The iPad Nano with my LunaTik were the perfect combination for the longest time, especially when riding. I remember when I first got the LunaTik in May 2011, it was the main reason I got the iPod Nano, it was the perfect fit for riding and controlling the music, right from my wrist, I can make changes without having to open my jacket.

The iPod Nano with the black plastic strap died in December of 2012, but the Nano with the Red LunaTik frame died this past weekend, exactly two years since I started using it and now I have no use for my LunaTik even though I love it and still use it, the only place I can find iPod Nanos at this stage is on Ebay, I’m annoyed that it barely has a two year life span. I plugged it in and said ERROR in 8-bit font, went off and never came back again. I’m not getting the new Nano, no use for it, I still have to stuff it in my pocket to use it so in that case I’m better off using my phone.

You know a company loves their product when it works so well and everyone enjoys using it. During one of my rides an excited friend was riding in front of me and started throwing stones at me from the loose gravel on the road, and coming out of those tires they felt like metal ball bearings and hurt like hell. And thanks to the “Stone Thrower” the lens on my Go Pro Hero 3 cracked and at the time I had to get a replacement for it right away, no way to fix it.

Above is the case that GoPro sent to me for Free after I told them about what happened and that before they were selling a kit to change the lens, they told me that they would be selling the kit by April with two replacements. Its great of them to send me free case just because I asked about the repair kit, I wasn’t even asking for a free case, but you have to love a company that loves its customers.

The Lens kit I got as you can see is simple, comes with the screw driver, screws, rubber seals, and to glass lenses for $20 which is very reasonable. I still scratched up a lens while using the GoPros for riding this season, and it only took 15 mins to change it, even when I was doing it carefully. Its great now that they sell the kit for it, and I know I haven’t reviewed the GoPro Hero 3, I just got caught up having too much fun with it. I will be getting back to that very soon. The picture above is the damaged GoPro Hero 3, and below the is the same GoPro Hero 3 with a fixed lens, check out the picture after that for the simple kit from GoPro.

Link: GoPro

This is a surprise to me, turns out the Mophie made a Juice Pack for the HTC One, they never made it for any other device other then the iPhone and the Samsung SIII, and its not that there is huge volume of the HTC One out there, so I wonder what made them change their mind and produce it. I for one am happy that they are producing the juicepack for other manufacturers, and they are bound to make one for the Galaxy S4. For $99 its reasonably priced, and you know you love it the moment your phone is on the verge of dying, 2500 mAh is enough to bring it back to full charge without any use.

Link: AndroidCentral

This might be a little too late, but still its the move that they needed to do for a while. If you have a Blackberry you can feel relative again, you won’t be alone anymore, thats if people join BBM again after joining the WhatsApp bandwagon. I like BBM and still until the end of its days, the hardware got a bit annoying and kept restarting with 15 min restarts. With the launch of the Q10 everyone seems interested in it again and they gave it a chance with the Z10 but Blackberry just doesn’t work with the Touch Screen alone, it needs the keyboard too thats why the Q10 looks interesting. BBM was always more organized and better then the all the other chat Apps in the beginning and maybe this move will bring them back, the one failure of Blackberry is the lack of Apps but we will see what happens when BBM is released, will people migrate back to BBM?

Link: Gizmodo

There are lots of times you go into stores looking for car chargers and grab the first thing in front of you. When your phone is about to die and you plug-in the car charger hope to bring it back to life, only to realize after the 20 minute drive that you have an extra 10% which will probably give you another 30 mins to an hour of use.Chargers range from 0.750A to 1.750A, and most of them are on the lower range, be sure to check the car charger output so you know the power you will charge with. Simply put the higher the better.

The TYLT car charger is one of the best I have one as how fast it can charge, at 2.1Amps it really charges your phone quickly. I have found that they are consistent with the power output and this applies to both MicroUSB and Apple products. There products are cleanly made and in it almost chargers a percent a minute, so in a 25 minute ride you would charge up to 20% which is amazing. There are other products who advertise the high Amp output, but only TYLT and Griffin seem to be legitimate, and in this case I highly recommend TYLT chargers, all their chargers are dual chargers, the long flexible one and the v-split charger. I first found them in Virgin in Dubai Mall, but you can also find them on Amazon.

My experience with Microsoft dates back to the original CE phones back in 2003, I wanted something different and that phone was different and to configure it you needed a doctorates degree in physics. But I like the bubbles game on it, then i tried Windows 3.0 for work and that had decent integration with Microsoft exchange. But nobody did integration like Apple & Google did, so I switch to Android the moment it came out and before that I was on the SonyEricsson platform.

With the introduction of the Windows Phone 8 they are finally trying to make a decent competitor to the Apple & Android platform and right now its a few steps behind but still impressive. With Windows Phone 8 has some decent integration with Windows 8 such as auto photo updates, and the Microsoft Office Suite integrates nicely with the Windows Phone 8, especially OneNote which is probably the best note taking tool I have ever used, even better then Evernote. As well as SkyDrive integration which can sync your photos as well as your documents, trying to be a better DropBox for Windows which isn’t too bad.

