LG Handsets Ice Cream Sandwich Update

LG just released a statement setting the schedule for the update to Ice Cream Sandwich, Google's latest and greatest. If you own a LG phone, see if your phone is getting the update any time soon.

The LG Optimus LTE, Prada phone by LG 3.0, the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Sol, the LG my Touch Q and the LG Eclipse will start getting the updates in Q2, 2012.


the LG Optimus 3D, the LG Optimus Black, the LG Optimus Big, the LG Optimus Q2 and the LG Optimus EX will get the update somewhere in Q3, 2012. 


So if you own one of these LG phones you gotta be glad for this straight news. LG has been known to be really slow on updating their handsets. This, however is the most complete and detailed update schedule I have seen so far compared to Samsung and Motorola. 


So keep a lookout for this update. It definitely brings a lot of new updates to your phones.

Explanation for Apple Dislike

As I have made clear on countless times, I am not exactly an Apple fan. And I know there are a huge number of those fans but I am not one of them. But what people need to know is its not because I am a hippie and I think just because Apple has is so "mainstream" I shouldn't like it. That's not it. I have valid reasons for not liking Apple products. 

I get bored very easily with a phone's outlook. The covers, the wallpapers, the themes, everything. So I am constantly changing all these things to keep my phone feeling fresh. Imagine my reaction when the only thing I could change on my iPhone 3(that is the only iPhone I have used as my personal phone) was the wallpaper or the back cover. Then I found Jailbreak. Sure we can Jailbreak then use Winterboard for all these customization options that are very very cool. But what happens then? You lose performance. I have experienced it on the iPhone 3 and gotten a lot of feedback from iPhone 4 users. Performance is definitely an issue with the HK iPhone handsets after jailbreak. 

The phone that I was using right before I bought the iPhone was the Sony Ericsson Walkman.(pictured above) That was a media centric phone with an emphasis on Music. So in that phone, I could use MP3 files as your ringtone. That was a very common feature at that time for phones. Then I got the iPhone and guess what I find out? iPhone doesn't support mp3 ring tones. A "smartphone" that I just paid double the price of my old phone does not do something so simple that even very old Nokia phones could do. 

Then comes iTunes. The largest pain in the ass. I think iTunes was really the deal breaker. You cannot send any files to your device without using iTunes. Pretty much the slowest app for file transfer on the planet. My first instinct was to google it and find the solution. If you search "transfer files without iTunes" on google, you get 3,330,000 results. Almost all of those don't help. There was a solution for a while where you could transfer files through another software called iPhone Box but it doesn't work anymore. All in all, your stuck with iTunes. The worst part is this strategy isn't some kind of security feature but its actually a money maker. You can buy movies and music on iTunes so they are somewhat attracting you to buy their products by making it compulsory to use that software. I don't like it.

So anyway just to conclude, I do not like Apple products because they are too restrictive. They don't provide me with the same customization options as Android. You can't even do all the things you can do on Android on iOS but that's a topic for another day. Anyways, I have to give credit where credit is due, and Apple products are ridiculously well built for the general consumer market. The iPhone is the perfect smartphone for people who have never used a smartphone before and its very simple. I read something a while ago that really summed up Apple products. "The iPad is something my 2 year old son can pick up and start playing with. Android takes time to learn even for most Adults." So for Apple vs Android there isn't really a winner. It's just what your need is and what you are looking for.

(Not trying to say anything with this pic, just found it funny)

Happy Holidays!

Something for the Apple Fans - iPad 3

Here's something for the Apple hungry people. A new round of rumors just came in about the iPad 3 from techweekeurope. 

Here is the list of all possibilities:

1. Some sources in "supply chain" say the first units will arrive in the next 3 to four weeks. 

2. Siri may also be on board especially as it has been the selling point of the iPhone 4S

3. Improved Camera: Maybe something similar to the iPhone 4S 8MP shooter

4. Obviously has to have a better processor, since the iPad 2 had a 1GHz dual core processor, I'm thinking either a higher dual core processor, or a Quad core Processor, similar to the Transformer Prime

Well there you go, as I hear more, I will update this list to add more things. 

I really want to see this new iPad because its the iPad why I have my Android tablet. Apple products have been the line that Android tries to cross so I am always excited about new Apple products. 

Are you excited about the iPad 3. Are the above features enough for current iPad owners to upgrade? Leave a comment below.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Weekly App Recommendation - Air Droid

Every week I will be featuring an app either for Android or iOS that I think is really useful or worth checking out.

