Sponsored
Techradar |
- Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
- Review: HTC Sensation
- SeeSaw's walled garden approach was its failure, says Blinkx
- Updated: HTC phones mysteriously running 10 mins fast?
- George Lucas: We got into 3D a long time ago
- See users' Twitter timelines with latest following feature
- Review: Canon PowerShot SX230 HS
- Sony could be skimping on NGP features
- Review: LG Optimus Black
- Rumour: Apple testing MacBook Airs with iPad 2 processors
- LG Optimus 2X problems continue, no fix for 'several weeks'
- SeeSaw VOD service to close in June
- Bloomsbury sees e-book sales take off
- Week in Tech: Facebook is coming for your children
- PlayStation 4 development confirmed by Sony
- Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB
- PS4 rumours: what you need to know about the PlayStation 4
- HTC opens up bootloader on Android phones
- 10 best iPad and iPhone news apps
- Review: Sharkoon X-Tatic SX
- Facebook eyes music, TV shows, movies, world media domination
- Apple iCloud service to replace low-quality tracks with pristine ones?
- Google Wallet launches as PayPal sues over tech secrets
| Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar Posted: 28 May 2011 01:00 AM PDT This week, we've been pouring over one of the latest Honeycomb tablets to hit UK shores - the Acer Iconia Tab A500. Although more expensive than the iPad 2, it performed well in our tests - read the review for more. We've also spent time looking at a new Freeview HD and Blu-ray player as well as a new plasma from Panasonic. Read on for more on all the latest reviews we've posted this week on TechRadar. Everyone in tech is talking about Android tablets. Which is the best? How good is Honeycomb? Can Android tablets overtake the iPad in sales? Have you actually seen one in the wild though? Thought not. Android tablet sales are off to a sluggish start to say the least but it's only a matter of time before things pick up. The Eee Pad Transformer is being held back by a lack of stock, and that opens the door for the Iconia Tab A500 to steal a bit of a march. So can it score an open goal, or will its slightly higher price and lack of sparkle make this tablet a no-goer? Replacing last year's 300 model, the IXUS 310 HS is part of Canon's new 'more is better' range of compact cameras, cramming in the features in an effort to remain relevant in an ever-more competitive marketplace. New features here include a 12.1MP CMOS sensor, wider 24mm 4.4x optical zoom lens with Image Stabilisation, larger 3.2in LCD with a significantly higher resolution (461,000-dots compared to 230,000) and Full HD movie recording - an improvement over the 300 HS' 720p offering. It's a fab camera with excellent build quality and fantastic low-light performance. However, fiddly touchscreen controls and a slightly high asking price make this camera a sold four-starrer. When you're being asked to pay nearly £900 for a set-top box, you can only hope that it's feature-packed. And luckily, the poetically-named DMR-BWT800 does not disappoint. As well as being a dual-Freeview HD tuner, it's also a 3D Blu-ray player, Blu-ray recorder, media streamer and Skype box. Picture quality is outstanding all-round; this is a top quality slice of AV heaven for anyone interested in reference-level performance from all sources, while the myriad recording, archiving and storage options will excite any HD obsessive or HD camcorder user. However, let's go back to that first sentence. £900 for a Freeview HD/3D BD player? Seems a bit steep to us. The 27-inch Apple iMac takes a huge leap forwards with the 2011 refresh. Although the only change to the enclosure is a minor revision to the ports at the rear, the switch to new second-generation Sandy Bridge processors and powerful AMD graphics give a massive performance boost over the previous generation of iMacs. If this 37-incher was a little larger, it would compete with Panasonic's barnstorming 3D plasmas – and it would come second judged on 3D images. Against other 3D LCD TVs, it's a competitive performer that pairs excellent 3D with quite wonderful 2D – and plenty more exciting features besides. Camcorders Swann SportsCam DVR-460 review Compact cameras Desktop PCs Chillblast Fusion Rocket review Digital SLRs Digital TV recorders Disk drives (HDD & SSD) Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 6TB review review Graphics cards MSI GTX 580 Lightning Twin Frozr III review Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB review Headsets Laptops Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 15 review Toshiba Satellite Pro C660-16N review Packard Bell EasyNote TSX66 review Sony VAIO VPC-EB4L9E/BQ review Mobile phone accessories Mobile phones Motherboards ECS H67H2-M Black Deluxe review Network adapters AVM FRITZ! WLAN Repeater review PC & Mac desktops Apple iMac 27-inch (2011) review Apple iMac 21.5-inch (2011) review Peripherals HIS Multi-View II USB Display Adaptor review Plasma and LCD TVs Routers Software Sony Imagination Studio Suite 2 review Speakers Storage Enermax Jazzmate EB211U3-B review Tablets TVs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
| ||
| Posted: 27 May 2011 07:06 PM PDT HTC has gone from being an unknown manufacturer for bigger brands to one spewing out leading Android smartphones. The Desire was a landmark phone in the fight against the iPhone, but now tech has moved up a level - can the HTC Sensation stay at the sharp end? With the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S2, the Motorola Atrix and (to a degree) the LG Optimus 2X, dual-core phones have become the darling of the tech enthusiast. Our colleagues at T3.com grabbed some HTC Sensation video footage, so check out the phone in all its digital moving picture glory: And HTC has recognised that in bringing out a phone that ticks all the boxes for the most sought-after tech, bringing an 8MP camera, 1080p video recording, a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm chipset and a qHD resolution 4.3-inch screen.
The design of the HTC Sensation is a little bit larger than its rivals, in that it comes in at 11.3mm thick - noticeably thicker than the likes of the Galaxy S2, but still feeling comfortable in the hand.
The screen is also a different animal to most of the 4.3-inch offerings out there - with the qHD (540x960) resolution display, the Sensation is a thinner offering while still allowing movies to be played in widescreen.
The phone itself is encased in toughened plastic and aluminium (which feels more like plastic) through the stripe in the centre - the whole back of the phones pulls away from the main device, with the antenna and suchlike pumped into the chassis rather than on the phone itself.
Getting the back of the phone off through the little catch at the bottom is much harder than it looks, with the fingers needed to prise it apart almost holding it in place at the same time - wiggling and shaking is needed to get to the battery and microSD card slot. The power/lock button is placed on the top right hand side of the phone, and sits probably a little too close to the chassis to be easily pressed - although it's more of a minor annoyance than a deal breaker.
HTC is one of the few brands that's still keeping faith with the dedicated search key, (the likes of the Sony Ericsson Arc and Galaxy S2 have done away with it altogether) but the keys are touch sensitive like the HTC Desire S, and react instantly to a feathery fingering. The headphone socket is at the top of the Sensation (rather than taking its design cues from the larger-screened phones like the Desire HD, which liked to plonk it at the bottom) but is probably a little close to the edge of the phone - getting a good grip when holding the phone to watch video can be a little hard.
HTC has long had a problem with screen visibility in direct sunlight, and it seems that issue has continued somewhat with the Sensation. It's definitely a step up, as at medium brightness you can make out what's on the screen, but compare it to the iPhone 4's Retina Display or the Super AMOLED Plus of the Galaxy S2 and it's miles behind. However, the resolution is definitely a step forward, and the sharpness of the text is impressive.
The HTC Sensation isn't in the same 'thin and super light' category of many of today's smartphones - it comes in at nearly 150g compared to the helium-esque devices on the market today - but it's a solid build quality and one you wouldn't panic about too much if you saw it plummeting towards a carpeted floor. With the HTC Sensation we're given our first look at the new version of the Taiwanese brand's overlay to Android. Running Android 2.3.3, the Sensation is perfectly up to date with the most recent version of Google's OS, and the new Sense 3.0 iteration is the next step forward for a user interface. The main thing most HTC fans will notice is the new 3D scrolling - flicking through the many home screens will now see each one rotating around a virtual cylinder, rather than bouncing left and right in a linear fashion. The widgets will even expand inwards and outwards to add to the effect, and really works to show off the dual-core nature of the 1.2GHz processor under the hood.
In standard HTC style, the Sensation reacts instantly under the finger - we're not talking Nokia N8 levels of swiping and waiting here, the capacitive touchscreen leaps to do your bidding in nearly every scenario.
The lock screen has also been given a massive overhaul too - instead of dragging a bar upwards to open up the phone, you have a large ring to swipe upwards to get started.
But it's not just that - there are four application spaces to drop your favourite functions into, and you can drag these into the ring to jump into them instead of starting up in the home screen. This is brilliant for things like the camera (as there's no dedicated button) so you can start snapping as fast as you can. It's not a perfect system though - we had a few instances where we couldn't get the ring to slide fully up with our touch, meaning we had to have multiple attempts to simply get into the phone. The other annoyance is notifications - if you have a message or missed call, it shows in a big pop-up at the centre of the lock screen, which is cool. But you can't drag this into the ring to jump straight to the notification unless you have the phone or message application selected as one of your quick links - seems like a missed trick from HTC.
The drag-down notification bar, which is present throughout the phone and one of the key pieces of the Android OS, has been given another makeover by HTC compared to the likes of the Desire (although we've already seen the upgraded functionality on the Desire S). This means you can drag it down to see emails, messages and application notifications, but also see a scrolling list of the most recently used applications in a sliding bar and access the music player controls if you've got some tunes playing.
However, there's also a little tab at the bottom to let you control oft-used elements of the phone - we're talking Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS etc all toggle-able with the touch of a check box. It's a little convoluted to get into (we prefer the Samsung TouchWiz version, where these controls are at the top of the drag down menu) but it's great to be able to activate Bluetooth without having to open Settings. There's clearly been a great deal of effort made with the HTC Sense 3.0 user interface, and it shows - it's not as snappy as the Samsung Galaxy S2, but it's unflappable and we found very little slowdown throughout. If you're upgrading from another HTC Device, this is Sense on a whole new level. You can access contacts on the HTC Sensation using the People app, or by just going straight into the phone app. Your most recently used contacts will be at the top, or there's the dialler underneath to search for someone using smart dialling (ie in the old T9 predictive text fashion). There's a widget on one of the Home screens by default for accessing your favourite contacts, which comes in three forms and ports Facebook, Google or Twitter pictures across automatically. Contact lists can be imported in several ways. The most obvious is your Google contacts, which Android adds when you sign into one of the Google apps. You can also add Twitter and Facebook contacts, as well as Exchange if you're a working girl.
As ever, this can mean multiple entries for people. We've always been impressed by HTC's ability to link together contacts, and that's present on the HTC Sensation - the auto-link icon comes up with a lot of suggestions. However, we couldn't get the Twitter app to automatically add contacts, and then suddenly it decided to do so after a day - having already done the same thing with the onboard Twitter for HTC Sense, we now had reams of Twitter people polluting the phone and asking to be linked.
Linking contacts manually isn't too arduous, though – there's a link button at the top of every contact, and it's then just a matter of searching for the other entry and hitting Save. The People app is presented as a list, with social networking status updates appearing beneath someone's name. You can sort by forename or surname, and you can also choose to display contacts from only some of your linked accounts if you want (for example, you could have Twitter and Google, but not Facebook).
