Samsung Galaxy S III

First impression is kinda let down, however it’s more than meets, you might feel surprised …

The Samsung Galaxy S III is powered by Samsung’s own Exynos chip. If you’re wondering how powerful is the Exynos chip, it’s the chip that powered the Samsung Galaxy S II, and mind you, the Samsung Galaxy S II is fast. Samsung has upped the ante now with the next generation of Exynos chip.

The new Exynos chip is a quad core variant, build on 32nm high-k + metal gate LP process. What does this new 32nm engineering process brings? Lower power consumption, lower cost, and the ability to clock higher. All these translates into a 1.4GHz quad core powered Samsung Galaxy S III.

Sitting side-by-side of the quad core ARM Cortex A9 1.4GHz CPU in the Exynos 4 SoC is an ARM Mali400MP4 graphics chip. This chip is the quad core version of what you have in your Samsung Galaxy S II (if you have one). Graphics performance benefits differently from CPU performance, the latter doesn’t guarantee performance increment if the app isn’t multithreaded written while the earlier benefits from any added cores. You can expect as much as four times of performance increment over Samsung Galaxy S II when it comes to graphics.

Ok, technical elaboration aside. So what this new CPU and graphics benefits you?

Mobile browser is still a long way to match what you experience on desktop browser. But we are getting closer than ever, you might be able to experience web browsing experience as smooth as on PC in few years time maybe. As you can see above, the improvement that the new Exynos 4 chip brings is huge. Chip performance and browser optimization plays a role here.

The comparison above shows the strength of the quad core graphics that I’ve mentioned earlier. It smokes out every smartphone when it comes to graphics performance. If you’re not a heavy gamer, you’ll still benefit from this fast graphics chip as it will be in lower power consumption and gives you a smoother UI interaction.

So how about the rest of the specs of this new flagship device from Samsung?

• Super AMOLED HD 4.8inch @ 1280×720
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB storage with the ability of adding extra storage via microSD slot
• 8MP rear camera, 1.9MP front camera
• Barometer, digital compass, GPS, accelerometer, proximity sensor and an RGB light sensor
• 2100 mAh Lithium Ion battery (removable)
• Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS)

The 2100 mAh battery that Samsung generously bundled with the Galaxy S III is a welcome move. The quad core CPU and GPU build on the Exynos 4 chip and a 32nm manufacturing process have quite a big impact on power consumption. Could the 32nm process and 2100 mAh battery give a longer run on daily usage? This is still a big question mark on everybody’s head. I couldn’t wait to really get the hands on testing on this phone’s battery performance.

Apart from that, the specs is nothing spectacular. The Super AMOLED HD 720p display is nothing new, it’ll be almost same as what you saw on Google Galaxy Nexus. While the 8MP camera is still a mystery, can it match the one on HTC One X? We are not sure until we get a hands on the phone itself.

So, does Samsung Galaxy S III still sounds disappointing? The design is quite subjective to everybody. But the specs and the speed boost that Samsung “inject” into this new flagship phone looks very promising. It’s the fastest phone that’s for sure, but could this fast performance compromise the battery life? For me, this is a big deciding factor when purchasing a phone, but if it’s anywhere better than HTC One X battery performance, Samsung Galaxy S III could be my next phone.

* image courtesy of http://www.anandtech.com/show/5811/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-preview

<<--back

Samsung/Google Galaxy Nexus

Released October 2011, this is the latest Google-Experience Android smartphone build by Samsung. It has slightly curved screen like its predecessor Nexus S, a large 4.65inch Super AMOLED with the first 1280×800 resolution screen, dual core Cortex A9 CPU (seems pretty old at this time) and the vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich(ICS) Android OS version 4.0. This is the first smartphone comes pre-loaded with Android 4.0 ICS and it’s one of the biggest selling point of this phone.

Specifications :

• 1.2GHz Dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor
• 4.65 inches Super AMOLED with 1280×800 resolution
• 16 GB storage
• 1 GB RAM
• Pure Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Lithium ion 1750 mAh battery

Pros :
Pure Google experience phone. You will get timely updates when new iteration of Android OS is released by Google (Jellybean Android 5.0 anyone?). It is fast thanks to the pure non-carrier or manufacturer junk apps, a 1.2GHz dual core CPU, and the latest Android 4.0 ICS which gives better performance compare to every previous Android iterations. This is the only phone which smokes out a Windows Phone 7 but it means nothing, really. Another nifty feature of Galaxy Nexus is its zero shutter lag camera, pretty nice indeed when you need some fast camera action.

