Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 and Galaxy Player 5.0 review

dearalison — Mon, 14 May 2012 03:25:32 +0000

Though iOS and lt18i android are engaged in a cutthroat battle for smartphone supremacy, the iPod touch has reigned largely unchallenged in the media player market. Samsung aims to change that with the Galaxy Players, which are basically 4- and 5-inch Galaxy S phones minus the phone parts - they still have full Android Market access, all the excellent Google apps, dual cameras, and solid internals.
In addition to the formidable challenge of competing with the iPod touch, the Players - at $229.99 for the 4.0 and $269.99 for the 5.0 - also have to deal with cheap, no-contract Android phones that keep their phone bits and still manage to be priced competitively with the Players. Can Samsung give them enough of an edge to make it worth the money? Read on to find out.
Hardware / design
While the Galaxy Player 5.0 is large enough to be unmistakable (at least until the Galaxy Note comes to the US), every single person whos picked up the Player 4.0 review unit in our office has inevitably responded with some variant of “wow, this looks exactly like the x10 wifi dual card quad specification.” And indeed it does: the contours are similar, the plastic backs are similar, and even the silver bezel seems ripped directly from Apples design. The iPhone isnt the worst design to copy, though, and the Player is good-looking if a little cheap-feeling. Both have black fronts and black or white backs, and otherwise adopt the look and feel of the original Samsung Galaxy S, only without with the Android search button.
Cameras
The 3.2-megapixel shooter on the back of the Player takes decent photos, but its maddeningly slow, which means youll get a lot of blurry pictures unless your subjects are trained as statues. Its photos are definitely better than the iPod touch, though. Videos more of a mixed bag - I liked the Players footage, but it only shoots at 720 x 480, compared to the a2000 phone casess 1280 x 720.
The front cameras spec on the Galaxy Player is just “Yes,” and that about describes it; theres a camera here, sure, but youre never going to use it. It shoots soft, blurry 640 x 480 images. Its functional for video chat, but thats about all, and since Androids options - Skype, Fring, and the like - arent nearly as elegant as FaceTime, the front camera will likely sit mostly dormant.
Performance and software
What you get from the Galaxy Player is Android, plus Samsungs TouchWiz UI. Im normally not a fan of TouchWiz, and the fact that the Player runs an older version of the skin (3.0 instead of 4.0) is particularly irksome. Samsung has done a lot to simplify and clean up TouchWiz in recent months, but none of that work made it to either Player, which still have colored boxes behind ugly icons, and clutter everywhere you look. There are a few things TouchWiz does really well, though, and fortunately most of them are related to media playback. There are playback controls in the notification window, as well as on the lock screen; thats much better than having to unlock your phone and open the app every single time you want to move to the next song.
The primary problem is that the stock Android music player isnt very good. It works fine, but is overly simple and not very nice to look at, and TouchWiz doesnt do much to help. Happily, there are plenty of good music players in the Android Market: Id recommend Google Music, Winamp, Uber Music, and DoubleTwist over the stock Android app, though those apps lose some of the lock-screen and notification window functionalities.
Other than the standard Android apps, theres not much else preloaded on the Player. Theres a couple of Samsung apps like Samsung Smart View and Samsung Apps, as well as Social Hub and an FM radio app that I quite liked. The restraint is appreciated, especially since the hallmark feature of the Player is that you get full access to the hundreds of thousands of apps in the Android Market, as well as all the Google apps. One of the best Google apps is Navigation, which lets your Galaxy Player double as a GPS with turn-by-turn directions. Its really, really slow, but it works even when theres no Wi-Fi to be found.
Wrap-up
The Samsung Galaxy Player has two distinct advantages over the iPod touch: its wide file support, and its expandable storage. Those are important features, and they might win some users, but theyre not enough to overtake the iPod. The iPod has access to more and better apps, its easier to sync and manage on your computer, and most importantly its just a better music player. Plus, when you can walk into a Boost Mobile store and buy the ZTE Warp phone for only $50 more, Im not sure why youd want the Galaxy Player. Weve waited a long time for ¡°the iPod touch for Android,¡± but if this is it Im not sure that’s a very exciting concept.

Android Phones Review

dearalison — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:20:19 +0000

Is it a phone, a tablet…or both? The Android Phones is sure to evoke some looks from passersby. With a 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display, the phones is one of the largest smartphones available. Yet even with this enormous screen, Android has kept the design thin and stylish. Will the Android phones be able to live up to its hype by providing consumers a hybrid all-in-one device between a smartphone and tablet? Read on to see how the phones fares among the sea of Android devices.

BOX CONTENTS

The Android phones comes boxed in a simple white package with the highlights of the innovative technology inside. The first impression most will get after opening the box is what a large smartphone this is, by having the Mobile Phone Android’s box being as small as possible to contain the device. Included in the box are the essential items to get up and running such as a quick start guide with handy information about using the S Pen, a European wall charger with USB port, a microUSB charging/sync cable, and a white in-ear headset. There are also different size ear-buds for the headsets so you can choose the set that fits best. This particular phones came with a flip case that helps to protect the screen, which snaps onto the back and replaces the battery cover. The cover may be a promotional item as it states on the back “Not For Sale” which suggests it is bundled with the phones. The battery is a 2500mAh lithium-ion, which is nearly the same physical size of other Android batteries. One item that is not included is a microSD card.

As a hybrid between an Android smartphone and tablet the phones boasts some very impressive hardware. Powered by a 1.4 GHz dual-core Exynos processor with 1GB of RAM produces an extremely fast mobile experience.

The Android Cell Phones has a few more goodies that set it apart from other Android devices. The first is the large 5.3 inch WXGA Super HD AMOLED display (1280 x 800) behind a Gorilla Glass capacitive multi-touch digitizer. The pixel density is jam packed at 285.3 pixels per inch, providing pixels indistinguishable to the human eye. The second is the S-Pen, a unique feature that is rare with other tablets or smartphones. The S-Pen uses the same Wacom technology that graphic designers and architects use with their Bamboo writing tools for the computer. This stylus has a secondary button that activates gestures and actions exclusive to the phones.

The dimensions of the phones are 83.95 x 146.85 x 9.65 mm and it weighs 178 grams with the battery included. The internal memory is 16GB and can reach 48GB with a microSD card (not included). The device has many radios: quad band GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900), quad band UMTS (850, 900, 1900, 2100) which is capable of HSPA+ 21Mbps speeds, an FM tuner with RDS, Bluetooth 3.0, assisted GPS, and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n. The sensors included are: light, proximity, gyroscope, barometer, and accelerometer. There are dual microphones for noise cancellation, and a mono speaker for audio playback and speakerphone. The ports include a 3.5mm headset jack and a microUSB 2.0 multiport.

The main camera of the phones is capable of capturing stills up to eight megapixels resolution and record at 1080p HD video at 30fps. The rear camera also has a single LED flash. The secondary camera is 2 megapixels and is able to record video up to VGA resolution. The phones comes equipped with a huge 2500mAh lithium-ion battery, which delivers over a day, if not days, worth of power.

