Sunday, March 24, 2013

Screen Protector Problems? Here's the fix.

Some of these Chinese phones come with a free screen protector or if you ordered one from the online store together with your phone, they just include it in the box and they don't put it on for you. So, if you're like me having a hard time getting these to stick on without the bubbles, here's a video for you as it helped me out a lot. You can also use the tape to pick dirt off your screen. Enjoy...

Friday, March 8, 2013

A LOOK AT THE HDC Galaxy Player N7300 EX

If you have read my last post you would know that the MTK6589 phones have already realeased and on sale and in stock now. As requested by one of my regular readers, I will now single out one phone and analyze it from the screen caps provided. This phone is the HDC Galaxy Player Ex. Here are the specs:


    Operating System: Android 4.1.2 OS
    Processor: MTK6589 Quad Core 1.2GHz

    Screen Size: 5.8 inch IPS HD touchscreen
    Display resolution: 1280*720 pixel
    Color Support: 16 million colors
    Screen Technology: Multi-touch screen
    Camera Resolution: 8MP rear camera + 3.2MP front camera, digital zoom

    Connectivity Technology: GSM + WCDMA (Dual Sim)
    Network Band: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz + WCDMA 850/2100MHz
    Data Technology: EDGE, GPRS
    Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
    WLan: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
    USB: USB 2.0
    GPS: GPS/A-GPS (Built-in GPS chipset)

    Built-in Memory: 1GB RAM, 4GB ROM
    Battery: Li-on battery (3200mAh) 

We see that the specs are indeed impressive and will set you back USD $400 easily if it carried one of the big brand names on it. On to the screen captures... 

   

We see that it has got real quad core processors utilizing the MTK6589 / MT6589 quad core processors running at 1.2ghz max speed. Linux Kernel version of 3.4.5 is really Jelly Bean 4.1.2 with 1GB of RAM.

A. Rear Camera is really only 5mp 
B. Software upscaling to 8mp or 6mp anamorphic size
C. 5mp Front camera with no upscaling ( which is a good thing )
D. 5mp max front camera resolution.
E. Both cameras support full HD 1080p video recording resolution

A. RAM size is 1GB
B. Internal storage partition for installing apps is 1GB
C. External storage partition for all other storage needs is 5.44GB
D. 8GB total storage space ( 7.26GB  after formatting )
We can conclude that storage space is really 8GB. You might be wondering B+C= 6.44GB. What about the rest of the 1.56 GB. This partition is used by the Android Operating System giving us a total of 8GB.

If you are wondering about the new phones having 2GB of RAM, I would say that that totally not necessary and overkill. It only add bigger numbers for marketing purposes. The Android OS is very memory efficient there are no app with really require 2GB of RAM unless you have a bloated OS with a lot of bloatware.

The screen is 720p HD and operation should be very smooth as the MTK6589 has the SGX544 powerful GPU built in. 
There is no mention of a compass so this phone may not have one. You have to look at the other similar phones if you really need that compass for navigation. I personally have only used the compass about 3 times in my entire experience with smart phones.

Last point to note, the specs shows the battery to be 3200mAh. In reality I would guess the battery to be about 2500mAh which is still pretty good.

Many of the MTK6589 phones carry similar specs and should all be about equivalent in performance and user experience. If you ask me, I would give this phone the OK, go ahead and buy recommendation. If you like a phone with a hardware home button, there are several phones similar to this with the Samsung styled home button built in.