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éléments par Sandra Vogel

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• 

  Nokia Lumia 735: Budget smartphone for the selfie generation [Review]

  Publié: octobre 22, 2014, 3:07pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Nokia is coming to the end of the road as a name in phone making, and the brand will likely get subsumed into owner Microsoft in the not too distant future. With Nokia phones already well and truly part of the Windows Phone stable, you won't be surprised to learn that the Lumia 735 runs Windows Phone 8.1. Nor will its general looks be any surprise -- it is a straightforward Nokia monolith.

  But there are some pleasant surprises under the hood that lift this budget handset above the ordinary. A 5 megapixel wide angle front camera for taking high quality selfies is Nokia's own selected highlight, but Cortana, Microsoft's much talked about digital assistant, is also here, making a belated arrival in the UK to join Apple's Siri.

  Then there's the fact that this is a 4G handset, sports NFC and can handle wireless charging (if you buy the stand). The presence of an FM radio is nice too, and music fans can take advantage of the rather fabulous perennial favorite of mine Mix Radio for streamed music on the go.

  That's a neat set of features for a budget handset, and they're accompanied by the usual suspects Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. Wi-Fi doesn't run to 802.11ac, though -- you just get b/g/n support, but that won't trouble most of us.

  The back of the Lumia 735 is made from grippy polycarbonate, and the backplate wraps around all four sides bringing the color scheme into the edges and to the front of the handset. That didn't matter much with the black handset I was sent, but if you prefer white, orange or -- my favorite -- green as your phone's color, then it matters a lot. The frame of bright color round the front and sides of the phone looks great -- and is rather distinctively Nokia Lumia.

  It is a bit tricky to get the back off this phone, and a little sticker on the rear tells you to use your fingers rather than a sharp implement to do this. The point of a knife will make unsightly divots in the shell, and indeed the knife might slip and cut you. There's a definite knack to getting the backplate off the phone, and if you are keen on swapping out memory cards you'll want to master it, as there's a microSD card slot under the backplate as well as the slot for your nanoSIM and a removable battery.

  That microSD card slot can accommodate cards up to 128GB in size. The Lumia 735 ships with 8GB of storage, but there's only 3.4GB of that free for your own use, so getting a nice high capacity card might be a good idea. This being a Windows Phone you also get 15GB of OneDrive storage of course.

  The 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor is not top of the range, and while players of Bejeweled and its ilk should be quite happy here, fans of the latest, resource hungry games might want to look elsewhere. The same kind of comment goes for battery life. The hardened gamer or dedicated music fan may well deplete the 2,220mAh battery before a day is up, but less demanding users will probably find they can get through a day, perhaps with an early or mid-evening boost to help things along.

  

  Windows Phone 8.1 features the now familiar live tile display with its ability to squeeze more tiles into the available screen space than Windows Phone 8. You can max this out to 60 tiles before you do any vertical scrolling, though every one will be the smallest size possible to squeeze that number in. You can also now drag tiles on top of one another to create folders, which you can name, and you can set up 15 folders on the home screen before any vertical scrolling is needed. So, this is good flexibility, and you can always flick left to see a full A to Z list of all the apps that are on board.

  The screen measures 4.7in and its 1,280 x 720 pixels give it a pixel density of 312ppi. That's not head turning, but the AMOLED does its job well enough and colors are bright -- though a bit overstated for my taste. You can fiddle with the color profile with pre-sets or sliders to fully personalize things. I also found the 'white' background to text is a bit yellowy, and the relatively low pixel density means text is a bit fuzzy too.

  I mentioned Cortana, and what you get here is the UK beta. It'll get updated as time goes on, though already it lets you both control the handset and do web-based searching -- up to a point. When I asked it to 'find my nearest cinema' it popped up a list really quickly. When I asked it to 'run Twitter' it opened the app up for me. When I asked Cortana to 'call mum' it found her and asked which number to use before placing the call. When I asked it to 'navigate to Trafalgar Square' it took three attempts before Cortana decided to route me to a solicitor I'd never heard of instead. As a beta Cortana isn't bad, but I did find it frustrating at times.

  So, that selfie camera. Its 5 megapixel capability sits out rather proudly against the 6.7 megapixels of the main camera and both take a decent photo -- though if you are used to HDR you'll miss its absence here. The front camera gets its own app -- Lumia Selfie -- and a wide angle lens that lets you cram your friends into the frame. If you're not content with that, you can apply filters both to the images as a whole and to faces, to 'enhance' their appearance. It's a great idea from Nokia as it makes this handset a real steal for the selfie fan.

  A range of other apps add more value to this handset, including Here Drive, Here Maps, Nokia Beamer for screen sharing, and more, while enhancements to Windows Phone 8.1 such as the ability to double tap to wake the handset up are evidence of the OS becoming more competent as time goes by.

  Verdict

  Nokia might be pitching the Lumia 735 at the selfie fan, but in doing so it misses a potentially larger market. Well-built with lots of app extras, an operating system which is become more user friendly and flexible, and higher-end features like wireless charging, 4G and NFC to its name, the Lumia 735 is, for this reviewer, the best of the lower cost Lumia range. Indeed, it's a pretty good buy across the board.

  Good Points

  • Wireless charging
  • Smart software extras
  • Good selfie camera
  • Memory expansion

  Bad Points

  • Struggles with demanding games
  • Battery life solid but not great

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Nokia Lumia 735
  Network	4G
  Processor	1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	8GB (3.4GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.7in, 1,280 x 720 pixels, 312ppi
  Main camera	6.7 megapixel
  Front camera	5.0 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,220 mAh
  Size	68.5 x 8.9 x 134.7mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	134g
  OS	Windows Phone 8.1

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Apple iPhone 6 Plus: Beautifully made, but expensive [Review]

  Publié: octobre 14, 2014, 12:23pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Here it is, then, the iPhone 6 Plus. Apple's biggest handset to date, and a competitor for all those phablets that some people swear are the perfect device for them. It's big, it's bold, it's beautifully made. Does it do enough to justify its exorbitant price? My review sample came from Three in the UK, from whom you can get the iPhone 6 Plus in any of its three colors -- gold, silver or gray -- in its 16GB variant starting from £44 a month. At that price there's a £99 up-front price for the handset.

  Other operators also sell it, of course, and if you want to go SIM free you are looking at £619/$749 for the 16GB version, £699/$849 for the 64GB and £789/$949 for the 128GB. That's a lot of money, and there are plenty of other large-screened handsets that will cost you much less.

  The iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5in screen and is the absolute epitome of all things iPhone. It is lovely. Given the choice between it and a new iPhone 6, I'd take the bigger beast and live with the fact that it is more difficult to pocket and impossible to reach across for one-handed use, because it is, well, a fantastic handset.

  Rather than its size, I'd probably find it more difficult to live with Apple's insistence on not catering for memory expansion, to be honest. A screen approaching 6in in size and one which is as bright, sharp and eminently watchable as this one, lends itself to lots of use, some of it media hungry, and none more so than gaming and video viewing. I was sent a 64GB iPhone 6 Plus by Three, and this had 54.5GB free right out of the box. That would probably be enough for my needs, but on a 16GB version you are likely to be left with 11-12GB.

  So, onto the screen. As with the iPhone 6, you get the option to select either 'standard' or 'zoomed' display. The latter makes icons and text larger, so tired eyes can see more easily, but you do lose the full-fat, six-icons-high display if you opt for that. With a screen resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels there's nothing ground breaking here, but the 401ppi pixel density makes for high quality, clear text, and the screen is very bright -- one of the things Apple shouts about.

  The screen is thin too -- and that's really important as it helps the iPhone 6 Plus stay at an impressive 7.1mm in terms of its thickness -- a mere shade more than the 6.9mm of the iPhone 6. The thin chassis really helps with handling -- it just feels manageable, while the 172g weight is not too much, and somehow feels right. You have to handle the phone to really understand that point.

  Talking of the build, Apple has done a fantastic job on that front. The front curves into the handset's edges neatly and the four corners are rounded. The sides are made from the same aluminum plate as the back, and the smooth, cool to touch finish is rather nice in the hand -- though it is more slippy to hold than rubberized finishes.

  If there is one downside in terms of aesthetics for me, it's the look of the back where the camera lens protrudes a little -- just as it does on the iPhone 6. The power button is on the right side, volume buttons on the left, and a mute switch next to them. Headset and lightning connectors are on the bottom along with the speaker grille.

  In this location it is easy to cover the grille when working in widescreen mode, which is a pity. The speaker, incidentally, produces better quality sound than the iPhone 6, but I still recommend headphones for the best experience.

  I'm not a big fan of Apple's characteristic thick top and bottom screen bezels. They make this handset a lot larger than it might otherwise be -- I'll do just one comparison -- the LG G3 has a 5.5in display (it is higher resolution than the iPhone 6's at 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, but that's not the point I am making here). This sits in a tight chassis measuring 146.3 x 74.6 x 8.9mm. The iPhone 6 Plus by contrast is 158.1mm tall and 77.8mm wide, though thinner as I've already noted at 7.1mm. The plus comes if you like to hold your phone in widescreen mode -- say for gaming or video watching -- as clearly you've space beyond the screen edges for a comfy grip.

  You'd never know that the front button incorporated fingerprint recognition by looking at it. Touch ID worked beautifully efficiently for me, too.

  

  There are plenty of features in iOS 8 to justify an upgrade from the previous OS version. Yes, you can now add external keyboards, though Apple itself has added some extra features in widescreen typing mode, and as with the iPhone 6 there's 'reachability' -- double tap the home button and whatever you are doing squishes into the bottom half of the screen. It didn't help me as much here as on the iPhone 6, as I simply can't stretch across the screen's width one-handed, so pulling things down vertically is not much help.

  It is nice to see 802.11ac Wi-Fi support, and Apple has included a barometer among its activity tracking features so that you can feed data into the built-in Health app. There's AirDrop too, of course. Don't get excited that NFC is here, though -- it is only available for use by Americans with Apple Pay. You also get screen rotation here, including the home screen.

  The two cameras are the same basic resolution as on the iPhone 6 -- 8 megapixels at the back and 1.2 megapixels at the front. It does add optical image stabilization which you won't find on the iPhone 6, and both time lapse and slo-mo modes enhance what you can get out of the 1080p video mode. I was pleased with sample shots.

  All this would not matter much if the iPhone 6 Plus were unimpressive in raw performance terms, and thankfully it shines here. The A8 1.4GHz dual-core processor was not troubled by my requests -- there was no stutter, stammers or instances of slow running to bother me.

  

  Battery life is another crucial aspect of any handset, and the iPhone 6 Plus seems to do a good job here. Apple says it is good for 80 hours of audio, 16 days on standby, and 12 hours of internet use on both 4G and 3G. (The smaller iPhone 6 is quoted by Apple as good for 50 hours, 10 days, and 10 hours respectively).

  I have found over the few days I've had the iPhone 6 Plus on test that it is possible to get two days out of its 2,915mAh battery, which puts it in the upper echelons of handset performance, and easily makes it better than the experience I had with the iPhone 6.

  What about that iPhone 6 Plus 'bendgate' thing? Well, I found my review unit to be pretty solid. If you put a handset this large in your back pocket and then bend your buttocks into it with sitting, well, that's your call. I'd call it reckless behavior with any handset.

  Verdict

  I was impressed with the iPhone 6, and I am again impressed with the iPhone 6 Plus which knocks the smaller phone into a cocked hat in terms of battery life. It is capable, beautifully made, and iOS 8 is a nice step forward.

  On the other hand, though, the 6 Plus is very expensive, and it suffers in my overall view from the lack of memory expansion as well as for being pricey.

  Good Points

  • Beautiful build quality
  • Efficient fingerprint login
  • Good battery life
  • Great display

  Bad Points

  • Relatively expensive
  • No memory expansion

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  Network	4G
  Processor	A8 1.4GHz dual-core with M8 motion coprocessor
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	64GB (54.5GB accessible) also available in 16GB and 128GB
  Memory expansion	None
  Display	5.5in, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, 401ppi
  Main camera	8 megapixel
  Front camera	1.2 megapixel
  NFC	Yes (Apple Pay only)
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	No
  Battery	2915 mAh
  Size	77.8 x 7.1 x 158.1mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	172g
  OS	iOS 8

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Sony Xperia Z3 Compact: Small and perfectly formed [Review]

  Publié: octobre 10, 2014, 11:57am CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  There's a trend these days for handset makers to stick everything but the kitchen sink in their flagship phones and make those phones large, then make their smaller phones a bit less feature rich. This can backfire. We've previously reported about 'mini' versions of handsets not selling as well as the full-fat ones.

  Sony doesn't do that. The Xperia Z1 Compact was a small version of a full-fat handset, and the Xperia Z3 Compact is the 4.6in companion to the full-blown 5.2in Xperia Z3. In case you are wondering, there wasn't a Z2 Compact.

  The front and back of this phone are both made from tempered glass. The back is the design feature I like least. It does help the Xperia Z3 Compact stand out from the crowd, and it is tough, but it is also very slippy in the hands. If you are a butterfingers like me that could be a worry. It is also, like the front, prone to fingerprints. I was forever cleaning it.

