When to buy an Android tablet and when to buy a Kindle Fire

Summary: Should you get an Android tablet like the Galaxy Tab or, well, an Android-based tablet like the Kindle Fire? Read this article to find out.

I’ve been using my Kindle Fire more and more over the last week, and my wife recently got hers as well. I’m getting familiar with a machine that’s not half bad, but also not perfect.

See also: 7 reasons the Kindle Fire is better than the iPad

See also: 12 things that kinda suck about the Kindle Fire

Ever since I wrote those two articles, I’ve apparently become the go-to guy among my friends and neighbors for holiday tablet purchases. The “should I get an iPad or should I get a Kindle” question is easy, because they are such different devices.

The one that I’m asked even more, though, is whether to get an Android tablet like the Galaxy Tab or, well, an Android-based tablet like the Kindle Fire. The confusion is that since they’re both based on Android, what’s the right choice?

So, let’s clarify things a bit. The Kindle Fire is to Android like Mac OS X is to UNIX. The underlying OS for the Kindle Fire is Android (which, okay, is based on Linux, which itself is based on UNIX, sigh). But unless you hack your Kindle, you’ll never see a traditional Android user interface.

So, then, let’s get that over-with. You can buy a $199 Kindle Fire, hack it, and run a generic Android distribution on it, and it then becomes something of an Android tablet. But you have to want to do the hacking, have the time, have the technical chops, and not mind if you break stuff. Basically, if you want to tinker fer cheap, then the Kindle Fire might be fun.

Really, though, the question of Android vs. Kindle becomes more of what you want to use your tablet for and how much you want to spend. While the Kindle Fire is pretty inexpensive, it has some serious functional limitations. It doesn’t have Bluetooth, so an external keyboard is either unlikely or very hacky. It doesn’t have a camera. It has relatively little storage and RAM. And, unless you hack it, it doesn’t have access to the main Android app store.

A typical (if more expensive) Android tablet has all those things. So, if you want a tablet for general purpose use, if you want to take it on the road to write or edit video or photos, you’ll want something with more power than the Kindle. Essentially, if you want to produce content or have a general-purpose tablet, you’ll want an Android tablet, and not the Kindle.

If, on the other hand, you want a tablet to consume content, and especially if you’re very comfortable with the Amazon ecosystem like my wife and me, then you may want the Kindle Fire. In other words, if you want a backlit Kindle you can read in the dark, that’ll also do some other stuff, then buy the Kindle Fire.

We have an iPad. We don’t use it as much as most families, because I do most of my couch-reading on a large-screen HDTV. I’m also writing this on that screen. But my wife uses the iPad on the treadmill (she says it’s the perfect treadmill tablet), she uses it to watch knitting videos, and I use it to power my teleprompter during interviews so I can look straight at the person I’m interviewing, rather than at a monitor.

By contrast, I use the Kindle Fire in bed, to read and occasionally watch Netflix videos. I also, sometimes, use it to carry around and read appliance repair manuals PDFs in one hand, while holding a tool in the other, trying to get something or other working in our new house. The Kindle is light enough for easy one-handed use, which is great for reading repair manuals.

So, assuming you’re happily in the Android ecosystem (vs, say, the iOS world), get a Kindle Fire if you want a cheap consumption device, and get a real Android tablet if you want to do real work with Android.

Source: ZDnet

iPhone and Surface: The moment Apple and Microsoft diverged

By Jason Hiner

Jason Hiner is the Editor in Chief of TechRepublic. He writes about the products, people, and ideas that are revolutionizing business with technology.

In June 2007, both Apple and Microsoft were poised to reinvent computing. Only one of them delivered, and it changed the destiny of both companies.

When the news broke recently about Microsoft launching an $8,400 version of its multitouch tabletop, the Microsoft Surface, I couldn’t help but shake my head and remember how much promise the Surface had when it was first unveiled over four years ago at the D5 Conference.

That was the same D5 Conference where Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs made their historic joint appearance (right). But, in retrospect, the Jobs-Gates interview wasn’t the only historic thing about D5. If there was a single moment where the destinies of Microsoft and Apple diverged, it was D5.

