Blue Bugle: Mobile, Desktop & Web Technologies

One of the biggest news of the last two days is the release of yet another smartphone in the Samsung Galaxy family, a phone of no especial features, with 720p 233ppi TFT screen, Android Jelly Bean, 1.5 GB RAM, 8/16 GB internal storage, Exynos 5 1.7 GHz dual-core processor, etc. The smartphone, known as Galaxy Mega is peculiar due to its screen size, of 6.3 inches, which makes it the mammoth of the smartphone market. Samsung was the first manufacturer to lead the way to phones of unusually large screen sizes. Soon enough, other manufacturers followed, and some even managed to go a few steps further. Is this rat race for large screen sizes come to an end? Is it time for customers to really think about the display technology, rather than the screen size? Let’s find out. The year was 2011 and the place, Berlin, home to the Berlin Radio Show. Samsung announced a legendary product in its Galaxy family of devices—the Galaxy Note. The product is in its second generation now , with sales g...

Let’s take a look at the prying open of two devices in the current market— Sony Xperia Tablet Z and BlackBerry Z10 . Teardowns of some important, flagship devices reveal the technology, design, and innovative new parts that constitute that product. It is not only a way to understand the inner workings of our popular gadgets, but also a way to find out how tough they are. iFixit’s teardowns, which we looked at other posts as well seek ways in which you can fix an electronic product at your home. Let’s check out these teardowns. Sony Xperia Tablet Z If you read our review published earlier of the Xperia Tablet Z, you may know how slim and well-packed this lightweight Sony tablet is. It has been already touted as having one of the finest constructions—waterproof as well—in the market today, and the teardown reveals how painstakingly each part is assembled. More than that, who tore the device down? None other than Sony itself! Sony’s TV show-cum-YouTube channel, SGNL posted this vid...

Samsung has given us a lot of stuff with Galaxy S IV, which we believe is an awesome new smartphone . There are a number of features that we mentioned in that review, but there are a lot more. Samsung has its own software applications bundled on the device, to make it unique in the industry of highly competitive products. It definitely seems like Samsung has done an awesome job with this smartphone, and it could unsettle other manufacturers—HTC with One , LG with Optimus G Pro , and Sony with Xperia Z , which are Samsung’s immediate competitors in high-end smartphone market. In this article, let me talk about a few features on Galaxy S IV that ‘sort of’ resembles products and technologies from other OEMs and companies in the current smartphone market. 1. A Gaming Accessory, Game Pad Take a look at this specific gaming accessory that Samsung is introducing with Galaxy S IV, known as Game Pad. This particular device will transform your Galaxy S IV into a gaming console almost lik...

When you are looking for a new smartphone, you often come across some of these display technologies in technical specifications—LCD, LCD IPS, LED, WLED, OLED, SLCD, TFT, Retina Display, AMOLED, Super AMOLED, PLS, Super PLS, and so on. What the heck are these acronyms? How can you find out what is what and what matters the most? It’s a difficult job indeed. There are quite a number of things you need to understand and appreciate. But here, in this article, let me clear a few doubts and myths. Display Technology When we consider a smartphone screen, there are three major aspects to consider—the basic technology used, the resolution, and the technology used for wide-angle viewing. The first part is the actual display technology, which you probably know about. In yesteryear computers, you have CRT (Cathode Ray Tube), and then came LCD for flat panel displays. Realistically speaking, if you go into the detail of display technologies, there are actually only two types of major display...

Sony has been making and marketing tablets since April, 2011 . The Japanese tech giant made an entry into the Android tablet world with Sony Tablet S with the folded-newspaper design and Tablet P having two 5.5 inch displays. The entry however has not been quite profitable for Sony. Here is IDC’s global market share of tablets up until the fourth quarter of 2012, and in the statistic, Sony doesn’t even have its name. Apple and Samsung are the only OEMs turning any real profit out of tablet business. In these extreme conditions, Sony is coming up with a new tablet, Xperia Tablet Z. Xperia Tablet Z has been unveiled officially in the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona yesterday. Just as Sony’s upcoming flagship, Xperia Z smartphone , Tablet Z is also waterproof. Let’s check out the new tablet from Sony and see whether it can be a really good buy or not, based on the available data. Technical Specifications First of all, let’s check out the technical specifications of Xper...

There are a number of factors affecting the purchase of a smartphone, such as the display, operating system, processor power, and price. Among them, I believe durability is also pretty important. There are protective cases for all types of smartphones, although they more or less make the phone look weird. I have never used protective case on my smartphones, although some of them have really needed them. A few days ago, I picked up one of the most popular smartphones in the industry— Samsung Galaxy S3 . I was impressed by the amazing hardware features it offered. However, when I picked it up, I could immediately feel the cheap plastic build of the phone that turned me off a bit. Many of Samsung’s phones lack in build quality, and that is the reason why none of the Samsung smartphones is there in this list. In the low end, probably the only Samsung device that can withstand any wear and tear is X-Cover Xtreme. The same is the case with Sony. Xperia line of smartphones contains device...

Apple trademarked Retina Display in Nov, 2012. Retina Display is one of the major attractions of Apple’s top products. Introduced with the iPhone 4, during Steve Jobs’s reign, it sure sold quite a number of iPhones in two years. At this time, however, is Retina Display still relevant? Should Apple be actively marketing this feature at all? Let’s see. What Exactly Is It? Retina Display or any display at that matter has a particular ppi ratio (Pixels Per Inch). [ Learn about pixels ]. If, on a display panel, there are more than a fixed number of pixels in every inch, that display will be rich enough to avoid the pixelation issue given by older, low pixel-density devices. If you can see individual pixels, such a display looks rather dull. Look at this image below. One of half of the Apple logo is pixelated, and you can see the difference. Creating too many pixels and cramming them up within a display is a very expensive job. This is the reason why mainstream smartphone manufacture...

Within CES, the International Consumer Electronics Show, of Las Vegas, we have been seeing some TVs, which sport not High Definition (HD) video output, but better than that, Ultra HD format, also known as 4K and 8K. Many movies are being shot these days in 4K, and broadcasting industry will probably move to this standard in the very near future. We have also seen the latest Snapdragon 800  processor that supports 4K image/video capture. What is the big deal about these displays, and what is 4K technology really all about? We will see in this article. In these first few sections, we will introduce the basics to novices. The Resolution of a Display You might have heard about various terms—VGA, QGA, XGA, WXGA, HD, FHD, etc. In order to understand what they are, you should first understand what is meant by display resolution. Resolution is a measure that indicates the number of pixels on a display. Pixels are the smallest elements on a screen. These square shaped elements a...