Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 06 Oct 2012 20:01

Kakkaji wrote:At this point, I agree with Raja Bose Babu. These d@mned smartphones are not worth it for 99% of the world, including buddha Hajis like me.

Perhaps so, but not for 99% of the world's installed base, but for 80% as of today and that figure is decreasing rapidly. If you want mobile computing capability, then you may want to consider a tablet with a pay as you go data plan. The smart phone is becoming desirable for the 18-24 age group and will get them in their hands when they can afford it.

negi · Post by **negi** » 06 Oct 2012 20:11

^ Kakkaji I am not a gadget freak nor someone who is too stubbron to resist the change. I got a iPhonuwa from my last COY so I use it . The only apps I have on it are Mapmyride, FB, Linkedin and BOA. For all internet browsing Safari on IOS gets the job done. Recently when I upgraded to new IOS I had to download youtube app as well. I am a regular here and Safari is not bad for browsing the forum.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 06 Oct 2012 20:21

nakul wrote:Treat the phone as a toy and dont rely on it to save your life in an emergency like yours truly does

It all depends on use. I use the iPhone's flash light as a torch for night walks, so that i do not get hit by an oncoming vehicle. So, literally a life saver for me. At one time, even cell phones were considered toys. So, it is all in the perspective, use and support systems. I even remember, my mother resisting the idea of a microwave in the house, I even remember my father resisting an MTNL phone line for the house at one time. My mom and dad today happily use the iPad for their comms, entertainment, social life, news. So, Kakkaji, nothing stays the same. Change is the only thing that is constant and you will be assimilated!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 06 Oct 2012 20:56

Mort Walker wrote: I'm skeptical of such a study, but for the moment will take your word for it. What I find amusing is that first you state the smart phone, as it is today, is a toy because of a number of issues and now you are also stating that it is also safety hazard for the potential loss of life and property due to higher failure rate?

These are internal studies by the very entities who make those smartphones. Together they account for a very very big chunk of the mobile phones (smart & dumb) sold in the world.

Trust me people who got stranded and died or came near death becoz for example, their phones ran out of charge or went into low power mode and couldn't reliably register to allow emergency services to hone in on them, wont find it amusing - neither do the companies which get targeted for lawsuits from relatives or survivors. In a nutshell, don't stray too far from civilization if the only communication device you have is your trusty smartphone - you may pay for it with your life or you may get rich suing your phone manufacturer, if you survive.

People today buy smartphones expecting it is as capable as their old dumb cellphone and much more - this is the natural lay person expectation of any technological advance. Unfortunately, not only that is not true since smartphones are more capable in some areas but less capable in other areas as compared to a dumb phone. And decisions to sell more shiny smartphones led to degradation of some fundamental capabilities of a mobile phone (phone call, battery life) and that is having unpleasant consequences as smartphone usage rises.

ShauryaT wrote:It all depends on use. I use the iPhone's flash light as a torch for night walks, so that i do not get hit by an oncoming vehicle. So, literally a life saver for me. At one time, even cell phones were considered toys.

Smartphones will stop becoming a toy once certain components mature enough, not yet though. If all you do is use the phone as a flash light, get one of those SDRE targetted GB dumb phones which used to come with a flash light

That feature is an example of how to invent a simple yet high impact feature (it literally drove sales of 100+ million units or something) and write a good simple strong patent out of it.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Oct 2012 21:00

imo smartphones could have a austerity setting to shut everything down and become just a low power use voice & SMS device (nokia 1110 style) for when we need long battery life. ofcourse the unwise might ignore it and still drain their battery just before getting lost in some far corner of the place.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 06 Oct 2012 21:08

^^Easier said that done saar. For that they will have to make major changes to the HW and OS which goes into any mainstream smartphone today - will take mucho time. And what will a strat-e-jee YumBeeAye and sales executive prioritize on when they see Fruit Co. selling more and more iPhunwas by including more bling - will they make adding more battery draining bling as priority to make their phunwa more glamorous and drive short-term sales (hence, fat bonus) or will they throw in tons of money at what is a totally unglamorous problem. At the risk of committing heresy so soon after Mahdi's death anniversary, I must say that one bad side effect of Mahdi's success has been that injineering has taken a backseat to putting lipstick on pigs.

negi · Post by **negi** » 06 Oct 2012 21:15

^ Boss things are not that bad, you turn off cellular data, wifi and bluetooth along with location services and the battery easily lasts for more than a day under normal use . Without cellular data no one would be fiddling with the touch screen so even the display is off hence it does come close to a dumb phone when all of the above are turned off.

