Recently Nikon introduced to the world the new KING of DSLR cameras – Nikon D4. This is a high end professional camera which attracted many photographic lovers around the world and it is coming as advancement to the Nikon 3Ds. This camera is having many of exciting advanced high tech features for photography as well as cinematography like no other camera in the world ever offered.

Special Features

Expanded ISO Range

The main noticeable feature in Nikon D4 is its unbelievable ISO performance. It’s having 100 – 12, 800 standard ISO range and 50 – 204, 800 extended ISO range. There are few other cameras which offer similar ISO range but the main attraction here is noise performance.

Normally when you shoot in lesser ISO, sensor is less sensitive and has lower noise. It’s good if you have good light conditions in shooting environment. But when you have low light environment you have to increase ISO to achieve adequate shutter speed which also will make the images noisier. Due to that, having higher ISO alone is not enough. It has to be less noisy in higher ranges as well.

DxOMark.com has not yet tested Nikon D4 sensor, only previewed. However according to professional photographers who have tested this camera, noise level in Nikon 3Ds at ISO 6400 is equivalent to noise level in Nikon D4 at ISO 12800 which is amazing. This will let you shoot in higher shutter speed even under very low light conduction.

Image Sensor

The image sensor in Nikon D4 is nothing special other than its above mentioned ISO performance. It’s a Full Frame FX format CMOS sensor which is having 16.2 Mega Pixels.

However if you take a closer look in to the pixel size, it’s bigger than other similar type sensors. Its pixel size or pixel pitch is 7.3 µm. Most of the similar images sensors have pixel pitch less that 5 µm.

These bigger pixels give this camera the amazing capability of capturing maximum amounts of light and shoot under very low light conditions.

Super Speed Auto Focusing and Image Processing

Nikon is all about performance. It let you shoot fast action and time critical snaps like no other cameras. But with Nikon D4, it’s taking it to the next step.

The camera is coming with EXPEED 3 image processor which will give you amazing performance to your photography. 91, 000 pixel RGB metering sensor will give you accurate light metering in many different complex scenarios. MultiCAM 3500FX autofocus sensor works in very low light conditions and delivers super fast auto focusing with 51 point auto focusing system.

The auto focusing system offers a range of options for you. Mainly it gives you single point focusing (SF), area mode (AF), continuous (CF) mode and 3D tracking, same as in most of other Nikon DSLRs.

In addition to that Nikon D4 is having Object Tracking System which identifies the object in the given focal point and keeps focusing on to that object with any type of movements. This will be a great option for sports photography.

These features turn Nikon D4 in to a high performance low light shooting gear which is also having unbelievably fast low light auto focusing. Without having these advanced metering sensor and auto focusing sensor, Nikon D4 won’t be able to utilize the maximum power of its ISO range.

To make this high performance fast action photography capability even stronger, it comes with 10 fps continuous shooting mode. That allows you to shoot 10 pictures in one second with variable exposure and auto focusing as well. If you are using exposure lock you will be able to achieve the speed of 11 fps.

Live View

Same as in Other Nikon DSLRs, D4 is also having live view mode. It let you control different parameters to change the light and other image processing with real time reflection in the live view.

The specialty here is Nikon D4 is having two different live view modes for photography and movies with specialized set of features. In photography live view mode, it let you shoot in completely silent mode up to 24 images per second at 2 mega pixel resolution.

Full HD Videos @30fps

Nikon D4 comes with advanced movie mode which let you capture 1080p videos at 30fps. If you need to capture video and make it slow motion you can shoot at 60fps in 720p resolution.

The duration of a clip recordable at stretch has been increased from 20 min to 29 min and 59 seconds.

The most attractive feature here is Nikon D4 is capable of sending uncompressed video streams through HDMI out. It let you use a separate video storage device by-passing the camera’s storage. This is really a cool feature since there are lots of movie recording devices in the market which accepts HDMI input as the video source.

Connectivity

Nikon D4 is having USB connectivity which can be use to connect the camera to a PC and transfer the file. The brand new feature here is, it comes with LAN port as well, which will give you even better and faster data transfer.

Other than that it supports wireless adaptor like most of other Nikon DSLRs. But unlike other Nikon DSLR it let you control the camera remotely, through a PC, tablet or a Smartphone. Further, it’s capable of directly streaming the live view through Wi-Fi to a destination controlling device.

Storage

Nikon D4 is not supporting standard SD cards. It supports Compact Flash and XQD chips mainly having the objective of higher data transfer rate. There are other DSLR cameras which support CF, mainly the gears which are fine tuned for cinematography. But Nikon D4 is the first DSLR camera that supports XQD chip.

XQD is the next generation of removable storage which delivers ultimate reliability and performance. The main reason to include XQD in Nikon D4 is to get the speed and reliability to turn the device in to high end movie camera. This will be a huge advantage to win the Nikon-Canon war in DSLR cinematography.

Usage of Nikon D4

Low Light Photography

When it comes to Photography the main usage of Nikon D4 would be low light photography. Its exceptional ISO noise performance advanced metering and auto focusing sensor will make this possible. Photojournalists who are covering various music concerts etc will love to use Nikon D4.

To control the camera functions in low light environments, it comes with illuminated buttons in rear panel.

Other than that even when you are using an external light source, you will have the flexibility to control the light and capture what you really need. You will be able to minimize the usage of external lights as well. This will help you to save the battery life of your flash gun.

Sports Photography

Sports photography will require higher shutter speed to freeze the motion. To achieve higher shutter speed you need strong light and wide aperture. In the case you don’t have strong light condition, like in early morning or evening only wide aperture won’t help. There you have to increase the sensitivity of sensor to go for a higher shutter speed which is Nikon D4 is well capable of.

Other than that, it comes with ultra fast image processor, light metering and auto focusing sensor which will never let you miss a moment. When you do sports photography, you will use continuous focusing mode, 3D tracking mode or most importantly subject tracking mode.

These snappy performances will probably make the Nikon D4, the best gear for sports photography. Other than that, it is having a solid build with full Magnesium alloy body which is moisture and dust proof. Hence, you don’t have to worry about the durability when you take your camera to the sports fields.

For Cinematographers

Most of the advanced features of Nikon D4 are focusing on cinematography. Most of the previous Nikon DSLR also came with 1080p HD video but not 30fps. Most importantly there was no way to make real slow motions till this camera came with 60fps.

As a special feature there is a function to produce time lapse videos automatically. It takes pictures in a given interval and you don’t have to worry about producing it manually. Camera exports the entire set of images captured as a movie in 1080p resolution and given frame rate.

Nikon D4 is the first DSLR which streams uncompressed video through HDMI output. These open lots of new opportunities for movie producers. They can only use the sensor and image processor of the camera, with external display and recording device. This will give them the opportunity to expand storage unlimitedly and easily plug external video monitor.

Wireless adapter which comes as optional feature of Nikon D4 gives you the opportunity to connect an external device, stream live view and control the camera remotely. This will let the video producers to control the camera when it is mounted in to cinema rig.

Though Nikon D4 is having FX sensor, you can shoot videos in DX format. In that case it will give you 2.7 x extra zoom for your existing lens without reducing the quality of video which is 1080p.

Drawbacks

No argument that Nikon D4 is one of the best DSLR in the world. But it also has few minor drawbacks according to my point of view.

The main drawback is it doesn’t support common types of storage cards. It’s true that if you are doing cinematography, you need extra speedy storage. But if you are doing photography, it’s not that critical. In that case it’s really cool if you can use common type of storage card like SD.

