Remember to always drive safe!
For more info, see this MSNBC article.
Don't forget, there are plenty of other ways to help the environment!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Fuel Efficiency vs. Safety
Thinking of buying a new car? Put some major thought into what you are buying! Some reports show that the focus on efficiency is directing the attention away from the safety aspects. Looks like the newer, smaller vehicles didn't do so well in the crash tests. The build of certain models leaves potential drivers at risk to leg or head injury if in a head-on collision.
Remember to always drive safe!
For more info, see this MSNBC article.
Don't forget, there are plenty of other ways to help the environment!
Remember to always drive safe!
For more info, see this MSNBC article.
Don't forget, there are plenty of other ways to help the environment!
VZW now offers HTC Touch Diamond™???
Verizon Wireless has offered the HTC Touch Pro™ for a while now, but after checking the site, I found this. It's just about the same thing as the Touch Pro™, the biggest difference is that it does not have a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Without the external keyboard, the design is a lot more lightweight and compact. Not sure why they would've waited this long to add this to their list of PDA's. Either way, it's still a decent device if you're unsure about the Storm, and prefer a virtual keyboard over external for size. As you can see in the pic below, 2-yr contract price is $299.99. I feel it could have been lower, given the fact it's been out for quite some time now. Not a fan of the purple interface myself, oh well, I've got my Storm!
If you do pick it up, be sure to check xda-developers to find ways to improve it!
If you do pick it up, be sure to check xda-developers to find ways to improve it!
iPod Shuffle 2nd Generation for sale! [eBay]
In the next day or two I'll be adding my iPod Shuffle on eBay, starting price at $7.99. Sale will be available for 3 days. I will edit with a link after it's posted. Everything is included, see photo. All original packaging and contents. Rarely used, so it's pretty much brand new. There is a better photo on eBay, this was sent from my email, must have lowered the quality.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Verizon BlackBerry Storm: Review Part 2
Alright, so I have had my Storm for just over a month, and a lot of exciting things happened! Steelers won, Obama'a in office, and the heroic plane landing. But, outside of the news, I still love my Storm!
There was a period of a few days where I was debating if I should keep it or not, but as soon as I picked it up..............I wasn't putting it down!
To comment further on my 1st Storm review:
1. A much, much better UI
I still enjoy the look and feel of this device. While there are some flaws, it beats constant hacking on WinMo. Now that Plazmic 4.7 [Theme Generator] has been leaked in beta, there are some great new themes coming out. I was actually surprised by how many themes rolled out in a short period of time. For those without a BB, Plazmic seems to be a mix of a Theme Gen, WisBar Advance Desktop 2, and WisBar Advance 3, only it's done on your PC.
2. More reliable OS
Ehh..........
Maybe I commented too early on this! Still ranks above Palm and WinMo, but definitely needs to be improved. I still use the official .75 OS, and will most likely continue using official updates. I'd really like to dive in to the leaked OS', but I've spent too much time with cooked ROM's, both in the kitchen, and flashing.
I'm just hoping that RIM delivers an outstanding OS soon, otherwise they'll find a riot outside of their main offices!
3. Integrated/Available apps
Still love the apps out there. Developers on CrackBerry are starting to get apps out to the public, both free and paid. A new app I have found and love, is Slacker radio. It is F-R-E-E, and beats any radio app I've used in the past. Sadly, Google Maps still can't find the missing ingredient to enable GPS for us VzW users.
4. GPS
What can I say, it works, except for GMaps. There are now a few apps that utilize the GPS, and do it quite well. WeatherBug will update your location, for both maps and temps. Poynt [I'll get into more] will find your location, and give directory listing avail in your area, similar to Live Search, but better. It picks up sats quickly and quite accurately, so no complaints here.
5. Touch Screen
The clicking was different, but after the first week I was used to it. I've also seen how it truly works.
Video below:
So you can see the two main parts of the screen. This explains why you can highlight an item, then click elsewhere, and still select that item. Interesting, but I don't really care. It was a cool vid, just wanted to post it.
The screen works well for me, I seem to be in the group of "lucky ones" who got a good phone. Others have issue with clicking the bottom of the screen, and some have to put paper under the battery to improve the click. That trick still puzzles me, but it works. There is a debate on whether or not the Mexican models are better than the Canadian. All I can say is, mine is from Canada and it works perfect, the hardware works perfect at least.
6. Email
No need to comment here, I love this email functionality more and more each day.
7. Battery life
With any tech toy, the way you use it determines your battery life. Luckily, there are lots of options to help improve the life of the battery. I can turn the backlight to 10/100, it helps the battery, and is still very visible outside. Mine lasts all day, from when I wake up to when I go to bed. With a large touch screen, it surely won't be as good as previous models. From what I hear, those with newer leaked OS' have better battery life.
