Well, I’ve had my Samsung Captivate for a week.  Probably one of the most useful purchases I’ve made in quite sometime.  This will be real brief but in the past week I have done pretty everything on this phone.  I have paid bills, balanced my checkbook, listened to Little Brother’s entire album discography, wrote this WordPress article, recorded HD video, taken pictures, checked work email, updated my Facebook and Twitter statuses, waste my time playing paper toss, kept track kf appointments, streamed the Bob Marley channel on Pandora, etc.

A couple negatives.  First the phone will slow down for some unknown reason.  It just becomes really laggy.  This happens when the phone is syncing tweets sometimes.  The GPS is shot.  I can rarely locked on to GPS satellites, even when I am outside with clear skies.  Facebook syncing has been broken from day one.  This maybe a good thing because I don’t always need this social sites all up in face all day.  Hopefully Samsung can work out the kinks in the next update.  Battery life is also a but below satisfactory…but then again I’m always using this device.

The positives…there are just so much to list.  This thing has so much utility.  I’m probably able to conduct all the business in my life on this one device alone.

This was pretty informal, just want to put a few more thoughts out there.  Also those pictures might look terrible because they were uploaded using this WordPress app.

I am on my lunch break typing this post on my Samsung Captivate.  Just a few quick observations.

The Captivate is a very quick device. However as I soon found out, installing too many Widgets will slow things down.  You can definitely shoot yourself with all this freedom. The Android Market is full of apps though.  I am typing this article using the WordPress app.

The super AMOLED screen looks great.  The build quality is also pretty nice.

The software is nice as well.  I wasn’t a fan of TouchWiz so I installed LauncherPro beta.   So far so good.

Music sounds nice as well.  I used my Captivate in place of my now sold Zune HD during my morning run.

I’ll do some new articles down the road.

I am a little late with this, but here are my Android power rankings for released and announced (but not released) Android handsets.

Released Android Devices

1. HTC EVO 4G
2. HTC Incredible
3. Motorola Droid
4. Google Nexus One
5. Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10

Announced Android Devices

1. Samsung Galaxy S/Samsung Captivate (AT&T) – 1GHz A8 Samsung Hummingbird/512MB RAM/16GB ROM/Bluetooth 3.0/WiFi BGN/4″ Super AMOLED screen/720P video recording
2. Motorola Droid X
3. Motorola Droid 2

Personally, I am extremely partial to the Samsung Galaxy S / Captivate (as it’s called on AT&T).  The Galaxy has iPhone 4 hardware specs (except the front facing camera) but it runs Android 2.1, but it’s not nearly as big as the HTC EVO 4G or the Droid X.  In my opinion, those are huge.  To me, the best of both worlds.  It’s a good things I had ALL TYPES OF ISSUES trying to preorder an iPhone 4 earlier this week. Â

I saw this over at HowardChui.com.  I’m definitely digging this more than the HTC Incredible.  I hope AT&T releases this soon.

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Here is my ranking of currently available Android phones

1. HTC Droid Incredible (Verizon)
2. Google Nexus One (ATT, T-Mobile)
3. Motorola Droid (Verizon)
4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
5. HTC Legend

Here is my ranking of future (available in next 4 months) Android devices

1. HTC EVO 4G – 1GHz Snapdragon/512MB RAM/8MP Cam/720p video recording/WiMax radio
2. Samsung Galaxy S – 1GHz custom Samsung ARM processor/512MB RAM/5MP Cam/4″ Super AMOLED Screen
3. Motorola Shadow (codename?) – 1GHZ Snapdragon/512MB RAM/8MP Cam/720P video recoding/HDMI/QWERTY/4.3″ screen

Personally, I’d get a Nexus One if I could get one for for $199/$299…not $570.  I’m trying to hold out until the Samsung Galaxy S (if it lands on AT&T)….that for the Dell Lightning looks fantastic, even though its a Windows Phone 7 device.

Check back in June for June’s rankings!

I was recently able to acquire a Zune HD media player.  I have been using it for about 5 days.  I am going to share my thoughts in a way you can hopefully understand.

Hardware

When I first opened the Zune HD, the first thing I thought about it was how light and small it is.  It’s all metal case feels great.  There are only three physical buttons on the device: power, home, and a quick menu button that brings up controls to go to the next/prev track and control the volume.  One minor annoyance is, no physical volume button.