When it comes to connectivity still Nikon D4 is not supporting USB 3.0 which let you transfer the files in a super fast manner. However, most if the professional photographers don’t use USB connectivity, but external card reader.

Most of the competitors are already providing RAW format support for videos, yet Nikon D4 is still having compressed MOV format though it has other high end cinematography features. Other than that it is a bit heavy and lot more heavily when you use it with a cinema rig.

Nikon D4 will be coming in to USA market by 2012 February and will start worldwide shipping really soon. It’s not surprising if this make a sales record in DSLR camera category with all these amazing features and market price $5999.95. You might say the price is too high, but compared to the features and facilities you are going to get, it’s a worthy investment.

The main difference between a Smartphone and Tablet is the screen size. If you make the screen size bigger, it will become less portable but more usable for many applications like Business and Multimedia. That’s where the “Tablet Trend” started. Smartphone always fits in to your pants pocket, does things almost the same as Tablet, yet limit you with a smaller screen. Normally Tablets devices comes with 8 or 10 inch screen while Smartphone comes with approximately 4 inch screen.

In the last quarter of 2011, a brand new device came in to the mobile device market with a brand new concept which is going beyond Smartphone and Tablet. This device which took my attention is Samsung Galaxy Note. It is almost same as Samsung Galaxy S 2, yet having bigger, 5.3 inch screen, yet smaller and portable than Samsung Galaxy Tab. This would be a new beginning of Tablet-Smartphone “Hybrid approach”.

Interesting Features

Screen and Interface

The major noticeable thing in Samsung Galaxy Note is its 5.3 inch Super AMOLED screen which supports HD resolution 1280 x 800 pixels. And it’s having 285 ppi density which gives ultra sharp images, only second to iPhone 4S. This device comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Samsung TouchWiz UI which was also a standard features in Galaxy S2 as well. The touch surface is protected by Gorilla glass which is scratch proof.

Other than the bigger screen, the next interesting thing that comes with Samsung Galaxy Note is its Smart Pen. This gives you more accurate control over the screen’s touch sensitivity than finger tips. The phone is having a compartment to keep the smart pen which reminds me of older version of Palm-top computer’s stylus.

Processing Power and Storage

The Samsung Galaxy Note comes with 1.4 GHz Dual Core processor which is the fastest processer ever built in to a Smartphone. Same as in Galaxy S 2 it comes with 1GB RAM and microSD card slot which supports up to 32GB. When you purchase the device it will come with a 2GB microSD card. Additionally it is having internal 16GB storage space as well.

Connectivity

Other than the traditional connectivity, Samsung Galaxy Note comes with 4G support. The underlying technology used is LTE 700. This is another significant improvement from previous Samsung Galaxy S 2. Other than that this device also support quad band GSM, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and micro USB.

Sensors

Sensors were one of the most interesting things in any Smartphone or Tablet. Most of the devices come with Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor and Digital compass. Samsung Galaxy Note is also having all of these standard sensors and additionally a Barometer which is new to Smartphone world. It let you measure the atmospheric pressure which opens lots of possibilities for application developers.

Potential Usage

Notebook or Idea Book

The new features of Galaxy Note open new possibilities to use it as a Notebook, if you think more creatively as an’ Idea Book’. It’s having a bigger screen than conventional Smartphone, yet portable than Tablet. Therefore it gives you good space to replace your paper based notebook, further turn it in to an idea book with the extended multimedia capabilities. Since you have the Smart pen you can even use the device as drawing canvas. The faster processor, 1 GB RAMS and improved GPU will make this experience even better. The inbuilt camera could be use to make photo and video notes wherever necessary.

This opens new opportunities for multimedia professionals. They can develop concepts in any environment where they are comfortable. They don’t like to type, but to draw. In here they can do that as well with the smart pen. Once they come up with something, they can easily connect to the main office through high speed 4G connectivity and deliver the concept or the artwork.

The same system could be use for e Journalism as well. Journalist can travel to any location and create multimedia rich article which conclude, images, videos and even sketches, then upload it to a web site using high speed internet, without using a PC at all.

Business Applications

The main limitation in Smartphones to use them as business organizers was their inadequate screen size and resolution. If you try to replace it with a tablet, it solves the screen resolution problem while introducing a new problem which is portability. Samsung Galaxy Note, the Tablet-Smartphone Hybrid approach, solves both the above problems giving bigger screen to run business applications while giving the maximum portability with smaller design which fits in to your pant’s pocket.

This would be an ideal device for business organizing applications as well as Stock trading applications. The bigger screen will accommodate visual representation of business status such as charts. The faster processor will let all the operations run smoothly while advanced 4G connectivity reduce the information delay drastically.

In near future we will be able to see most of the business people will be using this kind of hybrid devices replacing Smartphones and tablets. Laptop and Palmtop computers are already replaced by Tablets and Smartphones.

Navigation Device

Most of the people were using Smartphones as navigation devices and they worked just fine. But when dealing with different altitudes GPS error is significant. This will affect especially when you are using Google Maps Indoor Application with automatic level changes in a building. In most of the cases you have to manually enter the level that you are currently in. When you are in a complex motorway system the right place you are at should be pointed out using correct altitude as well since there could be many over head ramps in there.

Other than driving, when you are going on a Hike, knowing the exact altitude that you are in is very important. In that case horizontal location only won’t help. If you are in a Hot air Balloon, again it’s going to be very important to know the altitude accurately. In such cases GPS altitude accuracy is way not accurate enough.

To solve all the above problems Samsung Galaxy Notes comes with a Built in Barometer which use to measure atmospheric pressure, could be used to calculate the altitude accurately. With the aid of Barometer and Digital compass, GPS unit can pin point your location, especially the vertical location very accurately, which turns the device in to a dependable sophisticated Navigation device. You can use this with any GPS application not only to drive, but for hikes, hot air balloon travels, air travels and to find your way in multi stores buildings.

Drawbacks

Everything comes with a price, so is Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s an exceptional device yet having few drawbacks. The major one would be its battery life. Normally Samsung devices are having good battery life, yet this one will be having lesser due to the high speed processor and bigger bright screen.

When you increase the size of display, you must increase the size of device as well. Galaxy Note is having 5.3 inch screen so the device is also bigger than Galaxy S 2 which makes it relatively less portable. However it could still fit in to your pants pocket. Other than that it’s much heavier than galaxy S2.

Trends

Mobile Movies

Even with the previous versions of Smartphones there was “Mobile Movie” trend. There are some movie producers that specially produce movies for those devices. However there was no Smartphone capable of displaying standard HD videos. In that case you must use a tablet, which is again less portable.

With the arrival of Samsung Galaxy Note, it opens new opportunities for mobile movies with its standard HD 1280 x 800 pixels screen. Therefore users can enjoy HD videos in a much portable device and of course it will be a huge leap for Mobile Movie industry.

Stylus, Welcome Back!

I was always thinking that stylus is out dated since we have multi point touch screen which can be easily controlled by my finger tips. But if you want to do fine work, the stylus or a similar device would be the perfect choice. Samsung Galaxy Note is bringing the Stylus back to the show as a Smart Pen which convert the device in to a Drawing canvas. With this you will never miss your paper notebook. With the smart pen you can use your own handwriting to make notes digitally.

The device came in to the market just two months ago and it’s already attracted many people around the globe. Application developers will use the capabilities of this device to come up with creative applications. Especially I’m looking forward to see an application using the Barometer.

