Neighbours E-star Grand tablet preview

A new  different  blog page this time .

As you may know Greece is still  in deep crisis after 5-6  years of  austerity measures imposed by the IMF and the EEC.
This continuous austerity forced  most of the youth  and possibly also some  older families to  go abroad to find a better luck for work , causing a  severe brain drain making our country , a country of older people mixed with  immigrants and people of  neighbor countries working for a very low salary  that  everyday lowers  down .
More than 3.5 million people are  jobless  in a country of ca 10 millions an seems that  numbers will  grow more as austerity deepens and everyday more companies stop their business  .  I have seen a man having a business with machinery rollers stopping it last year and now  begging in the roads .

Brain drain as you may know means the  sending the youth  to work in the foreign counties for a better   future. Most  of these young people have  at  least one  diploma from Greek universities and either work here  as waiter or jobs of very low  salaries  that start from 400Eu  and below (this is the basic part time 4 hr  salary that includes also insurance ) and only just in case that they  will be very  lucky to find a job under very bad  terms of work. Over the time  work is unpaid.

As for example my brother in law  left the country  two months  ago , after  waiting   two years to find a job here and works now in London  in a  restaurant with the hope  that soon he will find a job suitable to his studies   in a civil engineering  company.
In another bad example  myself as  well my wife  have lost our jobs two and one year ago respectively.
I looked for work in several companies but none could buy me or my wife for work as we are over aged for them (53 and 43 years respectively). Dole  has been terminated  for both of us last year and cannot be restarted and  we are based on our parents pension  which is everyday lowering as caused by the government and its allies (IMF EEC etc ie troika ) This is he reason i asked the DX  follows to help me.

The same happened with one of our  neighbors . His son very recently left the country  for better chance in France. The only way to communicate is with a tablet that he bought recently after upgrading his  phone line to DSL . Our  neighbor doeskin know too much about  tablets and asked me to help him Surely I couldn't ask him  for money for this help and  made several tests to compare it with mine of 2 years ago, the F&U model which is in its  end of life.

.......

This  model is an E-star one called Grand. It is promoted by Infoquest a major computer accessories company from at least  30 years existence in Greece and surely the product has a Chinese origin ,  tough I dont know if it is a "Tecsun radios" type model for tablets
Its size is 10.1 inches and uses  HD screen tech . I don't know  if this is  the screen  type or just a technology such as LED  or OLED, but as the factory advises it offers  good watching from all optical aspects. And it is true . Once you use it  you cannot see  any   picture degradation from nearly all angles  except from  looking from the top of screen. A feature that my tablet does not have (it is just LCD screen )

This is the main picture shown as desktop of the tablet

The model  has  4 cores and Lolipop 5.1 android. IT is  quite different  op. sys. from 4.2 that my  tablet uses. From  the  quite short time i  used it, i found some  interesting differences between these  operating systems:
-ability  to use  many users
 most basic operations  are included  in a drop down menu: connectivity on off  , G option orientation, air mode (conn off ), GPS on off, and a few more
-task manager  is quite different showing the programs as drop down cards than simply screen shots as in 4.xx version 
-the droid keyboard is different  this time in a white  color and supports  mechanical greek   keyboard . it happened by chance when by mistake connected  it to a standard keyboard

This is on how 5.1 droid popup is shown  

The ability to have multiple users

-Its battery  is 5 Mah. Its battery  drains  not so fast , with nearly the same draining time as with mines which is 4 MAh of 2 core system . As consulted  the battery can drain in abt 5 hrs .

-I installed Xiia live for audio tests and put my fav   radio  station for making a comparative audio test  using the Sennheiser headphones which is my fav among two others and added two of my favorite  stations to test its sound    . They have the same audio quality /fidelity but E-star  grand has higher basses i ve seen that  program installation is quite time consuming , it requires  nearly the  double time  than in mine's. though i preferred to remove the program , the neighbor asked me to keep t and add a few  Greek stations from Athens with news though most of their program is also relayed here in Thesaloniki .

 screenshot of the  Xiia live dropdown menu

- I then installed  Viber and Skype for communication between him and his son. Though  Skype uses  email for communication  Viber  requires only a  telephone to register . It then sends a  SMS  to your telephone to unlock the connectivity . I use  this program  to discuss  to my bro-in-law as he didn't like  Skype. Viber seems having some issues with its  video. HD video is also  supported ,but is OK to make audio communication.

