Harimakvana Blog

Hacking WPA2 WPS WiFi With Your Android !

2014-04-03T09:00:00.002-07:00

1. Root your Android Phone, In order to hack android phone need must rooted !

2.Download and install bcmon. This tool enables Monitor Mode on your Broadcom chipset, which is essential for being able to crack the PIN. The bcmon APK file is available for free from the bcmon page on the Google Code website.

To install an APK file, you will need to allow installation from unknown sources in your Security menu.
Click Here to Download : bcmon

3.Run bcmon. After installing the APK file, run the app. If prompted, install the firmware and tools. Tap the "Enable Monitor Mode" option. If the app crashes, open it and try again. If it fails for a third time, your device is most likely not supported.

Your device must be rooted in order to run bcmon.

4.Download and install Reaver. Reaver is a program developed to crack the WPS PIN in order to retrieve the WPA2 passphrase. The Reaver APK can be downloaded from here : Reaver

5.Launch Reaver. Tap the Reaver for Android icon in your App drawer. After confirming that you are no using it for illegal purposes, Reaver will scan for available access points. Tap the access point you want to crack to continue.

You may need to verify Monitor Mode before proceeding. If this is the case, bcmon will open again.

6.Verify your settings. In most cases you can leave the settings that appear at their default. Make sure that the "Automatic advanced settings" box is checked.

7.Start the cracking process. Tap the "Start attack" button at the bottom of the Reaver Settings menu. The monitor will open and you will see the results of the ongoing crack displayed.

Cracking WPS can take anywhere from 2-10+ hours to complete, and it is not always successful.

Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker dies in California car crash

2013-12-01T19:59:00.001-08:00

US actor Paul Walker, who starred in the Fast & Furious series of action films, has been killed in a car crash in California.

Walker, 40, was a passenger in a Porsche sports car driven by a friend - who also died - when it crashed north of Los Angeles.

Walker was said to be attending a charity event at the time.

He starred in all but one of the films in the Fast & Furious franchise, the sixth of which opened in May.

Walker also starred in the suspense drama Hours, a movie that is set for release this month.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's department said the crash happened in the community of Valencia.

The red Porsche crashed into a lamp post in Valencia, north of Los Angeles

The sports car burst into flames after the crash

It said deputies found a car engulfed in flames when they responded to a report of a collision. Two people found in the car were pronounced dead at the scene.

Images showed the burned-out wreckage of a red Porsche by the side of the road.

"It is with a truly heavy heart that we must confirm that Paul Walker passed away today in a tragic car accident while attending a charity event for his organisation Reach Out Worldwide," the statement on the actor's Facebook page said.

“Start Quote

Heaven has gained a new Angel. Rest in Peace”

Vin DieselFast & Furious co-star

"He was a passenger in a friend's car, in which both lost their lives. We... are stunned and saddened beyond belief by this news.''

Universal Pictures also issued a statement, saying studio staff were "heartbroken" by Walker's death.

"Paul was truly one of the most beloved and respected members of our studio family for 14 years, and this loss is devastating to us, to everyone involved with the Fast & Furious films, and to countless fans.

"We send our deepest and most sincere condolences to Paul's family."

Walker played undercover agent Brian O'Conner in the Fast & Furious movies.

The first film of the franchise was released in 2001 and the seventh is in development.

Walker was one of the leading protagonists, along with Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez.

Diesel said in a post on Instagram: "Brother I will miss you very much. I am absolutely speechless. Heaven has gained a new Angel. Rest in Peace."

Walker's co-star Vin Diesel (left) said the actor's death had left him 'speechless'

Another Fast & Furious star, the rapper Ludacris, wrote: "Your humble spirit was felt from the start, wherever you blessed your presence you always left a mark, we were like brothers."

Walker began acting as a young boy when his mother, a model, took him to auditions for commercials.

After drifting away from acting, he got his big break when a casting director remembered him from years before, tracked him down and gave him a role in the TV series Touched by an Angel.

Walker later won a recurring part in the soap The Young and the Restless before moving on to supporting roles in teen films in the late 1990s with Varsity Blues, She's All That and The Skulls.

After the success of the first Fast & Furious film, Walker became the leading man for the second instalment when Vin Diesel dropped out.

The sixth instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise topped the US box office

Diesel later returned, however, and the six-film franchise has earned an estimated $2.4bn (£1.5bn) at global box offices. The series has not lost its appeal, with the latest instalment, the sixth, the most lucrative so far.

The seventh instalment began filming in September but has not been completed. It had been scheduled for release in July.

Walker has also filmed Hurricane Katrina drama Hours, which is due to be released on 13 December.

Another forthcoming film is Brick Mansions, a remake of the French action film District B13, for film studio Relativity.

Relativity President Tucker Tooley said in a statement: "Paul was an incredibly talent artist, devoted philanthropist and friend."

Comment from People About Paul Walker

I met Paul Walker in May at the Fast & Furious 6 UK Premiere, what a wonderful man, so nice and always willing to have a laugh with his fans. Waking up to this incredibly sad news is so horrible, shocked. RIP.

Dex, Hampshire

I was truly saddened by the death of Paul Walker. Fast and Furious will not be the same without you Paul.

Felix, Francistown, Botswana

Thank you for inspiring us, especially to our country and Yolanda survivors. From the bottom of our heart and for all the Filipinos thank you so much Paul and condolences to your family. Rest in peace.

Lyslie Cavan, Philippines

Actors like Walker become a part of our lives, they entertain, inspire and sometimes take us to places we've never been through their roles in movies. I will greatly miss him, he was such an

Lemuel, Kitwe, Zambia

Such sad news he will be truly missed. My heart goes out to friends and family. A brilliant actor and such a huge loss.

Jane Scott, Orpington, Kent

He was a true inspiration to young people in the world today, a hard-working and a truly talented man, a huge loss to the world. He'll never be forgotten for his amazing charity work. Thoughts go out to all his family and friends at this time.

Julia Koncher, Cheltenham

Paul Walker was an amazing actor, Fast and Furious will not be the same with out him. RIP

John, Dudley

LG Lucid 2 Smartphone Review

2013-08-09T22:42:00.001-07:00

Hardware and design

The LG Lucid 2 is absent of much flair. The phone follows the trend of plain black rectangular shapes, though small slips of silver on the right and left sides of the device help break up the monotony. The hardware buttons along the bottom of the phone - Back, Home, Multitasking, and Menu - are faintly visible when not used but light up when touched. The selective visibility helps not distract the user, but the same cannot be said for the top of the phone with Verizon and LG logos just in case someone might dare forget who produced the phone.

Made of plastic, the LG Lucid 2 is light and easily portable. At 122 x 63.75 x 9.9mm (4.82 x 2.51 x 0.39in) and 129g (4.55oz), it's a little thicker than most latest phones but it's also much shorter. The plastic material along the battery door has a rough feel as if someone is scratching vinyl -- you can actually replicate the sounds of a DJ by quickly rubbing fingers along the back of the phone. Despite the unfortunate material choice, the phone's small stature and curved back nestles gently in the palm, making the Lucid 2 comfortable to hold.

Screen quality

LG's latest Lucid has a slightly larger screen that measures 4.3-inches. The qHD resolution won't dazzle anyone, but it is manageable and does a decent enough job displaying colors and brightness at appropriate levels. The lack of an HD resolution makes the display noticeably inferior when held next to other devices, but the IPS display is respectable when viewed on its own. Text is clearly legible and video can be watched without much issue. At this size and resolution, the Lucid 2 screen is acceptable.

Performance and key specs

As a midrange phone, the Lucid 2 has familiar specs that can keep pace with any other smartphone in its class. Sadly, there are times when it can't keep pace with you. A combination of 1GB of RAM and a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor should make the LG Lucid 2 handle most activities with relative ease.

The phone is fast in specific apps, but it's not very nimble in navigation. The home screen often takes up to three seconds to display shortcuts, leaving users to stare at a wallpaper before content finally appears. Switching between the app drawer and multitasking button is fast, but pausing occurs far too often to be ignored.

The Lucid 2 has only 8GB of internal storage and a microSD slot supporting up to 64GB of additional storage. Other noteworthy specifications include Bluetooth 4.0 and the capability of supporting Qi Wireless Charging. The replacement door necessary to enable wireless charging unfortunately adds extra bulk to the Lucid 2, but the convenience of recharging by putting down the phone and walking away without having to fidget for any cables may be worth the increased thickness for some people.

Software and user interface

LG has been accused of too-closely following Samsung's lead in its Android design choices, and the visual similarities between previous versions of Touchwiz and Optimus UI will not surprise anyone. However, those similarities are rare and reflect some positive changes that LG has made.

Built on top of Android 4.1.2, Optimus UI includes clever software changes like a customizable list of setting switches in the notification drawer. QuickMemo is another handy feature that allows users to take a screenshot of any page, write notes on top of the image, and then share it with others.

The interface seen in other apps is simpler and free of fluff. The Calendar app has a nice split view that can show a close-up of a day, week, or Agenda mode, and favors lighter colors that actually work well with the theme of white, blue, and gray found throughout the phone's interface.

Should the standard UI prove too daunting, there's also a "Starter Mode" that first time smartphone buyers can use in order to simplify some activities. Starter Mode is not as visually appealing, but it provides extra guidance for adjusting brightness and font size, setting up quick contact widgets, and adding favorite apps to the home screen. All of this can be achieved in the Standard view, but Starter Mode offers more hand-holding.

Apps

Verizon made a deal with Amazon to have Amazon's mobile apps appear on all Android smartphones, so the LG Lucid 2 comes with a healthy serving of preloaded software. These apps can be hidden but not deleted, so users will have to deal with Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Amazon MP3, Amazon Appstore, Audible, and Zappos on their device. The same goes for My Verizon, VZ Navigator, VZ Security, and Verizon Tones.

The default software from LG offers a little more value. Video Wiz combines photos and videos in montages, similar to what we've seen recently from BlackBerry and HTC. SmartShare simplifies the shared streaming of media over devices on the same Wi-Fi, and FileShare supports wireless media transfer. Rich Note is an enhanced note taking app that sports text, photos, audio, or written notes, which can also include information related to location or a date and time that they were created.

Chrome for Android is the default browser on the LG Lucid 2. The browser supports bookmark, search, history, and tab synchronization between the phone and desktop versions of Chrome, so that offers one noticeable advantage. It is reasonably fast, but anyone displeased with Chrome can find alternatives in Google Play.

Communication & Data

Verizon has invested heavily to build and promote its 4G LTE network, and that has been greatly beneficial to most of the U.S. The Lucid 2 did a great job of latching on to an LTE signal during my recent trips to New York City. It fared as good or better than my Verizon iPhone 5 in terms of data speeds and signal strength. It also performed well as a phone; every call that I placed featured clear audio on both ends of the conversation.

Camera

A 5MP camera sits at the back of the LG Lucid 2, and a 1.3MP front-facing camera enables self-portraits or video calling. Both cameras are average and deliver photos that reflect the limitations of midrange devices.

One drawback to the rear camera is that it has an incredibly difficult time balancing exposure and brightness. Even when using the included HDR mode, photos were routinely washed-out. Users will typically need to manually change between scene modes, white balance, and ISO settings in order to improve the odds of snapping a quality image.

Battery

Any time a phone ships with a 2,460 mAh battery there are good odds that battery life will be good. Those odds can decrease somewhat if the processor is inefficient or a large display pulls down more power.

The Lucid 2 has a large capacity battery, a reasonably-clocked 1.2 GHz processor, and a 4.3-inch screen, so it has plenty of power to spare. In my week with the phone, I never needed to reach for the charger during the day. I went a day and a half with light to moderate usage, and managed to use the phone repeatedly from 8 AM to 10 PM during more active periods. Despite several emails, tweets, photos, videos, and phone calls, the Lucid 2 showed that it has great staying power.

Closing Thoughts

Sequels are rarely better than the original when it comes to movies, but they are almost always better on the technology side of things. No one should be surprised that the LG Lucid 2 is a noticeable step up from its predecessor, but what might catch some people off guard is that it's also a step up from many mid-range devices currently on the market.

The Lucid 2 doesn't wow in many areas. It does excel at battery life, call quality, and data strength. Its screen is better than most devices in its class, and that makes the phone good in the areas that matter most. Hiccups in navigational performance are a drag in the overall experience of the Lucid 2, but they don't overshadow an otherwise strong midrange option.

Someone who plans to take a great deal of photos or do heavy lifting might want to pay for a more powerful phone, but the Lucid 2 can hold its own under the weight of normal activities. Considering that it's free when signing a two-year agreement, the LG Lucid 2 offers one of the best values available on Verizon Wireless.

Motorola Moto X review

2013-08-09T22:32:00.005-07:00

The Moto X is made out of a combination of glossy plastic and soft touch plastic, letting the phone feel premium and look great without sacrificing weight or comfort. The display is bonded to the plastic front frame using a new manufacturing process that practically eliminates the border around the screen. It makes you feel as if you’re just holding the display in your hand when you use it, and everything else just melts away.

Speaking of the display, it’s a 4.7-inch panel that features a 720p HD resolution, and is the best looking display ever to come out of Motorola. While it looks overly saturated and bright because it’s an AMOLED screen, the screen does look sharp and clear, with a 316 ppi that makes text look beautiful.

Diving deeper, the phone itself is powered by a system on a chip Motorola is calling the Motorola X8 Mobile Computing System — basically there’s the phone’s processor, a Qualcomm dual-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4, a quad-core graphics processor, a natural language processor that powers Touchless Control, and a contextual computing processor that powers Active Display and other always-listening gestures like quick photo capture that we will get into later.

The X ships with Android 4.2.2, 16GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, a 2,200 mAh battery, NFC, Miracast wireless display and Bluetooth 4.0.

There are three microphones on the Moto X to help with Touchless Control, but also to provide great noise cancellation with Motorola’s Crystal Talk feature, and they all work together exceptionally well. Talking on the phone sounds impeccably good in a wide variety of different environments, to both me and the people who I spoke to. Finally, a phone that works great as a phone.

