by Lori Cunningham

I have reviewed a lot of Android phones but I have finally found the Android phone for me — the new HTC Amaze.  Each Android phone has a bit of it’s own personality, but when you boil it down, they are pretty similar to one another.  The same is true with the Amaze…with one exception…this phone takes the BEST pictures I have ever seen on a phone.  Truly, there is no comparison – the pictures come out sharper, clearer, and with more contrast than any other phone I’ve tested.

The video comes out great too.  We just recently moved.  We went back to the old house to give the new owner their keys and I decided to take the kids up to their old rooms to say “goodbye.”  I had no worries that I didn’t have my camera because I knew the pictures and video I captured of the kids that day would turn out great…and they did.  I also took many pictures whiles at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) using the Amaze. I took my camera with me, just in case, but found I didn’t need it, the Amaze did great.

Camera Scenes

I didn’t read this on T-Mobile’s site until I began writing this article, but T-mobile says that the Amaze “offers our latest most advanced camera of any smartphone.”  I believe it.  The Amaze is the first smartphone I’ve used that offers manual ISO and white balance adjustments.  The Amaze also has some great options to choose from when shooting a picture:

• SmartShot – capture an array of shots combined to create the best photo of everyone smiling – LOVE THIS!
• SweepShot – capture landscapes by holding camera steady and rotating to capture panoramic scenes
• ClearShot HDR – capture objects in bright settings so that your photos don’t result in high light contrast
• BurstShot – capture multiple shots in a quick burst so that you don’t miss the perfect photo – when I think back to how many pictures I missed because my camera didn’t have this feature!
• Night – capture photos at night so that your pictures appear crisp in low light
• Macro – capture objects up close so that you can capture each minute detail of the object
• Portrait – capture an individual so that the subject is sharp and in focus and the background is blurry
• Manual – enables you to change advanced settings

Here are some photos I took of my dog, Bear.  Bear is not one to sit still – he’s a mover.  The BurstShot feature worked great.  I just selected the BurstShot scene and took one shot of Bear.  The other shots (there are two more I didn’t post) were taken automatically.  The BurstShot is great for sports scenes, your child’s first bike ride, or even when your kids are posing for a pic but one of them never seems to smile at the right time…that’s my son!

Features

• 4G
• 4.3: HD touch screen
• 960 x 540 qHD resolution
• 1 GB RAM
• 8 MP rear facing camera
  

  Look at this great close-up of these wires - you can see the dust really well.

• 2 MP front facing camera
• Dual LED camera flash
• Backlit camera sensor – takes better pictures with low light
• 1080p HD camcorder
• Easily synch w/Microsoft Outlook
• MicroSD card slot
• Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 chipset processor – the best you can get in a smartphone for graphics, gaming, video, etc.
• Uses Gingerbread Android operating system
• USB Tethering – allows you to hook up to your netbook/laptop so share your Internet access (without additional costs)

Pros:

• Takes great pictures
• Pictures in low light come out surprisingly well
• Hard button on side of phone for camera and video
• Nice size screen
• Case is mostly metal – nice looking, not cheap
• Can run multiple programs at once with no issues
• Programs and menu items move fast thanks to the Snapdragon S3 chipset processor (learn more about Qualcomm processors at My Bountiful Days at BlogHer Days 3 & 4).

 

Cons:

• No tripod mount connector
• Battery doesn’t last long enough – though it could be due to the many pictures I take!
• Slightly heavy
• Charger cord is not a traditional mini USB, so it doesn’t work with all mini USB connectors for charging/data transfer

I just love green hills! This is what winter looks like in So. California!

A Mom’s Perspective

If you’re looking for a new phone, I cannot recommend the HTC Amaze enough.  Seriously, I love this phone due to it’s camera and video capabilities.  The Amaze is the model all future phones should be based on.  And I’m not alone.  I went through pages and pages of positive reviews on T-Mobile’s website for the HTC Amaze.

As moms, we treasure up moments in our hearts.  More than anyone else, we see moments we’d like to capture and remember.  Having a camera smartphone that can take great photos close at hand is a dream come true.  With these photos, you can feel comfortable enlarging them for portraits or scrapbook projects and know they will keep their resolution.

Do you think you’d feel comfortable enough leaving your camera behind with a phone like the Amaze?

 

 

*  I was loaned the HTC Amaze smartphone in exchange for my honest opinions and review.  As it has now become one of my favorite devices, my request to keep the phone was granted.

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By Jamie Wiersma

Our family tried out “Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident” without knowing anything about what we were getting into. After doing a little research, I found out that “Mystery Case Files” are quite popular with PC gamers and that this is the first of the “Mystery Case Files” for Wii. I hope that they make more of these – it is a great adventure!
 

“I Spy” Game

The game is broken up into two different segments. There is the “Multi-player” mode that is basically an “I Spy” game. You enter a room that is filled with objects. You need to find all the listed objects as quickly as you can – attempting to find more than the person/people that you are playing against. As long as you read the words to them, even kids as young as my almost 5 year old can easily play this mode. It WOULD be hard for a child that is unable to read to be able to play by himself.

