HTC and Samsung's Nexus experience - Less is more or less for more?

Ever wanted a Galaxy S4 or a HTC One without Touchwiz or Sense skins? Well now you can! It seems like both companies are eager to get rid of their skins on their phones and present a Nexus style phone alongside their skinned phones. The price tag for these phones are either the same as their skinned counterparts or more expensive. So why would anyone want to pay more to have less? It's a pretty simple reason as far as I can see, more timely updates.

The Nexus feel
If anyone's every used a Nexus phone they'd see how simple the interface is. Basically a no nonsense version of Android as Google meant it to be. Very clean and straightforward, with very few apps that come as standard.

For some, this might be a bit too simple, but for most, it's quite nice to have a clean canvas that you can paint on. You're not forced to use any specific software and everything on the phone except the core apps are added by the user. For those coming from Android which has been skinned, it usually takes some getting used to though it didn't take me long to fall in love with my stock Nexus 7 tablet.

Updates from Google
Arguably the biggest benefit of having a stock Android phone, you'll get updates as and when they are released by Google. This is in contrast to waiting for the manufacturer of your phone to decide whether they want your particular phone model to receive the update and then provide it for you in a few months time. Judging by how many phones are stuck in a past iteration of Android, i.e. Ice Cream Sandwich or older, it's easy to see why this is such a big bonus.

Less for more?
Losing all the features Samsung and HTC put into their phones and gaining a stock feel seems odd at first. Even when you continue to think about it, there's not much that makes it that appealing so it will be interesting to see how sales of these phones progress. To lose features such as HTC Zoe on the One or all features Samsung have on their S4 camera and to have it replaced by the stock Android camera app seems crazy. I've used the Nexus 4 camera and the app is very restrictive compared to a skinned version. You might say, just take the app from either Samsung or HTC and put it on the stock version, if only it were that easy! Generally speaking, they work on a different framework and so this would only be possible if Samsung and HTC implemented it, but that would mean it was a modified version of Android and defeats the purpose of the whole exercise.

So...is it worth it?
No, I don't see how it is. When Google refresh their Nexus range, they'll probably bring out a phone that will be around the same spec as the One or S4 for half the price so save yourself the money and wait a few months until that happens. Either that, or go down the avenue of a custom ROM and wait until the Android developers get their hands on the stock ROMs for the two phones and flash it. I can't say for certain that this will happen but I bet it will be possible on previously skinned phones. Then you can try it out and decide which version you prefer.

Mo

Low-end Android smartphones?

So in an effort to be savvy and save as much money as possible, I decided to sell my Galaxy S3 a couple of weeks before the S4 is released. In the meantime I have to put up with a low end Android phone, the Orange San Francisco 2 (OSF2) aka ZTE Crescent. I'd like to say right now, I have a lot more respect for people who can get by on using these types of phones because they are not for me, at the same time I wouldn't wish this phone on my enemies (slight exaggeration...). I've also come to the realisation that I used my S3 across many aspects of my life. Quite scary that someone can have so much dependence on a single device.

What's so bad?
Let's start with the speed. the OSF2 has a measly single core 800 MHz processor, compare to the S3 which was a quad core 1.4 GHz processor. For normal day-to-day processes, the phone struggle. SwiftKey has gone out of the window and Kii keyboard is being used as a replacement. SwiftKey just locks up the phone and predictions would often be behind my typing and the frustration was too much. Then there's the matter of games, the phone is rooted and it's on Android 4.2.2 and I still haven't been able to come across a single game that I've had on the S3 that works on this. That might be partly to do with the fact that I can't access the Play Store for some reason, but even using my Titanium Backup games, none are working! Boring lectures are now going to be just that for me...boring and without distractions.

The amount of screen time I've racked up on this phone is pretty much the same as my S3, which might be down to the fact that any task on the phone takes about 5 times as long to complete than on my S3, even a simply text or call. Another very important point is the lack of internal storage, it's nearly non-existent. After you account for the ROM partition and cache you are left with 160mb to use for apps. You do have a microSD slot but unless you move apps to the SD card (only some will let you do this), you'll be able to install a couple of apps and you're full up!

What's so good?
It's a cheap phone. That's really it.

Uses for a smartphone?
Compared to the average smartphone user, I think I use my phone a lot more and so my predicament is made even worse. On an average day these are some of the different uses I found for my smartphone:

• Alarm clock
• Phone calls
• Instant messaging
• Games
• Online Banking
• Exercise (Endomondo and Jefit)
• Voice recording
• Pictures
• Videos
• Music
• Organiser
• Calendar
• Getting directions
• Browsing the web
• Social networkings (Twitter and Facebook)
• Viewing documents/presentations
• Emails
• And some more which I can't remember off the top of my head

Basically, my phone is a pretty big part of my life, which I'm not saying is something to be proud of, but it does make it much harder. I envisage walking to lectures without being able to listen to music and have to admire and take in the sights and smells that I've experienced near enough everyday for the past 4 years as opposed to having my head firmly in my phone and music blaring in my ears. The phone can't play a song without interruptions when the screen is off let alone when I need to use it for something else.

