Pixel 3XL – £969…yikes

Yes, that is Apple pricing and it only has 128gb of internal storage. The 64gb version is £100 lower so they are charging you £100 for 64gb of additional internal storage. i’m not sure on this as I  can’t be arsed working out the cost but…I suspect that is more than Apple are charging for going from 64gb to 256gb on the newer iPhone XS and XS Max?

£969, nearly £1000 for a Google phone…wow. We seem to be going in two different directions with phone pricing these days, there are the Apple/Samsung and now Pixel premium pricing phones getting up to and in excess of £1,000 and then there are a whole load of cheap phones around the £250-£400 bracket offering a lot more bang for yer buck. One Plus were pretty cheap but now they are heading up to £600 territory.

I really can’t see this new Pixel 3 XL being a huge seller, it’s not a huge upgrade over the 2XL.

Pixel 3 and “you tubers”…and Mr Mobile.

Groan…”youtubers”, is there a more unlikeable bunch of attention seeking young ‘uns anywhere else on the planet? It’s doubtful. I keep seeing them everywhere, even watching a YouTube video from somebody I quite like, there they all are in the background…having a great time, laughing and loving their own company and that of their fellow “youtubers”. They’d do anything for a free phone, anything that is apart from slating it and being chucked off their gravy train.

Thank God for “youtubers” though, I’d never be able to make my own mind up about a phone’s merits without them chirping in with their biases and petty gripes.

Anyway, the Pixel 3 was launched and it looks pretty decent. Luckily it gives Mr Mobile the chance to quickly flee back to the safety of his Android comfort zone after having to review that horrible iPhone XS Max thing.

I remember a few months ago Mr Mobile having some twitter angst, something about other “youtubers” taking favours from phone companies in return for good reviews or something along those lines, pontificating whether he should be doing the same. As if he’d never been on any freebies before…jeez. A few days later there he was on some sun kissed shore reviewing another mobile phone….yeah, nice one.

XZ3 arrives…”in da house”

Yes, “in da house” for all you kids out there who like to talk the talk and walk the walk and pretend that you are from the streets.

Hmmm. I’ve been in the iOS camp for the last few weeks and have been enjoying it. I did however preorder this a few weeks back, well before the iPhone XS Max arrived, thinking it would solve all my XZ2 issues and get me back on the Android trail.

First impressions are that it is quite tall and thin. That seems to be the way nowadays on the Android front, all this 18:9 ratio screen thing which I have nixed emotions about. It is good that it makes phones feel narrower but at the same time it makes the screen narrower and you end up with squashed/cramped keyboards. Not so great if you have large fingers though. It is a tad taller than the iPhone but narrower and a bit thicker. Luckily it seems quite a bit thinner than the chunky/girthy XZ2 and certainly more than the 2mm actual difference would suggest.

So, what about these screens that leak into the side? I know there will be plenty of Samsung fanboys out there who are well used to them and who swear by them but I’m not convinced, there’s a bit of oddness going on at the side curve, the colours look odd. I can’t see any benefit from it as any text that flows around off the screen doesn’t look great plus there is this almost ghostly glow to it.

A couple of annoyances. Firstly, it ships with a crappy charger a la iPhone…no fast charger supplied in the box. Come on Sony, how do you think that looks? Secondly, like the XZ2 it is very slippery. It slides all over the place, falls off the sofa, falls off any surface that is not 100% flat. Doesn’t sound annoying but believe me, it is.

More to come.

Liverpool 0 City 0

Darn it, an awful penalty from Mahrez 6 minutes from time, ballooned over the bar and into the upper stand would have been decent reward for our hard work at Anfield yesterday. Did we deserve to win? Possibly not as our play was fractured and lacked composure at crucial times, constantly poking and prodding at passes in midfield in a hurry when a bit of composure and would have served us better.

Liverpool, as expected, came out of the traps quickly and we looked in trouble early doors as we huffed and puffed at the back and Ederson insisted in putting both full backs under needless early doors by giving them passes when they had nowhere to go.