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The build quality is similar to other Android devices and housing is comprised entirely out of plastic. The back battery cover is flimsy yet flexible and requires a little pressure to fasten it securely.

SOFTWARE

The Android phones is running Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 in early 2012. The proprietary software incorporates elements from both a smartphone and tablet device, specifically in landscape mode. Android did not hold back when they decided to bundle great software suites onto the phones. While most of the apps have been seen before on Androids such as the Galaxy S II, many are unique to the phones. The best apps included are the email, Video Maker, AllShare, Readers Hub, Social Hub, Mini Diary, Polaris Office, and, exclusive to the phones, S Planner and S Memo.

IMG 4859

Using the S Pen provides a distinctive enhancement to many of the apps and utilities on the phones. The Wacom technology allows pressure sensitive drawing styles that mimic using an actual writing utensil by drawing thin and thick lines. Motion enhancements to the phones employ the gyroscope to zoom in and out by tilting the device in various applications. Customization to the Motion settings allows for sensitivity to be adjusted.

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CAMERA

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In mobile cameras continue to evolve like the phones there may no longer be a need for a stand alone digital camera. With up to eight-megapixel still photo capture and simple to use customization software, the rear camera of the phones will rival point-and-shoot cameras with the same specifications. Along with capturing great still photos the rear camera is also able to record video up to 1080p full HD at 30fps. The only downside to the rear camera is the single LED flash, as opposed to a xenon flash that would have made the photography experience better in low light situations.

The front facing camera is able to snap self-portraits up to two-megapixel resolution and record video at VGA.

IMG 4839

BATTERY LIFE

Having such a large screen and powerful processor the phones should have died in a few short hours of vigorous use. Contrary to this assumption, the device seems to last over a day, if not days, without needing to be charged. The capacious 2500mAh lithium-ion provides enough power for any mobile enthusiast to play games, watch video (up to 1080p HD), browse the web, make calls, and receive email for a good amount of time.

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PERFORMANCE

The 1.4GHz Android Exynos dual-core processor is nothing short of amazing. Transitioning between applications or screens is lightning fast with little to no lag whatsoever. Out of the box the phones scored benchmark tests that only other overclocked Androids could touch.

Quadrant: 4223
Smartbench 2011: Productivity 4214, 2378 Games
LinPack Single-thread: 65.597 MFLOP, 1.28 Seconds
LinPack Multi-thread: 103.987 MFLOP, 1.62 Seconds

CALL QUALITY/NETWORK SPEED

Connected over AT&T in the greater Seattle the phones was able to provide clear voice calls with no distortion. While driving on a loud freeway the dual microphones and noise cancellation technology helps to eliminate background racket. Using the included in-ear stereo headset allowed conversations to be heard while silencing ambient sound. The speaker on the rear is adequate for use in a quiet room, but did not provide enough volume for reasonable use in a car.

IMG 4846

The network speeds of the phones are very good with an average 6.7Mbps download and 2.1Mbps upload. The phones states that it is capable of HSPA+ speeds up to 21Mbps. Android mentions on the official phones website that the device has LTE capabilities, but it is unclear which LTE bands are integrated.

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PURCHASING AND AVAILABILITY

The Android phones is available now unlocked though retailers overseas such as Clove for around $735 US for the dark blue version and $780 for the white version expected to be out in early December. It is unknown whether or not the phones will make an official debut in the United States at this time.

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PROS

+ Thin and sleek
+ 1.4Ghz CPU is extremely fast
+ Great battery life that lasts for days
+ Gorgeous 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED screen
+ High-quality 8MP camera
+ Ease of use with S Pen

CONS

- Comprised almost entirely of plastic
- Requires two hands to text due to large size
- Awkward against head for voice calls

IMG 4853

CONCLUSION

Many people find themselves needing two devices to stay connected these days. A smartphone fits nicely in the pocket for use practically anywhere and a tablet provides a larger display for both fun and business. Depending on one’s needs the phones is appealing for those who do not want to have two devices. Having to make sure that the smartphone has the same apps, photos, contacts, games, business information, etc as the tablet can be tedious. Some might say the phones is too big for a smartphone or too small for a tablet, but like Goldilocks — and, hopefully for Android — others will think that it is just right.

Android Tablet PC Review

dearalison — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:16:25 +0000

We’ve been clamoring to get our hands on the Android Tablet PC ever since its unveiling in Hong Kong back in October. Finally, at long last, the U.S. version of the Android Tablet PC has landed in our office. So is the Android Tablet PC, the first tablet PC to run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, everything we hoped it would be? Mostly, yes. The Android Tablet PC ($300 with a two-year contract, as of December 16, 2011) impresses with lightning-fast performance, strong data speeds, a thin design, and, of course, all of that Ice Cream Sandwich goodness. It isn’t perfect, however. The camera isn’t outstanding, and the handset has no expandable memory slot. But as it stands, the Android Tablet PC is the best Android tablet PC currently available.
Design

[Click to enlarge] Android Tablets Review: Sleek and SpeedyThe Android Tablet PC is one fine-lookin’ piece of hardware. The glossy display, piano-black bezel, and textured back are all standard Samsung design elements. But unlike other Samsung Galaxy tablet PCs I’ve reviewed, the Android Tablet PC feels high quality. At 5.1 ounces, it has a nice substantial weight to it without being too heavy. As you can see from the photos, the Android Tablet PC has a subtle curve, which nicely contours to the hand. If you have small hands like me, however, you might find the Android Tablet PC a bit large (it measures 5.33 by 2.67 by 0.37 inches).

The Android Tablet PC has no physical hardware keys on its face. Instead, the touch-sensitive Back, Home, and Search keys are built into the display as soft keys.
Super AMOLED Display (No Plus)

The Android Tablet PC has a high-def Super AMOLED display–not to be confused with the Super AMOLED Plus technology found in the Samsung Galaxy S II line of tablet PCs. This 1280-by-720-pixel display is actually based on a PenTile pixel structure in which pixels share subpixels. Engadget points out that the Galaxy S II tablet PCs have full RGB displays in which the pixels have their own subpixels. This means that the Android Tablet PC has lower overall subpixel density, reduced sharpness, and degraded color accuracy than the Galaxy S II. But according to site FlatpanelsHD, the Android Tablet PC has 315 pixels per inch, which is slightly lower than the itablet PC 4/4S at 326 ppi.

To be quite honest, the only quality difference I saw between the Galaxy S II, the Android Tablet PC, and the itablet PC 4S was in color accuracy. Colors on the Android Tablet PC had a slight yellowish tint, mainly in pictures or websites with a white background. Otherwise, blacks looked deep, while fonts and details appeared sharp. Unless you’re crazy about pixel density or have insanely sharp eyes, you probably won’t notice the slight display downgrade.

The display is a roomy 4.65 inches, but really only 4 inches of that real estate is usable. The remaining 0.65-inch space is occupied by a customizable shortcut bar that appears at the bottom of the home screens as well as some other internal screens. Even so, the screen feels plenty spacious for all of your gaming, video, and other multimedia desires.
Ice Cream Sandwich: Simply Sweet

We’ve written extensively on Ice Cream Sandwich, and will be doing much more in-depth coverage in the next few days. For this review, I’ll focus on how Ice Cream Sandwich performs on the Android Tablet PC.

