Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 30 Apr 2014 13:01

ACT is giving me 40GB FUP for 15 MBPS in Bangalore.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 30 Apr 2014 13:02

Yogi_G wrote:After all the negative reviews of ACT I decided to take a gamble and got ACT here in Chennai. Very prompt and efficient handling by sales guy, no false promises on installation time and things were on the dot. Accepted scanned documents through mail.

Took 15 MBPS plan but I am getting routinely 16.5 MBPS and upload speeds is more than download most of the times. FUP is 60 GB and uploads are not considered part of FUP.

I still have my BSNL line as backup which gives 2-4 MBPS with 20GB FUP. I will surrender it once I am convinced of ACT. So far so good.

if more users come online , expect the service to get hit and with corp digging at will , its common to have cable cuts

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 30 Apr 2014 13:42

Yeah theres a seaprate 40 GB FUP plan also. If 60gb doesnt work out for me I will move to a higher one. Since I got chromecast and I started moving my photos and videos to cloud my 20GB runs out in 10-12 days and I have to struggle with 512 KBPS post FUP speed by BSNL which was pathetic.

I pointed out the ACT negative reviews to the marketing person and he told me this story which I find hard to believe. He said that given the negative feedback in BNG they have stopped handing out need connections in BNG and have stopped all marketing. They are completely relaying the lines and improving quality to ensure that when they resume full fledged they should be able to back up their claims with infrastructure on the ground. He says this will lead to better performance and the negative feedback will reduce drastically.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 30 Apr 2014 20:43

Archan,

If you are in the US, Moto is having a 24 hour sale on the Moto X for $299.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 30 Apr 2014 20:43

Bose Babu,

Did NAMO take his selfie using a Samsung or WP?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 30 Apr 2014 23:11

Mort Walker wrote:Bose Babu,

Did NAMO take his selfie using a Samsung or WP?

Tau ji, he used a Samsung WP

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 01 May 2014 01:15

^^^I dunno, the back camera didn't look like it belonged on the Sammy ATIV. It looked like some sort of low-end Galaxy series that he had.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 01 May 2014 01:47

Just pulling your leg, tau ji.

archan · Post by **archan** » 01 May 2014 05:40

Mort Walker wrote:Archan,

If you are in the US, Moto is having a 24 hour sale on the Moto X for $299.

I am!
They probably ran out. There is no Add To Cart button for the X and G, there is for others.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 01 May 2014 08:20

^^^Check again on 5/1.

Anyway, that's probably for the better as Moto is getting ready to release a new phone in the next few months. That may be a better choice than waiting until Dec. 2014 for a Nexus 6.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 01 May 2014 08:24

Raja Bose wrote:Just pulling your leg, tau ji.

But it did look like a Sammy. Hell, Sammy should capitalize on it and say "The leader of 1.25 billion people uses a Samsung, do you?" NAMO is in trouble with EC, might as well go whole hog and make Sammy a big campaign contributor to the BJP.

archan · Post by **archan** » 01 May 2014 11:03

The moto developer edition, however sounds interesting for $325. Mid range specs, 4.7'' 720p, 2200mAH, Snapdragon 400, but I prefer something that lasts long on charge instead of having the baddest ass CPU.
While in India, I happened to come across Sony Xperia T2 dual. Pretty neat screen, and was light for a phablet of 6''. I could see it replace my tablet. Plus it had dual sim slots, midrange CPU. Only thing bad was 1GB RAM and only 8GB of memory with expansion up to 32GB. Would have cost about INR 25K.
In that sense, I saw the Lumia 1520 on craigslist - again high end specs, now windows 8.1, great battery of like 3200 mAH and about the same price of 350-400 lightly used. I'm tempted to switch over to the dark side...
This bleep is way too confusing!

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 01 May 2014 17:28

http://shopping.rediff.com/product/univ ... best_deals

Universal Mobile Holder Monopod Click Selfies iPhone 5s 4s S4 S3 S5 Note 3

archan · Post by **archan** » 01 May 2014 21:08

Marten, someone is asking for 250 for their Sprint G2. I could try and bring it closer to $200. Is it easy to unlock it for Indian GSM networks?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 02 May 2014 08:29

Tablet demand hits a wall

Looks like they are saturating much faster than expected. If they had largely replaced PCs instead of becoming another companion device, maybe that would not have happened.

James B · Post by **James B** » 02 May 2014 13:40

Right now the best & reliable internet speeds for consumers is available from BEAM Tele in Hyderabad.

Their Rs 999 plan is 15MBPS (consistent) with 50GB data FUP. After FUP 2MBPS unlimited speed.

What I don't understand is that why this cannot be achieved all over India (at least in Metros). My in-laws in Delhi has Rs 1000 MTNL plan which is unlimited 512KBPS

. This is pathetic by any standards.

