First off, I have owned RIM products since it was a massive blue brick with a clicky wheel that broke ALL-THE-FUCKIN-TIME.... I have owned Curves and Tours and Storms(fml), Torches and Bolds... They were all (minus the Storms and the blue bricks) half decent devices. My current full time device is a Bold 9780, and the HTC Sensation 4G (another bad-ass motherfucker that I'll write up next).
I recently got my hands on a 9900 for an hour or so. I had to do a few things before I was allowed some supervised alone time with the device though... I had to give up my 9780, my Playbook, my camera, and agree to a TSA style pat down. RIM doesn't fuck around anymore when it comes to not wanting anything else leaked for a pre-release device (I think they have their hands full with the people that have the thing and are showing it off like a new set of tits). Once the reluctant RIM employee handed me the device, I was faced with a crossroads..... A decision... Do I throw my coffee at the guy and run? Or do I behave and simply do a run thru... Option A had it's advantages and disadvantages (Fired, Jail etc)... While option B seemed pretty pussy-ish but more likely to result in a certain level of trust with RIM and any other pre-release hardware they might wave infront of me. B it was. I put my man card down and was ready to rock.
First of all... this thing has a feel to it that I have been dying for. It doesn't have the light, plastic-rubber faux leather Chrysler Cordoba feel... It's more like a solid, smooth, refined Porche feel. The aluminum bezel combined with the smooth carbon fiber back back and glass screen make it feel like a 'flagship' phone should. My 9780 is great, don't get me wrong.. but it's far from a flagship device. If anything, out of the current RIM lineup, I'd say the Torch (gasp!) has more of a flagship look and feel. The Bold needed this update.
Getting into the OS was like visiting familiar territory. Having come from using os 4.X back in the day up to os 6.X now... They made it an easy transition. Similar Icons, Menus, and feel to the system. The difference is the thing was fast as all hell. I'd swipe, it'd respond. I'd open something, it's actually open. I never saw that fucking clock that burned into my Torch screen ONCE. There was a slight lag when I was swiping thru the pictures, but I was swiping as fast as I could. I wasn't here to pussyfoot around this thing, I wanted to see what it did. I opened the browser, messaging, pictures, camera, setup, and anything else I could in an attempt to bog down the OS. It took it like a champ for the most part, with only a few slightly sluggish responses when I was hopping back and forth from app to app (I use the term sluggish loosely... It was still pretty fast, but when the thing opens up apps before my finger is off the screen in a normal situation, and now it took... oh a second or so.. it counts as 'sluggish'). Anyhoo... a solid OS from what I experienced.
Browsing was a treat. Fuck OS 6. Fuck it and the horse it rode in on.... Especially it's browser. This one actually worked. Pinch zoom worked like it should, fast and accurate. Flick scroll actually scrolled when flicked and didn't sit there like a red-headed step child waiting for the bus (I'm looking at YOU Torch). Tabbed browsing didn't bog down the OS or the browser, and the combo touch screen/trackpad combo made clicking links a breeze. It worked, and it's still in god damn beta.
Picture quality seemed pretty standard, solid performance and shutter speeds, low light shots or back lit shots still sucked ass like they do with any phone (or camera if you really suck at taking pics), and the video camera did what it should. I should note - auto focus while taking a video seems less retarded than it does on my 9780. My 9780 video autofocus loves to focus on carpets and grass while I'm trying to film something other than... well carpet or grass. The 9900 seemed to realize that taking vids of carpets was indeed not the intention, and focused well on whatever you were putting in the center of the shot. I can't comment on the HD video on a TV as the RIM guy wouldn't let me try it. Same goes with pics on a computer... I can't comment on their blowupability (new word!), but from zooming in on the phone, they seemed pretty decent.
The only thing I could connect it to via Bluetooth was my 700 series Blackberry headset. It paired like any other phone does - Quickly and without any fuss. Bridge was installed, but the RIM gatekeeper held onto my Playbook with iron fists, and as such I couldn't bridge it.
In my haste to go through as much as I could, I failed you readers... I didn't even look at the OS release numbers. I am sworn by an NDA to not disclose the Carrier, but fuck it... it was on Telus HSPA+(Canada). I did a lot more, but those are the highlights, and I'm just too damn lazy to write anymore. Sound off if you want to know anymore. I MIGHT be able to get my hands on it again, and if I bribe and beg.. MIGHT be able to actually take some pics, but I'd have to do some pretty low things to get a video, so I doubt that\s happening.
ASG
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Thursday, 16 June 2011
The Result of the Playbook Heat Stress Test
I guess I should have started the last post with a disclaimer... I forgot... So here it is...
