A guy at work brought in his brand new Nexus One today and I had a play with it. It is a nice phone and very fast – the onscreen keyboard is really good as well. I think that I am actually quicker on it than I am on the Milestone physical keyboard.
After reading about the dock for the Nexus one I was sold and I placed an order for one tonight. I have a dock for my milestone and use it for listening to music at work. The fact that the Nexus One streams music to the dock via Bluetooth so you plug your headphones into the base is very nice!
I’ve had a new phone for about a week now. The Samsung Motorola Milestone with Android 2.0. This replaces my last phone which was the first Android phone – the G1. The Milestone is basically the same as the Droid in the US but due to copyright reasons over here it has to be called the Milestone (blame George Lucas!).
A lot of my mates asked me if I was going to get the Nexus One – the real Google phone. It is the fastest and made directly for Google so sounds like the best. The only thing that it is missing is a physical keyboard which is why I went for the Milestone.
So far I am really pleased with the phone.
Pros:
Faster page loads
Bigger, clearer screen
Better browser
Excellent YouTube quality
Multiple Gmail accounts
Voice search
Phone portal
Calendar widget
Cursor keys not trackball
Camera 5MP
Still works faultlessly with BMW bluetooth
The phone is a LOT faster than the G1. Both at actually loading the pages (due to the HSDPA which the G1 didn’t have) and because of the faster processor to render the pages. The screen is fantastic as well and you can fit an awful lot more on there. The browser is much better as well. It initially loads the page all crammed into the page. You then double tap the bit you want to read and it zooms to that block of text. You can also use multi touch pinching to zoom the web page. You Tube looks infinitely better – you can watch in high def that looks great on the high res screen but does take a long time to download if you don’t have a good connection. Voice search works very well. A search for “wikipedia functional programming” worked fine and all the other search terms I have tried work as well – including for names in my contact list. The phone portal is an interesting feature – when you turn it on you get an address to enter into your computer which then takes you to a web server on the phone. You can then do things like download pictures, update contacts and all sorts of other things. The camera is much better as well at 5 Mega Pixels. I am pretty pleased with the results, and it’s not even too bad in low light thanks to it’s 2 LED flash:
Obviously ignore the faulty camera operator! These pictures were uploaded directly to Picasa from the phone.
It’s not all rosy though.
Cons:
Cramped Keyboard
Charging Light
First off there is a really bright light that comes on when the phone is charging – really don’t see the point of it and it’s annoying when you wake up in the middle of the night and it’s on your bedside table shining directly into your retina! My biggest gripe about the phone is the keyboard – which is why I chose this phone! The keyboard is nowhere near as good as the excellent G1 keyboard. On the Milestone they are not individual keys that are easy to feel but are a series of small round switches covered with a plastic sheet with the letters printed on. It’s pretty weird to type on. There are also only 4 rows of keys – the top row of number keys from the G1 are missing. I also find it difficult to get to the top row as they are too close to the slide out screen for my thumbs to properly connect with the button bit of the key.
The slightly disappointing keyboard has made me wonder if I should go for the Nexus one. It has more memory, a faster processor and a better screen (OLED). I don’t like the look of it as much and it looks a bit un-substantial. Having said that I’ve always said that I don’t care what my phone looks like, I just care what it does and how easy it is to use. The Milestone does feel substantial and high quality though. I’m not sure the Nexus would. The virtual keyboard on the Milestone is actually very good so that’s another reason why you don’t need the physical keyboard. With the full voice entry on the Nexus as well you wonder if you need real buttons at all.
The wife wants a Milestone at some point so an option is to get me Nexus and to give her my Milestone. I’ll have to decide if I want a Nexus or not soon!
We've just booked our first trip to the ring this year: 27th and 28th February.
According to the ring website the Nordschleife is open all day on both days. This time of year it should be pretty quiet so a great time for any newbies to come.
Having said that - we tried to go in early last year in March and the dates changed. The Ring might also be under a foot of snow.
We've made sure that out hotel booking can be cancelled for free and we can move our tunnel booking as well.
We're staying in the Nurburg Congress and Motorsport Hotel. It's a very nice 4 star hotel and highly recommended. Lindner also have a 3 star just across the road. There are also loads of little B&B places dotted around the surrounding villages.
I'm working a half day on the Friday and we're getting the 15:20 tunnel. We reckon we'll be at Nurburg for about 20:00.
On the way back we'll leave the track at about 15:00 on the Sunday to get to the 20:50 crossing.