Cons :
Galaxy Nexus from Samsung is one of the first Android phones that doesn’t comes with upgradable storage via microSD card. It could be a non-issue seeing this phone sports a 16GB storage space. My main complain about Galaxy Nexus is its camera quality, it isn’t terrible but it isn’t good either. Given the status as a flagship device from Samsung and Google, I would expect something in the range of Galaxy S II at least. It isn’t about the megapixels, but the image quality. But anyway, it isn’t terrible like it said earlier, you can give a go provided you don’t use this as your main camera.

Verdict :
This is one hell of a solid smartphone from Samsung and Google; quality build, firm to the grip and very fast system response thanks to its 1.2GHz dual core CPU and Android 4.0, it’s unlike anything we have seen from Android. Though, its camera left us dissapointed, it’s still acceptable anyway. A Google Nexus phone has always been well treated with new OS version updates from Google. Community ROM like the Cyanogenmod is also much in favour to the developer friendly Nexus device from Google. Prior to Galaxy Nexus, I wouldn’t have recommended Nexus phones to mainstream users, but this changes since Galaxy Nexus. The stock Android OS Ice Cream Sandwich is very smooth and user friendly, normal users wouldn’t find it difficult to navigate around. This is the phone for your if you’re looking for pure Google-experience, regardless if you’re a geek or not.

Next, Samsung Galaxy Note–>>

Don't get wrong, this is the Asus Transformer Prime. It isn't the new Google Nexus ICS-glaced tablet

Google with Asus as the OEM to release Nexus Tablet running Android 4.0 ICS? Ya you read it right. The rumours of Google doing a Nexus Tablet is not new. But with Asus instead? I would have thought Google would choose Samsung instead. But Asus? Well, probably because Asus did pretty awesome tablet lately.

So how about the specifications for this pure Google-experience Nexus tablet? Basically, you would expect the latest Android OS Ice Cream Sandwich booting up, rumoured to be running on nvidia Tegra3, and rumoured to be no bigger than 7inch. The display could be using IPS on 1280×800 resolution.

Asus 7-inch Eee Pad MeMO 370T

Here more rumours. During CES, Asus announced 7-inch Eee Pad MeMO 370T. It runs on nvidia Tegra3 as well. If Google really chooses Asus as the OEM for Nexus Tablet, it would look something like 7inch Eee Pad MeMO 370T.

How about the pricing of this Google Nexus Tablet? Expect it to be the range of $200. Enticing isn’t it? I don’t really own one tablet yet, and this could be my first tablet.

So does this get your attention? You might be asking when will you able to buy one? Well, some sources saying a Q2, which is around April the earliest. From my opinion, I would expect Google to release its Nexus Tablet on middle of 2012, probably around June. But get your finger crossed, all these are just rumours.

<<----back

Rumoured specs for Galaxy S III:

• 1.5GHz quad core Samsung Exynos processor (SoC)
• Ceramic case
• 4.8inch full HD 1080p Super AMOLED screen
• 2Mp front and 8MP read camera

Confirm specifications:

• Google Android 4.0.3
• Updated TouchWiz launcher

The confirmed specs is just that’s it, kinda lame? Samsung is just as tight lipped like Apple these days. One thing that was confirmed is a global launch event is planned for Galaxy S III, meaning Samsung will launch everywhere around the globe simultaneously. You won’t have to wait indefinitely when your European counterpart is already owning a Galaxy S III for over half a year.

And what about the expected launch date? There were earlier rumours saying an April launch, but Samsung squash the rumours just few days ago. Personally, I would say a launch in no later than summer this year. And there is a possibility of a huge marketing campaign in conjunction to the launch of Samsung Galaxy S III, probably big banners and big screen ads everywhere during the 2012 London Olympics. And as well as Samsung giving out their Galaxy S III to athletes in 2012 London Olympics, I would have did that if I were the Samsung marketing manager. The athletes will become the marketing ambassador for Samsung indirectly. Well, these are just some of my speculations. I seriously hope to see Samsung Galaxy S III landing in my local telcos soon. And by the way, the picture of Samsung Galaxy S III above is just a rumoured concept device. But if the real device really does looks like what rendered here, it’ll be a WIN for Samsung.

