Phones

By November 13, 2013 Read More →

Motorola Moto G – Quad-core power, budget price

motogMotorola’s newest Android handset, the Moto G is officially announced today and Motorola are hoping to shake things up a bit with this new model.

The Moto G will pack in a 1.2GHx quad-core CPU, 1GB RAM, 8 or 16Gb of storage, 5MP camera and 4.5 inch 720×1280 pixel display. Furthermore, the Moto G will ship with Android 4.3 with a promised update to 4.4 KitKat coming soon too.

Whilst these may not be the pinnacle of smartphone specs the price may surprise you. O2 have already come out to announce that the Moto G will be available on their network for just £129.99 on Pay & Go, which seems excellent value.

We’ll be looking to get our hands on one soon and will report back when we do.

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By November 13, 2013 Read More →

ZTE Blade V unboxing and hands-on

ZTE Blade VZTE have had a lot of success with their Blade range of devices and they generally offer good value for money, particularly for the PAYG market.

With the launch of the ZTE Blade V, ZTE are hoping to continue that trend and our review unit, which comes from Virgin Mobile, can be snapped up on PAYG for just £99.99 or if you are a Virgin Media customer, £81.99. That’s great value for a phone with Quad-core 1.2GHz CPU and 4″ 480×800 pixel display.

We’ve always been impressed with ZTE’s build quality and value so can the Blade V impress us again?

In the unboxing video below you can see the ZTE Blade V in more detail. I’ll run though the setup and run a quick benchmark too.

Posted in: Phones, Videos/Unboxings
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By November 11, 2013 Read More →

Apple bringing two All-new iPhone’s next year

iphone-6According to Bloomberg, Apple will be releasing two brand new iPhone designs next year. One to have a 4.7 and the other to have a 5.5 inch display.

In the report posted by Bloomberg yesterday, the new devices will not only have larger displays but they will also have curved glass.

Certainly it would make sense for Apple to release larger phones as many of their competitors have already released phones in sizes up to and over 6 inches. With these larger screen sizes I would also hope that we’ll at last see a 1080×1920 full HD display from apple, where again many competitors are already there and playing keep-up is not a game Apple likes to play.

The report also suggests that Apple are working on pressure sensitive screens that will allow greater control and varied line thickness when drawing for example. If you’re looking for a great phone repair shop for your phone, check out iPhone Battery Replacement Gold Coast.

 

 

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By November 10, 2013 Read More →

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX10 unboxing and setup video

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX10The quality and pixel count of cameras built in to smartphones is improving all the time but there are always compromises to be made when you’re cramming a sensor and optics in to a package small enough to fit in to a smartphone where anything over about 10mm is considered too ‘fat’.

There have been obvious leaps forward particularly with the Nokia Lumia 1020 and the Ultrapixel sensor on the HTC One but even though these cameras are good there’s still no beating the optics and sensors in ‘proper’ digital cameras.

So enter the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX10, a lens camera system from Sony. Sony have taken the G Lens and ExmorR CMOS sensor from one of their digital cameras and put them in to a package that’s the same size as the lens itself. The result is a camera with 10x zoom and 18.2MP sensor in a package that looks like it’s just a small-ish lens.

The idea here is that you can use this “lens camera” with your existing Android or iOS smartphone to give you a really good camera experience, far better than you could expect from the built-on camera and with a 10x zoom and optical image stabiliser to boot.

You connect your phone to the QX10 via WiFi direct and then use Playmemories Mobile app as the interface and viewfinder for the camera.

I decided to get a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX10 because the camera on the Nexus 5 isn’t great… However, word of warning, the Playmemories App, which is essential to using the QX10, doesn’t work on the Nexus 5, presumably doesn’t support Android OS 4.4 yet!

Posted in: Cameras, Phones, Videos/Unboxings
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By November 9, 2013 Read More →

Nexus 5 WiFi bug

Nexus 5 wifi bugI’ve had my Google Nexus 5 for just over a week and one of the questions I’ve been frequently asked via twitter and Google+ 1 was whether or not I had experienced any issued with the WiFi in the Nexus 5.

