Tablet time - Galaxy Note 10.1

After saying around a year ago I saw no need for a tablet, I’ve been musing over buying a tablet for about the last 6 months. Something to use more sociably than a laptop especially around the house, and with a larger screen than even an excellent phone like the Samsung Galaxy S3.

And so the research started. As a self professed geek I’ll take ages researching what to buy, and looked at a number of tablets. Four I considered seriously – opinions are very personal, all of these have strong merits in their own right, just not what I felt was right for me. I was interested in openness, innovation, form factor, performance,storage options, right-first-time, solid reliability, compatibility with existing services I use (many google)

Apple iPad3 – in many ways the easiest option. Lovely hardware, especially the screen, excellent app support – but frankly the whole OS is boring & it’s a separate ecosystem. Works for my mum though.

Asus Transformer Infinity – very expensive in UK form since it’s only provided with keyboard (which I wasn’t bothered by), and frankly I was concerned about performance and build

Google/Asus Nexus 7 – lovely device. Quick, responsive, running Jellybean & being a nexus device would continue to be on the cutting edge of google software deliveries, but not the size I was looking for.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 – looks decent, large discounts available for this year old device. Running ICS, solid option – Performs adequately but felt it could suffer under my usage

But in the end I went for the Galaxy Note 10.1 . No surprise it needed to be something new, and it’s probably the fastest, slickest android tablet I’ve used. Browsing especially performed well, doubt helped by the quad core cpu & 2GB ram. I’d been delighted with my galaxy s2, then s3

 

So I went for it and spent a well earnt £350 (I had a shop’s staff discount from a family member). that feels like a lot of money and did I think carefully about it! With the box home I finally got around to seeing what delights were inside:

 

 

 

 

Ah this looks nice – my first tablet

 

 

 

 

It’s actually sleeker than I expected, and feels really good to hold

 

 

Not sure how much I’ll use this – I suspect my S3 will continue to lead in that respect (brilliant camera)

 

 

 

 

All the usual bits and pieces – note the special cable for charging – not standard microUSB (in part as a tablet needs a much higher current power supply)

 

 

 

 

And the final product all ready to play with!

 

 

 

So that’s it – the tablet arrives! Watch this space for some hands on experiences .

My music habits

I love listening to music & have pretty varied tastes from Evanescense to Taylor Swift, The Who to A Fine Frenzy , Icon for Hire to Abba. This can get expensive buying albums, whether on physical media or CD, and single tracks just never get you into exploring the depth of what an artist is about, to understand the story  that the album is trying to put across - so inevitably there's a comprimise, and in the past that was inevitably to focus on a small number of artists.

Quite a few years back I digitised my modest CD collection, and added mp3/aac albums from a variety of (legal) outlets. I stored these first on a PC, but then on a home server in a way they could be accessed by a variety of devices around the house - and in fact streamed over the internet too.

I'd been a long running user of lastfm (take a look!) radio - I'd get music similar to that which I liked streamed to me, but with no control of exactly what I was listening too.

In early 2011 Google launched Google Music- in the US, but fairly easy to access in the UK with the right tools ;-). Google Music made it easy to access my own music collection - but it was really just that, making it easier.

Around this time I also started playing with spotify and we7 more, along with a few other services, more seriously. I'd used them prior to this but never seriously - yet after taking out some trial subscriptions I was getting somewhat hooked with the idea that I could listen to who I wanted when I wanted. Ok so some artist's material was withheld, but most was there.

After a few months in July 2011 I went with spotify & have stuck with my premium subscription ever since. It's one of my favourite services as it gives me access to content I love. It's uplifting, enthralling, emotional, fresh, comforting, exciting, brash, soft, gentle - anything I want it to be. As a premium subscriber (£10/month) access is unlimited and music can be streamed in amazing audio quality -- pretty much the best I've come across (vorbis v9)

During work time I frequently listen via my PC, but spotify also have a rather handy android app which shares the same playlists as on the PC, and can similarly stream via either 2G/3G/wifi or most usefully play playlists/songs that are saved offline. Since I'm not on an unlimited data plan this works out really well for me.  A single click, and a playlist gets downloaded & managed automatically.

