Wednesday, March 16, 2016

The Nokia n97 Review - Is It Any Good ?

The Nokia n97 Review - Is It Any Good ?The Nokia N97 is a well designed mobile phone by Nokia that comes with many entertainment and business features. There is a full sized QWERTY keyboard that slides out allowing the user to use the N97 mobile phone in horizontal screen mode. Measurements for the N97 are 117.2mm x 55.3mm x 15.9mm which gives the handset its well proportioned size with a weight 150g which is no surprise due to all the features and technologies.

The N97 is available in two colors choices: transition black light and white. With a weight of 150 grams the device feels light in your hands, but solid enough to be able to withstand the daily wear and tear of being in your pocket and even the occasional drop. The N97 does not feel as sturdy as the N95, but the sliding mechanism is superior and you should not experience any of the hinge related problems seen on previous Nokia builds.

Beneath the large 3.5-inch touchscreen is a 3-row QWERTY keyboard and a 4-way navigation on the left side. When I first began using the physical keyboard I had some trouble adjusting to the small keys and the placement of the space bar on the far right. I can tell you with absolute certainty that you will not be breaking any speed records on this keyboard, but it is fully capable of handling lengthy emails and constant text messages. I have no hesitations in recommending the Touch Pro2 keyboard over the N97's keyboard, simply put the N97's keyboard is too small to compete. However, if you are comparing the N97's keyboard to the Motorola Droid you'd have a very close battle.

Nokia N97 includes SMS, MMS (multi-media messaging), Instant Messaging, Emailing with Attachments and Push Emailing with POP3, IMAP and SMTP capabilities. For organisation and staying on route can be a way of life with superb selection of application tools featured on this fantastic mobile phone which include Conference Calling, Document Viewer, GPS Navigation, A GPS Receiver, OS Symbian Operating System with S60 5th Edition Software along with many many more applications. The user can also keep entertained and fully occupied with the built-in Java, Embedded, Downloadable games with N Gage support to make your gaming experience much more enjoyable.

The camera feature of Nokia N97 is really hi-fi. Its immaculate 5 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and 2592x1944 pixels can capture really unbelievable clear shots. The LED flash, auto focus and video light technologies in the device ensure great quality picture in any light conditions. The mobile phone also offers geo tagging, which saves the location where the image is taken using the camera. This is great tool to make good memories. The mobile also features video recording facility and the captured or stored videos can be viewed in standard 640 x 480 VGA resolution. Videos can be enjoyed in wide screen 640 x 360 in order to match the letterbox display of the phone.

Stereo speakers are at both ends of the left hand side of the device, with both microUSB slot (equipped with LED indicator) and slider button to lock/unlock the screen in between. The latter, as well as camera shutter are really easy to use. This, unfortunately, doesn’t hold true for the volume rocker. Well, situation is not that bad with the button that turns volume up, because it has enough travel, the thing is you will have to apply much more force to turn sound down. The 3.5 mm earphone jack is on top of the device, so you won´t need to swivel the N97 in weird positions while carrying it around into the pocket of your trousers or jeans. Power button is on one of the sides and feels comfy to press despite it doesn’t have much travel. The only thing on the bottom side is a lonely gap, where the stylus strap is attached - but you can hook any knick-knack that is to your own taste. 

For entertainment purposes there a built-in music player system with a featured FM Radio with RDS technology. There are a great selection of ring-tones available along with voice commands and voice dialling capabilities to make life a little less demanding. The music player system features a great range of features and technologies to keep the user amused endlessly. Keeping in contact with friends and family can also be quick and easy with the messaging services available on the Nokia N97 mobile phone.

Thus, this handset has balanced both the entertainment and the communication features in a brilliant manner. Most importantly, the impeccable battery of this gadget has the potential to offer you long hours of talktime i.e., 4 hours 40 minutes and 430 hours of stand by time.

 

Monday, March 7, 2016

An At&t Wireless Review - Is It Worth It ?

