All the praise aside, nothings perfect, and my little Hero was no exception. In fact it suffers from the same ailment as many devices fall victim too, where hardware vendors release their products with poor/inefficient software. So without going into too much detail on the ROM, as I’ve done that before, I’ve come up with what my idea of the perfect setup is for a fast, secure, ultra useful phone that does everything for you.

The ROM

In my previous article about the Android ROM’s, I blogged about some of the ROM’s available for the Hero platform, the most mature and reliable definitely being MoDaCo’s custom ROM (now at version 3.2).  After trialling Android 2.0/2.1 ROM’s I didn’t want to go back to a cupcake build (Android 1.5) so I’ve settled on Kagudroid 1.0-beta, made by Lox of LoxDev fame, a ROM which aims to be as clean as possible built from the AOSP sources.  It’s Sense-less in that it doesn’t have any of the HTC SenseUI software on there so there’s RAM and general speed improvements and runs smoothly and fast.

Kagudroid 0.1beta (running on AOSP 2.0)

The Perfect-ly Obvious

They deserve a mention as they’re used almost more than anything else on the phone, but any of the google suite is an absolute must if your a google account holder.  GMail, Maps, Places Directory and Tasks are what I use most often, but Google Goggles (image searching) is pretty nifty.

The Perfect Set of Utilities

Due to wiping the phone so many times, I’ve got a a set of applications (as well as their DB’s, so I don’t have to set them up every time), which I load before booting the new ROM.  I consider them essential and it’s just not the same without them.

Locale – Event Driven Profiles

(http://www.twofortyfouram.com/)

Locale’s that profiles menu on your old Nokia 5110, revitalised in way that profile selection is made almost completely automatic, driven by an event system that can act on almost anything thing the phone does, like GPS location, WIFI availability, time, date, battery health, availability of networks/services, etc etc and hundreds of combinations of each.

The Locale Profile Screen

These are my standard set of profiles (in order of preference, as they’ll override each other):

• Bedtime - In the vicinity of ‘Home’ after 11pm on a week night, phone notifications are silent, GPS turned off and Alarms set on loud to make sure I wake up the following morning
• Home – In the vicinity of the house, WIFI and bluetooth on, and volume set to relatively low
• Low Battery – Triggered anytime the battery is below 20%, basically shuts down 3G/Wifi data, GPS and Screen time out to increase time until phone death
• Office - In the vicinity of the office, WIFI/Bluetooth on and phone almost on silent, screen timeout set on high and Screebl (see below) disabled
• Default – Phone on loud setting, GPS/WIFI on (for location services) but most other services off as they’re unused

See?  Infinitely useful, and I’m only just using the most basic of features.

Screebl

(http://www.keyeslabs.com/joomla/index.php/projects/screebl)

Screebl is a simple app with one purpose, it saves battery life by keeping the screen timeout as low as possible, but at the same time using the phones accelerometer to detect when the phone is being held and keep the screen on while using Google Maps, messaging, web browsing etc.  The new version (v2.0) includes Locale plugin support to change Screebl settings on Locale profile change.

Wavesecure – Security

(https://www.wavesecure.com/)

Wavesecure definitely deserves a mention, even though I’ve fortunately not had to use it’s most useful features.  It’s a security app, that runs constantly and checks into a remote server where if the phone is lost/stolen you can physically lock down the device to disable it, and if required wipe it clean to protect personal data.  It’ll also report phones location upon request and can backup files/SMS on a scheduled basis.

Advanced Task Manager

(http://arronla.com/)

Advanced Task Manager is perfect for keeping the phone running as quickly as possible at all times, by automatically closing all non essential apps and freeing up much needed RAM.

The Perfect Set of Apps

There’s a load of other apps I use as well on a constant basic, but may not be quite as essential as those listed above

Dolphin Browser

(http://www.dolphinbrower.com)

I’m yet to see the newest HTC and/or Android brower from Android 2.1, but Dolphin Browser is much better and fuller featured than the Cupcake browsers that I used, it’s got tabs (on the screen where you can see them), Google bookmark sync to help typing out those pesky web address’s and a simple to use gesture feature which make the touch screen experience even easier.

