And the HTC One give-away winner is...

I'm very happy to announce, that the winner of the HTC One Giveaway #RevolutionChange is...

Nefty Aguirre

Congratulations Nefty!

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The Meenova Micro-SD Card Reader for Android

A few months back I decided to pledge $12 US to a Kickstarter Project for a miniaturised USB card reader for Android smartphones. The idea looked promising, and I had a spare $12, so I took the gamble, and this week it paid off. Through the post I received the dividend on my 'investment'. I'll follow up this mini-review with some details on performance once I can get hold of a class 10 card, but for now here are some first impressions and opinions.

The concept of USB OTG (on-the-go) storage is a good one, especially for the increasing number of us of us whose favourite phones don't have an SD card slot. However, one of the big issues with the regular arrangement for OTG is the need to carry a male-female adapter cable and a card reader or memory stick around in addition to the telephone. Doing away with this inconvenient clutter was really what attracted me to the idea of the Meenova reader.

I knew that a tiny, almost weightless device, which clips to my keyring, but which can take exchangeable micro SD cards at least up to 64Gb, would be worth $12 to me just for the convenience. The Meenova reader ticks all those boxes at around 2cm square by 8mm thick and weighing in at only 3 grammes.

Unboxing the Meenova

The reader arrived by mail, safe in a protective envelope, direct from the manufacturing facility. US customers receive theirs via USPS, the rest of the world via Hong Kong Post. Inside the envelope the reader was neatly packaged, and the pack included the reader, a USB adapter for lap/desktop connectivity, and a keyring clip.

 

All the items were well made and well finished. The only exception was the tiny split ring for the keyring adapter, which was quite flimsy, but that was such an insignificant part of the package that I just replaced it with a better one for five cents. The cap clips onto the reader with a satisfying and tight click, and the reader is securely held. 

That led me to thinking that instead of hanging the reader from my keyring, I should hang the cap from the ring and clip the reader in/out of it as I used it. I punched a small hole in the cap, threaded the tiny keyring through it, and I am very happy with the modification. 

N.B. - Later Edit 

Do NOT hang the reader on your keyring as I described above. My reader came unclipped twice today and I almost lost it !! Use the tag provided on the body of the reader and pass the spring clip through that. Only use the ring to hang the cap from the clip when the reader is in use.

Getting To Grips with the Meenova

Having got it all ready to use, my next step was to rummage in the spares bin. Luckily I found an old 8Gb class 4 SD card to use for the first test. I slotted it into the reader, plugged the reader into the USB adapter and plugged all that into my trusty iMac.

Partitioning and formatting the card was quick, easy and there were no issues.  A nice touch is that USB connector on the reader is mounted in a raised, transparent, plastic "plinth" and from inside the casing a blue LED flashes to indicate any activity.

The Meenova is actually much smaller than it appears here

My first test was to load up my entire photo library from iPhoto to see what would happen. 2 Gb was a heavy enough load, and during the loading process I also deleted around 400 of the photos from the card during the load to see if that caused any issues. The process took a while, but there was no noticeable slowdown during the deletions and no data dropouts or corruption.

Following the successful upload I unmounted the device and plugged it into the USB port of my HTC One. The One immediately reported "Preparing USB storage, Please Wait" and then "USB storage is ready" which popped up almost too quickly for me to take the screen shots.

ES File Explorer, showed me that the USB was mounted automatically by the OS at the mount point /mnt/usb. On opening, Explorer already had the USB folder open and I was able to examine the contents just as I would any other part of the file system.

The next step in this little test was to open Gallery and look for the photos I uploaded. They had already been found by the Gallery app and the app was in the process of making them available. Once the photos folder had been opened in Gallery, the photos themselves did take some time to appear, but until I can get hold of a faster card I can only speculate on whether this was caused by the cheap, slow card, the reader, or the OTG/USP processing in the phone OS.

Gotcha !!!

After playing with it for a while I was ready to hang the reader back on my keyring and drop my One into it's slip case ... That was the only point at which I had an issue with the setup. In my haste, I just pulled the reader out of the USB socket and immediately received the notification "USB Storage unexpectedly removed" ...

