Expectations and letdowns

 June is here, summer is late. It’s cold so I turned the heating on, while I wait for the warm weather. Sunny days should be come soon although weather forecast said we have to wait for a while. Things have not turned out the way we expected and we are upset.  I can honestly say this is the way I feel with the latest version of Android 5.0 so far.

At the Google I/O event ‘the big thing’ hasn’t come forth yet. Of course I’m talking about Key Lime Pie.  What happened? Well, since it’s a developer event they focused on developers quite a bit.

Google opened the event with a giants three hour long keynote where the company announced lots of new stuff and gave many letdowns too. No KLP on the phone side, no Nexus  7 on the tablet side. What they did have is a new streaming music service, and a unified chat service. They also tried to optimize the use of Google glass and they focused more on Chrome this time. What else? An update to Google Maps. Yes, this is in Hungary as well.

So no announcement of  a new version of Android but Google said it’s coming later this year. Just like our summer right? I guess not much to do only look forward too just bunch of promises.  Let’s put it that way G-team must be working on something great so better wait for it patiently. It might worth it.

But I have Hungarian news for you! Mark Zuckerberg spent a day in Budapest. Wow! He liked the city and the people, the only thing is that he was cold too.

Big hopes -- sweet treats

As far the big hopes and this coming weeks can be summed up by look forward to the Google announcement at Google IO event, which will take place 15 May to 17 in San Francisco.  

 

What will happen? Well - Hopefully we will hear more about their latest sweets - Key Lime Pie – which is the dessert-related codename for Android 5.0. It follows Jelly Bean, Honeycomb, Donut and the first Android version from 2008 which was codenamed Cupcake.

May I note here that - while we wait for KLP- in the Hungarian market Jelly Bean - just became available on a few devices -  Those Hungarians who have decided to start with Android 5.0 better save up some money and buy some luxury brand from Samsung, such as the Galaxy or Nexus 4. And of course wait patiently while it comes to Hungary.

Sync

Now guesses are taking place what we can expect from Key Lime Pie, since Google has not released an official statement. So all we know is based on rumors. Since everything is on your phone these days, how nice it would be if Cloud back up would be built into Key Lime Pie? Google’s rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft already offer their high quality cloud service integration. Will Google launch a cloud services platform at its annual developer conference? I think we need a solution where everything is automatically saved on a Google IDrive...I mean Apple has its iCloud right?

Security

What about more device management security? Will we see more security in Android 5.0, at last? Well, looking around a bit what other users wishful thought might be and what Google would considered in a first place.

Other things to watch for are, new performance profiles, integrated social networking, multi-device support and built.in video chat. And some wishes go to manufacturers as well, such as a great camera – not too many pixels but high quality and– at least it should work.

Ohh!!..and one more thing! Can we proud to hold our new phones, please? Many of us are tired of the cheap feeling plastic devices…

It’s cheap and it looks cheap too

Excuse me, can I have a ‘baby-proof’ hi-tech staff, please?

I was just about to go to town to check out 7 inches tablets but before I had a chance to get out the door my teething son got his hands on my smartphone. By the time I realized what was happening I found he was chewing on the phone and managed to damage the touch screen.

Ok to be totally honest the phone was cheap, and clearly it was not remotely baby-proof. So much for a tablet, now I need to find a new smartphone, Or maybe I should look for something that gives me both capabilities in one…..I think phablet?  

As I started to look into this technology, I noticed once again we don’t have phablets in the Hungarian market….so far…

Hungarians are excited about this new technology phablet. I noticed that many hi-tech bloggers can hardly wait to buy a phablet. The funny thing is while we are waiting for devices from American companies, since the US market introduced the term, it has just as quickly made the term go away.  Device that represent the phablet market is limited to devices such as the Streak and the Galaxy Note. However no other manufacturer has adopted the term, or used it actively focusing largely on the table market.

It’s cheap and it looks cheap too.

Hungarians are highly motivated to purchase tablets this past year there has been a 180% increase in sales of tablet devices in our country (according to HVG.hu) of course since most can’t afford the more expensive ipads, and galaxy devices we see low end manufacturers flood the stores in Hungary.

Most of the devices in our market feel cheap, and made of low grade materials. Devices such as the Ghoo Tab 7000 and Wayteq xTAB-70i have a simple slab design with a power and volume button on the outside, and basic internal specs such as 0.3 megapixel enough for chatting, they take poor quality pictures. Some of these devices have USB port and tend to have 8GB or less or RAM. The devices are 1.2 GHz dual-core MediaTek processor with Bluetooth, GPS and wifi as well. The devices are ok for simple games, watching video, and as e-reader. Most of them run Android 4.2 or a customized version of Jelly Bean.

 

So I guess if you buy one of these tablets, you get what you pay for. They are cheap, don’t expect them to work as well as the high end device….

If you have any experience on cheap tablets I’d like to see your comments.