Twidroid (or Seesmic too for ping.fm support) – Twitter Clients

(http://www.twidroid.com)

What can I say, I’m a Twitter geek, and Twidroid is defintely the most full features twitter client i know of, it lacks the streamlined integration of Peep, the HTC client but’s very configurable and looks sharp

Newsrob – Google Reader Client

Simple idea, scheduled retrieval of RSS/Podcast and Blog updates from my Google Reader account

Truphone & SIPDroid – VOIP Clients

(http://www.truphone.com)

You may remember Truphone from my N95 articles from a while back and I still use it too for cheap world wide phone calls, and free voip -> voip or skype calls all from within the program.  I’ve been testing SIPDroid as well with my VOIP carrier sipgate.co.uk.  The only problem I’ve got now is choosing which number to give to people as my primary number, I’ve no doubt within a very short time period VOIP accounts like this will be the norm on all data plans.

XBMC Remote Android (android-xbmcremote)

(http://code.google.com/p/android-xbmcremote/)

I’d only recently started using XBMC remote on an old laptop and it has revolutionised the way I watch media on TV, but one thing that annoyed me was needing a wireless keyboard/mouse to interact with it (or even worse, getting up and going to the TV to change media), until I found XBMC remote, like a virtual remote that works via HTTP over WIFI.  It can access almost every function within XBMC including whats playing, media list, info, etc and will even do WOL (Wake on LAN) to start the computer up after its been switched off.  I’ll never have to get off the couch again!!!

Others

• Transdroid – For access to a transmission-daemon for torrent monitoring, I use it for a number of torrent clients now, very useful! (http://www.transdroid.org/)
• chompSMS – Not essential, but who wouldn’t want the IPhone’s message screen, an almost exact copy from what I can see (http://www.chompsms.com)
• Better Keyboard and/or Shapewriter/Swype – Keyboard replacements that definitely make typing faster on the device (in fact, I’m typing this blog post with it right now!… .Not, but you get the idea)
• SetCPU – for over/underclocking to increase performance or increase battery life (one of life’s true dilemmas)

As anyone knows from my previous posts on the Nokia N95 8GB, I have an awesome amount of respect for this phone and its older brother the Vanilla N95.  It’s the perfect travel companion in regards to email, light web browsing, GPS/Mapping and a nifty little media player, in the case that a small laptop (or a pretty much immobile 17″ one for that matter) is too cumbersome to carry around.

Gman – Dark Side

But I musn’t go on, I’ve repeated myself enough already.  So on to the point of this post, you see, it has a dark side.  A few of them actually, Possibly not as major as the iPhone missing 3G support (until late July, anyway), or the NASA rocket, which was programmed for calculations in Miles, but data entered in metrics, but it has a down point.

I’ve found that no-one really talks about the N95′s points, the review sites are too concerned with the quality of the camera, or that it has thirty one and a quarter more features than the equivalent Sony Ericcson, Samsung or LG device.  And often if you search for what I would consider issues, you’ll find a small forum thread with two or three people discussing the problem, its just not heavily publicised.  So here’s my attempt to keep it real, level the playing field if you will.

The Major – Data Transfer Speed

The transfer speed to/from the N95 is nothing short of horrendous.  In this day and age of flash and other storage devices which can read up to (and in excess of), 50-100MB/s, the data transfer to the fixed flash card is a pitiful 500-600KB/s.  This wasn’t an issue when phones had 256 or 512MB free memory, as filling the device would still only take a few minutes.  Filling the full 8GB card takes the better part of three and a bit hours!

A faster data transfer medium

My 4GB iPod Nano has a file transfer speed of approximately 10-15MB/s a second, and I can fill its memory just under 10 minutes (not including the time it takes afterwards to level sound output and “determine gapless playback information”).  If Apple can get it right on a 2 year old, cheap as chips, consumer device, then why can’t Nokia achieve better than USB1 speeds on their “flagship” device?  I’ve been assured it is USB2, just not High speed (HS) ~480mbps.  Instead, we’re stuck with Full Speed (FS) which is marginally faster than the USB1 spec of 12mbps, Pitiful!

This probably wouldn’t bother most people as there might not be much of a need to be removing and replacing the data on the memory card often, but when you’re uploading movies, music and videos on a nightly basis this becomes a real pain.  This is the one thing I can see that might make the original N95 a better choice, as it has a removable memory card, so you can put it any old card reader in the hope that it may read/write faster.

