AB's Reflections

Tag: Android

  • Windows Phone and the Google Contacts problem

    Ever since I got my Lumia 720, I have had issues with missing phone numbers for some of my Google contacts. The same contacts showed up with all their details on my Galaxy S3. Since practically all my contact data are stored on Google this was a real downer in an otherwise excellent experience with the phone.

    Thankfully, a bit of research on the web along with some experimentation led me to the problem and the eventual solution. The problem seems to be phone numbers that have been categorized as Main in particular on Google contacts. These are not recognized by Windows Phone and don’t show up in the contact details. The only solution to this is to categorize the number as ones recognized by Windows Phone like Home, Work or Mobile.

    You can also see from the screenshots that while some categories are common to Google contacts and Windows Phone, quite a few are not. In such cases, you should opt for the Windows Phone option as Google contacts is quite flexible since it allows user defined categories (Android phones also seem to be flexible in this regard) while Windows Phone does not recognize ones outside its list.

    A couple of other things to keep in mind:

    1. Windows Phone does not provide you a send SMS option from the profile view unless the number is categorized as Mobile or Mobile 2.
    2. If you create a number with a Windows Phone category not available on Google contacts, it will show up on Google contacts, but may have a different label. For example, Mobile 2 ends up as Car. So, don’t be surprised.

     

  • Nokia Lumia 720 – One Month Usage Review

    I recently ported my Reliance CDMA connection to Airtel GSM, and this called for a change of handsets. I was using a Samsung Galaxy Pop CDMA with Reliance, along with a Galaxy S III as my primary internet device. My requirements for the new phone were quite simple:

    1. Good battery life since this was to be my primary phone for voice – the Galaxy Pop used to serve me for 2-3 days (without a mobile data connection though)
    2. Price around Rs 15,000
    3. Smooth and reliable performance

    Given the above constraints, Windows Phones seemed to be the way to go, and also give me some platform diversity. There were 3 options – the Lumia 520 (Rs 9500), 620 (Rs 13,000) and 720 (Rs 17,000) which have the same internals (CPU+GPU) thus having similar user experiences. I was pretty tempted by the 520’s price, but the lower quality screen, lack of compass (really important for navigation) and smaller battery was a downer. The 620 was pretty compact with a good screen and within budget, but the small battery was again a downer. The Lumia 720 was above budget, but its huge 2000 mAh battery with a well received camera, display and compact design clinched the deal in the end.

    That’s enough of background, so let’s jump to the main review.

    Specs, Design and Build

    Yes, I got the red version (there’s also the cyan, yellow, white and black) which has a matte finish. It’s a unibody polycarbonate construction, so no removable battery but the thickness is pretty low. Wireless charging is also supported through special cases (not yet available in India at the time of writing).

    The build seems to be quite robust as I had an inadvertent drop test from my pocket on a wet footpath in Mumbai within a week of purchase. It landed on the bottom right corner and ended up screen down – definitely not the kind of experience you’d want with a brand new phone. Thankfully, I got away with just a chipped corner as visible in the picture below. Looks like the Gorilla Glass 2 works.

    The display is 4.3″ with 800 x 480 pixels in line with Android flagships from 2010-11. The black levels are quite good (not AMOLED levels of course), and outdoor visibility has also been pretty good thanks to Nokia’s coatings and polarizing filters. The ~220 ppi resolution is middling, but text is quite legible without much of aliasing. The display is also supposed to support super sensitive touch allowing it to be used with fingernails and through gloves. I have personally turned it off.

    The LCD display’s RGB layout under a macro lens (in absence of the Anandtech review with the pic)

    The buttons (volume, power & camera) are all placed on the right side of the phone, and I had to get used to the power button placed in the middle. The shutter button protrudes a little more than the other two, possibly due to it being a two-stage button. The micro-SIM tray is on top while the micro-SD card slot is on the left side. Both need to be ejected using a pin (supplied in the box). The micro USB charging slot rounds off the bottom edge.

    Camera

    My personal experience with the camera has been very good so far, in line with other reviewers. It is a 6.7 MP shooter with an f/1.9 Carl Zeiss lens and LED flash. The dedicated shutter button which doubles as a camera quick launch shortcut is really handy. The colours come out quite saturated, and I seem to prefer the resulting shots from the Lumia 720 to my Galaxy S III, particularly indoors. It also helps that the camera launches quicker on the Lumia 720 than on my year old Galaxy S III. The GSIII does hold a large advantage in the shutter lag and continuous shooting speeds. The Lumia 720 takes a couple of seconds to lock focus and capture the frame which can result in a somewhat different composition.

