Phablets: Several big-screen phones of note
David Einstein
Q: I've been thinking about getting a
smartphone with a really big screen for viewing photos and Skyping my daughter,
who is studying in Europe. The only phone I know about is the Samsung Galaxy
Note. Are there any other models that I should consider?
A: There are. With the Note, introduced in 2011,
Samsung showed there was a big market for phablets (what you get when you breed
a phone with a tablet). Today, there's a good selection of phones with screens
larger than 5 inches. Samsung's latest offering, the Note 3, has a 5.7-inch
display, Asus has announced the 6-inch Fonepad Note 6, and Sony sells the
Xperia Z Ultra (big name for a big phone), with a screen measuring almost
6.5 inches.
But wait, there's more. HTC is getting ready to release the
One Max, with a 5.9-inch screen, which could be the leading contender to take
on the Samsung Note 3 as king of the phablets.
One of the best uses of a phablet is to shoot and view
photos, so naturally they have pretty good cameras. For instance, the Samsung
Note 3's camera boasts 13 megapixels, while the HTC One Max will have the
company's "UltraPixel" technology, which entails fewer but larger
pixels that produce excellent photos. The Sony
Xperia Z Ultra is no slouch either, sporting an 8-megapixel camera
with an advanced image sensor.
Q: I would like to know how to cancel an
e-mail account. I have Yahoo Mail, but since they made some changes to their
system I just don't want to be bothered. How do I make that e-mail address
disappear? As you may have guessed, I am not a computer techie and a lot of
what goes on is beyond me.
A: Way beyond, I'd say. E-mail services like
Yahoo and Gmail have Help sections that can walk you through most issues,
including canceling your account. But as long as we're talking about it, here's
how: Sign on to your account and go to Help under Options (the gear icon at the
upper right).
Search for "cancel account," and the first thing
listed should be Account Termination, with a "Start Wizard" button.
As Jack
Lemmon instructed Peter
Falk in "The Great Race," "Push the
button, Max!"
By the way, if you do nothing - that is, you never sign on
to your Yahoo account - it will automatically be deactivated after a year.
And for all you Gmail users, here's how to cancel your
account now that you know Google scans your mail so it can barrage you with
targeted ads: With your account open, click the user icon at the upper right,
then click Account. In the Accounts page, click Products in the list at the
left, and in the following page, click Edit next to "Your products."
You'll see an option to "Remove Gmail permanently."
Q: You recently wrote about microchips for
dogs. That got me thinking. When do you envision us humans having microchips
implanted so that we may be better controlled and exploited?
A: I don't know about control and exploitation,
but it won't be too long before chips and sensors inside the body become an
important part of health care.
Google, for instance, has talked about a chip implanted in
the brain that can help quadriplegics get around just by using thoughts to move
a wheelchair in a certain direction at a certain speed. And Proteus Digital
Health is working on creating a sensor that can be placed inside pills you
take. Once inside your body, the sensor will communicate vital information
about how your body responds to the medicine.
Although I wouldn't worry about the government using
microchips to control people, I can envision a time when everyone could have a
(voluntary) implant containing identification like driver's license, Social
Security and passport numbers, along with information about medical
conditions and emergency contacts.
Q: I leave my laptop computer plugged in all
the time. A friend told me that this will ruin the computer's battery. He said
I should run the laptop on battery power and only plug it in to recharge it. It
seems to me that leaving it plugged in shouldn't hurt the battery. Who is right
on this?
A: You are. Leaving your laptop plugged in won't
hurt the battery. In fact, it will prolong its life, because lithium ion
batteries wear down after you recharge them a few hundred times.
Batteries naturally lose power, even when the device is
turned off. By keeping your laptop plugged in, you are "trickle
charging" the battery, keeping it up to snuff.
David
Einstein is a freelance writer. Got a question about personal
technology? E-mail:einstein.dave@gmail.com
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