Galaxy S III Review

I haven't done a phone review since I started writing primarily because I haven't been really impressed by a new phone in the past several months.  This all changed when I get to spend a little bit of time with the Galaxy S III, Samsung's new flagship phone.  The GS3 will be launching on all the major US carriers and will be available internationally as well (meaning my Russian and British readers are in luck).  I was able to attend  a training event hosted by Samsung in Philadelphia and had the opportunity to tinker with the phone in between the training segments.

Why Should You Care

The phone has some pretty amazing specs and won't require you to open up your wallet as far as the Motorola Razr Maxx ($299) and will get you more bang for your buck than an iPhone 4S ($199).  The phone is a 4G LTE device with a blazing fast 1.5GHz processor and comes loaded with 2 GB of RAM to keep the device running very smoothly.  The 4.8" Super AMOLED screen displays HD videos with incredible image clarity and is protected by second generation Corning Gorilla Glass.

I'm going to break down that last sentence for everyone really quick.  It has a big, gorgeous screen that will be very durable.  Don't be scared by the size of the screen as Samsung reduced the bezel (the white and black stuff around the screen) in order to keep the size of the phone becoming uncomfortable.  The phone is comparable in size to the Droid X or Droid 4 which both have 4.3" screens.

The camera really shined in the short time I got to use the phone.  The phone sports an 8 MP main camera and 1.9MP front facing camera.  The phone features a "burst" mode enabling the phone to take 20 pictures in rapid succession and a "best" mode that highlights the "best" picture based off the number of faces in focus, smiles, and eyes open.  Lastly, the phone has a "smile" mode, in which the phone will automatically snap the photo when it senses the subject smiling.  The camera alone will be enough to move the phone as customers look for a suitable replacement for a point and click camera.

Battery life? While I haven't seen the phone in action for an extended period of time, I would expect the battery to hold up well in comparison to most other phones.  At 2100 mAh, the GS3's battery is second only to the Razr Maxx (3300 mAh) in Verizon's current line up.  Most phones average 1600 mAh and Samsung's Super AMOLED screens have been lauded for their efficient battery use in comparison to energy hungry screens featured by Motorola and HTC.

Lastly, Samsung has developed a new accessory called TecTiles. TecTiles are small adhesive chips that can be programmed to give the phone a specific command.  For instance, you can leave one at work and when you wave your phone across the TecTile, your phone will text your significant other that you're leaving.  Swipe your phone over another tile in your car to turn on GPS and Bluetooth.  Arrive home and swipe over the tile near the phone to mute the device and enjoy some quality quiet time.

Should You Buy It?

Resoundingly, yes!  Like I said before the Galaxy S III is the first phone in a while that has really impressed me.  I would buy the phone ahead of every phone in Verizon's lineup with the exception of the Razr Maxx.  If you're a heavy duty user or just find yourself unable to rely on having a charger handy then the extra battery life on the Maxx should put it over the top.  For everyone else, I'd recommend picking up the Galaxy and using the savings to pick up some TecTiles.

iOS 6 - AKA Apple's New Software

So Apple announced the next major software upgrade for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.  What's this mean for you? It depends.  Do you need new hardware? Maybe (Scroll to the bottom of the next link to see).  You could go here and get the info from the horse's mouth or you can read on as I break it down.

Maps and GPS

Apple finally caught up to Android and is providing a native GPS solution that provides turn-by-turn directions and traffic updates.  There is some integration with Siri, but we'll see how well it works when things are rolled out.  The good folks over at Gizmodo have a great comparison of Android vs iOS and for the time being it looks like Apple still has some room to catch up on.

Siri

Siri's getting an update to her functionality.  You can stop asking it where to bury the dead bodies and get more information for sports, movies, and restaurants.  Thumbs up for integrating Siri into apps like Open Table.  I'm curious to see if these developments are coming more from Apple or the app developers.  I'd love to see people add movies to their Netflix queue or start up Pandora on a specific channel with just their voice.

On the down side, you'll be able to update your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Siri.  This means I'll be seeing more fecal matter related updates on Facebook regarding newborns.  You know who you are :)

Apple will be partnering with car manufacturers to integrate Siri into voice control systems.  I'll hold off judgement until I see what manufacturers are doing.  Personally, I wish Apple would engage in some heavy handed restrictions and force a universal system across all cars, but that'll never happen.  My concern is that some manufacturers have created horrible bluetooth user interfaces (Mercedes, BMW) that are painful to use and others that are very unreliable (Ford).

