Sense 4.1 Update... HTC One X as it should be!

OK... so just a quick update on my previous post...

Like many frustrated HTC One X customers, I couldn't be bothered waiting for them to push the release out OTA, so downloaded the official RUU from XDA and can happily say that both the performance and the battery life have been improved considerably.

Although I was never unhappy with my HOX, I did used to wonder how I was supposed to manage more than one day without having to charge the battery, and I did come across a few minor niggles with the operation of certain aspects of it, mostly coming from Sense itself. Navigating menu's and the home screen could have been so much smoother.

All this has now been rectified though and I can happily confirm that this latest update from HTC has cured the issues. I'm now getting more than a days usage from my phone and navigating around the UI is a delight.

One of the other fixes, which is equally satisfying, is the removal of the '3 dots' in non-ICS apps. This wasn't something I had noticed previously until it was actually pointed out to me on XDA. But all apps that haven't been developed for ICS (including the likes of Facebook, and many games) featured a solid black bar along the bottom of the screen with 3 dots in them. This was used to get to the menu of whatever app you were in.

As I said previous, I never really noticed it. However, now that it's no longer there, and I have manually mapped the 'recent apps' button to be the menu, the difference is amazing. Such a small change can have mass impact on the user experience and makes the HOX a much nicer phone to use as you can now fully appreciate the screen's size and resolution.

I can happily say, that once again, I am thoroughly satisfied with my HTC One X, but the fact of the ridiculous wait for this, to the point where I have had to manually download and update this myself, coupled with the fact that HTC clearly rushed the HOX out the door without sorting this issue prior to launch makes me wonder what HTC were thinking. It's an arms race in the smart phone industry right now, and more imperative than ever to get things right first time.

Either way... I'm happy with the result and am only left with one question... How long do we have to wait for Jelly Bean ???

My First Taste Of Jelly Bean

So I did it, I took the leap and rooted my HTC One X.
I'm sick of reading blogs about Jelly Bean coming soon, and how well it's performing on the Galaxy Nexus, I decided I had to try it for myself.

OK, so it's not the most stable, and there are still a couple of little faults here and there, but nothing I can't live with. 


Plus, I know once HTC pull their finger out and finally release Jelly Bean with Sense, I can soon enough flash my HOX back to stock and get the update OTA.

Initial thoughts... Superb. Galaxy S3, eat your heart out! 

The new Google Project Butter really make the quad core Tegra 3 chip work, but wow! It works well. Screen transitions are amazing, instant and as the name suggests. Buttery smooth.

The other feature I've been eagerly awaiting to get my hands on it Google Now. I still haven't managed to get my teeth into it just yet, all I have done is open the app, but as soon as I did, I was amazingly impressed that it displayed local delays across trains, and roads in my local area and asking if I wanted suggestions to alternatives. That's Impressive.

That's about it for now... Just wanted to share my initial experience with Jelly Bean. I'll create a full write-up on it over the coming days once I've managed to get my teeth in to it completely.



Massive thanks to TripNDroid for this update, head over to XDA if you want to try it for yourself.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2... Is It Really Reaching Its Potential?

Because I realise that not everyone needs a 1.5GHz quad-core, all singing, all dancing smart phone with true HD screen and 8MP camera. (I said 'realise'... doesn't mean I don't understand why). But, either way... I thought I'd write a post on what's set to be the benchmark setter for the next tier down... The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is very much a sequel to the original Ace, and is doesn't just stop at the name. The guys at Samsung have obviously taken a note from the previous success of the original in terms of the design, only adding a little more curve to it, making it more rounded.

It does have a more solid a feel than it's predecessor. However, as with most Samsung's, it still feel a little tacky, a bit flimsy and a bit cheap, but the weight and build quality feels about right for a phone that will likely land in the £200-£300 category SIM free.