Improvising is hard, there isn't a good substitute or way round for some of the things listed above but my Nexus 7 has stepped up to help. It's also made me realise just how useful cloud storage is for some apps. Let's take Jefit as an example, for those of you who don't know what it does, the app tracks your workouts and keeps a log of how much you lift so you can monitor your progress. It syncs your workouts at the end of each session and so you can get the app on a different device, log in and it will download all your logs and routines ready to go. This is one thing ticked off that list, plenty more obstacles to come across yet!

11 days until the Galaxy S4 is released, I imagine I'll have to take it one day at a time. Yes, I know some people might think I might be exaggerating but believe me, I wish I was.

Mo

Jellybean up, Gingerbread down - full steam ahead

The Jellybean iteration of Android experienced a bit of a jump this month, claiming 25% of the whole Android platform, up from the 16.5% it had last month. Part of this is down to the way Google now collect this data, as they noted that:

'Beginning in April, 2013, these charts are now built using data collected from each device when the user visits the Google Play Store. Previously, the data was collected when the device simply checked-in to Google servers. We believe the new data more accurately reflects those users who are most engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem.'

Now I can't really tell how sincere this is, as it could just be an attempt to make it look like Android is moving forward rather than staying about the same in terms of software versions, but then again Google doesn't gain much from doing so as this argument usually rages amongst fanboys and the 'old fragmentation is rife on Android' war. So I guess you'll have to judge for yourselves, but it's worth noting that in essence Google is trying to cut out those who don't regularly access the Play Store, which I think is a bit unfair as they still could be using their phones.

Other flavours and their performance
Since the way the data is collected has changed, you should be a bit cautious comparing figures month-on-month this time around but I've done it anyway for comparison  It seems Gingerbread is starting to fade (finally), claiming 39.8% of the overall share, down from 44.2% last month. Still a majority but falling very quickly. Ice Cream Sandwich is gaining slightly with 29.3% of the shares, up from with 28.6% last month and as mentioned above, Jellybean is up from 16.5% to 25%.

This chart taken directly from the Google blog represents the numbers as a pie chart.

What does this mean?
Well, not much as there is still a division between three different versions of Android and with Key Lime Pie coming up very quickly (touted for a summer release) it will likely cause more fragmentation. What's clear is that Gingerbread is stubborn as it's likely that older devices which are no longer officially supported are stuck on the OS but Jellybean is powering ahead and should overtake as the main OS in the near future, with the sales of the Galaxy S4 no doubt accelerating that.

Is it a problem?
I don't think it's a particularly big problem, most apps on the Play Store are compatible with phones that have Froyo and above on them, which translates into 98.2% of all Android phones, with only a slew of new apps now requiring Ice Cream Sandwich and above to operate. As long as developers create apps that are compatible with legacy phones then it's not a problem and since there is no sign of it stopping then I'm not worried about older devices becoming a relic that have no compatible apps available for them. It also wouldn't make sense for developers to create apps specifically for the later versions of Android as the older one still have a commanding slice of the shares.

Mo

Best deals for the Galaxy S4...

...or lack of!
I mentioned in my previous blogposts my next phone purchase was going to be the Galaxy S4. There's still about a month left before it's released but my sister had recently managed to get the Sony Xperia Z for £26 a month so I was optimistic for myself. How wrong I was, having scoured all the comparison sites and different outlets, the cheapest deal I found was for £32.04 per month for 24 months after cashback, giving a grand total of £768.96. This deal gives a mediocre package of 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of data, pretty decent for a normal smartphone but not so much for a top end phone nowadays. I put together a comparison table for various deals but unfortunately for me, I'll have to keep looking...

Network	Mins	Texts	Data (mb)	Upfront cost	Monthly cost	Duration	Total cost	Link
Vodafone	Unlimited	Unlimited	4GB	£29.00	£57	12	£713	Click
Orange	600	Unlimited	1GB	£0	£32.04	24	£768.96	Click
Three	300	5000	Unlimited	£0	£33.31	24	£799.44	Click
O2	Unlimited	Unlimited	1GB	£0	£34.29	24	£822.96	Click
T-mobile	2000	Unlimited	Unlimited	£99.00	£36	24	£963.99	Click
Vodafone	Unlimited	Unlimited	2GB	£0	£42	24	£1,008	Click
EE	Unlimited	Unlimited	3GB	£29.99	£41	24	£1,013.99	Click

Buy now? Buy later?
Let's wait and see, these are only a small number of deals but I wanted to find some from across the board for comparison. Only EE offers 4G, the rest will all be on the 3G network but I think EE have got a greedy pricing structure and would advise anyone to wait until other networks get their 4G up and running to get it cheaper. You should also note that T-mobile will slow your data connection down after you exceed their fair usage policy, whereas 3 will not.

What's a good deal?
I've found the Xperia Z and the HTC One for £26 a month, so I know the S4 should fall to around that price too, until then I'll hold out. Bear in mind there's still a month left before the S4 is released so you won't be missing out if you want the phone on launch day and because of that I think you should hold out for a better deal too.

Mo

LG and HTC's attempt to steal limelight

A lot of attention was focussed on Samsung's midweek launch event of their new flagship phone, the Galaxy S4 but while this was going on, HTC and LG were not so quietly trying to steal some of the limelight with what I can only describe as borderline distasteful advertising, well in HTC's case anyway. I have to hand it to LG in that their advertising was at least clever and funny, but if anyone had a look at HTC's twitter feed at the time then you might have seen some of their tweets. I'm a fan of Samsung, I'll admit, but not to the point where I will foam at the mount to defend them and the constant tweets that came from HTC made it quite hard for me to even contemplate taking their phones seriously or even their company. I'm all for advertising but not in that way.

LG be trolling...

Here's LG's advertising in Times Square:

Courtesy of Gizmodo

You have to give them credit for come up with this, plastered right above Samsung's ad, you can see LG advertising their phones, the Optimus G.

HTC be boring...

And here's HTC's tweets:

 

Quite a few retweets but I don't understand this kind of tactic, there were a lot of people for and against this one Twitter. I guess all publicity is good publicity and in HTC's case, a lot of people are talking about this stunt they pulled so maybe they got what they wanted but I for one don't approve of this style of shameless self-advertising and behaviour. At least try to be original or funny so people don't feel like the only reason you set out to make fun of a rival is because you can't compete with them.

At times I felt a little bit sorry for HTC and it was a bit cringeworthy. From their performance it's easy to see they, as well as most other Android phone makers, are struggling but this really isn't the answer. Try to stay professional next time eh? Failing that, try to be funny than pathetic. Thanks.

Mo

Clash of the Titans - S4 vs HTC One

We finally got what we all wanted, well most of us did. The S4 has been announced and we did actually see quite a few features which weren't leaked before the event. I watched the launch event and like a lot of launch events it was quite flashy and pretty fast paced. I wasn't a fan of everything they did and at times it was a bit dull and in between the gimmicky features, I saw quite a lot of things that Samsung are bringing out that I think are very useful additions to a phone.

Let's compare phone specs, as if they haven't been done already to death:















Design
The design of the two phones are very different with Samsung deciding to stick to its S3 design and HTC brining out a very sexy looking phone made of aluminium. HTC have always made good looking phones with amazing form factor and this is no exception, although the plastic of the Samsung might be more durable, I have to give this to the One as it does look fantastic.


Screen
The S4 has a Super AMOLED 5 inch touchscreen while the One has a Super LCD3 4.7 inch touch screen. Both have the same resolution, 1080 x 1920 pixels, often referred to as 'Full HD'. Since the S4 has a slightly bigger screen, the ppi (pixels per inch) pixel density is slightly lower as it covers a larger area so we get 441 ppi for the S4 and 469 ppi for the One. The winner really depends on how you look at it, but given the S4 has Cornering Gorilla Glass 3 instead of 2 to protect the screen, I am tempted to just give it to the S4 but let's call it a draw.

Storage
Quite an easy one here, the S4 comes in three different storage capacities, 16/32/64gb while the One has two, 32/64gb but the winner is the S4 by a mile as it has the ability to increase storage using a microSD card up to 64gb. I can't see it any other way, microSD slot is always a winner in my eyes.

Connectivity
Boring stuff here, but basically the two phones have more or the less the same type of connectivity here. They are both LTE capable, so 4G in areas which it is available, they both have v4.0 Bluetooth, NFC, infrared ports and microUSB v2.0. The only slight difference is that the S4 has USB on-the-go which means you can plug in extra storage if you ever need it, something which will probably be available for the One if you decide to go down the custom firmware route. We'll call it another draw.

Camera
The S4 has a 13 megapixel camera while the One has a 4 megapixel camera which they have marketed as the 4 Ultra Pixels camera. At first glance you might think that S4 wins but early camera comparisons have shown that the One does indeed appear to perform better. I think it's always important to bear in mind higher megapixels isn't always better and the One indeed seems to prove this. Have to give it the HTC One for the camera.

