Friday, May 31, 2013
All New Version Of Whatsapp For Android Ushers In A Holo Themed Interface
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Thursday, May 30, 2013
Celebrating 50 000 Views!
Dear readers,
Im interrupting my usual tech-related feed to happily announce that this blog has reached more than 50.000 total views !! So now is my time to say… 50.000 times THANK YOU! I must confess updating with the latest news is a hard work -especially in the past year- but is my pleasure <3 Stay tuned… The best is yet to come!
Much Love.
Salah G Hamed
Managing Editor of The Mythical Truth
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Galaxy Note 3 Might Pack An ‘Unbreakable’ Screen Rumours
Both the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note are immensely popular among hordes of Android fans, and with the South Korean vendor releasing them at different points during any given year, one only has to wait a couple of months to see a brand new Galaxy handset. With the Galaxy S4 now announced pending release next month, attentions will naturally turn to the larger, so-called “phablet” Galaxy Note III, and according to a report from Korean publication Asiae.co.kr, the device will pack an “unbreakable” display.
Many aspects of the smartphone have been improved across the board in the past few years, but, even though the likes of Apple and Samsung have sought to strengthen displays with each new device, the shattered screen is still something owners fear.
According to the report, the Samsung Galaxy Note III will release later this year, and one of the marquee features may well be an unbreakable display. Apparently, Samsung will incorporate some kind of flexible AMOLED technology in order to prevent display shattering, a problem affecting thousands of dropped devices.
The display could also, meanwhile, measure in at a whopping 5.9-inches, and one has to wonder – despite the cellular connectivity and full smartphone functionality, whether it can still, in actual fact, be categorized as smartphone. Lest we forget, the smaller tablets in the market measure in at the 7-inch mark, but with a near 6-inch offering in the form of the Note III, the “phablet” description has perhaps never been more appropriate.
In addition to being an incredibly large and robust display, it’s also expected to pack in a 1080p resolution akin to the Galaxy S4. The Exynos 5 Octa-Core processor, said to be hitting around a third of the initial Galaxy S4 shipments, will also be a feature, along with 2GB RAM, 8-megapixel camera, and a larger battery, says the report.
It is thought the Note III will ship with Android 4.2.2, but with 5.0 Key Lime Pie set to be launched at Google’s I/O, it’s feasible the Note III may instead be among the first to deliver the latest firmware by default.
Microsoft in the Post PC Era
Many a desktop user has complained about Microsofts Windows 8 operating system migrating to a user interface more suitable to a smartphone or tablet. They do not see the big picture.
If you are old enough to remember the days before the internet, the personal computer was a tool for work and than a gaming device. When the internet became part of our daily lives, computer sales took off. One day, everyone would have a personal computer. This is still true today, but the definition of what is a personal computer has changed.
For some people, a smartphone alone will be enough to meet their personal computing needs. Others, finding a smartphone insufficient, would select or add a tablet to their stable of devices. Desktops and laptops will eventually be relegated to their status of prior to the advent of the Internet age: machines for work.
IDC estimates that this year tablets will outsell traditional desktops. By the end of 2014, tablet sales will surpass laptop sales. Nearly three smartphones are sold today, per desktop of laptop sold. All this means, is in two years time, desktops and laptops will make up just about one in every five computers sold.
In what has been dubbed as the Post-PC era, you find Microsoft which once held a 90% share in personal computers, now looking at holding a 90% share in one in five personal computers sold within two years tie. That is really just an 18% share of all personal computers. Holding on to that 18% share is going to be harder in the Post-PC era.
Microsofts stranglehold on the personal computer market, was secured by the fact that is was the center of application development. Pretty much all software developed was Windows compatible, with only a fraction of the software developed for Windows also being released for Mac OS and Linux. If you wanted a computer that could run your work related applications, and your entertainment applications, a Windows computer was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.
