Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom feature and specification

Just taking the photo won't do these days - you'll want to edit and share it, then rake in the likes. Except most cameras pretty much bail out at the snapshot. Not the Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom though, a hybrid of a point-and-shoot with 10x optical zoom and a Galaxy S4 mini. This is Samsung's second such attempt after the Galaxy Camera, which was based on the Galaxy S III.

   

Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom official photos

 

The Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom has full telephony features (unlike the Camera), but it's not the most comfortable phone around. Photography is the full-time job here.

A 10x zoom lens with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) sits in front of a 16MP sensor. At the wide end, the lens is the very wide 24mm in 35mm equivalent, the aperture goes from f/3.1 to f/6.3 and there's a mechanical shutter. The Galaxy S4 zoom has a control ring around the lens like some high-end point-and-shoots do, a xenon flash and LED light.

That's just the camera specs, the rest is a full-featured Galaxy S4 mini hardware, including the IR blaster, which can control a projector (the one, most likely, you'd use to show off your photos).

Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps; LTE (market dependent), Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone with optical zoom lens
• Dimensions: 125.5 x 63.5 x 15.4 mm, 208 g
• Display: 4.25" 16M-color qHD (540 x 960 pixels) Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen
• CPU: Dual-core Cortex-A9 1.5 GHz processor, 1.5GB RAM, Mali-400 GPU
• OS: Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Memory: 8 GB (5 GB user available) of inbuilt storage, microSD card slot
• Still Camera: 16 megapixel auto-focus camera with 10x optical zoom and Optical Image Stabilization; xenon flash and LED light; control lens ring
• Video Camera: Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps; 720p @ 60fps
• Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0+HS, NFC, MHL-enabled standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, USB-on-the-go
• Battery: 2,330mAh
• Misc: TouchWiz 5.0 Nature UX, DivX/XviD codec support, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor, smart screen

There are some differences between the Galaxy S4 zoom and the mini but, outside the size, those are insignificant. The chipset is powerful enough to shoot 1080p video at 30fps and 720p at 60fps (same as the Galaxy Camera). Samsung has made sure too that the default camera app is the most advanced we've seen yet, and there are a number of helpful image and video editors among other tools.

With Android 4.2 you'd be able to install other editors and camera apps too (though these will have to add support for the optical zoom feature). Not to mention all the social networking and other tools for sharing your photos, which can be piped through blazing fast LTE or Wi-Fi, DLNA, MHL or Group Play.

Jump over to the next page for a closer look at the hardware, while we try to avoid any "zooming in" puns.

Huawei Ascend P6 feature and specification

The Huawei Ascend P6, although still listed as rumored in our database, is all but officially announced after its latest specs leak. With last month's official render and not-so-official pricing of the device, followed by leaked benchmark results and live photos, we'd almost expect to be able to walk into a store and see it on shelves, even though Huawei's "mysterious" launch event is still a week away.

The latest leak involves internal documents, which were sent to us by one of our readers who chose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. While we can't share the actual documents with you, we can reveal their contents, which give us the full nitty-gritty on the device.

We got to learn that the Ascend P6 will be powered by a 2000 mAh Li-Po 2000 battery and will have a 5MP front-facing camera capable of 720p video recording. The Bluetooth specification turned out to be v3.0 rather than v4.0, and the wireless 802.11a standard isn't supported, which probably points to the lack of dual-band Wi-Fi.

There's also confirmation of a temperature sensor and the exact measurements, which come in at 132.7 x 65.5 x 6.5mm, with a weight of 120g.