***DISCLAIMER***
DO NOT TRY THIS, DON'T DO IT, DON'T THINK ABOUT DOING IT, DON'T TRY A MODIFIED VERSION OF THIS TEST, DON'T THINK FOR ONE SECOND THAT THIS IS EVER A GOOD IDEA TO EVEN FATHOM.
***END DISCLAIMER***
Ok. Now that that's over with, on with the show.
I wandered out to my truck to collect my Playbook and 9780 not really knowing what to expect. I REALLY wanted to just swipe down on the Playbook screen and have it come to life, and press the sleep key on the 9780 and have it greet me with the familiar home screen. NOPE! "Fuck" I muttered. I pressed the power key on the playbook... Nothing. "FUCK FUCK" I more vocally muttered. In a frantic, desperate attempt to breathe some life back into the Playbook, I plugged it into my Micro USB car charger... Nothing. At this point I didn't give a shit about the cooked 9780... I have two... And a Torch... One less means nothing....
For a minute I was ready to call it DOA... But wait.. In my initial attempts, I didn't notice that the thing was warm... Really warm still. I brought it inside and started a SLOW cooling process. I waited about 30 min before I tried to power on again, and this time I also did the "hold power button for 10 seconds, release, press again" routine, and the hard reset routine... Nothing.... "GOD DAMNIT". I went upstairs and decided to plug in the standard charger that it came with.... Nothing.
Before I continue.. I know lots of people probably think "Must-be-fuckin-nice to just cook $1100 in electronics and not give a shit". Well yeah, it is nice actually. However I don't have unlimited funds, and am by NO means rich. I just happen to have access to pretty much any device at almost any time, and can do pretty much whatever I want with them. Case in point - I'm on my 3rd Torch and 2nd Bold in less than 6 months.
Anyhoo, back to the results.
It seems all attempts at reviving the playbook had failed. The 9780 came back to life after it cooled down, but its battery was sitting on the red, and that's unheard of for the mighty 9780 after just one day. After charging it for about a half hour, I popped in my SIM and ran it through its paces. I made calls, browsed the net, connected WIFI and Bluetooth, and it all worked. Nothing can kill the Bold. Not even an Idiot that intentionally tries to.
"What was that?" I said to myself.....
There it was, out of the corner of my eye.... It was like looking into the eyes of a god damned angel.. The familiar off-Green pulse of POWER ENTERING THE PLAYBOOK!!!!!!
I flew across the room and hammered down on the power button. "Come on you little bastard START" I yelled like a Doctor trying to resuscitate a patient. The little red light blinked for a couple of seconds then went off like the eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield, and then I saw it. "Blackberry Playbook" snapped to the screen. "AAAAHAHAHA ITS ALIIIVE" I yelled. It powered on without a hitch, Bluetooth found my Torch, and I turned on WIFI which as usual found my network in no time. It worked. The son of a bitch worked.
Battery showed 54% and that's after charging it for who knows how long (one hour at max), so I figure it was pretty run down as well. Later that night it reached 100%, and now today after using it like a normal person should, the battery is sitting at 76% which tells me that the cells are doing exactly what they should.
There must be a "This guy's an idiot" protection sequence for when you push it too far. Just like the Torch won't charge when the battery gets too hot, I'm thinking the PB shut down after reaching a critical temperature. Who knows. I'll ask when I get the chance to talk to RIM again.
There you have it. They both lived, but not without a few scary hours of "I killed it" running through my head.
Hope you enjoyed my first of many adventures. No I won't be trying this with the iPad or iPhone... or ever again to be honest. However if I do leave any of the above on the front seat of my car this summer, I'll be sure to post the outcome.
Next post I'll be ranting about the RIM conference call on Earnings and forecasts. Stay Tuned.
ASG
***DISCLAIMER***
DO NOT TRY THIS, DON'T DO IT, DON'T THINK ABOUT DOING IT, DON'T TRY A MODIFIED VERSION OF THIS TEST, DON'T THINK FOR ONE SECOND THAT THIS IS EVER A GOOD IDEA TO EVEN FATHOM.
***END DISCLAIMER***
Ok. Now that that's over with, on with the show.
I wandered out to my truck to collect my Playbook and 9780 not really knowing what to expect. I REALLY wanted to just swipe down on the Playbook screen and have it come to life, and press the sleep key on the 9780 and have it greet me with the familiar home screen. NOPE! "Fuck" I muttered. I pressed the power key on the playbook... Nothing. "FUCK FUCK" I more vocally muttered. In a frantic, desperate attempt to breathe some life back into the Playbook, I plugged it into my Micro USB car charger... Nothing. At this point I didn't give a shit about the cooked 9780... I have two... And a Torch... One less means nothing....