Some new apps I have been playing with:
Poynt
QuickLaunch
Slacker
Viigo
Vlingo
Olive Tree Bible Reader
As I mentioned above, Poynt is very similar to Live Search. It will find your location through the GPS, then give results within your chosen range. You can search by category or name, and all similar results will be posted. It also shows movie listings. Aside from the functions, it has a nice UI.
QuickLaunch...........$5...........best money spent for my Storm to date. You connect this app to your convenience key, and you're good to go. It's a menu that will pop up and display shortcuts to virtually anything you want. Websites, apps, songs, photos, videos, options, phone calls, emails, SMS, it does it all! I love how I can launch a playlist through this.
Slacker redefines online mobile radio. You launch, and there is a nice list of genres, you open a genre, and you see 8-12 stations displaying the current artists with album covers. You start the station, and here is where it gets good, it doesn't start streaming the station, it plays the current song from the beginning! You can skip forward through tracks, and even pause the stream. In portrait, you have the current album cover, as well as the next showing. In landscape you see the same, but you also see your 2 previous songs. If you click on the album cover, you get the album review, in the app, you can also view the artist bio. For those wanting to save on battery, and data connections, you can cache songs to you SD card when connected to your PC. Last feature I like is the option to "create" a station. Type in an artists name, and a custom station with the chosen artist and 15 similar will play.
If you enjoyed Viigo beta on you WinMo device, you would love it even more on your Storm. It does the same thing, and looks the same. Except it works much better now. Full RSS reader, with extra channels available for weather, stocks, politics, and local listings.
I just installed Vlingo this morning, so I haven't messed with it too much, but looks awesome. It's like a mobile version of the voice command on Vista. You can speak your email and SMS replies, as well as launch apps and call people. The only thing I don't like is that your SMS/emails are "written" through its own app, and not the BB messaging app.
Olive Tree most likely isn't new to most of you. I used it on my Palm and my Touch, and was excited to see a Storm version. It's still in beta, but works very well. They have bibles and other books available, some free and some paid. The ASV bible is free and what I currently read.
I've been on CrackBerry for about 2 weeks now, and have been on there just as much as I am on xda! It's a very large community, and I have learned a lot from those guys and gals.
I do miss the ability to hack everything and f**k up the registry to my likings, but working out of the box was one of my biggest reasons for the Storm. Tweaking improves this device, where as I felt almost obligated to tweak the Touch. With one tweak came another and another.
Syncing with my iTunes library works great, and much faster than WMP. I purchased DVD Catalyst a while back, and it works great for DVD conversions for the Storm! I figured I'd give it a try the other day, and checked for an update. Sure enough there was one, with new improvements for the Storm! The app has preset profiles for various devices, which have things like playback speed, quality, and audio optimized for the selected device. Not only was there a Storm option, but a Storm HQ option. Full length movies take about an hour, and look amazing. I can't even describe it. Taking up about 600-700MB on my 16GB card, I currently have 1100 songs [podcasts included], 3 episodes of Heroes, and 3 full length movies. I also have to mention that playback works perfect out of the box, no need to tweak CorePlayer or TCPMP to fix the A/V offset, and the videos are in .MP4, audio in .AAC.
Some hate the browser, both reviewers and other owners, but I love it. The speed is fast enough to keep me happy, and it has the option to save RSS feeds directly from a site. It's similar to Opera 9.5, just a bit better in my opinion. Sometimes links are hard to click, but the mouse is there when I need it. I still rather have SkyFire though!
To sum this up, I will definitely keep this device. Assuming everything goes to plan with RIM, this will be a great phone. A new OS update will fix the bugs, and the planned app store will give it some more appeal. Please finish these RIM!!
There was a period of a few days where I was debating if I should keep it or not, but as soon as I picked it up..............I wasn't putting it down!
To comment further on my 1st Storm review:
1. A much, much better UI
I still enjoy the look and feel of this device. While there are some flaws, it beats constant hacking on WinMo. Now that Plazmic 4.7 [Theme Generator] has been leaked in beta, there are some great new themes coming out. I was actually surprised by how many themes rolled out in a short period of time. For those without a BB, Plazmic seems to be a mix of a Theme Gen, WisBar Advance Desktop 2, and WisBar Advance 3, only it's done on your PC.
2. More reliable OS
Ehh..........
Maybe I commented too early on this! Still ranks above Palm and WinMo, but definitely needs to be improved. I still use the official .75 OS, and will most likely continue using official updates. I'd really like to dive in to the leaked OS', but I've spent too much time with cooked ROM's, both in the kitchen, and flashing.
I'm just hoping that RIM delivers an outstanding OS soon, otherwise they'll find a riot outside of their main offices!
3. Integrated/Available apps
Still love the apps out there. Developers on CrackBerry are starting to get apps out to the public, both free and paid. A new app I have found and love, is Slacker radio. It is F-R-E-E, and beats any radio app I've used in the past. Sadly, Google Maps still can't find the missing ingredient to enable GPS for us VzW users.