Up until yesterday the answer I gave was no. Despite using a large number of WiFi networks almost daily, from the few WiFi access points I have at home to the WiFi on the train I commute on to the WiFi at work and in coffee shops in London, none had given me any WiFi issues with my Nexus 5.

That’s until yesterday. Suddenly my Nexus 5 dropped off one if my home WiFi points, it connected to the other but then despite showing as connected would not transfer any data. Initially I thought this was a problem with my internet connection but soon realised that my Mac and iPhone were still working fine over the same WiFi.

I switched to a different access point but the problem persisted. I rebooted the phone… the problem remained. I’ve tried removing the WiFi networks and re-adding them but that also had no effect.

WiFi access points I have tried using are a D-Link DSL-3680, TP-Link, Airport Extreme, Airport Express and a Vodafone Mifi. All have the same issue: The WiFi shows as connected but there’s no internet connectivity. Furthermore, the WiFi disconnects and reconnects frequently.

Reading other posts on the internet it would see that many other Nexus 5 owners also have the same issues and this seems to be related to an existing Nexus 7 problem too.

Possible Nexus 5 WiFi bug solution

After literally hours of playing around with settings on the Nexus 5, a hard reset, and pulling out old WiFi access points to try I have managed to get my Nexus 5 working again and this is the solution that works for me…

Connect to the WiFi network and then go and ‘Modify Network’. Under the IP Settings I’ve switched to static and have specified an IP address and DNS server addresses. In both instances I’m using the same addresses that were being assigned through DHCP anyway.

Having done that my WiFi comes back to life. The only drawback so far is that I’ve had to do this with each WiFi network that I use. Switching back to DHCP breaks the connection again.

Give it a try and let me know if it solves your problem!

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By November 9, 2013 Read More →

Panasonic PRX-120 unboxing

Panasonic PRX-120Android has long been used on smartphones and tablets but what about home, fixed-line phones? Here we have the Panasonic PRX-120, a home phone system where the handset is running Android 4.1.

It’s perhaps a little surprising that there aren’t more phone systems that run on Android. With the PRX-120 we have a base unit that plugs in to your phone line and a Android handset that looks like a standard smartphone from about 2 years ago.

One of the benefits of this phone, other than being able to run standard android apps, is that you can receive your fixed-line phone calls as well as being able to use Skype over WiFi from the same phone.

In almost every other way the PRX120 is just like a regular smartphone and while it may not have cutting edge specs relative to an equivalent smartphone, it can perform most functions, although I’m not sure how useful the GPS will be unless you have a REALLY big house!

Here’s a quick unboxing of the Panasonic PRX-120 so that you can see what it’s all about.

Posted in: Phones, Videos/Unboxings
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By November 8, 2013 Read More →

Google’s Android looks to be spreading faster than believed

mobile-makeover-android-dominanceAndroid fans already know that Google’s operating system quickly spread across the world, conquering everything in its path; however, this latest analysis suggests it spread even more quickly than we could have imagined as PhoneArena has recently pointed out. According to Horace Dediu, an Asymco analyst, it turns out that Android is the fastest growing technology product in history! The metric he used to determine this was a comparison of total adoption numbers across specific time-frames after an initial launch. Here are a few mobile stats to put it in perspective:

  • Symbian hit 450 million users in 44 quarters (11 years)
  • BlackBerry hit 225 million users in 43 quarters (about 11 years)
  • Windows Mobile hit 72 million in 30 quarters
  • Apple’s iOS hit 700 Million users in only 23 Quarters (almost 6 years)
  • Android hit 1 Billion users in only 20 quarters (5 years)

The pic above charts some other devices throughout the history of tech. It’s interesting to take a glance at the Android & iOS versus PC Sales. The huge spike is something the PC industry never had. Of course, it’s not a perfect apples to apples comparison, but it’s still worth noting. There’s one other thing worth noting in the infographic. Despite the massive acceleration of adoption, there are still quite a few people left in the world who still don’t have smartphones. In China we are only 34% into their total market, and even in the United States we are only a little over half way there.

