Nokia's Struggle to get back the Throne!!

After the arrival of smart-phones the only thing Nokia lagged was a good operating system. Hanging up and system crashes were the most common things on a Nokia phone. After every 5 hours of usage the battery had to be taken out of the Nokia phone. The sole reason people hesitated before buying the N8 and E7. No doubt hardcore Nokia fans still love the old 1100, 2100, 3110 etc. Nokia provided the best hardware at the cheapest price but still was the largest mobile company. Probably it did not expect Google to step into the market and as usual Google was best at what it did. Joining hands with Samsung, Google made it the largest mobile company in 5 years after launch of froyo beating Nokia after 14 years.

So for the past year Nokia has pooled in all its resources to fight back. But it has been a hard struggle for it, as android captured the market very quickly. Nokia tried its best to bring back its lost market, but all the earlier planned products failed like Nokia 500 etc. All of them being nice phones but still were Symbian. Didn't draw much attention. Failing to re-acquire its lost market, Nokia turned back to the acquired market. Updating all phones to remove bugs, reduce crashes and hence improve its image. It helped Nokia to retain its customers. On a personal note, I have not taken out my phone's(X6) battery after the launch of Ice-cream Sandwich. Which is quite good.

Now Nokia went a step ahead to take on Samsung. Making the same deal with Microsoft as Samsung made with Google. We now had a complete new range of Nokia Windows phone. The best in the market. The Nokia Lumia 800 and 900 were launched with a bang to take on Galaxy. They still are playing the underdogs as they haven't got the expected response. Giving a great farewell to Symbian, with Nokia PureView 808 (41MP Camera) and Joining hands with Microsoft Nokia is all set to charm the world once again. Its just a matter of time now!!

Nokia and Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia has been getting a lot of criticism(ass whooping) due to its Sybian OS's and this increased during the time of the launch of Android 2.1. Android became popular and cheaper day by day and as mentioned in my earlier posts, it became capable of competing with iOS. So now when you are getting such a thing in 15k you are definitely going to shit your friend's nokia symbian s60. Loosing their market to Google, nokia had to work out something, so first it was Symbian Anna and then Symbian Belle which were although better than the previous version but still not good enough.

Back in US there was another big company's product being washed up by Android. It was Microsoft's Windows Mango 7.5, which had been launched recently but could not procure any market attention due to android's shimmer. So, both come together (the most common comeback strategy today) to take on Google and Samsung and this was the end product, and what a beauty!!

NOKIA LUMIA 800

Ok, so Nokia and Windows' final gamble to get their market back is a complete package of what someone would like in a 30,000 phone. Lets see the specs first:

Display:
3.7" Multi-touch capacitive touchscreen
AMOLED
480x800 resolution
Corning Gorilla Glass

Camera:
8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels
Carl Zeiss optics
Autofocus
Dual-LED flash
720p Video @30fps

Processor 1.4 GHz
RAM 512 MB
OS Microsoft Windows 7.5 Mango


Now what it does not have:
A secondary camera
Memory Card slot
A java platform (Thank God)
A tendency to hang up all the time(lolz)

The biggest up is the processor and the OS. The camera being a standard 8.1MP with autofocus, earlier in N8 is a bit more refinedand records HD video @30fps which is the best in the market.The secondary camera though not being such a big problem now, makes the whole concept of video calling useless and after eating up 16gb memory of my phone I really think they should start putting in memory card slots now.

Corning Gorilla Glass with Clear black display is an attraction. All in all its a 9/10 phone with just a little bit of price issue. With just a 5 grand less it could have been a winner all the way.  Now lets talk about how mango has changed nokia. Wonder what the fruits have to do with tech. first Apple then Mango. Anyways, firstly when you touch on something on this nokia, instead of hanging you up it shows a beautiful animation to take you to the next menu. Thats all the Nokia fans wanted. Its the best bet today if you ask me. Go for it!!

Greatness of Steve Jobs questioned (Look who is talking)!!

  

A Statuary warning: This article might contain offensive language about Neeraj Thakur and it is meant to be so, but he needs to understand that I'm presenting my views about his thoughts about Mr. Jobs. Evidently, I don't know who you are and honestly I don't care, but here's a simple lesson for you to get your facts and definitions right.

 What you've portrayed through one shit of an article is that if one guy doesn't get something, no one should.
Grow up dude, that's life!!  A salute to Mr. Jonas Edward Salk and respect for what he did in medicine. Polio drops have saved lives and that's a social cause. The man who invented it was generous enough to not to patent it to his name. But wake up Mr. Dumbo if some company is making it, this generous gesture of Mr. Salk has increased their profits and just so you know, polio is for free because of govt. subsidies not that Mr. Salk is producing it for free. Lets come to the comparison of Mr.. Jobs with this. First thing he did not produce iPhone, iPad, or any other apple product for a social cause. He runs a company that produces the finest quality products available in the market, and no govt. would provide a subsidy for that. Now talking of the patent thing, don't get iPad- the name patented and guess how many law suits you have to file in China.

