Well, my time with Magenta’s flavor of the Galaxy S has come to an end. I enjoyed my time with the phone and am impressed with Samsung’s deliberate and dramatic 180 on the Android stage. But, as stunning as the device is in terms of specs, UI, display, and overall “wow,” I still see room for improvement in the chasis department. I guess Sammy still has some work cut out for them.
I will be writing my Vibrant review in the near future and will discuss most of the stuff contained in the video below. Still, I wanted to give you all a crack at some Q&R. I fumbled a bit on this one, specifically in two areas: one person requested to see the performance of a particular game. I filmed it, and the clip’s audio was botched. Sorry about that. Second, someone requested some photo comparisons showing shots with and without Night Mode. I put together some great ones. Then, before sending the phone off, I wiped it without realizing that I hadn’t transferred the photos over to my computer yet. Woops. I’m only human, folks. In their place (below the video where I’ll be telling you to look for them) I’ve included some samples. From TMoNews.
My apologies for any questions and requests that I missed.
Lock screen controls, night mode camera, multitouch performance/multitouch keyboard, exchange calendar, music player , Quadrant Standard, Linpack, Neocore, free memory, stock launcher
Those of you following my original MT3GS questions & requests post will see two new videos this morning, and I am re-embedding all three myTouch Slide videos below for home page access. Among the topics covered n parts two and three are my favorite apps the the Slide, some game demonstrations, the genius button, and Dragon Dictation. Also check out a post chock-full of Slide video and photo samples, as well as my step-by-step rooting guide (at your own risk).
I got to all but three or four of your questions before I had to ship the phone off. As always, I do my best to get to all of them but they questions don’t stop coming on the last day of shooting video. Thank you all for participating, and stay tuned for more Q&R on other devices.
Part 1: Multitouch test, speed, unlocking, recommended(?), vanilla Android/default home.
I misspoke during the part on home replacements. If you read the text on screen and look at the buttons, you can see that I had pressed “clear defaults” even though I said, “clear cache.”
Part 2: Dragon Dictation, game demonstrations, home replacement performance, save to SD, N1 or MT3GS, HD2 or MT3GS, root tutorial, to-do-on homescreen,
Part 3: pinch-to-zoom, torch, genius button, best apps?
It seems like photo and video samples are one of the more popular requests I’ve been receiving lately. And after posting photo and video samples from T-Mobile’s Garminfone yesterday, a number of you contacted me indicating that you want more samples under a wider variety of conditions on future posts. I was also told that my videos need more sound. Well, here you go. I’m not taking shots or shooting video under every quality setting like I used to because, in general, the feedback has been that no one cares about the results of lower settings. So, here are samples from the myTouch 3G Slide’s 5MP cam and LED flash at a photo resolution of 2592 X 1728 and a video resolution at 640 X 480 (VGA); the max this phone is capable of. All still images were scaled from 2592 X 1728 pixels, with no further editing.
I’ve been receiving quite a few requests for photo and video samples from T-Mobile’s Garminfone, and no wonder; it’s packing a 3.15MP cam with no flash and the highest resolution video it captures is 320 X 240. Can this thing compete on the photo front with even low end feature phones in today’s market? Well, my answer is yes for sharing still photos but when it comes to video, shooting with the Garminfone isn’t even worth the time it takes to open your camera app and hit the onscreen record button.
That’s one little oddity I’ve found regarding the device’s software. The dedicated camera button – which can be depressed halfway to focus and achieve automatic lighting adjustments – operates the still camera only. To operate the video mode, you use the virtual red LED on screen. There is no way to take video with the hardware button or a photo with the virtual one. No problem, that’s a small adjustment to make for a new phone. The sparse camera settings are limited to size, lighting, and format for video. Functional, but barely.
Because the Garminfone comes with 4GB of internal memory and a 2GB microSD card, mounting the device via USB results in two external drives popping up on your computer. I have found no way to transfer images or any other file from internal storage to the microSD card, or vice-versa, so keep in mind that changing the default storage setting on the phone before taking shots is the only way to determine where your pictures will reside. This is a bit of a hassle, though I can live with the setup for quick snaps. I’m not a prosumer photographer, and those that are shouldn’t and wouldn’t buy this device. That said, the quality of still photos, with a max resolution of 2048 X 1536, is pretty decent. Just be in a very well lit area before something worth immortalizing happens, patient enough for an average delay between snaps, and able to keep your subject(s) still. Also be prepared for dramatic variations in hue between photos taken in the same place at the same time, at least if you use the phone’s automatic lighting adjustment.
The video situation was fine for me in terms of transferring material because I wanted to post the sample below directly to YouTube. Piece of cake. No problem. But why is the video taking so long to process on the website? Oh, wait…that’s how it’s going to look forever? Wow. The video can’t even fill the Garminfone’s 320 X 480 screen without being blown up, thereby magnifying the hideous quality of the video this phone shoots. While still photos are fine for electronic transfers and possibly passable for print outs, the video quality is a disaster.
As useless as the video camera is, it doesn’t have a great impact on my opinion of the device. This glaring weak point does not detract from the Garminphone’s ability to fulfill its primary function – navigation. Just keep in mind, that with T-Mobile’s Garminfone, you are buying a navigation device that also functions as a phone and incidentally takes pictures. Video feels like an afterthought at best.
The first thing I need to say here is thank you, readers, for your patience regarding DroidDog’s recent server troubles. If you are a regular visitor to the site, there’s a good chance you’ve come across an error while browsing our pages in the last few months; most likely indicating a problem establishing a database connection. Or, you’ve seen the “no suitable nodes” grey screen of sorrow. Chances are you’ve noticed these errors have been popping up with increasing regularity over the last several weeks. We appreciate your coming back to see our latest Android content and how things are progressing with the site. I also want to thank all of our editors who have struggled with database errors and non-responsiveness when adding and editing posts. Growth is a difficult process and the pains are not fun. At times, the problems have been downright frustrating.
These bumps in the road, as unpleasant as they may be, are a result of the continual success of PhoneDog’s family of sites, so another big shout out to the readers who are making them popular. We have a lot of great things planned for you in the near future and our new servers are ready to rock and bear the additional weight of the new audience members sure to come along. New types of content are on the way, along with some other noticeable changes throughout the site. So stick with us throughout the Summer for more videos, more editorial pieces, more hands on reviews, more questions and requests, more DroidWars, and… more free phones. It’s going to be an eventful season.
Take care.
(Extreme gratitude to those behind the scenes who made this transition occur!)
The first thing I need to say here is thank you, readers, for your patience regarding DroidDog’s recent server troubles. If you are a regular visitor to the site, there’s a good chance you’ve come across an error while browsing our pages in the last few months; most likely indicating a problem establishing a database connection. Or, you’ve seen the “no suitable nodes” grey screen of sorrow. Chances are you’ve noticed these errors have been popping up with increasing regularity over the last several weeks. We appreciate your coming back to see our latest Android content and how things are progressing with the site. I also want to thank all of our editors who have struggled with database errors and non-responsiveness when adding and editing posts. Growth is a difficult process and the pains are not fun. At times, the problems have been downright frustrating.
