Hitman: Go for Gear VR is puzzles for would-be assassins

It’s weird, but kind of brilliant.

Under normal circumstances, someone asking if you’d like to play a Hitman game where you don’t shoot anyone and it’s really more like a weird board game floating in space would be worthy of an eye roll and a sarcastic comment. Hitman is a franchise known for its sneaky violence, and the Hitman: Sniper release to mobile not that long ago refreshed that idea in the minds of gamers who enjoy sniping from a distance and planning out massive kill streaks.

There’s a new Hitman: Go out now for the Samsung Gear VR, and while you can use your imagination and say there’s a fair amount of killing in the game it’s a lot harder to sell to those who have played through the entire franchise.

Agent 47 is a little figurine on a floating puzzle board, tasked with navigating the puzzle and killing his way to an objective. You take out enemies by sneaking up behind or beside them, but if you put yourself in front of any of these other figures you’re likely to find yourself dead instead. Stealth is a priority, but so is making sure you eliminate you mark. In some cases, you’ll even have movement minimums to add an extra challenge.

Like the original version of the game, which was released for Android two years ago, this game is a little different. In any other environment this game would be far too silly to be called a Hitman game, but in the Gear VR you’re able to move your head around and see the puzzle from many different angles. You can slip past the guard on the left and get the briefcase, toss a rock to lure someone to their death, or even rack your brain looking for a way to solve a puzzle with no kills at all. Each level gets increasingly more complicated, but the basic rules of Hitman are still in play, which makes things a little more interesting.

It all feels a little unusual — and in some cases downright cute — but Hitman: Go for the Gear VR is also a ton of fun. It’s a great puzzle game even if it’s not what anyone thinks when you see the Hitman branding on something. You can find Hitman: Go in the Oculus Store on your Gear VR.

Dark Sky can tell you exactly when the weather will start pouring down on your head

Dark Sky is one of those weather apps that will save you from getting absolutely soaked by offering “hyperlocal” reports. Already available for iOS, the app has made its way to the Play Store and can now provide the Android ecosystem with down-to-the-minute, highly accurate readings.

As an added bonus, the app is free to download and use with a full 24-hour forecast, details 7-day forecast, current weather conditions and more. There is a premium tier membership on offer for those who require more advanced features like the down-to-the-minute readings, rain notifications/alerts, widgets and more. That’ll set you back $2.99 a year.

You can download Dark Sky from the Play Store.

Verizon adds more data to its prepaid smartphone plans

Verizon Wireless has announced the company is adding more data to its prepaid plans for smartphones, with 6GB of data a month for $60 and 3GB of data for $45 a month.

Here’s the breakdown of what the new prepaid smartphone plans offer for Verizon customers:

• 6 GB of data including 1 GB of AutoPay Bonus Data with unlimited talk and text in the U.S. and unlimited text and calling to Mexico and Canada for $60 per month (prior plan included only 3 GB);
• 3 GB of data including 1 GB of AutoPay Bonus Data with unlimited talk and text in the U.S., plus text to Mexico and Canada for $45 per month (prior plan included only 1 GB);
• Unlimited talk, text, Wi-Fi for only $30 per month.

In addition, people who still use basic phones can get 300 voice minutes, texts or multimedia messages.and unlimited mobile web for just $15 a month on Verizon’s pre-paid plan, or unlimited talk, text and mobile web for $30 per month.

Google makes finding Android apps even easier with new Apps tab in mobile search

Google has added a new tab to its mobile search results, apps. This tab will give you a list of related Android apps that you can download from Google Play, with an install button that will take you right to the listing. If you want to check and see if your favorite Android site has an app (hint: we do!) you can now just search for Android Central and then click the apps tab to show the related apps.

Sure, you could always head right into Google Play to search for your apps, but this new tab makes it easier to see the related apps for all of your searches. It is always easier to be able to see more from one place than it is to hop around between various apps to find the information that you want. To try it out for yourself, open the browser on your phone or tablet, search for something and then tap the Apps tab in order to see related apps.

Thanks for the tip, Rob!

HTC 10 audio testing – BoomSound evolved

The BoomSound you might remember from HTC phones of old is gone. It’s been replaced by something much better.

When HTC first announced the HTC 10, we learned that the traditional audio setup we saw with the last few high-end models was gone. With a new external speaker configuration and a promise of better audio tweaks for listening through both the speakers and with headphones, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. I’ve got some really good news — the new BoomSound is the best BoomSound. And I don’t mean just the outside speaker configuration.

The HTC 10 speakers

The HTC 10 uses a new speaker configuration where a full range speaker is placed at the top of the phone (where the earpiece is positioned) and a bottom firing speaker for lower frequency sounds. This means things aren’t as loud as previous models that had two front-facing speakers, but the tone is better balanced and has more separation. It’s the same idea as putting a subwoofer behind the couch or under your desk while having full-range speakers pointed towards your ears.

If you liked the old BoomSound speakers, you’ll probably like the new BoomSound speaker setup even more

HTC gives you two software modes for BoomSound when using the built-in speakers — Music mode and Theater mode. These do a decent job of emulating 2.1 channel and 5.1 channel audio, and flipping between the two you can hear the “spatial” difference. Theater mode sounds like you’re using three other speakers placed around you, firing from different angles, while Music mode is more of a straight blast out of the front of the phone. In both modes, the bottom-firing speaker isn’t a problem and you’ll need to physically block the speaker port to muffle it.

