Gadgets and Mobile Reviews | www.grandmax.net

HTC One's Sense 5 infographic

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:19:00 +0000

You may know HTC will be launching their flagship android device “HTC One” soon, this new flagship device will come with proprietary Android skin called Sense 5, so HTC decided to show case their new software features within a single image, checkout the image at the top.

[via androidcentral]

How to measure CPU wattage

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 15:55:00 +0000

We know unlike older 90nm CPUs these new 22nm Intel CPUs and AMD 32nm CPUs are really overclockable, recently Intel overclockers managed to overclock a 22nm Ivy Bridge processor to 7GHz, AMD overclockers managed to overclock an 8 core CPU to 8794.33 MHz, those are cooled with liquid Nitrogen but we can also overclock our CPUs at with third party CPU coolers. Most of the people clock their CPUs at 4GHz (default clock 3GHz to 3.3GHz) easily some people reached 4.5GHz with liquid coolers like Corsair H100i or NZXT Kraken X60 at the same time AMD FX8350 (default clock 4GHz) can reach 5GHz with those liquid coolers.

Before we overclock our CPUs we should do a small reach about the stable voltage, most of the experts write their experience on web so you can determine which is the best voltage for your frequency, at the same time you should check what kind of a motherboard you have because most people recommend at least you should have a 4+1 phase VRMs for clean overclock, on the other hand I have a 3+1 phase Mobo and I still manage to do a decent overclock for my CPU but I'm always worry about wattage when I overclock, you should know how much watts your CPU is drawing after every clock you push then only you can check your limits. There is an equation for determine how much watts your CPU is drawing, here is the equation: (get these info from CPU-Z software) “Overclocked Wattage = original TDP x (overclocked frequency / original frequency) x (overclocked voltage / original voltage) ^2, but there is an easy way, there is an App called HWMonitor which will measure it for you, my default CPU TDP is 125W but now it’s drawing 140.8W so now I know my limit, so you can also download the App and check. Find the links below and don’t forget to type your wattage at the comment box.

Download CPU-Z

Download HWMonitor

Samsung now holds 46% of the Android market share

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:58:00 +0000

You may know few months back Samsung surpassed Nokia (Nokia was the number one manufacturer for 14 years) for the first time, at that time period Samsung managed to sell 93.5 million headsets but Nokia sold only 82.7 million. From the beginning Samsung showed some potential growth in headset business but after Galaxy S’s launch we saw some huge improvement in Samsung headset sales. Samsung’s TouchWiz Android customization might the key to this success because TouchWiz is the most stable and most feature packed Android OS out there.

Recently Millennial Media released an info-chat which describes Samsung owning 46% of the Android market share in 2012, back in 2011 Samsung owned only 23% share, as you can in the picture it’s completely doubled. Other vendors like HTC and Motorola (HTC 16% to 32% and Motorola 11% to 22%) also doubled their Android share compared to 2011; I hope LG also will gain some shares next year because of the successful Nexus 4 headset.
[via bgr]

World's first Cortex A7 quad core MediaTek MT6589 [Benchmarks]

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:23:00 +0000

Taiwan-based semiconductor company “MediaTek” recently launched the world’s first ARM Cortex A7 quad core SoC called MT6589. This processor based on 28nm process and ARM mentioned these Cortex A7 products will be more power efficient than the other SoCs. MT6589 has lot of features built-in, it has a PowerVR Series 5 XT GPU inside, supports UMTS Rel. 8/HSPA+/TD-SCDMA, dual-Sim with dual active functionality, 1080p video with 30fps, 13 mega pixels camera sensor support, 1080p display support, 2D-to-3D conversion in real time, Miracast support, FM sensor, 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.

Engadget got a chance to hands-on two MT6589 powered headsets, one is a generic MediaTek device and the other one is Alcatel’s upcoming Android Smartphone with HD 5inch display, inside this device MT6589 runs at 1.2GHz and it has an 8 mega pixels camera plus 2500mAh battery. According to Engadget it’s still a prototype so their hands-on time was extremely limited at that time but somehow managed to run some benchmarks, looks pretty decent scores for me except the Quadrant score.

[Quadrant : 3384, Vellamo 2 : 1229, AnTuTu 2 : 10429, AnTuTu 3 : 12898]
[via Engadget]
[image credit : blog.gsmarena]

Leaked image conforms upcoming Tegra 4 has 72 core GPU

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 06:34:00 +0000

Most of the tech geeks are waiting for the Tegra 4 (Wayne) announcement at CES 2013, approximately one year back I wrote an article about “Tegra 4 with Kepler GPU” (according to rumors) which will support 64 GPU cores, DirectX 11.1 and CUDA, I think it’s almost true because one of the chiphell.com user posted a leaked Nvidia’s image, which reveals the specs of upcoming Nvidia’s Wayne SoC. As you see in the picture Wayne has 4 Cortex A15 CPU cores (now I’m pretty sure it’s A15) with the fifth power saving core like previous generation, this time Nvidia supports DDR3L, LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 with Dual Channel (64bit wide) Memory controller. I mentioned this in my previous Tegra 4 article also, Tegra 3’s GPU is not powerful enough if you compare to other SoCs, Nvidia considered this problem very seriously that’s why this new Tegra 4 has 72 core GPU which has 20X more horse power compare to Tegra 2 and 6X more performance compare to Tegra 3.

Leaked images verifies this upcoming Wayne SoC will manufacture under 28nm technology, now this SoC natively supports 2560 X 1600 resolution (so we can see lot of Nexus 10 like tablets in near future) and further it supports 4K and 2K plus 1080P resolution at 120Hz. I’m really happy to see these features because Nvidia is giving a good competition to Apple A6X and Qualcomm S4 Pro. Nvidia added 1440P video playback with VP8 acceleration plus H.264 HP support for this SoC. Tegra 4 will support USB 3.0 which is very good news for us and I hope this image is real yea! It’s real, I can’t wait for CES 2012 Nvidia’ Tegra 4 announcement, I believe this will change our lives.

