Friday, April 25, 2014

Fastcardtech Slow Shipping Problem

 I just got an email for a Fastcard tech customer:

Q: Hey man. I ordered an Inew v3 from fastcardtech.com. I had an issue with them first because they sold me the phone knowing it was having battery issues and didnt admit it until i checked online and they confirmed. They then told me that they sent the stock back for the issue to be fixed and it needed two weeks. They said they got stock back and then shipped the phone on April 18. They gave me a number that was untrackable by DHL and today, the 24 of April ,they emailed me a tracking number that read "Shipment information received". I dont know what to believe as they are adamant that the phone was shipped on the 18th. I believe that they lie a lot and are very gray in there business practices. Are they decent enough to wait for or should i ask for a refund through Paypal?

 A: If you read my post on the blog, when they say it is shipped, it is in the waiting area, all packed and paperwork done. About once a week...sometimes twice in a week, a pickup vehicle will collect it. So there will be collection as they wait for a large volume then do the pickup. You can wait another week or 10 days. Do a paypal claim before 45 days from payment. Usually it will arrive but they are always slow.

For the benefit of all the other folks buying from FCT here's my old article from Dec 2012:

"I can't really remember when was it when I bought my first knockoff clone phone from Fastcardtech. It was the iPhone first version that had a slightly warped screen called the Sciphone. The shipping was reasonably quick and everything was in order. After that, I did not buy any other clone phones because the specs and quality was not up to par with the branded phones at that point in time.

After having used the Motorola Milestone, the iPhone 3GS, Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Xperia S, I knew what I wanted in an Android Phone. In 2012 when Mediatek released the dual core MTK6577 and the single core MTK6575 ARM SoC, these cheap Chinese phones became an attractive option. Until now these phones only came with 512mb of ram with WVGA screens which is actually enough for everyday usage. The big breakthrough Samsung made was with the Galaxy S with 512mb ram and WVGA screen which is very much like the Chinese phones of today. So in 2012, I started to buy some of these phones. These phones no longer have warped screen, cheap plastic, irritatingly loud low quality speakers. They now rival the build quality of the branded phones. Only one thing is still lagging behind and that is the implementation of the Android firmware which can be buggy on certain devices.

Being a huge country with over a billion in population, China is seeing a huge growth in population of phone users as more and more chinese move into the cities and becoming part of the middle income group. New phones are being churned out every week to fuel this demand and one of these online distributors / retailer is Fastcardtech.

Overall, Fastcardtech is a decent online store but they have some bad practices which keep them from being a totally trusted company. After buying several phones ( 5 phones now) I can now list down my observations.

On the whole I like Fastcardtech because they have many payment options including PayPal. Any company that does not have PayPal as a payment option is dubious and could be a scam company because you will not be able to get your money back if you receive a lemon ( i.e. Chinaecarts )

Another good thing is the shipping option. They have FEDEX, TNT, DHL, EMS, and regular airmail which is often Free Shipping. Now the bad thing is (not necessarily that bad ) they try to keep the shipping cost down so even using EMS or Fedex or DHL will still take a longer time between 7-14 days. Fastcardtech is located in a place that is far from a major city like Beijing so they use a shipping agent to pick up their packages and I am quite sure that the shipping agent do NOT come round everyday to pick up the packages. So when you place your order and you receive your tracking number by email, do not get the idea that your package has shipped. It is packed and assigned the airwaybill number and sitting in the store waiting for the agent to pick it up and that can take up to several days.

Another bad practice is they claim to ship out your order in 3 business days but that is just bullshit. They usually take about a full week to prepare your order ( they actually do check the phone which is a good thing ) after which you get your tracking number.
So, from making payment to actually receiving your package will take about 2-3 weeks using FEDEX or EMS or DHL. Free shipping will take 3-4 weeks using registered airmail.

Since I monitor the Fastcardtech site often I know what are the new arrivals. When I spot a brand new phone and it says "IN STOCK" I suggest you wait for 2 weeks before ordering because what they have is a sample phone and they have placed the order with the factory and still waiting for the stocks to arrive. The good thing is, if they have the physical stock, the shipping will go smoothly and quickly. Also, after a week or 2, the price will usually be adjusted downward.

