Samsung Galaxy S4 Flip Cover Folio

This is the Case that comes from Samsung, a simple Folio with a small cut out for the screen at the top showing some quick information. It’s a simple cover which protects the screen from being scratched but doesn’t protect the body from damage.

Honestly I thought this would be a better cover, but you just replace the back with a folio attached and I was a bit disappointed by it. The folio looks good but then its just disappointing that it doesn’t really improve the use of the phone expect that it gets in the way of the phone. You have to flip the cover off every time to use the phone normally which gets annoying quickly, this cover isn’t for everyone.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Spigen SGP Slim Fit Case

The Spigen cover turned out to be the perfect fit for my use. This is a full cover around the phone with the volume and power buttons working perfectly. The back is covered with a matt black plastic which makes it not slip like the normal back, and there is an opening for the Camera, Flash, and the speaker. The shape of the frame of the cover is perfect so you can really grip the phone easily and thats what I love about it, unlike the phone’s normal curved sides this gives it a bit of a better frame which makes it easier to grip. The only draw back is that not every USB head can fit into the bottom of this case.

The Beast from Samsung, they decided to combine their best selling product into a DSLR and came up with the Samsung Galaxy NX. It has Interchangeable lenses, Android Jelly Bean and 4G LTE to say the least. The device is said to be as big as the Canon Rebel than that of a smaller Samsung NX300 model. The size is a determination factor for some people looking for a DSLR but a very smart one in this case, connecting to Wifi or Bluetooth or LTE. This is when to great devices are molded together looks like.

Galaxy NX also packs a large 4.8-inch HD LCD display on its rear and is powered by a 1.6GHz Pega-Q quad-core setup and separate DRIMe IV Signal processor for imaging. The UI should look pretty familiar to anyone who’s used an Android device before, and specificly the Galaxy Camera before, with the common apps and widgets submenus, as well as the wheel interface for its 30 Smart Modes — employed when selecting imaging settings. And if you happen to own any of the company’s other NX cameras, you’ll be able to swap out lenses (13 in all) as the Galaxy NX is fully compatible with that range. It also incorporates a hybrid AF, culled from the best of DSLRs and compacts, with a shutter speed of 1/6,000th of a second and 8.6fps shooting.

This though is an interesting “mutation” from Samsung, there aren’t a lot of heavy duty use phone’s out there, and if there are then they are usually very low spec with a lot of armor. But the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is high spec and its also waterproof and a bit of added armor, and barely any reduction in quality. The camera on this phone is a little less powerful from the 13 MP to 8 MP but it seems to compliment under water use. I just think this phone can take a beating and thats why some people would like it in comparison to the S4. And honestly I prefer the buttons at the bottom then they do the touch panel on the S4, I missed buttons when they took them away.

This one though is truly a phone, not just a data enabled camera like the Samsung Galaxy Camera. The phone features a 10x optical zoom lens in front of its 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, with a Xenon flash for adding some extra light to your images.

The S4 Zoom has a 4.3-inch qHD (960×540) Super Amoled display and 1.5GHz dual-core processor, runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and supports LTE. Predictably, it’s big and heavy, at 208 grams and 15.4 millimeters thick — nearly double the thickness of the original Galaxy S4. It is, however, measurably slimmer than last year’s Galaxy Camera, Samsung’s first crack at adding an Android interface to a consumer point-and-shoot. Photographically speaking, things look similar between the two: both devices shoot at the same resolution and max out at ISO 3200, although the older Galaxy has a much longer 21x optical zoom range. Its lens is also slightly (less than a third of a stop) faster, at f/2.8-5.9, compared with the S4 Zoom’s f/3.1-6.3 maximum aperture. So the Samsung Galaxy Camera is faster with a better Zoom but thicker, so who would go for this, I wouldn’t be too inclined since I have the Galaxy Camera and I’m very happy with it. But still its only a point and shoot, no comparison to the Canon G12 or G15 in my opinion as to speed or depth of shot.

With the release of the Samsung S4 & HTC One, everyone was running to get their hands on it, true 4G Android Devices which honestly make the iPhone 5 look like crap and its going to have to do a lot more then just another hardware design to beat these two machines. HTC have been having a hard time getting things right with Android after Samsung took the lead as the best, but I honestly think they have a great device on their hands with the HTC One. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was a smart move by Samsung, the S3 was so successful that they just improved on it slightly in regards to the design and packed it with the best possible hardware they could put together.

There were a lot of comparison and technical reviews, but I wanted a real use review of both machines to see which fit better and for what use. I wanted to really try both phones and after almost a month of having them both I can honestly say there isn’t just one conclusion, it just depends what you want because they are both really good.

