Android Apps - TV Guide by Jersey Productions

I've been running the Dell Streak for a couple of months now and have downloaded and tried out a number of Apps from the Android Market. I'll add my thoughts on these Apps along with a decent number of screen shots so you can have an idea of whats worth downloading and whats pants.

One of my favourite apps is the TV Guide made by Jersey Productions. It comes in a free version which has tiny little adverts that pop up at the bottom of the screen or, pay a few dollars (at most) and get the add free version. I tried the free version for a few weeks then decided to pay for the add free copy. I don't mind paying for Apps that are good, especially when they're that cheap. It only seems fair to the developer after all.

When you first start up the App it asks you to select your channels. It lists pretty much everything available on Sky or Virgin as well as Freeview or FreeSat. Once thats done you can view whats on now and next in the 'whats on' tab or, see the entire days films in the 'movies' tab. You can set reminders and a little bar on the screen shows how much of the film has been played so far, nice touch!

 

Android 2.1 update for Dell Streak!

Finally Android 2.1 is out for the Dell Streak. If you see the above black triangle appear on your notifications tab.. click it.. and you will not regret it! I was a little hasty in all fairness, I couldn't wait to install it, I quickly took a few photo's of Android 1.6 for this blog but didn't think to make a quick note of the apps I'd previously downloaded (all your apps will be scrubbed - don't worry, ones you've paid for are downloadable free of charge)

The upgrade takes approx 20 minutes, including download and makes a pretty amazing difference to your Streak. It'll scrub pretty much everything off that isn't stored on your memory card to bear that in mind. Major improvements include better connectivity (its holding it signal to O2 much better than it used to - signal hasn't dropped out once since the upgrade), faster and better battery life as well as a larger keyboard (handy if you have hands bigger than a 5 year olds).

I'll go in to much more detail in the next week or so and include photo's etc. So far its been fantastic with zero draw backs. Well done Android.

Dell Streak from O2 running Anroid 1.6 - Software

When I first received the phone it was running Android 1.6 which seemed a little odd baring in mind most other Android phones at that time were running versions 2+. As this was my first experience of Android it didn't bother me too much as I was unaware of anything that I was missing out on!

The phone was easy to setup. My first task was to sync it up with my Outlook contacts and calendar etc. With Nokia you use PC Suite, with Dell you use their version called... Dell PC Suite.. once that was done it became clear that I had 2 of certain contacts.. after a while I realised that the phone had downloaded my Gmail contacts at the same time as I'd setup my Gmail account. It had also synced up my calendar. My habit meant that I wanted to sync with my laptop using the Dell PC Suite however over time I shifted over to using the wireless sync option, syncing directly with Google rather than with Outlook on my laptop. Consequently I've found myself using Googles calendar and contacts far more often that Outlooks. Although using Googles Calendar Sync on your PC doesn't make it feel like you're completely separating from Outlook. the only down side is your phones and your laptops contacts can end up becoming separated.

Pictured above is the 'home screen'. If you press the 'home' button you are immediately returned to this page. You have up to 6 pages (including home) in which you can house icons, pictures, wigdets, rss feeds etc etc. I separated mine into 'uses' i.e car, music, news and weather, football etc. The Android market has a significant number of apps available for instant download. They're either free or quite cheap (most expensive one I've gone for is the National Rail app which is fantastic if you commute and that was £4.99). The apps that cost anything can be paid for by using your Google Checkout account.

In 1.6 if you press the tab displaying 'O2-UK' a menu is displayed showing all your pages (left), simply press a page/tab and the screen rotates left or right to that page.

The 'start' button is situated at the top left hand corner, press this and a short list is displayed showing your most recent apps, press a second down arrow and the rest of the apps are displayed.