  Sandwiched in between the two glass slabs, the edges of the phone are made from a semi-translucent material. The four corners have a buffer which should help protect the handset if it does slip through your fingers.

  The back isn't removable. This is a Sony trademark that helps the Xperia Z3 Compact achieve its waterproofing credentials. It is compliant with IP65 and IP68 -- if you keep the side panels closed it'll take immersion in 1.5m of fresh water for up to 30 minutes, according to Sony.

  There are two of those side panels -- both on the left edge. One is marked microSD and as well as catering for removable memory it protects the microUSB charge connector. The other panel is not marked, but you need to lift this to insert your nano-SIM. The headset port, on the top edge, doesn't need a cover as it is sealed internally.

  As usual Sony has made its power button an aluminum circle sitting on the right edge. This really stands out against the colored chassis (black in my case though white, red and a fantastic turquoise blue are also available). Also on the right edge are a camera shortcut button and volume rocker. I don't really like the dock connector that is on the left edge because it disrupts the tidy lines, but this is pretty much a standard feature on Sony handsets. The optional dock holds your phone in widescreen mode while charging.

  I've already noted that the Xperia Z3 Compact has a 4.6in screen. While the upper and lower screen bezels are quite deep, the tall left and right ones are narrow, so that the handset width is about as slight as it could be. In fact, this phone is the same size as the 4.3in Xperia Z1 Compact, though a little slimmer and lighter.

  The resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels does not break any new ground -- in fact it matches that of the Xperia Z1 Compact, and the result is that its 319ppi is slightly lower than 342ppi of the earlier phone. But Sony throws a lot of tech at the screen.

  Sony says the Xperia Z3 Compact has its brightest ever display. Then there's Sony's Triluminos technology which gives good color depth while X-Reality helps optimize contrast and sharpness. There's a new addition to Sony's screen technology too – Live Color LED is part of the Triluminos system and is another tweaker for color intensity. You can turn off X-Reality or switch into Super-vivid mode which really makes colors stand out. You can also set the white balance using red, green and blue sliders.

  

  While I found the screen too small for comfortable video viewing the quality is undeniably very good. Sound quality is disappointing through the twin speakers that sit on the front of the phone, and their positioning means you can easily cover them with fingers when gaming in widescreen mode. Use high quality headphones, though, and sound quality is very good.

  Technically there's not much to grumble about here -- the Snapdragon 801 quad-core CPU runs at 2.5GHz, and with 2GB of RAM speed was not an issue for me during testing. Video ran smoothly, and the camera fires up from lockdown via the side button almost instantly. With a second tap of that side button to grab a shot I reckon this is the fastest quick-fire camera I have seen.

  

  The main camera shoots to 20.7 megapixels -- the same as the predecessor handset -- and there are plenty of features to fiddle around with. Still, it is annoying that Sony's Superior Auto mode for taking photos restricts the max resolution to 8 megapixels. Video mode has a fair few tweaks too -- including the ability to capture 4k video.

  There's 16GB of built-in storage, with 11.57GB free out of the box and you can add up to 128GB more via microSD.

  Battery life is impressive. There are various power saving modes including Stamina and Ultra Stamina as well as a special low battery mode and a system which only turns Wi-Fi on when you are near a saved network. Stamina mode allows you to decide which apps can be active and which aren't, so you can personalize things to your liking. Alongside the power management modes, I am a big fan of the way the battery life indicator on the notification bar tells you what percentage of power remains.

  Sony has skinned Android 4.4.4 with its now familiar overlay, and as usual crams the Xperia Z3 Compact with apps. Some – though not all – are from Sony's own stable, including Music Unlimited, the PlayStation app, Sony Select for apps and games, the Xperia Lounge, Lifelog for use with the Sony SmartBand, and What's New to tell you about Sony's latest apps and content. A newcomer to the Sony stable is the ability, due to launch in November, to use the Xperia Z3 Compact as a wireless display for the PlayStation 4.

  Verdict

  The biggest fans of the Xperia Z3 Compact are likely to be those who are already Sony fans, but you can ignore all the Sony tie-ins and still get a lot from this handset. The camera is easy to use and has lots of customizability, the screen is great for everything from looking at photos and web pages to watching movies and YouTube, there's lots of power and battery life is excellent. I'd have liked to see the screen resolution taken up a notch, but overall this is a pleasingly powerful hand-friendly phone.

  Good Points

  • Powerful
  • Impressive battery life
  • Vibrant screen
  • Fast and easy to use camera

  Bad Points

  • Screen could use more pixels
  • Sony app bloat

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  Network	4G
  Processor	2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
  Ram	2GB
  Memory	16GB (11.57GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.6in, 1,280 x 720 pixels, 319ppi
  Main camera	20.7 megapixel
  Front camera	2.2 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,600 mAh
  Size	64.9 x 8.6 x 127mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	129g
  OS	Android 4.4.4

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  BlackBerry Passport: It's not so hip to be square [Review]

  Publié: octobre 3, 2014, 1:07pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  The BlackBerry Passport is huge by phone standards at 128 x 90mm and 9.3mm thick. It really is the same size as a passport -- and BlackBerry says it was inspired by the passport, which it calls the 'universal symbol of mobility'. Bless. Are there stranger reasons for naming a handset? Did BlackBerry fiddle with the sizing to make it so? Answers on a postcard please...

  Design-wise, the BlackBerry Passport looks and feels like a quality piece of kit. It is solidly made, and both its size and robust shell help explain its weight -- 196 grams doesn't sit lightly in the pocket.

  The handset houses a huge square screen that measures 4.5in across diagonal corners -- 81mm wide x 81mm tall. In phone terms this is a vast area for viewing content. BlackBerry says this is a gift for mobile professionals who need to read and edit documents, do email, look at websites, read maps and so on.

  Certainly the 1,440 x 1,440 pixel resolution, which delivers a massive 453ppi pixel density, is sharp and clear, and I found it an absolute pleasure to read text and work with emails.

  However, for more consumer-focused tasks it is less satisfying. YouTube video, for example, is squished somewhat to fit into the 1:1 aspect ratio of the screen.

  There's a little bit of geekery here in that you can navigate the screen by stroking the keyboard. This works well enough, though so does a more conventional sweep of the screen itself.

  The keyboard holds its own surprises. The three QWERTY rows are augmented when needed by further touch-responsive rows offering a number row, predictive text, or in some cases a full blown set of extras including punctuation marks.

  The keys themselves are comfy to use, though they do require two hands all the time. There's also a lot that's hidden from view. Why lift a finger from the keyboard to tap a predicted word when all you have to do is flick up towards it for the word to be inserted in your text?

  BlackBerry was always hot on keyboard shortcuts and there are plenty here. Hold down a key to capitalize the letter, double press the spacebar to end a sentence, and there's lots more. There is a learning curve, but typing can be really fast once you are in control.

  This is all pretty quirky, and there are definite pros and cons. I found the bigger screen really useful for browsing and writing email, and I got on okay with the keyboard, both for typing and for touch-controls.

  But it is impossible to use the Passport one-handed. You need two hands to type, two hands to reach across the screen. Even getting to the right side mounted volume buttons and quick launch for Assistant (see later) will be a stretch for some with one hand. And I found the Passport a complete beast to carry around. I rarely had a large enough pocket, so it lounged in my backpack most of the time, and it was therefore further away than a pocketed handset. No doubt city gents with large-pocketed suits will fare better.

  BlackBerry OS has been updated to version 10.3, and while there are some additions to the previous version, the look and feel is very similar. Upgrading BlackBerry fans should not find it difficult to acclimatize.

  BlackBerry Hub, for example, is a carryover from earlier versions of the OS. This brings notifications of email, Twitter, SMS and other communications together in one place. I've found it an acquired taste in the past, but business users may warm to its unified approach to comms.

  

  New features for BlackBerry OS 10.3 include BlackBerry Assistant, BlackBerry Blend and Amazon Appstore installed by default. The Amazon Appstore provides access to a cut down version of the Play store, and is a welcome addition over and above the small BlackBerry World store. It's not Google Play, but it is better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper.

  

  BlackBerry Assistant is a voice activated assistant which responds to both written and spoken queries. If you type it gives a written response, if you speak it talks back. Assistant searches both on and off device, and it is one of my favorite features of BlackBerry OS 10.3. If you want to send an email to Bob just run the Assistant by long pressing that side key, say 'email Bob' and you are off.

  

  BlackBerry Blend is designed to let professionals get to files such as documents that are stored on different devices. I couldn't test this, and it is clearly designed for BlackBerry's bigger corporate customers using BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

  

  BlackBerry used to be known for stinting on its camera, but here there's a 13 megapixel main shooter with flash and a 2 megapixel front camera. You can fiddle with the aspect ratio and plump for 4:3, 16:9 or 1:1 -- the latter making use of the square nature of the screen. There's built in photo editing too. That sounds promising, but photos can be on the wishy-washy side.

  There's nothing wrong with the speed and efficiency of the BlackBerry Passport. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor supported by 3GB of RAM whizzed along during testing. There's 32GB of built-in storage, of which 7.2GB is used by the operating system and sundries. You can add a microSD card, and this and your nanoSIM sit under a small removable back cover. Battery life is a stunner too – one side effect of the large chassis is plenty of space for a 3450mAh battery. I got two days of life with ease.

  Verdict

  BlackBerry has given itself an uphill struggle in producing a handset which so squarely (pardon the pun) bucks the handset trend, and in deciding to support Android but not the full Play store. Great battery life, an undeniably good screen and BlackBerry Blend may be enough to sway some business users, but the pull for non-professionals is more difficult to understand.

  Good Points

  • Great screen
  • Smart keyboard with useful shortcuts
  • Android app support

  Bad Points

  • Too quirky for many people
  • Overly large
  • Well established competitors

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	BlackBerry Passport
  Network	4G
  Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.2GHz quad-core
  Ram	3GB
  Memory	32GB (24.8GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.5in, 1,440 x 1,440, 453ppi
  Main camera	13 megapixel
  Front camera	2 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	No
  Battery	3,450 mAh
  Size	90.3 x 9.3 x 128mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	196g
  OS	BlackBerry OS 10.3

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  ASUS MeMO Pad 8: Neat Android tablet that's also affordable [Review]

  Publié: septembre 29, 2014, 5:50pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  While we all await the arrival of the next Nexus from Google -- and the wait isn't likely to be very long now -- other low cost Android tablets are trying to attract both our attention and our cash. Asus has a good track record in this respect. Lest we forget, Asus was in fact Google's partner for the last Nexus tablet, though it looks like Google may be ringing the changes in terms of a hardware partner this time round.

  Anyhow, what we have here is the MeMO Pad 8, the latest in a line of smaller format, lower cost tablets from Asus that are designed to cater to our desire for a larger than phablet screen that's still potentially pocket-friendly in size and wallet-friendly in price. The MeMO Pad 8 will set you back around £160.

  In terms of looks, the Asus MeMO Pad 8 is plain and unprepossessing. The rounded corners and Asus branding on the front are not a surprise. The long edge screen bezel is pleasantly narrow, so that the 8-inch screen fits into a reasonably small chassis at just 125mm wide and 212mm tall. It might just fit into some pockets.

  The build is robust -- I had to work fairly hard to bow the chassis -- and the back has a stippled finish that will help you hold the tablet securely one-handed. At 320g it is no bother to hold this tablet for long periods of time. At 8.3mm thick the Asus MeMO Pad 8 perhaps feels a little too chunky, but it's nothing to worry about -- this is a comfy hold.

  Power and volume buttons sit on the inwardly curving right edge just as they do on the Asus-made Nexus 7. But there's a feature you don't find on that Nexus -- a microSD card slot sits on the left long edge. That means you can add to the 16GB of built-in storage, which is reduced to 11.1GB by pre-installed apps. Asus provides another storage option too -- its cloud facility gives you 5GB with an additional 11GB in the first year.

  The 8-inch screen is LED backlit and delivers 1,280 x 800 pixels. That's far from ground-breaking, and when I sat the MeMO Pad 8 next to my Nexus 7, which packs 1,920 x 1,200 pixels into the smaller space of a 7-inch screen, the Asus came off notably worse. Even standing alone there is a slight fuzziness to text that I noticed most when reading websites or eBooks. The screen does have the saving grace of Asus Splendid -- an app that features across the Asus range, which lets you tweak the colour depth and saturation to your own preferences.

  There are two cameras with a 2 megapixel affair on the front, and 5 megapixels on the back. Again this is not pushing any boundaries, and photos are somewhat grainy. Without a flash, low light indoor shots are disappointing. That's a pity, as there are some nice extras here on the software front, such as Time Rewind which shoots 31 photos over three seconds and lets you pick the best to keep.

  

  The Asus MeMO Pad 8 is equipped with Android 4.4 and Asus' own ZenUI. This delivers lots of tweaks to Android and might mean a bit of a learning curve for anyone moving over from a differently skinned or unskinned Android device, but there is lots here to like.

  A particular favourite of mine is What's Next, which sticks a timeline on the lock screen so you can see what's coming up in your world without having to actually switch the MeMO Pad 8 on. What's Next picks up data from Facebook, Google accounts and other sources including the built-in calendar.

  

  I also like the way Asus has skinned some apps. Calendar is among several apps to have been given an Asus-style makeover -- and the clean, sharp look, displaying multiple Google calendars as well as local only calendar entries, is very attractive. If you think of your tablet as a handy assistant for keeping on top of tasks, then the Quick Memo note taker and Do It Later task manager might have particular appeal.

  On the other hand, some people might be a bit miffed at the sheer number of apps Asus adds to the Android natives. There's lots in addition to what I've already mentioned including Flipboard, Kindle, another notes app called SuperNote and more.

  The Intel Atom Z3745 quad-core processor is supported by 1GB of RAM and coped well with standard tasks, but this processor is far from the cutting edge.

  If you want a tablet for top notch games playing, you might do better to look for a more powerful processor.

  Battery life, on the other hand, is quite good. The MeMO Pad 8 comes with a utility called Smart Saving which you can turn on and off from the notifications area. You can opt to customise this to get the most out of your battery, including setting up automatic screen brightness settings for different activities.

  Verdict

  Asus has come up with a neat tablet here, but anyone with an eye on the MeMO Pad 8 might do well to wait just a little while longer to see what Google pulls out of the bag with its new Nexus.

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	ASUS MeMO Pad 8 (ME181C)
  Processor	Intel Atom Z3745 Quad-Core 1.33 GHz
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	16GB (11.1GB available)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	8.0in, 1,280 x 800 pixels, 189ppi
  Connectors	microSD, headphones
  Main camera	5 megapixel
  Front camera	2 megapixel
  Wi-Fi	802.11 b/g/n
  Battery	15.2Wh Li-polymer
  Size	124.9 x 8.3 x 211.7mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	320g
  OS	Android 4.4.2

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  iPhone 6: Lovely, but not groundbreaking [Review]

  Publié: septembre 29, 2014, 11:47am CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  The new iPhone, as every smartphone fan knows by now, is not in fact one phone, but two. And unlike last time Apple launched two handsets at once, this time you don't have to choose between a cut down version (the iPhone 5c) or a full-fat version (the iPhone 5s).

  This time, while there are some differences between the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, apart from screen size they are subtle ones, and your choice is primarily about size -- do you want a 4.7-inch screen or a 5.5-inch one? This review is of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, kindly provided by Three -- our review of the iPhone 6 Plus will follow.

  You don't have to be an iPhone fan to consider the iPhone 6 a thing of beauty. Its nearest comparator in design terms is probably the super HTC One M8. My silver review sample looks simply stunning. The metal back might attract scratches over time, but it is tough. The back wraps around the sides and bonds to the white glass front really well. The curved and rounded corners look much more classy than those of the iPhone 5s, and the same can be said of the four edges, which are also curved rather than flat.

  There's almost no bezel down the long edges so that the 4.7-inch screen fits into a chassis just 67mm wide. Add that to the 6.9mm thickness and the handset sits neatly in smaller hands. So thin, in fact, is this phone that the back camera lens has to protrude slightly from the base. And it is remarkably light too, at just 129 grams. The top and bottom bezels are the let-down here -- they're quite tall and while they are not odd by iPhone standards they do look a bit out of place.

  Buttons and connectors are found on three of the four edges -- the top one is completely clear. The bottom is the busiest -- this contains the headset and Lightning connectors and speaker grille. On the left are volume buttons and a small button for sending the handset into silent mode. On the right is the power button.

  The screen is superbly clear and sharp -- it is top notch in that respect and difficult to fault. While upsizing the screen to 4.7-inch might seem cautious on Apple's part it is quite a step up from the 4-inch display of the iPhone 5s. That handset's 1,136 x 640 pixels have been upped here to 1,334 x 750. Apple is calling the display Retina HD, but note that the greater number of pixels is effectively cancelled out by the larger screen size. Both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 have a 326ppi pixel density in terms of actual sharpness.

  The larger screen means there's room for more information with six rows of app icons rather than five. You can switch from this "Standard" display to "Zoomed" display which, like the iPhone 5s, offers five rows of app icons and correspondingly larger graphics and text. There's a point to note about the Standard resolution -- until your favourite apps get updated to support it, they'll drop back to Zoomed. Popular apps will probably have done this by the time you read this review, though.

  For those who find the screen too large to manage one-handed, a new iOS 8 feature called "Reachability" is, quite literally, on tap. Double tap the home button and the top of the screen moves about half way down so you can reach high up buttons easily.

  

  The home button incorporates Apple's now standard Touch ID fingerprint recognition. If you want to use it there's the initial setup to go through, involving putting your finger on the button multiple times -- about 20 in my case -- so that it can read and record the print not only in the centre of your pad but around the edges too. I found the Touch ID system very reliable. The fact that you can put your thumb onto the home button at an angle makes using it one-handed effective.

  There's no microSD card expansion here, so you need to choose the memory configuration that works for you. Check operator deals, of course, but the SIM-free prices are £539 for the 16GB model, the 64GB model costs £619, and the 128GB model is £699. My 16GB iPhone 6 from Three had 11.6GB free out of the box.

  

  The iPhone 6 is more powerful than its predecessors with a new A8 processor and a new M8 motion coprocessor, along with the Metal development tool which is designed to help software developers make the most of the main and graphics processors. Future games should be more immersive as a result.

  The iPhone 6 has a barometer built in to sit alongside the accelerometer, compass and gyroscope. Why? The barometer uses changes in air pressure to work out elevation. Apple wants to get into the health and fitness arena like everyone else, and there's a Health app that comes as part of iOS 8 and is designed as an integrator for information from different apps.

  

  The two cameras are efficient -- and while the back camera remains an 8 megapixel shooter as it was in the iPhone 5s, and the front camera is the same 1.2 megapixels, there are a couple of additions such as time lapse and slow motion video capture to ring the changes. There's also a feature Apple calls Focus Pixels which improves autofocus speed. Certainly during testing, tapping the screen to set the focus point had very quick results.

  HDR works well too and the handset will save both the original and HDR versions of photos so you can see the difference. Image stabilization is digital -- iPhone 6 Plus owners get optical image stabilization which produces better images. Still, I was quite happy with the camera's results. There's no camera launch button but you can get to the camera from the lock screen by sweeping its icon. I do worry that the lens, jutting out as it does from the base of the phone (see the above image), might be prone to scratching.

  This is, of course, a 4G handset, and the full gamut of Wi-Fi is supported, including 802.11 ac which you don't always see on a handset. NFC is here too, but it's a mixed blessing as it's only usable in the US for Apple Pay, not for pairing devices.

  During testing I found the biggest annoyance with the iPhone 6 to be the battery life. This seems below average, with anyone apart from a light user probably looking at having to boost the battery every day. Apple probably compromised here to achieve a thin chassis, and this might not have been the cleverest move.

  Verdict

  The iPhone 6 is a lovely handset. Beautifully crafted in terms of hardware design, with fingerprint recognition that just works, a great screen and efficient processor. iOS 8 adds lots of tweaks while keeping the familiar look and feel intact. It has to be said that there's nothing really ground-breaking here, though. I'd like longer battery life too, but it seems Apple has sacrificed battery longevity in favour of a thin chassis.

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Apple iPhone 6
  Network	4G
  Processor	A8 1.4GHz dual-core with M8 motion coprocessor
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	16GB (11.6GB accessible), also available in 64GB and 128GB
  Memory expansion	None
  Display	4.7-inch, 1,334 x 750 pixels, 326ppi
  Main camera	8 megapixel
  Front camera	1.2 megapixel
  NFC	Yes (Apple Pay only)
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	No
  Battery	1,810 mAh
  Size	67 x 6.9 x 138.1mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	129g
  OS	iOS 8

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Sony Xperia T3: Decent smartphone with a few issues [Review]

  Publié: août 12, 2014, 12:24pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  The Sony Xperia T3 updates the Xperia T2 which, er, was an update to the Xperia T. Except that's not quite how it is. When the T came out early last year it was the flagship phone for Sony. It even had a much talked about spot in a James Bond movie. The flagship handset line from the Sony range is now the Z series, and the Z3 is due very soon. The T series is now the mid-range in Sony's stable, and the Xperia T3 is priced at £299 online at Sony's website.

  Sony has worked hard to consolidate design across its handset range, and that's evident with the Xperia T3. The monolith appearance with squared-off corners and distinctive button design and placement is carried through from the Z range, though the price differential has had a clear effect on materials. Where the Xperia Z2 has a glass back that I found rather too reflective and slippy, the T3 has a more usual rubbery finish on the back that's easier on the hands and doesn't act like a mirror for the narcissists among us.

  Good grip is important in this phone, because it takes another characteristic from the Xperia range in having an overly large screen bezel. A 5.3in screen will always make for a sizable phone, but here the top and bottom screen bezels seem massive. That'll appeal to anyone who wants to use this phone for widescreen gaming, as there's plenty of thumb space that means you won't find yourself accidentally prodding the screen. But of course, this is a big phone for the pocket. Its saving grace in respect of size is that it is slim-line. At just 7mm thick it has a very low profile on the desk, and that is emphasized because the edges all taper in to even shallower sides.

  

  The sides are bounded by silver strips which are a direct rip-off of the Xperia Z2 design. Within them are embedded the buttons and connectors -- the microUSB slot sits on the left long edge, headset slot on the top. Both of these bleed outside the narrow silver strips. Everything else is on the right edge. That includes a long covered slot for your microSIM and microSD cards -- the back of this handset is not removable. The round on/off button is a shade off-center, with the volume rocker below it and a dedicated camera button further down.

  All this is good stuff, but this handset isn't without niggles.

  The large screen benefits from two Sony technologies: Triluminos enhances colors and the Mobile Bravia Engine 2 increases image sharpness. It has to be said that video and photos look good, as does web content.

  But the resolution is disappointing -- at least on paper. The 277 ppi rating is the key to this, and it comes from spreading 1,280 x 720 pixels across the widescreen expanse.

  Now, in real life, text looked fine to me. I had no trouble reading eBooks, emails and web pages, but spec junkies might be a little disappointed, and if this matters to you then one option is to mooch along to the Motorola Moto G or Moto G 4G, which put the same number of pixels into a smaller screen, giving a higher pixel density for a lot less cash.

  There's an 8 megapixel main camera that does a pretty nice job. I rather like the Superior Auto mode Sony provides with its cameras which makes automatic settings, and you can select from a number of other modes very easily -- as well as fiddling with settings manually.

  

  This is a 4G handset with NFC, running Android 4.4. Sony has popped its own skin on top, and that means there's quite a different look and feel to things. So, for example, you've got a range of Sony-branded apps. They can confuse somewhat, offering features for music, movies, and your own photos and videos which sit alongside native Android apps. They can also add unique features -- Smart Connect is the app you'll use if you have a Sony SmartBand for example. The app icons are not designed with any sense of connectedness.

  

  Then there are Sony's mini apps -- effectively applets you can open on top of whatever else you are doing. You get to them from the multitasking button. They include a calendar, timer, calculator, Gmail, and mini web browser. So you can do some tasks without leaving the app you are in. It is a shame you can't get to these from the notifications area, but that's not possible.

  And finally there are the third-party apps. There's a fair bit here, for example Pixlr Express, MobiSystems Office Suite document viewer (you have to upgrade to be able to edit documents), Sketch for drawing, File Commander for file management. It is quite messy, though it is easy enough to bundle the apps you don't care about in a folder just by dragging one on top of the other in the app drawer.

  Sony has a little play at gesture controls with Smart Call, a range of settings you can make to handle calls such as answering by lifting the phone to your ear, and rejecting with a shake of the handset. It's nowhere near as expansive as Samsung gets with its gesture and motion controls, though.

  All these apps, plus more stuff including Sony widgets and a large tiled simple home screen, take their toll on the built-in memory. 8GB of storage is down to 4.9GB for your own use.

  

  The 1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor does its work well, and I had no trouble nipping around the phone to do the usual array of everyday tasks. My main problem on the technical side was with battery life. Performance is below average, and there's a fair amount of drain even when the handset is completely idle. I'd hope a software update might help, but meantime expect to administer mid-day power boosts.

  Verdict

  Sony's handsets always seem to be a bit chalk and cheese. If you are a fan of the whole Sony ecosystem then the range of apps dedicated to the company's wares will have clear appeal. For those not so loyal, there are still goodies to be had, but the array of apps seems to lack cohesion. Elsewhere, Sony might do well to see if it can stretch battery life. And this is a big phone -- still, it hums along nicely, and has a solid yet thin design which should have wide appeal.

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Sony Xperia T3
  Network	4G
  Processor	1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	8GB (4.9GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	5.3in, 1,280 x 720 pixels, 277ppi
  Main camera	8 megapixel
  Front camera	1.1 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,500 mAh
  Size	77 x 7 x 150.7mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	148g
  OS	Android 4.4

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  7 essential Nokia Lumia 930 tricks and tips

  Publié: août 7, 2014, 2:03pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Windows Phone handsets don't get more advanced than the Nokia Lumia 930. Its large screen and top-notch features make it a leading light, and it is the current flagship Nokia Lumia smartphone.

