Still Alice

Based on the novel of the same name by Lisa Genova, this Richard Glatzer film from 2014 provides the audience with an insight into the life of a woman who is diagnosed at the age of 50 with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. On the face of that, one could be expecting a second-rate made-for-TV 1980’s outing fit only for Channel 5 one afternoon, but this raises itself up much higher.

Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin ensure that it attains the lofty position as they carry the film which starts off with Alice in ordinary life, mother, wife, linguistics professor and university and full of life, love and hope. She’s diagnosed after consulting with medics as she feels that her memory is slipping too much and sometimes can’t work out where she is. She works hard to fight it, applying her intelligence to slowing down the deterioration by use of various means, tools and technology.

Family life goes on around her and we’re given an insight into the impact on them along with the potential prospect for the rest of them, of the disease being hereditary and therefore already passed down. Alice tries to ensure that if she gets so bad that life becomes difficult for her and those around her by leaving herself instructions in a video on her laptop to end it all. A future-date suicide pact with herself. Question is, how to ensure that she knows to watch it.

The film is shot sympathetically taking into account the subject matter, using techniques I’ve seen Woody Allen use around social gatherings, mixed company (especially around meal tables), multiple conversations, differing focus and audio channelling. It’s also in evidence in interview situations, focusing only and fixedly on the interviewee and throughout, never seeing the interviewer. I’m not sure if it has a name but the technique adds drama, focus and closeness for the indulgence of the viewer. The photography also reflects the world-view of Alice as we head through the deterioration by use of sweeping zoom and focus.

As you would imagine, it’s very sad and moving in places but never plummets into soppy and sycophantic. Julianne Moore may not have made much of a Clarice Starling but she has portrayed Alice here excellently and shows once again that she is an accomplished actor. The supporting cast all do a reasonable job, though the two leads grab most screen time. Well worth a look if you have the chance.

Esylife Kitchen Sink Drainer

This dinky kitchen Sink Dish Drainer and Drying Rack with Drip Tray and Full-Mesh Silverware Basket is not cheap at £18.99 but it's a really nice one which was just the right size for my drainer in the Static Home.

Unlike many, it's tall. It's made of plastic coated metal and feels substantially heavy and made well. It has a drip-tray to go under if if needed and a removable, firmly-fitting cutlery basket which clips over whichever end you fancy.

Well made and robust, I think well worth it over cheaper rubbish plastic ones which are often a tenner anyway. https://goo.gl/wzUFdR

Clarence

Ronnie Barker was a regular face on the UK’s light entertainment scene throughout the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. The Two Ronnie's was a riotous success and through sitcoms such as Open All Hours and Porridge he perfected his craft of comic delivery and timing. This is, however, one little sitcom that’s been oft’ overlook’d and is worthy of mention as I have recently reviewed it on DVD.

Ronnie Barker wrote Clarence himself under a pseudonym of Bob Ferris, a nod to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais being the character name of one of The Likely Lads played by Rodney Bewes. The six episodes were screened in 1988 on the BBC in the UK and stand alone, never having been developed or extended. It was directed by Mike Stephens who has a chain of glowing credits in the genre and era including The Brittas Empire, Hi-de-hi and Allo Allo.

It is somewhat of a shame that not more were made, but maybe the same mentality was applied as was used for Fawlty Towers - leave it, before you run out of ideas and dilute the quality. And one could argue that that was a good idea, as much of this sitcom is based around one visual joke (or series of jokes) relating to the short-sightedness of the titular character. Much of it is near slapstick and developed from that one aspect of his shortcoming.

The series is set in 1930's England and Clarence was a near-blind removals man who at the age of 55 met a maid, played by Josephine Tewson (most famously Hyacinth Bucket’s neighbour later in Keeping Up Appearances), with whom he clicks. They decide to move out to the countryside to a cottage she’s been bequeathed. Much of the show could easily have been born of the stage as the tight script and interaction between the leads is often inside the cottage, much like Steptoe and Son and the like. It's closed-in and focused on the characters, relying on sharp dialogue rather than locations or special effects.

As you might expect from a sitcom of this era, there’s loads of innuendo and predictable jokes, both verbal and physical, but the two leads make that palatable and enjoyable even though surprises are few and far between. It’s delivered expertly, particularly by Barker, so that even though you can guess what’s coming half the time, it’s still funny when it arrives because of the execution. He was a master of his craft.

The series was seeded in a short from some years previous called, I think, The Removals Man, but I can’t seem to track that down. The whole series can be viewed on YouTube for some regions or picked up now on DVD. It might not have the overt flair of some of his other work but in its own way it’s charming funny and for those who appreciate Barker, a delight to watch.

LG G7 ThinQ

Selling the LG G7 ThinQ to most people really wouldn’t be a difficult task if they were to keep it for a couple of years. It’s got Android 8.0.0. (with the promise of Pie ‘soon’) out of the box with July 2018 Google Security and list of spec’s on paper just can’t be argued with by most sane people! Then there’s us!

