dryfter | Entries tagged with phone

I found this phone app that is so cheeky - "SnapTell"

You take a photo of something, (either the front of the item, or the barcode) and then it looks up the item online.. somehow.. and then gives you some reviews of it.. and links to online shops' prices.. and prices of shops near you selling it and their price.

I presume their business model is that they get a kickback if you follow a link through to, say, amazon and buy the thing.

But it's such a cheeky way to haggle in stores, I mean, you could almost instantly say - hey, I can get this item for *click* *pause* this much just around the corner! Will you match it?

So work has given me a couple of new Nokia phones to test out their web and photo capabilities. I now have a Nokia N73 and N93 on loan. The N73 seems alright, but the N93.. oh my god.. It's fricking huge! I don't know if you've seen my existing phone (HTC Magician), but it's not exactly small. However it's about half the weight of the N93, and looks like a wonder of minimalism next to the lumpy asymmetrical Nokia. Ugh.

The main selling point of the Nokia is that is has a 3 megapixel digital camera, with an actual zoom and tiny flash. A mobile phone that comes with a lens cap.. Who've thunk it?
However, the phone is about twice the size of modern digital cameras (which come with 6 to 8 MP), and is definitely inferior to them for photo quality. The sample model I received has an extremely finicky, nay, broken, data cable plug too. I have to put constant pressure on it to make a good enough connection to copy image files off it, which is hopeless.

So, given the Nokia is at least twice the size, and cost, of a small consumer digital camera.. would you really buy one just for the convenience of having to only carry one device?

My take on all this is from a "consumer journalism" perspective though, and for those purposes, it's probably not too bad.
But I just can't get over the sheer bulkiness of it! I just put it down next to my PSP, and it's not much smaller - but a hell of a lot chunkier.

The GPS receiver arrived today, so my phone is now directionally unchallenged. Unfortunately the big SD memory card hasn't arrived yet, so I couldn't fit the entire of the UK onto the phone (100Mb) - just central London (~8Mb) (Which covers about the same area as the small A-Z map books).

The software I'm using also supports voice output for driving directions, so in theory I can use it with the motorbike when going on journeys too. There are some helmets with bluetooth headsets built into them, so if I got one of those, I wouldn't have to fiddle about trying to get a headphone to stay in my ear whilst putting the helmet on.

Bluetooth GPS receivers were surprisingly cheap on ebay. I thought this sort of gear used to be quite expensive, and only available as fairly expensive CF or SD cards for PDAs. The dedicated hardware goes for hundreds of pounds, too.

Using a Phone/PDA has some benefits, too, such as the ability to share your location with other people via GPRS. Could be handy if you were touring on the road or something, I guess.

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Toby's journal

Nothing is true, everything is permitted

Cheeky phone app

Nokia N93 review

GPS stuff

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December 2010

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