Oct 05

So the apple conference came and went. No word on the iPhone 5 yet, but apple did officially announce the iPhone 4S, an improved iPhone 4 that may just be worth the upgrade. So what are these major improvements to an already popular iPhone edition? Voice. It seems the next generation of smart phones are really pushing voice control and the iPhone 4S touts Siri, an advance voice recognition software. In the testing room many people got to try out this new software and one of the first things many people tried to do was slip it up. The folks over at Engadget.com asked it weird requests “We tried to psych it out with a bunch of random requests, including the history of Chester, Vermont (a lovely town) and the best Ramen places in San Francisco. Siri never faltered, never missed a beat.”

Google may have had the first step into the future of Near Frequency Technology, but Apple now has their foot out the door with advance voice controls. No matter what people threw at the new Siri software it seemed to keep up with them almost every time. Voice control may seem like a minor thing until you try it out, I get slight chills every time I am able to control movies on my Xbox 360 via the Kinect voice controls like characters did with their computer on Star Trek. But voice controls aren’t the only thing the new iPhone 4S is packing!

The iPhone 4S has quite the hardware, like the apple A5 dual-core processor, making menu navigation and app start ups appear much quicker. Not only does the iPhone have a new processor, it also has a new camera. The iPhone 4 had a 5MP camera with 720p video capture. The new iPhone 4S has a 8MP camera and 1080p video capture. When being tried out in the test rooms, it appeared the camera had better resolution, but it was difficult to tell if it was better at capturing images. The room was, apparently, inadequate for testing such a thing, so we will have to wait for hands on reviews of the camera to find out if it has improved in capturing as well. The battery has taken a bit of a downgrade, though that can be blamed on the new hardware. In standby, the iPhone 4S lasts about 200 hours, which is 100 less than the iPhone 4. Depending on what you do for a living, and how often you charge your phone, this may be an issue.

Already, people are beginning to trade in their iPhone 4′s for the upcoming iPhone 4S, even though the iPhone 5 may be just around the corner. The new iPhone 4S will retail from $199 for the 16GB model, to $399 for the 64GB model. If you’re looking to update to the iPhone 4S and want to get rid of your iPhone 4, you can trade in your old iPhone 4 with us at TheBlueDot.net

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Oct 03

So it seems some department stores are already hanging up their Christmas decorations, and you know what that means! That’s right, new gadgets being announced and released rapid fire for the next couple months. We here at TheBlueDot.net are passionate about all things electronic, so we wanted to show off the few new goodies we are keeping our eyes on.

Kindle Fire

The iPad has been dominating the tablet market even though there are dozens of other cheaper tablets to choose from. The problem was there wasn’t a big marketable name slapped on to the other tablets to compete with such a powerful brand. This is where Amazon and the Kindle Fire comes in. Touting the Android OS, the Kindle Fire (priced at a comfortable $199) may actually shake things up a bit in the tablet world. It has the Kindle brand behind it, and the price point is two fifths the price of the iPad. Why spend $500 on a tablet you may or may not use when you can get one for $200 that may do the exact same thing. It only boasts 8GB of storage, but with the ability to sync your data online it may not matter. We here at TheBlueDot can’t wait to get our hands on it and give it a whirl.

iPhone 5

Of course Apple has something around the corner, they always do. Apple has yet to announce the iPhone 5, or even release many details on their new phone. But everyone has been making guesses on what it may have, and what it probably will have. A better camera, better screen, Near Communication Technology and much much more. We don’t have much information on this up coming phone, like everyone else. But we will be keeping a close eye on the official announcement. Before the announcement, and after, you cantrade in your old iPhones to TheBlueDot to help with your new iPhone purchase.

Microsoft updates

though these are separate things, they are both much needed updates. The Kinect has been a hot buy for the XBox 360, even though it lacks a library. The biggest fault though is in it’s lack of interface with the 360 dashboard. The Kinect Dashboard is incredibly limited, leaving almost no reason to wave at your device and use it over a controller. But that may soon change within the next few months. Massive updates to the software will add more menu options and , hopefully, better video control.

The other update coming out of Microsoft is Mango for the Windows phones. That’s right, there is another smart phone OS choice out there, just not one that has made any waves, until now. The Mango update has an alleged 500 feature additions, which is just too many to list here. The biggest change is to it’s better social media integration, which is a must have in the smart phone world. Reviews are already starting to spill out, so give them a look and consider the Windows OS phones when looking for a new phone.

Ice Cream Sandwich

No, not the dessert, the OS update for Android. Well, not all Androids. All Androids released this past year (and a few beyond) will be getting the much anticipated update by Google. Ice Cream Sandwich hasn’t been released yet, but leaks have made their way to the general public. Most f the updates seem to be superficial, but there are a few menu updates and multitasking updates that many will be happy to see. We’ll wait for a bit more information, but so far none of the Google updates have let us down.

 

We’ll try to keep you all updated as more and more news trickles out on all these devices and updates.

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Sep 23

So how is everyone liking their new iPhone 5′s? Oh? They’re not out yet? Well that’s not stopping the sudden spike (some as high as 85%) of iPhone 4 trade-ins to all phone refurbishing companies. Everyone is anticipating the official announcement of the iPhone 5, by Apple, this coming October. With this being the longest lull in iPhone additions, it seems many people just can’t wait to upgrade. But why trade in now? Why not wait until the iPhone 5 actually comes out? And what does this mean for people who don’t mind having the previous addition of the iPhone?

When it comes to why people may be trading in their iPhone 4′s it may simply be anticipating the price drop. This isn’t always true, and once the iphone 5 is announced the trade-in price for the iPhone 4 will remain stable for a little bit. But this is great news for other people!

How is this great news? Well, with so many iPhone 4 trade-ins coming in, that means there will be more used and refurbished iPhone 4′s for people not worried about being current on everything. The iPhones work perfectly, and considering their price when new, most are taken care of like they’re gold! So when someone with an iPhone 3 wants to finally upgrade, they have a great, cheaper option than jumping the hype wagon and getting the new 5′s. In fact, if you’re interested in an iPhone 4 they are available now at our online store at TheBlueDot.

So what kind of improvements should Apple fans expect with the upcoming iPhone 5? Of course, no official announcements have been made until October 5th, but even before that date there is news of manufacturing problems. That won’t stop the unprecedented demand obviously. But what are fans expecting? After scouring the web and digging through a few forums it seems most fans want five very important things.

One of those things is better connectivity. The iPhone 4 didn’t have much of a problem connecting, but in the world of technology there is always room for improvement. Along with better connectivity is a larger screen. Most Apple fans anticipate this because of the release, and success, of the iPad and iPad 2. With better connectivity customers will want to be able to watch movies and tv shows easily and with a bigger screen that just makes it even easier. Not to mention better resolution. Cameras have also become synonymous with cell phones. Nothing gets missed, as evident by the number of youtube videos, with cell phone cameras. So most fans are begging for a better camera for video and pictures. The iPhone 4′s camera was great, with many options and great video resolution.  But, again, with technology things just get better and better.

This is all simply speculation at this point. Apple is notorious for keeping secrets, especially the last few weeks before the big announcement. At the moment, only glimpses of the iPhone 5 case has been revealed, and even those are questionable at best. Two things we can be sure of though is that the iPhone 5 will create lines of people outside every Apple store. The second thing we know is that people perfectly happy with getting an iPhone 4 will have great deals available to them before and after it’s official announcement.

We are buying the iphone 4 for cash in mass quantities. Check out our Trade-in page for more details at – http://www.thebluedot.net/tradein for an actual dollar amount for your device.

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