I have found sygic is much better for offline use. Just download around 1-2 GB per country and you don't need any data connection. and it renders much faster and with 3D view its easier to make out things
In fact a Lenovo x220 tablet would be quite good for this situation.
With a touchscreen supporting fingers as well as pen, and a twist and fold screen to get it into a tablet form factor, its great to use with Windows 8 (or even android x86 if you want) and serves as a laptop and a tablet both (only use for tablets i ever have is to browse web/media while lying down in front of TV - so not much issue with weight there)
And its got all the other hygiene factors - strong build etc. Only it doesn't have a optical drive - but I no longer use one and really don't know what people do with it ? watch movies on DVD or install software from DVD ? Isn't that almost always a download or it can be copied to a USB pendrive for those few occasions when you want to boot with it to install an OS
But if you want an optical drive you can go for a normal x220 - i think that has a optical drive option.
Reliance Media has an upcoming Movie release scheduled in 2 weeks.
This happens every time just before a new movie release. It'll be back to normal after that. The few other ISPs are probably going through Reliance. None of the other large ISPs have done this.
Its just to reduce the chance of a leak before the release, which has happened a few times in the past and is at times disastrous for the movie as it gets reviewed before opening day. Then if its good it gets downloaded a lot, while if its bad there's are less viewers turning up in theaters.
All of these currently available, but they sell in really low volumes. Don't know why...
I have been using a tabletpc since last 5 years due to my RSI/CTS and the convenience it offers without taking away from the laptop features. But somehow these never took off though there is some demand from niche areas. Probably, there are much less content creation people and much more content consumers than we think.
I never could find any use for the Android/iOS/WebOS tablets except the occasional need to browse the net while watching TV or while waiting/commuting etc - maybe 10-20 min a day max. Even my kids ignore the ipad lying at home - But tablets selling in millions while tabletpc languish in the low '000 !
And current tabletpc models are quite light and with great battery life - so that isn't the reason. Only thing i can see is that there's no app market to waste time with newer and newer games on these.
Really good build quality with thickness rivaling the macbook air. Real life battery life is over 7 hours (though mfr rates it only at 4 hours - but i have used it extensively for over 7 hours. YMMV)
Customized ARM Ubuntu with flawless sleep & wake-up with wifi/3g reconnect within 2-3 seconds. Has inbuilt 3G sim slot also.
Its only $200 and really nice product. I place it next to the MacBook Air in usability and convenience. Off course, I am a little enamored with Arm devices these days and if you want x86 then maybe a Macbook or Samsung 9 or one of the ultrabooks (asus/lenovo) could be preferable
I had bought one a few months back and liked it so much i have ordered 2 more for my family members. FYI, i don't have any link with Genesi etc
I have worked on an embedded kiosk with NFC+3G for cash card transactions and all these Chinese tablets are an absolute NO - NO.
We tried 20 models and there are too many problems making the $100 price tags totally irrelevant.
We finally found a great product from Genesi (genesi-usa.com) called Efika smartbook ($200) and smart top ($100). You'll get surprisingly good quality, great engineering design and pretty good software software. It runs Ubuntu Arm customized a little but you can run Fedora Arm etc. Has inbuilt 3G,WiFi/BT but you can opt out of those for $40 cut in prices i think.
Their new models have touchscreens - though i would not recommend touchscreens for anything non-consumer item as they always have issues if the usage is high or the atmosphere is industrial/outdoor etc. Better to go with external bluetooth touchpads (indl quality) or numeric keypads so that it can be replaced without opening up the machine.
The form factor of smartbook is also great for doing arm development on the move or normal office/home use.
FYI, I have no relation with Genesi - just a recent customer.
Strangely, my migraines go away just by puking ! I induce that by drinking loads & loads of water.
Or, for temporary relief, i just keep walking very briskly inside the house.
These might look good on paper, but just wait till our bureaucracy & police start interpreting this in their usual ways and start arresting random big shot CEOs from google India, facebook India or the various ISPs due to 'hate speech' posted by users etc. and all this jacks up the 'cost of doing business' (ie greasing palms) by a huge amount.
And no user will really be able to take any action against any corporate because obviously our administration sees them as having more potential of pay offs. Very soon IT as a sector will become like our Real Estate sector - unimaginably corrupt - builders pay off nearly 20% of building/land costs to various govt depts and then obviously pass on these costs, as well as inordinate time delays, to the poor home buyers.
Even I have been buying them on principle.
I don't really play much games, and though i try to convince my daughter to play these, at her age she's still interested in Pokemon type of games.
But the quality of the games is very good. And would really want this idea to grow.
I spent a full year trying to install redhat but never being able to see the full text menu as my monitor would only show the top left quadrant !
Finally the newer versions fixed themselves after a year and i got it to run.
Next was being afraid of getting my monitors burning by editing x configuration files & setting wrong frequencies ! (at least that used to be the warning those days)
Ears or Eyes open is a sign of infringement too.
All college staff to keep 'em closed from now on. Students can keep them open 'cause they're already infringing due to presence of router etc
The way things are going downhill in the US, it'll soon be time for UN to declare a No Fly zone over the US to save its citizens from the Govt. Makes me really sad sometimes. And i am not in the US.
