Use a smartphone? You're probably voting Obama!

Flickr/White House

Politics, and all of its “nuances” has always been a fascinating subject to me. I don't get into the inner workings of political systems around the world, but at least skim the headlines to stay up to date with daily occurrences in US politics. To be honest, I get all my political news from “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” Does that still count?

Here is a report that could have easily originated from either of the previously mentioned shows. According to a recent poll:

If you own and use a smartphone, you're more likely to vote for current President Barack Obama rather than Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

The Harris Interactive poll, sponsored by Velti, a mobile marketing technology provider, shows that 49% of iOS and Android smartphone owners would vote for Obama, as opposed to 31% for Romney. Granted, a test base of just 800 smartphone users isn't close to being a big enough test base, and the results are maybe far from accurate.

Before these poll results spark a political debate along the lines of “I have a smartphone but I'm still voting for Romney” or “No smartphone but Obama FTW!” , let me just say that polls like these should be taken in good humor. Yes, smartphones allow people to stay connected always and on top of all the latest happenings around the world. But I'm not sure how much your device preference shapes your political associations. I am guessing little to none.

That being said, the U.S. elections are right around the corner and other polls have both candidates neck-and-neck, so we are definitely going to see an exciting finish.

What are your thoughts? Do you own a smartphone and will vote for Obama? Do you own a smartphone and will vote for Romney? Let us know in the comments section below.

Verizon smartphone prepaid plans now bring you more data

by Bogdan Bele, 2 days ago

Verizon smartphone prepaid plans now include bigger data allowances, while keeping unlimited talk and messages in place. As you may remember, the Verizon smartphone prepaid plans have been made available in February, and you could…

Comments

True_Neutral

Is this the last of the series? Because you haven’t talked about some of the
idiosyncrasies common to China phones. For example, the vast majority of China phones uses chipsets from Mediatek. The two most common are the MTK6577, a dual core Cortex-A9 part. This is an older part that is relegated to lower-end China phones now. The newer MTK6589 is a quad-core Cortex A7 with a PowerVR SGX544, fabbed at 28nm. I really like this chip and I think it has a lot of potential. The downside of Mediatek is that they are notorious for not providing source code. As such, if you are a power user and like running custom ROMs like Cyanogenmod or AOKP, Mediatek based phones won’t be your cup of tea.
- http://www.garysims.co.uk garysims
  
  No, this isn’t the last in the series, there will be a few more.
  - George
    
    Hi there and thanks for the post.
    
    Since I am in the process of
    getting some Chinese MTK6589 quad-core phones your input is invaluable
    to me. I have postponed it until I have read all the series of this
    article. My Question is this. How long will it take for the rest of the
    articles to be posted? Can you speed it up a bit if possible? TY
    - http://www.facebook.com/le.takoma.hieu Hiếu Ka Tê
      
      MTK is worthless processor ever !
  - Delonte Harden
    
    Can you please tell me which site you use to buy these phones? After a lil time researching online, I keep seeing bad reviews about these sites, like Aliexpress and so forth, which makes me kinda hesitant…
  - Delonte Harden
    
    Can you please tell me which site you use to buy these phones? After a lil time researching online, I keep seeing bad reviews about these sites, like Aliexpress and so forth, which makes me kinda hesitant…
    - http://www.garysims.co.uk garysims
      
      Please read the paragraph that starts “Always buy from a well known vendor” there is some information there.
      
      Thanks, Gary
- crickcrick
  
  True, if you want to run custom ROM’s chinese phones are not the way to go but the upside is they almost all the time with vanilla android so people to custom ROM’s just to get away from the heavily skinned UI you are taken care of, also all of these phones are root friendly.
  - True_Neutral
    
    The thing is that custom ROMs aren’t just a way of getting away from skins and bloatware. They are also a solution to manufacturers not providing timely upgrades. And Chinese manufacturers aren’t really known for that.
    - http://profiles.google.com/rhippert02 Russell Hippert
      
      In the case of core updates like GB to ICS you are correct. However in a lot of cases root can get you a heavily tuned hybrid “ROM”. The only things you would not get would be kernel, recovery (maybe) and base code changes. Examples of this already exist.
Mathieu

hi, i wanted to know if it is possible to unlock my HTC one (m7) from telus to use it with videotron ? and can i unlock a s4 from videotron to use it with telus ??
Darkstar

iPadAlternative.com have ceased trading so hope you haven’t ordered from them!! On the site it states ‘

Dear Customers,

It
is with great regret that ipadalternative.com has closed as of April
29th. This is due to the fact that our Chinese counter-part has become
unreliable and untrustworthy.
Darkstar

iPadAlternative.com have ceased trading so hope you haven’t ordered from them!! On the site it states ‘

Dear Customers,

It
is with great regret that ipadalternative.com has closed as of April
29th. This is due to the fact that our Chinese counter-part has become
unreliable and untrustworthy.
flamencoguy

I have bought 5 phones (some for presents) from China. I had no issues.
I have also bought cables and other accessories. No problems.
You should Google “the company name and scams” to see if there are any issues. Also check out when they started business. The older the more established.
I am planning to buy the Oppo Find 5 next. It has a Snapdragon 4 core CPU.
This is one of the top 5 Android phones on the market today. Check it out. Also available on Amazon.com
check out dx.com to see range of products available. Not the latest phones on this site tho.
doodle

so what’s happened to part 3?…
dreamerman

Did a fair bit of research on Chinese androids and where to buy them. Key is to buy a well known brand like Star/Ulephone, THL, Zoppo etc. These brands have been reviewed to death on youtube and both foreign/English forums (thanks to Google translate). Once you know which phone you desire next is who to buy from. Personally I avoid aliexpress/dhgate/alibaba or other off-shoot sites. Vendors selling on these sites could be genuine but their payment platform really suck. These sites moved away from paypal some time ago. They make life really hard if you want to pay by credit card. These sites will allow you to checkout and pay by credit card (after entering all credit card info including CVV) and all seems dandy but 10mins later you will receive an email saying your payment is awaiting authorisation. To authorise, you will need to provide your credit card statement, proof of identity etc etc which is a load of crap. By now, they would have your credit card info plus CVV!! Prices on these sites are very competitive and allow a measure of negotiation. I managed to negotiate for a Star N9589 1GB/8GB MTK6589 Quad Core 5.8″ 1280*720 plus a Kingston 32GB micro-sd card for US$225 including China Post shipping. Both vendor and I are frustrated the deal cannot be completed but such if life. I finally bought and received the same phone minus micro-sd card for US$230 including shipping on ebay. This phone is GREAT!