Flipboard for Android

The APK is hosted over at the XDA Developer Forum. After some testing, we can confirm it working fine on the G2X running CM9, HTC Desire on stock ROM as well as the Acer A500 running AOKP. Forum users have reported that the app works fine on most Samsung devices, as well as the HTC One series, so it shouldn’t give you much trouble. However, a few users have also responded to say that they have some force close issues on Honeycomb tablets. Download the file for yourself, give it a go, and see what happens. In order to install, you’ll need to enter you settings, application, and check the box for “allow unknown sources”. From there, download the APK file and install as you would any other app. No root is required. If you’re interested in the other software enhancements from the GSIII, the same developer is working extracting S-Voice from the device, as well. Keep an eye on the source link for further information as it develops!

Flipboard for Android Picture Gallery

Samsung Galaxy S III

10. Popup Play

Samsung has put the 4.8″ inch screen real estate to good use by allowing popup play for videos. Popup Play allows video playback in a small window that stays on top of any other programs you are running. Windowed UI is usually specific to desktops but they make sense with the increasing screen sizes. Who would like to pause a movie to write a reply to a text message?

9. Free 50GB Dropbox storage

Every Samsung Galaxy S III customer gets a free 50GB storage on Dropbox when they install the app. Users would be able to avail the storage for two years. However, there’s no explanation about what happens when two year period expires.

8. Flipboard

Flipboard is arguably the most amazing social news app for any smartphone which was only available for iPhone so far. Samsung Galaxy S III comes packed with the only Android version of Flipboard. So far it is exclusive to Samsung Galaxy S III but according to the developer, it’d soon be available for other Android device as well.

7. Direct Call

While you are writing a text message to a friend, you can hold on for a moment to put your phone against your ear and a call would automatically be placed to the friend. Traditionally you could tap the call button from the messages app which took only a moment but Samsung saved you that moment. Direct call is a true example of how much Samsung cares about minor things which make our lives easier.

6. Smart Stay

There couldn’t be a better way to save battery life than Smart Stay as it turns the screen off as soon as you start looking away. You look back on the screen and it’s turned on automatically. Smart Stay is a huge improvement over the traditional proximity sensor which turns the screen of a smartphone off when it is held against a ear during an active call. Sure, keeping track of the eye balls all the time would keep consuming some power most of the time but it is a good trade off as display is the most power hungry part of any Android phone.

5. AllShare Play

Samsung Galaxy S III has its own flavor of AirPlay mirroring. It can mirror its entire screen on your HDTV to share videos, games and anything that resides on the phone. AllShare Play is done over wifi using Play Dongle sold separately. The phone can even work as a controller to the presentations on the big screen. The mirroring can be done on multiple devices to provide an ideal attraction for enterprise.

4. Face Recognition

Samsung didn’t limit it’s facial recognition technology to provide a vague screen lock but has rather expanded it beyond expectations. The best use isn’t made with the Buddy Photo Share, there are other places too. The face recognition function is connected to your social networks so you can tap on a face in a photo from your camera roll and go directly to his facebook profile.

3. Voice Recognition

Samsung Galaxy S III has got improved voice recognition. S Voice understands 8 different languages. You can give your phone a name and every time you call the name, the phone will wake up.

2. S Beam

S Beam is the name given to NFC content sharing capabilities of Samsung Galaxy S III. In order to share a file, say a photo, just touch the backs of two Samsung Galaxy S IIIs with the photo open on one and it will pop open on the other one, it’s really that simple. No more connecting of bluetooth or the hassle of emailing the photos to the phone next to you. Samsung’s implementation of NFC file sharing is superior to any alternatives because of its speed. A 10 GB movie would take only 3 minutes to transfer from one phone to other and for a 10MB music file, the sharing time is just 2 seconds. S Beam uses wifi direct for transferring the files and NFC to pair.

1. Buddy Share

Buddy Share is a feature available in Samsung Galaxy S III which allows the phone to automatically send the pictures to your friends and family. When you capture a picture, the phone will recognize the participants with its facial recognition capabilities and automatically send the pictures to each of the person it recognizes. Unlike Direct Call, Buddy Share would save you hours of work you spend sorting photos and emailing them to your friends and family one by one.

One of the features which truly speeds up the way you use your phone is Direct Call. When you are writing a text message to someone and at some point in conversation, you decide to call him, you just take the phone to you ear and the call will be placed automatically, without even a single tap on the screen. I never expected Samsung to care about saving our minor seconds but they actually matter, especially for a fast paced person like… umm a blogger! How about you?

