Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 12 May 2013 18:48

HTC one is the best android phone out there now period. The design, body, camera low light performance, screen and speakers make it a notch above everything else.

Doesn't have removable battery or storage. May not be the right thing for you if you want these.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 12 May 2013 22:45

agreed.

I do like removable batteries though. good to boost and have backup in your phone.

i bought a t mobile vibrant in november 2010 and it is still serving me well with cyanogem mod and a new battery.

in fact i might just flog it out and wait till old bess really gives up on me to buy a new phone....

or maybe i buy the htc one.

i want to try something apart from samsunggg.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 12 May 2013 23:31

Anujan wrote:HTC one is the best android phone out there now period. The design, body, camera low light performance, screen and speakers make it a notch above everything else.

Doesn't have removable battery or storage. May not be the right thing for you if you want these.

It might be if HTC did regular s/w updates. The HTC One ships with Android 4.1.2 and the S4 ships with Android 4.2.2. The S4 has also received one Samsung update since release. Too much remains to be seen about HTC. Next week KLP or Android 4.3 will be released at Google I/O. Samsung will push it out quickly to the S3, Note, Note 2, and S4. Who knows when it will come to the HTC One X and One?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 May 2013 07:12

why do some vendors find it so difficult to push updates?
is it lack of devtest people to re-run the testplan on each device?
or the carriers are unwilling to take the time and effort to push OTA updates?

nowadays android has option to poll for update only when Wifi is there, direct from company server...like samsung kies does. so HTC could use that option and bypass carriers .... everyone has some wifi at home who has a big smartphone.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 13 May 2013 08:53

The bandwidth is not an issue with carriers.

Basically the carriers want to "certify" any updates that are pushed out to the phones sold through the carriers. And they take a hell a lot of time to "certify" (essentially make sure that they install their crapware and prevent installation of software that threatens their business model -- like seamless calling on wifi).

On top of that OEMs are not incentivized to update your phone.
The first reason is genuine. They have 4000 models with 300 minor variants for each (each carrier demands and exclusive and then there are international variants). The software teams are small. They need to test out the OEM crapware on each of these phones and keep the up-to-date *while* working on crapware for the new phones that are coming out.

The second reason is as follows: If your 2011 phone works as well as a 2013 phone, widgets, smooth scrolling and all that -- why would you want to upgrade your phone? Take the laptop analogy -- the moment laptops hit "acceptable performance" benchmark and their OS could be upgraded, laptop upgrade cycles started becoming longer and longer. It is ~6 years or so now. The same will happen to cell phones. If you can run all the apps that you want with acceptable speed, and if the phone is getting regular updates, why would you want to upgrade?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 May 2013 09:13

Another major issue specific to Android is the manufacturers have to update their skins (and test them) to run on the new Android version and then push out the 3000 variants custom for each carrier/country/religious ideology. All that takes time. Its essentially the old Symbian model in a new bottle.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 13 May 2013 09:34

^^ tell me about it.

and then vendors who develop physical devices for android, then have to match every flavour possible...leading to a lot of rona dhona on our end.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 13 May 2013 09:36

Anujan wrote: The second reason is as follows: If your 2011 phone works as well as a 2013 phone, widgets, smooth scrolling and all that -- why would you want to upgrade your phone? Take the laptop analogy -- the moment laptops hit "acceptable performance" benchmark and their OS could be upgraded, laptop upgrade cycles started becoming longer and longer. It is ~6 years or so now. The same will happen to cell phones. If you can run all the apps that you want with acceptable speed, and if the phone is getting regular updates, why would you want to upgrade?

why then does APple push out iOS updates so well and update the lower end versions like 3GS too ???

(BTW; I root and then CM my android. So i am essentially free of this update bull)

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 May 2013 10:10

Apparently Notion Ink is alive and kicking with Adam II on the way

Notion Ink Adam II teased at India's National Technology Awards, reportedly priced at $218

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 13 May 2013 10:47

To get updates on my Nokia LUMIA 800, all I need to do is hook on laptop and Zune software installs the update...updated the OS from Win 7 to Win 7.8 which has some features of Win 8 as well as allows some nice apps to work on my phone.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 13 May 2013 10:51

Got my dad an S3, for 24k from indiatimes shopping - Indian warranty. Great price. Good upgrade from his E52.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 May 2013 11:32

why would the skins not work with a later android. nobody needs to test all linux apps the moment a new linux distro comes out.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 May 2013 11:40

