Donald Noble's Website

After living with a HTC Himalaya (otherwise known as an Orange SPV m1000, or the O2 xda) for a bit over 18 months, i decided it was time for a new phone.

1. It was going to be a Nokia.
   From what I have heard, and from people I know, Nokia phones seem to be more reliable and easier to use. Case in point is the Sony-Erricson multi-way joystick, which I have never been able to reliably use on friends’ phones.
2. I didn’t use all the advanced features of a PDA, but syncing contacts, calendar, notes and tasks with both Outlook and OS X would be handy. Luckily, most Nokia smartphones seem to be able to do this.
3. A large hi-res screen and web access are nice features on a phone, and more use than games to me.
4. I was quite happy with Orange, and wanted to keep my number. Although Orange didn’t want to treat me in the same way as they do new customers (by offering free phones) until I happened to mention that I was going to cancel my contract and go elsewhere. Suddenly it was “actually Mr Noble, we can do you an offer on that phone, on that contract, as a free upgrade”. Saving me £80 plus £5/month by moving to a cheaper contract. So the four people I spoke to previously: in the Orange shop; and on the “Upgrades” phone line, were obviously the wrong people to speak to about an upgrade.
5. ‘Free’ Orange broadband, isn’t quite that. The £30 monthly bill doesn’t take account of insurance or any data minutes on the contract, so I was going to be spending an extra £10 month just for ‘free’ broadband. Plus I was going to be tied in to an 18 month contract, instead of the 1 month notice I currently have. Plus f2s have recently upped the download limit to 5GB/month, c.f. 2GB/month on Orange.

So after some deliberation, research on the web, and quite a few phone calls to Orange, I finally got my new Nokia 6280.

The Verdict:

It is pretty good, and almost what I want. Although there are a few niggles/areas where it could be improved. (3.5/5)

• The contacts syncing with Outlook could be improved, such as the fact that the business name doesn’t copy over to the phone.
• The left button is configured for PTT but Orange don’t seem to have enabled that option, or the ability to change what it is assigned to. Must hassle them about that.
• The camera zoom is the wrong way round (left edge for zoom in) but easy enough to get used to.
• The menus are clear, and re-arrangable, although the default colour theme on the phone seems to mess up the ‘tab’ view.
• Opera Mini makes for great mobile browsing, it is faster and more powerful than the default browser, go and download it.
• The QVGA screen displays just as much as my old PDA, but in about 1/3 of the physical area. Which makes for really clear text and photos.
• The camera takes pretty decent photos, and while I don’t think I will be ditching my real camera any time soon, it will be handy for snaps when I’m not carrying the camera.

I’ve not tried video calling, as I only know one other person with a capable phone, and they sit across the other side of the office from me, so it would be somewhat pointless. Plus, I’m not sure why people would want to look at my ear when I’m on the phone to them :p.

There will no doubt be more on this topic later, but I have typed far too much.

This entry was posted on Saturday 15th July 2006 in Blog, Computers and tagged Computers, mobile-phones, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.