How to power up your Samsung Galaxy S2 - via Ice Cream Sandwich

One of my favourite cartoons when I was younger was Dragonball Z. And by younger I mean, even in med school I was trying to rush home by 4 pm to watch Gohan fight Freeza. If you are a dragonball fan, you will know that Gohan powered up to SuperSaiyan 2 in the final fight against Cell. If you are not a Dragonball fan, just ignore what I said, but I'll show you how to power up your own SS2 ( Samsung Galaxy 2). I've included the following screenshots for my phone showing the benchmark improvements after the upgrading to Android version 4.0.3 aka Ice Cream Sandwich.

It's as simple as eating ice cream.
You just need Samsung Kies installed on your computer.
Make sure your Kies is uptodate.
When you plug in your phone via USB, it will prompt you to update your firmware.
You can connect to Kies via wifi, but you cannot update firmware via wifi.
Just make sure you back up your data.
I only backed up essential data but not the photos or music.
After the update, the phone will restart itself and reinstall all your previous applications.
I didn't lose any data, not even the ones I didn't back up.
(However, backing up is still advisable)

As you can see my Quadrant score jumped from 2869 to 4230. Not bad at all

If you look at the Vellamo benchmark, it will give you comparison scores to other phones as well as the SGS2 running Android 2.3

Funnily enough there are also androids in dragonball, but that's a different story.

I leave you with a scene from Dragaonball Z- Gohan powering up to Super Saiyan 2!

FYI- Gohan's power level at SS2 was estimated at 300,000,000.

BENCHMARKS -Samsung Galaxy S3 vs HTC One X vs SGS2 vs Iphone4S vs others

If you are a geek, you will know that the Samsung Galaxy S3 was recently launched on 3rd May 2012.
And if you are a geek like me, you may be interested in how it performs against other top line smartphones.
I don't own one, but I've scoured the web for some numbers and this is what I've got so far.
And I've listed a few others that might be interesting for comparison.
Please remember benchmarks only measure processing power, not quality of user interface, which in itself is subjective. Benchmark numbers can change each time it is done, so the numbers are approximate.

Quadrant Benchmark - ( I use this one)

Goku                                  >9000
Samsung Galaxy S3            5130-5332
HTC One X   (AT&T)        5183
HTC One X   (Int)              4906
SGS 2  (mine)                     4230( after ICS upgrade)
HTC sensation                    1600
SGS 1                                1000
LGP500                             <400 (my old phone)

Sunspider ( Browser + CPU ) ( lower the better)

SGS3                          1424.7
HTC One X (AT&T)  1608-1709
HTC One X (Int)        1737.7 -1772.3
SGS2                         1753.5
Iphone4S                    2250
Iphone4                      3545
HTC sensation 4G      6217.4

Browsermark

SGS3                          161710
HTC One X (Int)         110038
HTC One X ( AT&T)  102640
SGS2                          101869
Iphone4S                        87481
Iphone4                          51701
HTC Sensation 4G         39864

Vellamo (Browser)

HTC One X (AT&T)  2330
SGS3                         2071
HTC One X Int          1668
SGS2                         1258
HTC sensation 4G        857

GL Benchmark Pro 2.1- offscreen  -FPS

(GPU)

SGS3                                 130
Iphone4S                             123.1
HTC One S                       95
HTC One X (AT&T)        94.9
SGS2                                 86.5
Iphone4                              15.3


As you can see the SGS3 is kind of the beast leading the pack at the moment, with the HTC One X coming close. No doubt, these records are meant to be broken, and new challengers will arise.
Please share your benchmark scores if you are keen.


Checkout the benchmark improvements after ICS upgrade


Benchmark score sources below- plus a few other random sites, plus personal tests.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5810/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-performance-preview
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/03/gsiii-benchmarks/

Iris, is she Siri's evil twin?

If Siri had an evil twin, what would she be called? Sara? 

Guess who I found? Iris!...Yes, IRIS is SIRI.. spelt backwards!

Of course I'm not talking about Siri, a real person, but Siri the Iphone4S voice assistant.

Anyway, I had a little play with Iris today, and actually it was a lot of fun!

Iris is developed by Dexetra, a mobile app development company based in Cochin, India. It is little known, but I have a feeling it won't stay that way for long. The app is called Iris (alpha) - I presume it is still under development.Well, how does Iris work? Well it basically works like Siri, you ask it a question, and it answers you. You ask it to do a task and it will oblige. 

So... how does it compare with Siri and what can it do? Well, I've had a play with both apps for an equal amount of time. It certainly has a different personality from Siri. I dunno how to describe it, the answer can be a little bit "out there". Sometimes it doesn't make sense at all. It doesn't say " I can't answer that " as much as Siri though. It's speed of reply is slower than Siri. Its voice recognition I feel is better than Siri, at least for me. It is powered by Google Voice/Vlingo. And it has New Zealand accent recognition. I don't think I have a real NZ accent but it certainly understands me better than Siri, which understand me 10% of the time. With Iris I get a 70% hit rate, which is good for me.

What about functionality? I tested a few things- asked the weather, asked it to call and message someone and it obliged. It also told me who Barack Obama was the first time I asked. (Siri never understand me even after about 10 tries). When asked about it's weight, Iris said 2 mb. 

Conclusion?

You could call Iris a few things..

A Siri copycat

A poor man's Siri

A Siri wannabe

An upgraded Vlingo

An improved Talking Tom ( I hate that app)

All I can say is, it's free and actually quite fun.

Apple Iphone4S VS Samsung Galaxy S2 Drop Test!!

ROUND 1 FIGHT!

What are the 2 best smartphones on the market right now? The Iphone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy S2. 

Of course there will be much debate on which phone is better. Today we will take a look at how much damage each phone can take. In other words , what their Hp and armor is -sorry, gamegeek!

The Samsung Galaxy S2 screen is made of Corning's Gorilla Glass and a plasticky case. My bro calls it plastic fantastic. The Iphone4 is dressed in " aluminosilicate glass and stainless steel" as Siri tells me.

Unfortunately I don't have the budget to buy an Iphone4S to drop and I don't really wanna drop my S2 intentionally ( although I have dropped it accidentally- and it' fine). Lucky for you, the boys at SquareTrade have the budget to do so. So lets take a look...

Conclusion: The Iphone4S armor may be sexier but doesn't take damage very well :(