Photo Sharing

At first glance I yawned, but then realized this will be a nice addition for people who don't have or use Facebook regularly.  iOS users will be able to create mini social networks and share photos with friends and family members regardless of the device type they have.

Facetime 

You won't be forced to hook up to a Wi-Fi signal to use Facetime.  You still may want to given the network congestion on 3G networks and the amount of data video calling can use.  Don't say I didn't warn you when your teenager jacks your cell phone bill up because she had to video chat with the varsity QB during study hall.

Passbook

I'm just going to copy and paste from Apple's site on this one because it sounds really cool but I'd be surprised if how many people really take advantage of it.

"Your boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, and more are now all in one place. With Passbook, you can scan your iPhone or iPod touch to check in for a flight, get into a movie, and redeem a coupon. You can also see when your coupons expire, where your concert seats are, and the balance left on that all-important coffee bar card. Wake your iPhone or iPod touch, and passes appear on your Lock screen at the appropriate time and place — like when you reach the airport or walk into the store to redeem your gift card or coupon. And if your gate changes after you’ve checked in for your flight, Passbook will even alert you to make sure you’re not relaxing in the wrong terminal."


Wrap Up


But when's the iPhone 5 coming out? No clue.  You, me, and the Wall Street Journal will all find out at the same time when Apple makes the big announcement.  Trust me, you won't be miss it.

New Verizon Data Plans

Chances are you've that Verizon is changing its plans on June 28th.  It's true, Verizon Wireless just announced its new Share Everything Plan.  Stop, breathe, and please read on. I'm going to explain how they work and clear up a few misconceptions.  Mind you, these plans were just announced today and this information will cover most scenarios.  

Currently customers need to manage minutes, text messaging and data usage.  Verizon will be simplifying options by giving all phones on the Share Everything Plan unlimited minutes and text messaging.  Every device on the account will incur a fixed monthly access charge (more on that in a minute). Customers will then pick a data plan that all of their devices will be able to access (up to 10 devices).

Notice how I keep referring to devices and not phones?  This new plan includes options for smartphones, basic phones, laptops, mobile hotspots, USB sticks and tablets.

The monthly charges for devices are as follows

• Smartphones - $40
• Basic phones - $30
• Netbook, Mobile Hotspot, USB stick - $20
• Tablet - $10

Data buckets for the entire account

• $50 - 1GB
• $60 - 2GB
• $70 - 4GB
• $80 - 6GB
• $90 - 8GB
• $100 - 10GB

There are going to be times when the new plans are a better value and times when the old plans are a better value.  The benefits going forward are freedom from overages for minutes and texts along with the ability to share data across multiple devices.  Most people use a lot less data than they realize (take 5 minutes and read your cell phone bill).

Mary's family has 2 smartphones sharing 1400 minutes and unlimited text messaging.  Her monthly bill comes to $180.  The total data usage for the smartphones is under 2 GB each month.  Mary's mom wants a tablet but doesn't think she'll use it enough to justify paying $30 per month.

Under the new plan, Mary's family could share 4 GB of data shared across two smartphones and a tablet for $160 per month.  (2 smartphones at $40/month, 1 tablet at $10/month, 4 GB of data at $70/month).  We've gone from a potential bill of $210 down to an actual bill of $160.  We've saved money and we're getting more bang for our buck.

I'm not going to play out every possible scenario because, quite frankly, I'd rather be watching The Big Bang Theory.  If you're a Verizon Wireless customer, now is a really good time to look through your account.  If you're not a Verizon Wireless customer, see the previous statement.

For more information visit Verizon's website

If you have Verizon Wireless and you have a family plan.

1)  Your plan is not changing on the 28th.
2)  If you have unlimited data on your smartphone now and upgrade after the 28th, you will have a few options.

• Pay the full retail price on a phone and you may keep unlimited data.
• Purchase a new phone at the discounted price, keep your current phone plan and switch to a tiered data plan (2 GB - $30/month, 5 GB - $50/month, 10 GB - $80/month for a single device)
• Purchase a new phone at the discounted price and switch to the new Share Everything Plan

3)  In a lot of instances, if you don't want to restructure your plan, you won't have to (unless you have unlimited data)
4)  You cannot combine the old minute plans with the new shared data plans.

Who will these new plans apply to automatically?

