The Crew 2 gameplay preview: Planes, Boats and Automobiles

The Crew was an ambitious game when it launched in 2014: an always online racer that left players to freely roam five regions of America as they pleased. Whether in single player or competing other online players, it was a racer unlike any other. 

The Crew 2 takes that blueprint and goes to town with it, introducing boats, planes and off-road vehicles into the mix. The map and concept are ultimately similar, offering locations across America which can be selected from the map and explored casually, or with other players where races and missions become available.

It’s possible to switch between these three vehicle types at any point you please in The Crew 2. And we do mean at any point, as we transformed our plane into a car 1,000 feet up in the air and watched it plummet onto a bridge with hilarious results.

• E3 2017: All the games and announcements that matter

The introduction of these different vehicles makes the The Crew 2 play really differently to the original. Boats go faster when pulling down on the left control stick, offer boost that’s integral to use when in a race, and steer rather differently to cars.

Planes are a whole other aspect to master. Pull of loop the loops and barrel rolls as you please, fly through towns and cities at low altitude, even pull of sideways stunts to skim between tight spots and buildings. It’s a much tougher mechanic to master.

Ubisoft

We played an off-road player vs player race, which was set against the clock. Within the landscape there were jumps and all manner of routes – it’s down to the player to pick what they think will be quickest, to beat their opponent.

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Points awarded mean prizes, with vehicles available for purchase. We had a pre-assigned sum to spend on a street racing car in the demo, a rather delicious looking Porsche 911 in luminescent orange.

Of all the demos that Ubisoft presented at E3 2017, we thought the Inception-style “folding of worlds” looked staggering. But that’s not solely in the trailer: certain race modes require you to go from car to boat to plane, the fluid transition between each showing the world beyond literally folding over like a book to open your onward path. It’s a very cool effect.

Ubisoft

If you were into the original game then The Crew 2 makes perfect sense as that upgrade. There’s a lot more to master on the vehicles front and a lot of laughs to be hand on the way if our 20 minute demo was anything to go by. The main question is whether after 20 hours of play the game will continue to engage players or not – which was a criticism of the original.

The Crew 2 will be released on PS4, Xbox One and PC in early 2018. You can sign up for an early access beta right now.

Library of Congress archives select webcomics for posterity

Webcomics have been around for a long while, and that’s raising a question: who’s going to preserve those comics for online viewing outside of non-profits like the Internet Archive? The Library of Congress, that’s who. It just launched a Webcomics Web Archive that curates stand-out strips. Many of them are award-winning or otherwise stand-out comics that you may have read — the nerdiness of XKCD and the historical spoofs of Hark! A Vagrant are among the initial batch.

You likely won’t see absolutely everything from a given artist, let alone every artist under the sun. As the Library’s Megan Halsbland explains, it’s more about representative works, including from cultural groups that don’t get much attention in the conventional collection.

The institution isn’t stopping there, either. It’s also launching a Web Cultures Web Archive that will pick sites that document cultural development on the internet, such as legendary GIFs or memes. It’ll join the Library’s American Folklife Center, so those viral images won’t be left in isolation — they’ll be treated with the same respect as a classic song and other slices of Americana.

Via: Washington Post, io9

Source: Library of Congress

Our sun used to have a twin star named Nemesis

Astronomers have long been puzzled by the fact that our sun doesn’t have a companion star. After all, most similar stars are part of a binary, or even triplet, system. Now, scientists may have confirmed a long-held theory: The sun did once have a companion star that has been dubbed “Nemesis.”

Scientists Sarah Sadavoy and Steven Stahler were studying the Perseus molecular cloud, packed with newly formed stars, to determine what percentage of stars like our sun form in pairs. (The young stars within Perseus are less than 4 million years old. Our sun, by comparison, is roughly 4.6 billion years old.) Their notion, that the majority of stars don’t form as single stars, isn’t new; the question is more about numbers. Just how many sunlike stars form as binaries?