James B · Post by **James B** » 02 May 2014 13:48

Ebay is good place if you want to save 10k on high-end smart-phones. But warranty is not reliable (sometimes you get sometimes you won't depending on the seller & manufacturer of phone).

What basically is happening is there is only 1% customs duty on mobile phones import in India. So many e-bay sellers import it from South-east asian countries for cheap, pay 1% customs & sell it on e-bay.

I bought my HTC one for 37K when the flipkart price was 52K. TIFWIW.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 02 May 2014 13:48

James B wrote:Right now the best & reliable internet speeds for consumers is available from BEAM Tele in Hyderabad.

Their Rs 999 plan is 15MBPS (consistent) with 50GB data FUP. After FUP 2MBPS unlimited speed.

What I don't understand is that why this cannot be achieved all over India (at least in Metros). My in-laws in Delhi has Rs 1000 MTNL plan which is unlimited 512KBPS . This is pathetic by any standards.

Beam is part of the ACT group, I think the entire company's name goes as Atria Convergence or something like that.

ACT has a plan for 2k where you get 25 mbps and 100 GB FUP and 1 mbps post that.

My 1100 rupees 15 mbps plan with 60 gb FUP is chugging along well. Fingers crossed.

There is also a You broadband in my area which has attractive plans as well. All these ISPs will make BSNL and airtel take notice, sit up and increase their FUP limits and reduce prices.

archan · Post by **archan** » 02 May 2014 14:31

archan wrote:Marten, someone is asking for 250 for their Sprint G2. I could try and bring it closer to $200. Is it easy to unlock it for Indian GSM networks?

OK so he has offered it for $200. Marten! is the Sprint one easily unlocked or do you have to shell out money to get it unlocked?!?

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 02 May 2014 14:43

BSNL wont change , airtel already has, they started offering 12 mbps plan with decent FUP

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 02 May 2014 14:54

krishnan wrote:BSNL wont change , airtel already has, they started offering 12 mbps plan with decent FUP

Indeed. Suprising how BSNL has gone into loss making mode and still doesnt bother to change. My wife once complained to BSNL that the internet connectivity was not working for over a month and she would surrender the connection at this rate. The person on the helpline told her of the nearest BSNL centre where she could take the device to surrender the connection!!!! Such is their attitude.

I was once at their office to raise a complaint on a line not working and a BSNL employee walked in irate and complained to the person that if an employee can get such shoddy service as he did then he could only imagine what customers would get. It gets even better. I had to take a leak and entered their building rest room only to turn back immediately as I could not bear the stench. I then got into the lift where the lift operator was talking to an "officer" whose higher "officer" was asking questions on productivity. The lift operator advised the "officer" to go on 10 days leave if he higher officer continued asking such questions. Pictures of AMbedkar adorned all around the building and the ubiquitous red coloured posters demanding worker rights!!!!

I walked out the building shaking my head and very very glad that Socialism died a silent death in Soviet Russia!!

archan · Post by **archan** » 05 May 2014 01:45

Can anyone provide gyan on this..
My Android has three memories. One is the 32 go SD card the sdcard1. Half of it is free. Then there is the internal memory of 12GB, the sdcard1, out of which 9gb is free. Then there is the second internal memory of 2GB out of which 197MB is free. I have moved all apps that could be moved to sdcard1.
The bugger doesn't let me install many apps complaining that no more space left. Performance is pretty slow now and battery lasts 4 hours on 3/4g.
Is the 512 mb RAM paltry? Running 4.2 via cyanogenmod.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 05 May 2014 03:48

Singha wrote:behold the apple of china - xiaomi
it looks like iphone with a lumia back cover
http://www.xiaomimobiles.com/product/xiaomi-mi2s/

good specs and sold unlocked in US though.

Ordered one online for $249 from merimobiles.com

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 05 May 2014 09:10

For all you Samsung Galaxy fans, here's a nice video demonstrating the toughness of a Galaxy S4 phone:

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 06 May 2014 17:13

archan wrote: Is the 512 mb RAM paltry?

YES!

LakshO · Post by **LakshO** » 06 May 2014 19:30

pandyan wrote:Bhat does this mean? I got more confused reading this on yahoo.com

Do Not Track is no longer enabled on Yahoo. Your experience is now personalized

I saw the same when I visited one of Yahoo portals using Mozilla FF v29. Any idea?

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 06 May 2014 19:39

means they are spying you

KrishG · Post by **KrishG** » 06 May 2014 21:50

Did the news about Google turning paki wrt Android get ignored aka Google Silver?

Atleast Mickey has their intentions clear from the beginning!

archan · Post by **archan** » 09 May 2014 01:28

mahadevbhu wrote:
archan wrote: Is the 512 mb RAM paltry?

