Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Oct 2012 02:46

For Android tablets wait until 29 October when Google may announce a Nexus 10 tablet made by Sammy. A true Android experience.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Oct 2012 04:14

If you want Android, go for the Note 10.1 unless Chacha launches a new Nexus tab as Mortullah stated.
If you are open about the OS and want to use it as a tablet onlee, go for the new iPad.
If you are open about the OS and want to use it as a tablet but also > occasionally for e-mail/writing etc., go for the Surface (the $499.- one is sold out but the ones with the keyboard cover are still available I think).

In tablets, I am expecting to see Android get squeezed by iPad and Win8 from each side, perhaps Takla helping the cause a bit. They probably missed a window there - it was begging for a serious Nexus offering last year.

lakshmikanth · Post by **lakshmikanth** » 20 Oct 2012 07:53

I dont know why I hate the fruit co so much. It almost feels like microsoft, if someone helps me get over that feeling I would gladly buy an iPad

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 20 Oct 2012 08:23

Fruit co makes great products! Under Mahdi (atleast) they had complete focus on the user -- to give what the user doesnt know the user wants.

But a couple of things completely tangential to this has taken over FruitCo.

1. Users are stupid. Everyone knows that. If you give user a way to screw himself up, he will. So FruitCo products were designed such that the user cant screw himself up. Except that it has metamorphosed into user-lock in the moment FruitCo realized this can be used to milk more money. Hence you find that a user cannot install apps downloaded from the net or configure the homescreen anyway the user wants ityadi. Combine that with US carriers (who want a sim lock. If they had their way, they will set quota on the amount of piss you can do per day while having the phone in your pocket) it has become a unholy lock down. This doesnt negate the fact that they still produce products that users want!! very well designed phones and tablets, with gorgeous screens, great battery life and fantastic construction!

2. Drinking their own koolaid: Apple behaves as though they invented phones and computers. They are delusional to the point that they believe their own propgandu and cannot tolerate any other company making phones and computers. They believe their own marketing (Maps are great!! The greatest map invention since Ptolemy made a map!!).

Now if you can put up with the lock in and the self Koolaid drinking -- Apple products are great and sensibly designed! Evaluate them on the value that you see in them. Do they work well for you? Are they in the right price-performance tradeoff point? Are the apps and accessories in your budget? Dont go by the hipster credit you will score by buying a FruitCo product, nor the negative anti hipster reaction (Oh? You have a FruitCo product?! Such a snob...)

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Oct 2012 08:54

Anujan wrote: 2. Drinking their own koolaid: Apple behaves as though they invented phones and computers. They are delusional to the point that they believe their own propgandu and cannot tolerate any other company making phones and computers. They believe their own marketing (Maps are great!! The greatest map invention since Ptolemy made a map!!).

Actually Fruit Co. babus don't drink their koolaid regarding inventing everything etc. - you don't make such gobs of money by believing in your own legend. Rather they ensured they can make the public drink their koolaid - lifafa journalists pay a much bigger role in this than people realize. In fact the only alleged koolaid Fruit Co. drank which caused 'em to get hit by Mapgate was their belief that the public had drank so much koolaid that they would tolerate the doody they did with the maps - after all, antennagate went away due to that. Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case.

pyarelal ji, don't hate companies, they are all for-profit faceless behemoths which are essentially stacks of paper forms (incorporation documents). Hate products and hate people.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 20 Oct 2012 10:20

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/1 ... o-compete/
A $40 Tablet Tries to Compete

A $40 tablet, by selling in places Silicon Valley barely notices, may change the competitive landscape.The inexpensive device is called a Ubislate 7Ci, made by a London company called Datawind. Its initial market is schools in India. After a rocky start, Datawind’s newest device is a fully functioning 7-inch tablet, with a touch screen, Wi-Fi capability, a microphone and camera, a headphone jack and a USB port. In other words, pretty much everything you need to be fully functional on the Internet.In a test, it sent e-mails, downloaded two books and a first-aid guide, took and sent pictures, and offered several games without difficulty. There is a video that shows it in action, and another that lists its internal specifications.Every criticism a Western reviewer might have with this tablet (the keyboard is small for big American fingers, the camera resolution is low, the software has lots of ads) must also meet with the riposte, “Yeah, but…it’s only $40.” For people who can’t dream of owning even a first-generation iPad, it’s more than enough.“The biggest problem we have with this device is that none of the decision makers, the reviewers, or the trend setters are our customer,” said Suneet Singh Tuli, the Canadian-born chief executive of Datawind. “Personal computers caught on in the U.S. when the price got to about 25 percent of the average person’s monthly income. In India, where people make $200 a month, that is about $50.”

