Samsung S3 Motion Activation

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

As you are aware I am a Samsung Mob!lerand I have been using the Samsung S3 for a while now. It has a number of great features but one that you might not be aware of is motion activation. The Samsung S3 Motion Activation allows you to use movement to do various activities on your handset. Some of these you will be familiar with already, a pinching motion to zoom the screen, a flicking motion to scroll on the screen and tap and hold will enable you to drag things round the screen. The Samsung S3 has other motion activation features that you may be less familiar with but will find useful.

Before you can use the Samsung S3 Motion Activation Features you need to enable them. This is easy to do, you just go into the Settings screen and under the System section you will find Motion on the menu. This gives a list of the different options and you can enable them and disable them separately. This means you can choose the ones that will be most useful to you. To enable the motion activation you need to move the slider at the top of the screen so that it shows the green on light, shown in the screen shot below.

There are several options that I really like and use all the time. These are:

Take a screenshot with a palm swipe

I often find that I want to take a screen shot on my phone and this normally involves messing around pressing two buttons at the same time and never getting the timing quite right. One of the motion activation features is called “Palm Swipe to Capture” and with this enabled all you do is drag your palm across the screen and a screen shot magically appears. I use this all the time, it is so easy.

Turn over to mute/ pause

If you are in a meeting and you have forgotten to put your phone on mute then if this option is enabled all you do is to turn your phone onto a surface face down and it will set it to mute.

Shake to update

With this enabled just give your phone a shake and it will update emails, news and weather on your phone. It will also scan for Bluetooth and Kies to air devices, very handy.

Smart Alert

With this feature enabled when I pick my phone up it will vibrate to let me know that I have missed calls or messages. It saves me looking and I find this very useful.

There are a load of other motion activation features on the Samsung S3 and it is definitely worth having a look though and seeing what suits the way you use your phone. I didn’t think I would have much use for some of these features but am now finding that I am using them a lot.

Disclosure: I am writing this post because I am a Samsung Mob!lier and this was one of my missions.

Taking Photos With A Samsung Galaxy S3

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

One of the things I love about modern smart phones is that they include a camera. I love the fact that you can capture snaps on your phone no matter where you are. It allows you to capture pictures that you might otherwise miss, invaluable when you have children or go out and about a lot. I have captured some stunning photos using my phone and most phones have good quality cameras included these days.

As you know I am a Samsung Mob!lier and recently I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S3 camera to capture photographs. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has a camera which includes a host of useful features which make it very versatile. It is an 8 MP camera and it also has flash included which a lot of camera phones often exclude. The other features are a Back-illuminated sensor (BSI), CMOS image sensor, Auto focus, Face detection, Exposure compensation, ISO control, White balance presets, Burst mode, Geo tagging, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), Panorama, Scenes, Effects and Self-timer. This all sounds great on paper but what does it actually mean?

The camera is simple enough to use. When you press the camera icon on the phone you get a screen that looks like this:

On the bottom left corner you can access your photo gallery by pressing the little preview square. Moving across to the right the button with the camera on it is used to take the photos and on the far right is a slider which allows you to choose between taking photographs or making a video. At the top of the screen you get the different options for setting up the camera before you take a shot. The button on the far right allows you to choose between front facing or rear facing camera. The button with the arrow and the no entry sign beside it allows you to choose if you want turn flash on or off or set it to autoflash. Beside that we have the square which allows you to choose from a range of different effects.

By default it is set to single shot but you can choose from other options as well. Burst shot will take several shots at once and you can pick the best. HDR apparently stands for High Dynamic Range Imaging. It provides greater contrast between dark and light areas creating a more artistic effect. The other options are Face Detection, Smile Shot, Beauty, Panorama, Cartoon, Share Shot and Buddy Photo Share. Buddy Photo Share lets you share photos with friends by tapping on their faces in a photo which could be useful.

Moving across the top we have the wand option which allows you to set photo filters.
You can choose from black and white, negative, sepia, washed out, red-yellow point, blue point, green point, solarise, posterise, warm vintage and cold vintage which provide some interesting effects. The cog wheel button allows you to choose different settings.

The whole point of a camera though is to take photographs and I have been having great fun playing with the different settings. These are some of the photographs I have been taking recently and I must admit I am very pleased with how well they have turned out.

