Samsung have created a crazy video for the Note 4.
Category Archives: Android
iPhone 6 Plus versus LG G3 camera comparison
The press have been stating the iPhone 6 is the world’s best smartphone camera. So lets put these auto mode cameras to the test. This is a simple auto mode test. 3 samples of the same shot, the first from the LG G3 and then the iPhone 6 Plus.
In some ways I felt the iPhone 6 did a good job, and in others the G3. I will create a more in depth comparison, but I thought some of you might be interested.
So which phone wins for you?
Remember LG G3 first then iPhone 6 Plus.
As you can see from the shot above the iPhone 6 plus got the lighting all wrong.
The above shots are trickier. The iPhone does a better job with the sky. G3 has more detail. Close call.
One thing that is evident is the iPhone 6 has a wider field of view, which could be a bonus.
Samsung opens pre orders early to combat iPhone 6 Plus success
Samsung reportedly started pre orders a few weeks earlier to try and stop the stampede success of the iPhone 6 Plus.
And guess what, pre orders were so popular, Samsung had to be stop taking new pre orders. All that sounds like is Samsung trying to create greater demand.
If you want to pre order the Note 4, Clove Technology have the white, black and gold available for £575 including VAT. This price is £25 less than Amazon UK too. Link http://www.clove.co.uk/samsung-galaxy-note-4
This is iOS 8 and the iPhone 6 on the LG G3 – what’s your verdict?
What if you took the iPhone 6 screen and iOS 8, and ran it on the LG G3. The shot below is exactly what you would get. Looks good? Or do you not agree?
Smartphone Flagship – decisions – views on LG G3, iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Note 4
I have read raging written battles on several forums regarding the above phones. Note 4 fans are dissing the iPhone for its lack of specifications versus the iPhone and so on.
As you will be aware, I currently own the LG G3. It’s a superb piece of kit but omitting the specs per se for the moment, I’m going to try and be objective on what matters. And then I’m going to try and do the same for the other phones. What you will see hopefully is a difficult choice if you had to choose just one phone.
LG G3 – QHD screen. Text/Photos look great but not the best in bright sunlight. Also heat controls dim the screen. Qi charging only used at night. Charges on LG Qi stand which takes effort out of plugging lead in every night. LG infra red blaster. Watching TV or a DVD. Handy for basic controls as phone always next to me, but not necessarily remotes. Standard IR software includes DVD eject and close button. Useful as not working on DVD player and doesn’t exist on official DVD remote control. Camera. Redefines zero options. Full auto which works most times extremely well. The laser auto focus seems to create fast shot to shot times and quick first shots. Design – curved back and rear buttons make handling the 5.5 inch screen a breeze. Android so highly customisable. Using Nova Launcher with some super slick customisation. Runs Android. Google services and Google Now are brilliant. Decent apps. USB Host and mass storage. Can connect hard drives and cameras directly to phone and many more USB devices. Superb game controller support along with emulators. I have the 32gb/3gb version. Replaceable and user removable battery. Micro SD slot which takes up to 128gb micro sd cards. As this has been on the market for nearly 3 months it is the cheapest option by several hundred pounds.
iPhone 6 Plus – unrivalled design. Screen has better contrast and angles and better readability than LG G3 in sunlight. Super bright screen and natural looking colours. ios Eco system benefits. Handoff just works. The ability to be able to make calls on your iPhone or iPad and soon Mac and move from one to the other is simply awesome. Apple Pay is a simple solution to a big daily activity of buying items. Touch ID is the best finger print scanner. Camera. It’s a super fun and easy camera app. The software is highly optimised to take great shots and some of the standard features built in just allow for superb fun photos. The photos app offers excellent editing software. Going back to the Eco system. You have FaceTime, iMessage and all the other ios 8 tightly integrated features. For me, the iPhone feels great to use. It’s apps, Eco system and tightly integrated hardware and software make it a sum of greater parts. Less is more sometimes.
Samsung Note 4 – rumoured to have the best display. Relevance means readable in bright sunlight and drops down to really dark for night time reading. Ultra Power saving mode is really a life saver. Decent camera capable of taking more pro shots. The S Pen. Killer feature if you use the stylus. Again like the G3 is fully customisable as it runs android. Also has infra red remote control. Replaceable and removable battery a bonus. Micro sd card slot ideal. In essence it has similar features to the LG G3 , except it lacks as standard Qi charging and a fm radio.
Having examined these phones, they all offer a different user experience. One is not necessarily better than another.
LG G3 – Home Screen of the Week
My latest home screen design. Using Nova Launcher. Tendere icons. And Android L search bar. Badges are activated for all apps so I don’t need to see the status bar which can be toggled with the home menu button. Folders are discreet too.
iOS 8 Update Pre and Post – My Thoughts and Experiences
Apple’s iOS 8 update landed a few days ago. I was too busy when it went live to attempt to start the download, but based on the battering Apple’s servers would take, I thought it wise to wait.
I was pleased that I did wait, as it became evident that this update required a massive amount of free space to install. Between my wife and I, none of our Apple devices were able to update to iOS 8, even though it said there was an update available. In fact, all that happened was the devices took you to a usage screen. No instructions provided by Apple. Now, I’m tech minded but the majority of Apple’s users probably aren’t and would be left wondering what to do next! How difficult would it have been for a brief note/message on the next steps required to free up some space.
Even more concerning would be a phone with just 8 or 16gb storage. Based on the size of free space required, it would in essence be necessary to remove everything off your iPhone just to install iOS 8. Again no warnings or advice from Apple.
