James Mok’s Soliloquy

Nano and Shuffle with new colors that are so…… 娘 (lame).

Touch and Classic are also new.

this… One could be a geek and being cool at the same time. That is… looking like a geek and having thoughts of being cool while using it.

I am skipping the MyBlue wired iPod remote Bluetooth wireless stereo headset review to the amazing Jawbone for its rarity and excellent performance.

After just a few day’s use with just a handful number of calls with the Jawbone, I am happy to report that its noise canceling function truly works. It is, however, not without its own type of minuses. Unlike many other reports, I don’t find the only 2 embedded tactile toggle buttons being any more difficult to use than having more visible buttons since they basically have only 2 modes each, namely either a single press or press-and-hold for 3 or more seconds. The white LED operating indicator has a very low flashing interval making it less eye catching than any other earpiece Bluetooth headsets I have ever seen; although its own biggish physical size counters that somewhat.

While I love the Ferrari red version, I chose the charcoal gray (advertised as silver) one which is even less eye catching than I had expected from a silver colored unit against the black and the red versions. Being 15 grams in weight with its size and nice paint which might look like metal finishing at a glance, even though it is on the heavy group of other earpiece Bluetooth headsets, with it’s nicely designed earhook, wearing the Jawbone does not feel there is any extra weight on the ear whatsoever. Unfortunately, its earplug leaves a lot to be desired. It came with 4 different earplugs of different shapes to fit different ears. The one with the long straightish “tongue” is the one that fits me best. They are however not real “plugs” unless you have completely flat ears. They don’t plug into my ear hole at all which might be intentional by design, I suspect, as they are all flat ended rather than bowl shaped like those regular earplug music earphones.

The Jawbone powers on with noise cancelation on by default. Pressing and holding the button hidden beneath the black finishing part deactivates the feature. When it is deactivated, your voice to the other end would sound very natural while there is still more noise cancelation than many other such products! Having the noise cancelation on, most artificial noises are cut down even further to almost completely gone with your voice being slightly less natural to the most discerning Hi-Fi critics. Loud speeches by others around you could still be heard a little by the other end while you are talking but even less so when you have your mouth closed and with your face being completely still. All these are achieved with a small white rubber “joystick” like movement sensory probe touching your face. The earhook and the earplug along with the back of the body double as a locking mechanism which the user must find a good fix for the white rubber probe to be touching the skin (or underneath the sideburn) of the face. Some might find the secured position somewhat uncomfortable at the beginning but should be able to get used to it after just several minutes of wearing it; although I have read one report that the writer knows of one person who could not find a secured position at all.

I was able to speak so softly in a moving train or a bus that I could barely hear my own voice but maybe not quite my own words, while the person at the other end could still hear me very clearly without noticing the loud vehicle moving sound around me. This is particularly useful since the person sitting next to me could not hear what I was saying. I don’t have to cover my mouth at all but if I did, the person at the other end could hear my voice and only my voice louder.

I highly recommend the Jawbone to anyone on the move who is having problem phoning in noisy surrounding areas or wanted some more privacies during a phone conversation. I suggest buying at least one more pack of replacement earpieces/earhooks. They come a pack of 4 earpieces and earhooks in different size together in one single package, which is (a note to the company) not as nice as the not available custom packaging with only the selected right size.

Since I posted my last blog message, several friends had called me to ask about the combo vs dedicated GPS units as they have great interests in purchasing some sort of GPS gadget for traveling. So, I thought I should post my findings so far ASAP.

Over 5 years ago, I have bought my first GPS unit, the Magellan GPS310. I was the first one among my family and friends to have bought and used a GPS unit. Although it has an option to purchase a serial cable to hook up to a computer, there wasn’t really many useful functions in doing so at the time. Since then, Google Earth has come along. Nowadays, everyone with a PC or a Mac or Linux computer could download and use Google Earth for free. Without having a GPS, Google Earth is already one of the most useful piece of computer applications one could get at any price. With GPS acquired data, one could record the entire trip with waypoints, tracks, notes, and photos, have them marked down on Google Earth, email the recordings to friends and family, and viola, you have shared your entire trip experience with them.

