Month: September 2012

Categories
Gadgets Tablet PC

Best Android tablets for kids

The advent of the latest technology has had a deep impact on almost every aspect of our daily lives. Tablet PCs are considered the latest innovation in the computer industry and they have been designed keeping in mind the needs of people from all walks of life and of all age groups. These days, doing business, watching movies and listening to music while travelling has all become ridiculously easy and all credit goes to tablet PCs. In addition, parents even prefer using the aid of the latest technology to educate their children, as a tablet PC can potentially act as the gateway for heaps of infotainment for your kids. This has been combined with the power of Open Source Android and availability of tons of amazing free and paid apps from Google Play Store.

For all parents looking to gift an age-appropriate tablet PC to their young one, here are the top android tablets for kids:

Intel StudyBook

Widely acclaimed by reviewers for its brilliant features, affordability and educative value, Intel StudyBook can be the perfect birthday gift for your little one. This 7-incher is compatible with both Windows and Android Honeycomb 3.0 OS and is highly energy efficient as it is equipped with single-core Intel Atom Z650 chipset. The best part is that Intel StudyBook offers all the right features to educate your kindergartener as well as your kid in the sixth grade. The device is also accompanied with Intel Learning Series Software Suite that offers an amazing learning experience for young kids. Hailed by educators around the globe for its brilliant features, the Intel StudyBook is up for grabs for less than $200.

OLPC XO-3

Developed by the non-profit organization, ‘One Laptop per Child’, the XO-3 is an amazing educational device that uses the muscle of the latest technological advancements to make it work in different environments. Priced at a staggering $100, this amazing tablet PC offers amazing specs that will fulfill the needs of your little one. Powered by Linux OS and Marvel ARMADA PXA618 processor, the XO-3 offers half gigabyte RAM and crystal clear display quality on an 8-inch screen. Although, currently OLPC XO-3 is not available at ordinary retail stores as it is being primarily used as part of education programs in third world countries, still it is only a matter of time before you can buy it for your kids.

Lexibook Kids Tablet

Offering the perfect mix of education and entertainment, the Lexibook Kids Tablet will put an end to your problems with respect to helping your kids in easy learning. Lexibook Kids Tablet offers an easy-to-understand interface, loads of built-in games, built-in Wi-Fi support, pre-loaded songs, educational tests and 53 discovery activities. Parents can hand this amazing device into the hands of their young ones without any apprehension as all the e-books, songs and educational material found in this tablet PC has been selected by the makers after a careful review of the learning needs of kids.

Fuhu Nabi 2

Built to help your children learn and grow into healthy and educated adults, Nabi 2 tablet PC by Fuhu allows you to educate your young kids by blending information and fun together. Featuring NVIDIA Tegra 3.0 1.3 GHz processor and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, this 7-incher offers the best learning system for your kids with instructional sound learning, educational games, age-appropriate song collection and brilliant strategy games such as Treasure Box. Parents can even use Nabi’s online N-SITE to analyze your kid’s progress.

Micromax FunBook

If you are in India, Funbook is worth a buy for your kid as it has an impeccable specs to fall for. At approximately USD 120 or INR 6000 this is indeed the best buy for your kid. Micromax FunBook sports a 7 inch Capacitive touch screen with 800X480 resolution. It comes with 1.2GHZ Cortex A8 processor and Dual Mali-400MP graphics processor. The 512MB RAM is not much impressive though (There is a choice of a pro model with few extra bucks with 1Gb RAM). It is powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and comes pre-loaded with many educational apps and videos. Moreove Micromax has an appstore from where you can download apps apart from the regular Google play store.

You might come across many other tablets at the price range mentioned here or below this price, but those are not good. We have compiled this list by observing these models of tablets closely and looking at their popularity and performance.