4. GPS
What can I say, it works, except for GMaps. There are now a few apps that utilize the GPS, and do it quite well. WeatherBug will update your location, for both maps and temps. Poynt [I'll get into more] will find your location, and give directory listing avail in your area, similar to Live Search, but better. It picks up sats quickly and quite accurately, so no complaints here.
5. Touch Screen
The clicking was different, but after the first week I was used to it. I've also seen how it truly works.
Video below:
So you can see the two main parts of the screen. This explains why you can highlight an item, then click elsewhere, and still select that item. Interesting, but I don't really care. It was a cool vid, just wanted to post it.
The screen works well for me, I seem to be in the group of "lucky ones" who got a good phone. Others have issue with clicking the bottom of the screen, and some have to put paper under the battery to improve the click. That trick still puzzles me, but it works. There is a debate on whether or not the Mexican models are better than the Canadian. All I can say is, mine is from Canada and it works perfect, the hardware works perfect at least.
6. Email
No need to comment here, I love this email functionality more and more each day.
7. Battery life
With any tech toy, the way you use it determines your battery life. Luckily, there are lots of options to help improve the life of the battery. I can turn the backlight to 10/100, it helps the battery, and is still very visible outside. Mine lasts all day, from when I wake up to when I go to bed. With a large touch screen, it surely won't be as good as previous models. From what I hear, those with newer leaked OS' have better battery life.
Some new apps I have been playing with:
Poynt
QuickLaunch
Slacker
Viigo
Vlingo
Olive Tree Bible Reader
As I mentioned above, Poynt is very similar to Live Search. It will find your location through the GPS, then give results within your chosen range. You can search by category or name, and all similar results will be posted. It also shows movie listings. Aside from the functions, it has a nice UI.
QuickLaunch...........$5...........best money spent for my Storm to date. You connect this app to your convenience key, and you're good to go. It's a menu that will pop up and display shortcuts to virtually anything you want. Websites, apps, songs, photos, videos, options, phone calls, emails, SMS, it does it all! I love how I can launch a playlist through this.
Slacker redefines online mobile radio. You launch, and there is a nice list of genres, you open a genre, and you see 8-12 stations displaying the current artists with album covers. You start the station, and here is where it gets good, it doesn't start streaming the station, it plays the current song from the beginning! You can skip forward through tracks, and even pause the stream. In portrait, you have the current album cover, as well as the next showing. In landscape you see the same, but you also see your 2 previous songs. If you click on the album cover, you get the album review, in the app, you can also view the artist bio. For those wanting to save on battery, and data connections, you can cache songs to you SD card when connected to your PC. Last feature I like is the option to "create" a station. Type in an artists name, and a custom station with the chosen artist and 15 similar will play.
If you enjoyed Viigo beta on you WinMo device, you would love it even more on your Storm. It does the same thing, and looks the same. Except it works much better now. Full RSS reader, with extra channels available for weather, stocks, politics, and local listings.
I just installed Vlingo this morning, so I haven't messed with it too much, but looks awesome. It's like a mobile version of the voice command on Vista. You can speak your email and SMS replies, as well as launch apps and call people. The only thing I don't like is that your SMS/emails are "written" through its own app, and not the BB messaging app.
Olive Tree most likely isn't new to most of you. I used it on my Palm and my Touch, and was excited to see a Storm version. It's still in beta, but works very well. They have bibles and other books available, some free and some paid. The ASV bible is free and what I currently read.
I've been on CrackBerry for about 2 weeks now, and have been on there just as much as I am on xda! It's a very large community, and I have learned a lot from those guys and gals.
I do miss the ability to hack everything and f**k up the registry to my likings, but working out of the box was one of my biggest reasons for the Storm. Tweaking improves this device, where as I felt almost obligated to tweak the Touch. With one tweak came another and another.
Syncing with my iTunes library works great, and much faster than WMP. I purchased DVD Catalyst a while back, and it works great for DVD conversions for the Storm! I figured I'd give it a try the other day, and checked for an update. Sure enough there was one, with new improvements for the Storm! The app has preset profiles for various devices, which have things like playback speed, quality, and audio optimized for the selected device. Not only was there a Storm option, but a Storm HQ option. Full length movies take about an hour, and look amazing. I can't even describe it. Taking up about 600-700MB on my 16GB card, I currently have 1100 songs [podcasts included], 3 episodes of Heroes, and 3 full length movies. I also have to mention that playback works perfect out of the box, no need to tweak CorePlayer or TCPMP to fix the A/V offset, and the videos are in .MP4, audio in .AAC.
Some hate the browser, both reviewers and other owners, but I love it. The speed is fast enough to keep me happy, and it has the option to save RSS feeds directly from a site. It's similar to Opera 9.5, just a bit better in my opinion. Sometimes links are hard to click, but the mouse is there when I need it. I still rather have SkyFire though!
