Problems with Windows Phone OS

Microsoft is said to be emperor in Desktop Operating Systems market. They are like synonym to PC and also for laptops. Almost all these computers are installed with Microsoft’s Windows OS. But today, the whole picture is changed. Mobile phone market has overshadowed computers market and everyone measures technology with mobile phone markets.  Currently, Apple’s much anticipated iOS and Google’s Android has conquered mobile phone OS market. And it was in October 2012 when Microsoft also entered in this market with their Windows Mobile OS and tried to make some good numbers in this market. After almost one and half year, still Microsoft is significantly lagging behind iOS and Android.

In this article I am going to discuss about what are the major problems and issues in Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. I am writing this article by experiencing these by using Nokia Lumia phones, which are exclusively using Windows OS. First of all, let me clear that the hardware used by Nokia is great. According to me, they are still best hardware manufacturers. No problem with Nokia’s hardware. But the problem is inside of the phone, the much important part Operating System. Now let me come to the point and start to describe these issues.

1. No app transfer to micro SD card

Normally all Android phones comes with 4GB or 8GB of internal storage and even Windows phones also comes with these capacity. In Android phones, you can transfer your apps data to SD card and install more number of apps in your phone, in Windows phone it is a limiting factor. You cannot transfer apps into SD card.

Another issue is the apps designed for Windows phone consumes more space than Android games. For example, popular game Subway Surfer comes with a size of around 40MB on Android platform and same game comes with size of around 80MB on Windows platform. It clearly means that you will not be able to install more apps and games on your phone. 

2. Not having own file manager

This is probably one of the biggest drawback of Windows phone, you cannot get a native file manager app for your phone. You would be able to install third party file manager apps but still it is having limiting factor like you have one Read Only permissions of your SD card using your file manager. It’s kind of frustrating thing that you are not able to use all storage capacity of your micro SD card effectively.

3. Absense of LED notification light

Normally all Android phones comes with physical LED notification light which will blink whenever you will be having any missed call, Whatsapp message or a Facebook notification. On my Sony Xperia phone, whenever I have Whatsapp message it blinks with violet color, for Facebook notification it turns into blue and for a missed call it blinks with green. So it helps me a lot in everyday life of use. For a Windows phone, you will not be able for get this facility in any single model. This feature is more important if you are a busy and heavy user of Whatsapp and Facebook. 

Sony Xperia phone with notification light 

4. Notification bar problem

Biggest advantage of Windows phone is its Metro UI called Tile interface. It’s actually very innovative and easy to use this look. But it does not give you all notification in single screen. Like you have to scroll up and down to see notifications in their respective tiles. In Android phone, even latest iOS7 also have it's native notification bar in top of the phone and you will be able to see each and every notification very easily. 

Different notifications in their respective tile in Windows Metro UI

5. Not having integration with Google apps

If you are a heavy user of Gmail, Google Maps, Youtube and other native Google services then you will not have a good experience with Windows phone because Google does not provide their own apps for Windows mobile platform. You will be restricted to use Google services on Windows phone.

6. Instant toggle to specific shortcuts 

For Android and iOS phones, if you want to switch on/off Bluetooth or Wi-Fi then you can do it just in one click. You can get same other features like mobile data traffic, NFC, profile, auto-rotate shortcuts in upper notification bar. Thus you can toggle to specific setting very quickly. But this is not possible in Windows phone. You have to make at least 2-3 steps for starting that service. You can create these type of shortcuts in Windows phone, but again they will still require 2-3 steps.

shortcuts in notification bar in normal Android phone

7. USB OTG not supported

Windows phone does not support UTG OTG and it is kind of limiting factor when you want to use your other devices with your Windows phone. It means that you cannot connect USB flash drive, music player, digital camera or keyboard to your phone. 

8. Not support to third party web browsers

This is one of the biggest problems because without good internet browser you cannot use your phone effectively. Windows phone comes with default browser Internet Explorer and it also supports UC browsers and some less known ones. But still it misses some biggies like Firefox, Chrome and Opera Mini browser. So it is a huge drawback with Windows phone.

