Things that you should never do with your android device

Things to avoid 

Smartphones have evolved massively, they are not just meant for calling and texting they have much more potential. But that doesn't mean you can do anything with your smartphone with that said here are some things you should avoid:

• Protecting the screen with lamination: We are not living in 2006 so are the phones. Now they use touch screen technology rather than physical buttons, so applying a lamination to your device would significantly decrease the touch sensitivity. 
• Rooting with android apps: Although the concept of rooting is not for normal users but if you do root your device then root it with proper PC not with Android apps. Because those apps could be malware or spyware. which could affect the performance of your device or hack your details.
•  Installing third party app killers: Well this correct to some extent only. Installing third part app killers doesn't makes any sense as Android (after jellybean) OS is already smart enough to stop unwanted background processes. Using third party app killers cause further battery drain rather than saving it as the apps get killed and restated over and over again. But on the other hand first party app killers are effective and efficient in killing apps as they have device's root access. also the third party app killers spam your device with advertisements.
• Splashing your phone in water: yeah I know this is quite obvious but there are phones which claims water proofing/resistant. But only trust that claim when the manufacturer says about IP certification (Ingress protection) for ex IP67. Also take a look of IP certification system http://www.dsmt.com/resources/ip-rating-chart/
• Charging the battery with external changers for battery: Don't charge your battery with external charger (in which you have to take battery out of your device). They are unreliable and have extremely slow charging times. Also there's always risk of damaging your battery with those chargers as no software plays the role of stabilising the voltage and current. 
• Installing apps with unnecessary permissions: While installing apps from the Playstore check for the required permissions for that app. Unnecessary permissions can cause battery drain and spywares on your device. Ex- if a flashlight app asks for call logs, contact information then it might be spyware.    

 So these are are the common things that you need to avoid.

Micro SD or not?

Most of the Manufacturers are following Apple’s trend of not supporting micro Sd card to maximize their profits. Last year Samsung came their flagship S6 with no Sd card support which was a real bummer for the fan boys, instead of Sd card support they opted for 32, 64 and 128 Gb inbuilt flash storage. The real problem is not the available space but it is pricing which makes it real big deal and the price per gigabyte is too high compared with Sd card option. If you buy any storage version then you are literally stuck with that there’s no further expansion. The manufacturer who doesn’t include Sd card expansion slot are clearly interested in profit maximization rather than sales maximization. Micro Sd option is more reasonable in countries with limited internet capability like India where most of the people store movies, music and videos of their smartphones.

So does micro sd really matter? This question can have various answer. If the pricing options are good then I would say it would be okay for most of the people to opt for device with at least 32 GB of inbuilt space. The biggest sin would be 16 GB variant with no expansion because you won’t be able to store apps, games or media files adequately.  For a casual user who uses apps and games 32Gb Variant would be sufficient. For heavy gamers who likes to play graphic intensive games should go for at least 64Gb Inbuilt storage but I would rather suggest Micro sd option for gamers cause most of the manufacturers use weak flash memories which doesn’t provide good read and write speed thus resulting in low performance in games on the other hand Games installed on a UHS 1 or 2 (Ultra High speed) cards preforms quite better. For video recording I will always suggest micro sd option cause video recording always takes huge space, also with the introduction 4K recording in some devices you really need at least 64 gigabytes of onboard storage. 4K video format have extremely high bitrates, both video and audio are uncompressed in high quality. Micro sd is a big advantage storing media files like Movies, Videos, Music albums etc which is very handy when you don’t have internet connectivity.

So what you consider? Device with micro sd option or the device without it? Answer is totally up to personal preference, Sd card would be an advantage for offline storage option and extreme gaming while onboard storage devices would good casual users who desires a slimmer device (As devices without sd card support are usually slimmer and have better design). 

Low end smartphones

Budget devices

Not everyone is a geek or willing to pay more on their mobile phones. Some people really want their devices to be cheap and just functional. By functional I mean a device which does all necessary tasks (web browsing, social networking, phone calls and bit of casual gaming) without spending a hefty sum of money. This category of mobile is known as Budget phones (The devices which comes under the price bracket of 8 thousand Indian rupees). This category of phones have tough competition over dozens of manufacturers are in this competition and every one of them are trying push the devices with the maximum specification in the budget or trying to give the best user experience. Only Android operating system stands out the best in this segment of phones due to its reliability and for massive variety of devices. Other choice can be Windows mobile which can give you some low end devices under this price bracket but I would only recommend Windows mobile to only those people who doesn’t know anything about technology cause Windows phone provides a very easy and limited user experience. If you are into Windows phone then only buy from the Nokia Lumia series don’t go for another brand if you want Windows phone. But if you are bit more into apps and experience then there’s no competition with android under this price bracket. There are plenty of devices to choose in android, but you have to be very careful before buying a device as many of the manufacturers earn money by the additional bloatware apps bundled into their phones. They force you to install certain apps without your permission and posts adware into your device which gradually decreases the overall user experience and performance overtime. 

