Brazil Day 5800XM

Brazil Day 5800XM

Originally uploaded by citizen1971

Just another video sample taken with the Nokia 5800XM
Apparently it was Brazil Day in my local High street and quite fittingly it was sunny. Along the high street there were about four of these groups, some bigger than others and some even had shall I say scantily clad women dancing. It actually created a great atmosphere, so anyway here is a short video clip of one of the groups. Just wish I had time to film them all as this one doesn’t really do it justice.

Wordmobi At Last

I don’t know what happened with my previous version of Wordmobi and no matter what I tried it wouldn’t install on my 5800xm.
Well success at last! I was reading Nokia Addict today and he had put up a post that there was a new version of both Python and Wordmobi, so I thought what have I to lose?

So here I am with a quick update being posted from the 5800 itself. Happy days. Nokiaaddict’s post can be found here.

Nokiaaddict

Posted by Wordmobi

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Just a quick picture I took today and uploaded via pixelpipe

Nokia 5800XM: A Couple Of Weeks On

Am I happy? well in the most part yes but I am starting to notice a few niggles that are bugging me.  This is just a short update but I thought I would post up some thoughts now.

Connections

Why do you have to bloody prioritise them and why when I select to change connection (which is a pain having to do anyway) do I not just get a list of the connections available? Yes I want an Internet connection but why do I not always get a full list of the connections in that category?  It just means that some applications just retry the same one it’s on rather than letting me select a proper alternative.  This is most apparent in Google Maps.  When I am at home I want it to use my Wifi connection (For Latitude) but no I cannot change connection as the one I have prioritised is my phone providers connection I shouldn’t have to keep going in and change the priorities.

Bugs?

Why do some contacts when calling use the ringtone I have set up but others use the default Nokia tone? and it’s not random it’s the same contacts every time.  I haven’t set different ringtones for different people or got groups set up but it still does it and for the life of me I can’t figure out why?

GPS

Seems to be taking an age to connect now for some strange reason and if I am in the car or even walking I keep getting prompts for permission to change connection for the assisted part even though the connection is fine and don’t even start me on the “too many connections please close one” bloody prompt especially when maps is the only one using the connection grrr it then closes the connection when I say yes and immediately starts the same bloody connection again and works WTF?

Applications

I just can’t get Wordmobi working even though I am using the right version of Python and Wordmobi as recommended, it’s pissing me off, really it is.

 

Don’t get me wrong I do like the handset but I still find myself reverting back to my E71 as something’s just work so much better on it.  I have seen this week alone lots of handsets getting FW updates and I feel this handset is crying out for one but there doesn’t seem to be anything coming as far as I can see.

S60v5 just seems to be less intuitive and some of the changes really do seem a backwards step.  so my request is, Please Nokia get the basics right and stop messing about until you sort it out.

Vodafone Customer Service: Praise!

As a society that relies more and more on our mobile phones to manage the many facets of our lives it’s a complete nightmare when one aspect of your service goes belly up, it’s a complete pain.

This scenario started for me on Tuesday, I have two lines with Vodafone and one line is working perfectly but the other is playing up, it won’t make calls to other Vodafone numbers? it will send SMS messages but just not make calls, now I can phone other networks just not my own whereas the other line is fine.  It started off intermittently but as of Wednesday it just blatantly refused to connect and I kept receiving the message:

“the number you have dialled is not recognised please try again”

By Wednesday evening I was fed up with it so I phoned customer services, now before I carry on once I finally got through to an agent they were very helpful but were unable to give me any useful information so they said they would put me through to the technical department.  I ended up on hold for 30 minutes and nobody answered until I finally gave up and hung up.  The call in the end lasted 50 minutes and I had effectively got nowhere.

I considered posting up on the Vodafone eforum to see if I could get any information as they are normally pretty helpful but then that little old lightbulb flickered over my head and I had an idea, Vodafone use Twitter.  So I thought why not, I posted up a message asking if there where any known issues with my particular problem.  Now I must admit I wasn’t expecting much of a response as it was now around 21:30 but lo and behold ten minutes later a tweet from Vodafone telling me that yes that was a known problem and that they had a team working on it. So I now had some information and at least I now knew it was a recognised fault affecting some customers nationally and that they were working on it.

