Technology Android

[dilla]

Pretty jealous of my parents and sister getting new phones yesterday. Dad and sister got 16GB 4Ss and I told my mom to be different and get a Galaxy Nexus. WE'll see in the next few months who loves their phone more.

I fucking love the form-factor of the iPhone, more than the Nexus and I like the Nexus's a lot too. Can't say I'm a fan of using iOS, though. Not as a phone OS (iPod Touch is fine). Really wish I was in the country again permanently to get one.

They switched to Sprint, BTW, which is cheap as shit, especially for the family plan.

 

[S O F I]

there's a reason it's cheap. it sucks.

 

[Flipmo]

Samsung Galaxy S III uses PenTile for longer-lasting screens​

By Daniel Bader on May 10, 2012 at 5:02pm in Mobile News​

​

When the Galaxy S III was announced last week its 4.8-inch display was met with a mixture of ambivalence and incredulity. Ambivalence because 720p resolution is no longer surprising on a smartphone; incredulity because Samsung chose to go with a PenTile matrix for its Super AMOLED screen.​

Long deemed the best mobile displays on the market, Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology provides deeper blacks, richer colours and better viewing angles than the equivalent LCD. When the Galaxy Nexus debuted with a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED it was only natural to assume that the company’s next flagship would move on from the red-green-blue-green pixel alignment in favour of a true RGB palette.​

According to representative Philip Berne, Samsung could have used a non-PenTile array, but doing so would have shortened the life of the display. Blue subpixels tend to degrade faster than their green or red equivalents, so having more green subpixels ostensibly extends the life of the screen. Because customers tend to hold onto phones for up to three years, Samsung needs to ensure that the Galaxy S III looks great from year to year.​

PenTile has become controversial because its lack of subpixel uniformity leads to a slight blurring of text, and gives an overall fuzziness to shapes. It is less of an issue with higher-resolution screens, and Berne ensures us that the issue is moot on the Galaxy S III due to smaller gaps in the subpixel array itself.​

But the debate will never disappear until PenTile disappears, and that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. While I loved the screen on the Galaxy Nexus, it doesn’t have the same stunning clarity of the Super LCD 2 screen on the HTC One X.​

We’ll reserve our judgements until we get our hands on a review unit, but in the meantime, let us know if PenTile matters to you.​

Source: Mobile Burn​

 

[masta247]

Bullshit. The blue subpixel issue is basically nonexistent on smartphones and the pentile allignment doesn't help with that issue anyway. They picked it because of lower price, slightly lower power usage and superior brightness.

 

[Flipmo]

Masta: The blue subpixel - THAT'S THE SHIT I DON'T LIKE.

 

[Flipmo]

BriefMobile has rumored a new LG device with a feature list that looks like a smartphone-lover's dream. The LG LS970, which the site is calling the "Eclipse 4G LTE," is said to be powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor paired with an Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM. It also includes a 13-megapixel camera, 16GB of storage, and a separate radio capable of voice-over-LTE (VoLTE). The phone itself, unhelpfully pictured from the back, appears to be a proof-of-concept prototype rather than a production-ready device, with an exposed aerial port and unfinished branding.

Current Snapdragon S4 processors benefit from integrated radios, but the setup apparently used in the LS970 consists of the APQ8064, an SoC that Qualcomm has demoed for use in tablets, and the MDM9615 radio chip. The separate radio is to be Qualcomm's first that can provide LTE voice and SMS functions without utilizing the processor. The combination is a very unusual choice for a phone, but with radio-integrated quad-core S4 SoCs not likely to arrive until 2013, it may be the only way of getting a quad-core S4 into a device this year. BriefMobile's contact expects the device to land in Q4, but with no real evidence that this device actually exists, we'll have to reserve judgement until we hear something more concrete.

