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| System Name | Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load) |
|---|---|
| Processor | Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core) |
| Motherboard | Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded) |
| Cooling | Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate |
| Memory | 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V) |
| Video Card(s) | Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W)) |
| Storage | 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2 |
| Display(s) | Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144) |
| Case | Fractal Design R6 |
| Audio Device(s) | Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic |
| Power Supply | Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY) |
| Mouse | Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL |
| Keyboard | Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps) |
| VR HMD | Oculus Rift S + Quest 2 |
| Software | Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware! |
| Benchmark Scores | Nyooom. |
I tried doing similar to this a while ago, but couldnt get my thoughts concise enough to make my points clear.
This is take 2 with a far more simple method of doing this - with MOAR PHONES!
My phone library over the past 3 years:
Iphone 3gs
Iphone 4
Iphone 5
Galaxy S2 (i9100)
Galaxy Note II 4G (N7105)
Galaxy S3 (i9300) + i9305)
Galaxy S4 (i9505)
(Also owned an ipad1, and a large variety of android tablets from various companies - but they're barely mentioned from here on out)
I still have all the samsungs, but have sold all the apple stuff off. that may spoil the ending to this somewhat.
Starting with the iPhones, in the order i had them.
Iphone 3gs:
Pros: Great Idle battery life - this applies to every iphone. only a single days use, but heaps of idle. Simple interface, calls, text, web browsing and social apps all work great.
Cons: Missing features older phones had - bluetooth file transfer is a glaring one.
Summary: For its time, it was fantastic. compared to my old nokia N95, using the web was incredible.
iPhone 4:
Pros: it was the 3gs with an easier to hold, flat edged frame. Clearer screen, better camera. Front camera meant skyping via the phone was possible, and entertaining.
Cons: Still no methods of file sharing that didnt involve uploading to the internet. Media playback was very limited to apples formats (.MP4 video with stereo AAC audio only, that had to come from itunes on a PC)
Any apps that claimed to do network streaming or remote playback always boiled down to 'only if files are a certain format already' or 'better have an i7, we're re-encoding every file on the fly'
Summary: To this day i still think it was a nice phone, although at times i was frustrated by how little it could do outside of being a phone. wheres the 'smart' part?
Iphone 5:
Pros: slightly clearer screen again, better camera.
Cons: no bluetooth file sharing, same media limitations. finally a 16:9 screen, but not even 720p?
HDMI output was stripped away with these, replaced with a terrible implentation that didnt work right
Summary: at this point i noticed a trend -a clear screen and a decent camera was the beginning and end. if I wanted more, i was going to have to jump ship - so i did, and swapped my iphone 5 for a samsung S4.
iOS7
Right as i swapped over, iOS7 came out and caused a stir with many people hating its new look and feel - and its bugs. at this time i updated my apple devices in the aims of getting a better sale price with the following results:
iPad1, 32GB: stuck at iOS 5.1.1, many new apps requiring iOS6 or above simply wouldnt install. my last Apple device with 30 pin, proper HDMI output suddenly couldnt reinstall media player apps that worked fine before i factory reset it to remove the jailbreak.
iPhone 3GS: Updating this to iOS6 seemed like a great move at the time - all the apps that no longer installed on the iPad1, would surely work fine on here. Except for the slow bootup, and delays of upto 30 seconds switching between apps now. Compatibility came at a huge performance cost, and the device simply lagged to much for me to use.
iPhone 4/4s: Worked well on iOS5, but had random lag on iOS6 - i decided to NOT update them any further, and sold them off as they were. at this point they felt slower than the 3GS did prior to its update.
iPhone 5: I had this on iOS 6.1.2 until the day i sold it, and it was rock solid - if limited in what it could do.
Sure i couldn't play anime, or my DVD rips with 5.1 audio, but for calls, text, social stuff and light web use - it was stable and reliable. This was enough for me until i might as well have a gold plated nokia for all it let me do, especially since i was charging it at least twice a day.
