Whatever you do with your Galaxy Nexus, just make sure you don't crack the screen glass; or you'll have to pay a lot.

Last week I succeeded in cracking the screen (glass) on my GSM Galaxy Nexus but I really didn't care very much about that when it happened because I was sure I would be able to repair it at a quite decent price, as I knew how much this job usually costs for iPhones. However, I got quite fast to the reality, and everything I was able to find on the internet indicated a price of $170 for this repair alone. OK, don't get me wrong, I am not stressed about this, because the screen is fully functional and I can use it like it is without any problems, but paying that money for just a screen isn't worth at all!

The problem is the following: the glass, which is basically what we touch when we use the screen, is simply fused to the LCD, so they can't be separated, resulting in something stupid. If you need to replace the glass, you have to replace the entire screen, including the LCD, for which you must pay that price ($170).

Of course that you can only buy the glass from eBay, but it is very har to detach the two parts because the screen is fused at an extremely high temperature to the LCD. And all the repair shops refuse to do it, so you can only do it yourself... but the chances of succeeding are very reduced. I wouldn't even try if the touch is still functional and cracks don't bother me, because if you break the LCD, you just paid around $20 for the glass and you'll have to pay another $170 for the entire screen to get the phone functional again. (and no, CDMA screens won't fit correctly of GSM and otherwise).

So, the entire screen is at least $170 (cheapest price) on the internet. The phone is currently available at $350 in the US, which means that the screen is almost a half of that. Much overpriced, in my opinion. Not to mention that the phone shops asked for at least $270 just for the screen, here, in Romania. Comparing it to other phones, it is still overpriced. The same thing for the Galaxy S2 is $130 (but the quality is also lower, so it's obvious it is cheaper). But the same thing costs only $30 for the iPhone 4S, which means Samsung is definitely overpricing things (a lot) but I can't tell why. Yes, you heard me right, the screen (glass + touch + LCD + whatever else is related to the screen): iPhone 4S - $30 vs Galaxy Nexus - $170.

You probably think I'm furious now...but I am not at all. It could happen to anyone. And I would definitely buy the next Nexus (I love these phones), even if it will still be manufactured by Samsung. The only difference will be that if I go somewhere (I was at a restaurant and I dropped the phone with the face down on a brick walkway), I would definitely keep it in a case to protect it. 

iPhone 4 available in the Eastern Europe, at prices nearly $3500.

A few days ago some users from Twitter discovered that an online electonics shop from Romania has the iPhone 4 in its offer, at a price somewhere under $3500 (32GB model). Everybody hoped that it was a mistake, or at least, that the guys from that website were kidding, but after somebody contacted them, we found out that the information was, unfortunately, true.

Today somebody found out that another online store has included the iPhone 4 in its offer, at the same price. I don't know who the hell they think that is going to buy an iPhone 4 at that price, I mean, if somebody can find an iPhone 4 in an Apple Store in the US, he/she can bring it here and pay under $1000 for it. However, because of Apple's problems with stocks, iPhone 4 is currently a hard-to-find product almost anywhere.

These prices are available at regular online stores from Romania (which are not Apple dealers and I think that they don't even have the right to resell iPhone 4 here).

If you live near Romania (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, etc) and you know that iPhone 4 is available there, we would be glad if you can tell us its price (and if it is locked on not).

iPhone 4 has been announced - coming on 24th of June.

iPhone 4 has been announced today, by Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. I was expecting to be a real surprise for me, but it actually wasn't, because pretty much of what was rumoring in the last period is found in the device. Also, the...too sharp design for an Apple product, in my opinion. So let's get through the specs:

• Thinest smartphone ever (9.3 mm)
• Apple A4 chip inside (also found in the iPad and we know that it has 512 RAM, but we don't know what's the frequency of the processor)
• 3.5-inch display with a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels, Apple calls the display a "Retina Display"
• Battery life improved by 16% compared to 3GS
• 5 MPx camera with (single) LED flash and 720p video recording capability
• Frontal camera for Video calling
• The case is made of a scratch-resistant material (both the screen and the back, finally)
• A secondary microphone (for noise canceling)
• Gyroscope
• New micro-SIM standard
• iOS4 (the new name for the iPhone OS) which allows the creation of folders, as well as wallpapers on the background)
• And finally, Multitasking (Apple has to learn what multitasking does mean from Android, but this is an other story)
  

It will be available in black or white, with a capacity of 16 or 32 GB. It will be first launched in the US, France, UK, Germany and Japan, with pre-orders starting in a week. Another 18 countries will be added in July. Its price will be $199 for the 16 GB version, and $299 for the 32 GB version (don't worry, with a 2-year contract with carrier).

Are you going to buy the new iPhone? I probably won't. Nexus One can do almost anything what the iPhone 4 can (except video calling). And even more.

Nokia announces the N8.

Nokia has announced their new high-end model, the N8. This smartphone puts a great accent on multimedia and social networking. It has pushing capabilities to various services such as Twitter, RenRen and Facebook, and you can even view Web TV directly on the phone (CNN and National Geographic for example). Plus, you'll have free GPS navigation (+maps), forever.