To find the answer, the scientists used existing data from a survey of every star in the Perseus stellar nursery. They ran a series of statistical models that took into account the numbers of both single stars and binary stars within the cloud. What they discovered surprised them: It appears as though all sunlike stars initially form as wide binaries, with 500 AU between them (a distance 17 times that of Neptune to our sun). Over the first million years of the stars’ lives, the systems either shrink into a truly binary system or break apart, like our sun and Nemesis.

But will we ever find our sun’s lonely companion, Nemesis? It’s unlikely. The press release states, in a melancholy fashion, “Based on this model, the sun’s sibling most likely escaped and mixed with all the other stars in our region of the Milky Way galaxy, never to be seen again.” While this study has fascinating implications for what we know about how stars are born, it also underlines the fact that there’s still a lot left to learn about our own star; that’s why NASA is launching the Parker Solar Probe, the first spacecraft to touch the sun’s atmosphere, in 2018.

Source: UC Berkeley

Engadget at E3: How video games and film are merging inside VR

In Door No. 1, a new virtual reality comedy show coming to Hulu, the audience becomes the director, choosing not only where to look, but also selecting certain actions and propelling the story forward in unique ways. You’re at your 10-year high school reunion and there are plenty of characters to interact with, including a janitor who wants to smoke you out and a faded former best friend. Viewers pick people to hang out with just by directing their sight toward the desired action, no gamepads required.

Regardless of the input method, Door No. 1 is essentially a live-action choose-your-own-adventure game, a comparison that crystalizes as the creative team at RYOT explains their approach to development. Hulu’s Noah Heller, and RYOT’s Nora Kirkpatrick and Molly Swenson joined us on the Engadget stage to talk about the differences — and similarities — between film and video games in VR.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Netflix has more American subscribers than cable TV

If it wasn’t already clear that Netflix has become a mainstay of the American media landscape, it is now. A combination of official data with Leichtman Research estimates shows that, as of the first quarter of 2017, there are more Netflix subscribers in the US (50.85 million) than there are customers for major cable TV networks (48.61 million). This doesn’t make it bigger than TV as a whole (the figures don’t include 33.19 million satellite viewers), but it’s still a big milestone for a streaming service that had half as may users 5 years ago.

Also, internet-only TV subscriptions are playing a small role. Leichtman reckons that there are 1.36 million Sling TV subscribers, and 375,000 DirecTV Now members.

The shift in power comes in part through Netflix’s ever-greater reliance on originals. There’s enough high-quality material that it can compete with more established networks. However, it’s also getting a boost from the decline of conventional TV. Those traditional sources lost 760,000 subscribers in the first quarter of the year versus 120,000 a year earlier. Leichtman believes a combination of cord cutters and reduced marketing toward cost-conscious viewers is to blame. Cable giants might not be in dire straits, but they’re clearly focusing on their most lucrative customers as others jump ship for the internet.

Via: Forbes

Source: Leichtman Research

‘Call of Duty’ goes back to what it does best: historic warfare

After Infinite Warfare, I was ready to give up on Call of Duty. I just didn’t think the futuristic space setting was very compelling and couldn’t bring myself to finish the campaign. Just when I thought I was out though, Sledgehammer Games pulled me back in. For the next installment of the franchise, the title is going back to its roots: World War II in Europe. To me, the historical Call of Duty games are the best ones and this year’s installment looks very promising.

Here at E3, Activision and Sledgehammer are showing off the campaign in a cinematic setting while letting us put our fingers on the trigger in multiplayer. I got a look at Team Deathmatch, Domination and War Mode in my brief time with Call of Duty: WWII. Antique weapons, trench warfare and close quarters combat make the team play here very fun. There are a ton of blind corners and places to hide, so you can walk right past an opposing player without knowing it until it’s too late. It happened to me a lot.

