Month: September 2010

Palm Pre vs. Evo 4G: Hardware

OK I’m late to the game but hey I do finally have a Palm Pre to compare against my Evo 4G. Today I’m going to compare the hardware of the two devices. Obviously being a newer device the Evo is going to have a faster process and more RAM so I’ll not concern myself with those. I’m also going to ignore the 4G radio in the Evo as that wasn’t available when the Pre was released.

Both phones have 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth radios built-in. Likewise both of the phones I have are CDMA meaning they’ll work on Sprint and would work on Verizon if they were unlocked. All the radios on both phones work well so I can’t say much here.

Let’s start off with overall build quality. One thing that I like about HTC’s phones is that they are usually built pretty sturdy. The Evo is a pretty tough customer and I haven’t had anything on it break yet (keyword being yet). While the Pre has a plastic screen that scratches easily the Evo has a glass screen that is pretty damned scratch resistant. The default back cover on the Pre is a shiny plastic making it slippery and a fingerprint magnet while the Evo has a nice rubberized backing which improves gripping.

The Pre I purchased was used and it came with a blown out speaker and a bad power button (the power button sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, you really have to press it hard to ensure proper operation). I did a little searching online and both of these issues are common as is another issue called Oreoing. Oreoing is where the screen can not only slide up from the keyboard but also rotate around. Why is this a problem? Because the phone wasn’t designed to do this. An additional issue that appears common are the volume buttons breaking. Did I mention the fact that the little cover over the micro USB port have a habit of snapping off? I didn’t? Well they do and to rub salt in the wound the cover prevents many standard cables from fully plugging into the Pre (the corner of the tab obscures the edge of most cables from fully seating). Yeah the Pre has a lot of issue on the hardware side of things.

Palm built the Pre on a fairly shoestring budget and you can tell in the lacking quality of the device. One the other hand HTC built the Evo has a flagship device and spent an amazing amount of time making sure all the little details were covered. The one hardware feature I absolutely love on the Evo is the kickstand. Yes HTC realized the Evo would benefit from having a kickstand and tossed one on. It’s not a flimsy piece of plastic either, it’s a fairly substantial piece of plastic. Really the hardware on the Evo just screams quality build with the only real issue is some light leakage between the outside frame of the phone and the lit touch buttons at the bottom. The Evo’s build quality is far and beyond the Pre’s.

While the Pre has a built-in 8GB flash card for storage the Evo has a removable microSD card. The stock card that comes with the Evo is 8GB in size giving these phones the same amount of storage space out of the box. Unlike the Pre’s storage the Evo’s can be increased (which I did the day I got the phone) up to 32GB (32GB being a limitation of the microSD specification not of the Android operating system). The 8GB of on board storage in the Pre is pretty small by today’s standards and was out shined by the iPhone as that had up to 16GB when it was released. I stated that because the Pre was primarily competing against the iPhone and Palm had said some pretty antagonizing things about Apple’s pending phone release. If you’re going to say antagonizing things to your competitor you should be able to produce a product that is superior in every way. I like removable storage (if my computer had a fixed hard drive I’d be pissed) so I’m giving this to the Evo.

The Pre is a slider phone while the Evo is a monstrous slate phone. I’m pretty sure the Evo is such an advanced black rectangular object that throwing it into the monkey pen at the zoo would cause them to learn the use of weapons. The Pre has a much smaller profile than the Evo which comes at the cost of having a noticeably smaller screen. One thing I love about the Evo is the 4.3″ screen. In my opinion the Evo right on the border between being too large for a phone. The Pre is comfortably pocketable.

Being a slider the Pre actually has a physical keyboard. I’ve become accustom to the Evo’s on-screen keyboard but have to say I’ve always preferred having a hardware keyboard if all other things remained equal. The on-screen keyboard on the Evo is damned good so I don’t really mind the lack of a physical keyboard (honestly I’m glad it doesn’t have one otherwise it would be thicker than it is). I came from a Palm Treo 755p which has the ultimate in phone keyboards in my opinion.

The keyboard on the Pre is slightly smaller making it slightly harder to use than the Treo’s keyboard. Adding to the difficulty is the fact the keyboard is sunken into the phone leaving a lip under the keys which can cause some slight annoyance at times. One thing I really dislike about the Pre’s keyboard is the fact it’s a membrane board meaning instead of individual keys there is just one membrane covering all of the keys. These membranes have a habit of developing tears. One downside of a physical keyboard is the inability to type while holding the phone in landscape mode. This wasn’t an issue with the Treo as it had a square screen thus there was no advantage gained in holding the phone sideways. On a phone with a rectangular screen such as the Pre not being able to type while holding the phone in landscape mode is a pain. I actually have to give the Evo the win in this category even though I’ve always been a fan of physical keyboards.

