D-BLOG

Success Seeker VS Failure Avoider

2016-03-06T18:57:00.001+02:00

What type of person are you?

Let us know if you are waking up to an alarm clock or opportunity clock!

SHARE & LIKE = SMILE :)

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2016-03-05T01:03:00.000+02:00

Mini Drone Review - deAO X7 2.4GHZ 6 Axis RC Quadcopter

2016-03-04T21:44:00.001+02:00

This mini drone is the best deal you can get. Only ‎£19.99.

Flying Cage with Gyro

Link to Buy from Amazon: http://goo.gl/x1sM1D

Comes with:

Remote controlled Quadcopter x 1,

Remote control x 1,

Spare blades x 4,

3.7v Li-Po battery x 1,

USB Charger x 1,

Screwdriver x 1.

Flies more than 5 minutes and does a lot of tricks.

See my last vlog here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiguXjskdPs

BlogSpring iti ofera un Allview P6 Energy

2015-04-18T16:29:00.001+03:00

Nu ai auzit inca de BlogAwards? Ei sunt un site romanesc care prin intermediul campaniilor si concursurilor fac legatura intre bloggeri si companii din Romania. Tot ei organizeaza in perioada aceasta BlogSpring. O campanie in cadrul careia ai sansa sa castigi un super telefon dar si sa participi la multe alte campanii.

Treaba este foarte simpla, trebuie sa ai un blog ca sa poti sa participi, nu conteaza nisa in care te incadrezi. Pe site-ul BlogAwards vei gasi o multime de campanii printre care si blogSpring. Trebuie doar sa te inscrii cu un articol pe o tema data, respectand cateva conditii simple si BAAM, te trezesti cu un premiu.

Intr-o alta ordine de idei, voi ati remarcat expansiunea de care are parte Allview in ultimele luni de zile? Luand in considerare faptul ca este si o firma romaneasca, sunt mai mult decat convins ca aceasta companie este unul dintre motivele pentru care ma bucur ca traiesc in Romania.

Ei au ajuns sa concureze cu liderii de pe piata de smartphone-uri intr-un timp fenomenal de scurt. Daca esti pasionat de tehnologia de ultima ora, Allview iti ofera tot ceea ce iti doresti. Ca de exemplu acest minunat telefon super inteligent, dotat cu mai mult decat o duzina de lucruri care-ti stranesc interesul.

Allview P6 Energy este un device de top la un pret foarte accesibil. Arunca o singura privire peste specificatiile telefonului si iti garantez ca vei ramane impresionat, in special daca esti un techhunter la fel ca si mine.

De ce il vreau? Pe scurt, telefonul este dual-sim, are un procesor Cortex A7 Quad Core de 1.3 GHz cu o memorie de stocare de 8 GB, 1 GB de RAM, o camera principala de 8 MP si cea secundara de 2 MP. Un display de 5 inch, IPS LCD HD cu o rezolutie de 1280 x 720, protejat de Gorilla Glass 3. Toate acestea rulate de un sistem de operare Android 4.4.2 KitKat.

Da, multe detalii tehnice, insa lucrurile cu adevarat impresionante incept doar acum. P6 Energy are o baterie de 5000 mAh, adica cu un use normal de internet, jocuri si vorbire te tine in jur de 3 zile bateria. Colosal de-a dreptul, si asta nu e tot. Mega-Phone-ul vine insotit si de tehnologia OTG, prin care poti sa incarci si bateria unui alt telefon. (Benefic atunci cand telefonul prietenei tale ramane fara baterie, iar ea fara Facebook)

Asadar, daca esti si tu pasionat de tehnologie si ai un blog, participa in campania blogSpring si vei avea sansa sa-mi furi premiul. Nu rata aceasta ocazia!

Apropo, tu de ce ti-ai dori un smartphone ca si acesta?

Dwyn.ro este de neegalat

2015-04-18T14:28:00.000+03:00

Smartphone, este unul dintre device-urile pe care doresc sa-l cumpar de ceva vreme. Cred ca am inceput sa strang bani de mai bine de 2 luni, da, cam pe atunci vechiul Lumia 820 si-a dat duhul, pardon pixelul.

Zilele acestea sa cumperi un telefon nou nu pare a fi such a big deal, ei bine nu si pentru mine... Caut un telefon nou, cu niste caracteristici mai mult decat decente dar la un pret cat mai mic. Stiu, suna greu, mai ales luand in considerare ca telefoanele astea inteligente de ultima generatie ajung sa coste cat o Dacia 1310.

In Romania, atat in magazine cat si in mediul online ai la dispozitie o gama foarte variata de electronice. Care mai de care mai bun, cu un design cat mai atractiv, insa la un pret asemanator, adica prea mare.

Parintii mei fiind mai de moda veche, mi-au spus de la bun inceput sa mergem intr-un magazin si cumparam de acolo : "Acolo e sigur fiule, mergi vezi, atingi si il tot iei acasa. Pe net nimic nu e sigur." Trebuie sa recunosc ca vorbele lor m-au pus pe ganduri. Atunci mi-am dat seama ca este timpul de o schimbare, mai ales in gandirea alor mei.

Am inceput sa caut magazine online si Good Lord, in tara noastra sunt mai mult decat destule. Este foarte clar ca ofertele sunt asemanatoare, cativa lei diferenta pe ici pe colo si nimic impresionant. Sincer incepeam sa cred ca ar fi o idee buna sa astept Black Friday, ca poate gasesc si eu ceva dupa bugetul meu.

In cele din urma am gasit un site uimitor. Pe buna dreptate, am ramas profund surprins sa descopar ca la Dwyn cam orice individ are ocazia sa-si cumpere un smartphone de ultima generatie. Preturile sunt mai mult decat accesibile, iar calitatea este high class. Fiind un fan Windows Phone, am cumparat un Microsoft Lumia 530. Are tot ceea ce poti sa-ti doresti de la un telefon under budget.

Seriozitatea celor de la Dwyn este de neegalat, telefonul mi-a fost livrat in mai putin de 24 de ore, am avut dreptul de a deschide si verifica coletul. Atat eu cat si parintii mei am fost impresionati de acest site, asa ne-am hotarat ca urmatoarea achizitie, un laptop sa il cumparam tot de la ei.

Acum ii sunt recunoscator acestui magazin online ca m-a ajutat sa le schimb conceptia parintilor mei despre cumparaturile de pe internet. Si totodata ii respect pentru profesionalismul de care dau dovada.

Cu Dwyn langa tine tehnologia iti surade. Ii recomand cu mare drag.

QuickMobile + ProfitShare = $

2015-04-17T19:16:00.000+03:00

Stiati ca portofoliul QuickMobile include peste 6.000 de produse disponibile online de la circa 200 de branduri internationale premium?

Stiu, impresionant, mare mi-a fost mirarea sa descopar ca aceasta companie este si una romaneasca. Una de top mai bine zis, care a reusit ca intr-un timp foarte scurt sa ajunga printre liderii de piata in materie de produse IT vandute online in Romania.

Nu ai inteles deja cu ce se ocupa QuickMobile? La o simpla aruncare cu privirea pe site-ul lor vei gasi cele mai noi device-uri la preturi extreme, pe bune, extrem de mici. Incepand cu smartphone-uri, tablete, smartwatch si multe altele. Orice smartphone are nevoie si de accesorii corect? Ei iti ofera o gama variata de accesorii care se potrivesc perfect cu device-ul tau, fie el tableta, smartphone sau orice tip de gadget.

Profitshare va suna cunoscut? Daca nu, dati-mi voie sa va explic foarte pe scurt cum sta treaba cu ei: Acestia sunt o retea de afiliere online, prin intermediul careia orice small business online are sansa sa creasca, prin promovare online si multe alte metode.

Ei bine, se pare ca cele doua companii lucreaza impreuna acum, iar acest lucru inseamna un singur lucru, bani. Da, colaborarea dintre ei inseamna profit, acest profit in mod traditional mergea doar in buzunarele celor doua firme, insa acum, o parte din acel profit poate sa mearga si in buzunarul tau sau al meu. Oricine doreste sa promoveze QuickMobile în Profitshare are acum ocazia sa castige niste bani.

QuickMobile oferă comisioane ce depășesc media oferită de advertiserii IT&C din rețelele de marketing afiliat, respectiv 3% pentru Telefoane și Tablete, 10% pentru produsele din categoria Gadgets, 20% pentru articolele din categoria Accesorii, 20% pentru produsele din categoria Branduri de Lux.

Prin urmare, daca doresti sa ai un profit de pe urma blogului sau site-ului tau, ai acum sansa sa promovezi un brand de renume, serios si de top.

Eu am sa promovez QuickMobile prin Profitshare, tu ce mai astepti?

How to record your screen on a Nokia Lumia

2015-01-20T22:33:00.001+02:00

In case you've been wondering how to record your screen on your Lumia device, here is a short video tutorial of how to do it:

Once you've done that, all you have to do is to click on the 'Capture' button on the top and then click again on the "Start Capture Screen on Video File...".

You can download the compilation from here : DOWNLOAD

Mica publicitate in ziarele locale

2014-12-30T22:50:00.000+02:00

Ati publicat vreodata un anunt la mica publicitate?

Cei mai multi dintre voi probabil ca da, insa eu nu am publicat niciodata un astfel de anunt. Stiu ca nu este mare scofala, iar eu vreau sa pun un anunt de genul acesta de ceva vreme dar pur si simplu nu am timp sau drum pe acolo. Sunt convins ca un anunt de genul acesta

mi-ar ajuta intr-o oarecare masura afacerea, insa ce ar trebui sa fac? Doar sa intru in acel biro, sa astept la o coada de cativa oameni si sa-i spun direct " Vreau sa pun un anunt la mica publicitate in ziarul vostru."

Suntem in anul 2015, in era tehnologiei care avanseaza cu viteza luminii, mi se pare mult prea istorica toata treaba asta cu mersul la un birou pentru a publica un anunt de acest gen.

