Fitbit Surge review

Honest warnings:

This review was written by person who running for relaxing, 'losing weight' ,endurance and health reasons.

I am not expert , 'expert' or blogger who knows anything about sport science ,nutrition and etc.
I wrote this entry to improve my writing.

STORY:
My Garmin Forerunner 220 is awesome, but it lacks 3 things .. step counter , sleep tracker and ability to measure various types of activities . Not a big deal, because everything else is simply awesome. Anyway .. I was started to look for device that will measure steps and my sleep pattern. I heard a lot about Fitbit and I got a Fitbit Surge.


This is a long'ish review ,  if you fancy to know what is good and bad about it, go to my findings  section under exceptions.


EXPECTATION

• Accurate measurement of steps and distance
• Sleep tracker
• Heart rate monitor that works continuously
• 8-10 hours to work on GPS and 2-3 weeks to work on idle mode
• 
  

THIS IS MY FINDINGS:

 + Sleep tracker is useful for me.

 + Automatic backlight works great.

 + Step counter is cool

 + Flexibility in measurement of various activities

 + Heart monitor

 + Silent alarm

 + Display

 + Fitbit sells many wristband sizes

 + UI is simple

 - You need install firmware and configure Fitbit online in order to use it!

 - Badly overestimate measurements (specially calories burnt and floor counter)

 - Mediocre battery

 - Software has poor and quirky UX ( error message, setting settings is annoying)

 - USB cable which has unique plug and it cause some problems

 - Water Resistance is not good .don't take shower!

 - there are some weird UI glitches like display half of the time.

 - floor counter is poor

 - settings ,setting many things can be problematic

 - sync is buggy and it doesn't work 

 - configuration flexibility is very poor

 - no speedometer

 - low battery indicator

 - you cannot delete activity

 - Calories burnt are badly wrong. Accuracy is ... 60%

- If you have bad luck ,installation can be very problematic.

In one sentence ,It was one of most disappointed product I bought for ages. I felt I bought a prototype not a full product.

What know more ? Read my review.

Installation and first impressions

I was really excited to use it out of the box ,so I  unpacked and turned on and discover that I cannot use it. Sadly I saw message on screen that I need to configure device using website . Configure device using website? Weird . Anyway .... I tried to install software on Windows 10 and then after I spent 2 hours on trying to detect device and install firmware ,I gave up.
Problem was  .. well , I don't know really as error message say  "it was unable to install ,please try again" .

I tried to install on Windows 7 and I managed to do it after few attempts.
On side note, after I installed  firmware on Fitbit Surge , after some time Windows 10 start detect watch  ( for short period time but it works).

When I finally managed to use Fitbit , I hoped it was just  bad first impression and from now it will be just better. Oh boy, I was so wrong .

On next day , I flew for holiday,so I thought I can setup everything later .
As it turns out, it was a big mistake , because watch almost doesn't have any settings (you can turn on/off Bluetooth ,  check info .. and something else ).

Setting time ? You need other device to do that.
Setting alarm ? The same
I would like to set .. .in 90% answer will be ,you can setup through pairing with device or on website or you cannot do at all.

What I like about Fitbit is that they selling watch with various wristband size , which is a good thing. Wristband is not bad, but  for some reason I experienced some itchiness while I use on daily basis . I didn't experience that with other watches.

So my first impression was quite bad as I got frustrating as nothing went straightforward.They were few good things like backlight.


FEATURES:

Walk / Steps 

Step counter is an awesome feature and it works very well. Accuracy from my test is 95% which is great. It gets even better overtime.

I  wanted to use  for long walks so I can see distance, calories burnt, steps and so on.
Problem starts when you are using GPS  to track distance it as battery doesn't hold long enough to measure 'a day out' activities . According to Fitbit battery should be enough for up to 5 hours. Well. for first 2 months it is almost truth ,but in reality it will be up to 4.5 hours when you using GPS.

+ step counter is very accurate


Running and doing other exercise 

I went for running and first thing I noticed is ... there is  no speedometer!
Yes, I know professionals using a pace meter, but I feel comfortable with speedometer.

You will see distance and stopwatch and  on bottom you can select one from a very few elements like pace, or heart morning  ,but no speedometer! It made me angry . I am very disappointed. .
I have notice that you cannot delete activity on watch.
Everything else seems be OK

 + distance measurement is OK.
 - almost no customisation of what you want to display
 - no speedometer
 - unable to delete activity on watch.

Floor counter 

It sounds cool in beginning but it doesn't work very well in practice for some time.
For me, it was a random number generator .... not floor counter.
I walked a  8 floors , it counts 5 ... I took Tube to work .. I did 20 floors (current record) while I sitting comfortable on my ass.
After sometime, . I have noticed that it improved a bit over time, but inaccuracy ruin everything.
It will be awesome if you can manually control when you count these things, but sadly you cannot

- measurement is very inaccurate
- unable to switch of this feature

Hearth  monitor

Fitbit measurement are usually higher than Garmin one  but it is acceptable. 
I think, it works as expected.

 + No need to use HRM belt!
 + measurement is OK.

Calories counter 

This is one of the most crap feature on this watch. Calories burnt monitor is rubbish.
When I read about it how they calculate it I was really happy and I was looking to use it to track my calories and try use this knowledge to help me lost  weight, but I quickly notice that results are so unreliable that I feel like they were made up.
Compare with expected results. actual are ... so wrong.  According to my calculation I burnt 3200 kcal ,where according to Fitbit I burnt like 4300 kcal!

- measurement is very inaccurate
- lack ability to set some values make this feature uselesss
- DON'T USE IT FOR WEIGHT LOST ! You will put on weight if you will follow it.


Sleep.

Watch doesn't display anything about sleep, but website contains lots of stuff about it.

Battery .

Battery is average. It should be enough  for anybody who use this watch only for exercise up to for 4 hours ,but If you want measure "day out" activity then ... you cannot use GPS.

My expectation for sport watch are simple. It should hold  8 or more hours while using GPS  and more than 2 weeks holds in idle mode ,so I can go for day out trip without worrying about taking a  charger or go for 2 weeks holiday. Fitbit Surge fails in both cases.
It is specially annoying ,because Fitbit using own  USB plug.

Well , according to battery specification  can hold up to 7 days and ONLY 5 hours on GPS .

My average battery life is 5 days on lazy days  and around 4.5 hour when using GPS. Over time, result get even worse.

In order to see battery indicator  you need go to activities to see battery indicator. Low battery indicator appear on main screen but then it is usually to late to get back to home to charge.
It happens to me few times that I didn't wear  watch as battery just flat out. 
Another problem is usb cable is quite lose so it happens few times that watch haven't been charge,.

Battery capacity is minimum that can be acceptable but  too small for long walk exploring or hiking.

+ Battery is mediocre
- Low battery indicator appear too late
- You cannot see battery indicator on main screen.
- Battery is not good enough for day outs or weekend activities.
- Charging battery can be problematic due cable to stick to Fitbit can be loose.
- USB uses not standart plug, so if you lose it , you need buy new one.


DISPLAY
It is a touch Monochrome LCD .
Display is clear and sharp.
Using touch while running is good.
Automatic backlight  works very well.
Main problem is that watch display time, if you want see steps, you can swipe ,but it will stay there for few seconds .. and then back to display time. It is really annoying.

+ white-black display  is cool . It is clear and sharp.
+ Quite responsive
- Unable to  set what you want to display  while watch is idle. 

