JBL Flip – Quality Sound for Half the price!

DudeMusic, Review, Technology Leave a Comment

While I was in the states i was looking for  a small portable Bluetooth speaker I can use when watching movies on my tablet, something similar to The Beats Pill Speaker (by Dr. Dre), but i wasn’t really keen on spending $200 on speakers. So i went into Radio Shack and the guys told me that the JBL Flip just came out, tried it in the store and purchased it instantly! For around $99 you can’t go wrong, 5 hour battery life, built in microphone for voice conferencing, great sound. The only downside is the unconventional charger ( not usb or micro USB) which you have to take with you everywhere. Other than that, it has great sound, can be placed both horizontally or vertically, you can control the volume on the speaker and you can answer calls directly from the speaker itself!

The Three control buttons on the JBL Flip :

This is the main disadvantage a 12V power adapter for charging, would’ve been nice to be able to charge it using the Sumsung’s battery charger, but it came with it’s own adapter, this means carrying more and more wires in your bag. 

It Also comes with a protective pouch, however no place for the adapter which does not make great sense!

An AUX in port, if you decide you didn’t want to use Bluetooth :

 

For more information on the JBL Flip check it out here. 

NB: According to some reviewers on amazon, try to get a newer model (post March 2013, with a serial number above GG0054-189100) – > mines was in the 700000 range).

The Saudi Arabian Airlines Experience

DudeKuwait, Review, Technology, Travel 2 Comments

Last month I had to book a flight to the states in quite a last minute basis, we looked around and somehow i ended up in the Saudi Airlines page. 

SaudiArabianAirline_A330

I read some review on some Arabic forums but couldn’t really get a lot of information and they only downside that was to it was that they said it sometimes really got delayed, other than that no one mentioned anything about the quality. 

Lets start from the most important question, was it cheap/expensive ?

It was average, for a flight from Kuwait to Washington (IAD) they had a good offer which compared to KLM and United was the cheapest you can get + they had more reservation timings which were a lot more suitable for us. 

Route options : 

That was the main hiccup in our journey, the plane has to go through Riyadh or Jeddah Airport, which based on our experience was a little tiresome. We had to stay 9 hours in Riyadh (booked in Qurtoba furnished apartments – very new and clean – will review soon). Then unannounced we somehow transited into Jeddah (which was totally not on the flight manifest when we booked) and then we headed to the states. The total trip time was the same, but they did not mention we will be transiting into Jeddah. 

The return flight was totally opposite, we flew from IAD to Riyadh and 2-2.5 hours transit in Riyadh and directly to Kuwait, it was a lot more comfortable. 

Spacing:

Economy seats were quite spacious (compared to KLM and United) and the legroom was good : 

Food: 

The food was another advantage, you’d guarantee it was islamic and cooked in the same manner as it would be in the region + it actually was ok!

 

The Entertainment: 

Well, from Kuwait to Saudi and Saudi To kuwait, there was no entertainment, because the plane was as big as a bus, no screens at all. But from Kuwait to the states and back i was quite amazed at the quality of the movies they had and the amount of new movies. One other thing i really liked was that they censored the movies! I though this was a great advantage Especially on a plane, where there might be a child or a very conservative person that might be annoyed sitting next to you, you can watch a movie without having to worry. 

 

One more nice gesture were the children’s gifts sets and airplane kits which they gave out for free for all the children, very nice of them and showed they really cared, my kids loved them  :

 

I would highly recommend SA Airlines to anyone, however you have to check the travel times and transit wait times, as this can either make it a good opportunity or really a very bad experience. It would be nice if they had shorter wait times Saudi Arabia, but other than that they were really good, going through KSA was also easy and Riyadh airport was ok (might even be better than Kuwait airport in terms of size and cleanliness). If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

 

 

 

BMW 4 Series or Jaguar’s new F-Type?

DudeCars 4 Comments

 

 

My brother is looking for a new car and I’ve recently seen the BMWs advertisement on a magazine and decided to share my thoughts with you, apparently he’s interested in Jaguar’s new F-type shown in the following video:

What do you guys think?

 

 

New Android 4.3 for Samsung Galaxy S4 !

DudeAnnouncements, Computers & Electronics, General 2 Comments

I’m currently using the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE (from Zain) and I received an update notification regarding the new android 4.3 update for Samsung Galaxy S4. 

So far I can’t really tell the difference, better color, yes, I haven’t installed Knox as its mainly for the corporate environment, and i didn’t want to fill my phone up, feels a little faster and more fluid. Will update you in the following days.

 

To check for updates for your phone, all you have to do is go to : Settings -> More -> About Device -> Software Update

Offroad Season Officially Started!

DudeCars, Kuwait, Technology Leave a Comment

It’s that time of the year again, where we run away from all the technology and everyday comfort looking for sand dunes, and great places to camp out and BBQ. I know we might not have a lot of places to go, but we try to make the best out of it!

Here are a couple of photos from our last couple of days out, I haven’t really taken a lot of photos, I wasn’t in the mood for dragging a camera around, sometimes you just miss out on all the fun. 

These photo’s were taken by my friend @thba7_esh3em

Are you Upgrading to the new iPhone 5c or 5s?