Then a week later the new owner put iOS7 on it, and the damned thing rebooted constantly, causing him to demand a refund (i refused, as it worked great when i sold it, and the update had removed any value from the phone for me)
***********************************************************************************
The android vs iOS comparison here is kept simple, and missing a hell of a lot for the simple reason i'd have to compare iOS 4, 5, 6 and 7 vs android 2.3, 2.3.6, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3.x and 4.4.2 on nearly a dozen devices. How about... no.
Biggest and most obvious platform changes to me:
The open google play store meant phone limitations didnt mean much anymore. Esoteric video file like 10 bit H264 in an .MKV container with 5.1 dolby digital audio, located on a network shared NAS? No problem - set a shortcut folder with ES file explorer, and play the file back in MX player in software decoding mode.
(this is how all media playback is done in my house now. the spare S3 is hooked up to the TV and controlled with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard)
Downloaded an app as an APK file, recorded a video, or stashed porn on your phone? No worries, with bluetooth, android beam, samsungs S beam, or various other combinations you can transfer literally any file on your phone to any other android phone, via wifi or bluetooth.
Some things got more complicated, for sure. Big examples for me:
I had three apps capable of music playback on the phone, instead of the one apple option.
This meant hitting play on my bluetooth headset could fire up any of the 3 - rather confusing, at first.
With android, the user has greater responsibility. My fiancee had her battery in her S3 (the i9305) draining super fast at idle. In the end we found out free games she'd downloaded were each popping up notifications every hour, waking the phone, making light and sound and using her network data. That could never happen on iDevices - putting it harshly, dumb people can screw with settings that negatively impacted performance and battery life.
While the iOS updates added new features, they often slowed the phones down - with no user options to do anything about it. On android its far from that - the latest KitKat (android 4.4) operating system has lowered the ram usage, and boosted performance for any device its installed on.
My samsung galaxy S1 has an unofficial build of kitkat installed, and it works just as fast as it did when it was new - this is the opposite to what i experienced on apple.
App stores: apple have just as many junk apps (night vision apps that tint your camera green! apps that make your screen appear cracked in a static screenshot!), but a lot less functional ones. Simple things like "movie playing apps can only use existing codecs licenced by apple" means no software decoding if the phone doesnt support it natively, and no 5.1 audio because they didnt feel like paying dolby for a licence.
Android on the other hand has literally dozens of app stores, many with just as much junk as apple covering up the great stuff. I guess i'd say android has a massively larger amount of useful apps, but an equally large amount of crapware too.
Multi tasking: Putting aside that the latest samsungs let you literally run split screen with two apps on screen at once, the very basics can be explained with this scenario i had on my iPad in a poor 3G coverage area.
I was using facebook messenger (pre chat-heads) to talk to someone for about an hour, and switched back to regular facebook via the pads 'multi tasking' functions. when i did, facebook had to refresh, and took almost a minute to load the conversation i'd just had. Disgusted with the lag, i swapped back - only to find it too had forgotten, and had to redownload AGAIN!
Apple apps cannot communicate with each other, and shut down in the background. if you wanted a chat to keep updating while you're off sending an email, it just aint gunna happen.
***************************************************************
Rooting (android) vs Jailbreaking (iOS)
Jailbreaking is well known, at least - you run a special program on your PC, and gain access to a pirated app store. Most people leave it at that, although one of the more fun aspects was gaining access to tweaking the system - changing the color of your keyboard, installing an ad blocker - little tweaks apple wouldnt let you do.
Root on the other hand, is mind bogglingly different. Some android devices come pre-rooted, others can be rooted via a download in the play store. Samsung devices can often be rooted in 2-3 minutes, and unlike apple dont take months or years to be released.