Wifi

It’s very important for a device to have a strong wifi signal capability, it has to capture it and use it. And out of all the Android brands out there, I can say that Samsung has that down, they pretty much have everyone beat. And sadly the worst out of the bunch is HTC, I had the problem with the HTC One X and with the HTC One it’s signal always weaker then the S4 and sometimes it can’t see the Access Points.

Screen

The Samsung S4 screen is huge, both screens are crisp and excellent touch interface. Honestly they are both excellent. If you want the bigger screen then the Samsung S4 is the way to go, but its a matter of preference. Both of them have amazing brightness and you can easily see them during day time.

Design

Honestly hands down the HTC One wins in this department, if Apple wants to copy anyone for their next phone then it would be the HTC One. The Samsung S4 is 80% the same as the S3 just bigger screen and an aluminum frame which I liked. The one benefit to the Samsung S4 is that it feels lighter then the HTC One, but still it looks better then the S4. One aspect that I like about the S4 is the ability to add the a MicroSD Card, that is a huge win for the S4 in my case. You don’t need that much space on your phones these days but having the ability to is a huge plus.

Above is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Shot & Below is the HTC One Shot

Camera

HTC has the Ultrapixel which is sort like a supercharged 4MP which performs better then most camera phones with higher Megapixels. The HTC has the machine gun shot which shoots multiple shots and you can choose the best or keep them all which is a great feature. The Galaxy S4 has an amazingly crisp camera, they improved on their best selling Galaxy S3. And they included all the features of the Galaxy Camera with all the different settings and mode. The HTC One has the low light shots done perfectly, this is one thing that HTC has had down. Between the two I preferred the S4 camera, but it’s just barely better. And hands down both better then Apple iPhone 5.

Above is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Shot & Below is the HTC One Shot

Battery

This takes a bit longer to figure out but both Android devices lasted a full day of abuse. Nonstop wifi use, making phone calls and sending messages, they could both take it. And I know over time I will get the Mophie battery case for the either phone, and its a matter of time the case comes out for the S4 since its selling like crazy as expected.

Interface & Feel

To be very honest you can go with either of them, this really comes down to preferences. I prefer the HTC One Sense Skin feel over the Samsung Touch Skin, since its less intrusive in this case. I always prefer getting phones from Google because its a clean installation and I can do as I please, but in this case I had to choose, and the HTC One was cleaner and crispier. I just get annoyed with Samsung trying to make things more watery with the TouchWiz Skin. Now for the Sound hands down the HTC One has amazing sound, by far much better then the S4 and it can easily blast music in a room, you wouldn’t think its a phone speaker.

What I don’t like about the Samsung S4

I really hate the keyboard, had to get the Swift Keyboard so my fingers don’t feel like they are stretching across the screen. It really made me feel like I was learning how to type for the first time. The speaker is loud but not crisp, I wish they put it up front. The air gestures aren’t really that useful, I only like the finger hover when in the gallery for a preview but the rest makes you look crazy when your staring at the screen trying to make things move, if you have an S4 you know exactly what I’m talking about.

What I don’t like about the HTC One

I hate the Blink Feed, wish there was a way to get rid of it since its taking a piece of the screen that I could use and you only have a limit of 4 screens. The Weak wifi signal is a breaker for me, I have to have good wifi on my phone.

Which One

Choosing between them is tough but I had two deciding factors which were the Wifi Signal and Camera, which in this case the S4 was the better choice even though I really like the HTC One design. I picked up the Samsung S4 LTE from Al Babtain and got the HTC One from a friend. Honestly Babtain did a great job of making the phone available all over Kuwait and quickly, the HTC One was like hunting an endangered species.

This might be a little too late, but still its the move that they needed to do for a while. If you have a Blackberry you can feel relative again, you won’t be alone anymore, thats if people join BBM again after joining the WhatsApp bandwagon. I like BBM and still until the end of its days, the hardware got a bit annoying and kept restarting with 15 min restarts. With the launch of the Q10 everyone seems interested in it again and they gave it a chance with the Z10 but Blackberry just doesn’t work with the Touch Screen alone, it needs the keyboard too thats why the Q10 looks interesting. BBM was always more organized and better then the all the other chat Apps in the beginning and maybe this move will bring them back, the one failure of Blackberry is the lack of Apps but we will see what happens when BBM is released, will people migrate back to BBM?

Link: Gizmodo

As I expected, since iPhone 5’s have gotten on the 4G network and now other Android phones it seems that its taking a toll on the data bandwidth available. The first tests were insanely fast but now these days there is a bit of a lag and the ping isn’t as fast, its 4G and you get between 10 MB to 15 MB, not the 40+ MB that we were expecting and were excited about. Overall I think that Zain has done a decent job handling the large influx of people, people will pay for service and overall the service is consistent for our use and its portable which is the important part, they are increasing coverage all over Kuwait. After getting the coverage I want them to bring back the bandwidth to what it used to be, but honestly I think its a solid product and I enjoy using it.

