the first cellphone I used, a Panasonic, which was the size of a handbag. I was an avid user of Palm handhelds for many years, having owned a 515, a T5 and a TX, all fantastic devices, I only recently pensioned off the TX. These days I find smartphones extremely useful devices for keeping me in touch, especially being out and about with my job. The HTC One is the first real foray into the world of Android for me, it going to be an interesting and learning experience.

Technofreak’s HTC One: first thoughts

Wed, 8 May 2013 03:00 +1200

I was very happy to agree when invited to take part in this TelecomTech blog series on the HTC One. I like new toys and playing with technology.

As a result last Tuesday a package arrived in my letter box and inside it there was a white box with a couple of stickers on the side. Very non descript. Inside was a bubble wrap bag containing a phone and a thin metal tag labelled HTC with a sharp pointer to open the SIM tray. Certainly not exciting to look at, however the bubble wrap cleverly disguised a very very sharp looking piece of engineering, the HTC One.

4.7 inches of gorilla glass screen that extends edge to edge with matte finish aluminium panels top and bottom, with a solid matte finish aluminium back panel that is nicely curved to fit your hand. The edges of the aluminium nicely polished. Sandwiched between the glass screen and the back panel is a thin white plastic body. The design is in my opinion very tasteful and gives the phone a nice solid feel. My words certainly don’t do it justice.

Other than the SIM tray there’s only two ports: a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a USB port for charging and computer connections. I did read that this can also be used for HDMI. There’s also an IR port in the power button.

Basic specs for those that don’t know already:

4.7 inch gorilla glass screen
Android OS, v4.1.2 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
Chipset Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600
CPU Quad-core 1.7 GHz Krait 300
Micro sim
Non-removable Li-Po 2300 mAh battery
4 MP camera, LED flash, 1080 HD video 2.1 MP front facing camera
WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC Infra Red
Stereo speaker with Beats Audio

First impressions were of a very slick, good looking device and to a large extent those impressions have proved to be spot on. The OS is nice and smooth and generally easy to find your way around. This is the first time I’ve really used Android so in some ways a bit of a learning curve, in as much when something doesn’t work as expected is it me or is it the OS. It’s been my experience that most devices do the same or similar things it’s just a matter of finding out how it’s done on a particular device.

By nature I’ve always prodded and poked any new device to find out how things work and as result generally find my way around without too much trouble. Finding my way around HTC One has been pretty straight forward for an Android newbie. Some of the actions/functions are quite similar to both the Nokia E7 and N9. The notification blind on the E7 and the swipe to close on the N9 for example.

The things I like so far: Firstly kudos to Telecom New Zealand. The setup onto the Smartphone Network was simple and straight forward when the SIM was inserted. The phone is unbranded, and the “Your Telecom and Y! TWorld logos installed automatically and away I went. A seamless experience.

No, the 4G option isn’t activated and while it would be good to try out 4G I can understand why it’s not currently available on the phone (Telecom’s 4G network is currently under trial, not open to the public yet).

I like the 4.7 inch screen and the thin profile of the phone itself, it just over 9mm thick. My other phones look small and or chunky (the N9 is 12mm and the E7 13.5mm). I like the way the apps screen scrolls up one “page” or one screens worth of viewing at one time instead of having to watch how far to scroll. The stereo speakers provide a great sound.

However there is one big thing I don’t like: there is no reliable way to sync the Outlook calendar on my laptop to the HTC One. I don’t work the same days each week nor the same time each day and every day can have a different schedule. I rely on having my roster on my phone and my laptop. Outlook is my calendar of choice and I don’t wish to go away from Outlook. Right now the HTC One is really only good as a phone and I need to carry another device with me for the calendar. HTC provide software to sync the calendar (HTC Sync Manager) which continually crashes. I’ll keep exploring avenues to solve the Outlook sync problem.

The camera is only 4 megapixels but does a good job. As with most phones the flash is LED. HTC are using what they call ultrapixel to improve the quality of the photo well above that expected for the pixel count. So far I’ve been very happy with the pictures I’ve taken. The focus function works well by tapping the screen to tell the camera which part of the picture you want to be in focus. These pictures were the first ones I took with the phone, as yet I haven’t had a chance to fully explore the camera to its fullest.

Battery life is a bit over two days between charges. Considering it’s nearly twice the size of the battery in the E7 I would have expected better than that though it’s early days and batteries sometimes have a habit of improving after the first few charges.

So far I’m enjoying the HTC One experience and look forward to putting it to work over the coming few weeks and reporting further on my experiences.

About the author

My name is Alan. I’ve been a Geekzone member for almost eight years (as Technofreak) and have enjoyed contributing and helping people on the site and have also gained a lot of help here myself at the same time. My involvement with technology goes back to another life when I was a Technician for NZPO/Telecom. I still remember the first cellphone I used, a Panasonic, which was the size of a handbag. I was an avid user of Palm handhelds for many years, having owned a 515, a T5 and a TX, all fantastic devices, I only recently pensioned off the TX. These days I find smartphones extremely useful devices for keeping me in touch, especially being out and about with my job. The HTC One is the first real foray into the world of Android for me, it going to be an interesting and learning experience.

Brad’s HTC One Reviews Part One: First Impressions

Sun, 5 May 2013 23:09 +1200

I have played with a few HTC devices over the years and owned some of the HTC Windows Mobile ones before, but never liked their Android offerings. I found the Sense UI skin to be ugly and the devices to be less than attractive. When I first heard about the HTC One I didn�t have high hopes for it and was more interested in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 which I thought would be a far superior device.

Fast forward to 30 April when the HTC One arrived in my mailbox. I had seen the images of the One around the web but they did not do it justice. It is a beautiful device.

The design evokes thoughts of an Apple device in its high quality build and styling but it is not as plain as I find the iPhone. I can say without a doubt it is the best looking phone I have seen. It has a good solid feel to it but it is not too heavy with the curved back. It feels very nice and fits well in your hand. It doesn�t have the harsh square feeling of the iPhone 5 and doesn�t have the flimsy plastic feeling of the Galaxy series.

Upon turning on the phone it was clear that HTC had made some big changes from stock Android. The setup wizard has been completely revamped:

Once you finish the setup you are presented with HTC�s new home screen, called BlinkFeed. It is a nice social and news feed aggregator in the style of Flipboard. It supports Facebook and Twitter as well as a large variety of news and info sites across a range of categories.

BlinkFeed is set as the default home panel although this can be changed to one of the more traditional style panels for shortcuts and widgets which I have done. I love Blinkfeed and feel it is one of the best implementations I have seen (Facebook take notice) but I also like quick access to my most used apps and have a preference for a cleaner home screen and it is just a swipe away.

One of the other big changes HTC have made is to the app drawer and it has caused a bit of debate. The drawer no longer has horizontal pagination but is now vertical. The clock from Blinkfeed is also firmly positioned at the top of the drawer and options for the layout can be exposed under the clock by pulling the drawer down slightly. The only issue I have with the new layout is the default grid arrangement of 3x4 which makes no sense, it was quickly changed to 4x5.

Another change HTC has made has been to the typical capacitive buttons. There is no menu button, only back and home, which also serves as search (long press) and recent apps (double tap).

As a result, apps like Facebook (shown left) that do not have a quick menu button result in a Nexus style softkey area with just menu appearing at the bottom of the screen. It is not a great implementation and gives an inconsistent feel. Some of the blame must lie with app developers who don�t conform to Google�s standards but this is something HTC needs to resolve.

Pre-release firmware gave users the option to make the back button via long press or double tap act as a menu button. I would like to see the return of this option ASAP.

Upon reflection this is the only drawback to the HTC One I have come across so far.

There is a lot I want to cover in depth, such as the excellent Ultrapixel camera, apps, the revamped UI, audio and connectivity. These will come later in my next blog posts here on TelecomTech.

I will finish off this post by saying that from the three days I have been using the HTC One I am more impressed with it than I have ever been by a mobile device. Usually after getting a new device I will have rooted it flashed a custom kernel or even ROM. Obviously I can�t do this while reviewing this one (to keep it �stock�) but this is the first time I haven�t even had the urge to do it.

Without a doubt the HTC One comes closer to perfection than any device before it. My Galaxy has been permanently replaced and as I told somebody else, my love affair with Samsung is over.

The HTC One is coming to Telecom New Zealand and will be available online and in Telecom stores from 7th May.

About the author

My name is Brad and I�ve been a member of the Geekzone community for nearly nine years including three as a moderator. I was a long time Windows Mobile (yes Windows Mobile, not Windows Phone) user before deciding to try out Android a couple of years ago. I quickly fell in love with the openness and freedom that Android provides and have built and customised my own ROMs from source. I am a web developer, gamer and all round gadget junkie. I hope that my TelecomTech posts will be informative for potential HTC One owners.

HTC One: metal design

Wed, 1 May 2013 22:35 +1200

In this short video Daniel Jundt, HTC Creative director explains how the came up with the design for the new HTC One smartphone:

About the author

Mauricio Freitas runs Geekzone and blogs on freitasm.com. He loves anything related to technology, specially in the mobile space.

HTC one unbox

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:22 +1200

A quick video showing the HTC One coming to Telecom New Zealand pretty soon:

About the author

Mauricio Freitas runs Geekzone and blogs on freitasm.com. He loves anything related to technology, specially in the mobile space.

Next TelecomTech series: HTC One

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 03:00 +1200

We have just sent out a couple of HTC One devices to some Geekzone readers. The next round of user reviews will be coming up soon.

The HTC One should be available in early May. In the meantime you can see a discussion about this new Android device on Geekzone.

Nakedmolerat’s Nokia Lumia 920 wrap up

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:54 +1200

This will be my last Nokia Lumia 920 post. If you have any questions, please post in the comment section below. Prior to being selected by Mauricio and Telecom New Zealand to get involved in this TelecomTech blog, I left Vodafone for Telecom. I paid hefty 'fees' for breaking the 24 months term plan. So you know I "invested" in this blog.

Telecom Network

Since moving to Tauranga, I have found that the Vodafone coverage is not great around here. In the building where I work, calls will drop when I am in the lift, walking in the hallway etc. Our work phone is on Telecom Smartphone Network. It does not seem to have the same problem. Because of the poor reception, my phone used to overheat at times and the battery dropped quite fast.

At our meeting room down in the basement, the Vodafone reception drops to 2G only. I needed to have a few attempts before I could send text messages. Calling was 'okay' but calls dropped as soon as you'd move.

This is the Telecom speedtest result:

I decided not to run a Vodafone speedtest because it would only fall back to their 2G network. Therefore the data speed would be markedly different and the test would be unfair. At Bayfair Mall, specifically at K-Mart, the Vodafone reception drops to 2G. With Telecom network, the 3G reception is still great - typical busy afternoon at the mall:

Looking at the NZ cell sites map, it could be because the Vodafone tower is a bit far from the mall. The other explanation would be Telecom 850 MHz WCDMA has better building penetration.

Overall, I am quite happy with Telecom coverage. One thing to note is that Telecom is way behind with their 'online' experience. I found it ridiculously difficult navigating their website compared to Vodafone or 2Degrees. If you are a Telecom postpaid customer, it is much better to ring their centre rather than trying to be independent. I started this thread and it seems like a major work is underway and we should be seeing some changes soon.

Nokia Lumia 920

So far, the Nokia Lumia 920 has been great. I haven't had many issues except for the fact that the phone is very slow at receiving updates. They should sort this out. I think that the phone should be receiving updates in the same manner that Windows Update is deployed.

It is also interesting to note how successful Nokia has been in Q4. They have moved from loss to making a huge Net Profit. This is partly due to successful Lumia devices. Engadget wrote an excellent article here.

Battery

Since my first encounter with Android devices, the first thing that I learned was to use Task Manager to kill the apps and clear the memory. The main reason for this was to extend the battery life. Out of the box, the Nokia Lumia 920 has a great battery life. After normal work hours 8am to 4pm, I still have equal or greater than 90%. At least 15-20 minutes of phone call, browsing and mails polling in the background. This is something that I wasn't used to after having used Android phones.

Wireless Charger

Many have pointed out that the wireless charger is a novelty. I personally love it and would not go back to using a conventional charger. It is so convenient especially at night time. I have two of these Nokia dt-900 charging plates. I use Otterbox cover and the cover for micro USB port can be left closed.