5inch Samsung Galaxy Grand specs

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:38:00 +0000

Samsung announced another mid-range Android smartphone; its recent smartphone was Galaxy S3 mini with a 4inch display but this time with a 5inch display. It’s rare to see Samsung phones with TFT LCD these days but this 5inch Galaxy Grand (i9080) comes with a TFT LCD with a resolution of 800 x 480 (187ppi). The phone dimensions are 143mm x 77mm x 9.6mm and weight is 162g, as you can see design wise it look similar to Galaxy S3.

Samsung Galaxy Grand is powered by a 1.2GHz dual core processor (no details yet) with 1GB RAM plus 8GB internal storage, It has a expendable MicroSD slot too and it’s now supporting 64GB natively. Internet connectivity goes up to 21mbps HSPA+ but not sure will it going to support 4G LTE or not. This mid-range Smartphone is almost perfect (expect the screen resolution) because it has a 5inch display, 8 mega pixel rear camera with 1080p video recording, 2 mega pixel front camera, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS Glonass plus it has 2100mAh battery too, it’s more than enough juice for an average user. This Galaxy Grand comes with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean (TouchWiz) out of the box, yea that is fantastic :) and there are two models for Galaxy Grand, i9080 will be a single-Sim phone and i9082 will be a dual-Sim phone. No pricing details available yet so keep in touch with me for more info.
[via Samsung tomorrow]

Top five Chinese Android tablets 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:17:00 +0000

You can see Android devices are everywhere, smartphones, tablets, cameras even watches are now powered by Android OS. Executive Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt recently said that they are activating 1.3 million Android devices each day and approximately 480 million Android devices out there. Major vendors like Samsung, HTC, Sony and Motorola are launching so many smartphones and tablets every year, but you may know there some Chinese vendors also out there who manufacture decent Android tablets and smartphones. Chinese tablets can’t compete with Samsung or Asus tablets because they have less features compare to them but you can buy a decent Chinese Android tablet for 200-150$. Approximately one year ago I wrote an article about top five Chinese tablets and it’s currently out dated, so I decided to write another article about top fire Chinese android tablets with new tablets. So here are my new top five Android tablets.

Tablet No: 5

Ainol Novo 10 Hero - $199 - $230

Ainol Novo 10 Hero is a 10.1 inch (265 x 180 x 9.9mm) Android Jelly Bean (4.1) tablet with 1280 x 800 resolution, it features an IPS display and supports up to 10 touch points. Novo 10 is powered by Amlogic 8726-M6 dual core Cortex A9 processor running at 1.5GHz and Mali-400MP2 GPU inside with 1GB RAM plus 16GB Nand Flash, it includes Gravity Sensor, Wifi, extended memory (up to 32GB), mini HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth and Google Play built-in. The tablet has an 8000mAh battery which can hold up to 8hours or video playback and 5hours or game play. Novo 10 has a 0.3 mega pixel front camera and 2 mega pixel rear camera. It does not support GPS built-in 3G, only external.

Tablet No: 4

Malata – SMB C1001 – Don’t know yet.

This Malata SMB C1001 is a 10.1 (256.8x175x10.2mm) Android ICS (4.0) tablet with 1280 x 800 resolution TFT-LCD display with 10 touch points. This tablet is powered by Tegra 3 T30 Cortex A9 processor running at 1.3GHz and ULV GeForce GPU inside with 1GB RAM plus 8GB/16GB/.32GB internal storage. It includes Bluetooth, Accelerometer sensor, Ambient Light sensor, Gyro sensor, Wifi, 3.5mm headphone jack, Google Play store, expendable memory slot (up to 32GB). This tablet has a 6500mAh battery which can hold up to 6hours. It has a 2 mega pixel front camera and 5 mega pixel rear camera. This malata tablet does GPS and 3G but it’s optional.

Tablet No: 3

AMPE A10 quad core - $220 - $250

AMPE A10 is a 10.1 inch (267 x 178 x 9.6mm) Android ICS (4.0) tablet with 1280 x 800 resolution Bright HD IPS display with 10 touch points. This tablet is powered by Freescale i.MX6Q Cortex A9 quad core processor running 1.2GHz and Quad Core Vivante GC2000 GPU inside with 1GB RAM plus 16GB internal storage. It includes Bluetooth, Wifi, 3.5mm headset jack, Accelerometer, HDMI and expendable memory slot (up to 32GB). This tablet has an 8000mAh battery but the battery life is not impressive. It supports a 0.3 mega pixel front camera and 2 mega pixel rear camera. This tablet does not support internal 3G or GPS.

Tablet No: 2

Chuwi V99 - $250 - $300

Chuwi V99 is a 9.7 inch (242 x 187 x 9.8mm) Android Jelly Bean (4.1.1) tablet with 2048 x 1536 resolution IPS display with 10 touch points. The tablet is powered by Rockchip RK3066 Cortex A9 dual core processor running at 1.6GHz and Mali-400 MP4 GPU inside with 1GB RAM plus 16GB Nand storage. It includes Bluetooth, Wifi, 3.5mm headset jack, Accelerometer, Google Play and expendable memory (up to 32GB). It has 2 mega pixels camera at the front and 2 mega pixels at the rear. V99 included a massive 10000 mAh battery which can hold up to 10 hours of work time. V 99 doesn’t support GPS or internal 3G.

Tablet No: 1

Ramos W30HD - $270 - $300

Ramos W30HD is a 10.1 inch (258.3 X 164 X 9.5mm) Android ICS (4.04) tablet with 1920 x 1200 resolution IPS display with 10 touch points. This tablet is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 4412 Cortex A9 quad core processor running at 1.4GHz and Mali-400 MP4 GPU with 1GB RAM plus 16GB internal storage. It includes Bluetooth, Wifi, 3.5mm headset jack, Google Play, expendable memory (up to 32GB). It has a 0.3 mega pixel front camera and 2 mega pixel rear camera. W30HD included a 5400 mAh battery (upcoming W30HD will have 6800mAh battery) which can hold 6 to 8 hours of work time.

