My Thoughts On The LG G2

First up I would like to say that I am about 1 week late in writing this, I was supposed to write it up last Saturday but here I am today writing it. Well let’s get on to today’s article which is about the LG’s new flagship smartphone the G2 which is the successor to the Optimus G. Unlike its predecessor LG has opted to drop the Optimus name and leaving only the G. Moving on to the device itself; the G2 is the same as every flagship android phone released this year, by similar I mean that the hardware that the G2 is storing is currently as powerful as possible. Talking about powerful, the G2 houses the currently top of the line mobile chip, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor which in this case is clocked in at 2.26GHz, alongside the chipset is the Adreno 330 graphics chip, 2GB of RAM is in the package as well as 32GB of storage which cannot be physically expanded. Filling up the front of the G2 is the massive 5.2” True HD IPS display covered with Gorilla glass 3 sums up a 424 pixel density, turning back the device shows off the 13MP camera which does have optical image stabilization as well as the unusually placed volume rocker and power button. In the dimension standpoint the G2 is not the most thinnest device ever but it’s dimensions are bearable by all means. With all that impressive hardware, LG has jammed in a 3,000mAh battery which has a ‘stepped’ design (basically it means that there is more space for the battery cells compared to conventional battery designs). Other than that the usual wireless connectivity features like wi-fi are present on the device.

"the most powerful smartphone on earth period"

Moving on the design of the G2 which is a total departure from the standard smartphone design not in terms of form factor but in terms of usability. As you can clearly see there are no physical keys on the sides of the device, LG has relocated them to the back of the device which is just below the camera module. Well this is surely a bold move by LG but I think if the user gets used to it its actually a pretty practical change because in this past week I did try holding my phone with my fingers on the back opposed to my usual way of wrapping my fingers around the device because the buttons are on the side. I found that when I using the my phone to make calls the most natural place to put my finger is on the back and my finger is just laying flat on the camera module which does cause smudges to appear. LG did take into account that if you’re holding your phone like that you will be wanting to rest your finger on the camera module so they actually covered the camera module with a sapphire crystal glass lens cover to prevent smudges on it so your picture won’t come out being blur. In addition to that LG also demoed on stage during the announcement that taking selfies on the G2 is made easier with the volume rocker keys on the back which also can act as a camera shutter button. Another cool design implementation is the speakers which are dual speakers on the bottom of the device alongside the earphone jack and microUSB port. What’s interesting about it is that LG is stating that it is the first Hi-Fi smartphone and it is capable of pushing 24 bit 192kHz sound through the speakers. I’ll just have to try it myself to see what difference can it make and wheter it is better than the dual stereo BoomSound speakers on the HTC One which is currently the best on the smartphone market.

Dropping on to the display of the screen of the G2 which has a bezel which is 0.1” wide, the display is of course an IPS display and during the even LG even compared the display to the AMOLED panel found in the Galaxy S4 and they said that the G2’s display has more pixels than the AMOLED panel because the G2 is using the standard RGB matrix pixel arrangement whereas the AMOLED panel is having the pentile matrix where pixels are share thus there are lesser pixels present. Another innovation on the display of the G2 is the inclusion of GRAM (graphic memory cache) to help beef up the battery life during the use of static applications. The common usage scenario is when you’re either reading a book or browsing the web on the G2 the GRAM will come to play because in conventional phones when you are reading something off your screen the pixels will refresh automatically but in the case of the G2 the GRAM will store the image of that current screen and thus eliminating the need of refreshing the image every second and ultimately saving battery life. Other than that LG did some more thinking about the reposition of the power key which is on the back and when the phone is laid flat on the table the keys are not accessible. So they implemented a feature called KnockON which will enable you to lock or unlock your device just by double tapping the screen, this feature is similar to Nokia’s glance mode on Lumia devices rocking the Amber update.

