
Samsung Galaxy Grand
I’m pretty excited about this brand new mobile phone, Samsung Galaxy Grand five inch “phablet” , which I bought yesterday. Well, technically I didn’t buy it with cash, for say, but rather through my credit line.
The phone was priced at 11,990 baht, about 400 US dollars, and I took advantage of a First Choice credit card promotion, which allows me to pay for the phone in 6 installments of just under 2000 baht, with the first installment due early May.
Leading up to the purchase, over the last several months, I was looking to buy a mini tablet sized phone (phablet), preferably a 7 inch model. I had my eye on the 2nd generation Tab 2, 7.0, which came out early last year.
But I held back from buying it on the fore-knowledge that Samsung is getting ready to release a 3rd generation (Tab 3) tab sometime early this year. So, I decided to wait.
The main reason I wanted a newer model is because of the latest advancements in the Android operating system. Particularly, Android 4.1 or Jellybean, which has Google Now, which allows one to download its voice recognition software onto local their local device.
This means that you can use speech recognition or voice input typing, with or without a data connection. In fact, this entire post up to this point was composed by me talking to my new phone on the way to work this morning, while stopped at various traffic lights.
After composing the above memo, I simply emailed it to myself for edit on a computer. The voice recognition speech to type function was pretty accurate – I’d say about 90% if I had to give a number, with proper nouns causing the most inaccuracies. I imagine it is trainable for specific words, which I’ll look into later.
Also, it would probably be wise to start using hands free microphone for this function, so that I can talk while driving steadily. The idea is to become more efficient on the go, as far as recording thoughts, memos and work related content.
Well, in the coming days, weeks and months, will be planning to write some more reflections and reviews using and about this new technology device, which I’m quite pleased with at the moment.



One of the best TV shows of all time, in the Siamerican’s humble opinion, is a Sci-fi series called Quantum Leap. Comprising a total of five seasons, the show is about a quantum physicist in the near- future (though our present time as the show was filmed in the 80s), who has designed a special time traveling machine that he has wired his own brain into. 