I think one of the largest letdowns about the new Galaxy Ace 2 is its lack of Ice Cream Sandwich, despite having a dual core 800MHz processor, you'd have thought it being more than up to the job of becoming the baseline model for the new version of Android, and with no current rumours coming from Samsung as to whether the new OS will be emerging on the handset, this could be the end before it begins. That said... the market the new Galaxy Ace 2 is aimed at, quite possibly won't care what version of Android its running.

I think the biggest let down of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is its processing power... it's not what you expect for what could have been the leader of this category of phone. Jumping from app to app, opening trays and using apps isn't as smooth as you would expect (or hope). Which is a surprise considering the 800MHz Dual core should be more than capable of the task.

The camera hasn't changed either. Still 5MP and still with a single LED flash. Again, the speed of the processor lets it down again, with the shutter speed seeming somewhat delayed, meaning you could quite possibly miss that perfect shot you were trying to capture.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is definitely a step in the right direction for a handset in this category – it's, faster, smoother and has slightly improved build quality.
However, I can't help but feel it could have been so much better. 

BUT... I use a HTC One X, so maybe, just maybe... I'm setting my benchmark a little high.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is now available on Three on a variety of tariffs.

Reaching The Mark? The New Samsung Galaxy S3

Right, so I have to get clear off-the-bat, that I'm not a big fan of Samsung phones. As I've said in previous posts, there was something with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that didn't quite 'click' with me and I think that was down to the way Samsung phones handle the front end of Android Ice Cream Sandwich. But, needless to say, I do know that the new Samsung Galaxy S3 will have been eagerly awaited by those Galaxy S2 fans out there, and to those of you that this is aimed at, this could be the phone of the year for you. Samsung's new 'flagship handset' so-to-speak. So to keep this as professional as I can, I will try to be as un-biased as possible and give it the credit it deserves. 

One of the things I really disliked about the Galaxy S2, was it's flat, boring, rectangular shape, almost without any curves whatsoever. Samsung have ditched this, and opted for a more oval shaped approach, very much like the Galaxy Nexus. (Which I have to say, is a very pretty phone), and lets be fair... What your phone looks like, is becoming more and more important when choosing it. So already, Samsung have got a +1 in my books for the looks of the Galaxy S3. It's also considerably bigger than its predecessor, the S2. 4.8 inch corner to corner, JUST slightly larger than my HTC One X, making it one of the largest smartphones on the market. Obviously no where near the size of the Samsung Galaxy Note... but that's just ridiculous :P

Another interesting feature coming from Samsung with the S3, is that you can now get it in either white or blue... That's a new one... I can't say I've seen many blue phones about. This will add somewhat a distinction to the handset when stood around on the train, bus stop, or wherever you are when looking at what phone the person next to you is using. You'll easily be able to identify that it's a Galaxy S3.

Following in the Galaxy Nexus' footprint (and in keeping up with the trend), the new Galaxy S3 is also has a true HD screen, matching the HTC One X's 1280 x 720, although the S3 uses Super AMOLED screen, whereas the HTC One X uses Super LCD 2. I'm sure there will be some uber boffins out there that will correct me on this, but to me, the truth is that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between all these technologies, as both theses screens are superb.

The Galaxy S3 comes with an 8-megapixel camera, which is the same resolution as last year's Galaxy S2. Although It might not have increased the pixel count, it does have some new and quite cool features, including one of my favourites from the Galaxy Nexus, which was its ability to capture a shot the split second you hit the shutter button, with no lag whatsoever, thus making sure you NEVER miss a shot, as well as other common features such as face and smile detection.

The S3 packs a powerful quad-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz (not quite the 1.5GHz of the HTC One X - but what's 0.1GHz between friends), which should make it more than capable when playing high-resolution video and graphically demanding games. However, I have noticed with the HTC One X, that as phones get more powerful, the apps and games that are released are equally becoming more demanding, making it un-noticeable that you are using a phone with just as much (or in some cases) more power than  your home PC or laptop. But I suppose, that was to be expected. Needless to say, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is definitely up there with the big boys when it comes to processing power.

