If you are not scared of technology then the usual question comes whether I want a custom rom or should i stick to Stock rom. Just to explain STOCK rom is what your device is shipped with and Custom rom is a highly customised rom devoid of what a Samsung or HTC wants you to use.
Now is Custom Rom for you??
If you are going to use your phone
A) To show that you have the latest in terms of Technology
B) Just for your emails, messaging, Facebook or Google+ and Calling up.
then you should not even think of Custom Rom. Its not needed your phone is pretty well equipped to Handle the above tasks without even draining any resources. However if you like to play around with you phone like I like to do then at some stage you would have to let go of warranty and Root the phone, a basic step towards moving to Custom Roms. Once rooted you have more access to the root functions of the phone and the warranty of the phone is void. (You also run the risk of Bricking the device, making it unusable) let me give an example, a friend of mine saw me on my SIII 9305 LTE and upgraded from his SIII to 9300 to 9305 like me, He asked me how to root it and I told him about it. While using ODIN to root he flashed the file for 9300 instead of 9500 and voila there were no Signals any more on his phone. Took us better part of 1 day to sort this mess out by flashing different Custom Roms till we got it working.
So be sure that you are really ready to mess with your phone before you root it. Once rooted voila you have opened a world of possibilities for your phone. The first thing I did was to move from the over stocked STOCK Rom with all the features that Samsung wanted me to have but I didnt want, to a custom ROM, I chose a ROM called AVATAR. Pretty slim rom and worked great, had a few bugs though on the camera and the speaker Volume was quiet inferior but the good thing was that I was on Android 4.2.2 which was a very smooth experience and I really enjoyed it for a while. (Available here) and then I moved to the other ROM which is the Super Nexus for 9305 (Available Here) A Lovely experience but I was still facing the low speaker volume issue so I tried another Rom which is very similar to the STOCK rom but stripped of a lot of the extras that Mr. Samsung wants me to have. I think I have found a perfect Rom for myself now. (The only draw back that I had to downgrade from 4.2.2 to 4.1.2 a small price to pay considering that my 3 year old can now easily talk to her grand parents on Speaker Phone. The Rom I am currently on is called The Galaxy Project 2.02 (Available Here) and I am very happy, eventually the rom would get upgrades.
So Yes CUSTOM Roms are definitely for me and I would not be going back to any manufacturer like LG which doesnt have custom roms for it due to the fact that they dont release the Source code, the only Phones I am buying are the ones which have custom roms for them as they give me more flexibility.
Take your pic Guys, If you are not gonna Root and dont want Custom Roms then there are great phones for you but If you would like to tinker a little then check before you buy.
Cheers
Monday, 8 April 2013
Is the Samsung S4 worth it??
Despite the amazing features in recent mobile phones that include, high speed quad core processors, large screen sizes, high-fidelity Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) and innovative designs, the mobile phones manufacturers are desperately trying to surpass each other.
Samsung is already making a big deal about the full High Definition (HD) resolution of its Galaxy S4 introduced this month. Although the S4 is not the first phone to be equipped with an HD resolution, the terrific success of the S2 and S3 makes it an appealing get-as-soon-as-possible feature for Galaxy lovers.
If you are charmed by the HD resolution and intend on throwing extra money to upgrade your phone to S4, let us first analyse if a full HD smart phone screen is really worth draining your wallet.
Resolution is the prime determinant of a screen’s clarity. HD resolution refers to a High Definition screen having either 1280 x 720 pixels (720p) or 1920 x 1080 pixels (1080p/full-HD) spread along the width and height of the smart phone’s screen.
The pixel is the elementary area of illumination on the screen. The image displayed is composed of pixels. Therefore, higher the number of pixels, the sharper and crisper an image appears on the screen.
For an immediate comparison, you can check the resolution of your old smart phone (For example a Nokia 6600, 176 x 208 pixels) and that of a recent smart phone (like the Samsung Galaxy S3, 720 x 1280 pixels). You will immediately notice that the high resolution produces a much clearer and sharper image.
Nevertheless, resolution is not the only factor responsible for a sharper screen. Keeping the resolution the same and increasing the screen’s size separates the pixels, thus resulting in lost sharpness.
What really matters for determining a screen’s quality is the number of pixels packed in a given area. The term Pixel Per Inch (PPI) represents how many pixels there are in one inch of a screen’s area; the larger the number, the better the screen’s quality.
