If you are one of the many who were holding off on buying a new smartphone until after Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, it’s now time to make a decision. You’ve seen what the iPhone 5 has to offer and now it’s time to compare it to what’s available on Android. I’ll show you a few options, how they compare to the iPhone 5, and then you can decide what’s the best option for you. Ready to explore?
Like most of the iPhone 5, the new camera is a solid evolution rather than the big jump we saw in the earlier iPhones. It keeps the same ƒ2.4 lens aperture as the iPhone 4S and the same great 8MP sensor, but some tweaks to the lens, the new Lightning connector and the new A6 processor all make the iPhone 5 into the perfect new phone for photographers.
The chunky K-30 is the latest DSLR from Pentax. Don’t be deceived (or put off) by its unusual looks – in use, it’s a fantastic general-purpose camera that produces high quality, color-accurate pictures. Cult of Mac took it for a spin.
Sony says they’re getting ready to ship two drool-inducing new toys. The first is a new addition to its compact NEX series, the NEX-5R, equipped with wifi, an ultra-quick (according to Sony), hybrid phase-detection/contrast detection autofocus system and — here’s where it gets really interesting — the ability to download specialized apps.
The second is Sony’s entry into the exploding action-cam market; the aptly named Action Cam is a really tiny, 3-ounce (with battery) video camera that comes with a variety of outdoor-enthusiast mounting options and the ability to use a smartphone’s screen as a viewfinder.
Apple has won a massive damages sum of nearly $1.05 billion in the patent trial against Samsung and the reaction from the technology community has been vast and swift.
In an email immediately following the verdict, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles Golvin told us the main takeaway from the verdict is the focus on innovation. Companies will now be forced to create legitimately different products, or at least engineer some without extravagantly similar features:
The jury particularly vindicates Apple’s software patents and their decision has implications not just for Samsung, but also for Google, other Android device makers like LG, HTC, and Motorola, but also potentially for Microsoft who employs features such as pinch to zoom, bounce on scroll, etc. These competitors are now forced to go back to the drawing board and come up with substantively different designs — or seek settlement terms with Apple. Since many of these controls are now built into the expectations of customers in how they work their phones, those are substantive challenges.
Gartner analyst and VP of Mobile Research Van Baker agrees the redesign of products in the long term is an issue but that it won’t affect any products anytime soon.
This is a clear win for Apple but it will have little impact on the market in the near term as it is highly likely that there will be an appeal so we will have to repeat the process. If sustained it has the potential to force Samsung to redesign a number of products and it will apply significant pressure on all smartphone and tablet makers to avoid trying to emulate the Apple designs as they bring new products to market.
Earlier, the two principals in the case immediately followed the shocking judgement with their own statements.
Jawbone’s wireless Jambox speaker has been a fan favorite among mobile users for quite some time, and while everything about it rocks, users have been begging for more color choices. Those prayers haven’t fallen on deaf ears, as Jawbone has teased its next iteration of the Jambox: Jambox the Remix.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 made its debut last week and has already found its innards spread across a table for all to see. That’s right, I’m talking about the customary iFixit teardown. That’s when a member of the iFixit team dissects a device to expose its parts and determine its level of repairability. You’ll be happy to know the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 scored an 8 out of 10 for ease of repair, completely shaming Apple’s new iPad, which barely scored a 2.
We reviwed the STM Velo earlier this year, in our first encounter with the Aussie-based outfitter, and came away with the distinct impression that, wow, these guys really know how to make a great bag.
Our time with the STM Scout ($50), a tablet-specific, heavily-padded canvas satchel, proved that the outfit can make a sharp-looking protective bag for your Thrive, Galaxy Tab or iPad too — though it didn’t blow us away like the Velo did.
You’re an American, and you’ve just watched your athletes come away with a barrel full of gold medals in London. Maybe you’re feeling a little patriotic; maybe a little like you want to go out and train for Rio de Janiero. If so, then Monster has created the perfect earphones for you: A special edition “USA” version of their impressive, washable, iSport IEMs.
Are you guys ready to watch two brand new $500+ devices get ruined for no good reason? Sure you are. Someone decided it would be beneficial to humanity to tie an Apple iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy S III to the trunk of a car and drag them a couple hundred feet across the pavement. I bet you guys can guess what happens next.
As smartphone shipments surge, the mobile market remains dominated by two operating systems: Android and iOS. Android maintains a commanding lead, with over 68% of all smartphones shipping with the young and robust OS. This, of course, comes at the expense of its elders, such as BlackBerry and Symbian, while iOS keeps its small but steady pattern of growth as it gears up for the release of its next grand iteration.
Despite being noisy, big, heavy and hard to type on, clackety keyboards like the DAS are hot fashion right now, despite their impracticality (isn’t that always the way with fashion?). I kid. I actually use a DAS keyboard with my iMac, although to be honest I almost never use the iMac these days.
The only thing that really drives me crazy about the DAs, though, is the lack of media keys. F15 and F16, or whatever the last keys are in the top row, control screen brightness out of the box, but volume, media keys and other OS X essentials are lacking, leaving rather kludgy third-party fixes as the only way to add them back.
Now, the Model S Professional and Professional Silent models sport proper media keys. Three word: At frickin’ last.
No doubt some of you will spring for these simply after hearing the name; but Fanny Wang is hoping their new bud-style Wang Buds earphones will conquer a territory they feel noone really owns yet: The earphone middle ground between the comfort, safety and simplicity of the iconic Apple buds, and the sound reproduction generally achieved by in-ear monitors — think really, really good Apple buds.