Specifications- 

Now you should know what kind of minimum specifications you need for a budget android device. Not all the time, the highest specifications means the fastest user experience. So you should keep that in mind.

Screen: 

The size of the screen is totally up to your personal preference. Today most of the devices comes with a 5inch display which is pretty much the standard size of today’s standard. But the story changes completely when it comes to display resolution because it entirely decides the density of pixels in your screen. Therefore you should look for a device with decent resolution so that the individual pixels are not visible with your naked eyes. If you prefer a 5inch display then go for a device with a minimum resolution of 720p (i.e. 1280 x 720 pixels) or if you prefer a 4.5 inch display then go for a device with a minimum resolution of  480p (i.e. 480 x 854 pixel). Display technology is also important under this budget you will find devices with TFT or IPS technology. You should only go for IPS display because they have high brightness feature and have decent viewing angles. 

RAM: 

 Random access memory is a very crucial part when it comes to multitasking. Without sufficient amount of RAM you can’t use two or more applications simultaneously. Under this budget you should go for at least 1 gigabyte of RAM which will enable you decent multitasking for your apps.

Processor:

just like computers the processor is the main hardware of a mobile phone. More cores and higher clock speed ensures good performance in android. Under this low budget you’ll only find entry level processors with limited amount of processing power but still they can handle well when it comes to casual usage. There are only two mobile processor giants in the market one is the premium QUALCOMM and another is Mediatek. QUALCOMM is the best when it comes to high end processors but I really have to say that in the budget device market Mediatek excels very department of processing power. Although you still can get mobile devices which comes under budget, they are made of premium materials which are usually found in high end devices. This makes them more long lasting than other chipset vendors. But things change when it comes to performance per buck Mediatek chips provides better performance in a tight budget. Both of them provide chips with quad core technologies boosting from a clock speed of 1.2 gigahertz. Some devices under low end budget devices also comes with 8 cores (which is a rare case) provided by Mediatek. Some of the newer devices also comes with 64bit processors (only Android lollipop is a 64bit enabled OS).

 Camera:

This department is totally up to the user, whether the user likes photographs or not. Most of the manufacturers try to provide at least a 5 mega-pixel sensor on their devices. 5 mega-pixels is like 2011 but you can compromise if camera is not your biggest priority. You can also get a device with an 8 mega-pixel sensor which can provide some decent shots. And for the front camera go for a phone with at least 2 mega-pixel sensor. Although the quality of the camera totally depends upon the manufacturer of the lens installed in the device. (Sony is the best when it comes to camera lens).

Operating system:

In 2015 only go for a device which comes with Android lollipop (i.e. Android 5.0) out of the box. Don’t buy any phone which doesn’t comes with Android 5.0 right out of the box. Also ensure that the phone comes with minimum amount of bloatware with it. I would highly recommend stock android over any kind of custom UI or skin. Cyanogen mod is one of the vendor of custom Rom which ensures smooth and intuitive user experience in low end phones. 

Battery:

Nobody wants their phone to run out of juice when they need their phone. So battery life is also necessary to consider before buying a device. Normally in the low end phones the battery life is quite good because of the low end components which consumes less power as compared to high end devices. So any over 1900mah would be sufficient for a device with a 5inch display. Similarly anything over 1750mah would be sufficient for a device with 4.5 inch display. 

Storage:

though many low end devices still comes with 4 gigabyte of internal storage but it’s not sufficient in today’s date. Cause as the time passes the system updates will eat up your storage and you get back that memory. So it’s highly recommended that you buy a device with at least 8 gigabyte of system memory. Also additional storage capacity via micro sd card is extremely recommended, as it will enable you to move some apps and games to the sd card and will allow to store media files, data and images etc.

Additional tips: 

 Never buy an outdated second hand mobile, even it is a high end mobile priced under the low end budget. Because the reason is you’ll always feel outdated and always miss crucial software features which launched recently within 1 year of time. At first it may look a good deal but you’ll be only left with good hardware nothing else. Read the user reviews in the e-commerce websites which will help you to summarize a device well (but beware some people criticize the devices unnecessarily). Only expect casual gaming like temple run, candy crush, subway surfers etc. High end gaming may or may not be a good experience on these kind of devices.