All this wait and finally this phone is out and it hasn’t changed too much in the looks department but the guts of the phone looks very impressive, its packing a punch. I think Samsung is taking a page out of Apple’s book, the design is fine but they did a major upgrade on the internal parts of the device. They are aiming to release it towards the end of April and knowing what happened last time, these are going to sell out quickly.

Samsung S4 Specifications:

• 5 inch Full HD Super AMOLED (1920 x 1080) display, 441 ppi
• 1.9 GHz quad-core processor or 1.6 GHz octa-core processor (depending on market)
• 2GB RAM
• 16/ 32/ 64 GB internal storage, microSD slot
• Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• 2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE): 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; 3G (HSPA+ 42Mbps): 850/900/1900/2100 MHz; 4G (LTE Cat 3 100/50Mbps) : up to 6 different band sets (dependent on market)
• 13 Mega pixel auto focus rear camera with flash and zero shutter lag, BIS
• 2 Mega pixel front camera, full HD recording @30fps with zero shutter lag, BIS
• Wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• GPS / GLONASS
• NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, IR LED, MHL 2.0
• 2,600 mAh battery

What I like about the Hardware:

• One hell of a camera!
• Powerful CPU
• Comes with Android 4.2.2
• 2,600 mAh battery, so it will last a bit longer, which is more then the S3
• Up to 64GB Memory
• Has a MicroSD Slot, very few phones seem to have that these days
• This time they made it in black, not blue!
• With all those new hardware features and a bigger battery, its still ligher then the Samsung S3

What I Don’t like About the Hardware

• Why is the LTE based on location, why don’t they have a multiband LTE like they do for the 3G/2G so it can work across all networks not just LTE in one region or another.

I would like to talk about the camera since that is a feature which is essential to our media dependent lives and the ability to share pictures in all directions. Now this is an interesting features, the dual-camera setup on the S4 can be used in video chat like everyone else and photographs, so a pic of you and what you have your camera pointed at, and the camera as mentioned about in the Specs is 13MP which is very impressive, the S3 camera was great, this one looks to be even better. They even took features from the Samsung Galaxy Camera and set it up with the S4 which is a smart move on their part.

You have several choices from the new Android Devices that are coming out:

• Samsung S4
• HTC One
• Sony Xperia Z

My opinion is that Sony makes good looking devices, but the OS is always lacking something and they NEVER update their phone, and that makes a huge difference, if you really like it then get, but other then that I would go with either the HTC One or the Samsung S4. If you like HTC then you will love the HTC One, very solid build, and they really worked on the software this time around. And Samsung as usual has come out with the full featured monster. If I had to describe HTC and Samsung’s software philosophies in a single sentence, it’d be this: HTC puts more emphasis on design, whereas Samsung packs in more features. Overall I love the metal design of the HTC One over the Samsung S4, but I like the camera use of the S4. When it comes down to these two its a matter of preference.

Link: AndroidCentral

Its been about a month since I got the Nexus 4 and I have put it through it’s paces, I took a week to put all my Apps on it and configure to the way I want. So I have been using it for about three weeks as my main phone and abusing it in every possible way. First off it is a much better phone then the Galaxy Nexus, I am honestly happy with this experiment that Google did with LG, if it was Motorolla I would have been really worried. Google gives an opportunity to each manufacturer to show their coolest features and LG won them over this time, Samsung has been known for the SII & SII, as well as the large Note line, not for the Nexus line even though it was a solid phone. Samsung would always save the best for it’s S line like the SII & SIII, but I didn’t like layer they install over the basic or vanilla Android OS, so the Nexus line was always second class to the Samsung S line, the case was the same with the Nexus S & Galaxy Nexus. For the first time a Nexus phone feels like it is the best that Google has to offer on a hardware point of view, and their OS always feels clean and light.