All the usual toys are packed into the S3 too, such as Samsung Beam (S Beam), which works very similar to the NFC features on HTC and other android phones, allowing you to instantly pass data from one phone to another, only this time, as apposed to going over NFC, S Beam uses wifi, making it slightly faster (if that's possible).

I think the newest toy to come with the Galaxy S3 is the new S Voice... a strike back at Apple's Siri. Siri well and truly stole the majority of the limelight in the aftermath of the iPhone 4S launch: It could be said, that the iPhone 4S was marketed almost exclusively for it’s voice assistant feature. But what the people loved, more than actually productive stuff like scheduling appointments or sending texts, were the more... random commands (some of which are admittedly hilarious), such as telling Siri 'I love you' and asking 'where is the best place to hide a body?'. Each one coming back with a witty answer, such as 'but we barely know each other' and listing places such as local tips, morgues and rivers. But now it's Samsung's turn. In addition to initiating calls, S Voice can wake the phone, request songs, send emails and text messages, use the calendar app, adjust the volume, capture photos, snooze the alarm and enquire about the weather, making Siri old news. For now, Samsung says this feature will support eight languages, including, among others, Spanish, German, Korean and American / British English.

In Summary, it would seem that there's not a great deal of change with the Galaxy S3, other than upgrading all the major components... but, with the S2 being such a huge success, there wasn't a great deal to change other than bringing it in to the current (ever changing) times. And although I won't be rushing out to get my hands on one, I'm confident it will be the success that the Galaxy S2 was last year.

HTC One X - 1 Week In

Right... as you will have no doubt gathered by now, I'm a bit of a geek, and love my techie things. Especially mobile phones and as I mentioned in my second post, I recently changed my Nexus for a HTC One X. I'm now a week into using it and thought (as many have) I would write a review on my thoughts, expectations and opinions of what I think to be HTC's greatest achievement to date.

Usually at this point, a week in to using a new mobile phone, I would have something to niggle about, something that just wasn't quite right. Because like a lot of men... I'm never happy, never satisfied. But... I can honestly say, with the HTC One X, this isn't the case. OK, so if I really wanted to be fussy, there are a couple of teeny weeny little things, but these are just things I'm finding for the sake of finding something. But I'll come onto these later.

First Impressions

I think the first thing you notice about the HTC One X is how well built it feels. Almost on par with the iPhone 4(s), only difference being you can feel confident that if you were to drop the One X, it wouldn't shatter into a million pieces, which is the feeling I always had with my iPhone.

 I've read some reviews that have slated the single piece, polycarbonate body, and lack of access to the battery, but I actually like this idea. Makes the phone feel much more solid and reliable. I've also read about people not being happy that you can't get access to the memory card, or add any kind of expansion to it... Really?? It's already 32Gb... What more do you want? I mean, I'm a huge music fan, and have a HUGE collection of music on my phone, and that's only taking up 20Gb of space, which leaves with with plenty more for other things. Its not like I want to store numerous films on there or more music that I can listen to in a week. There's just no need for it.

The Screen

'Amazing'... That's quite simply the only word that can be used to explain the display on the HTC One X... the resolution is second to non, it's almost as tho the screen is floating on top of the glass and is crystal clear. It's responsive too, but I suppose that's to be expected coming from what, for the moment, is the worlds most powerful mobile processor. The Tegra 3, quad core chip is definitely setting the bar here, and wow, what a bar it is to reach. I've not yet come across a situation where the processor starts to fail, or lag... It's seamlessly jumps from app to app, opening and closing windows, files, apps, whatever you ask it to do, it does it within a fraction of a second and amazingly smooth.