Switching to the speakerphone, which is loud — super loud — and also clear, there is a reason why. Motorola says that the Moto X measures the temperature and movement of the speaker membrane to enable more than 5 times the sound power of other speakerphones while ensuring the speaker doesn’t blow out.

The X also features something Motorola has been doing for a bit, and that’s a water-repellant coating that extends to the electrical boards inside the phone, giving you some leeway if you accidentally drop your phone into water or splash it with a drink. Wi-Fi 802.11ac, the latest Wi-Fi technology, is built-in for absolutely insane WI-Fi performance, and so is more 802.11n performance with a second amplifier.

Moving on to the battery, this is easily the best performing Android device I have ever used in this regard, not counting something like the Motorola Maxx. It lasts for days on standby, even with Active Display running, and it easily powers through one whole day of non-stop usage. It’s downright impressive.

One of the main features of the Moto X that isn’t available on any other phone in the world is something Motorola calls Touchless Control. It’s something Edward Snowden warned us about — there’s someone listening to everything you say on your phone, except in this case it’s actually your phone and not the government.

After quickly learning your voice, all you have to do is say “OK Google Now” followed by an action, and even if your phone has the display off or if you are not directly in front of it, the Moto X will wake up and respond to what you say. It’s incredibly useful in situations where you can’t access or look at your phone, like driving for instance. Just say “OK Google Now navigate to 1 Broadway Avenue,” and off you go.

You can ask a lot of different types of questions and if the phone isn’t able to deliver, it will serve up a Google search result as a back-up which obviously works quite well. Touchless Control can call contacts, check the weather, get navigation directions, serve up sports scores or information on people, give you the time, and set reminders.

Unfortunately almost everything you can ask your phone to do is one way, unlike Apple’s Siri, however. There’s no way to get unread messages read to you, send emails, make calendar appointments, text friends, book restaurant reservations at restaurants, tweet, or post to Facebook.

In my testing, Touchless Control worked great, often reacting to what I said even from across the room without a hitch. The one hiccup is that since I have a passcode on my phone, I can’t actually get anything back from the X until I enter my passcode and unlock it, except to make outbound calls

One way around this, which is absolutely brilliant, is the ability to trust specific devices. Since your car’s built-in Bluetooth is paired to your phone, and since your phone is in the car, there’s a reasonably good chance you are in the car with your phone connected to Bluetooth. By allowing trusted devices, you don’t need to enter your passcode to unlock your phone as long as you are connected to that device. This way, when you’re in the car you can completely control the Moto X without ever having to unlock it or touch it.

Have you ever pulled your phone out from your pocket or taken it out of your purse to check the time, or to see if you have any missed notifications? No? Please leave now then. According to Motorola’s research, we do this an average of about 60 times a day and each time you need to wake up your phone — or even worse, if there are unread notifications you need to unlock your phone and then go into the app to check the message.

Active Display lets you see your notifications on the lock screen, but also allows you to jump directly into the most important one, for instance, a text message. You can read a preview of the text message by sliding your finger up on the lock screen, and you can go directly into that text message conversation if you’d like to reply, with just one more tap.

Another feature of Active Display is the… active display. Even when your phone is locked, the screen will still show the time and any notification icons in a pulsing animation every few minutes. Motorola is able to do this because of the type of screen that’s used in the Moto X, and it only uses a fraction of energy compared to if this was done on other phones.

Android’s camera app has never been the best designed or most useful to me, but with the enhancements Motorola added on top of it, it’s surprisingly good. One problem Motorola sought to solve was the fact that it takes too long to get your phone out of your pocket or bag, unlock it, get into the camera app and take the picture.

Using a gesture where you turn the phone front to back twice, the camera app will automatically launch. On top of this is a new full-screen capture button so you can tap anywhere on the screen to take the photo instead of having to find the on-screen shutter button. One drawback of this feature is that the phone will then determine where to focus instead of focusing where you tap, like on other smartphones. This is probably not the worst thing for most people, but I quickly changed it to allow me to tap to focus.

There are other automatic features that should help the average smartphone user like an automatic HDR mode and automatic flash. Motorola told me that practically no one goes into their camera settings, which I agree with, so it’s great that the camera app is set perfectly for the majority of people who are going to buy the phone.

Two more enhancements to the normal Android camera app are a nice slide-in settings wheel so you can, if you wish, quickly access different camera modes and settings by swiping in from the edge of the phone, and also the ability to quickly see the last pictures you took by swiping to the left.

As far as actual photo quality, there’s a 10-megapixel camera that features something Motorola calls Clear Pixel technology that captures up to 75% more light to provide less blurry photos during the day and night. In my tests, I didn’t find the camera to be quite as amazing as Motorola made it out to be, and overall not as good as my iPhone 5. It’s not a bad camera by any means and it’s nice to see companies like Motorola and HTC pushing camera technology forward on Android smartphones. You can also capture 1080p HD video on the Moto X as well as high-quality slow motion video in 720p resolution. The front-facing camera is a 2-megapixel sensor that allows 1080p video capture of god-knows-whatstagram.

The most amazing thing to come out of Motorola in the last couple years has probably been Smart Actions. This app allowed you to customize your phone to do quite a number of different actions based on many types of situations. For instance, you could set it to automatically switch Bluetooth on when you leave your house and turn it off when you get home, or start to dim your display more drastically when your battery is below 50% to save energy and extend your battery life. Smart Actions could even turn your phone to vibrate-only mode whenever you walked into the office.

Awesome, right? Well it’s not available on the Moto X.

While Smart Actions isn’t on here, there are three unique features Motorola offers that are fantastic. Since Android is a mess and there is no centralized way to back up your device or restore it to another (don’t start with me, I’m not in the mood nor do I care about how you can but you can’t if the phone is stock Android but your next one isn’t but some of your apps restore but your app data doesn’t but it’s open), Motorola Migrate is a nice tool to help solve that. All you need to do is install the Migrate app on your existing Android smartphone and tap on the Migrate app on your Moto X. You then scan a code using the camera and all of your data starts transferring over, including photos, videos, contacts, call history, text messages and more.

Motorola Connect is another feature that is most likely life-changing for many people, and it offers the ability to see your incoming, outgoing, missed calls, and text messages on your computer. You can even respond to text messages from your computer from anywhere you are, no matter where your phone is. This is big, and yes there are solutions for this already including Google Voice, but an integrated feature in a phone right out of the box is great for the average consumer. To use Motorola Connect, you just download a Google Chrome extension on Mac or PC and you’re off — it works extremely well.

The last of the bunch is Motorola Assist, and while it has some of the spice of Smart Actions, it lacks all of the heat. More focused on daily tasks, Motorola Assist can preemptively start listening to certain phrases when the phone senses you are driving to help you keep yours eyes on the road. The phone can then read incoming messages to you and quickly reply with a preset response, or tell you who is calling and also allow you to start and stop music playback. If you’re in a meeting, the phone can silence your ringer during a calendar appointment automatically, and also instantly reply to incoming callers letting them know you’re busy. The last part of Assist is a nighttime mode or do not disturb setting that silences your phone’s ringer for a preset length of time.

Motorola’s final piece of the Moto X puzzle is a service called Moto Maker. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt explained how the company has completely overhauled its supply chain and opened a U.S. factory to produce Moto X in Texas. It’s the first modern smartphone to be assembled in the U.S. but one reason the company is doing this is because of the new customization options Motorola is offering.

Buyers are able to customize the phone in tens of thousands of ways, including black or white front covers, 18 different back covers, seven accent colors for the phone’s buttons and hardware around the camera, custom messaging on the back of the phone, unique wallpapers, and even a custom welcome message when you power your phone on. Despite all these customizations, Motorola will deliver your phone in under four days. The company also offers color-matched accessories from SOL Republic like headphones, wireless speakers, and cases from other manufacturers.

Something I was surprised Motorola didn’t mention in its messaging is the fact that the Motorola RAZR was practically the phone that started the entire color craze, launching a black model after the aluminum one in the U.S. and then, obviously, in a bunch of colors soon after. But now that I think about it, yeah, let’s not talk about the RAZR.

The Motorola Moto X is not the fastest phone in the world. It’s also not the most cutting-edge, it doesn’t feature the biggest display, and it isn’t the thinnest Android phone. However, there is absolutely no doubt that the Moto X is the most amazing Android phone I have ever used, and I think most people will agree.

Motorola’s new hero phone offers up the most seamless and integrated Android experience on the market, and it does this without changing the core Android experience practically at all. It is a mainstream, consumer-focused, $199.99 mass-market phone. One that can appeal to young kids, teenagers, professionals, men, women, and everyone else. There are truly great, well thought out features, that together make this phone a bona fide smash, and it really is Android’s iPhone.

It’s great to see Motorola back.

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2013-07-20T10:01:00.001-07:00

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Apple iPad 4 Review

2013-07-20T09:18:00.003-07:00

Apple iPad 4: Design and build quality

The fourth-gen iPad looks no different from the iPad 3 (and even iPad 2) with Apple sticking to the same rectangular shape with rounded corners and chamfered edges.

There's no change in dimensions so it's 186 x 241 x 9.4mm and it weighs 652g (662g for the cellular model). Of course if you don't like the size of the iPad, there's always the iPad mini as a smaller option.

As we've come to expect from the iPad and iPhone, and the Mac range for that matter, the build quality is exceptional. Attention to detail is paramount and the iPad feels as premium as it always has.

So if the iPad 4 look and feels the same as the previous generation what's different? We'll there's only one visual change to the design which comes in the form of the Lightning connector, the rest is all buried inside.

Apple iPad 4: Hardware

As usual Apple has updated the hardware of the tablet. First and foremost is a new processor, the A6X. This dual-core processor with quad-core graphics is supposedly twice as fast as the A5 chip found in the iPad 3 with twice the graphics performance.

Naturally we put these claims to the test. Apple doesn't publish clock speeds and such like but the GeekBench 2 app states the A6X is 1.39GHz and the iPad 4 has 1GB of RAM – 988MB for our exact sample.

The numbers are certainly impressive. In GeekBench 2 we saw a new record of 1769 (the iPad 3 scored in the region of 750) and in the SunSpider JavaScript test the iPad 4 managed a speedy average of 854ms.

While the numbers can amaze and astound, it's the real life user performance which is important. The iPad 4 is a nippy device but the overall impression is that it's not much quicker than the iPad 3, certainly not twice as fast.

We did find graphics performance impressive with a frame rate of 39fps, the iPad 3 managed 22fps. So it's the graphics improvements which are the more noticeable. We could see no difference in general navigation but more noticeable in more demanding tasks. In Apple Maps, for example, pinch zooming is a little bit smoother.

Price and storage options are the same as previous iPads - £399 for 16GB Wi-Fi only ranging all the way up to £739 for 128GB with Wi-Fi and 3G/4G cellular data. If you can afford the price tag, there's an iPad to fit your needs. Be wise with your storage option since, as usual, there's no microSD card slot for expansion.

There's no change when it comes to the screen – it's still 9.7in in size with the stunning 1536 x 2048 Retina quality resolution. There's really no faulting the LED-backlit IPS display.

There are a few important changes when it comes to connectivity. The first, as we mentioned earlier, is the Lightning connector. It's smaller, reversible and means you need to buy an adaptor if you want to plug it into any existing 30-pin accessories.

The other big change is 4G connectivity. The iPad 3 was marketed as 4G capable but didn't suit the UK's 4G frequencies so Apple removed the claim. If you want, and can afford, 4G mobile broadband, then this iPad will cater for your needs. The iPad mini also supports 4G in the UK

iPad 4: Cameras

There's not a great deal of change when it comes to the iPad's cameras. Those hoping for an 8Mp rear camera will be disappointed to find it's still the same 5Mp iSight camera found on the iPad 3.

It's unsurprising then that results are similar – a useful camera if you don't mind using a device as large as an iPad for taking snaps. The only change is the addition of a back-illuminated sensor which should help in low light situations.

The bigger, and more useful change is the front facing camera which is now a 1.2Mp FaceTime HD shooter capturing up to 720p footage. This offers a much higher quality picture than before making your Photo Booth pictures better and, provided broadband speeds are fast enough, improved Skype and FaceTime calls.

iPad 4 review: Software

There's not a great deal to say about the software on the iPad 4. It comes pre-loaded with iOS 6 including Siri which is also available on the iPad 3. Some recent and notable changes to the operating system include the switch between Google Maps and Apple's own mapping system – the firm's own-brand app has received heavy criticism for its many failings. Luckily there are alternatives out there in app form, or you can use Google Maps in Safari. Apple has also ditched the YouTube app but the service is available via the web browser.

Something to bear in mind is that apps supporting the Retina resolution take up considerably more space than previous ones. You may find yourself filling up 16GB of storage faster than you expected.

iPad 4 reivew: Battery life

Once again Apple touts a double digit battery life of 10 hours for the iPad 4 when browsing the web over Wi-Fi. It's difficult to give you a 'typical' usage figure since everyone will use their iPad for different tasks for various periods of time.

We found that using the iPad 4 heavily meant we needed to charge it at the end of the day. If you predominantly use a smartphone and use the iPad occasionally then it will stretch much further, a few days' worth is likely.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Review

2013-07-17T22:20:00.005-07:00

This past March when Samsung announced the Galaxy S4, I had been using my Samsung Galaxy S3 for only 6 months. I remember the anticipation while waiting to hear all the details of the new S4. But once the cat was out of the bag, I was a little disappointed because the S4 didn’t seem like a huge step forward in features or design. I didn’t buy one and am still using my S3, which has been serving me very well. But when Verizon offered to send me a loaner of the S4 to try out for a few days, I was happy to take a look to see if it was a worthy upgrade from my S3. Here are some quick impressions of Verizon’s latest flagship Android smartphone.

My time with the Samsung Galaxy S4 made me think about the main criteria that I consider before upgrading to a new phone. Here they are in no particular order:

Looks and style updates
Hardware feature updates
OS updates

Let’s see what the Samsung Galaxy S4 offers for each of these criteria.