This sunset photograph was taken into the sun, just using a single shot and no effects. I was really pleased with this photograph, it is really dramatic and captured the moment perfectly.

This next one is a panorama shot.

It is just a shot overlooking the field beside which I walk my dog but I love the contrasting shadows on the field with the sky above.

Here’s my dog Eddie.

I captured this one using burst mode and best shot. It takes 20 pictures in a row, about 10 per second. You can then keep the lot or choose to save the best one. This is brilliant if you are trying to get photos of a dog or a child. Every parent will be familiar with the difficulties of trying to get a photograph of a child where they actually look nice and smile, this gives you more of a chance of capturing a good picture. I love this picture of Eddie as he looks so inquisitive and I managed to capture him as he stopped running madly about.

These next four photos show burst mode in action, you can see the subtle changes in Eddie’s position.

This photograph shows some of the Autumn colour about at the moment.

I have been very pleased with the photos I have taken with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and it provides a range of useful effects and shooting formats that allows you to use it in a range of different circumstances.

Disclosure: I am a Samsung Mob!ler and I am writing this as one of my missions.

Samsung S Voice

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I am a Samsung Mob!iler and one of our latest missions was to have a look at Samsung S Voice. Samsung S Voice is voice recognition for a phone, the idea being that you can speak to your phone and it carries out the command you tell it. To be honest I was not sure how useful this feature would be, personally I would feel a little daft talking to my phone and having it talk back. My preference is to press a button, but thinking a little bit more about it I realised that this feature could actually be useful at times. For example if you are driving it would be great to ask your phone to navigate somewhere and get told directions (as long as you are not distracting while doing so).

To access the S Voice control you just need to click the S Voice button in the apps section, appropriately it looks like a little microphone.

Once in S Voice you can set other options to access it, the default is to press the start button at the bottom of the phone twice to launch it. Samsung S Voice is quite an amiable chap who speaks with a British accent. It must pick up the country setting and decide what voice to give it. There are a number of other settings you can choose from in the settings menu, you can use Location data or not. There is also a comprehensive Help section which gives you details on the different things you can use S Voice for. The list is comprehensive, there are a lot of things you can use S Voice for. From sending a text to searching the web to finding the weather to getting directions somewhere, all useful things.

I had a little play, first I asked it about today’s weather. It was happy to tell me that today it was going to rain.

I then asked it to set a Memo to remind me about my mums birthday

Again it managed this with no difficulty. Doing a web search however met with mixed results. It was happy to search for Wonder Woman and brought it up in a browser window.

When I asked it to search for Hadrians Wall it tried to search for Hadrians for which was not quite as useful. The voice recognition is a bit hit and miss and I do not have a very strong regional accent. I suspect that it would struggle a little bit with some local accents. One feature that I really did like was the fact that if you said “Camera” it would open the camera and then to take a photo you just need to say “Shoot”. This makes it much easier to hold the camera steady when using it.

I did like the fact that S Voice seems to have a sense of humour. When I asked it “How are you?” , the reply was “I can’t complain”. I then asked it “How old are you?” and it told me ” It’s a secret”.

Having used S Voice I have warmed to the idea of it and I can see where it could be useful. At the moment it is still a bit hit and miss, you really need to speak very slowly and clearly so that it understands you. Having said that it is really amazing that Voice Recognition technology is now freely available in a mobile phone. It really shows how fast technology is moving and I am sure that it will only be a matter of time before it works really well.

Disclosure: I am a Sumsung Mobiler and was asked to write about S Voice as one of our missions but I was not told what to write and all the opinions are my own.

Samsung Official Top 40 Chart App

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

Are you a music lover? Do you love listening to the latest tunes and carry music with you everywhere you go? If so you will be interested in the Samsung Official Top 40 Chart App. The Official Top 40 Chart App was created by a partnership between MusicQubed and Samsung and is available on the flagship Samsung handsets. It has reached number five in the Google Play Music App Chart rapidly so it is very popular.

So what does the Samsung Official Top 40 Chart App offer? For a start you get all the top 40 hits downloaded and ready to play on your mobile. The music is not streamed so you do not get any adverts or interruptions to your music. You also get unlimited plays of all the tracks. As well as this you get “What’s Hot” bonus tracks which are updated every day along with Celebrity Music News. If you want to share your comments about the tracks on Facebook or twitter you can do this within the app.

