In a previous post, I mentioned the release of Samsung’s “iPhone Killer”. Now LG has unveiled its answer(?) in the form of the Voyager(pic below).
Like the recently unveiled Samsung home, the Voyager also has a QWERTY keyboard in addition to the touch screen. It also has a vibration feature;
Another impressive feature of the Voyager is its vibration feedback. It gently vibrates when the screen is touched. Named Vibe Touch, the technology was also used in the Prada phone sold in South Korea.
LG has especially focused on the “haptic” engineering, the study of the interface between human and device via the sense of touch, since last year.
The Vibe Touch is only the first step of LG’s haptic technologies, and more advanced techniques are to be introduced later. According to media reports, the firm has already developed a smart vibration feature. For example, when one scrolls down the screen, the device flickers with tick sounds in accordance with the speed of the finger movement.
Unlike the mood surrounding the Samsung release, it looks like LG is keeping things subdued. The phone will be released in the States in time for the holiday shopping season.
Vibrating when the user touches the touch screen. I have to admit, I find the feature intriguing, but despite Korea Times’ description of the feature being ”impressive”, I can’t help wondering whether the users will find the feature irritating. I know I would.
59 Comments
“Everything else being equal take the red skirt.”
The iphone (do I have to follow other people’s capitalization idiosyncracies?) is the red skirt.
When Marmot said he was looking for a Korean contributor, I thought he was looking to spice things up. Alas, all he’s done is find a Korean guy with the same kind of belief system as any given garden variety expat.
Btw, mins, I really love how you portray Koreans as liars. You’re Korean, AREN’T you?
#2.
And you pawi, what’s your nationality?
I do admit that I am critical of some aspects concerning Korea. And that somehow matches the belief of Robert and the other expats here. Is there anything wrong with that? I also know a lot of Koreans who think the same way as I do, and I do not recall calling Koreans, liars.
Or do you prefer me to do what a typical Korean netizen does and fill up this blog with stuff such as how Korea is great, how Korea is righteous, that everything in Korea is perfect, and how everything Korean is superior to anything Chinese/Japanese/Western? Now that would be “spicing things up.” Not that I have any intention of doing it.
Or do you prefer me to do what a typical Korean netizen does and fill up this blog with stuff such as how Korea is great, how Korea is righteous, that everything in Korea is perfect, and how everything Korean is superior to anything Chinese/Japanese/Western?
I do think that’s what he prefers, yes.
#4.
Yes, Iceberg, I believe that’s what pawi wants too. Anyways, let’s see how pawi answers/avoids that question.
I actually think the vibration feature is brilliant. What I hate about touchscreen devices is the lack of tactile response, and this will somewhat help alleviate that problem. But, unlike 0306, I’ll reserve my final judgement until I actually get to use it.
I like my women to jiggle, shake, rock, rattle and roll when I touch ‘em, but my phone? No thanks; I’ll leave the vibrating phone to the likes of Pow Pow. He apparently needs at least some such simulacrum of intimacy.
I don’t need my phone to vibrate when I touch it, either. I barely need a cell phone at all. Do we really need all the bells and whistles, or is it just another addiction?
Can I just get a phone that makes and takes phone calls and has no camera and does not play music every time I touch it?!
No, you can’t. The Korean phone makers won’t sell you one, even though they sell precisely that kind of thing in competitive markets.
My Motorola doesn’t have a camera. Has everything else though and cost about as much as the average cell phone here.
You can usually set your phone to “shut the hell up at all times” you know?
“No, you can’t. The Korean phone makers won’t sell you one, even though they sell precisely that kind of thing in competitive markets.”
That’s because tastes differ. Koreans love and buy gadgets. Korean phone makers are respecting that it’s different strokes for different folks. That’s why they will offer the limited editions in competitive markets, but not at home. If they sell stripped down phones in Korea, it won’t sell. The last time I saw, western expat populations in Korea are numbered few and far in between.
Well on the plus side, this haptics stuff isn’t patented. Motorola used the same thing for the external touchscreens on their RAZR2 models.
Anyway, I am in love with my iPhone
If I wanted that, I could just read any South Korean newspaper…
There is a phone in Korea that does not have a camera and does not have bells and whistles. It’s called a Motorola Startac III and it was unveiled either this year or last year at a fancy party. There was an article about it in the herald or times…but I can’t find the link. Anyway, check it out if you don’t like the bells and whistles.
http://review.cetizen.com/ms900/
http://www.mymotorola.co.kr/pr.....?id=003101
I think Korean phones are some of the niftiest in the world. I do think the iphone should be sold in Korea…but one day it will be. As for samsung and lg trying to compete…what the fuck is wrong with that? I really don’t understand what the big deal is. Is it that horrible that they are trying to make products that beat a competitors?
