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Moved to www.gadgetdetail.com
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Author Archives: bandla
Bandla Recommends! The February 2012 smartphone list
‘extreme VFM’ tag means that the phone is better than anything else in that category and is better than few phones in next category. The list first:
- LG Optimus Pro
- Blackberry Curve 8520
- Nokia E5
- LG Optimus One <<extreme VFM>>
- Motorola Fire XT530
- HTC Chacha
- Nokia Lumia 710
- Blackberry Curve 9300
- Motorola Defy <<extreme VFM>>
- Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman
- Nokia E6
- Samsung Omnia W
- SE Xperia Pro <<extreme VFM>>
- Nokia N8
- Blackberry Curve 9380
- LG Optimus Black
What a customer care sir jee!
On 23rd of January, I applied for a new Idea postpaid connection and minutes later, I was given a new SIM card. I was told that it will take around 24 hours for the SIM to get activated. Next day morning when I checked, the SIM was inactive (Yes, I rebooted my phone). I thought let me call Idea customer care to check why it is not activated and what the current status is. I got the number ‘9844012345’ from ideacellular.com and I gave the call, selected option ‘2’ for English and then ‘9’ to speak with a customer care executive and here is the conversation:
CCE: <something in kannada>
me: (in English) I subscribed for new postpaid connection and the SIM is not activated yet.
CCE: Sir, this is prepaid ccare number. call 9844012345
me: thank you (I forgot that this is the same number to which I placed a call)
I quickly dialed the number 9844012345 (again) and here’s the conversation. The executive name is ‘meenakshi’
Meenakshi: <usual greeting>
me: I subscribed for new postpaid connection and the SIM is not activated yet.
Meenakshi: Sir, this is prepaid ccare number. call 9844012345
me: that is the number to which I have called
Meenakshi: Sir, selection option postpaid
me: There is no such option
Meenakshi: Sir, call from your Idea postpaid number
me: How can I call using a SIM that is not activated yet.
Bandla’s Blog : 2011 annual report
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Know your smartphone manufacturer part 2
Hope you have liked the article on Motorola. This time, you get to learn about a brand that is going to celebrate 150 years in 2015. Yes, 150 years! They have not invented mobile but they gave us smartphone, they used to create devices that used to be at the center of attention in the 90’s and till late 2000s. I think you know what I am talking about.
PS: The first article on Motorola was huge and this time, I have decided to make it a bit easy to read and as short as possible. Happy reading.
12 May 1865
Fredrik Idestam, father of Finland’s paper industry was granted permission to build a paper mill and the mill construction was completed on the banks of Tammerkoski Rapids in Tampere, Finland in the year 1866. In the year 1868, he build another mill by the banks of the Nokianvirta river. Unlike today’s paper that is manufactured from wood pulp, till late 1860s, Europe used to manufacture paper using rag pulp (mix of linen and canvas rags, cotton rags were added later) which was expensive when compared to wood pulp. While Friedrich Gottlob Keller invented this method of manufacturing paper from wood pulp in 1844, it was Heinrich Voelter and Idestam were instrumental in bringing this manufacturing process to mass use. In the year 1867, Idestam was awarded a bronze medal for showcasing his groundwood while Voelter’s mill got the gold medal and this was the catalyst that they needed to increase usage of wood pulp based paper.
Bandla Recommends! The January 2012 smartphone list
Lot of changes went in this month. Quite a few Blackberries made it to the list.
‘extreme VFM’ tag means that the phone is better than anything else in that category and is better than few phones in next category. The list first:
- LG Optimus Pro
- Blackberry Curve 8520
- Nokia E5
- LG Optimus One <<extreme VFM>>
- HTC Explorer
- HTC Chacha
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini
- Blackberry Curve 9300
- Motorola Defy <<extreme VFM>>
- Samsung Wave II
- Nokia E6
- Samsung Omnia W
- SE Xperia Neo V
- LG Optimus 2X Continue reading
Know your Smartphone Manufacturer Part 1
Mobile Phone a.k.a cell phone a.k.a handheld phone. It is difficult to find a person without a cellphone, whatever economic condition he/she is in. Most of you might be using a cellphone for years now. But have you ever wondered to know more about the manufacturer of your phone? Ever felt that you need to know just a bit more about the brand? Who are they? Where are they from? How did they enter mobile phone business? Well, this series of articles are going to do just that. I am going to focus on the history of these major mobile phone manufacturers and this is the first article of the series.
This company is slowly but certainly heading towards centennial anniversary (though it is more than a decade away). We have seen many mobile phone manufacturers reel during recession or when the landscape shift happens. But this company withstood ‘The Great Depression’, ‘World war II’, many economic recessions, countless landscape shifts, cut-throat competition. Just when the world felt that the company is going down, they strike back with a revolutionary product. They gave the world top-class management/process guidelines(six-sigma). This is Motorola and they changed the way world communicated.
Urvashi cinema : Where technology meets entertainment
One thing that I really love about Hyderabad and Vijayawada is the cinema experience. Most of the theaters adopted 70mm format and the screens are absolutely huge. Add to that powerful DTS/Dolby systems and huge two level auditorium (first class and balcony). When I came to Bangalore in 2003 for a training, I went to Urvashi Theater to watch ‘Matrix Reloaded’. I was dumbfounded at the size of the theater and the spine chilling sound stage.
Hug to Mint, middle finger to Ubuntu!
