Huawei Ideos S7 on Maxis

While DiGi is in their Xmas mood, Maxis has gone ahead and released their second tablet, after the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The other Telcos aren’t even worth mentioning at this point. This tablet is by Huawei, called the Ideos S7.

Maxis has several packages to offer:

1. Huawei Ideos S7 retail = RM1599
2. Huawei Ideos S7 + 1 year contract = RM999 for device (save RM600) – In my opinion, if you need a tablet, The Huawei Ideos S7 on a one year contract is not a bad deal because it’s cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Tab and with comparable specs as well.
3. Huawei Ideos S7 + 2 year contract = RM899 for device (save RM700) – I highly discourage signing for two years just to get another RM100 off.
4. Huawei Ideos S7 + Ideos U8150 smartphone + 1 year contract x 2 = RM1599 for devices (save RM899) – If you need a smartphone as well, just pay RM1599 for both devices. In this case, my idea would be to put your contract voice+data Maxis SIM into the smartphone and use the tablet on the contract data sim, or WiFi.

[source]

Your contract will include a voice plan and a data plan, but don’t be surprised, although this is a tablet, it is still capable of handling voice calls. Full tablet specs below:

MarketEnabler : Free your Android Market

Most of us Android users in Malaysia must be very happy people, because everytime we open the Android Market to download an app, all the apps we see are FREE, unlike some other popular smartphone App Store. But the sad sad reality is, Google has disabled paid app (and some other free apps)  in Android Market for Malaysian users. Reasons behind this are unknown. Some guess it might due to Malaysian’s non-participation is some handset alliance, or issues with electronic payment and fraud, policies by the telco or the government, etc and so on and so forth. Because Google had made all paid apps and certain free apps unavailable for download, certain users here who wish to download the latest apps such as Google Maps 5 could not do so.

It’s kinda bad having this feeling that you’re being left out and excluded from the rest of the world, isn’t it? Don’t worry, it’s not the end. The best thing about Android is that there’s always a way around some limitation. All you need to do is to open your Android Market, search and install “Market Enabler”. To make things easier, you can use your barcode scanner (if you have one) below:

So, how do you use this app and what does it do? It’s pretty simple to use and in no time at all, you’ll get all the paid apps and free apps in your Market like everyone else. First, open the app and press on the ‘Settings List’ tab. Press and hold on ‘T-Mobile’, then select ‘fake this provider now’. And you’re all set. Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. The settings will return to default after you restart your phone. Anyway, this action also only affects your Android Market app and not other functions of the phone. You won’t lose calls or SMS.

So, open your Android Market now. Immediately you’ll notice that it is different. I have snapshots of the before and after to show you. Previously when you first open the Market, all you see is a empty list (on the left). After marketenabler, you will see a list of featured or recommended apps to download (or buy).

Feeling excited yet? So the first thing to try would definitely be Google Maps 5 (for now). It’s new and it’s got that cool 3D function plus faster maps, etc. Click on the search icon and type in Google Maps. It should appear on the top of the list (on the right) which was previously missing (on the left). Download and rock it.

What else can you do with your new found freedom? Get the best of all the free Google apps, of course. If previously you can’t find them, now you can. See the snapshot below. Previously you could only access 17 Google apps, but now you can get all of them, 32 apps.

Some of my personal recommendations would be:

• Gmail: Update you Gmail app
• Youtube: Update your Youtube app
• Chrome to Phone : send links from Google Chrome to your Android phone
• Reader: If you use Google Reader, you can try this app out instead of using the browser
• Listen : download your favourite podcast and listen to them with this app
• Pinyin IME : If your phone does not have Chinese input, use this app
• Streetview: Install this and you can see the buildings and surroundings in Google Maps as if you were standing right there at that street. Only views of certain countries available.
• Earth: Explore around the world with this app, it’s more information than Maps.

So there you have it. How to free your Android Market. Hope you have fun.

Finally, if you like what i write, do subscribe. Thanks. Comments welcomed below.

 

 

 

Word Lens

Few days ago iPhone and iPad users got this cool new app called Word Lens. Word Lens is an app which uses the device’s camera to capture the text and translate it directly on the screen.

From the iTunes site snapshot, you can see the pricing. The core app is free, but if you want to use the live translation, you have to purchase the language packs. One translation package cost USD4.99 and that’s for either English to Spanish OR Spanish to English only, not both. For both, it’s USD4.99 x 2. Stunning. But once you’ve got the languages installed on the phone, you do not need an internet connection which makes it ideal for traveling. [source]

Check out the video below.This video from the developer has over 2 million views now since the video was posted on Dec 16th.

