If the rumors are true, iPhone 5 looks like a DUD! (2 Viewers)

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by TonyD /t/319622/if-the-rumors-are-true-iphone-5-looks-like-a-dud/270#post_3973171
I'm not.

You made that obviously clear by your earlier posts about switching over to the Galaxy. I don't think my requirements for a phone is as elaborate as yours so I won't be doing the same.

 

[TonyD]

I think I would be fine if we did get the 5 but more than any other reason I feel like I want something different now.
What has it been since the first one five years?
Thats a long time for me to not try soemthing different.

 

[Sam Posten]

This will be a great post-Steve test with regards to his ability to have "one more thing" up his sleeve. Recall that prototype of the 4 that was out there pre-release? Where Steve actually joked about "some of you may have already seen this..." but then he still managed to unveil some new surprises despite the fact that most people had already seen the prototype. Hopefully Tim Cook & Co. have something up their sleeve which will still drop jaws despite the fact that we may have already seen the finished product.

I concur. All we have seen so far is a form factor. Which many have seemed to have written off as evolutionary. I don't think that will matter in the slightest. I'm almost more excited to try the new back of the device than I am to have the extra inches of screen. =) But there are a million things that matter more than just that new form factor.
iTunes, I'm looking at you here. And I LIKE iTunes. But it needs to evolve.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Just a reminder of what was being advertised
during the iPhone 4S launch. Hoping history
does not repeat itself....

 

[Sam Posten]

Are you saying you hope that Samsung doesn't display dopey ads or you hope that Apple rushes to technical innovations before they are fully baked?
We got samsunged!
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/apple-gets-samsunged-yet-again-latters-super-bowl-teaser-137674
And it looks like it's happening again:
http://www.cultofandroid.com/15880/samsung-builds-fake-apple-store-to-shoot-anti-iphone-5-ad/?utm_medium=twit&utm_campaign=spread-us

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Half baked? Oh Sam, you are trying too hard.

 

[Carlo_M]

I've already seen an oversaturation of Samsung's "The Next Big Thing Is Already Here" campaign during the sporting events I watch: much more so than any Obama/Romney commercials!
I don't care one way or the other. Competition is good. Innovation is good. It makes the products better. Sam's right. iTunes needs to evolve. I wish there was a comparable solution but there isn't. My library is trapped there and I'm not about to re-burn 13000 songs into something else. Genius was a great addition. Airplay is a good feature as it makes its way into more devices. Ping was a failure. Apple really needs to step up to the plate and improve the iTunes experience.
But actually my biggest hope for the new 5 is LTE/4G regardless of carrier. I'm tired of my apartment being smack dab in the middle of an AT&T dead zone. If they don't fix it by the time I'm ready to upgrade, I'm going to take a close look at Verizon. But I want to be able to talk and download simultaneously, and I'm hoping 4G/LTE will allow that on Verizon's network.

 

[Steve_Tk]

I'm most excited for the new speaker grill and dock connector.

 

[Sam Posten]

Half baked?  Oh Sam, you are trying too hard.

I seem to recall two major issues with it at the time. First it didn't last a day on a charge and it got hot when in use. Giz seems to back that up

Battery life was fair without being great; it’s certainly possible to exhaust the Galaxy S II 4G with a day’s usage.
This is still just a Gingerbread phone in an increasingly Ice Cream Sandwich world. Telstra’s promising that the Galaxy S II 4G should be upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich, but there’s no official timeframe for that as yet.
The one thing that’s been notably sacrificed in the name of 4G has been the Galaxy S II’s slender profile; the 4G is thicker and heavier than the original phone was.
It is 4G, and as noted in the test results, that means there are times when it’ll connect at great speed — and times when it won’t. LTE 4G is still just a data rather than voice technology, and with that in mind, I tested the Galaxy S II 4G as a portable hotspot.
Hot being the operative word; while I was somewhat concerned by the temperature of the 4G WiFi Hotspot, it had nothing on the Galaxy S II 4G, which quickly reached high temperatures. It’d be feasible to use it as a hotspot, but you might want to make sure it’s well ventilated when you do so.
Pricing is also problematic for the Galaxy S II 4G. It starts on a 24 month $59 cap, but the 3G Galaxy S II is considerably cheaper. The extra features do make the 4G version a little faster testing side by side, but not exceptionally so, which means you’re paying a premium mostly for the promise of 4G.

Gizmodo's review:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/04/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-4g-fast-and-fat/
a year later and many S2 owners are still unable to get ICS and will never get JB.