Final words

Here is my top 5 tablets for this year and now it’s you turn to suggest me some Chinese tablets, tell me what is your order, type it below as a comment.

Intel launches 6W server class Atom CPUs to fight against ARM

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:35:00 +0000

From the beginning AMD and Intel are the rulers of server market, recently top500 blog named “Titan” is the current world’s fastest supercomputer (November 2012) which has 18,688 AMD Opteron 6274 processors and 18,688 Nvidia Tesla K20 GPUs, in total it can push up to 17.59 PFLOP of calculation power per second. Few months before that IBM built a supercomputer called “SuperMUC” which has 18,432 Intel Xeon processors and it can push up to 3 PFLOP of calculation power per second. As you can see the figures are impressive but when it comes to power consumption they draw power in Mega Watts, at this moment we need “green technology”, Intel and AMD are not good at energy efficient CPUs, so this might be the reason why ARM decided to enter the server environment, you know ARM is known for smartphones and tablets, they provide architecture for system on a clips for those portable devices which draw power in mW, but their current 32bit architecture can’t do anything with server level, it’s better for the current tablets and smartphones, but recently ARM introduced 64bit ARMv8 and Cortex A57 which are capable of handling server level operations. Once ARM CEO said “Intel will never be the leader in silicon power efficiency” so there you go Intel has new competitor and it’s really strong.

Intel has seriously considered that speech which was made by ARM CEO, at the same time Intel knows that ARM is the best when it comes to efficiency, so Intel worked hard this few months for a better efficient server processor and here is the results, today Intel is launching the Atom S series which is specially made for severs code named “Centerton”. This CPU is based on existing 32nm Saltwell architecture but there are some new features added to this core like virtualization technology and ECC memory support and this CPU uses a new socket (FCBGA1283). This Intel’s Atom S series includes three models, S 1220, S1240, S1250 and price will start at $54. As you can see Atom S1220 is the lower end of this series which is running at 1.6GHz (L2 Cache 1MB) and it supports 8GB memory (DDR3-1333) plus it draws 8.1W at peak. S1240 is almost similar to S1220 except the TDP it draws only 6.1W. S 1260 runs at 2GHz and its TDP is 8.6W. We can see Atom S1240 is almost ready to fight against ARM's upcoming SoCs so we will see how ARM is going to react to these products so keep in touch with me for more news.
[via anandtech]

Samsung Galaxy Note II killer Huawei Ascend Mate is coming

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 17:34:00 +0000

Samsung is the 1st vendor to come out big screen smartphones and the attempt was successful, original Galaxy Note had 5.3inch screen with 720p display, and they included the S pen also to improve user experience. Samsung recently launched the successor or the original Note, the Note II with a 5.5inch display with the some 720p resolution but this time not a Pentile display, in this device we saw so many improvements over original Note, Galaxy Note II is so perfect and to be honest it haven’t had a proper competitor to give a fight, we know then only these devices will improve quickly, that means as consumers we will get better products. But happy to say according to Chinese social network Weibo, Huawei’s Senior Vice President Yu Chengdong conformed that they are working on a Note II competitor called Ascend Mate which will have 6.1inch 1080p display, 2GB RAM and 1.8GHz quad core processor. Chengdong further said it will be more powerful then Note II, with a better design, superb battery and it will be cheaper than Note II.
[via bgr]

How to unlock a pattern locked Android phone

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:00:00 +0000

We always use pattern unlock on our Android phones to secure our privacy. Pattern unlock is proprietary for Android, I use it always because it’s easier than passwords; can access quickly and easy to remember. But sometimes we forget the patterns or sometimes our friends or family members try to unlock without our permission, as you know after few attempts Android OS locks you down for few minutes if you further continue with wrong patterns the OS will locks you down presently and asks your Gmail address and password but it doesn’t work out most of the time. After that you can’t do anything except answering calls. Here I’m going to tell the hard way to unlock the phone although it’s 100% working method because in few blogs I have seen people wrote some tricks like when you are receiving a call to that locked phone you should press menu without answering the call will take to the menu then you all have to do is disable the pattern unlock, but most of the time it doesn’t work, other trick is according to them entering the Gmail address without putting gmail.com will sometimes unlock the phone but 50% - 50% it didn’t work for me, so I tried the hard way and it worked but only thing is you will lose data and your phone will reset to factory settings. So follow the steps.

First of all you have to turn off the phone then hold down the volume while pressing the power button, this will work on most of the Android phones but in Samsung phones you have hold home key and volume key while turning on, it will take to a new menu called hboot, some HTC phones will not go that menu directly, in HTC phones you might see a red logo after that, so press up volume key then it will take you to hboot, in that menu you can see recovery mode, just navigate to that by pressing volume key and press enter (some uses power button to enter uses home key, anyway you can see instructions there) after entering the recovery mode press wide all data then conform it then press the factory reset then, restart your phone and it will take some time to reboot and you are good to go.
[image credit:allatone.co.in]

Archos 7 inch GamePad with hardware controls

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:41:00 +0000

You may have heard about Sony PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS, which are handheld game consoles with a screen and game controls. Archos released an Android tablet called GamePad which has controls like those Vita and Nintendo have, and it’s a 7inch tablet with 1024 x 600 resolution (Vita has only 5inch screen). This Archos’s GamePad comes with a dual core ARM processor running at 1.6GHz and it has a Mali-400MP GPU, I think it’s most probably a Samsung’s Exynos 4210 (45nm) or 4212 (32nm). And this console comes with Jelly Bean 4.1, 8GB memory with expandable microSD up to 64GB and mini-HDMI.
Unlike Archos, Sony PlayStation Vita has its own OS and its own games which is optimized for the 5inch game console and same for the Nintendo, but Acchos GamePad doesn't have control optimized games, because it runs Android but thanks to GamePad mapping tool which lets you map onscreen controls to the physical buttons. The SoC inside this GamePad can handle most of the decent games like Fifa 2012, Nova 2 and it’s only $195.

