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Kev

Three Shop in Ipswich

Just had a terrible call to the Three shop in Ipswich.

Took 3 calls to even get an answer, FFS you are a communications company, ever heard of an answerphone with a call back option?

When I finally got through it went like this.

GIRL: Hello?

ME: Is that the 3 shop?

GIRL: Yes

ME: Have you got the new hi speed Mi-Fi in Stock.

GIRL: No

ME: Oh, I thought the stores had them from yesterday.

GIRL: No

ME: Long pause to see what she said next........

GIRL:

ME: ...err OK then.

GIRL: Bye....

Now really 3, are you doing so well you can treat a customer like this?

Pathetic.....

Kev

Selling via Raffle

What do you think of this as an idea? Needs tweaking, but could be fun if it worked.

I like to sell stuff, tech stuff, normally costs a fair bit, take my older MacBook Air 11" I have for sale, I want £600 for it, not having much joy selling. How about if I did a draw for it, and you had a decent chance to win it for an outlay of say £30?

How I would see it working is like this.  Any draw has to be fair, and transparent, so my idea is to use the UK National Lottery to decide who wins. Specifically, the Bonus ball.

OK, so you buy a ticket, say £30 for a MBA worth £600. I need to sell 20 tickets, so you have a 1 in 20 chance of winning. Would you spend £30 on that? Could I get 20 people to do so?

You would send the £30 to my Paypal account, and as soon as I had the required number of entries, 20 in this case, I would say that the draw is live. You would get a number back after paying, and this is your draw number. Now, of course there are actually 49 balls in the lottery, so we would either need to sell 49 tickets (and adjust the pricing to still equal £600) which I think would be quite hard to do, or we simply say that if the Bonus ball is not a chosen number, we use the first ball drawn, and onto the second ball until we  have a winner. In the above example, of only 20 numbers, if by any chance all the balls are 21 or above, it rolls onto the next draw.

Am I mad? Am I missing something? This sounds like it could be fun? Where does it stand legally? I recall reading that as long as we have a "skill" element (set a stupid easy question or something) it is legal?

Let me know your thoughts, would you be up for it? What is tickets were cheaper, but odds were lower?

Kev

MOVED

Most of my latest stuff is no longer here folks, please try over at www.kevwright.com

Kev

iPad Makes a Surprise(!) Comeback

So, as most of you know, about a month ago, I sold my iPad, mainly due to having the MacBook Air 11" which does a lot more than iPad in a package not much larger or heavier. So what changed?

The main change is that yesterday I finally decided that the iPhone 4 is on it's way. I am so happy with the Samsung Galaxy S using a custom ROM, I found myself in the very unusual situation of trying to force myself back to the iPhone so I could maintain one iOS device, and one Android (Galaxy Tab). For a couple of days, I took the iPhone 4 to work and left the SGS at home, but missed it like crazy. Once used to the home screen control, and notifications on the Android system, iOS feels too constricted to me, and that is WITH a jailbreak lock screen solution, and various tweaks. So once that decision was made, it was curtains for the Galaxy Tab. I have been hanging onto it as it is dropping in price like a stone, remember when it came out at that (false, bait n switch) price on CPW site? Well, it launched at £569 in the UK and is now available from Tesco at £359, and you know the saying, "every little helps", well not in this case Tesco, you bastards! I paid £499 for mine I think, and am gonna be lucky to get out losing under £200, but to be fair, I have done well over the years, so no issues from me on that one.

So, with that decision made, the decision was pretty easy, a new iPad, would give me the iOS I want to play with, and in effect it gives me an iPhone in the same package, OK, phone calls excepted, although with Skype and the wi-fi Hotspot on the SGS I could even use it for that!

But surely the iPad 2 is only a short while way? Well, it maybe, but with Steve taking some more time off, and assuming he does return, which I think (and hope to God) he does, maybe a late March reveal, and on sale right away would be OK. After all, despite HEARING about all these iPad killers, how many are actually on sale yet? The other thing they might do is announce it now to stop people even thinking about an Android Tablet, and not ship it till April again?

But of course, my decision to buy now had to be made under an assumption that iPad 2 might be out soon, so why not wait? Well, me and waiting are a bit like Strawberries and Engine Oil, not really great bedfellows. Add to that I had a £250 comet credit note burning a hole, and well, you can see the difficulty I was in! I would also add here that I really like the current design, and home button and am not keen on these rumours of Apple ditching the button in favour of gestures. Although I don't buy the rumours about iPhone losing the button anytime soon, on the iPad it could certainly happen.

Add in the fact that my other half would probably be able to do everything she does with an iPad as opposed to the POS Windows Laptop she has, and, well, you have a plan forming. But I had said that the iPad was a waste of time while owning an MBA (MacBook Air) so I should try and explain that a bit more. My comments on that were based on early ownership of the MBA along with the glow of techie joy that accompanies that state :-), in reality, (only becomes clear when you no longer have the iPad) there are a few things that the MBA do much better such as flash websites, but I was finding it really hard to take it to with me, something I had always done with the iPad. First, good though the battery on the MBA is, I was never 100% confident it would last the whole day, where as the iPad definitely would, but more importantly, when I had the Air in my office, I was forever locking the office door (not at all practical for me) or constantly putting the MBA in the drawer but then worried about putting something on the screen in case it got damaged etc. With the iPad, I just had it in a £15 case, chuck it in the draw and cover it with a load of files or something.

