Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate 4G Contest

Do you want to get your hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate 4G from Telus? Do you use Gowalla? Well on Thursday May 12,2011, Samsung will be giving away 10 Galaxy S Fascinate 4G smartphones in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver at a secret location in each city. All you have to do is be one of the first 10 people to check-in via Gowalla at the mystery Telus store location at the city. If you are one of the lucky 10 people, you will get a notification telling you that you’ve won.

It’s that simple

Also if you are not one of the lucky first 10 people, you can still enter to win a Galaxy S Fascinate 4G smartphone with $4,000 cash between May 12 – May 26.

Powered by Android 2.2, the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate 4G also features:

• A front facing camera for easy video chat
• A 1650 mAh battery for long battery life
• Uncompromised web experience with Adobe Flash 10.1 for a rich browsing exprience
• 5.0 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
• Google Maps Navigation providing turn by turn voice guidance and new Google Maps in 3D. Available only on Android.
• Access to more than 100,000 free and paid applications from the growing Android Market, as well as the ability to store apps to the device memory card to free up phone space
• Expandable memory up to 32 GB (16 GB microSD card included)
• Seven home screens to customize with the widgets and apps for at a glance information and updates

For Vancouver, I’ve been told the secret location. Now I haven’t been told I can’t tell you which store it will be, but just in case I’m not allowed, do know that it’s located at one of the downtown malls 🙂 You can visit the Telus kiosk in Pacific Centre Mall starting at 10am tomorrow.

Good luck and have fun!

Samsung Galaxy Tab Review

These past couple of weeks I’ve been graciously allowed to play with the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Like the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate I reviewed in December, the Galaxy Tab operates with Android 2.2 and pretty much had the same feel and function as the phone, except with the a 7 inch screen. The Tab comes two cameras, 3.0 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, HD video recording with rear camera, 1 Ghz processor, standard 16/32 Gb storage with an additionally microSD slot for up to 32 Gb more of storage, wifi and 3G capabilities. All the bells and whistles you would want in a tablet.

The screen was very bright and detailed. While surfing the web the tab responded very well and all images appeared great. I found that viewing a website in landscape was much easier on my eyes than in portrait mode. Even with zooming while in portrait I didn’t find viewing websites as enjoyable. I did find the Flash support to be lacking on some sites with loading speeds taking sometime to load. Granted I don’t get Flash support at all on the iPad.

The keyboard, as with the Galaxy Captivate, was very responsive and I did enjoy the slight vibration as you typed. I found it hard typing in landscape mode as the keys were very far from each other to use your thumbs, but still too tiny to try to type as you would with a standard keyboard. My fastest typing was in portrait mode.

Though I truly liked the camera on the Galaxy Captivate, I didn’t enjoy using it on the Galaxy Tab. I found it a bit cumbersome and found the image quality to be grainier than I would have hoped. I even found it awkward using the tab to take photos and video, it just didn’t feel comfortable or “natural”. I will say the same the thing about the iPad 2. Even though we all wanted tablets to have cameras, I do find that I’m not even using them at all, but it’s great to have in the event you need one.

I did find the placement of the ON/OFF button to be difficult. I would rather have it be located on the top of the Tab than on the side as I found myself accidentally hitting it from time to time while reading and turning off the screen. Truly annoying as it’s also located close to the volume control.

I truly enjoyed using the Tab as an e-reader. Even though it’s back-lit like the iPad, i found it easier to hold and flip through pages. I was using the Amazon Kindle app for all my reading and it seemed to function better than the iPad version for me.

The Apps were disappointing for me. Firstly some of the Apps that are available for free on the Apple version are paid version for Android. I don’t understand why there was such a difference. I know this isn’t Samsung’s doing, but it really is a pain. Secondly the Apps weren’t different from the phone to tab versions. I thought they could have benefited from a larger screen. This might be due to Andriod itself and I do hope that when Andriod 3.0 (aka Honeycomb) comes out, this will truly help the tablet market differentiate itself from the smartphone market. As I see it right now the Tab just feels like a larger size Captivate with the same functionality.

Cost wise, the Tab is available on Bell and Rogers for a 3 year contract at $200, and without a contract on Bell it’s $400 yet on Rogers the no contract price is $625.

 

 

Testing Blogsy For The IPad

The other day I saw one of my good friend tweet about Blogsy and thought I would give it a look.