So ultimately this gives a pretty good idea for buying an entry level device with functional performance and user experience. Bigger brands may seem reliable choice but it’s not the same with all the big brand in the market so choose wisely. Don’t just judge a phone on the basis of brand tag. And try to avoid the brands which are not listed in the e-commerce websites. E-commerce websites don’t sell the brands which may affect their national reputation for reliability.   

Notepads and Android

Notepads and android

If you type the phrase notepad into the Google playstore search box you will get over one thousand results. All of them serving the same purpose with more or less functionality but only a few of them stands out of the crowd. Instant note taking on mobile phone instead of traditional notepads have become a trend, after all who wants to carry additional items in their bag pack. People like to create digital notes, to do lists, itinerary, even reminders on their mobile devices. So which application is the best for note taking purpose??

Google keep is the best note taking app in terms of functionality and simplicity. Google keep makes it easy to create and manage notes easily with their clean material design interface. Additionally you can use it with various devices all of them will be synchronized with each other. It’s simple and clean but lacks high level of productivity.

Evernote is the big daddy of note taking application with a tons of features and functions. It comes with good device support available on all major platforms like Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows phone etc. Organization of notes is very convenient in Evernote (you can arrange notes by creating different notebooks). Full size desktop Evernote app is also available on Windows and Mac Os. Creating Voice notes is also possible with Evernote. Although in the free version the user is given a limited storage for a month (additional storage can be purchased by spending few bucks). All over it’s great but its bit complex for new users and amateurs.

Microsoft One Note, it is only recommended for those users who use Microsoft’s office suite. It’s very similar to Evernote but it comes with a deep integration with Microsoft office. The Notes are shared with Microsoft’s OneDrive, cloud makes it easier to find the files manually in OneDrive. The OneNote app has nice and cool animation effects which might require good specifications in the device installed.  Although it’s an awesome alternative to Evernote but it may not appeal to some audience. All over the One note app gives more professional like experience than Evernote but it still lacks some functionality. 

Torrent Download

The first thing that I want to inform you about Torrent download is that it’s not completely legal or completely secure to your computer. It is vulnerable to your computer’s security and privacy. But it has bright side to, which is so bright that it washes away the dark side. In India downloading from torrent sites is legal for private purposes while it’s completely illegal to download torrent files in the US only the content which is not protected by copyrights is legal to download. Open source media and files are legal to download (like Ubuntu, Centos. Torrent downloads provides Movies, games, applications, Ebooks, Audiobooks, Music albums and singles, Tv shows, Images etc. Some of the different categories have their individual websites for downloading, while some websites have integrated them all at one place. 

Utorrent and Bittorrent 

To download any content from the torrent websites you first need to download the program called Utorrent or Bittorrent from their websites (Both works the same, the choice is yours). Both are available for Windows and Mac os. Install them to your computer, during the installation make sure to unselect any kind to additional download or software (commonly known as spam).

Security issues

If you are using a Windows machine make sure that you have a proper antivirus installed on your machine. Keep the antivirus up to date, update its virus definition database (For Mac os just avoid downloading any zip file as you don’t know the real contents for the zip file). Create a separate “download” folder (To make it organized) anywhere in your local disks.

Downloading the files

To download any file using Utorrent or Bittorrent you need to visit the host website first. Then you need to search the content you need then open a search result. Now comes the important part if you want to download your file at a good speed then you need to check the number of seed(ers) and leech(ers). The number of seeds must be higher than the number of leech. Click on the download torrent icon and it will download a small file of 4-6kb. Now open the file using the Utorrent or Bittorrent application it will ask you a download location, select the download location according to your preference and then the download should begin.

Concept of seeders and leechers:

Seeders are people who have already downloaded the file and are uploading them. The more seeders the faster the download will go. 
Leechers are people who are sharing what they have and are downloading what you have.
When searching torrents, always get high seeded torrents. If there are no seeders, you will never finish the download, no matter how many leechers there are!

More leechers there is the slower the download, so try to find a file with many seeds low leeches .

Torrent downloads are awesome as compared with other downloading sites which provides media and software with spam and adware. Comparatively torrent downloads provides high quality content where as normal downloading sites never matches the quality and the proper organization of files. For Example you try to download a music album from an ordinary website with file hosting (Normal downloading site) you will never get the real ID3 tags (Tags which identifies Album artist, genre, year ,metadata etc) of that album instead you’ll get the custom ID3 tags edited by that host website (They do so to promote their website) which is very annoying especially when you have to manually edit them back but on the other hand in torrent downloads the ID3 tags are real made by the creator of the albums, so there’s no need to manually edit the ID3 tags to organize them. Torrent downloads are just ripped from their real version which are available on digital stores like Itunes, Amazon etc.