The operating system itself gets a little getting used to, its like visiting somewhere for the first time, you know enough to get around but need some time to get really familiar with it. There is smooth feeling to the operating system that I like, and after 6 months of abuse the phone has not hung on me once which is great for a smart phone of this caliber.

What I Like:

• Easy to sync Google Contacts and emails with the WP8 interface, even after Google extended
• The App store is pretty decent, has some junk in it but they all started off that way, they have about 80% of the Apps that iOS & Android have.
• Music integration has been fantastic, you can load up all your iTunes playlist as well spotify which is exactly what I’m doing.
• Has some fun XBox integration so the games you play are displayed.
• It sort of between the strict Apple platform and the loose Android platform, its formed but flexible and I really like the tiles and options of the live tiles.

What I Don’t Like:

• The email display feels wrong, it just doesn’t do a good job of displaying emails no matter what email I use. I think they can do a better job with that.
• They don’t have instagram, I won’t kid myself I’m addicted to it.
• Slow to get the necessary Apps into the App Store, App Store needs some more Apps, not everyone is developing for it yet
• Better integration with Windows 8, I want it seemless, just as Android is integrated with everything Android.

Hardware:

I’m using the HTC 8X and I’m honestly loving it, its a light phone with an excellent camera. And the battery lasts over a 30 hours with a lot of abuse. Even when I was riding over 5 hours in San Diego while listening to Spotify the whole time it only lost 25% of the battery which is insane, if i did it with the Nexus 4 it would have lost 50% and with the iPhone 5 only 20% battery would be left.

My Top Apps

• TVShow – Best TV Show App I have seen, better then anything on iOS or Android
• Weather Flow – Great Weather App
• SkyDrive
• Spotify
• WhatsApp
• NextGen Reader – Fantastic RSS Reader – Displays Images and information perfectly without having to visit the site
• Flixster – For the movie fanatic
• Battery Status – Updated information on your battery
• MyTrips – For the TripIt Addicts, I use it all the time when I travel

Conclusion

Overall I’m honestly loving the windows platform. This phone got a high rating for stability and the long lasting battery and a great selection of Apps. Microsoft have a good thing, they just need to clean up their App store and integarte it with Windows 8. They really are in need of Youtube and Google Maps, there are replacements but they don’t beat out the originals. They built an excellent product I just hope they keep on improving it, and I love that when other phones run out of battery this one is still going. The success of this platform depends on the Apps available and Microsoft knows this, Blackberry failed because of this, thats why they are throwing everything they can at it and hopefully it will keep growing. They have substitute Apps for most of the major ones, but hopefully the major App developers will develop for Windows.

Rating:

While traveling the last couple of weeks I was walking to a store when my Nexus 4 slipped out of my pocket and landed face first into the concrete side walk in Los Angeles. The phone had a protective cover so I thought that it would be fine even when I heard the flat splat when it hit. I picked up the phone and saw that lovely crack across it.

The was crack across a quarter of the screen, I could have lived with that until I got it fixed but then only 1/4 of the screen work, the other 3/4 of the touch screen didn’t work, so I literally couldn’t access anything on that part, all I could do was see the notifications and go to them and get stuck.

I went nuts, unlike the iPhone not everyone can fix a Nexus 4 or have the parts. It was Saturday afternoon I had to go travel on Sunday and they wouldn’t be able to fix it until Tuesday, and I was at loss, I would be back in Los Angeles in a week but still no phone for a week.

So I went into TMobile and picked up a Nexus 4 for $500, locked to Tmobile and my line was Tmobile, even though Google unlocked sold for $350 but I was in a spot where I didn’t have much options so I got it and signed in with my Gmail account which automatically downloaded all my Apps which were on my Nexus 4. Loved that, I love that Google did that automatically and I just left it to the wifi for an hour to get everything working again.

The only thing I was crippled with was WhatsApp wasn’t working and that was my main mode of communication with family and friends. The reason it didn’t work is because WhatsApp groups I was associated with and people, are with my Kuwait line and they send a msg to that line, and this phone only accepts Tmobile lines not Zain. So I was out of touch of WhatsApp for a while.

I read somewhere that people can handle their cars being stolen, but they can’t handle their phone being stolen. I now really believe in that, in Kuwait I have a few other phones to back me up and I could be up and running in a few hours, in this case I was stranded and lost for a while, I couldn’t even call a few people because I didn’t have the numbers memorized.

I knew that Tmobile had a 30 day return policy and all they would take is a $50 restocking fee which I thought was worth it in this case after getting my phone fixed. But it took a bit longer and I had to live without WhatsApp and honestly it felt pretty good to be a bit disconnected while I was traveling, not totally disconnected but at least not my phone dinging every 30 seconds.

My screen was fixed but the battery was acting strange and the back plate was still cracked but I was very happy to have things back to normal. But it was very annoying situation to be in

Every once in a while you come across a very creative product that will help you with all your photographic projects. I consider myself to be a photography enthusiast, I like taking great shots, and in my case that only happens about 10% of the time but thats why I take so many shots. And I have about zero photoshop editing skills, but I do enjoy the shots I have but I still want them to be better.

