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Thursday, June 20, 2013

The Dual Sim Debate


Dual sim phones are undeniably an important part of the mobile device industry, especially in the Middle East and East Asia where it's common for most people to have multiple lines. The issue however arises when you decide which phone gets to get a dual sim variant and which doesn't, I personally am not a fan of allocating the lower end of the device spectrum for dual sim phones; and here's why. 

The reason most people carry two lines/numbers (outside the US) besides the need for a business phone and a personal number is usually a cost cutting measure. In the Middle East for example there's a huge variation between the price per minute/second for a call to the same mobile network, as opposed to a friend on a different network, in fact sometimes same network calls are practically free (keep in mind we're talking about pre-paid lines with no expensive monthly/yearly commitments). 

Therefore it's become common practice in the area to carry two phones or two lines, to keep the cost of your communications down (especially in the younger/college aged community). Personally I don't bother with the hassle of having to lines for a number of reasons mainly that it's not worth the hassle of having to carry two phones at all times and charge them up etc. (I'm a very lazy guy). 

For the sake of argument though, let's assume I wanted to purchase a dual sim phone to cater to my needs, and avoid the hassle of having to carry two phones at all times, what are my options? Instead of having the option to carry one "good" (high end) phone and a second cheap $20 phone, my options are instantly limited, and the selections aren't very nice. 

Playing along with Nokia's strategy of dual sim phones, technically my only option would be to pick a phone from the Asha lineup (S40) or from the S30 Dumb/Feature phone segment, not the prettiest of selections for a guy who likes to do a million things on his phone. This is essentially the problem, why is it assumed that a dual sim phone should be a low end device? This has been Nokia's strategy for a while now, even with S^3 which was also never graced with a dual sim phone. 

Samsung have partially gotten the equation right, with their "duos" line up which offers a decent selection of features with the dual sim capabilities; so when will Nokia decide to do the same (or even one-up them)? 

Recently Qualcomm have announced their latest series of Snapdragon 200 processors which bring (you guessed it) dual sim support to Windows Phone, however once again if you read the specifications of the chip you'll see that this isn't designated for your high end (lumia 920/820- like) device. Most probably we'd end up with a variant of the Lumia 520 9or if we're lucky the 620) with dual sim capabilities, and that won't really cut it. 

Why shouldn't you make a dual sim variant of your flagship (or runner up) phone? I understand there are related costs to creating another variant of a device in production (besides allocating the machines and factory time); but a flagship device is supposed to be your best and biggest hit with your consumers right? So why should you alienate a portion of your consumers and force them to buy an inferioirly specced device, or god forbid drive them into your competitor's arms?

*keep in mind that the biggest argument to advocate low end dual sim devices, is that they are more common with the people looking for a cheaper solution, which is true; but at the same time people with *enough* money to spend also want a dual sim phone (hello business men!).

what do YOU (yes you!) have to say on the topic? 

BlackBerry Opens First Retail Store in Dubai

BlackBerry have just opened their first ever retail store in the MEA area, Dubai to be specific in the famous Dubai Mall.

Blackberry today opened its first official BlackBerry-branded retail store in the Middle East, expanding its presence and bringing BlackBerry even closer to customers in the region. The 1,000+ square foot store, located in the world-famous Dubai Mall in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is operated in partnership with Axiom Telecom.
Located on level two of the world’s largest mall, near the Dubai Metro Link and Bloomingdale’s department store, the BlackBerry Store is designed to provide customers with a first-class, authentic BlackBerry shopping experience. Through Axiom, the store will also offer services such as free software upgrades, data back-up and transfer solutions, product set-up, service collection and warranty verification, as well as service and repair logistics.
With BlackBerry launching their own stores in the area only Microsoft (and Google- who don't have any brick & mortar stores) are then only ones missing from the area, hopefully we'll see a couple stores pop up there as well.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Leaks Collection: Nokia EOS

In case you've been hiding somewhere and missed all the Nokia EOS action that went down today, here's a quick recap of all the juicy pics you missed out on. First off the EOS comes with a HUGE-ASS (yes I'm allowed to say the "A" word) camera module/sensor on the back to house all its imaging goodness (rumored to be 41 megapixels).

Of course a huge sensor means that inevitably there will be a bump/hump on the back of the device, of which there is plenty. However Nokia have gone with a circular hump design 9similar to the 925's) rather than the rectangular look of the previous camera kings, the N8 and 808.

To recap on the rumored specs of the phone why not watch me tell you all about it, in video mode :O


Without further ado, the rest of the pictures:
 




Via GSMArena, MNB and WPDang

Saturday, June 1, 2013

The Best Maps to Help You Navigate the Game of Thrones World While Reading/Watching

One of my greatest problems while reading the Songs of Fire and Ice Series (as a book reader I hate referring to it as "Game of Thrones"- unfortunately few people seem to know the true name of the series); is the fact that besides the countless characters making it almost impossible to know *exactly* what's going on (at least until your memory is jogged by the first few paragraphs of each chapter) I had no grasp of the world's geography. A condition made even worse by the fact that I'm reading the books on my kindle; meaning I don't have that useful map at the start of my books (nor the luxury to flip back and forth to it). 

In my deluded mind I had always assumed the layout of the world (which I can't seem to find a real name for) was similar to a map of North America, with Canada representing all that's north of the wall (is that racist?). 

Which is exactly why my mind was blown when I saw some maps of the kingdom, it turns out the "Seven Kingdoms/Westeros" are really a thin vertical strip of land, and not the wide sprawling from New-York to California mass that I had in mind. What troubled me most was trying to get a grasp of where * CAUTION! SPOILERS FOLLOW!*  Dany was conquering and freeing slaves in relation to the kingdoms. Specifically as to trying to predict exactly which part of the kingdom she would attack first once she crossed the Narrow Sea. ( I'm currently 80% into book 3/ "A Storm of Swords" so anything can happen... )

So enough of my blabbering, onto some of the greatest maps to help you understand your storyline better (hopefully you're reading the books, as they seem to be a million times more amazing than the show). Unfortunately the world doesn't have a full map that covers future cities and past (as the author can at any moment add another city to Dany's conquest perhaps) but here are some helpful visual aides:

Besides the one above via A Life in Equinox, which gives a decent representation of the 7 kingdoms, as well as the respective lord/king of each area, there is a full scale interactive map which also allows you to follow the conquests, campaigns and movements of each character from http://quartermaester.info/

Also available are the official maps of the story from Fantastic Maps which you can also purchase full size wall posters of at Amazon:


 

Also this unofficial map is quite useful, and possibly the most up to date of them all?

So that's pretty much it, hope you guy found it useful, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story so far (regardless of whether you're reading the books or watching the show), and do share who you're favorite character is.

*Oh and if anyone here has read the books AND watched the show then let me know if you've noticed any major discrepancies in the story lines? So far my biggest issue (without watching the any of the show) is how Renly and Loras are so obviously gay in the TV show, while the book does nothing more than subtly hint at it (3 books in).

Cheers :)