As far as the campaign is concerned, the story focuses on Private “Red” Daniels as he fights for the Allied Powers in Europe during 1944 and 1945. Yes, that includes the beaches of Normandy and D-Day. Some key aspects of the campaign mode include using health packs (first-aid kits) to heal yourself and relying heavily on the members of your squad to complete objectives and avoid dying on the battlefield. As you might expect with Call of Duty, there’s plenty of violence and gore and the gameplay I saw included multiple gruesome decapitations.

Divisions also play a big role here, as you can select which job you want to have during each match. Of course, each one comes with its own weapons, uniforms and responsibilities. There’s also a headquarters in the game where you can do all of those training exercises, including one-on-one combat. Unfortunately, Sledgehammer wasn’t showing off that Nazi zombies mode, but we already knew it would be part of the game.

I’ll have to reserve any definitive judgment on Call of Duty: WWII until I’m able to play through the campaign and spend more time getting owned in multiplayer. Thankfully, I won’t have to wait too long to do that. Sledgehammer says a private beta will be available this summer and the full game is set to launch November 3rd on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One — just in time to offer some respite from your holiday madness. Going back in time could bring fans back to the series, it’s just too early to tell how compelling a case Activision and Sledgehammer will make.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Elon Musk brings his Mars plan before the scientific community

In this month’s issue of New Space, Elon Musk outlined his plan to colonize Mars. His article discusses how to bring down the cost of Mars flights as well as some of the specs of necessary equipment.

The article is adapted from Musk’s presentation at the International Astronautical Congress and begins with an argument for why we should focus on Mars for our move towards interplanetary life. Musk then notes that with current technologies, a ticket to Mars would cost around $10 billion, which he correctly deduces is a prohibitive amount if we want to actually colonize another planet.

Getting that cost down to the median price of a house — around $200,000 — is key to making the Mars plan viable, says Musk. And he outlines four essential steps that will need to be taken if there’s any hope of doing that. First, the transportation would have to be fully reusable because any amount of waste would significantly increase the cost. And ships would need to be refilled while in orbit. Additionally, we would need to be able to produce propellant on Mars and it would have to be optimized for cost, reusability, and easy production — Musk proposes methane.

Musk then proceeds to detail the proposed engine, rocket booster and ship as well as how many ships we would need and how many people each one should be able to carry. For the crew compartment Musk says, “There will be movies, lecture halls, cabins, and a restaurant. It will be really fun to go. You are going to have a great time!”

Musk sketches a rough timeline for these events, but keeps it purposefully vague. It’s clear, however, that this is something he’s actively working towards. The fifteen-page journal article is not quite what you expect to see in a peer-reviewed journal — there are some humorously unnecessary venn diagrams and a few tables that are nothing more than bullet points. But it’s a much more flushed out write-up than we usually get from Musk. To see the presentation the article is based on, check out the video below.

Via: Eurekalert

Source: New Space

Apple Supplier Foxconn Considering Wisconsin Plant

Apple supplier Foxconn has been considering opening a facility in the United States, and the company is investigating Wisconsin as one possible location, reports The Associated Press.

According to an unspecified person with “direct knowledge” of the negotiations, the state of Wisconsin is currently in talks with Foxconn. Michigan is also said to be pursuing the Foxconn plant.

President Donald Trump alluded to negotiations with an unspecified company during a visit to Milwaukee on Tuesday, saying [Wisconsin Governor] Walker might get “a very happy surprise very soon.” Trump said “we were negotiating with a major, major incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions.”

Rumors suggesting Foxconn might open a United States factory first surfaced last November, after Apple reportedly asked suppliers Foxconn and Pegatron to look into the feasibility of producing iPhones in the United States.

Foxconn in January confirmed that it was mulling $7 billion joint investment with Apple for a U.S. factory that would produce displays. Foxconn chairman Terry Gou said that a U.S. display facility could make sense given the increase in demand for larger display panels, but he did express some concerns over the skill of the workforce in the U.S. and negotiating a deal with the government.

Foxconn has reportedly been in talks with both the U.S. federal government and individual state governments for several months over the facility, which, if established, could be used to manufacture displays for the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.

