Give Tilt a Chance?

Impatient with waiting for Exchange Active Sync for the iPhone, I put it down recently and moved my SIM card to an AT&T Tilt.  Initially I had issues with the form factor and I was surprised by this as the Tilt’s ancestor, the HTC Wizard/Cingular 8125 was also a qwerty side slider and I loved using it.  But the mini OSX touch interface had spoiled me good, and so I was stuck in Goldilocks land for a time.  

To remedy this I purchased an unlocked RAZR2 V8 with 2G of internal memory and EAS, only to discover it didn’t actually have the EAS option it’s manual said it should.  So I Googled and ultimately found my way to a ROM I could flash to the device that hopefully would have this option and voila I pulled it off (thanks Rasputin007).  The V8 is truly a smartphone disguised as a feature phone and the form factor/build quality is superb.  Call quality was not as good as I expected it to be, but definitely better than Apple’s offering.  EAS worked as I’d hoped (except for a certificate issue that made scheduled sync impossible though it was I think an issue with the certificate and not EAS on the V8) and the native Opera browser was pretty snappy but not persistent.  In other words if you moved to another program on the phone the browser closed completely….not cool.  The other deal breaker was the challenge of text entry.  The iPhone keyboard may suck, but it is definitely better than T9 or multitap on a standard numbered phone pad.

So the tilting qwerty slider was catching my eye again and a few experiments with Opera Mini 4 later (PIE post Mobile Safari renders PIE even more unusable than it already was), the Tilt was back in black, or at least charcoal (which along with the black plastic trim, black rubberized backing, and chrome Dpad makes this device look as a sexy as a PDA can look I think).  I must say I’m rather pleased with it for the moment.  Call quality is actually top notch and I’d forgotten how great multitasking on WM is even if getting around the interface is a challenge.  The biggest complaint I’ve heard about it from other power users is battery life, but I’m not seeing that problem at all.  Here’s what my usage diary looked like today:

• Starting at 100% I pulled the charger from the socket at 720a this morning
• Browsed Google Reader in Opera Mini for 15-20 minutes
• Checked some email (Exchange push on all day long by the way)
• Reset on the way to work because the data connection flaked 
• Browsed the NY times within Opera Mini for another 15-20 minutes
• Bluetooth turned on at 530p and I called my wife and had a couple minutes of conversation via headset
• Called AT&T customer service and stayed connected for 15 minutes while I asked them if I could switch to a Blackberry data plan (more on that later) and let my wife officially inherit the iPhone with the data plan (more on that later too)
• Checked Gmail and had it polling every hour all day

At 1146p I still have 40% juice left.  Now I am running a cooked WM 6.1 ROM from XDA (DCS authored as I tried a couple of Dutty’s and they were quite frankly bug ridden), and maybe the chef optimized battery life in a way the standard Tilt ROM doesn’t?  My 3G signal at work is rock solid, but at home it can be iffy, so you tell me is that poor performance for a moderate day of usage?  Maybe if I made more phone calls I would be complaining, but I can’t based on what I’ve seen from Sir Tilt thus far.

I’ve rarely turned on the Wifi radio because the 3G data speeds are so good, but are they noticeably better in Opera Mini via HSDPA than in Mobile Safari over EDGE? They are but not drastically, though when you combine it with full EAS, I can live without iPretty for a time…..

And one more thing: I LIKE BIG FONTS

And I cannot lie….. When it comes to how my eye finds reading on the iPhone, I now can’t go back to the itty bitty fonts found on most other smartphones, except mine is no longer technically a smartphone since I ran the 1.1.2 update. The fonts still rock regardless….

Octoberbest

My favorite month in the year has indeed begun and my exhilaration is even more heightened this time than in the past.  Of course, the reason for my joy is the onset of post season MLB and though my Braves are for a second year in a row not involved (which is actually, sadly a relief for the 2^nd year in a row too), I’m still thrilled about watching the teams who are, as is my 2 year old son who loves nothing more than he loves baseball (thereby proving that God does indeed exist). 