This is how I listen in bed or when travelling -- but it gets better.

At the gym I can now easily listen to spotify via a bluebooth cordless headset - perfect for avoiding tangles, and most recently I've upgraded my car to the Nissan Leaf which supports bluetooth streaming. In fact I've never even used a CD or an SD card in this car in the 6 months I've had it. I simply leave bluetooth on, sit in the car, the phone connects and I can play my offline spotify lists

Spotify isn't perfect - but it's really very good & when combined with a flexible form of access such as through my SGS2 it can be accessed & consumed anywhere.

I love it!

How the Russians make the Samsung Galaxy S 3 even better

Having integrated GPS on the mobile is so useful -- my first experience with it was on the Motorola A925 back in 2003 - it suddenly became possible to know where on the planet you were with a device you always had with you. Just brilliant. Sure GPS was available before then, but now it no longer needed a seperate device

The global GPS, or Global Positioning Satellite network wasn't the first network to provide accurate location based information to a system on the ground -- in fact in the US who gave birth to GPS, the early work dates back as far as 1960 with a whole series of projects culminating with the first launches of GPS satellites in 1989 to the point where there was a solid network in 1994.

In the early days the US military didn't want civilians to have accuracy better than 100m, reserving the most accurate data for themselves, but by 2000 this was stopped making GPS ever more accessible and accurate

Over the last 9 years location based services have become increasingly popular, and all modern smartphone handsets now carry GPS receiver. For me despite all the location specific apps like foursquare it has to be google maps that is the one I use the most. Lost? Need directions? Easy - just bring up google maps. Job done. Forget the paper (as long as you have a spare battery with you....) Just brilliant

Of course for those in cities, out in the woods, indoors sometimes the fix isn't that accurate (in fact often the identity of the nearby wifi access point, or cell transmitter data may be used instead) -- the more satellites your handset can "see" the better

And guess what? Now there's more. Not wanting to rely on the Americans, in similar timescales the Russians were working on Glonass - offering similar function to GPS, but of course under Russian Control. Initially this was the preserve of the military, and in fact although becoming fully operational and accurate around 1994 the network suffered with the economic challenges of post war russia, but by the new millenium renewed efforts were made by Russia to revive the program and by 2011 a full network was up and running,  with global coverage open to anyone with a suitable receiver.

Many manufacturers have started adding support for Glonass -- my first experience of it is with the Samsung Galaxy S 3. So this device can now use both networks together to provide an even more accurate than for example it's predecessor the S2. In day to day use it definately seems quicker and more accurate. No doubt this isn't just glonass, but other improvements in the receiver, but remember that when you click on "GPS" that's not really the whole story, and we can at least thank the Russians for making our modern smartphones such as the S3 just a little better :-)

This is a screenshot from the GPS Test application in Google Play -- note the additional Glonass satellites on the right hand side (white background)

Glonass satellites shown with Triangles - GPS satellites are circles

Interesting - free galaxy tab 2 if switching from iPhone

I've just seen the following tweet

(original: https://twitter.com/SamsungMobileUK/status/242914017105027072 )

Now that is an interesting ploy from Samsung. Ok it's not the latest note, but the value is probably up there with a mid range iPhone4 at least

Win a Samsung Galaxy S 3

Ok I already have mine, but just wanted to pop in and point you to this competition.

I've entered anyway, I mean one S3 isnt enough is it ;-) !

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/03/engadget-uk-giveaway-win-a-samsung-galaxy-siii-courtesy-of-expansys/

It’s nearly time

Any guesses?

After previously confirming android JellyBean was coming to the Samsung Galaxy S III, today at the IFA in Berlin samsung specifically said it was coming “very soon”.