This is the raison dêtre for Windows 8 is to maintain this status. With Windows Phone 8, Windows RT and Windows 8, Microsoft is hoping to get a substantial share of the smartphone and tablet market. the segment which will soon comprise four in every five computers sold. With a substantial share of the smartphone and tablet market, apps would be created for Windows Phones and Windows Tablets, could be easily ported for Windows desktops and laptops.
If Microsoft is unable to break into the smartphone and tablet market, it will find itself holding on to the lions share of the traditional desktop market, but stagnating app development for desktops in general would further threaten its postion. The app ecosystem that has made Windows dominant for so long, would cease to exist.
As the traditional personal computer retreats to becoming a work device, consumer software development will focus on Apples iOS and Google Android. Less and less consumer software will be developed for desktops. In this environment, operating systems like Mac OS, Chrome OS and the various Linux distributions will find it easier to compete with Windows. When desktops and laptops are no longer expected to be multi-faceted devices but rather dedicated business machines, it is of little importance whether or not you laptop can run Starcraft III.
Those claiming that Windows 8 tablet centric interface will be the death of Windows on the traditional desktop are missing the point. The failure of Windows Phone and Windows 8 on the tablet is what would sound the death knell for Microsofts desktop operating system.
HTC Trophy
The mighty red received its first Windows Phone 7 device today, called the HTC Trophy. Verizons first 3G spawn of Bill Gates completes the major carrier circuit, so now theres no excuse for Microsoft to lose out on sales with all four of their bases covered. For $150 with a $50 mail-in rebate and 2-year Verizon voice and data contract, this phone could be yours. If youre familiar with the Windows Phone 7 interface, the Trophy is no different from the Samsung Focus, LG Quantum, HTC Surround, or any of the other Windows Phone 7 phones weve reviewed this year. However, it struck us as more of a plain Jane device with its standard screen size and subdued outward appearance. Call quality was fair and battery life was lacking. The phone is nice to look at, and its interface is beautiful, but were not sure the HTC Trophy has what it takes to snag first place over the rest of Verizons formidable fleet.
Design
The Trophy is closest to the HTC Droid Incredible 2 in the looks department. Its a compact device, flaunting dimensions that are almost identical to the iPhone 4, though the Trophy is notably thicker. We love the fact that HTC retained the sexy red interior underneath the back panel, and the red speaker accents were hot. For the sound junkies out there, it has SRS WOW HD speakers, so our audio experience was top notch. The Trophy has a basic 3.8-inch WVGA screen that had difficulty displaying text at small fonts. Everything appeared jumbled until we zoomed in, and the text for the icons on the second Home screen bled together as we scrolled up and down. Needless to say, the Trophys screen was a long shot from the top.
The smartphone is fairly well equipped with outward controls, giving us a Camera button that seems to be disappearing on higher-end phones these days. In back resides the 5-megapixel main camera with embedded flash and youll notice that theres no MicroSD card slot. Thats because all memory lies within—16GB of internal storage, that is. The Trophy is stocked with a 1300mAh battery pack, which youll read about later on, but the results in our battery tests were not promising. Aside from the main entrees, the HTC Trophy is built with the standard 3.5mm audio jack, open USB terminal, large volume rocker, and panel of 3 haptic feedback touch controls: Back, Windows (Home), and Search (Bing). The Trophy was not the most advanced phone weve seen, but it was sleek and attractive.
Software and Interface
If youve seen it once, youve seen it a thousand times. The Windows Phone 7 OS is uniform across all phones and carriers, so if youve played with one at your local phone store, then you know just how the Trophy operates. First, well get the hardware out of the way. It has a quick 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Wi-Fi Wireless-N connectivity, GPS, and an accelerometer for 3D action. It can also be used as a world phone, thanks to its Global Ready connectivity.
As highlighted numerous times before, the Trophy relies on Hubs as the main steering wheel for its interface. This is part of the "Phone to save us from our phones" hubbub, though we think its entirely up to the user when it comes to prying themselves from their device. What Microsoft has done is lay out a grid of animated icons for hubs like People, Messaging, Internet Explorer, Calendar, Pictures, Music and Videos, Me, and more. So, rather than go on the hunt within an Android OS for particular icons, Windows Phones place them right in plain sight. However, Android is more customizable and can create its own icon grid.
