General Gadget Talk and Updated Thoughts on Tablet PCs (now that I own one)

About a year ago in this blogs old and over ambitious beginnings.  I had some good ideas and I had some ideas that I was trying to hash out that just wouldn't be sustainable as a blogging platform, one of the few things that is sustainable is my obsession with gadgets and other tech items.  I am glad the great wristwatch fetish of 2010 and 2011 has cooled off, I still love wristwatches and have a passion for time pieces, but I am not snatching them up like crack and with good reason, I made some pricey mistakes in watches that are just not that great and not nearly as cool as the instant gratification fix or the "new stuff high" one can seem to get.  I like all manor of mechanized and non-mechanized gadgets, from computers to stereos, from mechanical watches to firearms.  All four of the mentioned gadgets are ones that lend well to tinkering and improving, yes even watches. 

If you put a little time into a lower quality mechanical watch you can improve its time keeping and even get more meters of water resistance, or improving the looks.  It seems like some people want to buy an expensive watch, wear it wrong and have it flop around their wrist like they are a kid wearing dad's watch, I don't understand how someone can do that.  I can forgive wearing a watch on the wrong wrist in casual situations, but in more formal and business situations people actually do pay attention to details such as that, weird right?  Same thing with knowing how place settings work at a formal dinner situation, you don't want to come off looking like Tarzan.  I love dark watches, as in black out, they look very sleek and even a cheaper one can give you a lot of miles if worn just for special occasions, as more regular wear will rub off the coating on the metal of lesser quality watches and given more time even on nicer coated watches that will happen.  Certain coatings and materials are not going to have that problem, but they carry a cost with them as well.  Even titanium banded and bodied watches are getting more and more affordable, which is nice as long as they don't use a soft Ti alloy that is heavy on cheap aluminum, what will happen is the hardened steel pins holding the links together with actually ream out the holes in the links and start to fall out, I've seen it happen on entry level Seiko's in Ti, and on my own Ti Fossil, on the fossil, given the overall quality and price of their watches it is forgivable, but on the Seiko, I think that is cost cutting to the point of quality cutting. There are cost cutting measures that do not sacrifice quality actually, they just have to be implemented in a careful fashion, I will point to Kahr's CM9 (I think that is the model, pistol, and the newer one in composite lower) they cut costs in very clever ways, improved the function of the pistol and got it out to the end user at a extremely fair price.  For what they are and getting used to that style of trigger, sorry I'm a single action kind of guy, they are in the firearms world what a killer app is to IT.  Sometimes saving the end user lots of money is something as simple as not putting it in a crazy case (many gadgets included here) that will be a shelved item and rarely used, or not including a 2nd magazine.  An easy cost saving measure on a decent watch is to put the glowing dials that are light sensitive in, I prefer tritium because I can always see my watch face in the dark, for over 25 years my watch will glow like that, at around 25 years it will start to decay and not glow. 

On stereos.... That is a tough market, you have just as much witchcraft involved in high end stereo items as you do in an average Harry Potter book, seriously.  There are overpriced slabs of wood to keep your wires electrons happy.  This article points to one item that is hilarious when people are paying so much for them, the really funny thing about a lot of these products, they change websites and company names constantly, and even vary the product names a bit.  $32,000 cables and fancy easy bake ovens that cost $800 to "cook" your cables and condition them for proper sound.
http://www.transparentcable.com/products/pdf/prices/retail_prices_03-2011.pdf takes a minute to load, but prices on some cables START AT $33,000...
http://www.svalanderaudio.com/solidtech/coseng.php
http://angstfree.blogspot.com/2007/06/playstation-audiophile-hype.html
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread762054/pg1

This is clearly a joke from an Amazon seller, but you get the point...
http://www.amazon.com/3-5mm-Mini-Computer-Stereo-Cable/dp/B00404CTBK/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1327497377&sr=1-1

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/01/james-randi-calls-ou.html Boingboing has a few writers that put up audiophile products that are nuthouse every so often.

Ok back to it, I love music, and I don't mind paying to hear it played through something that will make it sound better, and yes I'm a victim of monster cables marketing when building my SACD set up, which I notice only slightly better results when using the monster cables I have, but it is after a LOT of comparison and listening to the same high quality recording back and forth comparing for countless hours to pick it out.  But the radioshack bargain high end cables were 100% identical in sound to monster cables, so money saved, lesson learned, the one nice thing about nicer cables, they hold up much better and that is about it.

Ok Tablet PCs, they are a gadget I've been waiting for as long as I can remember after seeing so many movies and TV shows use something nearly identical, or in Star Trek's case nearly identical to an iPad.  I have to give Apple credit, but only just that, they were the first to get a tablet out there and make it successful, many have tried to do similar over the years and always fell short, palm pilots always were a device looking for wireless for so long, and then by the time things caught up and they got it all in order, smart phones come out, and Apple even tried to make things similar to their own product, the Newton still does some things that the iPad can't, and these are functions that people want out of a tablet not just neat things that serve no purpose.  I purchased a Dell Streak 7 wifi only tablet because it was a good price and the specs on it were amazing, aside from screen resolution, which are pathetic, but it was a solid price and from a hardware perspective it was a power house. I received it and it was all well and good, but it was using outdated an outdated Android OS never designed for a tablet, so tons of functions were really hurt and even with a bad resolution screen you could tell half the apps were designed for something with a much smaller screen, I was ready to sell it and rarely used it.  The anticipated OS update that was supposed to be released shortly after my purchase was announced to never happen I found out, and then I was like ok, I am really selling this, I had it posted and someone was going to buy it that Saturday, on Thursday I got a pop up when I was about to clear all my data, Firmware update available, puzzled I accepted it, HONEYCOMB!!! WHAT! Dell finally came through after a LOT of complaints and people demanding returns I guess.  I installed Honeycomb right away and I had a birthday dinner to get to so I played with it for a minute and then just decided I'm going to bring it with me, since there were very few devices using it and I knew 2 people that have designed Android apps would be there, I wanted to show it off.  After I got used to the new improved interface functions, which were a dramatic change for the better, everything was so much faster, not only because it was optimized for the powerful processor, but because menus and functions were accessed much more intuitively, I had to learn how to use something in an intuitive fashion sounds weird, but it was so backwards before it was like I had a totally different tablet completely.  I was pleased as punch, I could keep this and bide my time while a few up and coming improvements were coming to Android tablets. 