So what does “very soon” mean. Well for me it means checking for updates at an OCD level, though expecting it within minutes/hours was perhaps a little optimistic.
This week could still happen – here’s hoping

Oh in case anyone’s wondering I have a euro/sim free handset so there should be no delay from any carriers

Samsung Galaxy S III vs Samsung Galaxy S II

In June 2011 I switched to Android having been using Symbian for many years, and having had a Nokia N900 running maemo for the 18 months prior. The N900 was a cool device, but very geeky/techie and little activity in terms of commercial applications.

[photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafeblandford/ ]

The switch to the Galaxy S II was like black and white. I was stunned by just how good the S II was. Sure at some level the N900 could do many of the same things – take/share photos, video, decent web browsing – but to me this was the coming of android. The point in time at which android, married to the fantastic S II hardware was slick, usable, functional with wide appeal.


I’d come close to getting the original Galaxy S – but had been caught up thinking about what Nokia’s next move would be. Where was Windows Phone going, what about maemo followons, the relationship with Intel – but more on that in another article.
Back to the S II. What a phone. Lovely for photos. Georgous sexy display, good choice of accessories including the obligatory power users 2000 mAh battery extension. Plenty fast enough for apps. Decent Storage, a healthy 1GB ram. So good I was definately getting to the “how could they possibly improve on this” level.
In truth of course I knew what was coming – screen sizes were continuing to increase (look at the note!), resolutions were increasing (as my OH’s HTC Sensation trumped the S II specwise) and with the Galaxy Nexus we saw some attention paid to the camera to remove the lag associated with phone pictures when compared to say a DSLR.
So when the S III was announced it clearly looked great but I kept on thinking “my next phone is the S IV” – until that is an opportunity arose that made financial sense to go for the S III (and sell the old S II)


I’ve now had the S III for a few weeks so thought it worth summarizing my thoughts – where’s it better, worse, different than it’s predecessor
The screen – georgous OLED as ever, but once you play around with twitter, web browsing, doc reading for a few minutes you quickly appreciate the size boost and crucially the resolution increase. It may be tagged with the “pentile” moniker but in daily use I’d take this over a full res LCD any day. OLED quite simply is georgous to look at.

• The camera – in good light the lag is removed. I expect a big part of this is continual auto focus, but it’s really handy when taking photos outdoors. Very noticeable. I reckon the pictures themselves are improved too, and I’ve not noticed the pink spot I had on the S II.
• Notification light – YAY at last. I had this on my N900 and missed it with the S II. Nice to have it back so it’s easy to see messages are waiting. The downside? I now feel more compelled to respond quickly. Actually I’ve detuned some notifications to get a little more peace and quiet.
• Software – nice to see finally that out of the box touchwiz supports folders, and sorts alphabetically. frankly it was a little crazy there was no alpha sort before, but being android there were plenty of alternative launchers anyway. I used nova – though am still with touchwiz on the S III. Default theming is more ICS like such as in the dialler and scrolling feels a little better.  Lock screen gains functionality.
• The enhanced notification bar stands alone as a very noticeable feature – far more icons to control functions jkay style – we now have wifi, gps, sound,rotate,powersave,notifications, data,bluetooth, driving, sync, brightness all available after a quick swipe

There are other areas where the specs are up, but for me I didn’t have an issue with the S II or just

• Battery life – now 2100 mAh, Original S II was 1650 mAh, but I had a 2000 mAh official extended battery in any case. And it’s too early to compare real life hour usage figures.
• Processor – quad instead of twin, so arguably marginally slicker but then the S II was no slouch and therefore it’s not a big deal

And what didn’t I especially like?

• The samsung keyboard now has some swype like functionality built in. Except it’s not as good as full-fat swype. Easily remedied though by a visit to swype.com

So all in all some lovely improvements – with no doubt more to come software wise with jellybean, but if you have an S II still – enjoy it. It remains one of the BEST android phones around, even a year later. IMO it was truly a landmark android device and really set out what a top end android device was.

Nigel.