[Click to enlarge] Samsung Android Tablet PC Review: Sleek and SpeedyThe Recent Apps screen. If you’re familiar with Android Honeycomb on tablets, you’ll find a few familiar features in Ice Cream Sandwich. As in Honeycomb, widgets in Ice Cream Sandwich are now resizable on the home screen. You’ll also find a dedicated on-screen Recent Apps button for seeing all of your open apps; just as on Android tablets, it displays a scrollable list of running apps with thumbnail images. Flicking through and switching between apps is not as speedy as I would like it to be, however–I encountered a noticeable delay when going from one app to another.

You’ve probably heard a lot of buzz about the ability to unlock your tablet PC with your face. The front-facing camera snaps a picture of you and then uses facial recognition software the next time you unlock your tablet PC. It’s cool, most definitely, but it’s not the most secure way of protecting your tablet PC. As Google warns, somebody who looks similar to you can unlock your tablet PC with their face. Nevertheless, face unlock works well, and it is a pretty neat–although somewhat gimmicky–feature.

The Android software keyboard in Ice Cream Sandwich has larger, more square keys so it is easier to type on (though I still made a few errors here and there). You now have an option to verbally dictate your text, as well, though I didn’t always find it accurate. For example, “This is a test of the auto-dictate feature” translated into “Types of the otter dictate feature.”

Developers will delight in the dedicated “Developer options,” which let you access tools such as a CPU usage meter and controls for touchscreen feedback and the background process limit. It is features like this that truly make Android a standout operating system. There’s something for everyone.
The Core Apps

[Click to enlarge] Samsung Android Tablet PC Review: Sleek and SpeedyThe new Gmail with the Action Bar. Gmail gets a face-lift, with a new context-sensitive Action Bar at the bottom of the screen. The bar changes depending on where in the app you are. For example, when you’re looking at an email message, you see options to archive it, trash it, label it, or mark it as unread. When you’re viewing your inbox, the bar changes to display options for composing new messages. Adding attachments from your gallery or other folders is now much easier as well. If you’re a heavy Gmail user like me, you’ll really appreciate these updates.

The browser in Ice Cream Sandwich is just about as close as you can get to a desktop one. You can now set the browser to request full desktop versions of sites, not the lesser mobile versions. You can also sync your bookmarks from the desktop Chrome browser to the Browser app in Ice Cream Sandwich. Google has added support for tabbed browsing, and you can quickly view which tabs are open, each with a live preview of that page.

Google Calendar pretty much runs my life, so I was pleased to see a cleaner, easier-to-read version of it in Ice Cream Sandwich. I also appreciate the fact that you can pinch-to-zoom in on a particular calendar event to see more information about it; previously you had to tap on the calendar event, and it would open a new window. Like all of the other core-apps updates, Google has made everything in the Calendar more efficient and easier to use.

Unfortunately, Google Wallet is not supported on the Android Tablet PC–despite the fact that the tablet PC’s hardware supports NFC.
Performance

The Android Tablet PC is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 processor, with 1GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of storage. The Android Tablet PC scored well on all of our benchmark tests (which includes the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark and the GLBenchmark). Interestingly, the Nexus’s overall score was about the same as the mark of the Motorola Droid Razr, which has a 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor. The Samsung Galaxy S II for T-Mobile scored slightly higher overall than the Android Tablet PC.

We also ran the Qualcomm-developed Vellamo benchmarking app, on which the Android Tablet PC earned a score of 803. (The Droid Razr got a score of 1040, which put it ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S II.) This score puts the Android Tablet PC ahead of the Samsung Skyrocket and the HTC EVO 3D. Because Vellamo was made by a competitor to Texas Instruments, we tend to take these results with a grain of salt.

We’re lucky enough to get very strong 4G LTE coverage here in San Francisco. In my tests using the FCC-approved Ookla Speedtest app, the Android Tablet PC achieved download speeds ranging from 6.69 to 12.11 megabits per second and upload speeds of 21.18 mbps. In other words, the Android Tablet PC is blazingly fast.

Call quality over Verizon’s network in San Francisco was consistently good. I had great coverage everywhere I went in the city. My friends and family sounded natural, with an ample amount of volume. One of my friends remarked that my voice sounded “hollow,” but other people I spoke with were pleased with the quality.

We have not yet finished our formal battery life tests, but the Android Tablet PC survived through a whole day of heavy use before I needed to charge it again.
Camera

[Click to enlarge] Samsung Android Tablet PC test photoAt the Hong Kong unveiling, Google bragged that the camera on the Android Tablet PC has zero shutter lag. In my hands-on tests, I found these claims to be accurate: It processes your photo almost instantly after you press the shutter key. Another nice feature is the ability to access the camera from the lock screen rather than having to unlock and then dig through menus.

Unfortunately, the camera just isn’t of the same caliber as the rest of the tablet PC. The photos I shot with the Android Tablet PC’s 5-megapixel camera [Click to enlarge] Samsung Android Tablet PC test photoYou can apply a variety of filters to your photos. [Click to enlarge] Samsung Android Tablet PC test photolooked a bit flat. Colors seemed a touch washed out, and details were a little fuzzy.

But even if your photos don’t come out perfect, Ice Cream Sandwich has your back with its suite of photo-editing tools. You get an array of filters (like your very own Hipstamatic app), the capability to adjust the image angle, red-eye removal, cropping functions, and more. Any edits you make to a photo will create a copy, in case you ever want to revert to the original.

In camcorder mode, you can record video in up to 1080p. Video in my tests looked quite good. The camera handles motion well, with no artifacting or pixelation. Check out the test clip below.
Bottom Line

The Samsung Android Tablet PC is a superb tablet PC, and a great vehicle for introducing Android Ice Cream Sandwich to the world. Android has clearly come a long way, and the tweaks and updates Google has implemented throughout the operating system make a huge difference in efficiency and ease of use. Right now, the Android Tablet PC is the best Android tablet PC you can buy.

Quad Band Phones Review

dearalison — Tue, 08 May 2012 02:25:28 +0000

The Quad Band Phones Phones is not the best smartphone you can buy.
Phew! That felt good to get that off my chest.
I’m not saying that because I’ve been an iPhone user since 2007, or because the Quad Band Phones is a dud.