Also, as for articles from mins0306. The comments are more fun than the posts. If that’s his/her goal… then he’s doing a great job. It would be nice to see some information we might not get from an expat though. It might be nice to hear about some positive things that are genuinely positive and not the drivel that you claim most Korean netizens spew.
I can’t be the only one who thinks these modern phones are a little overboard with useless features?
I know some dig the Swiss Army Knife, but personally, I’d rather have a separate knife, spoon and corkscrew that were all decent instead of a tiny, crappy version of all of them in one unit.
Well, that metaphor got away from me, but the point is: Modern phones suck. Gimmie a good rotary dial any ol’ day. You could fend off an home invasion with one of them heavy buggers.
Now THAT is a good feature! Chew on that, LG.
What’s LG Claim about, smart vibration feature? It’s not that much attractive feature to me.
Touch screen feature makes no more headlines. Even HTC introduced inexpensive “mass-market” touch screen cellular for all carriers.
http://www.htc.com/product/03-product_htctouch.htm
I’d like to see some different perspectives here and you’d think a Korean would provide that perspective but with you, all we get is the same — whine, whine, whine.
I’ve seen you before, mins; you’re that Korean trying to be friends with people who hail from the sewer. Don’t be surprised if one day you smell the stench of your association. Arasso?
I’ll give you some time.
Ooooohhhh!!! He pulled out the “if you hang out with them, you’re going to be a wangtta” card.
Time to head back to the tribe with your tail between your legs, mins0306.
I thought you were married, so why the plural?
“I’ve seen you before, mins; you’re that Korean trying to be friends with people who hail from the sewer.”
Mr.Pawi, would you care to elaborate on exactly who those “people who hail from the sewer” are? And, what position are you in to tell mins how he should think, who he should hang out with, etc? If you’ve bothered to notice, most of the people who post here can be critical — some very critical — of certain aspects of their own countries, so why can’t mins do the same? (Is the LG Touchscreen phone already sacred?)
I’ll give you some time.
Don’t you know the answer already? It’s us — everybody knows that American emigrants to Korea are trash, trash, trash, while the Korean migrants to America and the rest of the world are the cream of the crap. Our offspring are a blight, theirs the light of humanity.
Pow Pow is talking about himself, here?
Kinda pity pawi. Bluejives hasn’t been around in a while and youngrocco…banned wasn’t he? *breaks into TAWP song* I’m so ronely, so very ronely.
Should we let mahatir_fan play again?
In the spirit of my nom de guerre I’ll happily play for the home team if pawi can hold his nose. May I call a certain someone “bug eyes”?
Be nice to Sonagi. She can’t help her Sleestak appearance!
Pawi seems to keep his offensiveness just within the legal limit. If I posted nasty stuff like he does all the time, I’d have to go nuclear and get myself banned. Admirable constrained manners of the “oversead” Korean gentleman, the temporally and locationally displaced Yangban.
Remember the Sleestak that could talk? Kinfolk?
#23.
Thank you, globalvillageidiot.
#21.
If you’re expecting me to “run with my tail between my legs”, you’re looking at the wrong person.
#17.
chiamatt, if I see something that is positive, I’ll write about it. But, so far, except maybe for some exceptions, I haven’t seen anything that could be considered as positive, and I won’t gloss over things. As for information that one can’t get from an expat, it seems like you haven’t been paying attention here. Robert and the expat posters here know a lot about Korea and it shows in their posts. Heck they know more about Korea than the average Korean. OK most of the posts are critical, but they call them as they see it, there’s nothing wrong with that. And as for me, I do occasionally try to fill in the gaps, but if you don’t find that satisfactory, fine, that’s up to you. But a more detailed feedback would be much better than the one or two line comments that you usually post.
Anyways, there is no law that says Koreans should write only positive things about Korea. Frankly, I find it irritating that Koreans expect other Koreans to smile and pretend everthing is fine in front of the foreigners. If I did that and pretended that the not so good things didn’t exist, okay I may get applause from you and the likes of pawi, but I would look very stupid and be a liar to boot.
With that out of the way, I look foward to the day when pawi makes the ultimate move that will lead to him/her being banned from the Hole.
#30: Keep up the good work, Mins. You bring a different perspective to this blog and write intelligent stuff.
#13: I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you here. There are plenty of ajummas and ajeossis, not to mention their seniors, who would prefer a basic no-shite phone. I’d guess the market for such phones is about 20%. Why that segment isn’t being addressed is beyond me.