Office / OneNote

One of the perks of using a 'Windows' phone is that it comes with Office and One Note. I did not use Office as much to be able to write a review about it. At a quick glance, Excel looks quite good. It seems like you are able to do lots of editing, formula, graph etc. If anyone is interested, I can take a closer look at it.

OneNote however is great. It is just like other note-taking apps such as Evernote. You can have picture and audio embedded in it. You can also 'dictate' the note via Bluetooth. Overall, great app and it syncs flawlessly.

Apps

App availability is on the rise. In the last two months, I can see some of the apps that are well-established in other platforms starting to appear in the Store.

Conclusion

Overall, the Nokia Lumia 920 is a great phone. It is simple and easy to use. Few comments from my mates are that this phone is fast and smooth. Learning curve is exceptionally easy. Tiles and apps list! That's it. I have updated the phone to Portico manually and it seems like Microsoft is serious with the OS. New features are added together with bug fixes. I have decided that this will be my phone for some time! My apologies since I am not able to cover Music or Xbox games because I do not listen to music nor play games that much.

Lastly, thanks to Telecom for letting me to be a part of the TelecomTech blog. I look forward to further future participation.

About the author

Hi, my name is Fergus. I am a big fan of the nakedmolerat character in Kim Possible - Rufus. I work in the health sector. I am also a volunteer firefighter when I am not working. I started using computers when I was five years old. I am the 'guy' that family and friends approach when they have issues with their computers. I am also an Android fanboy (Yes! I believe Android will takeover the world soon). It was such a great opportunity when Telecom New Zealand and Geekzone offered me to be one of the Nokia Lumia 920 / Windows Phone reviewers. I hope my reviews are helpful to the readers.

Two months on with the Nokia Lumia 920

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:29 +1200

I take my daughter to her gymnastics class every week and for these two hours a week I generally listen to music on my Nokia Lumia 920 while either Wi-Fi hotspotting my laptop while I catch up on some work or web surfing on the phone, tasks that have generally seen a fairly rapid discharge of battery and plenty of heat generated. My previous phone used to get uncomfortably warm under these conditions and you could literally watch the battery meter drop. The Nokia Lumia 920 on the other hand merely gets warm rather than hot.

One aspect I always found on my Android devices was if the screen was on you could pretty much watch the battery level drop down. Battery life was a mixture of minimising power consumption while screen was off or processor was on idle and then trying to control your screen on time.

Windows Phone 8 it gives you nowhere near the diagnostic abilities or system control of Android. You have little option but to just go with the flow and hope it works. Good news is it does work and it works well, no need to fiddle or fine tune CPU speeds or battery voltages, or shut off the functionality of a smartphone all in an effort to get a solid days use out of it.

I chuck it on the wireless charger overnight, put it in my pocket in the morning and never concern myself about battery life and at the end of the day it usually has anywhere between 30 & 50% battery remaining. This is with wifi, location services, two push email accounts, data etc all constantly on.

Below is some screen shots from Battery Sense App, the graph represents 7 days charge/discharge cycle.

Another aspect I found relatively impressive is the Nokia's music player ability. I had made mention of this already within a thread on Geekzone and drew some fairly rapid responses from fellow Geekzoners. Let's be clear: I am talking about the out of the box experience with supplied ear buds, not back to back testing with high end replacement ear buds/headphones and/or associated headphone amplifiers or the like. For two hours of listening a week I can't justify the expense.

I had an SGS3 and by comparison the Nokia with its supplied ear buds versus the Samsung and its supplied ear buds there simply is no contest. The Nokia has an acceptably nice sound in its standard form and with a tweak on the seven band EQ it can be made to sound damn good for a straight out of the box solution.

I would expect the larger population would be more than happy with it. In the bigger picture the Samsung has a distinct advantage in having a highly rated DAC as well as the ability to output a digital signal via USB however the audible benefits of these features come at a cost which most will not care to bear.

Back to topic, navigation through the Nokia Music app is in a very familiar and typically Windows Phone 8 format, with simple concise fonts and the usual side scrolling menus. As I mentioned earlier there is a seven band graphic equaliser with the usual presets plus ability to set your own curve. I am yet to find a touchscreen equaliser that offers pinpoint precise adjustment and this is no exception with my fat fingers. Give me a simple three or five band parametric equaliser without on screen slides and I would be far happier but I seem to be in the minority of consumers here.

I should mention that there is only the ability to set one custom curve. This is not exactly a dealbreaker but worthy of mention none the less. One relatively unique feature is "Dolby Headphone for Mobile Devices" setting. This is a pseudo 5.1 surround sound effect. Traditionally I am one for leaving effects like this switched off however in keeping with my general findings of the Nokia Lumia 920 it just works and adds to the experience so I leave this feature on. The Windows Phone app allows you to sync playlists directly from iTunes which is fantastic as I use iTunes. I just created a playlist of the albums I wanted on the phone and synced it across. A point to note here is that Windows Phone 8 doesn't like AAC files so this could be a problem depending on how you encode your tracks. Syncing from Windows Media Player is also possible and probably the better option however I cannot comment as I don't use WMP.

It has now been two months since I switched from Android to Windows Phone 8 and to a certain extent I am struggling to find the right combination of words to accurately and succinctly explain the journey. I went into this experience hoping for some good things but with relatively low expectation. Fast forward two months and I can quickly recommend Windows Phone 8 or the Nokia Lumia 920.

Let's break a summary down into the four key areas;

Operating System - Windows Phone 8 is a very intuitive and logical OS. It is slick and has a very consistent feel, never slowed by background processes, apps blend smoothly in and out of the core OS with a strong family feel to them. The user experience just feels so natural and intuitive. There are no OEM skins to contend with. The home screen with its resizable tiles actually works really well in practice offering plenty of customization, live tiles add an extra dimension negating some need for notification bars although in reality most live tiles only update every 30minutes while push notifications work in real time. Be aware though that tiles do not offer direct shortcuts, only a shortcut to relative setting. In my opinion the more rigid and locked down nature of the Windows Phone interface is mitigated by the overall stability of the OS. No more chasing rogue apps to understand what is hogging resource or chewing through battery, it just works and works well.

Hardware - The Nokia Lumia 920 is a very easy handset to get along with, it is solid, well-built and just feels like a quality device. This is a phone that feels as durable as the old 2110s, 5110s, 6210s of yesteryear. The call quality is fantastic and let's be honest this is the core function of a phone. I'm not talking about the network quality (of which I might add the Telecom network has performed flawlessly since making the switch), I am talking about the voice at the other end of the line. It is real nice to just be able to make a call and hear the other party crystal clear, no screeching or having to hold the phone off my ear as my ear drum warbles!

Software/Apps - There has been plenty of discussion here, Windows Phone 8 is a newcomer, Windows Phone 7 never quite brought the party to the table so the net result is the app store is in its infancy. There are a number of key apps that some people cannot do without and subsequently this becomes a deal breaker for converting to Windows Phone 8. One such app for me was Dropbox, an app I used extensively on Android. I tried a third party app that is available but it simply did not cut the mustard. Given the options I took the approach of trying to work around this issue and soon discovered that SkyDrive offered all the same functionality that I required plus being part of the Microsoft suite integration into Windows Phone 8 is second to none, including automatic camera upload, local folder, desktop folder option. In all honesty I have found sufficient apps to cover my requirements without feeling like I am missing out on something critical. That said, I have also bought a Windows 8 Hybrid tablet which is never too far out of reach so I am more tending to spread my demands across both devices depending on which is better suited to the task.

Ecosystem - The jury is out on this one. I like the SkyDrive suite, it is simple concise and easy to use however the overall levels on integration between devices is lacking by Google standards. Google Chrome's ability to synchronise bookmarks between devices is one of those nice touches that is hard to live without, the Microsoft ecosystem is just not as developed as Google's. Again it is not a deal breaker more just a quirk. Windows Phone 8 does not necessarily offer the same apps as Windows RT/8, even the tiled start screen layout feels quite different to Windows Phone 8's tiled homescreen, tiles are not resizable the same. But for anyone that uses Microsoft Office on a regular SkyDrive is just a win win situation, being able to open and save files directly from the cloud is a fantastically simple solution. Sure Apple and Google offer similar products but let's be honest their options are toys compared to the power of MS Office.

A simple car analogy to express this is to compare Android to a high performance Japanese car: out of the box it is a relatively impressive package, it can be modified fairly easily to offer big gains, the trade off is you end up with something that is potentially unreliable and a combination of parts that possibly will not all play nice with each other leading you on a trail of constant fiddling trying to get the ultimate solution is up there with finding the end of the rainbow. Windows Phone 8 and in particular the Nokia is more like a European performance car, it may not be the biggest/baddest/fastest car out there but commands respect, is a pleasure to drive, offers more than enough performance for its intended use, it simply works as intended, when required, no fiddling or tweaking required.

If you are an Android user that is a bit over erratic battery life, rogue apps that cause havoc, forever chasing that elusive latest update or that smooth and consistent UI experience then Windows Phone 8 and Nokia Lumia 920 could be just what you require. If you are an iPhone user that has become bored with iOS than Windows Phone 8 could be just what you are looking for - appstore aside Windows Phone 8 offers a refreshing alternative to iOS without some of the inherent flaws of Android.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is an absolute top notch quality handset which I honestly do not see myself replacing until Nokia offers its successor. I truly hope the platform obtains the momentum and following it deserves. In my opinion it has the real potential to become the perfect business/social hybrid smart device offering a simple but smart solution that just fits into one's daily life.

About the author

My name is Wade, I am probably best described as a slightly demanding tech savvy consumer who is fast approaching an age where one needs to start planning one's mid-life crisis. I'm a family man with two extraordinary daughters, as well as a fabulous and understanding (most of the time!) wife, hobbies include home theatre and car audio. work in supply chain within the manufacturing sector. I have a vested interest in simplifying and enriching both my work and personal lives through technology. I live in a household filled with the usual plethora of Apple devices however my weapon of choice has become Android and the Google ecosystem. Windows Phone is a somewhat unchartered territory for me. Having no prior experience with Windows Phone or SkyDrive, I am very much looking forward to immersing myself into this ecosystem and understanding how it stacks up for my needs.

Wade’s Nokia Lumia 920: the hardware

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:00 +1200

Up to now I have tried to stay exclusively on the topic of Nokia Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8 but I have to address the white elephant patiently waiting over in the corner of the room; how does it all compare with the competition and with that I lead into some potentially controversial and opinionated areas of discussion.

As a (former) Android user the inflexibility and closed system of Apple just didn't make sense at all. I accepted that there are associated benefits of such an ecosystem in being able to control the hardware it allows for high levels of optimization. However the flipside of this is you get one chance a year to get excited about new hardware releases and then it is a 'one size fits all' mentality. Android on the other hand is living proof that everyone wants something different from a smart device.

You could say that Microsoft have taken a relatively unique approach in enabling its hardware partners to make competing hardware so we, consumers, have handset choices in a similar sense as Android users do, but by enforcing a minimum set of hardware requirements they are able to put some mechanism in place to ensure they have a way to control the end user experience.

This hardware/software control is probably one of the key benefits of the Apple ecosystem allowing for high levels of optimization. Below is the minimum hardware specification required by Microsoft:

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor
Minimum 512MB RAM for WVGA phones; minimum 1GB RAM for 720p / WXGA
Minimum 4GB flash memory
GPS and A-GNSS; GLONASS is supported if OEMs decide to include it
Support for micro-USB 2.0
3.5mm stereo headphone jack with three-button detection support
Rear-facing AF camera with LED or Xenon flash, optional front-facing camera (both need to be VGA or better) and dedicated camera button
Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors, as well as vibration motor (magnetometer and gyroscope are optional
802.11b/g and Bluetooth (802.11n is optional)
DirectX graphics hardware support with hardware acceleration for Direct3D using programmable GPU
Multi-touch capacitive touch screen with minimum of four simultaneous points

From my research it would appear the hardware manufacturers have interpreted this into a low level and a high level series of offerings. In a very general sense (I am sure there will be some exceptions) the two streams of handset follow the below basic specs:

*Entry Level*	*High Level*
Dual Core 1GHz Processor	Dual Core 1.5GHz Processor
800x480 pixel Display (WVGA)	1280x768 pixel Display (WXGA)
512mb Ram	1GB Ram
8GB Mass Memory	16GB Mass Memory
5MP Camera	8MP Camera

What is very impressive with Windows Phone 8 is that the actual user experience between an entry level phone and a high level phone is very similar. In fact I would go as far to say that the average consumer would not be able to pick a discernible difference between a $400 handset and a $1000 handset as far as slickness of OS.

