Welcome to the future it's a bit rubbish

[hirez]

The ritual selection of tiresome phonecalls from the air-time provider signals that I must be coming to the end of my current mobile contract. Anything running Windows is right out. I'm sort of vaguely tempted by an iPhone, but that means O2 and, well, Not Fucking Likely. I suspect I shall go back to Hutchinson-Whampoa, assuming they've unwalled their version of the internet somewhat. GPS would be a nice toy, though I suspect that would mean a lumpy phone with shit battery life.

Oh. Random memory: a few months ago, I did a fair bit of driving (for me)¹. The latter part was all on rolling two-lane blacktop because that was what I wanted. Anyway, once you get up past Deerbrook on Route 45 it's pretty much all trees. It was dark by then, the road wasn't that bendy and I'd found that if you pushed the Moskvitch² past 80 it felt like the wheels were only a bit oval rather than completely square. And because the outside was featureless and I was running on Lord-knows-what, it seemed like a really Good Idea to use the GPS map as pace notes.

Don't try that at home. You'll get no signal indoors.



1. Fox Lake, IL, -> Neenah, WI -> Eagle River, WI. I've just viewed it on Google Maps and bloody hell it looks scary.

2. I know that the job losses would be a terrible thing and the effects down the supply-chain likely worse, so I don't actually wish Epic Fail on it, but I can't instantly think of a GM car that I'd miss if it did all go horribly wrong. I guess various flavours of rocket-fired Monaro, but watching an annoying middle-aged man cane one on the telly is as close as I'm likely to get. Other than that, I draw a blank.

Comments

[adamw]

The Sony-Ericsson C905 is a cracking 'phone, provided you don't (as I did) get the Vodafone-modded variant. Battery life isn't as bad as you might expect - I still get two days or more at a time out of it.

[dghaem.livejournal.com]

Go on... get an Android run G1!

[alien8.livejournal.com]

the iphone digerati are considering the new Palm Pre as being the closest thing to challenge them.

I too have to change my phone - O2 send shivers up my spine (tho I know some people there in the Security team), T-mobile erm, pretty nasty proxies but a VPN should sort that. Voda - compressing images and frankly people there I knew have left/are leaving... 3? do they do anything but send football pix to people ? ;) 3 i see as being a customer service nightmare.

ho hum.

rock or hard place?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

O2 were a complete disaster (as documented here, they only finally made MMS work after I'd got a PAC out of them).

Voda were just expensive.

T-Mobile have no coverage where I want the damn phone to work.

[alien8.livejournal.com]

you can go iphone on O2 then as MMS doesn't work on it ;)

no joke, it's not an easy choice :(

Voda pricing wise are indeed 'out of the ball park' - the only thing that looks ok is the £20 sim thing they did 600minutes/month unltd SMS (?) but useless for data.

I have heard 3 are good for some .eu travel - their roaming if you're in Italy if you're on their 'net is same price as here. (friend based in Rome uses 3 when here in .uk) I think he VPNs for any data usage tho...

still I see good price things from T-mobile - the web n'walk legitimises tethering usage on the cheapo plans but as you say - coverage.. oh well.

meh, feh and more.

Palm Pre GSM later this year, but jailbroken iphone (tethering please..) might well be it :(

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I may just lean on Orange. If they don't want to make deals, then I've got a PAC anyway. Although all their 3G phones look hateful.

Ugh. Time to go into a shop and fondle the merchandise like a pleb.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

If you're in the mood to wait, there will be more Android phones along 'in Q1'. Android and Pre seem to be the only interesting candidates.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think my particular problem is that I object to paying £yea-much/month for a horrible lumpy thing that runs Windows badly. A Nokia 6500 is looking reasonably attractive right now, for instance.

The Pre does look rather fine, mind.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Just saw this in passing:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/16/nokia_n79_active/
No idea what it is like as a phone, but maybe there's some phone/bike/quantified-self crossover there ?

[janinemarriott.livejournal.com]

My upgrade has also just come up. I have been with O2 for years and vodaphone before that. O2 have behaved ok but not great(shop assistants seem to be morons in Bath store). However, I aint going back to vodaphone (too many bad memories and recent reports from friends). So the point to this is, cos i'm just sooo damn cute or possibly cos i have been with them sooo long; i'm getting an iphone 8GB next week for free with unlimited data package. However, my N95 is still going strong so if I hate it, I can go back to the N95 and sell the iphone. I'd like to have gone back to sony ericson but until the sort out the charging point/connecting everything wobbly jack problem, I aint. I'll let you know how it goes.