As soon as a new mobile device hits the market and even before, statisticians keenly run the hardware through a series of benchmark tests, which offer a fairly accurate idea of the general overall performance. In the past, we've seen evidence of Samsung rigging the International Galaxy S4's GPU to perform better when running these apps, and now, the folks of Ars Technica have concluded beyond doubt that the Korean company has been up to its tricks again with the Galaxy Note 3.
New smartphones hit the market every couple of weeks nowadays, and although a large portion of them tend to be run-of-the-mill, some of the mobile industry's big companies like to make a bit of a statement with certain releases. This year, Samsung has done exactly that with the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, both of which feature, among many other things, a new-look, intuitive lock screen. Unless you're in ownership of either of the Korean company's marquee releases, it's likely you've simply been admiring from afar, but thanks to the admirable work of the folks at XDA-Developers, you can enjoy this neat little feature on your own device.
It seems that the suggestion that Samsung is copying Apple by launching a golden smartphone has irked someone at the company. In fact, it seems to have irritated them enough that the firm's official Samsung Tomorrow blog has been used to point out that Apple isn't actually the first phone maker to gain the Midas touch. Samsung, as it takes great pains to point out, has something of a history with gold-colored phones.
The Galaxy Note 3, which Samsung announced earlier on this month, may be a beast in every sense of the word, but it's not without its shortcomings. Upon looking at the specs alone, it's hard to pick a fault in a device to which Sammy has applied some of the most high-end hardware at its disposal, but if you're a frequent traveller and wishing to use that unholy amount of display real estate to browse the Web from outside your own country, you're going to have a spot of bother on your hands. Yes, as you can see from the title, the Galaxy Note 3, including the Note 2, Galaxy S3, S4 and S4 mini are now being sold region-locked, and considering what the company is offering for its consumers, it would seem a counter-intuitive move on the part of the Korean company.
In this Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Apple iPhone 5s comparison, we performed a mixture of browser load tests, comparing how fast each phone loaded websites of varying content richness. Also in the video, you'll find a collection of browser benchmarks which indicate how well a device's browser cope with certain important aspects of Internet such as HTML5 and JavaScript.
Galaxy Note 3 has only gone on sale today, and Samsung is already planning on increasing the competition in the smartphone market by introducing an entirely new device next month.
Apple's iPhone range may, up until last week, been a pretty monochrome affair, but rivaling vendors have, for a number of years, been offering plenty of variations to consumers looking for something a bit different. Yet while we've seen most colors - from Glamor Reds to Pebble Blues - the Gold iPhone 5s seemed to strike something of a chord, selling out in hours and with the odd few appearing on eBay for extortionate sums. Naturally, Samsung had been planning a gold version of its flagship Galaxy S4 all along, and although it seems to be a luxury product aimed at the more affluent consumer, it's almost as if neither of the industry's so-called Big Two can allow the other any hint of one-upmanship.
It's hard to overstate just how successful, at least in the early days, the iPhone 5s has been. Allied to the iPhone 5c, which will also have shifted a few fair units, the first weekend has seen almost double the amount of sales as compared with the iPhone 5, and when you pit the numbers against the first weekend of Samsung's Galaxy S2, S3 and S4 combined, it's still not what you could call a contest.
Android device owners will often tell you that their platform is far superior than the competition because it gives them the freedom to change how the operating system looks based on their own personal tastes. With that being said, a great deal of Android users rarely experiment with a change of wallpaper or background, let alone going for a full user-interface overhaul. Maybe they have just been looking for that one fantastic interface experience.
Just days after Apple did something we didn't expect to see quite so soon - announce a 64-bit smartphone - it seems that the competition is already trying to scramble to catch up after Samsung confirmed that it, too, is set to bring its own 64-bit smartphone to market.
