Hello again, Kuching!

Back from a really nice trip to the Sarawak highlands. here's a quick summary of our trip to miri, niah, bakalalan and gunung murud.

 

Lambir Hills National Park was nice, some beautiful waterfalls there! spent a night in the park and did the short but popular waterfalls trail. then got up very early the next day and went to batu niah to meet a friend for breakfast before driving to Niah National Park nearby. we spent the whole day there and left around 5pm. i was the only one who made it all the way to the last cave, the painted cave.

 

zipped back to miri in the evening and met another friend for dinner. then packed and left for bakalalan the next morning. we snapped photos from moment we got onto the small plane to moment we got off again, days later in miri! we felt like kids who'd never been to such a beautiful place!

 

kids in bakalalan speak english well, and their school puts all schools in kch and the rest of the country to shame. was told that they rose from bottom 10 or so (national ranking) to top 10 and they also won multiple awards including the commonwealth good practice award. it just shows u what a little determination and cooperation from all parties can do!

 

murud - i personally enjoyed this adventure very much. one of my friends had a hard time cos of leg pain but one of our guides came to his rescue by sorting out his ligaments the night before we returned back to bakalalan. otherwise we would have had to leave him behind for "kakak" to marry. :) kakak = inside term for a ghostly apparition seen at tg datu np.

 

on the way to murud, logging damage is extensive. u cannot point your camera at a spot and not have a logging trail in the frame. :(

 

joy bridge trek was the hardest n most challenging part for me cos the plank walk is almost completely destroyed so we had to walk on the ground next to the walkway. weather was bad when we reached the mountain so ground was wet and soggy and so very cold. our guides told us the people there have been waiting 3 years for the authorities to fulfill their promise to fix up the walkway or make a completely new one. they cannot do any fixing up themselves as they are prohibited from cutting any trees. ironic when all around on the way up u see logging activity.

 

i stripped off all my wet clothes and took a bath when i got to the church camp... at first it felt okay, then after applying soap etc and my body had started to cool down, it felt like i was hit with a giant hammer each time i poured the icy cold water onto myself! but i did it just so i can say i did it haha.

 

we didnt make it all the way to the top of murud cos of very bad weather conditions but that's okay. overall, it was a really fun trip for me and i look forward to flying out there again soon! oh and we met lots of nice people and got to know our fellow travelers too. for now, here are a handful of photos taken during our trip…

 

light shafts coming thru sink holes in the cave roof (Niah National Park).

 

golden rice paddies at Bakalalan.

 

beautiful Dendrochilum orchid at Mt. Murud.

 

wide logging track. these tracks crisscross the landscape on the way to Mt. Murud.

 

scenery along the way to Mt. Murud. lots of beautiful montane bird species. birders would have a fun time!

Rasbora cephalotaenia

This beautiful freshwater fish is usually found in
blackwater streams and rivers in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
It has very beautiful colors with almost neon,
shimmering blue lines running the length of its
flanks when sunlight hits at the right angle.
This one was caught in a peat swamp. As one can see from the photos above, it is quite a large rasbora with adults growing to more than 10 cm in length. The fish above was
released again after photos were taken.

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SE Xperia X10 Mini Pro – camera and sample photos

Part 4 – Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro - camera



I’ve been using the mini pro all day again, only turned on my laptop to complete this entry and include the sample pictures shot with the unit’s camera. Bear in mind this is not a Sony CyberShot series phone and one shouldn’t expect the same level of image quality produced by SE phones like the C901 or C905.

The mini pro sports a fixed focal length, auto focus, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash. It is activated by pressing the camera shutter button on the right side of the unit or by pressing the camera app on the touch screen. Its closest focusing distance is about 5cm from the subject.



Controls are very limited. There is no option to set white balance, everything is automatic. There is also no way to select image size and every shot is taken at the full 5 megapixel resolution. File sizes range from 500-900kb each.

Once the camera is started, the four corners are taken up virtual buttons for flash (auto or off only, no fill flash option), video/still mode, camera mode (auto, macro, sports or twilight only) and album viewer. Once a still photo has been taken, the image is previewed on the screen. Touch the screen and a zoom bar appears, slide your finger to zoom in and out. Keep in mind the camera does not function if no micro SD card is installed (a 2GB card is included in the retail package).

In bright conditions, the camera performs well. However, it struggles to focus in poor light. The LED lamp is automatically turned on to aid focus when lighting isn’t ideal but even then, it was more misses than hits. See samples in the gallery below.

Photos can be sent from the album via email, mms, facebook or picasa. If you have a blog app like blogger-droid installed, it will also show up as one of the options in the “send photo” menu. Because the phone uses Android 1.6, bluetooth file sharing is not available. This should change when Sony releases Android 2.1 for download soon.

