New Kit Kat

There had been a long wait since the last Kit Kat update for my Nexus 7. Almost 6 months I think. Finally earlier in the week, the latest version was pushed through. Android 4.3.3.

Any major changes? Not that I could tell. They were mainly under the hood I was sure. After all, it was a small increment, but it still kept the Nexus devices a version ahead of the rest.

Shame that there would be no new Nexus devices in the horizon and Google had decided against developing this platform. I would not hesitate to buy the next version of Nexus 7 should they come out, but there were not to be. At least as it stood at the moment.

Almost cooked!Should my Nexus 7 became outdated, I might go Sony. Some of their 7 incher or similar looked interesting indeed. Will be keeping an eye on that.

As it stood, let's see what was in store...

Streetview Coming to Town

Better take cover boys and girls. The Google Streetview was hitting KL and the camera vehicle was on show at Suria this weekend.

It wasn't manned though and not much information about the car. Nothing exceptional apart form the ball-shaped camera protruding up on the roof. And GPS antenna of course.

Fully expecting to see one of those getting stuck in the KL traffic jam for sure. Because otherwise, it won't be real KL!

A Month With the Nexus 4

The first thing I did when I landed at Atlanta was to look around for a phone shop. What exactly was I looking for? Of course the Nexus 4. New stocks were just being released by Google and LG in the last couple of days after the supply ran dry form the launch.

The first couple of shops I went to has yet to receive a stock. But in was lucky the third time. It was a T Mobile vendor and I paid about USD 599 for a contract-free unit. And it was the last one. The stock only game in the same morning. No hesitations. I then got a rolling monthly data package to go with the phone and I was set! And that was about a month ago.

I hesitated to write about it earlier since for some reason I wasn't very happy happy with the camera. I then sorted out the quirks, and still something was missing. Somehow it lacked the charm of the Galaxy Nexus. It wasn't a disappointment. It was more about managing expectation.

Let's start with the good points. The camera was better then the Galaxy Nexus, but I doubt it if it trumped the Note II or the S3. My 4S produced better capture. But maybe it was the software. Downloading Snapseed improved matters. But only marginally. The camera has a few neat trick up their sleeves though software-wise. There was the panorama and the ability to produce a 360 degrees capture.

The processor was blazing fast. The screen wheezed through like a breeze, thanks to Jelly Bean and Project Butter. Calendar app and Gmail felt native - indeed they were. There was no lag whatsoever. My Nova Launcher screen loaded up without any hiccups. Switching between apps did not cause any stutter. Everything felt fast for the first time on an Android platform.

The screen was vivid and the resolution was as high as the iPhone, making reading a pleasure. It also came with Google Now, a smart update system which predicted what you would want to see on the home screen. Neat!

But there were price to pay for all this. My main woe was the battery life. It only lasted around 4 hours with constant use. I browsed around the forum looking for a solution but they involved compromising the Android experience by switching off updates and certain features. Nexus 7 ran without any problem - I also carry a 3G Nexus 7 unit with me. The battery lasts all day. I was sure that a software and setting tweaks may solve this, but at the moment, I had to live it still. Mind you, I used to have similar problem with the iPhone, but it was now sorted out. Even my Galaxy Nexus lasted longer.

And the battery issue would be enough to put off certain people, and I could relate to that. But this being a stock vanilla Google phone, was still the phone to have if you were like me appreciate reliability and getting the latest in terms of software, rather than having gimmicks on the phone screen. It helps to have a fast phone as well.

For those who wanted the latest in Google experience, definitely grab this phone if you must. It you already own one of the latest top of the line Android phone, or even still own a working Galaxy Nexus, you might as well wait for future software updates to sort out the kinks on the current batch.

Hmm! Which One?

I was at Low Yat earlier this afternoon and had he chance to take a close look at the latest Samsung offering, the Note 2. A modest gunfire and clearly DiGi was pushing the product pretty strongly. They offered a 3 year package, where you take home the device for RM1399, plus a RM600 bill advanced payment. You would then had to pay RM88 for the data alone - 5Gb - monthly which is slightly more expensive than the current DiGi package I was grandfathered in. And the thought of having tonne tied down for a couple of years on a contract alone made me cringe.

It was a hard sell that the promoter made, but I was keener on the software than the hardware. I was trying to test the Jelly Bean, but the promoter kept on telling me about the magical thing the device could do. I could do those task better on a 7 inch tablet, but those were yet to run the new operating system except the Nexus 7.

And the problem with the Nexus 7 was the fact that it was wifi only. I want my tablet to be cellular.

One of my colleague - @palmdoc - carry the Tab 7.0 with him, and it looked quite handy. I held on to see what the Nexus 7 going to be like, and maybe a bit longer to see whether the iPad Mini would materialise. iPhone 5 was yet to interest me as I find the 4S more than adequate. I just wanted a 7 inch device I could carry in my labcoat, for me to access emails and various other app on a screen larger than my iPhone. The Note is big, but a 7 inch device would fare better. And I prefer to have an Android device along, just for the variation.

So, at the current rate, it looked like it was going to be the Nexus 7 as I have a debt wifi coverage at work. Hmmmm .... dilemma.