The best mobile phone in the market? (Part 1 of 3)

Part 1 of 3

(Part 2 | Part 3)

Hello people, welcome to the least frequently updated blog in the world! Let me dive right into the topic here:

There's a lot of talk going on about one particular model at the moment, with multiple sources claiming it to be the best phone in the market right now. (5 July 2010)

Enter the HTC Desire. Who on earth would have thunk that a Taiwanese company like HTC who used to come up with low-res, non-responsive WindowsMobile devices could pin the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson to the dirt floor!

As of this date, the Desire is ranked topmost on the list of phones on www.testfreaks.com ranked in order of freakscore. Whazzat? Here's the explanation:

As you can see, information is taken from a large number of sources and assembled, so I tend to trust this particular site. Here's a screenshot of the site:

The Desire, according to them, has scored 10 on 10.

And here's another link attesting the Desire's supremacy.

So it's really the best? The VERY BEST?? Of course, that is subjective.. And nothing on earth can retain number one position for too long. Burj Dubai um.. Khalifa will be challenged.. But let me just get into a few of the details here.

Appearances:

The first thing one notices about the phone also unfortunately happens to be one it falls behind in: its outward appearance. Have a look:

Placed next to marvels of design like the HTC Legend and the Phillips X810, it looks a little lackluster. It doesn't look bad, it just looks unimpressive. You might have noticed that in the picture above the display is off. I chose that pic to demonstrate the dull body, because once the screen comes to life, one stops looking at the body.

The display is 3.7" inches of pure awesomeness. The native resolution is 480x800 pixels. The AMOLED technology brings to you best-in-class clarity with dazzling contrasts. It beats any LCD screen hands down. To get an idea of how an AMOLED screen is better than normal LCD, visit this link. Its only present competition is from the 'Super'-AMOLED technology introduced by Samsung, which can be seen in some of its models like the Galaxy and Wave. In the future, I'd be pretty excited about the Super AMOLED technology being imitated by mainstream phones, but as long as they are on Samsung models I am not interested.

Notice how vibrant the screen looks. Believe me, the quality of the display is the most important parameter to decide between options. No matter what features it has, if the display is poor, you'll end up being dissatisfied with the purchase. (Speaking from experience here)

You totally ignored the body in the above picture didn't you.

Go to Part 2 (Messaging, Browsing, Music, Camera and more) >>>

I'm gadetarian

Okay, so after a long break, here goes..

I'm pretty bad at coming up with names for stuff, as you might have figured out from the previous name of this blog. When I thought up the name 'gadgetarian', I was pretty proud of myself. For you slow ones out there, it's like saying 'I'm vegetarian' but with a cool touch to it. Not as cool as saying 'I'm non-vegetarian', but still...

For some weird reason, however, blogspot did not allow me to register the site gadgetarian.blogspot.com.
Go ahead, try it yourself: you can register http://youcanregisterthisstupidblog.blogspot.com, but you can't register http://gadgetarian.blogspot.com. What the hell.

Anyway, I wasn't about to let my self-conjured cool-ish name die away, so (forgive me) I added a partial 1337 reference with the 4 replacing the first 'a'. And voila! Blogspot doesn't seem to mind!

For those of you who don't know of 1337 (leet - stands for elite), it's kind of a retarded way of typing things using numbers and symbols instead of alphabets that oh-so-cool hackers and wannabe hackers use. It's supposed to be cryptic to the commoners, but I'm sure any half-wit can figure it out in no time. 423 yov a7 13457 a ha1fw1t?

There you go! My my first post after a while. I know you guys have been waiting with bated breath (:P)...

Gotta give it to Dell's warranty service!

I've had my laptop for about one month shy of a year.. I'm blogging after almost the same time period, too..

To cut a long story short, my graphics chipset conked out last Thursday. I switched on my laptop in the evening to browse and amybe watch a movie. That's when I started getting junk on my screen..Vertical lines, aurorae, Russian, and what nots.. The whole system hangs, and there's nothing left to do other than press-hold the power key to shut down.

Here are a few pics of the ailment:





If you're facing similar problems and want to confirm whether it's a screen issue or a graphics chip issue, do the following:

• Shut down the system
• Press and hold the 'D' key
• Press the power button while continuing to press 'D'

Your display should now show a series of coloured screens. If there are no lines or abnormalities with these test screens, then it's a problem with the graphics card.


I immediately called tech support. The toll free number for Dell India's XPS support is 1800-425-2066. If you're a mobile user you can use [your city's STD code]-60009045.

NOTE: Use the second number always. This is the number for XPS Gold support. It works 24x7 and you actually get to talk to a human being, unlike with the toll free number.

The guy at the other end of the line seemed to be quite knowledgeable. There's nothing worse than calling customer care and having them telling you to update your drivers and beat around the bush, when you KNOW it's a hardware malfunction.. Aaargh!!
Anyway he verified my symptoms and told me I could expect the spare parts and an engineer on Monday (3 days later). I told him Monday would not exactly be "Next Business Day" as guaranteed by Dell.. He said it all depended on when the spare part (motherboard) would be available.

Come Saturday, and surprise! Dell calls me to confirm whether I'll be home. The motherboard arrives at my doorstep via DHL courier. Three hours later, the engineer shows up, who by the way is very courteous and polite. He immediately sets to work and is all done in a couple of hours. There was a snag once, but he got over it pretty quickly.

Since I was jobless during the whole process, I was clicking away.. Here you go:







After it was done Dell called once again to ask me whether the job done was satisfactory, and I had to say Hell, Yes! I even got to keep the old motherboard.. :D

My warranty ends next month, and I sure am going to purchase a renewal on it. It'll set me back by 8k rupees though.. But I must say it beats the crap out of going to a service center and all the inconveniences associated with it.


Conclusion

1. Dell's warranty service is extremely effiecient.
2. Choose "3-year complete cover" when you configure the system during online purchase, it's worth it.
3. Buy DELL! If there's one thing I know about laptops, it's that they are very prone to problems. You fill face some issue or another at some point of time. That is when you don't want to grope around for a service center, take the trouble to go all the way there, deposit your laptop and your valuable data there for a couple of days (could be a week) and go back and get it.

Your comments are welcome. :)