The OLED screen is gorgeous.  Pictures look vivid, movies are fluid, and the minimalist UI looks great on it….and its very very sensitive.  This is the first device I have owned that has a capacitive touch screen.

If I could change the hardware, I would definitely make the screen bigger and add an external speaker.

Software

The Zune HD software is outstanding.  It’s not just focused on playing the tracks you select, its makes it a point to engulf you in the type of music you listen to.  When the Zune recognizes an artist it automatically downloads album art, artist pictures, artist biography, discography, and related artists.  For example, my favorite Hip Hop group, Little Brother was instantly recognized.  It downloaded about 6 LB pictures, biography, discography, and related artist.  The presentation of the information was very very fluid and natural.

If you get a Zune HD, I wholeheartedly recommend looking into getting the Zune Pass for $14.99/month.  It allows you to download and listen to as much music as you want.  I’ve already downloaded entire discographies of well known and not so well known artist.  It also allows me to explore new music without having to download it illegally (lol) or forking out money for a potentially terrible album.  It has really great value.

Audio quality is excellent although I wish the ability to tweak the EQ manually instead of having to use the presets.

Some other  notes, the internet browser is okay.  There were a couple times where the browser didn’t do anything, even though I was clicking on links.  The available apps are okay (I can’t get the Facebook app to work). I wish there were more as the hardware of the Zune HD (nVidia Tegra chipset) is capable of running some nice 3D games.  The radio works, when I was able to get a signal.  This has always been the case with any radio that was built into a portable device…terrible reception…or maybe its just me.  I played a few movies just to see what that was about.  I haven’t really been in a situation where I’d rather watch movies on the Zune HD (been at work, we don’t watch movies at work…lol or at home where I’d rather watch movies/video on my HDTV).

Let me do some forward thinking real quick.  If the Zune software is remotely similar to what is expected in Windows Phone 7, then I think the user experience will blow the doors off of the current versions of Android, Blackberry, and iPhone OSes.  The thing the Zune is great at is making you feel less like you are going from app to app or track to track and just enjoying music.  The entire experience is really seamless and engaging.

I give the Zune HD 4.5/5.

I probably just talked myself into getting a Zune HD, but let’s walk through this.

I WAS looking for a new all-in-one smartphone that can do it all.  Apps, music, video, internet, phone, blah, blah, blah.  But I am not willing to throw down $500+ for the one I want (Google Nexus One).  My AT&T Contract doesn’t expire until June so that throws the chance to subsidize one out of the Window.  However, I do need to upgrade from my current Sony Walkman 8GB non-touchscreen mp3 player.  I have a long flight to and from the United Kingdom coming up and it would be nice to be able to watch movie and listen to music during the flight.

So I have narrowed it down to two choices.  A Zune HD 16GB or Apple iPod Touch 8GB (about the same price $199, I am not about to spend $300 on one, no no no no).

The Zune HD 16GB

I’ve only really played with one in the store, so my experience is rather limited.  From what I can tell though it has several pros and some cons too.

Pros (over the iPod)

• Twice as much space as the iPod Touch 8GB
• Zune software is absolutely superb
• Zune Pass (listen to as much music as you can for only $14.99/month)
• HD radio (I haven’t really tried this, but  I hear HD radio is pretty good)
• Windows Integration: I have Windows Media Center set up on my PC so I have it recording TV shows all the time.  I can now take these shows with me wherever I go

Cons

• Apps (or lack thereof)
• Really only a media player so there are no auxiliary native apps for email or maps

The Apple iPod Touch 8GB

I have used the iPod extensively. And it is a very good all around device.  Definately more well-rounded than the Zune HD

Pros (over the Zune)

• Apps: this is a big one, because they go a looooonnngg to bridging the gap between being just a media player and a personal communication device
• Web browsing
• Bigger, higher resolution screen

Cons

• iTunes: I hate it, bloated and slow…its about time Apple revamp its look

I’ve pretty much made my mind up for the Zune HD, but I’m going to try one out extensively in the store and make sure.

I watched the Steve Jobs present iPhone 4 OS today.  One of the biggest new features of the iPhone OS 4 is

MULTITASKING!

On the surface, to the average user, this appears as multitasking.  To me, not so much.  Apple is using several different clever technologies to give off the impression that iPhone OS 4 can now multitask.  Let’s break these down.

Background Processes & Services

There are several background processes & services now built in to the OS SDK.  They enable background processing of audio streaming, and location services for GPS & social networking.voice-over-ip.  In a nutshell, the developer of Pandora (example) alters the application to use the background audio streaming API to continue to stream audio even when the user switches to another application.  Pandora is “shut-down (more on this later)”, but the audio streaming service continues to operate.  There is no need for the Pandora user-interface to remain active when the user is not directly interacting with the application.  Great!  Now users can browse the internet in Safari and stream music through Pandora (or whatever app is present).  Or leave Skype open and receive Skype VOIP calls.  To be honest, this is clever and I wonder if they’ll add more services as time goes on.  However, other applications, such as instant messaging apps have to continue to rely on push notifications and from what I can see, those intrusive Apple iPhone notifications still suck.  If push notifications didn’t interrupt the users, using notifications for IM services is actually preferred (by me).  Instant messaging apps KILL battery life.  So push notifications in combination with fast app switching is a great way to tackle this problem.

I wonder if any of these services can run together ie. can I stream Pandora, while signed into Skype, while navigating in the Maps app?  What if I get a Skype VOIP call while streaming audio?  I’m sure these questions will be answered in the coming weeks as the developer beta trickles out.

Task Switching

In short, allows you to finish tasks such as file uploads (or downloads) in the background.  Pretty cool, I’m sure those who have been held hostage by some app uploading pictures and can’t do anything on their iPhone will be grateful.

Fast App Switching

Fast app switching saves the “state” of application and “closes” it when you switch to another application.  When I say “state” I mean it saves what documents you have open, or your current position in a 3D game.  This allows the OS to re-open your app when you switch back to it and pick up where you left off.  Great idea for many applications.  There is no reason to have to multitask a single player game in the background or have a Note editor in the background wasting processing cycles and battery power.

Apple also added a new user interface element that allows users to quickly switch between “open” programs.  Two-clicks of the home button brings up a “taskbar” with icons representing running applications.  So you can switch between applications very quickly.

Wrapup

With all that said, as an engineer, I wouldn’t call this multi-tasking.  I’d call it advanced user task management, but I guess multitasking sounds better, marketingwise.  The methods Apple uses do a great job of appearing to multitask in most use cases, which will be good enough for most of iPhone users.  For me, I’d rather have the OPTION on  what method I’d like…which is why the iPhone nor Windows Phone 7 would be for me…Android.

Maybe getting an iPhone won’t be that bad. My AT&T contract is up for renewal a whole two weeks before Apple is supposedly announcing the 4th generation iPhone. It’s rumoured to have a 960×640 screen plus other things including multitasking. I thought about getting the hottest Android device that’s out at the time, but I don’t think Android is quite ready for primetime until Android 3.0. On the otherhand I utterly hate iTunes on windows pcs. We’ll see…

…I typed this blog post up on a friends iPhone. The onscreen keyboard is outstanding. Oh and there is a app for that…the wordpress app.

I have been using a Motorola Q9h for the past week and some change. My previous phone was a Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 whose LCD screen met an untimely meeting with a desk corner (cracked screen).

Over the past ten days, I have been settling in with this Motorola Q9h, which so far, for me is a better productivity device (phone calls, email, Twitter (productive?), Facebook, texts, light browsing, Google Maps, etc. than the X1 ever was. It feels better made (soft touch plastic on the back is a plus) and gets great reception at my house. I get between 2-4 bars (4 being the max) of 3G coverage at my house whereas the X1, I only got 1-2 (out of 5) bars of 3G coverage and plenty of dropped calls. Now mind you, the X1 had an aluminum case.

I also can appreciate the ability to be able to use the keyboard (which is fantastic) with one hand and crank out text messages, emails, tweets, etc. without the delay and slowdowns I was getting on the X1. Web browsing was definitely better on the X1 though as was is Skype VOIP calls and multimedia. Furthermore, my Q9h only has 96MB of RAM (X1 had 200+MB) so Windows Mobile closes applications automatically when memory gets low. I have gotten around this limitation, by only running the required apps in the background (Twikini & Palringo). Finally, the speakerphone on the Q9h is WAAAAAAYYYYY louder than whats on the X1. All-in-all, for me it seems the 2+ year old Q9h is better, for me, than the X1.

I just needed something to hold me over until my AT&T contract runs out in the summer, then I’m on to an Android, WP7S, iPhone 4 iPhone HD, or a Blackberry.