Mobile Phone Usage

As I promised I will begin my series of Nokia E71 v.s. iPhone 3G comparison articles by describing how I'm using a cell phone.

To begin with - I use the phone at work. The SIM card in my "main" phone is provided by my employer. If I call within the company I call for free, numbers outside the company isn't very cheap and we are using a special number prefix for making private calls. We have an unlimited dataplan for a fixed price and texting is the same price internally or externally. And since I'm in Sweden I don't have to pay for receiving calls.

Currently I'm engaged in an assignment where all my collegues are in the U.K., the U.S., Poland and other countries. Phone calls are made through a IP based softphone through my company Laptop so I rarely makes any calls or much texting on the phone. Due to the differences in time zones I do spend quite a lot of time reading and answering e-mails from my collegues in Europe and U.S. particularly during late afternoons and evenings. I also have my private e-mail accounts set up in my phone since the I have fixed price on data.

I listen to quite a few podcast channels through iTunes. I have some smart filters set up that creates an automatic playlist with all the unplayed podcasts. When I have listened at them through an iPod or iPhone they disappear from the playlist (and computer) automagically. I also watch movies and listen on music or audio books.

I also likes to read e-books from ereader.com, play an occasional game or three. I spend some time reading twenty something websites several times and blogs several times each day and update my Twitter micro blog as well as this blog.

I also needs to have my calender synched with my company Exchange on a regular basis. I shoot an occasional picture that I like either import to iPhoto or upload to a picture site, so the quility of the camera is important.

Overall this put special demands on screen, battery, keyboard, sound, synching, handling, and so on. I will look at different functions that I use daily and how they match the phones cababilities so stay tuned if you find this interesting.

Nokia E71 v.s. iPhone 3G

I've had the Nokia E71 since December 2008 and the iPhone 3G since January 2009 (the original iPhone since October 2007).

They are both great devices and I've used them both as my main phone at work and private. They have different strengths and weaknesses so I haven't been able to decide which device that's THE phone to use. In this blog I will publish a number of articles where I compare the two devices from different standpoints and compare their specifications and functionality. It could be cameras, pim, e-mail, web, media, keyboards, display, app stores, and so on. I don't know yet the exact structure and comparisons I will write but naturally they will be concentrated on stuff that matters to me. Perhaps I will start by writing a short presentation of me, what kind of work and private use I need from a phone. Stay tuned.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

iPhone battery life improved

Finally I found what ate my iPhone battery for lunch. It was the Push function of Exchange. Turned it off and set it to fetch at a 15 minute intervall - battery life back to (iPhone) normal. Still far from the capacity of the Nokia E71 though. Apparently there is a bug in firmware version 2.2.1 in the Exchange push function that consumes the battery at an alarming rate since there are several pages on the 'net describing exactly this problem.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

iPhone battery life

I had iPhone OS 2.2 on my original iPhone 3G. I had it replaced on warranty due to a crack in the casing by the bottom contact. The new iPhone I received as a replacement had OS 2.2.1. I didn't thought much about it but the battery life has been really really bad. It could be that the battery of the new iPhone has to be 'run in' to provide maximum capacity. I hope it will. Yesterday I started out with about 75% charge at about 1 p.m., didn't do much at all during the day and night. It was down to 20% by 11 p.m. and when I woke up by 8.30. (hey - it's a long weekend) it whas completely dead. There are indeed room for improvements. I'm starting to throw longing looks at my E71.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Change of main device

Alright, time to change from Nokia E71 to iPhone 3G as my main device. Large screen v.s. small screen, virtual keyboard v.s. physical keyboard, mail only corporate Exchange connectivity v.s. adequate corporate Exchange connectivity, great iTunes integration v.s. no iTunes integration, limited background execution v.s. (almost) unlimited background execution.

The list can be made longer, but those are the main issues that come to my mind directly. Well, lets try it out for a while and we'll see what happens.

Mobile Blogging from here.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Cracking MacBook

My two year old white MacBook cracked in several places about a year ago. Apple had the case replaced under warranty. Now, new cracks has developed in the lid and close to the hand rest - of course it is out of warranty. . .

But to my delight - Apple has decided to have free a replacement/repair programme of the MacBooks with these cracks regardless of warranty status. I just bought a new battery since the original battery had swelled out of proportions. With the new case - the machine will probably look like new! To bad the repair will likely take a week or two. Now I just have to call Applecare.

Testing a new blogg client

I found this client to use for adding new contents to a multitude of different blogs, Googles Blogger being one of them. Interestingly enough the same client on the Nokia E7¹doesn't have the same capabilities. You can only add an entry if you add a picture - strange. I will need to find a better blog client on the Nokia.

However on the iPhone the Shozu client seems to be a rather nice appliction. I'll see if it will make me add information to my blog a bit more often than I have done so far.