There are enough high-profile fans of the BlackBerry to make something like this Porsche Design special edition make sense. From celebrities to CEOs, the BlackBerry still has quite a hold on people as a great communicator, whether for business or pleasure.

And this Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry is something special. But does it go far enough? Will this give you a BlackBerry experience that surpasses what you'll find elsewhere? Is this the BlackBerry handset you should be aspiring to own?

Design

RIM isn't known for design variation. Tracking the family of the BlackBerry handsets, not a huge amount has changed over the past few years. The same could be said of Porsche automobiles, but both the Porsche and the BlackBerry are rather iconic in their design.

The Porsche Design BlackBerry P'9981, however, really brings some class to the tried and tested Bold formula. Where the standard Bold blends in with the rest of the BB crowd, the P'9981 is distinct and individual and really stands out in a sea of similarity.

Whether you like it, or not, will be a case of personal taste and we've come from a position of thinking it was brash and offensive, to one where we love the look and feel. You know it's special and so does everyone you show it to.

Hewn from stainless steel, it's still instantly recognisable as a BlackBerry thanks to the split face offering a full QWERTY keyboard below the display. The finish is very good in most places. The keyboard feels right, the phone looks right from every angle. Where the metal gives way for the display you have wonderful distinct clean design lines.

But as much as we love the design, it's design where this phone also suffers. The back is plastic and finished in leather, although it feels substantial enough when in place it doesn't attach especially well to the back of the phone.

Like many devices, it uses regularly placed plastic tabs to hold it on, but on our sample it was all too easy to pop the back off by accident. Grip the phone wrong and you feel the back detach. Porsche cars have a reputation for letting the back-end go so we're wondering if it is some sort of in-joke.

The second point is the positioning of the convenience key. This is a useful button, which you can program to open an application of your choice - the default is to launch the camera. It is positioned in the right edge, exactly where your hand would be if you use a two-thumbed keyboard technique. On more than one occasion we were furiously typing emails, only to find we’d launched the camera.

Aside from the overly large box that the phone arrives in, you also get a matching dock. This too is finished in steel and leather and features a soft light to guide your Porsche phone in at night for refuelling. It's a convenient bedside stand and we like it a lot.

This being a dressed-up BlackBerry Bold, the keyboard is one of the most important elements. At first we weren't sold on it, as the alternative characters are much more difficult to see than on the regular Bold. This isn't helped by the decision to move away from the tried and tested black background, but the backlighting certainly helps make things clearer once you start typing.

Although the design is sharper, and the cut across the individual keys is sharper and more defined than on the Bold, that action isn't too different. Given a couple of days with the phone, we found that using it became second nature. Despite the changes, it's only really the occasional moment when you're left looking for a colon that it causes a problem.

Hardware

Internally, there is less to talk about, especially if you've read our BlackBerry Bold 9900 review. You get a 1.2GHz processor, 768MB RAM and 8GB of internal memory. BlackBerry has been kind enough to include a 16GB microSD card too, so you should be well provisioned for storage.

The screen too, is the same as the original Bold. It is a capacitive touchscreen, with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. That sounds low in modern terms, but at only 2.8-inches, it gives you an impressive 287ppi. It will render fine detail crisply and there is punch and vibrancy to the colours, but it's let down with a flaky touch response.

We're convinced this is nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with the software, more on which later.

Around the back of the phone you have a 5-megapixel camera, supported by an LED flash. This is lacking in modern terms, not because of the pixel count, but because it is fixed focus. This sets it behind other smartphone cameras in terms of results, which aren't as sharp as we'd like. Given good conditions you'll get snaps acceptable for sharing, but the inability to focus on close detail is irritating.

The camera also offers you HD video of the 720p variety. Again, focus is fixed so it's not as adept as some rivals, although this is less of an issue in mobile video capture. The results are average, a little noisier than you might expect, but perfectly acceptable for casual use.

The external speaker is surprisingly good and loud. It lacks bass, obviously, so isn't great for music, but plug in a pair of quality headphones and the results are good too. The external speaker is in the bottom of the device and surprisingly it isn't devastatingly muffled when you park it on the dock.

There is a set of Porsche Design headphones in the box, which offer an in-line mic, but we weren't taken by the quality of the audio they offered and were easily surpassed by the Klipsch headphones we tried instead.

The ear speaker is loud enough and we had no problems hearing callers, although that neatly designed angular top edge can be a little uncomfortable against your ear in long calls. We also found we could hear our end of the conversation being repeated through the ear speaker during a call, although this might be a problem limited to this device.

Software, apps, performance

So far the Porsche Design BlackBerry P'9981 has hit most of the right markers. The hardware looks powerful on paper, the cameras are okay, but not fantastic, and the design and keyboard are mostly without issue. But a phone hangs on the software performance, which governs the user experience.

The theme applied to the Porsche Design handset can be switched off if you don't like it, although it is nice to have something a little different. But what it loses is in the app icons. All the native app icons have been stylised and in the process it all become rather generic, so it's more difficult to spot the app you want in a flash.

But this customisation only applies to the native and preinstalled apps, not those you then download, so it does end up being something of a mishmash.

Starting with the positives, the BlackBerry 7 OS that the P'9981 sits on provides a great communication experience. BlackBerry's integrated messaging system and universal search make it easy to find what you're looking for and managing a busy email life is certainly easy. It's mostly conversant with things like Google accounts, although it will stumble with multiple calendars - Google Sync will resolve that for you though.

The combination of touch and type works to a point. You can quickly select an icon or tap a link, which is better than scrolling across the optical trackpad to make things happen. But on many occasions, like trying to press a button at the bottom of the display, the screen doesn't respond. When people are becoming familiar with a silky smooth and refined touch experiences elsewhere, BB 7 feels a little rudimentary.

We won't go into more detail of what RIM needs to do to move the OS forward, but we will stop to talk about the topic du jour: apps. They have redefined the mobile experience and the BlackBerry, while offering many and varied applications, finds itself without some of the biggest names.

There is no Skype, for example, no Netflix, no BBC iPlayer and some of the core apps, such as YouTube, merely redirect to the mobile website. The App World app itself isn't great and whenever you come to download and install new apps, everything else grinds to a halt and often begs for a restart.

The browser, although vastly better than previous BB versions, is no match for Android or iOS. Pinch zooming doesn't work well at all, scrolling can be slow and jerky, even if pages load quickly enough.

The result is that no matter how well you dress your BlackBerry, the experience is very much the same. If you spend your time working through emails sitting in the back seat of a Phaeton, then you probably won't care. The core BlackBerry services are well integrated and run without a hitch - except Maps, which is as good as useless. If you're the sort of person who whiles away time on the train with a little casual gaming, or catching up on last night's TV, this isn't the phone for you.

And finally…

The last word goes to battery life. With a 1230mAh battery, the P'9981 struggles to make it through a busy day. Like the Bold 9900, we found that the P'9981 needed to be charged every night. This is slightly out of character for a BlackBerry handset, as most of the rest of the range will easily make it through a day. At least you have that dock to park it on, so you don't need to fiddle around with cables.

Tags: Phones BlackBerry BlackBerry Porsche Design P9981

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Many, including Motorola, followed the iPad's about-10-inch route with the launch of their first tablet, but there's a lot to be said for a more compact format as seen here with the 8.2-inch Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition.

But with challengers in this more portable Android tablet war, does the Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition offer anything that the likes of Samsung haven't? And could it, by some bizarre twist of fate, be better overall than its bigger 10.1-inch brother?

Design

The Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition follows the same design lines as the larger Xoom 2 model, most easily identified by the clipped corners. This gives the Xoom 2 ME a more aggressive look than the likes of the iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab range. It's sharp, angular and interesting.

There is a hint of the rugged about it too, although this isn't a rugged tablet, apart from the SplashGuard coating that will save it from little accidents. Around the back the six Torx screws hold on the metal back plate with the edges offering a tactile, softer finish. It might look sharp and angular, but it's actually grippy and comfortable to hold.

At 388g it’s easily light enough to hold one-handed, but you don't get much space around the screen to grip. Motorola have thankfully dealt with this problem, so it can detect a thumb on the screen and ignore it – without it stopping you from performing other touch actions.

In terms of controls, like the other Xooms, the buttons are on the rear. The volume and standby buttons are all adjacent to each other in a slightly recessed panel which makes finding them tricky. It looks tidy, but in practical terms we couldn't change the volume without looking. Even after a month of use, it's an arrangement we haven't got used to.

The placement of the connections does work for us however. The headphone socket sits next to the IR port on one end, the Micro-USB and micro HDMI sit on the other, alongside a flap which opens to reveal… nothing. We imagine that this will offer a SIM card slot on some models. There is no option for microSD expansion, unfortunately.

The hardware

One of the things we like about the Xoom 2 ME is that it matches the specs of the 10.1-inch Xoom 2. It has the same 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4 processor, you get the same 1GB RAM, you get the same 16GB of internal storage. It even has the same resolution display.

At 8.2-inches the 1280 x 800 pixel resolution display means you get an impressive 184ppi. That might not sound like much in smartphone terms, but it is also an IPS display, so offers nice sharp details and good colours, with wide viewing angles. The smaller size and tighter pixel pitch means that everything looks good, from the best Honeycomb app, to streaming video and everything in-between.

If we're being really picky, there is a small amount of bleed at the edges, which you might notice when watching video in the dark, but it's nothing to get upset about.

You get all the normal wireless connections you expect, but we found a familiar oddity with Wi-Fi where it would occasionally fail to connect to our home network, needing a little nudge to get going. Bluetooth, GPS and all the sensors are here, including a barometer, something that might see more use in the future than it does now.

The overall package is put together well. The Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition feels like a quality tablet and despite the lightweight, it doesn't bend, flex or creak and it's survived the odd drop on to the bedroom floor too.

What is a Media Edition?

That's an interesting question. It does make the name more of a mouthful, although we guess that this tablet will colloquially be known as Xoom 2 "the small one". Its media credentials don’t bring with it any better handling of "media" over any other Xoom, in fact it's the same experience as the regular Xoom 2. Motorola has said it was down to the fact that it's more portable, for media on the move.

Whatever the reason, as we've already established, video playback looks great. It will handle full HD video, although the native codec support isn't very wide. Fortunately, as this tablet - like all of Motorola's recent releases - chooses to use MotoCast USB for moving content on to the device, it will convert video as necessary, so the experience isn't too bad. If you need wider video support you'll find options on Android Market to do so.

Also wrapped up in MotoCast is the remote access side of things. MotoCast will set itself up as a server on your PC or Mac, so you can access your content from your Motorola device on the move. It's simple and it works with minimal fuss, as long as your home PC is turned on.

There is, however, no sign of conventional DLNA streaming software, so it's worth installing something like Skifta to stream content over your Wi-Fi network at home, because MotoCast will send it via Motorola's servers in the process, which is a waste of broadband. We found it worked perfectly. We also had no problem streaming content from websites like BBC iPlayer, or through the Netflix app, both of which benefit from the quality of the display.

Also sitting in support of media in general is the IR transmitter. Whilst many companies are releasing apps to enable Wi-Fi control over their connected TVs, the resurgence of IR transmitters is welcomed as it acknowledges what people are actually doing with their tablets - sitting in front of the TV, using it as the third screen.

Unlike the more sophisticated offering of the Sony Tablet S, which has a much better remote control app, the Xoom 2 ME relies on Dijit. This is still simple enough to use and we had no problems setting up our TV with it, but it lacks the gloss of the Sony rival.

When it comes to music, you'll find that Motorola have offered some audio control to improve the listening experience. This basically revolves around widening the sound stage through your headphones, so if you want virtual surround sound, you can have it. It works nicely and overall the Xoom 2 sounds great through good quality headphones.

The speakers are rather clever too, as there are three openings, two on the left (or top) and one on the right (or bottom). This means that one wayward hand doesn't block all the sound. Volume is reasonable, although we found vibration across the back when at high volumes – but in all seriousness, are you going to use a tablet at full volume? Probably not.

Everything else

You also get some of Motorola bundled business apps in the form of Citrix and various meeting apps. There is a front facing camera should you wish to take advantage of video calling and a second 5-megapixel camera on the rear, offering a flash and autofocus. We don't put much stock in tablet cameras as we've yet to ever need to use one in anger, but it works well enough.

The Xoom 2 ME also gives you 720p video capture, but this is slightly limited by the fixed-focus offering, so it isn't ever the sharpest video out there.

Otherwise the experience is very much a stock Android Honeycomb experience and a good one at that. Aside from that minor niggle with Wi-Fi, we've found the Xoom 2 ME to be stable. Flash videos play well, apps open and close with ease and the whole experience is on a par with other top Android tablets. Sure, we bemoan the number of tablet-specific apps that you get on Android, but that's not Motorola's fault.

It's a shame that this tablet doesn't arrive with Ice Cream Sandwich, but it is in the works, with Motorola's older Xoom tablet already receiving the update in some regions.

We're also impressed with the battery. The internal 3900mAh unit doesn't last as long as larger models, but it has faired well in standby and offers about six hours of constant use. It will entertain you across the Atlantic, if not quite all the way to your destination.

Tags: Tablets Motorola Motorola Xoom Android Honeycomb Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition Motorola Xoom Media Edition

Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:27:00 +0000

The Motorola ACTV sees Motorola Mobility branch into a new sector. It's a bold move, taking on the established Nike+, Polar, Garmin and Timex, to name a few. But does the Motorola ACTV bring anything new to the table? Does it offer a viable alternative to those existing systems and what's it like to use?

We've been running, riding and walking with the Motorola ACTV to see what it has on offer.

Design

The ACTV is a simple square design and at first glance it looks like an iPod nano. It's a reasonable comparison too, because like the iPod nano, it features a colour touchscreen display on the front. You'll also find a back touch button, one of the few nods to Android, which underpins the software.

Around the sides of the ACTV you'll find various buttons and controls. On the bottom is the 3.5mm headphone jack and on the left-hand side is a covered Micro-USB connector for charging. There is no cover on the headphone socket, perhaps on the assumption that you'll always be using it with headphones, but if not, it's open and exposed to dirt and water.

On the top you'll find the "workout" button and the music button. The workout button is labelled "start", which may cause a double take when you see references to the workout button mentioned. On the right-hand side you have the main power/standby button and volume controls.

The back of the ACTV is a lipped metal plate, which not only looks like good quality, but adds to the versatility of the device, as you can slide it into various different straps and holders. In the box you get a clip (like the iPod nano clip) for attaching to clothing.

Measuring 46mm square and weighing 36g, it's pretty large as watches go, but you do get a decent display size, which is vital for glancing at stats on the run. Worn with the optional Sports Wrist Strap, we've been happy using it as a regular watch, although the screen dims to save battery so you'll have to press the standby button to read the time.

Connectivity

The feature set of the Motorola ACTV is certainly expansive and as an expandable system, we've not been able to test every accessory that the ACTV offers and some aren't available yet. Starting with basic functions it offers music, with 8GB of internal memory, and sports watch features thanks to the on-board GPS and motion detector.

But this is a well-connected device as it has both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi too, so is fully connected to the outside world when it needs to be. It is also ANT+ compliant, so is compatible with sensors that use that system, such a heart rate chest strap. Of course, physical cable connection to your PC is needed to initially setup some of the more advanced parts of your profile on the watch, update software and sync music, but syncing activity data to motoactv.com can take place over Wi-Fi.

The Bluetooth connection will allow you to use wireless accessories, and there are Bluetooth headphones as well as a notifications link for Motorola Android handsets. We connected it to the Motorola Defy+ and found that our calls and SMS messages could be routed via the watch. We found this especially useful when riding, as it meant we could read messages and see callers, even though we chose not to answer any. You also get a neat "call back" option, so you can step off the treadmill and return that important call.

There is no external speaker, however, so if you're not wearing headphones, you won't hear anything - and this extends to any alerts relating to your workout too.

The link to your phone is currently restricted to Motorola devices and then not all - we weren’t able to access the app on the Motorola Xoom for example. It would be great to have universal support here; if Motorola made the app accessible on all devices, it would broaden the appeal of the ACTV amongst Android users.

Software and user interface

The watch works in partnership with MotoCast USB software on your PC for syncing, just as Motorola's latest tablets and smartphones do. The application will access iTunes (on the Mac we tested) and let you select various syncing criteria.

In truth, if you are using this as a sports device, you probably only really want your sporty tracks on there; Michael Bolton won't propel you to glory in quite the same way as The Prodigy might, so a running playlist might be a smart move, although you can allocate "fitness songs" on the ACTV itself, which basically creates your fitness playlist.

The ACTV is based around a carousel-style interface at the top level. This gives you five screens to swipe through, from left-right offering: settings, workout, clock, music, notifications. Each section then lets you tap through to a menu (except the clock) to get to the relevant details.

There are shortcuts too. A long press on the workout button takes you directly to the workout section and you get the same from music. If you're playing music you get start/stop and track skipping options with multiple button presses. If you're "working out" a quick press of the button will let you pause your workout. From within the menus, a long press on the back button will return you to the clock, so getting around is fairly swift after you get familiar with the system.

All of this is important because navigating the device with the buttons is easier when running than using the touchscreen. You'll still need to use the screen, so if you live in colder climates, consider investing in some touchscreen-friendly gloves (we used Agloves).

Music

Navigating music, particularly finding new music to play, is a little fiddly on the run because you have to use the menu system to navigate to the playlist, album, artist or genre and then scroll through lists. Better to organise your playlist than scroll through hundreds of tracks.

Fortunately the bundled headset offers a single button control that will give you start/stop/skip controls, including firing up your "performance music" with a long press. The bundled headset is of the over-the-ear type, so nice and secure when out running and includes an in-line mic too for taking calls.

The performance of the headset isn't the best however, even if it is comfortable. We found it lacked bass delivery on the sort of upbeat tracks we prefer when out running, although you do get two types of in-ear tips so you can choose music performance or sports specific. We also found that the ACTV was happy to be controlled by the Klipsch Image S4A headphones, which offers single-button control.

There is an FM radio on board, as well as a separate section for podcasts. In terms of sport-specific functions, aside from fitness and performance songs, the ACTV also tracks your performance during particular songs. After an initial phase of collating data (we think it's four workouts) it will give you a section with your "performance songs" in.

Let's workout

Of course the main component of the Motorola ACTV is the sport functions. As we've said, you can combine it with a number of sensors to collect more data, but in its basic form it offers GPS and accelerometer/pedometer. The latter will need to be calibrated to provide reliable statistics, but will then offer to keep track of your daily activity, giving you your steps and calories burnt for an entire day, rather than just your dedicated workout time. This does take its toll on the battery however.

One of the biggest problems with Nike+, is that it doesn't care about anything but running. Sure, you can use it walking without making much of a difference, but anything you do will affect your averages. The ACTV has different options for running, cycling, walking, as well as elliptical trainers and step machines. It also lets you specify whether you are indoors or outdoors, so it's perfectly happy to see you through your gym sessions too.

During a workout your stats are displayed on the screen and you can swipe through different views. The total time sits at the top of the display and the default pace, calories, time and map route (which isn't especially useful on such a small display) can all be customised. You can choose between three and six metrics to display, including things like calories, distances, heart rate, interval intensity, laps, speed, step rate, and time, including time in HR zone or pace zone and various averages and options therein.

Being able to pick what you want to be displayed is fantastic. Cyclists might want speed rather than pace, walkers might be more interested in step rate. You can also make these customisations in each of the different sports, so you can setup different metrics for running and cycling, for example.

You can setup a tap shortcut to read your stats to you and you can have the ACTV tell you when you enter a particular zone through the "coaching" section. You can also sign-up for training programmes via motoactv.com, which will see the watch reminding you what you should be doing on a particular day, what intervals you should be doing and so on. It's a comprehensive system.

You also get the option to setup different bikes, so if you have fixie, road and mountain bikes, you can set up the wheel size and bike weight appropriately. The only thing we can't find a way to do is switch between activities without stopping the workout, so if you are a triathlete doing a BRICK session you can't get that as one workout, like you get on the Garmin Forerunner.

One thing we do really like, however, is being able to slip the ACTV off the wrist strap and onto the bike. Sure you could have a Forerunner and an Edge from Garmin and enjoy the same system that way, but we like this universal approach, although as well explain, it won't suit everyone.

Motoactv.com

All your activity is collated through motoactv.com. It's a shame that the Android app doesn't sync and offer stats and data too and we hope Motorola consider this for the future, as it would be really nice to check an app rather than a mobile browser.

Motoactv.com is impressive though. It's easy to get to your training sessions and plan new ones. There are training programmes you can sign up for, which then populate the calendar and sync to your device. You can setup custom workouts, including intervals, and sync those too. That means you can be sitting at work, log-on, see what you've done, change plans and that's it. As long as you sync your device - wirelessly - the changes will be reflected on the ACTV too.

There is also plenty of information to crunch through. You can look at different metrics in your stats, you have access to graphs and tables. You can even view the music data and see what you've been listening too, and for how many miles. You can set goals for yourself and track your progress and if you so desire, you can download a CSV file of workout data to import into a different system. It's well designed and laid out and feels like a more mature offering than Nikeplus.com.

And, of course, you can share your progress via a link to Facebook and Twitter.

Performance

In reality we feel the displayed details could be bigger, but we didn't actually have a problem reading the stats thanks to the size and the black on white display. As we've said, swiping between screens or menus on the run can be a little fiddly, although not to the point where we got frustrated. We've tried sports watches with buttons that don't always respond, we've tried some that need you to tap the rim. Running and interacting with a watch can be troublesome, but that's true of all devices.

We found that the GPS pickup took a while, but was fast enough once outside. You can run without GPS and we did log some runs without collecting GPS data by accident – so it's worth waiting for confirmation before you start. We've become accustomed to placing GPS watches outside whilst we strap on the trainers and lock up the house, and that just about sorts the ACTV out.

We also found the GPS trace to be accurate to our route when we viewed it over at motoactv.com, although this will vary from place to place, proximity of tall buildings and so on.

The advantage that the ACTV has over some devices is the illuminated display. Running in the gloom of winter is a pleasure as it's easy to see your stats no matter what the conditions. We also didn't have a problem in bright sunshine. The downside of this display, ultimately, is battery life.

When it comes to the battery, there is plenty going on that will drain it. Music, GPS, capacitive display illumination, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, motion sensors. Some of these things can be switched off, but still, the ACTV won't last long between charges. Wearing it as a regular watch (with everything off), we got about a week from it. The Nike+ SportWatch, by comparison, will give you about a month.

You'll also see the battery life drain on long runs. If you are a ultramarathoner or long distance cyclist, you'll find it won't last to the end of the race. Using it predominantly for running is fine, but if you want something to track your crack at the Etape, you might want to look elsewhere.

Tags: Sports Fitness Motorola Motorola ACTV Android

Motorola MotoACTV originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0000

There are now two BlackBerry Torch models in RIM's armoury: the 9810 we're reviewing here and the 9860 that we've previously reviewed. The 9810 is a slider phone packing a full QWERTY keyboard essentially the same design as the phone it replaces, the Torch 9800.

The 9800 was something rarity for BlackBerry when it launched, as the only other touch device on offer from RIM was from the ill-fated Storm family. Of course, the Storm has passed and we're left with two Torch models and touch across the range. But is this upgraded model a step up in experience?

Design

The 9810 is practically the spitting image of the 9800 forebear. It looks the same, feels the same and measures the same, save for some very minor changes, such as the colour of the controls under the display. It is a slider, with the display sliding upwards to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard of the tried and tested BlackBerry formula.

It's somewhat chunky by modern standards, weighing in a 161g and measuring 111 x 62 x 14.6. Given that this is a slider device, we're not too worried about the size as it slips easily enough into any pocket or bag.

What's more of a concern is one of the points that irritated us about the last edition of this phone and that's the screen lock button on the top of the phone. The action is so soft that it will easily unlock itself in your pocket. On a non-touch phone that's not much of a problem, but we've pulled the phone out to find it setting new appointments, browsing the Internet, and even having changed the language to Greek.

Given the design there aren't too many sensible locations to place the 3.5mm headphone jack. On the side it juts out, meaning that the Torch never really sits comfortably in your pocket. If anything, this device is a questionable choice for sliding into the hip pocket of your jeans, because you'll catch the headphones, unlock the device and email your ex in the process.

On our previous review sample we found that the sliding action of the screen gave us a little wobble on every tap. This didn't appear to be a problem on our 9810, but we did find the plastic back panel would creak. The 9810 won't win any prizes for build or design, but aside from the ridiculously soft lock key, we can't complain too much.

Those upgraded parts

We don't want to spend too much of this review talking about the older version of this phone, but let's just say that RIM have addressed some of the major points of concern from a hardware point of view. The screen sees its resolution bumped up to 640 x 480 pixels, a welcome step-up meaning this is a sharper Torch, but with rival platforms pushing higher definition displays, the 9810 lacks impact and sharpness.

The OS fits well on the display as the icons aren't overcomplicated so the lack of resolution doesn't really matter, but it does mean that browsing the Internet involves more zooming and images don't looks as sharp as they could.

But we find ourselves wondering if the new 1.2GHz processor and upgraded 768MB RAM make that much of a difference. Sure, you can now capture 720p video thanks to the extra power to crunch the captured data from the 5-megapixel camera, but it's not the hardware that's explicitly at fault, it's the software.

BB OS showing its age

For several years we've been remarking that BlackBerry OS needs to start stepping forwards. There are some great things, and a great heritage, behind BlackBerry, but the pace at which its rivals are evolving doesn't shine a favourable light on BlackBerry. But this isn't news. Where BB6 made a few visual tweaks, BB7 makes a few more, but not so many that you'd really notice.

We often found that we'd touch the screen to drag or scroll the tray of apps and found it wouldn't respond. Finger tracking isn't great and dragging and scrolling things like webpages isn't as smooth or successful as it should be. Too often we'd be heading off to an extraneous link, rather than scrolling. This applies in apps and menus too, so we'd often resort back to the optical trackpad, or keyboard shortcuts.

The way we use current devices now plays a part here. The fewer apps you have on your platform, the more people are going to need to use the browser to access online services. Although the browser is much better than it was prior to BB6, it still doesn't match those native browsers of iPhone or Android in daily use.

The biggest problem we had was stability; it would frequently fail or refuse to load a page and it would regularly freeze, rendering the phone unresponsive, so we had to pull the battery to get things going again. BlackBerry users are probably all-too familiar with battery pulls and upgrading the hardware in this model doesn't seem to have got round this problem.

Of course the jewel in the crown is email, and stepping into the BlackBerry world from regular Android and iPhone use reminds us of just how convenient and powerful the BB email system is. The speed, the searching the ease with which you can communicate via email is fantastic.

