Tag: review

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Review

/ Guttu / 2 Comments
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2

A couple of weeks back, The battery of my tab, Spice Mi 720, died. I am so used to the tablet that I had to substitute it with a new one. I was confused because of the options available unlike last time. Then I dedudced to the two best tablets avaible, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and iPad Mini. The only thing that stopped me from buying iPad Mini was the lack of calling facility. The choice left was Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. It’s been a year since it’s launch and it is still one of the most popular tablets available. Reviewing it now may be pretty useless as you’ll find hundreds of reviews of this tab. This one is written after 3 weeks of usage.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2

Package content
The package contains Tablet, Charging cable with USB connector at one end. It comes with 2-pin Indian type plug with USB socket where you’ll have to attach the previously mentioned cable for charging. Standard white colored earphones with mic and buttons for receiving calls and volume. There is no cover or case provided with the package. You’ll have to buy one yourself. I bought one fron nCase which I feel is a great value for money.

Hardware
Tablet has a 7″ screen which is smooth and very responsive. It weighs around 345g without case and 400g with case. It is powered by 1 Ghz dual core processor with 1GB of RAM. 230MB of that RAM is dedicated to graphics. The one I bought has 16GB internal memory with approx 12GB usable. There is microSD slot to expand memory upto 32GB. The SIM slot is normal and you don’t have to trouble yourself to get the micro SIM. There are two mics, one each on short side. Two speakers placed at bottom, volume control and power button on one side and all of these are poorly placed. Let me tell you why.
If you are watching a video in landscape mode, Your hand will cover the speakers thus resulting in low volume. They are placed ideally for portrait video playback and gaming. Not suitable while using landscape mode. Secondly, The power and volume controls are placed such that you’ll accidentally press them while using apps in portrait mode. The only work around this problem is to hold the tab in the bottom area instead of central.
The display is crisp 1024×600 capacitive screen. It is very responsive and games and videos look great on it. There is a sensor to auto adjust brightness of the screen. It works most of the times but I highly suggest you to find your comfortable brightness and manually set it. My main problem is the touch buttons for Home, Back, Window manager and app menu. These buttons reduce the screen area by 6-7 percent and interfere while you are typing. They should have placed the buttons outside the screen. I guess it’s Jellybean to blame for this.
There are two cameras, with front camera having VGA resolution and back camera with 3.2 megapixel. Photos have decent quality. You can add some effects using the Photo editor provided or maybe use it in some video via the Video editor app.
When it comes to connectivity, this tablet has it all. GSM, 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-fi, Tethering. The big advantage is you can use the SIM calling feature. The GPS is quick in getting the location and quite accurate even without the internet and in airplane mode. What it lacks is using it as mass storage. There is media and photo transfer mode but it doesn’t let you anything to copy on device. It’s certainly convenient but I can manage without the feature.

Performance
When it comes to performance, All I want in a tablet, is a good battery life. Because most of the apps would run smoothly on any current generation tab. During the past 3 weeks, The average battery life in one charge was 22-24hrs approx. You can watch 6hrs of DVD quality video, 10hrs of 3G, 30hrs of music, 5 days of standby. 3.5hrs are required to completely charge the battery. Though it has USB cable, Tablet doesn’t charge on connecting to PC/Laptop USB socket. The purpose of USB cable for charger is a mystery.

Apps
While my previous tablet was bundled with crapware, This tablet isn’t loaded with much apps which is way better than loading with crapware. But I at least expected them to bundle Facebook and Twitter. Instead there’s an app for a zombie filled social network, Google+. It is bundled with Reader’s Hub app which allows you to read paid Newspapers, Magazines and Ebooks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t support epub or mobi files stored on tab. Polaris Office is the app I liked the most. It beats QuickOffice anytime and it’s fully paid version. Also I liked the video player which supports subtitles and Music player which supports lyrics. I had to install the rest of the apps like Adobe Reader, Cool Reader, Catch Notes etc. to make it productive for my use.

To buy or not to buy?
This seems to be the best tablet and worth every penny. But a little more would have justified the price tag. Case or cover, Better rear camera (5MP or maybe 8MP) or maybe a LED flash instead and a couple of paid apps should do. Still I doubt any other tablet is available out there with the same features at lesser price.

Spice Mi – 720 Review

/ Guttu / 63 Comments

The war of Tablets is on. Every week you see a new entry in this category. Every manufacturer is trying to get ahead in the race but in the end consumer comes out as winner. The reason is the competition between manufacturer’s which has dropped the tablet price and have made it affordable. Right now you can get a decent tablet at around 15k. When iPad was launched, I wanted to own one. If not, at least one tablet. Last month, HP Touchpad went on fire sale. I was very disappointed as I couldn’t get one. So I started looking for a tablet and I found Spice Mi-720.
Like every gadget, This has it’s pros and cons. But it’s pricing and features makes you forget the cons. This is a very decent tablet priced at Rs 11990/- on Flipkart. It was delivered in 3 days flat. Let’s look at it’s features and accessories.

