The Apple iPhone 4S is here, and as soon as Tim Cook’s keynote was over we spent some hands-on time with the new iOS 5 smartphone. Much of the magic is now hidden behind a familiar face, but things like Siri, the boosted camera and a core speed improvement will be enough reason for many to upgrade. Check out our full first-impressions after the cut.
The entry-level Amazon Kindle has price going for it, especially if you don’t mind adverts, with a $79 sticker for the WiFi-only ereader. On the flip side, without the touchscreen of its more expensive Kindle Touch siblings, and missing the QWERTY keyboard of its predecessors, it’s possible Amazon has slimmed things down a little too much. Read on for our first impressions.
Amazon’s shift from keyboards to touch isn’t quite wholescale, but fingers are definitely the way forward for the new Kindle range. We’ve just grabbed some hands-on time with the Amazon Kindle Touch and Touch 3G at the retailer’s launch event today, and there’s a lot to like about how compact the ereaders have become now that they’ve shed the physical ‘boards.
Amazon has made the Kindle Fire official, and we’ve just grabbed some up-close time with the new touchscreen tablet at the retailer’s launch event. Already up for pre-order and shipping November 15, the Kindle Fire is based on Android but hides its roots well, with Amazon more interested in pushing its multimedia credentials, super-fast surfing the with new Silk browser, and ereading of course. Check out more hands-on details after the cut.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.9 has landed, the company’s second Android Honeycomb slate, delivering more of what we’ve seen before: easy internet, email and multimedia access in a slimline form-factor. The latest stage of Samsung’s iPad assault, the Tab 8.9 has dropped onto the SlashGear test bench today. Question is, can Samsung make a convincing argument for what’s only a slightly smaller screen?
Verizon and HTC announced the Rhyme this morning, a 3.7-inch Android handset finished in a distinctive plum but offering distinctly mundane specifications. We’ve grabbed some hands-on time at the launch event, and while the physical design is good and the build quality decent, we’re struggling to get past both the single-core processor and HTC’s positioning. Read on for our first impressions.
Microsoft BUILD kicks off this week, but we’ve already been playing with the star of the show: Windows 8 in its tablet form. SlashGear has been testing out a new Windows 8 slate, complete with sub-10s startup, Internet Explorer 10 for touch-centric browsing, and a new UI – previewed earlier in the year - that’s strongly reminiscent of Windows Phone. Check out our hands-on preview after the cut.
Let’s call it frustration, not jealousy. Europe and Asia have been enjoying the charms of the Samsung Galaxy S II for several months now, leaving the US to suffer a serious case of the green-eyed monster. The first of the US variants has finally arrived however, the Samsung EPIC 4G Touch, a CDMA twist on the phone we’ve been waiting for, but has the charm faded over time? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
Smartphone users are a demanding lot. Give them the latest version of Android, big displays and 4G LTE connectivity, and they ask for a dual-core processor as well. Until now it’s been too much to ask of Verizon, but all that changed with the arrival of the much-anticipated DROID BIONIC by Motorola this week. Announced back at CES in January and then variously updated and delayed since, Verizon promises that this is the fastest 4G phone around. Is this finally the LTE Android to satisfy speed-freaks? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
Contour has carved something of a niche for itself over the past few years, catering to the extreme sports and pro-video crowds who demand durability as well as image quality from their rugged cameras. Latest to the plate is the ContourROAM, billed as “the easiest video camera in the world” but still delivering 1080p HD video with all the resilience you’d expect.
We’ve been waiting for the DROID BIONIC by Motorola for some time, now. Verizon has had 4G LTE Android smartphones before, of course, but they’ve always come with a compromise: so far, if you’ve wanted LTE then you’ve also had to make do with a single-core processor. The DROID BIONIC changes that, packing not only high-speed wireless connectivity but a dual-core 1GHz CPU as well, putting the speedy Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread experience on a 4.3-inch qHD anti-reflective touchscreen. That’s plenty of boxes ticked from the off; read on for all our first-impressions.
It’s been some time since Sony had a tablet on the market. Times have changed since the VAIO UX’s day, though, and where once tablets were niche devices, now they’re making headway into our living rooms. The Sony Tablet S is the first model of the company’s new strategy, packing Android Honeycomb into a hardware design that’s a little more interesting than many rivals have managed. Late to the game against the iPad, though, has the Tablet S’ tardiness undermined its potential? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
