Videos/Unboxings

LG Optimus Black unboxing video

Yesterday a large box arrived here in the office, wasn’t sure what it was as all I was expecting was the LG Optimus Black. Turns out that the huge box did indeed contain the Optimus Black (P970) and that it was in a really cool presentation pack. It’s been a while since we saw anything quite like it.

The Optimus Black was announced back in January and is expected to go on sale sometime in May here in the UK.

There are two main draws for the Optimus Black. First of all LG are claiming the prize for the worlds thinnest smartphone. At just 9.2mm there’s no denying that it’s slim but as for being the thinnest there’s a bit of contention between LG and Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy S2 may indeed be thinner across parts of the body but the Optimus Black is a consistent 9.2mm across the whole handset.

Secondly LG have fitted a NOVA LCD display in the Black. In essence this is a super-bright and energy efficient display technology offering 700 nits of brightness across the 4″ 480 x 800 display whilst consuming as much as 50% less power than competitors screens.

Check out the video and the full specification below to see it in action. Note that this is a PR model straight from LG and not the retail unit. My demo handset has a faulty loudspeaker that pops and crackles periodically, don’t take too much notice. We’ll have a review for you soon.

BlackBerry Bridge demo on the PlayBook

Chances are that if you are looking to get a BlackBerry PlayBook you already use a BlackBerry Smartphone. So one of the key features will be the Bridge application that allows you to use email, BBM, calendar etc on the PlayBook.

As you will see in the video below the two devices work seamlessly together and instantly mimic one another. From a security perspective the Bridge is great as once the connection between the PlayBook and the BlackBerry Smartphone is broken all your messages etc are removed from the tablet making it secure if it falls into the wrong hands. 

You can see the video and full details on which features are covered within BlackBerry Bridge below:

Samsung Galaxy S II unboxing and demo video

The Samsung Galaxy S II (Galaxy S2 or i9100) has to be one of the most eagerly awaited handsets of the year. Last year’s Samsung Galaxy S was hugely popular selling tons of units and really making its mark.

The Galaxy S2 is one of only a few handsets around at the moment to have a dual-core CPU and this one is really special. a 1.2GHz Arm-cortex A9 CPU with a Mali-400MP GPU along side. That along with 1GB of RAM and 8 or 16GB of internal storage makes this one of the best specified handsets out there at the moment.

Then there’s the 4.3″ Super AMOLED screen complete with Gorilla Glass.

Perhaps one of the most striking things, when you consider that spec, is that the whole lot fits in a handset thats just 8.5mm thick and weighs just 116 grams!!

I’ve only had my review model for a few hours and already I think it’s awesome. Check out the video I have below, I can scarcely call it an unboxing video as it’s one of the longest I’ve done in a long time. This is the edited, cut-down version and it’s still over 30 minutes long!  Make yourself a coffee and enjoy the show.

Samsung Galaxy Pro unboxing video

Samsung are back with another handset using the Galaxy name, this time the Galaxy Pro. One of just a couple of Android handsets to have a fixed, forward-facing QWERTY keyboard.

The keyboard on the Galaxy Pro is quite large, the keys are significantly bigger than the keys on a BlackBerry for example and as a result the Pro is quite a wide bodied handset, a fairly large slab.

The 2.8″ screen is a capacitive touchscreen which, as a BlackBerry user, takes some getting used to. I all too frequently tried using the keyboard or looking for a trackpad to interact with menus. It’s a shame though that the screen is only QVGA, the resolution feels really cramped.

Check out the video below where I unbox the Galaxy Pro and then take a look at the user interface as well as a few key features. The review will be here soon.

Dell Venue Pro unboxing video

The Dell Venue Pro was announced quite some time ago and it was all the way back in October that James first had the chance to play with the a sample. For some reason there have been lots of delays for this handset which, as a result, means that it only recently went on sale. Whether this has anything to do with Windows Phone 7 rather than hardware, as has been the claims on Twitter, is pure speculation.

The Venue Pro is the first Windows Phone 7 smartphone to have a forward-facing, sliding QWERTY keyboard. Hardware QWERTY fans may well be pleased by this one.

With a 4.1″ screen and sizable bezel and the sliding mechanism, the Venue Pro is far from a small and lightweight handset. In fact is has to be one of the largest and heaviest phones I can think or right now.

This is actually my second go at unboxing the Dell Venue Pro. As I mention in the video below, it has a curved screen on the front which for same reason caused the autofocus in my video camera to have a fit. So sorry for the delay in getting this video up!

BlackBerry Protect – Demo Video

We have mentioned BlackBerry Protect a few times on the site and podcast so I thought it was about time I showed those of you that don’t have it yet what you are missing out on. The app is free to download from BlackBerry App World so if you own a BlackBerry and value both the device and its data I would highly recommend downloading it today.

There is nothing worse than losing all your contacts and calendar so BlackBerry Protect will sync your information to the cloud as a back up.

If you lose your BlackBerry Smartphone or have it stolen the app will greatly improve your chances of locating it. Failing that you can remotely wipe the device, not before sending the criminal a rude message though!

Check out the video below:

Brodit ProClip in car holder for the HTC Incredible S – Video

The nice chaps at DSL Developments kindly sent over a Brodit ProClip for us to test out this week. As I have just recently finished the HTC Incredible S review I thought that device may be a good one to test with a ProClip so that was the one I chose.

There are thousands of different sorts of in car phone holders and from experience the cheapest is never the best. The Brodit ProClip holders are not only made for your specific phone but also tailored for which car you drive. So you need two parts, the car mount and the actual phone holder.

Rather than me waffle on here I decided to do it all in the form of a video. So the video contains an unboxing, a tour of the DSL Developments website and finally the ProClip in the car, mounted.

Check out the video after the break and please head on over to DSL and have a look at the many products they have to offer.

Sony S1/S2 Tablets – Video

We posted just the other day when the S1 and S2 tablets were announced by Sony. An early promo video has now appeared on YouTube and although brief it does give us a small insight into the types of apps and games the two devices will run when eventually released.

I’m not too sure what I make of a split screen tablet. Good for portability but I cant say I would want it. Let’s hope that Sony also come up with some better names for the two tablets. The ‘S’ brand just isn’t very exciting.

See the video below:

HTC Wildfire S unboxing and demo video

This is the third of HTC’s new handsets to have the ‘S’ monica an upgrade to last years model this is the HTC Wildfire S. The HTC wildfire has been a really successful entry level Android handset for HTC was available on most UK networks and is indeed still on sale now.

The HTC Wildfire S offers a bump in spec over last years model, CPU speed up from 528MHz to 600MHz, 384MB RAM to 512MB RAM and, perhaps most noticeably, the QVGA of the Wildfire is now HVGA on the Wildfire S, twice the number of pixels.

So in the video below you’ll see me unbox a pre-release version of the HTC Wildfire S, it’s white boxed (not retail) but it is the final hardware and final ROM build. I also spend about 10 minutes looking at HTC Sense and a few of the key features and apps.

Full review coming up soon but in the meantime please feel free to ask me questions or submit feedback via the forum.

Video follows:

Motorola XOOM Unboxing Video

We have known about the Motorola XOOM for quite a while now and it has even been on sale in the USA for some time. Not only can you now buy it here in the UK but Motorola kindly sent me one to review.

Being an iPad user myself I was rather excited to test our Android 3.0 Honeycomb on the XOOM. The whole experience is very different to the iPad with various home screen widgets available which clearly you can not use on the iPad.

Could the XOOM be an iPad killer? Well you will have to wait for the full review on that one but in the meantime you can check out the unboxing video below.