Too much information…

The real reason to use a PDA or Smart Phone is to look after the important details in your life such as your diary, contacts, finances and various other bits and pieces that you need to hand no matter where you are. 

There has been a real movement towards displaying this information on the front screen of the main mobile operating systems- Windows Mobile has always done it, Symbian is starting to do it now and with the help of ZLauncher or other 3^rd party applications even Palm OS can do it. 

If you are a Palm or Windows Mobile owner you may well be using a 3^rd party launcher to display countless other bits of information such as free RAM, battery life and expansion card memory. I have been in this trap for a long time and always stayed away from the standard Palm launcher because I wanted to see exactly what was going on. The same applies to Windows Mobile with WisBar Advance being one of the first applications I install on a new machine. 

This was all normal to me but with the Treo 650 it goes a step further- MemInfo is also required to see just how low the dbCache is getting throughout the day. It’s at the point where a check has become habitual whenever I use the device and flushing of the cache is required at least 3 times a day- how silly is that? 

For Windows Mobile 2003SE devices with 64MB RAM and all but the very latest 256MB RAM Windows Mobile 5.0 devices I have also needed the RAM measurement on the front screen to see how much has been lost because I stupidly chose to use some applications… If it’s too low a reset will be required so that I can answer the next phone call without the device freezing up. 

These are my personal experiences and obviously do not affect everyone because there would be no industry if it was like this for the millions of Palm and Windows Mobile users out there. 

On the Nokia E61 system information on the front screen is sparse to say the least. You get a 3G / GSM meter top left and a battery meter top right (which never seems to change on mine?) and that’s your lot. 

This may sound like a bad thing but it’s not because I never have to worry about the battery (charged it once for 10 minutes in my first week with the device) and to date after almost 2 weeks I have still got no where near a crash so memory management is obviously not an issue either- I am aware that it is currently around 50MB free. 

For an obsessive PDA user like myself it is actually quite invigorating not to have to worry about how the system is coping with what I put it through each day. Gone are the days of meters all over my front screen (see article image- E61 top left, Windows Mobile bottom left and Palm to the right) and gone is the paranoia of waiting for the next crash unless I manually intervene to stop it happening. 

So, are you a bit paranoid about your PDA or are you happy to just wait and see what happens and stick with the basic monitoring software? I was paranoid but at last that problem has gone…

E61 Crystal Case Review

Last week Brando sent me a Crystal Case for the Nokia E61 to test and it got me to thinking about Smart Phones and cases. I used to carry my traditional style PDAs in cases all day and every day and they became a required part of my set up. Each case had to have spaces for credit cards etc. and thus no wallet was needed either.

When I received my Treo 650 that all changed and the thought of carrying it in a case was alien to me. Hon earth can I put a smart phone in a case and still use it practically for phone and PDA use throughout a working day? The problem is that a certain level of protection is required as well and this we are left with cases that fit snugly to the device, allow all of the features to be used and also let the design of the device show through.

I had a Crystal Case for the Treo and to this day it is the only one I use on a regular basis because it offers a certain level of protection whilst keeping the phone dimensions roughly the same and allowing that lovely modern Treo design with the gorgeous antenna showing (the lovely and gorgeous bits were a joke by the way).

Take a look at the Nokia E61 image on the left- it is a pointless photo for this review because you cannot tell that the phone is even in a case and that’s the beauty of this product. It fits the E61 absolutely perfectly and even on the back it is moulded to the slight centre drop down of the E61. Having no touch screen is an advantage for this case because no flip up part is required. Without this the case itself is a lot more solid than for example the Treo variant. Access to all functions is good but some have mentioned that the QWERTY keys nearest the edge of the case are more difficult to press- I do agree with this and it takes some getting used to but in my view it is not a big hinderance as I can still type at good speeds with the case on (this review is written on the E61).

The front and back part of the cases clip together very firmly and at no time have they come apart in my testing. The majority of damage done to PDAs is usually from minor scratched and dinks when dropped- this case may not save the device from a big fall but in my view it will stop 90% of the normal damage caused to a phone through day to day use. It’s fair to say that the case itself is quite scratchable and will suffer from the odd mark but beter that than your £200 device suffering the consequences. At least I can now put my phone in my pocket without worrying- that was one thing I would not do with the Nokia until now.

It is $14.00 which is excellent value (especially considering the state of the US$ at the moment) and I for one view this as the best accessory I have for my Nokia at this time. If you own another device take a look around the Brando site because there are cases available for various models.

Available from Brando for $14.00. Pros: great value, looks superb on the phone itself, design quality. Cons: can get scratched easily.