I have a frisky imagination. ;))
Thanks for the encouragement, Wedge.
Wow… Well, pawikirogi, I think you can criticize Korea without being a Korea-hater (I don’t like the whole racial insensitivity thing, but I still love Korea). Though it can be seen that everyone here is being overwhelmingly negative about Korea (and they sometimes are), ratio of criticism to praise in a blog doesn’t necessarily reflect the ACTUAL criticism to praise ratio… If I was blogging about life in Tempe, Arizona, I would write about the horrific sexual assault rate, overwhelming prevalence of registered sex offenders curiously clustered around local elementary schools (it’s true!), racist/inept cops, and so on, even though there are plenty of awesome part about life in Tempe, Arizona. I’m sure it’s the same way here… at least I hope…
anyway
So today, while using an ATM at ASU, I experienced something very relevant to the issue at hand (LG’s touchscreen phone, just as a reminder). You see, the touchscreen of the ATM had that very vibration feedback.
When they say vibration, they don’t mean vibrating like your phone on vibrate mode or [explicit materials deleted]. It’s a very soft vibration that you can notice but not… you know… Brrrrrr. It’s more like brrrr… in a smaller font.
It was a nice feature, at least on the ATM, because with touchscreen it’s kinda hard for me to confirm whether it registered the push or not.
I never liked iPhone (or most Apple product for that matter) on the account that they have a fixed battery that they make you pay for replacement when it runs its due course (in the manners of litium battery, of course). That and the crappy internet accessibility in U.S., but I’ve been told that’s been dealt with or will be in the very near future so…
mins, dont let the Yankee get to you. After all, you at least live the life…
You sure the screen didn’t have a power leak? We have a couple of laptops at home that do that…
RE: #20: “I’d like to see some different perspectives here and you’d think a Korean would provide that perspective but with you, all we get is the same — whine, whine, whine.
I’ve seen you before, mins; you’re that Korean trying to be friends with people who hail from the sewer. Don’t be surprised if one day you smell the stench of your association. Arasso?
I’ll give you some time.”
Wow.
As a registered poster here (though I’ve written nothing here in more than a year) I’ve resisted (mostly successfully) over the past two years or so not to acknowledge Pawi’s unique level of ass-inine-ness because it’s like acknowledging the mathematical propensity of a tube of lipstick–and because everyone else here usually beats me to the punch and has more acutely critical and humourous comments than I, anyway. Besides, it would be, in American footballing terms, piling on, which is a penalty in that sport, if I remember correctly.
However, this is the second time in a week or so that I’ve been compelled to write something regarding Pawi. Admittedly, though, it’s as much a vote of support and confidence in Mins as it is anything.
Mins, regardless of who you are and of your nationality, I truly dig reading your posts. You don’t come across–at least to me and obviously others here–as either a fervent Korean nationalist or as a Korean hater just for hate’s sake. You write what you feel is relevant and you do it honestly and in a direct manner. I admire and respect that. You certainly don’t need me or anyone else to tell you this, but I thought it prudent to inform you of it, nonetheless.
Pawi, regardless of who you are and of your nationality, I truly dig reading your comments because… Okay, sorry, I couldn’t even make it through the whole sarcastic sentence without cringing.
Anyway, Pawi you are a lonely critter, cowering alone and shivering in a dirty American gutter somewhere. I think you actually might have some cogent things to say from time to time, but they are lost amidst the bitter ramblings, which reek of someone who sounds incoherent from tapping the soju too much as a younger man. For some reason, your inane comments toward non-Koreans and their sometimes over-the-top anti-Korean-ness doesn’t bother me so much because you sometimes have a point in that regard.
However, it’s your berating of Korean nationals when they don’t toe the Korean nationalistic line that I find offensive. You really are an asshole for your thoughts about Mins. The lines about his associating with people of the sewer and how he will eventually smell the stench of these associations are pure slander and are uncalled for.
You said what is on your mind, which I respect. You’re free enough to think these thoughts, which I also respect. The personal attack, however, is out of line in this case. Mins was giving his thoughts about a damned phone, for Shiva’s sakes.
Would it really be so difficult to leave your bitterness next to the keyboard for once and write something comprehensible, something that has substance and adds a layer of intelligence to the thread?
My apologies to all for the rant; couldn’t be helped.
Mins, keep it up, bro…
@dda
X-D If you were right, I would have another great anecdote to tell next time there’s an awkward silence. “I thought it was a feedback vibration, but turns out I was just getting electrocuted!”
Nah, but whoever owned the ATM (Bank of America, in this case) made it pretty clear it was one of those vibrating feedback (I was just surprised because, well, I don’t read signs posted on the ATM… initially).
