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	<title>Tom Gidden &#187; nokia</title>
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		<title>LG Shine KU970: The 3G Shine</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2007/07/20/lg-shine-ku970-3g/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2007/07/20/lg-shine-ku970-3g/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:08:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/2007/07/20/lg-shine-ku970-3g/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thanks again to the LG Shine Blog, I received an LG Shine KU970 mobile phone to review.  This is the newer 3G version of the KE970 I reviewed earlier this year.

I've been eager to have a play with the 3G Shine since I received the 2G one six months ago.  As luck wouldn't have it, I had just switched from Orange to the 3G-only Three network a month or so before.  So, I couldn't use the Shine I received as my primary phone.  Instead, it's had an Orange PAYG SIM installed which I must admit I've mainly used for getting cheap cinema tickets.
As I said in my previous review, the Shine is -- for the most part -- a great phone.  It's physically attractive and pleasant to use; the software is clean and well-designed; and overall it's an unassuming little unit.
Receiving the Shine coincided with my growing realisation that, gadget freak as I am, I'm actually happier with a "dumbphone" than a smartphone.  Writing blog entries and playing Texas Hold-Em while walking across a tightrope over the river Amazon might sound appealing, but making and receiving calls is far more important to me.  In my experience, smartphones tend to be slow and more prone to crashes, while also being large and unwieldly.  I started to miss the old days of the tiny little Nokia 8310, and firmware that actually responds to keypresses instantly.  For a while it seems that the more advanced (esp. Symbian-based) phones I've had are completely incapable of reacting to the red button when you've accidentally conferenced your ex-girlfriend with 999, for example.
So, the 2G Shine was a breath of fresh air.
Here comes the 3G version
To be honest, there's very little I can say about the 3G Shine.  Physically, it's almost identical.  There's the addition of the secondary video-call camera, neatly done.  Inside the back case, there's a small reconfiguration of the layout, including the removal of the external memory slot, replacing it with hardwired memory instead.  A few manufacturing tweaks and a little bit of subtle network partner branding, but otherwise it's the same.  Same size, same shape, and from what I can tell, same weight.  This is not a bad thing... the Shine was a neat enough package as it was, so the fact that they've managed to cram the 3G kit into the same form factor is impressive, and a testament to how close 2G and 3G technology are finally coming.
So, what about the other differences?  This is where I drop the clanger:  I don't know.  This is solely down to one thing... the firmware.  The 2G Shine I received in January was a pre-release unit with generic firmware.  Nice, simple and clean.  The 3G Shine I received seems to be a release unit, utterly crudded up with Vodafone customisations.
(It's externally branded with the "Proximus" logo, so I'm assuming this one's got Benelux firmware, but knowing Vodafone, it's probably the case everywhere.  I don't know for a fact what the release firmware is or will be like on other networks in other countries, but I'm just going on what I've got here)
I'm always disliked vendor's custom firmware.  I've never used custom firmware that's any better than the generic, and it's usually slower, crashier and far more limiting.
While I've bitched about Orange screwing with the firmware before, I've always appreciated that it's nowhere near as bad as the massacre Vodafone regularly perpetrates on everything they get near.  They tend to rip out handy features, mess with the UI, and then scatter a liberal helping of "Vodafone Live!" nonsense everywhere.  On some phones, they even go to the extent of excluding the "Live!" button from the keylock, which is just plain stupid, and at worst, a machiavellian way of ramping up bills through accidental data usage.
So, in my opinion, the Vodafone customisations on this Shine have destroyed any usability plus-points I've mentioned before.  They've cut out the nice, clean anti-aliased fonts in favour of a hideous jagged console font.  They've added a tonne of crap to the main menu, making it harder to navigate quickly.  They've reassigned action buttons to illogical places.  They've removed a lot of the customisation functions.  Least importantly, but perhaps most disappointingly: they've removed all the ludicrous but fun tunes and other nonsense.  And with all that, it seems that the only thing they've added to the mix is the excretable forementioned "Live!".
This has annoyed me to the point that I just don't want to use this thing.  I was fully intending to use it as my primary phone for a week or so, but I just couldn't do it.  It's too damn disappointing.  I actually prefer my Nokia 6280, which is truly surprising.
