I have always have the desire to learn about (mobile) life beyond Windows Mobile,  after having owned numerous Windows Mobile devices for the past 5 years. Then came iPhone, in 2008. But despite its edge cutting user experience and its hundreds of thousands of (useless) applications, it didn’t wow me over. I admit I’m not a big fan of Apple, but that has nothing to do with me not joining the fruity camp. I think it’s a great mobile product to start with, and had redefined the usability of mobile devices. It forces telco to sell data plan as a mainstream service. There’s many good things about the consumer focused phone, but just not enough to replace the likes of my trusty Xperia, Touch HD and subsequently HD2 as a productivity phone.

Then few months ago, I had a taste of Android on my Touch HD, albeit booted from Windows Mobile using haret (just think of it as a PC that can dual boot between Windows and Linux). I thought Android was an unpolished product then, with a great potential to woo over die hard Windows Mobile users.

In the past 6 months, many Android based phones had launched, but they were either too small for my fat fingers, or did not look appealing to me. Most importantly, until Android 2.1 (or Eclair) was released, there was no good way to integrate Android with Exchange Server backend.

Last month, a couple of new Android Eclair phones were launched, and one of them caught my attention. The phone “Desire” is so aptly named. Sporting a screen of 3.7″ size, running HTC sense and most importantly has support for Exchange Server integration,  it looks like a good phone to replace my HD2, which had been on steriod for the past few months.

So when Yeez decides to renew her telco contract, I shamelessly offer her my professional service to set up her HTC Desire, and in the process, for her to experience the steroid boosted HD2 and for me to test-play her HTC Desire for the next few weeks. 

But it took me 2 weeks before I could lay my hands on the desirable phone, as the phone was out of stock island-wide since day 1 due to its overwhelming demand and conservative supplies from HTC (as I understood HTC allocated only 100 units to each telco on day one of its release). Fast forward to yesterday, upon first powered up,  I was first greeted by the familiar shell interface, HTC Sense, which has been around in other HTC Android and Windows Mobile phones. The Android version of the HTC Sense supports a wide variety of widgets, and I believed it is based on Android App Widgets framework. This is a big contrast to the Windows Mobile version of HTC Sense, which has been developed from ground up, based on Lua scripting language. Ok, it sounds little too techie here, but bottomline, you should be able to customise the Android version of HTC sense with other non HTC-sense widgets easily. In the Windows Mobile camp, you would need skilled developers to custom build additional “home tabs” which will only run on HTC-sense powered Windows Mobile devices. That said, I am alittle annoyed with the fact that I can only have 7 “widget screens”, even though I could work around that “limitation” by choosing different “Scene” (each scene has its own set of home widget screens configured).

Installation of third party applications into HTC Desire, like any other Android phones (and iPhone if I’ve to be politically correct), is seamless through Android Market.  I installed a few applications, including big installation packages such as NDrive.  There are some installed applications such as SMS widget counter, File explorer,  Bluetooth transfer app, etc which I deemed basic and should be part of the Android base system. Or maybe I have been spoilt by Windows Mobile for the last few years. On the otherhand,  there are good applications such as Tapatalk which I had been hoping for during  the Windows Mobile  days, and I reckon the lack of “easy to use” UI SDK as the main reason why developers are slow in porting their applications to Windows Mobile.

Applications aside, setting up HTC Desire was a breeze, in particular setting up Exchange Server account for my push mail needs. In a few minutes, all my company mails, calendars and contacts were downloaded to the phone. While the PIM features in Desire (or Android phones for that matter) is not as extensive as that in Windows Mobile, it’s  more than adequate for one to connect to workplace, e.g. scheduling a meeting with a list of  invitees,  setting out of office,looking up company’s global address book, etc. And because I had setup my HD2 favorite people previously, the Desire’s favorite widget screen shows the same list of favorite contacts after synchronising with the exchange server. Neat!

Now here comes my biggest gripe(s),  to date. I always pin-secured my phones, and its no different for HTC desire. The problem with HTC Desire, and possibly for any other Android phones, is that if I choose to have numeric pin, I would still face a full qwerty keyboard to enter the pin when I try to slide unlock the phone. It may sounds like nitpicking, but just imagine you have to tap 8 key codes quickly every time you turn on the phone to make a call or do a quick read of new messages. It didn’t help that Android phones (or at least for HTC Desire) seem to have only one single power management mode; regardless of whether the phone is on external power source or battery, or whether the phone is idle or running some active services.