I could  buy one for me shall  i collect  some money  as mine 2 years old tablet is close  to its death  form its  very long operation every day(sometimes  more than 10 hours )  . I liked most  of its features but the only i don't like is that it uses only 3 sockets  for connectivity to the external world :
-micro Sd socket , supporting up to 32 GB memory
-earphone socket  , 3.9 mm type
-micro USB for connecting to the mains adaptor for charging. I could love to see  a 2 USB to USB splitter/joiner  to  do the connection  but as  asked next day technicians in  high tech stores this cannot  be  made without problems.

Mine F&U  uses a separate socket to charge  the battery. A standard mains adaptor cable of the older times with plug of just  1.8mm. Its USB socket is always connected with a external keyboard. i use  it to type most of my texts as  logs , reviews, my new stories ,MY computer is used now very sparingly and for more  heavy tasks (audio and video  conversion, heavier text processing a/o QDTP  )

This was a review of just 20 minutes of checking/ overview . Hope that this information can  be interesting to you.

Tecsun headphones E 805

This is the second headphone set the friend has recently given to me. He bought it from Anon Co about 10 months ago together with other products from Tecsun and Degen, on a joint purchase with me the time I was in a better monetary condition than today. 

As far as   remember the group Tecsun-Degen has stopped making earphones and headphones since 2008 and this is possibly the reminiscent headphones produced from that time. Gone are the days of the excellent  earphones used on the DE1103 (DE929  if I remember correctly  ) a model also available separately that surpassed all  known brands at that time with its very broad audio spectrum that followed the spectrum of  headphones with  as low price as  Eu5-6. I tried  many times   to find them  but my former  source two years ago  advised me that the company stopped quite long to produce them.

As notice previously, my friend has given the headphone to me for testing without its package, which has been littered to the dust bin for space saving reasons. It has a decent and classical design with speakers that cover the ear tough they are quite big at 10 x 6 with plastic lids of ca 1.5 cm wide and 2 mm thick that move inside the headband. In a way it can be characterized as old fashioned comparing to the modern designed Silvercrest model.

The cable used is very lengthy, the lengthier of nearly all tested so far. It was measured to 330 cm. It is perfect to be used with the houses' HiFi system connected to the digital TV receiver.   It uses a twin type possibly coaxial cable similar to Sennheiser.

Nice plzstic sleeve

Now about the audio quality. This is something of big discussion. Its audio spectrum seems  to be quite close to the AKG as tested  in parallel with it,   using the equipment and  connectivity  as with the previous blogs :
"-using the  Bolong radio with a audio 2:1 splitter  over the radios' socket and connecting  AKG  and Tecsun in both  ends. "

Again as with previous post I have used the same station i.e.104 Fm   which has the widest audio spectrum in town with the best audio quality and checked each headphone for a given time and changed it immediately with the other. It is possibly the so called A/B testing

Tecsun has stronger audio than AKG which is good. Unfortunately its audio is extremly bassy. Around 3-4 db higher a very annoying sound due to very high bass, considering that also AKG has a bassy audio. This is one reason to get rid of them very shortly and change to other headphones. 
A minor problem found is that some bass goes to the left earphone.
Second problem is that monophonic as stereophonic sounds have some added spatiality. The monophonic sounds seem to have a spatiality to a +/-1 range if we set the 5 to the upper left or right that means towards the speakers.  I don’t know what causes this problem and is not my business. 
The only OK is that the audio spectrum is nearly the same as with AKG headset always using high volumes under test. But the above problems underrate it. 