^^Becoz the skin is not an app and actually are no longer simply skins which modify the look and feel onlee. They hook into various parts of the Android OS and folks like Sammy have all sorts of geegaws integrated deeply into the OS. Someone said the SW teams are small. That's not really true for all OEMs. For example, Sammy has hoards of SW folks (a lot of them SDRE) who work on Android SW exclusively. To this end, Sammy's cafeteria in their Korean HQ has pretty good SDRE food options including basic dal, chawal, roti for everyday use. A family friend who supplies a pretty famous IC design tool has Sammy as his customer and observed that a few weeks ago when he did his rounds of their HQ.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 May 2013 11:55

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 13 May 2013 13:35

^^^What is this LUMIA? Another in x20 series?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 13 May 2013 18:07

Marten wrote:Can't see the video (blocked by work firewall), but assume it's the Verizon 928. Waiting for this model to hit Ebay.

If you're in to Windows phone, then OK, but I would wait to see the reviews of this device as there may be some issues on battery life. On the surface this appears to be another has-been device destined so VZW can make money out of it, so I would wait until reviews are out, JMHO.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 13 May 2013 18:11

Raja Bose wrote:^^Becoz the skin is not an app and actually are no longer simply skins which modify the look and feel onlee. They hook into various parts of the Android OS and folks like Sammy have all sorts of geegaws integrated deeply into the OS. Someone said the SW teams are small. That's not really true for all OEMs. For example, Sammy has hoards of SW folks (a lot of them SDRE) who work on Android SW exclusively. To this end, Sammy's cafeteria in their Korean HQ has pretty good SDRE food options including basic dal, chawal, roti for everyday use. A family friend who supplies a pretty famous IC design tool has Sammy as his customer and observed that a few weeks ago when he did his rounds of their HQ.

The skin is the UI that Sammy, HTC, MOTO, LG, Sony and others use to distinguish their device from one another from plain Android. Sammy definitely has a lot of people working on s/w so that they can sell their services like AAPL. The others don't have as many people.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 May 2013 21:12

Marten wrote:Can't see the video (blocked by work firewall), but assume it's the Verizon 928. Waiting for this model to hit Ebay.

No this is not the 928. Looks like one with some new fangled camera...the ad tagline gives it away.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 May 2013 21:33

Nokia announces the Lumia 925: a thinner, lighter aluminum body coming June for 469 euros

I like the ID on this one but too bad only TMo is getting it so 928 it is. Now waiting till HTC/FruitCo/Sammy add a 6th lens to their cameras and call it revolutionary.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 14 May 2013 23:13

Raja Bose wrote:Nokia announces the Lumia 925: a thinner, lighter aluminum body coming June for 469 euros

I like the ID on this one but too bad only TMo is getting it so 928 it is. Now waiting till HTC/FruitCo/Sammy add a 6th lens to their cameras and call it revolutionary.

Nokia should forget OIS, wireless charging etc and make a aluminium bodied phone concentrating purely on the looks and see how it fares against iphone. OIS and wireless charging has so far been responsible for weight, thickness or a hump. Those who want a great camera can buy the one with OIS and those who want a slim camera can buy without OIS. If they insist on having OIS, they should advertise the damn thing. And why exclusive phones for various carriers? I can understand why iphone does not need to make exclusive phones, but even Samsung doesn't make exclusive phones neither does htc. Instead of making three different phones for three different carriers with almost the same features and size, wouldn't it be better to make three phones of varying features and sizes and make them available on all carriers? After the exclusivity ended it should have just made the 920 available on all the carriers or better still keep the shape of the 920 but make it lighter and add the xenon like the 928.

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 14 May 2013 23:30

hanumadu wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:Nokia announces the Lumia 925: a thinner, lighter aluminum body coming June for 469 euros

I like the ID on this one but too bad only TMo is getting it so 928 it is. Now waiting till HTC/FruitCo/Sammy add a 6th lens to their cameras and call it revolutionary.
Nokia should forget OIS, wireless charging etc and make a aluminium bodied phone concentrating purely on the looks and see how it fares against iphone. OIS and wireless charging has so far been responsible for weight, thickness or a hump. Those who want a great camera can buy the one with OIS and those who want a slim camera can buy without OIS. If they insist on having OIS, they should advertise the damn thing. And why exclusive phones for various carriers? I can understand why iphone does not need to make exclusive phones, but even Samsung doesn't make exclusive phones neither does htc. Instead of making three different phones for three different carriers with almost the same features and size, wouldn't it be better to make three phones of varying features and sizes and make them available on all carriers? After the exclusivity ended it should have just made the 920 available on all the carriers or better still keep the shape of the 920 but make it lighter and add the xenon like the 928.