The Offiical Top 40 app can be downloaded from within Samsung Apps or from Google Play. I have installed it on my phone so I can show you it in more detail.

First you need to install the app on your phone, this is easy, just hit the install button and it will be installed. You should then see an icon that says Official Top Forty App on your screen.

Click on this and it will take you into a wonderful world of music. The first time you use the app you need a wi-fi connection but after this you can start the app with no internet connection.

When you first start downloading you are asked to set up a user account. You can do this using facebook or your email address and a password.

This will start your trial period, which is usually two weeks but on some devices it is eight weeks. You then get taken to the main menu where you can choose from four different options, Official Top 40 Charts, Hot Tracks and Latest News, My Music Library and My Account. Choosing the Official Top 40 tracks takes you to the track listing.

You can click on a track to bring up more information about it and the option to play, rewind, pause it. You also have the opportunity to buy the track if you wish.

If you wish you can also share the track or find out more information about it from this screen. My Music Library stores the tracks you have purchased, I have not purchased any yet. It is searchable so you can easily find the tracks you want. My Account shows all your account information with the option to subscribe after your free trial ends.

In the latest version of the app there is also a weekly Appcast from Scott Mills. This is a five to six minute discussion and will feature special discussions with artists in the chart as well as exclusive clips from new singles and an overview of what’s up and coming among other things.

When your free trial finishes you need to subscribe to the App to continue using it. This is easily done by clicking on the Access All Areas section of the App. It will cost £1 a week to subscribe and you can pay using paypal, credit or debit card or Premium SMS. If you use Premiuim SMS the cost is a little greater, £4 for 3 weeks which is £1.33 a week. This is purely due to the network charges. I have enjoyed using the app, but I nearly lost my phone to my son who loved it. If you enjoy listening to the latest music then this could be the app for you.

Disclosure: I am writing this as part of my participation in the Samsung Mob!lers program but was not told what to write and my opinions are my own.

Samsung Galaxy SIII Unboxing

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

As you are aware I am a Samsung Mob!ler and I recently I received this box in the post. We have been sent a Samsung Galaxy SIII which we will be using to carry out our Mob!ler missions this year. I am really excited to receive the Samsung Galaxy SIII, the phone which is apparently “Inspired by Nature” and am looking forward to trying it out and seeing what it can do. Currently I use my iPhone 3GS which I love. I am really looking forward to seeing how this compares. The phone is said to see, listen and respond to what you are doing and I want to see this in action. I will be doing a full review and giving my opinions in due course, but for now I wanted to share my excitement at receiving the phone.

Inside the box you are find the phone itself.

It has a protective screen cover which gives some information about the properties of the phone. The phone runs Android with a Quad Core CPU (Exynos 4 Quad (1.4GHz) processor) and HD Amoled screen. It is available in two colours, the version I have Pebble Blue and Marble white. The phone is a bit larger than my current phone and has nicely rounded edges. It does feel nice and light in the hand and the size is not too big to use easily.

Removing it from the box you lift a small cover to find the other contents of the box. There is a quick start guide and the warranty. The quick start guide is easy to follow but is not really necessary as the phone is easy to switch on and use. Also in the box is the plug, which is in two parts and the USB/charging cable. There is also a set of headphones and ear buds provided. The cable is actually nicely packaged, but in my haste I removed it from the plastic wrapper and promptly lost it. This meant it looks a bit messy in the photo. The battery is also in the box.

To get the phone up and running you need to remove the back. This proved easy to do, there is a small space at the top where you can insert your thumb nail and ease the back off. It does come off easily but you have to bend it a little. The plastic is quite flexible so my worries about breaking it soon subsided.

The battery is placed in the space in the back and then you need to add the sim card. The Samsung S III uses a micro-sim card which is a bit smaller than a standard sim. I had luckily ordered one of these in advance, but apparently it is possible to cut down your current sim if you feel really brave. There is also a port for a mirco SD card where you can use a mirco SD card up to 64 GB. My phone has 16 GB internal storage so I will have plenty of space to store all those photos I keep taking on my phones.

I am really looking forward to starting to use this phone and seeing what it is like and will update you with my findings.

Disclosure: I am writing this as part of my participation in the Samsung Mob!lers program and was sent an Samsung S3 as part of that program. I was not told what to write and my opinions are my own.