To sum this up, I will definitely keep this device. Assuming everything goes to plan with RIM, this will be a great phone. A new OS update will fix the bugs, and the planned app store will give it some more appeal. Please finish these RIM!!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Verizon BlackBerry Storm: Review Part 1.5
After a few more days of playing with the Storm I wanted to add some more to the review. It's not a complete review, so it's 1.5. The 2nd review will come in a few weeks after I've gotten some more use.
New apps I've found:
WeatherBug
TwitterBerry
WeatherBug for the Storm is free! Unlike other devices, which have a subscription fee. The shortcut displays the current icon, temp, and high/low. The app itself will display all the important info, and will show the live pics from the camera at the location of your choice. If you choose, you can have it set to check your location through GPS to keep you constantly updated on the weather where you're at. Great for travelers, but bad for battery. Also displays alerts and maps, if any alerts received, the home icon will display the alert icon.
TwitterBerry is pretty cool. I actually just signed up for Twitter, so I'll get more use hopefully in the future. So far it displays everything you would want, public timeline, friends updates, and your own history. This is compatible with the Storm, those who have tried and had the keyboard stuck on, you must disable compatibility mode.
Speaking of compatibility mode, seems RIM once again put some thought into this device. Apps that aren't built for the Storm can still be run, by enabling compatibility mode. I don't have any apps from other BB's, but I'm sure others can benefit from it.
I have found another thing I like about the keyboard, it's smart! In some apps, mainly ones that have fields for phone numbers or zip codes, the keyboard will only show characters you need to type. This doesn't happen everywhere, but it's a nice change from past devices.
More about the screen! I ususally don't pay attention to the device setup wizard, but thougth I'd try it to see what I didn't know. A cool feature I found was highlighting several items. If you tap [not click] and hold an item, then tap below/above with a 2nd tap all those items will be selected, it's like holding shift and clicking. You can zoom in/out on the camera by sliding up/down.
At first, the Messaging app had me a little confused, but I like the idea of it. Opening this will show all messages received on your device, from all accounts. Not just email either, it will show all Facebook, Flickr, missed calls, and other device messages. It's like a personal timeline for all incoming items.
Entering PIM data, like contacts and appointments, is simple and quick to use. Compared to WM, this is much better. To enter a date, you tap the date field, and a pop up shows allowing you to scroll through month, day, and year. When in contacts, if a contact is highlighted, and you press the send key, for contacts with different numbers, it will pop up asking which number to dial.
The Media Center is pretty cool. One of the best things I liked was the ability to sync with my iTunes library. Now with all music set to go DRM free, I can now purchase and organize all my music in one place and sync directly. The software to sync is an add on from RIM for the desktop software. The music player on this device had one option I really liked, the ability to create playlists. Now I know other apps can do playlists, like AudioManager, but I can also create smart playlists! Photos are simple to slide through, very fluid, very little lag. A lot of reviews went on about the lag on sliding through photos, but there was a recent OS update, which came stock on mine, and I assume that fixed it. Videos look great, haven't put any of my own on yet, but it came loaded with a trailer, and the quality was good.
Another favorite of mine is the screen fade. It will fade to black after your set backlight time, just looks slick to me.
Those are just a few small things I have found that I liked, they aren't anything big, but they are just the extras that make this more enjoyable and easy to use.
Now of course, there was no way I could go on without giving the problems. I haven't experienced anything too bad, but here are a few things.
Yesterday, the browser froze on me, causing me to pull the battery out. I'm not sure what happened, but I was tapping a lot and rotating, so I imagine it was just over loaded. It's only happened once, I can live with that.
A few times, I have received an error that media was unable to be played, and the file type was unsupported. I don't see why considering I've played them before. At some point it decides not to play anymore. The music player itself has a small bug. If the music player is open, and the screen turns off, when turned back on, the controls are gone. By tapping where they would be, they reappear, I hope it's fixed soon.
The camera seems to take decent pics, good enough for the bar, but the video camera sucks! Once pressed, it takes about 7-8 seconds for it to start recording. I've also had problems after taking a pic, it says the file can't be saved, WTF! Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not a moron, I can use a camera.
The screen is still something I like a lot, but sometimes the clicks aren't registered. It's like I'm not pressing hard enough. I'll get more into this topic after having this for a while longer.
The speed is decent on here, as long as you monitor all the open apps, you won't have a problem. I've set the left key to open the apps switcher, when running slow, I'll just find an app I can close.
These issues are small compared to what I've dealt with on past devices, and I'm sure they will be fixed in the near future.
New apps I've found:
WeatherBug
TwitterBerry
WeatherBug for the Storm is free! Unlike other devices, which have a subscription fee. The shortcut displays the current icon, temp, and high/low. The app itself will display all the important info, and will show the live pics from the camera at the location of your choice. If you choose, you can have it set to check your location through GPS to keep you constantly updated on the weather where you're at. Great for travelers, but bad for battery. Also displays alerts and maps, if any alerts received, the home icon will display the alert icon.
