UPDATE: For more resources about how to develop Android apps, check my “Learning How to Create Android Apps Series“.

Just last week I got myself a Samsung Vitality Android Phone from Cricket, then just now I saw an article with a title “Top 5 Reasons You Should Avoid Cheap Android Smartphones” in AndroidAuthority, I can’t help myself to not write a post with counter arguments.

I believe the author has valid reasons, so although some of the reasons I have below can apply to most people in general, this article is actually targeted toward the software developers who are just starting to develop app for Android phones.

Reason #1. Not every Android owner has the latest Android phone

I should admit that I don’t have a supporting data other than the Android OS usage share distribution, but I assume very few Android phone owner have the more expensive high-end Android phones.

So, using a humble Android phone as test device for developing apps makes sure the apps you’re developing can work in the lower end phones, which has a very high chance that it will also work on the higher end phones. The opposite may not necessarily true. This means that your app target market is larger.

Reason #2. Test the water – Is Android Apps Programming Fit You

If you’re just starting, you don’t want to commit too much money for something that you’re not sure of. So, getting a cheap Android phone is a perfect choice. I’d suggest to get the cheap phone to start with, then as you make more money through your apps, you will have the justification to get ‘smarter’ smartphones to develop more advanced apps.

Because although we’ve heard sweet success stories of app developers who become millionaire through their hit apps, the reality is not everyone will have the same story, so you may want to test the water first.

Reason #3. It works! – It’s not as bad, in fact it’s not bad at all

I agree that cheap Android phones will never match the speed and power of their more expensive friends, but hey, they work! And if you’re just starting out developing apps, it will actually provide most of the requirements you need. Back to the example of Samsung Vitality I got, other than front camera, it has all of the hardware I need to develop most of type of applications.

And for simple apps that we as starting Android developers are most likely to make, that cheap phone will be able to handle them.

Reason #4. It’s a lot faster than using the AVD – Increase your app ROI

This is the primary motivating factor why I decided that I need to buy a real Android phone rather than counting on the AVD (Android Virtual Device). AVD is… too slow, and trust me it will pay back the price in just few days. This even more applicable if you’re developing apps for Android tablet (try run AVD of Honeycomb and you’ll undertand why).

The result, just in 1.5 days, I’ve completed more than 80% of my very first Android app that I will submit to the Google Play market by the end of this week. Talk about fast ROI!

Reason #5. The price of expensive Android phone today will drop quickly

The good thing of fast production of different Android phones is, it makes the phones prices to drop rather quickly compared to the iPhone. So, unless you really need that power and speed from higher-end Android phones now (which probably not as we have discussed in reason #3), you will just wasting those money by paying for the ‘trend’ rather than for the real price of the phone.

Conclusion

There you go, the top five reasons why you should buy cheap Android phones, especially for developers who are just starting out to make mobile apps.

For now I highly recommend the Samsung Vitality from Cricket (if you’re in the USA) which you can read the review here (Samsung Vitality Review). If you have other cheap Android smartphones that you use, please share your experience in the comment section below.

UPDATE: For more resources about how to develop Android apps, check my “Learning How to Create Android Apps Series“.

As I’m starting to get serious with Android app development, I realized that using the Android Virtual Device (AVD) is really not the way to go. Until now, it’s very slow to start (snapshot helped a bit), and it’s prone to problems.

I told myself that this can’t go on like this, and I should get myself an Android phone.

Why not use the Asus Transformer tablet I have? Because I’m still learning how to develop apps for phone screen size, not tablet. Besides, I need to test the apps I made in the Android Gingerbread, which is the most common Android version out there (58.6% distribution), while my Asus Transformer is installed with Ice Cream Sandwich already (1.0% distribution).

So the search for Android phone was on since last week. The problem is I already have a phone, and I don’t plan to shell out too much money for a new one, so I was looking for a non-contract Android phone.

Quick search on Amazon resulted some options, but in the end I bought this Samsung R720 Vitality CDMA Phone yesterday from BestBuy for $50, and it’s really a steal.

Check out my review below.

*Since this post is more about how the phone perform for developing apps, I will not review much about it’s other specifications.

Specification

Released: September 2011
Network: CDMA 800 / 1900
Display size: 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches
Memory: microSD, up to 32GB
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth: Yes
USB: Yes, microUSB
Camera: 3.2MP
Video: Yes

OS: Android v2.3.3 (Gingerbread)
CPU: 800 MHz
GPS: Yes

Full specifications, check it here (Samsung R720 Admire on GSMArena).

Included In the Box

Handset, battery, travel/USB charger, 4GB microSD (only 1GB is useful for user’s data), guides

Display

The phone display is… good. At 320 x 480 pixels, nothing it can really brag about, but it gets the job done.

