Why the ‘Motorola Droid Razr Maxx’ is a harbinger of better things to come in Smartphones?

If you rewind the clocks by about 8 years, the only mobile that was on people’s minds and undeniably on their tongues as well was the ‘Motorola Razr’. The general population was so head over heels in love with the mobile that even today, it remains one of the largest selling devices in the history of smartphones and the characteristic that made it stand out from the regular run-of-the-mill phones was: it’s SLEEKNESS.

Back to the present, and you are again greeted by the same company trying to recreate the yesteryear’s magic by releasing an entirely different beast sporting the same appellation. Yes, the ‘Motorola Droid Razr’ is that phone, which for a brief period of time justified the title ‘World’s thinnest smartphone’ awarded to it. So, did it meet with the same fate as its predecessor namesake? The initial results: Not Quite.

Now if you analyze why, you will eventually get to know that though the smartphone has the build quality unmatched by any other phone and its internals match the internals of the best phones available on the market, the main factor that let it down a bit was only one: Battery Life. Is it that Critical? Yes, it is and there are no doubts and second thoughts about it.

The reason is pretty simple and straight forward. Smartphones are getting increasingly smart and increasingly capable and they are being integrated with functionalities that can guzzle battery much in the same way as SUVs guzzle fuel. Yes, I am talking about you LTE!!! So, what good is a phone that lets you do numerous things but which requires the user to charge it once every half-a-day if used extensively?

So, what has Motorola done about it? Simple. They went back to the drawing board, figured out what 

people wanted, designed and brought out an upgraded version: the ‘Motorola Droid Razr Maxx’ and if you think they only changed the name. Well, think again. The ‘Motorola Droid Razr Maxx’ has a 3300 mAh battery tucked in its back that lets the phone have a talk time of around 21 hours!!! Stunning, isn’t it? Initial reviews suggest that though the phone isn’t coming close to the claimed talk time it is still beating every other phone’s talk time capacity by a HUGE margin. Now, why is this relevant?

As I mentioned, today’s smartphones let the users do numerous things like Watch Videos, Browse the Internet, Listen to Music, Read books, Write notes and last but not the least Make and Receive Calls. To support all these functions, the phone needs to have battery-life so that user is able to do all the functions listed above on a typical day. Now, the 3300 mAh battery is so good that it gives the ‘Droid Razr Maxx’ enough juice to let you watch videos continuously for up to 15 – 16 hours.

The ‘Droid Razr Maxx’ isn’t the first phone that has broken the non-imposed thresholds of battery capacity that a smartphone today has got. Samsung got to the party first, with their super-sized smartphone: the ‘Galaxy Note’. When all the smartphones being released into the market were sporting batteries with capacities ranging around 1500 mAh – 1800 mAh, it went ahead and included a 2500 mAh battery to power its beast. But, the important difference between the ‘Galaxy Note’ and the ‘Droid Razr Maxx’ is that a 2500 mAh battery is powering a 5.3 inch screen loaded ‘Galaxy Note’ whereas a 3300 mAh battery is powering 4.3 inch screen loaded ‘Droid Razr Maxx’.

It is a known fact in the electronics industry that once a manufacturer comes out with a feature or a technology, the competitors improvise on it at such a pace that it even amazes the company that has introduced the technology in the first place. So, if the 3300 mAh battery sporting Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is regarded as the starting point, you can foresee where the middle and the ending points are. Can’t you?

Stay Tuned..!!!

Intel Medfield: The new CHIP on the block

Nowadays, you guys must be hearing the term 'Medfield' a lot. So, what is Medfield?

If you even have a vague idea of the 'Chips' and 'Microprocessors' market, you would know that Intel is one of the principal market leaders. Laptops and PCs from leading manufacturers like Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo etc. use Intel's chips to power their bodies which has made Intel one of the undisputed leaders in this segment. So, what about the smartphone market then?

Intel, for some reason, hasn't really focused on the smartphone market, which had thrown up a huge opportunity for companies like ARM and Qualcomm to make their mark in this segment. Today, they are one of the undisputed leaders in this market and have even for the last quarter earned huge revenues and also made huge profits by selling smartphone chips. The reason obviously is people's increasing preference towards buying smartphones. ARM and Qualcomm had probably forecasted this then and now are reaping  its rewards.  So, what about Intel?

