Galaxy Note III’s Hardware Specs Fully Unveiled

On September 4, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics should make official the next device in its popular Galaxy Note series (namely the Galaxy Note III), and some more info on what the handset will pack in terms of hardware specs has emerged. 

At least two flavors of the device will arrive on the market, featuring model numbers SM-N900 and SM-N9005, with different processors inside, and each targeted at various markets out there. 

According to a recent article on SamMobile, both Galaxy Note III iterations will arrive on the market with a 5.68-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) Super AMOLED touchscreen display. 

However, the SM-N900 is said to sport a 1.8GHz Octa-Core Exynos 5420 processor inside, paired with an ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPU, and with an unconfirmed amount of RAM. 

As for the SM-N9005, it remains to be seen what processor and GPU it will sport, though it appears confirmed to arrive on shelves with 3GB LPDDR3 RAM. 

Both flavors of the upcoming mobile phone are said to have a 13-megapixel photo snapper on the back, with Optical Image Stabilization capabilities. Although not mentioned, a front camera should also be included in the package. 

Apparently, Samsung is planning on releasing each smartphone model in three different versions, depending on the amount of internal memory, namely 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. A microSD memory card slot will also be present inside the device. 

Only the SM-N9005 flavor of Galaxy Note III will offer support for LTE connectivity, though both of them will be released withAndroid 4.3 Jelly Bean loaded on top right from the start. A 3200 mAh battery is said to power the phone. 

Although Samsung is said to plan the release of three different capacity versions of the handset, it appears that the 32GB model will be pushed to most markets, while the larger 64GB variant will land on shelves only in select countries. 

One other interesting detail on the upcoming smartphone is the fact that it will feature the same dimensions as the Galaxy Note II, despite its larger screen. 

Nothing has been officially unveiled on the handset for the time being, so stay tuned to learn more on it when Samsung makes it official at IFA 2013 in Berlin.

Sony Xperia SP review

Although it's technically a mid-range phone, the Sony Xperia SP gives the high-end Android handsets a run for the money. For starters, it looks absolutely stunning.

Some might see its plastic back as a step down from rear glass panel used on the high-end Sony Xperia Z, but its smooth contours make it much more comfortable to hold, its aluminium frame looks and feels great. It gives the phone a much more pleasing sense of weight and durability - we're big fans.

The clear, illuminated antenna at the bottom of the phone also helps give it a bit of character to distinguish it from other mid-range handsets. This can flash different colours to indicate when you’ve got a missed call or incoming text, and each option is fully customisable. It can also add a little more flavour to your media by flashing to the beat of your music or matching the dominant colour of your photos. You can turn all this off if you’d prefer, but we didn’t find it particularly distracting.

The Xperia SP's hardware performance is right up there with the very best smartphones currently available. It only has a dual-core Snapdragon processor and 1GB of RAM, but its high clock speed of 1.7GHz made a huge difference in our SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks. Using Chrome, it completed the test in 1,063ms, and it was even quicker using the Dolphin browser, scoring a super fast 954ms. This is very impressive for a dual-core chip, beating many quad-core phones in this browser test.

Its 3D performance was similarly outstanding. It produced a silky smooth average of 54fps in 3DMark’s Ice Storm test, scoring 10,074 overall. This is just behind the much vaunted Samsung Galaxy S4, but in practical terms you shouldn’t notice any difference. It just about coped with the even more demanding Ice Storm Extreme test as well, scoring 5,689 (or 22fps) overall.

Most tasks won’t need to utilise this extra power, but it made everyday tasks feel that much snappier. It rendered the BBC News home page in just two seconds and we didn’t encounter any stuttering or jerky movements while scrolling through web pages. Its 1,280x720 resolution meant we still had to zoom in to make text a bit more legible in desktop sites, but its responsive touchscreen was a joy to use.

