Tutela says Vodafone has New Zealand’s fastest mobile data. It wins with downloads and uploads. The mobile industry research company says 2degrees has the highest consistent quality and the best latency.
When it comes to raw mobile speed Vodafone is well in front of Spark and 2degrees. Its median download speed is 23.9 Mbps. Uploads come in at 9.2 Mbps.
Spark trails with a median download speed of 20 Mbps. That’s not far behind Vodafone, yet it has the slowest upload speed at 7.7 Mbps.
While 2degrees has the slowest median download speed at 19.5 Mbps, that is only 4.4 Mbps behind the leader. The company is second when it comes to upload speeds with a median of 8.1 Mbps.
Tutela reports on consistent quality
According to Tutela the 2degrees network is good enough for applications like high definition video calls, streaming video and mobile gaming for 85.6 percent of the time.
Tutela calls this measure Excellent Consistent Quality. The mobile carriers are only compared in places where they all have coverage.
Spark follows a fraction behind meeting the standard for 84.9 percent of the time.
Vodafone brings up the rear on that measure, reaching the required level 81.9 percent of the time.
The numbers are so close that it might help to think of the scores as a draw with Vodafone a tick behind.
2degrees wins on latency
2degrees had the best one-way latency result at 24.5 ms. It was followed by Vodafone at 25.9 ms. Spark in third for a median one-way latency of 29.4 ms.
Looking at these numbers it seems there is not much in it. Although Vodafone and 2degrees do better than Spark in almost every measurement, no single carrier is a long way ahead or behind the pack.
To get these results Tutela took 3.89 billion network quality measurements including 1.36 million speed tests.
Tutela carried out tests for the June 2020 report between March and May of this year. As New Zealand was in lockdown for much of this time the numbers may not reflect everyday mobile performance.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip is the best foldable phone so far. It flips and folds like phones did 20 years ago. The difference between then and now is that today both halves are part of a full colour touch screen.
My hands-on session with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip was positive, but I ended by mentioning a potential problem with the phone.
Overseas reports say Samsung put advertising on the phone. That’s on the nose when you pay NZ$2400 for the hardware.
We’re not talking about the kind of ads you see if you head to a web page on the phone, we are talking about ads in basic phone apps, like the one used to dial calls or get a weather report.
Take the Samsung phone call app. When it loads, a bunch of Yelp ads for cafes and restaurants show up. The choice is weird, many are a long way across town from where I live. The nearest is 19.5km. At a guess, these are the companies who paid someone, possibly Yelp, for the placement.
More worrying in some ways is that the Samsung Galaxy Store shows a gambling advertisement for a Poker app that offers 100,000 chips and 300 coins to get you started. That’s going to be a problem for some people.
The stock web browser opens on a page showing an ad for Vodafone broadband. On the notification page there are advertisements for Spotify.
Advertising everywhere
There are ads everywhere. It’s a reminder of when grasping PC makers loaded up Windows computer with unavoidable crapware that you need to remove before you can work.
Except that it doesn’t seem possible to remove, mute or otherwise bypass the ads on the Galaxy Z Flip.
You might expect to see advertising if you use free software like Gmail or the Chrome browser. That’s part of the deal. But this is one of most expensive phones on the market.
It’s another to make me rethink the last thought on my hands-on look at the phone where I said I’d like one of these. Make that, I’d like one if I could get rid of the ads.
Afterthought: Assuming Samsung makes a decent margin selling phones at NZ$2400, it is probably doing its overall business more harm than good when it sells ads. If normal prices apply, the Samsung phone ads can only be worth a few dozen dollars per phone per year, but once word gets out Samsung will lose hardware sales worth hundreds of dollars.
In February I posted a short note about the then forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Flip. This week I got my hands on one.
It is by far the best foldable phone I’ve seen to date. There’s a satisfying feel to the way it folds.
The way the screen copes with being folded again and again is also satisfying. When you hold and fold the Galaxy Z Flip you are not left wondering if you are dealing with classy engineering.
Impressive
The Flip is technically impressive, cool looking and fun to use. Sadly these three qualities do not necessarily make a great phone.
Mind you, no-one can accuse the Galaxy Z Flip of being boring.
Nor can you accuse it of being cheap.
You could spend the NZ$2400 Samsung asks for the Flip elsewhere, even with Samsung1, and get better value for your money.
The cost of folding
Samsung’s much vaunted foldability adds about NZ$1200 to the device price. Which would be fine. Yet it turns out being able to fold the Flip is not always a huge benefit.
Yes, the neatly folded square is about half the length of and the same width as other premium phones. It also happens to be twice the depth.
In other words, the Flip occupies the same volume of pocket space as any other phone. The difference is that Flip redistributes the volume.
It’s fine in the jacket pockets and loose trouser pockets that might otherwise contain a normal size phone. It’s a problem in the tighter pockets that would struggle with bigger phones.
So while folding could be helpful, it might not always be NZ$1200 worth of helpful.
Flipping futuristic
Despite all of this, I find myself liking the Flip more and more. It feels right. It also feels futuristic.
Let’s not discount that emotive and subjective response. When you buy a phone you commit to spending a lot of time with the device, you don’t want it to not feel right.
One aspect of being able to open and shut a phone is the distance this activity puts between you and the device. This can be positive or negative.
Most of the time I like the fact that it requires more effect to respond to every incoming stimulus. On the other hand, you can’t surreptitiously glance at the screen without others noticing.
The Galaxy Z Flip has been around for months. You can find plenty of in depth reviews elsewhere. Look harder and you’ll find some long term test drives. For what it’s worth here are my observations:
Screen:
The display is tall and narrow. When you turn it sideways to watch a movie you get black bars unless you watch a widescreen version.