On my recent trip to Kerala I had the phonuwa with me and I listened to songs for like 2 hours (using 3G) and then turned the data off when I went to sleep , my battery was more than 50% next day in the morning.

nakul · Post by **nakul** » 06 Oct 2012 21:25

^^^

My old gumboot phone has a power save mode that it automatically enters when battery level is low. Of course, the baniya that I am I keep it on that even when fully charged. The best option, however, still is to shut down the network & watch the battery life increase 400% literally.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 06 Oct 2012 21:42

negi-uddin, Most people have no clue how to do that or even remember to do that plus it requires logical pre-planning. Good planning is not most people's forte anyways and most kasht-mars are not injineers or even college grads so doing what you suggested is considered too esoteric, complicated and inconvenient for them. You can't tell the relative of someone who died of exposure that their son/hubby/hipster daughter should have remembered to turn BlueTooth and WiFi scanning off and they might have survived!

When I say smartphone is a toy (in the same way XBox is a toy), I mean it in many ways. A big segment of people buy smartphones attracted by its toy-like aspects - in fact, in 2011 one of trends reported that buyers have swung from one phone to another just becoz one ran their fav version of Angry Birds while the other didn't. Dumbphone buyers aspire to own a smartphone someday becoz they can finally play Angry Birds (no kidding!) - its no accident that GumBoot's S40 phones comes with Angry Birds now.

Smartphones are exposing consumer dynamics in a way that PCs or dumb cellphones never did.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 07 Oct 2012 00:00

Singha wrote:imo smartphones could have a austerity setting to shut everything down and become just a low power use voice & SMS device (nokia 1110 style) for when we need long battery life. ofcourse the unwise might ignore it and still drain their battery just before getting lost in some far corner of the place.

That is one of the strong points of Android, at least with Nexus phones, you can shut off the different radios and services for WiFi, BlueTooth, GPS, LBS, and 3G to make the device serve as GSM 2G (EDGE) phone.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Oct 2012 01:39

is it possible to record facetime?

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 07 Oct 2012 04:01

negi wrote:
hanumadu wrote:I think the sharp edges of the iphone5 combined with it being made from aluminium makes it easy to nick. More than a manufacturing defect, it might be a design flaw. Perhaps ShauryaT can shed some light on how his phone is holding up.
Iphone 4/4s are like that too, you drop them once on a concrete pavement they get scuffed pretty easily but then so does E71 too , the difference is Iphone's back panel can shatter in some cases. But all the new 4" inch+ screens are prone to shattering if you drop them on concrete/road, most of the folks keep these 20k+ phones in some sort of protective cover.

I am not talking about dropping them. People are complaining about it getting scuffed from regular every day use, even with a cover on. Some are saying the cover causes it. Please follow this thread.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1445493

Rishi · Post by **Rishi** » 07 Oct 2012 07:35

Any reccos for buying an LED TV in India? Thinking of a 40" for general viewing. The Vijay Sales and Cromas throw up a confusingly large number of options, and online retailers seem to be moving old stock.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 07 Oct 2012 08:33

Costco is selling Samsung galaxy 7" tab for 239 including a keyboard with USB extension.

Can I use a USB mobile data card and use it in India?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Oct 2012 20:27

my guess is it all depends on the drivers available for it.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 07 Oct 2012 21:09

OK. Question to the learned jirga and talibs....how would you rate Sammy Tab 2?