I was looking for an easy software where I could easily create a blog post without having to know any HTML codes (god forbid I would have to learn how to code) to use on the iPad. The WordPress App is ok for being able to quickly approve comments or quickly update a post, but I didn’t find the interface all that great when compared to the PC/MAC. I guess I’m just so use to using the WYSIWYG for quickly editing and writing my blog posts.

This App is great as it uses the iPad’s touch capabilities for easily dropping in links, photos and videos as you can see by this video.

With this tool I’ll be able to easily update and create blogs on the go without having to bring my MacBook Pro along. After all this post was created by using Blogsy.

Apple iPad 2 Launch in Canada

Well the day has finally arrived for us in Canada. The iPad 2 is being launched today at 5pm with some fan fare, and by fan I do mean fan. Already this morning walking to work the line up outside the Apple Store downtown was over 60 people. Some have been in line since midnight hoping to be one of the first few people to get their hands on it.

The iPad 2 was already launched on March 11th in the US with most stores selling out and demand for the new toy being fierce. Some have given up walking into a retail store to get their iPad and have resorted to just ordering it online from the Apple website.

I was debating whether I would line up today. Of course I had to work and thought that after work I would just see how the line up was and decide there. Last night after Twestival, I realized that I had a chiropractor appointment at 4:30pm and couldn’t wait in line for the device. So at 1am this morning, when the online Apple store opened up, I ordered myself the 64Gb White iPad, with the green smart cover and camera kit.

So in about 4 weeks time I should have one delivered directly to my door without the worry of waiting in line and possibly being disappointed that they run out before I get to the front. I’ll probably be jealous of all those that will get one, or currently have one from their trips to the US, but I think I made the right decision. I’ve waited for over a year as it is to get one and after playing with Russ’ iPad for the past few months I know it will be a welcome addition to my growing gadgets.

The Weather Network Winter Contest

Are you tired of the cold rainy weather in Vancouver? Are you tired of the lack of sun and want to escape to warmer climates? Well the Weather Network wants to give you a sunny all inclusive vacation to the Mayan Riviera for 2 courtesy of TakeOffEh.com. All you have to do to win this lovely vacation is to make a Weather Ad lasting 30 seconds at MyWeatherAd.com.

To participate:

1. visit MyWeatherAd.com
2. watch the easy tutorial, and create your own personal ad for the Weather Network with your own photos and videos
3. share your ad with friends and family and have them “Like” your newly created ad. The ad with the most “Likes” wins.

Show Canada how creative you can be and create as many ads as you like, but you have until March 21st, 2011 to enter and get your ads “Liked”.

Further information about The Weather Network and MyWeather Ad is available at theweathernetwork.com and The Weather Network’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/theweathernetwork.

Samsung Galaxy S Captivate Review

A couple of month’s back I was invited to attend the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate and Samsung Galaxy Tab. Although the party was awesome, I didn’t get a chance to see the products in action at the party. The lovely people at Rocket XL, hearing that I didn’t get a chance to try them out, were kind enough send me the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate to try out for a just over a week.

I’ll admit I’m an iPhone guy and to try an Android phone was exciting to me. I’ve heard such great things about the Android phones from some of my colleagues at the office that I had to really give this mobile phone a good run. I replaced my iPhone with the Galaxy S Captivate and this became the main form of communication for me during that time.

I’m going to keep this review as simple as possible and avoid getting too technical. I think the average person will be best served this way. I’ll try to avoid comparing it too much to the iPhone as this isn’t the intention of this review.

Right out of the box the phone has a great sleek look to it. Coming from an iPhone, I had to get use to having the ON/OFF button on the side of the phone instead of on the top. This was hard to get use to for a few days as I would always go towards the top of the phone.

Once the phone was turned on I was amazed at the size of the screen. It was wonderful to look at a phone with such a great size screen. The default wallpaper was a gorgeous European street scene and made me want to just get on a plane and travel there (ok that is for another review ? ). There were 4 separate buttons on the bottom of the phone, your settings (depending on which application you were in I figured out ), the Home button, the Return button (usually moves you back to your last screen), and your Search key.  Pressing any keys would cause the phone to vibrate to let you know that the key was pressed.

I then quickly moved onto the Android Apps. I’ve heard great things about them and I wanted to test drive a few of them on my own. The first App on my list was HootSuite. As expected there wasn’t any difference to using the App itself. What was different with using an Android Apps was where the Apps are located and stored. You have to actually go in the Applications button to view all Apps, but the interesting thing is you can move them to any Home screen afterwards.