It seems that Intel have finally realized their mistake and are now focused on gaining a slice of the 'Smartphone Chip' market pie. They are going to be out with their first SoC (System-on-Chip) in this year. The platform for this SoC is named 'Medfield' and the SoC itself has been named 'Penwell'. So, is the 'Penwell SoC' ready to take on established players like Exynos and Tegra? Let's find out.

Intel has demonstrated the power of their new SoC by pitting it against devices like Samsung Galaxy Nexus and have won the appreciation of everybody. The SoC seems to have a 1.6 Ghz single-core Atom Z2460 processor (CPU) and a 400 Mhz Power VR SGX 540 (GPU). In benchmark tests like 'Sunspider Javascript' and 'Browsermark', Intel's SoC has defeated the current leader (TI OMAP 4460 in Galaxy Nexus) by quite a good margin. While the 'Galaxy Nexus' scored 97381 on 'Browsermark', Intel's Penwell SoC scored a better 116425. As you already know, the CPU is entirely responsible for the remarkable performance on these tests and by the demonstration of such performance, it seems that Intel's single-core 1.6 Ghz Atom processor (also called 'Saltwell') is better than TI OMAP's dual-core 1.2 Ghz processor. Guess that the old man did have some wise tricks up his sleeve!!!!

Anyways, what feels like a kind of blip in this amazing SoC is the choice of GPU that Intel has made, a Power VR SGX 540. It's actually surprising why manufacturers like Samsung and Intel are opting to go for this GPU from 'Imagination Technologies' as it has almost been 2 years since it initially debuted in the market. But what actually makes the Power VR SGX 540 in Intel's SoC better than the other Power VR SGX 540s is that the GPU here is clocked at a higher frequency: 400 Mhz. Hopefully, this should make it perform better in Intel's SoC.

So it is pretty clear that if Intel had debuted with this offering for the smartphone market a year ago, it would definitely had a huge advantage and would probably have been rubbing shoulders with the current leaders like ARM and Qualcomm as far as 'Smartphone Chip' market is concerned. Anyways, as the saying goes, 'Better Late than Never'. Initial reviews suggest that Intel's first offering is most definitely not bad and it will only get better when the company comes out with their dual-core offerings. That might actually be the beginning of a new era as far as Intel is concerned.

Stay Tuned..!!

Why do Android Phone Manufacturers Need to Update their Phones?

The other day, my roommate wanted to know how he could connect his 3G enabled android phone to his laptop in order to just surf the internet. I asked him to go the 'Settings' application on the android phone and enable 'Tethering'. When he went to the 'Settings' application, he couldn't find the option. So, I immediately checked out the android version he was using and I found that it was Android 2.1 (Eclair). As you guys would be knowing, tethering capabilities have been enabled in Android 2.2 (Froyo). So, I had to look up the internet to find out what were the alternative options that I could adopt to enable tethering. While some websites prescribed me to root the phone (which my friend was dead against. Obviously, since that nullifies your warranty!!!), one other website prescribed me to download a simple application to enable wireless tethering on an Android 2.1 (Eclair) phone.

There are a lot of people out there who wouldn't go through this painful process of finding out what their smartphones in fact offer and what they do not. They wouldn't know whether their smartphone would be capable of tethering or not. If the phone is updated to a better version which provides more features they will easily spot it and use it. If the phone isn't updated, they just accept the fact their smartphone is in reality, not that smart!!! It was decided at a Google I/O conference that manufacturers will support devices until 18 months after their release, but I hardly see that happening. A case-in-point is my roommate's phone. He purchased his android phone one-and-a-half years back and it still hasn't been updated from 'Eclair' to 'Froyo'. In the age of 'Ice Cream Sandwich' such news sounds like blasphemy!!!.

