Tony Blews

Whats this? Two reviews in on day? Holy crap.

Anyway, on with the motley……

This week I got a bit drunk and bought a new phone, a 3 Skype phone. In reality, its an Amoi (no wok included) WP-S1, and this is what it looks like…

Snazzy, eh?

For £49 its not really a bad bit of kit. True, it is on the 3 network, but after being frigged about by O2 and Virgin over the last two weeks I’ll try any alternative.

So, what does it do?

Well. It does all your normal phone crap, plus it allegedly automatically uses Skype when you want it to. I say allegedly as I can’t even get mine to log in using my Skype details. And 3′s usually unhelpful customer support have no idea what to do.(But at least they can’t beat the O2 monkey who asked me, twenty minutes into our conversation about why my GPRS had been cancelled, if I owned a mobile phone. No, Sherlock, I can process GSM signals in my head.)

Anyway, thats not important. What can it do?

For me the big win is that you can use it as a modem and get ‘net access. True, its only about 116Kbps, but that better than I was getting from O2. The downside to this is that the software supplied completely screws up all your existing modem drivers. Not a big loss for most people, but bloody annoying nonetheless.

Sadly the internet service is somewhat restricted. Mail and Web services seem okay (with exceptions), but thats it. FTP is blocked, as are MSN Messenger (probably a good thing) and no gaming stuff will work.

For some reason, POP access to my gmail account won’t work, but I can still access the gmail website. Odd.

Access to sites like B3ta are blocked, but thats probably a good thing for me.

A big problem is Facebook. I was never a big fan of it (see elsewhere) until I got the phone. Now I’m on it all the time, mainly because you can access straight from the phone. This is my biggest U-turn since I suddenly decided that VW campers were indeed a bit cool.

The FTP thing is annoying, as I have to update these pages via FTP. I means that I have to go to the pub and use the WIFI machine. Like I needed an excuse.

So… ultimate verdict, is it any good?

Yup. Best phone i’ve had in ages.

Update: Yay! FTP / IM / Flickr uploader…. it all works now!

Another update: How am I getting on with it? Amoi WP-S1 3/Skype Phone – 5 months later

So its time to do a review of something.

Imagine that you smoke, and that you’re now exiled to standing in the street outside the pub whenever you want a fag. Great. And it gets better. You can’t throw you dog end into the gutter anymore, as that is littering. What you need is some device that you can bung the smouldering dog-ends into, and save them until you can find a handy bin.

Sounds like you need a Butt Pouch.

This handy little pocket sized thingy is lined with foil to conduct heat away from the errant embers and cool them down. It also seals nearly airtight, thus depriving the nub of the needed oxygen.

Marvellous. Where can you get one? Well, either you friendly local boozer is giving them away, or try www.buttsandgum.com.

Oh, and if you’re feeling particularly pikey, you can save the dogs and re-roll them later.