Quick Notes: Great Screen, Shame About So Much Else

Well, I found something to really praise. Yeah, sitting poolside the other day in some truly strong Asian sunlight, I had to admit that the Xphone IIs screen is pretty impressive. You wouldn't see anything on a PSP in that light. My phone's screen is pretty darn easy to see, even in such harsh and strong light.

Well done, 02.

Now, a few other things...

This thing is a jazzy multimedia device right? I mean, it's got Windows Media Player and supports MiniSD cards so who needs another expensive gadget when this thing does it so well?

Well (that's what, three 'wells'?) take this scenario. You're listening to your fave audio files (purchased, of course!!!) and you need to bang out a quick SMS. No problemo, as long as you set Windows Media Player to keep playing, it will do so, even while in the background. Nice.

So you launch the SMS app and start writing your text message. Now, you want to insert the recipient(s) from from the contact list, so you navigate to the To: field and depress the navstick.

BONG!!!!!

That's right, BONG!!!!

I don't know how to describe it. I haven't found a way to lower the volume or change the sound you get when you do this. It's as if it was designed to wake snoozing jumbo jet pilots or something.

To call it ultra, ultra, ultra retarded and worthy of a class-action lawsuit is unfair. It's much, much, much worse. I don't know how else to talk about this without using foul language so I'll have to let rip with chicken, turkey, duck and goose, ok?

Then I received an SMS yesterday. I read the SMS. So far, no problem. Then I received another SMS. The phone locked up and I had to remove the battery. When I had rebooted the phone, both SMS messages had disappeared. Not nice. Again, chicken, turkey, duck and goose for you O2.

I still haven't had time to take the phone in to have the non-working headphone jack fixed and I'm sure the navstick has grown increasingly obstinate in the last couple of months. Man oh man, this phone sucks.

This phone is about 90% perfect but the last 10% is SO ducking frustrating and troubling that I would rather go back to my old Nokia and spend the money on a separate PDA, which is what I plan to do when I have time to do so.

I've been checking the specs and reviews of other HTC products and it looks like they all have some kind of achille's heel. On top of that, bearing in mind the problems with my phone's navstick and headphone jack and I reckon the ultimate design and build quality of HTC products puts them out of contention for my future purchases.

In addition, I have a chance to play with my friends new Nokia Symbian smartphone. Now THAT's a User Interface. The Nokia 6681 may not be perfect and it may have flaws I don't know about but THAT IS HOW TO DESIGN A USER INTERFACE. Microslouch, you listening?

No, didn't think so. Quack, quack, quack, go back to your hot cup of H5N1 or whatever it is that "inspires" your engineers, developers and designers.

Stay tuned for myNewPhoneAndPDA.blogspot.com or something....

Between a rock and another hard thing.

I'm a bit overwhelmed by my workload lately. Part of the problem is getting and staying organised. And, as ruck wood have it, part of THAT problem is the fact that the out-of-the-box Xphone II is such a pathetic excuse for a PDA.

So... I am hoping to try out some highly-rated utilities that mostly have to be paid for.

But again, there's a hitch. I am loathe to invest time and money in any of those utilities because I haven't had time to take the phone to be repaired.

And there's another part of the problem - a crap component. While researching my crappy headphone jack problem, I found other people with the same problem. Many of them have different phones but from the pictures, I can see it's the same component, presumabely produced by the same maker.

Bottom line is:

A. I continue to be unimpressed with the value for money offered by the Xphone II
B. Ain't nothin mo happenin round heah for a little while until I get a properly working Xphone II back in my greezee mittz.
C. I continue to b unimpress with the Xphone II's nojoystick. Damn that thing is wank!