Htc 8X First Month

Well if anyone knows me or what I do as a hobby on the side they will say that I don't keep things very long when it comes to cars, women, or cell phones. The first two however are not so much a priority at this time. I will say though that I have owned the Htc 8X now for more than three weeks and am going into week four as I write this post. So far this phone is still keeping me amazed by the responsiveness and the just ease of use of getting from one application to another and I am still learning everyday. I will start out with the pros and work my way into the cons which are few and far between.

Pros: Touch responsiveness, ease of use, screen resolution and viewing angles, speedy camera and designated camera button, solid sound quality, simplistic operations, word documents, built in photo editor, Lte, good signal strength, wireless charging, and great sync capabilities with Google and Facebook.

Now for the negatives and again I reiterate that they are minimal but annoying and apparent.

Cons: App store is missing some of the big more well known apps(ie:Pandora), Facebook app needs a lot of work, no gmail app or google maps app, limited in camera functions, the built in maps is weak and defers you to verizon navigator for actual voice gps, build quality at times is questionable only due to the screen being almost too sensitive at times.

With that said I am pretty well satisfied with the phone overall and plan on keeping it for a while or until I find something to better entertain me that works well.

Update: Pandora does plan on supporting Windows 8 which I confirmed with Pandora and will be giving a year subscription for free!

Recap on 2012 phones I have owned

So it's been way too long since I have done an update on here and I cannot even begin to apologize for my laziness. This article is going to be short but sweet. Basically it's a checklist of phones I went through last year and my thoughts and reviews. As of 2012 I went through the Motorola Bionic, Iphone 4, Iphone 4s,  Iphone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3,   HTC DNA,  HTC 8X. These are all in order according to how much I like them and rate them. Bionic needs no introduction as it was somewhat of a flop in my opinion, a lot of hype but not much punch, score 6. Iphone 4, 4s, 5 I will sum up in as little as possible in order not to write all day about it. Basically each one has small incremental upgrades to the ram, camera, processor, or screen size. Overall score in order would be 8, 8.5, 9. Nuff said. SGS3 well that was a great phone, speedy, relatively fluid, decent screen resolution, not so great outdoors and stock touch screen was not always responsive, but overall I give the phone a 8.5. The HTC DNA has an amazing screen, great resolution, visible outdoors, responsive, good touch screen but maybe a little too large, and overall great performance, score 9. Lastly HTC 8X, what can I say, it's Windows Mobile 8 and as much as I have bashed them in the past I can honestly say that this phone along with the OS is amazing, sure it's not IOS or Android and needs more infrastructure in the apps section but this phone is AWESOME! Great responsiveness given the dual core snapdragon S4, good photos and speedy camera, touch responsiveness and predictive texting is phenomenal, over all call quality is great as well, Beats Audio is more a hype than anything but it fares well. Load times for stock internet explorer are amazingly fast when compared to the SGS3 and DNA and scrolling was a breeze as well. Screen resolution on this phone is higher than an Iphone and easily viewed in outdoor situations. Down sides, maybe the build quality overall could have been more sturdy feeling and lack of apps like Pandora and Square?!? Really? Good news though, I contacted Pandora and was told by a rep that they are working out a deal that should pass by the end of January 2013 for Pandora with a free year subscription! So overall score on the phone I'd say 9.25 which fares slightly over the DNA mainly because the phone is comfortable in the hand and the responsiveness is amazing. Hopefully I will be updating on more new releases soon, really looking forward to testing out a Blackberry 10 unit soon. Thanks for reading!

Apple's one bad apple...

