Long Long Ago… I got my hands on a Galaxy S6

It’s another sad day with a FedEx box reluctantly leaving my hands.  This time I’m mourning the Samsung Galaxy S6 from Verizon Wireless. As a Samsung product, I already knew I was going to love it. They just haven’t made much I didn’t like lately. So much so, I’m almost a complete convert. (I still need a TV and some Galaxy Gear.)

First Impressions: It’s a totally new look.

Remember when iphones were still new? They were the icon of smart phones. You could spot one across the room and you just knew it was an iphone. Androids don’t typically have that recognizability “Oh that’s a….” reaction. But that’s the first thing I noticed: Other people noticing my phone and commenting: “Oh nice, the S6?” or “Oh the S6! Don’t you just love it?” Or “That’s the S6, how do you like it?”

The look and feel is so different than the previous plastic bodies we are used to from Samsung.

Design Features:

  • .1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display

  • Slim and sophisticated, lightweight design

  • Metal bezel

  • Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 on the front and back of the phone

It’s like THE dress: Is it Blue or Black?

That Gorilla® Glass over the black body creates an interesting optical effect. It looks blue in some light. I always encase my personal phones from the time they come out of the box. This is a necessity as I am just tough on phones. But the Gorilla® Glass makes this phone as tough as it is beautiful. It’d be a shame to cover it up.

Can it keep up?

I’ve read a few places that people were disappointed with the battery life. I ran this phone on a full days use, it got gamed on hard anytime a tester kid was near and I never noticed it being an issue. This ‘how long can I use the battery’ test was repeated several times with the same result.  I was able to drain it if I used the hotspot for more than a brief time, but that is expected.  It clearly warns that it should be plugged in while using the hotspot feature.

I was however disappointed that this newest in the Galaxy line has eliminated the removable battery. My phones usually outlive the lifetime of the first battery.

(Photo : AndroidGameE | YouTube)

Lightning speed

Operating on the Android 5.0 Lollipop and having a 64-bit, octa-core Exynos 7420 and 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM This phone is fast. How fast? Faster than your iphone. No, really, TechTimes did a side by side test, you be the judge.

Storage

This phone, like all smart phones these days, comes in varying sizes. 32GB, 64GB, 128GB.

The kicker here is no SD slot to bump it up.  I live on my phone.  I’m not sure how easy it would be for me to adapt to this setback. It forces the user to utilize more cloud based storage. Even though I do use many cloud based apps like evernote, dropbox, and Google apps, I still store much on my phone.

Camera

With the main camera boasting 16 MP, 2988 x 5312 pixels, optical image stabilization, autofocus and LED flash, it is definitely a powerful image capturing tool. By far my favorite things about this phone are some of the small changes in the camera features like the wide angle selfie. The rear facing camera is not only a higher resolution (Iphone’s main camera is 8 megapixel and the rear facing camera is a whopping 1.2 megapixel.) better overall camera, it took the panoramic feature and put it on the rear facing camera so you can take large group selfies and get everyone in on the fun. It also has a beauty mode, HRD, voice capture and more.

 

 

Overall

I’m torn. I really thought this would be my next phone. I have 3 things to consider. Battery – Am I willing to risk my phone dying when the battery life is up? Storage – Can I change my digital behaviors and have a phone with a hard limit on storage? Will I like the S6 Edge better? (That’s coming next month for me to test drive so I will update this blog when I get an answer to that question.)

Disclosure: I don’t get paid to review these phones. I don’t get to keep any other the cool stuff I review for Verizon. They don’t even give me a discount on my bill or my phones. 🙁 I did get some cool swag from Samsung once, but if they ever wanted to share some cool tech, I wouldn’t turn it down! I don’t receive any payments or discounts from Samsung to be such an avid fan.  I just love them and their products. 

Rebooting My Thoughts on Windows Phones

I’m not sure why I’ve never reviewed a Windows phone before. Maybe because in my mind I already had an opinion that I really didn’t care for them. But I was surprisingly excited to have the opportunity to test drive the Verizon Samsung ATIV Odyssey – a Windows phone.

It’s Different

I think the biggest thing for me is that it’s a completely different layout, look,and  feel. After being an Android and iPhone user for so long, nothing was in the right place.