Specifications:

• Screen 4.7″ diagonal – WXGA IPS
• 1280 x 768 pixel resolution (320 ppi)
• Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2
• Dimensions 133.9 x 68.7 x 9.1 mm
• 139g
• Camera 8 MP (main)
• Camera 1.3 MP (front)
• NFC (Android Beam)
• Wireless charging
• 16GB Memory
• 2 GB RAM
• Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU
• Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

What I Like:

• The New 8 MP Camera is fantastic, especially with HDR feature and extra tools while in use with the camera
• The Processor is powerful, you never feel that this phone is sluggish
• Its smooth and light, doesn’t feel bulky for a nice screen
• The Screen is Beautiful, crisp and very clean
• The Wifi signal is strong, it grabs on to the weakest signal without an issue
• The rear speaker is decently loud to my surprise
• LED flash on the camera is great a flashlight too
• Gorilla Glass on the front, it shows smudges but doesn’t scratch easily
• You can really tell they put a lot of effort into the design of it
• Jellybean 4.2.1 is perfect on this Machine, it is what makes it great
• I haven’t had a chance to try Wireless charging yet but I’m looking forward to it
• My 3G connection on this phone is better then my Galaxy Nexus, streaming isn’t an issue and almost never looses a signal
• This one almost never drop’s calls, even in locations that are known to drop calls it seems to hang on for its life which is a nice surprise, and the call quality is excellent
• The Battery life is pretty decent under normal use, lasts me from day until night, but defining normal is difficult

What I don’t Like:

• This is Gorilla glass and glossy on the other side, I love that it is but its insanely slippery so it may fall at anytime and you won’t even realize that it’s moving depending on the surface your place it on
• No LTE, honestly doesn’t make too much of a difference to me but it would have been nice to have it and working, but for now the normal 3G speeds is more then enough for me
• Under high abuse use the battery takes a pounding and barely lasts 10 hours, and that is extreme use such as steaming audio, while surfing and nonstop use of WhatsApp
• No removal battery, sometimes I want to remove or change the battery but it seems they went for a cleaner design rather then a functional one
• No SD card, sometimes we want to expand the memory, 16GB is not enough but I’m making due with it

I honestly love this phone and that it has such a well done operating system, smooth and powerful, and has never hung on me. The screen is beautiful, love scrolling through Instagram on it, and reading my Google Reader feeds, very clear, and easy to look at. Google gambled with LG and it’s paying off, they built an amazing machine with this phone and I hope that they make an even better one. I honestly don’t think I want any other feature on the phone then what I already have, its really good, you always want better but this was really worth the wait.

Check out The Verge Review for an extremely detailed breakdown

Is it just me or was Zain’s network acting weird yesterday. My data network kept dropping every 20 to 40 minutes plus it would drop from 3G to Edge a lot during the day. And today has been acting strange as well. At first I thought it was my phone but I restarted a few times to be sure with no changes, and my other phone was acting up as well so things were odd. It seems that Zain might be making some changes to the network because other people were experiencing these issues since yesterday.

I have been using the Nexus 4 for about a week now and it hasn’t disappointed at all, its fast smooth, no glitches, they even had two updates since I had it and I didn’t even bother checking why. I have wanted to write a full in depth review about everything this phone can do and just whats different about it being from LG. I will get into that later since I do want to give it justice, just know that if you are getting it then you are going to be very happy. I’m going to make the switch from the Galaxy Nexus to the Nexus 4 by this coming Sunday but my only hang up is one thing, I don’t want to cut my chip or replace it, but it seems that I can’t really use it anymore, I want to keep the old school MTC Vodafone colors, my only two options is either to cut the chip or replace, in this case I think I may just replace it and keep the chip since its for sentimental reasons. The hardware on this phone is top notch and it works that way, I have abused it and the battery is impressive, the build quality is perfect, feels good in your hand. I will follow up with an indepth write up on the phone. Also I blame Apple for my predicament, why the hell do they keep having to change the damn SIM Cards, I don’t think anyone had a problem with that, I also think we can lose them more easily these days.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the Nexus 4, after scouring Ebay for days after selling out. Luckily one Ebayer got his hands on it and was selling it for $475 in North Carolina when everyone else was selling it for $600+ so I clicked the Buy It Now without a second thought.

Firstly the box was very simple to open unlike the Nexus 7 situation, just a charger and wire inside with the phone nothing else. I was happy the phone was fully charged and once I signed in my GMail account it started automatically downloading most of my Apps. One thing that Android does that I like is that it also copies the wireless profiles from your previous Android devices so after the initial wireless connection it seamlessly connects to your wifi from previous saved profiles.

First impressions:

• I’m liking Android 4.2 Jellybean – Nice Improvements and Even Smoother
• The Camera is pretty good in low light shots
• The phone is light, I’m forgetting that its in my pocket
• All the Apps are working with it
• I’m loving the Keyboard

Its gonna take me a day or two to fully configure all the Apps I have on it, I keep using one thing and jumping right into and forgetting to configure the others. Do I think Google made the right decision with LG, well time will tell but as off right now I’m loving the phone and if you are a fan of Android phones then you will love this. I like the Samsung S3 but I’m loving the Nexus 4, the operating system just feels so clean and it just wants to be used. I’m going to write a full review at a later stage but for now this is my first impressions after one night of using it.