After that awkward early start we grew in to the game and took the sting out of their initial thrust but without really creating anything. Another poor showing from Sterling at Anfield saw him hauled off with 20 minutes to go and replaced by Sane. Within a couple of minutes I was wishing he’d started as he used pace and vigour to run at their full back. Our penalty was as a result of his pace and adventure and finally, Atkinson could not deny us a spot kick. He hasn’t done us many favours of late, witness his viewing of Young’s studs up slide into Aguero’s knee in the last derby at the Etihad as a challenge that did not warrant a penalty as an example.

Thing is, you never know what  might have happened had Mahrez actually scored as it might have finally woken Liverpool up and resulted in them equalising later on, which might have been even more painful. 😣 In the end and in view of the way we capitulated twice at their place last season, we have to be happy with a point as we stay top and have now gone to both Arsenal and Liverpool away and picked up 4 points.

My City MOTM was probably Laporte for a commanding performance at the back, he didn’t give much away and seemed quite relaxed on the ball. I was disappointed with Sterling and Kun, basically 2 of our front three offered very little and when that happens, you’re going to struggle to create and finish things off.

Now for another tedious international break….great

iPhone XS max purchased

I was not going to buy one of these as I was underwhelmed by the launch at the Apple Event a few weeks ago and, for the first time ever, I did not log on at 8am on the Friday to pre-order an iPhone. Fast forward a week or so and the devices have arrived in people’s hands and the first reviews appear online and on youtube.

There are various channels and reviewers that I will go to first as I value their opinion over the rest, one of these being Flossy Carter and his ‘real reviews” which are unbiased and influence-free, unlike some others I could mention. Flossy just gave his initial opinion on the XS Max and was very complimentary about it and I just cracked, darn it, I had no intention of getting one but that video changed my mind.

Anyway, looking at the Apple Store application, delivery for the model I wanted, 256gb in Silver/White, would not be for another couple of weeks, October 3-9th. However, I always check availability for pick up in the Edinburgh Apple Store, often 3/4 times a day, as they clearly get limited stock in on a daily basis and you can be lucky and just time it right. Right enough, a couple suddenly became available on Tuesday and I ordered one and zoomed down at lunchtime to pick it up. Not cheap at £1,249…serious ouch factor.

Get this, I am so relaxed and nonchalant about new phones these days, probably because I’ve been through so many in the last 10 years plus, that I didn’t even open the box until I got home and had my tea, which was about 5 hours later.

Initial thoughts? It’s big but not as big or unwieldy as I thought it might be, it doesn’t feel that heavy either. It is quick, very smooth but the iPhone X I currently use is similarly nippy.

Anyway, I shall keep using it and report back further in a few days. I’ve returned plenty new phones down the years, I recently returned a disappointing HTC U12+, an awful Honor phone and various others in recent times but I always end up keeping the iPhones as they are good and they end up getting passed down to the family after a year or so. This one will be no different.

So annoying…but the XZ2 remains for now

I’ve had so many phones in the last few years and so few have lasted longer than a couple of weeks before either being returned to Amazon or sold for a loss on eBay. In the last few months for example, I had an LG G7, bought another XZ Premium (why?), some shiny blue Honor phone that annoyed me beyond belief and a genuinely disappointing  HTC U12 plus, for which I had high hopes but it was just…meh.

I also go though the routine of buying something, not liking it and selling it on and then, a few weeks/months later, for some unknown reason, buying another one because I convince myself that it was not as bad as I first thought. Unsurprisingly, that approach seldom works.

No, this can be evidenced by my current ownership of the Xperia XZ2 which I purchased at launch then sold on a few weeks later as not only did I dislike it, I also hated it because, somewhat irrationally, I felt let down/cheated by Sony. More on later….but, having dispensed with its services, luckily I realised what a fool I’d been and bought another quickly, phew….and then returned it to Amazon within 2 days.

Once bitten twice shy you might think. Not so with me, a week later I’d ordered another which still remains with me and frankly, which I wished I’d never purchased. This thing is fat and slippy and heavy. It must be the most preposterous phone device for quite some time, there cannot be any reason or need for it to be so chunky, nor for the ludicrous curve to the back which makes it wobble like a jelly on any table/surface you place it on. Which leads me back to my earlier comment about being cheated by Sony. Why change the design of the Xperia devices so much from the XZ1? That square, blocky design is what makes people continue to buy Xperia devices…they like the look and feel of them.

