This is a technology warning for non-geeks, a common Marketing gimmick to sell you the latest and greatest phones, digital cameras and video recorders.
What is 720p, 1080p HD?
The iPhone 4 has 720p video recording. The ipad 2 and iPod touch also has 720p video recording. How do you dicern the two and decide which is better (or is there a difference, at all?)
video sizes
As you can see, 720p doesn’t say anything at all about quality. It is just a predefine set of resolution, in this case 1280 pixels wide against 720 pixels high. Most computers have been HD for almost a decade. I remember big ass 21″ CRT computer monitors boasting 1600 x 1200 pixels (4:3 ratio) which technically is HD back in pre-year 2000.
So I took the liberty to record a sample 30 sec clip of the differences of video quality of the iPad 2 rear camera (rated at 720p) and the iPhone 4 (still pictures at 5 MP, video at 720p). See the difference for yourself, comment, and let’s discuss quality .
I just did some research.
10-20 years ago, 21″ CRT tube monitors had a typical resolution of 1600 x 1200 (low end) or.. 2048 x 1536 (high end professional).
Those huge monsters easily weighs 40 pounds (~20kg). If the rumours are true, the iPad 3 in March will have a resolution of 2048 x 1536 “Retina display”. It’s amazing how far we’ve come!
Monday / Tuesday – gonna bring up the ‘iPad in the office’ proposal to the IT Manager. Initial e-mail exchanges has been quite informative and I got to know of the long bureaucracy when requesting for an IT procedural change. Firstly, the iPad has to be a HSBC approved device. Then the finance / budgeting gotta come in. Then the security issues need to be sorted out (don’t want people sniffing confidential data over Wifi / Internet, right?), then the right software has to be written for our workstations and of course, the iPad side, etc.
I was thinking VPN, since the iPad has tonnes of VPN support, and the protocols HSBC uses might be in one of them (Citrix by IBM). When all the red tape is done, it would have , been a year past and iPad 3 would come out :P bleh. Anyway, looking forward to the discussion.
Wednesday 25th is payday. Whopee. I am rich! (just for a few hours before paying off all the credit card debt!)
Thursday – Friday – Saturday, will need to buck up and rehearse for the May Day play where we act a skit on the theme “Pirates”. 8 colleagues will come out with a “VCD Pirate” story with a “Damsel in distress” sub-plot, “message about VCD quality in pirated VCDs” sub plot and some Bollywood dance, all in 10 minutes. Can’t wait to see what we come out with
Saturday is also Joshua’s birthday. We’re celebrating at Full House, Kota Damansara. Gonna be fun to mingle with interesting people. End of May, few things undone, need time to think… For the past 3 days has been staying in Olivia’s place, and my routine has severely been distrupted! Things like gym, dinner times, going to work routine is different. It’s nice to be driven by dad to work, but the jam for a 10 km journey makes it a one HOUR ordeal! Whereas the 15km journey from Ampang rented room to work takes only 40 minutes including 20 minutes of walking / waiting time! lol.. Public transport ftw.
Have a good week everyone. Smile your way to the office.
Currently on the morning bus to Penang. Multiplayer mode powered by Yes 4G Huddle (Mifi device supporting 4 wireless connections). Signal strength from KL to Perak border looking stable. Very nice speeds.
Update: Arrived at dad’s village Kg Tun Sardon. Reposition and reconfigure the Yes Zoom gateway. Getting 2/5 bar signal and good voice quality. A bit nervous cuz coverage.yes.my says im just ouside the border of service availability. Kudos on the speedy roll-out.
So, what this means is that you can eliminate the traditional telcos (like Digi, Celcom and Maxis) altogether and forget about expensive calls + sms + internet plans.
With the value pack 68, you get 150 minutes, 150 sms and 3 GB of data.
I guess you’ll have to buy a Yes Huddle (the MiFi device) where you can connect 4 wifi devices together for it to work with the iPod touch and iPad. Hopefully it will be subsidised (eg. RM 400 up front, rebate in RM 400 credit). Looking for cheaper / more attractive data plans as well.
I’m paying a hefty RM 150 for 10 GB of uber fast internet connectivity (really love the upload speeds), but I’m sure Yes 4G has something up on their sleeves on this issue.
Oh, and one more thing.
Android 4G device, with up to 4-party FaceTime (video calling). Imagine the possibilities.
Update: April 3 it will be available in the U.S (The Wifi version). What that means is that 2 months later in June, we should see iPad in Malaysia. The starting price should be around RM 2499 depending on how aggressive they wanna be. Don’t expect price to be low, but expect “bundles” depending on which retailer you go with (Machines, Mac City, etc)
This is purely speculative. I notice the Digi Marketing guys are testing out the price-points people are willing to pay for a mobile phone. The Blackberry with a plan looks attractive. I went to their exhibition in Mid Valley, and glanced through the spec sheet. Nothing to shout about. The 9700 pales compared to the Gigahertz Snapdragon Android Google phone. Then again, Blackberry is used by President Obama woh, sure must be super secure and super awesome, right? Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that.
1. I had an awesome time with my family in Melaka. Met some beauty peagants from many countries around the world. Finland and Indonesia smiled at me!!! :) England and Wales were tougher to get (their attention). They were all freakin’ tall weh~!! Went to Eye on Malaysia and Melaka River cruise. Used coastal road to Port Dickson, but had to make 100 km detour back to the Highway due to heavy traffic to PD. The hotel was nice (Bayview Hotel) and the Chicken Ball Rice was just a gimmick.. something like.. the new mobile phones nowadays. We know those sneaky Marketers are getting paid overtime, and we laugh about it, but still we want it!
2. The new Apple tablet on January 27th? iSlate or Magic Slate (source: MacRumors) Save up US$700 (RM 2800?) The new multi-touch gestures will surprise you! Remember the awe we were all in back in January 2007 during the iPhone announcement? Expect similar jaw-dropping salivation this January (cough, graduation gift?) – watch District 9 [1 h 40] min when the alien prawns configure the computer to go home, yeeah.. that’s coming SOON :)
3. Christmas church was good (DULC) new year’s eve Thursday 6pm, we see you all at DUMC? Ok?
