What Every Samsung Owner Needs to Know

Kies!

No I'm not entirely sure how you pronounce it either, but if you have a Samsung phone you really need to have this software on your computer.

Essentially Kies acts in the same way iTunes does for the iPhone, it manages and backs up all the information recorded on your phone and syncs all the information you have across the devices (the kies air app is the closest your going to get to iCloud functionality too!)

It's not quite as slick as the iTunes set-up but this really is a necessary piece of software for anyone who actually cares about their phone. Download it from here:www.samsung.com/uk/kies/  

Let me know your thoughts on Kies by commenting below

Iphone 4 Amazing Accessories

 

How did I not know that this existed:

What a great idea! unfortunately I haven’t tried it so I can’t say how well it works but I do think it’s a brilliant idea considering how many people still like using qwerty keyboards according to Nokia’s latest poll*. If i hadn't just shifted to the galaxy S3, I’d definitely be plumping for one of these cool looking cases right now. Even though the iphone’s on screen keyboard is remarkably easy to use, nothing beats the feel of some good button bashing if you ask me!

 

*http://www.complex.com/tech/2012/08/nokia-input-method-poll

Samsung Galaxy S3 Vs IPhone

 

No posts for a while, mainly because I haven't had anything to post... Good enough reason I reckon, at least I'm not boring you with nonsense and rubbish. I’ve also detelted a few old obsolete or boring posts just to streamline the site a little!

Right well this post is going up because I am now the owner of a Samsung Galaxy S3! For the past three (and a bit) years I have been an iphone man. I didn't necessarily want to be given that I actually really detest much of the Apple ethos and some of the things that they have brought into practice (I won't go on about it too much here), however, as far as I was concerned the iphone was far and away the best phone on the market.

Now, however, it is facing real competition, the HTC oneX and the Samsung Galaxy S2 were both capable of pushing the iphone from the top spot in the phone world according to the techies. The phone war crown, however, currently resides atop the plastic head of the new Samsung Galaxy S3.

So why did I change my allegiance? Well firstly because of the reason stated above, the S3 is apparently the best phone out there at the moment. However, surely the iphone couldn't have slipped from grace that dramatically? Well, honestly no it hasn't. It's still a very good phone and I, like many others out there according to recent reports*, have been waiting to see what the iphone 5 would bring to the party before upgrading. Only when I went to my local phone shop and asked them how much it would be to knock down my contract did I start to get wind of some of the great offers out there available for the S3 and, given that when the iphone comes out it will likely have me on a £45 contract and still expect me to pay £200 upfront for the handset itself! Instead, I opted for a £33 per month contract with T-mobile with unlimited text unlimited data and 2000 free minutes. The phone cost £30 after a little negotiating and playing of the system and frankly although I expect the new iphone to be great, I don't see it getting anywhere near that for value. In addition to this Apple phones increase massively in cost for relatively meagre growth in on board storage memory (try an extra £100 for 16GB in some cases). The Samsung Galaxy S3 however (and the main reason I chose it over the oneX has space for a micro flash SD card. I’ve just bought a 32 GB micro SD card off amazon for less than £15, meaning I’ve effectively tripled the storage space on my phone for just over a tenner and I can easily carry around multiple SD cards should the mood take me (one card for films, one card for my entire music library plus space), that should keep me entertained on a plane journey.

Moving on then, what are my first impressions? Well initially I'm not too impressed with T-mobile, their moving of my number from O2 has been a long, drawn out headache. Initially they didn't port it across with my PAC code as they had said they had in store and now, after a discussion with a very helpful helpdesk lady, my old phone has stopped working yet my new S3 has been unable to send texts, make calls or receive anything for four hours and counting! Not a happy bunny!

Other than the networks however, what are the main differences between iphone and Android?

Well the first hurdle I came to was moving data across. When upgrading iphones it’s a simple job: plug the phone in, run a backup and restore it to the new phone, its a process that practically runs itself and you can even do this with icloud now meaning it doesn't even have to touch a computer and you won't have to go near any annoying wires! Moving on to a whole new operating system on the other hand was slightly more daunting, for all of 3 minutes.

Porting contacts over from one phone to another is as simple as following a few links, first make sure you have a gmail account, then sync your contacts with gmail on your iphone (I only know to do this by plugging it into a computer though) and then on your android device you simply sync that with gmail too… hey presto lots of contacts are filling my address book as if they’d always been there. It even ported across some of the photos I had assigned to individual contacts too! Go syncing!