I have been tinkering with time-lapse shots recently and about 60% of them have been a disaster, they don’t really work out the way I want them to in my head, but I’m slowly figuring it out. The Genie is a device that integrates with your camera to help it take these amazing shots, and you can set it up to move the way you want, and honestly after watching the video I want it, and it retails for $999, I honestly can’t justify the price in my case but it would cool to use.

Link:Syrp

Mophie is known for making those amazing iPhone cases that extends your battery for a whole day of Angry Birds, your phone won’t run out of battery in a day with this case, and I’m honestly jealous there isn’t one for the Nexus 4 because it now runs out of Battery in less then 10 hours. I have one battery that I carry around with me every once in a while and its excellent but I wanted to try the Mohpie Juice Pack and since it got a lot of good reviews and I like their products.

Specifications:

• Battery Capacity – 6000 mAh
• Weight: 1lbs
• Chargers: Two USB Slots
• 2.1 Amp Output
• Charges By MicroUSB
• LED Power Indicator
• Works With Smart phones, tablets & gaming devices

Pros:

• It’s a Mohpie so usually they make excellent products
• Two USB Slots, and they use USB not some proprietary crap
• Charges at a 2.1Amp output so it supposed to charge your phone or tablet fast
• MicroUSB Charger so you can use any charger you have to charge it and thats what I did

Cons:

• Its a bit bulky but some people might like the shape
• It’s surprisingly slow to charge, really slow, that really disappointed me
• $100 – It’s a bit too pricey

Link: Mophie

At the end what matters to me is how fast my device charges and in this case it was very slow, I’m not sure if this is a defected device from Mohpie but it seems to be working fine. For the price I expected a lot more, I thought my phone would go from 10% to 90% in 20 minutes or less, even when it packs a lot of battery with 6000 mAh which can charge a phone almost three times I would think it would do better. I had it in my pocket during a movie charging my phone so I didn’t touch it and after two hours it didn’t get to 100% that was a disappointment.

Rating:

All this wait and finally this phone is out and it hasn’t changed too much in the looks department but the guts of the phone looks very impressive, its packing a punch. I think Samsung is taking a page out of Apple’s book, the design is fine but they did a major upgrade on the internal parts of the device. They are aiming to release it towards the end of April and knowing what happened last time, these are going to sell out quickly.

Samsung S4 Specifications:

• 5 inch Full HD Super AMOLED (1920 x 1080) display, 441 ppi
• 1.9 GHz quad-core processor or 1.6 GHz octa-core processor (depending on market)
• 2GB RAM
• 16/ 32/ 64 GB internal storage, microSD slot
• Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• 2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE): 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; 3G (HSPA+ 42Mbps): 850/900/1900/2100 MHz; 4G (LTE Cat 3 100/50Mbps) : up to 6 different band sets (dependent on market)
• 13 Mega pixel auto focus rear camera with flash and zero shutter lag, BIS
• 2 Mega pixel front camera, full HD recording @30fps with zero shutter lag, BIS
• Wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• GPS / GLONASS
• NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, IR LED, MHL 2.0
• 2,600 mAh battery

What I like about the Hardware:

• One hell of a camera!
• Powerful CPU
• Comes with Android 4.2.2
• 2,600 mAh battery, so it will last a bit longer, which is more then the S3
• Up to 64GB Memory
• Has a MicroSD Slot, very few phones seem to have that these days
• This time they made it in black, not blue!
• With all those new hardware features and a bigger battery, its still ligher then the Samsung S3

What I Don’t like About the Hardware

• Why is the LTE based on location, why don’t they have a multiband LTE like they do for the 3G/2G so it can work across all networks not just LTE in one region or another.

I would like to talk about the camera since that is a feature which is essential to our media dependent lives and the ability to share pictures in all directions. Now this is an interesting features, the dual-camera setup on the S4 can be used in video chat like everyone else and photographs, so a pic of you and what you have your camera pointed at, and the camera as mentioned about in the Specs is 13MP which is very impressive, the S3 camera was great, this one looks to be even better. They even took features from the Samsung Galaxy Camera and set it up with the S4 which is a smart move on their part.

You have several choices from the new Android Devices that are coming out:

• Samsung S4
• HTC One
• Sony Xperia Z

My opinion is that Sony makes good looking devices, but the OS is always lacking something and they NEVER update their phone, and that makes a huge difference, if you really like it then get, but other then that I would go with either the HTC One or the Samsung S4. If you like HTC then you will love the HTC One, very solid build, and they really worked on the software this time around. And Samsung as usual has come out with the full featured monster. If I had to describe HTC and Samsung’s software philosophies in a single sentence, it’d be this: HTC puts more emphasis on design, whereas Samsung packs in more features. Overall I love the metal design of the HTC One over the Samsung S4, but I like the camera use of the S4. When it comes down to these two its a matter of preference.

Link: AndroidCentral