Another Galaxy Post...

I showed up late for the party. Not fashionable late as I usually do, but since the Galaxy has been out in France since June of this year I basically showed up after all the booze had run out.

But getting my Galaxy S2 later has its advantages. Android Market is now teeming with apps. After consulting my few friends who use a Android device of some kind (apparently there is a subculture of "geeks" who use iPhone over Android called "iGeeks"), I've spent the past few days scooping out what's out there and I kept a list.

I should mention I have paid for no apps yet. Tho I have been tempted to pay for Angry Birds just to remove the ads.

Apps I Like:

ColorNote
ColorNote is a Post-It app for your phone that allows you to post notes to yourself on your home screen(s). My only complaint is that it lacks a "ping" feature to remind you.

AK Notepad
You can use this app as a standard notepad, but you can also create checklists for yourself and set reminders for specific times. I've been using it to remind me I need to write.

SoundBoard Pro Extreme
I tried a lot of soundboard apps and this is by far the best. It has 8 farting noises, gunfire, bomb explosions, people laughing, and a nice slow, sardonic clap.

Alarm Clock Plus
This app lets you store multiple alarms and gives you an option of requiring the correct answer to a  math problem to snooze or dismiss alarms. Easy gave me double digit addition questions this morning. Very hard gave me something similar to this:

(1723 - 132) x 2

I tested it wide awake and it wasn't easy, so I think I'll be setting it for something a little easier or else the alarm is going to go off forever...

The app also gives you a nice digital display of the time, your location, and the weather for the week.

Advanced English Dictionary & Thesaurus
Now if I'm going to pay for an app, it probably won't be for a dictionary or thesaurus. I had previously installed Merriam Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus apps separately, but someone recommended this one and it works. It asks you to download the entire word database to use it offline, but I haven't bothered to do that yet.

Anti-virus
No telling yet if this is a goodie or a baddie, but it was free and had very good reviews.

CalorieCounter
I quite like this app, but I'm not too familiar with it yet. It does allow you to scan barcodes of food items, which worked on a box of Golden Grahams so well I didn't eat any for breakfast this morning. After inputting my dinner meal, I found out I had 43% of my daily intake left to consume - or not. It has the traditional US-market oriented features like restaurants, fast food chains, and prepackaged foods. I rarely eat out and almost never cook from a box, so I'll get less from those features of the app, but so far so good.

I'm waiting to see if after a few days if it will help me track my weight in the sense that it will tell me how long at my current calorie intake and exercise schedule it will take me to reach my goal weight, but so far it doesn't look like that is one of the features, which is a big bummer.

Marvel Comics / DC Comics
Fairly standard. You can buy comics, review, get news, and every now and then preview a freebie.

Google
Google's various apps are rather fun. I use Gmail,Goggles,Maps,and Docs.

Apps I Love:

These are harder to find. I love Angry Birds but it eats up a lot of my time. I am on the line between like and love with Evernote, but I can tell you honestly I didn't like Springpad one bit. The app I'm loving the most right now is Thinking Space. I have barely begun to use it, but being able to map out my ideas while I'm sitting on a train (it's 45 minutes to Paris) is going to make me very happy.

Now hate is a strong word, but here's the app I hate. Samsung's Kies.

I was only using it to move my music to my phone, but did it ever piss me off. I was using wi-fi to transfer music. Kies didn't recognise all my music - fine, there's some problem with the ID3, normal stuff. I kept transferring. An hour went by. It moved 7 songs. I plugged in my phone via USB. It took ages for the phone and my computer to settle their difference, i.e. for the drivers for the phone to download. Then Kies told me I needed to update the firmware, but that I didn't have enough space. I tried to resolve the space issue. The update kept failing. As did my patience.

In the end I opted to drag and drop music into the folder for my phone under media. Not all songs copied. Not all the artwork copied. It drove me nuts until 4 in the morning.

Now I have music on my phone, but it's not ideal. I'm holding out for news on the release of Google Music, which will offer a cloud service that will allow you to stream up to 20,000 songs to your phone anywhere. In the meantime, I'll just put up with my current situation, but it's rather frustrating. I have this big feeling Samsung knew there was going to be an issue because of how entrenched iTunes became, but couldn't figure out a reasonable solution because I think they're waiting for Google Music to release worldwide too.

My friend who gave me the phone for my birthday suggested I use Spotify, so I downloaded the app as a trial. The minute I didn't have wi-fi the streaming went to crap. The 3G was too slow so the song kept buffering, ruining what should have been a beautiful foggy walk around the grounds of the chateau de Fontainebleau whilst listening to Joy Division's "Atmosphere". Ten euros a month is a lot given I'm not going to be listening away from home all that often.

So after less than a week, I'm rather pleased with this new bit of tech I'm carrying around. I'll be using it more and more to blog little bits of Paris and my life, but it has most definitely solidified my addiction to Twitter.