I wanted more screen real estate and more resolution at some point for reading digital transfer comic books.  I started looking for my tablets replacement around Christmas and was upset to find a lot of Android tablets have moved into an iPad pricing scheme and that most Android tablets were moving away from modest onboard storage (8-16gb being on the good side, less for some bargains) and having a slot for an SD card, which Android will soon support 64gb cards, so 16gb onboard + 64gb card = more then an iPad for WAY less cost, not to mention you can get 32gb cards for a reasonable price and then just have a common app load out, and change media on each like a fancy album structure and label them accordingly.  I have one 32 gb card.  I don't feel that compulsion to carry every MP3 I own with me constantly, which no portable media player can without double sided taping an SD plug hard drive to it...  I just have some selections that I can't go without and rotate my newest music around, which I am constantly seeking out something new and different on the fringes of "underground," yes I could be labeled a hipster, I just don't care for mainstream music for the most part and listen to obscure bands, and no I'm not calling bands that are fairly popular obscure, I'm talking on Pandora and last.fm they have under very few followers and listens on their tracks, in the thousands or sometimes less, not always, but I just go for music that tours the "local" scene, which now in the modern day, a small time artist can go around the continent and have a much more vast listening base because of the Internet, and do the same amount of work that a coffee house only musician did "back in the day" as the kids say.  Websites like thesixtyone.com, soundcloud, and last.fm have given the "little guy" huge power, and a lot of these bands and artists give their music away also!  Whew ok tangent over, sorry about that (oh the genre that has captivated me recently is instrumental modern prog rock and post rock).
So on with tablets, I found one that I like, only problem, my wireless carrier does not carry the mobile network capable version, why you ask? Apple being douche bags, they are made that tons of competition is out there and have held up progress of samsung specifically, but everyone in general, because apparently they copied Apple, now call me crazy, but Apple, couldn't you be sued for doing the same thing with laptops...  The lawsuit has had a lot of the different products held from market or withdrawn until it is sorted out, and Apple is making lawsuits from country to country, so just in case all these companies are holding back a lot of their product release  if they go through, which they have been over turned left and right, but still that is a douche move.  Like I said I found the one, the Galaxy 10.1, but Sprint only sells it wifi only, and I already have one of those, I'm ready to step up my game and get 3g/4g on my tablet.  That's the other fun thing, wireless data packages for tablets have gone from reasonable to crazy recently, in some cases 400% increases for basic plans.  I've been looking for an option to tether my tablet to my phone without rooting it, but nothing has come up yet.  So I may root my phone so I can.  It would be cool if a wireless provider had a discount for mobile data plans for tablets/air cards that would give you a fair discount if you had existing phone service, but I don't see that happening at all.  Currently Verizon offers the only options, which suck, their price on the same tab is hundreds more, I can understand some difference because the hardware additions for 3g/4g, but what they have is lunacy.  They have a refurb program, guess how much you save on the tablet when you get a refurb, $50, sheesh at least on Apple stuff it is a more noticeable savings, which given their initial cost is still a kick in the pants.  And like I was pointing out before, many Tablets from companies other then Apple have moved to the same inflated pricing scheme, entry level tablet $300-400, increase storage and cost can more then double, SSDs are expensive, I know, but they are not made out of golden panda fetus.  The reason for going with Android for most people has always been simple:

1. Affordability

2. Bang for buck over Apple

3. Options (expandable storage, more freeware apps, rooting is allowed, more choices in apps (yes more choices, even though the numbers in the app store are higher, Android's open source style has more options for certain types of apps and better variety, rather then being forced to use 1st party items, and pricing is better on the Android market, and they have way better customer service and support)

4. Don't need iTunes to use it, again I have options, I like those.

5. Back-up is so much easier, i.e. GMail account to back up contacts instantly, and programs that can save everything, including the data stored in programs, Apple still can't have your notepad export, so simple...

6. Don't have to pay for any customer support or extra warranty, even my out of warranty HTC has been taken care of, just getting Apple to talk to you when your product is out of warranty is a challenge.  And the carrier insurance is cheaper to get on your handset, and usually a lot better then Apple Care.

7. You can hold your product anyway you want and not be told otherwise (ok that's a bit of a joke, but it has happened...)

8. Hardware choice, there is not just Android phone and that is it, there are tons of companies that offer Android OS phones and competition is a good thing.  Also the specs on most current Android phone blow Apple out of the water, if there were doors on the iPhone or iPad they would be located on the ground.  Apple fankids actually try to say that having better specs makes a product worse, yes I am dead serious, they are trying to say this why? Who needs that much ram or that good of a processor on a phone! That is just silly, that is a bad product. Wow, that is what makes products improve, pushing the envelope, more and more storage and faster chipsets will make all future chipsets more affordable, and the size of them will be smaller over time, so far that has been a scientific law in regard to computers, Moore's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law)

That is why I go with Android, but might just not get another tablet at this point sadly.