Sony basically pandered to the masses and changed the design, pandered to all the reviewers from websites and youtube who have little interest in Xperia devices and probably wouldn’t even buy one themselves. So, Sony listens to people who don’t actually buy their products over the views of actual, paying customers. Luckily, the XZ3 looks like it addresses some of the issues I have with the XZ2, being thinner and less curved on the back. Yet, the same reviewers who had gushed about the new fresh and ‘modern” design (?) still called it as being mediocre so that worked well for Sony.

I still wish the XZ2 had been in the same form factor as the XZ1, that would have made it a dream device for me. The XZ2 is so good in so many ways, superb, bright screen, fast UI and overall speed with great battery life yet the absurd design constantly niggles away and detracts from the whole positive experience. I still use my XZ1, often ahead of the XZ2 as the former device is still quick and I adore the form factor. An XZ2 in the body of a larger screened XZ1 would have been mobile nirvana for me.

Phone update…incoming Xperia XZ3

As mentioned earlier, I switch between an iPhone X and a couple of Xperia devices, XZ2 and XZ1. I’ve pre-ordered an XZ3 as it looks like everything the XZ2 should have been on day one…ie, not fat. I was determined not to bother getting the latest iPhone but the reviews I have read so far have been such that it is now starting to tempt me, the Max version that is.

The XZ3 is not out until October 5th so I still have a couple of weeks to go,. Funny how Sony and all the other phone manufacturers are so quick to get their devices out to indifferent YouTubers ahead of people like me, people who actually want to fork out their own hard earned dosh.

On the subject of “youtubers”, you will quickly gather how little time I actually have for most of the bigger ones out there, how can these glory hunters get their iPhone XS reviews out so quickly, barely 12 hours after they have received them they are out there with their “reviews”, yeah right, I’m sure you have covered everything there is to cover in that time and are not just rushing your review out so it is getting the requisite amount of hits…oh no, perish the thought.

So, I will update once the XZ3 arrives but until then will carry on ranting about things that get my dander up.

I’m back…sort of

Crikey, it has been more than 6 years since I last posted and of course, so much has happened. I think I started this site about 10 years ago when I was still using Palm Treo devices, god how I loved them and all the apps…Snappermail etc. I thought they were the bess knees.

Now, I flit between Android and iOS on a near daily basis, I run two sims, one on a very cheap £12pm GiffGaff deal, which means I can carry 2 phones around each day if I feel like. My main sim has been in an iPhone X the last month or so and the spare changes between the XZ2 and the XZ1. I’ve become a bit of a Sony Xperia fan boy in the last few years having owned just about every Xperia device since 2013.

Anyway, I intend to get back to posting on a regular basis as I now have much more time in the evenings, the kids are grown up and need less looking after plus I got through all the exams I had to do for work.

West Ham 0 City 0

I was really nervous watching this one on Saturday teatime. They came out of the blocks like a house on fire, scored a decent goal that was chalked off for a dubious offside and it was a while before we could settle down and start passing the ball around. Once we did, we started to get on top without really fashioning any clear cut scoring opps, aside from Mario’s up and over the bar from 2 yards.

On the subject of Super Mario, I thought he was having a decent game but was hooked halfway through the 2nd half whereas Dzeko should have been the one making way as he was having a shocker. His touch was awry and his passing was pretty poor too, every time we give the lad a chance to show he’s far more worthy of just being a super-sub then he just goes and blows it. Ah well, back to the bench for you young Edin and zip it.

2nd half we were well on top but there was too much tiki without the taki and we carried little threat. Nobody seemed to want to take the chance to actually have a bloody shot at goal. Still, it’s a tough place to go at times and we came away with a useful point from a game we could have lost. Good performances from the defence, in particular Nastasic and Clichy, Nasri and Tevev worked hard and kept the ball well but Ya Ya looked a bit out of sorts, he doesn’t look fit to me.

Craig Levein: results cost him Scotland job – Kevin Gallacher

No shit! Really? Thanks for that expert insight Kevin, thank goodness there are the ex-pro’s out there able to enlighten us thickos as to why certain things in football happen. I, for example, would never have realised that winning 3 competitive matches in 3 years (including 2 victories over duffers like Leichenstein) might lead a manager to lose his job but now I see how it works…..if you show that you’re basically a crap manager then you run the risk of getting sacked…ahhhh, it all makes sense now.