The reason I am thinking of buying one is as follows:

1. Bigger tabs are too heavy and cumbersome for me. I need a tab which can substitute my laptop for handy internet surfing, reading and replying to e-mails and documents. Reading maps is very important. As is being able to handle heavy PDF files - especially documents like Master Plan of cities.
2. Don't fancy a new smartphone...my N8 works just fine. Takes great pics (which is help in professional life).
3. I really need a bigger screen than my N8 but not as big as iPad or other tablets.
4. Want to be able to play games on the go and other multimedia related stuff...need good apps as well.

In short, a handy gadget which will help to make my life simpler. Remember, I need to travel a lot and can't keep on opening my laptop to access stuff. This travel related thing is what required very good map/GPS feature.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 07 Oct 2012 21:29

RamaY wrote:Costco is selling Samsung galaxy 7" tab for 239 including a keyboard with USB extension.

Can I use a USB mobile data card and use it in India?

YamaR mian, like SaiKollah said, you may not get drivers for it. Last year I went thru that exercise for pitashree - so unless huawei or whoever makes the dongles bring out android drivers you might want to wait for win tablets. One of the dongles used to work in win8 under compatibility mode when used on a x86 Sammy tablet.

@rohitvats, from your specs list you might want to check out the lumia 920 if it launches soon in India.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 07 Oct 2012 22:02

Raja Bose wrote:@rohitvats, from your specs list you might want to check out the lumia 920 if it launches soon in India.

RB, as I said, not another phone. And I need bigger screen size. Did check Tab 2 with 7 inch screen in one of the stores. Seemed quite handy.The Simcard thing means I can even use it as a back-up phone if required (and if I don't take data only plan). And it cost 19K in India. Plus, if you buy with HDFC credit card, you can put the entire amount on 9 month EMI as well.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 08 Oct 2012 05:34

As predicted by this abdul right when this launched and people were going gaga over it....

Motorola phases out Webtop, points to a Lapdock-shy world

Amazing how all the TFTA strat-e-jee wallahs and product people couldn't figure out that it would fail based on that fact that it was exactly repeating the follies of the Palm Folio, Celio RedFly....

Meanwhile, Fruit Co. falls back to familiar AntennaGate tactic...

Apparently all smartphones have purple hue issues!

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 08 Oct 2012 14:12

Is there a non-takniki summary of the Vinamullah vs Bose Mullah debate on Native, HTML5 ityadi?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 08 Oct 2012 21:38

Raja Bose wrote:LG Nexus Phone to be unveiled in October

Looks like the Android version of the 920 (screen/wireless charging/no microSD slot/sealed battery) without the PureView camera.

There will be at least 2 Nexus phones, one from Samsung and another from LG as the rumors look good on these. I would not rule out a Nexus One X by HTC, Nexus RAZR by MOTO, and Nexus Experia by Sony.
The best thing about these smart phones is that they will be sold on the Google Play Store unlocked, but the price will be nearly $400. In the US, there are mobile phone plans which offer unlimited everything for $50/month provided you bring your own phone.

The Lumia 920 appears to be an exclusive to ATT in the US, that means there will be no unlocked one sold in the US. I expect it to fail in the US as Nokia hasn't brought it subsidized to TMO, VZW and Sprint. A similar problem that happened with the HTC One X which is a good phone, but not available subsidized outside of ATT. If the manufacturer can't bring it to all carriers with a subsidy, then at least they should sell it unlocked. It appears that MSFT and GB are making the same mistake as Goog and Sammy did last year with the Galaxy Nexus when it was only available in the US subsidized on VZW. They later brought out on the Play Store.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 08 Oct 2012 21:42

The failure will be due to lack of availability on vzw. Att sux. The volume of unlocked phones sold in massa is still too low.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Oct 2012 01:14

^^^Have you used att LTE enabled devices? Not as fast as VZW, but still quite good. I am biased against VZW and CDMA2000. Eventually its not going to matter once LTE is fully implemented. The EU is ahead of the rest of the world in spectrum allocation and they are moving to using it more efficiently with voice over IP using the LTE bands. It will all be ITU approved CDMA. Even Asia will do that too in a few years. Let's see if VZW and ATT can adapt.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 09 Oct 2012 03:47

The S3 is blazing fast on 4G btw. SFO might not have great service from ATT but where I am, its perfectly fine.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 09 Oct 2012 06:19

^^SFO has good coverage. As does the south bay area. I've used speedtest a couple of times in Sunnyvale where it clocked 25Mbps.

