Ben
31st July 2005, 06:12 PM
Ok, I've been trying to use Agile Messenger 24x7 on my Nokia 6680 and, unsurprisingly I guess, I have failed pretty fantastically.
The reliability of the connection was actually the least of the problems. Agile's server implements some kind of delay that can cope with most short-lived losses of data connectivity, so once you actually get all the messenger services connected (AOL is consistently the hardest to get online) you're pretty much set.
The main problem lies with battery life. With a consistent data connection you actually get about 5 hours. I've gone to sleep a few times with the phone on full battery and woken up to find the phone switched off, and sometimes woken up to find just a bar of battery left. I even had to plug in a second charger at my PC so I could leave the phone charging in case I had to go out for any length of time. Quite a bit of heat also gets generated, especially as the battery begins rapid depletion.
Using the handset as a bluetooth modem would probably give even shorter life when you add in the bluetooth connection overhead. The vast majority of people don't want a separate datacard, as Vodafone's datacard sales are indicating as the specialist markets become saturated, but while handsets work admirably for the purpose the battery life is so poor that customers couldn't transmit consistently large amounts of data over them if they tried!
I know I'm preaching to the converted when I say battery life is a big issue, but 3G simply cannot make inroads on data usage if using data services kills the battery so quickly. Fuel cells seem no closer now than they ever have been, and the very newest handsets from Nokia are using the same BL-5C battery that has been around for years and also powers far more basic handsets in their range.
Sort it out, handset manufacturers!
The reliability of the connection was actually the least of the problems. Agile's server implements some kind of delay that can cope with most short-lived losses of data connectivity, so once you actually get all the messenger services connected (AOL is consistently the hardest to get online) you're pretty much set.
The main problem lies with battery life. With a consistent data connection you actually get about 5 hours. I've gone to sleep a few times with the phone on full battery and woken up to find the phone switched off, and sometimes woken up to find just a bar of battery left. I even had to plug in a second charger at my PC so I could leave the phone charging in case I had to go out for any length of time. Quite a bit of heat also gets generated, especially as the battery begins rapid depletion.
Using the handset as a bluetooth modem would probably give even shorter life when you add in the bluetooth connection overhead. The vast majority of people don't want a separate datacard, as Vodafone's datacard sales are indicating as the specialist markets become saturated, but while handsets work admirably for the purpose the battery life is so poor that customers couldn't transmit consistently large amounts of data over them if they tried!
I know I'm preaching to the converted when I say battery life is a big issue, but 3G simply cannot make inroads on data usage if using data services kills the battery so quickly. Fuel cells seem no closer now than they ever have been, and the very newest handsets from Nokia are using the same BL-5C battery that has been around for years and also powers far more basic handsets in their range.
Sort it out, handset manufacturers!