One downside I have already encountered with Google syncing though is the tasks. I have long been an ardent user of Outlook and the task manager system within it. I had just got this working properly using icloud and the iphone task even then not as well as I’d have liked, but now, with the Google powered system, I can only sync my tasks if I subscribe to a Google business account! One-nil to apple. This also brings me to the second downside I’ve so far encountered: the apps….

 my empty Outlook task pane

Of course you can’t port over your apps from an iphone to an Android powered device unfortunately and the Google ‘Play’ Marketplace is notoriously less well regulated than apple’s. Some would say this is a good thing as it can be frustrating waiting for the latest bug fix or app release to churn its way through Apple's red tape to arrive in the store compared to Google’s almost instantaneous submission/release schedule. The downside of Google’s approach is that some apps get through that are practically unusable, the other reason for this of course is that the Android OS (operating system) is used on many different phones meaning it’s hard for the app designers to ensure that every app will work on all phones running android. As such I have downloaded two apps already that do not work adequately on the Galaxy S3 (‘G tasks’ and a notes app that I’ve already forgotten the name of), now this could just be me but in three years of iphone and ipad ownership I have only ever had one app completely fail to work on me (solitaire after a failed update), so to get two within a matter of days is highly frustrating and probably quite indicative of the issues (do note however that I’ve downloaded nearly 30 apps already so a miss rate of 2 in 30 isn’t terrible all things considered).

Next up on my hit list of annoyances is the battery life. I have a tendency to get distracted whilst doing tasks and often open up numerous apps at once within a short space of time and forget to close them all. On the iphone it took a long time before this would cause any noticeable lag or battery life issues. On the S3 however, I have managed to whittle down the battery from fully charged to 40% in an afternoon of sporadic use purely because I’d accidently left apps running that I’d forgotten about. Worrying, but there are portable charging solutions out there for pretty much all phones now, be it battery extending cases, emergency chargers or in car power adapters (and in the case of the S3 entire spare batteries that can be kept charged and swapped in). As long as you are aware it shouldn’t be a major issue and it’s not like I never ran out of juice on my iphone!

Now for the plus sides of the S3. Firstly, and this goes for all Android powered devices, the ‘widgets’ are truly amazing. Frankly if Apple doesn’t release its own version of these on its next software update I will be amazed. Essentially (for those not in the know) widgets are like expanded icons or otherwise shrunken apps that appear on your home screens. This means that you don’t necessarily have to launch an app to start using it. If you are anything like me this is an utter boon. I can take a quick note with a swipe of a finger and I’m already jotting away. I can peruse the news at leisure instead of faffing around trying to find the news app and then waiting for it all to refresh. Facebook updates are constantly updated and my calendar is visible at all times. In theory they shouldn’t add that much to the phone experience just being difference of a button press. In practice they add a whole new level of functionality.

Secondly the S3’s screen is HUGE! not quite the size of a Galaxy Tab, but honestly, not that far off! It’s resolution is good and the brightness is adjustable and strong enough for all but the brightest of scenarios (I can use it in bright sunlight but only just and not really a pleasant experience, but then there isn’t a single smart phone around that I’m aware of that doesn’t have this problem. The handset is a little unwieldy but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it in time and for the bigger screen it’s a trade off I’m happy to make as reading is so much more comfortable on the S3.

The Android OS also allows for a great deal more customising than the iOS (Apple’s operating system as standard on all Apple touch devices), you can change fonts and colours and download entire themes for your phone so modders and tweakers will be able to lose days fiddling with the phone to get everything just right. Having said that there’s not much wrong with it as it leaves the box you just have more options!

Overall then how would I compare the S3 to the iphone?

Well in all honesty they are both very good phones that are good at what they do. I’m impressed with both and I doubt you’d be disappointed whichever one you go for. Personally I’m not tempted to send my S3 anywhere just yet, even though I am still getting used to the OS and my old trusty iphone is giving me hurt looks from my bedside table, the S3 is just too big and fast to discount and the widgets are my new favourite things ever. Yes some apps are better than others and yes it does drink batteries like thinned down water but these can be worked around, whereas the iphone’s stubborn, autocratic approach to phone management is a safe bet but ultimately slightly more boring.

I’d have to agree with the industry experts here I think the Samsung S3 is the slightly better phone. I would like to predict however, that the current king will fall at the end of September when the iphone 5 is released… especially if it has widgets!

*(http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57492581-94/mobile-market-shrinks-gartner-blames-economy-iphone-5/)