Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Oct 2013 19:58

and you are aware that RB can permanently ban you in a heartbeat now?

vina · Post by **vina** » 18 Oct 2013 20:30

Singha wrote:and you are aware that RB can permanently ban you in a heartbeat now?

But he has to eat Tandoori Crow , drink gallons of crow soup and if he comes to Bangalore and goes to "Empire" eat "Kaka" (ie crow) Biriyani all the same, even after banning me!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Oct 2013 21:09

Marissa is truly the Rahul Gandhi of ITvity. Yahoo! revenues are falling YoY, no signs of monetization of anything, no hero products, crappy lipstick on pig UI redesigns and despite all that we are hearing paens of praise for a alleged turnaround. And from whom? Exclusively from middle aged Yum Bee Ayes/anal-e-cysts whose tambus got bambooed by staring at her Vogue asset spread

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 18 Oct 2013 21:14

And I hate the Yahhoo mail interface which demands to be changed. Very irritating. Gmail with all its adds is equally worse.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Oct 2013 21:17

^^use outlook.com - that's one thing Mickey did right for a change

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Oct 2013 21:25

Is outlook.com free?

May be time to shift but too many have my gmail address - both brf one and the personal one. Unfortunately my brf avatar gets recommended to my personal circles as well. They must be wondering who this matrimc is (especially so because most have never heard of Robert Jordan/Sanderson).

kenop · Post by **kenop** » 18 Oct 2013 21:30

Even in second hand bookshops , Millman Halkias is found in very pristine conditions

Even a non-EE-stream person like me have a copy picked from the roadside second-hand-books-vendors of namma Bengaluru.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Oct 2013 21:38

Singha wrote:
negi wrote:^Sab yahi bolte hain
Speaking of tech. I still have my Millman & Halkias and Nashelsky & Boylstead ; I kept them thinking that they will make a nice chi chi addition to the library and some day mi kids will grow in awe of their father, all for H&D onlee.
these books are to be kept nicely on bookshelf with knuth, dragon book, ullman theory of computation etc to impress brunette femme freshers & kids with. throw in a couple thin books on Lisp and Prolog for spice. few dusty copies of printed journal papers the prof gave for waste disposal strategically placed untidily around the place also builds street cred.

Daniel Hillis in his thesis Connection Machine (which has been published by MIT press as the best CS thesis of all time) has this to say in the bibliography section for Knuth. Hillis has a short blurb for each reference but Knuth had just the following sentence.

Danile Hillis wrote: (I am one of those people who keeps thinking, "One of these days I am going to sit down and read all of Knuth.")

That said some people really read all of Knuth - my adviser for one. But noe a din he slowed down and I was pleasantly surprised to find that on a couple of occasions I had the "undeniable upper hand."

I do have two versions of Ullmans Automata book in the shelf. I had given my grad course copy to somebody and as expected was never returned. So went and bought the new one only to find that they diluted the discussions and completely excised the chapter on Linear Bounded Automata which have some beautiful theory (as they can recognize context sensitive languages). So went and bought the a new copy of the older edition.

Looks like Singha had a peek into my study/library

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Oct 2013 21:59

matrimc wrote:Is outlook.com free?

May be time to shift but too many have my gmail address - both brf one and the personal one. Unfortunately my brf avatar gets recommended to my personal circles as well. They must be wondering who this matrimc is (especially so because most have never heard of Robert Jordan/Sanderson).

besides which matrimc sounds like a matrimonial site.
sorry couldnt resist..

saip · Post by **saip** » 18 Oct 2013 21:59

One thing I hate in Gmail is you can't sort. Outlook is better that way.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 18 Oct 2013 22:06

matrimc wrote:Is outlook.com free?

Yes its free.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Oct 2013 22:21

So when you register, its asking for a login name... and says it has to be some .com and wont accept outlook.com
Huh?!?!

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Oct 2013 23:29

^^ Thanks!

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 19 Oct 2013 02:14

Raja Bose wrote:
matrimc wrote:Is outlook.com free?
Yes its free.

Thanks will try out.

Karan M
People can construe my handle is an aka for matrimonial corp. All you bachelors on brf beware

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 19 Oct 2013 02:29

when i bought a machine for family pc, i registered microsoft... and i gave my chacha id. i needed to share data, so that i could use skydrive.. and now I learned aboutthe outlook.com - all accessible with the same id..., i just sent a test email to my chacha id. it sent it to itself. funny!

so, how did MS id used my chacha dns lookup?- gmail.com. So, q: what is my outlook.com id? in the sense [email protected] would be a logical answer.. but i registered with [email protected]

btw, that is not my email id/just example fyi

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 19 Oct 2013 05:08

few pages back we discussed NFC and battery issues. if you look at Japanese ~~docomo~~sony product felica? it uses micrwave technology to hit a card or some smart card circuit. it energizes the circuit, and enough power generated to read some encryptd number. NFC to 2" or less communication is exactly what is required.

a safe wallet.. you heard it here, and i am sure rbull will come back saying,

there are million other products in the market like that. just thought of fyi-ing that i am not throwing ideas, but sharing that already exists.

btw: i think they have patented like qualcomm for cdma++. so, use nfc, the royalty goes to felica -> indirectly to sony nfc chips.

negi · Post by **negi** » 19 Oct 2013 06:36

Sony playstation 4 is being released in Brazil for over 1800 USD. My colleagues here have gone all ma behan over it .