Apart from these gripes, there are other small nags such as occasional screen lags, inability to have full access to application configurations (probably require rooting). Still, I think it has been a refreshing experience, and is the smart phone that is capable of replacing my HD2. This is even more so with the next version of Android, Froyo,  rumoured to be available for HTC Desire in a couple of weeks time, and reportedly to be 5 times as fast as Eclair. Of course, since its made by HTC, one can easily head over to xda-developers to satisfy ones desire for the dark side.

My sister-in-law bought HP mini netbook recently, and I helped her to setup over the weekend.

I was pleasantly surprised to see HP InstantWeb application pre-installed in the netbook. Firstly, I have read about the application from the internet but this is the first time I have seen it in person. Next, I thought it’s cool for HP to custom build this small application that enables user to quickly access email or web surfing without having to wait for a long boot time. Although Windows 7 has improved the boot up time significantly (works out to be around 40s on my laptop running on 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate) , it’s still considerably slow for a mini netbook.

A decade and a half later, I got the opportunity to install Obuntu, one of many variants of Linux operating system, in my old tablet (TC4400). Prior to this, I had trouble with the tablet’s bootup, even from the external cdrom. Apparently there was some power problem with the motherboard. Fed up with the problem, I decided to boot up using a Obuntu cd that I got over the internet (first yay!), and ended up installing the operating system into my tablet. The power issue never surfaced with a Linux-based system, so I’m happy (second yay!). Within 30 minutes, I got the system setup, and ready for use! (third yay!)

More impressively, I had the system boot up and ready to surf within a minute! (fourth yay). Now I am contemplated to ubuntu-ised my mini-1000 netbook as well…

I recalled reading Steve Job’s argument on why 3G is not bundled in its 2G iPhone product; He said that 3G consumes more battery juice than its predecessor. Yes it does and so does WIFI which can be found in its first generation of iPhone.

Fast forwarding to now, the new iPhone 3G S is touted as a turbo charged iphone 3G with its HSDPA technology. Again it’s a technology found in my Dopod c730 two years ago. Anybody who wants to argue that Apple always does thing better than its competitors should really question how better is it for this context? That we are able to have 3.5G broadband at fraction of power consumption? I don’t think so.

Then BGR has reported undesirable high pitch noise when iPhone 3G S plays some sound files. One site blamed it on the bluetooth headset, and claimed that he had no problem with another. Surely we can infer a more objective conclusion from all these can we?

Posted from my Touch-HD

So  4 weeks ago when I sent in my X1 to the service center to have the keyboard and some parts repaired,  never would I had expected that would be my last Xperia experience.  It has to do with the infamous crack plastic housing that I requested to be replaced, but I shall not digress further. Fast forward to now,  I ended up selling my X1 back to the service center, and gotten a black stone, a code name for HTC Touch HD.

First unboxing impression

HTC always does a great job in marketing their products, including their product packaging. Touch HD is not an exception. Upon opening up the box, the phone is sitting tightly on the velvet case, radiating a class of sparkles as if it is really a black gem stone. The phone itself is very well built, with a glass finishing on the front, and plastic with rubber texture finishing on its back. The 3.8″ screen size is a big welcome for me after enduring the small 2.8″ (or 3.0″ for X1) screen for the last few years. It was the same feeling I got when I upgraded my 29″ CRT with a 42″ plasma TV few years ago. No kidding! With a bigger screen, something has to give in, as it becomes wider to hold and may not be one-hand-friendly especially for ladies. Luckily the overall form factor is not at all compromised, as HTC designs the phone as a gemstone, not a brick. Perhaps I had my own taste of iPAQ 6300/6500/6900, I find it comfortable holding HD despite its wider screen.

Setup experience

The setup experience was somehow less desirable though. After going through the usual screen calibration and time setting, my first task was to set up Activesync Exchange connectivity, so that I can restore my contacts, email and appointments as I would always do when I get a new Windows Mobile phone. This is where my patience was seriously tested. For some reason, the sync download was slow (ok, blame it on the 3G connection I have), and at the half way mark, the device reported that service.exe has crashed and the sync got into a limbo stage. It took me a soft reset, to complete the sync, even then, the sync was painfully slow. It appears as if there is something running in the background, that slows down the whole sync process.

