What I like

The sound quality is good, not up there with Sennheiser but good, with excellent bass because of the size of the drivers.

Solid, you won't break these easily.

Lifetime guarantee, no matter how you break them.

Built-in bottle opener, ok, that's not really a feature of headphones, but it has come in handy once or twice.

What I don't like

They're too tight around my head, after about 2 hours of listening I start getting a headache and the pressure on my jaw hinges becomes unbearable.  But then I just take them off for a while and all that eases.

Not as loud as I expected, this is probably a good thing, otherwise I would have turned my brain into an echo chamber by now.

Am I sorry I bought them? Not in the least.

If I had to do this over, would I buy them again? Probably not, I would rather spend the extra money and go for one of the high-end makes like Sennheiser.

                          

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The book gives a lot of insight into what happens behind the scenes in the Springbok camp, especially around the preparation for the 2007 World Cup campaign.

A number of rumours incorrectly spread by the media were also dispelled in the book, and I have even more respect for our current Springbok captain after reading his book.

I've been following Smit's career since he burst onto the international scene, and have realised long ago that most of his work is done behind the scenes, out of the public eye, even on the field . This book was a confirmation of that realisation.

I can really recommend the book, well worth the buy.  I hope I get the rest of the chapters for free when they are written

                          

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My last phone was the E71, which I absolutely loved, so I will draw some comparisons.

Sleek packaging, a BLACK box, half the size of the usual nokia boxes, but with the same amount of stuff in it.

Switching it on and starting the configuration was easy enough, it guides you through the initial parts, to the point where you can use the phone, but no more.

This is where the intuitiveness falls down, and I had to start digging to get to the rest of the configuration options.

My BIS wasn't activated by the time I was on and ready to go, so I had to wait a while before being able to setup anything more.

Once that was on, I quickly visited the mobile google site, clicked the Sync link. Software install was seamless, and setting it up required a user name and password, and voila, I had a full contact list and calendar, all there, and no neeed to jump through configuration hoops like I had to with the E71 to get the sync working for a month

Installing applications are easy, not sure if a non-geek user will find it as easy, but seeing that I haven't opened any manuals yet, I don't want to comment on that.

Like

I can use BB chat across networks, everyone else I know that has a BB is on Vodacom, and I can now chat to them for almost free, no more SMS charges required.

Setting up email was a breeze, I chose to just use my existing mobile address (there's a story around that setup), and all I had to do was type in my email address and password, and it figured out the rest.   But after a week this just started failing, not sure if it has anything to do with Neotel being the ISP for this mailbox. I then chose to setup a new mailbox on MTN's BlackBerry service, and this was even easier to setup than the previous.

Size wise it is slightly bulkier than the E71, but it feels lighter, if that makes sense. Still fits into all pockets .

Conversations in the messenger app, I remember one of my old Nokia's doing the grouping like this, but I didn't have the feature on any of the last 4 or 5 phones I had.  Don't know if it was there and not enabled, I just never bothered to look for it, but having used it now, I will look for this every time.

Keyboard, the buttons are a nice size and easy to press, the E71 I had to press with my nail or absolute fingertip.

User interface, at first I didn't like it that much purely because it was different to what I'm used to, this is not a bad thing, but having had Nokia phones for the last 13 years means I'm not used to anything that deviates from that.  After some time on it, it is more intuitive than what the Nokia ever had.

Don't like

Menu system, everything isn't where I expected it to be, but after browsing around for a while I quickly found everything I needed.

The camera is slow, so slow that I can't even get my baby daughter to hold her smile long enough to take a photo. If seen tortoises in peanut butter move faster.

Keyboard, I liked the function on the E71 where if you press and hold a key, you get the Alt text, BB gives you the 'Shift' text, that makes typing a bit slower.

Battery life, with bluetooth and wi-fi on, the battery life is dismal, about a day and a half if you're lucky.  But seeing that I normally don't use either, I've turned it off, and now get about 4 days on a charge.  Better, but not perfect.

                          

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I've had the car for a few weeks now, and overall I'm loving it.  There is plenty of space, with two baby seats in the middle row, an 8 year old in the back row, and multitudes of bags and prams in the boot.  Ok, half the boot, seeing the back row of seats fold flat to create the boot, so we have one up and one down to fit the whole family.

The car's power was the biggest surprise, with the 2 litre motor putting plenty of power to the road through the 17" wheels, and acceleration much better than my Conquest.

I opted for the middle of the range, with the nice body kit, tow bar, aircon etc, but not the electric sliding doors.  I didn't feel it was worth the premium for those, the manual ones are a breeze to open and close anyway.

Overall the driving experience is awesome, with the car surprising me in the rain.  We came back from the Vaal in a heavy thunderstorm on Boxing day, and it felt like I was driving in drizzle, not in a storm.  Visibility was excellent, probably because of the angle of the windscreen, and with the big tires on it, the water made no difference to the handling.

The car is fairly low on the ground, which makes it much nicer to drive than a mini-bus, of which I drove quite a few.  It doesn't feel top heavy at all, in fact there is very little body roll for such a big car.  It feels like a normal car, with the space of a bus.