In that sense, the Windows Phone 7 interface is closer to iOS, though phones like the Trophy offer a secondary Home page with settings. One of the cool things about the Trophy and other Windows Phone 7 phones is that the Camera can be fired on from the Lock screen by pressing and holding the Camera button. Overall, the Windows Phone 7 OS is beautiful, but we think its nicer to look at than actually functional.
Internet
For example, the Internet browser is lacking compared to the competition. Aside from the fact that we dont get Flash, the browser is just bare bones—it sort of seems like an afterthought. The Refresh control is all we get in the Address bar, as everything else is tacked to the Menu control. Adding and selecting windows is easy and checking Favorites and History is intuitive, but viewing is all you can really expect from the Trophy.
Multimedia and Productivity
HTC Hub »
This is an arena where Windows phones shine. Lets start with Pictures. When the Pictures icon is selected, it gives us the option of viewing our Camera Roll, latest uploads from social networking friends, or our personal galleries from synched websites like Facebook. Music and Videos lets us synch whatever we want from iTunes to the phone and displays album artwork, shows history, offers Slacker Radio, and a Marketplace for taking albums for test drives before buying. For gaming, the Trophy offered the Xbox Live store and we had the chance to create our own personal gaming avatar. We also got the HTC Hub for snagging additional applications not offered by the Windows Marketplace. Lastly, Microsoft Office came to the rescue for working on Office documents like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, and supported OneNote and SharePoint.
Call Quality/Battery Life
While Verizon phones usually give us the best call quality, our HTC Trophy review unit fell below the mark. Calls were quite decipherable and crisp, but they had a slight hiss to them. This was not a huge problem, and certainly not as pressing as the battery dilemma. Yes, the Trophys battery life was less than desirable. We predicted it when we took a gander at the phones 1300mAh battery pack, and the phone proceeded to last less than a day on a single charge. Think iPhone 4 when it comes to juice. After the slew of powerhouses with exceptional battery life weve been seeing (Samsung Infuse 4G, Motorola Atrix 4G, etc.), the Trophys battery life is falling quite behind the times.
Camera
The Trophys camera was a bit of a tossup. Its a 5-megapixel shooter with 720p HD video recording. Bright light macro shots were top notch—some of the best weve taken with a phone. However, landscapes exhibited a lot of in-camera sharpening and pixel smearing. Indoor and low light shooting was noisy as all get out, but low light sensitivity was better than we expected. We hated the fact that every time we changed a camera setting like resolution or metering, it would be set back to default the next time we fired the camera on. This needs to change because it is the most annoying thing weve found on a phone camera to date.
There were a fair amount of Scene modes, and the camera had a video light. However, the video light could not be toggled while recording and the camera was devoid of touch focus. If you like macro shooting, the Trophy will rule. Other than that, pictures and videos will be piped straight from Mediocre Land (check out photo and video samples). We did like the Photo Enhancer, which allowed us to alter our images with several different cool filters and save them as separate files.
HTC Trophy – Features & Specifications
3.8-inches WVGA capacitive touchscreen, 480 X 800 pixels resolution
Weight: 140 g with battery
Windows Phone 7 OS
1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor
Adreno 200 GPU
Internal memory: 8 GB
512 MB of ROM & 576 MB of RAM
5 MP camera with Dual-LED Flash
HD Video Recording @ 720p
3G network support
Up to7.2 Mbps download speed
Up to 2.2 Mbps upload speed
GPRS, EDGE support
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP & EDR
GPS & A-GPS navigation support
HTC Hub for weather, stocks, converter etc
1300 mAh Battery capacity
Standby time upto 435 hours (WCDMA)
Standby time upto 360 hours (GSM)
Talk time upto 330 mins (WCDMA)
Talk time upto 405 mins (GSM)
Social Networking
Facebook & Windows Live App
Share Photos on Facebook & Sky Drive
January 2013 Mid Sized Smartphone Buyers Guide
Yesterday I came up with a list of 4-inch smartphones which I consider to be the best options in the market. Today we will go up one level in size and take a look at the 4.3 to 4.5-inch, or mid-sized, options available in the market.