This week I bring you AirDroid for Android.

Airdroid is an app that can help you connect your Android smartphone to your PC. All you need is a WiFi connection and a browser. All you need to do is enter the web address the app gives you once you enable into a browser, any browser( I have tested it with my tablet browser and so far it works fine), and enter the password and you can access your phone through the browser. 

Example:

As in the above screenshot, the app shows you pretty much all your info. Available memory, signal, WiFi, and even battery level. I used it mostly to send and receive messages when I am using the PC. Sending messages through Keyboard is obviously much easier. 

The best about the app has to be that you don't have to install anything. You can use this app even when at school or work because you do not have to install anything. 

The best thing is that this app is free. So you don't have to waste any money if you're just trying it out. 

You can find the link to their website and also the market link below. 

http://airdroid.com/

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sand.airdroid&hl=en

Hope you Enjoy!

Apple and Samsung

Found an interesting picture which I wanted to share. For all Apple fans out there. Just figured I should let you know that without Samsung you wouldn't have iPhone. Samsung makes the screen's as well so the beautiful display on the iPhone is actually a Samsung product. While Apple has contacted other companies for the screen, I read a report where LG couldn't deliver the amount and the quality so Apple had to go back to Samsung for the screens. So there you have it.

Picture courtesy to the Economist.
(http://www.economist.com/node/21525685)

Free apps for Android!

Jailbreaking on iPhone or iPod is wildly popular and everybody knows its the only way to get free apps and mod your phone. Of course many iPhone users know that to get these free apps you have to give up some performance. Most iPhone's lose performance after jailbreak. Android however does not have this problem. To get free apps, you do not have to make any modifications to your phone. I'll show you below the method to get free apps for your Android smartphone or tablet.

1. On your smartphone download any file manager app. I prefer astro File manager. If you own a samsung device, it should come preloaded with the My Files app. That works too.

2. On your PC browser, go to 4shared.com

3.  Say you want the new Spiderman game. search for "spiderman.apk"

4. Download the file that you are looking for. If it has your handset name, good. If not you can still try, most of the times it works. 

5. Move the file from your PC to your SD card or phone memory. 

6. Open up your file manager app and navigate to the folder where you saved your file. 

7. Click install and that's it. If it has some problems running, try to find a different version. 

Tips: You can also go to the website straight from your phone or tablet browser which can save you the transferring time and also doesn't require the file manager app.  

To find all apps, just do a blank ".apk" search and you can find all files currently on the database.

Thats it for now. If you have any questions just leave a comment below. 

Happy Holidays. 

Sensation XL vs Nexus Prime

HTC Sensation XL vs Galaxy Nexus Prime (Strictly specs based comparison)


Two new handsets to hit the Hong Kong market in the last few days have been the Nexus Prime and Sensation XL. I honestly like the look of both these phones and someone asked me about which one was better. I couldn't tell you that because I have no personal experience with the phone but I am going to list out a comparison of the specs.

                                     HTC Sensation XL                            Nexus Prime

Display:                       4.7 inch                                                4.65 inch

                                    480 x 800 pixel resolutions                       720 x 1280

                                     Super LCD display                               Super Amoled HD Display

Software:                      Android 2.3 Gingerbread                          Android 4.0 Ice-cream Sandwich

                                      HTC Sense 3.5 Skin    

Processor:                     1.5 GHz Single Core                                  1.2 GHz Dual Core

Memory:                      16 GB(No SD card slot)                             16GB(No SD card slot)

Camera:                       8MP back with dual flash                           5MP back single flash

                                   1.3 MP front                                           1.3 MP front

                                  720p video recording                            1080p FULL HD video recording

Battery:                     1600mAh                                                               1,750mAh       

Other Stuff:                Beats Audio Integration                            Facial Unlock Feature

                                  In-ear Beats headphones                          Latest Android Software

                                  in the box                                               No flash yet     
                                  Flash Support          

Price:                       $4,980(Sim Free)                                    $5,328(pre-order, Sim Free)                                                       

Final Thoughts: Both these phones pack a lot in terms of specs and raw processing power. Nexus Prime to me is only better because its got the latest Android software and a dual core processor with the beautiful Super Amoled HD Display. The XL on the other hand looks much better in terms of design, a full white, with capacatative buttons only. It also has HTC's Sense UI which makes using it much easier and the Beats AUDIO integration actually is a big feature for audiophiles. The sound quality is greatly improved and you can notice the difference if you turn it off. The question is not which is better but which one is better for you. Hope this helps