Once in Mountain View I remember it clocking >40Mbps. I must have been near an ATT cell tower then.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Oct 2012 07:09

HSPA+ is rated at 42 Mbps so getting > 25 Mbps is not unreasonable. In fact, TMO's HSPA+ network is faster than ATT in several major metros in the US. As it stands today, TMO doesn't have LTE. ATT is in the process of deploying LTE and will have it in the 100 top markets in the US by year end, whereas VZW is already deployed in 400 markets. What is typically advertised as 4G is in fact 3G+ (HSPA+) by both TMO and ATT, but even at that it often is faster than VZW's LTE in many cases.

Despite unlimited data Sprint also doesn't have as much spectrum to devote to LTE as Verizon does: Sprint's LTE network works in a 5x5 MHz configuration and Verizon's LTE network works in a 10x10 MHz configuration. Typically more spectrum delivers faster speeds. AT&T noted that its HSPA+ network is faster than Verizon's CDMA EV-DO network outside of LTE areas. TMO with its planned acquisition of PCS Metro, a CDMA2000 carrier, will give it 20x20 MHz LTE network by 2014. Of the 4 major carriers in the US, Sprint is losing money and at the rate they are going will be broke in a couple of years, if not sooner.

As I said before, in the US there is a battle going on for spectrum. One fight is between companies that own or have the rights to particular spectrum. The other fight is between US government agencies, including DoD, and the US Congress who are under the influence of lobbyists that want the valuable spectrum for wireless data. Now, these lobbyists aren't necessarily from the major carriers or telecom companies, but rather companies willing to pay for spectrum and then turn around and lease it to the major carriers or telecoms. For wireless data all of the technology is geared for 900 - 2000 MHz, this spectrum is already heavily used in the US compared to the rest of the world.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 09 Oct 2012 08:06

Sprint will face death of course.. it has a big L sign already on its forehead some years back. It has virtually shut off employment and everything is off-shored or bangalored /IBM and Erricson.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 Oct 2012 09:48

At least in my experience VZW has been the most consistent in terms of reliability and coverage. ATT is good only in fits and starts and otherwise it has totally sucked. It doesn't matter what technology they adapt unless they have reliable coverage nothing will change.

Ardeshir · Post by **Ardeshir** » 09 Oct 2012 10:34

ATT is perhaps a lot more reliable on the East Coast.

anchal · Post by **anchal** » 09 Oct 2012 15:31

Need help from the folks here. I have a Kindle Fire bought in Jan 2012 which has gone totally Paki. It just keeps on rebooting when I try to shut it down or put to sleep. The battery drains out faster and overall a frustrating experience

I looked at Amazon help forum and talk of the town was to send it back to the company for replacement. Now the catch is Fire is bought from the US and I am in India. What is the most cost-effective way to ship the damn thing to my friend in AR who bought it there?
I don't want to spend a lot on $199 thing. Any help is appreciated

Regards,

anchal · Post by **anchal** » 09 Oct 2012 17:00

No saar, one fine day I was recharging it and trouble started. Besides, the menu does not give me an option to upgrade firmware. So guess that is totally TFTA

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Oct 2012 21:33

Raja Bose wrote:At least in my experience VZW has been the most consistent in terms of reliability and coverage. ATT is good only in fits and starts and otherwise it has totally sucked. It doesn't matter what technology they adapt unless they have reliable coverage nothing will change.

Oh it does matter especially once you are contractually locked in to at least a 2 year agreement with a carrier in a rapidly changing market for spectum. For voice, all of them are comparable and data coverage depends on location. VZW's (and Sprint) implementation can not do voice and data even with LTE though VZW has 10x10 MHz configuration. ATT is investing heavily in to LTE, so their network is already seeing great improvement. At least with ATT, with various devices you can disable LTE and drop down to HSPA+ and still get 15-18 Mbps which is decent. As it stands today there is some compatibility in network (for data) between ATT and TMO for HSPA+ that offers decent speed. VZW and Sprint don't even have HSPA+ to fall back on.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 09 Oct 2012 21:36

Raja Bose wrote:At least in my experience VZW has been the most consistent in terms of reliability and coverage. ATT is good only in fits and starts and otherwise it has totally sucked. It doesn't matter what technology they adapt unless they have reliable coverage nothing will change.

