Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

So I’ve been using the HTC Magic for a while now, and have had to download some applications from the Android Market. Of course before that I had some experience with Nokia’s Mosh & Ovi Store distribution websites, and Nokia’s Download! application, which I will mention only briefly. Before I get right into it, please note that I am looking at the mobile clients of each distribution channel since, lets face it, who connects their phone to the computer to download content these days.

Well lets begin with the oldest, and now closed, Nokia Mosh. I always felt that while the service was in need of some control, as one would find dozens of different versions of some application you were trying to find, and in some rare occasions you may end up downloading the wrong application. The search function provided with Mosh by Nokia was, to say the least, forgiving. I often received results that only contained the abused “keywords:” line at the bottom of the description, obviously not relating to the application itself.
However, taking all that into consideration, I still enjoyed the service as I was able to find and download whatever application I needed with no restrictions. The only irony in using the tool was that going to the main site from my mobile browser did not automatically redirect me to the mobile version. Considering this is Nokia’s own site the missing feature became quite annoying sometimes.

In comes the “Knight in Shining Armor”: Ovi Store. Or so it would have seemed, only it really did not deliver on what it promised. The application selection is quite limited, which would have been bearable for a while if at least the store functioned well! If we were to compare the number of applications on Mosh and on Ovi Store we would probably find ourselves with a ratio of hundreds to one. The store is basically a mobile-friendly website, however, it is not a user-friendly one. The browser takes a long time to load the photos of each application, and when the photo is not available the entire layout of the page becomes skewed. Every single session requires you to log in in order to download even the free applications, the purpose of which I can not even begin to imagine. And the search has trouble finding even some of the simplest applications.

Android’s Market, on the other hand, is entirely optimized for the handheld that it is running on. It has a large selection of applications without actually repeating any of them for each version the provider uploads. The search capability, while surprising weak considering the major contributor to the platform, Google, at least works, and returns the search results quite quickly. The Market is quite user friendly, and even finds a way to non-intrusively suggest popular downloads. While I haven’t used the application store on the iPhone or any other platform, I feel confident saying that the Android Market is on-par with what a mobile content distribution channel should look like.

This review may seem to give very little credit to Nokia for improving on their existing store applications, however I believe that just like S60 5th, Nokia had a great opportunity to redesign an aging concept and come out with a ground shattering application, but did not. I think the reason behind this is that Nokia is not looking at their competition. After so many years of unparalleled success and market leadership, Nokia forgot how to look behind their shoulder at what the competition is doing, and in that time the competition has done a lot.

-Nokia FanBoy

So testing another client, lets see if this one handles photos any better. Although both clients seem to be fairly nice. Of course I never used the photo feature on my Nokia N95 8GB, so it may be difficult to compare.

And just found a bonus to this app: support for tags!

So I finally found an Android client for posting to Wordpress. Actually I found a couple and this is the first one I decided to test.

-Nokia FanBoy
Posted from my HTC Magic (Android)

So this post is a first on many levels. For starters this is the first post I am writing on my computer, since I haven’t found any apps to do so from the Magic. Also, this is the first time I am trying out a Magic! And finally, this is a first post in a series of reviews of the Rogers branded HTC Magic.

I will immediately apologize for the poor quality of the photos, as this is my first review, and it is 3:30am. My future reviews will have better quality photos.

Well why don’t we start with the obvious question: Why?

The answer is really quite simple, I wanted to try out something other than what I’ve been used to for a while, and Android seemed like a logical choice. At the same time I wanted to try out a touch screen device to see how I would like the interface.

Overall:

Well a quick overview of the phone revealed some nice features and some discerning issues:

• Solid construction, with a great weight balance
• Good screen, with sensitive and responsive touch
• Pleasant operating system, considering its still in its early stages
• No 3.5mm jack!!!
• Incoming messages show up as 3 hours ahead
• Short battery life

Well read on for more details on this, but I must say that overall I am pleased with the phone so far.

First impressions:

When I first picked up the phone I was surprised just how small the box was, even though all the same parts as usual were there. As soon as I took out the device I thought of how sleek it looks with that all glossy finish, and the second thought was, naturally, how much of a finger print magnet it is.

Turning the phone on seemed to take for ever, however the initial set up was quick and painless. I was impressed with how little set up is required for this phone. You take it out of the box and you can use it immediately. Being connected to Exchange made it even easier as I didn’t even have to load any contacts.

Construction:

The phone’s consutrction feels quite solid with the exception of that matte gray plastic that runs the entire side of the phone: it creaks when you put pressure on it. The glossy black plastic gives the phone a refined and sleek finish and really makes it look like a toy to get excited about. Unfortunately, it’s already gotten some scratches on the back side, so I’ve already put it in a silicone case and ordered an Invisible Shield to protect it further.