Apps that require root are freely advertised as such, and sold as paid apps on the play store without anyone cringing or threats of suing - ad blockers, programs like tasker that can switch off your GPS, bluetooth and lockscreen passcode if its on your home wifi (and back on when you leave), to enabling mods like 'volume up when screen is off = enable flashlight)
Jailbreaking has this air of piracy, being a thief - while rooting is more about taking control of your device, and tweaking it to make it YOURS.
*******************************************************************
The Samsung timeline!
To make things confusing, samsung often backport features. So while an iphone 5 may have a panorama camera mode that no other iphone has, samsung will wait a few months after their latest phone has launched and then simply give most of the features to the old phones in an update.
This confuses some people because with an iphone you can say "oh, they added X and Y, so its better!" while on android its all "X and Y have been freely given to everyone, so you uhh, upgrade for a better phone and not a gimmick"
Galaxy S1: I actually owned this before the iphone 3gs, but kept it around and went back to it.
When it was new on stock firmware, the 3gs kicked its ass. it was slow, clumsy, and buggy at times. sure it had more freedom, but stable won out over buggy freedom. Eventually samsung abandoned it after many updates to android 2.3.6, where it ended up IMO, slightly ahead of the 3gs but behind the iPhone 4.
No pros or cons here as its the baseline - but seeing it on android 4.4 still working fine is incredible compared to people binning their old iphones because the latest angry birds says 'nah, too old'
Galaxy S2:
Very similar to the iPhone 4, really. Same basic capabilities - call, text, 3G, internet use, social stuff.
At launch, the iphone 4 was a lot nicer to use unless you badly wanted stuff like bluetooth file transfer, or the expanded media functions.
Much like the S1 it got heaps better over its lifetime, with the samsung updates from android 2.3 to 4.1 - the interface got so much better, making it slightly edge out the iPhone 4 in my opinion. Still a VERY capable phone. Battery life can be poor if you dont watch what apps are running and installed.
Galaxy S3: I used one of these when i had the iPhone 5 and was blown away. large 720p screen that could play any file i threw at it, from an SD card or even over my wifi (without needing special software - any old network share, or even a USB stick with a $2 adaptor) 5.1 audio output over HDMI? from a PHONE streaming over wifi?!?
Suddenly it clicked that a smartphone should be more smart than phone - games dont have to be tiny little things, they could be full 3D FPS or racing games on my HDTV with a PS3 controller
(later on i bought two, one with a cracked screen for a permanent HTPC, and a second for my fiancee to replace her iphone 4)
Galaxy S4: When i swapped the iphone 5 for this, i was blown away. 1080p on a phone? i couldnt even make out the pixels on the 720p S3!
1:1 playback over HDMI to my 46" HDTV? serious? 60FPS remote desktop from my PC streaming at gaming quality levels and latency thanks to a free app called splashtop? (pair with the PS3 controller app from before for extra levels of crazy)
This things a phone, a gaming platform, a HTPC (16GB+32GB micro SDHC card+wifi/LAN access) and god knows what else. Unlike apple, more features can be added freely by the community at any time. Where the iphone 5 would last one day at best on a single charge, this lasts me upto 3 days.
Galaxy Note II:
While this phone is older than the S4, due to the increased size its clock speeds are far higher than the S3 its based on. I bought this second hand recently just to see how the bigger size screen is - for gaming and media playback its insane. its like having a sony PSP or nintendo DS that also works as a phone on par with the most expensive iphone. Due to the modding community i'm running android 4.3 despite it not being released for this phablet in my country, modded with all the note III's software and S pen functions.
If you use an iPhone and look at one of these you'd say "so? everything i need, the iPhone does already"
my response would be "because you've never seen what a SMART phone can do"
Should samsung or apple reps want to sway me, i am susceptible to bribes via application of new toys to play with. would love to do more dedicated reviews on each of new devices if i had the time and motivation
Pics:
iPhone 4s (frame only, for comparison)/S1/S3/S4/Note II
Comments on appearance that arent obvious:
The galaxy S1 and S3 have a curved side, much like the iPhone 3GS (not pictured) while that makes them look nice, it makes them slippery to hold and can result in dropping the phone more easily. Flat sides like the S2 (not pictured) 4/4s/S4 are much better.
