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Thoughts on the HTC-Magic and Google Android

Michael Fletcher — Tue, 30/06/2009 - 22:05

Michael Fletcher's picture

Absolutely amazing!!!  I am so in love with this phone, it truly is a geeks paradise!  Don't get me wrong, there are a few things are stupid and things that need work, but on the whole i think this phone rocks the party that rocks the party!  

First things first, how does it compare with the so called "Jesus Phone"... well according to our friends at el'Reg, the HTC-Magic review scored 85% and the new iPhone 3G S only scored 80% - I leave you to make your mind up on that.  Comparing my Magic with a friends iPhone 3G, I can say there are points where the Magic wins hands down, and others where the iPhone is a step ahead.  Overall, I prefer the Magic, but I would, considering I'm a Linux zealot.

Lets look at some individual areas:
Bluetooth leaves A LOT to be desired.  At the moment it can only do mono-audio.  it works with my nokia bluetooth headset without too much function loss, but that's all.  No data transfer, no tethering and no contact sharing or picture sending.  So if you want to send your mate a picture you have, you will have to do it via email (which it is set up to do very easily).  I believe the iPhone suffered with this as well, but may now have been fixed?

The keyboard - it's ok... lets be honest here, I have fat fingers and it's very small, but it's actually becoming more functional the more I use it.  It's saving grace is the auto correction. many miss hit letters get fixed pretty well.  I just have to be careful that I don't send texts or emails with the wrong words in when it auto-corrects incorrectly (similar to predictive text errors)! This is happening less and less though as i add more custom words to the dictionary and get more proficient with the keyboard.  you can always turn the phone horizontally and use the width to great effect.

Why, oh why, would you not put a 3.5mm jack for earphones on a multimedia device.  I mean really, the mini-usb connection! I've had to get an adaptor so that I can use my own earphones.

Battery life is limited and very dependent on how hard you are hitting it.  Using it during the day, lots of emails, web browsing and texting, it has died before on me in less than 12hrs.  This is mitigated slightly by the fact that it does only take a couple of hours to recharge, and because it charges through the mini-ubs socket, any computer is a potential power source.  On average now i get about 36-48hrs life out of it.  Dependent of course on what i'm doing with it.

Connectivity to Ubuntu is super easy, plug in and mount the SD Card out of the box with no issues (the phone comes with a 2GB Micro SD card).  The SD card can be hot swapped which is good. Music transfered easily and you can just build your own files system because the music player uses tags to organise your music and searches the card automagically. Still fighting with album art (should ideally download this itself) but slowly getting there with picard and reassigning the mp3 tags.  Oh, how good is this, ogg files played for me without any additional fiddling!

Applications:
The preloaded applications are good, gmail, email and google chat are very good. The Android Market is filled with tons of applications, but here is a list of what I currently have installed:

Application Name
Function
Cost
PicSay Pro Photo editor - very cool, adds décor and speech bubbles on the fun side, otherwise does the basic editing if required EUR2.37
twidroid twitter and identi.ca client free
Labyrinth tilt board game - brilliant game (paid for the full version) £2.99
beebPlayer plays bbc iplayer content and some live TV streaming free
ThrottleCopter that stupidly addictive game where the little helicopter goes up and down free
Battery Widget adds a widget on your home screen to see the exact battery percentage - very useful free
AndFTP Brilliant FTP client free
Repligo Reader PDF reader $4.95
Bubble Spirit Level free
andriod-vnc-viewer VNC viewer, means i can remote control my ubuntu machine! free
GPS Status all GPS data and a compass free
My Tracks records your gps data and draws path on google maps, can also exprt to gpx file free
Hi-Hiker Pro another GPD tracker free
AK Notepad notepad that can easily email notes free
Countdown Alarm does what it says on the tin free
Google Sky Map like streetview with GPS location and astro maps - still haven't tested fully free
The Scwartz Unsheathed A MUST HAVE, turn your phone into a light saber!! free
Advanced task manager easy enough free
Free Dictionary Org   free
Toggle Wifi turns wifi on and off with one touch on the home screen free
Shazam same as the iphone app, listens to music and can give you the song title and artist free
Skype Lite Beta skype free
ShopSavvy turns your camera into a bar code reader and finds the product to purchase on the web! AMAZING free

I've left of the rest of the random games I have, but there are tons to get if you want :-)

Overall I'm very very happy, and hopefully will get a short video posted before the end of the week with a quick demo of the interface.

