Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
My third mobile, and I have yet to buy a brand new one.
Also my third (Sony/)Ericsson phone, for some reason ...
To get back to the subject before I digress completely, at the time of writing I paid for and got the phone in my hand less than four hours ago, so it's all very new. While the generation gap isn't anywhere near as wide as between the R310 and T68 there is still a good amount of new and cool stuff.
Most obviously, there's a camera!
It's not a wonder of dazzling quality, but neither is the motif, and with a little practise and creativity I think it'll be more than enough for all my quick-snap needs. It goes up to 640 by 480 and I like to post here in 320 by 240, so I'll have to try and see if it's better to start large and resize or snap right away in intended size. Some cropping space is good of course ... Plus, some optimization cuts image sizes a whole lot with no relevant detail loss at all, so it's not like I'll want to post untreated images in any case.
More obvious advances: better sound! It's polyphonic, it plays midi, mp3 and wave files! One of the very first things I did was to get a great-sounding midi version of the Monkey Island theme I've had for a ringtone in varying length and quality since the dawn of time. Hearing it like this is almost worth the upgrade in itself, almost ... The inevitable next step was of course to re-encode a few mp3 files to slightly less ridiculous qualities for a phone and try them out as ringtones. I wonder how long I'll keep going like this before some kind of saturation/maturity sets in ...
On the slightly less obvious side of things the available phone - computer interaction possibilities are now quite a bit broader and smoother. Sending things backa and forth between Pomum and the phone is as much of a snap as it can be at Bluetooth speeds (and for us who have lived with modems and stuff 21 KB/s is not hard to cope with).
But there's more! There's builtin support for using the phone as a "remote control" for the computer. There are three options: desktop, media player and presentations (I think, the Swedish menu option says "Presents" ...). To my delight, the desktop mode works perfectly with a Mac. The joystick controls the pointer while arrow keys, enter and a few more map to the keypad. My need for a wireless mouse just decreased even more. Media Player mode doesn't seem to hook onto iTunes, but maybe that was a bit much to ask, and maybe it can be hacked somehow too ...
(Note: no, I haven't checked the manual about any of this yet. But I will. I'm, still, that kind of person.)
Presentation mode? No curiosity about it yet ...
What else? I've thrown in a nice OS X theme but aim to switch to something even more personal eventually.
It's also nice to have a phone where all the keys work all the time, once again.
I think we'll have fun together!