Finally, this is another giant step by Samsung, the famous South Korean electronic device manufacturer to dominate Smartphone and Tablet device market. They have already made their mark in most of other electronic devices categories and seems like nothing is going to stop them here as well.

In the year 2011, lots of attractive Smartphones came to the market mainly HTC’s Desire, LG’s Optimus 2X and 3D, Apples iPhone 4S and Samsung’s Galaxy S 2. If you take a closer look in to these phones you will see that early market leaders like Apple and HTC are going to be defeated by the new comers like LG and Samsung with the amazing features they offer. Out of all these competitors Samsung Galaxy S 2 stands tall due to very sharp features that it comes with.

Why It Became The Best?

Design

The major attraction of the Samsung Galaxy S 2 is its amazing design. It’s simple and usable single block. The rear panel gives good grip to the device while smooth front panel give you amazing touch screen experience. The built is pretty solid and appears to be durable. When it comes to dimension, it’s very thinner (only 8.5mm) than many other competitors, yet larger in width and height of course to accommodate huge display. Even if you consider the weight, its way lighter (Only 116g) than most of other same level competitors. In front panel every component is placed in scientific manner, well proportionately. Touch buttons are highlighted by a backlight which is very smooth design. Proximity sensor and the front camera are also carefully integrated with the design. If you take a look at the rear panel, camera and LED flash is seamlessly integrated with design in much protective way.

Operating System

Another major contributing factor the Galaxy S 2 to become the best is its Android Mobile OS. It comes with the version 2.3, Gingerbread. Since its open source, Samsung has developed its own version to go with the device and its features. The popular Samsung TouchWiz UI comes with this device as well. Android has recently developed another version named ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ which is also going to come for Samsung Galaxy S 2, though the time frame for that is not yet specified.

TouchWiz UI

Hardware

The hardware that comes with Galaxy S 2 is totally unbeatable, by any Smartphone available. It’s having Cortex A9 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 1 GB RAM, 16/32 GB internal memory which turns it in to a super fast mobile device. This enables fast internet browsing, data connectivity and gaming as well. Built in Accelerometer, Gyroscope and proximity sensor enhance the gaming experience even more. As a standard feature of any Smartphone it comes with a built in compass and GPS-A device. There is a 3.5 mm audio out and micro USB device which also could act as HDMI out. Phone comes with plenty of storage, yet if you need more storage there is a microSD slot card which support up to 32GB.

Display

Galaxy S 2 is having 480 X 800 pixels 4.3 inch display with pixel density of 217 pixels per inch which is pretty much standard. But it’s a Super AMOLED display which gives you contrasting colors with 16 million colors.  This display is good enough for general operations, web browsing and gaming as well. It’s coming with multi touch sensitivity again pretty much standard for any Smartphone. Display is covered with a denser glass called Gorilla glass to protect the display from scratches.

If you take a look at the battery usage of Samsung Galaxy S 2, talk time, standby time etc, you will be amazed by those figures compared to other Smartphones. The major contributing factor for this is its display which is specially designed to save battery life while delivering an excellent user experience.

Camera

The image quality of Samsung Smartphones was always good and it’s going to be the same with Galaxy S 2 since it’s coming with 8 Mega pixels camera. The camera is accompanied with a LED flash which allows you to take photographs in low light. However single LED flash is way not enough for dark photography. The camera provides you touch to focus auto focusing system, face recognition and image stabilization. Other than still imaging it support 1080p full HD videos at 30 fps which turn your Smartphone in to a professional quality camcorder.

If you consider the front facing camera, which is there for video conferencing, is also having 2 Mega pixels. It’s a way good figure compared to other phones and of course you can use this camera as a digital mirror as well.

Web Browsing

Another major usage of Smartphone is web browsing on the go. Samsung Galaxy S 2 provide excellent platform for you to browse web with the power of Android Platform and high speed data connectivity. Galaxy S 2 supports up to 42.2 mbps HSDPA connectivity. Additionally it comes with built in Wi-Fi to connect to internet in hotspots. Therefore you can surf through the fastest possible way on this earth. Other than that controller in the browser is very user-friendly, especially when it comes to scrolling down, Zooming in/out and open another browser window.

Apple iPhone never had a browser that supports Adobe Flash player which was a major disadvantage of that device. Further it never supported JAVA applications as well. Samsung Galaxy S 2 is having both these advantages which give more flexibility to the users.

Conclusion

Samsung Galaxy S 2 Smartphone has most of the advanced features among all the Smartphones that came in year 2011. If I think about what I wish to be there is, more sharp screen with high resolution and greater pixel per inch like iPhone 4S. Other than that I wish it comes with 3D display like HTC Evo 3D or LG Optimus 3D. Apart from that in other aspects it tops the list. Especially the processing power, huge RAM and storage, super bright display, thinner design, excellent battery life and multimedia capabilities obviously make Samsung Galaxy S 2 the best Smartphone that was introduced to market in year 2011.

Down the time with Smartphone, the main requirement that users were demanding were their speed. The reason behind this is many people partially replace their Lap top computer with these devices. So they need the speed as good as Laptop. Before 2011 most of the time Smartphone were having like 1GHz single core processor which is way behind compared to Laptop.

In early 2011 LG come in to the market with exceptional Smartphone and that was named as “LG Optimus 2X P990”. The name says it all. After this earth witness a dual core Smartphone which is speed almost same as an average Laptop. This attracted lot of public attention in that time. Over a less than one year of time, this device changes the global expectation of a Smartphone. Actually it redefined the standard for a mobile device by making lots of impossible things possible.

Features and Functionalities

Processor and Hardware

The main attraction in this device is its processor. It’s Dual Core Cortex A9 Processor with 1GHz clock speed. This platform let you run many applications in the same time due to outstanding multi-tasking capability.  And it comes with GeForce graphic processing unit and Tegra 2 chipset. This GPU let you to connect this device with HD TV to mirroring video. This specification picture a Laptop in my mind not a Smartphone. Surely this device will be a huge threat to Laptop sales. It’s having on board 8GB storage for contacts and SMS with 512MB RAM. Additionally there is a card slot support microSD chip up to 32GB. Phones dimensions are 123.9 x 63.2 x 10.9 mm and 139g weight.

Display

This is one of the most important features in any Smartphone. Here is it 16 million colors LCD with multi touch sensitivity. Size is 480×800, 4 inch, pretty much standard for android Smartphone, yet approx 230 pixels per inch which is great. The touch sensitive screen is protected with denser glass, called Gorilla glass. To identify the user’s motions there is Accelerometer and Gyro meter together, same as in latest iPhone. And there is a Digital compass as well. These sensors could be used to display auto rotate and more sensitive gaming applications as well. To support the operating system function there are few hardware keys at the bottom of the display.

Multimedia

This handset comes with excellent multimedia capabilities. Its supports all common video and audio formats long with image formats. If you want to mirror your HD video in TV there is a HDMI cable comes with. According to many individual reviews on internet HD video playback is very sharp and less nosy. The audio play back with loudspeaker is quality enough, yet nothing outstanding compared to other Smartphones. However there is a 3.5mm audio out gives you total flexibility to extend your audio experience with 2X, may be by connecting your home theater audio system. This audio and video out comes in handy when you play games with the device. Further the device support advanced video compression like DivX, Xvid, H.264, MP4 and WMV. Unlike in many other Smartphone, this support Adobe Flash player version 10.1, so you won’t miss your favorite YouTube.

