[YOTA] Year Of The Android planning stage in progress.

Inspired by Android's capabilities as a near-to-fully-fledged Operating system Androidistica set it's aim at a quest .
A quest to put Android Operating System to a test for a full year.
Tasks that are done today on a regular Laptop OS will be done via an Android powered unit .
Requests have been sent to various manufacturers and retailers asking for participation on this quest.
Not surprisingly the Behemoths have either not answered the call or turned it down with cheerful comments. (Thanks anyway, Google Sweden and Archos Sweden).
Hardware to be used during the YOTA will vary during the year, from  Samsung Galaxy Note 2 owned by yours truly, Jynxbox Android HD, Infinitecs Pocket TV,  and others.
The common denominator will be Android as a base platform.

Stay tuned for the YOTA kickoff, happening soon .

Jolla bringing the other half to the universe.

Jolla revealed their device today and it's available for preorder with different perks if you like.
Now what is the device equipped with then ?
To begin with the Jolla Sailfish OS, with true multitasking enabled and Android app compatibility.
This is a smart move and not a bad one at all with the increasing numbers on android apps soaring into the Google Play store.
(Details dont tell yet if the Jolla will have Google Play installed or if the apps need sideloading of some sort.)
Equipped with a dual core cpu, 4G enabled , 8 megapixel camera , replacable battery and 16 Gb of onboard storage .
There will also be a microSD card slot to be able to expand a bit on the storage side.
The screen size, 4,5 "Estrade display" dont tell the actual display resolution but these details we will surely find out.

"Will be" is used here since the Jolla phone is said to be shipping at the end of 2013.
This of course has raised some eyebrows since were not even half way through 2013.
Released in Europe first and different pre-order rankings makes this a worthy contender on paper for the already existing platforms and manufacturers of smartphones.
It will be an interesting end of the year , and Androidistica will do it's best to keep you updated .

[Almost- Review] HTC One

Not long ago in a Galaxy pretty close to ours ,yet another smartphone was born.

The HTC One was highly anticiapated and once in the eager hands of the craving humans the interwebs started to fill with unpacking, reviews, hands-on videos , comparisons and drop-tests.

Not too long after the inital launch the developers got their gears running with the relases of custom roms for the HTC One.
There are Cyanogenmod ROMS, AOKP roms and without a doubt there will be even more options in that area of interest .

Androidistica was supposed to have a spin with the HTC One but unfortunately the HTC One's availability at our local dealer ( pretty big player, 30 stores in Sweden) did not have the HTC One .
They did not have any ETA date for it's arrival either.

I was stumped, literally.

As the representative told me, customers coming in  for the HTC One were quite dissapointed when they could not buy the HTC One handset and in turn chose the Samsung Galaxy S4 instead.

A trend already seen by the salespeople at the store i visited.
Ok, i'll let you in on the name of the store. It's Mediamarkt !

So instead of telling you about the feel and features of the HTC One i am forced to leave you to these short rows of text on the HTC One.

Build Quality:
The much spoken of premium-feel of the HTC Ones casing stands true.
Carved out of aluminium, processed for 380 minutes each, the backpiece feels solid.

User Experince:
HTC has Sense UI,it has evolved into a UI with numerous customization options enabling you to modify colours and the user experience to your liking.

Conclusion:
WIth a 4,7 inch HD Screen, dual speakers on the front, aluminium casing .
The inside huffing and puffing with the Qualcomm Quad-Core snapdragon processor and  2 GB of DDR2 ram memory the HTC One is sure to take it's place among the smartphone flagships this summer.
The camera onboard is brimming with features aswell, reportedly being better in low-light conditions than the current competition right now.

If you are in the market for a new phone, make sure to give HTC One a spin !

[Review] NFC Tags

NFC is a somewhat forgotten standard in the general buzz of Gigahertzes and gigabytes when it comes to mobile computing.
Depending on where in the world you live NFC is used in either more extensive ways like payments in stores or just to make your phone execute predefined actions when tapping into the NFC Chips or stickers you have setup yourself.
Automation is the name of the game.

