S3 vs S2

Hey guys, Dom here providing a review on one of the greatest gadgets on the market competing with the iPhone 5, compared to its previous model the S2.

The Design:

With a large 4.8-inch HD screen, compared to its previous model the S2's 4.3-inch, the model becomes noticeably larger, yet still manageable in use, feeling light, slim and personally is still possible to navigate and function one handed. 

The rounded edges of the model although do not cater to all, personally enhance the comfortability in hand compared to the S2, especially after a long period of time in use and with It's polycarbonate rather than bog-standard plastic strays away from a cheap plastic feel to a sophisticated smartphone experience.

Finally, the instalment of the power/standby switch locating itself on the side of the phone allows for a more fluent action when needed, contradicting its accusations of being a highly non-functional large model.

What's New:

Although there are many differences between the two models, only a few make a difference to the majority of the smart phone users.

Personally, a noticable improvement from the S2 is the size and resolution of the screen.

S2 could produce 800 x 480 pixels in resolution where as the new S3 produces 1280 x 720 pixels enhancing my whole experience and use with the phone overall.

Additionally, the new and improved android 4.0 operating instalment outclasses its previous version on the S2 with a noticeable improvement when being familiar with both models. It feels new and improved with noticeably less bugs and force close errors which become frustrating and distasteful.

New camera features include Auto focus, Digital zoom, and image stabilization which personally made photographing a more fluent and simple process. The ability to snap photos faster and simpler enhances the process and my experience using the phone.

Battery life plays a big role in my opinion for a phone. The S3 has enhanced their battery capicity from 1650 mAh to a staggering 2100 mAh, which allows for 180 additional hours in standby and 13 additional hours talk time which is amazing because lets face it, who enjoys charging their phone at midday.

Finally, my personal favourite improvement from the S2 is the technical specifications. The S3 technical specs have outdone all my personal expectations due to the following:

• 1.40 GHz CPU speed
• Quad Core Processor
• 2048 RAM

These advancements blow the S2 out of the picture doubling almost all of its tech specs.

Overall, the S3 is an amazing smart phone and is definitely worth the purchase as the specifications not only speak for them self but after having a hands on feel of the phones functionality you will understand the hype.

Also if you want to check out this drop test video feel free.

     

Sony Xperia Tablet S

Hey guys this is charles - just providing a overview of Sony's new tablet, the Sony Xperia Tablet S.


This new, sleek looking tablet from Sony is set to face off against some solid competition with the likes of the Apple iPad 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 to name just two of the competitors. And due to some good upgrades over the previous tablet produced by Sony it may just be able to fend off this competition, as well.

The look

The look of the new tablet is certainly nice, and its sleek look finished with an aluminum backing makes for an upgrade over the plastic of Sony's previous tablet, the Sony Tablet S. it's been trimmed down in some ways and has thinner edges. It also manages to weigh in at approximately 570 grams -  a respectable weight which compares favourably with competitors.

The specs

The first noticeable upgrade over the previous Sony tablet is the processor upgrade. Gone is the dual-core processor, replaced here by the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 that's running at 1.3 GHz. It provides a good amount of processing power for the Xperia and allows for  a smooth running device. The Xperia also comes with 1 GB of RAM. Rounding out the specs are a 1280x800 pixel display and back and front facing cameras. An 8 mega-pixel one on the back, and a 1 mega-pixel camera on the front. The 1280x800 display while adequate, isn't on the same level as some of the competitors on the market however.

Overall

While this new tablet by Sony is certainly an improvement over their previous attempt, it does lack in some areas such as the resolution. Its processing power is good however and it handles tasks well.  Perhaps one of the best things about it however is the slim and overall good looking exterior finish.

Magic Mouse

The Magic Mouse

One of Apple's lesser known devices is their Magic Mouse. This device is small, powerful, and probably my favourite accessory with my Mac. Since OS X Lion, Apple has included many different gestures to achieve a myriad of different tasks. 

