Cycling UK Forum

Mick F wrote:Having one item to do all the tech stuff means "eggs in one basket" to me.

I have absolutely no regrets about taking all my different - and bulky - things with me, and I see no reason to change that.

Above all, take a paper map, a watch and a compass!

Mick, i have visions of you cycling Lejog with a trailer with all-sorts sticking out. Did you look at hygeine and cooking options and take the kitchen sink?

Kitchen sink? Does it have wheels?
I could tow it behind my trailer!

The heaviest single item was my trusty MacBook, but the chargers for the phone, the camera, the video cam, and the MacBook power lead took up a bit of space. This was added to by the various USB leads as well.

What we need is Bluetooth devices so we don't need all the leads. Luckily, the Sony Handycam uses the same USB lead as the Garmin 705, but my elderly Konica digital camera needs its own lead. Had I taken Mrs Mick F's Cannon camera (not as good as mine) it too could have shared the USB lead with the vid and 705.

I didn't take the 705 charger, but charged it via USB from the MacBook.

Do any of you have framed enlargements from mobile phone cameras on your walls (that you would allow anyone to see!!) ? Yes! Loads........



Taken in the Scillies on my 5 mega pixel HTC desire smartphone. I am astonished at how good the inbuilt camera is.

I do have empathy with Mick's stance. If I could afford a Garmin I would get one too, the battery life is much better. But I prefer to navigate with maps and then check my position with a GPS if I am floundering, I don't want a sat nav barking directions at me all the time spoiling the peace of the back roads that I always gravitate to. I can use my phone like that with fairly minimal downloads of 3g map data.

Lugging a netbook, big camera and a kindle and some books doesnt appeal, I'd rather compromise on a 135g (non Apple) phone that does it all.

The problem with any smartphone is battery life and how to keep it charged if you are camping, a subject that we all keep returning to here.

Al

al_yrpal wrote:

Do any of you have framed enlargements from mobile phone cameras on your walls (that you would allow anyone to see!!) ? Yes! Loads........

Taken in the Scillies on my 5 mega pixel HTC desire smartphone. I am astonished at how good the inbuilt camera is.

Al

I'm seeing noise and the sunlight has overblown (white out). Not very good.

If you had an iPhone 4 you could have used the HDR mode and had both the foreground and the sun without that.

But of course I'm sure there's some "hack" you can install for Android to add that, just so long as you don't mind downloading some community ROM, running some software tools on it to restore the official Google apps and then flash it (praying you don't brick your phone).

I use my phone the way I want to. As as *phone*, life is too short to miss important phone calls or spend time finding answers to technical problems.

A guy at work bought a HTC Desire and was going to move to that instead of keeping his iPhone, he had it for a few days and then put it on eBay. The usability was poor was his conclusion. Having had a play with one I agree.

Android phones are always recommended by geeks and nerds who want SSH, a command line, loads of buttons and features. You need to put yourself in the feet of the person you are recommending the device to. The average person does not want all that complexity and wants reliability.

al_yrpal wrote: ......... I prefer to navigate with maps and then check my position with a GPS if I am floundering, I don't want a sat nav barking directions at me all the time ...........

You don't have to.

I love maps. I can pour over them for hours - any map, I love them all! However, with a 705, you don't have to be given directions at every turn, you can just have the map displayed with the route highlighted. By zooming in and out, and scrolling through, you can see where you're going and where you have yet to go. Problem is, the screen is too small, but hey! so what? the unit is small and neat. I don't want a 21" TV on my 'bars.

The absolute pinnacle of perfection for me would be a 1 inch to the mile "paper" atlas with a big spot to show me where I am and the course yet to follow. I could open the book, see where I am, see all around me, and make a decision on where to go next, then fold it up and put it back into my luggage out of the way.

Some years ago, I was navigating in the North Pennines and although I wasn't lost, I wasn't totally sure where I was. I found a road junction surrounded by high banks, and there were five roads off it. I knew which one I'd come down, and I knew where I wanted to go, but the signposts weren't pointing to it! I dug out my compass and studied my maps, and had to make an "educated guess" as although I had compass and map, there was no view of the surrounding area to get a fix. Luckily, I was ok!

Had I had GPS, I would have been confident of where I was.

Mick F wrote:
The absolute pinnacle of perfection for me would be a 1 inch to the mile "paper" atlas with a big spot to show me where I am and the course yet to follow.

The new Garmin Edge 800 is a little bigger, but I don't think Garmin have made much of a leap. The screen resolution of 160x240 is pitiful compared to recent smartphones. I guess they're using low specification screens to reduce the amount of CPU load the drawing operations use, ultimately to keep the battery life long.

Giles,
Really don't understand what you are on about. Are all these hacks ROMS and command line things on the iPhone? On Android you just switch it on and it works. I am just a simple ancient pensioner, and I just want point, shoot and utter simplicity and that's what you get? (plus a decent phone of course). I have long and dire experience of Apple stuff and now avoid it at all costs.