    Shots taken indoors without flash under reasonable lighting conditions turn out really good on the Lumia 720, even better than the GSIII thanks to the large aperture (almost a stop faster). However, under dim light where you require the flash, the GSIII comes out ahead.

    The default camera app on Windows Phone is pretty basic, especially when compared to the Android OEM camera apps, but gets the job done. You can always get hold of other apps (lenses as per WP terminology) to expand on the functionality. There’s a nice ProShot app (paid – just Rs 110 though) that gives you full manual control over the camera settings. Higher end Lumias (PureView branded 920 & above) of course get Nokia Pro camera app with the latest update, so this is the app to get for the lower models.

    Video output is also pretty decent though it supports only up to 720p video. Then again, I don’t really shoot much video and have a good old DSLR if I want to do serious shooting.

    User Experience

    It has been almost a month since I got the Lumia 720, and so far the experience has been really good barring a few quirks that I’ll cover in the next section. A little bit of context in terms of my usage of the Lumia 720 – my primary internet device remains the Galaxy S III with its significantly larger screen. Plus, I’m pretty much locked into the Google ecosystem (Gmail, Maps, Keep, Contacts etc) and any platform that is not Android will be unable to give you the best experience (iOS included, though Google is trying its best for that platform while actively ignoring Windows Phone). Microsoft Exchange support is also not the best on Android with experience varying with the OEM in question (I found the HTC interface quite different from Samsung’s).

    However, the Lumia is my primary phone for voice calls and SMS, and in this regard, the experience has been very good aided in no small way by the humongous 2000 mAh battery that gives me 2-3 days of service without a hitch (and that is with data services and email sync enabled). I have also configured my office Microsoft Exchange account (mail, calendar, tasks & contacts) on the Lumia and find the experience to be a lot more consistent than when I had it configured on my GSIII.

    The interface is really smooth without any stutters that you find in Android handsets in this price range. The 512 MB RAM does make its size felt when you see the “Resuming” screen when launching apps, but once launched most apps have a very uniform experience. The Live Tiles Metro interface is quite handy with the People hub being one of the strong points in organizing and staying in touch with contacts.

    The ability of apps to control the lock screen background out of the box is also a nice touch. For example, you can allow the facebook to cycle through your photo albums (you can choose the albums) for the lock screen. Notifications are however almost useless on the Windows Phone platform. The closest it has to a notification centre is the lock screen where you can see unread\new counts for up to 5 apps of your choice along with details for 1 app. Live tile counters also try to solve this issue, but still can’t match up to a dedicated notification centre. This is especially a big downer coming from the rich notification centre experience in Android.

    On a positive note, the Lumia 720 came with a 6 month Nokia music subscription and the collection is quite good. The songs are downloaded in the form of 32 kbps MP3 files that can be transferred to a PC. So, if you have an iTunes Match subscription and re-encode the tracks to 80 kbps (minimum for iTunes Match to consider them) or higher, you can get hold of high quality 256 kbps versions for free.

    The 8 GB phone storage can run out pretty quickly if you start clicking a lot of photos, videos & downloading music. Good thing that the phone supports up to 64 GB of SD storage (apps can’t be transferred to SD though), though I haven’t popped in one yet.

    In terms of apps, some of my most used ones like Whatsapp, Kindle, Foursquare Facebook etc are present. But, the lack of the usual cloud backup apps like Dropbox and Google+ is also a downer, though you can backup photos and videos to SkyDrive.

    The browsing experience is also ok, though the absence of alternatives like on Android can get in the way given that many sites don’t play well with Internet Explorer. E.g. Meru cabs presents their desktop site in mobile IE on the Lumia.

    Sharing across apps also works quite well (better than iOS) with the ability to easily share photos and videos through apps like Whatsapp, facebook and email.

    Maps and navigation is also pretty decent with the ability to download offline map packs for specific states in India. I am a Google Maps user on my GSIII and haven’t spent too much time with HERE maps and drive combo. The Lumia 720 has a built in compass (unlike the 520), and navigation shouldn’t be problem. Traffic information is also available on HERE maps.

    I really miss the blocking mode that silences the phone at specified times of the day (typically for the night), and the absence of apps like Llama and Tasker available on Android, possibly due to OS limitations make it impossible to get third party solutions for automating tasks. I use Llama quite extensively on my GSIII to automatically silence my phone in office, during meetings, in movie theatres, switch on wifi at home etc. NFC, though available and supported, is not an option either due to the limited scope of actions. NFC can only be used to launch apps\settings and not automatically toggle them.

