BISKOOT

After having relied on my trusty old Nokia E61 for all of 3 years, I finally got myself an Android Dev Phone about a week ago. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with it, but having been something of a Nokia loyalist for almost a decade, I couldn’t help drawing comparisons with Nokia.

Anyway, here’s a detailed review of my experience with the device.

First off, a few photos:

From DevPhone1

From DevPhone1

Although many people think the phone is bulky, I pretty much liked the external design. The chin at the bottom in particular is a nice thing, because it protects the screen from direct contact when the phone is lying face-down.

Getting the battery cover open for the first time to install the SIM and battery proved to be a challenge. You will have a hard time if you have no fingernails. Ditto for opening the microSD slot cover (this is not really an issue because the phone comes pre-loaded with the microSD card).

Power on, and after a few seconds the screen comes alive with the Android Desktop.

The screen is really beautiful; I felt it’s one of the most impressive assets of this device. HVGA resolution (320×480) on a 3.2″ screen means this display has higher than average PPI (pixels-per-inch). The end result is that the display looks smooth and rich. In short, the display rocks.

By default, the ADP1 came with Android 1.0. I already had the SDK, and I didn’t waste time in flashing the phone with 1.6 (donut).

From DevPhone1

I found the hardware keyboard to be average. IMO, the tactile feedback on my E61 keyboard is superior. The angular slide-out design for revealing the keyboard is ingenious – it cleverly solves the problem of accidental sliding. However, one thing I don’t like about the hardware keyboard is that it doesn’t get perfectly aligned with the screen. Anyway, after using the phone for a while, I prefer the on-screen keyboard for almost everything, since its a bit awkward to slide out the keyboard when you are in the middle of doing something, just to type.

My guess is that many users ended up feeling the same way, which is probably why HTC decided to drop the hardware keyboard in their subsequent models – Magic and Hero. But it’s nice to have the option of the hardware keyboard, though.

One thing about the onscreen keyboard – it takes a bit of practice. I had a pretty high mistype rate when I started using it, but after a few days I got the hang of it and can now type pretty comfortable with it. Your mileage may vary. If you have large fingers, you probably won’t like the onscreen keyboard.

The battery life is the biggest complaint. It SUCKS. Apparently every Dream/G1 user complains about this. The 1150mAH battery seems woefully inadequate for this device. Even light-to-moderate use of Wifi/Bluetooth/GPS leads to the battery getting drained in a couple of hours. Which means you have to really watch out and be extremely judicious in using these features.

The digital compass and orientation sensors seem to work well.

Another minor complaint I have is that the loudspeaker isn’t loud enough, and the tonal quality is pretty much mediocre.

However, the quality of audio reproduction on the stereo headset is surprisingly good. Very good tonal balance and no noticeable hiss or distortion.

The camera is pretty much average. It performs poorly in low-to-medium light, and the focusing mechanism seems to be quite slow.

In conclusion: Apart from the drawbacks mentioned, I love this phone. Google seems to have got it right the first time with Android. The software platform is stable and very usable. It makes Symbian look clunky and ugly. However, HTC falls behind Nokia in workmanship and build quality. I would love to see an Android-based device built by Nokia.

- Ketan

I recently ordered the Android Dev Phone 1 (essentially the same thing as HTC Dream) directly from Google. They officially ship to India, so I decided to try this option. Writing this post to describe my experience with the ordering process. Hopefully, this should help other folks in India who are thinking about ordering the phone, but are unsure.

In Short: The experience was GOOD, and I am happy about my decision to order.

I first tried to find someone returning from US, so that I could ask them to order it and bring it along to India. But then I saw that the custom duty had come down to $51.81 (it used to be $125 earlier, see this post). I decided to order it directly, because the saving in custom duty/shipping was not so great to justify the hassle and wait for someone returning from US to get it.

Cost

The total cost was $506.79, broken down as follows:

Phone : $399.00
Shipping : $ 55.98
Customs Duty : $ 51.81

NOTE: Before you can order the phone, you need to register as a developer on the Android Market, for which you pay a $25 fee. I haven’t included this in the cost above, because I see this as different from the cost of the phone itself.

Ordering/Shipping

The checkout process was smooth. I paid by credit card. The package was shipped via UPS. They said to allow 3-5 business days for shipping, and it arrived well in time. I had ordered it on Thursday night (IST) and it arrived on Monday. They sent me a tracking number when the package was shipped, and I could track the progress of the shipment in real time on the web.

The shipment was well-packed and arrived in good condition. The device’s own packaging box was put into a larger-sized standard UPS box along with some “filler” material for cushioning. Overall, I found the shipping experience satisfactory.

What’s in the box?

I found the following items in the package:
Android Dev Phone (of course)
Charger
USB cable
Stereo handsfree headset (wired)
Quick Start Guide
Limited Warranty Card

A 1GB MicroSD card came pre-inserted in the phone.

That’s it. I’m off to have some fun playing and experimenting with my new toy! I plan to write a separate post in detail about the phone itself, with pictures.

- Ketan

Today was voting day in Maharashtra for the assembly elections. I had recently got my family’s voter registrations changed from Navi Mumbai to Pune, so finally we were able to vote at a local polling booth today.

From the looks of it, the turnout was pretty low. Out of about 1200 registered voters in the Pashan locality, only about 500 had voted by 5pm.

So which party did I vote for? Well, let’s just say that I showed them the finger.

- Ketan

(Note: Although I mention Facebook in this post, the ideas apply to the social networking concept in general. Facebook is the only social networking site I’ve really used, so my perceptions are based on it)

After giving in to curiosity and joining facebook a few months ago, I am now considering deleting my account, lock, stock and barrel.

