Last year I finally bought my smartphone - a shiny LG Optimus 2, dual core. I was positively impressed by the flashy look and feel, I loved the applications I could download for free from the Android store - albeit they were mostly games - and of course, I spent late nights playing Angry Birds ....
After a few days of over-enthusiasm, I came back with my feet on the ground. The first "ouch" was when I spent hours to find a simple driver which allowed me to connect my new toy with the laptop. After finally managing that, I got lost trying to copy some files from the laptop to the phone and the other way around. Finally, I got that easier by enabling the Bluetooth between the two devices.
Using GPS was a pain in the a$$ .... At the best I ended up spending huge amounts of money for the mobile Internet. Downloading and using the maps offline was not working properly.
Frustrated, I tried to use the camera - the photos were such a poor quality (bad contrast, ugly colors) that I simply needed to remove them without any regrets.
I've got to the conclusion my phone is too smart, 'cause I've never got to figure out its algorithm for sorting the SMSs. I'm still not able to find the latest one where it should be: on the top of the stack. I went so far that when I was receiving an SMS, I was removing the SIM-card from the smart a$$ and putting it in my plain old ugly Nokia 1110i, to be able to read that SMS.
The battery is another "great success story": just a few calls and SMSs each day and in two days the battery of my dear smart a$$ is gone .... The same usage pattern with Nokia 1110i takes close to eight days without recharge !
In short:
The latest experience was something reminding an opera buffa. I moved from the Netherlands to Romania and I adjusted the time (it's one hour later in Romania). It was the night of daylight saving time, so I knew the time would be set one extra hour ahead. I did that manually and I specifically instructed the smart a$$ to not automatically adjust the time settings. After that I set the alarm clock at 7 am and I went to bed. I woke up with the alarm ringing loud, I stopped it and - after the usual swears - I rushed out. But I got a hunch: why was it so dark outside ? I turned on the TV to notice it was 6 am. So my smart .... whatever .... managed to set the time again one hour ahead, even though I had specifically instructed it not to do that ....
Did I mention than when I change the countries, my smart .... thing .... changes the language automatically ? When I move among FR, DE, NL, UK, IT, ES, PT, RO, etc. this is usually not a problem, but what am I gonna do in China or Israel or some Arabic country ? I wouldn't even be able to set the language back to English.
Anybody needs a smartphone ?
After a few days of over-enthusiasm, I came back with my feet on the ground. The first "ouch" was when I spent hours to find a simple driver which allowed me to connect my new toy with the laptop. After finally managing that, I got lost trying to copy some files from the laptop to the phone and the other way around. Finally, I got that easier by enabling the Bluetooth between the two devices.
Using GPS was a pain in the a$$ .... At the best I ended up spending huge amounts of money for the mobile Internet. Downloading and using the maps offline was not working properly.
Frustrated, I tried to use the camera - the photos were such a poor quality (bad contrast, ugly colors) that I simply needed to remove them without any regrets.
I've got to the conclusion my phone is too smart, 'cause I've never got to figure out its algorithm for sorting the SMSs. I'm still not able to find the latest one where it should be: on the top of the stack. I went so far that when I was receiving an SMS, I was removing the SIM-card from the smart a$$ and putting it in my plain old ugly Nokia 1110i, to be able to read that SMS.
The battery is another "great success story": just a few calls and SMSs each day and in two days the battery of my dear smart a$$ is gone .... The same usage pattern with Nokia 1110i takes close to eight days without recharge !
In short:
LG Optimus 2, dual core
(bought in May 2011)
|
Nokia
(bought in January 2007)
|
|
Battery
|
2 days (if you’re lucky)
|
8 days
|
GPS
|
Useless
|
-
|
Startup time
|
~ 60 seconds
|
3 seconds
|
Camera
|
Useless
|
-
|
SMS
|
Mixes up SMSs, can’t
find the latest
|
Good, logical sorting
|
Price
|
480 Euros
|
20 Euros
|
The latest experience was something reminding an opera buffa. I moved from the Netherlands to Romania and I adjusted the time (it's one hour later in Romania). It was the night of daylight saving time, so I knew the time would be set one extra hour ahead. I did that manually and I specifically instructed the smart a$$ to not automatically adjust the time settings. After that I set the alarm clock at 7 am and I went to bed. I woke up with the alarm ringing loud, I stopped it and - after the usual swears - I rushed out. But I got a hunch: why was it so dark outside ? I turned on the TV to notice it was 6 am. So my smart .... whatever .... managed to set the time again one hour ahead, even though I had specifically instructed it not to do that ....
Did I mention than when I change the countries, my smart .... thing .... changes the language automatically ? When I move among FR, DE, NL, UK, IT, ES, PT, RO, etc. this is usually not a problem, but what am I gonna do in China or Israel or some Arabic country ? I wouldn't even be able to set the language back to English.
Anybody needs a smartphone ?