Included with the phone is Googles Beta version Navigation program. I've been really impressed with it so far. Again it links up with your contacts list and lets you create short cuts for journeys on one of your home pages. i.e you can setup an icon on one of your home screens with a destination on it, then all you have to do is touch that icon and the navigation program starts up and immediately plots a route to that location. Again a simple idea that works really well. So far it doesn't seem possible to add your own POI's which is something I'd gotten used to with TomTom. I haven't found any Google add ons that warn you of speed cameras, although there are 3rd party programs available. The voice for the navigation is a little... special? TomTom's is quite inoffensive whereas this thing makes it feel like you're driving around with Stephanie Hawkins.

You can switch on Googles traffic layer whilst driving which gives you regularly updated traffic news and displays it via colours on the map i.e a section of the M4 in red means heavy traffic. The M25 is generally coloured black!

The navigation search links straight into Googles websearch.. which is pretty darned clever. It doesn't rely on POI's to tell it where the local Tesco's is.. it lets the internet do it for it!

All this web based navigation is great for as long as you have a signal. I can see this being almost useless in certain areas of Cornwall. Next time I head down there I'll let you know how I get on!

Dell Streak from O2 running Anroid 1.6 - Physical

I've mentioned writing about this little device before.. well its finally here! I've been using the phone for a couple of months. I've pretty much always used Nokia phones before but started to get fed up of the half hearted approach that seemed to be setting in. the Ovi Store was complete pants too so.. I ventured off one day and found the Dell Streak.

So, an Android phone. I've slowly been switching over to Googles apps etc for a couple of years now. I really like their interfaces, I like the fact I don't have how "wonderful" their product is shoved down my throat constantly a-la Apple. The programs are free which is nice but even better.. they work! and they all talk to each other.. which makes an Android phone fantastic! If you're already using gmail, google calendars, google contacts etc.. then switching to Android will be easy and very very handy. If you're not using any or all of those products then you'll slowly find yourself converting over time. I only used Gmail and found the calendar/contacts options cumbersome and ultra basic, especially the contacts function, which has come under a lot of criticism but credit to Google, they listened and have changed it.. its much much better and far more user friendly now.. but enough of that.. on to the phone.

I'll split this entry into sections, physical, software interface, apps, tips

The first thing you'll notice about the device when it turns up is how lovely and well presented the box is.. little things. The device itself feels really well made, just the right weight too, not too light as to feel cheap, not too heavy as to feel like a brick. It comes with a protective "sock", USB charger lead and wall socket adapter (read my previous post to find out how to get it to charge off any USB socket), the hands free set is wired and had the headphones that feel like they're inserting themselves directly into your brain.. great for sound quality but make you feel like you're heads about 3 atmospheres below the rest of your body.

Switching the handset on for the first time was a pretty cool experience. Hold the on button for a couple of seconds and the 3 lights, which depict 'back' 'options' and 'home' slowly brighten and then dim again, looks very swish. Then the Dell logo appears in black and white in the centre of the display before the phone fires up. It doesn't take any longer than any other smart phone I've ever used to start up and to be honest.. how often do you ever switch off your phone?

The handset itself has very few 'buttons'. Across the top is 'power' 'camera' (which with Android 1.6 doesn't automatically start up the camera...) volume adjustment, 3.5mm headphone socket port. The bottom of the phone is where you'll find the irritating charging/data port. The cameras lens is situated on the rear of the phone and positioned quite close to the left hand corner, poxy location... Hold the phone as you would normally to take and picture and you'll see what I mean, your left hand covers the lens so you end up holding the phone in quite an awkward way you can also end up looking a little demented, plus I don't fancy this things chances in any sort of fall onto a hard surface, so holding it with finger tips doesn't feel particularly safe.

The charging port looks like an iPods, which initially seemed like a good thing in that I'd be able to utilise the existing leads I had as multiple chargers for it.. alas not. I just looks the same.. it isn't and iPod leads don't fit. I thought all mobile phones were supposed to be going towards a standard charging port.. if so there's no sign of that happening any time soon. I checked out Dells website for secondary chargers (seems a little vulnerable to only have one), when I got this phone (2 months ago) the charging leads were priced at £25!.. they're now down to £13.61 which still isn't cheap but at least its not prohibitively expensive for what is essentially a USB lead.

