Thursday, November 17, 2011

LG Quantum C900 -- My Windows QWERTY Phone wonder

Introduction

As you have probably learned from the couple of posts here or at Twitter, etc. I LOVE NOKIA!!! I have owned a Nokia since College, in fact, Nokia has been in my family since I was a young'un. After all these years we have seen the prominence of different makers giving us great phone offerings but what really changed the landscape was software. Symbian had been long used by Nokia and others, there was of course, the BB environment, Palm, Windows but it wasn't until those fuckers at Apple let loose the iPhone with their iOS that people really started to not only buy phones because of their looks or quality but because of their functionality.

After a few years supporting Nokia and Symbian I noticed that I was really left behind. The emergence of the Android platform and Apple selling a gazillion phones and updating their iOS with better features every time prompt me to try and go into other ventures.

Of course, I was/am planning to stay loyal to Nokia but:

1) They are still on Symbian whether is 'Anna' or 'Belle' or any other update with a new nickname
2) Their Windows phones and other flagships (such as the N9 with its MeeGo) are not here yet or they are extremely expensive so I decided, since I'm pretty sure I'm going to be back to Nokia, to try one Windows phone. I chose the LG Quantum C900 from AT&T (unlocked of course!)




Specifications:

So quickly a couple of specs for this phone:

Display: TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 480 x 800 pixels, 3.5 inches (~267 ppi pixel density)
(No super AMOLED or any of those fancy screens, but it's Ok.)

It also features:

- QWERTY keyboard
- Gorilla glass display
- Multi-touch input method
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- 16GB storage, 512 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM NO SD CARD slot
- 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
- 1 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm QSD8650 Snapdragon chipset

and of course the assortment of GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc.





One of the most important things I was looking for was a QWERTY phone. I'm just used to them and using the E71 for over 2 years just spoiled me! The LG Quantum has a GREAT keyboard (this is compared to the Samsung T-Mobile Sidekick and the Sony
Ericsson Xperia Pro) and it feels great. I really love text messaging and status updates in Facebook and Twitter. With this phone I feel like I can write better and more comfortable.

Phone calls are quite clear. The volume of the headset is perfect and although the quality is not super great, it does the job. Up till now, no dropped phone calls and can take GPS, 3G signals very quickly.

Tried Wifi at home and phone is awesome.

Overall, A grade on the hardware!



What's in ther Box:

1) LG Quantum C900 phone with Battery
2) USB data cable / phone charger
3) Cheapo headphones
4) and that's it (bought this on eBay lol!!)


Software:

Now, the reason for me buying this phone was basically for this. I wanted to experience a phone with Windows and Android. After much looking, I decided on this one. First thing I did once I got it? Updated it to Windows Mango. Now, what are the differences between the stock software and Mango? I don't even have a clue but since Mango/7.5 was a big update I guess a lot of good things came with it.

Anyway, coming from the lacking Symbian OS (lacking in the sense of accessibility, looks, etc.), Windows was a kick in the ass. First thing you see is the Live Tiles. It's really something! Got any text message notifications? The "Messaging" tile will tell you without you looking. Have any hotmail messages? Gmail? Facebook notifications? ALL of them show up in the tiles. Pretty nifty. In order to do the same with my Nokia E71, I had to actually navigate menus and select what I wanted to see. Not on this. In fact, the best feature I find with this phone is the INTEGRATION
of everything. Have calendar entries in Gmail or hotmail? They will synchronize with the phone. Have any calendar/event entries in Facebook? They will syncrhonize with the phone. Want to post a status update? You can do hotmail and Facebook at the same time, etc. etc. It really does integration well (not sure about iOS but at least is better than what I have experienced with Android)



Apart from that, the marketplace looks Ok and I have downloaded a couple of apps and games to fully test the phone. Of course I downloaded Twitter and Facebook apps but I also downloaded the ever essential "Weather" app, IMDB, a Turn by Turn Navigation to fully test the GPS (although the "Maps" application seems to work a-Ok!), QR reader, YouTube and all of the Office apps work great. Especially love "Notes"... just a basic app like a "sticky note" that is also available online and sincronizes
automatically.

Everything seems organized, easy to access unlike Symbian and Android, it really seems like an easy to approach OS.

I'm really pleasantly surprised!!


