Tamil (South Asian Language) support in Android

 My friend informed me from India that he is able to see Tamil(South East asian language) fonts in his latest updating of the android OS in his samsung galaxy phone.

 I thought that it is a good news for all the Tamil people living around the world.

 But as usual Samsung has released the build version of android particularly for people in Asia.As far as I know that this build is for Samsung galaxy phone.

 The official update of Gingerbread is  Asia specific 2.3.3 DDJV9.

So people who have samsung galaxy series in India and want to see tamil fonts in their phones please update your phone through KIES (a software through which samsung updates your phones in India).

I was also notified that  you are able to save your contacts in Tamil.

I hope this firmware update brings the same language support for all the other Indian languages like Telugu,Malayalam,Hindi,Kannada etc as well.

I am not aware of the other regional specific features.If you guys know post it here in comments.

Kindle

 When Amazon (one of the companies that I love for their customer service.. more on that in a separate post after sometime) introduced Kindle a couple of years ago ,I was like another gadget that’s going to go away in a couple of months.

 But they introduced versions after versions of Kindle.

 Still I was not convinced that I needed a kindle. I was commuting by car and in the office and at home I spend time in front of the computer. So there was no need for me to use another reading device. Even the flights that I took are short trips. So there was absolutely no need for me to have another reading device.

 Things changed in April when I took a job where I need to commute to work in a train at least an hour. And in the train every one has at least one reading device to look at.

 At that time Amazon also came up with a new version of kindle called “Special Offers” Kindle. It is $25 less than the regular one. I finally decided to give it a try.

 I ordered the kindle and got it on hand within 2 days. It was all charged and was ready to read. I switched it on. Instead of getting the covers like the original kindle, this one has the advertisements on the cover. And it looks nice too. When you slide the power key the advertisement goes off and shrinks to a smaller size at the bottom of the book list.

 The contrast is very good without any back light which is easier on the eyes. It has a built in reader which reads out loud. But the reading is funny. So better switch it off. And there is a browser which I would say is not of that much use. There is an mp3 player built in where you can’t choose the songs.

 Kindle is a device that is in particular made for reading books. Period. It is not meant as a browsing device or a mp3 player or anything. Its main purpose is to be a book reader and it does it best. No other eBook reader can come near it. Not even the ipad.

 The Kindle is very easy on the eyes. Not much strain like the back lit devices. This actually prints each page with eink when you move forward or backward. You can increase the size of the fonts or decrease it.

 Since I got the special offers kindle I get a lot of offers in my kindle. $20 Amazon gift card for $10 for example.

So in short I like the kindle.

But does it compare with a real book? J

I would have to say no. Even though I like the book marking and writing comments feature in kindle it doesn’t match with the comments that you write in a real paper book.

Kindle may be very good to read magazines and novels but I feel that it is not adequate for subject books where you take notes and read some pages repeatedly etc.

So the verdict??

 Kindle is the best ebook reader that is available in the market, bar none.

But it can’t compete with the real paper book.

Samsung Transform – The phone that transformed my phone habits.

 After I wrote about Samsung Instinct.I received a lot of mails both positive and negative about Samsung.

Readers of my blog were asking does Samsung always better phones. Etc.

My answer to them is No. Take for example my present phone the Samsung transform. It completely changed my phone habits.

When I had my Samsung Instinct I used to use the phone for everything right from emails to gps to hearing music and of course to talk and that’s a lot.

When the Samsung instinct died I wanted another Samsung which doesn’t burn a hole in my pocket.

Samsung came with 2 phones at that time. One is the Samsung Epic 4G (Sprint)
( galaxy ) the other is the Samsung Transform (Sprint)
.

Samsung Epic is their flagship phone this time with 4 inch amoled screen and a 1 GHz processor etc.

Because of its size I decided to go against the Epic and chose the transform. Moreover the transform was just introduced and the reviews were good. It had a sliding keyboard a nice addition. I immediately ordered the phone.

Once I got the phone the first looks were good. Then after 3 days I inserted my headset into this phone and I was not able to hear anything.I tried contacting sprint and Samsung may be I had a faulty set.They were of no help.But sprint accepted my return. And sent me another phone.When the phone is on my way I was scheduled to go abroad for a month and half after a week.