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Oct 2012 10:44

^^^

In addition, he says, his company figured out how to make its own touch panel to fit behind the liquid crystal display screen. The LCD is still manufactured by an outside company.

I would be really surprised if they figured out how to fit a touch sensor behind a regular display panel. One can fit resistive touch panels (with multi-touch support) behind display panels (thereby avoiding the transmissivity problem and the cheap feel of the plastic overlay of the resistive touch sensor) but they have to be OLED coz OLED panels flex. But then given the $40.- price point I doubt they are using 7" OLED displays.

One does not fit capacitive panels behind the LCD - too much metal. One can fit a EMR based digitizer (like Wacom's) behind the display (they are opaque anyways) but they have special 'stronger' versions for LCDs vs. the ones they sell for E-Ink displays.

Just got off the phone with parents: Matashri saw some YouTube video and now wants her own Surface tablet. Pitashree is as usual grumbling what's the use, why are you asking your son to buy you a tablet, why don't you buy it yourself, buy it when it will be available in India onlee, use my 3 year old $300.- netbook, I can find you 10 different tablets which are as good but cheaper than this over-priced Mickey tablet, what do you want to do with a tablet anyways, why need a touch cover onlee, 1st learn how to use the 15 year old desktop, don't come running to me for help, I will never touch your tablet I promise.....

sampat · Post by **sampat** » 20 Oct 2012 15:21

Does anyone know of any good online servide in Europe (Nordic) for watching Hindi channels on TV vis AppleTv or something similar?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Oct 2012 20:06

Curious if Chacha ever released directly or indirectly the number of Nexus 7 tablets sold?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 21 Oct 2012 01:15

Raja Bose wrote:Curious if Chacha ever released directly or indirectly the number of Nexus 7 tablets sold?

I've not seen anything from Google. Only 3rd parties stating sales are "good". It was introduced in Jul 2012 and has now been 3 months.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Oct 2012 01:18

I saw a third party news report saying its ~1 million, that's why I was curious coz I wasn't sure of their method for deriving the number. ~1 million in 3 months would be good sales but not great. Lets see what revolutionary "new" invention Fruit Co reveals on 23rd.

partha · Post by **partha** » 21 Oct 2012 02:58

Raja Bose wrote: Lets see what revolutionary "new" invention Fruit Co reveals on 23rd.

Medium sized rectangular object with rounded corners?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 21 Oct 2012 03:40

Raja Bose wrote:I saw a third party news report saying its ~1 million, that's why I was curious coz I wasn't sure of their method for deriving the number. ~1 million in 3 months would be good sales but not great. Lets see what revolutionary "new" invention Fruit Co reveals on 23rd.

I bought mine last July at a Sam's Club and took it back in 3 weeks when the glass began separating from the frame. Apparently a common complaint and Sam's stated there were many returns of the Nexus 7. If GOOG can release the 8 GB version for $99 that would be great.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 21 Oct 2012 05:43

iPad has sold about 8.5 Million units per quarter and obviously accelerating (last few quarters they sold around 17 million units). Chacha mentioned that he would like to sell about 3 million by the end of the year (1.5 quarters which includes holiday season). Sherlock abduls who keep an eye out for panel shipments estimate higher.

Nexus 7 is a fantastic machine and a great value for money. And especially useful for fossilized older abduls like me (who likes a good keyboard and does most of the internet vinternet on a laptop). I prefer a smaller tablet to read books, do nefarious activities on social networks and check the occasional email. The sales could have been even higher except intros to other countries is sluggish (Japan intro happened a few weeks back. Play store is not supported in India and China ityadi). Another issue is a lack of higher capacity model (it sells only in 8gig and 16gig) and lack of 3G. Even bigger issue is that (there was some infographic somewhere) that availability of apps/music/movies outside of Massa is spotty and FruitCo, AMZN and even increasingly M$ has Chacha's musharraf kicked in this matter.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 21 Oct 2012 05:55

My heart goes out to the latest victims of the smartphone revolution: Blackberry users

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/techn ... l?_r=2&hp&

Rachel Crosby speaks about her BlackBerry phone the way someone might speak of an embarrassing relative.

