Wireless Cynic

My first impressions of the Kobo WiFi eReader

noreply@blogger.com (Wireless Cynic) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:03:00 +0000

I finally got around to buying an e-Book reader today and I am now an owner of a brand-new Kobo WiFi eReader. I spent a great deal of time looking into the various options, like the Kindle, and read a lot of reviews of the devices on the market. In the end, going for the Kobo was the most accessible option because I could walk into my local Futureshop and pick it up (it was also on sale, which helped).

This little first impressions isn't going to go into the nitty-gritty details and it's not going to go on a feature comparison spree. I am going to tell you what my needs are and whether the Kobo was up for the challenge.

The screen
I needed a device with a comfortably-sized screen and one that offered quality close to actual print. The Kobo delivers on both of my requirements. The 6" screen feels good (it's about the size of a page of a small paperback) and reading off it feels almost the same as reading an actual book. Some letters at some font sizes may appear slightly grainy if you examine them closely, but I didn't find that annoying or disruptive. I didn't experience any eye-strain after reading at medium font size for about 3 hours under natural light.

One gripe I have with the screen is glare. There isn't much of it, but sitting in direct sunlight produced enough glare to make it annoying and forced me to angle the Kobo in a different way.

The hardware controls
All I needed was something simple, intuitive, and non-intrusive. The controls on the Kobo are super simple: five buttons and a directional pad. Along with the power button on top of the device, the left side houses the Home, Menu, Store, and Back buttons. The buttons are easy to press and are rubberized. I would've preferred the four buttons on the left side to have been on top, as I don't use them much and would prefer two clean sides for a more comfortable grip.

The d-pad is on the right side of the front of the device, which seems a little odd to me. Depending on how I held the Kobo, pressing the d-pad to flip pages wasn't always very convenient and would force me to adjust my grip.

One instance when I wished the Kobo had a physical QWERTY keyboard was when I was putting in my WiFi network key. My key is fairly long and consists of letters and numbers so using the d-pad to pick out the characters on the on-screen keyboard was not a pleasant experience. But since I only have to do that once, it's tolerable. I don't intend on doing on-device purchasing of books or much searching (I will use either my computer or my smartphone for that) so a hardware QWERTY isn't necessary.

The software
In the software department, my needs are simple yet again. All I need my eBook reader to do is store a few books and let me manage my book collection through my computer. The Kobo is happy to oblige. It has 1GB of internal memory which is enough to store quite a few more than a couple of books and is more than I'll ever need. It also remembers where I left off so I can easily get back to the page I was reading after a break.

On the management front, the Kobo does come with Kobo Desktop software. However, I opted not to use it and use Calibre instead. The device came preloaded with 100 classic books which I didn't want to keep on the device. Removing them was quick and easy with Calibre's help. Transferring my ePub collection to the Kobo was also painless. I was all set up and ready to enjoy a book in a matter of a few minutes.

The verdict
All I wanted was a simple e-Book reader that wouldn't strain my eyes, offer easy book management, and was comfortable and pleasant to use overall. The Kobo delivers on all three. While I've only had the Kobo WiFi eReader for less than a day, I can safely say that I'm happy with it.

Tablets, tablets, and more tablets. Does anybody have an advil?

noreply@blogger.com (Wireless Cynic) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:01:00 +0000

Tablets seem to be all the hype nowadays: Samsung Galaxy Tab, iPad, iPad 2, BlackBerry PlayBook, Dell Streak, and I'm probably forgetting a few more. With so many devices to choose from, I find myself asking whether I want one. The answer I keep coming up with is "definitely not."

For a device that's not easily-pocketable, the smallest screen size I'm willing to accept is 13". At that size, I might as well get a fully-featured laptop. Most 13" laptops are moderately portable, can run a great deal more applications, have hardware keyboards for easy and quick typing, serve dutifully as both business and entertainment tools, and have considerably more storage space. Granted, a laptop is probably going to set me back $800 or so while the average tablet is half that price, but the value I'd get from a laptop is much higher than the value I'd get from a tablet.

I also call a tablet's portability into question. I don't see very many people playing with their tablets on the subway, bus, train, and in cafés. And although spotting a laptop on the subway or bus is about equally as rare, cafés are full of them. For those itching to touch their screens, a variety of products exists to turn ordinary laptop screens into touchscreens--and there's the old-fashioned tablet laptop.

I admit that I don't have much personal experience with tablets. I spent about an hour playing with an iPad but it wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience for me--in part because I dislike Apple's closed ecosystem. It felt like playing with a much bigger iPod. I assume that an Android tablet would offer a similar experience to the one I get with my HTC Desire Z, albeit with a larger screen and lacking the phone capability.

Is a tablet something I would want to get? No. I don't see tablets offering any benefit over a fully-featured portable laptop or even a netbook. What do you think?

I dreamed a dream; an Android dream

noreply@blogger.com (Wireless Cynic) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 02:33:00 +0000

I have a dream. I have a dream that, one day, an Android phone user will be able to browse through a catalog of OS versions and install the one he/she prefers instead of being limited to manufacturer- and carrier-specific customizations that may or may not work as advertised. I have a dream that HTC, Samsung, LG, and Motorola embrace the spirit of openness and allow their consumers to choose to void their warranties by unlocking their phones' bootloaders to make modifications to their device as they wish. I have a dream today!

Idyllic, isn't it? I find myself wondering whether my dream is too far fetched; I sure hope it isn't. Manufacturers stop supporting their devices quickly nowadays and opt to release a new piece of hardware every few months instead. But this is Android and, thanks to a bunch of very clever people from the Android development community, even users of the first generation phone--the HTC Dream (also known as a T-Mobile G1)--are currently enjoying the latest and greatest Gingerbread-y goodness.

