Archive for 2013

By November 20, 2013 Read More →

Google to release Nexus wireless charger in UK

Nexus-wireless-charger-640x318If you have a Nexus 4, 5 or or the Nexus 7 tablet you are going to be wanting one of these. A Nexus Wireless charger. Appearing just in time for the holiday rush this would be almost the perfect present for a Nexus user. The charger has already been launched in the US at $50, however, here in the UK we have merely have a “coming soon” listed.

This will undoubtedly be a big hit for those in the Nexus fanclub. This isn’t the only option for wireless charging the Nexus devices, as they use a Qi standard, there are cheaper alternatives out there. The purists out there will have to pick one there up though as this one comes with Nexus branding.

With the Nexus Wireless Charger, your new Nexus 7 becomes the first truly wireless tablet. No more messing with wires, cords and plugs – your tablet just snaps into place on the magnetic face and begins charging. The Nexus Wireless Charger adheres securely to any surface – like your desk, counter top or nightstand – so the convenience of grab-and-go charging is always within easy reach.

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By November 20, 2013 Read More →

Samsung Galaxy Gear shipping higher amounts than anticipated

Galaxy-Gear-006-Set1-Front_SixDespite critical reviews and an unappealing price-tag, it appears that Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch is turning out to be a solid success. According to a couple of reports, Samsung has shipped using freight forwarders around 800,000 units to retailers world-wide. Additionally, 50,000 units have already been actually sold to customers in South Korea alone. This has far surpassed Samsung’s own initial expectations. These numbers also put it far ahead of competing devices from both Pebble and Sony.

Samsung issued a statement regarding the surprise success of the device, “It’s the most sold wearable watch available in the market place…and we plan to expand its availability by expanding mobile devices that work with the Gear.”

One of the reasons for the increased success of the device can mainly be attributed to incentive programs to help push the device out the door. This includes bundling it with the Galaxy Note III, and there were even UK carriers currently offering it for free if customers purchase the Note III on a two-year contract.

Of course, there have also been reports that up to 30% of consumers in the U.S. have returned the device, which does not bode well for its future sales. It will be interesting to see how the sell-through numbers match up with the shipping to retail numbers when everything is finally tallied. Regardless, shipping out 800,000 units to retailers in only 2 months is nothing to sniff at.

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By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Introducing the Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone from BlackBerry

blackberry-porsche-design-p9982Blackberry are at it again, letting Porsche design a new premium handset. The previous Porsche design met with mixed feedback, as will this one. However, the styling looks a little more subdued this time around.

The P’9982 features a customised version of the BlackBerry 10.2 Operating System touted to give the ultimate personal experience for a Blackberry user.

  • The Porsche Design P’9982 smartphone from BlackBerry will be available from Porsche Design stores, select carriers and retailers around the world beginning on November 21 with the exclusive retail launch at Harrods, Knightsbridge, London.
  • It will also be available from Carphone Warehouse and Selfridges.
  • The limited Crocodile edition will be available beginning early December, and will be exclusive to the Porsche Design shop-in-shop at Harrods.

Here is the Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone Press Release:

Introducing the Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone from BlackBerry

Productivity Designed for you

Stuttgart/London. Porsche Design and BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) today announced the elite, new, all-touch Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone from BlackBerry and a second Crocodile model strictly limited to just 500 devices worldwide. Uniquely designed and expertly crafted, the P’9982 is exquisitely fashioned from high-quality materials and features a customised version of the BlackBerry 10.2 Operating System to give you the ultimate personal experience.

The P’9982, which extends the Porsche Design luxury brand’s range of modern luxury smartphones, features a satin finished frame forged from the finest quality stainless steel, complemented by a hand-wrapped genuine Italian leather back door. The back door of the limited edition model is hand-wrapped in genuine Crocodile leather. Distinguishable by its special series of PIN numbers, owners of the P’9982 will be instantly recognisable in the exclusive world of Porsche Design smartphone owners. The smartphone carries Porsche Design’s luxurious, iconic styling uniquely through the BlackBerry 10 experience to give you an exquisite handset purposely built to excel at mobile communications, messaging and productivity.

