My next smartphone
The watch to extent the usefulness of your smartphone
A look into great apps available on Android

The ChargeCard [Kickstarter Project]



So the other day I got my ChargeCard in the mail. Another one of the projects that I decided to back on kickstarter. The thing with kickstarter is sometimes, you begin to wonder when you'll get the product. Well, I finally have the product in hand, and I'm happy I supported the project. The ChargeCard is manufactured in Anaheim, CA (which is just about 10 miles away from place of residence) and it's always nice to support a local American manufacturing business. The reason I decided to get the ChargeCard is so that I'll be able to charge my phone virtually everywhere because I'll keep my ChargeCard in my wallet.





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SoundHound - Android App Of The Week [Week-8]



You hear a song on the radio or maybe a song is playing while you're watching a show or movie and you don't know what to do. That's where SoundHound comes in. SoundHound is a great app for music fanatics. Hear a song you don't know, load up the app (or just have a widget on your homescreen) and it'll listen to what's playing and try and identify it. This is a competitor to the popular Shazam app. I prefer this one because I've had better luck with it and because it looks cleaner in my opinion.

           

The app is able to show the lyrics of the song that is playing and keep in sync with what lyrics are going on at the current time. It also has some nice sharing options and is easy to quickly youtube the song. It has some nice explore options so that you can find new music based on what's hot at the current time or what other people are discovering. The app comes in a free version and a paid version.




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Slickdeals - Android App Of The Week [Week-7]


Like buying stuff? Also like paying as little as possible and getting good deals? If you don't already look up deals on slickdeals.net now is the time to start doing so. There's a multitude of deals to be had and this site congregates deals from around the web or from in store locations. The app that goes with it is handy because you can look it up deals on the go and be notified of deals through notifications. That way you can get in on deals before they expire, run out of stock, or in some cases change a pricing because it was too good to last that long and was a mistake that the company honored for a little while.




The app is well made and allows you to quickly go into the app, check for good front page deals and move on with your day. It also allows you to look at the deals forum. The app stays inline with how modern Android apps look. It has a slide out navigation drawer and quite polished.


I recommend installing this app to help keep track of deals. There are some pretty good deals that show up online. Deals from electronics (got a great 24" tv for $100), clothes (jeans, shirts for a couple bucks), and everything in between. Check out the download bellow.



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The HTC One and BlinkFeed


So I've had my HTC One since April 16th, so I've had a good amount of time to play around with the device  and know the device well enough to give my impression of it. What the device does well or doesn't do well is what I'll be sharing. So instead of clumping together everything into one post, I want to take the time to really get deep into the core of each aspect of the phone. I'll be starting with the areas HTC chose to highlight about the device: BlinkFeed, Design, Ultrapixel Camera, BoomSound, Sense 5, and the IRBlaster/Sense TV.

In the this post I'll go over BlinkFeed in all of it's eloquent glory and give my impressions of it. First off a youtube video where HTC showcases BlinkFeed just to give a quick idea of what BlinkFeed is in case you don't know yet.



The idea behind BlinkFeed is a good idea, and the design of it is crisp, smooth, and beautiful. The problem that I have with BlinkFeed is I like to sift through my information in a Google Reader approach. This means having the ability to mark stuff as already viewed, and to view EVERYTHING in chronological order. It does a really good job of almost being a replacement to Google Reader (and I need one fast since the service is closing soon. Why GOOGLE WHY!?!). I'm hoping that HTC stays committed to BlinkFeed since it has a lot going for it.

I love that if you tap on the notification bar it will bring you to the top of BlinkFeed. This also works in the app drawer of Sense 5. Pretty nifty feature. I wish though that I could get rid of the weather portion of BlinkFeed if I so chose to do so. Same way I would like the app drawer to be a little larger grid and to get rid of the permanent weather widget. The transfer animations are smooth though and despite some features missing that I would like. I find myself using BlinkFeed more than I anticipated.

