Hardware

The Nokia Lumia 928 works with a body and a set of innards that make it a very close relative of the Nokia Lumia 920, a device that’s being sold by AT&T right this minute. The 928 works with a 4.5-inch AMOLED display with 1280 x 768 resolution, carrying with it Corning Gorilla Glass 2 for scratch and break protection, ClearBlack technology so your blacks are as black as can be, and PureMotion HD+.

Those buzz words do actually mean something when it comes down to it – you’ll have brights that are bright enough to see in direct sunlight, darks that blend in with the bezel, and with a pixel density of 334 PPI, you’ll have quite a bit of sharpness as well. Of course compared to the HTC One and the Samsung GALAXY S 4, you’ll have a bit less sharp of a picture, but other than that you’re up there with the top guns – thus far this year, that is.

ABOVE: Just about as direct as the sunlight gets, straight on and up. BELOW: In a bit more shade.

This machine works with NFC, Qi-standard Wireless Charging, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor. This is the same processor found in the Nokia Lumia 920 and will be more than enough to power the highest-requirement Windows Phone 8 apps on the market today.

Also inside you’ll have 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and SkyDrive cloud storage of 7GB – given to you right out of the box. The back-facing camera is similar to that of the 920, bringing an 8.7 megapixel PureView sensor with a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. This all means you’re going to be able to take photos in rather low lighting situations and will have some nice looking pics no matter what you’re photographing.

Software

You’ll be getting Nokia’s friendly collection of apps like HERE City Lens, HERE Maps, and Nokia Music along with Microsoft-added apps like Office and OneNote. One thing Windows Phone 8 can still hold over Apple’s head is Office as a native app, and here Nokia makes it clear that they’re willing to stick with that party. This device also has several photo “lenses” that add on to the abilities of the camera.

Each of these lenses is an app that can be downloaded for Windows Phone 8 devices, some of them specifically tuned for Nokia Lumia models. The Lumia 928 comes with Cinemagraph, Smart Shoot, Panorama, and Bing vision. With Bing vision, the user will be able to take photos of objects and receive information about them – this app also works with text translation on-the-spot.

The biggest difference between this device and its competitors is its exclusive access to Nokia apps and hardware – particularly its camera technology. Nokia makes several high-powered location-based apps for allowing you to get around your city – or a city you’ve never been to before. The camera technology you’ll be able to experience in the section immediately following this one.

Camera

Below you’ll find a collection of photo examples captured with the Nokia Lumia 928. Some of these photos were captured in optimal cloudless-day sunlight situations while others were photographed in the dark. This machine does, without a doubt, still reign in the darkest conditions without a flash. Have a peek at our Nokia Lumia 920 vs iPhone 5 camera battle to see how they fare in similar conditions.

Battery

The battery life on this device is well balanced enough to provide at least 8 hours of uptime for an average user. If you’re a power-user, you’ll want to consider the positive and negative elements in a battle between this and a smartphone with a replaceable battery: Verizon also carries the Nokia Lumia 822. The 822 doesn’t quite have the camera power of the 928, but the ability to carry more than one battery replacement in your pocket can be a big matter for some users.

Wrap-up

The Verizon Nokia Lumia 928 will cost you $99 USD with a 2-year contract after a $50 mail-in rebate – that’s less than half the cost of some of the higher-end competitors on the carrier today (like the Samsung GALAXY S 4 and the Galaxy Note II), and essentially equal to that of the Samsung Galaxy S III. It’s also equal to the price of the Windows Phone 8X from HTC, a device that was released several months ago that we reviewed as well. If you’re going for tactile feeling alone, you might want the HTC device – otherwise I’d stick by the Nokia hardware for basically everything else.

The Nokia Lumia 928 is easily Verizon’s finest Windows Phone 8 device, and with its advanced camera abilities, it may well be the nicest Windows Phone 8 device in the USA as well. Until another Windows Phone 8 device comes along with a metal body, on the other hand, the Nokia Lumia 925 will continue to roll with that title worldwide.

Hardware

What VIZIO delivers with this system is a fully ready-for-action system, the box containing both the cables for the speakers and the gear necessary for your to mount the speakers if you do so desire. Of course you’ve also got the option to set the bar at the base of your television if you’ve got it on a television tablet station, and your subwoofer certainly needs to sit on a flat surface.

But your satellite speakers just beg to be hooked up to the corners of your room, angled directly at your head, and so forth. In the box you’ve got two satellite wall mount brackets with the attachment screws you’ll need to mount the satellite speakers to them. These satellite speakers aren’t wireless, you should note, each of them need to be connected to the sound bar in order to blast sound. The wireless connection exists between the subwoofer and the sound bar – up to 60 feet of space can exist between them – though the signal is best under 30 feet, and in the clear, too.

Once you have the wireless connection in place, each satellite speaker is connected to the subwoofer with a single RCA cable. The sound bar is also able to be connected to your television with as little as a single cable, if you like. The back of the bar has a USB port, a digital optical audio in, coaxial in, a single analog audio in port and a set of analog audio in ports.

Each of these inputs are seen by the sound bar as a different option accessible by the set of buttons on the far left of the unit or through the system’s remote control. Because of this, you’re able to connect several devices to the bar at once, choosing between them if you’ve got a need for such a thing.

Button controls on the side of the sound bar include five separate clickers, one each for power, input, and Bluetooth input, with one button for volume up and one for down. You’re able to “wake” the system from its low power “sleep” after it’s not been in use for an extended time by pressing the power button or by tapping a volume up or down button. This set of buttons is easy to get used to, but we’d have preferred some physical differentiator between the set to more easily tap at once.

The remote control works with a digital display that contains one of our other – admittedly very few – complaints in that it doesn’t seem to light up enough to be read in the dark. While it’s nice to be able to see which option is being selected, in-the-dark movie adjustments will be limited to what you’ve memorized for controls. If that’s just volume adjustments and track controls, you’ll be good to go. The controller itself is a conveniently small size and has a soft-plastic bottom, making it a comfortable experience – and again, one easy to get used to for sound control.

Sound

Each channel in this system’s surround speakers works with 1 x 2.5″ full-range driver. The subwoofer works with a 6″ throw (high excursion) driver and the full system has 102dB sound pressure with what VIZIO says is less than 1% total harmonic distortion. The sound bar works with 3 channels, left and right, each of the three tweeters coming in at 3/4” each. This the system is rounded out with a set of Center Channel 2 x 2.5 full-range drivers.

You’ve got a pack of software compliments to the hardware delivery here with features like DTS Circle Surround, DTS TruVolume, and Dolby Digital / DTS Digital Surround for audio decoding. Needless to say, this system can get loud. There’s really no arguing that.

The delivery you’re going to get with this setup depends a lot on the machine you’ve got feeding it, of course, but in testing each of the inputs with different devices – and not just televisions – we’ve found the end product to be generally well balanced. If you’ve got a child sleeping in the room next to your television attached to a VIZIO S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar system, you may have trouble finding a balance between too quiet and too loud.

Adjusting for bass, moving the sound around to the system’s satellites, and taking a bit of time to optimize the sound for your chosen room will correct for this sort of situation. Also helping with this situation is DTS TruVolume – made specifically to provide a consistent volume no matter the media. Making sure you understand how to work with TruVolume as well as this system’s adjustment abilities is vital for a superior sound experience.

Wrap-up

This system delivers the best of what your HDTV, stereo, or any other sound-blasting device is capable of. The VIZIO S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar system delivers an immersive sound experience that’s not just good for the relatively inexpensive package it’s delivered to the market with: it’s worth more than it costs ($329.99 USD, if you’d like to know). It’s not often that we can say such a thing for a device here in an age when a product is replaced by a newer, more powerful version of itself in no time flat: VIZIO delivers a product you’ll be satisfied with for many years to come.

Sound quality is something you’re not going to want to skip when you’re aiming for a full home theater experience. VIZIO delivers a powerful solution in the S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar system, one that’s not to be overlooked.

Design

If the old Mazda6 was a generic sedan sketched out by a child’s hand, the new model is a riot of detailing. Up front, the grille has grown once more, pushing forward and deepening to give the car an aggressive, searching snout that’s picked out with slips of chrome. The almond lights of the second-gen car have become tauter, more like snake’s eyes, with daytime running lights running in crisp LED sweeps under the halogens.

That Kodo wing, as Mazda calls it, bracketing the underside of the grille and leading into the lights, begins the haunch-line of the car, which starts with muscular wheel arches at the front and then slides into a twin-creased side line that ends at the slightly tapered rear. As the first of those creases dips into the rear door, the shoulder line rises to notch away the side glass, the rear windows of which are smoked as standard on all but the entry-level cars.

Finally, there’s another chrome whisker across the trunk, with the rear light clusters deeply set into the bodywork, and an integral lip-spoiler in the lid. It looks particularly good from the front or rear three-quarters, where Mazda’s sweeping movement lines along the sides have a touch of the Infiniti or Jaguar about them. Although the effect is most impressive on the four-door, Mazda’s 5-door load-carrier, the Mazda6 Tourer manages to look distinctive too, pulling the rear side glass out to end in a crease of chrome trim, while the falling roof line and angled back glass make for a car that’s still sporty in appearance, albeit sacrificing a little internal space in the process.

Mazda fits 17-inch alloy wheels as standard, though the Sport model – as we had on test – gets 19-inch versions with twisted spokes. Similarly there are front fogs standard across the range, part of an ambitious package of no-cost perks that belie the sticker price. The daytime running lights are standard, as are the halogens and heated door mirrors; our Sport model threw in bi-Xenon headlights and power mirrors, among other things.

Engines and Performance

Four engines are on offer in the UK, split between petrol and diesel, with a choice of 6-speed manual or auto transmissions. The entry-level Mazda6 SE has a choice of 2.0l 145ps petrol or 2.2l 150ps diesel, both manual; if you want the auto box options on those you need to step up to the SE-L. At the top is the Mazda6 Sport, with a choice of four combinations: either the 2.0l 165ps manual, the 2.2l 150ps diesel manual, the 2.2l 175ps diesel manual, or the 2.2l 175ps diesel automatic.

The US, however, only gets a single engine option: a 2.5l 184HP petrol offered with either the 6-speed manual or automatic gearboxes. The manual is rated for 25mpg (US) in the city or 37mpg (US) on the highway; the auto transmission bumps both of those by a point. Only the Sport sedan is offered of the four-doors, though there’s also the Touring and the Grand Touring (the latter adding in some extras as standard); since we tested a UK car, we haven’t tried the US-specific engine.

As you might expect, the 2.0l 165ps petrol manual in the Sport version is the most instantly aggressive. Mazda quotes a 9.1s 0-62mph time and a top speed of 134mph, and though the car is among the largest in its class – 4.87m long and 1.84m wide for the four-door – there’s more high-tensile steel and other lightweight materials used inside to keep the heft down.

Mazda calls all this fettling SKYACTIV, launching it in the CX-5 SUV, and indeed the Mazda6 builds on the same MacPherson struts and multilink rear suspension, putting its power down through the front wheels. It’s not an MX-5, certainly, but neither does it wallow or slump around corners, and even in the Tourer model it’s possible to forget there are three seats and a decent scale load area behind you as you tackle corners with alacrity.

It’s the diesel engines that suit the car most, however, the 2.2l 175ps manual we spent most time with pitching its mid-range torque right into the sweet spot for overtaking at speed in fifth gear, as well as dawdling through city traffic in fourth. While diesels may traditionally lack some of the upfront verve of their gas counterparts, in actual fact the 2.2l in the Mazda6 shaves the 0-62mph dash down to just 7.9s. Even the under-tuned 150ps version does it 0.1s faster than the slightly more powerful petrol plant. In practice, of course, this is a sizable car intended for more sensible use, but it’s hard not to be impressed by the degree of enthusiasm the big Mazda can muster.

One thing you won’t find on the options sheet is a hybrid powerplant. Mazda tells us it still isn’t convinced that big batteries and electric motors are the way forward for eco-friendly cars, looking instead to engine refinement with a few tech sprinkles to keep things competitive. So, the big diesel is rated for up to 62mpg (Euro) combined – we saw a consistent 44mpg (Euro) in mixed driving from the manual version, topping out in the mid-50s on extended trips – with 119 g/km of CO2 emissions. The top-spec petrol version is more thirsty, with a quoted 47.9mpg (Euro) combined consumption and 135 g/km CO2. Opt for the smallest diesel, though, and you can trim CO2 output to an impressively meager 108 g/km.

Even though Mazda has bypassed big batteries, that’s not to say there aren’t some small ones inside the Mazda6. i-ELOOP addresses an issue most drivers probably don’t even realize is there: the cost on engine power required to drive all a car’s electronics. The audio system, HVAC, power steering and such are usually run off an alternator clamped to the engine, sapping anything up to 10-percent of its output; with i-ELOOP, the same regenerative braking principles hybrids use to convert shedding speed to battery power is turned, in the Mazda6, into a temporary source for the car’s electronics.

It’s actually a big capacitor, not a battery, but in practice it’s basically transparent to the driver (unless you cycle through to the relevant graphic in the instrument binnacle). As you decelerate, the i-ELOOP system is charged up; it can then run the electrics for around a minute, good for what Mazda claims is around a 10-percent boost in fuel economy overall. It works in hand with Mazda’s i-stop automatic engine shut-down, which temporarily cuts off the engine while you’re paused in traffic, but keeps the music playing and the climate control blowing without draining your regular battery.

Interior

Mazda’s track record in making sports car interiors puts the driver in the right place in the Mazda6, particularly in the leather-clad environs of the Sport model (SE and SE-L make do with cloth seats as standard), though it’s not the most imaginative dashboard we’ve sat behind. The sat-nav touchscreen sits on top of the HVAC controls, the stack broken up with a swathe line – thankfully not fake wood – studded with vents, and all the controls feel sturdy and resilient, but there’s not much in the way of excitement or superlative-design to be found.

The murky, underwhelming clock and HVAC display of the CX-5 has been spruced up some for the Mazda6, and we can’t argue with the tactile knobs and buttons. Similarly, the wheel is nicely sized (and leather-wrapped across the range) with Mazda sensibly deciding not to follow rivals and scattershot it with buttons and shortcuts. Instead, you get cruise control on the right and A/V on the left, along with a voice-command button we’ll cover in the next section.

There are plenty of storage nooks, including a deep center armrest up front and sizable door pockets, while in the back there’s room for three adults. Despite the sweeping roofline there’s plenty of headroom, too, the seats being slung low enough to accommodate those six feet tall in comfort. The stylishly rising waistline – along with the tinted windows of the Sport variant – can make things a little difficult to see out of for younger passengers, however. Still, the contoured seats do a good job of holding people in place, even if the driver is getting a little carried away with the SKYACTIV handling, and though firm with the Sports suspension, the ride front and back is not uncomfortable even on longer road-trips.

Those trips can be accompanied by a reasonable amount of luggage, too, thanks to a capacious rear. Seats up – they split 60/40, and can only be dropped down from inside the trunk for security reasons – there are 483l to play with, versus 506l in the Tourer (which expands to 1,632l when both the Tourer’s seats are down). The opening itself is wide and relatively low, though can conveniently be opened from the key.

Technology

Mazda is keen to position itself as a tech-first company, and so the Mazda6 comes with most of the options boxes ticked, particularly if you specify the SE-L or Sport variants. Across the range you get cruise control; electric windows all round; a 5.8-inch color touchscreen atop a radio/single-slot CD player; Bluetooth for hands-free and streaming; both an aux-in and USB input for audio, hidden in the central armrest; and air-conditioning.

Our Sport tester, however, cranks that up even further, with dual-zone climate control and keyless entry; parking sensors front and rear, along with a reversing camera; rain-sensing wipers and an auto-dimming rear mirror; power adjustment and three-stage heating for the front seats (with two memory positions for the driver’s side); and a Bose surround sound audio system with a total of eleven speakers and dynamic noise compensation using a microphone hidden in the cabin.

That’s a fair amount of gadgetry, and there are a few different ways to control it, some it has to be said better than others. As well as the touchscreen sat on top of the dashboard – which has a few knobs and buttons around it, for jumping into navigation, audio, and phone, and controlling volume and tuning, there’s a multifunction dial next to the parking brake which along with rotating can be pushed in four directions and pressed in to select. That’s surrounded by another cluster of shortcut buttons – again, for audio, phone, navigation, and setup, as well as two back-keys – in the hope that you’ll not reach out and tap at the touchscreen when driving.

Mazda6 Technology Review:

For the basics, like adjusting volume or whipping through radio channels, the dial works well, but things get a little more complex if you try to do everything with it. What would normally require you to simply stab at the screen to change or select can demand some adroit maneuvering with the dial, to make sure you’re first highlighting the right section and only then scrolling through it.

It’s worth taking the time to get familiar with it, though, as there’s plenty you can do with the Mazda’s standard-fit entertainment system. The radio supports the usual presets and digital tuning, but we spent most time using Bluetooth to stream from our smartphone: both local tracks and streaming services like Spotify worked perfectly, and we were able to control playback using the Mazda6′s steering wheel mounted controls along with see artist, track, and album information on the display, together with phone battery status.

USB and aux-in playback works much in the same way, and there’s a thoughtful notch cut out for you to snake a cable out of the center armrest so you can use the device while still having somewhere to rest your elbow. Up to seven Bluetooth device pairings can be stored, with multipoint for having more than one active simultaneously, and the Mazda6 automatically resumes Spotify playback when you bring your phone back into the car, and pauses/resumes either side of a call.

The Bose speaker system holds up to scrutiny too, filling the car with loud, clear audio that sounds fantastic. Bose includes its optional center-point audio processing, which adjusts the various speaker settings to remove some of the directionality of the music and make it sound harmonious no matter where you’re speaking (rather than, say, louder from whichever speaker you’re closest to). It’s better suited to some musical types than others, we have to say; classical and pop benefited, with a more even quality to the audio, but rap and R’n'B lost some of their punchiness. Luckily it’s easy to switch on and off in the settings.

In the phone page, you can optionally download your phonebook to the car’s internal storage, for easier dialing of contacts, and set a number of speed dial favorites. However, the Mazda6 can also suck out your phone’s text messages, reading them out to you so that you needn’t take your hands of the wheel or your eyes off the road. We had no problems being heard on calls, even competing with 70mph road noise.

Unfortunately, the same speech clarity can’t be said for the voice control system. For the basics, hitting the button on the steering wheel and asking for a phone number works as you’d expect, but when you factor in the optional TomTom-powered navigation system, it becomes more frustrating. In theory, drivers should be able to say an address and have a list of search results shown on-screen, from which they can select by calling out the list number of the right option. In practice, most of the time we struggled to get the system to recognize the address we intended and, coupled with the lengthy pauses before search results were returned, we generally resorted to manually searching using the on-screen keyboard.

It’s a shame, because the TomTom system itself works well. If you’re familiar with one of the company’s standalone PNDs then the interface in the Mazda6 should present few surprises, with comprehensive mapping data, live traffic updates, automatic re-routing based on hold-ups further along your journey, and a huge database of points-of-interest. A range of voices and on-screen icons are available for guidance, with instructions cutting into music playback as the track temporarily fades in volume.

Pricing

In the UK, the Mazda6 kicks off at £19,595 for the SE saloon with the 2.0l petrol engine, or £21,795 for the 2.2l diesel. The cheapest Tourer is the £22,545 SE 2.2l diesel. The 2.2l diesel Sport saloon we spent most time with begins at £25,495; you’ll pay a £1,200 premium for the auto gearbox.

As for the US version, the Sport sedan begins at $20,880 (pre-destination charges and other fees), while the Touring is from $24,495. The Grand Touring – which makes the Bose audio system, TomTom navigation, keyless entry, and other features usually part of the Touring “Technology Package” standard – begins at $29,495.

That makes the Mazda6 a little more expensive out of the gate than, say, a Ford Mondeo, but it also comes with a higher degree of standard specifications.

Wrap-Up

The old Mazda6 was, not to put too fine a point on it, forgettable. Seats and an engine in a box on some wheels. That the new Mazda6 surges off the forecourt with such eye-catching styling and on-road polish makes it a huge advance, and it’s one that in most areas punches above its price.

Curvaceous, swooping design makes the car distinctive and handsome, a welcome diversion from the Germanic crispness that seems to have proliferated among Volkswagen, GM, Ford and others. Only the somewhat frustrating usability of the in-cabin tech and the slightly less-than-gaping luggage opening (unless you opt for the Tourer) mar the experience. Meanwhile the driving experience is enough to make you forget you’re in a not-insubstantial four-door; we’d opt for the diesel engine and manual gearbox, if given the choice, which pairs decent economy with solid performance to match the capable chassis.

Hardware

The Q10 may be outwardly very different from the first BlackBerry 10 device, the all-touch Z10, but internally it’s pretty much the same device. The 1.5GHz dualcore Snapdragon S4 Plus processor paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, are all identical, along with the microSD card slot, 8-megapixel rear camera, and 2-megapixel front camera. The Q10 also has WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC, along with a microHDMI port (which will need an adapter, not included, to plug into a regular HDMI input) alongside a microUSB port.

The key difference is obvious, however. Where the Z10 has a 4.2-inch 1280 x 768 display, the Q10 shrinks that down to 3.1-inches and 720 x 720 resolution; it also uses an AMOLED panel, rather than the LCD of the Z10. Using a smaller screen leaves room for the Q10′s four row keyboard – more on which in the next section – that spans the entire width of the phone.

Overall, it’s a broad but stubby device, at 2.62-inches across filing your palm more than the 2.58-inch Z10, but shorter at 4.7-inches. Accommodating a physical keyboard does make for a thicker phone, however, at 0.4-inches, and a slightly heavier one, at 4.9oz. The weight is nicely spread, however, meaning it doesn’t feel top-heavy when you’re typing, and it’s easy to shift your fingers between the QWERTY and the touchscreen.

BlackBerry’s traditional row of buttons in-between keyboard and display are missing on the Q10, which means the only other physical controls are the power/lock key on the top edge, and the volume controls on the right edge, flanking a voice-command button. The 3.5mm headphone socket is also on the top, while a reasonably sized speaker is on the bottom edge, meaning it won’t be blocked no matter whether the Q10 is placed face-up or face-down on the table.

We criticized the BlackBerry Z10 for its uninspiring aesthetic, which felt almost like the company had been so caught up in developing the OS, it had forgotten it needed to design hardware too. The Q10 uses the same dense black plastic, sturdy but lacking in the premium feel of the metal iPhone 5 or HTC One, but jazzes things up with a carbon fiber effect to the rear. Opinions on how successful that is were mixed; some thought it enlivened the Q10 up in a much-needed way, while others argued it makes the phone look relatively cheap. Still, the soft-touch finish is easily gripped.

QWERTY Keyboard

Keyboards have been BlackBerry’s bread & butter for years, and have arguably kept the company afloat despite rival platforms steadily eclipsing BlackBerry 7. As you might expect, BlackBerry doesn’t mess with the formula too much on the Q10, the only real difference being the regimented layout that lacks the bow of previous models.

Curved or not, it’s a great keyboard to type on. One-handed, you can just cradle the Q10 with your middle and ring fingers and punch at it with your thumb; again, the excellent weight balance left us with no concerns the phone would tip out of our hand as we did so. Spare two hands and it’s even better, the Bold-style beveling to the key caps neatly cupping your thumbs and helping keep accuracy high. Altogether it’s a sturdy little thing, and we quickly got into the habit of punching replies and tweets on it.

The question is, of course, whether it’s better than the on-screen keyboard of the Z10. BlackBerry 10 does some interesting things with auto-prediction, notably floating the suggested words over the likely next letter and allowing you to select them with a simply flick of your fingertip, and it’s a system we found worked very well. Practically speaking, after getting accustomed to the Z10′s touch system, we were able to hit the same rate of text-entry as we could on the Q10, which suggests that, for the mainstream at least, having the flexibility of a bigger display may be more beneficial.

Software and Usability

BlackBerry 10 is a considerable improvement on the versions that came before it, combining elements of Android, Windows Phone, and iOS with the Canadian company’s own twists. We covered it comprehensively back in our Z10 review, which we’d recommend reading first. At its core are a new series of gestures which are used to navigate without a dedicated Home button, among other things. So, a swipe up from the bottom of the screen takes you back to the homescreen, while pulling your finger partway up – what BlackBerry calls the “Peek” gesture – pulls in first a column of notification icons, and then hops into the unified inbox.

It works well on the touch-exclusive Z10, but the layout of the Q10 can leave the gesture system feeling touch & go at times. The most common is the swipe-up with your thumb, but the proximity of the bottom of the touchscreen with the top keyboard row leaves little room to start your finger off in the right place. All too often we ended up tapping options or scrolling through lists rather than “Peeking”, with the Q10 assuming we were swiping the display rather than gesturing.

The solution seems to be actually starting your gesture from the keyboard itself, though we then had a few inadvertent text entry moments with that workaround. What we’re still not 100-percent convinced by is the usefulness of “Peek”; just as with the Z10, we found getting a glimpse of new notifications – i.e. that they exist, not any sort of detail as to what they are – simply wasn’t something that made a half-Peek worthwhile to us. As soon as the red LED light above the display started flashing, we swiped all the way across to the inbox instead.

Out of the box, the Q10 runs BlackBerry 10.1, a dot-one update on what the Z10 is using. The changes are minor, though side-by-side the Q10 feels a little more immediate than the occasionally laggardly all-touch phone. Biggest difference – and the one which perhaps takes best advantage of the hardware ‘board – is universal search actions, which allows you to trigger tasks like new messages, reminders, tweets, and more by typing straight into the search box.

It works particularly well on the Q10, because the universal search pops up as soon as you start hitting the keys. So, begin tying “Text XYZ” and at the top of the list there’ll be two options from your address book to send an SMS to. If you have more than one contact with the same name, or more than one number for the same contact, you can tap the expand button and see the full list of potential recipients.

The flip-side of all that usability is the relatively limited amount of screen real-estate for apps. At 3.2-inches and 720 x 720 resolution, the Q10 has a small display compared to what we’re used to from modern smartphones. The browser, for instance, supports everything you’d expect to show full webpages, but they’re crammed into a small window; BlackBerry 10 then makes the space even more confined with its persistent address/search bar running along the bottom. Whereas the page title only shows when you swipe down from the top edge, the bar for switching tabs and entering URLs is fixed, unnecessarily taking up space.

Camera

With the same camera hardware as the Z10, it comes as little surprise that, for the most part, the Q10 puts in an identical photography showing. That’s unfortunately not among the best devices we’ve tested in recent months: colors are somewhat drab in all but the best outdoor lighting, but zoom in or step into a lower-light situation and the noise starts to make itself known.

Similarly, video recording at up to 1080p is supported, but you’ll want to be filming it during daylight hours if you don’t want noise and artifacts.

BlackBerry 10.1 adds an HDR camera mode, which fashions images with better dynamic range out of two shots taken in rapid succession. If you’ve a sufficiently steady hand, it works, spitting out images where detail in darker and brighter areas is more clearly visible.

However, we found the HDR mode to be more susceptible to shake than similar settings on rival phones, and even a little movement could ruin a frame with ghosting. There’s also the ability to shoot stills in 1:1 aspect ratio, which certainly fits the Q10′s own display, but look a little strange everywhere else.

Phone and Battery

Many smartphones seldom get asked to make more than the odd voice call, but BlackBerry knows its audience demands solid voice quality and enough volume to serve impromptu speakerphone use. We had no problems with dropped calls, testing on Vodafone’s 3G network, and the positioning of the speaker – on the bottom edge – meant that speakerphone calls came through loud and clear.

Battery life is also impressive. The Q10 uses a removable 2,100 mAh pack that’s plenty large enough given the relatively compact screen. BlackBerry has even taken advantage included some darker color schemes for BlackBerry 10 apps, to take advantage of the fact that AMOLED uses less power for dimmer parts of the display.

The upshot is a phone which will last the full day without pausing for breath. BlackBerry quotes up to 13.5hrs of 3G talk time or up to 14.8 days of 3G standby (or up to 60hrs of solid music playback); in practice, with push email turned on, and regular use of the browser, camera, multimedia playback, and other apps, we made it to the evening with juice to spare.

Wrap-Up

Choices are slim if you’re in the market for a smartphone with a physical keyboard. The rise of all-touch, the flexibility of a big display, and the growing accuracy of on-screen keyboards means that the usability arguments for taking up half your fascia with a QWERTY layout are slimmer than ever. That’s not to say the audience is nonexistent, but it’s certainly smaller than it once was, and physical buttons no longer mean the most productive device.

BlackBerry is a company still very much in transition, and trying to find its feet in the process. For existing users, the Q10 is an obvious upgrade: it’s the best QWERTY BlackBerry to-date, BlackBerry 10 is a solid step up from what came before it (even if there are still plenty of rough edges), and the tactile key-feel they covet is there in spades. For that group, only the combination of BlackBerry software and a hardware ‘board will do.