One major aspect that I love about ‘Free software’ is the freedom that it gives an user to switch to a different OS/app/tool/whatever. And this is exactly what happened this month for me. I have been extremely happy with Ubuntu 10.10. In fact, it was so good that I abandoned Windows 7 to move to Ubuntu. You can read more about the switch to Linux here. Then came two pathetic releases (11.04 and 11.10) which destroyed the very advantage that Ubuntu had (ease of use, lag-free UI). I personally felt that this was just my feeling but then I came across these stats at DistroWatch.com:
and then this statement on Linux Mint blog:
As other distributions adopted new desktops such as Unity and Gnome 3, many users felt alienated and consequently migrated to Linux Mint. We recorded a 40% increase in a single month and we’re now quickly catching up with Ubuntu for the number #1 spot within the Linux desktop market.
I tried Linux Mint 11 few years ago and felt that it was way faster than Ubuntu and thought of giving it a real try later as I was pretty happy with Ubuntu 10.10.
Bandla Recommends! The December smartphone list.
January Smartphone list is here
From this month, I will be giving ‘extreme VFM’ tag to three phones among the list. This tag means that the phone is better than anything else in that category and is better than few phones in next category. The list first:
- LG Optimus Pro
- Blackberry Curve 8520
- Nokia E5
- LG Optimus One <<extreme VFM>>
- HTC Explorer
- HTC Chacha
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini
- Blackberry Curve 9300
- Motorola Defy <<extreme VFM>>
- Samsung Wave II
- Nokia E6
- Nokia 701
- SE Xperia Neo V
- Blackberry 9360
- LG Optimus 2X
- Continue reading
If you don’t have an iPhone 4S, well, you stay wealthy!
Few years ago, iPhone was an experience. Those who owned an iPhone were treated like Gods and people wanted to touch it just once. When Apple launched iPhone in India, it used to cost an arm and a leg. There was nothing that could compete with iPhone.
Enter Android
What Google did to smartphone industry is what Microsoft did to PC industry. I hope I need not explain in detail. For less than half the price of an iPhone, you get Droids that does more than what an iPhone can do albeit the premium quality look. Go to the flagship Droids and they are either on-par or better than the iPhone, be it iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S. The top end Droids like Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, HTC Incredible S, are better than the iPhone 4 while the devices like SGSII, Sensation XE, Motorola Razr, Galaxy Nexus are better than the iPhone 4S (all areas considered, especially in Indian markets).Once these top end droids hug Icecream Sandwich, they will become way way better than iPhone 4S.
The final battle
Nokia and Microsoft. One makes truly innovative smartphones that run on a dying or DOA OS. The other made fresh and breathtaking UI which is underrated by many (including me till I tried it earlier this year) and to make it worse, OEMs have come up with average smartphones that doesn’t have anything unique about them.
Make or break
For Nokia, this certainly is a make or break situation. Their global smartphone marketshare is sinking so fast that we will soon see them listed among “others” in marketshare tables. A recent analysis shows that their share fell to 14% (from 30+%). With the announcement of Symbian’s outsourcing and de-prioritization, they now depend heavily on Windows Phone devices to be a runaway hit. Some might say that Nokia still sell lot many feature and low end devices. Yes, they do have healthy budget phone marketshare. But tht is good only on paper and does nothing to increase revenues. I think selling one flagship devices gives more profit than selling a dozen or two budget feature phones (that cost around 5k). Microsoft on the other hand has nothing much to loose. They have other products/markets and other OEM partners that they can concentrate on.
Bandla recommends! The November smartphone list
December list is here
This month has seen huge change in the smartphone market. As usual, The list first:
- LG Optimus Pro
- Blackberry Curve 8520
- Nokia E5
- LG Optimus One
- HTC Explorer
- HTC Chacha
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini
- Blackberry Curve 9300
- Motorola Defy
- Samsung Wave II
- Nokia E6
- Nokia 701
- LG Optimus Black
- SE Xperia Neo V
- Blackberry 9360
- Continue reading
Protect your ears, they cannot be replaced
When somebody ask me to define music, I didn’t really have an answer. Or let’s say, have more than one. For me, music is like an unspoken language. It’s the sound of nature. If you listen carefully, there is music in everything. There is only one way you can understand and enjoy music. You just have to keep listening. There’s so much to hear…..
The above message was given by A R Rahman in one of his Worldspace commercials. Forget about the ad, every word he said is true. There is so much to hear. The sounds of nature, the cute baby sounds to regular human interaction, songs composed by legends, sweet talk with your soul mate. There certainly is so much to hear.
Unstoppable troll and immovable copycat
This article is about two companies. One company is unstoppable in trolling the patent market to find patents on sale so that they can use patents against competitor’s products and hamper innovation. The other company is the Anu Malik of smartphones. They design their smartphones by smartly copying elements from competition’s work. And this company is immovable in it’s approach. What happens when these two fight each other? I guess you might have understood what I am referring to. It’s the ongoing patent battle between Apple and Samsung.
To some extent, I do support Apple in this one on one fight. Many times in the past and even today, I have seen copied designs from Samsung. Best examples are Galaxy S looking similar to iPhone 3GS, Galaxy Ace looking a bit similar (though like cheaper alternative) to iPhone 4, Bada OS feels like a large scale copy of Android, TouchWiz UI’s menu and icon grid style is lifted from iOS. There are some things that Samsung designed on their own without copying. One such spectacular software is Kies PC Sync application. It is so spectacular that none of the current generation PCs are able to run this application without lag and can cause nightmares to nightmare. Then came a new Android launcher that is not a copy. It’s called Pure Breeze and it felt like that ‘fresh’ air coming from Hussain Sagar. The idea was good but the implementation showed lack of skill. And we all know how crappy the UI of Corby and Star devices was.
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