Nokia N95 Review

June 27th, 2008 by admin | Posted in Apple, Design, Nokia, Photography, Review, Rogers, Tech, internet | No Comments »

Thanks to Nokia, I was able to get my hands on their latest Nokia N95 8GB smartphone. Let’s get down to this thing they call, um, what is it again? Oh yeah, a review.

Media and Look

Well, I’m sure you’ve seen a few shots of the phone before, but it comes in Silver and Black and is about 4 inches long, 2 inches wide, and insanely thick. Like, literal Candy Bar thick, not Candy Bar phone thick, approximately .82 inches thick. That’s no joke, people. The phone’s a slider, which takes a bit off the length, but the huge phone is made up for by a nice 2.5 inch screen.The built-in speakers are quite impressive for a phone, but still aren’t anything amazing. It works in landscape and portrait mode, but you have to actually have to slide the slider one of it’s two ways to make it change mode. For landscape, slide out the multimedia tab which includes basic media controls, and for portrait, slide out the keypad tab. It includes two cameras, a 5 megapixel camera with flash which takes great pictures which are generally the quality of a point and shoot camera from a few years back. There’s also a front-facing camera which is about 2 megapixels. Another nice thing is the face that it actually has a 3.5 mm stereo jack included right on the side.

Feel, Operating System, and Technical Specs

The N95 runs Symbian OS, and can use great apps like Qik for live video from your phone, twibble for mobile twitter, or Fring for all of your IM and VOIP on the go. However, I’ve experienced a few problems with the phone. For one, it locks up occasionally. It will freeze and sometimes it just needs to load something, and other times it entirely stops working and forces me to pull out the battery. Overall, the OS looks and feels nice though, and the apps are welcome and work great. The system has a great big 128MB of ram, which definitely packs a punch and aids in it’s impressive gaming section. It comes with integrated GPS, however I haven’t been able to connect to it, because of Rogers’ network. It uses 3G, which definitely makes a huge difference in speed.

Conclusion and the (Inevitable) Comparison to the iPhone

So, where do we go from here. We’ve found out it’s a nice phone. We’ve found out it has 3G, GPS, multimedia, and downloadable apps. Sounds like a product that’s recently been announced? Yes, as expected, I’ve come to the comparison between it and the iPhone. The iPhone 2 has all of the features and more that the N95 has, and more, at a lower price. The only real reason to get an N95 over the iPhone is if you really care about the camera in your phone, and have some sort of love for really thick objects. I have a digital SLR, if I use the camera in my phone, it’s for quick little action shots at times where I wasn’t carrying around my camera, or was really bored. The N95 isn’t next generation for mobile phones other than the fact that it’s got good specs, 3G, GPS, and a great camera. It doesn’t have something comparable to multi-touch or the amazing web browser  of the iPhone. It doesn’t step up it’s game. And now, there’s been rumored replacements for great camera phones, for instance Sony’s apparent 8 megapixel camera. It’s got custom apps, the iPhone has the App Store, a single place to get all of these apps. It’s got multimedia, the iPhone has the classic and loved iPod interface. It’s got 3G and GPS, so does the iPhone. The iPhone has twice the RAM the N95 has. The iPhone is better in almost every aspect. The iPhone, unfortunately, leaves the N95 in the dust. However, I’m excited to see what Nokia pulls out their sleeves to try and compete with the iPhone now.

iWant

June 8th, 2008 by admin | Posted in Apple, iWant | 2 Comments »

So, I decided it was time to join the pack (albeit a bit late) and do my own iWant list. Here we go:

• Camcorder. Not sure what type, thinking of a Canon XL1 maybe, has to have some form of higher quality mic input though.
• MIDI Keyboard. Well, necessarily MIDI, but some sort of thing I could use to control Logic with, thinking 2-4 octaves (16-32 keys), and like, $50-125.
• Microphone for Camcorder. Most likely will be an SM58, however, maybe something else.
• MarsEdit: So you can have more wonderful blog posts like this!
• iPhone/N95: Okay, might not get this one for awhile, but whatever, it goes on here anyways. Let’s hope that I can upgrade from my current phone to either one in September!
• New Camera - D60, switching to Nikon! Also:
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens
• SB-600 Flash with diffuser
• 18-200 VR Lens (won’t be getting this for awhile, it comes with a 18-55 VR)
• Crazy In The Future: MacBook Pro: I want to go portable!