LIKES

Ok now for what I truly liked about the phone itself.

Being an amateur photographer I quickly had to try out the 5.0 Megapixel camera. The cool thing about the camera was that it offered you preset settings like most point and shoot cameras do.  There is a setting for Macro, Landscape, Action, Candle, Fireworks, Backlight, etc. Who would need a point a shoot with these settings. All of my Vancouver Christmas Market photos were taken with this phone.

As stated earlier the screen size is bigger than my current iPhone 4. Though not as crisp in my opinion, it still was great to be able to have a great size screen to view websites, watch videos, and even use for taking photos.

Great push content, from emails via Gmail or Exchange, my notifications was quick and easy. Also once I was signed onto Twitter view HootSuite, anytime a Tweet would come in for me, I was notified on the phone. A great feature I thought.

Loved, yes LOVED, the fact that you could turn the phone into a wireless hub and have up to 10 other wireless devices hooked up to the phone and using the data plan. Warning this does drain the battery very quickly.

DISLIKES

The initial set up was cumbersome. By default the auto correct on the keyboard wasn’t set up and I had to find it through the Settings to turn on. This in itself wasn’t easy to find and I found click through too many screens to make it happen. Once the auto correct keyboard was set up, I still found that I would have to correct the corrected words far too often and really slowed down my productivity when responding to emails, Tweeting, or even searching the web.

Even though I loved the camera, the lack of a flash in this day and age was disappointing. Even the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant  (its predecessor has a flash).
Lack of a front facing camera was disappointing. As per the same comment above about the Flash, the Galaxy S Vibrant has a front facing camera.

Most of the Android Apps that I wanted were actually paid Apps. Even though the iPhone version was free, the Android version had a cost associated with them.  Though this isn’t due to the phone itself, I was disappointed to see that from Android.

Deleting an App was very time consuming. From my Home Screen when I dragged the App to the bottom of the screen, which reveals the trash can, the App actually doesn’t get deleted, but is just removed from the Home Screen area. To delete the App itself, you have to go into your Settings and follow about 4 steps to actually “uninstall” the App.

No software to hook up to my computer within the box itself. I found out that I couldn’t just hook up the USB to my computer to get my contacts and calendar to sync. I even tried going to the Samsung’s webpage to see if I could download some software, but I couldn’t easily find any and since I only had the phone for a short period of time I didn’t continue to search for it.

I also wasn’t able to install any music on the phone to test out that functionality due to the same reason above.

Battery life wasn’t the greatest and found out that I needed to recharge the phone after 12 hours of use. Granted this could have been because of the push content, or the fact that I was using the phone more than normal thus draining the batter.

OVERALL

Once I had all the settings to my liking, which took about 2 days or so, it was actually a nice phone to use. I started to understand the Android OS and was able to quickly maneuver myself around it quite nicely. I did find the phone to be a little wider than my iPhone, though not a huge issue for me, it might be an issue for someone with smaller hands.

I was sad to see the phone go away. I truly liked the camera settings the ability to have mini wireless hub created with just one phone.  For me these were two of the biggest selling points. I think it would be great to have someone be able to create a phone that has the ease of the iPhone and some great features the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate.

Here in Canada you can currently get the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate through Rogers for as little as $99 on a 3 year contract or $549 on a no term contract.

The iPad Envy

Yes it’s true, I’m officially envious of everyone with an iPad. There I said it!

Russ recently got himself an iPad, which to be perfectly honest was what I was thinking of getting him for Christmas – but don’t tell him that. And though at first I wasn’t 100% sold on it, it has grown on me with every use. I’m surprised how easy it is to work with and all the amazing Apps that the App store offers. I’ve been trying so hard not to take over Russ’ iPad even though Russ keeps telling me that I can add items to it.

At first Russ wasn’t so sold on the iPad. He was starting to find it limiting to what he wanted to do, he wanted to surf like he did with his netbook. After realizing that the Apps truly make the iPad, he was happier. There are still a few things Russ is getting used to with it and as am I.

I’m really trying very hard to restrain myself from going out there and actually purchasing one for myself. I’m going to try very hard to wait until the next version is released hopefully next year sometime.