Lenovo P770 with Jelly Bean and 3500mAh battery cost only $272

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:53:00 +0000

I’m really happy because now smartphones are coming out with big batteries, last year Motorola released the original Droid RAZR MAXX which has a 3300mAh battery and it can push up to 21 hours of talk time, few months ago again Motorola released the successor of the Droid RAZR MAXX, the HD version which also has the same size battery. Motorola was the only vendor who had the technology to squeeze that amount of battery juice to a slim smartphone. But few days back Lenovo released a smartphone for the Chinese market called P770 which has a 3500mAh battery and it’s only $272.

This Lenovo’s P770 smartphone features a 4.5inch 960 x 560 qHD display with 1GB of RAM. It runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box with a custom Lenovo UI and this device powered by a 1.2GHz MediaTek MT6577 dual-core CPU. It’s a decent CPU it has a PowerVR 5 series GPU inside which can handle most of the decent 3D games for Android and this CPU scored 5300 to 5500 points on Antutu benchmark, not the best but this score is pretty decent for a dual core.
[via androidauthority]

How Galaxy Note 2 is going to replace your PC

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:06:00 +0000

Are you ready to face the post-PC era? Actually this term was first predicted by Apple and they said “Apple tablets guide to the post PC era” but no it’s not happening yet because the PC sales are way more up than the tablets sales, but some expert researchers believe it will start to happen next year (2013), DigiTimes senior analyst James Wang explains next year tablet shipments will rise up to 210 million units and it will surpass laptop shipments for the first time. And further he explains Google may not win the smartphone and tablet war next year but definitely will win the OS war. By the way my answer for the question is yes! I’m ready to face the post-PC era :) but how big vendors are getting ready for this situation? Samsung’s recent Galaxy Note 10.1 update conforms that they are trying to give PC like experience (Multi-view feature) for the consumers and they released a smart dock for Note II and Galaxy S III which includes 3 USB ports and HDMI, now you can clearly see somehow they are trying to replace the ordinary PC usage.

Galaxy Note II connected to a Monitor via MHL adapter

A YouTube user recently uploaded a video and it’s titled as “Note 2 replaces the PC” in that video he used this following hardware gadgets to transform a Note II to a PC.

Samsung Galaxy Note II MHL HDTV adapter
29” Monitor
HDMI cable
5.1 Speaker system
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Keyboard

During the video he showed how Multi-window and popup browser can help us to multi-task when a pointing device is enabled and he showed how Samsung’s Exynos processor can handle several HD videos at once. Further he showed how Dark Knight Rises and Nova 3 games are compatible with keyboard and mouse, for more info checkout the video below.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Jelly Bean update brings Multi-Window and Air View

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 10:13:00 +0000

Thanks to open source Android, now vendors like Samsung and HTC are putting their best efforts to customize Android and bring brand-new experience for consumers. If I talk about my personal taste, I like HTC Sense 4+ which comes with Droid DNA and other HTC’s new Smartphones but my favorite Android skin is Samsung’s TouchWiz. You may know recently Samsung launched the original Note successor Galaxy Note II and it comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1 plus TouchWiz Nature UX which is the most advanced Android OS available, and Samsung announced that they will roll out the same OS version to Galaxy S 3, Galaxy S 2 and for the original Note which is awesome, at the same time Galaxy Note 10.1 getting this update already, currently Samsung Germany rolling out this update for German Galaxy Note 10.1 owners. This new update contains super new features; you can do so many creative things with this new software. These are the most important features from this update.

Air View
Air View is introduced in Note II for the first time now it’s available for Note 10.1, with this new feature you can see what’s inside a galaxy album or an e-mail without opening it, all you have to do is hover over it will show up as a preview, it works for movie player as well.

New S Pen Enhancements
With these new S Pen enhancements now you can do so many creative things with S Note software, now it supports Easy Clip, Formula Match, Shape Match, Handwriting-to-text, S Pen Switcher, Color Picker and more.

Multi Widow
Multi widow is a proprietary feature for TouchWiz you can’t it on other tablet brands, with this new update it got some new features, now you can open up to 16 applications from the Multi Window tray, every window is freely movable and resizable even you can pin your most using app so it will stay at top. This Multi Window now supports dual window mode and you can adjust as you want, this is truly ultimate multitasking.

Paper Artist
Samsung includes new software with TouchWiz UX called Paper Artist; it allows you to import photos from the galaxy and it lets you add some scratch effects to your photo and you can do so many creative things using the S Pen, it’s an amazing software.

Samsung wants add iPad mini, iPad 4 and iPod touch to latest patent lawsuit

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 18:03:00 +0000

Last time Samsung loses patent lawsuit against Apple, because they claimed that the Galaxy S is a copy of iPhone 3GS and they have charged 1 billion dollars from Samsung. War didn’t stop there; after the iPhone 5 launch Samsung said “we will drag iPhone 5 into legal war” at the same time again Apple announces that they want to add Jelly Bean and Galaxy Note 10.1 for the lawsuit list. So what is the respond from Samsung? This week Samsung asked permission from the United States District Court to add iPad mini, iPod touch and iPad 4 for the lawsuit list, according to them Apple infringes some patents which is owned by Samsung.

