My Android Experience so far…..

From the unboxing to first impressions of HTC Magic can be followed in my other blog here.  But here are some more of my impressions on using HTC Magic so far,

• Android 1.5 with Sense Interface is for pretty stable with no hangups and fast to work with
• Android App market access in India is a great way to enhance and add value to the phone but restricting access to paid apps is a downer and also not mentioning whether its completely a “FREE APP” or a “AD SPONSORED FREE APP” is a irritant
• Basic phone qualities like network reception and call quality seems good. But without a dedicated desktop software to sync contacts (not a fan of syncing my phone contacts to google contacts) , messages is a let down. No Call / Message / Data counter is also a downer.
• Messaging with onscreen qwerty (potrait or landscape) with the word suggestion is nice but the messaging thread system jumbles the order of the sms sent & received is a downer
• Music and Video are good to hear and see. No FM and No 3.5 mm jack is a downer
• Camera is pretty slow to refresh and focus but the snaps in good lighting conditions comes out nice.
• Browsing with the default android browser is good.

So far the Android adventure is good but a official HTC ROM update to Android V2.2 would be most welcome

• Google Sync ur K660i
• K660 for Push Email

And also the unveiling of my new blog VC’s HTC Magic detailing my day to day adventures with my first ever android smartphone.

• Android – The official site for android
• Android & Me – A great site on the latest android based news with a online shop for accessories and a forum to get help
• Android Central – Another great site dedicated to providing latest news, reviews on android and android based phone
• Android Guys – A great blog for android related stuff , lots to explore
• Android Wiki – A complete lowdown on the android OS on the wikipedia homepage. A interesting and detailed info on android

For more of these funny animation click here to download a set of images.

• The first thing i felt in my hand, was its weight but for the overall dimensions of 115*62*12.5mm at 95 grams, with its solid black plastic and a trackball it looked like a blackberry
• The next thing was that the screen seemed small (320*240 Pixels, 5.58cm) when compared to the keypad area of the phone, making it somewhat bottom heavy
• The user interface doesn’t try to mimic the blackberry to the full with some nice animations of its own. Even though some features looked simple and direct, there are plethora of options buried deep inside which will need a somewhat steeper learning curve
• The phone hadn’t gprs activated in it so I didnt try out the much hyped ‘Facebook’ access , the opera mini browser and the nimbuzz chat client
• The sound was loud and clear, might be the effect of Yamaha amplifiers
• The qwerty keypad seemed ok, since i am not a user of qwerty keypads i can’t pass a judgement on it
• The phone had GPRS / EDGE and also bluetooth and usb connectivity
• The 2MP camera has nothing special to shout about, it should do ok in well lit conditions
• The phone has a micro SD card slot (under the battery) and a decent media player to handle audio and videos
• And the main features of these smaller brand phones is the dual sim support so it supports two gsm sim cards.

At 4050 Rs, the Q5 looks like a blackberry with some nice features……

Next thing I went out bought a somewhat properly certified Universal Laptop power adapter from Huntkey matching my power requirements of 65W 19V, but this even though the power output matches the value it still shows current leaking out some metal parts of my laptop. I dont know whether the problem is related to the DC output or is it related to grounding the current (even though my grounding of the current seems fine)…

If you any ideas / thoughts please post your comments here…..

• Finish wise its still the same solid and mettalic feel of E71 but the device seemed much more compact than E71 (114 x 58 x 10 @ 128g).
• The black color front face looked nice but somewhat the stainless steel back was somewhat off putting for me. And the 5 MP camera bulges out of the backside slightly giving a somewhat mixed reaction in me.
• The major downer for me was 2.36″ screen still going with 320 x 240 resolution and I still am not fond of Nokia’s default font (which looks jagged to me )
• The Symbian S60 V3.2 UI with some snazzy transition effects ran smoothly on the 600 Mhz ARM 11 processor
• Disappointingly the audio quality of the voice on other side of the call was not very clear
• The Nokia Messaging App for mails and messenger was easy to setup and use but will it give the same experience as a blackberry was a big doubt to me (as html emails weren’t opening inside the mail window itself)
• The new trackpad was weird for me and it didn’t feel as smooth on the other hand I came across a BB 8520 and the trackpad (even though i am using it for first time) was excellent to touch and use.
• Connectivity wise E72 had all bases covered with GPRS / EDGE / 3G/ USB / WLAN / Bluetooth
• The 3.5 mm jack with micro SD slot (8GB card came in the box) with a capable audio and video player makes it a good media player
• The 5 MP camera was good
• The one thing going for Nokia when compared to Blackberry is that with a GPRS 98 Rs. (Mobile office in AirTel) mail and messaging can be done with internet browsing too whereas Blackberry’s internet and mail service plan is @ 899 Rs.

The Nokia E72 has a lot going for it being Symbian, cheaper to run, 5MP cam, free ovi maps and at Rs. 17,500/- (375 US$) brings a lot to the table………..

• First thing, that struck me was how the phone seemed somewhat big first time when i held it in my hand. Official size : 107.5 x 45.5 x 13.8 mm @ 80 grams. But holding it in the hand for a while made it ok and the phone was plasticky but solidly built
• The 1.8″ 128 x 160 pixel display was ok but font styling could have been nicer in my opinion
• A typical Series 40 phone so the user interface is pretty straight forward with lots of customization options
• Connectivity wise also good for a low end phone with GPRS / EDGE and microUSB and bluetooth.
• The music player with FM radio and a microSD card slot (upto 8 GB – Nokia claims) and a 3.5 mm audio jack makes it a worthwhile music player
• One curious thing was that how music played in the music player was loud whereas ringer volume was not that loud
• I didn’t test out the VGA camera which is more of a gimmick according to me

For a no non-sense mobile phone the Nokia 2690 would be on the recommended with some nice additions like music player, memory card slot, gprs etc.

• The little pink box had the usual stuff like a travel charger, a stereo headset, manuals and 1 GB micro SD card.
• The pink metallic like finish was excellent and the slider quality seemed top class
• At 91.5 x 48 x 14.9 mm and 96 grams the phone was petite and a excellent fit to even smallest of pockets
• The 2.2″ TFT screen @ 240 x 320 pixels was nice and plentiful.
• The Sony Ericsson A200 platform has been significantly upgraded from my K660i days with different menu layout views, threaded conversation style sms and smart desktop with facebook, twitter and calendar widgets available with a single click at the desktop.
• Connectivity was plentiful with GPRS / EDGE / HSDPA and bluetooth / USB support.
• The media player coupled with FM Radio and micro SD card slot makes it a capable media player on the go. The only disappointing thing was that it didn’t accept a 4GB microSDHC card (it seems it only supports microSD cards)
• The 3 MP camera with flashlight seemed a capable enough shooter in well lit conditions.
• Themes, wallpapers, mp3 ringtones support makes it easy to customize and the java apps support makes the phone to have extra apps like browser, messengers, games etc.