I know I’m only 12 months through an 18 month contract, a contract that I got a bill for £89 this month (too much texting, far too much texting) but I’m already thinking of which phone to get next, don’t get me wrong my N95 8G is pretty awesome but is also getting a bit janky and rattles a bit. Probably the perils of having a slider phone.
So there ar ethree options when it comes to April of next year, I like the idea of the N96 but it looks a bit crappy, I know the N95 is a clunky big black behemoth but this one is a rounded off version, which normally means good but the keys look terrible and are all flush, that’s going to get annoying like the K850i did. However it does do digital TV (can you say battery drainer?)and has 16gb onboard but also now takes MicroSDs, that’s a plus point. But it’s too damn similar to my N95 hence I don’t like the idea of this one.
The alternative is the Nokia 5800 xpressmusic, or the tube, or the phone that turns off all the electrics in a chinese office tower in The Dark Knight. And for that reason alone I love this phone, it’s the first proper iPhone contender in my book (it’s at this point I begin to realise the Google Chrome browser is spellchecking all my writing and it’s bugging the shit out of me) but it’s great in Black and Red and is the first touchscreen phone to turn my head.
The awesome factor is that this is going to be their first touchscreen phone and it’s already better than the iPhone, and it’s going to be their bottom of the line model. I normally wouldn’t consider such a device but it has a 3.2 MP camera, does VGA video and has built in GPS too, nokia seem to be redefining the bottom end!
The third option is to not have any phone but take a cashback bonus, which can be spent on buying another phone or guitar pedal :) I’ll be phoning O2 up to negotiate a better deal as I want unlimited texts since the aformentioned bill was ridiculous.
Anyone got a vote on what phone I should get? Hit up the comments
Well like I mentioned last week, yesterday was meant to be a big day for portable music players, and in general there was a fair ol’ bit of news, but none of it earth shattering unfortunately. I was a bit underwhelmed by Apple’s conference if I’m honest, despite being a Zune owner (which in itself is nothing to shout about) I couldn’t help but realise that Apple seem to have begged, borrowed and stolen all their new features from elsewhere.
Firstly the Zune announcements, they were leaked earlier that morning with the pictures of the new 16gb Flash memory Zune and the 120gb
Now, storage space upgrades are all well and good, adding color options isn’t a major step though (what I like to call the Nintendo Upgrade Strategy) so I was quietly happy since there wouldn’t be a new all-singing all-dancing model for me to shirk my Zune 80 for. Phew, my wallet breathes a sigh of relief.
They did however announce several software upgrades, of which I believe they shadowed Apple’s new iTunes features (more on them later). Having the FM tuner o nthe Zune has always been a bonus and a point against the iPod, but now if you are able to get RDS data from the station you’re listening to you’ll now be able to tag the song you’re hearing for a later purchase when you are back at your computer. Pretty cool, but mybe you won’t need to connect to your computer….hmm.
Another plus point is the wireless features of the Zune, including syncing over your home network (admittedly a total battery hog if you have massive sync sessions planned)but now you can access the music store (if you’re in America, boo hoo) over wireless too! Yes, the iPod touch does that but the Zune’s direct competitor; the iPod Classic doesn’t have any such feature.
There were a number of other features of littlenote such as playlist generation and other junk (junk that Apple blew all out of proportion and warranted an entire version step up to number 8) but the fact that the next Zune version, 3, will be available for free next week. Coolio, in summary Microsoft have added more to their unique features and now should look to updating the Zune software more frequently and making it more user friendly like iTunes. Microsoft’s entertainment side seems to dislike frequent updates and I’d hope they change this.
Oh, and release the Zune in the UK already!!! It’s a great product, betters the iPod in many ways, come on Microsoft, don’t stop being a market share chewing juggernaut now! I kid, I kid.
Tune in later for my view on the Apple event!