 The month did not get off to a great start for me though as TBS has the rights to the Division Series and NLCS games this year and also had the rights to the instaclassic playoff game between the Rockies and Padres Monday night, except no one at my cable provider Charter seemed to be aware of this, as the game simply wasn’t carried.  Locally in Atlanta what used to be TBS will now be “Peachtree TV” and TBS will become a nationally syndicated channel only and the change took place on Monday which was more than Charter was apparently prepared for.  The online options both desktop and mobile for keeping up with sports scores are plentiful fortunately, and I used MLB Mobile for the iPhone because my preferred way to do this via Pickleview wasn’t keeping up with the game either?

 Anyway, the father/son connections in the TBS broadcast booth will be especially meaningful for Braves fans, since anchoring the telecasts will be Ernie Johnson Jr. and calling the play by play, Chip Caray.  These highly talented and affable sons of longtime Braves announcers Ernie Johnson Sr. and  Skip Caray are probably along with my own son’s budding interest, the key to my level of excitement as I love listening to both.  TBS began this new era by first ending the era of Braves only telecasts which started back in the 70s.  Chip, who once inherited his late grandfather Harry’s spot in the Cubs play by play booth, has now inherited his father’s spot in the Braves booth, so it was only fitting that in the final Braves TBS telecast this past Sunday, father and son were paired together. At the end Chip whose enthusiastic delivery is more like his grandfather than his father said the kinds of things to his father that every father hopes one day to hear, and punctuated it with a kiss on the cheek for dear old dad.  Skip who is famously stoic and cynical, then had difficulty keeping his emotions in check (as did I), but eventually managed to give his standard and final TBS salute of “So long everybody”.  Highlights of all the signature moments on TBS followed and included Skip’s unforgettably emotionally unbridled radio call of Sid Bream sliding in safe to win the 1992 NLCS.  

 The last conversation I had with my own father was in October of 1998 about the Braves blowing it in the 98 NLCS to the Padres (not unhappy to see them get eliminated Monday night as you would expect) The first post season baseball I ever watched with him that I can remember was game 6 of the 1977 World Series, the game Reggie Jackson hit 3 homers for the soon to be (and even back then it was the 21^st freaking time) World Champion Yankees.  Most every October since then I’ve been locked in and of course 1991 was the year when it got truly serious for me.   1992 I remember with great fondness as well, and October of 1993 began with the Braves winning the last great pennant race, sending the 103 win Barry Bonds lead Giants home to their pre-wildcard era fate.  It was this day 14 years ago that I traveled with a friend to see game 1 of the NLCS in Philadelphia’s Veteran’s stadium.  Curt Schilling started for the Phillies who would win in extra innings and set the tone for a series that other than the Yankees beating us in the 1996 WS, is my most bitter baseball memory.  We truly had the best team in baseball that year and I would rather have won it that year than in 95.  Cubs fans can certainly curse me (pun intended) for saying something so frivolous and of course the Phillies are today playing their first post season game since that memorable year, so I guess I should be grateful.

 I don’t remember much of that last conversation I had with my father in October of 98, but I do remember thinking at the time that there was no other person I would rather have been talking to.  Of course my own son won’t remember any of our first conversations about October baseball this year, but, speaking of being grateful, I can promise you his father will.

From One iDay to the Next: iPhone still myPhone

As I type this on a keyboard I have to honestly say I despise, I’m otherwise nearly as enthralled now as I was 11 Saturdays ago when first I fell in love. Actually the first couple days were more tenuos than that, as it took a bit to get used to revolutionary touch based interface. The hardware however, was and is head and shoulders above any portable electronics device ever made. In other reviews of the iPhone, I feel not enough has been said about this and, maybe the device is so stunning, it just goes without saying. I also think my device design druthers predisposed me to fall hard for this one. See, my ideal device would be 5-7 inch sleek, thin, slate, portrait oriented tablet computer. The iPhone/iPod Touch is currently the closest thing to that ideal available for purchase, if only it could be used like a tablet. If handwriting notes on the iPhone with some sort of special stylus becomes possible, I might be set for a long time. But, as it stands I still long for a device that doesn’t yet exist despite my tremendous overall happiness with the one I will always remember purchasing on 6/29/2007.

