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Samsung Galaxy S-4 features –how useful are they?



Samsung Galaxy S4 features – intro:-

Samsung has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4. We already know from benchmark tests that it’s the world’s fastest phone. We also know from our hands-on review that the 5in Super AMOLED 1080p screen is stunning. But as we reach a hardware plateau where there's plenty of grunt to go around and battery life becomes more important, it's software and upgrades that make the difference. So how does the S4 and its new tricks really shape up, against the likes of the the Sony Xperia Z and HTC One?


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – Eraser Shot and Drama Shot:-
Eraser Shot, IRL, will be great for cutting out those pesky photo-bombers. While ideal for tourists and clubbers, it relies on shooting everything in bursts. Who does that, really? Still, it could be a nice option in crowded situations. Similarly, Drama Shot can add in extra characters to show a subject's movement. That's cool for action shots in sports, dancing – or if you're lucky – capturing an accident-prone mate falling in a spectacularly funny way.



Samsung Galaxy S4 features – Sound & Shot:-

Sound & Shot, which adds noise snippets to snaps, is probably only going to be helpful at gigs. Though it might be nice for the ornothogists among you that want to add a note to a particular bird snap. In reality though, a picture already speaks a thousand words.


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – Dual Recording and Dual Shot:-
Dual Recording films or Dual Shot photos – to get your reaction while shooting – isn't something we can see catching on. Watching a video back with two things to look at just doesn't work. And frankly, if it's something that facilitates a great enough reaction to be captured, the viewer will want to experience it without half focusing on your mug at the same time. Perhaps the photo version could catch on for dads snapping little Timmy's first bike ride. Or something


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – Story Album:-
Viewing photos in date order is boring. Samsung thinks so anyway. So it's created Story Album, which intelligently organises your album based on photo themes like location or subjects. This could be great for finding snaps of certain people in seconds or that embarassing holiday shot of your mate snoozing away while burning to a beetroot-red crisp. But it may prove to be more awkward than relying on good old memory and fast scrolling skills.


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – Smart Pause and Smart Control:-
With Smart Control your gaze is tracked allowing your videos to Smart Pause as you look away and resume when you’re interested again. You can even scroll emails or websites just with your eyes. But the always-watching camera could be battery consuming, especially at a time when juice-chomping videos are running. Will anybody really risk a dead phone to save a screen tap? Maybe yes, if you take into consideration the process of pausing a video, locking and wiping fingermarks. Plus with more apps likely to uptake the feature – we're looking at you Kindle – it could make reading a far easier experience.


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – Air View and Air Gesture:-
Another finger mark saving idea. Air View and Air Gesture let you swipe through web pages, photos, answer calls or scroll through music by simply hovering your finger over the screen. Yes it’ll use more battery once again, but to keep a clean screen it might just be worth it. And it'll come in very handy when driving too. Also with the S4's battery efficient Octacore, all our gripes about power consumption may be presumptuous, though the UK will be getting the quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor in its S4 models.


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – S-Health:-
With our well-being at the forefront of Sammy’s mind it’s introduced a new S-Health app. Combined with the phones new sensors, the S4 acts as a pedometer to track steps and can even measure ambient temperature and humidity. If the phone isn't with you then the new S-Band can record your steps taken and calories burned. A pretty helpful option if you're off for a jog and don't want to lug the 5in handset around with you. A Body Scale accessory lets you measure your weight to add that to your app's many details about your health, while a heart monitor lets you train within zones for specific goals. That's all great for those training to get in shape but we can imagine, like most fitness kit, it could end up collecting dust in the cupboard. But it does help the S4 join the biofeedback revolution along with the Nike+ FuelBand, FitBit Ultra and new Jawbone Up. Shame it didn’t add the smart data controls in the Xperia Z to help save battery too


Samsung Galaxy S4 features – S-Translate:-
One of the most useful features for all you travellers. Realtime translation in nine different languages lets you ask for directions. Just like you're wearing your very own Star Trek communicator. App versions of this are available so it doesn't set the S4 apart entirely, but having it built-in is a nice touch. But the fact it needs a data connection isn't great for thrifty travellers who dare not turn data on.
Samsung Galaxy S4 features – S View Smart Cover:-
Sammy’s S View Smart Cover, with a clear plastic letterbox cut out of the front, allows your screen to be protected while intelligently displaying vital info like time, battery and notifications. Take note, all other cases ever made..


NEXT IS SONY XPERIA Z10 SEE FULL PROFILE:-


The new flagship smartphone from the Japanese electronics company is the best handset it’s ever made and may be the best Android device on the market right now. By Craig Wilson.




With Samsung and Apple dominant in the smartphone wars, Japan’s Sony has had to battle for the Android scraps with companies like HTC. With the Xperia Z, however, the company has done a superb job of catching up with the frontrunners and, in certain respects, even overtaking them.

Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, the Xperia Z is big and beautiful and packed with attention-grabbing features. It’s without doubt the finest handset Sony has made since it split its cellphone joint venture with Sweden’s Ericsson and easily holds its own against HTC’s stunning new One Android “superphone”.