DudeTechnology, Telecomm Leave a Comment

A couple of days ago, Zain launched the new iPhones with quite challenging prices and packages! I’m sure you’ve seen the specs 1000 times, lets talk about pricing!

http://instagram.com/p/gJWJMTLI8c/
http://instagram.com/p/gJXTXHrI-4/

All of you know the colorful iPhone 5c, here are the prices and packages :

iphone5csidewide

zainIphone5c

iphonePrice

iPhone 5c Prices on Apple.com’s website – With Tax for NY

 

175 KD is Quite a good price and very close to the price you get on apple (+tax!)  + you get a carrier’s warranty which is priceless if anything happens to the phone. The new 17KD package is also a great value for money! If you remember the iPhone 5 prices started at a minimum of 30 KD a couple of months back, this provides you with basically the same hardware at a very challenging price!

 

 

With the iPhone 5s, here are the prices : 

iphone5front
 zainIphone

Again, for the iPhone 5s, the prices are quite challenging and tempting ! With the 36 KD/month offer you get everything! + if you notice, Zain increased the bandwidth allowance to 30 GBs ! Quite impressive and better prices and value for money compared to the the time the iPhone 5 came out! Even if you decided you wanted to opt out of the commitment you end up paying only the remaining amount on the device, its like an interest free loan, i.e. you end up paying 275 – (275/24*number of months since buying), you basically pay around 11.5 KD of the device’s cost each month. i.e. if you settle after a year, and decide to stop the commitment you only have to pay 137.5 KD for the 64 GB, which is quite a good deal, for the mobile operator with one of the highest coverage for the LTE network in Kuwait and one of the best customer service centers!

 

For more information on the packages, visit : http://kw.zain.com or call 107

Maid + Driver Does NOT equal Mom + Dad!

DudeAccidents, Health, Kuwait 1 Comment

It’s very unfortunate here that we sometimes have a blind trust in the people we hire to take care of our young ones, sometimes these people are uneducated and wouldn’t know what would be considered dangerous, and sometimes they just don’t care!

This morning I was dropping off my son to his school, where I spotted a small car with 2 maids and around 3 children, all children had half their bodies out the window, the oldest child which wouldn’t be older than about 7 years old ran outside the car and onto the pavement, and went back into the car. OK it was a red signal but no one should step out of a vehicle when waiting for a red light, let alone a small child. The other children where either standing or dangling their hands from the window when the car was moving and the “adults”  in the car didn’t seem they cared about their safety!

A message to all mums and dads, it might be that you have to go to work early or can’t drop your kids off to school yourself, the least you can do is install an inside the car cam, or a car cam that would record both the driver’s driving and the passengers at the same time. Even if the driver wasn’t reckless a lot of other people on the road are, and its very dangerous.

What Not to do with your wife’s phone !

DudeKuwait, Technology, Telecomm Leave a Comment

Cracked Screen? I can fix it! I Can really, but changing the LCD/Digitizer was a little out of my league and I learned the hard way. 

My wife had a spare Samsung Galaxy S3 which she replaced with an S4 when the screen broke (just the glass part) everything else used to work fine and without any problems. However, I decided to buy a glass as I read a lot that they can be easily replaced and would only cost around $20 for the parts. So i decided I will give it a try, got myself a heat gun and started experimenting.

Here I successfully removed the screen’s glass and should’ve have just replaced the glass.  The next photo shows the broken glass that i removed, took me about three minutes with my Trusty heat gun. 

In around 3 minutes I was ready to install the new glass part and my job would’ve been a success. But i decided that I will remove the LCD panel and install it on the new device. i was tired and didn’t give enough time, as i was 20% through, I cracked the screen!

This is what the phone frame looked like- i dismantled all that to separate the frame from the phone. 

This was the beautiful screen before i removed it (and broke it :'(   ). 

This was what it looked like after I was done :/ Oops :p

I was heating and removing slowly, but I got impatient and grave it a little more force. The LCD snapped!!

Very nice :p

Now a replacement is going to cost me around 55 KD and 45 KD if I plan on doing it myself :/

I will probably contact my trusty friends @WarshaHS to fix my mess :p

BBM is out for iOs and Android!

DudeBlackBerry, Bloggers, Computers & Electronics, General, Internet, Social Media, Technology, Telecomm Leave a Comment

A lot of people have been waiting for this,  will this give BlackBerry the hype ot used to have? Will BBM still have the same effect it used to in the old days? Will it change anything in the free messaging game? I guess we will have to wait and see.

For now download BBM,  if you have signed up for it before like I have then you’ll be able to login straight away,If not then you’ll have to wait until you receive a verification email from BlackBerry.

 

 

To download BBM for your Android or iOS device visit BBM’S official page here.

 

 

 

US Release dates for the Xbox One and PS4

DudeComputers & Electronics, Entertainment, Events, Gaming, General, Internet, Technology 1 Comment

I passed by a couple of stores here in my visit in the states,  and the release dates for the consoles are as follows :

 

15 November 2014 : PS4 (in stores)

22 November 2014 : Xbox One (in stores)

With regards to pricing the prices shown in the store Game Stop here are : 499 for the xbox and 399 for the PS4 have a look at the following photos :