At last! A phone that doesn’t lie

Monday, February 16th, 2009

There are many things I’ve learnt to distrust over the years. PRs who start a conversation with the phrase “have you got 30 seconds?”, my Dad’s woefully optimistic assessment of the carnage he’s unleashed on his PC, and West Ham’s back four, for instance. But none more so than the battery indicator on mobile phones.

They are pathological liars. They’ll spend two days displaying five full bars of battery goodness, only to chomp their way through the remaining bars in six-and-a-half minutes. I’ll never buy a Sony Ericsson phone again after the time I left the house with the full five bars of battery, only to end up on the motorway hard shoulder a couple of hours later, barking instructions to my girlfriend in a demented verbal shorthand, because the battery had inexplicably drained down to the last sodding bar.

And what does the phone do when it’s approaching battery Armageddon? Does it go into Apollo 13 mode and start shutting down every last unnecessary amp of power? No, it starts twittering out “battery low” warnings like a budgie on Speed, serving only to chip another few seconds off your remaining talktime in the process.

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Battery Chicken

Friday, February 13th, 2009

I confess; I’m chicken. I need a new battery for my Toshiba Satellie U200, so off I went and Googled for it. This is what online shopping should be for, after all: I can type in the part number of the laptop or the battery and get many pages of hits, all striving to garner my business with promises of guarantees, instant shipping, perfect compatibility… what could possibly go wrong

Well, take a look at pictures of the U200 Tosh. It has overhung screen hinges – by which I mean, when the screen is opened any further than about 50 degrees, the base of the screen starts to drop over the back of the laptop. By the time it is open at a sensible laptop viewing angle, the screen base is aligned with the bottom of the main body of the unit, and completely obscures the rear of the laptop. That’s why all the plugs are on the sides and even the front: the back is completely occupied by the battery.

So… why is someone selling this? – at first blush it looks like a jolly good idea. Extended battery runtime is an excellent concept, and hanging outside the form-factor of a laptop is a tried and tested way to get it. Having a standard battery dock in many models of laptop no doubt helps manufacturers keep prices down, too – but as with so much “should be easy” stuff on the web, it looks like this is one of those howlers it’s all too easy to get caught by.

I actually sat here for a few minutes, waggling the screen of the Tosh to and fro for a while, trying to figure out if the lid could possibly miss the bump on the back of the battery – then I realised it was much easier to confess to moral turpitude here and wait for someone to recommend a battery replacement website which actually knows what they are selling.

(by the way, no special criticism is intended for laptopbatterystore.co.uk – they are just one of the hundreds of sites all apparently using the same copatibility parts matrix to offer the same batteries for the same laptops)

Two and a half cheers for the iPhone

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Before the iPhone 3G came out, I was telling anyone who’d listen that I thought it would change the smartphone game. I reckoned it would finally make internet access via mobile phone a mass-market norm – rather than a geeky proof of concept, as it tends to be with other smartphones.

It’s not just that the iPhone actually makes the internet pretty usable on a pocket device. That’s certainly a big part of the formula; but for me, the coup de grâce is that, in the UK at least, it comes with a simple, standard unlimited data package.

That means you don’t need to ration your mobile internet usage. You can use the web the same way you use it at home – for looking around, for trying things out, for exploring. For browsing. (more…)

PC Pro gets wind

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

For the past week I’ve been trying out this tiny wind turbine called the HYmini. The fan charges up an internal battery which can power any gadget that connects to its USB port.

I’ve mounted this one on the handlebars of my bike, and my 12-mile commute so far seems to be enough to power my mobile phone. The only downside is that I have to explain what it is to inquisitive cyclists at every red traffic light.

As well as this, the PC Pro offices are currently stuffed full of solar panels, wind-up chargers and various battery packs. It’s all research for a feature coming up in the next issue, which asks if it’s possible to power all of your gadgets with sustainable energy. Check out issue 165 for the answer.

Top Tip: If you ever have to design a “green” gadget, why not make it an attractive colour? Green green products are a cliché.