With the keyboard out of the way let’s talk screens. The Evo wins here, hands down. The Evo screen is larger, brighter, and higher resolution. There really is no competition.

Both phones come equipped with cameras. I’m not really doing to say much on this because the camera on the Pre was standard affair when the phone was released. The Evo has an 8.0 megapixel camera (meaning the censor is too small for the number of pixels crammed on there and you get a TON of noise unless there is really good lighting) which is capable of taking 720p video (which ends up looking like shit due to the censor being too small). There is a flash capability on both phones which means you can have washed out shitty looking pictures regardless of the phone you used to take it.

How about the battery life? Both phones are pretty neck-in-neck here, which is to say they both have shitty battery life. Both phones can’t get you through the day with moderate usage of texting and web browsing so long as you’re in a good signal area. Unfortunately the second your signal quality turns to shit so does your battery life. Down in my hometown Sprint has pretty abysmal coverage (while there is zero GSM coverage). The last time I was there I noticed the battery life on the Evo went from acceptable to dreadful as it couldn’t get through the day (not that big of a deal for me as I carry an additional battery just as I can an additional magazine for my carry gun). The Evo can talk all day without any real drain to the battery which is nice. I’m not sure on the Pre’s talk time as I’ve not actually had a long conversation on the device. Both phones are tied for battery life, and by tied I mean they both suck.

One feature the Pre has available (for additional cost) is the Touchstone. The Touchstone is an inductive charger which means it charges the Pre simply by placing the phone on the charger. There are no cables to plug in, just a new (rubberized thankfully) back cover to clip onto your Pre. There is a magnet in the Touchstone that ensures the attached Pre won’t fall off. It charges pretty quickly to boot. I want to be perfectly clear on this, these types of chargers should be standard on every phone produced from here on out. This is one innovation Palm really did right and I wish every other phone manufacturer would copy them. Sure plugging a cable in isn’t too much of an inconvenience (unless it’s the Pre and you have to open that fragile tab every time) but damn it we don’t need to anymore so why are we doing it?

Hands down I prefer the Evo’s hardware without even considering the processor, RAM, or 4G radio. HTC can build nice phones and really pulled out all of the stops when they constructed the Evo. Palm has had slight hardware issues with most of the products they’ve released (for example I have a Palm T|X with a broken power button, a very common issue with that PDA). The Pre has a lot of known issues and suffers from a general cheapness of the design. One the other hand the Pre is much easier to fit into a pocket and has a physical keyboard which many people far prefer.

I’ll write up a comparison of WebOS and Android at a later date.

Road Rage

I know being pissed off about traffic conditions and idiot drivers is JayG’s field of expertise but damn it sometimes you just have to vent.

Let us pretend of a second that you’re at an intersection. This intersection is an on and off ramp to a highway intersected with a city street. Let us say down the street the stop light has went from it’s normal red, yellow, green operation to the flashing red that notes stop sign functionality. Due to this traffic on said road is backed up to the intersection. Now let’s say you’re one of the people who took the off ramp and are turning onto the city road. If the cars are backed up all the way to the intersection do you (a) stay at the end of the off ramp and wait for the line of traffic to shorten or (b) drive into the intersection and prevent anybody going the opposite way from using the on ramp?

If you answered (b) you’re a majority of the fuckwits who drive through my on/off ramp intersection and cause me to wait for 20 minutes before being able to take said on ramp. So FUCK YOU and go die in a fire!

Backup Your Backup Plans

I found a story that reminds us to have backups to our backup plans. Let me just yank out the relevant part:

Wellman said the 911 call was received after the apparent shooting. He said the home’s phone line was cut during the burglary forcing the homeowner to call from a neighboring residence.

Having a cell phone is a good idea. Pick up a cheap used one and turn it on. Even if it’s not authenticated with whatever carrier it’s locked to (in other words you don’t have a cell phone plan) the phone can make emergency calls. For instance before I configured my Palm Pre to my Sprint account it would allow me to call 911 and Sprint customer service. All modern cell phones have this capability. Keep one around just in case some hood decides to cut your phone line before entering the premises. You should also keep that defensive firearm handy either way as that backup plan isn’t easily bypassed by invaders.

The Woman with No Name

So some dumb ass went and trademarked her own name and is actively protecting that trademark. This is an amusing block of text from her website:

[Name removed to avoid trademark violation] name is a Federally Registered Trademark. It is illegal to use the name ([Name removed to avoid trademark violation]) on any website or document without prior written permission.

See the problem there? If you trademark you name and don’t allow anybody to use it without written permission nobody is going to use your name and you won’t gain any recognition. This effectively means you become an anonymous entity on all websites who don’t see written permission to print you name. There is also another amusing piece:

Separately, I should note that Dr. Ann De Wees Allen’s website has an amusing bit of javascript that tries to prevent you from copying and pasting any text and on doing something so simple as right clicking and trying to open a link in a new window. The best part, though, is if you have javascript enabled, and do try to right click, a pop up windows shows up with the text saying “Copyright Protect!”

