Decision to go the Galaxy Note way...
Friday, December 23, 2011
It's been 1.5 years since I bought my Samsung Wave 8500 mobile phone in India. That was a time when the Android started to get popular and the iPhone remained something I thought was an expensive proposition for a mobile phone. I started to notice that Samsung was starting to do great stuff in the mobile space and decided to bite the bullet and put my money on Samsung's Bada OS. I knew there wasn't much of apps in the Samsung Bada store. I'm glad to have made that decision as I've discovered the quality and attention to detail that Samsung has seemingly been after.
Today, the mobile market is far mature than what it was, and I decided to make a change. Though a long time Nokia user (before the Wave took over!), I've not considered Nokia this time due to various reasons. The two brands I've been contemplating over are Apple and Samsung. Having had no other Apple product other than the 2nd generation iPod and iPod shuffle, I've always craved for an iPhone and the Mac. But the price of the iPhone seemed extremely prohibitive for me, given the discoveries I made.
To put things straight, I settled in for the Samsung Galaxy Note which I also got at a decent 16% discounted rate on one of the online deals site! I was contemplating between the iPhone 4S that got released recently and the Samsung Galaxy S2. I wasn't too inclined with the S2 either because it was already getting a year old (since its release). This is about the time when my eyes caught the newly released Samsung Galaxy Note.
But the real challenge I had in going in for an Android based mobile was the fear of the device not being compatible with Android 4.0, better known as the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). Thankfully the next morning (Dec-20th), I saw this update on Samsung's blog that ICS was going to be made officially available on a lot of Samsung devices that included the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Galaxy Note!
That solved my problem of choice between Apple iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy devices. But the next to confuse me was the choice between Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Galaxy Note. After pouring over the technical specifications and reading a lot, I got convinced with the Samsung Galaxy Note. Here are three reasons why I chose the Galaxy Note over S2 -
- I've been eyeing (on and off) at the Wacom Bamboos for quiet a long time now, and felt the Samsung Galaxy Note had at least some features of the Wacom tablets (and hope it will have more apps that will aid to it becoming more complete)
- Being a very heavy user of phones for talking and also for micro-blogging (Twitter and Facebook specially) and more, I found the 2,500mAh battery and the 1.4 Ghz processor was just perfect for this purpose
- I love phones that offer me good real estate for typing and viewing. Being a user of Treo 650, Nokia E90 in the past, I don't mind the size as log as it meets my primary needs
I was crazily eyeing the iPhone 4S for the Siri digital assistant feature and of course the new A5 chipset (which is really good!). And, I was constantly having the nagging itch to throw away all my "R&D" to the trash and order the Apple iPhone 4S, only until I came to know of Vlingo. This software is Siri's peer and seems to be doing a better job of a digital assistant than what Siri does! And, Vlingo is free! Hard to believe? Watch these videos for yourself -
Siri vs Vlingo - Part I
Siri vs Vlingo - Part II
Siri vs Vlingo - Part III
Vlingo has been acquired by Nuance, and this was made public on Dec-20th (the same day Samsung gave the news of ICS being available for its Galaxy devices!). Not sure if this is just co-incidence or something else. I'm just glad to have learnt all of this and thought it will be useful for many others who are contemplating between the Apple iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy Note.
Share your thoughts and feedback too. As always, Stay Inspired and Stay Tuned!
Identity - Online - Offline (Part I)
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Internet dawned upon me quiet late as compared to the generation today - who are born into the internet. But ever since I was into the net, I have increasingly had this feeling of being lost in a crowd. I know you must be wondering why - read on, let me explain this...
The first encounter with the internet (the unknown) was about 13 years back (yes, that's all its been!). We got the first computer at home which boasted of running a Pentium II processor with 32MB (!!) RAM and 4GB (!!!) Hard Disk Drive. We had a dial-up modem from ZyXel which allowed me to connect to the internet at 32Kbps (!!!!). Alright, this is just to give you a perspective of the time in which I did what I'm going to explain.
