If you have been reading this website, you will realize that I finally bulked up (or bulked down, depending on how you view it) from my Blackberry 8820 to a superphone, the Samsung Galaxy S II. When I was walking to the store to pick it up, I had butterflies in my stomach and I could not wait till it was in my hands. I did a lot of work to acquire this phone and so I was overjoyed to finally have it. With that being said, here’s my review and I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible .

The Device

When people first saw my new phone, the first thing that people said was “Isn’t that phone big?” or something along those lines. I was completely blown away as to how many people said that. In retrospect, yes it is big but isn’t size relative? I mean, when the first iPod Touch came out, wasn’t that a big mp3 player compared to the norm? Yes it has a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen that provides amazing clarity but to me, it’s not big. In fact, this phone is the thinnest and lightest in the Canadian market coming in at 8.49mm and 117g which in my opinion, makes up for the “bigness” of the phone. To put that into perspective, the iPhone has a 3.5″ screen and weighs in at 137g with its thinnest point being 9.3mm. To the casual observer this may not be a striking difference but compare it side-by-side and you’re looking at apples and oranges. They’re both fruit but strikingly different qualities.

I’ll admit that at first it was a little awkward to handle, but like transitioning from a physical keyboard to a virtual one, the end result has left me with no regrets. The ironic thing is, when I go back to my iPod Touch, it feels incredibly small but when I go from my iPad to my Samsung Galaxy S II, I don’t get that same feeling.

Another major difference between the Samsung Galaxy S II are the buttons on the bottom. Most Android smartphones have 4 buttons compared to the SGSII’s 3 which usually goes Menu, Home, Search and Return. I prefer the 3 button scheme that Samsung used on the GS2 because it’s less cluttered and there’s a definable center to it.

Software

I haven’t used the first iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S, but supposedly the new interface, TouchWIZ 4, is a drastic improvement from its predecessor. Most notably, the aesthetics and performance have been improved. I can’t speak much to this because I don’t use the default interface as I have installed an application called GoLauncher EX to replace it. I am currently fiddling with it and finding it quite versatile so I will keep you up to date on that one. Just recently though I updated my SGS2 from the stock 2.3.3 that Bell provides to a custom ROM called Sensation ROM 1.9 that has upgraded me to 2.3.5. The most notable improvements are the battery life (very significant) and when you scroll to the top and bottom, it flashes to let you know it’s reached the end. The call screen is more refined and allows for easier access to contact information. Overall, I’m in love with the software and thus the interface.

Battery Life

As I mentioned above, I’ve upgraded my phone and with that upgrade has come significant battery improvements. Before it would last me from about 10am-2am and the battery would be in critical mode. Thus when I would be heading out that night without my power cord I would recharge it before hitting the town. Now with the upgrade I have no worries as to whether it will last the day or not. On a power hungry day I’ll be down to 25% and on regular days it’ll be closer to 50% battery life left.

Features

Building on the software aspect of this phone, I was surprised to learn with the release of ICS, that a lot of the features that were innovative on it, were already a part of the SGS2. One feature was the “Reject a call with a text message”. This is a really cool feature and was already on my phone when I got it. It comes in handy for sure. I also enjoy the screen after the end of a call where it gives you the option of sending a message or calling again to that same contact. Another “cool” feature in ICS is being able to uninstall apps from the launcher. On my SGS2 I can do hold the apps and click uninstall. I can also drag apps from my home screen up to the top to remove it from the home screen.

Conclusion

Overall I am very happy with my SGS2. The only problem I had with it was the battery life but since that’s been resolved it’s been a dream to have. I still use my iPod Touch as it’s a great music player which I do believe Google still needs to improve on but since I like having two devices anyways I’m happy. Google is making strides with this, with the introduction of Google Music and so it will be interesting to see how it shapes up in the future.

If you have any questions about the SGS2 please don’t hesitate to ask and if any of you have comments about your experience with the SGS2 add them here. Until next time…

Popularity: 9% [?]

The media has been abuzz lately about a new version of the Apple iPod Touch. Now in all honesty it’s nothing we haven’t seen before but what Apple is doing is trying to revolutionize the mp3 market by adding cellphone specs to a mp3 player such as a built-in camera and microphone. Obviously those two features aren’t something new and it will probably be the highlight of the new features packaged with the new Apple iPod Touch but what it will do is allow Apple iPod Touch users to download apps only useful to iPhone users such as Shazam. Granted, users will need to be in a WiFi zone but what’s stopping people from subscribing to personal hotspots offered by companies like Rogers and Verizon that will allow them to be always on the grid.