    Quirks

    Pretty all the issues I have had with the phone are due to the OS, i.e. Microsoft, and here they are briefly:

    • Poor Google contacts integration – I have found many phone numbers missing from my contact list that show up nicely on my GSIII.
    • No notification centre – it can get really tough to figure what your phone was buzzing you for.
    • You can’t edit phone number in the dialler – can be a bit of a problem when you are roaming and need to prefix digits before dialling.
    • NFC support is really limited – you can just launch apps\settings but not trigger any actions automatically.
    • Quite a lot of apps are available, but many are not updated regularly.
    • Google actively ignoring the Windows Phone platform – they dropped active sync support, haven’t introduced any official apps (barring search) and are trying their best to prevent Microsoft from creating any substitutes.
    • The dedicated hardware search button is practically useless – I don’t use Bing (the lens is useful though, a la Google Goggles). In fact, even Google dumped the hardware search button in Android long ago.

    Conclusion

    I am quite happy with the Lumia 720, but that is largely due to the fact that my usage is split between the Galaxy S III and this phone. It would definitely be difficult to get by with the Lumia 720 as my primary phone, but it complements the Android phone perfectly. Why not just stick to the Galaxy S III you say? Battery life for one, and the general degradation in responsiveness of the GSIII over the last one year for another.

    Nokia has lost out big in the smartphone race, but it has really introduced compelling choices in the Windows Phone 8 camp. If you are a first time smartphone buyer (no Google contacts baggage, app dependency), the Lumia 720 is a very good choice. In fact, for a new smartphone user with a budget below Rs 20,000, it would be very difficult to beat the Windows Phone triumvirate of the Lumia 520, 620 and 720 (especially the 520 below Rs 10,000) in terms of user experience (smoothness particularly). Then again, I have seen many of my friends and colleagues shy away from Windows Phone to the Android camp due to its radically different user interface. On the high end, Nokia PureView branded Lumia phones (920, 925, 928 and 1020) have the best cameras and the Lumia 1020 is practically a Point & Shoot replacement. So, if you are planning to replace your camera and have an old smartphone (or none at all), the Lumia 1020 is a really compelling choice.

    As for Windows Phone, Microsoft really needs to up its game like it has with Windows Blue\8.1, and bring the platform up to speed in terms of must have features (notification centre, browser). Nokia is doing its best to stay in the game and introduce cutting edge features where possible (Lumia 1020), but is slowed down by Microsoft’s slow rate of platform updates.

    Now that I’m a Windows Phone user, I can appreciate its merits vis-à-vis Android and iOS, and hope that Microsoft can up the game the way Mozilla did for Firefox in the last couple of years in face of Chrome’s rapid ascent. Microsoft’s iOS 7 moment can’t come too soon.

  • Numbers: Who’s Winning, iOS or Android?

    The reports may contradict each other in numbers for iOS and Android, but one thing for sure is that Microsoft and Blackberry have been comprehensively relegated to the “Other” category. It’s also clear that Google and Apple are both winning (Google wants the ad\service revenue which comes from a market share majority, while Apple wants the profits from hardware):

    Android if you’re talking about market share; iOS if you mean financial success. So far, this is a strikingly different market than the PC business back in the 1990s, when market share translated directly into financial success.

    via Who’s Winning, iOS or Android? All the Numbers, All in One Place | TIME.com.

  • Microsoft’s last stand?

    Microsoft is desperately trying to avoid the fate they inflicted on the Mac in the 1990s with Windows 9X:

    Office for iPad, launched at the same time as Windows 8/RT, would most likely have killed the market for Windows 8 and RT devices. As it was, that market was already severely diminished and below expectations. But with a viable alternative tablet, it could have been game over. And the ramifications of that decision would have impacted far more than just Windows 8/RT: The PC market could have literally collapsed, much as the video game market did in 1983. The fallout would have included PC makers going out of business/being sold, a serious and potentially permanent hit to Microsoft’s bottom line and the ouster of Steve Ballmer. I’m talking tech Armageddon here.

    via A Theory about the Office on iPad Schedule | Office 2013 content from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows

  • Apple Outsider » Home Turf

    Yup, that’s pretty much it:

    However, the Google – Facebook war is sure to be more vicious than the Google – Apple war because Google and Facebook have the same customers: advertisers. Users are their currency, and Facebook is about to rob the bank.

    Of course, the icing on the cake will be if facebook forks Android and buys HTC eventually.

    Apple Outsider » Home Turf.

  • Who’s Going To Buy The Facebook Phone?