With a Mac's trackpad, you can achieve all these different tasks - zooming, scrolling, switching between different full screen apps, launching Mission Control and Launchpad, to name a few - however, you're still limited to a small workspace area: Mac trackpads are big (when compared to other notebooks), but they're still not as easy to use as a mouse. 

Cue the Magic Mouse. This device really is amazing, so much so that I can't find anything bad to report about it.

Gestures on the Multi-Touch mouse

The touch-top of the mouse makes performing all the above gestures so much easier. You can do almost everything the trackpad can do; without the limitations. Scrolling is as easy as moving your finger up and down the top of the mouse - no annoying click-wheels -, it's smooth and fast. The design (although I was skeptical at first) really feels nice to hold. It's very different to the average mouse, and that's good. Rather than attempting to mould your hand around it, it appears to be designed in such a way that it gets out of the way and just lets you do what you want it to do. 

Magic Mouse with iMac

Magic Mouse battery compartment

As with most Bluetooth devices, battery life is always a problem. From what I've experienced with this mouse, battery life really isn't a problem. With a standard lithium ion battery, I manage to get about 3 months use, that's with having it on almost all day, every day. 

The laser sensor on the mouse works really well, too. I've tried it on almost every surface in my house, and I'm yet to find a surface that it won't work on, or at least partly work on. 


Concluding, this mouse is a must for anyone with a Mac, it works really well (as you'd expect) with everything on a Mac computer and for AUD$79.99, it's definitely a good investment. 

Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzel Beta 2 first impressions

Hey folks, it's Martin here giving you a look a look at Canonical's newest addition to the Ubuntu family.

Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal Beta 2 has arrived, so that means another release of Ubuntu is upon us. For those of you who are thinking "What is Ubuntu?" or "I don't know what Linux is.", Ubuntu is an operating system , much like Windows or Mac OSX and it's based on a kernel, called Linux. The finer details are not so important, but if you've never heard of Ubuntu or ever considered using it, this might persuade you otherwise. For those of you new to Linux, you probably might want to skip this blog post. But stick around, in the next few days, I'll be posting another article on why you might seriously consider having a close look at Ubuntu. You might learn a thing or two that may be important in the coming months (*ahemwindows8ahem*). For the familiar, continue on to see what's coming down the pipe in the next fortnight.

For the familiar
Alright, so for those of you familiar to Ubuntu already and are still on 12.04 LTS (or other), here's what you can expect to see. Let's get the nitty gritty out of the way quickly, shall we? First, expect 12.10 to be shipping with Linux kernel 3.5, Unity 6.6 and a bevy of other updates to applications like Gimp and Libre Office. Personally, I haven't been a huge fan of Unity, but I have to be honest, it shaping up to be really nicely polished.

The new LibreOffice and Gimp (image credit: ZDNet)

Web-Apps
So the dash has been a little bit refined. First, you may have noticed a couple new icons in the dock; Ubuntu One Music and Amazon. These are simply web-apps and will open in Firefox (or your browser of choice). But, if your first thought is "Ugh, that is just blatant advertising", fear not, because it is simple to remove these icons. Personally, it doesn't bother me too much. If it helps support Canonical, I'm all for it. Thumbs up for seamless web-app integration.

New Amazon Web App (image credit: linuxo.com)

The Dash
The dash has seen some nice polish and added features in 12.10. The music lens has received an update cover flow effect (which to be honest, doesn't move me at all, but that's just me). Again, Ubuntu One Music and Amazon have been directly integrated too, so a quick press of the super key and you can be searching your whatever your heart desires on Amazon. Nice addition. Twitter's been directly integrated into the dash too, which leads on to my next point...

The new updated Dash (image credit: linuxo.com)

Social Network Integration
To me, quite possibly the neatest feature of 12.10 is the new Online Accounts in the settings application. With support for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and many more, simply authenticate once to integrate your social networks across many of Ubuntu's surprisingly large selection of applications. So you can use Pidgin to manage all your social network accounts, Shotwell to manage all your photos, Gwibber to manage your feeds etc. and its all seamlessly integrated and is very clean. Awesome.