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 19 Oct 2013 08:39

The new yahoo mail is just a mixture of outlook.com and gmail.com. They shamelessly copied from outlook.com like having the delete button appearing next to the item when you hover over it etc

vina · Post by **vina** » 21 Oct 2013 05:14

Pah. All you guys are being a bunch of MCPs. Mohtarma Meyer is hot, chic,sexy and powerful and is going to kick some serious Musharraf .

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 21 Oct 2013 05:16

Looks like someone is in love.

negi · Post by **negi** » 21 Oct 2013 07:11

Vina sir aap to ye last 10 salo se MMS aur P Chidambaram ke liye bhi bole the; I no longer see your posts as to how GOI is being chankian and all. Mayer madam might change a thing or two about Yahoo who cares, God knows we all are on gmail heck I won't be surprised if even you use gmail so what is the point ?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 12:05

MSFT+NOK is finally going the offensive now. huge 2 page TOI ad incl the front page on the 1020 and exchange offers on some of the lineup.

however I feel the circular camera setting orbital dials on the 1020 which a great idea for quick adjustment should be backported down to all the rest of lineup as well. this would solve the biggest headache of phone cams which is slow to change settings. now that we are finally getting phone cams *worth the trouble* of changing ISO/WB/A/S on, let us have the quick sw controls as well.

johneeG · Post by **johneeG** » 21 Oct 2013 12:24

There is a Samsung phone on the same price range as Nokia 520.

Its Samsung Galaxy S Duos S7562.

Spec comparison:
Samsung Galaxy S Duos -> Nokia Lumia 520
1 GHz Cortex-A5 Processor -> 1 GHz Dual Core Processor
4-inch Display (TFT capacitive touch screen) -> 4-inch display (LCD)
Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) -> Single SIM (GSM)
5 MP Primary Camera (640X480 video recording) -> 5 MP Primary Camera (HD, 720X1280 video recording)
Android v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS -> Windows 8 OS
0.3 Secondary Camera -> No secondary Camera
LED Flash -> No flash
768 MB RAM -> 512 MB RAM
4 GB internal storage. Expandable to 32 GB -> 7 GB internal storage. Expandable to 64 GB
WiFi -> WiFi

Nokia Lumia 520 is priced at 11,289 and Samsung Galaxy S Duos is around 10,000. But, on Flipkart Lumia 520 is Rs 8235 and Galaxy S Duos is Rs 9599.

My personal experience is that Samsung has better quality touch phones than Nokia. The software part is done better by Samsung while the hardware parts(like Camera) are done well by Nokia.

My sis has Samsung Galaxy S Duos. She bought it before Lumia 520 was released. And I think it was a good buy. I bought Nokia c5 around same time. I had to shell out almost 10K for that. And I have regretted buying it ever since. Not at all satisfied with the phone. The software part of it is just nonsense. Compared to that Samsung Galaxy S Duos that my sis had was far better.

My bro and sis, both went for samsung products. While, I went for the Nokia C5. And I ams still stuck with it. Thats how, I learnt my lesson.

So, I think in the same manner Lumia 520 will also not be so great. Nokia is only good with pre-smart phones. Samsung is the master as far as smart phones are concerned. Also, Android seems to have more apps and games.

As for fruit co, they survive due to fanbios...

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 21 Oct 2013 12:30

^^Don't look at the specs. The problem as we have discussed here in the past is that Android does not work well on low to mid-level hardware, unlike WP8. It will work fine for a while but sooner rather than later you'll start noticing laggy animations and apps taking too long to load, not to mention outright freezes and bugs due to Sammy's TouchWiz messing things up. The only Sammy phones worth buying are the Galaxy S3 and above. On the other hand, the Lumia 520 is a great phone at its price point.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 12:50

I have the exact same samsung phone. horribly slow, a stripe of pixels along right edge went dead in 6 months and I bought it at 14K!! samsung phones tend to price drop like a stone because they are only interested in throwing something at turd world markets for coverage. it was fast initially but after a few samsung updates became slow.

