Wizard Lukian

A smartphone for ~$150 with a $15 mobile plan saves $38 per month?

I visited family & my two nieces in Sydney on the weekend. While there, I had a look at their mobile plan usage.

First up, they're spending $15/month for ridiculously slow "3" 3G 'broadband' - as they don't have a landline, saving money - just using mobiles for calls. "3" broadband at their location performs at 1/10th to 1/20th the speed of Telstra 3G. Typically 28KB/s vs 300-600KB/s for downloading photos and files/updates. The average wireless internet usage is under 700MB per month for the household.

Initially I suggested Telstra's Pre-paid 10GB/365 day/$150 per year 'plan'. Then I took a look at my sister-in-law's mobile usage over the last three months. Using Virgin Beancounter (one of the commonly known 'cheap' mobile plans) to the online community, she's spending $39 each month. Entering her data into the "Australian Mobile (Cap) Plan Comparison spreadsheet", we found several suitable options, Ranging from $11-$29/month.

One of the mobile plans in the spreadsheet had 1000MB data included. The Live Connected "Discovery $15" plan on the Optus network. Only "63%" of the cap value would be used, so she could make almost twice as many calls per month (up to 388 mins), for $23 less. Thinking about this further, I realised with an Android (2.2) smartphone they could tether their Internet to their mobile plan! Saving a further $15/month. Total savings: $38 per month!

Which phones can tether thing easily? *and* within a small budget?
Android. But which version? Does 2.1 have USB tethering? It certainly doesn't have WiFi tethering.

Budget (<$310) Android Smartphones:

• Garmin A50 - $199 (DSE)
  3.5" Screen (320x480) 11.6x6.2x1.2 cm, 136g, 3MP Camera
  
• HTC Desire - $20-49/mth ($310-$550+) (Telstra)
  3.7" Screen (480x800), 11.9x6x1.2 cm, 135g, 5MP Camera
  Kind of cheating on this one being "budget"; but speedy Telstra data is <$10/GB.
  
• HTC Wildfire - $349 (now $299) (Telstra)
  3.2" Screen (320x480), 10.7x6x1.2 cm, 118g, 5MP Camera
  
• Huawei U8150 Ideos - $159 (AusPost / CrazyJohns / Virgin) - $199 (Big W / DSE)
  2.8" Screen (240x320), 10.4x5.6x1.3 cm, 102g, 3MP Camera
  
• LG Optimus One - $159 (DSE)
  3.2" Screen (320x480), 11.3x5.9x1.3 cm, 129g, 3MP Camera
  
• Motorola Flipout - $199(?) - $299 (DSE)
  2.8" Screen (320x240), 6.7x6.7x1.7 cm, 120g, 3MP Camera
  
• Samsung Galaxy 5 - $169 (Online) - $199 (Telstra)
  2.8" Screen (240x320), 10.8x5.6x1.2 cm, 102g, 2MP Camera
  

If camera quality is important to you, the easiest way to check photo quality is via Flickr Explore.

Comparing the devices online, they were much the same, few with the newer 600MHz CPU, only one with android 2.2. We ideally needed hands-on to choose one, using my HTC Desire as an entry point (my sister-in-law managed to lose track of about an hour playing Angry Birds!).

The HTC Wildfire is a 'solid built' Android 2.1 phone by a well known company. It has an optical trackball, and what appeared to be a very bright, high quality screen under full store lighting. JB Hi-Fi and Telstra had stock for $299 (Previously $349). $349 was a 'revolution' when all smartphones were $600+.

The Motorola Flipout is listed in various places for $199. Dick Smith's price (not on shelf) was $299. They also stocked the Huawei Ideos (boxed, unlocked) - but unfortunately no demo model. The Ideos has an RRP of $229 at DSE. The dummy model at Dick Smith was broken and didn't 'close' cleanly. While Motorola pride themselves on voice quality, there's little chance this phone would survive if dropped, or say, nieces got their mitts on it!

Dear Penrith Plaza, please add more demonstrator models. We initially went to Optus, All Phones and Telstra. NONE of these stores had demo models they were ALL dummy models. I enquired if there was a JB Hi-Fi in the centre and there was, we proceeded to JB HiFi and found that JB had demo models! (Amusingly, sold on the Telstra network, when the Telstra store themselves did not have functional demo models!)

I knew AusPost had stock of the Huawei Ideos, even before CrazyJohns (the associated SIM it's bundled with), so we had a look, and sure enough they had only one remaining behind the counter. It's likely it's also locked to CrazyJohns (although it's rumored that it's not - if the box includes the 'spare' yellow backplate). AusPost's price is $159 and Big W and likely other department stores now stock it for $199. With a line of 10-15 people, in AusPost Shop it would take far too long to purchase. Taking the AusPost catalog to DSE, we talked the price down to pretty much their online price ($199 - 5% online coupon), didn't manage to aquire an extra $10 off (free shipping online atm), but the price was very acceptable for confirmed unlocked.

$190 for an unlocked Android phone. Android 2.2 meant working tethering too. With a two-week change-of-mind return policy this was a pretty good deal. Additionally, it has a vanilla Android release, no fancy or confusion third party skins which delay any possible Android updates for the phone.

Spending thirty minutes playing with the Huawei Ideos before I had to catch transport back home, my initial impressions of the Ideos were:

Initially we thought it might have had a chip out of the plastic, but it was likely the Mic location (a little peculiar, but still fine), this was later confirmed as the mic location and not a chip. One review I read says the voice quality was fine (compared to other budget phones).

I'm a little jealous (even as a HTC Desire owner, as the Desire is a little awkward to hold, but I do use the Snapdragon processor and the higher resolution, acquiring it at total device cost of $310 + $10/mth plan over 24mths, I would however certainly regretted buying a 'budget' phone for my multitasking/high-end use).