But don't take my word for it, next time you are out and about shopping, drop into a Telecom store and have a play with their range of Windows Phone 8 handsets. Not only will you notice very little if any difference in the "buttery" smoothness of the various handsets, you will also note that between the handsets there is a consistency in user experience regardless of handset manufacturers.

Basically any Windows Phone 8 user can pick up any Windows Phone 8 handset and feel completely at home. Android handset manufacturers take note, no OEM skins. So before we even discuss what makes the Windows Phone OS great we have:

Consistent user experience across all handsets
No OEM skins
Optimized software to hardware
All Windows Phone 8 handsets run the same OS (Not the same OS but with some features deactivated, Apple)

What is yet to be proven is the upgrade path for Windows Phone 8 and this could well make or break the OS but only time will tell. OS updates are probably the single biggest issue the Android ecosystem face and I do not expect to see a solution to this any time soon, the horse has bolted on that one.

Apple's updating process really has to be looked at as the benchmark. Sure it has hiccups but overall it is quick, painless and hassle free. With the knowledge of the successes and fails of the incumbent's updating processes and the frequency of the small Windows Phone 8 updates already received I have faith MS will get it right, they really have no other option, they have to make it succeed.

Another aspect of smart devices to consider is the larger ecosystem. While cross compatibility is a necessary evil for all players the integration offered can dictate your purchasing decisions. On one hand Apple's iPad offers a near identical user experience to an iPhone.

Android on the other hand can offer a varied outcome. While the individual apps will not necessarily differ you will always be aware of the mixed parentage of the devices.

Microsoft throws a curve ball here with two options, Windows RT and Windows 8. RT is basically a tablet OS with a Microsoft Office package included, the other full blown windows 8 OS that is able to run the RT tablet OS in parallel. A large number of the tablet apps are not available to Windows Phone 8 and vice versa. To me there appears to be a surprising lack of cohesion between the phone and tablet OS.

That said Microsoft has one huge advantage that neither of the other two camps can offer and that is tablet hybrids. These devices offer tablet and ultrabook versatility as well as Windows RT tablet mode and full x86 windows OS. Personally I am not sure on the longevity of RT, the cost differential between RT and win8 tablets is not significant and the win8 tablets just offer so much more bang for buck IMHO.

All players offer cloud based solutions to tie your phone/tablet/PC together and I have to admit I have very little experience with Apple's offerings other than originally setting up the wife's account for her phone and iPad. I am most familiar with Google's offerings and am using these in a commercial sense on a daily basis. Google offer a fairly extensive package offering a relatively basic productivity suite, instant chat, G+ social networking, Picasa and probably a few more I have forgotten.

We need to keep in mind that Google's revenue stream is largely populated by marketing and advertising, they want your information either directly or passively and it doesn't take long for the ecosystem to extract all sorts of information out of you as you go about your daily tasks.

As far as integrating and synchronising all this data between your desktop, tablet and phone it is probably safe to say that Google offer the most complete package bar none. Android and Google go hand in hand fitting like a glove. I have on a number of occasions started a chat conversation on my desktop, carried on via mobile then come back to the desktop all on the one thread, seamless.

Microsoft's offering is called SkyDrive, it is essentially a web based email, cloud document creation and storage package. As I am using a hybrid of Google and Microsoft I am not fully utilising SkyDrive, I am only using the document creation and cloud storage functionality. First impressions were that it is overly simple. The layout is simple, concise, devoid of pretty much anything including advertising. Its real claim to fame is the ability to create or edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote within the web browser.

Google doc's use a semi compatible but proprietary format so you lose functionality and formatting in the conversion process. There is no competition here, SkyDrive wins this round. Want to create an MS Excel spreadsheet on your iPad? No problem: log into SkyDrive through your web browser. Want to make a change later on, grab your Windows Phone 8 and edit/create documents on the fly within the mobile office suite. The spreadsheeting capabilities on the Nokia Lumia 920 are far more feature rich than Google's own system. Another win for SkyDrive is the simplicity in which you can open a document within the web browser of your PC and choose to either edit it within the web app or use the full power of MS Office (assuming it is installed on PC and is MS Office 2007+).

Where SkyDrive powers ahead of the competition is that you can open a doc via browser, edit it in MS Office and save direct to SkyDrive. Try doing this with Google Drive and it is just a disaster opening up the floor to all sorts of duplication issues as you have to download file, manually open document in MS Office, then save file locally, then upload back to Google Drive. Google Docs is very good for very simple documents but it runs out of steam very quickly.

Another great feature of SkyDrive and Windows Phone 8 is the option to automatically upload your pictures from phone to cloud. I used Dropbox to achieve this on Android and it is a fantastic feature knowing that every picture you take is backed up. The news is not so good for us at the moment though as Microsoft have restricted the quality to a heavily compressed version of the original, only the USA gets the ability to upload at full resolution at this stage. Hopefully this will change and in the meantime the workaround is relatively simple: setting your phone to USA region seems to bypass this limitation.

SkyDrive offers simple concise UI, No adverts
Cloud based document creation using a basic version of the familiar MS Office Suite via web browser on virtually any device
Seamless integration with MS Office on both Phone and Windows Desktop
Windows phone 8 offers automatic uploading of photos to SkyDrive

For me the transition to Windows Phone 8 was relatively simple, I retained my Gmail account as my primary email/calendar/contacts, I still have Google Chat via a 3rd party app, I migrated my personal Google Docs to SkyDrive, use InSync on my desktop and by placing a copy of GDocs within the local SkyDrive folder I have a partial solution in being able to access work GDoc's via Skydrive via the web. I lost a some of the Google integration features like adding GPS co-ordinates to meeting requests etc but overall I am not hugely disadvantaged by using a windows phone compared to an Android phone to access the Google ecosystem. Nokia maps and navigation get the job done, Bing search and voice control both offer similar levels of functionality to their Google counterparts.

I often found that with my Samsung Galaxy S III I always found a need to play with it, be it checking battery life, current ram usage, all sorts of things, mainly because I could. There was always a challenge to update to any new firmware and a far fetched dream of getting the latest version of Android on the handset. Android seemed to consume large chunks of my free time. Occasionally the phone misbehaved so I spent time trying to find the problem and fix it, be it a rogue app or app update or firmware issue.

The Nokia is a somewhat boring phone by comparison, day in day out it just keeps working, never missing a beat, just consistently doing what it does, I don't feel the need to constantly monitor it or massage extra performance out of it, it just does what it is intended to do and blends into my life, I can't really ask for more.
About the author

My name is Wade, I am probably best described as a slightly demanding tech savvy consumer who is fast approaching an age where one needs to start planning one's mid-life crisis. I'm a family man with two extraordinary daughters, as well as a fabulous and understanding (most of the time!) wife, hobbies include home theatre and car audio. work in supply chain within the manufacturing sector. I have a vested interest in simplifying and enriching both my work and personal lives through technology. I live in a household filled with the usual plethora of Apple devices however my weapon of choice has become Android and the Google ecosystem. Windows Phone is a somewhat unchartered territory for me. Having no prior experience with Windows Phone or SkyDrive, I am very much looking forward to immersing myself into this ecosystem and understanding how it stacks up for my needs.

Samsung Galaxy Note II – More Than Just A Giant Phone (part 2)

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:08 +1200

A few weeks on with the Samsung Galaxy Note II have done nothing but cement it as not just a viable smartphone, but an enjoyable one too.

Gaming

I am not a big gamer, but I do like to dabble, mainly in the popular-for-adults and popular-for-5-year-old type games - mainly Spy Mouse, Draw Something, Where's My Perry, Where's My Water, Angry Birds and a few others. Whilst trying to steer clear of reviewing individual games, I will say this about a few of them:

Draw Something is a completely different game to play with a stylus. The stylus on the Note 2 makes for an amazing gaming experience, beating finger-touch smartphones and tablets hands-down. All my playing partners regularly comment on my drawings since the Note 2 arrived.

Spy Mouse (and other similar games) are a joy on such a big screen - plenty of detail, lovely and bright, my 5 year old and my 3 year old love to sit with me and play these games, and a large screen really makes that much more comfortable, in terms of being able to maintain a longer viewing distance much more comfortably than a small screen.

Duke Nukem 3D and other 'bigger' games all come to life as well, with on screen controls not obliterating such a big area of the screen, leaving plenty of viewable square centimeters.

Camera

A lot of smartphone camera reviews will bore you to death with endless colour tone comparisons, and massively blown up enlargements showing you degradation in such detail that you would think it was a professional SLR camera review. The Note 2 camera is "great". It's up there with it's peers from both it's own Samsung stable, as well as HTC, Motorola, Apples iPhone, and 8MP Windows Phone devices. Hindered slightly by the lack of a dedicated camera button (so are many of its competitors), you will want to make sure that you have got shortcuts on your lock screen, and your home screen, to ensure quick access to the camera app.

Samsung's own camera app is a joy to use, with many of the features you would expect in a mid-range consumer point and shoot digital camera. Especially helpful is the ability for the camera to take a snap with a voice command, eliminated the fiddlyness of poking at a touchscreen in very bright sunlight, or from an odd angle - get your group together, and call out "SAY CHEESE" and the Note 2 will take your snap for you.

Extremely quick access through uncluttered toggles on the main camera screen to things like front/rear camera selection, flash on/off/auto, shooting mode (including Smile Shot & HDR), colour modification (Sepia, B&W, negative and more), and the main settings menu is great, although I would still like to see more smarts around the auto flash, as it tends to fire more often than it should, favouring a sharp image over the natural tones attainable in slightly lower light without flash.

With manual focus, ISO and WB controls, metering options, guidelines, GPS tagging and more, there is enough to satisfy the tinkerers.

Having said that, simply taking great photos, without getting bogged down it settings is nice and easy.

One of the great features here is the video camera - part of the same camera app, video can be shot in 1080p High Definition. Whilst not approaching the quality of dedicated digital HD video cameras or SLRs with HD video, the Note 2 is great for capturing family moments, kids sports or productions, or other random moments.

Where it suffers greatly is fast-moving (especially sideways) subjects, where despite smooth video, the moving subject itself may appear a little choppy. I first notice this effect when using the Note 2 as a dashboard event camera with the "Dailyroads Voyager" app from the Play Store.

Integration provided by apps like Dropbox are a great feature on Android, with all photos automatically syncing to a private folder in my Dropbox account, so no more syncing required. As soon as my phone is in a Wi-Fi zone, all my photos zip up to the cloud, and down to my laptop, without me having to do anything.

The final word on the camera is that for non-photography buffs, it is good enough to replace a compact digital point & shoot, if you don't do much zooming (the Note 2, and most smartphone cameras do not have optical zoom). Personally I really enjoy photography, and love using my Canon DSLR, but the Note 2 is the camera I am always carrying, so as the adage goes, it is in fact my best camera 99% of the time.

Audio

The audio quality of the Note 2 is excellent. Phone calls on Telecoms Smartphone Network are crisp and clear, the speaker in the earpiece has ample volume without distorting. Callers have reported excellent sound quality at their end too.

The microphone works well for phone calls (including Skype), or for recording voice, but like any smartphone, isn't suited to recording louder audio sources - e.g. acoustic guitar, where the audio become muffled and choppy as the volume of the audio source increased well beyond normal speaking volumes.

The speaker is on the lower back panel of the Note 2, and provides good quality audio at reasonable volumes. At night, as a low-volume bedside music source (I often use Pandora internet radio, and a sleep timer app), the quality is excellent - crisp and clear audio, with good range. However, music playback at normal daytime levels quickly degenerates into fairly typical smartphone territory - no bass, and a lack of depth to the music, so you will want to make use of the middle-of-the-road earphones that the Note 2 ships with - they are surprisingly comfortable, and as good as any $40 earphones you could buy separately).

As a speakerphone, the speaker performs well, and is clearly tuned to reproduce human voice frequencies well, and in a suitable windscreen mount, is perfectly usable as a speakerphone whilst driving, as tested in my Commodore (not know to have the most quiet of vehicle interiors).