You can also use the arrow at the top to quickly see your contacts from only one of your social networking accounts, or go back to seeing all contacts. One really irritating problem, like the Twitter app above, is the contacts didn't automatically load from social networks, so we were forced to keep re-entering the details. And even after having linked up a load of friends, the names wouldn't appear in the messaging section, so each message was from a random set of numbers. However, tap the number and the contact page would load. Odd. What's crazier than that is after 24 hours the Sensation suddenly realised what was going on and managed to sort out the problem, complete with Facebook pictures a-plenty, and it's been fine since, so we won't mark it down too much for that. Going into someone's contact entry presents you with lots of useful quick options for getting in touch with them. The initial screen displays their phone and messaging details, and you can tap on them to get in touch using your preferred method. However, if you slide to the next tab at the bottom, you'll be able to see your text history with that contact, presented in a threaded view. You can send a new message from here.
The next tab does the same for emails, and the next shows you their recent social network status updates. There's also one to see their galleries from linked social network sites, and buried right at the end is your call history with them. Plus Android has the awesome feature of any time you see a contact's picture you can tap it to get a quick list of all the ways to talk to them - really nice, and makes the whole phone experience seem much more integrated. Adding a new contact sees you presented with the option of choosing to save to your cloud accounts or to the phone memory or SIM. After that, you've got all the usual options, including phone numbers, email addresses, IM usernames, postal addresses, birthday and more. Of course, the more simple method also works – just tap a number into the dialler and a 'Save to People' option appears. Calling Call quality on the HTC Sensation seems to be poorer than many other phones, which is even more perplexing when there seems to a be a separate noise reduction microphone on offer above the camera.
Even in slight wind we were asked if it was really gusty where we were, and in a bar environment we were practically inaudible. The speaker on the back of the phone is perfectly usable for day to day calling - it's not ear-splitting at maximum volume, which might be irritating in a noisy car or conference environment, but for one on one use in a relatively quiet environment, it's fine. We also like the fact that our friends' Twitter or Facebook status updates pop up when we phone them, as well as birthday notifications should we be close to forgetting. The only problem here is we spend so much time reading them updates we haven't got the phone to our ear - but that's more stupidity than HTC's fault. The signal quality was excellent on the whole for the HTC Sensation, with up to 50% more signal reported in known weak spots. However, we're wondering if this is just the phone exaggerating what's on offer, as internet speeds didn't seem to corroborate the three bar signal strength we were apparently getting. As mentioned in the Contacts section, messaging is heavily integrated into the Sense experience. You can get to email and text conversations with people through their contact entry in the People app, but there are dedicated email and messaging apps. Messages is a fairly straightforward text app, showing you an overview of the different people you've been texting on the main screen, with a threaded conversation view on offer if you tap on one. To write a new text, just tap in the field at the bottom to bring up the on-screen keyboard. We've always been mightily impressed when it comes to writing messages on HTC's Sense range, including the original Desire and the HTC Desire HD, which is partly down to the excellent autocorrect.
We've always been fans of the HTC keyboard, and we're glad that the same thing is back in full force on the Sensation - we found accuracy much higher than that on the Samsung Galaxy S2 for instance, where the full stop kept getting in the way. In landscape mode, this problem did creep in though, thanks to the size and dimensions of the screen. Another oddity: the 'I' sometimes decided not to capitalise when typing, but then would do so when you go back to it.
Words still take as long as before to save to the dictionary - it's only a fraction of a second, but it's still an annoying pause. As is often the case, you have the choice of a Gmail app or a more generic Email app. The Gmail one is just as easy to set up as ever; if you have your Google account details, it's automatically set up. The Email app also proved easy, offering an Exchange option and a generic POP/IMAP option initially. To set your POP/IMAP, you generally just have to put in your email address and password and the phone will do all the configuring for you.
Both email apps are very good, though HTC's Mail app fits in with the aesthetics and UI of the Desire S's other app better. It offers several ways to view your messages, including options to view your email as a straight up inbox, or as conversations. You can also view email just from your favourite contacts, and this tab also enables you to address an email to all of your favourites with one tap. There's an unread-only view, and also a screen that enables you to view only emails with attachments. Writing emails uses the same keyboard as the messaging, so it's easy to write emails of a good length without getting frustrated. When it comes to social network messaging, HTC's Friend Stream does a good job of bringing Facebook and Twitter together, but it isn't quite the complete messaging solution. It's more suited to fairly passive users who like to read others' statuses, lacking the depth you can go into for both social networks.
Basically, public replies on Twitter and Facebook status comments are in, but direct messages, trending topics and any other wider information is out - you'll need to download the official applications for that, which we would recommend as they integrate very well throughout the phone. The large 4.3-inch screen of the HTC Sensation, like the Desire HD and HD7 before it, is simply ace for browsing the web, easily as good as anything else in the Android range and even better because of the improved resolution. The qHD resolution makes web pages look as crisp as anything else on the market at the moment, and the pictures and video all pops with slick ease. That's right - thanks to Flash 10.3 integration and the dual-core processor chugging away in the background, the HTC Sensation is the best HTC device for internet, hands down (taking out the Flyer, of course, but even then it's only a question of size).
The Flash integration is sensational (we're sorry) as videos will stream without a judder and will instantly leap to full screen (once you've figured out the convoluted full screen option through long-pressing, that is) and it's really as simple as watching a video on your PC - iPlayer rocks, even though it doesn't have the option to download yet. You can use also the dedicated mobile YouTube site, which uses HTML5 to work quickly and simply, so it's future proof too for standards going forward. There are a number of other positives to the internet experience on the HTC Sensation - multiple windows with thumbnail scrolling through them mean various websites can be open at once.
It's odd that you're limited to just four windows though - and that's still in effect despite that limit being offering on the single-core offerings. Surely the Sensation can handle at least six open at once without destroying performance?
One think that Android (and HTC's Google portfolio especially) does well is text-wrapping; namely, zoom into whichever size you want on a column of text and the words will jumble around the screen and reformat to fill the display. Sure, you can double tap to get closer to the text in the same vein as other smartphones, but the text wrapping puts you in control of the size... and you can go mightily close on the HTC range as no matter where you pinch and zoom to, the text stays all on screen.
Another winning feature from Android is the ability to share web pages to a variety of sources without having to break stride: if you're on a page that you think your buddies online will like then you can head into the 'Share Page' option and lob the link out via Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, SMS, Bluetooth - you name it, you can get it there via that method. Not carrier pigeon though. This is a mobile phone, you fool. We've always been fans of the bookmarks, as when you enter this section you can either look at the ones you've saved (via thumbnail, nice) or see your most visited or history of pages you've been to - enabling you to choose bookmarks that you need without realising it. With the Sense UI (this is a feature we've loved and is carried forward to Sense 3.0), users of the HTC Sensation can also subscribe to an RSS feed (if present on the page) by hitting the icon in the top left hand corner of the screen - it makes keeping up to date with the sites you love very easy. Another plus we've always loved on the HTC Android range: the implementation of copy and paste. It's a little Apple-esque, as you long press on text and see a little magnification pane pop up.
From there you can drag two little pins to select the text you want - which bar the colour is almost precisely the same as Apple's offering. Where the difference lies is in the pop up menu that appears after: you can copy the text, share it via the same options mentioned earlier or use it to search. But not just search on Google, oh no. You can look for the phrase on Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Dictionary or even Google Translate - and that's an awesome option. The internet experience on Android phones has always been a plus, and the sheer speed, functionality and slickness of the offering on the HTC Sensation means web browsing a really great experience, although we didn't experience the jaw-dropping, eye-popping speeds we did with other dual-core handsets. The HTC Sensation is a phone that's clearly built for media, with the Taiwanese brand not only offering a range of applications to help make your media experience as good as it could be, but the addition of the on demand HTC Watch service for movies shows it's looking to plough a new revenue furrow.
We're upset that there's only 1GB of internal memory, but our sample came with a 4GB card and can be expanded all the way up to an additional 32GB if you're into that, so it's not the end of the world, although it pales compared to the 16GB internal memory of the Galaxy S2. Music Sonically, HTC has done well again with the Sensation - sure, it might not be market leading, but it's perfectly competent and works well within the phone. The same system as before is in place, namely that you can slide your finger along the bottom of the screen to search through your media to find the song you want, plus hit that little search key to find what you're after.
HTC has also added another little treat, in the new arrow at the top of the screen - tap this and you can instantly stream to another DLNA-enabled device with ease. It takes a little while for the song to load, but overall it's cool functionality that actually works. The audio is acceptable without being mind-blowing on the HTC Sensation - you can use custom equaliser or have virtual SRS enhancement to make the songs sound bassier or less tinny, but the range of customisation doesn't actually afford too much control.
The other annoying element is that you can't control the music player from the notifications bar, only pause the music - although you can tap the album art to get straight back into the music application.
One REALLY cool bit of functionality that shows HTC has design at the heart of the Sense UI: the lock screen music control widget lets you spin the album artwork around to let you choose between the picture or additional lock screen controls... and we love playing with things like that. Video and HTC Watch Given HTC is putting so much effort into movies with the Watch offering, it's surprising that the video offering on the Sensation is irritatingly poor. We say poor only because there is a) no dedicated video application, and b) when you open the video section in the Gallery you get a list of thumbnails and no labels for each video, so you have to either look at the details or open the file to see what it is.
Come on HTC, we've begged you to fix this so many times - please just do it. The thumbnails load much faster than before thanks to the dual-core processor, but not as lightning fast as the Galaxy S2 it has to be said, or even the single core Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. Video performance is perfectly respectable, although certainly not market leading. The sharpness of the picture is really, really nice, and we enjoyed a few TV shows in the right conditions because of it. SRS is still offered, although Dolby Mobile has sadly not made it on board - it wasn't really necessary to have two audio modes on there. We also love how NOBODY at HTC has noticed that it's not 'enchancement' after two iterations of phones since the Desire HD.
Take the HTC Sensation into the light (we don't mean kill it), not even direct sunlight, and you'll have to instantly turn up the brightness as high as it will go, which really washes out the picture. Samsung and Apple are certainly well in the lead when it comes to media on your phone for this category. The HTC Watch service looks like a winning offer for those that are locked into a two year contract with the phone, as the DRM means you can only play the files in HTC Devices (although that includes the Flyer if you have one). The quality is great, but £9.99 for a film seems a lot to pay for not the most up to date titles - and renting for £3.49 feels rubbish when it's not yours to keep.
The selection of four old series of TV shows is disappointing too - but we're sure the collection will grow quickly in the future, and hopefully the cost will come down. Over Wi-Fi the download speeds were pretty good for movies, and the ability to pay directly with your credit card is good too - it feels less like you can accidentally spend loads on watching films, especially if you're renting (although remember it used to be cheaper to rent videos from Blockbuster). We've always been slightly confused by HTC phones when it comes to the battery life, as they seem to offer wildly different experiences depending on who is using them it seems.
The HTC Desire was fine for us when it came to lasting a day, but others found it would be dead by 7PM. The Desire HD was more universally panned for a poor battery, but still some chastised our verdict of it being unacceptable. Well, it's going to happen again with the HTC Sensation, as the battery life, to us, seems woeful and not up to scratch. We're talking dead by 8PM with no push email, minimal Wi-Fi and about 30 mins of music and video at the most.
