nook HD 7 review

   The following is going to be my review of the nook HD 7. But before I do that, I must say I don't use a tablet everyday. some weeks I don't even use it at all. I love the bigger screen size of a tablet but there's really nothing I do on a tablet that I can't accomplish equally as well on a phone. Since I have 2 phones, and 2 phones fit in my pockets better then 1 tablet...... Well you see what I mean. However 2 handed typing is much better on a tablet. In fact I'm typing this on the nook right now. A feat I'd have never attempted on my phones.
   The nook was actually given to me for free. My fiance ended up with  galaxy tab 3 7.0 and the nook HD and since it was a bit redundant to have both, she gave me the nook. I've been using it regularly for about 5 months or so now and for as cheap as these things are new and even cheaper used, I've been relatively impressed. Although the tablet is definitely not without its faults.
   From a hardware stand point its pretty much what you'd expect. All plastic body, no cameras, 7 inch screen, power button  on the upper left side. Volume on the upper right. The "n"shaped emblem front and center is actually the home key. The thick side bezels and black margins above and below the screen are both a gift and a curse. They make holding it easier but they also make the tablet larger then it really needs to be. The screen is pretty good considering the price. Its not HD but in day to day use you'll be hard pressed to notice. The matte finish across the back along with an over all thin profile make for a solid tablet that I have yet to drop. The next hardware item I will touch on is the speakers. Im not an audiophile so i cant really comment on quality, but they are definitely loud enough. There placement on the back at the bottom is less then ideal though. It does have a proprietary charging/sync port and charger which I'm not crazy about and among the 2 nook hd's in our family, we've had to replace each charger cable atleast once as they seem to wear out. But otherwise they seem to charge at an average rate I suppose.
   Then there's the software, yes....well. Stock it just plain sucks. Maybe if youre a heavy nook/ b&n user with no other use for this device it might work fine but anyone who is used to a more run of the mill android expirience wont be impressed. I believe the stock launcher lasted all of about 5 minutes before I installed nova launcher. Another sticking point for me is the recent apps screen only seems to display apps downloaded from the b&n app store. Most of which suck and lag way behind their play store countetparts. It does come with google apps which is a plus. Although i had issues with gmail and some of the other google apps crashing, sometimes even when i wasnt using them. The one gig of ram doesnt do my usage patterns any justice either. I do read ebooks using play books and as you might assume from a nook.....it does that quite well indeed. Most popular mainstream games will work just fine on here with little to no issue.
   So over all whats the verdict? Well over all its really not terrible and undermost casual circumstances is actually quite usable. If your in the market for an ereader that will double as a casual tablet then this could be a great option. However, if your looking more for something a bit more on the tablet side with plans to message, video chat, game, and stream media......well you would probably do better to get something else.

changing views on large phones

 not to long ago I told myself that I'd never want a phone with a screen bigger then 5 inches. 5.2 was pushing it. yet now that Google has released the nexus 6 I've slowly but sure began to reconsider. my mom has a note 2 and my fiance has a note 3 and I've recently spend more time using and working with those phones then I had in the past. I've also recently acquired a nook hd. the nook is a nice enough tablet and considering it was free it really does the job good enough. how ever I've been considering a nexus 7. although i have nova launcher on the nook. i really crave a more aosp experience like on my nexus 5. and i could also benefit from the extra ram offered by the nexus 7. while using the nook hd and the notes I've come to appreciate the bigger screens more. another thing that changed my view was Taylor Martin's follow up review of the Sony xperia z ultra (Google play edition). this video was one of the biggest reasons I initially started changing my view on large phones. I began to see that maybe a phone this size could replace my phone and tablet all in one shot.

for about a month after I saw this video i really wanted the Google play edition xperia z ultra. but then google revealed the nexus 6. not only was it roughly the same size...but the specs were better in almost every way and its a Motorola. I've always had a soft spot for Motorola phones and I was a big fan of the first and second generation moto x. in fact I almost bought the first gen moto x instead of the nexus 5. but ultimately decided to settle on the slightly cheaper and slightly better specs of the nexus 5 (a decision I don't regret at all). I do look forward to getting lollipop on my nexus 5 and even if I do get the nexus 6 I will likely keep my nexus 5 around. but at this point I'm probably going to get a new nexus 6 after Christmas....unless t-mobile can lure me into financing one through them first.....but time will tell.