APPLICATION

I used  Android application on my Nexus 9 and desktop application for Windows 7 and 10.

I didn't test Fitbit with iOS devices ,

On Windows 10 .Nothing seems to work.
It was problem with install software, but after 3rd attempt it was installed and then things went much worse.  I was unable install firmware for Fitibit because I saw error .. "Unable to install ,try again" or something like that. I had no idea why .
Sync between device and Fitbit works sometimes. However I  saw  usually a message "Windows is not responding as expected" .  What does mean ? ...  if UX designer of Fitbit read this review, then please 0read/ watch 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design by JAKOB NIELSEN and learn how to handle error message !

Desktop application for Windows 7 is less bit buggy ,so I was able to install Fitbit firmware and I was able to sync between devices  until I updated software where  they said in release note they wrote "fix bugs" and then application for Windows 7 stops work.  What happen ?  Fitbit was unable to find my Fitbit surge  any more ... Error message was very helpful : "Not working?".

Belive it or not ,but Android version of app is the best !  It works . You cannot do everything like on website or desktop but you can sync data between  tablet and watch statistics . Any problems ?As you can expect yes. For some reasons unknown to me you need enable ... Bluetooth (as expected) and  GPS to sync data between tablet and watch ...  Why GPS??? Why ? I don't know

 - Desktop application for Windows 10 is CRAP!

 - I was unable to install firmware for watch on Windows 10 because "Windows is not responding as expected"
- I had many problems to install on Windows 7 ,but I managed to do it.
- Sync  between watch and my tablet requires GPS
- UI is simple but UX is CRAP.

OTHER FUNCTIONALITY

+ Silent Alarm works smoothly. One of the best working feature . There is a tiny problem , if you want setup alarm clock, then you need use application .
+ Timer works and unusual for Fitbit, you can set timer in watch :). I used twice and I nearly feel "time out" as it is vibrate for short period time and that's all

+ it has achievements
- It is water resistance but not waterproof  ,so accidental swim or shower. .



EVERYDAY USE AND  GENERAL IMPRESSION

UI looks simple but User experience is really poor. I had many problems with doing even simple things.

For example ... on website ...sometimes you need save data by press save button  ...but sometimes not.

I think Error handling was inspired by Windows 95 famous errors like "Error occurred". What happen ? Don't know? What should I do ? In best case scenario .. try again.

Changing time ? What could possible go wrong ?
Well..
In Garmin Forerunner ...turn on GPS to pick up current time ... it doesn't matter where are you .
In Fitbit , you need sync with laptop or tablet .
No big problem but if time changed due summer/winter or you just land in different country then ...well as long as you  have internet, then it is a problem. If you don't have then ... like me you will need use wrong time for 3 days ..
That's not all ...
By default Fitbit use 12 hour system , which I am sure sounds awesome for many people but as I use 24 hour system it wasn't most optimal solution,so I decided to change it.
I expected to be able to do it in watch settings ...but I was wrong , so I check application on Android but I couldn't do it either . After quick search , I discover that you can do it using ... Fitbit website .
Automatic time zone didn't work either.

How to sync tablet with device? ...You just need turn on Bluetooth and GPS . 
Why you need turn on GPS for sync ? 
If you don't see logic in this don't worry.Logic is not something that you should use when you use Fitbit. However , I must admit that Fitbit clearly warn about this somewhere in manual or website

Sadly, this is a typical experience with using this watch wit most features. 
Can I say something good  ?

Watch is comfortable to wear although it hurts my skin and I am not sure why as I never hard this problem before..

Summary

I haven't been so disappointed since I bought Samsung Mobile.
This could be sport smartwatch ,if they will be done job properly.
Sadly ,It looks like Fitbit Surge suffers from MVP  disease (MVP stands for minimum viable product and it is a product with the highest return on investment versus risk.) If is somebody told me that's prototype then I will say ...it is awesome and I am looking forward  for final version .problem is ...it is a final version and it is unacceptable. In  most features I found major problems.
I feel I bought  'Chinese cheap imitation' of some amazing product .

Is jt worth buy? No.
Is it worth money ? No.

Fitbit Surge is a failure. I will never buy Fitbit product again. 

Fitbit states The ultimate fitness super watch but it isn't .It is a prototype of cheap imitation of fitness watch.

Garmin forerunner maybe doesn't have  step counter and automatic backlight, but when you need fitness watch for walking running or hiking then it does job well.I am sure there are many better 

My mark is +0/4 (2/5 or 3/10), which means DON'T BUY IT

Legend:
4 - Epic,Legendary
2- (very) Good
1 - Ok.Average
0 - Poor ,Rubbish,Crap

Garmin forerunner 220 everyday review and impression after one year of usage.

Honest warnings:

This review was written by person who running for relaxing, 'losing weight' ,endurance and health reasons.

I am not expert , 'expert' or blogger who knows anything about sport science ,nutrition and etc.

This review is about my  personal experience with Garmin Forerunner 220  for outdoor running  with extra information about general impression and how looks my opinion after 1 year of usage.

VOCABULARY:

GPS - stands for Global Postioning System
HRM stands for Heart Rate Monitor and it is used to measure


STORY:

Story, why I needed to buy this watch?
One way to be inspiring to run is to see statistics. I like statistics . It is exciting to see  progress you doing over time.

I was student and spending fortune for this watch was not a option . I decided to use application on Android  device.I have done some research  and Runkeeper was a  solution for my problem.
 It "works" on Android, so i can use it and listen music at the same time .Perfect. Well ,unfortunately Runkeeper was one of the worst programs that I used in my life for long time.  Normally ,you will just use other apps like most people did ,but  I am software developer and I decided to carry on use this application , because using Runkeeper teaches me few things:

1. Write software  that will NOT ruin people's passion.
2. Test your application (at least basic functionality)
3. Interact with customers,if they make effort to make feedback .. respond it .
4. If you fix bug ,fix it rather than make things worse.

One of reason why I stopped  running is because Runkeeper ruined my stats due constant crashes .
I can write a lot about  how shitty Runkeeper  app for Android. However, I must mention 2 great things about Runkeeper. Their website is awesome and for long time it was one of the best for this kind of applications. Simple,Easy to use and gives lots of useful stuff. Second one is Runkeeper for  iPhone is much better.
Anyway. It is about Garmin Forerunner 220 not how crap is Runkeeper.

I moved to London and I start  miss running, but I knew that using Runkeeper and British weather will ruin my passion to run again.  Another problems was that I broke 2 smartphones during running and I didn't want broke my 3rd phone,so  I decided buy a watch to restore my passion to running.

I have done  research about which watch I want.

My requirement were simple:

• Watch must hold ~10 hours  using GPS (to be able to walk marathon)
• It must have HRM
• Accurate
• have a decent website where I can see all stats and/or  be compatible with Runkeeper website

After read many reviews ,check prices and so on I spent fortune and I bought Garmin forerunner 220

If you want know specification.Look here:
https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/wearables/wearables/forerunner-220/prod129397.html


FIRST IMPRESSION:

It came  in small package. In the box you will get Watch, Heart rate Monitor, Cable for charging and data exchange and some papers with bla bla bla. Watch looks like toy'ish and bit fragile . You can feel a weight of watch (It weights ... 40g  ),but it doesn't make you hand feel tired over time (at least for rather unfit big man)  .