Greatness is measured by what you do in your field. An engineer will not be judged on how good food he makes, similarly Jobs will not be judged on what social issues he considered. He was a great entrepreneur and so he would be judged. You talking about what he did to eradicate poverty??
Come out of your idealistic world. The man was the CEO, Co-founder and Founder of 3 most successful companies in his life span and worked hard to make them the best even when he was suffering from such a disease. You say he removed philanthropy because company was not earning profits. Tell me something smart guy would you give your money to charity when you are not even able to clear your own dues.

You have confined the man's intelligence in one line, and I quote "He just re-packaged products and technology that were already available with companies like Blackberry, Windows etc.". Well let me tell you none of the above companies invented a digital camera that is fitted in all the smartphone today. First Blackberry vs. Apple: Blackberry still uses the java platform for OS, and although I do like blackberry too, the difference between the two is huge. But how would you know you don't an Apple product and from your statements I can see you've not bothered to look at one too.
Windows vs. MacOS: Do I even need to write anything about this. The only reason people buy windows is because they don't want to spend too much for their computers.
So do clear your facts the next time you talk about a tech. product, or just try and have a look at them before you "Repackage" and post your thoughts.

And the last thing that annoyed me is the use of the line "so-called great products". Coming from a person who has never used an Apple product its a bit idiotic statement.I'd say you don't know what you are talking about or whom here. So, you should rather not speak!!

I'd like to end this by saying that when you write about something please at least first have a little knowledge about it!!

Click here to start your lessons Neeraj!!
Note: If anybody knows this guy please help me send this message to him. Re-post on your walls!!

SAMSUNG Galaxy Nexus

Start with this. Looks Awesome, Doesn't it?? But this was more about ice-cream sandwich. Lets get to the device hardware first.

4.65" Display size                        :- Big display with 720p resolution,
720p Display                                  you can't differentiate between pixels.

5 MP camera with flash                :- Not that good for a phone of price above 25k. Should have been
1080p @30fps video recording       at least 8MP. Still resolution is very high and Full HD video rec.


1.3 MP front cam                            compensates it. Almost all phones till now have VGA cams in front
                                                       this one's has been upgraded to 1.3MP. Don't know if network will be
                                                       able to transmit that quality of video(at least not in India).

1.2 GHz Dual core processor       :- Very good processor indeed, decent RAM standard 16-32 GB
1GB RAM                                      memory .

16/32 GB internal memory

4G Network capability                  :- 2G scam not over yet, feels bad to know 4G enabled devices are out.

And now the biggie first phone showcasing Android 4.0 Ice-cream Sandwich.

 

 Android market is increasing day by day. Google is updating very fast, fixing bugs etc. New in the market it has come a long way. You know about Gingerbread so I'll stick to the newly added features.

Face Recognition:- Don't know how responsive it will be but we can expect perfection from Google  and with Nexus having 1.3MP front cam.

New improved Notification

Better Graphics :- Looking very good

New Home-screen widgets:- Now get fb notifications on the home-screen itself.

New call rejection system, giving you options on how to reject, like with message etc.

Google's own Siri i.e. voice commands.

All in all a good package, lets see if the price makes it a must buy or we'll have to go for iPhone only!!

iOS v/s Android

First things first, this is not iPhone v/s an Android "phone". I am just going to discuss about the operating systems, so no comparisons of the battery life, cameras, sound quality etc.

Now before Android 2.1, if you tried comparing any phone with an iPhone you would be dumb, coz' iPhone with all its hardware had an unfair advantage over all others which is its software. The biggest contribution made by Steve Jobs when he was not in Apple to Apple and to the world was his (finally known to be)software company NeXT(how??). But now if anything can come even closer to iOS its Google's Android. It'll not be wrong if I say that iOS 5 kind of copied notifications and wireless sync from Android.

Lets get to the facts now,

1.  Android is an open source OS, i.e. anyone can make an app for Android phones and any Android user can use it. But with iOS Apple is very particular about what apps its users are allowed to use unless you jailbreak yours. Apple even charges a 30% share for every app.Google Android is free.

     Verdict: Whats good in this is that Apple is more secure, whereas Android is prone to Viruses and bugs in apps.But that restricts the no. of apps. for iOS and Android is catching up fast. So it all depends on your downloading instincts.

2.  Android provides with Home-screen widgets which have become very popular. Not even the latest version of iOS has it.

     Verdict: 1-0 for android

3.  Android can run Flash whereas iOS cannot. I am not talking about the camera flash. I am talking about the flash player apps.