As an example, Nokia 6600 launched in 2003 has a PPI density of 130, whereas, Apple’s iPhone 4, sensationalised and marketed by the brand name Retina Display, has a PPI of 330. This produces a much sharper and vibrant image on the screen and makes other older phones look lacklustre.
Increasing the resolution does increase the PPI, provided that the screen size is not increased significantly. Two smart phones having the same screen sizes but different resolutions will have different figures for PPI.
Does it mean increasing the PPI indefinitely will produce even sharper images on the screen? The answer is no.
Our eyes can determine the quality of the contents on a screen if the pixels are distinguishable at the normal viewing distance. The reason why Apple called their iPhone 4 screen ‘Retina Display’ was that the 326 PPI pixel density was so high that individual pixels were indistinguishable to the human eye at the normal viewing distance. However, Retina Display is no longer an industry-leading figure.
HTC was one of the companies to develop a display beating that of the iPhone 4 with HTC Rezound (342 PPI). Nevertheless, if you compare the screens of Iphone 4 and HTC Rezound, I can bet you won’t be able to tell the difference.
The reason is that the human eye cannot distinguish the difference in PPI when the figure reaches a saturation point of about 300 (slightly exaggerated, otherwise some studies suggest a threshold of 250 PPI). Therefore, having a PPI of more than 300 will not make any difference to normal human eye unless you use a magnifying glass or have the screen pressed up against your eyeballs to see the subtle difference (of course you don’t want to do that).
Even for people with 20/20 vision, a full HD resolution would be a waste because most people’s eye can’t resolve sharpness above 250 PPI. The same goes for observing the photos quality. The pixel details in a photograph is always spread over more than one pixel and never perfectly aligned with the pixel structure of the display. So it will not matter whether you view the photographs on a 1080p or 720p display; they will appear the same. If you come across a smart phone having a PPI above 350, safely take it as a marketing stunt. It is not going to make the smart phone’s screen any sharper.
Consequently, a full HD (1080p) resolution is no better looking than 720p resolution in smart phones. A full HD resolution is only better for tablets, laptop screens, or monitors where the human eyes can resolve such a high resolution. The smart phones having 720p resolutions and sizes ranging from 4.3 to 4.7 inches have PPIs within the range 312 to 341. This PPI range is more than enough. Therefore, Samsung’s claim to give a sensational screen experience is pretty pompous.
Whereas, a full HD resolution necessitates using larger screen size (at least 5 inches) which is pretty annoying for small-sized phones lovers.
Another issue is the increased power consumption. The extra features in electronic devices don’t come for free. The price usually has to be paid in terms of high power consumption. A full HD display makes more demand from the processor and the GPU, which in turn needs more power to help it cope.
Although, the S4 has much improved battery (2600 mAh) as compared to the S3 (2100 mAh), it is still not sure if we can get improved battery life as well. We must not forget that the Apple iPad 4′s screen has a higher than 1080p resolution (2048 x 1536, but a PPI of 264), and a battery rated as 11666 mAh, while the iPad2 has a less than 720p resolution (1024 x 768, 132 PPI). Yet both provide the same 10-hours of use before needing a recharge.
The only advantage of a full HD screen in smart phone is that it gives more space for user interface elements such as button and text. For example, a webpage can fit to the screen, but the size of the contents decreases due to high resolution. In most of the cases, the viewer has to zoom in the contents to view them easily.
Due to these reasons, I still prefer to stick to my Samsung S3 9305 LTE with 720p resolution and a PPI of 306.
So if you have money to burn please upgrade but in terms of improvement over a S3 there is not much.
Samsung is already making a big deal about the full High Definition (HD) resolution of its Galaxy S4 introduced this month. Although the S4 is not the first phone to be equipped with an HD resolution, the terrific success of the S2 and S3 makes it an appealing get-as-soon-as-possible feature for Galaxy lovers.
If you are charmed by the HD resolution and intend on throwing extra money to upgrade your phone to S4, let us first analyse if a full HD smart phone screen is really worth draining your wallet.
Resolution is the prime determinant of a screen’s clarity. HD resolution refers to a High Definition screen having either 1280 x 720 pixels (720p) or 1920 x 1080 pixels (1080p/full-HD) spread along the width and height of the smart phone’s screen.
