My Droid - HTC Sensation

A history of smartphones

I have been a smartphone buff for years and though my first smartphone conked out on me in Paris in 2004, it was the SPV 200 HTC Phone offered by Orange that I had to settle with a SonyEricsson T610 for the remainder of my contract.

My first full function smartphone was the HTC P3600, I used it for almost 30 months, long beyond the term of the contract but just in time to get the new HTC Touch Diamond 2 (codename HTC Topaz), it was still functioning well into 29 months of usage when I thought I should go for the best new thing in town.

It was never going to be an iPhone but a choice between Windows Mobiles that had served me well or the excitement of an Android phone, commonly known as Droids. I soon realised that the phones no more have styluses, which has been a requirement for my smartphone in that I still liked the handwriting recognition script of Graffiti which debuted on the Palm Pilots and HandSpring Organisers of over a decade ago.

My Droid – HTC Sensation

It came down to a choice between Samsung and HTC, the Samsung looking like I would need sack for a pocket with a holster belt, I decided on the HTC Sensation [HTC] (codename HTC Pyramid).

For the first time T-Mobile my current provider that had metamorphosed or assimilated DutchTone that I first had a contract with in 2003, then Orange and now T-Mobile could provide me with a phone in English rather than my having to order it from online stores.

My HTC Sensation [Wikipedia] is about 20% bigger than my old phone, it does not fit in any of my previous phone cases and there is no case at present that has the easy belt holster of that size as at yet. I noticed the USB port was non-standard but HTC has now separated the audio jack from the USB connection, any standard headphone jack can be connected doubly as an antenna for the FM radio application.

The Android Market

I started charging up the phone in the library as I worked on how to move all my data from my old phone to the new, I decided to leave the SMS Text Messages but get all my contacts, this was easily done by syncing my old phone with Microsoft ActiveSync and then populating my new phone with HTC Sync which was not a doddle to setup; it was cumbersome and clunky having a poor error reporting facility to indicate why there were problems and though I have had a few connections afterwards, it has been a Touch-and-Go system for synchronization.

Almost immediately, I was installing MyPhoneExplorer which seems to offer a better interface and more fully featured components for synchronisation and backup. There is a mobile phone client and a desktop client, the former is best downloaded from the Android Market and whilst the instructions suggest that the USB connection should be on Charge Only, I have noticed that it should really be on HTC Sync for a connection to be made.

One’s history with smartphones will have a tendency to inform about the best tools for a phone, utilities, interfaces, guides, protection and referencing come to mind.

Tools & Utilities

I found AVG had a free AntiVirus, then Android Assistant with 17 features, Android System Cleaner seemed like a sensible download too, the installation of software was so easy, clicking on the install option on a desktop will automatically communicate the download to the phone and complete the installation.

Graffiti for Android came next, though without a stylus, I had to use my finger, I soon found out I had to enable Hardware Keyboard under Graffiti settings to have the Graffiti interface show up.

There is no e-Sword Bible for the Android so I had to make do with MySword Bible, I downloaded Evernote to handle notes then found that HTC had a Notes widget, QR Droid for the fun of it to read QR Codes, Full Wifi to allow for IEEE 802.1x authentication for wireless access points and TweetDeck for Android.

Over time, I found that the HTC Sense user interface was slow and sometimes unresponsive and so I ended up going to SPB Software to get a new home screen SPB Shell 3D which allows for a better arrangement of my applications, utilities and tools; that is the only software I have purchased for my Droid.

I most cases, I have taken time to read the customer reviews of all the applications I have installed to I do not run into the problems they have encountered.

Online at all times

The contacts function of my phone is quite versatile, as it has intelligently combined my standard contacts with email, Facebook, Twitter & WhatsApp contacts that I have a comprehensive address book even more so considering a good deal of my Facebook friends whose phone numbers I never had are now part of my Address Book.

My Droid is always online and it pays to have an unlimited data access inclusive in my phone subscription but I do have to switch on roaming for data when abroad and T-Mobile has changed the access and pricing structure to ensure one does not end up with humongous charges – I remember returning home from Spain in 2007 to a phone bill in excess of EUR 1,400 because Orange was charging EUR 15/MB, I think is it down to less than EUR 2/MB though there are deals that allow for a week of unlimited roaming access in Europe for just EUR 15-.

I have only had my Droid for just under 3 weeks, I am sure there will be more to write about in months, but I can say I have no regrets moving from Windows Mobile, I am not really missing my stylus and this touch thing can be good fun, the swipes, taps, double-taps, pinches and calliper movements all make for an interesting smartphone experience.

It is most likely I will excite Droid envy in iBrick users than they will in me.

Holiday Snaps: Suffering for being hip

Wi-Fi for social settings

My hotel provides wireless connectivity for Internet access (Wi-Fi) in the main lobby which means people are not locked up in their rooms being anti-social surfing the Net when they could be half interacting with other guests.

I am glad the hotel took my suggestion to provide this service in 2007 and decided not to charge for the privilege – only the Radisson hotel chain on mainland Europe offers this service free of charge, most others charge a fortune for it, it is like being fined for taking a breath having just survived a drowning – Outrageous.

Works for me

My trusty NetBook – Toshiba NB100 with a non-standard 2GB of RAM running Windows 7 – is the ideal travel computer, small enough not to create excess baggage but useful enough to allow me do all I need to do. 17” screen luggables pretending to be laptops are definitely not holiday baggage, surely, but I have seen quite a few of those.

My phone which is a Windows phone – HTC Diamond Touch Pro 2 – has a touch screen and a stylus that I use for Grafitti script a carry-over from Palm Pilot/Handspring days and it works for me but I rarely do much on the phone in terms of writing apart from entering contacts, sending SMS messages or scribbling in URLs, the rest is a swipe, a scroll, a tap and I am fine.

Books are not for kindling

Now, a good few tech-savvy guests have their Kindles and they have been busy reading their novels with ease, I probably should have bought myself an e-Reader too but something about the flipping of pages of paper, the smell, the feel and the fact that you can see how far you have gotten from the binding means a e-Reader would soon wear out its novelty just as my electronic Sudoku toy did – I prefer the Times Sudoku Puzzle books, ink pens and writing to the electronic version.

More so, there are people with Apple iPads, I do not think I have made all my views known about those devices, in fact, most of which would make my blog almost a frontispiece for yellow journalism at best and bordering on the illicit use of words in polite society though it can be put quite subtly, it is not as practical as Always.

Typing like watching bad porn

Whilst I have been fascinated by the iPad, touched it, handled it, ogled at it and half wished for something like it, it cannot replace either my NetBook or my phone and it really cannot do the work of both.

Typing text on a touchscreen has to be worse than watching badly made Manga porn, no clicking keys and no feedback – I do a lot more text than other kinds of media, it just would not do; whilst the direct contact with a touchscreen is definitely more fun than the restrictions of a little mouse tracking pad, the fact is the gadget shop at Schiphol airport is seeing a good deal of iPad accessory keyboards fly off their shelves.

Evidence that something is missing that could make the iPad very useful and fun to use, but let us just say the iPad came with a stylus too and Graffiti Script was added with the ability to write straight to screen than just to a portion of the screen with the necessary technology to convert that handwriting recognition to proper text, the iPad might well be onto something and might just have the chance of replacing other gadgets I have.

However, Apple gives us what they think we must have rather than what people really might want to make their lives easier – for bloggers like me, my review of the Apple iPad might still be consigned to watching other people suffer the pleasures of being hip but quite close to silly too. Alas!