Is My Name Jon Fortt?

May 23rd, 2008 by admin | Posted in Bastardization, Blogging, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

Nope, not that I remember at least. Why did this guy take my post? I don’t know. He doesn’t have a contact page, so I looked him up, and I’ll be contacting him. Most likely by email. His info:

  Ine Ikegami (webmaster@rayzedblog.com)  

    4050 Goosetown Drive     Asheville     North Carolina,28801     US 

Tel. +1.8285820079  

Oh, and here’s what he took: Please Login to see the link., and Please Login to see the link.. The link back to me isn’t even correct. Bastard Somewhat less than likable person.

UPDATE: Alright, his email doesn’t work. Its not even real, I get a delivery notification error. So what do I do? Maybe I’ll phone him, maybe not. The info is probably fake for that too though.

New Favourite Blog

May 21st, 2008 by admin | Posted in Blogging, Gaming | No Comments »

I found this one just a few nights ago, and I loved it instantly. It’sPlease Login to see the link., and it’s awesome. It’s an example of what a blogger should really attempt to be. His posts are the right length, well thought out, and give you the sense that he’s really put time into this. Example: Please Login to see the link.. Not only does he give us a full post, he provides diagrams to support his theories. His posts are very much devoted into looking deeper into games. Not just their mechanics, but also their story line, and the symbolism in the games. They’re long posts, but they’re entertaining posts.

 Please Login to see the link.. He knows he overanalyzed, but both him and his audience don’t care. Why? Because that’s the fun of the post. It takes apart the song by someone who knows a lot about the game, not someone who’s never played it but  graduated with honors from Oxford after finishing a doctoral study on the combination of story and song. While the person who has a doctorate might be more knowledgeable in symbolism and general story, he probably won’t know as much about the characters and story of the game. But anyways, the blog is great. Check it out, guys.

GTA IV Rocks, Even on PS3

May 11th, 2008 by admin | Posted in Gaming, Sony, Thoughts | No Comments »

Now, people have advised to get the Xbox 360, at least for someone who has one. But why? Because of the downloadable content. I am currently playing the game on my PS3. Why? Because that way I could get it as soon as possible. The reason I don’t really care about not having the downloadable content is the fact that there’s already so much content in the game. It’s fairly likely that I won’t finish the game for quite awhile, maybe even a year or so, and by that time, there will be another game to take it’s place. However, there is one downside of getting it for PS3 (personally). System updates. Some reason Sony has decided to make all of the updates for the PS3 force you to go into the system menu and download some huge ass file and install it. Though this isn’t really Rockstar’s fault, it still sucks that I have to take like, 10 minutes to update my PS3, and when you’re waiting to play GTA IV Multiplayer, those 10 minutes seem like an hour. The only reason to have the PS3 instead is the fact that the load times are a faster, often almost instantaneous is what I found. I have to say, though, I don’t think it’s possible for this game not to be enjoyable, I mean, this is probably Game of The Year material, and we’re less than half way through 2008. Alright, I’ve got to go, Roman is calling me…

Damn You Rogers!

May 7th, 2008 by admin | Posted in Bastardization, Bittorrrent, Rogers, Thoughts, internet | 2 Comments »

Just a quick note to say I hate Rogers Internet. Why? They’re throttling bandwidth to bittorrent. I conducted a few tests to see how well they were doing it too:

1.  Juno - 3192 seeders, 390 leechers - Averaging less than 20kbps down - Averaging around 20 kbps up
2. Scrubs Season 1 - 43 Seeders, 83 leechers - Averaging around 25kbps down - Averaging around 50kbps up
3. Ubuntu 7.10 - 131 Seeders, 8 leechers - Extreme variatons from 10-100kbps down - Averaging around 15kbps up

This raises the question. What’s with Ubuntu? Are they somehow filtering our downloads on torrents? Would that not mean that they’re actually looking at what we’re doing on the internet? Even if it’s a bot which is looking, that means that they have access to everything we’re doing on the internet. I’m not sure what to do about this. I’ll be calling them soon to ask, and I’ll hopefully have a recording of it. I know that there’s ways around this, but they require doing a bunch of stuff to your router firewall/ports, and I’m really not going to give up. I don’t even use bittorrent much, but when I do I really don’t want to be reminded that they’re either a. looking at my data or b. throttling all of it. If you’re thinking of changing, Please Login to see the link., suggested Please Login to see the link..

