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Help Image compression on T-Mobile (UK)

Standeman

Lurker
Feb 7, 2010
4
0
Hi

After doing a search around, found nothing on this issue. Love my phone! Its great. The problem I have is possibly a little ahead of its time, but here goes.

The resolution of the OLED screen is so good, that whereas historically on smartphones, the automatic image 'de-resolution' by my GSM 3G carrier (in this case T-Mobile) in their efforts to speed up the downloads would not be so noticeable on the phone screen, I can't help but see the opposite is true now!

For example, on the BBC News website, as you zoom in to look at an image, you cannot see the detail as T-Mobile is compressing the image too far. But I know the Nexus 1 can handle much better that what is being sent through.

The question is simply, is there a work around (historically, through dongles and through a PC, no problem) to allow me to either selectively get the full resolution image, or alternatively, is there a browser that allows me to select images individually for full download so I get the full detail that I want?
 
I noticed this when tethering with my iphone on my laptop on o2 UK. It's not noticeable when just browsing on the phone screen but becomes quite obvious when looking on a proper screen (like on the n1 :p)

I can't imagine you would be able to get around it as it has to be done server side at your provider (downscaling on your phone wouldn't help network traffic!).
 
Upvote 0
Your not the only one that has noticed it, this issue has been a bugbear of mine for quite a while. I noticed it initially on my G1 but even more so now on my Desire.

When browsing mobile versions of sites such as BBC News and Facebook, you can expect the images to be compressed. But on newer phones, looking at either Mobile or Full versions of sites when using a device on T-Mobile makes things look awful.

On the G1 when a contact rang me and I had a image stored against them it wasn't a massive issue as the image was displayed in a small area of the screen.

On my Desire a much larger image appears and it looks hideous. What makes it worse is that more of my contact now have images stored against them due to most of them being on Facebook and I've setup the links.

For most users this may be acceptable, some people won't notice, some people with PC's know to down CTRL+F5 and some people just won't care. But for those who do notice and use a mobile browser and can't do CTRL+F5, and as more mobiles appear with high resolution screens then this is going to be a bigger issue for T-Mobile.

I'm going to have a look around their forums and if no one has raised this and received a decent response then I'll post something. I'm not going to bother ringing T-Mobile customer services as I really don't have the time to explain image compression to someone who can barely pronounce my name. Unfortunately it will probably be one of those things that they won't do anything about until there are tons of us shouting at them.
 
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