Looks and style updates

Am I being shallow and materialistic to care about looks and style? Heck no! What is the fun of upgrading to a new phone if it doesn’t look a little better or different than the one you were using before? This may be one of my biggest disappointments with the Galaxy S4… it just doesn’t look that much different from its predecessor. Above on the left is my S3 and to the right is the S4. Other than the fact that mine is blue and the loaner is white, they are very similar right?

Only when you look closely you notice that the S4′s display is slightly larger than the S3′s. It offers 1920 x 1080 resolution vs. 1280 x 720 resolution on the S3. Besides having more pixels, the colors look slightly more vivid to my eyes and a tiny bit brighter. I also noticed that whites look more white on the S4 than my S3. These are subtle differences though.

A really close look at the phones will also reveal an updated home button, which is more rectangular on s4. You have to admit that it would be really easy to mistake one phone for the other.

Case in point… One morning before Verizon even started offering the S4, a co-worker came to my cube and handed me his shiny new phone. I said “Congrats on the upgrade…” and almost said “Congrats on the upgrade to the S3″ because that’s what I thought it was until I tipped it to the side and saw the brushed chrome sides and realized it was an S4. FYI: the sides aren’t really made of metal, they are plastic.

Flipping the S4 over reveals a larger camera lens with an LED flash below it. The S4 is also thinner than the S3 and feels lighter in hand. It’s a solid phone, but feels a little toyish because it doesn’t have a lot heft to it. Like the S3, the S4 is a slippery little sucker. You’ll either want a case that provides better grip, or you can do what I did with my S3 and put Egrips Non-Slip Strips on the back.

When it comes to the looks and style updates, the S4 doesn’t bring anything very new or different to the party. That said, I think the S3 and the S4 are both attractive phones. Other than being slippery and almost too light weight, there’s nothing about the look of the S4 that I don’t like. I’d love to see Samsung try using metal sometime though…

Hardware feature updates

The S4 has several updated features under the hood that aren’t obvious to the naked eye, such as a processor update from 1.5Gz dual core to a 1.9 GHz quad core. That sounds impressive, but I honestly didn’t notice a huge difference in overall speed. The phone is very snappy, but flipping back and forth between apps, scrolling and launching apps felt about the same as doing the same steps with the S3.

Other updates include the battery capacity boost which has been increased to 2600mAh vs. 2100mAh in the S3. I was able to enjoy more than a full day of active use without needing to charge, so this update gets a big thumbs up from me.

Another thumbs up goes to the update to the capacitive display. There is a new setting that increases the touch screen sensitivity so you can interact with it even while wearing gloves. This is great for winter use! I was able to test it and it worked great.

The camera has also been updated to 13MP, which is up from 8MP in the Galaxy S3. I’ve been happy with the photos taken with my S3 and wasn’t disappointed with the S4 during my review period. Unfortunately, I some how managed to lose the sample shots that I took, so I can’t include any in this review, which is disappointing because I had fun playing with the various creative features that the camera app offers like the Sound and Shot mode which captures a few seconds of sound when you snap a photo. The Drama mode was also fun to play with. It stitches together several consecutive shots and puts them in one image. This is fun to play with for action and sports photography as you can get all the action in one shot of a baseball player sliding into home. The S4 has a problem that is shared by almost all smartphone cameras; low light shots are not impressive. The S4 does have a great flash though, so that helps a lot.

I guess I should talk about using the S4 as a phone But nothing has really changed or been updated on that front. This phone makes and receives calls just fine. No issues or complaints noted while I was testing it.

So for the S4′s main hardware updates, the list short and sweet. There’s a processor update, battery capacity, increased camera megapixels and display sensitivity. All of those updates sound good, but the only one that I really noticed was the better battery life when compared to my S3. If was winter, I’d include the display sensitivity, but I didn’t really use that feature except to test it.

OS and software updates

Most of the changes to the Galaxy S4 come by way of OS and software updates.

The S4 has the latest Android OS version (v4.2 Jelly Bean) along with Samsung’s Touchwiz additions which bring a metric ton of extra gee-wiz features. I’ll just talk about a few of them like a home screen starter mode for smartphone newbies which makes it easier to navigate and use the phone.

Multi-window – Originally offered on the Galaxy Note line of devices, this feature offers a dual pane view where you can open 2 apps on the screen at one time. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with all apps… but it can be useful for quick lookups or copying and pasting between apps. In all honesty, I probably would use this more on a tablet than a phone… even with the S4′s 5 inch display, it’s still a bit cramped to put up two windows at once.

Story Album – Let’s you create a quick scrapbook from photos in the gallery based on time, people and location. You can then print the album through an online service to get a physical hard copy.

S Health – Samsung’s take on the Fitbit and Jawbone Up. The S4 becomes a pedometer, a food tracker and an exercise tracker. It works pretty well and is one less thing to carry around and charge if you want to keep track of your activity and calories. There are supposed to be accessories to go along with this app like a wireless scale, activity tracking wrist band and a heart rate monitor. No word when they will be available though.

Then there are all the new gestures… I never use the gestures on my S3 and didn’t find a real urge to use them for very long on the S4. Yes, they are fun to try out for a few minutes or when you’re trying to impress someone while demoing the phone. But after that, they kind of seem pointless. At least to me. Some of them don’t even work in all the apps, which is really annoying. And some just give me a headache like the Smart Scroll which is supposed to watch your eyes as you’re reading a page and then automatically scroll the page up when your eyes reach the bottom of the page.

The OS and software updates far outnumber the hardware updates on this phone. This doesn’t really surprise me because other than screen size, processor speed, battery and memory capacity, what else can we really add / upgrade any more? If I would pick one thing out of that list that really matters these days, it’s battery life… We’ll always want more of that. But faster processors don’t seem to matter that much and screens can only go so big before our phones stop fitting in our pockets.

Is it worth upgrading to the S4 if you already have an S3?

In a word, no. Even if I were able to upgrade my Samsung Galaxy S3 right now, I’d wait. There just aren’t enough reasons to switch in my opinion. Of course, I’d switch to the Samsung Galaxy S4 in a heartbeat if someone wanted to give me one… for free.

Also, if I had any phone other the S3 and was wanting to upgrade, the S4 would be my first choice. Whenever someone asks me which Verizon Android smartphone to buy right now, I tell them go for the Samsung Galaxy S4. It’s a snappy performer with all kinds of fun features added in to keep you entertained and productive.

Sony Xperia Z review

2013-03-16T22:57:00.005-07:00

The Xperia Z is Sony's flagship phone for this year, and continues the screen size and resolution arms race with its 5in, 1,920x1,080 display. It also has all the specifications you would expect from a high-end smartphone, including a quad-core 1.5GHz processor and a camera with a huge 13-megapixel sensor.

The display's Full HD resolution is the same as that of this year's HTC One, but the slightly larger screen size should make text more legible at this resolution. We found we could view web pages in desktop mode and still read all the page's text easily without zooming in. This is a trick that the HTC One also pulls off, but we found the Xperia Z's extra 1/3 inch screen size made reading more comfortable.

Browsing desktop web pages without zooming in is possible on the 5in 1,920x1,080 display
The display is hugely bright, but we did notice some slight light leakage around the edges when looking at large blocks of black. The screen also suffers in comparison to AMOLED screens such as that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, which has far deeper blacks. It's still an impressive display, though, and seeing as no smartphone has an AMOLED screen of both this size and resolution it would be churlish to complain.
The display's certainly good enough, and large enough, for watching films and for gaming. We tried it out with the Asphalt 7 racing title, which looked fantastic, and almost like something off the PlayStation 3.
To accommodate such a big display, the handset is understandably huge, and you'll struggle to use it while carrying an umbrella. It's only 3mm wider than the HTC One and has a larger screen, though, so the Xperia Z isn’t excessively large as this generation of smartphones goes. A screen this big also requires a large battery to power it, and Sony has gone for a chunky 2,330mAh model - very similar to the 2,300mAh battery in the HTC One. Unfortunately, despite having such a big battery, the huge screen takes its toll. The phone managed 5h 48m in our continuous video playback battery life test, which is below average, showing this is one Android phone that will require regular charging.
Sony has taken a different approach to HTC when it comes to the phone's design. Instead of the HTC One's all-aluminium body, the Xperia Z is all about the glass front and rear. Sony is tight-lipped about the kind of glass it uses, but leaks from a Sony press conference suggest it has toughened Dragontrail glass on the front and the more common Corning Gorilla Glass on the rear. It does look good, but we didn’t find it as comfortable to hold as the HTC One with its rounded edges and cool burnished aluminium.

The Xperia Z runs Android 4.1, rather than the very latest 4.2 version. However, Sony claims that version 4.2 will be available for the Xperia Z "shortly after launch", so you won’t have to wait long for the new version's lock screen widgets and improved notification bar.
In the meantime, we have absolutely no complaints about the phone's performance. It may have scored a relatively slow 1,890ms in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, compared to under 1,000ms for the fastest phones, but its 1.5GHz quad-core processor runs Android smoothly without any jerkiness or hiccups. We ran the test again using the Dolphin browser rather than the Xperia Z's default Chrome, and the score improved to a much more respectable 1,357ms - the current mobile version of Chrome does seem to struggle with the Sunspider benchmark.
Sony's customisations to the operating system are tasteful; a large chunk of the homescreen is dedicated to a huge Sony Entertainment Network link/advert, but this is easy to remove if you don’t like the look of it.
Depending on how you like to use Android, you may prefer Sony's light-touch customisations to the rip-it-up-and-start-again of the latest version of HTC Sense, which turns your entire homescreen into a giant news feed from your social networks and various content providers.

Apart from the (removable) advert for the Sony Entertainment Network, Sony's Android customisations are fairly unobtrusive
We were impressed with the Xperia Z's keyboard; the screen is large enough that it’s easy to type accurately and quickly. At first, having to switch to the second-screen of buttons to access the full stop and comma keys annoyed us, but it's easy to customise the keyboard layout with the keyboard settings wizard, which gives you the choice of turning on comma and full stop keys, and adding punctuation as a long-press to each key.

Sony has made sure you can get the keyboard layout you like
The Xperia Z's 13-megapixel camera uses an Exmor RS sensor, which is designed to be particularly impressive in low light. Compared side-by-side with a Motorola RAZR i's camera, which is a fairly standard smartphone model, under low light the Xperia Z's sensor produced brighter images with far more detail.
Under indoor lighting conditions, when compared side by side with photos taken with the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Xperia Z really shone. This is one of the few phones we’ve seen that can take sharp photos indoors, and we saw very little noise or evidence of excessive noise reduction. It's very impressive.

Impressive focus and little noise indoors
Outside, we were impressed with how the Xperia Z handled exposure; many phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S3, bleach out the sky, but the Xperia Z's camera picked up individual clouds. Colours are accurate, but for sheer amount of detail you can't beat the Galaxy S3; it picked up significantly more detail than the Xperia Z's camera, making images more lifelike.

Great exposure, but the Samsung Galaxy S3's camera picks up more detail outside
The Sony Xperia Z has the looks and the high-resolution screen to make it a worthy high-end smartphone. Currently, at least until the Samsung Galaxy S4 is released, its main competition is the similarly huge-screened HTC One. We prefer the HTC One's aluminium body, but if you don’t like the sweeping changes HTC has made to Android with its new Sense interface, you may prefer the more lightly-customised Xperia Z.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Review

2013-02-10T06:40:00.002-08:00

The Samsung Galaxy has turned into a yearly event. Why? Because Samsung's flagship Android smartphone is offered by nearly every major carrier and it sells by the millions. It has great features for the price and a decent selection of third party accessories. It's 2012 and the year of the Galaxy S III, a phone with top specs and Samsung's signature thin design and light weight. The 4.7 ounce phone runs Android OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with Samsung TouchWiz software. In fact, there's a lot more than TouchWiz here: Samsung adds a host of new "S" apps like S Voice and S Beam as well as wireless sharing services for photos and presentations. There's almost too much software here to keep track of, but even if you use just a fraction, you'll probably find something new and useful.

In this review we look at the US model in the form of the Sprint and T-Mobile versions. Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile launched this phone on June 21 for $199 with contract for the 16 gig model (Verizon's is coming very soon). The hardware is identical except for the cellular radio and the software is the same other than carrier-added apps. The Galaxy S III has a 4.8" HD Super AMOLED 720p display and it runs on a 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon Krait CPU, which is one of the fastest mobile CPUs on the market. It has 2 gigs of RAM rather than the usual 1 gig. Some carriers will offer a 32 gig internal storage version at a higher price. Since the phone has a microSD card slot, you really don't need boatloads of internal storage. There's a front 1.9MP video chat camera and a very good rear 8MP camera with flash. The phone has dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 plus a GPS. So is the Samsung Galaxy S III worth all the hype? Read on to find out.

Design and Ergonomics

While HTC has taken chances and evolved their high end One phones with unibody polycarbonate casings and a new look, Samsung sticks with what works. The phone is made of plastic and it has the usual paper thin back cover. Both the Pebble Blue and Marble White models have a high gloss finish that looks attractive even if it doesn't look chic and expensive. The blue model has light blue sides that morph into a darker metallic, striated back. It looks cool but attracts fingerprints like mad. The white model is more organic looking (Samsung was going for curvy, humanistic design with the GS3) and it shows fingerprints much less. Despite the 4.8" display, the Galaxy S III is about the same size as a 4.5" smartphone and it's nearly identical in size to the HTC One X. It's by no means a behemoth like the Samsung Galaxy Note.

Like most Samsung smartphones, the power button is on the upper right side and the volume controls are on the opposite side (making it easy to hit both power and volume at once by accident). Despite that complaint, on a tall phone like the S III, it is easier to reach the power button when it's on the side rather than on the top like most other brands. The micro USB port is on the bottom and the headphone jack is up top. The microSD card slot is under the back cover and there's no need to pull the battery to swap cards. GSM models with a SIM card slot have a micro SIM card slot near the removable battery. The GS3 has a notification LED--a rarity on Samsung Android smartphones. If you turn the LED feature on, the light will blink until you've taken care of whatever it's notifying you about.