So, with £250 of it already covered by the Comet credit, which Mrs Kevwright rather worryingly had her eye on for a poxy new Dishwasher!!!, it was just a case of choosing which model. My first one was a 16GB base model, Wi-Fi only, and was fine, apart from GPS. This was my one concern with buying now, I believe the new one will have GPS as standard, I even think 3G may become standard as if not, with the CDMA iPads we know are coming, Apple will have so many SKU's to deal with......anyway, my last iPad was the 32GB 3G and Wi-Fi model, the sweet spot for me, I can get all my media on it without messing about, and I did find the 3G handy on a few important occasions. I probably would have gone for the 16GB 3G one TBH, but Comet had none, and by now I was in full "gotta have it now" mode, so I reserved a 32GB 3G model form my local store, using my old favourite Quidco, it gave me a voucher code for 5% off, and gave me 3% into my Quidco account, so the £610 (new VAT) became £581 payable on collection, and the Quidco credit is already showing up as another £17 to come in a few weeks time. I already have the keyboard dock and the Bluetooth keyboard, and I still have my old cheap case, so I am all back up and running for about £565.

One thing we geeks forget is that its a fairly small number of us that follow new releases as closely as we do. Take the Verizon iPhone for example. All the usual naysayers are saying that nobody will switch or even buy one yet as they all know the new iPhone will be out "soon". Well, first of all, when did "soon" mean 5 months, and anyway, 90% of potential iPhone buyers for Verizon will either not know this, or not care about it at all. I predict huge lines at Verizon stores in a couple of weeks. Back to this article, what I mean by that is that even if a vastly improved iPad gets announced in 5 mins time, I am still confident that I could get a decent price back on this new iPad, put it this way, will it lose 40% of its retail value in about 6 months time like the Galaxy Tab? Not a chance!

Kev

Moor Bluetooth Headset

I am a big fan of Mobile Fun a UK retailer of mobile phone accessories, and today, I had the Moor BTH002 Bluetooth Stereo headset delivered. These are reduced to £36 at the moment, and to be honest, I was not expecting much, read on for my early thoughts.

I had been looking to get a BT headset for a while now, after having quite a bit of success using BT in the car. The headsets in general are quite pricey, and I did not want to risk £100 plus for something I might not use (or may not work that well).

So, when the Mobile Fun email came through with these, I thought £36 is not a massive risk. When I first unpacked them, I thought they looked uncomfortable, but having used them for a few hours now, I would change my view, and say they are pretty much OK, as long as your head is not huge (wide). The design is quite basic, the earpieces are foam covered, and drop down about an inch to accommodate different size and shape heads!

The headset supports Bluetooth V2.1, and has the bluetooth Headset profiles AD2P and AVRCP which means it allows remote control of the phone or device, which of course varies dependent on the phone or tablet you are using. It has a range of 10 meters, which is about right, but if you need to be more than 5 meters away, you might get some issues, I would always use this right next to the iPhone or SGS so 5 inches would be fine for me :-)

Battery life is quoted at 10 hours music playback, or 11 hours talk time. Yes, this set has a built in mic, so you can use it for taking calls, which worked well using the SGS, not tried it on the other phones yet.
It weighs a reasonable 109grams, and comes with a charging lead, which is USB on one end, and a silly little Nokia style port on the other end, shame it is not Micro USB.

So far, I have paired it with the iPhone 4, the Samsung Galaxy S, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, all of which seem happy with it, although I must confess to only having a few hours hands on with it. It also works fine with the Macbook Air.

Sound quality is fine, perfect for podcasts, and actually not too bad for music. The controls on the unit are limited to a power button, which doubles as a pause/continue control. It has 2 buttons labelled as up and down, which do different things on different devices. For example, on the iPhone with Podcaster, they move from one podcast to the next, but on the SGS with Doggcatcher, they helpfully go forward or backwards a few seconds, ideal for skipping Leo's adverts :-) The only other buttons are volume up and down, and there is no shock with how they work!

All in all, I think these are a good buy, not too expensive, comfortable, and probably as good as the £100-£200 ones. I have put a Mobile Fun link and advert with this item in if you fancy getting a set, and it clearly pays me a few pence if you click through one of those :-)

Kev

Samsung Galaxy S Revisited

Do you guys remember back a while, when I was on PSC every week, and it was always the same two phones I talked about, the iPhone 4 vs the Samsung Galaxy S? One of the reasons I stepped down was that it was boring even me, let alone the listeners :-)

Well, what do you know, I am now back to that exact same spot :-) Have a read of my original review of the SGS on this very blog HERE if you forget what I said, things have moved on a little bit since then, and this post is meant as an update to that original piece. 