Now I have only one week to see if the phone is right for me. The transform came. The first test I did was obvious J .I inserted my headset into the phone.

Hurrah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not able to hear anything this time as well.But I don’t have time to send this phone back and get a replacement as well.

I thought what the hell I am not going to listen to any music and let me go ahead with the phone. The phone was heavier than the instinct but that was ok because now I am having a SMART PHONE. So it will be heavy. The day before I was scheduled to fly, I was not able to pick any calls in this phone. I can only see who is calling me and I have to call them back and say that I missed their call.

I went ahead with my trip and came back after a month and half. I didn’t switch the phone on in the mean time.

Now the fun starts.

The phone was extremely slow. Slow means it is really S-L-O-W.

A lot of times I miss the calls. Some of the apps don’t run. And some of the  apps run very slowly.

I was told that everything will be alright once they upgrade the phone to Android 2.2.

I was reading through the forums. When I bought the phone it had Android 2.1 OS. Samsung was supposed to upgrade to Android 2.2 in January. But it didn’t .Few of the forum readers contacted Samsung and they said they had some issues with the upgrading of Android 2.2 in Epic phone.

What the hell!!!

We were talking about Samsung Transform not the Galaxy. But the rep said that since the Epic is their flagship phone they want to upgrade all the galaxies first and then they would come to their lower end models.

I received the upgrade end of April. Now I am running Android 2.2 in my phone. According to people now my phone should be able to do everything faster.

I will give you one example of fast.

IT TAKES ME 2 TO 4 MINUTES TO MAKE A CALL.

People may argue that since I got the lower end of Samsung I got what I paid for. When I got the phone Epic was selling for $200 and transform for $150. And instinct was not advertised as the lower end.It was told as the mid level phone.

Let me for argument sake accept that the transform is the lower end phone.My question here is does all the lower end phones are slow and not able to make calls?

Transform has a 800Mhz processor and my friend has the LG optimus S which has 600Mhz processor.The Optimus S is faster that the instinct.

Here are some reviews on the instinct.I am experiencing all the cons they have said in their review.

So the verdict on this one is If Samsung makes a flagship phone just go for the flagship phone so you will get enough support and the product will be good.If you choose anything lower than the flagship then you are Royally screwed.

Iphone 4g , does it resemble the Samsung Instinct

I first bought Samsung instinct when it was released in sprint.It was their flagship phone to compete with iphone.

When I bought the phone I thought that it can't compete with iphone in any way.It just had a touch screen and there ends the similarity between samsung instinct and iphone. But there were a lot of positives about the phone.Since it was samsung's flagship phone they really had built the phone in a very good way.

The phone was sturdy.It is flat on the front and back(iphone was curvacious on the back at that time).

 The phone took real beating from me.I had the phone for 2 years exactly.I have dropped it many times.It was still working.It does not integrate with Outlook except if you have outlook web access.Even then I was not able to look into the subfolders created by me.Only the inbox.But that sufficed my purpose.
It had a 2gb micro sd card.And it had a music player.The phone was compact.The screens are not customizable.I had a gps.And the battery life is very good.

If you lay the phone on a table it would lay flat.And the edges of the phone are curved. Does this hardware design ring a bell :). Yes it is the latest iphone 4g.
I have attached a picture of the samsung instinct.Compare that with the iphone 4g just the outside hardware design.You decide.

Netflix continues......

 As you see from my last post I was thinking about the netflix service.
 Whether to keep it or disconnect it.

 I started with netflix for DVDs by post.But after netflix introduced streaming and after I got the roku player I was able to watch good amount of old movies without waiting for the DVD and I kind of got into that.I have watched a lot of oldies so to speak.

But the DVDs I get totals to 4 DVDs per month.Sometimes I even get 1 DVD a month.(I am so lazy to post).

So I have decided to keep the online streaming service alone.

Netflix

I thought of posting about netflix last week.I got a little bit lazy and yesterday netflix announced a price increase and most of the users are agitated right now. :)


But let me post it anyway with little modification....


Few years ago I use to rent from hollywood videos.When I moved to a different state hollywood videos said they can't lend me videos because I have a different state's driver's license.


