Mobile-Dom

Why I'm not a fan of the OnePlus 2

2015-07-30T14:58:00.003+01:00

Photo credit from GSMArena

To those that Follow me on twitter it's no surprise to you that I was very underwhelmed with the OnePlus 2, but it's hard to explain why in 140 Characters, so here I'm going to expand a bit more on the things I’m not a fan of and why.

First up is the USB-C Port. Now as we already know, USB-C the Port isn’t the same as USB-C W/USB3.1, the

Damn USB-C, it's there,but not quite there.

latter is the all singing all dancing version of USB-C, nothing has this yet (the closest we have so far is the new MacBook and Chromebook Pixel, that use most of this, except at USB3 speeds, or what has retroactively been called, USB3.1 Gen1). The OnePlus 2 though, like the Nokia N1 before it, isn't doing any of this, it hasn't got support for up to 100w, it doesn’t transfer data at the blisteringly fast 10gbps (USB 3.1 Gen2) or 5gbps (USB3.0/3.1 Gen1), no the USB-C port on the OnePlus 2 is USB2 based, that’s right 480mbps, same as microUSB in phones currently. It doesn’t do any of the fancy DisplayPort AltModes stuff either, this is just what you have no, without a flappable connector.

Next up is the Fingerprint Scanner. Am I impressed there is a fingerprint scanner on a device this price? Yes,

Goddamn ugly Fingerprint reader, at least it's fast?

am I impressed at its speed and accuracy? also yes. My problem with the OnePlus 2's fingerprint scanner is in its location, Under the screen. Like the iPhone, Galaxy S series, the One M9+ and countless Chinese devices thee OnePlus 2 houses the scanner under the screen, the problem with that? that's a lot of space under the display taken up, so they decide to take on-screen buttons way (yes you can turn them on in settings, I’ll get to that in a minute) and use the scanner, and 2 capacitive buttons instead for navigation. The OP2 has 2 miniature white slits of light that signify back and recent apps, they're not marked with anything but a small slit of light, one either side of the scanner, in software you can swap what these do, and the scanner, when the device is on, acts as a capacitive home button. This is just nasty, I understand that on some devices having the scanner at the bottom front makes sense, with the 5s and 6, they're small phones, that’s fine, but with the 6+ and OP2, they're 5.5" phones, having such a vital piece of tech at the bottom, meaning most people are going to grip it near the bottom, this huge hunkering piece of metal and glass could come crashing to the floor if you smartphone acrobatics aren’t good, on larger devices, having the scanner on the rear, under the camera sensor, slightly recessed so you can feel it, is a much more elegant solution IMO. Having the scanner on the back also allows you to have less space on the front dedicated to things that could be placed elsewhere, and could help make a 5.5" phone seem smaller than it actually is by removing the bezels where they aren't needed, just like Motorola has recently done with the Moto X Style.

Next up is a little thing but I feel like it's going to annoy me more and more as the months go on, no NFC or Qi, now Qi I can kind of understand why it isn’t in there, the excess heat could degrade the battery faster and OP doesn’t want the RMA of a phone someone left of a Qi pad too long and their battery starts to swell, whatever, but NFC is something else entirely, it's a menial addition in cost, and was actually in their previous phone, and OP stated that they removed it because not a lot of people where using it, great, but what was there really to use it with before? now we have Android Pay coming (which benefits from their fingerprint scanner as well) more and more BT peripherals are coming with NFC tags in them to start the BT handshake so you just tap your phone to your Android Wear watch and it pairs, or your Bluetooth earbuds, in this last year more things are coming with NFC support, and mobile payments are becoming a thing, whether people like them or not, and again, *Their last phone had it* Goddamnit OnePlus.

Lastly for me is just the bland design, I’m not a fan of the front for reasons stated above, and the back

what even is this?

just looks like a shit show to me, that camera module looks to be far too far down the back of the phone, add to that the LED Flash and Laser autofocus modules are in opposing orientations, making it look weird as well, so once more, Goddamnit OnePlus. Are the style swap covers cool? Yes they are, especially the wooden ones.

There is one Feature of the phone I am a fan of (I’m trying to

The singular cool feature.

keep at least a little positive here), it's the [profile switcher, on the left side of the phone there is a switch that has 3 positions, and in software that equates to Android Lollipop's sound profiles, "all notifications" "priority notifications" and "no notifications" . do I wish it was changed? ever so slight, I wish the "priority" mode was actually just a "vibrate" system wide, but its the singular feature of the OP2 I like.

The price is commendable, £239 for the 16gb model, that’s pretty great, though I can’t find a UK price for the 64GB model, but I’m guessing its about £279 or so. so at that price would I buy the Moto X Play or the OnePlus 2?

The X Play of course, because it doesn’t look like crap and compromise in the places that matter to me. OnePlus keep calling the OnePlus 2 a "2016 Flagship Killer" but it doesn’t have some things that matter in 2015, not just in flagships either, it has no quick charging, and no NFC, or Wireless charging. and whilst I couldn't give less of a crap about them, there will be people that moan about the fact it doesn’t have a removable battery of a MicroSD slot. In 2016 flagships we'll most likely see USB-C, but USB-C done right, in 2016 we might even see flagships use that Qualcomm fingerprint tech that is embedded in the digitizer, so we don’t even need to waste space on the front *or* the back.

If this is a 2016 flagship killer, 2016 is going to be a year of boring flagships

*Photo Credit goes to GSMArena from their hands on of the OnePlus 2 at http://www.gsmarena.com/one_plus_2_hands_on-review-1277.php *

Kazam Tornado 348 unboxing

2015-05-13T12:29:00.001+01:00

A Brand not many people know about, Kazam, they're run by 3 Ex-HTC execs and are doing some pretty great stuff in the smartphone world. Last week Kazam turned 2 and they had a competition, win goody bags and the grand prize was a phone, guess who won the phone ;)

Anyway guys, enjoy the unboxing, the review and other coverage is coming soon

Honor Holly launch event (With Video)

2015-02-04T17:21:00.001+00:00

Tonight in London saw Honor launch the next phone in its Honor lineup, The Honor Holly.

The Holly is a pretty nondescript device, with a 5" 720p screen, a quad core processor (of unnamed origin, though I'm pretty sure its a Snapdragon 400) 8mp BSI camera with an F2.0 aperture and its capable of 1080p video recording, it has a 2mp front facing camera and a 2000mAh battery, dual SIMs and an unannounced price.

That price is the interesting bit, the Honor Holly doesn't actually have a price, in a similar vein to how Massdrop works, the more people that pre-order and give honor a price, the lower it will go, which is incredibly interesting, we have never seen a phone be priced this way, and I salute Honor for trying, we'll see how it goes.

Honor is an interesting brand, they seem to be distancing themselves as far away as possible from Huawei, but the Honor Holly does seem like an interesting mid to low range device.

More details to follow.

Huawei Honor 6 Unboxing

2015-01-23T16:26:00.002+00:00

What is this?

Could it be?

YES!

Hello dear friends that haven't forgotten i do YouTube videos and post here, i got an Honor 6 in for a review, the Inexpensive near flagship from Huawei that they're launching under their new "Honor" sub brand, a name people can actually pronounce without effort and will remember.

From the specs this phone has it all, a 5" 1080p IPS screen, an Octa-Core SoC, 3GB of RAM, 16/32GB of storage and a MicroSD slot capable of acccepting up to 64GB of external storage, a 3100mAh battery and glass front and back, all for a measly £250~

I unbox it in this here video, but over the next few days and weeks i should have some more content and a final review up within the next two weeks. Enjoy

Sony Smartwatch 2 SW2 Review

2014-12-28T17:28:00.002+00:00

Launched in the tail end of 2013, the Sony Smartwatch 2 (SW2) is not Sony's most recent wearable, but it's the last in Sony's line of Smartwatches running their own OS. The SW2 is a relatively pretty Smartwatch with a fair few bugs that keeps it from being great.

Scratchy scratch number one

Utilising an aluminium frame, a "scratch resistant" glass and a metal strap the SW2 has all the pieces of the puzzle on paper to make it a gorgeous piece of hardware, unfortunately Sony got to the last hurdle and stumbled, they used capacitive navigation buttons which mimic Android's old style ones, before Android 4.0 ICS, the power button on the side was as mushy as all heck and lastly, the scratch proof glass isn't all that scratch proof. The Aluminium frame is anodised black, and chamferred on the top edges, and just like every device that has ever been chamferred and polished, it scratches and dings so quickly I've forgotten what mine looks like without them.

Now i said that the SW2 uses capacitive buttons that mimic the old style of how android used to do
buttons, but actually, the entire OS feels like a low budget rip off of android mixed in with iOS, to unlock the watch you either press the button on the side to wake it and then press it again to go into the OS to actually do something, or you can press the button to wake it up and swipe up or down, once you're into the OS it's where the iOS comparison comes in, its just a grid of app icons, no folders (not that you'd want them on a screen this small) the home screen per se is this, you can order the alphabetically, or by most used, with recent updates to the OS you were supposed to be able to set an order of icons of whatever you want via the Companion Android app, but i haven't gotten that to work just yet, and that sentence is one you're going to see a lot.