I already bought an uninteresting case for my phone and they're aren't as many choices for cases as there are for the iPhone (a tiny shelf at FNAC, the French version of Best Buy for SG2 vs. an entire massive wall for the iPhone), but here are some I'm coveting should I ever want a change.

To my friends who read this blog, yes I already subjected you to this barrage on FB, I know. I'm sorry.

Because it has superpowers.And because DC hasn't made one for Wonder Woman.

Koala bear that looks more like a panda.

Koala that looks more like a bear, but like a 8-bit version of Winnie the Pooh.

All examples from Amazon or Mobifun.



















 

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Please forgive me while I play with my new toy

As I may have mentioned, I was gifted with the Samsung Galaxy SII. So far it might be love.

Much to the confusion of Monsieur Redacteur, I took my phone on an official day out to test a few things.

The day's winner for apps was FX Camera. I love the effects. I bought a Diana+ two years ago, never figured out how to use it, and regretted giving it away albeit to someone who will use it - ever since.

But no more. This app is FANTASTIC!

Here are some of the photographic results. These were taken around the grounds of the chateau of Fontainebleau.

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Samsung's Galaxy S 2

I have so far resisted the urge to buy a new cell phone, but recently the itch has turned more into a rash. But I wasn't going to rush into anything. The days of being sent electronic gadgets for free are long gone for me, but one thing I can say is even if something is free if it's crap, it's still crap (yes I mean you Sony Cybershot).

So after looking at what promotions my cell phone service provider was offering I was down to two choices. Either I could go the route of the iPhone 4G or I could go for the Samsung Galaxy S2. Here is how and why I made my final choice.

The first thing I did was Google "Samsung Galaxy S2 vs. iPhone 4G". Sure enough there were plenty of hits. Obviously other people were having the same dilemma. In the end it was this YouTube video that helped me decide.

I watched it twice to count the difference in time from switching the phone on to get going. I still have my old school HTC I bought six years ago and one thing I hate about it and have always hated is how long it takes for it to turn on. In this battle the Galaxy S2 beat the iPhone 4G by a whole 16 seconds. Thank you Bulgaria!

Now the Galaxy S2 had me intrigued. My friend recently purchased the Google Nexus S and was meeting another friend of ours who just got his Galaxy S2 so I asked him to compare the two and got to finding out more about this new Samsung offering.

Unlike Victoria Beckham I don't always think thinner is better, but after years of using my HTC (which is thicker than my home wireless phone), I like the thinness of the Galaxy S2. It's only slightly thinner than the iPhone though, but what makes it thinner, as the guy mentions in the clip above is the screen and the screen on the Galaxy S2 is pretty fantastic. It's slightly less bright and has more saturation to its colours, but in the end it's just easier to look at it. And the score is Samsung 2 iPhone 0.

A few more clips later and I just couldn't find a reason not to get the Samsung Galaxy S2. So I went looking for some reasons. Here's the nasty things that bothered me the most:

1. There may be a defect in the screen, though not on all models apparently and while the website says to report it to Samsung, it doesn't say whether or not Samsung will replace any phone with this problem, which means it's good idea to ask before buying.

2. As an iPod (does this make me old school yet?) user I'm worried about syncing my iTunes library. I found plenty of suggestions of third party apps, but there was no single app that seemed to work for everyone.

3. Speaking of apps, there are not as many apps for the Galaxy S2 as they are for the iPhone.

And that's it. Three reasons that can all be rationalised away in a way that won't make me feel as bad as when I rationalise that eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in one sitting means I'm getting all that calcium all at once or that I'm supporting Vermont's dairy farmers. I'm sure I can sort out the iTunes thing. It might not be as easy as it would be on the iPhone but who am I kidding? I haven't bought music from iTunes since 2005.

Then of course there was the massive price difference. I can have through my provider a Samsung Galaxy S2 for 100,00 euros without having to change my current plan or pay anything extra whereas the iPhone 4's cheapest offering would cost me 234,00 euros. For 134,00 euros I could fill my Galaxy S2 with nifty apps and since they aren't that many yet I can use the money I save to buy shoes (you know, to support shoemakers in Italy). This is obviously a win-win.

I have to wait a few weeks since it's a birthday present and I've found no way (yet) to rationalise buying it sooner after having been on two expensive vacations in the past 5 months, but it will most definitely make its way into my impatient hands before August 21st if only because my current phone has reached an age where it has become incontinent (it drops calls), grumpy (I get bad reception even when I'm in a place where I once got good reception), and the battery life means I have to charge it every day if I talk on the phone or use the web for too long, which according to techie reviews of the iPhone 4 means I basically have all the problems I could have with an iPhone 4 but because my phone is 1,000 years old in tech years at least it has an excuse whereas the iPhone doesn't.

Sorry iPhone users but I'm sick of being called up by friends with iPhones that need tech support. I was almost tempted for a few weeks to change my voicemail message to: "You have reached a number where the mobile user doesn't want to help you debug, jailbreak, fix, or listen to you complain about your iPhone. Please check the number and then call someone else."

In the words of Garth "Oh yes you will be mine. You will be mine."

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