The S3 is unique in that it has curved glass over a flat LCD - a weird design choice that makes it difficult to apply screen protectors properly, especially glass ones.
This is take 2 with a far more simple method of doing this - with MOAR PHONES!
My phone library over the past 3 years:
Iphone 3gs
Iphone 4
Iphone 5
Galaxy S2 (i9100)
Galaxy Note II 4G (N7105)
Galaxy S3 (i9300) + i9305)
Galaxy S4 (i9505)
(Also owned an ipad1, and a large variety of android tablets from various companies - but they're barely mentioned from here on out)
I still have all the samsungs, but have sold all the apple stuff off. that may spoil the ending to this somewhat.
Starting with the iPhones, in the order i had them.
Iphone 3gs:
Pros: Great Idle battery life - this applies to every iphone. only a single days use, but heaps of idle. Simple interface, calls, text, web browsing and social apps all work great.
Cons: Missing features older phones had - bluetooth file transfer is a glaring one.
Summary: For its time, it was fantastic. compared to my old nokia N95, using the web was incredible.
iPhone 4:
Pros: it was the 3gs with an easier to hold, flat edged frame. Clearer screen, better camera. Front camera meant skyping via the phone was possible, and entertaining.
Cons: Still no methods of file sharing that didnt involve uploading to the internet. Media playback was very limited to apples formats (.MP4 video with stereo AAC audio only, that had to come from itunes on a PC)
Any apps that claimed to do network streaming or remote playback always boiled down to 'only if files are a certain format already' or 'better have an i7, we're re-encoding every file on the fly'
Summary: To this day i still think it was a nice phone, although at times i was frustrated by how little it could do outside of being a phone. wheres the 'smart' part?
Iphone 5:
Pros: slightly clearer screen again, better camera.
Cons: no bluetooth file sharing, same media limitations. finally a 16:9 screen, but not even 720p?
HDMI output was stripped away with these, replaced with a terrible implentation that didnt work right
Summary: at this point i noticed a trend -a clear screen and a decent camera was the beginning and end. if I wanted more, i was going to have to jump ship - so i did, and swapped my iphone 5 for a samsung S4.
iOS7
Right as i swapped over, iOS7 came out and caused a stir with many people hating its new look and feel - and its bugs. at this time i updated my apple devices in the aims of getting a better sale price with the following results:
iPad1, 32GB: stuck at iOS 5.1.1, many new apps requiring iOS6 or above simply wouldnt install. my last Apple device with 30 pin, proper HDMI output suddenly couldnt reinstall media player apps that worked fine before i factory reset it to remove the jailbreak.
iPhone 3GS: Updating this to iOS6 seemed like a great move at the time - all the apps that no longer installed on the iPad1, would surely work fine on here. Except for the slow bootup, and delays of upto 30 seconds switching between apps now. Compatibility came at a huge performance cost, and the device simply lagged to much for me to use.
iPhone 4/4s: Worked well on iOS5, but had random lag on iOS6 - i decided to NOT update them any further, and sold them off as they were. at this point they felt slower than the 3GS did prior to its update.
iPhone 5: I had this on iOS 6.1.2 until the day i sold it, and it was rock solid - if limited in what it could do.
Sure i couldn't play anime, or my DVD rips with 5.1 audio, but for calls, text, social stuff and light web use - it was stable and reliable. This was enough for me until i might as well have a gold plated nokia for all it let me do, especially since i was charging it at least twice a day.
Then a week later the new owner put iOS7 on it, and the damned thing rebooted constantly, causing him to demand a refund (i refused, as it worked great when i sold it, and the update had removed any value from the phone for me)
***********************************************************************************
The android vs iOS comparison here is kept simple, and missing a hell of a lot for the simple reason i'd have to compare iOS 4, 5, 6 and 7 vs android 2.3, 2.3.6, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3.x and 4.4.2 on nearly a dozen devices. How about... no.
