Phones

By November 20, 2013 Read More →

Google to release Nexus wireless charger in UK

Nexus-wireless-charger-640x318If you have a Nexus 4, 5 or or the Nexus 7 tablet you are going to be wanting one of these. A Nexus Wireless charger. Appearing just in time for the holiday rush this would be almost the perfect present for a Nexus user. The charger has already been launched in the US at $50, however, here in the UK we have merely have a “coming soon” listed.

This will undoubtedly be a big hit for those in the Nexus fanclub. This isn’t the only option for wireless charging the Nexus devices, as they use a Qi standard, there are cheaper alternatives out there. The purists out there will have to pick one there up though as this one comes with Nexus branding.

With the Nexus Wireless Charger, your new Nexus 7 becomes the first truly wireless tablet. No more messing with wires, cords and plugs – your tablet just snaps into place on the magnetic face and begins charging. The Nexus Wireless Charger adheres securely to any surface – like your desk, counter top or nightstand – so the convenience of grab-and-go charging is always within easy reach.

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By November 20, 2013 Read More →

Samsung Galaxy Gear shipping higher amounts than anticipated

Galaxy-Gear-006-Set1-Front_SixDespite critical reviews and an unappealing price-tag, it appears that Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch is turning out to be a solid success. According to a couple of reports, Samsung has shipped using freight forwarders around 800,000 units to retailers world-wide. Additionally, 50,000 units have already been actually sold to customers in South Korea alone. This has far surpassed Samsung’s own initial expectations. These numbers also put it far ahead of competing devices from both Pebble and Sony.

Samsung issued a statement regarding the surprise success of the device, “It’s the most sold wearable watch available in the market place…and we plan to expand its availability by expanding mobile devices that work with the Gear.”

One of the reasons for the increased success of the device can mainly be attributed to incentive programs to help push the device out the door. This includes bundling it with the Galaxy Note III, and there were even UK carriers currently offering it for free if customers purchase the Note III on a two-year contract.

Of course, there have also been reports that up to 30% of consumers in the U.S. have returned the device, which does not bode well for its future sales. It will be interesting to see how the sell-through numbers match up with the shipping to retail numbers when everything is finally tallied. Regardless, shipping out 800,000 units to retailers in only 2 months is nothing to sniff at.

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By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Introducing the Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone from BlackBerry

blackberry-porsche-design-p9982Blackberry are at it again, letting Porsche design a new premium handset. The previous Porsche design met with mixed feedback, as will this one. However, the styling looks a little more subdued this time around.

The P’9982 features a customised version of the BlackBerry 10.2 Operating System touted to give the ultimate personal experience for a Blackberry user.

  • The Porsche Design P’9982 smartphone from BlackBerry will be available from Porsche Design stores, select carriers and retailers around the world beginning on November 21 with the exclusive retail launch at Harrods, Knightsbridge, London.
  • It will also be available from Carphone Warehouse and Selfridges.
  • The limited Crocodile edition will be available beginning early December, and will be exclusive to the Porsche Design shop-in-shop at Harrods.

Here is the Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone Press Release:

Introducing the Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone from BlackBerry

Productivity Designed for you

Stuttgart/London. Porsche Design and BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) today announced the elite, new, all-touch Porsche Design P’9982 Smartphone from BlackBerry and a second Crocodile model strictly limited to just 500 devices worldwide. Uniquely designed and expertly crafted, the P’9982 is exquisitely fashioned from high-quality materials and features a customised version of the BlackBerry 10.2 Operating System to give you the ultimate personal experience.

The P’9982, which extends the Porsche Design luxury brand’s range of modern luxury smartphones, features a satin finished frame forged from the finest quality stainless steel, complemented by a hand-wrapped genuine Italian leather back door. The back door of the limited edition model is hand-wrapped in genuine Crocodile leather. Distinguishable by its special series of PIN numbers, owners of the P’9982 will be instantly recognisable in the exclusive world of Porsche Design smartphone owners. The smartphone carries Porsche Design’s luxurious, iconic styling uniquely through the BlackBerry 10 experience to give you an exquisite handset purposely built to excel at mobile communications, messaging and productivity.

“Engineered Luxury meets Powered Performance – what has been true for the first Porsche Design smartphone is even truer for the all-touch P’9882,” says Juergen Gessler, CEO of the Porsche Design Group. “Once again the collaboration with BlackBerry has led to a device that implements our Iconic Style credo without compromises. With the P’9982 we extend our range of modern luxury smartphones and establish ourselves as a market leader in this segment.”