In conclusion...
I'm sure that if I was comparing the two units with generic firmware, I'd be raving about the 3G Shine, while still bemoaning the lack of Apple iSync and a couple of the other points I mentioned last time.
Instead, I'm putting this thing back in the box.  It may be harsh, but it's what I would be doing if I'd bought it for real.
Shame on you, yet again, Vodafone.  SHAME!!!  With your heavy-handed alterations, you've ruined a lovely product.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[LG Shine: in-depth Review]]></series:name>
	</item>
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		<title>LG Shine KE970: Everything Else</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2007/01/25/lg-shine-ke970-everything-else/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2007/01/25/lg-shine-ke970-everything-else/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:47:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Okay, I've covered the the physical aspects and the audio aspects, so now it's time to wrap it up by looking at the camera, the software and finally the phone-call-making bits of the LG Shine.

The Camera
In my experience, phone cameras are universally crap.  However, it looks like 2007 is the year that the manufacturers get their act together and start creating some decent picture-taking kit.
The Nokia N95 seems to be leading the field with a 5MP camera, and a gajillion other features such as GPS.  The LG Shine doesn't try to compete at this level, but they've managed to cram in a "Schneider Kreuznach certified" 2MP camera.
This doesn't immediately impress me, though.  My existing Nokia 6280 comes with two cameras:  one on the front for video calls, and a 2MP unit on the back for photos.  The Nokia 6680 I had before then used the same two-camera arrangement, with a 1.3MP camera on the back.  It also had the added bonus of a sliding lens cover to keep the dust out.  All four cameras were terrible... to the point that I just gave up trying to take photos with them, as I just got angry when I saw the results.  No matter how cool the impromptu subject was, I couldn't look past the streaky, grainy, unfocussed, blown-out images.  I ended up taping closed the 6680's lens cover so it would stop unlocking accidentally whenever I put the damn thing in my pocket.
So, how good is the Shine?  Much better.  Much, much better.
For a start, the camera actually focusses.  It's got manual focus, auto focus and macro.  A half-press on the shutter button triggers the auto-focus:  just like a "real" digital camera!
So, to get into the camera functions, you can either go through the Multimedia menu, or you can just hold down the shutter button on the side.  Once you're there, the live image appears, full-screen, and the whole interface turns sideways.
"Options" pulls up an overlay of settings menus as expected.  Using the scroll bar to navigate lets you adjust:

Shot mode: Macro, On, Off
Resolution: 320x240, 640x480, 1280x960, 1600x1200
Quality: Super fine, Fine, Normal
Flash: On, Off
Self timer: 10 seconds, 5 seconds, 3 seconds, Off
Save to: External, Phone
Multi shot: 6shot, 3shot, 1shot
Metering: Centred, Combined
Colour effect: Negation, Mono, Sepia, Colour
White balance: Fluorescent, Cloudy, Incandescent, Daylight, Auto
Shutter tone: Off, Tone 3, Tone 2, Tone 1
Reset settings: Yes, No

In addition, the exposure can be changed with the scroll bar from -2.0 to 2.0 in 1.0 increments, and zoomed gradually from x1 to x2 with the ends of the bar.
When ready, a half-press of the shutter button will focus and hopefully lock focus, and then a full-press will take the picture...
...a second later.  That's the Achilles Heel of this camera.  The shutter lag is baaad.  Disabling auto focus has no effect, and it's not an exposure thing either:  even in bright sunlight, it lags.  I tried reducing quality, resolution, changing metering, and everything else I could find.  No luck.
What makes this even worse is that compared to a dedicated digital camera, such as my Canon Powershot A75 or my Canon EOS 300D, it's a pretty lightweight unit, and with the positioning of the shutter, you don't get a particularly solid grip on the thing.  As a result, the picture you frame and the picture you take could be significantly different.
Now, shutter lag isn't a new thing.  All cameraphones I've used suffer from it.  Hell, most consumer digital cameras seem to suffer from it, or at least, used to suffer from it.  It's just a shame they didn't manage to fix it for this one.  I don't (particularly) mind if a camera takes a while to dump the image to storage after the shot has been taken, as long as it does actually take the shot when I want it to.