YES!

Ah, just found out that it has 1GB.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 May 2014 01:33

KrishG wrote:Did the news about Google turning paki wrt Android get ignored aka Google Silver? Atleast Mickey has their intentions clear from the beginning!

Why Paki?

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 09 May 2014 08:25

Re broadband in Assam, was pleasantly surprised with my Reliance "3G" dongle bot 2 yrs ago now delivering 7.2 mbps and consistently usable 4G-like speeds. Upon asking the store that gave me the new sim, I was told that Reliance is in the process of rolling out 4G but IMO its here already, both on my phone and dongle sims. Soon after I got the new sim for the dongle (I take a prepaid sim every visit for it), I got a call from Reliance encouraging me to take a "package with fast speeds upto 3 mbps"! I said no thanks, pls leave things as is.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 09 May 2014 09:28

Ladies and gents, my kid's class wants to send an android phone with camera up in the air tied to a balloon and take pictures and GPS coords and upload them to a website. They bought a phone (Android 2 unfortunately) and asked me (I never did any modern GUI in my life - text would not count) to help them out. I asked them to download (after I did it myself as I believe in "Do what I do not what what I say") the Eclipse+ADT bundle from developer.android.com. They have a deadline which is 10 days from now to launch the thingummagic. They also have some old Java code and PHP running on URL. How difficult is it to do all this stuff? Their old project was successful (2-4 years back at which time they launched a moto iDEN phone). Obviously that code did not load into netbeans IDE (which was what they used previously). I googled a bit and came to the conclusion that Eclipse + ADT is a better way to go. I really hate IDEs. How hard is it to bang out some code on Emacs as starter code and let them change it in Eclipse IDE?

Appreciate it a lot if any of you can give some pointers to some open source existing code (hope I am not sounding like one of those newbees at netzilla).

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 May 2014 10:25

Just go with the Eclipse IDE - its pretty easy to use. This sending phone up in space using a balloon is pretty common: http://android.hibal.org/. You should be able to get code examples showing how to interface with camera, barometer and GPS. Rest is business logic.

Why 10 day deadline hain ji? Is some Agile expert in charge of project?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 09 May 2014 11:00

RB thanks. I saw this balloon thingy a couple of years back on utube. Ten days just a little before end of the acad year for middle ischool in our town. They would also have to write a report most probably. Younger one is getting a lot of HW but he wants to wind up quickly so he can get back to his mine craft world building.

These are twelve year olds. So would be a challenge for them to grok the code, build the balloons housing etc. fir fun I guess. They also have budget of 200 khota sikka.

Agile expert is their teacher and parents

archan · Post by **archan** » 11 May 2014 02:37

Just about to pick up a Lumia 1520 for $400 unlocked. Thinking it will be a tablet with a good camera. Later when LG G3 or Nexus 6 comes out, it can be the primary phone.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 11 May 2014 10:12

Buy for your use case. Not what it is good for. Is it solving your problems? Is it making life easier? Or just another gadget?

Else - white elephant

archan · Post by **archan** » 12 May 2014 10:19

Got it. Anyone suggest a good case and screen protector. Prefer something I can buy off the shelf. Got 4 more days for this trip.
Mb it serves my purpose, I can now send warnings and bans your way from a bigger screen!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 May 2014 11:09

The Sammy GS5 feels cheaper than a $10.- Shenzhen knock-off. No wonder the lead designer got kicked out.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 May 2014 11:14

Meantime the lead engr for pureview is joining apple.

I am up for office laptop replacement and looked at the two options....thinkpads t430, w530 and macbook retina pro.
The quality of thinkpads has fallen steeply since the glory days of the one true legend the t41.... Case cracks, keys not working, trackpad issues, the dvd tray coming out if the laptop is placed with a bump on desk...the macbook looks so much tighter and more tfta in comparison, its a unfair comparison now.

I will try for macbook if stock is there, else for the t430.... Tired of lugging the w series last 4 years.

archan · Post by **archan** » 12 May 2014 16:31

Marten wrote:Archanullah: Buy a skinomi or similar tech screen with a lifetime warranty - whenever the damn thing tears, you can get another free. Benefit is that most cost only 500-800. If you can buy a tempered glass screen, even better. There are very few brands selling tempered glass so you can't go too wrong - just pick one with the best ratings!

PS: Add THIS to my notes. :p
PPS: Goddamnsuperb deal. I have the G2 and believe me, the G3 won't give you anything more. Figure out which apps you really need on WinPhone and see if you're missing anything from the Android store. You'll know the difference!

lemme work with winmo for a bit and see. It's definitely too big and wish they rounded the corners. But its livable. I'll wait till we get the 8.1 update to comment more.
where do you get those cases you mentioned?