TruPhone

Now what might even further revolutionize the mp3 industry is the fact of the availability of some applications such as Truphone and Fring which allow Apple iPod Touch users to call other users with the same application for free once they are in a WiFi zone and with the built-in microphone you’ve now got a working phone that makes VoIP calls.

Now all of you must be asking when will this new Apple iPod Touch be coming out? Sources say the timeframe would be around the next two to three months which matches up with the new releases of other Apple products. This is all just around the time when school starts and students, who are usually the trend setters, go back to school and want to have the newest gadgets. Look for this mp3 player to change a small part of the world.

Update: Not only will the Apple iPod Touch have a camera but the Apple iPod Nano will have one too. “My company had got full information and dimension,” wrote a Chinese distributor in an email to a U.S. reseller. “Enclosed some image and instruction for your reference. Most of the sample available now. If you need some sample check quality please freely let me know.”

The cameras on the Apple iPod Nano will be placed in the bottom left corner whereas the Apple iPod Touch’s camera will be surprisingly in the center of the device at the top (not dead centre which I first thought when I read it). Going with what Apple traditionaly does, it will be a safe bet to say that both these devices will get double the storage at the same price.

• iPod Nano (fifth generation): 16GB for $150; 32GB for $200
• iPod Touch (third generation): 16GB for $230; 32GB for $300; 64GB for $400

Apple iPod Nano 5th Generation

Now although the Apple iPod Nano looks the same there are small changes it will have. There will be a slightly wider screen with a 1.5:1 aspect ratio up from 1.33:1 (I know, a small jump) and a smaller click wheel that will move down the device.

On top of that, I just found out that the Apple iPod Touch will most likely be able to take video whereas the Apple iPod Nano will not. Even so, with the Apple iPod Touch being such a huge success, it will deal a blow to the compact video recorders like The Flip (My review on The Flip) but it’s not like they were that great to begin with.

Popularity: 20% [?]

How many times have you found yourself looking through a drawer and seeing charger after charger for your cell phone with no use at all? I know I have a bunch and I have no idea what to do with them. It’s the same with mp3 players and laptops. Every company has its own way of making chargers for its many products. Apple and Nokia, have always made their chargers respectively the same. It’s helped Apple become a major player, as its whole line-up is compatible with the same charger made over 5 years ago.

On Tuesday February 17th, 2009, a historic landmark was agreed on where 17 of the largest cellphone makers including Samsung, Nokia and Motorola, decided to work together to make a universal standard charging system for cellphones by the year 2012. This system will be identical to the trapezoid-shaped microUSB format used by RIM’s most recent devices, the Bold, Storm and Pearl Flip. Unfortunately, this standard will likely be released in 2012—light years in my mind. Nonetheless, it’s better than nothing. Apple will likely stick its trusty charging standard that has proven golden over the years.

At first glance you might think, oh why would these big companies change things that have worked for them for so long? Well this is a completely valid question because, like cheap printers with their more expensive replacement ink cartridges, cell phones have expensive replacement charging cords that see huge revenue. At the beginning of the implementation, companies will see slightly lower revenues but it will be made up later with lower packaging and manufacturing costs. Instead, companies will sell charging cords separately so big companies like Nokia will now not need to include it in their phone packages. Since it will save costs, these companies will also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from 21.8 million to 13.6 million tonnes per year, as well as cut energy consumption globally by 50%. 

This might not be the biggest news though because as technology progresses, we will see more and more demonstrations of wireless charging. When Palm unveiled its Pre smart phone, it also introduced the Touchstone wireless charging adapter. 