If only carriers were so open-minded fair-minded and logical to allow that.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 May 2013 23:47

Nobody except FruitCo can get away with not having exclusive phones for each carrier - that includes Sammy and HTC.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 May 2013 00:59

^^^And the Nexus line from chacha.

Even then AAPL in the US has CDMA models for VZW & Sprint, and GSM models for ATT & TMO.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 15 May 2013 01:04

^why that exception to fruitCo? why is that people love the pads from fruit rather the droids from sammies? fruits have many times fumbled and sent decaying smell.. still people flock for it.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 15 May 2013 01:08

Nexus is not sold through carriers.

for phones sold through carriers (where most massa citizens buy phones) only fruitco has the upper hand to ask them to STFU take it or leave it negotiation. Increasingly Sammy.

Other cell phone cos have to give a time line, offer "exclusives", come up with ridiculous names, ityadi.

Nokia is making great phones. Don't know why the sales are still sluggish.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 15 May 2013 01:13

There are extremists in both fruitco and Sammy, but fruitco has better PR

It is the whole Hermes vs JCPenny thing. People are willing to fork 10,000$ on birkin but won't shop till they see a deal in JCP (true story. Read the saga of fruitco retail chief heading JCP nearly killing the company trying to make it "upscale" and getting fired for it).

Fruitco is a "brand". It takes a lot of time to set one up and a lot of time for it to die. Mahdi understood this. And that is the same reason leaky Jaguars still sell.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 15 May 2013 01:20

Raja Bose wrote: I like the ID on this one but too bad only TMo is getting it so 928 it is. Now waiting till HTC/FruitCo/Sammy add a 6th lens to their cameras and call it revolutionary.

Boseullah, I thought you'd be happy with the direction HTC went with the HTC One. They actually reduced the pixel count and concentrated on improving low light performance. Sammy of course put a 13 MP camera on the S4.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 May 2013 02:06

I like HTC for their design - they just suffer from poor manufacturing at times and bad marketing. HTC One X's camera is better than any turd Sammy dishes out but they are still behind technology-wise/UX-wise compared to the ones in GB's current high-end phones (Lumia 92x).

Nexus doesn't sell thru any major carrier and when it did it was totally b@sturdized by the carrier (VZW I think). Just making good phones is not enough - you gotta negotiate with the stuffy suits at carriers. GB basically burnt all its bridges with US carriers when its previous CEO was heading NAM ops by refusing to agree to any carrier demands. Now they are paying for it. But looks like they have finally got their teeth in and are increasingly gaining traction - their sales are rising and they are regaining volume for smartphones even in markets like India while their ASP is the highest they ever had. Rest is up to how successful Mickey is with its behind the scenes wheeling dealing - that's where its leverage in home/PC/cloud comes into play.

Sammy cannot do a FruitCo with carriers - it simply does not have the same brand equity. If pissed carriers can tell Sammy to go take a hike like they did to GB back in 2005-6 and there is LG/HTC waiting in the wings to grab and run. If Motor Oil gets itself in shape they would be a challenger but not yet even with their impending Xfon/Xphone launch.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 May 2013 02:07

Mort Walker wrote:^^^And the Nexus line from chacha.

Even then AAPL in the US has CDMA models for VZW & Sprint, and GSM models for ATT & TMO.

Yes but it is the same UI, same experience, zero bloat across all the devices so for the customer there is no variance really. The same cant be said for other platforms.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 15 May 2013 02:22

Anujan wrote: Nokia is making great phones. Don't know why the sales are still sluggish.

Same reason why everyone else has struggled to sell smartphones. People are still too enamored by the iPhunwa.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 May 2013 03:12

Raja Bose wrote: Yes but it is the same UI, same experience, zero bloat across all the devices so for the customer there is no variance really. The same cant be said for other platforms.

On the VZW and Sprint versions you can not do voice and data at the same time. This is true for AAPL and GOOG.
Some people use this feature regularly when the phone is their GPS in the car and are navigating and talking through a head set. Or if they are on a conference call and are looking something up on the cloud while speaking.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 May 2013 03:34

Raja Bose wrote:Nokia announces the Lumia 925: a thinner, lighter aluminum body coming June for 469 euros
I like the ID on this one but too bad only TMo is getting it so 928 it is.

