This Is Why I Test

I get grief for scrounging tablet time at stores, running my Google Books PDF tests.

“Just buy something!” people yell.

There are things that can be known only by having hands-on time before spending money.

And then there are things that can be known only by having hands-on time with two devices at the same time.

That’s what the video after the break does. It pits the iFive Mini 3 against the Teclast P89 Mini.

Lucha Libro: The Future Gets Worse For Writers

Peru makes book writing into a spectator sport and invites aspiring writers into combat

Harlan Ellison would write in the window of a bookstore, so passerby could see there was nothing mystical or mysterious about writing.

But Peru is taking it to a whole new level.

And I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that Mark Burnett or Simon Cowell have read that story and are prepping the series Writer Survivor or American Writing Idol for airing.

Or even worse: Jeff Bezos has called them to pitch such a series.

Maybe change those titles to Kindle Writer Survivor and Amazon Writing Idol…

Scribd Offers eBooks By Monthly Fee

Scribd launches first global, multi-platform digital book subscription service

Go here to get a look at all of the available books.

There are over thirty publishers involved.

For many people, this will probably be a good deal, even if they read just two books a month. But that’s not the average American, who reads far fewer than that.

I’m not sure if this is for me yet. I’d really feel the pressure to read, to squeeze every penny out of that monthly fee. Not that that’s a bad thing, but there are some times when I get burned out on reading — yet I’d still have to keep up that fee every month. And then feel even more pressure to squeeze out those lost pennies.

Second Video Of Ramos K1 Tablet

This is from another seller. And again it’s the “Black Edition” of the K1 (ugh).

This time the video is from Russia. The narration is Russian but the video is still worth seeing.

Samsung Caught In AnTuTu Cheating

Note 3’s benchmarking “adjustments” inflate scores by up to 20%

The file we ended up with is called “DVFSHelper.java,” and it contains a hard-coded list of every package that is affected by the special CPU boosting mode. According to this file, the function is used exclusively for benchmarks, and it seems to cover all the popular ones. There’s Geekbench, Quadrant, Antutu, Linpack, GFXBench, and even some of Samsung’s own benchmarks. The two functions applied to this list seem to be “PACKAGES_FOR_BOOST_ALL_ADJUSTMENT,” which is no doubt the CPU booster, and “PACKAGES_FOR_LCD_FRAME_RATE_ADJUSTMENT,” which makes it sound like the phone is also altering the display frame rate.

Really, what the hell is the point of cheating?

If you’re so confident in the value of your product, let the damned benchmarks speak for themselves.

And people will always — always! — turn to benchmarks as a buying guide. If it wasn’t for benchmarks, I would have never discovered the lower boundary for my own hardware needs.

Previously here:

AnTuTu X Vs. Onda V812
AnTuTu X: Re-Score Everything!
Allwinner A31s AnTuTu Score Inflation
Chinese CPU Maker Actions Caught In AnTuTu Score Fraud
I’m Disgusted With China’s Cheating
Allwinner: Fraud Inside?
Latest A31s AnTuTu Scores Are Confounding
AnTuTu 3.4 Vs. 4.0
AnTuTu 4.0 Is Coming

Seven Bleeping Years

I got this Notification today from WordPress:

I wouldn’t have otherwise known. I don’t mark the date.

This was my first post.

Yes, lots of bile has flowed in those years.

I can’t say I’m happy with … oh, ninety-nine percent of it.

But still.

It continues.

AnTuTu X Vs. Onda V812

A forum poster recounts his AnTuTu scoring experience with his Onda V812 tablet [Google English].

The Onda V812 uses a 1.2Ghz quad-core Allwinner A31 (not A31s) CPU and has an eight-inch 1024 x 768 screen.