Comments on: Blimey, another year’s nearly gone

By: Squander Two

Squander Two — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:09:02 +0000

Funnily enough, I bumped into yet another ex-Londoner the other day. He was thrilled to be living in Norn Irn instead. Obviously. Funny how you never meet any who miss the bloody place.

By: mupwangle

mupwangle — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 09:04:54 +0000

>>without all sorts of modern conveniences that us Londoners take for granted…

Such as breathable air and water in summer. ;-D

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:44:19 +0000

Yes, well, I imagine that those of you who insist on living in the sticks have to do without all sorts of modern conveniences that us Londoners take for granted… ;-)

By: Gary

Gary — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:57:22 +0000

The problem is that EDGE is largely imaginary. From here (a few miles north of Glasgow) to the Clyde Tunnel it’s non-existent; it’s very patchy in central Glasgow; and on a trip down south the other day there was patchy coverage in Bristol Airport, a wee bit in Bristol, and bugger-all in most of Bath. You might as well compare 3G with a magic horse.

By: mupwangle

mupwangle — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 19:30:35 +0000

>>Saw something on Daring Fireball which suggested EDGE is not much slower than 3G.

Other than the latency issues with EDGE, it is pretty close to basic 3g. Somewhere around the 250kbps range, if I remember correctly. However, the new 3g handsets are capable of HSDPA and EVDO which have theoretical maximums in excess of 10Mbps. My iphone is as quick (if not quicker) than my old SE K800i, which was 3g, but it is much slower than the 3g N95 due to HSDPA.

EDGE coverage is (oddly) very good where I live, but 3g access is much better generally. I’d still wait till next year, if I were you. You’d get 3g and probably 16Gb+ as well as a more mature OS.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 17:49:55 +0000

Saw something on Daring Fireball which suggested EDGE is not much slower than 3G. When I was in the US my BlackBerry was on EDGE the whole time (it was a nervous wreck, ha ha!) and it certainly seemed very quick, web browsing was nothing like the slow painfulness here in the UK (where Vodafone have no EDGE to speak of) so I sort of agree.

The main reason I was thinking of waiting for the summer was to get more memory, I just thought 8Gb wasn’t enough. But I’ve surprised myself with my 4Gb nano. I thought I would just use it for jogging, but after putting my favourite music onto it, and a movie (movies only take up about half a gig if you rip them at the resolution of the iPod screen), it’s not completely full, and I use it as my main iPod. So maybe 8Gb would be plenty…

By: mupwangle

mupwangle — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:41:40 +0000

>>In which case, Apple are going to have the same problem.

That’s what Jobs said when asked why it wasn’t 3g. He said they wouldn’t go 3g until either the batteries could cope with the drain or a lower powered chipset was made.

By: Squander Two

Squander Two — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:10:03 +0000

3G does eat through batteries. My olf Nokia 9500 Communicator was only 2.5G, and the battery is incredible: even now, three years old, the thing lasts for days between charges, with plenty of calls and wi-fi use and with its great big screen. I seriously doubt that Nokia have decided to give their newer phones worse batteries, so I assume that the reaosn the E90 doesn’t come close to that is the 3G capabilities. In which case, Apple are going to have the same problem.

By: mupwangle

mupwangle — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:56:31 +0000

>>Bought an N95, btw

Just had a conversation with a couple of folks who both had an N95 and reckoned that it is a great phone, except the battery doesn’t last long enough to use it. One had sent a fair number of texts and the other had barely used it since they charged it yesterday. Both didn’t believe me that I hadn’t charged my iphone since thursday (75% charge – several phone calls, multiple SMS and a fair bit of GPRS and Wi-fi web surfing)

I love my iphone, but I am still recommending that people wait till the summer. A 3g iphone will be released, and the software will be 2.0 and there will be 3rd party stuff available. Someone at work reckoned that there was no real difference between the WM interface and the iphone. If that were true then I really wouldn’t have bought one.

By: Kyle MacRae

Kyle MacRae — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:52:09 +0000

So I’ve given the “wonderful” Plant/Krauss collab a second listen and it’s still not doing it for me. I share your distaste for Plant (always preferred Geddy Lee when it came to ultra-soprano rock posturing) but love Alison Krauss and indeed all things Bluegrass. it’s not country enough for me. But I just can’t and never will get over the way RP sings the worst rhyming couplet is the history of popular music:

Now Im a happy feller
Cos I’m married to the fortune teller

Urgh. If I’d paid for this shit, I’d demand a refund.

(Bought an N95, btw)

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:49:30 +0000

I dunno, to me it’s as if they’ve basically decided to hermetically seal themselves off from the modern world. I know they haven’t – they do review things, after all – but feature-wise it’s all a bit dull, worthy and cosy. Syd Barrett, again. The Beatles, again. The Clash, again. The Word’s got a lot more personality, but it’s been wandering close to Uncut territory of late, I think.

By: Norman Lamont

Norman Lamont — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:13:00 +0000

Hi Gary

What’s the ‘abyss’ that Mojo and Uncut are in? I enjoy Word, but have felt that something’s gone off the boil in the last couple of issues, but can’t put my finger on it. What do you think?