HTC 10 vs Galaxy S7 microSD Speed

So here is something that a lot of people usually don’t think about when it comes to the performance of their phone. How fast is the microSD slot? We put two of this year’s biggest phones to the test to see what we would find.

So first off, we will find the fastest SD Card we can get. Even though two devices might have seemingly identical internal specs, one might read and write to the same SD Card faster than the other. That’s because not all microSD slots are built the same. So we decided to test he R/W speed, app launching speeds and in-game FPS performance of the SD card slots in the HTC 10 and the Galaxy S7 to see which is faster.

R/W Speed

These tests will be using a SanDisk 32GB UHS-1 card. We will use an android storage benchmark app called Androbench to test the R/W Speeds of a single file as well as the R/W speeds of a multiple files.

These tests indicate that the HTC has a slight advantage over the Galaxy S7. This is good information for moving files around from within your device but what about pushing files to and from your device using a PC?

PC Transfer Speed

Using a 1GB file, we tested the speed of pushing files to and from the SD Card VIA a USB cable connected to a computer.

We timed the speed of the transfers using an old sundial and the HTC came out on top once again.

App Launching Speeds

Next we will test the app and game launching speeds from apps stored on the SD Card. We will be using an app called DiscoMark Benchmark that allows us to run a bunch of tests to see which is faster.

The HTC 10 pulls through in the lead once again by just barely a second. Not a massive difference but still consistently points to one device being faster than the other.

In-Game Performance

For the last test we will use GameBench to test the FPS performance of the games that we run from the SD Card. Here are the results of several different games that we tried out.

Here we can see that the in-game performance wasn’t massively affected by the speed of the SD Card slot. The two phones scored nearly identical other that a difference on 1FPS on Need for Speed.

So what does all of this tell us? Well if you know you’re going to be using the microSD a lot, sometimes going for a device with the fastest internal storage isn’t always the best option. Instead look for the device with the fastest SD Card reader and it may end up being much faster for what you’re going to be using it for.

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Sprint Hinting at Deals Tomorrow – Here’s the Details!

If you look at Sprint’s social media today you might have noticed tweets like the one below:

The wait is almost over! Come in to any Sprint store TOMORROW & get amazing deals! https://t.co/AgDyr1dshv http://pic.twitter.com/Ix7P622wir

— Sprint (@sprint) June 24, 2016

It’s clear that as part of that #SprintSaysThanks campaign they intend to do something big. And thanks to David Vaughan, the corporate account manager for the day job, we were clued into a few special deals tomorrow as what is being internally called a “Blow The Roof Off” campaign. We were also told that these are specific to corporate stores and they may ask how you heard – so please do a favor and make sure you thank him for the early news. Deals also appear to be both for business and consumer accounts.

From 9 am until noon any activation gets a $100 credit. The example given was 10 lines and no limit was specified. Then from noon until the store closes each line ported gets a $50 port-in credit, while adding lines are also given a $50 “Add-a-Line” credit. Eligible lines can claim both if applicable. A social media discount will also be announced tomorrow that will give 30% off all accessories under $99.99. And finally, A $50 bounce back credit for those who may miss tomorrow and activate on Sunday or Monday.

All in all Sprint is trying hard to claw back some of the market share it has lost to its rivals over the years and continues to try new ways to do so. With different attempts to attract customers back such as the sales tomorrow and the recent advertisement below featuring Paul Marcarelli – formerly Verizon’s “Can You Hear Me?” ad man – now “switching” to Sprint – is it working? We’ll surely see soon enough as the first quarter to its fiscal year next week and they announce their results in either late July or August.

So do any of the deals strike your fancy? Are you a current Sprint subscriber and happy with your service? Or perhaps a former subscriber but have been thinking of coming back? Feel free to comment below!

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XDA Friday 6/24/16

It’s Friday this Christmas! That means it’s time to go back and check out all the best news from XDA this week. Check out our recap video or just take a look at our favorite articles below.

