Working day with HTC Desire HD
After the post about a whole working day with a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone instead of a computer , I thought, maybe I could try? I also have a powerful device - HTC Desire HD.
I have to say, this is not a review of the device. This is just an attempt to do the work that is usually done on a computer in the office using a smartphone. The test in real life, without advertising things and contrived examples. Phone out of the box, with a standard (almost) set of programs that includes HTC in its firmware.
Usually, I work in such conditions:
')
But in the experiment, I will try to work differently:
Understanding that it would not be possible to completely replace the computer, I specifically chose the day when the schedule allowed me not to be present in the office. Some of my work tasks, despite the lack of it, still do not tolerate delays. Today I will solve them on a smartphone.
My work responsibilities include:
Corporate mail, contacts, calendar. I used the email application from HTC, which comes with the device’s native firmware, to connect to the corporate exchange server. Connects easily, all mail folders are available. Synchronization of contacts and calendar, is possible only by cable, using HTC Sync.
If you have everything on Gmail (mail, contacts, calendar), then it's even easier, you only need a username and password from your google account.
Letters are great to open, with attachments no problems. Writing letters is worse, which is logical. It is very hard to write long letters, even in the landscape orientation of the device. It lacks an external keyboard.
If you try to write large amounts of text, then in addition to the keyboard, there is also a lack of screen size. The field of view of the entered text is very small, despite the display diagonal of 4.3 inches.
I note a strange thing for me.The native Android client Gmail, absolutely can not work with the clipboard. No way to paste or copy. This is a huge omission of developers, which stretches from the earliest versions of Android.
As I was right corrected , it turns out able. But not at all as the user expects.
And for some reason, it does not support scaling of content (as in the browser). The Mail application, version 3.0 from HTC Corporation, which comes in its factory firmware, does not suffer from such shortcomings.
The important part of mail handling for me is the MS Excel file attachments that were only partially successful on the smartphone. The firmware uses Quickoffice 3.2.150. The product as a whole is absolutely normal, the problem is most likely in the idea itself. Of course, you can edit the table, but only with great desire and extremely urgent need. Luckily, I didn’t have anything else.
And of course, I give an example of how the Desire HD looks on the screen, xls file made on a computer:
On the monitor, the same file looks like this:
In the reviews of various kinds, on the screens of mobile devices, you can see very decent looking office document files. But most often, these are samples specially created for a mobile device. Feel, as they say, the difference.
In general, in my opinion, smart phones are poorly suited for large-scale editing of documents. For familiarization or reading, please, but edit, and all the more thorough, thank you. And so that manufacturers and marketers do not declare that the very possibility of editing and creating documents can be considered only as a feature, which can only be used as a last resort.
But back to work. I also need to watch and send files from the corporate network. The office is designed so that the shared files are on the internal file server, the necessary folders are mapped on the user's local computers, there is no access from the outside.
The solution of such a task is beyond the scope of the device out of the box, but is easily solved. Just put on the office computer and the smartphone - Dropbox. We throw in it the network folder and voila, all the files at hand. The fact that I will not rule on the phone will be corrected by colleagues in the office and I will always have a current copy.
Such a solution has an inconvenience - you have to keep the work computer on, well, and the admins do not like it because of recent Dropbox stories ( here and here ). This is the only application that I had to put on the "bare" phone.
It is time to see customer reviews on the company website. It's just a holiday, to be sure, the standard browser is very good. A 4.3-inch screen (more than 10 cm) and support for Adobe Flash 10, make surfing so convenient that you do not want to break away from it. Filling in web forms is also quite convenient. All this of course with an eye on mobility.
But as I wrote above, I sometimes need to analyze messages from the company's forum and an unpleasant moment comes out - where to write down the thought or something like that? Of the programs only Quickoffice, which can create files in MS Word 97-2003 format or plain text. For quick recordings, it is not very convenient. I know, I know, in the market a bunch of programs that solve this problem, but I try to make the experiment as clean as possible, and so I’ve already put Dropbox, that's enough. Well, again, there is a lack of a normal keyboard. Therefore, today I will be helped by a quick record, a simple paper diary.