BlinkFeed: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8 of 10)


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PushBullet - Android App Of The Week [Week-6]


So this week's app is for all those people out there that like to be more efficient. I showcased MightyText which gives users the ability to send texts from their computers or from their tablets. With this week's app, PushBullet, you can send links, notes, lists, or files to your device.


           

You download the chrome extension on your desktop/laptop (sorry firefox users out there, IE users...get a better browser) and you'll be able to start pushing things to your phone. Just sign into your devices. If you have Google's Chrome to Phone app you're probably thinking why do you need this app? Why is it better? The answer is simple, you can send more things (notes, lists, files) and you can send them to specific devices.
PushBullet comes in for the assist nicely for when you're browsing on your computer at home and you see a file you want to download on your phone or suppose you're about to head somewhere and you want to load up the directions that you have on your desktop, onto your phone. It's as simple as pushing a link.


                            

Hit up the download link bellow, it's an app well worth downloading. Plus, it's free!



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Zedge - Android App Of The Week [Week-5]



If you're like me you probably like to change your wallpaper a million times a year, your ringtone everytime you hear some new hilarious audio clip, and your alarm clock notification sound just about everytime you set one. Doing that can become quite combursom if you have to manually find an image or audio and transfer it to your device or download it. Then it becomes a hassle of just organizing all the accumulated  media. Instead of doing all that, just download Zedge. Even if you don't like doing all that and don't download or change your wallpapers or ringtone sounds often. Still just download Zedge. The Zedge app connects into their website where anyone with a free account can upload ringtones and wallpapers to the site and then easily download it from the Android app. It's really handy. You don't have to worry about where you had that awesome ringtone located and you can favorite ringtones and wallpapers that you come across.

 

That app knows what resolution screen you have so that you can find wallpapers that will look nice and crisp for what ever screen size you have. The gorgeous 1080p screen on my HTC One displays the wallpapers that it gets from the app beautifully. All the wallpapers that it gets on this phone are made for 1080p screens. If I fire the app up on my HTC One S (540p screen) it'll have wallpapers available to download in a 540p resolution that will look nice for that device. One downside to the app however is that you won't find almost all popular copyright material. So if you want to download a ringtone that is a clip of a song - you're out of luck. You'll have to get that ringtone elsewhere. Likewise if you want to upload a ringtone or wallpaper, if it's copyrighted there's a good chance it will be taken down quickly by their automated anti-copyright system. If the system doesn't catch it, there's a good chance it will eventually be reported and taken down. Despite that, there's A LOT of good stuff on Zedge. I recommend Zedge as a must have app on every Android phone.



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Quotable Quotes


Bellow is my collection of quotes that I have come across and found intrinsic value in the content of their meanings. The list will be updated with new quotes I like as I find them.




“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.” - Simon Pegg

"Such is life" - Ned Kelly

"The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes" - Ted Stevens 

"A smile abroad is often a scowl at home." - Alfred Lord Tennyson 

"Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating." - William Sydney Porter

"Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated." - Drabek R.

"A deceiving smile is better than a honest frown" - Me :D

"I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born." - Ronald Reagan



"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it." - Thomas Sowell

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

"It is better to have one friend of great value than to have many friends of little value." - Author Unknown

"Everyone is a friend, until they prove otherwise." - Author Unknown

"The only way to have a friend is to be one." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Most important thing about love is that we choose to give it, and we choose to receive it. Making it the least random act in the entire Universe. It transcends blood, it transcends betrayal and all the dirt and makes us human." - Chaos Theory


"It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we're compassionate, we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint." - Penn Jillette

"Women are emotionally incoherent. It's their defining characteristic" - City Island

"Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you " - Luke 6:28

"Oh trust me doc, bringing psychiatric drugs and teenagers together is like opening a lemonade stand in the desert." - Charlie Bartlett

"Nothing good ever happens after 2am, so just go to sleep" - How I Met Your Mother