Categories
Apple Mobile

Why You Should Not Buy the iPhone 5

The release of iPhone 5 has got a mixed review from industry stalwarts and gizmo geeks. If you think it is time to pick up the new phone to replace your old iPhone 4S, which is not really old by any means. I mean, you just got your phone 6 months ago, but when Apple said they will be unveiling a new model, you are about ready to trade in your current one.
The question, though, is “why?” Is the iPhone 5 actually so much better than the 4S that it is worth changing after just a few months? Why don’t you wait it out and see if you really need to make a change? Maybe keeping your current one will not be a terrible choice.
In fact, here are the top reasons why you should not buy an iPhone 5, or at least not yet.

You don’t need the iPhone 5 to get the iOS6

What made you excited about the new iPhone are the new OS improvements. There are the new Maps that provide great 3D renders, the improved Siri, and the Passbook ticket and gift card system. Newsflash, though: you can get those improvements (not all, of course) with an OS upgrade that will be available come September 19. So try out the iOS 6 on your iPhone 4S first before leaping for the iPhone 5 just for a new OS.

You might want to check if there are glitches that you have to worry about

Remember when you had the iPhone 4 and you lose signal whenever you hold the phone a certain way? Yeah, that was a big deal back then and even resulted in a class action lawsuit. It ended with the issuance of the bumper case to solve the problem. Not saying that the iPhone 5 will have the same issues, but won’t it be more convenient to find these things out before your purchase. So wait it out and see if there will be reports of glitches that can be deal breakers.

You don’t really want to be stuck in another 2-year contract

According to CNET, the iPhone 5 will not be exclusive to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint and there will be a prepaid version available via Cricket by September 28.  It probably won’t be long until it is also available through Virgin Mobile. It might cost you more for the phone but at least you are not tied down by a cumbersome contract.

The bigger screen can be trouble for some apps

For the first time, the screen of the iPhone will be bigger at 4 inches. But there is a reason why Apple was apprehensive in using bigger screens in the first place. Some apps were designed for the 3.5-inch screen specifically. So make sure that your important apps like Box, RingCentral, Evernote, or even your favorite games are functioning properly on the iPhone 5

You would need new accessories

With the changes in its dock connector, you would also need to upgrade your other external accessories. Apple is likely to release new adapter that will connect the old and new connector but that will still cost money. Not to mention that the new phone size will mean your old cases will not fit as well.

There are other choices out there

Frankly, a lot of what the iPhone 5 is bragging about already exists with other brands’ flagship phones. Bigger screen? The S3 and the One X has bigger. Fast wireless?  Dual Band wireless is actually pretty average nowadays. Great Camera? The One X can make an argument that it is better. Point is, the iPhone 5 may be slightly better than the 4S but it is not necessarily better than other brands like, say, Samsung S3 and HTC OneX.

The image below will give you a detailed spec wise comparison of iPhone 5 with 3 of the most up-to-date smart phones viz Samsung Galaxy S3, Droid Razr HD and Nokia Lumia 920.

As you have ample of choice with you with better features and capability, now it’s upto you to decide what you would wish to buy.

Categories
Internet Web App

5 Cloud Storage providers that Offer More Free Storage than Dropbox

Dropbox has become so popular lately, it has probably become one of the top choices, if not the top choice, when people look for free cloud storage. The file-hosting service gives you 2GB of free storage space upon signup, with the potential to boost storage to up to 5GB, if you perform some actions like enabling Camera Upload, connecting your Facebook account, and inviting other users to sign up, too. If you’re not exactly excited to do all these just to bump up your free storage space in the cloud, there are alternatives worth checking out.

Mediafire

Mediafire has been a solid player in the cloud storage business, even before Dropbox came along. The service is worthy of mention, since it gives users a whopping 50GB free storage with limits of 200MB per file upload.  Paid plans include Pro, with 250 GB of storage and a 4-GB file-size limit, and Business, which comes with 1000 GB of storage and a 10-GB file-size limit.

