Samsung Galaxy Grand vs Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 – Hardware, Camera, Specs Review

Today we compare the Samsung Galaxy Grand smartphone with the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy Grand 2. This is one of the first battles where a mid-segment smartphone goes one on one with its successor.

This is the battle that many mid-segment consumers have been looking forward since the time Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Grand 2! We put these two smartphones in a head to head battle of specs and features in an attempt to find out the changes and improvements that have been made in the new version.

If you are interested in knowing how good the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 smartphone is, then this is the post for you! Will the Samsung Galaxy Grand be able to put up a fight against the Galaxy Grand 2 or will the successor prove to be way more powerful and advanced? Let us find out.

Samsung Galaxy Grand

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

DISPLAY

The Samsung Galaxy Grand has a 5-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen display with a screen resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and a pixel density of 187 ppi. The display is clear enough for regular viewing, but a screen resolution of 480 x 800 pixels on a 5-inch display does not really sound good.

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has a 5.25-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen display with a screen resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and a pixel density of 280 ppi. Compared to the original Galaxy Grand, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has a much better resolution and hence provides much better clarity.

WINNER – Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

HARDWARE

The Samsung Galaxy Grand is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, standard GPU and has 1 GB of RAM. This hardware configuration is decent enough to ensure that the device functions normally and is able to handle most of the apps and games that need more power.

On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 runs on a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, standard GPU and has 1.5GB of RAM. So once again, there is a major upgrade in the processing system of the Galaxy Grand 2 when compared to the original Galaxy Grand.

WINNER – Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

OPERATING SYSTEM

The Samsung Galaxy Grand runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box. The smartphone has been around for quite some time, but Samsung has still not rolled out the latest version of Android operating system for the smartphone.

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean out of the box. So even though consumers will not be able to experience Android 4.4 KitKat right away, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 does have a major advantage over the Galaxy Grand that is still on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

WINNER – Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

STORAGE

The Samsung Galaxy Grand has 8GB of internal storage space; there is no other option available. But you can expand storage up to 64GB with the help of a microSD card, bringing your total storage space up to 72GB.

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 also has 8GB of internal storage and has a microSD card support. The smartphone supports cards up to 64GB, hence the maximum total storage space you can have is 72GB.

WINNER – Draw

CAMERA

The Samsung Galaxy Grand has an 8 MP primary camera with autofocus and LED flash and a 2 MP secondary camera. The primary camera supports 1080p video recording at 30fps and comes with features like geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization.

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 also has an 8 MP primary camera with autofocus and LED flash and a 1.9 MP secondary camera. The primary camera supports 1080p video recording at 30fps and comes with features like geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization. So there is hardly any difference in the cameras of these two devices.

WINNER – Draw

BATTERY

The Samsung Galaxy Grand has a removable 2100 mAh Li-Ion battery. You can expect a talk time of up to 8 hours and a stand by time of up to 300 hours.

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has a removable 2600 mAh Li-Ion battery (that’s 500 mAh more than the Galaxy Grand). We do not have the official battery stats for this device, but we expect the smartphone to perform similar to the Galaxy Grand as far as battery backup is concerned. Remember that the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has a bigger screen and higher pixel density, so it will use up more battery.

WINNER – Draw

DIMENSIONS

The dimensions of the Samsung Galaxy Grand are 143.5 x 76.9 x 9.6 mm whereas the dimensions of the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 are 146.8 x 75.3 x 8.9 mm. In spite of the bigger screen and larger battery, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 manages to be much more compact and at the same time thinner than the original Samsung Galaxy Grand.

WINNER – Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

WEIGHT

The Samsung Galaxy Grand weighs 162 grams whereas the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 weighs 163 grams. Once again, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is just 1 gram heavier than the original Galaxy Grand. But it packs a much bigger battery and larger screen, so cheers to Samsung for the new compact body and design.

WINNER – Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

CONCLUSION

This was one interesting battle! Honestly speaking, we know that there is a generation gap between the Samsung Galaxy Grand and Galaxy Grand 2. But for now, we want to keep this point aside because we are quite sure that both these smartphones will have a very small difference in price.

So as far as the hardware configuration and features are concerned, we don’t see one good reason why consumers should buy the older Samsung Galaxy Grand! Samsung has definitely put in a lot of efforts in the making of the new Galaxy Grand 2, and we like all the changes that have been made. We are always ready to welcome suggestions but the device is already out, so let’s get on with reality.