[via BGR]

Rihanna says "thank you HTC" and gives away a custom HTC One X+

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:14:00 +0000

Pop star Rihanna recently went to Canada for a stage show and it’s her 777th world tour. At the middle of the show Rihanna suddenly showed a HTC One X+ phone and it has some custom logos on it like Rihanna’s R logo, her new album’s name etc. etc. She said “this phone has the next level shit” while showing those logos, it’s a custom built phone, according to her there are only two models out there and she’s currently using one and the other one is this. Finally she gave this phone to her lucky fan who near to the stage, watch the video.
[via androidauthority]

Top 3 features i love about HTC Droid DNA

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:04:00 +0000

Few weeks back HTC launched the world’s first full 1080p display phone “J Butterfly” for Japan customers and now it’s time for the US customers, recently Verizon wireless and HTC arranged an event to launch an Android smartphone called Droid DNA which is a quad core beast with a 1080p 5inch display. Its only 0.5inch smaller than the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 display, if we compare this both devices, Droid DNA is 10mm less width than the Note II so I’m sure this device will fit in to any type of palm.

HTC doesn’t promote this device as a portable tablet like Samsung did and the software also fully optimized for phone features. I personally like TouchWiz and HTC Sense those two Android skins are the best, HTC Sense developers did a huge improvement over the years. Now let’s get in to the topic, after a deep search I decided to point out 3 most amazing features about the HTC Droid DNA so here we go.

Display

HTC Droid DNA has the most amazing display ever, it’s packed with a Super LCD3 1080p (443ppi) screen and it’s protected by Gorilla Glass 2. Unlike Samsung’s Pentile AMOLED displays, this Sharps’s new Super LCD 3 has less layers and it features a new technology called “Electron Mobility” this technology allows the SoC to communicate with the LCD much quicker which means faster response time and sharper images at the same time Sharp uses CG silicon for this display panel instead of IGZO panels, reason for this Sharp explains CG silicon is more efficient and reliable.

Processor

HTC uses the Qualcomm’s APQ8064 Quad-core CPU with Adreno 320 GPU, the CPU running at 1.5GHz. This SoC is manufactured under 28nm technology means it’s really power efficient at the same time it’s a powerhouse. This Qualcomm’s S4 pro is almost faster than any other quad core out there just checkout the benchmark results from engadget. I really impressed with this new Adreno 320 GPU it’s almost 2 to 3X faster the predecessor Adreno 225, this GPU can produce 25 GFLOPS at 200MHz if this Adreno 320 is clocked at 500MHz it can produce 51GFLOPS it’s way faster than Tegra 3 and Mali-400MP4.

	S4 Pro MDP (APQ8064)	Nexus 7 (Tegra 3)	Galaxy S III (Exynos 4412)	One X (Tegra 3)	Galaxy S III (AT&T, MSM8960)	One X (AT&T, MSM8960)
Quadrant	7,698	3,501	4,454	4,906	5,084	4,784
Vellamo	2,538	1,650	1,751	1,617	2,153	2,259
AnTuTu	13,826	8,995	11,960	11,030	6,713	6,956
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms)	1,227	1,785	1,460	1,773	1,926	1,453
GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)	132	63	99	63	54	56
CF-Bench	18,219	11,807	13,110	13,233	9,439	9,479
SunSpider: lower scores are better [benchmark results via Engadget]

Software

HTC Sense and the TouchWiz are the most advanced Android skinned operating systems out there; this HTC Droid DNA has the latest Sense 4+ with Android 4.1.1 which means you can experience the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean “Project Butter” out of the box. Sense 4+ comes pre-loaded with Amazon’s app and you can see totally new interfaces in some areas compare to pure Android, e.g. multitasking menu is totally redesigned by HTC, it gives you a 3D scrolling feel when u open and there are so many pre-built widgets which comes with Sense 4+.

Final words

These are the 3 things that I like about Droid DNA, just feel free to type your ideas as a comment below.

How to install Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean on Galaxy S2 [leaked OTA update]

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:14:00 +0000

Few months back Samsung released Android 4.0 for Galaxy S2 with its own skin called TouchWiz. So now every Galaxy S II owner is waiting for the next update Android 4.1 because it has some superb improvements over Android 4.0, one of the most important one is the “Project Butter”, we know somehow in near future Samsung is going to release the latest update with 4.1 but here is a good news! A XDA Developer forum member leaked the Samsung’s Android 4.1.2 OTA (I9100XXLSJ Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean JZO54K) update for Galaxy S 2, according to them it’s so stable and this might be the final built. After I used one of my friend’s Galaxy S3, I really liked the TouchWiz Nature UX skin, I really liked the effects, colors, animations and the sounds it had built-in. this update has the similar look to Galaxy S III here are some from Galaxy S3.

New TouchWiz Nature UX
Cloud services which offed by Samsung
Pop-up Play
Galaxy S 3 widgets
Galaxy S 3 Notifications bar
Google Now

How to Install:

Download the file (you can find the link below) and unzip it first, then open Odin 3.04 (already there inside the download file), now hold down Home+Power+Volume down keys at once to enter the download mode, plug the phone to your PC wait until you see a yellow logo in your Odin software, then enter the following files for appropriate category, PDA: CODE_I9100XXLSJ.tar, PHONE: MODEM_I9100XXLS6.tar, CSC: CSC_HOME_OXX_I9100OXXLS1.tar do not tick re-partition now start the flash wait until it finishes n reboot, if you have problems feel free to type here.

Download: Galaxy S2 Jelly Bean update.

More info: Sammobile, XDA Developers

Samsung Nexus S and Motorola Xoom won't get Android 4.2 update

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:56:00 +0000

After the Nexus 4 launch and the Android 4.2, Google decided not to upgrade their older Nexus S and Motorola Xoom devices to Android 4.2, it will stuck with Android 4.1.2. Google didn’t announce anything further about this decision but according to most of the user feedbacks recent Android update has slowed down those both devices significantly so this might be the reason why Google stopped updating those devices. Last year Google dropped Nexus One from their updating list and they named it as a too-old device to get Android 4.0.

