If you have been reading this website, you will realize that I finally bulked up (or bulked down, depending on how you view it) from my Blackberry 8820 to a superphone, the Samsung Galaxy S II. When I was walking to the store to pick it up, I had butterflies in my stomach and I could not wait till it was in my hands. I did a lot of work to acquire this phone and so I was overjoyed to finally have it. With that being said, here’s my review and I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible .

The Device

When people first saw my new phone, the first thing that people said was “Isn’t that phone big?” or something along those lines. I was completely blown away as to how many people said that. In retrospect, yes it is big but isn’t size relative? I mean, when the first iPod Touch came out, wasn’t that a big mp3 player compared to the norm? Yes it has a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen that provides amazing clarity but to me, it’s not big. In fact, this phone is the thinnest and lightest in the Canadian market coming in at 8.49mm and 117g which in my opinion, makes up for the “bigness” of the phone. To put that into perspective, the iPhone has a 3.5″ screen and weighs in at 137g with its thinnest point being 9.3mm. To the casual observer this may not be a striking difference but compare it side-by-side and you’re looking at apples and oranges. They’re both fruit but strikingly different qualities.

I’ll admit that at first it was a little awkward to handle, but like transitioning from a physical keyboard to a virtual one, the end result has left me with no regrets. The ironic thing is, when I go back to my iPod Touch, it feels incredibly small but when I go from my iPad to my Samsung Galaxy S II, I don’t get that same feeling.

Another major difference between the Samsung Galaxy S II are the buttons on the bottom. Most Android smartphones have 4 buttons compared to the SGSII’s 3 which usually goes Menu, Home, Search and Return. I prefer the 3 button scheme that Samsung used on the GS2 because it’s less cluttered and there’s a definable center to it.

Software

I haven’t used the first iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S, but supposedly the new interface, TouchWIZ 4, is a drastic improvement from its predecessor. Most notably, the aesthetics and performance have been improved. I can’t speak much to this because I don’t use the default interface as I have installed an application called GoLauncher EX to replace it. I am currently fiddling with it and finding it quite versatile so I will keep you up to date on that one. Just recently though I updated my SGS2 from the stock 2.3.3 that Bell provides to a custom ROM called Sensation ROM 1.9 that has upgraded me to 2.3.5. The most notable improvements are the battery life (very significant) and when you scroll to the top and bottom, it flashes to let you know it’s reached the end. The call screen is more refined and allows for easier access to contact information. Overall, I’m in love with the software and thus the interface.

Battery Life

As I mentioned above, I’ve upgraded my phone and with that upgrade has come significant battery improvements. Before it would last me from about 10am-2am and the battery would be in critical mode. Thus when I would be heading out that night without my power cord I would recharge it before hitting the town. Now with the upgrade I have no worries as to whether it will last the day or not. On a power hungry day I’ll be down to 25% and on regular days it’ll be closer to 50% battery life left.

Features

Building on the software aspect of this phone, I was surprised to learn with the release of ICS, that a lot of the features that were innovative on it, were already a part of the SGS2. One feature was the “Reject a call with a text message”. This is a really cool feature and was already on my phone when I got it. It comes in handy for sure. I also enjoy the screen after the end of a call where it gives you the option of sending a message or calling again to that same contact. Another “cool” feature in ICS is being able to uninstall apps from the launcher. On my SGS2 I can do hold the apps and click uninstall. I can also drag apps from my home screen up to the top to remove it from the home screen.

Conclusion

Overall I am very happy with my SGS2. The only problem I had with it was the battery life but since that’s been resolved it’s been a dream to have. I still use my iPod Touch as it’s a great music player which I do believe Google still needs to improve on but since I like having two devices anyways I’m happy. Google is making strides with this, with the introduction of Google Music and so it will be interesting to see how it shapes up in the future.

If you have any questions about the SGS2 please don’t hesitate to ask and if any of you have comments about your experience with the SGS2 add them here. Until next time…

Popularity: 9% [?]

This is the final installment in this series. The moment you have ALL been waiting for is finally here. As you can probably tell, I have made my choice. The following is a list of steps that I did to get the best deal in my opinion.

Step 1

I basically decided that to get the possible deal I would need to take over someones contract. To do this, I went onto Cellswapper, Kijiji and Craigslist in search of someone who had a free HUP and was willing to do a contract takeover. This can be an arduous process but in the end it worked out. i got a new phone, a great contract and some more buying power that I wouldn’t have received if I was a brand new customer.