Camera

LG Optimus 2X is equipped with two cameras. Front camera, 1.3 mega pixel for video conferencing and it works pretty well for self portrait, as a digital mirror as well. The very special one is the rear camera. It is 8 mega pixels with LED flash, importantly the lens is covered with outer glass for protection. This is capable of capturing images with resolution 3264×2448 pixels. This is having advanced auto focusing system with, face detection and touch focus. To reduce the image blurring due to camera shake there is a digital image stabilizer system. Whenever GPS signals are available it attaches GEO tag to the image as a Meta data. Further the rear camera is capable of capturing 1080p HD videos in 24 fps and if you need 30fps you can go down to 720p resolution. The video looks professional and sharp enough to any online publishing.

Operating System

The device originally comes with the famous open source mobile OS Android version 2.2 and it’s upgradable to version 2.3 as well. Same as in any other Android Smartphone, its gives you versatile control over user interfaces and other functionalities. Further it allow you to install JAVA application, which open your device to millions of free world of applications. If you take a closer look you will see that standard android home screen is altered in LG Optimus 2X. Generally almost all the application loads faster in here than any other android device, due to the advanced hardware platform. And touch responsiveness and navigation is also pretty fast. However there are some identified bugs in the software in LG Optimus 2X, probably due to the non optimized source code in OS lead to application crash. And there is another complains from the users that phone is consuming more memory just to load the OS. These things had made this great device unpopular.

Connectivity

Today, the phone is only a feature in a Smartphone. So, people don’t talk much about the GSM connectivity to make telephone calls. Yet it’s very important, since the major usage of the phone is make calls and send SMS though there are 100s of other features. LG Optimus 2X comes with all the modern connectivity, to make phone calls as well as Data. It support quad band GSM including 850/ 900/ 1800 and 1900 for conventional phone calls and SMS. Since most of the applications require data connectivity and of course you need to browse on the run it gives you 3G connectivity with HSDPA. Other than this it comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity as well. To connect the device with PC to sync data there is a Micro USB version 2.0 port, cable comes with the package.

Market Impact

Price Curve and Guinness Record

Normally sometimes after introducing a phone to market, its prices get reduced to certain level and get stabilized. But with LG Optimus 2X it didn’t happen that way.  According to cellpex.com price curve, it’s same today as the launching month. That represent continues demand to the device throughout the time. However this trend might get disturbed due to serous software issues in the operating system. And LG Optimus 2X could make its mark on Guinness Record book becoming “First Smartphone with Dual Core technology” which is amazing milestone for LG.

iPhone

The main competitor of LG Optimus 2X would be famous apple iPhone 4S which having almost same functionalities. However no Smartphone could compete with the iPhone so far in the market, not because of technology, but because of highly creative marketing campaign. At the same time LG Optimus 2X having the disadvantage of software bugs which is having only a patch as a solution. Other than that LG Optimus 2X having advantages like JAVA applications and Adobe Flash player to stand over iPhone.

HTC Android Devices

At the same time it will have to compete with the other Android phones like HTC. They are already doing well in market and gradually become a threat to famous iPhone as well. According to the market statistics, if you consider the number of HTC Android handset sales, it has already surpassed the number of iPhone sales.

The LG Optimus 2X having the advantage of be the first in the market, yet it won’t be enough to continue to survive. LG will have to take bold steps to correct the minor software issues which become bigger problems to usability. I’m pretty happy with their hardware, probably the best hardware for the Smartphone available in the market. With the solution to their software issues they will be able to give good competition to iPhone and HTC and capture significant market share down the time. And I’m curious to know what the next big Smartphone move of LG.

In the first quarter of the year 2011, apple introduced iPad 2 as a continuation and improvement to the previous iPad. It contained lots of more cool features and new technologies. Again same as before sales hit the sky and people started using iPad 2 like crazy. It became a day to day item than a high tech magic in matter of months. In this article I’m going to take a look in to social impact done with the wide spreading of Apple iPad 2.

Specification Overview

• Processor
• Apple A5
• 1GHz
• Dual Core

• Operation System
• iOS version 5

• Display
• 9.7 inch
• LED Backlit
• Multi Touch sensor
• Fingerprint resistant

• Storage
• 16 GB
• 32GB
• 64GB

• Sensors
• Gyro meter
• Accelerometer
• Light Sensor
• Compass

• Connectivity
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth
• UMTS/HSDPA

• Camera
• 720p HD video
• Front VGA
• 0.7 Mega pixel rear
• 0.3 Mega pixel front

• Battery life
• Up to 10 hours

• Online service
• Cloud
• App store
• iTunes

In my first look I didn’t notice many differences in tech specification. But when I take a closer look there are very important improvements. Mainly they have increased the processing power from A4 chip to A5 dual core chip which will give you double the processing power. And previous iPad didn’t have any camera while this one has 2 with 720P HD video recording. Happy news for mobile games, iPad 2 comes with Gyro meter which give you more precise control when you play games with physical movements. Previous one only had a accelerometer which capture only movement of device not the movement relative to gravity. These features have enabled whole lot of new possibilities with iPad 2.

Usage Impact

Games

The iPad 2 comes with lots of favors for gaming. Its processor, highly accurate multi touch screen and special motion sensors like gyro meter turn it in to excellent gaming device. Lots of games developers have take the advantage of improvement of iPad 2 and came up with cool concepts. Most popular one would be car games and the most interesting part is you can drive the car considering the device as the steering wheel. With new gyro meter you can do more than previous accelerometer. I believe that game developers have not yet taken the full advantage of gyro meter and its capabilities, yet soon we will be able to see cool game which uses this new hardware. I wish there is a game which help us to work out, especially aerobics properly by guiding us detecting our movements.

Scientific Application

Other than the general public, iPad has dominated the scientific and academic world as well. Most of the scientist and researchers are using iPad as their notebook and data collection device. When they are working in field, this becomes really handy. There are custom developed applications which allow the researchers to store new data in central database and a retrieve the data as well. Improved connectivity options of iPad 2 have made those possible. The data could be presented to the researcher in various different graphical ways with the 10 inch display. Additionally they are using it as a communication tool, especially for video conferencing with the aid of front camera.

Graphic Designing

Many of the expert graphic designers and art directors are using iPad as their idea book. They are drawing  sketches using multi touch screen and edit them using special software. With the improved multimedia capabilities and graphic acceleration this kind of work will become even easier and efficient. Additionally they can get the use of gyro meter to come up with graphic design with physical movements like smudge painting. Since iPad 2 comes with a camera capable of capturing stills and720p HD videos they can record their inspiration on the run and attach them in to their portable digital idea book.

Music Production

In music production software, it’s very difficult to handle its control surface with mouse and key board. To make controlling easier music produces were using hardware control surfaces. Still there were problems, like its very difficult upgrade hardware surface with the rapid improvement of software. Purchasing new and upgraded hardware surface was very costly. iPad and its multi point touch made music produces world much easier. They could extend the PC or MAC software interface to iPad and control it with touch screen. In this case, dealing with software upgrades is effortless. This comes handy when they are working with mixers and their faders. This made it very easy to program and automation while mixing audio. And this made it very easy to program drum beats with drum machines. One of the most popular music production software re designs their interfaces to work with touch devices in their latest version. They came up with special drum machine named Kong Drum Designer with big buttons which works amazingly with touch devices. With the improvement of processing power in iPad 2 all these processes became smooth with lesser latency.