Nearly all of the buzz of D5 was centered around two products: 1.) The Microsoft Surface, which Steve Ballmer unveiled to the public on the opening day of the event, and 2.) The iPhone, which Apple had announced earlier in the year and which was about to go on sale a month later.

There was a sense that these two products were ushering in a new era in computing where multitouch devices would finally displace the old keyboard and mouse as the easiest and most common way for the masses to interact with computers. That optimism would later get tempered among technophiles — especially when tablets launched a few years later — but, at the time, multitouch had the tech world dreaming big dreams.

Tech enthusiasts were already anticipating that Apple would eventually bring the iPhone’s touchscreen interface to the iPod and to an Apple tablet (there were already rumors). Of course, Apple did both — the iPod Touch and the iPad — and they turned into wildly popular products. Some even suggested that Apple would turn Macs into touchscreen devices. That never happened, but with oversized trackpads, Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion,” and a full array of new touch gestures, Apple has taken some baby steps toward bringing multitouch to the traditional computer.

It may be difficult to believe today, but at the time of D5 it was generally expected that Microsoft would take the Surface and run with it to build a line of multitouch products to revolutionize desktop computing. It looked like the two big computing giants who had done battle at the birth of the PC were about to go head-to-head again to take the PC to whole new level

For Microsoft’s part, while the tech world was jazzed about the Surface, the excitement wasn’t about the Surface itself, but the fact that Microsoft was working to embed computers into natural surfaces so that the future of the PC might soon break out of the model of dedicated machines sitting on top of a traditional desk.

“The view is that every horizontal and vertical surface will have a projector,” said Gates at D5. “Your desk can be a surface that you can sit and manipulate things.” In other words, the desk itself would become the computer instead of the computer sitting on top of it.

Unfortunately, that vision turned out to be too abstract and expensive to implement. The Surface itself barely trickled its way into the market, mostly in a few casinos in Las Vegas (until the recent news about broader availability). Microsoft never translated the Surface’s technology to its core product lines. The company’s one big multitouch project turned out to be the HP TouchSmart line of touchscreen appliances, which no one ever really figured out what to do with.

Microsoft would later bring multitouch devices like the Zune and Windows Phone 7 to market, but these were essentially “me too” products that followed in the footsteps of Apple’s devices. Microsoft completely missed its big opportunity to take the PC market by storm with multitouch.

In the meantime, Apple has sold over 250 million iOS devices — iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad — and overtaken Microsoft as the world’s most valuable technology company.

Although the divergence between Apple and Microsoft began at D5 in June 2007, when both companies had a promising multitouch future, it took years for the events to play themselves out. It wasn’t until three years later on May 26, 2010 when Apple ($222 billion) passed Microsoft ($219 billion) in market value (a.k.a. market capitalization) that the tech world did a double-take and realized that Apple’s decade-long comeback was no fluke. It had turned the tables on its old nemesis.

To put this in perspective, when Gates and Jobs shared the stage at D5, Microsoft was worth about $300 billion and Apple was worth about $100. As I write this article (November 21, 2011), Microsoft is valued at $210 billion and Apple is worth $343 billion. Take a look at the chart below, which shows the market value of Microsoft and Apple, from June 2007 to September 2011. (I recorded the market cap in three-month increments based on the stock price on the first day of the month.)

Some of you will say that the stock market is not necessarily a fair indicator of the value of the two companies. After all, the stock market is a future indicator. It is totally based on how the public feels about the future of a company. Fair enough, then let’s look at the quarterly revenue of the two companies.

What we find is a similar story. In June 2007, Microsoft was making about $14 billion per quarter while Apple was making $5 billion per quarter. In Q3 2010 — the quarter after Apple passed Microsoft in market cap — Apple also passed Microsoft in quarterly revenue with $20 billion for the quarter compared to Microsoft’s $16 billion. The disparity has only increased since then. In the most recent quarter, Q3 2011, Microsoft made $17 billion and Apple made $28 billion. In the chart below I’ve compiled quarterly revenue for the two companies for every quarter since Q2 2007 when Jobs and Gates did their thing at D5.

All that said and even with tablets eating away at the PC business, I don’t think things are totally hopeless for Microsoft in terms of innovating in multitouch. Its vision of touch-based surfaces was simply an idea that was ahead of its time, and there’s evidence that there are still people inside Microsoft thinking about and working on this stuff.