Looking more into the comparison's with android and iOS, there is a notification centre, you slide down from the top of the display whilst in the "homescreen" and you can see all your notifications and you can tap on them to see them, or you can swipe them away to dismiss them, and whilst this mirroring makes learning the watch easy, it's almost the same as using your phone, this interaction doesn't work so great on such a small screen, a 1.6" Transflective LCD screen, it's tiny, the homescreen is 6 icons, 3 across and 2 rows of icons, in the settings menu there is 3 options visible at a time, there is a lot of scrolling and/or a lot of squinting involved. Although this looks a lot like Android, this isn't, at all, it's a java based OS that Sony has developed, and it just shows you how optimisation and the right components can help, Android wear watches use batteries that are between 2x and 3x the size of this one (140mAh) and much more powerful Cortex A series SoCs (Cortex A7 Snapdragon 400) compared to the Cortex M series microprocessor of the SW2, yet they get a day, maybe 2 days if you're lucky and eek it out, the SW2 can easily get 4 days of battery from a charge, which is insane, it's got a battery half or a third the size, but that lasts twice or 4 times as long, I've got to give Sony props where props are due, they didn't go the black and white route like Pebble , but they still manage to get nearly as long a battery as them guys, and I cant complain about it,

relax, that's paint not anything nasty like mould

The Screen of the SW2 is worth mentioning just because its nifty, it's not got great colour reproduction, it's actually pretty washed out, and at 220x176 at 1.6" its noticeably pixelated, even to my crummy eyes, but, the Transflective LCD is actually usable outside without a back light, I'm not quite sure how the technology works, but it definitely works, and i really think that helps make the battery last longer, if it doesn't have to turn the back light on to show me the time it saves battery, and if i only want to see the time, i don't need to waste a chunk of battery by turning the screen on or using motion launch gestures like most Android Wear watches. Again, like most if not all Android ear watches the SW2 uses standard watch straps, but at 24mm watch bands they're pretty wide, And lastly for the positives, it uses MicroUSB for charging and it's waterproof, using microUSB and having a small 140mAh battery this thing charges in no time, using a wall plug its fully charged in what feels like 20 minutes, and via a battery pack I'd say it's only a bit longer at 25 minutes, and the waterproofing, whilst I'm not throwing my watch into a lake to test it, i don't take it off when i wash my hands and when it rains I'm not worried about it getting damaged, if anything I'm more worried about the leather strap i added on than the watch, it's able to take a beating and a soaking.

this flap is near impossible to get open without nails though

Now we get on to the not so positive aspects of the SW2, mainly the OS, applications and bugs, lots and lots of bugs. The SW2 is very limited out of the box, from the watch itself you can just browse really, control is mainly done via the companion app on the phone, and unfortunately for the SW2, the app is terrible, it's slow, clunky, no matter what device i tried it on it dropped frames and just didn't work that well, from the app you can manage your apps or as Sony calls them ,extensions, you can create custom watch faces, reorganise them and set up to 3 watch faces to cycle through on the watch at your will, again, unfortunately the app freezes often, and sometimes forgets the custom watch faces, causing me to have to remake mine, it isn't too much hassle, but its more hassle than it should be. The Extensions is where it gets annoying, Sony's first party extensions are pretty paltry, they have a messaging app, twitter app, Facebook app, an Instagram viewer and some, none are exceptional, they all just work, none of them are great, the twitter app and facebook apps for example can be set to push you updates at a quickest time of 15 minutes, with no option of push, depending on your usage, having @Replies and DMs pushed to you at 15 minute intervals might be good or bad for you, if (like me) you prefer to be notified as soon as something happens, the 15 minute intervals can be annoying as all hell. Another problem with the apps is that you can restrict users that come through on the watch, but as you can guess, it doesn't quite work as expected, and by that ,i mean it barely works at all, it often just lets everyone through or no one through.

So the Companion app sucks, and the apps suck, but the OS has got to be pretty solid after being out for nearly 18 months? Nope. couldn't be more wrong, the watch routinely freezes and resets itself, forcing me to reconnect it to my phone in the blue tooth settings, it forgets the order of my apps, it forgets my custom watch faces and it forgets when I've turned the vibration settings (hangouts gets an intense vibration, gmail gets medium for example) and sometimes it just freezes, the back light will go off and it'll go into the "watch face mode" where it turns off the back light and doesn't accept touch response and trying to power cycle the watch is near impossible, holing the power button in an attempt to cycle it or force a shut down does nothing ,and i ended up waiting for it to reboot itself, one time even waiting nearly an hour with a then useless hunk of metal,glass and leather on my wrist. and even then, the Bluetooth connection isn't that great, constantly disconnecting from my Moto G and Nexus 4 multiple times per day, to the point where i had to stop using Motorola's trusted bluetooth feature, because i was having to enter the password because the watch wouldn't stay connected often enough, forcing a reboot of the watch or if i was lucky a Bluetooth reboot. In my mind i was saying the immortal words said by Chris O'Dowd in the IT Crowd

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

More often than not, it actually fixed the problem.

But after all this, in good conscience i cant recommend anyone buy this watch, it isn't as simple as the pebble, which just mirrors every notification from your watch and lets you turn off the ones you don't want, it isn't as fully featured as Android wear with an always listening mic and proper apps, it lies in this weird middle ground where it lasts forever, but apart from basic things like messages and call notifications (actually,even answering a call requires a Sony device, on any other device it just shows a reject and a reject but send a message button) every thing else has to be downloaded, and when Sony puts so little effort into making great and worthwhile apps, why should third party developers? for example there is no Hangouts app made by Sony, and all the third party ones are pretty terrible, but for someone who uses it as much as i do, i have to live with a terrible app that in turn for using accessibility settings, disables the "Okay Google" Hot word from the homescreen. If Sony doesn't seem to care, why should Third party devs?

Given the choice between this and the SW3, I'd incredibly reluctantly take the SW3 over this, Android wear works better than this, it has a better screen, but more importantly, Android Wear is better than Sony's Smartwatch OS, and is more than likely going to get more support, from both Google and Third party developers, the downsides of the SW3 is that it is horrifically ugly, it doesn't use standard watch bands so you have to use the nasty silicone straps, and the battery lasts about a day and a half, maybe 2 days if you're unlucky.

The SW2 could have been a great Smartwatch, but it wasn't, it was just okay, it cost too much at launch, and even if someone managed to get it at the price that i did (£100 with the black metal strap) i would recommend against it, there are too many great products now, there is the Moto 360, the LG G Watch R, the Pebble Steel, the Asus ZenWatch and more, i wont stop wearing this until i get a new smartwatch, but i still be sad to see this industrial design go.

Motorola Moto G Review

2014-09-06T17:21:00.000+01:00

This review is incredibly late, I know this, you know this and Motorola knows this (but it's only really me that cares it's late) The Motorola Moto G was announced in November 2013 and was made available later that same month 2013, We are now in September 2014 and yesterday Motorola took the wraps off of the 2014 Moto G, whilst I will hopefully be getting one of those soon, this review is of the 2013, Non-LTE version, from someone who has been using it as their daily driver since early January.

The Moto G is a really quite amazing device, launching at £140 (or thereabouts) you got a device that wasn't cringe worthy, the phrase "you get what you pay for" doesn't really apply here, you get far more for your money than you would think, I could sit here and rattle off specs from a list and bore you all, but i wont, I'll go over the most important specs of the phone and how my experiences with them were.

The Screen
At 4.5", the 720p IPS panel on the Moto G is nothing short of amazing at this price point. Is it the most awesome display in the world? of course not, don't be a moron, but, can you get a device with a better screen for £140, dear god no, you have to get to the £200-£300 price range to get similar displays, Motorola cut the right corners the the G, and it's not possible for me to say they cut corners on the screen, not with a straight face anyway.

The 720p resolution on the 4.5" screen means you get a PPI rating of 326, so it's above that 300PPI threshold that means from a normal distance (i.e not 2mm from your eye) it'll look almost identical to an iPhone 4S, its just an inch larger diagonally, colours look pretty good, it obviously wont look at good as something like the Galaxy S5 (because it's AMOLED) and it wont look as great as an HTC One M8 which uses a far more expensive S-LCD panel, the screen on the M8 probably costs more than the entire Moto G, so put it into perspective, the colours look good but not great, the same with touch response, HTC did some magic with the M8 line (including the One Mini 2) and got crazy low screen latency, to make it feel even faster than it is, but again, the One mini 2 costs more than double the Moto G's price, lets not even get to the full sized M8. The Moto G gets bright, i don't have the tools to give yo an actual number, but in daylight i have no issues with it (especially in auto brightness) and at night, it gets dark ,but not dark enough, it still hurts my eyes if i look at it at 3am with hazy eyes, but again, if you take into consideration it's price, this screen shouldn't be able to exist in a phone of this price.

The Cameras
5mp on the back and 1.3mp on the front, nothing ground breaking here and honestly they are the weakest points of the device, specifically the rear camera, we are used to front facing camera's being rubbish and ignored, so the front facing camera here is Galaxy S3/HTC One X quality, not amazing, but not terrible, it's a front facing camera, it shoots 720p video and you'll take selfies with it no matter what, Snapchat will be as prevalent and weird as ever.

No one wants to see this, don't make me take more selfies

The rear camera on the other hand, is pretty terrible, yes it is possible to get some good shots, i have done just that once or twice, but it was in very optimal conditions, HDR was set to firmly be on, there was ample lighting, little wind, and the subject was still, i shot flowers because they are relatively easy to shoot, I'll have shots from the Moto G below, but I'll say one last thing before moving on, Google+ Auto-Awesome has been a lifesaver for this camera for me.

Video on the Moto G is a plus and a minus, it only shoots video at 720p which is a tad disappointing, but, and it's a pretty big but, unless you have a Google Play edition (or forced yours into a Google Play edition like i recently did) you can also shoot 720p 60fps slow motion video, and it actually looks pretty good, it's a bit choppy, but if you realise how little processing power exists in the Moto G, the fact you can shoot slow-mo video at all is pretty amazing, just whatever you do, disable audio, dear god disable video, i don't even know why there is an option for audio when you record slow motion, it sounds like a Cyberman got wrecked on the weekend with a Dalek and had one too many Jägermeister shots.

The Performance
The Snapdragon 400, the MSM8226 specifically is the chip that has blown away many people in the tech community, the SD400 is a lowly chip, a low power part made for cheap devices, it uses 4 ARM cortex A7's, a reference design from ARM and not the custom Krait cores Qualcomm designs, a CPU we are only used to seeing in the cheap SoC's from people like MediaTek and Rockchip, not exactly known for their performance. and it has a GPU made by Qualcomm's in house graphics group (fun fact, Qualcomm hired a group of devs from AMD, AMD makes radeon cards, and the Adreno name is an anagram of Radeon) the Adreno 305 is not a powerful GPU, it's again designed to push lower resolution screens, the highest it can push is 1280x800, so the Moto G is pushing it, but honestly playing with it, you'd never know.