So to sum it up, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is the winner of this battle! And here is a list of reasons why it proves to be much better than the older Galaxy Grand:

• Premium faux leather back panel
• Better display resolution
• Quad-core processor
• 1.5GB of RAM
• Android 4.3 Jelly Bean
• Higher capacity battery

Here is a specifications chart of the Samsung Galaxy Grand and the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2:

Top Tricks to Increase Your Twitter Traffic

With our current way of life, Social Networking Websites are one of the best ways to reach the masses, if used correctly. Websites like Twitter make it possible for you to easily advertise and promote your business or blog, although, unless you are actually able to build up a decent following, you will simply be talking to yourself. The only real way to get a massive number of followers is to tweet something positive about Justin Bieber, and then sit back and watch as thousands of young fan-girls follow you, although these probably aren’t the people you want to be targeting with your blog/business ideas. Here are some helpful tips to remember if you wish to improve your Twitter traffic.

Brilliant Twitter Bio

On a social networking site that has millions of users, you need to ensure that you have something that makes you stand out. This is where your Twitter biography comes in. If you are going to have a boring biography that puts the reader to sleep, there will be no ‘follow’ coming your way. It is important to have followers that have similar interests to you, therefore it is important to actually be yourself (this is rare on the internet). This is not an excuse to write an essay about yourself, keep it short and sweet, making sure to add something about both your personal and professional life.

Username is Key

Usernames need to be selected carefully and according to your specific niche. Let’s say you are a gambling fanatic and wish to tweet about all your epic adventures on http://www.jackgold.com.Calling yourself @CuteSk8erChikk isn’t quite going to cut it. It would be much more beneficial to go with something like @JackpotJoy, which will help make it easier for people to find you.

Pointless Hashtags

There is nothing more off-putting that reading tweet after tweet that ends with a large number of completely pointless hashtags. If you wish to promote your educated ideas with fellow educated individuals, using hashtags like #cute #summer #NoFilter and #Yolo, is definitely not the way to go.

Tweet Regularly

No one is going to follow you if they find your profile and see that your last tweet was some eight months ago. With the fast-paced world that we live in, it is important to tweet regularly, with information that will appeal to your followers. This will make them want to retweet what you have to say, and will ultimately increase your traffic. There is however a fine line between regular tweets and spam. Constant tweeting will fill your follower’s feed, frustrating them to the point of an ‘unfollow’.

By Jason Swindon

Get over 50GB of free online storage and syncing with MediaFire

Just about every major tech company is offering free online storage space, but few give you as much free space as MediaFire. The cloud storage provider is heating up the competition with offers of 50GB or more of free storage--and, with the new Windows and Mac desktop app--automatic file syncing as well.

Yes, that means, as The Next Web reports, taking on popular online storage provider Dropbox.

MediaFire starts you off with 10GB of free space, and it's ad-supported, but that's still five times as much free space to start off with as Dropbox. You can earn 50GB (or more) with referrals and other actions. I had already locked in a 50GB account, thanks to downloading the Android app, but the bonus space--via connecting social accounts or installing MediaFire Desktop, even--is still available on top of that.

Even if you've already got an account with Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, and/or another cloud storage provider, 50GB of free space is still hard to pass up. MediaFire Desktop includes: automatic file syncing to the cloud, link sharing, file version tracking and automatic duplicate file removal, activity feed, and quick screenshot capturing.

Love and hate for Java 8 (Everything that you need to know)

Java8 isn’t scheduled for for release until March 2014, but early release versions have been available for a while. Some of the most interesting new features of Java 8 are: 

• Streams 
• Functional interfaces 
• Default methods 
• Lambdas 
• Java Time 

Streams 

The new java.util.stream package contains “classes to support functional-style operations on streams of elements”. Streams aren’t a new type of collection and don’t replace any of the existing ones such as Lists and Queues. Instead, they provide a way to interact with an existing collection, and in that respect are more similar to iterators. 

The javadocs describe a stream as “a sequence of elements supporting sequential and parallel aggregate operations.” A stream pipeline consists of a source (e.g. a collection), intermediate operations (e.g. a filter or map) and a terminal operation, which produce a result (e.g. sum or count). Streams are lazy in that the operations on the data are only performed at the last minute i.e. when the terminal operation is called, and the stream is processed only once. 

