One of the great things about android phones is the external sd card slot. My Samsung Galaxy Exhibit came with 2GB of flash memory. For under $30 I could put in a high speed 32GB micro SD card for storing photos and audio.
The Nexus 4, however, doesn't have an SD card slot. Instead, you can pay $50 extra to get 8 GB more storage. This seems like a page from Apple's book, where for a mere $100 you can get an extra 16GB of memory. And of course, there is no upgrading either of these. So if you later decide you need a few more GB, you are AWOL. A lovely case of planned obsolescence
Luckily, Samsung still allows you to plug in SD cards. Sure, they'll sell you a phone with 16GB more memory for $50-$100 more. But, they'll also let you plug in $10 16GB microsd if you later decide you need a little more room for your audiobooks. Hmm... Maybe that is one of the reasons they are now dominating the market.
Showing posts with label phone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phone. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Keeping Settings
After taking some pictures on my phone, I noticed that many of them were taken at super-low resolution. I never remembered switching it to the low-res. Yet, somehow it seemed to happen when I take a lot of pictures that I wish were at higher resolution. Similarly, I noticed that sometime, the geotagging would turn off. (And this seems to always be when I am taking pictures to "remember" certain locations. Uggh!)
I think I finally figured out the issue.
The phone was being smart and "remembering" the settings - even when I did not want it to remember.
The low-res issue seemed to occur after I switched to the front-facing camera. The camera is of lower resolution, so the highest resolution is the "super low res". Alas, while the camera switches to low-res after switching to the front camera, it doesn't switch back to high-res after going to the rear camera.
The GPS issue was similar. If I turn off the GPS, the camera seems to see that the GPS is off and turns off geotagging. However, it does not turn it on when geotagging is turned back on.
How could you resolve these issues?
GPS could be resolved by adding an "unavailable" state. If the GPS is off, it just says "unavailable", but leaves the geotagging feature on. When it comes back on, it turns back on. If you explicitly turn off the GPS, then it could stay off.
For the camera, it is a little trickier. An easy way would be to allow each camera to have its own resolution setting. That way you could have one at middle, one at low, or whatever you want. Another simple option would be to allow "max" resolution. That way, no matter what the resolution is, the camera will always take the picture with the best possible resolution.
Are there any better alternatives?
I think I finally figured out the issue.
The phone was being smart and "remembering" the settings - even when I did not want it to remember.
The low-res issue seemed to occur after I switched to the front-facing camera. The camera is of lower resolution, so the highest resolution is the "super low res". Alas, while the camera switches to low-res after switching to the front camera, it doesn't switch back to high-res after going to the rear camera.
The GPS issue was similar. If I turn off the GPS, the camera seems to see that the GPS is off and turns off geotagging. However, it does not turn it on when geotagging is turned back on.
How could you resolve these issues?
GPS could be resolved by adding an "unavailable" state. If the GPS is off, it just says "unavailable", but leaves the geotagging feature on. When it comes back on, it turns back on. If you explicitly turn off the GPS, then it could stay off.
For the camera, it is a little trickier. An easy way would be to allow each camera to have its own resolution setting. That way you could have one at middle, one at low, or whatever you want. Another simple option would be to allow "max" resolution. That way, no matter what the resolution is, the camera will always take the picture with the best possible resolution.
Are there any better alternatives?
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