Processor and graphics
On paper there doesn't seem to be a competition here. The S4 has the Exynos 5 Octa 5410 which is an eight-core processor while the One has a Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600 processor which is quad-core. So the S4 has four more cores than the One, but again until these are properly benchmarked then it's not easy to compare. In terms of the GPU (graphics processing unit), it's another difficult one with the S4 sporting a PowerVR SGX 544MP3 and the One with the Adreno 320. A lot of fancy words and numbers there but S4's GPU has three cores clocked at 533 MHz which is roughly between the performance of the iPhone 5 and the iPad 4. The Adreno 320 is a little bit older and has already been featured in the Nexus 4. Overall I think we'll have to give this to the S4 in theory and wait to see what happens in reality.

Sensors and features
The S4 will come fitted with the usual accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass, all of which the One has too but on top of this, the S4 will also include a barometer, temperature and humidity sensors. These are going to be used for various features that come with the S4. Talking about features, Samsung have introduced a lot of new things that the S4 will bring. Overall this round goes to the S4 as Samsung appear to have added in many little things, some gimmicky, that I can see being quite useful such as touch-less gestures, dual camera, drama shot, S-translate and so on.

Battery life
I don't know why HTC continue down this road but they've fitted the One with a non-removable 2300 mAh battery while the S4 has a 2600 mAh battery that is removable. It's a no brainer for me, the S4 wins in this category as I have the choice of buying an extra battery if I wanted to and overall it does have a higher capacity battery fitted.

Final remarks
Samsung - 6
HTC - 4

Obviously this is my view but I find the S4 more appealing that the One, maybe because of a slight brand loyalty to Samsung nowadays or it might just be that it is the better phone, either way I firmly believe that Samsung will sell many more units than HTC and this is most down to their incredible marketing budget! Having said that, my next phone is likely to be the S4.

Mo

Come and meet the next Galaxy!

Wouldn't you know it, I decide to set up a blog and there's very little going on in the Android world at the moment. Well I'm sure there's some stuff going on but nothing that interests me. I use Appy Geek on my Galaxy S3 to get all the latest tech news (well, Android news) and every day I come across articles that I have a view on...except for today.

The Galaxy S4...

I guess I'll talk about the Galaxy S4 since I've been salivating over it for so long and already thinking about selling my S3 in anticipation. I think my friends might appreciate this too as long as I talk to someone else about it and not them. It's not even like my S3 has done me any wrong, I think I'm just a fashionista for phones. I'm sure a lot of people know the rumours about the S4; a 5 inch screen 1080p screen, 2 gigabytes of RAM (random-access memory) and a 13 megapixel camera. The rest of the details are a bit shady and contested with some sources saying the CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit) of the S4 will be made by Qualcomm, while others are touting the Exynos processor. Either way you can expect it to pack a punch, but it seems the octo-core Exynos processor that Samsung announced has been shelved for now as they had problems trying to manage the power hungry chip.

...and the Galaxy range

The S4 will no doubt sell, the Galaxy range is becoming somewhat similar to the iPhone name in that it's recognisable and increasing in popularity. I've never seen so many people with Galaxy phones when I walk around town. I do think that Samsung might not be bringing much more to the table than its counterparts this time round. Sony and HTC have both announced their phones and the specs are very similar to the rumoured specs of the S4. The only difference is that Samsung have established their range of phones much better than the other two and no doubt that will clinch it for them when it comes to sales, but if they think they can rely purely on the Galaxy name then they should think again. Take a look at Apple and their iPhone and how the name is slowly (in my opinion) becoming less cool and alternatives are being taken much more seriously. If it can happen to Apple, it most definitely can happen to Samsung.

The Competition

Having had a play on the Sony Xperia Z, I was very tempted to pre-order it. The screen was incredible and Sony's own apps and skins were enough to make me think twice about sticking with Samsung. I haven't had a play around on the HTC One, but I was never really a fan of HTC's Sense skin but I imagine it will be a very impressive device with beautiful build quality. All manufacturers of Android phones like to customise their devices (which always leads to delayed roll-out of the latest version of Android), but some of the features that Samsung has are just too tantalising for me to want to switch to a different manufacturer. For example take Smart Stay, which sounds like a massive gimmick, is actually really useful for me when I'm reading something and it's not the only Samsung feature I use. Multi-window is another that I've found very useful in some circumstances when you just don't want to keep switching between applications and it's the perfect solution!

To wrap up...

March 14th can't come quickly enough, I would use the 'I'm throwing money at my screen but nothing is happening' meme but I think it's getting a bit old. Instead I'll just wait patiently for a couple of weeks for the Samsung event and try to hatch a plan on how to acquire the S4 as cheaply as possible (as I've done every year around this time). For now I'll just slowly get more annoyed at the number of people who own an S3, they're making me feel less geeky about owning a smartphone which isn't an iPhone!

Mo