First ever Android-powered camera the Coolpix S800c by Nikon

We have seen how technology rises and Nikon has released the newest and the first Android-powered camera the “Nikon Coolpix S800c”. It’s really meant to link the worlds of mobile technology and cameras like nothing had before. With Coolpix S800c, you can have access to most apps for photo editing, sharing and shooting from a devoted camera.

As most of us know, smartphones swiftly develop into the most challenging to face the conventional compact digital camera since they have emerged in the market first. Nikon have stand up to this challenge to develop a camera that would become responsive to the masses, and now they introduce the Nikon Coolpix S800c. The first major camera manufacturer to widely open an Android mobile based operating system.

Smartphones are more persuasive as a photographic tool due to some reason. One of them is that, the devices are well connected to mobile data services that allow automatically uploading and sharing images. In addition, the benefit has come from those emerging apps and platforms with lots of third-party apps that would add new capabilities to the device that can be used. From those social networks like instagram, twitter, facebook, etc. to games like the most played Angry Birds.

The S800c is a full Android 2.3 (Gingerbread OS) device; it means that it can run through any apps equivalent to what a smartphone can offer. So you can improve images through Photoshop Express. Furthermore, there’s nothing could pass with a quick game of your choice from Temple Run or Angry Birds.

The Coolpix S800c as a compact camera still got the advantage through its larger sensors (having a better image quality, particularly in lower light), and the standard optical zooms a greater photographic flexibility, and also comes with a removable memory, having an easily expand and swap storage of your camera as what most smartphones could give. It offers the same 10x zoom lens and 16MP backlit CMOS sensor as Coolpix S6300 has, a great device of a compact camera capability and a full-function tablet computer.

Specifications of Nikon Coolpix S800c:

- 16MP 1 /2.3" – BSI CMOS sensor

- Android v2.3 Operating System

- Includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS

- 3.5" WVGA OLED touchscreen

- 25-250mm equivalent F3.2-5.8 lens

- 2GB of internal memory

- 1080p30 video

- Up to 8fps continuous shooting

As OS is concern, Gingerbread isn’t the latest version of Android, with 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) taking hold on flagship smartphones and 4.1 (Jelly Bean), though it’s the most commonly supported. Nikon isn’t that clear on whether it may upgrade to one of Android’s newer versions operating system, which enables users to use Chrome web browser. Most current apps are compatible on Android 2.3 OS.

As Nikon been the first to release the Android-powered digital camera than Samsung camera. If Nikon continues down to this path and hoping it does, with a more advance versions of Android merging with more sophisticated cameras. It would lead to a better digital control that comes next from the shuttering speed and white balance, augmented-reality games that take advantage of the optical zoom, and more…

Those would be an exciting promises and an edge over the growth of the new smart camera era. As a start, people need to respond to the Nikon Coolpix S800c and to convince the masses of an idea that a digital camera would behave like a smartphone. Would you do believe digital camera will rise with a different edge of innovation?

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Marking the next iPad (4th Generation)

Every year we’ve seen Apple announced new versions of their products and as seen this year iPad has released 3 of their model breaking their routine of releasing yearly, namely the New iPad (3^rd generation), iPad Mini and now coming to the line-up this year is the iPad 4 (4^th generation). It has almost been six months past that the New iPad (third-generation) that introduces a Retina Display ready iPad.

The iPad 4 has nothing new when it comes with build quality, design and construction over the New iPad. The dimensions as is, 186x241  x 9.4mm and 652g wifi model / 662g cellular model. Apple sticks to its rectangular shape rounded corners and edges consist of brush aluminum casing. This wouldn’t be an Apple device without its home button beneath the display. We can see an upgrade over its predecessor, particularly the front-facing camera of a 1.2 megapixel, having the ability to shoot videos in 720 and equipped with a high-definition FaceTime quality. As also seen one visual change on its design is the lightning connector instead of the 30-pin connector. All the rest are the same.

The fourth-generation hardware tablet has updated from its new processor, the A6X. A dual-core processor of a dual-core graphics is twice as fast over the A5 chip found it the third-generation iPad and with twice graphic performance. When it comes to the screen, there’s no change. Still having the 9.7in size with astonishing 1536x2048 Retina quality resolution on a LED-backlit IPS display. Also a huge changes made is the 4G connectivity, iPad 3 has marketed as a 4G capable and unfortunately this doesn’t suit UK’s 4G frequencies so Apple detached the claim.

