The AnandTech Podcast: Episode 19

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• teiglin - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  This goes back to their discussion of removable battery (and microsd, about which Brian absolutely cracks me up). My brother actually does carry around two extra batteries for his GS3 and swaps them regularly during a day; I use a Nexus 4 and the battery has never died on me from a single day's use. For me, battery life has been good enough since the I9100 I got almost two years ago, so I'm pretty happy with where they are today. If you need more, there are plenty of options like USB battery packs, or for phones with user-replaceable batteries, extra or extended batteries. Especially with high-end Android phones (iPhone is another story imo), the phones are so big now that they absolutely have to be as thin as possible in order to be usable, so I personally don't want to sacrifice thickness for additional battery life in most cases.
  
  I sort of feel that the ship has sailed here--most phones simply aren't going to sacrifice thinness for battery life, and I suspect that the vast majority of users are like me: able to get through a day on a single 8 Whr battery. People like you who need 7+ hours of screen on time in a single day will have to suffer additional battery packs, or a MAXX on VZW.

• crypticsaga - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  I want to hear more about Brian's hacked iMessage. Hacked so that it functions like it does on OS X? One can dream right...

• cbutters - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  Would like to hear more information about the actual hardware and platform of the Galaxy S 4, maybe its because you still don't have review samples in, but I didn't actually hear much evaluative content on the actual hardware of the phone. Yes Samsung likes to throw in a bunch of gimmicks, that are rarely actually used; and yes removable storage and batteries are debatable, but all these features are things samsung does on top of providing a core smartphone product. I'm interested in evaluation of the new 1080p screen, that appears to be using a new type of pentile arrangement, (and how noticable the 2 subpixel per pixel is at this density), also interested in the audio and camera quality. Yes the exynos Big Little architecture isn't actually out yet, but neither are the majority of things that are reviewed on this website. I don't think that is a reason to not discuss it. Brian deservedly is enamored with the HTC One and the design choices especially its camera, but that isn't a reason to not discuss and to dismiss the One's biggest competitor.

• MCpdTdt - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  I won't speak for Brian or Anand, but I think those things (and really any phone as a whole) can't really be evaluated to any level of sophistication when you don't actually have the device - and especially not to the level that you and I would expect from this site. If OEMs have problems with people just making phone calls at press events, I doubt Samsung would be pleased if Brian and Anand brought all their testing equipment to the launch event and just went to town on the demo units. Also, they've talked about the Big-Little architecture before, in past podcasts and articles. Without being able to run benchmarks on actual hardware, it's hard to give much of a substantive assessment.

• Brian Klug - Saturday, April 13, 2013 - link

  I've actually gotten into the habit of bringing almost everything I need to make measurements to events. Unfortunately most OEMs will tell you during the briefing - no benchmarks / measurements / anything. It's little more than like a better press release photo time unless you skirt the thing and do it in the demo room afterwards.
  
  -Brian

• smartypnt4 - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  Just a question, but why did you guys not mention the fact that the HTC First is actually a stock Android experience once you turn off Facebook Home? To me, that's quite a significant development. $100 for a mid-range phone that's designed alright that runs stock 4.1.2 is unheard of in the market today. The hardware in the First is enough to run Jelly Bean without any issue, especially at 720p.
  
  Just my two cents.

• cbutters - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  Actually smartypnt4, they DID mention that. Listen around 1:38:36.

• smartypnt4 - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  Wow. I feel a little foolish now. I listened to 1:36 and figured they were done talking about it. Disregard my comment.
  
  In any case, I kind of want to mess around with a First just because it has the ability to run stock. All manufacturers should have that. I understand why they don't, but it would be nice to see, especially from someone who's struggling in the market. *cough*HTC*cough*

• teiglin - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  I don't really see why people are so excited about this. Sure it has LTE compared to the N4, but it has 4.1 and will probably never see an update. If LTE is what matters, there are plenty of AOSP ROMs that are rock-solid for evita and d2att (One X and GS3 on ATT), which have essentially all the same boxes (720p, dual core krait, cheap on contract). Is the set of people who want stock android but won't flash aftermarket firmware really that large?
  
  Not that I disagree in principle--if I had my druthers, every phone would be able to run manufacturer-supported stock Android. I just don't see why a nine-month-old version of Android is exciting at this point.

• Pylon757 - Friday, April 12, 2013 - link

  4.2 isn't much of an update over 4.1, and I'm sure plenty of people will prefer stock 4.1 to say, Touchwizzed 4.2. As for custom ROMs on the HOX or GS3, many people don't want to flash custom ROMs. Also the AT&T HOX bootloader is a bit trickier to unlock than most. They're also not 4.3" phones.
  
  Also, at least for me, I strongly prefer 4.1 (I updated my Nexus 7 to 4.2, hated it, and flashed back to 4.1). The two shades, the smaller dock icons, the really ugly lock screen, and the notification shade behavior wasn't worth the fairly minor additions that 4.2 offered.