Anjan Chatterjee loves food. Every single aspect of it, from cooking to eating to running a chain of branded restaurants. So it came as no surprise when he decided to meet me at his Bengali restaurant Oh! Calcutta in Delhi for a chat (and, of course, a meal) and posed willingly in the kitchen. "I love cooking. The prawn malai curry being a favourite. It's the traditional recipe, but with a twist."In fact, that seems to be his winning recipe for all his restaurants. While Oh! Calcutta serves traditional Bengali dishes modified a bit to make them restaurant-worthy, Mainland China — Chatterjee's chain of Chinese restaurants — serves Chinese food tweaked to Indian palates. "I promise you, we don't do authentic. Anything which is good on the palate is authentic. As long as the ingredients are the same, there's no harm in tweaking the recipe a bit to suit the Indian palate," he says.Whatever he's doing, it seems to be working. Having started his first restaurant in 1992, today Chatterjee has 86 restaurants spread across the country. And having recently launched a successful IPO, his company, Speciality Restaurants, hopes to have 200 restaurants up and running in the next few years. Popular restaurant brands include Oh! Calcutta, Mainland China and Sigree, which serves north-west frontier cuisine. Besides, there's a chain of confectionery stores dotting Mumbai called Sweet Bengal and other restaurants such as Machaan and Flame & Grill in Kolkata and Bangalore. On the cards is an Italian cafe in Pune."Necessity is the mother of invention," he says as he directs his chef to cook Gandhoraj Paneer in place of Gondhoraj Bhetki (a fish dish that I refuse as I'm a vegetarian). Within a few minutes, the chef presents us with paneer cooked in the same batter and it tastes great. "Send the recipe national. Put it on the menu," commands Chatterjee. And just like that the restaurant has a new dish for vegetarians. TOP PICKS: Chatterjee's favourite prawn malai curry and fish with green onion in spicy tomato sauce (left) Innovation, whether in tweaking the recipe or changing the name of a dish, seems to work for Chatterjee. One of the hot-selling items at Sigree is the Kosha Gosht, which is basically mutton fried in its own juices without water. Kosha Mangsho is the same dish with a Bengali name served at Oh! Calcutta and is equally popular. "If we had called it Kosha Mangsho at Sigree, it wouldn't have fitted in and we didn't want to call it Bhuna Gosht because that's too common." Chatterjee's endeavour to please the tastebuds of a larger section of society has also made him do the unthinkable — serving boneless ilish or hilsa at Oh! Calcutta. Bengalis not only frown at the thought of hilsa without bones, they consider it an insult to the most-sought-after fish. However, most non-Bengalis find it difficult to eat hilsa because of the numerous bones. "There's one chef at a restaurant in Calcutta's Park Street who has perfected the art of cutting the hilsa in such a way that the bones are removed. He has trained our chefs," says Chatterjee. The boneless hilsa is a favourite at most Oh! Calcutta outlets. It's not just food but the whole experience which, feels Chatterjee, makes his restaurants stand out. "We are a 5-star restaurant chain without the 5-star price tag." But really it's his eye for detail. For instance, the front office staff at all his restaurants are trained to handle babies. If you have left your reading glasses at home, don't worry, the restaurant manager can offer you a pair to help you read the menu. And shawls are available for those who find the air-conditioning too cold.Manpower is one of the biggest challenges of the restaurant business. "In our business even if you need a glass of water, you need someone to get it for you," says Chatterjee. He runs his own catering school in Kolkata and 90 per cent of his staff is trained there. "Initially, my wife and I taught them all the Bengali recipes. Now there are others but I'm still hands-on. I call my chefs at 3 am if I want to discuss something."So what is it that worries him the most? A dissatisfied customer, he says. "Satisfied customers are none of my business but a dissatisfied customer can kill my brand," says Chatterjee whose second love is advertising. Reading the comment cards tops his to-do list everyday. Leave a negative comment at any of his restaurants and you may get a call from one Mr Chatterjee. On the other hand, if you enjoy the food at Mainland China, don't forget to kiss the chef.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 16-07-2012)
