Marcin Juszkiewicz - sonyericsson

Choosing next cellphone

2008-06-17T23:43:00+02:00

Nearly two years passed since I started to use my current cellphone: Sony Ericsson k750i. It is great device but I feel more and more limited during using it. For example PIM is very simple (no recurrent events, no attenders) and none of my PDA devices has something more extended.

PIM — Agendus

Few years ago when I had PalmOS powered Sony Clie SJ30 I used Agendus application for PIM. Recently I checked newest version in Garnet VM emulator on my Nokia N810 tablet. It is really great and complex application. There is a support for event attenders, contacts linking, contacts history (tasks, calls, meetings) and lot more. Interesting feature is support for “Trip” events — I tested it with my GUADEC 2008 trip. I was able to add timeline for whole conference, bus trips from Szczecin to Berlin Tegel airport (and back) + plane flights and all of that linked as one trip with all components available in calendar, agenda etc…

Yesterday I installed Windows Mobile emulator and checked Agendus for that platform. It lacks some features from PalmOS version (trips are one of them) but is much better then default WM PIM. I do not plan to check BlackBerry or Symbian versions because they are not on a list of systems which I want to use.

Which system to choose?

So the problem now is which cellphone system to choose… I do not want Symbian because most of devices lack touchscreen (iirc only UIQ ones have it), BlackBerry is totally unknown for me and I also do not want to use totally closed phones like I did in last few years. PalmOS is trying to not die but nothing new was done on this platform in last few years so it is also not for me. Looks like the only choice is going to Windows Mobile cellphones.

Possible devices

Which one to choose? Most of devices use QVGA screens which is a very limiting resolution. After searching on web and discussing with few friends I have a few devices to check — Toshiba G900 (WVGA, new ~480EUR, used ~300EUR, hardware keyboard, no gps) or something from ETEN Glofiish devices with VGA screen (X650, X800, M800, M810). HTC has only Touch Diamond with VGA screen but it is too expensive.

Why not Linux phone?

Because there is nothing interesting now :( Openmoko guys moved from GTK+ to mix of E17 and Qtopia and when I saw result during LinuxTag 2008 it was nothing impressive. To add more confusion there are at least 4 different environments for Openmoko in development (GTK+ based OM2007.2, Qtopia on framebuffer, E17 + Qtopia on X11 and something called “Openmoko underground”). Also formfactor of GTA01/02 is not something I would call “nice” — have a look at any device manufactured by HTC…

And I did not yet saw Linux mobile platform with good PIM… Maemo lack it totally — even GPE contacts/calendar are hard to use due to lack of alarms functionality, Openmoko does not decided yet which PIM they want to support (not that there is something on a horizon)… So sorry guys but I will not buy Linux phone soon.

Bluetooth + phone == remote control

2008-01-02T09:24:00+01:00

During holidays I found another usage for my current phone (SonyEricsson k750i). It is Bluetooth Remote Control functionality.

Basically it turn phone into HID device but the good thing is that user can create own profile for this. There is a tool for it (Microsoft Windows executable) and also those files can be created by hand (instructions are provided by Stefan ‘tommie’ Tomanek as part of his excellent guide about using this cellphone with Linux).

I do not know does it is possible on Neo1973 (IIRC BlueZ only has HID daemon) but I will miss it if it is not…

Audio routing in mobile phones

2007-11-28T14:14:00+01:00

I do not know how it is in other mobile phones but there is one annoying thing in my Sony Ericsson k750i phone. It is how it handle audio…

As phone has FM radio integrated I use it very often. When I go somewhere I usually plug headset (which was provided with phone) and turn on radio. The problem is when someone calls me… The phone starts ringing but it does not use headset for output :( Yes — ring tone is played on internal loudspeaker instead of headset. Good part is that radio playing is interrupted so I have occasion to hear ring and press headset button to receive call. Bad part is that radio is interrupted from time to time sometimes even without calls so it is hard to find out sometimes is it radio problem or incoming call.

If there will be a day that I will switch to Neo1973 (and I hope that it will be GTA02 version) then at least that problem will be solved. Or it will be solvable due to openness of platform.