1) New customers to Verizon Wireless
2) Customers with an individual line of service moving to a shared plan

Swiftkey: A New Way of Typing Submitted For Your Approval

One of the nicest things about Android is the ability to swap out different components of the phone. I recently downloaded an app called Swiftkey that allows me to change out the default on-screen keyboard for my Droid 4.  Why would I do such a thing? Well for you guys of course :)  This is a free app to trial but the permanent version can be purchased for $2.99.

Most people are used to a form of predictive text where the phone will predict the word you are trying to spell.  Swiftkey takes it a step further and predicts word after word.  It sounds weird until you actually have the keyboard in front of you.  Take a look at the videos below to get a preview of the app.  

I've dug through the apps settings and wanted to highlight a few options.

It will let you download keyboards that support a variety of languages including Spanish, German, Italian, and French. It does not support any Asian languages at this point.  

If you want to go back to the standard keyboard follow the following instructions.  

1) Create a new text message

2) Tap and hold your finger in the "Compose Message" area until a pop up menu appears

3) Select another keyboard

Swiftkey will ask you for your permission to look at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, email, blogs, and text messages in order to quickly learn how you communicate.  If you choose not to enable this feature, it will still learn your habits, but at a much slower space.

You can delete entire words by flicking your finger from right to left across the backspace button.

Holding the "Return" key will enable emoticons.

You can adjust the height of the keyboard in both portrait and landscape modes. 

The app keeps track of a couple stats which is a pretty neat trick.  It records the number of keystrokes saved, typos corrected, and total words predicted.  

Lastly, it scores your accuracy via a typing heat map.  The map is a visual representation of your typing style.  The blobs morph over time to fit the region that you tend to press when you want to use that key.  In layman's terms, the phone starts to learn if you can't type properly and adjusts accordingly. If you look at mine below, I apparently can't hit the letter A properly.

Dropbox - New and Improved

I've mentioned a program called Dropbox in several posts and a recent software update has prompted me to shed a little light on this gem of an app.  Dropbox is software available for smartphones, laptops, and computers that allows you to easily move files between multiple devices, back up files, or share files with another person.

Dropbox gives you 2 GB of storage upon signing up for your account and increase your account size up to 18GB through referrals at a rate of 500MB per referral.  Heavier users can purchase larger amounts of storage with monthly rates starting at $9.99.

Here are the thing you'll want to do.  For those that need more assistance, please watch this video.


1) Sign up for the account
2) Download the program to your phone and/or computer
3) Move files into your Dropbox.

Once you've downloaded Dropbox to your computer you will see it on your desktop.  All you have to do is double click the program to open it and you will see a folder open up.  Anything you put in this folder will be backed up to Dropbox and accessible on other devices.  If you're on someone else's computer, you DO NOT need to download Dropbox.  If you go to Dropbox.com, you will see an option to log in to your account in the upper right hand corner. You can transfer files when accessing your account this way.  This is a great way to access your stuff from a work or school computer if you can't install new software on it.

Watch the following video and fast forward to the 6:20 mark if you want to move files from you phone to your computer.

Now that I've completely buried the lead, it's time to talk about what got me motivated to finally talk about Dropbox.  A recent software update allows Android phones to automatically upload all photos and videos to Dropbox.  Upon installing the app on my Droid 4, Dropbox asked me if I wanted to upload my pictures and videos.  In less than 5 minutes, I had about 40 photos uploaded.  Videos will only upload over Wi-Fi however and the app will not upload anything if your battery level is too low (it immediately resumed uploading upon placing the phone on a charger for me).  In the settings menu you can toggle the camera upload, whether uploads take place over Wi-Fi or cellular connection, or turn off the 25MB file limit (this allows videos to automatically upload, but remember this counts against your data plan).

That previous paragraph is worth the price of admission for this blog and the app.  Wait a minute... I'll see you next time. :)

Task Killers

One question that frequently comes up in my classes is whether or not people should download a task killer app.  My answer is no and this article does a nice job.  Before you go an read the article, let me explain a few terms the author uses.

CPU cycles - The speed of a processor is measured in megahertz (Mhz) and it measures the number of CPU cycles it can process per second.  So, a 600Mhz processor will process 600,000,000 cycles per second.

ROM - A ROM is essentially a different software version for a phone.  Every phone can be customized with a different software version that changes the look and performance of the phone.  The average user most likely will not customize the phone this way.  I only mention this because I don't want anyone to get lost in the article.