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Don't get me wrong: if someone were to hold me up on the street at gunpoint and say "Your Android phone for an iPhone", I'd tell her to make herself scarce. I'm fond of my Android phone, with its big fat screen and its validity and general aliveness. But that doesn't mean life is peaceful with an Android phone. Other than the larger issues that have been taken up time and again in depth, I have my own pet Android peeves.My biggest problem is the quick battery drain. Sometimes it feels as if my phone is permanently attached to a socket, as if on ventilator support. Even doing nothing in particular but breathing, with the data network turned off (but wi-fi on), it drains itself out overnight. I'm downright nervous about running out of battery just when I need my car to come around and collect me in some public place. This is when I don't really get into long calls. Rival operating systems may not be dramatically better because an always connected device is constantly gobbling up battery juice, but I wouldn't mind one bit sacrificing something, such as the phone's weight, to get better battery life, instead of having to carry portable chargers everywhere and making security guards everywhere — and myself — jittery.Then there is that whole mini ecosystem of fake apps, Trojans, and plain shoddy apps. Malware has just spiralled to become an enormous menace, finally making it necessary to use anti-virus software on Android smartphones. Google tries to filter out these bad apps using Bouncer, its security solution to monitor and eject malware, but nothing can keep up with mischief makers. There are also trick apps and spoof apps that pretend to be official Google releases. There is an app that says it will charge your plume using solar energy. Another says it will charge your phone when you shake it. There are outright fake Instagram and Pinterest apps. And all these have fake user reviews.The safest thing to do is search on the web for expert reviews and advice before installing any.The sheer unpredictability of Android is another annoyance. On an otherwise healthy phone, I will suddenly find an app force-closing. Even the address book has done that a few times. I remember several instances when the phone has frozen up when I'm trying to make a call — specially when I'm in a hurry. Just as with what Windows used to be long ago, one can be left perplexed as to what's going wrong and the only way you can find out is by eliminating possibilities, one by one. For example, sometimes I only have to go from one room to the other to find half the buddies' picture tiles have disappeared from my home screen. There's no drastic drop in wi-fi. And why only some vanish, is a mystery. What version of Android lives on someone else's phone shouldn't bother me, but it does. When updates reach other phones because some other manufacturer got there first, it's more than a little annoying. It's no secret that the Android universe is fragmented, with different versions of the basic operating system floating around on different phones, but waiting for important updates and bug fixes can be quite frustrating. The recent Ice Cream Sandwich avatar has demonstrated this more than ever. The only way to get updates and fixes has been to root the phone, void the warranty, and risk ruining it — not something I've been keen to do, even if I knew how to. This is a situation that hasn't eased up over the years at all.There are all kinds of technical reasons why Android phones handle graphics differently from Apple's iPhone or iPad. Before the most recent update, you didn't get the silky smoothness that makes doing things on a device magical. More and more powerful processors help, but don't quite get you there. So I have often encountered that screen choppiness or stagger that diminishes the experience. There you are, showing someone some beautiful pictures you've clicked, but as you flip through them, you can distinctly see the lag or steps an image has to take to move on or off the screen. Rather ruins it.Despite these annoyances, it is equally true that I will probably upgrade to yet another Android phone. I enjoy the tinkering, the figuring out of various settings and fixes, I more than enjoy the widgets and new things happening all the time. Living with plain straightforward phones has actually bored me somewhat. There's never a dull moment with an Android phone. But sometimes I just wish it wasn't quite such a work in progress. mala (at) pobox (dot) com, @malabhargava on Twitter (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-04-2012)
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Visual DelightThe slim beauty, Sony Xperia S, has just been launched in India. In a universe where phones have begun to look alike, the Xperias have a distinct look — the Xperia S is no exception. A flagship feature of this smartphone is its HD imagery. Ironically, the screen on initial handsets has had problem with a yellow tint when in high temperatures, but this should see a fix before too long. It has a 4.3 inch screen with 1280×720 pixels resolution, but you can switch to another screen such as a Sony tablet or TV with a swipe on the phone. There is a 12 megapixel camera which uses a button to go straight from sleep to shoot. The Xperia S has launched with the Android 2.3 or Gingerbread operating system but an upgrade to 4.0 has been promised soon. Now where have we heard that before!Somewhere In The MiddleHere's another Galaxy in the Samsung universe, bringing the total to 17 phones of different kinds. The