I had set myself a challenge to swap my iPhone for a HTC Legend for a whole week and I completely failed. After day 4 struggling with what had evolved into over-complexity I just gave up and happily retreated back to the “evil” non-open source iPhone and heavily policed iTunes.

During this experiment I also had to discontinue using the Meteor network due the 2G to 3G handover problem (there’s a neat little video demonstrating this here) which left with me with no signal far too many times, but the phone worked perfect on O2. Hoping Meteor can fix that issue promptly, as many other HTC users are reporting this issue in the customer forums.

Day 4 With my Android

Continue Reading

I went along to a Meteor blogger event yesterday where we chatted about their new pay as you go data charges (250mb free if you top up by €20 per month, as well as free  Meteor texts – not bad at all) and us bloggers got to try out all the iPhone alternatives you could shake a stick at. They also sent me home with a HTC Legend.

Only last week I had tweeted about how I really wanted to try out an Android handset to do a compare and contrast against the iPhone. I usually change my phone on a yearly basis, and my iPhone 3G is nearing its first birthday, so trying out an alternative is a great way for me to discover if I should stick with Apple or not.

Before I got my iPhone a year ago I had always been a huge Nokia fan, what changed my mind was trying out Jen’s iPhone (she’s an avid Apple fan, so of course she had one months before me) as I was simply blown away by the web browsing experience, something that previous Nokia smartphones (running the Symbian operating system) I had owned simply didn’t compare to.

First Impressions of Android

Continue Reading

eBay has really evolved over the years and has quickly become my favourite place to shop online. It should no longer be considered a place for second hand junk or bidding wars, it’s now a place of true commerce with options to “buy it now” or to even haggle with a seller by “making an offer”.

Instead perhaps consider eBay as a gigantic 24hour outlet mall that’s filled with stores like Schuh, that are just desperate to get rid of last season’s Converse. It’s also populated with independent retailers, that can’t afford the online high street rents but compete with the larger stores like Amazon by offering you brilliant price reductions on new products. Then there are the niche stores/individuals that sell really rare or unique items like the HP battery I got for my 5 year old laptop (€36.99 with free P&P from Hong Kong) or my new Vans with the black soles and purple/black checkered pattern (€45 including P&P from Germany, the same price as the high street but very rare so totally worth it).

However, shopping online isn’t easy. It can be time consuming and frustrating. There are just too many choices, and far too many links to click to get to what you’re really looking for. There are just too many variables involved. So I thought I’d write up a few suggestions on how, as an Irish consumer, you can really utilise eBay.

How To Get The Best Out Of

Continue Reading