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Hello
I just want to collect your guys' opinions regarding the Snap and Exy version of SGS4.
(This is why I am posting this thread on AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile forums, to gather as much as possible)
Since I have partial Korean background, I do catch up with reviews made by Korean forums and their users. (all of them got Exy)
The main problem that was pointed out was overheating problem. Is there any Snap user who's experiencing this issue? (apparently, you have to run hardcore processes for more than a hour)
I heard that Sammy chose to supply 70% of their SGS 4 to the globe with Snap and the reason was that I actually found out the overheating problem later during their development and could not manage to implement all of their productions with Exy. (Despite the fact that different regions have different frequencies. But even so?)
This made me to think that SGS 4 did not receive enough attention that it deserved from Sammy this time. Look, let's be generous and understand that the design belongs to everyone's preferences. In the early half of this year, it's competitors released devices that were extraordinary, something that we couldn't see from them for long time (e.g. Xpe Z, htc ONE and Lumia 920).
And no, I am not a Samsung fan-boy since I used both iOS (iPhone 4) and Android (Xperia P, V) for almost equal amount of time. But honestly? I think Sammy is heading in the wrong way these days. The image I used to perceive from Sammy's flagship models until now was that they are massacring spec phones that heightens the standards of all android phones. And this time? well..., (only AP-wise I'm talking) I just think it's better version of htc ONE or Optimus G Pro (which has not been released yet). I didn't care about their design and UI, or them not respecting copy-rights and I seriously doubt that there's a single person who buys SGS series for the sole reason of its brilliant design or TouchWiz. I did not expect them to come up with concepts like "Designed for Humans" or "Life Companion" and did not even want them to. Yet, these days, I feel like Samsung is stepping down from its throne of the hardware kingdom. Why... why... and why do they divide their "flagship" into different AP models without any hesitation?
This became a concern for me recently because my dad had an opportunity to buy either the Snap or Exy model. And since the Snap offered to at price that was $200 cheaper than the Exy, he obviously bought the Snap. HE is a Korean, so he has this Samsung pride(?). Whenever he meets up with his family or friends, he tells them how good his SGS 4 is (exactly like the commercials). As a son, I don't find this annoying at all and I really do like seeing my old man being proud of his product. And if this phone was for me, I would be quite happy to use any of these two models. But because of the given situations, I sometimes get a feeling that Samsung is deceiving their old followers (even if they do not intend to) and makes me little uncomfortable.
I know the Snap model performed better in GPU tests but if Samsung decides to update their Exy model with a firmware that allows MP processing, I think the result are going to be dramatically changed. The gap between these two models are quite severe in their CPU tests.
Would they be ditching their Snap users just like this??? I am indeed quite worried. It has not been a year yet after the release of their highly-acclaimed SGS 3, so maybe, they should have delayed the launching date of SGS 4 to implement Exy in all their products.
I guess my grumbles got horribly long in this thread and as I am a person who makes a lot of mistakes, please feel free to correct me
reanew said:
Hello
I just want to collect your guys' opinions regarding the Snap and Exy version of SGS4.
(This is why I am posting this thread on AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile forums, to gather as much as possible)
Since I have partial Korean background, I do catch up with reviews made by Korean forums and their users. (all of them got Exy)
The main problem that was pointed out was overheating problem. Is there any Snap user who's experiencing this issue? (apparently, you have to run hardcore processes for more than a hour)
I heard that Sammy chose to supply 70% of their SGS 4 to the globe with Snap and the reason was that I actually found out the overheating problem later during their development and could not manage to implement all of their productions with Exy. (Despite the fact that different regions have different frequencies. But even so?)
This made me to think that SGS 4 did not receive enough attention that it deserved from Sammy this time. Look, let's be generous and understand that the design belongs to everyone's preferences. In the early half of this year, it's competitors released devices that were extraordinary, something that we couldn't see from them for long time (e.g. Xpe Z, htc ONE and Lumia 920).
And no, I am not a Samsung fan-boy since I used both iOS (iPhone 4) and Android (Xperia P, V) for almost equal amount of time. But honestly? I think Sammy is heading in the wrong way these days. The image I used to perceive from Sammy's flagship models until now was that they are massacring spec phones that heightens the standards of all android phones. And this time? well..., (only AP-wise I'm talking) I just think it's better version of htc ONE or Optimus G Pro (which has not been released yet). I didn't care about their design and UI, or them not respecting copy-rights and I seriously doubt that there's a single person who buys SGS series for the sole reason of its brilliant design or TouchWiz. I did not expect them to come up with concepts like "Designed for Humans" or "Life Companion" and did not even want them to. Yet, these days, I feel like Samsung is stepping down from its throne of the hardware kingdom. Why... why... and why do they divide their "flagship" into different AP models without any hesitation?
This became a concern for me recently because my dad had an opportunity to buy either the Snap or Exy model. And since the Snap offered to at price that was $200 cheaper than the Exy, he obviously bought the Snap. HE is a Korean, so he has this Samsung pride(?). Whenever he meets up with his family or friends, he tells them how good his SGS 4 is (exactly like the commercials). As a son, I don't find this annoying at all and I really do like seeing my old man being proud of his product. And if this phone was for me, I would be quite happy to use any of these two models. But because of the given situations, I sometimes get a feeling that Samsung is deceiving their old followers (even if they do not intend to) and makes me little uncomfortable.
I know the Snap model performed better in GPU tests but if Samsung decides to update their Exy model with a firmware that allows MP processing, I think the result are going to be dramatically changed. The gap between these two models are quite severe in their CPU tests.