Prices indicated are for phones with a manufacturers warranty.
1. Cherry Mobile Flame (Php6,299) - Good but a bit underpowered
Like in the compact category Cherry Mobile Flame provides the lowest cost handset I am inclined to recommend. The Flame is a 4.5-inch Android handset with a qHD display (540 x 960). Inside it has a Qualcomm MSM8255 S4 Play chipset, with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, Adreno 203 graphics and 512 MB of RAM. This chipset is used in a lot of WVGA (480 x 800) phones. Pairing the Adreno 203 graphics with a qHD display does push the graphics chip close to its limits.With a WVGA display, the graphics chip has to push a total of 384,000 pixels. With a qHD display, the graphics chip has to push 35% more pixels, or a total of 518,400 pixels. Still the phone does work.
The Cherry Mobile Flames specifications are pretty much the same as what you find in other lower cost models, with dual SIM support, 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of storage (half of which is user available), a MicroSD card slot, and a 5 MP camera and VGA front camera. The battery is a good sized 1800 mAh unit and dual-sim support. This phone also offers 5-point multi-touch support, while most lower cost phones only offer 2-point multi-touch support.
For an operating system, it comes Android 4.0.4, rather than the newer Android 4.1 or 4..2, but that is not a big issue since the Android 4.x line maintains software compatibility.
This phone is good enough for doing all the typical smartphone stuff. I would advice games to consider something else however.
2. Cloudfone Thrill 430x (Php7,777) - The endurance king
The main issue with smartphones today is battery life. Keep the 3G turned on, have it automatically sync data, browse websites, download email and checking social networks leaves most with just about a days worth of power. The 4.3-inch Cloudfone Thrill 430x has a solution for that. It equips it phone with a 4160 mAh battery.This phone has the same Android 4 operating system, Qualcomm dual core processor, chipset, storage and dual SIM capability as the Cherry Mobile Flame, but it does comes with a smaller 4.3-inch qHD display (540 x 960). This is not a bad thing, as the slightly smaller display, with the same resolution, also means it is sharper.
Aisde from the larger battery, the Cloudfone Thrill 430x has 50% more RAM than the Flame, at 768 MB. The Thrill 430x also has a larger 8 MP camera, but not necessarily better picture quality, than the Flame. The larger battery and additional RAM easily justify the higher Php7,777 asking price.
This phone is not for everyone, though. The larger battery means that it is all of 14 mm thick and 182 grams in weight. Basically, if the size and heft dont bother you, it is easy to recommend the Cloudfone Thrill 430x over the Cherry Mobile Flame. On the other hand, if the Thrill 430x feels like a brick to you, pick up the Flame instead.
Some users have reported problems with the bundled charger.
You can read more about the Cloudfone Thrill 430x at this link.
3. ZTE Grand X V970M (Php9,990) - A nicely balanced qHD smartphone
The ZTE Grand X is another 4.3-inch qHD (540 x 960) powered by a dual core processor, but this one is on a MediaTek chipset with PowerVR SGX531 graphics. The PowerVR SGX531 graphics is a bit more powerful than the Adreno 203 graphics chip found in our lower cost mid-sized options, and is better suited for running a qHD display. The other features are pretty standard for the class with 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal storage, expandable via a MicroSD card slow, and a 5 MP camera and a VGA secondary camera. The battery is a decent size 1650 mAh unit.
ZTE is a big manufacturer. If you are not ready to give Cherry Mobile or Cloudfone a try, this one should comes from an established enough manufacturer to suite you. The PowerVR SGX531 also makes the additional money worth it.
A phone that should probably be on this list is the Huawie U8950 G600. I just have not been able to very the specifications on the processor of this phone yet. It gives you a nice mid-sized option at about 14K. Will update this post when I can get my hands on one.