The idea and implementation of this app is really fascinating. But this app is still in its early stages and requires further development. One of the biggest limitations for us here now in Malaysia (or even Asia) is that this app currently only has English<>Spanish translations. Imagine how cool it would be to translate some Chinese menu on the spot or travel across the border to neighbouring Thailand and actually understand what the signs there mean. I’m assuming that Spanish is the mother tongue of the developers which make it the first and only language translation available now so it’s not sure how long before other languages come along.

In the meanwhile, if you really need an app that does translation with the phone camera, don’t forget that Google Goggles does translation, although the process is not as cool looking as Word Lens.

You snap the text you want with the Goggles app, which then scans the text and sends it to Google Translate. Google Translate requires internet connection though but since it’s in the cloud, more languages are supported. Best of all, it’s free for both iOS and Android. [source]

 

 

Motorola’s new 10″ tablet with Honeycomb

On December 14th 2010, during the Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin from Android showed off a prototype Android tablet, running the latest version of Android called Honeycomb. It showcased improved functionality of Android on bigger screen called tablet, where you get different fragmentation (or columns) of a screen, instead a small smartphone screen dedicated to one function at a time. Check out the video below, sample of new Gmail app with fragments at 5:20.

The prototype tablet is made by Motorola and based on some early photos, it seems like the tablet will be sold first on an American telco called Verizon. Check out the photo gallery from Engadget here.

The tablet is running on the latest processor called Tegra 2 from Nvidia, which features a dual core processor and also better built in graphics chip. Motorola will officially launched this tablet at an event called CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas early next month (January 2011).

Motorola has already made some teaser video for the new tablet, comparing it to some ‘ancient’ tablets like the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The honey bee appearing at the end of the video confirms the fact the it will be running the new Android Honeycomb.

Finally, the new Motorola Tablet is rumoured to be called Motorola Xoom which i think is a good name, instead of having usual names that associate to something flat like Pad, Slate, Tab or even Book. You don’t really hope to hear another name like MotoPad, MotoSlate, MotoTab, etc bla bla bla, do you? We’ll only really know at the event.  Price of this tablet is also still unknown at the moment.

Hopefully we’ll see Malaysian telcos like Maxis to bring in this Motorola tablet like they did the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Time to ditch the old Samsung tablet which runs Android OS built for phones and bring in the new tech. Don’t expect Samsung to put the new Honeycomb on the Galaxy Tab anytime soon. Samsung is VERY VERY slow at updating their software once the device has been released. Samsung has updated some, but not all their Galaxy S phones to Android 2.2 Froyo. FYI, Samsung modified the Galaxy S for different parts of the world so there are many variants of it, namely the European and Asian Galaxy S, US AT&T Captivate, US T-Mobile Vibrant, US Sprint Epic 4G, US Verizon Fascinate, Samsung Continuum, etc . That is a lot of phones. Detailed list here at the Samsung Galaxy S Wikipedia page. And Samsung is getting left behind further as Android 2.3 Gingerbread is already out. Next month Android 2.4 Honeycomb is coming.. I very much doubt Samsung can keep up.

Best Phones of 2010

Christmas is here, christmas is here…typically the time of the year when telcos will be in a merry mood and give promotions on their phone prices (hopefully). Not sure of which to get? Check out recommendations from Steve himself on the Phones Show 127. A slight warning though, non of these phones are below the RM1000 mark.  To summarize:

• Media creator: Nokia N8  (for the high resolution 12mp camera and xenon flash)
• Communications junkie: HTC Desire HD  (for the huge screen and HTC sense with integrated social networks. I was personally expecting something with a hardware keyboard though)
• Hardcore gamer: iPhone 4  (iOS has the best mobile games around)
• Media consumer: Nokia N8  (for HDMI out to connect to your TV and USB OTG that reads most USB mass storage devices)
• Work addict: Nokia E7 or HTC Desire Z?  (No suitable phone yet actually)
• Tech enthusiast/Hacker:  Google Nexus One  (Updates, updates and more updates, plus hackability. Still more solid and well made than the new Nexus S)
• Web-a-holic: HTC Desire HD  (for the big screen, plus flash support)
• Normobs (normal mobile users): iPhone 3GS  (the best of the iPhone 4, with a affordable price)

Actual YouTube video below,  phone recommendations start at 1:21.