The display itself is very bright, but there were some noticeable imperfections when it came to overall image quality. Sony claims it uses similar technology to its Bravia TVs, but while colours were very sharp and vibrant, blacks were still quite grey. This was particularly noticeable when we placed it side by side with an AMOLED display, but even other LCD screens produced deeper blacks. This is a shame, but it’s certainly no worse than the Xperia Z.

Thankfully, its screen didn’t take its toll on the Xperia SP’s battery life. This is largely thanks to the large 2,370mAh battery, which meant the phone lasted 7 hours and 12 minutes in our continuous video playback test with the screen set to half brightness. This is about average for a modern smartphone.Sony’s customisations to the operating system are fairly minimal. It has a total of seven home screens. Sony’s entertainment apps, such as its Video and Music Unlimited services, are hidden away on its outer screens, leaving more room for your own apps on the central screen. A small portion of the screen is taken up by touch-sensitive back, home and menu controls, but we still had plenty of room to use the rest of the screen, including the keyboard. We were able to type quickly and accurately, and while we initially lamented the loss of full stop and comma keys on the first screen, these can be easily added back in using the keyboard settings wizard.

Where the Xperia SP falls down the most is its 8-megapixel camera. We liked having a physical shutter button, but while our outdoor shots had plenty of detail, colours often looked quite murky, even in bright sunshine. We also noticed quite a lot of noise, and clouds in particular were riddled with a light speckling of colour, even in lighter, whiter areas. Indoor shots were better, but the noise still persisted and it didn’t cope well in low lighting conditions.

Its video recording was similarly mediocre, as there was a lot of visible noise even in our brightly lit test room. Static white backgrounds positively shimmered during playback and it only got worse when we turned the lights off.

This will be disappointing to some, but thankfully Sony goes some way to make up for this by packing the Xperia SP full of extra features. Most of them require other Sony products in order to work, but the first of these is support for Sony’s PlayStation 3 Dualshock controller, which allows you to use a PS3 controller with the phone when playing games. Its built-in NFC also pairs up with NFC-enabled Sony Bravia TVs so you can mirror your phone content on the TV screen. The MirrorLink app, on the other hand, will let the phone connect with certain in-car entertainment systems and mirror what’s on screen.

The Sony Xperia SP is a fantastic phone. It has its flaws, but they’re not quite enough to stop it from being an outstanding mid-range handset. With all the speed and power of a high-end quad-core phone, it’s also brilliant value. It wins a Best Buy award.

Buy it now from T-Mobile on a very generous 500 minute, unlimited texts and unlimited data contract, and you'll get a free handset on a £26 per month contract, with a total cost of ownership of £624 over two years. That's a saving of around £300 compared to the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Samsung Galaxy S Advance review

The Samsung Galaxy S Advance is a lesser model than its Samsung Galaxy S3sibling, but it’s still a desirable and stylish smartphone nonetheless.

Yes, it has the aging Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and a 1GHz dual-core STE U8500 CPU instead of the S3’s 1.4GHz quad-core CPU, but it has a 4in Super AMOLED screen, a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, along with a range of multimedia and entertainment apps. In short, everything you arguably could need from a smartphone.

Certainly, we we’re impressed by its colourful 4in Super AMOLED display. Viewing YouTube videos on the Galaxy S Advance is a truly pleasurable experience. Sadly, its 480x800 resolution is unspectacular by modern standards, but the images are still sharp. Indeed, text and icons are smoothly rendered.

Less good is the motion of animations and menu transitions, which judder too often. The juddering isn’t annoying in itself; it’s annoying because it does occasionally provide smooth animation. Similarly, it’s too slow to change orientation and we regularly had to shake it to wake it. When it does change orientation, the transition is immediate and ungraceful, which we feel is unbecoming of the Galaxy S Advance. Even an iPhone 3GS switches orientation smoothly and gracefully. The Galaxy S Advance isn’t a cheap phone, and this jerkiness does let it down somewhat.