Not all office workers have to deal with these messages as part of the workflow. But this is not about me. SMS work is very simple and convenient. Messages are grouped into branches. The application highlights important parts of messages, such as: phone numbers, links, email addresses. One click is enough to take an action related to the type of the selected object - go to the address, save the number in contacts or make a call, write a letter, etc.
Yes, an interesting point. If there is no slash at the end of the site name and any parameters are transmitted immediately, then the whole part is discarded by the program's parser.
Personally, I do not have enough in the standard application for working with SMS, only the ability to save messages to files on a memory card, and import / export them from files. The rest of the functionality is absolutely sufficient.
By the way, a small life hack for those who often write long text messages and have a computer at hand. You can simplify the set by creating a tab in the browser like:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=350x350&chld=H&chl=SMSTO:PhoneNumber:Privet Habr.
Change the number and text in the link, get the following QR code at the exit:
With the help of any scanner codes for android, we scan and send SMS. Quick and convenient enough. But one thing - in this case, only Latin, but in one message you can write more text.
I did not go to the office today because of a business meeting in the city. And this is an excellent reason to check how the phone behaves as a navigator. Moreover, I often have to drive a car for work.
HTC installs the Car Dashboard application in Desire HD. Its purpose is to give the driver a handy tool for navigation and safe calls (voice dialing) during the trip. For example, if an incoming call comes in while the program is running and you accept it, then the sound automatically goes through the speaker of the device (unless you have connected a headset).
Of course, all the advantages of this application can be felt when using the car holder, which is not supplied in the kit.
The program provides for your choice of free navigation from Google or from Route66 (http://www.66.com), but in the latter case, free use is possible only for 30 days. At the end of the test period, you will be asked to buy a navigation package.
Prices are as follows: 30 days - $ 5.99, 1 year - $ 24.98 and an open-ended contract costs $ 37.99. Yes, paid cards are loaded on a memory card and do not require a permanent connection to the network. The map of Russia has a size of 306 Mb.
HTC also offers to buy information about the cameras that monitor traffic. Information cost for Russian users: 30 days - $ 2.99, 1 year - $ 7.99.
Some more screenshots:
Without a charger, you should not hope for a long trip. With the screen turned on, GPS and 3G, the smartphone eats the battery that had already sagged for half a day of work right before our eyes.
In general, the navigation is normal. Of course, she loses iGo and even Navitel. Navigator. Map detailing is not the best, traffic jams (in Russia) do not take into account. He tries to lay a route along major highways, avoiding small streets. Buying paid cards, it may make sense to travel around Europe, there’s more detail in detail.
Summarizing everything written above, I can say that the smartphone is an excellent business partner. Reliable assistant who can solve a wide range of tasks. But a full-fledged office work on devices of this class is out of the question. If the need has caught you away from the office, then of course you can write a couple of pages of text, correct the table, and even concoct a presentation. But serious work on the content is still not the core task of smartphones.
I did not specifically consider here the multimedia capabilities of the device. They have no relation to my work duties, and the network is full of decent reviews of these opportunities.
Yes, probably everyone noticed, in the photo of the mobile workplace, the charger. It is there not casual. In the active mode of operation, the large screen of the device simply destroys the battery.
By the way, during the trip to the meeting in the car, the phone was not charged, but simply maintained the battery level, powered by a car charger. Constantly on the screen and GPS, just do not allow the device to charge. And in such conditions, the device stretched exactly until 18.00 (at 8 in the morning took it off the night charge), with its shutdown marking the end of the working day.
In general, my working day with HTC Desire HD went well. But I didn’t do half of what I could easily do in the office, or at least have a laptop at hand. And as if marketers are not stuffed us with tales about the office in your pocket, do not believe them.
Smartphones are increasingly becoming devices for comfortable surfing and media entertainment, but serious work without a keyboard and a screen of normal size (on which you see most of the editable information) is an option for masochists.
By the way, I wrote this post on a computer.
I have to say, this is not a review of the device. This is just an attempt to do the work that is usually done on a computer in the office using a smartphone. The test in real life, without advertising things and contrived examples. Phone out of the box, with a standard (almost) set of programs that includes HTC in its firmware.