Gou in January also said Foxconn is planning to establish a new molding facility in the United States, with Pennsylvania cited as a possible location. It is not clear if Wisconsin will be the home of the molding facility or the display facility built in partnership with Apple.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
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Keep your house safer with ASMO Charger (Review)

If I would run a poll asking how many of you leave their chargers plugged to the outlet after your charging duties are done, I’m pretty sure I would get a pretty high number. It’s such a common thing to do that you probably don’t think about it that much.

However, there has been multiple accidents throughout the world caused by careless charging practices. Most of them occur while charging phones during the night, but there have also been cases in which a seemingly harmless charger connected to an outlet has caused big consequences.

This is the case of Asmo Saloranta, creator of the ASMO charger. His fiancée’s house suffered severe damage thanks to a charger that was left plugged into a power outlet. So, what’s the idea? Very simple: when you plug your ASMO charger to the outlet and connect your phone, it turns on. When you unplug it, it turns off. Sounds simple? That’s because it is. This charger does not aim to reinvent the charging experience (which is something kind of hard to do anyways). It tries to let you do exactly what you’re doing right now, but in a more secure way.

Specs

I never figured out why don’t we all have the same plugs and voltages all over the world. For being the only intelligent species on the Earth, we are such a mess regarding basic stuff. Anyways, ASMO charger tries to get around this fact by providing a universal voltage charger.

• Input: 100V – 230V
• Output: 5V – 2A
• Port: microUSB
• Plug: Type-C
• Cable length: 1.5 m

There are two things that are notably absent from this charger. The first one is the ability to charge a device with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge capabilities. The other one is the lack of a USB Type-C option. For now, only microUSB phones are supported. Also, because ASMO Solutions, the company behind the charger, is based in the lovely country of Finland, the plug is tailored to European markets. However, there are plans to remedy two of these shortcomings, but more on that later.

Packaging and Initial Impressions

Packaging for the ASMO Charger is very interesting because it has a huge “Stay Safe” label at the front. It really gets the message across in an impactful way. Contrary to such a high amount of chargers and accessories these days, especially from American brands, ASMO Charger’s packaging is made fully of cardboard, so it is not as harmful to the environment and easily recyclable.

Straight and to the point packaging.

When taking the white charger out of its package, you can clearly feel that a lot of attention has been put to deliver a high-quality product. This is especially true for the cable, which is so much better than the pitiful chargers that OEMs usually ship with their devices. It is not as thick as, for example, Anker’s nylon cables, but this is a cable that will probably last you for years. If you don’t believe me, then believe ASMO, since it offers a five-year warranty on the device.

The cable is fully attached to the charger itself. It’s not like chargers these days that have a USB plug, and you connect a cable to it. There are benefits and disadvantages to this, but, because of the nature of the charger, it was probably made this way to provide more security.

Usage

Connect your charger to the outlet, plug in your (microUSB) phone, and forget about everything else.

So how does it work? Plug in your device and if it supports USB On-The-Go (commonly referred as OTG), it will detect it automatically and turn itself on. If your device does not support USB OTG, then the charger has a green button that will turn on the charger manually. It is very easy to determine if the device is actually on or off because it makes a click sound on both occurrences.

Unfortunately for me, my Honor 7 Lite (called Huawei Honor 5C in other markets) does not support USB OTG, so I had to turn on the charger each time. Once I forgot to turn it on, but when I remembered my mistake, it was already too late: I had to leave my place with an almost discharged phone. The horror.

I have an LG G Pad 8.3 laying around though (sorry, Android on tablets is just not up to par to iOS on the iPad), so I could test this and it works flawlessly. As soon as I plug in my tablet, the charger clicks and starts charging.

Upon unplugging any device, the charger takes approximately 3 seconds to turn itself off. A click will make sure that your flat is safe and that the house lady won’t have to enter your room because the fire alarm went off.

Charging my devices with the ASMO Charger took the same amount of time than using its unsafe, non-clicking counterparts, so the added security layer does not create a slower charger. On a small side note, I found the microUSB plug to be just a bit on the bigger side, which sometimes causes some very minor clashes with my phone’s protection case. Not a big deal, though.

