SAMAUNG GALAXY S4 AND THE big.LITTLE technology. A story untold

INTRODUCTION:

CPUs are one of the essential parts of any electronic gadgets we find today. They are sometimes clocked from even 50Mhz to 2.3 Ghz in the mobile industry and on the pc market we all heard the AMD announcing the new processors having a maximum clock speed of 5 Ghz which is mind blowing.

The mobile processing is quickly covering up the gap between pc performance and in no time phones will be capable of what an average laptop or pc can do and its not gonna surprise me if its gonna happen next year as we know ARM's A-50 A-57 is on works that supports 64-bit processing. Well lets hold our horses and get back to a not too old iteration and a brand new leap into mobile computing. Yes right from the heading you obviously know am gonna talk about the exynos 5 octa. Whats so special about it that we are looking on to it again? there's a lot happening on it and here i am to discuss a lil more deep about it.

EXYNOS 5 OCTA:

ISSUES:

So far we know exynos octa was the very first processor that has adopted ARM's revolutionary big.LITTLE technology which too far complicated to make it, it has 8 cores of which 4 will be A-7 and the other 4 will be A-15.

The deal about the big.LITTLE is that they only allow 4 cores to work at a time but it can be any 4 of the 8 and on any combination which lead to a better performance boost and also makes battery to last loger. In reality linux kernels wasn't mature enough to spot the difference between a power saving A-7 cortex and the high power processing A-15 thus samsung managed only to make it work in a manner where either 4 A-7 cotex core or 4 A-15 cortex processors could work at a time. It was totally different from what they demonstrated at CES 2013 and everyone including me was totally disappointed about it. I must say that this is a problem with android or any linux based os because all the cpu gpu threading and governing is done by them so only if the kernel has a better understanding on the processors is when you get better performance. As the exynos octa used on the galaxy s4 (GT-I9500) is running android they didn't have better coordination between the kernel and processor as the lack of support of architecture by linux resulted in overheating issues and also affects the software till date in some or the other way.

FIX:

Linux foundation so far has done its best to introduce newer architectures to support as they are big time opensource company so far and they have taken another leap forward to prove it again with adding the support for the big.LITTLE architecture after so much of hard-work on the kernel version 3.10 which is at its final stages on release. Thanks to Linux godfather Linus Torvalds has certified that the official Linux kernel 3.10 is now in its final state; and, as far as our audience is concerned, the big addition to the Linux kernel is with enhanced ARM processor support. Specifically, the Linux kernel 3.10 has added support for big.LITTLE.

 Linux kernel 3.10 is now final -- paving the way for its inclusion in a bevy of Linux distributions, and even offshoots such as Android and Chrome OS. The fresh kernel brings a good number of changes, such as timerless multitasking, a new caching implementation and support for the ARM big.LITTLE architecture. In simplistic terms, the new multitasking method should help improve performance and latency by firing the system timer only once per second -- rather than 1,000 times -- when tasks are running. Meanwhile, users with both traditional hard drives and SSDs will find performance benefits from bcache, which brings writeback caching and a filesystem agnostic approach to leveraging the SSD for caching operations. Also of significance, Linux kernel 3.10 enhances ARM support by including the big.LITTLE architecture, which combines multiple cores of different types -- commonly the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 -- that focus on either power savings or performance. 

CONCLUSSION :

I personally feel that we are yet to see the actually power of the exynos 5 octa and the kernel 3.10 is the right thing to do on updating it to all the devices running it. Samsung was all this time helpless to make people happy with the octa core phone as the kernel didn't support it and now its really a great time to make things right and make its customers happy. I wish samsung brings it up as a stability update for the device like it did previously with a 28Mb updates that always tweaked the kernels than getting it as an update with the newer version of android its too long to wait. I feel once the exynos octa get the 3.10 linux kernel we will surely get 20hrs of battery life on heavy performance and more than 2 days of battery life on a average usage and that's one thing we need the most now. Fingers crossed on hoping samsaung will work on it to straightening thing up for the users. Am really looking forward to it!. Just can't wait. how about you?.

