Amazon vs. Apple vs. Google vs. Microsoft vs. Samsung vs. other

and the winner is???

I am willing to wager that you like me have had to wrestle with this battle royale yourself, either in the past, present or to be addressed again in the future and always trying to come to some conclusion as to which is the best way to go.  This has not been easy, and the decisions made do not seem to be permanent.  Things change.  And that means, like Wrestlemania, roll out the roman numerals because even if you found a winner last time, it soon will be time to do it again.

I have been in a constant shopping mod for cell phones, tablets, laptops, desktops and any other electronic gadgetry that comes along that promises to advance my standard of living with the mere transfer of a cash transfusion and a future draft pick to be named later.  I used to thrill to the hunt, leap at the chase, research with relish, and analyse till the cows came home with the confidence that I would know at the end of it all that I could determine what was good, better, best.

It works with cars so why not electronics.  

By looking at the universe of products, you layout a list of features and attributes measured against their effectiveness of meeting certain personal objectives weighted to your biases and desires and rated on your relative scales of values to come up with a very limited number of finalist that make the cut.  You try them on for size, select one, find a store willing to give you the best deal and next thing you know it finds its way home among your most prized possessions.

With cars it is fairly easy to make apples to apples comparisons.  With electronics not so much.  With everyone using a different language and different measuring sticks the comparisons become confusing rather quickly.  The comparison quickly becomes one of Apples and Oranges or Androids or MS as the case maybe.

If all you know is that 'an 8 cylinder engine is more than a 4 cylinder engine so it must be better right' and don't care about what either one does or why then you may not be in the same boat as I am.  I am looking for more.  I need more.  More helps me define and confirm my decisions.  I don't want to know that it has a quad chip, I want to know which quad chip and what speed it is running and which generation ship it is.  These things matter when trying to make an informed decision but it takes some real detective work to find the answers especially with some manufacturers.

Not everyone likes to look that hard or think that hard or spend that much time worrying about what is right for them so they phone a friend, "Hey, what have you got? Do you like it? Cool." and go get one of those but the next model up cause you have to have some bragging rights, end of story.  And for many that works great.

I am still from an era where a dollar was hard earned and hard spent and have wanted to get the most bang for the buck so it was important to try and find the best of whatever for me, and as I said before, I really did enjoy the whole shopping experience.

It is all about the system

So for those still with me I will start at the foundation.  Every system out there tries to be a closed proprietary system meaning they want you to be locked into only buying from them for all your wants and needs.  That is fine if they can deliver all your wants and needs but if not drop them and look elsewhere.  Please take note, systems change, some for the worst, some for the better, some stick around, some die off.  Just because you can get a great 'deal' on something be aware that it might not just be the model that is being closed out.  Also note that even if the system on the whole is solid, one of its divisions may not be.  There are a lot of products out there that have come and gone without a lot of impact and barely able to make one of those 'do you remember these' lists that get past around your email inbox.

So my system look narrows quickly when related to cell phones and tablets with a slight pause at the desktop/laptops.  I have grouped these a little because even though the operating systems are different the main systems all come from the same roots.  Basically you have Apple, Microsoft and Android or some version thereof.

Let's start with Android and it's derivatives of which there are many.  Most closely associated with Google, Android is a base upon which many have built such as Samsung, Amazon's Fire and dozens of other names too numerous to mention here.  Some use their own modified version of Android and that presents its own set of challenges for the user.  For example Amazon wants you to stay with Amazon and will not play with Google.  Also the further away from a pure Android system, the less likely it will be kept up to date with it's operating system.  And Android has a lot of versions.  So many it is hard to keep up with which candy name you are on or dealing with.  (Was I eating a jelly bean or a lollipop?  And does it matter?) It matters.  Although I like the fact that the software side of a system is in a constant state of update, meaning improvements and advancement, it also means that the hardware side is in for the obsolescence pile sooner.  When the hardware can't keep up with the latest software you are stuck with an upgrade, one you might not have been planning for.