But there are so many 3rd party developers out there and they develop Android OS’s for those old devices, for example Cyanogenmod one of the best developers out there who can bring those devices back to life.
[via AnMe] [image credit-blog.laptopmag]

Huawei MediaPad 10 CPU and GPU performance

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:46:00 +0000

Back in 1^st quarter of 2012 Huawei announced a 10 inch Android tablet called MediaPad 10 which is the successor of MediaPad 7 and now it’s available for consumers to experience. Huawei is known for good Android devices; recently they released the world’s slimmest smartphone called Huawei Ascend P1s, it’s only 6.68mm thin. As you know Mediapad 7 was a successful device too at that time period it had the best features compare to other tablets and with an affordable price.

My point of view is Huawei MediaPad 10 is an excellent device for its price point, it’s got a full 1080P (1920 X 1200) IPS LCD display with 226ppi, there are few devices out there (e.g. Asus Transformer Prime TF700T, Nexus 10) which has this amount of pixels and it’s only 580g at the same time Huawei managed to fix every component of MediaPad 10 into a 8.8mm slim form factor. It comes with different memory sizes 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64 GB and it has a SDCARD slot which is capable up to 32GB memory. Next important thing is the SoC, Huawei integrated its own SoC for this tablet called HiSilicon K3V2(40nm), it’s a Cortex A9 quad core processor running at 1.4GHz and it has a 16 core GPU which is rumored to be Vivante’s GC4000. I recently did a comparison betweenTegra 3 and Freescale i.MX 6Q quad core processors, the i.MX 6Q SoC has powered by Vivante GC2000 GPU and I believe this GPU running 2X faster than the original clock rate somehow at that clock rate it can produce 200 M Tri/s per second (48GFLOPS) so for sure this latest Vivante’s GC4000 must produce equal amount of GPU power at default clock rates. As you can see according to engadget’s review about this tablet, MediaPad 10 scored almost equal score to Tegra 3 in CPU perspective.

	Huawei MediaPad 10 (US pricing TBD)	Nexus 10 ($399)	ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 ($499)	Acer Iconia Tab A700
Quadrant	4,493	4,551	4,685	3,311
Vellamo	1,359	1,605	1,475	1,283
AnTuTu	10,769	8,731	12,027	10,499
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms)	1,605	1,371	2,012	1,970
GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt Offscreen (fps)	14	33	n/a (test run with 2.1)	n/a (test run with 2.1)
CF-Bench	12,952	9,772	7,874	11,567
SunSpider: lower scores are better [via Engadget]

Huawei MediaPad 10 has a superb rear 8 mega pixel camera with 1080p video recording plus it has a front facing 1.3 mega pixel camera for video calling, 6600mAh battery can push up to 7:30 hour battery (with WiFi) life without any problems. But one disappointing fact is this tablet released with Android ICS 4.0 not 4.1 or 4.2. Now type your ideas about this device as comment below.

Apple iPad mini specs and tear-down

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Few weeks ago Apple released their first 7.9 inch tablet called iPad mini. This new 7.9 inch tablet is almost identical to the previous version Apple iPad 2 except the Lighting connector and the new A5 chip with a smaller die size but Apple reengineered the device to make it lighter and slimmer. iPad 2 9.7 inch version and the iPad mini have the same screen resolution which is 1024 x 768 with 163 ppi, this both tablets are powered by the same Apple’s A5 chip but iPad mini’s A5 chips is manufactured under 32nm and it has a small die size of 71.1mm^2, iPad 2’s chip manufactured under 45nm and its die size is 122.6mm^2 both SoCs are powered by the same GPU, it’s PowerVR 543MP2 which is clocked at 250MHz and it can produce 16GFLOPS power at that clock rate. Sad to say iPad mini doesn’t come with Apple’s Retina display, it’s just a LED back-lit IPS LCD display, but really important feature to mention is its structure, this new 7.9inch tablet weights only 312g and the dimensions are 200mm X 134.7 X 7.2mm, yes! This new tablet is the slimmest 7.9inch tablet in the world because it’s only 7.2mm in thickness.

This new iPad mini has decent specs inside, it comes with 512MB RAM, Bluetooh 4.0, 3.72 V, 16.3 Whr, 4440 mAh battery and Wi-Fi b/g/n. it has a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera which is capable with 720p video recording and it has rear camera with 5 mega pixels which is capable with 1080p video recording plus iOS 6 and Siri onboard. Now let’s take a look the internals of this tablet, thanks to ifixit they recently tear down this newly released Apple iPad mini and showed what’s inside the 7.9inch slim tablet. First of iFixit team’s repairability score for this device is 2/10, which is so bad which means it’s least repairable. According to iFixit there is a good new and a bad news, good news is for the first time Apple separated their touchscreen from the LCD which works separately, bad news is the new lighting connector doesn’t removable from the main board, in case if you broke the connector port you have to replace the full part it’s kind a disappointing. Now let’s check out the logic board and the components.