While the Samsung Galaxy S III falls far behind the HTC One X and One S in terms of materials and aesthetics, it is a solidly built phone that's decently attractive. And for those of you who love the hardware home button (the kind that moves and clicks) that Samsung offers on many overseas models, it's alive and well here. Two capacitive buttons flank it for Menu and Back, similar to Gingerbread phone models. Rather than a dedicated ICS multi-tasking button, you'll press and hold the home button to see a list of recently run applications. Double-tap the home button to launch S Voice (voice command).

Display

The 4.8" HD Super AMOLED display would've been really exciting a year or two ago, but these days IPS and advanced LCDs offer sharper text, wider viewing angles and better outdoor visibility. We'd love to see Samsung move away from Super AMOLED displays in their most expensive phones; they once were a competitive advantage but now hobble the phone. The 1280 x 720 display has a Pentile Matrix that uses fewer subpixels than LCDs, and the result is slightly reduced sharpness. Still, there are a lot of pixels here thanks to the high resolution, and we suspect many Super AMOLED fans will enjoy the display. Super AMOLED displays have better than life colors, though the colors are more in control here and less cartoony, and black levels are phenomenal. White levels are Super AMOLED's weak spot and whites aren't quite as bright as LCDs and they still have a slight blue tint, despite the GS3's improved color balance. The display's colors pop, but the screen isn't hugely bright. Note that Samsung has a power saving feature that automatically dims whites to save power and we suggest turning this off to avoid dingy whites (the power drain is negligible).

Samsung's auto-brightness as ever tends to be too dark, so we had to go with manual brightness to suit our eyes. I don't mind manual brightness but that means having to adjust it when outdoors under sunlight because the display is hard to see at 50% brightness (my preferred indoor brightness setting).

Phone and Data

The Samsung Galaxy S III has superb voice quality on both Sprint and T-Mobile. Samsung really knows how to make an excellent voice phone. Incoming and outgoing voice are loud and very clear with no background noise or digital distortion. Just in case call quality isn't already stellar enough for you, there's a volume boost setting for noisy environments and EQ settings-- yes EQ isn't just for music players anymore.

On both the T-Mobile and Sprint versions our data connection sometimes dropped for a second every so often. That makes me think there's a firmware issue since it occurs on two different carriers, and I'd assume Samsung could fix this with an update if it proves to be a problem for others.

The T-Mobile version has 42Mbps HSPA+, and that provides excellent data speeds that didn't make me pine for LTE. Our phone averaged 11Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. The Sprint version has 3G EV-DO Rev A and 4G LTE, but Sprint's LTE network isn't yet live, so we had to use their sluggish 3G network that averaged 400k down and 350k up in our area of the Dallas metroplex. Sprint's version has a feature that will automatically turn WiFi on if the phone is in range of a known WiFi network and that certainly helps. AT&T and Verizon versions have both 3G and LTE, and both carriers have robust LTE networks with fast data speeds. All carrier versions have the mobile hotspot feature that turns your phone into a high speed wireless modem for laptops, tablets and other devices (this may require an additional monthly charge).

Performance and Battery Life

All US carriers are going with the 1.5GHZ dual core Snapdragon S4 CPU (because it's compatible with LTE) rather than Samsung's latest Exynos CPU. That's not a bad thing since the Snapdragon S4 is a top performer that holds its own against the Exynos and quad core Tegra 3. It manages strong battery life as well, and the Galaxy S III on T-Mobile and Sprint (neither running on LTE) had no trouble making it through a full day on a charge with moderate use. When we get our hands on the LTE Verizon and AT&T models, we'll update this review with info on their battery life.

The Galaxy S III benchmarks similarly to other 1.5GHz Qualcomm S4 smartphones like the HTC One X. It falls just a few points behind the One X, and it feels responsive despite the demands of TouchWiz 4. Is it one of the fastest Android phones currently on the market? Yes it is. Does it feel faster than the iPhone 4S? Not so much, but that's an Android vs. iOS issue. The phone has Adreno 225 graphics, and that's a capable graphics processor that can handle the latest 3D titles well. We tested a variety of games that worked perfectly, though Max Payne didn't draw on screen controls on the GS III, making it impossible to play. That seems to be a compatibility issue with some Samsung models and the developer is working on that issue.

Software

The smartphone runs Android OS 4.0, the latest and greatest version of that OS. It has Samsung TouchWiz 4, and if you're a Samsung owner, the UI will look very familiar to you. In fact, it really doesn't resemble vanilla Android at all, and Samsung goes farther than HTC's Sense to skin Android (watch our video review to see TouchWiz in detail). You get Samsung's usual custom app icons, their widgets for various Samsung apps and services like Media Hub, S Memo, S Calendar (it now skins Calendar instead of being a separate app) and Samsung's music and video players as well as a host of new widgets. There are many, many screens of widgets to choose from out of the box. Samsung's own app store is on board, as is their Buddy Photo Share feature, AllShare Play DLNA streaming, a wireless group PowerPoint presentation feature, and a proprietary Galaxy S III to Galaxy S III hybridization of Android Beam NFC and WiFi Direct called S Beam. Honestly, there's more software here than most of us can wrap our heads around. Samsung's software push is perhaps excessive: some of the apps and features feel more like buried gee-whiz gimmicks than stuff that's easy to use and necessary. That said, you can explore what you wish and ignore the rest.

The most talked about feature is Samsung's S Voice. It's Vlingo on steroids and it tries to fight Siri on the iPhone but loses. Where Siri does a pretty good job of hearing and understanding us, S Voice seems like my partially deaf grandma from the old country whose English is a little quirky. It helps if you talk quite loudly at the phone when issuing commands, and forget using it in noisy environments. Like Siri, it sends your commands to a server using the data connection and the server interprets those commands and tells the phone what to do. If your data / WiFi connection is slow or down, you'll get "sorry, network connection error" messages. Check out our video review to see S Voice in action. It is useful for most common tasks like checking the weather or your next appointment, but it doesn't do well with those fanciful natural language queries that Siri handles so well like "what's the meaning of life?"

You can set the phone to always listen for your command (prefaced with something like "hi Galaxy"), and that can impact battery life. Alternatively, you can set it to run whenever you double-press on the home button, which doesn't affect battery life.

One of our favorite features is how the phone will automatically call the person you're currently texting if you put the phone to your head when viewing that conversation. And we really like the Smart Stay feature that uses the front camera to see if you're looking at the phone's screen and prevents it from turning off while you're looking at it (but why isn't this feature turned on by default?). Less useful but cool if you want to impress your friends is the PIP (picture in a picture) feature where you can play a video in the Samsung video player and tap a button to keep that video running in a small window while you're in other apps.

Camera

Like the Galaxy S II, the S III has an 8 megapixel camera that can shoot 1080p video, but quality has improved over the S II. We still noted some exposure issues in bright outdoor shots where the camera rendered hazy images, but the new HDR feature helps greatly with that. Dedicated image processing chips are the next big thing in high end phones (the HTC One X has one too), and that allows for extremely quick shot times. Again, like the HTC One X and One S, you can shoot photos while simultaneously recording video but there's no slow motion option like that of the One X. There are plenty of effects to play with: exposure, macro mode, face detection, smile detection and panorama. This is a very capable camera, though we give the edge to the HTC One X for image quality.
Video quality is excellent at 1080p and 30fps: video is sharp and colorful with smooth motion and little in the way of blockiness. The continuous autofocus sometimes hunts when several subjects are in motion at once, but overall it's great stuff.

For those of you who can't be social enough, there's Share Shot: a feature where you and your GS III-toting buddies can share photos in real time over a WiFi Direct connection. Speaking of social, Buddy Photo Share will implore you to tag faces and assign photos to your social networking friends. This was a hit or miss feature and it sometimes didn't recognize nearly identical shots of the same person, and it thought a houseplant was my best friend.

Conclusion

Is the Samsung Galaxy S III an excellent smartphone? Yes it is. Given the millions of preorders, I suspect many of you would buy this no matter what I said about the phone. That speaks of Samsung's momentum in the smartphone market and their excellent track record. Is this Samsung's best Android phone ever? Yes it is, but there is room for improvement. I'd love to see Samsung use high quality materials and cutting edge designs in their top tier phone. I wish they'd cut down on the absurd number of features and apps introduced with the GS III, and instead focused on making a few core apps really solid. S Voice is a fantastic feature that needs more development (it's hard of hearing, prone to network connection errors and needs more natural language AI to compete with Siri). With more work, it could really sell folks on the Galaxy S III. If Samsung axed the Group Cast PowerPoint presentation sharing over WiFi feature to spend more time on S Voice and facial recognition in photos, the smartphone world would be a better place. Software and cosmetic gripes aside, the Samsung Galaxy S III has phenomenal voice quality, a fast CPU and good battery life for a powerful phone. If you buy one, you probably won't be disappointed.

Price: Starting at $199 for 16 gig model with contract

Website: www.samsung.com

Nokia Lumia 920 Review

2013-02-10T06:27:00.002-08:00

The Nokia Lumia 920 is undeniably the shining star for the Windows Phone 8 launch. The phone is available in a variety of vibrant colors along with the more staid black and white options. For those who like a splash of color there's Nokia's signature cyan, yellow and red. Much like the very attractive Lumia 900, it has an iconic unibody polycarbonate design, Nokia exclusive apps that are truly useful and enjoyable and a surprisingly low $99 with contract price on AT&T ($449 without). That really puts the hurt on the Windows Phone 8 HTC 8X that sells for $199 in its 16 gig iteration on AT&T.

The Lumia 920 has top of the line hardware, unlike the Lumia 900 that felt dated at launch because it was hobbled by Windows Phone 7's low-ball hardware requirements. Windows Phone 8 moves to modern hardware and everything about the Lumia 920 is competitive with high end Android smartphones. It runs on a dual core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Krait CPU with a gig of RAM and 32 gigs of storage. It has an excellent rear 8.7 MP camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and backside illuminated sensor that excels at low light photography. There's a front camera that you can use with the preview version of Skype for Windows Phone 8 that Microsoft added to the app store a few days after the 920's US launch. AT&T has a 6 month exclusive on the Lumia 920 in the US, so you'll either have to go with AT&T or use the unlocked version on T-Mobile (sorry Sprint and Verizon customers, the GSM Lumia 920 won't work on your networks).

The phone has dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, a solid GPS and NFC. It supports wireless charging and early adopters will get a free wireless charging mat according to AT&T and Nokia (it sells for $50 otherwise).

PureMotion HD+ Display

The 4.5" IPS display runs at 1280 x 768 resolution, making it extremely competitive with the top Android phones and iPhones with Retina display. The Nokia actually slightly edges past the iPhone 5 for pixel density by 6 ppi (332 vs. 326) and is significantly ahead of most big screen Android phones in terms of pixel density. Of course, you get a significantly larger display with the Lumia 920 vs. the iPhone 5, and one that's big enough to compete with today's giant 4.7 to 4.8 inch Android smartphones. The wrap-around Gorilla Glass is attractive, though it does induce glare, but thanks to polarizing filters and a very impressive 600 nits of max brightness, it's easily viewable outdoors. That's not the end of the Lumia display feature list: it's a super sensitive capacitive display that works with fingernails (in my tests this might take more than one tap if you have very long nails) and even gloves. Leave it to the folks from chilly Finland at Nokia to manage that feat! The LCD has a 60Hz refresh rate and deep, rich blacks. Colors are vibrant and it's a sheer pleasure to watch video and view photos. Though quite saturated, colors are more balanced and natural compared to AMOLED and Super AMOLED displays. Good going, Nokia. The bright, high contrast and saturated display make the HT 8X look a little bit dull in comparison.

Design and Ergonomics

If you've seen the Lumia 900 or even the Lumia 800, you have a good idea of what the Lumia 920 looks and feels like. The Lumia 920 is thicker than the Lumia 900 in the middle and some colors are gloss, but the overall design language is the same. The Lumia 920 is heavy for a 4.5" smartphone: it weighs 6.5 ounces, which is considerably heavier than the big 5.5" Samsung Galaxy Note II (granted Samsung makes uncannily light phones) and every other current smartphone on the market. It's similar in size to the 4.8" Samsung Galaxy S III, so it's by no means a small footprint phone. That said, the curves are all in the right places and it feels good in hand. It's not wider than other current smartphones so it's no more of a pain to use one-handed than its competitors.

The matte finish black and cyan look cool in their polycarbonate glory. The gloss colors don't look in the least cheap: rather the bright colors and high gloss hardened surface remind us more of a high quality auto finish (it helps when you have a yellow that's reminiscent of Lamborghini and a red that's just a tad cooler than Ferrari red). I admit I like bold colors and the yellow and red Lumia 920s on my desk never fail to make me smile.

The buttons aren't just mindless chrome, rather they have a tasteful ceramic finish that plays off the dark glass that wraps around the sides. The side volume, power and camera buttons are easy to operate but stiff enough that we didn't press them by accident. The micro USB port for syncing and charging is located on the bottom, as are the small stereo speakers. The 3.5mm audio jack and micro SIM card tray are up top. The top and bottom edges are straight to improve grip, while the sides are curved for comfort.

The phone supports Qi wireless charging with Nokia's own charging mat or others that use the Qi standard (our Energizer mat worked fine). That means you don't have to buy an alternate charging back or sleeve to use wireless charging. This is a unibody design so you in fact can't remove the back or access the battery that's sealed inside. There's no microSD card slot, but happily the phone has an ample 32 gigs of storage.

Windows Phone 8 and Nokia Software

Windows Phone has always been fast, even on slow hardware. Windows Phone 8 on the Nokia Lumia 920 flies, and I've yet to find myself waiting for the phone. Live Tiles are now resizable and as always, you can uninstall carrier bloatware: bye, bye Yellow Pages Mobile! Kid's Corner lets you select the apps, videos and websites that kids (or anyone else) using your phone has access to (think of it as family-focused login accounts)

For those of you who haven't tried Windows Phone yet, it's a cross between the customizability of Android and the easy intuitiveness of iOS. That's not to say it copies either, because it doesn't. This is a unique user interface that's now made its way to the Modern UI with Live Tiles in Windows 8 for tablets, laptops and desktop computers. It's closer to iOS in terms of UI and security: it's a very consistent user interface that's quite easy to learn, and security is a priority along with locked down access to apps from Microsoft's official store for apps. You can choose which Live Tiles appear on your Start (home) screen and set their size. You can remove apps including carrier-installed apps that you don't want. Some Live Tiles provide updates and notifications (number of emails unread, next appointments, current weather) unless you set them to the smallest possible size where updates may no longer fit depending on the Tile. Typography is key and fonts look sharp and finely tuned, and the side-swiping UI in apps is fun and easy to use. Android folks, you won't be able to load custom ROMs or install apps from untrusted sources and there are no widgets here; Live Tiles that update with snippets of info are the closest you'll get.