Dumb Ears
LG continue with that ‘disproportionately tall’ thing which seems to be the trend and include an annoying ‘notch’ into the bargain. The notch can be hidden in the system screens but not inside many apps. App Scaling helps with some apps but doesn’t get rid of the dumb ‘ears’ in most. I guess it’s what you get used to, but I’m not - and it just looks stupid. On the plus-side for many, they’ll think that having virtually no bezels, like here, is a big advantage. Until they realise that to hold the phone any sense, they need to have a case on it! Which it really needs anyway, as usual with most modern phones.

Shortly Bright
Apart from that gripe, the screen is an IPS LCD 6.1” beast which, because of the 19.5:9 ratio really doesn’t look it and the footprint seems really much smaller. Very much like the G6 before it. It fits in the smallest of hands snugly and helps with grip. The screen can be set to the default 1440p but also dropped to 1080 or even 720 for those with really knackered eyes! The Dolby Vision/HDR10 compliant screen is very bright and even has a ‘boost’ setting which will really brighten things up for a short time, though note that it turns itself back down again after 3 minutes to save battery. LG claim that this is the brightest display that they’ve ever produced, so I put it up against the Nokia 8 to test that. Sure enough, the G7 is brighter in Boosted Mode (and has better viewing angles before a cast creeps in) but the 8 can stay on. Screen ‘colour’ can be adjusted in Settings with very fine controls to make the panel look how you want it to.

Shatter Scratch
Gorilla Glass covers the front and back, which some will argue is great for shatter but less good for scratches and GG3 would have been better. The two glass panels are held together around the perimeter by a ring of aluminium and it feels premium. The glass curves round more on the back than the front, though the front is not completely flat either. In the hand, it’s not as big, nor ‘boxy’ as the design used on the G6, but then that had a bigger battery too. The battery here is a 3000mAh one and on testing in these first few days it feels like it’s good for a day (as always depending on how you use it) but not more. To counter this, LG have included Qi Charging and QC3 for handy (and quick) charging when needed.

Assistant on Demand
The Power button is on the right and Volume keys on the left with an extra button below them which fires up the Google Assistant without having to invoke it in other ways. However, this doesn’t work if the screen is off and device locked. You have to press it, then unlock (or face unlock), then carry on. Reasonable for security I guess, but if you’re the kind of person who makes use of the Assistant then this is very handy and much more useful than Samsung’s Bixby thing! At the bottom is the single speaker and 3.5mm Audio Out socket, which I’ll come to, and the USB-C port. Up top is the Card Tray, in this case offering microSD and SIM or 2 x Sim and no microSD in the most common way. Regional variations apply to this array. As they do with RAM and storage. This UK model has 4GB RAM and 64GB Storage but there is a 6GB/128GB version out there somewhere. As usual, not officially in the UK. Sigh. The Snapdragon 845 ensures that the device speeds through any numbers of tasks thrown at it as you’d imagine. Everything is fast and lag-free.

Dust and Water
On the back is the camera cluster and fingerprint scanner underneath, just in the right place for most hands. I’ll come to the camera options later. The device is certainly not as heavy as the G6 and boasts IP68 weathering, dust and water (1.5 metres for half an hour). The build is MIL-STD-810G compliant apparently, not that most of us will test that ever!

Hairy Monster
I’ve tested the face-recognition function now on plenty of phones and all the ones I’ve tried just don’t work with my full-beard. They don’t even let me register my face. It’s been so hopeless that I’ve not bothered. However, kudos to LG - this one recognised my face, glasses on, full-beard, registered it and works perfectly, near instantly every time. And, as I said, makes the Google Assistant button much more useful. So, who needs a fingerprint scanner any more ;-)

Always On
The G6 before it, along with V-series LG phones had true always-on functionality and the G7 is no exception. It works in just the same way with a range of options to choose from, clocks, signatures, notification and battery information, with that handy scrolling display getting you from the screen-off state to various settings directly which don’t compromise sensitive data, like Camera, Bluetooth, Torch, Wifi etc. If you have music playing the next swipe will get you to basic controls for that too - Pause, Skip Forward/Back and title of song. Much like the Samsung iteration, the screen-off, Glance and always-on options are well implemented and very, very useful. And, like the G6, executed on an LCD with very little apparent hit on battery. Kudos.

Boom!
The reason for my interest in this device is LG’s sound claims for the speaker and overall output. The LG G7 ‘Boombox’ Speaker arrangements really do make a huge difference. I have it up against the Marshall London and Razer Phone and it’s louder than both of them - almost put together! The single speaker fires out of the bottom, like most phones, but what’s different here is that there’s a big chamber across the back of the device which makes the back vibrate - and resonate when in contact with anything solid - including one’s hand!

Resonate
When you hold it, it’s loud - very loud - as I said above, knocking spots off any phone I’ve heard with my own ears. But then you put it down on a table (or any surface pretty much - I’ve tried in on glass, walls, doors, shower wall perspex) it booms. It really does work and most of the time I’m turning down the volume for fear of complaints.

Rich Bass by Proxy
If we’re being purist here, it’s significantly louder, yes, but no - it doesn’t quite match the quality and richness of the London/Razer and their production of bass but it doesn’t seem to matter when it’s on a surface. Because of that vibration and resonance, it sounds great and becomes bass-orientated. The equaliser can be played with and I found that the Rock setting got the best quality sound out of it, but even Flat reproduces very well.