So this is going to sound like a rehash for many readers on here and my facebook friends but I have to go over the reason why Apple is setting itself up to fail, regardless of stock skyrocketing. Let's go back and take a look at some other companies historically. Palm was the first big contender that actually brought mobile operating systems to light and was doing well up until they got a bit too monotonous and decided that too much change wasn't always the best thing but lost touch with the fact that with new technology brings new change and if you don't keep up then you are setting yourself up to fail, even if you have amazing software, web os..Rim is scarily close to going the same path that Palm did but has noticed that their overconfidence in their product is finally catching up to them, maybe too little too late. This brings things to the next biggest potential failure.. Apple, yes I said Apple.. Mainly I am referring to their iOS and Iphone as they are on a steady trend to making the same mistakes Palm and Rim have. Overconfidence can lead to failure and in Apples latest attempt at the next best thing the trend is starting to set in. Hardware is new but dated, software is new but not really new if you look at other mobile operating systems that are still around and even not(Web OS, Android). With the new Iphone we have added hardware which was needed but it still doesn't resolve any issues that it had prior.. It added a new processor so its faster, well that's nice but it doesn't mean a hill of beans if its not coming out with anything till next year while Android is coming out on new phones every week with new processors that are powerful and fully capable of keeping power consumption and performance levels. Apple added half an inch to their phone but in height not in width which makes it harder for people with small hands to navigate, sure its nice for more viewing room but an extra row of apps wouldn't really be considered revolutionary. Lte has been added but it still can't handle voice and data at the same time on Verizon or Sprints networks which really means you are just getting faster data speeds and Android phones have been capable of the latter for quite sometime now on all networks. The camera on the rear is exactly the same camera as before but some software modifications have been able to make the pictures look slightly sharper, hmm not impressive since Nokia has been advertising their pure view technology for a few months now. The front face camera is better and finally not a vga resolution camera but still this is all old technology. The only thing the Iphone 5 besides the processor and ram bumps has going for it is iOS 6 and that's not even a great enhancement when compared to other mobile operating systems that have had these features for years now. Apples iOS 6 brings laggy wifi to the mix, a very poor mapping application to the table and bugs every which way you look. Camera doesn't want to save photos too bad guess you will have to reset and restore from backup, can't get wifi signal well there's an info page on that too, don't understand why the maps are telling you that you are at your destination when you are not, oops.. These are things that should work and for an operating system to advertise and push the fact that they "just work" doesn't really help the problems that come with the newest update here. All in all with Android, Windows, and even Blackberry out there competing and saturating the market with new handsets and constant updates to improve their mobile operating systems Apple is in for a hard time if they do not step up their game and fast. For a company that strives on the fact that they are "innovative" they aren't really showing it as of late.

Apples Biggest Flop?

Ok so here we go, I have an Iphone 4s, love the ease of use and simplicity of the phone and also as most Apple followers love to say "It just works".. However this years release is just missing the luster and exclusivity of what "Innovation" for Apple is supposed to be. Let's start with tech specs first and foremost. First yes the screen is taller, which means an extra row of apps and wider angle viewing for movies, etc. It still has the same ppi though and if I remember correctly the Nokia Lumina 920 has a higher ppi and better overall screen resolution than the Iphone 5. Second lets go over the processor, yes its twice as fast and produces better overall performance but the Lg Optimus G supposedly has a Snapdragon s4 pro quad core processor with the newest adreno graphics gpu in it which will probably beat out, at least on pap

er, the Iphone 5 processor, not to mention it has almost the same ppi on its screen as well as VOLTE(Voice over LTE) of which the Iphone 5 doesn't support. On the to the camera, same camera and probably a good choice but why not up the megapixel count so it can be down scaled to produce over digital camera quality pictures. Also the build quality is a nice feature but seriously, phones are getting better and better everyday and build quality is becoming a non factor. Also the new 9 pin connector is going to create a lot of confusion and headaches for the people that do not want to convert over, why not just go universal and create ease of use with a micro usb like the rest of the smartphone world, this must be the "Innovation" factor kicking in. The new earbuds are a nice gesture but it isn't going to make up for all the cons of the phone. The problem with this years release isn't just the specs of the phone because sure they are essential upgrades, but they aren't totally future proof and mind numbing which is what Apple fans have come to expect. Especially with the plethora of Android devices being released every day saturating the market with new and better devices. Apple seems to just well be losing its flare, I just hope that they learn from Rim and decide just because they have something going good now means they can lose what they have envisioned for the future...