Nokia's Windows Phone apps remain a strong selling point with Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive Beta offering the option to download maps for offline use and get spoken turn by turn spoken directions (Bing Maps provides on-screen directions but not spoken directions). There's Nokia Transit for those who need mass transit directions too. If you don't get a Nokia Windows Phone, your alternatives are the carrier supplied apps like AT&T Navigator (often with a monthly fee) or TeleNav's Scout (also requires a fee).

Nokia Music has a cool "mix radio" feature where you can stream playlists in a wide variety of genres for free. You can even download playlist tunes for offline listening and refresh them as you see fit. This makes for a nice Pandora substitute. Nokia City Lens is also preinstalled for you augmented reality fans and I've found it surprisingly useful and informative though a little creepy when used in residential areas where you'll find out about all sorts of home-based businesses.

The usual excellent Microsoft music player is on board (formerly called Zune Music and now called XBOX Music). You can load your own music from your iTunes library on Mac and Windows machines via the included USB cable, or mount the smartphone as a mass storage drive in Windows and drag and drop music, videos and documents onto the phone. Mass storage is a new feature in Windows Phone 8, and Mac support has been around since Windows Phone 7 via the free Windows Phone app in the Mac app store. The phone has Dolby headphone software with EQ and sound out through headphones is excellent: no distortion with clear trebles and full bass.

Similarly, Microsoft's video player can play locally stored video (MPEG4 and WMV formats, including non-DRM content from your iTunes library) though it doesn't yet offer access to rentals and purchases from the XBOX video store. The phone can handle 1080p MPEG4 video playback, though that exceeds screen resolution so you might as well stick with 720p.

For those who are XBOX users, there's account integration and you'll see your avatar friends and achievements and there's a free downloadable XBOX SmartGlass app you can use to interact with and control your XBOX. Games hub is where you'll find downloaded games (some XBOX branded and various not branded). The games are overall high quality and sell for .99 to 9.99 with most solid newer titles costing 4.99 to 6.99. That said, you won't see the huge selection of games that you will on the iPhone yet, nor even the same titles that have crossed over from iOS to Android. There are a few Need for Speed titles, a mobile version of SIMS 3, Assassin's Creed, Sonic 4, various Angry Birds titles and quite a few casual games that are fun. What's not here? Shadowgun, Dead Trigger and Modern Combat 3.

Windows Phone 8 has basic voice commands to launch apps and enter text for things like search that's on par with Android but lacks all the natural language query goodness of Siri on the iPhone. Bing is your default search engine (surprise) and we found Bing's results to be very useful, especially for local search and the excellent Local Scout app. You can download Google's Search Live Tile, but there's no Google Maps app for Windows Phone. We're OK with that because Nokia Maps plus Microsoft's Local Scout picks up the slack just fine with none of Apple Maps' quirkiness.

The email client supports most email types including Exchange, Gmail, POP3 and IMAP. I set up the phone to sync my Gmail, Google Contacts and Calendar using the push setting (IMAP push) and the phone updated as quickly as my Android devices with new email and synced calendar items.

This is a Microsoft product so you get the mobile version of MS Office that works with Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint files (you can view but not create PowerPoint files). Since it's a mobile version you won't find all the features of desktop MS Office, but the basics are here. The phone works with locally stored files, email attachments and documents on your Skydrive or Office 365 share.

Calling and Internet

Nokia phones have always offered top notch call quality and the Lumia 920 has very good call quality with full and clear voice on both ends. It doesn't beat the also excellent Samsung Galaxy S III and iPhone 5, but it meets and equals them with a tiny bit less clarity on the high trebles than the GS III. Still, it's one of the better voice phones on the market. The phone played nicely with a variety of Bluetooth headsets and headphones, as we've come to expect from Nokia, but we did notice it wasn't compatible with our Apple EarPods (we heard a high pitched whine). Stereo headphones worked fine, so it seems there's an issue with the mic pickup in the earbuds.

Data speeds were very good over AT&T's 4G LTE network. Though the popular cross-platform Speedtest.net app isn't available yet for Windows Phone, we used a variety of other test apps on the Windows market for speed tests and saw good speeds. Likewise, app downloads, video downloads and web page downloads were as fast as we've seen on competing AT&T LTE smartphones. The Lumia 920 has the mobile hotspot feature so you can use the phone as a wireless hotspot for your tablet, laptop or other device. The phone uses a micro SIM card.

Performance and Horsepower

While Windows Phone 7 smartphones were mired in the past thanks to dated Microsoft hardware requirements, Windows Phone 8 calls for modern dual core processors, various allowable display resolutions and more RAM. Not that Windows Phone 7 lacked for quickness, but specs do count for marketing purposes and faster hardware allows for more advanced features and impressive games. The Nokia Lumia 920 has a gig of RAM and 32 gigs of storage (currently most competing WP8 smartphones have 8-16 gigs of storage). There's no microSD card slot, and those used to cause problems because of Windows Phone 7's card encryption scheme so we only saw a card slot on the Samsung Focus, where it caused problems due to card compatibility and encryption issues. Windows Phone 8 handles microSD cards more elegantly, but so far we've only seen the card slot on the Nokia Lumia 810/820/822 Windows 8 phone that has just 8 gigs of internal storage. That said, 32 gigs is a healthy amount of internal storage that can house lots of apps, a decent music collection and some feature length movies.

The 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual core Krait CPU is the same you'll find in high end Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X. Granted, a few quad core Snapdragon CPUs are hitting the market now (LG Optimus G and Nexus 4), but the dual core is still mighty powerful and more than adequate to keep the Lumia 920 moving along extremely quickly. It does very well in cross platform benchmarks like AnTuTu and Sunspider.

iPad 4 Review

2013-02-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, and the new iPad 4 is now running iOS 6 out of the box (well, it's also on the likes of the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, but hey, we've already reviewed those, and you don't really care unless it's a new iPad, do you?)

The design of the new iPad 4 isn't really anything different from the original duo from Apple's tablet range. Actually, while we're thinking about it, it looks almost identical to the iPad 2 – to the point you'd struggle to tell them apart when turned off.
However, in the hand, there's a little bit of a difference, especially when it comes to the weight. The new iPad is nearly 60g heavier than the second iteration, and while it's not terrible, it does add a little arm strain during a marathon movie session.

Sometimes you become accustomed to the weight of a device if you use it enough, and then the whole debacle becomes a completely none issue.
However the weight of the iPad 4 is still noticeable even a few months after first get
ting it - pick it up and hold it for the duration of a movie and that unmistakable heft is still there to haunt you.

Retina Display

Before we get onto all the normal insight over the frame of the new iPad 4, it's worth talking about one top feature: the Retina Display.
Apple has packed a huge amount more pixels into the 9.7-inch screen - 1536 x 2048 to be exact. However, despite the fact that the Cupertino brand makes a big thing about the 330 PPI density of the iPhone 4S, we're looking at a screen that's technically a lot less sharp than its smartphone brethren - around 264PPI.

Apple has got around this fact by stating that the screen is meant to be held 15 inches from the face, rather than the 10 inches the iPhone is supposed to be from your eyes, and as such the sharpness is the same.
Given the fact the term 'Retina Display' really isn't a legally binding term, we don't care. What matters is the effect - and it's one of the most impressive we've seen on a tablet to date. If someone took an iPad, printed out a really hi-res image of an iOS system and stuck it on the front, we'd struggle to tell the difference - it's superb, and even squinting up close you'll be hard pushed to notice any pixelation.

The colour reproduction will also appeal to many, as it's pretty close to reality - it lacks the punch of the Super AMOLED HD screens seen on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for instance, but it will depend on personal preference as to whether that's a good thing.

We like the vivid colours of Samsung's screens, but we know plenty of people that loathe them too.
The main thing is things like internet browsing; photo viewing and movie sessions are all much, much improved over the iPad 2, and is one of the main reasons to pick up the new iPad.

Design

The new iPad, as we said, is only marginally thicker and a little heavier than the iPad 2, and if you pick it up with no knowledge of the former, you'll likely be mighty impressed.
The rest of the design is premium too - given you can be paying nearly £700 / $AU900 for a top end model, it needs to seem like a worthwhile investment, and it does.

There's also the new Lightning connector on offer, which brings the smaller, faster port for all your needs... unless your need is to use you recently purchased dock, in which case you'll need to fork out for an adaptor.
The curved edges, the oleophobic scratch-proof glass and the aluminium chassis are all the kind of thing that some Android tablets have tried to ape and failed. Of course, many will prefer the feather-light frames of some of the Samsung models but, like the screen, it really comes down to personal preference.

The buttonry on the new iPad is pretty sparse though - we're talking four buttons and that's your lot.
The iconic home button is back once again, despite rumours of its demise, and is easy to reach and hit within the thick bezel.

The rest of the buttons are all clustered tightly together in the top left-hand corner of the new iPad, with the rocker/volume key, the mute/orientation switch and power/lock key all within an inch of one another.
As you can see, Apple has been pretty efficient with the button placement, with all of them performing more than one function. And they say the iPad can't multi-task... tsk.

iphone 5 Review

2013-02-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

Design

We'll begin in the traditional manner: how the thing actually feels in the hand. With the iPhone 5 there will be many types of prospective buyer: the upgrader from the 4 (or more-money-than-sense iPhone 4S upgraders), those tired of their Android handset and those taking their first steps in the smartphone market and want to get one of them iThingies their friend/child has.

Well, all of those picking up the iPhone 5 will have the same reaction: this thing is amazingly light. You've probably heard the numbers by now (20 per cent lighter than the predecessor, as well as beating most of the opposition too at 112g.)
It's an odd sensation, but it actually detracts from the experience when you first pick it up. We've praised the weighty feel of the iPhone in the past, lending it a premium feel in the face of toy-like phones, and it's almost disappointing that Apple decided to join that clan.
However, through extended use this problem quickly disappears, as the overall effect of the phone is still a chassis designed for strength, it just sits more anonymously in the pocket.
You'll obviously see the change in height too – the iPhone 5 stands 123.8mm tall to allow for the larger 4-inch screen. In truth, those not familiar with the iPhone 4S probably wouldn't notice the difference, which is why it's a good move from Apple to include the larger screen if it's not going put people off that hate larger phones.

The decision to stick at 4-inches is Apple's admission that while it recognises people are all over the idea of having more screen real estate to play with it doesn't want to move away from the thumb-friendly nature of the device.
Through a mixture of moving the centre of gravity slightly as well as repositioning the screen within the bezel, it's still possible to scroll your thumb mostly around the whole display one-handed, which Apple is clearly keen to keep hold of.

However, we're not convinced of that argument any more, and the power button was still a little out of reach when using the phone normally, as was anything in the top left-hand corner of the screen.
This was no issue in reality, as scooting the phone down a touch in the palm is a natural action. But if that's the case, then why not offer a 4.3-inch screen at least?
There's more to a phone than a screen these days (although increasingly less and less) and the general construction of the iPhone 5 is excellent to say the least.

We've tested both the ceramic white version and the anodised black, and the two tone effect on the back of the phone is stunning, both visually and under the finger.
It doesn't beat the sheer beauty of the HTC One S, with its micro-arc oxidised back and rounded lines, but it's well-set in second place.

The two sections of pigmented glass at the top and the bottom of the phone add a pleasant effect, and the sapphire glass is meant to be thoroughly durable, to complement the Gorilla Glass on the front.
Apple knows consumers get furious when they drop and iPhone, and is clearly seeking to stop the smashes before they happen with a tougher exterior - although it seems the anodised black version is pretty prone to scratching, with a number of users mentioning chipping on the darker hue.
Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Marketing, reportedly replied to an email from a user pointing out that aluminium will scratch and chip in natural use - and we're also hearing that white iPhone 5 models are being returned through flaking as well.
We kept our black iPhone 5 in a soft pocket in a bag for much of its life, yet saw the following chip with minimal key / coin contact in under a fortnight:

For a device of this premium quality, users will expect it to survive the pocket test, and especially do so for the first two weeks of life. It's a big fail for Apple to expect users to accept that a product can be damaged so easily.
The same industrial band around the outside is in effect again as on the iPhone 4 and 4S, with small sections removed where the antenna joins.
Apple has gone for a more advanced form of antenna here, meaning the days of lost signal are gone, and generally increasing the power of your call connection and GPS lock on too.

There are other big design changes here too: the headphone jack has moved to the bottom of the phone, and the iconic 30-pin connector has been retired in favour of the new Lightning port, giving a headache to all those that have invested in chargers, docks and other accessories over their iPhone lives.
You can buy an adaptor, but it's pricey at £25. And unless you want to keep it permanently attached to the bottom of the iPhone 5 you'll need to buy a few, which is far from ideal.
However, let's not harangue Apple too much for this: a smaller connector is not only easier to use (you can plug the smaller cable in either way round, and the connection feels more solid), but you're rewarded with a thinner and more compact phone to boot.

There's also a small chink of light on the top right hand side of the iPhone 5 - when the screen is illuminated, you can see it under the band if you really, really look for it. It's been seen by a number of users, but is hard to actually replicate unless you mask the screen and hold it at the right angle.
It's again a sign of slightly under-par machining from Apple, but in day to day use it's almost completely invisible.
The decision to move the 3.5mm headphone jack to the bottom is an odd one, as while it allows you to slip the phone into the pocket head-first when listening to music, which is a more natural action, it's a real pain in the posterior for some apps that will only work in landscape a certain way up.
Using it this way means your headphones experience will be one of having to jiggle the jack around two fingers.
It's not the most comfortable way to hold a phone, and even when using the phone in portrait mode, the jack gets in the way somewhat. Plus it's miles away from the volume keys, which makes it hard to change the audio level in the pocket if you don't use the dedicated headphones.
There are other smaller design changes to the iPhone 5 too, such as the iSight front-facing camera moving to the middle and the home button being noticeably more robust to help reduce instances of a broken portal to your home screen.