With Bluetooth 4.0 on board, and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, there are plenty of options for good quality audio playback, I have the Note 2 paired to a Bluetooth audio adapter connected to my home stereo, allowing excellent quality music playback, with the Note 2 happily in my hand, in my pocket, or on the coffee table - at arms reach to tell Pandora how much I love Manic Street Preachers, or where they can politely put James Blunts rendition of Four Seasons In One Day (Crowded House).

I hope you enjoyed reading about something other than size, weight, and processing power. Keep checking back on the Telecom Tech Blog for further posts about Galaxy Note 2 features that matter.

About The Author

My name is Tony Hughes. I am an I.T. & telecommunications consultant based in Hawkes Bay. I am a musician, I love to play guitar (acoustic or electric), and enjoy playing the bass as well. I geek around with mobile devices, Ubuntu, Debian, the Raspberry Pi, Linux in general, and web technologies. I have an operating system installation habit of about one a week for which I do not require help. Just more operating systems.

Wade’s Lumia 920 wireless charging and camera impressions

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:28 +1200

Well we are now nearly a month down the track with this blog review series and I have to say I am liking this Nokia Lumia 920 more and more. I am still very much enjoying Windows Phone 8, the phone is behaving impeccably, battery life is outstanding - currently showing 31% battery left, time since last charge one day eight hours and under similar usage this far exceeds any of my previous smart devices.

Firstly I want to thank Telecom New Zealand for allowing me to part of this experience. Just when I think it couldn't get any better than being given a flagship handset for a brand new OS to trial, they come to the party with a Nokia DT-900 wireless charging plate.

Most will recall the pre-release hearsay gossip that the Apple iPhone 4S would have wireless charging, then along came the Samsung Galaxy S3 with a firm promise of a wireless charging option in the future, next was the Nexus 4 which while being QI wireless charging capable requires an optional third party charger, so to the best of my knowledge the Nokia is the first manufacturer (at least in the local market) to offer a handset capable of wireless charging as well as being able to supply a matching QI compatible wireless charger.

To be honest plugging a cord into a phone once every day or two isn't exactly a trying task so at a glance wireless charging sounded more of a novelty than a necessary technology but how wrong could I be! The action of just putting your phone down on to the charging plate as you would put your phone on the coffee table/kitchen bench/desk is a no brainer, it's not some sci-fi mumbo jumbo, it is a logical solution to an existing problem.

There's not much more to say other than this really is a compulsory buy for Lumia 920 owners plus it has a 6ft long cord which is most convenient. I should add that the charging plate appears as well built as the Lumia 920 with great attention to detail such as the rubber ring embedded in the top surface so that at no stage is there any potential for scratching of either the plate of the phone.

At present the #1 feature for me has to be the camera. Initially i thought its performance to be a bit lack lustre, maybe it was the Nokia marketing machine at play throwing around terms such as "Carl Zeiss Lens", "Pureview" and "Image stabilization", maybe I was expecting something beyond mind blowing. I am familiar with the camera performance of both the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Apple iPhone 4s and let's be honest both are very capable devices so maybe I was expecting too much out of a device that on the face of it is not hugely different.

Ironically the camera only started to strut its stuff for me when I was trying to take a pic of the Lumia 920 for my previous blog with my Galaxy S3. I must have taken some 30 odd pictures under all sorts of conditions to get a half decent close up of the Lumia 920. I then tried taking a picture of the Galaxy S3 using the Lumia 920 and got the pic I was originally after first time around. A few nights later we had the most incredible red sunset so I thought I would try and snap a pic of it. I couldn't believe the resulting picture it actually did the sunset some justice, for the next ten minutes I must have looked like a crazed tourist, no doubt the neighbours thought I was crazy!

The Lumia 920's low light capabilities are pretty darn good. Below is a side by side comparison between the iPhone 4S and the Lumia 920, both set to auto and no flash, no tricks. As you can see in the below photos the difference is huge:

For the average consumer this is probably all the camera they will ever need. In daylight it produces vibrant pictures with an almost HDR depth of colour. The Lumia 920 just seems to get it right even on the automatic settings so great photos are truly just a point and shoot exercise that anyone can achieve every time. I should also add that part of the hardware requirement for Windows Phone 8 is a dedicated shutter button which is a welcome blast from the past. Another noteworthy point is the position of the lens within the phones body, it is nicely away from the edge meaning you are far less likely to accidentally snap a pic with a corner of finger showing!

The menu structure is maybe overly simple and at a glance possibly appears lacking however it integrates seamlessly with "Lens" apps and the feature list soon starts looking a bit more complete, full resolution panoramas (which in practice works very well other than being having to take pictures left to right), or multi shoot with automatic best picture selection.

The best news is there is a looming update for the Lumia 920 which amongst other things addresses a couple of weaknesses with the camera (soft focus and backlight flaring) which means a great thing is only going to get better. Telecom, feel free to drop the Windows Phone Portico update on us sooner rather than later!!

Nakedmolerat’s Nokia Lumia 920: Nokia Apps (City Lens, Maps, Drive, Xpress)

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:32 +1200

Intro

One thing to note about Nokia Lumia 920, is that it also comes with Nokia apps. I have found them to be quite excellent. I would definitely miss the apps if I were to move to a different platform. Saying that, after 4 weeks of constant usage I do not see myself jumping ship. I will summarize my whole experience in the next post.

Nokia City Lens (augmented reality browser)

The first time I read about this, I thought it would be one of those 'novel' apps that are 'cool' but not useful at all. The way this app works is that it's like a scanner that shows you things that might be of interest around you. You can select to filter it to 'food', hotel etc.

This app uses your location/GPS to determine your location. Once the GPS is locked (not more than 15 secs), you hold your phone in front of you and move up/down/left/right to see whatever is ahead of you. If there are clusters of shops, touching (+) sign will zoom in. This app also tells you how far the location is from you. This is amazing! If you are in a town that you are not familiar with, this app will be really handy to have.

I met one of my old friends from university while in Hamilton. We decided to have Indian Food. My friend is new to Hamilton and I am also not familiar with that town. I fired up my internet explorer browser to search for a nearby Indian restaurant. It was then that I decided maybe I should give this app a try. Result?

Sorted! This app integrates really well with Nokia maps and gave us the direction to the caf?. Looking at the reviews on the internet, it also works really well overseas!

Nokia Maps (HERE)

Nokia Maps are nothing like Apple maps. The work was started way back in 2001. The maps had major improvements made after Nokia bought Navteq in 2007. I remember my first GPS capable phone which was the Nokia 6110 Navigator. At the time, I believe Nokia maps were way more advanced than Google maps. Hence, this is a great chance for me to see if Nokia maps have actually improved since 2007. The good thing about the maps is that they are offline and therefore there is no need for continuous data usage. I am aware that recent Google maps on android also offer users the option to cache the map for offline use.

Starting the app, you will be asked to download the maps that you would like to use. For New Zealand, the map size is around 60MB. Unfortunately, this map has to be downloaded via wifi. For some reason, it will not let you download over the regular 3G network. This is probably to avoid 'bill shock' due to excessive charges for data usage. Good on Nokia, although I would prefer to have the option to download anyway I like.

Nokia maps offer an extensive database of downloadable maps (95 countries on the list). One country of interest to me is Seychellessince we go there on holiday often. Unfortunately there is no map offering for Seychelles. I guess I have to use Google maps when I am there! (Please let me know in the comment section if you would like to know about map availability).

Starting up the map application, you have options to display map, satellite, public transport and traffic. I haven't tested this in Auckland but I think only the map and satellite will be of use to me. Searching place is easy and Nokia GPS works extremely well. Outside a building, it never takes more than 15 secs to acquire your position. The map itself is intuitive and not difficult to learn. Once you type the location, you have the option to start navigate. Again, this is straightforward.

Nokia Drive+ Beta

When navigating, you have the option to display the map in a landscape or portrait mode. The voice guidance is on par with a TomTom unit. It also informs you of the speed limit and warns you if you drive too fast. If you miss your turn, rerouting is instant and fantastic. As usual, the navigation offers options to prioritize distance, times or speed. There are options to save your favourite location, view in 2D/3D and the colour will change automatically at night and during day time.

Nokia Xpress

Unlike above, this app has got nothing to do with maps or navigation. This app was actually designed by Nokia to save data when browsing. It works similar to Opera mobile where the data will be compressed before being sent to your phone. Basically it is a browser that interacts with Nokia servers.

Starting the app, you will be greeted with Xpress Home. This is basically a shortcut of your common websites such as speed dial in Opera. You can search by typing word in the address field. One thing to note, you can always double tap on a word and search.

It will automatically show search results from Bing.

Swiping to the right will show search results on Wikipedia and Youtube.

One thing to note is the 'magazine' function. It basically downloads each topic/link and display the content of the website in a magazine style. Example is as per screenshot below. Geekzone was divided into a few different pages/headlines. You can see the rest of the story by clicking the link.

After a few days of usage, I saved 65% of my browsing data. That is huge! One thing I noted is that sometimes browsing using nokia xpress can be slightly slower than using a regular browser. I suspect this could be due to a number of factors. The data has to be compressed first and therefore it can take longer if the server itself is overloaded.

Summary:

Nokia City Lens is a wonderful idea. It turns out I used it more often than I thought I would. It is definitely a great app when you are in an unfamiliar town or when travelling overseas.
Nokia Maps did not suffer from teething issues and offline support is excellent. The coverage includes 95 countries and counting.
Nokia Drive+ is excellent. The ultimate question; do I see it replacing my trustworthy TomTom unit for navigation in NZ? The answer is YES! In fact, I will be removing the TomTom unit once I find a decent cradle for this phone.
Nokia Xpress is a great browser. It is really worthwhile to save the meagre mobile data allowance we have in New Zealand.

Samsung Galaxy Note II: More Than Just A Giant Phone

Wed, 9 Jan 2013 00:04 +1200

Thanks to Telecom New Zealand and Geekzone, I have had the opportunity to review the Samsung Galaxy Note II over the 2012 holiday period.

Most of the reviews and commentary I have seen about this handset really focus on it's 5.5" screen size and too-many-xmas-mince-pies weight, so instead of subjecting you to 'yet-another-blog-about-how-2-weeks-with-the-Note-II-makes-the-Galaxy-S3-seem-really-compact' (it does.) - I thought I'd focus on some other aspects that I haven't seen talked about too much.

Battery Life

The Samsung Galaxy Note II has simply amazing battery life. Some days have seen as little as 5% battery drop in a 24 period, including a few short phone calls, several text messages, a few emails, and a few web page views in the browser. Even taking into account the fact that the battery is significantly bigger than most other phones, the battery drain when idle is minimal (1% overnight with flight mode on). The best I managed with my Galaxy S3 was about 3% per hour.

Without even trying, and with regular usage, I have gone four days and nights without charging the Note. This will of course depend on your individual usage, and the signal strength in your area. I live in Hawkes Bay, and Telecom coverage is superior here, especially as where there is Telecom coverage, it is always decent 3G coverage.

I think that as well as the bigger battery, Samsung - the hardware maker, and Google - the operating system maker, have really put in the effort to be frugal with battery use.

Gone are the days of "I have a smartphone so I am going to have to charge up again after 5pm if I need my phone tonight".

I am happily using my phone as normal, and going two or three days without charging, and still having enough battery life to take photos of the kids, or check directions when out and about.

The User Interface

TouchWiz is the customized user interface (or 'skin') that Samsung puts on its Android handsets. It gets a bad rap from a significant portion of the modding community, but to be fair, I think it does a good job of taking the clean-and-crisp-but-tailored-to-geeks standard Android UI, and making it friendly to use for non-geeks.

I think it's easy to lose sight that by far, the market for these devices is not dominated by tech-heads who demand every last drop of performance, or the most-stripped-back UI for that faux-geek kudos, but in fact it is dominated by regular people, who aren't necessarily computer enthusiasts. TouchWiz is for them (and me! I like it on the Note II).

Regular folk won't even really know what TouchWiz is, which probably marks its success. Anyone who already knows they don't like it probably has the ability and desire to try a different ROM or launcher.

The TouchWiz interface is 'nice'. I'm not going to say it's the best out there, but it isn't ugly, and it IS useful. Add to that, the specific features of the Galaxy series - like the S Pen, multi-view, floating video window, and Samsung has delivered a product that works extremely well as-is. That's the real clincher for me - the out of the box experience has been awesome.