nexus 5 update: 4 months later

     OK so it's now September and I've had my nexus 5 for roughly 4 months now. its also been roughly 2 or 3 months since my initial review, so I figured I'd write a small update. I'm what most would consider a very heavy user. I play a good amount of games on my phone. I stream music every day in the car and at home. I text and instant message all day every day. I watch a bit of YouTube on it.....you get the idea. so after 4 months of heavy usage I can say its still as fast as ever.
     I'm still running ART instead of delvik and don't run into many issues on my day to day usage. I have found several games which are incompatible such as plants vs zombies (which bums me out). but I'd say at this point it seems that 95% of whats out there is ART ready. Google keyboard was crashing on me a lot too but after the last couple updates it rarely gives me an issue anymore.
     at the time that I wrote the initial impression the phone was on android 4.4.2. I'm now up to android 4.4.4. the last 2 updates have definitely brought some improvements with them. first of all the camera app is now a separate app and is updated through the play store. the user controls in the camera app are much much more user friendly in my opinion and although I'm not a big camera geek I'd generally say the overall performance of the camera is improved. the photos it takes are now noticeably nicer then those taken by my galaxy s3 were as when i first got the phone they were pretty equal to my eye. also another major improvement has been battery life. I've read varying reports on this but for me personally I did see a noticeable improvement, especially under mild to moderate usage.
     after extended usage I have noticed the speaker is definitely on the weaker side. I like the placement of the speaker compared to my s3 but its not as load or robust sounding. but this is not a deal breaker for me as I rarely listen to then phone with out Bluetooth or headphones. another side note is if stopped using the wireless charging as it took forever to charge and I've switched to just using the wall charger then came with the wireless charging pad (same as wall charger sold in play store for nexus 5) its a higher amp (1.8a) fast charger. and it will completely recharge my nexus 5 from almost dead to full in around 1.5 hours. its very fast and i find this to be more convenient as the phone spends less time charging this way.
     I'm still very satisfied with the phone and unless the new nexus phone is a massive upgrade then I don't see my self switching away from the nexus 5 anytime soon. I'm also looking forward to the coming android L update which is hopefully only a few months away. thanks for reading.

cruzerlite tpu case review

     up until 6 months ago I was a semi average smartphone user when it came to cases. I had pretty thick, probably overkill, cases on my phone. I started with Otterbox defender cases and after being very disappointed with the quality, I began using a Sedio convert case which I cant say enough good things about. however about 6 months ago I was cleaning the outer rubber layer of the Sedio and carried it with just the slim inner layer and after only a few hours fell in love with the new thinner feel. I did a bit of research and after hearing many good things I settled on a cruzerlite case. I now have 3  cruzerlite tpu cases for my 2 phones.
     my first cruzerlite case was the any splat case for my galaxy s3 and I love how it looks and feels nice big (but not excessive) cut outs for the buttons and micro USB port. the phone has suffered a few bumps during my time with this case and has always come away unphased. I've tried using the phone naked as well but I actually refer it with the case as the hyper glaze coating on it makes the phone feel to slick.
     so when I decided to buy the nexus 5 i searched for cases and again found myself back at cruzerlite. my first case for the nexus was the black bugdroid circuit case. my only complaint about this case is the button cutouts on each side seemed a tad small making it hard to press buttons. I eventually used a exacto knife to open up the button holes about 1 mm all the way around. this completely changed the case and made it perfect.

after trimming the hole

before trimming the hole

     after a month or 2 with the bugdroid case I decides to try to blue androidified a2 case. when I ordered the case I figured it would have the same button cutout issue as the other case, but upon recieving it and trying it on I found the button cutouts on the a2 case seem to be cut to a nicer size. I've been using this case for about a month now and I think its my favorite so far. I love the molded grip style ridges on both side edges. and I'm very glad I got it in blue. it looks great and adds some nice color and style to the phone. when I first looked at the case I was a bit concerned about how much protection it would provide, but this drop test video from zedomax solidified my faith in this brand. check it out. this video could be a cruzerlite commercial.

so on top of all that I've had awesome customer service everytime I've dealt with them and when I recieved the blue a2 case I even got a $5 gift card with it as well. I'm planning on using this to buy a print style case offered by cruzerlite to try out. hope you enjoyed. have a good day.

reviews and opinions of my nexus 5.

     Ok so I've had my Google/Lg nexus 5 for roughly 3 weeks now and i figured id posts some of my thoughts and opinions on it. to start with ill give a brief background of my previous android devices to shed some light on where I'm coming from with this.
     my android journey started back in about 2009 or so and my first phone was a Motorola cliq. my mother and brother had both already had the phone for 6 months and i had been hesitant to jump on the wagon. however after messing with there phones i decided maybe i could justify it and pulled the trigger. i don't remember much about the phone other then it was painfully slow. about a year later i inherited my brothers 2 month old cliq 2 as he quickly found out his duty station at that time had poor coverage from t-mobile. the cliq 2 was worlds better then the cliq 1 and towards the end of my time with it i rooted it and did a major update to android 2.3 that was not available OTA. the microphone on the cliq 2 eventually gave out and that lead to me buying a Samsung galaxy s3 in pebble blue. at the time the phone had only been out for a few months and was considered to be one of the best. this phone served me very well and still does for that matter however I'd like to dedicate a different post to that phone so I wont go to far into it here.
     all that brings us to my nexus 5 which ive had for around 3 weeks now. im not gonna review the entire phone so much as give my opinions. after coming from a heavily modified version of Samsung's bloated touchwiz i was craving a more aosp experience and after much research and visiting stores i settled on the nexus 5 . over all it got very good reviews and i liked the price point. i love the way the phone looks as well. infact the looks was one reason i settled on it. i bought the 32GB black edition and am very happy with it. I love the white but since I'm a mechanic by trade i figured white was a bad idea. plus i knew the phone was gonna end up in a case. i have had the phone in a cruzerlite bugdroid case since it came out the box and it looks great.
     the nexus 5 is buttery smooth and very fast and i have no complaints. my s3 was a none LTE model so I'm sure that also adds to the speed of this phone too. the phone was already on android 4.4.2 when i got it. the camera has been a topic of much debate on this phone but for my average joe shooting style this phone seems equally as good as my s3 and thats all i really need so no complaints there. the cameras controls did take some getting used to compared to Samsung's complex settings but im liking it.
     battery life is another area of debate and again it seems to be comparable to my s3 witch although it could be better is at least good enough. i also got the wireless charger with the phone and have grown to like it a lot since i hated using my s3 while it was plugged in. when i first got the nexus 5 the battery life semmed a bit weak but as time goes on it seems to have gotten better and may actually be slightly better then my s3 was.
 

the beginning of a new adventure

      hello all, my name is Scott. this is my first post on my first blog. this is all kinda new to me and i'm still actively learning so bear with me if this sucks. i guess to start with ill just tell you a bit about myself and the sort of stuff i'm interested in as that should directly relate to the stuff that may end up here.

      

     I'm a hardcore gear head first and foremost. i first started getting into motorcycle when i was about 12 and cars came at about the age of 15. today i am a professional automotive technician with 10 years experience in the industry. I've owned more cars then i can remember in my time with a drivers license although only a handful of them ever made it to the road. i pretty much live, eat , sleep ,and breath anything with an engine. i grew up riding 3 wheelers and 4 wheelers and jet skis. we had riding lawn mowers that i was driving since i was 8 years old or so. 

     having said all that, i have slowly but gradually been taking a bigger interest in all thing tech. my gateway into all of this was android. my first android phone was a Motorola cliq and to date its the only one i didn't modify or tweak. my current phone is a nexus 5. as i got deeper and deeper into all things android it naturally started to bridge out to an interest in things like Linux, coding, chrome OS, chromecast, and lots more. I'm still learning about alot of things and don't claim to be an  expert on any of it. 

     as i said at this beginning I'm still very new to blogging and all of this in general. i also know my grammar leaves a bit to be desired. however these are all things all be working to improve upon as time goes. in the event anyone actually reads this.....thank you and i hope you enjoyed it.