DISPLAY and UI：

It has a colourful screen.
Colours are  abit washout for me but that's all bad things what you can say about display.
From User experience point of view data displayed on screen during run, in menu and etc. are easy to understand and find. Everything seems to be well organised.
It is always easy to read data on screen  despite weather condition (and at night, thanks to good backlight)  and watch is highly-configurable  ,so you can choose what to display during activity. (You can configure 2 screens with 3 type of data (per screen) of your choice  + heart rate + clock
You can manually switch between screens during running or set auto-scroll which will switch screen periodically.

 
BATTERY LIFE:

According to specification battery is enough for 10hr  active use (GPS/HRM)  ,so It will be enough for walk Marathon. I didn't get 10h but I was close.
In watch mode works up to  6 weeks and that seems to be more-less true as  I used as watch once for 2 days and device used 5% of the battery.
If you using actively ,you will charge this Watch every week which is great result. It charges itself in about 1 hour on charger.


FEATURES:

• Watch is designed to measure your activity and display various data to you . It does very well  . Data is very accurate (However indoor measurements are less accurate according to many reviews but I didn't check this in details as  I don't do indoor exercises).
• Most feature are very useful and there is no junk-gadgets features.. My favourite extra features are
• Run/Walk alert  (you can set how long  you want run  and how long you want walk )
• General alerting features that you are below/above limit like for heart rate,pace and etc.
• Keep information about my personal best (Sadly , I  messed-up with results I saved accidentally an activity that I wanted to delete it (As after long walk I took tube ,so my personal best belong to Metropolitan Line at the moment :( ... good news is that you can delete them but you cannot undo them .. until you sync data with website (as you can dismiss new records).
• It has a nice summary screen after activity is finished.
• Backlight works very well, so there is no problem with see data at night.
• I miss feature to choose what type of activity it is (like run,walk).
• It is waterproof ,which I tested by accident.(It stays in hot water in bath for 40 minutes).

ACCESSORIES for watch

HEART RATE MONITOR

I bought watch with heart rate monitor and my impression is  ... IT IS AWESOME!.
I expected it will be interesting accessory ,but it is much better and  very useful in many occasions .For example: it helps you, when your targets are like  lose weight or improve endurance , improve calories burn accuracy and keep you on track ( to ensure that you run with consistent  pace ,in specific heart rate range and etc.). It adds a lot  to your running experience and my recommendation is if you buy this watch buy with Heart Rate Monitor. It's worth money.


FOOT PAD

You need buy separately  and It cost £60! It allows you to run indoor or use with devices that doesn't have accelerometer.  Garmin forerunner 220 has Accelerometer.

I bought Foot Pad because I though it works like pedometer and it measure steps... but It doesn't do that. (Conclusion? Don't buy things at 2am when you are sleepy).

Do you need it ? No*. It's not worth 60'ish quids. Seriously . 20? yes, but not 60 pounds. (in 2014).

* I must admit that Foot pad improves  accuracy for indoors  exercises BUT  I didn't test this in details. From what I read online about this watch Footpad is must-have accessory for indoors users as internal accelerometer is so-so . I use watch for outdoor walks/run only,so for me , it was a waste of  money as Accelerometer calculates distance enough well when GPS is not available (which happens in forest and city,when you are surrounded by tall buildings).


SOFTWARE

I am really impressed with Garmin Software.
I registered on Garmin's website. and  download software.
Installation went smoothly.
Synchronization between watch and website works perfectly.
It has a one of the best update system for both software and firmware.
Why? It is Simple (process) , Easy (it explains what will happen and explain what  changes are in new version).


EVERYDAY USE AND  GENERAL IMPRESSION

• Finding satellites is very quick as watch pre-cached satellite data for about week,so it takes 5-30 seconds to be able to use Satellite and that's great result for GPS. 
• GPS accuracy is very high.
• Watch always works and I never had any problem with bugs or glitches.
• Despite Watch's shell looks like made from cheap plastic it is quite resistant to damage (although I didn't have proper crash)
• It sad ,that you are unable to choose activity type (So if you want use for cycling , walking,  climbing and swimming... you will need set this manually on website after activity is done,which I found annoying).
• I charge battery on this watch once per week (as weekly , I use it for 5 hours for walking and 2 hours for running  + some random activities + I use this watch  on daily basics without switching off) and I am very happy with result
• There are 2 things which I haven't try yet.
• Bluetooth Smart Live Tracking 
• Workouts.

Overall .I am very happy with this watch.It does all what you expect and it does well.

AFTER ONE YEAR

• It still works. I use this watch all the time. I like to use it as normal watch .
• I never had any problem with Watch.
• I have some  minor problems with HRM from time to time recently ,but I haven't investigate root of cause.
• I  still charge watch  once  per week (if I don't do long distance walks)  or twice per week,which suggest that battery quality and performance are very good.
• It doesn't have any sign of disintegration or wear-out (including battery!).

CONCLUSIONS

It is awesome watch.It is worth to buy it,  even if is s a bit expensive.
I am very happy with Garmin Forerunner 220  as it meets almost all my requirements (except ability to measure walk).
If you buy it, I suggest to buy in bundle with HRM.
That's all.

This review focused on my personal experience , everyday use and how it looks after one year of usage. Best professional review that I found on internet was written by DC RAINMAKER and can be found here: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/11/garmin-forerunner-depth-review.html (It was a review that convinced me to buy this watch).

I hope,you enjoyed this quick review 

Review: HTC ONE X+

WARNING!

1. This is subjective review!
2. It is not professional review!
3. It contains very poor English,but I will work hard  to improve my writing.

  €￥￡ INTRODUCTION

I had a nightmare experience with Samsung GT-C3350. (Read my review about it here: http://pastorcmentarny.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/review-samsung-gt-c3350-xpress-2.html ).As xmas gift i had previelege to choose any mobile,which i want.I had a big problem with choosing mobile.
I want android phone.
On start i knew that  Samsung mobiles are permanently disqualified fo shitness.  I didn't want NEXUS 4,because it was made by LG and you need wait light years to receive ... and LG. I left with choose between Sony and HTC.
I had a problem with HTC.They didn't release any WOW phone for while now.They are terrible with update devices.
Sony. I feel bit ... worried about Sony as Sony was pricely but quaility of everything was superb,but it was in past and it seems is not an awesome anymore.Anyway.I stuck with choosing HTC One X+ and Sony Xperia T.
All reviews ,o2 advisors said Choose Samsung SIII ...but my answer was NO F.**KING WAY,so then they everybody say ...Sony is better in battery,camera,quality and because last time when I listened these advices a end up with  Samsung GT-C3350 which i feel so shameful about this decision until today.so i decided to choose HTC One X+


  €￥￡ EXPECTATION

1. Great camera
2. Great music player
3. Stable
4. Need survive whole day without charging 

  €￥￡ FOR PEOPLE IN RUSH (SPOILERS!)

+ Screen quality

+ Awesome camera.

+ FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST
+ Sm
- Itenral memory ,if you lost data,You will have no chance to recover that data.YOU MUST DO BACKUP!