But, the company still desperately needs a product leader. My ZDNet colleague Ed Bott and others seem to think Windows chief Steve Sinofsky is that guy, but I’m not convinced yet that Sinofsky is a breakthrough innovator. I haven’t seen anything in Windows 8 that makes me think it will change the way people use computers for the better. I still think Microsoft’s biggest opportunity is to grab leadership in PC-smartphone convergence, even though I doubt the company will have the courage to do it since it would mean potentially cannibalizing some short-term Windows sales. But, if Microsoft doesn’t make that kind of bold move, it certainly won’t be in the same league as Apple again, at least not any time soon.

Source: TechRepublic

Should you ask Santa for a tablet or an e-reader?

These slate-style computers and dedicated electronic readers top many wish lists this holiday season. Yet, the landscape for the popular devices is changing. Despite the iPad's dominance, multimedia-capable tablets are no longer the exclusive province of Apple, what with Amazon breathing Kindle Fire down the iPad's throat. Most other comers have barely dented Apple's lead.

Amazon is feeling its own heat in the dedicated e-reader market that it continues to rule. Barnes & Noble's Nooks and other rival e-readers are providing spirited competition.

While two out of three future tablet buyers plan to purchase an iPad, there is now for the first time a real contender for the No. 2 spot, according to a survey by ChangeWave Research in Bethesda, Md. Some 22% say they'll buy a Kindle Fire. That's a "devastating blow to a range of second-tier tablet manufacturers, including Motorola, RIM, Dell, HTC, (Hewlett-Packard) and Toshiba," ChangeWave says.

In a recent PriceGrabber survey, 79% of consumers indicated they would rather receive a tablet than a laptop computer. And 72% of shoppers said they believed tablets would replace e-readers as gifts.

Which is it for you? Dedicated reader or tablet? Or both? What are the key considerations? If your passions spread beyond books — which can be read on either type of device — to music, games, Web browsing and watching movies, a full-fledged tablet along the lines of the iPad 2 or one of its rivals makes sense, if your budget can handle it.

Still, a strong case can be made for single-purpose readers.

The case for e-readers

For starters, the E Ink devices represented by the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader and other devices keep improving. Page turns are faster. Text is crisp. Reading electronically no longer strikes people as unnatural. The displays are easy on the eyes and don't drain the battery as do the LCD screens on tablets. Barnes & Noble claims you can read an hour a day for two months on its fast-turn Nook Simple Touch device. By contrast, battery life on the iPad and other tablets is measured in hours and minutes.

E-reader hardware is light and pocket-size. You can buy and download e-books in a minute or less if you have Wi-Fi or (as is the case with a single Kindle model) cellular connectivity. Nowadays, you can borrow e-books from the library and, in the case of the Nook, lend books to a friend — albeit under tight restrictions.

•Prices. Boy, have prices fallen since the Kindle made its debut four years ago at what now seems like an exorbitant $399. Today, you can buy a Kindle that displays "Special Offers" for just $79 or pay $109 for a version without the "offers" screensaver and home screen ads. The model weighs less than 6 ounces, relies on physical controls and connects to the Kindle Store, where you can download e-books in a minute or less via Wi-Fi. Meantime, Amazon added touch-screen controls on the aptly named Wi-Fi-only $99 (with ads) or $139 (without ads) Kindle Touch. You have to pay $149 ($189 without ads) for a touch model that adds no-fee 3G cellular for those times when connecting to Wi-Fi is out of the question. Amazon also sells models with a keyboard for $139.

For its part, the Barnes & Noble Simple Touch Nook Reader fetches $99, around the same price as an entry-level Kobo reader. Among the Kobo features is the ability to earn awards tied to reading milestones.

Sony makes a big deal out of the fact that its $150 Sony Reader Wi-Fi device is ad-free.

•Sizing up the screen. As mentioned, E Ink devices do a tremendous job of replicating real paper. But with conventional 6-inch Kindles, Nooks and Sony Readers, you're swapping a color experience for shades of gray. That won't cut it if you want to admire illustrated children's books, picture books or shiny magazines.