Stock Performance

Unlike what the HTC sales manager had claimed 6 months ago during a Touch HD product introduction, the phone does not feel like it has been optimized for its performance. In fact, if there’s any indication that HTC has partnered with StarHub (Singapore telco that has exclusivity in Touch HD launch) to customize the ROM, it’s probably the StarHub logo display on the home page of TouchFlo interface.

Comparing to my previous X1, the Touch HD performance is just decent, and that’s after some tweaking using Schap’s Advanced Config Tool. The battery performance is far from what was promised. Sure, battery performance is subjective and depends on individual’s usage pattern. HTC had however, quite bullishly, claimed that watching TV (via StarHub TV mobile) on Touch HD would be much better than doing the same on other devices, as Touch HD would “intelligently turn off some services” to save battery power when one watches the TV online. It sounded like a complete sales “waste of male cow” (i.e. BS) but I gave the sales manager a benefit of doubt since I was not able to play with the phone until now. And my skeptic is finally backed by my own finding; after 1 hour of watching live soccer match on HD, the battery depleted by 25%. Hey I think my X1 can do a better job than this.

Second Life with Turbo-charging

So at the verge of selling the phone, and get something else (with Touch Pro 2 looming around), I decided to give HD a second chance by flashing a custom ROM (thanks to a mate’s suggestion). The steps to flash a custom ROM can be quite taunting. The last time I touched a custom ROM was when I had my iPAQ 6515, where we manipulated the ROM image with hex editor just to “hack” the storage management. With Touch HD and xda developers, the flashing process has been simplified dramatically. Within 15 minutes, I had turbo-charged my Touch HD, and I was wowed by the speed and memory management performance this time round. Set up was a breeze, the interface was even more refreshing (leveraging from Rhodium’s platform) and the screen was sensitive as usual without any trace of lag. If anybody were to ask for my advice, I would say custom ROM is the way to go, at least for Touch HD, if you really want to maximise your experience with the black stone.

Perhaps it’s the hype of Xperia, I felt so compelled to experience it when Sony Ericsson finally launched it on 1st November, 9 months after it was first announced.  So I drove down to the Sony Ericsson concept store, on its launch day. My first impression of the phone, was not exactly a “love on first sight” kind of feeling. The phone does look cool on first look (so was the cute sales executive), but my primary concern (as with any other phones) has always been the keyboard and therefore I spent quite a lot testing the keyboard rather than fiddling around its other uber cool features.

I had a bit of trouble typing a proper sentence to be honest. I always hit the wrong key (due to wider spacing and the staggered qwerty keys) and my thumbs often get in the way of the edge of the panel when I try to access the top row of the keys.

I left the shop with quite a disappointment, and went to do some grocery shopping at the supermarket with my mind still wandering at the concept store. I decided to go back to the store again after my grocery errand, and give the keyboard one more chance.

This time, I make sure I keep the keyboard layout in mind (important for Touch Pro user) while at the same time, observed the best thumb position when typing the top row of keyboard. It did not take me too long to finally get used to the keyboard. Once I adapted well to the keyboard,  texting using the keyboard is actually better than Touch Pro, which often than not, feels alittle hard and less fluid when composing sentences.

With the keyboard passing my test, I went on to scrutinize the physical design and build quality of the handset. It is no doubt a well made phone, although the expectation is there  given that it is suppose to be Sony Ericsson’s flagship model. The arc-sliding mechanism enables the keyboard to be slided out smoothly with a light thud sound, demonstrating that a designer product can be functional too.

At that moment, I made up my mind instantaneously, and wasted no time driving down to Starhub at Plaza Singapura to bring this chic product home!

Upon unboxing the unit, the initial impression was that the phone itself, is trailblazing as acclaimed. The programs launch almost instantly for programs like pocket outlook or internet explorer. As I set up the activesync pushmail, I observed the PIM information (i.e. contacts, emails and calendars) was downloaded at a speed that is so much faster than when I was using Touch Pro or i780. Maybe my heart has taken control of my eyes and my brain.

Finger gesturing is also quite good given the high sensitivity of the screen. A flick up or down on most of the screen will scroll the list as expected, although at the end of the day this is still dependent on the program’s gesture support. Still, once the program supports the finger gesture, the navigation is actually quite smooth and hiccup-less.

After using it for 2 weeks, I am glad that I have traded my Touch Pro for Xperia. My take is that both have its own strength and shortcoming. What I observed since I use Xperia, is that I watching TV and movie more, while my business usage of the phone does not changed or compromised. If a picture speaks a thousand words, I had taken a few videos of the handset, to sum up my review here.

