Tag Archives: Mobile phone

Getting Down on Games

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(The latest craze – the famed Angry Birds, now even comes in form of cakes. My son even got himself a stuff toy version of the Angry Birds last week. Image source: http://walyou.com)

Almost on daily basis, my wife had to charge her mobile phone battery despite hers is not a modern smart phone which uses a lot of battery power or she is not a heavy mobile phone user – she only uses to for calls and occasional SMSes.

The culprit of course, is none other than our son who often get too bored with his usual toys and had to content between him monopolizing the TV for his kiddies shows and we providing something new for his gaming needs. Before I got my Nokia N8, the most “sophisticated” phone other than the CSL’s Blueberry was my wife’s 2730 Nokia which can take in some good Java games. I managed to stuff as many new games it was possible without overwhelming the storage and “released” on the right moments when my son have already got bored with the older games and he had already reached the highest level there is.

When my N8 arrived, it was just too tempting for my son to explore all the gaming options there is and soon, he have gotten to be more expert than me. And for a young boy who often gets bored fast, one game seems to be holding back his interest for sometime now – Angry Birds and for Nokia platform, there have several releases todate – the basic Free version, Lite version, the Season version and the Rio version. He has “done” it all – most several times over as he wanted to win in best time and the most “stars”. And once he gets hold of my phone, he gets lost in a world of his own – he no longer need his TV for his entertainment shots but at the same, he does not able to hear us calling out his name. One needs to physically hold the mobile phone to grab his attention.

Of course, we are very particular as to when he can play games on our mobile phones. His homework must be done first and done properly and without mistakes. And there are times when he needs to do revisions and at that times, TV, games and other “non-education” related items are strictly forbidden. Only when he is free and we want him to sit at one place, in front of us and our mobile phone batteries fully charged, we will pass over phones (although getting them back from him can prove to be a challenge).

Frankly speaking, Angry Birds (and before that several other mobile games) is very, very addictive. It is very simple to play and you score more points if you read the structure dynamics well – you hit it at the right angle and you may get a domino effect. Whoever did this is simply brilliant. You can lose several hours, just tucking yourself away in a corner and not knowing what is happening on the outside. It is also useful when one have nothing to do whilst waiting for others to come in before a meeting can be started. Just click the sound off, put the mobile phone below the conference table and you will no longer be feeling bored. Something to kill time before the actual meeting starts.

Of course, mobile games can’t come close to computer games or video game consoles which run on more powerful processors and with better hardware specs and memory power. One of my favorites, Company of Heroes (the first one is still the best – the subsequent ones simply sucked) is still one of the games that blew me away with its fine storytelling, graphics and a chance to be Germans, winning World War 2 battles.

Until we get a more fun, attention grabbing mobile game, Angry Birds is here to stay, causing more strain on our batteries as we try to get better points from the last time.

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Astro Now Secured

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Ha, finally….

A couple years ago, I highlighted just how unsecured some of the popular websites are and one of them was Astro. I did write to them officially but the response was lukewarm (almost patronizing from the webmasters). Perhaps it was not addressed to the right people, perhaps they did not have enough budget to make the necessary changes. So I left it as it is and avoided from using their services online.

Admittedly Astro subscription is not that cheap (perhaps lack of competition may be a factor here) – so I took away the Movie Channel and left with enough channels for entertainment – documentaries and cartoon (for the big boss). Couple weeks ago, my “big boss” walked up to me after hours of watching cartoon and told me that he had enough of cartoons. At first I thought he got bored with the same repeated cartoons and making a one time statement. I was pretty sure that he will be back watching the same cartoons the very next day.

The very next day, I caught him watching cartoon again and passed by him with a smile – kids will be kids. I went up to take my shower and when I walked down, I saw him waiting for me. He asked me why he can tune to the cartoon channel – he remembered him telling me that he do not want to see the cartoon channel anymore.

It took several reminders from the “big boss” for me to click on the Astro webpage, just to see whether there is any changes and I was indeed surprised.

(I have been looking for that “s” behind the http for sometime now – especially when I have to put down my IC and personal details over the internet)

(Validation through email, SMS and PIN number – I really did not expect that from Astro after the earlier snub but then again, it is a welcome change)

Certainly now things have improved – not sure what caused the change – change of the earlier sloppy webmaster or change of IT staff or unreported hacker attack but it was a welcome change – not only the registration is now on a secured page but registration is also authenticated through a SMS to a registered mobile phone and the final registration is activated with a PIN that shown in the said SMS. Impressive!

I had expected over the years, as hackers get better and easily work their way around basic webpage defenses, the more of the  unsecured sensitive pages will end up encrypted and secured. The faster some of the popular websites move to improve the security of their webpage, it is better for the end users. I was glad Astro had made their move before it is too late but what about the others? It is high time that the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation look into this seriously. There are still webmasters who are ignorant on the security of their websites.

