Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 10 Jan 2013 23:44

Why should it be illegal?

Its all done nice and propah with contracts, cash advance, escrow ityadi ityadi. Win-win onlee, customer khush, manufacturer khush! If anybody it is GB, HTC, LG who are to blame for not doing long-term planning. And in this case, all credit must go to Bawarchi who was the 1st one to sense this and got the Mahdi to pony up cash to fix those contracts - now Fruit Co. is reaping rewards.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 10 Jan 2013 23:52

Are the ATT 920s dual SIM capable? Then I can buy one, and add an AirTel world sim onto it for desh services. Am I on the right track here?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 10 Jan 2013 23:53

920s are single sim onlee - I dont know of any dual-sim smartphone sold by carriers in massa. In India Sammy sells some Galaxy variants with dual sim.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 10 Jan 2013 23:56

Just read Nokia's press release.. apparently they are already making profit...

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 11 Jan 2013 00:11

Raja Bose wrote:Mortullah, that's the point. If you are a serious photographer you will not be a p&s onlee customer. For the rest owning a $300.- p&s makes less sense as we progress.

Actually, many serious photographers have a couple or more cameras as back ups. An SLR, P&S, range-finder or bridge camera. They will only use their phones when nothing else is available. The one big plus for the Sony RX100, even though it is expensive, is that you can always keep it with you for shooting. I always have a some sort of P&S in my bag no matter where I go.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 11 Jan 2013 00:41

P&S is good for hiking. The 2 kilos start to weigh down after some time ....

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jan 2013 01:24

Yes, I know - most SLR toting folks who are into serious photography also carry a P&S as part of their rig for backup but I am not talking about them. Over time I have seen a pretty sharp decline in use of P&S amongst the casual photography middle class crowd, whether it is oirope, massa or India. Majority of the people in this category whom I still see using P&S are the 50+ crowd. The advantage of carrying a separate camera is that you dont kill your phone (esp ones which come with xenon flash), the disadvantage is its one more thing to carry.

---

Part of the profit is driven by the usual Q4 upswing (common to all CE manufacturers). When they start making profits in Q1 and Q2 in a row - then you can say the turnaround has happened.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 11 Jan 2013 02:48

So, are you suggesting that the rest of are not middle class just because we use an SLR?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 11 Jan 2013 02:54

So, SLR : elite, P&S: Middle and phone device as camera are the blue color labor low class?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech ... 967379.cms

toilet article says win 8 is a let down for 920.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jan 2013 03:18

Mort Walker wrote:So, are you suggesting that the rest of are not middle class just because we use an SLR?

No I am saying you don't belong to the middle class casual photographer but belong to the middle class photography enthusiast category.

The ToIlet article about the 920 is a bit clueless though. The 920 has 2 problems - no as big a selection of apps and its too big (as in 4.5 inches big).

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 11 Jan 2013 03:20

SaiK wrote:So, SLR : elite, P&S: Middle and phone device as camera are the blue color labor low class?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech ... 967379.cms

toilet article says win 8 is a let down for 920.

It says letdown for only two reasons. One- lack of real multi-tasking, two-lack of as many apps as iOS or android.

I don't agree with the review. The phone is realy easy to use and very intuitive compared to android. I have been using it for couple of months, and haven't faced any issue with it.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 11 Jan 2013 04:35

You evil classist bose-mullah!

While cameraphones are great for everyday use photography-wise, for trips and vacations, I'd say the p&s is still a great option if you don't want to lug an SLR around. The canon s100 for example weighs just a margin over the galaxy s3. You can stuff both in your pockets and be on your merry way

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 11 Jan 2013 09:15

Raja Bose wrote: The 920 has 2 problems - no as big a selection of apps and its too big (as in 4.5 inches big).

