How I use my mobile

June 17, 2012 / Kannan / 0 Comments

Mobile devices context have now changed a lot. Being from simple communication device to full blow Personal Information Manager.

Here in the organization I work for, usage of personal mobiles for official communications are not allowed. Primary reason being data security.

So I use my mobile for staying in touch with my friends, keep track of news and events, manage my personal and official task list etc.

I am going to start of a series of post reviewing the apps I use in mobile and how I use them.

Starting off … My Mobile Desktop

Home Screen

I keep tab at 2 things here.

  1. My team’s time across 3 time zones. This is the default dual clock widget which comes with SGSII.
  2. My messenger status. I use IM+ Pro for messenger and stay connected in Microsoft Live, GTalk, Yahoo & Skype.
  3. Dual Battery Widget helps me keep tab on battery level. Till this date this is one of the best looking battery widgets.
  4. Traffic Counter help to monitor the data usage.

Weather & Entertainment Screen

  1. Keeping updated on weather sometime helps to plan on commuting. I use Accuweather widget which comes with SGSII.
  2. Audio FX widget. Helps to change the audio quality with apps like DI FM. But this one doesn’t work with FM Radio App which comes with SGSII.
  3. PowerAMP 4×2 widget.

Birthday Calendar

Agenda Widget coupled with Gmail Calendar which is synced with FaceBook’s Birthday Events iCal URL.

To Do

I keep track of my to do list with the help of Producteev free account service. Till now one of the best online task management service which has apps for all the platforms.

Switches

Finally the switches screen where I utilize Tasker app’s widget to control various tasks.

 

Mostly I try to keep my widgets as low as possible and try to use dark wallpapers to conserve CPU usage, screen brightness and in turn save battery. On a whole the combination of screens help me keep tabs on information.

The most useful are the Producteev and IM+ Widgets.

Producteev helps to have glance at non completed items and those due today & IM+ Pro helps me keep the count of non responded messages and online status.

In addition to above you can see 2 non-standard SGSII icons on status bar related to following apps.

  1. MyPhoneExplorer status.
  2. Smart App Protector.

More about all these apps in upcoming posts !

Links to applications mentioned in the post

Agenda Widget for Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.roflharrison.agenda

Audio Fx Widget
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.namakerorin.audiofxwidget

Dual Battery Widget
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.flexlabs.widgets.dualbattery

Facebook for Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.katana

IM+
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.shapeservices.impluslite#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiZGUuc2hhcGVzZXJ2aWNlcy5pbXBsdXNsaXRlIl0.

MyPhoneExplorer Client
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fjsoft.myphoneexplorer.client

Poweramp Standard Widget Pack
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxmpz.audioplayer.widgetpack1

Producteev
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.producteev.android.alpha22

Smart App Protector(app lock)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sp.protector.free

Traffic Counter Extended
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.carl.trafficcounter

Twitter
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twitter.android

My Mobile (Part 2)

January 5, 2012 / Kannan / 0 Comments

Continuing from previous post My Mobile (Part 1) I am going to provide information on technical aspects and notable features.

I got my Samsung Galaxy S II (SGS2) after couple of weeks. It took 2 weeks because that was a pre-order.

The pre-order has it’s own offers and I got the following along.

  • The handset itself
  • MoLife case with both front and back cover
  • Scratch Guard
  • HDTV Adaptor
  • Bluetooth Headset (Mono)

Handset

The acutal model number is I9100

Specification

General
2G Network
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

3G Network
HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100

HSDPA 1700 / 2100 / 1900 – for Telus

Announced
2011, February

Status
Available. Released 2011, April

Body
Dimensions
125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm

Weight
116 g

– Touch-sensitive controls

Display
Type
Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors

Size
480 x 800 pixels, 4.3 inches (~217 ppi pixel density)

Multitouch
Yes

Protection
Corning Gorilla Glass

– TouchWiz UI v4.0

Sound
Alert types
Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones

Loudspeaker
Yes

3.5mm jack
Yes

Memory
Card slot
microSD, up to 32GB, 8 GB included

Internal
16GB/32GB storage, 1 GB RAM

Data
GPRS
Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 – 48 kbps

EDGE
Class 12

Speed
HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps

WLAN
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot

Bluetooth
Yes, v3.0+HS

NFC
Optional

USB
Yes, v2.0 microUSB (MHL), USB On-the-go

Camera
Primary
8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash

Features
Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization

Video
Yes, 1080p@30fps

Secondary
Yes, 2 MP

Features
OS
Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread), planned upgrade to v4.0

Chipset
Exynos

CPU
Dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9

GPU
Mali-400MP

Sensors
Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

Messaging
SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS

Browser
HTML, Adobe Flash

Radio
Stereo FM radio with RDS

GPS
Yes, with A-GPS support

Java
Yes, via Java MIDP emulator

Colors
Black, White, Pink

– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
– TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
– SNS integration
– MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
– MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
– Organizer
– Image/video editor
– Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
– Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
– Voice memo/dial/commands
– Predictive text input (Swype)

Battery
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1650 mAh

Stand-by
Up to 710 h (2G) / Up to 610 h (3G)

Talk time
Up to 18 h 20 min (2G) / Up to 8 h 40 min (3G)

Misc
SAR US
0.16 W/kg (head) 0.96 W/kg (body)

SAR EU
0.34 W/kg (head)

Source: GSM Arena

The above specification speaks for itself 🙂

MoLife Case

Its a hard case with both front and back cover which slide from top to bottom with ports for charger, headphone jack, volume control, power button & speaker.

