Be Excellent To Each Other

*cough*
24 month contract
*cough*

Although I'm sure I'll be able to get another battery 18 months down the line if need be.

18 months feels too long for me, considering how fast the are progressing these days. I could never do 24month.

Slightly OT, but I've had my iPhone for nearly 2 years, charged regularly, and have noticed no battery degradation.

Touch wood.

That was nice.

My friend just called me and said he's got Desires in his shop!

He's got me one and is dropping it round tonight.. ace!

I'm joining the Desire Club!

My update date is Monday, can't wait.

Vodafone offered me this after pestering them over twitter:


Speaking to O2 on Monday.

Well, I had my desire and it crashed twice in around 30 mins.. That doesn't look good.

So, I've got my Desire and it's on Orange.. Now, I have a question.. It's running Android 2.1-Update1 when I go into the Firmware section.

I've read elsewhere (and on this very forum) that 2.2 has been released... so, should I have it? Or are Orange being a bit slow with the update?

I'm not convinced it has.

[edit]Nope: http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... it--699921

It's been "released" as in the source has been released for phone manufacturers to start porting it to their handsets, it could easily be six months or more before it comes out on the majority of phones (bear in mind your phone company, Orange, may additionally want to add their own branding stuff into the firmware).

I think 2.2 is only officially available for the Nexus One at the moment, you'll have to wait for HTC to port it to Sense UI (which I think is supposed to be Q3, so anytime between now and the end of September). If you've got a rooted phone, then you can be running a version of 2.2 now although it's still in the experimental stages (although quite stable unless you screw things up completely like I did last night ).

So far, I love my Desire!

It's so easy to use and it can do so much. I've been busy assigning little pictures for all my contacts and it automatically updates my Gmail contacts! Amazing.

It's also really fast at uploading pictures to Picasa AND really fast at downloading emails! I downloaded the speed test software and was really surprised with the results over 3G.

There's a nice little App I've found called FxCamera. It lets you use funny lenses when taking pictures like a fisheye or a polaroid. It's fun!

Desire owners:

Abduction!
Act1 Video Player (better after Froyo drops)
Advanced Task Manager Free
Alkido book reader (many easy, free books, better than kindle)
Barcode Scanner
Astro file manager
Astrid Tasks
AndTangle puzzle game
beebPlayer
Eurogamer app
Google Goggles
gStrings - tuner (amazing)
IRC Radio
Last.FM
Marvin (Speccy Emu)
Meebo IM
Retro Defense
Scanner Radio
Scoreboard
SpeedX 3D
TRICORDER
Wikitude

...and you're sorted.

(Don't bother with Google Earth until we get Froyo then stick it on the SD. )

Lady T is after a new phone, and is tempted by the Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 mini pro - but is also baffled by the sheer amount of choice at the moment.

Has anyone used one of these?

Is having a small and lower res screen on an android phone likely to limit what it can run/do much?

Wait a minute, there's a spectrum emulator out now?
Back soon.

Tricorder is actually quite handy for sniffing out Wifi signals and showing their strengths.
Other than that, though, it's almost as bad as Abduction!.

I'm pretty sure all of the apps GY listed are available on all Android phones that can get the Marketplace.

Tricorder is awesome.

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/07/14/ ... to-mod-it/

Droid X self-destructs if you try to reflash, or root it, or somehow fiddle with the bootloader (I'm not clear on which one)

Christ. That shits all over other DRM as being the single most bastardish thing I've heard of.

Goodbye Moto.

Or maybe it doesn't?
Either way, I'll probably avoid Motorolas for a bit.

I’ve just had a look at buying something from the Android App store.. It was Pacman actually and they wanted $4.99 for it.

Obviously they can get stuffed for that price BUT..

Why is it displaying all the prices in dollars? Anyone know how to change it to “proper” money?

I'm assuming the developer sets the currency and it'll get converted when you buy it. I've got a mixture of $, £ & € in my market, probably more.

That's a little bit annoying.. how do people know how much something costs without putting the details into a convertor?

I mean.. clearly I could have an educated guess but that's not the point.