We've cycled it a few times to see if it can be improved, but the same things happens: it holds charge averagely well mostly, but then will get very warm and discharge at a rate of 10% per hour... which is a familiar scenario with the Desire HD. We constantly kept the applications killed and the notifications to a minimum - but it seems only turning off the background synchronisation altogether helped the issue. And don't even think about hammering the camera in the middle of the day, or you'll be without a phone come the evening for sure.
That said, we're going to request another sample to test this out with, as it's probably the poorest experience we've had on an HTC device so far, so it's only fair we test to make sure it wasn't just a diff unit.
On the plus side, at least HTC has decided to break the 1500mAh barrier in terms of power unit: it's a whopping 20mAh more, although still miles and miles behind the power of the 1950mAh unit in the Motorola Atrix.
We've been so excited about the power of the HTC Sensation ever since we heard rumblings that the company was making a dual-core handset - and we've not been let down. What's annoying though is we weren't blown away, and that's mostly because there was nothing wrong with the speed of Sense before on the likes of the Desire HD or the first Desire. Sure, we get new fancy animations and 3D graphics, but it's not the step change that we saw from the Galaxy S to the Galaxy S2, which is a complement in a way to HTC. We liked This section of our HTC reviews is always well-stocked, and that's the case again here - we really like the HTC Sensation and it ticks all our boxes for the most part. Be it the constantly impressive contact integration, the ability to download movies and books (although we need a wider selection for the former) and the sheer level of customisation means that the Sensation is a great phone for the general user. The internet browsing speed is impressive over Wi-Fi, and the qHD screen is really impressive for video in the correct conditions. The design is nice and stylish too, plus the power of the camera is clear to see for anyone that likes to dabble in a spot of Full HD video and share it on a larger screen.
We disliked The big worry for the HTC Sensation is whether the battery life can hold up, and right now we don't think it can based on our review sample running out of juice by the evening without fail. The screen quality is good, but not market-leading; if you're comparing it to something like the Samsung Galaxy S2's Super AMOLED Plus offering you'll notice a massive difference in quality at times. The back cover to hot-swap the microSD card is very hard to get off, and the Sensation as a package is pretty chunky compared to the competition. Verdict Whether it's just that we're getting spoilt by the quality of the HTC range or that the brand simply can't innovate at the electric pace it managed when it made Android smartphones good enough for the masses, the HTC Sensation doesn't get our pulses racing like other models in its range have. HTC Watch needs to a larger range of movies and TV shows before we can even begin to assess whether it's going to take off or not - and the price seems a little high at this early stage. We love the Sense UI still, and the 'Unlock Ring' is a cool addition to the party - we still want the notifications to be more interactive, but overall it's still a neat idea. The design of the phone is different and, in our eyes, pretty premium with the metallic feel and steel grill - the weight feels solid in the hand and the screen size is impressive and sharp. It's still not one of HTC's best, but one we'd definitely recommend over a number of other phones in the marketplace and if you're an HTC fan or just looking to get one of the cutting-edge dual core devices, we suggest you seriously think about the HTC Sensation. Thanks to Vodafone, which is initially exclusively stocking the HTC Sensation, for supplying our review unit. 
| ||
| SeeSaw's walled garden approach was its failure, says Blinkx Posted: 27 May 2011 10:29 AM PDT The announcement that VOD service SeeSaw is set to close is something of a blow for on-demand television but one that could have been stopped if the service had been more open. This is according to Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and founder of Blinkx, the world's largest video search engine. Chandratillake, who has just launched a set-top box version of Blinkx in the US, believes there is definitely money in web video but you have to know exactly what users want and not treat web TV like traditional television. "We're seeing quite a shakeup in online video with SeeSaw leaving the space today. Despite eMarketer forecasting that the online video ad market will be worth $5.7 billion by 2014, it's evident that creating a profitable video streaming platform does not fit the traditional broadcast model," said Chandratillake. "To be a success in this market, it's not about creating walled gardens of exclusive content, it's about embracing the fragmentation that is inherent within the world wide web. "Unlike SeeSaw, the content channels that thrive in this environment will be those that help users effortlessly navigate and locate rich video content on the Web and allow content producers to engage to whatever degree they see fit." Following Netflix's lead Recent news that Netflix streaming has now overtaken bit-torrent traffic in the US proves that the market for online video is there, something Chandratillake agreed with when he caught up with TechRadar recently, telling us that a similar milestone could well be hit in the UK. "The ground for VOD is fertile in the UK – broadband penetration is better than the US," he explained. "Lovefilm is growing at a pace Netflix was a few years ago and now that its traffic is bigger than bit-torrent, it shows that Hollywood is winning against the pirates. "If the content companies give users what they want, they will pay for it." Despite having thousands of hours of free and premium content, SeeSaw's lack of popularity on the web meant that it never reaped success. A lot of Netflix's success is to do with the way its re-positioned itself in the market, taking on the traditional broadcasters and winning – you only have to see the deal it sealed with HBO to understand this. "The deals Netflix is doing puts them in the same league as [US cable provider] Comcast. It's also putting the service into the same territory of satellite providers, which is very interesting." While Netflix shows that the walled garden approach can work – it seems that you need a big enough garden for content providers to want to play in and furnish it with more than just a SeeSaw. 
| ||
| Updated: HTC phones mysteriously running 10 mins fast? Posted: 27 May 2011 09:47 AM PDT UPDATE: We've had a response already from HTC, and it has acknowledged the problem: "It has come to our attention that certain HTC handsets appear to be showing the wrong time, we'd like to reassure you that we are currently working to rectify this and will have an update for you shortly. "We apologise for any inconvenience this may be causing." Here's an odd one for Friday - it seems HTC phones on Android have started running 10 minutes fast over the last 24 hours. We first noticed it on our device while we were writing our HTC Sensation review, but now it appears scores of users are reporting the same thing. The problem appears if users are running network-based time in the settings, but the odd thing is users across ALL the UK networks are reporting the same thing. Time is irrelevant We're even seeing the same thing in Spain, although some users are reporting that jumping onto a Wi-Fi network will sort things out back to normal - could it be it's actually an HTC time server for its Sense UI that's messing things up. There are a number of far-fetched 'fixes' already floating around on the forums - from Facebook correcting things to simply turning the phone off, but nothing we've tried on our Sensation or Desire has made a difference. We're going to plug away at HTC for an answer on this one - but it's so odd that we're betting it's going to take a while to get an answer. 
| ||
| George Lucas: We got into 3D a long time ago Posted: 27 May 2011 09:44 AM PDT Star Wars director George Lucas has been speaking about his upcoming plans to remaster his space opera in 3D, explaining that his team at Industrial Light And Magic have been working on 3D conversion for a long time. Star Wars is set to be released in 3D in 2012, with Star Wars: Episode 1 hitting cinemas on 10 February. Rather than this re-release being a cash cow for Lucas, he is hoping that it will revitalise the films for a modern-day audience. There are hurdles, however, like telling the 2D-3D converters what the sets looked like when the films were shot so the 3D is as close to the original masters as possible. People who were there "We got into the 3D field a long time ago. We've worked for years and years to build a group of people who could do this in an economic, reasonable time frame," said Lucas. "It wasn't until the last few years that we achieved that. We had Industrial Light and Magic supervise the whole thing. They are very familiar with it. The problem is that the people doing the conversion don't know what the sets looked like, or where the people were standing. Those are critical issues. "We were able to have people who were there, who knew where the actors were on set, and who were experts in the technology." As the majority of cinema enthusiasts are 2D-3D naysayers, Lucas has got an uphill struggle to prove that his conversion of the Star Wars franchise will work. He believes, though, that the team at ILM have nailed it, but don't expect the footage to "poke you in the face". "We have taken it to a level that is equal to anything that is being shot in 3D. There are two kinds of 3D. One is behind the screen, and the other is the traditional 'effect' of 3D, where they poke things in your face. "I am not a big believer of poking things in your face. I am a believer in watching a 3D movie, which is a better experience than watching a 2D movie. "It's like going from black and white to colour. It's a better way to watch it. Its three-dimensional, it feels much better. That's what you are going to get from the new Star Wars." Via MovieWeb 
| ||
| See users' Twitter timelines with latest following feature Posted: 27 May 2011 09:31 AM PDT Twitter has rolled out its stalkiest additional feature to date, essentially allowing you to see other users' timelines as part of their follower page. When you click to see what users a Twitterer is following, instead of a boring list of names and avatars, you'll now be presented with recent tweets from the people being followed. What's more, there's a new shuffle button in the top right hand corner of the follower page screen; this takes you randomly to the followers of a person you follow. Follower politics Presumably tweets from anyone with a protected Twitter account won't show up on these pages unless you already have permission to follow them. While the changes aren't exactly magical and groundbreaking, Twitter has gradually been making it easier to find likeminded people for you to follow. Other new-ish features include 'Who to Follow', a list of accounts with a plucked-from-the-air feel, and 'Similar to…' which tends to be made up of other Twitter accounts that user follows. 
| ||
| Review: Canon PowerShot SX230 HS Posted: 27 May 2011 08:49 AM PDT Scanning the specifications for Canon's latest high-zoom travel compact, it certainly looks as if the new PowerShot SX230 HS leaves very little to be desired. Replacing the older SX210 IS, the SX230 HS offers an array of upgraded features that bring it bang up-to-date. One of the most notable changes is that the old model's 14.1mp sensor has been replaced with a brand new 12.1mp BSI-CMOS, which features Canon's latest back-illuminated design and promises higher light sensitivity and lower noise levels in images. The SX230 HS boasts the same big 14x optical zoom lens as its earlier incarnation, but adds Full HD (1080p) movie recording (compared to its predecessor's 720p offering), complete with stereo sound, as well as another of its headline features: built-in GPS. With such a comprehensive feature-set, the SX230 HS looks set to lift the bar in the travel-zoom sector of the compact camera market - but can it put in a performance to match its specs?
Comparing the new SX230 HS with the compact it usurps, there's very little difference in terms of control layout and dimensions. Offering the same combination of metal front and back plates, combined with a plastic silver strip that encompasses the top plate and sides of the camera, the SX230 HS feels solid in the hand. Its chunky body, with all of its protrusions to accommodate various features, has a reassuring weight to it that adds to the impression of robustness, however it is a little too slippery and unbalanced to facilitate easy one-handed shooting. As a result, you're likely to find yourself wanting to steady the camera with your left hand, which would be fine, save for the fact that the camera's built-in pop-up flash is a little too eager to please, automatically popping up every time you power on the camera. It's positioned precisely where you naturally want to grip the camera with your left hand, so there's an inevitable battle between photographer and pop-up flash every time you forget about this little quirk. Happily however, if you decide flash isn't required for your shots, you can simply push the little unit back down, where it clicks into place and sits flush with the top panel once again. The top panel is where we see the most notable change to the interface, with the power button being relocated to the sloping section of the back panel to make way for the integral GPS module that occupies a raised hump beside the zoom-lever-encircled shutter release (note the SX210 IS' fiddly old zoom lever is no more). Around the back, the control layout is exactly the same as that of the earlier model, with the SX230 HS' large, bright 3-inch LCD dominating much of the real estate. While its dimensions may be the same as its predecessor's, Canon has upgraded the resolution from 230,000 to a far more impressive 461,000-dots. While shooting stills however, only the central portion of the screen is used, with various icons and shooting information filling the black bars that flank the Live View display on either side. Fire up the SX230's Full HD movie mode however, and the whole of the 16:9 format screen is employed.