Microsoft on the other hand is trying to be all things to all people and failing miserably.  For the desktop/laptop scene they have a pretty well established line that has served them well even if it has made many a user scream in frustration.  The attempt to move into other areas has not gone as well.  Cell phones with Windows do not capture 2% of the market and when you are that small it doesn't pay to bother with them.  At some point they will get their act together or give up and I am betting on the later.

Which leaves Apple the 500 pound gorilla that may or may not use gorilla glass.  Apple probably has the best universal approach out there.  It's users can find a consistent, stable, universe of commonality.  And even though there are different systems for the cell phone and the desktop you have a better chance of interfacing here than on most other platforms.  There are of course downsides and they will be mentioned later but they are the current king for finding simple utility in a product.

There are other solutions out there but they are on the fringe so to speak.  If you have these other solutions then you also are on the fringe, and I don't say that to belittle anyone but to give them the respect they deserve because they are the ones willing to put up with a few inconveniences in order to have a better solution and more power to them.  I have found that I spend too much time fighting with the simple solutions let alone trying to be one who is running on the fringe.

Or is it?

There is something more to consider than just the system and that is what are you going to do with it?  I remember a few decades ago when the first PCs were coming out the the question again was Apple vs MS.  Going to school at the time and with limited funds and the fact that businesses were using IBMs and MS I went with a MS based PC rather than a Mac.  In the process of looking I had a friend that asked, 'What are you going to do with it?' as if I knew.  We are talking way back at the start of all this so I wanted the world but soon found out the technology of the day was very short of ideal.  What he was referring to was not so much the hardware but the software or applications that I wanted to run that would help me to 'do' what I wanted to do.  Which platform or system gave me the best chance of doing what I wanted to do?

Same thing today.  What apps do you want that will 'do' the things you want to do and do them the best?  And more importantly where can you get them?

Here comes the big elimination.  It isn't really about who has the most apps...but it is.  You can do pretty much anything you would like to on any system but...then again you can't.  And so here it is boiled down in a nut shell.  When you see an app advertised 99% of the time it will say 'Get it now at Apple or Google Play'.  If you are not one of those two or if you cannot access one of those two then you no longer count.  Sorry and thanks for playing.  Microsoft/Windows will get a few mentions but generally not enough to worry about.  Everyone says Apple iTunes or Google Play, but I don't recall anyone saying Amazon Apps other than Amazon so for now all the Fire devices are out because if Amazon Apps doesn't have it, even if it is an Android based app, you cannot get it from Google Play.  Even if you can get it from Amazon Apps there is no guarantee if it will work on the Amazon Android Fire devices, some don't.

And after apps, content is king.  

Everyone knows that Apple's iTunes is a treasure trove but much of it can also be found with Google Play and Amazon and Podcasts Addict and so on and so on and so one possible next step is to compare pricing of your favorite albums and books.  You may be willing to pay more for the hardware but are you willing to pay up for the further installments of apps and content?

Wait a minute, didn't you eliminate Amazon earlier but you mentioned them again, what gives?  Amazon was smart enough to have a two way street but dumb enough to close off half of it.  You can get Amazon apps that will run on any Android device as well as your Apples so their store is wide open for all, just don't expect their Fire devices to work the other way.

Now for the most part I like Google and Android and I have found relative good use from them but I find that they often keep coming up short.  All too often they are just not quite there.  I hate it when that happens because the hardware used to run Android can be had at such a better price and sometimes flat out better hardware that it disappoints me to think that I am considering, let alone deciding, that my best choice for next upgrade will be Apple.

And Here is Why

I love my wife.  But you knew that already.  Her tolerance with technology is not as high as mine therefore whatever we get next must be simple, intuitive, functional, and easy, and if that doesn't describe Apple I don't know what does.

Everyone I talk to that has an Apple says about the same thing.  They love it and wouldn't go back.  They get long life out of the product and good service even if it comes with long lines.  The phones are everywhere so you can feel good about being part of the 'in' crowd if that means something to you.  Their products work, so even if they are dated right out of the box, they have been tested enough to give you a pretty good assurance that you won't have any issues from the get go or from future releases and with fewer variations and a tightly controlled system there are less worries for the apps as well.