 I recently ordered the NEWSMY Newman N1 and it is listed as "IN STOCK" but guess what? After waiting for almost 2 weeks and I checked my account. It was still not shipped and they told me that I have to wait because it is difficult to get that model, so this means it is not in stock. I changed it to a Neo NO2-m and it came within 2 weeks even though I selected free shipping.

I get emails saying that Fastcardtech does not answer emails but actually, they do. You log in to your account and send them an email and then log out, expecting an email back from them but you receive an auto respond email with no details. They need to fix this system. They actually do respond but you need to log in to the fastcardtech site and check the response.

The last thing I would like to point out is when you make your order and order additional accessories and select your phone color, make sure you get it right the first time because when they pack your phone and whatever else you've ordered, they check your original order and may miss out any other email you sent to them later about color change or accessories. They will miss out your additional email 50% of the time.

I would advise anyone buying from fastcardtech to read all their info right on top of the page."

Keeping all the points I wrote about in mind, you can go ahead and enjoy shopping at Fastcardtech as I would still recommend them.

One last last thing: Their English sucks!


Thursday, April 24, 2014

I SPENT A DAY WITH THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S5 TO TEST THE UHD 4K VIDEO RECORDING QUALITY

The UHD video test covers several features of the Samsung Galaxy S5 video camera.

mp4 encoding quality
Manual ISO exposure
Moire test,
CMOS rolling suhtter
Autofucus and auto exposure


The manual auto ISO text was taken in low light. It was raining and was about 5.30pm. The second last clip at 100 ISO actually shows the actual clow light condition I noted that day.
Rolling shutter was not noticeable during faster pans and moire was very well controlled. You will notice only a little moire in the sky shot with the fence. Encoding to mp4 is very high quality as the details on the rough wall and the swimming pool water movement is not blocky.

Please click the youtube title to go to the youtube site and select 4k resolution to view full screen to see the true quality.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

HOW TO ROOT ANY CHINA CLONE PHONE USING MEDIATEK PROCESSORS

SO I found this very well made clear video on how to root any Chinese clone phone. I might as well use this video here instead of making my own video.


Friday, March 21, 2014

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Vs Mediatek MTK6592 : BATTLE OF THE MONSTER ARM PROCESSORS

This youtube video shows that the Mediatek MTK6592T Octa Core (turbo version running at 2ghz)
vs the fastest performing Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 800 which is quad core.
This video points out that the Snapdragon 800 although performing at very high clockspeed will throttle down the speed due to overheating (Those who understand Mandarin will know this). The MTK6592 with its very efficient A7 cores manages to keep it's performance up overall although the Snapdragon 800 starts off with a higher Antutu score.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

HTC Butterfly Clone Review. Quad Core. Star X920 Butterfly - MTK6589 Quad Core

Wanted to do this mini review for a long time but didn't have the time to. Bought this HTC Butterfly clone for my bro around 6 months back so I do not have any access to it. However I asked him to fill out a questionnaire. He is using a iPhone 4S and an original Samsung Galaxy S Advance so I asked him to rate the phone based on these 2 phones that he is using. He also tested the Xiaomi Redmi with the same specs but he says this phone is more responsive and smoother. Here are the pictures taken when we just got it. It comes with a nice phone casing with stand.
This is the STAR X920 Butterfly Quad Core Jelly Bean available at Fastcardtech






> Build and body quality: 10
> Screen resolution and colour: 9
> Screen Viewing angle: 9
> Phone Smoothness/Responsiveness: 9
> Game playing: 9
> Watching youtube: 9
> Battery life: 7
> Normal phone call and voice quality: 8
> Speaker quality, how loud or soft: 6 (have to do android engineer mode to increase volume.        Pushing up too high produces some distortion)

> Sound/voice quality when put to speaker mode when talking: 5 (see above comment about speaker)
> Battery indicator accuracy: 6
> 3G internet speed: 8
> Google Maps speed: 9
> Tested the GPS? 9
> Any compass built in? No Compass
> Camera quality: 8
> Flash brightness: 8