The detailed specs sheet also proves that many of the previous rumors were correct - the smartphone will be powered by a a quad-core 1.5 GHz K3V2+ Huawei chipset with 1.5GHz quad-core CPU and an Intel XMM6260 modem. The Huawei Ascend P6 will also offer 8MP camera capable of 1080p video recording, 8GB of expandable internal storage with 2GB of RAM, a 4.7-inch 16M color screen of 720p resolution - all running on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

You can check the complete specs sheet in our Huawei Ascend P6 specs page. Just don't forget to check back with us on June 18th for the official launch, so we can see what else Huawei may have up its sleeve.

difference between SSD and HDD

SSD vs HDD

Most people now buy laptops for their computing needs and have to make the decision between getting either a Solid State Drive (SSD) or Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as the storage component. So which is best to get, an SSD or HDD? There’s no straight-forward answer to this question; each buyer has different needs and you have to evaluate the decision based on those needs, your preferences, and of course budget. Even though the price of SSDs has been falling, the price per gigabyte advantage is still strongly with HDDs. Yet, if performance and fast bootup is your primary consideration and money is secondary, then SSD is the way to go. We’ll make a comparison of SSD and HDD storage and go over the good, the bad, and the ugly of both.

What is an SSD?

We’ll make no assumptions here and keep this article on a level that anyone can understand. You might be shopping for a computer and simply wondering what the heck SSD actually means? To begin, SSD stands for Solid State Drive. You’re probably familiar with USB memory sticks - SSD can be thought of as an oversized and more sophisticated version of the humble USB memory stick. Like a memory stick, there are no moving parts to an SSD. Rather, information is stored in microchips.  Meanwhile, a hard drive uses a mechanical arm with a read/write head to move around and read information from the right location on a storage platter. This difference is what makes SSD so much faster. As an analogy, what’s quicker? Having to walk across the room to retrieve a book to get information or simply magically having that book open in front of you when you need it? That’s how an HDD compares to an SSD; it simply requires more physical labor (mechanical movement) to get information.

A typical SSD uses what is called NAND-based flash memory. This is a non-volatile type of memory. What does non-volatile mean you ask? The simple answer is that you can turn off the disk and it won’t “forget” what was stored on it. This is of course an essential characteristic of any type of permanent memory. During the early days of SSD, rumors floated around saying stored data would wear off and be lost after only a few years.  Today this is not true; you can read and write to an SSD all day long and the data storage integrity will be maintained for well over 200 years. In other words, the data storage life of an SSD can outlive you!

An SSD does not have a mechanical arm to read and write data, it instead relies on an embedded processor (or “brain”) called a controller to perform a bunch of operations related to reading and writing data. The controller is a very important factor in determining the speed of the SSD. Decisions it makes related to how to store, retrieve, cache and clean up data can determine the overall speed of the drive. We won’t get into the nitty-gritty details for the various tasks it performs such as error correction, read and write caching, encryption, and garbage collection to name a few. Yet, suffice to say, good controller technology is often what separates an excellent SSD from a simply good one. An example of a fast controller today is the SandForce SATA 3.0 (6GB/s) SSD controller that supports burst speeds up to 550MB/s read and write speeds.

Finally, you may be wondering what an SSD looks like and how easy it is to replace a hard drive with an after-market device. If you look at the images below you’ll see the top and undersides of a typically-sized 2.5” SSD. The technology is encased inside either a plastic or metal case and looks like nothing more than a battery might:

TOP Top Side

SSD Bottom Side

The form factor of the SSD is actually the same as a regular hard drive. It comes in a standard 1.8”, 2.5”, or 3.5” size that can fit into the housing and connectors for the same-sized hard drives. The connector used for these standard sizes is SATA. There are smaller SSDs available that use what’s called mini-SATA (mSATA) and fit into the mini-PCI Express slot of a laptop.

What is an HDD?

Hard Disk Drives, or HDD in techno-parlance, have been around for donkey's years relative to the technology world. HDDs were first introduced by IBM in 1956 - yes folks this is nearly 60-year old technology, thank goodness vacuum tubes for TVs didn’t last so long! An HDD uses magnetism to store data on a rotating platter. A read/write head floats above the spinning platter reading and writing data. The faster the platter spins, the faster an HDD can perform. Typical laptop drives today spin at either 5400 RPM (Revolutions per Minute) or 7200RPM, though some server-based platters spin at up to 15,000 RPM!

The major advantage of an HDD is that it is capable of storing lots of data cheaply. These days 1 TeraByte (1,024 gigabytes) of storage is not unusual for a laptop hard drive, and the density continues to grow. Cost per gigabyte is only around $0.075/GB these days for an HDD (based on buying a 4TB model), amazing when you compare it to the $1.00/GB cost for an SSD (240GB model) . If you want cheap storage and lots of it, using a standard hard drive is definitely the more appealing way to go.