Whilst we're on the subject of 'switching from app to app'... one of the little things I mentioned above, about being silly little niggles for the sake of finding them. One of the things I have noticed with the HTC One X, is how using the 'recent apps' button, doesn't actually show you the apps in their open state... it shows you a screen shot of them, and selecting them, zooms in on the screen shot, and then loads the app as apposed to showing the actual app and zooming into that. Sounds strange, I know, and not the easiest thing to explain without showing it on the actual handset. But when using the same feature on the Nexus, it was the live app that was shown, and selecting it would instantly jump back into the app. Whereas now, there is a millisecond of a delay as the phone switches from the screen shot, to the live app. Again, not an issue to discourage anyone at all from the HTC One X. It's just another one of those things that you would kinda expect 'not' to see from such a high end device.

Camera

I'm a huge photography fan... and although I'm by far no David Bailey, I can take some pretty good shots, and like to know that my phones camera isn't going to let me down when the perfect moment for a great shot passes by. The HTC One X definitely lives up to the mark on this one also... Similar to a lot of smart phones out there now, you are able to access the camera straight from the unlock screen. However, unlike most smart phones, which use the main processor to handle the image taking tasks. The HTC One X uses a new ImageSense processor, a dedicated chip only for the camera. This makes the One X camera amazingly fast, whether it’s the focusing time or the shot to shot time. 

It also has an awesome quick burst mode, which although is pretty quick, isn’t as fast as the machine gun sound the phone makes when you use it, which leads you to believe you have actually taken more shots that you have. That said, it's great to capture those actions shots, when you're not quite sure when to press the button. With the One X, you simple press and hold the shutter button and the phone does the rest. allegedly, it can take up to 99 shots in a minute, although I'm not sure why you would want to.

I'm not really big on taking video's so can't really comment on the video recording capabilities of the One X, but I've read reviews that have raved about this just as much as its still image capturing ability. There is a nice feature in the playback however, which allows you to take stills straight from the video. Which I'm sure comes in quite handy.

Music

Now this is probably one of the highest things up on my list of important factors of a smart phone. Its music playing capabilities, purely because, as mentioned above, I'm a huge music fan and the majority of the time, can be found listening to my music wherever I may be... Usually on my commute to and from work. Music playback on the Nexus was a huge let down. Not only was the max volume far too low, but its equaliser was also pretty poor and the bass was non existent. Even through my  Beats earphones, my 'Drum & Bass' and 'DubStep' were more like 'Drum & .......' and 'TinStep'. Which was really disappointing considering this was supposed to be Google's flagship device.

The HTC One X however, is a different beast all together. I suppose this comes from the Beats by Dre processor tucked away in that shell, although I've never used another Dre handset so couldn't comment. The HTC One X tho is amazing. This is the first handset where I haven't constantly had my volume turned up to max, purely because on max, the music would be deafening... The bass is also top notch, and even through my cheap JVC earphones (the Beats have died) the music quality is crisp and clear.

It's a nice interface too, easy to use, fast to respond and has to neat little features in it, including the ability to download album art, fetch additional info on the artist and / or album via SoundHorn as well as the ability to share what you are listening to straight onto your favourite social network.

Overall

I think it's pretty obvious from the above that I am over the moon with the new HTC One X, and am pretty confident that its going to be on top of the 'smart phone league table' for some time. From reading previews of the new Galaxy S3 also, I don't think that's going to be much threat either. It would appear that HTC are making a comeback with one hell of a punch and with the HTC One X, they are definitely re-setting all the bars for the likes of Samsung and Apple to try and reach.

Clash Of The Titans

OK... So, I'm a bit of a geek, and a wannabe techie, especially when it comes to mobile phones; or should I say Smart Phones. Small pocket sized PC's which, I'm sure most of us couldn't live without. I know I couldn't. 

In this ever changing marketplace (or should I say 'battleground') There are 3 big names to pick from. Apple, Android and Windows. Now I've never really given Window's phones the time of day and don't really have any interest in them. OK, so I've had a quick play with a Nokia Lumia in my local Phones4U, but it's never been a purchase consideration. So for me... that leaves just 2. 