I'm not going to show you benchmark results, because who actually cares, the interesting part is, that even after near 9 months of use, the Moto G is just as fast as the day i got it, i don't know what trickery Motorola has done to the Moto G, but honestly, i find it hard to tell the performance difference doing normal things between this and my Nexus 4. It is possible to bog the Moto G down, the 1.2Ghz SD400 isn't as fast as the 2.5Ghz SD800, it just isn't, but i don't notice unless i try to do some gaming, games like Flappy Bird, Swing copters, Angry birds etc will all play will ease, not even a stutter, but Asphalt 8, Deus Ex: The Fall, and Batman Arkham Origins will suffer, but if you buy an inexpensive phone and are expecting to play games that in some cases have near console quality, you are insane. Likewise 1GB of RAM helps the Moto G get it's price down, but doesn't help it with multi-tasking, it's gotten better with the 4.4.4 KitKat update, but don't expect to have Skype, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and swing copters all in RAM, you will be kicked out quite often, keep you expectations levelled, the Moto G is a marvel, but it's not a miracle worker.

The Battery
It's pretty dope, that's all i need to say really, the non-removable 2070mAh Lithium-ion battery lasts all day, from when i wake up at 8am until i go to sleep at near midnight, unless i am streaming Google play music all day, i have no worries that it'll make it through the day, and i don't know if this is just me, but it also seems to charge quite quickly, in about an hour and 15 minutes i can go from 5% all the way to 100%. 4 hours screen on time is no problem with the Moto G, and all of this is when i have my Sony Smartwatch 2 connected, which uses the far less efficient Bluetooth 3.0 rather than the Bluetooth 4 with LE that most new wearables are coming out with, It uses a standard MicroUSB 2.0 connector, so you can use any charger you want with it, also any battery pack you could ever want, as long as it has a MicroUSB connector/a USB port for you to add a MicroUSB cable to, Ah standards, wouldn't it be great if everyone adhered to them.

The Rest
Motorola hit a home run with the Moto G, it's their best selling smartphone, ever, and you can see why, the Moto G is downright amazing for it's price, having a decent sized screen with acceptable colour reproduction and (for the price) a high resolution screen, it's plenty fast, and it's stayed fast, even with a load of junk on my phone it's never gotten unbearably slow, so kudos to Motorola on whatever trickery they imparted on the Moto G, because this doesn't feel like a £140 smartphone, and it most certainly doesn't feel like a £140 smartphone that has been used and abused for nearly 9 months.

The build quality is astounding for the price, it's no HTC One M8 which is 90% aluminium, no the Moto G is all plastic, the rear shells are replaceable, mine came with the black shell on and i got bored so i replaced it with the pink shell that i got free in the box, there is no creaking, no flexing, no torquing or anything, the Moto G is just a solidly built device, again, I'm going to sound like a broken record, this is built like a device that far exceeds it's price tag. The dimple on the back is just perfect, whoever thought about it at Motorola, give the man (or Woman) a raise, because its perfect, its right where my index finger sits, and if Motorola where to ever do a fingerprint scanner, they should put it there, do a tap and hold scanner like Apple (and now Huawei) so there is no swiping nonsense, just tap and unlock, perfect placement.

If you really want to know the dimensions i can tell you them, its 130mm tall, 66mm wide and 11.6mm thick, and you know what? it means jack all, the Moto G feels pretty damn perfect in the hand, there are curves in all the correct places and the weight (143g) is distributed evenly, its not overly top or bottom heavy, it doesn't feel like a lead weight and it doesn't feel unsubstantial, it just feels right.

Wrapping up
Would i recommend the Moto G? no, but not because it's a bad phone, not by any stretch of the imagination, i wouldn't recommend this Moto G, the 3G one, because there is this exact same phone now available for a slightly increased price that includes 4G LTE and it includes a MicroSD slot (to complement the 8GB internal storage) and as of yesterday, the 2014 Moto G got announced, it's a 5" 720p screen, its got improved cameras 8mp on the back and 2mp on the front, it's got front facing STEREO speakers (think of Boomsound from HTC and whatever Sony calls it on the Z2/Z3/Z3c) and that also has a MicroSD card slot, but this has 8 or 16GB of storage, but no LTE, pick your poison, so that's why i wouldn't recommend this Moto G, but as a range and as a family in general, if you're on a budget or just no longer want to buy phones on contract, this is bloody amazing and it's going to be hard to recommend something else.

IFA 2014: Sony

2014-09-04T14:19:00.000+01:00

Another 6 months passes and another Sony flagship is released this time its the Xperia Z3 (the 4th Xperia Z phone, following the Z,Z1,Z2) it's compact sibling the Z3 Compact, which unlike other minis does a smaller phone properly, and last but not least Sony doing what Sony does best, a great product with a terrible name, the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, yup, that's the official name folks.

Xperia Z3

Image credit goes to the Verge from the Xperia Z3 hands on

The Xperia Z3 is everything the Z2 should have been, which in and of itself was everything the Z1 should have been, which is what the Z should have been, so less than 2 years after the Zs first introduction (just) , we have the Z3.

With a much more refined design, a slightly tweaked screen (the thing they majorly fixed with the Z2 over previous Sony phones) improved front stereo speakers and updates to the battery and software, the Xperia Z3 has very much been about refinement over innovation, Sony had the right idea with the "omni-Balance" design with the Original Z,but needed time to smooth out the bumps, the Z1,Z2 and now Z3 seem to have done that for them, if you put them all next to each other, you can tell they all come from the same OEM, and internally 2 of them are nearly identical and one having only 1GB less of RAM.

Gone are the big bulky flaps that extend all the way to the front and back, now we have smaller flaps that feel like they were designed to fit in, rather than just tweaked to fit the rest of the phone, since the Z1 Sony has gotten rid of the flap over the headphone jack and i am pleased to report that it's still gone here, the Micro USB, Micro SD and Micro SIM slots are all covered behind flaps though, but Sony still has their magnetic charging port, and if i were you, I'd pick up either a microUSB attachment for it, or just the magnetic dock to make your life easier, pseudo-wireless charging.

the 5.2" 1920x1080p screen from the Xperia Z2 is here and they've somehow tweaked it even more to brighten it up, colours still pop and viewing angle issues on Sony devices are a thing of the past, it could still get a bit brighter I've heard, but the display is no longer a sore point for Sony phones. A Snapdragon 801 clocked at 2.5Ghz is present, so 4 Krait 400 CPU cores and an Adreno 330 GPU, easily enough power to push the Z3's screen without issue and play even demanding games with ease. Sony has bought the 20.7MP Exmor R sensor back with the Z3 but made yet more improvements on the software side to improve low light photography, they've managed to get the camera to register ISO up to a whopping 12,800, my dedicated camera even go that high (probably). it still Shoots 4K, and the (probably) wont be able to cook bacon on the back of this one after 30 seconds.

The Battery is still a sealed unit, a non-removable 3100mAh battery pack that Sony claims will last you 2 days of use, while I'm usually sceptical of OEM battery claims, Sony usually seems to get pretty close to their claims, there isn't any fast charge like Samsung or Oppo use on their flagship phones, so that massive battery will still take a good while to charge. That battery is no small feat, seeing as the Z3 is only a measly 7.3mm thin (the iPhone 5S is 7.6mm) and weighs in at a dainty 152g. Android 4.4.4 with Sony's Xperia UI on top are back again, the Xperia UI is pretty unobtrusive, it still gets in the way here and there, but its not as much of a visual departure as Sense or Touchwiz from stock.

No Pricing, but Sony said it should be available in Japan "and other regions" in Autumn (fall for you American folk).

Xperia Z3 Compact

Image credit goes to the Verge on the Xperia Z3 Compact Hands on

Take everything i just told you about the Flagship Z line, and shrink it to a size normal hands can actually use, that is the Z compact line, the Z3 Compact builds on last years Z1 Compact, with a bigger screen (but not a bigger body) a better battery,better SoC and better camera optimisations.

The Xperia Z3 Compact is just that, it's a more compact Z3, the device only really differs in 2 areas: the screen, and the battery. the screen has been swapped out for a 4.6" 720p panel that from what i read looks astonishing, the drop in pixel density isn't really an issue when everything looks as nice as it does, and the battery going from 3100mAh to 2600mAh, now you'd think that losing 500mAh will take a massive hit on battery life right?

Wrong.

Sony still is estimating 2 days of use, because the lower resolution screen off sets the smaller battery, and because of the lower resolution screen, the GPU doesn't have to work at hard, therefore saving you power, Thanks Sony.

The Same 3GB of RAM, the Same Snapdragon 801 at 2.5Ghz, the Same 20.7MP camera, are you getting the gist here? the only major depart is the frame is no longer metal, but a translucent plastic, a big deal for some but not for others, i don't really mind but then again i haven't had the chance to hold one, other technology reviewers at IFA with hands on have said there is no issue with how it feels.

No pricing or release as always, but you can probably expect it pretty soon, i mean hey, with Sony's 6 month Flagship deadline we're going to see the Z4 at MWC in Barcelona, they have to sell this before they show that, I'd say November time we will see the Z3 and the Z3 Compact go on sale.

Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact

Image Credit goes to the Verge for their Z3 Tablet compact
hands on

I think you can probably guess what I'm going to say here, take the Xperia Z3 and scale it up to 8 inches, while that is mostly true, there are a few more differences here, the camera on the back is downgraded to 8mp (don't take photos on your tablet) snapper and the front is a 2mp camera that's acceptable for Video calls, but you're probably going to take selfies on it, the batter has been given a boost to 4500mAh for a battery life of 13 hours.

All the Xperia Devices I've talked about so far are waterproof for up to 30 minutes at 1.5m which is around 5ft ish, and even though they have to use flaps to gain their waterproofing, Sony's Omnibalance design is very generous is not making it look like crap, quite the opposite really, the Sony devices are staggeringly gorgeous and these new ones feel even better than they look from what i hear.