Would they be ditching their Snap users just like this??? I am indeed quite worried. It has not been a year yet after the release of their highly-acclaimed SGS 3, so maybe, they should have delayed the launching date of SGS 4 to implement Exy in all their products.
I guess my grumbles got horribly long in this thread and as I am a person who makes a lot of mistakes, please feel free to correct me
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@ OP
My taughts about the exynos 8 headed snake and the 4 headed snapdragon is that folks like myself in the USA once again got the stick up our arses. I once pridicted in the SGS3 thread that samsung would do exactly same as with sgs3 which was releaseing a dualcore in usa and quad core in the UK. And they advertise big gs3 quadcore to hype their sale pitch while putting the stick up costomers behind because obviously 90% people dont look at specs of their phone. Well once again its same,gs4 quad in usa while octacore UK. The whole excitement for me was the octacore and their new "big little idea" which was claim to save power consumption etc.
Anyway I own the gs4 snapdragon model now simply because I would have had to stick to 2G speed if I had gotten the exynos model due to lack of band support for network in USA.
The whole overheating thing is not new,the exynos sgs3 and the old snapdragon htc one I had own all over heated despite different cpu when playing games or doing heavy tasks. I also experience it with the gs4 but only while playing games. I must say that it looks like Samsung did spend more time tweaking the governor behavior because on light tasks while multy tasking the cpu dont just jump to the highest frequency as frequently as in their other phones as to consume power unnecessary. But all 4 cores goes online too quickly but at least they go offline fast. So theirs still stuff to be tuned that can dramatically improve cpu efficiency and function.plus wance we get some custom kernels to tweak the voltages of the cpu and gpu it should stop the overheating. Most times over heating is also caused by the cpu frequency ramping up to the highest speed and staying their too long. The snapdragon processor is very fast I must say. Havent had a slowdown since I bought the phone and for stock,battery life is verygood.I could go threw more than a day with medium to light tasks.
Also another thing that Samsung corrected was the oversaturatedness of the screen color which was awfull in the previous sgs3,the brightness of the screen have also improved while in the sunlight compare to the gs3 screen. Thankfully their was Andrelux that released his Perseus kernel in the gs3 section to combat that color problem and everything else I mentioned above plus more. Hopefully their will also be some good dev in the gs4 section to improve user experience. Overall I find the gs4 a decent upgrade weather it have the snapdragon or exynos since samsung corrected and improve upon most things and some that I may have forgot to mention.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Please do not check "Yes this is a question" if you are looking for opinions in General as all Qs are moved to Q&A.
Thanks
Title edited
In the side by side tests I did, the i9500 beat the M919 in every area including the GPU, screen response, UI smoothness, HSPA+ data speeds, etc. As far as the heat is concerned I have read an equal amount of complaints on both forums.
I did this with the ONE X Tegra. Wanted the better processor and got what I wanted. Butt suffered because of the USA Bands.
I WANT the 8 core S4 but here it goes again///// USA bands. So i got the TMO version this time.
Overheating was not a huge deal for me. But it does get quite hot when I'm doing lots of tasks.
I say this alll the time. I want the manufacturers to put out 1 device and then a Chipset with all the bands for all the carriers world wide. Then tell the carriers that they need to suck it up and sell the phone as designed and NO re working it for each carrier. A TRUE world phone.
I feel; the features on a device should be limited by the software per carrier, not the hardware.
Well...the 8 core Exynos is really just 2 quad core processors that don't run simultaneously..so I don't really see the big deal. Also, Exynos development absolutely sucks.
According to Engadget the Exynos bests the Snapdragon in about the same amount of tests as the Snapdragon beats the Exynos. A surprising result of their tests shows that the Snapdragon beats the big.LITTLE architecture in a video playback duration test by about 20%
Sent from my SGH-T889 using XDA Premium HD app
skygear said:
I did this with the ONE X Tegra. Wanted the better processor and got what I wanted. Butt suffered because of the USA Bands.
I WANT the 8 core S4 but here it goes again///// USA bands. So i got the TMO version this time.
Overheating was not a huge deal for me. But it does get quite hot when I'm doing lots of tasks.
I say this alll the time. I want the manufacturers to put out 1 device and then a Chipset with all the bands for all the carriers world wide. Then tell the carriers that they need to suck it up and sell the phone as designed and NO re working it for each carrier. A TRUE world phone.
I feel; the features on a device should be limited by the software per carrier, not the hardware.
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Thats true,the Hardware should be manufacture as it was advertise and intended. Most people would purchase a smartphone or other device specifically from samsung and do not know anything about the hardware background specifications. Only that "yaayy I have the GS4". Also the carriers such as tmobile for example leaves out the CPU specifics in the list of hardware specs. So its a easy advantage to just slap just about anything in a phone and sell it for same price in the big usa. The dual core gs3 sold for same price as the UK quadcore gs3,infact it sold better in usa if I rember.
lowandbehold said:
Well...the 8 core Exynos is really just 2 quad core processors that don't run simultaneously..so I don't really see the big deal. Also, Exynos development absolutely sucks.
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You should readup here which explains more about the 8 Core exynos.
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=39172453
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
mamba720027 said:
Thats true,the Hardware should be manufacture as it was advertise and intended. Most people would purchase a smartphone or other device specifically from samsung and do not know anything about the hardware background specifications. Only that "yaayy I have the GS4". Also the carriers such as tmobile for example leaves out the CPU specifics in the list of hardware specs. So its a easy advantage to just slap just about anything in a phone and sell it for same price in the big usa. The dual core gs3 sold for same price as the UK quadcore gs3,infact it sold better in usa if I rember.