But enough about what the phone looks like - the killer question is how the thing feels in hand. And we'll sum it up by saying: smooth. It's a little slippery, and we were always worried we would drop the darned thing.
But that's the only negative thing about the design (apart from the low weight initially and scratching aluminium) as it sits in the palm nicely and allows you to do it all with one hand, including hitting the top-mounted power/lock button with ease.
That lock button is actually still loose, as it was on the iPhone 4S, meaning when you shake the phone around you can hear it clicking away, which undoes a lot of the premium feel Apple is going for.
Make no mistake, the iPhone 5 is one of the most beautifully crafted phones out there - but when you're paying £529 up front for the thing, we'd hope this would be the very minimum Apple would be doing.

And while it looks nice, from the front it doesn't really add much to the design of the iPhone - it's certainly not the same as the jaw-dropping design of the iPhone 4 compared to the 3GS... it's another evolution in the iLine. It's not bad, but for those that hoped the iPhone 5 would be another step change there's a good chance they'll be disappointed about the look... until they feel the lovely back on offer.
There was a real chance here for Apple: remove the bezel and give the front of the screen a look that's similar to the OLED TVs from the likes of Samsung or LG… but instead we're treated to the same lines as before.
You always get the feeling that Apple saves what it can for the next iteration of the iPhone, and while there's nothing wrong with the current construction we can see the edge-to-edge screen becoming something amazing on the iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S.

Rovio, Bad Piggies

2012-10-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

Rovio, the game developer that created Angry Birds, is back with a new game. And this one stars the pigs — yes, the green smuggy foes of the angry birds — in the primary role. Rovio's last game, Amazing Alex, didn't really strike a chord with the gamers. It was not really a bad game but the gameplay relied too much on solving puzzle at the expense of fun. This is never a good thing.

ith Bad Piggies, Rovio is returning back to its roots. Yes, there are puzzles in this game and it is significantly different than any Angry Birds game even if the familiar pigs are part of it. But still it is a game rooted in Angry Birds universe. The question is — Does it fly?
We find out...
Music, visuals and story
Story first. We all know that how the pigs salivate at the thought of eggs. They just can't keep themselves away from these eggs, even if it means going to war with the birds.
In Bad Piggies, the greedy green creatures are on an island. As usual they are after eggs. But to reach eggs, the pigs have to build various machines that allow them to pass obstacles or fly so that they can reach places high up on cliffs. This is where you, the player, come in. your job is to build the ultimate flying machine for the pigs from various parts that are available in the game.
Petri Jarvilehto, a senior executive with Rovio puts it like this: "Where Angry Birds was all about destruction, Bad Piggies is all about the joy of construction."
Bad Piggies is a pretty game. Given that it is set in a tropical island, there is lots of green foliage. If you have played any recent Angry Birds game, the visuals in Bad Piggies will make you feel at home. The visual style is same and the backgrounds are as detailed as Rovio makes them. However, the environment is not as destructible as it is in the Angry Birds games. The accompanying music is very good and compliments the gameplay very well.
Gameplay
Rovio set a very high benchmark with Angry Birds. It is a game easy to play and yet complex enough to challenge best players. It is casual and yet fun.
Bad Piggies aims to recreate the same magic, though with a different kind of gameplay. The puzzles in Bad Piggies are slightly more complex compared to those in Angry Birds. The task is to create good machines that pigs can use and to do that players have to carefully think about the role and placement of various items like a box, balloons, TNT and rockets etc. This is a little more difficult than flinging birds from a slingshot.
Another way in which the gameplay has changed is the way points are awarded. In Bad Piggies there is nothing to destruct. Instead the goal is to collect items. If you collect all the available items, you get three stars and if you complete the objective without collecting optional items, you get one star.
Bad Piggies is a lot of fun once you get the hang of tools and components available to you. But at the same time it is not Angry Birds. Primarily, there is one reason why many casual gamers who love Angry Birds may not like Bad Piggies. It is the nature of the game. Whether it is a good thing or bad, the truth is that as human beings we have more fun when we destroy things. Building things is a little tedious.

Angry Birds appeal to many of us because the objective is to flatten the fortification put up by the pigs! Smashing through the wooden planks, putting the black bird in between two stone pillars and killing the hidden pigs with a boom is immensely gratifying. Building flying machines has its own charm but it may not appeal to all.
Also, we did not like the new point system. Unlike the arcade-style point system in Angry Birds, where even destroying a flower yielded 50 or 100 points, in Bad Piggies all you get are stars. The arcade appeal is not there.
If you love playing casual games on your smartphone or tablet, you will likely spend hours with Bad Piggies. It's an enjoyable game, especially once you have crossed a few levels and are familiar with the way things work. Just don't expect it to be Angry Birds.
Cost
PC: $4.95
Mac: $4.99
iOS: $0.99 or $2.99 for HD version
Android: Free (ad-supported)

Download Android Paid Apps For Free

2012-09-13T23:41:00.002-07:00

Download Android Pro Apps For Free : Follow Descripation Below

1. Open Google.com
2. Search Apps you want to download at last add .apk Example : Search Google Maps.apk in google search
3. Open The site That you like.
4.Find The Download Button Where you can Download the App.
5. Download It, Install the App And Open it.

Other Way :
1. Open http://www.4shared.com
2. And Find The Apps That you like at last add .apk
3. If Results Comes Open it and Download Countdown will come Wait for 30 Seconds And After Click On Download
4. If you are in phone then it will ask you where should the app will download.select sdcard/
5. Install The App And Open it,

Other Way :
Now here is the software that make you can download paid apps for free.
BlackMart Alpha For Android.

For the ones who don’t know about it, BlackMart Alpha itself is an android app. You need to search for BlackMart Alpha in the above mentioned file sharing sites. Download the app, transfer and install it on your smartphone.

Once installed, open the BlackMart Alpha. It has also got the same design as android market app on your smartphone.
You will see the list of apps and games in BlackMart Alpha or you can use the search option of BlackMart Alpha to search for any app. Type any app in search an hit enter.
Now you will notice in the search result that the price of the paid apps is struck out. Click on download to download and install it directly on your smartphone.
Download BlackMart Alpha

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Review :

2012-07-20T00:14:00.002-07:00

Samsung is probably trying to apply its smartphones strategy on tablets, as the company is launching Android tablets of varied specification in the Indian market. Starting from 7-inch, the Korean manufacture has a tablet for you in almost every possible size - 7.7-inch, 8.9-inch, and 10.1-inch. The recently launched Galaxy Tab 2 310 is company's first Ice Cream Sandwich tablet to reach India and it is also a device that marks a big shift in company's target market. Instead of going after the iPad buyers, Samsung has realised that it is better to target buyers that don't have the budget to opt for iPad and can compromise a bit on features.
The Galaxy Tab 2 310 comes at almost half the price at which original Galaxy Tab was launched in India and has similar features, but has the reduction in price impacted the overall performance of the device? We find out in this review.

Hardware
Apart from the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, all the Samsung tablets look identical, with just a few aesthetic differences, but that in itself is not essentially a bad thing. The new Galaxy 2 310 looks nice and fits firmly in hand.
The tablet back is made of matte plastic and is resistant to fingerprints unlike the front, which just loves them.

The tablet comes with microSD card and regular SIM card slot on the left, while volume rocker and power button are present on the right. The illustration on the SIM slot is, strangely, not indicative of the way the SIM is supposed to be inserted - we wasted quite a bit of time with that!
There is no Micro-USB port on the device and company has included a proprietary data cum charging port on the bottom that is joined by the stereo speakers and primary mic. The top houses the 3.5mm audio jack and secondary mic.
Overall, Tab 2 310 has been put together very well and the sturdy build is certainly a positive for it.
Display
In order to reduce the pricing of Tab 2, Samsung has opted for 1024x600p PLS display instead of much fancier AMOLED displays. PLS display are said to be brighter than normal LCD and offer better viewing angles, which is true for Tab 2 310 apart from the glare, but make no mistake - it is just your average display.
If you have seen the Retina display on the new iPad or even the Super AMOLED Plus on Galaxy Tab 680, you won't be too happy with PLS on the P3100. The whites are a little yellowish and blacks are also on the grey side.
The touchscreen on the tablet is also prone to smudges and fingerprints.
Software/ User Interface
The handset-makers have have been slow in bringing Android 4.0 smartphones in India but for tablets it has been a totally different story. Manufacturers ranging from Micromax to Zync to Milagrow, all have released multiple ICS tablets in the country. In that respect, Samsung is actually quite late in releasing its ICS tablet, while the relatively unknown makers have flooded the market with their latest ICS offerings.
Coming back to Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 310, this tablet runs on Android 4.0.3 with Touchwiz UX on top. Similar to what we have seen on the smartphone, Ice Cream Sandwich is also a big improvement over Honeycomb on tablets.
The whole experience of using the ICS is pleasant and there is no lag, but surprisingly we saw a lot of shutter on the home-screen.
Another positive of having ICS on the device is the ability to install Chrome browser, which has just come out of beta and certainly is a must-have for every user.
One of the major issues that keep plaguing every Android tablet is the lack of optimised apps, and the story is same with Galaxy Tab 2 310. The number of tablet optimised apps is increasing but it is still quite low when compared to iOS.
On the pre-installed apps front, Samsung has included its own set of mini-apps (such as alarm, calculator, e-mail, music player, etc.) that do not take full screen space and can be overlaid on any running apps.
These mini-apps are very useful at times and can be opened from anywhere on the tablet by simply tapping on the arrow present on the bottom panel.
Other pre-loaded apps include ChatON, Photo Editor, Polaris Office, Readers Hub, World Clock and Video maker.
.

Camera
Samsung has included a 3MP rear camera and VGA front camera on Tab 2 310. While, you won't be using this tablet as your primary imaging device, but still the rear camera leaves a lot to be desired. The quality of images is average and as there is no flash, you will hardly be able to take any decent shots in low-light conditions.
The front camera is usable and you won't have any issues video chats on the tablet.

Performance/ Battery Life

The Galaxy Tab 2 comes with 1GHz TI OMAP dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM, which is more than enough to give decent performance and it succeeds in that. Apart from the occasional hiccups and shutters, the tablet is pretty smooth.
Tab 2 310 also comes with 3G connectivity with voice calling support and it works as anticipated. You can make voice calls, sent text messages and get 3G data, when you have no Wi-Fi access. In a country like India, where you don't find Wi-Fi hotspot that commonly, having 3G on the tablet is certainly a big value addition.
The game playback is decent and games like Temple Run, BackStab, Asphalt 6 and Shadowgun worked perfectly.
The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work just fine, however the Wi-Fi range is less than other tablets in the market.
The tablet comes with 4000 mAh battery, which is same as found in Galaxy Tab 620, and you will get almost two days of battery backup on regular use. However, if you are a 3G network hog, don't expect it to last more than a day on heavy use.
Verdict
Samsung has released a very potent tablet in the form of Galaxy Tab 2 310. At the maximum retail price of Rs. 23,250 (street price is lower), it certainly has quite a few aces up its sleeve like 3G connectivity, voice calling, and Ice Cream Sandwich. However, the app problem is still present and if you want more app choice, bigger display and have no love for 3G, iPad 2 is still a great buy at INR 24,500.
Price: Rs. 23,250
Pros

Pre-loaded Ice Cream Sandwich
3G/Voice calling

Cons

Camera
Limited Wi-Fi range

Ratings (out of 5)
Design: 3
Display: 2.5
Performance: 4
Software: 4
Battery Life: 3.5
Value for Money: 4
Camera: 2.5
Ecosystem: 3.5
Overall: 3.5

Google Nexus 7 Review :

2012-07-20T00:01:00.001-07:00

If he's an android, he's of the latest model, Nexus 7. That's also the name Google Inc. has picked for the first tablet to bear the Google brand. Clearly, its mission is to go out and kill rogue tablets running Google's Android software.
Specifically, the Nexus 7 seems to have been designed to give anyone who bought a Kindle Fire from Amazon.com Inc. or a Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble Inc. a lethal case of buyer's remorse.
The Nexus 7 costs $199, the same that Amazon and Barnes & Noble charge for their tablets. But it's better than theirs in significant ways, as it became clear to me after a couple of days of use. Google announced the tablet last week and is taking pre-orders for delivery in mid-July.

Why is Google targeting the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet? Because they've been relatively successful competitors to Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet, yet Google is getting no benefit from their success.
Google makes its Android operating software available for any device manufacturer to use. Amazon and Barnes & Noble took Android and modified it heavily. Namely, they took out the applications that point to Google's services and the advertising it sells. Instead, the apps point to the companies' own stores.
In other words, these tablets are rogue Androids.

Other tablets, such as Samsung's Galaxy, use the "proper," Googlish version of Android, but they've been more expensive than the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Apparently, Google thought it was time to make a really good, proper Android tablet for $199.
It's succeeded. As far as I can tell from my few days of use so far, the Nexus 7 is a really good value. It's made by AsusTek Computer, a Taiwanese company that was originally planning to sell a similar tablet for $249.
The Nexus 7 is a plain black slab with a screen that's 7 inches on the diagonal - the same size as the Nook and the Fire. The most noticeable feature it has over the competition is a low-resolution camera, facing the user. That means the Nexus 7 can be used for videoconferencing, but it's nearly impossible to use for snapshots. It also has a microphone, which the Fire lacks, making Amazon's device useless even for audio conferencing.
The screen has a higher resolution than the Fire, and colors look more vivid. The whole tablet is slightly thinner and appreciably lighter than the Fire.
Other nifty but invisible hardware upgrades on the Nexus 7 include Bluetooth and GPS chips for use with headsets and navigation software. The tablet even has a chip for near-field communications, which means it can "talk" to some phones and store payment terminals when tapped against them. I used the Nexus 7 to pay for toilet paper in a drugstore.
But the most important difference between the Nexus 7 and its prey is the software. Not only is it running stock Android, but it's also the first device to run the latest version of Android. Google, with its trademark combination of cute and cutthroat, calls it "Jelly Bean."

