Apple under suit again

From Engadget Mobile:

"Is there a better way to ring in the first day of spring than with another lawsuit aimed at Apple and AT&T? Probably, but apparently not for Damone Dickerson, who has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey that again takes aim at the pair over allegedly misleading claims about 3G speeds. According to Dickerson, he has only be able to connect to the 3G network a "fraction of the time," and when he was able to connect it did not provide "full and continual service." As a result, he's leveled a whole host of charges against the two companies, which he hopes will result in them changing their advertising and, of course, allow him to "recover compensatory, statutory and punitive damages." No word from Apple or AT&T, naturally, but Apple has recently asked that a similar case in New York be dismissed."

Sound familiar?

Link

Samsung S2 Pebble

So I managed to finally destroy my old Sansa c250. I could only get audio out of one side. So for about a week now, I've been happily enjoying its successor: the 1 GB Samsung S2 Pebble.

DESIGN

Before I get into the actual results section, I'm going to break down the aesthetics a bit.

This thing is gorgeous. I know the benchmark for electronics design these days seems to be Apple, but I really think Samsung did a great job with this one. It's small, unobtrusive, but it looks great when it hangs around your neck (using the included necklace earbuds). The interface is simple enough. In fact, when you plug the earphones in, it orients the player perfectly so that the volume up button is on the upper side of the player. The back is a tad too shiny, making it a fingerprint magnet, but the idea was to make it resemble a polished pebble, so that's pretty unavoidable. It has no screen, putting it in the same class as the Shuffle, but this does have a convenient LED indicator on the back that will signal the status of the player (e.g. flashing red for low battery). It makes it pretty intuitive, overall.

FUNCTION

Ah yes, the meat and potatoes. The sound on this thing is quite decent for a player that won't cost north of $30 (Note that I got the 1 GB model. I believe there is a 2 GB model, but that one costs more). I opted to use my own earphones, because the necklace earphones provided seem to cut out some lows. Volume runs a very acceptable range, and I was able to drown out a very crowded train pretty easily.

One feature on the Pebble, however, has me sold: the ability to create a playlist on the fly. There is a fifth "smart button" on the player, which will allow you to switch modes. Holding the volume button will add the current song to a playlist (max. 30 songs) which can then be accessed by holding down the smart button. For someone who enjoys different groups of songs on different days, this feature really is a selling point.

ACTUAL RESULTS

Time to test the box claims. Samsung says the Pebble will get 13 hours of playback, which I unfortunately didn't manage to pull off, but just barely. I kept the player playing more or less constantly during four 3-hour train rides I took, and only about an hour into the last one did it conk out. That's a decent 10 hours of playback, before a charge is needed. Samsung's keeping it pretty honest here.

Final Rating: 4.5/5 - It's a solid low-cost player that's great for trips to the gym or places you wouldn't want to bring your main MP3 player.

Moving in

Seems the blog made the transition from LiveJournal just fine. Here's to keeping you guys updated on whatever electronics I manage to get my eyes and hands on. Expect a piece on iPhone OS 3.0 when they finally make the big reveal (March 17th!)

Moving out

I'm going to be switching to Blogger and closing the LiveJournal version of this blog. I like the Blogger platform a bit better (I've had another profile on it for a bit). Hopefully I'll be able to build a following there, but here's to keeping you guys posted!

Go Samsung

Again, I really love MWC. Check this out:

image courtesy engadget

It's the Samsung OmniaHD, the successor to the current Samsung Omnia. First drool-worthy point: the screen is 3.7" and is AMOLED (Active Matric Organic LED). Now quick aside: I'm a materials science major, and I've made OLEDs before. Think of how bright an LED is. That's exactly how bright an OLED is. 

Now OLEDs can be made thin, making them pretty ideal for screens. The awesome part of an OLED vs. an LCD screen though is that the OLED produces its own light AND color, whereas the LCD relies on an energy hogging backlight. This should (hopefully) mean the Omnia HD will have some pretty sweet battery life. No mention on whether the display is capacitive or resistive, but it's supposed to run S60, which means there might still be hope (Windows Mobile doesn't have any capacitive touchscreen support).

Second drool-worthy point: It shoots video in 720p! And it has a 12 MP camera! And it can store 8 gigs or 16 gigs (dependant on model) of media! This thing really packs in the tech. Apparently it can also wireless broadcast to compatible HDTVs in HD. Samsung's clearly looking to appease the technophiles with this one.

I am REALLY hoping this phone is coming stateside. It just dethroned the iPhone in terms of which phone I want to get next.

Toshiba's Got Game

image courtesy pcworld

Oh wow, I love MWC and the weeks preceding it. So stumbling about the internet, I came upon Toshiba's announcement of the TG01. This thing is about as close to overkill as a cell phone gets, I think. It has a 4.1" screen. To put that in perspective, think of the iPhone. Pretty big screen, right? Well, this screen is 0.6" bigger diagonally. It is a MONSTER.

Toshiba's also apparently built it on the Snapdragon platform, clocking the TG01 at nearly a GHz. There's all sorts of pictures available over at TechOn of the device's performance in 3D rendering and GPS navigation. The UI's a bit odd, though. It has a number of of (I believe 3) vertical stripes, that can then be flicked through. The device runs on Win-Mo, though, which means that the massive, beautiful 4.1" screen... is a resistive one. Get out your stylus, and check this phone out.

Back from break

And what a break it was. Unfortunately, my iPod Touch was stolen, so I'm currently working with a Sansa c250 as my main MP3 player. In addition, my XV6700 finally broke, so it's back to dumbphone-ville for me until my contract is up. 

Seems my friend picked up a T-Mobile G1 over break. I got to use it for a few minutes, and from the impression I got, it seems pretty sweet. Expect me to attempt a review of it as soon as I can wrench the thing from his hands.