Galaxy SIII

• S.Voice: Understands 8 different languages, and accents.
• Smart Stay: Tracks eye movement to keep your screen turned on as long as you’re watching on.
• Personal assistant software.
• Direct Call. Raise the device to your ear to make a call.
• Wake up your device by talking to it. Say, “Hi, Galaxy” or set a custom greeting. Can use up to 4 different ones.
• Buddy Share: smart sharing via NFC.
• Popup Play: Place videos in a movable window to multitask while watching video.

Now, since you’re surely curious, here’s the official spec sheet:

• Android 4.0 with TouchWiz 4.0
• 4.8-inch 720 x 1280, HD Super AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass 2
• 1GB RAM
• 1.4GHz quad core processor (international); dual core Snapdragon S4 (North America)
• 16,32,64GB of storage
• 1.9MP front camera; 8MP rear camera
• 2,100 mAh battery
• Wireless charging

As for when you can pick it up? International release will be at the end of May, with a North American release in the summer. No announcement of carrier partners or pricing, yet.

Samsung Galaxy S III anagram game

After a nonstop series of rumors, Samsung went official to announce Galaxy S III for May 3rd launch without any further details. But they have themselves started a confusing marketing campaign by tweeting “Destination: tgeltaayehxnx” which is also a URL to a countdown timer expiring in about 5 hours from now. Don’t get confused, this is just an anagram game, not the countdown to Galaxy S III launch. We are not sure but there should be some details revealed during the course of the game.

It appears some monkeys have dived into the source of tgeltaayehxnx.com to find out some interesting bits of the game “Click on the letters in the correct order to reveal your real destination”, “Following technology blindly often gets you nowhere.” and “discover how Samsung is about to challenge the way you view the Galaxy once more.”. I’d better stick to the rumored specs instead of banging my head with this anagram nonsense.

Shortly after the rumor mill started churning, Samsung issued a statement that they would be announcing the device at a stand-alone event in the spring. Now, it seems they’re making good on that promise. The invitation, naturally, gives no details about the device. Not even a picture, or a teaser like they did with the Galaxy Nexus. We’ll finally be able to get the reality next month, though. To compare, let’s go through what the rumors have been saying, and then we can see how it measures up to what Samsung announces on May 3rd.

• Super AMOLED Plus display
• 4.8″ display size with 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 16:9 aspect ratio
• Quad core 1.5 GHz Exynos, processor
• 1GB RAM
• 32GB Storage
• 4G/LTE
• 8 or 12 MP rear camera
• 2MP front camera
• 1080p video capture
• Android 4.x ICS with Touchwiz 4

Let’s hope that at least most of that is true, as the specs are truly outstanding. Of course, there’s no telling what (if any) modifications will be made between international and US versions. Another concern is that current quad core devices, like the HTC One X, that had NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad core processor onboard, weren’t compatible with us LTE networks. Can Samsung do better with their in-house processor, and deliver a quad core phone with LTE capabilities before NVIDIA’s chip supports it later this year? It’s anyone’s guess, but Samsung is pretty forward-thinking, and we’re hoping they anticipated the market desire for quad core phones.

ICS on the Galaxy Note Via Rootzwiki

Many of you know that I also do some work as part of the Rootzwiki.com news team. As such, we’d like to thank our friends over at Rootz for this leaked build of ICS for the Samsung Galaxy Note. This is strictly for the AT&T version of the device, and will not work on the international or any other version of the device, due to differences in kernels and chipsets. With that said, the build is really easy to install if you follow the instructions correctly. Via Rootz, here’s what the testers have determined is working on this build.

• Face Unlock is fully functional
• LTE connections are solid and up to speed
• Phone calls work great both ways
• Audio quality is up to par
• Stereo Bluetooth is fully functional
• MMS is fully functional
• GPS is fully functional
• Google Talk and Video Chat work
• Google Voice is fully functional
• Task Manager is smooth and transitions are quick
• Downloaded Flash video and in-browser video works flawlessly
• Chrome autosync is fully functional
• AT&T Hotspot functionality works, external devices connect fine

Before you Begin:

Again this is only for the AT&T version of the device. It should not be used on any other, or you will likely brick your device. Also note that this will format your internal SD card, so make sure you have your files backed up.

What You’ll Need:

Obviously, you’ll need the build, which is in the form of a one-click executable file. You will be using ODIN to flash it, and therefore it will only work on Windows. Sorry Mac users.

Download the build here.

Download ODIN here.

Instructions:

1. Download the file
2. Reboot your device into download mode, and connect to your computer.
3. Run the one-click install file
4. Enjoy!

