Posts by technohead95 85 publicly visible posts • joined 18 May 2011
As the article says "We're continuing to test the Galaxy Nexus software to ensure our customers get the best possible experience of the device" why would Vodafone need to carry out their own testing unless they've carried out Vodafone bloatware modifications. All carriers need to understand that anything they add is just crap that the vast majority don't want.
This is hardly surprising coming from Apple. They're the same company who brought a law case for a paper notepad that resembled an iPhone design on the grounds that their consumers may get confused with the branding.
If Apple think their customers could get confused between an over priced mobile phone and a $2 paper notepad then what does this say about the average intelligence of their customers??
Sent from my Android mobile :-)
...I like the fact that I can change my SIMs easily between several UK ones and even use my phone with a PAYG SIM when I'm abroad. Having to attach the phone to a PC with software to do this will make it impractical. No longer can I get a throw away SIM when I'm abroad. I really hope the GSM standard throws this out and it doesn't take off.
I hardly think a removable SIM card adds bulk and weight to a handset (especially a Micro SIM). If a Micro SIM is still deemed to add bulk then surely designing a new and better removable SIM is the solution. This doesn't necessarily mean make the SIM smaller (there's a certain practical limit with how small a removable SIM could go; something the size of a Micro SD card is about as small as you can go while still being somewhat practical to hold and insert). May be a new design allows the holder and supporting stuff in a phone to be a lot smaller. There are many clever people in this world who are able to solve this problem.
However, boo to Apple for trying to make this standard.
"A bigger snag is that consumers have yet to be persuaded that 3D TV is a good thing, especially in these economically tightened times."
If consumers will ever be persuaded that 3D TV is a good thing! Our eyes are not desired to cope with fake 3D (i.e. stereoscopic 3D). All this 3D TV (including the early colour filtering system at cinemas e.g. Nightmare on Elm Street 3D) is the first time in human history that are eyes have to converge and focus at different points. This is why so many people get headaches from it. At the cinema it is somewhat bearable because it is a short term experience but having it on the TV at home would be too much exposure (even if a good portion of shows are still shown in 2D). Couple this with gaming consoles, tablets and mobile phones that are going 3D too and it's easy to see how people can be exposed of it too much. Add to the fact that 3D TV is also really really bad for children as it greatly hinders their natural eye sight development which doesn't stabilise until they are in their early teens.
There may seem to be a wave of 3D type but most of this is being pushed by TV manufacturers and movie studios. I'm betting that consumer's choice will finally prevail and the 3D phase will pass as quickly as it came.
Currently, the only winners are the lawyers who are raking it in from both sides. I truly feel the current patent issue is hampering on innovation and the consumers are suffering. With manufacturers being focused on attacking/defending in patents clashes, they are less focused on producing good quality products. Costs spent on attacking/defending would need to be regained elsewhere in the business such as increased product cost. Therefore, no matter what manufacturer you are loyal time, you will be have an inferior quality product at a more expensive price while the patent disputes are going on.
Motorola took ages to update the UK Xoom to 3.2. Who wants to buy a Xoom 2 on the promise that it'll be updated to 4.0 in a timely fashion? Motorola have been added to my list of manufacturers who have failed to uphold their promise or failed to meet customer expectations when it has come to software updates. I will be passing on the Xoom 2 in a blink of an eye.
Apple made the first move on Samsung as it felt threatened by the competition. They must have thought Samsung would roll over but I'm so glad Samsung decided to fight back on the bully. Despite all the patent confrontation, Samsung reached out with a truce in Australia that would have rippled across all the other world wide issues but Apple through this back in Samsung's face. I have no sympathy for Apple and hope it gets stung badly from the whole ordeal. Apple have created some good products but rather than raise it's game when faced with competition, it chooses to focus its efforts to stifle the competition. Grow up Apple and focus your efforts on producing better products!!
Go Samsung! You have my full support!