And if I get a phablet I can try to justify the costs by telling myself that I am really getting a phone and a tablet and an MP3 player and a camera both still and video all in one.  So if I add all those items up the cost of a new iPhone is only twice what I would normally spend for all the others combined.  And I would be cool.

Basically though, I have been down the other path, tried it, been there, got the T-shirt.  It is time to try the other side of the fence and see if the grass really has a greener hue from a Retina resolution display.

Just have to figure out how to afford it.  If I forgo the around the world cruise and down grade my next car from an S class Benz to the Civic...

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Product Review: Vacuum food savers.

I am sure many of you have seen the infomercials advertising home vacuum sealers to preserve food. The idea is to buy in bulk and save money then repackage with the vacuum sealer to use the food in a more suitable manner, either through sizing or just allowing more time to use the food before it spoils. It is a great idea and I was hooked.

I am a great conservative and love to save money and with careful shopping you can find some items that are cheaper when bought in bulk (though that is not always the case, so shop smart and read the labels and calculate and compare) and if not you can always wait for a really good sale and stock up. Problem is when you stock up really big on a really good sale, will you have time to eat it all before it goes bad? When I was single I had a hard time finishing half a loaf of bread before it started growing penicillin in its natural state. Vacuum sealing food sounds like just the answer I was looking for.

Next problem, as many of you may have seen the same infomercial and have been tempted to jump on board, is the price of these popular units. Foodsaver which is the company that made the idea of vacuum sealing so popular has several different units on their web site beginning at $79.99 and running up to $299.99. The one on T.V. seems to have been priced around $129. That rates an ouch in my book and I just couldn’t justify it so I never bothered, though it was always in the back of my mind that if I could find a decent price on one I would probably go ahead and get one.

Years went by, I got married and I came across a Rival brand sealer that was on close out at the local megalamart. Since there were now two of us to share one machine’s usage and the price was around $50 I quickly talked myself into it.

The Rival machine works pretty much the same as the Foodsaver machine as near as I can tell. Looking at the two side by side they look very similar and comparing our usage method to that seen in the demonstrations given for T.V. I would say that they are comparable.

I must say that we did have fun with it…for a time. It was way fun to put food in a bag and suck the air out. We created a mini production facility and went to work sealing away blocks of cheese and family pack purchases of meat for later use. We felt like we were doing ourselves good by our efforts. The packages went into the freezer and the food stayed useable long after other buys would have been tossed. The idea worked.

Mostly..., as I mentioned, we would set up a mini production facility I meant that in a fun way but the reality is that you almost had to set up a small production run whenever you wanted to use the sealer. Because there was extra effort involved in set up and clean up, the sealer got used less and less as time went on.

Also, you had to buy rolls of material and create your own bags in the size you wanted or buy pre-made, pre-sized bags. There are also canisters that you can buy that are supposed to attach easily to the machines and provide a quick reusable platform for storing rice, sugar, pasta and such. Well, the bags were easy enough to make though we sometimes made them bigger than they needed to be thus wasting some material. We seldom did the 'cut open the bag take out what you need and reseal the bag' because it was a pain to retrieve the machine each time for what should have been a simple set up. No wonder they say that many people leave them out on their countertops, it's just easier that way. The special design canisters worked about twice and we were never able to get a seal to hold after that. They are pretty much just like any other canister now.

The sealing of the bags was a wonderful thing to do and watching as it happened…when everything went right. Sometimes it didn’t, or wouldn’t. Sometimes the machine would just whirr away and nothing would happen because we didn’t have the flap just right or there was an uneven cut along the leading edge when we tried to make our own bags. That is my guess anyway. Also if there was any chance of a liquid being involved there was also the chance of a mess being involved. It is hard to suck out air without sucking out the liquid so if you were going to save soup for a later microwave reheat at work, be very careful. That applies to juicy things like fresh fruit, and marinating steaks and chicken breasts like they show on T.V.