• Cheapest Android phone on the market.
• Quality solid plastic build. Comes with (changeable) yellow and sapphire backplates.
• Quite lightweight, Quite small, Good size to hold (2.8" screen).
• "Soft" (touchscreen) buttons for "Back", "Menu", "Home" and "Search" (good order).
• Physical buttons for answering and hanging up/cancelling calls.
• Physical D-pad, no optical tracking. A lot easier to use.
• The camera quality is likely awful (but this was expected).
• 320x240 QVGA resolution average/low-quality screen. Not the best for web browsing, but perfect for touchscreen operation.

It's an amazing device for the price. Especially as wifi-hotspot devices on their own are $99-149 (or $40-129 for USB 3G modems), for a little extra, you get a very capable smartphone. The Huawei Ideos smartphone is certainly more user-friendly than other android options, with it's 'physical' directional-pad and physical buttons for calls!

Brief review/hands-on/thoughts/opinion on Huwei Ideos and similar budget Android smartphones. Choose a mobile plan with included data and drop your (dedicated) 3G connection to save!

Tim Burton The Exhibition @ ACMI Melbourne (Australian Centre for the Moving Image)

I dined out tonight with friends for a birthday. With nothing substantial on at the movies, we went to Tim Burton's exhibition at ACMI afterwards.

I felt it was a brilliant exhibition of Tim Burton's artwork, sketches, notes and writing. Spanning from his childhood (school years) to his latest films including Alice in Wonderland and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

It was quite interesting to walk through Tim Burton's life via sketches, costumes, polyform & other models and letters.

One letter contained a response from Burbank firefighters, where he won top three in a drawing competition and got to spend a day at the fire station (how awesome would that be as a kid?).

Later he submitted a Children's story to Disney, and received a response from an Editor. Summarily, the response commented the work "may have been too similar in nature to Dr Seuss to be published" and Burton's level of education and quality of writing was praised, wishing him well in his future endeavours.

Seeing the mad hatter's costume (and hat!) up close was wonderful! Upon the costume, serving as a sash, were bobbins of sewing thread.

The sewing thread spanned vast colours and served as a sash, such brilliant minor details are easy to overlook in a movie. A fantastically crafted outfit.

The picture right (from the Internet) doesn't do the Mad Hatter costume justice.

One may expect the exhibition to focus on the mainstream works such as Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and so forth. Quite the opposite is true, as the exhibition seems to cater more towards Burton's 'unseen' works. The gallery is divided roughly into the following areas:

1. Beetlejuice
2. Horror and Humour
3. Mothera
4. Couples
5. Creatures
6. Hansel and Gretel
7. The Black Cauldron
8. Clowns
9. Jack Skellington
10. Stitching
11. Oyster Boy
12. Alice in Wonderland
13. Corpse Bride
14. Edward Scissorhands

Browsing the media at least took at least an hour (and a half). If you haven't seen any of Tim Burton's animation, films or film roles, do so!

Related Films I've seen:

• Alice in Wonderland
• Batman Returns
• Big Fish
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Corpse Bride
• Mars Attacks!
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• 9

Related Media I still need to watch:

• Cabin Boy
• Edward Scissorhands
• Ed Wood
• Frankenweenie
• James and the Giant Peach
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure
• Planet of the Apes
• Sleepy Hollow
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• The World of Stainboy
• Vincent

Further reading: Tim Burton (Wikipedia article)

I dined out tonight with friends for a birthday. With nothing substantial on at the movies, we went to Tim Burton's exhibition at ACMI afterwards. I felt it was a brilliant exhibition of Tim Burton's artwork, sketches, notes and writing. Spanning from his childhood (school years) to his latest films including Alice in Wonderland and The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was quite interesting to walk through Tim Burton's life via sketches, costumes, polyform & other models and letters. One letter contained a response from Burbank firefighters, where he won top three in a drawing competition and got to spend a day at the fire station (how awesome would that be as a kid?). Later he submitted a Children's story to Disney, and received a response from an Editor. Summarily, the response commented the work "may have been too similar in nature to Dr Seuss to be published" and Burton's level of education and quality of writing was praised, wishing him well in his future endeavours. Seeing the mad hatter's

Jury-rigged vs Jerry-rigged?

I recently finished reading The Makers (a free ebook) by Cory Doctorow and picked up what I thought were a couple errors towards the end which I thought I'd correct in the specific ebook format and resubmit to the author. The first was a mention of "himself" when a female character was in play (oops! How do you even do that?).

The other "error" was a reference to "jury-rigged", having only heard "jerry-rigged" before, I assumed it may have been a mistake.

define:jury-rigged
"Jury rigging refers to makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Originally a nautical term, on sailing ships a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast."

define:jerry-rigged
"The folk etymology is that "Jerry-rigged" was employed by World War II British troops to refer to the German use of scavenged parts to keep vehicles and weapons functional, from the use of "Jerry" as a pejorative term for German soldiers."

In conclusion, I decided that I could live with "jury-rigged" being equally valid to "jerry-rigged".

I recently finished reading The Makers (a free ebook) by Cory Doctorow and picked up what I thought were a couple errors towards the end which I thought I'd correct in the specific ebook format and resubmit to the author. The first was a mention of "himself" when a female character was in play (oops! How do you even do that?). The other "error" was a reference to "jury-rigged", having only heard "jerry-rigged" before, I assumed it may have been a mistake. define:jury-rigged "Jury rigging refers to makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Originally a nautical term, on sailing ships a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast." define:jerry-rigged "The folk etymology is that "Jerry-rigged" was employed by World War II British troops to refer to the German use of scavenged parts to keep vehicles and weapons functional, from the use of "Jerry" as a pejorative term for German