For any troubleshooting information or help requests, please refer to the original thread on the topic.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7

iPad 3

In a rare reviewers treat, we were fortunate enough to have both the New iPad third generation (iPad 3) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. Both are new tablets running competing mobile OS’s, and rocking similar hardware. It gave us the chance to put the devices head to head in some basic consumer-style testing to look at things that matter to the average user. This was a completely unscientific test. We looked at things like load times of apps, differences between some popular apps for both Android and iOS, and some basic functionality of both devices. To begin, let’s take a look at the spec sheets.

Galaxy Tab 7.7:

•  Dual Core 1.4 GHz Processor
• 1GB RAM
• Android 3.2 Honeycomb
• 16GB Storage with Micro SD Card Slot (Supports up to 32GB cards)
• 7.7″ Super AMOLED Plus display. Resolution: 1280 x 800
• 5100 mAh battery
• Verizon 4G/LTE connectivity
• 3MP rear camera (720p HD recording)
• 2MP front camera

iPad 3:

• Dual Core A5X Processor with Quad Core GPU
• 1GB RAM
• iOS 5.1
• Storage Options from 16GB-64GB
• 9.5″ Retina display. Resolution: 2048 x 1536
• 11560 mAh battery
• Verizon 4G/LTE connectivity
• 5MP rear camera (1080 HD recording)
• .3MP front camera

Comparison:

While many will likely say that there is no comparison between an Android tablet and an iPad, that claim is largely untrue. With the first round of Android tablets that we saw in late 2010, and the early months of 2011, you could have made that argument, and I would have agreed. Android tablets have come a long way since then, however. Even though the Honeycomb OS is far from a perfect tablet experience, in the case of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 Samung’s TouchWiz overlay actually does the system a service in my opinion. Normally, I prefer a stock experience. I don’t care for proprietary skins, mostly because they’re ugly (opinion again) and they slow the system down. In this case, I actually enjoyed TouchWiz and thought it brought a few features to Honeycomb that made the tablet experience a bit better. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 has an Ice Cream Sandwich update coming, but for now it’s running Honeycomb 3.2, which has some significant improvements over 3.0. Is it perfect? No. Is any mobile OS perfect? No. And that’s a good thing. It keeps those that create these mobile OS’s on their toes, constantly innovating and turning out new features.

In the case of the New iPad it’s also a huge improvement over the iPad 1, and a marginal improvement over the iPad 2. The latest iPad doesn’t bring any game-changing features to the experience, aside from the absolutely gorgeous display. Unfortunately, for the first few months of your experience with the New iPad, apps that take advantage of the astounding resolution will be few and far between. By the end of the year, however, you’ll likely have a huge wave of new apps and games that are going to look amazing on that display. As far as the rest of the system goes, hardware improvements were a slight step up over the iPad 2 and you’ll see an all around increase in performance everywhere. If y0u opt for the Verizon LTE version, you’ll also be getting the largest and most reliable high-speed connection in the US. That, in itself, is also a good reason to opt in for a new iPad over your first generation device. If you’re already rocking an iPad 2, though, we’d suggest you stick with it until next year’s model. That is unless you just have the money to burn.

Having both tablets on hand at the same time gave us the unique opportunity to see just where the devices and the operating systems really differ. This experience was made better, though, as both tablets feature almost the same internal specs and are very recent additions to the market. Just for fun we threw in the Acer Iconia Tab A500, which is now 1 year old. In the last year, improvements in processor speed and efficiency have become very noticeable in many instances. The Acer Iconia Tab features the Tegra 2 dual core processor, which was much-loved in the early days of 2011. While Tegra 2 was a big improvement over its single core predecessors, alternative CPUs from Qualcomm and Samsung have since overtaken it in terms of performance. You can certainly tell the difference in how fluidly apps run, how well the screen transitions flow, and how quickly apps and games load. While it’s not a significant difference, it is noticeable.

In our comparison, we weren’t looking at benchmark scores and other geeky scores, though, aside from testing the connection speeds. What we wanted to look at was user experience. How quickly did the tablets load apps and games, or browse the web? How smooth were the animations? What significant difference between popular apps were there, if any? What kinds of features and customization were available to make the tablet your own? For the non-geeks of the world, who don’t spend their entire day reading tech news, these are the kinds of things that matter.

