Category Archives: Hardware

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Nokia 5230 Review – The best budget phone I’ve had so far

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I recently acquired my first ever smartphone (at last!). It’s the Nokia 5230 – a budget phone that packs a lot of punch.

For the best part of £80 from the Carphone Warehouse, you can get the phone brand new and unlocked. It includes HSDPA internet, GPS, Symbian S60 5th edition and a 2 megapixel camera. Personally, I think that’s a great line up for such a low priced phone.

The phone is very similar physically to the 5800. It’s a very similar size (but slightly thinner) and has the same sized screen. In fact, the 5230 only lacks wi-fi and a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash compared to the 5800. The 5230 is very nice to hold and fits comfortably in my hand.

On the left side of the phone, you’ll find slots for the MicroSD memory card (up to 16GB) and a SIM card. Whereas on the right of the phone, you’ll find a volume control, a lock slider (to lock the phone) and a single press camera button. On the front of the phone, you simply have the 3.2″ touchscreen and 3 hard buttons.

The interface of the phone is very easy to use. The Symbian S60 firmware means you get great ease of use together with brilliant functionality. As part of Nokia’s recent changes, you also get free worldwide Ovi Maps to go in harmony with the GPS receiver. Overall, I found Ovi Maps to be very impressive with the latest firmware to date. It is very fast and is relatively good at following your movements. The GPS receiver is one of the best built-in receivers I’ve used so far, being very good at getting strong signals even when in the car or on a bus.

The 2 megapixel camera is slightly lacking in today’s standards, but I feel that it still performs relatively well. I was very impressed with video camera, which is capable of shooting 640×480 video at 30 frames per second. The phone was also very good at getting decent, well focused shots in fast movement. I wouldn’t use it for professional photography, but for casual out-and-about usage it is perfect for the job. There’s no front facing camera, so no video calls, but who ever did video calls?

You also get a mono speaker which I thought was pretty good, but putting my own earphones into the 3.5mm jack sounded much better.

In terms of what you get in the box, I was slightly disappointed. In the UK, you’ll get the phone, together with a charger, manual and wrist strap. It also includes a very low budget stylus in the shape of a guitar pick, however I can’t really complain at the price of the phone. You don’t get a micro USB cable for the phone, so you have to rely on bluetooth for syncing with your computer. However, you can get these on eBay for about £3, so it may well be worth budgeting for.

Overall, I’m very happy with the phone. It packs a lot of punch for £80, and I’m happy to take it as an upgrade for my old 3120 classic.

3 Mi-Fi – should I get it?

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I’m just not sure!

I’ve recently been considering the concept of Hutchinson 3G’s (3 in the UK) mobile wireless broadband service – dubbed “Mi-Fi”. It has really interested me because of it’s convenience. You simply slip in the SIM card and off it goes. It works as a portable wi-fi router, and can connect up to 5 devices at any given time.

On the pay as you go plan (which I’d prefer), you get the device for £49.99, together with all the kit and caboodle you will need to go with. You then pay for bandwidth separately and is priced as follows:

  • £10 for 1GB
  • £15 for 3GB
  • £25 for 7GB

Pretty expensive in my opinion – but that’s mobile broadband for you.

I think it would be really handy for me as I spend a lot of time in cars, on trains and in public places so it would be pretty convenient for me. I just need to justify whether the cost balances out the convenience.

If anyone has Mi-Fi, could they post a comment to let me know how they get on with it? It’d be nice to know what people think of it.

Cloud Unlimted Music review – unlimited public wi-fi for the iPod Touch

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Get unlimited wi-fi for your iPod Touch at a tiny price

I recently subscribed to The Cloud’s iPod Touch service, dubbed “Cloud Unlimited Music”. It is a service designed specifically for the iPod Touch and gives unlimited browsing and downloading at The Cloud’s wi-fi hotspots for just £3.99 per month.

I decided it was worth it as it is handy to have instant internet access in many public train station. The company’s hotspots can be found in many public places – such as train stations, pubs, hotels, restaurants and as most O2 stores. Considering the small price, I can head out and just catch my emails or finish a download.

I’m really impressed at how well the system works. I signed up and added my debit card as payment, and then 2 days later (today) headed out to my local town to try it out. I walked into an O2 shop and tried to connect. Straight away I was on the net – no need to log on or anything like that.

You don’t need to log on because the system works by checking your iPod’s MAC address rather than a username or password. When you sign up, you provide your device’s MAC address and your account is locked to that code. By doing this, it means that you no longer have to log on when joining a hotspot.

In addition, I was also really impressed at the speeds. My local O2 store gave me a download speed of over 8 megabits per second (which is more than twice the speed of my home broadband).

So overall, I’m very happy with it. It’s great value and works very efficiently. If you need wi-fi access for your iPod Touch in town – this is for you.

What’s all the fuss about the iPad?

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It’s just a giant iPhone, isn’t it?

Ever since Apple announced the iPad, everyone’s been going on about it. Everyone seems to think it’s an amazing gadget that which has never been thought of.

But if you think about it – the technology that is in the iPad has been around for years. We’ve had touch screen computers for ages – and tablet PCs for even longer.

And on the topic of technology – what’s so amazing about it? For what will be the best part of £500 for a decent model, you get a 1Ghz processor for a start. 1Ghz? I’m sorry but we’ve been seeing 1Ghz processors since 2000 and you expect me to pay £500 for a device like that? OK, point taken – 1Ghz for a mobile device is pretty good – but its a pretty big thing so can’t Apple squeeze in any more power?

There are also many other factors that really put me off it. One of my biggest problems with it is that it can’t multitask. What the hell? Hasn’t Apple heard any of our prayers?!! iPhone users have, for months, been wanting the capability for Apple mobile devices to multitask and Apple still hasn’t solved the problem. I find it so annoying that I can’t do anything else when I’m listening to Spotify music on my iPod Touch.

In addition, I don’t understand the design of it. It supposedly has GPS, but I’m not going to carry a huge device round on my travels when I’m going on a hiking trip. In the same respect, I don’t think that UK road laws would allow me to have a huge device sitting on my windscreen mount (if I had a car).

So without going into too much detail – you won’t ever see me with an iPad. I just can’t make sense of it. I thought that in this day and age,  portability and size were key factors – but maybe I’m wrong.

I’ll be interested to know the UK prices, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be available until launch – which is due around March.

Windows 7 Media Center can record from hibernate!

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A new feature in Windows 7 Media Center that enhances it’s power saving!

One thing I used to find really annoying about Windows Media Center in Vista was that if you wanted to record a programme, the system always had to be in either awake mode or S1/S3 standby mode.

This has changed with Windows 7 Media Center and Microsoft has finally solved the issue.

With Windows 7 Media Center (providing your motherboard supports it), you should be able to hibernate your comptuer – and Windows will wake your computer approximately 10 minutes before a scheduled recording. It should then return to hibernate shortly after a recording has finished.

This is a really big advantage. No more wasting vast amounts of electricity by leaving your computer in standby. I can finally leave my computer over a weekend and come back knowing that the system has done all of my recordings and hasn’t cost the Earth in electricity!

So incase you weren’t already aware of this – next time you need to leave your computer to record TV while you are away, put the system into hibernate.

Hibernate works differently to standby. When you hibernate a system, the entire contents of the RAM is saved to a big file on the hard drive. The system can then fully shut down. When you wake the system, it will transfer all of the RAM contents on the hard drive back to the RAM, and your system should be able to just return to its previous state.