TwitterBerry is pretty cool. I actually just signed up for Twitter, so I'll get more use hopefully in the future. So far it displays everything you would want, public timeline, friends updates, and your own history. This is compatible with the Storm, those who have tried and had the keyboard stuck on, you must disable compatibility mode.
Speaking of compatibility mode, seems RIM once again put some thought into this device. Apps that aren't built for the Storm can still be run, by enabling compatibility mode. I don't have any apps from other BB's, but I'm sure others can benefit from it.
I have found another thing I like about the keyboard, it's smart! In some apps, mainly ones that have fields for phone numbers or zip codes, the keyboard will only show characters you need to type. This doesn't happen everywhere, but it's a nice change from past devices.
More about the screen! I ususally don't pay attention to the device setup wizard, but thougth I'd try it to see what I didn't know. A cool feature I found was highlighting several items. If you tap [not click] and hold an item, then tap below/above with a 2nd tap all those items will be selected, it's like holding shift and clicking. You can zoom in/out on the camera by sliding up/down.
At first, the Messaging app had me a little confused, but I like the idea of it. Opening this will show all messages received on your device, from all accounts. Not just email either, it will show all Facebook, Flickr, missed calls, and other device messages. It's like a personal timeline for all incoming items.
Entering PIM data, like contacts and appointments, is simple and quick to use. Compared to WM, this is much better. To enter a date, you tap the date field, and a pop up shows allowing you to scroll through month, day, and year. When in contacts, if a contact is highlighted, and you press the send key, for contacts with different numbers, it will pop up asking which number to dial.
The Media Center is pretty cool. One of the best things I liked was the ability to sync with my iTunes library. Now with all music set to go DRM free, I can now purchase and organize all my music in one place and sync directly. The software to sync is an add on from RIM for the desktop software. The music player on this device had one option I really liked, the ability to create playlists. Now I know other apps can do playlists, like AudioManager, but I can also create smart playlists! Photos are simple to slide through, very fluid, very little lag. A lot of reviews went on about the lag on sliding through photos, but there was a recent OS update, which came stock on mine, and I assume that fixed it. Videos look great, haven't put any of my own on yet, but it came loaded with a trailer, and the quality was good.
Another favorite of mine is the screen fade. It will fade to black after your set backlight time, just looks slick to me.
Those are just a few small things I have found that I liked, they aren't anything big, but they are just the extras that make this more enjoyable and easy to use.
Now of course, there was no way I could go on without giving the problems. I haven't experienced anything too bad, but here are a few things.
Yesterday, the browser froze on me, causing me to pull the battery out. I'm not sure what happened, but I was tapping a lot and rotating, so I imagine it was just over loaded. It's only happened once, I can live with that.
A few times, I have received an error that media was unable to be played, and the file type was unsupported. I don't see why considering I've played them before. At some point it decides not to play anymore. The music player itself has a small bug. If the music player is open, and the screen turns off, when turned back on, the controls are gone. By tapping where they would be, they reappear, I hope it's fixed soon.
The camera seems to take decent pics, good enough for the bar, but the video camera sucks! Once pressed, it takes about 7-8 seconds for it to start recording. I've also had problems after taking a pic, it says the file can't be saved, WTF! Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not a moron, I can use a camera.
The screen is still something I like a lot, but sometimes the clicks aren't registered. It's like I'm not pressing hard enough. I'll get more into this topic after having this for a while longer.
The speed is decent on here, as long as you monitor all the open apps, you won't have a problem. I've set the left key to open the apps switcher, when running slow, I'll just find an app I can close.
These issues are small compared to what I've dealt with on past devices, and I'm sure they will be fixed in the near future.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Verizon BlackBerry Storm: Review Part 1
Thought I would give a "First Impressions" review of the Storm. So far, coming from Windows Mobile, I love this device. I sat here with my new Omnia the other day, and I couldn't help but feel I should have gone with the Storm instead. I had charged my Omnia the other night for over 6 hours! It was like this for the time I had it, and I never understood why it took so long. I would actually take it off the charger, after receiving the pointless charging complete notification, and plug it back in, and after 10-15 minutes, it didn't show fully charged yet. Then I relaxed, and watched some YouTube on CorePlayer, and had my bluetooth headset attached. After just under 2 hours, I received the low battery warning, which was also weird since it was at about 35%. I know it was a new device, and the battery needed to be conditioned, but really, 2 hours?!
The biggest problem I had with WM was the outdated UI and the constant need to hack. Don't get me wrong, I loved the ability to customize anything I wanted, but it took to much time, and had me frustrated. I had quite a bit of software invested in my HTC Touch, so there is a small loss I had, but it was worth it. If I'm not mistaken, I can create themes for BB, but I have to do some more reading.
Some key initial reasons for my switch [in order of importance]:
1. A much, much better UI
2. More reliable OS
3. Integrated/Available apps
4. GPS
5. Touch Screen
6. Email
7. Battery life
1. A much, much better UI
Those from xda probably know I was trying to recreate the Storm theme for WAD2 and other apps. From day one, I really liked the look of the Storm, and had wanted to get it, but didn't want to lose what I had with WM. But, after seeing such a powerful device [Omnia], with an old UI, gave me one good reason to switch. Samsung did a great job of making WM more "finger-friendly", but the base of the OS still failed in this department. I was tired of trying to tap a small "x" all the time, and missing other intended links.