The screen on this phone is quite a bit smaller than the last few phones I have had my hands on.).with 4.0 inches, but the overall feel of the phone is very natural. Samsung boasts about it’s Super AMOLED™ touchscreen, and it is very clear and easy to see.  It fits nicely in your hand and up to your face. If you’re converting to a Windows phone from either an iPhone or an Android the biggest things will notice are the differences of the buttons at the bottom of the phone. On most Android devices the right-hand button is used as a back or a previous. This tripped me up a bit because I would often mean to go back, but on a Windows phone the right-hand button is a Bing search.

Serious lack of apps

After you get used to the initial differences it’s a familiar interface – mail icon opens your mail, the messenger button opens your text, and many of the same gesturing tasks work on the Windows phone as they do on other smartphones. I was a little frustrated looking for some of the standard apps I utilize on a daily basis. There are a lot of apps on Windows market – 100,000 to be exact, but not being able to use some of the apps I use everyday made it very challenging. After talking to several other windows device users, they all had similar frustrations.  PC World covered this recently.  It’s nice that the major Office programs are built in and user friendly, but if you’re a Google products user, you’re out of luck.

X-Box

If you are a serious gamer into X-Box, then “only Windows phone OS has Xbox LIVE built in. Track your achievements, view your gamer score, chat with friends or just change your avatar.”  I’m not, and we don’t own that gaming system, but it’s also a built in game hub that lets you walk around with an arcade in your pocket.

Camera

The rear-facing camera is  5.0 Megapixel, and it’s not nearly as big as the iphone 5s with it’s 8 Megapixel camera, but it’s still better than many point and shoot cameras. The camera has a button on the side that allows for quick access. The ‘touch anywhere on the phone screen’ to take a picture threw me at first. I was touching to focus as I do on my other phones. After getting use to it, I really like this feature. It’s quick, it’s easy, and granny can take you picture! (Admit it. When you randomly ask that stranger to take your group or couples photo, you now look at people and ask yourself if they look smartphone savvy enough.)

Hotspot

Like most phones, this one can be turned into a mobile hotspot, only on Windows OS they call it Internet sharing. It turns on with a simple slider switch and supports up to 8 devices. I didn’t run 8 devices, but I did test this with 4 devices all pulling from it, without too many issues.

 

Reboot it- It’s Windows

Several times while trying to utilize the device and various apps, the phone will just sort of freeze. After voicing some frustrations to a friend who is in the IT field, he commented “It’s a Windows Device just reboot it. Rebooting anything Windows fixes everything.”  He was, as usual right, but it was very frustrating to have to reboot the device to make apps work.

 

Overall, the Samsung ATIV Odyssey provided a great introduction to the Windows phone experience. Sleek, slim, mostly functional with a few reboots, I wouldn’t have a problem recommending this phone to someone wanting to jump the Android or iPhone ship.  (And currently, It’s free from Verizon!)

A Sweet Note

Everyone thinks it’s so cool that I get to test devices. The uncool part is giving them back. It’s also hard to have your hands on the newest, latest phones, and then go back to the phone you’re locked into until your contract is up.

So what’s this latest tease that I’ve been temped with? The Samsung Galaxy Note II.  I have to admit, I was really starting to look again for a new phone to replace my daily carry. I glanced at this phone, but really had my heart set on another Samsung phone – The S4. The problem is that it’s not out yet, and my phone was dying a slow death.  I spoke to my friends at Wireless Zone, and they offered me an S3 got get me by until the S4 comes out. When I went to the store to pick up my phone, owner Chris Jourdan was there.  Chris, who converted me to #TeamAndroid years ago, always carried 2 phones – an Android and an iphone.  You can do that when you’re in the business.  I was very surprised to find that Mr. 2 phones himself was now completely team Android where his phone was concerned.  What was this amazing phone that converted him? The Samsung Galaxy Note II – I just had to try it myself.

It’s so big: 

Here the Samsung Galaxy Note II dwarfs the iphone.

Thanks to the great people at Verizon, I was sent one of these to test drive. First thoughts out of the box, and first thing out of everyone’s mouth when they see it. “Wow that is a huge phone!”  With its 5.5 inch screen, it’s huge. It’s clear, crisp screen makes photo and video viewing easy, and it makes reading e-mails and books really handy.  It’s not so handy to get in your pockets, however.