It has another problem, that being battery life. The Galaxy S3 GSM version has decent battery life. The Nexus 4 is so-so and I'm not too impressed with it in this regard.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 11 Jan 2013 09:16

The Canon S100 is a great camera for P&S.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 11 Jan 2013 09:19

I have a decent Pentax DSLR setup, with f/2.8 lenses from 16mm to 200mm, plus a couple of f/1.4 and f/1.2 primes. My 808 is handy when we go out for dinner/clubbing, and don't want to lug the bulk of the DSLR around. I'm very happy to get shots like this:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
(look closely, you can see the chocolate around her chin!)

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 13 Jan 2013 00:22

oh man...love the LARGE inline images

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Jan 2013 02:21

In this case we forgive Bhairav-uddin becoz the subject of the picture is super cute!!

Bhairav mian, how old is she now? 2? And only if you don't mind revealing, name?

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 13 Jan 2013 04:00

Facekitab has announced "come what we are building" event on tuesday. Seigler is going all nuts suggesting it is a facekitab OS. Would be interesting

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Jan 2013 04:36

Hope to God they don't release a freakin' phone - that would be total KLPD for them.

Siegler and Topolsky are both idiots - have met 'em f2f and they might as well be Rahul Gandhis of tech blogging.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Jan 2013 08:39

q for the HW spec gurus.

there are phones like the karbonn A21 with seemingly the same specs as a phone thats 2X the price like the samsung galaxy S3 mini (10K vs 20K)
1.2 Ghz dual core processor , 4" IPS panel etc etc
build quality diffs like more panel gaps, ill fitting charger socket etc I can understand.

yet people are still complaining of significant SW issues like UI lags , dropped calls, poor call quality, weak battery, hazy screen problems on such cheap "too good to be true" phones when the same Android 4.x is used.

almost same HW, same SW. is it a mental thing in that you expect cheap things to fail and hence tend to complain more, while giving the benefit of doubt to more expensive kit like samsung or apple?

or is there something else like motherboard architecture that gets the butter smoothness and lagless thing going? are the diffs in the HW for calls and antennas used?

see comments here
http://www.flipkart.com/karbonn-a21/p/i ... bonn%20a21

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 13 Jan 2013 09:02

Raja Bose wrote:In this case we forgive Bhairav-uddin becoz the subject of the picture is super cute!! Bhairav mian, how old is she now? 2? And only if you don't mind revealing, name?

sorry for the large image,was done in a hurry! Nope,she is only 11 months old..her name is Prisha, which means God's Gift in Sanskrit..appropriate we think as we lost her sister a year before she was born.

@ Singha Saar - check if Xda has custom ROMs for these phones, IMO it is a software issue onlee.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 13 Jan 2013 09:02

It could be a thermal issue.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Jan 2013 09:04

^^^There are many variables which paper specs wont tell you. This includes quality of manufacturing, board design and all that but most importantly the quality of components used (including passive components) and quality of boards themselves. Also, what type of memory is used - if they are using el-cheapo memory you will see UX issues. Then thermal management and power management is another factor. Another factor is the EMI and noise on the boards (this has caused more trouble than anything else I have seen in mobile device PCBs). And this is not including other factors such as type & quality of display/touch window/housing mechanics/battery ityadi. Just becoz a MediaTek kit has a Cortex A9 doesn't mean it will perform as well as a GB/Sammy kit with Cortex A9. Nothing is free in the world hence if it is considerably cheaper, they are cutting corners somewhere.

In a smartphone, calls go thru the baseband processor whereas all the bling bling buttery smooth fart apps goes thru app processor (which is what is advertised to the consumer as the smartphone's "CPU"). Every cellphone has multiple antennas and more are getting crammed in due to demands for a device to support all the alphabet soups. RF design is essentially a black art and is very critical to performance (something GB historically excelled in) and takes a ton of time and money to get right unless you are Fruit Co. (then you can conveniently blame everything on the customer

).

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 13 Jan 2013 09:39

Yes, I forgot to mention RF Signal Integrity which requires a careful board design and also can be adversely impacted by thermal properties of the enclosure. Not only the EDA tools can cost a bundle (upwards $100K per year per seat), they need to be used by experts who understand the engineering aspects of the physics involved. Black art indeed.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 13 Jan 2013 14:46

Singha wrote: almost same HW, same SW. is it a mental thing in that you expect cheap things to fail and hence tend to complain more, while giving the benefit of doubt to more expensive kit like samsung or apple?

