Using my camera phone to take snaps is the farthest my experience in photography can go.
But having to take shots indoors most of the time, it really intrigued me if it is just my phone's cam or my indoor lights are really that bad.
So I thought getting a better camera, or should I say, I real camera will do the trick.

It gets me a little interested in cameras right now, but I know myself too well this interest is easily going to pass.
So I did a few (I maybe understating) searching for good camera, a DSLR is definitely too much and then a compact point-it-shoot might be enough but I am actually looking for something more, let's say... 2013.

Here are the things I considered:
- good aesthetics (for a non photographers this might be a really big factor)
- works well in a low-lit environment
- Wi-Fi connectivity

And of course that's just among the few other things that a camera should actually do.
Here are the camera's I considered:

Pentax Efina

I'm not exactly as "kikay" as this sounds, but this is really cute and I am really a sucker for floral designs. So cute!
While it is obviously compact and beautiful, considering it's price at roughly P3,300, we wouldn't really expect this to be any better than my Xperia phone's camera.

2) PENTAX LS465

It has interchangeable skins. THAT is something you don't see everyday in a camera. It might be even one of its kind! Probably for the reason that nobody cares about no skins, but hey, I do.
Price is around P4,000 in online stores.

3) FujiFilm Finepix S2980

S2980 is the most advance among the three. What I love about it is that it looks like a DSLR--but smaller and with non-replaceable lenses. It's an advance point-and-shoot camera also called bridge cameras--advanced enough that I could not understand them. This one, I believe, is really affordable for it's kind, at around P7,000 (mall price).

I would have added Samsung WB250F in the list because I said I wanted Wi-Fi connectivity (and none of the above has it) but I discovered that it is possible for almost any digital camera to get Wi-Fi capabilities through Wi-Fi SDHC cards. (More on that soon)

Well that's a few thoughts I wanted to share. Will soon figure out which one suits me best! Enough nitpickling for today.

 

Related articles

• As Digital Camera Sales Sputter, Fujifilm Finds Its Niche (nytimes.com)
• Gizmodo Camera Buying Guide: Mirrorless Cameras Explained (gizmodo.com.au)

If there's one thing I totally love about iOS that I have never found anything like it on Android, that would be iMessage.

I love how it seamlessly transists between SMS and iMessage (message over IP) depending on what is available. That's a very nifty feature for me. When I get into my room I get no cell signal but my phone connects to my Wi-Fi so I'm all set. Then when I get out of the house and as I lose connection before mobile data kicks in, it can send my messages as SMS. All that without having to switch between apps!

I don't know if that's just me who finds that useful, or if maybe there's something about Android that makes it so hard to do that. (Hey, I don't judge. I myself come across things that look so easy to program but no. They are not. Not at all.)

And here comes Google Hangouts NOW with SMS Integration! Is this the much awaited 'iMessage for Android'?

No. No it's not. Not quite. If you're expecting it would be close to iMessage you're not in for a treat. This new SMS on Google Hangouts is nothing more than how Facebook Messenger had SMS Integration almost a year ago. Actually, that's exactly what this is. That was pretty much it.

Anyway this is the first blow. Things could get better.

Now if I maybe wrong, perhaps anyone could name any app that can do the seemless transition thingie. Please do enlighten me!

The first time I read about Aviate was from Drippler (I guess). I couldn't remember that now.

Aviate is an android launcher that looks a lot different from the usual ones you'll find in Play Store.
I've tried almost every launcher out there (and trust me when I say almost every) but this by far is the most reasonably different.
Aviate is looking fresh and well thought of. And what sets it apart from the others is that it doesn't conform with the usual launcher setup.  At first glance, you wouldn't even think it's on Android! It's as if you have a completely different OS on top of what you have.

Let's get into a few details.





If I understood correctly, your "homescreen" is called a "space". AInstead of having a blank slate with all those icons you can move around on a full-scaled wallpaper, what you get is a square area where you can add any picture, a digital clock secured in place at the top (which you can tap for more surprises) and a small area at the bottom with 10 slots for your favorite apps.
(10 apps. That's a little short for me but that's not their problem anymore)

Sliding right opens up the tabbed menu for your spaces. You can manually select which ones you wish to activate, but if you don't, Aviate will automatically set it for you (I thought that's just useful in theory but heck. I was wrong).





Sliding left brings you to your apps automatically (again) grouped into categories. Not entirely unique because you might have seen this before in Smart Launcher, but Aviate might have done a better job. Neat, huh?

Sliding left again brings you to the full App Drawer arranged alphabetically in vertical scroll. Nothing much there.






Now if you want to see what surprises Aviate has, you can hop on over to Play Store and watch their intro video.
This App is currently in beta and on Invite only. (just sign up to get an invite).

To sum it up, Aviate is a cool new refreshing android launcher that