PS - If I stay on rogers, I might be buying the Extreme Plus package, 18mbps down is pretty good - Though this package seems to have disappeared off of the website…Hmm…

Earth Day

April 22nd, 2008 by admin | Posted in Events, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

Okay, instead of writing a post about why I love Earth Day, I’ll give a post on why I hate it. Earth Day is a superficial method of making people think that they’re making a difference, while still doing relatively little. Oh, and yes, it’s just for a day. Not a year. That’s the thing about it, we should just be doing this one day, or one week, or one hour; We should be doing this every day, every week, every hour.

And we shouldn’t have to have some sort of gain for us to do this, because the real gain is our planet being healthier. Look at what happened on Earth Hour; We saved a ton of energy in just one hour. Now imagine if we were doing that at around 20-50% the level, all the time. We’d save at least enough energy to power over 459 million homes if just Toronto did Earth hour 24/7 for a year at 20% of the effectiveness of Earth Hour. Now imagine if the whole world did that. We’d be doing a great service to our lord, Mrs. Earthsberg, and a great service to ourselves. 

So, if you’re going to Earth Day, why not make it an Earth Year? It doesn’t take that much effort.

My Improvement as a Photographer

April 10th, 2008 by admin | Posted in Photography, Thoughts | No Comments »

Over the past year few months I’ve improved as a photographer immensely. Though not only in my actual image capturing, in my editing abilities as well. Aperture and Photoshop help, but many of the adjustments I make could be done in GIMP, just not as easily or as quickly. Please Login to see the link. of a shot I would have taken a few months ago. Please Login to see the link. of a shot I’ve taken within the last week or so. Clearly, there’s been a lot of improvement. I’ve begun to take more time into framing, and choosing a specific ISO. I still generally use AF, just because most of the time it’s correct, but at least when it’s wrong I’m fast enough at MF that I can get it focused in a few seconds. Overall, I can gladly and truthfully say, I am a much better photographer than I used to be.

PS - I’d like to thank Please Login to see the link. for letting me use his D40x at podcamp, there was only a 50mm prime lens on it, which made me have to really think about how I’m going to take a shot.  

Wtf? Original content?

March 31st, 2008 by admin | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Yes, that’s right, in a time where original content is often unfound, I have decided to stop trying to be Engadget with a crap filter and a sense of humor. I’ve decided to provide “Original Content”, ever heard of it? This is a personal blog, not a news site. Maybe there won’t be as many posts as there used to be, but they’ll be longer, and more thought out. They’ll be life, love, tech (those don’t really go together do they?), well, Life at least. And, maybe, just maybe, there’ll be video. Every few days or maybe every week, I’ll get off my ass and press the record button (well, I might remain on my ass, but you get the idea).  Oh, and I decided to post this right away. That’s what I might do from now on, right away posts. Say it’s a bad idea (seriously, put in a comment down there), but I don’t want to “Store Up Posts for a Rainy Day”, and sorry Chris Brogan, but I want to post my opinion, and post it now, not when I decide that it’s time for that one post a day.

Sincerely,

Connor Bevans 

It’s Taking Over Me!

March 16th, 2008 by admin | Posted in Gaming, Review | No Comments »

Well, this title could mean a lot, and quite possibly was in an episode of Star Trek, but it’s not what you think. As some of you may know, I recently bought two games, Rock Band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I also, as some of you may know, have become completely addicted to these games. In fact, for the next few days I probably won’t even be online a lot during the day, because I’ll be playing them.

It’s a 5/5 for both of them, and I think you know why. For Rock Band it’s the team play, and darn it, it’s just so gosh darn fun! For Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it’s the multiplayer, and…Darn it, it’s just so gosh darn fun! For some games, there isn’t exactly a way to explain how it feels, it just IS fun. And sometimes you JUST about have your finger on it, and then the game slaps your hand and tells you “Hah! You’ll never find out the secret spice mixture that makes this game so fantastic!” Exactly, Mr. Italicy (get it?), well, except for the spice mixture part, but good effort!

Anyways, both these games are sure to keep you going for days, Rock Band goes for $179.99 at Best Buy (funny, for once it actually is the best buy) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl goes for 49.99 (Amazon.ca) Note - All prices are in Canadian Dollars.

PS - 3 (Get it?) But by the way, right before I begun writing this posts, I was actually playing Rock band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl…I know, I REALLY need to quit…Well, anyways I’m going to make no effort at quitting and play some more right now…