Biggest and most obvious platform changes to me:
The open google play store meant phone limitations didnt mean much anymore. Esoteric video file like 10 bit H264 in an .MKV container with 5.1 dolby digital audio, located on a network shared NAS? No problem - set a shortcut folder with ES file explorer, and play the file back in MX player in software decoding mode.
(this is how all media playback is done in my house now. the spare S3 is hooked up to the TV and controlled with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard)
Downloaded an app as an APK file, recorded a video, or stashed porn on your phone? No worries, with bluetooth, android beam, samsungs S beam, or various other combinations you can transfer literally any file on your phone to any other android phone, via wifi or bluetooth.
Some things got more complicated, for sure. Big examples for me:
I had three apps capable of music playback on the phone, instead of the one apple option.
This meant hitting play on my bluetooth headset could fire up any of the 3 - rather confusing, at first.
With android, the user has greater responsibility. My fiancee had her battery in her S3 (the i9305) draining super fast at idle. In the end we found out free games she'd downloaded were each popping up notifications every hour, waking the phone, making light and sound and using her network data. That could never happen on iDevices - putting it harshly, dumb people can screw with settings that negatively impacted performance and battery life.
While the iOS updates added new features, they often slowed the phones down - with no user options to do anything about it. On android its far from that - the latest KitKat (android 4.4) operating system has lowered the ram usage, and boosted performance for any device its installed on.
My samsung galaxy S1 has an unofficial build of kitkat installed, and it works just as fast as it did when it was new - this is the opposite to what i experienced on apple.
App stores: apple have just as many junk apps (night vision apps that tint your camera green! apps that make your screen appear cracked in a static screenshot!), but a lot less functional ones. Simple things like "movie playing apps can only use existing codecs licenced by apple" means no software decoding if the phone doesnt support it natively, and no 5.1 audio because they didnt feel like paying dolby for a licence.
Android on the other hand has literally dozens of app stores, many with just as much junk as apple covering up the great stuff. I guess i'd say android has a massively larger amount of useful apps, but an equally large amount of crapware too.
Multi tasking: Putting aside that the latest samsungs let you literally run split screen with two apps on screen at once, the very basics can be explained with this scenario i had on my iPad in a poor 3G coverage area.
I was using facebook messenger (pre chat-heads) to talk to someone for about an hour, and switched back to regular facebook via the pads 'multi tasking' functions. when i did, facebook had to refresh, and took almost a minute to load the conversation i'd just had. Disgusted with the lag, i swapped back - only to find it too had forgotten, and had to redownload AGAIN!
Apple apps cannot communicate with each other, and shut down in the background. if you wanted a chat to keep updating while you're off sending an email, it just aint gunna happen.
***************************************************************
Rooting (android) vs Jailbreaking (iOS)
Jailbreaking is well known, at least - you run a special program on your PC, and gain access to a pirated app store. Most people leave it at that, although one of the more fun aspects was gaining access to tweaking the system - changing the color of your keyboard, installing an ad blocker - little tweaks apple wouldnt let you do.
Root on the other hand, is mind bogglingly different. Some android devices come pre-rooted, others can be rooted via a download in the play store. Samsung devices can often be rooted in 2-3 minutes, and unlike apple dont take months or years to be released.
Apps that require root are freely advertised as such, and sold as paid apps on the play store without anyone cringing or threats of suing - ad blockers, programs like tasker that can switch off your GPS, bluetooth and lockscreen passcode if its on your home wifi (and back on when you leave), to enabling mods like 'volume up when screen is off = enable flashlight)
Jailbreaking has this air of piracy, being a thief - while rooting is more about taking control of your device, and tweaking it to make it YOURS.
*******************************************************************
The Samsung timeline!