I'll mark this down as the first bad thing I've found on my Desire.

You just guess, don't you. It's up to your credit card company exactly how much it costs, isn't it?

Yeah, it bills you in dollars.

Google have put oddly little effort into harmonising the store across countries. There's no currency conversion, so users have to shop in the currency the developer uses, and only 11 (IIRC) of the 40-odd countries with Android stores have any ability to buy apps at all.

Google already have a worldwide clearing house through Checkout, so this is a strange thing for them to not do.

I agree with the good Dr.

I'm really surprised that they haven't utilised the Google Checkout facility since they already have my details. They can sync contacts from Gmail etc with ease so you would have thought this would have been ported across too.

I wonder which comes out more favourably - your credit card company's exchange rate or the pricing variance between Apple AppStore US/UK pricing.

From a UI point of view, Apple wins hands down. From exchange rate, it varies. Apple's rate is fixed at 99c=69p; right now that's it's 65p on the open market but it has varied in our favour in the past.

Man, O2 have got fucking expensive.

I currently pay £20 a month and get 600 minutes/500 texts/unlimited data + got a 5800 on 18 month contract

Now, the best they can offer me is:
£25 a month and get 600 minutes/unlimited texts/500mb data rolling contract, no phone.
or
£45 a month and get 900 minutes/unlimited texts/500mb 18 month contract + free HTC Desire.

Probably going to switch to a different network if I can't get anywhere.

Get a 24 month contract.
£30 unlimited texts, 600 mins, free desire. + £5 unlimited internet bolt on.
It's the fact you don't want to commit to 24months is where they are "screwing you over".

Do they not, then?
I thought they did.

phones for you have just got the desire on 18 month for £25 a month. Free phone, 300 minutes/3000 texts/500mb data.
http://www.phones4u.co.uk/shop/shop_con ... Key=386736
I'm gonna bite on that in the morning.

Edit: It's the snazzy Orange exclusive Black one too.

Yeah, yoink.
PAC fun, now.

Indeed, my PAC from O2 will be with me in 2-4 hours.

I want to get my current phone replaced first

Anyone with a T-Mobile Hero successfully updated to 2.1 yet?

T-Mobile are being Extra Special with this one...

Did it Friday night, works fine here.

I'm aware that's spectacularly unhelpful. I did it accidentally by manually checking for updates, I didn't even know it was (finally) out.

My alarm clock is about 20 years old and fucked! Time to get all modern and shit, so I figure I should use my phone (HTC Magic) as my alarm/desk clock now. So, who does this, what app do you use? Bedside (Night Clock) looks promising, as does Kaloer Clock. Also, so it fulfils the full bedside night clock function, how do you prop it up, with a dock/charger thingy? What is a good one? There's tons on ebay but I have no idea which aren't cheap rubbish. What about the DeskGenie? I was also thinking maybe one of those car docks with an arm so I could stick it (solidly) to my desk and angle it horizontally like a proper desk clock.

Anyway, yeah, educate me please!

Shame you haven't got a Droid:
http://www.motorola.com/consumers/US-EN ... 06b00aRCRD

Yeah, that would be good, surely HTC have done something similar though?

I use my Nokia 5800 as my alarm because its loud as Fuck.

Also, just tried to buy something from the Android market place and they DO use Google check out. It also works out the exchange rate too. I take back my slight diss towards them earlier in this thread... its a painless experience (still not paying £3.24 for Pacman though)

*Cough splutter*

Did you guys just hear something?

In case anyone cares, Kaloer Clock + Alarm Klock + this dock (on order) seems to be my solution.

The Kaloer Clock does everything it needs (digital display, on constantly whilst charging) and the Alarm Klock is good as the snooze is just a big fat button on screen, but to dismiss the alarm you have to do a finger slide thing (like unlocking the iphone) which I have to be more awake for. Most of the other alarm clocks had just a button on screen to turn the alarm off which would be no good as I know I'll just press it thinking I'd hit the snooze and fall asleep again.

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc ... ldAfGxd1U/

PSX emu for Android. FFVII on your phone!