Again a trend for Sony seems to be engineering marvels, the Z3 Tablet Compact has a 4500mAh battery, yet only weighs in at 270g, even crazier? this thing is sub 7mm thin! at 6.4mm this tablet could probably give you a shave if you aren't careful enough, along with engineering marvels Sony seems to go hand with terrible naming and the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact most certainly fits there, unfortunately, at least it isn't the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch,so there is that.

Did i also mention that phone calls and texts are a thing on the Z3TC? yeah they are, but please don't hold this up to your ear.

As you're probably used to now, now price or release date, but expect it to be soon after/with the Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact.

Smart watch 3

Image credit goes to Sony, this is from the
SW3 landing page

Those of you that follow me on Twitter or Google+ know that i have and use a Sony Smartwatch 2 on a daily basis, i love it apart from 2 minor annoyances, neither stop me using it, but they'd be welcome improvements.

The first is the screen, the SW2 has a 1.6" 220x176 Transflective LCD screen, it's an okay screen, and it's pretty amazing is broad daylight without the back light on, but its noticeably pixelated and the fact its a rectangle kind of irks me. The second annoyance i have with the SW2 was the OS it used, its a special OS made by Sony to run on the SW2, it's meant to mimic android in certain ways, it even has a home,back and menu button, a notification pull down and more, but the fact is, it just wasn't very good, it's functional and easy to use ,but its not particularly full featured, and people need to make apps for the watch, for instance i use Hangouts a lot, but there isn't a first party app by Sony for hangouts, and every single 3rd party on sucks, I've settled on the best one of a crap bunch, but thats not exactly high praise.

With the Smartwatch 3, Sony fixed those 2 main annoyances i had with the Smartwatch 2, they swapped out the 220x176 1.6" screen for a 1.6" 320x320 Transflective screen, Yes! a square screen and a higher resolution one at that, they've apparently also increased the colour reproduction when the back light is on, a gripe many had with the SW2 but one that didn't bother me too much. They also changed the software, they moved to the much more functional and awesome Android Wear from their proprietary Smartwatch OS, there is now an always on mic, listening for you to say "OK Google" and open up Google voice search, Google Now is of course present with its predictive abilities, scaring the bejeebus out of some people, but i enjoy it, and of course, good hangouts integration along with good Gmail integration, Google Play Music All Access integration and much more, all the stuff i use and want.

So you'd think I'd be ecstatic about the Smartwatch 3 wouldn't you, i mean after all they fixed the two things that bothered, me, what could go wrong?

They messed what didn't need to be messed with, that's what.

Sony changed the design, that gorgeous Aluminium body with chamfered top edges, that nice big (if slightly mushy) power button on the right edge have been replaced by a cheap looking, nasty silicone strap, and the watch itself is now a module that you just pop out, it's just pretty nasty, it looks like something you'd give to an 8 year old, "My first smartwatch" or something like that, they changed the one thing no one asked them to change, the SW2 looks lovely from a hardware perspective, you could throw any strap you wanted on there thank to the 24mm band, you cant do that any more, silly,nasty, neon Sony silicone straps now, the classy SW2 has gone to crap with this, with the leather band i can wear my SW2 with a nice suit, there is not a single place i could wear this apart from the beach where it wouldn't look out of place, what a step down Sony, I'm disappointed (not that you care, you're a company and I'm a single blogger) i was gearing up to sell my SW2 for the SW3, but after this, it looks like I'm saving up for an Asus ZenWatch instead.

Like every other Android wear watch, the Sony Smartwatch 3 utilises a Snapdragon 400 (Cortex A7) and 512mb of RAM, it has a 410mAh which while sounding unimpressive is the largest Android wear battery is my memory serves me well (it probably doesn't) it has the usual pedometer apps, Sony adds a Walkman app like it does with everything else, price was 160 Euros , no release date if i remember correctly.

Smartband Talk

Image credit to Sony from the Smartband
Talk landing page

Picture the Gear fit from Samsung in your mind, now take that gorgeous curved OLED screen out and slap a curved E-Ink one in there, now scratch out the Samsung Name and write Sony in with a sharpie, you've got the Smartband Talk.

Now that is a bit mean, you can actually take calls on the Smartband Talk, seeing as its in the name, it's a fitness tracker like a fitbit flex, but a curved E-Ink screen, it's kind of cool, and i guess if you didn't want a fully fledged smartwatch ,something like this might be cool

At 24g you'll barely feel it and at 9.5mm you might not even realise its there, the 1.4" Curved E-ink screen has a resolution of 296x128, so not the highest, but most certainly high enough for reading emails and texts on this and telling you who is calling.

The Smartband Talk is also a sleep tracker as well as a fitness tracker, like all the other new wearable trackers, forgive if i seem a bit bored on this, because i am, so lets move on, No price or release yet.

Xperia E3
The Xperia E3 is a forgettable mid range phone, a 4.5" WVGA Screen 5MP rear camera, Snapdragon 400 and 1GB of RAM, not much to say, it'll probably be super cheap, sub 150 euros is my guess

Lens Cameras, we got more of them
Remember those lens camera's we started selling last year? sure you do the point and shoot that clips on your phone and took forever to do almost anything, you don't? oh well, we have 2 new models, the QX1 and the QX30, the QX30 is basically last years QX10 but with a nice super zoom lens, take your iPhone and stand it up, that's how tall the lens is when it's fully extended.

And the QX1, well you know you have one of our pretty awesome NEW /Alpha Cameras? take the important "camera" bits out of there and put it in a cylinder now that clips to your phone, and you Can use your super expensive lenses with your phone, because , why not.

IFA 2014 : Samsung

2014-09-04T01:56:00.000+01:00

The behemoth that is Samsung had their IFA 2014 event today and oh boy, there was some stuff shown that made my trousers a bit tight (Looking at you Note 4) there were also some things that made me wish i was blind, but just as I've done with Asus I'm going to write about the important things they showed today.

Galaxy Note 4

Image credit goes to Samsung from the Note 4 landing page

The Note 4 was a product we all knew were coming, and we knew most of its specifications because a lot of it had leaked a while before hand.

The Galaxy Note 4 from Samsung continues the trend of just owning the phablet (god i hate that word) market, and it really shows here, the 5.7" 1080p S-AMOLED panel form the Note 3 has been swapped out for a 1440p panel of the Same size and technology, and from hands on from people in the industry i trust (namely Taylor Martin from pocketnow.com) it looks pretty damn amazing, and doesn't suffer the issues that LG had with the G3,namely low contrast and brightness, though being a S-AMOLED screen the colours are incredibly vivid and over saturated, though that happen to be a feature i like.

The Note 4 continues the trend of Note devices in being the most powerful in Samsung's line up, the Note 4 comes in two version, one packing the new Snapdragon 805, and the other being the brand new, not used in anything else Exynos 5 Octa 5433, now there is a bit of controversy at the moment, as the 5433 is so new we don't actually know anything about it, some are saying its an updated 5430 (the 5430 is inside the Galaxy Alpha in case you were wondering) which is made of 4 Cortex A15's and 4 Cortex A7's with a Mali-T628-MP6 GPU in the Alpha to the exact same SoC but with the update Mali-T760 GPU to deal with the QHD screen, while others are claiming that the 5433 is a new 64bit chip using 4 Cortex A53's and 4 Cortex A57's, we just dont know as it's so new, but given the naming is in the 54XX series, I'm guessing its still a 32Bit A15/A7 cluster. the Snapdragon 805 is just a monster (though losing to the 5433) with 4 Krait 450 CPU cores and an Adreno 420 GPU, the Snapdragon 805 allows phones with 1440p displays function as fluid and as fast as 1080p devices running on Snapdragon 801's.

The body of the Note 4 is a big step up for Samsung, gone is the faux metal trim of Galaxy devices of times past, just like the Galaxy Alpha, the Note 4 has an Aluminium frame and core, with Gorilla glass 3 covering the 1440p S-AMOLED screen, and the faux leather is returning on the back, but gone is the faux leather stitching, the fake leather now goes all the way to the edge and meets the actual metal frame, gone is the Bulky but useful MicroUSB 3.0 port, replaced by the inferior, though much less clunky MicroUSB 2.0 port, though Samsung has added a bit of charging magic to make that monstrous 3220mAh (removable) battery charge 50% in just 30 minutes, similar to the VOOC Charging in the Oppo Find 7 and 7a.

The Cameras have been significantly overhauled, the rear shooter is now a 16MP module (we aren't sure if it is ISOCELL or not) with "Smart OIS" which is a mix of digital and optical image stabilisation to give the best results, shoots 4K like the Note 3 did, the front facing camera is now 3.7MP and Samsung boasts an F1.9 aperture to make low light selfies slightly less of a muddled blur, it also happens to shoot 1080p video, speaking of selfies, on the stage, the 3 presenters (one of which being former Gadget show host Rachel Riley) took an incredibly awkward wide angle selfie with the audience, the result looked good, but in the same way that you look weird taking a selfie, you look weird taking a selfie and moving it left and right to get more things in the picture.

The S Pen is the other thing to be pretty majorly overhauled here at IFA with the Note 4, it's doubled its pressure sensitivity to 2048 levels of pressure, ass opposed to the 1024 from the Note 3, it's a tab thinner, and the colour of the S Pen is the same as the colour of your Note 4, so Pink Note 4, Pink S Pen, Multi-window has been changed pretty drastically, no longer called up from a tap and hold of the back button, Multi-windows can be done completely via S Pen now, so you no longer break the flow of what you are doing, you can now close apps into little chat head type bubbles and move them around, though I'd never use them, they seem to be legitimate improvements. Speaking of things I'd never use, the fingerprint scanner in all of its awkward swipe-ness is here and so if the heart rate monitor round back under the camera, they're the same as before, and i honestly dont have a lot to say on either of them.

Android 4.4.4 with the latest version of Touchwiz is on the Note 4, and one subtle but awesome change for me is the multi-tasking menu, whereas Samsung changed it for changes sake on the S5, taking the standard task switcher and basically adding borders before, Samsung has essentially aped the Android L task switcher for the Note 4 and it looks every bit as awesome as it does on L, I'm not a fan of pretty much anything Samsung does with their UI, but the task switcher is something i dearly miss going from the L preview back to Kit Kat.