 

[masta247]

I played with the Samsung Galaxy S3 today at an Orange booth (they are trying to create a hype since they'll start selling it in 2 weeks). It doesn't feel good in hand. Moreover the cool sensation while holding the HTC One X just isn't there. I had the HTC One X and the Galaxy S3 side by side and.. I like the HTC One X better. It feels cooler in hand while the display size is almost the same. It feels smaller and much better designed. The quality on the HTC phone appears to be better.
The Galaxy S3 looks even more shitty in real life than on pictures, and HTC One X looks cooler in reality. Also, the new Sense is cooler and more responsive than the new Touchwiz. There's less bloatware on the HTC phone.

Despite the hype, if I was stuck between the SGS3 and HTC One X I'd pick the HTC phone. And before the current line-up I'd never have picked an HTC flagship over a Samsung flagship.
I still think that the HTC One S is cooler than the One X though.

What I'm trying to say is - if you want a huge-screened flagship now go check out the One X before going for the SGS3 because frankly I believe that it might be a better phone, despite all the hype for the Galaxy S3.

 

[masta247]

Look, concidentally there's a huuuge comparison between the two phones (One X vs SGS3). The conclusion appears to be that both phones are awesome and appear to finish hardware tests with similar results - One X camera and beats audio make it score a little lower though. Samsung is filled with more software solutions (bloatware):
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s_iii_vs_htc_one_x-review-759.php

HTC scores a huge praise for superior build quality and design though.

You can also see the HTC One S owning both in benchmarks
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s_iii_vs_htc_one_x-review-759p4.php

 

[Pittsey]

Which ever I got.... I would be rooting and adding a vanilla based ROM. A guy I work with has the One X. Nice screen. But I hate Sense....


Does the S3 have an NFC chip?

 

[Flipmo]

Yeah, it's NFC enabled I believe.

No matter what, I'll be rooting my phone, so whatever it comes with - Sense or TouchWiz - I'll be switching it.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Can get the HTC One X White (32GB) brand new, unlocked for £390.

 

[Casey]

I think the One X is a step in the right direction for HTC but I'd still go with the S3. We'll see which one can run a full CyanogenMod9 the fastest!! lol

 

[ARon]

HTC still has the superior build quality. People seem to be becoming hip to Samsung and their plastic not being good, on the major blogs at least.

 

[dilla]

there's a reason it's cheap. it sucks.

How so? I mean, aside from no 4G/LTE, unlimited everything is cheaper than what you pay on shiT-Mobile.

 

[dilla]

What's the outlook on the success/failure of Google Wallet?

 

[ARon]

It's not just Google Wallet, mobile payments as a whole are struggling

 

[Pittsey]

They're going strong in South Korea.

And the Olympics is trying to give it a push too...

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/982...ments-trial-with-galaxy-s3-at-london-olympics

Visa has confirmed that it will showcase mobile NFC payments at the London Olympics using Samsung’s new Galaxy S3.

Samsung even plans to create a limited edition handset for the occasion, but the bad news is that only athletes are being invited to take part in the trial.

The NFC payments are enabled using Visa payWave, an app that allows consumers to use their smartphone to pay for goods at the point of sale simply by touching it on a card reader.

Payments for less than £20 require no further interaction, but anything over that requires a passcode. The app also allows customers to check their transaction history and view their account balance.

My debit card has the same technology. I can just wave my card over a reader to pay for items under £20, where supported. It just needs moving to my mobile.

 

[masta247]

Stolen phone = stolen everything, or at least you lose more than ever before.

What's the point of using that instead of a Paypass/Paywave card? They don't seem to be popular anyway, but that's what I sometimes use when possible, if I don't forget of its existence.
For all the hype only a few stores use those and that's my main issue. Even if I can pay that way I forget that this option exists and pay like I always did anyway.

 

[masta247]

The battery performance of the Galaxy S3 is good:

http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-battery-test-is-ready-does-very-well/

Unless you browse the web or play games a lot.

 

[S O F I]

How so? I mean, aside from no 4G/LTE, unlimited everything is cheaper than what you pay on shiT-Mobile.

shitty signal and shitty customer service.