Author: hilzfuld

by hilzfuld on iPhone, Mobile, Tech

Nokia’s Back in the Game

Nokia recently released a new handset as an upgrade to the previous E61i. I had a chance to play with the new E71 today and I must say, Nokia seems to have outdone themselves. With amazing specs like 10mm thickness, 2.36 inch, 16 million color display, and a whopping 10.5 hour talk time, I was sure there was a catch, and I thought it would come in the form of a sluggish OS. I was very wrong. The E71 seemed extremely responsive and contrary to some previous Nokia handsets, it actually moved very fast. Another thing about the E71 that is very different than other Nokia handsets, is that it is a very nice looking phone. It shares that Iphone-ish (I am sure that is a word by now, no?) chrome look around the edges (seems to be the new trend, with phones like the new Blackberry Bold  and the IPhone).

The E71 feels great in your hands, a very solid build, and its keyboard is amongst the most comfortable QWERTYS I have ever used. The only thing I could think of, that would prevent someone from getting this phone, is a lack of built-in memory, but in today’s day and age with 8 and 16 GB Micro SD cards, does it really matter?

The E71 offers you pretty much anything you would need in a phone (OK it does not have a 5 or 8 megapixel camera). It has blazing fast HSDPA (fast internet access when not in a hot spot), 802.11b/g (the fastest wifi around), A2DP (stereo bluetooth, something the IPhone lacks), built-in GPS, and a nice 3 megapixel camera (do you really need more than that?). 

Seems like Nokia took my advice!

– Hillel

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by hilzfuld on Random, Software, Tech

Google’s Done it Again

After playing with Google’s new browser, Chrome, I can safely say that Google has done it again. They have managed to maintain their “we make products that work” reputation. Chrome is faster than IE, Firefox, and Safari. My initial disappointment due to the lack of a compatible Google Toolbar, has now been corrected. Google designed the browser so that you do not need any add-ons, you can simply type your search words in the browser’s address bar and you are automatically directed to the search results, as if you had searched at Google.com.

All in all, Chrome offers a very nice and smooth experience with an easy-to-use interface. After Google released their Lively service last month, that was, in my opinion, unusable, I got a little worried that Google was headed in Microsoft’s direction, i.e getting too big to make really good products. It seems now, that they are in fact headed in Apple’s direction, which is where all companies should be headed.

-Hillel

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by hilzfuld on Mobile, Software, Tech

National Pride and Android

Just thought I would make mention of the two Israeli start-ups that came in the top 50 applications designed and written for the soon-to-be released Android OS.

TuneWiki is an application that enables you to listen to music and watch video on your Android handset, while viewing different information on the screen, such as lyrics or geographical information about the singer or band. They came in the top 10.

BreadCrumbz is a pretty cool app that enables you to navigate to places that a regular GPS is unfamiliar with (dirt roads or small unknown streets). The app makes use of pictures taken by other people. For example, if you are throwing a party in a place that will not show up on GPS, you can take pictures of the landmarks nearby, and using this app, your guests will easily be able to find your location. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Well, I for one am pretty impressed with these companies.  Let’s wait and see how they do. The fact that they won $275k and $100k respectively, is just the icing on the cake.

-Hillel

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by hilzfuld on Mobile, Random, Software, Tech

Second Thoughts- Hardware vs Software

I know I wrote before that the cellular industry is becoming a software-dominated market, but there are still some signs out there, that I might be wrong about that. Take HTC for example. I remember when, not so long ago, HTC was a no-name generic type of company. They were the type of company that made handsets somewhere in the Far East but pretty much no one heard of.

A lot has changed since those days. HTC started making such good hardware that they have become one of the, if not THE, most dominant players in the cellular world today. They are now making phones for giant corporations like Palm, Google, and Microsoft. So maybe hardware does still appeal to some, and the software trend we seem to be entering, will take some time to really take over the market.

Alternatively, maybe what people are really looking for, is a combination of the two. They want a beautiful piece of hardware that’s form factor makes it easy to operate, alongside a user friendly, easy-to-use interface, and a fast and responsive operating system. Oh yea, and let’s not forget this week’s buzz word, an app store.

-Hillel

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by hilzfuld on Mac, Software, Tech

Tech and Marketing=Apple

I know it is a topic that is discussed and written about a lot, but I think there is a reason for that. Apple is really an extraordinary company, for so many reasons. What really amazes me about them is not the product or the technology they sell. MAC vs. PC, that debate is for a different time. I do not think there is anyone that can really claim that the original iPod, or the first 5 generation iPods for that matter (as opposed to the touch and the IPhone), were the best MP3 players on the market.  They weren’t! Yet they managed to sell 150 million iPods worldwide as of September 2007.