E Ink displays on Kindles, Nooks and Sonys aren't back-lit, meaning you can't read in the dark.

But there are large upsides to E Ink: superior battery life, no glare and no eye strain.

Stepping up to a tablet

Last year, Barnes & Noble introduced Nook Color, kind of a hybrid between a conventional e-reader and a tablet with apps. With the recent launch of Nook Tablet, Barnes & Noble stepped up its game with a tablet that streams movies and TV shows (via apps such as Netflix and Hulu Plus). It goes head-to-head with Kindle Fire. As with Fire, Nook Tablet has a 7-inch screen, bigger than a regular Nook or Kindle but smaller than the iPad's nearly 10-inch screen. The result is you can stuff a 7-inch tablet in your jacket pocket, something you can't do with an iPad.

Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire are both tablets built on Google's Android operating system. But you'd be hard-pressed to tell that, because their interfaces are very different from what's usually seen on an Android slate. Nor can you grab apps on Fire or Nook Tablet via the Android Market store. Barnes & Noble and Amazon have dedicated app stores, each with fewer choices.

Most appealing is the price. At $249 for Nook Tablet and $199 for Fire, both tablets dramatically undercut the iPad 2 ($499 on up) and most other tablets that came before them. As always, there are trade-offs: Barnes & Noble and Amazon have far fewer apps than Apple. Neither device has a camera, which would be useful for video chat.

Weighing Nook Tablet vs. Kindle Fire is a bit like Coke vs. Pepsi: Which bookseller do you find tastier? Still, there are tangible differences. Fire beats Nook Tablet on price, and offers handy built-in stores for music and movies, which Barnes & Noble lacks. But the Nook Tablet comes out on top with on-board storage that is also expandable. And a neat Nook Tablet feature is that you can record your voice reading a kids book.

•Coming at the iPad. The first iPad and subsequent iPad 2 achieved market dominance for several reasons: excellent battery life, the most apps, and slick, easy-to-use iOS software.

Still, for all its popularity, the iPad has deficiencies. It doesn't run on 4G cellular networks, the fastest; there is no USB or HDMI port; and there are no memory expansion options. None of those are deal-breakers, but such holes do give rivals an opening.

Among the strongest competitors are Galaxy Tabs from Samsung that can tap 4G networks. These well-received Android models come in 7-, 8.9- and 10.1-inch screen versions. And the Galaxy Tab so closely resembles the iPad that Apple has sued Samsung, claiming the Galaxy tablets and some Samsung smartphones violate its intellectual property.

Generally speaking, companies chasing the iPad attempt to hook buyers with a fresh angle. Lenovo, the Chinese company behind ThinkPad laptops, pushed a $499 (and up) ThinkPad tablet that would appeal to a business-friendly consumer. ThinkPad Tablet is one of the few modern slates to take advantage of a pressure-sensitive digitizer pen, a $30 accessory that you can use to draw, doodle or capture notes in the boardroom. (The 7-inch HTC Flyer also has a digital pen.) Another cool accessory is a $100 keyboard folio that lets you prop up the tablet to use with a physical qwerty keyboard, a traditional strength of ThinkPad notebooks.

Toshiba also tries to compete by supplying features common to laptops. Its Android tablet, the $380 (and up) Thrive, has a full-size USB port you can use to connect flash drives with pictures, videos, music and documents. There's a full-size SD slot to accommodate memory cards that serve the same purpose. An HDMI port with an optional cable lets you connect Thrive to a high-definition TV monitor for viewing on the big screen. But a bulky design may be one reason that Thrive isn't exactly thriving.

Sony is coming at Apple with unusual designs. The "wedge" design on the Sony Tablet S ($500 and up) tablet is meant to evoke a folded-back magazine. Meanwhile, a new Android tablet from Sony, the Tablet P promised soon, has dual 5.5-inch displays. Why two screens? You might show a picture on one screen, and a map with the location where it was shot on another. The market will decide if the extra display is truly useful or merely a gimmick.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook is a handsome 7-inch tablet, and it's been discounted to as low as $200 in some places. But PlayBook has generally flopped because it lacks native e-mail, cellular connectivity or the number of apps of rivals, and a key software update that may address certain shortcomings is delayed until February.