Sony’s really pulled out all the stops with the Xperia Z, including making it water resistant.

The 3,5mm audio jack and the micro USB port have covers. It’s a great differentiator and something seldom seen on high-end devices, unless they’re deliberately being marketed as “ruggedised”. Unfortunately, Sony has placed the USB port on the top left of the device, making it impossible to use with most audio or charging docks.



Premium device :-
Straight out of the box, the Xperia Z gives the impression of being a premium device. The front and rear are clad in glass, while the edges are wrapped in aluminium. Turn it on and that impression remains unchanged.

Like Samsung and HTC, Sony has opted for a 1080p full high-definition display for its new flagship device. Powered by the same Bravia engine Sony uses in its televisions, the Xperia Z’s 5-inch display is quite simply stunning. Pixels are impossible to discern with the naked eye, contrast is excellent, and the screen performs brilliantly in direct sunlight.

The TFT display is noticeably less saturated than the Amoled displays favoured by Samsung, but that arguably makes images and video look more realistic. Often Samsung’s colours are so saturated they look cartoon-like. The only mark against the Xperia’s display is that viewing angles aren’t as good as we’re accustomed to — turn the display more than a few degrees and the image softens.

Rather than having dedicated capacitive controls on the bezel surrounding the screen, Sony has chosen to use on-screen controls. In most applications, there’s a black bar at the bottom of the screen with “back”, “home” and “options” buttons. These disappear when viewing video or using other full-screen applications, allowing for maximum use of the display’s real estate.

Sony hasn’t tinkered too much with the default Android on the Xperia Z. Users are limited to five home screens and there are four default customisable shortcuts arranged along the bottom of each. Situated in the middle of the shortcuts is a button to open the applications menu.

The options button allows you to switch between open apps, but also brings up a selection of mini widgets like a countdown timer. It’s a well thought-out interface addition and another feature that shows just how much time Sony has invested here.




The notifications menu has a row of five shortcuts along the top. These toggle sound settings, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile data, and offer a shortcut to the settings menu. The time and date are also displayed, but on the whole it’s a far simpler notifications menu than HTC’s or Samsung’s. Opening the messaging application for the first time gives you the option to choose between a regular software-based Qwerty keyboard, one that adds symbols and numbers to the top right hand corner of each letter key, and even a retro-looking 0-9 style keyboard that supports T9 predictive text. You can also choose whether or not you’d like a microphone key to enable Google’s dictation service.

The keyboard customisation options go so far as offering the option of full stop and comma keys that flank the spacebar. There’s also the option to swipe rather than type from the outset, without needing to download a third-party keyboard. We found text input on the Xperia Z fast and accurate. The autocorrect function is excellent, as is autocomplete.

Fittingly for a high-end device, the Sony handset supports all major frequency bands for 3G and 4G and includes all of the sensors smartphone users have come to expect, including an accelerometer, gyroscope and digital compass. It also includes a stereo radio – something Sony has always favoured but rivals often eschew.

Powered by version Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean”, the Xperia Z has a quad-core 1,5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage that can be expanded by a further 64GB using the microSD card slot. It’s little surprise, then, that moving between home screens and apps is fluid. Even with myriad applications running simultaneously, the Xperia Z remains fast and responsive.

With such a beautiful display, the phone really shines when watching video or browsing the Internet.



Superb optics :-
Sony has a long history of making fine optics, and it’s little wonder then that the Xperia Z has a superb shooter, too. The primary camera offers 13 megapixels, while the front-facing one offers a little over two. The on-screen controls are excellent and the autofocus is incredibly fast and accurate, but annoyingly there’s no dedicated shutter button, even though Sony opted to enable the volume rocker for zooming when it would be far more useful as a shutter release.

The images and 1080p video the Xperia Z produces are as good as anticipated and Sony’s made it simple to capture either stills or video from the default camera display by including an on-screen control for both at all times. There are plenty of scene modes to choose from, and framing on the 5-inch display is an absolute delight. If you opt to shoot in 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the default 16:9, the screen pillar-boxes accordingly.

Sony’s Walkman application makes great use of the display and offers intuitive navigation of music. Although the built-in speakers are nothing special, plug in headphones and the Xperia Z really shines. Sony’s included an option called ClearAudio+ to squeeze the most out of your audio files, and with headphones on it offers the kind of audio experience we’ve only previously enjoyed with HTC’s Beats-enabled devices.

Powered by a 2 330mAh battery, the Xperia Z should last a normal working day, even with 4G switched on. But in order to prolong battery life, there’s a “Stamina Mode” that allows you to make fine-grained decisions about which apps can check for new data and how often. We’d rather see a breakthrough in battery technology, but it’s a feature that actually seems to work and a step in the right direction.


TV integration :-
If you also happen to own a Sony television, you control it using the Xperia Z, something Samsung has done with its handsets, too. It’s also possible to mirror the Xperia Z’s screen on an external display should you so wish.

Like the included near-field communications chip, these features seem more like gimmicks than selling points, but they’re worth mentioning because they demonstrate how careful Sony has been to include everything a consumer could possible want from a modern smartphone.