Dave Zatz 
My T-Mobile honeymoon has long since passed, with the day-to-day reality of life on a second-rate carrier having set in. Of course, your mileage may vary as cell coverage is highly dependent upon locale (or building composition). For me, T-Mobile has provided an extremely frustrating experience with perhaps, ironically, superior coverage roaming overseas partners versus native networks here at home — with the majority of my calls dropping. On the occasions I have coverage to initiate one.
As Verizon declares its FiOS Quantum TV rollout complete, fellow Northern Virginian Ananth Sarathy shares his initial experience with the new whole-home DVR. He’s also kindly agreed to take questions in the comments — perhaps he’ll even be able to explain Verizon’s obtuse pricing.
I’ve had the new Quantum DVR for about a week now. The interface is the familiar FiOS interface that we’re used to, for better or worse. It doesn’t seem to have yet received the recent UI upgrade and is missing a few elements, such as the autotune to HD feature. The boxes do use the same FiOS remotes as before, so I’ve stuck with my existing ones, and didn’t need to program them, which is nice. But I kind of wish they had upgraded to a remote that could control AV system volume as well.
As Samsung continues to hedge against Google/Android reliance and standardize across disparate product lines, while perhaps avoiding Microsoft royalties, the company has expanding the Tizen OS initiative beyond smart watches and to connected televisions. Via Liliputing: Samsung’s Tizen-based TV SDK Beta will be available early July following the Tizen Developer Conference in San Francisco from June 2–4th. The Tizen-based Samsung … Read more
Well here’s an interesting promo should you lack for both a TV streamer and tablet. Amazon has paired their new Fire TV with the 7″ Kindle Fire HDX tablet for $249, which clocks in $79 cheaper than purchasing each separately. While the Fire TV remains somewhat app poor, the platform has grown on me and we’ve enjoyed dozens of … Read more
While I can’t say the above TiVo Mini packaging is brand spanking new, I do frequent Best Buy and this is the first time I’ve seen funkadelic Roamio branding applied to other devices in TiVo’s arsenal. Beyond a bolder “TiVo” font and updated graphical elements, 6-tuner and Roamio DVRs are now referenced. Of course, I fully expected this day … Read more