Driven Beef
According to LG, it has a mega-sized speaker-driver, 40% bigger than that on the LG G6, and has a beefier Amp. too. “...it uses its inner space as a resonance chamber to amp up the bass and deliver a premium, loud, and room-filling audio experience”. And it does! Apparently it monitors itself via software to stop any distortion at high volumes. So I’m impressed!

Wonky Old Ears
Like other LG devices around it, the G7 offers 32-bit/192kHz audio and when using headphones with it, the difference is clear, even to my wonky old ears. I know that I usually say that music through headphones even with the cheapest equipment sounds great, but the difference is marked here with all sorts of sound adjustments available via settings, DTS X Surround Sound, Bluetooth 5 with A2DP and aptX HD support etc. Most of this stuff is fairly meaningless to me, but, like when I use the Razer Phone for watching Netflix in 5.1 Surround, it really is impressive even to the layman. I switched to the Nokia 7 Plus immediately afterwards with the same reference headphones and the difference was staggering. As with most LG top-end phones, it seems, certainly an appeal for the audiophile. There’s also an FM Radio with no record facility which sounds amazingly clear, much like you’d expect from DAB.

Less Wide
As usual with LG and the far-east, the Camera app is festooned with all sorts of features, children’s toys, AI options, feature recognition software, a plug-in to Google Lens, Portrait Mode, Manual Mode, Cine Video Mode, there’s loads of them. There’s even a Super Bright Mode which, when engaged, opens up everything and gets the best it can out of dark situations - obviously at the expense of aperture, shutter speed and resulting noise. The most useful thing for me, though, remains the wide-angle secondary lens. OK, so it’s not got OIS or AF like the primary camera has, but having that wide-angle facility really does make a difference to me and I’m much more likely to be taking artistic shots than daily life record-shots when I have it. The main camera is a 16MP f/1.6 unit, so plenty of light getting into that wide aperture whilst the second sensor is also 16MP but with an f/1.9 aperture. The 120 degree field of view that the previous models pumped out by LG had have been narrowed down slightly on the back of their research that users had reported that it was just too wide, leading to distortion etc. The G7 wide-angle field of view is therefore 107 degrees. Still wider than most others out there and perfectly usable/useful for artistic shots. The Selfie camera is an 8MP f1.9 unit for which they use a ‘white screen’ flash arrangement when turned on. The resulting images are perfectly fine for anything but A1 posters for your wall.

Vanilla Screwed
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my staying power here has been tested because of all the usual stuff which you’ll probably guess, and thus far not mentioned! Why do these companies have to screw-over Vanilla so badly, I wonder. Again! It's just so annoying to have to plough through level-on-level to get to a Setting which is up-front and clear in Vanilla. Software Updates for one. Why is it inside a whole section on Updates - Update Centre?
LG - Settings>General Tab (assuming you know it's in there)>Update Centre>Software Update
Vanilla - Settings>System>System Update
Why 4 Tabs in Settings? It has a search function for those who can’t find things! For goodness sake, leave it Vanilla so the rest of us know where stuff is!

Littered
Here we go again with Apps littering the UI, the only ones of any use being LG Music & HD Audio Recorder. LG Calendar, LG Calendar Storage, LG Clock, LG Contacts, LG Email, Facebook App Manager, Facebook, Instagram, LG Gallery, HD Audio Recorder, LG Home Launcher, LG Health, LG Mobile Switch, LG Mobile Switch Launcher, LG Music, LG QuickMemo+, LG Smart Doctor, LG SmartWorld, LG Update Centre, LG Wallpaper, LG Weather. No wonder it’s stuck on 8.0.0. I give a pass on the Music app as it’s well thought out, much like Sony’s and it’s very clear when using it that you’re consuming what’s on the device not streaming, without having to remember to throw a switch.

Aborted Launch
The LG Launcher offers Home, drawer, no drawer, Easy Home. No left-swipe for Google Assistant Pane in Home Screen Settings - instead you get this Smart Bulletin thing which hooks up with a load of mainly LG apps and services which have to be agreed to - so use their Calendar instead of Google’s for example - giving a screen at the left much like HTC’s BlinkFeed. An annoying long-press is needed to get to Launcher Settings (offering some layout options but not the useful ones) as however carefully you press the screen it starts moving and thinks you’re swiping.

Between Sizes
I can’t get Font/Display size right for me. Adjust font and inside Apps it’s too big, but on Home Screen too small. Same with Display. The text in the ‘ears’ of the ‘notch’ is tiny-weeny for my eyes and that doesn’t change by changing the Display ‘size’ nor font. That’s how they are. Even with a 3rd Party Launcher used.

