Tag: rsquo

The Harsh, Cutthroat Reality of Competing in the Mobile Industry

In light of recent events with HTC and their struggling attempts to remain a profitable business, I’ve wanted to delve into what it’s really like for smartphone manufacturers and why any big game player like HTC or even Samsung and Apple have the chance to burn in flames at any point in time.

It’s not particularly easy to stay on the top of the smartphone game, and we’ve already seen big game mobile manufacturers fall to the pressures of the market in the past. Both Motorola and Nokia have struggled in recent years – this gives two great examples of how manufacturers that were once at the top of the game can still fall under the radar.

So what exactly makes the mobile industry such a harsh, competitive environment? There are multiple issues but I’d like to talk about the most obvious ones below.

Customer Loyalty is Easily Ripped Away From You

In the mobile industry, whether we’re talking about smartphone manufacturers, network providers or retail stores, it’s very hard for such companies to build a strong customer loyalty. When the time comes for a consumer to pick up a new smartphone, a lot of the decisions are based on price, features and what the best cellular deals are available at the time.

As a result, it’s constantly difficult to keep customers sticking to your own brand because other businesses in the mobile industry are often trying to outplay you by offering better deals and touting that what they’re offering will result in a better experience.

Because the mobile industry is so fast paced and constantly evolving there’s absolutely no way you can stay a successful business within the industry without constantly trying to outplay your competitors in any possible avenue. If you’re a smartphone manufacturer that fails to provide something new and exciting or a mobile network operator that can’t keep up with the latest trending deals then your current customers will leave you.

The Fine Line Between Innovation and Gimmickry

One thing that powers the growth of the mobile industry is it’s fast paced competitive nature. Smartphone manufacturers are now pressured to release new smartphones with better features and hardware every single year. In fact, it’s more common at this point to see big time manufacturers releasing two high end smartphones each year.

To really stand out from every other smartphone manufacturer that’s trying to get a piece of the mobile industry pie, you’d have to try and create your own innovative experiences, software or hardware elements. The trouble with this is it’s sometimes hard to create something that really catches on. Eventually after spending millions on researching and developing new smartphone experiences, you end up with a list of gimmicks that don’t really interest the general smartphone consumer to a great ordeal.

But at the same time, if you don’t try and find something new and exciting for your own smartphone lineup then you’re going to struggle to be a top worldwide smartphone manufacturer, unless you’re willing to throw billions on a strong marketing campaign.

Making Deals with the Devil

Sometimes to stand a chance in the mobile industry you’ll need to make deals with other hardware manufacturers or network operators. For example, if you can’t find a strong network operator to team up with in a region like North America that heavily relies on subsidized smartphone sales, you’re going to have a difficult time shipping enough smartphones.

If you end up making a deal with a company and then the other side doesn’t follow through with the arranged plans then you’re just as worse off. The difficulty here is that it’s important to make these kinds of partnerships in the mobile industry – they can be helpful to get your name out there, get your smartphones sold and provide the tools you need to further develop and innovate your own brand and experience.

As you can see, trying to be a top smartphone manufacturer is not an easy game, and it’s not surprising to see a manufacturer like HTC starting to struggle.

August 6, 2015
5 Features to Expect from Smartphones of the Near Future

The mobile industry is highly competitive and as a result, mobile manufacturers are pushed to be more creative, more innovative and fit more features in each and every year. This creates a fast moving industry that sees the huge change over short periods of time. As a result it can be hard to accurately predict what may be coming to the mobile industry next, but I can think of at least 5 features that smartphones either deserve or could be getting within the next few years.

I’d like to talk a little about these features and why I think they could be making their way into smartphones of the near future.

Foldable or Curved Displays

This is an area that both LG and Samsung are dabbling in a little bit with some of their smartphones, but so far we haven’t seen too much of a productive reason to have a curved display. I strongly believe that a number of manufacturers are working behind the scenes to develop folding displays, and most importantly trying to find a way to make foldable or curved displays useful for consumers.

A lot of features for smartphones are often seen gimmicky – manufacturers may try to be innovative and it ends up not working out for them. Take 3D smartphone displays for example.

I do, however, think that foldable displays could open up opportunities for larger devices, making them more portable and easier to carry throughout the day.

I couldn’t estimate when foldable displays may make it into the public domain, but as it stands right now, curved edged displays are already being used and Samsung has shown their interest in working on folding displays.