Aesthetically, they look great but I lot interest as soon as it said Windows Phone. The entire time it's been available, I've only seen 1 person with a Windows Phone 7 mobile. He was playing with the tile interface as a way of showing off. Personally, I think he was bored as there weren't any apps to download ;-)
SuperOneClick is an application that will gain root access on many phones including the Orange Barcelona (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=803682). Once you've rooted the phone, you can use Titanium Backup (available in the Android Market) to "Freeze" applications. Freezing an application will move the app into a state that seems as though it is uninstalled but the application file is still present on your phone. You won't be able to launch the app, see it in the menus or in the list of installed apps. However, you can unfreeze it at anytime to bring it back. It's better to freeze the Orange bloatware rather than to uninstall it so you can bring it back later.
However, as I mentioned before, if you choose to uninstall the Orange bloatware. Do not uninstall the Orange Setup and Orange Homescreen. Either keep them installed or just freeze them. If you freeze them, then make sure you unfreeze them before doing a factory reset otherwise you'll brick your phone and will have to find a stock ROM to bring it back.
I own this phone and do agree the screen real estate is extremely limited. The most annoying thing about the phone is that Orange (in their infinite wisdom) have placed a permanent notification item in the notification bar. There is no way to dismiss or remove this (that I have found). The notification icon for this is the up and down arrow. While this is not a big issue for a big screen device, this takes up valuable screen real estate in the notification bar when it is pulled down. It leaves room for only 1 more row of notification which is plain silly.
Using SuperOneClick v2.1.1, I rooted the device and used Titanium Backup to freeze most of the Orange bloatware. Be careful not to freeze the Orange setup or Orange homescreen (if you do and carry out a factory reset, it won't be able to find those during the restart and it'll fail to boot).
If the US price is $199 then I would really hope the Fire in UK is £150 at the very most. The current exchange rate brings it to £128 but we all know that UK gets the raw end of the stick with tech prices. If the device came in at between £128 to £150 in UK then I'm sure it'll just fly off the shelves.
I'm so glad that Samsung is using the full force against Apple. Apple are the big bullies of this tech world and it's only Samsung that seems to be standing up against them. If it wasn't for Samsung, Apple would be doing the same to other manufacturers. However, the heated court battles with Samsung only seem to allow Apple to lightly attack the other companies. I really hope Apple crawls back under the rock from where it came from. This will finally allow everyone to focus on producing good tech for the consumers rather than spending wasted effort in courts over patents.
...all these articles on TheRegister slagging off Android and putting Apple's iOS on a pedal stool? TheRegister's attitude of "Apple can do no wrong" is getting really annoying. The whole reason for Android's success is a single consistent OS that developers can target. If manufacturers choose to use their own OS then there is no doubt in my mind that it will fail. If Amazon's latest lock down tablet that uses Android is a success then this is nothing to do with the fact that it uses Android under the hood. However, I feel it will be a really bad flop.
...is that it's video playback ability is pretty poor. This is mainly down to the Tegra 2 chip (so it's the same issue as most other Android tablets). The other thing is, Motorola have already confirmed that only the US Xoom is a Google Experience Device. All non-US ones are not and thus you could be waiting a while for the latest Android OS updates.
They should create a new category for this type of Tablet called the "Slab". Who wants a tablet twice as thick as competitors. The full size expansion ports/slots is great but not at the expense of twice the thickness. I don't think this will be that popular and Toshiba is doing themselves over by not releasing the Excite to Europe market at the same time as the US market.
Apple should be thrown out of court and slapped with a massive fine for falsifying information. Although their document does not cover the dimensions, there is no excuse for tampering with the information.
Apple's description of: "both devices have rounded corners and feature a flat surface centred within, and surrounded by, a metallic frame."...yeah well so does every single digital photo frame. Is Apple going to sue them too??
And then: "When switched on, the text continues, both devices present an array of icons as shown in the image"...as other's point out. This is not true. The first screen presented in the home screen which can be customised as you please. Out of the box, it looks nothing like the ipads home screen. What you see in the image is the app drawer which has to be opened explicitly.
I'm extremely disappointed with El Reg journalists who seem to be so biased towards Apple. Apple are completely evil. They are now seeing other companies as a threat. Rather than competing on producing better products and better pricing. They're going about it the only way they know how...sue the pants off everyone!
