Congratulations to our latest competition winner – Allison van der Vliet – who won £15 to spend on the iTunes store. Your prize will be with you shortly!
Stay tuned for our next competition which is due towards the end of the Summer. If you’d like to suggest a prize for the draw, please head to our Facebook page.
Yes – it’s competition time again! This time, we’re giving away a £15 iTunes gift voucher for you to spend anywhere on the iTunes store. Whether you’re looking to stock up on some new music or just want to grab some cool apps for your iPhone, iPod or iPad – this is the competition for you.
As with the last competition – all you need to do to enter is simply like GEEK! on Facebook (go to the page and click ‘Like’) and then fill in the form underneath.
This competition has now ended. Thanks to everyone who entered.
HTC have just released a software update for the Sensation and Sensation XE. The update, which is described as an “enhancement” update is around 60MB in size and takes around 5 minutes to install. It is listed as version number 3.33.401.6 for the Sensation and 3.33.401.106 for the Sensation XE.
HTC have been rather vague in any improvements/updates that have been implemented. As far as I can see, these are the changes:
However, some users are already reporting major issues with Wi-Fi on some devices since the update. According to some users, Wi-Fi will no longer connect properly (especially over longer ranges). I’m not personally experiencing the issue but will report back if I start to run into issues.
Most stock Sensation/XE users should be able to update OTA now. If you’re using a network supplied phone, it may be a little while longer before you receive the update.
Sometimes with Windows, I come across issues where I can’t delete files on my hard drive because I “don’t have permission” to delete them. I typically tend to come across the issue after Windows has installed Windows updates – I end up with garbled folders that I can’t modify or remove.
Thankfully, there is a solution. I’ve come across a program called Unlocker – which is a Windows extension that forces files to delete even if your user can’t.
It’s free and can be downloaded here. Use it with care (don’t remove any files by mistake), but it can be a great tool for removing temporary files.
So now I have my car, I need to make sure I have a good way of guiding myself when I don’t know where I’m going. I’ve tried many sat nav apps over the years over various phones and operating systems. On my previous phone, the Nokia 5230, free sat nav software was provided courtesy of Nokia and I have to say – considering it was free – it was fantastic. Not only did it include features that would normally come at a premium (eg traffic and speed camera alerts), but it also allowed maps to be downloaded to the memory card (in order to save data usage).
Sadly, whilst Android does have free sat nav provided (courtesy of Google) – it’s quite limited. The actual navigation is very good – but considering it doesn’t have speed camera alerts and also doesn’t allow map downloads, I decided I had to look into a premium option.
After much deliberation, I decided to go for Copilot Live Premium. It comes at rather a cost – £25 up front including VAT and then £10 per year (after the first year) for ongoing traffic alerts. However, you do get all the premium features I would expect – including free map downloads to a memory card (which are also very well sized) and free speed camera alerts.
Performance of the app is very good – on my HTC Sensation XE movement shows at a lovely frame rate. The GUI is also very efficient – not only does it look tidy but you can also choose from a wide range of stats to show on the main display such as speed, distance remaining, ETA and so on.
There are also plenty of settings you can play with – from changing how far in advance the app warns you of an upcoming junction through to the types of POIs that are displayed on the map. I found some settings hard to find – in many cases they were hidden away – but there’s definitely no shortage of customisation.
Overall, I’m very happy with the app. In future, I’d like to see better speeding warnings – right now you only get a warning when you’re over 5mph over the speed limit. Whilst this is handy, if I was doing 35mph in a 30 zone I’d easily get caught by a mobile speed camera.
Ratings
Features: 4/5
Performance: 5/5
Price: 4/5 (good value for money, but monthly payment options would be nice)