Guy Adams on Technology

As part of the bloggers sharing initiative, me and Chippy have swapped smartphones for a week. He has my HTC Desire and I have his Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

The device arrived yesterday and although I didn’t have much time to properly test the device I got it configured into a usable manner.

My first thoughts are;

1) The screen is big and beautiful although the auto brightness sensor sometimes leaves the display looking dull.

2) The feel of the device is solid, its lighter than the Desire but this does leave it feeling not as robust.

3) Android 1.6 is lacking, I first noticed this with the lack of native exchange support. A third party application is offered on the device but its not as integrated as native support.

4) Camera is very good in light situations although pretty poor in low light.

5) The on screen keyboard is awful, it misses key presses even though the haptic feedback registers a press and certain keys require a long press, specifically keys towards the edge of the screen.

6) The browser is excellent as I would expect with Android coupled with a 1Ghz processor.

7) Battery life is on par with the Desire which considering my usage habits is pretty good.

I will post more thoughts as I use the device which will lead up to a short review. Don’t forget to check out Chippys coverage of the Desire over at Carrypad.

Tags: Android, Carrypad, HTC, HTC Desire, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10

I have previously mentioned that me and Steve ‘Chippy’ Paine are swapping phones for a week, he currently has my HTC Desire and I’m expecting anytime soon now his Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

Well he has began to post and tweet his thoughts on the Desire already, you can follow them on his Xperia section of Carrypad and follow @chippy for his tweets.

Also if your interested in finding out more about bloggers sharing you can visit the site www.bloggerssharing.com and search twitter for #bloggerssharing

Tags: bloggers sharing, Blogging, Carrypad, UMPCportal

I posted my HTC Desire review a couple of days ago and I wrote it in a positive manner because I have been very impressed with the device. Now though I wanted to follow it up with a few of the not so good points. Don’t get me wrong, none of the items below are show stoppers but in the interest of balance its important for me to point them out.

Screen

The screen is big and beautiful but even with the brightness set to its highest setting, readability in direct sunlight is heavily reduced. Here in the UK, direct sunlight isn’t such a problem, although over the last week we have had some good weather which has highlighted the issue.

My other complaint about the screen is it can be sticky, by that I mean your finger doesnt glide over, it sometimes sticks to the screen meaning a little more effort is needed. There circumstances for this are pretty specific, the screen and your finger have to be clean as when there is a little finger grease on the screen, this isn’t an issue.

Messaging

To be honest I actually think this is a problem with Android and not so much the Desire but I thought I would bring it up. I regularly send SMS messages to multiple people, most of the time the messages to the last two or three people in the list fail, which results in me having to select them one by one and resend from the undeliverable messages menu.

One thing that has been annoying is the home screen email notification, Ihave four email accounts setup on the Desire. When a new email comes in there is a notification from the menu which takes you directly the the relevant account, however if you press the home screen email icon you are taken to the last used email account which is often not the one where the new email is.

Like I said, none of the above are show stoppers for me, in fact all of them are minor items and certainly not enough to put me off keeping the device. It’s a matter of personal preference and how a device suits your needs. I need a fast device with a good browser and messaging capabilities, a camera isn’t a necessity although a bonus. This is why I whole heartedly recommend you get down to a local store and try a device before signing.

In the next couple of days I’m

swapping my HTC Desire with Steve ‘Chippy’ Paine’s Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. Steve has been running a mini blog on his experiences of the X10 so far and I’m quite looking forward to trying out another super phone and comparing it to the Desire.

More on that soon.

Tags: Android, HTC, HTC Desire, smartphones, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10

In my recent Desire review I didn’t go into the HTC Sense UI much, as I previously covered it a little more extensively with my HTC Hero review.

Well Kevin C. Tofel of jkontherun has taken the jump and managed to get the HTC Sense UI working on his Google Nexus One, Googles own version of the Desire. He’s detailed the installation process and also outlined some of the features a little further. For the folk who don’t know much about Sense UI, I would suggest taking a look at the article.

Keep it in mind that some of the tethering features, specifically the wireless tether that Kevin mentions are third party additions to the ROM he used and are not part of the stock HTC Sense UI.

So is it worth the effort and minor risks to get the Sense UI on a Nexus One? Even with less than a day of usage, it is for me. The Nexus One was fun to use before thanks to the super specifications, but it’s even better with the Sense UI. Personally, I’d like to see HTC offer the Sense UI for aftermarket installation — even if they charged $10 or perhaps $20, it would be worth it for me.

(image from jkontherun)

Tags: Android, HTC, SenseUI