What's Next?

So in the mobile world we have a lot of news to catch up with with the CES event already come and gone there have been announcements from Asus, Sony, Lenovo, Samsung, Nokia, Insignia, and many more. However we are going to focus more on what's not here today rather than what is. First and foremost everyone and their best friend are waiting for MWC with hopes that Samsung might announce the Galaxy S5. Phone Arena and BGR have already given their leaked information on pure hardware specs on the phone but one thing is still not certain. Fingerprint scanner or iris scanner? With the announcement of Apples darling, the iPhone 5s and the fingerprint scanner and the 64 bit processing chip it seems that the mobile industry is yet again trying to play tit for tat. Not that Apple is far ahead of the curve, because they aren't, but the fact is they usually set the standard in the mobile world and many have followed. Some with success and actually doing a better job and some have been left in the dust. With security being a huge ordeal this year not only with the NSA but with Blackberry's secure devices, Samsung's attempts with their Knox system, and Apples fingerprint scanner, more and more manufacturers are trying to one up their competitors in order to look like they are staying ahead of the curve. The only issue with this is why do you want a phone to scan your finger print or your eye in the first place? If you are a government employee sure I see the point, or a spy haha, but in all seriousness why does a phone need to be so secure when the average consumer really should only be using it for doing what a smart phone is made to do. In order of importance, texting, phone calls, surfing the web, using social applications, and photography. With each year I am amazed at the quality of photos coming out from some smartphones and the pure processing power to run certain applications. I also am impressed with the abundance, and overabundance sometimes, of apps in each eco system. The screens also are impressive with the overall clarity and vibrancy,  for the most part. There's just so much a smart phone is capable of now it's almost overwhelming. However there is one thing that stands out to me the most and that's call quality. I still feel like I don't have the clarity of the almost extinct land line telephone system. Sure there are companies that offer voice over lte and hd quality voice but in the US market it's not as prevalent as one might think. Sure we use texting as a way to communicate more often than actually calling but there's a problem in that. Texting can be misleading, read the wrong way, and impersonal. You can't tell the tone of a text message by just reading words on a screen. You have to imply that you are mad, or not mad, by lol or ! marks or :-( faces and it's a bit time consuming and impractical. So why not take voice and improve upon that? Yes we have voice to text and vice versa and can even send voice message via text which is great but instead why not go a step further or is that just silly talk?

2013's Top Phones

So with the 2013 behind us here's to hoping 2014 will be brighter, faster, and smarter, at least in the mobile world of cellular devices.  Last year's phones were great and don't get me wrong, I loved some of the devices released last year and here's a list of 2013's top mobile devices by specific feature. First off the best battery life on a mobile smart phone title belongs to the one and only LG G2. This thing lasts and lasts and on top of that has a bright screen, great camera, and a plethora of features. As far as phablets are concerned I'd have to go with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. It's size might not be for all but it's battery life is just beaten out marginally by the LG G2 but has plenty under the hood going on to make it best Phablet of 2013. With 3gb of ram, micro sd expansion, amazing amoled screen, multi-tasking abilities this thing flies and without a hiccup. For build quality I had to choose from two different devices running two separate operating systems. For Android it's gotta be the HTC One. The build quality was just amazing for a Android device. Minus the underwhelming camera the overall performance of the device was actually pretty good. Secondly the title of best build goes to the unsurprising Apple iPhone 5s. It also had a few new bells and whistles including a finger print scanner and a 64-bit processing chip which will hopefully pave the way for future development both for mobile Android and Apple devices. Next is the camera department all of us who have been following the mobile industry are already familiar with Nokia lumia devices and the 41 megapixel 1020 was the clear winner in the Windows phone department but for Android it was much closer. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was amazing but the LG G2 seemed to have just slightly better results overall and the optical image stabilization helped quite a bit for the shaky hand photography as well. Call quality was a tough one which I feel was a close draw with the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy S4 just behind and that's just barely. My major complaining point with Android is not just the overall responsiveness but the touch response and still to this day is a pain point for me. Even with third party apps like SwiftKey it's still sometimes a burden and for that reasons I can't say Android has the top phone in this category for now at least. It's going to have to be the iphone 5s, it's just buttery smoother and responsive but I have a surprise waiting around the corner with this category as a Windows phone device comes in close second for touch response and that is the HTC 8x. This phone had one of the most responsive touch input from any phone I played with in 2013 and was surprisingly a decent phone other than a poor camera. So there are many more features I could list and go over for the mobile phone devices but for that reason alone I'm keeping it short and to the point. You can't go wrong with the LG G2, Galaxy Note 3, Iphone 5s depending on what you want and need. So here's to next year for a chance to take the crown and maybe in all departments, we can all dream right?

