On Thursday I left rural Dartmoor, and travelled to London. It was the first time I was away from my mains power or car charger.

One thing shocked me about the iPhone 5 was its poor battery life that day. It went flat at 8pm coming off charge at 6.30am and spending over 6 hours on airplane mode to save battery. I did some investigation and realised the jail break was impacting the battery, but I also looked at the official specs and compared it to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S3.

The iPhone 5 states it can browse the Internet for 8 hours on 3G and 10 hours on wifi. Since I used wifi most of the time, that might explain why I felt the loss of battery. It has a standby time of only 225 hours. The Samsung S3 is similar but has a standby time 3 times that of the iPhone 5. That seems odd.

But we all know the Note 2 is famed for its size and battery life. And here’s why. The Note 2 can browse the Internet over 3G for 16 hours and has a standby time of nearly 950 hours.

This clearly shows all phones of smartphone capabilities need to have the Note 2 stamina.

Yesterday I attempted to buy a Samsung Note 2 to replace my iPhone 5. It didn’t happen due to Three UK’s local store insisting on only offering it on contract only not pay as you go, which is clearly advertised. Most annoying at the time as scandalous service by 3.

And then I got home and Letterpress notified me on my iPhone that it was my turn. This is an online word game that you play against your friends or an unknown person. I normally have 3-4 games on the go. That got me thinking. If I moved to android I would lose this as android doesn’t have a Game Center system. The gaming experience and selection of games on iOS is currently unbeatable.

I was also considering the Xperia Z and maybe the HTC One both of which are meant to have better cameras that the iPhone 5. From early testing this is not the case and the iPhone 5 is still able to hold its own.

Then I thought about the size of the Note 2. No more one handed use. And I would have to make sure I wore clothing with large pockets to accommodate it.

And then I thought of all the iOS apps I have and how well they work on the iPhone. 120 apps (not games) that I can flick open with one hand on the home page. Trying do that with the Note 2.

Don’t get me wrong, android and the phones are very good but also very different. It then got me thinking that what if Apple did release a phablet. Would that destroy that market segment?

So here I am pondering my next move. Well I’m going to see if there is anything special about the Samsung Galaxy S4 when it’s announced on the 14th March. Part of me reckons that following the S4, both the Note 2 and S3 will reduce in price due to everyone upgrading and an over saturation of phones for sale. In turn this will put pressure on Sony and HTC, again reducing their phones.

Of course, the unknown is what Apple will do for certain!

In a few days time the world will know for sure what Samsung has created for its successor to the superb S3.

I am not expecting anything ground breaking on the hardware but I do hope they use some aluminium. Maybe the software will have some USP’s.

So how many of you are going to rush out and pre order one of these ? Or are you going to wait to see it in the flesh alongside the HTC One, Sony Xperia Z and maybe even wait for the new iPhone or Note 3 before deciding your next move?

I’m waiting to see what comes out this year. The iPhone 5 is very competent. And I would want something a lot better to change from it

Twitter has been updated and includes enhancements to search and other improvements as quoted by twitter as below –

– As you search you’ll see more topic and user suggestions for your query, based on what’s happening in real time. You’ll also see these suggestions when adding a hashtag or username as you compose a new Tweet.

– Top Tweets from big moments in the past pop out when you search for a given term. For example, searching for “election” might highlight Tweets from several months ago.

– When you open a web page you can now see the related Tweet for more context. Just pull the tray icon up or down to see or hide the Tweet.

– It’s easier to see long conversations in the Tweet details view, which now shows all of the replies to any Tweet

– When you block a user in the app, their Tweets will instantly disappear from the Connect tab in the app

– Pull-to-refresh in Discover shows a new, smoother animation

– Support for traditional Chinese

– Logout support (iOS 6 only)

– Uploading videos vie Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous is no longer supported

The last change is another example of twitter taking control and cutting third party services.