Usually, I work in such conditions:
')
But in the experiment, I will try to work differently:
Understanding that it would not be possible to completely replace the computer, I specifically chose the day when the schedule allowed me not to be present in the office. Some of my work tasks, despite the lack of it, still do not tolerate delays. Today I will solve them on a smartphone.
My work responsibilities include:
- View e-mail, of course corporate and responses to it. My mail almost always contains MS Excel or MS Word files, they need to be opened, edited, forwarded. Often you need to attach files from the corporate network. Need access to corporate contacts.
- View the forum on the company's website for consumer feedback. Notes for responsible persons, based on read reviews. Sometimes, in particularly difficult cases, I independently answer questions from visitors to the corporate site.
- Usually, I still work with a number of corporate programs, but due to the inability to use them on the phone, we will shift this part entirely to subordinates.
- I have one more, specific to corporate business, type of communication - sms. It so happened that my immediate leader is almost always abroad, and it is more convenient for him to communicate in this way.
- Sometimes there are meetings with partners, negotiations with suppliers arriving in Moscow, trips to the city to resolve various administrative issues, etc.
Let's go, one day of work with the help of the HTC Desire HD communicator
Mail, office documents, corporate files
Corporate mail, contacts, calendar. I used the email application from HTC, which comes with the device’s native firmware, to connect to the corporate exchange server. Connects easily, all mail folders are available. Synchronization of contacts and calendar, is possible only by cable, using HTC Sync.
If you have everything on Gmail (mail, contacts, calendar), then it's even easier, you only need a username and password from your google account.
Letters are great to open, with attachments no problems. Writing letters is worse, which is logical. It is very hard to write long letters, even in the landscape orientation of the device. It lacks an external keyboard.
If you try to write large amounts of text, then in addition to the keyboard, there is also a lack of screen size. The field of view of the entered text is very small, despite the display diagonal of 4.3 inches.
I note a strange thing for me.
As I was right corrected , it turns out able. But not at all as the user expects.
And for some reason, it does not support scaling of content (as in the browser). The Mail application, version 3.0 from HTC Corporation, which comes in its factory firmware, does not suffer from such shortcomings.
The important part of mail handling for me is the MS Excel file attachments that were only partially successful on the smartphone. The firmware uses Quickoffice 3.2.150. The product as a whole is absolutely normal, the problem is most likely in the idea itself. Of course, you can edit the table, but only with great desire and extremely urgent need. Luckily, I didn’t have anything else.
And of course, I give an example of how the Desire HD looks on the screen, xls file made on a computer:
On the monitor, the same file looks like this:
In the reviews of various kinds, on the screens of mobile devices, you can see very decent looking office document files. But most often, these are samples specially created for a mobile device. Feel, as they say, the difference.
In general, in my opinion, smart phones are poorly suited for large-scale editing of documents. For familiarization or reading, please, but edit, and all the more thorough, thank you. And so that manufacturers and marketers do not declare that the very possibility of editing and creating documents can be considered only as a feature, which can only be used as a last resort.
But back to work. I also need to watch and send files from the corporate network. The office is designed so that the shared files are on the internal file server, the necessary folders are mapped on the user's local computers, there is no access from the outside.
The solution of such a task is beyond the scope of the device out of the box, but is easily solved. Just put on the office computer and the smartphone - Dropbox. We throw in it the network folder and voila, all the files at hand. The fact that I will not rule on the phone will be corrected by colleagues in the office and I will always have a current copy.
Such a solution has an inconvenience - you have to keep the work computer on, well, and the admins do not like it because of recent Dropbox stories ( here and here ). This is the only application that I had to put on the "bare" phone.
the Internet
It is time to see customer reviews on the company website. It's just a holiday, to be sure, the standard browser is very good. A 4.3-inch screen (more than 10 cm) and support for Adobe Flash 10, make surfing so convenient that you do not want to break away from it. Filling in web forms is also quite convenient. All this of course with an eye on mobility.
But as I wrote above, I sometimes need to analyze messages from the company's forum and an unpleasant moment comes out - where to write down the thought or something like that? Of the programs only Quickoffice, which can create files in MS Word 97-2003 format or plain text. For quick recordings, it is not very convenient. I know, I know, in the market a bunch of programs that solve this problem, but I try to make the experiment as clean as possible, and so I’ve already put Dropbox, that's enough. Well, again, there is a lack of a normal keyboard. Therefore, today I will be helped by a quick record, a simple paper diary.