The LCD offers a detailed view - in the absence of any additional viewfinder - with a wide viewing angle and effective anti-reflective coating that makes it a joy to use. The SX230's remaining controls comprise a rotating four-way d-pad that provides your means of navigation through menus and on-screen options. Touching it lightly calls up an on-screen graphic that tells you which functions the directional keys provide softkey access to, namely exposure compensation, flash, self-timer and focus mode. Otherwise there's self-explanatory dedicated movie, playback, menu and Disp. (display) buttons, each of which is well-proportioned and easy to locate with your thumb. The well-stocked mode dial offers the same array of manual and automatic modes as the SX210 IS, with the exception of the addition of Canon's new creative filters, which we'll look at in the next section. As well as an Auto mode that cleverly decides what it is you're photographing and selects the best scene mode for the job, there's an additional Easy mode for those times when all you want is a basic point-and-shoot. There's plenty of presets and scene modes to delve into too, along with the full complement of Program, Aperture and Shutter Priority as well as Manual exposure modes. With a good balance of modes geared towards both beginners and more advanced photographers, the SX230 HS has something to offer just about anyone.
As with the rest of Canon's recently-launched compacts boasting their latest back-illuminated sensors, image quality from the SX230 HS doesn't disappoint. We've previously been impressed by the HS sensor's ability to handle noise in high ISO photos and the story remains the same here: shots stay remarkably clean right up to ISO 800, with usable results still being produced at the top of the camera's sensitivity range - albeit with a fair degree of softening and some loss of contrast. Generally, images are sharp (save for those shot at the telephoto end of the camera's colossal focal range, where softness increases) and faithfully coloured, with a good level of contrast. There is some notable distortion at either end of the lens' focal range, but nothing that you wouldn't expect from a camera of this ilk. The creative filters option on the mode dial that we mentioned earlier comprises a bank of special effects, each of which adds a different look to your images in-camera: a fun feature to explore, particularly if you're Photoshop-shy. The effects include Fish-eye, Miniature, Toy Camera, Monochrome, Super Vivid, Poster Effect, Color Accent and Color Swap - all of which produce decent results. Battery life is the SX230 HS' biggest bug-bear, with the quoted figure of around 210 shots - which isn't great to start with - falling even further if you want to use the GPS feature you've no doubt purchased the camera for. Speaking of which, in order to make full use of this feature you really need to be shooting outdoors on open ground - move under cover or indoors and you'll inevitably lose the GPS lock. When it works however, results are fairly accurate - use the bundled software to upload your shots to Google Maps and you can instantly keep track of wherever in the world you took your photos. As part of our test we shoot our resolution chart at every sensitivity setting. The higher the value quoted in the caption score, the greater the level of detail being resolved and the better the image quality.
ISO 100, score: 22, see full image
ISO 200, score: 22, see full image
ISO 400, score: 20, see full image
ISO 800, score: 18, see full image
ISO 1600, score: 16, see full image
ISO 3200, score: 14, see full image
ISO 100, see full image
ISO 200, see full image
ISO 400, see full image
ISO 800, see full image
ISO 1600, see full image
ISO 3200, see full image
The wide end of the SX230 HS' zoom range makes capturing expansive scenes a simple task
The telephoto end of the SX230 HS' focal range allows you to get really close to distant subjects, without having to move an inch
Faithful colour reproduction is a particularly impressive trait of images shot with this camera
There's no doubting the usefulness of the SX230 HS' 14x optical zoom lens, but be prepared to deal with some softness in images shot at its longest setting
Subjects shot at close-quarters using the camera's Macro AF mode are pleasingly detailed
The Miniature creative filter can be used to create some distinctive images
Use the camera's Fish-eye creative filter to comic effect in your shots Effective pixels: 12.1mp
When it comes to performance, the SX230 HS impresses. This stout compact may not be the prettiest thing to look at, but it won't let you down when it comes to image quality. The range of exposure modes on offer - coupled with its highly useful 14x optical zoom and Full HD movie features - make this a highly desirable camera, but it's not without its faults. The GPS module works brilliantly outdoors, but loses its lock when you move undercover, and to cap it all - activating the feature worsens the already-unimpressive battery life. So, the SX230 HS is a bit of a mixed bag, which leads us to recommend that - if you don't really need the GPS functionality, you're better off saving some cash and plumping for its cheaper doppelganger - the SX220 HS instead. We likedExcellent image quality with a good level of sharpness and detail overall, as well as excellent stereo sound quality when shooting Full HD movies. The array of exposure modes on offer is excellent, as is the focal length range offered by the 14x optical zoom lens. We dislikedBattery life is pretty poor and the constant battle with the pop-up flash can get a little tiresome. Results from the GPS system are patchy, with the camera struggling to find a lock when not out in an open space. 
| ||
| Sony could be skimping on NGP features Posted: 27 May 2011 08:42 AM PDT Not only is Sony tightening the PS4 purse strings, but it seems the company is finding ways to cut costs on its NGP handheld console too. A report on a French tech site claims that Sony is opting for lower-spec components in order to compete with the Nintendo 3DS on price, according to developer sources. For example, the original plan was apparently for the NGP to offer 512MB of RAM; this has been slashed to 256MB. Memory loss Similarly, the site claims that 16GB of internal memory has been canned, with SD cards coming in to pick up the slack. Although this would keep consumer pricing down – the Nintendo 3DS currently sells for around £200 – it would mean less bang for fewer bucks. But, on the bright side, none of the original supposed spec nor the cut-down version have ever been confirmed by Sony, so there's no reason to crack out the mourning garb just yet. There's a possibility that the main characteristics of the console and some launch titles will be revealed at E3 2011. It also seems that there may be some delay to the console due to components shortages after the natural disasters in Japan; while the French site reckons Japan will still have a December release of the NGP, the West may have to make do with a Q1 2012 release date. 
| ||
| Posted: 27 May 2011 08:34 AM PDT Sitting alongside the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Black is a top-end smartphone, slipping in at just over £400, attempting to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S2 and Apple iPhone 4 for the smartphone crown, but with considerably fewer features and less processing power than its LG stablemate. First things first – the LG Optimus Black is light. Weighing a featherweight 109g, it even reaches a skinny 6mm side edge curvature, and 9.2mm thickness at its deepest point, besting the Apple iPhone 4 by a millimetre. Some may feel the lightness cheapens the feel of this handset somewhat, but our jeans pockets were thankful and it was nice to tote around something that didn't weigh us down. The slightly metallic back cover is smooth, and the phone's few soft keys are well-blended into the chassis, giving it a minimalist aesthetic. We have to say, however, that a few of the edges felt a little too rough, detracting from the overall feel of the phone. Yet where it's light and thin and joyous, it's also somewhat long. This makes the LG Optimus Black a little uncomfortable for small hands to hold it portrait, although curved corners help it sit nicely in the paws in landscape orientation.
Those with bigger hands will likely feel it sits in the hands just fine either way. But, given the Android UI is designed to be used mainly in portrait mode, those with small hands will find it difficult to use one-handed. Despite its impressive lightness, the length makes it feel a much bigger phone than it is.
The LG Optimus Black's 4-inch capacitive NOVA display screen is as bright as an AMOLED – reaching up to 700cd/m2 – but with increased battery efficiency, thanks to "luminance reduction technology". The 480 x 800p display is indeed beautifully bright and clear, perfectly fine indoors or out, even in the most direct sunlight we came across while testing.
Looking much like the LG Optimus 2X, it packs less power, with a 1GHz processor running Android 2.2. The Optimus Black boasts the usual Android touchscreen buttons, and the three external buttons – a slim volume rocker, power/lock button and the gesture key, part of the LG Gesture UI designed to aid using the phone with one hand (more on that later).
As with most minimalist handsets the ports – micro USB slot and 3.5mm headphone jack – sit at one end, alongside the lock and power button. At the bottom end of the LG Optimus Black is an irritatingly tiny slot for removing the battery cover. Good luck opening the thing if you're devoid of long fingernails. In fact, even if you have got long claws, prying off the back cover is a difficult task. Once you get underneath the hood, you'll find the SIM holder, microSD slot and, of course, the battery.
This is a sleek handset which packs an impressive 2MP front-facing camera plus a 5MP auto-focus-tons-of-toggling-fun camera with LED flash on the back. The LG Optimus Black runs on Android 2.2 Froyo with the Optimus 2.0 UI overlay.
There are seven home screens on this sweet machine, and the 1GHz single core processor is more than capable of happily sliding through them all with ease, and running any apps you might wish to pull up.
There's little to no juddering and some nice widgets – the weather one especially calls to mind the HTC equivalent.
The pull-down notifications screen looks nice and spiffy, with an update that now includes music player, volume and connectivity setting controls.
A long-tap to the screen brings up the home screen edit mode for customising. And a pinch displays all seven home screens at once.
Apps are easily managed by tapping into 'Manage app' and moving them into desired categories in a list or page view. So far, so usual. But the most interesting thing about the LG Optimus Black interface has to be the Gesture UI. Fun and useful, the idea is to make it easier to use the phone and flip through functions with one hand. And, if you have big enough hands to make it work, it's great.
The G Key doubles as the camera button in that it opens the app from the lockscreen (although you can't use it to actually take the snap, which is disappointing). Simply press the key, on the side of the phone, and shake. Press and tilt to slide through the seven home screens, press and tap the side of the phone to move the cursor left and right when texting and press and shake to answer or hang up on a phone call. It's a particularly nice addition if you're not a fan of touchscreens without soft buttons. If you're not a fan of shaking your phone about like a loon in public, these additional features can be tweaked in the settings menu.
There are tiny details that are counter-intuitive on the LG Optimus Black, such as sliding up to unlock but then immediately having to slide down to pull down the notifications tab, and it's not as easy to use one-handed as you might like. Overall, though, there are no grumbles from us – it's mainly swift to respond and easy to pick up.
Contacts, easily accessed on the LG Optimus Black from a dedicated shortcut widget on the home screen or the phone widget, are nicely integrated with the two main social networks (Facebook and Twitter), as well as Gmail and Myspace. Syncing them with contacts is as simple as a simple thing, requiring you to check the 'Auto-sync' box to see your contacts magically become populated with images, updates and statuses.
The contacts list will display the most recent status update, along with the network logo to tell you where it was posted.
A nice touch is tapping the profile picture of your contact to bring up a shortcut menu to take you straight to SMS, MMS, phone calling or the contact's social networks. While there is the possibility of duplicate contacts being shown, this is easily remedied by importing SIM contacts to the Optimus Black and knocking off the 'Display SIM contacts' option in the display settings. Or, if you want to manually change just a couple, editing the contact and clicking 'Join' will enable you to edit single contacts. Dipping into a contact itself displays four tabs: Info, History, Photo and Agenda.
The Info tab collects all possible ways of contacting a person on the same page. The History tab draws together messages and call logs between yourself and the contact.
The Agenda tab displays any events you might have with the contact, synced from the LG Optimus Black calendar.
The dialler supports smart dialling, finding both corresponding names from the numerical pad and matching digits in phone numbers.