Keep reading for my full review on the Quad Band Phones. To be clear, I tested both models: the unlocked GSM version and Verizon’s slightly modified LTE version. The latter is the model available in the U.S. for $300 on contract. Generally speaking, the two phones are exactly the same, but I’ll be sure to note the key differences when applicable.

samsung verizon Quad Band Phones home screen

Steve Kovach, Business Insider

I love that Android now eliminates the need for physical function buttons on phones. Instead, everything can be controlled from the virtual home, back, and multitasking keys that sit in the black taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Those buttons only appear when needed, so if you’re watching a video, taking a photo, or playing a full screen game, they won’t be in your way.
I also enjoyed Google’s new and updated apps for Ice Cream Sandwich such as Gmail, Calendar, and People. Of those, the People app is probably my new favorite. It pulls in all your contacts’ information from various social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ and integrates their photos and status updates in one place. Unfortunately, there’s no way to link Facebook to the People app, a likely byproduct of the controversy between Google and Facebook over their contact sharing policies.
Speaking of integration, ICS does an amazing job at working with all your favorite services. Unlike iOS, which only has direct Twitter integration, you’ll have no problem sharing stuff on everything from Dropbox to Evernote. Just download the app, sign in, and Android does the rest.
Still, after all these years, the biggest drawback to Android, its lack of quality apps, is the one thing that really weighs the OS down. Google is still having a tough time getting developers to make the best apps for Android in addition to iOS, so you’re going to have to wait to have all the fun iPhone owners are having. And even when developers do bring their apps to Android, they tend to look a lot uglier than their iOS counterparts. It’s getting better, and even Eric Schmidt claims developers will start paying more attention to Android next year. But right now, Android’s app ecosystem doesn’t even compare to Apple’s.
Overall, ICS is Google’s best OS to date. And while it still falls short of iOS, you’re not going to have trouble doing what you need to. If you want to know more, be sure to read my full review of Ice Cream Sandwich.
Performance
Now, back to the hardware. One of the biggest selling points of the Quad Band Phones was its screen. Like all of Samsung’s screens, the one on the Quad Band Phones’ screen is bright and clear. Even better, it one-ups the Special price Cell Phones with its ability to play 720p HD video. It’s kind of a pain to get your own videos onto the Quad Band Phones (more on that later), so I mostly tested HD video playback on streaming sites. It looks damn good.
But the HD playback is the screen’s only redeeming quality. When placed side by side with the iPhone’s Retina Display, the Keyboard Mobile Phones‘ screen looks downright grainy in comparison. I’m not sure if this is a design aesthetic with Ice Cream Sandwich, but everything on the Quad Band Phones has this weird textured look to it, almost as if each screen was printed out on a piece of paper. I suspect this is a feature of the hardware, as the screen captures I took using the phone didn’t have that grainy look to it.
Don’t get me wrong, the screen isn’t awful. The graininess I mentioned is hardly a dealbreaker. Most of you probably won’t even notice. Plus watching videos on such a large screen is a delight.
Under the hood, the Verizon Quad Band Phones ships with 32 GB of storage, which along with Verizon’s LTE helps account for that $300 price tag. I wish Samsung would’ve offered a 16 GB model at a cheaper price, but I guess it’s tough to complain about a ton of storage and an incredible 4G network. If you get the unlocked GSM model, you’ll be able to get one with 16 GB of storage if you want.
The Quad Band Phones has 1 GB of RAM plus a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. That’s more than enough power to get you by for gaming, video, browsing, you name it. I had no problem when it came to speed performance in these areas, so go wild.

When it comes to battery life, I can see why Apple and even RIM are waiting to start shipping phones with LTE. The GSM model of the Quad Band Phones has decent battery life; I was able to get through most days of normal use on one charge. However, Verizon’s LTE model is a whole other story. The battery drains so fast, you’ll find yourself reaching for the charger or a spare battery at least once per day. I was traveling this week and spent four hours on an airplane with my Quad Band Phones completely off. I still had to recharge about two hours after I landed. Awful. You’re going to be completely up a creek if you don’t buy an extra battery for your Quad Band Phones or keep a charger in your desk at work.

samsung verizon Quad Band Phones speed test

Steve Kovach, Business Insider
Although it’s a total power suck, Verizon’s LTE network is still the best 4G network I’ve used. So far I’ve tested it in NYC, Houston, and Austin, and got similar results in all locations. Speeds tend to hover around 10 Mbps for downloads and 1.5 Mbps for uploads. That’s pretty damn good, even by cable modem standards. Naturally, speeds will vary depending on location and how crowded the network is, but you won’t be disappointed overall.
Another drawback is the extremely low sound from the Quad Band Phones’ speaker. Even at maximum volume, it’s barely audible. It doesn’t help that the speaker is located on the back, so it gets even more muffled when the phone is lying flat on a table. I’ve already missed several phone calls and even an alarm because I couldn’t hear the phone. Not good.
One of my favorite additions to the hardware is the indicator light located at the very bottom of the phone. It’s completely invisible when not on, but can display three different colors depending on what kind of notification you have. For example, emails and texts blink white and notifications from Seesmic (a Twitter app) blink blue. It makes it easy to tell at a glance what you have waiting for you on your phone. I’m sure BlackBerry converts will love this feature.
The camera is good too. It’s a bit underpowered at just 5 MP, compared to the 8 MP cameras you’ll get in several other top-tier phones, but it still shoots excellent 1080p HD video. Whether or not it’s better than the iPhone 4S’s video camera is still up for debate (I favor the iPhone’s), but you’re hardly going to be disappointed. It’s beautiful:

Finally, I’m not a fan that Google decided to turn off the traditional USB storage mode on the Galaxy Nexus. One of my favorite things about many Android devices is that you can just plug them into your computer via the USB port and drag and drop whatever files you want to your phone. It’s not so easy with the Quad Band Phones. Windows users can plug and play as described above, but Mac users will have to download a special file transfer app.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon Wireless)Review

dearalison — Mon, 07 May 2012 00:46:55 +0000

How much does Android 4.0 mean to you? How much do you need to have it right now? Because that’s the dilemma with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone ($299-$649). Overall it’s not quite as good a phone as the Motorola Droid RAZR ($299, 4.5 stars). But right now, it’s the only phone running Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), and that’s the future.

In many ways, this is the ultimate early adopter phone. The phone itself isn’t perfect; typically,
Mobile Phones aren’t the best hardware on the market. But the software takes a major leap forward, with everything from a better Gmail experience to a faster browser and the ability to put folders on your home screens. Do you need that right now? Then yes, you need the Nexus.

Physical Design
The Galaxy Nexus is a well-built but not extraordinary Samsung Cell Phones —which is to say, it’s a giant piece of relatively well-engineered plastic. There’s none of the metal and glass accents you see on top-of-the-line Motorola or Apple phones.

View Slideshow See all (5) slides
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon Wireless) : Angle
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon Wireless) : Back
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon Wireless) : Right
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon Wireless) : Left

It’s huge, though. This is physically the biggest phone I’ve seen recently, measuring 5.3 by 2.7 by 0.4 with a sprawling 4.65-inch, 1,280-by-720 Super AMOLED screen. The display is too big for people with smaller thumbs to use one-handed, but the Droid RAZR—which is almost the same size—has the same problem. Folks with smaller hands should consider the iPhone 4S or, to stick with Android, the Motorola Droid Bionic ($199, 4.5 stars). It isn’t that heavy at 5.13 ounces, but I felt like my thumb got a major workout dragging down the notification pane even compared with my own HTC Sensation ($199, 4.5 stars), which is a pretty big phone.

There’s a 1-megapixel camera on the front, a 5-megapixel camera on the back, Power and Volume buttons on the sides, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack on the bottom panel. The Galaxy Nexus has a removable battery, but there’s no memory card slot to add to the 28.13GB of internal memory. More importantly, especially for Mac users, no memory card means no Mass Storage mode, which means having to use an awkward separate file transfer app to upload and download files on Macs. (Windows PCs have no such problems.)