 

[Sam Posten]

Re: Voice and data on Vz LTE - It does, Carlo.
I need to hear the specifics on whether keeping my AT&T Unlimited makes any sense tomorrow or going to Vz for much better coverage will. Cannot wait to get rid of the clowns at AT&T but that wedge still remains with unlimited...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Sam, you are cherry picking your articles again.

There are many more articles out there praising
the GS3 and calling it a worthy contender to the
iPhone.

Let's not pick the ones that suit your need to bash
the phone.

 

[Hanson]

Gizmodo's review:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/04/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-4g-fast-and-fat/
a year later and many S2 owners are still unable to get ICS and will never get JB.

Sam, that phone was released in Australia in April. That's... let's see... less than 5 months ago. Well, it's a "year" if you round up.

AFAIK, all US variants of the S2 have ICS. The world version has it as well. Define "many". Like a hundred or something?

Oh, and:

http://www.android.gs/update-samsung-galaxy-s2-to-android-4-1-jelly-bean/

Why did you even write something like "never get JB" with zero substantiation?

 

[Carlo_M]

I have that same wedge Sam (grandfathered unlimited with a discount through my university of 15%). So I pay about $77 a month for the lowest voice (450 Anytime, 5000 N&W, 1000 texts) and unlimited data. If Verizon can come close to that, and the LTE simultaneous voice and data is supported with the 5, I'll be very tempted. Looking at my historical web data usage for one year, I average about 500MB a month with a peak of 679MB, so I should safely fit under Verizon's 1GB plan. I am connected to wi-fi at home and work, so most of my data usage is funneled through that.

 

[Sam Posten]

Sam, you are cherry picking your articles again.
There are many more articles out there praising
the GS3 and calling it a worthy contender to the
iPhone.
Let's not pick the ones that suit your need to bash
the phone.

We're talking about the GS2 Ron. Yes, the GS3 is a very nice phone if you like the form factor. The GS2 had serious limitations, the battery in particular.

 

[Sam Posten]

Sam, that phone was released in Australia in April. That's... let's see... less than 5 months ago. Well, it's a "year" if you round up.
AFAIK, all US variants of the S2 have ICS. The world version has it as well. Define "many". Like a hundred or something?
Oh, and:
http://www.android.gs/update-samsung-galaxy-s2-to-android-4-1-jelly-bean/
Why did you even write something like "never get JB" with zero substantiation? 

Hanson. I chose the latest reviews I could find. They still claim battery and overheating are issues.
I don't follow every Android update, but there still seems to be question about whether SGS2 will get JB on many carriers:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/08/30/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-jelly-bean-update-status-unclear/
Maybe you have more up to date articles than a week ago?
Motorola have admitted their older phones will never get JB and are paying their purchasers for this in cold hard cash. Samsung remains nebulous about how JB will get to everyone based on that article. If Android fans are confused can you blame me?

 

[Hanson]

I own a GS2 variant, and NO. You're using the review of a specific S2 variant with a 4G antenna as your backup that the S2 has battery problems. I've not heard of this as being a general S2 issue. It's not the Evo 4G.

What are the other "serious limitations" you speak of? The S2 was a well reviewed and regarded phone when it was released. It was Samsung's most successful phone until the S3 was released. Sounds like you're making shit up.

 

[Hanson]

Hanson. I chose the latest reviews I could find. They still claim battery and overheating are issues.
I don't follow every Android update, but there still seems to be question about whether SGS2 will get JB on many carriers:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/08/30/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-jelly-bean-update-status-unclear/
Maybe you have more up to date articles than a week ago?
Motorola have admitted their older phones will never get JB and are paying their purchasers for this in cold hard cash. Samsung remains nebulous about how JB will get to everyone based on that article. If Android fans are confused can you blame me?

Sam, your choice of reviews was poor and misrepresentative. That is beyond dispute. I explained why.

Also, your article says "unclear" in regards to JB. How is this "never"?

And how does Motorola factor into a discussion of the S2? Now you're just grasping at off-topic straws.

I have an S2, and the reason I'm not chomping at the bit for the S3 is because the S2 is a very good phone and great for its time (plus, my ICS update made the phone feel brand new). You're making sweeping generalizations that the S2 has "battery and overheating issues" based on a Gizmodo reveiw of an Australian phone with a use case of 4G tethering. I can't tell if you're misinformed or dishonest.