However, the keyboard on the Torch isn't a patch on the Bold keyboard, or even that of the Curve. It's slightly too recessed into the body of the base of the phone so it feels like a strain to use. The on-screen QWERTY keyboard is poor too. Where other on-screen keyboards will let your fingers fly, the BB keyboard seems to struggle to follow what you're trying to type, even on this relatively large screen. As such, it’s much better to use the compact keyboard in portrait, because it's relatively good at figuring out what you're trying to say.

BlackBerry Maps is rather antiquated and lacks the powerful search that Google Maps offers. Searching for a meeting location from the calendar returned no results; pasting the same details into Google Maps found the location quickly. Whilst on the subject of locations, it's also frustrating that not all synced calendar locations will be live links, depending on how you arrange your calendars.

When it comes to apps, of course, the BlackBerry isn't the best served. Most of our essentials are covered however, and you'll find your social networks present and correct, although the app design doesn't seem as impressive as other smartphones, and they lack that snap and immediacy contemporary smartphones offer. In many areas, the BlackBerry Torch doesn't stand up to its rivals, which is a shame.

Some positives

It's not all doom and gloom. If your primary interest is in communication, then the BlackBerry still does rather well. We've mentioned that the email experience is good, and it is. The universal inbox makes it easy to jump to messages and alerts, although it could do with more options. Being able to sign into your accounts and have information sync to your device is very welcomed, and even though it stumbled with multiple calendars from our Google accounts, that was easily avoided with the Google Sync app.

The connectivity is also remarkably good for servicing email, especially when re-joining a network, stepping out of the underground for example. BlackBerrys will pick up emails on the merest hint of a GPRS connection, something that not all smartphones will do.

The arrangement of the Torch does give you a sort of best-of-both worlds with its keyboard and larger screen. Smartphones with keyboards aren't as common as they were a few years ago, and this is in part testament to how good on-screen keyboards now are and how well mobile operating systems have been designed to incorporate intuitive control.

With the BlackBerry Torch you can, at least, use the phone in either mode. You can casually browse Twitter with it closed, re-tweet a message, then slide it open to use the keyboard, giving you plenty of space for text entry. Although the keyboard isn't as good as other BlackBerrys, you do get used to it after time.

You also get more screen space to enjoy media, although we can't help feeling that the other Torch, the 9860, was a better device for consuming video content.

The 5-megapixel camera on the rear is good enough. By that, we mean that it offers average performance for a smartphone. Shots in good light are reasonable quality, adequate for sharing online or sending to friends, but low light photos will be soft and noisy. Video capture is also pretty good too, with the new 720p offering noticeably better results than the 640 x 480 video of the past.

The battery life is also pretty good, perhaps because you're less likely to have so many apps looking to gobble data. We managed to get through a day easily in average use. After a day of heavy use, you will see it complaining towards the end of the day, but it out-performs many smartphones when it comes to endurance.

Tags: Phones BlackBerry Research in Motion RIM BlackBerry Torch 9810

BlackBerry Torch 9810 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:39:00 +0000

The Klipsch Image S4a are specifically designed for Android devices, which makes them something of a rare breed. "Made for iPhone" has been around for a number of years, but "Made for Android" hasn't. It's only really in 2011 that we've seen the move to accommodate Androider's needs through the likes of the Philips Fidelio AS851.

The Klipsch Image line does also cover those Apple products, as well as generic PC uses, coming from a line of headphones that are no stranger to quality, so we have high expectations. But will these meet the demands of the discerning Android user?

Design

The Klipsch Image S4a are designed with a bend in the body. This means the in-ear element is slightly angled from the body of the headphones. Although we've seen more substantial cable connections on headphones, the s4As feel solid enough. The bodies are light but feel like they will withstand a certain amount of abuse.

The earphones can be worn in two ways, either conventionally by plugging straight into the ear, or with the cable looped over the top of your ears. The latter route fits the angled design of the monitors, so they fit into the recess of your outer ear, rather than projecting forwards.

Looping the cables over your ears also means increased stability and this is suggested as "sport fit". There is a slider on the cable that can be used to reduce cable movement and keep everything in place. However this may not be the most practical, as the in-line mic and controller is then held tight against your neck and isn't as easy to get to.

You get a range of different tips in the box, special oval tips designed to increase comfort over long periods, which should help you get the perfect fit for your lugholes.

Don't worry, be Appy

There is a control button on the Klipsch Image S4a, which uses a series of presses for different actions. This isn't all natively supported by Android, however, so to unlock the full potential of these headphones you'll have to download an app. Inside the packaging you'll find a QR code.

Strangely this QR code doesn't take you to the app it's asking you to download, but to the Klipsch website, so it's not really worth the effort. However, searching for Klipsch on the Android Market works fine.

This app then enables the button controls, and lets you customise various features. You can have a default music app that launches when you connect your headphones, you can set what a double press does and so on, as well as defining the speed of a double press. This is well worth doing, as initially the double press wasn't detected for us - lightening fast, you see. Conveniently there is a "custom" setting that will detect the speed and set the app accordingly.

After that, things work as they should. You simply use the headphones and everything works. Should you decide not to use the app, you'll find that you probably only get play/pause functions, but essentially, the headphones work perfectly well with other devices. Should you also happen to have an Apple device, you'll find the single button works as it should, but obviously there are no volume controls.

Despite the lack of proper volume controls, volume can be changed on your Android device with a long press of the button. This cycles through different volumes, so whilst it isn't as direct as simply pressing a button to step up or down a notch, the end result is more or less the same in an round-about sort of way. The Klipsch app also lets you define maximum and minimum volumes, as well as the starting volume, so you'll never find yourself deafened.

Sweet beats

If you've never used oval tips before you might find them a little unusual, but we didn't have a problem fitting or wearing them. They were comfortable, although at times we had to give them a wiggle as they felt they were a little too deep into our ears. They did an excellent job of isolating external noise however, which is the more important point.

That sets up the Klipsch S4a to a great start, leading onto great all round performance. Klipsch have something of a reputation for great headphones and that's true of the S4a too. Bass is handled with skill, making these a good choice if you enjoy a lively low range. But this isn't to the detriment of mid and high range. It's a sound profile that we like very much. They perhaps aren't the most accomplished of in-ear headphones when it comes to clarity, but they leave us little to complain about.

The volumes they will produce is certainly louder than we'd ever want to listen to, so we're grateful the app can be used to set a limit. They're also more affordable than some at £89, which sounds like a sweet deal.

Tags: Audio Headphones Klipsch Klipsch Image S4A Android

Klipsch Image S4A originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:00:00 +0000

We can safely say that in 2011, PC manufacturers have stepped up to the mark when it comes to design. Although Apple has had a fairly long headstart, we’ve seen more head-turning design in the Windows market thanalmost any other time, and not just at the high-end either.

Samsung has been in the thick of it and the Series 7 Chronos, or 700Z, is no exception. But this isn’t an Ultrabook, fighting it out in the thin and light stakes, but a fully-fledged notebook, packing in the power, but without sacrificing portability and design.

Design

We’ll get the MacBook Pro likeness out of the way now. There are a number of points that bring Apple’s notebook to mind, from the drop-down hinge, to the large trackpad to the keyboard. The cutout on the leading-edge to let you open the lid is identical, both in size and design. That’s no bad thing in our book because we love the MacBook Pro and it certainly makes the 700Z look good, while remaining functional, even if Samsung will find it hard to escape the copycat gibes.

The Chronos features a 15.6-inch display, which is impressive given the size of the chassis. It measures 362.1 x 238.5 and sits at 23.9mm deep. It weighs 2.29kg, which isn’t too heavy, but obviously isn’t designed to compete with something like the Samsung Series 9 on the portability front. The result is that you get plenty of display for your money, and a bezel slimmed down to let the screen out. Strength comes thanks to the metal backing, which helps give a premium finish and keep the 700Z mercifully free from fingerprints.

The deck of the 700Z sees the keyboard sitting in a slight recess, which stops the keys protruding above the wrist rest, which should mean they don’t touch the display when you close the lid. The wrist rest gives you plenty of space, so as a “latptop”, it’s a comfortable machine to use.

The body is plastic, as is the underside, but it feels solid enough and has been considerately designed, so it looks good from all sides. The sculpting around the base gives the illusion of slimness when sitting on a desk or table, and clever touches, like a drop-down section on the Ethernet port, have let Samsung stick to smart lines throughout.

Keyboard and touchpad

A backlit island-style keyboard spans the width of the deck and a lot has been crammed in, as a full numberpad sits on the right-hand side. Given the space available there are few compromises in terms of key size. The main QWERTY keys are well spaced and offer an excellent action, which feels precise. You can change the brightness of the backlighting too, which is always welcomed, controlled by the extensive function controls across the top.

Other shortcuts include the usual, brightness, volume, etc, but we like the fact that you also get access to Samsung’s Easy Settings, which are used to control some of the hardware settings. We’re not always fans of additional settings menus, but these are well implemented and clear, which is the important point.

If we have a criticism of the keyboard as a whole, however, it’s that the main keys are offset to the left as a result of the included numberpad. We’d rather not have that numberpad and have everything centralised, but if you’re a number-cruncher then it’s nice to have that in a notebook that isn’t huge. There are different versions of the Series 7 and we’ve seen the smaller model without a numberpad included, but you can’t buy all models in all territories, more’s the shame.

The trackpad is large and buttonless, but left and right “clicks” work as normal. It’s multitouch and a number of gestures are in place to help you navigate. Most work well enough, although you do get the feeling that Windows perhaps isn’t as adept at responding as Mac OS is: the two finger scrolling isn’t quite as slick, but the surface of the trackpad is beautifully smooth and amongst the best we’ve seen on a Windows notebook.

We did find that sometimes it would grab things with trailing finger, so for example we’d find that we were dragging a folder, rather than just moving the pointer. Again, it’s a minor point and something we’re sure you’ll get used to.

The hardware

Lying within, you’ll find an Intel Core i7 CPU, clocked at 2.2GHz, backed up by an impressive 8GB of RAM. Graphics come in the form of the AMD Radeon 6750M and you’ve got at 7200rpm 750GB hard drive for storage. There is also a card reader on the leading edge which will accept an SD card in its entirety, so there is no problem leaving a card in place while you travel about. A slot-loading DVD drive sits on the right-hand side too, which is impressive.

In addition, the 700Z is equipped with what Samsung is calling ExpressCache. This is an 8GB SSD that boosts key tasks. It isn’t directly accessible by the user, but reduces startup times and the launching of often-used applications. As a result, you can start from cold and be online in about 30 seconds.

The 15.6-inch display offers you a resolution of 1600 x 900, sharp enough and the size means it’s comfortable work on two documents side-by-side. It’s reasonably bright and ably assisted by the anti-glare finish, making it a good choice for those wanting to work in brighter conditions. Within the Easy Settings you’ll also find a range of display options, including picture profiles which let you change the colour temperature of the monitor to suit what you’re viewing.

We love the vivid colours of the “sharp” option. This feature also has an auto mode, so when you fire up a video the profile changes to better suit video playback.

You also have plenty of physical connections on offer. The right-hand side offers a single USB port - ideal for a 3G dongle - while the left-hand side provides you with DisplayPort, two USB 3.0 sockets, Ethernet and HDMI. You get a 3.5mm headphone/mic socket too.

Performance

The result is that the 700Z is a pleasure to use, whether it’s for work or leisure. There is plenty of power on tap for more intensive tasks and plenty of space to work. The finish of the display means it’s great for those working on the move, even if the size of the Series 7 makes it less attractive than something like an Ultrabook.

Samsung's claim about starting fast ring true, and that saves you time every time you fire-up the 700Z. It's also fast to open and close applications thanks to that Core i7 CPU and there is no problem handling your movies: we were impressed with how quickly and smoothly high definition videos played back, ably assisted by a boost from the display.

The extra keys might not just be put to use for number crunching, because although this isn't a gaming laptop by any measure, having a dedicated GPU means you can play some respectable games, albeit not at the highest settings. Overall there is little sign of lag as you wait for things to get going, close or switch applications.

Of course, what you don’t get is a replaceable battery. The emphasis on design does mean that this is a sealed unit, so you can’t just throw a spare battery in your bag if you are out of the office for a long day out. Of course there are power saving options, including an “eco” mode.

You’ll probably get around 6 hours of working life from the battery, dependent on usage of course - if you fire up more intensive applications this will be cut drastically. Samsung has also put into place something called “Battery Life Extender” which claims to limit charging to 80 per cent, thereby extending the life of the battery. You’ll have to play with all the settings to see what works and what doesn’t, but with a battery that isn’t user serviceable, it might be worth trying.

Tags: Laptops Hardware Samsung Samsung Series 7 Chronos

Samsung Series 7 Chronos 700Z originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:48:49 +0000

It's interesting timing that, having been the first out of the blocks with the original Honeycomb tablet, and having been the Google approved launch tablet, the original Motorola Xoom is now nearly a year old.

The hardware has aged, the software has updated and Android tablets have evolved, slightly. It is in that little band of "slightly" that the Xoom 2 lies. Are there enough changes to make the Xoom 2 more appealing than the original? Certainly. But is there enough of a change to make this tablet more appealing than it's rivals from the likes of Asus or Samsung?

Design

The look and feel of the tablet is one of the biggest changes. Clipped corners, tactile edging and a slimmer design set the Xoom 2 up for the future. We weren't sure that this would be enough of a change when the tablet was launched, but having lived with and used the tablet in place of the original, it's a welcome relief.

That said, the Xoom was rather chunky when put alongside the Eee Pad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Where the Samsung exhibits sleek, if perhaps copycat lines, the Xoom 2 does look different. It's futuristic to a degree, an aggressive design where the iPad 2 is softer, sleek and slimline. It's masculine, with it's two-tone black and grey finish and looks rather more like a rugged tablet, albeit without the additional bulk.

But it succeeds in feeling good in the hands. The slimmer profile is easy to grip and that extra dab of rubberised finish makes it nice and secure when you do. The weight of 599g makes it the same weight as the iPad 2, the thickness matches at 8.8mm. To an extent, this has been designed to compete on the spec sheet and the results are rather good.

Motorola has kept the buttons on the rear, with both the standby and the volume accessed by the right fingers. There is just about enough of a difference between the adjacent controls to press the right button without looking, but it does take a while to make it second nature.

The top of the device sees a 3.5mm headphone jack along with the IR port. The bottom sees the Micro-USB and micro HDMI ports. The separate DC input has now gone, so you can charge the Xoom 2 using a regular charger - one less thing to put in your travel bag.

On the bottom edge of the Xoom 2 there is still a flap which opens to reveal where you could have expansion slots. On the preproduction model we spotted SIM and microSD ports here. The microSD slot is physically blocked now; the SIM card slot appears to be covered with a foam barrier, but we'll bet that 3G versions will appear in some territories.

Under the hood

The first run of Android tablets leapt on the Nvidia Tegra 2 platform, but the next generation sees differentiation. While the recently announced Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime takes the quad-core Tegra 3, Motorola has opted for a Texas Instruments OMAP4430, clocked at 1.2GHz. You'll find 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, although only about 12GB is available to use.

It's a specification that makes for a capable tablet: it's noticeably snappier in day-to-day operation that it's predecessor. The start-up time has been much reduced - should you ever turn the thing off - and generally apps open and run quickly with little sign of lag.

The new 1280 x 800 pixel resolution display is brighter and more vibrant than the previous version and offers better viewing angles too, thanks to it being an IPS display. The result is that you get a slightly warmer rendering of colours, but they maintain their fidelity from angles where some tablets start to fade or change colour.

There is a problem though, which perhaps can't be directed solely at Motorola. First of all, we found that not all apps were available, for example the current Pocket-lint game du jour Tiny Tower. The app runs perfectly well if you manually install it, but Android Market refuses to accept that it is compatible. This is just one example, but could prove to be something of a problem if you can't access all the apps you expect.

We also had some initial problems with Flash, with no video displaying. This was solved by a complete wipe and restart - something to watch out for.

Software and MotoCast

With the Motorola Xoom being the launch device for Honeycomb, it was very much unfettered, using plain, stock Android. Honeycomb tablets haven't shown the degree of customisation that Gingerbread handsets did, but the Xoom 2 now has a few tweaks to bring Motorola to the fore.

In some ways, this is Motorola's first chance to put its stamp on the software in same way as rivals have. As such, you'll find a number of Moto apps that offer additional services. As we've seen with Honeycomb, differentiation comes very much in bundled software or services, rather than huge differences in power, performance or specs.

Motorola has, elsewhere, tweaked things visually. The icons are slightly altered, but otherwise the Xoom 2 is much like stock Honeycomb. Some bundled apps add interest, but things like Skitch are free anyway, but you also get Citrix and Fuze Meeting ready to connect you with your business.

Note taking has also made it on to the agenda, with Evernote and Floating Notes finding their way onto the system bar at the bottom. This plays to the stylus accessory that Motorola offers and it all seemed to work well enough, even if the inclusion here is a little over the top: a simple desktop shortcut would suffice.

Before you panic, there is no sign of Motoblur, something that Motorola is moving away from. You'll find obscure references to Motoblur - in device versions and support pages, for example, but nothing like on previous Motorola handsets. What you will find, however, is MotoCast, a remote access client that will let you access the content of your PC from a remote location via the Internet.

You need to install the MotoCast software on your PC or Mac first, then set-up what you want to access. You'll then get remote access both from compatible Motorola devices and through the website at mymotocast.com. Content is principally divided into media categories, but you do get a straight file/folder tree to navigate to locate things like documents.

Of course, to make this work your PC will have to remain on, and remember that this service is operating via the Internet, so if you have a cap on your home broadband, then you might want to consider other methods when it comes to streaming media around the home. But we found it worked well, and we like the fact you can download anything you want to your tablet, so if you forget a document, or want that album or movie for a flight, it isn't a problem.

MotoCast is also the name applied to Motorola's new syncing software - MotoCast USB, derived from Mark/Space which some Android users may be familiar with. This is also fairly clever, as syncing is something that Android can often neglect. Plug your Xoom 2 in (in our case to a Mac) and rather than the normal Android file transfer app, it will fire up MotoCast USB.

This will allow you to set syncing for different types of media. It automatically selected default Mac folders for us, but you can select any folder you want. For example, we pointed it to a network folder for video syncing, which couldn't have been simpler.

It also contains conversion software, so if you select a file to sync that the Xoom 2 doesn't support, it will convert it. We found our DivX HD, AVI and MOV test files all converted. It's a somewhat slow process, but it does mean that you can stick with the default media player, rather than having to download another from Android Market.

However this is a double-edged sword, as nowhere in MotoCast USB is the option to manually add an individual file. Want to add a single video? You can't, you have to go through the same route of nominating a folder to sync. At the same time, Android file transfer is disabled, it won't detect the Xoom 2 so that avenue is closed. For individual files, downloading via MotoCast (the non USB part) might be the simpler option.

Mighty Moto media?

There are two versions of the Motorola Xoom 2. This larger, 10.1-inch model and the smaller 8.2-inch version dubbed the "Media Edition". Motorola made it clear to us that they see this version very much as the home tablet, so likely to be your sofa companion.

With that in mind, Motorola has added an IR transmitter, like the Sony Tablet S. This works in cahoots with the pre-installed Dijit app. Dijit was originally designed for use with the Griffin Beacon, but worked without fault on the Xoom 2.

You can program in your controllers for various devices, but the interface and the process isn't as advanced as Sony's solution, which has a dab more polish and is easier to set-up.

There is also no integrated provision for media streaming, other than using MotoCast. We turned to our perennial favourite Skifta which worked well enough, although we found that it wouldn't play in the correct aspect ratio through the Gallery video player, either streaming or from the internal memory. Video does look fantastic on that screen however.

There is also a micro HDMI on the bottom of the Xoom 2 that will mirror the display when connected to a larger screen, so you can play back your movies on your TV.

The speakers are rear mounted near the top of the device. They are a little tinny but that's not unusual in a tablet. Their location makes them perform better when placed flat down on a surface, but they will get muffled when propped up on your knees in bed, for example. You also get audio controls, so you can change the sound profile to better suit your preference and there is an impressive range of options. They only really work with headphones, but you can widen the sound stage and opt to have the bass really fierce, or under control, to better suit what you're listening to.

Final points

The camera interface is standard Honeycomb, and there is little in here to get too excited about. We're not so bothered about camera performance or tweaks on tablets because we think you're much more likely to use your phone than hold up a 10-inch tablet to snap a shot.

Like most tablets, there's nothing to get too excited about when it comes to the performance either. There is little grasp on colour or definition, but as we said, we're not too worried about that. Video offers two resolutions, "high" is 1280 x 720, but again, it's not the best HD video we've seen coming out of a mobile device.

On the battery front we found that it lasted well and have nothing to complain about when it comes to longevity. Motorola's cited 10+ hours, plus respectable standby time rings true, and with daily use during the past week, battery hasn't been a worry.

Tags: Tablets Motorola XOOM 2

Motorola Xoom 2 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:45:19 +0000

The market for accessory headphones has never been more competitive. Thanks to the fact that phone manufacturers usually put the cheapest headphones they can find in the box, upgrading your device's headphones is top of the list when it comes to improving audio performance.

The iPhone is served by just about every manufacturer out there and the B&W C5 headphones sit towards the top-end of that list in terms of pricing. But with that, you get headphones from one of the biggest names in hi-fi speakers, a brand that certainly brings some weight with it. 

Design

And weight isn't just limited to the name. The C5 headphones are chunky in their design, larger than most typical in-ear headphones. The physical weight isn't actually a problem thanks to the good fit and a design quirk that's intended to keep them firmly in your ears.

We've seen over ear cable arrangements, we've seen ear fins, but B&W has gone for something it is simply calling the "secure loop". This is adjustable to a degree so you can enlarge to add extra security in your ear. In reality, we don't really like the feeling this brings - we didn't with ear fins on other models either - and we found that it slowly crept back to the original size, so for us did little more than add an interesting design point.

B&W tells us that the monitor cylinders are weighted with tungsten so that they stay in your ear. The cylinders themselves are approx 9mm in diameter and on the outside are cut at an angle and finished with mesh, which is designed to act as a sonic diffuser.

The build itself is good and the tinkering with the cable means the attachment point is secure on the buds. It isn't the most substantial cable we've ever seen, but it looks and feels like it will stand some abuse.

Listen up

In the box you get a range of silicone tips so you can fit them to your ear aperture. A good fit is essential to ensure that you isolate outside noise and give the C5's the best chance to let the music flow. We found the fit to be secure and comfortable for extended listening, even if the "secure loop" was little more than cosmetic novelty to us.

The performance of the B&W C5 is very good too, which you'd expect from a set of headphones that set you back £150. The level of noise isolation they achieve was also very good, so walking through busy streets we didn't find that we had to turn the music up to enjoy the clarity that the headphones offer.

They cope admirably with all types of music, cleanly delivering the bass from up-beat dance tracks, whilst being perfectly happy to bring plenty of clarity and realism to older studio recordings. From Chase and Status to Jimi Hendrix, the C5 headphones had no problem in delivering wonderful audio.

At what cost

There's no denying that the B&W C5 are expensive. It's a competitive space and there are plenty of headphones to consider before you need to part with your cash. They do carry the Made for iPhone badge however and come with the in-line controls so you can fire-up Siri, or Voice Control, as well as make and take calls, adjust the volume and move through your music.

Callers reported that things were loud and clear and we've found ourselves using these headphones not only with mobile devices, but also in Skype calling on the Mac. 

To keep your investment safe, you'll also find a case, with cable winder, in the box.

Tags: Audio Headphones Bowers and Wilkins Bowers and Wilkins C5 Apple

Bowers and Wilkins C5 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:52:00 +0000

The ebook reader market is a funny one, because it has been typically dominated by a couple of companies. With the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Readers being the most popular devices.

The real difference between these devices is content. Amazon distribute its content from its own store. It's a closed system, but one that's widely accessible thanks to apps for your PC or smartphone. Sony (and many others) on the other hand offer open format support, but don't then have the provision across platforms, or the same integrated bookstore experience.

Kobo has been active in the ebook market for some time, probably familiar to those smartphone users who might have seen the app preinstalled on their device. With the Kobo eReader, the company is moving from purely content to hardware and the content to read, so like Amazon, it gets to provide a more complete solution. In the UK this is aided by partnering with WHSmith, giving Kobo a high street presence and storefront through the WHSmith website.

Hardware

The Kobo eReader is well built, finished with an interesting "quilted" back. Don't worry, it isn't actual quilt, but the plastic feels sturdy enough. The diamond patterning is surprisingly nice to hold, giving your fingers a little something extra to hang on to. It weighs 185g, a touch heavier than the new Amazon Kindle, but lighter than the Kindle Touch which is available in the US.

The Kobo eReader has a 6-inch E-Ink display, and like most other models, will slip easily into a jacket pocket or bag. In terms of connections, there is a micro USB on the bottom and a slot on the side to take a microSD card to expand the memory, if you wish. Buttons are kept to a minimum, with a top power slider and a single home button beneath the screen. Operation is by touch, so there is no need for anything else.

Getting content

The Kobo eReader requires you to have a Kobo account to sync the device. It isn't as independent as the Kindle - which offers PC-free operation - as getting started with the Kobo eReader requires to you download their software on your PC or Mac and connect to your device.

If you already have a Kobo account then you are good to go, you just have to plug in your details in the application on your computer and any existing content you have purchased from Kobo will appear, ready to sync to the reader. If you don't have any existing titles, you can head off and buy them through the desktop application and we're pleased to see that PayPal is a payment option across the Kobo store, making things really simple.

The WHSmith ebook store is now powered by Kobo too, so if you head over to the website to buy titles, they will automatically find their way into your Kobo account, so can be synced to devices.

But the beauty of having a Wi-Fi device is that you don't need to use your computer every time you want to buy a new book to read. The store is easy enough to navigate on the Kobo eReader, accessed via the home page of the device. You can search or browse at will, with a section offering free books, which are mostly same collection of classics you can get elsewhere. If you want to sample a book you can download a preview.

If you buy a book from the Kobo store, it's available to all areas of Kobo's reach, so that's on your eReader, your desktop and any mobile device on the same account. You don't need to connect to your computer, so effectively, once you've done the initial setup on the eReader, you won't have to connect it again, so long as you stick to Kobo's bookstore.

As such, it's very much like the Amazon Kindle. It offers bookmark syncing across devices, so you can continue reading on your phone where you left off on your eReader and vice-versa.