Step 2

Next you need to get into contact with a seller that fits your needs as some offer a longer contract but a free phone. From there, many things can happen because exchanging a contract can be a very tricky process since the new party wants to verify some details about the contract and the current contract holder doesn’t want to get screwed over. In my case, he added my name to the account, I negotiated for a retention plan. Once i was satisfied with my plan, I confirmed and then we did the account transfer. The next day I did my free hardware upgrade to my current, beautiful phone which I will do a review on later.

Step 3

Enjoy your new contract and phone! The details on what I got myself into are:

• Samsung Galaxy S 2 with Bell Mobility

Plan Details ($49.50/month + taxes)

• 200 Anytime
• Unlimited E/W at 7pm
• Nationwide Fab 10
• Caller ID and Messaging Centre
• Unlimited MMS/SMS…
• 1gb data

Overall I am extremely happy and when the school term starts I’m going to try and add some long distance minutes for free onto it. If I am successful I will add it on here.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I came up with this series mainly to document my struggles and joys with switching from one carrier to another. I am learning many things including what options to exercise and really how cutthroat the wireless industry is. I had initial idea of what I wanted to do when I set on this learning experience. That initial idea involved just going to Wind Mobile and picking a top-end phone that was compatible with their network. Like everything in life, it wasn’t so easy.

Why I Didn’t Go This Path

Wind Mobile is expanding at a rapid rate but has still left voids in its current coverage area leaving me skeptic about a brand new coverage area in KW. Although I am a student and I really should have low needs and a low budget, I am also constantly looking for a new job for the next co-op term or communicating with my current employer. It wouldn’t be the best situation if I had a potential employer on the line and the call gets dropped or they place a call to me and I’m in a dead zone so they can’t get a hold of me. Sure it’s probably going to be fairly rare but at the end of the day I’m not going to go with a more robust network which the Big Three can offer me in the Kitchener/Waterloo region.

The price (and new smartphones) keep on enticing me but with network quality so important I decided it wasn’t in my best interest for now. Hopefully down the road they’ll still be there with competitive prices and updated phones so I can give them another shot.

My New Options

With Wind Mobile out of the picture (keep in mind I’m not considering Mobilicity & Public Mobile due to their lack of coverage in KW), I was left with the Big Three and their side brands. Outlined below is my current opinion on the carriers I have to choose from.

Fido – My current carrier has done fairly well for me but because it’s a discount brand, the phones do lack in quality (they’ve added the LG O2x and Nexus S which are two great phones). I have a decent plan but what really threw me off was a horrible mishap that they handled even worse and a call into the CSR to upgrade. Not everyone will experience this so take the following with a grain of salt.

• Mishap -I basically lost my SIM and so I needed to replace it. I went in to purchase one; got home and put it in. Called Fido; they did some stuff and then they told me to power down and restart. I did as I was told and hung up. My Blackberry took a long time to load up but when it did, I had someones account with their number. I called Fido back and they had no clue how it happened and I was just going to have to wait. They also told me I was free to use the account however I pleased. The next day, I’m calling Fido to figure out the status of my situation and lo and behold, I can’t make a phone call because they’ve cut my service off. Luckily I’m in a mall with a Fido store so I go in and the guy sells me a SIM card and I’m finally back to my old account after a call in to Fido. Best I get for my troubles in unlimited local calling for the month.
• CSR – I was able to let go of the above situation because other than that, Fido was pretty good to me. My friend recently got a contract renewal so I decided I’d try the same. The guy I talked to laughed at me when I mentioned it and told me I’d never get it. The way he acted actually disgusted me and from that point I vowed not to go back. I felt hugely mistreated for making such a simple call that usually gets a yes or no answer.

Rogers - Although they are a powerhouse, I have never enjoyed dealing with them and our family (among others) has had considerable problems with them. Granted most other wireless companies do, I have had first hand experience with them. With that being said, there’s little chance I will choose them especially considering the above experiences as well.

Bell – I had never heard a good thing about Bell in regards to customer service support and as you can tell I’m not a big fan of poor customer service. The restructuring of BCE, Bell’s parent company, in 2008 marked a turn for the better with a focus on better customer and tech support. I have still heard stories but it didn’t seem as bad and what wireless company doesn’t have a bad story or two?