 

[Sam Posten]

You can point to faults with every phone, I'm sure if you google iPhone issues you'll come up with just as long a list, but the battery is consistently cited as a problem with the S2:

he not-so-good news is that if you're playing with the Samsung Galaxy S2 all the time as we were (and we mean listening to Spotify, browsing the web via 3G, watching videos frequently, whacking out some maps here and there with GPS, reading books, using Push email and playing games) then you'll be lucky to get 10 hours of battery out of it – and that's with the enhanced 1650mAh battery wedged on board.

http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s2-930907/review/page:9#articleContent

The user-replaceable battery on the Galaxy S II gives up to ten hours of heavy usage, or two days of lighter usage.[11] According to Samsung, the Galaxy S II is capable of providing nine hours of talk time on 3G and 18.3 hours on 2G.[11][12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
Engadget gets double that, but still not a whole day.

The story of the Galaxy S II's battery life cannot be told without returning to its luscious screen. Being an OLED panel, the 4.3-inch display here doesn't use one single backlight as LCD screens do, and instead only illuminates the pixels that are needed to actively display content. This is the reason why it can generate truer blacks than any backlit panel, but it also permits the user to optimize battery life by doing such things as switching to a darker wallpaper or reading ebooks against a black background. We didn't actually bother with such tweaks, we were too busy exploring every one of the myriad features on this phone, but the option's there as an extra dimension of obsessive control if you care for it. As to the Galaxy S II's actual endurance, we found it highly competitive with the latest batch of Android phones. After 20 hours, half of which were filled with the above tinkering and exploration, we managed to drag the Galaxy S II down to 15 percent of its original charge. This was with our usual push notification suppliers, Gmail and Twitter, running in the background and while constantly connected to our WiFi network.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/28/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-review/

Fortunately, slower speeds mean longer battery life for AT&T’s Galaxy S II than I got on T-Mobile or Sprint. I could get a full day of "regular" use out of the phone, making a few phone calls, browsing and sending emails on a mix of Wi-Fi and HSPA+, without the phone threatening to die. After a day and a night, though, the phone was nearly always dead or dying in the morning.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/31/2524896/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-at-t-review

The Skyrocket HD, was bumped up to a 1850mAh battery to compensate for the LTE radio and 720p display and really performed well for not only an LTE device but a device using an older LTE radio. Generally speaking a day's worth of texting, browsing, light gaming and social networking pushed the battery to 20-30% by the end of the day.
When throwing tethering into the mix however I found the phone entering the dangerous sub-10% range.

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/08/02/samsung-epic-4g-touch-owners-reporting-ice-cream-sandwich-issues/
http://samsunggalaxysforums.com/showthread.php/8374-Getting-tired-of-S2-problems
http://samsunggalaxysforums.com/showthread.php/9532-For-those-with-battery-issues
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s2-skyrocket/582011-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-skyrocket-ics-issues.html
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1656005
Again, if you go to iPhone equivalents you'll find plenty of iPhone issues. But it is clear that the S2s achilles heel was its battery life and the S3 seems to have made big strides here, not by adjusting to larger batteries but.... by getting a 1 year newer LTE modem. And that is what I mean by half baked. Commence with the "you are holding it wrong" jokes at will.

 

[Hanson]

I don't not, in any way get any implication from the reviews that the battery life is an "achilles heel". That's your own invention. The battery life mentioned in the reviews was actually very good for an Android device for the time. Besides, 10 hours of heavy use is in the same ballpark as the iPhone 4s, so what's your point?

Oh, and:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243242/iphone_4s_battery_life_how_does_it_compare_to_other_smartphones.html

Samsung Epic Touch 4G Sprint 7:22 (Galaxy S2 variant)
T-Mobile MyTouch 4G SlideT-Mobile 6:33
Apple iPhone 4S AT&T 6:14

What's the term for something that's a hour less than an achilles heel?

 

[Sam Posten]

You realize that article is comparing the bugged version of iOS right? Granted you are correct that those phones have longer talk time, having a bigger battery and using voice tech will do that. But what happens when you use the LTE?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/galaxy-s3-vs-iphone-4s_n_1615824.html
Tables get turned a bit. Again you are making the same argument I am. The first two generations of LTE modems were power hogs. There is no technical reason Apple could not have used them. They chose to wait until 3rg generation LTE modems were available and the Retina iPad shows how smart a decision that was and we should see more good news on that tomorrow.
Edit: huffPo, I know I know, not many recent battery comparisons tho. If you find a more legit one, post it!