We can't wait - the M has been sitting doing nothing for a couple of months now and it'll be nice to get it back on a track (sorry: One way, de-restricted public toll road).
It would be nice to have some company if anyone else wants to come along.
We did our first Rockingham track day last Sunday (it’s taken me this long to blog as I’ve had broadband problems).
The day started out pretty miserable with very heavy rain. The organisers said that it was somewhat unprecedented that it was raining so hard that it was unsafe to go out. Rockingham is a very well drained track but the volume of water meant that it was still too wet.
We started the day by doing a lot of “sighting laps” behind a pace car. This got pretty boring but it was better than being sat in the pits.
The track opened properly at around 11:30 and we were the third car out on track. The car we were behind managed to lose it on the second corner but didn’t hit any of the scenery! We got past him pretty quickly and started to do some gentle laps. Gentle as it was still pretty wet.
After about 3 laps I got my first black flag ever! :( Neither Linzi or I could think of what I could have done to warrant a black flag as we were pretty sure there wasn’t anything wrong with the car. It turns out that they just wanted me to come into the pits to have the training that I had booked. All the booked times for training had got messed up as the track was effectively closed during the morning. Hamish gave Linzi and I some training and we both really got a lot out of it. We seemed to get on well with his instruction and are hoping to use his services again in the future. I would highly recommend him if you want some track instruction.
After lunch the conditions got better and better and I started to do some pretty good laps. Dario was there so we installed one of his cameras and got some video of a few laps. I love the video – I think the mounting point is fantastic!
I was very impressed with the organisation by bookatrack.com and am looking forward to going to more track days organised by them. There is actually a bookatrack.com track day at Spa this weekend which I was tempted by but the weather looks a bit doubtful so I think I’ll give it a miss.
There are some pictures from the day here. Most of the photos are from the official photographer. I’m a bit disappointed that there weren’t any pictures taken later on in the day when it had dried up a bit but the whole day was a bit messed up by the late start in the morning.
On Tuesday night Lindsay and I got back from a marathon motorsport weekend where we did 3 different tracks in 4 days! Unfortunately the weekend was pretty much wet the whole time but we still had fun!
Friday 2nd October
On Friday I was at work but Linzi wasn't which was good as I had a few errands for her! Whilst I was at work Linzi drove to Pristine Alloy Wheels in Milton Keynes. They had re-furbished 2 of our 19" wheels. The other 2 were in the car already. After picking up the wheels and getting the guys at Pristine to get them in the car Linzi's next stop was a BMW garage to pick up some spare brake pads. The car said we only had 9000 miles left on the front pads which would most likely all get used up over 3 days of hard track use. Linzi also got some oil whilst she was there as the car was showing about half way between full and empty.
The next stop was supposed to be Bedford train station to pick me up from a train from St Pancras. She was running a bit late though so she went Straight to Dario's and Dario came to the station to pick me up in his daughter's IQ.
After a quick drink and a hello to Carrie Dario and I man handled all 4 of our 19" wheels into his trailer. He had already shifted quite a bit of stuff about (including his wheels) to clear the tyre rack. The wheels are heavy - about 25 - 30 kg each so moving them about isn't that easy. After getting the wheels on the rack it turned out that we couldn't close the trailer as they were too big.
This led to more shifting about - we had to take my wheels out and put Dario's wheels back into the rack. My wheels then went on a shelf. Later it turned out that wasn't a great idea as the top 2 wheels fell off onto the Radical. Fortunately there wasn't any lasting damage, just a mark on the paint.
Having finally sorted all we all went out for a very nice dinner. Linzi and I then continued to our hotel in Corby.
Saturday 3rd October
On Saturday we had a wet handling day at Rockingham. We had booked 2 slots so that Linzi could have a go as well as me. It was pretty cold and windy but we didn’t mind as we were in the car the whole time as I was in the first group and Linzi was in the second.
I had been to a similar session before. The format was pretty much the same: basalt tiles then kick plate then drifting. On the basalt tiles and the kick plate we both tried the car with and without the traction control on. It really does make a huge difference! I did find the M3 much easier to control without the traction control than the Z4M was though.
When it came to the drifting I had some issues getting the back of the car to break away. The instructor said “it’ll definitely go this time as I’m going to yank on the handbrake” but it still didn’t! The next time I went around it did though and I was then able to de-stabilise the car by myself by using the handbrake. I did 1 really good drift and a couple of shorter ones – I was really pleased.
