Author Archive: Matt

Orange San Francisco 2 unboxing video

The Orange-branded San Francisco was launched around this time last year and was massively successful. The bargain Android phone was made by ZTE and sold as the San Francisco by Orange here in the UK for less than £100, a real bargain considering the spec. The ZTE branded version was called the ZTE Blade.

So just about a month ago Orange announced that they would be selling the San Francisco II in time for Christmas. This latest version boasts a 3.5-inch WVGA screen, Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, 5-megapixel camera, Orange HD Voice, Signal Boost and an 800MHz processor.

The spec is impressive and even more so when you discover that you can pick on up from Orange on PAYG for just £99.00 plus a £10.00 top up or from free with a contract.

I’ve managed to get my hands on the San Francisco 2 (made again by ZTE) for review and as always I’m starting off with the unboxing video which you can find below.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus benchmark

Earlier this week I got my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and recorded a pretty long unboxing and demo video. Normally, as part of the demo video, I include a quick run through using Quadrant to benchmark the relative performance of a new device and this time was no different.

I commented in the video that I was surprised that the benchmark results were not much higher given that the Galaxy Nexus has a dual-core CPU. However, as several viewers pointed out Quadrant is not optimised for the new Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system so the results were somewhat queued.

In order to resolve that and to give a fairer representation of the speed I decided to record another benchmark video, this time using AnTuTu Benchmark, this gives a far more realistic benchmark and to see how that compares to another device we’re running up against the XPERIA Arc which has a 1GHz single-core CPU.

Check out the video below to see how the Nexus does!

Samsung Galaxy Nexus unboxing video

This could quite easily be the most anticipated smartphone of the year. Just looking at the specification of the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus is enough to get the blood pumping.

This new Galaxy Nexus is the third in the lineage of handsets to have the Nexus name and follows the Nexus One, made by HTC, and the Nexus S from Samsung.

In terms of specification the Galaxy Nexus is definitely at the top end of the market. Not only have we got a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU but also 1GB RAM and 16GB ROM. Perhaps the most stand-out features though are the Screen and the OS. The screen is nothing short of awesome thanks to the Super AMOLED technology and the 720×1280 HD resolution display. This is also the first phone to have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Check out my unboxing and demo video below. I’ve given you just a taster of the new OS and user interface here but will cover it in much more detail when I get to the full review.

Huawei IDEOS S7 Slim unboxing video

We first heard about the Huawei IDEOS S7 Slim way back in February when Gareth was treated to a sneaky demo in Barcelona. Ever since the event we’ve had promises of a review unit but we’ve only just been able to get hold of one some 9 months after our first hands-on.

The S7 Slim builds upon its bigger brother, the S7, in terms of spec. You may recall our IDEOS S7 review from almost a year ago. We concluded that the S7 was a decent, inexpensive alternative to many of the more pricy tablets out there and more refined than the raft of sub £100 tablets hitting the market.

Currently the S7 Slim is shipping with Android 2.2 Froyo, hopefully an update soon will take it to Gingerbread also.

HTC Sensation XL unboxing video

This week we have another HTC handset in for review, and it’s another with the Sensation name on it. This time it’s the Sensation XL’s turn to be put though the the tracyandmatt boot-camp.

As I mentioned last week, HTC have used the Sensation name on a number of handsets recently and this one, as the XL suffix suggests, is the largest of them all and is in fact one of the largest handsets that HTC have produced. You may argue that the XL really is one of those handsets that bridges between phone and tablet.

The XL screen is 4.7″ which will be great for web browsing and video watching but it’s a shame that HTC couldn’t make it qHD as it is WVGA instead. A 4.7″ qHD screen would have been great.

Performance is pretty good as you’ll see from the benchmark score in the unboxing and demo video below. Looking forward to the review of this one! 🙂