For now, I'd switch it to "Multi shot", which takes three or six photos in quick succession.  It still takes a second to get going, but once it does, it rattles through them at a fair rate.  Unfortunately, to do so, it reduces resolution to 640x480 (0.3 MP).
Moving on... image quality.
The pictures produced by the Shine are good.  Of course, not up to the quality of a good consumer dedicated camera with a proper big lens, but as good as those slimline units with small lenses you can get for about £100, I think.  It utterly thrashes the Nokia 6280 (and by implication, the even-worse 6680), as you can see from the pictures below.  There's only so much that can be done with a small lens as the light-gathering capability is limited.  So, a well-lit room or natural sunlight makes a big difference.


Nokia 6280
LG Shine


However, as far as I can tell from the photos my old boss used to get me to download from his phone for him, these things are often used to take pictures of drunken boobs (in more than one sense) in darkly-lit bars.  I haven't had the opportunity to take the Shine out to a bar to snap boobs, but I did test it in darker conditions.
Now, with the other cameraphones I've mentioned, this just results in technicolor streaking (of the bad kind).  Noise is rife, and the picture is barely visible.  Even in a relatively low-lit room at night, the streaks ruin it all.  It looks to me like the Shine doesn't suffer from this.  Sure, it has image noise at low light conditions, but with a lens small enough to fit in a phone this thin, it's a damn good effort.  Plus, the image noise isn't that unattractive.  It's more like blurry grain than typical multicolour digital speckles.
The thing I'm really pumped to see on this thing is the Macro (close-up) mode.  It's sad to admit, but I want to use my cameraphone mainly for taking pictures of whiteboards before I rub them out, and documenting things like where screws go before I take them out of the thing I'm disassembling.  I'd also use it to take pictures of business cards, serial numbers and other things that absolutely require Macro focussing.  The LG Shine brings it.  The Macro mode works.  It can focus within two inches before it starts getting blurry.
The flash is an odd one.  It actually operates more like a lamp, in that it doesn't actually flash.  Like other camera phones, it's actually just a dazzling white LED.  When the flash setting is on, the LED stays lit.  While this would run the battery down faster, I'd imagine, it does obviate the need for a red-eye mode.  It also means it'd come in handy in the event of a power cut.
I didn't really test the video camera capabilities, but I note that it can record clips at 176x144 resolution, with a subset of the still camera options.  You can also use it as a voice recorder.
One other minor issue which shouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anyone but a geek like me is the fact that the Shine doesn't include EXIF metadata with photos taken by it.  What this means is that on, say, Flickr, you can't see what photographic settings were used for the photo, or even what kind of camera took it.  This is a bit sloppy on the part of LG, as far as I'm concerned.
To conclude, I think they've done a great job on the camera, especially considering the size of the phone.  It doesn't compare too badly to a dedicated digital camera of a similar size and weight, and it has the added bonus of actually being a phone too.
There are two major flaws, though:  firstly, the shutter lag I mentioned, which they may be able to correct in software.  Secondly, the camera function suffers a great deal from the screen visibility problems I mentioned in my previous post.  In outdoor daylight conditions, the screen is barely legible, and without an optical viewfinder, it's impossible to frame the shot.  By sheer luck, I managed to take the picture on the right, in bright sunlight using macro mode, but I haven't shown you the many other shots that didn't turn out purely because I couldn't see what was being taken.  Unfortunately, they can't fix this problem.  The mirror-like screen is one of the key selling points of this phone, and is admittedly beautiful.  However, it's got disadvantages, and this is one of them.
Finally, the rest of the features
I've put off reviewing the more mundane parts of the LG Shine, such as actually making calls, even though they're the most critical parts of it.  I think this is because making calls on a mobile is no longer a big deal.  Most phones are much of a muchness, with similar call quality and adequate battery life.
To be honest, I can't really judge battery life too well on this thing.  I'm used to power-hungry 3G phones, and I also haven't been using this phone to make more than a couple of test calls.  On the other hand, I've been playing with a lot of features.  As a result, the fact that I've charged it three times in the past five days is of absolutely no value at all.  What I can tell you is that the unit comes with a Lithium Ion 800mAh battery.