Oops ... My Bad ... I had forgotten to unmount before removal!

I was only reading from the card so on this occasion it wasn't a painful experience, but no excuses ... some cards can be very sensitive to superblock corruption so it's never a sensible thing to just pull them out without first unmounting, and definitely not advisable following a write to the card.

Just to make sure I knew what to do in future, I reinserted the reader and went in search of the unmount action. I have to admit, I was naively expecting a bar in the notifications or settings pull-down with some obvious wording such as "USB/OTG storage - Click to unmount" ...

No such luck ... I eventually found the action buried in the basement !! ... It's actually in Settings->Storage->USB Storage->Unmount USB Storage.

For the sake of user convenience, I think there is a good case for smartphone manufacturers to do some rethinking about where that action should be placed. In my opinion, it belongs in a much more prominent position.

Third-Party Apps and the Meenova

Because of that one thing, I went in search of an OTG/USB third-party app to see if I could make the unmount a little more convenient. I tried two (see *** footnote) and both worked well. However, both of them were designed to manage the mount and unmount themselves. That is, they are set up to create a mount point and mount to/unmount from that point. When using these apps on the HTC One, the OS native mount is maintained in addition to the ones set up by the tool, so a final unmount will still need to be done from within the settings page.

If you have a phone with an OS which automatically mounts the OTG/USB storage, then don't bother with third-party apps. Just be sure you know how to unmount the device. If, on the other hand your OS doesn't automount the storage, but you have an OTG-aware kernel, then these third party apps can make your use of OTG devices easier.

OTG Compatibility

There is a list of known compatible devices on the Meenova web site, but in this rapidly changing world, the list may not be complete. In hard terms, the device is only a micro card reader, and the chipset is the same one that can be found in many regular readers, so the rule of thumb is that if your phone works with a cable and memory stick, either with native or third-party software, then the chance is good that it will work with a Meenova Reader as well.

On the general subject of OTG compatibility my advice is for you to research your phone carefully before buying anything. Not all versions of Android support OTG and manufacturer support can also very variable, even between model ranges from the same company. Don't just assume that because your phone is fairly new and your Android is 4.x then it will have OTG. Check it out.

Conclusion (for now)

Overall I am already satisfied with my $12 investment, and at this point I feel that I can recommend this device to anyone looking for a compact, handy, OTG/USB storage solution.

In Part Two (coming soon) I will take a closer look at the Meenova reader's performance with music and video files, and I will try to run a set of timing comparisons using Class 4 and class 10 Micro SD cards.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

---

*** The OTG Storage managers I tested were:

USB Storage Manager by Goprasoft
USB OTG Helper (Root) by Ray of Light

As for Meenova the company, the Kickstart project seems to have been a great success. Plenty of cash was raised to get the project onto a stable footing, and I have yet to read a negative comment about either the Meenova reader or the guys who set it all up. The initial seed stock has now been dispatched to all the original backers, and the company are now taking pre-orders for the next batch of devices.

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HTC Sense 5.5 busted! True screenshots of the incoming HTC UI

It's been some time since we have had HTC Sense 5.0 on the market. In the past few weeks this, considered by many as the best Android UI, also has been released for HTC One X and HTC One X+.

We already know for a few months, that HTC has already been working on the next version of their famous UI - HTC Sense 5.5. Some of the Sense 5.5 features are already present in the latest HTC One Android 4.3 build, however they are currently disabled in the framework.

Today, we present to you the first screenshots of the incoming HTC Sense 5.5 interface. If you are going to share this great news, please don't forget to include the source link too!

Home screen - now you can disable or enable HTC BlinkFeed easily.

Android Quick Settings - now you can re-arrange the content of the QS panel.

Improved HTC keyboard with possibility to add more emoticons.

Improved camera - "Dual capture" and "Panorama+", Storage and Recent Apps panel.

New HTC BlinkFeed categories, custom topics tab and minor changes to alarm clock.

Many more changes are of course under the hood, so expect improved performance and overall UI smoothness. Many bugs are also fixed, so the incoming HTC Sense 5.5 should bring a lot of joy for all HTC fans!

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HTC One vs. Apple iPhone 5s - comparison: part 2

The HTC One has received high praise in recent weeks, including the honors of smartphone of the year. For many, the One defines what a smartphone should be. It has a beautiful 4.7 inch 1080p display, elegant aluminum zero-gap build, loud and clear dual front facing boomsound speakers and user friendly Sense 5. The handset has dealt with stiff competition in recent months, with the iPhone 5s garnering a ton of hype.

Regardless, the One has stood on its own, as we delve into both handsets in part two of our two part comparison between the two handsets.

Check out more no nonsense tech at Technibility.com!

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HTC One won "Gadget of the Year" by T3

Since the release date, the HTC One has won almost every smartphone contest. It's won awards on many sites because of its unique design and great performance in conjunction with my favourite Android custom UI - HTC Sense. Now, months after the launch event in London, the HTC One has won yet another slew of awards - T3 Gadget of the Year, T3 Phone of the Year and finally T3 Design Award 2013! We are not hiding the fact that we are not surprised!

"The HTC One is a product designed to save a company in financial trouble – and it seems HTC’s design and engineering team work well with their backs against the wall.

This Android phone is the best product HTC has ever built, with a gorgeously thin, reassuringly rigid aluminium body bonded to the 4.7-inch screen by a technique that doesn't leave a single gap. And speaking of the screen, it’s eyeball-piercingly sharp, with a 1080p full HD resolution and Retina display-spanking pixel density of 468ppi. It’s one of a handful of phones that can be mentioned in the same breath as the iPhone when it comes to looks and build quality.

Performance is no less impressive, with the quad-core processor blazing through tasks with nary a trace of lag and the 4MP Ultrapixel camera serving up some of the finest snaps we've ever seen from a smartphone."

Source: Awards T3

Android Revolution HD in courtesy of HTC is giving away brand new HTC One to the lucky winner of the giveaway #RevolutionChange contest. Don't miss it!

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HTC One vs. Apple iPhone 5s - comparison: part 1

The HTC One was released earlier this year a midst a fair amount of hype and anticipation. The handset has seemingly brought HTC back into the forefront of mobile technology, to the point where Robert Downey Jr. is now their marketing star. Apple has refreshed the iPhone with the 5s, and its popularity continues to rise year after year. Competition has grown substantially, with various manufacturers releasing great smartphones set to compete in every major market. So how has HTC continued to stand out against the crowd? With its build quality and gorgeous display.

HTC placed an emphasis on build quality, providing the same type of aluminium material found on the iPhone 5 and now the 5s. Without delving too deep into its multitude of features, below is a video comparison of the HTC One and Apple’s newest flagship, the iPhone 5s. Both phones provide unique experiences and are worthy competitors against one another. 

Check out more no nonsense tech at Technibility.com!

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Give-away! Win a brand new HTC One!

Edit: 9.10.2013

The contest is now closed. I'm trying to reach the first randomly selected person to confirm if he (yes, it's "he") has a Twitter account and he entered the contest properly.

If he won't answer me within next 24 hours I will pick another winner. Stay tuned and check your Google Hangouts ;)

Here comes another give-away! This time the winner will get a brand new HTC One. Previously, a brand new HTC One X+ in a limited white colour went to Barry.

This give-away is international, which means everyone from around the world can enter and win! HTC One is also supported by Android Revolution HD on XDA Developers Forum under this link.

Why HTC One?

Because it's still the best Android device you can find on the market. HTC partnered with Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ) on a series of #HTChange videos that only he could come up with. To enter the contest, you need to visit first a short RDJ change video  available here - http://s.htc.com/1fKG6Rr

Rules

1. Watch this video - http://s.htc.com/1fKG6Rr
2. In the comments section beneath this post answer one of these two questions:
1. what would you like to change in the Android OS?
2. what was the most important change in your life? You might use just a few words, but you might come up with a whole story too.
3. Share this give-away announcement on Twitter (short link: http://goo.gl/Hfq5d2) using the #RevolutionChange hashtag - this is very important for us to see you actually entered the contest!

The winner will be picked randomly on Wednesday, October 9th 2013.

Prize

As mentioned above, it's a brand new HTC One in a variant of your choice (GSM or GSM+LTE).

Good luck everyone!

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

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