Firstly I would like to welcome Alex to the team... He will be starting to blog with us soon. I hope you like his first rant objective review of his new phone...
Samsung Tocco Ultra Black Addition on Orange Network
OK so I got this phone on contract about 2 months ago, at first it everything seem quite neat, it’s a very suave looking phone, and it comes with some interesting little apps, which become an annoyance later on.
So let’s start with the positives:
It has a very good camera, 8.0 mega pixels. The only true redeemable feature on this phone, although the camera on the front of the phone can ONLY be used for video calls.
Its looks, this phone is no doubt stylish, the design and paint finish is very nice, but this has now become so standard with most phones recently that it becomes just that, standard.
And the screen is quite durable (There’s a reason for this).
OK mini Rant over... lets look at the phone. I have had the phone now since January 6th (well apart from the 7 weeks it has been in for repair and the fact that it has been replaced once already as it was unrepairable) and in all honesty I am still finding it very hard to cope with day to day issues. Again as an Internet tablet it is good/average, as a phone it is not so good. No picture messaging, no video calling functions, the camera and flash arrangement is no where near as good as any other N series. Even as an Internet tablet I am no finding it slow and laggy and the wifi kills the battery in minutes. I can not wait for my contract to end, in fact for the first time ever I am looking at selling it and actually buying a Sim free phone to replace it with.
In short if you want a smart phone forget it. Look at iPhone and HTC series which are now running much better, having played with a Desire I would recommend it :o) If you want a new contract go directly to Orange mobile, either online (better deals) or phone them. There customer service is brilliant unlike CPW or mobiles co uk who seem to think customer service is secondary too stitching you up.
OK OK I promise, rant over...
Sorry people have had yet another manic month.... back in the office a bit more now so will spend some time composing some new posts...
After the Sky saga we had the car phone warehouse saga.... and thats still going on so will post about that shortly...
I have some serious issues with the following companies strangely enough they are all owned by.... Yip Car Phone Warehouse....
Issues with: Talk Talk, Talk Talk enterprises, Opal, mobiles.co.uk... strange huh? Just as a matter of interest, CPW also owns AOL online, Tiscalli, Tandy and Best Buy to name a few... now if you do any research then you will see that Talk Talk and CPW are supposedly split, however, having spoken to talk talk, someone should tell them as they still are claiming to be owned by CPW and thats in April this year!
So more to follow on that one, also I have just purchased Opalsucks.co.uk, and will be setting up a forum site on there is due course. It will be looking at BroadBand and telecoms providers and sugesting who we think is best... as well as a public forum for discussing bad service from any of the providers, and GOOD Service as well, dont forget, when someone goes the extra mile its always worth mentioning it...
On that point, can I just say, if you want a mobile phone and no nonsense customer service, buy direct from orange and take there insurance, 12 years I was with them, I even had a new phone courriered to me on Christmas day as mine was broken, now thats how it should be :o)unlike CPW or mobiles.co.uk....
ORANGE RAWK!!
I have had my HTC Hero since July 28th, at first I was happy and giddy about it, spent a while playing with it and learning how the phone works. I have always been a Nokia brat for the last 10 years, so it was very different. The OS is simple enough and navigation is ok, I love most of the features.
I do have a few problems with the phone tho, these are:
Camera is terrible, being 5mp I expectead a lot better, no flash, no backlight, unless its very light, your not getting a picture!! (Nokia beats this hands down)
Battery Life is terrible, especially if you use wifi, I have killed my battery in less than 90 minutes uploading pics to Fbook using the orange internet connection. Even on standbye I have yet had it last over 24 hours with minor useage. HTC Claim 750 hours???? I think not.
Signal strength seems to be another issue with a much lower signal than any Nokia I have had, even no service yet put my sim card into the N95 or 96 I have and it shows nearly 4 bars...
Ringer volume is terrible as well, and it keeps turning itself off and getting louder and quieter because of the position of the volume control button o the phone. Music player is rubbish if you want to use the phones speaker, although not too bad if you use headphones, again every Nokia I have ever had is better, and my mates iPhone kicks the Hero here.
I have spent some time searching apps etc on the internet for this phone, and there is a few, however, most of the stuff I would like for social media and multimedia is not available, I would have expectead a lot more of the social and multimedia items to be part of the OS and tied into the phone much tighter, at the moment the only IM tied into the phone is google talk.
In Short, if you want a different looking stylish very clean touch screen smart phone for business then the HTC hero is fine (as long as you carry your charger with you) If you want a decent camera multi media phone, then leave this phone well alone, you will be very dissapointed.
Just for the record I am sending this one back to Orange as I am within the 14 days!!!