For a minute I was ready to call it DOA... But wait.. In my initial attempts, I didn't notice that the thing was warm... Really warm still. I brought it inside and started a SLOW cooling process. I waited about 30 min before I tried to power on again, and this time I also did the "hold power button for 10 seconds, release, press again" routine, and the hard reset routine... Nothing.... "GOD DAMNIT". I went upstairs and decided to plug in the standard charger that it came with.... Nothing.
Before I continue.. I know lots of people probably think "Must-be-fuckin-nice to just cook $1100 in electronics and not give a shit". Well yeah, it is nice actually. However I don't have unlimited funds, and am by NO means rich. I just happen to have access to pretty much any device at almost any time, and can do pretty much whatever I want with them. Case in point - I'm on my 3rd Torch and 2nd Bold in less than 6 months.
Anyhoo, back to the results.
It seems all attempts at reviving the playbook had failed. The 9780 came back to life after it cooled down, but its battery was sitting on the red, and that's unheard of for the mighty 9780 after just one day. After charging it for about a half hour, I popped in my SIM and ran it through its paces. I made calls, browsed the net, connected WIFI and Bluetooth, and it all worked. Nothing can kill the Bold. Not even an Idiot that intentionally tries to.
"What was that?" I said to myself.....
There it was, out of the corner of my eye.... It was like looking into the eyes of a god damned angel.. The familiar off-Green pulse of POWER ENTERING THE PLAYBOOK!!!!!!
I flew across the room and hammered down on the power button. "Come on you little bastard START" I yelled like a Doctor trying to resuscitate a patient. The little red light blinked for a couple of seconds then went off like the eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield, and then I saw it. "Blackberry Playbook" snapped to the screen. "AAAAHAHAHA ITS ALIIIVE" I yelled. It powered on without a hitch, Bluetooth found my Torch, and I turned on WIFI which as usual found my network in no time. It worked. The son of a bitch worked.
Battery showed 54% and that's after charging it for who knows how long (one hour at max), so I figure it was pretty run down as well. Later that night it reached 100%, and now today after using it like a normal person should, the battery is sitting at 76% which tells me that the cells are doing exactly what they should.
There must be a "This guy's an idiot" protection sequence for when you push it too far. Just like the Torch won't charge when the battery gets too hot, I'm thinking the PB shut down after reaching a critical temperature. Who knows. I'll ask when I get the chance to talk to RIM again.
There you have it. They both lived, but not without a few scary hours of "I killed it" running through my head.
Hope you enjoyed my first of many adventures. No I won't be trying this with the iPad or iPhone... or ever again to be honest. However if I do leave any of the above on the front seat of my car this summer, I'll be sure to post the outcome.
Next post I'll be ranting about the RIM conference call on Earnings and forecasts. Stay Tuned.
ASG
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Playbook Heat Stress Test
I figured that the majority of us are working our asses off every day, and many of us will take our beloved devices with us in our cars and make the daily haul to our jails...er work. I'm sure many of you also occasionally leave whatever you don't have strapped to you in your car for the majority of the working day. I know in the mornings I can barely put my pants on, let alone remember to bring everything from the car to the office, and have often left a laptop or tablet and RARELY but sometimes my Blackberry/iPhone. I generally put all this extra crap in the back seat floor - so as to be both out of the sun and away from prying eyes. But what if... what if we left something like a Playbook or an iPad out in the direct sunlight on a scorcher of a day? Well we shall find out today my friends.
I charged up my Playbook and my spare 9780 last night, and am currently putting them to the test. The Playbook is powered on, Bridged to the 9780, and both are sitting on my dashboard. Outside temperature about two hours before I wrote this is 91 Degrees, and inside my truck it's more like 115-120 (black leather does that and beyond). Add to that the sun absorbing Black material both the Bold and the PB are made out of, and the actual device temperatures are extremely high(I went to take the pic I tweeted earlier, and both devices were hot as hell... to the point of being unable to handle). Will they survive? Will the battery cells cook beyond all recongition? Will the Bluetooth Bridge stay connected? What about an auto-protect mode? We shall see what happens. I really don't want to go get a new tablet, and to be honest I forgot to back the damn thing up last night, so I'm hoping all ends well. The test began at the official sunrise time here in Toronto - 05:39, and I am ending the test at the official 'sunset' time - 21:01 Eastern as per Environment Canada.