Other

The rest of the bad points come as a direct result of comparing the N95 to the Apple iPhone.  That’s usability, and design, and interestingly enough battery life.  It really is just too complicated, sometimes just the easiest tasks can require 10-15 key presses.  Considering the keypad (not including the numeric keypad) consists of over 20 keys, you’d think there would be easy, fuid ways to accompolish simple tasks.

Nokia have included a lot of features in the phone that promote its use out in the open, such as using the web browser on a train, or walking/travelling with the GPS Maps app/Sports Tracker open.  In any form of glare or sunlight, this is a difficult task, often to the point where it gets too difficult and I’ll just give up.

Battery life has improved a lot since i did the latest firmware upgrade (I assume a permanently running process has been removed?!), but I still find on days of moderate to heavy use the phone can be dead before I get home to charge it!

A worthy competitor??

Considering the iPhone has a larger, more vibrant screen, and it still boasts almost double usable battery life and media playback/talk time, this is definitely something that might need a look in, in later models.

But as I said, nothings perfect, and trawling around the web shows that pretty much any product has its ups and downs, and the techy in me loves (almost) everything about this phone.  So no, I still wouldn’t trade it in for an iPhone, HTC (Windows Mobile) phone, Blackberry, or Cheeseburger phone despite their positives.  I just can’t help but think that it may have been a bad business decision letting these fundamental features slip, when they’re elsewhere in the market for a much cheaper price.

That’s all changed though, Sports Tracker is now a powerful, bug-free (at least from what I’ve seen), exercise accompanyment which is a damn load of fun to use at the same time.  Broken down, it:

• use GPS to map speed/distance travelled on a map;
• allows you to set routes for commonly travelled paths, and records times for previous workouts so you can beat previous routes;
• includes a Step counter to approximate work done and energy consumed;
• updates progress, and live workout status online, updating the users profile (ala Facebook).

Nokia Sports Tracker Online

I’ve now completed the 3.5 mile walk from the office to Waterloo Station 10 times, and got my time down to 24 minutes, though I’m sure this could be a lot better if I wasn’t walking through peak hour traffic to get there.  And best of all, the GPS/live part still works jammed in my pocket.

1. Nokia Maps

Availability: Free (Comes with Phone)

Seeing as this is the default maps app that comes with the N95 it seems like a logical place to start, and with it’s voice navigation (a paid addon) and great integration it may be hard to top. That is, until you use it and try and get it to point you from a to b. It,s not that it does a terrible job, it,s just so slow at everything.

Standing in full view of all the eyes in the sky (read: satellites) from starting the app until it had located my position it had taken about 45 seconds to a minute. It,s just not responsive enough to warrant whipping it out of your pocket when your late for a meeting, but you can’t for the life of you remember where Ord Street North is, let alone trying to get it to give you directions whilst behind the wheel.

On the other hand, it has access to a decent point of interest database and standing in front of Westminister Abbey i found the map littered with places to see, eat, etc.

• Default app that comes with the phone
• Well integrated into nokia’s gallery & other phone features
• Great points of interest database with clear icons
• Has Voice Navigation (like in-Car Sat Nav Systems)

• Slow as a dog (bad boot time, slow map responsiveness, etc)
• No Terrain/Aerial/Satellite Maps

2. Mobile GMaps

Availability: Free

MGMaps is (I believe) a joint effort to bring maps from a range of providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, OpenStreet, Ask, etc) to give the maximum choice for finding the perfect map for the required situation. There’s the usual Street Map styled map, through to aerial/satellite and a hybrid of the two, terrain maps (for hiking I presume) and specialised maps with monuments, points of interest clearly marked.

Map with Tube/Underground Overlay

The real beauty with this app, however, comes with the map overlays and addons. Venturing in the the addons menu unlocks a host of options like Traffic reporting, Metro/Underground/Transport Maps, Wikimapia (user built Point of Interest database which is constantly growing) and a few other things that I didn’t really understand. Some of the overlays include geographic position, altitude (approx), speed & direction of travel, which can all be quite useful although can interfere due to the small amount of screen real estate.

Aerial/Satellite View

And where Nokia maps failed due to its slowness, and lack of usability, MGMaps shines, it’s quick and easy to use, the maps are drawn quickly, and the direction/guidance mapping seems accurate and didn’t get me into trouble once.