Telus – This is actually probably the only wireless company I have not heard a bad thing about so far but then again the only person I know who’s on Telus is my Dad and he doesn’t have many issues as he’s on prepaid and barely uses the phone. The reason though I will not be considering these guys is because they don’t offer some of the top phones (although they will probably be releasing the Samsung Galaxy S II variant, Hercules).

From here, I’ll have to decide where I want to go and there will be sacrifices on the way. The factors playing into my choice are:

• Hardware Choices (i.e. what types of cell phones they offer)
• Plan Choice (i.e. what kind of a package can I get)
• Price (i.e. pretty self-explanatory )

Popularity: 2% [?]

This year has been marked with some huge advancements in the wireless industry. The Android OS has finally taken off, dual-core processors have been released with quad-core processors in the works, 4G networks are slowly making their way to your community as well as many more things. The big thing for me is, as of September 24, 2011, my 3 year contract expires. Up to this point, I have contemplated what to do about this situation. This series will chronicle all the mishaps, joys and thoughts about this personal experience that I am about to go through.

All of the posts related to this series will be linked on here as well as a snippet of upcoming posts. The first post in this series is going to highlight how you, the consumer, can get a better deal on your current plan or upcoming one.

How to get the Best Cell Phone Plan

The Carrier Switch: Phase One

The Carrier Switch: Phase Two

The Carrier Switch: Phase Three

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Sony-Ericsson Xperia PLAY smart phone has been welcomed as a girl-magnet, not the least
because of its unbelievable PlayStation capabilities, and also because of its fully featured smart
phone uses which are built on and enhanced from the older Samsung Galaxy S.

For anybody looking for a smart phone which is super efficient in giving you fully featured access
to Facebook, Gmail and Twitter as well as in built game controls, then the Xperia PLAY will let you
bury yourself in entertainment all day. All the while living a fantasy come true with its proven smart
phone features and its PlayStation capabilities which rival its nearest competitor, the Samsung
Galaxy S.

Some of the PlayStation phone’s ingenious features include the following:

•Games All game players will realise that no games load instantly. This is also true of the
Sony-Ericsson Xperia PLAY smart phone, but the time taken is quite acceptable. The game’s
operational speed is also quite fast with continuous smooth frame rates. It has all the basics
right for a pleasant PlayStation experience. The PlayStation phone’s slide out gamepad is
no doubt its figurative and literal centrepiece, and it performs well when compared with
a console. The directional keys are quite firm as are the face buttons. Between these two
keys you will find the two analogue pads. The biggest benefit when using these pads, instead
of a touch screen on a phone like the Samsung Galaxy S, comes when you find you are not
obscuring the screen. This allows you to continually follow all the action. Each pad contains
an indent you can feel with your thumb, meaning you never have to look down to see what
you are doing.

•Inside The Sony-Ericsson Xperia PLAY smart phone contains a solid 1500mAh cell battery,
which lasts around 22 hours before it needs recharging, when usage is confined to normal
phone usage, and between five and six hours on full-on game play.

•Camera The still imaging is quite sharp and crisp in the camera department where you can
adjust for focusing, white balance and exposure. A main feature is the phone’s macro mode
which allows you to reproduce good photographs up close.

Many smart phone users will be leaning towards the Samsung Galaxy S’s four inch super AMOLED
screen for viewing videos and playing games, with its vivid and vibrant colours, even when out in the
sunlight, especially when compared with the Xperia PLAY’s lesser detail in this area. However, you
will get the added advantage of an effective PlayStation in the palm of your hand wherever you go.

For other Sony-Ericsson mobile phones and deals, visit Mobile Phone Finder.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I have been on various trips and many of them involve the airplane. I have heard of horror stories where people lose their baggage and either don’t get it until a lot later or never get it all. I remember watching the movie, Meet the Parents, and Ben Stiller loses his luggage for most of the trip. Well I too worry about that very same thing happening to me every time I go on a plane trip, those painful moments waiting to see whether your luggage is going to enter the conveyor belt. ReboundTag approached me to do a product placement and I graciously accepted because I wanted to see how it would work and if it would solve my problems. They sent me their featured product, the Microchip Bag Tag accompanied with a 3 year membership.

Now I haven’t been able to use it yet because I have yet to be on a plane trip just yet and so this is just an initial review. Now whatever the company may say, airport security in various airports across the world have a mind of their own and so when they see this tag, they may just snip it just like they did to one of our pieces of luggage because they didn’t recognize our lock. They also snipped the zippers which makes no sense but that’s airport security for you.