This case has a rubber plastic feel and is easy to clean with dry cloth.

The other important feature of this case is the flip stand which can hold the mobile in landscape mode. Check the picture above to visualize.

Scratch Guard

Scratch guard was a bummer. Even though it could fit the screen fully, the slots for front camera and speaker didn’t match and they were overlapping.
Anyhow who needs a scratch guard when the screen is a gorilla glass.

HDTV Adapter

To tell the truth I haven’t used this and the package is still sitting fresh. But would like to use it someday.

One feature I would like to highlight is, it doesn’t need external power unlike the others in the market.

Bluetooth Headset

I always prefer to use Bluetooth headset instead of holding the mobile. This is for 2 reasons.

  1. Avoid that oily sweat from ears sticking screen
  2. Radiation from the handset

This post has been mostly technical and not much in the experience perspective. The next post in the series will be on the perspective of the experience. So keep checking for an update.

My Mobile (Part 1)

June 19, 2011 / Kannan / 0 Comments

Mobile’s presence in India started somewhere in 1990’s and my first mobile was Panasonic GD 95.

I started my own website and got my personal mail somewhere in 2003. From that time onwards I was looking at accessing my email more frequently and staying in touch with my friends through IMs.

So my next mobile was Sony Ericsson’s P990i. It was my perfect mobile with large touch screen, physical keypad and a jog wheel.


Picture copyright: GSM Arena & Mobil Mania

Then my needs increases towards better procesing capability, native push email, mobile applications. During 2007-2008 the stable mobile operating system was Windows Mobile and Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 6.1.

So my next mobile was HTC Touch Diamond. It was a radical looking mobile and first mobile from HTC which switched it’s business from OEM to it’s own mobile business.

It served my for 3.5 years before it’s battery started giving up and sourcing battery even from other countries was difficult. So then came the need again for a mobile device.

This time the confusion started for choosting a mobile or a table. By this year, Apple, Samsung and many more companies are doing good in tablets as well as mobile. Also my needs changed a lot and I was very particular about the following aspects.

  1. Better connectivity
  2. OS with customization
  3. Stable OS
  4. Larger Screen
  5. Support for gaming
  6. Future compatible
  7. Good looking
  8. Video Conferencing
  9. Compatibility when roaming around the world.

So I was planning to go for a iOS based device or Android and somehow I didn’t like Windows Phone’s Metro UI.

After some analysis, I decided it can’t be iPhone as the OS was severly restricted in terms of customization and screen size was ok.

So I decided to think about Android. Previously I was duabooting my HTC’s Touch Diamond with Android Fryo. Thanks to XDA Devs. With more apps and prices of apps ranging between 30 bucks to an average of 100 bucks I felt this was ok. But which handset or tablet to choose?.

I was planning to go for Tablet and did some researching. Thanks to local shops like Poorvika, I was able to check out Samsung Galaxy Tab, HTC Touch HD, Samsung Galaxy S & Samsung Galaxy SL.

Initially I felt Tab was heavy, but screen was upto my mark. But then I realized, tablets are restricted in my office environment. Still I was planning to go for tablet. Thanks to my friend who bought iPad 2. It too was heavy and roamng around with it was difficult until unless you have a back pack.

More over dual core was becoming popular. So I thought Galaxy Tab is not going to be future compatible and iPad 2 with the same restrictions as iPhone 4 and usless front cam and rear cam and a simple LCD, it too was out of my list.

So I decided I will settle on a 4+ inch devices. Mean while I was doing lot of research on the dual core processors, screen types, RAM, OS & bench marks. During my whole reaserch one mobile kept on coming on top and it was Samsung Galaxy S II.

Few years back I use to hate Samsung for it’s quality. But for couple of years, Samsung was doing good and it was getting in my list next to HTC.

Finally one day I came to know the Samsung has launched Galaxy S II in India and that too with an offer.

After couple of days of quick research I thought I would better settle in for Galaxy S II. Especially being a geek, I felt Galaxy S has more fans in custom ROM community.

With an offer, where I need to spend 2000 bucks instead 4500 bucks for accessories, I decided I will go for it.

Meanwhile my Touch Diamond’s back cover got damaged and was hard time keeping the battery within the phone. Every now and then it was falling of, especially during calls.

So I was getting a sign to get a mobile as soon as possible and with a business trip being planned out of India, I wanted a better mobile.

So I went to Samsung’s officially supported letsbuy.com’s offer and pre-booked the Samsung Galaxy S II.

More about my Samsung Galaxy S II in next post.