Galaxy Ace Plus is a refresher on the Ace, an option for those who can't see themselves paying Rs 30,000 for a smartphone, but don't quite want a diminutive and underpowered model either. The Ace Plus is 3.6 inch — about an inch smaller than the premium Galaxy S II. That brings it into the price tag of Rs 18,150, though it's available for at least 2,000 less at online stores. It runs on Gingerbread and may not make it to Ice Cream Sandwich — not that it matters overly. It has a 5 megapixel camera and no front camera at all, so forget video calling. It runs on a 1GHz Qualcomm Scorpion processor with 512MB of RAM. The storage onboard is just 2GB, but an SD card can take you to 32GB. Connectivity options are standard.Built For BusinessKeep your eye on ultrabooks as they begin to flood the Indian market. The Folio 13 from HewlettPackard is a sturdy performer. With a battery life between 7 and 9.5 hours, this ultra runs on a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 2467M processor with the now standard 4GB RAM. It has two USB ports — again, a pattern on ultrabooks and even on more recent notebooks. It has a card slot. There's a webcam, particularly good Altec Lansing audio, and a screen on which verdicts vary from dim to bright. There are lighter ultrabooks, but at 1.5 kg, it's not bad. At Rs 69,990, it is good value for money, considering some expensive ultrabooks launched recently. The Folio is straightforward and neat with its brushed aluminum lid. The touchpad has been reported as being a bit stiff. Overall, it's business class.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-04-2012)
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I don't know about you, but I can't possibly do with just one form of inputting text into my devices. Not when I'm constantly using one or the other gadget through the day. There are times when I need to key in something but just happen to be 98 per cent horizontal with just half an eye open. And others when I feel brisk and industrious and must sit upright to type busily — the latter being the less common occurrence, of course. So while I wait for gesture and thought-controlled speech-to-text to come about, I use a virtual keyboard, wireless keyboard, built-in keyboard, swype, stylus, and finger-handwriting. So you can understand why I jumped with joy when decent, workable voice recognition with speech-to-text appeared for the iPad. The US app store has had Dragon Dictate all along, but well, I'm not in the US.When PaperPort Notes turned up at the India App Store, I grabbed it. It was free. I live in fear of it being pulled off because it may be there by mistake. At last, voice input to write with. Of course, you can get Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the PC and Mac, and Windows has speech recognition built in. And my Samsung Galaxy S II does an interesting, and sometimes startling, job of interpreting what I say. But I wanted speech-to-text combined with the flexibility of a tablet. PaperPort Notes is actually the app once called Noterize, with Dragon Dictate added to it. Nuance, makers of Dragon, are kings in the area of speech recognition and are behind the iPhone's Siri, too.As you start up the app, you'll see the only listed country is the United States. So select it and keep your American accent ready. But that's if, like me, you're only interested in the speech-to-text. If you want a complete note-taking environment, there is plenty else here to work with. You may as well download the 20-page user guide. It's worth it because of the clear picture guides.This app seems mostly to have been made with students in mind, but of course, anyone can use it. Its aim is to allow the user to capture notes in multiple ways. The speech recognition part is easy enough. What you do is tap to call up the keyboard and the tap to speak button. Speak. Be careful about what you say. Tap again to allow the app to process your words into text. This means you don't carry on continuously, although you can, because the stopping to process gives you time to edit. It's a matter of getting used to this format, but if you want continuous live conversion, this isn't the app for you. I prefer it this way — it also gives me time to think. If you get impatient, switch to typing. Or handwriting. Or just voice-record, which the app stores page by page, unusually. For better results, you can use the microphone on the headset of an iPhone or iPod. When dictating notes, you can also use a list of voice commands to put in punctuation and move to the next line or paragraph.Text input, whatever method you choose, can be on the main paper (customisable styles) or in boxes that you can size and move around. The boxes are meant to give you flexibility with where to put text, but also to turn a note into a sticky, a picture, or even a ‘websnap'. When you want to capture a little section of a webpage, you click on a box and touch the button for websnap on the menu. The app opens up to a browser — and shows you Google Scholar. You will need to switch to regular search tab if you don't