  The Lumia 930 comes pre-loaded with Windows Phone 8.1, the latest version of Microsoft's mobile OS, and so there is plenty of good stuff for new owners to get their teeth into. I've teased out some of the key features here, so read on to learn more.

  1. Do the wireless charging thing

  Wireless charging isn't new, but nor is it widespread. It's nice to see this technology make it into the Nokia Lumia 930, but even nicer to see that Nokia provides you with the ability to take advantage at no extra charge. You get a wireless charging unit in the box.

  Wireless charging still needs access to the mains -- it isn't magic. But it does mean you can hide the wires out of the way. Plug the USB end of the wireless charger unit into your power connector, and leave the circular charge unit on your desk, then just drop the Nokia Lumia 930 onto it to charge. Very neat.

  2. Use the Action Center
  

  Microsoft has quite rightly succumbed to the pull down notifications and actions concept and introduced the Action Center. Use this for stuff like quick updates on messaging, notifications, and alerts to apps that need updating, and to toggle a range of settings such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, airplane mode and screen rotation.

  

  A screen swipe dismisses an alert. You have some control over what is (and isn't) displayed here -- go to Notifications + Actions in Settings to pick out your preferences.

  3. Make a photo your Start Screen background

  At last you can personalize the Start Screen by using a photo in the background. In Settings, go to Start + Theme and scroll down to pick a photo for the background.

  4. Cram the live tiles in

  Data junkies will love that Windows Phone 8.1 can accommodate more tiles than Windows Phone 8. There's room for an extra column, and because the large tiles can each be divided into four you can cram 20 more information gobbets or shortcuts onto the main screen. And you get that extra column right out of the box with the Lumia 930.

  • To shrink a full-sized tile to a quarter-sized tile tap and hold, then tap the inward facing arrow which appears at its bottom right corner.
  • To make a full-sized tile double width tap and hold, tap the inward facing arrow at its bottom right corner, then note that it has changed to an outward facing arrow -- tap it again.
  • To revert to an ordinary-sized tile, do the above then tap the arrow yet again.

  Moving tiles around is easy too -- tap and hold then just drag a tile to where you want it, let go, and give a gentle tap to lock the new position.

  5. Play with lenses

  The Lumia 930's main camera is impressive. It has a 20 megapixel PureView sensor and Zeiss six lens optics, and shoots a good photo, giving you access to manual as well as automatic settings. Just as with previous handsets, Nokia enhances the Lumia 930 camera with lenses and you can select these from the camera menu. Five are provided by default with the handset, and you can download more. You just tap one to select it.

  • Bing Vision: A QR code scanner.
  • Nokia Cinemagraph: Add movie-style animations to your photos and share the product via social media.
  • Nokia Glam Me: A selfie enhancement app that lets you do things like slim down your face, change its tone, soften the look and so on. One for the vain, definitely.
  • Vine: This is part of the Vine app and lets you shoot straight into Vine.
  • Nokia Camera: This adds a number of extra features to the basic Windows Phone camera setup and includes the ability to make ISO and exposure settings.

  Here's a really hot tip -- if you'd like the handset to default to the more feature-rich Nokia Camera app rather than the less clever Windows Phone camera app when you first activate the camera, then you can tell the phone to do just that through the camera settings.

  

  6. Let the music run free

  Nokia Mix Radio is one of my favorite Nokia add-ons for Windows Phone. No, actually, it is my absolute favorite. Think free personalized streaming music. Mixes cover a wide range of themes from music styles to decades related to artists, charts, new releases and more. It's quite simply lovely.

  7. Use Data Sense and Wi-Fi Sense to manage data

  Use the new Data Sense feature to set a limit on data so you can keep an eye on what you are using, put restrictions on background data usage, and get the web browser to take some care about what it downloads by making standard, high or automatic data saving settings. You'll find Data Sense in the apps list.

  

  Save on unnecessary data usage by automatically connecting to open Wi-Fi networks. In the Settings area, pick Wi-Fi then scroll down and pick Wi-Fi Sense, then select to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots. You can also share password protected access with other people via this setting.

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Huawei Ascend G6: Affordable 4G smartphone [Review]

  Publié: juin 19, 2014, 10:35am CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  I was quite a fan of the Huawei Ascend P7 when I reviewed it last month, noting that it was a worthy flagship phone. At the high-end of the market, Huawei's problem is less what it does with its handsets, and more the profile it gets as a company in competition with the likes of Sony, Samsung and HTC.

  The Ascend G6 is not a flagship handset. It is currently available for around £225 SIM-free as a 4G handset, and an otherwise identical 3G version will be around £185. It is a good comparator for the new £235 HTC Desire 610.

  However, the Ascend G6 has two potential problems -- and neither has anything to do with the phone itself. It may suffer because Huawei's profile is relatively low, but it may also flag because Huawei makes the EE Kestrel. This is an own-brand 4G handset that's recently been launched by EE at £99 on PAYG (Pay-As-You-Go), and contracts as low as £13.99. I've got a Kestrel and will review it in due course, but it is worth noting there are some startling similarities between the two handsets both inside and out.

  Anyway, on to the Huawei Ascend G6 itself.

  If you have looked at any recent Huawei handset reviews you will instantly recognize the trademark physical design feature of a rounded bottom edge which differs from the flattened long and top edges. It's a clever tweak that helps Huawei's handsets stand out while not being visually jarring.

  The problem with the design is that the curve means that the charge slot can't go on the bottom, so in this case it has been positioned on the top edge of the phone. That's probably not going to cause you that much grief, though I find it is more awkward to take calls when the phone is charging if the cable is poking out of the top of the handset as opposed to the bottom.

  In fact, the design fault –-- and I do think it is a fault -- is that the headphone port is at the bottom of the left long edge. That means the connector pokes out of the side of the phone, making slipping it into a pocket tricky, and leaving you at the risk of jarring the connector. It's the same problem Huawei had with its flagship Ascend P6, which was fixed for the Ascend P7.

  Unlike the higher-end Huawei handsets, the build material of choice here is plastic, though the three non-curved edges have a brushed metal sheen to them that's both attractive and easy on the eye. The backplate has a semi-rubbery finish that helps with grip, and it comes off to reveal slots for the microSD card and microSIM. The battery isn't removable, though. Power and volume buttons are on the right edge, easily accessed for one-handed use. They're both nicely raised, so that they are easy to locate when you want to adjust music volume without removing the phone from your pocket or bag.

  

  The Huawei Ascend G6 is incredibly light at just 115 grams, but it feels solid in the hands. This is an average sized phone by today's standards, with a 4.5-inch screen sitting inside a notable but not oversized bezel. It is nice to see the Android capacitive buttons below the screen area rather than taking up some display space by being part of it. I found these buttons needed a reasonable press rather than a light touch -- more so than the screen itself which was very responsive.

  On paper the screen is disappointing with a resolution of just 960 x 540 pixels -- but in fact it is fine for most tasks. I was even fairly happy reading an ebook, though I tend to prefer larger displays for video and web browsing these days. The auto setting seems to take brightness a few notches lower than I like, no doubt to help battery life, but it is easy to override the auto feature and set the brightness level manually.

  

  The quad-core Qualcomm processor runs fast enough for everyday use, and having 1GB of RAM to help it out is a plus. If you don't push it by running too many apps at once it should do well. In this respect, Huawei provides a little helper in the shape of its Phone Manager app. This can scan the handset's memory and let you clean the cache, close down apps and so on to keep the G6 running smoothly.

  In fact, Huawei's user interface is one of the things that makes its handsets stand out. Emotion UI, as it is called, doesn't have an app drawer; instead apps sit on home screens. This encourages you to get rid of apps you don't use as you're always looking at their icons, and to keep things orderly by using folders. It is not the norm, but I've been won over to it through regular use.

  

  It is nice to see NFC here, and there's 8GB of memory on board, reduced to 5.5GB by what's pre-installed, including Huawei's Emotion UI, apps, and Android 4.3. It would have been nice to see Android 4.4 here, of course, but Emotion UI does have some neat features including a range of themes and some add-on apps that might be useful. Indeed, where others can be accused of bloating their handsets with apps, I'd say Huawei's extras are often handy utilities.

  I've already noted the Phone Manager app and there's also a DLNA app, notes app, weather app, FM radio, file manager, tool that backs the handset up to microSD and a few more. There are also some power saving settings you can apply to stretch the 2,000mAh battery and each of these provides an estimate of how long you will get if you use them. Huawei's stock in trade 'simple' home screen design is also here -- it gives you three screens of large icons rather than the more complex standard view.

  

  The presence of two cameras is no surprise but Huawei has managed to add something distinctive. The front camera shoots to 5 megapixels, a relatively high resolution designed to appeal to selfie fans. Both it and the rear-facing 8 megapixel camera have a feature called Sound and Shot which lets you capture a ten second sound clip to go with stills. Both cameras also have a Beauty mode, which supposedly smooths out wrinkles and such. I found it delivered uneven results and it's just a bit silly, really. The back camera also has the current flavour of the month feature, HDR.

  Verdict

  The Huawei Ascend G6 is a lightweight yet robust handset. The headphone slot is poorly placed, but the rest of the design is pleasing. There are some nice software extras, and the price seems quite attractive until you consider the EE Kestrel and, almost inevitably, the new 4G version of the Motorola Moto G.

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Huawei Ascend G6
  Network	4G
  Processor	1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	8GB (5.49GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.5in, 960 x 540 pixels, 245ppi
  Main camera	8 megapixel
  Front camera	5 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,000 mAh
  Size	65 x 7.5 x 130mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	115g
  OS	Android 4.3

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  HTC Desire 610: A not-so-good Android smartphone [Review]

  Publié: juin 10, 2014, 6:14pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  HTC has been extremely busy recently in terms of unleashing handsets upon us. Over a period of just a few weeks I have reviewed the flagship HTC One M8, the smaller format HTC One mini 2, and the HTC Desire 816. Now, with barely a pause for breath following those last two reviews, here comes the HTC Desire 610.

  Styled by HTC as a good value, entertainment-focused handset, the Desire 610 costs around £235. It shares a lot of design features with its more expensive, higher specified cousin the Desire 816, which will set you back close to £300. So, if you need to save money but like what the Desire 816 has to offer, is this handset a good buy?

  Well, other handsets coming in around this price include the Huawei Ascend P6 (recently succeeded by the Ascend P7), Samsung Galaxy S4 mini from last year, and HTC Desire 601, which despite being a 2014 handset is being replaced by the Desire 610. And we must never rule out the much lower cost Motorola Moto G with its new update to 4G, plus, of course, there are other phones floating around in this price range.

  The overall look of this handset is not HTC's finest moment. While I waxed lyrical about the metal chassis and curved back of the One M8, the design here is a bit meh. In large part that's down to two factors.

  There's a full 21mm of chassis between the bottom edge of the screen and the bottom edge of the phone, and an additional 17mm of chassis between the top edge of the screen and the top of the phone. Add in 5mm of screen bezel down each of the long edges and you'll see that this is a handset with a 4.7-inch screen which is lost in a sea of front chassis. It's not a good look, in my view. Moreover it makes for a relatively big phone -- compare 70.5 x 9.6 x 143.1 mm (WxDxH) with the 68.8 x 6.5 x 139.8 (WxDxH) of the 5-inch screen-bearing Huawei Ascend P7, for example.

  Now, a fair bit of that upper and lower space is occupied by a double row of speaker grilles. Yep, the Desire 610 has stereo speakers and BoomSound to augment the quality of the sound output. BoomSound is not as well implemented here as in the flagship One M8 or the Desire 816 though. While I found the volume would crank up as high as I needed it, quality was decidedly iffy with a lot of treble and a lack of bass tones. If my ears are accurate, it seems BoomSound is not universally brilliant with the Desire 610, less impressive than the Desire 816, which in itself isn't as good as the superb One (M8).

  The other design factor that turns me off is the way the non-removable backplate is quite clearly a separate part of the casing. I mentioned this design feature in the Desire 816 and here we have a very similar effect of a shiny backplate and a matte plastic finish to the handset edges. It's a combination that forces you to look at it, and when you do you'll see the join between back and edges. Not everyone will dislike this, of course, but it's not to my taste.

  The Desire 610 can be had in navy, white, or red, and the shiny backplate of my navy sample attracted quite a lot of finger grease. On the plus side I wasn't able to bend this phone in my hands as easily as I was the Desire 816. It is smaller overall than that phone which is probably a factor, but whatever the reason it feels more robust.

  Button placement is different to that of the Desire 816. The power button has moved from the left edge onto the top, which it shares with the headset slot. The volume rocker is on the right edge and the hinged cover protecting a slot for both your nanoSIM and your microSD card is on the left edge. These two are transposed on the Desire 816. It is easy to lift the cover and hotswap microSD cards thanks to a small nick on the cover, into which you can easily get a fingernail.