You know what? I’m just going to say I was electrocuted. That’s more fun.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, dissidentdave.
One of my coworkers owns a LG Prada phone and the Prada having the touch and vibrate feature, decided to try it out.
The phone vibrates once for about one second when the user touches the screen. At first, it took getting used to, but as I tried out the feature a bit more, it did get somewhat irritating.
Anyways, I asked the guy why he had the feature turned off. He responded that he turned it off because a) he had no need for it and b) the feature was a drain on the battery.
Go figure.
Don’t forget to get a funky hairdo with lotsa spikes!
Kudos to LG on their new product — I am still going with Apple iPhone once it debuts in Japan. In the meantime, I have ordered an iPod touch and use my Japanese cell phone that has 10 times more features than I care for. By the way, we have 7 Apple stores in Japan — but Korea still has zero — though it does have the online store. What gives?
I can’t decide whether this is a step into the direction of making phones that are as powerful as laptop computers or if it’s just another convoluted gadget that will become outdated as soon as the next trend hits, which should happen in 5 months and 20 something days.
Pawi lacks the reasoning skills, knowledge and reading comprehension to ever be more than a maundering nuisance here. It is absolutely pointless to engage him.
But he in effect called mins an Uncle Tom on this thread. I’d have no trouble seeing him banned over that gross indecency.
“Pawi lacks the reasoning skills, knowledge and reading comprehension to ever be more than a maundering nuisance here.”
And you’re somehow better than him by making such a comment? So ban him but don’t you. Riiiiight….
You need to read more carefully, too, JK.
Pawi effectively called the author of this thread an Uncle Tom — for reasons known only to Pawi, since this OP was a rather even-handed view of a new cellphone.
My exact words (and I’m typing slowly for the reading impaired) were “I’d have no trouble seeing him banned over that gross indecency.”
Slim,
I never once said I agreed with whatever it is Pawi wrote (I don’t). But after he got it from plenty of the others on this thread, your snippet about him desrving to be being banned, or whatever, and how he’s a “nuisance” was a little too much like the mob mentality that we often accuse Koreans of doing. Getting personal with him actually makes YOU look bad in #43.
Anyway, I see your side, so I will desist.
Have a great day.
For the record, I’m not advocating banning anyone and my opinion here matters not at all.
All I’m saying is, on a blog that banned someone not long ago for calling The Marmot a “freak” for his wardrobe, the act of calling a writer an Uncle Tom (even if the offender in this case was not aware of the implications) is arguably grounds for explusion.
I do believe that I gave as factual a summary of Pawi’s strengths and weaknesses as the record permits.
I for one can understand Pawi’s frustration but his mode of expression needs serious work. Many Koreans do come into “the hole” and see less than subtle hostility towards the Korean milieu. Some of this is sarcastic, some of it is for ironic effect, and some of it is sadly real.
It ranges from the constructive to the racist. But anyways, Pawi’s rantings (and his carbon copy cousins) are equally embarrassing.
mins0306,
You are Korean? I had no idea….
#49.
You didn’t know? I assumed you knew.
LG and Samsung’s scramble to emulate the iPhone shows something that I have been frustrated with regarding the saccharine ingenuity of Korean companies. Samsung in particular pours tremendous money into R&D to come up with the thinnest phones, flash drives with the highest capacity, brightest screens, etc. etc. However, what has this really bought? Samsung and LG still had to chase Motorola for years after the introduction of the RAZR, a Motorola trump card that set back Korean phone makers at least five years. Korean phone makers are finally regaining the upper hand as the RAZR’s design is getting long in the tooth and Motorola isn’t following-up on the Normandy sized beachhead that the RAZR gave them. Well, you can at least score one for occasional American brilliance via revolutionary industrial design.
Apple is a different animal then Motorola. It lives and dies by innovation and “thinking outside the box” industrial design. Their products don’t have the thinnest chips, the brightest screens or flash memory with lots of capacity squeezed in. They live and breath by adding a “cool” factor to their products and simply get their technology from contract manufacturers- including Samsung!
Korean R&D dollars, more per percentage of sales then probably Motorola and Apple spends combined, buys incremental improvements of existing technology, but doesn’t buy innovative epiphanies a la the RAZR or the iPhones of the world. With China able to emulate Korean products, regardless of the level of advancement of the technological sophistication of the hardware, in a matter of weeks upon introduction, Korea needs exactly this kind of innovation to not only continue to grow, but to survive.