Sliding your finger down from the top of the screen reveals the typical shortcuts to turn various features on or off, including Wi-Fi, 3G, email syncing and more, and being able to easily control screen brightness.

My only customization to the phone so far is installing my favorite games and apps, including "Tasker", from the Play Store.

Tasker allows me to do lots of different things, but because I don't use my phone at night, I have Tasker turn all the notifications off from 11pm until 6am. Additionally, it detects if I have plugged the phone in overnight or not, and if not, it puts the phone in airplane mode for that 7-hour period, saving a few more precious % of battery life.

Samsung's lock-screen still leaves a bit to be desired, it is rather plain, and the ability to customize the shortcut icons is there, but not as easily accessible as you might expect. A lock screen app like Widget-Locker will allow you to build a much prettier and more functional lock screen that can display widgets and icons to your liking.

Ultimately, Android, including TouchWiz, is very customizable, and you can put what you want on your home screens. I'll cover some useful apps and widgets in further blogs.

I'll be keeping TouchWiz.

It Just Works

I can't believe how little I have changed on this phone.

If you know me from the Geekzone forums, or in person, you will know I usually tinker with my phones, but the Galaxy Note II seems to mark a milestone for Samsung, in that the performance of the phone is brilliant out of the box, the functionality of the phone is brilliant out of the box, and there is very little to be gained by messing around with the operating system.

Having said that, "Dear Samsung & Google, please take the most popular 'root' applications like Titanium Backup and SetCPU, and provide sanctioned access to that functionality, without gaining root access to the device."

I hope you enjoyed reading about something other than size, weight, and processing power. Keep checking back on the Telecom Tech Blog for further posts about Galaxy Note 2 features that matter.

About The Author

My name is Tony Hughes. I am an I.T. & telecommunications consultant based in Hawkes Bay. I am a musician, I love to play guitar (acoustic or electric), and enjoy playing the bass as well. I geek around with mobile devices, Ubuntu, Debian, the Raspberry Pi, Linux in general, and web technologies. I have an operating system installation habit of about one a week for which I do not require help. Just more operating systems.

Nakedmolerat’s Nokia Lumia 920: Windows Phone OS, Kid’s Corner, Speech

Thu, 3 Jan 2013 03:31 +1200

Intro

One thing about the Windows Phone is that I never thought that the tiles concept could actually work. Unlike Android, the interface can be overwhelming if you are not used to a smartphone. With Android each manufacturer has their own 'skin'. For example HTC has HTC-sense and Samsung has Touchwiz. This type of customization means that phone owners using different manufacturers' products will have different experiences. It also contributes to 'slow' and staggering updates. On Windows Phone the user interface is similar between different devices from different manufacturers.

Tiles

Once the phone is set-up, you will see various blue tiles on the screen. Some of the tiles are animated. For example 'People' will show pictures of your contacts randomly. These tiles are actually a 'shortcut' for each app, contact, etc. How to put these tiles on your start screen? From the app list, you press and hold. It will offer you the option to 'pin to Start'. The colour of all the tiles is set in the settings - Theme. Unfortunately you are not able to set each separate tile to different colours.

Some tiles can be 'live'. The live tiles concept is different from the Android widget where you can see continuous updates. The Windows phone 'live' tiles will only update every 30 minutes. For example the app that shows battery percentage will not show the correct percentage until the update is due. However, you can always 'force' an update by opening up the app itself. Since the tiles are only a 'shortcut', you don't have the ability to toggle Wifi/Bluetooth/GPS switch while on the start screen. This is something that you have to get used to if you move from Android.

The Windows phone tile can be resized to 3 different sizes: square, square x 4, square x 8

By swiping the screen to the right, you will see the app list. It can be scrolled up and down. Clicking on the letter box, will bring up lists of alphabets that act as a shortcut to your apps. One thing for new users to note is that your 'games' will not appear on this list. Instead, you have to select 'Games' which will open a new 'games' screen.

Lastly, you have settings. This can be selected from the app list and it will show you all available settings. The settings are designed to be incredibly easy to understand.

One thing to note is that Windows Phone 8 offers unique features that allow your children to use your phone safely. This is the Kid's Corner

Kid's Corner

You can enable Kid's Corner by going to Settings |- Kid's Corner | On/Off. You can then select which apps are available in that area.

Once set, you can access this by swiping from the Lock Screen to the left side. Normally you swipe upwards in order to unlock your phone.

Example of my Kid's Corner:

What is limited in kid's corner?

Internet Explorer disabled (no web access).
No in-app purchases can be made unless you setup a PIN to your wallet.
Your child is not able to access your regular apps or settings.
Clicking in-app links will open up internet explorer and you can navigate by clicking further links but the address bar is disabled.
No calls or text messaging allowed.
Bing search button (bottom right) is also disabled.
Volume is limited to 20 instead of the usual 30.

You are still able to customize the tiles in kid's corner.

This is a brilliant idea. No bill shocks and no more having to 'reconfigure' your phone after a few minutes in your child's hands. Unfortunately, the Lumia 920 is not waterproof. So you might want to make sure those little hands are dry and clean!

Speech

One feature of the Windows Phone that most impressed me is the voice assist ala Apple 'Siri' or Samsung 'S-Voice'. Holding the windows button for 2-3 seconds will make the phone ready for voice instructions. Prior to that, you will need to install speech language (different from the language setting you did at the beginning of setting up the phone). This has to be done via Settings | Speech. For English, you have three options:

English (India)
English (United Kingdom)
English (United States)

I use English (United Kingdom). This seems to work better with my accent.

As per the pictures above, you can set the phone to play audio for confirmation. I found this extremely useful when replying text messages while driving. Incoming text messages can be played to Bluetooth, Headsets or Wired Headsets.

When I first received this Nokia Lumia 920, I hadn't read about the speech capability of Windows Phone 8. I did play with the settings prior to that. I found them too simple and I didn't expect it to function well. I was out driving and all of a sudden my car stereo stopped and the Lumia informed me that I had a text message. It asked if I would like it to be read or ignore. The phone was connected via Bluetooth.

Once done, it automatically asked me if I would like to reply, do nothing or re-read the text again. I chose reply. You can start replying to the text. It will stop after a certain length and ask if you would like to add more, send the text message or start your text from scratch again. I found this great and easy to use. I was able to reply a few of my texts with no difficulty while driving around town that day.

An example of the instructions is in the screenshot below. It turns out that some apps can utilize this exceptional speech programme. Surprisingly, you can also use speech while on the call with someone!

The phone integration with Microsoft One Note allows you to dictate a note-taking. All you have to do is to say 'note' and your message thereafter. This is extremely useful if you need to jot down points after a phone conversation.

Summary

The phone O/S is simple and incredibly easy to learn. Great for someone who is new to the smartphone scene and wants something that 'just' works.
Tiles are great but maybe the live tiles concept can be made similar to the android widget.
Tiles customization should be improved so that users can set different colours or sizes.
Kid's corner is a great innovation.
Speech is one of the best features I came across. For some reason, the Android phones that I have used did not offer a speech feature as great as the Windows Phone.

Nakedmolerat’s Nokia Lumia 920 impressions

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:40 +1200

Intro

First, thanks to Geekzone and Telecom New Zealand for choosing me to participate in this Blog. I am extremely excited about this opportunity. I never thought that I would be selected as there are others on Geekzone that are more 'geeky' than me. Most of my IT knowledge is self-taught. I don't have any formal training in IT.

I shall introduce myself. I work in the health sector. I use my phone mainly for calls, txt, email, browsing and certain apps related to my work. Occasionally I do play games and I take photos.

I have been using Android for some time now. It started with an HTC magic back in 2009. I have been using a few other Android-based smartphones from different manufacturers since then. Currently I am using Galaxy Note but I also have a Motorola Defy and Samsung Galaxy Nexus as backups. I don't have much experience with IPhone / iOS though.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is my first Windows Phone device. In this post, I am only going to highlight interesting points from my viewpoint. Please write in the comment section if you have specific questions.

Unboxing

I received my Nokia Lumia 920 about a week ago. The phone comes with white wall charger and USB cable. It also comes with a headphone, manual and SIM key to unlock the micro SIM card slot. My first impression of the phone. WOW!

I have always been impressed with Nokia products. I think Nokia is synonym with phones that are long-lasting, tough and durable. The Nokia design team is highly respectable and they are known to push the limits. The Nokia Lumia 920, one-piece monoblock polycarbonate body is such an exceptional design. The phone feels premium in hand. At the back, the 8.7MP camera is detailed with ceramic zirconium.

Main specifications:

4.5" Display size, IPS
Aspect ratio: 15:9
332 pixel per inch(ppi) (to put this into perspective, iphone 5 has 326 ppi)
Storage: 32 GB, not expandable
2000mAh battery with standby 460 hour on 3G (Telecom smartphone network is 100% 3G), 74 hour music playback
Front / Rear facing camera

Head onto Nokia site for details (www.nokia.com/nz-en/products/phone/lumia920/specifications). The Nokia Lumia costs NZ$ 999 (if you are getting it upfront, without any network contracts).

Mobile Network

This phone supports:

Quadband GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
Pentaband WCDMA (850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100)
Pentaband LTE (800 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600)

This means you can use this phone on ANY network in New Zealand (ie. Telecom New Zealand, Vodafone New Zealand, 2Degrees) and pretty much everywhere throughout the world. On top of that, this phone also supports DC-HSDPA. Theoretically you can approach download speed of 42Mbit/s. This is double the maximum theoretical speed of ADSL2+!

LTE is just 'warming' up in NZ. There is some discussion on Geekzone forums with regards to this. Telecom and Vodafone are on top gear getting their 4G network ready. This means the Nokia Lumia 920 is a future-proof phone. Once the 4G switch is turned on, your Nokia Lumia 920 should be able to give you access to that part of the network data service.

Display

The phone display is spectacular. Personally, I have not yet come across any phone that produces a crystal clear image. Side by side comparison to my android collections, Nokia Puremotion HD+ display beat them all. This Puremotion technology in Lumia allows 2.5x faster response time for individual pixel compared to standard IPS displays. Because of this, it enables the refresh rate of 60Hz. As far as I know, there is no other phone that has a refresh rate this high.

The display is bright and I can actually read it right under the sun in the middle of the afternoon. Thanks to Clear Black Display technology and sunlight readability enhancements.

One more thing to note, the screen is ultra-sensitive. In the menu below, you can set the sensitivity to high. What it means is that you can use gloves or even fingernail to scroll. This would be useful during the winter!

Dedicated Button & Ports

Facing the phone, on the left side, there is no side key. On the right hand side, there are volume rocker, power/lock/unlock and dedicated camera button. Pressing the camera button for 2 seconds will bring the phone straight into the camera app when locked even if your phone is password protected.

Top part, there is a headphone jack and noise cancelling microphone. For the bottom part, you have stereo speakers and micro USB jack in between. Three specific touch buttons at the bottom of the screen:

Left arrow - Back, but if you press and hold, it will bring you to the recent running apps. Unlike Android, you are unable close these running apps by swiping.

Windows - Bring you into the main screen / Tiles

Zoom - straight into Bing search and also gives you choice to scan QR codes and Microsoft Tags.

Soft Reset (if the phone froze)

Press and hold the power button and volume down button for 10 seconds. You will feel that the phone vibrates and automatically reboots. You will not lose your apps or settings.

Hard Reset - everything will be deleted, back to factory state.

Hold the volume down, power button and camera button until you can feel the phone vibrating. Quickly release the power button but keep the volume down and camera button for a further 5 seconds.

If you can reboot the phone normally, hard reset can be done by going to [Settings] - [About] - [Reset Your Phone].

Camera

Smartphone cameras are now an integral part of our life. The Nokia Lumia 920 main camera sports 8.7 MP and Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. The maximum resolution can be as high as 3552 x 2448 pixels. The short pulse high power dual LED flash can function as far as 300 cm. The secondary/front facing camera produces a picture resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels.

One thing to note is the camera also uses Nokia PureView camera technology. This is the same technology as Nokia PureView 808 that can take 41 MegaPixel picture. One can expect excellent quality.

Setting up

Please note that my phone is from Telecom NZ. Turning up the screen, you will be greeted with the infamous blue Telecom Logo. Other than this customized start-up screen, there is no other obvious Telecom brandishing stuff on the phone.