Apple A5 SoC
Hynix H2JTDG8UD2MBR 16 GB NAND Flash
Apple 343S0593-A5
Apple 338S1116 Cirrus Logic Audio Codec
Fairchild PCHPS FDMC 6676BZ
Fairchild BC7BE F0MC 6683
Apple 338S1077, aka Cirrus Logic Class D

Apple iPad 4 GPU performance, specs and tear-down

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:26:00 +0000

Apple’s iPad 3rd generation tablet is an extraordinary device, if we compare the iPad 3 with iPad 2 there is a huge gap between those two devices. iPad 4th generation tablet has some similar specs to iPad 3 except the inside hardware. Let’s start with iPad 2nd generation tablet, iPad 2 has a 9.7inch 1024 x 768 pixel resolution Retina display (163ppi) and it’s upgradable to current iOS version 6, under the hood iPad 2 has an ARM Cortex A9 dual core SoC with PowerVR 543MP2 GPU, Apple’s calls it A5 chip. This 2nd generation Apple tablet had so much power to fight against mighty Android tablets at that time period. After that iPad 3 came out with lot of improvements, the same size display got 2048 x 1536 pixels resolution (264ppi); Apple included a brand new SoC for this iPad 3 called A5X. This new SoC has a dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor with PowerVR 534MP4 GPU yes! Quad core graphics unlike iPad 2 it had only 2 GPU cores. Apple recently released their flagship tablet called iPad 4th generation also known as iPad 4, this tablet has the resolution which iPad 3 had (2048 x 1536 pixels), 1GB RAM, 5mega pixel camera and more, but this time also Apple didn’t forget to upgrade their SoC, iPad 4 has a brand new chip called A6X which has two Swift cores running at 1.4GHz and integrated a brand new GPU called PowerVR 554MP4. Let’s talk about some GPU power here; iPad 2 has a dual core PowerVR 543MP2 GPU which runs at 250MHz, at this frequency it can produce 16GFLOPS of calculation power, as I mentioned iPad 3 has a A5X chip which has a quad core GPU called PowerVR 543MP4 and it runs at 250MHz so it can produce 32GFLOPS of power. Before I go to iPad 4 GPU let me do a comparison with a competitive SoCs, you may know Tegra 3 and Exynos SoC’s power most of the Android tablets these days, Tegra 3 T33’s GPU ULP GeForce can only produce 12GFLOPS at 520MHz and Exynos Mali-400MP4 GPU can only produce 16GFLOPS at 400MHz. iPad 4’s brand new GPU PowerVR 554MP4 running at 300MHz and it can produce 76.8GFLOPS of power, Apple is correct, they mentioned at their Apple conference iPad 4 has 2X GPU performance compare to iPad 3, it’s just amazing to watch as a single company how they fight against other competitors. Now let’s deep look what is inside the iPad 4.
After the iPad 4 launch iFixit team decided to tear down the iPad 4 tablet, according to them iPad 4 has the same battery which iPad 3 had 3.8V 43 Whr (11560mAh), you may know with this new devices Apple introduced a new connector for Apple devices called lighting connector which is more faster than the previous connector. Here ifixit says unlike iPad mini, in this device the brand new lighting connector has its own ribbon cable which is superb! To replace, iPad 4 has another slight front camera upgrade compare to iPad 3, the new iPad 4 camera now has 1.2 mega pixels and it captures 720P video. End of the tear down ifixit gave a repairability score for the iPad 4, normally 10/10 score means that device can easily repairable 0/10 means least repairable, iPad 4 scored only 2 points, ifixit explains this device’s front panel glued to the rest of the device and the LCD has a foam sticky tape adhering it to the front panel which has more chance to break the LCD while removing, Apple always makes their products hard to repair I don’t know why! Anyway just take a look at the inside components, here is the Ifixit images.

Apple A6X Processor
Hynix H2JTDG8UD2MBR 16 GB NAND Flash
Apple 338S1116 Cirrus Logic Audio Codec
343S0622-A1 Dialog Semi PMIC
Apple 338S1077 Cirrus Logic Class D Amplifier
QVP TI 261 A9P2
Broadcom BCM5974 Touch Screen Controller
Broadcom BCM5973A1 Touch Screen Controller
Texas Instruments CD3240B0 Touch Screen Line Driver
2 x 4Gb Elpida LP DDR2 = 1 GB DRAM in separate packages in a 64-bit configuration
2 x Fairchild BCHAH/FDMC Voltage Regulator / Reference
Murata 339S0171 Broadcom BCM4334 WiFi Module

Samsung's Galaxy Smart Dock for $99

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:46:00 +0000

Samsung introduced a Galaxy Smart Dock for Samsung Galaxy Note 2. This Dock includes 3 USB ports, HDMI, speaker out and a power connector. We can clearly see what Samsung tries to focus here; yes! Simply you can get a PC experience if you hook it up to a HD monitor, this dock USB port supports mouse, keyboard and external storage device. According android and me this Galaxy Smart Dock will support Galaxy S 3 as well, so you can play your Galaxy Note II/Galaxy S3 games on a big HD screen, can play 1080p movies and you can stream super quality YouTube videos because Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S3 has blazing fast internet modems. This Galaxy Smart Dock is only $99 so Galaxy Note II / Galaxy S3 owners it’s a nice gadget worth for money.

Freescale i.MX6Q (quad core) vs Nvidia Tegra 3 (quad core)

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 11:57:00 +0000

Nvidia released their first quad core ARM SoC called Tegra 3 back in November 2011. Tegra 3(40nm) is the first quad core System on Chip and it has 4 plus 1 cores, means, it has an extra power saving extra core for simple tasks. This SoC is based on ARM cortex A9 architecture and this Tegra 3 is available in several models T30L (1.3GHz CPU and 416MHz GPU), T30 (1.4GHz CPU and 520MHz GPU) and T33 (1.7GHz CPU and 520MHz GPU). As you can see now there are so many tablets and phones powered by Nvidia Tegra 3, even some of them are budget tablets as Nvidia promised e.g. Nexus 7 and Acer Iconia Tab A110.

While Nvidia ruling the ARM market with its Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 products suddenly Samsung released its flagship Cortex A9 quad core called Exynos 4412 (32nm) which is more powerful than Tegra 3, after that Qualcomm also released its flagship quad core SoC called APQ8064 (28nm). The important thing is Qualcomm’s APQ8060 won’t power any low priced tablets because of the price of that SoC but I saw some Chinese tablets that are powered by Exynos 4412 e.g RAMOS W30HD, anyway today’s comparison is between a SoC called Freescale i.MX6Q and Nvidia Tegra 3. Freescale is a pioneer chip making company which is mostly focuses on the automotive solutions but now this iMX 6Q is powering most of the Chinese tablets because it is the world’s first chip to qualify for consumer devices and for the automotive sector. This company’s headquarters are located in Austin, Texas. Freescale i.MX 6Q is a Cortex A9 quad core based on 40nm fabrication technology and it can be clocked up to 1.2GHz. Ok now let’s get in to the comparison, here I’m going categorize this comparison in to three divisions CPU power, GPU power, and Power consumption ok let’s begin.