The 10.1-inch Motorola Xoom Android tablet, as low as $359 on sale, was generally well-received when it arrived early last year, but, like many Android tablets, hasn't sold well.

Earlier this year, Hewlett-Packard pulled the plug on the slick WebOS operating system behind its TouchPad tablet. But you can still find TouchPads for sale at attractive sub-$300 prices.

Some rivals compete on price. A recent search on Amazon.com showed that you can buy a Coby Kyros 7-inch Android tablet for as little as $112, and a PanDigital tablet for $87.

These surely aren't iPads, but most customer reviews at the site are positive.

•On the horizon. Apple has bested Google when it comes to tablet acceptance. Whether Android can make significant inroads is an open question. Google is rolling out a new version of Android dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich that will unify software on its smartphones and tablets. It also remains to be seen what Google does with Motorola Mobility in tablets, when and if its proposed acquisition of that company goes through.

And don't rule out Microsoft.

In very early versions, the Windows 8 operating system that runs on tablets looks very slick.

But that's getting ahead of the curve.

Buyers this holiday season have a variety of pleasing options at various prices, whether they're springing for a budget e-reader or a pricey, full-scale multimedia tablet.

Source: UsaToday

• 
  Illustration by Kris Kinkade,, USA TODAY; photos by Gettyimages.com, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Apple
  From left, the Barnes & Noble Nook, Amazon's Kindle Fire and Apple's iPad 2.

With Tablet S, I Worry About Sony

By JARED NEWMAN

Sony’s Tablet S is an awkward device, but not because of its unusual wedge-shaped design. It is awkward because it catches Sony in the middle of a transition, from an iconic hardware maker to an Apple-like company that sells software, services and the devices to run it all. After playing with a Tablet S for review, it’s clear that Sony’s growth spurt isn’t anywhere near finished.

Because of the hardware, the Tablet S remains interesting among a sea of me-too Android tablets. Yes, the wedge shape looks weird next to every iPad imitator on the market, but Sony’s goal of making a tablet that feels like a magazine, folded over, is a success. When holding the tablet upright, an instinct takes over that makes me want to read things. It’s too bad Android Honeycomb is tailored toward landscape orientation, with some apps such as the Android Market only displaying horizontally. In that orientation, the Tablet S is less comfortable in the hands, but not unbearably so. The 9.4-inch display is roomy enough, while feeling less cumbersome than 10.1-inch widescreen tablets.

The Tablet S also hides a neat trick in the form of a built-in infrared remote control, which can operate pretty much anything in your living room. The tablet recognized my two year-old Sharp HDTV right away, and I was able to program volume controls on my decades-old Sony stereo system manually.

Just one hardware nitpick: unless you want to wake up to a blinking notification light in the middle of the night, you’ll have to disable notifications altogether on the Tablet S. There’s no way to turn off the light otherwise.

Hardware is only as good as the software it runs, and that’s where the Tablet S starts to degrade. Android Honeycomb lets you do some cool stuff, such as adding widgets to the home screen, but its slowly-growing tablet app library doesn’t compare with that of Apple’s iPad. The OS occasionally stutters when moving from one screen to the next, and it has some frustrating bugs, like when an app you acquire from the Android Market hangs in “waiting to install” limbo. Sony’s added a few of its own flourishes, such as a stylized “Favorite Apps” menu, and claims to have made the software run smoother and faster than other Android tablets, but these tweaks don’t amount to a major improvement over the stock version of Android, which itself still needs work.

Where Sony really tries to stand out is in services, which is tech jargon for “giving you stuff to consume on your device.” For a long time, Sony’s been trying to create a platform for music, movies, books and games, with the end goal of having all that content available on every screen you own. The Tablet S could be a piece of that puzzle, if only its services were enticing.

Considering the weight of Sony’s PlayStation brand, gaming should’ve been a bigger part of the Tablet S. The entire PS Store consists of 10 games for the original PlayStation. Some are free, and some are $6 each, but all are hopelessly outdated next to the shiny graphics and keen design of modern video games. A lone PSP game, Pinball Heroes, is pre-loaded on the device, along with the PSOne classic Crash Bandicoot. But for now, Sony hasn’t made any effort to adapt its hits, such as Uncharted, Killzone, Ratchet & Clank or Infamous, to the tablet.