Specs:
  • Model: Star X920 Butterfly
  • Phone Style: Bar, multi-touch screen, 5.0 inch Capacitive touchscreen
  • Operating System: Android 4.2.1 OS
  • Processor: MTK6589 Quad Core 1.2GHz
  • Google Play Store: Support

Display

  • Screen Size: 5.0 inch HD IPS touchscreen
  • Display resolution: 1280*720 pixel
  • Color Support: 16 million colors
  • Screen Technology: Multi-touch screen

Camera

  • Camera Resolution: 12.6MP rear camera + 4.9MP front camera, digital zoom

Connectivity

  • Connectivity Technology: GSM + WCDMA(Dual Simcard)
  • 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)


Battery
  • Battery: Li-on battery(2020mAh)
  • Standby Time: 150-200 hours

Memory

  • Built-in Memory: 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM

Size

  • Dimensions: 141.2*72.3*9.7
  • Weight: 163

What in package

  • 1 * Star X920 Butterfly Android Phone
  • 1 * Travel Charger
  • 2 * Batteries
  • 1 * USB Data Cable
  • 1 * Headphone

Note: Star X920 Butterfly come with android 4.2.1 os, and  MTK6589 Quad core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB Ram, 8GB Rom.



Apart from the low volume of the speaker, This phone is still an excellent investment. Already used for 6 months and everything is still going strong. The plus point is that it supports 2 sim cards. Very useful for overseas trips because you can use an overseas sim card and still have your Whatsapp running without having to register another number again. For those who always use a head set for talking and listening to music, this is a non-issue.
Check out this phone HERE. Still in-stock now and at a very reasonable $170 with free shipping.

Another alternative is this newer and more powerful HTC Butterfly Clone with a faster 1.5ghz Quad core 2GB ram 32GB storage DUAL SIM. Priced at $196

Monday, March 17, 2014

Three GALAXY NOTE 3 clones that I will take as a real Note 3 Substitute / Alternative

If you look at my favourite chinese phone retailer Fastcardtech there are more than 10 different models of the Galaxy Note 3 clones and knockoffs being sold there. I will now attempt to pinpoint 3 models that provides as much functionality as a real Note3 without the exorbitant price tag. These hand picked clone models should have functional S-Pen, Infared Remote control, Air Command and Gesture control.


http://www.fastcardtech.com/HDC-Galaxy-Note-3-N9006-6589.html?u=54665

1) HDC Galaxys Note 3 N9006- MTK6589 Quad Core 1.2GHz 5.7inch HD IPS OGS Screen 2GB RAM S-pen Function Android 4.3


 This model has all the goodies built in like 720p screen, a S-Pen stylus that actually works correctly, 2GB of real ram and a quad core processor. All the Galaxy Note 3 features are included: Infared Remote control, Air Command, Gesture control, Multi-Windows, IPS OGS screen. This also has the 3colors LED notification light. The only thing I find disappointing is that it comes with only a single SIM card slot. There is no dual SIM and 4G (LTE) version of this phone yet. Price is now $225 with free shipping to many parts of the world. It is pricer than the other following 2 models due to the 2GB ram. Please use my link HERE to view this phone.


http://www.fastcardtech.com/HDC-Galaxy-Note-3-N9000-quad-core.html?u=54665


2) HDC Galaxys Note 3 N9000- MTK6582 Quad Core 1.3Ghz 5.7 Inch HD IPS Screen Android 4.3

I would like to apologize for the icon of the note 3 being shown. But they are all note 3 phones aren't they?
This has also got every feature from the Samsung Note 3 and worthy to be in this list.
Fastcardtech lists the features as:
5.7inch HD IPS screen with 1280*720 pixel display, and MTK6582 Quad Core 1.3Ghz processor, 1GB RAM, and 4GB storage.
Android 4.4 ( not too sure if it's really android 4.4. Screenshots show 4.3) and supports Air Command/ Gesture Control/ Smart Stay/ Multi Task/ 3 Colors Indicators LED , later we will release a new rom to support Smart Stay Function. HDC Galaxys Note 3 N9000 uses same leather back case as the original one.