  

  The screen resolution and quality are in okay-but-not-great territory. The resolution of 960 x 540 pixels is way out of date, and 234ppi is low. I could definitely see a certain fuzziness to text, and you might want to steer clear if you do a lot of reading on your phone (whether that's websites, eBooks, email or other types of text). Viewing angles aren't great, and like the backplate, the screen seems to collect finger grease.

  For looking at video and playing games the screen is passable, though obviously it looks less than stellar when set against top-end handsets. Indeed, with this handset, the display may be the deal beaker that puts people off the Desire 610.

  The quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 runs at 1.2GHz and with 1GB of RAM backing it up it seemed pretty slick. HTC has built the Desire 610 with 4G and NFC on board, and although it is not mentioned in the specifications, USB On The Go is supported too, so you can read data, for example music, from a USB stick with a microUSB connector.

  

  The 8 megapixel main camera does a fair job. There's nothing ground-breaking about it, but access to manual ISO and other settings will appeal to many people, and there are some nice filters, too. The 1.3 megapixel front camera, now called the selfie camera in HTC's camera app across its handsets, has the three second self-timer that's become a standard feature for HTC.

  With this phone, the battery can also be said to be fair. It got me through a day of normal use, but if you are a keen gamer you might feel the need for a juice boost during the day.

  

  There's just 8GB of built-in storage, and by the time Android 4.4, HTC Sense 6 and HTC's other bits and bobs have snaffled their share there is just 3.6GB left for you. Sense 6 comes with its usual features including the news and social aggregator BlinkFeed. HTC has also included Polaris Office 5 which can be used to create Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and save to PDF, alongside a good note-taking app called Scribble. If you want to use these seriously you might be better off looking for a device with a bigger screen. They're on the Desire 816, for example.

  Verdict

  I liked the HTC Desire 816 a lot, but the lower cost, lower specified Desire 610 seems to suffer from some badly made choices in order to reach its price. The screen resolution is a particular annoyance, and the chassis design does the phone no favours, with the screen being swamped in a lot of bezel. HTC might want to consider how it markets BoomSound, as well -- it has had excellent feedback from reviews of the high-end One M8 (including mine), but here the quality simply isn't replicated.

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	HTC Desire 610
  Network	4G
  Processor	1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	8GB (3.6GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.7in, 960 x 540 pixels, 234ppi
  Main camera	8 megapixel
  Front camera	1.3 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,040 mAh
  Size	70.5 x 9.6 x 143.1mm   (WxDxH)
  Weight	143.5g
  OS	Android 4.4

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  How to get the most out of your HTC One M8

  Publié: juin 7, 2014, 4:04am CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  The new HTC One M8 is more than just a pretty face. Oh, its metal chassis and curved design have instant -- and lasting -- appeal. But under the hood there's a whole host of features that HTC has added to Android 4.4 to help make this flagship phone different from all the others.

  Of course there's the headline second camera to use for depth of field related trickery, and we'll show you how to get started with that. There's also BlinkFeed which can accommodate personalised news feeds and social feeds, as well as a range of pre-selected news and information sources. Then there's the smart TV app, and all important gesture controls.

  Get the News Via BlinkFeed

  BlinkFeed is HTC's news and social media aggregator. It is a full-screen widget that sits to the left of the home screen -- swipe to get to it. Tap the 'get started' box and tap away to start adding feeds. Main topic categories lead you into preselected news sources.

  Add social feeds by selecting "Services and apps", then add Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others by picking from the lists and signing in. Create your own feed by using the search button and typing a search term, then adding this to your feeds list.

  If you aren't excited about BlinkFeed and would rather use the screen it takes up for something else, then it is easily removed as it's just a widget. Tap and hold the home screen and pick "manage home screen pages" to remove it.

  It is easily reinstated later on if you change your mind, complete with any settings you specified.

  Camera Features: UFocus

  The HTC One M8 has two rear facing cameras. As well as the Ultrapixel main snapper there is a second camera sitting above it. This second camera captures depth of field information, and that gives the camera editing software a bit more information than usual about images. You can use this to apply some neat features.

  

  UFocus lets you shift the focal point of a photo so that you can get some neat blurring effects. To use it, just take a photo in the usual way, then tap the photo, tap the edit icon that appears, and pick the UFocus option. Then tap the part of the photo you want to be perfectly in focus. If you are happy with the result, tap Save. You don't have to apply effects right away -- you can go back through old photos too.

  Camera Features: Foregrounder

  Another camera feature, called Foregrounder, lets you add a range of different effects again taking advantage of depth of field data. By tapping on the photo you can apply sketch, blur, cartoon and colour effects.

  

  Call up the Foregrounder tools by taking a photo in the usual way, then tapping the photo, tapping the edit icon that appears, and selecting the Foregrounder option.

  Camera Features: Dimension Plus

  While clearly not a 3D camera, information captured from the second lens can be used to create a sort of 3D-ish effect. Basically, if you apply Dimension Plus you can get a bit of movement in photos as you sweep the screen or tilt the phone. To use it, take a photo then tap the photo, select the edit icon and pick Dimension Plus.

  Camera Features: Zoe Highlights

  Zoe is a biggie for HTC and it is being pushed across all the newer phones. Once you've taken a few shots drop into the gallery and you'll see there's a Highlights section. Select this and then tap the Zoe Highlight you want to edit. All its components will be shown and you can tick (or untick) what you want left in or taken out. Sweep the screen to pick a theme and sweep again to pick music.

  Finally use the three dot menu to make other settings like pre-selecting the start and end clips. Save the end result, and share with your social buddies.

  Sense TV

  If you can't be bothered to fish out your remote control, use Sense TV instead. It adds a free electronic programme guide and social elements into the mix.

  Run the TV app that you'll find in the app drawer. Select your country then enter your postcode. Next pick your TV service provider. Answer a couple more questions and you will be into the electronic programme guide.

  Want to use your One M8 as a remote control? The next few steps allow you to do just that. Tell the phone your TV maker. I had to try a couple of different control questions before hitting on the right setup for my Panasonic TV, but it took less than half a minute. After that I was able to find a programme on the One M8 screen, tap the screen and switch to it. Volume control is handled via the phone's volume rocker.

  There's something else on offer here too -- a social element. When you are watching a show, flick the screen into the Fan Talk area and you can connect to Twitter and get involved in social chat. Ranting at BBC Question Time or commenting on the quite obvious penalty that was not given has never been easier.

  Gestures

  No top-end handset comes without a range of gesture-based controls these days, and sure enough, the One M8 has a neat little set of gesture controls on offer. If you enable Motion Launch you can wake the phone up by double tapping the screen.

  We're all familiar with swiping up on the lock screen to unlock the phone, but with the HTC One M8 there are more swiping gestures on offer. A swipe left when the phone is locked launches the widget panel, a swipe right launches BlinkFeed, and a swipe down turns on voice dialling.

  If you're holding the phone in widescreen mode, pressing the volume button wakes the phone up and pops you into the camera app.

  For more tips on HTC's new flagship, check out: How to improve your battery life with the HTC One M8.

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  HTC Desire 816: Attractive mid-range Android smartphone [Review]

  Publié: juin 4, 2014, 6:36pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  HTC has stolen a lot of limelight recently with its flagship handset the One M8 and its smaller One mini 2, and you could be forgiven for thinking that these two are just about all the phone maker has in its range. But in fact the Desire range continues to go strong, and a couple of handsets announced earlier this year have recently popped up for review. I’ll be covering the Desire 610 soon, but today’s review handset is the Desire 816, a large format phone on sale for around £300 which ticks quite a lot of boxes.

  The Desire 816 doesn’t have the startlingly good build quality that its top-end cousin the One M8 boasts. The body is unashamedly plastic, and my white review sample had a shiny white plastic back which, while not removable, is quite clearly a separate section. You can see the join where it meets the matte sides of the phone so clearly that it’s almost embarrassing for HTC.

  The build quality isn’t all that impressive, either. I managed to bow this phone rather alarmingly with very little trouble. You might want to consider a good case if you go for this handset.

  There are two rows of holes along the top and bottom front short edges -- indicating something that is, these days, very much a defining characteristic for HTC. Yep, there are stereo speakers on board this smartphone. Visually the holes aren’t as refined in their design as they are on the One M8 or the One Mini 2, but still, the look is neat. HTC’s BoomSound makes an appearance here too. To my ears the BoomSound quality isn’t up to that delivered by the HTC One M8, but it isn’t bad, and there’s plenty of volume.

  There’s a 5.5-inch screen with quite a bit of bezel both top and bottom, plus those speakers, so you can imagine that this is a big phone. In fact, at 156.6 x 78.7mm it didn’t fit into any of my pockets easily during the time I was carrying it around. And no, my smallish hands couldn’t manage one-handed use. Still, HTC has kept the thinness down. At 7.9mm the Desire 816 is no rival for the svelte £366 Huawei Ascend P7, but even Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S5 is slightly thicker at 8.1mm.

  HTC has decided to put the power and volume rockers on the left edge, where they sit quite nicely under the thumb. They’re tactile enough to find with the phone in your bag for a bit of transport-bound volume adjustment. The headset slot is on the top edge and microUSB on the bottom.

  A non-removable backplate means your nanoSIM and microSD card fit in slots on the phone’s edges. There is a version of this handset that supports two SIMs and so there are three edge slots. They’re all under one very long cover on the right edge of the phone. In my case one of the nanoSIM slots was blocked off. HTC doesn’t bother with a fancy pin-like dongle to access the slots; there’s a little nick in one end of the long cover, and a fingernail is all you need to lift it.

  

  Getting back to the screen, the Ascend P7’s world of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels is out of reach here and instead the Desire 816 gives you 1,280 x 720 pixels. This isn’t unheard of, and the much liked and similarly priced Motorola Moto X from the start of this year shares that resolution. The Moto X manages a pixel density of 312ppi in its 4.7in screen, while the larger 5.5in screen here can only muster 267ppi.

  While some people will doubtless bemoan the 267ppi pixel density, I was quite happy reading web sites and eBooks. The screen size is pretty good for the latter function actually and overall it is perfectly acceptable. In fact, looking back to October last year, I found the 6.3-inch 1,280 x 720 Samsung Galaxy Mega a great handset for e-reading too, and the larger screen there meant a pixel density of 233ppi.

  I had two screen complaints, though. The auto-brightness settings seems low -- I found turning auto off and living with max brightness was more comfy. Also, HTC puts its touch buttons on the screen area, though the company does this across its phone line, not just with the Desire 816. In general I prefer these below the screen, so that screen space itself is maximized.

  

  HTC has not stinted on including Android 4.4 and its Sense 6.0 skin, and that means you get essentially the same look and feel as you do with the flagship handsets. You get software extras like Car mode that lets you switch over to large icons, and there’s a Zoe icon too. Just as with the HTC One mini 2, when you tap it you’re told Zoe is coming soon -- not very useful at the moment. Some things are missing in comparison to the top flight HTC phones; there’s no double tap to wake the phone for example.

  BlinkFeed is here, taking up a whole home screen, but you can disable this social and news aggregator if you want by going to the widgets area and removing it. Thank goodness for that. Among the software extras two stand out: Polaris Office is here and you can create as well as edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. The large screen means doing the last two is viable. There’s also a nice notes app called Scribble which has a whole range of potentially handy templates.

  Obviously you are not going to get state of the art technical specifications with this handset. However, this is a 4G phone. It has a 1.6GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 running the show which is assisted by 1.5GB of RAM. That’s an unusual RAM specification, but one which does help the processor speed along. I have no grumbles on the performance front.

  There’s 8GB of internal storage, which is down to just 3.8GB accessible fresh out of the box. That’s not a great deal these days. You can use a microSD card to add more, of course, and it is very pleasing to see USB On The Go supported here. The ability to read and write to a stick with a microUSB connector can be really useful at times.

  

  The 13 megapixel main camera and 5 megapixel front camera are both good, and fans of selfies will be pleased to hear that there are a lot of filters, effects and touch-up features you can apply. There’s even a three second countdown timer for the front camera.

  The 2600mAh battery is a reasonable specification for a handset of this size and price. How quickly it depletes will depend on what you ask of it, and here we have a dilemma. Larger screens lend themselves to serious gaming, video watching and such, and these all make serious demands on the battery. You’ll also find that if you do as I did and leave the screen on max brightness all the time, you’ll be asking more of the battery than if you use the auto settings.

  For my general usage pattern the battery got me through a day without trouble, but you might want to budget for a mid-afternoon power boost if you want to push the phone during the homeward commute.

  Verdict

  I’m won over by the HTC Desire 816. There is plenty of call for mid-priced, large-screened handsets, and I’m a fan of the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Mega and Huawei Ascend P7, both of which are a fair bit more expensive than the Desire 816. If you are looking for a large, mid-priced phone, the Desire 816 is well worth shortlisting.