So, these are some issues or problems which I noticed in Windows phone OS. If you are agree with me or even don’t agree with me then also mention your precious comment below. Thank you and enjoy my other articles. 

Nokia Lumia 1020 : Super Camera Phone

Last year when Nokia released Nokia PureView 808 with highest ever 41 Mega Pixel lens, it created waves but unfortunately it was a failure for them. But still Nokia is not loosing their confidence in their camera technology bonding with their smartphones. They are back with another flagship phone which is powered by Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. 

                    

New Nokia Lumia also features same 41 MP lens which was introduced in earlier 808 PureView phone. Last month in Berlin, when Sony launched their latest flagship phone Xperia Z1 which have 20 MP camera and they claimed that their phone have best camera among all other phones. So Nokia comes back into the competition with another superior camera phone. Even Samsung also has Galaxy S4 Zoom with very advance camera. So according to me, after competition in display size. It is time to war in terms of camera between these multi national companies. So let's check camera performance of this phone.

Camera Review

The phone have a 41 mega pixel lens but practically you will only get 34 mega pixel resolution to capture a picture for 16:8 aspect ratio. If you want picture with 4:3 aspect ration then they can be captured at 38 mega pixels.

One very innovative feature in this phone is Looseless Zoom,where you can crop your picture from higher resolution picture without loosing any type of clarity of the picture. 

If you compare regular images with 5 mega pixel using this phone. Then I must say that they beats all the phones which have 5 mega pixel or even 8 mega pixel camera. Surely it's a clear winner. 

Other specifications of this phones camera are, 3X digital zoom, optical image stabilization, ISO settings 100 to 4000 and very important shutter speed which offers 1 to 16000, Smart Cam & Camera 360.

The phone captures excellent pictures in normal conditions. But I found out one big issue is, the processing rate of the picture is slow. If you want to picture very quickly one by one, then this can disappoint you.  Another issue is, pictures taken in artificial light and close up shots are above average. They are actually not good. 

So,overall the phone achieves our expectations with having great camera details. So thumbs up for this phone in terms of the camera department.

Rest of all

If you remove the 41 mega pixel camera from this phone, then it is totally Lumia 920. The phone have same hardware specifications and software. The phone heats up when you use the camera for long time. Except that, this phone runs really smooth with Windows Mobile OS.

Conclusion

Now last words, if you actually want a more camera then smartphone then this phone is really a hot choice. But if you want a better mixture of hardware, software and camera then you must consider other phones like iPhone 5 & 5S, Xperia Z1, Galaxy S4. 

Technical Specifications

• 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Dual core processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 41 MP PureView camera
• 1.2 MP front facing camera
• 4.5 AMOLED display with resolution of 768x1280 
• 332 PPI of pixel density
• 32 GB internal storage
• 2000 mAh battery

LCD vs TFT vs AMOLED : Display Comparision

These days screen size of any mobile phone is benchmark to compare them. The more it will be big, more you will be impressed. But technology behind that screen in not much known for most of us. Even if the persons who know about LCD, TFT, IPS, AMOLED, SUPER AMOLED will be also confused that which one is better. 

These displays are generally having two main types. First one is LCD & second one is AMOLED. We know name LCD because it is used in the wide range of electronic products. But most of us are not aware about AMOLED. So let's discuss about it. 

LCD:

LCD, liquid crystal display is made of wondrous liquid crystals. In which these crystals are combined between two couple of glasses with the use of the light source. They produce most realistic colors, but they does not represent much wider contrast ratio if we compare them with AMOLED.

TFT & IPS are also based on same LCD technology. TFT which is Thin Film Transistor & IPS is In Plane Switching. 

TFT makes LCD much efficient by making it's wiring reduced and also reduces electrodes per pixel. TFT improves image quality of LCD display.

