Pause for your latest Galaxy S IV news break ahead of the March 14th unveiling: Samsung’s Mobile US Twitter account has posted this picture showing what appears to be a smartphone (shocker!) — that matches our existing Galaxy S III 1:1 minus the earpiece and with a slightly shifted logo FWIW — shrouded in shadow. We’ll understand if you’ve been overtaken by awe and need a moment, Jeremy certainly seemed impressed.

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Source: Samsung Mobile US (Twitter)

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While most Americans will have to wait just a little bit longer to get their hands on Samsung’s latest flagship, in various parts of the world the device has been out for almost a month already. We gave you a brief look at the Galaxy S3 at CTIA but I managed to persuade a friend of mine here in the UK to give me a few hours of playtime with the one he’s just bought so here are my thoughts on the device (spoiler alert – it’s pretty special). Keep in mind, this is the Exynos-powered UK-edition. Geek.com has a US model as well that we’ll be covering in the future.

Hardware

I was incredibly surprised by the build quality of the S3, even with all its plastic it still manages to feel very premium, even more so than the Galaxy Nexus. I find myself loving the hardware button — it mirrors the contours of device and looks great. I’m not a massive fan of the menu and back buttons but that can’t be helped with a physical home button unless you’re willing to do it wrong, like HTC. Having the physical buttons also leaves much more of the massive 4.8-inch screen for consuming media.

When I first got my Galaxy Nexus I thought the screen was huge and that I would never need a bigger screen but I actually found myself jealous of the S3′s screen. Even though both the Galaxy S 3 and the Nexus have 1280×720 HD Super AMOLED  screens and the Nexus has a greater amount of pixels per inch somehow the S3s screen appeared better but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. It’s also not much bigger height and width wise in comparison to the Galaxy Nexus and is actually thinner.

Battery

Despite being thinner than the Nexus, Samsung have managed to fit a whole extra 250 mAh (350 over the GSM version) into its battery and this makes all the difference. When I checked the battery usage, the phone had been off charge for 13 hours and 40 minutes, the screen had used up 39% of the depleted battery on medium brightness and the phone still had 24% remaining. On the Nexus I usually get about 2 hours of screen on time at a low brightness before I need to connect a charger.

If the battery still isn’t quite enough for you, Samsung have have provided a power saving feature which limits the CPU, uses a low power level for the screen, changes the background color (only in email and browser, strangely) and turns off haptic feedback. Changing the background color seems to just reduce the white on the background of web pages, not quite the dramatic effect I was expecting.

Gestures

Samsung have implemented some simple gestures for common tasks that can be activated under the ‘Motion’ heading in the settings page. My favorite is the palm swipe to take a screenshot. All you do is swipe your palm (I find the side of your hand is the easiest way to perform the gesture) across the screen, moments later you see a white line sweep across the screen kinda like the light you see escaping from a document scanner and the notification for the saved screenshot then pops. I was surprised at how well this worked, I expected that when I moved my palm across the screen that it would cause the home screen to move or to pan the current web page thus creating a screenshot of something unexpected but it worked perfectly and is much cooler than pressing the home and power buttons together.

Another gesture is tilt to zoom, whilst reading a web page you can simply tilt the phone back slightly and the page zooms in, tilt the phone towards you and it zooms back out. Then there’s the palm touch, which is stated that when you touch your palm to the screen the current media playing will pause. By media I assumed this would include YouTube videos, sadly it did not, it did however, work on music playback.

The direct call gesture is a nice touch, if you have a contact currently displayed on screen you can simply lift the phone to your ear and it will begin to call them, it also works in a thread in the stock SMS app. Likewise if you’re scrolling through your contacts list you can swipe left on a contact to send them an SMS or swipe right to begin calling them.

S Voice

I was excited to try S Voice as I hadn’t had much experience with Siri and last I checked the current Android alternatives weren’t much to shout about. I love the UI of S Voice with the carbon fiber looking background, unfortunately that’s where my love of S Voice stopped. The first query I tried was ‘What’s the weather like today’ which worked perfectly, I then tried to ask ‘What’s the greatest smartphone in the world’ which it completely misunderstood. I thought, well that’s alright, I do tend to mumble, so I tried again, this time I was greeted with a network error even with great signal as can be seen in the screenshot above. All subsequent attempts garnered network errors and even one server error, I gave up in the end.