Video of TouchFlo as one of the panel in X1

Using Xperia to watch live TV (mobile streaming Starhub TV channels)

GPS navigating and MP3 playback concurrently using Xperia

Surfing internet and staying connected in Facebook using Xperia

Watching Xvid encoded Wall-E movie on Xperia

Comparing Xperia and Sony PSP on video playback

Photos of Xperia

I confess, the temptation of new Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is too much for me to resist.

That said, my first impression of the phone, was not exactly a “love on first sight” kind of feeling, as I dropped by Sony Ericsson concept store to check out the the phone. The phone does look cool on first look (so was the cute sales executive), but my primary concern has always been the keyboard and therefore I spend quite alot trying to experience the keyboard rather than fiddling around its other uber cool features.

I had a bit of trouble typing a proper sentence to be honest. I always hit the wrong key (due to wider spacing and the staggered qwerty keys) and my thumbs often got in the way of the edge of the panel when I tried to access the top row of the keyboard.

I left the store with quite a disappointment, and went to do some grocery shopping at the supermarket with my mind still wandering at the concept store. I decided to go back to the store again after my grocery errand, just to give the keyboard another chance.

This time, I made sure I keep the keyboard layout in mind while at the same time, observed the best thumb position when typing the top row of keyboard. Surprisingly, it did not take me too long to get used to the keyboard and find that the messaging using the keyboard can actually be better than Touch Pro. Change management is a must, especially if you are a Touch Pro user, as the Touch Pro has an “unconventional” QWERTY keyboard layout.

Made up my mind eventually, and wasted no time as I drove down to Starhub Plaza Singapura, to get the phone.(The enquire and buy experience with Starhub is yet another dramatic one, but I shall not digress)

Have not try to surf yet or play with the phone extensively yet, so I will comment on the performance more later. However, the initial impression was that the phone itself, is blazingly fast as acclaimed. The programs launch almost instantly for programs like pocket outlook or internet explorer. As I set up the activesync pushmail, I can see the contacts, emails and calendars were downloaded very quickly, much faster than when I was setting up using Touch Pro or i780. Psychological?

Finger gesturing is also quite good considering how sensitive the screen is. A flick up or down on most of the screen will scroll the list as expected, although at the end of the day this is still dependent on the program’s gesture support. Still, once the program supports the finger gesture, the navigation experience can actually be very smooth and “hiccup-less”.

That’s all I have at the moment, will blog about my takeaways of X1 versus Touch Pro after using it for a few more days.

Some photos with X1 and Touch Pro side by side

to see if the gadget lives up to its name as a truly convergent device, a device that simply allows you to do more than the usual telephony and PIM (Personal Information Management) stuffs you normally find on a typical phone and pda separately and respectively. So the golden questions are …

• Can it replace my notebook so that I can use it to write a blog post, surf the net extensively without feeling frustrated by the browser limitation that usually comes with a mobile phone.

• Can I use it to snap photos while I travel and yet does not need to resort to downsizing the photo into a 200×150 so as to hide the poor resolution quality?

• Can I rely on it as my life savior by guiding me through a city that I had never spent my life in?

• How about responding to email and sms on the road, on demand? (This should be a no brainer, since I am already impressed with the combination of exchanger server and Windows mobile device in delivering the push mail utility.)

• Lastly, can I use it to wow my friends and colleagues, a rather important feature for an egoist man like me

And the answers to all the above are pretty encouraging, and here’s why.

First off, starting from the last question, the built in Touch Flo 3D user experience simply change my impression 180°, that a “Winmo” device can be so cool. HTC has gone a long way in developing their Touch Flo capability; I remembered writing off their first version as no more than an empty shell cover on top of the rather dated Windows Mobile interface. Boy, I was proven wrong big time now with their latest 3D version of Touch Flo, and I can understand why now it had created a strong following when HTC launched Diamond a while back.  Its flagship model sported the same interface. Well the Iphone critics might say this is really elementary when compared to their multi-touch interface. But when you put an intuitive interface, never mind it is not any further radical or innovative than that of an iPhone, on a Windows mobile platform that offers the richness in its functional offering, it is a perfect match made by heaven. It is like a nerdy man that had just went through a major makeover in his appearance and social skills. Thumbs up, for the brilliant interface, and bigger thumbs up, for giving me the “show off” chance.

