Dipping into the Blogpond

I got a funky new phone a few weeks ago.

I’ve had a BlackBerry 7290 phone for nearly two years now. As a mobile device, it’s served me well with its functionality – the ability to be able to forward my email to my phone means that when I’m not in the office I can still get my mail and access the internet. Very handy when you run an online startup.

Recently, however, dLook became the business directory of choice for Vodafone’s “Find and Seek” mobile local search function on their Vodafone Compass product. Although it is now available on other handsets, it was initially only available on a couple – the BlackBerry® Curve 8310™ Smartphone being one of them. So I needed access in order to monitor the integrity of the mobile search.

Let me tell you, this is a funky phone! Having had a pretty mundane phone for two years now, having one the plays music and takes photos (I have had this ability on previous phones), on top of everything else, is really cool. The camera is 2 megapixels, with a 5x zoom and inbuilt automatic flash. I was surprised at the quality of the photos, but I’ve found the photos taken at night from a distance are a bit grainy.

The Vodafone Compass product (powered by Yapp mobile) is pretty nifty. As the phone has inbuilt GPS it allows you to use the phone as a hand held satellite navigation device, handy if you don’t have a car with sat nav, or if you are on foot. And it even talks to you – next left, continue straight etc.

Apart from the GPS, it’s got the “Find and Seek” functionality. As I mentioned, dLook powers the business search, and there are also links to public toilets, and shortly a search for cheap petrol.

Pros

• Compact and portable GPS
• Automatic map updates
• Downloads (of updates) and usage is included in the premium (currently $2.50 per day, $8 a month or $79 a year)
• Click to navigate from business details
• Click to call from business details
• Unlimited blackberry email included

Cons

• Very heavy on battery consumption
• Easy to forget to turn Compass off (which drains battery)
• Often has a problem determining “current location”, but will quickly pick it up if you navigate to an address
• I had a bit of a problem in the city (in the car) trying to start it up – building/car combination may have affected satellite
• Public toilet search is done as the crow flies, not by foot or road (eg my nearest public toilet is 490 m away, but this on the other side of a river (a 12.7 km drive)!
• Regular internet access is expensive – $1 for 5 minutes

Here’s a photo of me, à la Karen Cheng, taken from the phone (hehe).

Disclosure: obviously I have a direct relationship with this product and its success. That not withstanding, I have attempted to give an honest and unbiased appraisal.