The iPad 4 still sits on the same software, with a pre-loaded iOS 6 including Siri which is available on the iPad 3. Some notable and recent changes made to its operating system and that is switching between Google Maps and mapping system owned by Apple, as seemingly received deep criticism towards its flaws.

When it comes to battery life iPad 4 has 10 hours when intense browsing the web over Wi-Fi. Its complex to figure out the usage and weight as it depends on the way we use it. Each and everyone would use it on different task on a period of time.

With the release of the 4^th generation iPad do those 3^rd generation iPad owners be upset with those minor changes that iPad 4 had?

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Apple’s next move towards 20% hike by Samsung Electronics

I’ve read some reports about the rival Samsung and Apple. As most know, Samsung is the manufacturer of Apple’s chips and comes to a revelation that Samsung electronics had increased the price of its mobile processor by 20%, and just too only one of the Korean technologies giant’s customer “Apple”.

According to MarketWatch report that Apple purchased each and every application processor (AP) that is used on their smartphones and tablets for production. Samsung Electronics had dispersed an estimated volume of 130 million units last year and 200 million units this year of mobile processors. Samsung Electronics contract on providing chips is still effective until 2014.

Over viewing it, it’s more likely that Apple would be designing their own chips on the near future, to gain control the supply chain on their iPhones and iPads. And last month, Apple done some shuffling on their fortress, Apple’s former hardware chief Bob Mansfield was appointed as senior vice-president of technologies, giving a challenge to where he’s in-charge on attempting to the firm’s in-house semiconductor and chip-making, and disconnecting out with their third-party suppliers, Samsung Electronics.

Also coming on-board a former Samsung and AMD chip veteran Jim Mergard, hired by Cupertino. And Apple wants to retain its functionality chips as provided by Samsung Electronics.

MarketWatch tried to contact the two giant firms Samsung Electronics and Apple’s South Korea office to further run deep on the hike but declined to comment on it.

Let’s hear about your opinion on this and able to look over your vision towards some changes Apple made. Do you think it’s the best move?

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Samsung Galaxy Note 2 a Smartphone Tablet

One of the world’s largest smartphone maker had marked another success, Samsung persist to make innovation in the 2012 year ender and announces the Galaxy Note II smartphone-tablet (phablet).

We’ve heard and no surprise that Samsung Galaxy Note sold millions of dollars providing the masses last 2011. Now it’s time to see a Note for the second time around with bigger, sporty and new features of it.

The Curve

Galaxy Note 2nd generation carry a slightly larger display of 5.5-inches, 9.4 mm thick, slimmer than the original note (9.65 mm) and has a weight of 182.5g heavier than the original Note of 178g.

With in terms with its physical features the Note II hold on to the physical “home” button bordered by the Menu and Back. The power button is on the upper right edge and across of it is the volume rocker on the upper left of the device and the charging micro HDMI cable port sits on the base of the phone.

Its headphone jack (3.5mm) sits at the top and hidden at the base corner to the right is the accurate S-Pen. Behind of it is the 8-Megapixel camera long side its flash and at the other end its loud speaker. The Micro USB port sits on the bottom and a microSD card slot under the back cover. Taking off its back reveals the sim card slot and a removable battery.

The original Note when creating a call most likely draw strange looks putting into your ear but the Note II has curvier design that makes a feel not too large in your hand and seemingly suites on handbags or jacket pockets.

Stylus Pen

Samsung innovate several improvements to its S Pen experience, seen on the Note 10.1 tablet and ported to the phone side. The stylus now has hovering ability that made it possible behind the pen/screen interaction digitizer technology by Wacom. Greater sensitivity improved its palm rejection, that makes the Note II an even better note-taking device.

The S-Pen is more ergonomic and comfortable thanks to several design tweaks. The interchangeable nib is remarkably an improvement over the original Note, the writing feels more natural like a pen and paper.

Now S-Pen features are more even useful. The screen can now notice the stylus from several millimeters away, small dot display when it’s near. Hover over buttons to spot pop-up labels, hover at the top or base of scrollable content to roll without touching the screen or increase a picture over video w/o having to tap. However the frustrating one is that with some hover features such as the capability to read more lines in an e-mail without opening, just work on Samsung apps and it’s more likely to see this feature in Google app/ Play Store.