Posted in: News, Phones, Tablets
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By November 7, 2013 Read More →

BlackBerry readying PlayBook 2?

playbook 2Earlier this year, following the official launch of BlackBerry 10, there was a lot of speculation that BlackBerry would release another version of their relatively unpopular and many news stories of the coming PlayBook 2 were in circulation. Many of these were very definite with the news and stated that Q2 2013 would see BlackBerry release their second tablet.

Obviously a lot has happened to BlackBerry since February this year including a name change from RIM, numerous possible sales, a less than smooth launch of BBM on iOS and Android, and now another interim CEO.

However, in the last 48 hours, rumours that the PlayBook 2 project has been brought back to life have started to hit the headlines again.

Following a $1bn investment agreement with Fairfax Financial, John Chen was appointed new interim CEO of BlackBerry. Chen insists that it’s not over yet for BlackBerry’s hardware division. A statement that has led many to jump to the PlayBook 2 conclusion.

At this point in time there’s really nothing at all to substantiate the rumours and until we start to see anything more concrete than a ‘maybe they will’ I for one will certainly consider this to be nothing more than vapour-ware or maybe hope-ware.

Posted in: News, Phones, Rumours, Tablets
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By November 7, 2013 Read More →

GiffGaff to sell phones

Screenshot 2013-11-06 23.39.20GiffGaff, a low cost virtual network working off O2 masts, has announced they will start selling mobile phones alongside their sim only pay as you go deals. GiffGaff are offering a rather nice, varied selection of devices comprising of:

  • Samsung Galaxy Young
  • Samsung Galaxy Fame
  • Samsung Galaxy S3
  • Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini
  • Samsung Galaxy S4
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini
  • Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  • Nokia 301
  • Nokia Lumia 520
  • Nokia Lumia 625
  • Nokia Lumia 925
  • Nokia Lumia 1020
  • Sony Xperia E
  • Sony Xperia M
  • Sony Xperia SP
  • Sony Xperia Z
  • Sony Xperia Z1
  • HTC One
  • BlackBerry Q10
  • LG G2
  • iPhone 4 refurb
  • iPhone 4S refurb

Interesting the selection of devices available was chosen by 5,300 customers who participated in a survey. Instead of offering a standard contract GiffGaff have shaken things up to offer the following purchase options:

  1. Members don’t need to buy a goodybag with their phone.
  2. You can pay for your phone upfront or monthly.
  3. You can split your monthly payments from 6 to 24 months.
  4. You can change or cancel your goodybag at anytime (as usual)
  5. You can change your monthly phone payments at anytime.
  6. Your phone will not be locked to giffgaff.

Working on a Peer to Peer lending option,  the practice of lending money to unrelated individuals, or “peers”, without going through a traditional financial intermediary such as a bank or other traditional financial institution GiffGaff hope to make the selection a good deal more enticing than the typical network set ups. Full pricing has not been released yet however they promise more information soon.

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By November 6, 2013 Read More →

Google Nexus 5 vs HTC One: Camera

Google Nexus 5 vs HTC OneThere has been a lot of questions and discussion about the camera on the Google Nexus 5 and opinions seem to be polarised.

Questions such as “How bad can the Nexus 5 camera be?” and asking us to rate it against the HTC one have been common on our YouTube channel.

What we have here is a series of photos taken with both the HTC One and the Google Nexus 5 so that you can make up your own mind. Looking at them myself, I think there are images that are good and bad in both sets.

Just to recap, the HTC One has a 4MP Ultrapixel camera with F/2.0 Aperture and optical image stabilizer (OIS). whereas the Nexus 5 has an 8MP camera with F/2.5 Aperture and optical image stabilizer (OIS).  The HTC also has a dedicated image processing chip whereas the Nexus 5 does not.

The shots you see below are straight from the device with no manipulation or editing on either the phone or PC.

As much as possible I have taken the photos standing in exactly the same location so where you see a difference in the framing this is largely down to the field of view of each camera being different. I’ve set the scene modes to normal on both phones and used auto modes.

In the two columns below you can find the Nexus 5 on the left and the HTC One on the right. Click each for a larger version.

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