In everyday use the crease stays out of the way although I wouldn’t go as far as to say you don’t notice it. You will, but your eyes and brain adjust so it is less of an issue.
Yet, you constantly feel it with your fingers. There’s also a shallow dip at the top above the selfie camera.
External display:
When the phone is folded there is a tiny display on the outside. You can see the time and date without opening the phone. That turns out to be more useful than you might imagine if you don’t wear a watch.
The small screen will show remaining battery life. I’m not convinced that’s much help.
There are notifications on the small screen. They wizz past fast. Often before you can read them.
By double tapping the power button, you can take pictures with the camera without opening the phone. When you do this, the tiny external display works as a selfie viewfinder.
Durability:
Open or shut, there’s a solid feel to the Galaxy Z Flip. It seems robust enough to take the kind of treatment we usually mete out to phones.
Unlike almost every other modern phone you can buy in 2020 there is no water or dust resistance. This could be a problem for many potential buyers.
I also found dirt, pocket fluff and even hair could get trapped in the fold. It’s not clear what that might mean over the long haul. In the short term it isn’t a problem.
Samsung has used the same camera technology as the Galaxy S10. It’s good, but not up there with, say, the iPhone 11. Few people will buy the Samsung Galaxy Flip for the camera.
Verdict
Samsung has got screen folding technology right with the Galaxy Z Flip. You get a phone that looks and feels a little ahead of its time. On paper you might not get a huge amount of phone for the price, in practice this matters less than you might expect.
After a few days with the Flip I found myself coming back to it again and again. Yep, I’d like one of these. But there is one problem that I’m saving for another post.
The Galaxy S20 Ultra is $200 cheaper but does more. ↩︎
One of the earliest memories I have of school is our headmaster coming into our class on occasion and reading stories from his Rudyard Kipling book that must have been as old as he was.
My favourite to this day was “The Elephants Child” and I can still hear the headmaster’s perfect diction when saying words like Limpopo like it was the last thing he’d ever say.
What has that got to do with reviewing an accessory you might say? Well, other than adding a bit of colour to a pretty vanilla product, this review also has a pretty major elephant. We will get to that later.
The product in question is the Vissles Wireless Charger, which is unsurprisingly, a wireless charger.
One charger to power them all
Its main point of difference is that it does something that Apple can’t; it allows you to charge your AirPods, Apple Watch and iPhone with the one accessory. The party piece for this charger is that it only requires one external power connection to charge all three devices.
The actual device is about the size and shape of an iPhone 11 Max if the designer had recently discovered rounded corners and decided to go all in. It’s finished with a futurist white plastic gloss, which should fit in with most decors, if that is your thing.
There is no actual charger supplied, so I’m assuming Vissles decided you’d use your existing Apple Watch charger, which is fair.
The Vissles charger also requires you to insert your Apple Watch cable into its housing. This is also fine, but in my case my Apple Watch cable was about 1 meter too long, so I couldn’t use it. Just be aware of this if you have a long Apple Watch charging cable.
As far as using the charger goes, it does what it says on the box. Charging three devices on something that looks like a surfboard from Star Wars is genuinely gratifying and potentially space saving as well.
Fumble-free
I particularly enjoyed not having to fumble around looking for a charge cable to poke into the bottom on my phone, and being able to have somewhere for my AirPods to “dock” permanently while charging. I can’t fault the Vissles Wireless Charger at all from a form and function point of view.
However, I promised an elephant and here it is: I just can’t workout who this accessory is for?
Sure it’s slightly annoying fumbling around for the free charge cable that came with my phone or headphones. It’s great having a central charging station, but is it something you really need? I guess that’s not for me to decide. If you think you do, then this accessory will fulfil your brief very well.
This review was written by Timaru-based James Sugrue. Who describes himself as coder, author, hardware tinkerer, father, husband and geek. James does a bit of motorsport too.
Less than a third of those surveyed are happy with things as they stand. Six percent of New Zealanders would like to see less regulation.
Women are more likely to want more privacy than men. The survey found Māori are more likely to be very concerned about individual privacy than others.
Business sharing private data
In general, New Zealanders are most concerned about businesses sharing personal information without permission. Three quarters of the sample worry about this. Almost as many, 72 percent, have concerns about theft of banking details. The same number has fears about the security of online personal information.
The use of facial recognition and closed circuit TV technology is of concern to 41 percent.
UMR Research conducted the survey earlier this year. It interviewed 1,398 New Zealanders.
The survey results appeared a week after Parliament passed the 2020 Privacy Act. They show the public is in broad support of the way New Zealand regulates privacy.
Most of the changes to the Privacy Act bring it up to date. Parliament passed the previous Act in 1993 as the internet moved into the mainstream. There have been huge technology changes since then.
Justice Minister Andrew Little says the legislation introduces mechanisms to promote early intervention and risk management by agencies rather than relying on people making complaints after a privacy breach has already happened.
If an organisation or company has a breach that poses a risk, they are now required by law to notify the Privacy Commissioner and tell anyone affected.
The new Act also strengthens the role of the Privacy Commissioner.
The commissioner can issue a compliance notice telling data users to get their act together and comply with the Act. If they don’t, the commissioner can fine them up to $10,000.
Another update is when a business or organisation deals with a New Zealander’s private data overseas. They must ensure whoever gets that information has the same level of protection as New Zealand.
The rules apply to anyone. They don’t need to have a New Zealand physical presence. Yes, that means companies like Facebook.
There are also new criminal offences. It’s now a crime to destroy personal information if someone makes a request for it.