Network Switch
Smart Network overrides what I set. A few times I have found it not connected to my Mifi, which is assigned as Wifi, saying it can’t connect and it’s dropped. 4G auto Data Switch is off by default. NFC off by default. All these settings just seem too clever for their own good. AirDrive via LG Account? I could go on for hours about the unnecessary guff in Settings, but the next person would no doubt say that it’s great to have all those bells and whistles, fine tuning, battery optimisations, memory management, options and clever stuff going on to learn and control the phone. The Navigation controls on the Home screen are too big - and can’t be changed. Though you can make them auto-disappear, I suppose. It’s that old far-east design language of everything being big and cartoony and clunky.

Phew!
So, enter Nova Launcher. Phew! What a relief. Now, of course, the user is still stuck with the main Settings dialogues with their 4 Tabs which can’t be undone, but in general use you can get rid of the awful clunk that LG serves up to the uninitiated. At least this way you can lay out the screens how you want them and they’re not just annoying the user even before they start! At this point, yes, things become usable again with irritations minimised, allowing the user to focus on the range of very useful features this phone has for their enjoyment. My final thought on that is, as is so often the case with these far-east phones with their far-east ideas, please let us have an AndroidOne version for the rest of the world to use outside of Asian teenagers. Motorola are beginning to. LG are too. Nokia already are. It’s starting to happen but for now, it remains an option and many top-end functions remain elusive where they are pushed out.

£375
Anyway, these were just my thoughts. In many ways it’s a V30 with an LCD. There's plenty of commentary out there on the LG G7 which covers much more of the device's capability in finer detail and compares things often with the Samsung Galaxy range of devices. This unit is now up for sale at £375 delivered, UK only. Give me a shout!

Instant Porridge Top Tip!

Most of us pragmatists know that although these instant breakfasts are not like the real thing, for 8p a bowl, we do it anyway!

But, what do you do if you ignore the instructions to use the bag the oats are in to measure your water/milk, guessing, badly, and use far too much so that after cooking your breakfast is runnier than a schoolgirl's nose on a January morning?!

Chuck your 8p (plus milk and water) and start again? Or think outside the box, making your breakfast even more breakfast'y?

I did this and to thicken things up, I suppose I could have used cornflour etc. but I simply grabbed half a slice of bread, Olive Spread and Marmalade spread on it, then broke it up and worked it in. Voila! Nice thick porridge with a sweet and start-the-day twist ;-)

Bodyguard

This BBC thriller, just finished its first run, comes from the pen of Line of Duty writer Jed Mercurio and is just as thrilling and well constructed. There are different levels of quality served up on the telly these days with more and more junk being churned out, but this is a top-notch quality production.

Set in the UK, Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) plays bodyguard David Budd to the Home Secretary, Julia Montague, depicted by Keeley Hawes (The Bank Job) in a climate of unrest, as she tries to pass responsibility for dealing with counter-terrorism between departments, much to the distaste of certain high-ranking officials in the secret service and police.

It seems that there’s a complicated underswell of activity based around people’s departments, lives, money and ego at stake which unfold as the story travels. What’s interesting here, if accurate, is how government officials, secret service agents and the police manage risk, the systems that are in place to oversee minimising it and protecting those whose decisions will inevitably be unpopular with someone. Add into this a backdrop of active terrorism and we have the makings of a thrilling political suspenseful drama.

In order to fuel the story, our hero is an ex-military man with, potentially, an agenda of his own and personal problems as a result which need dealing with. Add a lonely Home Secretary suddenly with the power of control over a handsome bodyguard, needing relief from her high-powered struggle at work and you’ll guess where yet another sub-plot might be going. Organised crime needs to be thrown into the mix as well - are things really this complicated?! - and there’s a plotline going on which the viewer really needs to pay attention to in order to keep abreast, let alone try to guess what might be the outcomes!

The threads of all this are actually smartly interweaved and even for those who might get lost along the way, the climax and outcomes of the 6-part series of around 1 hour each, is logical, well thought out and dramatically powerful. I’d better not say any more for fear of introducing spoilers, but it’s certainly good quality drama, not too long to stick with (or even binge on) and you won’t be disappointed with your investment.

The supporting, mainly British cast have been plucked from a wide range of sources - from Hollywood box office loves to Coronation Street and much between! They all approach their job admirably and not once is the viewer able to muse on the quality of acting or delivery. Ladles of dark and sinister, oodles of convincing dramatics.

The direction is well executed, photography interesting with attention paid to long-shots for dramatic effect along with shallow-focus and blurring to add impact and drama as appropriate. The sets are nicely presented, much of it on the streets of London but also plush office suites in the corridors of power. The pace is just right, so no chance of getting bored or putting the kettle on early as the running time flies.

Highly recommended if you can see it from where you live. Certainly it’s on the BBC iPlayer for a while at least for we Brits.

Sultana Scones

Here’s a scrummy afternoon treat for those with half-hour to spare. I tried my hand at this family recipe, which is apparently not quite like you’d expect to see it elsewhere.

Ingredients
½lb Self-raising Flour
3oz. Butter, preferably soft
2oz. Sugar
2oz. Sultanas
Milk

Method
Rub the flour, butter and sugar together until you have a uniform consistency.
Add the sultanas and work in across the mixture.
Add milk, a drop at a time until you have a soft dough.
Divide the dough into 6-8 parts and work each into a round thickish pat.
Grease a baking tray.
Place the pats onto a flat baking tray.
Glaze each with a little milk.
Cook in an oven at 180⁰ or so for 12 to 15 mins.