Specifications

The Note II has a quad-core Exynos processor on a 1.6 GHz. 5.5” HD Super AMOLED display, internal storage memory of 16GB with 2GB RAM, an expanded microSD slot storage, 4G LTE (depends on your territory), 8 Megapixel rear camera and 1.9 Megapixel front camera, built-in S Pen, NFC and a 3100mAh battery.  An HD Super AMOLED of a 5.5 inch display that a Galaxy Note II have a 1280x720 display at 276ppi, like the first Note having 1280x800 display and it’s weird why they cut down resolution for this. The Galaxy Note 2 actually has an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update.

The TouchWiz changes the way Android works, Jelly Bean has some terrific features such as placing one app icon on top of another to create a folder and activating Google Now through swiping up (instead, you access this from the Search widget or Recent Apps screen). With these several tweaks that make Android 4.1 work more like Android 2.3. It’s been really well appreciated that this is helpful for masses upgrading from an older versions of Android, some changes on Android Jelly Bean are both welcome and improvements over the way things used to work.

Conclusion

The Samsung’s big screen phone is worthy to have, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. It’s remarkable improvements like the battery life, performance and does it all while not adding bulk. Let’s face it a giant smartphone isn’t for everyone. The best choice available now that crave for a larger screens and don’t want a tablet, Galaxy Note 2 suites you.

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So Apple goes smaller “iPad Mini”

And the most awaited iPad mini now revealed the first smaller and newest member on the iPad siblings. It was unveiled together with the new iPad 4 and Mac mini of a stunning new 13in MacBook Pro Retina display. iPad mini release date is on the 2^nd of November.

With its launch (iPad mini) really comes with no great surprise, it’s basically a smaller version of the iPad 2, having the same screen resolution with an A5 processor, a bit of a twist and a flatter design. And as well it’s cheaper. The clash on the new iPad mini over Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7 would be a slayer on the tablet arena. Let’s take a look closer on the iPad Mini.

Screen

It has a fantastic look on a 7.9 display LED-backlit screen. Its colors are vibrant, sharp text, and a better mobile experience on the iPad sibling. Screen resolution is 1024x768 resolutions at 163ppi, identical on the iPad 2. With its resolution that an iPad mini has should be no problem running on any iPad apps that absolutely aren’t made for Retina display iPad. It should able to run on any iPad app with no difficulty. 

Build and Design

The iPad mini is flatter and squarer with a slightly different style. With the previous iPads, the glass screen runs right to the edge of it with a preference of a black or white for the bezel, and it’s much thinner than on the life-sized tablet.

With a 7.2mm thin (23% thinner than the standard iPad) and a 308g (0.68lbs) light (Wifi model). Lock buttons and volume rack has moved to the right-hand side, and on the top edge is the headphone socket, on the bottom is where the new lightning connector and speakers are found. This would be a definite competitor to Kindle in this view due to its special feature the updated iBooks continuous streaming, due to its weight and size reduction.

Performance

iPad Mini has a dual-core A5 chip processor that can power-up games, apps and browsing. And also loaded with LTE meaning it can be used on EE’s 4g network. With a super fast browsing on a 5GHz wifi with compatible routers as well. Rumors and speculation that iPad mini comes with an 8GB memory but sad to say still stick with the standard 16, 32 and 64 GB memory offered.

Camera

A dual camera that has both FaceTime and iSight cameras (front and rear cameras), the rear has an impressive 5 megapixel stills and 1080p video recording while front support a 720p video. A good advantage for taking photos with one hand more easier due to its size and more convenient than the iPad.

Software

It uses the Apple’s mobile latest software version the iOS 6 that was alongside released on the iPhone 5. We have seen that iOS 6 has some valuable changes, from its features proper integration on Facebook and Twitter, that you could directly post from just pulling down its notification bar.

A redesigned App Store that seems to look a bit better, this isn’t a world-changing with some dodgy changes aside from the Maps. Know more all about iOS 6.

Apple unveils its new iBooks app includes that support over 40 languages, which includes right to left page turning and also  it continuous scrolling mode.