10-Core Processors

I personally think that 10 core processors could be a possibility for flagship devices. It isn’t just about putting as many numbers as possible into a smartphone to impress buyers, either. Whilst multi-core processing to this degree may not be as viable on a desktop PC, it works well on smartphones, and SoC’s with processors with eight or even ten cores could be beneficial for performance.

The idea behind a multi-core setup is that it provides the smartphone plenty of ‘utility’ Using a big.LITTLE array, or something similar, would allow a smartphone to pick and choose between various levels of performance. A ten core processor could be split into one dual core and two quad cores. The dual core could be used for when idle, or for very low resource tasks, whilst the first quad core could be used for standard browsing through the operating system. The final quad core could be used for intensive work such as video processing or playing games. Being able to swap out between either of these processors can help reduce power consumption, therefore increasing a smartphone’s battery life, which brings me onto my next point…

New Battery Technology

Whilst batteries in smartphones have been increasing in capacity over the last few years, the increase in battery capacity is very slow, and it’s being overtaken by display size and display resolution improvements, negating any real benefit of having a large battery.

Perhaps in five years time it may be standard to see 4,000mAh batteries in lithium-ion powered smartphones, but there are alternatives. There is currently plenty of research being done into alternative battery mediums.

We’re looking at the potential for super fast charging aluminum graphite batteries in the near future, or potentially batteries that run on water or even a battery that can harness power from a human’s skin.

There’s plenty of space for innovation in the battery department and I feel like smartphone manufacturers will soon have to look outside of the box instead of slowly improving battery capacity for the lithium-ion solution they’re currently relying on.

Even Better Cameras

This is one area that we’re likely to see improvements on in the very near future, and by that I’m talking within the next three years. Sony has already put a huge amount of effort into their smartphone camera sensors and a lot of their profit is coming in through sensor sales to other smartphone manufacturers. As the leading smartphone camera provider in the industry, Sony are looking to put more research into their work to improve smartphone cameras. As a result, this will directly improve the camera quality for any smartphones manufactured by companies buying from Samsung and will indirectly push other camera manufacturers to work harder to keep up with the competition.

Branding and Design Improvements

This is largely based around speculation on my part, but I think it’s a valuable insight that deserves a listen. Samsung took a brave approach this year by completely revamping their smartphone designs and it has paid off incredibly well for them. The new Galaxy lineup has been received positively by critics and consumers and it’s going to mark a new start for branding and design improvements in the mobile industry.

As Samsung is setting the bar for high-quality smartphone design, other manufacturers are going to be pushed to reconsider their own designs. I doubt we’ll see a complete overhaul from Apple, but I would not be surprised at all if Apple reworks their next smartphone lineups to ensure the iPhone looks even sleeker and slimmer than the Galaxy S lineup.

I think this will result in a wave of new work done towards smartphone design and branding that all manufacturers will take part in. Manufacturers want to hold onto their customers, but more importantly they don’t want their competitors taking their customers away from them.

Creating a strong smartphone flagship lineup in years following 2015 could be more about the actual design, appearance and branding than it’s ever been before.

What do you expect to see from smartphones in the near future?

Image credit: Androidcentral; Yourmumhatesthis

July 31, 2015
Best Fitness Gadgets for Just Any Runner!

Well, it’s not just all about celebrating a running day at the particular location! No matter where you are located, having the right kind of running gadgets can always offer you a great running experience. And when we are talking about running gadgets, how we can miss the best fours in the list? These are perfect running gadgets that you will love to have on just any running day. In order to get over the finish line quickly, and effortlessly, these gadgets can produce a great help for you.

The New Shoe from Adidas

The very first gadget that appears on the list is the Energy Booster Shoes from Adidas. It’s the sole of the shoe that seems to be more attractive and effectual. These soles are made of high-quality materials. Experts have even mentioned that these soles are all set to revolutionize the running methods for people. It’s the foam assigned for the soles that can bounce back after your every step. It can come to the original shape quickly while eliminating the strain factor to a huge extent. Thus, your muscles and joints are not going to come across sheer strain during when you run. This is a super-lightweight shoe and its construction is can make your running better and smoother.