Spre surprinderea mea, la o mica cautare pe prietenasul nostru Google cel de toate zilele am gasit exact ceea ce cautam. Eu doream sa public niste anunturi in ziarul 'Glasul Maramuresului' , insa fara a fi nevoit sa pierd timpul pe la mai stiu eu ce birouri. Fara nicio problema am gasit online solutia.

Pe acest ziar cu Anunturi in ziare locale este posibil sa public cate anunturi la mica publicitate doresc, cand vreau si cum vreau. Nu trebuie sa mai pierd timp pe la birouri, inghesuit pe la cozi. Pot sa fac asta de acasa, din pat, stand comod, rapid si sigur, in orice ziar local din Romania. Sincer, nu pot sa cred ca de cand a aparut internetul in tara noastra, nimeni nu s-a gandit la ideea asta pana acum.

Demersul publicarii anuntului este unul foarte simplu. Trebuie doar sa intrati la ei pe site, alegeti de pe harta Romaniei zona ziarului local in care doriti sa publicati anuntul, dupa aceea va algeti ziarul in care anuntul dumneavoastra va apara, iar mai apoi apasati butonul de "Publica ACUM". Usor si simplu, va setati informatiile despre anunt si gata. Un procesc care dureaza mai putin de 5 minute.

Daca inca tot aveti dificultati voi atasa mai jos niste imagini, care poate va vor fi putin de folos:

Atentie, daca ati ajuns pana la pasul din imaginea de mai sus, acolo veti gasi acel "Ghid de publicat...", el va putea sa va raspunda la orice intrebare ati avea in legatura cu publicarea.

Dupa ce ati trecut si de pasul amintit in ultima imaginea, apasati 'Calculeaza' iar tot ceea ce trebuie sa mai faceti este sa platit si sa va bucurati de timpul castigat datorita acestei platforme online.

Android 5.1 arriving as soon as February?

2014-12-19T01:32:00.000+02:00

Large number of improvements touted

Android Lollipop is slowly but surely rolling out around the world, but one report reckons Google is already planning to push Android 5.1 to our handsets in a matter of weeks.

AndroidPIT says that two separate inside sources have confirmed that Google is readying 5.1 for early next year, with the update said to be launching by the end of February.

We've contacted Google to ask if this is true, but the Android-maker declined to comment.

But with Lollipop still to hit so many devices it seems odd that Google would be updating a full decimal place so soon, especially as this has often meant a whole different OS name in the past. The exceptions to that rule were Jelly Bean, a name that remained through 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3, as well as Donut and Eclair, which bounced around the naming conventions, so there's a chance the Lollipop moniker may stick around.

But with the number of issues in need of fixing, perhaps Google realises that we're in need of a more comprehensive update than usual.

Excessive consumption

What makes this news extra interesting is that the same report also quotes a changelog of all the improvements we can expect. To repeat it verbatim:

Silent mode added after missing on Android 5.0
General improvements in system stability
Improved RAM management
Fixes for sudden app closures

And more...

O noua strada, Strada IT

2014-11-22T20:06:00.002+02:00

Pregateste-te de reducerile Black Friday de pe Strada IT! Vino alaturi de vecini, prieteni si famile zi de zi si urmareste promotiile saptamanale!

Locuiesc in Baia Mare de 19 ani si inca nu cunosc bine strazile din oras. Hoinaresc pe internet de 8 ani si singura strada pe care o stiu pana acum din mediul online este Strada IT.

Cu totii cunoastem magazine de IT online, exista o gramada in Romania, fiecare iti ofera fel si fel de reduceri, promotii si alte lucruri care sa-ti atraga atentia. Ei bine, site-ul asta nu numai ca are orice produs pe care ti l-ai putea dori, dar le ofera si la cele mai bune preturi.

De exemplu, incerc sa-mi iau un stick usb de o buna bucata de vreme. Nu cau orice tip de stick, vreau ceva cu memorie cat mai mare dar in acelasi timp sa aiba si un look original, sa nu fie o secatura. Motto-ul dupa care ma ghidez, "cu cat mai ieftin, cu atat mai bine" deoarece orice leu are valoare pentru mine. Pe strada asta, in mai putin de 5 minute am gasit exact ceea ce cautam, un stick ieftin, cu look original si memorie destula: http://www.stradait.ro/carduri-si-medii-optice/carduri-stick-memorie/stick-usb/stick-usb-verbatim-mini-usb-20-8gb-elements-edition---earth-vb-610036.html

De cand am gasit aceasta strada, imi place tot mai mult sa ies seara la cat o plimbare, sa vad ce mai e nou. Ba chiar mi-am chemat si prietenii cu mine, ultima oara cand am iesit pe Strada IT cu prietenii, Dan, prietenul meu cel mai bun si-a luat un nou laptop. Nu orice laptop, ci cu un Asus cu processor i7, 4 Gb Ram, toate cele... http://www.stradait.ro/laptopuri-si-tablete/laptopuri/laptop-notebook/laptop-asus-x555ld-xx138d-intel-core-i7-4510u-156-as-670922.html#prettyPhoto La un pret care a socat toata lumea.

De atunci, eu impreuna cu toata gasca facem cate o plimbare cel putin saptamanal pe Strada IT, dam tarcoale locatarilor, intotdeauna este cate ceva care ne trage cu ochiul.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 review

2014-10-22T14:38:00.000+03:00

Samsung's big just got a whole lot better

For

Fantastic display
Smooth, powerful performance
Strong camera

Against

Too big for some
Expensive
S Pen still questionable

Some said it would never catch on, but here we are four years on from the original Galaxy Note phablet with the fourth generation device - the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

The Galaxy Note's big screen and S Pen stylus are certainly not for everyone. The Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Alpha offer a more mainstream smartphone setup - the Note 4 brings together big power, a big screen and big productivity.

If you're after a top-end smartphone which won't break the bank (or your palm, pocket or handbag) then you're probably in the wrong place.

At over £600 (around $840, AU$960) SIM free the Galaxy Note 4 is not cheap. On contract in the UK a free handset will probably see you shell out upwards of £40 per month for two years. It is a considerable investment.

It's up against the likes of the Nexus 6, Nokia Lumia 1520, Huawei Ascend Mate 7 and the steeply priced iPhone 6 Plus, with the latter the only one matching the Note 4 in terms of cost.

The Galaxy Note 4 - king of the phablets?

Unlike the previous three iterations Samsung hasn't deemed it necessary to increase the screen size of the Note 4, so it sticks with the same 5.7-inch dimensions of the Galaxy Note 3.

It's not the same screen though, as Samsung has given the Galaxy Note 4 a hefty resolution boost - but more on that on the next page.

When it comes to design Samsung has definitely listened about its latest line-up feeling plasticky in the hand and has decided to give the Note 4 more of a premium finish.

The metal frame runs round the outside

There's a metal rim surrounding the handset, shielding the rest of the chassis like a velvet rope protecting celebs from real people in a club.

It sports exactly the same shape, style and rounded corners as the Galaxy Alpha, only on a bigger scale and thanks to the increased size the plastic rear is more noticeable here than it is on the Alpha.
Samsung has tried to make the removable plastic cover feel more premium by giving it a leather effect finish, but there's still no fooling your hand with that unmistakable texture.

Still all plastic on the back.

A plus side to this though is the plastic rear does provide good grip - vital when you've got such a large handset in your hand and even though the Galaxy Note 4 is a touch wider than the all metal iPhone 6 Plus, I found the Samsung is easier to hold.

Even though the 6 Plus has a smaller, 5.5-inch display, it's actually taller than the Note 4 - something else the Samsung has over its Apple rival as it makes the phone more balanced in the hand.

Add to that the placement of the power/lock key on the right of the Galaxy Note 4 and you find that even for a big phone the key buttons are still easy enough to reach (if your palms are on the larger side).

It does have a lovely screen.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 measures 153.5 x 78.6 x 8.5mm, almost the same as its predecessor and smaller in width and depth than the Galaxy Note 2, which is impressive considering this is the first of the Note series to sport a metal frame.

I've also been using the 5.5-inch OnePlus One recently and there's really not a lot to choose between the two in terms of size.

It's safe to say then, if you're already accustomed to the larger league of smartphones then the Galaxy Note 4 will feel right at home in your palm.

There's a fingerprint scanner hidden here

I really like the way the Galaxy Note 4 feels in the hand and having used the Note 3 on a number of occasions, it definitely feels different and refined enough - plus it's light too, just a touch over the weight of the Note 3 at 176g.

Samsung's tried and tested physical home key still resides at the bottom of the screen, providing a location for the Korean firm to stuff in its fingerprint scanner, and that's flanked by two touch keys.
To the left of the home button is the Multi-tasking key, while on the right you get Back. Both Back and Multi-tasking are completely hidden when not illuminated by the backlights, providing a clean finish to the front of the Galaxy Note 4.

The Note 4 can be tricky to use one-handed

Some shuffling of the Note 4 in the hand is required to get your fingers in the right position to reach these during one handed use, and you'll need to be careful not to drop it.

Round the back you'll find a 16MP camera, LED flash and the heart rate monitor which also features on the Galaxy S5, S5 Mini and Galaxy Alpha.

In the bottom corner you'll also notice the end of the S Pen stylus hiding inside the body of the Galaxy Note 4, while behind the removable rear cover there's a microSIM port, microSD slot and a sizable 3220mAh battery.

You'll find a 16MP camera on the back

This, then, is the Note handset with the most premium and accomplished look and feel to date. Samsung is finally providing the build quality its top-end devices have been yearning for.
Samsung has managed to keep the dimensions manageable - it's certainly a lot easier to hold than the 6-inch Lumia 1520 and Ascend Mate 7 - and while the iPhone 6 Plus may look sleeker, the Galaxy Note 4 boasts a bigger, better screen and very similar dimensions.

Read the rest of this post ----->

iPad Air 2: Top 10 standout features

2014-10-19T13:12:00.001+03:00

Apple unveiled the iPad Air 2 on Thursday, claiming it to be the thinnest and most powerful tablet ever created.

Measuring 6.1mm thick, the iPad Air 2 is 18 percent thinner than the original iPad Air.
Apple has loaded a wealth of new hardware into the frame, including a new A8X chip which Apple said will radically improve performance, and a new 9.7in Retina display with anti-reflective coating.
The iPad Air 2 also includes upgraded rear 8MP iSight and front-facing Facetime cameras, and is the first iPad to feature Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner.