Phone should have a mirror

2007-11-03T20:25:00+01:00

Recently my wife decided that her next cellphone needs to have a mirror. This was after her last trip when she forgot to pack mirror into her purse…

Why such requirement? Currently Ania use SonyEricsson k510i cellphone. It has Bluetooth, Irda, camera, J2ME games/applications, possibility to use own themes and many many more functions. But to tell the truth — how many people really use such things? During phone numbers exchange they just manually create new entry in addressbook because even if they have BT or Irda they do not know how to use it or are afraid of catching viruses (really!). She sometimes play pre-installed J2ME games or use one application: public communication timetable (which I installed and take care of updates).

Will Neo1973 running OpenMoko be good for such users? I asked my wife and she told:

Yes, if I would do jogging — it fits nicely to tracksuit.

My brother-in-law is more interested, but he like technical things. Not like my wife — she just wants to call, message and use a mirror when to comes to using a cellphone. And of course it has to good look and fit her style ;)

Casino Royale

2006-12-02T01:06:00+01:00

Half an hour ago I came back from cinema where I was watching newest Bond movie: “Casino Royale”. There was many posts about this movie so I will not write what it is about but rather what I liked or not.

One of good things was lowering amount of gadgets — previous movies had too many of them, and without Q it is not the same. There was of course car with gadgets but it appeared in few scenes only. I liked how they made Sony Ericsson cellphones — they were similar to normal ones but bumped graphics resolution and functionality. Sony paid a lot for their product placement — Sony Vaio laptop was used in most of scenes where laptops were shown.

Real action scenes existed and were nice made (maybe that sinking house in Venice was a bit not in place). Funny one the one when Bond order vodka with martini and after question ‘shaked or mixed’ he told that he does not care. Famous ‘I am Bond, James Bond’ is only once — at the end of movie, which is something new ;)

What I did not like was romantic part — there was too much romantic — more then in other Bond movies. All those ‘I will quit this job for you’ talks were not in his style. Other thing was mixing past with now — it was first (chronologically) Bond movie but the action was placed after 2001 (many times with reminding 9/11).

Overall: yet another good action movie. It was worth going to cinema to see it.

Sony Ericsson k750i - why I like it

2006-10-29T20:08:00+01:00

After one month I can write something more about my phone.

Bad things:

It can not be in one pocket with keys — case is scratched and display got some scratches too.
FM radio sometimes mute for few seconds — not good when you go to work and there is nice song played.
Opensync can duplicate addressbook with ‘UnNamed’ entries.
No possibility to turn off sound on making photos.

Good things:

When I want to send SMS/MMS I can select from list of last recipients, select from contacts or enter number. None of my previous phones had list of last recipients.
All those animations on sending, calling are not annoying — they are simple and give proper info.
Delivery reports are linked to SMS/MMS like it should be done. When I had Nokia phone I had to think to which message I got report.
Recurrent alarm — I set it to working days at 08:00 so I do not have to use my wrist watch as alarm clock.
FM radio — it was usefull when I was on OEDEM (do you know that Berlin has 29 FM stations?)

One day I will have to check how newer version of opensync works with this phone.

New phone: Sony Ericsson K750i

2006-09-19T13:44:00+02:00

Yesterday I signed papers to extend my current mobile contract and bought Sony Ericsson k750i phone to replace my 4-years old Nokia 6310i.

Phone is nice and packed of features:

connectivity: irda, bluetooth, usb
2Mpx camera with flash leds
FM radio
media (music, video) player
java
memorystick duo slot (64M card by default)

I’m in process of moving all data from my old phone to new one — tried OpenSync today and with help of pmarat from #opensync I got Kitchensync working and transferred my KDE addressbook into phone. Later I will work on sending datas from 6310i -> home computer -> k750i, then will have to work on synchronizing 6210 with something as I have to move whole content of 6210 to 6310i (with syncing with Thunderbird in between).

And now I know that Bluetooth is nice technology — few clicks in Konqueror and I have access to all files inside of phone.