The HTC One X landed in Europe in early April and was released today on AT&T, and as such, earned the distinction of first of the next-gen hardware. But being first isn't always the best - on Thursday, Samsung revealed their new flagship, the Galaxy S III. In European guise, both pack some pretty impressive specs, including a quad-core CPU, 1 GB of RAM, a large, 720p screen, high-quality cameras, and slim profiles. While there's no official word on what the SGSIII's US specs will be, it's likely it will lose two cores in favor of LTE, much like the One X.
It's finally here. You've seen it, gawked at it, drooled over it, and quite possibly done unspeakable things in your desire to have it. So, what do you think of the Galaxy S III - as good as promised, or "meh"-fest?
If you need some numbers to decide your vote, here are a few specifications to look over:
- 4.8-inch 720p Super AMOLED HD Display
- 1GB RAM
- 16/32GB storage, 64GB version "available soon"
- microSD Card slot
- Eye Tracking
- Smart stay: keeps the screen awake while you're looking at the display
- S-Voice: advanced voice recognition, "like a good friend who listens attentively" -- definitely a strong competitor to Siri
- Floating videos: lets you resize videos and move them around on the display whilst they float atop other windows.
Google's much-anticipated cloud storage service, dubbed "Drive," finally dropped on Tuesday. Based on our tests, we think the service could still use some work - and we think it has the potential to gain some serious popularity as the kinks are worked out and the gaps are filled. But we're curious: have you switched already, despite the shortcomings? Or are you sticking with your tried-and-true service for the time being?
Cloud storage has been gaining popularity in the last few years, and is strongly making its way from the tech niche to the mainstream. Companies big and small have been making their files and documents available on the cloud for some time, and now they're increasingly moving their entire operating platform off local devices in favor or the web. Independent users are making the push too; particularly for Android owners, services like Picasa, Google Docs, and Google Music all take a large chunk of data off the device, and instead put it in the cloud.
Let's be honest: Android tablets didn't really get off to a great (or timely) start. After the iPad was introduced, Samsung rushed the original Galaxy Tab 7 out the door as a response, and while it wasn't bad on its own merit, it came nowhere close to the iPad. In fact, it took over 4 months from the time the Tab 7 was released until the XOOM - the first real Android tablet contender - hit the scene (it was 3 more months until the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was released).
While the logo for CyanogenMod has been around for some time now, the makers of the iconic ROM apparently felt a more distinctive logo was needed. The folks behind CyanogenMod have been considering their options for quite a while now, but have finally decided on a mascot for the popular ROM. After all, if Android has its own "Andy" character, shouldn't the top Android ROM team have an easily recognizable avatar as well?
In the end, the win went to designer Caio Alves for his interesting Android/human hybrid. I'm not sure how to feel about the design. The CyanogenMod team is right that it will likely be distinctive at different resolutions, but reaction has been mixed.
A pretty simple question this week: how do you follow Android Police? We've got a fair number of options:
- The site directly (AndroidPolice.com)
- RSS
- Google+
- Google Currents
- Pulse
- Email Subscription
- Other (share via the comments)
So, do you follow us strictly via one method, or a combination of multiple? Check off all that apply below, then head down to the comments to discuss.
A few days ago, a popular reddit post (heads up, NSFW language) drew attention to the fact that the Play Store looks like an absolute mess these days. And it's true - just about everyone on the team agreed with the statement. Liam (our resident designer) agreed so strongly he even went ahead and wrote a post about it, and even went a step further and by creating some renders of how he'd do things. Take a look at the current Play UI (top) and Liam's proposal (bottom):
We're curious, though: do people really think that Play even needs an overhaul?
Earlier this week, Google revealed a sweeping revamp to their content offerings when they rebranded them as, collectively, Google Play. Though David argued that the rebranding was as a whole a good thing, the general consensus from those who have an opinion (and are voicing it via social media and public forums) is pretty negative. "Play" makes a lot more sense from a general marketing and sales standpoint (it removes "Android" from the equation, which makes it easier for people to understand that the services are not exclusive to the OS).
When Asus chose to release the Transformer Prime only in 32GB ($499) and 64GB ($599) models, I couldn't help but scratch my head over the lack of a $399 16GB model. Presumably it was because either the 16GB original Transformer didn't sell nearly as well as the 32GB version, or because the company was trying to market the TP as a more upmarket device. Whatever the case, it's had me thinking (especially in light of all the new tablets that were announced during MWC): how much storage is enough for the average person?
Specifically, if you were going to buy a tablet, what size option would you choose?



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