Excerpt from wiredathome.blogspot.com

The power cord has long been the enemy of many people around the world. You always had to place things according to where the plugs were or you’d have some cord running all across the room. Nobody really notices or thinks about the power cord once it’s being used and has found its place. However, if it could be thrown away, it would make a world of difference.  Now there is a solution to get rid of some of those plugs, wireless charging. To get things straight, this piece of technology won’t replace all of your plugs but is a huge step in the right direction to making the power cord obsolete. Currently there are two ways to wirelessly charge a device, and they are being offered by two different companies. WildCharge will start selling a conductive charging pad and eCoupled will offer an inductive laptop specific pad with a compatible notebook all by the end of 2008. Both companies will offer adapters at a range of $30. If you are the type to enjoy science, then you’ll probably be able to guess the difference in technologies between the two. Conductive charging passes electricity when two objects come in contact. Inductive charging happens when there is a physical gap between two objects.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The big guys have flooded the industry include Canada Post, DHL, UPS, USPS, Purolator, and FedEx. They charge a hefty amount even if you use them directly and might not advertise all of their options—much like Rogers. I heard a horror story from a friend: he was getting charged $100/month with his Blackberry. His friend found a deal from Rogers that was not advertised and now he pays $60/month and gets more features. Now back to shipping. There are some websites that will help you compare different companies, with different options such as overnight or 2-day. This will help you easily save money on shipping, which is usually pretty pricey. They also make it easy find a rate, as they usually don’t initially ask for too much information. I remember that UPS had a huge form for me to fill out that would have taken at least ten minutes. 

For all of the websites I tried to ship from Markham, ON to Stamford, CT to keep the competition even as well as using the same package, a t-shirt from Xpress’d that was 200g.

ShipGooder

ShipGooder makes it pretty easy to find a rate, only asking for the start and end postal/zip code as well as the weight and number of packages. What I love about this form is that as soon as you’ve entered the postal/zip code, it will verify with you approximately what city it’s from. It’s a nice little touch that goes a long way. Once you’ve entered the information, a neat table will appear. It sorts things by cost and time frame. This is much better than other sites where they sort by companies, since it doesn’t make any sense at all if you’re just trying to save money.

One thing I dislike about ShipGooder, which also happens to be a huge damper, is the fact that when you’ve made a selection, it will take you to the respective shipping company and you’ll have to fill out the information again with more details. 

Shipping Sidekick

This site has a good tool, but it lacks in design. I initially thought the link to the shipping calculator was an ad because it was buried within more ads.

As you can see, even the link is pretty indescript, and doesn’t make you feel comfortable. The tool is not that bad and is lengthier than ShipGooder. The one problem is that it can only calculate a rate for within the U.S. but it gives you a link to a website that lets you ship internationally. For this site, to make it as accurate as possible, I chose to ship the package from Stamford, CT to Jacksonville, NC. ShippingSidekick has the same kind of setup as ShipGooder with a table to show the different rates. The difference between the two tables is ShippingSidekick colour codes the companies. One cool thing is that it sorts things by the date of delivery, though I’m not sure how accurate this is.

As you can see, it’s pretty ad heavy, which can get annoying—especially when you’re filling out the form. The great thing about this website is that there’s an option to print off the label directly on this site, as well as organize a pick-up location. The horrible thing is you’ll have to register as a user with its affiliate whom you’ll have to pay called eShipper. You’ll also have to input all the information again which is horrible.

Which Ones Better?

They have their benefits but they both make you input the information again and go through getting a new quote. It’s something so simple and should be implemented on these sites. I like the fact that ShipGooder is much simpler and works well for any country. It is quicker, cleaner, and possibly more reliable. In terms of price I believe ShipGooder wins because of the fact that ShippingSidekick package did not have to go through customs and is in US dollars. Therefore, those extra costs would probably put it over the $12.70 that ShipGooder charges.

Links

ShipGooder

ShippingSidekick

Popularity: 4% [?]

With Rogers bringing the iPhone to Canada on July 11th, the other service providers had to do something, and do something quick. So Bell presents to Canada, the Samsung Instinct. While it isn’t necessarily quick, as it debuts sometime on August 8th, the Samsung Instinct offers much of the same features that the iPhone does, representing a true iPhone killer in my mind. One key flaw that the Instinct has though is that it can’t be used as a tethered device where the phone is used to get wireless signals for a laptop. Another difference, although not that big in my mind is the fact it only supports up to 8GB of storage with it’s microSD card. With bigger and bigger mp3 devices out on the market, I can imagine this will be a selling point for the iPhone for many people.