To make things confusing, samsung often backport features. So while an iphone 5 may have a panorama camera mode that no other iphone has, samsung will wait a few months after their latest phone has launched and then simply give most of the features to the old phones in an update.
This confuses some people because with an iphone you can say "oh, they added X and Y, so its better!" while on android its all "X and Y have been freely given to everyone, so you uhh, upgrade for a better phone and not a gimmick"
Galaxy S1: I actually owned this before the iphone 3gs, but kept it around and went back to it.
When it was new on stock firmware, the 3gs kicked its ass. it was slow, clumsy, and buggy at times. sure it had more freedom, but stable won out over buggy freedom. Eventually samsung abandoned it after many updates to android 2.3.6, where it ended up IMO, slightly ahead of the 3gs but behind the iPhone 4.
No pros or cons here as its the baseline - but seeing it on android 4.4 still working fine is incredible compared to people binning their old iphones because the latest angry birds says 'nah, too old'
Galaxy S2:
Very similar to the iPhone 4, really. Same basic capabilities - call, text, 3G, internet use, social stuff.
At launch, the iphone 4 was a lot nicer to use unless you badly wanted stuff like bluetooth file transfer, or the expanded media functions.
Much like the S1 it got heaps better over its lifetime, with the samsung updates from android 2.3 to 4.1 - the interface got so much better, making it slightly edge out the iPhone 4 in my opinion. Still a VERY capable phone. Battery life can be poor if you dont watch what apps are running and installed.
Galaxy S3: I used one of these when i had the iPhone 5 and was blown away. large 720p screen that could play any file i threw at it, from an SD card or even over my wifi (without needing special software - any old network share, or even a USB stick with a $2 adaptor) 5.1 audio output over HDMI? from a PHONE streaming over wifi?!?
Suddenly it clicked that a smartphone should be more smart than phone - games dont have to be tiny little things, they could be full 3D FPS or racing games on my HDTV with a PS3 controller
(later on i bought two, one with a cracked screen for a permanent HTPC, and a second for my fiancee to replace her iphone 4)
Galaxy S4: When i swapped the iphone 5 for this, i was blown away. 1080p on a phone? i couldnt even make out the pixels on the 720p S3!
1:1 playback over HDMI to my 46" HDTV? serious? 60FPS remote desktop from my PC streaming at gaming quality levels and latency thanks to a free app called splashtop? (pair with the PS3 controller app from before for extra levels of crazy)
This things a phone, a gaming platform, a HTPC (16GB+32GB micro SDHC card+wifi/LAN access) and god knows what else. Unlike apple, more features can be added freely by the community at any time. Where the iphone 5 would last one day at best on a single charge, this lasts me upto 3 days.
Galaxy Note II:
While this phone is older than the S4, due to the increased size its clock speeds are far higher than the S3 its based on. I bought this second hand recently just to see how the bigger size screen is - for gaming and media playback its insane. its like having a sony PSP or nintendo DS that also works as a phone on par with the most expensive iphone. Due to the modding community i'm running android 4.3 despite it not being released for this phablet in my country, modded with all the note III's software and S pen functions.
If you use an iPhone and look at one of these you'd say "so? everything i need, the iPhone does already"
my response would be "because you've never seen what a SMART phone can do"
Should samsung or apple reps want to sway me, i am susceptible to bribes via application of new toys to play with. would love to do more dedicated reviews on each of new devices if i had the time and motivation
Pics:
iPhone 4s (frame only, for comparison)/S1/S3/S4/Note II
Comments on appearance that arent obvious:
The galaxy S1 and S3 have a curved side, much like the iPhone 3GS (not pictured) while that makes them look nice, it makes them slippery to hold and can result in dropping the phone more easily. Flat sides like the S2 (not pictured) 4/4s/S4 are much better.
The S3 is unique in that it has curved glass over a flat LCD - a weird design choice that makes it difficult to apply screen protectors properly, especially glass ones.
Last edited:
my phone is still young