  €￥￡ FIRST IMPRESSION

It looks amazing.I really like look HTC and

  €￥￡ CALL and SOUND 

• Good sound quality

Lots of people are disappointed that beats audio does not cause ear orgasms and most people believes that when is turn on,it makes music louder . Well is ... True BUT only if u using normal earphones and listen a pop 'music' and using shity music player with some dodgy equaliser.however... If u have a better headphones ,using good music player then for some genres u will discover difference.
How differents sounds like?It is clearer with fouc

Many people wondering

  €￥￡ DISPLAY
It is great vivid colors. I
t has a Gorilla Glass 2 which means scratching screen will be a much difficult task.
However, they can be s a bit more fragile if You drop it.
So far mobile survived few scary drops and there is no issues.

  €￥￡ KEYBOARD Unfortunately ,due no physical keyboard. I am forced to used a virtual one. I h

  €￥￡ BATTERY

• Useless for business people, gossip girl

HTC ONE X has one huge disadvantage .Battery size and endurance.
Many people wasn't sure is battery is big enough to go to local shop to buy milk and back.
How looks in HTC One X+?
Well.It doesn't survive day of intence and action packed use .
It will survice day in normal days (which a big progress compare to HTC One X).
Battery is not swappable.It seems good battery pack seems be compulsory.
I have no idea why they didn't give battery like 2800mAh.


  €￥￡ CAMERA

• Pictures quality are superb.
• Shot time is very quick
• HDR.
• ff

In past HTC had avarage quality camera lens, (almost all 3.2 and 5Mpx generations was so so. 8Mpx generation is an amazing improvment. Quality is really awesome ,even in very cloudy and bit darky places.Night pictures looks like picture.

It is enough camera for everyday events pictures and ok for basic photos due travel and etc.

  €￥￡ PERFORMANCE (CPU,GPU and ETC)


 €￥￡ CONNECTIVITY

• All connectivity features(Bluetooth ,Wifi,WiFi Direct) works without issue.
• I didn't test NFC yet.

Bluetooth works ok.I used for file sending , listen music on weird branded Bluetooth speaks.
WiFi works very well in at home ,on company network with bizarre security settings and open-access WiFi in trains. Some people has smaller issue but i haven't notice in my case

  €￥￡ OTHERS

•  My smarthphone during running half marathon for unknown reason have done a factory reset.I have no idea.How this happen.

  €￥￡ USER INTERFACE


  €￥￡ Android OS &&  SOFTWARE
 HTC gave u few extra apps like

Mirror,Flashlight, Polaris Office
and few shitware like Deals
Despite.I have an O2 mobile,they do not install useful app called O"

  €￥￡ EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE

It is really cool

  €￥￡ SUMMARY

It is an amazing phone with great spec but nothing with wow factor. I have an amazing experience with this mobile almost everyday.almost as device format itself twice during running. How drawbacks affect my opinion. Battery size is a big problem but you can solve by using battery pack.
I feel really disappointed after mobile  lost data.
I am happy that I chosen this mobile over nexus4 , galaxy s3. Is it better than so

Review: Flytouch (crane) G08S

WARNING!

1. This is subjective review!
2. It is not professional review!
3. It contains very poor English,but I will work hard soon to improve my English 

  €￥￡ INTRODUCTION

While i was in China I decided to waste my money for Chinese branded device.Unfortunately  due lack of time I couldn't find awesome 'fake' branded device (not enough time),so after while i decided to buy ... 10" tablet .So i waste too much many and bought a Chinese made and branded Tablet. My choice was  Flytouch  G08S  (crane).
Buying things in China is a funny experience.


  €￥￡ EXPECTATION

1. It will work ... more-less. 

  €￥￡ FOR PEOPLE IN RUSH (SPOILERS!)

+ Battery life

 + It works
+ good quality aluminium-like shell
+ USB port that allow you to add 3G, HDD, Ethernet or other feature.

- VERY slow
- Screen resolution
- Camera is useless.
- touch capablities

  €￥￡ FIRST IMPRESSION

It looks really good. Usually, shells in this things has cheap plastic feeling,but Flytouch has really good  aluminium-like feeling cover which very pleasant to feel. You will feel weight of the tablet,but it is not too heavy,which is a good .When I turn on i was welcome with ugliest splash screen ever.You just feel you loading a retro game on modern device.


  €￥￡ DISPLAY

• Size: 10"
• Resolution: Only 1024x768 !

It is a big 10" screen with very low resolution 1024x768. it is too low resolution for this size. Everything looks too pixely ,but it maybe be good thing with people with eye problems. Virtual keyboard is usable (compare to physical usb keyboard which is terrible crap (See, next paragraph)). Touch-abilities of this device is below average but it is usable in acceptable levels.


  €￥￡ KEYBOARD

• DO NOT BUY
• DO NOT USE

For 1 yuan (10p , 10 euro cents , 20 cents ?) .You will  receive a keyboard! Well ... 'keyboard' as this typical Chinese craphardware . It is complete unusable and will broke sooner rather than later. 
Lady from shop unpack 3 keyboards , before she found ... a working one.

If you buy any keyboard  for tablet make sure that you buy branded keyboard. As weird-branded will ruin your typing experience very quickly.


  €￥￡ BATTERY

• Long  uptime on one charge (>6hours!)
• Slooow charging time.
• Do not charge tablet via Laptop's USB 
  

 It is a very big battery. From full to empty during intense usage including Wi-Fi takes around 6 hours. Sometimes much longer. Charging this battery takes ...ages.D on't know why,but it is slow and long term process.
 Do not charge this tablet via  t via Laptop's USB  . It charge 1% per ages.It takes day to charge :) and will be discharger rather charge ,if you  trun on wifi during charging battery in this tablet. Just use charger only.
Do not use charge via  'Battery pack' as tablet will power off itself.Good uptime with problematic and slow charge time.

  €￥￡ CAMERA

• It has 2 cameras .
• Both are useless for doing picture
• Front one is good enough for video chat.
• main camera has worst 2mpx ever made.

Camera is added,because all tablet MUST have these days,but it is totally unusable.I make few pictures and delete them.

Tablet has even front camera,that has quality similar 2nd generation of mobile cameras (0.3mpx ) and yes.You can recognize yourself and use for Skype chat :).

I have done pictures,but they looks too crap and  I just delete it.

  €￥￡ PERFORMANCE (CPU,GPU and ETC)


Slowest Android device which I ever had. Everything works very slow caused many ANR freeze to all aplications (including core android services). .Facebook  ,FB messagner freezing from time to time but they back to normal after while.It takes ages to turn on device and it takes another ages ... or even epoch to be completly booted.After that,it works slow,but quite stable.It is usable for basic task.


  €￥￡ MULTIMEDIA  & SOUND

You can play low resolution flv movies,but do not be ambitious.
Speakers in this tablet is exists but  and they making some noises but they are not design to produce any reasonably sounds.

For whatever reason volume up button works smoothly but volume down cause 'whole tablet to think for a second' before it volume down


  €￥￡ CONNECTIVITY


Thanks to USB port you can plug many useful things that will extend features of this tablet as out of the box.Tablet has  WiFi only. You can plug 3G modem  , Ethernet , External HDD and many more and most of things will usually work :).


  €￥￡ OTHERS

• If you are developer,then you will be have a tiny problem with install usb drivers for this tablet,but after little hassle .It will works :) (it should be post on my blog about it,somewhere)
• TF-Card is  just different name for  SD-Card ( micro size).
• Tablet from time to time don't like to Power  On.It happen rarely  but it happens.
• Tablet is very slow and it will cause lots of ANR errors pop-in.Ignore them.
• Tablet has problem with being charged from 'battery bank pack'
• You need SD-Card to keep your stuff as tablet.

