Opening up the Market: HTC Legend UK update

I was pleasantly surprised to discover my new HTC Legend alerting me to the fact that it had a firmware update waiting for me earlier today. I knew there was one in the pipeline to address the Market issues that I alluded to in my last post (a number of mainstream apps missing for the Legend) but I wasn't expecting it so soon. As far as I can tell it's an update specifically for UK Legend users on the Vodafone network.

I was given the option of downloading it there and then over my 3G connection, or to wait until there was a wifi connection available. It was only 9MB but I decided to go for the wifi option. The update sat patiently in my notification bar until I returned home, and then it promptly started downloading.

About 5 minutes later, after download, install and restart, I checked the phone's Software Information screen (to get there, go to Settings -> About Phone -> Software Information) and then listed at the bottom was the all-important Software Number, listed as 1.32.161.4. I had been upgraded!

I promptly checked the Android Market and sure enough, all those essential (but previously missing) apps I had been looking for had now appeared. I'm now set up with the full complement of apps that I wanted and pleasingly, they're all pretty much identical to their iPhone counterparts. I've got a few Android-specific ones in there for good measure as well. In no particular order then, here's what I've got (links are to the webpage specific to the Android app):

Evernote - Note-taking app, allowing you to upload photo notes, audio notes and text notes to your online scrapbook for later reference and searching.
Dropbox - Access to your Dropbox and its contents, and again letting you upload files direct from your phone
Shazam - For quick and easy identification of music that you hear, but don't know what it is!
Wordpress - Blog tools and management
Opera Mini - Good browser for when your 3G connection is slow
Google Listen - Podcast downloads, playback and search
NewsRob - RSS reader that syncs with your Google Reader feeds with excellent user interface, and offline caching
BBC News - App for direct access to all of the stories on BBC News
Google Sky Map - Point your phone at the night sky and the app will tell you what constellations you can see
c:geo - Geocaching app allowing you to locate and manage Geocaches, also syncs with your geocaching.com account
My Tracks - Lets you record your journey on Google Maps, complete with times, speeds, elevation etc and upload it
Barcode Scanner - Useful for price comparisons, and increasingly for finding and downloading other apps via QR codes
Astrid - Task manager and to-do list

Any others I should have? Let me know in the comments.

72 hours with the HTC Legend

As you'll be aware by now, I took the plunge with a new phone at the end of last week and got myself an HTC Legend.

Having spent three days setting it up, using it and tinkering with it I thought I'd report my findings so far. Here goes...

The first thing to say is that the phone itself, in terms of its hardware, is absolutely beautiful. The unibody aluminium casing is great to hold, and gives the phone a sense of class. I don't know how long it will remain scuff-free, but I definitely get the sense that it's rugged enough to withstand day-to-day abuse. I got a nice Proporta case for it, so hopefully that will keep it safe.

Next up - initial set up. As any one of a number of YouTube videos will testify, setting up the HTC Legend is an absolute breeze - with one important caveat as far as I'm concerned. The Android OS is so heavily integrated with Google's cloud-based services that I think you might have a more difficult time if you're not a Google account holder. However, I am, and as such everything was very straightforward. Enter your Google account name and password and the phone sets up your email, calendar and contacts without needing any further prompting. Then it asks you if you hold an account with any of Facebook, Flickr or Twitter. Having all three, I proceeded to enter usernames and passwords for those services too, and it went about importing all my contacts from them as well. I was pleased to discover that whilst there is a useful amount of integration between all four of these destinations, contacts are kept distinct on the phone so that you don't end up with an unwieldly amalgamation of everyone from everywhere. You can also select how often the phone syncs those services, and how verbose you want it to be in telling you about any updates. I particularly like the way it gives notifications in the status bar across the top - subtle, but effective.

Setting up the seven home screens is very simple - you can either choose from some presets, or just go ahead and configure your own, which is what I did. You can choose from widgets, programs and shortcuts to provide you with a layout that is unique to you and the way you work. I've got the most common apps on the home screen (calendar, text messages, gMail, Twitter client, Facebook, camera app etc) and then a selection of widgets and shortcuts spread liberally across the other six screens.

I then went on to download some apps from the Android Market - and this is where my first hitch arose. Because the Legend is such a new phone, it has not yet been officially ratified (if that's the right word) by Google, and as such not all the apps are available just yet. I resorted to directly downloading some of the ones I wanted rather than going through the Market because of this. I got hold of Evernote, Dropbox, Shazam, Opera Mini and a few others (all of which I will tell you about in a subsequent post once I've tested them out).