I wish all these patent litigations issues were put to an end so everyone can go back to competing on producing better products.
...but I am concerned that Microsoft and Apple will be owners of these patents. Both of these companies have and currently offensively targeting companies with patent infringement court orders. I can see them both using these on the offensive to attack every Tom, Dick and Harry rather than keeping them for defensive purposes. I really hope Microsoft and Apple prove me wrong, otherwise it'll be a sad day for Android.
Assuming the prices are not the estimated carrier subsidised cost, the big catch is that the software is obsolete before you even buy it. It's a huge surprise that Nokia are releasing another Symbian phone, what's the chance that they'll support this phone for all 10 people who actually go ahead and purchase it?
Nokia getting in bed with Microsoft is the biggest fail of 2011 so far. They've basically given their market share to iOS and Android on a silver plate.
6 weeks is not a long time to wait for this. I'm looking really forward to it. Only question is whether I wait a bit more for the 8.9 as it seems like it's exactly the same spec except for the physical screen size. Even the resolution is the same. Therefore, the 8.9 would be a little more portable and have a crisper display due to the higher pixel density. If I do wait and solid news comes out about quad core Tegra 3, then I may wait even more just to get a quad core tablet (not because of the extra power but because the Tegra 3 will be much lower power and hence have better battery life. It will also have better video/audio codec support).
Anyway, I'm a patient person so time will tell.
There's absolutely no benefit in someone investing their hard earned cash on a device which has so little support and where WebOS market share is falling at such a massive rate month on month.
In the 3 months between Jan 2011 and April 2011, Palm/WebOS lost 19% of its marketshare (http://technology-headlines.com/2011/06/03/us-smartphone-ownership-up-13-percent-in-first-quarter-according-to-latest-comscore-report/). While Android and Apple showing the only signs of growth, I can't see WebOS lasting much more than a few more months. By Summer, HP will need to pay people to take these tablets off their hands.
"Microsoft said on Thursday that it would now concentrate on trying reform US law to prevent abuses of the patent system."???
Microsoft is doing the exact same thing to Android handset manufacturers claiming a royalty for every single handset sold.
http://www.winrumors.com/htc-pays-microsoft-5-per-android-device-generates-more-income-than-windows-phone/
Microsoft should get its two-face and hypocritical self of its high horse and stop dragging other companies through the courts abusing the very patent system that it claims to be victim of.
The review was simply glowing with very few negative points (of which they were all relatively minor). I really don't understand why it has gotten 85%. I would expect a review of such positive light would receive 95% or higher.
Negative points you raise:
1. Rather flimsy plastic back panel.
2. There’s no hard camera shutter button.
3. The Game Hub needs a bit of development to mark it out as an improvement on what you can get from the standard Android Market.
4. [Camera] Colours can look a little over-emphasised on screen
5A. I never managed to get a full day of, admittedly, heavy use out of it [battery]
5B. the battery life isn't the greatest
Replies to post:
1. However, it's completely sturdy when attached to the phone so I feel this point is fairly irrelevant.
2. This is a personal choice so the negativeness of this is down to your own preference. For me it's a non-issue.
3. The Samsung Gamehub is a waste of time. It was the first thing I uninstalled. Most users will also be uninstalling this or simply ignoring it. I would say it's a stronger negative point that Samsung chose to include the bloatware in the first place.
4. It's subjective how big of an issue this is. Probably ok for most people as a camera phone isn't a replacement for a dedicated camera. I hadn't really noticed this issue but accept that this is a valid minor negative point if it genuinely is an issue.
5A and 5B. I personally think the battery of this phone has been amazing. I don't think there is any other *comparable smartphone out there that has better battery life. Therefore, by definition it is close to being the greatest (if not the greatest).
* It's no good comparing battery life of this phone against a non-smartphone feature phone. Likewise, comparing this against a similar smartphone using an extended battery is not fair either. A good comparison would be against a similar spec smartphone with a battery capacity of around ~1650mAh (same as SGS2).
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