Call quality is fine.  Meh.  I just can't think of anything else to say on that subject.  Sorry.
The software, on the other hand, I can rabbit on about for ages.
The user interface is good, with very well-designed graphics and exceptionally clear text.  I don't feel the aching need to install some wacky theme or skin on this unit, as the graphics are neat and pretty.  It comes with some stock wallpapers and animations (Flash SWF files, no less!), but they're not incredibly inspiring.  It's interesting to note that most of them are stereotypically "girly" with flowers and petals and things, reflecting what seems to be the target market of the Shine.  There is, however, a manly "car" animation, including sparkly highlights for those of us macho men who still appreciate good design.
The menus are well laid out, with a better overall organisation than that on recent Nokia phones.  However, it's still fairly conservative, with the standard hierarchies in place, such as "Profiles" (activate / personalise), "Settings" and "Call History".  It's just not a big deal.  As well as being able to navigate with the scroll bar, almost all options have a digit next to them for navigating with the keypad.  Even with the smooth keypad, I still find this nicer and faster to use than the scroll bar.
The whole phone interface is fairly responsive, with no major lags involved.  It's not instant, but it's a lot better than the second-long pauses some of the Series 60 Nokias suffer from.
The call-making interface is fairly standard, but still well thought out.  Manually dialling is neat, with big colourful digits appearing in one of four different animated styles.  I've chosen "digital style", giving me seven-segment "LCD" style digits.  Accidental calling is quick to cancel, which is better than the Nokias.  On the occasion that I've misdialled, or accidentally pressed Green on a contact, the Nokias have failed to drop the call until the line starts ringing.  If that was an accidental emergency call, I'd be in trouble.  The Shine drops the call as soon as the "drop call" button is pressed.
Text messaging is organised and although it's let down, again, by the lack of tactility of the flat keypad, it's still quick to type stuff.  The predictive text is done right, and I must highlight the good choice of symbol selection they've gone with:  pressing "*" brings up a list of symbols, each with an assigned keypad button.  So, by pressing *9 and then "OK", I get "@".  Using the scroll bar reveals more symbols, including currency, and for some odd reason, some (but not all) Greek letters.  This interface is far better than the painful repeated button-pushes mechanism used by Nokia, which often results in overshooting the one you want.
The contact management function is well done, with ringtone choice and photo for all contacts.  I haven't found any Voice Tagging feature yet, but I never use them anyway.  The phone also includes the ubiquitous Calendar, Alarm Clock and Calculator, along with Stop Watch, Memo, Unit Converter and World Clock.  These are clean and well-implemented, including a full scientific mode for the Calculator.  As I mentioned the other day, the Alarm Clock is a little limited, with no capability to use an MP3 for the alert sound.  Instead, a set of MIDI-esque instrumental tunes are offered.
It looks like they've really gone to town on the World Clock, though.  A full animated 3D Planet Earth is shown, pointing to the various cities.  It's very cute, but a little cumbersome to use, and there doesn't seem to be an option to remember more than one city.  Instead, you can select your "Home City", which has the side-effect of reinterpreting the phone's current time zone.  This means you can't keep local time, while still keeping track of whether it's the middle of the night back home.  I think if I needed this function, I'd start looking for a downloadable application to do the same thing in a more straightforward way.
As I mentioned the other day, the UI is improved by jaunty little sound effects, which haven't become annoying yet.  It's a fine line, but they've leaned marginally on the side of taste, which is good to see.
The Shine includes Java capability, and includes a couple of games.  One is a fairly mediocre "Puzzle Bobble" clone, called "Bubble Soccer".  I'm a huge fan of Puzzle Bobble, so I was very pleased to find it included.  Sadly, using the scroll bar for controlling it just isn't good enough.  The other game is "Fishing".  Since the tutorial is about thirty pages long, and ridiculously complex, I got bored and just gave it a go, and got absolutely nowhere.  These games aren't really going to win any awards, and I hope LG will ship better games on release.
