Triplicate Thoughts

After the lull of the new year, the smartphone market is ready to kick off again. LG and Samsung have each unveiled their respective flagships for the year - the G6 and the Galaxy S8/S8+ - and we can expect many more phones to be released in the coming months. If you are an Android fan, the process of choosing a smartphone can be rather daunting, as there are hundreds of phones released each year. According to GSM Arena , there were over 500 Android phones released in 2016 all over the globe. Admittedly, these include region-specific devices, but that’s still a lot of devices to choose from.  So how do you choose one phone from hundreds? What do you look for? What do you avoid? I’m going to help you answer these questions by explaining certain aspects of smartphones and giving my personal recommendations for each so you won’t get a headache when you choose your next smartphone. Size The most important physical aspect of your phone will be its size. Too big and it becom...

If you were to read any article about Google+ on the web, chances are the article would compare Google+ to Facebook, and call it a failure due to how big the gap in user base is. If you were to ask any random guy on the street about Google+, chances are they wouldn't even know what it is. But if you ask someone who actually uses Google+ on a daily basis what they think of it, I'm confident that they will say it's the best social network there is. That's the problem with many of these "Google+ is dead" articles floating all over the web; they are written by people who don't use the network. How can you ask someone who doesn't use a product what they think of it? It just doesn't make sense. I've given many reasons why I like Google+ more than Facebook but in this post, I'll focus on the real reason why Google+ is better than Facebook - content.

Every Android purists favourite OEM, Motorola, yesterday announced their 2015 smartphone lineup. In a nutshell, it was a huge hit. Just 11 hours earlier OnePlus had taken the wraps of their 2015 flagship, the OnePlus Two , but after the Motorola event, it was all but forgotten. Motorola did what OnePlus wanted to do, and seriously disrupted the market by offering a pair incredible smartphones at prices that they promised will be about half the price of competing flagships. Many people were worried if Motorola would stay the same after the acquisition by Lenovo. Based on yesterday's event, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. Motorola is here to Play, and they are doing it in Style (lame I know). Here are my initial impressions on both of Motorola's 2015 Moto X's.

After all the hype, the OnePlus Two is now official . Based on what I've seen on Google+ thus far, this is probably the most community-dividing phone since the Nexus 6. Many people are thrilled with the phone, but many others are appalled by some of the decisions OnePlus made for the "2016 flagship killer". As for myself, this is probably one of the most mixed bags we've seen so far when it comes to smartphones. Some great features are present, but at the same time some head-scratching omissions can't be ignored. With Motorola set to unveil its own flagship in less than an hour, it's important OnePlus released a phone that will be just as disruptive as the OnePlus One was last year. Here's a quick rundown of what I feel are the best aspects of the OnePlus Two, and the worst.

One thing you'll notice from following me on social media is that I like to post about technology. A lot. I have a few interests which I am quite passionate about, but I post the most about technology. Not necessarily because I'm most passionate about it compared to my other interests, but more so because of how prevalent technology is in our daily lives. I mean think about it. How much of what we do on a daily basis is done with the aid of technology? How much has our lives been made more convenient thanks to technology? I consider myself quite tech savvy, and so I try my best to share what I know with my friends and family. To me, it's such a shame if you don't use technology to its fullest, especially when it comes to smartphones. Since we carry our smartphones with us everywhere we go every single day, to not use it to its full potential is such a waste. So here are a few stories of how I use technology in my daily life which will hopefully give you some ideas o...

Chromebooks and Chrome OS have made quite an impact in the world of computing. These relatively low powered computers which use an operating system that can't even run traditional computer programs (the type you have to install), but relies on the internet for almost full functionality might not appeal to many people at first glance. But when you step back and look at our daily computing habits, and how many tasks are actually done online compared to locally, Chromebooks make sense. Recent reports have indicated that we spend upwards of 20 hours a week online, both for work and play. Schools are even dumping iPads for Chromebooks , so there's obviously a strong interest from the education sector as well. But humans are creatures of habit, and anything "new" or "different" is usually ignored. Chromebooks are both new (relatively) and very different compared to traditional Windows/Mac computers, so it's obvious that many people won't give them much...

There's a huge market for streaming digital content. The music industry for example has seen a huge shift in how people listen to their favourite songs. With on-demand music streaming seeing a 60.5% increase, while digital track and album sales dropped by 12.5% and 9.4% respectively in 2014 compared to 2013, it's clear people prefer to stream their music rather than download it onto their devices. The same trend can be seen with video streaming as Netflix's subscriber base has continuously grown every quarter since 2011 up until 2015. So it was only a matter of time until someone came along and announced a similar service for us here in Malaysia. Enter iflix , an on-demand video streaming service born right here in Malaysia, targeting the South-East Asian market. I've tried out the service on a two-week free trial and based on what I've seen so far, iflix can be a huge hit, which is why I'm subscribing to the service. If you're on the fence about tr...