You should readup here which explains more about the 8 Core exynos.
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=39172453
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
Read up on the fact that it is currently not utilizing the 8 cores? Or the fact that if it does use the 8 cores it will not be optimized anyway so it will be basically worthless? Tell me what to read up on. Oh, it might make your benchmarks higher..sweet bro.
lowandbehold said:
Read up on the fact that it is currently not utilizing the 8 cores? Or the fact that if it does use the 8 cores it will not be optimized anyway so it will be basically worthless? Tell me what to read up on. Oh, it might make your benchmarks higher..sweet bro.
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Im not going into pointless arguments with you. You clearly have not looked at the linkd I refered you too because then you would not be asking all the useless questions youre asking me.
This is why their is always pointless arguments,simply because reading is not emphasize enough on XDA to educate people on the topic before they begin to criticise and pout senseless discussions.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
I personally have both and the i9500 runs laps around the M919. The M919 is laggy as a mofo, + the bloat (removable or not), + international will always see updates 1st. Once the Little.Big architecture is full understood it;s game over. We do have 8 cores and kernels are being worked on to enable all 8. The m919 will always have 1/2 that, period.
KillaHurtz said:
I personally have both and the i9500 runs laps around the M919. The M919 is laggy as a mofo, + the bloat (removable or not), + international will always see updates 1st. Once the Little.Big architecture is full understood it;s game over. We do have 8 cores and kernels are being worked on to enable all 8. The m919 will always have 1/2 that, period.
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You sound like a broken record. I own the M919 running stock and I have yet to experience any lags you mention. For me this is not a competition as which phone is faster,true speed is important but its about the technology behind the makeing and how well it balance in terms of speed and battery. Especially battery performance ,which I think is the reason behind this so call big little architecture samsung have came up with. After all how big are they gonna keep makeing each generation of phones in order to squeeze in a bit more juice into a bigger size battery to run these so call faster more powerfull processors each time a new device comes out, thus the big little thing. If you think about it battery technology have not change since the crack of smartphones and maybe further back but the high demands for speedy more battery hungry chips are in demand each day as productivity increases.
Now I wish I had the octa core to see how it works if any improvement but sadly I dont. From my experience so far with the M919,its very fast cause all 4 core kicks in immediately wether its a small or big task(mean it waste battery),it gets warm to hot too quick while playing games (battery waste again) but the graphics are excellent. Theirs lots of room for improvement on the processor such as a custom kernel to undervolt and regulate the cores to work more efficiently. I randomly left my phone ideling for 24hours and few hours connected to wifi at home and I had a 15% battery drain with about 7mins of use. I had nothing syncing. I think that was good but also can improve with kernel tweaks wance available.
Take note the amount of info I have given you on one device. I didn't just blahh out "m919 is garbage because its slow and I9500 is the fastest **** on the block" unless people just wanna look at benchmarks daily and say "I feel so proud my phone is the fastest ****". It maybe faster yes but right now the software can only function as fast as it was optomize to be if you understand. And I dont know where you get your intell from to pridict product updates and kernel development,im sure their will be kernels and updates available as same with older phones. No one is left out of anything.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
My intel ? seriously bro ? International versions always get updates 1st because the carriers don't have to add all their crap. i have used both in real world environment and the M919 lags on the accuweather live wallpaper from the S3. It's not a comparison of benchmarks, m919 is laggy. You don't have to get all bent because I provided a factual analysis......
KillaHurtz said:
My intel ? seriously bro ? International versions always get updates 1st because the carriers don't have to add all their crap. i have used both in real world environment and the M919 lags on the accuweather live wallpaper from the S3. It's not a comparison of benchmarks, m919 is laggy. You don't have to get all bent because I provided a factual analysis......
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True that if youre waiting on the carrier to release an update its a whole new story but if youre here on xda or aware of the community then you know thats not a problem.
Have you ever taught the Accuweather was optomize N design to run on the S3 flawless. I couldent evin find that wallpaper existance on the playstore.So its prob garbage cause theirs other accuweather live wallpaper available their that works fine.
Im currently running the "Ditalix live wallpaper" which was design for highend devices like the Galaxy S4 and GS3 to look beautiful and run flawless like silk and uses up the largest amount of memory I have ever seen for a wallpaper 256mb in the background,yet no lags. if you were to read the reviews for it on the playstore you would notice it indeed does not work on just any device. So if that can run so good on the M919 I dont see why a low rated Accuweather wallpaper for the old gs3 cannot unless like I said,it was specifically optomize for the gs3 device screen etc. Low fps + low resolution scenario. Anything will lag and look crappy with that case.
This is why prople are misleaded sometimes because a few people screwup and they wisper something is not good cause they had such a terrible experience when its not the device fault.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Well when you actually have both in hand, your input will be more valuable. It's not just the live wallpaper from the G2 (that's actually where it originates) but simple menu actions, retuning to the home screen, etc. You can say all you want, but without proof from both sides if is YOU that is the broken record. Nobody said the M919 was a terrible experience either, I'm not bashing the device. This thread is for comparisons against the i9500 octa, to which I see significant differences. Are they monumental? No. Do they exist? Yes. For people where the price is close enough to have a choice, this may actually help them make a better, educated decision based of real world experience. I was in the market for either the M919 or i9500 and snagged the octa for the same price I would have paid for the T-Mobile version. I get no LTE in my area and the HSPA+ is plenty for me, so it was an easy choice. About the updates you seem to be missing key information, for carrier branded units the updates have to be leaked, tweaked, modified and ripped from other models 1st if you don't want to wait. International users will always see these 1st as they roll out from Samsung directly.
