Rick's b.log - 2014/01/22
You are 3.133.145.17, pleased to meet you!
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Rick's b.log - 2014/01/22 |
| It is the 21st of November 2024 You are 3.133.145.17, pleased to meet you! |
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mailto: blog -at- heyrick -dot- eu
The reason this came about - I should add - is because when my contract time is up, my monthly payments remain the same even though the phone subsidy has reached the end of its time. Looking to get a replacement model... Let's just say the 'accepted advice' from several people (including an Orange rep!) was to break the current contract and take out a new one.
It is therefore with some measure of pleasure that I see that I will be elegible for a replacement phone at a 'good price' in 11 months. In this way, the contract can be renewed (not cancelled) and I get a better phone at a better price.
At the moment, a phone that looks good is the Sony Xperia SP. At a list price of €299,36 (.36? seriously?) on a 12 month contract (or €319,90 without contract), Orange claims that they can offer this to me for €149,90 at the end of the year. I'm not paying to much attention to the price, for a year is forever in the psychotic chaos that is the mobile phone market.
But I wrote this blog entry to take exception to TechRadar's review summing up the Xperia SP as:
"Mediocre" in this case is a dual-core 1.7GHz processor hooked to an HD (as in 720P native (wheee!)) display. That's like way above the spec of my current Xperia U (1GHz dual core; just like the iPad Mini); that's much more than my previous Xperia Mini Pro (1GHz single core); and let's not even mention my first Android handset, the Motorola DEFY, which with its 800MHz OMAP36xx is outpaced by both the Beagle xM and the RaspberryPi!
Really... WTF? A dual-core ARM clocking 1.7GHz is "mediocre" these days?
Specs getting silly
In 11 months, I will be up for renewal of my mobile/internet package. I was not keen on doing this, because when I cancelled and took out a new contract for my mobile phone with Orange, I got a new number each time. As I said way back when, I think Orange do this intentionally in order to keep you locked in because every time I ask why I cannot keep my number, the excuse changes. Assume "mumble, mumble, mumble, that's how it is". The only number I ever remembered was 0681 40 77 93. That was three phones ago!
As my contract rolls the internet and mobile together, and since our landline is VoIP through the Livebox, to have this number change would inconvenience many. Well, maybe a dozen people. But it's still more than just me.
And the reason that everything is bundled is because it costs me €60/month. That's €15 less than doing it separately. And that's about 4-5× what the same sort of thing costs in the UK. Ho hum.
At any rate, it looks like quite a nice phone for the money.
Heavy users will likely get frustrated with the moderate battery and mediocre processor. But if you want to save a bit of money and still own a smartphone that you can show off at parties or around the office, you could do a lot worse than picking up the Sony Xperia SP.
PhoneAddict, 15th February 2014, 22:11
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