Google I/O is one of the biggest tech events of the year. Each year Google shares with us its vision for the future of technology and computing, and how it plans on shaping that future. Despite primarily being targeted for developers and partners who will help shape that future, Google I/O is also an event that average consumers can enjoy as well. I myself have absolutely no knowledge on the inner workings of software development, but for the past couple of years ( 2013 and 2014 ) I've followed I/O with a keen interest. And this year is no different. Google I/O 2015 was just about a week ago, and now that we've had time to digest all the cool new stuff that was announced, here are my five key highlights from the 2-day event.

Have you ever noticed just how much of our daily lives is actually spent  online? Or how much we can do online that we used to have to do offline? We can buy movie tickets, book flights and hotels, we can listen to music and watch TV shows or movies, we can connect with friends and family, or even people from other countries, we can shop, we can apply for work, we can pay bills, we can manage our bank accounts, we can play multiplayer games with people all over the world, we can basically do almost anything online. This is why Google decided to challenge the traditional idea of what a computer is, and come up with a new way of computing that's more suitable with our "always-online" lifestyles. Google came up with a new operating system based around the Chrome browser called Chrome OS. For those of you who still don't know what Chrome OS is, this video explains the concept perfectly. Being somewhat of a tech geek myself, I was always interested in trying out Chro...

After many leaks and teasers from LG about their 2015 flagship, the LG G4 was finally announced a few days ago. It retains many of the same features as its predecessor, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality, but adds quite a few new tricks and modifications to further improve upon the phone that was awarded the GSMA Best Smartphone of the Year award at MWC back in March. Add on to that the 26% increase in smartphone shipments over the past year and LG is having a good time in the mobile industry. With critical acclaim and commercial success fuelling LG's growth, many people have high hopes for the G4. As always, here are my initial impressions after scouring the web and collecting info on LG's newest Android flagship of the year.

"Biased" is an idea conceptualised by  +Aditya Saky  where instead of one author trying to be neutral while writing an article on a polarising topic (like mobile tech), we get two authors to write clearly biased articles instead. Everyone is biased after all. So why not embrace it? This first piece is on the Apple Watch, a very debatable topic (as with all Apple products). I'll be providing the negatively biased article, while  +Vedant Mathur  will provide the positive bias. You can read it over at Aditya's site .

About three months ago, I wrote an article explaining why  Telegram is a better messaging service compared to WhatsApp . It did quite well, and quickly shot up to be my third most popular post of all time. As a quick recap, the reasons I mentioned were faster and more frequent updates, Telegram is cloud-based which allows it to be used on multiple devices simultaneously and also allows users to store shared media in the cloud rather than on devices, usernames as a way to connect instead of phone numbers, and the ability to send files. I never planned to write another article on the issue, but Telegram just has so many benefits over WhatsApp, a single article wouldn't be sufficient. So here are five more reasons why Telegram is better than WhatsApp, and why you should make the switch.

Alongside the HTC One M9 that was announced at MWC 2015, Samsung unveiled its newest flagship too. Well, two actually. The Galaxy S6 now comes with a more edgy companion, the Galaxy S6 Edge. Samsung is looking to build on the "Edge" brand not only by releasing a second Edge product, but by releasing a product which has the curved display on both sides of the display, as opposed to a single edge on the Note Edge. It even comes with a modified feature set, different from what the Note Edge offers. Both the S6 and S6 Edge represent the largest shift in design language Samsung has ever taken with its products since the Galaxy S3 back in 2012. Not only that, but two features  of the Galaxy brand   which have long been fan favourites were removed by Samsung as well, meaning the S6 and S6 Edge are not only huge departures from Samsung's previous products in terms of appearance, but functionality as well. Read on to see what I think about Samsung's latest flagship(s).

The internet is raging. After seeing some stunning renders based off of leaked images posted by evleaks , almost everyone was let down by HTC when they finally saw the HTC One M9 unveiled at MWC 2015. There's no getting around how similar the M9 looks like the M8, prompting many to call it the M8s as a reference to Apple's now famous "s" iPhones which use the exact same body as the previous year's model. The M9 is definitely an evolutionary upgrade over the M8. It's the third generation of the reborn One brand that started with the M7 two years ago. So is it really that bad for the M9 to look so similar to the M8? Are the hardware and software improvements enough to justify making a brand new phone using the same design? After watching several videos and reading a few reports, here are my initial impressions of the HTC One M9.