The setting up is outrageously simple. The phone offers multiple languages. After that it will guide you step by step. They have made it really simple for new users by offering 'recommended' vs 'custom' settings. Each setting has short explanation about what it does.

Once done, you will see blue coloured tiles and a greeting text message from Windows Phone.

Summary

The phone is gorgeous.
Puremotion HD+ display, 60Hz refresh rate, 332 ppi make Lumia 920 the phone with the best display out there.
Elegant camera.
The phone design is simple, dedicated camera button is a great idea.
Easy to setup - no prior smartphone knowledge is required.

In a next post I will explore the Windows Phone operating system.

About the author

Hi, my name is Fergus. I am a big fan of the nakedmolerat character in Kim Possible - Rufus. I work in the health sector. I am also a volunteer firefighter when I am not working. I started using computers when I was five years old. I am the 'guy' that family and friends approach when they have issues with their computers. I am also an Android fanboy (Yes! I believe Android will takeover the world soon). It was such a great opportunity when Telecom New Zealand and Geekzone offered me to be one of the Nokia Lumia 920 / Windows Phone reviewers. I hope my reviews are helpful to the readers.

Nokia Lumia 920 and wireless charging

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 03:32 +1200

When Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 920 they also introduced wireless charging, a feature that makes charging a mobile phone as easy as leaving it on the table.

Basically Nokia has announced a series of accessories that will either charge the Nokia Lumia handsets or charge and perform other functions, such as work as a speaker set or NFC tag.

This is the Nokia Charging Plate DT-900. You plug it to the wall and any time you drop your Nokia Lumia 920 on the charging plate it will start charging. No mess plugging and unplugging cables from the phone.

Nokia wireless chargers are compatible with Qi inductive power standard. Devices can be charged up to 4cm from one another. It's pretty much the same principle used in some electrical toothbrushes you can find in your supermarket. Other smartphone manufacturers also support the Qi standard, including HTC, Samsung, LG.

Here is my Nokia Lumia 920 charging wirelessly. It even works through the Otterbox Commuter case I put it on:

From my experience charging time seems to be similar to what I'd get if using a USB wall charger.

Wireless charging is a feature on Nokia Lumia 920. If you have a Nokia Lumia 820 you can use an optional Nokia charging shell, replacing the original backing of your smartphone to achieve the same results.

Wade’s first Nokia Lumia 920 experience

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:48 +1200

Let me start by providing a bit of background on me. I discovered Android a couple of years ago and it just hit the spot, the options were limitless, there were apps and mods available that just made life easy. Owning a Samsung Galaxy S2 then S3 and frequenting technology forums soon had me addicted to tweaking, modifying and flashing custom ROMs, always trying to achieve the best possible user experience. Coupled with this I work for a typically large global corporation who took the interesting position of adopting Google Mail as it's mail system globally. I suppose to a degree I would consider myself a bit of a Google power user as I am using its services extensively in a corporate environment and on a daily basis. An Android handset therefore provides me a very powerful business tool.

I was invited to try the Nokia Lumia 920 on Telecom New Zealand and I entered into this Windows Phoneexperience as a somewhat biased fandroid, with no prior knowledge of or interest in Windows Phone, and an expectation that it would feel well short of my requirements. In some aspect I almost felt guilt that I was potentially robbing this experience from a true Windows Phone fan. A week into my journey with the Telecom supplied Nokia Lumia 920 and I am absolutely loving the Windows Phone 8 provided by the Telecom Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone.

Out of the box this is a very manly phone, It is big, it is weighty, it definitely makes an impression. The design cues stem from the 'less is more' philosophy, the single piece polycarbonate body provides a clean, simple visual whilst providing a very solid feel. After using a white phone for the last 6 months the satin black finish is a welcome change.

This phone ships with one of the tidiest USB AC chargers I have ever seen. Nokia have beaten Apple at their own game, the charger is tiny, the USB cable is long and feels superior to what we have come to expect. One does have to ask the question though, why Nokia do you ship a black phone with a white charger and USB cable? The micro-sim tray will look very familiar to Apple users, as it resides in the top of the phone and requires a special tool (included) to pop the sim tray out but again some engineering excellence is highlighted as the tray design makes loading and containing the sim a very simple task.

Powering up the phone for the first time I had no idea what to expect, I had never so much as held a Windows Phone device let alone used one. Given I have had reasonable experience with Android and the Google eco-system I figured there would be some element of similarity so had already created a Microsoft Live account in anticipation. One aspect I did not expect to be so easy was integrating non-Windows accounts, after signing into my windows live account I connected two Gmail accounts, Facebook and LinkedIn also. This seamlessly integrated contacts and calendars into the native apps so literally within a few minutes I was up and operational and connected to the world. It couldn't be simpler.

Navigating through the menus you soon realize that this is a very different experience to Android or iOS and in some aspects it seems devoid of features and setup options, but then it hits you, the integration and the theming and how it ties the OS and all its apps together. Each app follows a consistent and standard layout all with similar theming, this all combines to provide a stunningly integrated and consistent user experience.

Three key social media apps, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, have a fluidity and simplicity has to be experienced to fully appreciate. Another app that demonstrates this fluidity of design and function is the NZ Herald app, it just works.

I have only began to scratch the surface with regards to the capabilities and functionalities of both Windows Phone 8 and the Nokia Lumia 920. The impressive camera, Office integration, Skydrive cloud storage, but will leave this for future blogs.

Another surprise worthy of mention is the battery, I am consistently getting over a days use per charge which to compare with my S3 in a similar usage pattern was struggling to get more than 16 hours. Overnight the battery barely registers a drop even over a six or seven hour period and this is with two email accounts running in the background. You just use this phone, you don't need to monitor usage to control battery life.

Another pleasant surprise (coming from a Galaxy S3) is the time required to charge the battery, I have not measured time required but suffice to say it would be half the time required to the S3 (which takes an exceptionally and painfully long time!)

Of course Windows Phone 8 is not perfect, the number of apps available in the app store highlights that it is an operating system still in its infancy. A bugbear for me is the notifications/tones options are relatively limited, you can apply custom ringtones but not custom email or messaging tones, also there is no independent control of volumes. I am also missing a few of the automation/productivity type apps of which I was spoilt for choice with Android. This however does lead me to some questions I have asked myself repeatedly throughout the week, do I actually need the customization that Android offers? Is it a need or a want? Does it cause more problems than it provides solutions? What is the ultimate combination of smart devices?

In rounding off this blog there is one aspect above all else that the Nokia Lumia 920 has reinforced to me over this past week and that is that it is a truly fantastic phone, putting aside that it is a very capable smart device, it is also a truly fantastic phone. In a time before smartphones being as common place as they are today, Nokia was probably the brand that most of us were most familiar with, there were few if any phones that offered that combination of call clarity, strong reception and long battery life that Nokia did so well.

The Nokia Lumia 920 looks to continue this tradition being most pleasant to actually talk on and use as a conventional phone, something often overlooked in the tech specs race. Coupled with my move across to the Telecom $59 Open Smartphone plan with 500 anytime minutes I have found myself in a position where I have plentiful minutes plus a great phone so I am tending to ring people where previously I would have just sent a text or email.

About the author

My name is Wade, I am probably best described as a slightly demanding tech savvy consumer who is fast approaching an age where one needs to start planning one's mid-life crisis. I'm a family man with two extraordinary daughters, as well as a fabulous and understanding (most of the time!) wife, hobbies include home theatre and car audio. work in supply chain within the manufacturing sector. I have a vested interest in simplifying and enriching both my work and personal lives through technology. I live in a household filled with the usual plethora of Apple devices however my weapon of choice has become Android and the Google ecosystem. Windows Phone is a somewhat unchartered territory for me. Having no prior experience with Windows Phone or SkyDrive, I am very much looking forward to immersing myself into this ecosystem and understanding how it stacks up for my needs.

Let’s Go: a week with a Nokia Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:13 +1200

Right, full disclosure first: I work for Telecom New Zealand. Don't panic though, I actually earn my keep in the digital experience team, and a big part of what I do is keeping up with how people interact with technology and how those interactions can be made more intuitive and human-focussed. So I was very keen to see how Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 stacked up against Android and iOS and also to see Nokia's new premium Lumia line in action. The guys here were very explicit about making this piece unbiased, so all these opinions and the weird grammar are completely mine.

Now, this won't be an exhaustive feature review and there'll be a bare minimum of spec-talk - mainly because I figure there's plenty of other sites (including Nokia and Telecom) that'll handle all that better than I can.

Instead I'm going to focus on how this new phone and operating system combo behaves in New Zealand, on a New Zealand mobile network, in the hands of a Kiwi and what were the things about the whole experience that I reckon you'd like to know if you're in the market for a new superphone.

Industrial Design

Let's kick off with the outside. A polycarbonate monobody means there's no case joins to detract from the uber-onesie-ness, and the rounded sides means there's no sharp edges to dig into your palm. The edges of the screen are curved as well; they fade softly into the main body. This curve isn't just for design aesthetics, either: a common interaction in Windows Phone is a sideways swipe to navigate between tabs, and Nokia researched that it just feels better when your finger meets a curved surface instead of a hard edge or plane - how's that for attention to detail?

OK, so the phone looks great and is suitably touchy-feely, but how does it stand up to real-world use? Well, Nokia's put some next-level materials in the game here. The physical buttons and the camera strip on the reverse are made from ceramic zirconium, which resists scratches like your dinner plate shrugs off your knife and fork. The Gorilla Glass used on the screen is already well-known for taking an "is that the best you can do?!" stance against even those punishing keys and coins in your pocket or handbag, and the rest of the phone is polycarbonate with colour fused all the way through it - not just surface-coating here. All these materials not only feel great (they're warm, not cold), but the visible effects of any dings or scratches are hugely reduced, so it should look great for longer.

Weight

Talking about someone's weight behind their back is generally considered a bit rude, but in the Lumia 920's case it's a hot topic that a lot's been written about already, so I've left mine in the other room while we chat about this. (We'll just whisper, OK?)

I did some quick informal surveys and the feedback from people who held the Lumia 920 for the first time ranged from "it's a lot heavier than my phone" and "I wouldn't want to get caught up-side the head with it" to "hey, it feels like a real phone" and "premium".

Personally, my first impression was "heavy" but, after using it for a week, I now describe it as "reassuringly solid" and I don't notice the weight any more. The best way I can describe my perception change is like this: remember when you agonised over the size of your first big-screen TV? When you rationalised picture size against cost, and 'significant other' acceptance factor against credibility with your mates? And you at last made your choice and grinned like a happy idiot when it was finally installed? But then 2 weeks later you were sitting there and you realised, "Yeah, I could've gone bigger..."? Well, the Lumia 920's weight is like that: after a few days you just wonder what all the fuss was about.

I know, that's just one more opinion, when what you're really thinking is "But will *I* think it's too heavy?".

Well, we're all about practical advice around here, so I present to you the Authorised Lumia Offline Heft Approximisator (ALOHA, patent pending): grab some spare change, some sticky-tape and your current mobile then find out your current mobile's weight (GSM Arena is useful). The Lumia 920 weighs 185g so if that's heavier than your mobile then work out the weight difference. Then stick a close-enough combo of coins (the Reserve Bank says a 20c piece weighs 4g, 50c is 5g, $1 is 8g, $2 is 10g) to the back of your mobile and bam!, your mobile is now the same weight as a Lumia 920. No, it's not the classiest of looks, I'll grant you, but give it a couple of days and see if you can deal with the weight or if you start walking in circles because you're now leaning to one side.

By the way, think twice before assuming you'll need to add a case protector to the Lumia 920; it seems to have one of the toughest exteriors around. Much like a great Bond film it's been hit with a mallet and slashed with a knife, plus run over by a car and tossed 3 stories high to land on asphalt and after all that it just strolled away with not much more than a minor flesh wound. (Your mileage could vary, and I'm not game enough to repeat this one!)