So how do they do it? It is very simple, their marketing abilities are unparalleled in the market. I recently read an article all about Apple’s “Marketing Machine” that left me absolutely stunned at how fundamentally different two huge corporations like Microsoft and Apple can be. Just one example that is mentioned in the article is the fact that when driving to one of Steve Jobs’ keynotes, you can notice all the billboards and buses have the current Apple products on them, and within a matter of seconds from the announcement of a new product, all that changes! The site is up and running with the new products, the store is already selling whatever it is Steve Jobs announced just minutes before, and the employees are even wearing new T-shirts. It is all just so smooth and near perfection.

Apple is the perfect example of superior marketing, merged with absolutely stunning and nearly flawless technology. They do however, need to do a little work on lowering their prices.

-Hillel

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by hilzfuld on PC, Software, Tech

Instant Gratification

I recently installed an external hard drive for my dad. When connecting it to the PC, I realized that some of his USB ports were 1.0 and some were 2.0. I conducted a little test to see if the difference is really that noticeable. The USB 1.0 was painfully slow to the point that I could not even let it complete the transfer, I had to disconnect it and reconnect it to the USB 2.0 port, where the speed was blazing fast.

Well good news, USB 3.0 was recently announced. The speeds that USB 3.0 support are nothing short of astounding. If USB 2.0 supports 480 Mbps, USB 3.0 supports ten times that. It can transfer (are you sitting down?)  27 GBs in 70 seconds. In the digital age in which we live, this will make things so much easier. Just the thought of backing up my whole PC in a few minutes as opposed to today’s few hours, makes me want to go out and exchange all my “old” USB 2.0 gadgets.

Now all I need to do is figure how to explain the importance of this “upgrade” to my wife. Any ideas?

-Hillel

Don't worry, it is backward compatible!

Don

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by hilzfuld on Mobile, Software, Tech

Looks Can be Deceiving: Software vs Hardware

First of all,  I would just like to introduce myself briefly, as I will probably be writing on this blog from time to time. My name is Hillel, and I work as a Technical Writer for a large telecommunications company in Israel. On the side, I am a gadget freak and a tech enthusiast. I am on Twitter under the name hilzfuld. OK now down to business.

I just wanted to throw a little theory out there. This is something that has been going through my head a lot recently, figured I would put it down on “paper”. In the rapidly changing cellular industry, I am noticing a theme that, in my opinion, reached its climax this week. I am referring to the fact that hardware is really becoming less and less important, whereas the operating system on which the phone runs, is becoming a crucial factor. Let me explain. For months, people were talking about the Gphone. This mysterious phone that Google was going to release. Google, however, as usual, was one step ahead of the game, and was not interested in designing the hardware, but rather the operating system, ie. Android. The big competition in the cellular world is no longer who can make the slimmest handset, it has become an ongoing war between huge corporations like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Symbian (to just name a few in no specific order), who can make the best and smoothest platform or operating system.

This is also very apparent when talking about the IPhone 3G. There were many enhancements included in the second version of the IPhone, but none more talked about then the SDK, or the app store. The enhanced headphone jack or the new slightly rounded sides are not what excited people, or at least not as much as the ability to add applications to the IPhone.

What did I mean about it reaching its climax this week? Well, Palm recently announced the release of their Palm Treo Pro and guess who is not making the hardware for this phone? Palm! They are having HTC design the hardware and they are going to worry strictly about what lies beneath. I don’t know about you, but to me, that seems like a clear indication that this industry is becoming a software-dominated one.

-Hillel

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by hilzfuld on Mobile, Tech

Missed the Boat

As the industry leader (is that even true anymore?), Nokia seems to have missed the boat with their flagship handset being released in Q4 of 2008. The N96 is not a bad phone, there’s no question that it packs in a hell of a lot of features, and you gotta love that dual slide action, but in the world with the IPhone 3G dominating the market, is it really that impressive? Granted, it comes with 16 GB of built in memory, and an additional expansion slot, which is not so common. Besides that, it offers the pretty much standard (a slight exaggeration) 5 megapixel camera, the same old assisted GPS,  and HSDPA. I am pretty sure if the N96 would have been released during the pre-IPhone 3G era, it might have been a big hit, but with phones like the HTC Diamond Pro, and the Sony Ericsson XPERIA, I personally am not very excited about the N96 release. Besides, Nokia has got to learn how to slim down their phones a little. It is true that Nokia was ONCE so good that looks really did not matter, but with Apple around and Sony and HTC designing phones, Nokia has to get with the times. Having said that, you can be sure that Nokia will sell more than a few N96s.

-Hillel

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