Problem is, that group is also a shrinking one, and what were previously the inescapable advantages of a QWERTY device – like unsurpassed typing accuracy – are no longer so clean-cut. Typing on the BlackBerry keyboard is great, but then so is typing on the Z10′s clever software keyboard, and indeed most other modern smartphones. That leaves the Q10 feeling a lot like a sop to keep the old-school users happy, while the rest of the market goes in a different direction. If you’re wedded to keys then the Q10 is the BlackBerry – and potentially the smartphone, period – for you, but for the everyone else it’s more like proof that the days of physical keyboards are behind us.

Hardware

Mophie has been making battery-cases for smartphones for years now, focusing on the iPhone and iPod touch; its line-up for Android phones is a lot smaller, with device-specific models only for the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S III (though the company offers generic portable batteries, too). The concept is straightforward, being a hard case that’s enlarged to accommodate a rechargeable power pack, that can be used to top up the internal battery in your phone.

For the HTC One, that means a 2.88 x 6.06 x 0.67 inch soft-touch plastic sled which adds 3.12 ounces to the weight of the phone (to compare, the One alone is 2.69 x 5.41 x 0.37 inches and 5.05 ounces). Black and silver versions will eventually be offered, to match the two finishes of the One itself, though only the black Juice Pack was available in time for our review.

More on the HTC One in our full review

Inside, there’s a 2,500 mAh battery, 200 mAh larger than the One’s own battery, charged from a standard microUSB port on the bottom of the case. That simultaneously charges the One, too, thanks to a pass-through microUSB connection which is plugged in when you slide the phone inside. It’s a snug fit, involving pulling off the Mophie’s top cap, slotting the One into the groove, and gently pushing it all the way into place; once the case is closed up again, there’s no wiggle or movement.

Although the sides and rear of the One are covered up, you still get access to all the ports and buttons. Pass-through controls for the power/standby key on top and the volume keys on the side are included – slightly oversized, which works well with gloved fingers, and the power button is IR-transparent so you can use the HTC TV remote control app still – and there’s a hole for the headphone socket too. The cut-out is big enough for most jacks, though if you’re using a set of headphones with an oversized plug, you might find the case gets in the way.

On the back, there’s a big cut-out for the UltraPixel camera and LED flash, along with a hole for the rear microphone. Flanking the microUSB port on the bottom edge are four connectors for a docking station (which we didn’t have to test). The only controls are a button to show battery status – using a row of four white LEDs – on the lower back of the Mophie, with a switch to turn on or off the flow of juice.

Usability and Performance

Make no mistake, once the One is in the Juice Pack you’re left with a big device. It’s almost comically large, in fact: the bowed back panel fills your palm, and while the soft-touch finish is pleasant to touch, the Juice Pack does make the One feel somewhat like the digital signature gadgets couriers tend to carry. If you’re in the habit of dropping your phone in your front jeans pocket, or your inside jacket pocket, you’ll immediately notice the difference.

It also feels like Mophie missed an opportunity to build some extra functionality into that expanse of plastic. HTC’s BoomSound speakers are usefully left exposed, for instance, and so a kickstand would have been an neat addition to prop the One up for hands-free video use.

Still, the Juice Pack certainly does what it promises to. Mophie recommends waiting until your One is at around 20-percent, and then flicking the switch to take the phone back up to around 80-percent; it takes more power to recharge a completely flat battery, or to top-up a battery until it’s entirely full. In our testing the Juice Pack took roughly around the same amount of time to recharge the One as the HTC adapter would.

In theory, you should be able to get a full recharge out of a single blast of the Juice Pack. In practice, following Mophie’s guidelines means it’s more like you’re doing a couple of periodic top-ups rather than going from zero to full. Still, with judicious control of the power switch and typical use of the One, we saw runtimes just short of the Mophie’s maximum 100-percent improvement.

Value

At $99.95, the Juice Pack isn’t the cheapest case or the cheapest external battery. If protection is what you’re after, there are far more form-fitting soft or hard cases on the market, priced from around $10; HTC’s own Double Dip Hard Shell for the One is $24.99, for instance.

Meanwhile, if you’re willing to sacrifice the integration, there are portable batteries with far more capacity than the Juice Pack provides. HTC offers the External Battery Bank (BB G600), for instance, a $50 block roughly akin to an oversized Zippo, and which – with 6,000 mAh to play with – could recharge your One twice before it needed topping up itself.

Then there’s the lifespan of the Juice Pack itself. Mophie rates the case for “over 500 full cycles” of 0-percent to 100-percent, after which point the battery inside “may provide less than 75-percent of the original capacity.” To be fair, that’s par for the course for any Li-Poly rechargeable battery, but it could mean that one day you’re carrying a heavy case that doesn’t really deliver in terms of a lasting charge. Whether that comes before the average two-year agreement is up, and you’re already thinking of getting a new phone, will depend on how much you use it.

Wrap-Up

There are cheaper ways to protect and charge your phone. A separate case and external battery will generally provide more runtime and a more easily pocketed handset. On the flip side, the best portable battery is the one you have on you when you’re running low on power, and the converged solution Mophie offers scores highly on that measure.

For some, the extra bulk the Juice Pack adds will be a deal-breaker. Certainly, it makes the One a big device, but if you’re a power-user the promise of up to double the runtime is a huge advantage, and we can’t really fault Mophie’s design for accommodating the One’s controls and features.

While in the past working with screen protectors that are anything thicker than a simple super-thin layer of plastic, it’s been a toss-up whether or not they’d do what they said they would, here Tech21 appears to come through. The final product does appear disperse impact and protect the screen while touch sensitivity remains.

NOTE: As a special experiment / treat, we’re recorded the hands-on of this product’s application process with Google Glass. The photo at the head of this article also comes straight #throughglass, is it were. Take heed – this video also appears in an expanded Google Glass in action review of the wearable technology’s abilities, specifically its camera.

The technology inside this screen protector is what Tech21 describes as their most advanced implementation of display shielding yet. The first layer works to spread the impact force of whatever’s aimed at your device’s screen. The third (closest to the screen) layer is a soft base, further absorbing the impact force of a blow.

The middle layer is the most interesting – or at least the most interestingly titled. Here we’ve got the BulletShield impact protection layer using BASF absorption polymer technology. BASF is also known as “The Chemical Company” and is, not coincidentally, the largest chemical company in the world. This layer provides non-yellowing UV protection with absorption polymer also used in bulletproof glazing.

Thus far this shielding has held up every bit as well as the other Tech21 products we’ve tested, including the orange goo you’ll remember from some months ago. Have a peek at a demo we received at the hands of Tech21′s CEO with a hammer, Tech21 Impactology excellence, and a human hand. You’ll certainly not regret having done so.

Also note that this multi-layer screen protector system is out there in the wild for your pocket in several iterations right this minute. For $29.99 MSRP you’ll find the Tech21 Impact Shield for the Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung GALAXY S 4, Apple iPhone 5, and Samsung Galaxy Note II as well. We’ll keep you updated on the spread of this shield to other devices soon as well – stay tuned!

Hardware

This smartphone is a rather interesting amalgamation of plastic and glass. It feels thin and smooth to the touch – the back is a single sheet of hard plastic without pattern while the front has a single pane of reinforced glass. The front has three capacitive buttons, not quite jumping in on the trend Google has been pushing with on-screen buttons quite yet.

The display up front of this device is a 5-inch 1080p panel all but hidden by the black bezel that surrounds it. While the display is on you can certainly tell where it begins and ends, but whatever OPPO has done to equalize the quality of black in the bezel surrounding the display while off and the screen itself is working. While on, this display kicks in 441 PPI, equaling that of the Sony XPERIA Z and the Samsung GALAXY S 4 and narrowly missing the current density winner: the HTC One (468 PPI).

The back of this smartphone is solidly attached to its front – there’s no removable or replaceable battery here. This device is certainly not built to be winning any repairability contests due to its one-piece presentation, but you will feel as though OPPO created a solid package when you’re working with it.

The touchscreen on this device works just as well as any other top-tier device and the viewing angles are generally OK. With IPS LCD technology backing up the OPPO Find 5, you’ll certainly be able to see what you’re doing outside, but don’t jump in to direct sunlight too often or expect a family of four to gather around from all angles to see the same image – it’s good, but it’s not perfect.

This device works with NFC both for reading and writing – as most embedded NFC sensors do. What’s impressive about the OPPO Find 5 for NFC is its built-in NFC writing software. Pre-sets and a set of two NFC tags in the box make for an entertaining out-of-box experience to be sure.

The audio experience on this device is great for a back-facing speaker setup. The HTC One takes the rest of the smartphone world to lunch with its Boomsound speakers on their own, but with both of them facing the user, straight out from around the display of the smartphone, they make the rest of the smartphone world sound like a mistake was made. Unfortunately OPPO’s main onboard speaker is, indeed, back-facing.

Software

OPPO creates an ever-so-slightly interesting software experience here on top of Android, bringing in a sort of candy-coated collection of app icons that remind one of the first plays Samsung had at Android back with the first Galaxy and TouchWiz 1.0. It’s not the same iOS-esque game here, on the other hand, with the rest of the changes keeping well in the Android world with screen transitions and lockscreen elements only otherwise seen in user-customized 3rd party homescreen replacement apps.

Below you’ll see our hands-on demonstration of the OPPO Find 5′s software build – take note of the speed at which apps load and/or don’t load – this isn’t an experience that’s as optimized for Android as the Nexus 4 is, but general everyday use is perfectly decent.

According to chats we’ve had with users already owning this device – and users like you bringing on the comments – we’re to understand that carriers working with this device have had an easy time upgrading software, working with the device for software fixes, and offering good service in general. Generally that’s not an issue with a big-brand smartphone (not always, but generally), but with a still-relatively-small group like OPPO, it’s encouraging to hear and read.

Below you’ll also find some benchmark results from the OPPO Find 5 with its most up-to-date software. Again, this device isn’t going to win any beastly smartphone battles, but it gets the job done. This device isn’t going to be the best on the market if you’re looking for a top-tier gaming experience, but for media consumption and capture and everyday non-game app activities, you’ll be par for the course.

Camera

The camera on the OPPO Find 5 can create some excellent photos and video but actually capturing them seemed to be above-average difficult. This machine works with an Exmor RS sensor with 13 megapixels of power on its back, this allowing for some rather excellent shots if you’re willing to take the time to capture them. The examples below should show you a wide variety of examples from our time with the device – good and bad.

Have a peek at some other reviews done by me, Chris Burns, to check on your humble reviewer’s ability to take quality shots if you’re suspicious of the images appearing here. If you’re the kind of person who rests their camera on still surfaces when you’re taking photos, you’ll get good photos. It’s as simple as that.

Also have a peek at some video here to see what we’ve captured in a regular test-quality situation. We’ve made similar runs at this arena in the past with devices of all kinds – compare at will!

Battery

You’ll want to download some battery optimization software if you’re planning on getting a full day’s use out of this machine. Unlike some of the big-name devices we’ve worked with towing the same processor here from Qualcomm, this device can really knock a battery out easily. Though the same is true for any device that’s got a display as bright and as sharp as this in keeping the brightness on auto, apps of all kinds seem to drain the OPPO Find 5 a bit quicker than they should.

Owning the OPPO Find 5

Reviewing this device was bittersweet, if only because I knew we’d not be seeing a lot of readers here that’d actually be able to use this device in the end. It’s a smartphone being sold in China with no plans for overseas release. That said, it’s refreshing to see such a company doing such a top-notch job when the only other devices with such a solid package on the market today have been made by one of five companies.

Right this minute you’ll be able to find the OPPO Find 5 for between $499.99 and $600 USD unlocked and carrier free. Make sure you know your SIM card will work before you pick one up and let us know how you like it!

Wrap-up

The OPPO Find 5 is not a Samsung Galaxy device, nor is it an iPhone. It’s not a Motorola hardcore delivery, nor is it an LG powerhouse, or a Google Nexus device for that matter. It’s not the HTC One and it’s certainly not a Sony device. Instead you’ve got a unique approach from OPPO in a package that’s certainly going to stay strong in owners’ pockets for extended periods.

And the end result of OPPO’s efforts are a bright spot for the company – this device, packaging to final smartphone build, make the case for this brands’ future. Keep an eye out for future OPPO releases and count them in as a brand to be reckoned with in the next few years across the pond – hopefully beyond China, too.

Hardware and Design

Like both UP and Fuelband, Flex is intended to be strapped to your wrist. Unlike its counterparts, however, the logging dongle itself is actually separate from the band: a narrow, tapering lozenge of mostly white plastic, it slots into the rubberized strap leaving nothing but a row of five LEDs visible along the upper edge.

The strap itself is stretchy but Fitbit will still offer two sizes depending on how big your wrists are. By making the two parts separate, it means you can change strap color depending on your mood or outfit, if you so prefer, though it does introduce a little extra bulk. Nonetheless, the shape of the band is less annoying than that of Jawbone’s UP: the springy arms of UP get all too easily caught on clothes, for instance, and while the band looks good, it can be frustrating to wear.

In fact, out of the three, Flex is the most comfortable and the most discrete. It’s water-resistant, too – as is UP – which means you can wear it in the shower or the pool, and the row of LEDs is a convenient, but low-power, way to keep an eye on your progress toward your daily goal. Each lit LED shows 20-percent progress; you tap the band with your finger twice to wake the LED display.

Bluetooth 4.0, however, is the key to the full data Fitbit is collecting. The latest iteration of the short-range wireless standard, it promises significantly lower power consumption than before, meaning devices like Flex can remain connected without sucking through their battery in a matter of hours. If the LED indicators aren’t giving you enough feedback, you can open up the Fitbit app on your phone or computer and see all the data there. Fitbit includes a Wireless Sync Dongle – basically a low-profile USB Bluetooth 4.0 adapter – for you to hook up your PC or Mac.

Fitness Tracking

Flex’s criteria for activity tracking are pretty much in line with what UP and Fuelband record: steps taken, distance traveled, active minutes, and calories burned. Inside the Flex dongle are a battery of sensors and gyroscopes to figure out when you’re moving, along with what sort of movement you’re making.

It’s worth making sure you’ve got the Flex strapped tightly to your wrist first, however, as we found a little extra play in the band was enough to throw off the accuracy of the tracking. After a day with it more loose around our wrist, we found we’d apparently done significantly more activity – at least, according to the Fitbit logs; the outlier day is outlined in the graph below – than had actually taken place.

There’s also food recording, though as with other platforms it’s a largely manual process. Fitbit claims to have more than 50,000 foods in its database, or you can add your own custom meals complete with nutritional information. The end result – if you’ve also set a weight goal – is a daily estimate of how many calories you’re allowed in order to stay on track, as well as an estimated date for when you should reach that goal, assuming you don’t cheat.

However, just as we’ve found with other fitness trackers, actually taking the time to punch in your diet can be frustrating, especially if you’re not eating the sort of easily-quantified foods Fitbit has in its database. If you’re making your own meals from scratch – sensible, if you’re trying to lose weight, since you know what’s actually going into them – then every mealtime will be a patience-trying session of calculations and figure-input.

Even when you’ve done all that, Fitbit’s recommendations are limited to suggesting you cut your calorific intake, rather than anything more comprehensive like a custom diet plan with attention to the various food groups. Until we can wave our smartphone camera at a plate and have it automatically assess that exact meal, we’re not confident food tracking will catch on in any great numbers.

Sleep Tracking

Like UP, the Flex band promises to watch you while you’re sleeping and tell you the next morning exactly how well your night went. Repeatedly tapping the band for 1-2 seconds kicks it into sleep tracking mode – two of the LEDs light and then slowly fade to show it’s set correctly – at which point it monitors how long you sleep and how much you moved around.

Unfortunately, sleep tracking is where we encountered the most issues with Flex. The band would consistently under-track our total sleep, on some nights recording as little as two hours of rest (and nine or more waking periods) whereas in fact we’d been sleeping for considerably longer. Where UP differentiates between light and deep sleep, Flex only sees resting in black and white, and while you can go back into the app and retroactively add sleep details (useful if you forget to turn sleep mode in in the first place) the general inaccuracies don’t exactly encourage you to use it.

We ran a direct comparison between Flex and UP, wearing them both overnight. As you can see from the results above (Fitbit on left, Jawbone on right), the Flex counted considerably less sleep than the UP: an incorrect 26 minutes, compared to the more accurate 5hrs 12m on the UP.

Mobile Apps

Real-time updating is the big advantage Flex has over its wearable rivals, and you’re most likely to access those from a smartphone display. Fitbit does support desktop sync, but to really get the benefit of knowing exactly where you’re up to with your goal, the mobile apps edge ahead.

Fitbit has apps for both iOS and Android, though if you’re a user of Google’s platform you’ll need to have one of a fairly limited number of phones in order to actually use it. While the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, 5th-gen iPod touch, iPad 3, and iPad Mini all support the Flex sync app, currently only the Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II work with the Android app. We tried it with the Galaxy S 4, for instance, and the option to synchronize simply wasn’t present; Fitbit tells us that’s down to the different Bluetooth 4.0 implementations between Android manufacturers.

Assuming you have a compatible device, you see a timeline of your weight, sleep, and activity, as well as details from any friends who also use Fitbit and who have shared their progress with you. A public record is published online, though you can choose to pare back any of the specific activities, goals, and other information if you don’t want them to be generally visible. Each of the progress made toward your step, distance, and calorie goals is shown on a progress bar; it’s worth remembering, though, that Flex is only really tracking steps, and then calculating the probable distance and calories from that.

The app is also where you set silent alarms, with up to eight supported at any one time. Rather than a blaring notification from your phone on the nightstand, the Flex band vibrates and flashes its lights to tell you to get up. There’s support for one-off alarms and for repeating ones, such as on weekdays at a certain time, but still letting you sleep in at the weekend.

Unlike with UP, you don’t get the sleep-related alarm option (which promises to wake you when you’re in the phase of sleep most conducive to feeling bright), though it’s worth noting we had mixed results with that anyway. However, whereas UP must be plugged into your phone to set its alarms (or, indeed, sync its data) Flex can be controlled remotely over Bluetooth, a less fiddly affair that meant we made greater use of the alarm functionality.

Price and Battery

Fitbit may be trailing UP and Fuelband to the market, but it arrives with a price advantage. The Flex is $99.95, $30 less than the Jawbone version, and 50-percent less than Nike’s premium-priced Fuelband. That’s despite it using low-power Bluetooth; the Fuelband has Bluetooth too, but it sucks down battery life unlike the Flex.

In fact, Fitbit’s battery estimates of 5-7 days turned out to be reasonably accurate in our experience, with the Flex lasting 5-6 days of average use. Fitbit supplies a special charging cable to refuel the Flex, though it quickly proved a frustration. The dongle is held in place against the charging contacts by a clip, but we found it was insufficient to actually keep the Flex in place. The only way to actually get it to charge consistently was to wedge a piece of paper or something similar in the gap too, pressing the Flex against the pins.

Wrap-Up

In some ways, the Fitbit Flex is the best mainstream health tracker out there. It’s the most comfortable, has the best balance of wireless connectivity and battery life, and – for daily fitness recording, anyway – does exactly what you want to to, assuming you’re wearing it properly. The addition of Bluetooth 4.0 addresses one of our biggest complaints about the Jawbone UP: that there was basically no feedback about our performance during the day, until we plugged the band into our phone.

Nonetheless, the Flex isn’t perfect. Like all of these trackers, it calculates much of its data – calories, distance traveled – from a few fundamental factors, which means they’re not infallible. More disappointing is the poor sleep tracking functionality, which pales in comparison (and accuracy) with other models.

If you’re keen to measure your sleep routine, we’d still recommend the UP. However, for everything else, the Flex has the advantage. It’s more comfortable and easier to use than the UP, and considerably cheaper and with better Bluetooth implementation than the Fuelband. If you’re looking to get into wearables, that makes it a great place to start.

Hardware

Up front of the LG Optimus G Pro is a 1080 x 1920 pixel display across 5.5-inches of IPS LCD. This equals 400 PPI resolution and the same amount of pixels the HTC One and the Samsung GALAXY S 4 have spread over a slightly larger area. The display reaches out to the sides of the device with a bezel that’s extremely narrow, this giving the phone the illusion of having a near-edge-to-edge screen.

The front of the device is covered by a single piece of reinforced glass from top to bottom with a bent-in flat edge that, with flat sides and rounded back, give the whole package a unique feel. While the design comments in our LG Optimus G Review suggested LG’s hardware to be a bit more slippery than the average phone, the Pro’s shape and size allow for a bit better grip.

The front panel is interrupted only by a single plastic bit up top to make way for the earpiece for phone calls and a physical button on the lower front surrounded by multi-colored LED light. This pulsing spectrum of color is easily one of the most well-implemented bits of finesse ever implemented on a smartphone. This feature alone pushes the hardware design over the edge: from Pretty Good to Unique and Cool.

Along the sides of the device you’ll find two mic holes (one on top, one on bottom), a standard-sized headphone jack with Dolby Digital audio technology for all your headphone music blasting adventures, and a microUSB port below. Also on top you’ll find a tiny black piece of plastic – this is your IR-blaster, aka your key to using this device as a remote control for a variety of electronics around your home, including but not limited to your television (most televisions, not just Smart TVs), stereo system, projector, Blu-ray player, and air conditioner.

On the right you’ve got your power button and on your left you’ve got your volume rocker below a third button. This last button is what LG calls a Quick Button. With this Quick Button you’ll be able to “get quick access” to whatever app you like. If you’re a photo-taking sort of person, set it to your camera. If you’d rather it connect to Google Search / Google Now, that’s an option as well. If you do decide to set it to Camera, the Quick Button also acts as a shutter button inside the camera app – just as it should.

This device feels nice to hold and, unlike some of its competitors, isn’t larger than the average adult’s hand grip. Where the LG Intuition fell a bit flat due to it’s massiveness, the aspect ratio of the LG Optimus G Pro allows it to be even larger yet fit in your hand far more naturally. Here we’ve got a phablet with a size that’s not too wild.

Software

Inside you’ve got LG’s newest approach to Android, complete with their complete utilization of the full processor power under the hood with oddities galore. One example of a simple – yet impressive – use of the power this device’s processor presents is the massive bubble that pops up when you unlock your screen. It and flipping through screens with a door-like drag happen so seamlessly that you’ll scarcely realize how slick it is. Until you use a phone later on with a lesser processor, of course.

LG’s software here keeps with the nice parts of Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean, including Google Now, and push forward with features like QSlide apps. While I’m not entirely sure when the ability to have an app appear above the fold and accessible as a window in a desktop operating system app would be, here you’ve got the future right in front of you. This sort of floating app functionality is also seen in the Samsung Galaxy and Note line of smartphones and tablets in a just-as-mystifying implementation.

The notifications pull-down menu is utilized by LG in a variety of creative ways the likes of which no other hardware company has pushed to a smartphone. You’ve got brightness control, notifications, access to full settings, quick settings (toggles), QSlide apps, Music control (when music is playing), and Quick Remote. Each of these is customizable too, of course.

QuickRemote is LG’s current app interface for remote controlling your home hardware. This app allows you to work with the infra-red blaster that sits at the top of the device and allows you to control your TV, Cable box, Audio system, DVD player, Blu-ray player, Air conditioner, and projector. You’ll have to go through a short trial-and-error process to connect this control to each device around your home, but in general, anything that’s controlled by a normal universal remote can be controlled here.

Though you don’t have the Rubberdium Pen you did with the LG Intuition here with the Optimus G Pro, you still have access to apps like Note Pad and Notebook, both of which allow you to draw and take notes on your display with your finger. You also get a simple task manager to keep yourself on-point with notifications of to-do items, Video Wiz to edit your own self-filmed videos, and LG Tag+ to create your own unique NFC tags (not included in the box this time around).

In display settings you’ll find Smart screen, similar to a feature Samsung has been pushing with the last several smartphones it’s released, here detecting your eyes and keeping the device’s display awake so long as you’re looking at it. You can customize your home button LED light colors and alerts from this screen as well.

In Share & Connect in the device’s Networks tab in Settings you’ll find an NFC switch (off and on) aside Direct/Android Beam. With Wi-Fi direct you’ll be able to share files between mobile devices (that also have such connectivity abilities) and with NFC this connection is made extra-easy. You’ll also find File Networking to connect to your local network (if you’re sharing files via your PC, for example), and with SmartShare Beam you’ll be sharing files back and forth between LG devices specifically.

Then there’s Miracast – this being the first time we’ve seen the system named specifically since Google implemented this connectivity in Android Jelly Bean earlier this year. With Miracast you’ll have a new industry standard for wireless connectivity of devices, in this case allowing you to mirror your Optimus G Pro’s display to your high-definition television at high speed.

Have a peek at a demonstration of LG’s “World’s First Wireless Ultra HD Transmission Technology” filmed earlier this year at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona. You’re seeing this hands-on with the LG Optimus G, this letting us know that the ability isn’t just there in the less-powerful of the LG hero devices, it’s ready to go for 4K televisions as well! Now we just need a 4K television to test it on with LG’s final implementation of the connection between on device and the other.

You’ll find the LG Optimus G Pro out-performing most devices on the market today regardless of the slightly larger display size it works with. Above you’ll find a gallery of benchmark results run on the device, many of which we’ve run for similar devices in the past. As you’ll see, this device’s biggest competitors are the HTC One and Samsung GALAXY S 4, the whole bunch running the same Qualcomm processor under the hood – the battle continues!

Camera

While we’ve done a slightly more extensive exploration of the abilities of this device’s camera earlier this year in our LG Optimus G Pro Photo Tour: Barcelona, you’ll also find a new set of examples below. This device uses a 13 megapixel camera on its back, a 2.1 megapixel camera on its front, and a set of odd abilities you’ll have a good ol’ time working with. NOTE: we’ll be including further examples of the Dual Recording feature in the near future. For now: courage!

Battery

With a 3,140 mAh battery it’s not easy to knock the power out of this device in one go. That said, if any display was going to do it, it’d be this beast’s. As you can see in the example here, you can either keep the device running actions for hours on end and kill it in less than 8 hours, or you can let it sit idle for many days. This appears to be the case with most devices running Qualcomm processors in this newest generation – we’re expecting this trend to continue.

Wrap-up

The LG Optimus G Pro is a rather fine piece of machinery. It’s offers you an alternative to the HTC One and/or Samsung GALAXY S 4 here up on the top tier with its similar display (larger, though again, with the same amount of pixels), identical processor, and surprisingly similar set of features. It also offers you a unique hardware build and a camera that’ll go very nearly toe-to-toe with the leaders.

You’ll find the LG Optimus G Pro costing the same or less than the competing top-tier smartphones out with AT&T right this minute and/or in the near future, and its feature set makes it a solid package in the battle against the other titans of this mobile industry. Here in this massive smartphone, LG has created an amalgamation of elements that’ll satisfy legacy LG lovers and newcomers to the size, all the same.

Hardware

This device features a setup that, at the start of 2012, would have seemed like quite the beast. You’ve got a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display at 1280 x 720 pixel resolution resting in a chassis largely made of hard plastic. This device does appear to have a brushed metal back, but don’t be fooled – it’s not quite that hardcore.

Inside you’ve got a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core processor clocked in at 1.5GHz and 1GB of RAM. So you’ve got an SoC that’s basically as powerful as the first wave of dual-core smartphones from the beginning of last year with half the RAM that any of those devices – like the Galaxy S III or DROID RAZR family – had under their hood.

You do have an 8 megapixel camera on the back of this device with a single LED flash bulb as well as a few fun features in the software attached to it. This device has a 2-megapixel camera up front that you’ll be able to use for video chat as well. This device has 16GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot to add an additional 32GB if you have the need.

Software

Easily the most excellent feature of this device is its set of motion controls. You’ll be able to wave over the display of the Perception to change songs, answer calls, browse through your photo gallery – basically anything you’d normally do with a swipe across the screen with your finger. These controls can also be found – ever-so-slightly different though they may be – in the Samsung GALAXY S 4. Here you’ll find them for a few dollars less, of course.

This device comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box. That’s bad news for those of you looking to work with Google Now. Verizon has made it clear in the original announcement of this device that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but haven’t given a timeframe for such an update.

You’ll get a set of odd apps like Document Viewer for your PDFs and Word files, Net Media for controlling your local network media, and Smart Voice. Pantech’s implementation of this command-ready voice app may appear to be similar to systems like Sherpa and Google’s own voice recognition for search, but we’ve found it to be surprisingly finicky and unhelpful. We’re expecting some upgrades to this system before it can be considered ready for any big battle with the top guns.