Al

al_yrpal wrote:Giles,
Really don't understand what you are on about. Are all these hacks ROMS and command line things on the iPhone?

I'm glad you're happy with your phone. But perhaps you don't know enough about the whole market for Android? there's at least three user interfaces. Google's standard user interface, TouchFlo (HTC) and Samsung's own interface.

There's different user interfaces so that handset manufacturers can make their phone "stand out" from the competition. This isn't being done for the benefit of the user, this is being done for marketing and sales purposes. How is that helpful for the end user?

Would you like Windows if you bought a laptop and the laptop maker had moved everything around, renamed everything and make the interface totally different to the Windows on your last laptop? I doubt it, you would be fuming and looking for a Windows CD to reinstall.


Anyway, using the command line what you have to do to add/fix problems on Android phones once the updates from the manufacturer stop. Which will be after about 6-12 months usually. People create community firmware for when the manufacturer has abandoned support for the phone (which is pretty quickly for HTC) and community firmware cannot contain any Google applications as they are not open source, so to restore them into a community ROM you have to patch the ROM using command line tools (unless someone has made a simple GUI for it).

Or you just get an iPhone and get two years of updates for your phone.

On Android you just switch it on and it works. I am just a simple ancient pensioner, and I just want point, shoot and utter simplicity and that's what you get? (plus a decent phone of course). I have long and dire experience of Apple stuff and now avoid it at all costs.
Al

I have a long and dire experience of the competition to Apple. I've used Amigas, Windows boxes (self made) and Macs. Amiga and Mac are the best computing platforms I've used. They've been switch on and use, switch off. Windows was okay but the software for it is badly written. Linux is too much hassle to get it working the way you want.

My phone history contains only three dumbphones, I've have about 9 different smartphones and the iPhone is the only one that worked as it should. Android phones are way too expensive to truly be "competition" to Apple.

Nokia phones I had were too short of RAM or crashed. The HTC phones I had were okay, but dust would get into the phone and I had to clean it out periodically.

Mick F wrote:The absolute pinnacle of perfection for me would be a 1 inch to the mile "paper" atlas with a big spot to show me where I am and the course yet to follow.

Ten years ago I, I wrote the software to do this on a laptop, with plug-in GPS. OS 1:50,000 maps for the UK, Philips maps for Europe. Worked a treat in my old Land Rover. But now I need glasses to see the laptop, I'd like a 32-inch screen on the bike.

Ditto!

Good software would be to create a 'focus-able' screen, complete with astigmatism correction.

I still use my Road Angel sat nav on my mtb. It's got a big screen, and you can set it so that you are always in the middle of the screen wherever you are off road. As off road jaunts are quite short battery life is not a big problem. It uses memory map OS maps so you can see all bridleways dead easy. It is better than a Smartphone because it carries its own maps and doesn't need a signal. Giles' experiences sound just like my Apple ones. I was recommended to the HTC desire by my son in-law who dumped his iPhone after all the daft aerial problems. He has never looked back and also got one of those Samsung Galaxy Tabs for Christmas That looks really good for touring too, its even got a phone and dual cameras in it, unlike the unwieldy iPlods. But, again battery life....

Gearoidmuar wrote:

Big T wrote:We didn't really take any gadgets except basic mobiles. Most phones have a decent enough camera, so I don't think you need a separate one.

It depends on your definition of "decent enough". If it means pretty poor then yes!!

There is no mobile phone camera which is as good as a small compact digital or indeed 35mm camera.
There is no small compact which is as good as a digital SLR.

A reasonable compromise would be a Canon S95 compact. Expensive enough but not far short of DSLR.
Above that, Panasonic G1 or equivalent. These are electronic viewfinder SLR equivalents and give very good quality.

Do any of you have framed enlargements from mobile phone cameras on your walls (that you would allow anyone to see!!) ?

Not good enough for framed enlargements, but certainly good enough for a web blog. I'm a cyclist not a pro (or even amateur) photographer. We did take a separate camera (kodak something or other) and it packed in at halfway. Good job we had camera phones!

gilesjuk wrote:An iPhone is robust if you stick it in a really good case.

Brilliant! Just like an egg!

The Motorola Defy has good reviews and is IP67 waterproof, which is a really useful thing in a working gadget. I'm going to buy one next week to replace my old Samsung.

On expense I'm not sure where these cheap iPhones are. I thought about one recently for a very specific application but couldn't find any contracts less than about £35/month. The Defy can be yours on a contract for £20, or even less if you shop around.

There's many ways of doing what you want to do! Using a Garmin Edge, you could upload route maps, ride data including HR, speed, etc., to Garmin Connect for all to see, and also use Garmin Connect photos so show pics of locations. Using Garmin Connect you could also save yourself a blog, as you could include a text description with your data. Keep it simple and use reliable technology whatever you do!

My vote goes to the iphone - does most of what you want although I never really got on too well with the map part of it (never could tell where I was )
Camera is ok but only if you want to keep a record for yourself and F&F.

Have fun.