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	HTC Desire 816
  Network	4G
  Processor	1.6GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
  Ram	1.5GB
  Memory	8GB (3.8GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	5.5in, 1,280 x 720 pixels, 267ppi
  Main camera	13 megapixel
  Front camera	5 megapixel
  NFC	No
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,600mAh
  Size	78.7 x 7.9 x 156.6mm   (WxDxH)
  Weight	165g
  OS	Android 4.4

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Acer Iconia A1: Small Android tablet for tight budgets [Review]

  Publié: mai 30, 2014, 5:06pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  Acer is probably not the first company you will think of when you start pondering tablets -- but in fact it has quite a pedigree. It has forayed into Windows-based tablets, with recent examples being the Iconia W4 and the Iconia W700 -- an attempt at an all-in-one/tablet combo. And its Android-based tablets are plentiful with A and B series lines alongside the more recently announced Tab 7 and One 7. ITProPortal actually reviewed the predecessor to this new model, the Iconia A1-810, last summer.

  As tablets go the 16GB Acer Iconia A1-830 is a bit of a baby. It has a 7.9-inch screen, just a bit larger than the 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX and Nexus 7, and the same as the iPad mini. Its price marks it out as a budget buy at £140. For reference, the Nexus 7 16GB and 16GB Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch are both £199. The 16GB iPad mini is over £300.

  So, with the Kindle and Nexus being obvious rivals for Android fans, Acer has to do some fancy footwork to win plaudits and make its £60 lighter price tag feel like good value rather than excessive corner cutting.

  First impressions are quite positive. Yes, there's a lot of screen bezel on the short edges, but actually that can be a good thing. Holding the Acer Iconia A1-830 in widescreen mode, there was no danger of my fingers accidentally tapping at the screen's edges.

  The screen itself is not too bad. The 1,024 x 768 pixels might not win any prizes up against the Nexus 7 and Kindle's 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, and the iPad mini's 2,048 x 1,536 -- but it is good enough for text to be readable and not fuzzy.

  There's no auto brightness setting. This is always a bit of a nuisance, but at least you can pull down the brightness control from the notifications area to make manual adjustments. I had to rack brightness up to full whack to feel comfortable, but once that was done, I was happy. Acer talks up the screen's wide viewing angles -- they are indeed pretty good, though when you get to quite a sharp angle the reflectiveness of the screen cuts in to obscure what you're looking it.

  The build is remarkably nice considering this is a low cost tablet. The white and silver colour scheme is an obvious homage to Apple, and it looks appealing. The matte metallic finish to the aluminium backplate looks nice, and it wraps around three of the four edges of the tablet, finishing in a shiny silver strip tying the front to the sides. On the non-metallic top edge a lozenge of white plastic provides slots for the charging cable and headphones. While this tablet is a little on the thick side, the whole build feels quite sturdy.

  The power and volume rockers are white buttons sitting on the right edge. The overall look is pretty nice, though a couple of things let it down. There's a microSD card slot on the right edge which is uncovered and makes a rather ugly gash on the chassis. The microUSB, headset and microSD card slots are identified by symbols or words. Really, Acer, I don't think that's necessary and it just adds visual clutter.

  There are two speaker grilles on the back. They're nicely located as they are not easily covered while you're holding the tablet. Sound quality isn't great, but it is pretty loud. There is also a 5 megapixel camera on the back and a 2 megapixel one on the front. Neither is particularly remarkable and there's a lot of shutter lag -- you'll need a steady hand to get passable results.

  One big surprise with the Iconia A1-830 is its processor: A dual-core Intel Atom 1.6GHz Z2560 is not exactly a popular choice for Android tablets. It has 1GB of RAM in support, and the good news is that it proved to be a decent performer.

  There's always a certain irritation about response speeds when using lower-powered tablets. Whereas with higher-powered tablets, apps appear to run immediately when you tap, here there is a microsecond delay. The wait is longer and more noticeable when the Iconia A1-830 has to resolve a fair bit of data, performing tasks like zooming into a Google Maps location or presenting a web page after you've selected it following a search. These are not deal-breaking problems, though, and many people unaccustomed to using top tier products probably won't even notice an issue.

  On board storage is set at 16GB and 11.25GB of this is free for your use. In conjunction with that microSD card this should be enough. A big irritation with this tablet is that it comes with Android 4.2 installed. That's now so far behind the times that it's a deal breaker. It is unskinned, and has been augmented by lots and lots of apps, some from Acer like AcerCloud, but many from third parties. Here's a list of a few: Amazon app store, Astro File Manager, Audible, Barcode scanner, Evernote, Kindle, Kobo, Life Image (an image-based journal type app), and more. There are various Amazon apps, actually -- and they are the only ones you can delete manually.

  

  Battery life is reasonable, with the 4,000mAh cell seeing me happily through a day's browsing, gaming, reading and whatnot, though anecdotally I don't think it would last as long as that of my everyday Nexus 7. Indeed if weighing up between these two models, I'd advise anyone to try to save a bit more cash and go for the Nexus. Still, if the budget is really tight and you just can't wait, the Acer A1-830 should be serviceable.

  Verdict

  You might not immediately think of Acer when looking at tablet options, but if you are on a really tight budget and want to give a 7.9-inch Android tablet a go, it would be worth glancing in the direction of the Acer Iconia A1-830. Its biggest problems are poor cameras and the old version of Android on board, but if you can see past these issues, this isn't a bad buy.

  Manufacturer and Model	Acer Iconia A1-830
  Processor	1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	16GB
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	7.9in, 1,024 x 768 pixels, 162ppi
  Connectors	MicroUSB, MicroSD, headphones
  Main camera	5 megapixel
  Front camera	2 megapixel
  WiFi	802.11 b/g/n
  Battery	4,000mAh
  Size	138.4 x 8.2 x 203mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	380g
  OS	Android 4.2

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  HTC One mini 2: Good design, solidly built, but overpriced [Review]

  Publié: mai 29, 2014, 5:13pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  It's quite a trend now for handset makers to produce a big phone, then produce a smaller version of it and call it 'mini' or, in Sony's case, 'compact'. The idea is to piggy-back on the features that a flagship, top of the range phone offers, and bring down the overall size for smaller hands, and the overall price for smaller budgets. So, the new HTC One M8 has been joined by the HTC One mini 2, just as the original HTC One was joined by the original, er, HTC One mini.

  You will have spotted an obvious difference in naming between the new flagship and the new mini. HTC isn't helping itself here, but it clearly wants us to view the two handsets as close relations, so let's forgive, forget and move on.

  Don't be fooled by the word 'mini' in the name of this handset. It isn't particularly small, nor is it a perfect 'mini me' for the HTC One M8. Some features have been cut back to squeeze it into the price range HTC has gone for.

  Still, if you just evaluate the HTC One mini 2 with your eyes alone, you'll see that it is unmistakably designed as a clone of the One M8. The curved metal back that feels almost slippery smooth against your palm, those two plastic strips on the back that are cleverly melded into the metal to give a 'zero gap' design, the non-removable backplate. It's all exactly as you'll find in the HTC One M8.

  There are some design differences though. I like the way the One M8's metal back extends into the handset edges. With this handset, the plastic edges are more mundane. There's a single and not a dual flash on the back, and that second camera on the One M8 -- the one used for creating depth of field based effects -- is missing. I'll come back to the camera features later.

  For the record, the vitals of the HTC One mini 2 are 65 x 10.6 x 137.4mm (WxDxH) with a weight of 137g, compared to the M8 at 70.6 x 9.35 x 146.36mm (WxDxH) with a weight of 160g.

  The smaller size of the One mini 2 makes for a handset that is much easier to grasp and slip into a pocket than the One M8, but it is still pretty sizable and two factors combine to affect the overall size.

  

  This is a relatively tall phone because of the characteristic twin speakers sitting above and below the screen. They are quite something; I was very impressed with the sound quality from the HTC One M8, and here it is also superb. HTC has definitely set a new standard with BoomSound. The size is also dictated by the 4.5in screen -- that's quite large for a 'mini' handset. I've got small hands, and I found reaching all the way across the screen one-handed a bit of a challenge. The screen's resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels means this is a handset that doesn't fuzz its text and gives you crisp, clear graphics. In combination with those speakers, you could use it for a bit of catch-up TV if you needed to.

  Under the hood you can't expect the very best specifications, but what's here is for the most part well thought through. This is a 4G handset with NFC, and the Wi-Fi is 802.11 a/b/g/n. The microUSB slot on the bottom edge of the casing supports MHL and USB On The Go -- it'll read from those fancy USB sticks with microUSB connectors.

  

  HTC has chosen the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset to provide the driving power for this handset, and given it 1GB of RAM in support. I found it perfectly adequate for everyday use. There was no slowing or stuttering, and nothing I'd grumble about in performance terms if this was my personal handset.

  Internal memory is reasonably generous at 16GB straight out of the box, with 10.37GB free for your own use. Because the back is not removable there is a microSD card slot on the right edge. And of course if you are in need of yet more storage, there's that USB On The Go option. Your nanoSIM lives in a slot on the left edge of the chassis.

  On the software front it's Android 4.4 with HTC Sense 6, as you would expect from a top flight handset from HTC. Sense 6 includes BlinkFeed, HTC's news and social aggregator that consumes a home screen. As I noted in my HTC One M8 review BlinkFeed is improved on its earlier incarnation in two ways. You can set up personalized feeds on topics that interest you, and you can disable it completely if you don't like it. Sense 6 itself has become less cluttered than earlier versions, and it is a pretty neat Android skin.

  HTC can't resist adding a few apps too, and the highlights include a productivity folder containing Polaris Office 5 and a nice notes app called Scribble. I'm also a fan of the HTC Car interface which gives you nice big icons to tap at.

  

  Moving onto the camera, HTC has abandoned its ultrapixel technology here, instead using a standard 13 megapixel offering. As already noted the second camera is gone from the back too. Still the camera captures a good snap, and the front camera shoots to 5 megapixels. Both can grab HD video. As handset cameras go, there's nothing much to grumble about here, though if you are a Zoe fan, then you may bemoan the absent Zoe app. In actual fact, there's a Zoe app icon -- but right now, if you tap it you simply get a 'coming soon' message.

  Battery life does give me something to grumble about, as it is a little less robust than I'd like. If you enjoy a bit of music or gaming during the day you may need to head to the mains mid-afternoon to make sure there's enough power to see you through the evening.

  

  To help out here HTC includes an 'extreme power saving mode' which does things like turn screen brightness down, turn vibrations off, and switch off data connections when the screen is off. It can be set to kick in when the battery reaches 20 percent, 10 percent or 5 percent charge. For everyday use you can nip into ordinary power saver mode which you can configure to dial the CPU down, reduce screen brightness, turn off vibrations or turn off the data connection when the screen is off.

  Verdict

  Overall there are no major problems with the HTC One mini 2. It's solidly made, has a good screen, some nice features, and it performs well enough. The battery is perhaps disappointing, but there are some life extending tweaks you can apply.

  However, consider the Moto G. Newly upgraded to 4G and with specifications that give the HTC One mini 2 a real run for its money, Motorola's budget handset costs way less. That alone marks the HTC One mini 2 out as an extravagant purchase.

  Good Points

  • Nice design and solid build
  • Impressive display
  • Good sound quality
  • NFC and MHL

  Bad Points

  • No Zoe app yet
  • Expensive

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	HTC One mini 2
  Network	4G
  Processor	1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	16GB (10.37GB available)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.4in, 1,280 x 720 pixels, 326ppi
  Main camera	13 megapixel
  Front camera	5 megapixel
  NFC	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,110mAh
  Size	65 x 10.6 x 137.4mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	137g
  OS	Android 4.4

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  How to get the best out of your Huawei Ascend P7

  Publié: mai 26, 2014, 4:23pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Huawei is not such a well-known smartphone maker as the likes of Samsung, Sony or HTC. But it has recently launched a relatively low cost, relatively high spec phone in the Ascend P7, and despite some quibbles about battery life I gave it a thumbs up in my recent review.

  The Ascend P7 runs Android 4.4 (KitKat), and like all higher-end handset makers Huawei has its own skin which it calls Emotion UI. You'll notice this immediately because all the app icons have been given a makeover. The "flat" design is clean and neat looking, and it makes a good first impression. More importantly, perhaps, Emotion UI adds a range of features to the Android staples. Let's take a look at how best to use those features to our advantage.

  Organize Your Apps

  One of the key features of Huawei's Emotion UI Android skin is that there's no dedicated app drawer. Instead apps live on one or more home screens.

  When this first surfaced I was not exactly happy about it, even though it is the system Apple has used in the iPhone and iPad for years. It just felt odd for Android -- but I have come round to liking it.

  The key to making friends with the system is to organise your apps properly. Drag one on top of another to push both into a folder, and name the folder by tapping the name area that opens at the top of the window. Add more app icons by dragging them in, then reorganize and restructure folders by dragging app icons around.

  A Gazillion Themes

  There's an app icon called Themes. Tap this and you can see a selection of on-device themes and many, many, many more that you can download.

  If you like to ring the changes, you've got oodles of options here.

  Take a Quick Snap

  How often have you been in a situation where you've wanted to take a photo, got out your phone, fired up the camera, and missed the moment? Huawei has tried to overcome that issue: A double tap of the volume button, even when the phone is in standby, will fire up the 13 megapixel main camera and swiftly take a shot. The camera proudly tells you how long it took from click to photo shoot. I regularly achieved around 1.3 seconds.

