Jellybean. The king of mobile OSes in my opinion. Beautiful, safe, refined. And on the Galaxy Note, it is even better.
First let me point out that if you haven't tried "Vanilla" Android, you truly are missing out. I have been vanilla for a while now. A few months on this device. It is how Android is supposed to be. Clean, fast, and nice looking. If you want to experience vanilla Android on a non Nexus device, try Cyanogen Mod. Its amazing.
So lets get the review started, I am using an unofficial build of Cyanogen Mod 10. I came from Cyanogen Mod 9 (Ice Cream Sandwich based) and here are the things I have noticed immediately;
The notification drawer has been revamped. It is less translucent, and has a few visual changes. It keeps the swipe to dismiss feature (officially introduced in ICS and unofficially introduced in Cyanogen Mod 7) also different is the bottom bar that you "grab" to open the drawer. Is is a gray line that turns blue when you touch it. A very nice visual feature. The time and date are moved to the top left corner. The notification messages are solid, making them easier to read. All in all a cleaner look.
The home screen has remained the same, the app drawer is the same, and so is the status bar. But to be fair there wasn't much to improve. The one large change is the switches in settings (to turn things on or off) they are now square instead of angled.
When you touch a photo to make it bigger, instead of having it over over a tinted background, it is now on a solid black background. With buttons below it to navigate to the next picture, download, etc. This limits the possible distractions (such as words in the background) and gives a better viewing experience.
Project butter. It really does smooth things down. I haven't had any lag like I used to (such as small hiccups in the launcher or when scrolling) There are also some new animations. When switching apps, closing apps, or opening them, there is an animation. They are nice and make the experience better.
Google now is very handy. It is quicker than siri (probably because of limited use of the servers at the moment) and it has a more humanlike voice. It looks better too. If you have a chance to play with it, do it. Its worth it. I use it for simple things like googling and navigating, however it is also nice as a calculator.
Battery life is compatible to ICS, giving me about 14-16 hours of heavy usage. Gets me through the day just fine.
Jellybean on the Galaxy Note is a great experience. It would also be comparable on a Skyrocket, or any S2 based device.
This has been my review. If you have tried Jellybean, what so you think?
First let me point out that if you haven't tried "Vanilla" Android, you truly are missing out. I have been vanilla for a while now. A few months on this device. It is how Android is supposed to be. Clean, fast, and nice looking. If you want to experience vanilla Android on a non Nexus device, try Cyanogen Mod. Its amazing.
So lets get the review started, I am using an unofficial build of Cyanogen Mod 10. I came from Cyanogen Mod 9 (Ice Cream Sandwich based) and here are the things I have noticed immediately;
The notification drawer has been revamped. It is less translucent, and has a few visual changes. It keeps the swipe to dismiss feature (officially introduced in ICS and unofficially introduced in Cyanogen Mod 7) also different is the bottom bar that you "grab" to open the drawer. Is is a gray line that turns blue when you touch it. A very nice visual feature. The time and date are moved to the top left corner. The notification messages are solid, making them easier to read. All in all a cleaner look.
The home screen has remained the same, the app drawer is the same, and so is the status bar. But to be fair there wasn't much to improve. The one large change is the switches in settings (to turn things on or off) they are now square instead of angled.
When you touch a photo to make it bigger, instead of having it over over a tinted background, it is now on a solid black background. With buttons below it to navigate to the next picture, download, etc. This limits the possible distractions (such as words in the background) and gives a better viewing experience.
Project butter. It really does smooth things down. I haven't had any lag like I used to (such as small hiccups in the launcher or when scrolling) There are also some new animations. When switching apps, closing apps, or opening them, there is an animation. They are nice and make the experience better.
Google now is very handy. It is quicker than siri (probably because of limited use of the servers at the moment) and it has a more humanlike voice. It looks better too. If you have a chance to play with it, do it. Its worth it. I use it for simple things like googling and navigating, however it is also nice as a calculator.
Battery life is compatible to ICS, giving me about 14-16 hours of heavy usage. Gets me through the day just fine.
Jellybean on the Galaxy Note is a great experience. It would also be comparable on a Skyrocket, or any S2 based device.
This has been my review. If you have tried Jellybean, what so you think?
