Miscellaneous Knowledge

One and a half years after originally obtaining my Nokia E71, my contract has come up for renewal – new phone time! Before I talk about my new phone though, a few words on how the E71 has performed for me while i’ve had it.

Overall, it’s been really good. I’ve taken the phone pretty much everywhere with me every day and used it to keep track of emails, add appointments, browse the web, watch YouTube, prevent myself from getting lost and listen to music. As expected, the phone’s initial battery life has decreased over time especially considering the heavy usage i’ve put it through – it now lasts for about a day with light usage. If I bought a new battery however i’m sure it would be restored to it’s former glory. Of course, having used it for a year and a half there are also a few long-term gripes i’ve had with the device;

Music Player

If you add a new song to your phone the music player application takes a long time to rescan your music collection if you have more than about 250 songs. With an 8GB memory card, you can fit quite a few songs on the device so this ended up being a major problem when I added anything new.

Video Player (‘RealPlayer’)

The included RealPlayer video player is just as pathetic as the desktop version, it supports extremely few formats and those formats that it does support to be encoded in a special way in order to play. This became annoying when trying to transcode video to play on the device.

Unicode Fonts

By default, my European version of the phone only had support for western-European characters. A lot of my songs have non-English titles and attempting to distinguish between different artists, albums and songs by the number of squares became quite an art. However, I eventually found a way to load Unicode fonts onto the phone (via the Memory Card, a quick google should find the method) and I was able to see the proper titles of my music tracks.

Internet Connection

The phone has two ways to connect to the internet, via the mobile network and via WiFi. Unfortunately, there is no way to say “Use WiFi if available, if not fall back to the mobile network”. Consequently, all of my access was via the mobile network which, while functional, isn’t as fast as what i’d get over WiFi and eats some of my data allowance.

Email Client

A lack of a native HTML email client made reading some emails awkward. Nokia now offers it’s Ovi Mail service, but i’d rather connect to my exchange server directly rather than through them. It’s reasonably good for POP/IMAP accounts though.

Headphone Socket

The headphone socket takes a 2.5mm connection, so you can either use the terrible earbuds that came with the phone or get a cheap adaptor off eBay, so you can use your 3.5mm headphones. I opted for the latter solution, but the only downside is that the adaptors are cheap and nasty – they break every few months and consequently I have to order a new one.

Charging

Once the device was fully charged, it would switch to battery power, which would deplete slightly and trigger charging again. Aside from the annoyance of having the screen activate every 15-30 minutes to inform me that it was charging, I don’t think this did much good for the longevity of my battery.

As I mentioned earlier though, I have been very pleased with the device overall. So if you’re looking at getting a cheap 2nd hand Nokia E71 off eBay, go for it. You may need to buy a new battery though! The newer E72 fixes a lot of the hardware issues I noted above as well as shipping with a newer version of Symbian. If you’re able to get a good deal one one, then give it a go. Otherwise, i’d highly reccomend getting an Android-based device.

In my original post I noted that at home I received hardly any signal, but it was perfect everywhere else. Since then, i’ve gone to uni (for over a year now) and the signal all over Bath and the uni campus has been perfect, even inside buildings. It seems 3 is the only mobile network with decent coverage on campus too! Anyway, when returning home i’ve noticed that the signal is now full, 3 appear to have increased coverage in the area. Now, the only time I get no signal is when i’m travelling on the tube.

And for anyone who is after my old E71, sorry, you can’t have it. It’s been passed on to a family member – recycle!

A few months back, I picked up a new phone and contact. Before this, I used a SE k800i on Orange PAYG. While this worked fine for calls and texts (albeit in low volume) internet was a no go. Therefore, when I saw 3′s offer of a free phone with 1GB (“unlimited”) internet for £20/mo, I snapped it up straight away – despite all the horror stories you hear about 3.

The first phone I received was faulty, it wouldn’t charge. I took it back to the 3 shop the next day and got a replacement there and then with out any problems, good customer service there. Living in London, I get a good signal pretty much everywhere except at home. Everywhere else i’ve been has given me a medium or strong signal. While mildly annoying at times, I often use the WLAN instead of 3G at home instead.