Even getting these games that are available is a challenge. The PS Store isn’t pre-loaded, and an option to download it only appears as a periodic notification message. If you dismiss it by accident, you’ll have to wait for it to come back later.

Getting a hold of Sony’s other services is even more frustrating. For example, to try out Music Unlimited–Sony’s answer to Spotify and other subscription music services–you must tap on the app that’s pre-loaded on the device, which takes you to the Android Market, where you download another app, in which you sign up for the service, and then return to the Android Market to update the original app, which finally gives you access after you create a login and agree to some terms of service. And then, the trial service is limited to 30-second samples. The process for getting Sony’s Reader app for e-books is similar, and my attempts to download Sony’s Video Unlimited service through the pre-loaded link only sent me back to the home screen. Whereas content consumption is supposed to be frictionless, Sony has raised nothing but obstacles.

Of course you can ignore Sony’s multimedia offerings, but without them the Tablet S is a lot like any other Android tablet, save for its unique hardware design. And as Sony itself has pointed out, it wants to be more than just a hardware company. “I spent the last five years building a platform so I can compete with Steve Jobs,” Sony CEO Howard Stringer said recently. “It’s finished, and it’s launching now,” If the Tablet S is what Stringer has in mind, I weep for Sony’s future.

Consider that tough talk for a company with grand aspirations. Compared to rival $500 Android tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Sony’s Tablet S holds its own. But if Sony really wants to make a different kind of product, one that can truly compete as a media platform with Apple and Amazon, it needs to do a lot better.

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/11/30/with-tablet-s-i-worry-about-sony/#ixzz1fCFXvsmX

Source : TechLand

Samsung Galaxy S2 vs Samsung Galaxy Note vs Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Samsung's built some incredibly good mobiles recently, making its Galaxy range of smart phones a massive player in the tech world. But of the Samsung Galaxy S2, theSamsung Galaxy Nexus and the Samsung Galaxy Note, which Galaxy is deserving of your cash? Let's meet the mobiles that will be vying for our adoration.

Samsung Galaxy S2

The Samsung Galaxy S2 is an absolute beast, and when it came out earlier this year it proved itself to be the best Android phone in the universe. While other phones have grown bigger since, at the time we were blown away by the 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, and dazzled by its 1.2GHz dual-core processor. But that was months ago! Does the S2 still look so fresh today?

Samsung Galaxy Note

On the off-chance you didn't think the Galaxy S2 was big enough, the Note will certainly sort you out. The display on this monster mobile measures a mammoth 5.3 inches, and it's something of an animal on the inside too, with a 1.4GHz dual-core processor running the show.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and a 5-megapixel camera, alongside a 4.65-inch display. That's fine, but what really sets this phone apart is that it's running Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, the newest version of Android. Does that make it worth picking up? Or will a meddlesome volume bug prevent it from finding glory?

Design

The Galaxy Nexus boasts a rounded display, adorned with black gloss and kept looking minimal by a lack of physical buttons. Instead you control the Nexus using three on-screen buttons. It's reasonably slim at 8.9mm thick and it's impressively light at 135g, but we're not blown away by the back plate, which is grey with a textured finished. The bulging spot where the camera pokes out is a little funny-looking too.

The Note is a tad classier, with a curved back and a camera that's flush to the casing. It's 9.7mm slim and 178g, which makes it portable on paper, but you'll likely struggle to fit the Note in your hands, let alone your pocket. There's a serious design no-no going on here too -- Samsung's hidden a cheeky stylus in the bottom of the Note, which is useful for jotting down notes or sketching bowls of fruit, but will almost certainly get lost.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 looks as good as it did when we first snatched it out of its box earlier in the year. It's under 9mm thin and weighs 115g, making it lighter than its Galaxy rivals. The 4.3-inch screen still makes a striking impression, and while some have complained that the case feels rather plasticky, we think the phone itself feels sturdy. It looks and feels fantastic -- we're throwing this one the S2's way.

Design winner: Samsung Galaxy S2

Hardware

The Galaxy S2 blew our tiny minds when it first arrived on the scene, thanks to a dual-core 1.2GHz processor that proved brilliant for apps, games and playing video. The screen was similarly amazing, liquifying our ocular bulbs with the brightness pumped out by its 4.3-inch Super Amoled Plus display.

Almost impossibly, Samsung also squeezed an 8-megapixel camera into the S2's slender chassis, making it an all-around hardware powerhouse.

For a month or so, anyway -- then other smart phones equalled the S2's hardware chops. The Galaxy Nexus goes further than the S2, with a 4.65-inch display that as well as being bigger, boasts a stonkingly high 1,280x720 pixel resolution.

Everything on this panel comes out looking crystal clear, so get ready to be impressed when you fire up a video or web page, and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor keeps everything running smoothly.

But the Galaxy Nexus has a slight hardware downside -- its camera has a meagre 5-megapixel resolution. We were impressed by the stills and video it managed to produce though, so it's not worth writing the Nexus off completely on that front. The Nexus has a 16GB capacity, and you can't expand that using a microSD card.

The Galaxy Note is an absolute hardware monster. Around the back you'll find an 8-megapixel camera, and underneath the bonnet hums an alarmingly potent 1.4GHz dual-core processor that outpaced the Galaxy S2 in our benchmark tests. Using the phone is like sailing through a sea of silk, with apps opening at lightning speed.

The display on offer here is absolutely ginormous at 5.3 inches. In fact, we wouldn't blame you at all if you dismissed the Galaxy Note for being simply too massive. The screen resolution is a touch higher than the Galaxy Nexus' at 1,280x800 pixels, but because the screen is so much bigger it has a lower dpi (dots per inch). It still looks crisp, clear and really colourful though.

Brimming with speedy components and with a screen big enough to eat your dinner off of, the Galaxy Note dominates when it comes to hardware.

Hardware winner: Samsung Galaxy Note

Software

While all three of these phones are running Android, one of them is different. For while the S2 and the Note are powered by version 2.3 of Google's mobile operating system (also known as Gingerbread), the Galaxy Nexus is more advanced, and arrives running Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich.

That improved operating system brings visual refinements, and navigating through the phone is handled by three on-screen buttons, rather than any physical keys. Tapping one of those virtual buttons brings up a new multi-tasking menu, which stacks all the apps you've got running up the screen. Also new are folder refinements, and the ability to unlock your phone with your face.

The other major strength of the Galaxy Nexus is that it's running a vanilla version of Android, whereas the Note and S2 are both running a Samsung-tweaked edition of Android. The benefit of using a version that Samsung hasn't fiddled with is that when updates for Android arrive, you'll get them quicker because you don't have to wait for Samsung to squeeze its custom skin over that new version.

That's not to mention the fact that both the S2 and the Note come with loads of Samsung-installed bloatware apps you almost certainly won't want, and would rather delete as soon as possible.

But right now there's a serious problem with the Galaxy Nexus. A bug means that the phone spontaneously drops volume, meaning you miss speech during phone calls, and can miss texts or other notifications in the meantime.

We've been thoroughly testing the Nexus, and it seems that the bug rears its ugly head when you're connected over a 900MHz 2G connection. Networks in the UK that operate on that frequency include Vodafone and O2, as well as Tesco Mobile, giffgaff, Asda Mobile and BT Mobile.

For an analysis of the bug, read our tests. Google has told us a fix is incoming, so hopefully the issue will be resolved soon, at which point the Galaxy Nexus will definitely be winning in the software category. In the meantime though, we're going to call this one a draw between the Galaxy S2 and the Note.

Software winner: Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Galaxy Note (draw)

Tiebreak

It's a tie! So we're going to have to decide between the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Note.

We weren't impressed by the Note's battery life -- that massive screen appears to guzzle juice, and we got less than 12 hours of use from a full charge, even with moderate use. The S2, meanwhile, is decent when it comes to battery life. No smart phone is great when it comes to surviving away from the mains, but based on our tests the S2 should at least last you a full day's use.

The other issue is that the enormous dimensions won't suit everyone. Most people will probably prefer a smart phone that will fit easily into your pockets or handbag. Size isn't everything, y'know.

Overall winner: Samsung Galaxy S2

Source: Crave Cnet