Stock Trading

Stock traders are set of people who deal with lots of information and make quick decision. iPad gave them perfect solution to their needs. iPhone is having too small display to give what they want. With iPad mainly they are reading news. 3G connectivity always helps this. And news is not enough then need stock market statistics and software to execute orders. Again iPad provides versatile solution to install application, visualize data in big 10 inch screen and place order with the Wi-Fi of 3G connectivity. One of the most popular stock trading software, Direct FN Pro has released iPad version of the software. This software work with iOS 5 and let the traders to get the market statistic, visualize them with charts, apply market indicators and place orders. You will find more information about this iPad application in here, with screenshots.

In early time most of the investors were reluctant to use these kinds of devices considering the performance issues and connectivity issues. A delay of one second may lead to loss of many millions in finance game. I believe that iPad 2 has given a solid solution to those investors to be confident and do their trading on iPad with its Dual core A5 processor and 3G or may be Wi-Fi connectivity.

Market Impact

Same as in any other apple product iPad 2 hit the sky with its sales soon after its launch. According to statistics it shows even bigger sales in first few hours, than previous version of iPad. Within 24 hours after launching, recorded number of sales were nearly 500 000 devices. At the same time it took the large proportionate of Laptop market. After launching iPad 2, there were significant dropping of sales of Laptops, since iPad 2 practically replace and gives better experience than conventional laptop. And there were huge improvement of gaming with iPad 2. Sales of iPad gaming application were boosted by more than 100% and 17% of iPad 2 users mainly used the device as a gaming platform. This is again huge improvement compared to 9% with iPad original version.

This amazing device changes the world of good with its amazing capabilities and made a significant impact on global life style. It introduces the easier way to do things as well as totally new ways to do things. It redefine the way we game, create computer base graphics, music and many more. This impact will surely continue and make the earth a better place with the creative contribution of iOS software developers and Apple team.

What Is a Crop Type DSLR

In the early stage of DSLRs, their image sensor size was very small relative to 35mm film. Hence, when it comes to professional photography, they never used DSLRs. They were limited to non-professional home usage. Down the time various different manufactures could come up with DSLRs with large image sensor like previous analog film, called full frame cameras. Their image sensor also was 35mm. However, if you consider the cost factor they were always many 1000s of dollars. Before those full frame cameras comes there were crop type cameras with smaller sensor, yet good enough for semi professional usage. Their image sensor size was like 23mm and around. With the technological improvements of image sensors they also could produce professional quality images, yet comes for affordable prices and quickly got popular among semi professional users.

There are many semi professional crop type cameras and specially designed focal length corrected lenses available for them in market. They have having exceptional image capturing capabilities and HD video capturing capabilities as well. Top of all most of them have total automated mode which convert your DLSR to point and shoot camera, which is good for most of home users. Lots of manufactures compete to get their market share and according to my study the best crop type DSLR camera you can find in the market it Nikon D7000.

Background

Nikon is Japan based electronic items manufactures and they produce array of optical equipments. Their most popular products are cameras. In the category cameras they have produces SLR cameras, DSLR cameras as well as point and shoot digital cameras. They were producing SLR cameras for decades and considered as one of the best manufactures. And their NIKKOR lenses considered as world’s best optical equipments not only limited to cameras, but extended to even military applications.

Back in 1999 Nikon introduced D1 which was a crop type DSLR. It only had 2.7 megapixel CCD image sensors, yet provided many other advanced features like any other modern DSLR. Nikon crop type sensor also called as DX format sensor. When you ate using lenses with DX format sensors, they behave differently that in Full frame sensors. In that case images seems little zoomed than normal. In order to solve that confusion Nikon has produced lenses for DX format cameras. With the time number of megapixels in the Nikon sensors got increased, CCD sensor changed in to CMOS and ISO performance got better. With all those improvement Nikon gave birth to one of their revolutionary DSLR, Nikon D90 back in back in 2008. It was having 12.3 megapixel sensor and Nikon D movies which is the movie recording capability was initially introduced with this camera.

With the extreme popularity of Nikon D90, the market demand for even better crop type camera which offer same and more functionalities than D90. As a result Nikon introduce the D7000, the best crop type camera ever produced.

Attractions in D7000

Image Sensor

The most attractive feature in the Nikon D7000 is its image sensor. Its dimension is 23.6 mm × 15.6 mm with 1.5 crop factor. It’s having 16.2 megapixels and capable of produce 4,928 × 3,264 sized images which are good for any professional application. Color space is RGB and bit per pixel is 14.  Same as D90 it’s using CMOS sensor which is having very much lesser noise than previous CCD sensor and having significantly improved low light capturing capabilities. The sensor in D7000 supports 100-6400 ISO range and with the additional ISO boost it could go up to 25600. However in the high ISO ranges image could be too much nosier. According to the most of reviews available in the internet D7000 is having the sensor with best ISO noise performance. You can find more details about D7000 image sensor on DxOMark.

Semi Magnesium Alloy Body

D7000 was introduced as an improvement to previous D90. One of the most significant improvements I can find here is its semi magnesium alloy body. D90 was having total plastic body. Most of the high end professional cameras bodies are built with magnesium alloy which ensure its maximum durability. Additionally it makes the camera weather shielded as well. In D7000, its top and real plates are built with magnesium alloy which called semi magnesium alloy body. This could be identified as effort that Nikon put in to this to inherit some of the high end professional features like in D300S in to D7000.

Auto Focusing System

Auto focusing system is one of the critical success factor in semi professional DSLR. When it comes to High end cameras it could be not that significant because professional photographers love to use manual focusing. But in here the users are mainly non professional home users. To make their life easier with D7000 it comes with 39 point autofocus system. Further it comes with single servo mode, continuous servo mode and total manual focusing if you need it. Additionally it equipped with 3D tracking more which comes handy when you shoot rapidly moving objects.

In single servo mode user can select the focusing point or he can let the camera to choose the best one possible. In the continuous mode camera continue to focus with the changes in frame. If 3D tracking mode is enabled it uses advance algorithm to identify the subject and keep it in focus. If the subject is not focused normally camera won’t allow you to shoot it, yet you can easily change this settings.

When you are using movie mode unlike in previous D90 you can use auto focusing with D7000. It give you array of options like wide area mode, normal area mode, subject tracking more as well as face priority mode. This gives you opportunity to focus while you shoot a video with much more accuracy. However if you are using built in microphone it will record auto focusing noise along with the video.

Full HD Video Recording

Nikon D90 launched the D movie mode with 720p HD video recording and it attracted the most of users who love to do cinematography with DSLRs. As the upgrade D7000 comes with 1080p HD video recording up to 24fps which give you opportunity to make cinematic movies. D90 didn’t offer you a manual move mode. Hence the exposure will be automatically controller. Sometimes this give you trouble when you try to balance the amount of light in the video. Once you reduce the environment light the camera automatically increase the exposure compensation. This could be solved by the exposure lock yet not the perfect solution.

In D7000 you have manual move mode which allow you to change the shutter speed, ISO and white balance even while you shoot video. The change you are going to do will reflect in the live view real time. However still it won’t low you to change the aperture while you record a video like in most of the latest Canon DSLRs. Additionally it doesn’t support high frame rates like 30fps and 60fps which help you to produce real slow motion.

There are several award winning short movies available in YouTube shoot with Nikon D7000 which shows its exceptional video capability. You can see some of them here.

Accessories and Lenses

There are various accessories that go with Nikon D7000. One of the most popular one is its Battery Grip also called as MD-D11. It allows the photographer to shoot portraits easily with the extension to the camera body and allow using extra batteries as well. And there is range of flashes available which you can use to night photography.  Same as Nikon D90, D7000 also having Nikon F mount which give your opportunity to empower your D7000 with any NIKOOR lens according to your requirement.