ASG
I charged up my Playbook and my spare 9780 last night, and am currently putting them to the test. The Playbook is powered on, Bridged to the 9780, and both are sitting on my dashboard. Outside temperature about two hours before I wrote this is 91 Degrees, and inside my truck it's more like 115-120 (black leather does that and beyond). Add to that the sun absorbing Black material both the Bold and the PB are made out of, and the actual device temperatures are extremely high(I went to take the pic I tweeted earlier, and both devices were hot as hell... to the point of being unable to handle). Will they survive? Will the battery cells cook beyond all recongition? Will the Bluetooth Bridge stay connected? What about an auto-protect mode? We shall see what happens. I really don't want to go get a new tablet, and to be honest I forgot to back the damn thing up last night, so I'm hoping all ends well. The test began at the official sunrise time here in Toronto - 05:39, and I am ending the test at the official 'sunset' time - 21:01 Eastern as per Environment Canada.
ASG
Monday, 13 June 2011
A Foreword, and Forewarning
First and foremost, Welcome to my Blog.
To give you a little taste of who I am, and what to expect, I figured I'd post a little warm and fuzzy 'about me' welcome message to those who are awesome/brave enough to visit.
I'm outspoken. Let's just get that out there right now. If a few "F" words offend you, I invite you to press the close tab button right now. If however you have a twisted sense of humor and a deeply rooted anger at just about everything (but still manage to smile at life), read on, you'll enjoy it here I promise. Since I can remember, I have been obsessed with technology. When I was 6 or 7, I disassembled my parents cable TV converter box "just to see how it worked", which ended in a solitary confinement grounding and a trip to the Radio Shack for a new one. That started it all... I was obsessed. My first cell phone was a Motorola Microtac Analog flip radiation emitter, followed shortly after by a Startac Analog flip "phone" (phone is in quoted because the network was so bad where I lived, I was lucky to complete 25% of the calls I made... it was really just a fancy battery draining device).
The leap to Digital came when I was in my final 2 senior years in Highschool. Enter the Nokia 2190. This thing could make calls somewhat clear, it was heavy enough to use as a weapon, and the 400 cell 3lb Nimh Battery actually lasted through the day. As Highschool ended and I entered the real world.... more anger set in. People started making me angry just by being there. No reason to be mad at them really... just the pure thought of the public made me cringe. As such I got a Sales job at Future Shop (this is long, LONG before Best Buy got their greedy blue stained fingers all over Future Shops nuts). I figured where else can I be surrounded by the stuff I love, while also being able to rip off every sucker that dared walk into my department.
I was given a demo phone. A Nokia 5190 with a revolutionary Lithium Ion Battery and this monsterous "Analog Module" that clipped between the battery and the handset. It was literally 3in fucking thick with all this attached to it. I was pissed till I had a "Fuck me we have reached the peak of technology" moment when I found.... Snake. Hours were wasted in the lunchroom, people from the streets fainted in awe of this breakthrough game all somehow stored on this brand new "tiny" phone. Add to that my badass chrome faceplate that I got from this new "ebay" site, and good god I was ready to take over the world.
Fast Forward a few more years, mid 2000's or so. I had long since left Future Shop, Went to University, and after that got a job selling cars. I know... Sleazy Car Salesman. It was a Job ok? Anyhoo... Technology was advancing rapidly. I now had a Motorola Razr which at the time was a badass phone. It actually fit in my pocket without looking like I had a massive hard on, worked pretty reliably most of the time, and it was aluminum - and as such, took most of my abuse. it also had this odd option... a micro SD card. I think I sold a kidney for a 512mb micro SD card just to load up some shitty bitrate MP3's I ripped from Napster on there. Life was good.
Enter the more recent years. I started my smartphone life with a massive mistake that was the HTC Titan. Fuck my life it was terrible. Huge, Screen barely worked, a Flex cable that I'm pretty sure was made of paper, and it had early release Windows mobile. I made another mistake and replaced it with an HTC Touch... I wont even go there. After I put the Touch into an early grave,(I made it a point to break that fucking disaster as soon as I could) I grabbed a Palm Treo running Windows Mobile. Not bad. I still hated the mini Windows UI, the phone was kinda big, but hey it worked. Before my ridiculous 3 year contract was up, I bought my first Blackberry - The Curve 8300. It took a good week to do a battery pull on this fucking thing, but my god, to this day I still call it "The Tank". It took all of my abuse, it got wet, dropped, thrown in anger, and it still stood back up and asked for more.