Apple will take pre-orders for the iPad Air 2 from 17 October but, before you decide to splash out, read our countdown to the 10 best features of the latest iPad.

10. Better cameras

The iPad Air 2 improves on the cameras in its predecessor. The enhanced iSight rear camera has been upped from 5MP to 8MP, and can now capture panoramic photos and time-lapse, slow motion and 1080p HD video.

Apple claims that the front-facing camera now gathers over 80 percent more light, and can take HDR photos with a burst mode for rapid-fire snapping.

The appeal of high-quality cameras in tablets often divides technology fans. V3 for one believes that anyone caught snapping away in public with a large tablet should receive a barrage of tuts and scowls, along with complete social rejection.

9. Improved screen

While the iPad Air 2 didn't see an improvement in screen resolution like many had expected, it is the first Apple tablet to come with an anti-reflective coating, making it better for use outdoors.

This is likely to be a dig at rivals Samsung and Google, which unveiled its Nexus 9 tablet just the previous day. This technology also sees the firm going after Amazon's Kindle lineup, which buyers have long flocked to for their holiday reading needs.

Apple also boasts that this new technology, which it created from the ground up, reduces reflections by 56 percent, making for "a clearer display in the office, the classroom or outdoors".

8. iOS 8.1 bug squasher
After a difficult initial release, filled with bugs and missing features that received a poor response, iOS 8 is getting a fresh lick of digital paint, and will be available to iDevice users on 20 October in the guise of iOS 8.1.

Apple claims to have listened to customer feedback and has gone some way to removing the errors found in the initial iterations of its eighth mobile operating platform.

iOS 8.1 will also bring back the Camera Roll, which was sadly missed by photo-happy Apple fans when they updated from iOS 7.

Other than under-the-hood tweaks, iOS 8.1 delivers much the same features as the previous version.

7. Golden iPad
Apple has finally answered the prayers of rappers and posers everywhere and has launched an iPad in gold. Both the iPad Air 2 and its little sibling, the iPad Mini 3, are available in a pale golden hue.

Although Apple launched a gold iPhone a few years ago, up until this point the iPad has been available to purchase only in white and black, which are so last year.

While some may see this as a minor addition, the launch of a gold model will no doubt have a whole group of current iPad owners rushing out to get their hands on the Air 2 or Mini 3, purely to be one of the lucky few with this exclusive, premium model. Well, we say few, but more likely millions.

The only trick Apple has missed here is not adding an even higher price tag to the gold model, as we're sure there are plenty of people out there who would prefer to have a distinctive status symbol, showing that they can afford the most expensive iPad.

Maybe next time Apple will go the whole hog and actually go for gold plating to really get those dollars rushing in.

6. Faster WiFi and 4G connectivity
While the iPad Air 2 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, the original Air, that hasn't stopped the firm beefing up the wireless capabilities to offer faster downloads in the WiFi-only and mobile broadband models.

The original iPad Air delivered quite reasonable wireless support for a device of its form factor, offering full 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi capability. With the new model, Apple has added 802.11ac to the list with its enhanced MIMO support, enabling 2.8 times the WiFi performance at data rates up to 866Mbps, according to the firm.

Meanwhile, the mobile broadband support is claimed to be up to 50 percent faster, with the Wi-Fi plus cellular version of the iPad Air 2 offering download speeds of up to 150Mbps on 4G/LTE networks. And with 20 LTE bands supported, it can be used on 4G networks in almost any corner of the globe.

With both these wireless connectivity options upgraded, users of the iPad Air 2 can enjoy a better experience on the move than ever before.

SEE FIRST 5 ---->

LG G3 S review

2014-10-19T13:06:00.001+03:00

The Good The LG G3 S has the same attractive styling as its big brother, its camera can take good shots and the laser-assisted autofocus is quick to lock on to your subject.

The Bad Its processor puts in a very poor performance, its screen resolution doesn't impress, it comes with a pitiful amount of storage and it's running on an old version of Android KitKat.

The Bottom Line The LG G3 S may come with the same name and physical design as its flagship brother, but the similarities are only skin deep. The G3 S's specs have been watered down in every way, making this little more than a low-end phone in a high-end body with a mid-range price.

If you like the look of the LG G3 (and who wouldn't? The camera uses lasers!) but your wallet is less keen, then meet the LG G3 S, also known as the LG G3 Beat, or the LG G3 Mini.

As we've seen with phones like the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini and the HTC One Mini 2, the G3 S takes the design and name of the flagship but shrinks it down into a slightly more manageable package.

Note the emphasis on slightly there -- the G3 S is a 5-inch phone, barely reducing the size of the 5.5-inch G3. It hardly qualifies as a mini phone, and with a weedy 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 8-megapixel camera and 720p screen, it doesn't match its big brother in anything other than design.

Still, it looks pretty neat, it uses the same attractive Android interface and keeps the laser-assisted autofocus from the the G3.
LG hasn't given an official price for the G3 S yet, but early pre-order prices from shops in the UK put it at around £226 ($360, AU$410) which isn't too bad. Keep your eyes peeled for official pricing and regional availability.

Design

Don't be fooled into thinking the S in the G3 S name stands for "small". At 5 inches, it might be slightly smaller than its 5.5-inch big brother, but in no way can a 5-inch phone get away with being called mini. It measures 138mm long and 70mm wide, which is only marginally smaller than the Galaxy S5. It's more comfortable to use in one hand than the standard G3, but if you're after something much more palm-sized, check out the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, or Samsung Galaxy Alpha.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Design-wise, it's identical to the standard G3. It has the buttonless front and curved plastic back panel that has the same brushed effect. It's not a bad-looking phone, although up close, that back panel is unmistakably plastic rather than a more premium metal -- which isn't helped by the scratchy sound it makes when you run your nails over it. The curve to the back at least feels good to wrap your hand around. Like the G3 and G2 before it, the volume and power buttons are on the back, rather than the side.

LG reckons it's more comfortable this way as it's where your index finger will naturally sit. I'm personally not all that keen on this change -- I really don't believe that volume button placement was a problem that needed fixing to begin with -- but you'd probably get used to their location after using it for a few weeks.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

The plastic back panel is removable and provides access to the battery, the SIM card slot and the microSD card slot. You'll absolutely need to use a microSD card as the phone comes with a pitiful 8GB of built in storage. I'd expect such a low amount on a bottom-end phone, but not here. You'll quickly fill that up with apps and games and if you want to store music and video locally, I highly suggest grabbing a card to pop in. Although you can install apps to the SD card, not all apps can do this, so don't rely on being able to put your favourite games on the card.

Display

The 5-inch display has a 1,280x720-pixel resolution, giving a pixel density of 294 pixels per inch, which isn't particularly impressive. Particularly not when you compare it to the G3's 2,560x1,440-pixel (538ppi) display. It's lower than the iPhone 6's 326ppi, the 312ppi of the Galaxy Alpha and the 319ppi of the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.

While it's disappointing on paper, in practice, the difference is less marked. Icons and text are at least adequately sharp and side by side against phones like the Galaxy Alpha it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference. Against full HD (1,920x1,080p) displays or indeed the G3's 2K display, the G3 S definitely packs a less impressive punch.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

High definition images and video are perfectly watchable, but don't have quite the same level of clarity you'd find on higher definition screens. It's bright though, easily countering our overhead office lights and it has quite rich colours so Netflix and YouTube videos at least look good. For the money, it's far from a bad screen, but I would have liked to see LG pack in more pixels.

Android software

The G3 S arrives with Android 4.4.2 KitKat on board, which is a couple of versions out of date behind the latest 4.4.4 KitKat. That's a shame, but given the cheaper price tag, it's a little more forgivable. As it did with the G3, LG has heavily skinned the G3 S's interface.

The interface has the same underlying structure as any other Android phone -- multiple homescreens are available for you to fill up with apps and apps you don't want on the homescreens are stored in the app tray. LG has made a lot of tweaks to the look of Android, with its own fonts, app icons and colour schemes.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

You can customise many things like the homescreen transition, the layout of the navigation buttons and even the way the screen fades to black when you turn it on to standby mode. The settings menu, while vast, is separated into four tabs, which makes it slightly easier to find the tool you're after. Even so, with so much to tweak, it's not the easiest phone to get to grips with.

The G3 S's interface looks almost identical to the G3's software, but you won't find features like LG Health (which tracks your exercise) or Smart Tips (which aims to give you tips on how better to use features or highlights tools you may not know the phone has). Neither are exactly big losses. You do at least get the remote control tool, which uses the infra-red sensor on the top of the phone.

Processor and battery performance

The phone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, backed up by only 1GB of RAM, which is about what I'd expect to find in bottom-end phones costing much less than the G3 S. The new 5-inch Motorola Moto G has the same processor in fact and can be picked up for £144 ($180).
Unsurprisingly, it didn't exactly blow me away with its benchmark results. It achieved 1,299 on the Geekbench benchmark test and 8,273 on the Quadrant test, putting it far below the regular G3 (3,651 Geekbench, 23,103 Quadrant), the Galaxy Alpha (23,729 Quadrant) and the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact (3,677 Geekbench, 21,077 Quadrant). It also came in a little under the 2014 Moto G's score of 8,849 on the Quadrant test.

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Hands on: Kazam Tornado 348 review

2014-10-15T20:49:00.000+03:00

Hold on to your hats, it's the world's slimmest smartphone

For

Pretty much stock Android
Super thin
Smooth performance

Against

Feels toyish in the hand
No expandable memory
Poor camera

You may not of heard of the ambitious mobile start up, but Kazam has got itself the headline grabbing accolade of "world's slimmest smartphone" with its latest offering, the Kazam Tornado 348.
It's a record the company claims it isn't going to rave about, instead it says it wants to keep things simple and gimmick-free, although I find that a little hard to believe as that's just what the title it's claiming is.