If there were ever a medal for Most Staggering Misnomer, the iPhone would find itself in serious contention for gold; the little glass slab is so stuffed with useful functions it makes the “phone” element of its name ridiculously misleading. Consider the action-packed roles my iPhone has filled over the years: Bicycle computer; running partner; navigator; wilderness scout; survival guide; weather advisor; and visual story-telling tool, not to mention being able to score all these adventures to music. And yeah, it makes calls too.
The iPhone is the most indispensible piece of hardware since man discovered sharp rocks. Problem is, the iPhone is also a fragile weakling, easily damaged by sharp rocks, gravity or water — things that exist in copious amounts around precisely the places you’d want to use the iPhone to adventure with.
The people at LifeProof, however, have recognized this paradox, and they think they have a solution. They’ve come up with a quiver of clever, well-designed, mission-specific exoskeletons that work as a seamless, modular system, all designed around the core armor: a lithe, shock-resistant, fully sealed (yes, waterproof) iPhone 4/s case. And for the most part, it works brilliantly.
This isn’t the smallest headset. In fact, Motorola’s Elite Sliver Bluetooth Headset ($130) is actually bulkier than many other personal BT headsets. Its trick, though, is to hide most of the bulk behind the user’s ear, leaving just a sliver — hence the name — of technology visbile.
But the Sliver isn’t just a one-trick pony; its case also doubles as a battery that will top off the Sliver when the headset is housed in the case (which actually does triple duty as a charger).
Steam, the online computer gaming portal, keeps track of what hardware its players are using to access the many games in its service.
Of interest in the exhaustive list of specs is the fact that 49.46 percent of Mac gamers on Steam game on a Macbook Pro. Which makes sense, of course, as that’s a pretty powerful laptop. From there, we see the iMac coming in at 28 percent, plain-jane MacBooks garnering 9.49 percent, and the MacBook Air, my personal machine, used by 6.29 percent of Mac Steam gamers. The MacBook Pro and MacBook Air both rose in the hardware charts, with an increase of .44 and .89 percent, respectively.
We bumped into neophyte Australian headphones-maker Audiofly in January, during a press-only event at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and gave two models in the four-model lineup a whirl. Their mid-level AF45 set sounded great for $50; but the next one I tried — the top-of-the-line AF78 ($200) — left me slack-jawed with disbelief; its sound knocked my socks off, even amid the cacophony of noisy journalists.
What makes the AF78 unusual is its speaker arrangement.
Many mid-to-high-end canalphones are powered by tiny armature speakers, while moving coil drivers are found pretty much everywhere except the very high end. Armatures are generally better at producing clean highs and mids, but can lack deep bass; moving coils, on the other hand, are generally not as good at reproducing the clarity of an armature. But the AF78 is part of an elite group of models — like the Scosche IEM856m I reviewed last year — that employ both a moving coil speaker and a balanced armature in each ear, in an attempt to give the listener the best of both worlds. And it works spectacularly.
Verizon’s Q2 earnings call took place today, and while the gist of the call went something like “we’re making tons of money, money money,” there were a few interested bullet point in regards to Android and smartphones in general.
I bet you didn’t consider this feature when deciding between an iPhone 4S and an Android device such as the Galaxy S III. The company behind the radiation measurement app Tawkon has released a semi-disturbing infograph (which can be found at the bottom of this post) detailing the SAR (a measure of the rate at which energy is absorbed by the body when exposed to a radio frequency(RF) electromagnetic field) score of various popular smartphones.
You read that right, Sprint has finally unleashed a twister of LTE pockets in and around the Kansas City area. They may be mere corn kernels compared to the likes of Verizon and AT&T but it’s a start — and one that I’m sure will have Sprint customers skipping down the yellow brick road.
Apparent’s battery-powered Doxie Go portable scanner has been around since last year, though its optional scan-direct-to-mobile-device capabilities have only been available on iOS devices. But the scanner has just had a major firmware update, making it compatible with Android — along with some new functionality and hardware that’ll make Apple-ites happy also.
While other manufacturers might tart up their headphones with loud colors, obnoxious logos and frills, the Klipsch Image One ($150) drops all extraneous nonsense in favor of making you happy through its three impressive strengths: perfomance, comfort and portability — a triple threat that makes these headphones a contender for best traveling companion.
It’s no secret, Samsung has been crawling under Apple’s skin for quite some time. Now, with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung wants iPhone users to know they can make the switch effortlessly thanks to a free app they’re making available to UK Galaxy devices. The app is called Easy Phone Sync, from developer Media Mushroom, and promises to makes transferring your iOS content over to your new Galaxy device a breeze.
It used to be that video came to our homes in one of two ways: through the TV, or through a VHS tape. Then came DVD, then came the internet, and then came mediageddon.
Now we can get anything we want, any time we like. That’s the simple part, because now we also have to decide how we want to watch it. Luckily, we have put together a list of neat video hardware that will help you convert and push your media around the home, and even outside.
Thanks to Apple, every manufacturer now feels like they need their own voice assistant and so begins the borderline mental illness campaign of conversing with your phone. Samsung announced their own version S-Voice, which is launching with the new Samsung Galaxy S III in a couple of days. Now, LG has decided to jump on the voice wagon by announcing their own voice assistant service Quick Voice.
