Stephan Paukner :: syslog

I’m adding to my phone history:

A look back at the Galaxy Nexus

I only noticed recently that this phone never had a “Samsung” tag at all; while Samsung indeed was the hardware manufacturer, that device simply was a Google phone.

Surprisingly, I was less into rooting/modding with this phone than I was with my first Android phone, the Motorola Milestone, although the pureness and openness of the Nexus devices was dedicated to such purposes. Maybe because Android 4 finally featured a lot innately: Useful home screen, editing contact groups & birthdays, taking screenshots, mobile data usage control, unlocking by face recognition, panorama camera mode, rich notifications, better search, better messaging. I only rooted it once it was clear there won’t be any further updates; I did so to be able to use advanced anti-theft features. But now it’s beginning to bug me that the hardware (RAM) is getting old (small); the phone is lagging a lot if the uptime reaches one week. I had to turn off various useful but RAM-eating services, like, live wallpapers. Well, it’s 2½ years old.

Mentioning Android features, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Google Now experience becomes the actual core in the future, making devices smart and active companions that exactly know about their users’ habits.

... and the AppIe ¡Phone

Yes, I used an ¡Phone 4 for some months. I didn’t find it that intuitive like it was always praised; e.g., where do you find email settings? No, not at all in the email app, but in the system settings! Also, the ¡Phone has no idea of the concept of widgets or background services. There is no such thing as a third-party keyboard with swipe gestures and text prediction, or a service that changes settings according to detected current conditions. AppIe physically seals phones and notebooks, tries to trick users into buying entirely new devices by making component upgrades expensive or impossible. Yet, ¡People only seem to care about the smoothness of animations. Whoever buys AppIe, it’s their own fault.

Coming up: Samsung Galaxy S5

I somehow drifted away from praising Google’s “pure Android” experience, although they drive core innovations. Having used my first “real” Samsung device, the NotePRO tablet, for some time, I came to appreciate the AppIe-like benefit (what!!1) of an interlinked environment: Samsung devices are “magically” in touch with each other—I can remote control both my TV and my sat receiver/HDD recorder/Blu-ray player (but, strangely enough, not my microwave), I can stream pictures, videos and even my whole UI screen to my TV over the freakin’ air. I mean, totally on their purpose and without me “hacking” anything. It’s no longer Android or Google integration that’s exciting to me, it’s the Samsung experience. I don’t mind TouchWiz as long as they have a mission behind it. (OTOH, the Samsung store praises cheap and foolish third-party apps exclusively, it’s totally pointless to search for apps there, IMO.)

I notice, Samsung is the new Nokia: Every jerk has got one—people who don’t know how to mute their phones or change the standard sounds. I’m the next in line!

... and the Gear Fit

In addition, I’m leering at Samsung’s health-centric smartwatch Gear Fit, as it perfectly integrates into their (or my) device environment.

Do they also build toothbrushes?

Shortly after I had published my first post in this series, rumors about a large (12.2”) high-resolution (2K) Note-branded Samsung Android tablet turned up. I followed those rumors closely until the sudden reveal of the Galaxy NotePRO at CES a few days ago!

This device finally seems to fit my original requirements, tailored around “active” reading:

• High-resolution screen for perfect font rendering (247 ppi); LCD in favor of e-ink due to versatility,
• Large screen for displaying A4-/Letter-sized or magazine pages in (almost) their original size,
• Dedicated stylus input for on-screen and in-document annotations in form of free-hand text, graphs, arrows, and formulas.

I still get opinions that even 10” tablets are too large & heavy and 8” are about right; anything larger ought to be a MS Windows 8 notebook. But MS does not play a role in my personal computing setup. I really do care about the points listed above.

A different point is software updates. I'm an update geek regarding Android, but in this case my focus is on the stylus software features (consider search by hand-drawn shape—yes, it works!), so I don't mind Samsung's TouchWiz UI or the possible lack of OS updates, especially since Samsung has finally fixed some long criticized issues. And it's based on the still fresh Android 4.4 after all, while my Galaxy Nexus is now stuck to 4.3.

Originally, I wanted such a device for a better workflow of reading scientific publications for work. Too bad my job has meanwhile changed... twice. But I will still make use of its features for “active” reading (annotating) of math/CS literature and for conceptual work, as well as for image editing.