confessions of a serial hobbyist

It’s been a good 2 weeks since I’ve posted…I’ve barely started and I’m already slacking.
Anyways, I’ve been reading a number of blog posts by people giving their history of phones and I figured I have almost my entire history of phones in one easy place: iSync. I haven’t removed old devices from it (save my first phone I synced with my laptop, because this is a different laptop). And yes, this is just from the past year.

The phones (and a pda):

From left to right we have:

• A Sony Ericsson Z520a. A decent little feature phone, hindered by a horrid memory leak that required restarting fairly often.
• Motorola SLVR. Small, thin, and overall not a bad feature phone. It even includes the iTunes client so I could sync with my laptop and listen to the tracks I purchased off of the iTunes Store. Unfortunately at this time I was still locked in to the idea that clamshells were better.
• Motorola RAZR. The phone so many of us now love to hate. Honestly I wasn’t a fan, but I happened to have one laying around, and wanted a clamshell that didn’t require regular restarts, so I used it for a short while.
• Nokia 6682. This was the phone that made me really want an S60 device. I had played with a number of others before it (the 3650, N-Gage, 6600, 6620, 6630) but they were all either huge, or oddly shaped, or whatever. And coming from a non-smartphone background (I was doing J2ME/BREW software at the time) I looked more at those capabilities than others. Then the 6682 came around. A Cingular handset (this was also before I got into the desire for unlocked devices) that had 3D support (JSR184 support was first introduced in this feature pack with the 6630, but that was never officially released in the US) and honestly a pretty clean look to it. I still have it, albeit it with a slightly scratched up screen.
• Palm TX. Ok so this isn’t a phone, but it replaced the features I came to start using on the 6682 (calendar, to-do, etc.). I used this plus a non-smartphone for a while, with bluetooth tethering. Unfortunately having to carry “one more device” just proved to be too much of a hassle and over time I started carrying it with me less and less. Still, a good device overall.
• Nokia N80. My current phone. It’s the first slider I’ve ever been able to stand (most don’t leave enough room above the top row of keys to be able to quickly type). It convinced me that T9 text input can be fast enough, and that WiFi in a phone is a godsend. It’s also the phone that took me from liking phones, to really liking Nokia phones more specifically.

Now I’ve used quite a number of other devices. I’ve done years of mobile development and have used dozens of handsets, but this is the list of devices I actually used for any duration of time personally. I have some phones that weren’t listed, such as the Sony Ericsson T616 (the phone that really started getting me in to phones) and one of the original N-Gage’s (was sent it by a company I was doing a contract for, who went out of business while I had it, and I never found out who to send it back to). As for what’s next, well, I have a few devices I’m looking at…

• The Nokia E61i. A qwerty phone, with WiFi, and a decent little (by today’s standards) 2mp camera. I’ve been looking at the E62 locally and my main concern other than it being a branded locked phone, is that the keys were too close together. I didn’t mis-type too often, but I FELT like I was, and feel means a lot. The E61i has a newer keyboard that has a bit more spacing between the keys. And even if the resolution is lower than my current N80 (320×240 instead of 352×416) the larger screen size means I can zoom out on web pages and still read them better.
• The Nokia E90. The new behemoth communicator. But really, hardware 3d acceleration powering an 800×352 resolution screen for GREAT web browsing, an insane amount of ram for running more demanding apps, a nice qwerty keyboard, WiFi, GPS, etc. etc. etc. My major concern here is that for what this thing is going to cost I’d need to try it first, and I doubt there’s any way I could get my hands on one.
• The Nokia N95. Speaking of hardware 3d…here’s a more media oriented phone that’s out now. A decent 320×240 screen, built in GPS, TV-out, and really just too many features to mention. And all of the postings I’ve been reading about this are just making it more difficult.

However, I’m waiting on a new phone for a while. Atleast I’m trying to wait…who knows how successful I’ll be. Why? Well as ashamed as I may be to admit this…Nokia is due to launch their new N-Gage platform in a few months and I want to see what phones will support it. Now it’s true that the original N-Gage died a rather miserable death as a phone/gaming system here in the US, and they made a lot of mistakes. However from what I’ve seen of the new platform, and the fact that it’s a platform running on phones, instead of trying to sell a phone as a game system, makes me a bit excited. They just seem to be getting enough things right with it (and the interface is slick from what I saw at this past GDC). I guess I’ll just wait and see…

There are several people out there in blogs I read that are trying to get away from their computers and prove that you can do just fine and replace that laptop/PC with a mobile device. From ThoughtFix, to the Symbian Guru, to even myself, it seems like leaving the computers behind and going fully mobile is the dream du jour. Unfortunately, it’s just not happening. As of yet, NONE of these attempts have been successful. Why?

1. Habits. We’re used to our current usage patterns. It’s easy to get trained in how you use your PC (or Mac…in my case) and even if you want to leave that behind, since most mobile devices aren’t going to work just like a home PC, it’s an instant point against them. On top of this, there’s all of that software, and the games that you’re used to which just aren’t going to be available on mobile devices.
2. Convenience. It’s easier to read on a 20″ monitor than a 2″ (or even 6″) screen. It’s easier to type on a fullscreen keyboard than to type via triple tap, t9, touchscreen, or even thumb keyboard. A mouse is an easier, quicker-to-move, more accurate pointer than using arrow keys to scroll around.
3. Speed. Let’s face it, we just can’t fit a dual-core 2ghz processor like the one in my laptop into something the size of a phone. While I firmly believe that software can be more optimized and run plenty quickly on a 300mhz processor like those found in newer cellphones, it will never be as-fast. This is especially true with things such as video codecs.
4. Work. This is the big catch for me. Flash back to a few years ago when I tried as hard as I could to not run Windows. I worked from home so my personal computer was my “work” computer, and a number of the tools I needed for work were Windows programs. So I installed Linux on a separate harddrive and planned to dual-boot. I tried this to not have to be in Windows because frankly I didn’t like it (why? I don’t even know…I find I care a lot less these days…maybe I’m getting too old to care). And yet I kept having to go back to Windows. Why? Because there would always be something I needed to run that didn’t work well remotely, or would have to reboot for, and over time it would just become too much of a hassle. I would forget to reboot back, or just wouldn’t bother, etc.