User Interface

From an interaction design perspective, I think the Modern UI is a great-looking visual style system. It's won't be for everyone but if you're over the visual clutter of icons and wallpapers and buttons and menus that some other mobile operating systems use then this'll be like an oasis in the desert. It's not so much that everything unnecessary has been stripped away, more that a blank page was the starting point and then every element that was added had to fight for its life to stay there. Once you know the basic interactions, you get a sense that if something isn't easy to find then it probably isn't there; the UI doesn't make you feel foolish for not knowing lots of secret handshakes. I liked:

The People Hub.Scratch the 'like', I love this. The People Hub pulls all communications together and can show them by person so you can see "what's Maverick been up to" at a glance instead of having to open up individual apps to learn "what did Maverick post on Facebook, what did Maverick text me, has Maverick emailed me, what's Maverick tweeted". Hubs instead of apps is a radical shift, but it's one that (for me) feels far more friendly and intuitive.
Animations.I won't describe all these, because if you end up getting a Windows Phone then these design touches are wonderful to stumble across. Icons rotate smoothly as you change the orientation of the phone, the 'More' ellipsis is a great and consistent way to help people learn icons while not cluttering the display for experts, menu list items twist slightly as you touch them, and lots more. It's details like these that give the UI a polished, premium feel. Plus animations on the Lumia 920 are so smooth thanks to the Lumia 920's 60Hz screen refresh rate; the tight integration between UI, OS and hardware is literally visible.
Adaptive application menu. Initially the application menu is just a straight list but once the number of apps in the list goes above 40, Windows Phone automatically adds letter headings and separates all apps into sections based on the initial letter. Any letter heading can be touched to bring up a shortcut alphabet index list. It's a really nice touch but it also reveals some design philosophy: that Windows Phone adapts to you and your behaviour.

Interactions

There's a shedload of interactions in a large operating system like Windows Phone, so I'll just touch on a couple that are different to their counterparts on other mobile OSs. I liked:

Dictation and voice control.I found the vocal command parsing to be as good as Google (though perhaps a little slower), and I had far better success than with Siri on iOS, who I always had to put some kind of weird accent on for. (Maybe that's just me, though...)
Camera trigger.One of the smartest things about Windows Phone is all phones have to have a dedicated camera button so the camera can be quickly activated even if the phone is locked or asleep. Your risk of missing that photo op is greatly reduced.
Copy and paste. It just works. And it looks darn good doing it. The cursor even locks itself to a spot about 1cm above your finger-tip so as you move your finger around you can see exactly where the cursor is without having to peer around your finger - genius. My one niggle is I don't seem to be able to copy part of a text message, I have to copy the whole thing and then delete the bits I don't want. Hopefully that's an easy future enhancement.

Onscreen keyboard. It's fast and uncluttered. I turned off suggestions to get more screen real estate and I find I do miss Android's Swype (so handy when walk-messaging). One puzzler is there's no '.co.nz' button on the email/URL keyboard, instead there's a '.co.uk' button and '.co.nz' isn't even in the fly-out options. I'm hoping a future patch might alter the button to reflect the country/language chosen in the 'Browser and Search language' setting but given our population it might take all of us to get some attention for this one!

Technology

Let's chat about some of the Lumia 920's techno-innards and specifically how they work in New Zealand. There'll be no CPU or RAM benchmarks here, instead I thought I'd go into a couple of lesser-sung heroes that I was a fan of:

Battery Saver is in the Settings menu. It seems to function a lot like Juice Defender on Android but with a trigger threshold: when the battery level hits 20% the system turns off notifications and email auto-updates to really stretch out that last 20%. The effect is that instead of the battery depleting by 10% overnight, when Battery Saver was activated it only reduced by 4-5%, so it's a great feature if you're away from a charger.

The camera is definitely a superb feature of the Lumia 920. Songs will be written in its honour, I'm sure. Nokia has also released some great camera apps exclusive to the Lumia range (check out PhotoBeamer) that you won't get on other Windows Phone devices, too.
GPS uses satellites to determine your location and Nokia Maps uses that to map where you are. So far, so same-old. But then the wow-factor arrived: I was walking and it was tracking me. I'm not just talking about a marker being updated every few seconds; I moved a step, it moved a sub-pixel (the map was zoomed-in). No joke, it actually felt like I had my own satellite watching me - it was both very impressive and slightly unnerving at the same time. It's a great example of hardware working superbly with both the operating system and application layers.

DC-HSDPA is a new technology that Telecom is currently rolling out to its Smartphone Network, to enable faster data download speeds. The key bits in that unwieldy acronym are 'DC' for 'Dual Carrier' and the other 'D' is for 'Downlink' and means a compatible mobile device can ask the network for double the normal data connections to boost its download speed. So does the Lumia 920 support DC-HSDPA, I hear you ask? Why, yes. Yes, it does. DC-HSDPA is still being rolled out around the country so coverage is increasing as I type, but I did some tests at Telecom Place and a couple of spots around the Auckland CBD to see what's possible with the Lumia 920 and this network upgrade. There's no Speedtest.net app for Windows Phone yet, so I ran the Speedtest.net app on an iPad 3 connected to the Lumia 920 using its Wi-Fi internet sharing feature. Even with the overhead of that translation and extra step in the mix, the results were impressive:

Room for improvement

But it's not all rainbows and fluffy bunnies, there are still some teething issues to work through:

The Windows Phone Store needs some more apps. If you're an app-fiend, this is probably the thing that'll give you the most disappointment initially. The good news is almost all the heavy-hitters are available and this is a fast-growing area, plus there's an online tool to help you find Windows Phone equivalents for your favourite apps. One note is there seems to be a 'store' for each country, which means you only see reviews/ratings from people in your country. That's useful if the app has local content, but in a small country like ours a small sample size also means it can be hard to see which apps are popular or good.
The time stamps on incoming text messages appear as if they're arriving from 13 hours in the future. This can cause a couple of "what the...?" moments initially, especially for texts received in the afternoon since they show with tomorrow's date, but it's not a huge problem once you know about it. It's a known bug and a software fix is coming soon.
Text messages arrive with the sending mobile's number in the format +64271234567 but phone calls arrive with a number format of 0271234567. This means for callerID to work properly you currently need to store phone numbers in both formats, or you won't consistently see which of your contacts is calling/texting you. The good news is this bug is known to both Microsoft and Nokia and a fix is coming in mid-late December through Nokia Care Direct if you need it urgently, and Over-The-Air in early 2013.
There's a few other minor things I'd personally change, but they're far from earth-shattering and I'd feel pretty mean to pick on them; it's easy to forget this is basically v1 of a new operating system, while Android and iOS have each had over half a dozen major releases to fix little niggles. A good resource to see what suggestions have already been requested is the Windows Phone User Voice feedback site.

My Verdict

Overall, I've thoroughly enjoyed my initial experience with both Windows Phone 8 and Nokia's Lumia 920 - I can definitely see why they're so popular and I'm looking forward to putting the wireless chargers through their paces when they arrive.

The Lumia 920 hardware is solid (in every sense of the word) and has oomph to burn - I don't think it really needed to get out of first gear when I was testing it. Its size and weight mean it won't be for everyone but if it fits you then you'll be rewarded with a powerhouse of premium kit.

As for Windows Phone, the apps store is still very young compared to Android and iOS, but it's growing the fastest and I think the ecosystem has exciting potential thanks to tight integration with Microsoft's other properties like Xbox, Office, SkyDrive, Skype, Surface and Windows 8.

If you're looking for your first smartphone then I'd encourage you to play with a Windows Phone to see whether the minimalistic "people-focused" interface works for you as well as it did for me. Equally, if you're a power smartphone-user who's open-minded about trying something different to your current mobile operating system, then this one may take some adjusting to, but once you do I think you'll find it hard to go back.

About the author

Hi, I'm Crispin. By day I'm a UX specialist for Telecom's Digital team, so I look after big web projects and help make them awesome for our visitors. By night, I set morality aside and fight crim... errr, I mean I help small businesses with technology support on everything from Bluetooth headsets to NASs to backup strategies. HTPCs are a hobby and the proportion of electronic devices in my home vs 'dumb' ones makes it increasingly likely I'll be an early target for our new robot overlords. I lived in Wellington for 5 years and I'm now based in Auckland with two very determined yukka plants, a large electricity bill and a countdown to the next international film festival.

Android Mobile Software Update FAQ

Thu, 2 Aug 2012 04:21 +1200

We wanted to give some background on software updates we roll out to our Android handsets. We often field complaints that our update process is slower than expected, so we wanted to lift the lid and explain the approach we take.

Why test updates, can’t you just release them?
We won’t push any software updates out to customers that aren’t 100% tested and working on the smartphonetwork.

In a nut shell, we believe that thoroughly and rigorously testing software updates means a better customer experience, with less issues. It also means:

Bugs in your mobile can be avoided
We minimise the number of phones returned to our service centre for repairs(half of all handset returns are for software issues)
You’re less likely to need to call us for help

We work with handset manufacturers in the testing process – it’s a very honest working relationship. Telecom, the particular handset manufacturer, and Google, in their role as Android developers, are all part of the approval and sign off processes for each software update.

Why does testing take so long?
The first step is obtaining a stable version of the software from the handset manufacturer to test. Early versions of software releases are often developer-orientated, and whilst contain new feature can contain a number of bugs. There are times during our testing processes that we identify issues that are likely to give customers an unsatisfactory experience. When this occurs we notify the handset manufacturer and wait until a resolution is available.

We only reject software if testing shows it’s likely to impact our customers or the network. That said, the true test of course is when it’s in customer hands – everyone uses their smartphone differently.

What’s involved in testing?
We receive a test version of the software update after the manufacturer has carried out their internal quality checks. We then run a full set-up of tests, concentrating on the defects the software is resolving. We will then run a regression suite of tests to ensure that no new issues have been introduced.

Once we approve the software the manufacturer will then forward the software through to Google for approval. If it passes Google approval, the manufacturer then needs to load it on to their servers.

Aren’t you holding updates back to get us to buy new phones?
We believe the latest software is the best, as it improves the handset’s performance, and the experience the customer will have with it. We have never held back an available update for any other reason than the release failed our testing programme and the manufacturer was unable to resolve this. This would have translated into a substandard customer experience.

But this software is already out overseas, what’s the hold up?
Every mobile network is different – we think it’s important to test software updates on our own network, in our own conditions, to give our customers the best experience we can. There are also time where our testing has identified issues that other networks have missed and are subsequently having customer issues.

What’s Telecom’s position on unofficial builds?
Most manufacturers make open software updates available at roughly the same time they become available to network operators like ourselves. The open updates don’t go through the same network testing programmes, and are therefore available a little sooner, but with the trade off of not being fully tested on the network you’re using it on.

While some customers are comfortable taking software updates from ROM sites, we have seen some issues with ‘unofficial’ builds, and recommend waiting for the release from your network operator.

Aren’t you just filling your handsets with bloatware?
Our customisation is a very small part of the software updates and it is extremely rare that these delay the release of software. We add:

Settings ie Access Point Name (a network identifier)
A bookmark in the app menu to Your Telecom
A Yahoo! icon on the stock Android browser
Four bookmarks in the browser
Start up and shut down screens (not on all phones)

…but not all of these customisations go on every handset we release. We’ve reduced the amount of customisation and changes we make to software significantly in the last few years, both cosmetically and under the hood.

With modern smartphones, the user is in control, and can change the apps or appearance as they wish (a factory reset will restore these settings of course). The much criticised browser icon on the Samsung GALAXY SIII was just that – an icon change, as a branding exercise, and exists on the majority of our Android handsets.

About the author
Richard Irvine is Telecom New Zealand's Social Media Manager. You can contact him through Telecom New Zealand's Official Twitter account.

HTC One X: Bring on the Games!

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:39 +1200

Finally, the fun begins. After purchasing or using any phone, my favourite moment is loading the first game. I have many games, but for these tests I’ve decided to run the most taxing ones; the 3D ones. I loaded up several games: Dead Meadow, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto 3, Need for Speed, ShadowGun, Shinerunner, and Zen Pinball.

Dead Meadow, while graphically impressive, left a bit to be desired, as you never really get free control of the player. It’s all very scripted. It provided a good workout for the phone graphically, but I ended up throwing in the towel after 30 minutes of playtime. After 30 minutes of playtime it was 38.2 degrees Celsius according to my laser thermometer - so still OK to hold, with some slight discomfort near the camera.

Dead Space, on the other hand, was a lot more inviting. The graphics in Dead Space leave pretty much all the other games for dead. The graphics are sort of a combination of PlayStation 2 and maybe Half Life gaming graphics. Not quite at the level of graphics of the current consoles or PlayStation Vita but, at this rate, it won’t take too long for them to catch up. Dead Space was a pleasure to play, with the One-X screen being the key component. I could play it while walking round the aisles of the supermarket, or while seated on a plane, or anywhere I had time to kill.