An At&t Wireless Review - Is It Worth It ?AT&T is among the largest cell phone providers in America. Boasting of exceptional coast-to-coast coverage and fast download speeds, it is no wonder why AT&T has become a reliable option for those who require a cell phone network. Not to mention, they have a number of plan offerings suitable to just about everyone. With a wide array of cell phones, tablets, and mobile hotspots, AT&T has been able to prove themselves among the top service providers in the country.

As one of the biggest cell phone carriers in the country, AT&T is no slouch when it comes to device selection. Every major operating system, brand and model of phone is available, from heavyweights such as Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line to less-common models like the BlackBerry Q10 and Microsoft's Lumia phones. You can buy a wide selection of tablets from manufacturers like Apple and Samsung or purchase mobile hotspots so your laptop can connect to the internet without Wi-Fi. The company even exclusively offers Amazon's Fire Phone, so if you're looking for that device's dynamic perspective and Firefly functionality, AT&T is the only way to go, It can even be used in space .

AT&T offers both new and refurbished devices. Despite being called "certified like-new," its used phones aren't necessarily free of dings or scratches from previous owners; rather, they've been put through a series of intensive benchmarking tests to ensure they can hold up to rigorous use. In return for buying refurbished, you can get a device for about $50 less than its normal, subsidized cost.

AT&T is an excellent wireless internet provider that, though not the best in any one area, makes up for occasional mediocrity with solid, jack-of-all-trades dependability. Its coast-to-coast coverage keeps you surfing the web in small towns and big cities with impressive download speeds for all your gaming, movie-streaming and music-listening needs. True, the carrier's plan distribution is rather anemic, but if you're already an AT&T customer, that concern is irrelevant – buy a new mobile hotspot and get to browsing.

AT&T offers 4G LTE broadband across most of its extensive network and has finally started giving discounts to customers who bring their own phones. Its service isn’t as fast or reliable as Verizon’s, according to third-party tests, but it’s still better than what you get from Sprint and T-Mobile. However, its pricing often favors taking the traditional handset subsidy, which in this case includes a stingy unlocking policy that doesn’t liberate your phone until you conclude the contract.

AT&T U-verse becomes more attractive if you're open to bundling your TV service and your cell phone bill. To leverage its DirecTV purchase, AT&T is knocking $10 a month off the bills of people who combine DirecTV service with their wireless internet bill. That means a family with a 10GB shared data plan could add a DirecTV Select Plan with four TV receivers and pay $200 each month. To attract DirecTV and AT&T U-verse subscribers who get their cell phone service elsewhere, AT&T is offering a $300 credit if they sign up for an AT&T Next wireless plan and trade-in their phone. AT&T’s revamped plans have already made the carrier a more attractive option for families, especially when you consider perks like rollover data and free calls and texts to Canada and Mexico if you have a 15GB data plan or higher. The introduction of bundling will only further alter the wireless service landscape in the coming months.

AT&T is bringing back unlimited data plans. But you'll have to be a customer of either the telecom giant's DirecTV satellite service or U-Verse cable and home Internet business to sign up. Watch videos here for how to get coupons and deals

The new AT&T Unlimited Plan is a plan in which subscribers get unlimited talk, text and data for $100 a month. (That's $60 for the plan itself, plus a $40 device access fee.) You can add additional lines for $40 per device, and AT&T will let you add a fourth line at no cost. That puts the monthly tab for a family of four at $180, factoring in the $40 discount.

The catch is you'll also need to subscribe to either DirecTV or U-Verse to be eligible for AT&T's unlimited plan. It's part of AT&T's effort to turn its $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV into more customers for its wireless business. As more incentive, AT&T is offering DirecTV and U-Verse TV subscribers up to $500 in credit if they switch their wireless service to AT&T, while wireless customers can sign up for DirecTV starting at $20 a month for the first year of their two-year commitment.