If you’re looking for a straightforward online backup service and a collaboration service rolled into one, Mediafire is one of your best bets.  Aside from giving you huge free storage, Mediafire lets you arrange files into an unlimited number of public or shared folders, set passwords, and share links. Not to be left out by other file-hosting services offering “collaboration in the cloud,” Mediafire now also lets users collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Mediafire is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. Mobile apps are presently in development.

4shared

4shared is just like any other file hosting service, letting you create backups in the cloud, access files from smartphones and tablets, and share files with others. It gives you 10GB of free storage (plus 5GB more if you verify your email account) with maximum file sizes of 2048 MB.  4shared also allows other users to subscribe to your feed and lets you sync files across all your devices.
4shared is not the go-to collaboration platform, but it’s one of the most popular ones for music sharing. Once uploaded, music files can be listened to online before download.  One of its best feature is the web-based 4shared music app, which is also available for Android. The app lets you share music publicly and stream any music on your smartphone or on the web.   After downloading the desktop app, simply upload music to your online locker. You may now directly access your files even if you’re offline. But the best part is that 4shared populates with other tracks from other 4shared users. Tap the song you want to listen to and stream to your heart’s content or, if you’re using your mobile device, until your battery runs out. If you want to store huge files of audio and music, better upgrade to Premium, which gives you 100GB of storage with 5GB file size limit.

Box

One of Dropbox’ major competitors, Box is another file-hosting service that’s great for personal or business use. Box gives you 5GB of free storage and the ability to organize files into folders and access them on any device. Collaboration is obviously a major feature of this cloud service, since it also lets you securely share file and folder links and sends real-time notifications once your files have been accessed or edited.   To give you increased productivity, Box integrates with Salesforce, Google Apps, RingCentral, and other productivity tools.

Google Drive

Available for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android, Google Drive is one of the best choice if you want to make your files accessible anywhere.  Aside from 5GB of free storage, Drive lets you create and edit documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.  If you’re a hardcore Google user, you’ll be pleased to know that Drive disposes of bulky email attachments by letting you send links directly to Gmail. It also makes photos you store instantly available in Google+.  As expected from the search engine giant, Drive helps you find files faster by letting you search and filter by file type, owner, and more. Like Box, Drive also integrates with a host of third-party apps.

Windows SkyDrive

If you’re a Windows fan, then this may be the cloud storage for you. You don’t have to be eagle-eyed to spot that SkyDrive offers 7GB of free storage, more than the entry-level offerings of major players Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box. Batch uploads are easy on SkyDrive and it’s also pretty easy to create documents from within your SkyDrive browser and share them with select recipients or more publicly on your social networks. Unfortuantely, SkyDrive hasn’t released an Android app as of the moment, but you can use the Microsoft OneNote app for Android or Browser for Skydrive if you want to access your files.  If you have a Windows phone or even an iPhone or iPad, then Skydrive is worthy of consideration.

Though these are alternatives to Dropbox with more storage space, some of these lacks some impeccable features that Dropbox offers with certain limitation. So while you select your cloud storage provider do proper research before you zero in on any one. Don’t look at just the tons of storage but other aspects must be evaluated. And when you are looking for business purpose, we recommend to go for a paid plan.

Categories
Android Gadgets Tablet PC

Unboxing and Review of BSNL T-Pad IS703C Tablet

It seems the Tablet market in India is growing pretty rapidly and this growth is being supplemented by introduction of low cost tablets with open Source Android as the platform of choice. HCL, Micromax and Pantel technologies are leading the bandwagon to release the quite affordable low cost tablets in India. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has collaborated with Pantel technologies to release affordable tablet by the brand name T-Pad. Recently we got an opportunity to try our hands on BSNL T-Pad IS703C tablet and we got a mixed review of the tablet for our readers.

T-Pad IS703C was launched on 29-05-2012. With a price tag of INR 6999, we cannot say T-Pad IS703C as a low cost tablet when there are tablets available for INR 3000. But it will come in the mid or lower midrange tablet category. To offer users a low cost gadgets, company has definitely compromised in few features such as display, battery life, camera, body etc.

