the Bengaluru blog

Once upon a time touch screen phones were considered luxury. If they had 2MP cameras, they were worshipped, and if they possessed Wi-Fi, it was not meant for the middle class. All that is now passe. With the entry of the BIG 3 super hit phones, the Indian market just heated up to get exciting. So who are these three and what’s on offer? Find out more below.

Image source: www.gsmarena.com

Image sources: www.boygeniusreport.com  , http://img.xataka.com

The last one month has seen some hot launches in the smartphone market from none other than Research in Motion (RIM – Blackberry), Motorola, and Apple. Each has unleashed a turf war with their best selling products – the Storm 2 Blackberry touch, the Milestone, and the 3GS iPhone. A brief comparison of the specs are as below:

If we compare the Moto Milestone, and apple iPhone 3gs briefly with Blackberry Storm 2 9520, these are the features available:

Features	Milestone	Storm 2	iPhone 3GS
Price	28,500	31,000	35,500
3g Networks	2	1	3
Capacitive touchscreen	Yes	Yes	Yes
Resolution	480×854 !!	360×480	320×480
Sensors	Yes	No proximity sensor	Yes
Internal memory	256MB	2GB !!	256 MB
3g Speed	Upto 10.2 Mbps !!	7.2 Mbps	7.2 Mbps
Camera	5 MP !!	3.2 MP	3.2 MP
Video	24 fps	24 fps	30 fps !!
Flash	Dual LED !!	LED	None
Processor	600 Mhz, lesser graphics	528 Mhz	600 Mhz, better graphics !!
GPS with maps	Yes	Yes	Yes
Battery	1400 mAh	1400 mAh	1200 mAh

From this comparison you can see that for the price point under question the best value for money phone would  most naturally be the Moto Milestone. However, more of everything does not mean a better phone.

• For example if you look at the table, graphics is much better in iPhone which means their user interface will needless to say be the best among the three.
• Also if you look at video recording, the iPhone surpasses its competition by a good 5fps more.
• So also with the bands supported for 3G. In this department the blackberry is the worst.
• Again if you see the camera, the Moto beats competition hands down with 5 mega pixels with dual LED flash and the apple is not even worth talking about

So which one must you consider? Well frankly, for me, these are my opinions considering I have or will be using atleast two among the three titans of smartphones, the storm and the 3GS.

• When it comes to price the Milestone from  Motorola kicks everyone else out
• When it comes to navigation and usability for all people of the house, the apple iPhone wins by a big margin. One should also not forget the 1,50,000 applications that the appStore has for users compared to Google and Blackberry
• For pure business applications, the Motorola milestone has the potential to keep people happy for a long time, perhaps until Google itself releases its 1GHz Nexus One (which it does not intend to in India)
• One another important thing is that while Apple iPhone 3GS in India is locked to Airtel or Vodafone, the Motorola Milestone and Blackberry Storm 2 will be available unlocked for any operator in the country which is a huge plus point at that price.
• With good 3g data services support from BSNL and the impending 3G spectrum auctions, all other private operators will shortly follow with their 3G services, all these phones are set to harness the power of 3G from various operators to provide video calling and other such facilities. These phones support 3G quite well as expected and this is a good feature in all phones in comparison
• All these phones have 3.5mm standard headset jack making them all multimedia ready by nature of design
• All these phones are GPS enabled with the Moto supporting free turn by turn navigation which is a big boon to finding your way in a lost place.
• If you are the person who likes physical qwerty keypad, Moto is for you, if you like both touch and press (surepress) keypad, the storm is for you and if you like the touch only keypad, iPhone is for you. I am used to touch typing, so both Storm and iPhone 3gs appeal to me more than the physical QWERTY of Moto.
• Google has only 30000 applications, compared to Apple’s 1,50,000 which is a huge marketing plus for Apple. Blackberry apps are not worth mentioning at all frankly

For any comparison there have to be negatives, so here they are:

• Though the Moto Milestone sports 5MP camera, there is no 30fps video recording which is a shame
• The RAM in both Moto and Apple is only 256 as compared to 2GB in Blackberry. This is a vast difference
• None of the handsets support dual camera (front and back facing) which are most necessary for video calls, and this is a shame for the price paid.
• Limited support for each of these handsets in terms of warranty repairs and the limited reach to the customers is slightly disheartening.
• Blackberry and Apple have no clear maps usage policy which makes it difficult for a normal user
• Locking to operator is going to hurt Apple’s fortunes compared to the other two competitors
• Non removable battery is bad for Apple whereas not for the other two since they also sport more powerful batteries

In SUMMARY, if you love core technology, want huge features for low price, with Google’s famed Android 2.1 OS, look no further than the Motorola Milestone. If you are the business conscious user who have been a fan of RIM and their products and appreciate their push email technology and still need other commonly found features, then the Storm 2 is a refreshing change from RIM with their touch based screen and surepress typing technology. The large memory, and slick business features will appeal the business community for sure. If you want ease of use, large amount of apps to chose from, and don’t mind the extra cost, for what you get in return – the famed apple popularity, at the cost of some missing features, then the iPhone 3GS is for you.

Take your pick, for now mine is the iPhone 3GS since I feel Google has some catching up to do with Apple. As for blackberry, I enjoyed it as long as I had it, and would recommend it even though I don’t own it now.

(image source: from here)

This February has seen some unusual temperature variations. Bengaluru was ultra chilly at 12-13 degrees C. Added to this were few virii in the air, and everyone were down with viral fevers, cough, sore throat and other typical Bengaluru syndrome.