I didn’t notice that as I’m always running NoScript. It’s amazing how much stupid shit on the Internet you get to bypass and ignore with that little add-on.

Another DRM Scheme Bites the Dust

I come to you bearing good news. High Definition Content Protection (HDCP) has been cracked. HDCP is the Digital “Rights” Management (DRM) scheme used to protect Blu-Ray discs and secure content going over High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and Digital Video Interface (DVI) cables. Effectively this means Blu-Ray discs can now be copied once somebody writes software and hardware to do it (meaning you can hopefully make backups of the movies you have purchased soon).

As a side note how do you like all the acronyms that popped up in this paragraph-long story? This is what working in the technology field is like, there are acronyms for absolutely everything.

Herp Derp

Seriously whenever I hear somebody go on an anti-gun rant anymore all I really hear coming out of their mouths is, “Herp, derp, duuuhhhrrrr, I… like… turtles.”

A college student tries to make an argument against campus carry and ends up sounding a little… special:

The students and faculty on any campus should strictly focus on academic pursuits. Security teams hired by the college should likewise focus on the constant protection of those students and faculty. We all have a role in the big picture.

Yes students and faculty should strictly focus on academic pursuits and not even venture into developing a social life, exercising, working a job to pay rent, etc. The remark about the security team is where I felt this student went a little retarded. By that very logic nobody would need to carry a gun because the police will protect you! Of course the police can’t be everywhere and neither can a campus security team which is why the phrase, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away” was coined. In a situation involving a crazy asshole shooting up a campus you don’t have time to wait for a security team if the crazy asshole happens to be in the same classroom as you.

It isn’t logical to deploy a security force on a college campus whose mission is to provide a safe environment only to minimize their ability by disarming them.

Who in the fuck said anything about disarming the security teams on campus? Allowing concealed carry on campus means students and faculty can carry firearms, it doesn’t require the on campus security teams be disarmed in the process.

There are college campuses of various sizes all across the country that have professionally-trained and properly armed officers on their security teams.

And there are campus in the country that allow students and faculty to carry their firearms on the premises. How many school shootings have you heard of occurring in Utah?

The Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is a grass-roots organization that supports concealed carry. Their website lists a number of “common arguments” for allowing licensed adults to carry on campus. They attempt to answer each argument with a very rational explanation. It really is just rationalization. That’s what I mean when I say there are two sides to the issue.

Ah yes the argument of an anti-gunners, “The other side is just trying to rationalize their side of the argument by using stupid facts and logic and other stuff that hurts my brain. I, being anti-gun of course, don’t rationalize my beliefs and just tell you you’re wrong if you disagree with me because seeing guns makes me lose control of my bowels.” Let’s look up rationalize in the dictionary:

  • apologize: defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning; “rationalize the child’s seemingly crazy behavior”; “he rationalized his lack of success”
  • cut: weed out unwanted or unnecessary things; “We had to lose weight, so we cut the sugar from our diet”
  • structure and run according to rational or scientific principles in order to achieve desired results; “We rationalized the factory’s production and raised profits”
  • think rationally; employ logic or reason; “When one wonders why one is doing certain things, one should rationalize”</li
  • remove irrational quantities from; “This function can be rationalized”

Looking at the various definitions it seems rationalization is what you want to do. At least I prefer to remove irrational quantities and think rationally by employing logic and reason.

Regardless of any rationalization by the SCCC, allowing more guns on campus will logically result in a higher probability that a gun will be used against the campus population.

Utah… look it up. After you do tell me how many mass shootings have occurred on their campuses since they enacted their law allowing students and faculty to carry firearms on campus.

According to SCCC data, about 10 percent of adults are licensed and carry concealed guns nationwide. If I knew one out of every 10 people on campus was packing heat, I would be distracted—period.

That’s your problem—period. If you’re distracted by the thought of law-abiding citizens carrying firearms you should be distracted by the potential people currently carrying guns on campus illegally.

It’s one thing for someone to take the state’s course to become licensed. It is something else entirely to predict how a student with four hours of safety training will react under fire.

They’ll react a damned side better than a student under fire without any means of self-defense that’s for sure (and by that I mean they’ll have a chance at staying alive).

Students and faculty carrying concealed guns would be no less vulnerable to the crazy, armed madman who comes on campus bent on destruction than they are now. There would just be more guns involved, more bullets flying and a greater probability that someone is unintentionally injured or killed.

Actually they are less vulnerable because they have the means of stopping the crazy, armed madman. Having a concealed weapon doesn’t mean you are impervious to bullets, it means you have a chance to fight and win. That tipping of the scales further into your favor does make you less vulnerable.