Sound

The phone speaker is located near the camera on the back, and.. I like it. It’s louder than my iPod touch ‘invisible’ speaker. The sound quality (of the speaker) is also good enough (for a gadget external speaker of course).

Development capability

Enabling developer mode is as easy as it gets from the phone setting, and running a simple application from Eclipse is a breeze.

The phone has most of the common software and hardware specifications a developer need, such as Android 2.3 Gingerbread, Wi-Fi, Accelerometer, 3.2 MP back camera, microSD slot, microUSB, and GPS.

Unfortunately, if you need the front camera, it doesn’t have one.

Performance

So far I’m satisfied with the phone’s performance. Though considering the CPU, I don’t think we can expect something great from it. I was able to install and played ‘Angry Birds Space’. It took time to start the game, but it’s running smoothly.

Other than that, for most of the standard apps (that means no 3D games please) I think the phone will run just fine.

Price

It’s $49.99 in BestBuy when I wrote this article, and it’s $75 in Amazon.

Conclusion

The Samsung R720 Vitality is great. Cheap, standard screen size, Android Gingerbread, and all the common phone specifications, this phone is really a great phone if you’re just starting developing Android apps. Highly recommended!

Fast forward to 2012, finally I afford to get one, yey!

Surely enough, it’s not the professional-grade Intuos series, I still can’t justify that one even until now. The one I bought is the middle model of the Wacom Bamboo tablets series, called Bamboo Create.

I’ve played around with the tablet for a few weeks, and I think it’s time to write a review.

Usability

Ok, now I already have a Wacom tablet, now what? (Notice that I always refer it as Wacom tablet, so as not to confuse with the mobile tablet such as iPad, or Android tablets)

For artists, a Wacom tablet definitely helps them a lot in their work, whether it’s to do digital draw or painting. But for the rest of us, what actually can we do with this Wacom Bamboo tablet?

How about these: use it as a mouse pad, annotate PDF files, edit photo, and draw / doodle / sketch.

For me, the reason I bought the Wacom tablet is because I’m going to create a video tutorial with Khan Academy style. (I kinda give up the digital artist dream I used to have when I was in college..)

Software

Remember this fact, the Wacom tablet is only as good as it’s software. So be mindful of this as you choose the model you want.

Why? Because you want to check the bundled software that comes with it.

One of the reason why I chose to get the Bamboo Capture instead of Bamboo Connect is because the extra Adobe Photoshop Elements bundled in the earlier (~$70 separately). Add to that the multi-touch input capabilities of the tablet, it makes the extra ~$20 of the price justifiable. In fact, it’s actually a lot better deal.

Unless, of course, if you already have the software you needed.

So the Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet comes with the following software:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 8

– not the latest version, it’s even two earlier version actually (currently is at version 10), but still do the job.

• Nik Color Efex Pro WE3

– nice extra plugin for Photoshop Elements, though it’s the very minimum version (you can upgrade for full version), not too bad though.

• Autodesk Sketchbook

– this is a free software at App Store, doesn’t really count as extra value, still a nice software though.

All Wacom Bamboo model also comes with some Bamboo apps (they really look like mobile apps) that you can play with to kill time, but seriously, you want to do more than this with your tablet.

Price

The Wacom Bamboo Capture price is around $90. The cheaper Bamboo Connect is $70, and the more expensive Bamboo Create is $165.

Conclusion

Before anything else, I need to mention that the wide space of the tablet is misleading. Not all the area is actually usable. The actual so called ‘Active Area’ is 5.8″ x 3.6″ area in the middle of the tablet, marked with almost invisible line marks (undistinguishable on the product picture).

Having said all of the above, I think the Wacom tablet Bamboo Capture model is really a not-so-cheap gadget.

This is my first tablet, so I can’t really compare it to anything else, but it’s been fun to use (although it takes a bit of time to get used to using the stylus), and serves it’s purpose very well.

However, if you plan to buy a Wacom tablet, and you’re not sure which one to choose from the Bamboo series, I believe Capture will be the best option among the three.

That’s all for this review, and check out some of my video tutorials when they’re out in the future!

UPDATE: For more resources about how to develop Android apps, check my “Learning How to Create Android Apps Series“.

Just updated my Asus Transformer last Friday to Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) and I couldn’t be any happier.

I was hesitant at first since my experience with OS upgrade for my iPod touch 3rd generation to iOS 5 equal slower response. So I thought maybe the same thing would apply if I upgraded my Asus Transformer tablet to ICS.

Yet, the upgrade notification bugged me, and I read some people response were good last Friday, so I thought “Whatever.. let’s just upgrade it!”. And yes, it was great! So let’s check what changed..

UI

Immediately the blueish theme of ICS is the first thing I noticed, compared to greenish theme of Android Honeycomb.