[Amazon]

Cooling Towel

This is called as the magic towel by many. To make it, proprietary fabric is used that can cool effectively once soaked in the water and then wrung out as well as snapped. During the hot days, this towel does make a sense to use it first. When it’s the sweating time, you should have this towel on. Well, you are not really going to find the best use of such towel when you are living in Ireland.

[Amazon]

Blue Buds from JayBird

Blue Buds from JayBird is now listed as the official earbuds for USA Triathlon. These ear buds are designed to transform the whole way you use to listen to the phone calls, books, music, and podcasts while running. This gadget works on the basis of Bluetooth that can last for near about eight hours. Do you really think you can run for that much of time? But the fact is that these ear buds can keep up the charge for a really long time period.

[Amazon]

Knuckle lights

If you prefer to run during the evening or night time, then the Knuckle Lights appears to be the perfect gadget for you. You might be waiting for this since a long time and it has appeared! This device is capable to produce 45 lumens and that seems to be enough for you. Wall you need to wear it on your hand and it will start to illuminate your running path.

July 24, 2015
How Does the ZTE Axon Compare to Other 2015 Flagships?

When people think of ZTE, they don’t consider them a top competitor, but surprisingly the company is the fourth highest-selling smartphone manufacturer in North America. ZTE has managed to create a large range of devices that are selling in truckloads, despite a much smaller marketing presence than a company like Samsung or Apple.

The ZTE Axon is another device by ZTE that has the potential to sell in large quantities. Whilst the device may not be getting a lot of buzzes, it definitely deserves a good, hard look. I’ll be comparing the ZTE Axon with other devices in a few different categories below.

Hardware

Besides the Galaxy S6, which uses the incredibly powerful Exynos 7420 SoC, this year’s 2015 Android flagship lineup relies heavily on the Snapdragon 810. Unfortunately for LG, the G4 has the less powerful Snapdragon 808.

All flagships this year have 3GB of RAM, however, the ZTE Axon will have 4GB – this is obviously going to allow us to see an improvement in multitasking performance, although the scale of this improvement is currently unknown. As it stands, the jump to 4GB is a decent improvement for ZTE, but it should end up being the standard for high-end devices in half 2. For example, both the Note 5 and the OnePlus Two should come with 4GB of RAM.

The ZTE Axon has no microSD card and 32GB of internal storage and a decently sized 3,000mAh battery. Finally, the Axon has a 5.5-inch LCD 2560 x 1440 display. The 13-megapixel camera on the ZTE Axon seems to be able to produce on par results for a flagship smartphone as well.

In the hardware department, the ZTE Axon easily competes with all other devices, and will even be a relevant choice when paired up against any more upcoming devices later this year.

Software

So far we haven’t really had the chance to see if ZTE have any cool software features up their sleeves for the Axon. First hands-on impressions suggest that the Axon will have a very Material Design themed interface, and, for the most part, the ZTE Axon will run and feel like stock Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, albeit with some preinstalled applications.

If you’re looking for some big software functionality, ZTE isn’t going to deliver, unfortunately. With that being said, the close-to-stock interface and high-end hardware should lead to a buttery smooth user experience.

Price

The ZTE Axon has been announced as a smartphone that will go for $450 SIM free. Contract deals will be revealed once the device has been released. The $450 price point is a bit on the fence between “a really good bargain” and “not so much of a bargain.”

On one side of the fence, you’ll find the $700 SIM free Galaxy S6, the $650 One M9, and the $650 Xperia Z3+. Even LG, who are known to offer lower prices on their flagships, offers the LG G4 for around $550 SIM free.

Without delving deeper into it, this makes the ZTE Axon look like an absolute bargain, but there is another side to the fence.

For example, the OnePlus Two has been confirmed to cost under $450, so whilst pricing is still unknown, that’s going to immediately be less than the ZTE Axon and it is expected to include a Snapdragon 810, 4GB of RAM and decent features all-around. Another interesting 2015 device is the $300 ASUS Zen one – once again, this device will have a decent set of specs, including 4GB of RAM and a 64-bit Intel ATOM processor.

What do we think?

At first look, the ZTE Axon seems like a bargain. Closer research reveals that this isn’t entirely true. For now, it’s hard to compare the ZTE Axon with other similar priced smartphones until we hear more about them.

So there we have it. The ZTE Axon will run smoothly, it will have high-end hardware, a great camera, good display, a great camera and the latest version of Android. The price tag is also a great talking point, even if it won’t be the best deal on the market.