Samsung Instinct

Potential customers will be enticed by the lower price point of the actual phone and plans. The phone will start at $149.95 with a 3-year contract but is available with 1,2 and no contract as well with the highest price point being $449.95. The plans are also cheaper than the iPhones’ starting as low as $40 a month and with more to offer, it’s obviously a much better deal. “The lowest price plan for the Instinct includes 100 minutes of local calls for $20; 1,000 minutes of voice calls from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. and weekends (Fridays from 9 p.m. to Mondays at 7 a.m.); an $8.95 monthly system access fee; 75 cents for 911 emergency calls, and the $10 unlimited Internet plan. The monthly total comes to $39.70 before taxes.”Globe and Mail.

The Instinct has a full-touch screen with haptic feedback, meaning it responds when keys are pressed, and connects to the EV-DO Rev A high-speed data network. It also supports Web browsing and Internet e-mail (including Hotmail and Gmail accounts), as well as attachments. Features such as the global positioning system as well as live and on-demand TV.

Update: Rogers has announced new lower data plans to combat the negative criticsm it has received for its pricing. It’s only a limited time offer from July 11 to the end of August and will be available to all 3G phone purchases in that time frame. Previously a 6GB data plan would have cost you $100 but now they are offering a $30 plan. It’s still no match for Bell’s offer of $10 for unlimited data but it’s a step in the right direction.

Popularity: 6% [?]

On July 11th, American and Canadian consumers will be able to purchase the 3G versions of the Apple iPhone. Even people who bought the 2.5G iPhone on or after May 27 will be able to switch their phone with the 3G phone for no cost at all except their old, inferior iPhone. In the US, it will cost consumers there $199 for the 8GB version and $299 for the 16GB version and should be north of that, north of the border where I’ve been hearing $299 for the base version. Why should Canadians pay more for the phone though? We already pay more monthly with Rogers APRU (Average Revenue Per User) at $72 compared to AT&T’s current ARPU of just $49. With the new spectrum being auctioned off, it should lower prices but after the iPhone release, analysts are expecting an ARPU rise of $30 or more.

Back to the phone though. The Apple version of 3G technology will blow away the previous generation of that technology, EDGE, and even beat current 3G speeds with 36% faster pageloads than competitors like the Nokia N95. It will be open to 3rd party apps and the phone will be available internationally. Battery power wasn’t forgotten in the development of this version unlike the new Blackberry, which from rumours seems to lack a decent battery life. The 3G iPhone will have 300 hours of standby, 9 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 24 hours of audio, and 7 hours of video.

GPS is going to be standard, using A-GPS, which works in conjunction with regular satellite GPS data and cell towers for much faster location times. On top of that, they’ve thrown Wi-Fi into the mix to lock up your exact location. Apple isn’t fooling around here with so many solid features being rolled into one, at a cheaper and slightly smaller package. Although there isn’t a user interface change or exterior change, Apple still presents a good product to the market.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Rogers has finally put into place a contract with Apple to release its coveted iPhone onto Canadian airwaves. Rogers is hoping to include the iPhone as its star player in a lineup of touch screen phones set to be released this Summer. Rogers is still pushing for many things in the contract that will allow it more flexibility such as wireless plans and it has this power because currently it offers the only GSM network in Canada, pending a decision from Telus whether or not to switch to GSM. They will hopefully roll it out before Blackberry’s new device code named ‘Meteor’ was expected to be unveiled and around the same time Apple will offer an updated version of its iPhone making it compatible with 3G networks. Apple may have lady luck on its side as rumors continue to swirl on Blackberry delays pushing the release date to August instead of June.

We will continue to wait and see if Rogers will shift its ways as well as if Apple will budge at all on changing its way of standardizing the industry.

Popularity: 3% [?]

All the major phone manufacturers are all abuzz about creating an iPhone killer much like the digital music industry was trying to create an iPod killer. Now Microsoft might have finally succeeded at doing that with the new generation Zune as it’s currently hard to find in many US retailers. But that’s not the story for today. Today I am here to report on the Blackberry 9000 which is supposed to be an iPhone killer.

RIM is one of the only big name brands yet to come out with some sort of response to Apple’s iPhone. Now that is all about to change. Jim Balsille, co-CEO of RIM, and the most publicized out of the RIM top shots, has slowly been changing the direction of the company to a more consumerist market rather than the business one. With the huge success of the Blackberry Pearl, it only makes sense that they make this step to produce a product to match and beat the iPhone.

Popularity: 23% [?]