However it does have a trick up its sleeve, in that this is a regular EPUB ebook reader, so you aren't restricted to Kobo's own bookstore. The experience is better if you do, but if you've already purchased a collection of EPUB titles then once you have authorised your Kobo eReader with Adobe Digital Editions you'll be able to read those books too.

This potentially gives you more freedom than Amazon's system, because you can choose where you get your books from, you can shop around find the best price and so on. The downside is that you don't get the syncing functions, so if you move on your own EPUB books these aren't then mirrored on other devices: you'd have to manually add them.

Snuggle down with a good book

When it comes to actually reading books, the Kobo eReader E-Ink screen offers great contrast and letters are crisp and well formed. You can change the size of the text to suit your preference and you can also change the font. There are dictionary functions and you can highlight sections of text to either mark, or rather uniquely, share to Facebook.

To turn the page you need to swipe across it, or tap at the edge. Page turning is fast enough, although we've found that we sometimes turned pages with a stray finger by accident when handling the eReader.

E-Ink displays offer two distinct advantages of LCD displays you get on tablets. The first is that they aren't glossy, so you can happily read the Kobo eReader outdoors or in bright conditions, perfect for reading beside the pool on holiday. Secondly, as there is no backlighting, they are very efficient with battery life.

You'll get around a month of life from the battery, although this is governed by how much reading you do. Of course, the Wi-Fi will chomp through the battery much faster than this, so it's worth engaging the flight-safe mode when you don't need to be connected.

Extra, extra, read all about it!

There are a few extras hiding in the Kobo eReader too. There is a browser so if you want to you can browse the Internet, although it's a little slow and navigation is rather tricky. It's a last resort really and if you have a smartphone you'd be much better off using that. You also get a sketchbook and Sudoku game.

One of the more up-front features is the social side of the Kobo eReader. From the home page you'll find a Reading Life section. This is basically a sort of achievements system, where you can earn awards by taking particular actions. Some of these awards are designed to get you trying things, like getting information from the store. There is also a stats page, so you can see how many books you have read, how many hours you've read for and the number of page turns.

Tags: eBook readers Kobo WH Smith

Kobo eReader Touch Edition originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:03:00 +0000

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is probably the most anticipated Android device for 2011. Each Nexus is special because it ushers in a new wave of software. In this case it is the launch device for Android 4.0, otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

It's important to remember that the Nexus line originated as developer phones. If you see an app demo, it's likely to be on a Nexus device. But with every iteration of Android, consumer interest grows in the naked Android experience. The Nexus S proved very popular, and in the Galaxy Nexus, we're looking at a device that perhaps holds more appeal than ever before. But should this be your next Android phone?

Design and build

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is beautifully designed and we can't help thinking that it is one of the most attractive phone launches of 2011. It is more interesting in looks than the Samsung Galaxy SII, it's more sophisticated than the Motorola Razr, it's more distinctive than the HTC Sensation. Perhaps we like it as much as we do the design of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S.

The Galaxy Nexus is sculpted to fit into your hand, a gentle curve that sits nicely and presents the display to you. We've seen some devices with big displays that feel too big, so you have to shift them around to use them one-handed. That's not the case with the Galaxy Nexus, although reaching the far corner of the screen with your thumb can be a bit of a stretch. At times you almost forget that the screen is as big as it is. Only when you set this phone alongside something as diminutive as the iPhone 4, do you realise the scale of the thing.

It isn't constructed from metals, but we don't feel that's huge negative and it does mean that there are no signal problems, and this phone is packed with connectivity. The backplate, with it's chequered grippy finish is rather thin and flexible, pushing into place in the back of the phone. If there is anything to criticise about the build, then perhaps the fact that the bottom corner of the backplate never seemed to sit correctly, might be it.

The Galaxy Nexus is light in the hand at 135g, and the measurements 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94mm don't make it stand out as a brute of a phone. The curvature of the sides make it comfortable and at that weight it doesn't pull in your pocket too much.

Following the layout of previous Samsung phones, the power/standby button is on the right-hand side, which is easier to get to than on the top, as we saw on the HTC Sensation XL. The volume controls are on the left-hand side and the 3.5mm headphone jack and Micro-USB are on the bottom. There are no physical buttons on the front, with Ice Cream Sandwich giving you three touch controls at the bottom of the display, in the System Bar.

The display

The biggest talking point of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is going to be the 4.65-inch Super AMOLED 1280 x 720 pixel display. At those dimensions you get a pixel density of 315ppi. That puts it close to the pixel density of the iPhone 4S, but obviously spread on a larger canvas, so offers much greater potential for displaying content, especially rich multimedia. The HD label is perhaps less of an important point; the key, is that that Galaxy Nexus will render fine detail sharply, from text to images, and that brings with it a range of benefits.

The biggest point for us is that small text remains perfectly legible. Although the natural assumption is that photos and video will look better, we appreciate the benefits the display brings to daily browsing more. That's because you don't need to zoom as aggressively on websites and everything looks crisp and sharp.

Sure, videos, photos and icons do look very impressive too and everything from YouTube to sideloaded movies look better than ever before. Colours are rich, blacks are deep and Ice Cream Sandwich's sophisticated look is stunning. Supporting the playback of HD video isn't new to Android, but in this case being able to display it is of added benefit and it really is stunning.

But we have a problem with the display. When it dims, it becomes very grubby, as though there is a scattering of pixel grit across everything. It is most prominent in lighter colour blocks and that unfortunately means website backgrounds, the pages of a book, your Twitter stream or the entire People app. Even the default wallpaper looked dirty with a dimmed display.

This problem is exacerbated by the auto brightness feature, which we're usually big fans of, because it's the first step to preserving battery life. On the Galaxy Nexus, we found it dimmed much more than other devices - compared to, say, the HTC Sensation XL - and quality is compromised if it isn't at maximum, or near maximum, brightness. This is a problem, because you're then running a big display, on full brightness, the battery really suffers as a result.

This might be down to the use of a PenTile display (which has fewer sub pixels), but it isn't a problem we've encountered to this degree before. It's difficult for us to photograph or video, due to noise created by a camera or camcorder, but if you are concerned, try to check it out in a store before you part with your cash.

Hardware

Sitting under the hood you get a Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, with 1GB RAM sitting in support. This is joined by 16GB of internal memory. Perhaps surprisingly there is no microSD card slot, which for us is a disappointment. As a consumer device that might be a problem, but considering the Nexus' origins as a developer handset, perhaps it was deemed that there wasn't the need. If a modern phone is going to be sold without memory expansion, we'd really want to see iPhone sized capacities available.

Memory aside, the Galaxy Nexus runs very smoothly. There is plenty of power and no sign of lag. Android 4.0 is snappy and slick, opening apps is fast, as is general control of the hardware. Previously we found that things like turning off Wi-Fi took longer than they should, and now it all feels faster.

All the normal connectivity is in place, from Bluetooth 3 to Wi-Fi, GPS and HSPA+, but new to the mix is NFC. NFC enables Android Beam which is basically a method of sharing content device-to-device by touching them together. Naturally you'll need two devices with both Android 4 and NFC hardware. We've seen it working in our demo sessions with the Galaxy Nexus, but haven't had the chance to put it to use again. We suspect it will be a while before there are enough devices in circulation for Android Beam to make a real impact, but we're sure that, come February 2012, we'll have a range phones to choose from and people will be beaming each other all over the place.

Software

The latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, is of course a huge reason to be interested in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. We've looked extensively at Ice Cream Sandwich in a separate review, so we're not going to cover every aspect of it here.

What we will say is that choosing the Galaxy Nexus means you'll be first in line for any updates that come along to Android. This is the first device to appear with Ice Cream Sandwich, running how Google wants it to run. It's a beautiful operating system that takes Android a step further. Visually, ICS looks a lot like Honeycomb, and there is an inherent sophistication to Android 4 with its Tron-like blue lines that we love.

Core applications and control have been tightened up. Settings are easier to access and more intuitive than previously; it takes fewer button presses to get to what you want to do. App menus have been redesigned so that common tasks appear on an Action Bar on the screen, rather than hidden in a menu. After a week of playing with Ice Cream Sandwich, you'll begrudge having to step back to pressing a menu button when ever you want to do anything.

The change to those main, on-screen device controls isn't as huge as you might think. The nature of them has changed, offering back, home and recent apps. Only the latter is really new and replaces the long press on the home key to access multitasking; it is more immediate now so feels less like an afterthought. But we've been using devices with capacitive controls for a while so this isn't a huge step change. They work in much the same way as before, but with the added benefit of dimming when you use an app "full screen".

The control icons rotate so they are always the right way up, but they always sit on the "bottom" of the screen, i.e., the short side, on the phone, whereas on tablets they change position based on orientation. We've seen rotating icons before from HTC, so although it's different, it isn't a huge deal.

In being first with anything there is always a caveat: at the time of writing, not all apps are supported and things like Flash haven't yet made an appearance - Adobe has promised Flash before the end of 2011. That means no Flash video and no iPlayer or ITV Player. We've also found the likes of Skifta, our favourite DLNA streaming app, doesn't work. Developers need to update their apps. and this is already happening, but early adopters consider yourselves warned.

The positive point about apps is how good they look. There has been a lot of talk about Android's scalable nature - as opposed to Apple's thousands of apps for iPhone or iPad. Of the apps we've tried, 90 per cent of them look beautifully sharp on the HD display of the Galaxy Nexus. Some, like LinkedIn, could do with increasing the resolution of their intro graphics, but overall we're impressed. Games like BackStab HD or Angry Birds look stunning, an we've found that some sluggish apps, like Facebook, now has a new spring in their step.

There has been the occasional app crash in Gmail or the camera's panorama feature, but they have been few and far between and not critical.

As outlined in our review, ICS isn't perfect, there is still space for improvement in particular areas, but on the whole we feel that in its raw form it will meet the needs of the vast majority of smartphone users. iOS may be more consistent and intuitive in design and control, but Ice Cream Sandwich feels more exciting and edgy. Other manufacturers will bring additional features and niceties, but as it is, Android 4.0 will do everything we want it to once our favourite apps are supported.

Some have reported a volume error - dubbed SAV-Ghost - which sometimes sees the volume changing of its own accord, but we've not experienced this problem ourselves during normal testing with the phone. 

However, we've continued to try and replicate this problem and there does seem to be a connection with 2G handsets, as we managed to get the volume to twitch down using a BlackBerry Curve, but only by holding it right next to the Galaxy Nexus, and nothing like the extreme twitching we've seen in videos on YouTube.

We also found that we didn't get the problem in testing if we turned off NFC, but given that we didn't have an extreme reaction in the first place, this might just have been a coincidence.

Cameras

There is a 5-megapixel autofocus camera on the rear and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Some will bemoan the pixel count but we'd urge them not to: judge the camera on its results, rather than the numbers. That said, we're sure the next Samsung Galaxy phone to be announced will offer more pixels on the sensor, providing an avenue for differentiation.

The camera interface in Ice Cream Sandwich isn't the most sophisticated. We prefer the interface on just about every other Android skin, but it is functional and easy to use. Touch autofocusing is offered and the thing that's most notable in operation is the speed of capture. Press that button and there is no messing around: the shot is taken and you're ready to take the next one.

We were blessed with good conditions when testing the Galaxy Nexus and got some cracking results out of it. It isn't the best camera out there, but it's good enough and that's the important point. It struggles where other phone cameras struggle, blowing out highlights and introducing a degree of fringing along high contrast edges, but this is to be expected.

There is an LED flash on the back that provides a modicum of illumination in lower light conditions. As with all such flashes, it throws an ugly colour cast over your subject and really lacks the power to be a reliable shooter in darkness. Stick to your real camera if that's what you want to do.

A new panoramic mode is offered, which will quickly stitch together your vista as you sweep the phone across the scene. It works well enough, but our most impressive captures were lost thanks to the phone failing to save them. A restart solved the problem, but it's something to look out for.

In terms of video capture you get a wide range of additional options, including a range of silly faces and backgrounds that can be applied. All are a little odd and we've strung together a compilation of the silly faces, all captured using the front facing camera and stitched together using the movie maker, which is very simple to use. You also get time lapse options, but the problem is keeping the phone still for long enough to make this effective: you'll need some sort of mount for the best results.

Otherwise, video capture runs up to 1920 x 1080 pixels, so gets the “Full HD” stamp. The results are pretty good too, better than we've seen from some rivals. If you move the camera too much you do get the familiar wobble, but we're impressed with how well it captured the detail in the wings of the swarming birds in one of our test videos.

During video capture you get continuous autofocus to keep things sharp: you can't control the focus as touching the screen captures a still image. Overall the camera experience could be better, but we can't really complain about the results, which we found to be great.

Multimedia

We won't dwell too long on media handling as this is dealt with in our review of Ice Cream Sandwich, but you do now get a new look Music player. This incorporates Google Music, if you're lucky enough to have access and also brings with it an equaliser to change to the audio to your liking. We tested it with a pair of iBeats headphones and were impressed.

Music controls also appear in the notification bar and on the lock screen, so control is never far away.

Video playback, as we've said, looks fantastic. Without the benefit of being able to throw content onto a microSD card, you'll have to sideload it onto the device. This is much easier now that Android doesn't insist you mount the drive to access it. File format support isn't comprehensive, but it will play Full HD content, although in truth SD video looks fantastic too.

Calling and battery

Calling on the Galaxy Nexus is very comfortable. The design of the phone makes it a really nice phone to make calls on and it feels much more natural than a phone like the HTC Sensation XL. The calling quality was great, although be aware that some have reported the volume problem affecting their calls and although it we haven't been able to trigger it, it seems to be affecting a number of users. The external speaker is of reasonable quality too.

As we mentioned previously, the screen quality falters when dimmed, so you're left with something of a compromise when it comes to battery life. To get the best out of the 1,750mAh battery you have to accept that muddy display, otherwise you'll be trimming time off your battery life. We found that the Galaxy Nexus scraped through a day in light use, so this isn't a phone that likes to be far from a charger.

Tags: Phones Samsung Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Samsung Galaxy Nexus originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:08:00 +0000

Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, is the biggest reworking of Android that we've seen yet. Android users may sound a little crazy, squabbling over incremental updates to their phones, but now they have a reason: Ice Cream Sandwich is different and certainly worth chasing.

Of course not many Android users get the pure experience that you'll find on the Nexus line. There are some manufacturers, mostly SIM free (in the UK) that offer you this, but the vast majority of phones from the likes of HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson or LG are all skinned, adding to the foundations that Google lays.

Ice Cream Sandwich draws inspiration from a number of sources and you see this written out across the page as you explore it. In some cases there is a flash of Windows Phone 7, some of the innovation feels like it has come out of the skins of HTC or Sony Ericsson. There may even be a spoon of Apple puree in the mix too.

Some may liken it to Honeycomb because Honeycomb has been around for a while, but in a briefing we had with Hugo Barra, product management director at Android, he revealed that actually some of the distinctive Honeycomb features came out of the ICS development process.

The comparison is a valid one, many of the common interactions you'll have with ICS look, and feel, like they do on Honeycomb. Sophisticated, futuristic and in some cases funky. Ice Cream Sandwich pushes Android forward, but it still feels and behaves like the mobile phone operating system that we all know. It's familiar, but it's different enough to be exciting.

Start up, sign in, Google out

The start-up process is probably familiar to Android users by now and not much has changed in practical terms for Ice Cream Sandwich, but it does all look neater than ever before. The use of colours helps as previously sign-in was predominantly a green and black affair, it's now lighter and more colourful, but covers the essential bases.

It walks you through connections and account sign-in, so you'll be ready to roll with your Google account in no time. It takes less than five minutes, we'd say, and you'll then have your phone filling with content. If you are a user of Google services then Android really does offer the most seamless integration, without compromise, hooking up your Gmail, contacts, calendars and all the rest.

If you've backed up your device with Google in the past, you'll find that a lot of your content is restored, so apps will fall back into place, although this depends what device you had before and what accounts you used.

Home is where the shortcuts are

The thing that defines Android is often the arrangement of home screens, fully customisable, with widgets and shortcuts as, and where, you want them. Essentially that hasn’t changed, and you still get that same look, albeit refined.

The home screens are limited to five, but we think it’s a shame you can't remove some of them. A long press on the background now only changes the wallpaper with the same options as before.

Beyond that, you can add app shortcuts in the same way as you could in Gingerbread, by opening the app tray and pressing and holding the app icon until you return to the home screen when you can dump it where you like. If you want to add a contact, you have to do this via the widgets section, which now occupies a tab in the app tray.

The app tray is opened via the central icons, featuring six dots, flanked by four shortcuts that you can change to your liking, collectively this area is known as the favourites tray. You swipe through apps left and right on pages rather than scroll. We rather like the graphical way the next page pops-up from behind the one you've swiped off to the left. Strangely, once you've finished swiping though the apps you then go into the widgets. There is also a Market icon, always in the top right-hand corner, within easy reach when you want it.

The selection of widgets is pretty much as it was before, but they can now be resized - as they can in Honeycomb - so if you want a larger look at your calendar, so be it. Developers will have to enable resizing in their apps to get the full benefit.

Folders have had an update too, so you can now create them by dragging one app onto another, exactly the same way as you do in iOS. The folders look nicer though and you can name them as you see fit. You can rearrange apps in folders, the lead app is the first image you see, a useful reminder of what the folder contains for quick navigation.

I must have control

The biggest change in naked Ice Cream Sandwich is the move to three main controls across the bottom of the display in the System Bar. On the Samsung Galaxy Nexus these are on-screen and you get back, home and recent apps. ICS will support hardware buttons, but we're yet to see exactly how the common existing arrangement including a menu button will be integrated, we suspect the menu button will simply open the menu when it is available within apps.

The first two controls are self explanatory, but the third is new to phones and replaces the dubious long press on the home button which was the previous route to quick app switching. Now you press that recent apps buttons, and a thumbnail of all your recent apps opens which you can scroll up and down.

We've seen it on Honeycomb and it's neat enough, meaning you can easily switch from Maps to the Browser within a few presses. If there is something in the recent apps that you don't want you can swipe it off to the right, and it vanishes. It's worth noting, however, that not everything in your recent apps is running, it isn't a list of what is live. Getting used to recent apps is probably the biggest change for Android users and it is easy to forget about it, especially as pressing the home button and a shortcut pretty much gets you there anyway.

There is no function assigned to long presses on these soft buttons and some might argue that a long press on home could be a better way to see recent apps than a dedicated. With search lacking a button, you’ll see search boxes and icons appear all over – this is Google, after all - and you have to select the box or the search icon in the action bar to get going.

The home pages all have a search box at the top. This is a universal search (for text entry) with the option to customise what is searched. Results are delivered in real time as you type, from internet search suggestions, to music, contacts, the contents of Dropbox, Twitter or whatever else you've added to your search list. It's a powerful tool, although finding a way to integrate Gmail and Calendar searching here as well would appeal to us.

Voice search now delivers real time results, although only offers results for online searches, not local. It is fast and accurate, but not quite the same service as Siri.

Locked up

From the lock screen you now get a couple of neat options, the most talked about is face unlock. You are warned that it isn't designed as a top security measure, but more fun. Basically when you engage it, it scans your face and the next time you lift the phone up, it recognises you and unlocks it.

Behind this you'll need an extra level of security, so that if it can't see you, or doesn't recognise you, you'll use a normal security option, such as a PIN or pattern. Does face unlock work? Yes, it does, but we're pretty sure that within the first few hours of owning an ICS device you'll turn it off again. It won't recognise you in low light, when you are silhouetted and it didn't know who we were when cunningly disguised with a pair of sunglasses. As such it slowly moves from a fun feature into a two-stage unlock process: fail to get recognised, draw pattern, use phone.

If you choose to stick with a simple swipe unlock there’s a new option to unlock straight to camera. It's something that Android skins have added to the platform over the past year. It's convenient here, but certainly one of the things that won't ever be seen in this form by the likes of HTC Sense users, as HTC's lock screen options are already much more advanced than this, and will offer four direct unlocking actions, including camera, already.

Where is my menu?

A lot of Android interaction used to take place through that menu button. It was, for example, a fast route to the settings menu. Android users know that settings are something to be constantly fiddled with, so fast access to it is really handy. There is now a device settings shortcut permanently ensconced within the dropdown notification bar though, which changes things a bit.

The advantage this has over the previous menu>settings avenue is that you can go directly to the settings from anywhere you can access notifications, be that when browsing, using Twitter or whatever. You also know this is going to take you to the device configuration, rather than the options for the app you’re using.

But then the same question arises. How do I access app menu options when there is no menu button? This too has been moved on-screen and is represented by three dots, incorporated into the app controls, called the overflow menu. The overflow menu appears in every app that has options that don't all fit into the Action Bar, although it isn't entirely consistent. The Action Bar is sometimes at the top, sometimes at the bottom so the overflow menu moves around with it. In some apps, however, we've also seen the overflow menu drop into the System Bar, such as the Kindle app and ESPN Goals, for apps that have a graphical menu rather than one that's text based.

Putting it alongside the device controls effectively means you then have a menu button back again and is basically what Honeycomb does when an app hasn't been optimised for that platform. We can see that Google wants apps to be organised in a particular way, but currently this inconsistency is something that Apple users will probably point at and question.

Notifications

Notifications have long been a strong point for Android, only recently equalled, or perhaps bettered, by iOS 5. Notifications still reside in the dropdown bar at the top of the page and accessible a lot of the time by swiping down from the top of the screen.

In some areas, you can't access notifications, like in games, the Kindle app, in the camera or playing a video for example, but otherwise you can from things like the browser, during a messaging session or in Facebook. However, one new addition is access to the notifications from the lock screen, assuming you have no security in place. You can now just poke your device standby button and swipe the screen down to see what alerts you have. You can then touch them to go straight to them, or swipe to eliminate them.

Swiping things away is one of the running themes in Ice Cream Sandwich. We've already seen it in the recent apps and it appears here too. So, if you don't want that pesky voicemail notification you can get rid of it, but keep the message alerts.

Putting this in context, the notifications bar behaves a little like it does in iOS 5. In Ice Cream Sandwich the notifications bar offers notifications and app functions that have been incorporated, like music controls. No doubt skins will add connectivity toggles in the near future too.

Gmail, Maps, Calendar

Of course being Android you'll find that Google apps the focus, and some have had a face-lift. Because Android handles apps in different ways and updates them independently, you'll find that some, like Google Maps, is pretty much the same as it is elsewhere in terms of function, but as we've already alluded to, in-app control is slightly different.

The biggest change is moving controls out of menus and onto the action bar, either at the top or bottom. Of course in this arrangement, controls at the bottom are lost when the keyboard appears, so you'll find controls moving from bottom to top, in some cases, depending on what you are doing. With Gmail, this means your main controls run across the bottom of the app, like compose, which previously took a press of the menu button to access.

In Gmail the reading window is now differently arranged and you can swipe left or right to move through your list of emails, where previously you had a couple of big buttons at the bottom. But we're not so keen on the layout with attachments being presented at the top, especially if you receive a lot of corporate emails where images are used to make up signature blocks. You might find a lot of this garbage sitting at the top of your email, creating the need for you to scroll to get to the meat of the email.

You can change the size of the font used, but you still can't zoom, like you can on the iPhone, which is a bit of a pain at times. Ironically, the "welcome to your Galaxy Nexus email" was a perfect example of images and text not really working together on Ice Cream Sandwich on a phone. On a tablet, the additional space would improve presentation of embedded images.

Calendars have been tided up and now feel a little more purposeful, but then we always liked Google's calendar anyway. Controls range across and a dropdown menu changes the view between the usual day, week, month, agenda. The menu then offers searching and options to tweak which calendars are displayed, amongst other functions. Importantly, address details can be searched in Google Maps, but when it comes to creating a new event you only get the date in the pop-up box, not the day, which is hugely annoying.

We also found that Gmail wasn't entirely stable, returning us to the home screen when we were trying to dash between messages, but we've yet to find an OS of any description that doesn't occasionally confuse itself.

People and Google+

One of the interesting changes is the way that people are now more important. This isn't exactly a new idea, as HTC and Motorola have been pushing this angle for a couple of years. This means that Contacts as an independent app is dead and something called “People” now lives. This integrates into Gmail and calendar addressing using a "card" with avatar (see the pictures below) for each person, rather than a straight email address or name, so it's easier to touch and swap email addresses for contacts.

People doesn't feel very Android-like, and is rather more, well, Windows Phone 7. It’s divided into three main tabs covering groups, "contacts", which is the most conventional list view and finally the starred, or favourites, view. You get various degrees of control over each section, with the central contacts list being the one you'd probably use the most to hunt out those less frequent contacts.

Groups integrates Google+ into it, with your Circles breaking down, so you can browse at will. You'll be able to open Google+ "friends" with nice big thumbnails and then link though to the Google+ app to see their updates. Otherwise, groups from your Google contacts will appear here and you can create new groups from the device. If you don't use groups in your Google contacts, or Google+, it soon becomes redundant. We can see, however, that groups could potentially be more functional with integration of all your social networks, not just Google's own.

The central contacts path is very much like the more traditional system, with options to choose which contacts are displayed, including straight contacts accounts, or other integrated social accounts, such as Twitter, Skype and of course Google+ and Google Talk. Facebook doesn't get a look-in, and although it appears in the "add account" options in the settings, it won't actually let you.

Initially we found that Ice Cream Sandwich hadn't linked all people with social accounts we signed in to: some were linked, some weren't and we couldn't determine exactly why. There is an option to manually "join" or link these accounts together in the "edit contact" option. At these times we miss HTC Sense's linked contacts suggestions, which pulls everything together for you.

Images are collected from various sources, and we found that Google+ became the default when contacts were joined together. That's not such a bad thing because the people system will update images from Google+ with a higher resolution image when you open a contact. Other image sources tend to be low resolution, and look poor when you open them up. We've criticised Sony Ericsson's Timescape and Motorola's MotoBlur in the past for offering pixelated low res images and it really takes the shine off things when your partner is a smear of colours rather than the crisp beautiful vision of perfection (s)he should be. You can manually change contact's images if you want to.

The reason we likened people to Windows Phone 7 is that you get to left/right swipe in a contact to reveal their updates, using the "over the page" teaser where you see some information to tempt you. So from a contact, swipe right and you'll see what they've updated in full. Google+ integrates the best, hitting an update will take you through to the G+ app, whereas Twitter updates are static text only.

The final “favourites” section we have no issue with, as it’s helpful to be able to find close friends, family or co-workers in one simple place like this. We also like the way the OS automatically makes you a "frequently contacted" list, for those people that you don’t like enough to star, but speak to often. Overall we get the feeling that people will be reworked more interactively by other Android developers. Google's approach is great for its services but third party social networks are neglected.

Browser

The browser has been redesigned and now supports up to 16 tabs at a time. The address bar sits at the top with an icon for tabs. The icon in isolation is pretty meaningless, but the angled end mirrors the design of tabs of the browser in Honeycomb. Touch this button and you jump out to a thumbnail view where you can scroll up and down your open tabs, and again swipe off to the right those you want to close. In this view you can also open more tabs or access your bookmarks.

You can set the opening page to be anything you want, including "most visited" and assigning bookmarks is all very easy, as well as adding these bookmarks to your home pages. Bookmarks can sync with Chrome on your PC, through your Google accounts, with the option to hide these if you don't want them. You get three tabs in the bookmarks section, giving you access to your history and saved pages.

Saved pages is a new feature which lets you highlight pages you want to read later, perhaps when offline, or to save mobile data. It saves all the images, but all the links will be dead. An option in the menu will then let you "go live" to carry on browsing.

Sitting in the browser menu are another couple of cool options. You get a "request desktop site" which is a very welcome feature, so you can bypass mobile pages, something that was sorely missing from Honeycomb as tablets don't need to use mobile sites. You also get Incognito, so if you need to go off-radar, the option is there.

Obviously there are some day-one omissions: there is no current support for Adobe Flash, so some sites won't cough-up their video. Although we understand that Ice Cream Sandwich is brand new and Adobe needs to make a new version of the software to cater for this new OS, we're still disappointed. We also found some formatting issues with text column resizing, sometimes the text was forced into a narrower column than necessary.

Otherwise, the browser is nice and smooth, with fast double-tap zooming as well as pinch-to-zoom. There are also some experimental “Labs” features, like the thumb controls.

Keyboard

The keyboard has been redesigned slightly and we like its uncluttered finish. Long presses on the top line bring up numbers. To the left of the large spacebar is a contextual key, sometimes this will be @ for addresses, in the text boxes it will give you voice dictation. Again, this is real time and fairly fast, but you do need to speak clearly or you’ll end up with gibberish. To the right of the spacebar is the punctuation button, but you have to use the press, hold and slide technique to select the character you want, otherwise it just gives you a comma.

The keyboard is fast and accurate for typing and the settings menu gives you control over correction and suggestions. We also like the fact you can control the degree of haptic feedback, although we think this will probably be specific to the Galaxy Nexus and not all Android 4.0 devices.

Copy, cut and paste all work as you'd expect, with markers appearing so you can easily select the word range. The same markers also appear when you go to edit a body of text and it's now easier to get the cursor where you want it.

Gallery and Camera

The Gallery is still the place to go for all your pictures and videos, although there is the additional video app, which compiles local and rented content that you pay for through Android Market.

Gallery presents all your folders, including any Picasa albums and your G+ instant upload folder. We prefer the presentation of the gallery now, the previous dirty background version never looked any good. Now it's more jam-packed with your photos and video, with the option to sort by albums, tags, times, people or locations.

You also get instant access to the camera from the top album view, but this option changes to instant slideshow when you open an album. Open any image and you get options for sharing. Here is one of Ice Cream Sandwich's clever features: a sharing icon is now present in the action bar, alongside the usual sharing icon. This icon is Google+ by default, but it's a dynamic sharing list and icon, so if you only ever share to Facebook, it will change to Facebook, which is very handy.

The camera interface of naked, unskinned Android has always been rather basic. We're still not totally sold on the implementation here either. All the controls sit over to the right. The capture button is central, with a preview thumbnail at the top and the function switcher at the bottom (video, stills, panoramic). Then there is a second bar to the left which offers zooming, switching to the front camera and the rest of the settings.

Also included are effects, although they can’t be used in stills mode, in video you get a whole selection. They include silly faces and background and elsewhere you get time lapse.

We have to say it's all a bit odd. Silly faces picks a feature and distorts part of your face, be it your eyes, nose or mouth and backgrounds will try to change the background to disco, or a space scene (with little Android included).

Novelty value aside, it is clever that it can track your facial features, but we doubt we'll ever use these effects. We strung together the clips here using the Movie Studio app, which only took about 2 minutes.

And the rest

Ice Cream Sandwich does away with the need to "mount" memory any more, so on connecting your device you'll get the same live access as you do with Honeycomb. This means you'll be able to add files whilst listening to music, for example.

The music player now picks up the same design a Honeycomb, something we've previewed before. If you have access to Google Music then you simply have to select the account for it and you'll then have access to that music, which is incredibly simple. It has been reported that there is a bug in ICS that sees the volume changing of its own accord. We haven't experienced, or been able to replicate this bug.

Music controls find their way onto both the lock screen and the notifications bar, so control is never far away. There is an in-built equaliser giving you the option of tailoring the sound to your liking, with bass boost and 3D effect options. These don't work with video player though.

There’s a new screenshot function, accessed by pressing volume down and the standby button, which is useful for all those wanting to share nice crisp visuals of their Android phone. iPhone users have been doing this for years, and it's surprisingly useful. The dialler contains three tabs, one is the straight dialler, the second a call history and the third access to your favourites. You also get options to search for contacts from the dialler, although if you just start dialling a number it won't bring up suggested from your contacts.

Android 4.0 also supports NFC, although naturally this is hardware dependant and you'll need two devices, both suitably equipped to do so. Android beam essentially just sits and waits to be fired-up and can be disabled if you think you'll never use the function. If you do want to use it, you simply bring two devices together, back to back, and you'll be able to share via this route. We've not had multiple devices to test this out to any great extent, but we predict that come the next release of Android devices in February, Android beam will become and more established sharing option for Android users.

Ice Cream Sandwich also brings in a new data usage function. This doesn't just track the amount of data you use, but lets you set limits. You can view mobile and Wi-Fi data separately in tabs, dragging sliders to define the data usage cycle, as well as setting the reset date, i.e., the date your contract renews your data allowance.

You can set a maximum limit, as well as a warning level, so you can have mobile data turn off when you hit your limit. Scrolling down the page reveals what is eating your mobile data, whether it's use was foreground or background, with the option to disable background data for that individual app. You can also access app settings, so, for example, clicking on Music takes you through to the settings so you can tick that "Wi-Fi only" option.  

Tags: Ice Cream Sandwich Android Google Google Android

Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Archos were making "tablets" before the majority of manufacturers had even considered it. It had large screen devices before the birth of the iPad and before Android even existed. Of course they were called portable media players in those days, and it was a slightly messy business involving software packs and docks.

But can experience in portable media devices give Archos the edge they need in this competitive market? Can their blend of affordability and media handling result in a package with universal appeal?

Design

Beginning with design, as we so often do, doesn't get the G9 Archos tablet off to the strongest start. The choice of plastics reminds you that this has been designed to a price point and although there are some interesting twists, it doesn't really manage to stand apart from other budget tablets.

The tablet itself measures 276 x 167 x 12.6mm - for the 8GB version, the hard-drive-equipped models are slightly fatter. Surrounding the 10.1-inch display is a black bezel, before you get to the silver-grey casing, which all seems a little unnecessary. The two halves of the body join around the edges and it's a little unsightly and hard to miss, considering that all the ports fall along this line too.

In terms of physical connection you are served rather well, with a mini HDMI, 3.5mm jack and Micro-USB, which also serves to power the device. Before you get too excited, we found that we had to use the supplied charger and connecting it to a PC resulted in a "slow charge" which barely got us anywhere. It seemed slow to charge too, even connected to the mains, with the battery percentage clawing it's way up the scale. Our reference tablet, the Motorola Xoom charged, from flat, far quicker.

The microSD card slot is easy to miss, sitting beneath the Micro-USB and it's a shame that the card doesn't fit in completely. As it's a sprung socket, if you knock the end of the tablet we can see the card flying out.

Around the back of the G9 is where the biggest differentiator lies. A panel slides off to reveal a bay with a USB connection, designed to take Archos' 3G dongle. The idea is that you can buy the tablet and then get the dongle separately (£50) if you decide you need it. Being a USB device it will work with your laptop, but when in place in the back of the tablet it is fully integrated, which is smart.

The display itself isn't firm to the touch like many tablets are, but is slightly soft. We also found it difficult to clear of smears, with Archos bundling a cleaning cloth in the box to aid this process. It's very reflective too, so viewing outdoors or in bright conditions is a bit of a challenge.

So overall the design, the finish, the look and feel of the tablet leaves a little to be desired. But that's to be expected from a tablet at the lower end of the price scale and this is the territory that Archos has so often inhabited. This tablet costs £269.99 and it's the exterior design that really reflects that price.

The guts

Delve inside the tablet and things take a turn up for the books. It runs on a dual core Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor (the reference hardware for the next generation of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich), our version came with a 4430 1GHz chip, but with ungraded versions arriving in 2012. This is a point not to be missed, as if you buy now, you might find you get a slower tablet than if you wait a few months.

You get 1GB of RAM sitting in support, and a wealth of options when comes to storage capacity. Again, this is one area where Archos is looking to differentiate and has put a lot of time into making sure their G9 tablet supports a 250GB hard drive option. We only had a regular 8GB flash drive, but with microSD being so cheap, it's easy to expand the capacity.

The display itself has a resolution of 1280 x 800, so gets that HD tick. It offers a pixel density of 149ppi, which is entirely typical for a tablet of this size. As we’ve said, the surface does get rather smeary and it is a little soft, but it is nice and colourful. And surprisingly, the viewing angles are reasonable too, with colour and brightness holding up when you're not looking straight on, which is commendable.

There is a single speaker on the rear of the tablet, which does get muffled if you lay it down flat, but offers acceptable performance when using the kickstand - another fairly rare feature. As such, you can prop the tablet up and watch your movies, be that on the tray table of an aircraft, or in your hotel room.

There is no rear camera, one of the measures taking to keep the cost down, but there is a front camera for video calling. There is no light sensor on the front either, so you don't get auto-brightness as an option, which can have an impact on battery life.

Entertainment your way

Stealing Archos' own tagline, let's move on to examine what is ultimately the greatest strength of the Archos G9 tablet. If supports a wide range of video and audio codecs, with Archos boasting that it will play just about anything. We threw our regular set of test video files at it and it didn't struggle with any of them, which means it covers the likes of DivX HD and 1080p MPEG4 files as well as many of the weird and wonderful formats you may have collected over the years, from cameras, camcorders, phones, downloads, rips and so on.

In the past you had to pay for various upgrades and codec packs but this is no longer the case. The only pack you would have to pay for is MPEG2 and AC3 5.1, but otherwise, support is extensive.

Multimedia is supported by integrated streaming capabilities, so the Archos tablet will happily explore sharing computers or media drives and stream content from them. When combined with the HDMI out, this effectively means you can bring content from pretty much anywhere to your TV. We like the way this has been incorporated into the music and video players, as well as the file explorer app, so you get the feeling that external sources are incorporated, rather than just an afterthought.

This isn't unique, as an app like Skifta will happily stream in the same way on any Honeycomb tablet. One thing that is unique, however, is the remote control. Archos have a free app, which will turn your Android phone into a remote control for your tablet. You might wonder when you'll ever need it, but if you do connect it to larger screen then it really comes into its own.

The remote is smart because all you have to do is enter the code from your tablet into the phone to pair them. It operates over Wi-Fi and gives you a range of controls, importantly letting you control things like media playback. Device navigation could be better, but as a free offering we're grateful for the effort. What's more impressive is that the phone's volume can also be used to change the tablet volume, although if you're hooked into your TV this will probably be of less use.

We did run into a problem with Flash video playback, and this is the first tablet we've encountered it on. Flash video refused to play, although we got the soundtrack. Heading into the BBC iPlayer website, we found the video wouldn't display and the same happened elsewhere. This looks like some sort of software problem and we doubt Archos will let this last for long.

Both Music and Video get their own customised players, which offers a carousel type navigation on one half of the screen with more regular navigation on the other. Both can also be broken out into widgets and is essentially all the customisation that Archos has done (apart from the tweaks necessary to manage their 3G dongle).

But then the build issue rears its head again, as we found that the 3.5mm jack wasn't quite right. Inserting the plug of our headphones all the way resulted in poor sound, withdrawing it slightly improved the quality no end. We tried a couple of different pairs of headphones, so can only guess this is some sort of connection problem in the socket itself.

And finally...

Running Android 3.2 (at the time of review) we found the tablet was mostly stable, but on occasion we found that apps would stop responding or refuse to launch. It wasn't to a critical degree and this seems to be something that has afflicted many Android tablets to date.

But it did seem slow to unlock at times and opening the settings menu sometimes took multiple taps. You don't get the sense of immediacy that some other Android devices offer and on occasion we found the tablet become completely unresponsive. Fortunately the power/standby button is labelled so you know you have to hold it for 10 seconds to force a restart, perhaps an admission that you might find yourself doing so.

Other little oddities, like occasionally missing a keyboard touch sound when typing, make the G9 feel as though it needs a little more attention on the software front before it will deliver the best experience.

We've already mentioned that the battery seemed slow to charge. The G9 tablet got surprisingly hot when playing back video and we found that it did get through battery fairly quickly. It also didn't last as long as our Xoom. Video playback is officially listed as 7 hours, although we suspect you'd need to take some power saving measures along the way to hit this figure.

One of the key power saving measures in Honeycomb is the option to turn off Wi-Fi when the screen is off. On the Archos tablet, this option now incorporates switching to 3G, so it wasn't clear to us whether it was disconnecting or not. Certainly, sitting in standby, to got through the battery faster than we'd expect it to.

Tags: Tablets Archos Android Archos 101 Honeycomb

Archos 101 G9 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:08:20 +0000

Acer’s first foray into the new “Ultrabook” category is with the Aspire S3, a slim and light notebook that offers you a proper hardware loadout without bloating into what were once typical PC dimensions. We’ve seen a number of moves in the Windows PC world to counter the impressive specs of the MacBook Air including the Samsung Series 9, but Ultrabooks are designed to be more affordable.

We managed to get our hands on Acer’s new Ultrabook prior to the launch announcement at IFA 2011 in Berlin, and spent a few hours fiddling with it to bring you our first impressions. Can Acer offer an affordable, powerful, ultra portable?

Design

In many ways the Acer Aspire S3 apes the design of the MacBook Air: it’s slender, tapering to a finer point at the leading edge, so the base is a thin profile wedge. In many ways it is slightly unexpected from Acer - not that Acer can’t do good design, but so often affordability gets in the way - it's not an accident that the Macbook Air is so expensive.

In the case of the S3, the body is plastic, so although it matches the colour of the metal lid, it is softer. With that comes a degree of flexibility not found on the likes of the MacBook Air. Acer was keen to point out that we were looking at a pre-production sample of the S3, so there may be some slight differences when the models hit the shelves later this year.

On the underside of the S3 are four rubber feet, but we found that one of these didn’t quite touch the desk, so there was a slight wobble to things. This is almost certainly a pre-production issue, perhaps caused by a slight twist in the chassis. However, we found that area around the touchpad was also a little soft, so when using the trackpad to any great extent we’d find flex in the centre of the palm rest. Again, this might be changed in full production models, but it might also suggest that internal strength has been slightly compromised in achieving that slim profile. An extra foot front and centre on the underside might add necessary support.

The display bezel is a little wider than we’d like, but we like the neat hinge that Acer have put in place. The screen hinge sits atop the base, but given the skinny dimensions it doesn’t raise the screen level too much, so it’s still nice and compact, ideal for using on the plane or train.

The screen seems to be in balance too, so you can sit with the Acer Aspire S3 on your knees and it doesn’t try to topple off on to the floor, which is great for mobile workers. The hinge is a little soft, so it is easy to knock the screen into a new position, but the lid overall has greater rigidity than some portable PCs we’ve seen previously.

The 13-inch screen offers up resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and has a glossy finish to it, which isn’t so good for those wanting to work on the move. We also found that the display wasn’t very bright. Set at full brightness is was difficult to make out the screen detail in daylight outdoors. 

Keyboard, trackpad and connections

The left and right sides of the S3 are left mostly bare. On the left-hand side you’ll find a single 3.5mm headphone jack, on the right you’ll find a single SD card slot. All the other physical connections reside around the back, as part of the central black section that makes up the hinge for the lid. 

Here you’ll find the power connection, a full-sized HDMI, two USB sockets and the grill for the heat sink ventilation. The effect is rather good, although naturally the location of the USB means you’ll have to swivel the S3 around to access them. It’s worth noting that the SD card slot isn’t full-sized, accommodating only half of the inserted card - that’s fine for accessing files, but you can’t leave it in permanently.

Moving on to the keyboard, the chiclet-style keys are welcomed, as Acer for too many years used an almost identical keyboard across all their models, from netbook to desktop replacement. The action is a little soft for our liking so in the short time we had to test the typing action we missed the odd letter, but it’s something you’d accommodate in your typing style.

The keys are a good size though, especially those on the left-hand side, so the normal run of Shift, Ctrl and Fn are all easy to hit at speed. On the right-hand side it isn’t quite the same story. The Enter key has been split in two, so where you’d expect to find the top half of that button you instead have a slash key. Again, something you’ll have to adapt to and during our time with the S3, we did hit the wrong button a fair few times. 

The trackpad is a nice size and, as is becoming a trend thanks to Apple, doesn’t feature separate buttons, instead offering clicks on the left and right when you press. This was one of the areas that lead to our greatest complaint: the action was too severe, the trackpad needed to travel too far to click. Acer tells us that this is definitely something that affects the pre-production models and will be rectified on the retail units. That said, the trackpad also offers multitouch features such as two finger scrolling and pinch zooming, which work well. 

Performance

The Aspire S3 3951 that we played with equipped with an Intel Core i7-2637M processor running at 1.7GHz, backed by 4GB of RAM, and running 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. The performance was great as a result. Although you are restricted to on-board graphics, we found it neatly handled a range of media well.

We fired up BBC iPlayer to stream Dr Who in HD which played perfectly, with nice sharp visuals and nice smooth results. We also found the same when we fired up some 720p camcorder footage and 1080p video from our digital camera.

Supporting this video performance is Dolby Home Theatre. The speakers for the S3 reside on the underside, with two neat openings near the left and right edges. They are surprisingly effective, a little shrill when hitting loud high tones and not really delivering much in the way of bass, but on a notebook this size, it’s nice to have speakers that provide adequate performance for casual use.

Dolby comes into play to enhance the audio output, with a range of preset sound profiles that make a slight difference through the speakers, but make a massive difference when you plug in your headphones, virtually widening the sound stage to make for a more immersive audio experience.

We didn’t have the time to see how the S3 handled more intensive applications, like Photoshop, or how it really performed at multitasking, but given what we’ve seen of Core i7 processors in the past the impression we’re left with is that it will happily cope with your daily computing needs. 

When playing video that cooling vent at the rear seemed to be put to good use, the fan spinning up and venting out the hot air from inside. Although we couldn’t hear it over the soundtrack to the videos we were watching, we can imagine that once you fire up a little photo editing, you’ll find that the noise from the fan is fairly noticeable. 

In the short time that we had with the Acer Aspire S3 3951, we couldn’t gauge how the battery would perform on an average day. In light browsing and office tasks it was displaying around 5 hours of life. With the HD video fired up this dropped off to show a little under two hours. We managed to get through most of a charge in the 5 hours we had the S3 on our test bench, so that’s the most accurate figure we can put our finger on until we get a production version to review.

Tags: Hardware Laptops Acer Acer Aspire S3 Acer Aspire 3951 Intel Ultrabooks First look Style Week

First Look: Acer Aspire S3 3951 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

If you like inches, you'll love the HTC Sensation XL. Picking up the form factor of the HTC Titan - effectively the same handset running Windows Phone 7 - the HTC Sensation XL sits on the top edge of what we'd call a phone. Any bigger and it steps in to tablet territory, like the Samsung Galaxy Note "phablet" as we like to call it here at Pocket-lint.

In playground terms, the HTC Sensation is the big kid, the one you want on your side in a scrap. But it is big, brutal and dumb? Will it only win because size matters, or does it have hidden depths?

Design

The HTC Sensation XL harks back to previous "big" phones from HTC. From the back you can see glimpses of the HTC Desire HD, the HTC HD2 and the HD7. It is inherently slab like, unlike the curved Samsung Galaxy Nexus that has a screen size only slightly smaller, but sits more naturally in the hand.

The problem we have with the HTC Sensation XL isn't the design per se, but the choice of finish on the back. The aluminium plate has an attractive anodised finish, but it doesn't offer much by the way of grip. Where plastics may offer a little more natural grip, the finish of the XL means you might send it skittering across the floor when you pull it from your pocket.

This is compounded by the fact that the chassis is pretty large. Gripping and manipulating the phone so you can touch all areas of the screen, or prod the power/standby button on the top, especially one-handed, can be a precarious affair, particularly in these colder conditions when you have drier skin.

Otherwise the layout of controls is entirely typical for an HTC Android phone. There are four touch controls under the screen, offering home, menu, back and search and a volume controller on the right-hand side. That power/standby button on the top is joined by the 3.5mm headphone jack and the Micro-USB is on the left.

"Big, bad, stupid looking"

Using our favourite Dragnet quote isn't fair, but it's easy to pick fault with the specification of the XL: it isn't dual core, there's no microSD slot, the screen resolution is lower than the regular Sensation. The key question is whether these things matter.

In a world where specs and stats have gained so much significance (rightly or wrongly) the Sensation XL will be dismissed out of hand by some. We've been using it in parallel with the Sensation XE, and it isn't fair to do so. But we do suspect the specs have more to do with the HTC Titan than anything else.

The lack of a microSD card slot is quite an issue. HTC have created a huge phone that could potentially be a great media player, but once we'd synced all our music using DoubleTwist, we'd all but filled it. Our suspicion is that HTC use the same component assembly process for the Titan and didn't want to change this, and incur additional costs, for the XL. As a result you get 16GB memory, of which only 12.64GB is available to users. It isn't the end of the world, but if you have a lot of media, it is a negative.

When it comes to the display, the 800 x 480 resolution is typical for an Android device, but it's typical for one with a screen an inch, or more, smaller. In real terms, that means the pixels are larger and less densely packed. The 198ppi is relatively low in smartphone terms, but higher than most tablets. You can't resolve detail as easily as you can on the Sensation or XE, but at the same time Android fits nicely and looks good. Most apps look completely fine too, but there was the potential for a display that offered greater depth to movies or images.

Beyond resolution, the display is reasonable, but it does darken when viewed from an angle. Colours are nice and vibrant, but not quite as punchy as we've seen on some other handsets. That said, watching movies it works nicely, the opening sequence of Clash of the Titans had plenty of depth to it, aided by that big screen.

Driving the whole package you get a single core 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM 8255 chipset and 768MB RAM. It isn't the most powerful, but it's smooth and fast in daily operation, which is an important consideration. The lower spec comes with some limitations on what the phone will do, like the lack of Full HD video capture, but in reality, we haven't found it to be noticeably slower than its more powerful little brother.

Of course, stepping up and moving forward, the limited specs of the Sensation XL will see it age more quickly than other more powerful devices. As demands increase, for more enhanced gaming for example, it will be the XL that falters and as a new device, that may be a worry for some when it comes to longevity. When we came to fire up BackStab HD it refused to play.

A little less Sense

Where the Sensation XL trumps its brother, at the time of writing, is in arriving with Android 2.3.5 and HTC Sense 3.5. It also sits on the list of phones that will be updated to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich when that time comes. In the meantime, the Sense experience on the XL is better than elsewhere in the range. Much of it is the same, but a few tweaks here and there make the difference.

One of the significant changes that Sense 3.5 on the XL brings is the ability to change the number of homepages you have. No longer are you stuck with seven pages, you can now cut it down to just one or two, if you prefer. And we do prefer. You still get the curved dock at the bottom of the screen but once you've set the number of screens you want you can just hop through them as normal.

Things do seem a little too sensitive in homepage navigation however. We often found ourselves looking at the overview, or triggering the spinning carousel of pages, rather than just switching to the next the queue. You'll need a light touch at times.

This change is perhaps an acknowledgement that people don't always want pages full of widgets. We think the omnipresent 'personalize' option is also getting a little tiresome. Not only does it hog prime real estate in the dock on homepages, but it also then appears in the menu and with a long press on a wallpaper.

As normal you'll find HTC's run of widgets in place (except the nice shortcuts & clock offered by the HTC Rhyme) and the whole thing can be customised as you see fit. HTC Sense integrates your social networks deeply and with this iteration you'll find a nod to Evernote, and Dropbox preinstalled.

As such, HTC Sense is a comprehensive skin sitting over Android and there is little that it doesn't do. It offers pretty much every generic service you'd want from a smartphone, but it doesn't always do so in the best way. This is the beauty of Android: if you don't like the media streaming then there are free alternative apps. If you don't like the slightly cluttered keyboard, there are better alternatives.

With that all said, however, the experience is slick and smooth. Rarely does the Sensation XL stutter or fail in regular tasks. It handles your run-of-the-mill smartphone tasks with aplomb and if nothing else, the Sense experience is very nice on the Sensation XL. But there is one slight problem with it, which is related to resolution.

There is only one item - the classic HTC clock and weather widget - which feels like it has been designed for the size of the HTC Sensation XL. Everything else looks and feels like it does on other HTC devices, only bigger. Having a huge screen is great when you get to use it, but if your keyboard and text is all larger, you don’t get any great benefit. The same is true of the menus. The page is larger, but the number of app icons is the same. The icons could be smaller, more tightly packed without issue; we feel that the Sensation XL could make better use of the space it offers.

Now if you like things big and brash than that's no problem and during the time we've been living with the Sensation XL it hasn't been a problem, but we do find it a little annoying we can't just resize everything to make it more compact.

Let me entertain you

With a device with a 4.7-inch screen and a Beats logo on the back, entertainment is going to be high on the agenda. On the audio front, of course, you have Beats Audio sound enhancement packed in along with a set of urBeats headphones. The combination is great, with HTC telling us that the headphones have their own custom sound profile. Whether this is the case or not, we found that Beats Audio software also worked with other headphones - we tried it with a pair of Bowers & Wilkins C5 headphones and still got access to the Beats settings.

The headphones themselves are great (and plugging the urBeats into any other audio device will prove that) and come with a selection of different tips in the box to get the best possible noise isolation for the shape of your ear. The urBeats also feature an in-line control which offers play/pause and track skip buttons, but unfortunately gives you no control over volume, so you'll have to use the buttons on the phone. The central play/pause button will also redial your last number, so be careful when frantically prodding it.

The music player itself is ok, giving you access not only to local music, but also network music sources via a drop-down tab at the top. You also get music controls from the lockscreen and in the notifications bar, so it's essentially easy to get to what you want, when you want.

The problem with music across the device, however, is that Beats Audio only works when using the default music player (as it does with the default video player). HTC has previously said that they would be opening up the Beats Audio API to third-party developers, but as and when we'll see the results of this, we don't know. Until then, you'll be stuck with the stock media players unless you are willing to forego Beats Audio enhancement.

You'll get Beats enhancement in the default video player, so this also applies to local video and video you choose to stream. If you prefer to use an app like Skifta to stream content from a media server, you then get the option to use the HTC player with offers Beats Audio enhancement anyway, so you don't lose out. HTC offer its own streaming solution too and the tweaks made to the Gallery make this slightly cleaner, and in our tests faster, than it was previously.

Format support leans towards the common rather than the comprehensive (the same can also be said of music), so your MPEG4 files will do just fine, but your DivX HD files will not. That said, we mostly do use MPEG4 SD or 720p video files on mobile devices and in this case the Sensation XL copes admirably. The screen size is welcomed and we really enjoyed watching video on it, even if once you dive over to something like the BBC iPlayer app, you lose your Beats Audio enhancement.

Internet browsing, naturally, is one of the nice aspects of the Sensation XL. There is plenty of space to move around pages, although that restricted resolution means that you might have to zoom a little more than necessary. We found the browser to be swift and slick in loading pages and put side-by-side with the Sensation XE, we couldn't detect any difference in the speed.

Camera

The camera app has been reworked slightly in Sense 3.5. Essentially it brings the effects options into the corner of the display, rather than taking up space in the menu bar, meaning the settings can also be accessed directly, rather than by touching the device menu button. It's a minor thing, but does make it slightly easier to get around.

We like HTC's arrangement when it comes to focusing, offering touch focusing to minimise the amount of messing around you have to do. It also will prefocus, leading to what HTC call "instant capture" when the phone has essentially focused on the scene before you go to press the button. In some devices, focusing takes place after you press the button, so the process seems longer.

The results are good too. As we've seen before from HTC, fed good light, the camera does rather well. A dual LED flash sits in support, but it doesn't really give you clean or consistent illumination when the natural light drops. Low light shots tend to be noisy, but this is common to all phone cameras.

When it comes to video capture, the HTC Sensation XL hits one of its restrictions and that's the max capture at 1280 x 720 (720p), rather than 1920 x 1080 (1080p) which other premium phones now offer. The results aren't that good either. Although we weren't blessed with the best conditions, the video is still rather lacking in detail. It does offer continuous autofocus which is a bonus and this is generally fast.

Of course, whether you are capturing photos or videos, sharing is as seamless as ever, be that through HTC's take on social networks, or via the native apps.

Final details

Calling on the Sensation XL is reasonable, although we found that the size of the phone meant that we often drifted off the sweet spot for the ear speaker. The narrow slit design does mean it offers a more limited field than some, and we'd often have to move the phone back into place when we couldn't quite hear callers.

With a huge screen you'd expect the battery life to be poor. Inside you get a 1600mAh battery, although the cell is exactly the same size (physically) as that in the Sensation XE, which is 1730mAh. Again, we're not sure why HTC went for the lower capacity battery when it could, very easily, have made things better. However, given the limited specs, the battery lasts longer than you'd expect, certainly longer than many dual core rivals.

We found that the Sensation XL would last over a day with power saving measures and light use. Step into the real world and start pushing the phone and it will be dead before bedtime. So don't go out with less than a 100 per cent charge, or you might be caught short. In this, however, it is no different to other top tier smartphones.

Tags: Phones HTC Android

HTC Sensation XL originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:59:00 +0000

We've seen a trend in 2011 that we didn't really see in previous years: the "update phone". HTC kicked off 2011 with a wide range of "S" models and we've had "plus" models from Motorola and Samsung. The pace of change sees Android manufacturers clamouring to update their hardware almost as soon as the phone hit the shelves.

So where does that leave the Sensation XE? It isn't a new phone, but is it any more than an incremental step-up? Does HTC's Beats acquisition really bring anything to the table that we haven't seen before in a smartphone? We've been walking on the wild side with the HTC Sensation XE to find out.

A Design for Life

The HTC Sensation XE is identical in design to the original HTC Sensation, except for a few colour changes, with red highlights picking up on the red of the Beats brand. You'll now get red backlit controls across the bottom of the screen. Around the back there's a red ring around the camera and then there's the Beats logo.

It's a design we like, and HTC have been clever with how they put the phone together to avoid unsightly joins. The "back" actually wraps around the sides so the bodywork is all one piece even though in reality it is composed of a metal frame inset with plastic panels to ensure you get a good signal.

There is no real sign of flex, although ironically, the only bend you get from the back of the phone is when you press on the Beats logo, which happens to be placed on the weakest part of the structure, although this is hardly worthy of consideration.

The screen is tapered towards the edges, giving it a beautiful finish. The HTC Sensation is an attractive phone to look at, but we think that something like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S steals the show when it comes to looks. It is big though, at 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3mm and heavy, at 151g.

In the hand is snuggles down nicely thanks to the curves that universally adorn it, with the tactile feeling of those plastic inserts providing a little more purchase so you're less likely to drop it. It's also nice and comfortable to make calls with and we found the calling quality to be good.

The Specs

One area where the HTC Sensation XE does get a boost is in the internal specs department. It now sports a dual-core 1.5GHz processor over the Sensation's 1.2GHz. If it makes any real difference to the speed, it's difficult to call as we had little complaint with the performance of the original. You get 768MB RAM, 1GB of available internal storage, along with the microSD card slot to expand this, with our review sample coming with an 8GB card bundled in the box.

The screen gives a good showing for itself with a resolution of 960 x 540. This makes it a touch sharper (256ppi) than most average displays (800 x 480) you'll typically find on Android smartphones, but it'll soon to be unseated by the by the next wave of HD screens. Such is the life of a phone that's already 6-months old at launch.

It isn't the greatest display out there, it lacks some of the punch and wow factor that Samsung delivers with Super AMOLED displays, but it is bright and vibrant enough. The size is also welcomed, giving you plenty of space for your fingers to play.

The battery in the back is a 1730mAh cell, which you can at least access and change, should you find the need to buy a spare. Battery performance is obviously one of the biggest problems with smartphones at the moment. This isn't the highest capacity battery around so some rivals, like the Motorola Atrix or devices with a more modest specification, will outperform it.

Getting through a busy working day with the Sensation XE is a struggle, so you'll need to ensure that a charger is never far from reach. Taking power saving measures will of course help sustain things, but the minor increase in battery capacity over the original doesn't yield a huge benefit.

Stop Making Sense

The HTC Sensation XE arrives in our hands with Android 2.3.4 and HTC Sense 3.0. It's a minor Android step over the 2.3.3 that the original arrived with, but aside from that, the HTC Sense experience and the user experience, is the same. This is slightly odd given that other devices - the HTC Rhyme and the HTC Sensation XL - land with Sense 3.5, with a number of tweaks and refinements.

In reality you probably won't notice and the Sense version perhaps isn't as significant as the Android version. The HTC Sensation XE is on the list of devices due to be upgraded to Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, and we assume that new versions of HTC Sense will roll with it, incorporating some of the nicer features of Google's latest mobile OS.

We hope that HTC do take advantage of the opportunity to change, as visually Sense hasn't changed much since the 2009 launch of the HTC Hero. At the time, it was a great refinement of what Android offered, but as Android continues to strengthen it's core offering, we can't help feeling that the "less is more" mantra might be starting to ring true.

In some cases, like the slightly disjointed handling of streaming media, a cleaner solution can be found through the Android Market. We're also not impressed with HTC Locations, especially as it hijacks the locations in your calendar or contacts and doesn't offer anywhere near the search skill that Google Maps does. You can get around it with the aptly named “Select Other Map for HTC”, free on the Android Market. Not huge problems, but niggles you shouldn't need to mess around with.

With all that said, you get all the integration that HTC Sense brings and the widest array of widgets that you'll find anywhere. The UI works on the basic principle of letting you customise your seven homepages with whatever you want, be that weather widgets, bookmarks or apps.

You get a range of integrated social services, pumping through in Friend Stream (if you want them too), you get that great unlock screen that will let you customise what app you want to head directly to and you get a full offering of media features, including Watch, HTC's video rental offering.

Overall navigation is slick and fast, browser rendering is nice and slick and the keyboard is responsive, if a little cluttered. We also had no problems tackling the Flash video TV services we wanted. If we're being picky, we'd say the finger tracking should be better on a high-end device like this, but over the experience is good.

I Need a Doctor

With its acquisition of Beats, HTC has picked up one of the hottest brands in headphones and thrown them into the box. If nothing else, it means you get a fantastic set of headphones, something that is extremely rare with mobile phones these days. Open the box and you'll find your red-cabled iBeats earphones, with a range of silicone tips to get the perfect fit for you and a nice pouch to keep them in.

Of course, you can use your Beats earphones with any gadget you like, although the inline remote functions not might work in all devices. That would be a shame, because they can play/pause/redial and track skip. Yep, don't be too heavy with the central button, as you'll be redialling your last called number. Sadly there is no volume control.

But the headphones are excellent quality and come with brand value that's almost insurmountable at the moment, if that's what interests you. In the phone, this is partnered with Beats Audio software. This is a toggled sound enhancement that fills the gap where previously you would have found SRS and a virtual surround sound offering. It also doesn't matter if you don't use the iBeats. We tested it with a pair of Bowers & Wilkins C5 headphones and got the same Beats Audio notification on the screen.

HTC say that Beats headphones have custom audio profiles built in, but you don't get to access or control of this. There is no option to alter the balance of sound, or customise it to your preference. Fortunately we like how Beats handles our preferred genre of music, with plenty of bass. The supplied iBeats also offer great sound isolation, so the music does sound great, but it's worth knowing that you don't get a sack load of options when it comes to sound.

HTC's music player does offer you a range of options, like control from the notification area and from the lockscreen, so it's pretty good overall.

Do bear in mind though, you won't get access to the Beats Audio sound enhancements if you choose to deviate from HTC's default apps. Use the Galley video player and you can toggle Beats Audio. But if you decide that you don't like HTC's media provision, or you want to expand video format support with a third-party player, then you'll lose that Beats Audio enhancement. Fire up Spotify, DoubleTwist or watch something on BBC iPlayer and Beats is irrelevant. Arguably, then, one of the unique propositions of this phone walks out the door when you step off HTC's path.

Reality Killed the Video Star

We liked the camera on the original Sensation and the offering here is the same. It's a comprehensive reworking of Android's camera app, with a collection of settings and effects that can be tweaked, if you feel the need. Some of the effects are nice, although not as dramatic as you'll get from a decent third-party app like Vignette.

HTC's instant capture is here, which is basically a manifestation of continuous autofocus, i.e., the phone is focused on the subject before you press the button. Touch focusing is also offered, so you can get things nice and sharp, or a nice focus pull effect. Unfortunately the days we've had to test the Sensation XE camera have been a little dull, but the results are reasonable enough.

On the video front, the HTC Sensation XE ambitiously offers Full HD capture with stereo sound. The sound isn't especially good - something you notice more in a quiet scene than in a noisy one - and the data rate on this video capture isn't especially high, so although it's pretty good, it's not the best out there. It works best in good light, as it doesn't handle low light very well at all.

We like the focusing though, with HTC offering continuous autofocus during video capture as well as touch focusing, which is nice and fast. The iPhone 4S might give better quality video results, but we'd argue that HTC's focusing is more dynamic.

Tags: Phones HTC Android

HTC Sensation XE originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:09:00 +0000

The new Panasonic Lumix GX1 bridges the gap between the compact Lumix GF3 and the mini DSLR-alike G3 and GH3 models. As such, it sits on the more compact side of the Lumix G series range, but still offers a whole host of controls and features to appease the more creative photographer.

Launching with an aim of hitting stores in time for Christmas 2011, Pocket-lint had the chance to spend a couple of hours with the new camera on a grey Autumnal afternoon. We've had the chance to explore some of the new features of the camera, so here are our first impressions, shots, video and hands-on pictures, pending our full review. Naturally, Panasonic have asked us to remind you that this was a pre-production camera model, with pre-release software, so we can neither judge image quality, or overall performance, as final.

Design

One glance at the Lumix GX1 and you'll see the heritage that has rolled over from the GF2 here. The camera retains the same slightly boxy design, but rather than a simple raised ridge, now has a sculpted grip for the fingers of the right hand. This isn't as severe as it is on the Lumix GH2 or G3 models, but is more pronounced than the entry-level GF3, Panasonic's most compact Lumix G series model.

A handgrip alone doesn't define the camera, but the analogy works rather well, as the GX1 does indeed sit between these models. Both the GH2 and G3 offer a built-in electronic viewfinder; the GF3 or new GX1 don’t. But you do get a hotshoe and an accessory port on the GX1 that will let you attach the new LVF2 (£229) should you wish.

There is a 3-inch touchscreen at the back, which is relatively responsive, but in our time with the camera it never felt quite as snappy as you'd expect from the latest smartphone. The 460k-dot resolution means this isn't the sharpest screen out there. The screen makes up half of the controls, with a healthy scattering of buttons providing direct settings controls as well as the opportunity to customise Fn controls to get to the features you want instantly.

The GX3 feels great in the hand, the metal body is markedly different from the plastics of the GF3 and the metal buttons feel sumptuous and precise under the fingertips. With the X range looking to offer quality, the camera certainly delivers that premium feel in the hand.

Overall measurements come in at (excluding lenses/attachments) 116.3 x 67.8 x 39.4mm and a weight of 318g (without lens).

Controls

The controls of the GX1 are rather comprehensive, seeing the return of a physical mode dial, something we always like to see. This offers the normal run of shooting modes, but the Panasonic iA mode is separately toggled via its own button. This sets up a dichotomous arrangement where you can flip between full auto and whatever mode you were in before with the press of a button.

But you can easily switch from program to aperture or shutter priority, or a range of custom and creative positions, with the option to shoot in a number of effects modes. Joining the list we've seen on other Lumix models, you now get low key and toy effect, making it easy to make even the most boring scene interesting and unique.

One thing we're not totally convinced about is the lack of a video position on the mode dial. Instant video capture via the top plate button throws you straight in, but we sometimes feel we'd like things to be slightly more deliberate: engage video mode, tinker with the video settings, then begin capture.

At first glance, we can't help thinking how close the control layout is to come Canon cameras. A central four-way controller, flanked with more buttons and that mode dial. With numerous buttons, it's almost possible to forget that the GX1 offers touch control too and that's probably the aim.

We found it did take a little time to adjust to the dual approach to controls. The on-screen menus have been brought into line with some of the Lumix compact cameras, but you also get access to the Quick menu. The former, main settings menu feels like it should be controlled with the conventional buttons, the latter by touches on the screen. Flexibility is great, but we walk away with the impression that you'll spend a good time flitting between buttons and touch to get the settings you want dialled in.

Of course, being able to program those Fn buttons makes a huge difference and if you wish you can program two more buttons on the screen in the same way, so once you've identified which settings you're after, it won't take you long to make them immediately available.

In touch with the world

Moving over to touch control, there are a couple of neat features it offers. We're not quite convinced by the touch to capture, as we took a lot of accidental shots this way when handling the camera and you don't get that feeling of considered composition that some photographers crave.

One of the boasts of the Lumix GX1 is speed, with 0.09 second contrast autofocus. There are range of focusing options and they are well worth playing around with as we found that, although fast, the GX1 invariably didn't focus exactly where we wanted it to. But with the brief time with had with the camera (and the choice of X zoom lens), we're not surprised we didn't quite master the focusing system.

That X zoom lens we just mentioned is powered of course and one of the neat features of the GX1 is the ability to control that zoom using the screen, rather than the switch on the lens barrel. You can also change the zoom speed amongst other settings. We had some success with smooth slow zooms during video capture, but found ourselves thwarted by focusing again.

In the picture

The GX1 also offers a neat level which appears on-screen. This is a feature we really like as it offers not only horizontal level, but also vertical. This is a high-end feature on DSLRs and it's great to have it this type of camera: ideal for making sure you get those straight lines straight so you don't have to tweak them on your computer after the fact.

Along with the launch of the Lumix GX1, there is also a new external EVF on offer that we had the chance to play with. This offers tilt functionality (rather like the Olympus equivalent) and slots on to the top of the GX1. It occupies both the accessory port and the hotshoe, so there is no chance to use an external flash with the EVF in place.

It is bright and detailed, offering 100% field of view, and the advantage you get from an electronic viewfinder over an optical one is that you see all the changes you make to the camera in the viewfinder, as well as being able to preview shots in EVF. We did get the sensation that the viewfinder presented a brighter scene than real life, but being able to shoot like a DSLR, against your face, makes it easier to stabilise for some of those longer exposures.

As we said, this wasn't a final retail version of the camera, or final firmware, so we can't judge the quality of the results, but we were impressed. The video is especially good, along with stereo sound, and we like the fact you now get the option to shoot in AVCHD or MPEG4, the latter being more universally supported. Unfortunately there is no conventional external mic input.

Tags: Cameras Compact system cameras Panasonic Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 16 megapixels First look Micro Four Thirds

First Look: Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000

The launch of the HTC Rhyme saw the Taiwanese manufacturer tiptoeing around its words. With a cleaned-up homescreen, colours that were anything but black and a name that lacked the usual superstar aggression, HTC did everything it could to avoid saying that the Rhyme was a phone designed for girls.

Before we started on our review, we passed it around to of these aforementioned girls to gauge the reaction. The first was that it wasn't pink. Some still eye the pink LG Chocolate as the pinnacle of female-focused design; some remind us that the iPhone nestles in the hands of many women and they're perfectly happy with it. The tech presses tell us that women find pink gadgets patronising, that they don't want to be pigeon-holed so narrowly. 

With that conundrum in mind, is the HTC Rhyme a phone that only appeals to the fairer sex, or is this a naïve supposition? 

Design

The Rhyme doesn't break too far from the HTC mould when it comes to design. One glance and you'll recognise it as an HTC device, differing only slightly from the likes of the HTC Radar. It uses Some of HTC's unibody design approach, the biggest implication of which is that you can't access the battery. The metal body which surrounds the screen runs around the back of the phone, almost looking like a strap holding the thing together. The top of the back section is finished in plastic, to aid reception.

The bottom half of the back of the phone can be removed and is finished in a tactile material to aid grip. This slides off to reveal the SIM and microSD card slots, as well as concealing the Micro-USB connection with a flap. This isn't something that HTC normally do, but as we'll discuss later, they plan for you to dock the Rhyme to charge it, rather than fiddle with cables.

The corners and sides are nicely rounded, meaning the Rhyme sits nicely in the hand. Buttons and controls are conventionally placed for an HTC device, with volume on the right and the standby button on the top, along with the 3.5mm headphone jack. Across the bottom of the display you get four conventional Android controls: home, menu, back and search.

The curved top edge makes the HTC Rhyme a comfortable phone for holding against your ear when it comes to making calls, and we found that call quality was perfectly good, with no problems hearing callers. The external speaker is a little tinny and almost entirely muffled if you place the phone flat on a table.

We found the battery life was better than we expected. It has a capacity of 1600mAh, so not the largest capacity, but we found with light use we got it to last though 2 days, which is pretty rare. This is probably down to the smaller screen and single core processor and continued software refinement. Heavy use will see it needing to charge every night, but overall we're impressed. 

Display and hardware

The display is a 3.7-inch 800 x 480 pixel screen, the same as the likes of the HTC Desire S. It is bright and vibrant, with a nice saturated punch to reds tones, reflecting the screen's slightly warm colours. Viewing angles aren't the best, but they're good enough and the brightness on offer keeps things visible in brighter conditions. 

Sitting under the hood you'll find a 1GHz single-core processor, backed by 768MB RAM. This is respectable configuration for an Android device and although it doesn't pack the most power you'll find out there, the experience doesn't feel hampered by it. Every day navigation and use is snappy, with little sign of lag when navigating the device or opening applications, but the odd tell-tale sign, like a slow response on opening up the widgets menu, lets you know it could be faster.

Internally you get 1GB of memory, but an 8GB card is bundled in the box, with support for expansion up to 32GB.

Software that makes Sense?

The HTC Rhyme arrives with Android 2.3.5 and HTC Sense 3.5. This is the latest version of HTC's user interface which brings with it a few tweaks, the most obvious of which is a new set of homepage "scenes", making a departure from the HTC Sense of old.

Just to clarify, this change isn't unique to the HTC Rhyme: the entry-level HTC Explorer also features a simplified homepage arrangement. Elsewhere, you'll find the HTC Sensation XL, also with Sense 3.5, looks very much like HTC devices have since the launch of Sense on the HTC Hero back in 2009. So Sense 3.5 differs from device-to-device.

Previously there was a curved dock at the bottom of the screen which contained things like access to the menu, phone and personalisation options. Now, instead, the homepage contains just two icons, one on the left giving you app tray access and one on the right taking you through to calling. It's much cleaner than previously, dominating less of the screen than before. 

Where there was once the default "HTC clock", you'll now find a Shortcuts & Clock widget. Although that distinctive clock is still available, should you want to restore it, the alternative is actually very useful. You can allocate five shortcuts and in some cases you get a slide-out tray to expand what's on offer. 

For example, the camera shortcut will slide-out and offer your last three photos, the calendar will pop-out with the details of next appointment. None of this is earth-shattering, but it's convenient and nicely done. 

With that in mind, the HTC Rhyme is refreshing at first glance, but delve a little deeper and you'll find that it offers you all the regular features of HTC Sense, with all the settings, options and tweaks sitting where you'd expect them too. If the Rhyme appeals because it looks simpler, then you might be in for a shock, as overall it isn't, which is both a pro and a con.

You'll get to add all your social accounts into HTC Sense for use with Friend Stream, set automatic sharing of images to an account of your choice (Facebook or Flickr), you'll get access to HTC Watch for movie rental and a whole lot more. HTC's skin on Android makes more changes than any other manufacturer and everywhere you navigate you'll find a little tweak has been made, more so in HTC Sense 3.5 than ever before. 

Obviously you won't get the latest version of Android at launch, and compared to stock Android, HTC Sense can be a little overbearing at times. Take the notification tray. This not only compiles your alerts and music controls, but also gives you access to your recently used apps and a separate tab to take you over to quick settings controls. Some might find this convenient, for others it might be too much.

There are also a range of apps preinstalled, such as Dropbox and Endomondo. Dropbox offers you extra storage space once you log-in and is free, although we note the extra capacity you get with your HTC device only lasts for 12 months. Endomondo is a fitness app and will offer to track your runs around the park and so on.

HTC have tweaked the keyboard, although the experience is pretty much as it has been in the past. The touch response and correction is good, but it is a little busy in portrait mode. If you don't like it, there are plenty of alternatives you can install from the Android Market, such as the excellent SwiftKey X.

Being an Android device you get all the normal access to Android Market and a growing selection of apps, as well as the connected goodness and seamless support of Google accounts, along with Flash in the web browser.

A veritable box of tricks

Slip the HTC Rhyme from the box and you'll find a lot more on offer within. The biggest element we've already alluded to is the dock. This connects to that charger at the back, so you can slot the Rhyme into the dock and it will charge via the contacts on the back of the phone.

That's not all however. The dock is also a Bluetooth speaker, so when you dock your handset, it connects to the speaker. Music playback is much better than through the built-in speaker. It's a nice touch, just remember to turn off Bluetooth when you leave the house, if you're not using it.

Using the dock also fires up a Dock Mode display. This dims the screen, switches to landscape and puts the calling and calendar functions at your fingertips, perfect for bedside operation. If we had one criticism, however, it's that the dimmed screen isn't that well done: it's still a glowing rectangle at the side of your bed and those screen viewing angles don't help - if your bedside table is the wrong height, you won't be able to make out the detail on the screen at all.

You'll also get the controversial Charm. This is a plug-in accessory that is essentially an LED on the end of a cable that will alert you to incoming calls or messages. The idea is that the phone can be in a bag or pocket and the Charm somewhere visible so you can react as needed. HTC even suggest that you can pull the phone from your bag using the Charm, but as one of our willing ladies so elegantly suggested "it's just going to get tangled up in all my other shit". Quite so.

But the HTC Rhyme isn't about the Charm: if you don't want it, leave it in the box. You do get a headset however, it isn't Beats Audio, so you don't get the best offering in the box. The anti-tangle cable is welcomed, even if the performance is pretty average from the headphones themselves.

Finally there is a white leather case, which certainly looks pretty smart.

Moving movies

One area where we appreciate the effort, but don't completely like the execution, is HTC's handling of media streaming, or connected devices. The HTC Rhyme will happily find sources to "play" media from, including things like online photo albums from your connected accounts, or from a local sharing media drive or device. 

Performance is generally good, although it is a little hidden in the customised Gallery app. You'll have to use the drop-down menu at the top to find "media servers", before navigating through to find your content. You can then play media locally on the Rhyme, with reasonable support for video file formats. 

However from this app you can also opt to send the file to another device, using the "output" option. Elsewhere you'll find a "connected media" app which also offers to play your content via the same mechanism, but it seems a little confusing to have two routes to the same thing, one offering half the functionality of the other. 

However, you can share movies, photos or music via the same method, so long as you have the right devices on your network. Music is enhanced by the inclusion of SRS Enhancement or a virtual 5.1 surround option when headphones are connected, and in the absence of Beats Audio, it does make a difference.

Smart shooting

The HTC Rhyme is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera on the rear. It's been given the full makeover with all HTC's goodies. There is a lot packed in, much of which you'll probably never use, but we like the fact that the effects have been expanded to include more popular options like Vignette (more of a "Lomo" effect, as below), along with a panoramic mode, a skin smoothing, portrait mode and backlight HDR, which aims to pull detail out of shadows. 

The results are reasonable in good lighting conditions, quickly snapping off shots ideal for sharing, although it isn't the best phone camera on the block. It suffers in lower light conditions things get very noisy, the flash producing an unnatural colour cast over shots. This is common to other mobile phone cameras too, so nothing to be too worried about.

Video capture comes in at a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720, although the frame rate isn't always as consistent as we'd like, often giving you around 23fps. It offers touch focusing, so you can change the focal point during recording, which is fast with only a minor pulse as it does so. There is no continuous autofocus during video, so you'll have to manually touch to keep everything in focus.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones HTC HTC Rhyme Android

HTC Rhyme originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Ice Cream Sandwich is the "biggest release" of Android "in terms of code that we wrote", Hugo Barra, product management director at Google told Pocket-lint in our second session with Ice Cream Sandwich on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Barra told us it was the first step in rethinking Android, designed to take it forward for the next 2-3 years.

We've now spent time with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) in the Googleplex in Mountain View, and the company's London headquarters, so we've seen a lot of what Ice Cream Sandwich has to offer and we thought it was only fair to put pen to paper and bring you our first impressions. 

What is Ice Cream Sandwich?

It's an OS that merges Android on phones and on tablets, ending the brief dalliance with an operating system based on the same foundations and fundamentals, but divided in look, feel and devices that we saw in Gingerbread and Honeycomb.

But if Ice Cream Sandwich has a flavour, that flavour is honey. Honey from Android 3.0, because much of what we've seen in Android 4.0 behaves like Honeycomb. Barra told us that development on Ice Cream Sandwich was underway before Honeycomb launched and it's obvious that the two walked the same path.

Moving forward you won't have Android for phones or Android for tablets, it will be the same scalable platform. At least that's the intention, although as Android users will be aware, there are a huge array of devices already out there, some Google certified and some not, so we suspect there will legacy devices with older software circulating for some time, or residing at the bottom end of the market. 

General controls and home interface

Ice Cream Sandwich offers you three control buttons: back, home and recent. This is the same as Honeycomb and ICS uses the same design for these controls, although the high pixel density of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus means these are incredibly crisp and sharp, whereas on a 10-inch tablet they can look a little soft, almost like a neon glow.

Ice Cream Sandwich will support devices with hardware buttons as well as the software buttons of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Barra told us. We suspect that some manufacturers will keep buttons to continue their line of differentiation and some will choose to do away with them completely. 

Across the top of the display you get your normal notification and connection icons which match those you'll find in later Gingerbread builds, but now in blue. As before, you have a selection of home screens to modify to your liking, so as always with Android, you can add widgets, people, app shortcuts and so on, to make the device your own.

One interesting change is the adoption of a dock across the bottom of the screen. Central to this dock is the apps menu button, flanked by shortcuts you can change as you see fit. It isn't new: native Android previously had a similar arrangement but only offered two slots. It's been a feature of manufacturer skins on Android since they first appeared as well as something that you get on the iPhone and here, like all those devices, you can drag and drop what you want onto the dock for easy instant access no matter where you are in the home screen. 

In the case of the Galaxy Nexus, you get space for two flanking apps either side of the central apps menu. The app menu itself has changed too, now divided into two sections, one for your apps, the other for your widgets. There is now a persistent link to the Android Market at the top of the apps menu, which is really handy for instant access when hunting for that app you thought you installed. 

Heading into the widgets tab lets you add them to the home screens. Previously this was done with a long press, which is now reserved for wallpaper changing. Widgets now behave very much like they do in Honeycomb - they are interactive, scrollable and can be resized too.

Lock screen and notifications

The lock screen of a smartphone at times seems like the front line of the OS wars. Android devices have been adding features to the lockscreen for some time and recently we saw Apple add to theirs; ICS has added unlock to camera, features a music widget and will also give you access to your notifications which you can drag down from the top.

This means you'll be able to head straight to particular notifications easily, although this existed previously in various different Android skins. It isn't a loophole to bypass device protection either, as engaging any of the security options will disable this.

When it comes to security, Google have introduced a fun new feature in Face Unlock. This isn't designed to be Pentagon-style retina scanning, but as Hugo Barra said "soft security". It's fun and lightweight, but Barra did admit that you could possibly unlock it with a photo, if you had one of sufficient size, resolution and quality. At least that avoids the need to tear off someone's head to unlock their phone. 

You still get the option for pattern or PIN security and these options still exist as a backup if the Face Unlock doesn't work - for example if you are in a dark place, like bed, or walking down the street late at night. 

We've seen a large number of manufacturers add shortcuts to the drop down notifications bar to toggle things like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. ICS doesn't give you any of these offerings, but does offer you access to the settings. 

If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that there is an absence of a menu button in the controls, so you can't press menu>settings from the home screen to get to these things. Now you'll have to drag down the notifications and hit the icon.

One new feature in ICS that we haven't seen in Android before is the ability to swipe things away. It's a feature we liked in WebOS and we like the way it has been implemented in Android. From your notifications you'll be able to delete alerts by swiping them to the right. This removes them from the notifications list, so you don't have to look at them any more.

Multitasking, folders

The same swiping action that you get in notifications can also be used in your Recent list. Recent apps is a neat take on task switching. Previously you'd have to press and hold the home button to pop up a grid of recent apps. Now you'll be able to tap the Recent button and you get a live thumbnail of that app appear in a list. You can hit what you want to move to, or again, swipe to the right to get rid of that app.

It makes Android 4 feel more like an operating system that's been designed to multitask, rather than one that merely supports it. At this point we're not entirely sure if swiping a task off your Recent list actually closes it, suspends it, or just removes it from view, something we'll have to investigate in more detail when we get the chance to do a full and thorough review of Ice Cream Sandwich.

Folders have been available in Android for some time, but now you can drag one icon on to another to create a new folder. Yes, it's something that seems to have come from iOS and it works in exactly the same way. The nice thing about folders is that you can create them out of anything, so you can make a folder of your friends and dump it on your dock, so all your important numbers are just a couple of presses away.

Now, rather than having an icon with a label telling you the contents, the first app is the icon, with the other icons stacked behind. It is much more visually engaging than previously.

Those core Google apps

The Android experience is very much built around the core apps that it contains - Gmail, Maps, People, Calendar. It's these things that underpin a lot of what you do in Android, contacting people, arranging your life, staying connected. With Ice Cream Sandwich comes a run of changes. Of course, things like Gmail and Maps act as independent entities so have been refreshed regularly, but ICS adds a little more to the mix.

We have had a good look at Gmail and the biggest change is how you control the app. This is something that runs through ICS to reflect the loss of that menu button. Now you have a set of controls across the bottom of the screen - compose, search, labels, refresh and then those three dots that indicate you have more options to choose from.

This is one area that scaling of ICS is going to affect. On smaller devices you might not have the space for all those icons, so more will be in the "three dot" menu, with less on the bottom of the bar. On a tablet you will get more. It was clear to us that Google would like apps to operate in this way, presenting the immediate options where they can be seen, rather than requiring an additional button press to access them. That's not always the case, however, with ICS. One thing we can say about iOS is that it is very consistent in operation, and in some cases Android isn't, so you do still find menu options in different places in Google's core apps.

One area that has been revamped is People. Formerly Contacts, People now contains more integrated information aggregated from social networks. This isn't a new idea, as we've seen HTC Sense, Motoblur and others, incorporating details into contacts, but you now get a neat swipe action to navigate around the People app, moving from groups, to your list of contacts to favourites.

Big graphical icons are used, so there is a hint of Windows Phone 7 in the new People app, and entering a person's card will let you swipe across to see their social network updates. Interestingly, ICS moves on from using simple lists of names for people in address fields (in Gmail for example), instead using what Google is calling "People Chips".

Rather than having a list of addressees, you'll have their Chips, with a picture, which you can delete easily, or tap to change the address you're going to use. We didn't really get a chance to see this working in anger, something we'll have to put to task when we get another chance to play with Ice Cream Sandwich.

Calendar now behaves more like Honeycomb, so you can swipe from day-to-day, as well as being able to pinch to zoom in and out to get more or less detail on your calendar. These aren't especially new features as they were in Honeycomb and they seem to behave the same way as iOS calendars do on the iPhone.

Finally we had a good play with the browser. The thing we like about the browser is that it basically fills the whole screen and on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, that's a lot of screen. The browser is now better equipped for handling the Internet and acknowledges that people want a full internet experience.

One of the features we're most excited about is desktop mode. This has been a feature of third-party browsers for a while (Dolphin Browser HD, for example), but it will let you tell a website to offer you the full version of the site rather than the mobile version. It is easily toggled via the options, changing from mobile view to desktop view. Having this feature will be a real benefit now that screen sizes of phones are starting to expand.

Another new feature is the option to read later. Essentially this saves the page, images and all, so that you can open it up and read through it wherever you are. There is also the perennial favourite of Incognito for those sneaky-beaky browsing moments and bookmark syncing with Google Chrome on your PC.

You'll now be able to support up to 16 tabs in the browser and, like notifications and the Recent list, you'll be able to close browser tabs by swiping them away.

Of course, all these apps are pulled together by the keyboard, which has had updates to the prediction and correction algorithms. The haptics are very fine and felt comfortable on the Galaxy Nexus and the keyboard was swift and fast to respond to our exploratory pokes.

Speech to text is also really impressive, and still accessed as an option through the keyboard. Previously it would write in phrases, so you'd speak a bit and some text would appear. Now it is real time transcribing, which it really clever, so you can see the message appearing before your eyes. Of course, this all takes place on Google's servers, so you need a data connection for it to work.

Camera, Gallery

If the lock screen is the front line of smartphone war, then the camera seems to be the left flank. Google is looking to make their smartphone cameras even better with a range of features and options. This is in stark contrast to the iPhone which essentially gives you no options: Android ICS comes with a bucket load of choices. You can tweak all sorts of settings, but it's the effects that we find most attractive as you'll be able to do a lot without needing a separate app.

You'll find a range of options from Lomo effects to a vintage vignette. You'll also be able to edit photos from the Gallery app, cropping, rotating and so on to change the image quite drastically. This isn't destructive, you'll get a new image to save alongside the original pictures.

You'll get tap to focus as well as face detection, so if you don't tell it otherwise, it will pick out the faces to focus on. We found it to be fast to take shots and like before, sharing is at the fore, with one click sharing options from the image preview to any installed app that lets you share (thanks to Android's sharing API). There is also a sweep panorama option, which seemed easy enough to use, but we don't know what resolution the final image is.

You'll be able to capture full resolution images whilst shooting video too, as well as apply a range of settings to change the look of your video. Time lapse is now on offer and the results we've seen from time lapse look really impressive.

Both video and pictures can be accessed through the Gallery app as before, which now has a much more engaging interface - the empty space and dubious blurred background is now gone, with a new look that now is much more like Windows Phone 7 tiles.

Finally, you'll be able to take screenshots from the device.

Beam me up Android

Finally we come to Android Beam. Android Beam is an NFC function that's designed to make it easier to share things between mobile devices. Where you might have once sent details via email, or even used a QR code on the screen, now you can put devices back-to-back to enable sharing via Beam.

We've not had the chance to play with this extensively in the wild, but the examples we've seen in a controlled environment have been pretty exciting. Sharing things like maps is simply a case of pressing the "touch to Beam" message on the screen when in contact with another device.

Taking this a stage further though, it could be used to launch multiplayer games. The clever thing about the demo we've seen is that when the game wasn't installed on the second device, Android Market launched instead, so the game could be downloaded. It's clever stuff, and thanks to Android's open source approach, could find its way into other devices - something we've already seen demoed by Nokia with various accessories.

Tags: Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich First look Samsung Samsung Galaxy Nexus

First Look: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:35:24 +0100

Hype surrounds no device like the iPhone. Love it or loathe it, you certainly can't deny the impact that Apple and the iPhone has had on mobile phones as we know them. The arrival of the iPhone 4S ushers in only the fifth mobile phone that Apple has sold since if first launched the iPhone in 2007. Compare that to HTC, which has launched more than five devices in the last 6 months, and you start to see how much stock each iPhone device holds.

With pre-orders and sales breaking records for a device that hasn't fundamentally changed that much over the last iteration, is the iPhone still breaking new ground in the world of smartphones, or is it now playing catch up?

Design and build

The iPhone 4S is basically the same design as the iPhone 4. The lack of exterior redesign follows the trend that Apple set with the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, the devices look the same, except for a few minor exterior tweaks to accommodate the new dual antenna inside.

This change amounts to a slight move of the mute switch, so it is closer to the volume up button than before. For this reason alone, your existing iPhone 4 case may not fit.

Otherwise, the iPhone 4S is a sandwich of glass and metal. It's precisely designed, like all Apple products and whilst we think the iPhone 4S is a beautiful looking mobile phone, there's no denying the edges are sharp and it isn't the most comfortable for making long calls on if you are holding it up to your ear. Not that that small detail would prevent you from buying one.

Black and white versions of the phone are now available at launch, avoiding the somewhat farcical situation with white iPhone 4 handsets in the past.

The build quality is excellent. The iPhone 4S feels solid in the hand, there are no creaks, the buttons are positive and precise in their actions and it feels like a phone that will stand the test of time - assuming you don't drop it. For many, the iPhone 4S is destined to hide within a case or cover, which we think is a real shame as it's a great phone to look at naked.

The display remains at 3.5 inches, giving you the same resolution of 960 x 640, and at 326ppi remains one of the sharpest displays around. Viewing angles are excellent and colour rendition very good, although we've found it looks a little warmer than the iPhone 4 display. Independently, you probably won't notice that the whites are slightly more yellow, but together, we've found that some prefer the brighter whites of the iPhone 4, some prefer the vibrancy of the iPhone 4S.

If you've only ever used the iPhone, then the screen size will suit. But if you've been tinkering with a 4- or 4.3-inch display, you might find things are a little small. Windows Phone 7 and Android will have another year of lording it over iPhone users, but you don't miss out on functionality because you have a small screen and that's the important point.

What's inside?

One of the main upgrades to this iPhone is the new A5 processor. This has been languishing in the iPad 2 for the past 6 months, so it is no surprise to see it jump to the iPhone 4S. It offers you a 1GHz dual-core processor, so at the very least it brings you up to speed with rival devices on other platforms, whilst also offering the sort of power you'll find in Apple's other "mobile" device.

As both the iPad and the iPhone share the same operating system in iOS 5, this makes perfect sense. Apple isn't playing the numbers game in quite the same way that Android manufacturers are, but the RAM is estimated at around 600MB.

To be honest, the actual technical specification of the hardware that drives the iPhone 4S is almost irrelevant: it is more powerful than the last generation, pushing forward new capabilities for the effective 12-months that the phone will be the darling of Apple's line-up. Not having a 1.5GHz processor or 1GB of RAM doesn't matter so long as iOS 5 runs smoothly, the apps work well and the user experience is maintained. In that respect, a direct comparison with rival platforms, on a numbers basis, is meaningless.

Setting the iPhone 4S alongside the iPhone 4, both configured identically - which, thanks to iCloud restore, is incredibly easy - and it becomes apparent just how much of a performance increase the iPhone 4S offers you. Apps open much faster than before, but it isn't until you get the two devices side-by-side that you'll really notice, as the iPhone 4 was no slouch.

Where this puts the iPhone 4S in terms of future apps, games and opportunities remains to be seen, but part of that performance upgrade helps run the new camera on the rear of the phone.

Cameras

Where Apple does seem to be playing the numbers game, is on the camera. Cramming 8-megapixels into the iPhone 4S might make it seem competitive, but we have to wonder whether this is any better than a 5-megapixel unit. There is more data to deal with, certainly, and this is something that a new processor and GPU will have to cope with, but essentially the real difference lies in the BSI aspect, or backside illumination.

This really means that the imaging sensor has a different design to previous units. It handles light better, it's less prone to noise and is more efficient. It also happens to be the same number of megapixels as top-tier Android rivals.

Comparing the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S images side-by-side, it’s immediately obvious that the iPhone 4S camera is considerably better. There is less noise in shots and colours are better rendered. Overall levels of detail are much improved too and, down at a pixel level, things are impressively sharp.

Of course, in lower lighting conditions noise quickly comes crashing in and the flash on the back can do little to help you along. In good conditions though, you'll get some cracking shots out of it.

One of the notable features of the camera is that you get no settings. You can toggle the rule of thirds grid, you can engage the HDR mode, but that is it. You can't change the resolution of image capture, you can't tweak the saturation or exposure and you don’t get any built-in effects. You do get touch focusing however, so you can easily and deliberately focus where you want, with the added benefit of using the volume up button as the shutter if you want. And you can now pinch to zoom, but that's about it.

The same lack of effects applies to the video capture too. You now get Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30fps. The results are surprisingly good, but you don't get any options to turn this down to a lesser resolution. As a result it will begin eat a fair amount of space – a 30 second clip is about 100MB – if you shoot a lot of video.

Again you get touch focusing, but the iPhone 4S doesn't offer you continuous autofocus during video capture. You can refocus whilst filming by touching a new focal point on the screen, but it can pulse a little whilst trying to achieve sharp focus. Some rivals offer smoother transitions, so you can move the camera from a close macro subject to something in the distance whilst keeping the whole things sharp, which the iPhone fails to achieve.

In terms of quality, it's up there with the best phones we've seen, but the option for continuous autofocus during filming would be top of our list of changes.

iOS 5 features

iOS 5 brings with it a number of updates to an iPhone that remains, visually, very much the same as the previous iteration of devices. The interface is largely unchanged: you get each app laid out on the ever-expanding pages. You can order them into folders if you wish, but there's nothing new here.

iOS 5's changes mostly lie under the skin, a subtle tweak here and there, giving you more options, new integrated services and the ushering in of some new apps. We've had a good detailed look at iOS 5 in a separate review; what we'll deal with here is the significant changes that the new OS brings, and those aspects that are unique to the iPhone 4S.

One of the changes we appreciate the most is a redesign of the notifications. Each type can be customised, so rather than a universal alert that dominates the entire screen, you can opt for banners instead if that suits you better. You can control how you see your alerts on the lockscreen with the ability to unlock straight to a particular message.

You also get a drag down notifications tray, much like Android offers. This groups alerts, as well as offering weather and stocks widgets, so you can easily see notifications you might need to action. In short, Apple's notifications has taken something that Android did well and surpassed it. It was a long time coming, but is much better for it.

Many of the iOS 5 alterations address larger trends in smartphones. The introduction of iCloud and Wi-Fi syncing with iTunes cuts the computer tie that the iPhone had until recently. Again, this addresses something that Android holds over Apple: Android's core systems leverage native cloud assets very well. Calendars, contacts and emails now potentially have a cloud element on iOS 5, as well as a backup infrastructure.

In truth, backing-up your entire device, settings, apps and all to iCloud is rather neat and something that Android can't tackle so easily given the number of different devices the OS runs on. Apple, on the other hand, can backup your iPhone to iCloud and restore it to a replacement device, in very little time, and without issue.

Wi-Fi syncing has raised an issue for some, as we've heard that some PC users find that iTunes launches in Windows every time their iPhone comes into range. We've not had this problem on the Mac. iTunes, although not mandatory any more, does feel like the weak link in the iPhone package: it's slow to navigate at times and managing your device through iTunes can sometimes feel like a real chore.

You now get a new messaging service called iMessage. It is very much the text companion of FaceTime, and like Apple's video service, operates from iDevice to iDevice. As such, you'll need to know the Apple ID of the person you want to iMessage, at which point your message will change from using the mobile phone network to the data network. That advantage this offers is you can essentially message for free when connected to Wi-Fi.

Finding a person's Apple ID isn't as hard as it sounds – if you pick the right contact, the message window will change from SMS messaging to iMessage and you'll see the difference. The downside is that if your person moves from device to device, or has multiple Apple devices on the same account, messages will arrive at all points. A message can be delivered to an iPad whilst the owner is walking around with their BlackBerry and they'd never know, so iMessage isn't suitable for really important things at all.

You can turn off iMessage to avoid this, as well as being able to manage which numbers or email addresses it will work with, so with some fiddling, you should be able to get it working the right way for you and your network of contacts.

One of the trump cards that the iPhone 4S can flourish is that it is stable. Other platforms struggle to be as fast and reliable as iOS. It isn't free from problems and you get the occasional hiccup, but they are rare. Slowdown isn't a problem, apps are fast to open, with the new processor really speeding things up. It's quick to deliver on data applications too. Anyone who has used the Android Facebook app will know how slow it can be: under iOS those connected services are delivered in a flash.

Time to talk Siriously

With little physical change to the iPhone 4S, much of the excitement has been dedicated to Siri, Apple's voice-activated personal assistant. Siri was a service that Apple purchased and has integrated with core applications of the iPhone 4S. Like Google's voice searching, it relies on a data connection to interpret what you've said.

Siri is something of a hybrid application, offering a degree of hands-free autonomy. At some times it returns responses on the display, like your calendar appointments, or a contact's address, at other times it gives you complete voice control.

You can, for example, fire up a text message, dictate that message, address it and send it with touching the screen once. This is where Siri excels, as is the straightforward convenience of being able to ask questions to find the time in a different place, set yourself reminders and so on.

A fair amount of criticism has been levelled at Apple because not all of Siri's functions are available outside of the US at present (they're expected to hit around the world in 2012). But, this isn't a huge problem because you can leverage the Safari browser to find local and business information in much the same way, thanks to Google. It lacks the Apple polish, but it gets the job done which is the important point.

Learning to use Siri to the best effect is the most important thing. It might not be the main reason to buy the iPhone 4S and we can't see any enduring novelty value in asking it stupid questions. Once you get it working for you well, it can quickly become part of your normal phone interaction - especially as you can use it when wearing a headset with the in-line Apple remote, making it much more accessible out in public.

The final word on Siri has to be that the interpretation of what you say is the clever part in this and from this foundation it could be much more useful, so we suspect that in the future, Siri will be of even greater benefit.

Twitter, browser and apps

Twitter is now integrated as a sharing option, making it really easy to get those websites, photos and general comments out to the world. Although the Twitter app will do all this for you, it's the inclusion in the options menu that brings it to the fore.

No other service or social network gets this privilege: if you want to Facebook, you need the Facebook app. If you want to post something on Flickr, you need to do it via an app. This is in stark contrast to Android, which will let pretty much any app get included in your sharing options. The iPhone 4S stays nice and tidy because it is limited, but we'd love to have the choice to change it just slightly to better suit us.

The browsing experience is nice and fast, with the high-resolution display meaning that you can resolve fine text. Of course Flash is one of the things you don't get. You can't just run to any site online and watch the video treats like you can on Android. However, with the iPhone forming such as large customer base, in many cases moves have been made to accommodate this deficiency. Android is great because you can watch catch-up TV on the 4OD website: iOS is great because it gets its own app.

Battery and calling

Finally, we come to battery life, which, on the 4S has raised some concerns if the response on forums is anything to go by. During testing we've been running both an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 4S set-up identically.

In one test, we took both phones on a day trip to Berlin. The iPhone 4S didn't have roaming enabled on the account, so was effectively in standby for the duration of the trip. It still managed to get through its battery as fast as the phone that was still connected, taking calls and sucking data.

However, make a few tweaks and things settle down a lot. The biggest concern was the way the iPhone 4S used battery when in standby. This seemed to be down to Siri's “Raise to Speak” feature, and disabling that improved things greatly. Those new live widgets for weather and stocks also seemed to make a difference so we found ourselves switching them off too.

Some will argue that you should be able to run a phone with all the features enabled and get it through the day. The iPhone 4S won't do that, so you have to be more objective about managing the phone - in the same fashion that Android users have become accustomed too.

We're sure that Apple will be able to improve the situation with software management solutions, after all, they only have one phone to deal with, rather than a huge range like Android manufacturers do.

With power saving measures, our iPhone 4S battery performance is only slightly less than the iPhone 4 we have on iOS 5, getting us through most of the day in average use. It you dock at home and dock at work, it will be fine.

When it comes to calling, and that new antenna, we have found that reception has been great. Callers come across loud and clear, and we like the fact that iOS is clever enough to recognise shared numbers in your phone, so it will say "Mum or Dad calling" rather than the first person alphabetically.

But we do wish that call rejection options were offered on the screen. For the lockscreen you only get “swipe to answer” and we wish there was an opposing swipe to cancel, rather than fishing around to press a button.

Tags: Phones Apple iPhone iPhone 4S iOS 5

iPhone 4S originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:14:00 +0100

Sony is a comparatively late entrant into the Android tablet fray, bringing forth two tablets of very different character. The Tablet S is the rather more conventional of the pair, but Sony does at least manage to differentiate. Is there a place for the Sony Tablet S in a market flooded with similar devices?

Design and build

The most obvious differentiator is in design. We heard of it likened to a folded newspaper and that's how it feels in the hand. It's interesting certainly, and the effect is something you feel as soon as you pick it up. Other tablets can feel a little difficult to grip sensibly with one hand, but held in portrait, the Tablet S sits very nicely indeed.

The design also suits landscape gripping rather well. It is lighter and more comfortable to hold than many similar specced tablets. At 598g it's noticeably lighter and more comfortable than something like the Motorola Xoom. That "folded" design gives you a little more substance to grip when holding the tablet to watch a movie or browse the Internet.

It's light, thanks to the use of plastics. It doesn't have a "premium" aluminium shell or anything else and it does feel a little cheap. There is some flex in the centre of this folded section which we imagine is largely empty inside - it certainly sounds hollow when you give it a knock. This has to be set in the context of weight however so that's the trade-off: it's lighter but has a plasticky feel to it.

Finally on the design we found that we often covered the speakers when holding the device. They're placed a third of the way up on the left and right sides, just about where you might want to grip the tablet. The opening is on the rear slope of the screen - inside the fold, if you will - so you don't muffle it entirely, but we did occasionally have to shuffle the tablet around to get the best performance. The speakers are typical for a device of this type and headphones will give you a much better audio experience.

Display, specifications and controls

The display is a 1280 x 800 pixel 9.4-inch LCD, resulting in nice sharp and colourful visuals. It isn't the brightest display out there, and once you get into the glare of the great outdoors or next to a big bright window, you'll find that it suffers. It gives you a pixel density of 160ppi, higher than most other tablets, so copes better with fine detail than some: text looks crisper and you can resolve more on a website with less zooming, for example. The design also means that when lying "flat" the screen is at an angle, much more practical for reading, typing or browsing. The only problem we found is that when typing, our heavy fingers were obviously causing some flex in the Tablet S, again bringing us back to that question of whether the plastics are sturdy enough.

Naturally, as this is a Honeycomb tablet (Android 3.2 at the time of writing), the controls are on-screen, so you are only left with the power/standby and volume controls.

Physical connections are on the light side. There is the 3.5mm headphone jack and then a Micro-USB and SD card slot hide under a flap. The decision to go with SD card is interesting, as we see this is aimed at those wanting to pull the card out of their digital camera, rather than at those who want to expand the internal storage.

Support of external storage cards was a recent addition to Honeycomb and in this case, Sony don't support it in the traditional sense. You can't expand over the internal memory, but you can copy files from the SD card using the File Transfer software on the Tablet S. This is simple enough to use, allowing you to copy folders to your internal memory.

If you happen to have a Micro-USB to USB adapter you'll be able to attach any USB thumb drive, but again you'll have to transfer the content to your internal memory. Our review model came with 16GB of internal memory although there is a more expensive 32GB option too, if you are willing to part with an extra £80.

Power comes in the form of a bespoke connector on the bottom left-hand corner of the device, ideal for those who want to dock the Tablet S. Sony do make a charging "cradle", the SGP-DS1, which will cost you £39.99. In terms of wireless connections you get Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 and you can opt for 3G if you're willing to fork out the cash on the most expensive model.

Internally you'll get a fairly typical tablet hardware configuration: a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset, with 1GB RAM sitting in support. There is a 5-megapixel camera on the rear of the device and 0.3-megapixel unit on the front, average specs for Android tablets.

One thing that you won't find elsewhere is the IR transmitter, more on which later.

Sony takes on Honeycomb

Differentiation needs more than just a fancy design however, so Sony has added a few software tricks to try and set the tablet apart from its rivals. Sony has eyes on the Tablet S as a sofa companion: it's all about entertainment at home, the IR control meaning you can control your existing devices after setup and media support giving you a route to Sony's content.

Starting with the very basics, this is an Android tablet offering you the same Honeycomb user interface we've seen on any number of rival tablets, such as the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Asus EeePad Transformer or ViewSonic ViewPad 7x. We've covered this in detail previously, so we're not going to do so again here, save to say it works well on tablets, bringing the connectivity of Android to the fore, whilst giving you plenty of space to play. There is still a lack of apps specifically designed to cope with a larger display format, but that's never been a barrier to getting apps to work well on Honeycomb tablets.

Each manufacturer tries to bring some sort of software tweak and for Sony that comes in the form of some alterations to Android and apps to leverage existing Sony assets. In Honeycomb you'll notice additional icons across the top of the display, offering easy access to things like the browser, giving you more space on the main homescreen.

There is also a Favorites app, into which you can pile said favourites, although given that you can easily customise any of the five homescreens we have to wonder whether this has much real value. The app menu has changed visually too, and it seems counter-intuitive that Sony have removed the shortcut to the Android Market from the top bar, making it just that little more fiddly than the original.

The keyboard has also been changed and we actually found it very usable. A lighter take than the Honeycomb average, Sony haven't changed too much, but it is responsive and we found, thanks to the rake of the display, it's easy to type on. Alternate characters are available with a long press of various keys, and predictive/corrective suggestions are present.

Adding a little Sony magic

Sony has bundled a number of applications that access various parts of the existing Sony machine: Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited, for music and video downloads and Reader, for handling ebooks. A Social Feeds Reader will give you Twitter and Facebook and SelectApp offers app suggestions, although this is through the browser and isn't anything to get excited about.

The IR remote functions are a little more exciting. Like any universal remote, the Tablet S comes preloaded with hundreds of manufacturers and remote configurations and within minutes we had our Samsung TV and Blu-ray player, Virgin Media box and a second, much older, LG TV all set-up and running. You can also custom program remotes through a learning function. The beauty of this feature is that you can sit with your tablet on your lap and control your TV without scrabbling around for the remote: it's a one-stop entertainment shop.

Music Unlimited has spun out of Qriocity, but we found that tapping icon told us the service wasn't available yet, so we're guessing the app is yet to be developed, because you can access the music via the browser. Video Unlimited likewise is on offer, the app is there and ready to sell you videos on a rental, or permanent ownership basis at varying prices. Owning a movie can be expensive though, with titles costing more than a DVD would, and nearly as much as a Blu-ray. And that's for standard definition.

Finally you have Reader. The features that Reader offers will differ depending on where you live. If you don't have access to the Sony Reader Store in your region, you'll have no access through the app. Sadly, the Tablet S also didn't care that we connected it to a Mac running Reader for Mac, so there are no direct syncing opportunities that we could find with existing Reader devices.

More significantly, we couldn't find any way to authorise Reader on the tablet with our Adobe ID, so although it reads EPUB files, it won't read those with DRM in place, i.e, anything you might have purchased. Overdrive Media Console, Aldiko and the Kindle app may serve your ebook needs sufficiently and are universally available in the Android Market.

The Tablet S has the PlayStation Certified logo on the back, meaning you'll get access to games that you won't find elsewhere. Whether those are enough to draw you to this tablet is a different story: we weren't quite convinced that the offering was strong enough on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, a device built for gaming, Crash Bandicoot or not.

Elsewhere you get DNLA streaming integrated into the media players of the Tablet S, so you can effectively "send" your music or video to connected devices. This rivals Apple's AirPlay in function. It is neatly implemented and in a world where out-of-the-box functions matter, it's great to see it included and working so well, and direct from the music and video players.

The DNLA app had no problem finding our Cisco media server and playing back the content from it, with a range of video formats and audio formats supported. It isn't fully aware of all codecs however, and we can't help feeling that if Sony wanted a killer media tablet, then supporting more formats would be an obvious move.

Wi-Fi woes, browser, cameras, battery

One thing we quickly noticed with the Sony Tablet S was problems with Wi-Fi. The Tablet S consistently refused to connect to the BT HomeHub 3 but would connect to a second Wi-Fi point on the same network, even if the range seemed limited. This is the first time we've seen this in any Android device, so it's certainly something to look out for.

However, Sony has done some clever tweaking to the browser, so the page loading speeds are faster than you might expect and set alongside our Motorola Xoom, it loaded pages faster. We did find one oddity with BBC iPlayer: it would regularly flash a triangular tear in the upper left quadrant of the playing video. We didn't notice this on any other video websites, but it happened on every visit to BBC iPlayer, so could be a wider problem.

The 5-megapixel camera on the back is pretty respectable, even though we don't think photography from a tablet really holds much stock. It is autofocus and Sony has tweaked the interface slightly, giving you a gallery roll across the bottom of the screen to see the pics you've captured. Video offers continuous autofocus at 720/30p so puts in a good showing for itself.

Battery life from the Tablet S seems typical. We managed to get around 10 hours from it, which is quite decent really. 

Tags: Tablets Sony Android Honeycomb

Sony Tablet S originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:04:49 +0100

The roll-out of Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS 5, is now underway and bar a few early troubles dealing with the demand, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users are now exploring the new features the update brings to their devices. 

We've been living with the developer build before upgrading to the final version on our devices and we've been looking closely to see exactly what you get. Will this put Apple at the head of the mobile pack? Is it simply playing catch-up with increasingly sophisticated opposition? Will this change everything, or is it merely an incremental update?

Setup

Previously on iOS you had to connect your iPhone or iPad to your iTunes account on a computer via a cable and then follow a series of on-screen instructions. That has now moved over to the device, so you can, in theory, run your iPhone completely without a computer. 

The setup process starts by getting you to set-up fundamentals, like Wi-Fi, and signing in to your Apple account. It also lets you enable various new services you get for free, like iCloud and Find My iPhone which we'll talk about later. It's great to finally have this on the iPhone: Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry users have been doing this sort of thing for quite a while.

We've been through the setup a couple of times and you get the option to set your device up as a new iPhone, as well as restore it. Here you now get a "Restore from iCloud" option, which then lets you choose the particular backup, so if something happens (assuming you have an iCloud backup), you'll be able to setup a new phone just like your previous device with just a few clicks and no need for wires.

Our initial setup took less than 3 minutes; a restore took about 20 mins because of the apps it was loading in, but it's a better out of the box experience than ever before. 

Notifications and alerts

The biggest visual change is notifications. Apple has finally embraced a system that won’t see you shaking your fist at your phone every time someone retweets you and that can only be a good thing. Previous notification were not dynamic, they offered information but little else.

There are a number of different notification systems, a drag-down tray, the on-screen notifications and lock screen notifications, all of which offer a degree of customisation, so you can choose to have banners or bigger alerts (similar to previous iOS versions).

Notifications are controlled through the Notifications settings menu and within that, you'll get a list of apps in your "Notification Centre". You can then dive in and change the notification style for each of the specific apps. You might choose to have emails as a banner, because you get so many of them, and the calendar as alerts so you don't miss them.

Very Android in its approach, you are now able to swipe down from the top of the screen to reveal all your notifications in one place including certain dedicated widgets like weather and stocks, both controlled through the same notification menu. Tapping a notification takes you to that app, appointment or message. Tapping on either of the widgets takes you through to the full app.

Each main app group - email, messages, phone calls, or app notifications are listed alongside a small version of their icon and you’re able to clear the clusters individually, leaving others if you still want a reminder. For example, you can kill the emails, but keep the personal messages you need to reply to.

Lockscreen notifications are more useful than previously as you can action individual alerts, swiping the alert to read that message. Again you can control which alerts make it through to the lockscreen. This could be dangerous if you regularly get racy text messages, or just anything you want hidden from prying eyes, as all will be able to see them even if you’ve got a passcode enabled.

The bottom line is that it’s a far, far, far better system than is found in iOS 4.3 and one that makes upgrading to iOS 5 worth the effort. Yes it’s like Android, yes it’s like Windows Phone 7, yes your friends with those operating systems will welcome you to 2011. But, hey, you’ve got a decent notification system now, and dare we say it, the level of customisation here surpasses the options you get on other platforms.

iMessage

Taking on BBM, iMessage is Apple’s new instant messenging service built in to iOS 5. Found in Messages, the idea is that as long as you’ve got someone’s Apple ID email address, you can start pinging them instant messages like text messages without having to send a network SMS. This effectively means you can communicate with anyone with an iOS device in their hand, so long as you know the address to get them on. Fortunately, the system is clever enough to work out what contact address is iMessage capable and what isn't - if you don't have their Apple ID, you'll be sending a regular message instead. Pick the right address and the message pane changes to iMessage. 

In effect, it's something that most of us have been doing for a while in various forms, be it through Skype or some other IM client. iMessage goes hand-in-hand with FaceTime's video calling. Effectively, Apple has brought a native service to iOS that was being met by third-party apps like Skype previously.

One concern we have is spam and it will be interesting to see how Apple protect you from junk messages clogging up your inbox from mass iMessage spamming of email addresses. Also, whilst iMessage is nice, it's another service that's limited to iOS. If everyone you know uses an iPhone, then great, but if not, you'll probably stick to other methods that give you cross-platform chatter.

Currently there is no desktop integration of iMessage, although we're sure that will come soon enough. Also, although the system will detect which contact address is capable of iMessage, it would be nice it this was clear - perhaps like the "online" notification that Android Skype users get integrated into their Contacts.

Camera, composing, editing your photos

We’ve all been there, wanting to take a picture with your iPhone only to miss the moment by the time you’ve swiped to unlock it, entered in your passcode, then found the camera app and waited for it to fire up. Now a double tap of the home key on the lock screen presents a camera button for you to use straight away.

If that wasn’t enough to get you giddy with photographic excitement, Apple has added even more to the camera, like the ability to use the volume up button as a dedicated shutter button. It makes sense for a number of reasons. Firstly it's easier to hold the phone steady and press the button than touch the screen, so less shaky photos as a result. Also, it's far easier to snap a picture of yourself with the main camera using the button.

Shooting at arm's length, we found the best technique was to line up our eye in the shiny Apple logo on the back of the phone. This framed us nicely within the shot. Simple. If composition is your thing, you'll also be able to overlay a grid so you can use the rule of thirds for framing.

Once you do finally take your picture, you’ll now get new editing features too. Press the edit button on a photo and you get the chance to rotate it, magically enhance it using Apple’s algorithm, apply red-eye fix and, finally, and most helpfully, the ability to crop the image either manually, or in various formats (square, 4 x 6, 5 x 7, etc.). The original image is kept intact for you to still edit, however, you don’t get a separate image clogging up your photo album.

You'll also get Photo Stream, part of iCloud. Photo Stream will appear on your iOS devices, recent versions of iPhoto and Aperture as well as on Apple TV, so you can get those pictures you snap easily, be that for editing or sharing.

Twitter baked in

You like Twitter, we like Twitter, it seems Apple likes Twitter a lot with the social networking service being baked into the OS at a core level. 

In practice it means that everything has a Tweet option allowing you to share it regardless of whether you’ve previously had a Twitter app installed or not. All you have to do is put your Twitter details in via the settings pane and you’re done.

There is even a dedicated new keyboard that includes easy access to the hash and @ keys for you to share your love of whatever you are trying to tweet. Sadly, there is no auto complete on hashtags, but there is on people you follow as soon as you start typing after the @ symbol. You are also able to add your location, should you dare.

Twitter has infiltrated everywhere. Contact details, photo sharing, web page sharing, you name it, it’s there. Welcomed as it is, it doesn't go as far as offering you sharing beyond Twitter. You've got all these apps installed, but if you want Facebook, you still have to go to Facebook, if you want Flickr you have to go to Flickr, whereas Android will accumulate your sharing options into the Share list so you can take your pick.

As a result, Twitter inclusion is nice, but it's is only really a tiny step in making iOS more sociable: you'll still need to move around a lot of different apps if you want to spread things far and wide.

Safari browsing, tabbed pages, Reader and Reading list

Safari has had a series of updates too. The main one for iPad users is tabbed browsing allowing you to zip through webpages quickly. It works really well and as with most things, should have been there from the start. iPad users also get gesture swiping which reflects some of the navigation changes that recently came to OS X Lion.

For the iPhone and the iPad you now get private browsing in the browser that you can switch on and off via the settings. Marked by a black surround rather than a blue one, it means your history isn’t captured and stored. It also means that you can ditch the need for a third party browser like Atomic browser for surfing to places you probably shouldn’t be.

Private browsing or not, a new feature that has come from desktop Safari is Reader. This bit of technology allows you to strip out all the ads and garbage from the page so you can read the text easily on the screen. Thankfully for web publishers, it looks like you still have to load the page to start with so they can still earn money from advertising, but once you’ve loaded the page into Reader you can then change the font size making it bigger and easier to read.

If you haven't got time to read it there and then, you can opt to add it to your reading list for later. Cleverly this also syncs with Safari on your PC, so you can add a page to a reading list to then pick-up on your device later, which is really handy. Your bookmarks from your desktop browser will also sync across devices.

iCloud and syncing

iCloud is a new feature that we've already looked at in some detail. It ties together your iOS devices and your PC, using your Apple ID. Effectively, it is an umbrella for a range of services, so we've already seen here, and some that are new. iCloud can also be accessed online for various functions on iCloud.com.

iCloud is controlled via the settings in iOS where you can turn on and off iCloud integration with various areas. Basically it can be applied to mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, bookmarks, notes, photo stream, documents & data and finally find my phone (or other device).

There are also iCloud backup options. Previously you'd backup your iDevice when connected to your PC via iTunes. You still get that option, but now you can backup and restore from iCloud, so you don't need the PC at all. This backup contains your device options, settings, app data and other bits, and we've found from using the restore function that it effectively took the phone and put it back the way it was, which is very smart and easy to do.

iCloud.com will let you access various things. It offers you mail, calendar, contacts, iWork and find my iPhone. Mail works with a @me.com addresses and isn't a global webmail service, but if you use, or want to use, me.com, then you can set that up across Apple devices. Calendar and contacts is straight syncing from your iPhone/iPad with iCloud, and then on to iCal and address book in OS X (10.7.2 required).

It's nice to know that your contacts are safe in the cloud somewhere and that changes you make on the device will be reflected in Address Book and iCal without the need to sync with wires, but we couldn't make it work with our existing Google accounts. As such, we still have iCal syncing with Google Calendars, but that doesn't then travel through to iCloud, so it isn't going to be a perfect solution for everyone.

iWork is pretty clever in iCloud, as it will sync with iOS versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote, so you can access documents across your iOS devices. Taking this further, iCloud.com will let you upload and download these documents so you can work on them on your PC. It doesn't appear to offer integration with iWork OS X applications yet, but we're sure that's not too far off.

Overall, the syncing side of things is great for those with a simple system, but if you're already hooked into Google, you might find it unnecessary, or limiting. We like the way that documents are handled, although there is very little to let you organise those docs - it isn't like Dropbox where you can establish lots of folders, so will probably only really appeal to those who want access to mobile docs on an ad hoc basis.

For more on iCloud, read our feature: Living in iCloud.

iTunes in the Cloud, Wi-Fi syncing

Forming a big part of the iCloud picture is iTunes in the Cloud. This is part of the puzzle that sees you being able to banish your cables and move into that "post-PC" era. Effectively iTunes in the Cloud means that your iOS devices will sync with content that you buy without you having to do anything. Buy a song on your iPhone and it will appear in iTunes on your PC and on your iPad. It doesn't copy your music into iCloud, it just releases it from Apple to your device.

What it doesn't do, however, is let you play your music from the cloud like Android Music does - there is no iCloud.com player for you to access on any computer. It isn't really new either - if you paid for an app you always could download it on another device without paying again, but the system is much slicker now.

An additional service, iTunes Match, will be rolled out in the US at a cost of $24.99 a year. This will deal with music that you didn't buy from iTunes, for example a CD you ripped, or something from AmazonMP3. If iTunes can identify the track it will then let you have that across devices from Apple's collection again. If it can't recognise it, it will import your own file and make it available elsewhere. User in the UK won't have the service, although it is estimated to arrive in 2012. 

Choosing an app via iTunes on the desktop and it also appearing on your iPhone at the same time is great. It's something that Android users have had for a while through the Android Market website, although that also lets you choose which device to send the app to so you can do it from any computer with an Internet browser. In some ways, delivering apps to iTunes on your computer now feels unnecessary. 

We've put these together with Wi-Fi syncing because for many the two will go hand-in-hand. Whilst you can now setup your iOS device without the need for a physical connection to your PC, that isn't the end of the story. If you want to sync via cable you still can and you'll need to connect to iTunes on your PC to let it know that you want to sync via Wi-Fi.

In the past you'd have to leave the device connected, now you can check the "Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi" box and that's all you need to do. Thereafter iTunes will know about your device and you can sync it when both are connected to the same Wi-Fi network all things being well.

Within iTunes you still get the normal run of options, so you can control what is synced and we like the fact you can toggle syncing from either end by pressing the sync button on your device or in iTunes. Automatic syncing is also available, triggered when the device is charging, and connected to the same network as your PC.

It all sounds great, but we've found it can be a bit hit and miss. Sometimes syncing happens and you barely even notice. Sometimes you'll find iTunes and iPhone refuse to talk to each other over Wi-Fi, sometimes you'll find that one says it is syncing and the other doesn't. Often we'll get the message that syncing will take place when our MacBook is ready, but with no determinable reason for it not being available.

Newsstand, reminders

Newsstand is what iBooks is for magazines and newspapers allowing you to manage your subscriptions. This will be one that appeals more to iPad owners than iPhone owners we're sure, but it is another avenue to content for you to consume. 

Reminders is essentially a to do list. The nice thing about them is that you can not only set yourself a task, but you can set a time frame and a location. So if you need to remember to do something whilst out, for example on your way home from a meeting, you can set it to remind you when you leave that address. Unfortunately the locations seem rather limited. You can select a current location or an address in your Contacts but that's it. That's fine is you have your local dry cleaner in there so you can remember to pick up your laundered suit, but otherwise it doesn't quite hit the mark.

And finally...

We've looked at number of new features at add to the iOS experience. Of course some things haven't really changed. The system still looks and behaves in much the same way as it has done from the birth of the iPhone. The grid of icons remains unchanged and the world of widgets and home screens isn't here. Sure, you can change the lockscreen picture or the wallpaper, you can make folders of apps and change the icons, but there isn't the range of options that Android offers you, or the live tile excitement of Windows Phone 7.

The App Store continues to offer the best selection of app around and even though the Android Market offers a substantial choice, it's clear that developers push a lot of app innovation towards iOS first. You can find some of the best apps sitting ready for iOS and the stability is a step ahead of Android. Much as we love Google's mobile OS, it does throw up more faults for us in daily use than iOS does.

There is also a consistency in iOS that isn't matched in other mobile platforms. Although things like BlackBerry OS and Android offer you more controls and more settings, they can be a little disparate. By comparison, having all your "location services" settings for apps in one place and having app options all bundled together can make control of everything easy to find. It might make apps feel a little inflexible at times but you can't complain about being consistent.

Tags: Apple Phones Mobile phones iOS 5 iPad 2 iPhone 4 iPhone 4S iPhone 3GS iPod Touch iPhone 3G Tablets

Apple iOS 5 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:39:00 +0100

The HTC Sensation XL pushes out 4.7-inches of glorious display to fill with your Android ambitions. It's the latest flagship phone to launch from HTC, much rumoured and leaked, and now unleashed upon the world. It picks up much of what the HTC Titan set out on Windows Phone 7 and effectively gives you the Android equivalent, but with a few treats thrown in.

But does this phone bite off more than it can chew? Is it big and clever? We got the chance to spend some time with the phone prior to launch to bring you our first impressions. 

Design and build

Let's start with the design. HTC have stuck to their tried and tested approach of a machined aluminium back, with a bottom section finished in rubberised plastic to ensure plenty of reception. Like the HTC Sensation, the entire back comes away from the front, so effectively all the innards are attached to the back of that massive screen.

It feels solid in the hand. There are no plastic sections to creak as you manipulate it, there are no odd panels or coloured sections. It's just big, clean and white. But it isn't as attractive in design as the regular Sensation which by comparison looks more sophisticated with it's speaker cutout and contoured screen edges.  

The flat front of the screen gives you four touch controls across the bottom, home, menu, back and search. On the top you have the normal standby button and 3.5mm headphone jack, with volume controls on the side. A single Micro-USB is on the bottom edge - there is no HDMI out, as you might find on rival devices.

At 9.9mm thick, the HTC Sensation XL sits in the hand well, be there's no avoiding the magnitude of the screen. It's huge, but we didn't find that to be a problem when it came to navigation. We could control the phone one handed, although those with smaller hands will probably encounter problems reaching the standby button.

It does dwarf other devices. The iPhone 4 looks positively dinky next to it and HTC's existing big screened device the HTC Sensation is dwarfed too. The HTC Sensation XL just about pulls this off because it still remains usable, but at 162.5g, it's a pretty hefty phone. The dimensions are 132.5 x 70.7 x 9.9mm for stats fans.

The hardware

The 4.7-inch touchscreen on the front is vibrant, but at 800 x 480 pixels, has a fairly low pixel density of 198ppi. Ok, it isn't a low density per se, but we know that some are going to see this as a missed opportunity to pack in a higher resolution display - especially as the HTC Sensation has a 960 x 540 resolution. As a result, even though you can get plenty on the display, you'll still need to zoom to resolve finer details, such as text on a web page.

Some might also question the Qualcomm MSM 8255 1.5GHz single core chipset (and 768MB RAM) rather than the more fashionable dual core processors you'll find in other large display models, including the Sensation XE. Absolute numbers aren't the whole story however and whether the power is sufficient will come down to performance and how the phone handles day-to-day tasks both at launch and into the future. This is something we'll have to determine when we get the phone in for a full review. 

From our quick play the phone seemed snappy enough. HTC Sense 3.5 was slick and fast, there was no sign of lag as we opened and closed apps and explored what was on offer. But this was a demo device and not loaded with our own content, so again, we'll have to wait and see what the real world performance is like.

Another slight oddity of the HTC Sensation XL is the memory. There is no external memory option, so you can't add a microSD card. Internally there is 16GB of storage, but only 12.64GB is available for the user. This might be limiting for some, especially if you want to carry a large movie selection to watch on that huge screen. 

HTC Sense 3.5

One noticeable difference is that HTC Sense is slightly different on the HTC Sensation XL. Given the extra screen space available, HTC has shrunk down the hallmark clock widget, so you could add more to the front page. But we did feel as though things were a little too spaced out. Open up the menu and the icons are big, but not only that - the space between the icons looks too large. Effectively you get the same menu as you do on other HTC devices and we feel they could have tightened things up a bit to give you more apps per page.

This is the third HTC Sense 3.5 device to launch. HTC Sense 3.5 as seen on the HTC Explorer and HTC Rhyme is simplified slightly, with a cleaner front page. The HTC Sensation XL returns to the typical look and feel of HTC Sense we've seen in the past, so the dock sits at the bottom of the homepages.

Otherwise HTC Sense 3.5 acts as Sense always has done in the past, offering up bags of connectivity and integrated features. We noticed that Dropbox was preinstalled on this device, but HTC would neither confirm or deny whether there was any special deal - news of which we bought you before - but inclusion of the app make us think there probably is. 

The HTC Sensation XL runs Android 2.3.5 at launch.

Beats by Dr Dre and the rest

HTC has been lavishing attention on its camera for a long time. The immediate thing you notice when you fire up the camera app is just how incredible everything looks on the screen. It's a vast preview of the scene before you, with HTC equipping the Sensation XL with an 8-megapixel sensor and 28mm F/2.2 lens.

There are plenty of effects included, but not much new adding to the mix, and we'd like to see some effects that add a bit of retro magic, although these can easily be picked up on Android Market. Video capture only comes in at 720p, which is perfectly acceptable, but again, we suspect some will question why HTC didn't make this a superphone and bundle Full HD capture in there as well. 

One of the big unique features of the HTC Sensation XL is the tie in with Beats. This is the second Beats branded handset to launch after the Sensation XE. As with that phone, you'll get a set of iBeats headphones (which HTC are calling upbeats) in the box. This is partnered with a software audio profile to optimise performance for these specific headphones.

There will also be a "special edition" HTC Sensation XL, which comes with a pair of Beats Solo headphones (pictured here without the red cable). Again, the phone will detect that you've connected the headphones and give you an audio profile specifically for the Solo headphones. These headphones will come in white, but HTC wasn't able to tell us who would be stocking this special edition bundle.

We have only spent a hour or so with the phone so we can't comment on battery life, but the spec sheet tells us it is a 1600mAh cell. This sounds rather low for a device this size, so we don't have high hopes of making it through a full day on a single charge.

Related links:

• News - HTC Sensation XL announced
• Feature - HTC Sensation XL vs Samsung Galaxy S II
• Feature - HTC Sensation XL vs HTC Sensation XE vs HTC Sensation

Tags: Phones Mobile phones HTC HTC Sensation XL Android First look

First Look: HTC Sensation XL originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:00:00 +0100

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a 3.7-inch touchscreen smartphone, sweeping aside the Storm name to give RIM another crack at a keyboardless device. It arrives with BlackBerry OS7, the same as the BlackBerry Bold 9900 which we reviewed recently, but offering a large screen BlackBerry experience.

Touchscreen devices are the most competitive category of smartphones. With big players producing increasingly sophisticated devices and refining the user experience at such a pace the BlackBerry Torch 9860 faces a huge challenge. Can BlackBerry still make an impact on the consumer space, or does forgoing a keyboard leave the handset toothless? 