SMS
Not all office workers have to deal with these messages as part of the workflow. But this is not about me. SMS work is very simple and convenient. Messages are grouped into branches. The application highlights important parts of messages, such as: phone numbers, links, email addresses. One click is enough to take an action related to the type of the selected object - go to the address, save the number in contacts or make a call, write a letter, etc.
Yes, an interesting point. If there is no slash at the end of the site name and any parameters are transmitted immediately, then the whole part is discarded by the program's parser.
Personally, I do not have enough in the standard application for working with SMS, only the ability to save messages to files on a memory card, and import / export them from files. The rest of the functionality is absolutely sufficient.
By the way, a small life hack for those who often write long text messages and have a computer at hand. You can simplify the set by creating a tab in the browser like:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=350x350&chld=H&chl=SMSTO:PhoneNumber:Privet Habr.
Change the number and text in the link, get the following QR code at the exit:
With the help of any scanner codes for android, we scan and send SMS. Quick and convenient enough. But one thing - in this case, only Latin, but in one message you can write more text.
Navigation package or why i'm not in the office
I did not go to the office today because of a business meeting in the city. And this is an excellent reason to check how the phone behaves as a navigator. Moreover, I often have to drive a car for work.
HTC installs the Car Dashboard application in Desire HD. Its purpose is to give the driver a handy tool for navigation and safe calls (voice dialing) during the trip. For example, if an incoming call comes in while the program is running and you accept it, then the sound automatically goes through the speaker of the device (unless you have connected a headset).
Of course, all the advantages of this application can be felt when using the car holder, which is not supplied in the kit.
The program provides for your choice of free navigation from Google or from Route66 (http://www.66.com), but in the latter case, free use is possible only for 30 days. At the end of the test period, you will be asked to buy a navigation package.
Prices are as follows: 30 days - $ 5.99, 1 year - $ 24.98 and an open-ended contract costs $ 37.99. Yes, paid cards are loaded on a memory card and do not require a permanent connection to the network. The map of Russia has a size of 306 Mb.
HTC also offers to buy information about the cameras that monitor traffic. Information cost for Russian users: 30 days - $ 2.99, 1 year - $ 7.99.
Some more screenshots:
Without a charger, you should not hope for a long trip. With the screen turned on, GPS and 3G, the smartphone eats the battery that had already sagged for half a day of work right before our eyes.
In general, the navigation is normal. Of course, she loses iGo and even Navitel. Navigator. Map detailing is not the best, traffic jams (in Russia) do not take into account. He tries to lay a route along major highways, avoiding small streets. Buying paid cards, it may make sense to travel around Europe, there’s more detail in detail.
Results
Summarizing everything written above, I can say that the smartphone is an excellent business partner. Reliable assistant who can solve a wide range of tasks. But a full-fledged office work on devices of this class is out of the question. If the need has caught you away from the office, then of course you can write a couple of pages of text, correct the table, and even concoct a presentation. But serious work on the content is still not the core task of smartphones.
I did not specifically consider here the multimedia capabilities of the device. They have no relation to my work duties, and the network is full of decent reviews of these opportunities.
Yes, probably everyone noticed, in the photo of the mobile workplace, the charger. It is there not casual. In the active mode of operation, the large screen of the device simply destroys the battery.
By the way, during the trip to the meeting in the car, the phone was not charged, but simply maintained the battery level, powered by a car charger. Constantly on the screen and GPS, just do not allow the device to charge. And in such conditions, the device stretched exactly until 18.00 (at 8 in the morning took it off the night charge), with its shutdown marking the end of the working day.
In general, my working day with HTC Desire HD went well. But I didn’t do half of what I could easily do in the office, or at least have a laptop at hand. And as if marketers are not stuffed us with tales about the office in your pocket, do not believe them.
Smartphones are increasingly becoming devices for comfortable surfing and media entertainment, but serious work without a keyboard and a screen of normal size (on which you see most of the editable information) is an option for masochists.
By the way, I wrote this post on a computer.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/118738/
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