“I’m ashamed of it,” said Ms. Crosby, a Los Angeles sales representative who said she had stopped pulling out her BlackBerry at cocktail parties and conferences. In meetings, she says she hides her BlackBerry beneath her iPad for fear clients will see it and judge her.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Oct 2012 06:30

SDRE love for BB is still strong.

Mortullah, I didn't have any issues with the 5 Nexus 7s that I had got and used over time. Its possible that the manufacturing line didn't treat the glue properly which is causing separation - basically poor QA. Tried to get an iPod Nano for one of my cousins in India (it would be the 1st Fruit Co device I would have ever purchased with my money) but they ran out at all stores in the valley!

Instead now he is getting an iPod shuffle.

partha wrote:
Raja Bose wrote: Lets see what revolutionary "new" invention Fruit Co reveals on 23rd.
Medium sized rectangular object with rounded corners?

Whoa! LEAK ALERT!!! How did you know?!

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 21 Oct 2012 23:32

Raja Bose wrote:Its possible that the manufacturing line didn't treat the glue properly which is causing separation - basically poor QA.

Hehe...

You just gave yourself away as s/w weenie (nothing wrong in that and I did that for a few years myself in a previous life). In the world of electronics manufacturing we talk about QC (Quality Control) when the product is coming off the line. The difference is QA is process oriented and QC is product oriented.

BTW, I may be in Silly-Con valley next month (your neck of the woods) and if you're not in desh we can get together.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Oct 2012 03:28

^^^
Count me in for a Jirga.

I bought a Raspberry PI. It is a lot of fun. Wanted to connect it to a USB hard drive that I have and make it a media server for the home. The teeny board reminds this abdul how old he is. I learned programming on a computer which had probably a tenth of the processing power

It used to be so bad that I couldnt run any GUI for linux and had to use the command line.

This teeny thing has more RAM and processing power than the Compyuter I used to get a CS engineering degree with

I even used it to type 2 papers and my BE thesis and ran CAD synthesis algorithms for placing and routing a FPGA for my thesis.

partha · Post by **partha** » 22 Oct 2012 03:41

Raja Bose wrote:
Whoa! LEAK ALERT!!! How did you know?!

Let me just say that I have sources deep inside Appil

lakshmikanth · Post by **lakshmikanth** » 22 Oct 2012 03:46

So from the above inputs I have decided to wait until the end of the month, coz so much is going to happen

.

But what i really want is that damn retina display on an Android, otherwise FruitCO it is (i am so confused

)

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Oct 2012 03:53

Mortullah, you haven't been on a CE ODM line recently have you? Its referred to as QA especially amongst ODM contractors - tells you how much hordes of s/w abduls have influenced the manufacturing abduls thinking.

In your glue case, it sounds like a process control issue, quite common. I wonder if most people realize that their multi-hundred dollar devices are held together with glue and double-sided sticky tape, literally!

During the previous startup days had to deal directly with chipanda ODMs and that is punishment I wouldn't want to inflict on anybody except some choice pakis. Now its mucho easier - they have these ODM managers peoples whose job is to sweat in the sweatshop and keep track of chipanda-giri.

Leaving for India tonight - if you land up after I land back, count me in.

PS: I am neither a SW weenie or a HW mard or a design hippie - by qualification I am a math egghead

Anujan-ullah, you have been hobnobbing too much in HPC chi-chi stuff.

The Pi is probably one of the easiest boards to bring up - if you want one more, I got at least one lying around. I had purchased it to make a media center out of it (not just slap XMBC into it) - mainly for matashri watching her saas-bahu-dahej serials on YouTube when she visits. Haven't got around to it yet, hope to at some point.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Oct 2012 10:26

Hatchet job on Sinofsky but an entertaining read. Wonder which Abdul lusting for ballmer's job planted this.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57536 ... windows-8/

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Oct 2012 11:12

Sinofsky is described by those who know him as a no-nonsense, no-fun guy - Mickey launch parties are pretty legendary but he disapproves of them. He is like Bawarchi - great ice-cold operations guy, innovation not so much. The Surface tablet is the result of work led by Panos Panay and Steve Batiche, not Sinofsky. StevieB is one of the top tech guys in the industry when it comes to device/NUI innovations, Fruit Co., Chacha and even Takla have tried to lure him many many times - he is a 500% tinkerer with a mad scientist look (but not the mannerisms).