<<----back

Aliens Invasion


Rating : 4.5 stars
Addictive : yes
Link : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.itreegamer.game.Aliens

Description : Aliens Invasion is an incomparable fun and addictive shooting game.
Wake up from your sweet dream. The aliens have invaded everywhere over the world. As a survival, you must grasp your weapons to fight for survive.
Verdict : This game is fun. It reminds me of Aliens trilogy ( I don’t count Aliens 4 as part of it, as the movie is worst than Twiligt IMO). I don’t think you will able to finish all the levels, as it was limitless. You will face non-stop Aliens onslaught till you surrender, at certain level. If you love aliens killing spree, this game is for you.

Cartoon Wars


Rating : 5 stars
Addictive : kinda

Link : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gamevil.cartoonwars.gunner.global
Description : Cartoon Wars: Gunner+ is a side scrolling, action-packed game incorporating elements from RPG and adventure genre.
Verdict : If you are a RPG fans, this game is not to be missed. The graphics is simple, but the gameplay is awesome. On top of that, one of the rarity, it is a 5 over 5 stars rated game app.

Death Worm


Rating : 4.5 stars
Addictive : not really
Link : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.playcreek.DeathWorm_Free
Description : Meet the highly anticipated Android version of the *ORIGINAL* Death Worm game (a Top-50 indie game of all times according to indiegames.com).
Control the mind-boggling underground monster with your finger! Eat people, animals and birds, blow up cars and tanks, bring down planes and helicopters, defeat the army and even the aliens!
Verdict : IMO, this game is more of stress releaser. You eat humans, crash vehicles, hated by everyone, create chaos … Just think of those running humans as your boss. Anyway, if you want more levels from this game, you need to make payment to get the full app. For all the fun in the free version, it’s worth to try it out.

Defender


Rating : 4.5 stars (seriously? it should have been 5 stars or even 6)
Addictive : VERY! you’ve been warned.
Link : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.droidhen.defender
Description : Waves of monsters are attacking your castle. They move fast, strike hard, and never give up. It’s time to equip your BOW to fight! Can you defend your castle against intruders with your archery?
Verdict : I save the best for last. This tower defence game brings Android game to a whole new level. I rated this as the NUMBER 1 game on Android Market. This is a game which gave me sleepless nights countlessly. You have been warned though, download this game at YOUR OWN RISK!

<<----back

What improvements did Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich ICS brings? Ice Cream Sandwich is pretty much the topic of any mobile freaks right now, well you can minus out the hardcore fanboys from the iSide. Cyanogenmod(CM) teams are in hardworking in bringing CM9(the version numbering to depict Ice Cream Sandwich) to modders. And manufacturers are working overnight to bring Android 4.0 updates to most of their existing devices. So what’s all the hype about the newest Android iteration from Google? After updated my HTC Sensation with an XDA-build ICS Android 4.0.1 for over a week, this is what I experienced, layman wise.

Better UI response:
Android lacked hardware acceleration for most of the user interface interaction at the very beginning. UI animations that you saw in iPhone is actually accelerated via the graphic chips, and that’s the reason it looks smoother. While it always smoother in iPhone, but you can never compare the UI between Android and iOS, the UI in iPhone is simply…boring and dated, don’t agree? Have a look at your friend’s Galaxy Note. Anyway, let that be the topic for next post shall we?

In Android 4.0, Google finally bring full hardware acceleration for the smartphone OS. It isn’t new for Android actually. The tablet OS Honeycomb Android 3.0 does support hardware acceleration but it is limited and buggy. Buggy in a sense that it still feels laggy.
From my experience of using Android 4.0 on my HTC Sensation, it is a beta rom by the way. The UI response is way better than Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

What is an upgrade if there is no performance improvement? However I won’t cover for CPU and graphics performance, as you can hardly feel the difference for day to day usage. What I’ll be talking here is the improvement on web browsing. Google made improvement on the new V8 JavaScript rendering engine on ICS browser, and the improvement was huge. Look at the comparison chart above. *image courtesy of Anandtech

Way better battery performance

This was tested on my HTC Sensation. When running on Android 2.3, I got an average battery life of 5hours max, that was pretty bad! My usage includes frequent Facebook and Twittering, light gaming, Google maps, taking some pictures, viewing gallery and listening to music via Google Music. And on top of that, my network is in 3G mode.
Since January this year, I got my HTC Sensation running on Android 4.0.3. The first thing that blows my mind is the battery performance, I got almost 9hours++ battery life! That was almost double of what offers in Android 2.3 Gingerbread on my HTC Sensation!

