Around 3K postpaid subscribers reach 1GB per day

After discussing the issue about the bandwidth limit and throttling of mobile internet with one of the reps of a local telco, we both agreed that the imposed monthly limit is a bit “limiting”.

My own postpaid account have been throttled several times before (read our story on What Happens After You Reach Your Data Cap).

What’s interesting that we learned from the conversation is that around 3,000 postpaid subscribers regularly exceed the 1GB daily threshold. The number might seem huge but it’s actually less than 2% of the subscriber base.

So the logic revolved around the idea that if you limit the usage of the 2% of the subscribers, you will be able to improve the experience (speed) of the other 98%. The analogy is similar to limiting the number of buses in EDSA (numbering around 2,000) and the time of the day they that can use the road so that the other 500,000 regular vehicles can travel more efficiently (i.e. faster).

Bus operators would complain that it’s unfair to them and that they should have 100% unlimited access to EDSA all the time, despite the fact that they hog the roads and take up 2 of the 3 lanes most of the time. Operators would say they pay the same road tax and income tax so they should be treated equally. The same is true with drivers affected by the number coding system.

And they have a point.

That is why we’re here discussing what to do with the daily congestion, not just of EDSA but also of our mobile internet traffic.

Is it fair (or does it make good business sense) to sacrifice the 2% to benefit the other 98%. Are telcos willing to let go of those 2% so that the 98% are better taken care of? By the way things are going, it would seem so.

The post Around 3K postpaid subscribers reach 1GB per day appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

How not to get stressed out by Vhong-Deniece-Cedric overdose

The main characters in a blockbuster telenovela

The main characters in a blockbuster telenovela


A lot of “educated” people are grumbling as they enumerate what is happening in the country:

• More than 30 people are reported to have been killed in Maguindanao in clashes that erupted immediately after the government signed the last of the annexes in the peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

• Hongkong cancelled visa-free entry to the territory for Philippine official and diplomatic passport holders starting February 5 as part of its sanctions against the Philippine government in connection with the 2010 Manila hostage crisis.

• People are angry as power firms insist on their inhuman rates increase.

. Smuggling continues unabated.

• Typhoon Yolanda victims are complaining about much-delayed government rehabilitation of their devastated areas.

• Government lawyers tried to wiggle out of the illegal Disbursement Acceleration Program by saying that they have already scrapped it.

Yet, TV and radio devoted a lot of airtime on the Vhong Navarro-Deniece Cornejo-Cedric Lee story, they all complained. One reporter quipped: “TV just had one line on the oral arguments on the DAP at the Supreme Court and devoted hours on the oral exercise of Deniece with Vhong!”

But come to think of it, with all those issues that people have to deal with, is it a surprise that they turn to the Vhong Navarro-Deniece Cornejo-Cedric Lee for distraction and entertainment? It’s like watching a telenovela.

It has all the elements of a hit telenovela: It involves celebrities and rich people (Lee is reported to be a multimillionaire). It happened in a high-end address – Global City. It involves sex, lies ,betrayal, action, brutality. It even involves officials of the Philippine National Police. It’s not fiction. It’s the real thing.

Anybody who gets stressed out by the Vhong-Deniece-Cedric story has no sense of humor. We suggest you visit this site: http://thesoshalnetwork.com/2014/01/28/pulis-pulis-hulihin-si-deniece/. You will have a good laugh.

The author scanned social network sites and compiled entries about Deniece. There you will know that she was declared “The Athletic of the Year 2008” in taekwondo.

There is also an entry that said, “She is still studying at La Salle and proud for being Green Blooded.”

The commentaries in Facebook are also fun. Take that one by Aey Bcd Eeh in Ogie Diaz’ wall commenting on the timeline as shown in the CCTV: 10:38, dumating si Vhong; 10:39, lumabas si Deniece; 10:41, dumating si Cedric.

In less than 2 mins, rape agad? Ano to, minute to win?”

Jaime Gachitorena said from the CCTV footage and the way the lawyers are playing out the allegations, he imagines the lawyer, Abogado de Tabo, concluding that, “ Considering Cedric spent more time with Vhong than Vhong with Deniece, and the physical state Vhong was in at the precinct, I therefore conclude that si Vhong ang na rape ni Cedric.”

Lawyer Harry Roque saw a redeeming element in the Vhong –Denise-Cedric espisode
: “It took a celebrity to call attention to the inherent weakness of our criminal justice system.”