My case was similar and trying out different modes of treatment did not help much. What really then helped was a shift to summer which I was eagerly awaiting. And change did happen. The second fornight of Februrary is bound to see the minimum temperatures hovering around 17-19 degree mark, while the maximum temperatures feel like May really at 32 degrees and above with very little humidity levels.

Whatever happened, has happened for the good, and atleast we have sunny mornings these days!
Time to welcome the summer and its showers to cool us down once in a while. Enjoy your summer and holidays if any!

India is finally getting competitive, and one can see it even in chips that we eat. These are the days of no-oil chips, those that are  baked instead of fried. Aliva crackers, Smart chips are some of the more famous ones who advertise like there’s no end on the idiot box. While aliva is only masala, Smart chipse could have been better called as masala-fied biscuits.

This is where I tried Hippo and I must say I am impressed. With the way they attract customers, their pricing, and needless to say their taste. With atleast 3-4 flavours the chips are something to get easily addicted to. Tangy tomato, Yoghurt and mint (the maharaja’s recipe), Italian pizza, chinese Manchurian and other varieties have been lined up by Hippo to tickle your taste buds. Read more »

If you have been going around Bangalore watching the billboards at major traffic junctions, you would not have missed out seeing this advertisement about the commune apartments from golden gate properties. Their unique selling proposition is apartments at 19 lacs onwards as the pricing. There are a few things that I wanted to voice about this project which I will do here for the benefit of those wanting to invest in it. Firstly it is close to the NICE Corridor done by Ashok Kheny and company. They go on to say on their website that there would be a road leading to their apartment from the clover leaf junction that NICE has constructed in Somapura Village halfway between Kanakapura Road and Mysore Road. More details about this so called road or roads are present in their own website.

What I like about this project is that the apartments look nice for that price range of 19 lakhs and up. Golden Gate properties have been consistently improving on their designs ever since their first few projects in Begur (near Bommanahalli) almost 7-8 yrs back. That is good news. The Commune does have its own share of issues as well which are evident from the above photo (again taken from their website, with due credits to them). The main cluster of apartments have a region on the inside which would have dimly lit areas thanks to minimum sunlight penetration. Elevationally the apartments look good at present, but the free areas surrounding them are surely going to be occupied slowly by all other apartment builders, making life hell around that area sooner than later. Already Kanakapura road is a good example of civilization improving day by day so much so that they had to do double laning of that road upto Konankunte junction.

As far as the plans are concerned, they offer three types of flats, two of 900+ dimension and one of 1100+ dimension. After checking out top views of each of these I found only the Plan 1 reasonably okay in terms of spacing of rooms and privacy. The rest were a bit unimpressive but hey then that is what low cost housing is all about! I did not like the fact that other than the hall, no other room had a balcony provided which is bad. Also the specifications are not so impressive as I have seen in certain other apartments of course at higher costs. Also to be noted is that only 50% of the car parks would be concealed while the rest would be open to the elements, and god save your vehicle in such a case.

According to their own costing sheet the prices for the starting at 19 lacs apartments would now end up to be either 25 lacs or 30 lacs for the bigger one. So is it affordable living? Think again, I sold my apartment at HSR layout for just a thirds more than this.

Two other things really bother me about the Commune. One is that in their walkthrough they show a road from the clover leaf junction all the way upto their apartment complex which in my opinion would never exist. NICE company is smart enough not to provide entry and exit at the clover leaf junction for every tom, dick and harry. Why for that matter I would be surprised if Banashankari 6th Stage BDA layout manages to secure one exit and one entry point into the clover leaf. And in the case that this entry and exit are not provided, the Communists if I may call them so would then have to either reach Ravi Shankars ashram or Mysore Road to secure an entry into the NICE BMIC-Peripheral Ring Road linking Tumkur Road with Electronics City. So I would take this road approach statements and plans with a pinch of salt.

The second most irritating thing is that the compound wall of the Commune directly abuts or is adjancent to Vrishabavathi Valley or river. For those who do not know what this river is all about, dont have your hopes high, here is the wikipedia description of the river – The Vrishabhavathi River is a minor river that flows north of the Indian city of Bangalore. The Vrishabhavathi is a tributary of the Arkavathy River. The majority of the sewage emanating from Bangalore is carried by these two rivers. Click here for more information. If you want to see a map of how the river flows until it reaches a sewage treatment plant on Mysore Road, see the figure below. (note that the blue river flowing behind the apartments in the figure above is the one being spoken about)

So with this said, how would you like to live bang next to a sewage river? My guesses are as good as yours. There are positives with Commune in trying to provide low cost housing in these troubled times, and there are cons of living next to the NICE clover leaf and the VV Valley/River. Once the mysore bangalore corridor is operational the noise levels in the corridor are expected to go up manifold disturbing peace and harmony all around given the fact that we Indians are fond of honking our vehicles even when there is no necessity for doing it.

This review is not about deciding whether the Commune indeed is the next wave of low cost housing and whether it is the best project till date in town as far as low cost housing is concerned. But it does touch upon the projects highlights to meritoriously put forth a few points to note before investing into it.

Technorati : 3d floor plans, anjanapura, apartments, approval, art of living, ashok kheny, ashram, banashankari 6th stage, bannerghatta road, bda, begur, bmic, bommanahalli, commune, electronics city, family mart, ggproperties, golden gate properties, hsr layout, kanakapura road, konankunte, kumarans, low cost housing, magadi road, mantri, metro, mysore road, nice, peripheral road, ravi shankar, ring road, sewage treatment plant, singapore gardens, south bangalore, spencers, tumkur road, vakils, vrishabhavathi river