It is not necessary that the software is the same even if the version # says so. Several manufacturers add their own stuff on top of the Android OS, but don't change the version # to reflect that they're running a customized android. Perhaps some of the mods might be causing issues.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 13 Jan 2013 18:02

Marten wrote:Saw the iball Andi 4.5h in person yesterday (read online that it's a Chinese Malata . Not bad at all! Respect to the Chinese for being able to copy and modify whatever designs are out there. Some of them have Oiro designers and it shows in the quality. The fit and finish aren't great, but they're decent enough. And 90% of the users wouldn't know the difference between a dual core or single core. In fact, they do not even need to run background processes for how they use the phone (it would seem twice as fast if they enabled the destroy background activities option enabled). Colleague tried this and is reasonably happy with his Karbon. I need to wait a few more weeks to get one of these cheap-ass phones.

Which phone isn't made by Chini/Taiwani BTW ?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 13 Jan 2013 19:43

matrimc wrote:Yes, I forgot to mention RF Signal Integrity which requires a careful board design and also can be adversely impacted by thermal properties of the enclosure. Not only the EDA tools can cost a bundle (upwards $100K per year per seat), they need to be used by experts who understand the engineering aspects of the physics involved. Black art indeed.

Its not so much a black art, but the electrical engineers who can do this are few. You need someone who can design boards and ICs at high frequencies, can limit signal loss and optimize batteries, understands antenna design, microwave power dissipation, incorporate it in to a small package, and finally be reliable with a relatively high MTBF for consumer electronics. If you look inside a modern smart phone, there are antennas, chipset transmitter/receiver for NFC, Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi (multiple frequencies), GSM, 3G, CDMA, and LTE.

Generally, these EEs will have an MS or PhD and have 5-7 years of microwave engineering experience. If you need microwave engineering experience from a company that can provide it, be prepared to pay labor rates of $250-$350 per hour. I'm sure as RB put it that GB has these sort of people, but for consumer electronics stuff, I found the microwave engineers from MOTO to be really good because they had experience with other radio technologies. Unfortunately, MOTO has other problems in the mobile phone industry. The rest of these guys come from the defense and aerospace industries.

During AAPL's antenna gate issue, AAPL had job openings for RF/microwave engineers with specific antenna design experience. IIRC, these positions stayed open for quite a while, indicating AAPL couldn't find the persons at the price they wanted. From what I understand AAPL is kanjoos SDRE baniya when paying salaries for their grunts that do the day to day work.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 13 Jan 2013 20:42

What about the metal body vs polycarbonate unibody.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 13 Jan 2013 23:10

Generally you want to shield the case from the circuit so you don't create some ground issues, but the case can be used as an antenna with proper isolation. As seen with aluminum Mac Book. The material for the case for the most part for phones is selected for mechanical properties and aesthetics, though parts of it can be used as an antenna. Even the cheap back of Samsung phones have a piece of foil taped in for an NFC antenna.

Most phones have their antennas or antenna input at the bottom of the phone.

Just wanted to add that simulation s/w for RF circuits, as said earlier, is expensive and only takes you so far. Often at high frequencies you have amps that behave non linearly and components that add RF interference, noise, and intermodulation effects on the entire circuit. Isolation is the key, but it can become expensive. That's why we pay some of these guys big money for optimized designs.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jan 2013 00:30

Mortullah, my BIL is one of those few (he is ex-Motor Oil). When it really comes down to pushing the envelop, it is somewhat a black art and there have been cases where how it works was figured out much after it magically worked.

Motor Oil lost a lot of great RF people back in 2007 - they all went to QCOM, GB, Renesas and defence. When Fruit Co. was doing its dog-and-pony show to the media after Antennagate, showing them their toy like anechoic chamber and trying to impress fanbois as if no other company does such testing and the Mahdi invented it, some of these same grizzled vets injured themselves laughing.