GALAXY S4 GT-I9500 SOFTWARE UPDATE

Earlier we hear about the GT-I9505 the qcomm version of the galaxy S4 has been received a software update addressing issues like
-New Camera firmware
-Smearing issue has been fixed (Purple effect while scrolling)
-Smart Pause Toggle
-Move Apps to SD Card
-HDR Video (Can record HDR video)
-Semi-transparent status bar
-New Icons in Settings
-Secure boot status (About Phone)
-Increase legibility (Display) (New feature)

Sadly it wasn't made available for the EXYNOS octa version GT-I9500. It was just 4 days before they said it would come soon to GT-I9500 and here it is finally!.. am really happy to announce that the update is available in india for all the galaxy s4 GT-I9500 users!. All the above mentioned are working just fine!. you can either update your phone via OTA or connect to KIES. Have fun.

Reduce lag on any Samsung Galaxy device by going into developer options and limiting background process

Do you have a Samsung Galaxy S4 and are you frustrated with the fact that the smartphone has a considerable amount of lag? 

The Galaxy S4 really is an amazing smartphone with some pretty amazing specifications, as powerful this phone is with 2 gigs of RAM and either a quad-core 1.9ghz Snapdragon 600 CPU or the 1.6ghz Exynos 5 Octa CPU the phone still suffers from lag issues. This is because of Touchwiz mainly, Samsung's skin comes with tons of features that we could spend all day discussing but we wont and it is very resource heavy on the phone. With all of the enhancements and software features, the phone's internal storage is limited and many of these features run simultaneously whether or not if your using them. The phone has 2 gigs of RAM which should help its performance but in this case its not enough as often the user is left with less than 500mb of free RAM due to all of the various features and preloaded programs that run in the background. 

A good way to reduce the lag and increase the performance of your device is to go into the developer  options and limit the number of background processes the CPU can handle at any time. This works on not only the Galaxy S4 but most other Samsung Galaxy devices with the exception of some older models like the Galaxy S. 

To change the background processes count you need to access the developer options menu in the settings which may vary based on device. The Galaxy S4 has a pretty crazy way of accessing the developer options by taping on the device's Android build number multiple times in the about phone section. Most other devices have a section dedicated to developer options in the settings menu. 

Below is a screen cap from the Galaxy Note 10.1  showing the developer options section in the settings menu

Once in developer options, scroll down the Apps tab and select Limit Background processes and change the value from standard limit to 4 at most. 

Clicking on Limit background processes brings up a dialog box where you can change the values, select 4 processes at most as this is probably the best setting. 

After changing the background processes limit, you should notice a significant improvement in the device's performance. On the Galaxy S4, this reduces lag and even fixes the camera bug where clicking on the camera application in some cases can cause the device to malfunction and reboot itself. RAM consumption is also reduced as there are fewer programs running in the background. 

RAM consumption with no limit on background processes, no apps are running

RAM consumption after changing the limit on background processes to 4

As you can see with no applications running and the limit changed to 4, the amount of RAM being consumed by the system was reduced by more than 10 megabites. That might not seem like much but it does make a difference when you are using applications.

As helpful as this is, I should note that these settings when you change them are not permanent, when you restart the device it goes back to the default setting of  no limit. So you will have to change it again. 

 

Hands on look at Google's new Play Music application

During the Google I/O keynote, Google announced several API updates for its core services. this includes Google Maps, Google+, Play Music and Google Talk. Today I will be giving you a look at the new Play Music app that was announced at I/O. The new app comes with some UI changes but the major new feature is Google now offers a streaming music service. Just like Spotify, Pandora or the other countless music streaming apps, you can create your own music playlists as well as listen to preselected ones. The music streaming service, however, isn't free and requires a monthly subscription fee (although you do get the first 30 days for free if you register before June 30th). Also, the streaming service isn't available in every market unfortunately.

So here is a look at the streaming music service part of the app, you can create your own custom radio stations by typing in the name of a song or artist. The app then builds a station around your search criteria  using similar songs and artists as well.

The streaming service also allows you to search and listen to playlists submitted by other users based on genre  or sub genre. The playlists that are available, however, are limited.