Having not traveled outside of London since getting the phone, i’ve not had a chance to see what coverage is like. However, judging by the recently released maps from Ofcom, 3 has the best 3G coverage of any network. I’ll update this after my holiday in Mid-July where I will be on the canals of North Wales.

Recently, I also got £30 of credit on my bill for referring my Dad, which was very welcome!

As for the phone itself, i’ve got to admit I am very impressed – it does everything I want. It syncs my contacts, calendar, email etc with my Exchange server, the inbuilt web browser is fast and renders pages well, the music player is standard but good enough. In addition to this, there are many other applications (There are so many applications for the Symbian platform). The only prolonged issue I had with the phone was occasional lockups. The phone came with the first ever software revision, however since it was 3-branded I was unable to upgrade to the latest version. A simple change of the product code however meant that I was able to upgrade the phone to the latest software which gave a noticeable speed boost to the phone, increased battery life, removed 3 branding and also enabled the SIP client. Using the SIP client I am now able to have a second internet phone number on the phone which is extremely useful. However, while it works over 3G it uses the radio continually (even when the phone isn’t in use) and will drain battery life fast, operating over WLAN there are no issues.

Overall, i’m extremely pleased with the both the operator and phone, i’ll be sure to update this if it changes.

Recently, I got myself a new laptop. After much searching around, I decided on a Dell Vostro 1500. Considering the price and specifications, it seemed like a good buy, and positive reviews outweighed negative ones. For a grand total of £609 delivered I got:

• Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz
• 3GB Ram (1x 2GB, 1x 1GB. Reports operation in dual channel!)
• nVidia GeForce 8600M GT 256MB
• 250GB SATA Drive
• Wifi
• Bluetooth
• 15 inch screen with resolution 1680×1050
• Vista Business

A pretty beefy laptop in my opinion. It’s essential for me to have a beefy laptop; I do more than just websurf. My laptop goes almost everywhere with me and I like to play 3D games. Hence the graphics card. Having had it for just a few days, I’ve not had much of a chance to test it out much, but it seems to me like a pretty impressive laptop.

Gaming Performance

I tried a couple of games (Poral, TF2 etc), maxed out the settings (except AA) and ran them. Outstanding performance, little if any lag.

Input

The keyboard is excellent, really gives a feeling that the key has been pressed, as they go quite deep. They do make some sound, but that’s not a problem for me, when touch-typing having a sound help confirm that you did actually press the key. The touchpad is fairly standard, well integrated into the unit and has the usual scrollbars you’d expect. The Left/Right mouse buttons, like the keyboard, go deep and make a sound.

Screen

Having this resolution of screen on such a small screen is absolutely amazing. The picture is so clear and high quality, it puts to shame every other monitor I’ve seen. The screen itself has a higher resolution than Low HD (which most ‘HD Ready’ TVs are, and they are anything up to 40 inches remember). The text is a little small, but that doesn’t affect me and even if it was a problem, I’d just turn up the DPI. In fact, it’s probably better for someone with poor vision to get this screen and crank up the DPI than a lower resolution one since the characters are much clearer. The brightness isn’t as bright as I hoped, so you can only really use it in direct sunlight or shade, otherwise you see all the dust on the screen.

Sound

Usually, sound isn’t something important on laptops, you either have headphones or plug into a proper speaker set. Laptop speakers are notoriously tinny and horrible. However, as long as you have the laptop on a flat surface such as a desk, the speakers on this laptop reproduce the sound pretty well. Any other surfaces though, and you just get normal laptop sound. Audio lovers will wish of course to plug into the Hifi System or use their headphones. The quality of the sound that was produced really did surprise me.

Vista

Yes, I could have got XP on it but I caved into Vista, after all, this laptop should be powerful enough to run it and in fact, Vista isn’t that bad at all. I’ve used it occasionally, with mixed results, but with SP1 I cannot fault it much. Everything works perfectly, for a change!

