What the flip?

I mentioned in the last post that while I gave in and bought a phone with a slider design, I still don’t get the thing with flip-phones (or clamshells or whatever you want to call the design). They aren’t that much smaller – a bit, sure, but that’s usually offset by thickness that increases the bulge in your pocket. And you need to open the phone before being able to do just about anything. With a regular candybar design all that is needed is a quick keystroke to unlock the keys. Even with the slider compromise, I only need to open the phone when texting or otherwise entering information into it. In my opinion, that small saving in size comes at a cost in usability.

As I see it, the only benefit is dramatic effect. The opening (or closing) makes a statement that you are about to make a call, or just have finished one. Maybe that’s a good function if you’re a soap opera character who needs to emphasize your anger about having found out about your husband’s mistress by snapping the phone shut, and if you’re a Jack Bauer-type agent you might want to be able to flip open your phone and spend a moment in thoughtful hesitation before making that call that will save the West Coast, the president and your family at the cost of an evil terrorist getting free…

But for anyone else? I can’t really see the point. But there seems to be something, since there’s a lot of such phones on the market. Feel free to enlighten me.

I also mentioned that when the iPhone type all-touchscreen design becomes available in all price ranges, the need should clear for foldable and otherwise compactable designs… but who knows?

CommentsTags: gadgets, phones, rant

July 13, 2008 at 10:32 pm · Filed under Computing & techiness, General, Random ramblings & reflections

Sony Ericsson S500i

So, as my old Nokia had served my for almost half a decade, I decided it was time to retire it, and what I found was the Sony Ericsson S500i in the contrasted copper color shown in the image. And besides the first one being a lemon that I had replaced due to a glitch at the top of the display glass (looked like a good entry point for pocket lint and stuff), I’m happy with it. I think the model has been around since fall, which I guess makes it close to ancient in the tech market, but that might mean it’s a good time to look for special deals on it.

It’s marketed as a “design” phone, so I’ll start from the outside by saying that I think it does in fact look nice. Not incredibly eyecatching, nor overly minimalistic but with nice clean lines, open space between the features and a bit of nice accents. Some have labeled it as feminine design – that might be true of the gold-green or purple version, but unless you’re the kind of guy who immediately gets the hot babe theme or one sporting your car/team logo, you might find one you like in the other color options which in my opinion are pretty neutral. When it comes to construction, I think it feels pretty solid for a mostly plastic design, and the action of the slider bit is good.

I have to mention that I haven’t seen much point in clamshells or any other designs including joints or covers with the size mobile phones reached around the turn of the millenium… but with larger displays and need for larger navigation keys I guess hiding the number pad is a good compromise until even the most affordable phones are chrome framed touchscreen lozenges. At least as long as I don’t have to open it to see the display or call up a number from the phone book.

The phone also comes with lighting effects – something which didn’t sound too appealing in writing, but it is quite subtle in practice. Besides a selection of pulsating effects for incoming calls, the lighting also changes color to match that of the themes (which themselves alter with time of the day and season, depending on theme). It’s an interesting attempt in combining the design of the software with the hardware, and it works well.

If there’s anything to complain about design wise it’s that the navigation keys, though not terrible, might be slightly affected by a form over function compromise. I also don’t find the right side placement of the Fastport optimal – when a headset or charger is connected the largish plug is right where I want my index finger to be and makes the set a slight bit awkward to operate with my right hand. And while a tap on the two softkeys unlocks the keys, there is no similar way to lock them again so you have to either open and close the phone or access an option in the power button menu.

So, to leave the design and go into the device, I guess I can summarize the featues as pretty decent, but not special. It connects over GSM (850/900/1800/1900) with GPRS and EDGE, and has Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and USB for more local communication. The 2 inch display has a 240×320 resolution and 262K colors, and it’s bright and clear enough that I don’t have any problem using it with the backlight turned down to 50% on most occasions. On-board memory is 12MB, and expandable with Memory Stick M2 up to 2GB. The 2Mpix fix-focus camera isn’t any wonder, but I guess it’s alright for snapshots. It has a panorama mode, digital zoom when set to VGA resolution or video, and basic white balance and effect settings. The built-in speaker is alright for speaker phone and game audio but not so much for music. To conclude the hardware overview I must say that battery life seems a bit so-so, but then I’ve been playing around with it a bit too.