  Lock Screen Shortcuts

  Sweep a finger up from the bottom of the lock screen and there are four app shortcuts for calendar, calculator, torch and a mirror that uses the front camera to help you beautify yourself.

  Other lock screen goodies include allowing access to the notification panel via the usual downward sweep, having widgets on it, and even displaying two clocks. That could be pretty handy when you are travelling abroad and need to keep an eye on two time zones.

  One-Handed Use with Suspend Button

  The 5-inch screen is great for watching movies and reading eBooks, but you might find one-handed use a bit tricky at times. When you are juddering around standing on a full bus, pull down the notifications area and tap Suspend Button.

  Now there's a little soft-button at the bottom left of the screen. Tap it for a carousel that gives you access to the home screen, and pop-up apps like a music control widget, calculator, texting app, note-taker and calendar (you can also clean out the handset's memory from here).

  Notifications Area Tweaks

  As well as the standard array of toggles for Wi-Fi, screen rotation and the like, the notification area gives you access to a few other neat features. You can customize this to allow more or fewer options.

  For example, you can toggle using the camera's light as a torch, fiddle with screen brightness and switch quickly into an ultra-power-saving mode which will eke the last little bit of life out of a failing battery.

  Phone Manager App

  If things start running a little slowly, or you think you've got too many apps open, or you just want to be a little bit nerdy about being on top of how the Ascend P7 is handling its workload, then use the Phone Manager app. It'll run a quick diagnostic, and then give you some options for freeing up resources.

  You can, for example, close apps to free up memory, and stop apps from running when the screen turns off to conserve battery power. You can do these tasks manually, or hit the big round button again and watch as your handset automatically optimizes itself to 100 percent efficiency.

  Use the Simple Home Screen

  If the home screen setup is all a bit too much, then just tap and hold on any home screen to get into Simple Home mode. This offers three screens of large icons along with basic app and shortcut access.

  There's a button on one of the home screens to get you back to the standard view again.

  Do Not Disturb

  When it comes to those times when you don't want to be bothered by phone calls or notifications, instead of using the silent mode setting, why not try Huawei's other option -- do not disturb. This will only allow calls through from a list of approved contacts.

  You can flip it on manually any time you like, or use the scheduler to set it for specific times. And as for that list of allowed callers -- you can use a second setting that will allow calls through from anyone who tries to bell you twice within three minutes (as then, presumably it's a matter of urgency).

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Motorola Moto E: An attractive and affordable Android smartphone [Review]

  Publié: mai 20, 2014, 4:07pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Anyone who regularly reads my handset reviews will know how important the Motorola Moto G has been. Since last November it has overshadowed every phone aiming at the £150 price range, and quite a lot priced a fair bit higher. Now Motorola wants the Moto E to achieve the same kind of dominance -- this time at the entry-level end of the phone market. The Moto E can be yours for £89 SIM-free.

  By modern standards this is a small handset -- its screen is only 4.3-inches. It is amazing how much the landscape has changed over the last few years, so that a 4.3-inch phone seems small and 5-inch feels like the optimum size.

  While the screen doesn’t sit in the chassis in an "edge to edge" manner (have a gander at the LG G2 if you want to see what that looks like), there’s not a lot of bezel around the long edges, so the Motorola Moto E is relatively narrow. It is, though, fairly thick and this means it doesn’t sit quite as comfortably in the hand as it could. It is heavy too -- 142g is way more than the 124g of the 5-inch Huawei Ascend P7, and almost a match for the 145g Samsung Galaxy S5. It does feel weighty in the hand.

  On the plus side, as far as the Moto E being a comfy hold goes, there’s a curvature to the backplate which helps the phone nestle in the palm, and the back itself has a soft-touch finish.

  The Moto E is a tough little cookie. The chassis is solid and doesn’t creak, and the backplate is a really tight fit -- it shouldn’t pop off if you drop the phone. The display is of course Gorilla Glass -- but the latest version, Gorilla Glass 3, providing the best protection you can get against scratches and blemishes.

  Motorola has even tried to compete with the latest trend for waterproofing handsets. No, the E doesn’t have an IP rating, but it does have a splash guard coating. It just might stand a better chance of surviving a drop in a puddle or the bath compared to the average handset.

  My review sample was black, but soon you’ll be able to get hold of shells in a wide variety of rich, bright colours just as you can for the Moto G. This could prove an important factor in the success of this handset, as for relatively little outlay you’ll be able to refresh the look of your phone.

  There are two buttons on the right edge -- power and volume. The headset slot is on the top, and microUSB on the bottom. This is the same basic design as the Moto G, although there is one notable design difference from the Moto G in that there are two silver bars on the front (one above, and one below the screen). Neither actually does anything -- you might think the one below the screen is a controller of some sort, but no. The speaker sits behind it, churning out pretty tinny music, I might add.

  

  The Android controls are on the screen itself. Motorola has not troubled itself too much in terms of trying to wow us with the screen. The relatively high pixel count we saw in the Moto G’s 4.5-inch screen of 1,280 x 720 has come down here to 960 x 540. Now, the screen is not awful -- I was happy enough looking at websites and graphics. But it is not a shining beacon of quality, either, and text can look a little bit grainy.

  I wouldn’t want to use a screen this small for eBooks or anything like that, so this is probably not a huge deal. What’s more annoying, in a way, is the relatively low brightness and shallow viewing angles. I kept the display on full brightness most of the time to ease these problems.

  Motorola has decided to cut back on camera capabilities in order to save costs. There’s no front camera, while the back one is limited to shooting stills to 5 megapixels and lacks a flash. Video capture is way below par, maxing out at 854 x 480 pixels.

  The processor is a fairly sedate 1.2GHz Snapdragon with 1GB of RAM in support. It won’t break any records and it may struggle if you are a big multitasker or want to do a lot of gaming. But it streamed YouTube without a hitch. It is great to see memory expansion here -- something Motorola dispensed with on the Moto G. The microSD slot is nicely protected under the backplate, as is the microSIM slot. This means you can build on the rather light 4GB of internal storage, 2.21GB of which is available for your own use.

  

  There’s no 4G and no NFC here, but you do get Android 4.4 in an almost unskinned form. There are some light tweaks, for example the Google Camera settings are on a carousel here instead of the stock slide-out panel.

  

  Motorola’s Assist is on board too. This is a great little app that you can use to set the handset up for specific tasks. It can, for example, automatically silence the phone when you are in meetings, allowing through a whitelist and persistent callers but nobody else.

  There’s a 1,980mAh non-removable battery that Motorola says will last all day. Well, I’ve heard that one before. This time, though, Motorola does seem to have a point. As far as I’ve seen in a relatively short time with the Moto E, it does seem to meet that all-day life claim with a usage pattern that includes regular email fetching, web use, a little music playback and even a (very) small amount of gaming. Very importantly it also does really well on standby dropping minimal charge.

  Verdict

  Motorola hasn’t quite produced the stunner that some people might want with the Moto E. The absence of a front camera will immediately put it out of the running for the selfie brigade, and the screen disappoints a bit too.

  Still, the robust build, Android 4.4, memory expansion, opportunity to add replacement back covers and that fantastic battery life are all points in its favour. Other ultra-low-cost handset makers now need to up their game.

  Manufacturer and Model	Motorola Moto E
  Network	3G
  Processor	1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200
  Ram	1GB
  Memory	4GB (2.21GB accessible)
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	4.3in, 960 x 540 pixels, 256ppi
  Main camera	5 megapixel
  Front camera	None
  NFC	No
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	1,980mAh
  Size	64.8 x 12.3 x 124.8mm   (WxDxH)
  Weight	142g
  OS	Android 4.4

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Snap happy -- Google Camera app for KitKat is a winner [Review]

  Publié: mai 9, 2014, 8:26am CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  I was never a big fan of the camera interface that came with KitKat on my Nexus 5. Having to roll my finger about on the screen to get to the various menu options never really appealed. It felt awkward, and I was always missing the selections I wanted.

  Anyone running KitKat may have come across the fact that the camera app has changed. My Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 both got it as an automatic download, but if you are running KitKat on a handset or a tablet and don't have the new camera app, you can pop along to the Play store and download it. It's called Google Camera.

  Installing Google Camera

  You can install Google Camera regardless of whether or not you are running an app with a camera utility as part of its skin. For example, I installed it on a Samsung Galaxy S5 -- take a look at the screenshot below to see for yourself that it doesn't interfere with Samsung's camera app at all. The Google Camera icon is on the right, Samsung's on the left. There's nothing to stop you shoving both camera apps, and anything else you might have installed to do with cameras or photo editing, into a folder so that everything is easily to hand (and tidier).

  

  Gone, gone, gone

  Google Camera adds a range of new features, but it also drops some, too. Quite amazingly, the new Google Camera has dropped the self-timer. I rather hope it returns -- while I didn't exactly use it very often, it is such a basic camera feature that it really ought to be in the stock Google camera.

  Also gone is the time-lapse feature in the video camera. For me that was not a greatly used feature, but it is a real shame not to have access to it. It was one of those things I always thought I would use when the opportunity arose, but now Google has taken the option away. Google has also removed the ability to take a photo while shooting a video. That's another feature I want back.

  The other major removal comes in the form of the scene modes -- the app just works on auto mode now. For some people that'll be a real step backwards.

  A new user interface

  The first thing you'll notice when you fire Google Camera up is that it frames your image in a small part of the screen, leaving a huge area for the action button (i.e. "shoot a photo"). That's because the camera incorporates a 100 per cent viewfinder -- it shows you precisely what you will capture in the image.

  Now, to be fair, you might not have noticed before that the viewfinder didn't show the full captured image. It was just small areas at the top and bottom of a photo that you missed out on seeing when you framed a shot, but now what you see really is what you get.

  Incidentally, when you are framing a shot, a small three dot menu (bottom right) lets you access options for the shooting mode you are using. Here you can switch between the back and front cameras, turn the flash on, off or to auto mode, toggle HDR, toggle the viewfinder grid, and, if you have enabled it (see below) you can fiddle with the exposure.

  A sweep away from the left of the screen pops up nice big buttons that take you to the various shooting modes, and a little tool icon that takes you to advanced settings. They're not very advanced, though.

  

  On the first settings screen you can set the resolution and quality of images. What you get will depend on your handset -- check out my screenshots from the Samsung Galaxy S5 (above) and the Nexus 5 (below). You can also opt to add geolocation to photos, set the resolution for panorama shots, and choose between high or low quality for the new Lens Blur feature.

  

  Tapping the Advanced button gets you into just the one setting -- for manual exposure. Don't get excited. Turning this feature on just gives you a standard exposure slider that lets you lighten up or darken photos. It's not very comprehensive, but at least it does let you fiddle a bit. Maybe more options will be added here in the future.

  Panorama, Photo Sphere and Lens Blur

  So, what about those shooting options on the slide out menu: Photo Sphere, Panorama and Lens Blur?

  

  Panorama is the usual "move the camera around to build up a panoramic image" affair. You get a fairly small image in the frame at any one time, and as you move the camera around to take each shot in a panorama you have to line up a blue dot in a central circle. It is quite a slow process, but I found the end results to be fairly good.

  

  Photo Sphere is my favourite of the new shooting modes. It works like Panorama in that you have to frame each shot so that the blue dot lines up inside a circle, but you can move the camera in any direction. The idea is that you can create 360 degree shots.

  

  When you open a Photo Sphere image on your device you can pan around it. You can take the pic off your device as a full-sized image, but you can't pan around it then, of course.

  Lens Blur gives you some control over depth of field. Remember the twin cameras of the HTC One (M8)? In that case the secondary camera captures depth of field information to allow you to implement some fancy blurring effects. Google Camera attempts to do this with software alone.

  

  To make it work you shoot your photo and then move the camera upwards. As the camera moves it takes multiple shots which it uses to identify depth of field. I found it quite tricky to take a photo at first -- you have to move the camera upwards very slowly and keep the subject centered. It's not one for those with shaky hands. It takes a few seconds to render an image, but then you can fiddle with which parts of your image are in focus and which are blurred. My attempts so far have not achieved stunning results, but it is definitely a feature worth playing around with.

  Conclusions

  Google Camera is quite a major update. While it removes some features, it adds new ones, and both Photo Sphere and Lens Blur deserve more than a second glance. I'd like the self-timer and ability to shoot a still while taking a video back as a matter of urgency, and time lapse reinstated as well. Some more user control over exposure would be nice, as well -- but that improved user interface is a winner.

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Acer Liquid Z5: You get what you pay for [Review]

  Publié: mai 7, 2014, 9:10am CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Acer has come up with a low-cost 5in handset in the Liquid Z5, and one with a neat chassis design, too. However, it needs some distinguishing characteristics to make it stand out, as things are competitive in every segment of the handset market these days. So does the Liquid Z5 have what it takes to be a winner?

  The Liquid Z5 comes in a Duo version -- that’s one which supports two microSIMs. That’s why the cover for the SIM slot on the single SIM model (which I was sent for review) is so very long. The dual SIM version is currently available online for £140, while Asda has my single SIM version for £95 as I write (the phone isn't currently being sold in the US). That is an attractive price for a handset with a 5in screen. Leading budget handsets cost more -- Motorola’s Moto G comes in at £150, and Sony’s Xperia M is around £135. So how has Acer managed to get down to this sub-£100 price?

