My Samsung Story

If you're a regular reader of the blog, you'd know that I had got myself a Galaxy SL i9003 a few months back. I was pretty happy with the phone initially, primarily because on paper its a great device.

A couple of weeks back, however I noticed something. The top right corner of the touchscreen was coming off. It was pretty clear that the pasting/glueing was to blame for it. Simultaneously a few marks were starting to appear on the undersurface of the touschreen, as a result no amount of wiping the panel would remove the marks. It was very clear to me that I was using a defective handset and feared that more problems may be lurking around the corner. I wanted the phone replaced. 

I was left with no other option but to call the customer care of Samsung. There I met with a rude shock. "We give you a warranty and not a guarantee" blared the customer care executive. Well I pretty much knew what the terms and conditions said and the last thing I needed was the company guy telling me that I had no legal ground for my claim. All of a sudden, I went from being a Samsung customer to almost a legal opponent fighting against the company in a court of law.

Frustrated, angry and furious at the response, I started posting status updates and tweets regarding this treatment of the company to a customer. Finally they sort of gave in, after incessant calls to the customer care service. Samsung cared enough to give me a standby phone for use while they took my i9003 for replacement. A nice touch indeed.

I now have received a fresh i9003 from Samsung. 

An effort from the company I thoroughly appreciate but also wish I didn't have to go through such a huge process of trying to explain my situation to various people at Samsung.

It's official, Gingerbread by second week of July

Samsung has made it clear that the Gingerbread update for Galaxy SL (i9003) will be available to users by the second week of July.

Here's the link: http://twitter.com/#!/Samsung_India/status/75890096288702464

Then again, this is Samsung, so I guess one will have to wait till August for sure. :)

So, now we wait.

Paid apps on android market

The biggest difference I have felt since I switched from Symbian to Android was the availability of good apps. Not crap ones. Not ones which are useless, but good apps. Apps which can be used on a day to day basis and for which I wouldn't mind paying.

In about a month's use, I have already bought 2 really good apps. One if them I'm using currently as I type. And the other is a really good media player. Poweramp is without a doubt THE music player for android. Not only because of its innumerable options ranging from a seriously addictive graphic equalizer to awesomely useful tweaks, but also because of the UI.

The other app I bought today is the android gingerbread modded keyboard. It is available in the market for around $0.99. Something which I'd say is a steal for the features it has on offer. This is without a doubt the best android custom keyboard out there. I'd rate it higher than swype or the default Samsung keyboard it even the other keyboards available in the market. I've used quite a few of them and found this to be the very very best. Kudos must go out to the app developer.

Compare this to the experience I've had with symbian. Nokia had actually sent me an email long back stating reasons of helplessness when I had complained about the inability to download paid apps from the Indian version of the ovi store.

I'm enjoying the android experience more than I'd imagined. I hope my opinion of android doesn't change anytime soon.

Is it time to take a step backwards?

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps in this rat race of features and more features and powerful processors, the importance of good battery life for a mobile phone has been lost. Battery life used to be a serious buying criteria back in the 90s and the first half of this decade. But today, its no longer a leading criteria, perhaps lost in the jungle of featues and apps and processors and GPUs.

However the neglect and perhaps the lack of innovation in this regard is quite astonishing. Nokia's once flagship device, the N95 had a fierce reputation of having the worst battery life among mobile phones of the age. The same reputation is being carried forward by the new generation touchscreen devices of the company. The N97 Mini has a hilariously short battery life for a smartphone. Its not just Nokia which is facing problems. Even the hallowed iPhone 4 has battery issues, as in the battery life isnt as impressive as the 3GS. The same problem can be found with the Samsung Galaxy S. Reason? Well for starters, its the super heavy duty processor and battery life-unfriendly OSes. Now tell me somerhing, whats a smartphone which cannot be used for extended hours? Whats the use of a device which requires you to carry chargers or cables as daughter packages wherever you go?

Now would you go back to a simple good old blackberry, or a N70? These truly had awesome battery lives. I guess most would say no. Hence whats required is a better battery management system where every single app will be able to utilise the battery power only as per the minimum requirement. I am hoping that the manufacturers already have this in mind and are working towards a solution. This also goes with the 'green' theme everyone's suddenly obsessed about, hence makes good marketing sense. Else we consumers would be forced to used dated devices with poor functionality.

A Good Phone

People around the web and everywhere for that matter talk about their phones being 'good' or in most cases not being all that good. So what exactly is the GQ? (Goodness Quotient, if you havent guessed it yet) For starters, GQ as you would expect has a different meaning for almost all individuals. But if we concentrate on the smartphone sphere, the goodness of a phone is defined by the following factors:

1. The form factor - like it or not, the form factor is undoubtedly the most important criteria for people buying a new phone. No one likes an ugly device. This partially explains the success of the iPhone, the amazing form factor.

2. User Interface - abbreviated as UI, this is more or less what makes or breaks a phone. Symbian most say (except for fanboys of course) has the least attractive UI, and android (with sense UI from HTC) and the iOS are generally considered among the best. The others like Maemo and Meego, although not exactly new platforms, but havent been mainstream OSes so far. Nonetheless, UI isnt really their forte.

3. Whats 'inside' - the processor, the RAM, the memory capabilities, etc. This is where android wins hands down more or less. Why? Well, the high end phones have a processing speed of 1GHz and RAM of 512MB. With a GPU (graphics processing unit), thats a killer deal. Sure the iPhone 4 has almost the same specs, but its sort of rendered redundant thanks to its severly restricted multitasking abilities.

4. Apps - applications are what smartphones are made for. And unless there's a plethora of apps to choose from, using a smartphone doesnt make much sense. The android market and the apple app store and legendary in this regard, with Nokia's Ovi Store coming a very distant third.

There you go, the next time you buy a smartphone make sure its a 'good' one and scores high on your GQ levels.

Claimer: these are my opinions so dont expect them to be universally accepted truth.