Voice and Battery Performance
The Galaxy Nexus isn’t a great voice phone, and our unit had some bizarre problems reporting reception. Using the dBm signal strength numbers in the Android settings panel, the Nexus would generally show weaker reception than a Droid RAZR sitting right next to it. The phone also had serious trouble recovering from a dropped 4G signal; after falling to 3G, sometimes it would need a reboot to find 4G again. But in any condition with a decent 4G signal, I got faster speeds on Speedtest.net on the Nexus than on the RAZR. Clearly, there are some firmware issues to be worked out here.

Voice calls were disappointing: tinny, thready, and scratchy, with volume wobble in the earpiece and an extremely harsh tone on the other end. Just to check, I compared calls with a Droid RAZR in the same location, and the RAZR came through clearer and warmer. The speakerphone delivers moderate volume, and the phone does a good job cancelling background noise. The Nexus worked very well with our Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset ($99, 4 stars) as well as with our Altec Lansing BackBeat stereo Bluetooth headphones ($99, 3.5 stars). Voice dialing was spot on.

The Galaxy Nexus connects to Verizon’s 3G CDMA EVDO Rev A and 4G LTE networks, as well as to Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. I got excellent speeds on the 4G LTE network, consistently better than the Droid RAZR: Downloads ranged from 5.2Mbps up to a stunning 20.7Mbps, and uploads ranged from 4Mbps to 9.5Mbps. You can share your connection with up to 10 devices as a Wi-Fi hotspot, so it’s great that ICS now includes an easy-to-read settings pane showing your moment-by-moment and app-by-app data usage.

The Android phone also supports NFC, but Verizon has declined to allow Google Wallet, so the functionality is pretty much useless for now.

The Nexus has decent but not excellent battery life, with 5 hours and 58 minutes of talk time in our tests. While that’s fine, and the phone will probably last a day in normal use, the Droid RAZR lasted much longer with 8 hours and 42 minutes.

Performance and Apps
The Nexus is built around a dual-core TI OMAP4460 processor running at 1.2GHz. Performance on the overall Antutu system benchmark put the Galaxy Nexus safely in the top range of Android smartphones, although it’s bested by the Droid RAZR on Verizon and Samsung’s Galaxy S II Skyrocket ($299, 4.5 stars) on AT&T. Where the ICS advantage shows up is in browsing: The Galaxy Nexus killed every Gingerbread phone other than the Droid RAZR on the Browsermark browsing benchmark. That’s because ICS incorporates dramatic browser improvements which began in Android 3.0, Honeycomb.

And, oh, what a better browser it is! I go into more detail in my Ice Cream Sandwich review, but the ICS browser is a major improvement from the Gingerbread browser. My favorite new options are the ability to easily disable mobile Web sites and switch to desktop versions, and the “read offline” button. Web pages look super-sharp on the 1,280-by-720 screen. Adobe Flash 11 plays smoothly, as well.

N9+ Smartphone review

dearalison — Sat, 05 May 2012 03:22:48 +0000

Whereas N9+ Smartphone is standing tall as the flagship Windows Phone 7.5 device to lead out 2011 for Europe, the selection of new Mango devices is decidedly more competitive in the US. Smartphone is taking a very strong two-tier approach with its N9+ S and N9+ Flash for AT&T. The former is being promoted as a 4.3-inch premier device for $199.99 on contract, while the latter Flash is priced at an entry-level $49.99 with a smaller frame and 3.7-inch screen.

But are looks and price points deceiving? The N9+ Flash, after all, still has a 1.4GHz processor, a bright Super AMOLED screen, and HSPA+ connectivity. Is “entry level,” then, an unfair moniker here — or are there other unfortunate compromies? Read on to find out!

Hardware
Smartphone chose sharper corners for the Holder iPad S, with the front curving inward to a smaller rear profile. It’s a welcome design choice that helps it somewhat stand out from the pack, and it fits comfortably in the hand. Weighing at around 4.1 ounces, the N9+ Flash is actually just slightly heavier than its bigger brother but also lighter than the Lumia 800. It also falls right in the middle in terms of thickness — at 0.43 inches, it’s thicker than the 0.33-inch N9+ S but thinner than Smartphone’s 0.48-inch offering.

The front of the screen is one solid pane with the display slightly recessed, but despite the gloss, fingerprints don’t show up as obviously as on some other devices I’ve reviewed (here’s looking at you, Xperia Play). On the top right corner is the front-facing camera, and between that and the screen lies AT&T’s predominant logo. Smartphone puts its own signature just below the screen and above the three Windows Phone hardware buttons — and bezeled home button surrounded by capacitive back and search buttons, respectively.

Display
For all our (relatively few) qualms over the chassis itself, Smartphone equipped the N9+ Flash with a surprisingly nice 3.7-inch Super AMOLED display that really complements Windows Phone’s bold colors. The black isn’t always as dark as it should be, but under most of the interior lighting situations I tried, it bleeds convincingly into the hardware itself. This was less true outside during the day light, where the glossy front pane of the N9+ Flash proves to be very reflective. That said, provided external light sources don’t catch and bounce off the screen, both the horizontal and vertical viewing angles are quite impressive.

The N9+ Flash has the same 800 x 480-pixel resolution as its Windows Phone counterparts despite its smaller screen size, which actually gives it a better pixel density — approximately the same 252ppi as Smartphone’s Lumia line and almost 17 percent denser than the N9+ S’ 217ppi.

Camera
Spend a few minutes with the 5 megapixel camera and you’ll know exactly where Smartphone cut corners to reach that price point. I spent a couple days and nights shooting pictures under various conditions, and the results were never too pretty. Colors looked consistently washed out, and far too often the shot would come out blurry — even for still subjects and even after multiple retakes.

There is a 720p option for video, but the Touch 9800 Flash I had defaulted to VGA and seemed to return to that lower-res option on its own a couple times. After recording a few videos on both resolutions, I kind of see why — the VGA video turned out a bit cleaner, while the graininess of the 720p footage was more apparent.

Button placement is another concern. Far too often I found myself accidentally hitting the search and back hardware keys while lining up my shot, which means I’d have to maneuver my way out of the erroneous windows and set up my shot once more. If you prefer using your phone to take quick day-to-day pictures over a dedicated pocket camera, this probably isn’t the device for you.

Wrap-up
If you’re looking to try out Windows Phone 7.5, the N9+ Flash provides just as good an OS experience as any other device out there — it’s rocking the same 1.4GHz processor with 512MB RAM as pretty much everyone else, and the 800 x 480px resolution on a 3.7-inch Super AMOLED display means the screen is bright and crisp. For this much, Smartphone should be praised. No, the tradeoff Smartphone made here to hit that $49.99 price point is what else makes up a phone — namely, a plastic-y chassis, so-so call quality, and a really bad camera.

