Tuesday 26 August 2014

Galaxy Tab S 8.4 / LTE

I recently bought one of these devices. I didnt really need it,
but I wanted a larger version of my phone (Galaxy Note 2), for
video watching. I dislike my mini ipad - it is a great device to hold,
but the whole iOS experience leaves me very cold. That and the puny amount
of RAM. Switching between 3 apps will force restart the apps since
iOS cannot juggle the demands of only 3 apps in the 512MB of memory.

My phone has 2GB and can easily keep 5-6 apps open. So app switching
is faster, because of the lack of a need to restart.

The Galaxy Tab S has a screen of 2560x1600. Although brilliant from
a bragging rights, its difficult to appreciate what this means. What
it means to me is that when I split screen apps, I can read the smaller
fonts of info from web browser, IMDB, etc.

There is definitely some lag in the device. I attribute this to code which
will synchronously try and connect somewhere. I rooted my device, put
in an adblocker, but sometimes the delays are much more than just bad
OS coding. Theres too many services all fighting to wake up and do
things, and even with a quad core cpu, it hangs. I run a tool to monitor
the CPU speed and when it is being sluggish, the CPUs are at their lowest
clock speed (250MHz) which suggests externally waiting for something
and not a CPU issue. I need to run more stuff to see whats going on, e.g.
a network monitoring.

My major complaint with the Tab-S is its so big. I can easily hold
the Galaxy phones in my hand comfortably, in such a way that my fingers
cannot touch the screen. The same is not true of an 8" tablet. You either
gingerly hold it from the sides, e.g. the end where the Samsung label
is, because theres more room for your fingers, or the other end
where the home/back/menu button is located. That end of the tab is
bad news as the system sees you frantically pressing any/all of those buttons.

If you attempt to grasph the device with your fingers mid-screen, chances
you are going to do something you regret (such as click on a link, or
fast-forward a video). Very strangely, the one advantage of iOS is
that it is such an unfunctional OS, that this does not happen
with the ipads. If you are watching a video and use your fingers
to grasp the middle of the screen, then nothing happens, because apple
doesnt attribute any activity to touching the middle of the view area.

So, the one advantage that Android has (and MX-Player - brilliant video
player) is actually a problem on a large screen device, because there
is nowhere safe to hold the device.

I really dont know what is happening with the edge-less phones
currently being touted. I dont know how you can hold one without
having a very erratic user experience from the edges
of your palm or fingers, just trying to hold the device.

Only time will tell.

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