I responded with a thank you for the help and information. Vodafone then took me by surprise as around ten minutes after that another tweet response.  They gave me a Fault Reference Number so that I could ask back at anytime for an update and also let me know that a fix was expected soon.

This I must admit impressed me. In less than half the time it took me over the phone (And the irony is that Vodafone are a phone service provider) they had used one of the most popular social networking sites to help a customer and provide the information I was looking for in a polite and extremely helpful manner, now bearing in mind the limitations of twitter in relation to how much information you can put into one tweet then I think that is bloody impressive.

We all know the power of twitter and exactly how big it has become but if companies or even any service industry can harness it, and even in it’s most basic form use it the way that Vodafone did with me tonight then I think this is the way forward for customer based communication, use any means possible for near instant feedback.  Yes you can still write via snail mail or email, you can give them a call but using the internet in this way for quick feedback/queries or updates really is the future in my opinion.

As of now the phone line seems to be working again but as I said it did start intermittently so I will give it a day or so before I will accept that the fault is fixed, but I would just like to say well done to Vodafone and especially the person who responded to my Tweet for the help and information received.

Nokia 5800XM: Video

Well as it was another fantastic sunny day today and the fact that I am on holiday from work I went out and about again.  I managed to get plenty more photo’s using the Nokia 5800XM of which I have uploaded to flickr (and yes those are my feet in the image on the right, I was was relaxing on the Harbour wall)

As I was sitting there relaxing I saw one of the smaller boats about to move through the harbour and head out so I quickly switched the 5800 to video mode and shot the following footage.

I have linked it to here from my Youtube Account. This is the first time I have had a chance to use the video recording function and with little opportunity to check the settings I just clicked record and as you can see the results are pretty good, more than acceptable anyway. for the record I checked the settings after I had shot it and it was set on high widescreen.

I am happy with the outcome and I will now try and get more video clips as I think the 5800 is up to the job for what I would use it for.  I am liking this phone more and more, I’m still a bit frustrated with FP2 but the pros are outweighing the cons so I will be keeping it for the foreseeable future.

Shot with a Nokia 5800XM

Out And About With The Nokia 5800XM

Picture the scene: It’s a beautiful day and you don’t have to go into work today, you live by the coast and the seafront is only a 10 minute walk tops from your home.

What Would You Do?

Exactly, I decided I wanted to really give the camera a try on the Nokia 5800XM, so I spent a couple of hours down the seafront just clicking away to see what kind of results to expect.

I wasn’t expecting miracles and I didn’t get any but it did ok for a 3.2mp phone camera.  There were a few images that didn’t quite make the grade but overall if I put a bit of effort in and edited some of them, then there could be some really good keepers. Overall though I was happy enough with the results.

Being a really sunny day I didn’t want to just leave all the settings on Automatic which is just lazy, the phone has camera settings so why not use them to see what happens.  I set the camera to sunny and the ISO to it’s lowest and then just steadily took photo’s of what ever took my interest.

The day starts with breakfast of course so I indulged:

The coffee was great but the sausage and egg mcmuffin I ate just before was even better heh.  The sun really was splitting the trees as they say and I managed to stroll right along the promenade and back again even venturing into the old harbour where they now have residential flats.

 

Overall I think I took around 50 photos today and I uploaded approx 40 of them to flickr which isn’t a bad ratio at all. As I said before though none are going to set the world alight and win prizes but I think they are ok for what it is, I don’t expect miracles from a mobile phone camera but these are good enough.

I did try out Scalado Autorama that I bought from the OVI Store.  It’s an imaging application for generating Panoramic Images.

I took 3 and only one really came out any good, now I am not saying this was to do with the software but one image was just completely jumbled and another was just blurred. The one below turned out ok though, nothing special especially when viewed large but I must say they stitching is very clean and it’s nigh on impossible to see where each image starts and ends.  the software itself takes a maximum of 3 images and you just follow the green bar at the top and it takes the images itself, all very simple and easy to use.

you can see it full size over on my flickr account.

Overall a productive day and certainly not wasted, the Nokia 5800’s camera is fine just don’t expect pixel perfect images and you will be happy with the results.

My Flickr Account is HERE and the 5800XM set is HERE go have a look and leave comments on the photo’s or even leave comments here.  feedback good or bad (as long as constructive) is always welcome.

Now I’m off out again to enjoy the rest of the sun.

Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic

I picked one of these up this week as I thought it was time I finally checked out FP2.  Now before anyone points out I could have picked up the all mighty N97 I will say now it was all down to money.  the 5800 I could afford and the N97 is just out of my reach at the moment.

I am not going to carry out a full review here as like most phones that come out I am way behind the usual bloggers who get review handsets so this is just about my early opinions.

Firstly I wanted to check out Nokia’s touch screen capability as although touch screen isn’t really my favourite way to input it does seem to be the future so its best to try and get used to it now.

As you may know I did own a T Mobile G1 and the touch on that was impressive and I will say now Nokia you have some work to do, why oh why did you make it resistive? and people don’t want to have to mess about with Stylus or a Guitar Pick????? for any kind of text input. I have stuck with the standard alphanumeric dial pad input as I haven’t really mastered the full keyboard input as of yet, but ok it still does work and so far it hasn’t caused me many issues just using my fingers so I won’t harp on about it too much.  The screen itself is very nice though very bright, clean and crisp and has impressed me so far.

It’s a very plasticy (sic) handset but feels sturdy enough, so from that point of view it’s actually well designed and put together (I have put a full screen exim screen protector on it also and it doesn’t affect the touch ability at all) It’s blue stripe one and I have noticed that in a certain light the whole phone has a slight blue tint to it which again I do like.

Software wise there are a few differences I have noticed and I actually like the way you can organise folders and applications but some things just seem so awkward. One thing of note is syncing, why bury it down in connections and switching profiles for different sync options is just plain daft.

The choice between having an application bar and avatars for people you contact the most is nice but with a tall screen as is why not both? or do something similar to the xpressmusic touch button with the drop down menu which I think is an excellent feature, surely a contacts one could have been developed also?

One thing I have been pleased about is that all of the 3rd party applications that I always use work flawlessly. Gravity, Profimail, Handy Weather etc and things like the BBC’s iPlayer is great in widescreen mode.

The camera is better than I anticipated, it makes me laugh now when I think “oh well its only 3.2mp but it will do” it just shows how far handsets are come when 3.2mp on a handset is not seen as a major thing, but I have been pleasantly surprised with some of the photo’s I have taken.

I was concerned when I read that people were complaining of “smoky tints” and blurring and were resorting to removing the cover to get decent images which suggested that it was less to do with the Carl Zeiss optics and more to do with the plastic lens cover.  Now I except that you are not going to get some kind of mineral glass lens cover but surely if you are going to big up the fact that you are using Carl Zeiss then you want to source a decent lens cover to support it.

But I haven’t had to do any of this? I don’t know if Nokia have made any changes from earlier production models but mine seems fine for what it is which pleases me no end or have people just had “dodgy” versions? who knows but I am happy which is all that matters to me.

The picture above was taken the day after I received the handset, it was a quick point and shoot from a carpark and its a decent enough replication of what the day was like, the clouds are slightly more prominent in colour but overall for something that was taken on the fly with all settings automatic then I think it’s pretty damn good. I uploaded it straight to Flickr from the phone and have linked it to here as is.

I suppose seeing as this is an xpressmusic handset then I should mention audio, and yes it’s fine it really is, I don’t like the headphones as I prefer inner ear noise cancelling so I will buy a set for it but the music player is fine and the audio quality is good enough for what I expect.

I could go on but then it would just cover what some of the more in depth reviews have covered that you can find on the bigger phone blogs.  Overall though I think this is a fun handset and I am enjoying the early experience with it.  Yes some of the menu/feature functions seem to be a bit less intuitive on FP2 and yes I really do believe that resistive was a mistake and Nokia have a fair bit of work to do around touch technology but its not too far away and I am sure that they will progress with it and future handsets will be right up their with the competition.

Competition Over: Time For The Rest To Go Home

Nuff Said

Seriously I want but can’t afford just yet, I’ve been lucky enough to have a play with one though. We know what the video is implying and rightly so, Now if only Nokia could really have a go at the competition as I could see a revival of Public Enemy’s Don’t Believe The Hype.

The N97 damn fine phone.

The Garden

The Garden

Originally uploaded by citizen1971

Gradually getting better with the E71 and trying to get the best out of it.

I have taken loads of photo’s with it but not many have been anywhere near good enough to post but this one albeit a bit too green hasn’t come out that bad.

I will keep practising and see what else I can get but I do think that Black and White is the way to go.