Hmm.. Where have joo seen this? Geographically I mean.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Oct 2012 21:38

anchal wrote:No saar, one fine day I was recharging it and trouble started. Besides, the menu does not give me an option to upgrade firmware. So guess that is totally TFTA

It sounds like a battery hysteresis. Is there any way you can trickle charge it? Also, can you not use another power adapter as it may be faulty?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Oct 2012 21:39

Prasad wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:At least in my experience VZW has been the most consistent in terms of reliability and coverage. ATT is good only in fits and starts and otherwise it has totally sucked. It doesn't matter what technology they adapt unless they have reliable coverage nothing will change.
Hmm.. Where have joo seen this? Geographically I mean.

Tora Bora kave kamplex with multiple GHQs.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 09 Oct 2012 21:56

wasn't that hspa part of t-mobile?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Oct 2012 22:44

HSPA - high speed packet access is a data transmission standard for W-CDMA implementation. It is the the international standard for 3G data.
W-CDMA is not to be confused with CDMA that VZW and Sprint use.

HSPA and HSPA+ is not unique to any carrier. Both TMO and ATT use HSPA/HSPA+ in the US.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 10 Oct 2012 06:05

http://ipod.about.com/od/beforeyoubuy/a ... Iphone.htm
ATT advantage, except for the coverage and quality.

well, that is where most of the fights happen between shq and me. She never hears or I never hear what she says when dead spots happen quite often. Low quality + high price could kill sprint on the long run.

I am amazed how Sprint and ATT lags in network capabilities and coverage, in this super duper age of high speed communication sats, fiber optics and high bandwidth networking systems availability.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 10 Oct 2012 06:11

Mort Walker wrote:Oh it does matter especially once you are contractually locked in to at least a 2 year agreement with a carrier in a rapidly changing market for spectum. For voice, all of them are comparable and data coverage depends on location. VZW's (and Sprint) implementation can not do voice and data even with LTE though VZW has 10x10 MHz configuration. ATT is investing heavily in to LTE, so their network is already seeing great improvement. At least with ATT, with various devices you can disable LTE and drop down to HSPA+ and still get 15-18 Mbps which is decent. As it stands today there is some compatibility in network (for data) between ATT and TMO for HSPA+ that offers decent speed. VZW and Sprint don't even have HSPA+ to fall back on.

Saar, to the lay consumer on the street all that does not matter. Who cares what spectrum is used or how wonderful the future is gonna be and who's stuff is a standard vs. who's is proprietary - when the stuff they have right now is not working as expected. End user experience saar, end user experience....that's all that matters

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 10 Oct 2012 07:36

Raja Bose wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:Oh it does matter especially once you are contractually locked in to at least a 2 year agreement with a carrier in a rapidly changing market for spectum. For voice, all of them are comparable and data coverage depends on location. VZW's (and Sprint) implementation can not do voice and data even with LTE though VZW has 10x10 MHz configuration. ATT is investing heavily in to LTE, so their network is already seeing great improvement. At least with ATT, with various devices you can disable LTE and drop down to HSPA+ and still get 15-18 Mbps which is decent. As it stands today there is some compatibility in network (for data) between ATT and TMO for HSPA+ that offers decent speed. VZW and Sprint don't even have HSPA+ to fall back on.
Saar, to the lay consumer on the street all that does not matter. Who cares what spectrum is used or how wonderful the future is gonna be and who's stuff is a standard vs. who's is proprietary - when the stuff they have right now is not working as expected. End user experience saar, end user experience....that's all that matters

The end user experience is directly influenced by technology that makes it possible in the first place. Now I am convinced you are a yum-bee-yeah. However, you are not a lay consumer and supposedly informed. You make rational decisions based on engineering and economics. The future is 1-2 years which is nothing especially when you are locked in to a 2 year contract.