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Why, oh why, would you not

games (not verified) — Thu, 21/01/2010 - 21:45

Why, oh why, would you not put a 3.5mm jack for earphones on a multimedia device. I mean really, the mini-usb connection! I've had to get an adaptor so that I can use my own earphones. Cheap Web Hosting

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wZ34LINDA (not verified) — Mon, 11/01/2010 - 11:59

There are billions of different people, which look through your supreme release, mereover I suggest to purchase the latest ringtones and ringtones to make yourself original.

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I am so in love with this

nokia 5310 (not verified) — Wed, 11/11/2009 - 05:02

I am so in love with this phone, its truly is a paradise! I think this phone rocks... Its music player is great, it rocks the party.. The camera is also very nice, it takes very clear picture...

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Sam Morar's picture

Nice review Mike.   However,

Sam Morar — Wed, 01/07/2009 - 22:45

Nice review Mike.

 

However, the things that would get to me are the Bluetooth, headphone and battery life. I'm assuming the Bluetooth issues can be solved in the software with a later update, and it is possible that they haven't squeezed all the juice performance wise out of the device yet. But really, not including a standard headphone jack is poor.

Ultimately, I do think that I'd want an android phone over an iphone, due to my ideologies, and its potential hackability. I agree with Quinn that buttons on phones is so 2007!! Am keen to check out what their next android phone is though.

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bluetooth and the future

Michael Fletcher — Wed, 01/07/2009 - 23:02

I believe that it is just software based and hopefully will be fixed in the next version of the OS :-)

There are supposed to be a lot of Android phones on the horizon, so hopefully there will be more choice, more users and more applications in the Android Market!

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Typing

Henry (not verified) — Wed, 01/07/2009 - 09:24

It's not just your fat fingers - we considered getting HTC magic for everyone in the office, but the only one that sticks with it is me. According to my boss it is because of the very high geek-factor this phone has, because that certainly is higher than the function-factor.

I don't quite know about that, as I adore this phone (yes, Im a geek,) but I have to agree that the typing is horrible. I had everyone that wanted this phone try and text some messages on mine first. They all got to calibrate the keyboard first, but they all ended up changing their mind.

We use text a great deal, and the frustration soon became intense with the typing on this phone. Personally I won't change - I love the phone, but none of the others ended up getting it based solely on this.

You might get used to it, and if you are willing to try (reader) you will want to turn off the auto completion of words pretty soon. The sentences it produces can either be very strange and give you a laugh, or straight out annoy you to bits.

So yes - the typing is NOT good. I use about three times longer to type a message on this phone than I did with my HTC TOUCH HD (which I sold to get the magic(no regrets)).

Still - this phone has so many other features that it makes up for the bad typing, by far in m book. of course .. thats while the geek factor still rages high within me. Once I get over all the fun stuff and realize I need to actually use the phone for work ..

I'll get back to you on that. ;)

Meanwhile .. hand me my lightsabre!

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Quinn Reynolds's picture

Nifty

Quinn Reynolds — Wed, 01/07/2009 - 06:57

It sounds quite impressive Mike. Can you post a few pics of it in action?

I must admit given the choice I would probably still go for the Jesus Phone, but that's just because I'm a closet Apple junkie so you probably shouldn't pay any attention to that. Luckily(?) in SA the operators still charge a fortune for most of the higher-end smartphone devices on contract, so neither are really a practical choice here yet.

My next phone will definitely be a touch-screen device though. Buttons are sooo 2007 ;-)

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Michael Fletcher's picture

no pics...

Michael Fletcher — Wed, 01/07/2009 - 22:58

...but a video is posted, hopefully highlights things.  If you want anything else, just ask

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