Another day, another walk in the park

I went for a walk in the park Friday lunchtime. What an awesome day: the birds were twittering, the sun was shining and there were no damned children occupying the swings! Behold my sunglassed head and Motorola HT820-endowed ears.

After the waste of time that Trademe proved to be, I doubt I'll use Trademe again for anything of any real value. However, in the end, I got a Motorola Razr V3x from a reputable stockist. Nice phone indeed. I've needed a cellphone for two weeks and not only has it filled that bill, but it has fulfilled my desire for a dijitol camera and mp3 player all in one. Having said that, the camera is definitely a hobbyist camera, and isn't good enough for real touristy pictures that I will want to take next year.

Another neat thing about this phone was the free Motorola HT820 bluetooth headphones that came with it. They took a while to get used to, and I managed to dial 111 using them which was a bit of a silly thing to do. But I wouldn't live without them now! They're my saviour for the boring transition between work and home, and they accompany me on my walks in the park.

There are a few annoyances though:

1. When cycling, they catch the wind, causing a rather annoying and headache-inducing whistle.
2. They cut out if I turn my head too fast. It seems performance is enhanced if I put my phone in my back pocket. Weird. Is the aerial in the headband?
   
3. It can be a bit temperamental: sometimes on start-up the music output is poor - sounds like it has been band-limited. It can be fixed by twiddling buttons randomly or resetting the headphones.

Coupled with this headset is the media player on board the Razr. It's OK, but there are a couple of usability issues. Mainly annoyances rather than anything flawed...

1. Settings. It won't save my settings (last-played playlist, shuffle ON, repeat ON). I keep having to go back to the same point each time I start it again.
2. When displaying a playlist, "Add to playlist" tries to add the currently selected song. I'd quite like to be able to add extra songs to a playlist when viewing that playlist.

I do like this phone quite a lot, it's certainly a step up from the old 3300 series Nokias I have owned over the last three years! Groovy.

That reminds me. There is another sucky thing about this phone. I have no friends who I can video call because they don't own video phones! It's not that I feel especially technologically astute, rather that my friends are more financially frugal than I am (read cheapskate).