Tech and Gadgets by Peter Bite (June21)
This week I have reviewed the new Samsung Galaxy S 3 mobile phone which was released Thursday 31-May-2012. It is available on various plans from the telcos Telstra, Vodafone, Virgin and Optus. JB Hi-Fi is selling it as an unlocked handset for $777.
There are a lot of new good features with the S3.
The first thing you notice about the S3 when you pick it up is how light it is. Even though it’s only 7gm lighter than an iPhone 4S it feels lighter because of the thinner chasis. The interface is familiar to both Android and iOS users and buttons such as volume, the home, on/off and the ear phone dock are all in predictable places.
A feature that blew me away, even though it was already in the Galaxy 2S, was the swipe writing keyboard for text and email messages. How does it know what word you are trying to write when you swipe this way and that over the keys? Amazing.
Another good feature is Smart Stay which keeps the screen awake while the user is looking at the screen. It sleeps when you sleep or when you are not looking at it.
Direct Call enables you to call the person you are texting or whose email you are reading simply by putting the phone to your ear. Very handy.
Smart Alert is a notification feature that makes the phone vibrate when you pick it up if there have been any missed calls or messages while you were away.
A GPS navigation app called NAVIGON is included with the phone which uses preloaded AU and NZ maps, no data charges apply with FREE map updates every three months for two years.
The phone’s photo software features face recognition, much like Apple’s iPhoto, and it allows you to tag the people in your photos and link them to their social network site to keep track of their status.
The phone comes with a stereo FM radio which saves you streaming it over the internet.
There is USB connectivity via microUSB v2.0 which enables to use the phone as a portable storage device.
S Voice is the S3’s version of Apple’s Siri voice command technology. In the tests I did I found the iPhone to be faster at responding to the voice commands but sometimes the S3 did a better job than Siri and understanding me. The S Voice popped up an annoying ‘Say Hi Galaxy to wake me up’ message after every speaking command, and I couldn’t find how to turn that off.
The S3 comes with dual-band wi-fi, meaning it can be one of the first devices around to connect to 5GHz wi-fi channels, thus not having to connect to the much busier 2GHz channels that most current wi-fi networks are running.
The new MacBook Pro
This week saw the launch of Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops. Some of the features are need mentioning.
Retina display
Apple has extended it’s Retina screen technology it developed originally for the iPhone and iPad to the MacBook Pro. It composes screen images from 5 million pixels. That’s 3 million more than the best HD TV on the market at the moment in case you are wondering. It’s 2880 x 1800 resolution displays a sharpness of image that easily outstrips a 60 inch HD TV at 1920 x 1080 resolution.
Flash Storage
The new MacBook comes with Flash technology storage, moving away from the SATA standard of previous generations. The flash technology improves performance in multiple functions such as opening files, copying files and booting up, not to mention the video and photo processing improvements. Apple claims that boot up is 2.4 times faster on the new Mac compared to the old. Final Cut Pro users will see a 1.3 times increase in speed for common tasks.
Your issues
Send your technology queries to me please. I will answer readers questions about technology or gadgets and the best questions will be published here for the benefit of all. If you need any help with your technology needs, just email me at peterbitecomputing@gmail.com .