2. More reliable OS
This is my first BB, but I was confident that RIM had done a good job, I mean look at how many people rely on BB's to get the job done. I knew there was no way it could have crashed or froze as much as my Touch. In fact, I just learned that you can't officially turn the Storm off. By pressing the power button, you only really put it in sleep mode, you must remove the battery to actually power down the device. At least that's my understanding so far. Again, RIM has a lot of confidence here to not have a power off or reset function or button. I have had a freeze or two here and there, but it didn't require resetting.
3. Integrated/Available apps
I'm sure you all know what's available for the Storm. For starters, there is a bookmark preloaded in the browser for BB's mobile website. This gives you links to some available apps. I liked this because I knew the apps were trusted and commonly used without problems. Not to mention all of these apps are installed OTA, with options to check for updates. Some popular apps were created by RIM, and are updated frequently, or at least once every few months.
Here is a list of apps I'm currently using:
Facebook
MySpace
Flickr
YouTube
Visual Voicemail
FOX news
AP News
Olive Tree Bible Reader
Viigo
Live Messenger
AOL Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger
The other great thing about these apps is the system integration. If I receive a post on my wall in Facebook, I get a nice little FB icon showing how many alerts I have, and the shortcut gets a notification icon as well. The same is for MySpace and available messengers.
FOX news is just a shortcut to the mobile page, but will turn red on breaking news, and display the top headline when tapped. Most big sites, like ESPN and NYTimes give you an option to download an icon used as a shortcut to the site. Not an exciting thing, but it beats opening the bookmarks. If using a weather app, the current condition will be displayed.
You can log in to your YouTube account to view favorites, subscriptions, uploaded videos, and to rate videos. This seems to be an initial release, so it's only viewed in landscape, and no support for comments.
Flickr, of course, allows you to upload photos, and if available, you can include your location on upload.
The other thing I liked was the full system integration for all apps. For example, when you take a new picture, opening the menu gives you options to upload your photo to MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, or send by MMS or email. This can be done straight from photos, right after you snap the pic, or in the app itself. Also, when playing music, there is an option in all menus to open "Now Playing", or you can use the mute hardware button to pause/play, or hold up/down on the volume rocker to change tracks.
4. GPS
I knew GPS was built-in, but just found out that you can use BB Maps for GPS vs the VZNavigator, which has a monthly subscription. Another great feature for using GPS is the ability to geotag photos. If tagged, you can choose to view the pic on your map to see exactly where you took the photo. Currently, Google Maps doesn't work well with GPS, but I believe it is being worked on. I read somewhere the biggest problem for GMaps using the GPS was it isn't secure enough for the network.
5. Touch Screen
I had some doubts with this screen, and saw some brutal reviews on it, but it seems the ones putting it down, were not used to touch screens in general, and expected an iPhone experience. In fact, the rep at the VzW store said majority of the returns came from inexperienced users not liking the screen. Coming from the HTC Touch, I really like this screen. There are 6 levels of sensitivity to choose from, as well as other options to adjust it to your needs. No need to calibrate the screen here, it just works! Anyways, I'm set to the highest sensitiviy, and it does exactly what it's meant to do. Scrolling is typically quite smooth, but there is no kinetic scrolling. But, I like being able to browse around the screen bit to find what I would like to select. It's not like you have to constantly move around to click your link, it's just something you start to get used to and do without really noticing, mainly with browsing the web and typing.
It does take a little while to get used to, if you have been using virtual kb's in the past, you'll be used to it in a day or two. This is day 2 for me, and I'm actually typing faster than with my Touch. The main reason is the bigger screen, so less mistakes, and the spell checking and auto correct are not to bad. The SureType kb isn't one I've used much, but I was surprised by how well it truly works. With all you can do, there will be a lot of typing, so try to get used to it.
6. Email
I don't feel I need to comment much here. BB's are notorious for the email abilities. You can have up to 10 accounts. All can be set on the phone, or online from your computer, it's constantly in sync. The push feature is great, again, do I really need to comment on this?
7. Battery life
This is an important thing for everyone. Nobody wants to hunt down a charger mid day. I'm still conditioning the battery, but so far [day 2] I took the battery of the charger last night at 10:00 PM, and it only charged lightly when I was syncing with my notebook. I was up all night listening to music, texting, browsing, GPS testing, watching YouTube, and 5 active email accounts. The battery didn't reach low until about 3:30 PM, that's 17.5 hours, and the battery hasn't really reached max potential yet. Like I said before, the Omnia was at low in under 2 hours doing less than half of what I did with the Storm today.