Additional tips

Before opening any file after the download just go the download folder where you have downloaded the file and scan that folder with the antivirus installed in your system (Works with windows, Mac is more secure so no need for this step). Check the results of the scan make sure there’s nothing unusual in the results (Antivirus doesn’t include Windows Defender as it’s very basic to detect high level of infections). Although the following step is only for those users who wants to assure their computer’s security. Torrent downloads are usually non malicious, thousands of users downloads content using torrent but it’s good to ensure security. It’s recommended to read the comment section of the torrent files before downloading anything.

Watch this video for further reference: 

 

Android and office

OFFICE

Since the beginning of android it was possible to edit word documents and spreadsheets. But it was a total miniature version of the real office suite. In the early days of android only editing of docs was possible, you can’t create new documents within the applications. Many application supported the functionality of creating documents with in the application but they all came at high price or a subscription basis. But things have changed now you get all the featu

res for free without paying a single penny.

In the early smartphone days it was widely believed that mobile phones have insufficient power to process docs and spreadsheets. But today you can even create high quality presentations with android devices. You don’t need a full size computer to create docs, spreadsheet or presentations all you need is a decent phone with good hardware support. In the early days of android there were many competitors for office suite software with similar functionality. Thinkfree office, WPS office, office suite by mobi systems, Polaris but today the competition is very limited. Today only google office suite and Microsoft office suite are the biggest rivals in android.  We all know Microsoft’s office suite is the king of office suites in pc. Even they came with their suite for android late but they instantly dominated the Google playstore. Microsoft has three separate applications: Word, Excel, power point meant for word processing, spreadsheet management, managing presentations (respectively). All of them looks and perform magnificently well in android devices. Microsoft’s office suite looks best with android tablets with high range of functions which almost feels like the desktop version. All though the application size after installation is huge which might be a problem for entry level devices with low memory. But Midrange devices and High end devices works like breeze with Microsoft’s office suite. Microsoft released their office suite late into android, because they wanted to make their office suite a selling feature for the windows phones but all their efforts on windows phone have failed miserably. The factor which made windows phone unique is no more a unique factor now it’s general to all the people. The ironic fact is that the android version of the office suite has more features than the windows phone version.

Google on the other hand also put their effort to make a functional office suite for android. Their office suite first came as a single application but recently they divided it into three major standalone apps (Google Docs, Google sheets, Google slides). They all feel native to android with Google’s material design and app integration. The Google’s initiative towards mobile office suite is also very effective although most of the feature of their apps are based on a working internet connection thus they are also very lightweight on the android devices. The user experience of their office suite is very clean and basic, highly recommended for new users or armatures. On the other hand Microsoft’s office suite feels more professional and complex so it’s totally up to the user’s personal preference. Both are well equipped with cloud technologies, Google works with its Google drive and Microsoft works with their own One drive (formerly skydrive). Any other application than these two is a complete ripe off. It is highly recommended to use from these two only. Any other subscription based office suite will be a complete waste of precious money. 

That’s all folks

Music and Mobiles

Since the inception of the original iphone and android portable music players have seen a massive sales drop. Apple’s ipod and Sony’s Walkman have limited their sales and started to more immersive mobile market. Smartphones are more versatile and more productive than portable media players in any segment. Music formats have a wide variety starting from WMA, AAC, flac but MPEG-3 (also known as MP3) stands out as widest used format among the users. It’s famous because of its high compression rate and higher quality overall. The MPEG 3 also comes in various bitrates 64,128,256,320 Kbps which promises increasing quality respectively. In the Old golden days people had to buy the Music CDs and side load them manually but in today’s digital age the users can digitally download the tracks (with or without payment options) and side load them into their devices. For digital purchases ios is considered as the best of them all, simply because it comes with built in software (itunes) which enables the users to automatically sync their music across different devices instead of any manual effort to sync them. But you have more user control over the android devices as you directly can browse the files without any need of extra software which makes it possible to sync illegal tracks to. Although itunes every other music player for mobiles unfortunately it’s only available for ios. Whereas the default music player in android devices literally sucks but thankfully android has so many alternative music players to choose. Playstore is full of alternative music players but beware only download the player which has over 500,000 downloads to avoid spam and buggy music player. Also if you own an android device then you can also download additional equalizer which increases quality and enables you to fine tune the audio settings in your device (use headphones for best experience).