There are two major factors when considering coverage: the phone itself and the nearest mast.
A phone’s antenna is crucial. The bigger it is, the better it is at picking up a signal. The ongoing battle to fit more gadgetry into mobiles of a smaller size means there is often little room left for the single most important part. Not all phones are equal and I have seen a 50% difference in the signal two adjacent phones pick up purely because of the quality of the antenna. Unfortunately there is little way to tell this before you get the phone home but a general rule of thumb is that a small phone with lots of features (5mp+ camera, satnav, wifi) will not have much room for a decent antenna. If you are in a marginal area, get a simple business orientated phone (such as the Nokia E series).
Mobile phones are just complex radios. If anything is blocking the signal from the mast they are connected to they will not work. Over time a number of things can change including new buildings, trees and masts from other companies conflicting with existing signals. This means that just because you had a good signal a few months ago, you won’t necessarily have one now.
Most masts do not operate at full power. For example, where I live the two closest Orange masts are showing as working at 27.2 dBW out of a licensed maximum of 32 dBW and 28 out of 32, both of which are normal. There are lots of reasons for running under power. Mainly that it saves electricity but also because it will reduce interference with other masts in the area. Mast tuning is a black art and is very difficult to get right because of constantly changing environmental conditions.
If you are suffering changeable reception in the same area you may be suffering from ‘ping-ponging’ where the phone is switching between two equidistant masts, especially when moving about the local area. Another aspect is saturation. Masts only have a finite capacity and so the more users connecting to that mast, the less of the signal you get to use. Too many people and you won’t get a signal which is why it is always difficult to make a call during big events unless the operators lay on temporary ‘masts on wheels’ to provide additional capacity. This is usually the case only for voice calls. Text messages were invented for technicians and they use the ‘carrier’ wave which is why they will often get through when a voice call will not.
Different companies use different wavelengths. At 900 MHz Vodafone and O2 use a longer wavelength than Orange, T-Mobile and Virgin at 1800 Mhz. 3 operate in the 2100 Mhz range and use masts from Orange where there is no 3G coverage. This means that Vodafone and O2’s masts can transmit further but they are less likely to work in small valleys surrounded by big hills (such as a coombe). It is also why Orange can boast to have more masts than anyone else. It is a marketing gimmick - the reason is that they have a lower power than Vodafone and O2 and so you need more masts just to get the same area of coverage.
To find out where your nearest mast is or to identify known masts go to http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/ and enter either the postcode or the nearest town. Bear in mind that most operators do not want you to know where their masts are so they put some pretty heavy constraints on the use of the information they supply to Ofcom, the result of which makes finding unknown masts difficult. The trick is to zoom out no more than 500m in order to find the masts and zoom in to 100m to get the detail. If you zoom out more than 500m you won’t see a thing - just as the operators would like it!
If you want to test out coverage from various suppliers, you’ll either need an unlocked phone and some PAYG Sim cards from the various operators or friends who use the companies you are interested in. Bear in mind what I said about the antenna though as it is by far the most underrated consideration when buying a phone.
If you are with Vodafone you can get their Sure Signal which is a femtocell that acts like a mini-mast (this is different to a signal booster) which uses your ADSL line to carry voice and data.
Current whipping boy Google is coming under attack from three giants in the European communications market. Telefonica, France Telecom (Orange) and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) are complaining because Google isn’t giving them a share of the advertising revenue raised by consumers accessing Google’s products over their networks.
They have announced Yet Another App Store Beater and called it the Wholesale Applications Community in response to the (three-year-old) global wake-up call from Apple which converted a spec hungry market into one that is all about the app.
Cesar Alierta, Telefinica’s chairman, called on regulators to force Google to share some of the revenue raised from online advertising with the carriers who are providing access to the advertising in the first place. FT’s Stephane Richard agreed recognising that Google were the winners and the network operators were the losers.
DT’s CEO really demonstrated his grasp on the market by announcing that “There is not a single Google service that is not reliant on network service. We cannot offer our networks for free”.
Last time I looked I was being charged for network access whether it be from my phone, my home or my business. And if you ask me, if OpCos have been dumb enough to undersell their bandwidth in a land-grab led by marketeers then they deserve everything they get. I still won’t forgive them until I see the back of all the ‘unlimited’ deals that still feature so strongly in their shop fronts.
Meanwhile, I’m off to suggest a new profit model to BT where they take a share of my bill at Pizza Hut because I used one of their phones to place the order.