IPS is improved from TFT by offering much better color reproduction and more accurate viewing angles. 

LCD is used in most of Sony, HTC, iPhone., etc. 

AMOLED:

AMOLED stands for Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode. 

It is old technology but gained popularity in recent days. In this technology, a thin layer is made from thin layers which is zapped by an electric current. One major advantage of this technology is, it can create much thin layers and also do not require back light. This means it can create much better black colors and reduces battery usage because the back light is not used. 

Here three major colors Red, Blue and Green are divided in sub category like RGBG color. This is called as a 'pentile display'. But this have a disadvantage also, they can represent lower resolution because of much larger and visible sub pixels. 

Now a days, Samsung is known for their Super AMOLED, HD Super EMOLED displays. But this is nothing but simple AMOLED which is used with just prefix 'super'. They are traditional EMOLED. So do not fooled by these type of names. 

These are the devices which uses AMOLED technology: HTC ONE S, Galaxy series by Samsung.

Conclusion:

Now let's come to the answer that which one is better? So my answer is both LCD and EMOLED have their own strength and weakness. So it is totally dependent on you which one is like by you personally. If you try and phone and you get good resolution, better color reproduction and good viewing angles, then definitely that display is good for you. 

iPhone 5S & iPhone 5C : First Look

Its almost after one year when Apple released iPhone5 last year. There was too much curiosity in the market related to upcoming iPhone. The rumor was also there that Apple will launch two iPhone. Now its exactly same and all prediction become right. So, I will not get too much time and start our review. First of all we will talk about iPhone 5S. Because it is their flagship phone and having latest hardware. 

iPhone 5S

New iPhone 5S is the successor of iPhone 5. It has first ever in the world 64 bit processor. No other phone have 64 bit processor till date. 

• A7 Chip: It is 64 bit chip which is Apple's proprietary processor made specially for iPhone. This chip gives double performance then the previous A6 chip in CPU and GPU related tasks. There is another best combination with iOS7, because they specially made it for 64 bit chip.

• M7 co-processor: This new combination included in this iPhone 5S is like a master-slave combination. Because M7 co-processor works for some miscellaneous tasks like compass, accelerometer, gyroscope tasks. So all this will be done in M7 co-processor and it will directly reduce the burden from the A7 chip. Another huge pro is that, it will increase battery life.

• Camera:  There is no doubt that iPhone will have a great camera. Yes, again its much better improved then previous one. The iSight camera comes with 8 MP auto focus camera. It is basically a five element lens which have hybrid IR filter. The camera provides features like auto focus, tap focus, face detection, burst mode, panorama.,etc. 

• Display: This phone have 4 inch retina display having 1136 x 640 pixels resolution. It provides density of 336 ppi. One huge feature added in this display is this iPhone 5S can support 'finger print' scanning! So you can lock-unlock and even use finger print as password for phone and app store. 

After discussing these key features I must say that they did not invent or bring any hurricane in specification of this new phone. But as per company's brand value, iPhone 5S will also bring big success for Apple. iPhone 5S come with grey, gold and silver of bezel aluminium case. 

iPhone 5C

People were talking about that this time apple is going to unveil another 'cheap' iPhone for some economical users. So that's here. Again with this phone I am not that much impressed. Because the main aim of this phone was to gain good market share in Asian countries like China,India. So they have to keep the price of this phone as low as possible. But that does not practically happening. 

The configuration of this phone is same as one year before iPhone5. To reduce its price they put a poly carbonate cover like Samsung for this iPhone 5C. This phone comes in colors like green, yellow, blue, pink and white color. So this is its biggest plus point. Otherwise same hardware like iPhone5. So I do not want to discuss about it more. Just enjoy its colorful back cover pictures. One thing i noted in this phone is they made its edged with much sharp curve. So it looks really cool. 

Mobile Processors : Quad Core VS Dual Core

There was a time when everyone was fascinating about Mega Pixel of their phone camera, and after that era, Screen size of mobile phone came into the picture. The bigger size phones always fascinate people. But now the benchmark has changed, the number of cores attracts people, and it is the new benchmark for comparing mobile phone.