Google May Add Live-Support App for Nexus in Android N, Along with Navigation Bar Refresh

I can’t wait to try out the new Live Support feature coming to Nexus phones with Android N. I’ll be sure to make a video demo of this feature as soon as it’s available to the public.

Droidcon London — Tickets Now Available and Call For Papers Deadline Extended

England is famous for people traveling via umbrellas and using closet portals to access the magical land of Narnia. They also happen to be host to one of the biggest Android conventions in the world known as Droidcon. Tickets and information are now available! Check out the link to find more info.

Android Pay Prepares to Show a Map of Nearby Locations that Accept Payments

The next update for Android pay should be bringing a new feature that allows you to see nearby locations that are compatible with this feature.

Honor 5C Forums

We added new forums for the Honor 5C. If you own this device then be sure to check it out!

Google Publishes End-of-Life Dates for Guaranteed Nexus Support

Google posted a timeline of when they will stop guaranteed updates for their nexus devices. Check to see when your device will get the axe.

 

That’s all the interesting news that we saw for Android this week. Let me know if I missed anything and have a super sensual weekend!

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 “Special Edition” Spotted with 4G Band 20 Support

Another variant (kate) of the Snapdragon-650 based Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (kenzo) has been spottedon Xiaomi’s Taiwan website. Dubbed the “Special Edition”, the device bears the same specifications but with Band 20 support for 4G.

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YouTube Announces Livestreaming Support for its Android App

YouTube does video best, but it has been beaten by the likes of Twitter-owned Periscope and Facebook Live when it comes to mobile livestreaming. Although livestreaming existed prior to this announcement, it did in a limited fashion with scope only for big-name events. Now, an upcoming update for YouTube will bring livestreaming capabilities to all content creators on YouTube, with the functionality being baked right into the YouTube app.

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Google May Add Live-Support App for Nexus in Android N, Along with Navigation Bar Refresh

We’re in the last few days of the first half of 2016, which means that a lot of what was supposed to happen in the Android world for this year has already happened: we’ve seen the newest sets of SoC’s in consumer-ready products, we’ve seen Android OEMs bring out said products and we’ve even had glimpses of what the future holds for modularity and virtual reality. But at this stage, we are still missing one big event in the Android world: the official unveiling of Android N.

Android N, or whatever it ends up being called, will likely be released towards the beginning of Q4 2016. This puts us right in the correct spot for the rumor season for the upcoming Android release, and the leaks have started to flow.

First up, coming to us courtesy of the folks over at AndroidPolice, it appears that Google has been prepping up an app to aid in screen sharing for the purpose of after-sales support. Dubbed Google Support in its current unreleased state, AndroidPolice’s sources have provided them enough information to create a mockup of the introductory help screen of the said app:

What information can we glean from the mockup? The obvious functionality of the app will be to support screen sharing of the parent device to an after-sales service agent. This is likely to bridge the support gap that comes with going with an online-only sales model, as it will aid in basic troubleshooting of average customer issues without them needing to ship the device back to Google. The mockup just about provides this much information, but a good guess would be that some sort of communication facility or support (through audio or text chat) would be incorporated in the app. The mockup and AndroidPolice’s sources do not address if this app will be limited to just screen sharing (i.e. viewing-only capabilities) or would allow the service agent to interact and perform remote actions.

AndroidPolice has rated this rumor at a 9 out of 10 in confidence. While there are still variables involved and everything, including the name, is not finalized and subject to variation, this functionality will make its way in some form to the upcoming HTC Nexus devices, Sailfish and Marlin. One point to note is that this support app would likely be limited to Nexus devices, since Google does not provide for non-Nexus devices.

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If you looked at the above mockup a bit keenly, you may have also noticed something outside of the app intro screen (though AndroidPolice did consciously place it into the mockup). The second rumor related to the upcoming Android N is the redesign of the navigation bar.

AndroidPolice notes that the central button animates upon a long press. The keys are also opaque now. This small change sounds more like a re-theme instead of a complete and radical rethink of functionality, so the key behaviour should remain largely unchanged (unless Google does have plans for them in the near future — we don’t know yet).