Connectivity is fairly simple.  The Shine includes Bluetooth and also an included USB cable.  When connected via USB, the phone ceases to function as a phone (shutting off all wireless connectivity), starts charging the battery, and just becomes a removable drive.  Since this pre-release phone didn't come with any software I could only use it as a dumb drive, so no interesting syncing capabilities to report.  As expected, the Shine is not supported by Apple's iSync software on the Mac, so I couldn't sync my contacts or calendars over.  This isn't unexpected, though.  Apple aren't particularly good at supporting phones even when they've been on sale for months, so failing to support a pre-release phone is par for the course.
I'm not particularly happy with the charging mechanism.  It involves plugging the cable into that flimsy little port, with no option for a cradle or desk stand.  I can't see any way that an in-car kit would work, either.  A good thing I don't drive, I guess!
So, to sum up...
This phone isn't perfect, but it's the best I've come across so far.  There's only one reason I wouldn't buy this phone right now, and it's that it's a 2G phone.  I'm subscribed to Three UK, which is a 3G-only network.  If I'd got this phone three months ago while I was still on contract with Orange UK, it wouldn't have been an issue.  I've been told that the 3G version of this phone is due out shortly, and I'd love to get my hands on one.  It would almost certainly become my main mobile... that is, assuming I don't get given a pre-release 3G-supporting unlocked Apple iPhone, which I don't think is likely.  I wouldn't even give my old crappy Nokia to a family member: I love them too much.
So, what don't I like about this phone?

Only 2G, but the 3G version should be out quite soon.
Only 50MB of memory.  3G version has 1GB.
Screen is illegible in daylight.
Ringtone/Message tone volume too low:  allegedly fixed in release.
No real choice of message or alarm tones, or sound-effect theme.
Flat, non-tactile keypad: easy to miskey.
Scrollbar is sluggish and fiddly.
Flimsy side port cover.
No standard headphone socket.
Included headset/remote is crummy.
Basic music-playing UI.
Shutter lag.
No EXIF data on photos.
No calling while on USB.
No iSync support... yet.

What do I like about this phone?  Everything else.
The bold entries are things that are significant enough for me to think twice about buying one, but to tell the truth, they wouldn't stop me.  I'd even spend a day or so either hacking up a perl script to sync my contacts, or do it the hard way by individually Bluetoothing the contacts across.
This phone is just that good.
The rest of you lot can get it when it launches in the UK on February 7th, but you're not having this one.  It's my precious.  I wuv this phone.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[LG Shine: in-depth Review]]></series:name>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>...and joining Three</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/joining-three/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/04/joining-three/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:58:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[As noted in my previous posts on the subject, I changed mobile phone providers at the end of last week.  On Saturday, a day after I ordered it, I received my new phone from Three.  It's a refurbished Nokia 6280, and the tariff ain't too shabby.

However, I just noticed that they changed the tariff deal between my finding the deal and actually signing up for it... When I originally noticed it, the deal included double talk and texts for 6 months, meaning I'd have 600 minutes and 2000 texts for a third of the contract.  Now it seems I actually only got 300 minutes.  This is my own fault for not signing up on Thursday when I saw the offer, and not checking the deal in detail when I finally signed up.  I knew that Three was changing their deals (and launching X-Series) on Friday.  I decided to gamble.  Fortunately, the basic deal was kept in place, and it's still easily worth my while.  I'm not particularly upset about losing half my minutes, as according to Orange I only use about 45 minutes a month anyway.
Anyway, I've had it for a couple of days now, and while I haven't really put it through its paces, I think it's worth writing up my first impressions, albeit in a haphazard manner.
The phone itself is fairly non-descript.  It's a very good refurb, as new, with no obvious scratches or defects.  It's a slidey phone, which I'm always slightly suspicious of, and in this case, I think it's well-founded.  The action seems like it should be pleasant.  Unfortunately, there's a certain looseness that's particularly evident when pressing the soft-buttons.  They creak.  The whole phone wobbles.  It's not right.  I'm not sure whether this is the fact that it's refurbished, or whether they all do that.  Anyway, build quality: 2/5.
I've heard that the reason Three's offering these refurbs is because they recalled so many of them due to bad firmware, and they've got truckloads to get rid of.  Right now, this doesn't actually surprise me.