TouchWiz

A complaint I have with TouchWiz is with some of the replacement stock apps, to me they aren’t as nice as the stock ICS ones, especially the contacts/people app. They seem to be using the design guidelines from before ICS although this isn’t such a big deal as they don’t have to fit in with the stock launchers Holo theme, maybe they would actually look out of place if they took on the new design guidelines. It does however make them look out of place with some of the ICS optimized apps coming through the Play Store currently. Some of the TouchWiz apps are actually extremely similar to their stock counterparts, the Gallery app for example seems to be exactly the same except for the Action Bar at the top.

A minor issue I have with the stock browser is that it has it’s own brightness settings, it took me forever to work out why the screen was dimming whenever I opened the browser, for some this will be a great added feature but for me it seems a little strange, if the device were mine however, I’d be replacing the stock browser with Chrome Beta anyway.

For all Samsung’s work on polishing TouchWiz and creating a great user experience one blindingly obvious mistake they made was with homescreen folders. For some ridiculous reason you have to press menu on the homescreen, tap create folder and then drop the apps you want into said folder. You can’t just drop an app on top of another to create a folder like in stock ICS which seems a really obvious thing to overlook.

As I was flicking through the available widgets there was one named “Videos”, intrigued I placed it on the home screen, I was then asked to choose a video from the gallery, which I did and the widget was placed. It was a screenshot of the video with a play icon in the center, I clicked play and expected the video to start playing within the widget which it didn’t. It opened up the video player and played from there, who needs access to a video so frequently and quickly that they need a widget on their home screen? Also the pop out and overlay feature of the videos is certainly a wow factor but I couldn’t see myself ever using it, I would rather pause it and quickly take care of whatever it was that required me to move away from full screen video enjoyment.

One last little part of TouchWiz that I like is some of Samsung’s own live wallpapers, specifically the news one. You simply choose your location and news topic (top stories, politics etc.) and the live wallpaper shows various headlines of your chosen topic. It looks incredibly cool and polished but if you’re someone who has a cluttered home screen then ultimately it becomes pointless as you won’t be able to read the headlines or touch them to open up the news article. There’s also a similar wallpaper for stock market information.

Final Thoughts

TouchWiz is by far one of the best custom skins to land on Android, I never thought I’d say this but I wouldn’t be apposed to using this over stock, for a while at least. I’ve never owned a smartphone that wasn’t running stock Android but there’s something about TouchWiz on the S3 that makes me contemplate not getting the next Nexus and waiting for the S4. Perhaps it’s the smoothness that Samsung have instilled throughout the OS that brings it more inline with the smoothness of iOS or the inclusion of some of the features you only get on a stock device by flashing something like CyanogenMod (power controls in notification bar or expandable number of home screens, etc.). Either way Samsung have created a truly great experience through the combination of their excellent hardware and amazing software.

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Filed under: Misc, Samsung

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The Galaxy Note 8 — it’s the next logical step in Samsung’s ongoing Note saga, and it finally launched in Barcelona. We spoke with Nick DiCarlo, VP of Product Planning for Samsung mobile, about the company’s latest tablet. He mentioned that the voice capability, which is a very polarizing feature for some, was a common request among customers. It’s unclear if the US carriers will keep this functionality intact, but he suggested that you, dear readers, might be able to sway them by emailing in. We discussed some of the Note 8′s other selling points, such as the S Pen-sensitive buttons (finally!) and the IR blaster, which we think is located in the wrong place (the right edge instead of the top) — possibly the result of Peel‘s landscape-centric remote control app. Design was an other area we touched upon, and something we feel Samsung’s been complacent about this past year. Materials and build quality just don’t do the company’s products justice, especially on flagships like the Galaxy S III and Note devices. Mr. DiCarlo acknowledged our concerns but pointed out that the entire Galaxy line is light, thin and durable, something everyone wants in a quality smartphone or tablet. Let’s see what the Galaxy S IV brings to the table, right? Until then, watch our video interview after the break.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 new flagship smartphone bests the competition in Rightware’s Browsermark benchmark.

It’s expected Samsung will launch its highly anticipated Galaxy S4 smartphone at the Mobile Unpacked event in New York on March 14, but in the meantime, we have some benchmark scores to salivate over. Topping Rightware’s Browsermark 2.0 benchmark is a listing for the Samsung GT-I9500, believed to be the codename for the Samsung Galaxy S4, and it looks to be a scorching fast device.