Galaxy Nexus Prime - Updated Hong Kong

Alright so this is one phone to be excited about and while the UK already got their share of it a few weeks ago, I just saw an ad for it this morning and did some research and 1010(csl) is taking orders for the phone. This is the flagship google phone and most hardcore android fans would definitely want this. The one thing that really stands out about this phone is the latest Android version Ice Cream Sandwich. This is one pretty ass software and trust me, it beats iOS by a longshot. I will review Ice Cream Sandwich and hopefully post a demo soon so you can see whether its something you like.

Here is the ad from the newspaper this morning:

Specs: 

- 4.65”  HD SUPER AMOLED Screen (1280x720 pixels) for vivid display

- Curve and Sleek design of 8.94mm

- First Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) for enriched features

- Face Unlock

- Android Beam to exchange information between NFC embedded Android phones

- Google +

- 1.2GHz Dual Core Processor

- HSDPA 21Mbps

If you manage to get your hands on this phone, let me know what you think. The price is right at $5,398. I guess the company hopes this is what you will be spending your 6K on.  For those permanent residents receiving it obviously.

Rumour- Sony Erricson Nozomi

This phone has been on the rumour mill for a while now but more speculation has brought us some specs as well as a picture. SE Nozomi is expected to be the last smartphone under the Sony Erricson brand after Sony bought out Erricson's part of the phone division.

The phone looks extraordinarily stylish. Definitely something I would like to own. The specs aren't too shabby either. The speculation right now is that the phone will have a dual core processor clocked at around 1.5 ghz with one gb of ram and 32gb of internal storage. With this much internal storage there probably won't be any micro SD expandible memory like the xperia handsets. The company will probably release more information around early 2012, so keep a lookout!

If SE does roll out this phone soon, I will definitely be looking to upgrade.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (3G) - Review

I have been using this tab for 2 weeks now and I have been very satisfied with it. So lets get started:

Overview

At just 8.6mm, it is 0.2mm thinner than the iPad 2. And you know what? At 565g it's also 36g lighter. Yup! That is the first thing you will notice with this tab, it is very very thin. It even puts the iPad to shame. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a 7000mAh battery for all-day tablet use. The Apple iPad 2 battery is 6600mAh. In my use so far, I have had not had any battery issues. I sometimes am surprised at the usage I put it through and it still manages a whole day. Most tablets promise good battery life these days but don't live up to their word. The Galaxy Tab definitely lives up to it. 

The 10.1 also has a four-way accelerometer and gyro . That may seem like a minor upgrade, but most of the games on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 responded faster to quick turns and screen rotations, and generally worked better for controlling games. It also has great side speakers for playing music and movie audio, and plays smooth 1080p video.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 matches the features of other Android tabs: built-in GPS, support for Adobe Flash in the browser (you still have to download it on your own), 1290 x 800 screen resolution, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor and Android tablet app.

Hardware

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 does have, yes, a 10.1 inch screen. The Power and Volume Rocker buttons are at the top, while there are two speakers on each side. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is also at the top and if you get the 3G version, the sim slot as well. At the bottom of the Tab is proprietary USB port. It somewhat looks like an iPad or iPhone jack but its not the same. 

The Tab has two camera, the shooter at the back is 3MP with flash, while the front one is 2MP. The quality of these cameras is pretty decent in good lighting but you don't want this to be your primary camera. Believe me.

In the Box: comes the USB wire, a 250V charger, obviously the usage booklet, and a pair of Samsung headphones and spare earbuds. These headphones have surprisingly good quality and unlike some HTC headphones, don't have any magnet connections to each other. There have been cases where HTC headphones get stuck to each other. 

Over with the good, let me talk about some bads in Hardware. The Galaxy Tab, unlike other tabs (Transformer) does not have a slot for adding more memory through an SD card. My version comes with 16GB of memory which is more than enough for me. But some people prefer to add more space rather than deleting stuff so I can understand why this would be a problem. There is also no USB port, like some other tabs, for using external keyboards or even a USB flash drive. There is a keyboard dock by Samsung which fits into the Tabs USB slot.  The dock currently retails for about HK$555 from Expansys online. Of course if you know how to navigate your way through Sham Shui Po, you will find a much cheaper alternative :)

 

Software

The Galaxy Tab is running Honeycomb version 3.1. This is the tablet version of Google's Android.