Over the last 9 months or so, I've had 3 phones... An iPhone 4s, a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and now, a HTC One X... all of which I are really amazing phones and although there will be people out there who will agree, disagree with some of the things I will go on to say in this post, I have finally realised which, for me, is the best phone / operating system out there.

When the iPhone 4s was launched and my HTC Desire was on its last legs (literally) I decided that it was time to give in and go with the crowd. Everyone I knew had or wanted an iPhone. Everywhere you went, you saw people using them. Which I think is one of the reasons I didn't want one. I didn't want to follow the crowd. But, peer pressure n'all... I went and got one. 

As soon as you receive the box that the phone comes in, you are immediately aware of the quality, care and attention that goes in to apple products... OK, so there is no care or consideration in to the environment and the amount of tree's that are chopped down to form the neat, hard wearing cardboard box that it comes in, nor the amount of ink used to print the immensely high res logo on the box... but who cares when you're spending £500 on a phone (if you were to buy one outright). You want quality, you want shiny, and you want to feel that it was money worth spent. And that's definitely a feeling you get when you buy any Apple product. 

And, the quality doesn't stop at the box (thankfully)... the phone is extremely pretty, well built, and heavy ("Heavy is good. Heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work, you can always hit him with it." - Name that film??)... Even the key that's used to eject the perfectly formed aluminium tray for the sim card is a well-machined piece of aluminium.

But that's enough about the looks... what is it like to use? Very simple... almost too simple. In fact, I think the biggest let down to the iPhone is its greatest asset. Its too simple, and too 'does what it says on the tin'. As my girlfriend, Sally said to me the other night. The iPhone lacks that 'fun factor'. But I'll come on to that later.

There's no doubt, that in terms of smoothness and responsiveness, you will never beat Apple products. That's what sets them above the rest. Its flawless. The slightest flick of the screen or tap on an icon seamlessly launches apps, without the slightest of delay.

2 important things for me when it comes to a mobile is its music capabilities and its camera quality, both of which the iPhone lives up to the mark. In terms of music, as you would expect, the iPhone works perfectly. I found it really easy to organise my albums, create playlists and play them to a high standard. All through an attractive interface. But a phone which follows in the success of the iPod, you wouldn't expect anything else.

The camera also lives up to the mark, and producing some amazing shots. Although, as with a lot of phones, night time shots weren't up to much.

So why did I want to change? I hear you ask... well, as I mentioned earlier... the iPhones biggest flaw, is its biggest asset. Its too simple and easy to use. Its too... 'does what it says on the tin'... I wanted a phone I could mess about with, access the folder structures, change things, animated wallpapers, fancy widgets, etc.... everything that the iPhone lacks. 

So, around the same time that Android released ICS and the Galaxy Nexus, I decided that it was time for a change. I have always been a fan of Android, and Google. Any one that names their operating systems after deserts gets my vote. Samsung just haven't got it quite right. Not really sure what it was about the Nexus, I could never quite put my finger on it, just didn't make me smile. So, wasn't long after selling my 4s and buying a new Nexus that I realised that as much as I missed Android, (from having my Desire). What I missed the most was HTC's front end to it, Sense. 

Silly little things like the weather animation you get when you unlock the screen. The pretty clock widget on the home screen. All of which, I'm sure you can download an app for the Nexus to do, but it wouldn't be the same. It would be a copy... And copies (just like watches) are never as good as the original.

Yes the Nexus is a nice phone. The screen resolution is amazing... Extremely crisp and clear, more so than the 4s, but every time I looked at it, I knew there was something missing from it. 

I think I had the Nexus for 3 months in total, until HTC released their new flagship phone... The HTC One X... After a couple of visits to Phones4U to play around with one I realised that I needed this in my life... Totally 'shabatronic' (a word my girlfriend and her mate have just randomly given me and said I have to fit into my blog... but actually figure it fits quite well). But anyway... The HTC One X... What a phone.

Top marks to HTC for releasing, what I personally think, has to be one of (if not the) best phone currently on the market....

... Now to wait for the iPhone 5 ;)