This 16 year old did her best to use her 'wiles' to convince me.... It was so easy to say no. I hope I held back my smirk well enough. Pay for your software.
Maybe, the chinese phones with 3 SIM slots can be used to do such a thing without requiring the networks to decide.
These phones have 2/3 radios & sim slots - they all work simultaneously - you can receive any call from all 2/3 nos and set a preference or select one while dialing out.
People have 2 or 3 sim card phones and select which no to use to dial out depending on tariff etc.
Quite common in India/China/etc
Though i personally never liked having 2/3 nos or worrying so much about call charges, but yes, i would be interested in using data in such a way.
That's nothing, some people actually texted a huge 16 digit number in order to get some freebies but found out that it was a handset change code and their numbers got transferred to the bad huys who would use it for intl calls etc till the few hours/days that it takes to get the number/handset blocked !
As long as some holding company up the chain is making profits wouldn't the Tax kick in at that level ?
So, it seems that the only 'benefit' is to avoid paying people who were to get % of gross/net/etc.
Isn't that a clear fraud ?
With the huge tort cases in the US for every small thing, how come this hasn't gotten fixed yet through some judgments etc ?
Yeah, we have loads of such stupid laws in India which do NOTHING to prevent criminals but just trouble normal citizens. The sheer number of connections makes it impossible for them to do any check of the documents so they audit 1-2% of the documents.
Another recent one is that WIFI should be secured since many terrorists were claiming responsibility for bombings over emails sent through unsecured wifi.
Next up - ID required for drinking water. That'll stop all terrorists i'm sure, since all of them drink water sometime or the other.
Um.. I would be happy to supply you with all goods/services you need at 2X the prices.
What? you would rather pay 1X and buy them yourself. Come on now...
Interestingly, just a few days back the Supreme Court of India banned any forced polygraph/Narco/Brain Mapping Tests as they violate the constitution as well as the privacy of a citizen, are essentially asking a person to testify against himself, are as bad as torture, and are no better than getting a person drunk .
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I have found sygic is much better for offline use. Just download around 1-2 GB per country and you don't need any data connection. and it renders much faster and with 3D view its easier to make out things
In fact a Lenovo x220 tablet would be quite good for this situation.
With a touchscreen supporting fingers as well as pen, and a twist and fold screen to get it into a tablet form factor, its great to use with Windows 8 (or even android x86 if you want) and serves as a laptop and a tablet both (only use for tablets i ever have is to browse web/media while lying down in front of TV - so not much issue with weight there)
And its got all the other hygiene factors - strong build etc. Only it doesn't have a optical drive - but I no longer use one and really don't know what people do with it ? watch movies on DVD or install software from DVD ? Isn't that almost always a download or it can be copied to a USB pendrive for those few occasions when you want to boot with it to install an OS
But if you want an optical drive you can go for a normal x220 - i think that has a optical drive option.
Reliance Media has an upcoming Movie release scheduled in 2 weeks.
This happens every time just before a new movie release. It'll be back to normal after that. The few other ISPs are probably going through Reliance. None of the other large ISPs have done this.
Its just to reduce the chance of a leak before the release, which has happened a few times in the past and is at times disastrous for the movie as it gets reviewed before opening day. Then if its good it gets downloaded a lot, while if its bad there's are less viewers turning up in theaters.
Brought back some nice old memories......
You mean like one of these: HP EliteBook 2760p Tablet PC OR ThinkPad X200t Tablet OR Dell Latitude XT3 Tablet PC ??
All of these currently available, but they sell in really low volumes. Don't know why... I have been using a tabletpc since last 5 years due to my RSI/CTS and the convenience it offers without taking away from the laptop features. But somehow these never took off though there is some demand from niche areas. Probably, there are much less content creation people and much more content consumers than we think.
I never could find any use for the Android/iOS/WebOS tablets except the occasional need to browse the net while watching TV or while waiting/commuting etc - maybe 10-20 min a day max. Even my kids ignore the ipad lying at home - But tablets selling in millions while tabletpc languish in the low '000 !
And current tabletpc models are quite light and with great battery life - so that isn't the reason. Only thing i can see is that there's no app market to waste time with newer and newer games on these.
Try the Efika Smartbook from Genesi-USA or Genesi-Europe http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/smartbook
Really good build quality with thickness rivaling the macbook air. Real life battery life is over 7 hours (though mfr rates it only at 4 hours - but i have used it extensively for over 7 hours. YMMV)
Customized ARM Ubuntu with flawless sleep & wake-up with wifi/3g reconnect within 2-3 seconds. Has inbuilt 3G sim slot also.
