Catshanghai

Today I am blogging from Singapore. I haven’t come here just to blog, although my recent post on the existensialism of this activity might suggest that I do. Singapore is warm, green, modern and clean, but I haven’t come here to write about that either. I am a Shanghai blogger and it is not in my job description to blog about a place I know so little about.

I have come to Singapore to attend a conference hosted by the International Baccalaureate Organisation about information literacy throughout the curriculum. This means I can get all gooey about the future of social networking sites in schools.

I am sitting in a hotel lobby writing on a HTC Hermes 200 Windows Mobile Smartphone. It is a fantstic tool for blogging on the road. It has support for a number of communication protocols, including wifi, bluetooth, 3G and GPRS. The screen is big. The slide out keyboard is good for writing short messages and there are some useful programs on the smartphone, including pocket versions of MS Office and Internet Explorer. There is a camera and a slot for a micro SD drive.

HTC is an innovative smartphone manufacturer whose products are rebranded by just about everyone and that includes Apple’s new Iphone. I bought mine as a rebadged grey market export model that had been made for the Japanese market under the SoftBank label as the X01HT. My export model came without a guarantee, because it was only 4000 RMB and was sold to me tax free.

I like using it a lot, but it is not without its probems. Windows Mobile is relly tricky to operate. Network connections are a pain to setup and the camera is not intuitive to use. Wifi is not working at my school for some unknown reason and the bluetooth keyboard seems to be lacking sensitivity. I am basically still learning how to handle the device properly.

It’s also big and ugly, but once I master it, my smartphone will be a fantstic tool for writing, planning and research. There is also scope for students to use this instead of carrying around heavy laptops, but the interface needs to become friendlier.

Update:
I have just returned from Singapore after using my phone as a note taking tool for 3 days. The extrenal bluetooth keyboard still sucks. I tried using the integrated slideout keyboard, which is OK but the keys are too small for touch typing. I even had a go writing notes using the stylus and that works well, although you have to edit the document a lot after parsing the scrawl through the handwriting recognition tool.

Battery life is OK, but it is not enough to get you through the day without recharging. The lithium ion battery gives me power for about 4 hours when I am taking notes if the wi-fi is turned on, so I went to Sim Lim Square (in Singapore) to buy a spare. Battery life is only a couple of hours if you use the phone for making calls. I am lucky that I don’t like talking to people very much!

Connecting to the Internet can be a pain at the moment, because handsets manufactured for the Chinese market can not have wi-fi and GPRS bundled together. Wi-fi works great if I am near a hotspot, but I am still struggling to get a GPRS connection just in case I need to post a blog entry or write an E-mail.

I still think the phone is wonderful, but I am going through some growing pains as I learn all the tips and shortcuts. It’s not the sort of device that I would recommend for luddites or the faint hearted.