Do we really need a handset that's just 5.15mm thick? Some will say no.
The Kazam Tornado 348 is planned to touch down in the UK and some other European markets on November 15 bearing a SIM-free price tag of £249 - which sounds relatively reasonable.

For that you get a 4.8-inch 720p display, 1.7GHz octa-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, 8MP rear camera, 5MP front snapper and Android 4.4.2.

There's no microSD slot, so you could find storage a little limited if you have a large music collection or like playing games on your phone, but Kazam does throw in a free screen replacement if you break it within the first 12 months of ownership.

Take one look at the Tornado 348 and you'll be struck by that unmistakable feeling of deja vu... where have you seen this phone before?

It looks remarkably similar to Apple's new iPhone 6, plus some features such as the arrangement of the camera and flash on the rear mimic that of the Sony Xperia Z3.

Kazam has confirmed that the core design of the handset was created by a third party vendor in China, which goes some way to explaining the familiar aesthetics on display here.
Sitting on a table the Tornado 348 does look respectable, this isn't just a cheap hunk of non-descript plastic which adorned previous devices by Kazam.

I was surprised just how light the Tornado 348 was when I picked it up. At just 95.5g it's one of the lightest smartphones on the market, and if anything it feels just a little too lightweight.

Couple that with an obviously plastic (not glass) rear and the Tornado 348 feels a little toyish in the hand - there's no reassuring heft to tell you that this is actually a piece of tech you're holding.

A saving grace is the metal band which runs round the circumference of the device in a similar fashion to the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, and while this provides a more premium finish it fails to feel as good in the hand as its more expensive rivals.

That said, I did find it sat nicely in the hand, with the dimensions and weight ensuring my palm had no trouble getting to grips with the handset and reaching the power/lock and volume rocker on the left of the device.

Kazam has opted to stick with touch-sensitive navigations keys below the screen, rather than sticking them on the display and they are easy enough to hit.

On the right you'll find a microSIM tray, while the headphone port is located on the base (just like on the iPhone) along with the microUSB port and internal speaker.

With such a slender frame there is always the risk that the handset may be structurally weak, but after applying some heavy pressure I could only get the Tornado 348 to flex slightly. It should be able to avoid any #bendgate embarrassments then.

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The Nexus 6 is Google's Lollipop-running phablet, and it's massive

2014-10-15T20:46:00.000+03:00

As we'd anticipated, Google has just announced the Nexus 6, and it's built by Motorola.
The phone is the biggest Google has put out yet and packs a whopping 5.9-inch Quad HD display, a 13MP camera, and dual front-facing stereo speakers, all built into a brushed aluminium body.

The phone runs on a 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, and comes in 32GB and 64GB storage variants. The battery is also a biggy at 3220mAh, and we expect it'll need it.

The phone is essentially an inflated Moto X when you look at the design, which is no bad thing. We just hope you like your handsets big.

Tasty treat

It also comes running Android 5.0 Lollipop (yes, that name is now confirmed) which launches today also on the Nexus 9 tablet. Lollipop introduces a new power-saving feature that will supposedly juice out an extra 90 minutes of power.

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IBM: APTs and AETs are top IT security concerns

2014-10-02T23:19:00.000+03:00

Advanced, undetectable threats are top of the list when it comes to IT managers’ security concerns, according to IBM.

Speaking during the V3 Security Summit, Ziv Cohen, European sales director for IBM Trusteer Enterprise Solutions, warned that advanced persistent threats (APTs) and advanced evasion techniques (AETs) are proving troublesome for firms to deal with owing to their stealthy nature.
[To find out more about protecting your business from advanced threats, register to view our video interview with Cohen.]

“The most critical threats that IT managers prioritise at the moment are definitely advanced persistent threats,” Cohen explained.

“This is a threat that flies under the radar of current security solutions. Even though they have invested heavily in security solutions, still this threat can find its way into the organisation silently. They infect the computers and create persistency and reach out to the data without the company even being aware of it.”

As well as the difficulty in dealing with APTs and AETs owing to their under-the-radar nature, malicious users have also evolved to target their attacks very specifically and are not going after one particular sector or business type.

“With APTs they are crafting their attacks so they know exactly who the person is they want to reach out to, who the person is they need to infect, whether this person has the right permissions and access to the sensitive data they would like to steal,” Cohen warned.

“All kinds of organisations are facing these threats – agriculture, healthcare, education and clearly financial services as well. With APTs, the goal is to get sensitive information, it doesn’t matter which sector it is.”

While perimeter security is an important aspect of fighting advanced threats, Cohen advised that the focus should be where the attack is taking place.

“That’s why it has to be a multi-layer strategy where gateway solutions filter out the known and suspicious parts, but the attack will be prevented on the endpoint where it’s taking place,” he said.
However, even firms that have taken all the appropriate security measures, including educating employees to become more security savvy and adopting multi-layered protection, still face issues.

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Samsung Galaxy Alpha review

2014-09-19T18:43:00.000+03:00

Enticingly sleek Samsung handset with its eye on the iPhone 6

For

Classy design
Lightweight body
Blistering performance
4.7-inch display well-sized and bright
Good camera

Against

No microSD
Fiddly finger sensor
720p display not quite as sharp as it could be
TouchWiz UI still inferior to stock Android
Battery life underwhelming

While Apple is being praised and mocked in unequal measure for launching the "bigger than bigger" iPhone 6 with a 4.7-inch display and the even bigger iPhone 6 Plus - is that a reversing beep I can hear? - Samsung has performed an about-turn of its own with the launch of the Galaxy Alpha.
This is the first Samsung smartphone I can remember using that values attractive design ahead of spec list box-ticking. Whilst it's not the finished article, it marks a welcome departure in an exciting new direction for the company.

Ratings in depth

It's also arguably the most balanced and comfortable-to-use premium phone Samsung has made since the Samsung Galaxy S2.

Make no mistake though - this is unknown, risky territory for Samsung. Starting from £549.99 SIM-free, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha is priced like a flagship phone, but it's technically out-specced by the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Really, though, this simply reframes the age-old iOS vs Android argument with none of the platform bias - what makes a premium phone premium?

Design

Let's get the obvious comment out of the way early doors. The Samsung Galaxy Alpha looks a lot like an iPhone.

While it's clearly been released to pre-empt the launch of the iPhone 6, though, the Alpha's design is pure iPhone 4. It's got a very familiar flat-edged aluminium rim with that same nick-inviting chamfered edge. Even the machined speaker grid on the bottom edge is reminiscent of Apple's seminal phone.

In appearance, the Alpha clearly follows the iPhone 4 - but it has subtle distinctions

Of course, the fact that Samsung has borrowed some ideas from Apple is far less noteworthy than the fact that it has finally adopted metal into its design process. Given how well the company has done with its first attempt, I have to ask: what took you so long, Samsung?

This is a lovely phone to hold. It sits in one hand delightfully. As someone with larger-than-average hands, I can just about stretch my thumb to each corner of the 4.7-inch display without needing the shuffle the handset around in my hands.

Decidely middle sized, the Alpha sits nicely in the hand

That's facilitated by a nice thin bezel and the Galaxy Alpha's super-thin body. At 6.7mm, it's not the thinnest phone in the world, but it's up there. It's also 0.2mm thinner than the similarly proportioned iPhone 6.

Not the thinnest on the market, but the Alpha is still strikingly slim

Like Apple's new iPhone, Samsung has positioned the Galaxy Alpha's power button on the top right-hand edge of the phone, so you can reach it easily with thumb or finger. The volume rocker is on the opposite edge, if a little higher up. Both have a satisfying click to them.

The power and volume controls are easily accessible

It's when you look closely at these side buttons that you realise the Galaxy Alpha's metal rim isn't quite as unoriginal as it first seems. There's a subtle outward curve just before you reach the top and bottom edges, which is both nice to look at and offers a useful niche to tuck your little finger into.

You know you're definitely dealing with a Samsung phone when you turn it over - and we're not just talking about the Samsung logo or the centrally-mounted, square-rimmed, slightly protruding camera unit.

The back of the Alpha is soft-touch polycarbonate, and it looks remarkably good

The Galaxy Alpha's dalliance with metal extends only to its outer rim. The rear of the device is the same kind of soft-touch polycarbonate as we've seen before.

It's one of the least objectionable uses for the material yet, though. Perhaps it's the fact that Samsung has done away with that awful faux-stitching effect, or the fact that it's framed by elegant metal rather than ugly shiny plastic. I don't know, but in this case Samsung's use of plastic is as notable and restrained as its use of metal.

The decision not to opt for an all-metal body has led to a number of other benefits. It makes the Alpha easy to grip and handle, it allows for a removable battery, and it makes the phone remarkably light.

Easy access to the battery is a benefit of the detachable back

At 115 grams, it's 14 grams lighter than the iPhone 6. In fact, it's only 3 grams heavier than the 4-inch iPhone 5S. No, it doesn't quite feel as premium as either, but it's nowhere near as far off as Samsung's earlier efforts.

And this introduces one of the most contentious specs of the Samsung Galaxy Alpha - its display. As I've already mentioned, this is a 4.7-inch screen, which kind of bucks the trend for recent high-end Android devices. The HTC One M8, the Google Nexus 5, the Sony Xperia Z2, and yes, the Samsung Galaxy S5, have all busted through the 5-inch barrier.

Indeed, the Alpha feels like a blast from the past, going back to the time of the Nexus 4, the HTC One X, and the Samsung Galaxy S3. More pertinently, and as already discussed, this is the size adopted by Apple for its iPhone 6.

The Alpha's 720p Super AMOLED display is bright and clear at these dimensions

The result is that you'll probably find the Galaxy Alpha either slightly smaller or slightly bigger than you're used to. My view? Like Goldilocks and the middle-sized bed, this one feels just right. It offers a clear view of HD video, games and most web pages without sacrificing portability or one-handed usability.

Perhaps even more contentious is the Samsung Galaxy Alpha's display resolution. It's only ("only") 720p.

Complaints about this lower resolution are valid - particularly given the Galaxy Alpha's premium price - but only up to a point. Yes, other Android phones have hit the considerably sharper 1080p resolution standard in recent times, but the vast majority of these have been larger 5-inch displays.
In fact, if we're talking mainstream phones, only 2013's HTC One M7 really springs to mind as offering a 4.7-inch 1080p display.

