HoFo Blog

*Edit* Pricing sheet has just been pulled. Guess I don't need to line up now.

I just got word that Bell is increasing their pricing on many of their phones:

Motorola Atrix HD LTE $49.99 -> $79.95
Motorola RAZR V $0 -> $29.95
Blackberry Bold 9900 $49.95 -> $99.95
Samsung Galaxy Note $49.95 -> $99.95
Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE $0 -> $49.95
Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB $99.95 -> $159.95
Samsung Galaxy S III 32GB $149.95 -> $209.95
LG Optimus L5 $0 -> $49.95 (voice contract)
Motorola Motoluxe $0 -> $59.95 (voice)
...

I got a chance to play with the RAZR HD LTE today.

When I reviewed the ATRIX HD LTE a while back I was checking off features on my checklist and couldn’t help but notice its screen wasn’t as big as the competition plus it was missing NFC. Turns out Motorola had another trick up its sleeve. 2 high-end SKU’s; the ATRIX HD LTE and now the RAZR HD LTE.
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Anyone experiencing anything like this? Seems to be rampant and there are articles, stories and threads all over ...

*Update* Now they're telling people to come back in 2 hours. Uh oh, the smugness is taking over!*/Update*

As someone who wanted to line up for an iPhone but couldn't because Apple isn't allowing users to buy unlocked, I can't help but feel a little smug.

I've just been told by someone that the lineup at the Apple store has stopped moving because all 3 carriers activation systems have crashed.

<sarcasm>What a surprise, this never happened with the iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4 and 4s launches</sarcasm>

So now, Apple isn't selling any more iPhones because they can't activate any more phones.

What they should do is have a separate allocation for unlocked buyers and allow each person to only buy one. ...

With the new iPhone launching tomorrow I thought I'd make HoFo your place for all things iPhone 5. Here are some links to fun iPhone 5 related threads:

Who's getting an iPhone 5
Pre-order shipping thread <- mine's is coming tomorrow!
who's waiting in line tomorrow <- I was going to but Apple Canada isn't selling unlocked one's on launch day.
AT&T or Verizon iPhone 5?
Does the iPhone 5 have hidden LTE bands?
iPhone 5 on Sprint
iPhone effect on Verizon's LTE network's
Using the iPhone's nano SIM in a Galaxy S III

For iPhone 5 users:

Post your iPhone 5 first impressions and reviews
Post your iPhone 5 case
Now that you have an iPhone 5 what are you doing with your old one?
Post your iPhone 5 wallpapers. [Some may be NSFW]

Now Android users will probably think that HoFo has become some sort of iPhone fanboy (fanboi) site. To balance our coverage, here's a link to a 'Stupid iSheep' thread. You can go there to talk about how awesome your Galaxy S III/HTC One X is or maybe brag about how many custom ROMs you've loaded on your Galaxy Nexus or maybe you just want to laugh at iPhone users (like me... though I'm also an Android user).

Oh, there's one more thing... I'm getting TWO iPhone 5's tomorrow (to make an iPhone 10). You know what that means... I'll be giving one away! So stay tuned for a giveaway! ...

Last week HowardForums was a booth 404 at the Canadian Wireless Trade Show. Despite the ominous booth number, a lot of people found their way to our booth.

On the first day, we presented our round table discussion on Android. It was a packed house, I’m told it was one of the most well attended seminars.
While we recorded the discussion, unfortunately, my camcorder ran out of memory half way so we only have the first 15 mins. Sorry about that! A big thanks goes out to our panellists; Tony Palazzo, Ken Price and Marc Saltzman.



Since I don’t have the complete discussion here's a link to my presentation. Please excuse my not-so-l33t Powerpoint skillz. Last time I used it was for last year’s CWTS presentation.
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*9/18 update* No change, GoDaddy is still waiting for Aust Domains to respond. I wonder if Aust Domains normally takes this long to respond to other kinds of requests. Please! Give us back our stolen domain!

*9/17 update* I asked GoDaddy for an update today. They're waiting for Aust Domains, the registrar with the stolen domain to get back to them with some information. It's been more than 24hrs so I hope Aust Domains acts soon. Please! Give us back our stolen domain!

Hi everyone and welcome to our temporary domain. As I'm sure you've noticed HowardForums is currently located at the temporary domain www.howardforum.com (no "s"). In case you can access this on some of your computers and not others, it will take a few hours for the changes to propagate throughout the internet.

In the meantime, do not access the site via www.howardforums.com unless you hear otherwise from me.

Unfortunately, our domain was stolen over the weekend and I'm currently working with my registrar, GoDaddy on getting it back. While I initially thought GoDaddy wouldn't do anything till Monday, after a a few hours they got back to me. Since then, they have been working with me to get the domain back so kudos to them helping me on the weekend.

Our stolen domain was transferred away to http://www.austdomains.com.au/ so GoDaddy is waiting for them to respond. Hopefully things will go smoothly so we can get our domain back.

In case you're wondering our forum data is unrelated to the domain so it is safe.

How did this happen? My GoDaddy account is attached to a family member's email. I did this so that our domains would be safe in case anyone ever tried to break into MY email. While the family member's email is used for other things it doesn't have anything else to do with the forum besides the domain. Last week, we were forced to log into this email at a hotel business center in order to print out something. Normally, I know better but we were in a bind. I suspect our thief was able to capture our email and password using a keylogger then.