After using the streaming music service for a couple weeks now, I have to say I am quite impressed with it, thanks to this service, you can listen to tracks of new albums that have been released without buying them first which I think is an awesome idea because then you can get a feel for whether or not you want to purchase tracks or the whole album itself. I have noticed though that the music selection is not quite on par with other services, perfect example when I tried to search for Led Zeppelin because they are one of my favorite bands, I couldn't find much content available on that particular artist. I would imagine that in due time, the service will improve as more music is added to the catalog. 

In the end, I think its awesome that Google is offering this service but I do wish there were other pricing options available such as offering maybe a free streaming service but include advertising or skip limits like other services offer. As like any application, it will get better in time as new features may be added. ~Mathew

ARE YOUR EYES SAFE?

Now a days we get smartphones with the best displays out there like apple's retina, samsung's AMOLED and so on. These displays have been challenged on visibility outdoor and for that competition they are doing really a great job. There are different types of screens like TFT, LCD & LED or AMOLED. All of these are really doing great in the recent times. With all the viewing angles and color complexion and vividness being so great depending on the technology the manufacturer uses to make it better, but there is one problem that everyone faces when it comes to night time use. I use my phone during the night times or when i hit the bed. The worst part is that when i just power up my phone's display the brightness from the screen really pokes my eyes. I know this happens to not just me but for everyone who uses their phones at night time. There where applications like the UC-Browser when i use to use my nokia X-6 and it had something called night theme and it could bring down the screen brightness of the phone even below the minimum the manufacturer has set or may be the color theme that were used would have made it appear so dim. It was so pleasant for my eyes and It was more comfortable to read. This kinda cool and awesome feature was bound only to the application itself and wasn't available for such a control all over the phone's display.The absence of such a feature that can be used in every application caused my eye sight to go poor as i continued to use the Galaxy s2 and now my s4 at night times. Its needless to say that the minimum brightness from the screen is bright enough to poke one's eyes during night reading in a complete dark condition. I realized that i can't let my eye site get worst and then is when i remembered the night theme i use to use in the UC-browser. I went to the play store and searched for NIGHT MODE and there it was!.

This application on what i saw thought i could give it a try and installed it right away on my galaxy s2 and the application wasn't even hardly a MB. Not only do you get to set your brightness level but also you get additional setting to make it more comfortable for your eyes. Frankly i never played with those additional setting as i preferred to use with the default ones. Check how bright my screen looks under normal condition.

Now i get into the application and all i had to do was to hit the start button and before that i would ask you to set the brightness to your desired level and here for me 50% is what pleases my eyes. I got into the application and this is how it looks before i start the night mode.

Now you see a start button there don't you? just adjust your brightness level and hit the start button and see the magic happen.

Its brilliant and amazing. Now not only don't i need to check in apps that if they have a night theme but i just needn't even worry about turning on my phone in the night to check all i want to without shrinking my eyes to reduce the poke. This works every where you go cos its has the capacity to reduce the brightness on your phone or table's screens no matter of what kind of screen it is. It reduces to something more minimum than that of the brightness that the respected manufacturers limit. It just works everywhere.

This is how the same home screen looks when i turn the night mode on. This is really amazing to use. You can stop this anytime by just switching back to the night mode app and just tap the stop button. This will not damage any of your hardware. I can promise you that its gonna work just fine. I have been using this for the past few months to confirm on it and it works. give it a try and share this article if you like it.

THIS APP IS ANDROID EXCLUSIVE.

The next best thing.. Is it?

INTRODUCTION

We all know the biggest buzz. The GALAXY S4. Finally after the unpack event everyone got their pease. Though most of the rumors were true there were so many things that did throw a wow during the unpack event. All people could complain about was the plastic make. Am not going to comment on that but I must tell you that the phone feels premium enough and surprisingly one of the best devices to be hand held. Yes better than the HTC ONE. The galaxy s4 stands up to its own standards in battery life, performance and features.

SPECIFICATIONS

The galaxy s4 is not a world phone. Though that's quiet what we expected it would have been amazing to have one version of it to rule them all (iPhone strategy). Sadly there will be two variants that packs the following specifications

GT-I9505
Qualcomm 600 quad core karit processors with adreno 320 crunching the graphics.

