TARDIS Keyring Mini Review
June 19th, 2009
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I need a new camera. And a new voice.
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3 Mobile Huawei E220 USB Modem
June 17th, 2008
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In the past I bought a ‘phone that did proper internet access. I even reviewed it here and here!
Well, now I’ve gone and bought a 3 Mobile Internet dongle thing. Specifically, the Huawei E220.
So, what do you get for your 50 quid?
Apart from the device itself, the DVD style box contains a SIM card, a manual that I didn’t bother even opening, two USB cables and some padding that I didn’t bother to eat.
No installation CD? Nope. The clever little chappy installs all it needs from an built in memory stick type thingummy which pretend to be a CDROM. Take a not, USB device makers: This is the way forward.
One of the USB cables is a standard 6 inch one, which works ok but means that the modem is hanging about where I usually have my mouse (never having got used to the crappy touchpads that most laptops have). The other is a much longer affair with two Type A connectors at one end, just in case your computer can’t push enough power out from one socket. This is fairly useless to me, as the added cable length means the device needs the two plugs to be connected, and the two USB sockets on my Dell are on opposite sides of the case. It works great if I have my “media slice” connected, as that gives me 2 extra USB sockets on the back, but it also triples the weight of the machine, so I usually leave it to gather dust.
I’m using the long cable to connect to my telephone instead.
What you probably can’t tell from the photo, is that the sim card holder is held in place with sellotape. It won’t fall out during normal use, but did pop out a few times while in my bag. Hence the classic British engineering fix.
So, how fast is it?
Firstly, here is what I got through my phone on a good day:
And here is what the new dongle gives me:
A bit faster, as you can see. I managed to get up to about 2900kbps by standing outside the house and getting a clear line of sight to the nearest transmitter, which is about 300 yards away.
With this “proper” internet modem connected, rather than the mobile phone, Three aren’t restricting what I can access. So now I can waste my time on b3ta, and won’t get an electronic telling off if I accidentally try and watch some young flibbertigibbet shaking her udders on YouTube.
So what does it cost to run?
Well, you have a choice: £10 for 1gb, £15 for 3gb or £25 for 7gb.
A nice range of prices for you there. Being a bit skint, I opted to only spash out a tenner, and my 1gb lasted a week.
Luckily, you can stick on as many addons as you have the money for, and don’t need to wait until with end of the month. Next time, however, I will be getting the £25 top up (assuming that I get hold of some money).
I’m quite happy with it, currently. When I get the chance, I’m going to have a wander in to the countryside, and see how well the modem (and indeed the AMOI phone) function when quite far from a transmitter.
Edit 16th Feb 2012. Comments are now disabled on this post following 257 spam comments in one week.
Categories: Computers, Mobile Internet, Phones, Reviews, Tech
Amoi WP-S1 3/Skype Phone – 5 months later
March 22nd, 2008
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Last November, I bought a 3 Skypephone, AKA an AMOI WP-S1, AKA an AMOI 8512. My original review of it is here.
After five months of continuous use, I’ve decided to take another look at the phone.
And it is in remarkably good shape, despite being dropped, splashed, almosted drowned, and generally abused. The magnet holding the battery cover in place hasn’t fallen off yet, which is unexpected. Some of the rubberised coating has become a bit worn, but thats not really a big issue.
Remarkably, neither the screen nor camera lens have suffered any damage at all. The buttons all still work, and the USB port has failed to go all loose and wonky.
Physically, it seems about as indestructable as my old Motorola V600 (but I haven’t thrown it at a wall yet – most likely due to not having anything to do with O2 these days).
Skype:
Well, yes. I’ve used it twice, and that was just to see if it worked. I only know one avid Skyper (who will admit to it, anyway), and I never bought it for the Skype functionality anyway. It works.
MSN:
It works now, after 3 finally got around to supporting it properly, but the app is a pain to use on the handset.
PC Connectivity:
To start with, the software seemed overly complicated and tedious. Why, I thought, couldn’t I just plug it in and use it like a USB memory stick? Well. After I found the MicroSD card taped inside the packaging (just as I was about to chuck all the needless cardboard into the recycling bin) and installed it, thats exactly how it works. It’s just a pity that it won’t work that way with the internal memory.
MoDem:
This is the best thing about the phone. True, the connection speed is only 115.2kpbs 180kbps download / 43kbps upload at the moment, but that is double what I was getting through the internal modem on the laptop on a normal dial-up connection. Sadly, the modem now refuses to work when the AMOI’s drivers are installed, but that is hardly a big loss as it was just causing me to run up big phone bills at work.
Pretty much everything i’ve tried is working over this connection, with the exception of the YouTube multi-uploader. I haven’t tried World of Warcraft yet, because I’d like to retain some of what little of a life I have left.
The connection speed may sound low, but its enough to watch videos without them stopping all the time.
3 do have annoying policy concerning what they term as “adult” sites, though. You can’t access them. No chance. This is annoying as i used to use b3ta a lot, but now I can’t (apart from one day last month when their policy got relaxed – or got broken, more likely – for about 6 hours). Also, quite a few of my friends’ sites have been tagged as “adult”, as they are a sweary bunch of troublemakers.
All this talk of data transfer brings me on to probably the most important thing about a mobile phone…
Running costs:
Calls to normal numbers cost 12p per minute, with texts at 12p each. You can buy add-on bundles to make these cheaper, which I only tend to do for texts, as I try to not to ring many people (apart from taxis, pizza delivery places and pubs).
Data is charged at a quid per megabyte, which sounds expensive because it is. However, the internet add-on bundles can save you loads of money and cost 50p for a day, £2.50 a week, or £5 a month.
I’m still not sure what the “fair use” data limits are for the weekly and monthly blocks, but daily seems to be about 100mb. Which isn’t bad.
I tend to stick on a load of daily blocks in one go, as its easy to exceed 100mb in a day (if, for example, you decide to watch all the Happy Tree Friends episodes whilst drunk), and you can move into the next day’s block without having to wait until midnight.
All in all, it cost me about £20 every three weeks.
So whats wrong with it?
The camera doesn’t have a light or a flash. <sarcasm>Oh shame</sarcasm>.
The microSD card was cunningly hidden in the depths of the packaging and nearly got binned. And doesn’t come with an adapter.
I can’t get the modem to work with the built-in bluetooth on my laptop, yet it works with an external dongle. Not really an issue, as anyone likely to want to connect a laptop to their phone will probably have a USB cable on them.
And thats it.
Verdict?
It is still a brilliant and cheap little phone, and works almost perfectly. I’d like to see a new version that does full mobile broadband without me having to carry an additional dongle, and maybe a future one will. I’ll upgrade to that when it comes out, but for now I can handle the slower speed. You should buy one now.
Oh, you want a rating? Right. Which 80s popsters had a song called “System Addict”?
Thats right. Five Star.
EDIT: In the end, I did my a mobile broadband thingummy. See it here: 3 Mobile Broadband.
Categories: Mobile Internet, Phones, Reviews, Tech
Amoi WP-S1 3/Skype Phone
November 18th, 2007
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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
Categories: Mobile Internet, Phones, Reviews, Tech
The Butt Pouch
November 18th, 2007
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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.
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