The phone’s web browser is functional, but reading text on it is disappointing given its screen size. We found ourselves zooming uncomfortably far in to the screen to read text, and then realised that part of the problem is its dimly lit screen. Even with the brightness turned all the way up, the browser was still too dark. It took a brisk 8 seconds to render the BBC News home page, which is fast.

It has forward and rear cameras, a range of shooting modes such as Panorama and Smile Shot, an LED flash and a maximum resolution of 2,560x1,920. Settings are easily changed and you can even switch between Auto Focus and Macro Focus, and add GPS tags.The Galaxy S Advance comes with a sensible complement of apps, such as a photo editor, a mapping app, a media player and an office productivity suite, but you can easily add more using Google Play. You can also download apps from the Samsung App store should you prefer. We downloaded BBC iPlayer and MX player, and both worked perfectly.

The Galaxy S Advance has 1.86GB of system storage for your apps and a further 3.91GB of user storage. That’s a generous amount, but you can further expand the storage capacity with a microSD card, should you need more room for your media.

It fits nicely in the hand and we could use it without hitting the sleep and volume buttons, but its plasticky feel does make it feel a cheaper phone than it is. The Galaxy S Advance is a good phone, and we love its attractive design and big screen, but we were expecting more from it. The Galaxy Advance S suits someone who doesn’t want to buy the top-of-the-range Samsung Galaxy S3, but still desires a similar design.

Samsung Galaxy Mega review

Never let it be said that Samsung leaves a niche unfilled. After the Galaxy S4 Mini, designed for those who feel the Galaxy S4 is just too big, we have the perfect phone for people who feel a five-inch phone looks like a silly little toy: the almighty 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Mega.

This isn’t the biggest phone we've seen, though; that honour belongs to the 7inAsus FonePad. The Mega's screen may only be 0.7 inches smaller when measured diagonally, but this translates to a handset that is more than 3cm shorter and narrower than the FonePad. While a 7in phone won’t fit in a trouser pocket, we carried the Mega around all weekend without even noticing it was there - helped by the Mega being just 8mm thick.

The Mega is big but skinny

We developed a love/dislike relationship with the phone's size during testing. The large screen made it a pleasure to use while at home, sitting on the sofa, surfing the web or watching videos; we were surprised at how much difference the screen size made compared to a five-inch phone such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 or Sony Xperia Z.

However, it's less fun when you're out and about. The phone is almost impossible to use properly one-handed, as your thumb can really only reach the bottom-third of the screen. One exception is when making calls, for which there's a one-handed mode that squeezes the numberpad into the bottom right-hand corner. Once you've dialled though, it's not particularly comfortable to hold up by your ear for long periods, and we never really managed to put our self-consciousness to one side.

You'll struggle to use the Galaxy Mega one-handed

You don't buy a device designed to replace both a phone and a tablet without accepting some compromises, though. The Mega is actually significantly easier to carry around and use as a phone than we were expecting.

Samsung has included its Multi Window feature, which we've seen before on the S4 and Galaxy Note, but it really comes into its own here on the bigger screen. There’s a small tab that pokes in from the side of the display, and this opens a launcher for a selected group of apps that can then be dragged onto the top or bottom of the display (or the left and right in landscape mode). This means you can read a web page in one part of the screen while making notes in S Memo in the other.

We're fans of the Mega's multitasking capabilities

PERFORMANCE

Size aside, the Mega feels just like a normal Samsung smartphone to use. The operating system has the usual Samsung skin, and its 1.73GHz dual-core processor gives it similar performance to the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. The Mega completed the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark in an impressive 1,111ms, which makes it one of the faster Android smartphones we’ve seen, and 5,130 in 3DMark shows the phone also has above-average gaming power.

These figures pale behind one of the Mega's big rivals, though: the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. The Ultra has a 2.2GHz quad-core processor, completed the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark in just 860ms and managed a monstrous 17,899 in 3DMark, both of which are the best scores we have ever seen. You could see the difference when browsing the web on both phones; the Ultra was smooth at all times, while the Galaxy Mega showed an occasional jerk when scrolling past complicated parts of web pages, such as reams of nested article comments.

