My Technophilic Musings

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iPhone 3G, the “supposedly” latest and greatest handhled, just continues to amaze me, with its ridiculousness of course. I mean first they dare to call a machine a smartphone that can’t run more than one app a time, need you to send the unit back even for a battery change, fix the glaring mistakes of its predecessor and call them “features” and make you believe that you are getting it all for cheap while covertly telling you that you need a minimum of 2 year 70$ contract to get it and need to pay through every hole for even software updates. And then they don’t stop this, just out is the information that you can’t tether the “data transfer powerhouse” to your laptops/PCs/Macs.

HSDPA/HSUPA my a**. I mean what good is a “3G” device that doesn’t even let you use the potential of the hyper-speeds by connecting to your bigger machines or even doing video calls. Oh right, I forgot, now you can check your e-mail at 50 messages per minute, WOOHOO!!, I’m so l33t.

So far the only good things I’ve noticed about the new release are:The MobileMe aka “sync-with-anything-anywhere” service, which although paid (obviously, its Apple we are talking about here), is still interesting. And the new SDK 2.0 that promises the 3rd party devs the same access to the phone as Apple’s devs, seems to be a step in the right direction though it remains to be seen how much of this is actually followed up on by Apple.

So, what do you feel is THE revolutionary thing about this new Cupertino offering? And of course, chime in with your gripes as well.

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Quote of the day: Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. - Kierkegaard

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: Apple, cupertino, HSDPA, HSUPA, iPhone, iPhone 3G, MobileME, SDK 2.0, tethering

My Sites: My Blog | My Tech Blog | Follow me on Twitter
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If you are a gadget freak like me and can’t resist the temptations to buy the newest toy on the shelves, then you’d obviously want to eek out the maximum you can from whatever budget you have. But while doing so you have to take care of a lot of things. Here is Part I of the few things that I do get the best deals out there while making sure I’m buying the right thing from the right place.

The first step to buying anything is obviously whether you are buying the right thing. The list of do’s and don’t and this regard are:

• Do not blindly go by the what the manufacturer’s site says. After all I’ll always say that I my product is the best.
• Do not just make the decision based on the feature set. More features mean more possible points of failure, so a device with fewer features but better reliability is obviously much better than the one that promises the moon but only the “once in a blue -“ kinds.
• Make sure to search for similar products from other manufacturers. Just because it comes from Apple’s stable doesn’t make it the best. (For the record, in general, I don’t like anything that comes from Cupertino)
• Look for the reviews. Search for the reviews for the product you have in mind, but a big problem with this has now arisen with the advent of “paid reviews”. But of course, you can always turn towards the community. Read through all the site-based single person reviews as well but also look for forums and other communities related to the type of gadget you have in mind. e.g. – For cameras, DPReview is a good place to go, for WM smart phones, XDA-Developers is the place to be, etc.
• Is the after-sales support good? You don’t want to be locked out with a product that you can’t do anything about if something goes wrong.
• Look also for the hidden costs of product. Many a times the base product is cheap but then it requires you to shell out a fortune in terms of required accessories to yield it’s full potential (e.g. Archos players).
• Maintenance costs:e.g. Most Apple products dont have easily replaceable parts and need to be sent back to factory for even things like a new battery.

Now, the list above seems small but when put into practice it isn’t. But obviously, a geek who can handle all the latest electronic gizmos can surely handle the irks that come while chosing one, and of course, within a short while, it will become second nature to you.

Are there any other things that you look for buying your new boy-toy? Do let me know. Next time, we will look at how to get the best deals for the stuff you crave.

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Quote of the day: Morpheus: If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: Apple, cupertino, deals, Gadgets, geeks, reviews, stuff

My Sites: My Blog | My Tech Blog | Follow me on Twitter
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HTC announce their shiny new Touch Diamond recently. Everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed while ogling at it until they realized that HTC has taken a step back (or forward towards matching Apple’s iPhone crap) by removing the expansion card slot from the phone. Yes, it has 4 GB of internal storage but I’d rather have an SDHC card slot with the ever falling prices of solid state memory (an 8 GB Class 6 SDHC card is worth not more than around 60$ these days). With a history of ultimate-gift-to-mankind phones like HTC Tytn, HTC Tytn II (Kaiser), iPhone, etc that excite so much on the first look and then start becoming dimmer and unwanted as the euphoria settles, we are left to wonder when will we see the real “Super Phone”. The do-it-all-be-all-end-all phone.

Well, my prediction is (Nostradamus style) : NEVER. No sir, you are not going to see your dream phone any time soon, or any time at all, for that matter.

Why do I say that. The reasons are pretty obvious, once we take off our wishful thinking hats and don the smart thinking ones.

1. A new dream every day: Around 8-10 years ago, I wished I had a cell phone. Around 6 years ago, I wish I had one with a camera. Around 4 years ago, I wish I had a phone with Mp3 player and expandable memory. 3 years ago I wished for a smart phone. Now, I wish for…. You get it. By the time something comes out, our dreams have already moved on. After all they  aren’t called “dreams” just like that

2. Where is the money: You might be ready to give a fortune (and your first born son) for that ultimate phone, but the evil-phone-conglomerate wants much more than that. They want you to be slaves. They don’t want the world to spend a huge amount in one go and then stop. They need to mint more money and too much more frequently than you’d like to spend. This is why the strategy works. Give out a phone that has slim form factor, nice UI, wi-fi, but then make the processor crappy (Touch), then lure them with a better processor but take out the wi-fi (Touch Dual), Add the wi-fi back and slap in a keyboard too, but keep’em wanting for better graphics (Kaiser), give ‘em a shiny new toy, but then lock it down in every possible (iCrap). So, you’d be stuck in the vicious circle of “upgrades” and keep the phone factory churning.

So, my dear fellow phone lovers, stop wasting your time waiting for that ultimate phone, and go “upgrade” at once, because “that” phone with just “that” one more feature…ISN’T COMING…

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Quote of the day: “Stan, what did I tell you about watching the Osbournes? It’s going to make you retarded!” — Stan’s Mom

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: Apple, HTC, HTC Diamond, iPhone, kaiser, PDA, phone, smartphone, super phone, Touch, Touch Dual, TYTN