Tag: Gadgets

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Analysis

5 Biggest Threats to Aakash Tablet’s Success!

India has recently introduced a tablet device, named Aakash and it is a project headed by the Indian Government. It will be priced at $35, which is a ridiculously low price considering most tablet devices are not less than a few hundred US dollars.

The idea is to introduce young students in India, to the digital world by keeping it priced low enough to be affordable. It will have a 7 inch screen, 256 MB RAM, 2 GB storage space, WiFi enabled + supports a SIM Card. It will run on Android 2.2.

I read a lot about the Aakash tablets over the days and found 5 major hurdles to it becoming a success.

#1. Information

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The information on its development was strangely unclear. We did cover it’s announcement over a year ago in July 2010. After that it seemed like the project was scrapped and suddenly it is being released in January 2012.

About 100,000 units will be available in January 2012, but still no clarity on which universities will be covered or even how one could pre-order the commercial version of the tablet.

#2. Profitability

There is a commercial version that will be sold for a little more but overall it does not seem to be a profitable business.

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This might end up  discouraging private players taking a part in the distribution of the tablet. A retail vendor will sell a device only if it makes them a lot of money.

#3. Inventory

The issue of inventory could literally make or break the success of such a gadget. I am not sure how much back-end research has gone into looking at how to distribute these tablets and which universities might adopt them leading to a greater success.

Also considering the cheaper version of the tablet is not for making profits, a corporate company that specializes in inventory will probably keep away from such a project.

#4. Connectivity

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If the tablet is meant to go into the hands of people who cannot afford a computer, I wonder how they would afford to pay for its connectivity. Even if they can afford internet connectivity, broadband internet is not all that easily available in rural parts of India.

It has a WiFi card along with support for GPRS. GPRS is ridiculously slow and prohibitively expensive. The other option of is WiFi connectivity, but even that is not easily available.

#5. Support

Another problem arises on the issues of support. Who will support the tablet? What will be the developer environment around it? What sort of apps will it run? What will be the encouragement for developers to build apps for this particular device?

I do not want to write-off this project as a failure even before it starts but these 5 issues will be key. I am not sure if India has the infrastructure to support such a product, especially in rural areas. I think the creators have done a great job of creating a tablet device at such a low price. It is a technical marvel in that sense, but now its true test will begin.

What are your views on the Aakash Tablet? Do drop in your comments.

Categories
Analysis

Amazon’s Kindle Fire vs Apple’s iPad 2; which one you should go for

Amazon.com just launched its latest tablet Amazon’s Kindle Fire in market which could give a good competition to the top selling tablet PC i.e. Apple’s iPad 2. Kindle Fire is much cheaper than Apple’s iPad but with lots of limitations in hardware as well as in its software type. Let’s have a look at both of them and find out which one’s good for you.


  1. Dimensions: The weight of Kindle Fire is 413 grams whereas iPad 2 weighs 601 grams.
  2. Screen: Fire’s screen is 7″ with multi-touch, 1024 x 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi, 16 million colors. iPad has a 9.7″ display with multi-touch, 1024 x 768 pixel resolution at 132 ppi. Fire’s screen is anti-reflective and iPad’s screen is Fingerprint-resistant.
  3. Memory: 8GB in Fire and 16GB-64GB in iPad.
  4. Battery performance: 8 hours for Kindle fire and 10 hours for iPad under normal and continuous usage.
  5. Processor: Kindle Fire has a Dual Core processor and iPad has a 1GHz Dual Core processor.
  6. Camera: No camera with Kindle Fire whereas two (front and back) cameras with iPad 2.
  7. Wi-Fi and 3G: Fire comes up with Wi-Fi only model. You have an option of either Wi-fi or Wi-fi+3G models for iPad.
  8. Applications: Fire: Amazon Appstore, iPad: Apple app store.
  9. USB Port: Fire: USB 2.0, iPad: No USB port, however you can buy an Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit.
  10. Price: You can buy a Kindle Fire for $199. But you have to pay $499 for basic 16GB Wi-Fi iPad.

Verdict:

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is a great device and it’s good if you don’t want to pay much for a tablet PC. It’s a value for money device where you can get many features of iPad for just $199. But if you can afford an expensive tablet you should definitely go for Apple iPad 2. Great user interface, thousands of cool apps, better memory, faster processor and comes up with lots of other great feature.

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News

BlackBerry Curve 9360 review, price and specifications

After launching new phones in bold and torch series Blackberry updated its Curve series by adding a new phone to it. RIM just launched BlackBerry Curve 9360 in India which is a 3G phone with HSDPA. Unlike other phones in this series 9360 is a higher end phone with price comparable to its Bold 3. This device has an 800 Mhz processor with 512MB Ram, a 5 MP Camera with VGA video recording, GPS, bluetooth and Wi-Fi. This phone runs on BlackBerry 7.0 OS which is the latest one. Let’s have a detailed look at the specifications.