want that. At the bottom of the page, press to capture a selected section. Then you switch back to your note. You can create notes that are of limitless pages, of course. To get to the page you want in your collection of notes, you can bookmark the page and do an on-page search.PaperPort Notes shares notes with many other apps and clouds — but in the form of pdfs, images, ppt files. You can't import or export a Word or Excel file. I copy and paste converted text into any other app, but if you want everything together — sketches, notes, and recordings — you have to stick with the formats allowed within PaperPort. You share with others via email or storage services such as Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net and PaperPort Anywhere, the app's own cloud storage. The idea is to work on annotating team notes. PaperPort is also separately a full-fledged professional documents management system on the PC and Mac and, of course, PaperPort Notes on the iPad syncs with that. Needless to say the notes also sync via iTunes. Note-taking apps are all over the app stores across platforms. But there's a combination of features that suits each user, which means you often go through several apps before choosing the ones that fit your needs.The Fine Art Of HandwritingIf you're not interested in the speech-to-text conversion and are looking for most of the other features of PaperPort, take a look at Notes Plus. Instead of converting speech to text, this one converts handwriting to text — and back. Write clearly, and you're in business. It is a slick app, using gestures and selection moves that use the tablet to advantage. It doesn't have its own cloud storage and costs $7.99, and another $1.99 for the handwriting recognition capability. (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-04-2012)
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The cyberspace is abuzz with news of Apple planning to debut a smaller, cheaper iPad by year-end. iPad Mini will be the weapon of choice for Apple to take on newcomers like Google's Nexus 7 and maintain its dominance of the tablet market.The new model will have a screen that is seven to eight inches diagonally and less than the current 9.7-inch version, said the sources who asked not to be identified. The product, which Apple may announce by October, will not have the high-definition (HD) screen featured on the iPad that was released in March, said one of the sources.A smaller, less expensive iPad could be just the thing to undercut the ambitions of Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com to gain traction in the advancing tablet market.The new device will probably have a price closer to Google's Nexus 7 tablet and Amazon's Kindle Fire, both of which have 7-inch screens and cost $199. Since the iPad went on sale in April 2010, Apple has dominated the tablet market, which is predicted by Display-Search to reach $66.4 billion this year. Apple has 61 per cent of the market, according to research firm Gartner.Apple's rivals are eager to gain a toehold. Google said on June 27 that it will sell a tablet-style device called the Nexus 7.Earlier in the month, Microsoft announced a tablet called Surface that will have a similar screen size as the current iPad. Amazon's Kindle Fire was released last year. The entrants' best chance of success has been to focus on markets where Apple had no toehold, said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Ovum.While Microsoft has not disclosed pricing or timing for the two versions of its iPad, the higher-end version will probably be pricier than the iPad and targeted more at an emerging class of laptop PCs called Ultrabooks.The latest iPad ranges in price from $499 to $829. Google's Nexus 7 could stack up well against Amazon's Kindle Fire, which went on sale in November.The Nexus 7, manufactured by Asustek Computer, has a faster processor and better battery life than the Kindle Fire, as well as a front-facing camera. (With agencies)
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The BlackBerry Curve 9220 smartphone has a dedicated key for accessing BlackBerry Messenger and FM radio and has a long battery lifeResearch in Motion on Wednesday launched a new BlackBerry smartphone in India, calling it its "most affordable" phone.The BlackBerry Curve 9220 smartphone has a dedicated key for accessing BlackBerry Messenger and FM radio and has a long battery life, it said in a statement.RIM has seen fast growth in India as it expanded aggressively into the consumer segment with low-cost offerings and by positioning the device as a gadget for aspiring young professionals and even college students.The launch in India of a new BlackBerry by Research In Motion Ltd is not just a nod to its lower-end users who love it less for its security, push email and seamless roaming than for its simplicity and its Messaging. It's a strategy the Canadian company hopes will help fill both a hole in its balance sheet and a half-year wait for its next big thing - the BlackBerry 10 platform.But will it work?The handset itself won't impress