So, quick confession is in order: I was one of the idiots who bought the hype to such an extent that when I made it to the front of the line at the AT&T store, only soon to be defunct 4Gig models were available, and I was unwilling to risk the potential unavailability of an 8Gig model for even a few days. Little did I know, that I could have walked out of line and gone to an Apple Store 20 minutes from my house the next morning and picked one up, but when I have my sights set on something, my patience and purchasing discipline drop to near zero. I justified the $100 savings by telling myself that I don’t have much of a music/video library anyway, and that 4GB is 4 times more than any other flash storage amount used in any of my previous phones. Well, the $200 price drop coupled with the 4GB model end of life announcement by Jobs recently, made me feel used and stupid. Plus, my library has grown considerably since getting spoiledf by the iPod functionality of the iPhone, my first iPod. The unlocking achievements of late have made me encouraged that I could eventually buy an 8GB model, and more easily sell my 4GB model, but I still feel burned. The $100 early adopters credit also made me feel a lot better towards Apple, and I actually activated that credit a day ago and fancy using it towards either a Touch or a new iMac (brilliant implementation of the decision by Apple to throw the early adopters a bone as they stand to make more money from me sooner than they otherwise would have)

Though I will get into more specifics in upcoming posts, my overall grade of the iPhone thus far:

Hardware – A+

Overall UI – A+

Phone functionality – A

Phone performance – D

Email – C

Keyboard – D- (I haven’t gotten much better at it, but maybe I just suck?)

Web Browser – A+

Music/Video – A+

Camera – B+ (relative to other camera phones)

Viewing/Showing Pics – A+

Syncability – AHackability – A+ (now a true smartphone with a growing list of native 3rd party apps)

Blackjack compares nicely, but not that nicely:

Samsung BlackJack Review

Having spent 4 months with this device (and that’s a long time for me people), I feel I can certainly serve justice on the goods and bads. The recent switch by Chris Leckness from the BlackJack back to the PocketPC based Treo 750 gave me some pause and I have flirted with the idea of picking up the Cingular 8525 (primarily so I could load WM6 as downloaded from XDA-developers.com), but then the thought of parting with the SGH i607 becomes to much for me, and I think it’s going to be that way for a while because I love using this phone!

Let me first say that like Leckness I was won over to the Windows Mobile Smartphone platform pretty quickly after thinking it would never be enough for me. It is so much easier to navigate and use the device as a phone than PocketPC devices have been for me. (even the Treo, though notably a very Smartphone like implementation of the PocketPC platform by Palm, and is what they did just an early version of Photon when the two Windows Mobile platforms will finally merge?).

Speaking of using the device as a phone, reception on Cingular’s network has been nothing less then stellar. I’ve literally had one dropped call and it was with no service bars displayed (which was the first time that had ever happened). That dropped call occurred in my family’s house in Columbus, GA where I’ve always had reception challenges (no matter the phone or the network). But in Atlanta where I live and work, my 3G cup runneth over! Call quality on the Blackjack has been pristine and there’s nothing much better to a mobile warrior than being able to use the near wifi like data speeds that are possible when using the phone as a USB modem connected to my laptop (and lately my Q1Precious), AND be able to take or make a clear call simultaneously!

How’s the Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR (and A2DP by the way) you ask? Well, recently while I waited for an oil change and emissions test to be completed on my car, I tried to get some real “work” work done, and made a bluetooth network connection to the Blackjack (running the AKU3 buld of WM5 so the “internet sharing” app is present which replaces Bluetooth DUN with so called PAN or Personal Area Networking and it’s exceedingly easy to use). Of course, as soon as I got setup and made a VPN connection to my work network I was called out to the garage so they could explain to me why I needed more than just an oil change (stupid me for expecting to spend less than $100) and I with BlackJack in pocket carried Precious out to the garage expecting to lose my network or at least my VPN connection. Not so, and the speeds were in the 500kbps range consistently.

How’s the keyboard you wonder?