What’s next for the ASMO Charger?

Future ASMO Chargers will support USB Type-C and US plugs.

Even though they have a solid product right now, ASMO Solutions is already thinking about the future. I was in contact with an ASMO Solutions rep, and she was eager to explain the company’s upcoming plans.

With the dawn of the USB Type-C era, fuelled by the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8, accessories companies have to embrace the new standard in order to stay relevant. ASMO is aware of this, so they have a roadmap for developing a Type-C solution in Fall of this year. As more and more phone incorporate this plug, it is imperative companies start working on it.

The other shortcoming that ASMO is already working on is in offering a charger with a Type A socket (the one used in the United States, Canada, and almost all countries in Latin America). Sure, you can use an adapter right now and it will work well, but it’s much better to have a native solution and not deal with workarounds. This would also be introduced in Fall 2017.

Other products in their vision deal with laptops. Two things that are always plugged into a socket when not in use: a phone charger and a laptop charger. It makes sense, then, to bring to the market solutions for laptops as well.

Conclusion and where to buy

That green button is there for you if your device doesn’t support USB OTG.

There’s small stuff that you do every day that might be dangerous in the long run but you keep doing it anyways. One of these bad habits is leaving your charger connected all the time, which, not only adds up some cents to your electric bill but also can become a fire hazard under some circumstances.

Sure, this is not something that happens every day, but why should you risk it? And come on, you won’t ever start to unplug your charger.

Now, the weakest point of the ASMO Charger is its price. At €49.95, it is not exactly a cheap device. The quality and the safeness aspect make up for some of the price, but it is still a fairly expensive accessory. Perhaps, at a lower price, it would be a bit more appealing.

If you want to learn more about the device itself and buy it, you can head over to Asmo Solution’s website and order yours today. You can also check the (successful) Indiegogo campaign to see how the charger came to be.

Buy the ASMO Charger from ASMO Solution’s website.

Ulefone Power 2 (Review)

Smartphones are an ever-evolving beast pushed by technology with new processors, better cameras, more RAM, and storage capacity and constantly updated operating systems. One tech area within smartphones that has unfortunately been put by the wayside has been smarter, larger and more efficient batteries. As manufacturers try to squeeze more power from thinner devices, total use time has been diminishing over the past few years.

Enter the Ulefone Power 2; a smartphone that accentuates and embraces its heavier and bulkier frame all in the name of power. Not processing power or graphical power–but battery power that can get any user through a heavy-use day, and then some. Ulefone has positioned the Power 2 to sell to smartphone users that are fed up with charging their devices at the most inopportune times.

The Power 2 comes in a high quality, sleek black box with a generic logo on the front

Packaging: The Power 2 comes in somewhat non-traditional packaging that doesn’t quite attain the feel of a high-end electronics device. Ulefone ships the Power 2 in a simple black box with a ‘POWER II’ logo that adorns the front side. Ulefone’s Power II logo reminded me of something you’d see on a generic car battery or hardware battery pack. Upon opening the box I found a nicely packaged device with all seemingly all the right accessories.

Ulefone has packed the box full with all the accessories you need. Along with the phone, you get a charger, screen protector, case, manual, charging adapter and holder ring

Inside the box:

• Ulefone Power 2 Smartphone
• International charging brick
• 3-foot red micro-USB cable
• USB to micro-USB adapter
• Protective case
• Screen protector
• Carrying ring
• Multi-language Manual
• Sim ejection tool

Ulefone does not include a regional power adapter, as this is not for my local region, but thankfully any standard micro-USB charger works just fine. Also not inside the box: earbuds. Considering that I now have a half a dozen cheap headphones lying around and that I normally prefer a good set of Bluetooth headphones, I was not upset by Ulefone’s decision to ship the Power 2 without a set of earbuds.

