Samsung Galaxy S4

Yesterday (and excuse the late blog post, I thought it was released today), came the much awaited release of Samsung's latest Galaxy S phone - the S4. Its slick look and impressive screen size will catch the eye of any onlooker, however only ones with full pockets will be able to afford one, as with all top of the range phones.

The S4 comes packed with so many incredible, clever and some frankly pointless features, something that the iPhone 4S, which is ironically the reversal of the S4, failed to do entirely. Firstly the camera has been significantly improved, from the S3's 8MP to 13MP on the back facing camera, along with a variety of effects similar to those on the Samsung Galaxy Camera. The overall picture quality is impressive, and the Dual Camera ability allows you to use both the front and back facing cameras at the same time, perhaps useful in some situations.

The screen had yet again increased in size since the previous Galaxy S model, from a huge 4.7" to an almost-definitely-too-large 5", with standard HD AMOLED screen. Not too much to say about the screen, except that it works whilst wearing gloves, a welcome feature for those of us who can't find a pair of vaguely fashionable touch-screen gloves. Other than that, the screen is pretty flawless.

As well as the fairly standard features on a new android phone, such as Near-Field Communication (NFC) for contactless payment, the S4 isn't at all short of them. Its eye-tracking technology, Smart Stay, is a feature featured on the S3 but not perfected, but one that the S4 has improved - the screen will only sleep "when you do". However, this is nothing on the new Smart Scroll, which allows you to scroll up or down a web page or messages thread simply by tilting your head up or down, and to pause videos by turning your head away - useful for people like me who are always forgetting to look at the video I've decided to play. Useless, you may say? But something of a novelty for your first few weeks at least. Secondly, as included in the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, is the ability to expand pictures and preview videos by hovering your finger just above the screen. Furthermore, a swipe left or right over the screen can switch tabs on the browser, or skip a song. Finally, a drag down of the notifications bar will reveal a universal remote for use with any TV - not just Samsung ones. The infrared blaster on the top of the phone allows you to change channels, view the programme guide and even record programs, increasing the range of things a slab of plastic can do these days.

The S4 is by far the best Samsung phone to be released, and debatably but most likelily the best phone on the market.

The Full Features of Facebook

Since Facebook started in 2004, it has grown hugely in popularity, reaching over a billion monthly users last year. It impressed users with the ability to make their own profile, make statuses, 'Like' other people's statuses, make and join groups and create events to invite friends to, recently with the ability to play games and listen to music via Spotify integration.

However recently the craze about Facebook seems to have somewhat died, with teenagers spending less time on it and checking it less frequently. But what should be made know to people is just how amazing Facebook is for day to day communication, games and music. Here I will outline some of the newer, cleverest features and how to get the most from Facebook.

Firstly is Facebook's music application - they recently included Spotify integration, making listening and sharing music incredibly easy, or just for stalking a friend's embarrassing music tastes. Despite Spotify's annoying 5 plays per song limit, and adverts about one of their employee's love for 'Broadway Show tunes' (among other things), overridden only by paying large amounts of money to Spotify for their music, it really is a handy and convenient way to listen to music for free - you get your money's worth. Users were able to share playlists, see what other friends were listening to and listen to the music with their friends at the same time as them.

Secondly Instagram, the latest addition to the Facebook family, was bought by them in April for $1 billion and since then has become increasingly popular as iPhone and Android users use the app to upload and tag photos, creating a sort of photo blog ('phlog', if you will) with all photos sent to your Facebook profile to keep it all together. Photo updates from a user's friends would be displayed in a news feed similar to Facebook's. The idea of #hashtags was borrowed from Twitter to enable people to find photos from its selection of users belonging to a particular category, and users could also add a number of effects and editing tools to their photos.

Thirdly is Facebook's App Centre, compiling a vast selection of Games (such as Farmville or Words with Friends), Music (Spotify, Soundhound etc.), News (The Independent, Metro etc.) and many other categories. Facebook's Gift Cards provide credits which can be used in such games, but can only really appeal to people with literally nothing better to do than send endless game requests to their non-interested friends, watching their money from game credits spiral endlessly into the waiting wallets of Mark Zuckerburg & Co. Its Club Penguin, but for adults.

Fourthly I am brought to Facebook's upcoming feature of 'graph search', a smart search tool allowing users to search naturally and in general human sentences. Upon request, it can find items such as "Friends who like cycling who live in my hometown" or "Pictures of my friends taken before 2003", making finding friends who have something in common with you even easier. On writing this, Facebook Graph Search is only in Beta, and a waiting list must be joined to try it out, but soon enough it will be hitting your profile, just like Timeline did.

Before I finish, something on Timeline; on its release, it annoyed and shocked many with its entirely different layout. Eventually, however, I think people realised that it wasn't that bad at all, adopting it wholeheartedly. The idea of a cover photo was clever and looks awesome, and Timeline made it easy to track back to events in the past and revisit your Facebook footprint. Music tastes, friends and recent activity could be found immediately from your Timeline, and Life Events could be added to show commitments or achievements. Although we all miss our Facebook Walls, Timeline is a solid replacement for them, and is something we grow to love.

Finally, the best thing about Facebook is that it allows growing businesses, (for example: barneysgardenhelp.webs.com) blogs, (barneystechblog.blogspot.com) and YouTubers (www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWnQRwIuphYt) to promote their businesses, blogs, music and videos to all of their friends, plus the other 200 other people they don't actually know. For many, Facebook is vital for advertising freely their hobbies and interests; that is, unless you want to pay Facebook £4.96 to get it to the top of your friends' News Feeds. You can't count on all your friends staying on Facebook, but you can be assured that they'll always to find news ways of sucking the money from your pockets.