DISPLAY

The Ultra also has a superior screen. Quite apart from its resolution advantage - the Xperia Ultra has a full HD 1,920x1,080 screen compared to the Mega's 1,280x720 - we preferred its image quality. The Xperia Ultra's display had beautiful pure whites, while we saw a slight blue tinge from the Mega's AMOLED screen.

The Mega only really suffers when compared side by side with the Ultra, however. During everyday use the Samsung phone felt perfectly snappy and the screen is bright with vibrant colours. A screen this large could also benefit from a few more pixels, but we could still read headlines and standfirsts on desktop web pages. There is currently no official pricing information for the Xperia Ultra, but the cheapest we've found it so far is for over £600 on handtec.co.uk - over £200 more than the Galaxy Mega. Samsung seems to be pitching the Mega as a mid-range hybrid, saving the premium slot for the upcoming Galaxy Note 3.

CAMERA

The Mega has an eight-megapixel camera on the rear and a 1.9-megapixel model on the front. We liked the photos it took in daylight, which showed accurate exposure in bright sunshine. Low-light photos were reasonable, but with some softness from noise reduction. When shooting a low-light video with a pulsating light, we found the handset continually hunted for focus.

Well-judged exposure in this sunlit smoky scene

CONCLUSION

The Galaxy Mega's name definitely refers to its size rather than specification or price, as this is a phone with a mid-range specification which is a similar price on contract to the Galaxy S4 Mini, and looks like it will be significantly cheaper than one of its main rivals, the Xperia Ultra. You shouldn't buy it if you're just looking for a 3G tablet, as the Asus FonePad fills that niche for half the price. However, if you're prepared to put up with looking a bit silly when you're making a phone call; then the flexibility of having an excellent web surfing device which will still fit in your pocket, makes the Galaxy Mega a good buy.

Alongside its new Xperia tablet, Sony today launched three new Android-powered smartphones: the Xperia T, V and J. Wired goes hands-on.

The headlines belong to the Xperia T, the company's new flagship. It's a large but lightweight Android phone with 1,280x720 pixels squeezed into a 4.6-inch display -- the result being an extremely sharp screen, that's just the tiniest bit crisper than Samsung's Galaxy S III.

In addition there's a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, a 13-megapixel camera on the back (and a lower-resolution camera on the front), GPS and movement sensors, up to 16GB of internal storage and it's powered by Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich, but a 4.1 Jellybean upgrade is promised).

Notable as well is Sony's choice of microSD for expanding the memory of the phone. Sony, ever the fan of creating custom memory cards that only work in its products and cost an arm and a leg more than the standard alternative, appears to have seen sense on the memory front. Well done, etc.

Hands-on
It's a sweet phone to use, too. The Android implementation is basic, which is a good thing -- Sony hasn't tried to skin the operating system, so you're effectively getting the standard Android experience. The screen is wonderful -- arguably on par with Samsung's Galaxy S II and III in terms of vibrancy, and with terrific crispness. There was no notable lag when navigating homescreens and apps, and the chassis is thin and lightweight (9mm and 139g, respectively).

We were looking for something unique though. As good as its internal specs are, and as nice as they make the phone to use, Samsung's Galaxy S III beats it in terms of processing power and screen size. The key appears to be the camera, which adds a hefty five megapixels on top of what Samsung offers, as well as Sony's Exmor R sensor so those extra pixels aren't wasted. At least that's the hope -- we're waiting to test the camera out during some decent lighting.

Either way, it's still a decent Android phone, if somewhat lacking its own identity in the ever-expanding Android Who's Who directory.

