Samsung squares up
to apple again, but this time lets the technology talk. Ian McGurren is your
commentator.
Ian is a professional IT analyst, a
semi-professional writer and a pretty amateur electronic musician. He likes gadgetry
and loves making gadgets do things they were never designed to do.
Mobile - A Challenger Appears
The phrase ‘iPhone’ killer is bandied
around so much these days it’s a byword for a touch-screen phone that’s not
made by Apple itself. What’s more, such is the so-called Jesusphone’s dominance
these days, it’s a threat that has largely been rebuffed, and has often led to
devices not being judged on their own merits.
However, some devices have some closer than
others, initially come closer than others, initially with HTC’s Desire but
latterly the mantle has been taken up by Samsung’s enormously successful Galaxy
S series. This week, we saw Samsung unveil its third version, but how does it
stand up to the competition?
HTC
Desire HD A9191
The Galaxy S3 was subject to more
pre-release hype than any other Android device yet, eclipsing even Google’s own
Galaxy Nexus. Tales of ceramic casing, 1080p screens and more were whispered,
but in the end it was a surprisingly predictable affair.
In fact, the Galaxy Nexus is a good
starting point: take a Nexus, stretch the screen to 4.8”, add two more cores,
an SD card slot, bump up the battery to 2100MA and the camera to 8mp and you’re
pretty much there. You get the added bonus of Samsung’s Exynos CPU with the
famed Mali GPU and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) with Samsung’s latest
version of its TouchWiz UI, TouchWiz Nature UX. This claims to add more bells
and whistles to ICS such as eye tracking to make the device switch off when
you’re not looking at it, a Siri-like S voice recognition system, and pop-up
windowed applications.
Reaction to the S3 has been mostly
positive, though with praise that’s not quite glowing. Many have pointed out
that, while impressive and certainly more powerful than the iPhone 4S, it’s
evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Some go as far as to say that in
hindsight, some of its thunder has been stolen by HTC’s One X, especially on
the ICS/ quad-core front. Indeed, it may be that the biggest rival to the S3
comes not from Cupertino but from Korea, especially with the One X currently
being offered for less on contract.
The long awaited Galaxy S III
One thing’s for sure though, with the S3,
Samsung has finally released an Android handset that has got people talking,
and like its predecessor the S2, it will sell in the millions. Consumers are
spoilt for choice across all platforms – detractors or not, the iPhone 4S is a
remarkable device, as is Nokia’s flagship Lumia 900 on Windows Phone and the
Android leaders in HTC’s One series, Samsung’s various Galaxy handsets and LG’s
Optimus 4XHD
Left behind a little in the smartphone race
recently has been RIM, its BlackBerry devices are still losing ground every
month. Recently, however, RIM’s counter-offensive has begun with the
announcement of its latest operating system, BB10. Based on the QNX OS that
powers its PlayBook tablets, BB10 brings BlackBerry closer in feel to operating
systems like Android, with widgets, on-screen keyboards, finger-led UI, fancy
flicking predictive text and a sharper look akin to webOS.
Unfortunately, the OS launch was just that,
with no hardware besides a dev unit that won’t be making it to production.
What’s more, it seems unlikely the full BB10 will appear on current BlackBerry
devices with the exception of the PlayBook – if you want BB10, you need a new
device. BB10 walks the walk, but now we’ve seen the opposition’s
next-generation devices, is it just walking too far behind now to catch up?