City 1 Swansea 0

Ouch. Another major league struggle this for the faltering blues who keep having to dig deep to dredge out results. Swansea played well, they stifled us in midfield in the first half, broke with menace and we couldn’t have argued had they gone in at half time a goal up. We were laborious in our build up play and are becoming serial side passers. To me, Nastasic is beginning to look like Savic Mk 2. We paid a lot of dosh for this guy, he’s only 19 and is relatively unproven and perhaps we should have paid a bit more to get a bit more experience.

Second half we improved and began to show a bit of urgency which culminated in a fine but slightly unusual strike from Tevez which somehow found its way into the bottom corner, confounding their keeper to the extent that he was twisting and turning and caused himself an injury in the process. After that I thought we should have pushed on and won it more comfortably but the 5 minute delay whist their keeper was removed from the pitch seemed to stop us dead in our tracks again and any momentum built up, was lost.

This was a really odd match with a flat atmosphere, played in the dark as the onset of winter approaches and which had its second half momentum rudely interrupted by several nasty looking injuries, not the usual types caused by scything challenges but self inflicted ones. Swansea, for all their neat passing and possession lack a killer touch up front which was lucky for us. “The stuff of champions” they cried after on the Bluemoon forums but some may interpret City’s inability to play with any particular degree of flair as symptomatic of more worrying matters. We can’t keep on scraping wins with last minute winners or riding our luck in this manner and seriously need to pick up the pace, quite literally, sooner, rather than later.

Ajax 3 City 1

Ouch. Another CL evening and another disappointing performance and result. Where was the power and pace last night? There were warning signs early on last night as we seemed to surrender midfield  and found it hard to string more than a couple of passes together, our ball retention in Europe is sorely lacking. Each of the goals we conceded was avoidable.

The first, we had numerous chances in the build up to hoof the ball away and use up the seconds before half time but the last culprit was Nasri, gifting the ball in midfield and then Barry and Milner failed to track back. The second was poor marking at a corner and even then Clichy was caught in no mans land, had he taken a couple of steps back he’d have been on the goal line and could have cleared it easily but instead he just chose to stand there, doing nothing.

Goal number 3 was down to Barry, who had an overal lamentable performance, gifting the ball away, not for the first time in Europe. Mancini must realise by now that Barry is too slow and too cumbersome, too predictable at this level. Most others can see it…

Poor Edin up front, every time he gets the chance to start and show that he deserves more than the  super sub tag he turns in a performance that suggests he is in fact best suited to the super sub tag. I think we are fielding teams in Europe, obviously based around our squad, who are big and powerful but a tad slow and cumbersome and against teams like Ajax and Dortmund (and Napoli, last season), who are quick, nimble and technically very proficient, we struggle big time. Our strength and size are suited to doing well at home, which we do, but not ideal for Europe.

Let’s not beat about the bush here, Ajax were good but not a great side and after scoring first and quietening their home support, we should have gone on and killed them off instead of sitting back and thinking we could hold them off.  Our ball retention, when we are pressed, is suspect.

And another thing. Ajax were very vocal last night about our “oil money” with numerous chants and banners around the ground chastising us for having the money and having bought the ability to compete in the Champions League. Fair enough but Ajax shouldn’t forget that they are big boys in Holland themselves and have for a good long time enjoyed superior financial clout over most other Dutch clubs, with the exception of Philips backed PSV. Therefore they are being two faced themselves, they’re saying it’s okay to enjoy the benefits of having more cash than your rivals at home but not, for some reason, in Europe.

EE data prices for LTE

Garbage. That’s really all there is to say about the prices and the data limits. Cheapest “offer”, using the term loosely, provides a miserly 500mb of data whilst the maximum amount of data per month is capped at 8gb.

Think about that for a second or two. This is the new super fast EE network, with purported broadband like downloading speeds which is meant to encourage people to download more stuff presumably and there are caps on usage that just about negate any advantage of having the faster download speeds. You’d have thought that the whole point of the service would be so that people could download and/or stream films, music HD quality streams etc…how much of that can they do with 500mb or 1gb of data allowance each month?

iPhone 5 returning home

Well, the little ding that was on the iPhone 5 when it arrived and which must have been done when it was being made over in happy Foxconn land began to irritate me more and more. Its placement, right at the top under the power button meant I couldn’t really miss it, had it been hidden away round the back, out of sight when being held in the hand then I probably wouldn’t have bothered too much but……darn it I thought, this is a £500 plus phone which arrived with a noticeable scratch on it, in the box plus it still makes that irritating rattling noise when it is held in a certain way or placed down on a table or when shaken lightly. Plus, there are now a couple more bits of paint flaking off near the original mark and I began to think, how crap will this thing look in 6 months time if that carries on?

So, I was just going to do a return on the Apple website but discovered that you only have 14 days to do that which is poor, I’m sure it used to be 30. I then had to call Apple, spoke to 3 different people including a lovely girl who sounded like Holly Hunter, she was from Kentucky and was very sympathetic to my slightly “enhanced” tale of woe re the marks and rattling. Forty minutes later and having spoken firmly to her “supervisor” and some other lady nearer home I had a swop out email from Apple with return instructions and a delivery date for the new one of early November, not ideal but not disastrous either. I felt so much better afterwards too, it was like a big weight had been lifted off me as the little marks and rattling had been riling me since I first got it and I was never really happy. I could have taken it through to the Apple Store in Glasgow for them to have a look but that would mean a 100 mile round trip and I couldn’t see myself having the time to do that for a few weeks…..and I wanted this sorted before then.

The only slight concern was that the nice lady from Apple Europe, who authorised the return, wanted me to send a photo of the marks on the phone so I took a couple of pics with my HTC One S and emailed them through within an hour or so. I heard nothing back from her that evening but the next morning I received a further email from Apple saying that I’d get my replacement “within 3-5 business days” and would receive delivery details nearer the time.

Fingers crossed.

WBA 1 City 2

Glory Glory Edin Dzeko…….ah yes, another late show from the Blues to snatch victory from the plucky Baggies after a right royal ding dong battle. That twerp Curbishley, on Match Choice on Sky, claimed that Albion deserved a draw despite having a man extra for over an hour, less possession than City, less shots at goal than City, less corners than City…you get the picture. And they had the benefit of going in front with a somewhat fortunate break of the ball after their sub guy scuffed a shot into Long’s path.

Still, City showed their battling qualities again away from home and as some were saying in the media  afterwards, albeit in a predictably cliched fashion, ’tis the stuff of Champions. All credit to Albion’s manager after the match, praising City right away. This was a tough match for us and a bad time to play them what with them sitting in 5th before the match started and looking for a 5th successive home win.

Downsides were Kompany leaving Milner high and dry for the sending off, Mario virtually begging the ref to send him off near the end of the first half and an extremely nervy last couple of minutes after going in front.

Whatever happened to? – Panasonic Eluga and Eluga Power

Vapourware? This was announced at the start of the year and looked promising, initial reports said it would be coming out in April/May but it never materialised although I recall Expansys having a few EU units up for grabs around the same time. Initial reviews were decidedly lukewarm, no flash, seriously? plus it was slow and laggy. It just seems to have vanished as did its bigger brother, the 5 inch Eluga Power.

Thing is, it’s still showing on the Panasonic website in the UK although I don’t think you can buy it anywhere here, mind you would you want to as its specs are now a bit mediocre looking. It might have done okay 6/7 months ago but it’s probably dead in the water now.

Incipio Faxion Case for iPhone 5 review

I bought this case from here a few days ago and have been pleasantly surprised by how decent it is. Incipio are a very well know brand and for iPhones, their “Feather case” is probably the one that they are best known for. I’ve had a couple of them myself down the years…

The Faxion is a very sturdy case with a hard plastic that is glossy, not grippy, covering most of the case. The grey colouring is a softer material and adds grip. Here’s the official blurb:

“The slim durable Faxion case fuses soft and hard materials into one co-molded form. The inner layer of the form fitting case is manufactured from TPU, providing excellent shock absorbency whilst the polycarbonate-like Plextonium exterior adds additional strength and impact resistance to the case”

Yikes. The grey soft material encroaches over the edge of the sides and onto the screen, which I kind of like actually as it means all the iPhone is effectively covered/protected. The volume buttons and power button are also covered but have a very nice tactile feel, Incipio have done a good job here in keeping the responsiveness. I also like the fact there is no play in the grey material that covers the screen edges. You read about some other cases where the covering is loose, that’s the sort of thing that would annoy me hugely but the Faxion case, if you try to pull the top sides away.from the phone..well, you can’t as it so firm and solid. The drawback here being that the case is a total bugger to get off as there is so little give once the phone is in the case.