“Engineered Luxury meets Powered Performance – what has been true for the first Porsche Design smartphone is even truer for the all-touch P’9882,” says Juergen Gessler, CEO of the Porsche Design Group. “Once again the collaboration with BlackBerry has led to a device that implements our Iconic Style credo without compromises. With the P’9982 we extend our range of modern luxury smartphones and establish ourselves as a market leader in this segment.”

“The new all-touch P’9982 smartphone combines a unique design from an iconic brand with the power of BlackBerry 10,” said Alistair Hamilton, Senior Vice President of Design at BlackBerry. “Every aspect of this smartphone has been purposely designed and built for a powerful premium experience.”
The new P’9982 smartphone comes with a customised version of the powerful BlackBerry 10.2 OS, with key features such as:

  • BlackBerry® Priority Hub – BlackBerry® Hub is the one place to manage all your conversations and notifications. The new BlackBerry Priority Hub intelligently filters messages to give you instant access to the conversations and content most essential to you, helping you stay organized and focused on the most important tasks.
  • BlackBerry® Keyboard – The BlackBerry® Keyboard learns how you type, what words you use, and can correct your mistakes on-the-fly. It can also give you next-word suggestions that you can simply flick into your message, helping you type perfect text, every time.
  • BBM™ Video with Screen Share – BBM™ Video with Screen Share takes video chatting further by letting you simply swipe to share what’s on your display. With BlackBerry® Natural Sound your BBM Voice and Video calls will sound like you are in the same room.
  • Camera Time Shift mode and BlackBerry® Story Maker – The camera’s Time Shift mode starts capturing your picture before you even take it, giving you the power to pick the  perfect moment. BlackBerry Story Maker lets you take a collection of photos and videos, and add music and effects, to create an HD movie that you can instantly share.
  • BBM™ now in any app – BlackBerry 10 continues to refine the unique communications experience of the platform. If a BBM message arrives, you can instantly reply to the message without even leaving the app you’re in.
  • Apps for the Porsche Design customer – The BlackBerry® World™ storefront showcases essential apps for the P’9982 smartphone customer, including productivity apps, games, videos and music based on what apps you’ve downloaded. Get the best on BlackBerry World, uniquely suited to you.

Find your individual look with exclusive Porsche Design accessories that have been specially selected to perfectly complement your new P’9982 smartphone. Inbox, you’ll find everything you need including the premium stereo headset, a polishing cloth, USB cable for high-speed data transfer and an international charging kit. The P’9982 smartphone also offers exclusive after market accessories including handcrafted backdoors made from fine Italian leather that are available in three colours, so you can choose a look to express your individuality.
The Porsche Design P’9982 smartphone from BlackBerry will be available from Porsche Design stores, select carriers and retailers around the world beginning on November 21 with the exclusive retail launch at Harrods, Knightsbridge, London. In the UK, it will also be available from Carphone Warehouse and Selfridges. The limited Crocodile edition will be available beginning early December, and will be exclusive to the Porsche Design shop-in-shop at Harrods.

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By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Sony Xperia Z1 Review

Sony Xperia Z1 ReviewSony have have been releasing some excellent phones recently that are capable of competing with the the best in the market. The Xperia Z1 in this review has a specification sheet that has everything that one could ask for and uses all of the latest internal hardware.

Can it bring everything together to create excellent device?

To find out please read on, but not before watching the Sony Xperia Z1 unboxing and initial impressions video from Matt,if you have not already done so.

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By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 starts shipping

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9Just a few weeks after the initial announcements of the new Kindle Fire HDX, news just in that Amazon’s latest tablet has started shipping in the UK.

With models starting at £329.00 for the 16GB WiFi version up to £489 for the 64GB WiFi/4G version. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 4G LTE will be released on 13 December and that can also be pre-ordered now.

