SFOS new update, SFOS 3 and new tablet in family

Last week a new update for SFOS is released to early subscribers. Thats v2.1.4 Lapuanjoki. I have been using v2.1.3 kymijoki on my Intex Aquafish for a while as my main phone. And I think SFOS is god enough for daily use. I have a few android apps like - WhatsApp for communication, WPS Office for PDF EBooks, A Better Camera as better Camera app, todoist as TODO app and that's it. I'm getting decent battery life on an average of two days. Of course I had to shoot down couple of problems of errant android apps and downgrade Play Services version. So now the android apps display an annoying pop-up for upgrading Play Services, but they work fine beside this. The upgrade breaks a lots of things - causes battery drain, instability etc etc. So I'm better off with older version and few annoying pop-ups. 

Of course I can always get rid of android apps, but right now that's not possible, so I live with compromises. On system front the few things I miss are - apps should be able to be pinned to desktop so that close all won't close these apps. But that's something trivial. And SAILFISH 3!!! I'm excited! Lets see when it gets out and when my humble Aqua Fish gets it. 

New tablet - wife got this Alcatel Pop 4 tablet for her German Language study. Apparently the lingo apps hog a lot of her phone memory and we were thinking of getting a tablet anyway. It's a decent tablet, 10 inches, with decent octa core processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM. Good enough. Detail specs below:

Model: Alcatel Pop 4 10 4G Tablet

Weight: 449g

Display: 10 Inch (1920 x 1280) IPS LCD Capacitive Touchscreen (Full Lamination), Scratch Resistant

CPU: 1.4GHz Octa Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, with Adreno 505 GPU

RAM: 2GB RAM with 16GB ROM expandable to 32GB more with SD Card slot.

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Cameras: 8MP Fixed Focus Rear, 5MP Fixed Focus Front

Battery: 5830mAh Li-Ion 

Network: 4G LTE, WCDMA, GSM with single Nano SIM slot.

Other features: Dual front speakers with Waves MaxxAudio, FM Radio, Miracast Support, 3.5mm headphone jack, supports USB-OTG.

 

My usage experience has been overall good. At 449g, it's a bit heavy for handheld use, but the 10inch FHD screen is great with ~6000mAh battery gives you good amount of endurance. Later I got a 10inch tablet cover and that allowed me to prop it up in front and made for great entertainment device. The screen is a bit reflective, so you need to ensure there's no light source behind you to shine the screen, but otherwise the display is great. Colors pop out nice, waves maxxaudio also adds bit of depth to sound, there are various audio modes to choose from a notification area quick toggle. Since USB-OTG works I could just pop in 2-3 movies in a USB pendrive and started watching. The one thing I'm yet to check is can this take a portable hard disk on USB-OTG? Probably not since in these mobile devices the USB current is strictly limited to 500mAh. In laptops it's generally more - e.g. 1A over two ports provided by same bridge, so if only one port is active then that device can easily draw more than 500mAh current. Lets see. Beside this everything worked fine. Wifi worked nicely, android is smooth. Snapdragon 430 and Adreno 505 are good enough for casual gaming. There's Asphalt Nitro and Spiderman loaded on the Tab. Asphalt is pretty heavy and Adreno 505 can't handle is well. It's laggy. Same game used to run smooth on a Snapdragon 615 and a FHD panel on Nubia Z11 mini. Anyway, playing it on a big screen is more fun. Though holding half-a-kilo tablet is no mean joke. After about half an hour of gameplay I put it down since my hands got tired. Maybe it will help kids build muscles in hand! Lol.

So that's it for Feb 18. What's for next month? Probably nothing, since nobody around is planning on getting a new phone/laptop or anything. Hmmm! Quiet in life. Cheers!