No price, but its coming to every Carrier in North America, and I'm guessing its going everywhere the Note 3 did and more, so expect to see these, well everywhere

Galaxy Note...Edge?

Image credit goes to GSMArena.com and their Note Edge hands on

The Galaxy Note Edge is a bit of a weird one, Take the Galaxy Note 4, that absolute monster that samsung just announced, now take a blow torch to the right side of the screen, now melt it half way, and you've got the edge, yes, Samsung finally is going to ship one of the crazy things they showed off at CES in like 2012.

Yes, the Note Edge utilises one of Samsung's Youm flexible displays, its a 2560x1600 display, but the "main display" e.g the flat bit stops at 1440 pixels wide, so the last 160 pixels is where the screen curves off the edge, effectively making the Note Edge have the same usable screen real estate at the 5.7" 2560x1440p Note 4.

Apart from the curve on the screen, which has some nifty software to let you use it when the rest of the screen is off, for a news ticker, or as an alarm clock, and in some apps the I chrome moves to the curve so you can use the full display for the important stuff, this is most apparent in the camera application where all the controls are off on the curve instead of being overlaid on the screen viewfinder.

No pricing details yet, but very surprisingly we know where (at least in north America) it's being released, on all 4 nationwide carriers, so AT&T,T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint are all getting the Note 4 and the Note Edge.

Gear S

Image Credit goes to Samsung from the Samsung News site

What's that? you didn't ask for yet another Smart watch that only works with Samsung phones? what you also didn't ask for another Tizen powered smart watch? and you didn't ask for a huge monstrosity that takes up your entire wrist? well then stop reading here.

The Gear S by Samsung is everything no-one asked for, It's another Tizen powered Smart watch, that pairs with Samsung phones only and its just bloody massive, a 2" Curved Super AMOLED display at 360x480 that looks ridiculous on the wrists of men I've seen it on and it looks like futuristic handcuffs on the women I've seen it on, there is also a keyboard, oh yes, a keyboard on your 2" screen on your wrist, because everyone needs that, the keyboard is in an exclusive partnership with Fleksy which has some pretty amazing prediction algorithms.

It's a Dual-Core system, but they aren't naming who makes the SoC (though it's probably an in house Exynos 3 Dual or something), 512mb of RAM and 4GB of local storage, and the pretty amazing part about all this? there is a cellular radio in there, yes! you can turn the bloody watch over and slip in your SIM card, because why not, you re already replying to Emails and texts from your wrist, why not add in a radio and a mic and take calls as well,at least there is no camera this time. Heart rate sensor is still on the back just with the Gear 2,Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit, Gear Live and Gear PleaseGiveMeANewName , it also seems to use the same terrible charging mechanism that has literally broken Gear Lives and Gear 2's , so there is that to look forward to.

They also announced the Gear Circle, which unlike its name suggests ,is not a circular Gear Smart watch, its a freaking bluetooth headset that wraps around the neck into a circle, kinda like the LG tones, the "brains" of the system wrap around the back of the neck and the two ear buds have magnets in the tops that clasp together at the front of the neck.

And all of this begs the question, who looks stupider, people that wear LG tones or people that will wear Gear Circles?

No price or release date, and I'm honestly not sure why Samsung even made this.

Gear VR

Image Credit goes to Samsung from the Samsung News site

So Samsung made a VR headset, and it doesn't look like crap, which is a major plus, it's also wireless, another major plus and it uses your phone to power it and not an external computer, a huge plus, are you now ready for the negative that rips all those good moments from your hands? dont worry I'll let you say goodbye.

you done? Good

It only works with the Note 4, not the Note Edge, not the Note 3, not the Galaxy Alpha, not the Galaxy S5, it only bloody works with one of their phones, no no no no no, it only works with one of their phones, whilst i can kind of understand Samsung locking you into their phones with their smart watches, locking you into a single model for their VR unit is stupid to me, a VR headset is a niche product to begin with, and as big as the note line is, i still see far more Galaxy S's and iPhones than i see Notes, so you're creating an even smaller user base, what do you reckon is the percentage of people who buy Galaxy Notes and Also want a VR headset powered by their phone are? i cant imagine its very large.

There is a good thing about the Gear VR though, it's made in collaboration with Oculus, the people behind the Rift,and people love the rift, a major difference between the two? the oculus rift is tethered to your computer in many many ways, for power and for feeding the signal through to do whatever you want to do, whether that's play a game or watch a film, the Gear VR is a standalone product, you slot your New Note 4 into the housing and shove it on your head,that's it, another thing the Gear VR has over the Rift DK2 is the screen, for a long time Oculus has been saying we need higher resolution (preferably OLED displays) for VR for low latency and little to no pixelation, and although the 1080p S-AMOLED panel in the DK2 in pretty amazing (it's also quite literally a Note Display underneath) the 1440p S-AMOLED screen in the Note 4 is way better, smaller pixels so its more immersive, a higher refresh rate so less motion blur, QHD (or maybe even 4K) is whats needed for VR not to suck, we'll see how well the Gear VR does when people actually get their hands on it, but so far, the first impressions are positive.

There is a Bluetooth touch pad on the side of the Gear VR and a back and home button as well, on top is a focus ring for the lenses, a resizable head strap is there and that's it, Samsung/Oculus made the Note 4 a special "VR Mode" to go into when it's docked which is cool, but only time will tell if this will be a successful product.

As you have probably guessed by now, no pricing or release date info but we will know soon enough.

And last but not least... Swarovski?
Your eyes aren't deceiving you, i wrote Swarovski, the crystal company, yes Samsung literally excretes so much money they decided they can offer Swarovski backs for the Note 4 and a Swarovski encrusted Gear S, both are as gaudy and tacky as they sound, but here are photos of both so you can make an informed decision.

Image Credit goes to Phone Arena

Image credit goes to Dan Siefert from the Verge

IFA 2014 : Asus

2014-09-03T22:58:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again, Time for next series of press conferences for companies to show what they've got up their sleeves, except this one isnt in Las Vegas, or Barcelona, no this one is in Berlin, the IFA show in Berlin is a pretty Amazing show that has always shown some pretty amazing things.

This post here is about Asus' event, with Samsung's and Sony's coming in a separate post.

The ZenWatch

Image credit to Asus from the ZenWatch spec page

The ZenWatch is Asus' first Android Wear device, Asus promised us the best looking Android Wear watch yet, and hoestly, i think they delivered, to me it absolutely destroys the Gear Live and G Watch in which it is priced similarly to in design and build, and it even holds its own with the Moto 360 and the recently announced LG G Watch R (Seriously LG, sort your stuff out, thats a terrible name) and although many will say that the G Watch R looks better, i think its important to understand Asus' phrasing here, its the best android wear watch ever built , the LG G Watch R might look better, but all we have ever seen of the LG GWR is renders, not a single actual image, and in my opinion, despite not being circular, it looks on par with the Moto 360 ( im not a fan of the GWR) it's classy in an understated way, it looks like a modern analogue watch, which im a fan of, the thing i'm not too much of a fan of? the clasp, though luckily the strap is a standard (i think 22mm) band that can easily be replaced by anything of your choice.

It's powered by the exact same internals as other Android Wear watches, a Snapdragon 400 SoC, 512mb of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, it has a 1.63" 320x320 S-AMOLED screen, probably sourced from Samsung. Android Wear is Android Wear, you cant change the UI but Asus has a few touches that arent found on other Android Wear watches, things like double tapping the screen will launch a "find my phone" alarm that lets you play marco polo with your phone to find it, another is covering the screen with your palm to mute an incoming call (a feature that on the LG G Watch for instance just puts the device into low power mode) Asus also put in a trusted devices mode (which i believe only works with ZenFones) similar to how motorola has with theirs that lets you bypass the lockscreen when your smartwatch is connected, Android wear was set to do this already when Android L officially launches later this year.

It's going to cost $199 and 199 Euros, we dont have a UK price, but if i had to guess, i'd say £150.

ZenBook UX305

Image credit to PC World.com

The Asus ZenBook UX305 is truly a masterpiece, it's an Ultrabook, like all other Zenbooks, and this one is mighty powerful as well as pretty, it has a 13.3" 3200x1800 IPS screen that is Matte, so you know you can actually see it outdoors.

It's powered by the brand new, not even actually out yet Intel Core M platform based on broadwell, the sucessor to Haswell, we dont know how much RAM it'll be able to handle, but my guess is 4/8GB, its come with 128GB or 256GB SSD's probably the PCIe variety.

No Pricing or availability, but im guessing sometime next year because Broadwell isnt coming out until then.

EeeBook X205

Image credit to PCWorld.com

The EeeBook X205 is a netbook, yes a netbook, but hopefully this new breed of netbook wont suck like the old ones did,There is a 11.6" 1366x768 display, likely a TN panel to keep costs down, 2GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of eMMC storage and a quad-core intel Atom Bay-Trail processor, and Windows 8.1 with Bing.

What is Windows 8.1 With Bing you ask? well it's windows 8.1 like you know (and most people except me loathe) but with Bing, microst's search engine set as the default...that you can change, Win8.1 W/Bing is cheaper than standard windows 8.1 and lets OEMs like Asus make products like the X205 and sell them for a measly 199 Euros which means that in the K the X205 will probably sell for between £150 and £199, theres USB2 ports on either side, a microSD card slot and a MicroHDMI port etc.

The market for the X205 is a bit narrow though, unless you absolutes need Office, and office online or the tablet apps wont cut it, or Skype, im wondering why you would buy this over a similarly priced Chromebook a la the Acer C720 which has a faster processor, similar battery, similar internals etc.

All in all the X205 looks pretty great and would love to try one out, but seeing as i dont have any PR friends within Asus, i highly highly doubt that i will ever get to touch one of these.

