When it comes to perusing the net, I'm a Google Chrome man, through and through.
The reasons are many and they're my usual reasons for choosing anything computery... speed, customisability, synchronisation across devices and above all else, reliability. Google Chrome has offered me all this since day one and every time I've looked back at Internet Explorer it's always seemed so cumbersome and old-fashioned by comparison.
So you might think it'll be a pretty one-sided contest between the Samsung Galaxy SIII and the Nokia Lumia 820/920 this week, given I can use Chrome on the Galaxy but it's not yet available on the Lumias.
And you'd be right.
I just don't get this thing between Microsoft and Google, I don't get it at all. Why can I run Google Chrome on my Windows PC, but not on my Windows Phone? How is that logical in any way? Why would Microsoft put people off buying their phones, by not letting them use the browser they prefer? Or is just Google not letting Windows have Chrome for their handsets and wanting to keep it all for the Android army? No, that can't be it, because you can get Chrome on your iPhone too. Why? Why? WHY???
The Windows Phone 8 OS did make a few little concessions to consumer demand with their browser, most importantly by letting you choose Google as your default search engine instead of Bing, which also now works heaps better than it used to. The Windows 8 phones certainly load web pages nice and quickly, and their Gorilla glass screens make the sites look amazing... up to a point.
That point, of course, being video. I've heard Flash content is on the way out and it's going to be replaced by something called HTML5. Trouble is, I've been hearing that for over a year now and it hasn't happened yet. That means the vast majority of us have been missing out on watching video content on our phones, even though they're so damn smart and the screens are supposed to be so bloody amazing. What a waste. I can't even watch my OWN videos on the Newstalk ZB website with my Lumia 820.
The Galaxy S3 on the other hand is a whole other kettle of constantly evolving fish.
First up, the S3 has it's own default browser but I couldn't tell you what it's called because I've never even used it. Like I say, I'm a Chrome man so why would I choose anything else? I was already logged into the phone under my Google account, so when I fired Chrome up all my bookmarks and saved passwords synced straight over. I LOVE not having to think. It was Chrome, just like I was used to on my PC, but on my phone. Then I got to that same point, Flash video.
Disappointingly, Chrome on the S3 wouldn't play it either - or WOULD it? I did a little research (and I mean, literally the 3rd Google entry down) and discovered I could be using a browser called Skyfire instead. Somehow, this app plays Flash straight off the bat.
"This is stupid," I thought. "There must be a way to make it work on Chrome as well." A little more research (even littler than before) and I discovered another app cryptically named, Flash Player. Don't be confused, it isn't ADOBE Flash Player, it just installs it for you - and although it specifically said it WOULDN'T work on Chrome, it did. Yay! I'm now a happy man, dialing up old episodes of 11ish and glennzb tv so I can watch myself being hilarious to my heart's content.
It's not all good news for the Galaxy. These phones all have nice, big, clear screens, so god knows why I would want to be redirected to the mobile versions of sites like Facebook and Google when the fully functioning Desktop versions are perfectly readable. The Windows Phones have a setting to select the Desktop sites by default. As for Chrome on the S3? Dammit! You have to go into Settings and choose the desktop option every time you visit the site. More internet craziness that makes no sense to me whatsoever.
The ability to watch Flash videos still tips the scales mightily in the Samsung's favour though and there's one more mysterious difference that makes the Android interface just that little bit more user-friendly - for some reason, and again who knows why, I can push the little star button on my Facebook page to highlight this post. Not so on the Lumias. It's a small thing, a dumb thing even, but it's the small dumb things that all add up to a better browsing experience.
They've been sticking cameras in phones for a long time now.
I guess the theory was you don't always remember to take your camera, but you usually have your phone with you. Heaven forbid you should have to actually REMEMBER something for yourself - you know, with your actual BRAIN.
Those first cameras were pretty crappy of course. Combine a low-res image with a lens covered in fingerprints and pocket-fluff and the resulting photo effect was usually fairly blurry and indistinct. Now I think of it, pretty much like most of the images out there on Instagram.
