Touch Phones > Advantages and their Disadvantages :

Touch phones is a feature introduced in China a very long time ago. Various random brands have set foot into this field couple of years back, but it is only until recent few months, Popular Brands such as Apple, Samsung, HTC, Sony, Nokia, LG etc kave starting participating. I believe Apple i phone was the mother of all touch phones you see these days. It has set a sole example in creating a touch phone and the features a touch phone should possess. But, the price of Apple i phone is very expensive compared to the wide variety of models you see these days. One of the Popular brands in this Touch business is The Samsung Brand, as it happens to have majority of models compared to others and also that i happen to own one. Let me express my opinion on the basic advantages and dis advantages of a Basic model of a touch phone.

A._)  My Requirements >

• Sleek design : Apparently, i do not like touch phones with greater thickness as it spoils the whole feel of a touch phone. Nokia seems to fall under this category (most of the ordinary phones are also very thick if you think about it) but is making efforts in introducing new models with good design. Whereas, Samsung, Lg etc. have successfully manufactured thin bone structure. A touch phone, from my opinion shoud not be not more than 1.3 cm in its thickness. This should be very easy as there is no Keybad for touch phones and should not be a problem. The thickness is therefor based on the screen thickness and the battery size. Ofcourse, some models of touch phones that come with both Touch screen and Keypad as in Samsung Ultra Touch S8300 or models with Qwerty Keypad  as in Nokia N97 or Sony Xperia etc.

• Large Screen : I have been bored with the mini screens and it sometimes hurts my eyes to read my messages in the small screen. I always wanted a model with large screen,. When the touch phones were not interested, my eyes caught on the Flip phones. The size of screen on flip phones were larger compared to the Bar type phones as the Keypad was placed seperately below the screen. But, two reasons why i did not like them was > a.) The overall thickness of the phone is huge. But most importantly, the screen was too thin and the remaining body with keypad was too thick. This contrast made it look very awkward. One model  where the screen and body were proportionately placed was the Samsung Ultra Touch S8300 which was extremely good looking for a slide phone (but also too long for a slide phone). Note: Do not get fooled by the Size mentioned  and pictures shown in various sites. For example, if the length mentioned is 10.5 cm display size, this is not the display size but the overall length. Sometimes the actual size is greater than what is mentioned. It is so confusing and disappointing so just go to the showroom and view the dummies for accurate view.

• Qwerty Keypad : QWERTY keypad means keypad containg all alphabets from A to Z in the format available on an ordinary computer keyboard. My opinion is that why should i just convince myself with the basic features that are available in a normal phone? My budget was within Rs.10,000/- The optimum choice was between Samsung Star and Samsund Star 3G. Samsung star 3G does not come with Qwerty kepad but has 3G. 3G was not my requirements but i thought every touch phone must have a Qwerty. Same Qwerty feature was available in Rs.25,00/- Samsung Omnia and there were no other models with Qwerty feature between the Rs.10,000 to Rs. 25,000/- price range. Hence i opted for Samsung Star.

• Hand Writing recognition : This feature does not mean the touch phone can recognise different types of hand writings ! It simply means, that we can write on the screen and whatever is written is taken by the phone. I did not need this feature because it was very important to me, but i thought considering a Touch phone it should be available. This is not necessary as it is the slowest method of input compared to ordinary type and Qwerty type. Note : Do not get fooled by the designs. The ones shown in the sites or Television is different from the ones sold in various shops. Take for example samsung star, the actual location for placing the pen as shown in pictures is within the phone itself on its sides. But, in some shops they the same model where, you can not keep the pen inside the phone but should be carried seperately.

• Smooth movement : One thing i was afraid about a Touch phone is that, i might touch something by mistake and the data may be lost because of that. Whereas in an ordinary phone, you have control over the 'Enter' button as tou would be pressing it to confirm any action. Hence my requirement was that the movement should be rational and should not be effected by random touchs.

• Auto Rotate Sensor / Accelerator : Accelerator simply means the phone sensing the movement and performing the task allotted to it. Accelerator does not Necessarily mean Auto rotate sensor. Accelerator is usually available to move the pictures on its own, that is tilt the phone a little and the pictures move one by one as in a slide show due to the sensor. Autorotate means, whenever you rotate them at a 45 degree angle (just for understanding) the screen with the icons also rotate. This is useful as, if you have long list of icons in the menu or while playing the music, if the title is too long to read, tou can use it in the horizontal position to view them properly.

• User friendly : Since the whole idea of a Touch phone sounds fun, it shoud be user friendly. That is, it should be easy to download third party themes and games in the internet and used in the phone.a touch phone without this feature is No Fun.

• Basic Features : Just like any other normal phone, it should have Memory card slot to store music or pictures. For a Rs.10,000/- phone, It must have atleast a 3 mp camera. There should be a music player with equalizer and grouping the music should be possible. Bluetooth and especially USB connection is a Must to connect to the Computer or other phones to transfer files.