When you get them out, leave to cool a bit, but part of the enjoyment here is to eat them whilst warm with real old-fashioned butter and cream and/or jam (and worry about where the defibrillator is later)! This particular recipe and method aims to ensure that the scones are soft and light on the inside with a crispy shell. Yum!

Ozark

Trying hard to fill the gap left behind by the end of Breaking Bad, it was suggested that I give this dark, violent and grizzly thriller a chance. The American series is now at the end of Series 2, being shown on Netflix in the UK. It’s the story of a family who relocate from Chicago to Missouri in order that dad can easily launder money belonging to a drugs cartel from Mexico, watched over by a ruthless team as he does it. The plot thickens as we go, in good thriller style!

This ordinary family’s dad is Marty Byrde, his wife Wendy and two kids Charlotte and Jonah. The last thing on any of their minds when they headed out from the city was the crime, violence, mayhem, double-dealing and politics as they eventually, like in Breaking Bad, try to keep their heads above water with, the tide rising and odds stacked against them!

In the first series the ground is being set by all the above(!) and Marty finding his feet in his new surroundings whilst slowly but surely the rest of the family start to get an idea of what’s going on too. The characters are being developed as we sweep towards the finale leaving the audience looking for more. In the second series, all of the above is ramped up as events almost spiral out of control and the impact of the criminal activity develops into a masterplan on which Marty has to negotiate with all interested and scary parties!

The cast, almost without exception, warm to their roles, get more and more stuck in as the episodes pass, become more and more convincing and portray the madness they find themselves a part of quite superbly. Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, The Gift) plays Marty and Laura Linney (Kinsey, Lorenzo’s Oil, Dave) his wife, Wendy. The largely unknown Sofia Hublitz and Skylar Gaertner play the two kids, who grow up really quickly in amongst all this, Julia Garner (Sin City, Maniac) plays Ruth Langmore, young head-of-household to a local Hillbilly family as their dad is in jail for a large part of it, Jason Butler Harner (Homeland, The Good Wife, The Taking of Pelham 123) is dogged FBI agent and screwed up homosexual Roy Petty whilst the outrageous Snell family couple are depicted by Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, Braveheart) and Lisa Emery (Jessica Jones, Unfaithful, Wolf). These are the main players who between them turn on a real pressure cooker of a tense thriller which, in book terms, is a real page turner!

The programme is certainly not for kids. It’s an adult themed story with challenging scenes which some might wish to not stomach, but cutting through that, incredibly entertaining and engaging as it is thrilling to watch. The two main leads grow in stature as they turn their characters into monsters who nobody would want to mess with as the drama unfolds. The greed which drives people in this story makes the tension razor sharp in places and the fear of reprisals for stepping out of line keeps everyone on their toes and looking over their shoulder. Including the audience!

The setting is amongst the rural deep south community of the lakelands in USA where people are depicted as often making their own rules, the old way, and resent incomers. The direction (some of which was taken over in part by Bateman in the second series) is taut and photography interesting. It’s certainly worth a look, though you should be aware that the momentum builds as we go. Early on, again, much like Breaking Bad, there’s a lot of scene setting and character building going on, the investment into which pays off well later. Recommended. Looking forward to Series 3.

Essential Phone (PH-1)

In Relation to Pixel 2 and Nokia 8 Sirocco
It’s been a long time coming but I eventually have my hands on one of these Essential units, as they slide away into unpopularity with the announcement that the company will not be making an updated version and that when Android Q arrives on this one, it’ll be end of line.

Not surprising then, that people are offloading them and retailers are knocking them out for pocket money, particularly in the USA, often in Flash Sales. But this doesn’t detract from the fact that this is still a terrific phone, with bang up-to-date software and very much a good investment for the next two years.

I’m putting this 2017 model up here against the Pixel 2 (2017) and Nokia 8 Sirocco (2018). They are similar sized devices, generally, with similar specs in many departments and all three have fast-track claims to the latest versions of Android as they are released. In other ways, as we’ll find out here, they are very different from each other, but at release at least, they were all three in the same ballpark in terms of price and market pitch.

Build
The Essential is beautifully made, with nods to iPhone SE and OnePlus X. The ‘boxy’ design is very much like the iPhone and ceramic back just like the 1+X. The front is protected by Gorilla Glass 5. It’s gorgeous in the hand and screams quality. At 185g it's substantially weighty and the titanium framework oozes class. The metal buttons around the side and ports on the bottom are industrial standard and everything the hand can touch is totally premium. Unusually, the SIM Card Tray is on the bottom along with single speaker and USB-C Charging port.

The Pixel 2 is made of glass and aluminium and Sirocco, glass and steel. In terms of build and design I guess it’s horses-for-courses, like a lot of subjective stuff going on here, but for me, even taking into account the lovely ‘boxy’ titanium and ceramics of the Essential, the Sirocco wins because it’s just interestingly ‘shaped’ with beautifully premium features around the body, curves aplenty. The Pixel 2 comes in third as it’s just, well, frankly, a boring slab with no real design language or personality.
All three have a fingerprint scanner on the back, in pretty much the same place, and they all work like lightning, both in setup and use.