devotees: its main selling point is a dedicated side button that lets users chat over its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and a built-in FM radio, which lower-end Nokia phones have had for a decade. It works only on the slower 2G networks, and the camera isn't that great. But, RIM says, that's the point.RIM calls it a parallel approach: building the high-end next generation platform and devices, while coming up with cheaper phones that can prod some of the vast majority of its users to trade up. "We're really trying to build on and help those people who are moving from feature phone to smartphone. We believe we can be successful in that," Patrick Spence, RIM's global sales chief, said in a telephone interview.It's a smart move, some analysts believe, given RIM's position. Adam Leach, principal analyst at research company Ovum, said there is a misperception that RIM's bruising experience in North America will be repeated elsewhere. RIM's strength, he said, is being able to offer lower-end users a better experience on a slow connection than the equivalent Android handset.RIM launched its new handset, the Curve 9220, in India on Wednesday, with other markets to follow. A RIM spokesman said the company would launch in Indonesia, one of its most lucrative markets, in the coming weeks."Their success in Indonesia shows they have other attributes and capabilities in the BlackBerry platform globally that appeal to different markets rather than just the high-end, mature markets (like North America and Western Europe)," said Ovum's Leach.RIM doesn't break down its sales by region, but has reported that sales outside the U.S., Britain and Canada accounted for 68 percent of total revenue in its fourth quarter, up from 61 percent in the previous three months. Those markets include India, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, which RIM says are all targets for this year's sales blitz.But understanding why a market like Indonesia works - and then applying those lessons elsewhere - is not straightforward.Slamet Riyadi, a 30-year-old office boy in Jakarta with a wife and two young children, shifted to BlackBerry from Nokia two years ago. He owns a Gemini 8520 which he bought new for about $200 - about two months' salary. He keeps his old Nokia to communicate with his family by voice and SMS, but loves his BlackBerry for staying in touch with friends and colleagues. He dreams of owning an Onyx 2, which would cost upwards of $350, but the reality is that he must soon sell his BlackBerry to pay for his daughter's schooling.Therein lies the rub for RIM.Success Story?On the surface, Indonesia looks like an extraordinary success story in a gloomy narrative of failures elsewhere. While RIM slashed more than $750 million from the value of its inventory in each of its last two quarters, BlackBerry sales to Indonesia have boomed, with industry experts saying BlackBerrys account for around half of smartphone sales. Joy Wahjudi, director of marketing of operator XL Axiata, said there could be as many as 7 million BlackBerry users in Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous country.According to Harry Sasongko, CEO of cellular operator Indosat, Indonesia is RIM's largest market outside the United States and Britain. And, with smartphones accounting for less than 25 percent of phone users, it's not hard to see why RIM believes in Indonesia. When RIM offered half-price handsets at a Jakarta mall in November, 5,000 people surged through barriers, knocking several unconscious and prompting a police investigation.Still, the reality is more nuanced. Interest in smartphones is growing - nearly 10 times as many smartphones were sold in Indonesia last year compared to 2009, according to IDC. And in a country starved of land-lines and fixed-line computer connections, the phone has long been a key communications tool.RIM's success in Indonesia is down to a number of things, not all of them replicable outside Indonesia.Indonesian operators started early, among the first in the world to adopt RIM's experimental stripped-down pricing plans which offered basic services at a fraction of the usual enterprise prices. Now plans start at as low as $5 per month.This nurtured a vast ecosystem before RIM had even set up office in Indonesia in 2010. Take for example Hendrik, a 20-year-old who has worked as a phone repair man for the past three years, mostly fixing BlackBerrys. From a small stall in a down-market mall in Jakarta, Hendrik installs apps, upgrades software or replaces parts. One recent customer had dropped his device in the toilet. Despite burying the device in a pile of rice to try and dry it out, it still wouldn't work. Hendrik replaced the power supply and some chips from another machine. Total cost: $50.As demand has risen, so have opportunities for smuggling in handsets from countries where they are subsidized - pushing down prices. Retailer Devandi Nugroho, for example, offers two versions of the same device: an official one for 1.8 million rupiah ($200) and another for 200,000 rupiah less. Second-hand