Individual shortcut contact widgets can be added to a home screen, displaying the contact's image (if available) and providing a handy way to tap straight to texting/ dialling said person. Calling on the LG Optimus Black isn't a particularly fun experience, mainly due to the uncomfortable rim close to the speaker. Holding it to your ear for even vaguely long periods of time makes it feel as though the top of your ear is slowly being sliced off with a blunt instrument. Not very pleasant. The speaker is nice and loud, if you're in a private place to use it, but if not you might have to become that guy with a headset. That said, its ability to find a signal is impressive, which also aids greatly in browser speeds, and it's clear and easy to hear in loud surroundings. Messaging capabilities on the LG Optimus Black include SMS, MMS, email and Twitter/Facebook for LG with the options of downloading additional apps from the Android Market such as Google Voice, Skype and Meebo.
The messaging interface is bright and aesthetically pleasing, if nothing new. The messaging widget sits on the home screen, taking you into the inbox where your conversations – rather than singular texts – are listed, with the option to create a new message at the top.
QWERTY keyboards abound prove LG is keeping up with the simple details (unlike the similarly priced Nokia E7). In portrait mode, a small text input box and QWERTY keyboard sit below a visual of previous messages above. Or landscape mode is designed for those who prefer to see the entire text they're typing, without a view of the message they're replying to.
The LG Optimus Black can be a little slow to move from portrait to landscape, but otherwise the keys are nicely spaced and easy to type with. The one complaint would be the space bar, which seemed somehow less responsive than the rest of the keyboard – which could be because of the thinness of the key or just us not having the hang of it. The messaging app includes predictive text and spellcheck, while attaching media files and converting to a multimedia message is as easy as clicking the menu button and selecting 'Attach', in either portrait or landscape mode. If you see something while you're messaging that just can't wait, you can open the camera from the Attach menu, snap a picture and insert it into the text you were typing. There's a crowbar separation between MMS/SMS and email inboxes via the appropriate apps, but this may be something you prefer. A gesture for flipping between the two would certainly come in handy here.
In terms of email, if you're a Gmail user, the droid app for this is pretty sweet, giving you both Priority Inbox and Inbox view. It's also easy to find your organised folders and label emails. Setting up the app is as easy as signing in – you've got to love it, and on the 4-inch screen, it's a nice view indeed.
Long-tapping an email brings up various editing options, including Delete, Mark unread and Report spam.
And clicking into the email itself brings up the reply button and, of course, allows you to read the full email.
Setting up the pre-loaded email app is just as simple – just follow the on-screen instructions and add the accounts you'd like to see in a combined inbox. IM isn't included in the LG Optimus Black's list of apps, but the Market is nicely stocked and apps such as Meebo and AIM are easy to download. All in all, it's an easy to use messaging system with plenty of features and nicely laid out.
Connectivity-wise, the LG Optimus Black is decked with Wi-Fi, 3G (7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA) and Bluetooth. Attached to Wi-Fi, the browser speed is excellent, and while the 3G speeds aren't by any means instantaneous, they're not painful either.
Connectivity-wise, the LG Optimus Black is decked with Wi-Fi, 3G (7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA) and Bluetooth. Attached to Wi-Fi, the browser speed is excellent, and while the 3G speeds aren't by any means instantaneous, they're not painful either. Thanks to the NOVA technology, websites look sharp and gorgeous, with colours really popping on the screen, whether zoomed in or out.
Double tapping will auto-zoom out to refit the whole website to the screen. Web pages are quick to navigate on the LG Optimus Black, except for a slight juddering when scrolling through image-heavy sites.
Reflow is supported, instantly fitting the text to the screen, whether in portrait or landscape mode, which makes image-heavy sites (such as say, your Sunday dose of PostSecret) a pleasant browsing experience. We think the pre-installed browser is more than adequate, but if you're dead set on downloading another, Mozilla Firefox and Opera are available from the Market. Flash is supported. However, the single core processor means viewing isn't entirely smooth. The BBC iPlayer app, for example, loads quickly but occasionally stutters while playing, and is far too pixelated. Flash inside websites gave the LG Optimus Black no pause for thought on a Wi-Fi connection, but a little trouble on 3G roaming.
Bookmarking is easy on the LG Optimus Black – clicking on the star symbol next to the current URL takes you to an attractive thumbnail bookmarks page, including a Most visited and History tab.
In the browser, they're easily reached through the Menu button. Simples.
With only 5MP, the LG Optimus Black's camera is about on a par with the Apple iPhone 4 but doesn't reach the 8MP spec of the Samsung Galaxy S2. Yet somehow, that doesn't seem to matter for daytime shots, as the images produced look gorgeous on the NOVA screen.
BRIGHT: The blue of the sky is retained in the picture, though some brighter contrast sections are a little bleached Click here for full-res version
OVERCAST: The sky is washed out, but the detail of the building is retained nicely Click here for full-res version You can't zoom in particularly far before the picture becomes pixelated, but looking at them as-taken they're good enough for a 5MP phone camera. The colours are mainly true to life, except for a little washing out of the sky on an overcast day, and there are several shooting modes to play around with. There are five different focus modes on the LG Optimus Black, including Auto, Macro and Face Tracking. You can steadily decrease the MP size, plus choose from several scene modes such as Landscape, Sports, Sunset and Night. If you prefer fiddling with the manual settings, the camera allows you to change the White Balance (within reason) and the ISO (to 800). Then there are the shot modes (Shallow Focus, Beauty, Panorama and so on), geolocation and the volume rocker doubles as a zoom key. It's more than enough for the amateur photographer to play around with.
ART SHOT: The camera has an art shot mode which can employ one of four colour washes. This is the 'warm' wash, mimicking a cross-processed image Click here for full-res version
AUTO SUNSET: This picture, taken during a sunset in auto mode, retains none of the colour of the scene, with the sun washed out entirely Click here for full-res version
SUNSET MODE: The same picture, taken with the 'sunset' mode, captures an almost identical shot, with the sun still washed out Click here for full-res version
MACRO: This mode aims to mimic a shallow focus shot, but doesn't manage to focus on any particular spot, thus blurring the entire photo Click here for full-res version Inside, however, the 5MP camera really shows – the resulting pictures are grainy, dampened with a yellow tint or completely over-exposed from the LED flash. The camera also has a similar problem with night time shots, both outdoors and indoors, with far too much noise.
NIGHT FLASH: Taken with a flash, indoors at night, this picture is completely over-exposed and the colours are too bright Click here for full-res version
NIGHT NO FLASH: There's no over-exposure when taken without a flash, but plenty of noise Click here for full-res version Where the G key would have really come in handy, instead of just being the camera launcher, is if it doubled as a capture button. Instead you're left tapping the screen in the usual way of touchscreen smartphones, which causes hand-shaking when attempting to capture photos. The secondary camera, however, is the star – a front-facing 2MP camera currently bettered only by the BlackBerry PlayBook's 3MP, for video calling. With a video recording capability of 720p HD (30fps) we expected a little more from the LG Optimus Black. When filming, the focus would judder around, making for horrible playback. Plus, there's no ability to zoom while filming.
When zoomed in even a little way, the video is horribly pixelated and blurred. Sure, the colours were rendered decently true to life, but that's the only good thing we have to say about this video camera. Settings to tweak include: video size (HD, TV, VGA, QVGA or QCIF), white balance and colour effect (not just black and white or sepia but several cartoonish options, if those are your thing). Interestingly you can also mute the microphone when filming, should you wish.
Watching films on the LG Optimus Black seems to be what this phone was made for. The 4-inch NOVA screen comes into its own, showing deep, deep blacks and crisp, bright colours that really pop, if not a little too garishly contrasted at times. The lightweight, curved chassis now makes sense, sitting comfortably in the hand, not weighing you down like a rock. MPEG4, H263, H.264, DivX, XVid and WMV are all supported by the player and the playback is smooth, the audio nice and loud. As a media player, the LG Optimus Black is excellent. Memory is a paltry thing for the LG Optimus Black, however. Supplied with the phone was a 2GB microSD card, so on the face of it, it has a tiny amount of memory, but this is easily swappable for a bigger memory card. You'd think with such a beautiful screen and excellent media player that memory space would be a bigger priority.
The music player is accessible from one of the seven home screens, with a widget now available in the drop down notifications menu, allowing ease of use. Here the Gesture UI ought to come in handy, allowing you to flick through tracks by simply holding the G key and tapping twice on the side of the handset. However, this only seemed to work for us when in the music player itself, at which point the G key becomes almost pointless as you might as well manually slide the tracks along. The LG Optimus Black supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WAV and MIDI with a well-balanced sound quality, excellent loudness and very little distortion at the highest volumes. The provided earphones are surprisingly clear and comfortable, but the sound quality was marginally better when we tested with different earphones. Dolby mobile surround is an option, but seemed to dull the sound, making us feel as if we were hearing the music underwater.
The music library looks vaguely familiar, owing much to Apple's influence, arranging files in standard songs/albums/artists lists. The landscape view offers a curved flow of album covers and alphabetically-listed artists. As for photos, access to the gallery is smooth and simple – from widgets that can be placed on a home screen to the menu shortcut.
Switching between the camera and gallery is also nicely integrated, with a corner button that flips between the two. A funky little addition to the LG Optimus Black's gallery interface is the ability to pinch-out the camera folder and view the images in it as they shuffle through like a pack of cards. Cool, but ultimately pointless given that you can't click through to an image once you spot the one you want – you have to tap into the folder to do that. There's little to no editing ability on this phone for images or film, but – for the camera anyway – there are so many shooting modes that post-editing is rendered unnecessary.
Content is easily shared via Bluetooth/email/MMS and Youtube for video files and via any image-supporting networks such as Facebook, Twitter and PicPlz. The LG Optimus Black also carries SmartShare software which allows you to share files wirelessly.
Also included in the LG Optimus Black's media capacity is an FM radio. This is bog standard, with no outstanding features. The reception quality is low, often with fuzzy distortion. Battery life
The LG Optimus Black's 100mAh battery life is fair to average. We definitely had to charge it every day, which isn't ideal, although that was after heavy usage, including a few hours of Wi-Fi. It seems on a par with its more powerful brethren, the LG Optimus 2X and daily charging has become standard for most smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S2. The battery is drained significantly by running games, even for 10-15 minutes. If the NOVA screen is saving battery consumption, we'd hate to see it without that technology. On the upside, it charges quickly and if you're less of an internet browser and networks addict then perhaps you'll squeeze a little longer out of the battery. Connectivity
The LG Optimus Black is fairly full of connectivity options, including micro USB (but no HDMI port), HSDPA (to 7.2 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and standard Bluetooth 2.1. The 3G is enough to keep you browsing at a decent rate if you're in a good spot for signal. The Wi-Fi is also strong and will speed up the browser upload rate no end. The LG Optimus Black is also loaded with Wi-Fi Direct technology (just like the Samsung Galaxy S2), which in theory allows you to transfer files up to 20 times faster than Bluetooth if you can find other Wi-Fi Direct capable devices. The handset can also be used as a Wi-Fi Hotspot.