 Battery

Apple states an impressive 10 hour battery life, giving an edge of a couple of hours over its nearest rivals. So it’s totally an advantage.

Say

As far with the iPad Mini, this would be a desired iPad yet. That has an improved mobile experience from its thinner shape, smaller size and lighter weight, a well built that can feel an easy hold and control in the hand and with a cheaper price on the market. Absolutely that iPad mini will really be searing in the market and will be a top seller for people on Christmas season.

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Samsung Galaxy 10.1 not the Tab but a Note

Then next in line for Samsung Galaxy Note series the Galaxy Note 10.1, first released a monster pack Galaxy Note 5.3 inch screen with useful S-Pen Stylus. Samsung is now taking its step to a full blown phablet.

To those who has been anticipating on what follows next of Samsung’s innovations, the tablet product lined-up might be confusing, noticed that Galaxy Note 10.1 is basically the same as the Galaxy Tab 2  10.1 except with the stylus support. The Note 10.1 has an upgraded feature to a Exynos 4 Quad chipset over the dual-core TI OMAP used in the Tab 2, with few upgrades to its camera, however the display remain identical and its core design as well.

But wait, there is more! The highlights that come with it includes an ARM cortex A9 quad-core chip processor running at 1.4 GHz, with an extended microSD card slot, a 5 megapixel AF camera with led flash, whooping 2 GB RAM and a 16GB of built-in memory. The sides are provided with a reasonable oomph pair of stereo speakers.

It comes with an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) out of the box but there are promises in the future that it would be upgraded with an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade.

Design

This is possibly the best to look and go through on what is good about the device and its vital components are located.

Flanked speakers to its left and right on its silver panel that runs around the edge through a white bezel, in front of it is the display in the center; on its top a front-facing camera and a light sensor. The front device is protected and super-smooth on a Gorilla Glass 2.

The Stylus/S-Pen is located on the right hand side (display facing you) with a hole along the bottom edge. It’s actually easy to remove and insert the Stylus/S-Pen, the S-Pen is slightly wider than it is tall, similar button features that you can find in the original Galaxy Note, thought it’s easier to push due to a much larger pen. The pen is reasonably ergonomic.

At the back, it’s just basically a huge slab plastic, with its fixed camera in the center on its silver panel. On the top edge is the power button, it’s generally found vaguely far into the center, also with its volume rocker, infrared port, microSD card slot, 3.5 headphone jack and SIM card slot.

This Note 10.1 is using a proprietary 30-pin connector for USB/charging connector which is somewhat irritating for me. The tablet is thin and light, in which it helps portability and also prevent exhaustion holding it for a long time.

Display

The Galaxy Note 10.1 has something that would surprise you to know. A 10.1 inch screen PLS TFT LCD panel has a fair 1,280x800 pixel. With some recent Android tablets with a full HD display like the Acer Iconia Tab A700 and Asus Transformer Infinity has an overwhelming sharpness resolution of 1,920x1,200 pixel. If the Note has an appealing creativity on images, a high resolution display this would be a winner, especially when iPad comes to a raving 2,048x1,536 pixels.

The screen still appealingly sharp, when watching my favorite YouTube clip especially those flurries of snow, is displayed well. It’s at least rather bolder and very brighter too, pleasingly deep blacks and standout colours as well. If you’re on to movies and spending time watching YouTube clips, satisfyingly superb.

Software

As Samsung creates as pretty much everything in the Android sphere, the Note 10.1 is with their TouchWiz custom UI atop Android 4.0 TouchWiz on its sensibly heavy skin, it show Samsung has given effort to change much of everything about stock extent on Android.

Conclusion

With its screen resolution, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 may crush by the iPad (3^rd generation), however features of a powerful quad-core processor and an S-Pen Stylus appeals to be creative. Even if you don’t have use for the pen, a swift overall performance, decent screen, sensible design and useful features that makes the Samsung 10-inch tablet the best.

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Price and performance counts on Galaxy Tabs (Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0)

As we know and it’s no doubt that iPad still reigns and been undisputed as supreme on the tablet market. When we talk about Samsung considering as a valiant fighter in the Galaxy Tab family, it’s really impressive that they had created the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and together with its smaller siblings as an eye-catcher in the tablet arena. With the 7 inch version has shown portability but do you think that it could rein supremacy?

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