You don't need an expert to tell you that what's going is on not right. People purchase their smartphones investing a lot of money and they expect it to get updated to the latest versions at least for a reasonable period of time. I had a 'Nokia E71' previously (I have an Android now!!!) and even 2 years after purchasing that phone, I used to receive updates (Long live Nokia!!). I still have a sense of attachment with that phone and even today, my father uses it and he is very happy.

Let's look at the whole issue from 2 perspectives: the 'Customer' and the 'Mobile Manufacturer'. As far as the customers are concerned, the example I quoted above is what makes them develop a sense of 'TRUST' towards a brand. This is what makes them 'LOYAL' to a particular brand. There are plenty of people, even today, who will swear by a Nokia phone even though other manufacturers have surpassed it in terms of features integrated in their smartphones. When customers become loyal to a brand due to the immense satisfaction they have had from using it, in the future, if they want to purchase a phone, they will consider the same brand from where they had purchased earlier.

As far as the mobile manufacturers are concerned,  they can derive a lot of value from the customers due to the sense of loyalty that they develop in people. Just to make this point more clear, movies like 'Avatar' and 'The Dark Knight' haven't become 'Top Grossers' just due to the high ticket rates or the movie being watched by more people. The reason that they became 'Top Grossers' is because they had attracted 'Repeat Audience'. That is the exact reason why they had become so commercially successful. If you want an analogy with respect to the 'Smartphone' industry, you can always remember the company from Cupertino which has shown that it will take care of its customers who had purchased its phones even 3 years back. That is where the current crop of android phone manufacturers should aim. Otherwise, it is a known fact that smart people will buy only those flagship phones from the android phone manufacturers, that they believe would be updated in the future.

Stay Tuned.!!



What does a Google Tablet mean?

“In the next 6 months, we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality” – Eric Schmidt

The above move from Google had to come sooner or later. Most of us will agree that the year 2011 was the year when Google pushed really hard to bring out a competitor to the hugely successful iPad. Has Google been successful? Let’s look at some numbers for finding out answers.

According to a recent report that was published by IDC (International Data Corporation), Apple’s iPad leads the tablet market share with about 61.5% while Google’s Android tablets took the second place with 32.4% and Samsung having the highest market share (among Android) with 5.6%. So, a group of big names like Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Asus etc. who supported Android couldn’t quite match up to Apple’s iPad which continues to dominate the tablet market even today. From the start of 2011, when everybody witnessed the much awaited XOOM tablets from Motorola to the end of 2011, when everybody saw the latest Galaxy Tabs from Samsung, Google has never been able to produce a worthy competitor.  Why?

The answer mainly lies with respect to ownership of hardware and software. As I already said in my previous posts, Apple is always in control of both of its components that make up the tablet: Hardware and Software. So, it precisely knows how to produce a tablet that contains software that can take the maximum advantage of the underlying hardware. This was what was lacking in Google’s tablet strategy. The fact is that Google has always been producing software (with not much of a great idea regarding the hardware’s cohesiveness with the software) which was being modified extensively by other android-tablet manufacturers who put that software onto the tablets. Google never really worked closely with any of the manufacturers as far as tablets are concerned when it ideally should have, as Google is not responsible for the hardware part of the devices. The reason that people can see a great phone like Google’s Galaxy Nexus today is because Google hasn’t left any stone unturned in its desire to produce a phone that can take the user experience to a next level. It has coordinated really well with partner companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung etc. and the result now is there for everybody to see.

So, does it now make sense for Google to produce its own tablet? Absolutely. Many experts have always believed that the stock ROM offered by Google is always better than the modified ROMs like Touchwiz and Sense in terms of general zippiness. There is some truth in these opinions as evidenced by the benchmark scores that the devices get and the kind of lag that some people experience in tablets being produced by manufacturers. The latest truth comes in form of stock Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) running in the Galaxy Nexus. Thankfully, Google has realized this and is now wasting no time in bringing to market as what Eric Schmidt said "the tablet of the HIGHEST quality". Go Google.!!

Stay tuned..!!

LCD TVs and LED TVs: Are they really different? (Contd.) - 1

Yesterday, we discussed about the truth behind the LED TVs. Today, we’ll go further into the various categories of ‘LED backlit LCDs’ available in the market today.

