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Review: Samsung Galaxy S4 (GT-I9500)

Arjun Komath — Sat, 18 May 2013 07:23:38 +0000

Hardware

The Galaxy S4 is a behemoth of a device when it comes to hardware. Packing either a 1.9Ghz Quad Core or 1.6Ghz Octa-Core processor (depending on which version you get) and 2GB of RAM it currently outbenchmarks almost all of the competition in terms of pure grunt. The 2GB of RAM ensures that you will be able to multi-task and switch between apps with ease.

Operating System

The Galaxy S4 runs on Android version 4.2.2 with Samsung’s own “TouchWiz Nature UX” overlayed on top. Google’s Android is the most widely used operating system and highly revered for its high levels of customisation and personalisation. With access to hundreds of thousands of applications, games, books, magazines and movies through Google’s own “Google Play”, with many other third-party vendors like Samsung’s own services: if you want an App to do something then it almost certainly already exists. If you want a book, movie, TV show or anything else, then you can get that to.

Screen

The Galaxy S4 has a 441ppi 1080p Full HD super AMOLED RGBG Diamond PenTile display.

Camera

The Galaxy S4 has a 13MP camera with LED Flash. It’s sharp, accurate and up there with the best smartphones around, if not a bit better. The only exception is in low light conditions where, although it performs fairly well, it isn’t as good as other manufacturers. The Camera interface has borrowed quite a lot from the Galaxy Camera but the features have been ramped up to include things like animated photographs, recording sound along with the pictures, photobomb removal, filters, fish-eye, and dual camera mode: allowing you to capture images simultaneously from both cameras. Basically, like the rest of the Galaxy S4, it has more features than you can shake a stick at.

Battery

The Galaxy S4 is powered by a 2600mAh battery. With the full HD screen and upgraded hardware, we assumed it to would extremely power hungry but battery performance has been on par with other smartphones lasting well over a day (though considerably less with heavy usage). It’s not as good as the Galaxy Note 2, but it’s certainly worthy of its flagship position. Of course, battery life deteriorates over time, but as the battery is removable, replacement/spare batteries can be fitted for a relatively little cost, increasing the lifetime of the device significantly.

Conclusion

The Galaxy S4 is a worthy upgrade to the Galaxy SIII, though much of this is because of the software. Given that there isn’t anything particularly wrong or outdated with device hardware from this time last year and many of the new software updates will trickle down onto previous Galaxy S devices anyway it’s really down to the better screen, design and better camera that set it aside from previous models.

Overall, the Galaxy S4 is a beautiful, feature rich, behemoth of power and functionality. It can do more things than we could ever get round to knowing how to do, and do them in a quicker and more user-friendly way than any previous Samsung device.

Content Courtesy : sammobile

Design – 7.5/10

Performance – 9.9/10

Interface – 8/10

Smart functions – 9/10

Multimedia - 9.9/10

Screen – 9.9/10

Camera – 9/10

Battery – 8/10

Total – 8.9/10

How it has taken 25 years for mobile gaming to come of age

Arjun Komath — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:28:38 +0000

Here we will look back over the last 25 years of mobile telephony so see how it came about. The first ever mobile phone call in the UK was made on New Year’s Day 1985 when Michael Harrison phoned his father, the chairman of Racal Electronics, to wish him happy new year. The operator was Vodafone, and it became open for business that same day; Cellnet was launched a few days later. Back then a mobile phone weighed around a kilogram and cost several thousand pounds. Little did anyone suspect what the next 25 years would bring; back then mobile phones were considered to be yuppie devices and the most optimistic projections were total sales of up to million mobile phones.
For the next ten years little changed and by 1995 only 7% of people in the UK had phones. This had increased to 25% by 1998 and to 46% by 1999 – the year that Virgin Media introduced pay as you go phones. That year one mobile was sold every 4 seconds. By 2004 there were more phones than people. One reason for the expansive growth was that in 1989 Vodafone and Cellnet, locked in fierce competition, began subsidising phones and reduced monthly access charges.
But there was another problem in the early days – network capacity. The old analogue signals used in 1G couldn’t handle the call volumes; you often had to wait for a connection. This was fixed when 2G, the first digital network, was launched, and another big change was that phones suddenly became a fashion accessory.
From 2004 with market penetration at over 100% we were encouraged to use our phones for many more things than make calls and send text messages. With 3G networks relatively high speed data services became available, and in 2007 the first iPhone was introduced.
One of the things that we now do with our phones is play games – even online casino games such as roulette and blackjack, something never dreamt of 25 years ago. The Internet is accessible wherever we are, and even niches like mobile casino Australia have everything you could ever ask for. Mobile gaming has come a long way just to let you play poker while you queue in the post office.