It’s not great, but it’s as good as the Treo’s and I’d rather feel a little cramped typing to enjoy the slim and narrow form factor I’ve been enthralled with for 4 months now.

I do have to add though that I find the keyboard tremendously useful when navigating through the WM Smartphone menus. It really beats the Pocket PC way of menu navigating via various combinations of dpad/stylus usage.

The 1.3 megapixel mini humpback camera on the SGH i607 has been a pleasant surprise.

It disrupts the sleek lines of the device, but in good lighting it takes better pictures than any cameraphone I’ve ever used, including the 2 megapixel equipped Nokia N70.

This is a shot taken from said Samsung cameraphone of my Samsung camera (what did you expect me to have, a Casio fool?)

Patience is required for saving pictures though. The “My Photo” app included as a soft key option in the camera app is a solid way to browse your pictures. Unfortunately, it’s not the default picture viewer and in order to use it, you’re required to either open it from within the camera app, or navigate to “My Stuff” in the program list to open it from there. Simply navigating to a picture file within the file explorer app will open the Picsel Viewer picture viewer (say that just 3 times real fast, much less 10). Picsel Viewer is a great application for viewing Adobe or Office files, but with a series of pictures your forced to open them one at a time, unlike the My Photo app which takes you to the next or previous picture in a folder by clicking the left or right on the dpad.

Speaking of the dpad, it is the only real complaint I have about this device. It’s positioned flush to the surface of the phone which looks sleek but functionally sucks. Samsung also chose to put the green and red call buttons right next to it (unlike it’s European cousin the i320), so in my first week of using the device I was constantly either starting the phone app or ending whatever I was doing by hitting red button. It would have been a deal breaker were it not for the convienent placement of the back button which would immediately take me back to whatever app I had accidentally closed. Once I learned to use my finger nail to operate the dpad, I became much more adept at avoiding this frustration.

As an email device it more than gets the job done via the Exchange Activesync “push” capabilities (which once you figure out how to configure with some approval and help from your IT dept, works very solidly). Also provided is a Cingular branded version of the push email application by Seven and though it can’t seem to push my Gmail to me, it does do a regular “pull”, and as infrequently as I look at my personal email during the work day, it feels as a good as “push”. Like I mentioned before the keyboard is somewhat cramped, but I type email replies on it surprisingly well nonetheless.

All things considered the BlackJack is the best overall smartphone, or for that matter, phone I have ever used. It weighs and almost feels like a normal (but quite sexy) candy bar phone, but packs a serious punch. It’s a serviceable PDA, a serious web browser (especially because of the speed with which you can browse and did I mention how nice the QVGA screen is?), a terrific email device, a bonafide MP3 player, a decent camera, and the best phone as a modem solution currently available in America. Is it perfect and will I use it forever? Noooo, I’m a neophiliac people! But it remains to be seen which device will usurp this one in my daily grind, and though there are some devices on the release horizon that certainly have me interested, there is nothing currently available that trumps the BlackJack!

Into which Fanboy camp will I land? Samsung’s or Toshiba’s?

Engadget’s 3GSM coverage is forcing me to consider whether I’m truly happy with my Samsung BlackJack (RIM fanboy I am not!).  After 3 months of ownership I can honestly say I am extremely pleased with it on many fronts:  form factor, WM5 smartphone OS (over PocketPC and never thought I’d say that); HSDPA, A2DP, etc. 

I recently purchased a Samsung 10 megapixel digital camera, the NV10, and it too is gorgeous and has tremendous build quality and functionality.  (review coming soon)

I have also been building up to my virgin HDTV purchase and the Samsung offerings are looking very atttractive to me for the same reasons as stated above.  But then I laid eyes on these shots and specs of the forthcoming Toshiba Portege G900 pdaphone.  The live pictures from Mobileburn look even more attractive than the press shots Engadget and other sites had previously posted.  The only “but” about this device is the 300mhz processor jkontherun is reporting it has.  Surely they had to do this to prevent battery life from being any worse than it’s surely going to be with a 480×800 screen resolution and a HSDPA radio embedded, but we’ll see if maybe some “execute in place” memory overcomes this the way Palm has done with the WM Treos. 