Other irritations early on were the cost of ALL the other parts available for the Dell, the car holder kit was £50, very expensive when you still had to physically plug the charger into the handset then sit the phone in the cradle rather than the whole thing being done in one movement as with Brodit Active holders. Its now down to £29. The reviews were full of complaints regarding price. I'm glad I didn't give in and buy one now. I developed my own holder which I shall tell you about in another posting.

The screen is spookily scratch resistant. I haven't used the sock and just place the phone in my pocket (screen against my leg). Oddly the size works well in a pocket (if you're a gent - not so sure about lady pockets) its just the right size and thinkness that it looks remarkably discrete. So far the phone has remained in 'as new' condition. The only down side about the screen, as with all touch screen phones, they end up looking like the back window of a car that's had kids in it on a long trip.

The home, options and back buttons on the right hand side of the phone behave like the touch screen. there's no feedback like you receive with the on/off buttons. I think its a great design touch as it seems like an extension of the main screen. The phone vibrates with each touch of these buttons.. which is still annoying and I wish there was an option to switch it off. Under the settings tab there appears to be ticky box asking if you'd like it or not however it doesn't seem to effect anything.

Overall this is one of the nicest made things I've ever owned. My B5 Passat had exceptional build quality, better than my current BMW in fact, I would say this phone is the B5 VW Passat of the mobile phone world!

Broadband Speed Checker

You may have seen that last year I carried out a speed test for internet connections via a Nokia E51 and a Huawei 530 dongle from T Mobile.  I've just carried out another speed test between a Nokia E75 and a Huawei E160 dongle also from T Mobile.  The tests were carried out within 10 minutes of each other around midday today (Sunday).

This time upon connecting the Nokia to the laptop a different option appears on the phones screen, previously Nokia's would ask you if you wanted to connect in "PC Suite Mode", "Mass Storage Mode" etc etc, this time "Connect PC to Internet" appeared.  I selected that and a little screen popped up on the laptop asking to install a small piece of software to control the connection. As you can see below its a pretty unobtrusive piece of software and tells you how much data has passed through your connection. It automatically detects your service provider and sets its self up for use.

So to the tests...
With the dongle the following speeds were achieved

with the Nokia E75 the following speeds were achieved

the dongle still wins although the E75 performs a lot better than the E51 did.

Dell Streak charger 2...

Well, after adapting a fag lighter USB charger, I decided that I'd make something up that I could use with any existing USB charging ports that I had.

I found an old USB extension lead and cut it in half, then soldered the white and green wires together and reattached, and then reattached the black to black, and red to red, then finished it all off with trusty insulation tape.

Its not the neatest thing in the world.. but it sure beats forking out £25 for another charger from Dell.

Dell Streak car charger!

I recently did a crazy thing and took out a 24 month mobile phone contract with O2 in order to get my hands on the Dell Streak... I'm glad I did as its a very very funky phone. I will go into more detail on the handset at some point on here. The only things that have really annoyed me about the phone is the poor battery life, think of your charging lead as an ambilical cord and you're getting pretty close, and the deliberate method of stopping you from using already existing methods of charger to get the thing going.

It'll trickle charge from a computers USB port, which as far as I'm aware gives less that 1amp however, it will not charge from any other USB power port I had (ones that had been used to charge mobile phones, GPS devices etc.. No fag lighter USB charger would work either.. I bought a couple of 2amp chargers and neither did the trick..then I came across the following article which explained all.  To cut a long story short, you need to bust open your USB charger, (the bit you insert into the fag lighter socket) and carefully solder a joint between the middle 2 USB pins (there are 4, the middle two aren't used). I've done it and it works perfectly!

Which means... Dell have deliberately designed their phone not to charge off any other USB charging device. How very grown up and to top it off the rip off merchants wanted to charge you £50 for the privellage of using their own car charger...

Its a shame that such a nice device has such a murky background.