I won’t go into detail on the mobile version of Google Maps as pretty much everything you can do in Google Maps you can do in MGMaps, but also a lot more. I’m not sure what the exact story is, but I’m assuming Google has otherwise stopped development of its Mobile maps app and is participating in the newer better App.

• Free

• Huge choice of maps and map types

• Nice selection of overlays/addons

• Good Direction/Place finder

• No Voice Nav

TomTom: Simple, yet as a navigational tool whilst driving. Perfect

3. Tomtom Navigator 6

Availability: £87 (at time of writing) from http://www.tomtom.com

As I stated in the introduction, if it’s a navigation tool you want for driving and direction finding then look no further, Tomtom is the package you want. Everything is smooth, from the search/menu panel, quick bootup, routing, clear map (showing only path you need to take) and by far the best implementation of the voice navigation than I’ve seen on a phone/PDA yet.

Despite driving a small car, we found it ever so difficult taking the Walking Route

Like the In-car GPS unit you get to sit on your dashboard, if you’re driving and you really want a clear way from getting from point A to B without having to constantly have a hand on the unit this is the way to go. It’s as simple as typing in a destination, and following the prompts:

• Take the third exit at the roundabout
• In two miles follow the shoulder toward the M5
• Calculating Route (when missing a turn off)
• Arrived at Destination, Thankyou

And so on… And whilst your on your way you’ll get an annoying *beep* sound every few minutes, or so I thought at the time, until I realised Tomtom was warning me of approaching Speed/Redlight Camera and Dangerous spots in the road

The Trip Overview/Planner

The Tomtom navigator is, without doubt, the best drivers friend, its a no frills tool that serves a purpose, and one purpose only. What it lacks in maps, addons and features it more than makes up in usability (and I actually feel safe using it whilst driving, Mobile GMaps took far to much configuration and watching of the screen to be considered safe for driving).

Note: Screenshot didn’t seem to want to work while Tomtom was open, so I’ve used others screenshots

• Perfect Street guide, Driving Navigation Tool
• Seamless Voice Navigation, Traffic/Camera alerts

• Lacks all the cool features, like points of interest, overlays and different map types

4. Map 24 Mobile

Availability: Free from www.map24mobile.com

Really not much can be said about this app, it’s not useful for driving/navigation, and it’s speed, ease of use and features are nothing to write home about, but it is in early development. Map24 Mobile does have one interesting feature though, point it to a location and it knows where everything, and I mean everything, is. From my front door for instance, it tells me where the Shell station is, the library, 4 or 5 pubs, the police station and various other shops and restaurants are straight away.

Granted, I’m standing on my front porch, I can clearly see the Shell sign, two pubs and the side edge of a library and restaurant, but I can see it being a life saver when the apocolypse hits and I need to emerge from bunker 714 in pitch darkness and dense radioactive fog, so I’ll keep it on hand, anyway.

“3D View” – I couldn’t find a use for it

• Map24 knows retail, it really does

• … pretty much everything else

Like the IM Client article, there are honestly too many different apps to try and each would have its own set of pros and con’s, and quite often its own price tag, but I’ll list a few anyway:

• Garmin Mobile XT – One of the other Strong players in the handheld GPS market, similar features to TomTom
• Route 66 Mobile Britain
  
• Amaze GPS - A free Java GPS client, looks a bit like Tomtom, but with aerial maps too

From the point of view of the occasional user Mobile GMaps is definitely the one to go for, its very well put together and a full package without a lot of depth. And for the driver/navigator don’t look past the TomTom Navigator client, but I can see where all four apps would quite often come in handy so its probably quite handy to keep them all on at once, as really, you never know when you might need them (where is that Shell Station again?).

The apps I’ve tried so far are Truphone, Agile Messenger, IM+ Messenger, MSN Live Messenger, Fring, Gizmo and Slick Messenger. Most are Instant Messenging clients that connect to anywhere from 1 network (MSN) to about 5, including ICQ, AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Skype, MSN and various others. If each has pros and cons, I’ll list them and give them a basic rating.

Truphone (http://www.truphone.com)

As you may know from my previous article, Truphone was an instant favourite of mine. It’s a Voice over IP application that’s main strength is that it completely integrates with the phone. I’m still yet to find an application that works so well with the N95′s interface, and at the same time never get in the way with annoying popups, or long processes to connect and make calls/send messages when required.