Getting back to my HDTV quest, I found an affordable 32 inch Toshiba LCD TV (768p) at hhgregg recently that has swayed me from the more expensive Samsung equivalent for now, and the fact that I already own an extremely capable Toshiba DVR is also influencing my lean. 

Oh, and did I mention I’m also on a mission to replace my Toshiba Portege 3505 Tablet PC with maybe a Samsung Q1B UMPC……

Sexiest modem for the Mac: in white, and Black

David Ciccone deserves the credit for figuring this out and with a little more assistance from Julian, I am posting via my Blackjack’s solid HSDPA connection tethered to my Mac Mini. Is this the best looking modem of all time, dare I ask?

Of course this solution has been out a while, but not until my router recently died did I feel compelled to attempt it. Connecting through the HSDPA radio on the Blackjack actually seems faster than the 802.11g connection the Mini was previously utilizing, even though the picture attached wouldn’t seem to prove that. Maybe the latency of web page downloads on HSDPA connections is less than that on WiFi?

Blackjack is a WM workhorse

Okay, this is my 3rd attempt at blogging about my “beloved” Blackjack. On the first attempt the Windows Mobile device locked up on me I’m almost sure because of the blasted t9 functionality. Then on my second attempt at my first mobile post, I successfully got it to go through and then decided I wanted to edit the title of the post. Inexplicably WordPress wiped out the post when I updated the title? Or was it the limitations of posting from a WM device again? Anyway, though I am very pleased with the device overall, the point of this post is that the Blackjack as good as it is, is still a sometimes frustrating WM device……

Eventually I’ll post about how I wound up with the Blackjack (via the Nokia E62 and then Cingular 3125 after getting burned for the last time by Sprint forcing me to reluctantly sell my 700wx) in the first place and how I wound up on WordPress (via Blogger) today also (the blog import functionality is tryly impressive!)

still no A2dp, but p is on e

So, after much wrangling, registry experimentation, and even some impromptu time (a story that deserves a follow up post) spent with the 700p as my main phone, I’m back with the new 700wx. Despite the lack of a2dp, it is overall a fantastic device for these reasons: it is snappier than the 700p (which is no slouch itself); push email works flawlessly (but scheduled push on the 700p was fine too, however OTA task sync is something I truly missed while I used this phone); the build quality on the 700wx seems slightly better than the 700p to me but that could be purely subjective on my part. In fact here was my recent post in the Mobility Today 700wx forum:

“I have been switching back and forth between the two devices over the last 2 weeks and it isn’t an easy call. The 2 biggest reasons being that Blazer has caught up and surpassed PIE and the 320×320 screen resolution on the p is definitely noticed after tolerating 240×240 on the wx. Versamail also syncs gmail without wiping already downloaded mail (has anyone ever figured out why the heck WM5 does this with gmail?) That being said the wx is likely the most stable and responsive WM device in existence now. It is a rock solid experience compared to the crashability of the 700p, and the difference in the responsiveness of WM5 on this device say compared to the initial ROM on the JASJAR is freaking light years. In fact as snappy as the 700p is, the 700wx is I think snappier. One handed usage is almost equivalent on the two devices with one big exception being some of the remaining dpad barriers in poutlook. However, the biggest reasons that I will either be transferring my number back to the 700wx or returning to my trusty but ugly 6700 are these deal breakers: loading 3rd party apps on the 700p is hit or miss in terms of whether they will ultimately lead to a crash, but here’s the worst stability issue I’ve had on the p. I have downloaded the last 2 Mobility Today podcasts, and the most recent Engadget podcast, synced them to my device via my Mac Mini, and upon attempting to open the files crashed the 700p over and over again. That’s unfortunate and unacceptable and therefore, the Palm OS really is dead, for me anyway.”

My last statement sort of says it all. I even deleted all of the Palm apps I have because I simply will never need them again. I’m a Windows Mobile user, period (that is until the Nokia 95 becomes available!) The 700p is available on ebay by the way