Posts by Dapprman

Review: Google Nexus 4

Re: No mention of call quality nor of messaging system abilities, among other things

@Snake

I found exactly the same thing - still not found a decent email client - Z9 does not touch the old WinMobile stock one despite looking plain and a little clunky. Also time management and contacts are shocking, The way I see it is as smart phones get more powerful and new toys, they also become dumber. 20 months in to my first Android phone the main reason I'm going for another is that as a heavy PDA user there's no real rival, especially with the direction MS have taken. In reality these are not smart phones, but rather app phones.

This has left me in two minds

I'm not sure what to do now. When the second batch went up in to the store some 5 weeks back I snagged myself a 16 GB one on 5-6 weeks notice (has anyone with shorter notice received theirs yet ?) as:-

1. My HTC Desire Z was near killed by the Gingerbread upgrade (known issue HTC refuse to acknowledge) (oh and none of the reliable rooting methods work beyond Froyo)

2. My Desire Z is rapidly failing (HTC don't seem to make them like they used to)

3. I can't swap my phone under contract until mid Feb

4. While tempted by a Note 2 for Feb I want to wait till Voda sell the LTE version (June/July ?)

I felt it was a decent handset for a silly price to tidy me over till June/July and then possibly sell. The problems for me are as to whether it will actually arrive, and more importantly battery life. My present and previous two phones have been fitted with extended batteries (HTC Desire Z, HTC Touch Pro, and HTC TyTn) as I like to have some juice spare by the end of the day and traditionally have travelled through low signal areas, which always hammers the battery. The repeated reviews claiming short battery life worry me.

British armed forces get first new pistol since World War II

Desert Eagles ....

Love the comments about the IMI Desert Eagle. So lets get some facts straight.

The Dersert Eagle was originally produced in two calibres, .357 magnum for armed forces and the police and .44 magnum for fire arms enthusiasts.

The 50cal Desert Eagle was originally produced ONLY for the US collectors/firearms-nut market. I'm not sure it was ever officially sold else where.

The .357 magnum model proved to have too recoil for combat situations (where a proper firing stance may not be possible) and so proved to be unpopular with the troops. As a result it was dropped and replaced with the IMI Jericho, which comes with two barrels, tow magazines, etc to be able to use one of two rounds. The classic 9x19mm and the harder hitting, but less rounds in the magazine 10mm magnum.

Incidentally, I know from a US based friend and gun nut that the IMI Jericho is actually sold in the US as the Desert Eagle - I know so as we got into an argument as he claimed he had a 9mm Eagle - he sent me photos and I sent back reference photos.

Review: HTC 8X Windows Phone 8 handset

Re: @ Al Taylor re - DropBox

@ JDX

It is, I have Skydrive clients on my HTC Desire Z and my Apple iPad.

Apple loses iPhone patent lawsuit

Re: Surely a mistake - Star Trek

Ah, but Gene Rodenbury did patent most the technology ideas and then bequeathed them to the general public in his will as wanted people to have the chance to deevlop upon them. Alas the look and feel are a different matter resulting in their holder (is it Sony or Time Warner) threatening anyone who make anything even close to resembling the look.

Google puts Nexus 4 back on sale, sells out pronto

Just looked now (UK Google Play site)

And they still have 16GB versions going with 5-6 weeks delivery time, 8 GB obviously all sold out.

Got one in my basket at the moment, I only just about 4.5GB on my Desire Z (phone and 8 GB micro-SD), just thinking about it, oh and the £10 P&P they want to charge.

Motörheadphönes Motörizer rock 'phones review

Re: All so establishment in old age... @ Lloyd

Don't knock it, that Daly Thompson/Phantom of the Opera advert helped get me in to

1. Iron Maiden

2. Timing what track was about to start on the stereo when traffic lights were about to turn to green ....

Google's Drive + Gmail: A 10GB Dropbox killer

Of course this will not work for freretards like me ...

Gdrive limit is only 5GB unless you pay, so how are many of us going to send 10 GB files from it ....

(and yes I know most the free online storage accounts - I use Dropbox and Skydrive, but Google are making the ability to send a 10 GB email as a USP).

Ten badass brainy computers from science fiction

Re: Woah, woah, woah.

Totally agree on Deep Thought and Hactar. Thing is though is that they obviously assume the readers here are as likely to have read Life the Universe and Everything (or listened the radio series) as the set designer for that awful movie (Deep Thought is described in the books and the radio series).