In some parts of the world you can tie up your phones NFC with your payment card and stores accept that way of payment for things bought .

This is something Samsung tied up with Visa in binding the NFC to support Visa payments on their devices in the future. Samsung Galaxy S4 being the first one out with this support.

Now this review is based on NFC Tags.
These are powerless and communicate in a RFID based way when tapping your NFC Supported phone on them or bringing it to a close proximity to the tag.
What you can program the chip to do all depends on the application you have installed on your phone.

Common usage is to have Bluetooth turned on when entering you car, to enable bluetooth headset action while driving.
Other uses include turning on WiFi when coming home, putting ringer volume on normal for instance.
You can start apps, enable or disable GPS, open your home screen.
Basically anything you can do with tapping can be automated via NFC Tags.

The uses can be many, as with an app like Tasker for instance there is endless possibilites with an NFC tag.

In the package you get a minimalistic manual, the NFC tags (4 in total) packed into neat paper bags, (one each) and double sided stickers to help attaching the NFC tags to whatever place you desire.

These little babies were made for Sony Xperia, but while reviewing them i used a Samsung phone and had no trouble at all while the phone recognized the tags.
Thats the beauty of open standards.
I believe these NFC tags can be used with any NFC enabled phone .
Solid, easy to use and opening a world of possibilities for your smartphone.
These tags certainly do their job!

[Challenge] Year of the Android.

Now what is this ?
Well, as Android as a platform together with apps and services has matured quite a bit since its first launch Androidistica is planning to put the Android OS to the test.

The purpose of the article series is to cover the pros and cons (if any) of switching your day to day computing from the PC , Linux or Mac platform to a more Android based diet.
I am sure this can be done, so to make things more interesting we will cover more unusual tasks too.
Those you dont see on the front page of the Google Play store.
Androidistica will dig deeper into the crypts of general IT annoyances and see if Android can deliver what we search for.

Now, Androidistica has sent out request to a few major players in the Android industry and waiting for response from them to accept the challenge.
So far Google Sweden has declined participation as have Archos Sweden .

Time will tell if we can do this as a comparison type article series or if it will be done by the equipment at hand at the moment .

More shall be revealed, now go back to your weekend and spend some time with your loved ones .

[Review] Samsung Galaxy S4

The eagle has landed, and it's called "The life companion".

We are talking about the newly arrived Samsung Galaxy S4.

I had the opportunity to check out Samsungs latest member in the Galaxy family together with a Samsung representative the other day and found some intriguing details .

Keep reading for my findings.

The first thing that strikes me is the lightness of weight in hand.

130 grams is really light and the S4  feels extremely light in the palm of my hand.

Manageable is the word.

The metallic-coloured edge is made out of metal or aluminium as well as the power and volume buttons.

The display is a true HD five inch in size and with a 441 ppi presenting stunning visuals.

Gorilla glass 3 is the name of the glass and it's said to be even more resilient against scratches and impact than the previous gorilla glass displays.

This was demonstrated by the Samsung rep by scratching a key against the display , leaving no marks whatsover on the S4 display.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with a 13 megapixel back camera and 2 mbpix front facing camera with an arsenal of features build into the Android 4.2.2 installed on the device.

One of the impressive features is the Story Album one.

Pictures taken withing the same GPS coordinates are collected by the camera software into Story Albums.

It automatically sorts pictures taken for you.

The Story Album can then be freely edited by you by adding or removing pictures before you push it to be printed and delivered within 7 days.

The result will be a printed album of the photos you chose from your Story Album.

Very convenient .

Other features are Drama Shot, Sound & Shot, Dual Shot (Both cameras taking a shot simultaneously), to mention a few.

The S4 camera packs some serious punch with it's features.

Having fun so far ?

We have just started, as the feature list is quite extensive rest assured.

We have group play for instance, enabling you to share music or pictures with other Samsung S4 owners .

(Maybe other models support this aswell ?).

