LG Chocolate 3 or VX8560 for Verizon Wireless

LG Chocolates in the past have been known for their slick finish and design as well as flashy touch sensitive buttons. However, the company has gone away from the traditional design and no longer features the touch sensitive buttons or the slider form factor. In fact, it is now a clam shell like flip phone with Chocolate 2 like dial and confirmation key in the front. Somewhat boring if you ask me compared to previous designs but I DO prefer this to super sensitive and annoying touch sensitive keys.

Following is my take/review of the phone.

Design (7/10) - I've had flip phones before and nothing really new about it here. I like the shiny reflective finish in front and rubber like finish in back. I especially like the large outer LCD that can display your family picture or album design without squinting your eyes too much. Inside LCD is bright and clear and does not get in your way. I am not the biggest fan of touch screens for typical inputs so I really appreciate the typical tactile keys the phone has. That said, nothing special about the keys other than the fact that the keys are flat with hard to feel rubber dividers. Key layout is typical with volume rockers on the side with couple of additional buttons to access the music feature instantly and lock/unlock button for dial and buttons while the phone is closed.

Music Player (8/10) - This is where this phone really comes in handy for me and does the best job replacing my MP3 player for everyday commute to work. First, let me point out the fact that you DO NOT have to get one of those stupid adapters in order to use your own headphones. It already has a 3.5mm plug like a real MP3 player so feel free to use your favorite pair headphones to enjoy your music. It has just over 880MB of free built in memory designated for your music or you can use your micro SD up to 8GB. The player's features include repeat function, shuffle, and limited equalizer settings. I find "Flat" equalizer setting most pleasing as other options can either distort or make your music sound worse period. The music player sounds GREAT with plenty of fidelity with my V-moda headphones.
One interesting built in feature of the music player is "FM Transmitter." Just like many crappy after market FM transmitters I've tried, this one to me isn't any better. I've tried many different frequency settings for my car stereo and couldn't get really get clear reception to take advantage of this feature.

Camera (5/10) - It works. It does not have auto focus setting or anything like that so it will not replace your real camera for serious work. I don't spend too much time with it since I use real digital camera for taking pictures of family and/or scenes.

Phone (9/10) - Then again, this IS a phone so it's meaningless if this part doesn't work, right? If you are used to other Verizon phones, you will not have problems navigating through menus or core functionality of the device. The signal reception is very good, in fact, it's as good as my previous phone, LG enV, which I've never had a problem with signal reception. While on the phone, the conversation is loud and clear and same for the person on the other line. The phone also has a speaker phone feature and simply works if you need it.

I know there are so many different fancier phones out there with even more features but if you are looking for 2 core elements, a music player and a good functional phone, I think this will do for next contract extension and a new phone.

E85/Flex Fuel Experience

• I experimented with E85/Flex Fuel during June and July of 2008. Even with existing price difference of the E85 and regular unleaded fuel today, I am pretty sure this is relavant.
  

Due to the rising fuel cost many people are scrambling to find cheapest way to fuel their vehicles or cut amount of driving. I'm a typical middle class American and a cheapskate who does not want to pay too much at the pumps. Solution - I happen to own 2004 Dodge Stratus that can take advantage of this E85/Flex Fuel instead of traditional unleaded gasoline. I can go on and on about the car but I won't on this page.

The price is the main selling point of this fuel. As of June 2008, regular unleaded is about $3.90/gallon vs. E85 is about $2.90/gallon. A quick math tells me that typical fill up of 12 gallons will save me $12.00, SUPER! This alone convinced me to try it out but then I was quickly challenged with a problem. Finding the damn gas station that has this fuel. I know only 2 stations in town and I would have to drive to those locations to fill up everytime. This really sucked.

The effiency of the fuel is the most discouraging part of the switch. I got in the habit of calculating how many miles to a gallon I can get on this vehicle every fill up. With my normal (aggressive) driving, I can get up to about 24.5 miles/gallon on regular unleaded fuel. When I made the switch, I did expect a drop in efficiency as people have warned me about it. After going through the 1st tank of E85, I calculated miles/gallon & miles/dollar to see if I am saving money by switching. I won't bore you with arithmatic on how I derived these number but I got about 20.5 miles/gallon which translated to 0.75 miles/dollar benefit. Saving is saving. The next fill up was very disappointing. More frequent fill up and finding the gas station carrying E85 is bad enough but getting 18.5 miles/gallon on my 2nd fill up was not acceptable. My wife's a Nissan Exterra with 4.0L engine can get 17 miles/gallon on regular unleaded and it's an SUV, enough said.

Bottom line, my next fill up won't be the much hyped E85/Flex Fuel but rather the good ol' regular unleaded fuel at any convenient locations.

Update: My 3rd fill up of E85 yielded ~17MPG, even worse than the previous average. It's no secret that I've switched back to regular gasoline since then.

Vivitar 135mm f/2.8 AI Manual Focus Lens for Nikon

I found this old lens on sale at a local thrift store for $10 (normally $20). I picked it up to see how well it does with my digital Nikon SLR and have fun with it. The lens was in pretty bad shape when purchased. The focus ring wouldn't go past a certain point making it useless unless the subject is at a certain distance and the threaded part of the lens barrel was exposed because it couldn't be screwed in all the way.

After much fiddling, disassembly and reassembly the lens is back to working condition again and this time it does focus to infinity (∞) covering the entire focal range as it should. Below are shots taken at f/4.0 after the repair.

It is difficult to tell from above pictures, however, photos taken with this lens on my Nikon D300 are sharp and like most lenses out there, stepping down a f-stop or two improves performance. Only reason pictures wouldn't come out sharp is because you can't keep the camera steady since when it's mounted on a cropped sensor camera such as D300, the equivalent focal length becomes 203mm. I don't know about you but hand holding at this focal length without good lighting is tough.

I can't say how practical this lens is these days but if you like the feel of old manual focus lens with all metal construction and is capable of giving you sharp pictures with your modern camera, I think it is a bargain at $10 or even at $20.