In a sense, what you have with the N9+ Flash is a platform that’s form over function — style that hasn’t quite hit the feature set as its competitors — combined with hardware that’s function (price) over form. Those who find the size of Smartphone’s 4.3-inch N9+ S too large should definitely consider this as a Windows Phone 7.5 alternative, but in doing so, consider taking that $150 in savings and buying yourself a nice point-and-shoot to accompany you.

Android A9300 review

dearalison — Fri, 04 May 2012 02:05:29 +0000

In a smartphone race that’s become all about the latest and greatest, the fastest and most powerful, the Android A9300 is an odd phone to review. Its specs don’t say smartphone — it’s big and clunky, running Android 2.2 on an 800MHz Qualcomm processor, without much storage or added software — but its price ($49.99 with a contract plus a minimum $15 / month data plan) screams it. So what is the A9300? Really, I think it’s the evolution of the feature phone, an early preview of what cheap, simple phones will look like in the future thanks to Android. But successful feature phones have always had advantages Android phones don’t: they last a long time, they don’t crash, they’re simple to use, and they’re cheap. Can the A9300 add Android’s strengths and compensate for its weaknesses to make the perfect feature phone? And how does this device measure up to the current smartphone crop? Read the full review to find out.

Hardware / design
When it’s closed, the E60 Smartphone just looks like a standard Android phone, albeit a super thick one. It’s got a 3.2-inch, 480 x 320 screen, with AT&T and Android logos above and below, along with some silver accents and the four standard Android buttons, which are physical and both look and feel like those on the Droid Charge. (These are pink, though, which is a strangely common theme on the A9300.) It has a plastic white shell, with a headphone jack and power button on top, volume controls on the left side, and a MicroUSB port on the bottom. The back is dimpled like a golf ball, with another Android logo and the camera lens. It’s 15mm thick, and feels like a brick to hold, but I’ll forgive that because of the QWERTY keyboard it’s hiding. Less forgivable is the sheer surface area of the case, which infringes much too far onto the front of the A9300, making the screen look even smaller than it is.

Once you flip it open, the Capacitive Touch is notably more interesting-looking. (I should mention that it’s oddly hard to open, though — the hinge is seriously sturdy and the case pretty slippery, which makes flipping it open with one hand pretty hard.) There’s another 3.2-inch, 480 x 320 screen inside, which can be propped at two different angles; one is ideal for viewing and using the phone as its own stand, and the other is how you’ll actually use the phone. There are four more physical Android buttons, and then a full QWERTY keyboard.

Display
Both of the A9300’s displays are bad, but hey — compared to the one- and two-inch screens we’ve seen from “messaging phones” over the years, anything’s an improvement. They’re capacitive multi-touch displays, and though 480 x 320 is barely passable at any size they’re at least small enough that it’s not unusable. Text is often jaggy and hard to read, and video playback is fairly disappointing, but if you’re using the A9300 for email, some web browsing and phone calls, it’s manageable. The displays get pretty bright, and are relatively usable even in sunlight.

I found myself using the external screen for everything other than heavy typing, mostly because it’s able to rotate. The internal screen is stuck on landscape mode, and 320 pixels isn’t a lot of real estate for reading websites or emails, plus plenty of Android apps and system menus just don’t rotate out of portrait mode. My standard move was to type anything longer than a URL on the keyboard, and then close the phone and use the external screen — it’s a lot of back-and-forth.

Camera
In 2007, the 3.2-megapixel camera on the back of the A9300 would be about as good as you could expect. In 2011, it’s pretty terrible. Even in good lighting, its shots are blurry and noisy, and in anything other than broad daylight photos are near-unusable. The A9300’s photos were eerily reminiscent of the photos I got from the BlackBerry Curve 8330 I owned back in 2008, and I remember being underwhelmed by its pictures then. The camera and camera app are also insanely slow, taking two to three seconds to autofocus for every single shot (which explains some of the blur problems).

Video is, improbably, even worse. I shot a tree in broad daylight, and I think it looked terrible. I say “I think” because, since the camera shoots at 320 x 240, I couldn’t really see much of anything in the shot. The microphone is quite good, though, which makes sense given how important the mic is to any phone.

Performance and battery life
Everything about using the A9300 screams “feature phone!” It’s really, really slow to do a lot of things, which I’d forgive of a $49.99 phone, but not one that currently resides in the “smartphone” category of AT&T’s store. Every time you launch an app, there’s about a half-second pause before anything happens, and another half-second while you wait for the app to open. Once an app is open, though, switching around is pretty snappy. The keyboard would lag behind me as I typed, which is never a good sign, and there were frequently taps and swipes that just wouldn’t register. It’s hard to tell how much of that is the 800MHz Qualcomm processor’s fault and how much is due to the ancient version of Android running on the A9300, but either way it’s not good. The phone also gets quite warm whenever it’s working hard — it wasn’t burn-your-lap hot, but feeling my phone warm up while I played with it was a little disconcerting (though it feels good to hold to your face on a cold day, so it’s not all bad).

Wrap-up
AT&T wants you to believe the A9300 is an inexpensive smartphone — if it is, it’s as bad a smartphone as I’ve used in a long time. Requiring a data plan with this device is a huge mistake that totally dooms the A9300, because at the cost of ownership I can’t possibly recommend the phone to anyone. But as a feature phone, for $49.99 with a contract, it has definite potential. It’s solid for messaging, runs basic apps well, and does all the things you’d need a basic phone to do — plus a few more. When you can buy an iPhone 4 for $99, or Saumsung’s own Infuse 4G for the same $49.99, the A9300 doesn’t even come close. Don’t buy this phone until it’s called something other than a smartphone, but don’t be surprised to see the low-end phones on your carrier’s shelves get replaced by handsets like the A9300 in the near future.

U808 Phone review

dearalison — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:05:13 +0000

The QWERTY slider hasn’t exactly gone the way of the dinosaur, but it’s definitely approaching giant panda status. That is to say, it’s become rare for a major device manufacturer to output anything other than candybar touchscreen smartphones. And why not? Slimmer, faster, beastlier is the mobile motto as of late and that’s precisely what consumers seem to gravitate towards. But for diehard fans of tactile feedback, Samsung’s birthed the Captivate Glide, a handset that marries the best of both form factors. Sitting just below its high-end brethren, F10 Google Android 4.0 AT&T’s 21Mbps HSPA+ network and bundles an 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display with a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a 1,650mAh battery, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, a 1.3MP front-facing camera and an 8MP rear camera capable of 720p video capture. At $150 on a two-year contract, it’s just half a Benjamin short of the top-tier, U808 Phone. With that small of a price divide, you have to wonder: is the downgrade really worth it for the Captivate Glide’s (comparatively) slower speeds and physical buttons? Are you willing to trade-in thin and sleek for messaging convenience and a bit of bulk? Follow on past the break as we deliver the answers to those burning questions.

Hardware
There’s no sidestepping it: the Captivate Glide is built like a brick, although it possesses none of the associated heft. Fans of distinctive form factors won’t find much to love in the way of design, as this handset is neither RAZR-thin nor oval like the DoublePlay. At 4.9 x 2.5 x 0.5 inches (124.5 x 63.5 x 12.7mm), it’s 0.13 inches (3.3mm) thinner than LG’s unique slider and 1.5 ounces (42.5 grams) lighter at 5.2 ounces (147.4 grams). In typical Samsung fashion, there’s lightweight plastic used throughout its construction and, of course, that signature textured backing which makes for a secure hold.