When demoing this, we had one S4 playing a tune, and four other S4's getting the same tune shared to them via "Group Play" and after a short while we had five Samsiung Galaxy S4's playing the same tune simultaneously.

Quite cool i have to say.

Another updated app is Samsungs own ChatOn.

The eye-catching feature here is the possibility to show your phone screen with the one you are chatting with.

This feature could be quite useful when showing your parents how to find the Facebook app for instance.

The Android version installed on the S4 is 4.2.2 with Samsung’s Touchwiz UI,build date was as late as 28th of march on the phone this review was made on.

Not only does the Samsung Galaxy S4 come in eleven different variants, it also comes with in three storage flavours, 16, 32 and a 64 GB one.

The eleven different variants come with either Octa-Core or Quad-Core SoC.

As for Europe there will be the Quad-Core version due to the capability of 4G networks not being able to support Octa-Core delivered 4G traffic.

Simple as that.

The hardware on the Samsung Galaxy S4 is quite impressive with 2 GB of ram, Micro SD Card slot, Pedometer Sensors and a whaffle of other built-in functions, Samsung have even dusted off the old IR-Port aswell, to be able to use the S4 as a universal remote control for your TV.

The title "Life Companion" starts to make more and more sense the more you dig into the capabilities of the S4 , and there's more .

Within three weeks the accessories are said to be available.

Flip covers and other cases are already out there as you might have noticed.

The S-band , measuring your activity in a fitness tracker manner and checking your sleep aswell.

This one stores steps taken and then syncs the info right into your S4 and stores the data there for later use.

It also monitors your sleep habits and adjusts the alarm clock accordingly to wake you up at a optimal time of sleep based on your personal sleep cycles.

There will also be a Heart-rate monitor band called the HRM, monitoring your heart rate .

You will also be able to check your weight with the "Body Scale", syncing your and up to four peoples weight to your Samsung Galaxy S4 via bluetooth.

All this is tied up with the S-Health app, gathering all vital statistics regarding your  health and fitness statistics.

Besides from the mentioned accessorier you will be able to get the Samsung Home Sync and a Gaming console addon.

Samsung homesync will let you have a 1 terabyte storage unit at home, connected to your tv set and sync being enabled by Wifi Direct.

This means you only need to put your Samsung Galaxy S4 next to the Homesync device to pair it and start syncing your photos and files .

These will then be accessible for you anywhere in the world via an internet connection.

Folder accesses can be set and you can connect USB storage aswell as the ports will be there on the Homesync device.

Now , this is a lot you might think.

There's more.

Samsung Galaxy S4 will have wireless charging option aswell accordingly via the QI standard.

This will need you to replace the back cover with a slightly thicker one and no more cables needed to charge your precious S4 !

About the  a gaming console addon, not much detail is know yet but in short it's a dock with the gaming console joystick and buttons connected to your S4, making it a HD enabled handheld gaming console.

Conclusion:

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has deceiving looks, appearing just slightly larger than the S3 at a glance, thinner,lighter in weight  and with a larger display.

Once you start looking into what the S4 offers inside you might start loosing your breath for a while.

The "Aaaa"s and "Ooos" will be many over this one, no doubt.

This is a feature packed phone, lots of it enabled by new or improved functions within the software packed into the S4 ,the camera options being a big deal here.

The features are rich on the accessories side aswell, with the S-band , HRM and Body Scale to begin with.

I am convinced the 10 million preordered Samsung Galaxy S4 phones will drop numerous jaws and raise eyebrows an masse all around the world.

When i asked the Samsung representative to answer on the rumours for the Samsung Galaxy S4 being released with a different backpiece the coming summer the answer i got was:

-I am not allowed to answer that.

Intriguing or not , the Samsung Galaxy S4 is here and it has left it's mark .

[Giveaway] Still time to enter Nexus 4 Giveaway.

The awesome crew over at Mobilefun are having a Nexus 4 giveaway .
This one ends 1st of may so you still have time to enter this one.
Hit the link here to enter.