Continuing to the software of the G2 which comes with quite a lot of novelty features but the feature pack is still not as humongous as Samsung’s. First up, the G2 is running almost the latest version of android which is 4.2.2 and on top of it is LG’s practicalUX which is a new name for their UI. Among the features, the one which I feel is the most practical is the SlideAside feature which is basically a cool new way to multitask. You literally store the apps you would like to multitask on the left side of the screen and when you want to use it you just slide it out and it is ready for action. I’ll have to try it out myself to see how nifty the feature is. Other features are AnswerMe which is something like Samsung’s Direct Call but it works differently, it enables you to answer calls just by putting the phone near your ear. Plug&Pop is yet another novelty feature which is similar to Samsung’s page buddy, it basically just recommends options or related features for your to choose from when your plug in either an earphone or a USB cable. In my experience of using the Samsung version of it, the feature is really a handy one and all OEMs should implement it. TextLink is something which looks and sounds cool but I don’t think its that practical to all users, It basically allows you to export information from the text messages to your calendar, memo, etc. QuickRemote is essentially just a fancy name for the universal remote app on the G2 powered by the IR blaster. GuestMode in the other hand is really like a carbon copy of kids corner on Windows Phone which can be enabled with a different unlock pattern on your lockscreen. Additionally LG also tweaked the software of the G2 of you can long press the volume rocker keys to activate smart memo and the camera. Alongside support of 60fps 1080P video, LG has also added a feature on the camera which is called Audio Zooming which basically enables you to focus the audio at a single point, I find that this feature will be pretty useful to most of the users.

“there are a bevy of software features on the G2”

Finally I’m going to talk purely about my opinions on the device. The thing which I absolutely adore about the G2 is not the display or the camera but the customization in the software. In case you didn’t know you can actually modify the icons on the G2, for me that is a big plus because currently on my phone I’m running nova launcher and I’m constantly changing the icons. The change in the icons can also strongly impact the look of your device. On the G2 LG opted for on screen keys, and I’m not such a big fan of it because when I’m using device with on screen keys I always tend to accidentally trigger the buttons. But one thing which LG did on the G2 is that they have a setting to enable you to change the order and the look of the on screen keys which is a big plus for me even though I somehow detest on screen keys. In addition, as a left hander i'm always complaining why OEMs won't put the power lock button on the left side but on the G2 it would be more fair because the buttons are on the back. 

"a little justice for use left handers"

Another thing which I was a bit down is that the G2 does not have a microSD card slot but LG did make it up by having 32GB of storage on the device. However in the news topics along the past week, the Korean G2 has been shown off and it has a microSD card slot but the negative about that is that the device is 0.1cm thicker. Moving down to availability of the device, till today there are still no solid dates but LG did say its happening in the fall. The device will be coming the over 130 carriers worldwide in launch and the 4 main US carriers will all have it. But the problem I can see LG facing now is competition with the devices being released in the fall. Devices like the Galaxy Note III and iPhone 5S will be hitting markets around in the starting of fall. In other stories, recently a Vietnamese blog said that LG will be making this year’s nexus phone for the second time in a row and the device will be based on the G2. My conclusion of the LG G2 is that it may succeed but don’t expect a big success because in this era of smartphone powerful specs don’t contribute much plus in about 3 months down the road these specs will be dethroned by newer chips. The success of the G2 is highly dependent on how LG is going handle marketing of the device. 

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My Thoughts On The Lumia 1020

Yesterday, Nokia held their July 11 event in New York City and they have taken wraps off the latest addition to the Lumia family called the Lumia 1020. Well prior to launch there was quite a lot of leaks, in fact nearly everything was leaked out 1 hour before the event. Those leaks did take away some thunder for Stephen Elop on stage. I can say that this is the second most leaked device this year and the first place being the Samsung Galaxy S4 which was leaked pretty extensively prior to its launch. Well enough about that today i'll be talking all about the Lumia 1020. Ever since the 808 Pureview launched in MWC 2012, netizens were asking when will Nokia ever combine that sensor with a the Windows Phone OS.