Let’s be clear here — I still think music played through tiny electronic speakers with no travel and a very limited cabinet still sounds horrible. But the new BoomSound is far less horrible than the distorted loud sounds that came from phones like the M9 with two full range front-facing speakers. A good part of this is because the volume is more limited and has better adjustment, and the system itself responds very well to tone and equalizer adjustments from your music player. The speakers also do a pretty good job while watching video, because the separating makes dialog and speech sound more clear.

If you liked the BoomSound speakers on HTC’s prior phones, you’ll probably like the new BoomSound speaker setup even more. I certainly do.

Headphone audio

I was very skeptical of HTC’s claims of excellent headphone audio on the HTC 10. Not only was I surprised at the results of both audio benchmarking and listening, but I found out my skepticism (as well as most everyone else with the same concerns) was unfounded.

The HTC 10 uses a stand-alone DAC as well as headphone amp

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 does a lot of things right, but clear audio isn’t one of those things. Something in the digital to analog converter circuit introduces an extreme amount of noise and crosstalk into the analog output, and phones like the U.S. Galaxy S7 and LG G5 sound pretty poor because of this. After doing some testing, I was presented with results that just didn’t make sense from the HTC 10 — it was better than it should be, even with extra work and attention to the analog circuit that brings signal from the DAC output to the headphone jack. You can only do so much magic to a bad signal. I asked HTC how they did it, and found out that some assumptions about the HTC 10 audio hardware that the internet (and myself) has are incorrect. The HTC 10 uses a stand-alone DAC as well as headphone amp and isn’t using the Snapdragon 820 DAC. This is pretty important, and why the HTC 10 sounds as good as it does.

We use a discrete DAC (not one on the SoC) in addition to the amp and have done a ton of PCB engineering to insure the best possible signal-to-noise ratio. Credit to HTC engineering, not off-the-shelf components.

So much for relying on the internet. That’s a mistake I won’t make again.

Needless to say, the results of my benchmark testing with the HTC 10 are pretty damn outstanding.

Let’s explain what you’re seeing here for those folks who aren’t doing audio benchmarks. The first column is the testing parameter. The second column is the audio equipment I’m using to benchmark the HTC 10 — the equipment itself will inject it’s own noise and distortion into the software, and knowing how much and where is important. The third column is the result from the HTC 10, and the fourth column tells you how the numbers should look. Also, remember that -100 is a lower number and further from zero than -90 or nothing here is going to make sense.

It’s worth noting that my testing equipment shows as “perfect” in some tests, but that only means the software used isn’t able to find the flaws. Hooked up to a scope or more sensitive (and expensive) audio testing hardware, it would show a much different picture. What’s important is that it is better than the devices being tested.

For folks who would like to perform their own audio hardware benchmarking or talk about the equipment used we can discuss that in the forums. It’s pretty fun, but a bit more complicated than something I’d want to write in a blog post.

The ultimate Android phone audio benchmarking thread

I can make it easy for those who aren’t quite sure what words like crosstalk or harmonic distortion mean — the HTC 10 audio hardware scores as good or better than the LG G5 with the B&O HiFi audio module installed, and there is little discernible difference when compared to the LG V10 — a product that most agree offers some of the best audio hardware available in a phone. On the hardware side, the HTC 10 will satisfy almost anyone, and the RightMark Audio Analyzer studio gives every category and “excellent” rating. So do I.

Listening tests

Benchmarking audio hardware is just like benchmarking any other hardware — it only tells part of the story, and often does even that poorly. As an example, the HTC M9 spat out numbers better than the HTC M8, but most audio nerds would say the opposite was true and the M8 had a much better sound. What’s important is how it actually sounds through your favorite headphones. (Spoiler: it sounds good. Damn good)

I installed PowerAmp, loaded some of my favorite HQ FLAC files (24-bit/48kHz or higher) and used my favorite mobile headphones — the Sony MDR-7506 studio model. I then kicked back and played some music for a bit while the wife and dogs were out having fun. As expected, the results were great.

Benchmarks only ever tell part of the story, and often poorly

Part of the equation here is what happens the first time you plug a pair of headphones in. The HTC 10 allows you to set a personal audio profile, and let’s you do it by actually listening to reference tones if you like. You start the calibration, adjust things until you hear the sounds (both low and high frequency) then save it. You can choose this audio profile in tandem with HTC’s Dolby effects, or choose one or the other. I choose my own profile but didn’t apply the Dolby effects.

Of course, you can also do this with your own reference tones and an equalizer, and maybe get even better results if you know what you’re doing and don’t mind spending the time doing it. But the way HTC does it is simple and still very effective — especially if you want to use “flat” sounding headphones and adjust things to your liking by hand. Which I do. After setting things up, I made sure any eq and tone adjustments in PowerAmp were shut off and just listened.

In my experience, the HTC 10 is a really good music player

All the music I tested — old “classic” Country and Western, heavy Rock and Metal, Classical and golden age tunes from Sinatra and the like as well as remastered songs from the ’70s sounded great. Music sounded clear, with little to no distortion even at the highest levels, background noise was almost non-existent and the separation (hearing each tone and frequency without them blending together) was really nice. Even testing with a self-generated 30 seconds of silence or a track with quiet single instrument portions has no hiss or noise to drive me crazy. It’s not perfect audio, but that’s something I’ve never been able to experience from a handheld player (or any home audio equipment I can afford to buy). I’m sure someone out there can find fault with it, but in my experience it’s every bit as good a music player as the V10.

If you’re thinking about buying an HTC 10 and great audio is on your short list of must have features, you’re good to go. If you already have an HTC 10, go ahead and snag a good pair of headphones and fill your SD card with some hi-res music files — you’ll like what you hear.