Oh how things have changed. Now if your phone doesn't boast at least as many megapixels as your real camera, it's time to upgrade. Oh, and just one camera isn't enough of course - obviously you need a camera on both sides these days. (Don't ask me why, you just DO, okay?)
So this week, it's a camera-off between the Samsung Galaxy SIII and the Nokia Lumia 820. (The Lumia 920 has the same camera as the 820, and I only have 2 hands!) I decided to put them to the ultimate test; my daughter's 12th birthday...
What you need to understand here is, birthdays only happen once. Oh, sure you have one every year, but never the same one. That means, after weddings, they're about the most important event to save for posterity - photographically speaking.
If I'm being completely honest with you, I have literally no idea what most of the camera functions do on either of these phones. I just want to take a half decent pic. Luckily, phones are now so smart, they cater for total know-nothing bozos like me.
The solution seems to be something the Galaxy calls "Burst Shot" and the Nokia calls "Blink." This is the setting that takes about a dozen pictures at once so you can choose the best one. I found it a bit fiddly to work on the Galaxy, although it told me how to do it as soon as I started the camera. I was instructed to tap then hold down the camera button, which I got right about 75% of the time. I later discovered I could have put the camera into Burst Mode under the shooting mode menu, but the S3 just loves its fancy little shortcuts.
The thing I like about the Nokia's camera is you can start it up by holding down the dedicated camera button - even from a locked screen. Then you just touch the "Lenses" option, select "Blink" and you're away.
The results? The same. The colours are maybe a little more vibrant through the Nokia's Carl Zeiss lens, but there's really not much in it. I'm giving this round to Samsung though because once you've taken your burst of shots, the S3 picks what it thinks is the best one and puts a Facebook-like thumbs-up sign on it for good measure.
That's what I need from my phone, I want it to do my thinking for me.
I am, without a doubt, the world's worst navigator.
I'm lucky if I make to the end of the driveway without directions... and it's a really short driveway... and it's downhill.
The complete and utter uselessness of my navigation skills doesn't just extend to the search for my destination either. Let's say, by some miracle, I actually manage to arrive at the place I'm supposed to be. (To be honest, the only way this could happen is if I follow someone who's going there as well, and even then I'd probably take the wrong exit at the first roundabout and still end up trying to find my way out of a shopping mall carpark) But let's say I get there, my navigational nightmare is only half over because I've still got to find my way home.
You'd think I'd be able to just retrace my route, remembering landmarks, signposts and major intersections. But no, I'm an idiot. Actually, I'm a terrible driver too, so I'm not even sure why anyone ever let me behind the wheel in the first place. (Admittedly, I sat my license in Cambridge, where they don't have any traffic lights. A few tricky slopes for hill starts though)
In saying all that, fortunately I now live in the age of the GPS. No longer must I rely on the terse and regular instructions from the Domestic Manager in the passenger seat, I can listen to a disembodied computer voice tell me where to go instead.
Trouble is, stand-alone GPS navigation devices aren't cheap and keeping them up to date can also cost you.
Luckily, God invented smart phones.
Now I don't know what's going on with the iPhone's navigation apps these days - last I heard the iPhone 5 was telling people to catch trains from somewhere out in the Waitemata Harbour.
Let us focus our attention then, on the Nokia Lumia 820/920 and the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
It's pretty safe to say Google's been leading the way when it comes to mapping stuff, which is why I found it so bizarre when Apple dumped Google Maps off the iPhone's default start screen. (I understand the person responsible for that decision has since been taken out the back and shot)
Of course, the Galaxy, being an Android device, has always been Google-ised up the wazoo, so the default navigation app is powered by Google Maps and is inspirationally named, Navigation. Okay, so boring name, but it's an amazing GPS. I first used it to drive across town. I was just meeting a friend for brunch, but I didn't quite know the quickest way to get there. Navigation did. Although I was only a 10 minute drive away, the Galaxy used all of Google's mighty resources to help me avoid traffic lights and busy roads. I was directed down alleys and right-of-ways I never knew existed. It was exciting, like a car chase although I couldn't help wondering if it was just all just a clever trick someone was playing on me. In the end, what I THOUGHT was going to be a 10 minute trip ended up being more like 5. Pretty impressive.