The software is, on the face of it, not too bad.  It's a lot snappier than the supposedly advanced "Series 60" interface on the 6680.  My major criticism of my previous phone was the sluggish reactions of the interface and OS.  It usually felt like I was running Microsoft Windows.
On the other hand, there are a few odd quirks about the 6280's software.  Nothing I can really place my finger on, but it just feels a bit unfinished at times.  I do wish Nokia would get someone smart in to rethink the whole interface.  Historically, the old monochrome dumb phones they made always had the neatest interfaces.  Nowadays, it's all kludgeware, with silly menus on top of menus.
There are two features/flaws/bugs I've found that annoy me slightly.
The first is the fact that you can't record new voice tags, or indeed remove them altogether.  Instead of the traditional mechanism whereby you record your own tags, the Nokia 6280 does it for you with a particularly robotic speech synthesiser.  Mimicking the robotic voice feels really humiliating, and it doesn't seem to get the right ones anyway.  I'd prefer to record tags for just the people I call often enough to make it worthwhile.  Saying that, I never use voice tags anyway, so I'd be happier removing them altogether.
The second it the incredibly annoying "Note: Active Incoming Call Diverts" message that appears for a second every time I make a call.  This happens even when I've cancelled all my diverts, either manually or by using ##02#.  From what I can tell, it's network dependent and fairly normal on other networks.  It's never happened to me on Orange, though.  It's a pointless distracting message that prevents me from seeing the status of the call just when I need to.  It's also astonishingly cryptic.  What does it actually mean?
Regardless, I could probably live with this software, as long as I treat this just like a phone, rather than the all-singing-all-dancing lifestyle device it's meant to be.  As I understand it, there's a new firmware out (5.92, compared to the current 3.81), but I don't expect Three will spend any more time on this lemon of a phone and authorise the new firmware.  If I'm feeling lucky (punk), I might try flashing it myself at one point.
MSN Messenger:  this was the fun toy that attracted me to this deal.  Unfortunately, the software sucks.  Since the 6280 doesn't multitask, Messenger needs to be running full-screen to work properly.  When you "hide" it to go back to normal phone functions, or to lock the keypad, it effectively shuts down, and instead Three act as a proxy.  Incoming messages are then sent as SMS texts, albeit with a single click to start MSN Messenger.  Problem is, Messenger takes a good ten seconds to start.  Worst thing is that more often than not, the incoming message then doesn't actually appear!  A few times I've had to message whoever I know who's online to ask them if they just sent me something.  Bottom line is that, to me, this is unusable as-is.
Anyway, to solve this and other problems, I've asked Orange to unlock my old Nokia 6680 for the bargain price of £20.  As the 6680 is a BB5 phone, a normal third-party unlock won't work.  See comment #1 for more details.
While I'm not particularly thrilled with the 6680, it's going to be my spare in lieu of paying £5/month for insurance I'm unlikely to use.  And, if it works well, I'll probably use it as my primary phone.  Since I flashed it last month with the generic Nokia firmware, it's a bit more stable and a bit snappier than the old, bloated Orange firmware.  Since it's Series 60, I'm also hoping there's a good multitasking MSN client that I can use on Three.
This brings up another idea: if they'd offered it and it was cheap enough, I would have been happy to go with a phoneless tariff.  Since a lot of new customers have existing phones, maybe the networks should offer a cheap tariff and a bill credit equal to the unlocking cost charged by the old network.  That way, they wouldn't need to subsidise the cost of the phone.
Anyway, onto the Three service itself.
One thing I wasn't particularly impressed by was the new customer pack.  After reading the pamphlet, I wasn't much more informed than when I started.  I wasn't sure whether I paid for voicemail calls, how much insurance would be if I wanted it, whether "3Mail" will cost me money or not, how to call Customer Services, etc.  I've found these answers now, but there wasn't *quite* as much handholding as I'd like.
The "My 3" site is basic, but functional.  The most useful feature is an up-to-date "Check my Usage" section, which will be very handy over the next few months as I get a grip on what costs what.  One useful improvement would be up-to-date itemisation.  I'd like to see instantly how much a call costs me.