After that life as I knew it was over. I worked (and work) for a Telecom company, so I have access and have used just about every mobile device/tablet/mistake that has ever been made. If there is something that's out there that I can't access directly, a short drive to Chinatown solves that problem rather quickly (Ever used a Blueberry with a TV tuner? This guy has). I currently own more mobile products than I need, and are probably worth more than the GDP of Zimbabwe... or somewhere. I'm not a Blackberry or Apple or Android fanboy, I am just an angry dude who loves/hates tech, and will now share his opinions with the world.
Stay tuned, I know this was long winded, but it only gets better and more ridiculous from here.
ASG
To give you a little taste of who I am, and what to expect, I figured I'd post a little warm and fuzzy 'about me' welcome message to those who are awesome/brave enough to visit.
I'm outspoken. Let's just get that out there right now. If a few "F" words offend you, I invite you to press the close tab button right now. If however you have a twisted sense of humor and a deeply rooted anger at just about everything (but still manage to smile at life), read on, you'll enjoy it here I promise. Since I can remember, I have been obsessed with technology. When I was 6 or 7, I disassembled my parents cable TV converter box "just to see how it worked", which ended in a solitary confinement grounding and a trip to the Radio Shack for a new one. That started it all... I was obsessed. My first cell phone was a Motorola Microtac Analog flip radiation emitter, followed shortly after by a Startac Analog flip "phone" (phone is in quoted because the network was so bad where I lived, I was lucky to complete 25% of the calls I made... it was really just a fancy battery draining device).
The leap to Digital came when I was in my final 2 senior years in Highschool. Enter the Nokia 2190. This thing could make calls somewhat clear, it was heavy enough to use as a weapon, and the 400 cell 3lb Nimh Battery actually lasted through the day. As Highschool ended and I entered the real world.... more anger set in. People started making me angry just by being there. No reason to be mad at them really... just the pure thought of the public made me cringe. As such I got a Sales job at Future Shop (this is long, LONG before Best Buy got their greedy blue stained fingers all over Future Shops nuts). I figured where else can I be surrounded by the stuff I love, while also being able to rip off every sucker that dared walk into my department.
I was given a demo phone. A Nokia 5190 with a revolutionary Lithium Ion Battery and this monsterous "Analog Module" that clipped between the battery and the handset. It was literally 3in fucking thick with all this attached to it. I was pissed till I had a "Fuck me we have reached the peak of technology" moment when I found.... Snake. Hours were wasted in the lunchroom, people from the streets fainted in awe of this breakthrough game all somehow stored on this brand new "tiny" phone. Add to that my badass chrome faceplate that I got from this new "ebay" site, and good god I was ready to take over the world.
Fast Forward a few more years, mid 2000's or so. I had long since left Future Shop, Went to University, and after that got a job selling cars. I know... Sleazy Car Salesman. It was a Job ok? Anyhoo... Technology was advancing rapidly. I now had a Motorola Razr which at the time was a badass phone. It actually fit in my pocket without looking like I had a massive hard on, worked pretty reliably most of the time, and it was aluminum - and as such, took most of my abuse. it also had this odd option... a micro SD card. I think I sold a kidney for a 512mb micro SD card just to load up some shitty bitrate MP3's I ripped from Napster on there. Life was good.
Enter the more recent years. I started my smartphone life with a massive mistake that was the HTC Titan. Fuck my life it was terrible. Huge, Screen barely worked, a Flex cable that I'm pretty sure was made of paper, and it had early release Windows mobile. I made another mistake and replaced it with an HTC Touch... I wont even go there. After I put the Touch into an early grave,(I made it a point to break that fucking disaster as soon as I could) I grabbed a Palm Treo running Windows Mobile. Not bad. I still hated the mini Windows UI, the phone was kinda big, but hey it worked. Before my ridiculous 3 year contract was up, I bought my first Blackberry - The Curve 8300. It took a good week to do a battery pull on this fucking thing, but my god, to this day I still call it "The Tank". It took all of my abuse, it got wet, dropped, thrown in anger, and it still stood back up and asked for more.
After that life as I knew it was over. I worked (and work) for a Telecom company, so I have access and have used just about every mobile device/tablet/mistake that has ever been made. If there is something that's out there that I can't access directly, a short drive to Chinatown solves that problem rather quickly (Ever used a Blueberry with a TV tuner? This guy has). I currently own more mobile products than I need, and are probably worth more than the GDP of Zimbabwe... or somewhere. I'm not a Blackberry or Apple or Android fanboy, I am just an angry dude who loves/hates tech, and will now share his opinions with the world.
Stay tuned, I know this was long winded, but it only gets better and more ridiculous from here.
ASG
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