Want to earn more money? Here is the new trick…
March 26, 2021
Presenting from iToons with special thanks to Sunil Agarwal & Ajit Ninan from syncNscan.
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The Delicate Smartphone.
March 18, 2021
Smartphones have become powerful and indispensable but at the same time, they are still delicate and sensitive. Couple that with the fact, that they are with you almost all the times such as during travel, in the kitchen, in the stadium or in movie theatre, they are very prone to accidents.
Here are some of unexpected circumstances where a smartphone can be damaged unexpectedly:
Party/Discotheque. While in clubs, people keep the phone easily accessible so that they can take selfies quickly. They are kept in upper shirt pocket, or outer pocket of the purse. This makes them vulnerable to getting dropped easily. Now even if your smartphone survives the drop, chances are high that someone will step on them on the crowded dance floor. And if that someone is wearing stilettos then your phone screen doesn’t stand a chance.
Kitchen. It’s very common for people to talk while they are doing their chores. One such place is the kitchen which is a very dangerous place for a smartphone. The cooking fire, water, sharp objects such as knives and the heavy utensils, are dangerous for your phone. If it’s near fire or hot pan for long, it will get damaged from extreme heat. If you drop water on it and don’t notice it for a while, the water can seep in through earplug opening, charging port, speaker holes etc. If it comes under a heavy utensil, it will be damaged. Besides, small crumbs and spices have a habit of getting lodged into small holes, which will certainly affect its performance.
Sports field. While playing cricket or football, if the ball hits the phone, there’s very little chance that the phone will survive. Even if you drop it on the field, the chances that someone will step on it in the heat of the game and break it, are very high.
Pets, Animals. For some reason, animals seem to like chewing smartphones. There are ample of stories where a pet dog chewed its owner’s smartphone. It’s perhaps the vibrating movement and flashing lights that appeal to the instincts of animals and make them look as an easy prey. If any edible item (such as a sauce or something) is dropped and not cleaned off, then the residual smell attracts all sort of animals to it. When an animal chews on your phone with its strong jaws, the phone is beyond repairs.
There are many other such instances which look like innocent situations, but are dangerous for your smartphone.
It’s always best to take precautions.
a. Keep your phone protected with a good cover.
b. Keep it well secured inside purse or in front pockets of your trousers where it’s less likely to get dropped.
c. Lastly, be vigilant. You need to look after your phone like any other accessory. Keep it safe and be careful while carrying it in sensitive environments.
d. Buy syncNscan – Your Smartphone Protection Plan. It provides phone insurance which covers physical damage & liquid damage.
A large number of cell phones are recycled every year. You save a lot of important information like contacts, messages, personal photos, personal videos, official or personal documents, etc in your phone, which you would not want to be leaked to anyone.
So, if you are concerned about your Mobile Protection, follow the below mentioned security measures, before handing it over for recycling or selling it.
(i) Backup Your Phone Data:
You carry everything on your phone, whether it’s your business or personal calendars, your email Ids, your photos, videos and most importantly your banking details. You should take back up of your complete phone data either onto Cloud or to any computer, before handing it to over to anyone.
You can also use syncNscan for Data Backup feature to back up unlimited data. It also allows doing Data Restore back to your new phone
(ii) Remove External Hardware:
Before handing over your phone to anyone, don’t forget to remove any external hardware part such as SIM card or an external memory card because factory reset will surely wipe your phone data but this operation will not be performed to this external hardware, without any additional settings.
(iii) Encrypt Your Phone Data:
You can enable Encryption on your Android phone by going to Settings > Security > Encrypt phone. It is by default enabled in iOS devices. You also have an option of encrypting the SD card. Do that only if you plan for handing over the SD card along with the device.
This feature helps to encrypt all the information stored on your Smartphone, which can only be decrypted using your device’s encryption key.
(iv) Perform Factory Reset:
The motive behind doing a factory reset is to restore your phone back to the condition, it was in when you purchased it for the first time. This is usually a simple procedure, however, can be different for different devices.
To reset your phone, you can go to:
Android: Apps > Settings > Privacy > Factory information reset.
iPhone: Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings
The problem that can arise with a factory reset is that it doesn’t remove data from the device, it just makes it possible to be overwritten, which means although the data is not available instantly, it can be recoverable by people who know what they are searching for.
(v) Add Waste Content in Your Phone and Reset Again:
At whatever point, when you erase any document from your smartphone, it can be restored by one or the other method.
To overcome this issue, what you can do is, you can first put some dummy or not so important content onto your phone and then reset it. This will overwrite your old personal and important data. Even if anybody tries to recover your phone data, that dummy data will be recovered, and not your personal data.
Google just launched Pixel 3a and 3a XL by saying that this series contains almost similar capabilities, as they have been provided in Pixel 3 and 3 XL, but with a huge difference in price.
Let’s talk about some of the differences, based upon the design features and prices of both the series:
Price: The Pixel 3a series starts from around 40K, WHEREAS Pixel 3 series starts from around 54K, making them quite a bit more expensive than the mid-rangers. Refer Fig.1 below.
Fig.1
Design: The Pixel 3, 3 XL, 3a and 3a XL are almost similar from the back, with a two-toned rear fingerprint sensor, but we can differentiate them with the color of their power buttons. Also, the material used to create them is different.
Where Google made Pixel 3 and 3 XL with an expensive glass and metal, Pixel 3a and 3a are built with polycarbonate material, instead of the glass and metal combination.
The Pixel 3A series are larger and heavier than the Pixel 3 series.
Fig.2
Processor: The Pixel 3a and 3a XL have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 processor with 4GB RAM, while the leaders run on Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with 4GB RAM.
The Pixel 3A series are not that powerful, but they should still be capable.
Camera: Despite the fact that the back camera equipment is the same between the Pixel 3a & 3a XL and the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, the mid-range devices just have one front camera rather than two like in case of Pixel 3 & 3 XL. They additionally don’t have the Group Selfie usefulness like there in Pixel 3 and 3 XL.
Fig.3
The Pixel 3a and 3a XL have a solitary 8-megapixel camera with 1.12µm pixels, an f/2.0 gap and an 84-degree field of view, whereas, the Pixel 3 and 3 XL have double 8-megapixel front cameras with a wide-point focal point and a zooming focal point.
Hardware: The latest Pixel 3A series has 3.5mm headphone jack and USB Type-C for charging, whereas Pixel 3 series has no 3.5mm headphone jack and has only USB Type-C for charging.
Fig.4
Battery: The Pixel 3a and 3a XL both come with larger batteries than their more expensive siblings. Where the Pixel 3 XL comes with 3,430mAh & the Pixel 3 comes with 2915mAh battery, the Pixel 3a XL has 3,700mAh & the Pixel 3A has 3000mAh capacity.
Based on the overall differences mentioned above, it is difficult to not to recommend the Pixel 3A & the Pixel 3A XL for the purchase. They offer many of the same camera capabilities as the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, including Google’s Night Sight, whilst also delivering the same RAM, Android Pie experience and a similar design, at the lowest costs.
They do drop the processing power a little and the screen resolution & display design in the case of the XL model, but at the same time, they have reintroduced a headphone jack, larger batteries, that too at almost half of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL’s original prices.
While you are purchasing these newly launched devices, do not forget to purchase mobile insurance online to keep it safe & secure!