MiLi Power Miracle HB-B20 Review

Mili advertises this as an "External Power Bank for Digital Products". This is essentially just an external battery. You charge it and it will charge your other devices. If you tend to wander away from a power source for long periods of time, this will come in handy for charging your mobile devices.

Here are the official specs:
Capacity:2000mAh Input: 5V-0.5A(Max.)
Output: 5V-1A(Max.) Charging time:5.4 hours
Self power consumption Time: Up to 5000 hours
Product Dimension:86(L)×48(D)×17(T)mm
Package Dimension:198×110×24mm
Inner Box Dimension:400×208×120mm,15pcs
Carton Dimension:431×415×255mm,60pcs
Gross Weight:10kgs/22.05lb

Here are the Product Features as advertised by Mili:

1. External battery for iPhone*, iPod*,Mobile Phones and other digital products.
2. Small, convenient, easy to use, high capacity.
3. Use USB cable to charge MiLi Power Miracle.
4. 4 LED power indicators.

Other than the device itself, it comes packaged with the following:

• USB cable that allows you to plug different types of tips to support multiple devices.
• It includes tips to support proprietary ports from Apple, LG, Samsung, and Nokia. It also has tips to support the universal standards of MiniUSB and MicroUSB.
• Microfiber pouch.

The device itself. It's just a battery brick. It's small and light. It's about 3/4 of the size of my HTC Desire. There's a single button on the face of the device flanked by 4 LED indicators. Pressing the button will light up the LEDs to indicate how much charge is left. Each LED indicates 25% charge. On the bottom of the device, there are 2 ports. One is an output port which will accept a normal USB. The other port is for input which will accept MiniUSB. There's nothing else on the device. The rest of the device has a shiny plastic finish.

Charging the battery. In order to use the battery, it must first be charged. To do this, you need to plug a MiniUSB cable into the battery with the other end connected to a power source. If you're going to do this as intended by the manufacturer, you'll plug the MiniUSB tip into the provided USB cable. Then plug the MiniUSB end into the battery's input port while the other end goes into a PC's USB port. As noted in the specs, this can take over 5 hours to charge.
I personally use a Blackberry charger which ends in a MiniUSB tip. The other end goes directly into a wall socket. This shortens the charging time to under an hour. It would have made sense for Mili to include a wall charger.

Charging your device with the battery. Plug the USB end of the provided cable into the output port. Use the appropriate tip for your device and just plug it in. The charging process begins automatically. Simple and easy.

I've tested the battery with an iPod Touch and an HTC Desire. Works wonderfully. It seems to provide enough juice to charge each device up to 2 times. I like how the provided USB cable is coiled to keep everything neat and compact. The rate at which the battery charges my devices was quite impressive. It's on par with directly charging my devices via AC/DC. You can continue to use your mobile device while charging via the battery with no ill-effects. It will charge faster than you can discharge it through your usage.

The Good

• Easy to use.
• Support for multiple types of devices.
• Compact and light.
• The provided pouch is quite nice. Handy for preventing you from losing all those connectors.
• Inexpensive. I purchased it for HK$280 (roughly US$35)

The Bad

• Mili should have provided a wall charger. Charging through a PC's USB port is simply too slow.

More camera gear: Nikkor 35mm f/1.8

I told myself I was not going to get more camera gear. But gosh darn it, I couldn't resist.

I got myself the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens.

Reason? It's relatively inexpensive; and I wanted to shoot without flash with indoor-lighting. The use my SB-400 speedlight to bounce the flash was great. But there are times when I just don't want flash. I figured my babies would appreciate being shot without flash as well.

While it's certainly significantly better in low-light conditions compared to my 18-55mm, it's still a thousand times better when used with flash.

The sharpness with the 35mm is remarkable. I also appreciate that it's much more compact than the 18-55mm. This is definitely a lens that I should have bought a long time ago. Unless I want to shoot at a wider angle, the 18-55mm lens is going to be on the back-burner gathering dust.

Here's a test shot with the 35mm (resized 25%).

Here's the same shot with my 18-55mm set at the same focal length.

HTC Desire experience - Custom ROM

A day after rooting, I've taken another step forward in modding my Android device. I went ahead and installed a custom ROM (ie, LeeDrOiD).

I went through all this trouble with rooting and flashing my device; and for what? Just these 3 tiny reasons:

1. Battery indicator showing 1% increments - This feature should be standard on all devices. Without rooting, I would have to install a separate app to achieve similar functionality. I use to use Battery Indicator which shows the battery reading in the taskbar. But it's in addition to the default indicator; it doesn't replace it.

