The nice folks at O2 have sent me a Cocoon to play with. My thoughts so far…

Things I like:

• The form factor of the handset itself is quite nice. It’s got a nice weight to it and placing the music controls (pause, forward, volume jog-dial) on the outside are a nice touch. I’ve never really cared for clamshells as many feel cheap to me (even some of the Nokia ones ) but I like the feel of the Cocoon when closed as well as open (but then the UI goes and ruins it—more on that below.)
• The volume control jog-dial is a nice touch. Feels somewhat retro compared to the more space-aged controls about on other devices and I like not having to interact with the UI to adjust volume. That said, being able to (digitally) see the actual volume level on the outside of the phone is a nice touch. A good mixture of new and old combined. [If you haven't seen the Cocoon yet, the back of the handset sports an LCD status/display area that lights up through the phone itself—kind of like a Japanese rice-paper Ikea lamp with an LCD behind it. It displays all sorts of messages related to multimedia and device functionality—the name of a song that's playing, who a call or SMS is from etc.) A bit hard to explain but a nice subtle effect and surprisingly fun. Gives the device some personality!]
• The phone comes with a cradle which I’ve yet to use (for personal reasons—my laptop is a bit unstable and I don’t want to install the PC Suite drivers or Windows Media 11 which are required for the synchronization.) I do like the aspect of giving the handset a ‘home’ on your desk. Reminds me of all the handset cozys I see in Asia. I could do without the drivers, extra software and cables however.
• Nice touch…an adapter is included to plug two headsets into the phone!
• Personalization features abound on this phone. I’m finding new ones all the time. They’re not necessarily always well implemented—Funny Frames for example superimposes a very pixilated ‘scene’ (birthday cake, clown’s head, big nose and sunglasses) around/above your photo)—but at least they’re trying.

Things I don’t like:

• The UI really kills it for me. Grant it i’m a very visual person and accustomed to the Series 60 UI (not exactly a fun UI but elegant, well designed, takes advantage of coulour etc.) but the Cocoon UI just keeps disappointing. Some aspects of it seem far too basic while others are surprisingly colourful or detailed (the alarm clock animation for example—do people really care when they’re half asleep and trying to find the off switch ) There are also usability issues like the shortcut menu/bar. Maybe it’s just me but I find it really hard to tell what i’m looking at as a scroll through it and the fact that all the icons (save a bizarre green bit on the corner of the music icon) are black an white (actually…more like a dull grayscale) really doesn’t help.
• Where is the owner’s manual? A nice booklet with snappy copywriting and endless product shots came with it but what about a plain old owners manual? Turns out it’s on a CD which I applaud from an environmental point of view but since they took the trouble to include the booklet (full colour, thick paper stock, embossed logo on the cover) why not include some instructions in there too?
• I’m disappointed by the absence of Flash Lite—even if just for the UI. I think it would have been a great addition and could have helped with some of the more visual aspects of the personalization features.

Overall, it’s a nice little handset. They’ve done a good job. I was chatting with someone last week who is also part of the Cocoon beta (small world) and he commented that it will likely be a great phone by the time they get to version 2 or 3. I tend to agree.

If my blog is quiet it’s because i’m still wading through the mass of bizarre paperwork involved when one moves to Britain.

I was chuckling last week at a story on Dina’s blog about the perils of buying a flat in Mumbai where you can be refused a property if you’re not vegetarian. I don’t have that problem (kinda wish I did—the vegetarian thing would have worked out just fine for me!) But instead Bryan and I seem to have moved into a flat that that doesn’t really exist and at the same time, has bad credit.

For starters, our postcode is wrong—except it’s not. All the lovely folks we need to pay money to like the council tax, TV license and power company know exactly where our flat is. Everyone else, says our postcode is incorrect so sorry—you can’t sign up for this and that until you provide us with a postcode our computer system will accept. On top of that, the last tennant seems to have vanished leaving a slew of unpaid bills that are of course—wait for it—linked to our postcode. I don’t think you can get by more than a day in this country without a firm (and typically mandatory) request for your postcode from someone or other; and woe are you if you can’t provide it!

So in a nutshell, we don’t live here but since we do; we have bad credit

To think we had briefly discussed moving to France instead but gave up on the idea due to the legendary French paperwork and bureaucracy. Ah, the joys of the expat lifestyle!

(Little Britain Live! – Computer Says No on YouTube)