    Wonder whether this will prompt Google to give a similar treatment to Android with Google+ and its plethora of services? Or “better” yet, to the next Nexus device. After the Google+ification of search, anything’s possible.

    But that’s hardly the entire phone market. It’s actually only a fraction of it.

    • What about those millions of people who have bought Android phones — and some iPhones, probably — who don’t really care that they’re Android phones, or even smartphones?
    • The types of people who, every couple of years, go into the Verizon or AT&T shop and walk out with whatever newish thing the store rep says they should buy? (All those people who buy Android phones but don’t really show up in usage logs.)
    • Or even first-time smartphone buyers?

    My guess is that many — most? — of these people are Facebook users, and could easily see some utility in having Facebook features highlighted on their phones. And — bonus — Facebook’s software looks good. Much better than the junk that ships with typical low-end Android devices.

    Who’s Going To Buy The Facebook Phone?

  • HTC One V: 2 week usage review

    Update (17 Aug 2012): My HTC One V died last month (in less than 3 months), and by died I mean totally bricked just sitting in my pocket – wouldn’t turn on or charge. This seems to be a fairly common problem with the initial batches of the phone. I changed my flipkart review due to this. In case you are wondering what the problems are, try searching these terms on Google: “HTC One V dead”, “HTC One V not turning on” & “HTC One V bricked”.

    Original review

    I finally gave up on the Android dead end (no ICS upgrade) that was my Galaxy S i9003 and decided to jump to the ICS bandwagon. The only options for an out of the box ICS experience in India at this time are the HTC duo – One X & One V. Of these, the One X was beyond my budget, and so it was a pretty simple decision to go for the One V in the end.

    Reviews have been pretty positive, and I’m throwing in my 2 cents based on a 2 weeks of usage experience that wouldn’t have shown up in initial reviews. A caveat on my usage experience – I use the One V (and the Galaxy S before it) primarily as a mobile internet device (mails, browsing, e-commerce, social networking etc.) rather than for phone calls.

    What did I get over the Galaxy S i9003?

    The build quality is definitely impressive with the metal body, and it is also sleeker than the Galaxy S. I personally prefer the One V’s build quality over the Galaxy S.

    In terms of software, ICS definitely offers a better experience than Froyo (there is a Gingerbread update for the Galaxy S, but I never got to install that during my 1 year with the phone – Kies didn’t work, so I ended up installing it through Odin). It is also a lot more stable, and I haven’t had any lockups that required hard reboots on the Galaxy S.

    The HTC widgets are also pretty handy plus there are the new ICS widgets for Gmail & Email, I’m still using the Sense launcher on the One V. I had replaced the Touchwiz launcher on the Galaxy S with Launcher Pro. The Gmail & Mail clients are also definitely improved over Froyo. In particular, the mail client now has better support for Microsoft Exchange with better threaded views and flag support.

    The main camera is also pretty good on the One V, though the resolution is still 5 MP like the Galaxy S. The optics are definitely better (f2.0 lens), and there’s also an LED flash (not that useful though, as it tends to blowout the photo). The bigger improvement is on the software side with the negligible shutter lag, incredible burst mode and the quick launch option from the lock screen (you need to have the camera icon in the tray for this).

    GPS performance is another area where there is a big leap with the One V locking on pretty quickly. This is an area where my Galaxy S was severely lacking, and I left GPS off most of the time, unlike the One V where I have it on most of the time.

    Battery life on the One V also seems to be better compared to the Galaxy S. It holds out pretty well over the day even with sync and GPS active, even though the battery capacity is lower.

    The SoC of the One V is also better than the Galaxy S – the Qualcomm CPU-GPU combo has better performance than the TI CPU-GPU combo in the Galaxy S. GPU performance is particularly better (aided by the ICS improvements).

    Also, did I mention that I can use Chrome (ICS only for now) on the One V.

    What did I give up?

    The most obvious downgrade is in terms of the front camera, as the One V doesn’t have it. However, I rarely used it on the Galaxy S (didn’t work with Skype, possibly due to Froyo lacking native front camera support), so not such a big loss personally. Then again, the front camera does make for a handy substitute of a mirror.

    The One V also lacks a digital compass (wonder whether it is due to the metal body), and is not able to show you the direction you are facing on maps unless you are on the move. In addition, apps like Google Sky Maps which relies on the compass to show you the skyline are virtually useless (maybe if I run around in circles with the GPS on, it’ll know the direction I’m facing). This is a more serious omission for me, but I’ll have to learn to live with it.