BlackBerrys can be found for as little as $75.All this has fuelled a perception that RIM has done little to make Indonesia a success and so doesn't understand how best to leverage it. "Part of RIM's issue is that they have had successes in areas they haven't exactly planned," said Ovum's Leach.What Price Loyalty?RIM acknowledges it could have done things differently in Indonesia. "Every company has to figure out how to deal with globalization and that's what we've really been trying to do," said Spence.Despite a raft of local initiatives, there's no guarantee BlackBerry users will remain loyal. There is already a feeling that Indonesians are beginning to tire of the device. While smartphones have grown as a share of the overall phone market in the past year, RIM's share has slipped while Samsung Electronics' has tripled, industry data show.Indonesians with long memories worry they've seen it before. Indonesia was the world capital of the bulky Nokia Communicator until it suddenly fell from grace. Prasetyo Andy Wicaksono, community leader for Indonesia's largest BlackBerry developer group, said doubts over RIM's future were denting interest among developers. "If RIM isn't careful, they can lose their loyal customers here. This phenomenon must be understood by RIM to prevent the same thing as happened to previous gadgets."More importantly, are poorer Indonesians going to bite? RIM believes it can persuade some of those millions of users of the more basic feature phones to upgrade. But Slamet, the office boy, illustrates how thin the line is between those who can afford one and those who can't afford to keep one. "The biggest challenge for RIM is price," said Sarwoto Atmosutarno, CEO of one of the largest cellular operators, Telkomsel. "Indonesia, like India, is a volume game industry."RIM said the Curve would sell in India for Rs 10,990 ($210), and about the same in Indonesia.Also, the key attraction of the BlackBerry for many - its Messenger function - is less of the unassailable citadel it once was. The growing popularity of messaging services such as WhatsApp that use a cellphone's data connection offer a cheap alternative to SMS - as well as a way to build BBM-like groups without having to own a BlackBerry.WhatsApp has recently released versions of its software that work on even the lower-end Nokia phones running the Symbian operating system - which still account for up to two-thirds of Indonesian cellphone users, according to StatCounter, a traffic monitoring service. Graham Hills, Indonesian general manager for travel start-up Wego, said that when he arrived in Jakarta last year everyone would ask for his BBM PIN number. "Now people ask whether you have WhatsApp on your phone," he said.Nor are all Indonesian operators big RIM fans. While nearly all offer BlackBerry packages, some do so only because it is popular - not because it is a great money spinner for them. One industry insider, who declined to be named, said at least one operator was not paying for any promotion because BlackBerrys weren't a profitable line and it didn't believe the device would remain popular. "The numbers are good, but I doubt it will continue," he said. "It's a fashion thing and it's going to die."RIM says it is confident it can overcome all these issues, both in Indonesia and beyond. "The reality is that only 15 per cent of people have a smartphone," said RIM's Spence. "It's still quite early."(Reuters)
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My very first thought as I took a certain gleaming white phone out of a gleaming white box and held it in my hand was — that's huge. For a few moments there, the Galaxy S3, the most talked-about phone on the planet at the moment, seemed to me like it was crossing the boundary from tablet to phone. I don't think of the Galaxy Note as a phone, but as a tablet with calling capabilities; so it never seemed outlandishly large to me. Holding this one, I did think it didn't need to be that large — 4.8 inches of screen. The HTC One X is almost the same size, of course, and I remember getting accustomed to thatfast. And that's what happened with the S3. I also put it alongside its predecessor, the S2, and thought oh well, it's not that much of a difference. With the size out of the way, my attention was caught by the plastic back. How could it not be? Now I've been tolerant of plastic on Samsung's phones to the point of being accused of having a plastic fetish, but this "hyperglaze" polycarbonate only looks hyper-annoying because it doesn't feel as premium as it costs — a whole Rs 43,180, unless you get a good deal and can buy it for Rs 38,000 or less. Here I thought wistfully of the HTC One X's white plastic back and how it felt good to hold and unlikely to play host to scratches and fingerprints. Why Samsung can't fix this plastic feel, I don't know. People spendhours discussing that one aspect and surely it would be worth the trouble. Plastic helps keep the phone lighter and thinner and apparently helps cellular receptivity, but why can't they do premium plastic? Why couldn't they