So before I could start downloading the update on all the devices, I had to fiddle around with removing enough apps or music or videos to install iOS 8.
So finally, the updates were starting to download. This took hours, but fortunately this was left running overnight. I say fortunately, but unfortunate for one device whose update timed out. The next stage after downloading was preparing the update which seemed to take forever. About 40 minutes. Then the installation, taking another 20 minutes. Next the music, videos and apps that had been removed had to be re-installed again.
This did not feel like a smooth operation and all it would have taken is a screen from Apple with some tips before trying to install this update.
However, Apple is the only company that can release an update to the World for all its devices on the same day at exactly the same time!!! And that is impressive.
So post update and running iOS 8. Here are my thoughts and then the thoughts of my wife.
Me – After installation, my iPad Air looked no different on the first glance. As I started to explore some of the new features and cosmetic tweaks, it became evident that the update as a whole was greater than the individual components. The attention to detail and the refined user experience was starting to really impress me. The camera and photos app. Totally enhanced providing more functionality and a better user experience, but done in a non overpowering way. Safari, when the pages started to load this was a super fast experience. I am experiencing web pages not loading. This is only cured by quitting the app and restarting. The new features are extensive, but I do believe it will be the developers and the forthcoming app updates that will end up creating a powerful and enjoyable user experience.
Wife – Gavin had helped me install iOS 8 on my iPhone 5S and iPad. First things, how do I remove the people’s faces from the recent screen. I really don’t want to see some of the faces there. Setting the alarm. The layouts changed and it threw me. I don’t like change. I’m not a tech person and therefore once I have worked out how to use something, change is not wanted for the sake of changes. The changes to all the other apps and menus is also a little confusing. I am sure after spending some more time with my iPhone it will become easier. I was really looking forward to the Health app, but Gavin informs me its functionality with Third Party apps has been removed temporarily due to a bug. Hmmm. There is a lot of changes and to be honest I don’t like them really at the moment. However, I did notice a Tips app from Apple. Thank goodness for this. I will have a read over time. Overall, I am feel frustrated over this update.
My final thoughts then got me wondering how iOS 8 and app updates/improvements would define the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. I believe these new iPhones after a 3 month period will really produce one of the best mobile phone user experiences. The new iPhones may not have the highest spec sheet, but I do believe the total sum of all the parts, software and hardware will be a difficult force to beat.
However, whilst today is the official launch of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, it is also pre order day for the Samsung Note 4 in the UK. Now that is a coincidence!
So if you are now using the iPhone 6, please let me know and everyone else your initial thoughts: )
LG G3 – my new home screen
A few days ago I posted my new look home screen on my LG G3. This was done using Nova Launcher.
Well I’ve tweaked it slightly reducing the menu buttons tip only 4 and changing the icons to Samsung Touchwiz style.
I’m very happy with this final tweak. So what do you do to customise your phone?
It’s all about the screen – stunning stats on the Samsung Note 4
Displaymate have analysed the Note 4 screen.
“Here’s just a few facts – max brightness is 750 nits. Lowest 2 nits. No other smartphone gets close. ”
“Based on our extensive lab tests and measurements, the Galaxy Note 4 is the best performing smartphone display that we have ever tested. It matches or breaks new records in smartphone display performance for: Highest Absolute Color Accuracy, Highest Screen Resolution, Infinite Contrast Ratio, Highest Peak Brightness, Highest Contrast Rating in Ambient Light, and the smallest Brightness Variation with Viewing Angle. Its Color Management capability provides multiple Color Gamuts—a major advantage that is not currently provided by any of the other leading smartphones. The Galaxy Note 4 delivers uniformly consistent all around top tier display performance: it is the first smartphone display to ever get all green (very good to excellent) ratings in all test and measurement categories (except one Yellow for a Brightness Variation with Average Picture Level) since we started the Display Technology Shoot-Out article Series in 2006, an impressive achievement for a display. The Galaxy Note 4 has again raised the bar for top display performance up by another notch.”
And this along with the stylus is why this phone is in my wish list.
More at Gizmodo.
More thoughts on the new iPhone 6 compared to the LG G3
I’ve been pondering over the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus more and more this weekend. I’ve looked at my LG G3 and decided to see if I installed Apex or Nova Launcher whether that would help cement my decision not to get the new iPhone.
The new iPhone 6 in particular the 6 Plus is the version that interests me the most. But despite it looking like a gorgeous piece of hardware and iOS 8 seemingly the finest operating system from Apple, it just doesn’t tick enough boxes at the moment. This is strengthened after I installed a third party launcher on my current phone , the LG G3.
I own the full/pro version of a number of third party launchers. Apex is my favourite as the theming is more extensive but it has a bug that appeared after hours of customisation which stopped widgets being resized. So I installed Nova Launcher and proceeded to create the above look above. I later on recreated TouchWiz found on Samsung devices. Using either Nova or Apex introduces a few other time saving options too and a bespoke user experience.
But the fundamental point is with my LG G3 it has everything I could want and more. A new iPhone 6 Plus will also provide an amazing user experience except it will just be a different one, not necessarily better just different.
So by holding off being first out of the blocks with a new iPhone 6 Plus I can let others post their experiences, bugs, positive and negative thoughts. In addition, I can then spend some time at my local Apple store exploring the phone further and make a more informed decision based on better data and not marketing promises. The Samsung Note 4 will also be released shortly, meaning I can really compare the LG G3, Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus without making any rash decisions.
I must admit I find it odd that I haven’t pre ordered the new iPhone. That is a first. I’ll be honest to also admit I’ve read Apple.com many times over the last for days too 🙂
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 