2GB LDPR3 RAM

2600mah

Super AMOLED HD display with 441PPI

16/32/64GB internal storage + Miro SD card support up to another 64GB.

The snapdragon 600 by Qualcomm is so far the only commercially available processor breaking the records. Though adreno 320 is a bit old but its quiet amazing still with the smoothest and powerful graphic processing. The CPU clocking at 1.9 GHz (the highest frequency for 600) its blazing fast and better performing than any device running with the same chip. Yes I know what would be your next question "yeah we know the newer flagships always do the best in performance but what about the battery life?". That's one question I ask my self too and when the s4 was unpacked I was a bit disappointed with the 2600mah battery as I was expecting a 3000mah battery but when the results of the battery life test from gsmarena was released it was mind blowing. What the droid razor maxx achieved with its beefier battery the s4 managed to near it with a whooping 68hrs of backup on a decent usage. Trust me with so may sensors and a 5" 1080p display this the best you can get from a smart phone. Its quit understood that Samsung is not just keen on beefing up the performance and battery size but optimizing the os to perform to the fullest with the least usage of power now that's innovation. Have to give a big thumbs up for them on that.

The display is extremely gorgeous as usual except as using the pentile matrix they have tweaked the screen technology by thus giving the ultimate performance without sacrificing quality. There are more display mode including the RGB so I guess its up to us on what we Want to see. With an expandable storage of 64gb Samsung steals the show.

GT-I9500 ( INTERNATIONAL VERSION)
EXYNOS 5 (5410) OCTA processor with a Power VR 544 MP3 GPU. The only difference but indeed changes everything.

For beginners the exynos octa is an octa core processor though doesn't makes all the 8clusters function at the same time it works on the technology developed by ARM called BIGLITTLE. This BL (BIGLITTLE) technology consists of 4 cortex A-15 clusters or you can call very high performance oriented cores and another 4 clusters of cortex A-7 or low performance and battery saving cores. So what's BL's  magic here is that the cores switch between each other(a-15 to a-7) depending upon the load. Only 4 cores functions at a time so it can be of any order for example one A-7 core and 3 A-15 or vice versa. Thus in any combination by thus offering 70% battery saving while commencing normal tasks. That's a break through and its just because the A-7 and A-15 seamlessly syncs and switches at the very required moment. Let's say you are messaging and for that you don't need the high performing cores to get the job done and they use lot of power for it than the power saving one. During the web browsing some parts of the processing can be done by the A-7 at the same time needs good performance too so A-7 and A-15 works together and how may core from which cortex works will completely depend on the task and thus this I too consider as one of the most amazing innovations that helps the manufacturer to meet both performance and power saving so thumbs up again for Samsung. Surprisingly the A-15 cortex are clocked only at a 1.6 GHz and the A-7 at 1.2 GHz. As on competition everyone clocks a minimum of 1.7 GHz and so I guess with this frequency its surely gonna outperform the 600 clocked at 1.9 GHz. Exynos always means raw power and that's what this one is too going to be. This is still an illusion which may turn to reality as the benchmarking apps aren't optimized for the ARM's BIGLITTLE technology so time can only answer. Talking about Power VR Samsung hasn't switched from Mali since the galaxy s2 but the galaxy s did sport the power VR GPU and its nothing like its inferior to Mali or adreno. In fact the power VR 544 is the same GPU that the iPad 4 uses that crunched the graphic performance to the peak on benchmarks. Though again the 544 is older than adreno 320 its still has an amazing performance and supports direct x 9 and that's great because it supports all 3D games which the mali doesn't. So when it comes to gaming its gonna be the best you can ever have. This uses the mp3 version meaning the 3 core version than the mp4 (quad core version) found on the ipad4. Its clocked to a 533mhz and that's really a high speed indeed. With these two beast machines on the hardware I bet is going to deliver the best on performance and the highest battery life. But sadly it doesn't support the 4G LTE radio the 600 supports thus the reason for not being a world phone.