2. Access to paid apps in the Android Market - When I decided that I wanted access to paid apps, I didn't actually have something in mind I want to purchase. I just wanted the option to do so. The HTC Desire already has most of the apps I ever need preinstalled. For most of everything else, there are free selections readily available on the Android Market. To date, I've purchased just 3 Android apps.

Beautiful Widgets: I bought this several months ago when I was in NY and I had access to paid apps (legitimately). I use this only sometimes. I switch to this when I use alternative launchers which doesn't include HTC Sense widgets.

Documents-To-Go: Sure, it's expensive at US$9.99. But this is definitely worth it if you want to do any office document editing on-the-go. I bought this a day after I bought my phone. Thankfully, you don't need access to paid Android apps to buy it. You just download the free version off the Android Market and then pay at DataViz's site to get a registration code.

Fruit Ninja: First app I purchased after rooting and using Market Enabler. Just a silly casual game. It's cheap and fun! 

3. Ability to install all apps to microSD - I find this to be a bit overrated. I find the internal memory capacity just fine for my use. After installing all the apps I need, I find myself still with about 20-30MB free. But I see how this can become a problem for some who needs a ton of apps. Now with all my apps moved over to the microSD, I have about 90-100MB free. But I now have to seriously consider getting a larger capacity card because my 8GB card is about 70% full with all my media and apps.

Can't say anything else about the custom ROM. It's suppose to perform better but I can't really tell from day-to-day use. But performance was never really an issue on stock ROM. Apart from the above 3 items, I just need stability. As long is it doesn't crash on me, it's fine.

Finally rooted my HTC Desire

Back in my Windows Mobile days, I would be flashing new ROMs every other week or so. But ever since the switch the Android, I've not tinkered too much with my phone anymore. Mostly, it's because the device works just fine right out-of-the-box. That's not something you can say about Window Mobile devices...

Anyway, I've finally decided to root my device. It's not because I want to flash custom ROMs. It's just because I want to access the Android Market for paid apps. Currently, Hong Kong is not in the list of countries that Google has approved for paid apps. Using unrEVOked, the entire process was a breeze. It took about 10 minutes (8 of those minutes were for waiting for the downloads and reboots). There was very little user input required...

I then installed Market Enabler and voila. Done. I can now finally purchase apps from the Android Market.

This seems to be something that everyone must do. It's just too easy. It doesn't hard reset your device, so all your data is intact. There's really no reason why not to do it.

Over the next few weeks, I'll finally look into custom ROMS...

New and improved HTC Sense

1. Recent apps now appear in the notification shade. Seems a bit redundant to me when you can get to the same list by holding the Home button.

2. Maps. Offline mapping. Just brilliant.

3. HTC Sense in landscape. Meh. I think I'm in the minority for not feeling excited about this. Sure, it makes sense to have your homescreen in landscape mode if you're using a qwerty slider. But for those of us who uses a slab device, this is just meh...

4. Changes in the Mail application. I hope they changed more than just adding a "compose mail" button when viewing the inbox. currently, the HTC Mail application is not bad so, I'm eager to see what improvements they can manage.

5. Fast boot up. Videos are all over showing how the Desire Z and Desire HD boot up in just several seconds. I have my doubts on this. Seems to me that the devices are just waking from a deep stand-by state. I'd like to see the battery pulled and reseated before booting up to see if it's the real deal.

6. Changes in Camera application. The current HTC Camera application is very basic. I hope the revised version has more tools (ie, templates, stitching, continuous shots, etc).

7. Status updates in caller ID. Meh, this was available since the release of the Wildfire and was included in the official Froyo update for the HTC Desire.

8. Changes in customization. You can now rearrange entire screens which is nice.

9. HTCSense.com. This appears to be HTC's cloud-based service. Seems interesting. I hope this service will be free. Allows you to:
Remotely ring your phone.
Remotely lock and wipe your stolen/lost phone.
Backup data (contacts, call history, messages, etc)
Sharing and editing multimedia. Not sure how this is going to work.

See here for some screenshots.