The Nokia and Pixel 2 benefit from IP67 water/dust protection, unlike the Essential, which is another missed trick.

Screen
The 5.71” 19:10 IPS LCD screen has a notch at the top in order to make the device near bezel-free but it’s not the same ‘wide’ notch that most other bandwagon-jumpers have adopted, rather a very narrow, deep cut-out, right in the middle around the front-facing camera. It actually feels much better than what has become the industry-standard ‘notch’ because it’s much smaller and in time, really is not noticed by the user. The 1312 x 2560 (504ppi) screen otherwise goes right out to the edges, at least top and sides if not bottom. There’s a quarter-inch ‘chin’ at the foot, but I’m OK with that - somewhere to rest the thumb. There is, however, something odd about the LCD panel which I don’t think I’ve seen before and that’s uniform horizontal lines right across it when you look close enough - and you have to look really closely using a torch! I’ve tried to research that but apart from people agreeing and suggesting, no formal explanation.

The other two devices sport OLED screens, the Sirocco having a nasty ‘blue’ cast around the (gorgeous) curves, when the phone is even the slightest bit tilted and screen is white. It’s apparently made by LG which, given what we know about the Pixel 2XL, fits with the scene. The Pixel 2’s screen, however, show no cast at all and is clearly a superior panel.

All three devices have super-bright screens and the user would be pleased with any of them over time, if they like blue! And don’t look for those lines!

I was very disappointed to discover that the Essential Phone had no Glance/Always-On screen at all. No double tap to wake. Only lift to see the clock and notifications briefly. Unlike the other two which both have true Always-On displays, the Sirocco winning out with more options and graphics than even the Pixel. Though it should be noted that the Pixel wins out with the music recognition always-listening function - Now Playing. That, I have found really useful very often.

Software
The Essential Phone was released last year with Nougat, then updated very promptly with Oreo before anyone else got there except Google, then on the day that the Pixel devices were served up with Pie, sure enough, Essential users got the same privileged treatment. Android 9 with September 2018 Google Security here, making it every bit as good as a Pixel. All the benefits of right up-to-date software are not to be sniffed at, with the promise of exactly the same thing when Android Q arrives. It’s almost worth the money getting one of these in, as it would be a first generation Pixel, for that feature alone. Kudos to Essential.

The Pixel 2 clearly steams ahead of all else here, being most tightly tucked under the wing of Google, though the Sirocco is an Android One device which means sharp and well timed updates coming along. As I write it has 8.1 and September Security but I’m expecting Pie any minute. But yes, a win for the other two here.

One annoying minus point here for the Essential was the pre-installed Amazon Alexa App. Probably as it was sold for the American market, and easily uninstalled, but annoying just the same to have one blip on the otherwise Vanilla landscape.

Under the Bonnet
The Essential shipped with the Snapdragon 835, like the other two here, and that’s perfectly good still. Spec Purists will boast and argue for their SD845 devices but this is a terrific chipset which flies through multiple tasks, is battery efficient and benefits even more from the help from Google’s Pie software tweaks. All three of these units have 128GB of storage space and no microSD Card slot, so that’s what you get. Even though more storage is always better, armed with 128GB I really think that’s enough for most people who are not serial videographers or collectors of large amounts of films and music to use when offline or not wanting to pay for data (like me)! There’s 4GB RAM too, to assist with keeping stuff open and switching between tasks for the Essential and Pixel 2. In a world where the Sirocco’s 6GB is becoming more like the standard and just last week a device announced with 10(!) you could be forgiven for thinking that 4GB is meagre, but it’s not! Android very happily runs with 4 and you won’t notice the difference, as I don’t when I switch to my Razer Phone with 8GB.

Power
The 3040mAh battery is bigger than the Pixel 2’s (2700) but smaller than the Sirocco’s (3260). I have an irrational paranoia about small batteries, I have to admit, even though in truth I’m never long away from power somewhere - irrational because actually, having tested all three of these phones for longevity they are all very good for a medium-to-heavy day of use with no fear of not getting to bedtime. Of course you can kill the battery by thrashing it, but I’m talking about in general use. The Sirocco is ahead of the others here with Qi charging built-in and it really is very handy for many people. To be honest, I find that since I semi-retired and don’t sit at a desk all day, the benefit to me is diminished. I have a charger by the bed but when I place the phone on it I am often wondering if, when I move in the night, the quilt might knock it off the perch. But it is, at least, slow charging which will elongate the life of the cell.

Snapper
The Essential’s main camera is a 13MP f1.9 unit with a secondary depth/mono lens, 8MP f2.2 Selfie round the front and no OIS anywhere. The camera interface is basic with little control via menus, though it does have the obligatory Portrait Mode (which seems to work as well as any other) making use of that second lens and slow-mo option via video. The test photos and video that I’ve shot are perfectly good, as usual, for that 95% of people who are not pixel-peeping or making posters and posting to social media. If you want an in-depth analysis on the camera quality, head for YouTube where it’s been done to death. Sorry - but I’m not really that interested in cameras on phones until they are much better and can challenge stand-alone options with bigger sensors.