I connected to the internet by double-clicking a picture (later learnt it was called an icon) using a mouse. The minute I did this, I could hear some crazy sounds from the modem that was apparently trying to connect to this World Wide Web! I suddenly saw a small balloon on the bottom right side of my screen that said Your Computer is now Connected to the Internet. It was an achievement for me! For a person who did not even understand how to use Windows '95, this was an achievement - Connected to the Worldwide Web through a Window!
Now comes the interesting part - I opened Internet Explorer and typed the only address I knew at that time www.yahoo.com. I thought Yahoo.com was owned by the great Indian actor Shammi Kapoor, as he had a song where he shouts "Yahoo", and I was a big fan of the singer Md.Rafi. Alright, sorry about that...got a little nostalgic when trying to recall my stupidity.
That was the first time I ever saw a web page. Having used the computer to try out Pascal, C and play Pacman, seeing so many colors on the screen was like magic! I'd heard from some of my friends who had Windows and the Internet at home that they had an email address of their own. In a rather natural involuntary action, I clicked on the Email link on the web page and pop came up another web page that asked me to create an email account!
Having had zero knowledge about the internet, I thought an email address was something that can be changed as I please. When I searched for karthik as the username, I did not get it. Instead it gave me various suggestions and one such was karthik_v19. I was wondering why it gave me this as a suggestion and later realized it picked my age (19). I then made this big assumption that perhaps, these email thingies are valid for one year and that I'll need to change as I get older!! I chose karthik_v20, thinking I could do away with the first change as I was completing 20 in just a few months :-)
This is when my quest (and wonder) about my identity started. More in my next article. Till then, keep thinking and share your story - I'm sure every one of us had a dumb experience like this back in those days!
Keep sharing, Stay Tuned and Stay Inspired!
[Image Source: Buzzom.com]
Steve Jobs - On to make a Happier Heaven...
Thursday, October 6, 2011
In Hinduism we believe Lord Brahma is the creator of the world
But for technologists and the product fraternity, You are the Brahma.
You created products which work flawlessly, just like Brahma created mankind
Your presence brought goosebumps in people around
Your words brought in the "Ah Ah" moment in several millions of people
Your confidence gave people confidence
Your products shook up the market and drove competition back to design boards
And now, Your absence has brought tears in our eyes and sadness in our lives
We know You are on a journey of creating better experiences for everyone
We know even heaven wanted Macs, iPods, iPhones and iPads
Steve, we know You've continued your journey to make heaven a better place!
Rest in peace, my friend. We'll miss You.
Born into Facebook
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
There was a time when parents took pictures of their newborn kid(s) and also family pictures with the newborn(s) to put them on their family living room. With the advancement of the internet and with people jumping onto Facebook (I choose to use this instead of "Social Network") faster than ever, these living room pictures have found their way to the "walls" on Facebook.
Kids today, have their Facebook profiles from the very minute they are born - even before their birth certificates are made! Parents are becoming social media experts and their kids -
Celebrities - getting "Liked" from minute zero. Children today, are "Born into Facebook".
Is this good or bad? I wish to leave that to you. Do share your views though!
I Love Madras - It's My City!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
And finally, I'm writing my 4th (that's right, "fourth") post in this year! I've indeed been writing very sporadically on my blog these days and I'm here to share something more on what's been cooking behind the scenes. Curious? Read on...
It all started two years back when, after getting wedded, I brought my wife to this place where I live - Chennai. Every weekend, I was on the lookout for places to take her to. And, needless to say, she ended up Googling for information! Strangely enough, my wife had an extremely tough time finding the information she needed. After checking with more people who were living in Chennai and who had moved into the city, we realized that it was not just us, but many more who happened to face the same challenge!
It was December 2010 when I gave a serious thought on this topic and decided to do something about it - something that will help me and my wife and many others get readily actionable information about Chennai. I started putting down the base framework for what you see today as ILoveMadras.Com.
I opened up this website on July 7th 2011 and it's been open on a Beta basis since then. So that explains my sporadic presence on Water Droplets! Do write to me and let me know your feedback on I Love Madras. Should you be interested in contributing to ILoveMadras.Com, do write to me. Do visit the ILoveMadras Fan Page on Facebook to be a part of a growing community!
Till I see you next (shortly!), do Stay Tuned and Stay Inspired!
