
The pain
Is no one else suffering from bleeding eye balls having looked at all of those horrifically stretched images?
48 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Mar 2009
I can't say I blame TiVo. I'm sure that when they stopped selling them 8-9 years ago it was estimated that there were something like 30,000 of them sold so there can't be that many around still...
I've been expecting either the service to end or my TiVo to die for a few years now.
Perhaps I'd be less accepting if I didn't already have Virgin TV so have an upgrade path but if they hadn't made this new cable only TiVo it's not like there would have been an alternative replacement.
Anyway, I expect outrage on here too :-)
Iain M Banks latest was a good one to use in the article but there's an even more stark example in the Kindle store.
Consider Phlebas is £5 in paperback or £7.99 on Kindle. Madness. Especially given that you can buy a second hand paperback from amazon market place for ~£3.
Sigh, maybe I don't want a Kindle for Christmas after all.
GPS doesn't work (this is very very widespread).
The RFS filesystem frequently brings the phone to its knees (requires a lag fix from XDA)
Wifi implementation is shot (random disconnects and likes to turn itself on for no reason).
Bluetooth and radio stacks are flakey at best
Samsung have done something to the exchange support that causes some pretty nasty issues.
Everything above isn't just my handset, I've read many threads about all of the above problems.
I am appalled to see the success Samsung have had with the Galaxy S. I own one and could not recommend it to anyone. Their android implementation is full of crippling bugs that Samsung fail to acknowledge or apologize for. The phones are also mostly still waiting for froyo.
Steer well clear.
I couldn't figure out why on earth google would consider involving Samsung in something they would probably screw up so badly at first and then I came to a similar conclusion to you.
The Galaxy S is appalling. The GPS, the filesystem lag and the myriad of little bugs. Google may just be helping Samsung to learn how to do Android 'right' beofre things get any worse.
No they haven't.
For some reason there's a site called samsung-firmwares that has access to their dev build roms.
It proves they are working on it but there have been no releases. I will be very surprised to see an officially release in the near future.
Flashing these ROMS is (although fairly safe) at your own risk and warranty voiding.
I had a Galaxy i5700/Spica/Portal and the support from Samsung was shocking, I swore I'd never get another of their phones but then the opportunity arose to upgrade to a Galaxy S on the cheap and I took it.
I am worried Samsung are going to shaft me in terms of updates and that the 2.2 might not materialise (at least not on T-Mobile UK) but we will see. Hopefully they'll at least fix the GPS firmware issues soon.
Build quality is a bit poor compared to the Desire but I think the screen makes it worth it.
Most of the HTC phones aren't available in the UK.
If you want a relatively high end Android phone you've really got two choices.
HTC Desire - Has their 'Sense' skin which is really just a few nice weather/clock widgets etc. Nice, solid phone.
Samsung Galaxy S - Newer / slightly higher specced than the HTC but a little less solid feeling (looks a bit like an iPhone 3G).
Both are about £30/month on a stupidly long contract.
Seriously - wander into a phone shop and have a play with those two.
We've had a lot of luck with graduates this year - which surprised me given that in the past I've had the same issues with visas etc.
Advertised directly with the local university compsci departments - and by advertised, I mean asked them to email round a job ad for us. Cost nothing and seemed to get us a decent set of applicants.
We were a bit behind with things this year (well, really a lot) and only starting seriously looking in March. I had expected all of the good ones would have been snapped up too but I was pleasantly surprised and we managed to hire several.
I think the review's maybe a little harsh. I got one of these a couple of weeks ago and am really happy with it.
Firstly, there are a couple of really good deals available if you're willing to pay a little money up front for it (and sign an annoyingly long contract as always!)
100 minutes / unlimited texts / unlimited* data - £10/month + £71 upfront
300 minutes / unlimited texts / unlimited* data - £15/month + £36 upfront
This is pretty close to the cheapest Android phone you can get, certainly cheaper than some deals for things like the Pulse/Tattoo which have much worse (resistive) screens.
The build quality is really decent and although it admittedly runs a pretty old version of Android there is a beta 2.1(Eclair) ROM circulating and it sounds like it will be 'official' in the not too distant future.
Would heartily recommend this to anyone who wants a decent Android phone and doesn't want to pay £25-£35 a month.
I was tempted by a Kindle recently. I buy quite a lot of paperbacks and looking at the prices (in dollars) of all of the kindle editions it didn't look like that much more than I normally pay for a book.
I don't even mind paying ~£200 for the reader itself (although I'd rather have one without the keyboard at the bottom).
What stopped me in my tracks was that although you're buying an 'international' kindle from the US, you can't buy the same books as in the US. There's a special section of the kindle store for books that you can download in the UK.
I looked up a few things I was considering reading. Half of them weren't available in the UK store and the other half were more expensive that the US store.
That was the end of it. I'll consider it again in a couple of years. Thanks Amazon (!)
There are quite a few points in the article where the price is bemoaned and apple are blamed for putting up the prices across pretty much their whole range.
Has no one thought it might have something to do with the collapse in the value of the pound.
Given that the pound is down something like 30% on average across the board I think we've gotten off lightly with the price increases from apple. We're going to have to get used to paying more for our gadgets from now on.