"Planet 3":  this looks fairly neat on the face of it, although not much different from Vodafone Live! and Orange World.  However, just like Orange World, I'm unlikely to use this service that much.  The only thing I ever really used that kind of thing for was checking the odd phone number, train times, or directions to somewhere when lost in London.  Even with the £5 of included downloads I get on my new tariff, I don't think I'll find anything I particularly want.  The free news and weather videos look neat, though.
It's nice that they're clear about the pricing all through the site: browsing is free, and you're told about the costs of items before you actually buy them.  Okay, that pretty much describes any real-world shop, but it's not obvious on the other networks:  I was never sure how much stuff cost me on Orange, and with the inclusive bundles, it was hard to figure out afterwards.  I'm also convinced that seeing the prices would make me more likely to buy something.  With Orange, I was always afraid of being surprised by a massive bill if I used any of these kinds of features.  With Three, I know up front, and I'm more comfortable spending that money.
"3Mail":  I'm still not exactly sure how much I'd pay for this if I used it. I don't think I ever actually used "gid@orange.net" other than for testing, and I'm not sure I'll use 3Mail either.  It is nice to see that there's a level of integration between the voicemail system and the email system, with voicemails being stored in my inbox as WAV files.  Neat.  Obvious, but neat.  In fact, I think I saw something similar on my sister's cellular service in the States a couple of years ago.
They seem to offer a bunch of different email options... 3Mail, Mobile Mail, Office Mail, etc.  No idea what does what and for how much.  While push email (a la Blackberry) sounds cool, I'm not sure I'd use it that much even if it was free, no matter how addictive it's meant to be.
Overall, the Three service looks a little complicated overall, with a lot of confusing and potentially overlapping product names, and they could probably be rationalised a bit.  I'm sure it'll become clear before too long, though.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	
		<series:name><![CDATA[Leaving mobile phone company "X" for "Y"]]></series:name>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Leaving Orange after ten years</title>
		<link>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/01/leaving-orange/</link>
		<comments>http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/01/leaving-orange/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:46:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Gidden</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[6280]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellnet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cellular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer-services]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gsm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile-phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile-phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nokia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[three]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vodafone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[x-series]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://gidden.net/tom/2006/12/01/leaving-orange/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I just called Orange customer relations to request my PAC code after finally deciding to move to "3" or Three as I'll call them from now.  I've been a contract customer with Orange for just over ten years, and I'm just no longer feeling the love.

Orange started off as an innovative company, seemingly unaffected by the failure of the related "Rabbit" CT2 enterprise.  Unlike Cellnet and Vodafone, the more conservative established alternatives at the time, Orange offered a whole slew of innovative features such as Line 2, free voicemail, free Call Waiting, free itemised billing, free insurance, free 0800 calls, inclusive minutes bundles, and most of all: lower prices, even on international calls.
To achieve these features, they worked closely with Nokia.  If I remember correctly, Orange were the ones responsible for getting features like Line 2 and voicemail signalling into the standards.  Rather than just selling a premade product, they wanted to create new and innovative ways of using a mobile phone.
Orange Care was the real killer app for me, though.  I remember trashing my phone on several occasions and getting a free replacement very quickly: once I got a replacement 7110 delivered to me at work two hours after I'd accidentally dropped the old one in the (clean and pine-scented) toilet.  No charge.  This service apparently was the cause of the delayed releases of new handsets, as Orange sent new models back to the drawing board when they didn't live up to the QA standards necessary for the insurance scheme.
This was the old Orange.  This was before Hans Snook left.  This was before Pay-As-You-Go.  This was before they got bought out.
Since then, Orange have seemed to stop innovating, both from a technical and a business perspective.  Customer service quality has plummeted.  It used to take about two rings to get through to a very well-trained CS rep, who would quickly put you through to 3rd Line support if it was clear that you knew what you were talking about. Nowadays it sometimes takes ages just to get through to someone with a script in front of them, and they seemed to be well trained at saying "No", and "We don't offer that", and other disappointing responses.
Orange Care is now £6 a month extra, and includes a whole bunch of exclusions and a rather hefty excess.  In other words, it's the same as everyone else's network.  I haven't actually used Orange Care in about five or six years, but it's something I've paid for diligently anyway, for the peace-of-mind.  I could have bought about five new phones on the money I've spent on Orange Care.