In a sub-5-inch screen like this one, 720p feels perfectly adequate. That's not to say that you definitely won't notice the difference in sharpness between the Galaxy Alpha and (for example) the Galaxy S5. But as it is, using the phone in isolation, the Alpha's display is plenty sharp enough.
Indeed, with Samsung's expert - and still relatively unique - use of Super AMOLED technology, the Galaxy Alpha's picture positively pops from the screen. Colours are rich and contrast levels are exemplary, while you won't be experiencing inky blacks of this kind on any LCD panel.

It still lends some icons and images a slightly false, gaudy appearance, but once you're attuned to it (or once you've tuned it to your liking) other displays can look a little drab by comparison.

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Android One: Google's push to rule the smartphone world

2014-09-16T21:25:00.000+03:00

The search giant is aiming to bring phones that cost less than $100 to "the next five billion" in the emerging markets. First stop: India.

Google has partnered with handset makers Micromax, Karbonn and Spice to bring phones that cost less than $100 to India. Android Chief Sundar Pichai introduced the initiative at the Google I/O developer conference in June.

Google just took an important step toward cementing its dominance over the world with its Android mobile operating system.

In the wee hours of the morning on Monday, almost 8,000 miles away from its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Google launched its Android One initiative in New Delhi, India. The project, originally announced at the company's I/O conference in June, is essentially a way for Google to guide handset manufacturers in bringing affordable smartphones to emerging markets.

The initiative is designed both to reduce the ultimate price tag of Android smartphones, giving more budget-conscious consumers a chance to try out the devices, and to bring a more consistent Android experience, ensuring that those consumers are using Google services. That the Internet giant is making so much noise out of Android One underscores the importance of those markets, which are a critical source of future user growth -- and where Google isn't the only company looking to plant its flag.

Android One is first rolling out in India, then in Indonesia, the Philippines and South Asia by the end of the year. For the launch, Google has partnered with three Indian device makers -- Micromax, Karbonn and Spice -- to create three $100 smartphones, as well as teamed up with the wireless provider Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile carrier in India, with 40 percent of smartphone users in the country on that network.

After India, Android One will launch in other countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia, by the end of the year. Google

Phones made under the Android One rubric will also run "stock" Android, an unmodified version of the software, without the technical and user interface flourishes that manufacturers such as Samsung or HTC typically add to make their smartphones stand out from the competition. The company has already designed its most current version of Android, called KitKat, to run on low-cost hardware.
The three new handsets are the Spice Android One Dream UNO Mi-498, the Micromax Canvas A1 and the Karbonn Sparkle V. Google on Monday also announced additional hardware partners, including Asus, HTC, Lenovo and chipmaker Qualcomm.

At launch, the phones incorporated similar specifications -- 4.5-inch FWVGA display with a 854x480-pixel resolution, quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek processor, dual-SIM capability, 1GB RAM and 4GB of onboard storage alongside a microSD card slot for expandability. There's a rear 5-megapixel camera and a removable 1,700mAh battery as well.

"With Android One, we not only want to help people get online, we want to make sure that when they get there, they can tap into the wealth of information and knowledge the web holds for everyone," said Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president of Android, Chrome, and apps, in a blog post.
"The expectation of the user has changed," said Anand Chandrasekaran, Bharti Airtel's chief product officer, in an interview. "In terms of what they consider a feature-rich phone -- and what they are willing to pay for it."

One of the major problems that the initiative addresses, besides the cost of hardware components, is out-of-date software. In India, where most data plans are prepaid, users tend to ignore updating their operating systems and apps because auto-update features usually eat through much of their plans, Chandrasekaran said. Many just disable those features and carry on with old software. "Users end up using 40 to 50 percent of their data plans on updates they don't know about," said Chandrasekaran. "So they turn it off."

The phones will also run "stock" Android, unmodified by hardware partners. CNET

The carrier will allow users to download Android updates free of charge for the first six months, as well as 200MB worth of apps -- which won't count against their their monthly data intake.
By the end of the year, 1.75 billion people worldwide will own smartphones, according to eMarketer. Among those already wielding the gadgets, Google has a sizable lead. Android has 1 billion active users, Pichai said in June, and its devices make up 80 percent of the global market. Apple's iOS, which powers iPhones and iPads, accounts for 17 percent.

Google wants to make sure that when the rest of the population buys their first smartphones -- mostly in the developing world -- they go with Android. "We can get the next billion people onto these devices," said Pichai, introducing the Android One initiative at the I/O conference. On Monday, Pichai upped his goal, noting that Android One was "for the next five billion."
The company did not make any of its employees available for this story.

Mission: Connection

As business operations go, the initiative is in line with Google's -- and several other tech giants' -- long-term strategy: connect as many users as possible. That way, the company can get its software and services to an even wider an audience. Taking that idea even a step further in the pipeline, Google has made major investments in first bringing Internet access to unwired populations. Project Loon, an initiative run through the company's ambitious Google X division, aims to beam Wi-Fi to rural regions via high-altitude balloons. The company has also reportedly committed more that $1 billion to satellites that will do the same kind of thing.

Facebook has similar plans: the company has tinkered with satellites and drones to deliver people Internet access, through an effort called Connectivity Labs. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been an ardent supporter of affordable web connectivity through an initiative called Internet.org.

But the most straightforward approach, for now, is smartphones. Microsoft has similar smartphone designs on developing markets. Over the last seven months, the software titan has eliminated fees for its Windows Phone, struck deals with some of the same low-cost manufacturers -- such as Micromax -- and worked with Qualcomm for low-cost chips and reference designs to enable more affordable smartphones. Microsoft's Lumia line, formerly created by Nokia, had already seen a bulk of it success from emerging markets.

Google's Project Loon aims to beam Wi-Fi to unconnected populations via high-altitude balloons. Google

In India, Samsung -- which runs a modified version of Android on its phones -- is the handset leader. The top smartphone in the country is the Galaxy Star Pro, which sells for $76, according to IDC. The manufacturer's No. 2 and 3 models are the $130 S2 and the $297 Grand 2. Other companies have also made recent plays in the low-end market. Firefox makes a smartphone that sells for $33. And the Chinese company Xiaomi sells a $100 Android smartphone that sold out in India earlier this month in less than 5 seconds, claimed CEO -- and former Android vice president -- Hugo Barra.

Part of the goal, Chandrasekaran said, is to entice people who would have normally bought feature phones to instead go for smartphones -- where they'll consume three to five times more data on average, according to Airtel's findings.

"For someone who barely used data to now using 500 percent more, that's a huge moment," he said.

Android One, one Android

While Android has a dominant grasp of the market, one knock competitors like Apple always mention is that the software's ecosystem is fragmented. Because it's an open platform, meaning anyone can use and adapt it, hardware partners like Samsung have modified it to fit their needs, leaving users and software developers to wade through Android's many iterations.

But the very name Android One -- and Google's rule that hardware partners run stock Android -- seems to suggest the company wants to home in on a more consistent experience. Onstage at I/O, Pichai emphasized that all the software on Android One comes from Google.

"Google has been quietly clamping down on OEMs [or hardware manufacturers] from making things too custom," said Melissa Chau, an analyst at IDC, who covers the smartphone market in Asia.
Google's main play here, though, is reeling in manufacturers who are using Android, but are not certified for Google Mobile Services, or Google apps like Maps or Search, said Chau. "They want to make sure, if you're buying a $100 phone, you're actually using Google services," she said. "They're trying to clean out all that super fragmented stuff."

The company has also been aiming toward more uniformity with other Android projects. For Android Wear -- a modified version of the operating system tailor-made for wearable devices like smartwatches -- software updates come more directly from Google, instead of first having to be tested by carriers. That's because smartwatches typically must be connected to smartphones, so carriers are not involved. (Though an exception is Samsung's Gear S watch, which has a built-in modem.)

India or bust

Hands on: iPhone 6 review

2014-09-12T21:06:00.000+03:00

Now THIS is what we've been waiting for

For

Great design
Improved camera
Better battery?

Against

Still pricey
Low-res screen compared

For some, the attraction of the masses to Apple devices is almost unfathomable. The iPhone has never been one of the most powerful handsets in the world, nor the smallest, nor largest, and yet seven years later it has retained (and grown) its unshakeable following.
However, in the last 18 months, the death knells have started quietly sounding, ringing in the distance as the best Android phones - once only a rival on spec or price - became genuine challengers and then out-and-out better handsets.

Tim Cook knew the brand needed to do something, and quickly - and that's just what's happened. The iPhone 6 represents one of the most comprehensive overhauls of the iPhone range since the iPhone 4, and actually goes one step further in a lot of ways.

The processor is obviously uprated, the camera quicker and more capable than ever before, and the battery has been enlarged significantly to quell the disquiet at the power use of previous models.

But there's so much more here that represents a seismic shift for Apple: the increased resolution on the screen is really helpful (and badly needed) and the payments mechanism, while limited to the US only at the moment, will be the boost that the smartphone payment industry needed.

And of course the larger screen will stop those locked into the iOS ecosystem from casting admiring glances at phones such as the HTC One M8 and Sony Xperia Z3.

Check out the new iPhone 6 in our hands on video direct from Apple's event:

Design

Apple's design overhaul is much-needed and as much as many could have hoped for – taking a number of cues from the iPad Air to bring a metallic, almost ceramic, shell that feels simply brilliant in the hand.

Say what you like about Apple, it's a brand that's always put design at the forefront of its new handsets. Even the iPhone 5S, probably the most unimaginative of all of Cupertino's handsets, had a strong build that screamed quality in the hand, giving the user the instant feeling of something worth spending a lot on.

The iPhone 6 pushes that idea to the next level, losing the sharp edges in favour of sleek and rounded sides that make the device much more pleasing in the palm. It just feels so thin, but doesn't have the overly-lightweight feeling of the iPhone 5S.

It's one of those phones that I'm actually sad feels so nice in the hand - when reviewing phones, proving oneself agnostic to whichever brand is critical, but Apple consistently shows it knows how to make a well put-together handset, and it's done it again here.

