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The Industry is Pushing 4K Television Forward

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We are just a week into 2013 and the tone of this year’s technology is already being set. New televisions are popping up left and right from manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, LG and Visio and this time they’re bringing with them some new tech. What new tech? Well, 4K to be more precise and sure it’s going to look fantastic but I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit of overkill.

First off what exactly is 4K television? Well, I have addressed this in an earlier post that goes into a little more detail, but to gloss over everything it’s basically twice the resolution of current 1080p television. This new high resolution has been named UHD or Ultra-High Definition. UHD also includes an even higher resolution known as 8K UHD (7680 × 4320).

UHDTV_resolution_chart

Now, all of this looks great and I can’t say I’m against moving technology forward, but my main issue with UHDTV is that it just seems like overkill. There is only so much that we can see with our eyes and unless you’re sitting right in front of your display, like less than 4 ft, I don’t think most people will be able to see the difference. Perhaps I am wrong, I didn’t think that I would be able to tell the difference with Apple’s Retina display, boy was I wrong. Plus these new resolutions will allow for some ridiculously awesome television sizes. I have seen some TV’s pushing the 80″+ range and they still look amazing.

A big issue with UHD is cost. These TV’s are selling for around $25,000 which isn’t exactly appealing to a very large audience. However, this year’s CES press conference from Sony has shown that 4K is becoming more affordable. Content is king, this is true for many things in life and it’s also true for UHDTV. There just isn’t much 4K content out there to enjoy on your new UHDTV set. This is the same problem we ran into when we first got into HDTV, there was little to no content and cable/satellite providers took years to get a decent amount of programming together, not to mention all of the issues they will have trying to get enough bandwidth together to broadcast 4K or even 8K.

Here is the new 65″ 4K TV that Sony unveiled at their CES Press Release.

SonyUHDTV
65″ 4K Ultra HD TV
Model number: XBR-65X900A (Source:Sony)

The industry will catch up and the move to UHDTV is most likely inevitable, so these problems will eventually be overcome. For the average consumer we will just have to wait and watch until something more affordable comes down the line.

Product Review: Samsung Galaxy Rush

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There a are thousands of different smart phones available out there but if you’re looking to avoid a longterm contract but don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a phone, that list starts to shrink. What makes the situation even worse is that the quality of phones that you end up with can be absolutely terrible. There is one phone however that seems to stand out from the rest and that’s the Samsung Galaxy Rush.

Samsung GalaxyRush Front View
Samsung GalaxyRush Front View (Credit:Samsung)

 

Design:

When this phone first arrived I was overall very impressed, it doesn’t feel like a toy. The Samsung Galaxy Rush is, as you would expect from the name, built a lot like the Samsung Galaxy S. There are the familiar navigation buttons on the bottom for Menu, Home, and Back. The only button not included in the phone’s navigation area is the search button. There is a power/lock button on the top right with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top left. On the left side of the device there is a volume control button and a slot for a MicroSD card. I was happy to see that the MicroSD card slot wasn’t hidden inside the phone somewhere next to the battery. On the bottom left of the device is a microphone and in the center is charger/accessory jack. The right side of the phone has a camera button.

The back of the Rush has a 3MP camera with flash that also records video. The camera lens is positioned right next to the external speaker. The back cover is made of plastic but it seems pretty durable and it doesn’t pick up fingerprints, which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The front of the device has a front facing 1.3 MP camera, LED indicator, the earlier mentioned navigation keys and a 3.5″ touchscreen.

 

GalaxyRush2

Samsung GalaxyRush Side View
Samsung GalaxyRush Side View (Credit:Samsung)

Power/Memory:

This phone isn’t blazingly fast like many of the other high-end smartphones out there but it gets the job done with it’s 1GHz processor ( MSM8655, Qualcomm). This phone also features 2GB ROM/768MB RAM and supports a maximum MicroSD capacity of 32GB.

Display/Touch Interface:

The display is low resolution at just 320×240 pixels but it’s actually not that bad especially for the price point. The Samsung Galaxy Rush uses HVGA TFT as it’s main display technology. The touch screen does offer multi-touch capability and it works really well, typing on this phone wasn’t bad and you can use the on-screen keyboard in both vertical and horizontal mode.

 

OS Performance:

The Samsung Galaxy Rush comes with Android 4.0 and with it’s single core processor it actually move along quite well. The UI operates smoothly and web browsing isn’t half bad either. You can game on this phone without too many major issues, Angry birds will play just fine. If you’re used to higher-end phones you will notice the speed difference especially when upgrading, installing  and loading applications but for a budget phone this kills off most of the competition.

Battery Life / Other Features:

This phone operates off a 3.7 Volt, Lithium Ion, 1750mAh battery that promises to keep you up and running for 9 hours while in use, and up to 14 hours on standby. This phone also has many features that are considered standard for any smartphone including, Stereo Bluetooth capability, GPS, Wi-Fi, and an Accelerometer.

The Price and Verdict:

This phone ranges anywhere from $99 to $150 and operates on the Sprint network via Boost Mobile. Keep in mind that this phone can be bought and used without a contract and monthly bill should be very low. Upon closer inspection you can easily see where they went cheap in the design process but it’s nothing that’s detrimental to the phone overall. For the cost of the phone, I was quite surprised by it’s performance and responsiveness. Audio quality is good on the ear speaker but the outside loudspeaker isn’t very good, although it does get extremely loud (good for an alarm clock). The real winning feature of this phone is the fact that it runs Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and it does so with minimal lag. The bottom line is, if you’re in the market for a budget phone, don’t want a contract, and just want something that resembles a halfway decent smart phone, then this phone is a good buy.