Specifications and Features:

  • CAMERA: 5MP with flash and VGA video recording, Face Detection, Geo-Tagging and Image stabilization. As usual no front camera is there.
  • MEMORY: 512MB of RAM and 512MB for application storage. A SD memory card slot expandable up to 32GB.
  • SCREEN: 2.44″ and 480×360 pixels LCD screen with 246ppi.
  • BATTERY: Lithium ion. Talktime up to 5 hours and standby time up to 14 days for a GSM network. 25 hours of Music and 6 hours of Video playback.
  • CONNECTIVITY:
    • 3G network with 7.2Mbps HSDPA
    • Quad-Band: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks
    • Tri-Band UMTS networks: (800 / 850) / 1900 / 2100 MHz or 900 / 1700 / 2100 MHz UMTS
    • Bluetooth: 2.1+EDR
    • Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n enabled.
  • Operating System: 7.0 Blackberry OS
  • GPS: Integrated GPS with A-GPS
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Price and Verdict:

Blackberry launched curve 9360 at a price of 19,990 INR. The BlackBerry curve seems to be a good and a value for money phone. The features are good and everything is there except the front camera for video calling which is not available in any phone by BlackBerry in India. If you are planning to buy a BlackBerry you should definitely check this out.

What do you think about this phone? Don’t forget to tell us your reviews, drop a comment below.

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Tips

How to change your BlackBerry phone time manually

Are you using a BlackBerry and getting a time error while Re-Booting your phone or cannot change your time after changing your location? Then this post is for you which will tell you how you can change your BlackBerry phone time manually without using any standard time zone.

The ‘Network Time’ or the ‘Time Zone’ is mostly same and correct time according to your location. But sometime what happens is that network cannot update it’s time due to unavailability of network or connection at that particular location. In that case you can manually set your BlackBerry phone’s time. Just follow the steps below:

Changing time manually:

  1. Turn on your phone and go to Menu by pressing the BlackBerry key.
  2. Now from your menu go to ‘Options’ and select Date/Time from the list.
  3. On your Date/Time page find the option ‘Use Network Time’ and select ‘No’ for that. When you select ‘No’ you will see a time and date appearing just below the option ‘Use Network Time’. Click on the time to manually adjust your clock. Once you’re done click the back button and select save.

That’s it; the time you changed in Step 3 will now appear on your phone’s home screen irrespective of the time in that zone or country. Anytime you want to switch back to your local time zone just select ‘ Use Network Time’ as ‘Yes’. This post is specially for those people who think that it’s not possible to change time yourself on your BlackBerry phone. 😉

{The BlackBerry, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.}

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News

Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab 7.7: Then Removes it Because of Court-Orders

I still remember the year 2009, people hardly took announcements of a tablet device very seriously. Mainly tablet computers were just fancy gadgets no one really bought. Apple then introduced iPad and the rules of the game changed. The tablet market is growing with almost a new Tablet being unveiled every month.

Samsung has unveiled its new offering, Galaxy Tab 7.7.  The unveiling was done at IFA 2011 in Berlin.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 Specifications

  • The new Tablet comes with a 7.7 – inch screen. The tablet will run on a dual-core processor at 1.4 GHz. The Galaxy Tab will run on Android 3.2.
  • The battery is good for 10 hours of video.
  • The tablet will have two cameras, one front facing and the other rear facing. This seems to be a the norm for all tablet gadgets.
  • The memory will be 1 GB while it will support 32 GB Micro SD card.
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Court Orders forces Samsung to remove Galaxy Tab 7.7

A couple of days later, Samsung has stopped pulled all Galaxy Tab 7.7 devices from the exhibition.

Samsung is facing many patent battles over its Galaxy Tab device. Apple is suing Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Düsseldorf, Germany for patent violations. Currently this has blocked up the gadget from being sold in Europe.

Samsung will have to deal with these patent lawsuits as it is literally facing difficulty in finding a market where it can actually sell their products. Also people at Google must be worried as Samsung is a major vendor for their Android OS.

Do drop in your comments.

Source: PC World

Related: 5 Tablets That Could Challenge Apple’s iPad

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News

[Rumour] Apple to unveil iPhone 5 on September 7th!

Apple released the iPhone 4 more than a year ago 7th June 2010. Since the past six months there has been a lot of speculation about when the iPhone 5 will be released. Generally, it was thought that the new iPhone will be unveiled in October as the September event was usually reserved for iPod releases.

According to BGR, Apple will show off iPhone 5 on the 7th September event.

This might be mainly because iPods are probably not as highly anticipated as much a new iPhone or iPad releases would be. With the new iPad rumoured for a November or early 2012 launch it might suit Apple to release iPhone 5 a little early.

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iPhone5 Rumours

Rumour mills have worked over-time with speculation on new features that could make it to iPhone 5. Some of them are bigger screen, better camera and doing away with the iconic ‘home’ button on the device.

You can look at a complete round-up of iPhone 5 rumours here.

Are you looking forward to iPhone 5? iPhone 4 took almost a year to make it to India, do you think it would take that much time once iPhone 5 is released? Do drop in your views.

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News

Samsung Galaxy R Officially Announced for Asia, Europe: North America Left Out!

