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I’m sure that most of you know that drill by now, we get a new product in to review and the first thing we do is record an unboxing video of the things and go through a short demo of a couple of key areas.
But “wait!” I head you cry, “You’ve already reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Note on the site.”. True enough we did review the Note about a week or so ago and we’re only now getting to the unboxing video. The reason for this is that our review unit came from Samsung in a simple envelope without any or the retail packaging.
Fortunately it’s Clove to the rescue with a fully boxed model for us now so it’s time for the unboxing.
As we said in the review the Note has a truly awesome screen the definitely sets it apart from other small tablets out there. Despite having only a 5.3″ screen it crams in 1280×800 pixels!
So you can check out the unboxing video below for a little more on this bad-boy and then head back to the full review after.
In a similar way to the treatment the HTC Desire had last year, HTC have been been expanding the use of the Sensation name to include new models; HTC Sensation XE and Sensation XL.
We’re starting here with the XE. The XE is the same overall shape and size as the original sensation but the internals have been updated a little. Now instead of the 1.2GHz dual core CPU you’ll find a 1.5GHz processor. This is the main change to between the two models but the XE also features beats audio, ships with beats audio headphones and has red colour accents on the loudspeaker and menu buttons.
There will be a full review from us in the coming weeks. As always we don’t commit to a review after just a few days, we spend time using devices day-to-day before we give our verdict. I can tell you that the handset runs extremely fast and you can see the benchmark score in the video below too.
Something a little different for us today, we have the EASYWAKEme sleep stage alarm clock to review so we’re starting off with a quick unboxing video.
During the working week I get up at around 5am so when the folks at Easywake offered to send me an alarm that would allow me to “Get healthier with the lifestyle-friendly approach to sleep. With EASYWAKEme you are ready to start a new perfect day feeling revived, happy and energetic!” I thought it was worth a try.
How does it work? Well you wear a small bluetooth enabled unit on your arm while you sleep. This monitors even the smallest movements you make when you are sleeping and then chooses the most appropriate time to wake you within your sleep cycle. This is achieved by pairing the unit with a compatible mobile phone.
I’ll be trying it out for a while to see what difference it makes to me and I’ll come back with a short review soon.
Motorola launched the original Motorola Pro in February of this year. It wasn’t hugely successful. Specs were not great, the screen was simply HVGA and the keyboard lacked the finesse of it’s Blackberry rivals.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Motorola should come up with the successor to the Pro, the Pro+, so quickly after the release of it’s predecessor. The Pro+ has a similar form factor but a more refined design that the Pro, sleeker lines and more curves. The CPU clocks at 1Ghz and it benchmarks favourably against other handsets with the same CPU. The screen size has increased and fortunately so has the resolution which is now up to 480×640 or portrait VGA.
Check out the video I have for you below, it’s covers the hardware as well as some of the key parts of the OS. I’ll have a full review for you over the next week or so.
Sony Ericsson appear to be on a roll at the moment and releasing new handsets at the rate of a couple a month. Recently we’ve had the XPERIA Active, XPERIA ray and Mini Pro to review and this weeks it’s the turn of the bigger Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pro.
Like the X10 models of last year the XPERIA Pro features a large sliding qwerty keyboard hidden away under the 3.7″ 480×854 LCD display. It also features the Mobile BRAVIA engine to really push the video playback to a new level.
As always, our full review will be up in a few weeks once we’ve really had chance to use the XPERIA Pro properly. For now I have a hands-on video for you below. This is of an un-boxed pre-retail unit so I’ll also have a proper unboxing video for you once I get my hands on a retail unit.
A month or so ago I did the review of the Orange Monte Carlo and I really liked the handset as for the price tag of £149 plus £10 top up on the Orange network, it is an awesome deal!
So this is just a simple comparison between that phone and it’s SIM Free counterpart, the ZTE Skate which is due to be released at the end of this month (September.) The Skate was due to have a few different bits of hardware/software etc from the Monte Carlo so I have been asked to do a comparison to see if this is true.
Read on to find out more.
Sony Ericsson seems to be knocking out devices at a severe rate of knots at the moment and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track!
Here I have another of their Xperia devices and this one is named the ‘ray’ and if you have seen the recent TV Ad the company seem to be aiming this is people on the move as they focus heavily on the devices’ camera.
To find out if it really is a handset for people on the go or whether it would be hard pushed to find its own place in the heavily crowded market please read on.
The HTC Rhyme is another of those HTC handsets that’s been know about for a while, although was previously known to the community as the HTC Bliss. Styling-wise the Rhyme is very much your typical HTC android powered phone but the colour has meant that many critics have jumped to say that the Rhyme is ‘too girly’ for the mass market. Personally I’m not convinced that’s true. Having had the Rhyme in my hand I think the colour is quite nice and I have no problem with it at all.
Another departure for HTC is in the packaging and accessories included with the HTC Rhyme and it’s almost a return to the old times with a good quality wired headset, leather pouch and a beautiful angled docking/charging station.
There’s also another unusual accessory is the light-up phone charm included in the box. This acts to alert you when you have a missed call or a message. Different!
Check out the unboxing and demo video below and we’ll have the review up soon!
The Motorola Defy+ launched a few weeks ago and proved to be so popular that initial stocks were snapped up within a matter of days leaving many wanting. News just in today from The Smartphone Centre though says that they finally have the Defy+ back in stock available for next day delivery.
Full press release from them follows:
The Smartphone Centre is pleased to announce additional stock of the very popular Motorola Defy Plus has arrived.
Building on the Motorola Defy’s life-proof heritage, the Motorola Defy Plus offers exceptional protection from whatever life throws your way with its water resistant, scratch resistant and dust proof design (IP67). In addition, the Motorola Defy Plus has a 1GHz processor that runs 25 percent faster and is more fun with the latest version of AndroidT 2.3 (Gingerbread) delivering a smarter operating system and better battery life to fully enjoy your experiences.
As with all handsets that we sell at The Smartphone Centre, we’re offering free next day delivery on the Motorola Defy+
For further information, or to place your order please visit the Motorola Defy Plus product page.
Posted by: Matt
Last year Sony Ericsson embarked on their biggest year in the smartphone industry (in my opinion) as they released their next generation of XPERIA smartphones, there was the Arc, Neo, X10 Mini and finally the most important one regarding this review…the X10 Mini Pro.
Now does anyone really properly remember that handset? I mean let’s face it-it wasn’t brilliant, it was too small and had many software bugs and to be quite honest for a long time also it was way overpriced. Would many people over the age of 15-16 have bought this phone? I’m not so sure.
The reason I’ve mentioned the above is because Sony Ericsson are at it again releasing their 3rd generation of Xperia smartphones, and I have one of them the Xperia Mini Pro. Which is the successor to the X10 Mini Pro of last year.
So is the ‘Upgrade’ worth taking a look at? Or is it just another one of those smartphones that will disappear from the radar?
Well if you want to find out more about this intriguing handset please do read on.
I’m sure that most of you know that drill by now, we get a new product in to review and the first thing we do is record an unboxing video of the things and go through a short demo of a couple of key areas.
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