You’ll find benchmark results for this device to in some cases be beating previous generations of devices and in others failing miserably. While this device appears to win over a device like the HTC One X in Quadrant with overall score, a significant amount of this comes from memory and I/O while basic CPU power lacks in a large way. This device certainly shouldn’t be picked up if you’re looking to best your buddies at the latest shooting games, that’s for sure.

Camera

The photo software being implemented on this device is oddly enticing – while it’s not up to par with HTC’s current offering in the photography user interface department, it does do the trick. Hidden features like quad-photos and the ability to use voice commands (“cheese!”) to take photos are well received. Have a peek at some examples and see what you make of them.

Above you’ll find an HDR photo example from the Pantech Perception while below you’ll find a photo taken in the same position without HDR activated.

Here you’ll also find a back-facing video demo recorded with the Perception. We’re going from inside to outside and back in and down into a low-lit area with this one. Note the speed at which the camera reacts.

Battery Life

The battery issues with 4G LTE appear to be a thing of the past here in 2013, this holding true for the Pantech Perception. With Qualcomm’s handling of the situation with its modem making the task of transferring data not quite so painful as it was back when Verizon first brought the network to the public, we’ve seen all-day battery life without an issue. The biggest drain on your battery here will be your display, so if you’re aiming for an 8-hour session, you’ll be best off turning the brightness down somewhat.

Wrap-up

The Pantech Perception is a fine addition to Pantech’s archive of relatively unique devices, and makes one wish they’d continue to push forth in the USA for a more on-time release. This device could have been a really great addition to Verizon’s ranks if it’d been brought to the market right around a year ago. Unfortunately, since it’s being shown here in the Spring of 2013, this release falls flat in the face of its much more robust competitors.

Design-wise, the Express Dock is made to blend in perfectly with Apple’s line of Mac machines. It rocks an aluminum unibody shell with black plastic panels on the sides and back, and just like a good mullet, there’s not a lot going on in the front, but there’s a party in the back — all the ports are situated on the rear of the dock. You’ll find an ethernet port, a FireWire 800 port, three USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports (which support daisy-chaining), and separate 3.5mm audio-out and audio-in jacks.

One of the two Thunderbolt ports is used to plug the dock into your Mac, but that’s all it takes to get access to all the other ports. Instead of having to plug all of your peripherals in one after another every time you dock your MacBook at your desk, all you have to do is plug everything into the Express Dock when setting it up, and then just simply plug in the dock into your Thunderbolt port. At that point, you’ll be all set to go. This fact alone I found really convenient as I didn’t have all these cables that I had to keep plugging and unplugging every time I wanted to undock my MacBook. It’s just one single cable and you’re good to go.

While the Express Dock will work for desktop Macs like the iMac and Mac Pro, it’s essentially meant for those with MacBooks, which don’t have a lot of options when it comes to ports, especially MacBook Air users. If you use a MacBook as your main machine and want more port options, the Express Dock is about the only convenient option out there. Simply plug in the dock into your Thunderbolt port and you’ll instantly have eight more ports at your perusal, which is pretty fantastic.

However, there are some caveats. The Express Dock doesn’t come with a Thunderbolt cable in the box, so you’ll want to make sure that you have one on hand in order to connect it to your Mac. Secondly, the Express Dock requires OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to take advantage of all its capabilities. The dock will at least work on older versions of OS X, and I was able to hook up a Thunderbolt display to the dock, but it wouldn’t recognize any of the USB 3.0 drives that I had on hand, nor would the audio ports work. However, once I connected it to a Mountain Lion machine, everything worked flawlessly.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the USB 3.0 ports on the Express Dock are limited to 2.5Gbps, which is almost half the speed of what it’s supposed to be at (4.8Gbps). We’re not exactly sure why this is, but it’s still much faster than USB 2.0, which Macs are still sadly stuck at (unless you have one of the newest models). I also noticed that the dock would get hot after a short while, including both ends of the Thunderbolt cable. Nothing exploded, thankfully, but it was always a bit of a concern after I had it plugged in for an hour or so and had tons of things plugged into it. It never got hot enough that I couldn’t touch it, but I was certainly surprised that it gets a bit warm.

Portability is another thing to consider, especially since the dock is catered towards MacBooks. The Express Dock is lightweight and can easily fit into a backpack to take with you. However, the power adapter that’s required to power the Express Dock makes the device not too portable-friendly. It’s about the same size as a typical laptop power adapter, which isn’t a bad thing, since they’re also made to be portable along with the laptop its charging, but if you were to take both your MacBook and the Express Dock with you on the road, you now have two bulky power adapters to deal with. The dock can certainly be portable, but it’s really up to the user whether or not lugging it along will be worth it.

In the end, Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock is the perfect companion to a MacBook power user. However, you’ll have to think long and hard about whether or not you truly need it, since it costs a whopping $300, so it isn’t just something that you can buy impulsively. There is a cheaper option available for $250, but that’s still a hard pill to swallow. Then again, if you’re like me and constantly find yourself docking and undocking your MacBook, dealing with a tangle of numerous wires at the same time, the Express Dock could be one of the best convenience products that you ever buy. Plus, if you’re rocking a MacBook Air and wish you had more ports at your disposal, the Express Dock is a good choice for that too.

Overview & Design

Logitech’s G430 headset comes in a rather colorful black-and-bright blue color scheme, which says right away that it has a lot of character. Looks is everything with gaming peripherals, and Logitech certainly didn’t make an ugly headset here. The G430 comes with cloth-covered foam ear pads that can be removed and replaced if they ever get worn out, or for just a quick wash if they ever get dirty. The foam is pretty stiff, and along with the snug fit of the headset, some gamers may find the headset discomforting after prolonged periods, as did I after about just a half hour of use.

The ear cups are adjustable — no surprise there — and they also can rotate 90 degrees to fit better on your head, as well as making storage easier for when you’re off to your next LAN party. The microphone can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally, meaning you can flip up the microphone away from your mouth, or bend the stem closer to your mouth in order to be heard more clearly by your fellow gamers.

The braided cable is really long — about 8 feet or so, but it comes with a nifty velcro strap to shorten it if need be. It also works to wrap up the entire cord for storage or mobility. We’re not sure why the cord is as long as it is. The only explanation would be if you were to feed the cord all the way behind your desk and connect it to the back of your gaming rig. Other than that, we find the long cord to be quite unnecessary. The G430 comes with inline controls on the cord, though, which allow you to adjust the volume and toggle mute the microphone quickly and easily. At the end, the cord forks off into separate audio in and out 3.5mm jacks, but the headset comes with a convenient USB adapter if you don’t have dedicated audio in and out ports (like on some laptops).

Audio Output

As for the quality of the sound produced by the G430, we were impressed. We’re not complete audiophiles, so we’re not too picky when it comes to audio, but we certainly weren’t disappointed with what we were hearing. In-game audio sounded terrific, especially when playing first-person shooters where the many explosions produced excellent bass. It made us feel more closer to the action when playing our favorite shoot-em-ups, especially with the on-board Dolby 7.1 surround sound, which allowed us to know what direction shots and grenade blasts were coming from, allowing us to better respond to the situation.

For the audiophiles out there, the G430 comes with 40mm drivers and has a frequency response of 20Hz-20KHz. There’s 32 Ohms of impedance, and the sensitivity rings in at 90dB SPL/mW. The microphone is unidirectional and has a frequency response of 50-20KHz.

Since the headset fits quite snugly, it has its own natural noise-cancelling technology of sorts. It was almost like we were wearing a pair of noise-cancelling ear muffs that you would wear on a construction site, only you could play audio through them. Even at high volume levels, audio remained crisp and there was no noticeable clipping going on. Even music sounded great through the headset, with clear mids and highs, along with the thumping bass.

Audio Input

Logitech touts that the microphone has noise-cancelling technology, and we can’t argue with them there. Friends listening on the other end said that we were coming in clear with a nice volume, although they reported that the bass wasn’t as good as it could have been. Nonetheless, in a heated gaming situation, the only important thing is that your teammates can at least hear you loud and clear, and the G430 accomplishes that with aplomb. It’s certainly not a microphone you would use if you needed a high-quality recording of yourself, but for gaming, it definitely does the job.

Software

The G430, as with most other Logitech products, comes with a software suite that includes a full-blown control panel to finely tune your headset to optimal settings. You can adjust things like individual volume levels for the microphone and the headphones, as well as adjust the bass and treble by 12 dB either up or down.

You can also adjust each individual channel in the headset’s Dolby 7.1 surround sound, all the way down to the subwoofer portion. This would come in handy if certain channels were too loud for your liking, allowing you to tone down that specific channel while keeping the rest of them the same.

The big thing with the software, however, is that it’s not supported on OS X. The headset will still at least work on Apple’s OS, but you won’t get the Dolby 7.1 surround sound or the control panel where you can fine-tune your settings. Instead, you’ll be using OS X’s default (and very limited) sound settings in System Preferences. Essentially, you won’t be getting the full experience through OS X as you would on Windows.

Wrap-Up

Overall, the Logitech G430 headset is a quality product, but is it worth the $80 price tag? Yes, it is very worth it. In fact, we think the headset is worthy of a $100+, so you’re definitely getting a bargain here. However, not every product is perfect, and the G430 comes with faults that could deter some gamers, including a really tight fit around the ears, an annoyingly long cable, and no full OS X compatibility. However, if you can look past these faults (which are mostly personal preferences anyway) the G430 is certainly worthy to be in any gamer’s repertoire.

Hardware and Design

This is an all-new phone, but don’t be surprised if nobody realizes it. The GALAXY S 4 ticks all the must-have boxes for a recent Android handset, but Samsung’s decision to stick to the familial design language we’ve seen on the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II means that it’s only really when you have them together that the differences become clear.

The display is obviously larger – more on that in the next section – but the dimensions of the GALAXY S 4 itself are little changed. In fact, although at 136.6 mm long it’s identical in length to the Galaxy S III, judicious slimming of the bezels have left the newer phone narrower, at 69.8 mm versus 70.6mm, and thinner, at 7.9 mm versus 8.6 mm. That’s impressive stuff, whether you like the design or not. At 130g it’s a basically unnoticeable 3g lighter, too.

Side by side, and how Samsung has achieved that becomes obvious. At the top, the earpiece has been squashed up right next to the chromed plastic trim, flanked by the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and front-facing camera. The screen butts up closer to the sides of the phone, too, and extends further down into the chin, leaving the physical “home” button and touch-sensitive, backlit “back” and “menu” keys somewhat cramped. The angle of curve of the corners has reduced, losing a little of the “pebble” silhouette the old phone has. You still get the side-mounted power key and volume rocker, as well as a microUSB port and 3.5mm headphone socket.

Interestingly, although it’s officially thinner, the more squared-off sides of the GALAXY S 4 can leave it feeling thicker in the hand. The more pronounced taper of the Galaxy S III has the effect of making it feel like a slimmer device. Samsung has given the S 4′s edges a slight knurling, which makes it a little easier to grip, though the plastics are still glossy and slippery. That makes slipping the GALAXY S 4 into a pocket or bag an easy thing, but does also mean it can be easy to drop.

It’s also miles away from the premium feel of the HTC One or the iPhone 5. Samsung’s decision to go with plastic rather than metal (or even matte-finish polycarbonate, as we’ve seen Nokia use to good effect in its Lumia range) was one of our key complaints about the Galaxy S III, and keeping the lightweight casing has seemingly proved inescapable since the company wanted to announce a thinner phone. White and black versions of the GALAXY S 4 will be offered, both with a glossy finish, and they simply lack the high-end crispness that HTC and Apple deliver.

That’s not to say the Samsung is flimsy. The phone is creak-free, and the removable battery door – though wafer-thin – flexes just enough to reassure you that it’ll stand up to a trip in your pocket, rather than that it will snap as soon as you squeeze it. Samsung has used Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3.0 to protect the screen, the latest iteration and rated as three-times more scratch-resistant than v2.0.

It’s inside that things get really impressive, however. Samsung has boosted the memory to 2GB, and will offer 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions, all with microSD slots happy with up to 64GB cards. There’s WiFi a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz) complete with WiFi Direct, DLNA, hotspot, and Miracast support; Bluetooth 4.0; NFC; GPS/GLONASS; USB On-The-Go for external memory and peripherals; MHL-HDMI 2.0 for hooking up a TV or projector (with the right adapter); and an infrared port to turn the GALAXY S 4 into a universal remote. Sensors include an accelerometer, gyroscope, and digital compass, but also a moisture-measuring hygrometer, a thermometer, and a pressure-tracking barometer.

Not all GALAXY S 4 units are created equal, mind, and the big difference comes in connectivity and processor type. Samsung will in fact make multiple versions of the phone, to suit different networks. In the US, Samsung will offer a model for each of the big networks, all powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064T), a quadcore processor using four 1.9GHz Krait 300 cores, and accompanied by Adreno 320 graphics.

The same chipset will be at the heart of the international LTE GALAXY S 4, but for the non-LTE version, and the KT and SK Telecom LTE models for South Korea only, Samsung has saved its new eight-core chipset. Named the Exynos 5 Octa, this combines four ARM Cortex A15 cores (running at 1.6GHz on the non-LTE model and 1.8GHz on the South Korean version) with four Cortex A7 cores (running at 1.2GHz), and is the first example of ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. Of the eight cores, only four are ever active simultaneously: either the Cortex A15 for when more processing power is needed, or the Cortex A7 for greater power efficiency. It also gets an IT SGX544MP3 graphics chip.

How well that system works will have to wait until we can get our hands on the octacore-powered phone, though for the US it’s perhaps all academic since none of the carriers will be offering a version with the Exynos 5 Octa inside.

Display

Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology makes a reappearance on the GALAXY S 4, this time a 4.99-inch panel running at 1080p Full HD resolution, versus the 4.8-inch 720p panel of its predecessor. Controversy continues to rage over whether a near-5-inch display makes for a manageable phone, though the Android segment seems wedded to the “bigger is better” ethos for at least the time being.

The screen itself is undeniably a beauty. AMOLED is known for its bright, vivid colors and excellent viewing angles, and the GALAXY S 4 has both in spades. That, combined with the 1920 x 1080 resolution, means that – though purists may shudder at the mention of PenTile on the spec sheet – the phone is a joy to look at. As ever, AMOLED tends toward the over-saturated, and side by side with the HTC One, the slightly smaller phone arguably looks a little more natural.

Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic screen for multimedia, with video looking great while text is crisp even at tiny fonts. Web browsing also does well, with even full-site webpages easily navigable on the GALAXY S 4′s capacious display.

Software and Performance

The GALAXY S 4 admirably comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean – the latest version – out of the box, at a time when rival firms are still launching new devices with older iterations. However, Samsung simply can’t let Android escape without modifying it, and so you end up with the TouchWiz “Nature UX” and a long, long list of tweaks and new features.

Some are familiar from before: S Voice, for instance, Samsung’s take on Siri, as well as S Health for fitness monitoring. S Health can keep records of how many steps you’ve taken using the phone’s pedometer, as well as log the weather conditions around you using the various sensors; it will also work with a selection of new fitness-tracking accessories, too, though Samsung did not provide any for our review. ChatON, the voice/video/chat app is also preloaded, along with Samsung’s Hub.

The old Galaxy S III used its front-facing camera to make sure the screen didn’t go to sleep when you were reading but not tapping it; on the GALAXY S 4, that has been upgraded to what Samsung calls Smart Scroll and Smart Pause. The former tracks how you tilt the phone when you’re looking directly at the display, scrolling through ebooks or webpages automatically, while the latter pauses video playback when you turn away from the phone, and resumes it when you look back.

The screen itself has become smarter, too, with Air Gesture and Air View introduced. Just as the Galaxy Note II can track the nib of its S Pen stylus when it’s hovering over – but not touching – the display, now the GALAXY S 4 can recognize a fingertip close to its screen. Hover your finger over a Flipboard story, say, or a calendar entry, and a preview window will eventually pop up. It works, but it’s a little on the sluggish side for our liking: sometimes it proved quicker to actually tap in and then hit the back button, rather than wait for Air View to react. Not all apps support the feature, either: if you want Air View in your inbox, for instance, you have to use Samsung’s email app, not the Gmail app we prefer. One plus is that the GALAXY S 4 can be used even when you’re wearing gloves.

Air Gesture, meanwhile, builds on the Galaxy S III’s screenshot function – which screen-grabbed when you swiped the side of your palm across the display – by tracking hand movements above the phone. Using them, you can navigate through photo galleries and slideshows, through webpages, music playlists, and answer or dismiss calls. We still like the screenshot shortcut, which is often easier to trigger than holding down multiple buttons, but the rest can feel gimmicky.

Thankfully, you can selectively disable those you don’t want to use from an extended shortcut panel in the drop-down notifications menu. In fact, granularity of control is one of the big advantages of the GALAXY S 4: yes, there are plenty of add-ons and features that Samsung has thrown at its flagship, but it also recognizes that some people simply aren’t going to want to use them, and doesn’t make it difficult to turn them off.

Samsung has been bundling universal remote functionality with its Galaxy Tab tablets for some time now, using Peel’s Smart Remote software, but the GALAXY S 4 is the first of the company’s flagship phones to see the company’s home-grown technology. A small IR sensor on the top edge works with the new WatchON app, turning your handset into a touchscreen remote. Setup is straightforward – pick your TV, PVR, or cable box brand, and which cable, satellite, or other media provider you subscribe to – and you can start controlling channel selection, playback of recordings, and read through an EPG while you watch the big-screen.

So far, so like HTC’s Watch app on the One. However, where the HTC software only reminds you of shows if you’ve previously favorited them, the GALAXY S 4 can actively learn from your viewing habits and prompt you with new shows the algorithm believes you might be interested in. By hitting the Like or Dislike buttons, you teach WatchON your preferences, though it takes a little time before the suggestions felt like they were truly relevant. Being able to simply tap view (or, indeed, record) and have the phone automatically switch to the right channel is useful, however.

Happily, whether you’re running Samsung’s apps or third-party software, we’ve got no complaints as to how fast they run. In Quadrant, the GALAXY S 4 scored 12,593 overall – just slightly ahead of the HTC One – while in Linpack for Android it also bested HTC’s phone, managing 749.63 MFLOPS compared to the One’s 694.102. In Qualcomm’s own Vellamo test, it scored 1,783 in the HTML5 category and 814 in the Metal category: worse, and better, respectively than the One. HTC grabbed the lead in AnTuTu, however, with the GALAXY S 4 scoring 17,320, nearly 7,000 points behind the One.

In practice, it’s a smooth running, swift phone. No lag when hopping between apps or loading webpages, and no slow-down even when performing graphically-intensive tasks. Of course, our real interest is in how the big.LITTLE-powered variants do, since those models debut ARM’s new heterogeneous architecture.

Camera

That Samsung would step up to a 13-megapixel camera from the 8-megapixels of the old phone came as no great surprise. That certainly looks the part on paper, in a spec-driven world where bigger is presumed to be better; however, in the meantime we’ve also seen rival phones, such as HTC’s One, concern themselves with more than just megapixel counts. That raises the question: is the best way to improve your photos to throw more pixels at them?

As you might expect, that all depends on shooting conditions. The surfeit of pixels show their worth in outdoor shots where there’s plenty of light. That given, you get bright, saturated colors, impressive brightness, and grain only when you blow things up to near-maximum resolution. We did notice that the GALAXY S 4 prefers subjects to be at a distance, however: some close-up shots (that we wouldn’t quite consider to be in macro territory) show the phone struggling to lock focus exactly onto the subject, leaving things a little fuzzy.

As for actual macro images, they’re reasonable, though the GALAXY S 4′s tendency to over-saturate bright colors can leave things looking like you have HDR mode permanently switched on. In the flower close-ups in the gallery, for instance, the detail of the petals is lost in a botch of bright red, while the paler grasses in the background look grainy and insipid.

When things start to get darker – indoor images, for instance, or in the evening – however, is when we started wishing for bigger pixels rather than just more of them. Low-light images see grain make itself known, the GALAXY S 4 overcompensating with its sharpening correction, and the absence of optical image stabilization (OIS) can often lead to blur as the phone tries to grab more light per frame.

In short, it’s an acceptable phone camera, but it’s not the huge step up from what the Galaxy S III could deliver that, on paper, the megapixel increase might suggest. For low-light shots, too, we’d prefer Nokia’s Lumia 920, the OIS of which does an excellent job of smoothing out blur during longer exposures, or HTC’s One, which uses larger pixels (albeit fewer of them: 4-megapixels versus Samsung’s 13-megapixels) and OIS to maximize how much light it can capture. There’s a noticeably narrower field of view on the GALAXY S 4 compared to the One, too, with detail all around the periphery cropped out.

What you do get with Samsung’s camera is a number of different shooting effects to choose between. Dual Shot, for instance, combines images from the main camera and the 2-megapixel front-facing camera into a single frame: basically slotting your own face into the image. You can move the inset around the frame, and give it different outlines such as a postage stamp or a bubble, and while it can feel gimmicky at times, it does mean that your holiday photos prove you really were there at the time, not just whoever is in front of the camera.

There’s also Sound & Shot, which attaches a short audio clip to each still image – Samsung says it’s to capture the mood when you took the photo, though we prefer HTC’s combination of sound, images, and video with the Zoe system – along with Drama Shot, which combines a sequence of burst-photos into a single collage. You can create short gif images without needing to reach for a third-party app, or trigger a photo by calling out to the phone, just as we saw Samsung implement on the Galaxy Camera.

As for video, the GALAXY S 4 can capture at up to 1080p Full HD resolution both front and back. The camera app usefully adds a pause button along with stop, meaning you can halt and resume recording and still end up with a single file; with some careful timing, it means you may not need to post-process the footage before you upload it to YouTube. We’re also left impressed by the fact that the GALAXY S 4 can use Dual Shot during Full HD video recording, combining footage from both cameras.

Above: full resolution photos with GALAXY S 4′s back-facing camera in both standard and Dual Shot modes. Below: HDR photos with GALAXY S 4′s back-facing camera.

The same strengths and weaknesses of the new Samsung’s camera at stills are carried over to its video performance. Give it plenty of natural light and you end up with great colors and little noise, though the absence of OIS means clips can be shaky, especially if you’re panning. The cropping is also the same as for stills. Get into darker situations, however, and the grain seeps back in, with the closely-packed pixels struggling to make out what’s in front of them. The effect isn’t as pronounced as for stills, however; overall it’s not unusual for a phone camera, no, but it’s also not the best we’ve seen. Worth a mention is the quality of footage from the front-facing camera, which is particularly good.

Samsung GALAXY S 4 Bottle Photo:

HTC One Bottle Photo:

iPhone 5 Bottle Photo:

Samsung GALAXY S 4 1080p Video:

HTC One 1080p Video:

iPhone 5 1080p Video:

Battery and Phone

Just as the GALAXY S 4 is larger than the phone that came before it, so is the battery. Now at 2,600 mAh, it’s also user-accessible meaning that you can swap in a replacement should you run low during the day. There’s also optional wireless charging, if you use the Qi-compatible replacement back cover Samsung offers (but which we did not have to review).

Our lingering impression is that picking up a spare battery may well be a very good idea. Loaded up for typical use – with push email active; some use of maps, multimedia, and the camera; a few calls; and some messaging – the GALAXY S 4 ran for around 13-14 hours before needing a recharge. Longevity was particularly affected by what apps it was running, however. With instant-messenger LINE active, for instance, we saw runtimes drastically cut, even when the phone was in Airplane mode with no cellular data connection active. In contrast, LINE on the HTC One had minimal affect on power consumption.

Even if you’re draconian with your apps, that deliciously huge, bright display takes its toll on how long the GALAXY S 4 can run for. In fact it proved responsible for, on average, roughly 40-percent of the battery drain. Samsung does make some attempts at prolonging power, such as Smart Mode which remembers which locations you use WiFi and selectively switches it on and off when you get near, but even using WiFi we had mixed results. Unfortunately Samsung was unable to provide an LTE variant of the GALAXY S 4 for review, so battery testing while on 4G will have to wait.

As for calls, the GALAXY S 4 held its own. We experienced no drops, and the earpiece is loud at maximum volume. Interestingly, callers said they preferred the audio when we turned off Samsung’s adaptive DSP, which they told us made voices sound robotic and overly-processed. The main speaker can be cranked up suitably high, but it lacks the rich bottom end of HTC’s BoomSound system.

Samsung S View Cover

Samsung has a number of official accessories for the GALAXY S 4, but arguably the most interesting is the S View Cover. Like the flip cases the company has previously offered for the Galaxy S III and Note II, it flaps over to protect the display but adds minimal bulk, fixed to a replacement battery cover rather than fitting over the phone.

The difference, however, is the clear plastic window near the top of the cover, through which you can see a portion of the GALAXY S 4′s display. This takes advantage of one of the advantages of AMOLED compared to LCD: namely, that you can selectively power up a part of the display, but not the rest, and so consume less juice overall.

Here, Samsung uses that to put status information on the display, viewed through the window. You get the Android notification bar, with all of the usual icons including signal status and battery, as well as caller ID – and the controls to answer or reject calls – when someone rings. A cut-out above, matching with the earpiece, allows you to take the call without opening the cover. When you’re not taking calls, there’s room for a big clock and date display, as well as now-playing information for the music app.

It feels high-quality, and the concept works well. By only using a section of the AMOLED, rather than turning it all on every time you want to check for new messages, it helps cut down on the screen’s thirst for battery, and we quickly became used to pulling the phone out of our pocket just enough to glance at the status panel. At $59.99 it’s not the cheapest case, however, though Samsung does also offer a traditional Flip Cover – without the cut-out – for $20 less.

Wrap-Up

That the GALAXY S 4 will be a best-seller is pretty much a given at this stage. A combination of cutting-edge hardware, blanket advertising, and no small amount of headline-grabbing sparring with Apple has left the Galaxy series as the de-facto Android option for many, and that mindshare and marketing positions the new flagship to pick up the reins as soon as it hits stores.

That’s not to say that Samsung’s improvements aren’t impressive in places in their own right. The new Full HD AMOLED screen is a beauty, and there’s no shortage of power or storage for running the latest Android apps or, indeed, those likely to arrive in the coming months. As we’ve found before, some of Samsung’s software tweaks we used, and others we could happily leave; the exact mixture of which each user will come to rely on, though, will vary, and Samsung seems content to throw them all into the pot and let the individual decide. Video recording from both cameras is great too.

It’s probably the similarities in design that make the GALAXY S 4 feel evolutionary rather than revolutionary, though we’re left not entirely convinced that all of those developments are necessarily the best they could be. A 13-megapixel camera sounds great in theory, but it introduces compromises in low-light situations that HTC’s more imaginative system on the One doesn’t suffer from; Samsung’s big, bright screen may be beautiful, but it also takes its toll on the battery.

Samsung was once the challenger, spurred into action by Apple and the best-selling iPhone. Now, at the top of the charts in Android, it too has driven other manufacturers to take more risks and raise their game. The end result is a device like the HTC One, which in some ways feels more suited to how smartphone owners are actually using their phones. The GALAXY S 4 is a safe, capable, and solid option, and though Samsung’s flagship is perhaps no longer necessarily the best Android device on the market, it’s still a tremendously polished phone with plenty to satisfy the crowds eagerly awaiting it.

You’ll be working with some console controller-quality controls here with the MOGA Pro, start to finish. With this controller you’ve got your classic XYAB buttons in the upper-right, two clickable joysticks, and a directional pad on the lower left. These controls are all hit by you with your thumbs as the rest of your fingers hold tight down below.

This device will have you tapping away with two sets of buttons up above near your index fingers – two “shoulder buttons” and two “shoulder triggers” should do the trick. Once you’re connected to your Android smartphone or tablet, you have only to head to the MOGA app to see the massive amount of games available to you already optimized for MOGA Pro interaction!

You’ve got games like Wild Blood, The Conduit HD, and Shadowgun awaiting you right this minute! You’ll be able to connect with any Android device that has Bluetooth ready to rock and with a combination of the flip-up device holder and the in-box inclusion of a talbet holder, you’ll have a harder time finding a device you can’t use with it.

This device allow you to work with built-in controls or create custom-fitted controls for any game that supports it. You’ll be playing all day and all night with a flip-on backlight toggle, switching back and forth between smartphone and tablet modes with a flip of the center clip, and the whole construction is small enough to fit easily in the front pocket of your backpack!

The pricetag on this device is perfectly suited to how much it’s worth – just $49 USD and you’ll be kicking your Android gaming experience into high gear. Have a peek at our hands-on photos above and below and bring the experience home with you sooner than later!

Hardware

Nokia’s familial design language is clear in the Lumia 720, and it’s one of the more pleasing handsets to look at and hold in the company’s range. Narrower sides but wider top and bottom bezels make for a phone that’s slimmer but longer than the Lumia 820 it most closely resembles, though the 720 shaves 0.9 mm off the depth (taking it down to 9 mm).