eBay App Updated – Now With iPhone 5 Support

Arjun Komath — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:24:49 +0000

The eBay app for iOS has been updated with support for the taller iPhone 5.

Tap into the world’s largest marketplace with the Official eBay for iPhone
app! Now you can buy and sell items, compare prices, access our powerful
search tools and so much more all from the palm of your hand.

What’s New In This Version:
- iPhone 5 support (Tallboy)
- Bug fixes and improved support for iOS 6
*iOS 4.3 is required for this update

You can download eBay from the App Store for free.

Cellular iPad Mini Pre-Orders Ship With Delivery as Early as November 15th

Arjun Komath — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:21:34 +0000

Pre-orders for the iPad Mini (Wi-Fi + Cellular) have begun to ship with an estimated delivery date as early as November 15th.

MacRumor notes that beginning just a few hours ago, customers who pre-ordered cellular-capable iPad mini models also began seeing shipping notices. Customers seem to be reporting a range of delivery dates for this initial batch of devices, with the earliest ones set for this Thursday, November 15 but others not arriving until Friday or even the following Monday.

Absinthe 2.0.1 is out with bug fixes

Arjun Komath — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:33:48 +0000

According to the chronicDevTeam, some fixes have been pushed for a couple of little bugs, #Absinthe2.0.1 is now live

Download Links

Absinthe v2.0.1 MacOSX (10.5, 10.6, 10.7)

Absinthe v2.0.1 Windows (XP/Vista/Win7)

Absinthe v2.0.1 Linux (x86/x86_64)

How to Jailbreak Your iPhone Using Absinthe 2.0 (Mac) [5.1.1]

Arjun Komath — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:04:39 +0000

These are instructions on how to perform an untethered jailbreak of your iPhone on iOS 5.1.1 using Absinthe for Mac.

Warning***: Before you continue make sure to do a backup of your device in iTunes as you may lose your Camera Roll during this process.

Step One
Download the latest version of Absinthe from here.

Step Two
Double click to mount the downloaded dmg and drag the Absinthe application to your desktop.

Double click to launch the Absinthe application from your desktop.

Step Three
As prompted, connect your iPhone to the computer via USB. Make sure to remove any passcodes or VPN settings you’ve previously set.

Step Four
Click the Jailbreak button to begin

Step Five
The application will take you through several steps to jailbreak including: beginning jailbreak, sending initial jailbreak data, sending final jailbreak data, waiting for reboot, and waiting for process to complete.

Step Six
You will be informed that the jailbreak is ‘Done’.

Step Seven
In a few moments you will notice Cydia appear on your Springboard!

