Android and other phone gossip

marksi · Mon 16 Jan, 2012 08.48

It's clearly not in HTC's interest, which is why they won't do it (they want people to buy new phones) but I don't see a reason why it would not be possible to create a one-click way to do what I did with a lot of trial and error and faffery.

The only more difficult thing to do within the operating system would be to get the EXT2 partition set up. That said, the software I linked to made that bit of the process a piece of piss.

Having now used the phone with the changes made in the last couple of days I don't see any change in performance, however widgets installed on EXT2 seem to crash. That's not a problem as now I have plenty of space to leave the occasional item like that on the internal memory. Have installed loads of new things and still have 66MB free.

Critique · Thu 16 Feb, 2012 14.08

Out of interest, Gav, what phone have you picked up, now you're contract is over?

Gavin Scott · Thu 16 Feb, 2012 17.51

Haven't actually expired existing contract yet, but its soon - and then I'm going for this

http://www.neowin.net/news/t-mobile-ann ... everything

Sounds like a good deal to me.

BBC LDN · Fri 17 Feb, 2012 02.54

Gavin Scott wrote:Haven't actually expired existing contract yet, but its soon - and then I'm going for this

http://www.neowin.net/news/t-mobile-ann ... everything

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Gavin, my dear animal, it pleases me greatly that you have read my work. You may live.

But the rest of you... the rest of you will perish in flames.

Gavin Scott · Fri 17 Feb, 2012 08.04

YOU are my go-to guy for tech news now.

And thank god, because after the unpleasantness with Spencer Kelly, I can never go back to Click's offices.

bilky asko · Fri 17 Feb, 2012 11.31

Gavin Scott wrote:YOU are my go-to guy for tech news now.

And thank god, because after the unpleasantness with Spencer Kelly, I can never go back to Click's offices.

I suppose you two just didn't click.

Pete · Fri 17 Feb, 2012 12.07

Gavin Scott wrote:And thank god, because after the unpleasantness with Spencer Kelly, I can never go back to Click's offices.

oh please tell me that's something that actually happened, he seems such a bellend.

Gavin Scott · Fri 17 Feb, 2012 21.49

Pete wrote:
Gavin Scott wrote:And thank god, because after the unpleasantness with Spencer Kelly, I can never go back to Click's offices.
oh please tell me that's something that actually happened, he seems such a bellend.

I never cyberkiss and tell.

Gavin Scott · Fri 17 Feb, 2012 22.06

Regardless, anybody who pays £41/month for a phone tariff isn't trying hard enough. When your contract is up for renewal you should call your operator directly and play them off against their retail stores/other networks and negotiate your own deal rather than taking one of their 'premade' ones.

Well that's certainly the advice I've always given to others, but the actuality for me has been different.

Neither Orange nor Vodafone offered me much in the way of negotiation. The best I could gain (and you should know, I'm *quite* a skilled negotiator) was a 32GB SD card and a doubling of texts. And no matter which way you cut it, 1GB of data or 600 minutes leaves even a relatively minimal user with the worry that they'll go over plan and end up with a whacking bill. That's my worry, and it tends to make me curtail using Spotify and such in the fullsome way I would like to.

Where customer loyalty used to be the main thrust, the providers now seem to be on a mission to gain new accounts - and its most annoying to see n00bs getting better rates than an 8 year subscriber.

As I'm currently paying Vodafone £35 quid (plus VAT) for my phone and a tenner a month for 1GB of O2 3G data for my iPad, I'm better off with this unlimited everything deal - and I can tether my iPad to my phone and dispense with the O2 bill. I'll also get an iPhone 4S for £29, and can defray at least that much by selling my HTC to a phone buying site.

Its a no brainer on those terms, and I have zero worries about going over my allowance.

Funnily enough, I'd done a questionnaire for O2 recently, and they called a couple of nights ago to discuss my feedback. I had complained about the poor WiFi service from BT (which comes as part of the iPad 3G SIM). I thought I might get some kind of freebie or benefit for taking the time to talk to them, but alas, no.

As nice as the chap was, he explained O2 are building their own WiFi network, but aren't in a position to correct BTs problems at all.

So that's that.

I'll go with T-Mobile/Orange.