Software wise, it’s pretty much what you’d expect as well. Online capabilities include browser, email with push support and an RSS reader. The audio and video players do their jobs, and then there’s the organizer and other aides as well as a pile of basic software for video and photo editing and ringtone composing and so on.

All in all, it’s a decent mid-range phone with just about everything you need in an, in my opinion, attractive package. I paid SEK1300 (About EUR140/USD210), a bit less than regular shelf price of SEK2000-2500 since it was sold with a pre-paid card and locked to the carrier I already use, and for that price I think it was a great deal.

Update: Seems there are plenty of comments on the internets complaining about the number keys breaking. While mine are still whole, I agree that they do in fact look a bit on the flimsy side.

SonyEricsson S500i product page
S500i Mysterious Green at amazon.com
S500i Mysterious Green at amazon.co.uk
(who can resist a chance for associate spam?)

CommentsTags: Add new tag, gadgets, phones

July 1, 2008 at 3:26 am · Filed under Computing & techiness

Speaking of expensive: Workstations

While I’m on about expensive stuff, I might as well share this link to a round-up of workstations – not only costly but also with some intentions to being stylish, ergonomic or otherwise functional. And in one case, ridiculously geeky…

When I saw the Walkstation, I was reminded about an old thought of mine: A recumbent exercise bike with integrated with a workstation. Those recumbent bikes are among the most comfortable ways to burn some calories (I’d get one if it hadn’t been that ones with good movements costs a bit), and unlike the treadmill it would probably still be possible to focus on what you’re trying to get done. And if anyone feels like putting that idea into production, feel free to send me a sample. I have a bit of blubber to spare for a case study.

Luxury Workstations on Born Rich [via Boing Boing Gadgets]

CommentsTags: design, expensive, furniture, gadgets

April 30, 2008 at 10:47 pm · Filed under Computing & techiness

SanDisk Sansa c240

Thought I’d make a short post about the SanDisk Sansa c240 mp3-player I got a while ago (I ordered it with the Cresyn phones I mentioned in an earlier post, but due to some supplier hiccup they couldn’t deliver it until a couple of weeks later).

The selection process was pretty straightforward – my old player suffered from a loose headphone jack and I was tired of getting batteries for it all the time, so I went to an online store that had sent me a campaign code and selected the cheapest 1GB player with rechargeable battery available at that store.

I must say it turned out quite well, as the Sansa c240 scores quite well in the value-for-money category (the 2GB c250 is even better, but I was short on cash and wanted a pair of good phones as well). Besides my main requirements of storage and rechargeability, I also got nice color display and an SD Micro slot for expanding storage. Considering the price it feels pretty well built with a releatively solid, un-flimsy feel to it even though it’s all plastic, and it doesn’t look too bad (though it has to be said that you have to be a pretty bad designer to fail with basics like black, shiny trim and blue light).

Besides the drawback of being very hard to read without the back-light the display was the greatest surprise on a device in this price range. It is large enough to display four lines of text (about 15 characters wide) plus a header while browsing, and in playback mode it shows artist, track and album while displaying play mode, track number, and battery status at the top and playback status, progress bar and track timer and the bottom. Overall, the interface works quite well, with tracks sorted by artist, album, song and genre. As I said, the display hard to read unless the backlight is on, but I think the size still makes it better than the single line monochrome LCDs found on many similarly priced players.

When it comes to the sound, I have to say it’s what I expected – nothing to complain about, but not remarkable in any way. Good enough, in short. There’s also the standard five EQ presets plus a five band custom setting. I did, at first, think that the player felt a bit weak volume wise – it was just a bit over my comfort range when I cranked it to the max with the fairly sensitive Cresyn phones. I later found out that there’s an option to set the volume control to “loud”, which can be useful for those who want to use more power-hungry phones, while the “normal” setting is useful for getting the volume right with earphones.