The Power 2 uses micro-USB to charge and has a single speaker at the bottom

Hardware Design

Body: Sleek, Dark, Bold. The Ulefone Power 2 has a very traditional look and feel that is both classic and modernized. The metal body pairs well with the 2.5D glass and feels great in the hand. I definitely noticed a premium feel the first time I picked up the phone. The curved edges are different from both of the recent offerings from Samsung and Apple, which makes the Power 2 feel unique while retaining a more traditional overall look.

The Power 2 feels hefty with the massive internal battery but never caused any wrist or hand fatigue over extended periods of use. It harkens back to more of a blocky, brick feel of some earlier smartphones, but with the large screen, the size is definitely emphasized. The chamfered back edges of the Power 2 feel great in the hand and add to the overall ergonomics.

I was surprised to find both a protective case and screen protector in the packaging with the Power 2. The case is sturdy plastic with a pseudo-leather styling that reminded me of something Motorola may offer in its Moto style line. I’m normally the type of person that keeps a case on my daily driver, but with the Ulefone Power 2, I felt just as comfortable with the case on as I did with the case off.

The Power 2 feels great in the hand and the high-resolution screen is sharp and vivid

The fingerprint scanner is built into the physical home button found in the middle of the bottom bezel and it works incredibly well. It was just as fast, if not faster that the best scanners from Apple and Samsung. One additional feature that I found very handy was the ability to just touch the fingerprint reader to turn on and unlock the device from an off-state. It’s quick and accurate–just as a fingerprint scanner should be.

Here’s the Ulefone Power 2 next to a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge [LEFT] and an iPhone 5s [RIGHT]Screen: The Ulefone Power 2 has a 5.5-inch full-HD display that is neither stunning nor underwhelming. It’s a simple IPS LCD with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 that auto-adjusts with a light sensor and proximity sensor just above the screen. I found the auto-brightness feature to not work as well as some other phones, but in general, the Power 2 does a fairly decent job of adjusting to changes in environmental lighting.

Not once did I notice the screen to seem too saturated, too glossy, too cool or too dithered. Honestly, this is a great screen especially when you consider the Power 2 is a budget-friendly device. The biggest drawback to the screen size is the fact that it’s in a traditional 16:9 layout while new devices are experimenting with high aspect ratios to allow for more screen real-estate without making the device feel too large. Samsung and LG both offer higher aspect ratios that make their flagships large without being too wide for most users’ hands. Ulefone Power 2 retains a more historically common 16:9 ratio that may change in future iterations.

The Power 2’s screen is ultra glossy and reflective in direct sunlight but otherwise, does a respectable job in adjusting to changes in surrounding lighting

Sound (speaker, headphone, Bluetooth):

The Power 2 has a single speaker at the bottom of the device which plays fairly loudly but does not overly impress with quality nor overall volume. Yes, it gets loud for its size, but, like most smartphones, it will not fill a room with booming sound. Thankfully a universal 3.5mm headphone port sits at the top of the phone if you wish to get full stereo sound from a set if headphones or auxiliary speaker. The Ulefone Power 2 also has Bluetooth 4.0 out of the box to support a multitude of Bluetooth headphones, speakers, car and home device connections. I was able to easily connect a multitude of devices to the Power 2 over Bluetooth with no issues.

No worries here for avid headphone users. The Power 2 has a standard headphone jack for all your audio needs

Camera: With a 16MP rear-facing and 13MP front-facing selfie camera, the Power 2 has you covered in megapixels. The lenses feature 14 different light filters as well as what Ulefone calls 100-stage beautification–just imagine how beautiful you will look on this phone. In all seriousness, the Power 2’s rear camera has an auto-HDR mode that requires a steady hand but offers some better shadow processing for more natural looking photos. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of photos in well-lit environments, however, low-light shots left a lot to be desired.

The 16MP camera lens sits dead center on the back of the Power 2, right above the LED flash/light

With the budget friendly pricing, I expected very little from Ulefone in the camera department. Thankfully, most daytime shots turned out great with no over-saturation and a great amount of detail. Night shots and low-level indoor shots were fairly grainy and often-times blurry. The Power 2 is not a smartphone for users looking for a great way to take photos but does a fair job for most common daytime photography.