The inside is very functional, with the middle seat in the second row able to fold away under one of the other seats, and this can then be replaced by a utility bin, with a basket and cup-holders which folds away under the other seat.  The middle row seats can also be moved forward and backward, which means there is always enough leg-space for the people in the third row.  The quality of the plastics impressed me, with other cars in the price class looking a bit cheaper on this front.

One thing that is irritating me is that the suspension has developed a nasty squeak after the first week, not sure what the dealership did to hide that.  You only hear it when going over large bumps at low speed, but it is still irritating.  Not sure if anyone else is experiencing that.

Just a pity that I don't get to drive it every day now, seeing my wife is the one that has to cart the kids around.

                          

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I have a supplier with an automated system on their end, which requires me to pay them a specific amount when I transact with them. Now I may have multiple transactions on a specific day, but each of these will have an unique reference number, even though each transaction will be for the same amount.

Every time I want to transact with this supplier, which is also setup as a beneficiary on my internet banking profile, I can only pay them for one transaction per day, because the internet banking system decides on my behalf that a payment for the same amount to the same beneficiary is a duplicate payment, even when I use a unique reference number for each transaction.  This is INCORRECT, and SHORTSIGHTED!

I then had the brilliant idea of trying to do scheduled payments, where I would setup a payment per day on consecutive days, so that I can make the payments and forget about them.  But here the designers/developers put up another hurdle.  You cannot change the reference on future dated payments, you have to use the reference that was used when you originally setup the beneficiary.  All I could say was WTF?

Lesson in Design

If you think your user is making a mistake on your software, prompt them by all means, but still let them override your perceived "mistake".

I want to make multiple payments to my supplier on the same day for the same amount, because it makes both our lives easier, please let me.  As more and more companies start having automated billing, invoicing and reconciliation systems, this functionality will become more important, but at this point you are blocking progress.

                          

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The “Shrink Volume” and “Grow Volume” features in Vista worked nicely, so I didn’t have to format and re-install.  I’m happy with the performance of Vista with the default HP utils installed, so I chose not to do a fresh install for now.

As far as usability goes, the keyboard is excellent, with the buttons as big, maybe even bigger, than my desktop keyboard’s.  This post is the first that is typed on the keyboard, and so far I’ve had no mistakes, typing at my usual speed (around 60 wpm).

The display is crisp and clear, but with a default resolution of 1280x768 it’s probably not meant for people with bad eyesight.  Luckily I still have 20/20 vision.

The only problem I've had so far is the touchpad.  The buttons are on the sides, not at the bottom as with other laptops.  I'm already used to the buttons on the side, but what I've noticed is that my left index finger has the habit of hovering on teh touchpad after clicking, then when trying to move the pointer with the right hand, you get weird movements until you realise your other finger is on the touchpad. 

I’m still contemplating whether to move my email & some other apps into the cloud, so I have not installed any form of Office yet.  If I do, I think I’ll try something new and go for Open Office.

Keep your eyes open for the longer term review on this little machine, that should be up with a few long term reviews of other devices sometime in Feb.

                          

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And then when seeing it in the flesh for the first time, my thoughts were confirmed, and I decided to go drive it as soon as I had some spare time.  That happened on Friday afternoon.

As I got in the car, my first thoughts were that it feels a bit cramped after he space that I expected from its size.  The centre console is quite wide, and the driver leg space is actually less than in my Conquest.

The trim on the inside was better than what I expected after reading all the bad write-ups in the local magazines, but I'm used to a Toyota Conquest, the reporters are used to driving the latest and greatest.  Same can be said for the power and acceleration, it wasn't impressive, but certainly better than the expectation set by the reporters.

As I started the car, AC/DC Thunderstruck started playing on the radio, big coincidence, but still one of my favourite bands, so I got to test the impressive sound system.  It is seriously impressive for an out of the box system, with very clear sound across all the ranges and volume settings

As for the actual drive, as I said previously I was fairly happy with the power and acceleration, but what put me off enough not to buy this car, was the fact that you can't see anything from the driver seat.  You can't see the bonnet at all.  Yes, I could move the seat higher, but then my head would be touching the roof, so that was a no-go. 

The A-pillar is situated closer than any other car that I've driven before, in such a way that it changes almost every curve in the road to a blind-curve, you cannot see oncoming traffic at all!  Now in my opinion that is dangerous, and my first thought was that, as in the software world, where most engineers never get to test-drive their own products to see the shortcomings, this design engineer never drove the car, because I think he would have changed this had he driven it.

The last thing that seriously ticked me off, was the salesman.  From the time he introduced himself he seemed off, and it got worse.  It took him a full 10 minutes to find the keys for the car, now if there was hundreds of cars standing on the floor I would understand, but out of the 7 cars in the showroom there were only two Dodges, how difficult can it be.  Then, without the usual sales pitch about all the features, he handed me the keys with a frank "Drive it around the block" and walked off.  The block isn't very big, and there are speedbumps, so I decided to take it further.  Then upon getting back, he couldn't wait to get me out of the showroom, choosing not to even gime an estimate of how much they would give me for my car on a trade-in, only repeating "...it is big, it is american, and you should buy it."

Piss-off buddy, I'll find another car, and even if this one was good enough to buy, I would have gone to another dealer to get some service.

So, that means I keep on looking for a car, and until I find something spectacular, my paid for Conquest will have to do the job.

                          

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