So, I mentioned earphones, and I guess that makes it a good time to mention those included. They don’t sound particularly bad with any kind of music I tried, but the overall impression is dull. While they are far from the worst standard phones I’ve gotten with a portable music device, they are not among the very few exceptions to the rule that a small investment of 15-25 dollars or euros will make your new device sound much better.

So, what’s left to mention? According to specifications battery life is 16 hours, and that’s enough for my use which mainly is to entertain me during the half hour it takes to get from my door to my job. I haven’t tried the voice recorder, so I can’t say anything about that. Same goes for the photo display feature (it requires the images to be converted, and I haven’t found any reason to install the software). It has two transfer modes, MTP that allows transfer of WMA DRM files, and a mass storage mode when you only need to play unencrypted mp3s or WMAs (I also think that the MicroSD expansion slot is disabled in MTP mode).

To conclude, I have to say that the SanDisk Sansa c240 fulfilled my very basic requirements, and then some, for a reasonable price. So I’ll say it’s a good low-budget choice from a company that seems to begin to take serious interest in the media player market (the Wi-Fi enabled Sansa Connect looks pretty interesting, for example) instead of just being a memory manufacturer that decided to slap some basic playback electronics on their chips to make a few buck more.

And some Amazon links, good for finding more user reviews, and making me a buck or two when buying :)
SanDisk Sansa c240 (1GB) and SanDisk Sansa c250 (2GB) at Amazon.com
SanDisk Sansa c240 (1GB) and SanDisk Sansa c250 (2GB) at Amazon.co.uk

CommentsTags: gadgets, mp3 player, Music, SanDisk, Sansa c240, tech

January 28, 2007 at 2:16 am · Filed under Computing & techiness, Music

Cresyn LMX-E630 - great value earphones

I finally got a good reason to buy a pair of new phones, and after seeing a couple of reviews pointing them out as a good value choice I decided to try the rather obscure Cresyn brand.

Lets start by trying to work out the price. I paid 245 Swedish Kronor, which is about $35 US or €27* at today’s exchange rate. The reason I mention that first is that these Cresyn phones don’t sound a bit like it – if I hadn’t known the price, I’d probably guessed it to be at least twice as much. They have that quality of… well, having been designed to really play music well, rather than just make it sound good.

One of my main problems with phones is that I listen to a very wide variety of music, ranging from mellow, acoustic stuff to the upper extremes of metal and hardcore, and I have had trouble to find something that can cope with it all. But these phones handle it all admirably well. Acoustic guitars and crisp voices come out clear but still with warmth, and at the harder end the phones keep the definition even during the most extreme blasts of sound, making the experience no more painful than the bands intended. Simply amazing, especially considering the cost I mentioned.

Another thing I’ve noticed with earphones is that they often need to be cranked up to a certain volume before they sound good, but in a silent room these Cresyns provided a good sound with the volume on my player set to 1. I’m pretty sure most eardrums are grateful of the fact that you only need enough volume to cancel out the background sound. Something that also helps in that area is the design. I suppose they are pretty standard as far as in-ear phones come, with three sizes of silicone rubber tips to ensure that they fit most ear canals, but it works well.

The cord is of the asymmetrical kind that hangs over the wearer’s neck, and the length from the short (left) phone is about 0.5 meters, plus a one meter long extension cord. This is for the black/metal version I got (also available with red “stems”) There’s also a white/silver necklace version that is held together by removable clips so it can be used as a regular cord as well. I also think the clean design looks quite nice, the straight stems might look uncomfortable but they are well out of the way thanks to the shape of the driver housings. Besides the ear tips and extension cord the package also includes a pouch made of neoprene-like material. Not really useful, but more useful than the molded plastic cases that often come with earphones since it’s large enough to also hold your average size flash memory-based music player.

To sum this up, I’ll say that Cresyn LMX-E630 delivers excellent sound at a bargain price. With an exception for bass-hungry club music freaks its rich but balanced sound will probably appeal to most kinds of listeners looking for something in a reasonable price range. After only four years since the launch of the brand Cresyn is still quite obscure, but if they keep the quality at this level they might have a bright future.

*Markets are quite different, so for comparison with some popular products the price is about twice that of a pair of Koss The Plug at the webshop where I bought my phones, and a third less than the iPod in-ear phones at Apple’s Swedish online store.

Comments (2)Tags: Cresyn, ear phones, gadgets, Music, review

November 26, 2006 at 2:38 am · Filed under Computing & techiness

Standardize this, pretty please?

Researchers experiment with “evanescent coupling” as a way to wirelessly recharge mobile devices. I think that sounds like a brilliant idea. As soon as it is ready it should be written into international standards before people go around proprietizing it and we end up needing to have one wireless recharger for each device, like AC-adapters…

I can imagine a load of uses. Not only for devices like phones and media players – the ones you take out of your home – but for all cordless devices as well as those that could be. Imagine never having to replace the batteries in your remote controls. Or not needing to have base stations for toothbrushes, shavers and landline cordless phones all over the place. My cordless mouse would be even better if it didn’t have to be recharged.

Then there’s probably more than a few stationary that could use it, for example a smoke detector that feeds off wireless power would be able to keep its battery safely charged all the time. Would work for clocks as well, in many cases even for corded ones like clock radios that only need power to make some noise a few minutes a day.

I guess it would have to be limited to low power/short use devices or all the power in the air would make us face the same experience as a psychopathic kid’s hamster in a microwave oven, but there are enough possibilities to make wireless power as useful as a regular, old-fashioned outlet power.

And imagine the resource savings, I just got inspired to put my phone and the charger on the scales, and the charger weighed in at twice the weight of the phone, and that’s a clunky three year old low-range phone. What a freaking waste – not only the materials themselves, but also the costs and effects of shipping them across the globe.

Oh, and I bet it takes about three weeks from the breakthrough until someone puts the first “always ready to please” sex toys on the market. ;)

CommentsTags: gadgets, tech, thoughts

November 19, 2006 at 1:56 am · Filed under Computing & techiness, General

Mirra chair - I so want one of these

Time to put that “The best…” category to a little more use by appointing Mirra from Herman Miller “The best work chair I have ever seen”.

I love good design, the kind where both aesthetics and functionality are perfect, where the first doesn’t compromise the other. And with the level of complexity involved, achieving those goals in a work chair must be one of the greatest challenges for a designer.

Since I havn’t actually sat on one, I can’t really speak for the functionality aspect, but by the looks of it the designers seem to have thought of just everything that involves comfort, support and adjustability.

And the aesthetics then… it’s perfect. It manages to be eyecatching, but at the same time it is so neutral that I can imagine that chair in just about any environment. And looking closer, it appears that all of it derives from the main aspect of a work chair which is, as mentioned before, functionality.

But it is a chair in the thousand dollar range, and that’s a bit out of my reach. But god knows we (me and my lumbar) could use a proper chair.

CommentsTags: design, gadgets

July 16, 2006 at 4:01 am · Filed under General, The most [whatever] ever

Online watchmaker

I’ve always, for some reason, been fond of watches. Here’s a Swiss watchmaker that allows you to customize your timepiece online. Very neat. 121 Time

CommentsTags: gadgets, links, random

June 20, 2006 at 3:46 am · Filed under Asides

New on my desk - Logitech MX1000

I had some spare cash and decided to replace my old mouse, a Logitech MX700 cordless optical mouse, since it was suffering from recharging issues. And despite those problems I decided for another Logitech mouse, mostly because the ones I’ve had before have been very comfortable. And from what I can from a few days of use, this is the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever had.

The general setup is the same as the MX700, a cordless mouse with a base station that fills the functions of wireless reciever and recharger. A small difference is that the cable from the AC adapter plugs into the base station intead of connecting to the PS/2 plug. I can’t say if that’s good or bad, there’s one more cable on the desk, but one less in the spaghetti behind the PC.

The scroll wheel, with “tilt” funtion for scrolling sideways, has a nice, smooth action, and sits between the “cruise control” buttons that also scroll the page. On the thumb side are the back/forth buttons – a feature I can’t live without after a few years, they are so useful I feel impaired when going online with a mouse that doesn’t have any – and a button for application switching. All the buttons have a feel that I think is best described with the word “quality” – not flimsy, and not to stiff. I havn’t bothered installing the software yet, and it seems the tilt funtion and application switching are driver dependent.

Logitech claims that the MX1000’s laser engine has 20 times the resolution of regular, LED based optical mice. I don’t put too much value in numbers like that, but after trying it with Photoshop and other graphics apps as well as a few games I can say that it feels much more accurate than my old optical mouse. And the ball mouse I used when waiting for the old, erratic mouse to recharge is on a stone age level in comparison.

I’ve mentioned the buttons, but the other aspects of the design of the mouse body are excellent as well. I thought the MX700 was a very comfortable mouse, but trying it after having used the MX1000 for a few days it felt almost as unwieldy as your average brick. The shape is just right – the thumb rests comfortably in the deep groove, the opposite side is easy to grip both with the little finger alone as well as with ring finger and pinky toghether (I alternate between those two modes of gripping depending on what I’m doing) – and the general hand position is very relaxed. The mouse’s “feet” are also good, it slides better over the pad than any mouse I’ve had.

I also think its appearance is quite striking, especially they way Logitech made the MX series’s left and right mouse buttons “invisible” by making the top part in one single piece. Makes the design stick out of the general mass of mice in a subtle way, you see it is different but it takes a moment to see why. I don’t now if it’s true for the regular blue version, but the top of the black/charcoal “Midnight” version I got has a glossy, laquer-like finish that’s a nice change from the regular matte plastic that computer hardware usually is made of. The plastic of the sides has a smooth, rubbery texture – and I can say from experience that that is better than the real thing, I had a rubber clad mouse that became a little icky after a couple of years’ exposure to skin.� The only thing that could have made it look better is if the battery LEDs were blue, but that’s probably just me being a sucker for blue LEDs in general.

So far, everything I’ve said has been positive and I havn’t found any traces of major flaws, but nothing is perfect. One slight annoyance is the battery LEDs I mentioned. It’s not that they are too bright, but the fact that they go out when the mouse has been inactive for 5-10 seconds, and I find that little glint when I switch from keyboard to mouse a bit distracting. Maybe it’s just me, and I guess I’ll get used to it pretty soon. Then there’s the non-replacable battery – I know from experience that though lithium-ion batteries live longer than older types they do lose capacity over time, and that could affect the possible lifespan of the mouse. The mouse is also relatively heavy (175 grams according to my scales), but personally I like the extra weight.

But overall, I think the MX1000 is simply excellent, and I don’t regret buying it a moment. Without doubt the best mouse I have ever used. The price might seem a bit high, but for anyone who spends a lot of time at the desk I’d say a comfort/performance mouse like this is well worth checking out.

Some links: Logitech product information, DesigntTechnica review, HEXUS.net review. I havn’t compared prices, but it’s availible at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk for those who like to shop there (and help amateur bloggers afford a nice cold beer or two by clicking their links ;)).

CommentsTags: gadgets, tech

February 5, 2006 at 1:06 am · Filed under Computing & techiness

From the Engrish department

Kind reminder: If the songs played is less than the downloaded songs, please make sure that the song downloaded should not be more than 500 ones.

Maybe not that funny, but wonderfully incomprehensible.

Well, when I was visiting a friend recently I noticed that the people with mp3 players seemed a bit less bored by the four hour buss ride than I was, so yesterday I decided to buy the generic cheap-n-simple 512MB player they had on offer at the the supermarket. Maybe not exactly the best, but good enough for what little travelling I do. Better than the english in the manual, I suppose. Could use better earphones, though, but that seems to be the case even with expensive stuff as well.

And more Engrish here.

CommentsTags: gadgets, random

December 18, 2005 at 12:53 pm · Filed under General