When it comes to appearance, HDDs essentially look the same from the outside as SSDs. HDDs predominantly use SATA interface. The most common size for laptop hard drives is the 2.5” form factor while a larger 3.5” form factor is used in desktop computers. The larger size allows for more platters inside and thus more storage capacity. Some desktop hard drives can store up to 4TB of data! Below is an example of what an HDD looks like using the Seagate Barracuda 3TB hard drive:

HDD Top Side

HHD Bottom Side

SSD Vs HDD Comparison

Now it’s time to do some comparisons and determine which might be best for your individual needs - SSD or HDD?  The best way to compare items is a table with a side by side comparison of items in which a green box indicates an advantage:

Attribute	SSD (Solid State Drive)	HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
Power Draw / Battery Life	Less power draw, averages 2 – 3 watts, resulting in 30+ minute battery boost	More power draw, averages 6 – 7 watts and therefore uses more battery
Cost	Expensive, $1.00 per gigabyte (based on buying a 240GB drive)	Only around $0.075 per gigabyte, very cheap (buying a 4TB model)
Capacity	Typically not larger than 512GB for notebook size drives	Typically 500GB – 2TB for notebook size drives
Operating System Boot Time	Around 22 seconds average bootup time	Around 40 seconds average bootup time
Noise	There are no moving parts and as such no sound	Audible clicks and spinning can be heard
Vibration	No vibration as there are no moving parts	The spinning of the platters can sometimes result in vibration
Heat Produced	Lower power draw and no moving parts so little heat is produced	HDD doesn’t produce much heat, but it will have a measurable amount more heat than an SSD due to moving parts and higher power draw
Failure Rate	Mean time between failure rate of 2.0 million hours	Mean time between failure rate of 1.5 million hours
File Copy / Write Speed	Generally above 200 MB/s and up to 500 MB/s for cutting edge drives	The range can be anywhere from 50 – 120MB / s
Encryption	Full Disk Encryption (FDE)Supported on some models	Full Disk Encryption (FDE) Supported on some models
File Opening Speed	Up to 30% faster than HDD	Slower than SSD
Magnetism Affected?	An SSD is safe from any effects of magnetism	Magnets can erase data

If we tally up the checkmarks, the SSD gets 9 and HDD gets 3. Does that mean the that an SSD is three times better than an HDD? Not at all. As we mentioned earlier, it all depends on individual needs. The comparison here is just to lay out the pros and cons for both options. To aid you even more, here are some rules to follow when you decide which drive is best for you:

• You need lots of storage capacity, up to 4TB
• Don’t want to spend much money
• Don’t care too much about how fast a computer boots up or opens programs - then get a hard drive (HDD).

• You are willing to pay for faster performance
• Don’t mind limited storage capacity or can work around that - then get a solid state drive (SSD).

Today it still makes sense for a majority of typical buyers just to get an HDD inside a new computer simply due to the much cheaper cost. However, if you are an enthusiast for new technology and having top computing performance is important for you, then of course SSD is the way to go.  Eventually SSD will replace HDD as the standard storage mechanism, certainly in laptops given the advantages they present for a mobile device. We are already seeing this happen with SSD showing up as the default storage device in the new Ultrabook category.  There will always be a market for both HDD and SSD, and the perfect solution may actually be a hybrid blend of both storage solutions. The advent of mSATA SSD devices and hybrid drives that include both SSD and HDD may be the best hope for reaching storage zen and giving you the best of both worlds, but that’s a topic for another day!

Curious about which SSD or hard drive to buy? Be sure to check out our constantly updated leaderboard that has a breakdown of the best SSD in categories like value, mainstream and enthusiast.

About The Author: Andrew Baxter is the Editor of LaptopReviews.com where he writes news and reviews covering the laptop industry. He is also a Contributing Editor at StorageReview.com.

What is a Solid State Drive (SSD)?