Mort Walker wrote:Generally you want to shield the case from the circuit so you don't create some ground issues, but the case can be used as an antenna with proper isolation.

Or as the Mahdi said, you gotta hold it right!

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 14 Jan 2013 05:11

RB,

Shortly before that time GB lost talent as well. MOTO still has talented people who are in Schaumburg, IL (Chicago) though they went through a lot of down sizing. The GB fellows I know went in to defense and aerospace who are doing some truly black arts type of stuff. There is a lot of money in the mobile phone industry and I'm sure they have some really good talent there too.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jan 2013 05:41

RF in mobile is getting commoditized and number of positions is pretty low and most require moving to a new place which is why there are few takers in Silicon Valley (unlike say DFW area or even White Plains). Chacha is building some infra related to RF development after the DARPA lady joined but its an uphill battle. Schaumburg will still have some folks left (being Motor Oil HQ and all) but future is bleak. Most of GB's talent in RF is in Finland (the ones in TX probably left) so still captive in a way. ChipZ opened a facility there to attract some of those stars.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 14 Jan 2013 08:45

I can believe it is getting commoditized. From my narrow perspective, there is still work to be done on making more universal radios that can handle any modulation and a wide band of frequencies for LTE. High power RF guys are getting harder to find. The fellows on Hansen Way or in Beverly, MA are becoming a rare breed. Nearly 20 years back one old timer RF engineer/scientist (who knew the Varian brothers personally) said to me that the smart guys got to work on the Manhattan Project and the flunkies went to work on radar!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jan 2013 09:46

^^^I met some of those grizzled vets while in FL. A lot of them were ex-AF and were not 'conventionally' educated but could run circles around any fancy pants EE pee-chaddi.

Whatever you do while visiting Si Valley, don't eat at the Varian cafeteria now - I think they test high power RF on the food being served. Right opposite them now are the Nest thermostat guys (started by the iPod inventor).

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 14 Jan 2013 10:08

In the past I always ate at the Fish Market, never in their cafeteria, and then on my way back to the hotel always stopped by the original Fry's Electronics.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jan 2013 10:19

Fish Market is the only decent place closest to them. If you walk a bit more now there is a place called Sichuan Bistro - one of their dishes is purely red chillies, chilly oil and chicken sauteed in the former 2. The GM Advanced technology lab is right next to Fry's. Anyhow now my visits are not that frequent to that neck of woods.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 14 Jan 2013 15:01

Nokia Lumia 920 debuts in India at INR 38,199...

(there goes my chance to owning one)

820 is reasonably priced at INR 27,599...will end by buying this one after selling my Lumia 800. Seems to be a good phone with Dual Core Processor @1.5 GHz Snapdragon 4 and 1 GB RAM. 8 GB internal memory with Micro SD card for up to 32 GB. In terms of size, it has same dimensions as Lumia 900. Which itself would make is a pretty big phone (Not that I am complaining). Lumia 720 is yet to be launched.

So, with x20 range, Nokia has phones in all categories. While 920 competes with S3/Note 2/Apple 5/HTC One X+. 820 will compete against S2/Apple 4/Sony.

While 920 is the most expected phoe, I expect 820 to be the main driver for this latest series.

manish · Post by **manish** » 14 Jan 2013 16:57

Apple Cuts Orders for iPhone Parts

Apple Inc. has cut its orders for components for the iPhone 5 due to weaker-than-expected demand, people familiar with the situation said Monday.

Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had previously planned to order, two of the people said.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has also cut orders for components other than screens, according to one of the people.

Is it only due to sharply lower sales or due to perhaps an accelerated intro schedule for a 5S?

I would guess it is a bit of both - they would probably need to rush a 5S to market, may be in time for the rumoured entry of the GSIV.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jan 2013 21:47

I am a bit dhoti shivering about Bawarchi now....it was much more pissfull under the Mahdi.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 15 Jan 2013 03:18

Looks like the S3 really bit into the appils market share?