The theif used the email to reset our GoDaddy account and then transferred the domain away. Before they did this they setup filters to automatically delete subsequent emails from GoDaddy. This would keep us from realizing our domain was about to be transferred away plus it would create the illusion that everything is okay.

Regardless, I apologize to all of you for our downtime and thank you for your support. I'll let you all know more as the situation unfolds.

Howard Chui ...

Today Apple announced the new iPhone 5. I was a little surprised that most of the leaks about the new iPhone 5 were correct. I remember everyone was sure that there would be 2 iPhones when the 4s launched. I guess Apple's security isn't what it used to be.

Anyways, the 5 biggest changes about the new iPhone are that it has a taller (longer) screen, a new A6 processor, LTE support, a new proprietary accessory connector named "lightening" and a new SIM card format.

The screen retains it's 326pixel per inch density but it's now 4" and has a resolution of 1136x960. It has the same horizontal resolution as the 4 and 4s but now the aspect ratio is 16:9. So now there's room for another row of icons.

Personally, I like the width of the iPhone 4 and 4s. They're the perfect size for me to use the iPhone with one hand since my thumb can reach across the screen easily. It's very difficult to do this on my Galaxy S III's. So I'm happy that Apple kept the same width and just made the screen taller.

Otherwise the screen retains the same 800:1 contrast ratio and 500 cd/m2 brightness of the 4s.

Physically, the 5 measures 7.6mm thick and weighs 112g. To compare the Galaxy S III (which is a substantially bigger phone) measures 8.6mm thick and weighs 133g. The thinness should make the 5 a great phone to be put in a case.

It's available in 2 colours, Black/Slate and White/Silver. Both have aluminum backs, the Black one is anodized while the White isn't. The metal backs should make the new iPhones very tactile though I always though the 4 and 4s' glass backs were pretty nice too. The parts of the back that aren't covered with aluminum are covered in glass.

There are actually 3 versions all of which support LTE. There are 2 versions for GSM carriers and one version for CDMA carriers. The 2 GSM versions differ in which LTE bands they support. Basically there's one for here and one for overseas.

The iPhone 5 will have both voice and data from a single chip. Most LTE phones have separate chips for this. Not a big deal to the end user but it's worth mentioning.

The WiFi now supports dual bands (2.4 and 5Ghz), the 4s didn't support 5Ghz.

The new A6 processor is supposed to have 2x the graphics and CPU performance as the older A5 chip.

There'a new accessory connector called 'lightening'. It's 80% smaller than the older connector though it looks bigger than a microUSB connector. Don't you just love proprietary connectors? Apple is selling a old style to new style accessory connector.

The camera resolution is still 8MP but the software supports panoramas. Apple was showing off a 28MP panorama. I'm not sure if the 4s also had this but the 5 has a sapphire crystal lens. That's the same glass you find on luxury watches. Sapphire crystal is extremely hard and doesn't scratch easily.

The iPhone's camera software can finally walk and chew bubble gum at the same time I mean you can shoot video and take pictures at the same time.

The front facing camera now supports 720p facetime so I'm guessing is either a 1.3mp camera or maybe the less impressive 720x640 camera from the iPad 2.

I'm not happy that Apple is introducing a new SIM Card format with the 5. While most companies are now using MicroSIMs the 5 takes a nano SIM. As someone who switches phones regularly I hope that there will be adapters available so that I can use nano SIMs in other devices.

Apple didn't discuss how much RAM the new iPhone 5 has. Part of me assumes it will have 1GB of RAM though the other part tells me "don't say anything if you have nothing good to say". So maybe it has 512MB like the 4s did. 512MB isn't a deal breaker but it would have been nice. I'd be able to switch between more apps and games without having to relaunch them.

They also didn't discuss the battery's capacity. Not sure what to make of this one. I'm sure it will be bigger than the 4s' 1400mAh battery though I have no idea how much bigger.

The mapping software now supports navigation. I've been using the new maps on my 4s which is running OS6. On my 4s the maps app is obviously not complete but it does look very nice. What effect this will have on navigation provider's stock prices remains to be seen.

Apple will be taking pre-orders on Sept 14th. It will be available in-store on the 21st. Pricing for Americans will be $199/$299/$399 on a 2 year contract for the 16/32/64GB versions. Canucks will be paying $699 for an unlocked one. I'm guessing contact pricing will be similar to what Americans will be paying but with a 3yr contract. Frankly I'm surprised and a little annoyed that Apple is raising prices slightly. On the other hand, them raising prices gives Android makers some breathing room. If the 5 started at $599 unlocked it would mean that most Android phones couldn't cost more than that which would really hurt their profit margins so I guess kudos to Apple for throwing their competition a bone.

Personally, since the iPhone is sort of in the driver's seat right now it doesn't need to smash the competition feature-wise. That said aside from the LTE support and I suppose the slightly bigger, higher resolution screen it's not a huge upgrade from the 4s.

I'm disappointed that there's no support for NFC but at the same time, while NFC is becoming more useful it's not quite a "must have" feature just yet. My guess is by the time the next iPhone rolls around it will have NFC support then.

LTE is a nice new feature. I tell people that LTE support is important not because they need their phones to transfer at 100mbps but because LTE networks (at least the ones here) tend to be less congested than their HSPA counterparts. Given that the new iPhone is probably going to set new sale records I'm uncertain what effect this will have on LTE network congestion...

So, who's getting ready to line up now? While I love my Android phones (two S3's a One X and a Note) I also love my 4s so I'll definitely be getting one.

-Howard ...