Roque raised some questions: “Given that Vhong Navarro allegedly confessed to a rape, why was he, despite his sorry physical conviction, not asked if he was voluntarily giving his statement? Why did the police not take steps to ensure that the celebrity was not a victim of torture?”

This is timely with the expose about the “wheel of torture” game that PNP officers use to extract information from criminal suspects and also to have fun.

Roque said, I can only commiserate with the plight of Vhong. But still, he should still consider himself lucky. He has the support of his fans and his television station solidly behind him. For if he were an ordinary Filipino who was tortured, he would surely have become just another anonymous number in the statistics of the number Filipinos who have been tortured and denied any and all forms of remedies.”

Cherry Mobile W900 LTE Review

As early as October last year, the Cherry Mobile W900 LTE has already garnered a lot of attention for being the first LTE-capable smartphone from a local brand. But I think we can all agree that 4G connectivity alone isn’t gonna be enough to sway the demanding Filipino consumer. So how does CM’s new W900 stack up? Find that out in our full review.

Design and Construction

Despite having the same name as the first W900 which we reviewed nearly two years ago, the W900 LTE’s design is more akin to the Flare HD than its predecessor.

Cherry Mobile W900 LTE

As a matter of fact, it can be quite tricky to differentiate the one from the other if not for the metallic grey lining that runs on the side of the W900.

Needless to say, there’s nothing really striking about the W900 LTE as far as design is concerned. The handset looks like your typical rectangular slab of plastic with rounded edges.

The ports and buttons are scattered along the sides of the smartphone; volume rocker on the left, Micro-USB on the right and the Power Button at the top which is accompanied by the audio jack.

CM W900 LTE

Found on its underbelly is a 12MP rear camera which sits in between the built-in flash and speaker grills.

Underneath the non-glossy back cover are the usual suspects comprising of a full-size SIM card slot, Micro-SD card tray and the W900’s 1,810mAh battery pack.

Display and Multimedia

The W900 LTE sports a 4.3-inch OGS display panel with 720p resolution which equates to a respectable pixel density of 342ppi. Despite the lack of IPS panel, the viewing angles were astounding and the light/color fall-off is barely noticeable even at extreme angles.

W900 LTE

Sadly, the brightness level leaves a lot to be desired. The screen’s luminance is sufficient enough for indoor use, but the moment we stepped out of the comfort of our HQ, we struggled to see anything on the screen without squinting or shielding the phone from the sun’s glare.

To its credit, the W900 LTE was able to handle video playbacks quite well. Rarely did we notice stutters even when watching high-resolution clips and with the help of a third party app (MX Player) we were able to play almost all file types on it.

But this supposedly great attribute was ruined by the lackluster sound output coming from the handset’s lone speaker. Because of it, we usually find ourselves cupping the underside of the W900 or just plugging a headphone or external speakers.

W900 LTE Philippines

OS, UI and Apps

Much like its recently released siblings, the W900 LTE also runs on Android Jellybean out of the box. The interface of the device is mostly untouched and there aren’t a lot of bloatwares pre-installed on it apart from the Cherry Fun Club and eWarranty.

Installing and loading applications on the new W900 is a breeze, and there aren’t a lot of hiccups either for the most part. Surprisingly, despite running on a dual-core processor, the device was able to handle resource-heavy apps like Dead Trigger and Asphalt quite well.

W900 LTE UI

Furthermore, we didn’t have to deal with the scarcity of storage as the W900 comes with an 8GB of storage. It isn’t huge by any means, but it’s a welcome improvement from the 4GB memory we’re used to see on rebranded handsets.

Performance and Benchmarks

The W900 LTE is powered by a dual-core processor running at 1.5GHz and backed by 1GB of RAM. But before you roll your eyes at its seemingly underwhelming engine, it’s best to check the benchmark test results we got from the new W900.

W900 Benchmark

AnTuTu: 16,399
Quadrant Standard: 5,353
NenaMark2: 54fps
Vellamo: 1866 (HTML5) / 639 (Metal)

To put things in perspective, the MSM8260A ran circles around the quad-core MT6589 processor found on the Flare HD, and most budget smartphones for that matter. In real-world use, the difference in handling is also noticeable; the UI is much smoother, apps loads/runs more seamlessly and switching from app to app is more fluid.

W900 NenaMark

Camera

Unfortunately, as impressed as we were with the W900’s performance, the same cannot be said for its 12MP rear camera. Regardless if we’re shooting under broad daylight or in low-light conditions, the camera failed to consistently focus on a subject.