We spent several hours with some of our favorite apps and games, like Pulse News, Angry Birds, Netflix, TED, Google Currents, Flipboard (iPad Only), Twitter, as well as doing our everyday business like email and web surfing. What we found was that both tablets performed very admirably. In the case of load times there was never a perceivable difference. Both devices are very snappy, and took almost no time to load up any app we wanted. However, on apps that had a significant video library to load, such as the TED app, the iPad took far longer to load in all the videos that did the Galaxy Tab. By significant, we mean about a 10 second difference. It’s certainly no deal-breaker. To compensate, though, the iPad was much faster at loading graphic-intensive web pages. That can largely be blamed on Honeycomb’s inefficiency, though, and the ICS update will help. When swiping between screens or switching between menus, animations were very fluid on both devices and there was never any hitches. In both of these areas, though, the Iconia Tab lagged behind just slightly. You can certainly tell that it has a less efficient processor, especially when you hit the home button and you have to wait a second for the home screen to refresh. There was no waiting to refresh on either the Galaxy Tab or iPad.

What was surprising was the connection speeds between the devices. We ran the Ookla Speedtest.net app on both devices. The first thing you notice is that the iOS version has a little additional animation in the meter that the Android version doesn’t. Extra animation aside, however, the real difference was in connection speed. The iPad consistently had higher upload and download speeds than the Galaxy Tab. And not insignificant numbers. They were, in fact, much higher. The Galaxy Tab continually reached download speeds of about 5-7Mbps, where the iPad was always over 10Mbps on the download side. Upload speeds were a little closer with the Tab at about 1-2Mbps, while the iPad was at about 2-3Mbps. The wifi-only Acer Tab registered about 4-7Mbps dowload, and 1-3Mbps upload. The Galaxy Tab and iPad are both Verizon 4G/LTE enabled devices, though, so the difference is likely in the radio supplier’s equipment. Qualcomm manufacturers the LTE radio in the Galaxy Tab, but we’re not sure at this point who makes the radio for the iPad.

The experience between apps, and web browsing turned out to be very close on both devices. There was really no significant differences in performance. What it really came down to was the experience. This is largely a matter of taste in what kind of experience you prefer, as well as what ecosystem you’re invested in. The iPad has a very clean experience. It’s simple with no real customization for the homescreen, and nothing but icons to tap to get where you want to go. The Galaxy Tab and Android, by comparison, is a vastly different experience. Aside from your choice of wallpaper, pretty much all iPads are going to look the same. With Android, though, you can customize to your heart’s content. If you want a clean look you can do that. Remove all your widgets, and go with a straight icon interface and you’ll have the simplistic approach. If you want to tweak, though, you can set up multiple screens for all kinds of things. For example, we had a social screen with the Samsung Social Hub widget, which displayed incoming feeds from Twitter and Facebook. Next to it was the Google+ widget for that feed. It’s a really nice way to see the latest feeds from your networks at a glance, without having to launch the app. On another screen we set up a video screen with a YouTube widget, and the TED and Netflix apps. Another was for business, and had email, bookmarks to important sites, and a calendar. Being a user who likes to customize a lot, I personally preferred the Android setup. I’d go so far as to say that the iPad was a bit boring. Again, that’s personal preference. If you’re not a big tweaker and you just want a simple look, then the iPad can give you that.

When choosing between iOS and Android tablets, it’s not only a matter of customization, but mostly ecosystem. You need to realize that you’re making an investment in either Apple or Google’s ecosystem, and that’s going to include things like apps, games, music, movies, etc. Will you be constrained to either of those ecosytems by your tablet choice? No. Both offer ways of accessing your content on either device, with the exception of your apps and games. However, if you’re a Mac user with an iPhone, have a ton of iTunes music, and have an iCloud account, the iPad is going to be much more beneficial in the long term. iOS also gets many more exclusive apps and games than does Android. If you live and die by GMail, have purchased Android apps, have an extensive Google Music library, and love widgets, a solid Android tablet is a good choice. The continuing issue with Android is in updates. Newer versions of the OS will take longer to reach your device than will the latest version of iOS. This is if you’re not into the wide and wonderful world of rooting (Android) or jailbreaking (iOS). The average user, though, will likely be into neither. That said, Android is notorious for slower updates that, in some cases, may never make it to your device. It’s up to the manufacturer and carrier to update your device for you, where iOS will see updates from Apple immediately upon release. You’ll certainly need a little savvy when shopping for a tablet, and it’s important to keep all of these factors in mind when you’re considering iPad vs Android tablets.

Of course, we also took a look at the cameras, and it should be no surprise that the iPad’s rear camera bested the Tab’s hands-down. While the Tab’s camera isn’t a bad one, it’s not very good either. Here’s a few photos to compare.

iPad Photo

Galaxy Tab Photo

Fortunately, if you’re going the iOS route you don’t have many options. There’s an iPad 1,2, or 3. If you’re shopping Android, you’ve got a much bigger task in front of you. Android tablets come in all different sizes, have different hardware, and are made by multiple manufacturers. If you’re considering Android, you can probably get a lower price on the same (or better) hardware than an Apple tablet. Here’s some tips if you’re considering Android.