The Truphone Home Screen

Setting up Truphone is as simple as installing the app following the instructions on the site, creating an account and choosing an Access point to connect to the server with. Then anytime you’re in range of an internet connection, either via WLAN or 3G you have an icon (a phone over a globe), which allows you to make/receive calls on your specially assigned Truphone number, simplly by Clicking Intenet Call (instead of Voice/Video Call). Like using Skype on a computer it’s not perfect and requires a reliable wireless connection or full 3G for anywhere near normal phone call quality. But it’s crystal clear when its good, and dirt cheap too. In fact, if you sign up and use the service before March 28th, Truphone will give you free calls to most Western countries, both landlines and mobiles.

The N95 with Truphone connected (as shown with the top right icon)

Pros:

• Perfect Integration with the phone, no annoying popups, or drawn out call/connection processes
• Cheap calls and messages
• Works over both WLAN and 3G internet services

Cons:

• Call quality can suffer with less than perfect network connection (calling an Australian mobile left a lot to be desired, I’m assuming because of the added latency of the mobile network at the other end).
• In times of low network service, the constant polling for a better net connection is murder on battery life.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Agile Messenger (http://www.agilemobile.com/)

I tried Agile Mobile Messenger about the time I first installed Truphone, it really filled in the gaps in regards to an IM Client. Like Truphone the integration with the phone is second to none, and everything really just works. The only thing that lets it down is lack of Skype support, but in reality I can do without it, especially when using such a full featured app. The protocols supported are Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, XMPP, IMPS, AOL and AIM, and whilst surely noone can use all these protocols at once, it seems to cover pretty much all bases at once.

Agile Messenger Home Screen

One thing that impressed me about Agile was the extensive options and settings in relation to alerts and connection settings. The ICQ “uh-oh” sound was bad enough 10 years ago, and the two other IM clients which defaulted to this, and were forced to this were a definite down point, enough to make me turn them off and uninstall them. Luckily enough Agile doesn’t suffer from this at all, and has an extensive array of choices to manage alerts, sounds and vibration for incoming messages and events. A top notch message client

Pros:

• Perfect phone integration
• Cheap Life time registration
• Good Support accross pretty much all IM protocols

Cons:

• Battery life problems whilst constantly polling for connection (see a trend happeneing here)
• No Skype or other VOIP support

Rating 4.5 / 5

Fring Messenger (http://www.fring.com)

I tried Fring after my initial trial of Agile Messenger ran out, and was quite pleased with the results. It isn’t (yet) near as refined as Agile, and this is reflected in its interface, but it does seem to have a fair few of the features to back it up. The thing I liked most with fring was its intercompatibility between all chat/messaging protocols, and I could connect to my Skype account as well as the SIP provider Fring uses. Until recently I hadn’t often used Skype, but I have family/friends back in Australia who use it more than any of the other chat services and I’ve found the voice quality fantastic compared to most other computer -> computer solutions.

Fring Home Screen

Pros:

• Connects to pretty much any chat protocol, everything I’ve used thus far, anyway (Google Talk, ICQ, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Skype, Fring SIP service, etc)
• Like Truphone the Internet/Voice calls are well integrated into the phone, and Skype to Skype is useful

Cons:

• Clunky interface
• Battery life death in low connectivitiy situations due to scanning

Rating 4 /5

I’d planned to have a look at the other clients listed at the top of this post, but to be honest I really couldn’t find anything good about them at all. Slack Messenger, whilst having a nice looking interface was chunky, slow, and often refused to connect. The other clients had obvious negatives like connectivity with one protocol/network, in the case of MSN Live Messenger, and the Skype client, though 3 UK’s implementation of the Skype service is great with almost flawless connections over 3G GSM constantly.

Whilst I was recommended IM+ by a few people I found it didn’t compare the other three clients I’ve reviewed, so I’d put it in fourth place. But it’s a pretty even competition between Truphone, Agile and Fring depending on whether you want a fantastic, cheap VOIP service on top of an amazingly integrated client (Truphone), or a full featured and equally well integrated IM client (Agile), or a mix of the two (Fring).

With all this testing of IM/Messaging clients it once again became bleedingly obvious that the only real issue I have with the Nokia N95 is the battery life. I’m used to laptops with a usable battery life of 1-5hrs (and as low as 5 minutes, or a completely dead battery), and it seems reasonable that when used heavily in a situation a high powered phone would have similar life. Despite this, it becomes occasionally restrictive to have to carry around two batteries or be shutting down programs all day just so you can make a phone call on the way home.