The Adventure

The other segment is the “Adventure” mode. This is the mode that really gets to the heart of things. There is one main player that controls the remote. At certain times throughout the game, additional players can join in and help. The basic premise of the adventure mode is a mystery that you need to solve. As you navigate the twists and turns, you will come upon some “I Spy” rooms (once you find all the hidden objects you will earn objects that will help you as you continue in your journey), pick up clues that will help you solve things and you will run across challenging puzzles that will allow you to move forward in the adventure once you solve them. We found that working as a family was extremely helpful. Different people saw things in different ways and through the help of everyone, we were able to solve all of the puzzles.
This is a game that takes many, many hours. We spent about 2 weeks tackling the game, playing a couple of hours most evenings. The game is VERY addicting. We would look at the clock, say “Ok, once we solve this puzzle, we’ll be done for the night.” But, after we solved the puzzle, something new opened up , we would get excited and want to keep playing. We also found that if you get super stuck, you can Google “Malgrave Incident Cheats” and there is a website where people ask questions and other people give helps. I don’t think we would have finished the game without the website! While the first time through will definitely be the most challenging, because this game is filled with so many elements, you can easily enjoy the game time and time again.

As a side note, as you move forward in “Adventure” mode, you open up additional rooms in the “Multi-player” mode. This is great – when we first started playing, I was worried that the “I Spy” portion would get boring because you would know where everything is. Once we solved the mystery, there were a ton more options as far as the rooms that you could find objects in. If you like brain-teasers, puzzles, mind games and mysteries, this challenge is for you. Big Fish Games hit a home run. I hope they do it again for Wii. Our family is now a big fan! Have fun and good luck!

Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident is available for the Wii.  It is available through Amazon.com for $28.99 and is eligible for free super saver shipping.

*  I was given a copy of Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

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by Lori Cunningham

Thank you to who?Comics for sponsoring this post and encouraging my child to read biographies in comic book form! Please click here to learn more about the app. And follow who? Comics on Twitter for updates.

While at a great Clever Girls Collective event, during BlogHer ’11 in August, I met with some folks from Podotree.  Podotree told me about a new app they were launching soon called Who?Comics.  Who? Comics is an iPad app that showcases biographies various influential leaders of today and yesterday but they do it in a unique way.  To capture kids’ interest, they wrote all of the content in cartoon form.  As a child reads the speech bubbles from various characters in the biography, they can better visualize and understand the personality and emotions of the people involved.

I knew this would be a perfect app for my 8-year-old daughter, who LOVES learning about famous people. Recently, when I was given the opportunity to review Who? Comics and I jumped at it.  I was pleased to see the biographies they have already compiled, namely:

Oprah Winfrey

Bill Gates

Hillary Clinton

Steven Spielberg

J.K. Rowling

Barack Obama

Warren Buffett

Stephen Hawking

Nelson Mandela

Jane Goodall

Louis Braille

Martin Luther King

Walt Disney

Nelson Mandela

and 14 more!

Here’s a brief video that gives you a glimpse on what the biographies look like and how they work:

I couldn’t wait to start reading some of the biographies with my daughter.  We learned that Bill Gates’ mind was a sponge and as an elementary student and he read his entire encyclopedia set.  He could memorize verses from the bible, after reading them only once!  He had an appetite for learning.  When his parents transferred him to a new school he was like a fish out of water.  He didn’t fit the mold of the popular kids.  But he found like-minded kids who were fascinated by computers.  It was at this school that Bill met Paul Allen.  Together they embarked on an adventure to learn all they could about computers and programming.  Both Bill and Paul would stay up all night coding games to play on the computer and learning how to code.  Bill envisioned that one day they would start-up a software company together.  And they did.

I have to say, seeing the funny cartoon expressions on the characters’ faces and how they react to things really adds to the story.  I think back to the many other biographies we’ve read with no pictures and how dry they can get sometimes.

 

Two days later we read the J.K. Rowling biography.  My daughter is a BIG fan of Harry Potter, in fact, we all are.  She has read the first three books…two times!  To our surprise, we learned that Rowling loved to spend time in the nearby church cemetery.  It was quiet there and she found the names on the tombstones so fascinating, some of which made it into her Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling’s mom passed her love for books onto her daughters.  J.K. Rowling couldn’t get enough of her books and she loved to write her own stories.  Her creative imagination was the impetus of many fun games she would invent for her sister and friends.  Rowling tried to take a traditional job route after school, but she’d often get distracted and begin writing stories.  She never lasted long at her jobs.  When she finally gave herself permission to write down her encompassing  thoughts about a wizard name Harry, she began to live.  Though her manuscript was turned down by numerous publishing companies, it only took one to say yes for her to realize her dream.

What I loved best about both biographies is that they taught my daughter that often our life-long passions are discovered during childhood and it reminded me to really

encourage my childrens’ interest and support them early on.  I also liked how that the life dream that Bill Gates and J.K. Rowling had as a child came true as they grew into adulthood.  These stories are teaching important lessons to my children…and to me.

The who? Comics app is available in the iTunes Store for $9.99 and includes two free biography comics – Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates.  Each additional book is $4.99 but you can buy collections (Activists, Politicians, Artists in sets of 6) for $9.99 each set.

Right now Podotree is offering the opportunity to buy the 29 book comic series for only $29.99, which is a fantastic deal since buying each of these books separately would equal $149.99.

 

 

 

 

Thank you again to who? Comics for sponsoring my post. Please click here to learn more about the app. Visit who? Comics for updates.

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