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9” combines groundbreaking hardware, Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” and new features like expanded X-Ray for films and TV and the revolutionary new Mayday button.  Front-facing HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype, plus a new 8 megapixel wide- aperture rear-facing camera offers crisp photos and 1080p HD video.   Learn more about the new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9” at www.amazon.co.uk

  • Astonishingly light design — at just 374 grams, the 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX is the lightest large-screen tablet, 34% lighter than the previous generation.
  • Powered by the latest version of Fire OS — Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito” — with hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates and Amazon-exclusive services.
  • New Mayday button delivers revolutionary, live tech support — one tap connects you to an Amazon expert who can guide you remotely through any feature — 24/7, 365 days a year, and free of charge. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal.
  • Kindle FreeTime extends parental controls to give parents a simple, engaging way to manage the way children use Kindle Fire — parents select content and set time limits by content type.
  • 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video, plus a front-facing 720p HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype
  • Watch thousands of films and TV shows with LOVEFiLM, Europe’s leading film subscription service. Expanded X-Ray for films and TV, adding trivia, character backstories and soundtrack information.
  • All-day battery life — up to 11 hours of mixed use and 17 hours of reading.
  • Updated e-mail, calendar and Silk browser to stay connected and productive.
  • New enterprise features including hardware and software encryption, Kerberos Intranet, secure
  • Wi-Fi connections, VPN integration and wireless printing.
  • Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio and virtual 5.1 multi-channel surround sound — the standard in high-end audio.
  • Full integration with the world’s best content ecosystem — over 27 million films, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines.
  • New Origami covers feature an innovative design that allows you to position Fire HDX in both portrait and landscape mode.
  • The 8.9” Kindle Fire HDX is £329.

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ has the highest resolution (2560×1600) and the best pixel density (339 ppi) of any Kindle Fire tablet, providing an incredible multimedia experience. The HDX display features over four million pixels for vivid, lifelike images that go beyond standard HD.

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By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Is LG making the next Nexus 10?

LG-Google-Nexus-10-leakHere is a rumour for you. We still don’t have any confirmation that LG will be the next maker of the Nexus 10 Android tablet. Furthermore, these pics could have been easily faked. Despite our reservations, we wanted to share the these supposedly leaked pics of an LG made Google Nexus 10 tablet.

Along with the leaked pics there are also some other tidbits. First, we can obviously make out a price in the pic on the left. Additionally, this report suggests we will actually see this device launch on November 22nd, which is this Friday. Brace yourself!

Posted in: News, Rumours, Tablets
By November 18, 2013 Read More →

How many are still using BBM for Android and iOS?

bbmiconAfter the initial surge of downloads of BBM, apparently hitting 10 million downloads within the first 24 hours after launch, how many are still using it almost 4 weeks later?

We’ve already seen the BBM app drop in the iTunes and Play Store charts and at the time of writing it’s well outside of the top 50. Was the initial surge something of curiosity or nostalgia among those users that used to have BlackBerry’s and have now migrated to other devices/platforms?

Many users that I know and support did indeed download and try BBM on their iPhone’s and Android smartphones but have since abandoned BBM again in favour of iMessage, Hangouts and WhatsApp, where they already have their contacts set up.

Looking at the latest download charts for the week, we can see that WhatsApp downloads, for example, are back to being ahead of BBM once again.

Personally, I was one of the 10 million to download BBM within the first 24 hours. I like the BBM interface and it works well but the fact remains that only a handful of my contacts (5) are using BBM vs a hundred or so on iMessage and Hangouts, for example. I’m sure I cant be the only person with this experience…

Not that I was expecting an answer, but I emailed BlackBerry to ask what the user retention of BBM has been. I have not yet received a response.

So what’s the consensus? Are you an iOS or Android user and are you using BBM?