Honestly, no one would expect a 22-year-old accounting major to suddenly transform into a commando and make all the right decisions in a “kill or be killed” situation that could easily be over in less than a minute.

No one does expect a 22-year-old accounting major to suddenly transform into a commando. You don’t need to be an elite commando to put two rounds into another man’s chest. I also love his optimism that the campus security teams will be able to end the situation easily in under a minute. Are they always geared up and do they have teleportation devices on their persons?

I can’t buy the concept that someone with no experience of defending himself against violent crime can suddenly protect himself and others, just because he is the one with the concealed gun.

Strangely enough many people with concealed carry permits also take additional training in self-defense. Even if they don’t having a firearm at least evens the odds of survival which is the whole fucking point.

I don’t want that pressure on me, and I don’t want to put it on my friends and professors.

Maybe you should stop to consider the fact that your friends and faculty may want that “pressure” (pressure to have a means of fighting back that is). If you don’t want that pressure that’s fine, nobody is making you carry a firearm. It’s not called mandatory carry, it’s a choice you can make and those who advocate for campus carry simply want that choice.

I am a big fan of the U.S. Constitution.

You can’t go on an anti-gun tear and then say you’re a fan of the United States Constitution. That’s an oxymoron if there ever was one.

There is not a more civilized place to be than on a college campus. That said—I like to think we have a better chance of remaining civilized and safe, if we don’t get used to the “wild west” approach to campus security.

Yeah, because we know gun-free zones have never been locations of shootings… oh wait.

Palm Pre

If you look back to a time before I had my Evo the phone I was drooling over was the Palm Pre. Finally after roughly 15 months I found somebody willing to sell me one on the cheap (and it wasn’t even from a suspicious truck in the parking lot). Needless to say I dinked around with it last night and compared it to my Evo.

GSM technology allows you to swap SIM cards between phones which gives you the ability to easily use multiple phones without much hassle. The Pre is not a GSM phone meaning you have to swap your ESN registration. I found out that you can do this for free via Sprint’s web interface so this is actually damn easy. If you log into your Sprint account they have step-by-step instructions on activating a new phone and it’s pretty easy.

First let me say one thing, WebOS kicks levels of ass that can not be described in words. The interface for multi-tasking is friggin’ amazing. Applications have a clean and consistent look to them, and everything you want to do can be accomplished with little or no hassle. I can say I still think WebOS is the best of the four current smart phone operating systems (iOS, Android, WebOS, and Blackberry OS) with Android coming in at a decently close second.

Of course a great OS doesn’t make up for poor hardware. The hardware in the Palm Pre isn’t poor per se but it is long in the tooth. The Pre only has something like a 600Mhz processor while the Evo has a 1Ghz processor leaving the Pre feeling sluggish. Applications actually take notable time to open whereas I can’t remember the late time I had to wait for an application on my Evo to open. Even with the diminutive hardware the Pre is pretty capable. The Pre certainly can multi-task but if you have too many applications open there is a noticeable slowdown. Being the phone came out 15 months ago this wasn’t surprising to me in the least.

One thing I absolutely loved about my Treo 755p was the hardware keyboard. The Pre has an almost identical keyboard which was a plus but after using the on-screen keyboard contain within the Evo I can see I’ve moved to the point where I no longer need a hardware keyboard to be flexible. I won’t go so far as to say I prefer an on-screen keyboard but they are pretty flexible as they allow you to hold the phone in either landscape or portrait mode and still be able to type. Certain applications on the Pre can go into landscape mode but most are restricted to portrait mode as that is the only method you can hold the phone and type on the keyboard.

An aspect of the phone’s construction I don’t like is the shiny plastic backing. Although my Evo picks up finger prints on the screen the Pre picks up finger prints everywhere. The Evo has a rubberized back which improves a holder’s grip while also not showing every place somebody has touched the phone. Beyond that the volume up and down rocker on the Pre feels incredibly cheap as does it’s micro USB port cover. Speaking of the USB cover that little tab of plastic is a huge pain in the ass. It’s cheap, fragile, and prevents you from easily connecting any micro USB cable. The edges of most of my cables actually bumped into the tab preventing it from seating all the way into the port.

I can’t comment on the battery life as the battery in the Pre I have is probably as old as the phone. Needless to say I found out buying new batteries for the Pre is actually damn cheap so I’m going to pick one up and do a full battery life test at some point.

Either way you can expect some Palm Pre and WebOS related posts in the future as I dink around with it. Now I just need to get an old iPod Touch on the cheap and I’ll have reference hardware for every major mobile phone besides the Blackberry (which I’m not wasting my time writing applications for).

Slow Day

Just a heads up, it’s going to be a very slow news day today. As you can see from my other post I spent all last night play with my Palm Pre instead of punching up stories for this site. I’m sure you’ll survive the drought of news here for one day.