• Do not invest in any Android tablet that does not run at least Android 3.1, 3.2, or 4.X. Any version under 3 was not meant for tablets, and if the manufacturer is slapping on a pre-Honeycomb build this late in the game, chances are you’re going to have buyers remorse really fast.
• Do not buy anything with a single core processor. Dual core should be the standard at this point for a tablet, and anything less will be a detriment to performance.
• Opt for at least 1 GB of RAM. Almost all tablets will come with 1GB these days, and anything less should be avoided if you’re planning on owning this device for more than a year.
• If you plan to use your tablet to video chat, make sure it has a front-facing camera.

The LG Optimus 4X HD (image via TheVerge)

The LG Optimus 4X HD was among LG’s offerings this year. It may not have the monster 5″ screen of the LG VU, but size isn’t everything, when you’re talking smartphones. The 4X HD packs in NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad core CPU, clocked at 1.5GHz, and also comes with 1GB or RAM. The display measures 4.7″, is an IPS LCD, and has a resolution of 1280×720. Also onboard is an 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front-facing camera, and MHL connectivity, all powered by a big 2150 mAh battery.

HTC One X

HTC’s new One line of smartphones includes the One X, S, and V, all of which are quite capable machines. The One X is the device with the “Wow!” factor, though. Unfortunately, it suffers from one fatal flaw, and that’s the difference between the international version and the U.S.-bound version headed to AT&T. First, let’s run down the specs.

The Tegra 3 quad core CPU (international only) or dual core Qualcomm snapdragon CPU (U.S. version)
HTC Sense 4.0
1GB RAM
32GB storage (no expandable storage)
1280×720 Super LCD2 display
8MP rear camera with backside-illuminated sensor and f/2.0 lens
50GB or free DropBox cloud storage for 2 years

Now, because the initial version of the Tegra 3 chip did not support LTE, only the international version of this device will ship with the quad core chip. The Snapdragon S4 is far from disappointing, but those who have been waiting for their first quad core device will need to keep this in mind when considering the One X. Aside from that hitch, the One X is looking like an amazing device, especially when you consider the Beats Audio integration, which extends to all system apps now and not just the music player. HTC Sense 4.0 has also been completely retooled for efficiency, bidding farewell to much of the animation in favor of smoother performance. The camera has been totally redesigned, as well, and is even better than the end-of-the-year models we saw in 2011. That’s no small feat, as the cameras HTC packed into their devices after the MyTouch 4G Slide were very good.

Samsung Galaxy Beam

The Samsung Galaxy Beam isn’t on this list because it packs in the most cutting-edge hardware or software. In fact, it will be launching with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is certainly not a point in its favor. What make the Beam one of our favorites is the 15 Lumen Pico TI DLP HD projector built-in. That projector adds a little girth to the device, bringing in the measurement to 12.5 mm, however for sharing it’s a great option to have. Samsung claims the device can project anything on your smartphone screen onto any surface, displaying up to a 50″ HD-quality picture. While it’s not going to be great in a bright room, tone down the lights and you’ll have a nifty home theater in your pocket. Other specs include a dual core processor, 768 MB of RAM, 4″ 800×480 WVGA display, 8GB of storage, and a 2000 mAh battery.

Huawei Ascend D quad

Huawei’s planning an aggressive strategy this year, with the goal of selling 60 million devices by 2013. Their first offerings are those in the D quad line, including the Ascend D quad, D quad XL, and D1. Powered by Huawei’s custom-built K3V2 quad core processor, the D quad and D quad XL tote the same spec sheet with one difference: the XL houses a 2500 mAh battery, boasting 3 days of battery life. The rest of the specs include 1GB of RAM, a 4.7″ 720p HD display, Dolby 5.1 digital surround sound, Android 4.0, an 8MP rear camera, and 1.3 MP front-facing camera.

ASUS PadFone

Though it technically falls into the smartphone category, ASUS transforming PadFone is a 3-in-1 gadget built for all your mobile needs.

By plugging the smartphone into the tablet dock, the PadFone converts to a 10.1″ tablet. It can then be plugged into the keyboard dock to convert to a netbook-style device that accepts Bluetooth mouse input, as well as other peripherals via USB port. The phone itself powers all of the gadgetry with a dual core Snapdragon S4 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Android 4.0, 64GB or storage, an 8MP rear camera, front-facing 1.3MP camera, and a weak 1520 mAh battery. Battery size is likely to encourage users to buy the accessories, as the tablet and keyboard docks house separate batteries that can also recharge the phone.