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust." - Samuel Johnson

"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." - Thomas Jefferson

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." - Albert Einstein

"A person who speaks cleverly is witty; one who asks questions is smart." - Terry Car

"Character is higher than intellect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts." - Lars and the Real Girl 

"Did you ever do this, you think back on all the times you've had with someone and you just replay it in your head over and over again and you look for those first signs of trouble?" - 500 days of Summer

"The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws." - Walt Whitman


"The next time some academics tell you how important 'diversity' is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department." - Thomas Sowell

"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

"Science now knows that many of the pillars of Darwinian theory are either false or misleading. Yet biology texts continue to present them as factual evidence of evolution. What does this imply about their scientific standards?" - Jonathan Wells

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” - C.S. Lewis

"Friendship is an involuntary reflex, it just happens, you can’t help it.” - How I Met Your Mother

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - William Shakespeare

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" - Louis Brandeis

“Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.” - Albert Einstein

"When you are in Love you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams." - Dr Seuss

"There's a fine line between sweet and creepy, and that line is whether she likes you back." - Micah Madru :)

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." - Samuel Goldwyn

"Once upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it." - Cashback

"We don't even have a secretary of the treasury, we have a secretary of the debt because there is no treasury, the treasury is empty, all we've got are liabilities..." - Peter Schiff

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?" - FrĂ©dĂ©ric Bastiat

"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the state — then we are against education altogether. We object to a state religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the state then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the state." - FrĂ©dĂ©ric Bastiat



"Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons." - Fulton Sheen


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SeriesGuide - Android App Of The Week [Week-4]



Today's App is for those of you that follow a bunch of different TV shows and need a way to not only keep track of what episodes you have watched from what shows but also to keep track of when the newest episode will air next. SeriesGuide is the app that comes in for the assist. The app connects to the internet to add shows to your following list. From there it will be able to keep track of every episode you have watched and when the next episode will air. It keeps track of it in Pacific Standard time so if you live in a different time zone you will have to go into the settings and adjust the time it will display.

          
With the paid app of SeriesGuide known as SeriesGuide X you have more widget options for your home screen and it gives the ability to have notification on your phone for when a new episode is about to air.

So if you get tired of checking online through imdb or some other place to see if the next episode of "How I Met Your Mother" airs in one week or in three because they're taking a break on new episode, this app is for you. On a single page you can check the showtimes all at once of your series that you follow. Check out the links bellow and give the app a go!



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HandyCalc - Android App Of The Week [Week-3]

For all you math geeks out there (or those of you that just want a better calculator than phones generally come with), handy calc is the app for you. I've been using this app for a couple years now. I've done countless homework assignments with this (if only I could use a smartphone during tests). This app remains the best calculator app I have found on the Play Store.





HandyCalc can do graphing, system of equations, unit conversions, and all the more "basic" math stuff. It's a highly useful calculator. The best part is it's free too!



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HTC One Battery Test - Video Playback

Want to see how many hours of video playback the HTC One can do? Don't want to actually have to sit there and watch the entire test in real time? That's where my battery test comes in. In a fraction of the time you can see how long the HTC One can playback video without actually having to watch it all. For this test I used my HTC One S to record using Lapse It Pro. I took a picture every 5 seconds at a resolution of 1080p and then I merged those images together using PhotoLapse for Windows. The HTC One was in airplane mode and did not have a sim card in it (I need to communicate with the rest of the world).


The videos being player in order were as followed:
  • Big Buck Bunny
    .mkv - MPEG-4 Video (FMP4) - AC3 - 1920x1080 - 24 FPS - 885MB
  • Lucky Number Slevin
    .mkv - MPEG-4 Video (XVID) - AC3 - 688x288 - 25 FPS - 1:41:05 - 901MB
  • Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
    .mkv - MPEG-4 AVC (AVC1) - MP4A - 1280x5544 - 23.98 FPS - 2:27:40 - 1.18GB
  • Rocket Science
    .mkv - MPEG-4 Video (DX50) - MPGA - 608x332 - 25 FPS - 1:37:11 - 696MB
  • Star Trek
    .mkv - MPEG-4 Video AVC (AVC1) - MP4A - 1920x800 - 23.98 FPS - 2:06:50 - 2.24GB
  • Thank You For Smoking
    .mkv - MPEG-4 Video (XVID) - AC3 - 640x368 - 25 FPS - 1:23:20 - 816MB
And this is the finished result with 5,468 pictures later.