Performance:

What can I say? As of now I really have not experienced slowdowns or anything of that nature. No applications closing by themselves (Hello Android 'Force Closes'...), no jerkiness in games or when using most apps. The only thing I noticed was when visiting really "loaded" web pages, the internet browser (IE) seemed to slow a little... the same with the Seesmic Twitter app. Other than that it has been
great (definitely better than Symbian on the E71).

Now to one of my quirks... battery life.
My Nokia E71 could go on for at least 2 or 3 days without recharging... but these days it seems that trying to have everything accessible takes a toll on battery life. For example, all of the tiles that need updating, connect via 3G or Wifi in order to be updated. Add to that the big display, the processor and normal usage
for the phone has been more or less 15 to 20 hours. This is of course with just:

- Light internet surfing
- A couple of calls (I don't talk much)
- Facebook/Twitter updates and news reading
- Engadget App
- E-mail viewing/sending

That means that I have to go into the settings and change the sincronizing to "Manual". If I do that, I can have the phone lasting much more than 24 hours. But lets be real, if we have an updated phone be it iOS, Android or Windows, we want them to be performing with all those things active! ;-)

I guess it's a trade-off, you decide whether it's worth it ;-)


Camera:

Now, this is supposed to be a 5MP camera that records video at 720p, etc. etc. but I haven't had much time with it yet so I wont judge it. It SHOULD be better than the 3.2 one on my Nokia but I'll try to do a direct compare with the 8MP Exmor sensor of my Android headset (Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro, review soon)





Conclusion:

What do I think of the LG Quantum C900? I believe it's a great phone. The QWERTY keyboard works perfect, it's snappy, the Windows 7.5 OS behaves well and offers the best profile integration I've experienced yet. Now that I've experienced Windows, I'm really thinking of selling my Android phone... is that good!
But who knows... maybe I'll stick with both for a bit.

Pros:

+ Great social integration, you feel like you can really communicate
+ Good call quality, Great QWERTY keyboard feel
+ Not sluggish (at least for what I use it for)
+ Office Notes is awesome

Cons:

- Plastic all around (I was spoiled by Nokia!)
- Sometimes in Landscape mode some apps don't rotate (to properly use QWERTY)
- Battery life is not the greatest
- Small font for "Messages" app

All in all I give it:

3.5 out of 5!

;-)


See ya!


P.S. I'll post some more updates after I keep playing with it! ... with the phone guys... the phone!! :-p

Monday, November 7, 2011

LG Optimus C900 with Windows or Sony Xperia Pro with Android? Or both?!?

So finally, after all of these years staying true to Nokia and Symbian, I'm ready to "jump ship" (FOR A BIT!!!). Question is... should I go Android? Or should I go Windows?

Since I didn't know the answer to this question, I decided to try both at the same time. Being the compulsive buyer that I am, I began the search. Let me get this straight though, I AM PARTIAL TO NOKIA! There I said it! Why? Because they make reliable phones, built like Tonkas and they perform well for the use I give the handsets but the thing is, they are way behind. MeeGo was supposed to change all that but that ASS of a CEO Stephen Elop messed it up for everybody because EVERY ONE IN THE INDUSTRY know that he is just an MS whore... so now Nokia is going with Windows OS too.

Anyway, my experience with the green robot has been limited to my time with a cheap Archos 70 tablet which I already sold.



It performed well enough, and did most of what I wanted it too so my guess is that the phone should perform AT LEAST as good as my ex-tablet. The search for a phone was a particular one. Why? Because:

1) It needed to be an "unlocked" handset
2) It needed to have "Ok" Specifications (Android OS likes power...)
3) It needed to provide hardware QWERTY

That last option narrowed down the selection at least but still it was difficult choosing! Should I go with an Unlocked Motorola Droid? A Milestone? A Droid Pro? Should I try HTC with their Desire Z? Should I go Samsung Epic? But then I started seeing their prices... ufff... mighty expensive for most of them! Since I know I wanted 2 phones, I didn't want to exceed myself... you see, I'm a compulsive buyer with a conscience... or maybe I'm just not that dumb! ;-)

So first I tried: Samsung Sidekick 4G



Let me tell you, the QWERTY keyboard was AWESOME.
Buttons felt great and the unit was quite responsive and felt "zippy". Specifications were not that hot (i.e. middle of the pack) but for $200 unlocked I wasn't complaining... when I did started to complain was when I was seeing the icon for "EDGE" instead of 3G and then it hit me... THIS IS A PHONE BUILT FOR T-MOBILE!!! What does that mean? That my current cellphone provider (Claro Puerto Rico) operates on a different 3G band than T-Mobile! (Claro is similar to AT&T and uses 850/1900/2100 whereas T-Mobile uses 1700/2100).