There’s a compromise involved in that, though, which is that while wireless charging is an option, it’s not baked into the Lumia 720 natively. Instead, you have to slot the phone into a secondary skin, which makes contact with a row of pin-connectors running along the lower section of the rear. Then, it’s compatible with any Qi-compliant wireless charger, including Nokia’s own accessories; unfortunately, Nokia didn’t have the adapter shell available for us to test.

Bare, it’s a sturdy unibody with a smooth, matte finish; the red of our review unit is particularly fetching, but Nokia will also offer the 720 in white, cyan, yellow, and black. A Micro SIM-tray on the upper edge means Nokia can keep the back cover fixed – which also means no removable battery – while on the right side there’s the usual volume rocker, power/lock key, and camera shortcut. A microUSB port is on the bottom edge, and finally another pop-out tray on the left for a microSD card slot (to add to the 8GB of internal storage).

Nokia has been pushing two screen technologies of late, Clear Black for better contrast and outdoor usability, and increased sensitivity for the touchscreen meaning it will work even when you’re wearing gloves. Both are present on the Lumia 720′s 4.3-inch panel, a bright and colorful screen let down only by its mediocre resolution. At WVGA, rather than 720p, you miss out on the smoothness we’ve seen on other, more expensive phones. Admittedly, the effect is diluted somewhat by the smaller size overall, but we’d still loved to have seen an HD screen.

Inside, Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon S4 chip holds court, paired with 512MB of memory. Nokia may have omitted wireless charging, but you still get quadband 21.1Mbps HSDPA, quadband GSM/EDGE, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi b/g/n, and NFC. Above the display there’s a 1.3-megapixel camera with a wide-angle f/2.4 lens, while a 6.7-megapixel camera with f/1.9 Carl Zeiss optics is on the back, next to an LED flash. The latter will record 720p HD video, though not Full HD.

Software and Performance

Windows Phone 8 hasn’t deviated from what we last saw on a new Nokia, and so it’s all becoming familiar territory for both the firm and its users. The OS is undeniably approachable for first-time smartphone buyers, and while it doesn’t have widgets in the traditional sense, the Live Tiles system – where each of the resizable blocks can cycle through recent updates, media previews, upcoming events, new messages, and other information – can, with a little investment in setup time, be surprisingly rewarding. If you want to fill the homescreen with a grid of contact shortcuts, you can, or alternatively you can replicate an iOS-style layout with simple app buttons.

On top of that, Nokia throws in its own value-add, the growing suite of exclusive apps and services which the Finnish firm hopes will coax you away not only from Android or iPhone, but from other Windows Phone OEMs like HTC. Most notable are HERE Maps, HERE Drive, and Nokia Music, though there are a few tweaks along the way.

HERE Maps, for instance, now gets LiveSight and HERE Transit baked in, integrating the previously standalone City Lens and Nokia Transit technology within the one core app. LiveSight allows you to hold the Lumia 720 up and look “through” it at points of interest overlaid on top of a real-world view from the camera. It’s useful, particularly being able to zoom past buildings and see what’s behind them, if you’re in a new area, and the Nokia’s processor has no issues keeping up as you physically spin around to pan the camera.

HERE Transit, meanwhile, shifts the incredibly useful public transportation guidance into the core HERE Maps app, where it belonged all along. Nokia says it now has timetable data for more than 670 cities in 50 countries worldwide, with the ability to pin specific routes to the Windows Phone homescreen (and see, on a Live Tile, the next upcoming journey time).

What you don’t get is HERE Drive+, with global offline navigation. Instead, those in the UK will get UK and Ireland maps with offline support, but have to pay extra if they want navigation data for elsewhere in the world.

Nokia Music, meanwhile, continues to offer a compelling alternative for those shy of Spotify’s monthly subscription fee. Sign-up free, it offers 100 Mix Radio playlists that Nokia updates weekly, picking from a catalog of 22m tracks, the ability to create your own custom playlists triggered from an original “seed” track, and support for a limited number of offline playlists. The Nokia Music+ subscription service – an in-app upgrade – unlocks unlimited offline playback, as well as higher-quality audio on WiFi connections, and unlimited track-skips.

Last year we criticized Nokia’s Lumia 610 for coming to market with 256MB of RAM when the latest apps were calling for double that. The Lumia 720 makes a similar mistake – less serious initially, but likely to be no less frustrating over the course of a two-year agreement – with its 512MB looking short-sighted when apps demanding at least 1GB are starting to arrive in the Windows Phone Store.

Camera

Nokia’s 6.7-megapixel camera for the Lumia 720 uses a custom sensor and the company’s favorite Carl Zeiss optics, though falls short of PureView branding. Nonetheless, it’s a capable shooter, particularly in the sort of low-light settings we’ve praised PureView devices for previously.

So, you don’t get optical image stabilization, but you do get a camera that doesn’t lose its nerve when it comes to scenes with mixed bright and dark areas. There, the Lumia 720 leans toward maintaining detail in the low-light patches – though that can leave brighter scenes over-exposed – with results that belie the mid-range positioning of the phone. The LED flash is satisfactory, but we found we could often leave it switched off and rely on the camera’s inherent light-grabbing skills.

On the flip side, both photos and video (recorded at 720p maximum on both front and back cameras) have a tendency to introduce glare and lens-flare when you’re in brighter environments. Otherwise, video from the Lumia 720 looks solid, and the continuous auto-focus does a reasonable job at keeping your subject clear.

Our interest in front-facing cameras usually begins and ends with the odd Skype video call, but Nokia has made a specific play for those particularly keen to take self-portraits. As well as being equipped with a wide-angle lens, to fit more people in-shot, the Lumia 720 supports the new, wretchedly-named Glam Me app, which automatically enhances your selfies. Brightness, skin smoothness, blemishes and more are all ironed out, tweaked, and generally finessed; alternatively, you can apply one of several filters, with Instagram-like textures and color tones.

Phone and Battery Life

Nokia’s legacy for decent call quality continues with the Lumia 720, though the relevance of voice calls alone is perhaps questionable these days. Instead, we can’t help but feel that omitting LTE support was a missed opportunity.

The Lumia 720′s battery may be non-removable, but at 2,000 mAh it’s oversized for a 4.3-inch phone. That pays obvious dividends for runtimes: Nokia quotes up to 13.4hrs of talk time or up to 520hrs of standby (both on 3G), or alternatively 79hrs of music playback (locally-stored, not streaming).

In practice, with regular use – push email turned on, social networking use including Facebook and Twitter, some photography, music streaming, and HERE Maps – we easily made it through two days without having to reach for the microUSB charger. That’s almost enough for us to forgive the fact that wireless charging (or the kit needed to use it) isn’t bundled.

Wrap-Up

In some ways, the Lumia 720 is everything we’ve asked for from Nokia. It’s slickly designed and has superlative battery life, the camera out-performs rivals in the same price bracket, and the screen – though lower resolution than we like – is a nice compromise of size, outdoor usability, and general clarity.

Letting the show down are the absence of LTE and the potentially limiting 512MB of RAM. You could well say that the Lumia 720′s target audience won’t miss 4G, but there’s a growing cadre of people wanting higher-end features without a massive display, and they already know they want LTE. As 4G spreads, more and more people are going to expect it to on their phone. As for the RAM, that’s a more obvious drawback: games like Temple Run are quietly omitted from the Store, since they demand twice the memory the Nokia has.

It’s a frustrating flaw in what could’ve been a fantastic device, though the strengths in camera and battery life still make it a solid choice in the midrange.

With this case you’ve got for your iPhone 5 what Iron Man’s suit is to Tony Stark. You open the case up by removing four steel hex-head machine screws with a screwdriver included in the package to start. From there you can kiss touching the basic build of your iPhone goodbye.

After placing the iPhone in the case, you remove two protective slips of plastic from the screen cover and place it over the front of your iPhone. The front casing of the ProGear Vault fits over the top of this cover and holds the device in place just about as tightly as we can imagine with only the human hand pulling in. Allowing this tightness is a bit of elastomeric copolymer rubber that absorbs both shock and impact.

Once you’ve screwed the screws tight, you’ve got a case that’s made from “aluminum and engineering grade polymer materials”, according to Pelican. And though it may appear to be dangerously tough from the images you see above and below, you’ve still got plastic on the outside preventing your smartphone from gouging holds in your wood flooring if and when you drop it.

The home button is made from rubber while the volume up and down, the dial (controlling your mute or screen-rotation switch), and the power button are all made from aircraft-grade aluminum. Your power button and the flaps protecting your Lightning and headphone jacks are all made from rubber, each and every one of these bits precision tuned for high-grade protection while they remain easy to work with.

Both the front and back camera on your iPhone are protected by optical glass so the images you capture are just as high-quality as they’d have been outside the case. You’ve also got water-resistant covers for all microphone and speaker holes so you can continue to capture and hear top-notch audio while you’re protected from the elements.

The entire setup works with a “full-seal” design for defense against “extreme wind-driven snow, rain, and dust” – and it’s all guaranteed for life. Pelican even goes so far as to say that this case “will defend your fragile device better than any other phone cover available.”

The whole case measures in at 5.5 x 3.02 x 0.52 inches and weighs in at 2.72 oz (77.11 g) on its own. You’ll be able to pick this lovely piece of engineering up for $79.95 USD in Dark Gray-Red, White, Green, or Purple (Purple being the color we’ve got here for you to feast your eyes on. Let us know what you think, and grab one quick – straight from Pelican!

Hardware

Lenovo has these built out with a 23-inch display at 1920 x 1080, running Windows 8 and powered by an Intel Pentium G2020 processor. The model we tested had the processor clocked at 2.9GHz and with Intel HD Graphics 2500, 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. Hardware specs aside, the system itself has a decent overall look, albeit with a bezel that is a bit on the shiny side. Basically, that is just to say that you can expect to see dust, fingerprints and other smudges. Certainly not a deal breaker, but something to be aware of.

The setup itself is straight forward and easy. Aside from the 23-inch display, the C540 has a webcam sitting front and center on the top along with the power button towards the bottom on the left side of the system. In total there are six USB 2.0 ports — four on the back and two on the left hand side of the system. Also on the left side (above the power button) you will find the headphone and microphone jacks as well as a memory card reader. Rounding out the ports on the back and you have the power jack, HDMI and Ethernet. The system also has Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n connectivity.

Basically, just what you need and all in easy to access locations. The system itself is on the thin side and looking from the front, would appear to be nothing more than a regular monitor. The good part here is that as the C540 is an all-in-one — there is no tower needed. Another item worth noting is a DVD drive which can be found on the right-hand side. Otherwise, Lenovo ships the C540 with a USB keyboard and mouse and has the system sitting on a stand that swivels allowing you to adjust the viewing angle a bit.

Software

The Lenovo C540 is running a 64-bit edition of Windows 8, which means it will bring an experience that will be familiar to many. The basics are all included which means when you first get up and running you will find tiles for goodies such as your mail and calendar as well as people, photos and more. There is also a live tile for the weather as well as tiles for SkyDrive, Games, Camera, Music and Video.

Aside from the basics that you will find on just about an Windows 8 system, Lenovo has also added a few goodies of their own. We will leave the bloatware argument aside and instead simply note how these include some Lenovo specifics such as PowerDVD 10 and the slightly more important items such as the Lenovo System Recovery. Rounding out the software are some third party apps such as an Amazon app as well as a Kindle, Evernote and cloud storage app. The cloud storage app is SugarSync and it gets you started with 5GB for free.

Performance

Speaking in terms of performance, the system was able to handle our day to day needs with ease. Granted, quite a bit of that involved little more than a web browser, text editor and some basic image work. Of course, the key here is who the Lenovo C540 is aimed at — the average home user. In that respect, we have to say the C540 should be able to live up to your needs.

Taking this a step further and the play time experience was just as solid. That is to say we found no issues with some light gaming along with music and video streaming. Shifting over to the technical side, lets get into what the benchmarks look like for the Lenovo C540. These were done using Geekbench and the results are sitting below.

Wrap-Up

Bottom line here, the Lenovo C540 all-in-one seems to be well suited for the intended audience. That is to say the average home user that wants something powerful enough for day to day use. Of course, the good looks and relatively slim design only go to further that thought. The model as configured is priced from $500 and can be found with a variety of online retailers with prices through the $500 range. Also, as one would expect with desktop computers there is always the option to upgrade. In this case, Lenovo has options for faster processors, more RAM and even additional storage. Needless to say, based on what we have tested — we think this ‘as tested’ model will be just fine for the majority of users.

This brand new device was released on Verizon Wireless earlier this week and we’ve been putting it through the paces. It certainly isn’t a Galaxy S III or iPhone 5, but LG and Verizon are aiming for a more budget friendly crowd. Or someone that is fairly new to smartphones. You’ll be working with a decent mid-sized run of the mill 4.3-inch smartphone with some decent specs, but it’s the price point of free that is important here. Lets take a look.

Hardware

The LG Lucid 2 certainly doesn’t win any design awards, nor does it come with durable aluminum materials like the HTC One, however it does feel nice in the hand. It’s sized right, lightweight, yet still fairly durable. All things a first-time smartphone buyer might want. So what’s under the hood and how does it stack up? Here’s how!

The Lucid 2 comes with an average 4.3-inch qHD 960 x 540 resolution IPS display. It doesn’t look bad, but could certainly be better with most mid-range phones lately being at least 720p HD. Screen resolution aside this has all the makings to be a pretty stellar smartphone. Under the hood is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. LG’s added 8GB of internal storage along with a micro SD slot for expanding storage, and we get a pair of decent cameras. On the rear is 5 megapixels, and VGA up front should do okay for the average Skype call or Google+ Hangout.

As you can see from the gallery, it isn’t the thinnest smartphone but then again we did have the wireless charging cover on back which added about 4mm to the thickness. One important aspect to the size is the fact that we still get an impressive 2,460 mAh battery in such a small device. Add that to a smaller screen than most that isn’t HD, and only a dual-core processor and this thing lasts longer than most. In fact we’ve been able to go nearly 30 hours on a single charge with moderate use.

Sadly as far as hardware is concerned the device certainly doesn’t impress. It’s lightweight which is nice, but it also feels extremely cheap. The terrible plastics are not a favorite of ours, and they are even cheaper than most we’ve seen in the mobile space as of late. The bezels around the screen aren’t too big, and the capacitive touch Jelly Bean buttons were nice and responsive. We’d like the backlit keys to stay bright longer, as guessing got old very fast. In closing the hardware certainly isn’t the best around, but for being absolutely free we really can’t argue. Or knock too many points for it being cheap plastic, a lower resolution display, and only a 5 megapixel camera. Check it out in detail below:

Software

As you saw above, we are clearly working with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean but it has been covered with LG’s take on an Android skin. It’s not our favorite, but then it isn’t as intrusive as something like Sense UI. The animations are smooth, neat, and extremely fast – so we can’t really knock it. LG’s made a few tweaks we’ve seen lately and nothing here is really new. They have a few theme options to change the look and feel with ease, and even offer what they call a “starter mode” where the phone will get dumb-down for a first-time smartphone user.

Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean is extremely responsive with the dual-core processor, and LG’s software doesn’t seem to slow down performance. We enjoyed using things like Google Now voice search with Jelly Bean, and the expandable notifications are nice. Sadly LG’s pulldown bar is a mess. The WiFi button you see in the screenshots only wastes valuable pulldown bar space and we can’t get rid of it. We don’t need to see a massive box with our WiFi name Okay LG. The quick toggles in the notification bar were customizable, so that was good. And the screen brightness quick option is a nice touch too.

We had a little more bloatware than we’d like but that’s because Verizon has their own, and recently they’ve been adding Amazon’s suite too. Add those to the extra and not all that needed LG apps and we have a full 3 pages of apps out of the box. More than any first time buyer would need, to say the least.

Performance was swift thanks to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and project butter, and the animations were extremely quick making the entire device just feel fast and fluid. LG’s main issue lately has been with somewhat buggy software, and the lack of updates. As long as this continues to get a few updates in the future to Key Lime Pie and beyond we’ll be happy.

Benchmarks

As usual we had to run a few benchmarks just to see how the phone and that dual-core processor handled some daily tasks. As we mentioned above the entire device feels fast and flies during average tasks, so take these as you will. It holds its own quite well thanks to the Snapdragon S4 under the hood and 1GB of RAM. So we’ll take it.

Camera & Phone

The Lucid 2 comes with an average 5 megapixel camera but it was up to the job for those usual Facebook or Google+ photos. Video recording is only 720p, but that was to be expected. Thankfully the shutter speed and camera interface is much better than the original Lucid, and you’ll be snapping Facebook-worthy pictures in seconds. Here’s a few indoors, as well as outdoors for good measure. Good enough right? Hey the phone is free!

As far as a “Phone” is concerned, the Lucid 2 does great. The actual call quality is great thanks to Verizon, and the speakerphone was louder than many devices we’ve used in the past. Sadly 4G LTE seemed to be a little choppy in an otherwise stable locations, but we’ll check with Verizon and get back to you on that. LTE dropped often and would default to 3G, then our data speeds for YouTube and browsing the web suffered. For most this shouldn’t be an issue however.

Battery Life

As we stated above, the LG Lucid 2 happily comes with a larger than average battery given the size of the smartphone. LG paired a quality 2,460 mAh battery under the hood of this mid-range phone and it lasts far longer than many. We managed nearly 30 hours of battery on a single charge with minimal usage, and with heavy gaming and some web-browsing over WiFi it still lasted from morning til night. We didn’t need to plug it in overnight either, that’s the biggie. You won’t be crying if you forget to charge your phone during the wee hours of the night.

LG’s software tweaks really made showing the battery life a task, as the image above shows the battery drain at 21 hours, and that went all the way down to 10% after about 25 hours. Usually stock Android has a great battery stat page, but LG decided to make it a bit complicated. That aside because it doesn’t matter, battery life is stellar on the LG Lucid 2. Certainly the best for a budget phone, considering the RAZR M only has a 2,000 mAh battery and nearly the same specs.

Accessories

With the LG Lucid 2 being free with a new 2-year contract, Verizon has a few accessories they’ll want you to buy while you are in the store. One that is a pretty decent move considering you’re walking out not paying a cent is the wireless charger options. Using what LG calls the “world’s smallest” wireless charger to drop it and go for only $39.99. This charger is made of the same extremely cheap plastic materials, but has a nice durable set of feet so it won’t slide around. Simple drop your Lucid 2 on it smack-dab in the middle and it will instantly start charging. It has a nice notification LED too.

Then LG’s also included in Verizon stores a wireless charging dock and spare battery charger. The dock pictured above sadly doesn’t have audio out or anything of that nature, but will put your Lucid 2 in a nice landscape mode while you sleep. It also doubles as a charger and conveniently comes with a spare battery that will also charge up all night. So basically LG has battery life completely covered with the Lucid 2.

Wrap-Up

LG has done a rather fine job here in terms of what you get with the Lucid 2 for the price. The fact that they are offering a fairly decent mid-range phone (screen aside) completely free with a new 2-year contract is the selling point here. You get a powerful, capable, and up to date Android Jelly Bean smartphone all absolutely free. Then from there you can enjoy some wireless charging and spend that money on apps from the Play Store instead.

So in closing is the Lucid a device we’d recommend to someone who is considering the iPhone 5, Galaxy S III (or S4) or any other high end device? Nope! Nor does the device deserve any such sort of recommendation. What we will say is for a teenager or a first time smartphone buyer the Lucid 2 for free is a pretty good option, and something worth taking a look at in a store near you. Enjoy the rest of the photos below.

Hardware

The Galaxy Note 8.0 works with an 8-inch display with 1280 x 800 pixels across its face – that’s not exactly the sharpest screen on the market, mind you, but it’s certainly sufficient for the basics. Compared to the biggest competition this device has – the iPad mini – it’ll certainly do enough to fight: the iPad mini rings in at 163 PPI while the Galaxy Note 8.0 brings a cool 189 PPI to the table.

There are going to be at least two versions of this device coming to the market, one of them being the wifi version we’ve got here. This version works with wifi connectivity alone, leaving the 3G/Phone abilities iteration to come internationally. There’s also the possibility of a 4G LTE version coming to the USA later this year. Any version of the tablet appears to be coming in at the same 210.8 x 135.9 x 7.95 mm – thin and light indeed at 340g.

The S-Pen you get here fits snug inside the side of the tablet right under the right-hand side when you hold the tablet in portrait mode. This particular S-Pen and tablet has a newly advanced set of features that work exclusively with one-another. One of the first – and perhaps most important – of these is the pen’s ability to tap the menu and back buttons below the display where past Galaxy Note devices were unable to do so.

You’ll be using the S-Pen to preview objects as well – “Air View” is what this is called, and it works not just with gallery images and videos as it did with the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy Note 10.1, it now has the ability to preview Flipboard stories, open website menues that normally require clicking, and preview an email attachment. Some/all of these features will be available to your finger with the Air View connection on your Samsung GALAXY S 4, too.

This tablet is just a bit too big to hold comfortably in one hand while you’re walking around and penning in notes with the S-Pen with the other. If you want top-notch on-the-go note-taking, you’ll want to check out the original Galaxy Note or the Galaxy Note II – they’ll even fit in your pocket! With the Galaxy Note 8.0 you’ll be popping your hardware out at the desk or on the bus more than likely. This device is just large enough to join the Galaxy Note 10.1 with the lap-balance family of tablets.

Meanwhile this device is, once again, small enough to fit into your purse, your backpack, or whatever kind of travel sack you’ve got on-hand. You’ll find the device to match the aesthetic of the Samsung GALAXY S 4 you’ll be purchasing this spring or summer and – for now – you’ll be getting it in any color you like (just so long as it’s white).

Remember also that this device is made of plastic and glass – the front panel is all reinforced glass while the back is a hard white shiny plastic. This device is not crash-proof in any way save the most basic of falls – you’ll likely want to pick up a case and/or screen protector or two before you head out for a night on the town with the Galaxy Note 8.0.

Software

The S-Pen that comes with this device is at the center of the excellence of the software experience. Though the processor in this device is more powerful than any other Samsung tablet at this size, if you’re not all about the S-Pen, you might want to consider a device like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 (see our full review here) for your money – its display is much sharper and the back casing is made of aluminum – hardcore! Of course the Galaxy Note 8.0 also has Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and all the positives that brings on – including Google Now.

With the S-Pen you can circle any piece of your screen and store it as a screenshot. Save it to a note and write about it to read about it later. You can add hand-written notes to your Office documents with Polaris Office, work on both Word and PowerPoint slideshows, and do it all in Multi Window view. With your Muli Window view you’ve now got the ability to watch a YouTube video while you draw a picture in S Note, move files around in My Files while you chat with your buddies in ChatON – whatever you like!

You can access a collection of Samsung Multi Window supported apps by holding down the device’s back button – that little white tab you see can be pulled out and bam! There you’ll see apps like Music Player, My Files, Polaris Office, S Note, and S Planner. Each of these apps can be run at half-screen, quarter-screen, or full-screen. This is separate from your basic Android app switcher (multi-tasking again, that is) which you can access with a long-press of your home button.

You’ll also have access to Group Play, an app that’s been part of the Samsung smartphone and tablet experience for the past couple of generations for smartphones and tablets. With this you’ll be able to join up with other Samsung smartphones and tablets in your local wireless network and share a screen – the screen you have up will be the same screen they see from their device. You can share photos, music, PDF files, and even PowerPoint slideshows!

You’ve now got more than one app right out of the box that’ll make use of your built-in IR-Blaster – that’s the black piece of plastic sitting on the side of your tablet. With that you’ll be able to control your television – and it’s not only smart TVs that work! You’ll simply have to choose your TV brand and go through a short troubleshooting session to get connected. Both Peel and WatchON are available now to bring you into your local television network’s listings day-by-day.

With WatchON you’ll be given not only the day’s television schedule, you’ll be able to get notified of shows several days in advance and will have access to detailed information about the programs you’ve got coming up! Tap in and head directly to the channel you’d like to watch straight from the tablet! Of course if you’ve got a 2013 Samsung Smart TV, you’ll have only to connect your TV and your tablet to the same wifi network – and you’re off and running.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 has a special “Reading Mode” that auto-tunes your settings for optimal reading levels. You’ll find the experience a bit more soothing to your eyes – you’ll certainly not be seeing everything at full-blast brightness. Reading Mode is accessible in your normal Settings – Display section and works with only certain apps until you add your favorites in manually. Thus far the Reading Mode option has not proven itself to be the eyeball-saver a true E-Ink E-Reader would be, but it’s fair enough, and nice to have as an option if you’re in the mood.

Awesome Note is now prepared for Android and will come with your Galaxy Note 8.0 right out of the box. Imagine an app that has every single option you could possibly want out of a digital repository for notes – that’s Awesome Note. Of course if you’re already using Evernote, you might just want to skip the Awesome Note experience. If you want your notes to be extremely well organized and lit up with friendly rainbow colors, go with Awesome Note.

You’ll find that this device busts out with its quad-core 1.6Ghz Exynos processor quite nicely – it’s not going to top the newest smartphones on the market as it does have a bit more screen real-estate to work with, but it’s certainly part of this current generation of multi-core beasts. Let us know in the comments below if there are any other tests you’d like us to run through other than the ones you see in the gallery above – we’d be glad to!

Camera

On the front of this device you’ve got a 1.3 megapixel camera and on the back you’ve got a 5 megapixel camera (with no flash). You’ll be taking some relatively nice photos with the back-facing camera, and the front-facing camera’s photos leave something to be desired. Like past Samsung tablets, this Galaxy Note 8.0 is able to take basic shots for uploading to social networks like Facebook, if that’s your poison of choice, but it’s certainly not something you’ll want to bring to replace your pocketable camera for a long vacation. It’s extremely likely that whatever smartphone you’ve got in your pocket takes better photos than this tablet.

Have a peek at a few example shots above and below and see what you think – also take note that the back-facing camera protrudes somewhat – this isn’t a tablet you’ll be wanting to bang back-down on concrete, that’s for sure.

Battery

If you plan on using this device non-stop from battery topped-off to battery zero, you’ll be working for a good 6 hours. Without mobile data running your battery into the ground, and if you’re not kicking out top-brightness or using your GPS to map the world, you’ll have some rather great battery life with the Galaxy Note 8.0. When the device’s display is off and you’re not downloading files – aka when the device is idle – you’ll find your battery drain flatlining.

That means that if you don’t use your tablet all that often, you’ll find charging to be a rather rare activity. If your display is off and you’ve got no internet activity going on, this device basically uses no power at all. That’s Samsung’s own Exynos processor you’ve got to thank for such a thing. Power Saving mode helps, too.

Wrap-up

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is going to be your perfect Samsung GALAXY S 4 companion – it’s got the same design aesthetic, it has a lot of the same features, and they both come in white! Of course when you find yourself marveling over the fact that the GALAXY S 4 is able to compete with this tablet for processing power, you’ll be a bit baffled about your Note purchase. The S-Pen will save the day, on the other hand, as there’s really nothing on the market that compares with what Samsung has done with this little value-added utensile.

The price on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 may be prohibitive to some at the outset – $399.99 USD (MSRP) in the USA starting in mid-April. If you’re all about travel-worthiness, there’s really nothing more all-inclusive from this manufacturer. Unless you want forward-facing speakers that don’t get covered up by your palm when you’re holding it (the Galaxy Note 10.1 has those) or a pocketable size (the Galaxy Note II has that if you’ve got big pockets). If you’re set on getting one of Samsung’s S-Pen-laden Note devices and you don’t want it to be too big or too small, the Note 8.0 may be just your cup of porridge.

Hardware

This machine’s screen is an 11.6-inch TFT LCD with 1136 x 768 pixel resolution working with LED Backlit technology and 350 nits of brightness. This display has a 170 degree viewing angle both vertical and horizontal, and its certainly good enough to work long hours worth during the day. If you’re thinking about working with this device in the dark, you might want to take a test-drive in the store first.

With blacks this dark and a keyboard that’s not backlit, you’ll want a bright lamp over your shoulder at least. If you want to bring this device to the coffee shop, you’re looking at a winner. This machine is 11.7 x 8 x 0.61 inches small, and save the MacBook Air itself, we’ve never experienced a more portable system. With just 2.73 lbs to its name, this machine is ready to be tossed in your backpack or large purse without effort.

Because this machine is made by Lenovo, it’s extremely rugged. While when we’re working with essentially any other notebook this size, there’s always a thought of “ah, gotta make sure I’m not dropping it.” With the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11, we’ve got a machine that we’re as close to “lemme toss this to you across the room” as we’ve ever gotten with a computer. With soft-touch plastic around magnesium aluminum alloy both on the top and on the bottom – in a lovely set of colors, might I add – you’ve got what feels like a top-notch complete package.

Inside you’ve got a few more specifications you might want to hear about if you’re planning on using this device for anything other than word processing, internet browsing, and some basic gameplay. Have a peek:

• 2 GB std / 2GB max / PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3L*, soldered to system board, no sockets *System automatically clocks down to 1500MHz for NVIDIA Tegra3 T30 processor
• Audio: High Definition (HD) Audio, Realtek® ALC5642 codec / stereo speakers (0.5 watt x 2), microphone, microphone input and headphone combo jack (3.5 mm)
• 64 GB / eMMC (embedded Multi Media Card) flash memory onboard
• 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, SD card reader, 3.5mm Mic/Headphone Combo
• Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, Digital Compass
• OGS Panel – Single piece of glass as both cover lens and sensor substrate

The hardware is solid and really, really high quality. You’ll be considering the software it’s paired with next – and more than likely last, too. Make sure you know what you’re working with here and follow the Windows RT news before you jump in, feet first.

Software

It’s not easy reconciling the fact that this beautiful machine is working with Windows RT. Having a touchscreen up front that’s able to be used in several different modes is awesome, but when you’re crippled by an operating system that looks and feels like Windows 8 but isn’t – that’s confusing.

Using Windows RT is almost like eating an off-brand cereal without seeing the box: it certainly looks like the real deal, but once you taste it, you get wise. You’ll be unable to run Google Chrome, Valve’s Steam for games, or Geekbench for benchmarking your system. With Windows RT, you’re getting what’s closer to what seems to be intended as a tablet system rather than a full-fledged notebook setup.

That said, you do get the option of ordering this system with the full Microsoft Office suite running right out of the box. Microsoft has been pretty good about making sure their own basic set of apps works on Windows RT, and you do have access to the NVIDIA TegraZone Windows RT Edition as well – however limited that may still be. If Judge Dredd VS Zombies and Hydro Thunder are enough to wet your whistle, then by all means go for it – NVIDIA is also growing this collection too as the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor (found inside this device) stays strong through 2013.

Up against the Competition

Your big question might be at this point what the benefit is in having this device over any other – especially one so inexpensive as, say, a Chromebook. When it comes down to it, this device has that same acceptance curve as a Chromebook has – you just can’t run everything you run on your full-powered PC. We’d even thought about trying to work with this device as a sort of top-tier Chromebook too to test how it’d be, but again, Chrome doesn’t work on Windows RT.

If you’re comparing this device to a full Windows 8 Lenovo notebook, you’ll be in for a trick – working with Windows 8 on the IdeaPad Yoga 13 is a good enough to feel a bit left out with the Yoga 11′s relative lack of oomph – and it’s certainly not a device you’re going to want to compare to a MacBook Air unless you only need it for word processing and browsing the web (on Internet Explorer). The price for this machine does remain enticing: anywhere from $599 to $849 USD and you’ve got a real draw. Compare it to the relative greatness of the Yoga 13, on the other hand, and you might as well drop the extra few bucks to work with full Windows 8 and the larger display.

Wrap-up

You’ll have to think this one through – unlike the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, you’ve not got a full-powered PC on your hands here. This device is made to be a traveler, and certainly not your one single machine if you’ve got a computer-based job. Should you want to use your PC for nothing but social networking and play, this is a good choice – it’s relatively inexpensive and it’s good for travel.

Lenovo has created a bit of a bitter winner here. While many devices in this category are pretty awesome from top to bottom save their end product, the IdeaPad Yoga 11 is rough and tough and is something I’d put in my backpack for a trip. If I were going on a business trip with my SlashGear compatriots, I’d have to leave it at home.

Hardware

HTC may put Facebook at the core of the First, but the hardware does remind us of another phone: the HTC One S. At 4.96 x 2.56 x 0.35 inches and 4.37 ounces it’s a little shorter, but slightly thicker and heavier, than the 2012 midrange handset, sacrificing some sleekness by virtue of its cheaper soft-touch plastic body rather than the One S’ more premium-feel metal. HTC will offer four color options: white, black, red, and pale blue.

The front is dominated by a 4.3-inch, 720p resolution Super LCD display. We’ve already praised HTC for compromising on the size/usability argument with the 4.7-inch One, which we prefer to 5-inch devices, and the 4.3-inch form-factor of the First makes for another nicely scaled phone. The curved edges of the matte-finish unibody casing nestle into the hand well, and while it may not be Full HD, the 341ppi of the display means it’s more pixel-dense than an iPhone 5.

It’s also bright and clear, with decent viewing angles. Underneath, there are three touch-sensitive keys – back, home, and menu – though no dedicated Facebook key, unlike HTC’s earlier Salsa and ChaCha handsets; in fact, the only physical controls are a volume rocker on the left edge and a power button on the top, along with the 3.5mm headphones jack. The microSIM tray and microUSB port are on the right edge, and there’s a small – and fairly weedy – speaker on the bottom.

The back (which has pleasing proportions that remind us of the original iPhone) has a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash, while a 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera is included for your Facebook selfies. Both use backside-illuminated sensors and, in the case of the front camera, an ultrawide lens for including more people in-frame. However, there’s none of the UltraPixel cleverness that HTC has included on the HTC One.

Inside is where the $100 sticker price of the First begins to properly show. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 8930AA dualcore running at 1.4GHz, paired with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage; like other HTC handsets in recent months, there’s no microSD card slot to add to that, and nor do you get a removable battery. Instead, the 2,000 mAh Li-Poly pack is fixed.

Connectivity includes quad band HSPA+/GSM/EDGE and dualband LTE – AT&T has already confirmed it will be offering the First, complete with 4G support – as well as WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. There’s none of the 802.11ac WiFi support of the HTC One, but the First does get NFC, dual-microphones, GPS/GLONASS and a digital compass.

The most noticeable thing about the First is, perhaps ironically, just how inconspicuous it is. The barely-ornamented chassis – which includes relegating HTC’s logo, along with those of Facebook and AT&T, to discrete silk-screens at the bottom half of the back of the phone, with no branding on the front whatsoever – basically serves as a discrete frame for Facebook. It reminds us a little of HTC’s origins as a white-label designer, pumping out handsets for carriers to rebrand, and while the First is a sturdy little thing, it’s hardly memorable.

Software and Performance

We’ve reviewed Facebook Home separately, since the new launcher will be available not only on specific “experience” devices like the First, but also as a free download for certain existing Android handsets from the Play market. In short, it’s a replacement to the everyday user experience of an Android phone, as tightly integrated with Facebook services – and as exclusionary of others – as you’d expect.

Underneath, though, is pure Android 4.1, with none of the Sense customizations that have been the default for HTC over the past few years. In fact, you have to look back to the original Nexus One to find the last pure-Android HTC. The irony is, of course, that as of Sense 5 on the HTC One, we’ve actually come back around to liking the company’s customizations. There’s also still no guarantee that, as per a Nexus-series device, you’ll get more timely OS updates versus a Sense phone. One other hiccup was how the menu button was handled: some apps simply don’t seem to recognize it.

As for speed, we were pleasantly surprised with how smooth Facebook Home is on the First’s more humble specifications. Facebook told us that it has worked hard to make sure things like the physics engine behind the animations, and the way the launcher renders, are in keeping with the processing potential of the Snapdragon 400 chipset, and that has certainly paid off for a silky user-experience.

Of course, not everything happens in Home, and so we put the First through the usual benchmarking trials to see how it held up. In Quadrant, it scored 6,346, putting it comfortably ahead of last year’s One X, while a SunSpider browser test score of 1,567.8ms (lower is better) brings the First surprisingly close to where the One scored, with only around 400ms between them.

AnTuTu v3 saw the First manage 11,156, with the internal storage hitting 48.1MB/s reads and 20.7MB/s writes, while in Qualcomm’s own Vellamo tool it scored 2,185 in the HTML5 tests and 587 in the Metal tests. That puts it ahead of the Galaxy S III (on Android 4.0.4, at least) in HTML5 performance, but behind the One X for its Metal store.

Camera

With 5-megapixels to play with, HTC is aiming decidedly at the mid-range with the First’s camera. Unfortunately, while the megapixel count may be similar to that of the HTC One, the pixel technology isn’t, and so the Facebook phone suffers from mediocre low-light performance, among other shortcomings.

As with all phone cameras, give the First ample natural light and it can produce some reasonable stills. Unfortunately, as soon as you step away from those ideal conditions, things get shaky. We saw more noise from the First’s camera than we’d like to, with muted colors and trouble focusing at times, Video suffers in much the same way, with the resolution being less of an issue than the noise and lackluster colors.

Whether most users will care about all that is questionable. Just as the First – and Facebook Home itself – is designed for consuming Facebook media, perhaps its camera will only ever be expected to create basic snapshots for sharing on the social site. Nonetheless, having seen what UltraPixel can do for low-light settings, such as the parties, concerts, and other dimly-lit venues of fun that are commonly documented on Facebook, it’s a shame that those are the type of images that will fare the worst on the First.

Battery

The First will last for up to 14.3hrs of talk time or up to 18.2 days of standby, AT&T says, though that’s likely to be heavily dependent on how socially active you are, and whether it’s over LTE or not. In practice, with the combination of the mid-range specifications and Facebook’s own software refinement, we saw some impressive longevity out of the First. With mixed use, we saw the gage drop by only around 20-percent over the course of more than 14hrs, for instance.

What you don’t have manual control over is how much often Facebook Home refreshes. Facebook has adjusted the default behavior depending on whether you’re connected to WiFi or cellular data, but there’s no manual override, and as such you’re at the mercy of what Facebook and HTC believe to be the most sensible settings. You do get three tiers of data use/image quality settings – high, medium, and low – though no more granular control than that.

Wrap-Up

You could argue that the HTC First is in a category on its own, the first and so-far only dedicated Facebook Home device. That’s certainly how HTC and AT&T would like you to see it. However, there are plenty of ways to do social aggregation – HTC’s own BlinkFeed for instance, on the One, pulls in Facebook updates among other things – and viewed in the grander scheme of things, the First simply doesn’t feel like a $100 device. We’d certainly argue strongly in favor of spending the extra $100 upfront and going for the more refined build quality, better camera, and generally more impressive hardware and software experience of the HTC One, for instance.

We also noticed that, for all the First is meant to be a great social phone, we quickly grew frustrated by its social immersion. Part of that is because we’re not fully committed to any one single service, and Facebook Home does its level best to bury others, like Twitter and Google+, beneath the surface.

More critically, there’s not enough control over what gets included in Cover Feed and what doesn’t. The First is a window into your entire Facebook experience, whereas most of the time we wanted a more pared-back glimpse into the subset of people we’re particularly interested in. That could be addressed with support for Facebook’s existing Groups, and we’d not be surprised if it’s high on the company’s to-do list, but right now it’s a hit & miss affair as to whether you’ll turn on your phone and be faced with something you actually care about, from a friend you’re actually close to. Ironically, Facebook Home is perhaps the best argument for pruning your friends list that we’ve seen in some time.

If the HTC First was a $99.99 device on prepay, we’d be a lot more comfortable recommending it. With a two-year agreement involved, and the relatively small step up to a device like the HTC One, which we rate so strongly, it’s not just Facebook Home’s beta-style performance that gives us pause for thought. The First is not a bad handset, but it’s a generally nondescript one, and Facebook Home is not the “killer launcher” that would make it a must-buy.

It’s social, stupid

Home is a launcher and a partial skin, and it takes advantage of the flexibility baked into Android for third-party modification. Unlike iOS and Windows Phone, which have tight controls on UI, Android is set up to allow for different launchers: when you download it, you can choose to have it load just the once, or set it as your default, in which case it’ll show up every time you hit the home button.

Arguably the easiest way to get Facebook Home will be to buy a handset with the launcher preloaded. Initially, that means just one device – the HTC First, which we’ve reviewed in full here – and one US network, AT&T, with the mid-tier First coming in at $100 with a new, two year agreement. Further partnerships with device manufacturers are in the pipeline, including Samsung and Sony among others.

A Facebook Home Program phone won’t be the only way to get hold of the new launcher, however. In fact, those users are more than likely to be the minority; for those with a compatible existing phone, Facebook Home will be available as a free download through the Google Play market. The first crop of supported handsets includes the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S 4, and Note II, as well as the HTC One X, One X+, and One. Broader support will follow on in time, Facebook says.

Cover Feed

Facebook certainly gets its money’s worth from Cover Feed: the social stream is both the lock screen and the homescreen for your device. At the bottom, in the center, is a single control – your profile photo in a small, circular bubble – which, if dragged, can be pulled across to launch the messenger, open the app launcher, or bring back your last-used app.

The bulk of the screen, though, is devoted to your Facebook friends. It’s an edge-to-edge view of their latest status updates, photos, links, and Open Graph entries, cycling through the recent content with a splash of mild animation to keep things visually pleasing. Individual photos pan across the screen, behind the status text, name, date it was posted, and location, while there are also small buttons in the lower left corner for immediately liking the post or reading/adding comments.

Double-tapping a status update “Likes” it, while single-tapping opens the comments. Small text in the lower right shows how many likes and comments there are, together with a preview of who made them. Alternatively you can long-press on the photo, and it will zoom so that you can see the whole picture in one go.

It certainly looks impressive, as long as you have some photo-addicted friends. On the flip side, Facebook adjusts the resolution and number of new photos you see depending on whether you’re using a mobile data or WiFi connection, to try to avoid hammering through your data allowance (you can also choose whether you want to see low, medium, or high image quality). Cover Feed is basically defined by who you’re friends with and how exciting their lives are; if they post text-only status updates, all you’ll see is an enlargement of their profile photo in the background.

Notifications

It also pays to have quite a few friends – though if you’re considering a Facebook Home phone or even just the launcher, perhaps that’s a given – since Home is quite an insular place. Too few and your Cover Feed will be relatively empty; on the flip side, however, with no way to filter out which groups of people feed the timeline, there’s a frustrating lack of control over what you see day to day. This is particularly the case with notifications: on the HTC First, you get alerts for all apps and services, but if you’re using Home on an existing handset, only Facebook notifications come through.

Either way, notifications bubble in as simple grey bars, with profile photos if they’re of new status updates, messages, or Facebook check-ins, or app icons – such as email, phone or Instagram – if they’re from elsewhere on your handset. You can tap them to open them, or swipe them away off the screen; long-pressing on one notification allows you to lasso multiple notifications and dismiss them simultaneously.

If you’ve got rid of them, though, you can call them back using the standard Android Jelly Bean notification bar, though it’s hidden by default. A tap at the top of the Cover Feed screen makes it briefly visible – complete with the usual clock, network signal, battery status, and any notification icons – and then dragging it down opens it completely.

Again, as with Cover Feed, it all works well in the context of Facebook. Using Home on a device other than the First, however, hides a lot of Android’s other glitz and features, not least any support for homescreen widgets. In fact, they’re completely absent from Home.

Chat Heads and Messenger

Passively consuming photos and links isn’t the only aspect of Facebook Home: instant messaging is also heavily integrated into not only the launch, but the Android system as a whole. New messages pop up as circular bubbles showing either the user’s profile photo or, in the case of group messages, a collage of those photos. By default, they bubble into view in the upper right corner, clustering across the screen as they stack up, but each can be dragged around (or, with a long-press and a lasso gesture, multiple Chat Heads can be grabbed) and either pushed to other areas of the screen or dismissed altogether.

That’s important, as Chat Heads permeate all through the OS, appearing on top of whatever app you’re using – Facebook or otherwise. It soon becomes second nature to snatch one up with your thumb and either open it or flick it away; however, you can also flick it to the side of the screen, where – after a little bounce – it will cling.

Tap to open it, and you get the usual Facebook messenger window on top of whatever you were looking at before, whether that be the Cover Feed homescreen, the Android browser, a game, or something else. You can also call up a Chat Head yourself, by long-pressing a person in the regular messenger list, and choosing to pop them out as a bubble.

Chat Heads works well, though again there’s a walled garden effect that will frustrate anybody who isn’t entirely committed to Facebook for their messaging needs. The latest iteration of the Facebook messenger app pulls in SMS text messages, but it doesn’t support Google Talk or other IM systems, and so the overall usefulness of Chat Heads is diluted.

App Launcher (and everything else)

Facebook Home may be all about Facebook, but the social company does at least recognize that Android users are likely to want to access other apps. For that, there’s the app launcher, a quick-launch hub from which you can jump to your most commonly used software.

Drag the profile picture on the homescreen up, and the app launcher pane loads, a 4×4 grid of shortcuts that can be dragged and reorganized at will. Above it, there are buttons to post a new Facebook status message, a photo, or to check-in at your current location. Multiple pages of apps are supported, and you can drag new icons in by swiping to the left to open up the full app drawer and then bring them over to the main launcher pane.

The app drawer also has a Google search bar at the top of the screen, but that’s the only widget-style action you’ll get. There’s no support for any native Android or third-party widgets, and no way of accessing the regular Android homescreen, since Facebook Home replaces it completely. You do still get Google Now access, however, with a long-press on the home button calling it up; a double-tap opens the Android app switcher.

Wrap-Up

On the one hand, you can see the argument for Facebook Home. The social network is hugely popular, and there’s no shortage of people who check in on the latest updates multiple times a day. It’s become a way for old school friends to rediscover each other, family members to share the latest events in their lives, and for colleagues to collaborate more casually with services like messenger.

Nonetheless, in its first iteration, Facebook Home doesn’t quite hit the spot. It feels like it should have been a beta; indeed, Facebook was keen to point out at its launch event that it’s definitely a work-in-progress. The problem is, Facebook hasn’t taken baby steps: it wants to be your new Android homescreen, and anything from third-parties is basically lost or hidden in the process.

Factor in things like the complete lack of support for widgets and the inability to tailor who gets included in Cover Feed, and Facebook Home stumbles out of the gate. As a result, it’s difficult to recommend it to anybody other than those solely committed to Facebook (and even those most fervent users of the site were mixed when we showed them Facebook Home and explained what it offered), and if you’re also a Twitter user, or a Google+ user, or rely on other messaging apps like WhatsApp, LINE, or others, for every advantage Facebook Home provides, there’s a compromise to be made elsewhere.

First off, this new Smarter Stand has a very unique design. It makes for a pretty good headphone wrapper by itself, but it also acts as a stand for your iPhone, allowing you to keep your headphones wrapped up while you have it propping up your smartphone. However, you’ll have to have your headphones plugged into your iPhone in order to use the Smarter Stand as a stand, since it uses the headphone jack as a fulcrum of sorts. The Smarter Stand has a convenient location to slide the headphone plug into, although it seems to only work best with the stock Apple earbuds (or EarPods, as they’re now calling them). The stand isn’t too friendly with other headphone plug designs, as you can see with my own pair of headphones in the gallery toward the bottom, but it at least still works, albeit not as great as using regular Apple earbuds.

However, what I really like about the Smarter Stand is how it allows for room to feed the headphone earpieces through the middle after you wrapped them up. It’s a small design facet, but it’s incredibly genius and really handy. The two forks at either end also make it really easy to wind up your headphones, although you have to be careful not to wind your headphones up too tightly or too loosely — too tightly can result in destroyed headphone cords, while wrapping too loosely can lead to unwanted unraveling.

As a stand itself, the Smarter Stand works pretty well. Again, you have to have your headphones plugged into your iPhone in for the stand to do its thing, but you can still have your headphones wrapped up if you want, and if you want to utilize your external speakers, you can simply unplug your headphones past that first notch to keep them plugged in, but not activated. Sadly, you can’t adjust the angle of the stand, but it sits at a nice 45-degrees (roughly), which we found to be optimal anyway.

In the end, if you need a simple and cheap stand that also doubles as a headphone wrapper, this is probably what you want. You can get one for as low $9 (plus $3 shipping to US), and it’s made out of flexible, but stiff thermoplastic polyurethane, so while it looks like a cheap accessory, it’ll hold up quite well. However, it only works well if you’re using Apple’s own headphones. You can use other brands, but the stand doesn’t quite work as nicely. It’ll at least work either way, but that’s definitely something to be aware of if you’re planning on backing the project.

The Smarter Stand is available for the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4/4S, as well as all generations of the iPod Touch. As for Android version, the company says that each Android device would require its own exclusive design (which can get expensive), but they’re open to making Smarter Stands for certain Android models if the demand is up.

Design, Performance, and Usability

We’ve already comprehensively covered the core proposition of the HTC One in our original review. Suffice to say, the appeal of the matte-finish metal handset hasn’t waned since then. Build quality keeps it at the top of the pile of Android devices in recent memory, for a start, and having weighed the One against the Galaxy S 4 at the Samsung phone’s launch, it’s clear that HTC has the edge in design and quality. One mild concern is the tendency of the white polycarbonate inset strip running the edge of the phone to pick up color smudges when we kept it in our jeans pocket, though these usually rubbed off.

Some of the details stand out after a longer period with the phone. BoomSound has a ridiculous name, but we can’t argue with the audio performance: we’ve found ourselves showing off more video, as well as reaching for the One in preference to other devices when it comes to consuming multimedia from services like Netflix, simply because the front-facing stereo speakers are simply that good. The power from the speakers is also incredibly useful when using the One as a navigation device in the car, while the screen they flank is no slouch either, with a combination of 1080p Full HD resolution and a color balance that’s refreshingly level rather than skewed to over-saturation.

HTC One walkthrough:

Sense 5 and the BlinkFeed homescreen – which pulls together news, Facebook, Twitter, calendar, and tips from the phone – continues to draw our attention, even with the gloss of newness taken off it. With its Flipboard-style feed of headlines and images, BlinkFeed makes for a great distraction, though we can’t help but wish HTC would hurry up and add offline caching of articles, the ability to add your own RSS feeds, and Google+/Google Now integration. The latter would arguably make the biggest difference; we like the low-noise way the One slots your upcoming appointments into the first page of BlinkFeed tiles each day, and it would make a perfect fit for Google Now suggestions.

Overall, Sense 5 combined with Android 4.1 performs well, and with the exception of Photosphere we’ve not really missed anything from the very latest version of Jelly Bean. AT&T’s version of the One includes a customized browser, but despite our initial concerns, performance actually improved over the stock phone. In SunSpider, the test of JavaScript performance, the European One scored 1,118.9ms versus the 1,035.1ms of the AT&T version (in SunSpider, faster is better). Overall, we had no issues with the One’s quadcore 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 processor pulling its weight running apps, and even AT&T’s preloaded software – which includes DriveMode, Family Map, Locker, Navigator, Ready2Go, Messages, myAT&T, Smart Wi-Fi, YPmobile, and Device Help – are neatly clustered into a folder rather than scattershot across the app launcher.

It’s not all perfect, though. A lingering frustration is the black menu bar that often appears in third-party apps, where HTC has followed Android guidelines and dropped a dedicated menu key, but apps aren’t yet putting the three-dot softkey where it should be, tucked out of the way in the corner. That means you lose a stripe of your 4.7-inch screen to a single control (the functionality of which varies widely) but, more annoyingly, the on-screen keyboard shifts up to accommodate it.

That has at times played havoc with our typing, our thumbs not extending sufficiently to avoid the menu key and thus interrupting text entry. Admittedly, it’s not HTC’s fault, but it’s an ongoing annoyance that apps not adhering to the latest Android UI guidelines continue to hit the Play store.

Camera and Multimedia

HTC’s UltraPixel strategy has proved divisive, with the company chasing more light instead of more megapixels. We’ve covered how the One uses its 4-megapixels extensively in our review, but we also gave the smartphone its chance to shine out in the wild, taking it to the New York Auto Show last month.

Your average tradeshow is tough going on a camera, whether it’s a DSLR, a point-and-shoot, or on a smartphone. The lighting ranges from ridiculously bright, meaning you get masses of reflections and glare, to moodily dark, making details difficult to pick out and the threat of noise a constant. In-between, there’s all manner of colored lights that can confuse a camera’s sensor.

The NY Auto Show was no different, but the HTC One held its own for the most part. All of the photos and video from our coverage of the new Chevrolet Camaro Z28 and the Corvette Stingray was taken using the One, for example, with us also using the Zoe “highlight” feature that creates summary videos based on 3.6s snippets of video and burst-stills.

For the photos, despite the mixed lighting conditions, the quality was surprisingly high. Blur is noticeably absent, the One being able to stick to faster shutter-speeds and lower ISOs thanks to its greater appetite for light, and photos which combine well-lit areas alongside much darker ones are impressively balanced. The phone is fast, too: back-to-back shots are roughly as swift as you can repeatedly tap the on-screen button.

Video, meanwhile, looks great at 1080p Full HD resolution, with the same impressive low-light and mixed-lighting performance as for stills. However, the noisy show floor proved a challenge for the One’s stereo microphones at times, however: you can certainly make out speech compared to background noise, but it lacks the pinpoint clarity you’d get with a directional microphone or a dedicated clip-on mic.

Nonetheless, for immediacy and convenience, the One certainly held its own. At full resolution and in perfect lighting, HTC’s choice of big pixels rather than lots of them struggles somewhat, but in more everyday situations the convenience of being able to take low-light situations in your stride wins out.

The downside with the One – and, specifically, with Zoe photography, which simultaneously grabs 20 stills and 3.6s of Full HD video – remains how multimedia is managed, particularly off the phone. We’ve already highlighted how poorly that plays with auto-upload services, such as those offered by Dropbox, Google+, and Facebook, which basically fill your cloud storage with dozens of nearly-identical shots. The AT&T version is no different in that respect, and HTC desperately needs to step up and address offloading media with its HTC Sync Manager app.

While it’s at it, we wouldn’t argue with more themes and flexibility for the Zoe highlights system: the One’s automatically curated showreels, which come complete with transitions, filters, and background music. We’re still impressed by how neatly the One knits these together, but the option for longer clips (currently it’s 30 seconds only) and the ability to use your own music would make the feature considerably more useful. We’ve found people are much more willing to watch our photos and video when they’re stitched into a highlight reel, and so a greater number of presets (out of the box there are six to choose between) would make it all the more engaging.

HTC Sense, Zoe, and Highlights demo:

One advantage those looking to AT&T for their One will have is capacity. The carrier has the US exclusive on the 64GB version, other networks making do with the 32GB model, and given the amount of data Zoe photography creates, and that there’s no microSD storage option, that makes a big difference. It’s not a cheap way to boost capacity, though: AT&T is asking $199.99 for the 32GB One, or $100 more to double the memory.

Phone, LTE, and Battery

HTC’s BoomSound speaker technology means the One has no problems pushing out in-call audio, and happily performance on AT&T’s network matched up with that. We had no problems keeping a signal, even though HTC squeezes the One’s antennas into the tiny polycarbonate notches in the unibody case, and hardly a dropped call, even in areas where coverage was patchy.

We tested LTE performance in multiple locations where AT&T currently offers service, including New York City, Denver, Wichita, and San Francisco. Speeds ranged from as much as 39Mbps downloads and nearly 19Mbps uploads, location depending, though averaged out at 15.95Mbps down and 7.06Mbps up. In contrast, we saw peeks of 37Mbps down and nearly 11Mbps up on an iPhone 5 using Verizon’s LTE network.

LTE has a reputation for being power hungry, and while the One’s 2,300 mAh battery isn’t small, the fact that it can’t be removed – unlike, say, the battery in Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 – has left some wary of the quadcore smartphone. In practice, we’ve found the One has sufficient legs to last through the day, particularly if its power management systems are turned on. These put data to sleep after periods of extended inactivity, waking them only occasionally to check for new messages and other updates, as well as reducing screen brightness and enabling other frugal systems.

Over the course of a sixteen hour day, then, with a mixture of cellular and WiFi connectivity, we saw roughly 30-percent of the battery left. More patchy use of WiFi saw LTE take a greater toll, with 20-percent left after just over twelve hours. However, even when we forgot to plug the charger in overnight, the One proved frugal, only dropping a few percentage points thanks to the data throttling.

Wrap-Up

Nothing about AT&T’s version of the HTC One has changed our positive impression of the smartphone. In fact, native LTE support for the US has only improved our takeaway opinion: the One is beautifully constructed, slickly designed, fast, has thoughtful software tweaks – a few third-party app UI glitches aside – and a great, flexible camera.

The road ahead for HTC isn’t going to be an easy one. Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 is the specter on the near horizon, and for however much it may offer an evolutionary step up from its Galaxy S III predecessor, it comes with the might of the South Korean company’s prodigious marketing machine (and its equally massive budget). In contrast, the One sees HTC take a far greater risk than it has in recent years – in investment in construction, camera strategy, and software – and, for the most part, that pays off in the quality of the overall device.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 is, if last year’s model is anything to go by, likely to be the default choice for Android buyers in 2013. However, the HTC One is arguably the more thoughtful choice. In AT&T form, it’s our favorite Android handset of the moment.

Hardware

The Tiki case is one that those unfamiliar with the intricacies of custom-made computers will easily overlook. It’s certainly not the flashy rainbow LED light show that some gaming PCs opt for – it’s almost as if the Tiki dares those that look at it to ask what the big deal is. Up close and personal, you’ll find that the Tiki boasts a fabulously simple set of aesthetics, a subtly lit Falcon Northwest logo up front, and a granite base.