The most impressive App so far is Google Navigation. By upgrading the built-in Google Maps app to the latest version, the phone becomes a fully fledged turn-by-turn SatNav. I was slightly annoyed that it didn't read instructions out loud, until I realised that you needed to also install the text-to-speech synthesiser before it can do this!

I had a bit of a nightmare with getting music tracks onto the phone - but this was a self-induced nightmare really. Copying music across is as simple as drag and drop, but I discovered a lot of my tracks didn't have embedded album art. This is a quirk of iTunes, in that if you rely on automatic retrieval of artwork then iTunes stores it in a separate linked database instead of embedding it. I could have just lived with missing artwork, but my computer OCD got the better of me and I had to fix it. I will detail how I did this in a later post (it's too in-depth to explain here in this overview!).

So - initial impressions after a 72-hour running in period? Well, firstly - and perhaps most importantly - it's NOT an iPhone. There is quite a bit of fettling to be done to get things the way you want them. Without the symbiosis of iTunes, this is very much a hands-on piece of kit. However, the Google integration with the cloud-based services is very impressive which in some ways more than makes up for the lack of iTunes, and I rather like the level of customisation and freedom that Android allows. On the apps front, the Market is very barren by comparison with the Apple App Store, but so far I've got most things that I need. If your need is first-and-foremost for your phone to be a media player, then again this isn't necessarily the phone and/or the OS for you. However - for what I need it is perfect, and the cost saving over the mighty iPhone is a big bonus.

I'm sure there will be a lot more discoveries, joys and frustrations to come, but it's definitely so far, so good.

The stuff of Legend

Just a quick post, but I'm sure you will be heartily relieved to know that my mission to seek out a new mobile phone is all but over.

The trusty Nokia E63 will be handed down to GeekWife, and in its place I shall be wielding a gorgeous new HTC Legend.

After much wrangling with various networks, Vodafone came up with an absolutely corking deal on the Legend. This means it'll be by my side for the next 18 months, so I shall be sure to fully document the ups and downs of Android ownership in graphic detail for your reading pleasure.

Expect a post on the setup process in the next few days.

Powerful stuff

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my purchase of the Firestone Audio Fubar IV DAC/headphone amp, and the new lease of life it had given to my digital music setup. I won't repeat myself here, but needless to say I was (and very much still am) incredibly impressed with its performance. I also mentioned in that post that I was considering getting the matching add-on power supply for the Fubar - called The Supplier.

Several Firestone Audio customers were reporting good things on internet forums about the performance gains that the dedicated power supply brought to their original components. This is something that I've always been a little sceptical about, because electricity is electricity, right? Surely it doesn't matter where it comes from, as long as it comes from somewhere. However, I was thinking that the "wall wart" mains adapter that shipped with the Fubar IV looked a bit cheap in comparison to the quality of the unit itself, and with it being a European unit it shipped with a 2-pin plug. This meant I had to use a 2-pin to 3-pin adapter as well. I figured that this combination probably wasn't the best source of power for a component that was all about audio detail and fidelity.

Anyway, it came to my attention that Firestone Audio's website were doing another of their crazy price drops on The Supplier (you need to keep an eye on the site, because these deals are worth looking out for) and it was reduced from 115 Euros to 75 Euros. Taking into account currency conversion and shipping charges, that still meant £25 off the price from any UK dealer. Needless to say, this was the nudge I'd been looking for, and I went and ordered one. I figured that for that relatively modest outlay, I could take a risk and it would be an interesting experiment. If all else failed, there was always eBay!

There was a bit of a delay taking delivery of The Supplier. A combination of popular demand and the Icelandic volcano meant I had to wait three weeks to get my hands on my new purchase. However, the lovely people at Firestone more than made up for this by also sending me their newly-released FRX-001 dedicated audio rack that they've designed exclusively for their components for me to review.

The first thing that I noticed on opening up the box for The Supplier was that again the mains cable was a 2-pin European one, with an adapter to turn it into a UK 3-pin. No matter though. Wanting to really give The Supplier a chance to shine I declined to use this option. The Supplier has a standard figure-of-8 mains socket on its rear, so I simply grabbed a UK-plug figure-of-8 cable that I had lying around and plugged this in instead. I then unplugged the Fubar's original mains lead and hooked up the output of The Supplier to the input on the Fubar, and we were up and running.