Xperia V
Also announced was the Xperia V, another 1.5GHz-powered 13-megapixel camera phone with the same resolution display but in a smaller chassis. It's actually very similar to the Xperia T, but likely to be cheaper when it goes on sale. It only has 8GB of internal memory though and the battery is a bit smaller (read: it holds less charge). But it does have NFC for fast pairing with other Sony devices, as well as 4G LTE connectivity and also comes in pink. 

It's not immediately obvious why Sony decided to release two phones with specifications so close to each other. It's no more obvious when you sit and think about it, either. We'll be raising the issue in an interview with Sony later this week, rest assured.

Xperia J
The third and final Xperia device is the one with the most personality, even if its specs are less impressive. It's a four-inch Android 4.0 phone with an 854x480-pixel display, a 1GHz processor, a five-megapixel camera, 4GB of memory (plus microSD), weighs 124g and comes in pink and gold (as well as black and white). It's the lower-end "stylish" phone, but with its simple Android implementation, decent screen and distinctive look, it'll no doubt appeal to the kids who can't afford the bigger, badder T or V.

Samsung's Galaxy Note II is even more massive than its predecessor

The phone you thought was too large for your hands just got bigger. Samsung has announced the Galaxy Note II, and its even plumper than its predecessor.

It's an Android phone that lives in the part of the market that makes people ask, "Is this a massive phone or actually a tiny tablet?" It's arguably the former, but it's for you to decide whether it's too massive.

Unlike the 5.3-inch original Note, the new model has a 5.5-inch screen. The resolution has changed slightly to 1,280x720 pixels (from 1,280x800) in order to perfectly match a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Inside the processor has been bumped from 1.4GHz dual-core to 1.6GHz quad-core, it will run Android 4.1 Jellybean out of the box and the maximum storage capacity has jumped from 32GB to 64GB. The RAM has been doubled too, from 1GB to 2GB, to support the needs of current and future Android apps.

There are two things that notably have not changed, however: the rear camera still shoots at eight megapixels and in the hand it feels wide, but light. It weighs 180g and is 0.2mm thinner than before, measuring 9.4mm (down from 9.6mm). We got some time with the phone on the show floor of this year's IFA convention to discover this in the flesh, and also that it's a responsive bit of kit. It whizzed through apps as well as the Galaxy S III thanks to the over-capable processor on the inside.

It's a decent successor to the Note, and the fact that Samsung has decided to produce a new model shows some commitment to the form factor that will be important to developers and publishers considering the Note as a key model to develop for. Its internal upgrades certainly make it an attractive upgrade for anyone using and enjoying the first Note, too.

The Nokia 3210 was the greatest phone ever made

In terms of being a phone, Nokia's 3210 was, historically-speaking, as impressive as the wheel, sliced bread and hair straighteners. It did everything perfectly that my beloved ex-CNET colleague Flora Graham once said the iPhone sucked at: being a phone.

I remember having a blue 3210 on Orange circa 1999. Now, true, it couldn't offer Google Maps, didn't support corporate email, wouldn't shoot HD video, didn't use GPS, couldn't remotely control my home media library, didn't include a wireless movie rental store and certainly couldn't provide augmented reality experiences.

But do you know what it could do? Make great calls, make texting quick, and didn't run out of battery power in 24 hours. It's something I pointed out in an article I once wrote for GQ, about the old Nokia N8: the 3210 really was one of Nokia's finest achievements.

Thomas Ricker, who writes for the The Verge, once said to me that most of Nokia's mid-range phones have basically been revisions of the 3210. And although he's correct, these mid-range phones have always cowered in the shadows of their older, more feature-rich smartphone brothers and sisters as Nokia's portfolio increased in size and scope.

The 3210 did not. It didn't compete with the Nokia Communicators of the time because, unlike Nokia's current flagship do-all smartphones, it was an entirely separate product category. Today, most Nokia phones -- from entry-level to flagship smartphone -- are essentially just different scripts for the same story.

So next time you see a 3210 covered in dust, do me a favour: give it a polish. And then give it to me, because I lost mine years ago.