A friend sent over this video last night which shows a head-to-head battle between two HTC One X devices, one powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 processor and the other by a dual-core Snapdragon S4. The focus here is on the boot-up times for both followed by an AnTuTu benchmark. What’s clear in this video, is that for pure power and speed, the Tegra 3 seems to easily come out on top. In fact, at one point during the bootup, the man behind the camera lets the Tegra 3 sit at the unlock screen for a few seconds before deciding to unlock and boot into Sense and still beats the S4. During the benchmark, it finishes a solid 30 seconds or so faster and produces a score almost double that of the Snapdragon. It’s an impressive video for Tegra enthusiasts, even if we do not know the whole setup or scenario here. Unfortunately for those that wish to get some T3 play, you won’t any time soon here in the U.S. unless you decide to import a device with one from overseas. No LTE, no America.

And we probably don’t need to remind you of this, but will anyway. This is one benchmark out of dozens that are available. We have seen the S4 beat the T3 in some, with the T3 outdoing the S4 in others. What we know for sure is that both processors are beasts and will one day find a time to do some of these comparisons ourselves, so that we know the whole story. Until that happens though, feel free to talk about what you just saw.

Cheers ___!

According to DigiTimes (yeah, stop and laugh for a second), it is essentially “given” that Google and Samsung will work together on the next Nexus device. As many of you know, Google goes through a bidding or presentation process of sorts when choosing a phone and chipset manufacturer to produce the next version of their Nexus line. If Google has already tagged Samsung, then one would assume that they were impressed with the Galaxy SIII and will likely base their next device somewhat off of it. This is usually about the time that we start hearing rumors of who the OEM may be, but most (if not all) of it is just that, rumor.

What are your thoughts on Samsung potentially knocking out a third Nexus in a row? While I like the products that Sammie has produced over the last couple of years, I have to admit that even I’m ready for someone new to step up to the plate. Motorola seemed like they wouldn’t get the nod for at least a year or two after Google announced that they were acquiring them. It would just look like they were favoring their new toy. But what about HTC again? They created the Nexus One and are now producing one of the more amazing Android devices ever made in the One X, so why not give them another shot? LG, maybe? OK, let’s not get too crazy. HTC should have been it. And who knows, maybe they still will be knowing the track record of the source that started this rumor.

On a related note, DigiTimes also mentioned that HTC and Facebook are teaming up to finally create the Facebook phone. Snooze.

Let us know what you think.

Via:  DigiTimes | Android and Me

These dummy boxes that they have placed on top of the “next” Galaxy aka the Galaxy SIII are cracking me up. Look at that faux home button that has basically been taped on. Classic. Well played, Samsung.

Enough laughing though, let’s talk about these new photos that appeared today. Is that really a new on-screen menu button? Indeed it is. And yes, the entire navigation arrangement is still out of order from the Galaxy Nexus even with the menu button appearing. Why didn’t Samsung choose to put the menu button on the right hand side of the navigation keys like on the G-Nex? We have no idea, but damn is it annoying.

One thing I will say is that on-screen keys are so desperately needed in Ice Cream Sandwich. After having the HTC One X and its hardware keys for the last few weeks, I’m stuck with an on-screen menu button that displays itself as a massive black bar across the bottom of the screen when an app calls for it, all while eating up precious real estate. At least with the next Galaxy, we won’t have that issue as the menu button will simply appear next to the other nav keys. Or hopefully app devs will listen to the Android team and remove the menu button altogether from their apps and force extra actions into the action overflow menu up top.

What do you guys think? 

According to Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior VP of Chrome and Apps, the Android version of Chrome is in beta 2 and on the verge of leaving it for good in the coming weeks. After launching in early February, we have already seen at least two updates to the app that has quickly become one of the most popular browsers on the platform. In “beta 2″ it sounds as if there won’t be any major changes, and instead the focus has been put on stability and bug squashing:

“We launched beta 2. We addressed a few things,” Pichai said. “Mainly right now, I’m driven by bug quality and stability. We are triaging, tracking, and trying to make it very stable. It is in a matter of weeks.”

I’m about 90% happy with Chrome on Android at this point. Give me the quick controls that are found in the stock ICS browser and I’d be up to about 98%. Toss in Flash, just for kicks, and you may have the best browser ever built for a mobile device.

Still using Chrome?

Via:  CNET | AndroidGuys

On Friday, an update was released by Facebook that didn’t exactly thrill the masses. Upon installing, users noticed that they now had 3 icons from Facebook in their app drawers:  Camera, Messenger, and Facebook. The camera app was a shortcut so that you could instantly take photos and then load them into FB, while the messenger shortcut was exactly what you would expect it to be, a shortcut to their messenger service. As I mentioned earlier, many of you were not excited to now have Facebook in 3 different spots, especially right next to two of the most used native apps on your phone. You now had to be careful when you hit “Camera” or “Messenger/Messages” as these are the identical (or close enough) names to your stock camera and messenger apps for Android.

Well, a new update has hit this afternoon with new icons to help those apps stand out a bit more (no, they didn’t remove them). As you can see from the picture above, the icons now include mini FB icons. That was  nice of them, wasn’t it? (No comment.)

Unfortunately for most stock Android users, you will need to install a 3rd party launcher if you wish to hide these shortcuts. They are attached to the Facebook app, so uninstalling would simply uninstall the entire app. It’s sort of a shady move by Facebook, especially for those that like to keep their app drawers tidy without a bunch of extra spam. It’s almost like bloatware that isn’t from an OEM, something I didn’t think was possible.

Play Link

Today’s “Flash” sale over at 1Saleaday focuses on the tablet category and includes a number of devices worth taking a look at if you are in the market. Most are last year’s Tegra 2 powered devices, but the prices are solid especially with some of them being sold as brand new and not refurbished. Most of them also have Ice Cream Sandwich already, which takes them from being buggy Honeycomb piles of mess, to semi-pleasant slates.

Via:  1Saleaday

Cheers Tucker and Dieringer!

Let’s be honest, Google Drive is really just a rebranded Google Docs that is aiming draw in a wider variety of consumers. Its current base is mostly business users or those of us who would rather not fork out the cash required for a top tier office suite but who still need cloud access to documents and other files. As “Drive” though, it’s clear that Google wants to take in users from the “cloud storage” arena and move away from simply being a “cloud document service.” After all, their new motto for the service is “Keep everything. Share anything.” With a free 5GB of storage to get everyone started and upgrades at monthly fees to expand your Drive, are you ready to make this your one-stop shop for the cloud? Will you stick with Dropbox or will you continue to use a variety of services?

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