It just feels premium the moment you pick it up, from the vibrant and clear screen to the subtle curve of the display into the rounded frame.

There is a worry that this is a slippier handset than before thanks to the more rounded nature of the design, but then again with Apple (apparently) upgrading the glass in the screen to something that can withstand many, many more bumps and bruises before shattering, that might not be the horrid experience it might once have been.

The larger screen is certainly an improvement on the previous models – while I think 4.7-inches is going to be a tiny bit small for those that have lusted after their friends' Galaxy S5 devices with the 5.2-inch screen, it's still a very good size for one hand.

If it wasn't, then why would Sony have launched the Xperia Z3 compact and Samsung the Galaxy Alpha, both within 0.1-inch of the iPhone 6's screen size? The issue with the iPhone 5S, with the cramped screen making it almost impossible to peck out the letters on the keyboard, has now definitely been alleviated.

It's not got a great resolution, at only 1334 x 750 it's essentially 720p, but the new Retina HD screen looks brilliant. So much so that I thought I was picking up a dummy model to play with. It's another point that Apple fans will leap upon in the interminable Android vs iOS debate: if the screen looks good enough, then it's good enough.

There's more here than resolution too: the iPhone 6 packs wider viewing angles, deeper colours and a richer colour reproduction than anything else before it in the iPantheon, and that instantly brings an impressive feel when you pick it up.

And if you're so desperate for the larger resolution, there's always the iPhone 6 Plus to be looking at, despite that being more of a phablet / Note 4 rival.

Having said all that, and while I do think the upgraded resolution is a good jump for Apple, its not quite enough really for the spec fans. While I think the brand had it right a few years ago when it launched the Retina display, times have moved on.

Some people say that the Full HD / QHD displays on offer today from Sony, Samsung and LG are overkill, but there's no way that you won't see the difference in sharpness if you put the iPhone 5S and LG G3 next to one another.

However, it's the same PPI as the iPhone 5S, so the iPhone 6 might not stand up to sharpness tests next to the best the Android world has to offer.

It must be tremendously frustrating to create a quality, well-selling app and then find the resolution you coded for is now old news. The good news is that while you're spending hours making an iPhone 6 version, the phone will properly scale old apps to still work.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been confirmed to pack upscalers within the device, and combined with the improved iOS 8 developer tools to play with, there's no chance of unsightly black bars showing up.
Everything rejigs itself to fit the screen - while there will be some apps that are dubbed 'iPhone 6 ready', they'll be because the developer chose to upgrade them to make use of the new designs, not because they were forced to.

It's not going to be a perfect experience, but it's another example of Apple's decent ecosystem - it can now manage to keep all apps in line without an effort from a developer while still managing to offer good abilities to devs to update when they want to.

Disclaimer: I've erroneously stated that resolution is the reason that Android devices can't show some apps, when Android does in fact upscale apps automatically. This has now been rectified.

In terms of the performance advantage Apple has given itself, the new A8 processor certainly seems up to the task. While (as usual) we've not heard much in the way of specs for it, save to say it's the same 64-bit architecture that Apple added into the mix last year.

However, if we're not looking at the power, there is some really rather good news: the A8 chip is capable of a 50% power reduction, meaning there's a strong chance Apple has gone some way to solving its power-management woes that have so plagued previous devices.

As such, the same snappiness is there in terms of camera processing, general browsing and app use, but it will only be with some serious use that the power of the new A8 chip will show itself.
And while we've not been told the RAM inside the iPhone 6, there's a feeling that Apple will have doubled it at least to 2GB in order to facilitate more powerful and impressive apps, as well as allowing the phone to function better under duress.

Apple Pay

One of the big changes here, along with the newly announced iPhone Plus, is the new Apple Pay system. It means the iPhone finally packs NFC technology inside, which means the tech is finally here to stay as all the top vendors are now using it by default.

Hands on: Apple Pay review

There's not a lot of surprise here, but the NFC element syncs with Passbook to allow you to pay simply with a tap of the phone. Apple Pay is essentially the same as most contactless methods of payment, and uses the current readers to let you pay with your phone (or even your Apple Watch).

Check out my in-depth look at this new service to see what it really brings - although if you want a spoiler: touch phone, use TouchID, beep on reader, pay.

M8 co-processor

Another big change for Apple is the update to the companion CPU - the M7 co-processor which tracks movement has been upgraded to include things like a barometer so it knows how many steps you've climbed, how many flights of stairs and just general elevation too.

It's not something that's been super-publicised by Apple, possibly because I think the M7 was under-used in the last 12 months. It could have been a real boon, but if this version, combined with the health chops of the Apple Watch, starts to really integrate with Health, then it seems Apple has made the right move.

The current Health app certainly benefits, allowing you to visualise more information and more accurately too. It will be interesting to see if new apps start to properly use the power of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, or if they just treat it as something of a novelty.

iOS 8

The new operating system that was debuted at WWDC earlier in the year has the expected poster boy in the iPhone 6 – while it's not a massive overhaul of the platform, it brings with it some nifty tweaks.

For instance, the updated notifications center is imbued with better powers than before, allowing you to see more relevant information from a simple pull down from the top of the screen.

This action isn't as easy as it once was, thanks to the larger screen, but that's worth it for the greater real estate to play with.

The new OS brings with it other big upgrades, such as the ability to use other keyboards in the future – the thought of Swiftkey on an iPhone, and one without such cramped conditions for typing is an appealing one – which shows that Apple knows it needs to do something big to keep up with the smartphone competition amid eroding market share.

It will also play much better with Mac OS X than ever before thanks to the new powers Yosemite brings while this will work with any iOS 8-powered phone, the new abilities to make calls or get SMS from the computer will be a big draw for those that like their new phone to be integrated with their laptop.

Camera

The camera on the iPhone 6 isn't much of a change... from the outside. It's still 8MP, and still doesn't record in 4K.

It does protrude out from the top of the iPhone in order to pack in greater optics while keeping the slender frame, but will only annoy you if you rock the iPhone when placed down on a table.

I assume the sapphire glass is used in the cover again - otherwise it seems odd to leave something protruding to get so scratched.

But that would miss some of the big changes: the f/2.2 aperture, the new iSight camera with superfast autofocus thanks to 'Focus Pixels' and the same trick repeated with the video, for smooth shooting even if you're moving around.

The iPhone 6 has digital image stabilisation, unlike its larger iPhone 6 Plus brother, which packs optical image stabilisation for a likely slightly crisper picture.

There's an algorithmic update too, allowing you to smooth video on the fly. Yes, it's not much of an update, but combined with the crisp video images Apple is packing into the iPhone 6, I can see it being something of a big selling point.

You can also now shoot time lapse videos right from the app, edit your snaps with more aplomb thanks to clever tool updates and this is all with a greater degree of sharpness and colour thanks to the improved Retina HD screen.

But the cool thing (if you like slo-mo video) is the phone can now shoot at 240fps, which is a fantastically sharp way of looking at what people are doing really, really slowly.

Early verdict

Assassin's Creed Rogue Confirmed for Xbox 360 and PS3; Watch The First Trailer Now

2014-08-06T01:34:00.000+03:00

Ubisoft has now formally announced Assassin's Creed Rogue. Below are some highlights.

Launching November 11 for Xbox 360 and PS3; no mention of PC was made in the announcement
Developed by Ubisoft Sofia in collaboration with Ubisoft offices in Singapore, Montreal, Quebec, Chengdu, Milan, and Bucharest
Set in the middle of the 18th century during the Seven Years' War
Players can explore various locations in North America, including the North Atlantic, the Appalachian River Valley, and New York
You play as a Templar named Shay Patrick Cormac
Completes the Assassin's Creed North American saga that began with Assassin's Creed III and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

The original story is below.

Nokia Lumia Icon review

2014-08-04T16:52:00.002+03:00

5-inch Windows Phone nails it on specs, screen

See Video

The Good The feature-packed Nokia Lumia Icon has a gorgeous screen, a fast processor, and a proven 20-megapixel camera. Low-light image quality is excellent.

The Bad Its flat, slab design is uninspiring, and the Icon is a little heavy and thick. Call quality was mediocre, and media hounds won't be able to expand storage with a microSD card.

The Bottom Line Buy the Nokia Lumia Icon for its beautiful display and well-rounded features, but skip it if you require gobs of storage, are on a budget, or prefer a power user's OS.

Good things may come to those who wait, but they also come to large, powerful carriers with tremendous bargaining power. Such is the case with the Nokia Lumia Icon (also known as the 929), a 5-inch, quad-core smartphone with a 20-megapixel shooter and a soberer look and feel that Verizon can claim as its very own. The addition of the $200 Icon to Big Red's roster -- it goes on sale February 20 with a new, two-year service agreement -- marks a much-needed refresh to Verizon's Windows Phone lineup.

Staunch Nokia supporter AT&T still claims the glory for both the largest Windows Phone handset and also the most advanced camera phone you can buy in the US, the 6-inch Lumia 1520 and 41-megapixel Lumia 1020, respectively. Don't let that deter you. The Icon's proven features and competitive specs make it a strong contender for any superphone-seeker on Verizon, and one of the top three Windows Phone devices anywhere in the world.

Portrait of a Nokia Lumia Icon (pictures) See full gallery

Design and build
Although it can count the round, bright Lumia 1520 as a sire, the Lumia Icon more closely resembles another Verizon-only phone in the looks department, the 928, than it does the supersize smartphone.

Never mind that it's smaller; it's also boxy, with squared-off edges and sides flat enough to balance the Icon upright. A barely curved back adds some in-palm comfort and a real aluminum rim tries to class up the white or black polycarbonate backing. I'm not personally a fan of the phone's tile aesthetic; to me it lacks the personality I prefer in Nokia's screamingly colorful finishes.

That said, pretty much every Nokia phone also comes in black and white, and this steep-sided design does make the rounds from time to time. Nokia also combined aluminum parts with a muted palette in the Lumia 925, sold with T-Mobile in the US, but that phone's rounded spines and contouring gave it a much more visually interesting and premium look and feel.