I can't just point a finger at the manufacturers. They are in business to make money which, ultimately, means selling more devices. Some of the onus must lie with the consumers. Consumers must learn to expect that a smartphone can be customized to fit their specific needs. As phones get smarter, they must also become more flexible and customizable. It is unacceptable for a phone to provide a half-broken cloud service which syncs random contacts and is generally unhelpful without providing me with the option to completely remove it and replace it. It is unacceptable for a phone built on top of an ecosystem based on customization to force me to use a specific skin or set of applications.

When it comes down to it, I bought an Android phone because I wanted a phone I could customize to fit my needs. Thanks to the dedicated folks over at xda-developers, I got exactly what I wanted. I have a dream that every other Android user and those planning to become one get exactly what they want. I have a dream today!

Am I Paying Enough Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Wireless Cynic) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:31:00 +0000

Hypothetical situation: you have just broken free of your previous 3-year contract and are just about ready to sign on the dotted line for another 3-year term and a phone upgrade. You call in and spend an hour on the phone chatting with a customer service representative, declining all offers to upgrade your services which would double your monthly payments. All the details and prices are finalized when the representative informs you that you will need to pay an additional $25 administrative fee to be able to buy a new phone with your new contract. You're shocked and a little outraged. You ask what exactly you're paying $25 for and you get the typically-scripted response:

There are significant costs in terms of processing, administration, inventory management fulfillment, stocking, shipping and handling every time a phone is ordered.

Unfortunately, this situation isn't hypothetical.

I wholeheartedly agree with businesses making money. I understand that everything mentioned above is not free. I even, somewhat, understand why these costs weren't stealthily sneaked into the monthly cost of service plans. What I don't understand is why it suddenly became necessary to demand additional payment from customers when such payments were not necessary previously.

A quick glance through the above-linked thread will reveal several theories on the matter. The predominant sentiment seems to be that our incumbents are starting to feel the financial effects of customer attrition caused by new entrants into the Canadian wireless marketplace. Personally, I think we're missing some theories involving aliens. And tin-foil hats. I like tin-foil. Some people, however, seem to be of the opinion that those of us who have retention plans deserve to pay a little extra when upgrading our hardware. Apparently, we don't pay enough for our wireless services for the carriers to make a profit.

I may be naive when it comes to economics and business practices, but isn't it safe to assume that our carriers wouldn't offer retention plans so readily if they weren't making substantial amounts of profit, despite the heavily-discounted prices?

Who Do I Text Most? Who Cares?

noreply@blogger.com (Wireless Cynic) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:16:00 +0000

Among the myriad of useless mobile news postings (this one included, of course), I stumbled across this little gem: Sony Ericsson's Facebook fanbase texts more to their friends than to their parents.

There was no exact number of the number of responses bt [sic] the results came in with 60% of fans saying they text “friends” over anyone else. “Girlfriends” came in second with 20% and “Boyfriend” arrived in 3rd spot 12.5% of votes. Parents came dead last with only 7.5%.

First of all, who cares? There is only one valid reason to care about who someone is texting and that reason is control. If you're a parent, you probably wouldn't want your child texting dubious characters. If you're a dictator, you probably wouldn't want your citizens texting anyone you don't want them texting, if at all. If you're somebody's jealous significant other or ex-significant other, you probably wouldn't want him, or her, texting anybody except you.

Second, isn't this just a tad bit obvious? Let's work from the bottom up. Few people text their parents. Why? Because parents generally have better things to do than try to decipher your shorthand. Boyfriends are the second least-texted category, followed by girlfriends. Why? Women are more social than men and tend to have more friends. In addition, I'm sure many women would agree that boyfriends just don't get "it." Last, and the most-texted, category is friends. Why? Numbers. People tend to have a number of friends who share their interests and usually offer variety in communication topics and styles. Friends are the ones you turn to during times of adversity, triumph, indecision and boredom. Thus, you would expect friends to top the texting charts.

Why this topic is considered important enough to run a poll on and then publish the results is anybody's guess. Perhaps its creator should get more friends?

Never Fear Network Congestion with "Data Priority Service" from Rogers

noreply@blogger.com (Wireless Cynic) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 05:43:00 +0000

Rumour has it that Rogers is considering a priority-based access system to data services during times of network congestion. Customers who elect to pay for this service would have their data usage prioritized over that of those who do not. For a meager $10 a month, you can rest assured that you are less likely to experience the effects of network congestion while streaming a video or surfing your favourite website. During an earthquake. While everyone around you is trying, desperately, to tweet about it.

"The Data Priority Service is a new premium service that guarantees that in the event of any wireless network congestion, your data will be sent and received first. In other words, the Data Priority Service ensures that during busy network times, a subscriber’s data is always sent first, so if the subscriber to this service is web browsing and/or watching an online video on their mobile device they will be less likely than a non-subscriber to this service to be affected by any network congestion."

Let's assume, for a moment, that this is actually reasonable. I have an equally reasonable offer for Rogers. My service is called the Payment Priority Service. Incidentally, it also costs $10 per month.

This service is a premium service that guarantees that in the event of any cash-flow problems on my end, my monthly Rogers bill will be paid first. In other words, the Payment Priority Service ensures that during difficult financial times, my Rogers bill is always paid first so if Rogers is shrinking local calling areas and/or trying to charge random fees they will be less likely than a non-subscriber to this service to be affected by any financial difficulties I may encounter.