For all its chunky dimensions, you’d think the Captivate Glide would be awkward or uncomfortable to grip. But Samsung made sure to round out all of the phone’s edges, giving way to a well-sculpted, palm-pleasing fit. In fact, it feels much the way cellphones used to, before tall and svelte became all the rage. It’s thick enough to have a reassuring presence in the hand, with a large enough screen for easy one-handed navigation. Around back, the finely grooved, black casing is broken up by Samsung’s logo at the bottom, a brushed metal plate that stretches across the top, housing a secondary mic, 8MP camera, LED flash and speaker grill. A 3.5mm headphone jack and covered micro-USB port sit at the top of the phone, with the volume rocker and power button residing on the upper left and right sides, respectively. The phone’s main mic is hidden in a notch at its base that can be peeled back to expose the SIM and microSD card slots, both of which are easily accessible without removing the 1,650mAh battery.

Performance and battery life
We pitted the Captivate Glide against fellow stablemate, the Galaxy S II and AT&T’s $50 pricier LTE offering, the HTC Vivid in a battery of benchmark tests. The result? Sammy’s QWERTY slider managed to mostly keep in step with the SGS II, while outperforming the Vivid in Quadrant and Linpack multi-string — a testament to its swift real-word performance. From the scores listed below, you can clearly see that the SGS II’s overall excellence is without peer, but the Captivate Glide does an admirable job aspiring to that level of quality given its mid-range grounding.
Need a daily driver? The Captive Glide won’t let you down. With its stock 1,650mAh battery, we managed to push this handset over the 12-hour mark in moderate to heavy usage. That’s with Twitter set to sync at 15 minute intervals, one push email account, light browsing, ample use of Google Maps, brightness at 50 percent, GPS and WiFi enabled. Under less intensive use, you’ll easily manage to hold a charge for well over a full day. As for our formal battery rundown test, in which we play a video in a continuous loop, the outcome was equally as longlasting. After eight and a half hours, the phone had fully depleted from a 100 percent charge. Bear in mind, you’ll need to consume a heavy amount of media to achieve this same performance.

Voice calls made on the handset were incredibly disappointing. Not only did our caller sound distant and disjointed, but there also appeared to be some sort of delay, rendering a fluent two-way conversation impossible and forcing us to end the call. This could very well have been an AT&T network issue and not a flaw in Samsung’s construction. Still, should you be the gossiping type, prepare to embrace decent call quality.

Camera
You’d be hard pressed to find a rear-facing camera these days that seriously underwhelms. The majority of contemporary smartphones are equipped with above average modules that do a fine job taking photographs, though we wouldn’t ditch that DSLR just yet. And so it goes that the Captivate Glide’s powers of picture taking are, understandably, solid. It’s 8 megapixel rear shooter is on par with those found on variants of the Kaiboer K660i and delivers muted and slightly grainy images when awash in direct sunlight. Shots taken at full zoom displayed a noticeable loss of detail, but we were more surprised by the camera’s low light performance. Aided by a single LED flash, photos taken with a shallow depth of field exhibited a clarity and precision not present in other lighting conditions.

We’ve become spoiled by the recent influx of smartphones capable of full 1080p HD video capture and though the Captivate Glide falls short of that mark, it does maintain a smooth framerate when recording in 720p. Again, the overall image quality was muted and softly blurred, though we didn’t notice any distortion in the recorded audio.

Wrap-up
Android in 2011 has been defined by Samsung. Omitting the company’s recently released Nexus refresh, its Galaxy S II and resulting variants have served as the bellwether for all the Gingerbread handsets which followed. While the Captivate Glide may not achieve the svelte form factor and nigh weightlessness of its high-end elders, Sammy’s done its darnedest to replicate that polished experience in QWERTY slider form. Given the demand for slim and sleek candybar phones, the company could have easily overlooked the market for physical keyboards, however increasingly niche, and focused on outputting more of the same. Instead, the company’s earned an internet high five for creating an all around well-performing device and loading it up with respectable specs. True, a little more attention could’ve been paid to the design of the slider’s flat, textureless keys, but somehow that minor oversight doesn’t terribly cripple its purpose; you’ll still be able to craft emails and texts at a reasonable speed.

No doubt, the Captivate Glide is an excellent option for QWERTY aficionados, but its $150 on contract price is too close to the lowest tier LTE option for our liking. For only $50 more, beefier specs and access to AT&T’s faster, 700MHz 4G network are within reach on the HTC Vivid. Is it worth the jump in cost? Well, that depends on your predilection for slide out keyboards. If you’ve had your eye on an SGS II-like device, can’t seem to part with AT&T’s service (read: contract chains) and rely upon tactile feedback for messaging, then by all means make the Captivate Glide your own. If, however, you find your ‘wants list’ lacking in any of these criteria, indulge your senses with the Vivid.

Changjiang W007 review

dearalison — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 02:35:43 +0000

Exactly one year ago, Barnes & Noble made an interesting move, one no other company in the tech industry had yet been bold enough to make: it released the Nook Color for just $249.99. The 7-inch Color was positioned as an alternative to E Ink e-readers; it was a bit more expensive than the traditional Nook, but you could reach out and touch the screen, enjoy rich color publications and books, and surf the web in the Android-based browser. It was a fairly big hit, but even more interesting was that, without the assistance of B&N, the Color became an even bigger hit amongst techies — many of them turned it into a cheap tablet by rooting it and loading it up with Android apps.

The Changjiang W007 is the realization of the vision those techies had for the original Color — it’s a real tablet, so much so that B&N even put it in the name. With a new dual-core processor, 16GB of memory, improved app store, and a few more multimedia features, this year Barnes & Noble is hoping that the Tablet can capture the hearts of those out there looking for an iPad alternative that’s more than just a color e-reader. But will it? We’re not talking about a holiday season like last year’s, where Android tablets were still in hiding and Amazon wasn’t on the scene. Does the Tablet live up to its name? Can it extinguish the Fire? Read on to find out.

Hardware / design

If you’ve ever seen the Nook Color, then you’ve pretty much seen the IO4 Android 2.3. While B&N subbed out the black borders for a silverish grey, the overall design is largely the same. But that’s not a bad thing. Yves Béhar — the man behind the design of the OLPC XO, Jambox, etc. — came up with a beautifully unique original aesthetic, and even a year later I consider it to be the best looking 7-inch tablet around. Yes, that means I much prefer the Tablet’s bolder style and the unique design quirk — the hook on the left corner — to that of the rather bland, unassuming Kindle Fire. Of course, I still have no idea what you’d do with that aforementioned hook; I can attest that clipping the tablet to my pants with a carabiner or wearing it as a necklace was of absolutely no use. Beyond looking good, the Tablet, despite being made mostly of plastic, still feels very solid in hand. I didn’t think twice about just tossing it in my purse without a cover.