Click to see samples of the Power 2’s camera capabilities

The Ulefone Power 2 has a huge 6050 mAh, built-in battery. This large battery is non-removable but considering the size and capabilities, this should not be an issue. The massive size of the battery adds some heft to the overall feel of the phone but also affirms that you’ll rarely need to charge the device. Ulefone advertises that most users could make it four full days without needing to charge and power users should make it through two days without issue.

The Power 2 is thick, especially when adding on the included case–but that’s a small price to pay for a long-lasting battery

I found that I was able to make it through about three days of normal use before I felt the need to charge. I was amazed every time I went to check my battery status. Smartphones I’ve used in the past have had a hard time staying charged through one day of extensive use, but the Power 2’s ability to get me through multiple days was a real surprise–and I don’t know if I ever want to go back. In most instances, while checking the Power 2 throughout the day, I was surprised to notice that the battery had dropped only a few points from the last time I had checked.

The “Power” name designation perfectly accentuates the main selling point of this smartphone from Ulefone–it really is a game-changer. I commend Ulefone for pushing overall battery power considering one of the main drawbacks of the most popular smartphones today, is the lack of overall battery capacity. Ulefone includes a 2 amp fast-charging adapter that can give you a full day’s charge in just a half an hour which is perfect for times when you only have a few spare minutes to recharge.

The Ulefone logo splashes across the screen during the power-on process

Processing: Inside the Power 2 is an MT6750T from Mediatek, which is an Octa-core processor running at 1.5GHz. While this chipset is not widely known or utilized in more common smartphones, it is plenty capable of running virtually any application available today. MediaTek advertises the MT6750T as a mid-tier system on a chip that incorporates an ARM-A53 cluster running at 1.5GHz paired with an ARM-A53 cluster running at 1.0GHz.

Booting up! I was surprised to see an update available right after the first boot-up

Paired up with the MT6750T is the MT6176 modem that covers worldwide 4G spectrum and includes Carrier Aggregation. This is just a standard way for mobile carriers to combine separate LTE carriers for higher bandwidth capacity–nothing special to this device. I was very surprised to discover that the Ulefone Power 2 has a dual-sim slot that allows for multiple connections to the GSM band. One minor drawback to this capability is that only one connection will support full speed while the second slot will be downgraded to standard voice while in use.

Memory: Inside the Power 2 you’ll find 4GB of dedicated memory that’s great for running multiple applications smoothly. I was able to quickly switch between a couple dozen apps with no slow-down. I felt the Power 2 did a wonderful job of memory management as well, considering each application loaded back into an active process with no visible issues. Having 4GB of memory available was a smart choice and another surprise from Ulefone.

Storage: Ulefone offers a whopping 64GB of storage with the Power 2. This is double of what most smartphone manufacturers provide as a base starting point unless a customer is willing to pay more for extra storage. On top of that, the Power 2 also includes a micro-SD card slot that supports an additional 256GB of storage space.

I was able to load all of my common day-to-day applications and still retain over 75% of my allocated 64GB. This is great for users that don’t want to immediately purchase an extra micro-SD card for photos, videos, and additional large applications. You could literally put a couple thousand songs from your music library on the Power 2 without issue.

User Interface

The Ulefone Power 2 features Android 7.0 (Nougat) out of the box and has been optimized to function as smoothly as possible. While navigating between screens and across different apps I found that the Power 2 responds to every tap and swipe perfectly. The operating system never chugs or stutters; Ulefone did a great job here.

Ulefone Power 2 features Android 7.0 with a unique, and somewhat ho-hum, overlay

The Ulefone Power 2 integrates Android 7 very nicely but unfortunately, it’s skinned with something called ‘Cooler OS.’ Cooler OS skins familiar Android icons with ugly aberrations that remind me of a teenagers Microsoft Windows icon pack from 1999. This was my least favorite part of the entire Power 2 experience, but fortunately, since this is Android, I was able to download and set a new launcher with a much more visually pleasing icon pack. The strange octagonal icons remain in the settings menus, but I found them much less jarring than the standard home screen icons.