The final straw was a fairly trivial note I just noticed at the bottom of last month's Orange bill:  "...We will be charging £1.50 for itemised billing."  Now, I don't actually care *that* much, as I rarely read my phone bill anyway, but I remember one of those little things that made Orange better than Cellnet and Vodafone was their free itemised billing.  It's the principle.  Yet another sign that they've regressed.
The offers given to new customers are a hell of a lot better than those available to old, loyal customers, but even those offers are far too expensive for what you get. Back when I joined, you got everything for £15 a month.  That's on a 12 month contract, with a free decent phone included.  Now I'm paying almost £30 for pretty much the same deal: 60 minutes of talk time and 30 texts.  I've been paying them anywhere from about £20 to £100 a month for ten years, and usually overpaying them if anything.  I'm only using an average of 42 minutes a month, but they can't offer me a cheaper tariff.
So, here comes Three.  Dumb name, and one that makes it difficult to Google, but their attitude seems strangely familiar.
Looking a bit deeper, I find out that Three's full name is "Hutchison 3G UK Limited".  Not too different from the "Hutchison Telecommunications UK Limited" that launched Orange back in 1994.  Back then, "Orange" was a pretty odd name for a mobile phone network, just as Three is an odd name now.  Back then, Orange were the only ones risking running on a solely 2G phone network, while Cellnet and Vodafone's relied on 1G.  Not too dissimilar from Three rolling out a 3G network so quickly, and handing off the 2G fallback to O2 (and soon to Orange, fortunately).
In so many ways, Three reminds me of what Orange used to be.
Three is the new Orange.
And today, they've launched "X-Series"... flat-fee mobile broadband with free Skype-to-Skype calls.  £5 a month.  This thing could kickstart the stagnant mobile internet market.  It's the kind of industry-wrenching, business-plan-defying fantastic lunacy we used to expect from Orange.  Exactly the kind of thing that makes their less insightful competitors poo-pooh it, and their more insightful competitors poo-poo themselves.  It's what the consumers want, and it's going to happen.  Everyone else is on catch-up now.
Considering the way I currently use my mobile, I'm not going to go for "X-Series" for now.  I can't justify the expense considering how much I actually use my mobile, and I also don't want the Nokia N73 I'd have to use to get it:  I'm sick of "smartphones", which I think are more suitably named "slow-and-crashy-phones".  I've been using a Nokia 6680 for about a year, and it's just slow and crap.  My friend Steve has an N70, which is similarly slow and crap.  I had a 7650 before then, as a result of the Orange video trial I participated in, and it's just slow and crap.  I wouldn't mind having a Blackberry or something like that, but right now, I'd just be happier with a small phone that works well, as long as it's got Bluetooth.  I could even do without a camera.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, Orange are just yet another network now.  Very full of themselves, knowing full well they've got market share, and they just do not care about customer churn.  They know they've got a good network, so why try harder?  France Telecom seems content to just sit on the cash-cow.  After talking to Orange CR for a few minutes to get my PAC code, I don't think they (or their computer) cares if I leave or not.  If anything, the girl on the phone just got slightly snippy and argumentative with me, before giving up.
So, I've signed up to Three.  £15 a month for 18 months, and then up to £30 a month, although I'll probably renegotiate at that point and perhaps move somewhere else.  I get a Nokia 6280 refurb, which should do the trick.  It's got iSync compatibility, and it's not a "smartphone", so it has a chance of actually working smoothly.  I'll get 600 minutes a month for six months and then 300 minutes after that.  2000 texts a month for six months, and then down to 1000 texts, which is still about 30 times what I actually need.  It also includes MSN Messenger "free for life", which could be fun.
On paper, this looks like the right move.  I have no idea it'll actually play out, but I must say I can't wait for my new phone to arrive tomorrow(!)
I'm going to transfer my number over to Three, but I'll get an Orange PAYG SIM just for fun (and for Orange Wednesdays), and I'll probably get my phone unlocked so I've got a spare.  Otherwise, I'm no longer a loyal Orange customer.
Sort it out, Orange.  You suck.  I'm Three's bitch now.
Three, please don't disappoint me now.]]></description>
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