Verdict: this headphone takes a low rating   due to its extra bass and zero spatiality though spectrum is OK 2/5 not for much time to listen or it can irritate your ears

The model  has been given to a friond who used it as ...speaker

 

 

 

Silvercrest headphones SKH 60 C1 a tech review

Please look and  buy my book Malaysia 25 years research   http://goo.gl/Pi87gp   . As unmployed by buying this book you can support my family with the neesary income!

A friend of me has given several of his headphones for testing. These blog tests   start from this article and follow for the next two articles. As  my friend told me  he bought  this headphone  from a  international hypermarket  chain store  with ca 7 Euro  price which is still quite cheap  . He provided to me it with its full packing in contrast to the others mentioned in the next blogs as e.g. with the Tecsun models which were  given unpacked in a  plastic bag to me. 

It seems that this brand has only one headphone model.  I can't otherwise think model with no product code mentioned in the carton box.

Its carton box is very nice in a black mat color. Very nice packing design with main product info in several languages including German English   Bulgarian Croatian Romanian and Greek. Manufactured in China it is imported via a German company and distributed (exclusively?) via this German hypermarket you guessed it. Unpacking it required to remove a plastic adhesive tape and then  open a stop lid   to open  the main box's carton lid .There was no plastic bag to contend  the earphones inside , but only the headphones which are included  together with the  user's manual (not removed from the box while testing it)

Only in the product guide the code number is only noticed.

The headphones have a very nice design are of closed type speakers with very soft plastic cushions to fit over the ear (circumaural). The top sleeve/ headband   have a textured sleeve to cover the head. It has an adjustable design using a double metallic rod to fold or unfold the speakers from the top hanger. Speakers ca even be folded to inside to save it space.

 There is also a 3.9 connector socket on the lower part of the left speaker that adds connectivity to a second head- or ear-phone. The in between cabling is somehow thin comparing to the  system design with the hope that  it will not easily cut, should it come  into strong pressure  from any external reason. 

The headband has a problem. It comes quite stiff to my head. It is quite tiresome for very long listening. I have to stop using it after 2 hours of continuous usage. 

The cable has an excellent design with textile casing .outperforming in beauty over most other models which use simple plastic casing, even for AKG and competing brands. It is 2 mm thick and 150 cm long as measured that meets the noticed box info. All cables used in wiring the headphone system have the same kind textured coating. 

Speaker:  In the carton box it is noticed that the speaker uses PET 40 membrane, a micro porous membrane that "meets   the best audio criteria used to introduce outstanding audio quality to your hearing experience". (This is mine's talking   using the language of advertising)

Usage: In order to listen and make A/B aural measurements I used a splitter to use a second headphone and tested it with my AKG K44 headphones.  

In order to perform the comparison I used my Bolong radio listening to a station of ’extended frequency range' i.e. .the highest possible audible spectrum. This radio has possibly the best and trebliest sound of all of my radios I have or possess. Only a few FM stations can qualify this requirement (the highest spectrum). One of them is 104 FM (no ID still known) airing mostly ambient music at the time tested.

These AKG   headphones are quite bassy comparing to my other professional heads as Sennheiser and Koss and add at least 6 db in the lower frequencies over the remain. The same happens with the SKH Silvercrest model in terms of basses they are quite bassy as and very close to AKG's fidelity and spectrum.   Only the in ear phones cannot qualify this demand.

This headphone has very clear audio as AKG. Compared   with my AKG 'bassy' headphones  it has  the same audio  spectrum  in higher frequencies , It cuts the very low  -bassy-  frequencies ,giving a sense of 'shifting' bit higher.
Audio level is the same as with the AKG. .Anyway it gets too close with the fidelity of AKG D66 heads at a portion of AKG's   price (abt Eu35 bought 7 years ago). Important to notice  that  in order to  listen  to the best fidelity some added  volume is required  starting  from ca 60 db or you wall not hear the  full fidelity or  audio to activate the speaker. 

My verdict: these headphones excel in design, component selection and also sound quality for their price 5/5.
Comparing to the AKG headphones they have a very narrow bass cut in the lower spectrum 4.5/5