Image credit: Androidblizzard; Ubergizmo; AndroidAuthority; Compregadget.

July 15, 2015
Why do I love my Kindle Paperwhite?

Being an avid book reader, books have been my love since childhood. Trust me, I can’t go to sleep without reading. However, this love for books suffered whenever I travelled. Thanks to space constraints, I had to be satisfied with only a few books to carry. So, when I heard about EBook readers, my joy knew no bounds. I immediately decided to buy one and then ended up with my partner in crime, Kindle Paperwhite. In this article, I am going to tell you why I love my Kindle and don’t prefer to part ways with it.

Convenience:

The first thing that comes to my mind is convenience while holding thousands of books in such a lightweight and tiny device. It hardly weighs around 200 grams (depending on different models) and can store over 1000 books at one time. The thinner-than-pencil device can be easily held using one hand. Did you know that the feather light Kindle is almost 30% lighter than iPad mini?

Your bedtime partner:

What happens when one family member wants to read till late at night and others want to sleep? They won’t even allow a tiny flicker of light in the room. That’s when the Kindle Paper white comes handy. With its built-in front light, which you can control and adjust as per the darkness, it is a boon for nocturnal readers who can now read without disturbing anybody. The latest system doesn’t strain your eyes and they won’t tire even while reading in the dark.

Charging power:

Kindle definitely wins my love and trust when it comes to charging. Being a gadget freak, at times, I do get fed up with carrying different chargers wherever I go. The site of hanging chargers everywhere at my home makes me cringe. So I absolutely love the charging capacity of Kindle that can hold a single charge till 8 weeks, depending on how much you read each day and on which light setting. It absolutely doesn’t need to be charged daily. So you can just charge it once and then forget about the charging for days at a stretch.

No disturbance:

If you’re thinking of buying one for your kids but scared that they might start to surf the net or play games, worry no more! Kindle Paperwhite is specially designed for book lovers like you and me who doesn’t like any other distractions while reading. It doesn’t have facilities like exploring the internet or checking emails. Hence it is a dedicated e-reader who supports your love for reading.

Build your word power:

This feature can come handy for the kids who are trying out new words. Now they don’t have to check their dictionaries anymore. Kindle Paperwhite comes with a built-in dictionary that lets you check the meaning of any new word immediately and make notes.

So now never be without books wherever you go. With Amazon’s amazing book collection, you can download your favorite titles within seconds and start reading, anywhere, any time!

Image courtsey cnet.com

June 18, 2015
Most common blackberry issues, errors, glitches and solutions [How to]

It is obvious that thousands of people like blackberry phones, just because it has some unique features which are nowhere to be found. The mobile phone industry is at its peak and people are now seeking the generalised and simple — hassle-free device which can fulfill their basic needs.

Although blackberry is popular enough to keep it’s fan base happy, it is not untouched from the mighty glitches, which makes it’s users frustrated. Blackberry has faced many up’s and down’s which somehow restricted its growth cycle over other companies in the industry.

The most Blackberry problems can be solved by simply pulling out the battery (for 30-60 seconds) or freeing up some space on temporary memory. You should often (once a week) pull out the battery of your device and also free up space by deleting sample media files and internet cache. This is something most of us would not like to do often. It makes your experience with the device bitter.

Sometimes when mobile devices hit the market and are used by a wide variety of consumers, glitches start to occur frequently. Sometimes these problems can have quick fixes that come out in an update to the software while other remedies are not so simple.

One of the top smartphone makers, BlackBerry, has faced these issues – as do most companies making phones. Sometimes the problem can actually be caused by multiple smaller issues, which vary between phones and users.
One common problem occurs when downloading and then installing a BlackBerry theme onto your BlackBerry.The problem is that even though you’ve paid for it and downloaded it, it doesn’t show up on your phone; therefore you are unable to activate the download and use it.

There are several possible reasons for this: sometimes during the download process, the theme file becomes corrupted. This will lead to problems where the download doesn’t show up. If this is the reason, then you have to remove the battery and then reinstall it. When the BlackBerry starts up again, then you can download and install the theme file again.

Another possible reason you are unable to install a theme is that the download is for another version. This happens more often when downloading from third party websites than it does from BlackBerry’s App World. If your BlackBerry device is a refurbished model or a pre-owned device, then this could be part of the problem.

