Black Friday

Well, the inevitable has happened! Earlier this year Microsoft announced that Windows 10 mobile would be no more. They would no longer be developing it and my trusty Windows phone would die a lingering death. As expected, one by one, the apps I relied upon no longer worked as support for them was withdrawn. Knowing that at some point I would have to replace it I had a mooch around to see what my options were. Having an iPad and iPod tempted me to go down the iOS route although my wallet definitely wouldn’t be happy about that. But then the Android phones I looked at fell into one of two camps. They were either reasonably priced but very ho-hum spec wise or nice but expensive. Decisions, decisions!

As Black Friday approached my mobile provider announced a few offers and amongst them was an offer on an iPhone 7. The iPhone 7 was no longer the new kid on the block and the price had dropped accordingly. It was now cheaper than some of the decent Android phones. The decision was made.
On opening the box it looked nice and shiny. And then I switched it on. The first thing I noticed was a not entirely reassuring clunking whenever I touched the home button. I thought at first that there was something wrong with the case. It turned out that the home button wasn’t actually a real button. The clunking came from an artificial “taptic engine” that lives inside the case. I’m not a great fan of it and have managed to turn it down as much as I can. I do like the Touch ID though, which is probably why there’s not a real button. Apart from that the phone runs smoothly and fast. It’s a delight to download apps that I couldn’t on my old Windows phone. I haven’t used the camera much but I can now shoot raw with Lightroom CC installed and the first results look good.

Overall there is much that I like about the iPhone 7 and I look forward to seeing what it can do over the coming few days.

In an effort to completely deplete my savings I also picked up a Canon Selphy printer in a Black Friday deal. It prints 6″ x 4″ postcard sized photographs directly from my iPhone via WiFi. The ink is supplied with the printer paper and is supposedly enough for the paper provided. Prints pass through the printer four times to build up the photograph from separate colours. It fascinating to watch. The printer is small and first results are pretty impressive. It should be busy over Christmas.