Samsung has of course added its Touch Wiz skin on top but it is very light and it actually adds onto it rather than taking anything away from android. 

The software is smooth and fluid. It has a very futuristic feel to it, much like Tron if you've  seen the film, all neon blue and shiny. I really like this design. 

Things you need to know about the software:

There are many technical aspects about the software but I am only going to stick to what I think are the essentials. 

Basic App Navigation:

Once you get to your homescreen. You can notice certain things. At the top right corner is where you can access the app drawer and add wigets to your homescreen. By pressing on the +, you can see all the options and stuff that you can add to your home-screen.

Multi-tasking

Multi-Tasking is a very welcome feature on the Tab for me. If you press the 3rd button at the bottom of your screen, a scrollable bar appears as in the picture above. You can scroll through it and even see the last 10 apps that you used to switch back to them.

Quick bar

Another VERY welcome feature added by Samsung is the quick bar as in the picture. While on any screen, you can press the upward facing arrow and 6 consistent widgets open up at the bottom of the screen. You don't need to switch screens to view these. They appear right on top of whatever app you are on and you can navigate through them. The 6 apps that appear are Task Manager, Calendar, World Clock, Pen Memo, Calculator and Music. I personally love the calendar, music and calculator app.

As you can in this picture, I had whatsapp running and I needed to check certain dates and the calendar pops right on the screen. You can even type or interact with the app behind it and it becomes transparent.

App Drawer

So moving on, the app drawer is also slightly different when compared to Android handsets. At the top you have all apps, and then you have My Apps. This shows you all the apps that you downloaded. Then on the right side you have the shortcut to get straight to the Android Market.

Just like before, as with the good, there is also bad. If you are a first time tablet user, and don't have a very good handle on new tech, you should not try your hand at this. You will get frustrated. A lot of times, the Honeycomb OS is not as fluid, atleast when compared to the iPad. It also requires some getting used to, so if you don't right away like it, give it some time.

*I had to point out this one setting on the Tab which I find very interesting and it is also unique to it. The stock Video Player in the tab is very powerful. It can play a lot of formats and even play HD upto 1080p. The most interesting thing added to this stock player is the outdoor visibility mode. I haven't seen any reviewers talk about this which I find surprising. If you are outdoors in the sun, its obvious that the screen quality takes quite a hit. However if you go to settings and turn on outdoor visibility, the tab adjusts colors in a way that greatly improves the quality and you can see everything clearly. I really like this setting which turns this tab into a more media centric device which you can take outdoors.

Benchmarks

I ran some benchmarks on the tablet just for comparison's sake and here are the results. At the top is of course Asus Transformer Prime which is not yet released. That is a quad core tablet so of course it deserves the place there. Under it is the Galaxy Nexus. Basically the only tablet there is the Moto Xoom. I have watched many reviews and even handled the Xoom myself, and trust me, the benchmarks are completely off. It is nowhere near this kind of quality. The xoom is very laggy and has very bad battery life.

Benchmark

Conclusion

The tab is a very well constructed piece of tech and one that I think is rightly called the top Android tab of the year. Apple has been suing Samsung over this tabs design left and right so you know they did something right. It's thin and light structure make it very portable, while at the same time the large screen and clear display make it very usable. The software is smooth and crisp, and the features that it provides are very extensive. Many iPad owners will be surprised at how little their tabs can do when they check this one out.

Final Verdict

If you are an android fan and want to buy an android tablet, I suggest you definitely give this a serious look. If you are a first time android user but are someone who is tech savvy, then again definitely give this a look. If you easily get confused by tech and like everything to be simple,( I have some friends like that) do not get it. Stick to Apple. It all depends on your own personal needs. I like to read news, edit microsoft word, excel and powerpoints, do all kinds of other software updates so this tablet is my kind of thing. Apple is too restrictive for me. Samsung has done a great job of simplifying the outlook of android for mainstream consumers and I really think this tablet is a great step towards showing the general public that android tablets can be hit mainstream markets too.

If you guys are still confused about which tablet you should buy, and whether you should buy a tablet at all, leave me a message or comment and I will try to recommend a tablet according to your needs.

Hope this was useful. :-)! Take care everyone!