These BlackBerry devices are often restrictive in regards to their ability to download and use third-party themes.
The issue can also sometimes stem from the fact that there could be a corruption of mismatched data within the BlackBerry’s given information. You can see the theme on your app list but cannot use it. If this is the problem, then again pulling your battery and restarting the device is best.

Here are some other common issues blackberry users come along regularly:

Problem: Your Blackberry gets hot or warm

Solution: Your Blackberry may get hot/ warm and temperature of the phone may rise. The Blackberry Torch 9800 users are facing this problem more than others. This is most probably because of the reason that you have several applications running on your phone which you may not know.

Another reason is that if you have constantly data connection open (like streaming music, an app that uses GPS, weather apps, Loopt), your phone will get hot and loose battery fast.

To see what apps are running, go to Options > Device Application

Management (you can also hold the Menu key on left of your trackpad/ back wheel, which brings up everything that is running).

Close the unwanted apps by opening the app, click the menu and select close at the end.

Problem: The Blackberry screen frozen

Solution: This is a problem that can happen to any Blackberry device where the device gets stuck and the screen is frozen. There are two ways to fix this problem. You can soft reset your Blackberry by pressing Alt+Cap+Delete keys together.

If this technique does not solve the problem, you can perform a hard reset. Find the Reset button on back the device (which can be near the bottom, under the battery cover) and press the button with a pin etc. You do not lose any data using any of these methods.

Problem: Blackberry call logs and messages get deleted

If you find out that suddenly your Blackberry’s call logs and saved messaged are deleted and disappeared without any reason, here is the solution to the problem. This happens if you have a large amount of images, ringtones, games etc and your memory is at or near its capacity. The phone will start deleting oldest call logs and text messages (SMS) entries to free up some space.

To determine the free memory, go to Options, then Status, which will show you free memory. You can increase free space by deleting some stored stuff on your phone.

Problem: Blackberry does not send/ receive emails

Solution: Blackberry email problem can be due to GPRS services.

GPRS is what allows your device to access data. The first thing to do is to perform soft reset and if that does not work perform hard reset (see methods above).

After that check your wireless antenna signal strength. The antenna should show GPRS. If you can call and browse the web that means your GSM service is available.

Problem: Blackberry Bluetooth problem

If you are trying to send some files, music, photos etc from another device (i.e Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc) to your Blackberry and cannot do so via Bluetooth, it is because there is a special way to send stuff from another company device to Blackberry.

•To transfer the files (MP3, video etc) from another device to BB, follow these steps.

•Pair your Blackberry and your other device Blackberry

•Choose the music files or other media that you want to transfer to your BB from another device

•On your Blackberry, open ‘Media’ folder and press menu ‘BB

Logos’ and you will see an option ‘receive using Bluetooth’

•From your other phone, send the files to your BB.

Already connected, your Blackberry will ask you to accept or refuse transfer

•Accept the data transfer and you are done

Problem: Blackberry Sync problem

If you have Blackberry sync problem when you try to sync with Microsoft Outlook or calendar/contact sync, follow these steps to get rid of this problem.

•Click on ‘Reset settings’ in Organiser

•This will reset your phone’s Calendar, Address Book, Memo Pad and Task to default

•You now have to configure Calendar, Address Book, Memo Pad by clicking ‘Configure Setting’

•After completing, you should be able to sync your Blackberry with Outlook or any other medium.

Problem: Blackberry trackpad stopped working?

This problem is in Blackberry 8520 and other similar devices where trackpad stops working without any reason. To resolve the trackpad problem, you should start from updating your firmware to latest version.

Another thing that worked for many users with this problem is a battery pull. Remember your device should be ON when you pull out the battery, wait for 30-60 seconds before you replace the battery. This should solve the problem.

Problem: Blackberry synchronising problem

Another Blackberry synchronizing problem is when after synchronising, email messages deleted from Blackberry are still there or messages deleted from Outlook are not deleted. The Same thing can happen with email messages. Blackberry website has a complete guide to solve this problem.

Problem: Trackball stopped working

This happens mostly with old devices. If your phone’s trackball stopped working, that is probably because of dust. You can clean the ball by turning the phone upside down and rolling it on a clean sheet of paper. Alternatively, you can change the damaged trackball with a new one.

Register any other problem in the comment and we will try to get the solution for you. If you want you can get the solution for the problem yourself for other to read. !

May 24, 2012