Online Accounts (image credit: ZDNet)

Summing it up
So I guess you can see the theme with Ubuntu 12.10 is integration. No longer are you sandboxed within a web browser, but connecting through the web is done through the operating system itself, and not just an application (i.e. web browser). Why should be expect the same experience that we could get on any other operating system by just using the web browser for everything?

5 Days With iPhone 5

Hi everyone, Jack here;

Today marks my fifth day with Apple's newest product to hit the market. Personally, I think five days is more than enough time to make my assumptions and decide if those hours waiting in line were worth it or not. 

Apple's new iPhone 5 in black & slate and white & silver (image credit: Apple.com)

So firstly, some history. For the three years leading up to Friday the 21st of September 2012, I had been using an iPhone 3GS. It had done me very well for those three years: but I was well overdue for an upgrade. The front and back panels were falling apart, the battery rarely lasted more than two hours, it took almost a minute to open Safari (or any app, for that matter), the screen was overwhelmingly scratched, and the camera could barely make out the silhouette of an office tower... But amazingly, it still worked!

Understandably, after the setup process with my new iPhone, I was pleasantly relieved when I could use Safari in less than a second. And I use 'pleasantly' as a big understatement.

I'll give the iPhone 5 a rating out of 10 for the following key aspects; setup, display, battery, speed, and software; 

On with the show:

Setup: 10/10

There's been a lot of people complaining about iCloud and it's myriad of problems: I didn't encounter any. It was as easy as signing in to my Apple ID and tapping 'Backup from iCloud.' It was all done. All my photos, contacts, messages, apps, settings... Everything was just there. 

All your content and settings from a previous iPhone are restored to your new iPhone in these two screens (image credit: About.com)

Display: 9/10

I was amazed with this display, it really looks like the icons are sitting on top of the screen, rather than under it. There's really nothing more to say other than 'wow.' Now, again, I have been witheld from the retina display for the past three years, so perhaps my analysis of this aspect of iPhone 5 is biased; but if you take away something we're all used to now, you'd really notice the difference. After comparing this screen to my 3GS, there really was no competition. 

Apple's Retina Display offers clear, sharp, and precise image and resolutions (image credit: RS Web Solutions)

Battery: 6/10

Unfortunately, I believe the battery is the ultimate downfall of iPhone 5. LTE and all the different system services definitely drain this battery. I can just manage a day on the battery; by the time I go to bed, it's at 5%. 

The battery (I believe) is the ultimate drawback of iPhone 5 (image credit: ultrasn0w.ca)

Speed: 9/10

Just like the display, I am partially biased with this component of iPhone 5; however, even when comparing 5 to 4S, it's possible to feel how much faster it is. LTE is astonishingly fast, so much so that I found myself complaining about the slow network when LTE was unavailable in my location and it fell back to 3G.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) offers super-fast cellular networking with (theoretical) speeds up to 40Mbps (image credit: GottaBeMobile)

Software: 7/10

iOS has proven to be one of Apple's major successes. Released in 2007, it's proven to outperform many other mobile OSs: until recently. It's been over 5 years, and the aesthetics have remained largely unchanged. It's still the same grid of icons (albeit with another row added) and the system apps are the same as they were in 2007. Personally, I think iOS is beginning to show it's age. Other than aging, it's a great OS, the App Store is really the pulling point of iOS and without that, I think it's unlikely that iOS would still be as popular as it is. 

Apple's iOS 6 is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch (image credit: Engadget)

Overall score: 41/50 or 82%

So, to answer the ultimate question: yes, I think it was worth waiting in line for hours to get my hands on one. But Apple had best make the iPhone 6 one amazing phone for me to do it again.

BONUS: iPhone 5's new trailer by Apple: