As it’s Boxing Day and like half the world I’ll be spending time with the family I thought I would kick off a post that maybe (hopefully) leads to a little feedback from readers.
What did you get for Christmas?
Leading up to Christmas I had dozens of emails from readers looking for advice on which new mobile to buy for a loved-one or even for themselves. I expect the mobile networks would have been inundated with news connections yesterday!
So if you’re one of those people that picked up a new mobile for xmas, what did you get? Happy with your gift/purchase? The first 24 hours with a new gadget are always the most ‘interesting’! 🙂
No new mobiles tracyandmatt household this year. Tracy bought me a new coffee machine and, as a really unusual gift, shares in the Disney Corporation. Tracy got a new keyboard for her iMac and some new Wii games but we’ve been rather devoid of gadgets this year. We need to share in your gadget euphoria!
Posted by: Matt
It doesn’t seem five minutes since last Christmas but here we are again, another year older!
I just wanted to take the opportunity to say Merry Christmas to you all and a big thanks for visiting the site daily or watching our videos on YouTube. It means the world to us.
Also a big thanks to all the UK networks and device manufactures that supply us with all the phones for review, and not forgetting Clove Technology and The Smartphone Centre who we work closely with and who do a sterling job.
We also couldn’t do it without our dedicated team, who all do the reviews for the love of it, so big love to Vince, Patrick, Chris, Luke and Gareth. (And Matt I suppose!)
So have a great Christmas day and all the best for the New Year.
Posted by: James
Yet another BlackBerry Bold running the latest OS version to add to the range. This time the Bold 9790 is the follow on from the 9700/9780 series but brings us some beefed up specs and a 2.45 inch touch screen.
First launched in Indonesia last month this new Bold caused quite a storm and I’m pretty sure we will see millions of these devices in the hands of both business men/women as well as general mobile users.
It feels good, it looks good and with my limited usage it performs like a dream.
You can see our hands on video below where I also compare it to the other current BlackBerry Smartphone’s on the market.
It seems the sales season is starting early! Both Carphone Warehouse and Currys are selling the Blackberry Playbook 16GB for an insane £169.00. In addition to the Sale-O-Rama Currys are giving anyone who picks it up £50 off voucher.
The 64GB version is £329 on the site, so if you were to buy the 16Gb for your granny then you could get a 64GB version for £280 and be a happy Elf.
Posted by: Gareth
Gareth, Tracy and Matt are in for the last podcast of the year. This week there are reviews of the HTC Sensation XL and the Huawei S7 Slim. Your hosts also name their favourite phones, tablets, apps and events of the year and give a couple of predictions of what to expect next year. As per usual, listen to Gareth, he’s always right. The others are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Huawei have been making devices for years however their name hasn’t quite hit the big time yet. If you own a 3G dongle then there is a good chance it was made by Huawei. We’ve seen a few of their phones over the years and I have even reviewed one of their tablets before, the predecessor to the Ideos S7 Slim, the S7. The S7 Slim comes to us 10 months after I attended the launch event. Should we even bother looking at this dated tablet. Well, oddly, yes!
Samsung today announced that they will be updating a slew of Galaxy devices to Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich early next year. The ICS update is scheduled for Q1 of 2012 for the following devices:
- GALAXY S II
- GALAXY S II LTE
- GALAXY Note
- GALAXY R
- GALAXY Tab 10.1
- GALAXY Tab 8.9
- GALAXY Tab 7.7
- GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus
Samsung indicated that the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note will get the update first, then the others will follow at some time within that quarter. They made no specific announcement of which territory will receive the update first. Considering that it is just a software update, you would think they could release them simultaneously, although that could stretch their servers thin.
Posted by: Gareth
This one has been a while coming but good news PlayBook owners. Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio are now all in BlackBerry App World.
Priced at £4.99 each they are not cheap but they do bring hours of fun. I have already downloaded ‘seasons’ and I can say it is as smooth and fluid as on other platforms and feels great playing it on the 7 inch tablet.
This just goes to prove what a wonderful OS QNX really is.
You can see a few more screen shots below.
Those loveable Angry Birds and the pesky pigs are celebrating the holiday season with fans across the globe, as their new Advent Challenge on Google Chrome launched 25 levels of Winter Wonderland fun. In the run-up to Christmas each day a new level is unlocked with a special 5th December level created thanks to the Samsung GALAXY Note.
Samsung and Rovio first worked together earlier in the year for the launch of the GALAXY S II and have once again come together to offer fans of Angry Birds even more chances to play. Visiting note.angrybirds.com will take you to a Winter Wonderland in which you can send Angry Birds greetings cards, win amazing prizes including a Samsung GALAXY Note and even play an exclusive Angry Birds puzzle game not seen anywhere else in the world.
“It’s so good to team up with Rovio again. Samsung has a had brilliant year and our Galaxy devices are popular all over the world, so to be able to launch a holiday experience inside the most popular mobile game in world is awesome!" said YH Lee, SVP of Global Marketing at Samsung Mobile Communications Business "To all those Angry Birds fans out there: enjoy yourselves and check out the Galaxy Note for an even better mobile gaming experience!”
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