Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II were two devices that redefined how the world viewed smartphones. The Dell Streak had been perhaps one of the original phablets (phone + tablet), but the Note lineup’s revolutionary design, hardware specifications, and the exclusive S Pen stylus made it something much more than any of its predecessors. Add to the fact that the device was produced by the famous Korean manufacturer that had already made for itself a towering reputation with droids, didn’t hurt the device’s success in any way. If you think about it, the Galaxy Note is a complete winner in almost all aspects, except for the large size (which is completely a matter of preference and opinion, by the way).
JoinedNovember 9, 2012
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While most people would argue that tablets are actually an entirely different breed of portable, mobile personal computers (PCs), even the smartphones of today are not merely communication devices anymore. They’re much more than that; combining features from an internet device, a portable media player, a handheld gaming console, a personal information manager (PIM), to a lot more other features. I remember when Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone back in 2007, saying that Apple was releasing three devices, all combined into one. This holds true today for any smartphone, whether it be on iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Phone, or any other operating system. For this very reason, you cannot treat any area of the device as less important than others, and among the top critical features is connectivity.
One of the biggest reasons I, and a lot of other Android users, would want to root their smartphones and tablets, and install a custom recovery, is the ability to take nandroid backups. The stock Android recovery console allows you to only either wipe data/factory reset, or to install legitimate, signed ZIP updates for the Android operating system. Custom recoveries offer you so much more, one of which is the ability to back up all the partitions – system, data, cache et al – which lets you restore the device to the state it was originally in.
Being able to use a keyboard of your choice, and not just by aesthetics, but a completely unique package with a distinct feature set of its own, is one of the biggest freedoms of owning and using an Android device. I have used both the iPhone and iPad as my daily drivers, and while iOS boasts one of the best touch-based character entry mechanisms in the market, there’s still a lot to wish for in the stock iOS keyboard. Even with a jailbroken device, you don’t get a really staggering number of choices, and definitely nothing close to what Google’s droid has to offer. Android simply leaves iOS biting the dust on this front.
Ever since the introduction of iPad to the market, tablets have become something really mainstream. It’s not like the world was devoid of this genre of gadget earlier, but the Cupertino giant’s rendition of the device made it a worldwide phenomenon, making it lucrative to even those people who’d have otherwise not found any use for a tablet PC. Jumping onto the bandwagon, Android entered the arena too, and today, there are more Android tablets available on the market than you’d care to count. BlackBerry also tried its hand at this category in the form of PlayBook, but that failed rather miserably. The last to enter the tablet PC market was Microsoft with its Surface tablet, a device truly remarkable in its elegance, beauty and hardware. Now, Nokia is aiming to dethrone Surface as the top Windows RT tablet, coming up with its own Windows-based tablet that comes with a battery powered keyboard cover.
Windows Media Center has been one of the best media management suites available for Microsoft Windows since the days of Windows XP, although the program got mass attention with Windows Vista. Despite the fact that the operating system in question was a big failure in itself, no one ever complained that Media Center lacked in what it had to offer, and hence, it made sense that the media suite would continue to remain bundled with Windows operating system in Windows 7. With the latest Windows 8, however, the Redmond company seems to have taken a rather surprising decision, in that Media Center is no longer a part of the OS – even the Pro version – and instead, available as a separate download for Windows 8 Pro users only.
The open source nature of Android gives it one particular edge over other smartphone and tablet platforms, in being available for a lot more development – both on the app side and modifications – and thus, having loads more to offer than other tablet OS. However, that doesn’t mean it will remain exclusive in all areas where open source matters. Windows is the most favored operating system for desktops, and with the introduction of Windows RT and the Surface tablet, Microsoft, it seems, is looking to gear things up a bit. The recently released SNES emulator for Microsoft Surface, Snes8x, which works with Windows RT, does well to prove that point, and does it really well.
I find almost everything involved in day-to-day usage to be pretty easy on Windows 8, and in some instances, even easier than its more-favored predecessor, Windows 7. The search function in the latter iteration of Windows is definitely much improved, and the aesthetics of the new Modern UI are simply beautiful. Add to it the fact that there are quite a few new features, and the operating system is a rather solid winner, in my opinion. That, however, doesn’t imply that it doesn't come with its own shortcomings. One very obvious one, which even I find annoying and bad design choice all the time, is how you turn off your PC. Unfortunately, the Redmond giant decided to hide away one of the most accessed features of the operating system rather obscurely.
How good or necessary (or not) was the Start Screen and the move away from Start Orb was for the future of Windows as an operating system, is a rather different debate, but ground reality is that it has been done. It’s out there now, and you can either take it or leave it, but it won’t change. Now, there is a number of tools that will bring back the good old Start Orb and menu for you under Windows 8, and some of them are completely free, too, but if you start using the new Modern UI screen, it begins to grow on you. While it remains a matter of personal aesthetics, it can’t be denied that there is always room for improvement in almost everything, and in that sense, the Metro Start Screen isn’t perfect. That’s what the Start Menu Modifier application aims to target.
What’s better than a powerhouse of a tablet that’s running on Android? The same tab running on CyanogenMod 10.1, which entails Android 4.2 goodness for all that support it. Why, you ask me? Because CM 10.1, or any AOSP ROM, for that matter, brings with it a freedom that you are very unlikely to find anywhere else. For most power users of Google’s smartphone and tablet operating system, trying different ROMs is almost a weekly affair, if not more frequent. Following suit, I have tried a lot of ROMs on my Android tablets, from Stock to ROM ports to AOSP builds like CyanogenMod and Android Open Kang Project (AOKP), but I have always kept coming back to CM because of the ‘balance’ that it offers, between features and stability, and because it carries with it a sense of reliability.