Improved multitasking

Multitasking is what makes Android, Android. It is one of the key selling point when Android rolled out by Google almost 4years ago. In Ice Cream Sandwich, Google has enhanced the multitask experience even better. How to invoke the multitask recent apps? For Galaxy Nexus and some newer upcoming devices, there would be a dedicated button for that, but for older phones, you can do it by long pressing the home button.
From here, you can switch apps easily and even end task/clear recent app by swiping left or right of that app, just like how you clear the notifications. next page —>>

No.1 – Samsung Galaxy S II

Samsung Galaxy S II

Holding the number 1 spot in the arena of Androids goes to Samsung Galaxy S II. Sporting the fastest mobile processor available currently, the 1.2GHz Samsung Exynos with a brilliantly vibrant Super AMOLED Plus 4.3inch display trounce over competitors effortlessly. The downside of this Galaxy S II is the plastic-ky feel of the phone itself. It feels very light as it was made of high quality plastic.

No.2 – HTC Sensation

HTC Sensation

HTC Sensation is simply sensational. The whole body is made with a unibody aluminium construction. Making it a very well build phone, superior to that of Samsung Galaxy SII. On top of that, the HTC Sense 3.0 take this phone UI experience to the next level. However, the poor viewing angle of the display, low phone storage spaces and less than decent battery life still fall short in otherwise could have make this phone the best phone of 2011. Thus, becoming the number 2 here. next page No.3 and No.4 –>>

For those who missed my previous How to optimize and speed up to make Android phone run faster article, just click and have a read about it. Most of the tips there works and saved the juice on your Android as well. But some of the most relevant tips will be reposted here.

• Switch to 2G network if u dont need the speed

Obviously, the slower 2G networks EDGE and GPRS uses much less power than 3G. If you only use your phone for sending Whatsapp messages, reading text-only news or simply put, you don’t need that extra speed, just switch to 2G-only settings. How to set 2G-only setting? Go to Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks >Network mode.

• Disable automatic backlight adjustment

Disabling automatic backlight adjustment saves up the CPU for having to adjust the backlight according to the available surrounding ambient light. This translate into less power to do processing which also leads to less usage of battery on your Droid. Go to Settings > Display > Brightness , and untick Automatic brightness. For Sony Ericsson Android owners, you must use the power widget to disable it.

• Disable live wallpaper

Live wallpaper is not free. I mean, not free on your CPU and GPU of your Droid. This eye candy taxes the CPU and GPU on your Android device. I know, it gives you a level of decoration on your Droid which is not possible on iPhone. But hey, if you are looking at this article, you should disable it by setting a static wallpaper to your Android instead.

• Do not use any task killers

This tip was taken from XDA. ”Taskillers are supposed to speed your phone by killing tasks when the Memory is ‘full’ or above a defined limit. The problem is that it interferes with Android built-in (and efficient) memory management. You have to understand that what can slow down your phone is not Memory saturation (because Android will start closing apps on its own before reaching this situation), but CPU usage. You can still use a taskiller to see which app are eating CPU cycles and close them. But again, don’t let any 3rd-party app manage your memory. It will only bring you force-closes, battery drain, and various unpredictable issues.”

Since Android 2.2 Froyo, Android has an effective memory management build into the OS itself. For those using Android 2.2 Froyo and above, you can forget about any task managers that you can find from the Android Market.

• Use Juice Defender

Download Juice Defender
Like its name says, it defends the juice of your Android. For me, the Free version of Juice Defender is good enough. It turns off your 3G/Wifi everytime you turn off your Android screen and turns on when you turn on your screen again. The marvel of this Juice Defender is, it somehow also turns on the data periodically to check for push messages and emails. I discovered this when I installed Juice Defender, I still able to see messages pushed to my phone during the night when I woke up the next morning. I don’t have to do any manual sync to retrieve messages and email at all.