Its only $200 and really nice product. I place it next to the MacBook Air in usability and convenience. Off course, I am a little enamored with Arm devices these days and if you want x86 then maybe a Macbook or Samsung 9 or one of the ultrabooks (asus/lenovo) could be preferable
I had bought one a few months back and liked it so much i have ordered 2 more for my family members. FYI, i don't have any link with Genesi etc
I have worked on an embedded kiosk with NFC+3G for cash card transactions and all these Chinese tablets are an absolute NO - NO. We tried 20 models and there are too many problems making the $100 price tags totally irrelevant. We finally found a great product from Genesi (genesi-usa.com) called Efika smartbook ($200) and smart top ($100). You'll get surprisingly good quality, great engineering design and pretty good software software. It runs Ubuntu Arm customized a little but you can run Fedora Arm etc. Has inbuilt 3G,WiFi/BT but you can opt out of those for $40 cut in prices i think. Their new models have touchscreens - though i would not recommend touchscreens for anything non-consumer item as they always have issues if the usage is high or the atmosphere is industrial/outdoor etc. Better to go with external bluetooth touchpads (indl quality) or numeric keypads so that it can be replaced without opening up the machine. The form factor of smartbook is also great for doing arm development on the move or normal office/home use. FYI, I have no relation with Genesi - just a recent customer.
Strangely, my migraines go away just by puking ! I induce that by drinking loads & loads of water. Or, for temporary relief, i just keep walking very briskly inside the house.
These might look good on paper, but just wait till our bureaucracy & police start interpreting this in their usual ways and start arresting random big shot CEOs from google India, facebook India or the various ISPs due to 'hate speech' posted by users etc. and all this jacks up the 'cost of doing business' (ie greasing palms) by a huge amount. And no user will really be able to take any action against any corporate because obviously our administration sees them as having more potential of pay offs. Very soon IT as a sector will become like our Real Estate sector - unimaginably corrupt - builders pay off nearly 20% of building/land costs to various govt depts and then obviously pass on these costs, as well as inordinate time delays, to the poor home buyers.
Even I have been buying them on principle. I don't really play much games, and though i try to convince my daughter to play these, at her age she's still interested in Pokemon type of games. But the quality of the games is very good. And would really want this idea to grow.
I spent a full year trying to install redhat but never being able to see the full text menu as my monitor would only show the top left quadrant ! Finally the newer versions fixed themselves after a year and i got it to run. Next was being afraid of getting my monitors burning by editing x configuration files & setting wrong frequencies ! (at least that used to be the warning those days)
Ears or Eyes open is a sign of infringement too. All college staff to keep 'em closed from now on. Students can keep them open 'cause they're already infringing due to presence of router etc
The way things are going downhill in the US, it'll soon be time for UN to declare a No Fly zone over the US to save its citizens from the Govt. Makes me really sad sometimes. And i am not in the US.
They'll only get you the sponsored brand whenever you ask for anything. You want pepsi ? Here's Coke. And another.
*runs off to patent office*
**first to file, first to file ! **
This 16 year old did her best to use her 'wiles' to convince me .... It was so easy to say no. I hope I held back my smirk well enough. Pay for your software.
That's the problem right THERE.
No wonder geeks are losing the evolutionary race.
More like: Intelligent people/kids have more self control than others. and NOT: People/kids with more self control are more intelligent.
Maybe, the chinese phones with 3 SIM slots can be used to do such a thing without requiring the networks to decide. These phones have 2/3 radios & sim slots - they all work simultaneously - you can receive any call from all 2/3 nos and set a preference or select one while dialing out. People have 2 or 3 sim card phones and select which no to use to dial out depending on tariff etc. Quite common in India/China/etc Though i personally never liked having 2/3 nos or worrying so much about call charges, but yes, i would be interested in using data in such a way.
Doesn't seem to work with zip. Works perfectly with rar though.
Reminds me of some funny answers given by some students:
Q: Expand (a+b)^2
A: ( a + b ) ^ 2
and
Q: x^2 - 2 = 14 find x
A: ^here it is.
That's nothing, some people actually texted a huge 16 digit number in order to get some freebies but found out that it was a handset change code and their numbers got transferred to the bad huys who would use it for intl calls etc till the few hours/days that it takes to get the number/handset blocked !
As long as some holding company up the chain is making profits wouldn't the Tax kick in at that level ? So, it seems that the only 'benefit' is to avoid paying people who were to get % of gross/net/etc. Isn't that a clear fraud ? With the huge tort cases in the US for every small thing, how come this hasn't gotten fixed yet through some judgments etc ?
But it's all public information - google would just make it more accessible. How would they benefit from it ?
Yeah, we have loads of such stupid laws in India which do NOTHING to prevent criminals but just trouble normal citizens. The sheer number of connections makes it impossible for them to do any check of the documents so they audit 1-2% of the documents. Another recent one is that WIFI should be secured since many terrorists were claiming responsibility for bombings over emails sent through unsecured wifi. Next up - ID required for drinking water. That'll stop all terrorists i'm sure, since all of them drink water sometime or the other.
Um.. I would be happy to supply you with all goods/services you need at 2X the prices. What? you would rather pay 1X and buy them yourself. Come on now...
Interestingly, just a few days back the Supreme Court of India banned any forced polygraph/Narco/Brain Mapping Tests as they violate the constitution as well as the privacy of a citizen, are essentially asking a person to testify against himself, are as bad as torture, and are no better than getting a person drunk .