Yes, you read that right. This is my third post on why I like Google+ more than Facebook. I wrote the first two a very long time ago, in 2013 in fact. But Google+ has changed a lot since then, and there are more reasons why I still enjoy the social network very much. Definitely a lot more than Facebook. You can read up on part one  and part two  if you like. If not, here's a quick recap of what I wrote about in the first two posts. Part one was about the concept of Google+ circles, GIF support, text formatting, the mobile app, and the notification system. Part two was about the new posts label, the ability to easily reply to comments, the built-in photo editor, automatic hashtags, and the dynamic card layout. Despite what some sites will have you believe, Google+ is not dead , nor is it dying. In fact, Google recently bought Odysee , an online photo backup and sharing app, and the team was immediately merged into the Google+ team. So if anything, Google+ is alive and kick...

Source There are two kinds of people in the world - those who argue over whether Android or iOS is better, and those who don't. I'm in the former group, though I tend to stay away from mindless name-calling fanboy fights and reserve my energy for more, mature conversations. When geeks get together and discuss/argue about iOS and Android, most of the conversation revolves around, well, geeky stuff. Open source vs closed, custom ROMs and kernels, sideloading app APKs, etc. Mostly stuff that the average consumer either knows nothing about, or just doesn't care about. But even if we leave out all the technical arguments, there are still quite a few reasons why I believe Android is better than iOS. Things that even the average consumer can understand and appreciate. You see, while we geeks argue over all the technical stuff, at the end of the day it's the user experience which determines how good a platform really is. And you don't need to be a tech enthusiasts to u...

In a world filled with several variations of the Android experience, the Nexus brand stands out as the brand for purists, tinkerers, and fans of Google's own vision for Android. I myself prefer the Google experience. I got a taste for it back when I got the 2012 Nexus 7. I then flashed a stock custom ROM on my HTC One X, and eventually replaced it with my current Nexus 5. Unlike most enthusiasts, I don't buy a new phone every year, so the Nexus 6 was never on my radar. In addition to that, my Nexus 5 is still a very good phone despite being a year old , so I'm happy to keep using it. My only concern before the Nexus 6 was released was how tempting it would be to replace my Nexus 5 with it. Luckily for me, that concern was thrown out the window as soon as rumours that the Nexus 6 would be a 6" phone started going around. When the phone finally did launch, there was a lot about it that I did like, but also a few things I didn't. Which is normal, since the perfect p...

Messaging apps are some of the most popular among smartphone users. Three of the top five free apps in the Play Store are messaging apps, and there are many more as well. When it comes to sheer user base, none can boast a higher number of users than WhatsApp. As of August 2014, WhatsApp reports a total of 600 million active monthly users . WeChat is second by a huge 132 million user margin. But as in other markets, just because something is the most popular, doesn't mean it's the best. WhatsApp will always benefit from being one of the earliest cross-platform messaging apps in the market. They've had years to build up their massive user base, and as long as they have that, competing apps will find it difficult to get a foothold in the market. The problem newer messaging apps face is that not many people will use a service if none of their friends and family are. What good is a messaging app if you don't have anybody to send messages to? Telegram is very young compared...

There are many utility apps in the Play Store, but Pushbullet is easily one of the best apps you can have on your device. Simply put, it acts as a bridge between your mobile device(s) and your computer(s), allowing you to perform several tasks between them. Initially it was just used to easily send data between all your connected devices like links and files, but the devs are amazing at adding new functionality. The app has grown to be much more than just a tool to send files between your devices. You can also receive your phone's notifications on your computer, send SMSes from your computer, have one clipboard for all your devices, and it even has an RSS-like feature called Channels. If you want to find a way to productively connect all your devices together, this is definitely an app to checkout.

Android 5.0 Lollipop is the biggest jump for the platform since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which was released back in 2011. Ever since then, Android has been taking small steps towards becoming a more powerful platform, such as the introduction of Google Now in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and to look more polished and elegant, with the shift towards a lighter-coloured environment in Android 4.4 KitKat. But Lollipop is by far the biggest change for the platform, as you can probably guess by the version number. With this change comes a lot of new functionality, in addition to a huge design overhaul to make "stock" Android look more like a finished product, rather than a bare bones foundation for others to build on. I won't go through every new feature in Lollipop, there are various videos and articles out there already. I'm just going to share with you the five features which I like the most, and which I think will make the biggest impact on everyday use for the avera...