But not only does it have trouble zeroing in on a subject, its focus detection system (if it has one) is also totally messed up. A number of times, it will tell us that it’s got the focus right (signified by the Green-colored Crosshair) when in fact it is slightly off or worse off by a mile.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the pictures we took lacked contrast and the colors appear washed out. Furthermore, the dual-flash setup didn’t produce enough power to illuminate our subject in dim situations.

The autofocusing woes we had in stills extend to video recording. But instead of a haywire autofocus, the W900 only has fixed focus on video mode. In short, the camera isn’t exactly the W900’s strong suit.

Connectivity and Call Quality

Luckily, the wireless connectivity has never become an issue for us during our time with the W900 LTE. It consistently detected LTE signal whenever it’s available, and it had no problems switching to a lower frequency when it’s not.

CM W900 LTE Philippines

In terms of call quality, there were a handful of instances where our voices were a bit muffled according to the people we contacted. This might just be a signal-related flaw, but for the most part, we were able to use the phone for voice calls without any issues.

Battery

Having a similar configuration as the Flare HD, we expected our mileage per charge with the W900 to be in the same margin as its cheaper sibling. Indeed, the W900 LTE gave us 5 hours’ worth of juice when we pitted it on our usual battery test which involves looping a 720p video while the phone is on Airplane Mode and the brightness and volume set to 50%.

W900 Battery

We also measured the mileage when we tried tethering the W900’s LTE connection. From 100% state, the W900 lasted for a total of 6 hours before its 1810mAh battery was drained.

Here’s the screenshot of its battery status during this test:

W900 LTE Battery

Cherry Mobile W900 LTE specs:
4.3-inch HD OGS display, 1280×720 @342ppi
1.5GHz MSM8260A dual-core processor
Adreno 225 GPU
1GB RAM
Expandable 8GB internal memory
12MP camera w/ two LED flashes
1080p video recording @30fps
HD 720p front-facing camera
LTE, HSPA
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
GPS w/ A-GPS
Single SIM (Full-size)
Android 4.2.2 Jellybean
1,810mAh battery

Conclusion

By and large, the Cherry Mobile W900 LTE is a decent smartphone with a 720p screen and a very snappy engine setup to go along with its 4G capability. Furthermore, that extra 4GB of internal storage can go a long way for some who stores a lot of files and install big apps on their device.

But just when we thought that CM has a keeper in the new W900, small issues like the rather dim screen brightness, sub-standard sound output and the appalling camera performance started to creep in which became an annoyance over time rather than minor shortcomings.

Cherry Mobile W900 Philippines

All things taken to account, we think that the W900 LTE is going to be a tough sell for its current retail price (Php11,499). At that price point, users can either get the Flare HD (Php5,499) and just get an LTE Pocket WiFi like the Huawei E5776 (Php4,995 off-contract) if they really want the LTE connection.

Better yet, they can opt for a used or brand new (grey market) Xperia V or Xperia SP for roughly the same price, maybe even less.

What we liked about it:
* 720p OGS display
* Stock Android UI
* LTE connectivity
* Snappy performance

What we didn’t like about it:
* Subpar screen brightness
* Weak built-in flash and poor image quality
* So-so battery life
* Weak sound output

The post Cherry Mobile W900 LTE Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

Facebook introduces new Paper app

Facebook has introduced a new app called Paper, that lets users view their Facebook feed in a fresh and attractive layout.

Paper took some cues from Flipboard and designed the app in a very similar fashion, but instead of news it shows “Stories” posted by your friends and Liked pages. Users can also customize their reading experience by choosing from more than a dozen other sections about various themes and topics.

facebook paper

Below are the key features of Paper:

• Everything responds to your touch so you can pick up or thumb through stories with simple, natural movements
• You can tilt your phone to explore high-resolution panoramic photos from corner to corner, and see faces and other important details up close
• Full screen auto-play videos come to life and bring you deep into the action
• Beautifully detailed covers make it easy to spot articles from trusted publishers and decide what to read or watch.
• Articles unfold in the app and appear full screen for a focused reading experience
• When you’re ready to tell your own story, you know exactly what your post or photo will look like because you see a live preview before you share it

Introducing Paper from Facebook on Vimeo.

Facebook will launch Paper on February 3 and will be exclusive for the iPhone in the US. That’s a downer for us here in the Philippines but I’m sure there are workarounds for that.

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