The Nokia Drive app I was used to on the Lumia 800 is now called Nokia Drive+ Beta on the Windows Phone 8 versions, but it seems to work exactly the same way. There's no indication it's trying to avoid heavy traffic, it just calculates the shortest route between two points and away you go. This once led to a slightly unnecessary scenic drive through the Hastings CBD on my way to Havelock North, but I've always made it to where I'm meant to be in approximately the time Mrs Lumia told me I would.
Nokia's put a lot of resources into their map apps and it shows. The display on Nokia Drive is either 2D or 3D and you can add landmarks in (notable buildings, hotels etc.) to reassure you you're on the right track. The display also changes automatically from day to night which is fun to watch when you go through a tunnel.
Meanwhile, Navigation on the S3 has a setting called Layers, which allows you to see the satellite view of your route instead of just a map. (Like Google Earth) The Layers setting can also show where the heavy traffic is on your route and lets you add the location of petrol stations, ATMs and restaurants to your map.
Nokia Drive shows petrol stations and parking by default. You also get car repair businesses and public transport routes too, which is actually quite helpful. The other thing I liked about Nokia Drive is it always seems to know what the speed limit is and you can even set a warning to alert you if you're driving too fast. This is brilliant for me, because I never know how fast I'm supposed to be going and I'm quite happy for a machine to tell me.
Both apps come with a selection of polite voices to choose from - no-one with a New Zealand accent sadly. In spite of that, I try and avoid anything Australian, just on principle.
So it's all much of a muchness between Navigation and Nokia Drive UNTIL... you go offline. I don't know how typical I am as a smart phone user, because I'm on Pre-Pay. So when it comes to data usage, I have to be pretty frugal. It's not an issue when I'm at home or at work - that's what WiFi's for. Get in the car and it's a different story.
Once offline, the Galaxy's usefulness ebbs away dramatically. Satellite images are not available offline. Live traffic information is not available offline. You can still navigate your way around, but only if you've downloaded a map of your area in advance.
This is where Nokia Drive completely kills. In order to find my way from Auckland to Hawkes Bay recently, I had to download 5 different maps for the Galaxy and what's more, there's a limit to how many you can download at any one time. Nokia Drive let's you download a whole country at once. I've got all of Australia on my Lumia too, which was extremely handy when I was trying to master the Melbourne tram system late last year.
It seems to me, if you're driving somewhere, sooner or later you'll need to go offline and because I don't want to get lost when that happens, Nokia Lumia wins this round hands down.
I love music. I've got to have some on whenever and wherever possible. But I'm not an iPhone guy. I've already told you this. They're too bossy, too set in their ways.
So that's left me the choice between Android (Sumsung Galaxy SIII) or Windows Phone 8. (Nokia Lumia 820/920)
Trouble is, there's one thing Apple does best and it's because they invented it. When it comes to mobile music, iPods set the standard and everyone else has been playing catch-up ever since.
Oh, even with iPods I tried to resist. But nothing comes close to iTunes as method of managing your music library. The way iTunes keeps track of what you've played, how often and when so you can create "smart playlists" giving you fresh music every time you sync your device is sheer genius.
I've always considered the iPhone to be an iPod first and a phone second. So it's only logical to assume when it comes to music, the Lumia and the Galaxy have a way to go, right? Well maybe not quite as far as you might think.
Since microSD cards have been available with significant storage capacity, I've been filling them up with music to play out of my handset. Even before I had a smart phone, I was using my old Nokia Classic 2730 as a mobile music machine, although getting the songs in and out of it was never an entirely straight-forward process. It still isn't, but it's getting there.