As far as battery life goes for day to day usage, I've been quite pleased. I haven't had trouble getting through a work day with bluetooth on and paired to my Pebble smartwatch the entire time. Here's a battery life example from 4/20/2013.



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HTC One Unboxing + Hard Cover Flip Case


So I just got my HTC One, and let me say I love it! But I'm not just going to go out and say everything about the One. I've got to spend some good quality bonding time with the One. Get to know her, maybe take her out on a few nice dinners and what not. Got to get to know her before I go sharing all my likes and dislikes and give my final full impression. As I get something worth sharing, I will! For now, I have unboxing videos.


HTC One Unboxing



HTC One Flip Case Unboxing


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MightyText - Android App Of The Week [Week-2]



Now there are some apps that people use daily, and for me this is one such app. MightyText is godsend to those of us that like texting but would love to do so from the comfort of a computer (or tablet). Setup is insanly easy and the usefulness of this app makes MightyText a must download app for your Android phone.

After installing the app all you have to do is go through the quick little setup on the app to log in with your Google account and your phone is setup. Then when you go to their website and log in you will be able to send and recieve SMS/MMS from your computer. It does it all from the same phone number. How it works is when you receive a message on your phone, MightyText sends it to their servers and then you can access it online from the website. Want to send a text back to someone or any number? Just compose the message and send it. It'll send it to their servers, to your phone, and then from your phone to who you want to get the message. It's more complicated than that, but all you need to know is that it is well worth checking out.






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Lapse It Pro - Android App Of The Week [Week-1]




So today begins my commitment to finding and blogging about Android apps that I find useful or entertaining.
Games or productivity apps that are free or paid will all be part of it. So today lets start with a new little gem I found in preparation for doing a review of the brand new HTC One.

I was in search of a method to record the phone (once I get it, I can't wait!) playing a video until the battery gives out. This will be a method of doing one aspect of a battery test. The problem I came into was most video recording had a limit due to the limitation of the file system FAT32, which has a limit of 4GB. That is where lapse it comes into play.

Lapse It Pro


Lapse It is an award-winning full featured app for capturing amazing time lapse clips with your Android camera, simple, fast and intuitive. What lapse it does is take a picture at a set amount of time and does so until you stop it. After that the app allows merging those images with a set amount of frames per second into a video file. You can select the resolution to captures in (the free version is limited to 240p but the paid can take advantage of the full sensor), brightness level of the screen after the recording starts (useful for conserving battery), disable shutter sound, scheduling, scene modes, and focus modes.






Go ahead and give the app a spin in the free or paid versions.







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My Next Smartphone: The HTC One





With new devices being announced or coming out right about time, a lot of people are considering new smartphones. You have the Galaxy S4, Sony Experia Z, LG Optimus G, and many other options. I'm ready to upgrade from my HTC One S and moving to a device whose name subtracts the S from it's moniker, but there's so much to the actually device that is added. Yes, I'm talking about the HTC One - my next device.


The HTC One


The spec sheet of the HTC One is quite a lengthy one and has a whole lot of power behind the device. The central power behind the device comes from it's amazingly powerful Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 600, quad-core CPU @1.7GHz. But that's not all the device has to it. I'll give a quick run down of some of the specs bellow but head on over to the spec page for a more in-depth look. It meets the requirements of my next phone, which were to have a 720p screen or higher, NFC, 2GB ram, quad core and LTE

DISPLAY: 4.7 inch, Full HD 1080p, 468 
RAM : 2 GB DDR2
NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, 2300 mAh Battery
, LTE, AC WIFI

However, the big features of the phone though aren't really expressed well on a spec sheet. The key areas that HTC really shines out on this phone is with the build quality, the camera, the sound experience, and the sense features. I'll be able to give a more first hand experience once I get my hands on the device, but initial reviews have been very promising.