Currently, ‘LED backlit LCDs’ are available in the market in 2 varieties: ‘Edge-Lit’ and ‘Full-Array’. In an ‘Edge-Lit LED backlit LCD’, LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are present in the entire perimeter (periphery) of the television. The backlighting of the screen is achieved with the help of what are called ‘Light Guides’. These ‘Light Guides’ direct the glow towards the center of the screen.

The following are the advantages of these kinds of televisions:

1. They are very thin (as much as 40% thinner) when compared to ‘CCFL backlit LCDs’
2.  They consume much less power (as compared to the ‘CCFL backlit LCDs’
3. They are also very much lighter in weight (In fact, most of them could be wall mounted)
4. They can produce a bright image with very nice colors and deep blacks

The following are the disadvantages:

1. The entire screen may not be lit uniformly (The edge of the screen may be brighter than the middle of the screen)
2. True blacks may not be achieved consistently across the entire screen

In fact, both the varieties: ‘Edge-Lit’ and ‘Full-Array’ LED backlit LCDs have the capacity to produce deep blacks as the LEDs could be simply turned off when no color is being reproduced on the screen.

Now, for the ‘Full-Array LED backlit LCDs’: In these kinds of televisions, several rows of LEDs are placed behind the entire surface of the screen.

The following are the advantages of these kinds of televisions:

1.  They are thinner (as compared to the ‘CCFL backlit LCD’ variety)
2. They consume much less power (as compared to the ‘CCFL backlit LCD’ variety)
3. They are lighter in weight (Again, as compared to the ‘CCFL backlit LCD’ variety)
4. They can produce ‘True Deep Blacks’ (as compared to both ‘CCFL backlit LCD’ and ‘Edge-Lit LED backlit LCD’)
5.  The brightness and colors are better (as compared to both ‘CCFL backlit LCD’ and ‘Edge-Lit LED backlit LCD’)

The following are the disadvantages of these kinds of televisions:

1. ‘Blooming Effect’ (described below) affects the picture quality a little bit
2. Slightly thicker and heavier (as compared to the ‘Edge-Lit LED backlit LCD’)

The reason that ‘Full-Array LED backlit LCD’ can achieve truer blacks is because whenever blacks have to be reproduced on a significant portion of the display, an entire section of LEDs can be turned off without affecting the display properties of the other LEDs. This property is widely known by the name: ‘Local Dimming’. So, local dimming leads to better blacks but also leads to an effect called ‘Blooming’. If a bright color (LEDs turned on) is being displayed inside a black section (LEDs turned off - Local Dimming), the bright color creeps slightly into the adjacent black portion (like a halo). This effect is called ‘Blooming’. But hey, it is ever-so-slightly-noticeable.

So, there are 4 kinds of ‘LED backlit LCDs’:

1. ‘Edge-Lit LED backlit LCD’ without ‘Local Dimming’ 
2. ‘Edge-Lit LED backlit LCD’ with ‘Local Dimming’
3.  ‘Full-Array LED backlit LCD’ without ‘Local Dimming’
4.  ‘Full-Array LED backlit LCD’ with ‘Local Dimming’ (Usually, the best of the lot)

I’ll again reiterate. There is no ‘True LED TV’ available commercially in the market right now. A 'True LED TV' can be defined as follows:

“Each and every individual pixel should have the capability of being independently brightened or turned off. For this to be achieved, an LED has to be present for each and every pixel. Currently in the market, a ‘Full-Array LED backlit LCD’ with ‘Full HD’ (having a resolution of ‘1920 * 1080’), has only a maximum of 2000 LEDs. If it has to qualify for being a ‘True LED TV’ there should be 2073600 LEDs.”

So, go get your TV right now.

Stay Tuned..!!

LCD TVs and LED TVs: Are they really different?

Nowadays, you can see a lot of people spending hours and hours together shopping for the perfect television which would occupy the center-stage of their respective living rooms. With the ubiquitous presence of ever-confusing marketers of the television-manufacturing companies, the decision is becoming all the more difficult. So, let us understand the technologies before you splurge your hard-earned money on them.