  €￥￡ Android OS , SOFTWARE  &  USER INTERFACE

• Android 4.0.4
• plain vanilla  Android Theme

It is vanilla plain android OS interface.
Because tablet is very slow the reaction for you action can be slow.
And apart of that.Nothing excited to write.

According to specification . Flytouch is shipped with Android 4.0.3,but tablet said that it is .. Android 4.0.4.
Even if Tablet itself is a vanilla plain in terms of Android OS and software included.
However. I bought this tablet in China. It  was in Chinese shop ,so while during buy process, they offer me all sort of  paid software in full version ... FOR FREE!.  You get software that is worth more than tablet itself. Great ,is it?


  €￥￡ EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE

I used this tablet to write articles ,chat, learn Chinese and web browsing  during travel.
 I enjoying using this tablet for these reason .
 It does what I intended use for and do these things without any problems.
Slow but stable.


  €￥￡ SUMMARY


 I bought this tablet for laugh and I don't mind if shit happens.I surprised ,that tablet is better than I expected.
Be honest. It is not worth to buy this tablet, but if you get for almost free,then you will able use this tablet for basic tasks and it will do it,slowly .Good battery is another plus .
It is usable but you can buy better tablets in similar prices.

Off-topic conclusions.
Is it worth to buy any tablet with Android  OS?
Yes. After while i see few cases ,where tablet is better than smartphone or ultra/net -book.
Is it worth to buy cheap tablet?
Yes,but this is story for separate post.

I didn't have any expectation  and I am  surprised that it works. More less.
And despite many disadvantages .I enjoying this tablet and i keep using.
If Chinese brands will improve their products as quickly as they do now,then in near future we will see new brands on worldwide market soon. See how ZTE as example.

Mark -1/4 Usable.

Explanation for my Mark Scheme

4 ==  Perfect (4! it is something which is visionary ,beyond current time and which competitions should copy as part of future standards )

2 == Above average

1 == Average

0 == Below average (0! is a crappy junk . DO NOT USE)

Review: Samsung GT-C3350 (Xpress 2)

WARNING!

1. This is subjective review!
2. It is not professional review!

This review is split into few parts. I start from introduction and first impression, then  'in rush summary(+ and -)',then i will  focus on specific aspects of mobile (calls, hardware stuff like display,keyboard,battery,camera and some bullets points about rest features, software ,  everyday experience and some bullets points about tough mobile features and end up with summary and mark.

€￥￡ INTRODUCTION

Second eco-friendly Sony (SE Elm) mobile died.

It makes me upset. Really upset. It was a cool phone,but it didn't survive many drops during run and quick walk and suddenly stop works ;(.
I decided to buy tough mobile that will survive  my clumsy  behaves . After long research I decided to buy Samsung GT-C3350 .According to reviews ...
Good Screen,battery life and other things make me convinced. Let's buy a  Samsung GT-C3350.  I made worst decision ever.

 €￥￡ EXPECTATION
I expect that:

1. mobile will be  difficult to damage.
2. all basic features working perfectly.
3. higher than average sound quality and speaker.
4. long standing battery
5.  Camera good enough to do pictures of damaged packages.
6. Can listen mp3 during running.

 €￥￡ FOR PEOPLE IN RUSH (SPOILERS!)

+ Radio
+ Camera ,do a good picture as 'tough mobile'
+ dust proof
+ water proof* (except,if you don't drop or mobile do not 'open itself
+ battery life

- Call quality!
- Sending/receiving text ( Mobile CRASHES during texting )!
- Buggy software!
- terrible user interface
- torch
- No 3.5mm jack
- tough mobile features are crap (except dust and water proof) .
- locking back cover cause trouble which unacceptable for
- indicator
- slow
- usability

  €￥￡ FIRST IMPRESSION

I just felt that I bought mobile-toy for kid,but despite it feel 'cheap' It looks nice .I think is best looking classic candy-bar made by Samsung ever. I know, It is to fatty for modern devices,but it is really a nice looking tough mobile.I turn on device and ... gosh what a ugly interface and later things go worse.

  €￥￡ CALL

• Sound quality is very poor.  
• Most people has problem with understanding me and i have problem with hearing people. loudspeaker produce better sound. It's is difficult to understand normal person,but I can't imagine what you will hear when drunk person will call to you.
• In noisy environment calling is unusable. 
• You can talk very long on battery (around 8h).

  €￥￡DISPLAY

• Good size
• Poor quality
• Poor visibility in direct sun

Size are good (2,2")  240 x 320 px . as for tough mobile and is better average tough phone (1,44") i saw on the market.  In my opinion 2,2"  is optimum for this kind of phone,but quality of display is  quite disappointing . Colours quality is similar to phones in 2004.

Visibility in direct sun is poor which is a big disadvantage for outdoor use.

  €￥￡KEYBOARD

• Great keyboard and almost all keys
• up-arrow ruins whole experience with using keyboard
• Crap T9

Keyboard is really good for this kind of mobile. Yes.It is  crap , if compare with HTC ChaCha keyboard but as don't forget about type of this mobile  'tough mobile'.As always for Samsung , great experience is ruined by stupid issue.  For keyboard ... Up arrow is very difficult to use . It is really annoying during everyday use. Combine with bugs related to SMS it will piss you off every day.  Which is shame as rest keys are very comfortable.

To make things worse T9 is not very helpful either as it was lack of many basic words .It is first time since introduction  of T9,where writing words without T9 was faster than with T9!

  €￥￡BATTERY

• Big battery
• Long battery life,specially in standby mode and good if you talk a lot.
• Indicator lies a lot.

It has very big battery 1300 mAh for a mobile. You will charge mobile every few days even if you use a lot.The only problem is ....a indicator.
battery allow mobile to work for long time.
That's good news, however indicator that show battery battery state is quite random.It will stay full for major amount time and suddenly it start dropping rapidly from full to almost empty in 2-3 hours. Sometimes u see that indicator shows battery is empty and cause mobile to switch off by itself. however when u turn on again or plug device to charger for 2-5 seconds then indicator back to full and  battery stands for another 2 days.It hard to predict when to charge battery.
You achieve 50% of what Samsung say in specification.(Which i found quite normal for Samsung mobiles spec).

To be honest all indicators in this mobile are useless.
Signal strength shows good range in place where is no range.
Indicators  seems to be fake feature in GT-C3550.

  €￥￡CAMERA

• 2mpx
• good quality
• NO FLASH LIGHT. bit weird for outdoor mobile 

It is  .. 2mpx. Which is OK,but ..  Picture quality is not too bad.On screen looks rubish,but on PC or other device it looks quite good. Camera doesn't have a flash light, which is a mistake as flashlight can be useful for outdoor or working  environment.

day picture

As you see picture looks ... good.

night picture with artificial light

It looks ... ok'ish.

night picture can't be done during ... lack of flash light.

So camera is OK for this type of mobile in this type of mobile.

  €￥￡ PERFORMANCE

• average speed,but it struggles from time to time.

Mobile's performance is ... so-so. Response time is average and it can 'freeze' from time to time,but it is not too bad. For example try to quickly switch between images.

  €￥￡ CONNECTIVITY

 Bluetooth works smoothly,but ...bluetooth settings can be challenge. 

No WiFi, but be honest using any internet stuff is a not a good idea.It will doesn't work.