AndroidPolice has rated this rumor a 7 out of 10 in confidence, with a fair few variables being a possibility. A good guess would be that the redesign is likely to make its way to Nexus devices that will be officially updated to Android N. Things can change till Android N is finally released.

The Nexus hype train began with the leak of specs of the upcoming Sailfish HTC Nexus, and now moves on to the existence of a Nexus-only app and a small redesign of the omnipresent navigation bar. Stay tuned as we find more about the upcoming additions to the Nexus family, because it is about damn time!

What are your thoughts on the leaks so far? Are you excited about the upcoming pair of HTC Nexus? Let us know in the comments below!

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OnePlus 3 Reviewers’ OTA Impressions: Better RAM Management and More Accurate Calibration is Just What the Doctor Ordered

OnePlus has rolled out a 3.1.4 Oxygen OS update to the OnePlus 3 in order to address a few of the issues that early reviewers pointed out. The update, however, is only available for reviewer units at the moment.

We’ve received this 12MB patch on our OnePlus 3 for review, flashed it, and tested it for the past 24 hours. The updates notes had a few miscellaneous fixes alongside three bigger ones that users would be interested in: better RAM management, sRGB mode, and faster application load times. We’ve tried them all out and can now report back with first impressions:

First and foremost, the RAM management has been adjusted after the issues had come to light. Readers of XDA or forum visitors might recall that we had found a fix early on, which involved modifying a build.prop value that limited the amount of background apps and services. The original line was ro.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=20 and we had modified it to ro.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=42 although that was just our preference, some users have tried up to 60 and obtained better results — at 42, we were able to use over 5GB of RAM. Looking at the build.prop that came with this OTA, we find the value set at 32 — a standard for Android. Using the illustration we published in our early article about the OP3’s RAM as a baselines, we found that under the same test, the new firmware could keep an extra 3 apps in memory. Once more, your mileage may vary.

The second big part of this update is the sRGB mode. After AnandTech’s damning analysis of the OnePlus 3’s display, OnePlus was thrown off balance, but the company decided to act quickly and release this test update with the sRGB mode included. Now, it’s worth noting that the OnePlus 3’s display did have very inaccurate calibration, with neon blues and orange-red that popped out like earlier AMOLED displays.

The new sRGB toggle is found under developer options,just like on the 6P, and gives you the more color-accurate display mode and color space target that OnePlus should arguably have aimed for in the first place. It’s actually rather pleasant to look at, but objective colorimeter tests in the near future shall determine the degree to which it accomplishes its goal. Two  small things worth mentioning: on sRGB mode, you cannot tweak the color balance of the display using the slider in the Display Settings, and every time you reboot the phone, you must enable the sRGB mode again (like on the 6P). Finally, I am happy to report that under the sRGB mode, the greyscale banding looks to be slightly diminished (but not through the whole gradient).

Finally, OnePlus claims that they have improved system performance, in particular app and game loading times. Assessing the degree to which this update improved performance, objectively, is a rather complicated task, but the app loading time benchmarks do suggest a slight change (30 repetitions, no other apps installed, same network and application state). I will have to re-do all real-world tests in order to get to a solid conclusion, however, so expect a more in-depth analysis in the full review. But regardless of this update, the OnePlus 3 is one of the fastest devices on the market today, so shaving off a few milliseconds in launch times will likely go unnoticed by the majority of the userbase.

OnePlus has been determined to address the OnePlus 3’s shortcomings, and for that I must commend them. While the RAM tweaks still do not make for a device that truly lives up to the 6GB of RAM, it can now compete with others and the user still has the freedom to choose whether he wants to tune it to perform better (ideally, this would be another setting tucked into the Developer Options). The sRGB mode is also an extremely welcome addition — hopefully, objective screen testing will show it to be just what the doctor ordered, but in my opinion it looks about right and I am sure users not fond of saturated screens will appreciate it.

So good job OnePlus, this is a step in the right direction and we hope that you keep providing software support as timely and focused as this over the course of the OnePlus 3’s life. Hope this is released to consumers soon!

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