The granite base we’ve got here is what the company calls “Absolute Black”. While you’ve got more than one color choice if you’d like to explore several shades, we’d certainly recommend the black if you’re working with the straight-up black case – together they’re quite classy. The whole unit is light enough that you’ll be able to transport it to and from LAN parties with ease (if that’s your sort of thing) and is perfectly well balanced due in a large part to the granite – it does its job well.

Getting inside the Tiki is just about as simple as it gets without working with magnets – here you’ll be undoing two thumbscrews and pushing one side off – you’ll want to be careful doing so only because the 120MM Asetek liquid cooler (550LC) is attached to it, tubes running from the casing to the main hunk of the unit. This setup works awesome for getting down into the guts of the machine as quick as possible – the fewer screws we’ve got to deal with for customization, the better.

Inside this setup you’ll find an ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe mini ITX motherboard shining out in all its bluey glory amid the massive monsters that are the high-end components that this amalgamation is made of. We’re working with a 256GB SSD SATA3 (Crucial M4 with M500 available soon from Falcon Northwest – check on that when you’re picking up your own) as well as a 3TB WD “Caviar Green” SATA3 hard drive for all the data storage you could ask for.

Getting inside to remove / replace / give big kisses to your favorite components is only a few screw turns away. While there are wires here or there glued down for the trip between Falcon Northwest’s test shop and your home, they’re easily popped off and apart when you decide you want to move forward with any new components.

The two big monsters inside this build are the 3rd Generation Intel Core i7 processor (overclocked to 4.5GHz), and the 6GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN graphics card. When you’re picking up the TITAN, you’re not looking for a budget setup. You’ve got a beast right out of the box. Again, this isn’t the last time we’ll be working with NVIDIA’s TITAN GPU for video game reviews and cloud gaming action – stick around our NVIDIA tag portal as well as our NVIDIA Tegra hub for the full fireworks through the future.

Once you’re done rummaging around the insides, you’ll find more inputs and outputs than you’ll ever have a need for. The build we’ve got here works with a Sony Optiarc slot load DVD+-RW on top near a a headphone jack, microphone jack, and set of two USB 3.0 ports. You’ll also see a symmetrical set of vents that, when you peek through, you’ll be able to see the side of the TITAN: “GEFORCE GTX” in bright NVIDIA green lights just below the surface – only visible up close.

The back of this machine has its IO panel labels set in upside-down for easy reading whilst looking down over the top – as you’re prone to do with such a desktop. That massive set of connections includes two eSATA ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. You’ll also find GigE, ASUS Wifi connections (you’ll get two external antenna in your package from Falcon Northwest), and standard optical and analog audio jacks. Ethernet and processor-powered display outputs DVI, HDMI, and Display Port are also down there if you want to make use of them.

Nearer the top you’ve got two DL-DVI ports as well as HDMI and DisplayPort outputs bringing the heat via your GeForce TITAN GPU. Your power supply (Silverstone ST-45B 450W) sits nearest the bottom on the back. On either side of the case you’ll more airflow action allowing this Tiki setup to remain impressively cool no matter what we throw at it. With that you’ll still be hearing next no noise – you’ll certainly not be having to dismiss a “hum” while you’re enjoying the greatness of the highest powered games on the market – those being the games you’re essentially obligated to test out and work with when you’re rolling with Tiki.

Software and Performance

Under the hood out of the box we’re working with 64bit Windows 8 Professional, and though it’s still a little odd working with this operating system without a touchscreen interface, it’s certainly starting to feel more natural than it did when Microsoft first pushed the system to consumers. That said, the real power here comes from the software we’re using outside the standard Microsoft experience: games, games, and more games. And with a system this size, big-time possibilities!

Steam Big Picture Mode

The size of this system suggests some rather unique use-cases, even before we consider the fact that NVIDIA has some big plans for GeForce and cloud computing in the home this year. The Tiki case isn’t much larger than the average major-label gaming console today, and even compared to what’s coming out later this year (more than likely), you can be confident you’ll have a size-to-power ratio that blows any gaming console out of the water. And unless the Xbox 720 or PlayStation 4 pull some real magic out of their sleeves with regards to digital game distribution soon, Valve’s Steam will continue to be the premiere destination for the universe’s greatest downloadable games.

NVIDIA GeForce Experience

NVIDIA has made some rather interesting strides recently in making sure the average citizen is able to have a top-notch gaming experience. Just this year the GeForce Experience was released – an NVIDIA-powered app interface where a collection of the world’s most fabulous games can have their settings optimized for your unique gaming hardware setup instantly and automatically. NVIDIA has released a new GeForce driver software update for esentially every major game delivered in the first quarter of 2013, each of them able to be accessed via this GeForce Experience with a single button click, a unique game settings interface appearing for you then if you’ve got said game on your computer.

With the automatic settings optimization feature, your games will become as excellent as they possibly can be – both aesthetically and performance-wise. With the Tiki rolling with a GeForce GTX TITAN under the hood and NVIDIA optimizing settings game-to-game, we’ve had nothing but the best gaming experiences we’ve ever seen on a gaming computer.

Right this minute we’ve done just our standard fare as far as benchmarks go, Geekbench showing this build to be amongst the most powerful gaming PCs we’ve reviewed. Also be sure to check out similar results on much larger machines, too: AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC and NEEDLETAIL SX – and have a peek at a couple relatively small machines so you know what the Tiki is up against physical size-wise: MainGear Potenza and iBuyPower Revolt.

Whilst playing Batman: Arkham City, we’ve experienced a been a bit of a re-birth of interest with the much higher-definition display than we used when originally reviewing the game, not to mention a system that’s on a whole different level than the Alienware notebook (pre 3rd-gen Intel Core processors and so-forth). While it’s not that working with a beast like the MX-17 from a couple years ago is a bad thing (it’s actually still quite amazing), there’s just no comparing to the smoothness and detail we’re getting here.

In Hawken the only thing that stops one from having the miraculous non-stop smoothness we’re seeing in Arkham City is the fact that part of our experience is based online. If we’d be working with the connections our friends in Japan have with wires so thick you could drive a truck through them, we’d be golden – here we’ll have to settle for just “destroys all gaming experiences we’ve had before this year.” Have a peek at our first look at Hawken while you’re at it.

Even Star Wars: The Old Republic looks great. As it’s included in NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience list of games that can be optimized for greatness automatically, we certainly had to give it a go. As it turns out, the difference between what you get in this game on a basic level and what NVIDIA can give you is immense. While the gameplay remains the same – you’re still firing blasters at your opponents and rolling in the Force like mad – you can take part in the deepest visual details the developers intended you to see. Just look at that water ripple!

We’ll be continuing to benchmark the build we’ve got here through the future, so be sure to ask if you’ve got any tests you’d like us to run. We’ll be putting this setup through the punches in any and all ways you desire!

Wrap-Up

The Falcon Northwest Tiki is not a machine made for penny-pinchers. If you’re planning on working with any gaming PC packing an NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN GPU, you’re going to be paying quite a chunk of change – this isn’t the sort of situation where you’re paying just a little bit of cash for a just-good-enough helping of performance. Instead you’re going to want to save up for a couple months – the build we’ve gotten from Falcon Northwest here will cost you more than $3k.

You can make your Tiki cost quite a bit less if you don’t want to pack it full of the top-of-the-line components we’ve got here – and you’ll still have an amazing build – but that’s not what NVIDIA’s TITAN brand is about. With the Falcon Northwest Tiki packing NVIDIA’s TITAN, you’ve got a gaming masterpiece, plain and simple.

Hardware

This notebook, also known as model NP540U3C-A01US, is not the thinnest beast on the block, nor is it the lightest. But it’s no monster, either. Instead what you’re getting is a 12.4 x 8.6 x 0.6-inch notebook made from a mix of aluminum and plastic parts, certainly sturdy enough – and aesthetically pleasing enough on the outside – to be your daily driver in a public place. As an Ultrabook such as this will likely be used by you for doing work first and foremost, it’s important to take a peek at the keyboard right out of the box.

What you’ve got here is a top-class keyboard that’s not unlike what we’ve seen from the generation of Samsung notebooks that’ve come out over the past year. If you’re used to working with a MacBook, not a PC, you’ll still feel rather at home with this layout and pressure sensitivity. The keyboard features a real no-nonsense set of keys as well, so no worries pecking away at the bits you’re not wanting to hit.

The display is certainly nice looking, and if you’re not used to the ultra-high-definition eye-shattering screens that are also out there on the market today, you’ll have a great time with the 1366 x 768 resolution here with LED HD technology and 10-finger touch. That means that if you’ve got an app that needs every single one of your fingers at once, you’ll be able to do it here. Covering this display you’ve got Corning Gorilla Glass – resistant against scratches and damage like a pro. This display is also 300 nits bright, working with SuperBright Technology so you know you’re backed up by a brand that means business.

Inside you’ll be working with 8GB of system memory, a hard drive of 128GB (SSD), and a find little web camera peeking up at you above the screen. You’ve also got Intel HD Graphics 4000, perfectly generous for your everyday movie watching, and you’ll be connecting to the web either wirelessly with Intel WiDi and Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 802.11 a/b/g/n or wired with this machine’s built-in ethernet port.

Next to your ethernet port (which pops open or closes down for a more compact experience, mind you), you’ll see one USB 3.0 port, HDMI out, and your very own headphone/microphone jack. Lucky you! On the right you’ve got another two USB 2.0 ports and a multi-card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC). Altogether you’ve got a really solid package, certainly one you can bring home to mother.

Hands-on

This device is only surprisingly heavy because I’m so very used to handling computers now that are lighter than they have any business being. When you’re working with Ultrabooks and MacBook Airs and the like every single day of the week, having one like this UltraTouch will seem like a slight change. But as it is with most notebooks and such, the weight and the shape of this machine feels natural rather quickly.

The location of each of the ports feels quite natural, and though it does still feel a bit odd to be pulling open the ethernet port on the left hand side whenever it’s needed, it’s not been a burdon in any way. Toss this and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the GALAXY S 4 in your pockets and backpack and you’re set!

Software

Samsung is particularly proud of its collection of apps made specifically for Windows 8, including such winners as Quick Starter. With Quick Starter, you’re able to grab your own toolbar and start button (otherwise willfully yanked from your life by Windows 8) so you’ll have a more familiar user interface if you’ve never used Windows 8 before. You’ll also have all kinds of awesome AllShare Play action going on – particularly awesome if you’re a Samsung Galaxy S III or GALAXY S 4 or Galaxy Note user.

With AllShare Play you’ll be connecting with your mobile devices with ease, sharing your media from device to device in a personal mobile network instantly. This interface also works with Samsung Smart TVs and tablets as well as smartphones.

Above and you’ll also find some read-outs we’ve taken of the notebook. You’ll see some additional details about what this Ultrabook is packing as well as some benchmark results from our standard test: Geekbench. Feel free to head back to our archive of reviewed devices to compare and contrast as well!

Battery Time

Off the wall connection we’ve found the Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch to be getting a little over 5 hours of battery life. That’s without streaming video – if you’re going to be doing heavy processing tasks, this may not be the workhorse for you. Instead you’ll find this device best for daily work on-the-go without demanding a full 8-hour workday spread without power.

That said, battery life on this device isn’t all that different from the rest of the Ultrabooks out there right now. You’ll find a machine like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 working with essentially the same amount of battery time where the newest era of MacBook Air units are some of the only mobile notebooks we’ve worked with that last longer in the field. Choose wisely!

Wrap-up

With the Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch you’ve got an Ultrabook that’s ready to be your best buddy in college, your friendly office companion, or your coffee shop cohort. While the Samsung notebook line doesn’t hold quite the “cool” factor their smartphones and tablets have earned over the past few years, they still connect in more ways than any other machine – particularly if you want to work with the oddity that is AllShare.

The model we’ve reviewed here will cost you a cool $859.99 USD and is available everywhere fine Ultrabooks are sold. We’d recommend, as always, heading out to your local notebook dealer to see how this unit feels before picking one up for yourself. Samsung has made a fabulous notebook here, and you’re going to want to take it out for a test drive before you make the big jump.

You’ll be able to work with a clear or tinted case base – that’s the part that clamps around your iPhone 5. Then you’ve got the option of working with a white or black battery pack OR any of a variety of Pantone-colored case covers. This case cover sits on the back of the case while you’re not using the battery, if you like: we’ve opted to keep the battery connected on-the-go.

The Lightning connector is made with some rather excellent and durable TPE material, being just long enough to fit down into the iPhone 5 without being obtrusive. The battery pack itself is recharged the same way you’d charge any of a number of non-Apple mobile products: with a simple microUSB cord (also included in the pack.)

Since the case bit of this amalgamation does not obstruct our view or use of any of the buttons or ports on the iPhone itself, it certainly gets a thumbs up from us there. As far as the battery itself goes – it works exactly as you’d expect it to. Charge it up, leave it on the back of your iPhone or in your pocket, and connect it when you need it.

BONUS: There’s a kickstand built-in to the battery pack. This kickstand will be a reinforced aluminum in the final model (ours is an early edition), and you’ll find a full list of changes and improvements pre-release right over at the Kickstarter page itself.

With an additional 1900 mAh of battery power at your disposal you’ll have a tough time not getting through the day with your iPhone 5 on the power you’ve got immediately handy. This case starts at a $59 price point if you’re over at Kickstater before the end of the crowdfunding venture, and final case shipments start in early April.

Google Keep allows you to take a note that includes any of the following: typed text, dictated text, recorded sound (with dictated text – a bit different than a straight-up sound recording), photos (but not video as of the publish date of this review), and checklists. This system is an extremely sleek, basic, and simplistic iteration of what Google’s competitors work with.

Above: Google Keep on the LG-made Google Nexus 4 smartphone with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

If you look at Evernote, you’ll find a system for taking notes that’s able to accept emailed notes, works with Skitch for hand-written notes and drawings, works with sound recordings in full, video, photos, text, searchable images, business card scanning, and much, much more. Basically Evernote is currently in a whole different league when it comes to being all-inclusive.

In Google Keep you’ve got Google’s take on things. While we’d be baffled if we heard a Google employee claim this was a good competitor with the other more mature systems out there, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Google’s set of features to eclipse the rest in a few years time. But that’s a bit forward-thinking – this app has just been released this week.

You’ll be able to access a new note through several shortcuts, immediately moving to your camera for a photo, your keyboard in a note for text typing, your keyboard and a list for checklists, or a microphone for voice recording/dictation. These four shortcuts are represented by familiar icons along a bar that can exist on your smartphone or tablet as a widget on your homescreen.

Hot Stuff: Google Keep also offers a couple of Lockscreen Widgets for Android 4.2+ that you can use to access your notes right at the power button.

While what you’re able to do with these notes is relatively limited, the entire interface is exceedingly smooth, and it is rather nice to be able to instantly access the notes you take from your smartphone, tablet, or desktop machine on the fly. You can download the Android app from the Google Play app store now absolutely free, and we wouldn’t be surprised if an iOS version came calling sooner than later. Check it out!

What you’re seeing here is a rather radical environment in which your mission is to destroy a mysterious and other-worldly enemy with a dynamic user interface available right from your touchscreen device or wirelessly with your own Bluetooth-connected gaming controller. You’ll be using pistols, machine guns, and a fabulously strange “All Seeing Eye” device (ASE in the game) to explore this strange new world and puzzle solve as you blast through the opposition. Below you’ll see the game running on the Google Nexus 7, the ASUS-made tablet working with NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood.

You’ll be able to control your gameplay from start to finish with control options everywhere from flipped tapping to auto-fire mode. You’ll be able to change the layout of the buttons and controls, change the way you target and move, and you’ll have – specifically – GameStop Controller support as well. This is the more “traditional” way to play the game, they say, with Bluetooth-connected blasting on your side.

The weapons you’ll be using number to 18, unique firing modes and actions for each, with the ASE to back you up from start to finish. You’ll be destroying your enemies which number to 14, for starters, both human and alien creatures coming at you not just from straight up in front, but below and up above as well. Head down the stairwell, watch out for snipers up on a second level, and toss grenades all around.

And the best part is the graphics have been given a bump between the original Wii version and here with NVIDIA’s Tegra SoC. With the Tegra 3 quad-core processor you’ll be blasting up and out with what the Chief Creative Officer of High Voltage Software, Eric Nofsinger, calls “console-quality visuals on mobile devices.” This includes enhanced lighting in all your darkest corners, higher resolution graphics than ever before, and “much-improved” visual fidelity compared to this game’s original release.

This game will be available to you immediately if not soon from the Google Play app store through the NVIDIA TegraZone with a rather unique pricing structure. You’ll be able to download the game for free, and the first two levels are completely free. After that you’ve got the option of buying the whole rest of the game at once for $4.99, or you can buy each of the two halves of the game for $2.99 each. At the moment we can’t imagine why you’d only want half the game, but to each their own.

Have a peek at the timeline below for more Tegra-enhanced games available in the NVIDIA TegraZone right this minute, and don’t forget to hit up our own massive Tegra Hub too for more NVIDIA mobile action than you can handle!

Design and Interior

It’s not quite a Twizy, but the i-MiEV is certainly no wall-flower when it comes to Mitsubishi’s aesthetic. The tall, narrow body was intended for snapping down cramped Tokyo side-streets, but it makes for a car that catches more than its fair share of glances while you’re driving. Whether they’re admiring or bemused is unclear.

You still get four doors, however, and four seats inside – the rear seats fold down individually, boosting the trunk’s compact 13.2 cubic feet of storage to a more useful 50.4 cubit feet – with room for adults front and back. It’s an upright ride with plenty of headroom, though the limited width can mean those in the back sit closer together than usual. Despite the price, the only leather you’ll find inside is wrapping the steering wheel and shifter knob; the seats are sturdy fabric, instead, and adjusted manually not electrically.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV walkthrough:

Given the ostentatious exterior, we’d half expected the sort of swooping, LED-encrusted dashboard that would make a concept car jealous. In fact, the i-MiEV’s interior is surprisingly sober. The plastic top dash panels match the purplish-brown seat fabric for color, with a bulbous central stack topped with a sizeable LCD display above the HVAC controls and finally the gear shifter at the bottom. The latter looks like it could’ve been pulled from any automatic car, with the usual park, neutral, drive, and reverse options, as well as an “Eco” mode a notch away.

In the minimalistic driver’s instrument binnacle the view is dominated by a center gage with a digital speedo in the middle, flanked by a simple indicator which shows how economical or profligate you are with your current driving style. A smaller display on the left shows battery level and current gear; range in miles is shown in another screen on the other side. Jabbing at a small plastic button in the binnacle flips over to distance traveled since your last charge.

It’s functional, for the most part. The plastics in general are somewhat flimsy to the touch, though you at least get air-con, power windows and mirrors, and remote central locking as standard. There’s also a heated seat, on the driver’s side only, which Mitsubishi recommends using instead of cranking up the HVAC on a cold morning, since it’s more power-frugal; alternatively, you can turn on the HVAC (to the last used settings) remotely from the keyfob while the i-MiEV is still plugged into the mains. The touchscreen audio system, complete with Bluetooth streaming/hands-free, a reversing camera, and navigation is comprehensive, though not the easiest to use.

Engine and Performance

The i-MiEV’s motor pushes out 66HP through the rear wheels via a single-speed gearbox, and manages 145 lb-ft of torque. It’s good for a top speed of 81mph, and though Mitsubishi isn’t especially keen to talk performance figures (0-60mph is a 13s affair), the combination of the 1.3 ton curb weight., low center of gravity, and immediacy of electric motors means acceleration is surprisingly eager. The i-MiEV is certainly at its best around town, where the combination of pep off the starting line and regenerative power topping up the battery show their worth, but that’s not to say it can’t handle the highway.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV driving:

At highway speeds, there’s a fair amount of wind noise, and while you don’t get the familiar thrum of a gas engine, you have the whine of the electric motor instead. Side-winds can lead to some uncomfortable buffeting, too. The suspension – taut, given the batteries the i-MiEV must lug – is firm but not unduly so.

Battery and Range

As with all EVs, the big question mark hanging over the i-MiEV is range. Mitsubishi quotes an EPA MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) of 126 for city driving, 99 for highway driving, and 112 combined; total EPA range is 62 miles.

That’s assuming ideal circumstances, of course. In practice, you tend to drive with one eye fixed to the range indicator, alert to how your driving style affects how many miles you’ll be able to do. We found the estimates to be reasonably accurate, though weather more than anything is the big decider. Setting out for town on a particularly cold day and, by the time we’d reached our first stop, the gage had dropped considerably more miles than we’d actually traveled. Mitsubishi does include a single out-of-energy rescue per year for the first three years.

Extremes of temperature are known issues for battery performance, and the i-MiEV tackles one of them as standard. All i-MiEV versions have a cooling fan that counteracts the effect of hot days, but its counterpart battery warmer is only standard on the SE “Premium Package” – $2,790 – or as a $175 add-on.

Charging generally depends on how much juice you have to spare. The i-MiEV can power up from either a 120V domestic supply or, if you have access to it, a 240V supply. A 120V portable charging cable is included to satisfy impromptu recharges while on the move, something which we found takes roughly 20- to 22hrs. A “Level 2″ 240V charger cuts that to seven hours, or if you have access to a “Level 3″ public quick-charger you can take the i-MiEV to 80-percent in 30 minutes.

Mitsubishi includes a total of three warranties with the i-MiEV, covering different aspects of the car. Shortest is the 3-year/36,000 mile New Vehicle warranty, followed by a specific 5-year/60,000 mile powertrain warranty. Finally, there’s 8-year/100,000 mile cover for the Li-Ion batteries, which unlike other car companies Mitsubishi sells rather than leases to drivers. Nonetheless, some degree of battery degradation is to be expected (and isn’t covered by the warranty): you should expect to have 80-percent of total capacity left after 5yrs, falling to 70-percent after 10yrs.

Wrap-Up

Most of the issues affecting the i-MiEV are applicable to every all-electric car. The preoccupation with range, balance of equipment versus saving as much power for actually moving, and the lifespan of Li-Ion batteries are to modern EVs what gas consumption, engine oil, and emissions are to traditional cars.

Where the i-MiEV succeeds is in helping make electric travel more affordable. Thanks to federal tax incentives you can have the Mitsubishi for under $22k (before destination and handling); considering only a couple of years ago you’d be looking at twice that for an EV, it shows how far we’ve come in eco-friendly motoring. The i-MiEV is certainly a second car, unless you’re a resolute city dweller, but for low-cost trips around town and room for four in a small footprint, it’s a perky addition to your garage.

Hardware & Design

The first thing you’ll notice with the Torque is its rugged look. It has a textured hard plastic Dura-Grip casing that protects it from drops, and every port is covered with a flap to keep water and dust out. The battery cover can come off, however, and it’s held on with a rather large screw that only requires a quarter turn to “unlock” it, so to speak. The cover is made out of a slightly-flexible rubber material to make it easy to pop off. Underneath the rear plate is a 2500mAh battery that powers the show, and it’s a slightly larger battery than we initially expected, but seeing how the Torque is meant for the adventurer, it’s critical to have a phone that can last all day.

The Torque comes with a 4-inch IPS display with a 800×480 resolution. Of course, that’s not really all that impressive, and those looking primarily for a top-quality display will want to look elsewhere, but otherwise it gets the job done, and most people who would need a rugged phone most likely won’t even care about the display’s quality in the first place. The screen is covered with a pre-installed screen protector as well, but it makes the screen look slightly blurry. We’re not sure what kind of screen protector is on the phone, but we could definitely tell that it made text and small icons a little blotchy.

As for the internals, the Torque comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz accompanied with 1GB of RAM. Sadly, it only has a measly 1GB of storage, but the phone has a microSD card slot that accepts up to 32GB of additional storage. The Torque sports a 5MP camera on the back, with a 1.3MP front-facing camera — more about that later.

As for ports and buttons, the Torque doesn’t rely on touch-based soft buttons. The phone consists of all physical buttons, including the three navigation buttons on the front. On the right side, there’s a dedicated camera button that acts as a shutter button, but it won’t open up the camera app itself. On the right side, there’s a volume rocker and a big yellow button for push-to-talk communication. On the top is the power button and a toggle button for turning the push-to-talk speaker on and off. Also on the top is the headphone jack in the middle. Then, on the bottom you have the microUSB port and the microphone.

The Torque also sports front-facing speakers, which is quite a rarity nowadays, and we were surprised to see that on a phone like this. The device houses the speakers at the bottom right below the navigation buttons, and I found it to be quite nice not having to cup my hand from the rear in order to get the sound to direct to the front, so having front-facing speakers is a small, but huge feature on this phone. As for the earpiece, it’s actually built into the glass display, and it relies on vibrations to deliver sound to your ear. It’s a weird concept, but Kyocera claims it makes voice calling quality better, especially in loud environments, like at a concert.

As for how rugged the Torque is, Kyocera claims it to be a pretty robust beast. The device meets Military Standard 810G, which applies to protection from dust, shock, vibration, temperature, rain, low pressure, solar radiation, and immersion in water for up to 30 minutes in up to 1 meter of water. I ended up dropping it a couple of times on my kitchen’s tile floor at different angles and it didn’t scratch it one bit, and it made more of a “thud” sound rather than a high-pitched cracking noise that you would get with most other smartphones. I even brought it in the shower with me and it was fine the whole time. However, Kyocera notes that the phone is inoperable while the screen is wet. We’re not sure if the phone disables itself somehow to avoid damage, but the phone stays on — you just can’t use it. In the end, you probably don’t need to worry too much about damaging the phone, which is something that most other smartphone owners can’t say about their precious toys.

Software

The Torque runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and the interface looks to be mostly stock, although there are a few pre-installed apps that may get in your way. Other than that, though, it looks like Kyocera mostly left the user interface alone, which is a huge plus for those wanting a true Android experience. However, those wanting the latest operating system will be disappointed for now, but Kyocera plans to upgrade the device to Jelly Bean within the next few months.

However, there are still a couple of Kyocera-exclusive features within the software, including a modified lock screen, that allows you to swipe the unlock circle in any direction to unlock the phone, and there’s also a camera icon that does the same thing. The icons at the bottom of the home screen are also just slightly changed up, with an ID app to the far right that allows you change the theme of the user interface.

Camera

The camera on the Torque isn’t the best, to put it simply. Even with adequate lighting, photos turned out to be really noisy, and white balance wasn’t working too well in most situations. Low-light capabilities weren’t too bad, though, but there was still a lot of noise in the photos, of course. I noticed that the camera would only focus the frame after I pressed the shutter button, meaning that as I was lining up my shot, the frame would remain blurry until I took the picture. At that point, the camera would quickly focus the frame and snap the photo. It only appeared to be doing that specifically with macro and other close-up shots, though.

Video quality was subpar as well. Automatic exposure and white balancing were average, but it would take a few seconds to refocus if I moved the camera around. As with the photos, ISO and noise were apparent, and while the camera is capable of shooting in HD, the quality isn’t too great, and it mostly looks like a standard-definition video that was blown up to HD standards, which as you know, doesn’t have good results. Overall, if you’re going hiking and are planning to do some sightseeing, you may want to bring a dedicated camera to take photos of that beautiful sunset over the canyon.

Performance & Battery Life

We ran the Torque through our go-to benchmarking apps, Quadrant and AnTuTu, and the results were a bit better than we expected. In AnTuTu, the Torque scored a 10,500, which is right on par with the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S II, while just lagging behind a bit from the ASUS Transformer Prime. In Quadrant, the Torque scored just under a 4,200, which puts it on par with the Transformer Prime and almost up to snuff with the HTC One X, which is quite impressive.

As for battery life, knowing that the Torque had a 2500mAh battery, I was expecting to go longer than usual with this phone, and that’s exactly what happened. Streaming Netflix TV shows and movies non-stop on the Torque ended up lasting eight hours before the battery even reached 25%, and with normal use, it was easily lasting a couple of days without a problem. Of course, the large battery mixed with the low power requirements of the internal components makes the Torque one of the few smartphones on the market that can last a long time on a single charge.

Wrap-Up

In the end, while the Torque probably won’t win any awards in the looks department, it certainly gets props for being an extremely rugged smartphone. There’s definitely some things that could be better if it wants to compete with the flagship devices currently on the market, so you’ll definitely have to make some sacrifices in the performance department if you’re wanting something rugged. Although, we’d almost just rather get a better phone, slap on an OtterBox case, and call it a day.

With NVIDIA’s contribution to the development of this game – optimization for the Tegra platform, that is – “The power of the NVIDIA Tegra processor on so many Android devices means that the game’s graphical polish and impact are being taken to a whole new level.” That comment comes direct from Remi Koscielny, CEO of Vivid Games. What we’ve seen thus far is a powerhouse of a game that’s ready to show the multi-core processing excellence of today’s most advanced devices like a pro.