Before I get started, the main thing that has changed for me with the SGS is Darky's ROM. Call him a chef, or a repackager, the result is the same, a fantastic ROM, fast, with all the lag issues solved, rooted out of the box, and built in CWM (ClockworkMod) recovery, all bult right in, and once you are on Darkys, all future upgrades (and boy does he push out upgrades!) are a simple download, click and install, all without losing any data, and all possible on the phone without needing a PC. Without the existence of Darky's, (or other similar ROMS) I would still be a firm and fast iPhone fanboy. 

This particular ROM also has a heavy Gingerbread theme, with all the icons in the notifications bar, and the much better Gingerbread keyboard, in fact, there is very little missing from GB here, which after all is just FroYo with some go faster stripes! It also features various Lockscreens, my favorite is the stock Android one, swipe one way to unlock, and the other to set the sound on or off. 

This particular SGS I have now is only a few weeks old, and according to my Kindle logs, it is my 5th SGS to date, although I can only recall 4 :-). I got it from O2, at £329 plus a £10 mandatory top up, and I managed to get an unlock for free as an O2 contract customer I simply filled the online unlocking form in, and the code was supplied FOC. A good friend of mine was able to pick one of these up from CEX recently for as little as £235, a real bargain if ever there was one. I guess this phone will soon be discontinued, so if you want one, get one now.

I read today, that Samsung have sold 10 million of the SGS series phones, these are of course renamed in the US as Captivate, Vibrant, Fascinate and Epic 4G. Most of those are not as good as our SGS available in the UK, you wanna know why?

Do you?

Well, its the iPhone button. Yes, I keep banging on and on about it, but the design, clearly a rip off of the iPhone 3GS, features a physical button slap bang in the middle of the phone at the bottom, much the same as every iPhone. You want to check the time, give it a quick press, no hunting on top or the side of the phone for the power button. I fear we may never see another Android phone with this feature, so much so I am thinking of buying another SGS and storing it ready for when this one wears out. Seriously.  It just makes so much damn difference to using the phone, and I know a lot of people will laugh at me for this, as they associate the button with iOS, and hence do not give it the time of day. In fact, I have read about Android fanboys hating on the SGS just because it copied an iPhone feature.....madness. The other thing this phone allows, thanks to this button is simple screenshots, another welcome copy from the iPhone.

There is another button that I really miss when I use the iPhone these days, the "back" button. As I hold my phone mainly in my right hand, the SGS one is perfectly placed, and sometimes, on my iPhone 4 I find myself pressing the glass to the right of my home button before feeing completely stupid!

But it is not just the button(s) that has me loving this phone at the moment, the screen is simply lovely, so much nicer than any other TFT or AMOLED I have used, and yes, better even that the iPhone 4 screen.

The speaker allows me to listen to podcasts without being in pain, as all HTC owners are, and just lately some slight shifts in my use are starting to happen, for example, I now much prefer Doggcatcher on the SGS to Podcaster on iOS. For my Audible book listening, the Android app in the UK is fully featured, where as the iPhone app is still only fully usable with US accounts, although there is a clunky workaround for the UK.

Other touches, unique to the SGS, such as the Wi-Fi, BT, GPS, Silent and Rotation butons being built into the notification drop down makes using the phone that little bit easier, more natural somehow. I have also been impressed lately with voice to text, something of a gimmick in my mind, but if you use short sentences, and do two or three for a text, it does a pretty sound job of getting close enough, and with the Gingerbread version of the editing method being built into this ROM, it is now as easy as doing it on the iPhone.

I recently bought a Sony MEX-3800U headunit for my Clio, and one for Jackie's Scenic, the great thing about them is they just replace the standard radio, all wiring is the same and fitting takes a few mins. For £112 on Amazon, they are a true bargain, and work really, really well with the iPhone 4. Once used, every time you get into the car, assuming you leave BT on of course, the two bond together, and all phone calls and phone audio get sent via the car speakers. Great for podcasts, or music, or phone calls, which mute the radio/podcast/music and restart after the call. Now, with my last SGS and the SGT, this was not working, with BT dropping out every few seconds, only on audio mind, phone calls always work.  

On top of this, only the iPhone would auto reconnect with the unit, and the Android devices had to be manually connected by going to settings and clicking on the relevant item. Somehow, with this latest ROM, the thing now just works, auto reconnects, without me touching anything, and the icing on the cake is that there is no longer any audio dropout, it works 100% now. I think the SGS at this point has as much talent developing for it as any other Android phone, and the physical button, screen, speaker, and lower price makes it one of the best, if not the best Android phone available today. 

The only area where the SGS could be improved is to make a version with a camera flash, and get the build quality up to Nexus S level, put the power socket on the bottom. I don't suppose they will though. Rather they will likely just carry on the arms race, with ever more powerful CPUs, probably with correspondingly less battery life, and anonymous slabs of glass with ever changing button positions below the screen.  These ROMs prove to me that we really don't need much more than a 1Ghz CPU in a phone.

So, all in all, I can not recall the last time I enjoyed a phone so much. Wait, yes, I can, it was the iPhone 3GS. 

Please comment on twitter, I am @kevwright, and do follow @darkyy92 

Kev