I feel more confident using Astro webpage now compared to the time I was eager to use it couple years ago. Although some of the functions seems to be “offline” at the moment, it is comfortable to know it is at the moment…”secured”.

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Review: CSL Blueberry a9500

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Update 1: More photos here

Update 2: Sometime in mid June, Tesco was selling this very model for RM399 (damn!)

Update 3: Sometime in mid June also, the trackball started to give problem. Sometimes it works, other times it is just it does not work

Update 4: A month later, it stopped working at all and I was “trackball-less” for months. One good thing about this model was that I was still able to navigate using the side buttons (but without trackball, it meant I could not play my usual games) . Then in early 2011, something very, very strange happened. I hooked the phone to my laptop, to copy some files and suddenly the trackball worked again. Strange indeed.

Update 5: I have moved to the darker side here and here

Back to the original post

(Malaysian made Blackberry…errr…Blueberry)

Just before my trip to Chennai, India, my wife’s phone conveniently died out.

Having no time to “trouble shoot” the problem, we decided to take a look at it after we have come back from Chennai. The phone was not recharging so we thought that there must be a problem with the battery. The solution was to buy a new battery, so we thought.

During shopping trip to a shopping complex, we decided to walk over to the phone shop to see what is on promotion. My eyes was focussed on some of the smartphones on display – many not was selling for less than RM1,500. My wife noticed it too and politely reminded me that we are there to buy replacement battery, not replacement phone. That is when we noticed a CSL Blueberry a9500 model on sale for RM599. That looked like a good bargain considering the various functions bundled into the “Blackberry look-a-like but is certainly not” phone.

My wife looked at it and conceded that it looked like a good bargain (if I buy this, then she get to keep my Nokia phone, so she was very accommodating). So, we decided to buy a new phone instead of a new battery (the old phone was too old anyway).

So, what to expect with CSL’s Blueberry? The best thing that I got for RM599 was these:-

  • 2 Sim Card slots (easier if I am travelling overseas)
  • Wi-fi (save up on GPRS cost when free wi-fi is available)
  • GPRS
  • TV Receiver (local analog TV, not Astro)
  • Radio Receiver
  • Free 2GB microSD card
  • MSN, Yahoo IM ability
  • PDF reader
  • Facebook, Twitter ability
  • Google Map (works wonder when wi-fi is available)
  • QWERTY keypad
  • Trackball

That is the best thing about this phone. There are some shortcomings but I am not complaining considering the price of the phone (cheap means less functionality, less graphical experience, less web experience). CSL claims that it is a Malaysian company and Blueberry is a Malaysian made phone but there is plenty of room for improvement, namely:-

  • The icons are just too ugly – can there be an update for more glossy looking icons? It looks too simple (their K500i model had better icons).
  • The OS running the Blueberry is an unknown Taiwanese made MTK OS. Many sites (providing apps and games) do not recognise MTK OS (unlike Android or Symbian). Thankfully ability to upload and install Java jar files comes handy.
  • The default icons is fixed – we cannot change it to a more frequently used icons
  • Some of programs installed are outdated (despite the model released in January 2010) – for example, Opera Mini is still showing version 3 (I managed to install version 5 which is more functional and better looking)
  • Camera provided is terrible – it is 2MP camera but despite having a flash function, it performs worse than Nokia’s no flash 2MP camera (however video ability was better).
  • The antenna (for TV & radio) is pointing downwards – that makes it difficult to “stand” the phone whilst watching the TV. Besides should antennas be pointing upwards for better signals? I was wrong…there is an option to point the antenna upwards but still, it will be better if they had the antenna at the top.

(Hope CSL is taking down notes, for their next model released in March 2010, i9000T had the same problems. They need to improve their website too – models shown without too much details or software updates)

CSL Blueberry is NOT iPhone or Blackberry or other high end smartphones in the market. But given the price (for a brand new phone), it gets most of the job done – with Wi-Fi and Java programs. Just hope MTK picks up and CSL provides better updates (like how Nokia does, excellently).

P.s. This is how I setup the Wifi on Blueberry 9500:-

  • Click on the icon listed as “WLAN“
  • Click on “Enable WLAN” to enable wifi connections
  • Click on “Search for networks” to check on available networks (if it is secured, then you need to setup the security details in “Access point settings“)
  • Pick the network that you want to connect, click on “Options” and press on “Connect“
  • You are now connected to the Internet (to avoid connection through GPRS, I disable GPRS using “Settings” > “Network setup” > “SIM1 network setup” > “Preferred mode” and pick “WLAN only” or “WLAN preferred“)