Stock Android gives Nexus 7 access to a much wider array of applications than its competitors, running into the hundreds of thousands. The diversity also applies to content: You can use a wider range of e-book stores and movie services on the Nexus 7. You can read Kindle books on the Nexus 7, for example, but you can't read Google books on the Kindle.
Google does its best, though, to steer users to its "Play" store for apps, movies, music and books. Buyers even get a $25 credit toward store purchases, partly defraying the cost of the tablet itself.
With a powerful processing chip and plentiful RAM memory, the type available for running programs, the Nexus 7 is fast and slick. You can switch directly from application to application, something that isn't possible with the Fire or Nook. They both force you to exit an application and go to the main menu before jumping into another one.
The chief issue buyers will likely bump into with the Nexus 7 is a lack of storage space. The $199 model has just 8 gigabytes of storage, and a quarter of that is overhead. It has just 5.9 gigabytes actually available. With downloads of a few applications, some songs and one movie, more than half was gone.
There's a step-up model with 16 gigabytes of storage for $249, which I would highly recommend. There's no option to expand storage with a memory card, a feature available with the Nook Tablet and many other Android tablets (but not the Kindle Fire, either).
Early buyers may also find that some applications will not work on it. Because Jelly Bean is the bleeding edge of Android, app developers haven't had time to rewrite their products for it. I encountered this problem with a couple of applications, including a popular video player called MX Player.
Lastly, the size of the screen is going to frustrate some buyers - the ones who really wanted an iPad. The Nexus 7's screen is a nice step from a smartphone screen, but the iPad is a really big step up. Magazines and full-page documents, for example, work great on the iPad screen, but are difficult to view on a 7-inch screen. The iPad also has the best selection and quality of third-party software.
In "Blade Runner," one of the super-strong androids breaks two of the hero's fingers, one by one. The Nexus 7 deserves a better reception.
It's a great entry in the cheap-and-small tablet category, even if it's not perfect. But then again, who is?

Nokia 808 Pureview Review :

2012-07-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

Nokia 808 PureView announced itself with a bang at this year's Mobile World Congress at Barcelona. The phone's 41-megapixel drew attention from industry watchers as well as casual observers.

Nokia did its bit in building the excitement - from teaser images, to sample videos clicked with the 808, and the multi-legged roadshow that previewed the phone all over. The phone generated plenty of buzz, with PureView technology drawing lots of early praise.

With everything in place, Nokia fans and impartial observers alike were looking forward to the release of the phone, hoping against hope that the Nokia 808 would signal awakening of the sleeping Finnish giant.

Does the Nokia 808 force you to wake up and take notice, or would you be tempted to hit the snooze button? Let's find out.

Hardware/ Design
There's nothing spectacular about the front of the Nokia 808. The display takes the bulk of the space on the front, with the earpiece grill and the front-camera just above the Nokia branding on the top.

Just below the screen are three buttons, with no physical separation, such that they appear as one long button instead. The left-most button is (Green) Call/ Answer, the middle-button is Menu, while the right-most is the (Red) Power/ End Call button.

The back of the Nokia 808 PureView has the 41-megapixel sensor with Carl Zeiss optics, a Xenon flash and the loudspeaker, in a casing that rises well above the back.

The left side of the Nokia 808 is completely bare, while the right side features the volume rocker, the slider that can be used to lock/ unlock the phone and the dedicated camera key. The curved corners lead to the mini-HDMI, Micro-USB, mic and 3.5mm jack on the top, and the second microphone plus a lanyard/ wrist strap hole at the bottom.

The curves on the 808 are much needed, as they make the task of holding what is a rather bulky phone, a little bit easier. But the curves can only do so much, and the Nokia 808 feels like a relic from another era. Throw in an external antenna, and the 808 will be right at home in the 1990s.

The weight of the phone does nothing to change that impression. The phone looks and feels heavy, and wherever we went, the weight (169 grams) was almost always the first thing people talked about.

The phone measures 17.95mm thick at the camera - that's the closest a phone has coming to touch the 2-centimetre mark in recent times. We're not sure that's the crown Nokia should be gunning for. That's the price you pay for carrying 41 megapixels in your pocket. But even at its thinnest, the Nokia 808 is 13.95mm.

Contrast this with the Samsung Galaxy S III, which is just 8.6mm at its slimmest. The HTC One X and the iPhone 4S, at 8.9mm and 9.3mm are not too far away either.

The build quality is solid, with high-quality, matte-finish plastic used throughout.

The Nokia 808 PureView is powered by a 1.3GHz, single-core ARM11 processor. It comes with 512MB RAM and 16GB internal storage. Is that enough in today's world of multi-core processors? Read the performance section.

The removable battery (1400 mAh Nokia BV-4D) hides the microSD and Micro-SIM slots.

Display
The Nokia 808 features a 4-inch display with 640x360 resolution. For a phone that aims to compete at the premium end of the segment, that simply isn't good enough.

While the display size is adequate, it is crying out for more pixels - wish we could borrow some from the camera and give them to the display! If you set the disappointing resolution aside, the display is more than adequate.The colour reproduction is accurate and the screen is bright, even outdoors.

Camera

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the main attraction of the Nokia 808 is the 41-megapixel camera combined with the PureView technology, that Nokia claims offers stunning results. So does it deliver? In short, yes!

The Nokia 808 PureView camera operates in two different modes. The first one is the full-resolution mode, where you can click 38-megapixel (4:3) or 34-megapixel (16:9) photographs. Don't go looking for a 41-megapixel mode, because it does not exist.

The Nokia 808 can also click photographs in 2-megapixel (16:9), 3-megapixel (4:3), 5-megapixel and 8-megapixel effective resolutions. This is where the PureView technology earns its money.

The PureView technique involves taking a full image and oversampling it to the effective resolution you've selected. In 16:9 mode, the full image corresponds to 7728x4354 pixels, while 4:3 aspect ration means a 7152x5368 resolution.

Oversampling an image means combining adjacent pixels into one. The more pixels you combine, the more accurately the resultant pixel represents real-world information. With PureView, Nokia seems to have perfected this technology. The resultant images are crisp, with more details and lesser noise.

The optical zoom on Nokia 808 PureView works better than other mobiles or even point-and-shoots. The large sensor means the 808 implements optical zoom by simply cropping the relevant bit, which means there is no upscaling involved, which, in turn, results in better pictures.

Clicking photographs in full-resolution mode is unlike anything you may be used to. There's no zoom at all. If you want to click a distant object, point the camera in the general direction and click away. The 41-megapixel sensor means details or objects not visible to the naked eye will show up in the photograph just fine. Use crop to achieve the same result you would've got with a zoom lens.

But the results aren't always what you may expect. While the camera supports tap to focus, focusing on objects in the distance - ones that you can't even see on the screen - doesn't always work. A large sensor cannot be a replacement of a zoom lens with manual focus, and the results are proof. But that's just nit picking - no one's looking at the 808 to be a DSLR replacement. Not yet, anyways!

The software is excellent, offering enough pre and post processing adjustments/ options to keep you satisfied.

The camera supports full-HD video recording as well as 720p at up to 30fps. The videos, much like the images, are sharp with excellent audio-quality thanks purportedly to Nokia's Rich Recording technology. Nokia claims distortion-free audio at up to 145dB, but we weren't even tempted to put that claim to test.

Overall, the Nokia 808 beats the pants out of any other camera phone and could easily replace your entry-level point-and-shoot cameras as well, for both still as well as video imaging.

Software/ UI
The 808 runs on Nokia Belle (Symbian OS 10.1) One thing you can say about the Symbian's overall look and fell is that other than adding a few new icons and a dash of colour, it hasn't changed much over the years.

While Belle brings new features like a notification bar and free-resizable home widgets, Symbian is not an Operating System designed for touch-devices, and incremental upgrades are not going to change that. We almost forgot - with Nokia Belle, you get six home-screens instead of three. Big whoop.

The browsing experience is average, but inferior to other phones in the similar price-bracket. In terms of apps, the Nokia 808 comes bundled with almost everything you would need - from Twitter to Facebook (both are really just wrappers to Nokia's own Social app), YouTube to Adobe Reader, Shazam to Quickoffice and Mobile Office. Also bundled is a free version of JoikuSpot, which provides mobile hotspot functionality.

You may think all bases are covered, but while the apps are present in name, the functionality available is pretty basic compared to iOS/ Android counterparts. The Twitter app, for example, lacks conversation view, ability to view images inline, and a built-in browser.

Installing new apps isn't a great experience either. Some apps download in the background, but get stuck in a modal "preparing installation" for a few seconds, during which you can't do any other activity!

Our version of 808 PureView let us download 3 paid apps for free, courtesy Nokia. These apps were Angry Birds, Camera Lover Pack and National Geographic Photo Tips.

The highlight of the Nokia 808, camera aside, is the Drive app. Once you move past the question "Why are Maps and Drive two different apps?", this application promises nothing but bundles of joy.

The built-in Drive app offers turn-by-turn navigation in what is perhaps the most complete, easy to use package across all platforms. It offers all the features you expect, in an intuitive interface, with some nice touches thrown in for free.

The counter that displays (in real-time) the amount of data the app has used will help keep those 3G bills in check. Route Overview is pretty convenient, and the intelligent swipe, which scrolls in the general direction where you are headed, is the most practical implementation we've seen.

You can also download maps onto the Nokia 808 and use them without an Internet connection. The Maps are pretty detailed (at least for Delhi), and include important landmarks, commercial establishments etc.

Another interesting app is the one we encountered right at the start. Upon first boot, the Phone switch app offered to import contacts, messages and other data from another Nokia. We were skeptical at first, but the within seconds, the 808 was using Bluetooth to download data from our trusted old Nokia E61.

Contacts, Photos, Notes, Bookmarks, SMS messages (all 626 of them) and, amazingly, 303 recent calls went from the old phone to the new, just like that. This ensured the most painless experience we've ever had while switching phones.

The Phone switch app works with select Nokia phones only.

Performance/ Battery Life
The Nokia 808, unfortunately, is no mean machine. It stutters; gasping for breath often, like an old man climbing stairs he once galloped two at a time. The new shirt hides a body in tatters. Physically, he's worn down by the passage of time, mentally, by his own refusal to move on.

If you'd we rather spell it in black and white, the performance of the Nokia 808 ranges from satisfactory at best, to poor, when compared to the likes of HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S III. The apps take some time to open, the processor can barely keep up with the CPU intensive PureView technology, and lags aren't that uncommon.

The touch response is average, unlikely to win awards for performance, but not the kind you would struggle with either. As noted earlier, the browsing experience is just about satisfactory. Another frustrating aspect of the Nokia 808 is its refusal to join known Wi-Fi networks automatically. We had to manually select the Wi-Fi network every time we switched locations.

The in-built keyboard is frustrating and even after two weeks of using the phone as our primary device, we couldn't type with any kind of speed. Swype, an alternative keyboard, is available in the Nokia Store as a free download, but, if anything, it performs worse than the built-in keyboard. Swype for Symbian seems to be a poor cousin of its Android counterpart.

The call reception and call quality are excellent, like most Nokia phones. Battery life is another area where the Nokia 808 does well. Even though the battery is rated at a modest1400 mAh, you shouldn't have any trouble getting through an entire day on a single charge. Not least because you are unlikely to find any apps that keep you engaged enough!

Verdict
Let's come out and state what everyone's thinking. What if the Nokia 808 was powered by a dual-core processor, had a gig of RAM, and ran Windows 8?

Sadly, a review is not the place to be playing the what-if game. One needs to restrict to what's presented, and the harsh reality, the one that wouldn't please Nokia or its (rapidly thinning) legion of fans one bit, is that this phone is no contender for the smartphone crown.

If you're looking for a camera that can make calls, buy the Nokia 808, because those are the two things it does very well. However, if you're looking for a good email/ browsing/ social/ gaming experience, move on, because Symbian isn't the answer.

Looking beyond the 808, Nokia has promised that the PureView technology will find its way on to other devices, and we look forward to phones that pack in better hardware and OS to back the great camera.
Price: Rs. 33,899

Pros
Camera
Battery Life

Cons
Symbian
Underpowered
Display resolution

Ratings (out of 5)
Design: 3.5
Display: 3
Camera: 5
Performance: 2.5
Software: 2.5
Battery Life: 4
Value for Money: 2.5
Overall: 3

Reliance Launched New Verison Of 3G Tablet Startting From Rs,14,499

2012-07-19T23:36:00.001-07:00

Reliance Communications has announced the launch of the upgraded 3G Tab in the country today. Featuring faster processor, better screen resolution and video calling, the tablet will soon go on sale for Rs. 14,499.The all new Reliance 3G Tab will come with outdated Android 2.3, 1.4GHz processor, 7-inch display with 1024x600p resolution and 512MB of RAM.
The presence of Gingerbread is certainly a downside for the tablet, as market is already filled with several budget tablets with Ice Cream Sandwich on-board.
The tablet also features 3MP rear camera, front camera, and 3G support.
According to the company, it is offering free benefits worth Rs 6250 with every tablet purchase.
Consumers will get free 3GB 3G data for 3 months, 3 months Free video calling for Local and STD to Reliance 3G, Free voice rental for 12 months (Postpaid) along with free Global calling worth Rs. 250, 1 year subscription on McAfee Mobile Security, 2 months free subscription of BigFlix, and a 4GB micro SD card.
Reliance 3G Tab also comes pre-loaded with Documents To Go, BigFlix, Reliance World Online, Reliance TV, Facebook, Twitter and Orkut apps.

"Having redefined the Tab market in the country with an overwhelming response from our existing customers and in line with our endeavor to develop the device eco system, the new 3G TAB is sure to enhance customer experience on our seamless IP enabled superior 3G network bundled with exciting offers at an affordable price point," said Sanjay Behl, Group Head - Brand & Marketing, Reliance Communications Limited.
Key specs

Android 2.3
7-inch display with 1024x600p resolution
1.4GHz processor
512MB of RAM
3MP rear camera
Front camera
3G support

Android Or ios ???

2012-06-09T23:17:00.001-07:00

Android Or ios ?

1. Android = Most of the People Buying Android Mobile Because Android is Latest OS Android Has many Features , Like you can Download Million Apps And Games in Android Market ,

2. ios = ios is a Great OS By Mr, Steve Jobs But if You are new user and Don’t Know, How to Use Smartphone then you need to know in android, If you are not new user you know ios and android then I wanted to buy an ios Device , ios has Million Apps And Games Available in App Store, Warning : If you buy a ios device you can not install apps if you downloded from another site . If you want to Install Apps From Another site you need to Jailbreak Your Apple Device you can search it on google And Find Good Results To Jailbreak Your Device,

3. Thanks For Reading Comment Please.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Leaked Apps Download Here...

2012-05-28T01:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the apps are leaked in samsung galaxy s3 Download Link Are Posted. If you have any problem let us know.
► Accuweather:

• https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...16E850057B!110

► Stock Analog Clock:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...16E850057B!111

► Stock Digital Clock:

• https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3d...E1MN05BbnFOLU0

► Video Player:

• https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...16E850057B!112

► YouTube app:

• http://sdrv.ms/Jo24Nt

► GTalk:

• http://sdrv.ms/Jo2mnp

► FM Radio:

• https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3d...2Q5Y0JxckZPZVU

► Ringtones

Download:

• https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...16E850057B!109

► Wallpapers: (The default LWP is a copy of I9300's, not the the original)

• https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3d...Tc3ZGF3WWkzVzg

MIRROR:

Download- http://ifile.it/g4y79a0

Samsung Galaxy S3 ROM leaked Download It ...

2012-05-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

Only yesterday, wickedly skilled developer Chainfire rooted the S3 before it is released. Today, the Samsung obsessed boys over at SamMobile received a leaked ROM containing all the goodies packed into the upcoming Galaxy S3. Yes, you read it right, a full Android 4.0.4 ROM with the latest iteration of TouchWiz featured on the Galaxy S3 is here!

So, if you’re looking for a way to test or simply use the S3′s TouchWiz interface even before the device itself is released, this is your chance.

Note: this ROM will only work if your device has Android 4.0 ICS, initial reports say

The leaked ROM of the Galaxy S3 that has trickled its way onto XDA’s forum gives you the experience of having Samsung’s latest flagship phone in your hand – way earlier than those 9 million (possibly more now) people who have pre-ordered the much anticipated Android device.

S-Voice, Smart Stay and Pop Up Play are only some of the pretty amazing features of the S III. S-Voice is a Siri-style virtual assistant on your Android phone. With your voice, you can control your device by saying commands like launching the camera, controlling songs, adjusting volumes and you can even yell ‘snooze’ to your S III’s alarm if you want it to go away for a while.
Other features baked into the latest version of TouchWiz is ‘Pop Up Play’, which is a brand new feature from Samsung. It lets you watch HD videos while checking your email or simply chatting with your friends via SMS.

So, if you’re feeling adventurous, and want to grab a taste of the Galaxy S3′s full ROM, you can download the ridiculously large file (768MB) here. But, if you’re only looking for the APK of the S-Voice feature, you can download it below. Initial reports are indicating that Samsung’s cloud is quite selective, and will only work with Samsung devices. Still – worth a try though! Let us know how it goes. We’ve got the downloads coming in one of our team members Galaxy Nexus, so stay tuned for the full ROM review soon!

S Voice APK

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?m7mu6pdt0b63dul
Uploaded.to Mirror: http://uploaded.to/file/itkvz5ej
Dropbox Mirror : http://db.tt/UJHkCZWc
It’s great to see the S3′s features leaked to other Android smartphone with this leaked ROM. The Galaxy Unpacked event in London marked Samsung’s first foray into focusing on the morehuman elements of technology. Most of their announcements have been full on spec hype-fests, but this time around, it was different.
Soon though friend soon – we will have a Galaxy S3 of our own to play with and love, but for now, this ROM is just an appetizer to the feast that is to come in 10 days from now!
Are you going to be giving the S3 ROM a try? How about S Voice? Let us know down below!

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Neo Preview

2012-04-05T06:35:00.001-07:00

It’s taken a while to emerge, but the Sony Ericsson Neo is finally with us. Shipments of this Xperia-branded Android device were delayed by the recent natural disaster in Japan, but now that it’s here we’re pleased to report that it’s been worth the wait. We’re giving you a little taster of what this likable mid-range device is capable of, and we’ll be following it up with the usual exhaustive FoneArena review in the not-too-distant future.

Looking at the Xperia Neo for the first time calls to mind one of its recently-launched brothers, the PlayStation-certified Xperia Play. Front the front, the two phones look very much alike, with only the missing ‘search’ button and enlarged front-facing camera standing out as key differences. The Neo shares the Play’s metal-effect plastic sides, too – although around the back, it’s a different story.

The Neo boasts a cool gradient effect on its battery cover, and the unit we looked at featured a black and metallic blue combination. We wouldn’t begin to suggest that it will be to everyone’s tastes, but it certainly tickled our fancy.

The Neo’s 3.7-inch screen may not be as big as the ones seen on the Play and Arc, but the Bravia Mobile tech Sony Ericsson has used grants impressive image quality. When placed alongside its sibling the Xperia Play – which is saddled with quite a dull screen – the difference is striking.

Which is just as well, because the photos and video captured by the Neo’s 8-megapixel camera need a good display to do them justice. The Exmor-R CMOS back-lit sensor is nothing short of breathtaking, and snaps astonishingly detailed photos. Even at this preview stage, we’re quite happy to say that it’s one of the best mobile phone cameras we’ve ever witnessed. Here are three photo samples taken with the XPERIA Neo.

Like the Arc, the Neo is also capable of recording in 720p HD. Again, the excellent screen allows your movies to really come to life, and the HDMI-out port at the top of the handset means you can hook it up to your telly and share images, videos and even games with the family.

Beating at the heart of this multimedia powerhouse is a fairly humble 1Ghz processor, which could leave some of you feeling disappointed. However, it’s important to remember that Sony Ericsson is positioning this as a mid-range Android handset, so it’s unrealistic to expect it to contain the latest dual-core CPU tech – especially when you consider that you’re getting such a great screen and camera for the price.

The Sony Ericsson-skinned Android 2.3 interface is very much the same as it was on the Play and Arc; the changes that have been made are subtle, and aside from a few annoying ‘bloatware’ applications installed by the manufacturer, it runs swiftly and reasonably crash-free.

As a mid-range Android phone, the Neo is going to be facing off against the likes of the HTC Wildfire S, Samsung Galaxy Ace and the HTC Desire S. It’s certainly more than a match for all of those handsets based on what we’ve seen so far, but as always we’d suggest you wait for our final verdict before splashing our your hard-earned cash.

Pantech Burst Review, I Think Great Phone

2012-04-05T06:14:00.002-07:00

The Pantech Burst is a solid value -- a terrific Super AMOLED display, 4G LTE connectivity and a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, all at a budget smartphone price. It's terrific on the smartphone front; unfortunately, it leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to traditional phone use.
Physically, the Pantech Burst is a very attractive phone. There are interesting design touches, like the ridges on the back, all of which come together to make for a sweet-looking number. Really upping the ante on the aesthetic department is the vibrant 4-inch Super AMOLED display, which brings stunning brightness and clarity.
It weighs just right for handsets of this size, too -- neither too light nor too heavy.
As a phone, performance was split: everything sounded fine on my end, but those I was talking to reported really flat sound. They can understand what I was saying, but it was far from good. I can also hear occasional background distortion on my end. Battery is rated at only 4.5 hours of talk time.
Despite being a budget phone in terms of price, the Burst doesn't really skimp on features. You get all the usual Android 2.3 Gingerbread fare, from the robust messaging capabilities to the preloaded Google Mobile Services to the full load of connectivity offerings (4G LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS). The 1.5GHz dual-core CPU is quite the powerful beast, so the phone zips through most every app with relative ease. The catch is, the battery management seems to be poorly-done on the phone, so expect to want to limit your use of your resources in order to conserve battery life.
Thanks to the powerful CPU and Super AMOLED display, the phone plays movies and games admirably. The 5.0 megapixel camera takes excellent photos and videos -- easily in the same level as the best phone cameras I've tried.
Overall, the Pantech Burst is not perfect, but it's damn good phone and a damn great value. For $49.99 on a new two-year agreement with AT&T, I'll be willing to overlook the flaws.

Samsung Galaxy Note, Awesome Phone

2012-04-05T06:09:00.002-07:00

Quick Review: The Samsung Galaxy Note pushes the size of smartphones to a new extreme. In fact, this could very well end up being a niche device by sheer virtue of being awkwardly large for a good lot of users. Those who appreciate the current trend towards larger smartphone screens will probably love it, though, especially with the powerful hardware and topnotch multimedia performance.

Is it a tablet? Is it a smartphone? After you use the Galaxy Note, you know the answer's the latter. At least, one that doesn't quite fit in your pocket and requires just a little more care to secure in hand. The slim panel and rounded edges add to the premium design feel (which tapers down a bit due to the plastic parts), topped off with a gorgeous 5.3-inch Super AMOLED screen (1,280 x 800 resolution). As you expect, images look bright and vibrant on that large screen, with videos looking gorgeous when playing across the display. The size particularly makes browsing and typing a lot more comfortable compared to smaller devices.
As a phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note managed great call quality on both ends of the line. Sound wasn't perfect (it's not quite landline-level), but there was no discernable noise and everything came through clear. Battery is rated at a generous 26 hours of talk time.
One of the device's selling points is the inclusion of a stylus. While not necessary for regular tasks, you can use it to jot down memos faster than typing (there's a feature that converts handwritten notes to digital text) with great allowance in what you can write (far as I can tell, Samsung's 128 levels of pressure on the stylus seems accurate). The more apps that roll out taking advantage of this, the better, although I wouldn't hedge my bets on that one, given Android's widespread fragmentation. Those who enjoy sketching and illustrations should find this a fun tool.
The rest of the phone works much like any standard Gingerbread handset with TouchWiz running on top. You get robust messaging, solid connectivity offerings (including 4G LTE) and a whole load of preloaded apps (we especially appreciate the ones that take advantage of the S-Pen). Samsung's usual load of Hubs are onboard, too.
A 1.5Ghz dual-core CPU provides the muscle, allowing for speedy navigation and quick execution of apps. Movies run without hitch, too. The pair of cameras -- an 8.0 megapixel in the rear and a 2.0 megapixel in front -- are on par with the optics on Samsung's Galaxy line. Full-size photos and HD video (it can take 1080p) both look amazing.
At the end of the day, the Samsung Galaxy Note isn't a phone for everyone. But for those who want a large display, it sits in a pedestal all its own. Price is steep, though, at $299.99 on a new two-year agreement with AT&T.

PlayStation 4 to Sport Big Graphics Muscle

2012-03-31T21:50:00.003-07:00

Sony (NYSE: SNE) is working on the PlayStation 4, which it calls "Orbis," and plans to release the device in time for the holiday season in 2013, according to a report in Kotaku.

The console can reportedly play 3D games at 1080p resolution, as compared to the PS3's 720p. It apparently won't be backward-compatible with games for the PS3 and will reportedly seek to bar owners from playing used games.
Some developers say they've already received development kits for the Orbis.
"We don't comment on rumors and speculation

The Possible Guts of the PS 4

The PlayStation Orbis will reportedly use an AMD (NYSE: AMD) x64 CPU (central processing unit) and an AMD Southern Islands GPU (graphical processing unit).
The Southern Islands series of GPUs is a family of Radeon GPUs developed by AMD based on the 28 nm manufacturing process. It's branded as the Radeon HD 7000 series. The series supports x86 addressing with unified address space for the CPU and GPU, as well as 64-bit addressing. These and other features could lead to better utilization of the GPU.
It's possible that Sony will indeed use the AMD processors, as "AMD hits a price/performance point that Sony should like and clearly the Cell processor was a huge mistake," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.
Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM (NYSE: IBM). It was first commercially used in the Sony PlayStation 3.
The PlayStation 4's GPU will reportedly be able to display games written for the console at a resolution of up to 4,096 by 2,160. That's four times higher resolution than standard full HD. Screens with this level of resolution have already been unveiled by several vendors, including Sharp, Panasonic and Samsung.
PS4 users will reportedly be able to either download new games off the PlayStation Network (PSN) or purchase them on Blu-Ray discs, much like with PS3.

No Console for Old Games

Sony will reportedly lock out used games on the PS4. Orbis owners who buy games on Blu-Ray discs will apparently have to lock the discs to a single PSN account and save the games to their hard drive, or peg them as "downloaded" in their account history and download them later.
People who purchase pre-owned Blu-Ray discs with PS4 games may be limited to a trial mode or some other restriction of content and will have to pay to have the full game unlocked or registered.
"Given [Sony] are changing processors again, the lack of backward compatibility is likely a given," Enderle said. Sony could opt for emulation of PS3 games, but "given how much of a technology jump they are making, it likely doesn't make sense to try to bridge the platforms. The older games will likely look bad on the new platform anyway."

Keeping the Ecosystem Happy

The PS 4's reported lack of backward compatibility may also have been spurred by other considerations. Game developers and publishers often consider used game sales a threat to their bottom lines because they don't make money off the resale, though they often have to continue providing server space to host the game. Sony's move might win it some goodwill in the creator ecosystem.
"This game resale practice has driven a lot of game makers away from consoles or out of business," Enderle pointed out. "These platforms make money off the games, and the consoles are generally sold at a loss or close to break-even. Without a healthy game ecosystem, they'll fail, and piracy and game resale have nearly killed the console game industry."
That has spurred "every platform to fix [the problem of game resales], so Sony won't be alone," Enderle remarked.