Re: Dark Star?

Ahh but the computers here are bad guys, the computer controlled bomb in Dark Star just became a bible basher and 'saw the light' ...

Ten weird Chinese mobile phones

Re: Her you go

Just had a look at the sites selling this - there's a review on Amazon - seem to remeber it followed along the lines of 'broke after 2 days'

Hmm, I think I'll order an iPad Mini on Amazon ... Oh no I won't

Re: Serves Apple right....

@ Dave 15

Name 2 British firms who make proper sports cars (as opposed to track day toys, so excludes Ariel, Westfield, Caterham, and Radical)..

@Turle_fan

Shows how too many people judge people based on stereotypes. I have several friends with Boxters and I almost bought one as well. None were because we could not afford a 911, but because we wanted rag tops, some thing the Boxter is very good for, but the 911 Cabrio is flawed (due to chopping off the roof and adding extra strength else where, rather than being designed from the ground up as a soft top).

N00bs vs Windows 8: We lock six people in a room with new OS

Except

I was actually nodding my head at Chris Miller's comments (stated in case there are other replies above mine), but then suddenly realised that I have only worked at or in one company that actually had an up to date desktop. I strongly suspect most companies (after all how many are still using XP) will not be updating to TIFKAM for two to three years yet minimum, by which time most their staff will alerady be using it in their homes. Thus no training required for most and those who do need basic help will have colleagues neat by who can assist.

LG Vu 5in Android phone-tablet review

Where's the pen ?

I thought half the point of theSamsung Tabs was the Wacom developed pen and touch screen. I see none of that here.

Slideshow: A History of the Smartphone in 20 Handsets

Re: Nokia 7650

I had a 7650 for 5 days. Was a lovely phone to use but I wanted Bluetooth, which either it did not have, else did not have for voice, so it went back to Vodafone. About 18 months later I got my P900 - partly because smart phones had (to me) become usable, but also a lot down to the fact I just did not get along with Graffitti 2 on my Palm Tungsten T2 (loved my Palm Xv and Psion MX before that) and was close to throwing it against a wall.

I still have my P900 some where

Possibly one of the best smart phones I've had - though wireless technology moved on. Shame they screwed up on the P990.

To me since the P900/910 day smart phones have become dumber and dumber until now they are little more than application launching phones. The PIM/PDA these days feels like disjointed add-ons designed by people who'd not normally use them. it's not as if apps are a new concept or an invention from Apple. Used to be lots for UIQ, not only on Handango App Store, but also else where around the web, just not as well centralised.

'Hypersensitive' Wi-Fi hater loses case against fiendish DEVICES

Re: Think of the Children!

In suppot of Andy115's comments

I remember when they came clean over the old white Commerce (?) detector vans, that they were just ordinary vans with a wooden structure on top. All they really did was look for tell tale signs in windows of a TV being present/on and check against their list of licence holders to see if the address in question was covered.

Jam today: Raspberry Pi Ram doubled

Is there a way of telling which version you have ?

I don't mean memory wise, but all the other tweaks and upgrades they've done. Mine finally arrived last Thursday (was in no hurry so never noticed I could have cancelled my my RS Components order and got near next day from Farnell), but I've no initial clues as to whether it is 9or was last Thursday) the latest and greatest version, or if it was just old stock and RS Components were being slow.

Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight e-reader review

Re: It's not even just that 2gig holds a ludicrous number of books

@HolyFreakinGhost

I wonder if that's why Amazon dropped the SD card slot when they brought out the Kindle2

Motörheadphönes ears-in review

Killed by Deaf !!!

Sorry, couldn't resist it ....

Inside the real-world Double-O section of Her Majesty's Secret Service

Re: Bondnote 3

It was Ian Flemming himself who described the Walther PPK as a girls gun, I think (I can't remember) Bond used mainly a Browning in his books.

Akihabara unplugged: Tokyo's electric town falls flat

I agree

When I first went there in 2003 I was dissapointed as the 'years ahead of the rest of the world' electronics were no where in sight, just ordinary, find any where in the Western World, consumer goods at not so cheap a price. However the original electronics parts arcades were still there.

I was last in Akiba in 2008 and the electonics compnents arcades were still there and busy, though the ones heading up to Kaneda were emptier. Much of the Otaku culture was still very much around as well - Gamers was well worth my cultural visit.