Build Quality

Now the build quality of the device makes the device look very premium and has been compared to that of what Apple has been known for, especially with the unibody aluminum iPhone 5. The HTC One has a lot of time being put into the outside aesthetics of the phone. Check out the video bellow to see just how much work goes into each and every HTC One. The end result after a lengthy manufacturing process is stunning.



Camera: HTC Zoe


The camera is another area that HTC stepped up their game. Now if you just take a simple look on a spec sheet the camera is a 4MP sensor. People would be quick to write off such a low megapixel camera in the days of 8 and even 13 megapixel cameras in smartphones. The truth of the matter though is megapixels aren't the only thing that helps produce an excellent image. HTC's 4 megapixel sensor is what they are dubbing the ultrapixel. The ultrapixel is able to capture more light and therefor is able to give better low light images and more accuracy to true colors. It's able to go head on with 8 and even 13 megapixel smartphone cameras. 


Although some are seeing a degradation of clarity because of the lower megapixel count, check out some comparison shots and decide for yourself. I'll do my own shoot out once I get my hands on the device.

The other thing HTC has done with the camera experience is they have included a bunch of camera settings. They have the new HTC Zoe which takes shots and videos and merges them into one presentation and then there are a whole bunch of filters and editing that you can do right from the phone. For example you can remove unwanted photobombers with just a click...or at least that's how easy they say it will be.


Sound

HTC has it's usual beats audio included with the new HTC One but it has gone beyond that in two important areas. The first is by including now just one but two front facing speakers on the device, located bellow and above the screen. They have named this BoomSound. A little bit of a cheesy name, but what really matters is does it improve the experience. Everything points to a resounding yes.

The next thing HTC has done in terms of sound quality is they have greatly improved the microphone and sound recording experience. Instead of using a single membrane microphone they use dual membrane microphones which takes two different sound recording. Then after the two signals have been combined, background noise is greatly reduced, which increases the overall sound quality of the recording. After all, no one wants to huddle around a phone to hear a distorted concert. You can read more about that on their blog post over here.


HTC Sense

Now I've never been the biggest fan of HTC Sense, even though I've owned several HTC Android phones. With the new version of Sense HTC has brought the UI more in line with what Android 4.0 design language looks like. The colors of Sense still leave somethings to be desired (I really am a fan of the way stock Android looks now), but beyond that you'll think twice...or more, about modding the device and getting rid of Sense. There's some really cool features built into Sense: Blinkfeed, Sense TV, HTC Zoe, Music App, and more.


HTC Blinkfeed: A Windows Phone styled widget built into the homescreen that collects 
updates from news or social media sources and puts all that information in one location.



Sense TV: Sense TV is one of the features that I'm really excited. The HTC One has a
IR Blaster beneath the power button so you can actually control your TV with your phone!




HTC One Music Player: The new music player has a built in lyric player, put that in
combination of the beats audio and BoomSound and you got a nice media player!





It looks like HTC is stepping up it's game and I can't wait to give my thoughts on the device once I actually get it in my hands. Another thing I hope HTC has learned is to support the developer community. I hope getting S-OFF is easy and that as a result there will be a large developer community behind it. What does help is that it seems like HTC is steering away from producing so many variants, that way developers can focus their efforts on one amazing device.

If you have any questions about the device that you would like me to answer once I get the device or anything you would like included in my full review of the device feel free to leave a comment bellow. 