Setting shortcuts look on the right bottom also changed, more compact, looks better, but I missed the shortcut for “Airplane mode”.

Performance

This is the first time I experienced OS upgrade means better performance. If you read my review about Asus Transformer TF101 few days ago, I concluded that the performance was poor. But this time, it’s a lot better!

I’m not sure if compared with iOS5, but definitely this tablet becomes a steal!

Features

Now the apps can be removed from the recent apps list, this makes it neat.

People also suggest to turn on the “Force GPU rendering” option in the Developer options settings.

I will still play around with the new OS for the next few days, and let’s see if there might be some problems (don’t forget the Murphy’s law).

Update (March 1, 2012):
I’ve just read this article about the problems after updating Asus TF101 to ICS, and I should admit that yes, my tablet shut down by itself twice so far. Both are on different day few days ago, and it happened when I sleep at night. I don’t know what caused it, but it also happened few months back, just few days after I bought the tablet.

Another note, I probably haven’t got any other problem because I haven’t done a lot of things to my tablet, I haven’t root it, and I don’t use a lot of apps other than the Adobe PDF, Netflix, and other default apps that come with it. But, to say that the tablet is unusable, it’s far from what I experience now. The tablet is A LOT usable now because it’s so smooth and faster now.

UPDATE: For more resources about how to develop Android apps, check my “Learning How to Create Android Apps Series“.

I’ve bought this tablet for more than two months but I just got a chance to review it, for some reason I don’t review gadget as fast as I used to. :p

But yeah, as tablets are getting more ubiquitous around us, I hope this review can help you to decide if Asus Transformer is the right tablet for you.

Display

Asus Transformer is a 10″ inch tablet, just like iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10″. Although when compared to iPad, the Android tablets are usually wider but shorter, and from one source I read before, a wider screen is cheaper to make than a tall one. Just notice, why more LCD monitors are wider, and not necessarily taller.

The display resolution is 1280×800 and it looks pretty sharp, not magnificent though.

Sound

As a sound afficionado, I’m not satisfied with the sound quality of the TF101, and don’t make me start to remember how the tablet speaker sounds. There is no equalizer setting, so the sound is as good as it can be.

Apps Availability

The power of mobile device lies on its applications, and the Android market apps are.. well.. let’s say it’s just ok. Yes, there are a lot of apps, but not only the number of Android apps are well behind the iOS apps, the apps for Android tablets are even fewer.

And what I notice is that Android apps are not as ‘good’ as their iOS counterparts. I know this is subjective, but hey it’s my review right?

Performance

I had a chance of playing around with Samsung Galaxy Tab 10, and specification wise, it has almost equal specification with the Asus Transformer, so theoritically there shouldn’t be a lot difference. Indeed, there aren’t so much difference.

But, if you compared to iPad, then you will understand why it will take a long way for Android OS to match iOS in terms of performance.

Price

I bought this on 2011 black Friday deal for $249 + tax at Best Buy. I still think it’s a great deal, cause I just want to have a tablet less than $300.

Conclusion

Before I say anything about whether you should get this tablet or not, let me tell you the reason why I get one.

It’s cheap.. and it’s an Android.

I’m a software developer and I like to develop apps for mobile device, so the tablet is really a great option for me.

If you’re looking for tablet, and you don’t care if it’s Android or iOS, then I don’t really recommend the tablet because although it’s cheap, you still get more satisfaction with iPad.

If you’re looking for Android tablet, then I recommend this over Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 or Amazon Kindle, simply because it’s cheap (it’s just $50 more than Kindle and you get the whole unlocked Android tablet), and there aren’t that much difference with much more expensive Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Well well, just on my last day of work in my co-op semester, I found out that one of my office friend has the Bose AE2i headphone.

What a pleasant surprise, it’s about time for me to post another headphone review also before the year 2011 ends. So I immediately borrow the headphone and give it a quick test. So, does the sound quality justify the price tag? Let’s see..

Sound

Just a reminder, it’s an around-ear headphone so I expect a good sound isolation from the Bose AE2i, and it really has it, I can hear detail sounds clearly.

Bass test was a bit disappointing, PX100 beats it on the same volume level. You can get very good bass punch from AE2i if you raise the volume, but that also means raising the risk of having ear damage. This might be due to the impedance difference, but since Bose doesn’t release the specifications, we will never know.

There is no question for the mid and treble sound, they are just really good.

I tested different songs genre, and I think it doesn’t sound quite fit for any type of songs that have a lot of bass sounds (such as techno and some rock songs). If you prefer instrumental, R&B, Jazz, or Pop, this headphones is a good choice.