4. Huawei U9510 D1 Quad (Php18,090) - Quad core at a Mid-Level Price
D1 Quad XL has a a
4.5″ IPS+ LCD display with a HD (720×1280) resolution. This makes for a sharp 326ppi. Behind the display sits a 1.4 GHz quad core processor on a, designed by
Huawei, K3V2 chipset. The fact that is has a in-house designed chipset is pretty impressive, since only two smartphone manufacturers design their chipsets in-house: Apple and Samsung. In terms of performance it is right up there with Samsung quad core Exynos chipset. Basically, its a fast as you need, and performs really well in the graphics intensive tasks. Internal storage is just 8 GB, bit you do have a microSD card slot so that it not an issues.It has a 8 MP primary camera and a 1.3 MP camera. The primary camera can capture 1080p video, and the secondary camera is good for 720p video. By all accounts the camera image quality and video capture is just average, but really I do expect more at this price. The only spoiler in the package is the absence of LTE, but again, at this price you dont expect to get that.
Powering all this is a 2600 mAh battery. Despite the large battery, the phone still comes in at a reasonable 150 grams in weight. The battery is user replaceable.
The phone runs Android 4.0.4, Ice Cream Sandwich, and like other "branded" phones comes with its own custom User Interface. If you dont like the custom UI uou have the option to revert to a pretty much vanilla Android interface.
The Huawei D1 Quad XL is a surprisingly narrow device at just 64 mm wide when compared to the 68-70 mm girth of its 4.7 and 4.8-inch rivals.
A reasonably large and sharp HD display in a narrow case, a large user replaceable battery and quad core power at a mid-level price, makes this one a winner.
5. Sony Xperia V (Php23,800) - LTE onboard
The Sony Xperia V is an upgraded version of the Sony Xperia acros S. It has the similar specifications to the Xperia acro S but is powered by the dual core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Krait processor. It has a slightly higher resolution 13 MP camera. Most importantly, this phone has a HSPA+ and LTE radio, and is available from Smart Communications with an LTE plan. All in all, despite the price, this phone is easy enough to recommend.
Internal storage is less than the Xperia Acro S, at 8 GB, but it does come with a MicroSD card slot. The battery is a smallet 1750 mAH unit, but with the more efficient processor, it should give good battery life.
This phone come with Android 4.0.4 out of the box, but an update to Jelly Bean has been confirmed for this phone.
6. HTC Windows Phone 8S (Php24,150) - Best Windows Phone in the market, but sadly the local version is not the LTE model
Like the Xperia acro S, the Windows Phone 8S has a 4.3-inch HD (720 x 1280) display. Inside you will find the powerful dual core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Krait processor. Mated with a 1800 mAh battery, this phone promises good battery life. The other specifications are standard for the class, with 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage (which is not user expandable) and a HSDPA+ 21.1 radio. Unfortunately, HTC Philippines did not opt to bring in the LTE model.
The main reason to choose this phone is if you want a high end Windows Phone 8 device. It is the best Windows phone available in the market right now, well until the Nokia Lumia 920 arrives anyway.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Windows key shortcuts
Find the list of windows shortcut keys below
Read more »
Windows Key + E
Opens a new Explorer Window. Probably one of the hottest Windows keyboard shortcuts. This one gets a lot of hoorahs!- Displays the Start Menu.
- Minimizes all windows and shows the Desktop.
- Opens all windows and takes you right back to where you were.
- Displays the Find all files dialog box.
- Lock your Windows XP computer.
- Minimizes all open windows.
- Restores all previously open windows to how they were before you Minimized them.
- Displays the Run command.
- Displays the Windows Help menu.
- Displays the Systems Properties dialog box.
- Cycle through the buttons on the Task Bar.
- Displays the Utility Manager with accessibility options; Magnifier, Narrator and On-Screen Keyboard.
- Alt + TabToggle (switch) between open windows.
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