If only Nokia has Android, that would make it a worthwhile competitor to the others. No one wants Windows 8 it is a turd. No developer support and soon MSFT will be moving on to Windows 8.1. Windows 8 was so abysmally a failure that MSFT is going to make Windows 8.1 for free. Total worldwide Windows 8 installs are 59 million of 100 million licenses sold, because most people did like what I did. Have a few licenses for Windows 8, but installed Windows 7 instead.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 May 2013 03:55

Raja Bose wrote:Sammy cannot do a FruitCo with carriers - it simply does not have the same brand equity. If pissed carriers can tell Sammy to go take a hike like they did to GB back in 2005-6 and there is LG/HTC waiting in the wings to grab and run. If Motor Oil gets itself in shape they would be a challenger but not yet even with their impending Xfon/Xphone launch.

It is true Sammy can't dictate to carriers in the US or anywhere else in the world, but Sammy has sales of devices that people like and they do sell. LG/HTC/MOTO simply do not have the capacity to produce the numbers of devices and release of flagships every 6 months or so like Sammy. The Note 3 comes out in Sep. 2013 and by April 2014 the S5 will be released. Even the old S2 is getting JB updates from Sammy. Good luck on getting timely updates from those other duffers.

The S4 is the only device with sensors that the others don't have and will be utilized by various developers.

Temperature / Humidity Sensor – checks temperature and humidity levels
RGB Light Sensor (Samsung Adapt Display) – Measures the red, green, blue, and white intensity of the light source.
Gesture Sensor– recognizes the user’s hand movements using infrared rays
Proximity Sensor – recognizes whether the mobile phone is located near the user by using infrared rays
Face Recognition- used for Smart Pause, which pauses a video when the user looks away and resumes when the user returns, and Samsung Smart Scroll, which allows the user to scroll up and down without touching the screen.
Finger Hovering- measures electric currents that change when the user’s hand is in close proximity to the touch screen. (First debuted with GALAXY Note 2, this is the first time the technology can be used without an S Pen.)
Infrared emitter - for remote control capability

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 May 2013 04:17

Mort Walker wrote: If only Nokia has Android, that would make it a worthwhile competitor to the others.

That would kill GB faster than it could say Droid.

Sammy rules the Android space plus Android is not a good fit for anyone who wants to monetize on their own services which compete with Chacha's. That is the reason why Sammy may abandon it after a while once they have a solid services portfolio - there is a reason why all Sammy apps/services don't get pushed thru Google Play and they have a separate Samsung app store.

Mort Walker wrote: No one wants Windows 8 it is a turd. No developer support and soon MSFT will be moving on to Windows 8.1. Windows 8 was so abysmally a failure that MSFT is going to make Windows 8.1 for free.

Mortullah, don't let hate blind you to reality - sales volume trajectory till date is exactly same for Win8 and Win7.

Win 8.1 is an upgrade to Win8 - that's why its called Win 8.1 and not Win 9. Mickey is switching to a yearly upgrade model for desktop just like mobile SW so no surprise there that Win 8.1 is coming a year after Win 8. They will go for their usual tic-toc with the toc being free.

URL

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 15 May 2013 04:38

I see Samsung S4, S3, HTC 8X on verizon and att. May be there is a difference in colours or storage, but the basic model remains the same.

GB seems to be doing well in other than US, especially with its lower end models. Of course, it doesn't have many phones in the US, especially it has a high end phone only with att until now. It is slowly getting some traction with the developers too.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 May 2013 04:38

Mort Walker wrote: The S4 is the only device with sensors that the others don't have and will be utilized by various developers.

Temperature / Humidity Sensor – checks temperature and humidity levels
RGB Light Sensor (Samsung Adapt Display) – Measures the red, green, blue, and white intensity of the light source.
Gesture Sensor– recognizes the user’s hand movements using infrared rays
Proximity Sensor – recognizes whether the mobile phone is located near the user by using infrared rays
Face Recognition- used for Smart Pause, which pauses a video when the user looks away and resumes when the user returns, and Samsung Smart Scroll, which allows the user to scroll up and down without touching the screen.
Finger Hovering- measures electric currents that change when the user’s hand is in close proximity to the touch screen. (First debuted with GALAXY Note 2, this is the first time the technology can be used without an S Pen.)
Infrared emitter - for remote control capability

This reminds of the old argument Symbian fanbois used to go on about back in the days. Its as specious now as it was back in the days.