The other two phones here outclass the Essential’s camera, however, even for me! As we all know by the great press that the Pixel cameras are afforded, the Google software is a step ahead and although the camera may not have all the manual bells and whistles of an LG phone, or even the very capable Sirocco here, it can’t be touched by most others just now. So if pixel-peeping photography is your thing, pass by the Essential and get a Pixel.

Sound Advice
There’s a single speaker, as I said, bottom-firing. And it’s OK, a little tinny but reasonably loud. It’s as good as the Sirocco’s and perfectly good enough for casual listening, audiobooks, podcasts and spoken word. If you want to play music seriously, you’ll need to invest in headphones or ‘bluetooth’ the sounds to another device. There’s a dongle in the box to get your 3.5mm headphones connected to the USB-C port. Regular readers of my clap-trap will know that at this point I usually say that most phones sound terrific via my reference headphones - but wait! The output from this Essential Phone, though sounding really good in terms of quality, really isn’t very loud even with the volume racked up to maximum. Plugging into the Sirocco straight afterwards reveals that shortcoming very clearly as the Nokia blows the sock off of it for volume. I accept that the Nokia has 24-bit DAC output, but I didn’t expect the difference to be that marked. Similarly the Pixel sounds better via this medium, so another reason to not prioritise the Essential on that pick-list - particularly if quality audio recording is your thing as the Nokia streaks ahead with OZO-in-4K video audio surround recording. If it is, then it certainly is a differentiator. The OZO sounds stunning and can’t be emulated on YouTube or any other medium - you have to hear it for yourself with your own ears to be blown away!
Lastly, the Pixel 2 has stereo speakers, front-firing, which you don’t get with the other two. Having said that, as I’ve mentioned before, the benefit of stereo on a tiny pocket-sized device has to be questionable. OK - as we get up to Pixel 2XL size, moving the phone at least a bit further from the face, I can buy it more, but you might as well really have a great sounding speaker than a mediocre attempt at stereo, spoiling the potential total output, which I think the Pixel 2 does.

Gorgeous
Like the Sirocco, the Essential is a beautifully made piece of phone-jewellery! It’s so lovely in the hand that it seems criminal to case it. I did think that the ceramic back would make it really slippery, but it doesn’t seem to do so - nothing like glass - so you could get away with not casing it in that respect. The Sirocco, no! It’s like a pebble. The biggest factor here, overriding all of the above is that the Essential Phone can be picked up for a song, it has already got Pie running with a promise of Q straight away too. Maybe a ‘poor man’s Pixel’ but when mid-range devices are coming down in price, we have to have an eye on money and whether or not it’s worth paying that 400% premium on buying price of a posh device for 10% more/better features/performance. At this price, with these specs and such gorgeous build it’s a no-brainer for most of us. Highly recommended.

Nokia 8 Sirocco

Couldn't resist! This is the most gorgeous phone I've ever held. Bar none - even some of the ‘old’ Nokia models! The look, feel, size, quality, finish and class make it worth the price alone. Pure jewellery! The edges sweep away, front and back with perfect symmetry, drawing out to thin pointed sides where they meet, and melt into, the lovely stainless steel chassis. The premium finish and look is as polished and beautiful as if it had been made by Lladró. No need to turn it on. Just look and hold!

The blacker than black 5.5” Gorilla Glass 5 16:9 pOLED screen is just delightful. I've decided. We don't need tall! I’ve written elsewhere about 16:9 vs 18:9 and have concluded that they have pros and cons. I waver between them but actually, there’s a good argument for not following the trend on this. It produces 534ppi with a 1440p resolution and looks dreamy! I was surprised at how small the phone feels - but with the screen reaching out around those edges, it feels just perfect in use for my hands and for my eyes.

I suppose I’d better remove my jaw from the table and get pragmatic! The panel is an LG one, so it’s said, and you can tell. There’s a kind of blue cast on it like some of the Pixel 2 XL units have. This is more pronounced as it sweeps round the curves of course. But it’s not terrible, and as many Pixel 2 XL apologists conclude, you get used to it. And you only see it on white screens. Well, for £649 upwards, I think it’s fair to expect that not to be present. But it is. So consumers have a choice.

At 177g it’s a heavy phone but that adds to the class. Substantial. It’s very thin, like a wafer. Where they’ve put that 3260mAh battery I don’t know! The battery that lasts me a day. A whole day. 16/18 hours with 6 hours or so SoT and brightness set to about 35%. The brightness, for the record, is not as vibrant as, for example, my Moto Z2 Play, which I can happily use at 10% indoors. Quick Charge 4 is on offer here, which get the user up to 50% in 30 minutes, alongside (dare I cheer?) Qi Charging. The unit is protected against weather to the tune of IP67 water/dust.

I’m trying hard not to compare the Sirocco with the Nokia 8 which came before it, as I think they are two very different phones. I’m really not sure why it was given a number 8 at all. It bears no resemblance to the former in size, shape or design. In actual fact, given that it’s software is running under the AndroidOne programme, it’s much more likely to be compared in many ways to the excellent 7 Plus, which I reviewed a few weeks ago in this very Manor.