android runs well as a thumb rule only on the samsung HW that is sold in the US market...which is galaxy note, galaxy S3 & S4 ...everything below is a sad looking dog. it also needs high res screens to look good because of nature of their icons. WVGA doesnt cut it...not with a 4.5" screen on a android phone.

johneeG · Post by **johneeG** » 21 Oct 2013 14:06

Singha wrote:I have the exact same samsung phone. horribly slow, a stripe of pixels along right edge went dead in 6 months and I bought it at 14K!! samsung phones tend to price drop like a stone because they are only interested in throwing something at turd world markets for coverage. it was fast initially but after a few samsung updates became slow.

android runs well as a thumb rule only on the samsung HW that is sold in the US market...which is galaxy note, galaxy S3 & S4 ...everything below is a sad looking dog. it also needs high res screens to look good because of nature of their icons. WVGA doesnt cut it...not with a 4.5" screen on a android phone.

My sis didn't seem to have any probs so far. Of course, after a prolonged use it becomes a bit ... worn. I'll check with her and see whether there are any probs.

But, it seems to me that sammy provides better software part than Nokia. Nokia is good with Cams. But, since Nokia is now using Windows 8, maybe it will be fine.

Anyway, this Sammy phone seems like as good as Lumia 520 except that this is old phone while 520 is more recent.

It seems to me that the main attraction of 520 is that it gives a decent smart phone in affordable price range. If thats the case, then this particular Sammy also satisfies those conditions.

Maybe the experiences are also based on the individual pieces that we get. As for me, after the disastrous experience with Nokia C5, I am not inclined to buy another Nokia product. I have better opinion about Samsung...

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 21 Oct 2013 14:43

Was never a fan of Samsung bloatware on my phone.
But remember Mr.Schmidt's creepy statements?

EricSchmidt wrote: I ACTUALLY think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions, they want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.

EricSchmidt wrote: If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place

Those words from Google's top man and this article from ArsTechnica makes me a little more accommodating of bloatware.
Article basically says Google is no different from Microsoft. Every key part of Android OS is now off-limits and Google is forcing Android Open Source platform fork-ers into a corner.

Arstechnica wrote:A company called Skyhook found this out the hard way when it tried to develop a competing location service for Android. Switching to Skyhook's service meant Google would not be able to collect location data from users. This was bad for Google, so Skyhook was declared "incompatible." OEMs that wanted the Google Apps were not allowed to use them. Skyhook sued, and the lawsuit is still pending.

niran · Post by **niran** » 21 Oct 2013 15:42

I use Nokia 520 in fact typing from it while traveling on a public bus
I have experience with Sammy too earlier had sII and now the kid have
tab 7 both the tab and Nokia were bought around the same
Nokia updated its software and Sammy is still stuck on 4.something
the kid is already complaining about his device slowing down was asking
whether reformatting and reinstall would speed up the Sammy.

habal · Post by **habal** » 21 Oct 2013 15:54

Samsung Galaxy Duos is pretty popular, other than a glossy screen it has nothing. Not a well-integrated unit. It hangs often on google maps and crashes all over, the battery is very quick to discharge and it gets really hot on use. But the saving grace is that it looks more like phone than the instrument box looking Grand. Samsung's el-cheapo phones are irreparable just as soon as the warranty period is over. The company stops stocking the parts and screen, boards etc are hard to come by. The premium ones are more durable in that respect.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 16:58

since I owned the samsung duos and now the 720 can give a honest opinion.
the 520, 620 and 720 share the same CPU and ram 512mb. the maps, mails, music , photos, stability, fbook on my 720 are far better than it was on the duos in speed and stability. WP8 really does run quite well even on 512mb ram. I notice no perceptible diff in these apps between the 720 and my wife's 820(1gb of ram). the GPS is also far better and locks in a couple of seconds....the duos used to whine about trees, woods, walls, buildings interfering..anything but doing its gps work during my runs. in between it would lose lock and gap out segments of my runs.
the plastic feels better and so does the glass. it feels like a solid piece of work...the 820 feels like a heavier 'brick'.
internet explorer also seems to work faster than chrome did on my duos.

two things I don't do is document reading (office, onenote) or gaming so cant speak about that. I am sure android market has more games free and paid than wp.

samsung has put together some b-team models like duos, core, quattro, grand quattro to combat the likes of xolo, karbonn, micromax in turd world markets. their a-team and a-components surely are going into note and S3+ ...

the wifi pickup of both the 720/820 is on par with my thinkpad .....much better than my ipad or duos .... ipad btw has regressed with ios7...it no longer works up the stairs in my house...ios6 used to work albeit when door was open in my bedroom...now it doesnt.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 21 Oct 2013 17:18

A "look but don't touch" kind of open

If a company even wanted to consider forking Android and creating a viable commercial competitor, they would have to replicate everything in this article. Even then, you've only broken even. You would still have to give your users a reason to switch from Google's Android to your fork of Android.