Rooting - Do you have a phone that came with lots of apps and software installed on it? Rooting your phone will allow you to uninstall these applications because you'll have access to all the internal parts of the phone.  If you're looking to breath some life back in to an Android phone that is a little long in the tooth or you suffer from OCD regarding your phone, then this might be worth investigating.

"There and Back Again" or "Little Odds and Ends"

I’m going to tackle a bunch of little “how to” items in this article for Android phones.  Once again, I’ll be describing procedures using a Motorola Droid 4, so there may be some small differences in the way items are arranged.  All procedures are explained assuming you are at the home screen.

Changing Wallpapers (aka The Background)

Menu Key -> Wallpaper

You will see three options pop up - "Live Wallpapers," "My Gallery," and "Wallpapers."  "Live Wallpapers" and "Wallpapers" will let you choose from preinstalled and downloaded background images.   "Live Wallpapers" are animated backgrounds while "Wallpapers" and "My Gallery" are static images.  "Live" is one of those really cool things you'll try out when you first get an Android device.  Just be forewarned, as cool as it is to have Mario running across your screen, abusing turtles, and torching flowers, your battery will die faster than the Twins' chances at making the playoffs.

Get Rid of Wi-Fi Pop Up Notifications

I've learned from teaching classes that some people won't read what actually comes up on the screen and have been conditioned by Windows that if a pop-up menu comes up then something must be wrong.  So when someone opens up YouTube or the browser and a Wi-Fi notification emerges, something must be wrong and the internet must be broken.  

I've already shown you where to go connect your device to a router.  What I forgot to mention is that your device will ask you to connect to Wi-Fi each time you launch a data intensive app and there is a visible router.

Chances are you do not, I repeat, do not need to connect to every wireless router you come across unless you consistently stream audio, (20 hours per week) video, (HBO GO, Netflix) or make video calls (Skype, Tango).  

To turn on Wi-Fi notifications select the following.  Menu -> Settings -> Wireless and Networks -> Wi-Fi Settings -> Uncheck Notify Me

Change Your Keyboard

Keyboards are a very personal choice.  Some people can't give up their physical keyboards, some love Swype, and some people speak Japanese.  I for one love the Skype keyboard.  I can easily enter text with one hand on a 4-inch screen.  I know not everyone can, so here's how to switch keyboards.

Open up a new text message ->  Press and your finger in the area where you compose the text -> Select input method -> Select your desired keyboard

If you want/need an alternative keyboard then search for them in Play Store (aka Market Place) and download the keyboard like you would any other app.  Before you can select this new keyboard you need to enable it.  I downloaded the Google Japanese Input keyboard for this example.

Menu -> Settings -> Language and Keyboard -> Make sure the check mark is lit next to the downloaded keyboard.

My On Screen Keyboard Stopped Working

Your keyboard is an app.  It takes up memory and can eventually get bogged down.  So if you start typing and you can only enter a word or two, following this process can save you a trip to the store or call to your carrier for troubleshooting.  

Menu -> Manage Apps -> Tap the tab labeled "All" -> Choose Your Keyboard

For the part where you choose your keyboard, it will most likely be "Multi-touch keyboard" or "Swype."  Once you've selected your keyboard, tap "clear data."  This will clear out any words, names, slang, or abbreviations your phone has learned.  It's a small price to pay to fix, but if it is the solution to your problem, it is a lot better than a master reset.

Speaking of Master Resets

Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and reset your phone.  Other times, it just makes good sense to reset your phone before you ship it to the person you sold it to.  Regardless of the reasons, this will reset your phone back to it's factory settings.  Every app, picture, message, email, and song will be erased from your device.  

Menu -> Settings -> Privacy -> Factory Data Reset

Save Your Battery Life

Read this article and add a widget called "Toggle: Power Control."  The icons you see on this widget function as light switches.  From left to right your icons are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync, and Brightness.  The first three are simply on-off switches.  If you're not using a particular feature, then turn it off and save yourself some battery life.  Always leave Sync on unless you don't want your phone to periodically check for new emails, tweets, or Facebook notifications.  Lastly, pick a screen brightness level and you're set.

Keep Your Screen on Longer

Do you feel like your screen dims itself to quickly?  You can adjust it, although I wouldn't go much higher than two minutes as it will start to hamper your battery life.

Menu -> Settings -> Display -> Screen Time Out

Thanks again!

We're going to stop here for now.  As always, I appreciate those who frequently visit and have passed the site along.  Last month was the fourth consecutive month of increased visitors!  And for anyone who felt duped into reading the article based off the title, here's a little peace offering.