Infograph: The Story of Android

With the rate at which the Android OS is advancing it pretty difficult to keep track of what version on android is the latest and what the version your running offers. We stumbled across an awesome graphic that says it all. Hope you like it.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear Overview

On the 4th of September at the IFA 2013 in Berlin, Germany Samsung announced its Galaxy Note 3 the latest instalment of the Galaxy Note product line. The new device boasts enhanced S Pen features and impressive multitasking capabilities; it features 4G LTE capabilities, 5.7 inch screen, 32/64 GB configurations with microSD support of up to 64GB, 3GB of RAM – an industry first, NFC functionality, a 13 MP camera, with up to a 2.3GHz quad-core krait 400 processor paired with a 1.3GHz quad-core cortex-A7 processor – making eight (8) cores in total and twice its predecessor, all powering on Android v4.3 (Jellybean) OS.

Samsung also announced its first ever Smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Gear – this is Samsung first attempt at wearable technology. The primary function of this device is for quick access to notifications and basic features on your mobile phone or tablet. The Samsung Galaxy Gear has a built-in speaker and microphones which allow the device to be used as a hands-free and can function independently also as a digital watch.

One drawback about the Samsung Galaxy Gear is it’s only currently compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, but Samsung promised compatibility with more Galaxy devices with their next scheduled OS update. Both devices will be available for purchase from September 25, 2013 in Nigeria.

Sources -1, 2, 3

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Overview

Even though the phone has been released for a while, about nine months, it is now officially available in Nigeria, courtesy of Airtel. No doubt a strategy to grow its subscriber base similar to what Etisalat tried with the Samsung Galaxy Note. I’m sure you wondering how the device stacks up against the completion, right? And what makes it so special? Well you in Luck, because that’s what we’re here for!

First thing you have to understand is how this phone has come to be. You see the boys at Google teamed up with the guys from Samsung and produced the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The goal was to create a device that would be able to perfectly bond with the pioneer version of the android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich, to give the user the optimum Android experience. 

Although this was 9 months ago and now the newest version of android OS is Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, but this isn’t a totally new build but a more polished version on Ice Cream Sandwich. But freight not! This update is available over-the-air for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Some have even gone as far as to say that a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean gives a better experience than the Samsung Galaxy S III running Ice Cream Sandwich! Gasp! 

According to a popular mobile phone retailer you can get the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for about NGN 91, 000 (Ninety One Thousand Naira) with the Samsung Galaxy Note going for NGN 99, 000 (Ninety Nine Naira). 

Let’s round this up with a little bit more about Jelly Bean shall we?  So what’s new with the Jelly Bean upgrade? You can’t talk about Jelly Bean without talking about “Project Butter”. Project butter is Google’s answer to the often criticised android user interface lag. It smooths out the transitions and animations of the operating system - removing the occasional lag noticeable even in the most powerful android devices. Other upgrades include an improved notification centre, improved camera and gallery apps, improved keyboard behaviour, offline voice recognition, updated Google user interface, high resolution contact photos, USB audio output and HDMI multichannel audio output.  


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Samsung Galaxy Note. Phone? Tablet? Or Both? – Review

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a stylus on mainstream touch screen devices especially in this time and age with the rapid adaptation of capacitive touchscreens, for a long time using your finger was seen appropriate and made the stylus for most part redundant if not obsolete. A phone with a stylus to me initially would have sounded like a definite miss (unless you’re a certain Japanese videogame company), but the Samsung Galaxy Note is the exact opposite.

 

Here’s what you need to know, the Galaxy Note is one of the latest offering from Samsungs long line of android devices, it’s got a 5”3 Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16M colours and 800x1280 pixels, 1GB of RAM with an option of 16GB and 32GB of internal storage. It takes 8MP stills at 3264x2448 pixels, with auto focus and flash, records at 1080p FullHD. Its android OS (Gingerbread) is powered by a whooping 1.4GHz Exynoc dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor (the same as the iPad 3) all this coupled with 4G capabilities.

So what’s up with the stylus? Well it’s not just a stylus. Affectionately dubbed the S-Pen, the Galaxy Note Stylus has been integrated with button which provides a new dimension to the way to interact with the android OS. When you hold the S-pen button down and hold the S-Pen over the screen of the Galaxy Note simultaneously it takes a screenshot, if you press the S-Pen button and swipe to the left it means back, which does coming in handy when browsing, if you swipe upwards the context menu will appear s, so you should get the idea. If you don’t, it means the S-Pen allows you to operate your phone without pressing any hardware keys, reducing wear and tear. It’s the little things that count. 

A truly unique feature the Galaxy Note has that few people highlight is the ability to sketch. This may not seem like much but with its TouchWiz 4.0 powered user interface your strokes are mode defined based on the amount of pressure applied, the S-Memo also gives you an interesting amount of textures, brushes and palettes to choose from, equipping you with a mini art studio on the go. The fluid physics is good but it could be better, if it get blur and smudge support which would let you blur colours into each other for a more realistic fade, but considering it was not purpose built for that, it’s good enough.

Personally I’d spend hours doodling away on the S-Memo over playing angry birds (for the umpteenth time) any day. Couldn’t help but make a few sketches while I was with the Galaxy Note either, check out my doodles below. 

It’s had to look at the Galaxy Note and fault it, some may argue that its screen is extraordinary large compared to other Smartphones in its class, but its unique and innovative design makes it definitely stand out among its peers.  

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