Google does everything in-house. The company gets Maps and all of its cloud services basically for free. Any company trying to follow in these footsteps will probably have to outsource something on this list. Amazon having to license Nokia's Map data is an excellent example. Google sells ads against Maps—it actually makes the company money—while Amazon has to pay a per-user fee for its mapping data. This is the kind of radically different income situation an Android forker will be facing on a daily basis. Google's services cost less than nothing, and anyone competing will end up paying a monthly fee to some other company.

If a company does manage to fork Android and make something compelling outside of Google's ecosystem, there's the little matter of nearly every manufacturer being contractually barred from manufacturing a device that runs the new OS. Even if this new Android derivative is better, for an OEM jumping out of the Google ecosystem, it's probably more trouble—and risk—than it's worth.

While Android is open, it's more of a "look but don't touch" kind of open. You're allowed to contribute to Android and allowed to use it for little hobbies, but in nearly every area, the deck is stacked against anyone trying to use Android without Google's blessing. The second you try to take Android and do something that Google doesn't approve of, it will bring the world crashing down upon you.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/ ... necessary/

This may scare small firms, but I think there is one that can handle this easily. And they look prepared:

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 17:29

yeah but where are they going to pull the trigger? hasnt happened so far inspite of monthly imminent dark predictions from RB.

imo they dont feel confident of keeping up on the SW front...same phobia and weakness as japanese cos who came before and failed to combat the sw juggernaut that is khan cos. 95% of the worlds best selling / popular sw gets designed in and owned by some khan co.

some yindu/israeli/estonia/finn/dane/cheeni biradar may be distinguished engg and design it but
(a) will be naturalized khan citizen and carry eagle passport
(b) co will follow diktat of GOTUS when the buttons are pressed.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 21 Oct 2013 19:36

Singha wrote: the wifi pickup of both the 720/820 is on par with my thinkpad .....much better than my ipad or duos .... ipad btw has regressed with ios7...it no longer works up the stairs in my house...ios6 used to work albeit when door was open in my bedroom...now it doesnt.

That's the single reason that has kept me from upgrading the iPad. It has iOS 5.xx, I read iOS 6.xx was bad with WiFi and if iOS 7.xx is even worse then no upgrading (all reports and now you saying the same). Problem is that I can't get the latest google maps that can store maps for offline use. So am forced to use Nokia here or another app.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 19:41

Offline maps are a lifesaver for long road trips esp in areas like western ghats....a lot of places have no signal at all, forget 3g. And edge is so slow its not worth the attempt to pull data. I love me nok maps.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 20:55

on the wifi front...I had actually made a crude parabolic dish taped to the rod antenna of my home router to direct more signal upstairs...using leftover tinfoil from the hat I wear to block congi thought control/sickular signals. it was this dish which was pointing another way and when righted, the ios7 seems to have similar wifi atleast to the ios6.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Oct 2013 21:08

johneeG wrote: Maybe the experiences are also based on the individual pieces that we get. As for me, after the disastrous experience with Nokia C5, I am not inclined to buy another Nokia product. I have better opinion about Samsung...

You are comparing apples and brinjals.

Nokia C5 was a Symbian phone, 520 is a WindowsPhone - there is literally nothing similar between the two except the brand name Nokia.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Oct 2013 21:11

Neela wrote: Article basically says Google is no different from Microsoft. Every key part of Android OS is now off-limits and Google is forcing Android Open Source platform fork-ers into a corner.

Arstechnica wrote:A company called Skyhook found this out the hard way when it tried to develop a competing location service for Android. Switching to Skyhook's service meant Google would not be able to collect location data from users. This was bad for Google, so Skyhook was declared "incompatible." OEMs that wanted the Google Apps were not allowed to use them. Skyhook sued, and the lawsuit is still pending.

Just remember, you read about it here first as to why Android is not really open source in practical terms.

Its makes for good PR but calling it open source is a bit of a spin. BTW Chacha services on Android (maps/mail/etc.) are not free, the handset manufacturer pays a per handset fee for those, the cost of which is passed on to the consumer.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Oct 2013 21:17

1520 a 6" monster is due to release soon
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Nokia-Ba ... 20_id46787

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 21 Oct 2013 21:39

Singha wrote:1520 a 6" monster is due to release soon
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Nokia-Ba ... 20_id46787

This is the one my contact told me to wait for instead of the Lumia 1020. I was told it is to have an even better camera than the 1020.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 21 Oct 2013 21:51

Singha wrote:1520 a 6" monster is due to release soon
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Nokia-Ba ... 20_id46787

Aargghh! Sammy has infected everybody with a lust for ridiculously big phones.