B._)  Advantages :

The touch phone with its large screen enables to view the messages clearly. The Qwerty Kepad can be used to type as in a normal keyboard with all the alphabets present in a single screen. The pictures taken are fun to watch in a large screen. Navigation is smooth when you move the page by just rolling your finger over the screen rather than using the button to press up for each movement (Very annoying). The Calender is good as the screen is big and all the events are visible properly. The typing on a touch screen is faster whereas in a keypad, you have to press the buttons harder. Since most of the touch phones come with Vibration effect, this enables us to confirm the typing and moving whether placed or not. Touch games are fun to play and feels different compared to ordinary games.

C._)  Disadvantages :

There is a very high possibility of typing incorrect letters as while clicking on one character, the other letter next to it is touched and selected. This might get irritating. The Accelerator is a good feature but the sensors can be too sensitive and the slightest tilt can take you to an image present after 30 images from the current. Many phones do not come with auto rotate and sometimes this feature is irritating as the screen can rotate when it is not necessary.Inspite of the lock button, there is a very high possibility of touching randomly by mistake for example like in a moving bus. Suppose this happens when the content folder is opened, there is a chance that the items can be deleted. Hope the Touch phones in Future become more flexible to use.

Virgin, though new to India, is giving a very good service to their customers. At present they are using Tata Services for their network connection, but soon they will have their own towers all across India. They have Nokia, Samsung, Haier and Hawiie Handsets with different ranges. As they offer only CDMA connection, we have no other option than buying the cell phones given by Virgin Mobile Ltd. However, they dont charge even a pie for activating the SIM which comes free with the handset. Whats more, the SIM is pre-activated with Life time validity, 500 free first local calls and free 500 smses.

Apart from this, the call rates are very reasonable. They charge 1 Rupee for first 3 mins when called to local phones and then it is 50 paise for the whole day even if you call landline. The same is for STD where the first three mins are charged 1.50 Rs, and then for next 30 mins, they charge 50 paise. Apart from first three smses which charges 50 paise, the next 100 smses are free.

And the most important thing which make them stand apart from others is that you earn 10 paise for any incoming calls that you receive (except from Virgin promos).

Altogether, I am very mcuh satisfied with the Virgin's service. I would suggest you friends to try Virgin once.

These days many people suffer from lack of memory.  Many people attribute this to ageing or deterioration in physical or mental health. However suffering from poor memory has nothing do do with advancement of age or poor health..  The primary reason for loss of memory is over dependence on technology.

Usage of  Calculators:- When we were young and used to study at school, we had to do addition, subtraction and multiplication manually.   The reason was there were no calculators during those days.  Even when calculators came to existence, students were prohibited to use calculators at schools.  When we grew up and starting working in office or doing our businesses there was no restriction whatsoever and we start doing even simple calculations on calculators  which earlier used to be done manually by us at schools.  These days  it is not surprising to see shop keepers are clerks adding up a series of 2 or 3 two digits numbers on their calculators.  Due to this there is no effort whatsoever on the brain to memorize a thing and hence after some time we lose our ability to remember.

Usage of Mobile Phones as Reminders:- There was a time when we used to remember birthdays of our dear ones.  Even if we did not have good memory we used to note it down.  Similarly we used to note down phone numbers and postal addresses in our dairy.  After dialing the phone number a few times we used to remember the numbers by heart.  Similarly after writing postal addresses on envelopes we used to remember postal addresses very well.  These days people never dial a number on their mobile handsets, they search by name on their address book and dial it and as a result of this they do no remember a number if they do not have their mobile handsets in hand with them on that particular day.  With the advent of email, no body ever remembers a persons postal address as they do not even make a effort to note or remember a address as they are not required to do so..   Many  people  have a habit of shifting houses on regular basis, but what  is surprising with them is that they do not even remember the postal address of their own homes because they have never bothered to find out or remember thanks to technological advancement in the form of email.

It is good to use technology, because there is no point in adding up 20 numbers manually when you can do it easily on a caluclator saving time and energy.  However when it comes to adding couple of easy numbers it is advisable to do it manually to keep your brain working.

Regards

Satish

Samsung N120 (N series) Netbook :

Netbooks have been rocking the market. Lot of brands have entered the market and are facing the competion world. You might have seen reviews in the internet for Mini netbooks. Hp 110 model is on the Number 1 position and then comes Aser Aspire One. Samsung brand which is, as everyone knows, a very popular brand, entered the IT netbooks industry and is introducing wide variety of products and models (as expected of Samsung). I think Samsung is the ONLY BRAND that produces a large number of models to meet various requirements of customers rather than concentrating only on one particular group of people. This is only the Beginning. samsung has a Very Bright future in the field of Netbooks. Hopefully the Netbooks category enjoy huge success as all the parts such as the LCD, Keyboard, Hard drive etc. are completely manufactured by Samsung. Let us first view its Specifications and its performance and then its overall Review.