But the good news is you can always look on the other side of this…

1. Habits. Habits can always be broken, and reformed. You just have to be willing to deal with the “differentness” of it all in the mean time. The same software might not be there, but there is almost assuredly software that can perform the same task, and while you may not be able to play the same games, there are certainly a good number of games available for mobile devices. You just have to be ok with similar-but-different.
2. Convenience. You want to talk about convenience? What’s more convenient than that one device that’s in your pocket all the time. The ability to grab something from your pocket, do what you have to do, and slip it back away at anytime, from anywhere, is unbeatable.
3. Speed. These devices are getting quicker and quicker, and software is getting more and more optimized. These faster mobile devices, along with quicker wireless networks means the speed gap is closing.
4. Work. We all (well, most atleast) have to have some form of a job. And in a lot of cases that job involves working with other people, and having to use the same kind of equipment they use. If your job involves computers at all, it almost instantly means your mobile device can’t be your only device. However, you can leave work at work, and do everything else on your mobile device just fine, and even bring some work onto it (such as email). Currently I use my phone for almost all of my email, as well as IM, and music listening while at work. Actual work (largely software related) takes place on my work machine, but the rest I do on my little cell phone. I do still bring my laptop with me, but most days it never comes out of its sleeve.

So my little rant on why we’re still stuck with computers (and the flip side to those same points) has come to an end…and I suddenly don’t recall why I started writing it in the first place.

Everything is on demand these days. You push a button and it comes to your doorstep, or it’s downloaded to your computer, or you just subscribe to something and it comes to you without any effort. It sounds great, right? But at what point does living in this on-demand world start to sacrifice actually living?

My wife and I used to go to Blockbuster and just walk around looking at the aisles of bad movies, and occasionally have something stand out that we just had to rent. It was time spent together out of the house. But now? We just hit a few buttons to shove a movie into our Netflix queue and that’s that. It gets here when it gets here and we never had to leave our home. The first few months it was fantastic; movies came in a steady flow and we had new things to watch and it was great. But now I miss actually going out to Blockbuster. I miss us walking over there just to look around, because that time we used to spend outside together is now likely spent with me on the computer and her on the couch, or her on the computer and me at work. Has convenience killed the joy in renting movies for me?

Another example: RSS feeds. I’m a Mac whore, I’ll get that out of the way right now. So as soon as Safari with RSS came out, I subscribed to the RSS feeds on every single website I visit regularly. So now I just have this steady influx of 1-2 new postings as they come in. You know what I miss? Actually sitting at my computer and going to sites, the almost thrill of checking for something new to read. But I don’t have that, because now I know in advance if they’ve been updated or not. I no longer have that 15 minute break in the middle of the day when I’d go around searching my favorite sites for content, because I already know what’s there, and I already know what it’s about, and I already have seen the gist of it fly by on my laptop’s screensaver. Has convenience ruined just surfing the web for me?

I don’t know…a couple examples…possibly a couple of stupid examples, but something to think about none-the-less. At what point does everything being brought to you kill the enjoyment of you actually getting something yourself.

So in deciding that I want to pursue screenwriting and possibly even make a small ultra-low-budget movie (most likely a short) I decided it was time to get a new camcorder, one I could actually use to capture video that I could then use and edit. So after some thought, and reading over a ton of reviews at CamcorderInfo.com I narrowed down my criteria:

1. It had to be Hi-Def. Buying anything standard-def these days is just buying obsolescence.
2. It had to have a mic-in port. If I’m going to do any hobbyist shooting (beyond recording my son to send DVD’s to the grandparents) then I’ll want to use a nice shotgun mic and boom for getting better audio, and having the camcorder record it onto the same tape as the video is easier than managing separate recordings and trying to sync it all up in post.
3. It needed decent manual controls. I don’t need to be able to tweak every little thing, but I want atleast a basic level of control over how the footage will end up.
4. It had to me affordable. So this instantly killed my first choice, the $3500 Canon XH A1. Let’s face it, $3500 is a whole lot of pissed-off-wife to have to face.
5. It had to be a format that’s easily editable. This IMMEDIATELY canceled out the plethora of AVC-HD camcorders. Sure h.264 is great, but a camcorder that records in a format that just about nothing supports means it’s not so useful. HDV won out here, as it’s editable (or atleast importable) by just about everything, and $5 MiniDV cassettes make for cheap archival.

And so, after searching, and waiting, and looking, I settled on my choice, the Canon HV20. It records in 1080i OR 1080p24 (24fps progressive scan…it has a certain cult following), it has a mic-in port, it has decent manual controls, and it’s HDV. Now the price was a bit more than I was hoping to spend, but between finding some good deals and using some online coupons I took a decent chunk out of the MSRP.

So far I haven’t had too much of a chance to use it (had it a day now) but I’m pretty happy with it. It’s comfortable to hold and use, and the button layout fits my hand pretty well - I can reach each of the buttons without stretching. If I get a chance to use it some more, maybe I’ll toss up some footage recorded to give people an idea of the quality…but it’s crisp. I should note that this is the only HD video source in my house - I have a 32″ HDTV but none of my inputs are HD, so maybe that’s why this looks so crisp to me. But overall, it’s a nice camcorder so far, and after a bit more use…or abuse…I’ll post a followup.