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 23 Oct 2012 17:50

^^^Inspite of the blasphemous rantings of the Qadiani Raja Bose about Lumia 800 phone, my experience so far has been pretty good. It took some time to get used to the interface and use of various features and settings but things are pretty smooth now. Couple of observations:

1. I find the touch screen too be very responsive and smooth...I was a bit wary about the tiled (and vertical) arrangement of the icons and the time required to scan them. But the touch screen makes that an easy and smooth experience and navigation is not difficult at all.

2. For some reason, I find the screen display to be more rich than other phones that I have come across in this category. The colors look more bright and more rich. Now, me younger brother has a Samsung S-II and that is a brilliant phone (and more expensive than Lumia 800)...but I find the display and navigation to be a much better and smooth experience on my phone. This shows when it comes to display of games as well.

3. What I love the most is the way information is displayed...pretty different from other phones and done very artistically (as per me taste). I also love the font (expect when it comes to font of messages and storing numbers). Rather than nest information under various categories and sub-categories, lot of frequently required information is available between parallel screens (need to scroll between these screens).

4. From the current generation's perspective, the most amazing thing is the seamless integration with social networking sites. Now, this is something you can DO in other phones as well...but here, the integration happens on its own. For example, the moment you link your contact list with your Outlook and Facebook accounts, the phone numbers and images (of contacts) get updated on their own. And it merges the contact numbers from Outlook to the Facebook details in a single page - which you can use to write on wall or call up people. Plus, there is a section which updates feeds from Facebook for people in your contact list (and who are on Facebook). No need to open the Facebook application at all.

5. In terms of apps available, well, quite good number of apps of all kinds but in terms of sheer numbers, I think Android/Google PlayStore is way ahead. Plus, Android has more number of free apps. Good games as well...and most of the paid games have a 'TRY' version with limited scenarios. MS Xbox experience is good as is the Market Place. Just downloaded the trial version of MS Flight Sim game....amazing experience.

6. From a pure layman's POV, where it lacks is in terms of the processor power. For a phone of its price range in India (INR 23,500), the phone seems under powered. For it to do justice to the kind of games available, it needs a dual core and higher RAM (presently, 512 MB RAM). The S-II that my brother has absolutely rocks in terms of sheer processing power and gaming experience. The web pages load fantastically fast and the games can be played on all their glory.

7. Also, I did not see any great benefit from the Clear-black display. Another major draw back is that in case of large sized downloads, the phone asks for Wi-Fi connection and does not download through the mobile network even though I have 3G. I have seen 100MB+ games download in surprisingly quick time on S-II.

8. And I absolutely love the design...I have a black colored phone and the color of tiles contract beautifully against the all black background.

9. The battery sucks.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 23 Oct 2012 19:12

Raja Bose wrote: Just got off the phone with parents: Matashri saw some YouTube video and now wants her own Surface tablet. Pitashree is as usual grumbling what's the use, why are you asking your son to buy you a tablet, why don't you buy it yourself, buy it when it will be available in India onlee, use my 3 year old $300.- netbook, I can find you 10 different tablets which are as good but cheaper than this over-priced Mickey tablet, what do you want to do with a tablet anyways, why need a touch cover onlee, 1st learn how to use the 15 year old desktop, don't come running to me for help, I will never touch your tablet I promise.....

cute!

I think Tablet is a great gift for family members in India. They can make small videos and share on youtube, do video-conf with their loving puttars/putrikas, and so on...

I wonder if 3G internet is affordable in India. It is difficult to play wi-fi there because not everyone is into wi-fi connection, I noticed.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 23 Oct 2012 20:45

^^^Many people in desh use pre-paid 3G USB sticks that they put in to their laptops. In India, at least the middle class that can afford one computer in the family, will often prefer to get a good laptop for everyone to use. Laptops are cheaper in the US for the same capability and you can usually find some good ones between $500-$800. A tablet in desh is less useful because people do not have access to a computer at home or for that matter 3G and WiFi. A laptop is most useful. I usually take decent laptops in the $500-$600 price range and $50-$60 range 802.11 a/b/g/n routers to desh for family members who want an iPad, but don't have an up-to-date computer.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 23 Oct 2012 23:34

Vodafone has 3G plans of 300 MB for Rs. 100 per month and something like 1 GB for Rs. 250 or so per month -- quite cheap. I've heard that 3G coverage in India is spotty though it's been fine in the areas I've used it.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 23 Oct 2012 23:54

Ok, it is out. $329. iPad 2 days are numbered.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 24 Oct 2012 03:44

You get decent 3G in and around 2nd tier cities (~2 Mbps down/1 Mbps up) and better in the major metros. In rural areas, that is anything more than 20 Km from a city, its EDGE at best.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Oct 2012 04:19

And apparently fruitco's selling point is that their small tablet is bigger than other companies' small tablets.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 24 Oct 2012 05:30

Does the iPad Mini come with the special iTool to shave ones fingers narrower, like Mahdi stated we would need to in order to use a smaller tablet ? Or will that be a $29.99 accessory onlee ?