“The new all-touch P’9982 smartphone combines a unique design from an iconic brand with the power of BlackBerry 10,” said Alistair Hamilton, Senior Vice President of Design at BlackBerry. “Every aspect of this smartphone has been purposely designed and built for a powerful premium experience.”
The new P’9982 smartphone comes with a customised version of the powerful BlackBerry 10.2 OS, with key features such as:

  • BlackBerry® Priority Hub – BlackBerry® Hub is the one place to manage all your conversations and notifications. The new BlackBerry Priority Hub intelligently filters messages to give you instant access to the conversations and content most essential to you, helping you stay organized and focused on the most important tasks.
  • BlackBerry® Keyboard – The BlackBerry® Keyboard learns how you type, what words you use, and can correct your mistakes on-the-fly. It can also give you next-word suggestions that you can simply flick into your message, helping you type perfect text, every time.
  • BBM™ Video with Screen Share – BBM™ Video with Screen Share takes video chatting further by letting you simply swipe to share what’s on your display. With BlackBerry® Natural Sound your BBM Voice and Video calls will sound like you are in the same room.
  • Camera Time Shift mode and BlackBerry® Story Maker – The camera’s Time Shift mode starts capturing your picture before you even take it, giving you the power to pick the  perfect moment. BlackBerry Story Maker lets you take a collection of photos and videos, and add music and effects, to create an HD movie that you can instantly share.
  • BBM™ now in any app – BlackBerry 10 continues to refine the unique communications experience of the platform. If a BBM message arrives, you can instantly reply to the message without even leaving the app you’re in.
  • Apps for the Porsche Design customer – The BlackBerry® World™ storefront showcases essential apps for the P’9982 smartphone customer, including productivity apps, games, videos and music based on what apps you’ve downloaded. Get the best on BlackBerry World, uniquely suited to you.

Find your individual look with exclusive Porsche Design accessories that have been specially selected to perfectly complement your new P’9982 smartphone. Inbox, you’ll find everything you need including the premium stereo headset, a polishing cloth, USB cable for high-speed data transfer and an international charging kit. The P’9982 smartphone also offers exclusive after market accessories including handcrafted backdoors made from fine Italian leather that are available in three colours, so you can choose a look to express your individuality.
The Porsche Design P’9982 smartphone from BlackBerry will be available from Porsche Design stores, select carriers and retailers around the world beginning on November 21 with the exclusive retail launch at Harrods, Knightsbridge, London. In the UK, it will also be available from Carphone Warehouse and Selfridges. The limited Crocodile edition will be available beginning early December, and will be exclusive to the Porsche Design shop-in-shop at Harrods.

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By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Sony Xperia Z1 Review

Sony Xperia Z1 ReviewSony have have been releasing some excellent phones recently that are capable of competing with the the best in the market. The Xperia Z1 in this review has a specification sheet that has everything that one could ask for and uses all of the latest internal hardware.

Can it bring everything together to create excellent device?

To find out please read on, but not before watching the Sony Xperia Z1 unboxing and initial impressions video from Matt,if you have not already done so.

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By November 18, 2013 Read More →

How many are still using BBM for Android and iOS?

bbmiconAfter the initial surge of downloads of BBM, apparently hitting 10 million downloads within the first 24 hours after launch, how many are still using it almost 4 weeks later?

We’ve already seen the BBM app drop in the iTunes and Play Store charts and at the time of writing it’s well outside of the top 50. Was the initial surge something of curiosity or nostalgia among those users that used to have BlackBerry’s and have now migrated to other devices/platforms?

Many users that I know and support did indeed download and try BBM on their iPhone’s and Android smartphones but have since abandoned BBM again in favour of iMessage, Hangouts and WhatsApp, where they already have their contacts set up.

Looking at the latest download charts for the week, we can see that WhatsApp downloads, for example, are back to being ahead of BBM once again.

Personally, I was one of the 10 million to download BBM within the first 24 hours. I like the BBM interface and it works well but the fact remains that only a handful of my contacts (5) are using BBM vs a hundred or so on iMessage and Hangouts, for example. I’m sure I cant be the only person with this experience…

Not that I was expecting an answer, but I emailed BlackBerry to ask what the user retention of BBM has been. I have not yet received a response.

So what’s the consensus? Are you an iOS or Android user and are you using BBM?

By November 18, 2013 Read More →

YotaPhone incoming

yotaphone,4-K-409700-22A phone is coming from Russian company Yota Devices. Though its tech specs are not all that special, the YotaPhone is special in that it has a display on both the front and back of the device. The rear-facing panel is a 4.3-inch 360 x 640 EPD 16 grayscale e-ink display with a capacitive touch area underneath the display. On the front, you have a more traditional 4.3-inch 720 x 1280 capacitive multitouch LCD. The rear display functions as a notification screen and displays other information such as the time and date. It’s always on, even if your battery is dead.

YotaPhone is based on a dual-core 1.7 GHz CPU and 2 GB of RAM and features 32 GB of storage, support for WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS, a 13-megapixel camera in the back, a 1-megapixel camera in the front, and an 1800 mAh battery. It runs on Android Jelly Bean v4.2.2. No word on pricing just yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

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By November 17, 2013 Read More →

Bluenio Nio Tag review

Photo 16-11-2013 04 24 35 pmThe Nio Tag from Bluenio is a Bluetooth Low Energy device that pairs with an iPhone (4S, 5 or 5 S) or iPad (Mini, 3, 4, Air or Retina Mini) to create what the company calls a wireless chain to protect your smartphone or tablet.

What’s in the box?

  • 1 x Bluenio Nio Tag
  • 1 x Micro USB adapter
  • 3 x Lanyards to attach to the Nio Tag

The Nio Tag can be used in one of two ways, either to carry the tag itself in your pocket to alert you  if your phone get left behind or taken or the tag can be placed on any item of clothing, luggage or any other item that you don’t want to leave behind or have taken. The company’s website even suggests that this could be your child or pet.

The pairing process is quick and easy and all takes place through the requires app which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store. An Android version is also supposed to be available but it is not showing on Google Play for me. This may be because the number of Android devices with Bluetooth Low Energy is still very limited and Android 4.3 as a minimum is also required.

The distance that the tag and smartphone can be separated by before the alarm will sound can be configured within the app or if you really want to make sure that nothing goes missing it can be set to a movement alarm so that any movement of either device will trigger trigger the alarm.

A final function of the tag is a small button on the side next to the power switch which will activate the alarm on the connected smartphone so that you can locate it. This can be quite useful in a number if scenarios for example, you may have young child who likes to hide things.

The packaging of the tag says that it will last for 3 months on a full charge and my own experience of Bluetooth LE devices shows that they have very little effect on the battery life of the smartphone that they are connected to.

The App has a number of in app purchases that are available priced at £0.69 each that may be useful to some but the Bluenio Nio Tag works quite well straight out of the box

The Nio Tag is available from www.bluenio.com and is priced at £34.99 for the white as reviewed here and a black version is available for pre-order for the same price.

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By November 15, 2013 Read More →

Fonesalesman announces Note 3 Wireless Charging Receiver

iQi Mobile Wireless Charging For iPhone Indiegogo Crowdfunding Project Meets With Success Early OnWe love wireless charging, it’s one of the best features of the Nexus 5 so for those of you with devices that don’t have wireless charging built in, the options are expanding.

Thanks to a successful crowdfunded campaign, Fonesalesman announces their Samsung Galaxy Note 3 wireless charging system. With their products success the company has launched the Note 3 Receiver today, and their current iQi Mobile Wireless Charger For iPhone Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign is 80% funded with 16 days to go.

 

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By November 15, 2013 Read More →

BlackBerry Z30 Review

z30The Z30 is the fourth BlackBerry 10 smartphone and it’s the biggest yet…in every sense of the word as you’ll find out why during the review. I think it is safe to say that as a company BlackBerry have been having an absolutely torrid time of things lately, this is mostly down to poor sales performance of what the company believed to be their savour, their BlackBerry 10 devices.

The recent announcement that BlackBerry were looking for a buyer, has since changed into replacing their CEO and bringing in investors to try and move the company forward, this is a bold move for the company so lets hope that their smartphone improve in the future!

But for now lets consider the BlackBerry Z30, it’s the largest device that the company has ever made so the question is; Can the Z30 compete in the world of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 or the Sony Xperia Z1 or even the newly announced Nokia Lumia 1520 with its 6 inch display?

To whet the appetite a bit check out Matt’s BlackBerry Z30 unboxing video before reading on.

 

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By November 14, 2013 Read More →

iOS 7.0.4 Rolls Out

imageJust a few weeks after Apple release the update to iOS 7.0.3 there’s another version being pushed out to devices this evening.

iOS 7.0.4 has just been made available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and promises to fix a known issue with FaceTime which caused FaceTime calls to fail for some users. Personally hadn’t seen this problem.

Along with the FaceTime fix a number of other minor bugs are fixes with this update but we’ve yet to get to the bottom of what they are!

Bug fixes and improvements, including a fix for an issue that causes FaceTime calls to fail for some users.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Meanwhile, Apple has also released iOS 6.1.5 for fourth-generation iPod touch users. That iOS 6 update is designed to fix the FaceTime bug on the non-iOS 7 capable iPod touch.

If you are interested in the possibility of Jailbreaking your phone at some point in the future, the Jailbreak experts are warning that you should stay away from the 7.0.4 update for now.

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