Body

At the very first look, it grabs an ascent look but when we look at the rear the blacky shiny plastic body may disappoint few users as the material used for the body is below standard. The form factor is also not quite impressive as compared to other high end tablets like Galaxy Tab or iPad. When I hold the T-Pad for 15-20 minutes, I started feeling pain in my hand. So this might play hindrance to be used for a longer period.

Buttons and Ports

The T-Pad IS703C does not have a physical button on the body, so everything needs to be controlled by touchscreen. As I have been a long time Google Nexus owner, I am pretty used to the physical button, so I found it little awkward at the beginning to work with this tablet.

This has got a lot of physical ports like card reader, HDMI for high definition video output, 3.5mm audio jack, DC adaptor port, USB port to connect a 3G USB dongle or a USB storage device. These ports ar all placed comfortable on one side of the tablet.

It has great support for USB thumb drives and it detected our 4GB Transcend pen drive in no time. We could read and write data to our pen drive without any issue.

Touch Screen/Camera/Speaker/Display

T-Pad IS703C comes with 2 point capacitive multitouch. The sensitivity of the touch screen is not so good when we look at the response time. There seems to be little lag when you touch and when the device senses it and specific command is performed. This might be issue with touch screen or may be due to processing.

It has got only a 0.3 Mega Pixel front facing camera to facilitate video chat.

The built-in speaker provides quite loud sound but the sound quality is not clear when it is output through the speaker. Where in the sound is quite good when heard through a good ear/head phone. We listened the same MP3 song through built-in speaker and ear phone and the difference was clearly noticeable.

Internet Connectivity

This tablet offers Internet connectivity through wi-fi and 3G. But as it does not have a SIM card slot, only 3G USB dongles can be used for 3G Internet access. But wait..it supports only a few 3G dongles. So if you are thinking that you can use any 3G USB dongles then you may be disappointed as we did when we tried to use our Micromax MMX352G. So Micromax 3G dongles are not supported. Below are a list of supported 3G dongles for T-Pad:

Huawei E171

Huawei E173

Huawei E169G

Idea GSM HUAWEI E1732

AIRTEL HUAWEI E1731 (E173Bu-1)

Reliance GSM ZTE MF190

TATA Photon+ EC156

Connectivity through Wi-Fi is pretty good and we could watch youtube videos without buffering at a very nominal Internet speed via wi-fi.

Accessories

T-pad IS703C comes with a wall charger, an earphone and a data cable with micro USB at one end and normal USB at the other end.

Specification of T-Pad IS703C

Processor: Cortex A8 1 GHz

Memory(RAM): 1GB DDR3

Internal Storage: 8GB

External Storage(Memory Card): T-Flash upto 32 GB

Camera: 0.3 Mega Pixel VGA

Operating System:  Android 4.03 ICS

Display: 7” Capacitive Multi touch with 800X480 pixel

HDMI: Supported with video output upto 1080P

G-sensor: G-sensor 3 planes

Conclusion

Some good things about T-Pad 703C are, it supports flash. Internet surfing is a good experience in this device and the speed is quite impressive. It has a good battery backup but takes a little time to charge fully (approx  4hrs). Let us tell about few negative things about this device, first of all absense of sim slot is a disadvantage as user will need to buy a supported dongle.It lacks presence of. It does not support have a GPS or AGPS chip so location will be a spoiler.

Though T-Pad 703C has got some impressive specifications like a 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM, it does not seem to work so fast. This can be a good buy for entry level users and students but for veterans this will be a disappointment. This being a BSNL co-branded tablet should come with some free goodies from BSNL like a supported 3G dongle. As Micromax dongles are advertised as BSNL device and that dongle not being supported in T-Pad will make people confused and disappoint. This device can be a good competitor to Akash as well as Micromax Fun book.