Then, I recalled three weeks ago when I was at Houston. After 27 hours of long flight,  the last thing I would want to do is to remember the route details to the hotel. I was concerned that it will take eons while to get acquisition fix, as the whole process (the process where GPS device receives signal from various satellites to compute its location) can get trickier when you travel to the other side of the hemisphere. Once I stepped out of Hertz car rental site, within a minute, I got a fix! Ok I did cheat, I downloaded the almanac and ephemeris via the Q-GPS function. The Garmin Mobile XT that was installed in my Touch Pro, gracefully and accurately guided me to the hotel. No more worries about getting lost in a totally unfamiliar city. That said, it was a case of meeting, rather than exceeding, my expectation. I was pleased, but not wowed, so thumbs stay down for this.

Despite being a frequent business traveler, I hardly take any photos while on business trip.  I find it inconvenient to lug my digital SLR camera or even my compact camera around. After all, I travelled for a business purpose, not holidaying. Furthermore, I never bothered to take photos using my phone’s camera. The quality of the photos taken are usually washed out, or at best average. However, with my Touch Pro’s 3M pixel camera, I find myself taking quite a few photos in the last Houston and Bangalore trips. One advantage of holding a good phone camera, as I found out in the last two trips, you are always holding it, or keeping it in your trouser pocket, so the camera is always at your disposure to take instant candid photos. But camera phones still have their short comings. Case in point; While I was in Bangalore city on the way back to hotel, I chanced upon a cattle walking by the road. I quickly took out my phone, and was in position to snap this interesting moment. However, by the time the camera was ready to shoot, the cattle was already far behind me… So there’s still a value in investing in SLR or compact camera, but for business trips travel and daily usage, a camera like the one in Touch Pro, serves its purpose. Another thumbs up for this.

Last but not least, how did HTC Touch Pro fare as I used it to pen down this blog post? With Touch Pro’s vibrant display, Opera’s pan and zoom feature, blazing 3G speed, I thought I could do the job with ease just as I had been surfing the web without any glitches. In all honesty, I did not complete the blog entry as I got stumbled at the 5th paragraph. I was happily blogging away, but I decided I should save my work just in case something cropped up unexpectedly. And something did crop up  ironically. The wordpress editing tool did not allow me to continue, due to some javascript compatibility issues with the Opera browser. Luckily for me, the earlier effort was intact, just that I couldn’t continue my blogging. But not to be fooled by this negative example. The experience of navigating through most desktop-targetted web sites remains to be a seamless and positive one. In fact, I probably surf more using my Touch Pro, as compared to the total time I had spent online using all my previous mobile gadgets. Two big thumbs up for this!

My final verdict? The phone itself is more impressive than its already impressive paper spec. I am probably not exaggerating if I call Touch Pro the king of qwerty phone. Well at least for now. Until the likes of Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia starts showing up in our shore, it is hard not to be linked with this “pro” phone. As my little nephew will always exclaimed when he sees something extraordinary… this is Pro …

Came across iRobot Roomba many years back, and were impressed by its ability then. Had recommended to many friends but I had been procrastinating to get one myself. Finally, I got it last week, while on business trip to Houston. Told myself, I need to be incentivised myself despite the 28 hours flight trip, so I bidded one at ebay for $260 USD, hand carried it back home!

Got abit of problem getting it charged initially though. Due to the difference in the power supply in US versus Asia, I had bought a compatible power supply unit with output rating of 24V/1A. Although it had worked on my friends’ Roomba, it didn’t work on mine. Either it’s because my battery was totally flat out (after playing with it when I first unboxed the item) or there’s compatibility issue with the newer 500 series model. From what I read in the forums, it appeared that the charging voltage varies between 18V to 22.5V especially when the battery is flat out. Decided to use the step down voltage converter in the meantime, but will be exploring a proper 220/240V PSU at the same time.

After more than 16  hours of charging for the first time, I had Roomba carry out its maiden cleaning in our house, and witnessed it entangled a few times. A minor house furnishing re-arrangement is needed to make it more friendly for the robot to clean the house, and this is definitely worthwhile. Hey, you do expect to do the same for a human cleaner, don’t you?

Roomba started up for the first time

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4JZbVbWaYE[/youtube]

Roomba docking home

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-a9u9QvAFk[/youtube]

Some photos taken