MeMo Pad 7

Image credit goes to Engadget.com

Asus has been making pretty cheap Android tablets for a while, and it's been making pretty
forgettable Intel powered tablets for a while (if you were wondering, those two categories most definitely cross over) the MeMo Pad 7 is an update to last years Memo Pad 7, its got a new design, designed like Clutch bags and purses and made from a material called Duralumin (well also fibreglass, but the duralumin is cooler) , If Duralumin sounds familiar to you, it's what samsung made the Original Series 9 Ultrabook out of.

The MeMo Pad 7 is powered by a quad-core Atom Bay-Trail Z3560 SoC (thats 64Bit) 2GB of RAM, 32/64GB of Storage and Android KitKat 4.4 and it'll cost, you guessed it 199 Euros.

That's pretty much run of the mill for an Asus Android tablet, there is nothing wrong with it, it just not very memorable, i mean i was watching the event and forgot about the tablet until i re-read my notes, the laptops and the Watch were most certainly the show stealers for Asus today.

Ubuntu Touch 1.0 Release Overview

2013-10-23T17:28:00.000+01:00

Here it is, after months and months of developer previews, Canonical has graced us with the initial release of their Smartphone and Tablet OS, Ubuntu Touch, so in this video i walk through the OS and give mythoughts on it.

Comment, like,subscribe and share if you liked what you saw.

-Dom

CyanogenMod Installer BETA PREVIEW

2013-09-29T15:14:00.001+01:00

Hey guys, so i gotto check out Cyanogen Inc.'s New CM Installer, and my oh my is it good. on my Nexus 4 it was as smooth as plugging the phone in and waiting a few minutes, obviously the faster your computer (im using an Old celeron laptop on this video) the faster the install will be but still, this was phenomenally good, i even re-locked my bootloader to see what the UI would be like and how it prompted me to unlock it, it was flawless, well done Guys.

Zopo ZP980 C2 Review

2013-09-25T16:06:00.000+01:00

It's Here! the long promised and awaited review, of the Zopo ZP980 is here, the first Cheap Chinese phone that i would actually consider as a daily driver for myself, it's that good, watch to see what i liked, and what i didnt like and if its worth your money.

Comment on here or Youtube with questions and i'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities

MediaTek MTK6589T Performance Review

2013-09-22T13:21:00.000+01:00

MediaTek Chips get a bit of a bad rap these days, but after using one for a while i cnat quite see why, sure, their earlier chips sucked, hard, but so did chips from other companies? do any of you Remeber Qualcomm's "Scorpion" core, which was just, terrible when it was supposed to better than the Cortex A8 at the time, and then we had the Snapdragon S3, which was, well, anyone who had used a snapdragon S3 device pretty much,unanimouslt wishes they hadnt, but look at their newer Chips, the "Krait" Core in the Newer Snapdragon 600/800 are some of, if not the fastest chips on the market, so if they can turn over a new leaf as it were, why cant MediaTek?

The MTK6589T is made of 4 ARM Cortex A7 CPU Cores, now the Cortex A7 is just a low power consumption version of the Cortex A9 whilst keeping performance pretty comparable, the PowerVR SGX544MP4 GPU is also pretty awesome, in fact, it's what Apple uses in their iPads, the Android way of using them works slightly differently though, and the Cortex A7's have enough grunt to power the 1080p screen on my ZP980 review Unit, but i personally think, that 720p screens would be better for this, sure it can run at 1080p with a stutter here and there, but wouldn't you rather it run at 720p without any lag anywhere? Dont get me wrong, the fact this is running native 1080p is phenomenal, and the lag is few and far between,but it is there.

Benchmarks dont favour the MediaTek chipset very much, it comes out decidely average, sometimes on the lower end of even that spectrum, and for people that buy on Benchmark scores (though you really,really,really shouldnt buy a device on benchmark scores) this might put them off.

Watch the Video to see how it stacks up.

-Dom

Apple iPhone 5c Unboxing

2013-09-20T20:25:00.000+01:00

Boom, the iPhone, on this channel! i know, i didnt think it'd hppen either, but hey, here we are, here, is the unboxing of the ever-so-slightly-cheaper-iphone-but-dont-call-it-cheap-iPhone 5c ... in BLUE!

Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview September 18th update

2013-09-19T00:24:00.003+01:00

13.10 is coming soon, 13.10 is october 2013, it's also the next version of Ubuntu, is also when Ubuntu Touch will be revealed, and guys guess what ... THATS NEXT MONTH! :D and i must tell you, in a month, these guys have come so close to making a finished product its unreal, im sorry about the length of this video guys, but im just so excited about it, this ,is the September 18th update for Ubuntu Touch.

-Dom

How much larger can phones get?

2013-09-02T16:27:00.001+01:00

Smartphones, devices we use everyday, decreasingly being used for calling people on,like phones are actually for, now because they arent being used for calling, the screens are ballooning in size for things like web browsing and media consumption.

Sweet mother of God thats large (thats what she said)

Devices like the Samsung Galaxy Mega and Sony Xperia Z Ultra are the extreme versions of this, offering up 6.3" and 6.44" screens respectively, and they are whole heartedly designed for media consumption over anything else, the Mega offering a 720p screen and the Z Ultra offering a 1080p behemoth of a screen, these things are designed to let you enjoy Netflix or browse the web or play games on a bigger canvas than ever before.

But it wasn't always like this,smartphones were designed to be comfortable to hold, and pocketable as well as having a big enough canvas to do your stuff on, back in 2007 Steve Jobs came on stage for the Original iPhone announcement and said that they have put in a massive 3.5" screen into it, which was enough to do everything you could want, fast forward 6 years and we are nearing phones with almost litterally double the diagonal screen size, its just crazy.

We are kind of seeing OEMs back away from this with the Mini versions of their Flagships, HTC with the One Mini, Samsung with the S4 Mini, Sony might be getting in it with the Honami Mini (basically the Z Mini) ,now these are still cut down versions of the Flagships,but they are still usable phones, but if the rumours are correct, Sony with the Honami Mini might be trying to reverse this to see how a high end "mini" phone can get, seeing as they will be packing in a Snapdragon 800 (yes,800) a 4.3" 720p screen and a 8 or 13mp camera in a device not much physically larger than the iPhone 5 (apart from thickness) so we'll see how that pans out.

But how much larger can we get? it's already a well established fact that the Mega and Z Ultra are just too big, with Pocketnow's Taylor Martin saying its too big for his pocket and his dash that he had to put it in the passenger seat for his car, yet for many people, devices like the iPhone 5 are just too miniscule, while a 4" screen a few years ago was absolutely monstrous, but the problem with the iPhone 5 is that it just isnt wide enough.

So for me, i personally hope we dont settle on devices much larger than 5", thats the absolute extreme for me and even that is uncomfortable, my personal favourite is 4.7" with enough space to do stuff but also, as devices suchas the Moto X has proved, can be "small" as well, taking up the footprint of a 4.3" device. so i really hope we dont go larger than 5" for "normal" phones, and i think phablets should stay between the 5.5" and 6", but those are a niche anyway.

What do you guys think? are my teeny tiny hands clouding my judgement? are the current crop of phones no way near the largest we should go? leave your comments down below and tell me what you think.

HP Veer 4G Unboxing Video

2013-08-27T18:01:00.001+01:00

The Veer! the itsy bitsy, Teeny weeny little brother of the webOS family, its so teeny tiny and adorable i just want to hug it, except its so small that i might lose it, anyway apart from the "OMG It's so cute i want it" i might actually ,possibly use this, liike for a few weeks as my primary device, i mean, it's so cute and adorable right?

Anyway, this is the unboxing of the impossibly small HP Veer 4G, this device was given to me by a gracious benefactor, Mr Adam Doud, also known as @DeadTechnology on Twittter, he's an awesome guy and an awesome front for webOS knowledge.

Anyway, thats enough of my shmoozing, lets get to the unboxing

Should People consider a mid-range phone for their next upgrade?

2013-08-25T16:35:00.000+01:00

2013 has been a bit of an odd year,for Smartphones that is, Every year we are basically conditioned to believe that we want the biggest and best phones that are available at that time, but that's actually changing,This year we have seen OEM's create "mini" versions of their phones, and for once,

They.Don't.Suck

This, is the Galaxy S4 Mini, From Samsung, it doesn't have the most mind-blowing specs , its a dual-core Snapdragon 400 (Krait 300) , it's got an 8MP camera from the Galaxy S III, it's pretty thin and pretty light, it's got a 4.3" qHD (960x540) Super AMOLED screen, also the Design of the Galaxy S4 and some other stuff.

And guess what, it's doesn't lag,and the Minor bits of lag that are there are Touchwiz based,which are being remedied as we speak, same as the Larger Galaxy S4, which ad software glitches which caused it to lag, they are being ironed out as we speak.

And yes, the Screen might not be HD, but it kinda doesn't need to be, would it have been nicer? yes, but we wouldn't have had 720p S-AMOLED screen, and Super AMOLED is what we are using on the qHD panel, which has ridiculously bright and vivid colours, though, slightly over saturated sometimes, and the deepest blacks ever, because it's an AMOLED panel, it doesn't switch on the Black pixels, making them,literally, black, also, this isn't a PenTile screen of old, its not a full RGB stripe like a S-AMOLED Plus screen, but it's S Stripe RGB which is slightly different, anyway, the point is, the screen doesn't suck and you'll be happy.

And performance shouldn't be any slouch either, The S4 Mini uses a Snapdragon 400, but it uses the Higher end version with the Krait 300 cores, and it has the relatively beefy Adreno 305 GPU,so this thing is able to push quite a few pixels, and its helped by the fact that it has a qHD screen. The Snapdragon 400 with Krait 300 is faster than the Dual-Core Snapdragon S4 that was in the flagship phones like the American Galaxy S4 and the America HTC One X, they used the Krait 200 architecture, and Krait 300 has about a 10-15% improvement Over Krait 200, though those where clocked a few hundred megahertz higher, so they equal out,but the Snapdragon 400 has the better GPU, so yeah, Snapdragon 400 wins anyway, but then add in the Krait 300 has the S4 Mini uses, it's a beefy little sucker.