Connecting the phone to a PC seems easy enough – just plug in the USB and be eased through the setup menus. It became a little tedious when we were guided through umpteen installation screens, but eventually we were set up and ready to go with a simple drag and drop. Connecting the LG Optimus Black to a Mac was a little more difficult, as the Android File Transfer app only works for those devices running Android 3.0, whereas the Optimus Black runs 2.2. Once installed, however, it's a simple drag-and-drop game and is easy to transfer files. One glitch we did come across, however, was with the microSD card. After adding a movie no problem, testing it and deciding to switch it for another one, we deleted the first film file from the SD card, only to be met with a series of 'Memory card full' error screens. To remedy this, we had to remove all images and files from the card that we wanted to save to and then reformat it, after which it worked fine. This isn't ideal, especially if it were to happen every time you swapped the files around on your handset. Maps
Standard Google Mapping software is included on the LG Optimus Black handset, which means GPS navigation, Layers (such as overlays of tube lines and terrain) and Latitude (Google's attempt at a location-based social network). Thanks to the Optimus Black's 3G capabilities, the GPS is decently quick to latch onto your location, and will handily cache maps you use the most for use offline. Apps
There are few pre-loaded apps on the LG Optimus Black that really stand out from the norm of Google apps and social networks on this handset – the only one really being the SmartShare DLNA streaming app mentioned in the Media section of this review. We will say, though, that the pre-downloaded LG Social Networking apps aren't worth it – download Twitter and Facebook for Android instead to get the full range of usability. The LG Twitter app feels particularly dire if you're used to the functions of Twitter's official app. It's slow to load and opens to your Twitter stream, which then counter-intuitively requires the use of the back button to get to your @ mentions. Nah, download the actual app instead. Much better.
Obviously the Android Market is a great app store, and one of the only ones that can compete on a similar level to the Apple app store. However, unless you know the exact app you're after, you may not come across it simply by browsing through the menus. Once you've browsed the Market and downloaded apps of your choice, they can be nicely organised into either portrait lists or side-swipe pages, like you see on the Apple iPhone 4.
The LG Optimus Black has some great things going for it – namely its sleek, lightweight chassis and lush 4-inch NOVA display in all its colourful glory. Outside of this there are no particularly outstanding features, but it's a slick, capable handset that does well in the core smartphone media categories. Of course, if you want a more powerful machine you'd opt for the LG Optimus 2X, but if you're looking for a dependable all-rounder, we'd say this matches up to the likes of the Apple iPhone 4 and the display qualities of the Samsung Galaxy S2 with its AMOLED screen. If you like gimmicks, you'll probably love the Gesture UI, though we thought many of the options – such as tapping to skip music tracks – were a little pointless when you really got down to it. Overall though, and despite running Android 2.2, we'd say the LG Optimus Black's worth the money if you're looking for an efficient, easy to use device that's easy on the eye and light on the pocket. We liked: The LG Optimus Black's screen – all four inches of it – is bright and clear. And despite the occasional rough edge, the lightness of the phone meant it was comfortable in the hand, even when watching video for decently long periods of time. The ease with which we could scroll through home screens, menus and apps without juddering or pauses was much appreciated, plus we always seemed to be able to get a decent enough signal to browse the internet, which is excellent. We disliked: The fact that the LG Optimus Black runs Android 2.2 seems a shame when there are more recent Android updates available, although it coped with most processes perfectly fine. The Gesture UI should have seemed a snappy addition, but we were left rather unimpressed by the G Key, with the only truly useful gesture being the ability to snap into camera mode from the lockscreen. The rest seemed merely exercises in vanity. Verdict: If you're both a fan of the black bar aesthetic that seems to be the current go-to design of smartphones, and a fan of lightweight machinery that does exactly what it ought to, then the LG Optimus Black will suit you great. While its only truly outstanding feature is the NOVA display screen, it performs well enough in other areas to stand as a competitor to the Apple iPhone 4 for those who prefer Android phones. 
| ||
| Rumour: Apple testing MacBook Airs with iPad 2 processors Posted: 27 May 2011 08:10 AM PDT Apple may have been fiddling around with the MacBook Air's innards and trying out the A5 processor found in the iPad 2, if new reports are to be believed. An anonymous source says that the company has ripped out the Intel iCore 2 Duo chips and replaced them with its own proprietary Apple A5 ARM-based processor, currently the beating heart of the iPad 2. "According to this source who saw live A5 MacBook Air actually, this test machine performed better than expected," says Macotakara, the site which broke the story. Healthy experimentation It's not clear whether the Air was running iOS found on iPads, iPhones and iPod touches or the full-on Mac OS X Snow Leopard that the Air currently offers. If Apple does release an Air running an A5 chip, it could mean headaches for application developers whose software would require significant modification in order to play nicely with the ARM architecture. Moving from the Intel processors to the A5 chip could see the slim Mac notebooks enjoying longer battery life thanks to the low-powered processor. But, as with all Apple rumours, we'll have to await an announcement before we know anything for sure; the latest rumblings peg the next MacBook Air reveal for June/July. 
| ||
| LG Optimus 2X problems continue, no fix for 'several weeks' Posted: 27 May 2011 06:06 AM PDT LG Optimus 2X owners may be stuck with malfunctioning handsets for the foreseeable future as LG struggles to fix a bug with the handset. Despite intentions to offer a patch to fix the 'black screen of death' issue that sees handsets randomly freezing and rebooting, LG has admitted that it's struggling to make the problem go away. Although the company originally stated that it would have a software update to fix the problem by the end of May, the latest communiqu̩ from LG posted on its Italian blog warns of a wait of "several weeks". No fix 'til Brooklyn "We regret having to announce that the software version expected by the end of the month Рin order to solve the instability problems alleged by some customers Рhas been postponed for several weeks," says the company's statement, translated by an XDA Developers forum member. "Troubleshooting is taking longer than expected because of the systematic nature of the anomalies reported, involving only a part of owners of LG Dual Optimus [2X]. "However, we are aware of the hardships that some of you are [having] with our product. "All resources are stretched to the limit of LG to release a best software [update] as soon as possible, but at present we have to move the deadline for issuing [to] the second half of June. "We will do everything possible to bring forward this date." 
| ||
| SeeSaw VOD service to close in June Posted: 27 May 2011 05:49 AM PDT SeeSaw, the on-demand service which offers content form BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV, has announced that it is to close – citing a strategic review by business partner Arqiva as the reason. Created from the scraps of Project Kangaroo, SeeSaw was meant to be an on-demand service which was channel agnostic. In short: a one-stop shop for online video content. Although it houses 3,000 hours of free content (if you could bear the pre-roll advertising), SeeSaw started to pride itself on its premium content where users could rent shows from as little as 49p. No demand Unfortunately, Arqiva – who is also a stakeholder in YouView, the still in development VOD hub for set tops – has decided SeeSaw isn't worth keeping, announcing it will close 20 June. A statement from Arquiva sheds some light on the move to close SeeSaw, with the company explaining that the VOD platform needed considerable investment which Arqiva wasn't prepared to give. "SeeSaw is an excellent service and has provided invaluable insight into the online TV market in the UK. But it no longer fits with the strategic direction in which we are taking Arqiva and requires considerable investment to succeed in an increasingly competitive market. "We have tried to find an investment partner, however this has not proved possible. We have therefore put SeeSaw staff on a 30-day consultation as we need to reach a conclusion by the end of our financial year on 30 June." Big thanks SeeSaw let its users know it was closing in a blog post, where it thanked everyone who used the platform. "We're sad to announce that next month will be the end of the road for SeeSaw. Launched in February last year, SeeSaw has become a great place to watch TV for millions of UK viewers." "However, following a strategic review of its business activities Arqiva, our parent company, is no longer able to support the service. "As it will soon be 'goodbye' from SeeSaw, we'd like to take this opportunity to say a big 'thanks' for all your support, custom and loyalty over the last 16 months. "We're a small team but we hope we've made a big difference and that you've had fun watching TV with us." The signs that SeeSaw had some money woes were apparent back in January, when the company started asking for more funds. 
| ||
| Bloomsbury sees e-book sales take off Posted: 27 May 2011 04:23 AM PDT Bloomsbury, the book publisher, has thanked its lucky stars for the rise of e-readers as it announced e-book sales of £1.5 million for January 2010 to March 2011. That's an 18 times increase in revenue from digitised books for Bloomsbury year-on-year, reflecting the rise and rise of the e-reader, no doubt somewhat fuelled by the explosion of the tablet market. Interestingly, £1.1 million of the sales were made in the first three months of 2011, suggesting that the boom times for e-books have only just begun. Thank goodness for e-readers Bloomsbury chief executive Nigel Newton said, "Demand for digital delivery, including e-books, is increasing significantly. "It will change the publishing business model, creating one worldwide market. The publishing world is handling its own revolution." Unfortunately for Bloomsbury, despite impressive e-book sales, its overall profits were still significantly down compared to 2009. The question is, can digitised books prove the saviour of the publishing industry? 
| ||
| Week in Tech: Facebook is coming for your children Posted: 27 May 2011 04:15 AM PDT For many people, social networks are the internet: they'll spend all day on Facebook or Twitter, with the odd break to visit an online shop or do some work. But the big networks aren't satisfied. They want more. Much more. They want your kids. Not literally, of course. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg doesn't like the way the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act prevents Facebook from giving accounts to under-13s. But it's not because he wants to make money from advertisers desperate to target the elusive and big-spending pre-teen market. No sirree. It's because getting the wee ones on Facebook will make them clever, or something. "In the future, software and technology will enable people to learn a lot from their fellow students," Zuckerberg says. Not that the law is actually preventing kids from using Facebook: as Chris Smith reports, around 7.5 million pre-teens are already on the site because they lied about their age. Social networks' tentacles are wrapping themselves around more and more of the internet. Bing will integrate Facebook data to try and make search results more relevant, brands can use the revised Facebook photos system to see what people are saying about them, phones are becoming increasingly Facebook-friendly and it seems that Facebook and Spotify are teaming up so that you can play music through the site. Facebook's even in the dictionary. Not everyone approves: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says that "Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented" and claims that "Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence." TweetDeck signs Twitter deal Facebook isn't the only social network that's been in the news this week, of course. It turns out that Twitter isn't just for breaking superinjunctions - you can chat on it too! Although Twitter has an enviable ecosystem of third-party clients, it's becoming increasingly clear that Twitter would much prefer it if everyone used its own software - something we highlighted back in March. It's already taken Atebits' excellent Tweetie and made it an official Twitter client; now, the power users' favourite TweetDeck has been taken under Twitter's wing too. TweetDeck creator Iain Dodsworth's words are interesting: "The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients," he says. "And by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs 'more power'." Is it just us, or does that imply that there's no room for third-party clients any more? Although Facebook and Twitter are very different networks and they're doing very different things, they've both got something very big in common: they'd really like to have some more money. By keeping Twitter activity inside official clients, Twitter can push sponsored tweets, display ads and other money-making wheezes; by getting everyone from birth to death to spend all day every day in Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg can simultaneously make some cash from targeted advertising while distracting us from the fact that he's building Skynet. 