A big FAIL for me.
So I decided to resell the phone on eBay (let's see how it goes! But it should sell easy!! ;-)) and started looking for more options.

I had in mind a Motorola Droid Pro, Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro (the new version, not the X10 one) and a few others. Weighing things out I eliminated most of them and was ready to select the Xperia Mini Pro due to the form factor, Android 2.3, and good reviews.



Beautiful looking, good construction and from the reviews, good performance and great all-rounder. Price was right too (about $250 maybe even less unlocked on eBay). Then I kept reading and found this:

http://talk.sonyericsson.com/thread/22121

Remember when I said I'm not an "eyes-closed" compulsive buyer? Yep. When I decide to get something I start to look everywhere for issues, problems, praises, etc. I thought this was a big issue for me so... back to square one. Since I didn't want to go through the whole ordeal of looking for phones, I remembered I had read about this phone's big brother, the Xperia Pro!

Up I went then to amazon, eBay, different distributors looking for the cheapest way to get one and eBay was the one that in the end had it for the better price... I still ended up paying upwards to $300 (in which I could have probably gotten a Milestone from Moto, or the HTC Desire Z, etc.) but I decided to go different because less face it, most people have the same type of phone... you know, the rectangular black one, nothing different, etc. I went against the current and got this beauty:




Plastic, but... oh well...

Looking in GSMArena for the specifications I found that this phone, apart from being good-looking, had Ok specs (i.e. no dual core CPU here), and a great camera. So killed two birds with one stone. The QWERTY looked more spaced out than on the Mini Pro and I liked the form-factor. The couple of reviews I looked at gave it good remarks so I guess I'll know once I receive it. The bad thing is that since this phone was just released on October, there are no cases or accessories. :-(

Still, I want to see how it performs and I will probably review it in the coming weeks!!! This will satisfy my phone needs for now but...

WHAT ABOUT WINDOWS?!?!

Well, fully knowing that Nokia will indeed focus on this OS, I decided to try it and see what Nokia might have seen... the potential.

Looking for a Windows phone is easier as really, there aren't many and a WinPhone with QWERTY is an easier assignment. So after little search I decided to get: LG Optimus C900




Since selection was not that great (the only one on my radar was the Dell Venue Pro but like with the Xperia Mini Pro, it seems to have A LOT of bugs and hardware related issues so out of the picture it went...) I got this generic black/gray-colored looking thing! ;-) It's not the sexiest looking thing ever but it will do I guess.

This one also has run-of-the-mill specifications but I guess it's typical in the Winphone realm. The best thing about this one is that I bought an unlocked "Open Box" one for like $130 or less! w00t!!!!

Now, for both of them I bought some screen protectors and for the LG I bought a case to see if at least I can give it some fucking color (mostly all of my phones haven't been generic-looking... I hate that shit!).

I'll see if one or both of them come this week and start testing changing between phones whenever their batteries run out and see what is my experience with both!

Will Android have random applications Force Closing?
Will Windows crash all the time?
Will both offer great communication features and I'll be happy?

Still don't know the answer to this question and a couple more but I do have to say that I'll be saying Good-Bye to Nokia this week...



ok ok ok... It's probably going to be more of a "see you soon" instead of a goodbye but Nokia, I do have to say that you will always be my friend. GET YOUR SHIT STRAIGHT!!!!

In the meantime I'll be enjoying some Windows/Android cooking and see what all the fuzz is about. And to fully say goodbye to Nokia, I will definitely sell for cheap my Nokia E71!!! Someone has to keep on enjoying it as I did! Great little phone!


Bye.
Thanks for reading.


P.S. I'm not the owner of these pictures... taken from the web :-p. I guess I'll put mine up sometime this week.

#HorrOctober ...

was a failure!!! LOL!!!

I did not list more movies because I didn't watch the stipulated 31 movies I was supposed to see! WHY DO I HAVE TO GO TO WORK AND DO OTHER THINGS?!? WHY?!?!

Anyway, partial list of what I did see:

1) Final Destination
2) A Blade in the dark
3) The Mist (new version)
4) The Stand
5) The Exorcism of Emily Rose
6) Dawn of the Dead (remake)
7) Jeepers Creepers
8) Bruiser
9) Audition
10) Hostel part II
11) Black Sheep
12) The Rite

and... that's it!
I have to get better organized next year!!

Anyway... check it!