Here’s Why:

Information Overload from Status Feeds
This is the biggest reason. Although at first the concept of “status feeds” sounded intelligent, it quickly became a royal pain. If someone I know gets married or has a baby, sure I’d like to know about it. But if I am bored, dreading Monday, excited about Friday, looking forward to this/that, hated a book/movie, I wouldn’t always broadcast it to everyone I know. Think about it – without an online medium, no one would ever do this. I don’t think the human mind is designed to absorb this bombardment of “status feeds” and in the long run I suspect it is not healthy.

Past is different from Present
Running into a friend or acquaintance from your past is usually refreshing. But the point is, running into people from your past is very different from “getting back in touch” with them. Getting back in touch means I am pulling that person out from my past and into the present. Usually I would do this when there is a very good reason (for both of us) to get back in touch. But I don’t think “getting back in touch” with all your classmates from all the schools you attended is such a good idea.

Again, I think this is not healthy. People from your past should stay in your past, unless there is a good reason to bring them back to the present. It is better to focus your energies in your present set of relationships.

App-Spam
I think the concept of Facebook Apps is, to put it mildly, CRAP. Most of these so-called apps do nothing more than generating spam (and making your otherwise well-meaning friends look like spammers)

So, I am giving up on this Online Social Networking hype and going back to the good old social networking over coffee, dinner and morning walks.

By the way, the social networking hype seems to share a lot of characteristics with the dot-com hype of the 90’s. Too much hype, low on substance. My prediction is that sundry social networking sites like Facebook will die a slow death, while specialized/focused platform providers like LinkedIn will survive.

I originally blogged on objectnut.livejournal.com, recently moved it here. I only migrated a few of my posts from livejournal, and I’ve removed these from livejournal to keep things simple.

Ketan

As mayhem gripped the stock market on Jan 7 after Satyam chairman B. R. Raju resigned admitting massive accounting fraud in the company, I was initially confused and awestruck.

After a while, thinking about the whole fiasco with a cool head, I felt there is probably more to this drama than meets the eye. Some of the stated facts just don’t make sense and pieces dont seem to fit.

Here is my theory of what *might* be playing behind the visible scene. Of course, this is just my own speculation. The real facts will come out soon enough (or will they?)

The bottomline of my theory is: the current situation has been engineered by Raju to take revenge on institutional investors (mainly FII’s) by forcing them to liquidate their shareholding at a heavy loss. In his letter, he may have deliberately exaggerated the level of accounting fraud to create extreme panic and force a massive selloff. He may (or may not) have a game plan to rescue Satyam once the FIIs are out and the dust settles.

Raju has a lot of reason to be sore with the FIIs. Let’s cut back a few weeks. Raju’s attempt to acquire Maytas was thwarted by the FIIs. It seems the big investors were really upset at the way Raju tried to use Satyam’s assets to acquire a family business, and they almost took it personally.

We know that the acquisition bid was aborted, but it looks like the FIIs had decided to teach Raju a lesson and show him what they were capable of. They orchestrated a selloff in the market and caused Satyam shares to drop more than 30% in a day. Raju had pledged all his holdings in Satyam with lenders and borrowed heavily against them. Now with the sudden price drop, he was unable to meet margin calls and the lender sold off all his shares as expected.

So, in a matter of weeks, Raju was stripped of his holdings and the promoter holding came down from 8.6% to 2.3%.

Meanwhile, the institutional investors were looking around for merger/acquisition opportunities for Satyam. The plan seemed to be that once Satyam was acquired, Raju would be summarily kicked out of the picture. That should teach him a lesson.

Now, it probably never occurred to them that if Raju is stripped of his stake and is staring at losing management control too, he has nothing much left to lose. He becomes all the more likely to think of taking drastic steps to hit back.

By admitting massive fraud and causing a shock, Raju essentially forced the same institutional investors to exit with potentially enormous losses. By doing this he gets even with them.

Now, the investigation may find that Raju’s disclosures about fraud are actually exaggerated. The financial situation may not be really that bad. Sure, some unethical diversions of funds will be found, but with Raju’s “co-operation”, these could be set right and a decent amount (if not all) of Satyam’s cash might be recovered.

Raju claims in his letter that 5,040 crore bank balance simply never existed in Satyam. This is hard to believe. It is more likely that the money existed, but was siphoned off to his son’s company Maytas. The acquisition of Maytas would then “adjust” the situation by bringing Maytas’ assets into Satyam’s books. It is like Satyam had paid in advance for acquiring Maytas, and the actual acquisition was happening later.

His assertion of 3% profit margin is strange. The IT industry in India routinely has 20-25% profit margin. How could Satyam’s margin be so way off the industry average? Either the 3% figure is wrong (in which case cash/reserves should be closer to the balance sheet values), or the 3% margin is due to cooked-up expense payments as a way to divert money to Maytas. Either way, the money was there and it should be possible to recover it to an extent eventually.

Why would Raju make a disclosure like this knowing that it will definitely lead to legal action against him? He figured that since Satyam was eventually going to be acquired, its books would anyway be scrutinized before the acquisition, and the Maytas connection would inevitably come out. When the FIIs had discovered this, they would first have tried to quietly sell their holdings and take their money out, then they would have exposed Raju’s unethical practices and gone after him again. He would anyway have faced charges, but his situation could be possibly worse in this scenario.

By doing what he has done, Raju pre-empted the institutional investors, caught them unawares, made them lose tons of money, and got his revenge.

Any takers for this theory?