A big hint

Sometimes technology of being connected on the move makes us even more disconnected. Perhaps we should all cancel our data plans, lose the smartphones and just revert back to pagers and snail mails. Perhaps being so connected or contactable makes one more liable to forget the people around us? Well, of late, I had fun doing the simple things of carrying lanterns and flying layangs.

Get ready for Swype

Sick of having fat fingers on small touch screen keypads, creating typos? Get ready for a new wave in text messaging or typing uber quickly on mobile phones.



vs iPhone...apparently Apple doesn't want it in their products. Well the new Motorola Droid X will have it, thus hopefully on Android "Market" soon.



All the tips on how to Swype - videos.

LG sucks and reflection of time schedule

Life has been really busy lately. So I have no time to send my mobile phone for repair and thus, friends who don't message or call me...will slowly drip off from my schedule..which isn't really a bad thing. I am also known to be a procrastinator to such unimportant things which can wait and coincidentally this blog entry was due 2 weeks ago. Apparently I have been wearing for weeks - one of my fav t-shirt that goes "Procrastinator Unite! Tomorrow..." bought from my favorite Target mart  in US.
Also never believe in product ads on youtube and reviewers anymore. Below is a video review of my LG Renoir which supposedly can withstand baking, washing and even running over by a car...but apparently not by my go-kart going at 90-100kmh which is considerably lighter than a car..haha
Here is my go-kart aka long time army friend Jonathan's account of it and his wise words of advise on what not to do on a go-kart.



Anyway here is my typical after-work schedule which prevents me from actually having a relationship.

Mondays: Rest day from a crazy weekend since US is still Sunday...well that is until 8pm. Normally no conference calls so time is spent with the family or with my buddies at usual drinking hole.

Tuesdays: Normally 8pm conference calls. Otherwise tennis with my ex-colleagues or last minute movies with my movie buddy.

Wednesdays: Typically 10pm conference calls, otherwise alternative basketball scrimmages/tennis date or last minute movies.

Thursdays: Strangely normally conference calls only start at 10 or 11pm, in time to be back from my 2-hr Wing Chun classes which start at 8pm.

Fridays: Conference calls around 8-12am otherwise party or drinking time, otherwise it is NBA Live 10/Command and Conquer online with friends till 2-5am.

Saturdays: Morning check urgent work emails and noon is basketball matches at Jammers League, night is gathering with friends who have pre-booked in advance.

Sundays: Either morning photoshoots or in JB for go-karting followed by either shooting live basketball with Slingers at indoor stadium or buddies drinking gathering.

Noticed a lot of drinking...well here's a reminder that drinking is good for cognitive brain functions and helps in sleeping when you have too much to think.

LG Renoir

Well, it has been about a couple of months since I've gotten the LG Renoir. Besides it being a 8mp wonder, the phone can take a couple of hard knocks.

Found clips of torture test the phone recently underwent and survived. The handset was left in the freezer at -20C for 12 hours, dropped to the floor, stepped on, thrown in a clothes drier for 15 minutes, caked in dust, dunked in wine, and run over by a Ford Focus. After all that it functioned just fine, suffering only a few scratches on the screen inflicted by the pavement.

As the videos are of wide sized, decided not to embed them. You can find the torture tests video links here:
Freezer
Stepped on, dunked in wine and washed, and run over by car


Hmm, I wonder if Nokia phones can take such abuse?

Nokia N810 trial review in finer details

Pictures blatantly stolen from Nokia website, too lazy to take pics.


When I first got the Nokia N810 last week for trials, my first impression of the product was that it was a looker. I was impressed with the device for having touch screen with a thumb keyboard that slides own from the device and a built-in GPS receiver.
Though it is smaller than the predecessor N800, it is still not really a pocket fit. That's partly due to the 4.1in screen. I do not previously used an N800, so I can't comment on the difference. So its purely a first time usage review.

I was impressed with the form factor that Nokia has placed the buttons around to make it more user-friendly and more attractive. The directional pad is placed to the left of the keyboard on the sliding panel. The menu button is right below the directional pad. The escape and home buttons are on the front of the device, that flushes along the left side. The round power button is at the top center, with a sliding lock added to the right of the power button. To the left of it are the zoom buttons and the full-screen button. So there are lots of hard buttons around to improve the user experience.