If you are looking at a modern laptop, you will likely see some that come equipped with a solid state drive. This form of computer storage has been on the market for some time but only recently has been embraced by the industry and consumers as a viable alternative to traditional hard drives. So, what exactly is a solid state drive (SSD) and how does it compared to a traditional hard drive?

What is a Solid State Drive?

Solid state is term that refers to electronic circuitry that is built entirely out of semiconductors. The term was originally used to define those electronics such as a transistor radio that used semiconductors rather than vacuum tubes in its construction. Most all electronics that we have today are built around semiconductors and chips. In terms of a SSD, it refers to the fact that the primary storage medium is through semiconductors rather than a magnetic media such as a hard drive.

Now, you might say that this type of storage already exists in the form of flash memory drives that plug into the USB port. This is partially true as solid state drives and USB flash drives both use the same type of non-volatile memory chips that retain their information even when they have no power. The difference is in the form factor and capacity of the drives. While a flash drive is designed to be external to the computer system, an SSD is designed to reside inside the computer in place of a more traditional hard drive.

So how exactly do they do this? Well, an SSD on the outside looks almost no different than a traditional hard drive. This design is to allow the SSD drive to put in a notebook or desktop computer in place of a hard drive. To do this, it needs to have the standard dimension as a 1.8, 2.5 or 3.5-inch hard drive. It also uses the common SATA interface so that it can easily be placed into any PC as a hard drive would.

Why Use a Solid State Drive?

Solid state drives have several advantages over the magnetic hard drives. The majority of this comes from the fact that the drive does not have any moving parts. While a traditional drive has drive motors to spin up the magnetic platters and the drive heads, all the storage on a solid state drive is handled by flash memory chips. This provides three distinct advantages:

• Less Power Usage
• Faster Data Access
• Higher Reliability

The power usage is a key role for the use of solid state drives in portable computers. Because there is no power draw for the motors, the drive uses far less energy than the regular hard drive. Now, the industry has taken steps to address this with drives spinning down and the development of hybrid hard drives, but both of these still use more power. The solid state drive will consistently draw less power then the traditional and hybrid hard drive.

Faster data access will make a number of people happy. Since the drive does not have to spin up the drive platter or move drive heads, the data can be read from the drive near instantly. Hybrid hard drives do tend to mitigate the speed aspect when it comes to frequently used drives. Similarly, Intel's newSmart Response Technology is a similar method of caching on a small solid state drive to produce similar results.

Reliability is also a key factor for portable drives. Hard drive platters are very fragile and sensitive materials. Even small jarring movements from an impact can cause the drive to be completely unreadable. Since the SSD stores all its data in memory chips, there are fewer moving parts to be damaged in any sort of impact. While mechanically SSD drives are better, they do have a limited life span. This comes from a fixed number of write cycles that can be done on a drive before the cells become unusable. For most consumers however, the write cycle limits tend to still allow the drives to last roughly five years or more which is longer than the average computer system.

Why Aren't SSDs Used For All PCs?

As with most computer technologies, the primary limiting factor of using the solid state drives in notebook and desktop computers is cost. These drives have actually been available for some time now and have come down dramatically in price. Drives are finally reaching below the $1 per gigabyte price mark that makes them more feasible for consumer use. Mind you, this is still ten times the cost of a similar hard drive technology so it still has a high cost.

Capacity is also a major factor in the adoption of solid state drives. The average notebook computer equipped with a SSD will have around 128 to 256GB of storage. This is roughly equivalent to what laptops of several years ago came equipped with. Today, most laptops feature 500GB or more of storage with a hard drive. Desktop systems have an even greater disparity between SSD and hard drives as the average desktop comes with 1TB or more of storage.

Even with the huge difference in capacity, many people are finding that most computers have far more storage capacity than they typically have. Only a large collection of raw digital photo files and high definition video files will likely fill up hard drives quickly. As a result, solid state drives will generally offer a sufficient level of storage for most laptop computers. Additionally, high performance external options thanks to USB 3.0, eSATA and even Thunderbolt make adding extra storage space with an external hard drive quick and easy for non-essential files.