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 24 Oct 2012 09:08

So, instead of getting an ipad mini, one might as well get a nexus 7 no? for a lot cheaper too.

negi · Post by **negi** » 24 Oct 2012 11:37

Fruitco launches chota Macbook pro with RETINA display. Imho a good move. People who have made up their minds to pay extra for a Mac over other laptops won't mind to pay a touch more for the display.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 24 Oct 2012 23:03

It's interesting that Apple's last two major product launches -- iPhone 5 and iPad Mini -- have both been reactive products. The iPhone with a 4 inch screen and the iPad Mini with a 7-ish inch one. Cook even deigned to mention an Android tablet in the same speech as the iPad Mini!

In years past Apple would strike out in directions orthogonal to where the competition was. Perhaps this is where the Android hordes overrun the Apple fortress.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Oct 2012 23:23

IPad mini is a lot more clever than people realize. It has the same ppi as the 3GS panel and the same resolution as iPad 2 so that new applications need not be written for it.

Apple can crank them out real cheap and in great volume. It is a defensive play, yes but apple didn't know that 7 inch tablets will be a success. 7 inchers are great at what they do: books, web, looking at YouTube, Facebook, occassional email. They are a new category: not challenging PCs and not challenging phones. Apple could not have anticipated this.

On the iPhone size: apple has the burden of legacy. When they made the original iPhone the panels were probably costly. Once they settled on a size, it would be painful to move developers. Hence the small size for much time. OTOH the size and connector were getting old.

You should appreciate apple for producing devices that are well thought out in terms of manufacturing, specs and ux. Reactive or not, so far they have been able to marry all these.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 24 Oct 2012 23:46

The iPad mini is 7.85" diagonal with 4:3 aspect ratio and has 20% more surface area than a 7" diagonal 16:9 aspect ratio Nexus 7. The price is too high for a device which will be out of date and slow with future OS upgrades within 2 years. If GOOG announces a 16GB Nexus 7 for $199, then that is a bargain. As it stands today, you will get burned if you put more than a few hundred Dollars in to any tablet. The economics of it don't make sense to me.

Hardware wise, the iPad mini really looks promising.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 24 Oct 2012 23:58

Well one good thing about the iPad mini is the 3G/4G connectivity and rear camera. Both things which the nexus 7 lacks. However I'd like to see their displays side by side first. Fruit co. used to harp on their displays which had more ppi than everybody else. They seem to have gone in completely the opposite direction this time.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 25 Oct 2012 00:08

The 3G/4G/LTE connectivity eats battery, so I would wait until we hear to see how well it works on the iPad mini. The new 32 GB Nexus 7 will also have 3G/4G/LTE as well, but again battery volumes come in to play again. The back camera use is debatable for many people using a tablet and I don't think even the Microsoft Surface has a back camera.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 25 Oct 2012 01:32

The iPad Mini will of course sell millions, and will have good fit and finish. But I'd say it's perhaps the first time since the original iPod launch in 2001 that Apple is entering a roughly comparable product into an existing market, rather than defining a new market segment.

I have this chronology:

2001: iPod released, comes into an existing well-defined market with Creative and other MP3 players; does not define new market
2003: iTunes for Windows released; new level of music store-player integration leading to unprecedented popularity
2007: iPhone; redefines smartphone category
2010: iPad; redefines tablet category
2012: iPad Mini; enters an existing market of 7" tablets

For the last decade, Apple seems always to have been on the front foot, defining new markets and waiting for others to catch up. But the relentless Android iteration has succeeded in exposing customer preferences that Apple did not anticipate in at least two areas: larger phone screens and smaller tablets.

Perhaps it's too much to expect Apple to always be the leading edge and everyone else to follow; having different leaders is a good thing for the tech world in general, so I'm glad this is the case.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 25 Oct 2012 01:35

The Samsung Galaxy Note II is now available for TMO. I tried to buy one earlier today, but all the usual on-line places are sold out as well as the corporate TMO stores. One helluva beast of a phone.