Wifi

The Wifi used is the Intel 3495ABG chip. So if you still have an 802.11A network for some reason (I’ve never known anyone who has one) you’ll be fine. The performance it outstanding, I get an excellent signal almost everywhere, and the throughput seems good too. In addition, the WiFi switch has a 3rd mode, the Wifi Catcher; this will quickly scan all the networks and show their signal strengths in a dialog box. Not too useful unless you want to quickly see what networks are around.

LAN

The LAN connection is somewhat disappointing. It is only a 100mbit connection compared to the 1000mbit LAN card in my previous laptop. Not too much of a disappointment, but Dell could have easily put in a faster LAN card for not that much more!

Bluetooth

I chose to have the Bluetooth module installed, mainly for communication with my phone. Yes, I could use the USB cable etc but for working with other people’s phones etc, having the cable isn’t always an option. Plus it was only £15 extra.

Battery

I haven’t had a chance to test the full capabilities of the battery yet, but it seems to last around 3 hours going by the estimates. One interesting feature is a button on the bottom of the battery which lights up 5 LEDs, depending on the charge of the battery. Useful if you have multiple batteries and don’t want to plug each one in to find the charge.

Power Adaptor

The power adaptor is dell’s standard one, with the large white tipped connection to the laptop. The power brick itself comes with a strap, which is useful for keeping the cord tidy when carrying it around. A lot better than stuffing the cord into a bag and having to spend ages untangling it next time it’s taken out. Update 10th October 2008: The adapter has broken.

Media Buttons

On the front of the laptop are several ‘Media Keys’ for Play / Pause / Next / Previous / Volume etc. Very useful and they light up when you press them. Would be nice if they where lit all the time in AC mode.

Size

The Vostro is fairly thick and heavy, but considering the power of it (and hence the cooling requirements) I’m not surprised. Weight is not a huge problem for me, I have a laptop backpack as opposed to a shoulder bag so it distributes the weight more evenly (I highly recommend these to everyone). The size is that of a normal 15″ inch laptop, just a little thicker, which is not a problem! I don’t see why people are obsessed with having a laptop as thin as possible, it doesn’t really matter that much!

Well, that is it. My review. Overall, I’m very pleased with this laptop. Hopefully it will stand the test of time. If you’ve got any questions about it, ask me!

Update: Here are a few (rather bad) pictures.

Update: Couple of Weeks Later

Now that i’ve had this laptop a bit longer, it’s time for an update!

I eventually wiped the laptop of Vista and put XP on, with Service Pack 3. This included wiping all of Dell’s partitions including the MediaDirect one. I never use recovery partitions, nor media direct so no loss there and I’ve regained around 30 GB of disk space. XP runs a lot faster too, gaming performance has improve. There was nothing especially wrong with Vista, apart from the fact that it slowed down the computer a bit. The only thing I miss from Vista is seamless off-line files sync, but I can cope without that and would rather have the performance boost any day.

The laptop has performed flawlessly though, there was a slight issue with getting bluetooth working. To use it, the drivers had to be installed. However, it could only be installed if it was switched on, but switching on requires the drivers! Hence, you can’t use bluetooth. However, I came across a file on Dell’s FTP that enabled it, I can’t remember what it was but a Google search will probably find it.

So was it worth it? Yes, completely. However, it seems now that Dell have stopped putting Graphics Cards in the Vostro 1500. I don’t care if you don’t game – you have to have a graphics card! Therefore, I recommend the 1700, which is identical but is 17″, less portable but just as powerful and roughly the same price as my 1500 was.

Update 2: A friend of mine has recently got the 1710. He left it in my care to upgrade it to XP and i’ve got to say, it’s a great laptop. Only slightly bigger than my 1500 but i’d still be ok with carrying it around, plus you’ve got the bigger 1920×1200 screen and full keyboard. It’s also somewhat thinner. The 1710 is now my reccomended vostro for purchase!