Inchoate Ramblings

Dear denizens of the interwebtube. Brace yourself for some tech-nerdy goodness.

As you know, I love me some gadgetty goodness. My mac is simply genius crammed into tangible form. I love my iPod Touch and I even have a place in my heart for my iPod Shuffle. But, it has to be said, my phone has been increasingly make me sad. It was my misfortune, for reasons that are now opaque, to decide upon the Nokia N93i. It is slow, it is buggy and the camera, designed to be its selling point, it not all that great. I ended up getting a digital camera for the rare times I want to take something more than snaps, and so even that “functionality” was rendered obsolete. It also has the misfortune of being the size of South Australia, indeed in the box comes an application form for a separate post code. I am a firm believer in the fact that our gadgets should make us happy. Given my current screwed up life style (working 15 hours a day, every day) I spend a lot of time around my gizmo’s, and its important that they are not as depressing as a bowl of over cooked brussel sprouts.

Given this, I wanted a new phone. I have wanted one for ages. Of course, we all know that the iPhone is out there, and that given my capacity to lust for Apple products is roughly equivelent to the American lust for fossil fuels, there seemed to be a simple solution…..

But you would be wrong. I ended up getting another Nokia, the E71. Why the decision to forgo the iPhone? Well JL has had a very successful experience with his E61i, the fore-runner of my new phone and I really do like Nokia in a general sense, far more so than Samsung or LG, for example. I have also been having some misgivings about the iPhone, from both an “abstract” perspective and more contextually.

Apart from the phone component, the iPhone would do exactly the same as the Touch, especially as I would use them as a platform for the newly released Apps. Of course, the benefits of integration are important to bear in mind, but I ultimately decided that it wasnt the right option. I have had increasingly muted opinions of the iPhone (although my opinions are still quite lofty). I am not a fan of how it can not multitask properly. I dislike intensely how it doesnt have proper bluetooth (I am not fussed by the lack of MMS). Whilst I am not a detractor from the virtual keyboard (it being the same as the touch) I do find it difficult to use for long periods of time (anything longer than SMS length isn’t too fun IMHO) I am sustainedly annoyed with Optus’ iPhone supply strategy (which can be boiled down to “we have none! give me money and we will let you que up for one”), which isn’t a very good reason, but is perhaps a fair explanation. I am not impressed with the new plastic look Apple have adopted, thinking the silver original one was far superior.

Ultimately, however, the decision rested on how exactly I wanted to spread my computing tasks across my various devices. I am a big emailer, and since I discovered Twitter and more recently Ping, I can use email to update my various online things (Facebook, Flickr, and this blog). I am not a fan of having to turn on my computer just to email. Whilst it was theoretically possible to email with my N93i, the numerical keypad didn’t make it practical and, as I have already said, the virtual keyboard on the Touch (or hypothetically the iPhone) wasn’t my cup of tea for long messaging. An email centric mobile seemed the right choice. I was a bit hesitant about the bulk of such devices (and the fact they are often butt ugly). But the E71 has received very positive reviews (see here, here and here), and the areas where it is weakest, the camera, and media playback, are areas that I both have alternate devices for and which I don’t use my phone for in any case.

I received the phone yesterday, and really have been most impressed with it. I think, subjectively, that it looks great. The menu’s are very responsive, indeed nearly instant for most options. The email set up is excellent, and the keyboard, whilst small, is well proportioned and I am already up to iPod typing speed on it. I have designed, in light of my dire life circumstances which require distraction from, a schema for my computing tasks. No one device is perfect for what I want, but together they give me as full a range of options as possible, as well as letting me choose what devices I will need on any one day.

iPod Shuffle - Simple music playback. I actually like having such an option free device, and have noticed that I use it even in situations where you would expect me to use the Touch

iPod Touch - Media playback (I like integration with iTunes, which I am locked to effectively because of the size and nature of my media library, and anyways, no one can touch Apple in this area). Apps (mostly games, lets be honest) and wifi browsing (again the browser is very good).

E71 - 24 hour email over the cellular network, phone, SMS, picture uploading if I ever can be bothered, “snap” photo’s. It also has basic office software, although I would be pushed to have to choose that over the Mac.

MacBook - Full computing options.

Hopefully things “blend” into each other, giving me a spectrum of options for any one task, but with each device having a key competence.

I will update when I have had more chance to work on it, and find out any little grievances.