Detail : 5/5

Bass: 3.5/5

Mid: 5/5

Treble: 5/5

Physical Form

Like all other Bose headphone, it looks aesthetically pleasing (it’s quite big, but not bulky) and also very comfortable to use. Besides, the Bose label is just too cool for people to unnoticed.

The one that my work colleague has is the AE2i version, so it can be connected to phones and it has microphone and volume control (unfortunately the volume control doesn’t work in my laptop).

Price

It’s $162 on Amazon. What can you say, it’s Bose.

Buy it or Not?

Though it’s priced at over $100, it’s actually not so expensive as the other Bose headphones. But with the same price, I think you can find headphones with better sound quality from other brand. It’s just that it won’t have that “Bose” label.

I’m not saying that it’s not a good headphone, considering sound quality only, I think I can give it 9.0/10. But considering the price, I would give it 8.0/10.

The sound quality definitely more than enough for most of the people, but it won’t satisfy a hi-fi aficionados.

If look is a very important thing for you, then Bose AE2i can be your choice. It’s not $300, and it will instantly give you a cool factor when wearing it.

Songs used in this review:

Chicane – Halcyon – MP3
Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory (MP3) and Meteora (FLAC) Album
Maliq & D’Essentials – Heaven – MP3
Bayu Risa – Fire – MP4

For the past week, I’ve really into Agile software development practices, especially Scrum.

So far, to learn more about Scrum, I’ve read the Scrum Primer (which I believe is still the very best brief introduction to the Scrum world), Do Better Scrum, and What Every Product Owner Should Know. If you’re interested, you might check them out.

If you, however, prefer video tutorials, Rally Software provides free Scrum video tutorials on their wiki site. They’re not stellar (I would give 3.5/5 stars) but they provide good information if you want to know more about Scrum and Agile development.

Think of starting Scrum Agile Development in your team? but you’re not so sure where to start? read the Scrum Primer!

It’s not a book, it’s a 22-page introduction to Scrum.
It doesn’t cost anything, it’s graciously given free.
It’s not a dry whitepaper, it’s an interesting information about Scrum.

It explains quickly some of the Scrum buzz words, such as Sprint, Backlog, Burndown charts, and don’t forget, the ScrumMaster!

So, spend an hour or two to read it, and I guarantee you will have a lot clearer picture about Scrum.

The Little Martin LXM is a travel guitar that is about 3/4 size of a full size guitar. My roommate has it and he said he hasn’t play with it for a while, but it looks like a perfect guitar to review in my blog.

Sound

It sounds pretty good, but then you can still hear sometimes it sounds like ukulele. One of the factor must be the top wood, it’s not solid. I believe if it’s for fun time or just jamming around, this little guitar can make you happy.

Playability

The neck size and length is very similar to the full size guitar, so there is no compromise for that. However, since the body is 3/4 of the regular guitar, it feels funny when I hug the guitar. I don’t have a guitar strap though, so I don’t know how it feels to play it while standing with a strap.

Durability

It feels pretty tough, though again, the laminated top wood makes it feels a bit… fragile. The neck wood looks like the same one Martin put on their full size guitar, and that’s what makes the guitar heavy. Although I don’t weigh it, it feels like it’s heavier than my Voyage Air guitar. Doesn’t sound really good for a travel guitar.

Looks

It’s ok, it looks like a standard guitar, only smaller. Nothing stands out.

Price

In Amazon, the Little Martin price is $289.99.

Conclusion

The Little Martin LXM sounds pretty good… for a traveller guitar, that is. Unfortunately, to make the guitar portable, Martin sacrifice some of the important things, such as the top wood quality. What makes me unhappy is, it still use the heavy wood for the neck. Why not use lighter wood for the neck and keep the solid wood for the top?
In the end, I don’t recommend this guitar unless you really need a portable guitar to travel with you. Though, again, I still rather buy Voyage Air guitar for that.

*though you still want to consider this guitar if you need guitar for your children.

Little Martin Demo by IPlayMusic2.

Think of proving your knowledge in programming Java?

BlackBeltFactory has an interesting concept of using belt system common in martial arts to the Java (and other programming language too) certification system. Unlike other certification, the questions are created and reviewed by its members, this ensures a wide variety of question, certainly a good example of crowdsourcing.

I found the website just recently and registered to start my journey to be a black belt, and here’s my profile.

So far, here is what I think about the website:

Pros:

• Taking tests are free
• Exclusivity and Pride (to be a black belt one must pass a lot of exam)
• Practical knowledge tests (includes Spring, Hibernate, and XML)
• Constantly growing courses and exams (crowdsourcing)

Cons:

• Not all courses are free (well, maybe it’s not really bad anyway if we want quality)

Anyway, go ahead and check BlackBeltFactory website and register yourself to start your journey to be a black belt in Java (literally).