Earlier, you used to find televisions with only one kind of technology. They were called ‘CRT TVs’ (Cathode Ray Tube). With the help of electron guns, coils and a fluorescent screen, the CRT TV was able to produce a viewable image. Now, there were problems with this technology

1. A number of components were used to manufacture the television which made the processes of production, repair and maintenance difficult
2. The individual components were also bulky which made the television quite heavy  
3. Some of these televisions had a problem of ‘Image burn-in’ (Permanent discoloration of areas on electronic display) and a problem of ‘Image Loss’ at the boundaries of the display
4. These televisions produced noticeable flicker at low refresh rates
5. They consumed high power and generated a lot of heat

To overcome the drawbacks of this technology, manufacturers started producing LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) televisions. An LCD is a flat-panel display that makes use of light modulating properties of liquid crystals. Now, these liquid crystals do not emit light by themselves, so a backlighting source is required in cases where there is higher power consumption. To understand this, you need to take note that there are two kinds of LCDs: ‘Passive Matrix LCDs’ and ‘Active Matrix LCDs’. In ‘Passive Matrix LCDs’ like ‘Alarm Clocks’ and ‘Calculators’ where the power consumption is less, a backlighting source is usually not required. Contrast this with ‘Active Matrix LCDs’, where some sort of backlighting mechanism is required. Now, this backlighting has been traditionally achieved with a ‘Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp’ (CCFL) in an LCD Television. So, the ‘CCFL backlit LCD’ television overcomes the problems of CRT in the following fashion

1. They don’t use phosphor. So, the problem of ‘Image burn-in’ is eliminated
2. They can be configured to run at high refresh rates. So, the problem of flicker is eliminated
3. When compared to the CRT television, the components used are lighter in weight, so the heaviness of the television is reduced
4. They consume lesser power and generate lesser heat while lighting the entire screen uniformly
5. There is no ‘Image-Loss’ at the boundaries and the entire screen is viewable

Consequently, manufacturers found out that they could improve upon these televisions too by changing the backlighting mechanism. They found that they could bring about the following changes

1. Reduce the power consumption even further
2. Reduce the thickness of the display even further
3. Increase the image quality even further
4. Increase the brightness of the display even further
5. Reduce the weight of the display even further

The manufacturers used LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) as a backlighting source instead of the conventional CCFL sources and were able to achieve all-the-above stated objectives. So, this gave birth to the ‘LED backlit LCD’ televisions. Currently, if you go shopping for an LCD television, you won’t find a true LED TV. The only things you will find are ‘LED backlit LCDs’. So, don’t expect to see a radically different picture altogether as compared to a ‘CCFL backlit LCD’, albeit the images produced by the ‘LED backlit LCD’ televisions are in fact much better. Even these televisions can be further classified into 4 different categories. I'll explain these categories in the next post

Stay Tuned..!!

AH-IPS, LTPS and ASV: Decoding the Smartphone Display

Well... If you would have read my first two posts of this blog, you would have by now become familiar with most of the display technologies being used today. Here are 3 more:

AH-IPS

This display technology has been invented by LG. It is an abbreviation for Advanced High performing - In-Plane Switching LCD. It is being touted as the actual competitor to Samsung's 'Super AMOLED' display. In a competition held by 'Intertek', LG's AH-IPS display actually defeated Samsung's Super AMOLED in 2 parameters: Color-Accuracy and Power-Efficiency. You can find this display in the recently released LG Nitro HD.

LTPS

This is an abbreviation for 'Low Temperature Poly Silicon' LCD. One of the important characteristics of such displays is that, the drive circuits are directly integrated onto the glass surface which contributes to reducing the number of component parts designed on the outside substrate. This leads to the display's durability being enhanced. The reduced size of the TFT section leads to a crisper display and also leads to lower power consumption. You can find this display in the Lenovo LePad S2005.

ASV

This is an abbreviation for Advanced Super View display. The important characteristic of this display is that it offers excellent viewing angles and competes with the In-Plane Switching (IPS) LCDs. You can find this display in theMeizu MX.