The supposed Samsung Galaxy S4 posted a score of 2,710 running Google’s Chrome 25 browser. That’s the highest score ever achieved in Browsermark 2.0, topping heavyweights like the LG Optimus G, HTC One, iPhone 5, and of course Samsung’s own Galaxy S III.

Previous rumors suggest the Galaxy S IV will tout an eight-core Exynos Octa 5 processor, though calling it an eight-core chip is a bit of a marketing spin. The Exynos 5 houses four Cortex A15 processing cores to tackle tasks like gaming, and four Cortex A7 cores for lighter workloads. Samsung claims this designs allows for up to 70 percent higher energy efficiency compared to previous quad-core Exynos parts.

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Leaning towards the Samsung Galaxy Camera but don’t think that cellular connectivity is of much use for you? Well, Sammy‘s just taken the covers off a new variant, dubbed the EK-GC110, forsaking the 3G / 4G modem and making the device more affordable in the process. Other key specs remain the same as its sibling, the EK-GC100, including a 16.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, 21x optical zoom, 4.8-inch display, 1.4GHz quad-core processor and Android 4.1. The all-important pricing and availability information is still TBA, however. And while this WiFi-only iteration is even less likely to make you set your smartphone aside, hopefully it won’t hurt your wallet so much.

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Source: Samsung

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Word of an Android app for Belkin’s line of WeMo home automation hardware came amid a flurry of CES news, and now the application has rolled onto Google Play in beta form just over a month later. The app is specifically tested for the Galaxy S III, but handsets toting Ice Cream Sandwich or higher will be able to take it for a spin. By wielding the application, users can control WeMo devices over WiFi and cellular networks, configure custom icons, tweak names, take care of local firmware updates and hook things up with IFTTT. Remote firmware updates, support content and WeMo rules have yet to be baked into the software, however. Belkin is hoping guinea pigs will report bugs, but can’t guarantee they’ll be fixed in the short term. Currently, the outfit says issues regarding poor signal strength and app crashes are on its radar. Looking forward to the polished, growing pain-free product? The final app is expected to arrive around the summertime.

[Thanks, Matt]

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Source: Google Play

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It’s not like we didn’t have ample warning, so by now anyone wanting to try out the new Ubuntu smartphone OS should have gotten hold of a Galaxy Nexus to be their test device. Still don’t have one? Then you’ll be pleased to know that a Nexus 4 will actually serve just as well, and you have six days to get equipped. The Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview will be made public on February 21st alongside the open source code and all the tools necessary to flash those two devices.

The official aim is to help devs and enthusiasts learn the platform and start building software for it, whether for core functions or for when a full third-party app store eventually goes live. The bigger picture is that, by the time Ubuntu 13.10 launches in October, an app written in this platform’s Qt/QML lingo should be able to run on any Ubuntu device — whether it be a PC, TV, tablet or smartphone — with no porting required. Rest assured that we have a couple of Nexii at the ready and we fully intend to give this newcomer a thorough hazing / write-up as soon as possible.

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Earlier today, Samsung announced the availability of its dual-sim Galaxy Grand Duos for markets in India. Shipping with an included flip cover, the budget-friendly phablet will sell for Rs 21,500 ($ 400). Loaded with mid-range specs, the device’s highlights include a 5-inch WVGA display, a 1.5GHz 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with Android 4.1 running the show. We recently managed to get some hands-on time with a pre-production build of this handset, which felt like a hefty GSIII, but performed more like an overgrown Galaxy S III mini. However, if you’ve got phablets on the brain and you’re balling on a budget, this thrifty hybrid device begins shipping the first week of February.

Update: This post originally (and incorrectly) indicated a 1.5GHz processor. The correct number is 1.2GHz.

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Via: Android Community

Source: The Times of India , Samsung India Store

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If you had planned to S-Beam your media around on Samsung’s Galaxy S III mini, only to be disappointed by the lack of Near Field Communication on our UK review model, then we’ve got some good news for all twelve of you. Yes, Samsung has announced that Brits will be treated to an NFC iteration before the end of this particularly chilly January and it will arrive across the major carriers and in phone stores both online and real. While the announcement didn’t arrive with a price tag, we’ve been tipped off to some pricing at Finnish retailer Gigantti, where the NFC version rings in at 349 euros. Sidestep the contactless communication, however, and you’ll only have to pay 299 euros. There’s the choice of both blue and white finishes on either model, but you’ll still have to decide whether tappable file transfer and sharing warrants that 50 euros ($ 67) extra.

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Via: ESPhone Blog

Source: Gigantti (Finnish)

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