After Rockingham we set of for our hotel in Nurburg.
Sunday 4th October
Sunday morning saw us wake up at the new 3 start Linder hotel at Nurburg. We were very impressed with the hotel – comfy bed and a good shower but a bit cheaper than the the bigger brother: the 4 star Linder Congress and Motorsport Hotel.
We got up early and were at the track just after it opened at 8:00. We bought Linzi a 4 lap ticket as she had used all her laps that we bought already. We each did a sighting lap to see what the track was like and to warm the car up. Unfortunately the track was wet to start off with and didn’t really get any drier. I also got a migraine in the morning that affects my vision so couldn’t do an driving – this is even more annoying as conditions were much better in the morning than after lunch when I recovered.
I did a total of 7 laps and Linzi did her 4. We left quite early at around 3:00 as it really started to tip down then.
We saw a few Ferraris, an AC Cobra and a very odd matt black 7 series. Pictures from the ring are here.
We got to our hotel in Spa at around 5:00 and soon met Dario, Phil and Koen for a meal. We had a pretty early night so that we’d be fresh for the track the next day.
Monday 5th October
It was another early morning on Monday so that we could get to the track for 7:30 when sign on started. The driver’s briefing wasn’t until 8:30 but it gave us a chance to get the Radical out of the trailer and get set up.
Linzi and I both did a sighting lap to start with and the track was wet. We each had a few goes during the morning and it looked like the track was drying out. In fact by lunch there was a definite dry line appearing.
Dario was trying out a new camera system that he had which produces some very good videos. We took one from the M3 in the morning:
There is a second part here and an in car shot here. Linzi also went out by herself and made a video here. The video quality is fantastic but we had a bit of trouble with the sound. On all of my videos the mic was turned up a bit too much so we got distortion. You can still hear the engine quite nicely in some places though. As my vide was taken before I had training my line isn’t as good as it was later in the weekend.
We went for an early lunch as I had training booked for 1:00 when the track re-opened. During lunch it started to rain again so when we got back the track was soaked.
My training session was pretty good. The instructor Kevin had an E46 M3 and seemed pretty interested in mine. He drove it after the session and described the gearbox and the car as mint :) During the session he told me that I was turning in too early which meant that I was exiting the corner with too much lock so that I couldn’t apply the power early enough. After thinking about this for a while it made perfect sense and I think improved my lines a lot.
It was wet for the rest of the day at Spa so we left at about 5 hoping that the weather would get better then next day.
Tuesday 6th October
Tuesday was much the same as Monday – WET. It was a real shame as I wanted to see how much I had learnt during the training and from my first visit to Spa. It was so wet though that the whole time you were driving so carefully as the car was about to slide. I had the car start sliding on me lots of times during the weekend but I managed to get control back each time – perhaps the wet handling day helped with this. Some of the time there was actually a river of water running over the track, one of the places was in the middle of the main straight!
At about 3:30 we decided to pack up and head home. This involved us putting the 19s back on the car. It’s ages since we had them on and the car looks great! Pristine did a fantastic job repairing the 2 damaged wheels.
This was going to be the last track day we do this year but it is too long to wait till next year to get the car back on the track. Linzi and I are planning to book at least 1 more track day this year, probably in the UK as it makes it a lot cheaper.
The annual zed-cars trip this year was to the Lake District. I have been a couple of 1 series runs to the Lake District before but never on a weekend long zed run.
Unfortunately Saturday was a bit wet but we drove over some amazing roads. They are literally the steepest in the UK and it wasn’t that easy to drive on them – especially in the wet.
Carrie and Dario had done a fantastic job organising Saturday night as a pirate theme night – it was talk like a pirate day after all! There were hats with eye patches, a treasure map, pirate names and some people even had to walk the plank (I’ve not uploaded the videos of this yet as I am trying to get some money out of the participants to keep them secret first ;) ).
Sunday was much better weather and we had some really great fast open sweeping roads. The drive back to the M6 was absolutely amazing but after that the drive home was horrible and took a lot longer than it should because of traffic.
That’s the last big meet this year apart from xmas. A few of us have started to organise another meet in Scotland next year – I can’t wait.
A few weeks ago now (at the end of August) Linzi and I and some friends went to Dunsfold for Wings and Wheels. We went last year and it was great fun so we were hoping for more of the same this year.
We had a small stand that our cars were on again (really only a privileged parking area). There were LOADS of other cars on display as well a very impressive air show. The euro fighter was amazing!