The 13megapixel camera is amazing and to everyone's surprise out performed the htc's ultra pixel even in low light conditions. The camera is stunning and has a new ui that's similar to that on the galaxy camera and not just that but offeres many more capturing modes than any other. Qualcomm says that the s4 can snap videos at 60fps in 1080p that means the s4 is gonna be the first android smartphone to shoot 60fps on 1080p joining the other gears like go pro. So on the whole gorgeous phone, amazing innovations, awesome performance & mind blowing battery life so what more do you need?

CONCLUSION

With the best performance, battery life and feature packed its one amazing phone. Not just that but it ships with android 4.2.2 which no one did and trust me touch wiz nature ux is the closest stack android exprencie you can ever get from any other custom skin and it really feels a colourful version of android which is very amazing to use. So on the whole the galaxy s4 is one phone to rule them all right from android experience to performance battery life & camera. For the record galaxy s4 is the first phone in 2013 to sport the Corning's gorilla glass 3. When the phone offeres so much I don't think plastic is to be more concerned about. Its a phone everyone one dreamt to be and Here it is so grab it than ignoring it on just one factor(plastic). Indeed its THE NEXT BEST THING. Am getting a galaxy s4, are you?.

The HTC One

Introduction
What's not to love about it. The single sheet of aluminium built and the ultra pixel camera and the HTC boom sound. Is that it? There is more than that meets the eye. Its just 7.3 mm thick with a 4.7" display with super lcd3 display technology. Due to smaller screen size it was possible for the manufacturer to bring the pixel density or ppi (pixels per square inch) to 468 which is an amazing breakthrough super passing the retina display. It has beats audio backing it up on the sounds and music. HTC managed to being in dual speakers which are pretty wide and will hit you to your face when you take the phone on hand looking at. With 93db its quiet loud enough. The 4up (ultra pixel) sensor seemed to do what it has promised and on the whole the HTC one stands to its name.

Pros
With the Qualcomm snapdragon 600 ticking at 1.7 GHz it functions flawless and thanks to jellybean there are no break frames or glitches while processing anywhere. The adreno 320 serves best when it comes to graphics processing. On the whole the phone really is an wonderful multimedia masterpiece. With 2gb of ram it can have more standby apps or can process high definition programs, applications or games. Now that's one to do them all. On the software part the HTC one comes with the new sense 5 UI which is far simpler compared to the previous iterations. The blink feed is a boon for news lovers. Your news is one touch away to update you. Its never ending and one gets to customize what they want to see or what interests them to see on the blink feed. That's innovation. The app drawer looks more holo thus making look more polished.everything works super smooth on the HTC one. Am not a camera person so am not gonna talk about the Zoe but have to say you have many things you got to do with the HTC one.

Corns
To my disappointment the HTC one comes out of the box with 4.1.2 though 4.2.2 was available right from November. Though everything is amazing and blazing fast to the hardware and the premium built quality the part where HTC never satisfied android lovers is on the UI. HTC always makes a tip to toe customisation on the android versions by thus makes it looks a lot unpleasant. The apps are now customized according to Google's holo theme and when you run them on the HTC one they really do look awkward. It feels as if those apps are ported from another os to the HTC's. The whoe of sense is  a lot disappointing as you can see all the manufacturers are trying to get their custom skins close to Google's stack to give users a uniform experience but that's where Sony and HTC are lacking. In the sense there is no widget drawer. We get to add widgets only from the home screen. You can't move apps from the app drawer to the home screen by continuous hold on the icon as again if you want it in the home screen get it from the home screen. Multitasking look a lot similar to the Nokia's N9 meego running smart phone. I really didn't like the sense 5. That's one thing that's keeping me away from buying that phone as there is no android experience. It may not matter to many but to me when it comes to an os there should be some pure experience of it. Samsung's touch wiz offers a pure yet coloured Google experience which I love to use with the touch wiz nature ux. On to of all that the 2300mah batter can't give enough juice for heavy users. A super phone that need more juice might run out of power so make sure to carry your charger where ever you go.

Conclusion
HTC one is an amazing phone to have around. HTC lovers are up for a treat. For users who don't like the user experience do wait for the next best thing. Well I am waiting.. Are you?