Screen and speakers
What isn’t missing is a beautiful EKEN-T10A display. The panel is the same as the one on the Color, but again I don’t blame B&N for not messing with a good thing. The “VividView” treatment does achieve its mission of reducing glare, but what’s extremely noticeable is how superb the viewing angles are. In a side by side comparison with the Fire, not only was the Tablet’s display brighter — with blacks and dark blues looking even deeper — but I could see everything on the Tablet’s display when looking at the screen at a 90 degree angle, while the Fire’s colors started to fade at that view. That’s not to say the Fire doesn’t have a good display, I just found the Nook’s to be a smidgen better.
There’s more on software performance below, but the screen is very responsive to light taps and swift swipes.

The speaker on the back of the tablet is a mixed bag. At max volume, both a locally stored song and the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol trailer sounded very low and tinny. That same song on the Kindle Fire was a bit louder, but not by much. However, when I fired up one of the Read and Play-supported children’s books (which reads the text of the book aloud) the sound was full, loud, and not too muffled, even when I blocked the speaker by laying the tablet on my lap. Still, the speakers are nowhere near as full or loud as the set on the iPad.

Performance / battery life
What really sets the Tablet apart from the $200 Nook Color is now specs, and the new dual-core TI OMAP processor and 1GB of RAM really do make a difference in everyday performance. In a number of side-by-side tests with the Color, the Tablet consistently opened apps / menus faster and was more responsive to quick swipes. However, while the Tablet is fast, it’s not the snappiest experience I’ve seen. Like the Fire, I felt that even some Honeycomb tablets were faster, especially when it came to scrolling in the browser. B&N’s also boasting that the Tablet can play 1080p video, and while it wouldn’t make sense to do that since the display isn’t even considered HD, it does in fact play local 1080p video very smoothly. Similarly, streaming videos on Hulu Plus and Netflix was smooth; no hiccups or random crashes.
B&N promises nine hours of reading on the Tablet, and while I didn’t have time over the past few days to read for nine hours straight, it did last six hours and 57 minutes on The Verge Battery Test, which loops a series of websites and images with brightness set at 65 percent. The Kindle Fire actually got about an hour less at five hours and 47 minutes, though I’ve found that both of them can last a good day with average use. All in all, the Tablet provides a decent amount of juice for the size and should get you through a flight from LA to New York. However, you’ll want to remember to pack your charger. Even though it uses a common MicroUSB port, it requires the cable that came in the box, which has a longer connector. This may seem like a relatively small annoyance, but I’d argue it’s more than that. This isn’t the type of cord you’ll just be able to rely on other people to have around; if you lose it or leave it behind, you can bet you’ll be stuck with a dead tablet. But hey, at least the charging plug has a LED-backlit Nook “n”.

Wrap-up
Taken by itself, it’s hard to not like the Changjiang W007 for $250. It continues to be a great piece of hardware: the screen is beautiful, the fresh internals make it quicker than ever before, and the price makes some of its flaws (the charging issue, storage allocation, no tabs) somewhat forgivable. But here comes the however… the Kindle Fire is $50 cheaper and provides a better ecosystem of multimedia content and applications. Sure, the Changjiang W007 has streaming services like Netflix and Pandora and some handpicked apps in its store, but Amazon’s offering way more for less cost on that front. (Of course, if you can spend a bit more on an Android tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 or an iPad, you’ll get it all, but those are really in a different tablet category now.) B&N’s improved specs and slight tweaks make it a better value than the $200 Color, but both of them are priced too high to take on the Fire’s content offering. But hey, thanks to some techies, the app selection on the Tablet’s already improving, which seems to just put B&N back, well, where it was a year ago.

A777 tablet Review

dearalison — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:13:35 +0000

A777 Tablet is designed to make Windows Phone 7 accessible to the masses. How does it fare under our test suite? You might be surprised. We’re starting down the path of smartphone testing with a different take and a few exclusive benchmarks as well.

Over the past few years, the influence of integration has completely changed the mobile phone’s role in our lives. What was once made cool for its ability to flip open now lets you browse the Web, listen to music, stream video content, fire off email, play games, and take pictures. The inflection point where we stopped using cell phones and started playing with smartphones was pretty darned defined.

The addition of functionality gives each vendor its own opportunities to differentiate. If you’ve followed our tablet coverage over the past six months, then you know that no two products, however similar-looking, are quite the same. Among the tablets sharing an operating system like Android, we’ve seen vendors optimize their devices in unique ways. Sometimes they use hardware; other times software makes the difference. For example, Sony’s Tablet S is a phenomenal addition to any home theater thanks to its awesome DLNA integration and a built-in IR remote. Meanwhile, the SuperPLS display found on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the best tablet screen we’ve seen yet.

The selling points on a smartphone are oftentimes even more important. Since not all carriers offer the same phones, you’re not just marrying a piece of hardware, but also a service provider. If you find a phone you like, you’d better be ready to put up with the coverage areas and interruptions inherent to whichever company offers it. You’re generally talking about a two-year relationship, too, unless you want to pay the exorbitant price for getting action without any commitment.

Meet A777 Tablet
It’s been a long time since we’ve had our hands on hardware from Tablet. The company was one of the last Symbian holdouts, and it recently made the decision to turn to Microsoft for its operating system. Tablet’s decision makes a lot of sense. Frankly, even the most current build of Symbian can’t compete with Android or iOS. Naturally, Tablet hopes that Windows Phone 7 (WP7) enables a better ecosystem. If a new operating environment does turn out to be the missing link, it stands a better chance of fending off competitors with serious momentum, which currently threaten its top market share spot.

Picking a more competitive software platform will only get Tablet so far, though. In order to achieve true effectiveness, the company must complement the operating environment with great hardware.

Tablet is trying to demonstrate its ability to deliver in that regard with its V6 Watch and A777. The company sent us the latter for testing, and that’s what we’ll be reviewing today.

The A777 is the newest phone from the Tablet, and it’s considered an entry-level version of the flagship Lumia 800. Both phones are powered by a third-gen Snapdragon SoC. Clock for clock, Qualcomm’s Scorpion core is able to outperform SoCs that employ the Cortex-A9, such as the A5 and Tegra 2. However, considering that Lumia family uses a single-core SoC, expect lower performance than competing dual-core solutions.

The graphics component of Qualcomm’s SoC centers on a component called Adreno 205. Based on IP derived from the-company-previously-known-as-ATI (now just Imageon), Adreno 205 is one generation older than the engine found in more expensive phones like Motorola’s Droid X2. Given performance numbers seen in the GLBenchmark database, the Adreno 220 is between two- and four-times faster in a comparable 3D environment.

Most SoC performance comparisons are based on scores generated in Android, due to the greater availability of benchmarks. There simply aren’t many metrics available for WP7 yet. The one program we are comfortable using is WPBench, but it’s only able to provide results relative to other WP7-based phones.

Based on the results, it’s fair to say that the A777 and one piece sex fare decently. However, Samsung’s Focus S employs the same SoC and more consistently serves up even better numbers. As we know, just because two phones employ the same hardware and operating system doesn’t mean you should expect identical performance. Each vendor takes software optimization to a different level, and you see the result of that disparate behavior here.