Author Archive: Gareth

O2 sticks their arm in

The LG Nexus 4 is arriving soon and the handset will be selling for prices starting at £239 sim free. Exceptionally good value from Google there. Whilst some may still not fancy paying out for the handset up front O2 are to carry to LG Nexus 4 on contract and shall be launching it on Tuesday 13th November.

We’ll be selling it on our range of On & On Pay Monthly tariffs and it’ll be free on all tariffs from £36 a month up. Whichever On & On tariff you take, you’ll get unlimited calls and unlimited texts to anyone in the UK as well as 1GB of data

Yes, £36 a month appears to be what O2 feel is an appropriate price tag for the Nexus 4. In an attempt to make the deal sound in some way good value, there will also be 50 32 inch flatscreen TV’s given away to the first 50 people in the queue, there is also some waffle about the first 20 being able to take a panoramic shot of London from the top of The O2 Arena.

To purchase the phone directly from Google will set you back £239 for the 8gb version and £279 for the 16gb. To purchase from O2, the grand total over the 24 months will be £864. Less the price of the phone (I will use £279 as the 8gb isn’t the most attractive) will be £585. This means you will be paying £25 a month for the contract. You would be much better off grabbing the phone from Google themselves and checking out another Sim card option, like GiffGaff or Talk Mobile and save yourself a good few £££!

O2 might have lost the plot with their “deal” here and hopefully we will see a revised price plan before launch.

Posted by: Gareth

Three Nexus devices to devour

Due to the unexpected weather front currently sweeping the east coast of North America, Google has cancelled it’s planned event to announce some new devices. Instead we are being treated to a less exciting press release. Google have, however, put together a tidy and exciting combination of goodies to launch, conveniently just before Christmas and just after Apple’s iPad announcement.

Nexus 4 with Google Now and Photo Sphere
Nexus 4 is our latest smartphone, developed together with LG. It has a quad-core processor which means it’s super fast, a crisp 4.7" (320 ppi) display that’s perfect for looking at photos and watching YouTube, and with wireless charging you just set the phone down on a charging surface to power it up, no wires needed. While Nexus 4 is incredibly powerful under the hood, it also features the latest version of Jelly Bean, Android 4.2-the simplest and smartest version of Android yet. Starting with the camera, we’ve reinvented the photo experience with Photo Sphere, which lets you capture images that are literally larger than life. Snap shots up, down and in every direction to create stunning 360-degree immersive experiences that you can share on Google+ with friends and family-or you can add your Photo Sphere to Google Maps for the world to see.
Android 4.2 brings other great goodies like Gesture Typing, which lets you glide your finger over the letters you want to type on the keyboard-it makes typing fast, fun and a whole lot simpler. Android 4.2 also adds support for wireless display so you can wirelessly watch movies, YouTube videos and play games right on your Miracast-compatible HDTV.
Learn more about all of the new features of Android 4.2, Jelly Bean, here.

Google Now-even more useful
We designed Google Now to make life simpler by giving you the right information at just the right time in easy to read cards, before you even ask. And the feedback has been awesome. So today we’re adding more cards that we hope you’ll find useful. Flight information, restaurant reservations, hotel confirmations and shipping details-how often have you found yourself wading through your email to get this information at the last moment? So next time you book a table for dinner, you’ll get a reminder with all the details without ever having to lift a finger. You’ll also get cards for nearby attractions, interesting photo spots, movies times at nearby theaters or concerts by your favorite artists.

Nexus 7: Thin, light and now even more portable
Nexus 7 brings you the best of Google-YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Maps-and all the great content from Google Play in a slim, portable package that fits perfectly in your hand. To give you more room for all that great content you can now get Nexus 7 with 16GB ($199) or 32GB ($249) of storage. But we also wanted to make this highly portable tablet even more mobile. So we added HSPA+ mobile data. Nexus 7 is now also available with 32GB and HSPA+ mobile ($299), which can operate on more than 200 GSM providers worldwide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.

Nexus 10: Powerful and shareable
Nexus 10 is the ultimate tablet for watching movies or reading magazines. We wanted to build a premium entertainment device, so we partnered with Samsung to do just that. Nexus 10 is the highest resolution tablet on the planet with a 10.055" display at 2560-by-1600 (300ppi), that’s over 4 million pixels right in your hands. It comes with a powerful battery that will get you up to nine hours of video playback and more than 500 hours of standby time. With a set of front-facing stereo speakers, you can watch movies right from your Nexus 10 and they simply sound awesome. But what makes Nexus 10 unique is that it’s the first truly shareable tablet. With Android 4.2, you can add multiple users and switch between them instantly right from the lockscreen. We believe that everyone should have quick and easy access to their own stuff — email, apps, bookmarks, and more. That way, everyone can have their own home screens, their own music, and even their own high scores.

