TamsPPC – the Windows Phone Blog

Samsung’s i780 has the dubious honor of being the handset with the smallest key/body size ratio. This sounds extremely bad – but what does it mean in everyday use?

Looking at the front side of the device, one can immediately see the forward-facing camera, the multi-state light and the keys. The lamp at the top is a multi-color LED – it indicates wireless and charging status:

When looking at the keys and the 5way in more detail, one can see that the device has a few extra keys (the envelope one at the bottom) and that it lacks a real 5way nav. Both of these will be covered in a later part of the review – in the mean time, it suffices to say that they are there:

The keys themselves are horribly small: typing a longer text on them is an absolute pain compared to devices like Palm’s Treo or BlackBerry:

The back of the device is plain – 2MP camera, speaker and stylus silo:

Pulling the back off allows you to access the battery and the SIM tray:

As usual, the power button and a wrist strap lanyard can be found at the top of the device (Samsung loves these thingies):

A volume rocker can be found on the right side of the device:

The left side is crowded with a key, Samsung’s standard connector and a MicroSD slot. The latter two are covered by two lids…aah, it’s a Samsung after all (:)):

Finally, here’s a shootout showing the devices stylus next to a few others:

In the end, the Samsung i780 is a device without any glaring flaws. It can be used. Period. Unfortunately, development in the QWERTY candybar phone segment is now so far that usability is not enough: other manufacturers have gotten very close to perfection. The rinky-dink keys and the toothpick masqueraded as a stylus are relicts from ancient times…which have absolutely no space on a device being sold in 2008…

We have replaced the original image in this article. Please read our Clarification and Apology re Image used in Chinese 3G article for further information!
So far, the Chinese wireless industry was limited to 2G and 2.5G networks due to its government’s reluctance to pursue a license for a 3G standard. This was understandable some time ago (they tried to develop their own), but is nothing short of total idiocy nowadays as WCDMA and CDMA2000 are widely established and a new standard is neither needed nor likely to receive manufacturer support (and let’s not talk about roaming).

Fortunately, the Chinese government is on its way to reason according to a recent Reuters report:

…
The council did not say when the licences would be issued by the Ministry of Industry of Information, but the industry minister has said it would happen by early 2009.

China has repeatedly delayed awarding the licences while it worked on the broader task of reorganising its telecoms industry, a task it began earlier this year.

As part of that reorganisation, the ministry has said China Mobile (0941.HK) would be awarded a licence for a TD-SCDMA network, a standard backed by Beijing.

In addition, China Unicom (0762.HK) would be awarded a licence for WCDMA and China Telecom (0728.HK) for CDMA 2000.

While I do not expect these networks to become fully operational for at least another year, this definitely is a great step forward for the Chinese wireless industry! The times of weird 3G restrictions on devices like the iPhone 3G should be gone for good…

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Unknown, editing by Tam Hanna

I have always been a fan of the JPG Magazine – in case anyone of you is new to the topic: it is a magazine which collects the best user-submitted photographs by popular vote and prints them.

The resulting magazine can then be bought or downloaded as PDF: these 20MB PDF files have made excellent stress test files for PDF viewers in the past.

Unfortunately, it looks like the age of the JPG Magazine is over – I just received the email below:

Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.

We’ve spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we’ve reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents, but we just weren’t able to raise the money needed to keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday, January 5, 2009.

The one thing we’ve been the most proud of: your amazing talent. We feel honored and humbled to have been able to share jpgmag.com with such a dynamic, warm, and wonderful community of nearly 200,000 photographers. The photography on the website and in the magazine was adored by many, leaving no doubt that this community created work of the highest caliber. The kindness, generosity, and support shared among members made it a community in the truest sense of the word, and one that we have loved being a part of for these past two years.

We wish we could have found a way to leave the site running for the benefit of the amazing folks who have made JPG what it is, and we have spent sleepless nights trying to figure something out, all to no avail. Some things you may want to do before the site closes:

- Download the PDFs of back issues, outtakes, and photo challenge selections. We’ll always have the memories! www.jpgmag.com/downloads/archives.html
- Make note of your favorite photographers. You may want to flip through your favorites list and jot down names and URLs of some of the people you’d like to stay in touch with. You may even want to cut and paste your contacts page into a personal record.
- Catch up with your fellow members. Our roots are in this humble flickr forum and we recommend going back to find fellow members, discuss the situation, or participate in another great photo community. www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/
- Keep in touch. This has always been much more than just a job to each of us, and we’ll miss you guys! We’ll be checking the account jpgletters@gmail.com in our free time going forward. We can’t promise to reply to every email (since we’ll be busy tuning up our resumes) but we’d love to hear from you.
- Stay posted. Although the magazine is ceasing publication, we’ll be updating you on what’s happening with your subscription early next week.

We’re soggy-eyed messes, but it is what it is. At that, JPGers, we bid you goodbye, and good luck in 2009 and the future.

Laura Brunow Miner
Editor in Chief

The Tamoggemon Content team wishes its peers well – we are sorry to see them go…