h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Has anyone mentioned the ZTEblade? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Blade

It's an unexpectedly-good-for-its-surprisingly-low-cost Android phone, and it's changed how I use my phone.

I use it for sending and receiving texts and emails, obviously, receiving twitter and facebook, and reading Kindle books. I also use it for checking when busses and trains will arrive. It's camera is poor and I find it fiddly to type on, so if you live for sending pictures to Facebook or Twitter, then it's not the phone for you.

It's far better than the other phones in the same price range, even if it's not as great as some other phones mentioned. The screen is small compared to an iThing, and presumably very small compared to a Galaxy, I guess.

I chose it because I pay £11.50 for my monthly voice and data contract, and I did not want to triple that and tie myself in for a couple of years, which is what it would take to get an iPhone or Samsung.

They cost about £100ish without a contract, (though I paid £50 for mine from a colleague) so in 2 years, I'll have spent £376 compared with £864 for an iPhone over the same period of time.

Is the iPhone or Samsung five hundred quid sexier? Hmmmm.... I've no regrets. I need a new laptop and can buy one with the saving.

The ZTE blade is fabulous value for money; a good phone for a ridiculously good price.

B

I was initially resentful of the fact that they tie you in for two years. Then I realised 'Be realistic - probably you'll stay with the same provider for several years because and they'll keep offering you super upgrades. Or if they don't - say you're off and they soon will. So just relax and grab the best phone they offer you at an affordable monthly price.'

Keep it simple.

One tremendously frustrating thing I find with user interface design is when someone says "How do I do X?". And when you look at the device they're trying to use, there's a massive button right there in the middle of it marked "To do X, PRESS HERE", and you're left to wonder just how much easier the designers could have made it. Truly, nature builds the best idiots.

On your point re: knowing stuff exists - I think one of the delights of owning an iPhone (can't really speak for the Android) is finding out something else it's capable of that you didn't previously know about. This is almost never a "WHY did I not already know that" and is almost invariably a "really? COOL!" moment.

Again, I think that Apple scores on the "making it not scary" front (and has since 1984). That's a large part of what I *think* Applecentres are supposed to be about, that user-training thing. In the days when computers came as separate bits you had to interconnect yourself, the Mac came in a single box you just plugged in.

In the days when computers boasted of how many slots they had that you could plug extra (scary looking bare circuit board) bits into (so long as you wore one of those static bracelet things and opened the case...), Macs boasted of coming with everything you needed and being basically sealed against any user interference. And they came in cool transparent cases, in a range of nice colours.

And in the days when phones were getting smaller (remember the Nokia 7280?) and had lots of buttons... the first iPhone was a thick, almost featureless slab with a single button on the front with a friendly round-cornered square on it.

In terms of "is there money in making the user experience better?" I think Apple's history provides conflicting answers: in the mid 90s who'd have predicted where Apple would be today?

Ed, I've been a mobile phone user since 1991 or 1992. I've had contracts and kept the same phone number, all that time.

I don't mind buying technology on contract like that, it just happens that right now I didn't want my monthly contract rate to go up; (£11.50 is pertty good after all).

I know that this is because I got burned with my previous phone. I wanted to stay with Orange (good customer service) rather than moving to 3 (or whoever it was who had the iPhone at the time) and Orange didn't have an iPhone in their line-up at the time. So I went into a shop and played with the products and bought a shiny thing. But there was no cooling off period (unlike buying online) and I had signed up for an 18- or 24-month contract.

What really hurt was was that this was two months (count them!) before Orange announced they were selling the iPhone.

The technology's more predictable now (the Apps Store rocks, Android is established) but I really like having the ability to leave Orange any time I like now.

B

This is in fact my greatest worry, the monthly costs. I will rather buy a more expensive phone if I have less per month. So far I payed only 20 Euros in 3-5 months, depending on how 'much' I used the phone. It's a bit more since I moved to my appartment and have to call my parents regularly. There's not really anyone else I call, I much rather write an email than spend time on the phone.

The phone company I have at the moment offers 1GB per month for 4 Euros and 4 Euros per additional GB and 4 cent per minute for phonecalls, 4 cent per text message (no general monthly fees).

I'll admit that I was more talking about Android than Apple - if we leave iTunes aside. iTunes are the *worst* at support. You can't even work out what question to ask. My iTunes directory has little blobs beside some of the tracks. wtf do they mean? Can I search 'little blobs next to tracks'?

