sinéad's lifestream

If there’s one thing about “chiq” fem-phones that I’ve hated in the past, it’s that they are often feature-filled yet lack the ability to expand the memory. Take the Nokia 6111, great looking phone, fantastic features like bluetooth and a megapixel camera – yet, what’s the point of a megapixel camera phone if you can only take about 20 photographs at its highest resolution? The new Benq-Siemens E51 is a big change to this annoying trend. From the outside it appears to be the successor of the popular Siemens CL75 (the “poppy” phone) but there are some major differences, for instance the 1.3 megapixel camera instead of vga, it’s bluetooth enabled and also has a micro-sd slot so you can expand the memory. Siemens haven’t launched a new phone in a long time, the reason being that it was bought out by the Taiwan based Benq group. Rebranded as Benq-Siemens, and with the launch of the E51 into the Irish market also comes the E61, a “music phone” which boasts a 512mb miniSD card and dedicated music buttons. Both of these models are due to launch on the O2 Speakeasy range and will retail at approximately €150.

I had the opportunity to play around with both phones during the week, both phones have the same user interface which seems straightforward enough, easy to navigate, but with it’s bright colours it’s probably more suited to the teen market. Personally, I really like the style of the E61, its slick black with red/orange stripe reminded me of the A-team van. The dedicated music buttons are easy to use, and although it only has a vga camera I can definitely see this being a popular alternative to the more expensive Sony Ericsson “music phones”. With regards to the E51, it’s nice to see a phone that’s being marketed towards women that has excellent features such as bluetooth and a micro-sd slot. It borrows from the CL75 quite successfully, with its integrated compact mirror but also comes pre-loaded with a “5 minutes to fabulous” java application that shows you how to do your make-up in five easy steps. It’s this feature that made me take 5 steps away from this phone. I’m sure it’s not for everyone (me included) but it’s a nice gimmick and along with its low price, and with Christmas fast approaching it’s sure to be a big seller.

In personal news, I’ve had no feedback yet from Google about the Adsense position. So don’t ask. I’ve been told it will be sometime this week, possibly tomorrow, before I hear anything. At least in the meantime I can distract myself by trying out the “5 minutes to fabulous” java application to see if it can turn a butch like me into a pretty chiq girl… the odds are pretty slim though.

The interview with Google on Monday went really well, both team leaders who I met with were really nice, educated and nerdy. Despite feeling extremely over-dressed, it seems that everyday is “Casual Friday” at Google, I was comfortable and confident throughout the entire hour of interviews and simply being able to walk through the offices themselves was an interesting experience. I don’t want to overanalyse for now, but I’ll tell you one thing – the Google offices themselves are really funky and cool. I think I would fit in perfectly there. In a weird coincidence though (or maybe just the work of a certain search engine) there’s a comment on my previous post from someone who is competing for the same position as myself. Weird.

While I’ve been off contemplating moving jobs I’ve also been in the process of doing Apple Sales Training (I’ve gotten Silver Status, half way to Gold! Hurrah!), even I don’t use the knowledge to sell the products it’s a great way of finding out about Apple technology. Although, I still haven’t found the answer to why Jen’s new iPod Nano keeps freezing randomly and needs to be reset. I’ve been assured by one of my colleagues that all Nanos go through a “phase” where they need to be reset occasionally, Jen seems to think it’s going through puberty and it’s acting out against her.

Speaking of Ipods… the best time of the year to buy one would be right now. What with Apple launching the new iPod Nano and 80gb iPod, all the iPod range has gone down in price (so the old stock gets shifted quick) – you can actually pick up a 30gb/60gb Video iPod for €290/€340 here in 3G on Henry Street. Which I think, is a bargain. Although, I’ve heard a rumour that you can get the 30gb for only €270 in Spectra Photo on Grafton Street. Even nicer!

Seeing as there has been a price drop in the iPod range, it’s only natural that the Creative Zen Vision M will have to drop in price to compete and there is even rumour online that Creative will be upgrading the capacity of the Vision M to 80gb, they’ve also launched their new widescreen mp3/video player the Vision W. Since my Micro Photo got stolen I’ve been using a 1gb Creative player, which is fine by me, at least in the short term. If those Vision M players go down, I think I’ll invest in one of those rathar than an iPod.