Some people are saying the Storm is slow, and the accelerometer doesn't do what it's supposed to, I have expreienced a slight lag in rotation, but it isn't that bad, look here:
Now here is a guy with 283 unread messages! I'm willing to take a guess he has a lot of apps running in the background. Just like WM, if you have too many apps running, it will be slow. All apps have a close option in the menu. Plus another feature I liked was the apps switcher. A small pop up appears with all running apps, you just simply slide through them, very smooth in my opinion.
How about the durability?
Here is a guy scratching the f*** out of his Storm, I can't say whether or not he's pressing lightly, but looks convincing. I will never try this, and don't suggest trying it.
Overall, I really like this device. It just works! That's it, when I need to get something done, I know it will, and no need to constantly try to improve it, RIM will do their part. Which reminds me, OS updates are done over-the-air [OTA], no need to backup and restore, it does that for you.
The biggest problem I had with WM was the outdated UI and the constant need to hack. Don't get me wrong, I loved the ability to customize anything I wanted, but it took to much time, and had me frustrated. I had quite a bit of software invested in my HTC Touch, so there is a small loss I had, but it was worth it. If I'm not mistaken, I can create themes for BB, but I have to do some more reading.
Some key initial reasons for my switch [in order of importance]:
1. A much, much better UI
2. More reliable OS
3. Integrated/Available apps
4. GPS
5. Touch Screen
6. Email
7. Battery life
1. A much, much better UI
Those from xda probably know I was trying to recreate the Storm theme for WAD2 and other apps. From day one, I really liked the look of the Storm, and had wanted to get it, but didn't want to lose what I had with WM. But, after seeing such a powerful device [Omnia], with an old UI, gave me one good reason to switch. Samsung did a great job of making WM more "finger-friendly", but the base of the OS still failed in this department. I was tired of trying to tap a small "x" all the time, and missing other intended links.
2. More reliable OS
This is my first BB, but I was confident that RIM had done a good job, I mean look at how many people rely on BB's to get the job done. I knew there was no way it could have crashed or froze as much as my Touch. In fact, I just learned that you can't officially turn the Storm off. By pressing the power button, you only really put it in sleep mode, you must remove the battery to actually power down the device. At least that's my understanding so far. Again, RIM has a lot of confidence here to not have a power off or reset function or button. I have had a freeze or two here and there, but it didn't require resetting.
3. Integrated/Available apps
I'm sure you all know what's available for the Storm. For starters, there is a bookmark preloaded in the browser for BB's mobile website. This gives you links to some available apps. I liked this because I knew the apps were trusted and commonly used without problems. Not to mention all of these apps are installed OTA, with options to check for updates. Some popular apps were created by RIM, and are updated frequently, or at least once every few months.
Here is a list of apps I'm currently using:
MySpace
Flickr
YouTube
Visual Voicemail
FOX news
AP News
Olive Tree Bible Reader
Viigo
Live Messenger
AOL Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger
The other great thing about these apps is the system integration. If I receive a post on my wall in Facebook, I get a nice little FB icon showing how many alerts I have, and the shortcut gets a notification icon as well. The same is for MySpace and available messengers.
FOX news is just a shortcut to the mobile page, but will turn red on breaking news, and display the top headline when tapped. Most big sites, like ESPN and NYTimes give you an option to download an icon used as a shortcut to the site. Not an exciting thing, but it beats opening the bookmarks. If using a weather app, the current condition will be displayed.
You can log in to your YouTube account to view favorites, subscriptions, uploaded videos, and to rate videos. This seems to be an initial release, so it's only viewed in landscape, and no support for comments.
Flickr, of course, allows you to upload photos, and if available, you can include your location on upload.
The other thing I liked was the full system integration for all apps. For example, when you take a new picture, opening the menu gives you options to upload your photo to MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, or send by MMS or email. This can be done straight from photos, right after you snap the pic, or in the app itself. Also, when playing music, there is an option in all menus to open "Now Playing", or you can use the mute hardware button to pause/play, or hold up/down on the volume rocker to change tracks.
4. GPS
I knew GPS was built-in, but just found out that you can use BB Maps for GPS vs the VZNavigator, which has a monthly subscription. Another great feature for using GPS is the ability to geotag photos. If tagged, you can choose to view the pic on your map to see exactly where you took the photo. Currently, Google Maps doesn't work well with GPS, but I believe it is being worked on. I read somewhere the biggest problem for GMaps using the GPS was it isn't secure enough for the network.
5. Touch Screen
I had some doubts with this screen, and saw some brutal reviews on it, but it seems the ones putting it down, were not used to touch screens in general, and expected an iPhone experience. In fact, the rep at the VzW store said majority of the returns came from inexperienced users not liking the screen. Coming from the HTC Touch, I really like this screen. There are 6 levels of sensitivity to choose from, as well as other options to adjust it to your needs. No need to calibrate the screen here, it just works! Anyways, I'm set to the highest sensitiviy, and it does exactly what it's meant to do. Scrolling is typically quite smooth, but there is no kinetic scrolling. But, I like being able to browse around the screen bit to find what I would like to select. It's not like you have to constantly move around to click your link, it's just something you start to get used to and do without really noticing, mainly with browsing the web and typing.
