The Shaved Soapbox

Blackberry Bold 9700

Baldy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:30:15 +0000

For full disclosure, I've been a Nokia fanboy for many years, in fact I have not owned one non-Nokia phone. I've played with a number of other phones, but never for more than a few days. But in my opinion, Nokia's UI is getting more stale than last week's stock at your local greengrocer.

My last phone was the E71, which I absolutely loved, so I will draw some comparisons.

Sleek packaging, a BLACK box, half the size of the usual nokia boxes, but with the same amount of stuff in it.

Switching it on and starting the configuration was easy enough, it guides you through the initial parts, to the point where you can use the phone, but no more.

This is where the intuitiveness falls down, and I had to start digging to get to the rest of the configuration options.

My BIS wasn't activated by the time I was on and ready to go, so I had to wait a while before being able to setup anything more.

Once that was on, I quickly visited the mobile google site, clicked the Sync link. Software install was seamless, and setting it up required a user name and password, and voila, I had a full contact list and calendar, all there, and no neeed to jump through configuration hoops like I had to with the E71 to get the sync working for a month

Installing applications are easy, not sure if a non-geek user will find it as easy, but seeing that I haven't opened any manuals yet, I don't want to comment on that.

Like

I can use BB chat across networks, everyone else I know that has a BB is on Vodacom, and I can now chat to them for almost free, no more SMS charges required.

Setting up email was a breeze, I chose to just use my existing mobile address (there's a story around that setup), and all I had to do was type in my email address and password, and it figured out the rest. But after a week this just started failing, not sure if it has anything to do with Neotel being the ISP for this mailbox. I then chose to setup a new mailbox on MTN's BlackBerry service, and this was even easier to setup than the previous.

Size wise it is slightly bulkier than the E71, but it feels lighter, if that makes sense. Still fits into all pockets .

Conversations in the messenger app, I remember one of my old Nokia's doing the grouping like this, but I didn't have the feature on any of the last 4 or 5 phones I had. Don't know if it was there and not enabled, I just never bothered to look for it, but having used it now, I will look for this every time.

Keyboard, the buttons are a nice size and easy to press, the E71 I had to press with my nail or absolute fingertip.

User interface, at first I didn't like it that much purely because it was different to what I'm used to, this is not a bad thing, but having had Nokia phones for the last 13 years means I'm not used to anything that deviates from that. After some time on it, it is more intuitive than what the Nokia ever had.

Don't like

Menu system, everything isn't where I expected it to be, but after browsing around for a while I quickly found everything I needed.

The camera is slow, so slow that I can't even get my baby daughter to hold her smile long enough to take a photo. If seen tortoises in peanut butter move faster.

Keyboard, I liked the function on the E71 where if you press and hold a key, you get the Alt text, BB gives you the 'Shift' text, that makes typing a bit slower.

Battery life, with bluetooth and wi-fi on, the battery life is dismal, about a day and a half if you're lucky. But seeing that I normally don't use either, I've turned it off, and now get about 4 days on a charge. Better, but not perfect.

Standard Bank Internet Banking problems

Wordless Wednesday – Clouds

Baldy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:05:25 +0000

Wordless Wednesday – Smiling for daddy

Baldy — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:30:05 +0000

Wordless Wednesday – Sunlight

Baldy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:24:31 +0000

Wordless Wednesday – Forest road

Baldy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:38:21 +0000

Wordless Wednesday – Lion

Baldy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:27:00 +0000

Wordless Wednesday – Daddy’s Princess is turning 1

Baldy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:30:24 +0000

Wordless Wednesday – Zoom effects

Baldy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:30:59 +0000

“Green” tax – just an excuse?

Baldy — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:30:04 +0000

I have no idea what the government is thinking with the proposed "green" tax on new car sales.

Personally I don't think that it makes sense.

It looks like the government is just trying to appease a few activists with this tax. Or, and probably closer to the truth, adding just another tax for the few to support the many. Your guess is as good as mine.

Why tax new vehicles? If you do a bit of research you'll quickly see that even big cars like the Hummer puts out a lot less toxic fumes than the average old car on South Africa roads. Start looking at the taxis and trucks that are out on our road, average age is probably 5years or older. And the maintenance on these is just enough to keep them running, most definitely not to minimise the output of harmful gases.

In my mind it would be much better for the environment to put a "green" tax on older cars that are spewing out far larger amounts of carbon than new cars. This is the actual target of these "green" taxes, isn't it?

But once again, our government is scared of offending the, proven violent, taxi industry. Far easier to tax new cars, these people want the cars no matter what, and they will pay the price. Yet another reason not to buy a new car then.

Mayor ‘puts Merc before water’: South Africa: News: News24

Mazda 5 – My first impressions

Baldy — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:30:37 +0000

Buying a car is expensive nowadays, and I did a lot of homework before deciding on the Mazda 5. My reason for deciding on it was that it had the most space in the third row of seats out of all the MPVs I tested, but was still small enough for my wife to drive, seeing that she's moving up from a Peugeot 206.

I've had the car for a few weeks now, and overall I'm loving it. There is plenty of space, with two baby seats in the middle row, an 8 year old in the back row, and multitudes of bags and prams in the boot. Ok, half the boot, seeing the back row of seats fold flat to create the boot, so we have one up and one down to fit the whole family.

The car's power was the biggest surprise, with the 2 litre motor putting plenty of power to the road through the 17" wheels, and acceleration much better than my Conquest.

I opted for the middle of the range, with the nice body kit, tow bar, aircon etc, but not the electric sliding doors. I didn't feel it was worth the premium for those, the manual ones are a breeze to open and close anyway.

Overall the driving experience is awesome, with the car surprising me in the rain. We came back from the Vaal in a heavy thunderstorm on Boxing day, and it felt like I was driving in drizzle, not in a storm. Visibility was excellent, probably because of the angle of the windscreen, and with the big tires on it, the water made no difference to the handling.

The car is fairly low on the ground, which makes it much nicer to drive than a mini-bus, of which I drove quite a few. It doesn't feel top heavy at all, in fact there is very little body roll for such a big car. It feels like a normal car, with the space of a bus.

The inside is very functional, with the middle seat in the second row able to fold away under one of the other seats, and this can then be replaced by a utility bin, with a basket and cup-holders which folds away under the other seat. The middle row seats can also be moved forward and backward, which means there is always enough leg-space for the people in the third row. The quality of the plastics impressed me, with other cars in the price class looking a bit cheaper on this front.

One thing that is irritating me is that the suspension has developed a nasty squeak after the first week, not sure what the dealership did to hide that. You only hear it when going over large bumps at low speed, but it is still irritating. Not sure if anyone else is experiencing that.

Just a pity that I don't get to drive it every day now, seeing my wife is the one that has to cart the kids around.