  €￥￡OTHERS

•  Radio.It is one of the best feature in this mobile! Built-in antenna means that you don't need earphone to use Radio in  phone. Big +  ... best thing in this mobile
• It has very powerful vibration.It doesn't cause earthquake but is very good.
• Stopwatch/Timer will stop works from time to time if you try use them  in background .
• Loud and good alarm clock.
• No multi tasking
• File explorer struggle with many basic file types (including images done by other devices).
• No 3.5 mm jack for headphones! 
• It has many social network software,but they either doesn't work or work slooooowly

  €￥￡ USER INTERFACE

• Ugly ,which is acceptable
• Usabilty is a nightmare ,which is a diaster.You will hate it.

Very ugly GUI but this is typical for Samsung, except if you are fan of GUI made in 2004-5,where very low resolution/ 4096 colours screen rule the mobile world. It is useless too as typical for Samsung. For me ,it seems design was done by person who never use mobile and implement by students who have done software for this mobile as part of assignment last night before deadline during suffering from hangover after night before.

  €￥￡ SOFTWARE

Messaging is a disaster.
First device will crash if You trying send message at time when device will just receive message! SMS has 20 years and It is hard to believe that device can crash!(Nokia was famous to have many problems with sending/receive SMS.
Conversation mode is a disaster.Don't write more as I am trying to avoid swearing about this f***ing annoying piece of s**t.
Alarm clock settings are in to places.which is bit weird,but at least it has feature that allow mobile to wake up mobile if off. for some reason smartphones based on android and windows cannot do that.why? that's beyond scale of my understanding,but Alarm clock is one of few programs in software that works well.

  €￥￡ EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE

After short time.I started hated this mobile more and more. I discovered more and more issue as I didn't find anything excited . I using mobile less and less,because talking was a pain in the ass.Sending text was problematic.After 3 months ...  i received a new mobile ...a HTC One X+ and feel so happy right now.
I can hear my people clearly.I don't have problem with sending/receive text.

  €￥￡ Tough mobile phone's features.

• It seems this mobile is waterproof  
• It seems this mobile is dustproof.
• Torch is rubbish.
• Unlock/Lock to open cover is doggy!

 I just repeat .Unlock/Lock to open cover is doggy! .  I was a bit surprised ,when locking 'unlock' mobile by 'itself' during running,if i will drop then ... I will be doomed. 

On  picture.You see part that scare me most .

 Torch light quite useless. Many normal mobiles has much better brighter light than Xpress2 .  I was very disappointed. 

  €￥￡ SUMMARY

It is first time,when I have bought something and I feel regret.
It fails in all my expectation (except battery life).
It seems like Samsung's stuff works only, if all things based on stolen design/technology or they use others OS (like android , everything works fine except things change by Samsung. touchwiz is ugly , cover looks always cheapish and doggy (even S3).
Classic Samsung device issue.
Make product,which has amazing pontential and screw up  few things so badly that it ruins whole opinion.
This mobile could be great,but many annoying mistakes that ruin everything and make this device unusable.

This is reason why i will say DO NOT BUY this piece of crap.
As it is not first time that I feel really disappointed. It was last Samsung device bought by me as I am fed up with waste my money on over fragile and unstable devices made by this brand.

My mark 0/4, DISASTER!
 DO NOT BUY this piece of crap!!!

Explanation for my Mark Scheme

4 ==  Perfect (4! it is something which is visionary ,beyond current time and which competitions should copy as part of future standards )

2 == Above average

1 == Average

0 == Below average (0! is a crappy junk . DO NOT USE)

+ means that something has something special 

- has better mark but some major issue suggest that mark maybe should be worse. 


[update 1 @ 21.12'2012] add connectivity and social network paragraphs

Review of "Visual QuickStart Guide CSS3" by Jason Cranford Teague

* Please, keep in mind, that I am NOT an expert, so treat this review as personal opinion rather than as prophecy!

 Jason Cranford Teague

 Visual QuickStart Guide CSS3

Peachpit Press(2011) 

My knowledge about CSS was more than basic and but far not enough to what I need to know at job, so I decided to read book to learn CSS properly.

I start my looking for right book from check “CSS cookbook” published by O’Relly. This book is great as reference book but is not too useful to learn. Next, I saw books “Smashing CSS” published by Willow ,but it was too colourful for me ,then I look to “CSS for web developer” published  by ABook, but it looks like story line rather than book to learn, so I look to book  "Visual QuickStart Guide CSS3" and I saw examples, explanation, info, so it was exactly what I want.

Book is written in simple way; focus on what you should to know. It is  easy to read and learn from this book.

All basic term are well explained and it is very easy to understand, even for international people who do not use English on regular basics.

It lots of explanation, tables and information how well every feature is supported across major browser.

Examples are simple and show what you will achieve if you set something.

After read a book you will know everything what you need to know about CSS and you just need practice with few examples, which you should create by yourself.

Book can be use as reference book as well, because chapter are well designed, so it very easy to find what you look for.

Book contains all information about CSS3, so book will be useful for years.

One of the best written it book, which I read so far.

Conclusions.

It is mandatory book for people who want learn CSS.

  Mark: 4/4  

Review of HTC desire Z

Introduction

It’s my second HTC phone after TYTN II. TYTN II was a legend. fantastic phone but it came useless because I spent hours on talk with my wife and I needed to change to phone (my choice was Sony Ericsson Naite) which can handle fact that my wife loves talks with me ... and talks and talks and talks and talks  anyway.... I decided to buy android phone to use as internet device, organizer and test platform for my application written for android.

Android OS

This is a first device with android OS, which I have.

My general first impression is that android is baby stage and I takes some time before it will be enough mature.

It is stable but it is buggy (multi-touch for example) and can cause sometimes lots of annoying experience.

With SDK is exactly similar. Its buggy and even installation can be quite interesting voyage thru world of bugs.

Over time I found that Android OS is great. OS works quite well. Android market offer application for every occasion.

I must say that applications for android OS, has worse quality than software for iOS but still you can find lots of them are useful and works.

Another issue is that is much more crapware for android OS than for iOS, so I think Iphones are more safe, but still blackberry is winner in safely.

However Android allows you to modify OS which give advanced user design own OS. This gives marvelous chance to create own custom OS tuned to weird needs.

It takes 2-3 years when android will be enough mature but it is already quite impressive.

€￥￡CPU, graphic card and performance

It looks like 800 MHz is not enough but ...it is enough to do few things at the same time and everything works smoothly (usually) and if u using multitasking extensively then u will feel lack of power. Is it an issue? No (maybe will be for advance users).

It has enough ram for storage but if want store maps and mp3s then 6GB SDHC card will be useful or 8GB for store movies as well.

Games works fine but some poor quality games that use way too much resources can cause some issues with performance.

In my opinion 800 MHz is acceptable minimum for high-end phone.

€￥￡Display

Display is huge and big enough for internet and watching multimedia.

Quality is great as long as u haven't see Samsung’s amoled+ screen.

It consumes 84% of battery. It is a battery killer in most mobiles, anyway.

Touchscreen is quite accurate but i found that press display in corners works strange for me. 

€￥￡Keyboard

Keyboard is fantastic because is well design for small and large fingers, works very well and quality is excellent.

Dpad is crap (One of worst pad in mobiles). It makes navigate thru menu, aplications an annoying experience. HTC screw up badly.