Samsung has become one of the biggest vendors for Android phones. It is soon bring out Galaxy R into parts of Asia and Europe. According to a blog post I read, the phone is already available in Sweden. The big news is that it will skip North American markets at least for now.

Samsung Galaxy R Features

  • 1 GHZ Tegra 2 processor which will run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) as OS.
  • It will also have a 4.19 inch WVGA Clear LCD touchscreen.
  • Built-in memory of 8 GB with 32 GB Micro SD support.
  • It will have 2 cameras in the front and back.
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Here is a video demo of Galaxy R Android Phone from nvidia

North America ignored for Samsung R phone

The Galaxy R phone will be available in  Eastern and Western Europe, East Asia, South East Asia, West Asia, China. This means it is giving a skip to the North American markets for the moment.

Samsung Galaxy S2 will be launched very soon in the US according to rumours, so Samsung might have kept this model out of North America for that particular reason.

Availability in India for Samsung Galaxy R?

South-Asia does not seem to be in the scheme of things for Galaxy R phones at the moment but it should be available sooner than later, looking at the demand for mobile market in India.

Do drop in your comments.

Categories
News

BlackBerry PlayBook Arrives: Tablet Wars Spread to India!

Blackberry was the big fish for the smartphone industry. That position seems a little shaky with Apple iPhone gaining a lot of users, fans and momentum. Apple has taken the Indian market seriously after 3G services have gone live. They did this by introducing the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 in India.

Now, Blackberry is waking up to Apple iPad2 threat in India, by introducing the Playbook tablet this month.

Blackberry Features

  • The tablet is 7.6 inches wide, while it is less than 1/2 inch thick. This makes it really lightweight and the advantage it has over iPad is that is can actually be carried around with a lot more ease.
  • It has 1024X600 screen resolution and has support fro Full adobe Flash 10.1. This seems to be a backhanded slap to Apple for refusing to have support for Flash on their iPad.
  • It runs on 1GHz processor with 1 GB RAM. The price of the 16GB version of BlackBerry is approx Rs. 32,000 but I have not been able to confirm it on their website.
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It seems, India will see a number of tablets being released as 3G connections become more common. For BlackBerry, the success of Playbook is important as they would not want their phone users to use iPad and get introduced to the iOS platform. This is because the iPad users in India, might actually end up buying an iPhone instead of a BlackBerry which could be further bad news for RIM.

Do drop in your comments.

Source: Blackberry India

Related: Complete Guide to buying iPhone 4 in India

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News

Apple’s iCloud to Legalize Pirated Music!

Apple has yesterday, announced at the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) the new cloud storage service called iCloud. This iCloud service has been anticipated and expected for a while now.

With iPod, iPhones and more recently iPads, there may be more than one Apple device which people might use everyday. This raises the need for having a cloud service that syncs across all devices.

iCloud Features

  • The iCloud service is free with iOS 5. This means if your Apple device runs on iOS 5, then it will have iCloud.
  • The service plans to give storage space of up to 5GB.
  • The interesting part of iTunes Match with iCloud, will be that it will match all the music files you have ripped and make iTunes files which are supposed to be better available for you to use. All this will cost $24.99.
  • This basically means that with iCloud, you can legalize your pirated music content, if you have some of it on your Apple device.
  • This part could get interesting when copyright holders might ask Apple, how they plan to share this revenue with them that they collect with iTunes Match.
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But is iCloud really worth all the hype…

I am afraid, that it is not really anything revolutionary and mostly disappointing. Cloud storage, means storing something online and forgetting about it until you need it. I have stored files with Dropbox, and do not check those folders for months, until I decide to back up or store some critical files and photos on it.

iCloud, will only store the files for 30 days, until which you users can download the files and sync their devices. So technically all the files are stored in the device itself and uses cloud only to sync them across different devices.

So maybe iCloud should have actually been called iSync. 😉

What are you views on iCloud? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Apple iCloud

Categories
News

[Tablet] Acer ICONIA Tab A500 to be priced Rs 27,990 in India

Acer has become a household name in India when it comes to netbooks or laptops. Lower priced than other brands, Acer has marked a niche for themselves in India. So it is not really surprising that they have launched a range of tablets in India. The most impressive of them seems to be the Acer ICONIA Tab A500.

This is a very smart move by Acer, to come up with tablets earlier than other brands in India. This is obviously on the back of iPad 2 being made available in India.

Acer ICONIA Tab 500 Features

  • Acer ICONIA Tab A500 will have both Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Windows 7 platform.
  • Tab A500 has a touch screen that is 10.1 inches.
  • It will be equipped with USB Port along with a mini USB port, HDMI output, Micro SD Card and Sim Card support.
  • The thickness of the tablet is 13.3 mm.
  • The tablet will run on Android Honeycomb 3.0 and Windows 7 platform.
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Prices

  • The tablet which is Android Honeycomb based will be available for – Rs 27,990/-
  • The Windows 7 based tablet will be available at – Rs 32,499/–

With 3G services just beginning to be doled out by telecom companies, we can probably expect a lot more tablets being launched in India. This might be a master-stroke by Acer to get into the game so early.

What are your views and will you be purchasing a tablet device in the near future? Do drop in your comments.