Another day, another ****-measuring contest...
They're both top-tier devices. There are only a handful of comparable handsets, and the only ones I can think of that're clearly more powerful are the (China-only) Medfield-core Lenovo K-series.
The Exynos will probably be the winner between i9500/i9505, WHEN/IF the driver issues are worked out, but till then the best device is whichever one's in your hand.
KillaHurtz said:
Well when you actually have both in hand, your input will be more valuable. It's not just the live wallpaper from the G2 (that's actually where it originates) but simple menu actions, retuning to the home screen, etc. You can say all you want, but without proof from both sides if is YOU that is the broken record. Nobody said the M919 was a terrible experience either, I'm not bashing the device. This thread is for comparisons against the i9500 octa, to which I see significant differences. Are they monumental? No. Do they exist? Yes. For people where the price is close enough to have a choice, this may actually help them make a better, educated decision based of real world experience. I was in the market for either the M919 or i9500 and snagged the octa for the same price I would have paid for the T-Mobile version. I get no LTE in my area and the HSPA+ is plenty for me, so it was an easy choice. About the updates you seem to be missing key information, for carrier branded units the updates have to be leaked, tweaked, modified and ripped from other models 1st if you don't want to wait. International users will always see these 1st as they roll out from Samsung directly.
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Now you seem to be makeing more sense and posting a proper comment so people can actually make an intelligent decision. Unlike your first 2 posts.
Youre lucky to have good hsdpa+ in your area running I9500 cause when I had the international galaxy s3 tmobile had just made the transition over to support international bandwith for hsdpa+ and the speed and signal was terrible in my area. Had to use 2g speeds. Thats the reason I did not purchase the international model of the galaxy s4 this round,i dont care for lte,3G speed or 4G which I now have would do it for me. Im dont regret my purchase of the M919 cause so far my experience is good.
The only thing I could say to folks looking to buy in the USA and leaning towards the M919 is if possible stay away from tmobile and buy it non carrier branded from a reputable source if the price is right. Tmobile sells the phone at full price if you wanna avoid the monthly down payment but despite buying it at full price and already haveing a contract with them, they sell you it with a contract plus new number as part of the whole deal which is totally ridiculous. Then u have to go threw the idiotic process of canceling it wance u receive your device.
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This may come off as a silly question, but I haven't seen much in regard to whether or not the note tablet will see the improved features of Note 4. I'd like to think the tablet line up will see the new features with s-pen and whatnot but has anyone heard anything yet?
Thanks in advanced!
@evilpenguin123 its a good question but my guess would be no.
They need to differentiate the different devices so the features on Note 4 will probably be released on the next Note 10.1. Just as I dont expect them to improve the Note 3 features I wouldnt expect them to improve our tablets. Its so they make people want to upgrade.
No. The N2 didn't receive N3 improvements. The N10.1-12 didn't receive N10.1-14 improvements. And the N10.1-14 didn't get all the Pro improvements.
thats why samsung suck.
I have/had a good time with Samsung devices the past 3 years (sgs3 and note 10.1-14) but now it's time to move on. The note is still absolutely amazing for handwriting (I use it every day for work - I'm a teacher) but my next phone will be the Sony z3 compact and I really hope some other manufacturer will make a stylus note taking tablet in the next years. Samsung pretty much owns the market atm.
Their update process and software is just a mess and all over the place. There is soo much potential with Samsung. But it always feels like they put all their energy into one device and make something great but instead of improving upon that they scrap everything and make something totally different and forget about the older devices.
I wish apple would make android devices :silly:
i think developers will port it to our Note
but sadly we dont have much developers here :/
clouds5 said:
I have/had a good time with Samsung devices the past 3 years (sgs3 and note 10.1-14) but now it's time to move on.
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Click to collapse
Here's my take and it's a bit long.
We've reached the point where each generational device update cycle is becoming less meaningful. The M7>M8, SGS4>SGS5, and now the N3>N4 are all evolutionary. It's no one's fault, smartphones and tablets perform certain functions and you reach a point where those functions can only be improved/enhanced so far; be it via h/w or s/w. I have a N3 which I gladly upgraded from an N2 for because of the move from 720P>1080P, much improved performance, a better form factor, and Samsung's latest s/w (EG: S Note). Looking at the N4 the QHD display is a waste (over 300ish PPI the human eye can't register additional detail) and it's larger and heavier than the N3 with the same size display. It's more powerful but the display's going to take its toll and truthfully, how powerful does a smartphone need to be? I could care less about a heart rate monitor, a metal surround vs. plastic, and "enhanced S Pen feel." I'd like OIS and the better camera but outside of that there's nothing really compelling.
Some of Samsung's newer app versions are worse than their predecessors. I'll give you an example. AT&T did something to their network that borked S Voice for N3 users. That means if you have a Gear its voice capabilities become useless. With some screwing around with the APN and using the SGS5 version of S Voice folks got it working again. The amount of functionality removed from S Voice in the SGS5 version to make it "cleaner and flatter" is staggering. Driving mode got stripped of half its features and the ability to use "Hi Galaxy" from anywhere in the device was removed. A security update Samsung pushed fixed older S Voice versions and I couldn't wait to go back. So don't assume "new" S Note, My Files, Scrapbook, et. al., are better just because they're "new."
In terms of upgraded s/w Samsung's failure to keep their apps updated across older devices is actually going to start to hurt them. The N3 and N10.1-14 are really close in terms of app compatibility and versioning across Samsung's proprietary apps (EG: S Note, My Files, Scrapbook). I don't want to get a N4 with new and different versions of the same apps I use on my N10.1-14. It would be a pain in the ass to bounce back and forth between them not to mention potential incompatibility (EG: Current S Note being incompatible with earlier versions). If you think about it, the N10.1-14 is Samsung's "last great tablet." The 4.4 s/w is solid as a rock, M-UX is causing performance issues on the Pro's and S' which we avoided, AMOLED sucks on whites battery wise making it a productivity user's nightmare, we have all the stock widgets (EG: Mail, S Planner) which got shoved in to M-UX for those that have it, and S-800/Exynos 5420 is powerful enough to support a 2,560 x 1,600 display.
So my next device isn't going to be a N4. It's going to be a SM-P605M from Brazil so I can use it with AT&T's LTE bands. Samsung will eventually release a N10.1-15. It'll most likely have a 4K display ( http://www.phonearena.com/news/Is-Samsung-going-to-launch-a-4K-tablet-by-the-end-of-2014_id56929 ) which won't provide much improvement (the human eye being the lowest common denominator) but will suck tremendous amounts of battery and tax the enhanced CPU/GPU that it'll come with making it not much faster or even slower than the N10.1-14. If the N10.1-15 is AMOLED it's either going to gain a ton of weight accommodating a bigger battery or end up getting crappy battery life compared to the N10.1-14's LCD display. I'm guessing the N10.1-14 will get Android 5.0 but pretty much keep the current s/w outside the OS. Fine by me. That would be my preference knowing my N3 is never going to see the N4's improvements; the latter most likely being a good thing.
So as someone who rode the upgrade train with every generation of phone or tablet I'm done. If the N10.1-15 turns out to be compelling and and has the same Samsung s/w as the N4 maybe I'll get both. But that's a big maybe and I'm in no rush. For the first time I'm actually happy and comfortable exactly where I am.
BarryH_GEG said:
Here's my take and it's a bit long
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So as someone who rode the upgrade train with every generation of phone or tablet I'm done. If the N10.1-15 turns out to be compelling and and has the same Samsung s/w as the N4 maybe I'll get both. But that's a big maybe and I'm in no rush. For the first time I'm actually happy and comfortable exactly where I am.
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I completely agree with you. As I said Samsung doesn't seem to try and improve upon things they try to sell as many devices as possible every year. And they feel the best way to do that is by pushing as many "new" things in newer models as possible.
Every year the new galaxy HAS to be bigger. The s3 was still usable with one (big) hand in most situations but the s4 and s5 had to be bigger. That's their logic: it has to be bigger faster and more pixels every year. All the numbers have to be bigger on the spec sheet. There aren't any top smartphones for single hand use anymore (except sony z3 compact) and I personally don't know anybody that really wants such big devices. And then they do they go for the note anyway! Literally everyone I know has either a "mini" version from samsung/htc/sony, the iPhone or a note 2/3.
And yeah smartphones are "figured out". We know exactly what we can do with them and where the limits are, which have been reached. Now they need to improve battery life and software and usability. Simple specs won't cut it anymore. Another reason why I go for Sony with my next device.
In terms of tablets, again they need to be as light as possible and as comfortable to carry and use on the go as they can get. I'm actually fine with the note 10.1-2014. I have very little to complain except the way Samsung handles upgrades and software Dev.
It's why i said i want an iPhone with android. I don't like IOS but they have great hardware and they usually use their brain when building their devices instead of just making all the numbers bigger for the specs sheet.
http://www.androidauthority.com/note-4-64-bit-32-bit-android-l-536280/
SPOILER ALERT: I found this article to be extremely helpful and information. It completely clarified every question I had over Samsung's confusing (and IMO bizarre) decision to release a single phone with chipsets that vary to the degree that one is 64 bit capable and the other is not only still just 32 bit capable but performs (slightly) worse that the clearly superior and more desirable Exynos 5 Ocata 5433 64 bit capable variant even current, solely x86 architecture based Android across the board. This article clarified that decision to the degree that is made absolutely zero sense to is merely "unwise". Despite the info in the article answering that and other seemingly "WTF were they thinking?" questions re: design decisions made re: hardware differences in the two variants leading to variations in specs that further increase the desirability of the variant unavailable in America (i.e. the version I wouldn't even have an option to obtain if I were to "upgrade" via the (by far) most sensible method: T-mobile JUMP. Topics (and a link to an article which I'm about to check out) regarding difference of the perception of concerns related to future-proof-ness of the Qualcomm variant are also addressed. I was surprised by the concluding paragraph, in which they make a recommendation for or against the phone, and won't spoil it, since the clarity provided by the article resulting from the article prior to their conclusion lead me to the opinion completely opposed to theirs, which I again won't "spoil" here be I very much think that anyone considering buying a Note 4 shouldn't make any decision re the device without be aware here which I was completely confused by until it was finally completely clarified here.
ON A SEMI-RELATED NOTE: I recently started experimenting with FULL functionality of the S Pen (reinstalling GMD S pen Controls, which I had bought a while ago but never really used.... but as it turns out is freaking awesome. It takes kind of a long time to fully configure it, but as I discovered from getting started, that's actually a good thing because the reason for it is the incredible degree of customization available with the app. Setting that up vs previously using only native Sammy style (as well as getting other apps; Tasker for an example with.... a bit of functionality ) I've just recently started interacting with my phone completely differently that I had previously, with a goal of completely my configuration to that point that I can control my phone entirely from just drawing a symbol indicating what I want to do on the screen. I seriously mean entirely, obviously toggles, but even stuff like service codes, "hidden menu" modes.... Relevance: just recently, by configuring a new method of interacting with my phone and increasing automation (most recently via NotificationsOff and its unadvertised but majorly welcome appearance in the Tasker task plugins screen edit: I messed this up, the app I'm using to chill syncing out is Force AutoSync, does one thing and does it well. I would like to figure out how to control syncing via Tasker though... I left my error in, because NotificationsOff and it's Tasker integration is sweet and worthy of a mention.. I seem to lose quite a bit less battery life now that my phone only autosyncs, at an interval, only when my cpu freq is lower than what I capped it at when the screen is off ) IOW, I feel like just by doing that stuff, and running Tweaked ROM, trading it for a Note 4 would be an instantly noticeable downgrade, and, really, I'm far from "done" with my Note 3, which I'm continually impressed by, obviously has had more dev work than its successor, and I really don't feel like I'm "waiting for whichever OEM puts out the first phone with the 64 bit capable Snapdragon 05 / or preferably but more up in the air Nvidia TEGRA K1 Denver" but really, I don't think I'll really be ready to be done with my Note 3 (that is, trade is for something via JUMP) until I have my choice between top-tear completely 64 bit, Android L.x phones. Note 5 could work, as long as it has those specs. I'm just really glad I came across that article, which was the only place that I had found that specific info, and the answers to the exact questions I had about it, but it really increased my appreciation of my N3, and just how "not done" with it I am. So, check it out if you enjoy making informed decisions If a the new shiny is your top priority, then it may be above your head
Hope you all find this info as helpful as I did!
After reading that article I actually felt it does not answer many of my questions and doesn't add much besides the obvious.
So to clarify few things:
1. it is true that since one can not add RAM to the phone, addressing capabilities of CPU are irrelevant, if the phone has 3GB memory, it will always have 3GB, regardless of it's capabilities
2. newer 32 bit ARM processors can, in theory address more than 4GB memory using paging, concept as old as Intel x86 architecture, maybe older. The restriction here is that single program can use no more than 4GB. So this could be helpful on the ARM server using multiple VM's but it could be a programing nightmare on the phone and it doesn't answer the question of how many address lines are actually connected.
3. Yep, with no 64 bit Android OS yet, and very few 64 bit phones, 32 bit support is not going anywhere anytime soon.
4. Yes, the 64 ARM architecture supposed to be faster even in 32 bit mode, but I remember reading something along the lines of 20% -40% faster, not x1 .5. Either way with Exynos running at 1.9 GHz and Snapdragon at 2.7 GHz, single core performance should be just about the same on both. It's true that Exynos has 4 cores more than Qualcom, but a lot of programing is sequential (you need to get results from first part to continue with second etc.) and if you scheduled something important on the slower cores, you could be SOOL. Simplest example would be to use CPU to render a screen: you could divide screen into 4 parts and use 4 fast cores of Exynos to render them, having similar speed to qualcom, or divide screen into 8 parts and use all 8 cores, but now you have to wait for slower cores to finish, before screen can be displayed in full and loosing some speed advantage that way.
My questions (unanswered by article) are:
1. How much faster in real life Exynos is over Qualcom. From the benchmarks I saw, not that much, in some cases slower.
2. Can Exynos actually run 64 bit Android and if so would it be visibly faster: I actually read some article that was asking the same, Exynos being the first Samsung 64 bit CPU and OS written by Google, there might be some issues and OS may not be optimized as much in first release, but programmed more for compatibility.. (Look how fast Apple's OS is despite running on a junky hardware, thanks to being optimized for one specific hardware)
3. Assuming a lot of people don't keep their phones for more than 2 years (T-mo jump let's you change phone every 6 months, most contracts are for 2 years and this almost forces you to upgrade then) does it even matter which phone you buy now? it may take as much as 2 yrs before 64 bit becomes really relevant.
I'm buying it, I'm not one to live by what others think, I'm in for the display and could go another way but it's not like someone else is paying for it.
Thanks for your thoughts guys, and @peter4k, those are all excellent points which I agree with... just considering trading my N3 for an N4, and ignoring any other (financial, technical, etc.) factors would, for me at least, would be disappointingly more of a "trade-off" than an "upgrade". That is, I love my N3 and would surely miss it trading it in for an N4. However, the N4 is clearly "better" than the N3, and there are definitely some hardware and software elements are appealing. Also, I definitely wouldn't be comfortable buying any device (smart-refrigerators included ) That isn't *confirmed rootable*. Respect to Chainfire re: that mater and the N4!
Practically, what it really boils down to is... I don't fully understand the JUMP program (fortunately easily fixable). Well, I know what it's about, and wasn't really all that curious about it since it only recently became relevant when a phone that I might *possibly* be interested in upgrading to until the N4 was released. So now it's (past) time to run some numbers and determine: If JUMP costs $X over the time that you're a Tmo customer, how should one make use of JUMP to ensure that the value $Y exceeds $X maximally? In English, do you save more overall by upgrading as early as and often as possible, or does the interval between upgrades not really affect the amount of money saved, significantly, overall? Hopefully you all see what I'm getting at here.... plan to determine the "optimal / logical" upgrade "behavior-pattern" to maximize the value of JUMP. That will then probably be the biggest single factor determining if I end up with a Note 4 or not.
Just wondering if anyone's done anything like I described above? If so, feel free to post your method and result and I'd be happy to confirm / replicate your calculation
Sincerely yours,
Professor Science
I don't know much about jump, but my understanding is you pay $10 extra a month and if you want to upgrade your phone, you get up to half price credit, by trading in the old one. You would probably need to sit down with calculator and figure if it's better than selling the phone outright, but the kicker is jump comes with phone insurance, so if you were going to get the insurance any way, the jump is practically for free. It seems to work for many who like to change the phones often and don't want to be bothered by selling older phone on e-bay. It's not for me since I never get insurance for the phone and I have to have s-pen, which pretty much locks me into Note series only. I probably won't upgrade to Note 4, it is a great phone, but not that much better than Note 3 and it's still missing the only thing I miss on Note 3, waterproofing like GS 5.
Plenty of people have done the math on jump. What it boils down to is that you might get more selling the device. However, it's a gamble. Not all devices hold value well. There's also the convenience factor. I can take the device to TMO and swap out with guaranteed return. Or I can try to sell online, who knows what I'll get out of it.
I can also buy devices cheaper. However, with the carriers blacklisting devices for something I have no control over and am not a party to, I no longer do that. And the used market is going to take a hit over that.
I also like having the insurance, so given those things, jump makes sense to me. I'm also on the old version, 2x a year, full payoff. I haven't used it yet, as I have yet to encounter anything I think is a significant enough upgrade. I also want to see the new Nexus, but with Google hating on SD card storage, I probably won't end up with one.
I also require full control of my devices. I bought it, it's mine to do with as I please. I will not accept the vendor or manufacturer having any say over that. Thankfully, TMO seems to get that and we don't seem to get the retarded locked bootloaders etc..
So I just got back from an EXTREMELY informative stop at the T-mobile store.
Re JUMP: So I now know that there is 'new' JUMP and 'old' JUMP, which as it turns out is the one I'm on. Very little math was required to determine how to get the greatest value out of 'old' JUMP. That version of the plan is incredibly simple: 2 upgrades per year - use or lose, straight-up walk in with your current phone and walk out with the new one. IOW, Note 4 or Nexus 6, most dependent on the Note 4 DevDB. I'm not sure how the 'new' JUMP differs, but the JUMP I just found out I had conjures images of much brightness and shininess in my future My N3 is probably my favorite phone I've ever had, and I will miss, but the question is basically "would you rather have a Note 3 or 4 to use until the phone I'm waiting for shows up, at which point you'll be able to switch again?" Obviously, the answer is, "yes please... wait, what'd you ask again? I was blinded(...and deafened) by all the shiny....."
I definitely appreciate the humor, as the OP, turning a complete 180 in my opinion.... but man, that is a killer deal! I N3 remember them explaining it to me when I bought my N3, but haven't thought about since, until I heard that they were changing it or something.... I guess I've just been so satisfied with my N3 that I hadn't really even felt a strong desire to upgrade; no plans to pre-order the N4, even before finding out how stingy they were with the upgrades, but that refresher on what the old JUMP program entails completely changed my perspective... with two use or lose upgrades / year... which I should clearly use, even for minor upgrades if the device is appealing. IOW, I've flipped from "justifying an upgrade" to "justifying not upgrading / burning an opportunity to". By those standards, the N4 is a pretty easy call (unless dwitherall decides to develop Tweaked for a different device). So this is just my personal situation, and probably doesn't apply for a x%(?) of people, but I'm pretty happy to learn that a phone upgrade isn't something I have to "work into my budget", and not getting a better device 2x yearly would be wasting either half or all of my JUMP benefits. Hope many of you are in the same position
That's another perfectly valid place to be. For me, it's also that I need to wait for accessories anyway. I need a ZL battery, stock just doesn't do it, and I actually like my phones to have a little more heft. Yes, I'm weird.
And I've finally got the N3 running really well. I think I'll enjoy it for a little while and see how things shake out. I do like knowing I can jump any time I wish though.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has served me well, but it now seems to struggle. Some apps seem to be processor limited, then they open the default web browser and when exiting the browser I find the app restarts which I assume is because of lack of memory.
Likewise, Google Maps can get very sluggish and use up lots of memory when driving a route of over an hours duration. Google could probably make it better, but unlikely if it works OK on more modern phones.
So I'm considering an upgrade to the LG G3, which would mean doubling the RAM from 1GB to 2GB and upping the processor from 1.5Ghz to 2.5Ghz.
Would this make things better? Or is the amount of RAM allocated to user apps similar and so I'll still have the same problems?
I keep seeing people talk about overheating issues and cracks, are these really a problem ?
speckles said:
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has served me well, but it now seems to struggle. Some apps seem to be processor limited, then they open the default web browser and when exiting the browser I find the app restarts which I assume is because of lack of memory.
Likewise, Google Maps can get very sluggish and use up lots of memory when driving a route of over an hours duration. Google could probably make it better, but unlikely if it works OK on more modern phones.
So I'm considering an upgrade to the LG G3, which would mean doubling the RAM from 1GB to 2GB and upping the processor from 1.5Ghz to 2.5Ghz.
Would this make things better? Or is the amount of RAM allocated to user apps similar and so I'll still have the same problems?
I keep seeing people talk about overheating issues and cracks, are these really a problem ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't had a Galaxy SIII. Otherwise I come from a iPhone 4s, and before this I had a Sony-Ericsson Arc S. Personally speaking, I had a lot of problems with the Xperia: continuous rebooting, RAM limits, not software updates, etc. So I felt let down by Android, and I decide to switch to another platform. I can tell that the iPhone worked just fine, but I never felt comfortable in such a closed OS. Reading about technology and gadgets I realized that in three years Android had improved enough and it had become a very mature platform, so I came back to android. I chose the LG G3, because of the good reviews and the better price/value ratio, and I cant tell you that this was a very good decision. To sum up, the LG G3 is a very good device in every single aspect. It's cute, light and has an incredibly screen. Even with its huge 5.5' qHD screen, it's easily one hand managed. I heard complaints about poor battery life, overheating issues and lags. In contrast I never had one single issue: no lags, no overheating, great battery life and an incredible performance.
Last but not least the G3 has matured enough in the community to have a great developer support. Right now you can install Stock based Lollipop ROMs that will make your experience with this phone even better.
I bought my phone in July 2014. If, right now, I'd have to buy a new phone, it'd be the LG G3, again.
I came from S3. Totally new life with G3. No regrets.
I upgraded from an S3 too, no regrets whatshowever, the camera is a bit slower but the quality is so much better. As well as that, the screen is awesome! I strongly advise you to do so
I also upgrade from S3 to G3 (so many 3's )... The difference is huge. Much faster, great screen and not so big (for me is ok).
The only thing that dissapoint me is that in S3 we have so many roms, kernels, tweaks, etc etc and in G3 there are few (but goods )
So, for me, the upgrade is a Must and i'm really happy with that...
If you could get your hands on the 3GB ram version I would highly advise that to make it more future proof (you seem like a guy who wanna keep his phone for a while).
Thanks all, couldn't find a 3GB version, but ebuyer seem to be the cheapest, so bought it from there. Now just need to get them to actually deliver it. They've said they shipped via Yodel, which are not known for good customer service. Last package someone sent via them they lost!
I'll probably have lots of questions once I've got it!
You know what? This is the best phone Samsung has made. It is fast, fluid, and fun to use. I really believe that the extra gig of ram makes a huge difference. I had the s6 edge before this and that phone was nice but stuttered a lot. Even the Note 5 which is supposed to be good and uses the same hardware as this has some lags and hangups. I think it has to do with the extra note feature that must always be on and ready to go at a pens notice.
So what is this thread about?
The fact that out of four of the s6 phone variants, this is the least bought phone. This is due to the price and people automatically think the note 5 will be more useful if they're getting something this screen size due to the pen. It's really a shame since they don't know what they're missing out on. After the last update with the battery, this phone has been nothing but phenomenal. TouchWiz needed 4gb ram and the best cpu in the world currently to be this smooth. I get it now.
If the Galaxy s7 comes with the new chipset but with 3 gb of ram, it will be like this year. People will complain that the phone lags. Samsung needs to put 4gb of ram on their phone as long as they use TouchWiz. Of course for cost saving business cases they might again go with 3gb and use the 4gb on galaxy s7 edge plus but they don't realize that they will hurt their long term business. If the Galaxy s7 gets a bad rep due to similar lags, Samsung will lose their reputation even further.
To those who own this phone, you are the few who know how great this phone is. And it's really sad that this wasn't noticed as the phone of the year for Samsung. Even Samsung doesn't seem to realize it. There is not much press on it. It's just known as the 'other fancy' Galaxy edge brother with no special features. But it's special because it does what it's suppose to do better than any galaxy phones out there. I thought I'd write this huge piece just for that single truth alone. A toast if you will, to the best kept secret of Samsung.
To those who hate this phone, I think you got a defect.
Maknora said:
You know what? This is the best phone Samsung has made. It is fast, fluid, and fun to use. I really believe that the extra gig of ram makes a huge difference. I had the s6 edge before this and that phone was nice but stuttered a lot. Even the Note 5 which is supposed to be good and uses the same hardware as this has some lags and hangups. I think it has to do with the extra note feature that must always be on and ready to go at a pens notice.
So what is this thread about?
The fact that out of four of the s6 phone variants, this is the least bought phone. This is due to the price and people automatically think the note 5 will be more useful if they're getting something this screen size due to the pen. It's really a shame since they don't know what they're missing out on. After the last update with the battery, this phone has been nothing but phenomenal. TouchWiz needed 4gb ram and the best cpu in the world currently to be this smooth. I get it now.
If the Galaxy s7 comes with the new chipset but with 3 gb of ram, it will be like this year. People will complain that the phone lags. Samsung needs to put 4gb of ram on their phone as long as they use TouchWiz. Of course for cost saving business cases they might again go with 3gb and use the 4gb on galaxy s7 edge plus but they don't realize that they will hurt their long term business. If the Galaxy s7 gets a bad rep due to similar lags, Samsung will lose their reputation even further.
To those who own this phone, you are the few who know how great this phone is. And it's really sad that this wasn't noticed as the phone of the year for Samsung. Even Samsung doesn't seem to realize it. There is not much press on it. It's just known as the 'other fancy' Galaxy edge brother with no special features. But it's special because it does what it's suppose to do better than any galaxy phones out there. I thought I'd write this huge piece just for that single truth alone. A toast if you will, to the best kept secret of Samsung.
To those who hate this phone, I think you got a defect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absofrickenlutley I couldn't agree more. I've had a Samsung S since the S2 and I tell ya this S6Edge Plus is an absolute delight. I'll be amazed if the S7 is as good.
Of course if Sammy drops a S7Edge Plus better than this well since I'm an admitted Sammy Fanboy I'll just have to get it LOL .
Honestly this device is phenomenal.
Stock or rooted it's magnificent phone.
"All we know is...He's called the Stig!"
Sent from my G928C Rockin AUDAX+Rom&Eladios Themes
Mod Edit
Please continue this discussion here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/s6-edge-plus/general/omg-love-phone-t3186013
Thread closed
malybru
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