Another issue is slide it works very well but they looks like old matches and you have feeling that they are very fragile but in practice is OK except one little thing is too loose when you are on bed and look on roof and you slide screen to use keyboard  then screen closes. I have no idea how to describe this issue.

I found that jack for handset is in wrong place because it makes using marvelous keyboard more difficult when you plug-in handset.

€￥￡Battery

HTC design amazing phones with crap battery. Desire z has battery very tiny one. It is like put engine from Toyota IQ to big …18wheels lorry full of heavy goods and send to Mount Everest. This mobile weight like brick so add bigger battery which will be more heavy just increase chance to use as stone.

so or u can buy bigger battery .Muggen battery 1800mAh is be good and allow you to use mobile for one day with stress that battery died when is really needed in the middle day.

I see few solutions. Another HTC battery which is really  annoying if u replace battery once or twice a day or buy big battery (1800mAh , 2400mAh, 3600mAh) but if you buy choose good quality one (for example Muggen (they should pay me for this advertisement :) ).

HTC! I have a simple question. W H Y?

€￥￡Software included

UI sense is great.

Open office is really useful but QWERTY keyboard working. Only party, because FN button doesn’t work so forgot about numbers shift doesn’t work so forgot about capitol letter too.         

It is big minus for that.

If u press home button then ur changes will be discarded so in my opinion office require major improvement.

It is usable but issues are really annoying if u planning do minor editing for example

Rests of OS software are.... typical for plain OS, and doesn't have anything unique which is noteworthy.

€￥￡Camera

So.... if u want do picture , then u can do and they will looks ... acceptable as  long as you doing in daylight  but if u like quality pictures then ...keep in mind that this phone has  one of worst 5mpx camera which I used. It’s not tragic but quite disappointing.

Btw. try to press camera button few times which will cause OS to slow down , screen start backlight to be more bright and less at the same time which looks that mobile getting mad. Good fun.

€￥￡Others

Sound quality is good.

Speaks generate clear voice and has better quality than some laptops even.

Microphone is not too bad either.

However quality of sound came from jack is poor .It's enough for basic usage but if you are addicted from music then quality of sound can be painful (especially for people who use high-end headsets.

GPS works well.

Radio is OK.I used ones however.

Bluetooth works fine.

Wi-Fi works quite well.

USB connectivity is excellent. I transfer lots of data and I never had any problem.

€￥￡ Everyday experience

I use internet and built-in web browser is good. Static html pages works very well (so blogs, much designed news sites without useless fireworks will work fine).

JavaScript’s works fine but frameworks like JQuery doesn't work unfortunately.

Adobe flash works very well on mobile.

If you are social media sites works very good.

Checking emails works smoothly

I used mobile for support with navigation (based on GSM, Wi-Fi and GPS) in big and small places and it works very well and it will makes your life much easier as long as you keep in mind that software is ... more less right.

I used my mobile as organizer and android calendar is great. Maybe built-in software is not very useful, but third-party soft makes this mobile as perfect organizer for you, your notes and data.

I used mobile for sending and received text and it great.

It lots of useful application on market which makes your Smartphone like your assistant.

I start use camera and I stop very quickly, because I was disappointed with quality .I still prefer use my SE Elm for making pictures which has 5mpx but quality is much better than in HTC.

I love listen a lot of music. Quality is bellow my requirement. It's not too bad with Bass however. In general multimedia works very well on this mobile. Music, videos.... no problems.

Alarm clock doesn't work when mobile is turn off. IT'S A DISASTER.

€￥￡ Summary

It's outstanding mobile with lots of brilliants elements.

Good screen, fantastic keyboard, lots of memory, OS work fast and it is reliable, Sense UI, connectivity is great and works without any problems (USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), speakers quality.

Yes, it has few issue too ... that should be improved

Battery capacity is pain in the ass (but it can be solved by buying replacement batter with bigger battery (Muggen 1800 is very good),

Screen’s backlight should consume 75% less energy,

Replace shit navigate pad to something useful.

Apart of that it's perfect device for what is design for.

In my opinion this mobile is for people who need good multimedia device as “IPod” replacement or netbooks replacement or use for business purpose.

This mobile is useless for people who needs talk a lot. If you are talking machine then almost all Smartphone are not too useful anyway but if u addicted from desire z and you must talk a lot then ... buy huge battery like Muggen 3600mAh and go to gym to improve your hand and arm muscle.

It is a One of the best Android devices so far.

Btw. this review was written on HTC desire Z.

My mark 2+/4 

Explanation for my Mark Scheme

4 ==  Perfect (4! it is something which is visionary ,beyond current time and which competitions should copy as part of future standards )

2 == Above average

1 == Average

0 == Below average (0! is a crappy junk . DO NOT USE)

+ means that something has something special 
- has better mark but some major issue suggest that mark maybe should be worse. 

Review about Laptop Optimus II 9o7 2630QM , 4GB , 500GB , GPU Intel HD3000 , Nvidia 540m from www.pcspecialist.co.uk.

Hello folks!

This is my review about Laptop Optimus II from www.pcspecialist.co.uk.

We living in world where we come to shop and buy already-made products and we back to home and then we can get orgasmic about our new toy.

Since online shop, we need waiting for bloody delivery from 1 to few days. Most of people had nightmare experience because of impatience of waiting for delivery or something amazing happen to delivery.

It much worse with custom laptops/Pc where your new toy need to be made it firstly.

It is like when you going to shop buy ready-made shop where you buy sandwich  and we can eat straight away  BUT you going to pizza shop or restaurant and you need waiting ages for basterd to prepare your food from warm up, out of date bun/base with putrescent meat, vegetables and chemical cheese and then assembly food for you which takes ages or at least few minutes .

Really annoying experience, is it?

But when we finally get our food we enjoy it (except if something went terrible terrible wrong).

When you buying custom laptop , you need keep in mind that it will takes around 2 weeks .

And it really takes ages ,so just order and chill out.

Yeah.... easy to write.

Below is my delivery diary:

Day 1 - Thursday Moring ... i bought laptop. meanwhile somebody stolen my wife's laptop. Good start.

Day 2 - Friday ... longer i see processing, then less hope i have that i will see my laptop by Friday next week.

Day 4 - Saturday and Sunday is not a WORKING DAY ... WHY ???? why people has so many human rights ?

Day 5 - Monday .... processing ... processing ... processing .... boring state ,when this state will change ????

Day 6 - Tuesday .... Preproduction.... if processing takes ages and i am already run out of patience energy, how i can survive state which is describe as "Can be longest stage in production" ? I really fancy to call centre to express my emotion ,but unfortunately i working in company where is a call centre department, so i know there working people not toilets, so i cannot put lots of shit on them and "flush it". Life is hard.

day 7 - Wednesday ....  still Preproduction....  i read some testimonials ... "New laptop arrived faster than expected, everything’s working great." ... some people are too sarcastic about speed. my chance that i will receive my laptop on friday is equal 0! it seems guy who wrote above testimonial was so wasted for ages, so he didn't notice that their time fly fast.

day 8 - Thursday .... omg PREPRODUCTION ...did i order laptop or  spaceship ? during lack of progress in status. I looked for testimonial "I had to wait a little longer for stock - but this

wasn't their fault". I'm start thinking did i read information about delivery clearly .Is they wrote "5-7 working days or maybe weeks"? I checked. It’s "working days" ... that can be tricky  part ... who said that pcspecialist works from Monday to Friday ??? maybe they working only from Monday to Wednesday ?????????? I read forum and found that

[QUOTE=PCS;41783]

Our long awaited Sandy Bridge Laptops are now available to order. 5 of 8 new models can now be configured and ordered.