Re: good days

If that's from the electrical parts area under the bridge (the reason Akiba became what it is), then that's still around, or at least was still very much there in 2008 when I was last there.

Natwest, RBS: When will bank glitch be fixed? Probably not today

Re: Natwest Online now displays Mortgage Balance

Must be a gradual roll-out as I've had that function for over a month now. Alas it's a recent payments only function, at first i thought I might be able to pay an extra chunk off through the on-payment options.

Re: Senior Manglement @Dotdavid

Don't joke about it, the first company i worked for the CEO did similar as he felt the aircon cost too much money to run .....

Fortunately I don't have to go AC for this one as the company is long gone (was bought out rather than senior management stupidity - the CEO actually used to keep profits back (rather than rewarding them to himself) so he could keep the company going with out laying staff off during lean times)

Ten... dual-band wireless routers

@ Chz

Netgear do the DGND3700 N600 which is dual band with integrated ADSL (and also VPN pass through). Mine seems fine, no reliability issues with it so far (had it for about 2 months)

Super sushi-bot churns out 2,500 rolls an hour

@ jake posting 08:21 a.m. GMT

Not been to Japan have you ?

Sushi is primarilly cheap junk food. Sure it should be hand made (though still cheap) but there's plenty of '7/11' type stores over there selling trays of robot made stuff that fuel cheap gatherings and drunken salaryman.

Still (from you furtehr posts) your drive to produce top notch sushi is admirable.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Blu-ray

One of teh few reasons I still have a video player ...

I bought that 'excellent' DVD set to replace my ageing video copy, but instead it was the former that got filed away. Compared to the original there were various bits that appeared to have been edited by the PC brigade, especially the opening (the curry house advert 'and after while not see the movie Monty Python and the holy Grail at a near by cinema').

If the Blu Ray movie is the same version as on the DVD, then I'll stick with my video until it eventually wears out.

Twelve... classic 1980s 8-bit micros

VIC-20 Was My First Microcomputer

Of all the people it was my 82 year old grand mother who persuaded my parents that they should buy me a computer. I had played on micros before at school, which had a PET a couple of CBM4032s and a Sharp MZ-700.

I actually managed to keep hold of sales brochures for the VIC-20, Acorn Atom, Acron Electron, BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX-81, Sinclair Spectrum, Oric Atmos (did not have for the -1), Dragon32, Juniper, and one other the model of which I forget but which had ana elephant in the advert (can anyone else remember what it was ?). Unfortunately when I went to university my mother saw them and assumed they were junk ......

Back to the VIC-20 - mine was european serial number 00000023 which sounds really cool however the first in this country came with Japanese power supplies, which were not legal over here, so were taken back. In the end (I think it was well over a month later - a very long time for a 13/14 year old boy) Commodore gave me it's replacement which was huge in comparison (and would not fit in the box - my parents would insist on me putting it away each night). In compensation though, Commodore did give us all a free 3K memory pack which at the time was rather expensive

Lytro light field camera

Re: Only Mac?

I remember follwoing this on dpreview a good few months ago. Lytro have had a good 6-12 months to covert their OSX software to Windows but there seems to be no urgency. The fact they appear to be working on an iPad version instead unfortunately says a certain amount about their mentaility and business sense.

Nice idea that came out of a research project, but potentially with the wrong people running the company and niche product written all over it.

Fans fly to forums to signal iPad 3 Wi-Fi woes

Re: Explains an issue I have

Ok turns out that in my case it's not the issue, mine is fine - it's our wireless routers - the iPad 2 guys suffer the same. Guess by the sounds of things I'm one of the lucky people with fully working wifi.

Re: Explains an issue I have

Just tested speed using speedtest.net along side my HTC Desire Z using the same tester and same target location.

Run side by side multiple times and on every occasion my iPad gets better results than my phone, so looks like losing connection is my only issue, but a right PITA one.

Explains an issue I have

I've got a wifi 3rd generation iPad. Signal strength wise it seems fine and I've not tested speed. At home I've not had any issues, perhaps because I've not seen any (as will be explained in a tick).

At work we have a 'public wireless network' that requires authentication when you connect. With my phone I log in when I arrive and it still works when I leave. If I head out for lunch on return and my new conenction I have to re-authenticate. On my iPad I find I have to re-authenticate after only around 4-5 minutes on inactivity, where as colelagues with iPad2s have no such problem.