#3,
What I think Pawi is hinting at but explaining in a very poor manner regarding “balance” is that Korea has a lot of things right and wrong with it. In “the hole” a lot of time is spent on what is wrong with Korea. There is a lot that is right with Korea also. I’ll even use a phrase that the Marmot himself uses: “Let’s face it, as a country, Korea generally has its shit together.” However, I’d argue that very little time in “the hole” is used to talk about what is right with Korea. There is where the “imbalance” lies in my opinion. We Koreans are a sensitive lot and we need our back padded every once in awhile too. However, again in my opinion, there is a lot more kicking around then padding on the back here in “the hole.”
# 19,
The issue of innovation is not simply a touch screen. Hell, touch screen technology has been around for ages (talking in relative “technology” years where 5 years is like 15 in real years), when PDAs use to be in b/w in the late 90’s. It’s what Apple has been able to do with that touch screen technology in marrying it with an intuitive user interface, to create a well blended phone, music player and multi media device that’s the big deal.
It should be noted that Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Erickson are also scrambling to make iphone killers. In fact, Motorola is losing bucket loads because it chose to milk the Razr series to the point that having a razr isn’t cool anymore. If any of you read the mobile review sites, you’d see that other markets crave the things Korean phones can do in Korea.
RE: #52 “What I think Pawi is hinting at but explaining in a very poor manner regarding “balance” is that Korea has a lot of things right and wrong with it. In “the hole” a lot of time is spent on what is wrong with Korea. There is a lot that is right with Korea also. I’ll even use a phrase that the Marmot himself uses: “Let’s face it, as a country, Korea generally has its shit together.” However, I’d argue that very little time in “the hole” is used to talk about what is right with Korea. There is where the “imbalance” lies in my opinion. We Koreans are a sensitive lot and we need our back padded every once in awhile too. However, again in my opinion, there is a lot more kicking around then padding on the back here in ‘the hole.’”
Wang, you make a very valid point.
The only thing I would disagree with you on, though, regarding the above comments is this: If The Marmot’s Hole were a blog dedicated to the ups and downs of living in Thailand (or Botswana, or Russia, or Brasil, or Guatamala, or Papua New Guinea, or anywhere else), there would be a lot of negative comments toward those countries. This would be even more especially true if there existed (and there very well might be), on the part of the home country in topic, a seemingly general lack of understanding of foreigners and things international, a heightened sense of insecurity by its citizens about that country’s status in the world, an insatiable need to promote the country’s goodness to the world, blatant nationalism from even the more benign quarters of the populace, and so on.
This is not to say that expats from around the world who live here shouldn’t be more culturally sensitive toward Koreans and their culture, more understanding as to how Koreans tick, and more tolearant toward the reasoning behind many of the aforementioned lines of Korean thought, because we expats, as a whole, should be more aware. On a nearly daily basis, I get just as irritated with fellow expats’ lack of understanding–indeed, lack of even willingness to understand–of all that goes on around them as I do with the sometimes mindboggling peccadilloes of the natives. And I would imagine that I’m not alone in this.
As it is, you’re right that there is lots to like about living in Korea, there is lots of good to Korea, and maybe there should be more focus on these aspects here. Yet, I do feel that there is too much sensitivity on Koreans’ part when there is negative criticism of anything Korean.
Certainly, this sensitivity is understandable when the criticism is unfair or seems to be the result of cultural insensitivity, xenophobia, or racism. On the other hadn, the sensitivity in less understandable in this case of Pawi’s comments on Min’s article and, of course, in other such cases where there is nationalistic fervour wrapped in an overboard reaction to a simple opinion about something Korean.
There is imbalance, as you say, and, in a perfect world, there would be less of it here amongst the Hole’s denizens, myself included.
However, also in a perfect world, there would not be stupid-ass comments by the likes of Pawi toward his own country(wo)men for not toeing the nationalistic line, or for giving his or her unfavourable opinion toward some domestic issue or product–and there would be less apologists for these and any other aforementioned inane kinds of actions.
Well, I just don’t understand how a guy like Cullen Thomas could go to a jail in Korea and come out appreciating the country better then a lot of fellows who make a descent living with a relatively comfortable life in Korea but shit on Korea daily in cyberspace, but I digress…
RE: #55
well, perhaps he, too, has contracted “yellow fever”, but from a different perspective…
That’s because Cullen Thomas is high most of the time.
That’s the thing … there’s obviously a certain toeing of the line that is expected … mins0306’s writings do not contain the catchphrases and obligatory opinions that Korean readers expect to see in articles about Korean topics written by Koreans.
Dogbertt,
I would agree with # 58.
As for Mr. Thomas- he wasn’t high once he got into jail…