With my Grado SR80i's plugged into the Fubar, I decided to leave the system playing some tunes on repeat to give it all a chance to warm up and "settle in". I've absolutely no idea if this actually makes a difference or not, but I thought I'd give it a try. Certainly when I first got the Fubar IV it became better over time, gaining some warmth and clarity as it got run in, so I figured I'd give The Supplier the same benefit.

Itching to try it out, later that day I settled down for my first proper listen. I'd anticipated flicking through a few well-known tracks to test things out. In actual fact, I ended up listening right through four of my favourite albums all the way through from start to finish. I was loving the music so much, I just kept going. The sound was just so natural - warm, yet detailed. Not in the slightest fatiguing. Most of all, enjoyable!

With a more critical head on, the next day I decided to be a bit more analytical. I did some straight A-B swapout testing of The Supplier. Listen to a track with Fubar alone, then listen again with the Supplier. I tried a range of music - electronica, acoustic, rock, classical. All had a definite improvement in clarity and dynamics when listened to with The Supplier. The improvement is, I will admit, subtle - but it's definitely an improvement.

Onto more aesthetic matters, I've now also got my two Firestone components at home in their new dedicated Firestone rack, as you can see in the main photo. Cleverly, the rack has a system of rubber stoppers on the underside of each shelf which stops the components from sliding around when plugging in headphones and the like. The fact that my little head-fi system looks so amazing on its new miniature rack is just the icing on the cake. Superb stuff.

Frankly, this little setup is brilliant on so many levels. It brings genuine hi-fi quality to the world of digital audio convenience, it's relatively cheap and amazingly small. I love it!

Supply and demand

So now we're on to my third post about the HTC Desire and it's pricing - and let me tell you, things have certainly NOT improved.

My analysis of the situation (if it counts for anything) is that the networks have just realised exactly how popular this phone is going to be, and before you can say "KER-CHING!" all the price plans - on all the networks - have gone through the roof.

Would you like an example of this? Remember how I said that you could get the Desire for £10 per month if you were prepared to pay £164 up front for it? And then it changed to £15 per month and £226 up front? So now what do you think it could have gone up to? Have a look at this then...

So if you want to spend £25 a month on your HTC Desire, then T-Mobile would like to charge you £380 up front for the privilege! £980 over 2 years! Bearing in mind you can buy the Desire SIM-free and unlocked for about £375, this is not what I would call a VERY GOOD DEAL.

Anyway, my enquiries with Vodafone came to nothing as well - they wanted £30 per month (so these rumours of £15 per month over 18 months were somewhat exaggerated) and even threatening to leave Virgin didn't get me a deal better than £20 per month and £100 up front.

Upshot of all this then? Erm... well, it would appear that my financial wizardry has all come utterly unstuck over the last couple of weeks. To my mind, the HTC Desire can really only compete as an "iPhone killer" if it is substantially cheaper. If the prices put it into the same territory as the mighty iPhone, then it's going to have a hard time. Sorry, I did try to save you some money. Honest.

All change

So it took T-Mobile less that 24 hours to render my last post about the HTC Desire almost entirely useless - they've changed all their price plans.

So now the entry level tariff is £15 a month, not £10, and the handset price has taken a hefty hike. Instead of £164, it's now £226. So my previous calculations are all wrong. If you want an 18-month contract at £15 per month, the total cost to you is now £496. If you're prepared to put up with the phone for 2 years, then you can have 300 voice minutes instead of 100 and only pay £191 for the phone (total cost £551). These prices, needless to say, are still substantially lower than the iPhone, but they're not quite as marked as they were.

To throw another spanner into the works, I've had some quality time with the Desire's rival sibling, the HTC Legend - and let me tell you, that phone is quite something. Although the specs aren't quite as high as on the Desire, the interface and OS are identical and the big plus point is the beautiful aluminium construction. Add in the fact that it's smaller, more pocketable and cheaper, and there really is now a genuine contest for my affections. It is, however, exclusive to Vodafone, and only on a 24 month contract. It is only £20 per month though, and with a free handset (total cost: £480 for 100 minutes, 500 texts and unlimited internet).

From reading a few forums, people have been getting some very good deals on both phones by dealing with Vodafone's web relations team directly (getting hold of them is a bit of a convoluted process) so if I can secure either the Legend or the Desire for less than the standard prices, then I'll be ordering immediately. I'm awaiting their phone call any time now...

Paranoid Android

As you will already know, I've wanted an iPhone ever since they were first announced. I'm a massive Apple fan, but I've never managed to take the iPhone plunge - and the main reason is that the cost has always been an insurmountable obstacle. I've had mobile phones for the last ten years, and I've never - NEVER - paid more than £15 a month for them. I've had Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson handsets, so I'm not particularly brand-loyal. I just can't bring myself to spend £30 a month (or more) on what is, essentially, just a phone.