Those of you who have read my warblings before will know my attitude towards cameras. Meh. Reading around the internet about other reviewers’ findings, it seems that it’s really nothing special. In fact, some say the hardware is much like the 7 Plus’. There’s the ‘old’ Nokia Lumia Pro mode, with sweeping circles which can be employed, along with Live Bokeh mode - the usual modern things. The main camera has a 12MP sensor with f1.75 aperture, then there’s a second lens (for 2x optical zoom functions) which is a 13MP f2.6 unit. The selfie snapper is a 5MP f2 affair and all the optics are, as usual, Zeiss branded.

The camera is perfectly good for social use. I’ve also had some pretty good close-up shots with the 7 Plus - so for those who want to work at it, laying aside low light photography, this, like that, is a very capable performer. If you want to take proper artistic photos and develop a hobby, buy a camera!

The chipset used is kind-of last year’s really, being the SD835. However, it remains blazingly fast and those who nit-pick at this can only do so really on the grounds of potential future-proofing, not the here and now. With the 6GB RAM employed switching tasks and general functionality, speed around the UI is faultless.

There’s 128GB of storage inside for one’s media but no MicroSD Card expansion on that. That’s it. But actually, I think that very few people really need 256GB or huge expansion for more media. We have this cyclical argument at PSC Towers about the benefits of having a card and conclude not very much. It’s going away - and actually the number of people like us wanting to hot-swap files around, is dwindling. In all honesty, 128GB is just fine for now.

I love the Glance Screen, which does, at last, have a real feel of ‘old Nokia’ about it. There are several set-ups which can be employed, much like best-in-class LG V30, and it can also be told to stay on at all times. I’ll have to see, over more time, what that does to that battery, but the clock faces, notifications, layout and styles are all very classy and well thought out.

All the usual other specs. are present, as you’d expect in 2018, including BT5, NFC and USB-C for data/charging, but it’s the employment of AndroidOne which is currently impressing me and drawing me to Nokia - and this is no exception. As did the 7 Plus before it, it has arrived with 8.0.0. and February 2018 security, but the 8.1.0. and May (or maybe even June now) is rolling and (even) users in the UK report it coming along nicely. I have no doubt it will be here in the coming days.

AndroidOne makes it so clean. Uncluttered. Vanilla, almost. There’s only two additions here - the Nokia Support App and the Camera. I think it’s a breath of fresh air and we can see, after a decade of manufacturers going their own way with skins and identities of their own, at last realising the benefits of uniformity, not fragmentation. One by one many of them are at least introducing models in their range with AndroidOne. And with regular updates, I approve of course!

The fingerprint scanner, like the 7 Plus, is on the back under the camera cluster and although may be (stylishly) a little small, it works faultlessly, first time, every time. The registration process is simple and quick (though not quite Pixel-quick). If you’re going to have a scanner on the back of a phone, then it’s in the right place.

My usual favourite department is sound! The speaker. Singular. Yes, there’s no deep and rich stereo here, but a mono bottom-firing single speaker. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same one as used in the 7 Plus as it sounds spookily similar - and to remind you of what I said about that, it’s perfectly loud, louder than the original Nokia 8 but you need to sacrifice some of that volume in equalising out some of the top-end and introducing some bottom. It’s perfectly good, but a long way from the usually-quoted best-in-class, which I’ll spare you from mentioning again!

The recording setup is the same as the Nokia 8, in that it employs OZO in 4K Video recording mode only, but when it does, and you hear it through headphones, it really is stunning. Nobody seems to have still got their finger out and developed an audio-only option, so users are stuck with workarounds. Don’t weep now - you should be used to it by now - but there’s no 3.5mm audio-out! (We’ll soon stop even mentioning that in reviews, like we did NFC or BT!) You do get a 3.5mm to USB-C audio adapter, however, so keep it in your wallet!

In the box, you get the audio adaptor, the fast charger, A to C cable, usual pokey-tool, a revolting pair of claustrophobic ear-buds and a semi-rigid plastic case. The case fits like a glove and actually isn’t all bad. It doesn’t protect the phone very well, except for the edges and corners, but it does a good job of not hiding the lovely design too much so that it can still be mvch admir’d!

But all this review clap-trap is not what this device is about. It’s unashamedly a piece of style, class and jewellery reflected in the price. As a phone, it’s far from perfect, but that’s not the point. Yes, I’d rather have better speakers, a Samsung screen and bigger battery, but in the same way that a Planet Computers Gemini or BlackBerry KEYone owner reflects, the focus here is different. You own it because you want it and love how it is. You accept the shortcomings as a phone for the enjoyment you get from it in other ways. I’m sure that many will think I’m nuts, but I think it’s the best £649 that I’ve spent in a very long time and if my rotating phone-pot-fund is depleted accordingly for some time to come, so be it! I love it!

By the way, the more patient folk out there who really want one of these, I’m sure it’ll be down to £499/£449 fairly soon’ish.