Cooler OS functions almost identical to stock Android but adds a few functions that are also unique and useful. The usefulness of these included software features may vary between users but I discovered that most of them were worth checking out. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.

Float Gesture: Float gesture places a permanent, floating button on the screen that allows for quick access to floating applications like ‘Float Music,’ ‘Float Video,’ ‘Read Mode’ or quick access to locking the device’s screen. I found this feature to be more obtrusive than beneficial in most instances, so decided to leave it off.

One Hand Floatview: One Hand Floatview turns on the ability to swipe up from the bottom, right corner to get quick access to device shortcuts. Initially, I had some issues with this feature, but after some extensive research, I was able to fully use One hand Floatview.

Smart somatosensory: Smart somatosensory is designed to allow a user to swipe through designated applications with just a wave of the hand to change through songs, photos, launcher screens, etc. This feature was the most inconsistent of all additional Power 2 features as I had a hard time registering swipes to execute any changes.

Gesture Motion: Gesture Motion is designed to add features within the system and telephone categories by allowing designated gestures as functions. If enabled, these functions allow you to silence a call by turning the phone on its face, answer a phone call by swinging it up to your ear or to turn off the speaker by placing it close to your ear. While I did try most of these functions to see how well they worked, I decided to leave most of them off as they offered very little in overall usability.

Gesture Motion has two sub-categories that include ‘Telephony Motion’ and ‘System Motion’

There were also options to turn on three-point screenshots, three point camera entry, two point volume adjustments and a double-tap of the home key to lock the screen at any time. These require some experimentation to fully understand but still offered a varying degree of usability and function depending on a users devotion to understanding each feature independently. Personally, I ended up using the double-tap feature to lock the screen as well as the related double tap function to unlock the screen while it was off.

Gesture Unlock: This feature can be turned on or off to allow for a multitude of specific gesture-based shortcuts (which can be enabled or disabled individually). Double-click to wake was the feature I found most useful within this list. Here’s the full list of gesture unlock options:

• Double-click to wake
• Slide up to unlock
• Slide down to camera
• Sideslip cut songs
• Gesture ‘m’ to start music
• Gesture ‘c’ to start phone
• Gesture ‘e’ to start browser
• Gesture ‘o’ to start assignable application
• Gesture ‘w’ to start assignable application
• Gesture ‘z’ to start assignable application

The final three gestures (o, w & z) can be set to any installed application, which is a great bonus to the entire Gesture Unlock feature.

The Power 2 offers plenty of varying gesture unlock functions that rival almost any other smartphone

Parallel Space: Parallel Space was the most interesting item from Ulefone within its dedicated feature settings. Parallel Space allows you to run an application separately from the normal instances of your apps as a new or different user. Essentially this allows you to have two different logins for one application without setting up and switching logins. This can be beneficial to users that have separate personal and work logins for certain applications.

Use Parallel Space to launch applications from secondary accounts–how handy is that?

Conclusion

The Power 2 really accentuates its name by offering a ton of battery power. This device provides days of power on a fully charged battery. Outside of its emphasis on battery power, the Ulefone Power 2 is a fully capable smartphone that keeps stride with any other budget phone but at an even better price. As of review time, it’s possible to purchase a Ulefone Power 2 for well under $200 USD. This places it in an exclusive, low-cost price bracket that makes it incredibly enticing.

While there are definite areas to improve upon, Ulefone has designed something unique and empowering with the Power 2 smartphone. I’d love to see what’s next in line for the Power series of devices from Ulefone. If the Power 2 successor can improve on the processor and the camera without adding too much to the overall cost, it may just have become a major competitor in the budget phone arena for next year.

We’d like to thank GearBest for supplying the unit for this review. You can find
the Ulefone Power 2 for sale on GearBesthere.