     Verdict: There are enough apps. already, but can be a problem if you want a specific flash app.

4.   Android has become the 2nd fastest OS after iOS in very less time and is improving. It has a bigger market as phones of different companies can have Android(except Apple). So you can be loyal to your favorite brand like nokia and still have an OS that does not hang up every single time you try to use it. Apple's philosophy of Hardware and Software being twins and should be born together has been good till now, but Google has found an answer for it and its Android. It lets the creativity of the Phone  manufacturer to come into play and bring more out of its OS.

     Verdict: Good that you get more choices in terms of the looks for an Android phone as well as different price range. You can get an Android from 6000-30000. But there is only one iPhone upgraded with new hardware every year with minute changes in the body.

5.  Now lets come to the final blow!! At T3 Gadget Awards 2011 surprisingly Samsung Galaxy S II was crowned the phone of the year beating iPhone 4. Both have comparable hardware, what really stood out was how Samsung integrated Android in its device that helped it beat iPhone4("surprisingly").

      Verdict: Android is coming in at a very fast rate, Apple needs be more alert and creative with its software with a competition popping out out of nowhere. With the sole founder of Apple's Software development section NeXT Steve Jobs gone, its not going to be a clean sweep as earlier times when Apple has the monopoly in software.

Final Verdict: Head to head competition, with no one winning currently difficult to say which ones gonna win in the long run.This competition is going to be less about "Who wins??" and more about "Who's gonna let go" first??"

Hyundai Eon

Hyundai launches the new Eon, a new model in the entry level segment.

Specs.
814cc(0.8L) engine
 56PS@5500rpm maximum power
7.65Kgm@4000rpm peak torque
21.1kmpl (claimed)
5-speed manual transmission
Fluidic Design
And now the biggest attraction, starting at 2.65 lakhs

Highest mileage in the segment with the lowest price with hyundai's experience in the segment, what else do you need!!
Alto sales are expected to crash, with EON taking over the market with its features.

T3 Gadgets of the year

 Here are some of the best surprises of the year!!

Gadget of the year: Xbox Kinect 

As expected, its got the best motion sensor gaming experience till date. Once you start playing, you cant move away from it.

Computer of the year: Mac Book Air

 No surprises there!!

Commuter Gadget of the year: Amazon Kindle

 

 Getting popular day by day this Reader has got everything that you need from Wi-Fi to download e-books to big bright display.

Tablet of the year: iPad 2

 Launched within an year after ipad 1 this dynasty of gadgets have defined a new category, and its not surprising that the son of the creator of the category gets the award in the same!!

Phone of the year: Samsung Galaxy S II

 Big surprise there as it beat up iPhone 4 to award. Launched last year, this thin guy boasts an android gingerbread for OS. I think this win is for Android rather than for Samsung.

Tech Brand of the year: Google

No surprises there too, with Android, Google+, YouTube being the contributing factors.

Tech Guru of the year: Mark Zukerberg 

This Young Guy became the first to break Google's take at Social Networking. 2nd year in college if you can take Google down and keep it that way then you've owned that position!!

Work Gadget of the year: Blackberry bold 9780

Blackberry can't miss on this category, its got its monopoly in this. Black berry and White collar is the trend today!!

 Retailer of the year: Amazon

All set to set foot in India, this award would be a confidence booster for amazon in a completely new market.

Digital media service of the year: Twitter

Yup this ones apt, for 50% controversies popped up from this website in India.

Gadget Accessory of the year: Eye-Fi Pro X2 card

Now this ones a biggie. A Wi-Fi hub in a memory card??

Yeah, most cameras won't have a Wi-Fi port so this one is for them. You just need a Hot spot and all your photos and videos will be uploaded to fb, YouTube or even you laptop, ipads etc. Not good as there are very less Hot spots in India but a must buy in other countries. But you can still sync it with your laptop or android device. Its got this infinite memory option, that will keep on uploading the data to other devices and deleting the original copy giving you more memory in hand.

We will miss you Steve Jobs!!

"He was neither an engineer nor a manager, still he headed the biggest tech company in the world"

Apple, has become a hot favorite in every category it has stepped in, all due to Steve's ideology. The way he presented the products, improved them and stood by his decisions were all idealistic. He was a visionary.

After leading a complicated life during his childhood Jobs finally went to Reed college. But he soon dropped out after 1st semester. After he dropped out of college, he felt free and started taking the classes he liked not the one he was bound to(For e.g. Calligraphy etc.). In his own words, "Taking this classes helped making a difference to the Mac, like the calligraphy class I took helped to give a brilliant typography it and since Windows copies Mac no computer would have had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts".