Well, we did use it for quite some time (but nowhere near as much as I thought we should) before one day the pump was running like crazy and nothing was happening no matter what we tried. Our machine had given up. We still liked the idea of a food sealer and thought that we would get another one at some point but we never made it a high priority or found ourselves willing to pay the going rates for a new machine. We thought about switching to the Foodsaver brand but still couldn’t justify the price even with two of us using one.

Normally the story would end there but we were walking through the store the other day and came across a hand held battery operated food sealer vacuum pump put out by Reynolds (the same people that bring you Reynolds wrap). The price was a blowout bargain by comparison to the units we had been looking at. The Handi-Vac starter kit with the pump and a couple of bags was less than $10. I think that included the batteries. I could live with that so we bought it, brought it home, broke it out and gave it a try.

I can tell you right now this is the way to go. If you have ever thought of getting a food sealer and you are not going into the business and need a commercial unit, this makes sense. The pre-made, pre-sized bags are a wonderful design. If you can operate a self-locking bag you can definitely operate this system. And its reusable.

Put the food in the bag, press out as much air as you normally would closing these bags, seal the bag with the self locking seal, then apply the hand vacuum pump to the bag at the spot indicated while on a hard flat surface and begin to remove the air with the push of a button. Air comes out, just like the big boys and its done slick as a whistle. If you want to readjust things inside, or get something out, go ahead and open it up at the self-locking seal, pull out what you need and reseal it and put the vacuum pump to it again and your done. I like this, a lot. It works.

I think a big part of the difference is that with the Foodsaver you suck the air out first and then try to seal the bag with a heat source that fuses the material together, while the self-locking stirp on the Reynolds bag is operated by running your thumb across it like we are all used to from using sandwich bags and then applying the vacuum pump after the bag is sealed and ready to go. This simple reversal of steps in the process makes all the difference.

Some things to remember are to not overfill the bag and when filling it be sure to leave the pump corner empty enough to create a flat surface to run the pump on. The bags are a special design with a pump spot that is a one way valve to allow the air to escape but seal tightly after the air has been removed. The bags also have a rough surface inside. This is to allow the air a pathway out of the bag around whatever you are storing when the vacuum pump is working.

So what is the cost of these special bags? I was just in the local store looking for some replacements and found packages of the quart size for about $0.23 each and gallon size around $0.30. Not too shabby when you consider what it gets you as well as the easy reusability feature.

There is one other entry level vacuum food sealer competitor and that is Ziploc. They have a system that is even cheaper but it uses a manual pump to create the vacuum function. From my experience, using a manual pump is a two handed operation most of the time and that would mean you would still need a third hand to work the bag. Since I am looking for simplicity and functionality I think the better pick is the battery operated unit Handi-Vac from Reynolds.

Bags from both Ziploc and Reynolds have similar design features. There are some lettering and highlighting differences but not enough to change the functionality of either bag. The Ziploc bags do have a textured inner lining that runs across the whole of one side for the air pathways where as the Reynolds bag only textures a couple inch strip across one side. Both work equally well.

The pricing on the bags seem comparable to so the only difference is in the cost of the manual pump vs. battery operated, or $3 vs. $10 in the starter kits. Since the store I went to was out of the Reynolds bags in the size I needed I decided to try the Ziploc bags and they worked just fine. Both seem to make a quality product and at a whale of a difference in price compared to the popular Foodsaver brand but then again, you don’t have to pay for all that late night T.V. advertising time.

So what did we do with it? We bought a 5 pound bag of shredded cheese at the local Costco for about $2 more than the normal 2 pound bag at the local grocer, broke it down into 5 one pound bags, vacuum packed and put them in the freezer. Then we did the same thing with a 5 pound bag of pepperoni, first wondering how much to put in each bag to cover one pizza and then remembering that it is no trouble to open it up, take out what we needed and reseal the remainder. How cool is that?

Now I know that this is no consumer reports with a comparison done over months of testing with detailed analysis of vacuum rates, seal pressures, freezer burn protection and time intervals, but this is also not a paid endorsement, (if it was I would tell you so). This is just my shared experience and opinion on a pretty good idea. I hope you find it handy.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.