    The screen size is also smaller, and makes for smaller on screen elements for tapping. Not a very big difference, but when it comes to browsing and interaction, a larger screen is always handy.

    The battery on the One V is also sealed in, while it could be replaced on the Galaxy S. Then again, I never really had an extra battery, and it was actually a bit of a bother as I had to remove the battery on the Galaxy S to insert the SIM. This makes the One V sleeker, so a net gain for me. Also, battery life on the One V is better than the Galaxy S.

    The missing physical menu button on the One V (due to the ICS UI changes) was also a bit of a problem initially with apps like Whatsapp, facebook etc. that have their settings accessible only through the menu button. However, I discovered that a long press of the app switching button simulates the menu button press, and the settings have not been able to hide from me ever since.

    What remains on par?

    Though the screen size is smaller, the screen resolution is the same (480×800), which makes for a better pixel density. The camera resolution is also the similar, and so is the RAM (around 500 MB) and on board memory (4 GB, but less of it is available to the user on the One V).

    Migration pains and misc.

    There is still no simple way to migrate from one Android phone to another, especially when they are from different OEMs. For all the talk of everything moving to the cloud, and iTunes remaining a big bloat, the iOS-iTunes combo still remains a good way to backup and restore your apps (I own an iPod & iPad 2 as well). It is a big pain to have to install every downloaded app all over again, and then set them up.

    That said, my photos & videos made a seamless transition thanks to them being stored on the external SD card that I moved from the Galaxy S to the One V. However, I can imagine things won’t be as simple for Android phones that lack external storage support. Moving apps to the SD card in hopes of them being restored on the new phone also didn’t play out as expected and I ended up setting up the apps all over again. Android needs to better way to tackle this issue, as the people change phones pretty often and setting it up every time results in a lot of wasted time.

    While stability of ICS is definitely improved over Froyo (or at least HTC’s version of ICS is better than Samsung’s version of Froyo), there are still some nagging issues. The Play store still shows the same app updates for some apps at random, even after they have been installed. The data connection just freezes at times, and only a phone reboot seems to fix it (airplane & data mode toggle don’t seem to help). The calendar widget doesn’t refresh properly every day, so I end up seeing the current day mentioned as tomorrow\day after.

    The UI can also be a bit sluggish at times, but it is definitely an improvement over the Galaxy S. I suspect Android requires a dual core to perform well, as the Galaxy S II was one of the first Android phones where the reviewers didn’t mention the UI lag.

    And last but not the least, it still doesn’t play Fruit Ninja as well as my 3rd gen iPod touch.

    Bottom line

    The One V is one of the best phones available under Rs 20,000 at the moment. In fact, it is cheaper than the Galaxy S i9003 (it has held up its value well over the last year – still costs around Rs 19,000). Of course, you can get older phones that have ICS upgrades rolling out at similar price points, but the One V has the hardware to hold its own. Barring the digital compass and app setup, it was a satisfactory upgrade to my Galaxy S i9003.

  • “Watch later” support in android youtube app

    Finally. Find it under My channel>Playlists. As for adding videos to the playlist, you just need to click the plus sign in the youtube videos.

  • My first Android – the Samsung Galaxy S i9003

    It’s been a while since I posted manually to the blog. Hopefully, that’ll change with my new phone with the wordpress app.
    I got the phone last week and have been playing around with it ever since. It’s got Froyo on it and I’ve installed a ton of apps on it already. The experience has been quite similar yet different from my iPod touch. The app availability is quite similar, but the always connected nature of the phone opens up a new bunch of use cases.
    I’ve been making use of the gps quite a bit with the My Tracks asp in particular to plot the routes I take. There have been some wow moments, particularly with the Google Goggles app. The built in tethering feature is also really handy though a bit of a battery hog. I’ll be posting more on the apps later with help from appbrain.
    Battery life has however been on the poor side (most likely due to my heavy use) with almost 2 charges being required per day. Then again, my iPod doesn’t do much better if I use it heavily either. I’m currently using a Vodafone prepaid connection with 3G enabled on it. Speeds are pretty decent and a great leap over the GPRS days for sure. I also appreciate the openness of the Android platform as it allows one to work across apps quite nicely. There’s also the App Inventor to create your own simple apps.
    I also had plans to buy a tablet – most likely the ipad – this year. However, the Android platform looks really promising on the tablet too, and in a year or so we should be having a well populated Android market for tablets to go with some very good hardware. That said, the iPad 2 remains the best tablet for the next few months.
    And last but not the least, swype rocks. I wouldn’t have dreamt of typing out this post from my phone otherwise.