The first device to run Android was the HTC Dream. Since its launch in 2008 the OS has had a number of updates which have fixed bugs and added new features. The updates have all had quirky alternate names associated with them in alphabetical order and based on treats.
1.5 Cupcake, released in April 2009.
Performance improvements included a faster camera start up and image capture, faster acquisition of GPS locations and smoother page scrolling in the browser.
Cupcake also came with many new features such as onscreen soft keyboard, bundled home screen widgets, video recording and video play back in MPEG-4 and 3GP format, stereo Bluetooth support and auto pairing, copy and paste in browser, search within abrowser page, photos for favourite contacts and one touch access to a contact card from the call log.
1.6 Donut, released 15th September 2009.
Donut provided more updates to the camera speed boasting a 39% faster launch time and a 28% faster time from taking one photo to the next. Also included in the camera overhaul was an integrated camera, camcorder and gallery interface. Other improvements were faster voice search and voice dial.
New features on Donut are not as prominent as Cupcake but they distinctively added to the Android experience. Quick search bar from the home page allowed users to get straight to the web. VPN and 802.1x were added, support for WGVA resolutions, text to speech engine, support for CDMA/EVDO allowing the Android to be available on more networks and a battery usage indicator to show users which apps and services are consuming battery power.
2.0/2.1 Eclair, release 26th October 2009.
In Eclair we see more hardware changes and additional camera features such as a flash and digital zoom. The big change with Eclair is the Linux kernel change from 2.6.27 to 2.6.29.
The main new features are Bluetooth 2.1, search functionality for all saved SMS and MMS messages, android virtual keyboard, email exchange support, ability to add multiple email accounts and search from one page, calendar events indicating the status of attendees.
We can expect to see at least 2 new planned releases for Android, FroYo and Gingerbread. These will be based on Linux Kernel 2.6.32 and 34.
There’s a clear evolution of what’s been done to android to make it more useable for a wide market and still stamp its own individuality with some great user tweaks. Is it still catching up or is it pushing forwards?
I’d quite like an iPhone but don’t want to be tied to a two-year contract. When looking at the TCO of most plans, you’re looking at something starting at £900 even for the most basic plans (75 minutes, 250 SMS and 1GB data).
Consider that O2 offer the iPhone on Pay as you Go from £449 (£440 on Orange) and you start to wonder what the extra £550 gives you. When averaged out on a two-year plan that gives you nearly £23 a month to play with. O2 offer a 1 month rolling Simplicity deal specifically for the iPhone giving you 300 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data & WiFi for £20 a month with a 1 month commitment.
Even with interest taken into account, getting a PAYG iPhone on your credit card and partnering it with a SIM-only deal from the same network is the cheapest way to buy giving you the benefit of a generous allowance and tieing you in for the shortest time.
If you want to be truly independent, you can get a SIM-free (unlocked) iPhone for around £800. You can get them cheaper, but they are usually hacked versions where you cannot update the software or you will relock the device to the original network.
Vodafone do not offer the iPhone on PAYG at the time of writing.
I have tried many touchscreen devices and always go back to numerical keys. Here’s why.
I can touch type on a keyed device. A touch screen has no tactile feedback making it useless for non-sighted use.
With a keyed device, the numeric keypad is by far the most gracious design. It constrains the input area sufficiently that I can operate the device using one hand and I need very limited movement in my thumb to operate it. Held in either hand, the side-keys on my Nokia E51 are in easy reach of my fingers and the main keypad sits nicely under my thumb. With a touchscreen, you need two hands if you are to avoid very awkward stretching and balancing.
After a little time, T9 input is faster than QWERTY. Because I only have to move among 12 keys, I don’t have to look and optically digest an entire keyboard. Tengo provide a QWERTY version of T9 for Windows Mobile devices (I think they may have gone under).
Constraining input to fewer keys removes the awkwardness of a multi-faceted input UI. There is no doubt that the back key on my device will always perform back functions. Even on the iPhone, this is performed by an on-screen button which isn’t always in exactly the same place. This is more true of the ’send’ or ‘green’ button. For touchscreen devices this is often anywhere on the screen which means you have to hunt for it.
Keys offer me precise control. I know when I have pressed the key and I get immediate feedback. For a touchscreen I have often experienced a ‘dead touch’ where the screen hasn’t registered my finger.