Design and controls

BlackBerry devices have been consistent in their design over the past few generations. One glance and you know the Torch 9860 is a BlackBerry. The framing of the two halves of the device with the silver band reflects a design highlight BlackBerry have been using for a couple of years. The soft curve at the top of the phone means you don't get a hard edge against your ear when you make a call.

By contrast, there is a sharp, hard, edge at the back of the phone and given the location of the lock/unlock on the top of the device, it's almost impossible to unlock the display comfortably using one hand. It's a small point and one of the first things we noticed. Even so, after about a week of use it stopped bothering us.

Running across the bottom of the display are a familiar selection of controls and all are physical buttons that stand proud of the body of the phone, unlike the flattened controls of the Bold 9900 or Torch 9810. Having pronounced controls might seem a little retro but at least you don't knock them as you use the device, so accidental presses are almost non-existent.

The screen tapers off to the left and right too, which makes it nice to swipe across the entire width of the phone, something that BB7 will let you do, thumbing through the menus or your messages. 

The delicate contouring of the body of the phone around the 3.5mm headphone jack and the Micro-USB look great. It's nice to see attention to detail, especially design detail, but it does makes the BlackBerry Torch 9810 look a little unloved.

Measuring 120 x 62 x 11.5mm it's a good size too, although we feel the 120mm height is perhaps a little larger than it needs to be - we don't know how many extra millimetres went into those ends that feel just a bit too sharp.

We've mentioned main controls running across the bottom of the screen. These give you proper calling buttons, although BlackBerry now doesn't colour the call accept and reject buttons in green and red respectively, instead they are all white. Then there are menu button, the clickable, optical, navigation key and finally the back button.

Running down the side of the handset you'll find the usual arrangement of volume controls, in the centre of which is an additional button which will act as play/pause for your music, although, annoyingly, it won't launch the music player if it isn’t already open. Finally there is the convenience key that can be programmed to launch an app of your choosing. 

Screen and hardware

Being a touch model and offering a large 3.7-inch display mean that the screen has to be good. It offers you resolution of 800 x 400 pixels, making it comparable to a number of Android and Windows Phone 7 devices. One thing is clear here: BlackBerry has figured out that people do care about specs. 

What we find interesting, however, is that this gives you a different aspect to the BlackBerry Torch 9810, so across all the current devices you have different screen ratios. In the Torch 9860's favour, this is at least fairly conventional, so when you pair it up against something like the HTC Desire S your screen real estate is effectively the same. 

It is a bright and vibrant screen. In direct sunlight we had no problem making out the details, with colours staying authentic, which is great. At the other end of the scale, however, it doesn't seem to want to dim to save the strain on your eyes - and battery - as the light drops, so you'll find that at night it can be a little dazzling.

But we're impressed with the performance.  It is sharp, video playback looks good and the colour is impressive - a little on the warm side of the colour scale, but that brings a nice vibrancy to reds.

Elsewhere on the hardware front you'll find a 1.2GHz processor under the hood, along with 768MB RAM and 4GB of internal memory. This internal memory can be further boosted by microSD card. Hardware specs aren't the measure of a mobile phone, but with more and more people seeking out these sorts of numbers, at least the Torch 9860 comes to the track with the right kit.

Software and keyboard

Hardware can only get you so far however, if your software isn't optimised then the user experience will suffer. Refining software is something that RIM has been doing for a number of years, resulting in the most recent iteration of the operating system BB7. It isn't significantly different from BB6 visually, more of a refinement of the changes ushered in with the last generation. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but a doubt hangs over these new BlackBerry devices with ongoing discussion of a move to the QNX platform next year. As it is, the user experience on the Torch 9860 is somewhat marred by the software: at times it will drag its heels or stop responding for reasons you can't quite determine.

Some things obviously do have an impact on it: installing apps seems to tax the phone, locking you out of pretty much everything else and we've found that the homescreen and the browser would both regularly hang. We would often have to pull the battery to get it going again.

Of course the feature that BlackBerry owners get excited about is email, and you'll find everything present and correct. Setup out of the box is a breeze and within a few minutes you'll find yourself connected, receiving email and logged into your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Giving the nod to Google users, you can set up syncing to pull over your contacts and calendar too, which were swiftly handled. Unfortunately, as we've seen before, if you have more than one calendar associated with a Google account then you can't access them all: so we had to resort to Google Sync (the app) to bring the other calendar into line.

Take this step with caution, however, as we subsequently found that our PC calendar then had the appointments in triplicate, with no logical discernable method of easily tidying things back up again.

BlackBerry 7 offers up a respectable user experience and is more adept at touch control than in the past. A long press often brings up the pertinent menu controls, but you'll still find yourself needing the full menu to really get things going.

On other BlackBerry devices you have the advantage that you can easily get things going with the keyboard by using universal search. That advantage has now gone because you have to use the on-screen keyboard, although universal search is still in place, along with voice search. 

Voice searching did a good job of picking out for contacts, but once you get into more difficult language, like the name of our local vet for example, the success ratio drops off rapidly. At least you get the run of universal search applications to choose from, be it BlackBerry Maps, Twitter, YouTube, etc. 

The default keyboard itself isn't especially good. We're spoilt from using great third-party Android keyboards, which make BB7's keyboard look rather prehistoric. But with some tinkering you can probably find the right settings for you, the first port of call for us was speeding up the response from the keyboard as the default is rather sluggish.

Of course the keyboard opens whenever you enter a text field and can be closed with a quick swipe down the middle. After that you'll either have to find another text field to open it, or you'll have to open the menu and hit the "Show Keyboard" option. You might want to do this to take advantage of some of the BB shortcuts, like "T" for "top", for example.

In portrait we found the full keyboard was just too cramped and too inaccurate, meaning text entry slowed right down. Fortunately the reduced keyboard is also an option, the same as appears on the likes of the Pearl 8100 series, with two characters on each key. The phone can then sensibly pick out the words you're trying to write and the whole experience gets much better, as long as you don't need too many special characters. Some of the traditional BB shortcuts still work too, like a double space for full stop, or a space for inserting the @ into an email in an address field.

The core BlackBerry applications work well enough: universal inbox pulling in messages from all sources, including apps, and in many cases we've found the BlackBerry Facebook app to be much faster than the equivalent on Android. Being able to compose a message and get an option of just about all message types to send to is useful too. 

We're not huge fans of BlackBerry Maps, which looks a little dated compared to most other mapping services like Google or Bing Maps on Windows Phone 7, but will just about do the job and Google Maps can be installed if you prefer. We found that there was no link from the calendar locations through to maps, leaving us to copy and paste. At least copy and paste is relatively simple to control, but can be a little too eager, for example selecting text in the Twitter app, when all you really want to do is scroll.

Browser and apps

The biggest change, however, is the browser. BlackBerry knew they had to improve it, and it really has done. It is now much faster than previously, so straight website browsing is a pleasure, with pages quick to load. 

However, it isn't without problems. We've already mentioned that we experienced a lot of lock-ups when using the browser and this is a problem compounded by one of the other issues that faces the Torch 9860 and BB7 devices: apps.

Without dedicated apps, you'll spend more time using the browser to access those services, or that information, to get what you need. Although BlackBerry has BBC iPlayer, Spotify, eBay, Skype apps, for example, they aren't available for the Torch 9860. Head to the BBC iPlayer website and you'll get the standard "Your phone isn't supported" message. 

What this points to is the immediate need for apps to be updated to give the Torch 9860 the best fighting chance as a competitive handset. Of course we found the same position with the Bold 9900 when we reviewed it in August and we're no better off. With the spectre of QNX hanging over this generation of devices, we can't be entirely confident it'll get the attention it needs to shine.

Camera and multimedia

With 3.7-inches of screen on offer video certainly comes to the fore. Despite the very obvious omission of Flash video support limiting your consumption of common online video, we found that local content was handled nicely. HD media from the memory card was delivered smoothly, so if you happen to have a stack of MPEG4 movies, then you'll be able to easily enjoy them on your phone. There is no sign of DLNA support however.

The 5-megapixel camera on the rear of the device is supported by an LED flash, suffering from the usual shortcomings you'd expect from a phone. Low light shots aren't great, but in good light, the Torch 9860 will give you reasonable results. Being an autofocus camera, you'll get nice sharp images.

It does lack some excitement though, not offering anything by the way of effects. Video is also impressive, churning out good quality 720p footage at 30fps. Again, during video filming you'll find that you get continuous autofocus, so we don't have much to complain about.

Plug in a set of reasonable third-party headphones and you'll find that the BB Torch 9860 sounds sweet. The external speaker also provides good quality and volume, be that for sharing your tunes at the bus stop or that ad hoc conference call in your hotel room. 

Finally, we never had a problem getting through a day on the battery. We did come close to emptying it during a normal working day, but we never felt that we needed to leave the house on a full charge in the same way we often to with similar spec Android devices. 

Tags: Phones Mobile phones BlackBerry RIM BlackBerry Torch 9860

BlackBerry Torch 9860 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:26:32 +0100

Forza Motorsport 4 launches on 14 October and we were lucky enough to get in some game time prior to launch, as well as sit down for a chat with Dan Greenawalt, Creative Director at Turn 10 Studios.

Let’s get something clear from the start: Forza Motorsport 3 is one of our top titles on the Xbox 360. It has longevity that other driving games have lacked. The sheer beauty of the game, the thrill of the driving experience and everything wrapped up in the Forza world just keeps calling to us, long after other driving games have tailed off.

Updating a game like Forza 3 and convincing fans that they need to head out and buy a new version of Forza could be a hard sell. Can the graphics be drastically improved? Can the handling, or the selection of cars really be improved to justify parting with your hard cash? Can you add more features to a game that doesn’t seem to be obviously lacking?

We were unsure until we sat down in front of Forza Motorsport 4 for some undisturbed playtime. There is no question about it, whether you are an existing Forza fan or not, if you love cars, you’ll want Forza Motorsport 4.

One of the big new features of Forza Motorsport 4 is the collaboration with Top Gear, which we’ll visit at various points as we go along. However, as soon as you start the game, you are welcomed with a short intro narrative from Jeremy Clarkson. If you’re a Top Gear fan, this will draw you into the game like no other opening sequence: it’s spin-tingling stuff.

If you find Clarkson’s monotonous drone unbearable, then it’s soon over and you can get down to the serious business of driving. The opening race takes you into the Swiss Alps behind the wheel of a Ferrari, so you get a taste for things to come. But then, launching into the career you’ll find yourself presented with a selection of small cars.

We picked the Toyota Aygo. Why? Because driving a type of car earns you loyalty with that manufacturer and we figured that somewhere along the line we’d get discounts on Toyota upgrades. The logic doesn’t quite follow through in practise, but we did progress to another Toyota soon after: the mighty Yaris S. 

To be fair, moving from the Ferrari to the Aygo is a bit of a shock. It feels as though you aren’t really getting anywhere as you hit your first few races, but progress is fairly quick through your Forza 4 career. Before long we’d found ourselves behind the wheel of a VW Golf GTi Mk II, which is where things started to get interesting.

Forza is well known for its system of upgrades and race categories. As you race you earn credits, which in turn can be traded for upgrades as you move along. With each race designed for a specific category of car, you can upgrade your car to make sure you are competitive in the races you are offered. It’s perfectly possible to improve your car too much and jump up a category and this is where some of the passion comes into Forza.

We made good progress during the 90 minutes or so we spent playing our new career, upgrading the Golf GTi from the class D car it was, through class C to class B. Why? Because a close friend owns and races exactly that model of car and it seemed like a fun thing to do. Along the way we acquired better cars by winning races and cruising through levels, but this is the thing about Forza Motorsport 4: it’s about finding the cars you want to drive and then getting on with the action.

Skipping out of the career mode you get free racing, of course (along with a whole host of other options in multiplayer which we didn’t explore and a Rivals mode) where you will get the chance to select from the huge array of cars on offer in Forza, but ultimately, for us, it felt more rewarding to see how far we could get with our Golf GTi.

The Amateur division came and went and we were well into the Clubman division before our time ran out and by that stage driving a Class B car, it feels like the racing game you want it to be. The speed and the acceleration are all evident, stamping on the brakes, lifting off the gas, the car rocks and wobbles as you’d expect it to. Sure, taking out an R3 car is much more severe, but there is a huge amount of fun to be had in Forza 4 driving whatever car you want.

In terms of the actual driving experience, it’s very similar to Forza Motorsport 3, and that’s a good thing. The handling of the cars feels right and you notice the difference in power between cars, or the grip in the corners. Driving a new car is more than just a different shape and colour, each car is a completely different driving experience. 

Adding to this experience will be the new Kinect features. The most significant gesture-based feature is likely to be head tracking, which will subtly change the view as you move your head. It’s designed to complement driving experience, rather than be a gimmick. We’ll have to give it a good testing before we pass any verdict, and unfortunately in our extended play, we didn’t get to use Kinect.

If you’ve played Forza 3 (and we’re guessing you have) then you’ll be familiar with the run of assists you are offered. On easy mode progress is exactly that and it doesn’t take much to win races. But that’s no fun, tweak the assists and it’s not only more rewarding, but you have the chance to develop and grow as a driver. 

The AI has been tweaked and the most obvious place we noticed this was on the straights. The aim has been to improve the wheel-to-wheel driving experience, Greenawalt tells us. We noticed that outpacing opponents on a straight was less common than in Forza 3; instead, we found that we were working the corners more, which is an AI tweak by design.

Of course we didn’t have that long (in the life of a Forza driver) to really play the game, but we had long enough to appreciate the immersive environment you are offered: the graphics are jaw-droppingly beautiful rattling past at 60 frames a second, the sound of the cars is sensational. Paired, as we were, with a gaming headset and a huge TV, Forza Motorsport 4 is a game that completely absorbs you into its environment. This is the sort of game that will eat your weekend at breakneck speed.

But Forza Motorsport 4 isn’t just about racing: it’s about a passion for cars. One of the new elements to Forza Motorsport 4 is something called Auto Vista. As the name suggests, it’s all about checking-out cars. Dan Greenawalt, suggested that Auto Vista is like a gallery where every car is an exhibit. To us, it is like unadulterated car porn.

In Auto Vista you can explore cars, get right into the detail under the bonnet, sit in the driving seat and start the engine to listen to it purr. And this isn’t just like walking into a car showroom and poking around, because you also get a little Top Gear thrown into the mix.

Jeremy Clarkson will give you a voiceover on the cars. We listened to a couple of examples and it’s littered with Clarkson comedy, so Top Gear fans will feel right at home. It’s in Auto Vista you’ll find the Halo Warthog and other Easter eggs, with new, rare, cars appearing for your delectation as you explore. Greenawalt went as far as to point out that the Bentley 8 Litre was the one from Jay Leno’s garage and the level of detail is astonishing. 

Back to our racing career and we hit our first Top Gear level. To be honest, we’re not sure how we feel about it at the moment. From completing a series of races, the Top Gear Challenge seems surprisingly light hearted, especially if racing is what you want Forza for. It’s over fairly quickly, but you end up driving around the Top Gear test track knocking over bowling pins. For some, it might be too much like Mario Kart.

In the gaming time we had, this was the only Top Gear level we saw, so we don’t know how often they’ll appear - something we’ll have to look at when we get to our Forza Motorsport 4 review in the coming weeks.

Tags: Gaming Xbox 360 Forza Motorsport 4 Driving games Microsoft Kinect First look Top Gear

First Look: Forza Motorsport 4 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:00:00 +0100

ViewSonic said they would touchdown early with a 7-inch tablet and here we have it. The ViewSonic ViewPad 7x joins a market that already seems saturated. But has the age of the 10-inch tablet passed? At 7-inches we pass into new territory, a type of device that gives you more portability and pocketability. 

With tablets slotting into that third screen role, they’re becoming that bedroom, bathroom and sofa companion, a constant connection to the outside world, a way to browse the Internet whilst watching TV, a source of entertainment at any juncture: they’re doing what we were all using our phones for last year.

The 10-1-inch market has its contenders, but the smaller format market is less established. We liked what ViewSonic did with the ViewPad 7, but berated the lack of power and the OS was a poor fit. But with the ViewPad 7x, all that looks set to change.

Design

About the only thing we have to complain about with the design of the ViewPad 7x is the glossy back. Although it hides subtle red detailing deep within the plastic, you’ll spend more time wiping it clear of fingerprints than you’ll probably like. Although it looks black, when the light catches it at an angle you’ll catch the crimson, with triangular detailing matching the triangular cutouts for the rear 5-megapixel camera and LED flash openings.

The red waistband continues the colour theme, and like many devices these days, the contrasting colour highlights the connections and physical controls. Being a Honeycomb tablet the main interactive controls reside on-screen, leaving only the standby button and volume rocker as hard buttons. Stereo speakers sit at either end, a conventional 3.5mm headphone jack, micro HDMI and Micro-USB have their place, along with a covered bay to accept a microSD card, with up to 32GB supported. The micro HDMI will, with the appropriate cable, allow you to mirror the device on a larger screen - which looks great and will let you show off your content with consummate ease. 

Like many other recent tablets, you’ll need to use the DC input to charge it - the Micro-USB is only there as a data connection. The real positive point is how good the ViewPad 7x feels compared to something like ViewSonic’s ViewPad 10s. It feels solid, and whilst some might say it is weighty, at 380g it is noticeably lighter than its larger rivals, as you’d expect.

Power in your palm

Measuring 122 x 195 x 12mm and with a screen diagonal of 7-inches, it moves itself from a tablet you need a bag to carry, to one that actually fits in your pocket. This is not only ViewSonic’s line on the device, but the reality. Having been swanning around the house with the ViewPad 7x for more than a week, we’ve found ourselves slipping it into the dressing gown pocket when heading downstairs to make the morning tea, or slipping it into the inside pocket of a jacket when stepping out of the door.

Of course, this being a Honeycomb device it doesn’t have that big phone feel that 2010’s Samsung Galaxy Tab did (of similar dimensions) as Android 3.x Honeycomb is much better suited to larger devices than Android 2.x builds are.

Toeing the line for recent tablets, you’ll also find that the ViewPad 7x competes internally, with a dual core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset, as you’ll find in the likes of the Motorola Xoom, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and numerous smartphones. On the RAM front you get 1GB, with 8GB of internal memory (some used by the OS however). All in all, it’s an impressive loadout, especially compared to the rather underpowered ViewPad 7 forebear.

Sweet Honeycomb: now pocket sized

Before we proceed further, we’d like to make it clear that, because we’re amongst the first to see the ViewPad 7x, the device on review here wasn’t the firmware that the retail device will ship with. ViewSonic has told us, even as we write this, that a later build has just arrived with them. We’re also aware that some of the preinstalled applications that will ship with the final device weren’t included on our review device.

If the ViewPad 7x was riddled with problems then that might be an issue, but in this case it isn’t. The Android 3.2 build running on the ViewPad 7x was stable and didn’t present us with any problems. We did encounter some problems with apps however. The likes of IMDb and Movies from Flixster were persistently crashing, and Gameloft’s Backstab HD claimed it wasn’t compatible and prompted us to get a refund. The core experience, the Google apps, seemed to run fine, and it’s difficult to judge whether this is a device problem, or a wider issue with apps on smaller Honeycomb devices, as we know the Acer Iconia A100 also has some app compatibility problems. 

We’ve talked a lot about Honeycomb in our review of Google’s tablet OS, so we’re not going to laboriously repeat all that here except to say that we’re impressed by how neatly Honeycomb fits onto this smaller device. At first glance it looks the same: controls, notifications and general behaviour are all the same, but once you put it alongside a larger device you’ll see how screen space has been put to best use. For example, heading into the settings and you’ll find that some of the headers in the different categories move out of the main info box to the top of the screen to give it more space. Likewise, head into the YouTube app and you get two rows of thumbnails rather than three. Minor differences, but they leave us with a sense that Honeycomb works here.

Of course this being Android, once you’ve signed into your account(s), the contents of the Googleverse will pour into the ViewPad 7x. Your Gmail, contacts, calendars, YouTube subscriptions and so on will all be there. You’ll get access to the Android Market, offering up its tasty treats for you to snack on, so you can download your favourite apps, games and anything else (with the caveat that some might crash). 

A different view

ViewSonic haven’t just left the ViewPad 7x to languish in Google glory, with differentiation coming in the form of a number of preinstalled applications. The biggest of these is something they are calling ViewScene 3D, a modified version of SPB Shell 3D. The 3D isn’t just in name - you can actually enable 3D, although without a 3D screen you’ll have to make do with anaglyph and don a pair of coloured glasses. 

This interface replaces the homescreens you’ll normally find in Honeycomb, giving you a set of customisable panes that you can swipe through, adding widgets and shortcuts as you’d expect. There are a number of live widgets that come with the shell which are unique (i.e., they’re not Honeycomb widgets), but you can add regular Android widgets in too. It doesn’t all behave the same way as Honeycomb, so you don’t get resizable widgets, but that’s a minor point, considering what the included widgets offer.

ViewScene 3D doesn’t just depend on swiping, there is a slider across the bottom, which pops the interface back into a rotating 3D view which you can spin and select the screen you want. But taking it a step further, if you pause on a screen, you’ll find the widgets are animated, so pause on the calendar widget, and the day’s appointments will pop-up and scatter over the screen, land on the weather page and it pops-out animated weather for your selected cities. It’s pretty clever.

As we mentioned, there were some software differences between our review model and the models that will eventually hit the shelves. One is ViewScene 3D, which on our device wasn’t part of the preinstalled apps. As result, when we started the device up we had the option to choose between the regular Honeycomb launcher or the ViewScene 3D interface - assuming this remains the case on retail units, you’ll be able to try both and then decide which suits your needs, abandoning ViewSonic's modification if you don't like it.

For us, ViewScene 3D isn’t too offensive, but given the simplicity of Honeycomb and the full range of customisation it offers we’d happily live without it. Admittedly things like the weather pane are useful and it’s impressive to show off the 3D spinning homepages. If you’re interesting, head over to Android Market and check out SPB Shell 3D, on which it is based.

Elsewhere, ViewSonic will be including a full version of LogMeIn Ignition, which will let you access your PC from your tablet (we saw a similar thing with SplashTop on the Asus Eee Pad). You’ll also get Angry Birds and the Kindle app pre-installed. Essentially, although the latter two are free, it means you’re ready to get started entertaining yourself straightaway. We also found Myriad UPnP in place, which capably streamed music, video and photos from our Cisco media server, which is a convenient addition.

The final addition is the TouchPal keyboard. This keyboard is in addition to the default Android keyboard so you can easily switch between the two. Neither is especially good, with the TouchPal variant being a little too fiddly when it comes to entering anything beyond simple words - alternative characters or digits means moving to a different section and then back again. Both keyboards are easily bettered by something by SwiftKey Tablet X which you can get from the Android Market and offers a better experience. At this size, holding the tablet in two hands and bashing out emails with your thumbs is easy.

Display

The display, with a resolution of 1024 x 600, giving you a pixel density of 169ppi, is vibrant and capable of producing some great colours, although the whites are a little on the yellow side and the blacks aren’t the deepest we’ve seen. These things don’t worry us, but we did find that viewing angle from “above” can be a little restrictive.

This suggests there is an “up” and “down” in landscape modes, even though the screen content will rotate as you move the tablet. This is confirmed by the positioning of the speakers in the ends. When the speakers are uppermost, you’ll find you don’t obstruct them with your hands when gripping the ViewPad and you’ll then also get the most freedom with viewing angles. Get the ViewPad upside down and you’ll find your hands blocking the speakers and the screen blacking out - something you’ll soon get familiar with.

Whilst in landscape viewing this doesn’t really make much of a difference (“upside down” is better suited when using headphones due to the location of the 3.5mm port), when viewing the device in portrait you will notice that image quality from one side of the display drops off rapidly.

Entertainment on the move

Many people are finding that in reality, tablets aren’t the content creators they might have hoped. That’s no surprise to us, and although you can dive into apps like Evernote or Google Docs, you’ll find that you have less visible space than on larger devices once you fire the keyboard up. It isn’t impossible to organise yourself and email works pretty well, but entertainment feels much more at home on a device this size. 

We found that there was plenty of volume on offer from those speakers at the ends, although at higher volumes we found that there was a fair amount of vibration in the case. Connecting headphones will give you better audio results, although we found the steps in volume was a little severe at first, so it can be a challenge to find a quiet setting with headphones. We also encountered another issue - interference chirping from the Wi-Fi radio. We tried several pairs of headphones and found that they were both affected by the Wi-Fi - in airplane mode playing a video from the memory this isn’t a problem, but streaming a movie over Wi-Fi can be frustrating. 

One of the accepted advantages of Honeycomb over notable rivals like the iPad, is integrated Adobe Flash support. This means you get a more complete internet experience, with more websites behaving as they should. We fired up our old favourite 4OD and had no problem navigating the Flash-heavy site to watch catch-up TV. In fact, performance was better than on our Xoom, with the browser giving a strong showing for itself. 

The browser in general is very good, seemly free of the bugs of early Honeycomb days and offering a great overall internet experience. At 7-inches there’s more to play with than on your phone, but you lose that big screen convenience. Whereas on a 10-inch tablet you’ll find that many sites fit well, down on the smaller screen you lose a fair amount through the tabs and address bar, so it’s worth playing with Honeycomb’s Quick Controls in the browser to give yourself a little more screen space.

The ViewPad 7x is ideal for taking movies on your travels. We found it coped with common codecs, although there was no support for DivX or DivX HD. It handled 720p camcorder footage with some skill, giving cracking results. Of course, to widen the format support you can download other media players from the Android Market. 

Cameras

You’ll find both front and back cameras, the front 2-megapixel model offering video for applications like Skype or Google Talk, with the 5-megapixel rear camera offering to capture the world around you. The interface is the standard Honeycomb camera interface which is pretty basic, but we’ve never had a problem with it, seeing as other than in testing, we’ve never used a tablet for taking photos.

Perhaps that will be different with something as pocketable as the ViewPad 7x, but don’t get too excited as the resulting photos are just about average, and don’t hit the same good standards you now expect from your top-rung mobile phone. They demonstrate the hallmarks of camera phones, with plenty of fringing and invariably noisy images in lower light, but that’s nothing unusual for a tablet. Unfortunately our tests weren’t helped by the miserable British weather.

On the video front it will capture HD video of the 720p variety, at 30fps, on the highest quality settings. Nothing to get too excited about and once again we doubt you’ll use your tablet for much video capture anyway.

Related links:

• Review - Android 3.0 Honeycomb

Tags: Tablets Viewsonic Android Honeycomb Honeycomb Viewsonic ViewPad 7x

ViewSonic ViewPad 7x originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:46:00 +0100