The face recognition stuff for Smart Pause & Smart Scroll is total crap (or turd if you will) - one just needs to see the Smart Pause demo videos from Samsung to notice that. Finger hovering is just a side-effect of using a projected capacitive touch sensor - its not a separate sensor. Instead of a gimmick like that Sammy would be better served if they can introduce touch technology like GB has for its Lumia 92x phones which allow use with finger nails and gloves. All phones have the proximity sensor. Having an IR emitter is like the FM radio - a vestige of old smartphones, gestures are detected by gyroscope and accelerometer (motion based) and by FF camera (vision-based) and vision-based gestures are kinda useless for small form factor devices despite all the academic coolness associated with it. The current barometer sensors on-chip are not that good and wasting BOM cost and component space for that is not that smart unless one likes a checklist of gimmicks like Sammy does.

Mort Walker wrote:
Raja Bose wrote: Yes but it is the same UI, same experience, zero bloat across all the devices so for the customer there is no variance really. The same cant be said for other platforms.
On the VZW and Sprint versions you can not do voice and data at the same time. This is true for AAPL and GOOG.
Some people use this feature regularly when the phone is their GPS in the car and are navigating and talking through a head set.

Chacha needs to support offline maps to get around that problem.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 May 2013 05:44

Raja Bose wrote:Mortullah, don't let hate blind you to reality - sales volume trajectory till date is exactly same for Win8 and Win7. Win 8.1 is an upgrade to Win8 - that's why its called Win 8.1 and not Win 9. Mickey is switching to a yearly upgrade model for desktop just like mobile SW so no surprise there that Win 8.1 is coming a year after Win 8. They will go for their usual tic-toc with the toc being free.

This is not about licenses sold, but actually installed. Windows Vista is installed on 71 million devices and Win 8 on 59 million. What happened to the 41 million other licenses sold? It means people didn't install them or uninstalled them. If I recall, Windows 3.0 to 3.1, 3.1 to 98, XP to Vista and Vista to Win 7 were all purchases. It appears MSFT is putting old wine in to a new bottle. In reality Win 8.1 is a service pack that they should put out as such, but MSFT knows people will ignore it all together, hence the "free" distribution of 8.1. Maybe it will work, but as you said, MSFT doesn't give a crap because whatever it is people use whatever version Windows as a necessary evil. It smells like a turd and is one by any other name no matter what sort fancy sales graphs used.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 May 2013 05:53

Raja Bose wrote: This reminds of the old argument Symbian fanbois used to go on about back in the days. Its as specious now as it was back in the days.

No, the Android developer base is more sophisticated and extensive than Symbian. What Samsung has done, the other Android OEMs will also do, there will be plenty of apps to use the myriad of sensors. Samsung is the engineering leader for Android. The S4 has the touch technology http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/14/41060 ... ith-gloves

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 May 2013 06:01

^^^It may be a turd but its a sticky one - one without a viable alternative till date. That's the dream of every platform vendor out there. What's wrong with the others? Are they sleeping for decades and couldn't come up with a better OS despite all the

? BTW Mickey does not sell individual licenses direct to users (unless you buy a Surface), it sells volume licenses to OEMs and other retailers. So the number of licenses sold by Mickey will always be lower than the number of machines running Win8 and unless Mickey releases the actual activation numbers (which it never has for any version of Windows for whatever reason) at best those anal-e-cyst numbers are guesses.

Mickey needs to ensure barrier synchronization otherwise it will keep growing its legacy tail like it has till date. Hence, now they are doing it like FruitCo has been doing with OS X. Win 8.1 is same as an OS X upgrade pushed by FruitCo except you don't pay for it and your Visual Studio doesn't mysteriously stop working if you don't upgrade. FruitCo actually required me to upgrade my XCode which required me to upgrade my OS X all becoz I needed to use the new Twitter API in iOS

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 May 2013 06:04

Mort Walker wrote:
Raja Bose wrote: This reminds of the old argument Symbian fanbois used to go on about back in the days. Its as specious now as it was back in the days.
No, the Android developer base is more sophisticated and extensive than Symbian. What Samsung has done, the other Android OEMs will also do, there will be plenty of apps to use the myriad of sensors. Samsung is the engineering leader for Android. The S4 has the touch technology http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/14/41060 ... ith-gloves

Android developer base is magically more sophisticated? Good luck finding good apps using some of those sensors - they have been around in phones for ages and I am still waiting for a useful non-gimmicky app which uses them. Pretty much any apps which pops up (like the Smart Scroll crap) looks and works like something you would come across in a UbiComp demo session - pretty, maybe cool and pretty useless.

I like this comment from the article:

It’s an S3 with more S-gimmicks that people won’t use.