We were betting high on Nokia's 2012 flagship phone dubbed the Lumia 920 but it merely came with only an 8MP camera but Nokia did introduce some pretty cool innovations alongside it. Since then Nokia has introduced 2 other devices based on the Lumia 920 which is the Lumia 928 and Lumia 925. Deep down the DNA of the three devices are there but they are just presented in different forms to suit different needs. After about a year or so since the inception of the 808 pureview, the Lumia 1020 was born and the netizens were overjoyed for the 41MP sensor which is powered by the third ecosystem and not on a dying platform (symbian). Apparently the stockholders were also quite happy with the device as their stocks surged after the event. Oh yeah if you missed the even yesterday you can watch the even here

[Image courtesy of TheVerge]

Moving on to actually talking about the Lumia 1020; I was literally super excited when i first saw the leaked image of the Lumia 1020 earlier this week. The yellow body and black camera lens seemed to match very well. Before i go in too much about my thoughts for the device, i'll first touch on the specifications of the device. The Lumia 1020 comes with a 4.5" Puremotion HD+ display, a 1.5GHz dual core snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage which is not physically expandable, a 1.2MP wide angle front facing camera, a 2000mAh non removable battery, LTE support and the usual knick knacks like bluetooth etc. The main star of the phone of course is the 41MP sensor which is referenced from the 808 pureveiw. One of the downside of the Lumia 1020 is that is does not have wireless charging built in but Nokia did add to contact points to attach a wireless charging sleeve on to the device.

The overall dimension of the device is similar to the Lumia 920 but this time around Nokia has managed to make it lighter even with a more advanced camera on it; it weighs in at 158g which is a bit lighter than the 808 pureview but is not as light as 2013 flagships by any stretch at all. In this article i won't talk too much about the camera itself as it would be a lot to talk so i have decided to do so in the upcoming article which i will explain every single bit about how the camera works and what does 41MP mean in a smartphone. To sum things up here the Lumia 1020 basically has the same specs as the other 3 flagship Nokia Lumia devices with the exception the Lumia 1020 having 2GB of RAM which is most probably needed so that the camera can process the images with much more ease. You can look up all of the specs in detail below here:

"The Lumia 1020 is basically the Lumia 920 we all dreamed of"

In the event, Stephen Elop was mostly talking about the zooming capabilities thus the hashtag for the event was #zoomreinvented. The thing which i found most impressive on the Lumia 1020 is not the hardware but the software, the engineering team at Nokia has really done a good job. One of the features are that you can take a shot whether zoomed in or out and after that you can zoom back in or zoom back out. Another feature is the low exposure which will open a window to a ton of camera effects like the one they demonstrated on stage which is writing in mid air with light. The Nokia Pro Camera app was just the thing the Lumia 1020 needed to add a little more professional feel to the device. 

The new camera app will allow users to change manual settings like ISO, shutter speed, etc; the UI is similar to the one found with the Galaxy Camera by Samsung but Nokia's version is far more simplier to use. In the coming months Pureview branded Lumia phones like the Lumia 925 will be getting this new camera update with the Amber update. Additionally the 41MP sensor on the Lumia 1020 is back side illuminated and also comes with OIS, i'll cover that in more in depth in the article dedicated to the camera on the Lumia 1020. In the event, Stephen Elop did touch on the audio of the Lumia 1020 which looks to be as powerful as the one found in the Lumia 920. That's pretty much it for the camera section of the Lumia 1020, stay tuned for the dedicated article coming in a few days time.