Words With Friends – Free iPhone App

I’ve never been a Scrabble player in my life. I never got the game to begin with, but a couple of months ago I thought I would try Words With Friends Free iPhone App.  This game is a Scrabble like game where you play on your iPhone with other users.

I have yet to actually win a game with the friends I’m playing with as I think everyone is just that much smarter than I am. One day I’m sure I will be able to beat someone as I’m learning new words along the way and thus this game has become an addiction for me. I can’t get enough of it and trying to come up with words based on my letters is always a challenge.

I do think my weakness in the game is that most of my words are always 3 letters long and I need to strive to change that. I don’t have a technique yet, but I know some of friends always go for the huge word score counts or try to make sure that I’m not able to place any letters on the higher score areas.

Now since I am playing the free version of the game, it does get annoying to suffer through the ads after each and every move you make. If you can’t bare this, you can purchase the ad free game at $2.99.

So if we are not playing, hook me up. You can find me by searching for GusF.

iPhone 4 Launch and First Impressions

About a week ago, the day after the iPhone 4 was launched in Canada, I decided to line up outside the Apple Store to see if I could get my hands on the coveted smart phone. I got to the store at about 8:45am and there was already a line up of about 50 people and I thought I would stake my claim in line. Of course by this time I had already tweeted that I was in line and Lesley Chang came by to join me in line and get her own iPhone 4.

The Apple Store staff were amazing as we waited in line. They came by and offered us all drinks and some food to eat prior to the store opening. When the store finally opened they came by everyone in line to see if we wanted the 16 gb or the 32 gb version of the iPhone 4. When we asked the staff member if this meant they had iPhones in stock, they said it meant we were guaranteed one.

Of course the night before, on launch day, they couldn’t activate everyone’s phone that were in line, so they were given a card to use on the Saturday and were given priority access. Also if you were in line wanting to get yourself the unlocked version of the iPhone 4, you were allowed to skip the line and go directly into the store. That said after 4 hours of waiting, I finally got in and got my iPhone 4. Since I wasn’t changing anything on my plan, the process was quick and within 1/2 hour I was out the door the lovely phone.

First Impressions

I’ve only been playing with my iPhone for about a week now and only have the iPhone 3G to compare it to. With that said the difference is amazing.

The phone feels slightly heavier even though it is thinner than the iPhone 3G and 3GS. I’m not sure if it’s just because it’s flatter than its predecessors, or if it’s because of the new aluminosilicate glass. This also makes the phone feel so much slicker in my opinion.

The picture quality is outstanding. Everything is much crisper and brighter thanks due to the Retina Display. Websites are displayed amazingly.

The 5 megapixel camera with flash finally brings the iPhone up to standard. There is no longer a need for a point and shoot camera. The quality is great and the LED flash allows you to take photos in low light.

The front facing camera is also nice and even though I haven’t tried out the Face-to-Face feature, I have taken photos with the front camera. The quality isn’t anything great as it’s not 5 megapixel quality.

Having the ability to take 720 dpi video is also great. The only problem I’ve found with the video is that when you upload to YouTube directly from the iPhone, the HD quality is lost. Hopefully they will be able to fix this soon. In the interim I’ve been using the Flickr App as it allows you to upload the HD quality of the video.

The battery is also amazing. I can go 2 days without recharging my phone. I wouldn’t last 24 hours on my iPhone 3G recently and this is a welcome change to say the least.

As for Antennagate, I haven’t experienced any drop calls nor experienced loosing bars while holding the phone.

The only problem that I have experienced so far is during a speakerphone call. People seem to have a problem hearing me and I have to really put the mic very close to my mouth which I think defeats the purpose of the speakerphone. Granted I haven’t tried Face-to-Face yet to see if this is also a problem. Hopefully I can test that theory out soon with someone.

Sending Multiple Photos on the iPhone

Most days I don’t pay too much attention to TV commercials, but the other night while watching Fringe the iPhone commercial caught my eye. In the commercial they were clicking through multiple photos and sending them via email. That surprised me as I never knew you could send multiple photos through the iPhone.

To share you photos open up your photo album.

At the bottom left you will notice the share button, click this and start selecting your photos by touching the appropriate thumbnail and a check mark appears to let you know it has been selected.

Click on Share and you can send all the photos selected via Email or MMS.

There you have it. A great and simple way to share multiple photos in quickly and with easy instead of sending multiple emails with one photo attachment at a times.