Download Absinthe iOS 5.1.1 Jailbreak

Arjun Komath — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:02:03 +0000

Below you can find links to download Absinthe, a tool released by the Chronic Dev-Team to jailbreak the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Absinthe 2.0 (Win) [info]: absinthe-win-2.0.zip
Absinthe 2.0 (Mac) [info]: absinthe-mac-2.0.dmg
Absinthe 2.0 (Linux) [info]: absinthe-linux-2.0.tar.bz2

Absinthe 0.4 (Win) [info]: absinthe-win-0.4.zip
Absinthe 0.4 (Mac) [info]: absinthe-mac-0.4.zip
Absinthe 0.4 (Linux) [info]: absinthe-linux-0.4.tar.gz

Absinthe 0.3 (Win) [info]: absinthe-win-0.3.zip
Absinthe 0.3 (Mac) [info]: absinthe-mac-0.3.zip
Absinthe 0.3 (Linux) [info]: absinthe-linux-0.3.tar.gz
Absinthe 0.2 (Win) [info]: absinthe-win-0.2.zip
Absinthe 0.2 (Mac) [info]: absinthe-mac-0.2.zip
Absinthe 0.1.2-2 (Mac) [info]: absinthe-mac-0.1.2-2.zip
Absinthe 0.1.2-1 (Mac) [info]: absinthe-mac-0.1.2-1.zip

How to Jailbreak Your iPad Using Absinthe 2.0 (Windows) [5.1.1]

Arjun Komath — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:00:39 +0000

These are instructions on how to perform an untethered jailbreak of your iPad on iOS 5.1.1 using Absinthe for Windows.

Warning***: Before you continue make sure to do a backup of your device in iTunes as you may lose your Camera Roll during this process.

Step One
Download the latest version of Absinthe from here.

Step Two
Extract the downloaded archive.

Step Three
Double click the absinthe-win-2.0.exe file from the folder that was just extracted.

This will create a new folder called absinthe-win-2.0.

Open the newly created folder and launch absinthe.exe.

Step Three
As prompted, connect your iPad to the computer via USB. Make sure to remove any passcodes or VPN settings you’ve previously set.

Step Four
Click the Jailbreak button to begin

Step Six
You will be informed that the jailbreak is ‘Done’.

Step Seven
In a few moments you will notice Cydia appear on your Springboard!

iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak updates

Arjun Komath — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:01:06 +0000

MuscleNerd has provided more information on the jailbreak:

* All info below is tentative and subject to last minute refinements
* @pod2g’s 5.1.1 jailbreak+untether is working out great. All devices are covered except for AppleTV3,1, which currently has no path for jailbreaking.
- the initial 5.1.1 plan used a kernel exploit from @westbaer which unfortunately precluded use in iPod3,1 and iPhone2,1
- @planetbeing stepped up and provided a kernel exploit that covers both of those. Those two JBers are the bomb!
* The 5.1.1 A5 JB is very similar to the A5 5.0.1 JB. @pimskeks has done a tremendous job supporting both 5.0.1 and 5.1.1 in absinthe
* Similar to 5.0.1, there will also be a 5.1.1 CLI “cinject” binary and redsn0w version of the 5.1.1 JB+untether. Absinthe, cinject, and redsn0w will all provide the same JB in different fashions.
- timing is indeterminate. Plans are for this week, but a number of factors can influence that.
* For those wishing to donate, we’ve set up a new 5.1.1 paypal URL: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=4U6DQGJ2NRVUN
* Please don’t pirate AppStore apps (seriously, please do not).

List of Country codes used by Apple devices

Arjun Komath — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:31:56 +0000

Here is the list of country codes used by Apple devices.

MB123XX/A or MC123XX/A is the device code and XX is the regional identifier (or however it is called).

This code you can find in this list:
AB Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
B Ireland, UK, also used for some replacement phones
C Canada
CZ Czech Republic
DN Austria, Germany, Netherlands
E Mexico
EE Estonia
FB France, Luxembourg
FD Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland
GR Greece
HN India
IP Italy
J Japan
KN Norway
KS Finland, Sweden
LA Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru
LE Argentina
LL USA
LZ Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay
MG Hungary
NF Belgium, France, Luxembourg
PL Poland
PO Portugal
PP Philippines
RO Romania
RS Russia
SL Slovakia
SO South Africa
T Italy
TA Taiwan
TU Turkey
X Australia, New Zealand
Y Spain
ZA Singapore
ZP Hong Kong, Macau