So I went straight to Blockbuster and became a member.The price was per DVD rented.And there was late charges also.Normally I use to pay three or four times the actual rental.At that time I thought of switching to netflix.


But blockbuster came up with a different plan.The same three dvds at a time.The highlight is that you can change for DVDs at the store itself.I don't need to wait for the movies to come in mail.I will be having movies straight from store. That was an awesome offer that no movie lover will refuse. At that time I use to watch 3 movies some days. I was with blockbuster even after two price increases.

The third time blockbuster increased the price for only selected "heavy users". And I was one among the few who got price increase. I decided to leave blockbuster.

I switched to Netflix. The company that introduced DVDs by mail.

The DVDs came in regularly by mail similar to blockbuster. No complaints.But what I was missing was that the ability to watch movie immediately after I returned to blockbuster.Netflix had an answer to that in the next few months.

To fight the competition from blockbuster, Netflix introduced streaming videos directly to your computer.I don’t need to wait for the movies to arrive in the mail.I can watch the movies directly in the computer from Netflix library.

And when Roku player was introduced I bought it (see my post on the roku player) and I was able to watch the Netflix library in TV along with the family.Slowly Netflix increased the library and included search and add functions directly into the player itself.So I don’t need to go into the computer to add movies.


Everyone in the family are hooked.And I was about to say Netflix is the way to watch movies.But this price announcement came in and made everyone furious.So I am not going to say that Netflix is the only way to watch movies.

And the winner is....

As I mentioned last week I finally bought a camera.

So this camera that I bought has the following features that made me decide over the others:

• 16.1 Megapixel
• Full HD
• Backlight Correction HDR 
• Smile Shutter technology
• Face Detection technology

 and the winner is .......

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX9 16.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Still Camera with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 5x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Full HD 1080/60i Video .

Roku Player

I have netflix account for the past 5 years.When ROKU came out with their player called ROKU player which connects wirelessly(or wired) to your internet router and streams netflix videos to your normal/HD TV .
I was immideately impressed.
I gave it a thought for few months before I jumped in to buy it.

Before that I upgraded my router to a D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Gigabit Wireless Router.

I connected the roku player wirelessly to the router and started streaming netflix videos to my HDTV.

I was suspecting the picture quality before I bought the player but the picture quality was very good.It is not like a HD channel but you get a very good picture quality similar to the one from an upconverting DVD player.At that time netflix is the major channel that was available in the ROKU player.There were few other documentary channels like the NASA tv etc.

Then amazon added its channel to ROKU where you can rent movies,watch trailers etc.Thats where the channel lineup started building up.

Now if you see the channel line up in ROKU player there are a lot of paid channels and free channels available for ROKU.

One dosent have to have a cable or any other TV sources except the ROKU player.Most of the tv shows you can watch from HULU plus.

There is a whole free movie channel available in ROKU called as CRACKLE which has a lot of movies to watch with very few advertisements.

For the indian population they have a huge line up of the channels.

As for as the indian community are concerned they get dish tv or the direct tv to watch their favorite language channel.Even if they don't watch indian channels when their parents visit from India they install dish or direct tv with or without contracts.

But if you have a ROKU player you can have most of the channels without the need for any equipment installation.

Here are a few channel lineups in ROKU:

• Channellive - offers Tamil channels(Sun TV, Kalaignar TV, Jaya TV, Mega TV, Isai Aruvi, Jaya Max, Angel TV Free*: Chutti TV, Podhigai),Telugu channels,Kannada channels and is in testing phase of malayalam channels.
• BOMTV - offers over 15 Malayalam channels(Asianet news,Asianet ,Asianet Plus,Asianet USA,india vision,Kairali news,MCN,Jeevan TV ,Powervision ,Shalom,Yes Channel ).
• ReliableIPTV - offers lot of Telugu channels(ETV,MAATV,GeminiTV,LocalTV,TV1,Vanitha TV,ATV) and news channels. 
• Bollywood - This is a free channel that offers Bollywood movies and shows.

The above said are only a small fraction of what ROKU offers.If interested go to http://www.roku.com/ to see the channel line up.

To buy a HD ROKU player from Amazon go here....Roku 2050X XD Streaming Player 1080p

This is how a ROKU to TV setup looks like.