Google Play: More entertainment, more countries
We’ve recently added a ton of great new entertainment to Google Play, such as movies and TV shows from Twentieth Century Fox. Earlier this year we expanded our service beyond movie rentals and now you can purchase movies and build a library of your favorites in Google Play. Today we’re bringing movie purchasing to more countries – Canada, the U.K., France, Spain and Australia.
We’re also excited to announce two new partnerships. We’re now working with Time, Inc. to bring you even more magazines like InStyle, PEOPLE, TIME and others. And we’ve partnered with Warner Music Group who will be adding their full music catalog with new songs coming each day. We’re now working with all of the major record labels globally, and all the major U.S. magazine publishers, as well as many independent labels, artists and publishers.
On November 13, we’re bringing music on Google Play to Europe.  Those of you in the U.K, France, Germany, Italy and Spain will be able to purchase music from the Google Play store and add up to 20,000 songs-for free-from your existing collection to the cloud for streaming to your Android devices or web browser. We’re also launching our new matching feature to streamline the process of uploading your personal music to Google Play. We’ll scan your music collection and any song we match against the Google Play catalog will be automatically added to your online library without needing to upload it, saving you time. This will be available in Europe at launch on November 13 and is coming to the U.S. soon after. This will all be for free-free storage of your music, free matching, free syncing across your devices and free listening.

Great value
We’ve always focused on building great devices at great value.  And we think today’s devices offer the very best that money can buy. Here are more details on when and where you can pick up your next Nexus device:

• Nexus 4: 8GB for $299; 16GB for $349; available unlocked and without a contract on 11/13 on the Google Play store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain and Canada. The 16GB version will also be available through T-Mobile for $199, with a 2-year contract (check here for more details).
• Nexus 7: 16GB for $199 and 32GB for $249; available in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan, and also through our retail partners Gamestop, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples and Walmart.

• Nexus 7 with 32GB and mobile data: $299 and unlocked, on sale 11/13 in the Google Play store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain and  Canada.

• Nexus 10: 16GB for $399; 32GB for $499; available on 11/13 in the Google Play Store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan.

A Nexus device is much more than simply a phone or tablet. It’s your connection to the best of Google – all of your stuff and entertainment, everywhere you go with no hassle.  Now you have three new Nexus devices, a new improved version of Jelly Bean and more entertainment than ever before-all available on Google Play. The playground is open.

Posted by Gareth

Microsoft Surface has a price and pre-order

Earlier today Microsoft announced pricing, market availability and pre-order for their “Surface” – the tablet PC designed to be the ultimate stage for Windows. Announced some months ago there has been much speculation regarding the price and specs. Speculate no more, as all is made clear. This pricing is for the Surface with Windows RT, coming pre-installed with Office Home and Student 2013 RT Preview.

Surface with Windows 8 Pro pricing is still a mystery at this stage however, it’ll likely be more than the Windows RT version as the specifications have been beefed up to run the full version of Windows 8. The specs are quoted after the break.

Highlights:

· Originally unveiled in June, Surface with Windows RT will be available starting at £399.

· Touch Cover will be available in three colours-black, white and cyan- priced at £99.99 so customers can express their personal style. Customers will also have the option to purchase a Type Cover in black for £109.99, which adds moving keys for a more traditional typing feel.

· Customers can visit www.Surface.com to pre-order now in eight markets across the world: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. Pricing varies by geography.

Archos GamePad video debut

We have recently been treated to an exciting collection of videos for Archos’ new GamePad, a 7" tablet that favours gaming over all else. Running Ice Cream Sandwich and a fairly ingenious method of binding hardware keys to on screen functions Archos are taking steps into untested waters with this device that is likely to shift a good few units, especially at the proposed price of less than ?150! The idea of having hardware buttons rather than relying on Touchscreen will obviously be attractive to many.

It’s got a 1024×600 capacitive touch screen but more importantly for gaming, it’s got game controller buttons on each side of the screen. This device runs on the Rockchip RK3066 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with the quad-core Mali-400MP4 GPU.

Of course No. 1 Archos Fanboy Charbax got a bit of time with it. You can see the videos below: