[Rant] Really love the power of LTE on the iPhone 5S

Whoa, it's been two months since I've bought the iPhone 5S. Time flies, isn't it?

When the iPhone 5S arrived in Japan, I quickly dumped the iPhone 4S which I had been using for almost two years. I didn't even wait till its contract ended. The main reason for it was because I had had enough of the crappy 3G speeds that I got with the phone. The culprit is not the phone but Softbank's network.

When the iPhone 5 came out a year ago, SoftBank upgraded their network to support LTE. When I checked the performance of it at the SoftBank shop near work place, I got great speeds but it was not consistent. For some reason, every once in a while, the webpage load times got worse than what I got with the iPhone 4S. So I was skeptical at first. Would that be the case with the iPhone 5S.

[Rant] Finally managed to sell the Dell Latitude 10 Essentials tablet

The story so far…

Part 1: Found out that recovery was broken after upgrading to Windows 8.1

Part 2: Reinstalling Windows

Part 3: Making a Recovery Partition (failed attempt)

Part 4: Making the Recovery Partition (Success!)

Last Saturday (16th of November) was a working day. But I took the day off. No, it wasn't so that I can go and sell the tablet. But because I couldn't do with just one day off per week.

However, I did go out to sell the tablet on that day. We went to Akihabara. This was my wife’s second visit and my 5th or 6th.

I figured that Dospara (ドスパラパーツ館) would give me the most return for the tablet. Sofmap only offered me ¥15,000 for it. Dospara had estimated ¥20,000 about 3 weeks ago when I asked them. Sure, they wouldn't abide by that after three weeks. They estimate it for 3 days. But I knew it wouldn't drop to the ¥15,00 mark. Plus, they were giving an additional 10% for tablets these days. So at best, I could get ¥22,000.

So I went to the place and wrote my name on the list and waited till they called me. It took about 15 minutes because the person before me had a whole PC brought for assessment. Of course they don't assess then and there, but they had to check all the components present in the PC and give the customer an estimate of what he would get at the best case. If there are any internal defects, damages to the exterior or missing original accessories, they would further reduce the money they would pay otherwise.

[Rant] I've had enough with the Apple EarPods

Some time back, my Zagg Smart Buds broke. I didn't buy a new set of ear buds because I was going to get the iPhone 5S a couple of months after, and they should come with Apple's redesigned EarPods which were first announced with the iPhone 5. Until then, I used the old ear buds that came with my iPhone 4S.

When the iPhone 5S came out, I upgraded as early as possible. I've had the iPhone 5S for about 2 months now. That means, I've been using the Apple EarPods for about 2 months. And they suck!

There were two big issues with the old ear buds. They don't stay fit and the audio quality is bad.

The new ones are better in terms of the audio quality (but worse than a proper set of ear buds). However, although they are designed to fit in the ears better than the old one, for me, that hasn’t been the case. They fall so easily when I walk and ride the bike. I cannot turn the head without them coming off. Sucks!

Which means, I need a new set of ear buds!

There are two options for me.

One, get a new pair of Zagg Smart buds. I should wait for the Black Friday deals though. That’s only one more week to go, if I am not mistaken. Zagg is known to come up with nice Black Friday deals. The only issue is that I will still have to pay for shipping. And I would have a hard time claiming warranty in case they broke because I will have to send them back which costs money! Sadness. Too bad they don't sell Zagg products in Japan There was a Japanese store a while back, but not anymore. Amazon is selling a handful of products, but they don't have the SmartBuds.