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Pebble: Replacement Watchband













If you were worried that the cheap little watch band that the Pebble watch came with would put your fashion sense in a bad mood, don't worry too long. The good thing about the Pebble watch is the watch bands are easily replaceable with a standard 22 mm watchband. I just got my replacement Black PVD Metal epolyant Diver Watch Band HR and I must say, it adds a very nice touch to the device! Replacing the watch band is quite easy. All you'll need is a knife or something thin and sharp to get the current band out. Watch the short little video bellow for a brief demo on how to remove the watch band.








The watch band feels very nice and solid. It was pretty easy to take out a few links so that it could fit my smaller wrists. One thing is where the pins are so that it is fastened to the pebble watch isn't really flush with the watch. That's the one improvement to the watch band in combination with the Pebble watch. However, this is just one example watch band that you could replace the Pebble with, there are many others out there. I highly recommend looking at a replacement watch band so you can get one to your liking.

Also as  I downloaded some new watchfaces I hit the limit of how many I can have stored on my watch. I'm wondering if it's a storage limitation or if it's a limitation being placed for some other reason. Either way I hope that I can have more watchfaces/apps downloaded on it and that it's not a storage limitation as I feel that might be an oversight that could have easily been avoided. It wouldn't be too big an issue as I typically keep my watch face on a single watchface. 



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Pebble Smartwatch: Early Impressions (Week 1)

In case you guys are unfamiliar with the crowd source project funding website called kickstarter, you guys should check out the website. Kickstarter is described as
"a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others."

I kickstarted the project on April 18th, 2012. After a long wait and 30 something kickstarer project updates later...it's finally here! I got my Pebble last Monday and thought I'd share some of my first thought impressions about the device. First of all, this is coming from a person that almost never wears watches. Last time I put on a watch was probably 3 or 4 years ago. I've just never found the appeal to them when I have a smartphone to tell time as well. With that being said let's delve into the details of the device first.

First off for kickstarter backers the device could have been yours for a pledge of $99 (black watch) for early pledgers, $115 for a black watch, $125 for a watch of your choice from their color selection and then the Pebble smartwatch will be available to those that didn't kickstart it for $150. It's not too late to pick up this device!


Specs: 



  • 1.26-inch 144 × 168 pixel black and white ePaper-display with backlight
  • Vibrating motor
  • Magnetometer
  • Bluetooth 4 (currently not active yet)
  • Three-axis accelerometer
  • Water resistant to 5 ATM
  • And must of all, watch faces!


The device can pair with your Android or iOS powered smartphone and get notifications of incoming: texts, calls, emails, facebook notifications, and more! It can even control your music that is playing on your phone, which is one of the things I found most useful. The ability to go bike riding or jogging and change songs without having to fumble through your phone is great.


Packaging: 




 

The packaging is quite nice and reminds me of the kindle packaging. A very easy to open, eco-friendly container that houses the watch and the usb charging cable. The packaging is super easy to open, just tear this flap all the way down and you're into the heart of it all.










Now I wasn't sure if I was suppose to charge it all the way or not, but I just got right into turning the device on and using it. Even without charging it it still lasted me about 2 days of use. Even while paired with my phone. Since then I've only charged it once completely. 










Initial Thoughts:

After about a week I'm really impressed by the watch. Now not everything is all good. For example, they still need to improve the software on the device and the corresponding smartphone apps. The watch needs a notification center or some way of looking at past notifications and the apps need to improve how apps that you can download are sorted. There also is a weird bug that I'm not sure why it's being caused by sometimes it just stops communicating with my device and I have to hold both the back and select button to reboot the device and repair the device. I'm sure the kinks are being worked on.  




 Despite those few quirks that the device seems to have I highly recommend this device if you're looking for a better way to listen to music while exercising or if you're like me and you work at a place where you can't be pulling out your phone all the time to be checking who just texted you. With the Pebble, a quick glance at the watch to see who the text is from and you can quickly decide if it's something important that needs to be attended to or not. I just ordered a black stainless steel watch band for it too (any 22 mm watch band should work for the watch). So I'm waiting for that to arrive. More pictures will be available as soon as I get the watch band!



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