CPU Power
Nvidia Tegra 3 is based on 40nm fabrication process and it has 4 plus 1 cores as I already wrote, single low power core for simple tasks, other 4 cores will power on if do some heavy tasks. Now let’s check some benchmarks, Nvidia Tegra 3 T33 which powers the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700T tablet has scored 12848 in Antutu benchmark and in Quadrant it scored 4915, HTC One X+ which is also powered by Nvidia Tegra 3 and it scored 13801 points in Antutu benchmark. T30L Tegra 3low end chip which is clocked at 1.3GHz has scored 9550 in Antutu and 3425 points in Quadrant. Transformer Pad Infinity TF700T with Tegra 3 T33 has a DDR3-1600 which is capable of transferring 6.4GB/s data, one thing Tegra 3 doesn’t have a dual channel memory controller it has a single channel controller which might be a bottleneck for a better performance. Freescale i.MX 6Q is based on 40nm fabrication process as well, this Freescale i.MX6Q doesn’t have a 5th core for power saving and ths SoC max clocked at 1.2GHz. This SoC scored around 9303 points in Antutu benchmark and Quadrant score around 3800 to 4000+. This Freescale i.MX 6Q SoC and the Tegra 3 both have 1MB L2 cache, Freescale i.MX 6Q supports 64-bit DDR3 and 2-channel 32-bit LPDDR2. So what’s your decision? I think Tegra 3 won the CPU war.

GPU Power
Nvidia Tegra 3 has a ULP GeForce GPU and as I mentioned at the top this GPU’s highest GPU clock is 520MHz, this 12 core ULP GeForce can produce 14.4 GFLOPS at 600MHz so at 520MHz it can produce 12.48 GFLOPS for GPU power. Freescale i.MX 6Q uses an uncommon GPU vendor called Vivante, this particular model has Vivante GC2000 GPU inside, and I believe Vivante soon will become the most powerful GPU maker in the world because this GC 2000 GPU can push up to 200 M Tri/s per second which means around 48GFLOPS of processing power and it supports DX 11, original document says GC 2000 GPU can push up to 24 GFLOPS but I think Freescale team doubled the clock rate of this GPU. Upcoming GC 4000 GPU series can push 48GFLOPS with default clock, that is so amazing and their higher end version is GC 6000. Here Freescale clearly wins the GPU war.

Power Consumption
As I mentioned Tegra 3 has a 5th core to save power when you are do normal tasks it switch to single core when you do heavy tasks like gaming all 4 cores will come up, that is good uncommon option from Tegra 3. Freescale i.MX6Q also has some impressive power consumption options like PMU integration and Freescale PF100 power management unit but my vote goes to Nvidia Tegra 3.

Final Words
Nvidia Tegra 3 won by 2 points, but this is my results according to my research but you can type your opinions and ideas as a comment below.

Acer Iconia Tab A110 the Asus Nexus 7 killer?

noreply@blogger.com (Moses Brose) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:30:00 +0000

We all know Acer as a pioneer PC marker but they entered the Android tablet market approximately one and half years ago with a 7inch tablet called Acer Iconia Tab A100. In that time period Acer Iconia Tab A100 wasn’t the best tablet for that price, biggest down point of this tablet was the battery, Acer Iconia Tab A100 had only 1530mAh battery, now a day’s a small 4inch Android phone has bigger battery capacity than this tablet. Acer Iconia Tab A100 was too heavy (450g) and it was 13.1mm in thickness so Acer rethink about their faults and they redesigned the Acer Iconia Tab A100 as Acer Iconia Tab A110 but with a different marketing approach, this time Acer wanted to put a better tablet for a lower price and wanted to fight against like Nexus 7 and Kindle fire HD.

Acer Iconia Tab A110 Android tablet is powered by NvidiaTegra 3 T30L processor which has 4-plus-1 cores and it comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean; this 7inch TFT display has 1024X600 pixels (170ppi). If you compare with the old version this new A110 tablet is 2mm slimmer and 80g less weight plus it has a bigger 3420mAh battery (7.5hours of battery life). This Iconia Tab A110 is priced at $230 because of that this device doesn't have a rear camera only a 2 mega pixel front camera but other features like 8GB internal storage, 1GB RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP and expandable memory are plus point for that price point. So what do you think can it be a Nexus 7 killer? Let’s do a small comparison.

(Acer Iconia A110 vs Asus Nexus 7)

	Acer Iconia A110	Asus Nexus 7
Processor	Nvidia Tegra 3 T30L 1.3GHz	Nvidia Tegra 3 T30L 1.3GHz
Display	TFT display 1024x600 pixels (170ppi)	LED-backlit IPS LCD 1280x800 pixels (216ppi)
Design	196 x 126.5 x 11.4 mm 370g	198.5 x 120 x 10.5 mm 340g
RAM	1GB RAM	1GB RAM
Storage	8GB	8GB
SD storage	Yes upto 32GB	No
OS	Android 4.1 Jelly Bean	Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean
Camera	2MP front camera	1.2MP front camera
Sensors	Basic with GPS	Basic with GPS
Battery	3420mAh 7.5 hours	4325mAh 10 hours
Price	$230	$199

I personally think Nexus 7 is still owns the market for that price but Nexus 7’s biggest minus point is it doesn't have a SD card slot to expand the memory you have to stuck with the internal storage, anyhow it’s your turn to decide, tell me what do you think about this devices just write down as a comment.