To explain why I’m 3 hours late home from work because the pub was calling… of course.

But you might say it’s just a phone, its not a PDA, and it doesn’t look quite as funky as the iPhone, but it really, just, works! No, its not just a phone, its:

• connected, through constant high speed access to the internet via wireless/3G network;
• for web browsing, email, RSS, social networking; and
• constant voip/skype connectivity for next to free international phone calls
• got an inbuilt GPS with Google/Garmin/Tomtom maps support
• a fantastic camera/video camera for day to day use, which stands up against most of the cheaper consumer modelled digital cameras
• a worthy media player for playing both 3gp/mpeg4′s and divx/mp3 and pretty much anythign else you can throw at it.
• also, all those other things you’d expect from a similar unit. A phone, calendar, address book.

As you can see, for the time being, I like this machine a little bit too much, and I hope things stay that way. Last night I was sitting on the Reading express train, frantic as I’d forgotten to pick up a paper or two at Waterloo station I was worried about how I would fill the next 20 minutes of my life. By the time I’d reached home, I’d updated my Facebook profile, uploaded a few photos taken earlier in the day, read most of the news articles I’d missed in the free tabloids, and watched the better part of the new American Dad episode.

I thought I’d end this by writing a quick list of the best applications I’ve found to date to make the N95 experience even better. Behold, in no particular order:

• 
• truphone – A VOIP/telephone app
• This app literally blew me away. As long as I’ve got internet connectivity (either through a Wireless LAN, or my phone providers 3G network), I can make and recieve phone calls to pretty much any where in the world (yes, Australian mobiles too) for free. I’ve long been used to calling friends and family via Vonage or Skype at home due to the sometimes prohibitive cost of calling an Australian mobile via land line, this is all that, and more from a device you carry on you at all times.

• Mobile Gmaps & Google Maps Mobile
• Just like Google Maps, or Google Earth, with the added benefit of GPS tracking through the phoones GPS. MGMaps is (I believe) a joint project between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google to provide extensive maps/satellite images to the mobile platform, so its definitely the better of the two.

• 
• Opera Mobile Browser
• Yes, the same web browser, which I used for a quite a while before the eventual migration to Firefox permanance (word?!), it definitely seems to out perform the standard web browser speed wise, though its not quite as streamlined, look and feel wise.

• 
• Gmail Mobile
• In all fairness I should probably group google maps altogether, as they’re always fantastic. But this a functioning, fast client for the Gmail mail service

And really, the list could go on forever. But a few more things to check out are:

• TaskSpy – A task/process list with memory/CPU information and the ability to kill processes
• YBrowser – A file browser, text viewer, unzipper to access all areas of the phones storage
• Accelerometer plugin – Plugin to access the phones inbuilt accelerometer (read: Wiimote ninja style)
• rotateMe - An app for auto changing between landscape and portrait depending on the angle the phone is held at (requires Accelerometer)
• FlipSilent - Flip the phone to silence an incoming call, flip it back again to turn volume on again (requires Accelerometer)
• ActivityMonitor - A Pedometer to record steps and exercise activity for the health buff (requires Accelerometer)
• SportsTracker - Same as above with GPS support for distance/mapping calculations
• RSSWorld – An RSS Feed Grabber
• putty – The same SSH Client
• Windows Live Messenger - Enough said

I got my new phone the other day, its a Nokia N95, the new one, that comes in black, because everyone knows, “Once you go black, you never go back”… Or so a lewd popup that came up when I searched for that picture would have me believe.

It’s not exactly new news, as the original version (the silver one) has been out on the market for at least a couple of years now. But there’s been some good fixes added to the new one that made the wait worth it (I’ve been waiting since about September last year). These are mainly related to the battery life, which apparently lasted less than a day of normal use, mines good for 24-36 hours of fairly heavy use so far.

Anythings an upgrade from the entry level £20 Prepaid mobile I’ve had since I arrived in the Ukey, but there are some big plus’s that make it worthwhile. Probably the main one of these is the camera in the phone, a 5MP beast which performs quite well, especially when compared to any camera phone I’ve seen before it. These photos were taken with the phone:

No complaints there! This is great as previously I’ve almost always gone out with a camera, phone and whatever else is required for that particular outing, now all I need (for most occasions) is the phone.