Grand Theft Auto 3 also loaded up very promptly, the quad-core chipset springing it to life with no trouble. It’s basically a port of the original game, and was very demanding on the phone. Unfortunately, once all graphics were turned to max the phone couldn’t keep up and dropped quite a few frames. However, it was still impressive, considering that just 10 years ago computers would struggle with the resolution this phone is putting out!

Need for Speed was one of my old favourites from years gone by. I couldn’t wait to install it. After a relatively large download, I was set to race. The phone performed admirably, with no slow-downs at all. The game uses the tilt function of the phone to turn and that worked well. It was calibrated perfectly, with no need for any adjustment. It brought back memories of the past, of what racing games should be like. Graphically it is one of the most impressive racing games on a mobile platform and was a pleasure to play.

To enhance my playing experience I bought stick-on buttons, which I used with the MHL/TV-Out to play it on the big screen. These buttons attach to the screen using suction cups, and provide capacitive input, so you can feel where the buttons are when playing on the TV without looking down at the phone.

Shadow Gun is very much in the same realm as Dead Space, but Shadow Gun THD is designed to run on Tegra 3. Visually, it was stunning. However, it didn’t quite compare to Dead Space, which is just slightly more polished, both in game play and in graphics. So I didn’t play too much of it, although Shadow Gun does support movement via an external gamepad.

ShineRunner was next, and was more of an experiment to see whether a Bluetooth controller would work with the phone. I loaded up Wii Controller from the Play Market, and the Wii gamepad was immediately recognised, which was great. It didn’t need any additional drivers or root access; it just loaded up straight away. I then proceeded to play ShineRunner, while leaving my device connected to my TV. If more games supported this and the graphics were better, you could theoretically replace your consoles with the HTC One X or any similar mobile device!

Video of Shine Runner through TV:

My only disappointing game was Zen Pinball, which was an official Tegra 3 title, used to showcase the chipset’s graphics capabilities. Unfortunately the One-X didn’t run it smoothly, which might be related to the old version of software currently installed on the phone. If Telecom allows the update soon, it will probably become quite playable, as One-X users from most countries who have received the update have reported. Hopefully we’ll see this update in the next few weeks, so all the latest Tegra 3 games are smooth!

Overall, it’s a great phone for gaming, whether on the move, or playing it on the TV. The total spend for gaming on the big screen for various games was:

$20 for a Madcatz Wii controller and nun chuck (brand new)
$6 for stick-on arcade-style buttons
$6 for the MHL adapter from eBay
Free to $2 for the games from the Google Play Market.

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

You've got mail

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:08 +1200

Due to the large volume of automated emails I get from the production servers I maintain, I don’t lean heavily on my mobile phone for accessing email, as the email client on my work computer is configured to make these much easier to deal with. However, I still find mobile email access a handy feature to have, especially for those times I’ve already tamed the overnight avalanche of work related emails, and therefore have a much more manageable inbox.

The HTC One X comes with two email apps; one that is part of the HTC Sense suite of applications, which offers access to most email services, and the official Gmail client. By default, the phone is geared towards using the HTC mail app, but as is usually the case with Android, this can easily be changed. Of course, if you don’t use Gmail for your email, the Gmail client isn’t going to be of much use. As I use Gmail for my primary email needs, I’m able to pick the client that works best for me. Which as it turns out is a good thing.

More on that later.

The Gmail client is to the left, with the HTC mail client to the right

Both clients allow you to configure multiple email accounts, providing you with the ability to easily switch between each account. They both offer a similar view of your inbox, presenting a list which allows for multiple emails to be selected, so actions such as deleting messages can be performed on multiple items. By default the HTC client inbox will only show messages from the last 3 days, but this option can be changed so you can see messages from today, the last 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, or all messages. In contrast, the Gmail client shows all messages.

Where the Gmail client has a slight edge is by having more action icons always visible on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. While the HTC mail client has icons for searching and composing new mail visible, the Gmail client also allows you to refresh from the toolbar. This is handy for me, as I don’t have my mail clients configured to automatically synchronize. Getting the same functionality from the HTC client involves first dropping down the menu, and selecting the option from there. For those of you who have your mail automatically synchronizing, this may be a non issue though.

As a counter to this advantage, the HTC inbox view allows you to show messages from all your configured email accounts in the same list, which is a feature that appears to be missing in the Gmail client.

Selecting an email in the list will open up the message body. With the HTC app I found this to be a pretty unreliable action, with the message body often not successfully downloading. When this happens, I have to exit back to the inbox and select the message again before the message body will display. The Gmail app always operated as expected in this regard, with no issues with the message body being shown.

The default font size used when displaying messages in the HTC app is a little too large for my liking, but this can be configured to be smaller. One advantage the HTC message view does have over the Gmail client is that you can use a pinch to zoom gesture to enlarge the displayed text.

The Gmail message view, left, contrasted with the message view of the HTC mail app

A nice feature that the Gmail message view has is the ability to swipe left and right to switch between newer and older messages. In order to get the same functionality in the HTC message view, you need to access the menu and chose the previous or next option from there.

The Gmail compose message view is a little more minimalistic when compared to the HTC one, with only fields for the email message components shown, along with an unlabeled send button, with the rest of the functionality exposed under the menu button. In contrast, the HTC app has buttons for the common actions down the bottom. It also includes a People button next to the To field, to provide integration with your contacts. Both clients provide auto-completion on that field as you type.

The Gmail compose message view on the left, is a little minimalistic when compared to the HTC equivalent

Email integration is strong elsewhere throughout the phone, with access readily available from applications that allow you to share content. When sharing by email in this manner, you are able to choose whether you wish to send via the Gmail client or the HTC one.

In summary, the HTC One X comes with a couple of capable email clients bundled with it, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Because I could never get message body synchronization working correctly with my Gmail account using the HTC mail client, I find that one more cumbersome to use. As a result, the official Gmail app is currently my preferred choice on the HTC One X.

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.

HTC One X Movie Editor

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 22:04 +1200

Android 4.0 marked the arrival of a movie editor integrated into Android itself, and as you might expect HTC has kept it in there and added their own Sense flavouring to it.

Starting off you have to accept HTC’s T&Cs (only on the first launch) before creating a new project or resuming a previous project. So far it’s pretty straightforward - and it remains that way.

Once you’re in the project view you can hit the plus button to add pictures and clips from the gallery. Sadly, there is no ability to take pictures or video directly in the app. You can crop video clips to your desired length however once a picture has been added it appears to be displayed for a fixed length of time (about 3 or 4 seconds) depending on the theme used.

You are able to include up to 50 clips in your video. As I found out the hard way, videos added must be more than 2 seconds long and images must be under 8 MP and less than 2 MB in size. Considering the One X camera can take images that are larger than 2 MB this is bound to cause issues.

Adding to frustrations, you must choose a theme, either birthday, formal or travel. The theme basically determines what the clip transitions are and the stock audio. I did not find a way to gather further themes.

Going into the preview mode is where you will find a lot more than just a preview of your video. Here the ability to change the default audio to one of your own music tracks is present. On the right there is a slider to favour either the music track of the audio of the video clips.

Once you’re done playing around with your rather crude video you can export it in either widescreen 720p, 540p, or 360p resolutions. Obviously you’re going to stick with 720p for the most part and you shouldn’t be disappointed with the MP4 quality.

Overall, the Sense 4.0 movie editor is a nice little tool for video editing on the go. It would be near perfect as a mobile video editor if it had more themes with it for more occasions and less limitations. Aside, I know stock Android 4.0 also has a movie editor but since I have no proper way of comparing the two. I haven’t looked into other video editors in the Play Store but Sense 4.0’s has you covered for 90% occasions you will use it for.

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.

eReading on HTC One X

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:59 +1200

Reading books on my phone was a little thing I started last year when I acquired the Steve Jobs biography in digital format. I ending up reading the entire thing on the 4 inch display of my now-retired HTC Incredible S. With a few tweaks and settings my reading experience was good to go - set the brightness to the lowest value possible and only allow portrait orientation.

Now onto the HTC One X. With its 4.7 inch 720p “proper” RGB matrix amazing display. You’d think it’d be a decent replacement as an ereader and you’d be right.

It isn’t quite a ereader quality setup however - you’ll still suffer glare when in direct sunlight (it’s winter so naturally this hasn’t been tested massively). However it does cut out the need for a reading light at night.

For my digital reading I use Aldiko, which allows me to painlessly import my ebooks and flick through pages using the volume rocker. Anything more I don’t care about.

For the last few weeks I’ve been reading various books on the One X and I am yet to run into any eye strain or anything like that. I find the display really nice to read with - especially lying in bed at night.

I even have the text smaller now than what it is in the screenshot above; admittedly I near-perfect, if not perfect vision. Plus, even the smaller text is easily readable on the 4.7 inch display.

The HTC One X makes for a decent reading companion with only a few tweaks that should be made for all phones anyway. This is regardless of the fact that a page of text on One X is noticeably smaller than one in the real paperback. The 4.7 inch 720p display ensures text is not jagged at all. Plus you have the added benefit of holding a 130 gram device over a 300 to 500 gram device in a tablet, which is a lot more ergonomic is you ask me.

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.

Media Playback with the HTC One X

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 01:45 +1200

If I find myself waiting in a line or flying on a plane, I usually like to pull out my laptop or cell, and watch a video or two. I have found myself in that situation many times with the HTC One X on hand. Luckily it’s very easy on the eyes, due to its large screen and vibrant colours.

The first thing I wanted to do was test music playback, to compare it to other devices I’d used in the past. Playback overall was very pleasing, comparable to the Galaxy S2, although not quite as good as the original Galaxy S. One minor disappointment in the stock player is lack of album art, which makes it a bit harder to scroll through albums, as you have to focus on the name, not the picture.

Overall, scrolling through music to find something to play was nice and quick. The included headphones were fine, nothing special, although a bit weird that HTC has discontinued its Beats headphones on beats-enabled phones! Another highly touted feature is its Beats software, which seemed to be an equaliser with enhanced bass/treble. Not really amazing, more of a gimmick, which reminded me of the old radios with “Enhanced bass boost” buttons written on them!

The FM tuner was a surprising feature, and one I put to good use. The headphones act as an aerial, picking up most stations in a fast and effective manner. It was good listening to the latest news reports on the hour or even testing it out with a little music.

TuneIn was another feature I used a bit. It’s basically internet radio and it searches for your location based on your GPS coordinates. It’s extremely handy when you are out of coverage, or have forgotten your headphones and want to use the speaker to play radio. I tried several NZ radio stations, as well as a few overseas channels, and the quality was very good.

However, video playback was what I wanted most! Loading up a few videos from my computer, it played them effortlessly. I was surprised to see MKV, MP4 and DivX Avis files play effortlessly, although I couldn’t find the Video playback folder at first. It turns out the videos are automatically added under the Gallery section of the phone.

HTC Watch was a built-in app that I also had a play with. It has a selection of recent and decent movies from the last few years. They are available to rent or download, with some as little as 5c each. The encoding was good and they streamed fast. However, HTC might want to rethink the Watch application and maybe include other downloaded videos into the application because having two video applications is a bit of a pain.

After giving the video, audio, and radio a good run in, I decided to throw it up on the big screen. Getting the One-X onto a TV is a breeze thanks to its MHL compatibility. You can buy an MHL adapter from eBay for about $6, and it connects your phone through HDMI to your TV. This means you can Game, browse the internet, or watch videos on the large screen. I only had two issues with it. The first being that it was never at 1080i/p, it was always at 720P, which occasionally dropped even lower when displaying games.

The second issue was that it’s always stuck in Landscape mode, meaning you can’t play portrait games on the TV. This should be able to be rectified by a simple software upgrade that HTC will hopefully provide, as it’s lacking compared to the older Galaxy S2 which can do 1080P in landscape and portrait, as standard. Overall though, the MHL adapter gives you a great cheap option to get movies onto the big screen. It’s also good for showing relatives your family photos or funny youtube videos at parties!

Overall, the media playback of the HTC One X is great, let down by a few small things, which I’m sure HTC will be able to address in future with a software update!

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