Thankfully the buttons aren’t left out in the construction of a touch screen phone: the press needs just the right amount force, and is confirmed with a confident click. The trackball I’m not too sure about – it seems to really be excess in this phone, and i’ve rarely had to use it so far. However I understand the need to go to it: differentiation. The volume rocker on the side, on the other hand, is not solid and has a lot of play in it, however the play doesn’t feel cheap, simply as if its supposed to be like that.

The port on bottom of the phone is the only physical way to plug into the device. While I’m all for using less ports in the device I do not understand why HTC did not include a 3.5mm audio jack. This makes the phone much less valuable to me as I have to spend money on an adapter so as I may be able to use my favourite headphones with it. And speaking of headphones, the ones that came in the retail packaging are complete rubbish, making my ears hurt after barely 30 minutes of listening to them. I understand the need to save money, but at the very least having the microphone as a sort of extension cord / adapter would have made them infinitely more useful as I would be able to use my headphones right out of the box! This is coming from the remote control / adapter that comes with the Nokia N95, it is extremely useful.

HTC Magic - Bottom/Right	HTC Magic - Top/Left
HTC Magic - Front with Si Case	HTC Magic - Rear with Si Case

Screen:

Well the screen on this phone sort of impressed me. The colors are fairly vivid, however they didn’t really jump out at me as amazing. The resolution is quite nice, however could be higher – HTC Diamond was released by that time with twice the resolution. What is also quite upsetting is that the screen tends to lag a fair bit, especially considering that the Diamond didn’t seem to lag any less (performed by turning on the camera on both phones and moving the phones side to side to see the screen refresh lag).

The capacitive touch screen feels nice – the actions smooth, and the construction high quality. While the hardware should support multi-touch the operating system does not. I do not see this as much of an issue since its not quite as useful as one would hope it to be. The touch screen is quite sensitive and responsive, making it feel even better.

Media Playback:

Unfortunately, the phone lacks in this department. The audio player has nothing in the way of equalizers, and lags a fair bit when dealing with large lists of artists, albums, or songs. The speaker in the back sounds tinny, and becomes useless in an environment even slightly noisy. For example: I used my Nokia N95 8GB to listen to music while in the shower, the Magic doesn’t get loud enough, or give out enough base, to make it audible while in the shower. Much in the same way, showing a video in the mall I had to cup my hand behind the phone to create an acoustic mirror so that the audio could be heard.

Messaging, Gmail and Exchange:

This part really confused me. While the software is nice, typing is easy, there’s a very strange error: incoming text messages are time-stamped three hours ahead! After searching around online I realised that this isn’t really Magic’s or even Android’s fault, and is likely an issue with the provider. In order to solve this problem I had to download chompSMS, which managed to correctly keep track of my conversations, and displayed them in nice bubbles.

I was very pleased with the Gmail integration of this phone, with the exception that I was not able to select not to synchronize my contacts or calendar. Since I do not use my Gmail contacts, having an extra 300% of useless contacts is rather annoying, and the same goes for calendar.

Exchange integration, on the other hand, I was quite pleased with! The emails looked great, even supporting HTML and text formatting. The contacts were downloaded with complete sets of data, including pictures! And the calendar synchoronized perfectly, including repeating entries with some of those having been modified. I should note at this time that I am using MS Exchange Server 2007, as earlier versions may not support features such as contact image synchronization.

Programs:

As I am still getting used to the phone and downloading and trying out software I will need to make a separate post for this, based around Android as opposed to the Magic. I will note, however, that the Facebook app is great, but would be nice if I could leave comments on wall posts, status changes, etc.

Web Browsing:

The browser is quite  impressive, having come from a non-touchscreen browser. However it is upsetting that the browser does not support flash, considering my almost outdated Nokia N95 8GB plays embedded flash without any issues. Besides flash, the web pages look fantastic – paragraphs are automatically resized for landscape/portrait orientation, entering URL’s is easy, and clicking on links is a joy.

The only down side in this, as in most browsers, is the inablity to select a picture and save it on the phone. If I was able to do that then more of my posts would have photos in them.

Conclusion:

So far, I really like the phone. Its got some glitches and some poor design choices, but I like it. I guess we will have to see how this will go on for the next month or two.

The only thing I wish someone could tell me: What is the target market for the HTC Magic? If anyone can enlighten me please do so, as I am really confused.

-Nokia FanBoy

For once, not posted from my phone.

UPDATE:
This post has already been updated and the update can be found here:
Rogers HTC Magic (Android): Days 7-14 (Updated)
A new update will be coming fairly soon, as well as I will start daisy-chaining my posts from now on to avoid confusion.

-NFB