Package contents:

The package includes one tablet. You’ll have to charge it before you use. Don’t search for the battery. It’s already in the tablet. A two pin DC 5V charger. Three pin charger would have been nice. There is a stereo headset for music and calling purpose. One Micro-USB cable to transfer contents from and to PC. No need to install any software. One leather pouch which was white in color. And lastly, User manual and service center list.
I expected the tablet to come pre-charged. It will just vibrate when you try to switch it on. It takes around 2-2.5 hours to charge. Stereo headset were disappointing. If you are an audiophile then throw the headset into trash and get another one. Maybe the manufacturer’s intention was to provide this for calling purpose only. In that case, it’s fine. The leather pouch, Well.. Who provides a white leather pouch in a country like India? It’ll get dirty quite easy. Tablet fits quite comfortably in the pouch. Flip it and you can use the pouch to dock the tablet. Useful when typing or using maps. It has got magnetic lock to ensure safety of tablet. It’s designed well except one thing that you can’t use the secondary camera for video calling when it’s in pouch. Continue reading →

Kaminey if Fuperbbbb

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It’s 14th August and is the release day of Kaminey. I was waiting for this movie for long. It created a lot of interest through it’s music, music videos, trailers and a lot of other things. I already made up my mind for the first day first show. Fortunately got on time with my friends in inox hoping for a good movie at least. What’s waiting for me inside was a surprise.

Recently there is a trend of making dark comedies or dark films. I loved Dev.D then Welcome to Sajjanpur and now this one. It’s a dark comedy which tries to picturize the world of twin brothers. Like every twin brother story, here also one brother is on white side and other is on dark side. They both hate each other. Guddu or Sanjay is a shy guy who stammers. Exception is when he sings. Sweety is the girl who loves him very much (without the clothes). This love goes beyond boundaries creating boi boi situation and then they decide to marry.

Sweety has a sweet brother Bhope, who cares a lot for her. When he becomes aware of the fact that Sweety is in love with Guddu then he runs after Guddu to kill him. On the other side Charlie, the dark twin who lisps, has got his own philosophy of success. He is a bookie who looses all his money due to double cross. Going after the backstabber he find shortcut to get rich. And here for the first time in years, life of both brothers overlap. What happens then? Will Guddu be able to escape from hands of Bhope? Will charlie’s shortcut to success lead him to success? Watch the movie for the answers.

On the acting front, Shahid does well in playing the role of two different identities. Priyanka is good and in many scenes outperform Shahid but I thought she got short screen appearance. Bhope, played by Amol Gupte, is terrific. He performs in an unique style. Other than these all come and go. The film is fast in the first half, Runs like local train for sometime and then gets speed near the end. You need patience after the half as there are hardly any scenes that will giggle you. The end of the movie would have been a classic if one brother would have died. That doesn’t happen and the film has happy ending as always.

Music of the film is above average. Most of the time you’ll hear Dhan te dhan. The choreography is like what we dance when we want to dance. It’s common and close to reality. Since the picture is dark comedy, every frame looks dark. Even when there is daylight it looks dark. This film Got A Certificate which actors say it doesn’t deserve. For me it does.

Overall I can give this film 7.5/10. Would love to watch this again…

My Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic

/ Guttu / 3 Comments

I was waiting for this phone for last four months. Finally I bought it on Saturday. Now that I used it for three days, I can write a review. My earlier phone N72 was great. I miss that phone. I exchanged it for this mobile. Though this mobile is much better than N72, I still miss that phone. May be the moments I captured with that phone are priceless. Lets not drift to this. This review is my frank opinion as an owner and end user. I am not paid for this review at all. :angel:

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

I opened the box and there was the beauty. The back cover is not as good as other Nokia mobiles. It’s difficult to remove and insert the battery. At least for the first time. Sliding cover would have been great. When I switched it on, It started fast. Faster than other Nokia mobiles with 1GB+ memory card. There are only three buttons on front. Receive, Reject and the white one for menu. No more buttons on front. Coool…

The next step was to insert SIM and memory card. Both can be inserted easily via slots provided on side. One thing I didn’t understood. Why there was need to provide a side slot for SIM?? This Sim cannot be removed without opening the back cover. So whats the use of the side slot? It’s better and safe within the mobile. About the memory card, It’s 8GB. More than sufficient for me. It already comes loaded with Hindi and English soundtracks. A special album “Connections” by A.R.Rehman composed just for this phone. But not a good one. Other songs provided are really good. About 200+ tracks. Continue reading →

WordPress Plugins – How many you use?

/ Guttu / 7 Comments

Every software is incomplete. There is always something to add and make it better. So is the case with wordpress. Thanks to the plugins and I can customize wordpress without much knowledge or no knowledge of coding. Some plugins allow you to turn wordpress into a full fledged gallery. You just need to upload and activate plugin. That’s it. Good thing with wordpress is, if any plugin goes wrong  just delete it’s folder and your blog runs back normal.

So why I am talking about plugins today? This is not a blogging blog or WordPress hack blog. For many days I was searching for a good plugin. A plugin that can list my watched movies on a page and it should be easy to update, edit, rate. But I am a movie buff and watch a lot of movies. I am too lazy to write review of a every movie I watch. This is Nonsense blog and not a movie review blog. Hence I wanted a plugin where I can write a short review, a link to movie page, ratings out of ten and possibly comments by user. I didn’t get the last option though.

While doing a search I found a plugin that fulfills my needs. That plugin is WP Movie Ratings. I have just installed the plugin and testing it. That is why I am not giving out the link for the movies page. I also have to update that page with some movies. This plugin will free me from posting reviews of movie unless I find it too good or too bad to watch.

wp movie ratings

I don’t like to use many plugins with any software. They slow down the performance of core software. I couldn’t resist this one. I crossed the ten plugin mark with this plugin. Now I use a total of eleven plugins. It’s difficult to remove any one of these. How many plugins do you use??