Showing 71-80 of 170 results
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Huawei still some way behind rivals
Life, James Hein, Published on 21/11/2018
» I've had some feedback expressing surprise that I invested in a smartwatch. Yes, I didn't think I'd see the day either, but it does function very well as a watch with changeable faces and at a price point that's far below some of the faces it can duplicate. The always-on test was a success in that I only turned the watch off when I wasn't using it on some evenings. It also does sleep tracking, which perhaps provides a sterner test, but it still provided a week's worth of use making it usable for many. On a longer trip you would need to take the charger along. Note that for both tests, I kept Bluetooth on the whole time.
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Australia still trailing Thailand in broadband coverage
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/09/2018
» Wither now comms in Australia? With the National Broadband Network or NBN a certified failure, Australia seems to be working hard to ensure that to make the NBN look reasonable, any emerging 5G network must be made to hobble by banning technology companies like Huawei from providing the same kind of support it has been giving over the past 15 years to the local telcos. The given reason is a lack of trust in any Chinese company, keeping the spying eyes of China out of the country. To be fair, there is some justification for this, as China has not been the poster child of espionage abstinence across the globe. What earth-shattering useful secret info they might get from the Australians is debatable, but it looks like the Land Down Under will not be improving their communications any time soon. Thailand is still well ahead on that front.
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A lot of money for fairly little phone, Apple
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/09/2018
» So, the news of the week, or at least as I write this, is the release of the new Apple iPhone range. There are three models ranging from the 5.8 and 6.1 inch models up to the XS Max at 6.5 inches. The latter is a real departure from the early days of Apple declaring that no one needed a large-screen phone. Compared to the latest phone specs across other brands, the features in the new iPhone range are not so special. They do all have very special prices and the bottom of the line starts at US$749 (Thai prices are TBA) and goes up from there topping out at $1449, which would make the whole range easily the most expensive phones per feature on the market today. For this you get no fingerprint reader, no headphone jack, average pixel density and cameras, no expansion memory port but dual SIMs, wireless charging and face detection. Even my most ardent Apple-lover friend will not be forking out their cash for those kinds of prices. I don't expect this range to sell anywhere near as well as earlier models. Seriously, what were they thinking?
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Privacy an artefact of times past
Life, James Hein, Published on 18/07/2018
» If you have learned nothing else from my many years of writing, it should be that unless extraordinary steps are taken, personal data privacy doesn't exist, except perhaps in the deluded minds of government officials. The only thing privacy laws do these days is stop you from returning someone's lost phone. In just one day in the news, I read reports about Huawei infiltrating Facebook, another Spectre CPU problem, political data harvesting in the UK, insecure military servers in the UK, Chinese hackers interested in Cambodia (and the rest of the world) along with other items about lost or hacked data. Yahoo and Google collect far more than the whole of the US spy agencies combined, though at least the latter doesn't deliberately spread it around or sell it to marketers.
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What will 5G mean for you?
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/04/2018
» Is 5G going to save those people with bad internet connections? As the world moves more towards mobile platforms, users want faster and more reliable services. I know I do. 5G is being touted as the way to that future, with the promise of a high-def movie download in seconds and other benefits, like better access to the often-mentioned Internet of Things, or IoT.
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Raising the bar on performance
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/09/2017
» Have you ever wondered why sometimes you have full bars on your phone and a few steps later none? Worse if you are in one room of your house it's all good but elsewhere no bars. There are many factors that can affect your reception including distance from your cell tower, the number of people using the network, what is in between cell towers and you and more.
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Apple versus Samsung: It's a battle of the 8s
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2017
» The big news from the usual sources is the new iPhone 8. After reading some of the specs and comparisons with the Samsung S8 and Note 8, I am a bit confused. Reviewers crow about facial recognition for the new iPhone, but the S8 range already has it. They go on about the edge-to-edge screen, but Samsung has had that for a few models now. In fact, almost point by point the Samsung range already has all the features of the iPhone 8 but at a lower price point, and that's before the Note 8 comes out.
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Samsung's comeback; buyer beware
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/08/2017
» I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S8+ for some time now and so far, no complaints. If you want to use features like the Edge screen, fingerprint or retina security etc, you will need to do some setting up. The camera is excellent, as is the screen. Response is smooth and the battery life does me all day and then some depending on what I am doing. Connectivity is great and the interface is easy to use. My biggest complaint is finding the right match for a screen protector and a case due to the curved screen. Another is the difficulty in finding a way to give root access but that won't be an issue for most users. The new form factor means it fits into the hand nicely even for the larger model. So, far I have no hesitation in recommending this phone.
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Facing up to social media bias
Life, James Hein, Published on 21/06/2017
» An interesting thing is happening on the major sharing and information sites like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others. In what is supposed to be an open and free environment, political editing bias is starting to creep in. The local phenomenon that started in the US has started to pervade the global system. This is not the direct political editing that occurs in places such as China but that of one group's opinions suppressing another side's. It is not an issue if the views being suppressed are demonstrably incorrect but in some cases the factual and data based views are those being suppressed in favour of the unsupportable "politically correct" ones of small but outspoken groups.
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Samsung looks to rebound
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/04/2017
» The Samsung Galaxy S8 will be in stores towards the end of April. Samsung had to get this one right after the Note 7 but they have ended up mostly doing an Apple. One obvious conclusion for the release of a 5.8 and 6.2-inch models so close together in screen size is because of the iPhone regular and S versions; it looks like Samsung thought they needed two models as well. There has been no upgrade in battery size nor camera capabilities between the S7 and S8. Then there are the prices, the most expensive Samsungs ever. Add all of this up and it detracts from what is still a rather nice phone.
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