It's Camera is also pretty damn good, remember the Galaxy S III, remember how much everyone liked that camera? yeah well its the same Camera, and it also has Samsung's great post processing done afterwards, so the Camera isn't a concern either.

Oh and it has LTE, and NFC and Micro SD and a removable battery, so yeah, this should be pretty great.

Now this, is the HTC One Mini, it's a pretty awesome phone, i personally don't think it's a very attractive phone, but that is my personal opinion, but there are certain things that i cannot deny about this phone, it's fast, it's well built and it has a pretty decent/comparable camera and a frankly phenomenal screen.

Lets start with that Screen shall we, and i must say, for an LCD (I'm more of an AMOLED fan) this thing is really ,really nice, it has relatively dark blacks (but not AMOLED dark,which is,you know ... off) and it's bright with super white whites and super accurate colours, but some people (myself included) prefer the "Wow look at me I'm Green" of AMOLED to the "I'm green, and this is how I'm supposed to look" of LCD, but i digress, the One Mini has a lovely screen, add on top of that the fact it is 720p and this super accurate screen also just became extremely dense, like 342ppi dense, which is gorgeous, if you have ever had the pleasure of using or seeing a HTC 8X up close you know the screen i am talking about, it's pretty damn perfect for what it is.

And performance wise, this isn't any slouch either, it's got the Same Krait 300 based Snapdragon 400 as the S4 Mini, clocked at 1.4Ghz compared to the 1.7Ghz on the S4 Mini with the Same Adreno 305 GPU, and I'm sure you can guess what I'm about to say next, the performance compared to their full sized counterparts is negligible ,with fractions of a second between reaching the phone or opening the viewfinder in the camera to opening the App tray, they are so similar its scary.

Speaking of the Camera, the One Mini uses the Same 4 Ultra Pixel camera as the Full sized HTC One, they just Removed the Optical Image Stabilisation from the full sized One to reduce cost and size for the Pint sized little brother, now i personally never found the Ultra Pixel camera in either One (Pun intended) to be impressive, in daylight on low light shots, i know HTC optimised and hyped the fact the Ultra pixel sensor lets in a lot more light than standard Smartphone cameras does,but i found there to be way to much post processing and artifacts on Both Ones for my liking, the GS4 Mini isn't much better, but the GS4 Mini doesn't hype up it's low light capabilities.

Like the Big One (he he) The One Mini doesn't have a Micro SD slot so therefore is locked to its 16GB (about 10gb user accessible) built in storage, it also has 1GB of RAM (The S4 Mini has 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of storage,but it has a Micro SD slot).

So we've seen that this year, the Mid rangers from the Companies line ups are getting really good, so good in fact that some people wonder why they would even want to get the larger variants, i mean personally, if i could afford to, i would buy my mother an HTC One Mini over a full sized HTC One ( she really likes HTC's so that's what she wants to carry on with) because it's smaller, it'd fit into her hands better, it wouldn't be as heavy etc.

But you dont seem to be taking as much of a hit this year on Mid-rangers as you have in years past, if we look at last year, the S3 Mini, it had a 4" WVGA PenTile AMOLED screen with a Dual-Core NovaThor SoC, which is just sad, this years is much much much better.

So What do you guys think? should people Consider a mid-range phone the next time their upgrade comes along? do you agree or disagree, leave your comments below.

-Dom

Ubuntu Touch Developer Preivew August 15th update

2013-08-21T16:08:00.001+01:00

Another month another update, and month after month Ubuntu Touch just gets better and better, this month has a couple of Goodies, like an actual contacts app,linked online accounts, and, well, another surprise that i'll let you find out by watching th video.

Sorry it's a few days late guys, technical hitches, but, i now have my computer running again Woo Hoo!, and i actually have Windows 8 again :D (yes, im one of the 5 people that like it) on a machine with more than once core and more than 2GB of RAM :D.

Zopo C2 ZP980 Unboxing

2013-08-15T11:57:00.000+01:00

Zopo isn't a brand that many people in europe have heard, and for good reason, they are a small chinese company making Android Phones,if its dificult for HTC to stand out, Zopo didnt have a chance.

But this isnt about that, i wanted to try to bust the Myth that cheap chinese Android Phones are rubbish, so with that in mind, the Good folks over at the Zopo shop ( www.zopomobileshop.com ) have sent me the 16GB 1GB RAM C2, also called the ZP980, it has a pretty beastly spec sheet or a device that costs only $320 (£205)

5" LTPS-TFT LCD screen
1920x1080p resolution, 441ppi
MediaTek MTK6589T quad core A7 SoC running at 1.5Ghz
1GB RAM (2GB available on other model)
16GB on-board (32GB on other model)
MicroSD card expansion up to a further 64GB
Dual SIM, slot 1 is MicroSIM and is 3G, slot 2 is normal SIM and is GPRS/Edge only
13MP rear camera with LED flash, 1080p video recording
5MP front facing Camera, HD video available (might only be 720p)
8.5mm thin
70mm wide
143mm tall

So like i said, a pretty beastly spec sheet for something of its price, im looking forward to using this for the month and giving you as much content as possible and trying to dispel any myths about cheap chinese android phones

Nokia Lumia 720 Review

2013-08-07T18:12:00.000+01:00

Here it is Guys, my Review of the Lumia 720, the middle child in Nokia's line up, and like all middle children this thing feels like its got something to prove.

The Lumia 720 loves punching above its weight in many aspects, and if you watch the review, you'll find out whether it succeeds or fails (though hint hint, it's not bad)

Below are some of the Highlight photos i took on the 720, enjoy.

I Thouroughly enjoyed using the Lumia 720 and will be sad to see it go,and i hope one day i can own my own one one day.

-Dom

Hey Geeks, The Moto X, It isn't for you

2013-08-04T01:54:00.000+01:00

Ooooh look at the pretty colours.

This. Is the Moto X

This, also, is not for you, tech blogger,spec whore or gadget connoisseur (hey that rhymed).

What im trying to get at is that although this phone was hyped to be the be-all and end-all of smartphones, in reality, it wasnt, and in my opinion, that's a good thing, but more on that later. what im here to talk about today is why this phone isn't for the internet paparazzi.

A couple of days ago i read people claiming that the Moto X would be "Android's iPhone" , and to some extent, i agree, but i dont agree on the part that this is going to be the phone to launch motorola into stratospheric popularity (again) , i agree on the part that this is the first true Android phone to favour optimization over pure specs, now, i posted a little while ago that optimization is better than raw horsepower and the Moto X was the main part about that post back then, but that was back before the specs were official, and now we know what they are , this means even more,at least i do. lets get the "boring stuff" out of the way right now, the specs, and now i say boring stuff, because most people wont care about the (majority of the) Specs, and that's who Motorola and Google are aiming this device at.

4.7" 720p RGB (not RGB stripe,but not Pentile) S-AMOLED screen,edge to edge
Motorola X8 mobile computing system, Dual Snapdragon S4 Pro, Krait 300 CPUs clocked at 1.7Ghz, Quad Adreno 320 GPU's, a Natural Language Processor and a contextual computing Core
2GB RAM
16/32GB on board storage, no SD slot
NanoSIM (third device after iPhone 5 and Asus PadFone Infinity)
10MP ClearPixel RGBC camera,native 16:9
504 customisation options (exclusive to AT&T for a while)
Wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz
GSM,LTE and CDMA Rev.A
Bluetooth 4.0 LE and EDR
2200mAh sealed Lithium Ion "stacked" battery
24 hours Mixed usage

Now that we have the boring stuff out of the way, forget it, because for the rest of this post you arent you, you are a normal consumer, who doesnt care what specs this phone has, you dont know your Gigahertz from your Hertz rental car service.

And now that we've got that bit straight, that's how Motorola is targeting this device, they arent marketing this as the Device that'll cure your insomnia, your girlfriends cold or your best mates amnesia, they are going to market this as the phone for everyone, and you know what phone "everyone" wants, it's the iPhone, and i hate to say it, because i really do not like iPhones, i really dont, i would much rather have a Blackberry Z10 or a HP Pre 3 instead of an iPhone, but you know what working in a phone shop has taught me (apart form people are incredibly clumsy and tell stupid lies to the insurance firms) it's that 70% of the populace where i live now and about 60% where i used to live, want an iPhone, and as we all know, the iPhone has never been a spec demon, i mean, it only just got 1GB of RAM , where as android devices had them at the tail end of 2010 and throughout 2011. so why do people want the iPhone when it doesnt have a trillion cores with a 96 gigapixel camera?

it's because the Experience negates the need for ridiculous specs.

Dont believe me? alright, let's move to Windows Phone then, next to me on my desk, is the Lumia 720, a device with a Dual-Core Snapdragon S4 Plus clocked at 1Ghz, an Adreno 305 GPU, and 512mb of RAM, now compared to my Nexus 4, you'd think this would run like a dog no? well, you'd be wrong, the Nexus 4, with 2 more cores with a newer architeture and 70% higher clockspeed, with quadruple the RAM, is near identical to the Lumia 720,and slower than the 720 in some tasks, and why? becuase the software is crazy optimised to rip each bit power out of each core without much wastage, that's also why, In my experience, Windows Phones have much superior battery life to their Android counterparts.

So now we've established that "normal users" dont want the newest architecture with the more cores clocked the highest, and the highest resolution screen on a device not much larger than a TV remote, and that they "just want it to work" we can get somewhere.