Thoughts on 2010 iPods

Ah, September. Another refresh of Apple's iPod line-up. Does anyone still use one of these things? Back when it wasn't standard for phones to include a music player, I had an iPod Nano. A couple years back, I wanted to try out iOS so I got a 2nd-gen iPod Touch. Now, my Nano is used by my mom. My iPod Touch stays at home where it only gets used sparingly for games.

iPod Touch

Made for people who want to use iOS but don't want an iPhone. But there are a couple of things Apple left out which is understandable since they probably don't want it cut into their iPhone sales. It doesn't use the new industrial design of the iPhone4. It still has a curved shiny back just like the previous gen iPod Touch. While it has a rear camera capable of capture HD video, it's not a 5MP shooter like on the iPhone4. It captures stills only at 960x720. While I've shown a distaste to the iOS as a smartphone platform, I think it's perfectly fine for a digital music player.

iPod Nano

This is essentially an iPod Shuffle with a touchscreen and up to 16GB of storage. This one seems the most interesting to me. Would be great as a running device. It seems to also have Nike+ built-in. I wonder if Apple would finally decide to give up on using their proprietary dock connector. It just seems very out-of-place on such a small device. Micro or mini USB would have made much more sense.

iPod Shuffle

I never understood the Shuffle lineup. I didn't think it made sense to use a music player without a display right from the start, so there's no way one of these things was going to appeal to me. Then last year, they removed all the buttons from the device and touted it as a feature! This year, they put the buttons back. To me, seems identical to the Shuffle 2 generations ago. It's just very archaic; 2GB storage and no display? Just doesn't make much sense to choose this over the iPod Nano.

I really wonder just how far Apple is willing the push the limits on the design of the iPod Touch and the iPhone. I honestly think that they've hit a wall. I'm not talking about software here. Here are the hardware designs that Apple seems to just refuse to change about those 2 products even though it's evident that they are restricting usage behavior.

3.5" screen
Compared to competitors, this is just too small. Considering the amount of wasted space on the bezel, this is just not acceptable.

Lack of hardware buttons.
On the iPod Touch, you have buttons for standby, volume rockers, and home. The same applies to the iPhone except it also has a switch for toggling between mute and ringer. Seems like they're trying to do too much with too little buttons. You have to use the home button for everything. There's so much space on either side of the home button that it just seems odd not to put more buttons there...

Dock connector
Everyone got the memo about microUSB except Apple...

Non-removable battery
This is just not smart and I can't believe people still put up with it. I can accept a non-removable battery for my music player but definitely not for my smartphone.

Smartphone feature wishlist - HTC Desire

I'm very satisfied with my HTC Desire. But like everyone knows, there's no perfect smartphone. There's always a feature or two missing. Here's a couple of things I wish the HTC Desire had.


Screenshot-taking ability
Requires root access which is quite silly. This is the only reason I'm considering rooting my device. It may be the best thing I've ever done. Will have to see how that goes!

More homescreens
7 Should be more than enough. But apparently, homescreens are like closet space. You can never have enough!

Dedicated dual-action camera hardware button
Pressing the optical pad to activate the camera shutter almost always results in blurry pics. For now, I'll have to settle for pressing directly on the on-screen viewfinder. I wonder if I'm able to somehow map one of the volume rocker keys to do the job...

Longer battery life
Current battery life is barely adequate. Unfortunately, battery technology is lagging behind.

Better video capture capability
Out of the box, the Desire can capture video at 800x480 (WVGA). After the official OTA 2.2 update, it can capture at 720p. I've found that WVGA captures were barely passable with good lighting. With inadequate lighting, framerates dropped and quality is horrible. 720p captures are no different. Instead of crappy video at 800x480, you now have crappy video at 720p.

Use HTC Sense widgets in conjunction with other launchers
I prefer using LauncherPro. But because HTC Sense widgets are tied to the default launcher, I can't use them in LauncherPro. This is the only reason I've not switched over to LauncherPro full-time.

Dedicated call-end hardware button
It would be much more convenient to be able to hit a physical button, hit standby, and slide the device back into the pocket without looking at the screen to verify that I indeed ended the call.

True multi-touch screen
The screen on the HTC Desire is limited to 2 touch points. That's fine for zooming and for typing. But being able to register more than 2 points is crucial for gaming. I'll try to explain in Nintendo terms. With the HTC Desire, you can instruct Mario to run to the right. Using your left thumb, you push the virtual joystick to the right while as the same time, you press the virtual B button with your right thumb. Things get tricky when you try to run and jump at the same time. You cannot hold the virtual B button while pressing the virtual A button. Along with the virtual joystick, that would mean you have 3 points of contact and the device will not register the presses and you will inevitably fall to your doom.