Let's start with the finished product and work backwards. Obviously, both the Galaxy S3 and the Lumias have music players installed as standard, and you can choose any number of alternatives on their respective app stores. Both allow you to play your collection pretty much the way you're used to, you can create and select play-lists, shuffle, repeat all of that. The Lumias allow you to pin individual Artists, Playlists, Albums and Songs to your start screen so you can play them with one touch. I couldn't figure out how to do that with the Galaxy's default music player, although there is a widget you can drag onto your home screen that shows you what's playing and has basic play/stop/next track controls.
The cool thing about the Lumias is a very similar widget appears whenever you push one of the volume control buttons - even if you're only on the lock screen, so turning your music on, off or skipping a track is only a couple of button pushes away.
What's the sound like? That's a hard one. Although my job involves listening to stuff all day, I'm not actually massively fussy when it comes to things like speaker quality. In saying that, I would never choose to listen to music through my phone's little speakers, not when you can just plug it into the nearest stereo or set of headphones. But if I did, the Samsung has a slightly livelier sound, while the Nokia squeezes a little more bass out somehow. I'd call that even - although, like I say, why would you ever listen that way? Both phones have preset and customisable EQ controls available, although they're a bit harder to find on the Lumia - you have to go out of the music player and into Settings to find them, but once you get there you can choose Dolby noise reduction and something called Audio Levelling as well.
This last feature's quite groovy, because there's always been a disparity in volume between my old songs and my new ones - Audio Levelling seems to even that out.
So in terms of just playing the music, the Nokia Lumias sound a bit better, are easier to control, but the EQ settings are more accessible on the Galaxy.
How about the radio? I'm not talking about streaming radio over the net, any WiFi device can do that. There's a great FM radio on the Galaxy - again, there's a widget you can drag onto your home screen to access it instantly, just plug in your headphones and away you go. Bad news for Lumia fans, though... NO RADIO AT ALL! Given I work at a radio station, this seems like the dumbest thing ever, especially since the old Lumia 800 had a perfectly good radio on it. Where's it gone? Apparently, nowhere. The radio hardware is rumoured to be installed in the Lumia 820s and 920s, Microsoft simply hasn't turned the software on yet. Just bizarre. I can only hope they sort this out in a future update, but who knows?
Now let's back-track to actually getting the music onto the phone... how hard could it be? On the bright side, both Android and Microsoft seem too have conceded most people would prefer to sync their iTunes playlists onto their phones, rather than mucking around with yet another media manager program. Previous Windows Phone users had to use Zune to sync their phones - not a terrible application by any means, but still not iTunes and trying to keep playlists synced between iTunes and Zune required a lot of cumbersome double handling.
With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft have streamlined the whole process dramatically - there's a very stripped-down utility that automatically loads either your iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries, and from there you can choose which playlists (including Smart Playlists) you want to transfer to your phone. Just one trap for young players: If you're planning on storing your music to SD card in the Lumia 820, I'd advise you to start with a clean slate. Format the card and install it BEFORE you do any syncing. Everything got a bit confused for me when I decided to change where I was storing my songs after a few days, and I ended up having to reset the whole phone to sort it all out. Not an issue for the Lumia 920 of course - it doesn't need an SD card due to it's ample 32gb internal storage.
On the other hand, when it comes to syncing, I've found the Glaxaxy SIII to be a complete nightmare. For starters, there are 2 different utilities available; Easy Phone Sync and Kies. Easy Phone Sync looks a bit like the Windows Phone program, but instead of syncing from iTunes itself, it seems to use information from whatever backup was created the last time you synced your iPod, which isn't that useful.
Kies is much more comprehensive, but I couldn't connect to it via my USB cable and had to sync wirelessly instead. While that SOUNDS like a cool idea, if you're trying to transfer any decent amount of music at all it takes HOURS, and inevitably something will interfere with your connection when you're 82% complete and you'll have to start all over again. Maybe other Samsung users have had better success with different computers running different operating systems, all I know is I've wasted many hours of my summer trying to keep my Galaxy synced with very limited results.
To be honest, there's really not much difference between these phones when it comes to getting music out of them, but because I found it so damn hard to get my music INTO the Samsung Galaxy, Nokia Lumia would easily have to be my first choice. Now if we could just get that radio working...
