Wonders Untold

A blog about life, arts and culture

Of life, arts and culture.

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Foldable phones

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For many years, I have carried two phones – an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy phone.

At the moment, my main phone is an iPhone 13 Pro Max, and my second phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+.

Samsung has discontinued the Note series. However, its legacy lives on in the Samsung Galaxy Ultra lineup, for example, in the form of the S-Pen, which also works with that device.

I have never been a big user of the S-Pen, but I like the quality of the Note series. And, given that these phones have now been discontinued, I am glad that the Ultra series exists.

I am thinking of upgrading my Samsung phone sometime before the end of the year. Also, having ignored them for years, I am now interested in foldable phones.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 is an impressive phone. I have seen one close up, and spent some time testing it. It is high on my list.

I also like the Samsung Galaxy Ultra 22. It is a great phone, as is the Fold 4. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. The Ultra has the better camera quality (although the Fold’s cameras are also very good), while the Fold is, well, foldable – if you like that sort of thing. Which I now do.

Actually, by the time I’m ready to get a new phone, both the Ultra 22 and the Fold 4 will likely have been superseded by subsequent models. The Samsung Galaxy Ultra 23 will be released in February, and we may likely see a Samsung Galaxy Fold 5 sometime in the autumn.

Fold 5 aside, there are some other foldable phones knocking about. The Oppo Find N2 looks amazing, but it is not (yet) available for sale in Europe. (It is currently on sale only in China. ) Also, there are rumours about a foldable Pixel phone. I have seen mock-ups, and those look good.

So it might be a good idea to wait a few more months. Perhaps the Oppo foldable will find its way to Europe. (This is doubtful; I don’t think its predecessor ever made it here.) Perhaps the foldable Pixel will blow every other foldable phone out of the water. Perhaps an as yet unheard-of phone will appear, and completely change the game.

I’ll wait and see. Fun times ahead.

Chess

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I played two games of chess tonight, after many months of not playing at all.

I felt quite rusty during the first game; computer won.

I was more in my element in the second game; I’d shaken off the months of inaction. Pulled the game back from the brink; I won.

Decided to call it a night at that point. But I won’t let months pass before I play the next game.

A change of scenery

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I spent today working from my new ‘office’.

I’ve signed up for a subscription that entitles me to several days a month working from my choice of beautiful office buildings in Amsterdam.

It’s a nice way to experience different work environments. This is one of the benefits of the hybrid work culture ushered in by the covid pandemic.

Some days I work from home. Other days I go to my company’s offices. And now, I have a third option – I take my pick from any number of well designed, unique, Amsterdam buildings.

Today, I worked in a building on one of Amsterdam’s most beautiful canals. I was shown to a nice, private office where I worked undisturbed for the whole day. The wifi was excellent, and so my video meetings went smoothly. There was a coffee machine close by, also stocked with decaf capsules. (A plus point in my book, as that is the only ‘coffee’ I drink.)

All told, a lovely day at work. Looking forward to many more.

In praise of Notion templates

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Three cheers for whoever invented the software behind Notion templates, in particular the button that allows you to create your own templates.

I’m a massive fan of this feature. One way I use it is to create a weekly goals sheet, which sets out all the things I want to achieve in any particular week.

My goals sheet has different categories relating to my personal and work goals, and also shows how these tie into my quarterly goals. As this is a document I fill in every week, I have created a Notion template in the form of a questionnaire. At the start of every week, I simply click a link, and a brand new questionnaire automatically appears. I then fill this in with my goals for the week.

Without the ability to create a template, I’d have had to create this questionnaire from scratch every week. I’m glad I don’t have to do that, and can simply focus on filling in my goals for the week.

Notion is an amazingly versatile app, and the ability to create templates does wonders for creativity. Five golden stars for this incredible feature.

How I use my iPad

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I use my iPad mainly as a consumption device (i.e. for consuming content). From time to time, I might write a few emails or short articles on it, but that’s not its main function. Also, because of the weird camera placement, I never do video calls on it.

Here are the main ways I use my iPad:

  • watching videos;
  • reading long-form articles;
  • reading sheet music while playing the piano;
  • as a “teleprompter” for my speeches and lectures;
  • playing music while exercising (the iPad Pro has amazing speakers).

In my experience, the iPad is great as a companion device, i.e. next to a laptop. I’m very much of the philosophy that an iPad should do “iPad things”, and a laptop should do “laptop things”.

Of course, if pushed, the iPad (and certainly the Pro models) could also do tasks that are best done on a laptop. However, if one had to do these laptop tasks on a regular basis, it would be more efficient to do them on a laptop. To coin a phrase, “give to the iPad the things that are the iPad’s, and, to the laptop, the things that are the laptop’s”.