The basic overview of this product is you receive the tag, register it on their website and change the description of your luggage that it will be attached to and your travel itinerary and this can be updated on the go on their website. You can also choose to be anonymous which means that airlines or other people can only send you messages about where your luggage is.

Later I will update you on how this product fairs when I put it through its paces.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Midway Games has announced a release date for its new game, Wheelman, for the end of the coming month of March. Tigon Studios, a company founded by Vin Diesel, is working closely with Midway Games to produce this all-new video game for the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 and PC. Both these companies have assembled world class people as well as up-and-coming young talent to help produce this game.

“We’re designing Wheelman to play like a Hollywood blockbuster,” said Vin Diesel, Wheelman star and executive producer, Tigon Studios. “Playing this game will be just like taking control of the greatest car chases from feature films, except this time you’re in the driver’s seat.”

For the first time ever, a video game is set in Barcelona. The developer of this game has provided three reasons for this setting, primarily because it is such a beautiful city—complete with great geography, natural landmarks and breathtaking architecture, all of which have been integrated into the game. This makes for a great backdrop while you, the gamer, are creating carnage everywhere. It is also the perfect setting used to depict the real world as a basis for all the different personalities in the story (e.g., Romanian arms dealers, the Chulos street punk biker gang, and Spanish mafia). Last, but certainly not least, Barcelona is jam packed with sweeping highways and tunnels—great for high-speed pursuits, as well as narrow alleyways that are perfect for bikes and smaller vehicles.

Now, what is this video game about? In essence, the storyline is as follows: Vin Diesel is the main character playing an undercover CIA agent named Milo Burik. His job is to infiltrate the gangs of Barcelona to gather intel on a covert heist. He is an amazing driver, so he works as the “wheelman,” hence the name of the game. The cops come into play because he’s undercover, and since the local cops have no clue, he has to stay one step ahead of them.

The whole gameplay heavily reminds me of Burnout and GTA; Burnout because of its destructive theme, and GTA because of its real world focus and the third person on foot gameplay. Nevertheless, Wheelman has something to offer gamers that both these games don’t: each vehicle is finely tuned and thus the level of gameplay has gone up.

For example, each car in Wheelman has its own physics model for handling and damage, making it much more realistic and allowing the gamer to pull off better drifts, 360 spins, handbrake turns and other stunts. One of the huge features that I noticed was the Vehicle Melee System and being able to shoot at enemies while driving. The Vehicle Melee feature allows gamers to sideswipe pursuing enemies with a simple flick of the joystick. Wheelman’s devastating “slam-n-ram” manoeuvres can be carried out in all directions, just like how it would be in a Hollywood-style car chase.

It doesn’t just stop with those two features; you also have the option of being able to “Air Jack” a car. The days are over where you stop gameplay by getting out of a car and stealing a new one. In Wheelman, you can leap from one moving vehicle to another. On top of this, there is a feature called “Aimed Shot,” which enables gamers to slow down gameplay in order to achieve better accuracy while shooting targets, such as weak spots on cars. This feature works in conjunction with another called “Cyclone.” Gamers are allowed to perform the cyclone move; the cyclone move turns the vehicle 180 degrees and makes an Aimed Shot.

Now let’s get to the objective of this post: the cars and bikes. Wheelman is loaded with as many cars and classes as GTA. There are a multitude of vehicles, such as compact hatchbacks, German sedans, limousines, sport cars, vans, scooters, trucks, and sport bikes. However, let’s not forget about the weapons. Wheelman has all the standard weapons one would expect to see in such a game, including pistols, machine guns, sub-machine guns, grenade launchers, and assault rifles.

In terms of actual gameplay, Wheelman is jam-packed with action. It contains 105 side missions that are broken down into seven categories: Fugitive, Contracts, Street Showdown, Hot Potato, Taxi, Made to Order and Rampage. These side missions tie into the main story and help unlock key bonuses such as garages, weapon/ammo caches, tuning shops and taxi points. Each side mission shows up on the PDA map and sends you an email once it is unlocked.

Wheelman is such a versatile game and action packed that people from Hollywood are trying to develop a script for its movie adaptation. Everyone should keep in mind that it was the game that came first. Currently, the movie is considered as a completely separate entity, which confuses many people. Look out for this game at the end of March 2009, as well as the game-based-movie later on.

