HTC Legend

After several months of putting up with a unresponsive Nokia, I decided it was high time to upgrade. I was contemplating other HTC models (namely Desire and Wildfire). But after looking around the shops today, I settled on the HTC Legend.
Setting up my new phone was an interesting experience. I spend half an hour trying to get the battery cover closed (cursing rather badly in the process). Only then did I realise that I had exerted enough pressure on the cover. Similar things can be said about the SD and SIM cards - both were not pushed in properly.
My favourite thing about the Legend at the moment is the matte finish, as opposed to the shiny finish of the old Nokia. The sound quality is something; I had the volume at around 50% and I could hear everything perfectly. The camera is undeniably better than the E71's (5mp vs. E71's 3.2mp). The apps have good image quality, even though there aren't many of them around. At the moment I'm sticking with the free apps; the paid ones demand credit card payment. I'm liking the HTC touch keyboard a lot better than the E71's physical keyboard (which required me to use my nails when typing - GRRRR).

(I had to use my laptop's dodgy camera to take this picture)

And my other favourite part is the Internet!! I mainly use the internet on my phone for social networking, emails, blogging and the occasional timetable check. Having a responsive screen makes these things a lot easier.

iPod App review: Productivity apps

Up until today I've been using AwesomeNote as my primary note-taking/to-do list app. One of the things that makes AwesomeNote less awesome is the lack of a prioritisation system. So it's largely up to the user to remember which tasks have precedence over others - this is not helpful for those of us with poor memories. As a note-taking app, AwesomeNote doesn't really deserve to be called as such. Sure, you can get a preview of your existing notes (as thumbnails). But the font is so tiny (in the thumbnails), you'd struggle to make out which notes were which.

A while ago, I downloaded EverNote, as it was free. I had to have an account to be able to use it, so I ended up deleting it. A few weeks ago, I signed up for an account with EverNote (I finally found out that signup is free). I find that the layout is a lot more readable than AwesomeNote.

As for my new to-do list app? I picked Todo. When it came to picking out the new one, I relied heavily on other users' reviews. Todo had a 4 star rating compared to AwesomeNote's 3 stars. After downloading it, I found the ratings to be quite an accurate reflection of Todo's "awesomeness". (note the irony...)

Poor AwesomeNote... guess you're heading for the recycling bin...

My shiny new PDA (iPod Touch)

Thanks to some helpful reviews by fellow iPod Touch/iPhone users, I was able to turn my iPod Touch into a PDA.

Review: Blogger's Template Designer

 I'm not an international authority on web design, but I still like to play with my blog's design. Previously, if one wanted to customise the look of one's blog (colours and the like), one had to step into Edit HTML mode. For the average blogger, trying to make sense of the existing code can be a real pain. The new Template Designer mode takes a lot of hassle out of cusotmising one's blog by organising the different functions into a few broad categories. Among the additions I really like are: layout customisation, background images and generated colour schemes. The drawback is that if one wanted to make changes Template Designer doesn't cater for, one would still be required to use Edit HTML mode.
My final verdict? I like it.