For example: 

int totalFxTrading = blocks.stream()
        .filter(trade -> trade.getType() == FX)
        .mapToInt(b -> b.getTradedAmount())
        .sum();

Functional interfaces

Java 8 will have a new feature called functional interfaces. A functional interface has exactly one abstract method. There are many such interfaces that you have probably used as a Java developer, such as Runnable, ActionListener, Comparator and Callable. In Java 8 these types of interfaces are now more formally called Functional interfaces. They can be identified using a new @FunctionalInterfaceannotation, and most importantly, can be represented using Lambda expressions (more later). For example, to use an ActionListener in the past, you needed to create an implementation, often using an anonymous inner class. 

For example: 

JButton button = new JButton();
        button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) {
                System.out.println(ae.getSource());
            }
        });

Using functional interfaces, this becomes much simpler: 

JButton myButton = new JButton();
        button.addActionListener(
            ae -> {System.out.println("You clicked the button");}
        );

We never need to even mention ActionEvent – the compiler derives the type of ‘ae’ from the context. Note that the @FunctionalInterfaceannotation, like the @Override annotation, is not required. Instead it signals to the compiler your intentions so that it can warn you if something looks amiss e.g. more than one abstract method is available. 

Default methods

Prior to Java7, an interface was a fairly simply thing. It could contain abstract methods only (and constants) which had to be implemented by concrete subclasses. An interface was basically a bunch of method signatures, but could never contain a method definition/implementation. 

In Java8, things gets more interesting. Default methods can now be added to an interface. These are methods that do have an implementation, do not have to be overridden in the interface implementation and can be run directly from the interface. 

These default methods were added as a necessity to provide backwards compatibility. If they had not been added, it would not have been possible to extend/improve the existing collection interfaces, for example, without breaking all the implementations. So for that reason, default methods are sometimes referred to as defender methods. 

To me, the really interesting thing about default methods is that they allow a form of multiple inheritance. Since a class can implement more than one interface, and each of those interfaces can now potentially have a default method with the same name, which version does the subclass inherit? I think this is referred to as the diamond problem. If such a scenario arises when using Java8, the compiler will provide a warning. You can use the syntax X.super.m(…) to explicitly choose one of the parent class’s implementations. 

On a side note, why do these new default methods need the default keyword at all? Couldn’t they have worked just as well without that keyword? The answer is yes, the default keyword is redundant, just like the abstract keyword. Both were added to make things a little more clear. This post has some more details are links. 

Lambda

According to Wikipedia, a lambda expression is “a function defined without being bound to an identifier”. Lambda expressions are coming to Java in version, designed to allow code to be streamlined. 

Many of the other changes I discussed above(default methods, functional interfaces) are very closey related to the introduction of lambas. 

When a Lambda expression is written, it is translated into a functional interface at compile time. Here is an example of using Lambda expressions to replace an anonymous inner class with much cleaner and more readable code.

Old way without Lambda: 

button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) {
            System.out.println(“Action Detected”);
        }
    });

New way with Lambda: 

button.addActionListener(e -> {
        System.out.println(“Action Detected”);
    });

Using Lambda expressions will often make the code easier to read and require fewer lines. 

Java time

Dealing with dates and time in Java has never been ideal. At best it has been quirky, and at worst, a bit of a nightmare. The Date class was clunky and is now littered with deprecated methods. The Calendar class was an improvement, but I personally always seem to spend more time that I would like having to trawl through the API docs, even for things I have done before. Other 3rd party libraries tried to deal with times in a more elegany fashion (e.g. Joda time). There have been rumors of improved handling in Java itslef anf with Java8, it is here – the java.time package. 

A new (abstract) Clock class provides some useful static methods such as systemUTC() and systemDefaultZone() to get the current time and timezone. And a number of new classes such as LocalDate and LocalTime, and YearMonth and MonthDay provide more elegant handing of day to day (pardon the pun) date operations. 

What’s not in Java8

On a side note, although date/time handling will be improved in Java8, amazingly there is still no good way to handle currency in Java (something I have blogged about in the past). Doubles (and all floating point numbers) are inherently unsuitable for money, or anywhere exact calculations are required. Using int or long requires keeping track of decimal points, and BigDecimal isn’t ideal either.Those guys may improve things, but it looks like we will have to wait until Java 9 for that  :-)