With the recent public display of Blackberry 10, RIM is back in the news. I believe that RIM has made many missteps and has been too slow to respond to changing market dynamics. Thus, my view is that RIM’s future looks dim and that they will struggle. Last week, my travels took me to Toronto and I met with a knowledgeable person (Let’s call him Bob for simplicity although that was not his real name.) who had a different opinion. To be clear, Bob was not a RIM employee but was knowledgeable about the company and the industry. I thought that it would be interesting to share his perspectives here because they are so different from mine. It is up to the reader to decide whether they agree or disagree. Read More »
Category: Smartphones
I previous blogged about my experience with the Wilson Electronics 801247 which is a short range wireless repeater. In my tests, the product worked as advertised, but the short range was somewhat frustrating. I was aware of the limited range upon initial purchase and continue to wonder whether a longer range option (like the 841262) would have been a better choice. However, I always come back to some key factors to justify my decision. Read More »
My friend John Obeto recently blogged about application usage and Windows Mobile and wondered how many apps people have installed. I am not a WinMo user, but do use Android which offers a (more?) robust app ecosystem. My Motorola Atrix currently has 42 apps installed including a couple of app specific language packs.
Before delving into installed apps, it is important to understand my application strategy. My experience with previous phones (non-Android) suggests that an excessive number of applications can impact phone performance. Thus, I am quite selective when choosing applications and will often remove ones that I either don’t use or use infrequently. With that said here is a list of the ones that I find most valuable. Any feedback or suggestions on alternative applications is welcome! Read More »
Frequent readers of this blog will know that I am an avid smartphone user. For years, my primary platform was RIM’s Blackberry 
and I appreciated the phone’s highly functional physical keyboard. When I changed jobs, my new company did not support Blackberry and so I was issued a Palm Pre Plus which I blogged about here. However, I also maintained a personal phone and back in March decided to upgrade to a Motorola Atrix 4G which is an Android based device. (I did not get the laptop dock.) Having lived with the phone for about 3 months, I wanted to share my thoughts.
Good: Speed
I will not go through the Atrix specs in detail, but one point of note is that the phone includes the new dual-core Tegra processor. Having never owned a single core Android phone, I cannot compare it directly, but can say that it is very fast. It virtually never slows down and runs everything application flawlessly. One of the areas where this is most visible is in Google Navigation. The route re-calculation functionality is instantaneous and I barely know when it happens. This is in sharp contrast to my Tom Tom navigator which takes a good 5 – 10 seconds to recalculate during which time you are driving blind. This phone is in sharp contrast to my Palm Pre Plus and previous Blackbery Bold 9000 both of which slowed down frequently.
I previously blogged about my frustrating experiences with an AT&T aircard. It was highly unreliable and caused extreme annoyance due to its ability to consistently connect. Fortunately, I was within the return window and so sent the unit back to AT&T and then switched to a Verizon wireless card. The Verizon experience has been completely different.
My company has not certified Verizon’s new 4G LTE cards which the carrier is heavily promoting. Instead, I received a UMW190 instead. One unexpected benefit of the UMW190 is that it also includes a GSM radio and so will work outside of the US. This is helpful for world travelers, but I do not believe that it supports 3G GSM.
In short, the card has been solid. Everywhere I have tried it whether in congested airports, cities or rural areas, the card has just worked. To be fair, performance can be inconsistent ranging from around 60 Kb/sec to 1,000o Kb/sec. However, this is mobile data and so I had expected as much. Interestingly, I did notice a bit of signal stability issues when I used the card at an event with 400 people, but at its worst, the card still outperformed the lackluster AT&T unit.
I do see a need for LTE. This card is great for general email and web surfing, but is not fast enough for bandwidth intensive activities like streaming video. Since I primarily use the card for work, it meets my requirements quite effectively. However, if I need to download or upload large files, a WiFi or wired connection is a better choice. (To be clear large file uploads/downloads work fine, but are slow.) I cannot help but wonder how much faster everything would go if I had the LTE model.
In summary, if you are considering an air card, do not bother with AT&T. Your best bet is to go with Verizon Wireless. Interestingly, I am potentially getting an Atrix 4G on AT&T which has wireless hotspot functionality and so I may have another opportunity to test AT&T in the future.