The pixel is the elementary area of illumination on the screen. The image displayed is composed of pixels. Therefore, higher the number of pixels, the sharper and crisper an image appears on the screen.
For an immediate comparison, you can check the resolution of your old smart phone (For example a Nokia 6600, 176 x 208 pixels) and that of a recent smart phone (like the Samsung Galaxy S3, 720 x 1280 pixels). You will immediately notice that the high resolution produces a much clearer and sharper image.
Nevertheless, resolution is not the only factor responsible for a sharper screen. Keeping the resolution the same and increasing the screen’s size separates the pixels, thus resulting in lost sharpness.
What really matters for determining a screen’s quality is the number of pixels packed in a given area. The term Pixel Per Inch (PPI) represents how many pixels there are in one inch of a screen’s area; the larger the number, the better the screen’s quality.
As an example, Nokia 6600 launched in 2003 has a PPI density of 130, whereas, Apple’s iPhone 4, sensationalised and marketed by the brand name Retina Display, has a PPI of 330. This produces a much sharper and vibrant image on the screen and makes other older phones look lacklustre.
Increasing the resolution does increase the PPI, provided that the screen size is not increased significantly. Two smart phones having the same screen sizes but different resolutions will have different figures for PPI.
Does it mean increasing the PPI indefinitely will produce even sharper images on the screen? The answer is no.
Our eyes can determine the quality of the contents on a screen if the pixels are distinguishable at the normal viewing distance. The reason why Apple called their iPhone 4 screen ‘Retina Display’ was that the 326 PPI pixel density was so high that individual pixels were indistinguishable to the human eye at the normal viewing distance. However, Retina Display is no longer an industry-leading figure.
HTC was one of the companies to develop a display beating that of the iPhone 4 with HTC Rezound (342 PPI). Nevertheless, if you compare the screens of Iphone 4 and HTC Rezound, I can bet you won’t be able to tell the difference.
The reason is that the human eye cannot distinguish the difference in PPI when the figure reaches a saturation point of about 300 (slightly exaggerated, otherwise some studies suggest a threshold of 250 PPI). Therefore, having a PPI of more than 300 will not make any difference to normal human eye unless you use a magnifying glass or have the screen pressed up against your eyeballs to see the subtle difference (of course you don’t want to do that).
Even for people with 20/20 vision, a full HD resolution would be a waste because most people’s eye can’t resolve sharpness above 250 PPI. The same goes for observing the photos quality. The pixel details in a photograph is always spread over more than one pixel and never perfectly aligned with the pixel structure of the display. So it will not matter whether you view the photographs on a 1080p or 720p display; they will appear the same. If you come across a smart phone having a PPI above 350, safely take it as a marketing stunt. It is not going to make the smart phone’s screen any sharper.
Consequently, a full HD (1080p) resolution is no better looking than 720p resolution in smart phones. A full HD resolution is only better for tablets, laptop screens, or monitors where the human eyes can resolve such a high resolution. The smart phones having 720p resolutions and sizes ranging from 4.3 to 4.7 inches have PPIs within the range 312 to 341. This PPI range is more than enough. Therefore, Samsung’s claim to give a sensational screen experience is pretty pompous.
Whereas, a full HD resolution necessitates using larger screen size (at least 5 inches) which is pretty annoying for small-sized phones lovers.
Another issue is the increased power consumption. The extra features in electronic devices don’t come for free. The price usually has to be paid in terms of high power consumption. A full HD display makes more demand from the processor and the GPU, which in turn needs more power to help it cope.
Although, the S4 has much improved battery (2600 mAh) as compared to the S3 (2100 mAh), it is still not sure if we can get improved battery life as well. We must not forget that the Apple iPad 4′s screen has a higher than 1080p resolution (2048 x 1536, but a PPI of 264), and a battery rated as 11666 mAh, while the iPad2 has a less than 720p resolution (1024 x 768, 132 PPI). Yet both provide the same 10-hours of use before needing a recharge.
The only advantage of a full HD screen in smart phone is that it gives more space for user interface elements such as button and text. For example, a webpage can fit to the screen, but the size of the contents decreases due to high resolution. In most of the cases, the viewer has to zoom in the contents to view them easily.
Due to these reasons, I still prefer to stick to my Samsung S3 9305 LTE with 720p resolution and a PPI of 306.
So if you have money to burn please upgrade but in terms of improvement over a S3 there is not much.
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