Windows Phone 7–HD7 update

Hi, i’ve been using my HTC HD7 Windows Phone 7 for a few weeks now and have some updates.

Let’s face facts this is a gorgeous phone with a great screen and wonderful interface.  However, there are some cracks.

It’s hung on me a couple of times.  The apps aren’t as great as the iPhone  yet.  It’s so hard to get my already iTunes ripped media onto the HD7.

Microsoft have bought out an iTunes Windows Phone 7 sync tool for the Mac. 

It look’s great and works a treat.  Well I thought it did.  It can’t sync half of my music (wrong format but its Apple lossless so why not – it’s DRM free!) and neither does it sync any of my movies (AVI DRM free).

So it’s a great phone, a wonderful new interface BUT without easily sync’ing of my iTunes music it’s hopeless.  I can;t set up Zune on my Mac and I really don’t want to use two different Music Apps.

Windows Phone 7 - HTC HD7

It looked great so I had to get one. But Windows 7? I was concerned that this would be a facade that would soon require the dreaded stylus. How wrong could I be?



The screen is excellent and very large and clear. In fact larger than the iPhone 4 but a different clarity. Colours are superb and the ozone has nice touches like a kick stand for video viewing.

Battery life seems to be on low side but I need to do a full days test with full sane usage. Watch this space.



Music sounds great although the bundled headphones are rubbish. There are great sinus enhancing effects like Dolby Mobile and SRS and an equalizer.

Apart from that the interface is superb. Fast, easy to read, great animation and so so different from the old winmo experience.



Soft keyboard. It's great the best on a windows mobile device yet. However one gripe. It is so hard to hold-press and get the I-bar for editing. It seems that your finger covers the text so you have to peep around your finger to see where the edit point is going to be. I am waiting anxiously for cut and paste- why don't they get that right out the box? It seems to be something to shout about separately. Let's see if Microsoft can beat the iPhone.

Using the app store is simply not as great and as easy as the iTunes app store. Also when I installed and set up my exchange email I simply could not find the icon to access it. It had disappeared. A quick reboot and hey Presto! It returned. That would never happen with Apple!

Keep watching as I will report some more findings from the field over the next few days. I am going to see The Gaslight Anthem in Bristol tonight so let's see if I can grab some video! My test vies seemed not be able to easily grab focus. We'll see what it's like in the darkness of a gig.

Regards Jon
-- Post From My iPad

Location:Mark Causeway,,United Kingdom

Nikon D700 SLR

So I made a big decision and traded my Leica M8 and lenses in for a Nikon D700 body.

I already had a D200 and so because of the lenses I already had coupled with my love and familiarity with the Nikon menu system, I knew that the D700 was the camera for me.

D700 is a full frame FX camera ( unlike the D200 which is DX). I had just purchased the Olympus EP-2 Pen and so had a reduced sensor camera for days out and point and shoot. I have been after a full frame camera for some time and the D700 seems to tick that and all other boxes.

So how was I to get familiar with this camera? A few trips out with the family to pony club trials soon got me getting those great short depth of field action shots with a high speed multi shot mode. On the second trip I had received my free MB-D10 battery pack and this shot the speed up from 5 frames per second to a whopping 8! So impressive were my shots: the colour depth, the bright multi tonal images and the fantastic big bright viewfinder make this an awesome purchase.

I decided to find a good "how to" guide and scoured amazon.co.uk where I found "Mastering the D700" by Darrell Young and James Johnson. (ISBN 978-1-933952-23-9). A superb book with a great chatty first person dialog and clear text puntuated by clear photos and diagrams. The book is a handy size and printed with quality shiny paper.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

IPad has arrived - first impressions

UPS arrived at the office demanding £98 import duty. Duly paid I opened the box and powered up the most beautiful gadget in the world by far. Blast I could not turn it on because it wanted to dock to iTunes first - I should have expected that.



As I didn't have my main iTunes Mac with me (a white iMac) I rushed home and connected it up. Ah no! The iMac USB ports don't power during sync. A quick Google tells me that it only charges during sync with a new MacBook or new Silver iMac. Anyway, I registered it and did a sync (comes almost topped up with charge circa 80%). Then I fired it up. Simply the best mossy intuitive experience on any gadget. Ok some say it's a large Dom Jolly-like iPhone but it's not. UI is similar but the experience is awesome. I had sync'd some of my iPhone apps over and they work well in x2 magnification if a bit fuzzy. However I am typing this blog on my iPad using Blog press app for iPhone and it scales to full size.

Keyboard
The on screen keyboard is very usable but not so sure I will easily get used to holding a non depressible SHIFT key. What I love is the well spaced keyboard keys. I am typing this in portrait and even that keyboard is big enough for multiple fonder typing. I do keep hitting RETURN and N instead of SPACE though. Let's not bitch about this. It's remains the best soft keyboard out there. Android take note!

In the image below note I have the pad propped up on a small box. this is essential for good long term typing but even flat the viewing angle of the screen is brilliant and very usable.

Apps
Apps- the bundled apps are typical high Apple standard. however why no cover flow on the iTUNES app?

The best bundled app is mail which is great for EXCHANGE emails. Go suck on that Microsoft your OUTLOOK implementation does not touch it. However the calendar although pretty, does not feel that intuitive. I could not easily find a way to change months in week view without switching to month view and then using the scroll line at the bottom which displays months. Videos - I synch'd some HD and some ripped lower rate. Definitely the Apple store movies looked the best but they are all usable. Almost feel HD quality.

Gripes
OK let's have some gripes. Here's a list because I don't want to get too picky as this is the best tablet device out there by a mile.
1. The screen gets very messy wi finger marks. Apple should have bundled a cloth but luckily I had one with my iMac.

2. In the UK the APP STORE fails to work as is not supported yet. Why not Apple I would at the very least have expected some demo apps and movie clips. And all music. I also cannot try the book store as this app is not bundled and needs to be downloaded from the app store. That should have been bundled with at least one Dickens novel.

3. No iTUNES cover flow.

So not too many gripes but big ones. Finally I have yet to test battery life as using it plugged in for now to write this blog.


-- Post From My iPad

Location:Mark Causeway,Mark,United Kingdom

iPad

Well I have ordered my iPad from the States. Should get it next week by Fedex.

I am concerned that as it's not properly out in the UK that I won't be able to get apps or for example the bookstore.

I watched Stephen Frys unboxing and it was really naff so think I'll do a decent one using my Sony Bloggie cam.

Watch this space.

Location:Mark,United Kingdom

Testing Blogpress on iPhone

Superb blogging tool Blog Write as iPhone app. Really useful links to social media Inc Facebook and YouTube.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Mark,United Kingdom