Watch the trailer here.

Popularity: 29% [?]

I just got my hands on a new portable video camcorder called the Flip Video Ultra Series, made by Pure Digital. First off, I’ve got to say that it’s got some slick packaging—even in the interior; it definitely hyped up my enthusiasm for this product. One thing that struck me as a huge plus to this camcorder was its compact design compared to the heavy, chunky one we have that lasts only 30 minutes with the LCD screen out. This one could fit in your back pocket and be thrown around, though I would not recommend the latter.

Design

Without a doubt, this compact camcorder is not up to Sony standards—not even close. Everything is basically plastic and even the buttons look cheap. The buttons are easy to press and are placed where it makes sense. It’s simple enough, though, and the colour scheme is ultra modern. It has a nice curved shape that fits the palm of your hands well. The exterior case is easily worn down and I can already see marks within the first week and I’ve barely touched it.

Package Contents

This compact camcorder is unique because you can always attach it to a computer with the included USB stick that is neatly attached to its side. It also does not require any software as the software is built-in to the camcorder. The one thing that wasn’t up to standards was the mechanism that released the USB stick. On my first try I was able to easily release it, but the problem came about when I tried to put it back in. Seems that I didn’t pull the latch down far enough so it just snapped back making it impossible to flip the USB back in. After further trial and error, I finally figured that I had to pull the latch down to the bottom where it would sit there until the USB stick was pushed and the latch would close shut. 

USB Stick

Another thing that struck me as interesting, was the  “Lock/Unlock” switch located at the bottom of the camcorder. At first I thought it would apply to all the buttons, which seemed logical. I tested it, and it turns out that it only applies to the battery case. Now this is another cool thing about the Flip Video Ultra Series, the battery case placement. It took me a good five minutes to figure out where the battery case was and I had to resort to looking at the instructions to figure out where it was. This is a perfect discrete place to put it and makes the design even better. 

Battery Case

Last, but definitely not least is the power button. With all the stupid things I’ve done with this camcorder, I feel even more stupid writing this, but hey, I’m an honest guy, so what the heck. To me, I think it would be common sense to put a symbol beside the power button to tell users that it is in-fact the power button. When I first pulled down on it, I figured it would do something else, but to my surprise, it turned it on. The great thing is that it takes no less than two seconds to turn on. 

Video Quality

This is where the good times stop in my mind. In all fairness, I would be totally surprised if this machine was built for quality videos. It comes nowhere near that even at close range. If you are more than 5 metres away from the point of interest, forget about shooting the video. This camcorder is made for close ups like birthday parties or stuff like that. Please, do not expect to get good family vacation videos out of this while you are visiting some gorgeous landmark in Europe. The screen is small, but it does its job: fair enough. It displays only the needed information such as the amount of time left and the status of the camcorder. At my company meeting for Junior Achievement, we put together some videos of us packaging our product, from  Xpress’d so if you’d like to take a look at the actual quality then be my guest. If you’d like to buy a customized white t-shirt then just leave a comment or head to the website above.

Find more videos like this on Xpress’d

Don’t expect to get great zoom either because it only has a 2x digital zoom, which is the worst of the two (digital and optical). Optical is by far the best, and even I can notice the difference when I switch from optical to digital zoom on my digital camera. 

The Flip Video Ultra Series provides you with up to 60 minutes of video on its built-in flash memory depending on which size you get. The 1GB holds 30 minutes while the 2GB holds 60 minutes. Both versions of the Flip Video Ultra Series store the video on MPEG-4 at 30 frames per second—perfect for easy transers to your iPod. Some camcorders have the option to switch to a lower quality but I’m glad this doesn’t because the quality is poor to begin with. At least Pure Digital has improved on its last models as the memory has doubled, but the amount of video recording time has stayed the same meaning they’ve actually made the video quality better. 

Overall

Without a doubt, I can say that this product is great for spur of the moment videos that you might not have the chance to capture because you left your true, hardcore camcorder at home. The video quality is not that great but it gets the job done. It’s keeping up with trends by allowing you to upload your videos directly to AOL Video, MySpace, and of course YouTube. They even provide you with a TV connector to watch your videos instantly on your TV (although I don’t see a reason). For $149 USD, it’s a little pricey, yet not expensive enough to make it undesirable. If you feel you have anything to share and any critisicm to this post, please feel free to comment and share your thoughts. 

Package

Popularity: 14% [?]