Galaxy Tab and its successor

I have tried a galaxy tab and immediately wrote it off after have three other android tablets and figured I could get an iPad for the same price that was a more complete product. The problem I have with the tab is the phone version of android on a tablet that looks like an oversized kiddies toy. The ipad might have its limitations but has always felt a more complete product.

I am still tempted by the galaxy as I like tinkering where this is something the ipad doesn't really allow me to do. However with the recent announcements of the galaxy tab 2 and the htc flyer combined with the price hike of £450 from a shop,o I figure the tab will either be reduced in price soon or will be left by the wayside.

I have had samsung products before and they do not support a product when they deem it as obsolete. There has not been any concrete announcements from mwc 2011 that the tab 7" will get honeycomb or if samsung will continue to support it. Samsung have announced there will be no more 7" devices and reading between the lines I am thinking an impulse purchase will be a bad decision.

The Ipad has worked 50/50 for me whilst away being flawless on battery life and good for consuming media but there is still the element that its not a full machine or something that I can switch on as a full machine when needed. I really wish that the tab could plug this gap but if my previous android tablet experiences are true, this device will also be a failure.

Which brings the topic around again- what is an appropriate device?

Any prospective iPad 2 will really need more ram as applications close too often on the ipad 1 due to low memory. On android there are really no rich applications when compared to IOS which use the tablet form. Nokia with the n900 was nearly there but again there wasq no applications that offer that real world PC experience. PsiXDA could be another prospect but then you have the problem of a PC in small form factor.

It really saddens me to say that the Psion range of machines have only ever fitted this gap and anything else is just a poor comparison. The latest devices may be ale to play media, do push mail, go online when required or route me around a city but they have never offered a complete solution out of the box. The n900 was nearly there but poor battery life and lack of rich applications made it a failure. Both Android has the interface and IOS has the applications but there is nothing available with a real mix

I know you have to move with the times and cannot dwell on the old but there is still a gap in the market that could be filled.

I can recall being able to get my email, browse the web, run full blown applications and still be able to restore my Psion without the need for a Pc. Android nearly gets there but falls down on the applications. IOS plugs the other gaps with the number of applications but is too locked down and requires a PC for restore.

Seeing nokia recently focus on windows 7 instead of symbian shows the market is becoming fashion driven as opposed to functionality. S60 was never as good as epoc or s80 but was good for multitasking and feature rich applications. Sadly if nokia had been quicker developing their UI or purchasing Palm for WEBOS I honestly believe symbian would still be a viable alternative.

However this is all water under the bridge and we are left with the blackberry, IOS, android and windows phone 7 leftovers. Android has the potential to become more rich where I believe honeycomb will decide this when the numerous tablets are released this year that have been announced. But I feel eventually they will all have the same functionality and it will be the hardware looks that will set them apart - if we are not there already?

But even after all of this I am still left with the dilemma if I should just impulse buy a tab? The issue of not having a laptop to hand is driving me crazy. But I don't want another net book and would still like to purchase the tab to try it. There has been many bloggers say it is the best thing since sliced bread and that it will replace their smartphone due its size and remove the need for a laptop or iPad. Ideally this is the device I wanted and had thought the n900 could have done this for me. I don't make many phone calls so VOIP is ideal for me and the 7" size would be suitable as the ipad is too large. But it means android again on 2.2 which hasn't really got any better since the nexus I imported from the USA whereas IOS seems to be gaining in strength.

My usual cavalier attitude is "fuck it" I will just buy the thing and get rid if I don't get on - the last contender for this was the advent vega only after one week. But then if I purchase the tab I have both and then need to decide which one to keep - the ipad or the tab.

So for the moment painful as it is I will stick with the iPad as I know what It can do. I will decide in the future that any device shouldn't really be an ipad replacement or have to prove itself that it is better in tests. This device should be able to hold its own without comparisons and just fill the niche that I want.

Previously Psion did this but who else is able to pick this challenge and just deliver?




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Backup and Restore

I am away next week in London on training and I want to travel light instead of taking my mac book, work laptop and iPad. I figured the iPad will do all of the functions I need on trip. It's preloaded with media, my course material and can certainly cope with my Internet activities. However one thought came to mind what ignite crashes. The same with my iPhone what if it crashes. I am stumped as I need a PC or mac with iTunes to restore.

Both devices are jailbroken and I use pkgbackup on both devices to backup and restore from Dropbox which works flawlessly. However if the devices die I cannot rejailbreak as I need a Pc or mac. I cannot restore as I need iTunes. I don't know what apps I have installed so I mentally need to keep a note.

Anyone who follows me on twitter I have been an android and Symbian fan.

Now I have found with psion, windows mobile, symbian on nokia and android I can take on device backups. This would either use built in functionality or a new application. I can then restore and all without the need of then Pc or mac.

So I have a dilemma, although I am enjoying iOS, have all the applications I want, can work without the Pc or mac that is until shit hits the fan.

It's as this point I get a reality check and am considering the Galaxy Tab or an android device as a backup.

Apple restores using iTunes work great but if you don't have the luxury of being able to tether or do online backups to the cloud.

You are stuffed until you can hook up again.

To Hell and back again

The HTC Magic has been driving me mad today. It has taken me over 5 minutes to write a tweet to the extent I ended up slapping the phone through frustration. Although this calmed my nerves I ended up looking at cooked roms for the phone hoping it would speed it up.

After advise from people on twitter I downloaded a recovery image to put phone into a mode where I could back it up to SD. I also used the Astro file manager to back up my apps as well to SD. Then using Linux (Ubuntu 8.10) I re flashed the phone and went upon my way restoring it.

The Asto File manager was bad in that it would allow me to bulk select all apps for backup, but I had to individually restore the apps back onto the phone. Further even though I had restore the apps individually the market application would not acknowledge this. This means I would not be notified of any application upgrades unless I reinstalled the application via the market place. This, coupled with the phones failure to sync again using road sync prompted me to restore the phone from the backup I had taken. Further the all of my settings had gone so I would need to input logins and passwords again etc....

Before installing the cooked rom, I used an emergency recovery rom which used a mode call fast boot and an application called nandroid to backup the android to SD. I merely reversed this process to restore the phone to its previous state. But again, the applications although restore from SD card would not show up in the market place. Through using an application called App Manager this somehow allowed me to go into the market place, rebuild the database of installed applications so I could complete the online upgrades. I have removed the offending application hoping this will resolve my speed issues.

I am still humming and ahhing about the N900 and wonder should I impulse buy, but in the interim my Magic is what it once was. I will observe the cooked roms and choose another in time what should assist with my speed issues. Lastly, I believe Android 2 will be out soon so multitouch will be available and hopefully speed bug fixes.

The lesson(s) from this tale are, don't use cooked roms unless you know what you are doing and don't run too much on your android unless it dies....

I will root the phone on the original rom that is installed so I can tether and run scheduled reboot applications on the phone. But looking at the windows mobiles, Palm(s), S60 and UIQ phones I have had in addition to Android. All of them are bad when backing up and restoring as they do not restore the phone fully. They always miss something.

I can only recall my old Psion 3 series and 5 series over 10 years ago where you could run a scheduled backup. The battery would die and you would loose you main system disk data. You could then power on the device, run a restore of which would restore the device perfectly.

The question is we now have User Data Protection areas (UDP) on phones, flash memory and external storage, yet none of these devices whilst slightly more sophisticated than the Psions still cannot do a complete restore.

Thank goodness for the cloud as this is where I store my data. But as I have said before, the cloud is a great backup but always ensure you have another parachute (additional backup) incase the first chute fails.....