Orders will be assembled from 23rd March onwards, which is the current estimated delivery date. Therefore please note any orders placed will take at least an extra 8 working days on top of

the current lead times.

[/QUOTE];

First i had heart attack , then i ask politely

Hello. Is this horrible news ... is this free "extra 8 working days" applying to my order (31.3'2011) as well ?

and ... THEY ANSWER very quickly that it is not affect my order . YES! YES! YES!

i think these bastard enjoying my pain of impatience....

day 9 - Friday - i slowly start to believe i will be see PREPRODUCTION forever..... however, when i think about that then  i discover that received  from pcspecialist ....AT 3.25 IN THE MORNING .....

they wrote "but please be assured " and i really want answer .... I AM SURE, i just want my laptop .... NOW ;).Another thing is that they mentioned that "As soon as we have any further

updates on the current status of your order we will contact you by email." i think they discovered ,that login to account to check is this f.. status finally changed". woops ;).

 i still have a little hope that i will get my laptop before  end of this year

day 11 – Monday – wow .....state change to next one and another one, so far so good

day 12 - Tuesday - Dispatched ! finally! Not really ... PCSpec UK uses DHL. DHL is a  shortcut for Dodgy harassment logistic .. it means ... problems. I sent e-mail to DHL,can they change delivery address .I received sms from PCSPEC  about my laptop is dispatched. GREAT.

day 13 - Wednesday - DHL (another shortcut stand for Dummy Hell Logistic) for some funky reason "Scanned as part of secure process" my laptop.hmm.... . Did i order bomb, space ship or laptop? Question is still open.... .pcspec sent text to me, that delivery is on the way, BUT I AM NOT AT HOME !! DAMN IT! Great .... i am glad that "Parcel with courier for delivery" but i want "Dominik is with parcel" .Driver couldn't deliver to my house ,so he called to me what i want to do so i asked can he bring to my work place .After hours of negotiations he delivery to my workplace.

Btw. why delivery men from DHL always looks like criminalist who just left from jail after spend infinitive years for murders, robbers and other bad things... finally gave me laptop 

and ... 

It is worth to mention that on next day after my item was delivered ,  i received response from DHL that they can't change address without company permission. Interesting...

Keep in mind that this honest subjective review!

My comments based on fact that i bought laptop for 3 purposes

- for work i am software developer

- multimedia

- home use (surfing too much on internet , playing rarely stupid  flash  game on facebook and etc.)

Specification

Screen 17.3" 1920x1080

CPU I7 2630QM @2.00GHz

GPU Intel HD3000 + Nvidia 540m

RAM 4GB

HDD 500GB WD BLACK

Wireless Intel Ultimate6300

i looked on box on one side in their corner was written that it is 17.3" laptop and then i had heart attack ..... NO CPU, NO RAM, NO HDD.... what i bought ???? AAAaaaa...

lucky after turn on ..and i see windows 7 with  ... amazing pcspecialist background made in mspaint after heavy drink... and this title "this is test version of windows 7 home premium ",

because i have professional licence so i tried using windows upgrade anytime  but normal licence key doesn’t work ,because you can use upgrade licence key only silly ,but it means that needed to format and install from beginning ... btw. to all people who install windows from usb ... do not use USB3.0 to install windows ...it will not work ...use USB 2.0 instead!

Anyway installing windows went smoothly and after 20 minutes i started enjoying time with my new laptop

display

first impression IT IS BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG and impressive.

even better...

0 dead pixel so far... which is impressive result ...

Great image quality .Screen is great to watch movies .

Unfortunately , because screen is Glare type ,so I can see my ugly face or light or sun. Really annoying, especially, if you have face which looks after hit my express train. If you looks like Cristiano Ronaldo then you will love this screen.

audio

- speakers are very quiet, even silence is louder that these speakers... I think it is great solution for people who watch porn all the time and the don't want share "dialogs" from movie with housemates, but if you want watch movie, then you need buy speakers.

I need check all audio settings which are in 3 places .... windows, realteak and thx ,so I need time to figure out ... what cause a problem (please keep mind that I using windows installed by myself don’t know is this problem appear in default settings with windows )

If you connect audio to speakers

Keyboard

- Keyboard layout is weird (little shift and up arrow is too close to enter. I think keyboard should be a little bit wider, but is still good without any “crazy design idea after magic mushrooms”

- using keyboard is a little bit uncomfortable   on beginning but later is getting better. You can used to but function keys (Wireless, mute, camera, power) are not good, because when you press one of them, then you have feeling that they are cheap and easy to destroy. It can be a little problem who using laptop intensively. When you have habit to writing quickly then you will have many problems with using right shift ,up arrow and right alt ,because you can will press wrong button quite often .Issue typical for weird brand netbooks or ~12-13”ish laptops but it happen first time for 17” laptop. Quite annoying I must admit.

- Keyboard is not illuminated. (Since I used Logitech illuminated, lack of backlight on keyboard is an issue

- You have function key to play/pause ... but you don't have any key to change next/previous song/video ... weird and very very annoying.

+ Little second enter. It so cute and cool to use and it is my favourite key on keyboard.

Touchpad

+ It is excellent .very good quality. Pointer movement is very accurate, without weird behave Very comfortable  to use .buttons pressing smoothly, so if you 

Performance

Windows 7 working light speed fast. I turn on windows 7 in 25 second ?

CPU seems feel really bored in most cases, however when you start using plenty program at the same time then CPU handle this quite easily .It seems that 4GB of RAM is biggest issue for what I use so I will need buy another 4GB RAM.

Add-ons

+dvd with drivers and other stuff is excellent.

+nero 9 essential ...useless for me because I am not using cd/dvd-drives since 2003,so .. is nothing what I can say about it.

-   Lack of software to auto-update. It means you are forced to using programs like driver checker which can be a major trouble makers.

Other things worth to mention

-vga port is not too good .... because on external display I see  minor streaks on the screen and they appear when display is connect to this laptop on other laptops I didn’t have this problem at all. Problem appear when laptop switch to nvdia card.

- usb ports on the left are above ventilate. it means over time your usb devices will be so damn hot.

What i didn’t focus on this test is battery, because i treat this laptop as desktop replacement , but you can use laptop for around 1hr in typical usage.

After 1 month ... reflections

I am very happy with laptop performance . Laptop easily handle  20 open internet tabs with flash , compressing file  ,watching movie in HD with other CPU-hungry programs at the same time. Everything working smoothly .

In my opinion my specification is most suitable for people who using many application at the same time that using lots of CPU and RAM , excellent touchpad , great screen which is perfectly design to watch movie but you need have external speakers because built-in has quality similar to speakers for 99p bought in pound-land-type-of-shop. Keyboard is good but has few issues which still annoying me .Laptop is not perfect because has few very annoying issues,but overall it is very good laptop has outstanding performance / price ration.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

GREAT for professionals , multimedia (external speakers needed!), intensive usage

TOO POWERFUL for office usage and people who use laptop very rare cases (internet + music player + writing essay only)

USELESS as portable notebook .

CAN BE USE for games.

Ps1:

If you have a question. I am happy to answer.

Ps2:

This review will be added to pcspecialist forum

Dominik

http://pastor.ovh.org