Still, I’m pretty sure this case would give some very useful drop protection as it feels so solid. It has the advantage of not feeling hugely bulky though and also offers “on the table” laying protection. The interior has a nice soft finish and the little “spots” are raised, probably with the aim of keeping the iPhone’s delicate back away from any scratching potential from the case inside.

Pro’s – very sturdy, great fit, nice two tone design, lay on the table protection, tactile buttons, lined interior should prevent iPhone back from getting scratched

Con’s – not easy to get off, makes the iPhone a bit thicker (adds another 4mm), glossy and slippery?

Samsung S3 mini – mini specs too

What a load of old cobblers, if the “leaked” specs are correct. What a pointless device, with a distinctly last gen screen when everyone else is moving up to hi res screens and minimum 8 mega-pixel cameras.

When this device was first mooted a couple of weeks or so ago it was claimed or suggested rather that it would be a mini version of the big and bold S111. This was important as it suggested that it would have the same top notch specs if the S111 but in a more compact form factor. Sounded appealing. Disappointingly however the leaked specs suggest considerably otherwise, its more like the Samsung Galaxy W specs of over a year ago…..pointless. I can’t believe that it would launch with such mundane hardware, if it’s being touted as a mini S111 then it needs to mirror the bigger brother’s stuff.

City 3 Sunderland 0

What are we to make of this performance and result, bearing in mind how lacklustre Sunderland were and how easily they surrendered their previously unbeaten league record? I suppose you can only beat what is put in front of you and if you use mantra then we beat them pretty soundly.

Mancini made a substantial number of changes from Wednesday night, 7 in all and I was saying to my fellow City chum before the match that it was a real chance for the likes of Kolarov, Milner, Mario and Micah to stake a claim for a regular place bearing in mind how disappointing some of our recent performances have been of late. Only one failed to seize the chance, was subbed within an hour and then had the further embarrassment of seeing his replacement score within a couple of minutes.

I don’t know what it is with Balotelli and Dzeko. They both look like game changers when they come off the bench and have the useful knack of scoring too but then, when a chance presents itself of a starting run in the first team, neither does much to make you think we can’t afford to leave them out next week. Mario has so much going for himself. At the home games that I went to last season with my son, he played in every one and indeed started in three of them. When you see him in the flesh he’s big and powerful and quick and makes a lot of good runs off the ball…when he can be bothered. He has more talent than Edin but does not work as hard as him, most of the time. You look at Mario and think, there is a guy blessed with all the attributes and talents you could wish for in a top class player but he can’t seem to use them all constructively for any sustained period of time. He seems to be perfectly happy to get the ball, move forward, beat a guy and then look for the foul from the next player who comes near him.

Anyway, the forums after the match were awash with good vibes. Many seeing the team and performance as vindication of a return to last seasons formation and personnel. There are a lot of Gareth Barry and Milner fans out there and even the much maligned Kolarov received much praise.

Another iPhone 5 update

Okay, another week passes with the iPhone 5 and it continues to be a decent experience. My last iPhone, version 4, was jail broken and there are some things that I am already starting to miss…no, make that pine for, for version 5. Tethering for starters, which I also miss badly from Android and am thus reduced to carry round my HTC One S so I can use it out of the box for providing internet access on my Nexus 7 on the go, as they say. I’d completely forgotten actually that tethering was a no no on stock iPhones. Ouch.

I also miss not being able to reply to text messages directly from the pop up notification like you can do on Android (using mainly 3rd party apps) and on a jailbroken iPhone 4 through the likes of BiteSMS. It is actually really annoying having to go into the actual messages app to do this.

However, this can be partly balanced out by being able to backup apps and the data contained therein within iTunes making subsequent restoring much easier than on Android, please don’t tell me about the fairly awful Android backup application, I forget it’s name as I stopped using it, which doesn’t back up app data and which when it restores your apps manages to take them out of the update info in Google Play. I did like Titanium Backup but you have to root your phone to use that.

I do like the iPhone 5 but find myself casting somewhat envious eyes at the Sony Xperia T on a near hourly basis.