 

Cloud Backup Services How does Backblaze compare with Carbonite

Cloud Backup Services How does Backblaze compare with CarboniteWhen it comes to online backup services there are a number of choices. The following chart compares each of the leading online backup services based on 8 essential features. When you examine Carbonite, and Backblaze based on cost, storage volume, and ease of use it's clear that Backblaze is the best choice for your online backup needs.

Blackblaze is one of the most highly ranked automatic cloud services out there, for one critical reason: it’s extremely easy to use and it’s dirt cheap. But as everyone knows, sometimes cheap isn’t necessarily better. If you want cheap and you want something that’ll work, Backblaze could be your best bet. Storage is unlimited, you can set your own bandwidth usage, and there aren’t any specific file size limits. Which means if you’ve got an enormous HD video file, Backblaze is okay with that. Many cloud service providers aren’t.

Carbonite is that they don’t offer any level of free cloud storage. You can get a free 15-day trial or coupons without having to give over your credit card information, but if you’ve got a respectable amount of data to back up, it’s likely the enforced bandwidth throttling you’ll have to endure during the initial upload could cause you to eat through those 15 days fast. In testing, upload speeds were so slow (around 4GB per 24 hours) that uploading over 500GB of data would take literally months. Fortunately, Carbonite’s customer service seems to be good about offering refunds to those who can find faster upload services elsewhere. On the positive side, Carbonite also offers unlimited data from one computer for a flat yearly fee. This package comes with delivery of your data on a hard drive if you experience a major loss of data on your home system. Carbonite offers a smartphone app for all packages that let you access your files from anywhere from any tech gadget.

Backblaze offers a single plan across for all of its users called datafabusa. It appears the company believes simplicity is the key. It provides unlimited data backup for both PC and Mac at $5 per-month, per-computer. However, with an annual-subscription commitment, you can get it at a price of just over $4 per month, which adds up to $50. If you intend to save more money, then the two-year commitment should be a good choice. You can save a total of $25 by paying $95 for two years.

With Carbonite, everything comes at a price, but you get what you pay for. While looking at Carbonite’s pricing plans, you’re sure to exclaim, “Well, that’s not official, though!” Unlike Backblaze, it offers four plans to serve specific needs. Individual users can avail of a personal plan, which has a starting annual price of $59.99 per computer. You get an automatic-backup feature and coupons to reduce that cost , 7-days per week of customer support, and free apps to sync, share, and access files remotely.

A backup provider is only as good as the recovery service it provides. If you can’t restore your data easily, then the backup provider is no good. Both Backblaze and Carbonite give the ability to restore files through the Internet – whether it is some or all files. Backblaze allows you to restore large amount of data by sending you a USB Flash Drive or a hard drive. Carbonite does offer a similar solution. They have a courier service for $9.99 but you need to have subscribed to their Prime plan.

Carbonite is a good, well-known backup service, but for my backup needs, Backblaze was a better fit. They provided all the necessary options for backing up and restoring my data. When it comes to backing up data, you need to have a backup process that works for you. With cloud backup, you need to weigh all your options to decide which cloud backup provider works best for you. Backblaze is better.

Backblaze is faster, less expensive, and doesn’t restrict the files that are backed up on any of their plans.  The cost is just $5/month per computer for unlimited backups, and it will backup all the files you want.  Speeds to Backblaze were almost double what I got with Carbonite, so you’ll be able to backup and restore files faster.

With that being said, there are a couple advantages to Carbonite.  Only Carbonite can perform local (aka mirror image) backups, in addition to the cloud.  Also, the “Sync and Share” feature can be used to collaborate on files.  Backblaze doesn’t let you sync or share files – it’s backup only.

Although Carbonite has a couple unique features, Backblaze places less restrictions on the types of files it backs up.  Backblaze can also backup external hard drives, while Carbonite charges extra for this.

Like Backblaze, Carbonite supports both iOS and Android. The installation is pretty straightforward, and once logged in, you can access your files or backup your data easily.

Which one do you plan to use? Do you have the same verdict as ours, or is the winner of Backblaze vs Carbonite different in your eyes? Please share your experience and thanks for reading