The Galaxy S III "Real-user" Review: Part 2 - Entertainment and media - Music and video playback, gaming, browser

The combination to make you wax lyrical about sound?

Today we’re going to bite off a fairly sizeable chunk of the review, covering a lot of the entertainment aspects of the device – music, video, gaming and the browser. If you haven't read part 1 of the review which covered initial impressions, design/build quality, screen and benchmarks then check it out here.

OK, so to start things off, here is my “I’m no audiophile” disclaimer (italicized since AndroidNZ readers will have seen it before):

Like I seem to do quite often, I have to start here with a disclaimer of sorts - this time in terms of my own listening prowess. You see, in terms of evaluating the audio quality of the phone I have to set the appropriate context - that context being my own limitations as a listener. I think my ear is above average, nearly twenty years of playing guitar certainly helps there, but I am definitely no audiophile. While I’m in complete disclosure mode: I have some high frequency hearing loss from guitar and concert attendances over the years, and I don’t own a set of audiophile headphones. What does all that mean? Well, basically, audiophiles should move right along, my ear isn’t up to advising you about whether you’ll be happy with this phone. Most everyone who isn’t an audiophile will be happy enough with the Note's audio quality, and those same readers will likely find my take on the sound quality is pitched at the right level.

I purchased a few things audio-related since the Note review.

Having said of all that I must say that it’s no longer ringing entirely true. While I still wouldn’t label myself an audiophile, I have been on rather an audio voyage of discovery since I wrote that disclaimer and should probably adjust it accordingly.

You see, since the Note review I’ve purchased the ASUS Xonar Essence One USB DAC for my desktop, an E17 USB DAC for portable use, and several sets of headphones (the Grado GS1000i, Audeze LCD-2, Sennheiser HD-251 II, and ACS-T15, for those who like to know that sort of thing). That’s a reasonably serious outlay on audio equipment, so it’s a little disingenuous to completely downplay my ability to adjudicate sound quality. Readers should realize though that I’m still in my audio lovers infancy. I might be able to discern more than some people, simply on account of having better listening equipment, but I’m hardly a paragon of audio quality assessment and astute listeners will still need to seek their own S III audition from which to form their own opinion.

So, preamble over, what is my assessment of the S III’s audio playback chops?

ASUS Transformer Prime: Video playback shootout (and bonus update on the evolving Inisoft saga!)

So does the Tegra 3 have your back for video playback,
or do we have another failed generation of Android
tablet video playback to look forward to?

...a new day, a new Transformer Prime video. Sounds fair right?

This time we're bringing you our standard video playback test, running our wide gamut of test files at the Transformer Prime. While you'll see many other reviews saying "yeah this played everything we threw at it", the truth is many of them have a pretty narrow spectrum of test files to try out. We've tried to gather a range that encompasses a wide variety of resolutions, bitrates, subtitle types, and video and audio encoding formats - our hope is that if there is an archilles heel in the video playback capability of a device we'll be able to uncover it.

This shapes up to be a pretty big test for the Transformer Prime, since the video playback deficiencies of the Tegra 2 based Android tablets (AKA virtually all of them) are quite well known. If that sentence has you scratching your head, here's a precis: Tegra 2 devices can't play high profile video files, support a small range of codecs natively, and can't play 1080p files smoothly. The result? Video transcoding hell, where you have to convert all your space-preserving MKVs into something the Tegra 2 can get on with.

So the big question on my mind is can the Tegra chipset handle video properly this time around? The spec sheet suggests yes, since high profile video is clearly mentioned...             ...but then up until today the spec sheet also said the Prime has GPS, so I guess we'll just have to see now won't we?

The Samsung Galaxy Note: 'Pocketability' video demonstration

If I mention the words "Galaxy Note", I know what you'll be thinking.

Seriously, I really do.

You'll be thinking "Can that thing really be pocketed?".

The reason I know this is because this was overwhelmingly the most frequently asked question I got when I canvassed various forums to see what real users wanted to know about the Note.

I know I spoke to this concern a little bit in the first part of the mammoth Note review I'm currently embroiled in, but I thought I could take it one step further for you, dear readers.

What follows below is my video demo of the Note's pocketability, with comparison the Galaxy S II [Public Service Announcement: the video contains extensive footage shot around my pocket area, and therefore the video may contain scenes that are disturbing to some viewers, please watch with caution if you are close to a meal time and plan accordingly].