[Gllug] OT: Phones to ssh from. (was ed vs emacs/vi etc...)

[damion.yates at gmail.com]

On Sun, 17 May 2009, Tethys wrote:

> damion.yates at gmail.com writes:
> 
> > I should probably add that most of the time I'm not at work I only
> > use my mobile phone (e90, soon to be n97)
> 
> Let us know how you get on with that. I love the E90, but the N97 just
> looks a little too consumer oriented, and I'm not sure it'll be as
> good.

Fortunately I have (some) access to early beta versions.  After trying
it, I am _really_ excited, but that really could just be me.

I estimate my use of my phones goes like this:

90%   ssh

Then below, X is a fraction of the remaining 10% of my time on the phone,
so in order of use (maybe 3-4% camera/video)

X%    camera/video
X%    phone/sms
X%    browsing
X%    games
X%    maps

X%    the rest of the percentage left I use alarms, the note
      taking app, and faff around with newly installed apps until I get
      bored with them (youtube app, Jotspot wifi access point, bluetooth
      client support).  If on a trip (it's been >1 yr since the last one)
      I watch films I've ffmpeged to as best quality as the phone can
      display, which I have to say, is quite stunning.

So by my rough estimates, I really do like to type.  This rules out the
iPhone, which does really have a lovely UI but no keyboard.  Then again
it's also ruled out by many of the other technical things I like to use.
Lovely UI or not, it's not ever going to do it for me.

It also rules out the G1, which I've tried to get on with, but the small
screen makes ssh fonts ugly, and the big block of plastic with buttons
that is on the right when the keyboard is pulled out, is painful.

So, yeah it's consumer orientated, but even with the vast majority of my
time spent in s2putty, I can't deny I use the other features of the
phone.  The N97 will be a better camera than the e90, the e90 is already
better than my old IXUS or wifes cheap 2.1MP several year old b'day
gift.  Maps app and browsing are going to be great with the touch
screen.  I like the idea of a touch screen, but only as an enhancement
of a phone's features, so making the browser much easier to use and
making maps scrolling nice, is ideal.  If I'm on a tube and so lack
network, it's when I tend to do games, as rare as this is, I'm quite
interested in having Ngage games.

As for actual ssh sessions.  This is what I've concentrated my tests on,
whenever I'm able to beg for a few minutes with the models here to test
my builds of s2putty (I have a few patches).

The screen is fantastic for clarity with a bold 80x24 font in fullscreen
looking lovely and easy on the eyes, it could do with some tweaking (I
created it taking an uncompressed hex ascii .bdf and shrinking), as some
letters line up next to each other a little too obviously.  I have
screen shots.

The keyboard is similar to that of the 9110 which I quite liked, and
despite the numbers requiring use of Fn+QWERTYUIOP to access them it's
not really as painful as it might sound.  In fact earlier builds I tried
didn't have working Fn+key support, so anything like a number or symbol
(even comma), needed the touchscreen extra popup keyboard to enter it.
It's amazing how little you need numbers, or even capitals!  I mapped A
to ^a and several other capital letters to common Ctrl-<key> combos, not
missing the caps much at all.  Shift-A <space> to move to next window in
my screen session, etc etc...

Space is on the right and only a bit wider than other keys, this worried
me, but I got used to it instantly, I guess my zx81 days helped ;) The
lack of a Ctrl key should be easily fixed as I know where in the s2putty
code to map centre of the D-pad to be Ctrl, and will try, but then
again, I can use Fn-A instead of Ctrl-A (sends a ä which screen can use
instead, I don't need ä usually and know it's just a: in digraphs in vim
or screen), Fn is on the right, but I might start to need that due to RSI
anyway.

Also there are now builds of s2putty, which are aimed at the 5800 and
N97 with the touch screen in use for some of the weird keys like
backtick and other such things which even the e90 doesn't support.

> The touch screen would be nice, but there are no number keys on
> the keyboard, for example. Plus, I *like* the E90's clamshell design.

Hmm, I find it the worst clamshell in the communicator range, it can
wake my baby up the other side of the room in a cot, when I open it for
a spodding session at night, this can introduce a world pain.

The 9300i was a wonderful phone, the smallest communicator in a long
line of great phones, the e90 was a large, loud clunky beast in
comparison.  I only switched to it as I found I really did like the
significantly lower latency and higher speed of hsdpa, the 3.2MP camera
is actually very good and I wanted to see if I liked the fancy consumer
features like A2DP and watching films (I do).

Basically despite my normal use of the phone being ssh, the odd time I
wanted to do more common smartphone things, the e90 is vastly better
than any of the older communicators.

The N97 takes this one step further, with Ngage support for games, and
absolutely loads of other h/ware features packed in.

I'm excited about TV-out, tilt control and touch screen, the fact that
it's tiny but still gives a good keyboard and large size screen makes it
a done deal.

Of course what I'd really love is some magic TARDIS technology letting
me have a keyboard as lovely as the 9500/e90/9110 (the ones I've liked
to date), a screen as large as the e90, but in the size of an old Nokia
6300.  While I'm requesting the moon on a stick, I'd also like the
iPhone's smoothness of UI with some tweaks from the Android UI, a normal
X/Linux environment complete with cron for scheduling alerts and xterm
for my ssh sessions and features and software as established as Nokia
have.  We can only dream :)

Thanks,

Damion
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