arwen

So, first day with the phone. I'm really enjoying it. Feels nice in the hand, slightly on the large side for me but then I do have small hands. The upper glass bit on the rear actually helps with grip when you are holding it. Your fingers grip the glass better than the metal lower bit. The design is growing on me. I never disliked it at first, but it is distinctive from the rear. From the front it looks like most other phones. I'm not too sure about the camera. I've uploaded some to flickr - Pixel photos The camera is a little too soft for my liking, and noisy in low light situations. I could be being picky however. I've been playing around with the slow-mo video tonight, using my ever patient test subject ZaZu - Video is somthing I've never really done before, so I'm no expert in it. apart from the lack of focus at point, I find it a rather cool feature. All in I find the phone very quick, almost like it knows what I am going to press before I actually press it. Thankfully, Google Assistant has a sense of humour too!

Have you all being collecting cats yet? :-) I'm enjoying this live wallpaper stuff. very pretty. I've resisted putting nova launcher back on. Getting used to it and now probably don't need nova any more.

You got much better chocolate than me Arthur! I love the gold ones. The default alarm noise had me in a slight panic this morning. Thought my shower pump had finally given up and was spewing water everywhere! Serves me right for not checking it last night. I got the voucher too. Annoyed I can't use it on hardware. I could do with another Chromecast. Going to see if someone will swap me.

Teehehe the chocolate was an extra with my lunch. They didn't have the pop corn I usually get :-(

I have indeed - It is very very quick, camera seems pretty nice too. phone is rather slippery. I decided to start afresh and not let it restore all my apps and settings from the cloud so taking me a bit to configure it the way I want it :-)

Ahh doesn't count if you don't have your hands on it Arthur! :-p The reason I'm going to the shop is because I didn't want it left with a neighbor... or left in the bin by the delivery driver!

They are unlocked so can be used on any network. So, who is going to get theirs first? I'm heading to the shop at lunchtime :-p

We are currently setting up One Drive for business at my work. So I'll be testing how quick it actually is over the few months or so. However it is really easy to select which folders should be sync'ed and which should remain only on one drive. I've got it sync'ing between my work pc and my own home pc no problem. I'll just need to test the speed and such on pc's and phones.

Carphone Warehouse are expecting them all to be delivered to stores on the 20th is my understanding. So if you are picking up from a shop, you should be able to pick it up tomorrow. The stores then seem to be packing and sending the ones that have to be delivered to home addresses. The guy in the shop has said I'll get a phone call when they are in the shop and I can pop in and collect mine

Yes they block the narrow roads on purpose to stop people trying to squeeze past. When people try to squeeze past a bin lorry, they forget that at the rear people are working and moving bins around. If the road is wide enough the lorry should move over to allow cars to pass, but if the driver deems it to be a danger then they will make it difficult for people to get by them. This should not effect oncoming traffic however. I have no problems with them doing so, I would want the same protection if it was me working there.

Looks vaguely interesting. Not enough real ingame footage for me to buy yet however https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/maguss-the-mobile-multiplayer-spell-casting-game-magic/x/15064670?source=http://maguss.org#/

I cancled my order from the Google Store and instead have ordered it via Carphone Warehouse. Google customer service has clearly shown they have a lot of work to do on customer care... If you want the full chat log, it's here (can't upload via mobile.

I'm going for the 5" too, but I prefer smaller phones so I was always going to go for the smaller one.

I've ordered one. Bit more expensive than I was hoping for, but unlimited photo and video storage helps with the deal. I've been using "pure" android since the Nexus 4 and don't want to go back to Samsung/HTC/Sony tinkering with the OS. So this phone is ideal for me. Looking forward to trying out the camera. See if it truly is all it is cracked up to be. Rather annoyed that USA gets a free Daydream VR with their preorders. It does look pretty cool, but I'm not sure I would buy one new. To everyone saying "Well at that price you may as well buy an iphone" If it was all about price, why have people been buying iphones up until now? iPhones have always been overpriced for what they are - 2-3 year old technology wrapped in a pretty case. Android is a very nice OS, why are people so surprised that people want high end hardware and are willing to pay the price for it?

Andromeda is Google's Android chrome hybrid OS Exploring Andromeda: A Look at the Challenges Awaiting Google's Next Voyage

I'm in the coffee camp. Every box of chocolates should have a coffee one in them!

Love loved my nexus 4, until i saw the screen on the Nexus 5. I really like my Nexus 5, apart from the fact it now overheats easily. When it over heats it becomes very sluggish and glitchy. I suspect I'll be buying the Pixel when it comes out, simply because I could do with replacing my 5 anyway. The smaller pixel is a very similar size, and should be a noticeable tech increase for me. So I'm looking forward to it.

Yay more 'shrooms! I am enjoying taking photos of them. A lot seem to be in lovely little patches of light on the forest floor.

A couple from a little woodland walk yesterday. I also rather like the spider one I took, but I always seem to get squeals of complaints for some reason when I post them... :-p

Circles are not unknown in nature. Look at ice circles for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_circle My guess is the island formed around something, that is anchored to the bottom. It moves around due to temperature differences and "bashes" everything back, so forming a circle.

I think they have fixed the capture rate. Seems to work better now that if you are more accurate then it catches. Caught two Mr Mines yesterday. First time seeing them at all!

You may be able to do it with Tasker Tasker for Android can't say I've tried it, although I am now looking at a way to do it myself.

Cheers for the tips guys. We now have season passes for knockhill so will more than likely be back, for cars and bikes! I tried a few different modes on the camera while I was there, found manually focusing on the slow corner and just timing it right got nice results. For the quicker corners and coming into the straight I found leaving auto focus on and panning with the cars was good once I got the timing right. Didn't play around with the shutter speed too drastically but will be next time. As well as taking the tripod along. Arms were sore within a few hours As for beginner cameras. If you are ok spending more money than a very good compact. I cannot rate my little Panasonic GX7 highly enough. If you take a look at my flickr you'll see I tend to take pictures of all sorts of thing (aside from people...) It has coped very well I think, is very easy to use and is small and light enough to carry around all the time. Which as someone learning photography as a hobby is a great advantage. Always having your camera with you lets you experiment and learn more with it in my opinion.

I really like that first Balloon one Kenny. Love seeing all the different colours :-) I was at the BTCC in Knockhill at the weekend (rather unexpectedly!) Took my camera along to try shooting quick cars for the first time. Rather pleased with the results, still got plenty of learning to do though :-)

We went to see the Cornish Man Engine being unveiled last week. Very interesting bit of kit! -