| ||
| PlayStation 4 development confirmed by Sony Posted: 27 May 2011 04:01 AM PDT Sony has begun development on the PlayStation 4, with the games giant confirming that work on the console was already underway. In Sony's year-on-year results of its Networked Products & Services division – which comprises the PlayStation brand and PCs – Sony hinted that it was working on the PlayStation 4 but would not give any more details. PlayStation 4 plans "For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," said Sony's Masaru Kato. "But this is a platform business, so for the future platform – when we'll be introducing what product, I cannot discuss – but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there." Kato also explained that some cost-cutting will happen with the development of the PS4. Speaking to investors, he said: "It is no longer thinkable to have a huge initial financial investment like that of the PS3." This makes sense considering the amount of money Sony pumped into the PS3 in its initial development phases. It was only with the launch of the PS3 Slim that Sony could actually count on making a profit with its next-gen games console. 
| ||
| Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Posted: 27 May 2011 04:00 AM PDT With the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950, we're getting into serious graphics card territory here, and inevitably that means serious money too. At over £200 that's a lot to spend on a single component if you're talking about an upgrade purchase. But it's AMD's latest, and arguably greatest, GPU technology inside that Cayman processor and it's got some heavy-weight DirectX 11 graphical architecture backing it up. Taking the seriously GPU taxing DirectX 11 tessellation-heavy benchmark of Metro 2033 there is no Nvidia card that can come close to managing double-figure frame rates at the highest 2,560 x 1,600 resolution until you get up to the £400-odd GTX 580. And even that card can only manage an extra 2fps over this impressive GPU. It was an odd one from AMD's perspective as it launched both the HD 6950 and the other Cayman-powered card, the HD 6970, at the same time. Despite the fact there was a gulf of around £80 in cost, there was very little between them in terms of raw performance. In the overclocking stakes the HD 6970 had the edge, but that was only down to the fact AMD had artificially limited the clockspeeds on the HD 6950 so as not to allow people to push the cheaper card as far as it's slightly more powerful brethren. Stranger still was the fact that barely a week after release there was a BIOS flash for the HD 6950 that enabled you to open the dormant parts of the Cayman GPU to essentially turn it into a HD 6970 for free. Hero card That has made the original reference HD 6950 very much the hero card of the hour, and also much sought after. Some recent respins though have come either with the dual BIOS switch disabled, or with lower frame buffers, both of which stop any flashing shenanigans you might wish to perform. From a cynical point of view though, you could say it wasn't a coincidence that this happened at the same time AMD launched its multi-GPU HD 6990. Word from leading AMD manufacturers suggests we could still see new HD 6950s with the flashing reinstated. As a graphics upgrade though, especially on the AMD side of the CPU war, the HD 6950 is definitely the one to aim for. It represents a huge step-up in power, even with the weakest of the CPUs, and when compared with the much more expensive GTX 570; that though, is on the AMD side. When you factor in an Intel CPU based platform the AMD cards suddenly don't look quite so capable, and the more expensive Nvidia GPU wins the day. Still, if you're rocking an AMD system then AMD graphics cards make the perfect match. Full platforms, innit? 
| ||
| PS4 rumours: what you need to know about the PlayStation 4 Posted: 27 May 2011 03:51 AM PDT When it comes to rumours about the next Xbox, there's some wild speculation to get your teeth into. Over on the PlayStation 4 rumour mill, things were, until recently, turning much slower. As Kaz Hirai said earlier in the year: "we're not deliberating on a PS4 or a next generation machine, whatever you call it." But on 26 May 2011, that stance changed when Sony's executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato confirmed that Sony is working on the PS4. The revelation took place during a conference call to investors where he was asked about increased R&D costs. "This is a platform business, so for the future platform - when we'll be introducing what product I cannot discuss that - but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there," Eurogamer reported him as saying. So what can we expect from the PlayStation 4? The PS4 specs could abandon the Cell processor and return to x86… In February, there were rumours of a failed Sony/IBM research project to develop a PowerPC chip for future PlayStations. Going forward, Sony will surely stick with the advanced, multi-core, bitch-to-develop-for Cell processor that it dropped $3 billion on. Here are three reasons why: 1. Easy backwards compatibility with the PlayStation 3 2. A familiar development environment. By 2015 (or whenever a PS4 comes out), games developers will have had much more experience working with Cell and its software tools 3. Toshiba recently sold its Cell factory in Nagasaki back to Sony for £400 million. Sony is hardly going to abandon the chip now it owns the means to manufacture it in bulk What are the PS4 features we'd most like to see? PS4info dreams of a next-gen PlayStation with a 32nm Cell processor an up to 16 SPEs, double the number in the PlayStation 3. While over on gamrConnect, there's talk of a greater partnership with Google. Sony's new fondness for Android on the Xperia Play is an interesting strategy. Blu-ray on the PlayStation 4 is a dead cert. While digital distribution is undoubtedly the way forward, not every PlayStation owner has access to a fast broadband connection. As Kaz Hirai told Develop, "we do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn't as robust as one would hope. There's always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium." As for the PlayStation 4 controller, Dr. Richard Marks (Sony Computer Entertainment's US R&D manager of special projects) says that "anything that lets us get the player's intent into the system more" is technology they'll be looking at. No brain wave gaming just yet. What about a PS4 release date? Tricky. If you side with the likes of ITProPortal, you might believe that "the whole concept of a single lounge-bound gaming device may become obsolete". The future of gaming may well lie in a more portable device/controller that you can play on the move or plug into your TV. Epic's Mark Rein has some interesting thoughts on this here. Sony claims that the PS3 will have a 10 year lifecycle, suggesting the next PlayStation will arrive by the end of 2016 at the latest. Or we might not get a PlayStation 4 at all. Developers haven't yet maxed out the potential of the PS3, while the release of PlayStation Move has given it an extra dimension… "Where we go after this is an interesting one," says Sony Computer Entertainment UK boss Ray Maguire. "The online side is very interesting and is a big part of our business going forward. But in terms of what sort of technology we'll be using, it's far too early to say yet because we're only half way through the lifecycle of PS3 - there are many years to come on that machine." Long live PlayStation 3. 
| ||
| HTC opens up bootloader on Android phones Posted: 27 May 2011 03:48 AM PDT In a move that's sure to win the smartphone company brownie points from the modder community, HTC has announced that it will unlock the bootloader on its devices going forward. The decision comes straight from the top, with Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, bowing to public demand and deciding that it will not lock the bootloader on its smartphone range. Unlock and load "There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones," said Chou in a statement. "I want you to know that we've listened. Today, I'm confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience." While this does open the door for people to root their HTC phones (and it must be said the risk of bricking their devices), they still will have to contend with Google's own DRM. Just this week Droid Life reported that the Blockbuster movie streaming app in the US would not work on devices that had been tampered with – a move by Google that looks to have been put in place to keep the movie industry happy. It's not known if this is something that will happen with more apps going forward. 
| ||
| 10 best iPad and iPhone news apps Posted: 27 May 2011 03:39 AM PDT The iPad is a news junkie's dream. With a few taps you have the whole world's media at your fingertips, and with a little careful curation you can easily create a customised flow of news and comment that allows you to keep track of what's happening anywhere in the world. You don't have to be a news junkie to appreciate the news apps available for both iPhone and iPad. You can read your favourite daily newspaper or magazine, watch clips of important events, or just keep abreast of developments in your area of interest. The news apps covered here can be roughly split into two types: those that aggregate RSS feeds or Twitter streams and allow you to read news from multiple sources, and those that take all their news from a single source such as The Guardian or the BBC. Each has its benefits. Aggregators are more flexible and allow you to have a broader view of what's happening in the world, but you have to put the work in to find feeds and add them yourself. You are the editor. Single-source apps are curated for you. They have a narrower viewpoint than you would get from multiple sources, particularly if they are associated with a newspaper that has a specific slant on affairs. However, you don't need to put any work in to set them up, and the editorial quality is, usually, of the highest standard. In addition to the apps themselves, we'll show you how you can grab stories and save them for reading offline later. The Daily, an original news publication designed for the iPad, has also now launched. 1. TweetMag Unlike other news aggregators that use RSS feeds, TweetMag, as you'll have gathered from its name, uses your Twitter stream. By tracking the people you follow and using the links in their feeds, TweetMag builds up a picture of the world as it interests you. It then presents the linked stories as your very own Twitter newspaper.
TweetMag can also use lists you've set up on twitter.com, and you can choose from categories and lists that have been curated by other users. The stories are presented beautifully. The front page is hierarchical, with one top story and others displayed in boxes as you scroll down the page. Each story has its headline, the source and an excerpt. Some also have thumbnail pictures. Tapping on a story turns the page and displays that story in full. There's also a sidebar on the right of the screen that shows you the tweet that contained the link, as well as retweets and replies. You can also swipe a story on the front page to quickly see the original tweet and reply or retweet it. In addition to creating news aggregates from your general Twitter stream or from lists, you can search topics or hash tags and create one from the results. If you like what you see and want to save it, tap and hold on its icon at the top of the screen and drag it upwards until the bookmarks bar slides into view. It will then drop into that bar to make it easy to retrieve later. This works incredibly well and makes it easy to create multiple 'newspapers' and store them. Each is updated the next time you read it. There are a few issues with TweetMag, the most obvious of which is performance. The app can be slow to load stories and scrolling down the front page is often less than smooth. In addition, it crashed during testing on a couple of occasions. To combat performance issues, TweetMag has a feature that allows you to permit your iPad's processing cycles to be used to process articles for other users. The idea is that by using the processing cycles of as many iPads as possible to improve speed, everyone benefits. The other issue we had was that on some occasions when we fired up TweetMag, the first few stories came from a variety of sources, but the rest were all from the same source. The first time we used TweetMag, that source was itunes.apple.com, which didn't endear us to the app. The more we used it, though, the greater the variety of sources on the front page. TweetMag is a great way to keep track of the news that interests you and to follow breaking stories and trends, enhanced by the ability to read the full story within the app. At £2.99, it's very reasonably priced, and if its developer manages to resolve the performance issues, it will only go from strength to strength. 2. The Guardian The Guardian's iPhone app has been highly praised, and it's easy to see why. Perhaps the most remarkable feature, however, is its subscription price: £2.99 for six months or £3.99 for a year. For the price of four issues of the newspaper, you can have a whole year's worth of both The Guardian and The Observer.
On launching the app, the first screen presents the day's top stories with pictures and headlines. Tapping on one takes you to the meat of the story. Sections are colour-coded in the same way they are on guardian.co.uk. On the iPhone 4's Retina display, body text is crisp and easily legible. Scrolling down the front page reveals a gallery of multimedia content, allowing you to watch video, look at photographs or listen to audio content. Further down are familiar categories, such as Sport and Culture. You can customise the home screen to show whichever sections you want and in whatever order you choose. You can tell the app to download content for reading offline - great for commuting on the Tube. Stories and sections can be designated as favourites and saved in your Favourites folder, and you can easily see which stories and sections have been trending in the last 24 hours. You can even change the content of the bottom toolbar so that it reflects your interests. A superbly designed and very well thought-out app. 3. BBC News The BBC News app had a troubled gestation. It was announced, along with a BBC Sport app and an iPlayer app, at Mobile World Congress in 2010. After complaints from newspaper publishers, the BBC Trust advised that the apps should be delayed in the UK until it could decide what to do. The News app was eventually launched in the summer, but there's still no sign of the dedicated Sport one.