However, Juice Defender renders my ebuddy unusable at all. It disables the data plan when I screen off. Anyway, it isn’t much of an issue as I uses my instant messagers only when I was travelling. And the best part? After using Juice Defender for 2weeks, I’d notice a better battery performance by as much as half day longer for every single full charge. From the app itself, it reported that it saves up as much as 1.6times of battery life for me. I dunno how it did the calculations, but half day longer battery life is more than good enough for me.

• Disable vibration

Vibration eats out your battery life. If you’re not in a meeting or cinema, disable it by going to Settings > Sound > unticks the Vibrate setting

• Follow lithium battery saving tips here

I have written a detail guide of prolonging the life of your lithium battery, be it a mobile phone or your laptop battery. Following it makes your battery last longer on a single charge and not only that, you’ll learned the tips of prolonging the lifespan of your phone battery.

• use SetCPU or Daemon Controller to adjust your cpu speed ( for rooted Androids only )

Download SetCPU here
Download Daemon Controller here
These CPU controlling apps can be set to reduce clock rates while in different states. Pretty useful to save up juices on your battery. For Daemon Controller, you’ll need the correct kernel for your device (which available on XDA of course). While SetCPU works for any rooted Android phones.

<<---back

Well, this is simple enough. How to get back the old Facebook chat? Go to the Facebook page, Hold down the “Ctrl” key and press the “+” on your keyboard. Or you can do it by holding the “Ctrl” and use your mouse to scroll up. You can actually notice this is a zooming function for your browser. Just by zooming one level, the new Facebook chat will be transformed back to the older better version. Simple enough? I dunno, this could be a function build by Facebook itself but didn’t documented well. Anyway, it just work and you don’t have to install or tweak anything at all.

This method has been tested in the following browser, and theoretically it should work on any browser except the ancient browsers like the Internet Explorer 6.

Works on:

• Google Chrome 13
• Mozilla Firefox 5
• Internet Explorer 8
• Opera 11

<< -- back

HTC Sensation

HTC Sensation

Specifications:

• 4.3inch S-LCD 960×540 resolution
• 1.2GHz Snapdragon dual-core SoC with Adreno 220 GPU
• 1GB phone storage
• 768MB RAM
• 8MP Dual-LED flash
• Front VGA camera
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS
• Lithium-ion 1520 mAh battery
• HTC Sense 3.0

First off, lets look at the flagship phone from HTC. HTC Sensation sports a new dual core Qualcomm MSM 8260 Snapdragon SoC running at 1.2GHz. This chip is essentially the same architecture from Qualcomm last year’s 1GHz single core Snapdragon soldered in a dual core package. The big enhancement in this chip is the Adreno 220 GPU which is the new graphics from Qualcomm itself (Qualcomm has acquired Adreno). The rest of the specifications are pretty standard even compared to previous generation’s gadget. One notable upgrade is the HTC Sense 3.0 which looks awesomely cool. I have tested my ownself and was blowned away by the creativity of how HTC managed to take Sense to the next level. What’s new in HTC Sense 3.0 is the totally revamped lock screen, the 3D carousel and as well as newly designed widgets. Depending on how you look at it, HTC Sense 3.0 gives most users a better user experience. For most techie guys, HTC Sense 3.0 is mostly useless as they will flash the Sensation to Cyanogenmod or any other mod ROM.

Why is HTC Sensation better than Samsung Galaxy S II?

• Originality. User interface and physical design from Sensation guarantees HTC not getting any design infringement lawsuit from Steve Apple Jesus Jobs. Your friends won’t mistaken your Sensation as an iPhone.
• Sensation feels firmer on your grip. It has slightly bigger body and heavier by an ounce than Galaxy S II.
• Aluminium build makes HTC Sensation tougher and more likely to survive on a drop to the floor than Galaxy S II. Don’t do that on purpose though.
• qHD resolution on Sensation lets you view more stuff in a single page. Text and images will be slightly crispier as well. And since it is a quarter HD resolution, viewing HD video is much pleasurable compared to the 800×480 resolution on Galaxy S II.
• HTC Sense 3.0. This is a matter of personal preference. Personally, I would prefer HTC Sense 3.0 over Samsung Galaxy S II’s TouchWiz 4.0. Sense 3.0 is revolutionary and innovative while TouchWiz 4.0 is bland and nothing really awesome out of it.

next page Samsung Galaxy S II >>

]]> http://www.techmostwanted.com/android/latest-android-flagship-phone-comparison-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-vs-htc-sensation/feed/ 0