Jim Wicks, the SVP of Product Design at Motorola said "We could go in and put a higher resolution screen,but it would just suck power and nobody would notice the difference" and he's got a good point there, most people, if they had the oportunity to have 2 displays next to each other, One with 720p and one with 1080p at the same size, wouldnt really notice a difference, they might notice the 1080p is slighlty shraper, but when you get in thoe densities its really neglible, especially if you dont have them next to each other, like i said before, working in shop i do get to see all of these phones, and even i, without them being next to each other, cannot really see a difference between 1080p and 720p

Now Lets move on to the Motorola X8 Mobile Computing system, or the X8 as i shall be calling it for the rest of this post.the X8 is essentially an off the shelf Snapdragon 600, but they've taken away 2 of the CPU cores and replaced them with a NLP and a contextual computing core, "But Dom, it's branded as an S4 Pro, why would they lie?" because they do that's why, nah im just joking, im not sure why, but still, the X8 has 2 CPU cores, clocked at 1.7Ghz each, and those core are based off of the new Krait 300 architecture in the Snapdragon 600, not the Krait 200 in the S4 Pro from last year or the Dual-Core S4 Plus, and it has the new Quad-core Adreno 320 GPU, the exact same part from the Snapdragon 600, and faster than the Adreno 225 from the S4 plus, and the Same from the Quad-Core S4 Pro from last year. So now we've gotten to the point where we can litterally say that the Moto X8 is a Snapdragon 600 with 2 CPU cores removed and they replaced them with Dedicated cores for other stuff, the NLP (Natural Language Procesor) is for the always on Mic listening for "Okay Google Now" and the CCC (Contextual Computing Core) is for stuff like Active Display, the shake to camera stuff and all the sensors in general. so whilst the X8 might not be the Quad-core super monster beasts that the new flagships have, it isnt a slouch either, and with the optimization Moto and google have ben doing, the Moto X apparently runs faster than many of those quad-core behemoths.

See, Optimization matters

Next is the Camera, now a lot has been made about the ClearPixel camera, and im not smart enough about cameras to go very deep into it, but from what i can understand a standard camera sensor is RGBG , there is two green ,a red and a blue part, like this photo below explains

But as you can See on the RGBC camera, the green lenses are replaced by Clear ones, and this apparently lets in up to 75% more light than the standard RGBG sensor, making it (hypothetically) great for night or low light shots, now this will have to wait till the reviews are up to make proper camera decisions, so im stopping with the hardware there, what im really interested with, is the camera software and as you can see, it's pretty spartan

Which, again, In my opinion, is a good thing, you know what Normal people want to do when they open the camera app, they want to take photos, they dont want to change the exposure settings, or the ISO or the whitebalance, or change the Scene mode, they want to take a photo and be done with it, having two buttons on display is a smart move, the buttons are "switch to the front camera" or "switch to the Video recorder" ,it's uncluttered, and it's simple, the phone has lightning fast autofocus etc, so as soon as you tap the screen to take the photo, it's taken, which is great, and if the person wants to change some stuff, like put HDR mode on,shoot Slow motion video, enable or disable tap-to-focus, they cando that by sliping from the left edge inwards, so by default its out of the way, so you get the most of the view fiinder for the photo, not the controls, ou know whats scary to a layman, 20 gazillion controls on a smartphone camera, if i asked my mum or sister what they do when they open their camera, they'd say the take a photo or shoot a video, they dont mess around with all the fine detail because the auto settings do it well enough so that they dont have to worry.

So now i promise im going to wrap this overly long post up, but do you see where im going with this guys? Mororola isnt positioning this as the be-all and end-all for techies, they are promoting it ,as the smartphone than anyone can use ,because its got a big screen, its the phone that has worry free 24 hour battery life, its the phone that can take easy,good photos without messing around, it's a phone for the people who, like i said earlier, dont know Gigahertz for the Hertz rental car company.

All that being said though, i Wish the Moto X would come to the UK, i'd actually pur my Nexus 4 in a drawer for it (i never actually "get rid" of phones) and for 2 main reasons, one of those reasons, it's a proper 720p display, now i've gone on long enough about how i hate WXGA in both it's 1280x768 and 1280x800 forms, but on phones, WXGA sucks because it makes the device unecessarily wide, the Nexus 4 In my opinion feels too wide, it's wider than the GS4, which has a larger, higher resolution display, which is ridiculous, i would love to have a proper 720p screen on my Nexus, the Moto X takes it one step further and makes it AMOLED as well, and as you all know, i Love me some AMOLED, and the second reason for me wanting this device, Motorola actually put some thought in how the phone should feel, and they got rid of as much unusedspace as possible, so even though the Device has a 4.7" screen, it's much closer to that of a 4.3" device, and its a fraction taller than an iPhone 5, so that is just phenomenal.

So yeah, Moto X, not for geeks, surprising seeing as im pretty sure the Geeks and tech bloggers basically named this phone for Motorola with all the rumours.

Great Optimization is far better than Raw Horsepower

2013-07-23T21:33:00.001+01:00

This has kinda been getting my nerves lately, especially with all the Moto X rumours coming to the surface lately.

People have been moaning about the Motorola X only having a Dual-core processor, And how it "only" has a 720p screen, And how its "only" got a 10mp camera, and how becasue of all these things its DOA, and a POS and lots of other acronyms that arent extrapolated to mean nice things.

If we are honest, Raw horsepower is nice, in cars for instance, just raw horsepower is great, look no further than a multitude of Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and of course the Great Bughatti Veyron, but you know what is better? a finely tuned F1 engine, with precision detail , care and attention given to each bit, to rip every possibly bit of power out of that engine, but with the most efficient use of the fuel.

Now if we transition this over to smartphones (and to some extent tablets) we can see this same thing happeneing, whether it be with Samsung with the Exynos 5 Octa, an 8-Core SoC, it might be Dual Quad cores, but there are 8 physical cores , so it is an octa-core, or it might be with Qualcomm and the mind meltingly fast Snapdragon 800 having raw hore power,but having ridiculous horsepower or ridiculously high core counts (MediaTek is actually making a pure octa-core SoC, using 8 ARM Cortex A7 cores,that can be active all the time, but thats a different discussion entirely) dont make the best of phones.

The iPhone managed to get through with Sub 1Ghz processors up to the iPhone 5 , up to the (and including) the iPhone 3Gs, they all used 600Mhz ish processors, the iPhone 4, whilst being thought of as 1Ghz actually spent the majority of it's time around800Mhz, the 4S used a dual-core 800Mhz , and the iPhone 5 fluctuates between 1Ghz and 1.3Ghz.

And we cant leave out Windows phone, Many first generation windows phone, with 512mb of RAM and 1Ghz processors still perform flawlessly, and out perform some Dual-core android phones

So how can it be, that a Dual-Core 1.3Ghz phone, with 1GB of RAM can be smooother than the majority of Quad-Core android phones, and even an Octa-core one in some instances? and how can a whole group of devices, with 1Ghz SoCs and 512mb of RAM be faster than a whole heap of Android devices?

OPTIMIZATION

If Google and Motorola can eak out every morsel of power that SoC has, i dont think they'll have any problems competing with the High enders from Samsung, HTC,LG,Sony and even Moto's other phones.

The MSM8960T is the Chipset used in the Moto X (or at least that is the leaked one) , now the MSM8960, thats the Dual-Core Krait Snapdragon S4 used in last years flagships, But the 8960T , well, that's a Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, it's just got half the cores that the Nexus 4, or the LG Optimus G has.

Architecturally, the Dual-Core Snapodragon S4 Plus is almost i dentical to the S4 Pro, same clock speeds, same 28nm fabrication process, same CPU Cache, the Only thing that separates the Plus from the Pro, is the GPU, The Adreno 225 in the S4 Plus was good for it's time, but the Adreno 320 is monstrous, it's the same one used in the Snapdragon 600 that everyone on the web is clamouring about, which means it's pretty damn awesome.

So we know that the SoC is no slouch, it's got a beastly GPU and a more than capable CPU, and, like i said, if Moto/Google dqueeze the most those Krait cores can muster, and then offload a lot of the graphics stuff to the GPU, they could be on to a winner here, plus with all the extra, incredibly low power sensors, and a CPU state that was rumoured to go as low as 13.5Mhz for some background tasks, Battery life should be pretty ace, even if it does "only" have a 2200mAh battery.

Now if we move onto the topic of Batteries, would it have been nice to have a 3300mAh battery in there? sure it would have, would it have been necessary? not if the optimisations that have been rumoured come to fruition, i mean, again, the iPhone has a 1440mAh battery, a lot less than 2200mAh , and it manages to get through a day (although not easily anymore) , so yeah, a huge ass battery is the answer to androids battery problems? until Google fixes it in the android core, yes, motorola did it with their MAXX series, a monstrous battery to stem the bleeding as it were, but now google owns motorola, they are that little bit closer, and Motorola could be making sure, that every drop of juice in that Lithium cell gets used to its fullest potential.

I fully believe that the Moto X will have no problems keeping it up there with the Big ones, but you know what the best part is, i believe they arent going to market it as one, i believe they are going to market it as a phone for everyone, like the did with the £229 chromebook, the Chromebook for everyone, cheap,cheerful and with great battery life, i reckon they're going to do the same, maybe not on the price bit, but they are going to hammer this home as a phone that'll last all day, will take great photos whatever circumstance, plays every game and handles every app with ease.

Android doesnt need raw horsepower, it needs to be optimised, and if that means less phones per OEM per year, so be it.

Nokia Lumia 720 unboxing

2013-07-23T21:28:00.000+01:00

Hey Guys look, It's a windows Phone, it's a windows phone thats made by Nokia, woo hoo, but seriosuly guys, this is the Windows Phine i've been waiting for, it may no have the highest resolution or bigggest screen, it may not be the thinnest or lightest and it may not have wireless charging. but it's really nice and thin, it's got a gorgeous IPS screen, it has a phenomenal camera , it may "only" be 6.7mp, but it's a native 16:9 camera, and it's got an F2.0 aperture lens, so in low light its actually really good, there is no OIS, that is reserved for the higher end Lumias.

Anyway guys, enjoy the unboxing, the review should be up in a week or so.

-Dom

Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview July 15th update

2013-07-20T21:48:00.001+01:00

i promised you guys, i promised that once a month, somewhere near the 15th of every month, i was going to upload an update video for Ubuntu Touch developer preview, and this build was actually made on the 12th of july, there were no more buils after that, but i assure you i will have a video eveery month until it's release, documenting the user facing changes and challenges, this month there is quite a bt different, enjoy.

-Dom