When you first switch on the F107, there is an ominous sense of familiarity about the menu items and the structure of the device. Those of you who remember the early Nokia phones like the 5110 will be able to reflect on ‘warmer’ times, when selecting menu items was more instantaneous, buttons few and social networking sites a mere classroom daydream.
The first thing to notice is a quick start-up time, and within a few seconds of the Front screen becoming visible, a proverbial soft key directs you to a ‘no nonsense’ menu screen that anyone from ages 8-80 years should find easy to negotiate. The 2.o mp camera is as basic as you can imagine, but still allows you to trim brightness, contrast and some elementary colour effects. The digital zoom is, like most features on the device, responsive and flatteringly academic to use.
Those of us accustomed to touch screen functionality can enjoy a moment of tranquillity whilst composing a text message ‘the old-fashioned way’ on this phone. Again, like the earlier phones, you can send a message rapidly and without aggravation, thanks to somewhat antiquated text input keys and an almost intimidating word prediction feature which appears frighteningly precise.
After using the media section of the phone for just a few moments, one is left feeling hollow and uninspired. The functionality fails in every department here except for thwarting the user. This is because you cannot simply view a picture from your memory card or ringtone from the phone memory by selecting them, but instead observe a list of your files, unaware that you need to visit the media player to import them as if it is come kind of construct from ‘The Matrix’.
Consumers who crave impressive visuals and startlingly clarity will feel instantly dejected by the ZTE’s ‘honest’ looks both on & off the screen. The shape of the phone is undoubtedly conducive to a lifetime of pocket-dwelling, but will struggle to catch the eye in a marketplace consumed by cosmetic connotation. Unfortunately this styling continues into the phones’ structure and inevitably makes for quite a dull and unfulfilling experience. When browsing the web, it is very hard to see anything in detail and is probably best reserved for football scores if anything.
I would have to recommend this handset as a great ‘1st phone’ for all ages. Not least because of its ease of use but also the lack of meaningless applications on the front screen, allowing the user to perform day to day functions with minimum of fuss or distractions.
In conclusion, I still think this little ZTE retains enough charm to see it through the intense scrutiny of the school playground. I do, however, see it only in two realistic scenarios: either as a young child’s first phone or an emergency point of contact for Grandpa on his travels due to its reliability and ease of use.
At first glance, it’s not hard to see why the Samsung i5700 can be so easily compared with the HTC Hero. Both handsets are Android devices and are fairly similar in terms of size, weight and specification. However, this is where the similarity ends, as the phone does not have to spend long in your possession before it feels rather like a cheap imitation, or even a ‘poor man’s Hero’.
It would be unfair not to appreciate the large 3.2” screen which allows for a visually impressive browsing experience. The clarity and brightness of the display are both unquestionably refined, and as such provide an impressive canvas for the customers’ perusal of web content. It is, therefore, a great shame that the touch-screen interface feels both un-responsive and tiresomely inaccurate. For instance, when scrolling through the main menu it is almost impossible to find an area on the screen where you feel completely in control. My frustration soon turned to anger when I found myself constantly opening unwanted apps or selecting the wrong menu items.
Of course, you could solve this problem by opting to use the directional Keypad and Select button. The internal 800 MHz CPU ensures that navigating through the handset in this way is extremely quick, but I would have much rather have seen this feature work properly, as other phones have proved with seemingly minimal effort.
The phone also features an adequate 3.2 mp auto focus camera with video recording, but astonishingly provides no adjustment settings whatsoever. Consequently, the process of actually taking a picture is quite literally a ‘point & click’ affair, certainly not what we’ve come to expect from modern camera phones, especially from such a reputable manufacturer. The image quality is distinctly average, whilst the ‘Camera’ button remains painfully unresponsive; this requires that you keep a steady hand just to increase the chances that a photo is worth keeping.
Encouragingly, DivX and xvid video support could be a major advantage for people who can’t or don’t have time to convert video formats. With much regret, I could not test this feature but if it works effectively then it certainly gives us food for thought when comparing it to other handsets with similar compatibility.
Whilst the Android Market Place provides a marvellous library, where one can find an App for almost anything, the featured list on the device is somewhat disappointing. I expected far more web-based content to be pre-installed and ready to use. I would surmise that the Samsung i5700 is a great way to experience Android for those of us with low to mid range budget. The handset will inevitably appeal to those who have experienced products from Samsung before. However, I fear that most customers will come away with a sense of resentment, as a lack of basic camera functions and smooth operation detract from the instantly congenial prettiness and sleek design which has become synonymous with Samsung.