"Zoom has a new definition"

Earlier today while i was researching about the device i found out that there are some pretty positive feedback from both tech sites and the commenters. It seemed that the people which had their hands on with the device found that it is very nice to hold in the hand and is not too thick by any stretch. The weight was also said to be very balanced. Personally looking at the spec sheet i do think the same, the weight and the dimensions were perfected. The camera grip accessory is something quite interesting as it makes the Lumia 1020 look like a standard point and shoot camera with the inclusion of a 2 stage camera shutter button and a tripod mound, this accessory should be quite a popular one. But one thing i still can't find out is the exact thickness of the 1020 including the camera hump. The Lumia 1020 comes in yellow, black and white and in the US it will be coming exclusively to AT&T on July 26 for $299 and will also be heading to China and select European markets by this quarter. Below here are some sample images taken with the Lumia 1020, Download the original image and try zooming in you will be amazed by the detail which the image poses.


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My Thoughts On WWDC 2013

Its about 24 hours since Apple held their keynote at WWDC 2013 in the Moscone West center. As usual i'll do a wrap up article after some time because i want to get to look into the opinions around the web as well as some mysteries behind the just announced things. So this is my first year jumping into the mobile phone industry and this is my 2nd experience of the WWDC fever. To be frank i really liked this WWDC but i really missed the moments where Scott Forstall took the stage last year as he is the only person which could just present spontaneously and gets fast to the point. This year at WWDC a lot of things were different, this is also the first public press event Apple has held this year and i can see that Apple is in a route to announce new hardware at the end of the year from now onwards. The event started at about 10+ and this year's intro video was focused on simplicity with minimalistic text. Tim Cook then took the stage first and talked quite a bit about the current status of Apple and some of the achievements Apple has collected since the last press event, as usual some trash talking came to play. Then there was a short demo by anki which showcased iOS device controlling robotics. Soon after that was done, Tim Cook took back the stage and started on again with the Macs and Mountain Lion took the tile of the best version of Mac Apple has ever created with 28 million copies sold since it was announced last fall. Next Craig Federighi comes up to stage to announce the new version of Mac which is called Mavericks. This new version of Mac includes a ton of new features which makes the experience of using Mac even better with some tagging, window collaging, multiple display support and quite a number of technology improvements inside the OS itself. I was really impressed with the battery life thing which was very innovative indeed, it basically is a Safari thing which helps Macbooks save more battery on the fly by intelligently turning off and on the CPU usage for the browser. iCloud Keychain was another cool addition to iCloud which can save your passwords and autofills and not to worry as these sensitive documents are encrypted. Next, Phil Schiller went up and announced the new refreshed Macbook Airs which are being powered by Haswell processors and are now a bit more cheaper. I was literally impressed with the battery life of the new MBA. Then after that it was the moment which i was waiting for since WWDC last year, it was the sneak peek of the all new Mac Pro which really looked nothing like a tower desktop and future upgradability for it looked bleak. But moving upon that i actually liked the design of it and it was also in a very small package and is powered by some very high tech components like 12 core Xeon processors, AMD FirePro GPUs, and comes with SSDs. The next thing was that it came with 6!!! Thunderbolt 2 ports which was just jaw dropping and Phil added that the new Mac Pro is capable of outputting 3 4K displays without any problem whatsoever. The highlight of it was that it is going to be assembled in the USA. Next, iWork for iCloud was announced and from the looks of the Demo that was really one very powerful program which runs on the we browser. Then after that Tim had the pleasure to finally announce iOS 7 and then the crowd went wild. Craig took the stage once again and went through 10 of the new things in iOS 7. The new mobile OS from Apple ushered in a whole new design and the whole OS finally had its long overdue UI overhaul. Well it wasn't much of a UI overhaul but it was much more of an improvement to the previous versions. New features like Command Center, iTunes Radio, Face Time Audio, etc was announced. Well, i'll talk more extensively on iOS 7 in my upcoming featured article about my thoughts of iOS 7. The even then wraped up with Tim Cook saying some closing words with a short video ad in the end about Apple. All in all i really felt that this years conference was way better than last year in terms of the richness  of announcements. So until next year, i'll see you again for the WWDC 2014 recap. Watch this video below by TheVerge of the highlights of the keynote.
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