PHILIPS DS8550/10 Fidelio Docking Speaker for iPad/iPhone/iPod

Do yourself a favour and avoid this.  It was meant to be a Christmas present to me so i’m glad i tried it out first! Before i get to the annoying habits/faults the first thing i noticed when i switched the dock on was the sound quality and i really don’t think it’s that great. I can hear a great deal of hissing and popping noises on a lot of songs (something that’s mentioned a lot on the Amazon US reviews i’ve since discovered) – i’ve tried several files from normal quality mp3 to very high quality, all of which play crystal clear on all my other devices but it’s there on most songs on this dock.

When you power on the dock it rams the volume up really loud even though your ipad/iphone was on its lowest setting so you’re left scrambling for the volume.  Also it just randomly switches itself off half way through songs for no apparent reason. I read that it also randomly switches itself on too at high volume. Not at all what you expect for a £200 dock.  So i’m sending it back and i won’t bother with a replacement – at least not a Phillips one.

Frame created with Polymagic app for iPhone

I shot this test video using an App called Luma. It’s great for stabilisation and has a few nice effects too. I edited the video together in iMovie – previously i was using Sony Vegas pro which was a mutha fu*king nightmare and take forever. Well no more!

Standard iPhone camera:

Camera+ using separate focus and exposure lock:

I think camera+ does a much better job in this situation. It’s easy to do, just tap your finger on the screen to bring up a + sign on the focus ring. Click the + to bring up the exposure ring and then move this to wherever you want to expose from. I took an exposure reading from pips white fur around her nose and focused on her eye. More tests coming soon.

Getting my iPhone was a complete fucking farce though.  I bought it on PAYG via Vodafone (BIG mistake) with the intention of putting my contract Sim in it.  I ordered through their website on the 20th October and i didn’t hear a thing from them – 2 weeks of calls, online chats, forums posts, constant lies, mis-information and a tweet or two they eventually say “oh … we lost a load of orders and yours was one of them – would you like to re-order?”.  Hell. No.

So i bought it direct from Apple, communication was great and it arrived when they said it would.  Some advice, don’t deal with Vodafone, their customer service is shocking – just check out the forums.  By the way, i then spent 2 days trying to get Vodafone to transfer my number to a micro sim – again, they were useless.  Couldn’t do it.  So i walked into a shop and they did it in 2 minutes flat.

Anyway, the phone.  WOW!  I can’t get over how heavy and solid it feels – last time i felt like that was my first Blackberry Bold.  The screen is amazing.  Incidentally i was using a Samsung Galaxy S2 (which my hubby now has) and i know that the S2 is considered iPhones biggest Rival … personally, as a device i prefer the iphone even with its smaller screen.

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The first thing i did was check out the camera – the Galaxy camera is extremely good and i think they are fairly evenly matched but i do enjoy the iphone camera more simply because the photography and image editing apps are just so much better, editing is easy enough and it’s amazing the amount of control you have over your images just from using your finger.  Next i checked out the music player, no gripes there, it’s sounds as good as my iPod touch so i’m not dissapointed.

SIRI is out of this world!  I’ve tinkered with voice recognition on Android but it hasn’t come anywhere near as clever as SIRI.  It’s freaky, you have to keep reminding yourself you’re talking to a program – i get more sense out of SIRI then any of the customer service reps when i ring Vodafone *insert meow here*.

It’s not all great though.  I prefer Android email where all of my accounts were push email and were a doddle to set up.  At the moment my main gmail is push and my two own mails are fetch.  Unless there is a way to make them push?  I think i prefer the Android operating system in general.  An ideal for me would be Apple device, Apple Apps and Android OS (with widgets).  Simple things like having a contact shortcut on your homescreen are a doddle on Android but quite fiddley on IOS (there’s apps that open Safari and then get your contact and then calls or text them….).

Also i notice that the signal strength isn’t as good as the Galxaxy.  I lost my connection driving from Telford to Market Drayton for a lot longer than i did with the Samsung.  Also the battery life isn’t great, maybe that’s because the battery needs a good few charges to become conditioned, i don’t know.  I’m using the 5.01 update that was meant to fix the battery drain but again, still not as good as the Samsung which is surprising considering the size of the screen.

The camcorder … well it looks great on iPhone but the clip i uploaded to youtube looks quite naff.  I’m assuming that the problem was with youtube because it was filmed in 1080p but youtube is showing it as 720:

Click here to view the embedded video.

For me, i think the biggest selling point is the quality of the apps – it’s no use having an amazing smartphone without the apps and Apple definately has Android beat in that department IMO.  I’ll do a more detailed review when i’ve had more of a play.  I’m still learning a lot of the features.

My contract is due for an upgrade this November and i was seriously considering the new iPhone, i know the software is limited compared to Android but i’d like to try an iPhone just once.  Trouble is my existing Samsung Galaxy is already more powerful (and thinner even with a bigger screen) so there would be no point.  It would be like taking a step back.

I might get a new iPod though, my old one is looking a bit manky.

I’ve been playing with my iPod touch, using it to try out typing because i do a lot of emailing and texting from my phone and i just don’t like the keyboard at all. It’s nowhere near as accurate as my Bold. Plus it feels flimsier, i can slide my Bold into my jeans pocket and i know it’s not going to get damaged, it’s a tough old gal. But the iPhone/touch? My Touch is already looking very scratched and rough and i have been very gentle with it.

So, for the first time in my life, i’m not going to grab the newest shiny toy for the hell of it, and i probably won’t upgrade to the latest Bold either if they really are making it smaller. For me, it’s going to take a hell of a phone to compete with BB Bold!