What you’re seeing here is a game that comes with a variety of features surrounding one good time of a face-bashing time. You’ll find Unreal-powered graphics as well as motion capture that’ll be breaking your eyeballs with how painful it is – including blood and sweat right up off your athlete. You’ll be breaking down your opponent in this game’s career mode which includes over 30 fights – and three belt titles – you’ll find out exactly what kind of challenge that is when your right in the thick of it.

You’ll find mini games in this build made to train your boxer between matches – heavy and mini bag and skipping rope, too! In-game mini-games appear also, KO and Clinch hone your skills for energy boosts on-the-go. You’ll be unlocking new equipment, opponents, and customizations all along your journey to the top belt – hair, skin, tattoos, and clothing are all up to you to change up as you box out.

This game is available right this minute on the Google Play app store through the NVIDIA TegraZone. You’ll be tossing down $4.99 USD and knocking out all your favorite opponents in a variety of venues all night long – knock em out! And don’t forget to hit up our massive Tegra Hub right here on SlashGear while you’re at it!

BONUS: This game has been previewed by NVIDIA in a variety of ways in the time between CES 2013 and now – it’s such a killer game that they just can’t put it down! Have a peek at our hands-on with Real Boxing on NVIDIA’s Phoenix Developer Platform as well – that’s the Tegra 4i inside!

Design

Stunning. The HTC One makes a compelling argument for being the best-made Android phone we can recall, a design that both looks and feels premium (though photos don’t tend to do it justice, making it look flat and overly simplistic). Last year’s One X was a solid device, with its polycarbonate plastic casing, but the One is leagues ahead. HTC went back to basics – CNC-intensive manufacturing processes; clever rethinking of how to finesse the most out of minimal antennas – with its industrial design, and the end result is a phone that’s creak-free and somehow timeless in the same way that Apple’s MacBook Pro design has gracefully evolved.

On the front, HTC’s favorite micro-drilling process has spread from the earpiece to the slip of metal under the display, while the company continues to insist that Google’s on-screen buttons are a waste of valuable display space, and so includes touch-sensitive keys. We’re down to just two of them, however – Back and Home – flanking an HTC logo that doesn’t do anything if you tap it. We can’t help but wish the logo was the home button, since we kept stabbing at it out of habit.

A thin band of white polycarbonate runs the chamfered edge of the One, enclosing the power key (which doubles as an IR blaster) and headphone socket on the top edge, and the microUSB port on the bottom. A volume rocker is on the side, flush with the casing. On the back, the gently bowed metal has been carefully shot through with narrow strips of plastic which allow the antennas to do their magic; there’s a neat stylistic flourish with the upper band dipping to encircle the camera lens, but we could do without the Beats Audio logo which looks a little garish in comparison to the discretely metallic HTC branding.

All that metal and sturdiness comes with a compromise, and that’s the battery. HTC has opted for a non-removable Li-Poly pack, a healthy 2,300 mAh, which is fixed inside. Exactly how many people ever actually swap out their batteries is unclear, but it could prove an early deal-breaker for some. Similarly, there’s no microSD card slot, HTC unable to accommodate it in the 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, 143g frame.

Hardware and Performance

HTC has thrown the works at the One, and pretty much all but wireless charging has stuck. So, you get a fast processor – Qualcomm’s 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 quadcore, to be exact – and 2GB of memory, along with a 4.7-inch Full HD display (more on which later). Connectivity includes LTE, HSPA/WCDMA, and GSM/EDGE, along with WiFi a/b/g/n/ac, MHL-HDMI with the right adapter, Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX audio support, NFC, and Miracast wireless display, while there’s also a digital compass, GPS, GLONASS, gyroscope, accelerometer, and proximity/ambient light sensors.

Without a microSD card slot, internal storage becomes all the more important. HTC has sensibly bypassed the 16GB point and instead opted for 32GB and 64GB versions, though the latter will be only available in certain, limited locations. Our 32GB review unit had 25.49GB free out of the box. There’s a free 25GB chunk of Dropbox storage, too, though we’d still rather see expandable local memory if given the option.

It’s particularly topical since the One does so well with multimedia. For once, the Beats Audio doesn’t feel like a cynical marketing mention: the One really does exceed what other phones can do, both when it comes to recording and playing back sound. For the former, it’s down to two dual-membrane microphones, which HTC calls Sense Voice: in short, one half of each microphone handles high signal-to-noise ratio sound, such as regular speech, up to around the 75dB point, while above that there’s a high sound pressure level membrane that can cope with the more boisterous sounds you’d encounter at a concert or club.

Sample recording from a concert

Together they’re designed to handle every audio situation the phone might find itself in, whether that’s doing speakerphone duty in a quiet office, recording your kids on the swings at the park, or in the front row of a gig. Best of all, it actually works: the stereo pick-up is excellent in normal conditions, but as soon as things get loud and you’d expect a regular phone to get overwhelmed, the One just bulldozes ahead. We kept trying to identify the point where the membranes hand over, but in fact it’s more of a seamless blend; you simply can’t tell what the One is doing, which is really as it should be.

On the flip side are the speakers, which HTC is equally proud of. The One brings them up-front, flanking the display, and gives them significantly larger chambers to resonate in. Look beyond the awkward BoomSound branding and the result is impressive: loud but without distortion, and with bass that belies the fact you’re listening to a phone. The speakers get their own Beats Audio branded amplifier, too, with a second powering the headphone socket. Interestingly, HTC isn’t bundling any Beats Audio headphones in the box this time around, only a regular wired hands-free kit, though the One worked well with every aftermarket set we tried.

We can’t complain about the One’s overall performance, the Snapdragon 600 putting in a convincing show both in everyday use and in benchmarks. In Quadrant, the HTC scored 12,127, a huge step up from the 7,400 of the One X+, while in AnTuTu it managed 24,283, up from the 16,245 of the One X+. In Qualcomm’s Vellamo test, it scored 2,398 in the HTML5 category and 779 in the Metal category. In SunSpider, the browser test of JavaScript performance, the One scored 1118.9ms (faster is better. Overall, then, it’s clear that the One can handle anything you could throw at it today, and is likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Display

Point-three of an inch shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. HTC’s decision to go with a 4.7-inch screen, against the 5-inch panel of the DROID DNA and Butterfly J, is a welcome one: you still get the rich, creamy Full HD resolution, but that slightly condensed 1080p adds up to both 468ppi pixel density and a handset that’s easier to hold.

HTC has stuck with LCD rather than looking to AMOLED, and the result is a panel that’s beautifully balanced. Accurate colors, rich blacks, and viewing angles that are so broad as to look pasted on. It could arguably do with being a little brighter at its maximum setting – we’ve been spoiled with recent high-nit panels from LG and others, which do better at battling sunlight – but it’s a great all-rounder nonetheless.

Software

HTC Sense

HTC Sense has had a long and at-times tortured journey. What started as HTC’s attempt to tame the wild-west of raw Android back in the v1.5 days gradually became heavier, slower, and arguably less necessary as Google tightened up its own software. What were once HTC-exclusive features gradually became baked into Android-proper, and – despite a few little-developed additions, like OnLive gaming and HTC Watch – HTC seemed more interested in simply visually differentiating its phones than actually delivering a legitimately more usable UI.

That doesn’t fly in 2013, when pure Android has an increasing number of fans, and rivals like Samsung have gone tweak and enhancement crazy with their own software modifications. Happily HTC has taken a clean-slate approach with Sense 5.0 on the One, and much of its new strategy works.

For a start, the swollen icons and cartoony feel has been pared back dramatically, keeping little more than wire-frame outlines of HTC’s weather icons (some things, like zombies, refuse to die). Instead, you get some welcome use of Google’s Roboto font – in its condensed form, which makes it look both familiar and distinctive – and a crisper, more simplistic layout with flatter icons and a black/white/blue color scheme that’s reminiscent of Windows Phone in places.

The familiar homescreen is still present, though now limited to four panes of icons or widgets – HTC says its research indicates the vast majority of users settle on a screen or two of icons, and then never bother changing them – while the app launcher comes with several apps already organized away into folders, part of HTC’s encouragement to keep the layout (either 3×4 or 4×5) tidy. Our units direct from HTC have little in the way of bloatware preinstalled, and we know the company is working with carriers to try to minimize how many “added extras” get thrown in, with the goal being to have them at least corralled into a folder from the start.

Interestingly, you can treat the app launcher as a homescreen; jump from it into an app and then hit the Home key, and you’ll go straight back to the launcher rather than the traditional desktop. However, HTC has another part of its homescreen that it hopes will become your default.

HTC BlinkFeed

BlinkFeed is HTC’s latest try at pulling together social, something it started several years back in FriendFeed. However, the new system is far more comprehensive, featuring not only Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr content, but news from multiple online sources. Outwardly similar in appearance and functionality to newsreading-app Flipboard, BlinkFeed sits to a side-swipe of the desktop and fills the screen with page after page of mixed content from news and social.

In its first generation, you can only choose from HTC’s selection of news sources – future iterations will support general RSS feeds being added, HTC tells us – but it’s a pretty comprehensive selection from the outset, and tailored depending on your location. Those in the US will see sources like USA Today and the WSJ, while those in the UK will get the BBC and the Guardian, for instance. Subscriptions can be added on a category basis – technology, for instance, or sport – or from a specific provider. If you’re on a WiFi connection then the list is updated automatically every couple of hours by default, whereas out of the box it’s manual-only refreshes on a cellular data connection. A quick pull down on the BlinkFeed list triggers a check for new articles (as well as showing the options menu for managing subscriptions).

We’re generally wary of news reader apps, especially those preloaded by manufacturers, since they’re usually subpar compared to third-party options like Flipboard. BlinkFeed, though, is surprisingly capable. HTC describes its purpose as serving up “snackable” content, the sort of glanceable tidbit that might catch your attention when you instinctively reach for your phone in a moment of distraction, and in that respect it operates as a gateway rather than trying to be the be-all and end-all of news consumption.

Tap an article – small icons and text at the bottom of each thumbnail show whether its come from a news site or been shared from Twitter, Facebook, or another social source, along with who shared it – and it opens in the regular browser. Tweets open in the official Twitter app, Facebook links in the Facebook app; not some HTC version the company has cooked up. In the future, you’ll be able to choose alternative apps – so, for instance, you could use your third-party Twitter software of choice rather than the microblogging company’s own app – but that’s not supported at launch. If the flow of news gets too much for you, you can shut it off and use BlinkFeed solely as a social feed, or vice-versa. Other apps will also periodically inject their content into BlinkFeed too, so for instance the gallery might remind you of an old photo taken if you revisit a location, or HTC might slide in a pane with tips about an under-utilized feature. Sadly, despite its cards arguably making the most sense for inclusion, there’s currently no Google Now integration.

Despite our skepticism, we quickly grew to like BlinkFeed. Part of that’s down to speed: there’s very little lag in scrolling through the list – HTC has wisely kept the animations to a minimum, with just a small amount of tile-tilt when you flick through each page – and stories open up quickly. HTC’s content partner does a fair amount of server-side processing to keep data transfer time and overall traffic to a minimum: the One gets the headline and an image (news sources with photos get priority over text-only stories) and then only accesses a specially formatted article when you actually tap on it. There’s also a push to show the full article rather than just an excerpt, as sometimes find on Flipboard, though you can always open up the page on the original site, or share it via any of the usual Android methods. It’s perfect for the casual grazing smartphone addicts do in every moment of downtime.

BlinkFeed is obviously a first-generation product, but HTC has ambitious plans for its development. Our advice has always been to buy a device for what it does today, not what it might be updated to do tomorrow, though HTC has at least made changes to Sense in v.5 to address a key complaint: that software updates are frustratingly infrequent. Typically, that’s because a new firmware version demands considerable interaction between manufacturer and the carriers, and often only comes when Google pushes out a new version of Android.

To address that, HTC has divorced the update process for its own apps from the underlying OS. Rather than being forced to wait for a significant firmware change before it can tweak, patch, and generally improve BlinkFeed and other homegrown software, HTC will be able to update them piecemeal. So, when BlinkFeed finally gets third-party app support, or RSS subscription support, HTC will be able to deliver that functionality in the same manner as an app downloaded from the Google Play store can.

We’ve heard promises of more timely upgrades before, so the proof of HTC’s ambitious new system will be in the delivery. However, if it can do it, it will go a long way to drawing some of the venom many feel about OEM skins like Sense. That’s not to say HTC has turned over a new leaf entirely: the One launches running Android 4.1.2, rather than 4.2, with the company promising an update soon.

HTC Get Started

Once upon a time, HTC offered a web-based counterpart to Sense on its phones, with mobile content access, backup, find-my-phone security, and remote locking. That was quietly retired in early 2012, however, with HTC promising bright new things in its place. Those bright new things have taken until now, and the HTC One, to arrive.

HTC Get Started is, the company tells us, in part a reaction to the growing number of online sales of phones: now, buyers will be able to jump straight into their new phone experience, even while they’re waiting for the One to be physically delivered. In short, it’s a simple way to set up a new device. After choosing your model (and carrier variant), you can personalize the applications, sounds, bookmarks, wallpapers, lock screen options, and even the feeds in BlinkFeed, all via a web interface on the desktop.

You can start from a blank slate, or pick from seven presets – family, games, music, photos, social, sports, or travel – which each populate the One with a set of feeds, apps, bookmarks, sounds, and other settings. So, if you opt for the games preset, you get Temple Run and Angry Birds Space automatically installed, along with gaming and sports content for BlinkFeed, and some of the popular gaming news and reviews sites bookmarked in the browser. Every choice is previewed on a mock-up of the One shown alongside.

If you’d rather craft your own setup, you can step through each content stage, picking ringtones, notifications, and alarms – or uploading your own audio to snip a sound from it – then choosing from either preloaded bookmarks or add your own, as well as from HTC’s wallpapers or one of your own images uploaded specially. All of the apps you choose come direct from the Google Play store, which means they update just as if you loaded them manually on the phone itself.

It’s the accounts section of Get Started that’s the most useful, however. Rather than punch in your email and Dropbox credentials during the on-device setup wizard – something which can be frustrating, pecking in passwords on a soft keyboard – you can register them in the browser interface. The whole thing is then finished off with either the creation of an HTC account or, alternatively, by logging in with your Facebook or Weibo username and password. When you start up the phone, you can punch those credentials in, and the One gets automagically set up just as you arranged it online.

Given how much time we spend setting up new devices, we’re unsurprisingly fans of HTC Get Started. You don’t have to be a phone reviewer to appreciate its simplicity, however; one of the most frustrating issues new smartphone owners can face is not being quite sure what to actually do with their powerful new gadget, and so HTC’s smorgasbord of curated apps is a great launching point. Unfortunately there’s no way, at present, to synchronize Sense in the other direction – you can’t back-up your exact phone layout to Get Started, edit it online, and then later restore that to the device – but HTC does at least offer a backup system that preserves most of the layout and settings of your handset.

TV

HTC’s clever integration of an IR blaster into the One’s power button gets a purpose right out of the box, with the company’s simply-named TV app. Built on Peel technology – which powers the universal remote system included on some Galaxy Tab tablets, for instance – the app basically replaces your usual home entertainment remotes and throws in a channel guide too.

First-time setup involves telling the app where you live and what content providers you have – cable, satellite, free-to-air digital, etc. – then selecting your TV model and any other A/V kit you might have. HTC has a long list of manufacturers to choose from, and we were up and running with our TVs simply by choosing the brand; testing basically involves firing off a power signal, and making sure the TV turns on as expected. Multiple devices can be set up and switched between, and if you’ve something not on the list then you can teach the TV app how to use it: the IR blaster also works as a remote reader, and so by pointing the controller for your mystery device at the One, you can step through all of the key controls. That way, we were able to set up an Apple TV, a preset for which was missing from HTC’s list.

When you open TV, you find a screen of currently-playing shows based on the channels you receive. Each gets a preview and a bar running along the bottom showing how far through the show is; tapping it automatically changes the channel, or you can open up an information page with an episode summary, a list of actors, and other details. It’s there you can also favorite shows: from that point, those you’ve favorited will show up higher in the “now playing” list, as well as have reminders of new episodes pushed into your BlinkFeed. A side-swipe from the main screen shows what’s coming up next, as well as allowing you to dig into the future schedule or break your planning down channel-by-channel. It’s also possible to permanently hide channels you’re not interested in.

Exit the TV app and a shortcut automatically appears in the notification bar, complete with quick access to the power, to the full remote page, and details of what you’re currently watching. Set the phone down with TV running and, if it goes to sleep, it’ll wake up automatically when you pick it up. You can pull the app up even if the phone is PIN-locked, too, though for security users won’t be able to jump from the TV app to other content on your phone if you’ve left it on the coffee table. It’s worth noting that the app only knows what’s on if you’ve been using it exclusively; if you switch between the One and your regular remote, there’s no way for the phone to figure out what channel is currently playing.

The other aspect of TV is streaming content, though here HTC’s provision is slightly less developed. You can stream video directly from the phone to a TV – it’s incredibly straightforward, too, as long as it supports DLNA or Miracast, and is basically a matter of choosing the screen of choice and then watching the content show up – or from third-party services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. Eventually, HTC aims to have the TV app control the native streaming apps on smart TVs, but for now it works best if you have HTC’s own MediaLink HD box plugged into your set via HDMI.

As with BlinkFeed, HTC has more in store for the TV app. Right now, it’s responsive but not predictive: it’ll remind you of an upcoming show if you’ve favorited it before, but it won’t make suggestions based on what it thinks you might like. That’s in the pipeline, though, and HTC will be able to iterate more regularly thanks to its streamlined update system. Meanwhile, HTC is pitching an API for the IR blaster around A/V app developers, hoping for broader adoption there, too. For the moment, it’s a handy system if you’re laden with remotes or often lose them, though it’s perhaps too early to be a must-have feature.

Kid Mode

Handing your offspring your phone – especially if it’s logged into an app or multimedia store, complete with a credit card registered – can be a recipe for disaster. To fix that, HTC equips the One with Kid Mode, powered by Zoodles, which offers a captive selection of games, age-appropriate multimedia, storybooks, and more, all with a child-friendly interface.

There’s support for time limits on how long games and the web are accessible, as well as ad-blocking and site whitelisting for controlling what kids will come across online. Each child has their own “Playground” user-account, with management from a centralized dashboard. It’s worth noting that Zoodles is already available for Android devices in general, in addition to Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Camera

The One’s camera is probably HTC’s biggest risk with its new flagship, a concerted decision to step off the megapixel bandwagon and instead reconsider smartphone photography from the perspective of how owners really use their phones. So, the One has a “mere” 4-megapixel camera – less than a third of the 13-megapixels Sony has equipped the Xperia Z with, for instance, or LG on the Optimus G Pro – but it’s a specially designed sensor exclusively for HTC’s use.

The key is light. HTC’s research suggests most users take photos indoors or in subpar lighting conditions, rather than outdoors where most phone cameras do their best work. Although ramping up the megapixels increases detail, it also makes each pixel smaller – assuming you want to keep a pocket-friendly phone unlike, say, Nokia with the capable but bloated sensor of the 808 PureView – and that means each gets less light and so the final image gets more noise and other glitches.

HTC’s approach is to use huge pixels – capable of grabbing over 300x the light of some rival cameras – so that, even though the final image may not be as large as from an 8- or 13-megapixel device, its overall quality is higher. More light means faster shutter speeds are possible, which helps cut down on phone shake; HTC also adds in two-axis optical image stabilization to assist with that. The resulting data is fed straight into the latest version of HTC’s ImageChip processing, which finesses things based on the RAW data rather than, as other phones tend to, on the converted JPEG.

Sample shots

The difference is quite literally night and day when it comes to low-light images. Scenes that, on a Galaxy S III or an iPhone 5 are so murky as to be all but useless, come out with significant amounts of detail on the One. The One has an LED flash – which will automatically choose between five degrees of brightness, depending on the distance between the phone and the subject – but you can comfortably leave it off more often than not. As well as greater detail, the One can do less post-processing to remove blur, since the bigger pixels allow for faster shutter speeds.

In more ideal conditions, the One’s shots suffer if you blow them up and compare them side-by-side with higher-megapixel images. The 4-megapixel sensor simply lacks the resolution to compete on that level. Nonetheless, at more typical levels of crop, we’re left impressed by the standard of stills from the One. Colors are accurate and there’s admirably little noise, HTC’s favored 28mm f/2.0 lens making its presence known once more.

Up front, meanwhile, there’s a 2.1-megapixel camera which also has an f/2.0 lens, and HTC has borrowed the One X+’s wide-angle optics so that you can fit more people in-frame at any one time. It’ll shoot 1080p Full HD video, too (though not Zoe shots; more on which in a moment), plus HDR stills, and there’s a useful timer which means you can tap the screen and still have time to post before the frame is captured.

As for video, the One can capture 1080p footage at 30fps, or 720p footage at 60fps; there’s support for HDR video, as well as simultaneously capturing a full-resolution still image while you’re recording video. The results for video are as impressive as those for still images, with excellent colors, balance, and brightness levels, and minimal judder or noise. The low-light performance isn’t quite as convincing as for still shots, though the One handles scenes with mixed high- and low-brightness well: in footage of a show, for instance, with bright lights on-stage and darkness elsewhere, both areas were cleanly visible.

HTC Zoe

If HTC has its way, though, we’ll not be taking just photos or video, but a hybrid of the two. Called Zoe, it’s HTC’s vision of the future of mobile photography: a 0.6s pre-capture of video, from before you hit the on-screen button, then three seconds of video along with twenty stills. There’s no quality compromise involved – stills are at full resolution, and video is at 1080p complete with audio.

Each cluster of content can then be used in interesting ways. At the most basic, it brings the gallery alive: as you look at albums and thumbnails, the 3.6s video clips cycle through as if you’re looking at a magical Harry Potter newspaper. However, open up a Zoe and you can scroll through the clip with a timeline bar, picking out individual frames to keep. HTC has baked in some editing features too, so you can pick out faces from different frames and combine them into one, ensuring everyone has their eyes open and are smiling, or remove objects from the picture. The One can identify faces, too, and allow per-face tweaks like eye-whitening, anime-style enlarging, and skin smoothing.

Each event – a group of recent Zoe clusters, either automatically created by the One or manually merged or split off – gets a thirty second “highlight reel” that the phone produces itself. That sits at the top of the event view, and is basically an automatically curated overview of the themed content. There are six themes to choose from – ranging from “Eifel” with its quirky Parisian style, to the more hipster “Vega” with fast chops and cool color tones – and you can switch between them at will, the reel changing on-the-fly. Hit the remix button, meanwhile, and you instantly get another edit, the speed at which it’s created a testament to HTC’s processing power.

The technology behind the highlight reel is surprisingly complex, too. The cuts aren’t solely random; instead, the One is analyzing each clip and photo for the most interesting parts, such as those which include action, or faces, or even how often you’ve looked at specific photos in the gallery. What you can’t do is manually tweak the reels – only have the phone cook up a new remix itself – or use your own music; HTC tells us the latter is likely to come in a future update, as well as more themes to choose from, but for now you’re limited to the six preloaded.

We’ll admit, it seemed like a gimmick at first. Yet after a short while – and the fact that shooting a Zoe basically has no downside compared to a photo; there’s no processing lag after it finishes, for instance, you simple tap the button and watch the little red highlight slide across the icon – we found ourselves sticking in Zoe mode altogether. Being able to step back through the array of stills, even to before the point we actually took the photo, and pick out the best frame was useful for portrait and action shots, while the highlight reel is the perfect length for Facebook sharing (without boring friends and family with minute after minute of the same mundane thing).

That sharing can be done directly to YouTube, Facebook, or something similar, with the reel exported as an MP4. However, there’s also Zoe Share, HTC’s own social system. A free online gallery, it allows you to choose a reel and an accompanying ten photos or Zoes to upload to a special gallery, with the One automatically pinging you a link in the notification bar which can then be shared via email, Twitter, Facebook, or somewhere else.

Zoe Share isn’t ideal, however. For a start there’s a time limit on how long HTC will host the collections – currently three months – after which they get deleted. Individual stills can be downloaded from Zoe Share, but not individual Zoe clips nor the thirty second highlight reel. Links are entirely public, too; you can’t have a private Zoe Share, with a password in case someone forwards the URL, for instance. There’s also no way to change the video resolution – it defaults to 1080p – which can mean slow uploads unless you’re lucky enough to have a decent connection.

Again, HTC tells us it’s working on a more comprehensive export system – perhaps integrated into the HTC Sync Manager app, which is used to synchronize audio and other content from your PC or Mac to the phone and back, as well as doing file browsing duties – but there’s no timescale for when it might arrive. Meanwhile, if you use an auto-upload service, whether Dropbox (as is prompted during the initial One setup) or something like Google+, every one of the twenty Zoe frames gets automatically uploaded, and there’s no way (aside from manually deleting the shots) to have it only upload one or two of them. Storage – whether on-device or cloud – could quickly become an issue, with each cluster of Zoe content coming in at around 32MB (the 30s video along is 4MB).

That said, we still think it’s a great feature. Zoe injects the fun back into being a mobile shutterbug, producing multimedia that others would actually want to look at. In fact, the biggest drawback of the One isn’t its photo quality, or its overall usability, but trying to educate potential buyers as to what makes the camera special. HTC does itself few favors by turning the full force of its branding machine on the One’s camera system, with confusing results. Instead of megapixels you get UltraPixels; the video/snapshot clusters are called Zoe; but there are also Zoe Highlights, the longer videos that pull in content from multiple Zoes for the ad-hoc, curated 30 second clip complete with music and filters. It’s enough to confuse even the professionals, and that doesn’t bode well for how easy a sale it might be.

Phone and Battery

Given the quality of the HTC One’s music playback performance, we had high hopes for in-call audio. Interestingly, though, the phone was pretty average: the earpiece has a somewhat hollow sound to it, with callers certainly audible but not quite as clear as on some other devices. We had no complaints about microphone performance, though, with the One’s noise cancellation doing a capable job, and the speakerphone was suitably loud.

HTC quotes up to 18hrs 3G talktime (27hrs 2G) from the One, or 500hrs 3G standby (479hrs 2G); that’s based on our European-spec review units, since US-spec versions aren’t available yet. Given the size of the display (and the amount we’ve been playing with the One, particularly the camera) it comes as little surprise that it falls in line with other recent smartphones in terms of real-world longevity.

With all of the usual accounts doing their work in the background – push email, Facebook and/or Google+ multimedia uploads, periodic checking of social networks, etc. – and with regular use, we took the phone down from 88-percent to around 20-percent in the space of just over 7.5hrs. That’s predominantly on WiFi, though with some AT&T HSPA+ use. From a full charge to flat, then, with heavy use you could expect in excess of nine hours of runtime.

Unsurprisingly, once you notch back on some of the background activity, things start to improve significantly, and in fact HTC offers a Power Saver option – readily accessed from the notifications pull-down – which optionally throttles the CPU, lowers screen brightness, turns off vibration alerts, and shuts off off data when the phone is locked. Unfortunately there’s no way to prioritize certain apps to maintain their connection with Power Saver is turned on, which means you won’t get the benefits of push-email and similar. Instead, the One wakes the radio periodically to check what’s new, with no user control over how frequently that happens.

Display and camera are the biggest battery hogs, really. The impact of the screen isn’t much of a shock, since it’s a common culprit, but camera users might be surprised by how much in the way of resources significant use of Zoe photography can cause. After all, the One is constantly buffering video and photos whenever Zoe mode is active in the camera app.

There are two ways of looking at the One’s battery showing – and bear in mind we’ll be running ongoing battery testing over the coming days, including on LTE networks. You could be disappointed, frustrated by the fact that big screens and lots of data use take their toll on a battery, even if it’s a reasonably sized 2,300 mAh pack; you could also decry HTC’s decision to chase solid form over replaceable battery flexibility. Or, you might accept the regular recharging as a fact of life with any modern smartphone; we’re yet to find one – barring perhaps the DROID RAZR MAXX and Galaxy Note II, each of which have simply huge batteries and the oversized form-factors to accommodate them – which doesn’t demand such compromises.

Wrap-up

It doesn’t take genius to realize that the One is HTC’s best phone in a long time. The build quality and crisp, minimalistic design is a step above any other Android phone, and comfortably sits alongside the iPhone 5 for premium feel in the hand. The display is beautiful, the UltraPixel camera technology and Zoe system both ambitious but capable of hugely engaging results, and the performance superlative. Meanwhile, HTC Sense has finally rediscovered its roots, and evolved with BlinkFeed into a legitimately useful and compelling interface – one which didn’t instantly leave us pining for unmodified Android.