The body:

The body of this phone is slick. I’m not sure if it’s just the sleekness, but maybe the shape of this phone made it very prone to falling off the desk or counter. I caught it most of the time, the rest of the time it was on carpet, but I very often thought that if this phone is a keeper, it’s gotta go in an Otterbox for sure. (Thinking back, Chris didn’t have his in a case and I really wondered how he coped with this problem. Then I remembered he has the Phone Surgeons at his disposal. He can just replace the screen if it breaks.) So, if you get one, be sure to case it up.

Functionality:

This phone comes with and “Easy Mode” but for the average standard smart phone user, its normal operations were very functional. I learned it as I went along, and very rarely did I find the need to look at the user’s guide. (This is in the form of an app that was very easy to navigate and understand.) As I only had it for a few weeks, I was still finding new things that made me seriously consider this as my next phone.  With so many neat features to discover and utilize, I could see myself being very comfortable and happy with this as my next phone.

Bringing Sexy Back:

Oh, I mean stylus back.  Yeah, I wasn’t so quick with the stylus. I wasn’t sure about how I would like it. I found it difficult to get out of its sleek holster. As a woman with nails, I would have thought it easier. But if it was easier, maybe it would be falling out? I found that over time, I got use to it. By default (which is customizable) if the pen is out, and you go to a place that requires text input, it defaults to the write to text mode. (this is also customizable.) This is where you hand write the letters and it converts them to text. As my continued reliance on digital input has grown, so has my penmanship suffered. This made it difficult for me to use this feature. It is a great idea for those who are more accustomed to putting pen to paper, and a way to get them to transition to digital. I have many clients that would benefit from this feature to get them out of their paper notes habit.  It’s not just a stylus, it has sensors and integrates with many applications using hovering and the ‘S Pen Button’ (reminds me of a mouse button.)

 

S Notes:

This is where the Samsung Galaxy Note II and its stylus shine. For the traditional note taker, this is a dream. It has standard text features, but the write to text feature is really nice for note taking in meetings. I especially liked the shape match feature. This allows you to roughly draw a shape, like a circle. It then converts it to a nice neat shape.  The S note program was full of amazing features that offer beautiful or just downright fun notes.

 

Dual Screen Operation:

This is one of my favorite things about this phone! You can “work and play at the same time, or just work faster.” This is the feature that really has me wanting this phone and I suspect one of the key features that moved Chris from two phones to one. (Now that I no longer have a phone with this feature, I have really noticed how often I think, “Oh, wish I had that other phone!”)
Camera:

Just wow. The clarity and image quality are stunning. And the camera is packed full of features. This video does a great job of explaining the additional features. Even if you choose not to get his phone and you’re taking a group photo, let the person with the Note II take the photos.

 

http://youtu.be/77M5GhUdzyQ

 

This phone is so jam packed with features, I felt like I barely got to know it.  If you are considering a new phone, don’t let the complexity and amount of features scare you. Samsung has a very easy manual that comes as an app, you can access right from your device. It also has some great videos to follow along and really see what they mean when they’re explaining things.

http://youtu.be/77M5GhUdzyQ

 

Bottom line – I would be totally happy to have this as my daily phone.

(And I’m not easy to please.)

 

 

 

 

 

Found: Stolen Car

Smartphones have completely revolutionized our lives. We take them with us everywhere. Here is another great example of how technology can be used to save something valuable to you.

This week a lady came into Wireless Zone of Evansville Indiana frantic as her 2012 Durango had just been
stolen. Blake Richey saved the day by helping her log into iCloud and use “find iPhone” (phone was still in car). Within 5 minutes the police had recovered the stolen car!

Via facebook Chris Jourdan offers this advice:

 Tip of the day: ensure you set up “find my iPhone” or use an app like Lookout for Android.

Having the technology isn’t enough, you have to set it up and know how to use it.

  • If you have a smart phone, learn about it.
  • Take classes to get to know what it can and can’t do.
  • Talk to other users of the same phone type and find out what apps make their lives better, more interesting, more productive, and as yesterday proved, safer.

 Other resources for help and information

There’s a class being offered at USI to learn ipad /iphone next week, but it’s fu

ll. If you’d like to attend, call the office of continuing education at the University of Southern Indiana 812-464-1989 and ask to be on the wait list. If enough people want it, they will offer it again.

Go to your provider to seek information.  Evansville and Newburgh Wireless Zones are where I purchase my phones. They have an incredible staff that is knowledgeable, professional, and patient. They certainly came through for this lady!