The headphone and power adapter jacks are located on the right side of the device just beneath the stylus. The one thing which is not user friendly is the stand, which blocks the USB port and memory card slot when closed. And this makes removing the battery cover a hassle. The USB port is not the usual miniUSB, so that's another cable to bring along on business trips. I do not understand why they can't just make it universal.

The N810's external memory card slot is designed for MiniSD and MicroSD cards rather than standard SD cards which I was hoping to dump my old unwanted SD card in there to boost the small memory it has onboard. It has a primary Flash storage of 256mb for the maemo Linux-based OS2008, with another insufficient 2Gb of built in secondary flash memory.
With Nokia offering N95 8Gb or N81 8Gb, I would expect at least an 8Gb for the N810 to be able to store at least some music and movies to be able to bring along on business trips. A good point to note is that the 128Mb DDR RAM is good enough to load fully my Facebook profile with all the applications at hand which I cannot perform on the N95. It is even sufficient to do minor photo or picture editing before uploading it on Flickr or my blog. But the embedded webcam resolution is insufficient to take decent pictures, and is more apt for video conferencing.



An impressive note is there is an ambient light sensor which is located above the webcam which supposedly automatically adjusts screen brightness and keyboard backlighting!
I managed a short post about the N810 for my blog before my fingers start getting tired. Notably the keyboard has control key which allows shortcuts, and the layout is QWERTY but without a number row to cut down on the space usage. The keyboard is rather sensitive, and might need a bit of time getting used to, as I keep double typing without the proper feedback I would expect.
I prefer using the software keyboard and handwriting methods of text entry for short notes.
Perhaps the most attractive thing on the N810 appearance would be the notification light that flashes in various colors to indicate certain events.

The use interface looks simple and elegant but with just 2 themes available, it is quite lacking, but we can change the background wallpaper with our own pictures. Hope to find more themes available online if I had more trial time. The status icons in the notification area are minimalist and are mostly white located at the top right which is easy on the eye.
But disappointingly, the trial set does not come with Chinese language support as well as Chinese keyboard support. I guess there should be some Chinese support package available but the trial period is too short for the hassle.
Even downloading the updated OS2008 which is about 120mb and the various programs such as Skype is not available on the trial set.
With WiFi 802.11b/g, I was able to easily access Wireless@SG at many locations. With the integrated microphone we can actually make free Skype calls from the device. But unfortunately, there was a lack of video support in Skype, which makes the webcam virtually useless.
Watching YouTube on N810 is a little laggy, losing frames all the time, not sure if its due to the Wireless connection or the device itself. But still good enough to watch though.
The videos playback on the N810 with the sample videos appear to be smooth with surprisingly good sound via the speakers. I paired my Sony bluetooth headset to listen to the mp3s, it is decent, almost the same quality as my N95.

I was able to send fairly big files and pictures from my mobile to the N810 quickly, but the storage quickly ran out due to the limited storage space.
There are still not much free applications available for the N810 and the limited trial period did not allow me to try out other Linux applications from being installed on the N810.
Lastly would be the GPS and Maps function I would try. With such a big screen, it would be nice to hook it up in the car and navigate around Singapore. The on screen zoom functions are quite handy, and using fingers to control the Maps is easy. Holding a stylus while driving would be quite difficult. However, the application is quite different from the Nokia Maps loaded in N95, and connecting to the GPS takes quite a while.

Conclusions on the N810 would be that as it is not really a mobile phone though we can make Internet/VOIP calls from it, it is sufficient as a web browser, email, media player. But more storage space is preferred, and with many other devices competing in this market, it would be advantageous if more office applications are available to replace PDAs completely with this device. For now the similarly Linux based Asus Eee PC looks rather attractive as well.

1st blog entry using a handheld device!

I was asked to review the new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, and I am now trying my hand at how easy this might be using Wifi and typing with the typepad for an entry. It is difficult for long entries when pictures have to be edited for postings(there isn't any editing software preloaded).But i guess short entries like this would be good. Check back later for more pics and reviews as i play more with its Linux environment!