HDC Galaxys Note 3 N9000(SM-N9006) is the first Android 4.4 Phone on FCT and carries with Amoi HD Screen.

With multi windows/ multi tasking, I would sure prefer 2GB ram instead of 1GB on this phone. Again disappointingly only a single SIM version available. The price is super reasonable at only $146 with free shipping. WOW! Use my link HERE to check out this awesome phone.


http://www.fastcardtech.com/HDC-Galaxys-Note-3-Max.html?u=54665

HDC Galaxys Note 3 Max- MTK6589 Quad Core 5.7inch HD IPS Infrared Remote Control OTG Android 4.3 Phone 

 

This has got everything too:

Real MTK6589 Quad Core 1.2GHz
Real 5.7inch HD 720P IPS Screen
Real Android 4.3 OS Smart Phone
Real 1GB Ram + 8GB Rom
Ultra thin body with metal frame and leather back cover
Built in stylus pen
Support Infrared Remote Control/ Air Command/ Gesture Control/ Smart Stay/ Mutli Window/ OTG Function/ 3 Colors LED Indicators

Dual Simcard Version is now released. GSM 850/900/1800/1900 + WCDMA 850/2100. 
Grab this phone using my link HERE
 
 Conclusion:
Take a look at these Note3 clones before looking at the others. I have already done the homework so you do not have to comb through the FAQs and customers questions as well as all the other note 3 models. I will update this list to 6 phones soon and to include those without S-Pens as well.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

The new Octa Core Mediatek Processor MT6592 or MTK6592

The last article about the company Mediatek and their processors I wrote about was in 2012, the link HERE
The time has come to update that article.
Here is the lineup of the Mediatek soc processors.
MTK6573 Single Core Cortex A8
MTK6575 Single Core Cortex A9
MTK6577 Dual Core Cortex A9
MTK6572 Dual Core Cortex A7 ( Newer lower cost, higher speed version of the MTK6577 )
MTK6589 Quad Core Cortex A7 ( Original name MTK6588.  T version is 300mhz faster )
MTK6582 Quad Core Cortex A7 ( Newer lower cost verson of the MTK6589 but 720p screen support only)
MTK6592 Octa Core Cortex A7

The MTK6592 is a big step up from the MTK6589 and MK6582 – built on a 28nm HPM process, the two processor sports a higher clock on their ARM Cortex-A7 CPUs, support for LPDDR3 RAM and an upgraded GPU prowess, thanks to quad-core Mali450s that also feature a higher clock than their predecessors.

Samsung's Exynos 5 series also features an Octa core processor but works in the big.LITTLE configuration. For the benefit of those who dont know what big.LITTLE is, here's the explaination in simple terms:
Big.LITTLE processing achieves high performance and low power consumption by pairing the best of the high performance Cortex-A15 MP Core and ultra efficient Cortex-A7 processors.
Big.LITTLE processing allows devices to seamlessly select the right processor for the right task, based on performance requirements. Importantly, this dynamic selection is transparent to the application software or middleware running on the processors.
In the Exynos 5 Octa core processor, there is a set of quad Cortex A15 for heavy duty processing and another set of quad core A7 processor for lightweight use. Only one set will be active at any one time depending on the application and usage. So in principal, it would still be quad core processing within an Octa Core configuration.

HOWEVER, the MTK6592 does not use ARM's big.LITTLE solution. Instead it implements eight A7 cores delivering true octa-core processing.  AnTuTu benchmark scores go up to 28,000, which puts the this SoC between the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 in terms of performance...but without the bigger price tag.

The MTK6592 was launched late last year in November 2013 and now in March 2014, countless phones utilizing the MTK6592 has appeared everywhere. These phones are all in the $200-$300 price bracket. The new low cost quad core processor MTK6582 and the older MTK6589 still has a lot of grunt left and will make very good lower cost alternatives. I have been using two MTK6589 phones for the past 9 months and they do everything I i throw at them effortlessly. But having the MTK6592 Octa Cores in your phone gives you bragging rights.