By November 18, 2013 Read More →

YotaPhone incoming

yotaphone,4-K-409700-22A phone is coming from Russian company Yota Devices. Though its tech specs are not all that special, the YotaPhone is special in that it has a display on both the front and back of the device. The rear-facing panel is a 4.3-inch 360 x 640 EPD 16 grayscale e-ink display with a capacitive touch area underneath the display. On the front, you have a more traditional 4.3-inch 720 x 1280 capacitive multitouch LCD. The rear display functions as a notification screen and displays other information such as the time and date. It’s always on, even if your battery is dead.

YotaPhone is based on a dual-core 1.7 GHz CPU and 2 GB of RAM and features 32 GB of storage, support for WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS, a 13-megapixel camera in the back, a 1-megapixel camera in the front, and an 1800 mAh battery. It runs on Android Jelly Bean v4.2.2. No word on pricing just yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

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By November 18, 2013 Read More →

Android gaming update 18-11-13

king-of-fighters-97-android-game-1Here is a look at what’s new in the Play store this week for your gaming needs. Quite a diverse collection with a couple that might be destined to be classics.

King of Fighters ’97 is the second time the classic fighting franchise from the beloved NeoGeo has appeared on Android. has players picking their favorite team of characters including some hidden ones and battling it out with other teams. Depending on the team you finish the game with, you’ll get a different ending each time so there is plenty of replay value in just that fact alone. While the game does feature all of the original content from the original game, there are also a few new additions as well which SNK Playmore likes to do with all their mobile releases.

Features:

  • 35 playable characters: Play as SNK’s iconic fighters such as Kyo Kusanagi and Terry Bogard, and try to master the infamous “New Face Team” or the “KOF ’97 Special Team”! The NEO GEO version’s hidden characters are now available directly on the character select screen so you can easily crush your opponent using Orochi Iori or Orochi Leona! Experience for the first time in the series the “Affinity System”, and to select the members of your team according to their affinity, and enjoy their pre-match interactions!
  • 2 modes to improve the game’s depth: KOF ’97 uses 2 differents gameplay modes: EXTRA and ADVANCED! Master the system that fits you the best and burn your rivals down!
    ADVANCED MODE: Various jumps for different ways to bring the pain to your enemy! A must if you think offense is the best defense. You can stock your Power gauges to enter in MAX mode or to unleash deadly Desperation Moves. Depending on your characters’ affinity, get extra Power gauges even after losing a round!
    EXTRA MODE: Use the Evade move wisely as you are being rushed and send your opponent flying. Fill your Power gauge to automatically enter Power Max mode for a set amount of time. As you are close to exhaustion, your health bar will turn red and blink, then you will be able to unleash your Desperation Moves to your heart’s content, as long as you are the last one standing!
  • A NEOGEO Perfect Port with added features: You have the possibility to play the game as it was intended back in the days with 4 buttons, or you can enjoy the new control scheme using the 6 buttons settings and the simplified special move with the help of the SP button!
  • Fight against your friends through Bluetooth Multiplayer mode

King of Fighters ’97 is available from Google Play for £2.49

Posted in: Apps & Games
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By November 17, 2013 Read More →

ASUS to release its first Chromebooks in early 2014

Asus chromeboxIn a conference call to investors, Asustek CEO Jerry Shen announced that two new Chromebook products will ship worldwide towards the end of Q1 (spanning January through March) next year. Rumours and industry reports have long hinted that the Taiwanese PC maker would expand into more computing areas, such as Chromebooks and smartphones, as a way to offset a sharp decline in its traditional Windows-based PC business.

According to The Taipei Times, the company’s first set of Chromebooks will consist of a 11.6″ model priced at US$199 and a larger 13.3″ version set to retail for US$249. Recently developers have unearthed mysterious Tegra 4 and Baytrail-powered device references buried deep within the Chromium code. Could these be linked?

There was no mention of the Asus Chromebox that had some interest earlier this year. Perhaps, if Asus manage some success with their Chromebook we will see more happening.

Posted in: Laptops, News
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