A 12 mega-pixel camera has been implemented, with HD video recording capability. The N8 brings the new Symbian 3 operating system (how about Maemo, Nokia?). What it has inside isn't that impressive as the camera is, and we are talking about a modest 680 MHz ARM 11 processor and 256 MB RAM memory. It has 16 GB internal memory, which can be expanded with another additional 32 GB (microSD). There is a 3,5" capacitive touch screen, with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels.

The quantity of internal memory is too much, in my opinion. Nokia is far away from being an important "player" in the domain of smartphones. Their previous high-end model (N97) was a disaster, and this happened mainly because of really slack performance especially when more data is present on storage memory. Because the improvements at processor and RAM are not that important, a great pressure is being put on Symbian 3.

In my point of view, this smartphone doesn't bring enough change compared to previous models so it won't reach the success. Moreover, it could be a disaster, like his "smaller brother", the N97. The phone will be available in more colors, at a price of 370 euros without any taxes. Shipping starts from the third quarter of 2010.

More details on official site: http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n8.

Testing the iPad (+video).

A few days ago I had the opportunity of testing the product which Apple says that it's a revolutionary one, the iPad (they said the same when they launched any other product).

Firstly, I'll tell you its specifications. It has an Apple A4 1 GHz processor, based on ARM technology. The storage memory varies between 16, 32 and 64 GB, and, related to RAM memory, this is a complete mystery (yet). It is known that physically it seems to be having 512 MB of RAM, but in practice, it reveals only 256 MB of RAM (showed by different tests). It is certain only that the RAM is integrated into the chip of the processor.

It also has a 10 inch capacitive multi-touch screen, perfect for almost anything. On the connectivity side, we have the Wi-Fi model, which starts at $499 with 16 GB of storage, and the Wi-Fi + 3G model which is going to be available soon, this month. The battery offers 1 month for stand-by, and about 10 hours when surfing web on Wi-Fi and stuff like that.

On the Apple Store I've waited for a few minutes after I got one to play with (everybody was running to get one to test when somebody finished testing one). I think that there were about 15-20 iPads available (it is a quite big store, in Dadeland Mall, Miami).

The first sensation was that it was fast. But not as fast as I was expecting, but it was pretty good. The applications are launching like on the iPhone (slowly, showing who made them or things like that), and some of them really looked very well. But several were made especially for the iPhone, and looked very bad because they were running at a low resolution (I'm sure that this will be a problem for a long time).

I found it difficult to play with it using its accelerometer, considering that I used an iPhone for about 1 year and a half, and now I have the Nexus One. It is an updated version of iPhone OS, so the menus are updated in many basic applications (they look really good).

Many fans of Apple said that the iPad is very fast, faster than even the Nexus One. I don't agree with this. They probably said this even without ever touching a Nexus. It is clearly faster than the iPad.

There have been reported several problems with the iPad after only a few hours after it was launched, many users complaining that on their Windows machines and especially when connected to USB hubs the iPad refuses to charge. Apple says that when it gets into sleep, it starts charging automatically, but they can't actually prove that this happens at all times, because there is no icon indicating if it charges or not. And there are also problems with weak Wi-Fi signal and connection problems on LAN configurations.

And if you want one, if need to know that it has no camera and no GPS. You can buy additional accessories, and even if the iPad starts a $499, you can easily pass $1000, considering that Apple has only quite expensive accessories.

Apple has reached again, a great success with the iPad. In the first day of selling, the sells with the pre-orders passed 300 000 units. This is completely astonishing. To compare, Google sold only 135 000 Nexus One units after 74 days, while there were about 1 million iPhones (first generation) sold after the same period of days. I don't know how Apple does this, but it is known that Steve Jobs has currently the most profitable company in the domain of mobile devices.

Below is a video taken with my Nexus One, while I was testing some of iPad's functionalities:

I can't understand why Google isn't selling Nexus One out of the U.S.

This is the question I've putted myself many times since Nexus One has been launched in the United States. It is currently unavailable (normally) anywhere else into the world, with the exception of the UK, Hong Kong, and Singapore, which are "test" countries. This is pretty disappointing. I'm from Romania and I can't really understand why I can't get it here.

Hmmm...Ok, I can. A company is selling it here, but at about $740. Because, it is the only one who is selling it here, and there is no competition. Google says that Nexus One will probably be available in the spring 2010 with other carriers than T-mobile, so it might be available even in Romania then.

And this happens while HTC Desire is about to come. Google is now loosing millions of clients in the whole world, and the situation can get as bad as it can, because Desire is going to be a Nexus One replacement for the regions where it isn't available.

HTC Desire - an updated Nexus One?

HTC launched a kind of update to the Nexus One, named Desire. It's a very similar device, having the same capacitive touch-screen (3.7 inch), the same processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon at 1 GHz) and the same battery (1400 mAh). But what's weird is the difference between battery life on devices which is quite big.

HTC Desire also includes a 5 megapixel camera, which has face detection capability (I don't know if the 5 megapixel camera from Nexus has this option). Anyway, both devices have G-sensor, digital compass, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor. Desire has 576 MB RAM, while Nexus has 512 MB RAM (the difference is probably felt only on intensive tasks). Both devices runs Android 2.1 OS, but Desire also includes the Sense UI, which is not present at Nexus.

Nexus costs 529 $, but it is not available worldwide yet. Desire has been launched today, 16th February, and I didn't get an official price yet. If I found out a price, I will let you know.