However, I was starting to come round to the (fairly obvious) idea that if I wanted the Jesusphone, I'd just have to suck it up and pay the money - there's really no way round it. I was doing the sums to see how the different plans and upfront handset costs compared in terms of total cost over the life of the contract. The way things stand at present is that all three UK carriers (O2, Vodafone and Orange) offer their cheapest total package for £30 a month, on an 18-month contract. The handset cost for all three is £99, bringing the total to £639. For that princely sum, O2 offer you 100 minutes and unlimited texts, Vodafone give you 75 minutes and 250 texts, and Orange can let you have 150 minutes and 250 texts. Depending on how you like to use your phone (if you're a texter or a talker) then the choice is really between O2 and Orange (Vodafone don't seem very competitive in this price bracket).

If, however, you're looking at the smallest possible monthly outlay, then you need to be looking at O2, as they are the only ones who offer a £25 per month deal. But this is over 24 months, and the handset cost goes up to £149, bringing the total cost of ownership to a massive £749. Doesn't really seem cost effective to scrimp on that extra fiver a month does it?!

All of these calculations are based on getting the 8GB iPhone 3G, not the 3GS. Clearly if you want the better phone, then you're looking at between another £100-150 on top. You might think that you could do without the 3GS and live with the 3G, but bearing in mind the announcement about iPhoneOS 4.0 this week, and the fact that the 3G won't support a lot of the new features, then that more basic phone suddenly doesn't look like so much of a bargain.

So - you have a lot of decisions to make: how much you want your monthly outlay to be, whether you're getting the necessary amount of minutes and texts and how much you're prepared to spend upfront on the handset. For me personally, the £30 18-month contract on O2 would be the sufficient for me, as I don't make many voice calls but I do text a lot. However, knowing what we now do about OS4.0, I'd have to get the 3GS and not the 3G - so total cost £738. Of course, there's a new iPhone in the pipeline due to surface in about June or July, so it would probably be prudent to wait until then. Perhaps the 3GS price will become the entry level model and the price will drop, or perhaps the new handset will have some great new design or features that make it a must-have. So what's a potential iPhone purchaser to do, bearing in mind all these factors?

Let me tell you my current thinking - don't get an iPhone at all. Get an Android phone instead.

The new HTC Desire is a phone that matches the iPhone on a lot of levels, and in some ways surpasses it. It may not be made by the mighty Apple, but having done the research it seems just as good if not better. For a start the screen on the Desire is a 3.7" 800x480 pixel AMOLED. Compare that to the iPhone's 3.5" 480x320 TFT. The Desire's camera is 5MP as opposed to the iPhone's 3MP. The Desire is packing a faster processor and more RAM than the iPhone. Other than that, they both have accelerometers, digital compasses and assisted GPS and are both the same size and weight. Hmm, iPhone - you're suddenly not looking so clever.

Software-wise, the Android operating system is open-source, customisable and supports true application multitasking out of the box.

However, where the iPhone is, of course, a winner is in regards to its App Store. Yes, there's an Android Market, but at the moment it's really not in the same league as Apple's. But, as it currently stands, all my regularly used apps - Wordpress, Evernote, Shazam, eBay, Last.fm, Spotify, Facebook - are already available on Android, with the only exception - Dropbox - being on its way in the coming weeks. What you lose in apps, you make up for in Google integration. As a heavy user of Google's products - gMail, calendar, contacts, reader, Picasa, Youtube, maps - this is a definite bonus. And with the Android Market expected to increase massively over the next 12 months, I can see the gap between the two offerings becoming much narrower.

And that brings me on to the price - what's all this talk of Android? Why bother? All things being equal, just get the bloody iPhone. But things are most certainly NOT equal.

If I want my 100 voice minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited internet (as offered by O2) then T-Mobile have quite the tempting offer. The upfront handset cost for the HTC Desire is £164, and then the monthly tariff is either £15 over 18 months, or £10 a month over 24. Total cost over 18 months £434, or £404 over 24 months.

Let me reiterate: 100 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited internet, 18-month contract. Total cost of ownership for an iPhone 3GS on O2 = £738. HTC Desire on T-Mobile = £434. £164 for the handset upfront as opposed to £249. £15 a month instead of £30. A saving of £304 in total.

As the youth of today like to say - NO BRAINER. Android here I come.