have done something to design this much-anticipated phone to look head-turningly different?But I have to say, you forget the exterior once you switch on the S3. It comes to life with the power button on the left, and in a few moments, lets you swipe softly up to wake up the device. I loved the blue opening screen with water rippling at my touch. I spent a few minutes just switching on and off to get my fill of the fluid animation.Ah, the screen. That's been so much of a discussion point when pitted against the HTC One X's that I spent a while looking at it from this angle and that. But I don't have the HTC One X around any longer and so it wasn't a consideration. The One X's screen is beautiful and given the tag of technical superiority by experts, but as I suspect buyers of the S3 won't have a One X around to keep comparing with, there's little point in addressing what is a non-issue. Both screens are, after all, good enough to live with. What did annoy me though was the auto-brightness which dipped low and for a moment startled me into thinking something was wrong. Is this phone worth it?With phones in this category costing upward of Rs 30,000, I'm tempted to answer "No!" where all of them are concerned. Astronomical prices like the S3's in a recession-hit world seems particularly unfair. On the other hand, the S2 sold close to 50 million without batting an eyelid and the other day, I spotted a vegetable seller in Bangalore's Russel Market proudly holding an S3. Sadly, he only wanted the camera on it (other than calls, of course) so he could take a few pictures of the renovated interiors of his shop. And he will find he can't, because the place is really dimly lit. So, for him, I would say it wasn't worth it, but perhaps he has more money than he knows what to do with. As do many people. If by being worth it, one is asking whether the phone delivers as promised, then, on some fronts, it does. Unequivocally, the performance, speed, power and hardware are all fantastic. There are software innovations, but they don't add up to the revolution they were made out to be. If you use the apps and capabilities to add richness to the way you do things, it's worth it. If you plan to make phone calls and send SMSes with an occasional game or video thrown in, it's a waste.How is the S3 different from the S2? These two differ by a whole generation. Every bit of the internals is better by leaps and bounds. The S3 is bigger, slightly heavier and thicker. The S3 has a sharper 4.8 inch screen with 386 ppi versus the S2's 4.3 inch screen with 217 ppi. The S3 has a quad core processor that makes doing everything on the screen faster and more importantly, smoother. This shines through with videos and games, and shows up in browsing and navigating. The camera is an 8 megapixel, just as the S2's is, but it has better optics, taking sharper pictures. The operating system is Android's Ice Cream Sandwich, which you can get on the S2 if you want to, but on the S3 it's blended better with Samsung's own TouchWiz interface. For S2 users, there's no practical reason to "upgrade" although the emotional reasons may be many. The S3 and the HTC One X… which one is better?There is no clear answer. Never have two phones been this close in specs. The speed and performance feels better on the S3 while the design and "premiumness" feels more on the One X. The camera seems to give sharper images on the S3, but are not bad on the One X either. Technically, the One X's screen is said to be better, but the difference is too minor. The HTC has a lower price in its favour. As for software, both are running Ice Cream Sandwich but their own overlay of a customised interface makes them feel different. If you're used to the Samsung Touchwiz, you may prefer that, and if you are comfortable with the HTC Sense interface, you may be happy with that. Samsung has put in a lot of its "designed for humans" gimmicks and compared with that, the One X is a quieter, more sedate phone. The S3 is also stylus-enabled, but you have to buy that separately. The S3 has a clear advantage in replaceable battery and additional SD card slot. With the One X you can't open the back at all as the phone is sealed.How does the S3 compare with the iPhone 4S?Ideally, one should be able to compare the S3 with the next version of the iPhone, but because the release cycles are different, this is out of the question for now. While one can again go head to head with specs whereupon the S3 will have better speed and power than the current iPhone, a real comparison is between the two philosophies, ecosystems and operating systems. The world is divided into groups who swear by one or the other — iOS vs Android or Apple vs Samsung. Which one comes out on top is based on whether you're an Apple fan and love the better apps, the solid build and the design of the iPhone or whether you like the customisability of an Android phone like the S3. You can tell, from first touch on, that this is one fast phone. Any faster and it'll run off by itself. Be ready for accidental touches leading to immediate activity. That