I suspect some thing is causing my iPad to drop and reconnect regularly and the only reason i've not noticed it at home is there I have just WPA key and MAC address access lists as security.

Time to see if this is one of the common complaints and then plan a trip to a near by Apple store

Ten... in-car gadgets and accessories

Contigo Mugs ...

Are superb and worth it despite the cost. Was recommended one by a colleague and since then I've done to the same to friends and other colleagues.

Only thing is it is designed to fit US cup holders so if you want to use it in the car check dimensions first as some Euro manufacturers make their cup holders too small (Citroen/Peugot being one)

Future car tech

Re: SOS Button

In my Citroen C6 it just brings up a menu of choices for who you want to help you (and also requires a sim to be plugged in - though I suspect a bluetooth equiped model may just need to be synched).

RIP: Peak Oil - we won't be running out any time soon

Shame that possibly the largest oil layer ever found has recently reared it's head in the Kurdistan area of Iraq. It's a British registered company at the forefront there as well (GKP) though there are plenty of rumours of the big US companies looking to buy them out.

BlackBerry PlayBook OS gets RIM spit 'n' polish

It is my understanding that ...

... these things are remarkably good media players, and with even Dixons Group now selling the 16 GB one at £169, 32GB one for just £199, and even the 64GB one for £249, perhaps they are now about to become a cheap but decent alternative (especially if suitable android software is ported across)

Satnav blunders blamed for £200m damages

Think it depends where you're going

I've used the previous version of Gogole maps (as it was updated in the alst couple of days) on my Android phone (2.3.3) and found it to be poor comapred to my Garmin.

Re: Re: map costs

I've got the lifetime updates for my garmin as well, but navteq, whom both Garmin and Tomtom get their data from, still have not added the changes at Adlgate/Whitechapel despite them being a busy main commute road that was changed some 3-4 years ago.

HTC Ice Cream Sandwich updates slip to late March

Understand how you feel

As the Gingerberad update to the Desire Z virtually killed the phone - though HTC deny this.

Russians drill into buried 20 million-year-old Antarctic lake

by my reckoning

03:14:08 on the 19th of January 2038

Apple won't rule out all singing, all dancing iBooks on Kindle

Not quite

My understanding, as was also highligthed yesterday (I think) is that the author can only distribute it in different formats if they provide the book for free. If they sell it through Apple then they can't produce alternate formats for use else where.

Avast! Mobile Security

Remember last November's Android AV Test

How does this compare ? As a result of that one I switched to Zoner, the best of the free ones. Does Avast have better detection rates ?

System Shock

Don't touch that button ....

o.k. confession time, who else pressed the big red button SHODAN was determind you should leave alone to find you'd just wiped out half the earth on his behalf ....

Dixons cuts Ice Cream Sarnie ready Xoom to £225

The PCW in Watford had at least one in on Saturday when I was passing time there. Not sure I'd have picked one up if iId known about the upgrade (after all Motorala do not have the best reputation for providing these on their android products) as I'm not a big fan of their products having ahd my figners burnt through their design and build quality in the past.

Big Blue boffins cram information onto a cool 12 atoms

@ Ravenviz

Would prefer a ringworld, as long as it's builders aren't around ...

Fujifilm Finepix X10 compact camera

Nor that the maximum shutter speed goes down as the ISO goes up.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

It's still very expensive though

£45 for the game and one month's play time (£8-9 depending on how much you buy in advance). I don't remember paying over £20 for DAoC or WoW (at a time when PC games actually cost more) and both of those also included the first month free, and then there was Eve and CoH where the base game was free.

On the down time - my understanding was that they had US and Euro servers ? if this is the case then having Euro servers going down for maintenance at the same time as the US ones just smacks of poor management and laziness at a higher level. Was never an issue in the other regional-server games I've played.

As for me I just don't have the time at the moment to start another MMO, but once the price comes down (as it must surely do) in probably 6-12 months time, then I might be able to give it a try.

Nissan Leaf battery powered electric car

Technology Dead End

Most the motoring manufacturers have already admitted that battery and hybrid cars are only a stop gap until hydrogen powered can be made safe and fuel supply safe and common.

Net result is these cars are expensive pseudo green (you need a power station to make the fuel, but that's moot as the batteries are highly unsound from an eco point of view - can't be disposed of properly, contain many poisonous elements, can't be reused once dead, expensive and dirty to make to make, some of the rare elements in them are got from strip mining ...) folly for those trying to make a fashion statement about being green.