It does take a little while to get used to, if you have been using virtual kb's in the past, you'll be used to it in a day or two. This is day 2 for me, and I'm actually typing faster than with my Touch. The main reason is the bigger screen, so less mistakes, and the spell checking and auto correct are not to bad. The SureType kb isn't one I've used much, but I was surprised by how well it truly works. With all you can do, there will be a lot of typing, so try to get used to it.
6. Email
I don't feel I need to comment much here. BB's are notorious for the email abilities. You can have up to 10 accounts. All can be set on the phone, or online from your computer, it's constantly in sync. The push feature is great, again, do I really need to comment on this?
7. Battery life
This is an important thing for everyone. Nobody wants to hunt down a charger mid day. I'm still conditioning the battery, but so far [day 2] I took the battery of the charger last night at 10:00 PM, and it only charged lightly when I was syncing with my notebook. I was up all night listening to music, texting, browsing, GPS testing, watching YouTube, and 5 active email accounts. The battery didn't reach low until about 3:30 PM, that's 17.5 hours, and the battery hasn't really reached max potential yet. Like I said before, the Omnia was at low in under 2 hours doing less than half of what I did with the Storm today.
Some people are saying the Storm is slow, and the accelerometer doesn't do what it's supposed to, I have expreienced a slight lag in rotation, but it isn't that bad, look here:
Now here is a guy with 283 unread messages! I'm willing to take a guess he has a lot of apps running in the background. Just like WM, if you have too many apps running, it will be slow. All apps have a close option in the menu. Plus another feature I liked was the apps switcher. A small pop up appears with all running apps, you just simply slide through them, very smooth in my opinion.
How about the durability?
Here is a guy scratching the f*** out of his Storm, I can't say whether or not he's pressing lightly, but looks convincing. I will never try this, and don't suggest trying it.
Overall, I really like this device. It just works! That's it, when I need to get something done, I know it will, and no need to constantly try to improve it, RIM will do their part. Which reminds me, OS updates are done over-the-air [OTA], no need to backup and restore, it does that for you.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
VzW unlocked GPS!
Don't know how "late" I am for this, but I usually don't pay attention to BB news, until now at least. Anyways, I figured I was still limited to VZNav, but I stumbled a crossed the GPS working on BB maps. When I first opened maps, there were three buttons. Later on I set the location on, and eventually went back into maps to locate a contact. Then there it was..........button number 4! Complete working aGPS also, 8 sats in under 5 seconds, in my house! Wonder why there was no official notice.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
See ya.....lat.....never Windows Mobile!
So even though I loved the Omnia, WinMo took away the quality of the device. It was like having a Ferrari with an old rusty engine. Now I have the Storm! Stay tuned for a review after I finally put this thing down!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Dell=Fail!
Further testing of the Omnia proves that my Dell notebook is almost worthless by now! PPC’s are constantly getting better and better on each release, I could almost ditch my notebook and do everything on my Omnia. I was messing with the integrated webcam, and even with a standard resolution, in .wmv format, it was too slow, couldn’t record my simple sit and talk recording. The FPS, sadly enough on my notebook was under 5! But with the Omnia’s DivX support, the 5MP AF camera recorded a both smooth, and high quality video. My only problem with the Omnia’s video camera, is it records it in a .3GPP2 file. This means my beloved CorePlayer can’t play the audio, only the video, because it lacks support for the codec. Oh well, the ugly Touch Player and WMP will work for it.
24: Season 7 back on Sunday, January 11th!
I can't wait!!
For those that haven't watched yet, here is the "Prequel" for the season, "Redemption".
Full Screen button is in the top right.
Courtesy of Hulu.
For those that haven't watched yet, here is the "Prequel" for the season, "Redemption".
Full Screen button is in the top right.
Courtesy of Hulu.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Day 5 with my new Omnia!
What a great device! I've only had it for a few days now, so I haven't put it to full use yet. But, I can't put it down! Much better than my past devices [Treo, Titan, Touch].
The only things I need to test are:
RDM
TV Out [Need to order cable, should have come with it!]
I have been able to dive into other things, and all was very smooth. I use DVD Catalyst to create mobile copies of my DVD's [About $20, highly recommend], along with CorePlayer for playback. At 450/kbps and 25/fps, the playback was very smooth, and looked kick ass in widescreen. I'm just really anxious to put this to test on my TV.
The only things I need to test are:
RDM
TV Out [Need to order cable, should have come with it!]
I have been able to dive into other things, and all was very smooth. I use DVD Catalyst to create mobile copies of my DVD's [About $20, highly recommend], along with CorePlayer for playback. At 450/kbps and 25/fps, the playback was very smooth, and looked kick ass in widescreen. I'm just really anxious to put this to test on my TV.
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