  Well, the chassis design certainly looks as though some thought has been put into it. My review sample had a white backplate, and this curves rather nicely into the sides of the phone. It isn’t great that you can very clearly see the join between back and front of the handset, and on my review sample the flap protecting the microSD card slot on the left edge of the phone was not a particularly good fit. This just goes to show that design is one thing, manufacturing another.

  On the short edges the backplate joins a tapered front which provides space for two long grilles -- they look like speaker grilles. In fact only the bottom one emits sound, but the symmetry of the design is appealing. Sadly, sound quality is very tinny and distorted at the top volume. You do have access to an equalizer which has a noticeable effect on sound quality, but however I played with it the excessive treble and lack of bass were not fixed.

  There is one aspect of the build that is irritating -- my microUSB connector, the one I use for every charge-by-USB device I own, and for review kit week after week after week, didn’t sit securely in the Liquid Z5. Time after time I found it slipped free. The provided connector fits snugly, though.

  There’s a 5in screen here and that’s pretty good for a low-cost handset. There is quite a lot of bezel top and bottom, but at least the bottom bezel houses the Android touch buttons -- so that the entire screen is available for apps. In some handsets, remember, you give up some screen space to the touch buttons.

  The screen itself is disappointing. With 854 x 480 pixels spread across the display, text looks fuzzy. The TFT is very reflective, and colors are not particularly vibrant. There’s no auto-brightness setting, and maximum manual brightness is not especially high.

  

  The back offers up a special feature which we can expect to see more of from Acer. There’s a button beneath the camera lens which has a dual role. Acer calls it the AcerRAPID button. If you give it a press it starts any one app -- you can set which one you want to be quick launched -- and it can be used to access some features as well, such as the screen brightness setting. It defaults to launching the music player. If you long press it, it will call up the camera -- you can’t customize that long press setting. You really do need to give it a proper press, though, for it to work. Acer’s inspiration likely comes from LG with its G2, and we’ve also recently seen a back-mounted heart rate sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S5.

  On the software front Acer has implemented something it calls Quick Mode. This is a bit like the Simple mode in the Huawei Ascend Y530, but way more complex. Quick Mode is actually several modes -- basic mode, senior mode, keypad mode, classic mode and default mode.

  Goodness knows why this idea has been made so complicated with so many modes on offer. Do seniors really only want messaging, FM radio, weather, the magnifier, contacts, clock and a couple of shortcuts to people? And, by the way, what clown decided that the senior mode icon would be a bloke with a mustache and cane? Keypad mode gives you a dialpad and six shortcuts to messages, media, weather, applications, contacts and settings. Classic mode offers a different set of large tiles; and so it goes on. Some of the options in these modes lead to new tile-based screens, others drop you into full apps. It is all very odd indeed, and to compound matters further, to switch between modes you need to remember a PIN.

  

  With Android 4.2 at the core the Acer Liquid Z5 is way behind the times. Acer has added a skin and a few apps, including its nice Float Apps which you can call up by long pressing the multitasking button, then tapping the app you want. You only get four of them -- camera, maps, calculator and notes.

  The dual-core 1.3GHz processor is supported by just 512MB of RAM and things move very slowly. Sometimes I kept pressing at the screen because there seemed to be no reaction, but this was probably the processor being sluggish rather than any issue with the screen. Web pages take a while to render, too. To be fair, if you are not used to ultrafast handsets this may not concern you, but in comparison to the fast processor of the Moto G the Z5 comes off very poorly.

  

  Memory is short. There is 4GB installed but only 1.7GB of that is yours to access. As already noted, though, you do have a microSD card slot for adding storage. Let’s not discuss the VGA front camera. The 5 megapixel main camera is passable, but nothing more. Battery life is worrying; on one occasion I went from 53 per cent charge to 7 per cent charge between 10.00 and 11.30 in the morning, when the handset was just sitting there not doing very much of anything. You will probably struggle to get through a day on a single charge.

  

  Verdict

  Acer has come up with a fairly neat design for the Liquid Z5, and one which looks good on a budget handset like this -- but there is not much else to say that is positive. The processor is slow, the screen disappointing, and the battery life a real let down. If you are even half thinking of buying this phone, then take a good look at the Motorola Moto G before you make your final choice.

  Good Points

  • Nice hardware design
  • Rear-mounted app launch button

  Bad Points

  • Slow performance
  • Poor display
  • Too many Quick Mode choices
  • Old version of Android

  Specifications

  Manufacturer and Model	Acer Liquid Z5
  Network	3G
  Processor	1.3GHz dual-core Mediatek MT6572
  RAM	512MB
  Memory	4GB
  Memory expansion	microSD
  Display	5in, 854 x 480 pixels, 196ppi
  Main camera	5 megapixel
  Front camera	640 x 480 pixels (VGA)
  NFC	No
  Wi-Fi	Yes
  GPS	Yes
  FM radio	Yes
  Battery	2,000mAh
  Size	73.5 x 8.8 x 145.5mm (WxDxH)
  Weight	150g
  OS	Android 4.2

  Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

  
• 

  Samsung Galaxy S5 vs Sony Xperia Z2 vs HTC One M8

  Publié: mai 2, 2014, 5:42pm CEST par Sandra Vogel

  

  Over the last few weeks Samsung has launched its Galaxy S5, Sony has revealed its Xperia Z2, and HTC has released the One M8. Each of these top flight handsets has its own plus points, and the uniting factor is that they are all vying for your attention if you want to be at the cutting edge right now.

  Of course, that will change soon enough. We’re hearing about a possible HTC Prime, and Sony has recently started launching a second flagship handset in the latter part of the year. And other makers will come along with new top of the range phones, too. But for now, those who are after the very best phone they can get have a three way choice. So, is there an obvious best or an obvious worst phone among this trio? Let’s find out.

  Design and build quality

  These three handsets differ markedly in their respective build quality. The design of the HTC One M8 is simply stunning, with the curved metal backplate looking sumptuous and feeling great in the hand. It is easily my favorite for looks. My least favorite is the Sony Xperia Z2. The glass back does nothing for me aesthetically, and there’s an annoying ridge around the back which I could feel while holding the phone. Dead space above and below the screen does the handset’s looks no favors. The Samsung Galaxy S5 sits in the middle for looks. Its plastic build does not appeal to everyone, but I like it. And plastic makes for a lighter handset than the other two.

  The respective dimensions of these phones are 72.5 x 8.1 x 142mm (WxDxH) in the case of the S5, 73.3 x 8.2 x 146.8mm (WxDxH) for the Z2, and 70.6 x 9.35 x 146.36mm (WxDxH) for the M8. The S5 weighs 145 grams, and the Z2 and M8 are heavier at 163 grams and 160 grams respectively.

  You can get to the battery in the Samsung but not the other two -- but as I note below, battery life should not be a problem for most of us.

  Display

  There’s nothing to choose between the screen resolutions of the three handsets, with all of them offering 1,920 x 1,080 pixels -- but there are other differences. The screen sizes vary very slightly, so that the ppi is different for each phone. So, the HTC One M8 has a 5in screen and 441ppi, the Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 5.1in screen delivering 432ppi, and the Sony Xperia Z2 sports a 5.2in screen and 424ppi. To say there’s any real difference here would be splitting hairs, though.

  

  Where you will notice differences is when it comes to display quality. My personal favorite is the Samsung, with a Super AMOLED screen that’s vibrant and sharp, with a color saturation you can change, easily dropping into several pre-set modes. My least favorite, despite the Triluminos, X-Reality and Live Colour LED systems, is the Z2’s display, though you do have a range of controls over the color saturation so you can personalize the vibrancy. The One M8 is clear and sharp, and I could certainly live with it. In many ways, though, this is all a matter of personal taste, and it is fair to say that if you end up with any of these three phones, you will find the display is perfectly good enough.

  Processor, memory and battery

  One thing that’s been very notable about the launches of each of these three handsets is the lack of shouting about the processor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 is shared by all three phones, though Samsung has gone for a slightly faster variant. Samsung and HTC have plumped for 2GB of RAM, while Sony has opted for 3GB. (See the specs table at the end of this article for all the details).

  In everyday use I found all three phones were snappy and responsive, and nothing I could throw at them caused slowdowns or lag. I simply couldn’t fault any of them in terms of performance.

  However, I had a major complaint about the Sony Xperia Z2 running hot during my review. I could feel the warmth through the back of the chassis, and on one occasion I spent five minutes working with some of the advanced camera features before I was told the software would close because the handset was running too hot. Not a good sign for photography fans!

  

  Battery life across all three handsets is good, and I would expect most of us to get more than a day from a single charge. This is partly because of much better power management in these new high-end phones, and partly because of high capacity batteries being used. All three handsets have good power saving options for when you are down to the last 15 per cent of your battery, too.

  All three smartphones come with 16GB of built-in memory and a microSD card slot. Some of that memory is used by Android 4.4, some by extra apps, and some by the skin that sits on top of Android. So, out of the box, the HTC One M8 has 10.1GB free, the Sony Xperia Z2 has 10.7GB, and the Samsung Galaxy S5 boasts 11.2GB.

  Camera

  The cameras of these three handsets are arguably where some of the greatest differences lie. Don’t worry too much about the 4 megapixels of the HTC One M8 -- the ultrapixel technology ensures quality is high. Instead consider the secondary rear camera of the One M8 which provides depth of field data for creating some fun effects. They’re not perfect, but photo fans might enjoy playing with them. Samsung can mimic this with a single camera lens, and it shoots 16 megapixel photos. Sony has a 20.7 megapixel camera and lots of fun effects. Just be wary of the potential for the handset running hot that I mentioned earlier.

  

  Software features and sound

  Comparing the software features of all three handsets in detail would require a feature all of its own, so let’s look at some highlights. All three phones have Android skins. HTC Sense has been updated to be less in your face than previously, and the dreaded BlinkFeed, which I loathe, has improved features and can be turned off.

  Samsung’s skin is visually appealing, and the Galaxy S5 has some interesting new features the other two handsets lack. There’s a heart rate monitor that sits on the back of the handset, and this is part of Samsung’s desire to build its name in the health sector. Personally, I like it. Samsung is the only one of the bunch to include a fingerprint scanner, which is on the physical home button. I’m not such a fan of this but it is easily ignored.

  I really like the screen optimization feature in the Samsung Galaxy S5 -- it allows you to reduce the whole screen size to make one-handed use easier. Unlike phones that let you just left or right dock things like the dial pad, Samsung’s effort runs across the whole phone. I found it made using the handset one-handed while standing on the bus really easy. Elsewhere Samsung has de-bloated apps and features alike, but left plenty of goodies intact.

  Sony comes last in terms of software features. Oh, there are plenty of them, but it all feels a bit crammed in, complex and overdone. The company’s multimedia stuff -- movies, games and music, are well in evidence and there are third-party apps pushed in here too. Of the three handsets, the Xperia Z2 feels the messiest, most bloated and least well thought out.

  Sound quality on the HTC One M8 is really impressive. The stereo speakers deliver great punch and volume. Second best is the Samsung, and Sony comes in third, not just because of the poorer sound quality, but also because Sony majors on multimedia, and I expected a lot more as a result.

  

  And the verdict…

  So, where does all this comparing and contrasting get us, and is there an outright winner between the three handsets at present? Well, there are obvious differences between all three phones in terms of design and innards, and some unique selling points for each of them. If you want fingerprint security, Samsung is your choice. If you want premium hardware design and great sound quality HTC wins. If you are already a fan of Sony’s products and like to consume its media offerings, then you’ll want to follow that path.

  Personally, I think it’s neck and neck between Samsung and HTC, with Sony bringing up the rear, partly because of the handset design, and partly because I don’t buy into the Sony ecosystem. But you may well have a very different view -- feel free to share it in the comments section below.

  For more details on these phones, see my reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, and Sony Xperia Z2.

  Specifications comparison

  Manufacturer and Model	Samsung Galaxy S5	HTC One M8	Sony Xperia Z2
  Network	4G LTE	4G LTE	4G LTE
  Processor	2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801	2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801	2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801
  Ram	2GB	2GB	3GB
  Memory	16GB	16GB	16GB
  Memory expansion	microSD	microSD	microSD
  Display	5.1in, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, 432ppi	5.0in, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, 441ppi	5.2in, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, 424ppi
  Main camera	16 megapixel	4 megapixel (ultrapixel)	20.7 megapixel
  Front camera	2 megapixels	5 megapixel	2.2 megapixels
  NFC	Yes	Yes	Yes
  Wi-Fi	Yes	Yes	Yes
  GPS	Yes	Yes	Yes
  FM radio	No	Yes	Yes
  Battery	2,800mAh	2,600mAh	3,200mAh
  Size	72.5 x 8.1 x 142mm (WxDxH)	70.6 x 9.35 x 146.36mm (WxDxH)	73.3 x 8.2 x 146.8mm   (WxDxH)
  Weight	145g	160g	163g
  OS	Android 4.4	Android 4.4	Android 4.4

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