New toy!
Tuesday, 31 Jul 2007 | Journal
And what else than a gadget review to publish after such a long silence. To treat myself to something new, I decided to get a new phone. My Motorola Razr getting boring and the Apple iPhone not due in Asia until what I expect to be mid 2008 at the earliest, I thought I should get myself a new phone. Ok, so maybe I just figured all those things to tell myself it was okay to spend 340 euro on a new phone. So I got myself a Samsung I600 smartphone.
The most important thing for me in deciding to buy this phone is that it has a real keyboard, allowing me to reply to emails anywhere I am in a convenient way. I have a laptop and it is by no means a replacement, but this phone does allow me to use ‘dead time’ when I’m in a taxi or just sitting somewhere waiting for someone. Sometimes email is too serious, but even MSN and Skype (including calls!) work on the phone and so just chatting for a few minutes can be a good way to pass the time. Browsing the internet is fast and easy too, but not as good as it should be. It has wifi built-in, so I can do it free of charge at a coffeeshop or almost for free using my mobile providers EDGE data service. The speed is a little disappointing, but fine for email and chat. Got myself a 2GB microSD card (those things are tiny!) and filled it up with music, so it also gives me music to listen to when I get really bored!
Two main gripes. First of all, it runs Windows and that is painfully obvious. Running Windows Mobile does mean a lot of applications are available, but it also means it is not as stable as I would like a mobile phone to be - it frequently stalls for stupid reasons, for example. I’m hoping with Windows Mobile 6 being released for this phone soon, this improves a little bit. More important perhaps is my other gripe, the battery life. It is absolutely ridiculous. I wondered why it came with 2 batteries, now I understand why - you should really bring the other one with you if you plan heavy usage. An hour of calls per day, a chat session or two and checking your email twice basically empties the battery. Absolutely ridiculous. Arjan, who initially showed the phone to me, told me large capacity batteries are available and I might just be getting one of those.
Not quite as content with it as I had hoped to be, I guess we’ll see how things develop. In the mean time it is good to remember this phone is only for a year until the iPhone is here.