Nokia’s new Asha range isn’t quite as excited to our smartphone-jaded eyes as the Lumia 800, but it could arguably have a bigger impact on the Finnish company’s user-base. Targeted at the “next billion users” the four-strong range includes a trio of QWERTY candybars some of which offer touchscreens too. Check out our hands-on impressions after the cut.
Nokia has just made its first Windows Phone range official, and we wasted no time in spending some playtime with the flagship model, the Nokia Lumia 800. Borrowing heavily from the N9 design we’ve already waxed lyrical over, the Lumia 800 casing is milled from a solid piece of polycarbonate but gains some extra buttons and controls to suit Microsoft’s platform. Read on for our first impressions.
One of the tiniest smartphones in the world has just landed upon the SlashGear review bench, and Sony Ericsson has the spotlight here with the Xperia ray. This device has a single-core 1GHz Snapdragon chip, a 3.3-inch display at 480 x 854 pixel resolution, and an 8 megapixel camera on the back. What more could you want from a phone that you could easily mistake for a garage door opener for its size? Take one look at this little guy and you’ll find that you’re messing with no cheap customer, this is the new generation of Sony Ericsson devices, and they don’t appear to be messing around.
RIM’s white BlackBerry Bold 9900 has been revealed, with carrier Vodafone UK the first to commit to offering the pale-hued QWERTY smartphone. We grabbed some hands-on playtime with the new variant, to see if a new color option could be enough to persuade us to stick it out with RIM for another contract cycle. Check out our first impressions after the cut.
The folks at Verizon and Samsung here present the world’s first 4G LTE device on the market with a full QWERTY keyboard, the Samsung Stratosphere. This device isn’t going to bust your bank or bust your benchmark tests as it’s going to be costing $149.99 after $50 mail-in rebate and it’s got a modest single-core 1GHz processor under the hood. Instead what we’re going to be looking for here is if this device can stand up to the mid-range of LTE-toting devices on the market, a market which currently only really has one contender: the Pantech Breakout. Will Samsung’s TouchWiz interface and the ability to type with a physical keyboard matched with a lovely Super AMOLED display be the winning combination?
Does your landline phone need a touchscreen? German DECT phone manufacturer Gigaset reckons so, and the SL910A is the end result: a 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen in a digital cordless phone. Packing Bluetooth, Outlook sync, text messaging and PIM functionality, along with an integrated digital answerphone, the Gigaset SL910A borrows plenty from what we'd expect from a modern cellphone. We grabbed some hands-on playtime to see if it's really the next generation of landlines or simply overkill.
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Android is now three years old, and with v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Google has given it perhaps the biggest update yet. With elements pulled in from Gingerbread and Honeycomb, ICS also has plenty of new functionality debuting on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. We’ve spent some hands-on time with Android 4.0 on the new Nexus, so check out our first impressions after the cut.
The big takeaway is how consistent Android feels in this 4.0 release. Google has obviously worked hard to not only introduce new features but bring the older functionality up to speed so that everything fits together seamlessly, addressing a common criticism by iOS users that Android can feel piecemeal. The Roboto font looks great on the Galaxy Nexus’ high-res display, and the animations shown in page transitions and when you tap on-screen icons like the new virtual buttons for home, back and menu are eye-catching enough to be interesting but not so involved as to slow the overall experience down.
Samsung and Google unveiled the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in Hong Kong today, and we grabbed some hands-on time with the new dual-core smartphone. Just 8.94mm thick, with a Contour Curve design, huge high-resolution display and choice of LTE or HSPA+ versions, the Galaxy Nexus is a fitting flagship to continue Google’s Nexus brand. Keep reading for our hands-on first impressions.
Motorola’s DROID RAZR wasn’t the only new Android device the company announced today; there’s the MOTOACTV packing Google’s platform too. It’s a brave move, launching a smart-watch, given the reception to the existing products that have attempted the market, and we’re not entirely convinced that the MOTOACTV will clinch things for Motorola, either. Check out our hands-on first-impressions after the cut.
Motorola has picked an exciting time to resurrect the RAZR name, and some pretty darn impressive hardware to pair with it too. Freshly announced this morning, the Motorola DROID RAZR - or the Motorola RAZR as it will be known, off Verizon, in the rest of the world – promises to be a dual-core, LTE powerhouse. Read on for our hands-on first impressions!
T-Mobile may not be getting the iPhone 4S, but it isn’t letting that stop it bulk up its smartphone range. Instead its Android coming to the rescue, with the HTC Amaze 4G expected to play a significant part: taking the Sensation XE as its starting point, the Amaze 4G throws in 42Mbps HSPA+ support and a full 1GB of RAM. It’s fresh to the SlashGear testbench today, so check out our first impressions after the cut.
When it comes to unique Android devices, generally it’s a manufacturer’s job to make the biggest, the most powerful, or the most thin – all that’s been thrown out the window with the HTC Rhyme. What we’ve got here instead is the world’s first real effort to create an Android device that’s specifically feminine in form. It’s plum colored, it’s got a light-up Charm that allows you to access the device even if its hidden deep in your purse, and it’s the perfect size for a petite hand. Will all this (plus a bit more, of course), add up to be the perfect new generation device for HTC?