The 5-inch Nokia Lumia Icon isn't small by any means, but it does fit in the hand. Josh Miller/CNET

The Icon's dimensions -- 5.4 inches tall by 2.8 inches wide -- slot right in to today's array of larger phones, though it does seem like a thick, hefty slab of smartphone, at 0.4 inch thick and a solid 5.9 ounces. It isn't so large I couldn't carry it around in my back pocket, and I could even maneuver it one-handed. Overall, I found it comfortable enough to hold and use without complaint.

A 5-inch 1080p HD AMOLED screen is the star of the show, and as usual, Nokia gives the Icon's display its best. Rich color, brightness, and pixel density to the tune of a 441ppi make photos, videos, and high-definition images leap off the screen. Nokia's ClearBlack Display filter cuts down on glare outside, and the ever-so-slightly curved Gorilla Glass three-topper promises to keep viewing angles wide enough for friends.

If you're in need of more juice to beat extra-bright environs like sun and snow, you can ratchet up the screen brightness; and if you're wearing gloves or tend to navigate with fingernails rather than the pads of your digits, there's a setting for that, too.

Verizon commissioned the Icon in two shades: white with a silvery trim and all black. Josh Miller/CNET

Around the edges, buttons for volume, power, and the camera shutter cluster on the right spine; you do your charging business at the base, and plug in your headset at the top. There's an oddly shaped nano-SIM card tray up there too, which you have to pry open with a perfectly angled fingernail, or else cast about for a useful tool.

Over on the back is where you'll find the 20-megapixel camera module and dual-LED flash. The front-facing camera rests above the screen, to the right of the speaker grille. Four microphones address your audio needs, one each at the top and bottom of the front and back sides.

The only other features to point out are things that aren't here: a unibody handset means you won't be able to pull out the Icon's battery, and there's no microSD card slot for external storage (read more on this below.)

OS and apps

One of the first things you'll notice when looking at the display is that there are three columns, not just the usual two. This is a direct result of the Windows Phone 8 Update 3 OS version, a clunky name to describe a few extra features, like this tri-column view. That means you can dramatically increase the number of icons on the home screen before having to scroll down for more.

The phone also gets topped up with the Nokia Black software update, which adds a bunch of Nokia apps and also support for low-energy Bluetooth.

If you're unfamiliar with Windows Phone, you'll find some typical features, like multitasking, voice actions, and music identification. There's Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC (with security built into the SIM to go with the e-wallet), and Bluetooth 4.0. Integrated Qi wireless charging is also on board.

The SIM card tray takes a little effort to pry open. Josh Miller/CNET

The Microsoft Office suite is one of the advantages of the Windows Phone OS, but Nokia also adds value with a whole bundle of its own apps, especially for the camera. You're looking at image editors and panorama, but also Nokia Here maps, MixRadio, Nokia Beamer, and Drive+ navigation. Bing Weather and Bing apps are other Microsoft additions.

Amazingly, Verizon keeps the preloads to a minimum. You'll see NFL Mobile, Verizon Tones, and VZ Navigator, but not much more.

Windows Phone as an OS has a clean, fresh design and a few nice touches all its own (like Xbox integration and the aforementioned Microsoft Office.) It has legitimately gained its share of fans. And yet, there are problems that need fixing, and a slow rate of growth over the last three and a half years. The Icon represents Windows Phone well, but in some respects, the OS quite simply trails behind Android and iOS.

Camera and video

Just like the 1520, the Icon comes with a 20-megapixel camera sensor with a six-lens Carl Zeiss optical assembly and optical image stabilization.

The high megapixel count sounds impressive, and it is, though you won't really nab 20-megapixel images. Instead, Nokia relies on a technique called oversampling to capture a 5-megapixel image at the same time it stores a 16-megapixel copy. When you crop (and zoom in), you take advantage of the full-resolution image, which you can store in the default 16:9 aspect ratio, or as a 4:3 ratio (19-megapixel). The camera has an f/2.4 aperture.

Buttons on the side include the camera shutter. Josh Miller/CNET

What's image quality like? Very good. Many of my indoor and outdoor pictures were crisp and detailed, with sharp edges. Even casual photographers will appreciate uncovering the details captured in an oversampled shot. One downside, though, is that the camera configuration doesn't handle macros and close-ups very well. In a sense, cropping is the only way to really get right up to your subject.

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HTC Desire 616 review

2014-08-04T16:41:00.000+03:00

A good-looking device suffering from underwhelming performance

The Good The Desire 616 blends the familiar good-looking HTC design aesthetic with dual-SIM capabilities in a 5-inch display.

The Bad The phone's performance is often sluggish and is a tad more expensive than the competition.

The Bottom Line The Desire 616 isn't one of the better HTC products we've seen this year, and you may want to give this a miss. There are cheaper and better alternatives such as the Asus ZenFone 5 or the Redmi Note.

HTC's entry-level Desire 616, in theory, should have been a great budget phone for the masses.
The 5-inch HD display has a 1,280x720-pixel resolution, sharp enough for even mid-range devices. The phone comes with dual-SIM capabilities, allowing you to have a secondary SIM card for when you're roaming without having to worry about being uncontactable on your usual number. It comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a microSD card slot, which you'll definitely need to make use of, as the phone only has 4GB of built-in storage.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite come together to make the Desire 616 what it should have been. Powered by MediaTek's octa-core processor, the phone was often sluggish, with apps sometimes failing to respond after a noticeable pause. While this is most likely a software issue, potentially fixed by an update, it is really holding back the phone's real potential.

It's not widely available, but you can find it unlocked from online retailers -- it's £183 from MobiCity in the UK or AU$270 from Expansys in Australia, for example. It's not currently available in the US, although may be in the future. It's S$298 in Singapore, which converts to $239.

The HTC Desire 616 is pretty but lacks power (pictures) See full gallery

Design

Resembling a smaller version of the HTC Desire 816, the 616 has the same large speaker holes and rounded corners. It also sports the same removable, glossy plastic rear shell. Unlike the 816, the 616 has a removable 2,000mAh battery. You'll need to take out the battery to insert your SIM and microSD cards.

The Desire 616 goes for a shiny plastic look. Aloysius Low/CNET

Instead of "BoomSound" front-facing speakers, HTC has engineered a more conventional rear output for the phone. A bad move, in my opinion, as front-facing speakers have really made HTC handsets stand out amidst a lot of tough competition.

As with more recent HTC smartphones, the 616 sits comfortably in hand, and thanks to the rounded corners it doesn't dig uncomfortably into the palm. While the design is great to look at, the glossy plastic is a fingerprint magnet, and you'll end up with a very smudged rear cover.

Internally, the 616 is powered by a MediaTek MT6592 octa-core processor, but only clocked at 1.4GHz. It has 1GB of RAM and a paltry 4GB of onboard storage.

The phone runs on 3G networks and features the standard Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0. There is no NFC.

Aloysius Low/CNET

Software and features

If you liked HTC's Sense UI, the good news is that the Desire 616 uses the Android skin on top of Android 4.2.2. The bad news is that it's an older version (5.5) and not the newer Sense 6 found on the HTC One M8 or the Desire 816.

This means no color codes for apps or new font, but you still do get HTC's social news aggregator BlinkFeed, and video highlights (found on last year's HTC One). Basically, you're getting last year's software at a much lower price. Of course, to be fair, it's not like Sense 5.5 is a bad UI -- it's just as good as Sense 6 -- but I suspect if the Desire was running Sense 6, and therefore Android 4.4 KitKat, the phone wouldn't be plagued by performance issues and laggy applications.

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Review: Lytro Illum Camera Focuses on Everything

2014-08-03T11:57:00.001+03:00

A Camera Uses Light Field Technology to Give Photos New Depth; Game-Changer or Gimmick?

Lytro's latest camera lets viewers shift focus and perspective on photos after they were shot. Personal Technology Columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler tests whether this is photography's next chapter, or just a neat gimmick.

What might photos look like if your camera could capture more depth?

Rewind with me for a moment to that scene in pretty much every crime investigation show, where good guys studying security shots "enhance" the image to reveal the villain.

Everybody knows that real blurry photos can't be made sharp after the fact. But that's exactly the premise of the new Illum camera from a startup called Lytro.

Instead of snapping a solitary image, the Illum captures a whole moment—known as the light field—so you can change focus and shift perspective after you've taken the shot. Just by clicking around a screen, the viewer can focus on a birthday cake candle, the person blowing it out, or partygoers in the background. These "living pictures," as they're called, even let the viewer look a bit behind the closest objects. The effect is a little like the portraits in Harry Potter's newspaper: a hint of depth where you weren't expecting it.

The Lytro Illum, which goes on sale Friday for $1,599, makes this mind-bending technology remarkably accessible to avid photographers. But you have to work within some technical and artistic constraints. Over a week testing the Illum, I took striking portraits and close-up shots that appear to come alive, but struggled to get as much use out of it for landscapes and action scenes.

The Illum offers great tools for experimenting, but remains a ways off from being essential for serious photographers. The jury is still out on whether light-field cameras will define a compelling new kind of photography, or be remembered as a fun gimmick.

If the name Lytro sounds familiar, that's because Illum is the company's second attempt at a camera that can do these kinds of tricks. Its first, just called Lytro, came out in 2012 and failed to catch on despite a wave of attention and a relatively low $400 price tag. That camera—a 4.4-inch-long tube that looked more like a colorful toy than a cutting-edge instrument—stayed under the radar because it had poor image quality and was hard to control via a tiny screen.

Lytro's reboot follows the counterintuitive path of quadrupling the price and redesigning the product for people accustomed to DSLRs. The Illum actually looks like a camera, with a big 8X optical zoom lens fixed on the front and four times the resolution of its predecessor. You control shutter speed, exposure and other image factors through a tiltable 4-inch touch screen on back. When I walked around with the Illum, the camera's near-futuristic lines prompted bystanders to compliment it.