The Magellan GPS310 has no map functions. ie, it does not superimpose the track on any map at all. All it does is show you the moving track, coordinates and direction, and let you mark down and record tracks and Point of Interests (POIs or waypoints). It is more useful for marine and air traveling than anything. Newer GPS units have at least a world map built-in. So one could actually locate oneself on the world map. The more sophisticated units allow downloading more detailed local maps and storing info on a flash memory card for easy data transfer. While more recent GPS units have navigation functions allowing users to program a starting point and a destination point and let the GPS generate a route based on the detail road map and also let it guide you to the destination.

In the last couple of years, when PDA and PPC became more popular, manufacturers have started building GPS receiving modules in the size of a matchbox. These are meant to be used with a computer or a pda/ppc unit via a USB or a Bluetooth connection where the computer/pda/ppc does the computations and display with the GPS data it receives from the GPS module.

After using and researching the pda/ppc/gps combo setup for a couple of weeks, I find that while the combo provides multiple GPS related functions as well as PIM functions, it is still not as good a GPS when compared to dedicated GPS units.

The main problem with pda/ppc/gps combo, first of all, is the hardware limitations. During a trip to the Mainland last Sunday, I noticed when I have my GPA tracking on, the ppc kept the screen backlight on constantly. I have no idea how long the battery will last this way, so I switched the “keep on” function off. A few minutes later, the ppc went on to sleep mode and it stopped all tracking function. So I went and have the “keep on” function switched back on. Then I noticed another problem when I left my ppc in my pant pocket. The touch screen was kept on without any way to switch off the touch sensor and I had accidentally pressed the screen and made it switched away to some other program and that stopped the tracking as well. The second problem I have found so far is that all maps available for such application on a pda/ppc are either no world map at all or just the optionally purchased downloadable local maps only. There is no world map. Period. So the minute you have traveled off the local map, that’s the end of it. Unless you are using the tracking type application were it uses no map, your navigation type application cannot show further map info pass its boundaries. The dedicated GPS units have at least a base world map with much less detail for you to fall back to.

Having said that, I am not sure how cellphone manufacturers tackle this mapping limitation problem in the different markets around the world with their recent GPS built-in phones such as the Nokia N95. Maybe it came with a world map, I don’t know. The problem with a pda/ppc with built-in GPS as opposed to a pda/ppc connected to a GPS receiver is the lack of battery capacity as well as GPS signal receiving sensitivity. For navigating through a busy metro area in a car, I strongly suggest a separated combo set or a dedicated GPS unit rather than a single GPS built-in pda/ppc unit.

As for GPS software for ppc, I use MapKing for Hong Kong road navigation. It is rather well written and useful for what it is with its own limited supply of optionally purchased maps which are mainly just a few cities in the Mainland China, South East Asia, Japan and the US. For other areas of the world, a different navigation software which supports other types of available maps in a different format would be needed.

For geotracking, BeeLineGPS seems to be the best there is. It does pretty well everything my Magellan GPS310 does. While the Magellan GPS310 take about 60 seconds in wide open areas and much much longer in not so crowded building surrounded areas the get in initial position fix from cold start, the Holux M-1000 GPS module only takes about 40 seconds to fix the position from cold start in wide open areas, and still less than a minute in building surrounded areas! Which is amazingly fast in GPS terms. The Holux M-1000 GPS module is so sensitive even in the medium sensitivity setting I could just leave it inside my car just in front of the gear shifter with the dash covering the front windshield window and it kept tracking without noticeable deviation from the road indicated on the map. For comparison, I had to put the Magellan directly underneath the middle of the front windshield window to keep the signal going. Even then, it would only work in open roads and would fail in mid-rise building surrounded areas.

The bottom line is, for GPS functions, if you just want trip navigation and guiding, the pda/ppc/gps combo is great. If you want geotracking and map surveying, get a dedicated GPS unit. For just the odd location fixing, a pda/ppc/phone with built-in GPS function and a printed map would do.