Launching the app on the iPad presents the familiar BBC News logo followed by a screen that lists the default news categories - World, UK, Politics and so on - down the left side of the screen. Stories within the categories are presented as thumbnail images with a headline beneath, four in a row, taking up half the screen in landscape mode. The other half of the screen is used to display the current story, with a headline, image or video clip, and text below. Tapping a video clip plays it in full-screen mode. Swiping the row of stories in a category reveals more news, while swiping across the text of an individual story moves you to the next one. The little row of dots at the bottom shows how far along the list you are at any point. You can edit the categories that appear and the order in which they're listed, and you can also change the size of the text to make it a bit easier to read if you need to. Stories can be emailed, and shared on Twitter and Facebook. Latest news headlines fade in and out along the top of the screen, but perhaps the best feature is the ability to watch the BBC News channel live on your iPad or iPhone at the press of a button. Be careful, however, if you're on a 3G network, because it'll eat through your monthly data allowance rather quickly - best to stick to Wi-Fi for video. BBC News is a terrific way to keep abreast of general news, and you'll love it if you're a fan of the BBC News channel. The layout is a little awkward - stories feel cramped on the right of the screen - but browsing them is nice and easy. 4. Flipboard Flipboard takes content from your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Google Reader accounts, and assembles it into a gorgeous 'flipbook'. You can add sections from parts of your accounts, so you could have different sections for, say, Facebook photos of you and Facebook wall posts. You could have different sections for different albums in Flickr or, most usefully, for different feeds or groups in your Google Reader account.
As a tool for keeping what you care about in one place and presenting it stylishly, it's unparalleled. As an app for reading news, however, it's not the best here. There's no way to quickly scroll through your feeds and find the headlines that most interest you, unless you create a separate section. Everything is presented in reverse chronological order, meaning that if, for example, you have a feed of forum posts on an active forum, that will be presented first. Pulse and Reeder offer more flexibility when it comes to quickly scanning headlines. As a whole, though, Flipboard is stunning and you can't argue with the price. 5. Pulse Pulse is an RSS reader with a difference. Instead of displaying feeds as long lists of headlines, it shows them as a grid of images. Feeds can be spread across multiple pages, with up to 12 per page and up to five pages.
Each story is presented as a thumbnail image and a headline. Tapping a story displays it on the right of the iPad screen. Pulse can also display Facebook wall and status updates, and sync with Google Reader. Feeds can be re-arranged so those that interest you most are closest at hand. Pulse is occasionally sluggish, and when showing YouTube videos it slices off the side of the screen, forcing you to watch in fullscreen to see the whole thing. Those minor issues aside, it's excellent. 6. The Early Edition The Early Edition is an RSS reader that pulls in stories from your favourite feeds and displays them like a newspaper. You can sync it with Google Reader or add feeds by importing an OPML file or by typing a URL. Feeds can be filtered in a number of ways, including Today, Last Fetch and Previous Editions. Stories can be shared on Facebook or Twitter, or saved for later in Instapaper. Tapping the Fetch button pulls new stories onto the front page. A long tap on a feed updates only that feed.
The Early Edition does a terrific job of assembling feeds and stories into an inviting layout. Text is easily legible, but less crisp than it could be because of the embossed effect applied to it. The app can also occasionally be sluggish when gathering stories. Those small gripes aside, it's a fun way to read your RSS feeds, though its price means Pulse just edges ahead of it. 7. Reeder Reeder does one thing - it syncs with your Google Reader account, pulls in the newsfeeds you've subscribed to and presents them to you on your iPhone or iPad. It does it with such panache, however, that's it's hard to begrudge paying the small asking price. Feeds are arranged in the categories you've set up in Google Reader and listed in each one by date. Story presentation, particularly in portrait mode, is beautiful on both devices. If you like Instapaper, you'll love this.
And because some feeds don't include the whole article, Reeder can use Readability to pull in the words and key images from most sources. Stories can be shared in a number of ways including Facebook and Twitter, and saved in Instapaper or Read It Later for picking up later. A simple app that's only designed to do one job, but does it exceptionally well. 8. The Economist The Economist app provides a selection of articles from the weekly magazine for free and is updated each Thursday at 9pm. Subscribers to the print title or website get the whole magazine free. For everyone else, it costs £3.49 per issue, which you can get on a one-off basis as an in-app purchase.
The basic free app is limited to six stories, meaning that it does little more than give you a flavour of the issue. Navigation is basic and story layout isn't as elegant as The Guardian. Stories are automatically downloaded for offline reading, so it's perfect for a journey where you might lose signal at some point. We like the ability to listen to audio versions of every story, too. It's worthwhile if you're a subscriber, but a bit expensive and limited otherwise. 9. The Times The Times, like The Telegraph below, takes all of its visual cues from the paper edition, including that famous masthead. It takes several minutes to download each edition, but you can read it as it downloads. Navigation is sluggish and muddled at times - we lost track of where we were all too often. Stories are split across multiple pages, so you have to swipe instead of scroll to continue reading. Several pages have nothing on them but dense, dark text, which be a bit on the intimidating side.
We liked the colour-coding of sections, and the journalism is second to none, so it's worth grabbing the free 30-day subscription to try it out. However, at £9.99 per month, while cheaper than the paper edition, it's rather pricey for casual reading. 10. The Telegraph for iPad The Telegraph's iPad version, which publishes a digest of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, attempts to emulate the look and feel of a real newspaper. It's largely successful in this, but some aspects, such as the mottled grey background, are an unhelpful distraction. White would have looked cleaner and aided legibility. Six story categories are presented in a menu bar along the top of the screen. A drawer-type menu allows other story excerpts to slide in from the left, which is a neat feature. Less welcome is the swipe action to move on to the next story, which all too often fails to work properly.
Because it's a 'best of' app, the content can appear light compared to the newspaper's iPhone app or the Telegraph.co.uk website. But we like that it feels as though you're reading an actual paper.
| ||
| Posted: 27 May 2011 03:30 AM PDT There's a big flash on the front of the Sharkoon X-Tatic SX box, proclaiming their greatness as an Xbox 360 headset. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not also a darned good set of PC cans, though. The Sharkoon Xtatic SX comes with a normal 3.5mm stereo connectors to jam into your PC's soundcard holes, so it's very much PC-compatible. That said, it's not really as simple as that. I've been happily using a set of Plantronics GameCom 377 earbashers for ages now, and if you just use the standard 3.5mm jacks they work beautifully with a normal PC. Jam in the Sharkoon 3.5mm jacks though, and all you get is a dull hiss and no noisy goodness. Unfortunately, you actually need to plug the Xtatic SX into a spare USB port as well as the analogue cables. And that's all due to the Xbox Live gubbins jammed into the little controller box dangling from the left can. It may be tiny, but thanks to all the microphone amping stuff in there it's also a little too heavy. There's a clip on the cable so you can hang it off your collar if you like, but that will just end up throttling you. The cans themselves feel comfortable and don't crush your skull after a few death matches, and if you like your clean, white look they'll suit. Unfortunately the sound isn't so good. The big issue is the constant background hiss, and that makes them tough to recommend. 
| ||
| Facebook eyes music, TV shows, movies, world media domination Posted: 27 May 2011 03:29 AM PDT Facebook is looking to all manner of media for the next step in its plans to take over the virtual world, according to a report in the New York Times. As well as its ongoing talks with Spotify, two anonymous sources have said that Facebook is in discussion with a number of other music services. The plan is to create a widget to show a Facebooker's most recently played tracks and an easy way for friends to listen to the same songs. But it's not just music Facebook is eyeing up; the sources confirmed that it wants to do the same for video, news, TV shows and movies. Facebook intends to use outside partners to get around the issue of licensing music or video content, with each company partner offering a specialised news feed of the user's listening and viewing habits. Friends then simply click on the video or song title to get in on the media action. No comment Facebook is staying tight-lipped on the matter, saying simply that "We're always looking for better ways to help people discover the most relevant content on Facebook but have nothing to announce." However, the rumours ring true with recent comments from both Facebook's head of international business development, Christian Hernandez Gallardo and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Hernandez Gallardo spoke about Facebook being a social hub for TV shows, "You begin to create these hubs where you can take the passionate screaming and bring them together, because you realise that 10 of your friends are watching Top Gear at the same time. "We've talked to broadcasters about putting their whole EPG as events on Facebook, and letting people RSVP to them to get a reminder." Meanwhile, Zuckerberg hinted at the wider media focus: "Listening to music is something that people do with their friends. Music, TV, news, books — those types of things I think people just naturally do with their friends. "I hope we can play a part in enabling those new companies to get built, and companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social." 
| ||
| Apple iCloud service to replace low-quality tracks with pristine ones? Posted: 27 May 2011 02:33 AM PDT Apple's iCloud music service is set to upgrade your low-quality tunes to higher bit-rate tracks stored in its cloud-based music locker, thanks to its licensing agreements with major record labels. Business Week cites three sources who confirm that the license deals Apple is in the process of putting in place with labels will allow the company to scan a user's music collection and 'mirror' it virtually, avoiding the hassle of uploading your 1,000 song strong collection. Apple has reached agreements with three major labels and is close to inking a deal with the fourth, Universal Music, according to BusinessWeek's sources. All about the Benjamins It's all about clawing back revenue from consumers who shifted to the free music model all too easily, regardless of the ethics. Labels are said to be "negotiating aggressively" to make sure a slice of the cloud-music pie ends up firmly on their plates, revenue that will come from users' subscription fees. It's looking likely that the iCloud service will be bundled with MobileMe, Apple's data back-up and synch programme, which currently costs £60 a year. "It may be the last opportunity to stem rampant piracy and years of plummeting sales," says Business Week, which seems a little bit fatalistic to us. Of course, nothing's set in stone until an Apple exec gets up on stage to tell us all why we won't be able to live without the music service; no doubt we'll hear all about it on 6 June at WWDC. 
| ||
| Google Wallet launches as PayPal sues over tech secrets Posted: 27 May 2011 02:08 AM PDT As expected, Google launched its NFC-payments scheme called Google Wallet an event in New York last night and, to celebrate, PayPal has launched a lawsuit against Google. PayPal claims it schooled Google in mobile payments while negotiating a deal for the search giant to use the PayPal system on Android phones, but that Google took all that lovely information and launched its own independent product. PayPal's lawsuit is all about trade secrets – corporate espionage! – surrounding an allegation that Google's vice president of payments, Osama Bedier, gave away confidential PayPal tech secrets which he was privy to as his time as a Paypal exec. Incestuous Google also has another ex-PayPal-er on its books, Stephanie Tilenius, Google's vice president of electronic commerce, who PayPal claims also broke terms of her contract by luring Bedier over to the Google-side. The suit reads: "PayPal provided Google with an extensive education in mobile payments. Bedier was the senior PayPal executive accountable for leading negotiations with Google on Android during this period. "At the very point when the companies were negotiating and finalizing the Android—PayPal deal, Bedier was interviewing for a job at Google — without informing PayPal of this conflicting position. "Bedier's conduct during this time amounted to a breach of his responsibilities as a PayPal executive." The PayPal lawsuit also lists a further 50 unnamed defendants and, if nothing else, puts a dampener on Google's big launch. Google Wallet is initially available only on the Google Nexus S 4G in the US, although Google has plans to roll the app out to other Android handsets. There's no word yet on when or if the UK will enjoy the fruits of Google Wallet. 
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from techradar To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment