Sarah and I managed to get tickets to see one of the qualifying sessions for the women’s artistic gymnastics. It was an amazing experience – with different pieces of apparatus in use at the same time, we hardly knew where to look! The venue was very impressive and the stewards, police and armed services personnel couldn’t have been more helpful.
Here are a few of the photos that I took. It was pretty hard to get decent shots as the light wasn’t that great and a high shutter speed was necessary to freeze the action. Continue reading Olympics 2012: gymnastics→
Just a quick update on the Android experience… The HTC one V that I bought has proved to be a pretty good handset, apart from one fundamental flaw that I’ve decided that I just can’t live with. When using a headset (either the one supplied, or any of the others I’ve tried), there is a persistent and annoying hiss / interference noise whenever sound is being played. It sounds like interference / crosstalk from the processor – and it stops when the DAC powers off. This includes notification sounds, calls, and worst of all (for me) when listening to music. For a handset that makes much of it’s audio credentials (with ‘beats audio’) that’s simply not acceptable. In the light of this, I’m sending it back for a refund. Amazon have been completely fine with this. HTC are reluctant to admit that there’s a problem. Continue reading Unhappy release…→
Due to my previous track record of purchasing Apple products almost to the day that an upgrade to a new version is announced, I have decided to turn to the dark side for few months. As my phone contract ends and I don’t want to upgrade to an iPhone 4S with the imminent announcement of iPhone 5, I have decided to buy a sim-free android handset to use for a few months. It’s also a good way to do a bit of research into the Android experience – something that I’ve not done before.
I joked to a colleague that emerging from the Apple walled-garden is a little bit what I imagine getting out of prison to be like. The choice of manufacturers, never mind handsets is bewildering. Which version of Android should I be going for? Why do they all have silly names? How much RAM, how fast a processor (with how many cores), how many cameras (with how many pixies), what screen resolution, how much storage do I need?
In the end, I settled on HTC because I’ve liked what I’ve seen of their handsets in the past (and I’ve heard of them!). I dithered over whether to go for the wildfire S (very good value, but feels a bit flimsy to me, and is at the older end of the range), the Desire C (newer, but, according to reviews, a bit lacking in the processor department and again plastic-cased) or the One V (a little more expensive, but with a larger screen, faster processor and aluminium unibody construction). Sticking to the adage “buy cheap, buy twice”, I’ve gone for the One V.
HTC One V
First impressions are largely positive. The handset itself feels like a quality item, the unibody construction really helping to lift the handset above the competition. The screen is bright and sharp (though I suspect the default brightness setting of ‘stun’ may be helping this at the expense of battery life). The HTC sense UI looks very nice, and everything seems to perform well, with the handset feeling at least as snappy in use as the iPhone 4.
Downsides are that there is a persistent static / cross-talk noise when listening to music. I was actually going to return the handset on the basis of this, as I intend to use it as my primary music player when on the move, but it seems from a bit of research that ‘they all do that, sir’. Disappointing, especially as HTC are very keen to promote the handset’s audio credentials with the nasty ‘beats audio’ (which happily can be disabled). I will have to live with it, but it really is a minus point. I will see if future updates address this, but frankly I am not that hopeful – it seems to be a hardware issue. The screen does seem more prone to finger prints than the iPhone screen, but at least that’s solvable with a quick wipe. The wifi signal does seem to be affected by how you hold the device, which is, I guess, the downside to that unibody construction. Seems that Apple don’t have the monopoly on shonky antenna design…
The next challenge that I face is the huge variety of apps and utilities out there. If anyone has any recommendations for an Android newbie, I’d be very glad to hear about them! I am particularly interested in podcast management, now that I don’t have iTunes to do it for me…