Happy Holidays & Let's Have Patent Talks With Apple & Samsung

So as many of you have heard the ongoing saga between Apple and Samsung has been tediously long and drawn out. Well recently it seems that more talks of patents have began between the two to try and hash out some sort of agreement. Again, yawn, this is gotten to be completely redundant and boring so on to some more exciting news.
Samsung rumors have the mill of the run recently with the unannounced Galaxy S5 looming around the corner. We have heard talk of a 2k display and also eye recognition software, think James Bond but not quite. I for one am more interested in the architecture of the new Exynos Chips and if they will support 64bit architecture because if they do then we are talking a entire new world of applications that can be used and also adding more power efficient ram would be a nice addition as well.  That aside I am pretty excited about the upcoming CES event and hope to hear more about the phone in the very near future.
So over this Christmas I had the pleasure of having multiple devices before returning to my go to daily driver. I'm going to go down the list and give some pros and cons of each device. First I will go with the iPhone 5s and list some things I liked and hated for the device.  I will keep this short and simple. Liked the speed, ease of use, build quality, camera simplicity, and plethora of apps. Disliked the crashes due to the new ios7, ios7 bugs, ios 7, size, fingerprint scanner. I felt like though iOS 7 is new and looks different and added some much needed functionality it also came up short on a lot of which I would like to discuss but as said before I am keeping it short.  The next device was the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Liked the real estate of the screen, screen picture quality, abundance of ram, performance. Disliked the size(just too big), slow camera performance, speaker quality.  Lastly I went back to my go to which is the LG G2. Like the camera quality, screen space, button placement, knock on feature, speed, screen resolution, overall performance. Dislike the speaker quality, occasional lag, build materials. All in all these phones are all great devices and depending on what you like as far as build quality, operating system, or size they are great phones.
Lastly I want to say that this year had better come out with some amazing devices, especially Windows, or the masses are going to grow tired and the mobile phone market might see a trending decline in sales. Here's to 2k/4k screen resolution, 64bit processors, fingerprint scanners, and any other gimmicky feature that came out this year and let's hope for a better year around the corner.

Best Phone I've Ever Had

By Many of my friends and family know me simply as the go to guy when it comes to mobile technology, especially cell phones. I've had dozens in the past few years if not hundreds and with each one something new and improved. With each cell phone I've come across there have been certain things I've liked, loved, disliked, and down right hated. From the Palm Pre, HTC Thunderbolt, Motorola Bionic, Blackberry Storm, Iphone 4-5, Samsung Galaxy S4 and many more. All of which had certain things that made them unique but never have I had one phone that just did it all and was well balanced not just in features but in actual real world usage until I decided to purchase the LG G2. I know what you're all thinking, it's LG, but this thing is amazingly balanced. The screen is bright and crisp with a high resolution of over 400 ppi and can be seen in direct sunlight. The camera is the best I've ever seen on an Android device and has tons of features built in for the photo buffs out there. The battery life I've never seen last this long on a smart phone without a battery pack. I get nearly 17 hours of continuous use out of it on a regular basis. The video recording is amazing and beautiful to watch on screen. The built in infrared and controller is awesome and works with pretty much anything out there that receives infrared signals. The speed and performance is the best I've seen thus far as well on Android. Lastly however is the most important in my opinion and that's call quality. It's clear and audible. Almost too loud at times but I'm not complaining.  If I had to complain about anything it would be the plastic backing that's seriously it. At the end of the day I come home satisfied with my LG G2 and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a overall balanced phone that works and works well.