If you are going to do cinematography with D7000 there are various accessories, mainly camera stabilizers. Most of the standard DSLR equipments go with Nikon D7000.

Statistics

After the introduction of D7000 it attracted the most of the semi professional users as well as professional users. Most of the professional photographers started to use this Nikon D7000 as their back up camera. According to the statistic in Flicker, one of the most  popular photo sharing community usage is D7000 is continue to increase after it launch, yet D90 is having most number of users. There are 9,961,804 photos in Flicker which was captured by D7000 at this moment and 2314 average daily users.

According to its market share, reviews, technology and capabilities, Nikon D7000 has proved that it’s the best crop type camera in the world. Nikon cameras will continue to evolve with latest technologies and soon we will be able to witness another crop type camera which is suitable for semi professional usage, which will be better than D7000 and comes with affordable price. Since then, D7000 will rock the show.

Even in professional photography, experienced photographers face problem with focusing. Some of them are using advanced auto focus system in DSLR cameras, still run in to above problems. Some of them are focusing manually to get what he really need, yet it takes time and effect is again irreversible. When they are covering an event with lots of fast motion and lots of objects like sports festival, they can focus only one object at a time. When they try to focus on another object, it will become totally different frame due to movement in objects.

In order to address above issues a revolutionary digital camera coming to market in early 2012 with the name Lytro. It allows the photographers to select the focus point of the image even after taking the photograph. So photographers can capture the fame without thinking about the focus point. Further they can compose different photograph from same image simply by changing the focus point to different objects. Importantly focus point change could be done anytime, may be after years of taking the photograph as long as you have the original RAW file. The secret behind this concept “Shoot Now, Focus Later” is the Light Field Sensor.

History of Light Field Sensor

History of Light field sensor goes back more than 15 years. It was initiated by Stanford University as a research project. In early time it required a super computer to process the captured light field and clean room environment for most of the equipments. Therefore it was limited to very high end applications like space photography and academic research. The company, Lytro founded by Dr. Ren Ng, light field sensor researcher in Stanford, back in 2007. He was very careful to make this a secret till he come up with a good result. His objective was to develop a light field camera which can be used by any general user. As a result, the first light field camera was announced in 19^th October 2011. The specification of Lytro is been officially released by now. They accept online orders and camera is ready to be shipped by early 2012.

Technology

Conventional Image Sensor

Any conventional image sensor found in point and shoot cameras as well as advanced DSLR cameras identify the color and amount of light in each pixel to generate image. The entire focusing mechanism will be controlled by the attached lens kit. Different lens kit could be use to generate different type of focusing effects by controlling depth of field and angle of capturing by altering f stop and focal length. Therefore the image comes to sensor is already been focused and it just captures it. Hence focus point is burn in to image and it’s irreversible. Though we call it capture a moment using a camera, actually it does is capture a selected set of light rays in a moment and omit entire remaining.

Light Field Sensor

When it comes to Light field sensor it capture extra details of light rays unlike in conventional image sensor. It captures amount of light and color in each pixel as usual. Additionally it records the direction of the entire light rays as well. The direction of each light ray will be stored along with the image as vectors. Therefore light ray processor can re generate the image with a different focus point. The calculation of focus point and depth of field will be based on above mentioned extra details of direction of light rays recorded as vectors. Therefore light ray sensor actually captures the moment and records entire lights rays in the field, called “Living pictures”. The term “Frame” is no longer usable in Photography. Photographers will have to call it “Field” with this new technology.

Advantages of Light Field Sensor

The major advantage of light field sensor is photographer can capture the moment without worrying about the focusing. It gave birth to the concept “Shoot now, Focus later”. The creative application of this would be limitless since you can choose various different focus points in exactly same image capture in one moment. In addition to that this could be use to fast action photography since you can capture more photographs in a minimum time due to reduced or zero focusing delay. Another main problem faced in conventional image sensor was low light performance. Most of the cases the images taken in low light environment were too noisy and unusable. The light field sensor capture entire light rays in field, hence it is providing exceptional low light performance which allow you to do low light photography even without a flasher. The images captured using light field sensor could be use to deliver 3D photo experience to users, mainly in web applications. This could be expanded to social media as well which allow the user to share 3D images with friends. This kind of service is already providing by Lytro where you can upload the picture to Lytro and embed it in any social media site as 3D photograph.

Shape of Lytro

Lytro is the very first consumer digital camera that comes with light field sensor. The look and feel of the camera is different as it uses different revolutionary technology inside. It looks like a box. In one end you can find the lens while other end holds LCD touch display to control the camera functionalities. It comes in 3 different stylish colors which are hot red, graphite and electric blue. There are 2 versions of camera which has different storage capacity

• 8 GB – 350 Pictures
• 16 GB – 750 Pictures

The lens is providing 8X optical zooming and F/2 aperture throughout the zooming range. The captured light fields (can’t call them images anymore as I said before) could be exported to a Software which allow you to select the focus point and continue with other editing. This software is capable of changing focus point and re-processes the image with appropriate depth of field using the direction of light rays recorded as vectors. However it still having only MAC version, yet according to the official Lytro web site windows version of the software is coming soon.

Lytro will be start shipping in USA in the early 2012, and through the official web site you can reserve yours. 16 GB camera is $499 and 8 GB one is $399.

Evolution of Lytro

The early light field camera required a high end super computer, yet within a short period of time the magic of technology could warp the super supercomputer based light field processor in to a handy box and convert it to a consumer digital camera. The speed of technology gives us sign where this light field sensor goes next. Its next target would be mobile smart phones. They already have high end cameras built in with still imaging capabilities as well as HD video recording capabilities. There is no reason to stop including light field camera in a near future mobile smart phone.

The current light field camera Lytro comes with 8X optical zooming which is a good enough to do day to day photography. In near future it will be equipped with even more powerful zooming lens and dominate mainly the sports optics and then space photography as well.

Lytro, the light field cameras has already revolutionaries the photography industry and it just a beginning. It will attract lots of customers with its exceptional imaging capability “Shoot now, Focus later”, stylish design and good price. The day when we can find Light field camera in every ones’ pocket is not too far.

Thunderbolt was developed by Intel under the code name Light Peak, while they are quick to point out Apple’s collaboration as well. Thunderbolt has a long list of features that are sure to astonish any computer geek and amaze the average user. First of all, its dual-channel design enables it to run a data intensive device on one channel with additional devices on the other channel. Since Thunderbolt is also dual-protocol (PCI Express and DisplayPort), the same connection port can accommodate an external drive, a video monitor, or any compatible device. Bundle these features with the option of an optical or electrical connection, support for bus powered units, along with other technical goodies, and it seems, “They’ve thought of everything.”

Apple, who just has a way of staying in front of competitors, debuts the technology in their newest MacBook line of laptop computers. As touched upon, Apple collaborated with Intel to bring about Thunderbolt. In other words, with these parties involved, there’s a good chance Thunderbolt will live up to the expectations – and wow what expectations!

By now, you may be starting to ponder the question, “Does this mean I have to buy a bunch of new peripheral devices if I buy a computer with Thunderbolt?” The short answer is no, it seems USB, Firewire, and other compatible devices can be connected using adapters. This is important if you already own some nice external drives and other peripherals.

So what will Thunderbolt mean for users? A super fast, almost universal connection that supports many existing peripherals or another standardization to deal with? Sure it’s new technology and with that brings questions, but Thunderbolt seems well thought out in terms of backwards compatibility and its speed and agility could make a few upgrades more than worthwhile.

It is too early to tell if Thunderbolt will end up on every computer that comes to market. It may be that some premium systems have it, but budget ones do not – initially that is. One thing for sure, it is such an enticing development, it is sure to be a consideration for anyone buying a computer to be used with multimedia or any other data intensive application.

About The Writer

Henrik Larsson owner of a new application that enables users to install additional Facebook Emoticons writes. Emoinstaller enables users to use additional Facebook chat emoticons.

Hardware Specification

• Dimensions: 122 x 68 x 11.2 mm
• Weight: 162g
• CPU: 1GHz Scorpion
• GPU: Adreno 200
• Chipset: Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon
• RAM: 576MB
• ROM: 512MB
• Display: LCD capacitive touch screen, 4.3”, 480 x 800 and
• Storage: 8GB/ 16GB
• Audio: Stereo loudspeaker and 3.5mm jack
• Capturing: 5 MP (2592х1944), Auto-focus, LED flash, Geo tagging and 720p HD video recording
• Radio: Yes
• GPS: Yes, A-GPS Support
• Accelerometer: Yes
• Proximity Sensor: Yes
• Gyrometer: Yes, Three-axis

Attractive Functionalities

Operating System

The main attraction of the mobile device is its operating system which is Windows Mobile OS 7. No matter what kind of advanced software applications are available, there are huge crowd in the world who trust ‘Microsoft’ products unconditionally. Obviously this device took the advantage of that Microsoft’s goodwill among general users. The OS deliver seamless multimedia rich user experience with its multi point touch screen, awesome graphical user interfaces and simple, yet comprehensive functionalities.

The one of major contributing factor for the popularity of HTC HD 7 is ‘Windows Office Package’ that comes with it. It allows you to create, edit and manage MS Office documents in your mobile device. My favorite application in there is ‘Microsoft One Note’ which is a popular note book application. The PC version of it could be easily synchronized with mobile device along with any of other office document you use frequently. Additionally it provides excellent messaging system and in there you can manage emails, SMS and MSS, right inside one single application. Other than that, the Operation system has done a nice job with general feature of any mobile device like contact management, internet browsing, call management and configuration.

Design and Interfaces

The HTC HD 7 comes as ‘Candy bar’ design and it make most of its functionalities simple and probably durable. It’s having 4.3” display with touch screen with excellent response time. In the side there are 2 hardware buttons to capture images and control volume/zoom. And there is a hardware button for power management, 3.5mm audio out and mini USB slot. In the back side you can find the 5MP camera, dual LED flash and something really interesting! There is a ‘Kickstand’ which could be use to place the phone in a surface in a slant position and it will be very useful to watch movies in this device. Hats off to this idea!

The default main interface is popular “Tiled” layout of Windows Mobile OS. You can pin any desired application to tiled interface, organize them very easily. Once you press hold one tile in there, it goes to edit mode where you can change the tile order and un-pin them. Once you slide the tiles to left it goes to main menu where you can find entire OS functionalities along with the application you have installed. There are 3 hardware buttons are provided to go back, go to main window and go to search web. Touch screen comes to pinch to zooming functionality which comes very handy. And most if of the interfaces are made beautiful and user friendly using ‘Text effects’ not images will probably result better performance and simple and cleaner interfaces.

Connectivity and Data Services

The most important feature in any mobile device would be its wireless connectivity. HTC HD 7 has almost all the latest advanced connectivity technologies in it including 3G, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA, WCDMA, WiFi and Bluetooth. Quad band GSM allow the phone to be operated with any mobile service provider and 3G connectivity is powerful enough to download data with speed 7.2 Mbps and upload with 2 Mbps. As near field communication methods it’s having WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1.  It’s supporting GPRS and EDGE having the objective of provides compatibility to 2G and 2.5G mobile networks.

However it doesn’t comes to infrared, kind a bad news for me and most of latest smartphones doesn’t comes with it. Sometimes back I used to develop some creative mobile applications using IR and It seems I have let it go and move ahead. The device is having mini USB port and comes in handy specially when synchronizing personal data with Windows PC.

Multimedia

As everyone expected HTC HD 7 is having excellent multimedia capabilities. It’s having great multimedia viewer named Music and Video Hub powered by Microsoft Zune. It let you manage your multimedia from many sources including local storage, windows live social media and many other online sources. The device support play back of almost all the common media formats including MP3, MP4, WMA and WMV. Pinch to zoom and multi finder zooming is adding extra color for the image viewer.

The device comes with loudspeaker which is very useful to many people. And the loud speakers are placed in 2 opposite ends of device. Hence it could deliver real stereo sounds with surround enhancements. As long as it’s having a ‘Kickstand’ you could turn this smartphone in to professional quality cinematic playback device.

When it comes to multimedia capturing it provide great hardware support with its 5 MP camera. It is having auto focus, dual LED flash and totally automated configuration. With this camera, it could turn anyone it to a professional looking photographer. As image processing feature it has give many predefined profiles and many capturing profiles to be suited to any environment. Impressively, you can directly go to image viewer from camera by sliding the viewfinder to right.

720p Video Recording

This is one of the most impressive features I was waiting to test with this device. It’s having 5MP hardware camera, 1GH processor and dedicated GPU, So there is no reason to stop it by recording 720p HD videos. Actually it worked great and capture finest details almost same as HD camcorder. The thing that made me surprise is the audio recording and its quality was really great. However, the video quality was very poor in low light environment and it automatically goes in to low light mode which couldn’t stop. Once it goes to that mode the refresh rate it very poor and you can’t make even an average video with that then.

Web Browsing

Web browsing is one of the classical things in this kind of device and HTC HD 7 deliver a phenomenal surfing experience to its users. Personally I love to browser in the landscape mode and it let me have more horizontal space. Multi touch zooming allows you to see specific part of a web page very easily. When it comes to technological stuff, it renders HTML5, JavaScript and CSS very accurately. The default browser that comes with it is Internet explorer and it support tabbed browsing. The interface provides very user friendly tab switching and start new tab feature.

Gaming and Social Media

I can’t stop myself talking about the awesome gaming experience in this device. Some of the very simple arcade games are also really fun to play in HTC HD 7 with its high sensitive multi point touch screen and great audio quality. Even when it comes to 3D graphics, it render them very accurately and with hugh refresh rate thanks to its dedicated GPU. I came across with some cool games like car games which allow you to use gyrometer as a controller which is a WOW idea. I saw this is iPhone as well.

And the device support almost all the social media mobile clients and specially Windows live which allow you to keep in touch with most of popular Social media inside one application. Using them you can upload images, update status and see what your friends are doing very easily and on the move. As long as it comes with Windows mobile OS it’s having SharePoint and SkyDrive integration which comes handy for professionals to keep their life organized.

What I Wish To Find There

It’s true that this is an almost perfect smartphone available in the market yet there were some features which loved to see in there, yet couldn’t. The main thing was, when I was trying to visit YouTube with its default browser it asked me to install Flash player, yet It didn’t support it. Its designed to use HTML 5 yes, but no flash support is a big red light for me to use this device and as I come to know it’s a common factor to iPhone as well. And when I was trying to access Gmail, it didn’t allow me to click on a conversation, but it selects entire area. I believe that this is some thing to do with JavaScript rendering and browser doesn’t support that.

I can’t complain about the battery life why most of the latest smartphones are very bad in there. But as I experienced in HTC HD 7 battery life is even worse. It’s nowhere near the given specification in its official site. And I found some inconvenience when was trying to answer a call. The slider that used to answer the call was no responsive in some instances which were very annoying.

I used to have few memory cards with me since my previous Nokia phone was having hot swappable memory card slot. I won’t be able to do the same with HTC HD 7 since it doesn’t have external memory card slot. Not just that I won’t be able to expand existing memory to store more multimedia files. However, I came to know that there is a hidden memory card slot next to SIM card slot after reading some blog posts, yet couldn’t see it for myself.

The display is very bright, yet I noticed that it’s having very narrow viewing angle. When I use ‘Kickstand’ I can’t simply relax and watch a movie because there is very narrow range where I can see good quality colors. And display is a fingerprint magnet, I had to clean it more frequently than I expected. I wish next versions of HTC touch family will find answer to these questions as well and move ahead taking leaps in the competitive market among other products like Windows Phone 7.

What’s Going to be New in iPad 2

Processor

Most if the news stating that new iPad 2 will be equipped with multi core cortex A9 processor. However there is argument about processing speed. Most of the information sources saying that it’s going to doubled the speed as previous iPad which will make it 2GHz. For me its seems realistic since there are already smart phones with that kind of amazing processing power, Apple will never wanted to be the 2^nd in the market. After all, in order to handle the high resolution images and video it will have to have that kind of processor. Else users will feel delayed response and it will spoil the magic in apple products. In order to deliver maximum graphical experience there will be upgraded dedicated GPU as well. When it comes to memory it is expected to be 512 MB, but personally I expected it to be little bit more around 768 MB since 512 MB is general average in current market.

Display

In iPhone 4 the most attracted feature was its retina display. Most of the people expect to iPad 2 to have same kind of retina display. However, it will consume great amount of power and it will be critical since iPad is having 7” display. And if it will be a retina display, resolution has to be around 2048×1536 which is exceptionally high. It’s way bigger than 1080p high definition video resolution.  For me it seems like unrealistic and not practical in few aspects like power consumption and required processing power. I’d say it will come with a display having resolution 1280 X 960 with wide screen aspect ratio though the previous iPad was having 4:3 ratios.  Further, apple engineers will put extra effort to make the display more energy efficient and on success it will add an extra value to iPad 2 in future competitive markets. Then comes a most common complain for most of the tablet devices which is ‘The display reflects sun light when working outdoor’. I hope iPad 2 will give us a solid solution o this issue on its arrival.

Operating System

iPad 2 will be having the latest iOS 4.3 and it’s already released for developers. As a special feature it equipped with ‘Multi-touch gestures’ which will probably attract iPad users. Unlike before now iOS have multitasking so users will be able to enjoy many applications running background at the same time. Further, Apple app store is continued to expand exponential, so there will be millions of great application for forthcoming iPad 2. The application will be using upgraded hardware capabilities of iPad 2 like probable front camera to come up with cool applications.

Multimedia

Most of the people expect the iPad 2 to have improved speakers for music listening without head phones. Same as in latest HTC phones it will come in 2 stereo speakers in both the end of phone which can create surround effect in audio playback. However some people argue that there is no pint of having good external speakers why most of the users are using head phones and they have serious point too. The most discussed feature in iPad 2 is its front camera. Sometimes ago iPhone didn’t have front camera and it was a hot topic everywhere. As long as iPad is also evolving to be a wireless communication device, yes we can expect it to have front camera for video conferencing. And as always there will be a 5 MP rear camera with a flash. Some rumors saying that it will be having a ‘Video out’ which will come in handy since another rumor saying that it will be capable of recording 720p videos. Personally I’m pretty sure about 720p video recording since most of the latest smart phones are already having it, yet can’t say for sure about video out.

Connectivity

In the previous version if iPad there were 2 versions which is having GSM/CDMA connectivity and other did not. However, new iPad 2 will be having GSM and CDMA connectivity as a default option. Further it will be capable or extend its operations to 4G connectivity technologies. And there is another rumor that it will be having USB port which seems pretty realistic. I guess if apple engineers are planning for USB port, it will be USB 3.0. Additionally as always there will be Bluetooth connectivity and Wi-Fi. Even previous selected version of iPad having GPS receiver and we can expect is as a default feature in iPad 2.

Storage

For some reason entire iOS devices doesn’t support external SD memory cards. When it comes to iPad, it’s limiting its capabilities especially in multimedia playback. Most if the uses store many number of movies in it and watch them on the run. This will require easily expandable memory storage and it required to be hot swappable as well. It’s not clear why the engineers in Apple ignoring the perfect options which is SD memory cards. Further, increasing the internal memory won’t solve the issue ‘Hot swap ability’ though it will solve the problem of storage up to some extent. I hope there will be a solid solution to these problems in new iPad 2 and probably it will be external SD card slot.

Usage Possibilities

Multimedia Applications

iPad was very popular for it multimedia capabilities and it will continue with the arrival of iPad 2 also. With the increased processing power, RAM, GPU and display it will deliver never better multimedia experience to the users. If the screen will be wide screen and device will come with SD card slot iPad will be THE portable multimedia device for next few years. Additionally, there will be games which are using its hardware capabilities like multi point touch screen and accelerometer. Even now there are many games out there and with iPad 2 they will use its increased screen resolution and multi touch gestures also. As always people will be using to iPad to read books and surf internet on the go.

Capita Market Applications

Other than multimedia usage, I have noticed that iPad was getting popular in financial world. Most of the day trades in stock markets were using iPad to analyze trends in stocks and momentum of market. The 7” high resolution screen, multi point touch screen and internet connectivity gave a solid plat from to run trading software and advance charting software. Most of the trading software provides also have came up with iPad versions of their software after identifying this possibility. With the improved high resolution display, high speed connectivity and operating system support iPad 2 will continue to getting popular in capital market.

Further Evolution

Tablet PC trend will continue and iPad will always play a significant role in there. We can expect more extensibility and compatibility in future iPads. Most of the hardware vendors looking forward for open standards and we can see the trend in smart phone world. However, Apple was trying to develop own hardware specific culture with iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. I expect them to join the open standard and come up with iPad like tablet portable communication devices which will be compatible with cross vendor platforms.

Additionally, they were having less extensibility in hardware. Generally, in a PC if hard disk is not enough we can plug bigger one and if RAM in not enough we can do the same. But with iPad and also iPhone users are not that free to extend the device the way they want. Specifically, we can’t even a plug a SD card to iPad to extend the storage and make it hot swappable. I hope apple will take steps to let us to extend hardware capability as far as they can in future releases of their devices.

References

• Brownlee, J. (2011, January 10). Kevin Rose’s iPad 2 Predictions Are Unlikely, Here’s Why. Retrieved February 02, 2011, from www.cultofmac.com: http://www.cultofmac.com/digg-co-founder-kevin-rose-retina-display-ipad-2-in-next-few-weeks/76344
• Coldewey, D. (2011, January 17). iPad 2 Rumor Roundup. Retrieved February 02, 2011, from www.crunchgear.com: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/01/17/every-ipad-2-rumor-roundup-and-evaluation/
• Marshall, G. (2011, January 20). iPad 2 rumours: what you need to know. Retrieved February 02, 2011, from www.techradar.com: http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/ipad-2-rumours-what-you-need-to-know-900232
• Yarow, J. (2011, January 19). iPad 2 Not Likely To Get Super High Resolution Retina Display (AAPL). Retrieved February 02, 2011, from www.sfgate.com: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/19/businessinsider-ipad-2-no-retina-display-2011-1.DTL