Working with Steve Wozniack at Hewlett Packard, Jobs managed earn a living. He found a good friend in Wozniack, and later persuaded him to assemble a computer. Both founded Apple. All went well until by the end of 1984, Apple's sales dropped and Jobs was relieved of his duties at Apple. How bad is it to be thrown out of your own company!!
None the less Jobs felt that it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He was not going to give up on anything. So he started his own company NeXT Computers in 1985. By 1986 he also bought The Graphics Group (currently known as Pixar). By 1990 The first NeXT Computer was launched. By the mid 90's NeXT became a software development firm, whose products were later adopted in Apple to develop iTunes etc. 1996 Apple bought NeXT Computers for $429 million with it bringing back the co-founder of Apple. NeXT projects were used extensively in Apple, like the NeXTSTEP went on to become Mac OS, which is by far the best in its kind. Apple's success story depends mostly on its software programs, that were ultimately designed by the NeXT. So the time Jobs remained out of Apple, he was "non-intentionally" working for the success of Apple. In the mean time Pixar was bought by Disney, giving Jobs 7% share in the company, highest single shareholding ever. With everything back on track, Jobs never looked back. He worked hard, achieved his goals, and we know now where he has led his company to. In his time as CEO he revolutionized the world. Weather it were the iPods, the ipad or the iPhone, all defined a new category and perfection. All because of the simple idea of Steve Jobs that "Hardware and Software should be made together".

We will miss you Mr. Steve Jobs!!

Its iPhone 4S not 5!!

First things first, its not iPhone 5 its iPhone 4S so stop saying iPhone 5 is coming again and again. 

Secondly, its outer body is the same as iPhone 4 not the transparent one or the one projecting the screen and the keyboard.

Most of the perks added being advertised to lure the customers are of iOS 5 which will all be there on all the older versions of iphone and ipod touch.

Whats new??

1. The all new A5 processor is the upgraded version of the older A4 one. It increases the graphic performance significantly.
2. A better camera of 8 megapixel, that can even record videos at 1080p at 30 fps(frames per second)
3. Dual antennas for CDMA and GSM, with in-call antenna switching capabilities(solving the old antenna problem). This increased the weight a little bit.

As can be seen the outer body is exactly the same, but the core has been changed to A5 and a better camera has been installed. Thats all that the S has offered in iphone 4S. Rest is the same.What significantly will change your experience with this phone is the new OS. iOS 5 has got the notification center (like the android), its got Siri(The advanced voice commands responder), the faster Safari and alot more(200+ more as they say it).

Thus if you don't have an iphone, well you don't have an iphone!!

Sorry about that, if you don't have an iPhone 4 then go for iphone 4S, but if you've just bought an iphone then you should wait for iPhone 5 to bring something new to the table, which it will definitely will!!

Desi Tablet!!

Apple iPad 2 price in India is Rs. 36551/-
Samsung Galaxy Tab price in India is Rs. 32999/-.
Datawind UbiSlate price in India ..::::1750/- ::::...

No a zero is not missing there, also it is not another chinese mobile. It is the Indian govt.'s latest venture to provide tablet PC's at such a low cost. Why are they doing this??
I don't know!!
Seriously speaking the most amazing thing about this is that it costs less than the 16GB memory units installed in the other 2 tabs (A 16 GB MicroSD varies from Rs. 1200 - 2000)
Lets get to the current specs of the tablet

1. 7" Resistive touch screen                                             
2. Wi-Fi
3. 2 USB Ports
4. 2GB internal storage
5. MicroSD slot(expandable upto 32GB)
6. 2G Card enabled with data plans starting from 99/month
7. Android 2.2 OS

7 inch wide screen, wide enough. But its resistive, remember how we hated the resistive touch screen  (http://msgmech.blogspot.com/2011/09/feel-touch.html). Wi-Fi enabled device is a necessity today and the best way to access fast speed internet without the cumbersome wires. 2 USB ports, required to connect Pendrives, or maybe datacards. 2GB internal storage is bad but is expandable so not much of a problem. THE BIGGEST PERK OF THEM ALL IS ANDROID 2.2. Support for 2G cards for internet access. No 3G.

Cost cutting strategies, Difference between 30000 and 1750!!

1. Resistive touchscreen instead of Multi-touch Capacitive touch
2. 2GB instead of 16GB (You can cover that with another 1500 for a memory card)
3. 2G instead of 3G
4. I don't think this covers the gap, Do you???

The only OS today that can even come close to iOS is Android. And you have it in this guys. So cheer up guys you'll get your fruit ninja in this. But you may not like the feel because of the touch. But you saved a hefty sum of Rs. 28,000/- so learn to adjust.
Future plans
The CEO of Datawind claims that with an order of 3Million pieces, it will be able to add a capacitive touchscreen and a 3G modem at the same cost. Solves two of the biggest problems. I think that would be the complete tablet.

So if you go by my advice, Wait for that 3 Million mark!!