People are talking about single core,dual core,quad core processors. Now even some small companies even launching phones at budget prices having quad core processors. So in this article we are going to learn what is the exact meaning of multi-core architecture of any smart phone.

First of all the basic difference is just simple, a dual core processors can carry out the instruction sets by improved performance. Quad core processors also does the same work, and they are basically four cores which are integrated on a single silicon chip which gives us high performance.
In simple words,quad core processors can carry out same work done by dual core processor at a twice speed!

If you compare the processor with your brain then dual core processor have two brain and quad core have four brain. So, the time required to complete the task by quad core is almost fourth  of the single core. But its not as simple,actual performance depends on memory cache,bandwidth, core clocks,.etc. Thus variation will always be there.

Memory

Typically only a more powerful processor is not always important. Because processor takes help from ROM(read only memory) and RAM(random access memory).

For ROM,the operating system of any smartphone is stored on the ROM. These memory area can not be accessed by the user. If you want to access that area then you must root your smartphone. Mostly in Android phones these situation occurs when you have less internal space for installing big applications and games. The less amount of memory, your phone will become slow. 

Same situation comes in RAM 's case. Where, all the running applications are stores on RAM and that's why processor takes help from RAM. If you have a quad core phone then it maybe having 1-2 GB RAM or other dual core phone having 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM.

So,in conclusion, the amount of RAM is always as important as a processor and it makes big difference in performance. 

Snapdragon processor by Qualcomm

Result of performance

It depends on Architecture of the processor and clock speed. Most of mobile processor are based on ARM architecture. Upon these architecture several companies are licenced to make the type of processors. Few examples of these companies are Qualcomm , Nvidia, Samsung Exynos. They are having licence to produce it, and they make processors based on that. In latest technologies , they are said to be having A5,A6,A8,A15 architecture processors. So if the processor having quad cores but have older architecture then it will be not optimum in comparison with other processors. 

So always go for ARM  architecture of the processor and know about its clock speed.

Power consumption

We have heard that if you have more cored phone then you might be having less battery power to use. But it is not always true because latest Quad core processors come with advanced architecture which consumes less power and even in some conditions they beats the dual core processors. In normal conditions the mobile phone switch off the non used cores and they will be activated when they will actually needed. 

So, battery power depends on the amount of mAh of battery,not totally on processor.

nvidia tegra processor 

Final verdict

At the end of the day, all depends on the price of the phone and in that matter, quad core processors have complex architecture so they are costlier then dual cores. 

If you are going to buy a phone , try to figure out other features like clock speed, RAM, ARM architecture.  

"You can buy a smartphone having Quad core processor at the price of 15000 INR. And even a dual core phone at 18000 INR. So there would be some concrete difference between them"

Micromax Canvas 4 review

Just before 3 years when my some friends bought Micromax phones and I was wondered that why are they going for such a downcast company. But after that time passed and Micromax consistently launched new phones and they built their position much and much strong.

Before some months ago when Galaxy Note was ruling Bigger Size phone market in India, at that time Micromax introduced first Canvas phone and it becomes blitzkrieg successful.
 After that they launched Canvas 2, Canvas HD, Canvas 3D and much more hit phones.
Now everyone eyeing on Canvas 4. So here are some 'hot' news about Canvas 4.

Micromax will start prebooking of this phone on 28th June. Till than and before its official release we can clearly assume that it will have a 13 MP camera because the teaser of the phone showed that.

One thing which disappoint me a little bit is that, Like other Micromax and Samsung phones this phone doesn't have great looks. The phone looks like other plastic cover phone.

If we believe on other news than the second thing comes into my mind is that this phone will be having a full HD display. But having a full HD display will recommend better battery life and I hope Micromax will increase battery life.

The last and most important topic,price!!! Like other Micromax product, this phone will also come in below rs 20,000.