Nor is the One perfect, however. The battery life is merely average, and while the UltraPixel system pays dividends in low-light performance, it’s not the solution to every photographic need that HTC might have billed it as. HTC may not be the first to eschew removable storage and a replaceable battery, but we still don’t like it when they’re omitted.

Nonetheless, there’s a sense that HTC’s challenge isn’t in the device – after all, it had good phones in 2012 – but in the market. Samsung’s risen star in the Android ecosystem has left little room for rivals, and HTC simply lacks the marketing heft to build the same brand-recognition that “Galaxy” has achieved. That’s notwithstanding the fact that HTC’s phone looks better, is built better, takes generally better photos, and has arguably better software than the Galaxy S III; we’ll have to wait and see how it holds up to the new Galaxy, but Samsung will need to pull out all the stops if it hopes to even get close to rivalling the One for its perfect quality feel.

Just as it took becoming the underdog to force Nokia to adopt an innovative “challenger” attitude, so its taken a rough year to provoke HTC into raising its game. The end result is a phone that’s beautiful, solid, and cleverly, thoughtfully equipped – one which makes bold challenges to our expectations of hardware specifications and software. Now, HTC has to find a way to educate consumers as to why they should care about it.

Chris Davies contributed to this review

First you’ll be choosing either Predators or Aliens to control, right out of the gate. It won’t really matter in the end, as you’re controlling both throughout the game, but it’s nice to have the illusion of control. Once you’ve completed one chapter with your Predator, you’ll be switched back to your Alien, and you’ll be evolving step-by-step with both races whether you like it or not. And you’ll like it – you’ll play it all night long, and you’ll like it.

The storyline is almost irrelevant as you take on each of the two races of beings you’re not whenever you’re out in the field. Fighting scientists and colonial marines when you’re either a Predator or an Alien whenever you’re no fighting one or the other bloodthirsty other-worldly race, that’s the joy you get to experience in this app.

You’ll be running through environments both diverse and deadly: it’s not only the other organic creatures that are after you, it’s the fire and the explosions and the bullets, too. And just when you think you’re about to reach the end of your ability to massacre the enemy, you gain enough experience to add a new terrifying weapon to your arsenal. Or if you’re an Alien, a new level of evolution to your body.

The Predator begins as a nearly nude blade-wielding ruffian, while the Alien begins, appropriately enough, as a facehugger. You’ll find some strange tingling feeling in your fingertips as you leap at the face of the helpless lab worker in your wake, implanting Alien spawn into his gullet. Once you’re out of his chest and full grown, you’ll also be working with facehugger back-ups to help grow your friendly family.

At the moment this game is entirely offline and you’ll be going through a fairly strict storyline, and if that’s all this game is – it’s still well worth the cash you’ll drop on it. This is a game that makes us understand what our newly quad-core processors are doing, what they’re being used on. Without games like this, all that power could be going to waste – don’t let it!

Have a peek at Alien VS Predator: Evolution on your iOS or Android device this week and let us know how it goes. Also have a peek at the Fox Digital Entertainment game DIE HARD (2013) for a whole new class in mobile gaming – the Endless Shooter!

The team responsible for PowerSkin claim this battery case to be able to extend the usage of your iPhone 5 up to 70%. As far as we’ve seen, this is essentially true. If we’d had a day where we’d have knocked the iPhone 5′s power out in half a day before this battery pack, we’re now reaching much closer the evening where we’re in a place where we can charge up again.

As for charging: you’ve now got the option to charge your iPhone with a microUSB via this battery case. While the case is charged via microUSB, it connects to your iPhone 5 through the Apple-unique Lightning port. Charge the one and the other can be powered. The case works with both 5V, 1A input and output and you’ve got both the battery pack case itself and a handy microUSB charging cable in the box – not to mention an earphone extender.

Because this case needs a certain amount of bulk down at the bottom to be able to charge the iPhone, your headphone jack is, at first, blocked from most traditional headphone cords. Because of this, you get an earphone extender cord in the box as well – no worries for you. The full weight of the case is just 0.18 pounds and you’ll just be adding 0.65 of an inch to your phone’s thickness in the end.

This PowerSkin unit for the iPhone 5 will cost you a grand total of $79.99 USD and is available right this minute straight from its makers online. Have a peek at the timeline below for additional peeks at PowerSkin units we’ve reviewed in the past as well as announcements for the most recent PowerSkin units for your current generation handsets as well!

Hardware

As it was back when we showed our Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 wifi-only Review, this tablet is easily Samsung’s best. At this display size, anyway. If you’re looking for an experience that’s top-notch at essentially any other display size, Samsung has you covered there too – from the Galaxy Tab 7.7 to the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 to the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and back again, Verizon also has you covered with 4G LTE. With the Galaxy Note 10.1 4G LTE, you’ve got the 10.1-inch display coupled with the quad-core Exynos processor and the S-Pen – not to mention the front-facing speakers.

With the release of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the company began pushing their speakers to the front of their tablets. This was a good move and generally regarded as such by everyone that likes to listen to the audio from their devices come out towards their face, rather than from the back side of the device straight into their leg. As it was when we reviewed the wifi version of this device: the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is the best entertainment station you can buy with a 10.1-inch screen.

There’s a lovely set of accessories you can buy from Samsung that’ll make this experience even better than it is out of the box: the clip-on case/cover is easily the most “must-have” of the bunch. With it you’ll be standing your Note 10.1 upright with ease, making it into an easel whenever you like. After that you’re set – the charger and the S-Pen come with the box, and the S-Pen slides in the back of the device when you’re not using it.

Have a peek at how this device compares in size to the Galaxy Note II as well – you may just want to make a decision between the two. They’re both carried by Verizon, and both have lovely Verizon branding splattered about as well.

Software

The change in software since the first time we had a look at the Galaxy Note 10.1 is ever-so-slight in it’s flip from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and the Premium Suite that comes with it. Because Samsung places its own TouchWiz UX user interface for tablets over the top, you’ll not have noticed the change unless you knew what you were looking for. That said, one of the biggest bumps is in the addition of Google Now.

Hands-on with the Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

If you place your finger on the Home button and pull up, a Google logo will appear and you’ll be taken to Google Now. This is the interface that all Jelly Bean devices are allowed access to now on Android devices, complete with information for you based on your interests, GPS location, and the environment around you – for weather, that is. Have a peek at our original Google Now hands-on from back when it was launched for a general idea of what it’s all about!

You’ll also be able to work with multi-tasking features such as the pop-up collection of apps at the bottom of your display that appear when you tap the center of your menu bar. Each of these apps is able to open up as a pop-up window or as a section of your display. At the moment this software is generally fun to see work, but doesn’t work at a level where we’d call it mind-blowingly perfect. You’ll be using this multi-window feature for entertainment more than anything.

Benchmarks

Have a peek at a set of benchmarks run in the gallery here and let us know what you think. On the whole, they’re pretty much the same as they were when we had a look at the wifi version of this machine – this makes sense as, other than some of the software and the change over to the new set of radios, you’ve got essentially the same device, processor and everything. It’s basically the same machine when it comes down to it.

Also included there is a set of speed-tests so you can see how fast we’re rolling out here in Saint Paul, Minnesota. You’ll have to judge speeds for yourself wherever you’re situated in the USA for your own perfect score.

Camera

You’ve also got the same camera as we had a peek at before, so the quality there hasn’t changed a bit. This is an OK camera – not fantastic, but certainly better than the first generation of Android tablets and their terrible, terrible attempt at photo action. With this 5 megapixel camera on the back of the device you’ll be hot to trot – there’s a flash back there too if you need.

Wrap-up

With the Galaxy Note 10.1 you’ve got another excellent entry into the Samsung hero line of Note devices. This remains the largest Note-branded smart device on the market, and is now part of the 4G LTE family as well. Samsung continues to be the biggest opponent for the iPad on the market and – if they were both running the same software and we had to decide between the two – we’d have a relatively tough decision on our hands.

But because they aren’t, and because we’re truly lovers of a unique experience, it’s easy to recommend this tablet as one of the most versatile smart devices on the market today. With the S-Pen, fun and entertaining connectivity with the rest of the Samsung Galaxy devices for media and communication, and one of the newest versions of Google’s mobile OS onboard, the Galaxy Note 10.1 is certainly the hottest Android tablet carried by Verizon today. Have a peek and start penning away!

Essentially in Real Racing 3, you buy cars and compete in events until you beat the game. There’s also “Driver Level,” in which you are awarded a certain amount of experience points after every race that go towards being an expert driver. I don’t really pay a lot of attention to that, since my only goal is raise as much money as I can so I can buy a new car and race in more events. You rely on “R$” currency and coins to get you through the game. The coins are there so that you can basically buy your way out of having to wait on various things, which I’ll describe here soon.

You might have heard about “Time-Shifted Multiplayer” before. It’s a new feature in Real Racing 3 where you play against real people in every event. Granted, you’re not all playing each other at the same time (hence the “Time-Shifted” name), but the other racers are essentially AI-controlled players that have completed in the event in the past. It’s similar to racing a ghost, but the ghost is AI-controlled and will respond to your movements in the race. It’s a pretty neat feature, and it’s more enjoyable this way knowing that you’re not just racing against the computer.

There are numerous types of races to choose from, including cup races, top-speed challenges, drag races, sprints, and eliminations. There also tons of new tracks and cars, including real tracks like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Mount Panorama, as well as fake tracks that exist in real locations, such as Melbourne. As for controls, it’s nothing that we haven’t experienced before with Real Racing 2 — tilting your mobile device steers the car, and tapping on the screen is the brake. You can also change camera angles, which includes a cockpit view if you really want a realistic experience.

As for graphics, they’re not bad, but also not great. There’s absolutely zero anti-aliasing, which makes the game a pixelated nightmare, and scenery could be a bit better, especially in Mount Panorama, where you can get a good look out at the horizon. The mountains in the background look pretty horrible, and it makes you feel you traveled back in time to the late 90s. However, I can’t be too harsh on the graphics. For a mobile game on a smartphone, the game looks pretty incredible.

As for the freemium model in Real Racing 3, this is where things can get a bit controversial. Since the game is free, Firemonkey and EA rely on the in-app purchases of coins to make revenue. Whenever your car needs servicing or you upgrade parts, you have to wait a few minutes for them to complete, sometimes up to 10 minutes. Of course, you can speed the process up by spending a couple of coins, but once you’re all out, you have to buy more if you don’t want to wait for things to finish. Essentially, Firemonkey and EA are counting on your impatience in order to make money with this game, and my guess is that they’ll make a fortune.

You can buy more coins starting at $1.99 for 10 of them, and you can also buy more in-game currency for buying cars and upgrades starting at $1.99 for R$50,000. And considering that Real Racing 2 only cost $4.99, you can end up spending way more in Real Racing 3. However, if patience is your virtue, then you probably won’t have a problem with the game, but if you’re the type of person who wants upgrades now and wants your oil change and tire rotation right this second, prepare to spend a ton of money on the game.

It may seem strange to see a review of a peripheral as small as this lovely little Analogix SlimPort HDMI adapter out here in the wild simply due to the large amount of relatively similar solutions on the market. Whenever 20 companies make an smartphone accessory, it always ends up being difficult to tell them apart. When it comes to the SlimPort solution here, on the other hand, there’s really only one way to go – especially when you’re using the LG Optims G Pro or the Google Nexus 4 (also made by LG.)

Last week we were told that the brand new LG Optimus G Pro would be carrying official MyDP standard connectivity in its microUSB port. With that, we heard from SlimPort that they’d be more than happy to let us have a peek at their technology in a rather simple-looking HDMI connector. As it turns out, LG was rather pumped up about this connectivity as well:

“With SlimPort, LG is able to deliver unprecedented functionality at a lower cost, because of its streamlined design and standard USB connector. SlimPort unleashes content from the Optimus G Pro smartphone, making it a snap to share and enjoy videos, games, photos and more on any screen.” – Dr. Ramchan Woo, division leader/smart phone platform division of LG Mobile Communications Company

You’re able to pick up any of several different SlimPort accessories to work with your Nexus 4, LG Optimus G Pro, or future MyDP-enabled devices. The one we’ve got here connects on one end to the microUSB port on your smartphone, the other to an HDMI cord (which you must already own), the HDMI cable then connecting to your secondary display of choice. The reason you’d pick this adapter up instead of the company’s HDTV Cable (microUSB straight out to HDMI), is the microUSB port it works with.

With the microUSB port on the adapter, you’re also able to connect a microUSB cord in that’s also connected to a wall socket – this way your smartphone (or perhaps tablet in the future) is being charged at the same time you’re outputting massive amounts of graphics. That said, this solution also allows you to work without plugging in to the wall – a definite bonus that places this technology over solutions like MHL which, on devices like the Samsung Galaxy S II and III, demand external power to work.

SlimPort’s solution here also requires very little power to utilize. We’ve watched entire movies on the Nexus 4 with this HDMI adapter without external power, in fact, and the LG Optimus G Pro works even longer than the Nexus 4 – what with the larger battery, and all. SlimPort also offers (or will offer in the near future) VGA and DVI out as well.

So have a peek at this HDMI adapter or check out the rest of the collection at SlimPort – you’ll be paying right around $30 USD if you need an adapter today, and the rest of the collection will be appearing online soon. Also have a peek at our Nexus 4 tag portal for more information on this radically popular Google-fresh LG-made smartphone, chock-full of Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor goodness.

Hardware & Design

At first glance, the Aspire M Touch looks like your typical slab of aluminum gadgetry, which it is, but it’s really sleek. Both the lid and the palm rest are made from brushed metal, while the bottom is lined with plastic. It certainly looks like an expensive laptop, but the build quality from just holding it and grabbing onto it isn’t all that great. The lid caves in from very little pressure, as does the palm rest. It’s a little unnerving at first, but babying the laptop — as most people do — shouldn’t cause any problems.

The laptop comes with a great-looking 14-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1366×768, which is fairly odd for a computer screen, and we’re slightly disappointed that it didn’t come with a higher resolution, especially for a 14-incher. Viewing angles are average, but as with any typical LCD, colors start to get washed out if you’re not looking at it from the optimum, straight-on angle. The touchscreen is 10-point, meaning it’ll detect all ten fingers if need be, and we found responsiveness of the touchscreen to be fairly good.

Inside you’ll find an Intel Core i5 3317U dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz with 4GB of RAM. This particular model has a 20GB solid state drive along with a 500GB hard drive. The solid state drive allows for quick boot ups and launching your most-used apps, while the hard drive is there to store all of your bigger files, like photos, videos, music etc. As for graphics, there’s Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, so you won’t be able to do any hardcore gaming other than the occasional casual title.

As for ports and different connectivity options around the outside edges of the laptop, there’s a small bevy of options, but the placement of the ports is rather odd. Most of the important ports are on the back, including the power port, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, ethernet, and the Kensington lock. On the left side there’s the lone DVD-RW drive, and on the right side there’s an SD card slot and a combined headphone and microphone jack. As for the power button, it’s placed on the front of the laptop near the status lights — an odd place for it considering that most laptops have the power button in one of the upper corners near the keyboard.

As for the capabilities of the keyboard and trackpad, I wasn’t too impressed by either, but it was definitely a better experience than other laptops I’ve messed around with. The keys have very little travel, making it awkward to type until you finally get used to it. However, the keyboard is backlit, which is perfect for typing into the wee hours of the night, but you can’t adjust the brightness of the LEDs — there’s just an on/off toggle. As for the trackpad, it’s simply just made of plastic, making it a bit more difficult to slide your fingers around on compared to the glass trackpads on MacBooks or even the new Chromebook Pixel. The trackpad is large, however, which is always a good thing to have, and it makes navigating much easier.

Software

The Aspire M Touch runs a full version of Windows 8 as usual, and there definitely is no shortage of bloatware on this bad boy. Acer includes a couple of their pieces of software, and the rest are mostly pre-installed apps that could prove useful to some users, but maybe not quite everyone. There’s Acer Explorer, which is an app that basically teaches you how to use the other apps on the computer, and then there’s Acer Cloud, which is the company’s own cloud storage service that shares files across multiple Acer devices. Lastly there’s Acer Crystal Eye, which is a companion app for the webcam, and it comes with a few features that you may find useful, such as different effects.

However, that’s only the Acer apps. The company pre-installed a ton of other apps on the computer, such as Evernote, Skitch, Kindle, eBay, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Skype, Spotify, and McAfee. All of these will probably be useful to you, since they’re popular apps, but Acer also pre-installed a few apps that you’ll probably end up never using, including 7digital, Britannica, iCookbook, ChaCha, TuneIn Radio, StumbleUpon, Social Jogger, newsXpresso, and WildTangent Games. Obviously, you can delete the apps you won’t be using, but your first bootup into Windows 8 on this machine won’t be a clean one.

Performance

The Aspire M Touch runs off of an Intel Core i5 3317U dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz with 4GB of RAM. This keeps the machine pedaling along nicely, and the solid state drive allows for fast bootup times and quick app switching. Running the M Touch through Geekbench, we ended up getting a score of just over 7,000, which isn’t anything fantastic, but it’s also not terrible. This laptop isn’t really meant for the true power user, but rather the everyday average consumer just wanting to stay connected. The integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics prove that this laptop won’t be able to handle any intense gaming, but those wanting to watch a movie won’t have any problems.

As for battery life, this is where we were pleasantly surprised. We were averaging around five hours of use, with the occasional six hour cycle if we purposely tried to stretch it. This may not seem that impressive, but with so many laptops today not even able to last four hours on a single charge, we have to give it up to Acer for being able to pull it off.

Wrap-Up

The Aspire M Touch is a sleek-looking laptop, and there’s no doubt about that. Some of the design elements are a bit wonky, though. For example, most of the important ports that you need to get to are all located on the back, save for the headphone/microphone jack and the SD card slot. It makes sense to have the power port and the HDMI port on the back, that way you have cables sticking out from the sides, but having all the USB ports located on the back of the laptop is just a plain nuisance. However despite the low travel of the keyboard keys and the plastic trackpad, using both actually wasn’t too bad; it was certainly a better experience than other Windows laptops that I’ve played with, so I can’t complain too much in that respect.

You can grab an Aspire M Touch for around $800, which might seem a bit on the pricey side, but it’s actually relatively lower than most other laptops like it. It’s certainly a machine that we’d recommend to anyone looking for something portable to get them by with their everyday computing needs, and we’d have a hard time believing that users weren’t having a good experience with the laptop.

Hardware

There are a couple of key form-factor elements you know you’re getting with a speaker-bar, though Sonos does try to put its own spin on the concept. They’re generally long and narrow, intended to go under or above your TV, and to separate the left and right speakers by as much as possible to broaden the sound stage.

So, the PLAYBAR Is a reasonably handsome slab of matte silver aluminum and black fabric, fairly heavy at 11.9lbs (though a single person can still lift it and move it around), and with holes on the back integrated into rubber feet for either wall or table positioning. It’s not as long as some speaker-bars we’ve seen, at 35.43 inches across, but it’s fairly broad at 3.35 x 5.51 inches. Physical controls are limited to the familiar cluster of Sonos buttons – mute, volume up, volume down; all flanking a white status LED – on one end of the bar.

On the back, in a recessed panel, are the ports: two ethernet connections, an optical audio input, and a power socket. Conspicuous by its absence is HDMI – Sonos tells us it views the TV itself as the hub for multimedia control, and so the PLAYBAR Is intended to focus solely on audio not source switching duties – as well as the aux-in analog input you get on the PLAY:5 speaker. In the box, Sonos includes a power cable, a flat ethernet cable, and an optical audio cable. All remote duties are handled by the usual Sonos apps.

Inside, there are a total of nine speakers, each with its own Class-D digital amplifier. Three 1-inch titanium dome tweeters are spread between the outer edges and the center, while six 3.15-inch aluminum cone midrange speakers fill the remaining space; there’s no onboard subwoofer, though you can wireless connect a Sonos SUB if you want more low-end.

That’s not the only cleverness inside, however. Sonos has fitted the PLAYBAR with an accelerometer so that it knows which way up it’s placed: that means it can automatically figure out if it’s on the wall – with the “top” facing out – or sitting flat, and adjust the equaliser settings automatically. There’s also a pass-through IR system, which repeats your TV remote’s commands in case the TV’s own IR receiver is blocked in some way. The PLAYBAR can also learn the volume commands from your existing remote, so that you don’t have to dig into the app just to tweak the audio when you’re in the middle of a film.

Setup and Use

Sonos has built a reputation around not only great audio quality but ease of setup, and the PLAYBAR is no different. You’ll need to be using the latest versions of the apps for iOS or Android since they add support for the PLAYBAR’s unique features, but otherwise adding it – whether to a new or an existing Sonos system – is a matter of hitting the mute and volume up buttons on the bar itself and waiting for the app to recognize it. That can be done over a WiFi connection (as straightforward as plugging in power and the TV audio cable, though you’ll need to have at least one Sonos speaker or BRIDGE hooked up to your router via ethernet) or with a wired connection to your router. The second ethernet port can be used to pass through the internet connection to another device.

Like a regular Sonos speaker, you can assign a name (such as “TV Room”) to the zone; however, there are also some new steps to the setup. Starting with the TV turned off, you can first optionally add a SUB to the PLAYBAR, and/or a pair of PLAY:3 units for use as rear surround speakers. If you choose to, they’ll still be available for regular music duty, only they’ll also be preset as the default home cinema set too.

After that it’s a case of turning on the TV and waiting for the PLAYBAR to start piping the audio through. Sonos recommends digging into your TV’s settings to disable its onboard speakers, and then guides you through registering the remote you’ll be using to adjust volume – probably the TV remote, but it could be for your Blu-ray player or cable box. In our test system, that was as simple as pressing the volume up button on the remote, and the PLAYBAR automatically recognized its volume and mute controls from that point on.

If your remote isn’t recognized, however, Sonos guides you through teaching the commands to the PLAYBAR, a process which takes about nine button presses. Cleverly, the speaker-bar’s new found skills aren’t kept to itself: it sends the new settings back to Sonos’ servers, where they’re bundled into the firmware catalog for future PLAYBAR units to choose from. That all happens transparently to the user, of course.

Just as setup is different, so there are some new options in the settings page once you’ve got your PLAYBAR hooked up. There are still bass and treble adjustment sliders, and a “loudness” switch, in the equalization page, but not the balance control you have on standalone PLAY zones; however, you do get a new audio delay control, which helps match up lip-syncing. We didn’t have to make any adjustments to that ourselves.

You can turn off the IR signal light and the IR repeater, if you prefer, as well as run through the remote control setup again. There’s also the autoplay options: whether the PLAYBAR will automatically switch over to the optical audio input when the TV starts making sounds (rather than continuing to play music) and, separately, whether the PLAYBAR automatically leaves whatever group you have it set to when autoplay happens.

Sonos has been clever with how it manages connectivity and shared use, given that the PLAYBAR will likely be relied upon both as a TV speaker but also as a music system. Inside, there’s not one but two wireless chips: one 2.4GHz chip for hooking up to the regular SONOSNet 2.0 peer-to-peer network joining all PLAY units together, and a second 5GHz radio for directly connecting with a SUB and/or PLAY:3 pair for home cinema duties (though not PLAY:5 speakers, since they lack the 5GHz support).

By including this second chip, Sonos avoids any latency introduced by piping rear audio or bass track data through your home network, as would normally be the case for multiple PLAY speakers. It’s vital when you’re dealing with multiple speakers playing the same content, since any lag will be instantly noticeable. We set up a pair of PLAY:3 speakers for use as the rear surround set, and could observe no delays in the soundtrack.

As long as autoplay is turned on, when you turn on your TV the PLAYBAR automatically switches over to that source. That includes leaving any group you have it currently playing music in. If you subsequently try to add the PLAYBAR to a PLAY speaker group, or add tracks to its playlist via the app, it will pop up a message warning that doing so will stop the TV audio in that zone, and ask if you actually want to do that. One small frustration was that the PLAYBAR didn’t subsequently rejoin the music group once we stopped using it with the TV; we had to manually add it back in.

Performance

Simple setup would be for naught if the PLAYBAR didn’t sound any good, but happily that’s not the case. Sonos has tuned the speaker-bar in two distinct ways, it says, for music and for TV/movies, and we were impressed by performance in both.

For music, the PLAYBAR offers much of the experience we’re familiar with from the PLAY:3 and PLAY:5, only with added grunt. The natural balance of treble and bass are very similar to those of the smaller PLAY units, which helps it slot neatly into a multi-speaker system, but there’s a healthy bump in power that meant the PLAYBAR could easily match a PLAY:3 set to roughly half volume, while the bar was dawdling down at less than 25-percent.

Midrange sounds have the warmth and breadth that we’re used to from the company’s kit, while trebles have an eager sparkle that makes vocal tracks shine. Complex instrumentals didn’t get lost, with the PLAYBAR’s dynamic EQ automatically keeping things spread across the bar in a way belies the all-in-one nature of the system. Even at high volume levels, there was no buzzing or rattling from the PLAYBAR itself, and there’s a welcome absence of distortion even up to neighbor-infuriating levels.

If there’s any criticism to be made, it’s one that most speaker-bars share: bass tends to come in third compared to treble and mids. That’s definitely not to say the PLAYBAR disappoints in the low-end – it’s tight and aggressive, and probably more than sufficient if you’re living in an apartment – but those looking for the full audio experience will probably be tempted to throw in a SUB, whereupon they’ll find great lashings of bass that manages both precision and exuberance.

It’s movies where that could be most useful, though the PLAYBAR does very well on its own for TV sound. The stereo separation and the 45-degree angle of the speakers means left and right audio is clearly distinguished, the PLAYBAR using a combination of positioning and EQ to bounce audio from the walls. In fact, the onboard computer is crunching 24m calculations a second, Sonos says, to figure out how each sound wave created by each of the nine cones interacts, adding and subtracting those waves to emphasize explosions, make musical soundtracks more enveloping, and allow speech to pierce through everything.

Throw in a couple of rear PLAY:3 speakers, meanwhile, and the experience is all the more impressive. The PLAYBAR is tremendously capable, turning its hand to a variety of movie styles. The rumbles and ominous groans of Prometheus were rich and hauntingly sonorous, while The Dark Knight and Transformers put the surround system through its paces and showed how precise the rear set could be. We noticed no issues with lag or delay.

All that DSP means Sonos can add a couple of new features you wouldn’t normally get on a PLAY speaker: Night Sound and Speech Enhancement. Toggled on or off through new buttons in the “Now Playing” section of the controller app, Night Sound aims to make the PLAYBAR more accommodating to those who like to watch movies while everyone else is asleep. In short, it compresses the audio, dampening louder sounds like explosions and gunfire, and enhancing quieter sounds like speech, so that all can be heard without forcing you to hover over the volume control like a hawk.

It works surprisingly well, though you’ll obviously miss out on some of the original zeal of the soundtrack. As for Speech Enhancement, that operates in a similar way, though leaves the louder sounds untouched. Instead, it simply emphasizes the frequency range of the human voice, lifting speech out of the rest of the audio.

Since it’s a Sonos system, there are some less obvious, but no less neat, things you can do. By grouping the PLAYBAR with one or more other PLAY speakers, for instance, you can pipe your TV’s audio around the home: useful if you want to keep an ear on the news or a concert you’ve been watching. Alternatively, you could start a slideshow on the TV, and accompany it with a playlist of Sonos-streamed audio, whether from your own collection, from internet radio stations, or from on-demand services like Spotify and Pandora.

Wrap-Up

Sonos took its time creating the PLAYBAR, and that consideration shows both in how it sounds and how easy it is to setup and use. Certainly, at $699/£599/€699 it’s expensive when compared to a regular speaker-bar. You can find those for a couple of hundred, after all, though their audio performance may not match up to the PLAYBAR’s beautifully balanced sound. Still, you’re not just getting one product, but two: a speaker-bar for your TV and another zone in your Sonos system, certainly more than equivalent to a $399 PLAY:5.

The magic of the PLAYBAR is how straightforward it is, and how few compromises it demands. You don’t need to be familiar with Sonos to actually use it: in fact, once you’ve set it up, you could feasibly never turn on the Sonos app again, and merely use your regular TV remote. The only messages in the app are concerned with pairing the PLAYBAR back in with music groups; TV playback takes priority. That makes it highly family-friendly, essential if you don’t want a less-technical partner to get frustrated.

Still, our own experience with Sonos is that its simplicity means that even the most gadget-averse soon come to recognize its charms, and the PLAYBAR has that appeal in spades. The audio performance for both music and movies is excellent, and even if you don’t pair it up with rear PLAY:3 speakers and a SUB (which can certainly get expensive, at nearly $2k to outfit a room with the whole set) you’re still getting excellent sound. Superlative performance, ease of use, and multi-room flexibility? Even at $699 it’s enough to make us fall in love with the Sonos PLAYBAR.