famous quad core processor certainly does work. I'm not getting into a tech-specs war with other phones, but this is the fastest I've seen yet. Not just phone. Any device. You see the speed when you browse — draw a quick breath and a page is all loaded up. Watch a video and see how smooth it is. In fact, watch a video while doing something else, because this phone has a sort of picture-in-picture capability. Not a feature you should need very often, but it shows you the capability of the phone.The S3 is about the software, too. There's S-this and S-that. I was disappointed with the S-Voice, Samsung's out and out rip-off of Apple's Siri. But then it's not as if Siri works so great either. I had a battle of sorts with the S3 to get it to wake up, as promised, with a "Hi Galaxy", which I must say would sound idiotic if you began to use it when not alone. It wouldn't oblige, and then someone else took it from me and said ‘hi' and it obeyed, leaving me miffed. But it doesn't understand natural language very well and doesn't have an Indian-English mode, which is surprising, considering India is a huge market for Samsung. Other software innovations like Smart Stay, which keeps the screen on while you're watching, are a welcome direction in usability — if Samsung maintains that direction. I wasn't able to test the S- Beam, but the All Share Play which lets the phone play media off a network, worked well.The camera is great and I took an immediate liking to it. But it isn't the one compelling reason to buy this phone. I'm not falling over backwards to instantly send off photos to friends as I like to work on them first, but anyone who wants to will find this is one of the new capabilities.The battery, which you can see (and replace) if you open up the back, is a huge 2,000 mAh, sitting right next to the SD card slot which expands the 16GB storage by 64GB. There's NFC capability, which should enable new functionalities as the technology sees wider use.If it wasn't so expensive, I might indeed consider upgrading to the S3 and when I'm asked whether I will, retort that it isn't like I can press a button to get new hardware to wrap around my S2, with the software to follow. Samsung has clearly priced the S3 to be in the same bracket as the iPhone. Now it just remains to be seen whether it'll sell as much as the S2.And that, knowing Samsung, it might very well do. Now if only they could do away with their "Designed for Humans" line…mala(at)pobox(dot)com, (at)malabhargava on Twitter
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A TABLET PC, IN ONEAnd why shouldn't a PC be able to double up as a tablet? Asus doesn't see any reason why not. Accordingly they've come up with the Transformer AiO or All-in-One which sits in a dock to be an 18 inch desktop, running Windows 8, or lifts out to become a giant tablet that you had better not drop. This hybrid device combines two of the technologies that were the backbone of the Computex show — Windows 8 and Intel's Ivy Bridge proccessor. But there's a surprise up the sleeve of this device. It can also run Android in its tablet avatar. That means a whole other ecosystem of apps widgets and maybe some of the customisability that is the hallmark of Android. ASUS TRANSFORMER AiO CAN RUN BOTH WINDOWS 8 AND ANDROID 4.0, AND CAN SEAMLESSLY GO FROM A DESKTOP TO A TABLET.WILL IT REACH THE MARKET? WAIT AND WATCH The Transformer AiO is too prototype to be indicative of the eventual and finished product — if it does go into commercial use. Until we know, think of the uses. Could it make for a great canvas for artistic creation? Board games? Architectural plans?Taichi in Taiwan How would you like an ultrabook with two screens? The lid of the Taichi actually has a second display on the back. You can use the notebook normally as a screen and keyboard (backlit) and forget about what's on the lid, or you can close the lid and turn on the lid to go tablet. But both screens can be on at the same time — independently or mirrored. This opens up a number of possibilities, none of which we "need" right now, but which could trigger uses now that the capability has been demonstrated. For instance, you could redefine quality time by having a loved one use one screen while you use the other.Or you could mirror the same application on both screens and be training a co-worker. You could go into productivity mode with the laptop part of the device and then flip over for some relaxing tablet time.The screens on the prototype device are bright and 11.6 inch super IPS and both have their own 5 megapixel cameras. A 13.3 inch version will apparently also be available. The device is neither heavy nor does it have short battery life. It's also full of specs with the new generation of Intel processor, Ivy Bridge i7, for ultrabooks. It runs Windows 8 and, interestingly, you could run a Metro app on one screen and desktop on the other.Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professionalContact her at mala at pobox dot com and (at)malabhargava on Twitter
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