The Lytro Illum, on sale this week, retails for $1,600. Lytro

Behind the lens, the Illum's sensor captures a lot more information about a scene than the typical camera, including the path the light takes on its way through the lens. Though it has just one sensor that captures one image, think of it essentially as a 3-D camera, taking shots at every possible focal point. From that moment's data, you can create an interactive image that feels like a video, where the viewer gets to choose the focus and perspective. Or you can extract a single 4-megapixel image—half the resolution of an iPhone 5S photo, but good enough for a 5x7 print—with your desired point of focus.

There's a learning curve to capturing images that take advantage of the Illum's capabilities, but by my third day, I was taking decent shots. When you're composing an image with the Illum, you have to think in terms of depth—what's near and what's far. The more dispersed your subjects are, the more interesting the shot.

To help you create shots with more artful blurring, Illum has a special "Lytro" button; press it, and the camera colors parts of the live image preview on its screen with shades of blue (near) and orange (far). You can adjust the amount of each in a shot by changing the center of focus, using the zoom or just moving the camera around.

I found that close-up portraits of people or pets generally have enough dimension to produce interesting images that make you feel closer to the subject. And busy images—parties, gardens, street scenes, markets—are great for letting you shift focus, concentrating on different parts of a scene.

Landscapes are much harder. I went to the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny day to practice, thinking that its layers of towers, cables and fog would be perfect for the Illum's depth effect. I couldn't have been more wrong. My shots turned out flat, like those of a regular camera.

When I showed my boring bridge images to Casey McCallister, Lytro's creative content manager, he explained that on such a massive scale, the entire bridge scene was at a point photographers call infinity—that is, beyond my ability to shift focus. Under those conditions, I should have put another object—a tree, sign or another person—within 4 feet of me, to add usable dimension. (Lytro offers tutorial videos online.)

Soon enough, I found myself looking at scenes differently. Instead of clearing obstructions out of the way, I was adding them in. Power lines, plants and fire hydrants all work. Try turning your family into mobile props.

The Illum's screen lags just enough from reality that it was hard to use it in action situations. Still, the camera can capture 2.5 photos per second. Like midrange digital SLRs, it also has challenges with night shooting, producing grainy images. And shooting outdoors on sunny days can be difficult, as the LCD screen can be hard to see.

The magic happens once you move the Illum's giant 53-megabyte image files to the Lytro Desktop editing software. (Warning: Working with so much data in a single image requires a workhorse of a computer, and even then is slow.)

The program lets you make basic photo adjustments such as exposure, color saturation, sharpening and cropping. You can also choose to highlight a single point, blurring all the rest, or bring everything, foreground and background, into focus. You can export these images as flat JPEGs, images that can be seen on 3-D TVs and monitors, or short videos that tell a story by shifting focus and perspective.

The most interesting option is to turn shots into what Lytro calls living pictures. This allows the viewer to change the focus or perspective themselves in real time on Lytro's website or mobile app and other photo-sharing sites like 500px.com.

Illum undoubtedly advances photography in an era where most other high-end camera-makers make only incremental improvements. But what good are these new capabilities in the hands of artists and photo enthusiasts?

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Galaxy Tab S vs iPad Air head-to-head review

2014-08-03T11:48:00.000+03:00

While Android devices have been making great headway and stealing increasingly significant numbers of new users away from Apple in the smartphone market, manufacturers tied to Google's mobile operating system (OS) are yet to enjoy similar success in the tablet market.

Traditionally there's been good reason for this as 10in Apple tablets have had significantly faster performance, better designs, sharper screens and simpler software than their Android competitors. This year, though, Korean firm Samsung has worked hard to rectify the situation, releasing its most advanced tablet to date, the Galaxy Tab S, which comes in 10.5in and 8.4in models. We got our hands on the 10.5in option.

Featuring a thinner and lighter design, powerful octa-core processor and Samsung's own Super Amoled display tech, the Galaxy Tab S has the on-paper specs to take on the iPad Air, and has led many buyers to question whether it's finally time to fully embrace Google Android and use it as both their tablet and mobile OS of choice.

Design and build

Apple's always prided itself on its design and has worked to make its iPads as thin and light as possible. When it was released in 2013 the iPad Air carried on this legacy and measuring in at 240x170x7.5mm and weighing 468g, the iOS tablet was the thinnest and lightest tablet available.

In a clear show of one-upmanship Samsung intentionally worked to take this crown from Apple and designed the Galaxy Tab to be thinner and lighter than the iPad Air. As a consequence the Galaxy Tab S measures in at a downright tiny 247x177x6.6mm and weighs 467g.

While this is an engineering achievement, we found the difference in weight and size is fairly negligible when actually using both tablets. Both the Galaxy Tab S and iPad Air are comfortable to use and thanks to their low weights are travel friendly.

However, we did notice a difference when comparing the Galaxy Tab S's and iPad Air's build qualities. Initially we expected the iPad Air to be better built than the Galaxy Tab S as the Apple tablet's chassis is made of metal. By comparison the Galaxy Tab S features a perforated polycarbonate backplate similar to the one seen on the Galaxy S5.

However, using the two tablets, we found that not only is the Galaxy Tab S's backplate significantly more scratch resistant than the iPad Air's metal frame, it's more drop resistant. During our tests the Galaxy Tab S survived an accidental encounter with a hardwood kitchen floor that would have turned the iPad Air into a crack-ridden mess.

We also have to give credit to Samsung for loading the Galaxy Tab S with a generic micro USB charge port. The use of a generic micro USB port makes it far more convenient for users not fully embedded in Apple's ecosystem to charge their tablet than it would be if they used an iPad Air, which charges using a less common Thunderbolt cable.

Winner: The Galaxy Tab S

Display

Apple's Retina display technology has always differentiated its 10in tablets from their Android competition. This remained true in 2013 with the iPad Air, and at the time of release its 9.7in 1536x2048, 264ppi in-plane switching (IPS) LCD Retina display was the finest ever seen on any 10in tablet.

Looking to change this trend, Samsung loaded its latest Galaxy Tab S with a top-end 10.5in 2560x1600, 288ppi Super Amoled capacitive touchscreen. In the past we've struggled to pick between Samsung's Super Amoled and Apple's Retina technology as both have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Super Amoled is an enhancement of basic Amoled technology. Amoled is a screen technology that lets devices display deeper and richer blacks by electrically charging each individual pixel when generating colours, letting them create blacks simply by turning off the relevant pixels.

The downside to regular Amoled technology is that it requires manufacturers to place the capacitive layer – the component that senses touch – on top of the main display, a practice that can damage the device's battery life. Super Amoled fixes this by integrating the capacitive touchscreen layer directly into the display.

Apple's Retina display technology takes a different strategy and works to help devices display better colours and whites than their Amoled equivalents, by organising liquid crystals on a fixed plate that's charged at a consistent rate.

However, comparing the Galaxy Tab S with the iPad Air, we found the Samsung tablet does have an edge. In general the Galaxy Tab S features higher brightness levels and looks noticeably more vibrant than the iPad Air.

Winner: The Galaxy Tab S

Operating system

Normally, while we've struggled to pick between unskinned versions of Android and iOS, Samsung's Touchwiz skin has swung the balance in Apple's favour.

Before 2014, every version of Samsung Touchwiz has detracted rather than improved Android and has done little more than make a sea of unwanted and superfluous changes to the OS's user interface and installed more useless applications than could easily be counted.

This has meant iPads have in the past been significantly more user friendly than their Galaxy competition.
We expected this to ring true when comparing the Android 4.4 KitKat-powered Galaxy Tab S with Apple's iOS 7 flagship iPad Air.

But while Touchwiz user interface issues remain, Samsung has done great work to reduce the number of applications and widgets that are pre-installed on the Galaxy Tab S.

Samsung has removed many of the widgets and custom applications cluttering past Galaxy devices' user interfaces and left it with generally useful software and service additions.
Key positive additions are the Galaxy Tab S's Magazine UX and multi-window support. Magazine UX is a custom set of tiled widgets designed to push productivity services such as calendar, email and news alerts to the forefront of the UI.

It can be accessed from the Galaxy Tab S's homescreen and showcases each update service as a dynamic tile. Each tile can be customised to only show alerts from specific publications, topics and services, such as email or calendar.

The Galaxy Tab S's multi-window support works the same way it did with previous Samsung devices. The feature lets you have two apps open and on the screen at any one time and is activated by swiping left from the Galaxy Tab S's right-hand bezel to bring up the shortcut tab. Once activated, apps in the shortcut menu can be opened by dragging them onto a section of the screen.

Meanwhile, the iPad retains the user-friendly interface introduced by Apple with its first iOS devices, making it a simple tablet to set up and use from scratch.

However, the combination of services offered by Samsung make the Galaxy Tab S slightly better for productivity purposes than the iPad Air and countermand the benefits of iOS's more user friendly user interface.

Winner: Tie

Next: Security , Performance and camera , Battery, storage and price

Facebook hit by second global outage in two months

2014-08-03T11:42:00.001+03:00

Facebook suffered technical issues on Friday causing its second outage in two months and affecting users worldwide.

The major service disruption meant users were greeted with an error message stating little more than "sorry, something went wrong", when the social media giant, which serves over 1.3 billion users across the globe, became unexpectedly inaccessible for an unconfirmed amount of time.

While initial reports on Twitter appeared around 5pm, the service being back up and running in the UK by 6pm.

Facebook's brief message apologised for the outage and said its team were "working on getting this fixed as soon as possible".

The site's Platform Status Page said, "Facebook is currently experiencing an issue that is affecting all API and web surfaces. Our engineers detected the issue quickly and are working to resolve it ASAP. We'll update shortly."

The company had also reported that it was having API issues on Wednesday.

"We had an increased rate of errors for the Graph API at 18:01-18:14 (PDT) today," Facebook noted. "We reverted the change that caused the issue and we're sorry for any inconvenience caused."
Facebook are yet to say why the down time occured.

During the outage, "#facebookdown" was a trending topic in the US, according to the microblogging company, proving the extent of concern among users over the outage.

Some of the top Tweets joked about the outage, including one from @thetweetofgod, which said, "Attention world: #facebookdown. Please remain calm and do not attempt to interact with human beings".
Another from @rashi_kakkar slammed Google's rival social network.

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