The same also applies to web-based services. Facebook is a prime example. Yes - when you know what it is you're doing is easy enough. But working out *what* you can do...or working out what this thing it says you can do actually means in terms of its real-world impact on you - that's where they all fall down.



You'll have seen this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/28/charlie-brooker-pfroblem-with-macs

Tav.

Forget the data costs. You won't go over 1GB - unless you're really silly. (caveat: or if you cross a border. *turn off data before crossing a border*). You will be able to use the more data-hungry functions (like downloading apps) at home over WiFi.

All you need worry about is how many minutes of calls and how many texts you want - and in the UK at least they're pretty generous these days.

Do you have a recent phone bill which tells you how many minutes you spend on the phone each month?

I believe I had a pop at iTunes in the second line of post 4 on this thread.

Without a screenshot it's hard to tell, but I'd guess the blobs are next to tracks you've not listened to. Maybe.

Seriously though - *almost* all my objections to iTunes evaporated when I spent a few days tearing down my music collection and starting from scratch properly and working out just what it does when it's "consolidating" and what it does when it's "adding" and stuff like that. And if you do start from scratch, it works wonderfully well.

If, on the other hand, and entirely hypothetically, you just say "add folder to library", and "folder" contains 300Gb of random pirated music your mate gave you, what you end up with is a terrible, terrible un-navigable mess with endless duplicated files that, even if it were possible to sort out, would take literally months of dragging and dropping because, surprise surprise, Apple didn't write their software with the convenience of music pirates in mind. It's possible to use pirated music, of course... just not in 300Gb chunks if you want it to work anything like properly. Entirely hypothetically.

I don't know how many minutes I spend on the phone every month but a quick calculation showed that it must be about 40 minutes (no, I didn't forget a 0). Which makes any offer of 1000 minutes or more quite silly and it would cost me more to do that than just pay per minute.

Yes, I read your pop at iTunes, SoRB - and was building on it.

It is, perhaps, unfair of me then to expect iTunes to do something that it's not meant to. What it's meant to do is to make me buy music from Apple. Possibly it's good at that. It's usable, just... no use to me.

My real criticism, then, is that it's simply a product I don't want. Unfortunately...I do want my iPod. But that's what Banshee is for.

As for spending days on it...meh. Not my kind of thing.

that's exactly my problem with iTunes - it kept trying to make me buy stuff and frankly, I have better things to do than spend hours learning it. Especially when I can just pick up a Creative mp3 player and use it and my PC without having to trouble the grey matter.

Indeedy. Overall...poor User Experience, aka UX. Doesn't fit well into our lives. Makes our life fit *it*.

Tav, I have a pay as you go iPhone. Got the phone second hand, so not too expensive, and now I pay ten pounds a month. This gives me whatever the minimum download and text rate is, which is pretty generous for me and so the money I spend on phone calls, which again is ample. That said it only works if you get the handset cheap, otherwise I'd have gone for the cheapest monthly contract. As Ed said, you are unlikely to need more than what that offers.

As for the waste aspect, well, thing is now I have a phone which I have an incentive to keep charged and with me because it has other useful stuff on it, I use it more. Doubt I use close to the limit, yet, but give me time...

And if you do find you need more, then surely they would let you upgrade?

Well, as I said they offer 1 gb for only 4 Euros per month (another 4 for every additional gb) and 4 cent per minute phonecalls. No other monthly contract. Just 4 Euros and the call fees.

Here's an easy guide - http://i43.tinypic.com/10rogb5.jpg

I have a Samsung Galaxy S which I'm very happy with. I got it in September 2010 and it's served me well (aside from occasionally shutting itself down for no apparent reason, which I have always been able to solve by taking the battery out, replacing it and turning the phone on again).

I use mine mostly for the internet rather than calls and texts, if I'm honest. My deal is £25 a month with Orange and gives me 300 minutes of calls (I use barely any of that), unlimited texts and 500GB of data. I don't usually use more than about 70-80% of that because I don't use it for data-heavy activities such as Youtube or internet radio, and when I'm at home I use it on Wifi.

Thanks. I really think it will be a Samsung. Not sure which. I have to go and look at them again.

My current phone is also a Samsung and it served me well for years, I got it second hand so no idea how old it really is. Only recently it starts making problems.