Specifications:

• Genuine XP Home - Samsung N120 comes with the original version of windows XP. This enables access to various products of Windows and Updates which would otherwise be unavailable. The model DOES NOT come with the OS software (Windows XP installation software) but there is a ' Samsung Recovery Solution' which enables us to make a copy of the Windows and the drives in the form of DVDs or copy to an Hard drive. DVD is the Best option though.It takes only one DVD of size 4.7 GB.Using the Recovery solution to copy in a DVD and when the system is effected with Virus or requires re-installation, then the DVD can be used. Once copied in a DVD, it can be installed any number of times. NOTE: Make the DVD copy (RECOVERY) immediately after purchasing and then use the system as you wish. If the system is effected by Virus, the data may be corrupted and becomes too late to make a Recovery copy.

• Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.6 GHz) > All the Netbooks,even this comes with Intel Atom processor.In the Pamplets and the Internet official sites, they say it comes with N280(1.66 GHZ) speed processor but the product i recieved only came with 1.6 GHZ sped. I do not know which part is wrong.

• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 >It comes with Intel Graphics with 120 MB shared memory.

• System Memory 1 GB DDR2 > The N120 model comes with 1 GB RAM memory and may be can be expanded to 3GB or may be not.

• LCD 10.1-inch WSVGA 1024 x 600 TFT color Display >The Samsung LCD is the most famous LCDs of all times with its superb Bright Display and the Digital quality and excellant Graphics. The model comes with a Samsung software where you can change the resolution to 1024 x 750 size.

• 3 WATTS Sterio Speaker (1.5 WATTS x 2) > This model comes with special Sub Woofers and SRS3D Sound effect. It comes with a Samsung software where the music equalizer and audio effects can be adjusted. You can do Remix and Record also.

• Integrated Camera 1.3 megapixel >This enables Video chatting in internet.Once again, the product comes with Cyberlink Camera software to set the settings for enabling web camera.

• Storage Hard Drive 160 GB at 5400 RPM > The storage capacity is 160 GB and comes with default C and D drives. You can not create additional drives.

• Wireless Connection > The model comes with  Wired Ethernet LAN 10 / 100  and Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g and  Bluetooth 2.0. The Wifi used is Atheros brand and is bit slow to connect the WIFI but once connected, the speed is excellant. There is no paricular Wifi/Bluetooth - On/Off Switch but shortcut is avaialable.

• USB and Card Slot > USB 2.0 x 3 numbers os USB slots (2 chargeable USB ports) are included in the model. It also comes with Multi Card Slot 3 in 1 (SD, SDHC, MMC)

• Input -  (a.)The Keyboard has 82 keys. The keyboard size is the UNBELEIVABLE ! The keys are Huge compared to other mini laptops and also 15" laptops. The keys are very comfortable to type on. There are lot of shortcuts for easy performance. (b.) Touch Pad - The previous model, that is C10 is similar to this but comes with very short Touch Pad. That has been modified in this N120 model. The touch pad is comfortable. For the touch pad there is a single long button for Left and Right click. This does not create confusion and looks neat.

• 6 cell battery lithium ion > The battery in idle mode comes for around six hours. For internet around 4 - 4.5 hours.There is a facility to save power which can give an extra 30 to 45 minutes. The battery sixe is little big because the standard battery for netbooks is 3/4 cell. But it dous not look awkward but instead looks like a stand. When using for the first time, charge it for continously for 5 hours minimum (even if the full charge display appears).

• Dimensions > The dimensions are  (W X H XD) 10.27″ x 1.19″ x 7.3″ with Weight (including battery) 1.3kg . The laptop looks so thin and cool and is perfect for a netbook.

Overall Review:

The look of the netbook is Awsome than most of the netbooks.It is really thin. It comes with TWO colors > Black and White. DO NOT get fooled by the white colored netbook pictures in the interner as they look like silver. I have included the real life pictures.White can get dirty so proper maintainance is a Must. The top side is made of a very soft glossy finish but not those glossy finishes in other netbooks which attracts lot of finger prints. The fan of the netbook fo my netbook does not emit much sound but gets a little heated up. Do not install heavy softwares , then the speed is reduced which is not good for a 1.6 GHZ processor. Samsung netbooks come with additional softwares that are very helpful and are also in a CD which is included. A Black soft pouch is also included. The Warranty period is One Year. It comes with Mc- Afree Antivirus trial version (30 / 60 days). In the front, there are display lights to show what features are on and off. The touchpad movements is smooth and easy.The Display light is very bright so it looks very good. The battery included can give around 6 hours battery life. The battery is detachable with safe lock. The netbooks come with FREE DVD writer. The writer is slim and handy and can be carried anywhere. It can be connected by a USB. This is a perfect promotion as the netbooks do not come with an optical drive. Samsung includes softwares such as - Life extender / Display manager / Resolution manager / Magic Keyboard / Magic Doctor / Recovery solution / Update Plus and User guide. The User guide manual is not included in the box. The manual is dital and is available in the system.The Samsung drivers can be updated in the NET.

My Rating: Look > 5 / 5,  Speed > 4 / 5, Battery > 4 / 5, Display(graphics) > 5 / 5.