I found the camera’s auto white balance rather inconsistent but it’s to be expected I guess. Some shots were highly saturated whole others turned out plain flat. Overall, the camera performed as I expected and I don’t really have any complaints given what it is. It should produce more than adequate photos when I need to take quick snaps of food, sceneries or macro shots on the go.

In video mode, one can take VGA movies (640x480) recorded in MP4 format at 30 frames per second. Nothing special, but definitely nothing to complain about either from a camera phone this small. I’m not going to bother including a sample as the large file will take forever to upload on my snail-band. You can find lots of review sites that include video samples taken with the mini pro.

In the gallery below, are some sample still shots. It was slightly overcast when I shot them and most of them were taken using the macro mode. Click on each image to viewer larger size (all have been resized to 800x600).

Samples taken in good light (slightly overcast day but bright enough for camera to focus):

   

       


Samples taken in poor lighting conditions:



More sample photos (sceneries) can be seen in part one, click on the “Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro” tag at the top of this post.

SE Xperia X10 Mini Pro: web browser and home screen

Part 3 - Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro - web browser and home screen

I spent  almost the entire day without switching on my laptop. I did everything I had to do online on the mini pro including check my email accounts, upload photos, complete some tasks in Mafia Wars, chat on Yahoo Messenger and check facebook updates and messages. I even completed the previous blog entry on the mini and posted it with a blogger app for android.


Viewing google news on the mini’s small screen. Mobile view can be turned on or off. Pinch-zoom is not available, zooming is done via two virtual buttons that pop up when the screen is touched.

The web browser that comes pre-installed with the mini is a very capable browser. you can open multiple pages in different browser windows which are accessed via a thumbnail display. it displays pages in both mobile (zoomed in, fit-to-screen style) and normal full sized format. The entire web page can be made to fit into one screen then a section can be zoomed into by touching the screen. In non-mobile format, simply scroll around the page on the touch screen.

As these shots show, I was able to play Mafia Wars on this tiny little device by using the included browser.


Completing a job in Mafia Wars (a popular game on Facebook). The game can be accessed by first displaying facebook’s full site in the included browser.

Only thing is some jobs or tasks that require flash do not work (such as building weapons etc.). I was also able to display the full facebook site, set privacy settings using the pull down menu (everyone, friends of friends, friends only or custom) post photos to existing albums, create new albums and share links. Yes, all that one such a tiny screen. It wasn’t hard to do because scrolling is painless so far. I have not experienced any hangs or severe lag problems.


This is how the whole facebook mafia wars page looks like when set to fit the screen. Touch the screen to zoom in on any section, scrolling around is smooth and problem free.


The properties tab in Mafia Wars requires Adobe Flash which is not made for this system.

Adobe flash player is not made for this phone system but there is a separate youtube app for viewing youtube videos. I tried it and it was pretty smooth, as long as your wifi connection is stable.

One can also install Opera Mini to browse the web. I normally use Opera mini on my mobile phone when I need to quickly log into facebook’s mobile site or to facebok zero (0.facebook.com). However, given how good the built-in browser is, I doubt I’ll be using Opera Mini much on the xperia mini pro.

Home screen
The home screen displays four applications displayed on each corner. By default, mine displayed Contacts, Messages and Music Player. I customized my home screen and swapped the default corner apps with Gmail, Email and the built-in web browser.


Each corner of the home screen can be customized to display your favorite app for easy access.


More apps can be downloaded from the Android Market.

Be careful with some free apps which download advertisements every now and then; you may end up with a shocker of a bill if you haven’t got an unlimited data plan. Some apps when left to run will continue to download updates (such as the facebook app) periodically.


The application menus can be accessed by flicking the home screen or by pulling up an arrow displayed on the bottom of the home screen. The mini pro supports up to 20 application screens with each screen displaying 9 apps.

So far so good… it if it wasn’t, I would not have used it for most of the day without once switching on a desktop computer or laptop. :)

Access all my xperia mini pro related posts here:
http://www.sarawaklens.com/search/label/Sony%20Ericsson%20Xperia%20Mini%20Pro

SE Xperia mini pro - some downsides

here are some downsides I found but keep in mind i've only been using this tiny phone for two days.

I am typing this quick entry on the small qwerty kb with the phone resting on a soft tissue to prevent it from spinning around. the back panel is curved which causes the phone to spin when placed on a table face up.

negatives -
1. camera button a bit too stiff. pressing it with the index finger tends to slide the keyboard out.

2. bluetooth does not allow file transfers because this feature is not supported by android 1.6. sony will release 2.1 in october which should solve this issue.

3. screen is sensitive to touch only around the center. virtual buttons lying near the edges take some practice and a lot of patience to press. sometimes all it takes is a soft tap, other times you need to tap hard or 2-3 times. this is my biggest complaint.

will post others as I find them. but really am loving this little wonder so far. will take some macro shots later.

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