HTC Sensation XL review
The HTC Sensation XL pushes out 4.7-inches of glorious display to fill with your Android ambitions. It’s the latest flagship phone to launch from HTC, much rumoured and leaked, and now unleashed upon the world. It picks up much of what the HTC Titan set out on Windows Phone 7 and effectively gives you the Android equivalent, but with a few treats thrown in.
But does this phone bite off more than it can chew? Is it big and clever? We got the chance to spend some time with the phone prior to launch to bring you our first impressions.
Design and build
Let’s start with the design. HTC have stuck to their tried and tested approach of a machined aluminium back, with a bottom section finished in rubberised plastic to ensure plenty of reception. Like the HTC Sensation, the entire back comes away from the front, so effectively all the innards are attached to the back of that massive screen.
It feels solid in the hand. There are no plastic sections to creak as you manipulate it, there are no odd panels or coloured sections. It’s just big, clean and white. But it isn’t as attractive in design as the regular Sensation which by comparison looks more sophisticated with it’s speaker cutout and contoured screen edges.
The flat front of the screen gives you four touch controls across the bottom, home, menu, back and search. On the top you have the normal standby button and 3.5mm headphone jack, with volume controls on the side. A single Micro-USB is on the bottom edge – there is no HDMI out, as you might find on rival devices. Read more 
iPhone 4S Review
1. The look #1: On the outside, it looks, feels and smells like an iPhone 4. That’s because it is. The inside, however, is where the S
magic happens. The faster A5 processor makes operation noticeably quicker when launching, re-launching apps and when using power-hungry apps such as iMovie.
2. The look #2: The plain fact that it looks like an iPhone 4 will be a hammer blow to those who have waited patiently for a freshly
designed, potentially cooler-loooking iPhone 5. This tweet from @crossan_phil sums it up: “glad the 5 didn’t come out. Gives me more time to use my 24mth contract with the 4!!”
3. The iPhone 4S gaming. The improved graphics are amazing. While the version we used didn’t have Infinity Blade 2 installed, we tried Real Racing 2 which, to us, looked smoother than our iPhone 4 version. The keynote demo of Infinity Blade 2 was mind-blowing considering it was running on a bloomin’ phone. It wowed the room. A room full of cynical hacks. PSP Vita, eat your heart out
4. The iPhone 4S Camera: The 8-megapixel camera shoots great photos (and macro shots). Although we were inside the Covent Garden Apple store with strip lighting a reflections-a-go-go, the resulting shots were nice and sharp, employing some of that new camera tech built into the iPhone 4S. However, the real star of the vision upgrade is…
5. …the 1080p video camera. The difference in quality is instantly noticeable. We were very impressed. Will it nail the coffin shut on
the dwindling camcorder industry? It’s a great upgrade regardless of whether you really need it. Well, cinema pirates might.
6. iOS 5: You all know what it’s like, the 200+ features it brings plus the iCloud. However, getting hands on with Notifications,
Newsstand, iMessage and Reminders demonstrated to us just how much of a step up from iOS 4 it is.
7. The iPhone 4S Price: Apple has announced entry level UK pricing of £499. We think this is for the 16Gb version, which could put the brand new 64Gb model at a whopping £699 (going by the US pricing structure). We need to confirm that though. Orange and T-Mobile have confirmed that they will be selling the iPhone 4S come October 14, presumably on a two-year contract.
8. Speech: Siri is the most interesting feature of the 4S. We asked it the weather in London, and then San Francisco. We gave it a multiplication query. We asked who the prime minister of the UK was. We asked it the meaning of life (‘to answer questions like these’ was the retort). It answered them all. Some of the replies were even funny. From a damn robot. It also got a few things wrong and we think that, in a real-world environment surrounded by lots of noise, it may struggle. Especially as it’s still in beta. We’re looking forward to testing it further (watch this space). Our long-suffering partners, however, aren’t.
9. The Antenna: It’s the big question for many thinking of upgrading – will it still fall foul of the reported drop call issue? Apple claims that switching between the dual antennas will improve call quality and reduce dropouts. We didn’t have enough time to try this out, but are looking to putting that and the 2x download speed claim to the test as soon as we possibly can.
10. The iPhone 4S alternatives: Many smartphones already sport a lot of these features already. And for those who were hoping for a brand-new iPhone 5 today might just now consider a top-drawer Android. They’ll be cheaper, too.
HTC My Touch 4G Slide hands-on (Camera edition)
HTC has been honing its camera skills for some time. We’ve had the HTC Sensation that brought a number of “image effects” to Android, while the EVO 3D has given us three-dimensional shooting and filming.
What if you want a camera phone that really does attempt to replace your point and shoot camera? HTC’s latest attempt at that answer is the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide that not only has the effects found on other HTC Android handsets, but a number of camera like features to impress as well.
via HTC My Touch 4G Slide hands-on (Camera edition) – Pocket-lint.
LG Optimus 3D review
Cilantro might be the most polarizing thing on this planet. Some people can’t eat a fish taco without it, others cry frothy tears of dishsoap at its mere mention. The same may well be true of the LG Optimus 3D (known as the Thrill 4G in the US). We already felt a little torn about the device when we first got our hands on it back in February. Sure, it packed some extra heft and, ahem, Android 2.2.2. But its stupor-inducing, 3D display (combined with some truly poignant marketing) was just enough to whet our appetites. Plus, after having already scarfed down a bowl of HTC’s EVO 3D, we were more than a little keen on tasting LG’s take on the glasses-free 3D recipe – a young and intriguing smartphone genre. Now that we finally have, we’re ready to tackle a question for the ages: dishsoap or delicacy?
Motorola Droid 3 review
Few companies get a second bite at the mobile cherry. Motorola took its initially awesome RAZR phone and flogged it until it wasn’t just a dead horse but little more than neatly canned dog food. With the company’s handset business on the brink of failure, Motorola then bet everything on the Droid – a testosterone-packed Android handset that was everything the iPhone wasn’t. It paid off. Motorola now has a stable of Droid handsets in a variety of sizes, shapes and configurations that share a common clunkiness, geekiness, feature overload and the best ringtone in the Android universe.
The Droid 3 is the ultimate expression of Droid DNA. Motorola has crammed every feature it possibly can into this dual-core Gingerbread device, from an 8 megapixels camera to a five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Like previous Droid devices, the Droid 3 is debuting on Verizon in America network – although without being able to take advantage of the network’s stunning 4G LTE speeds. Does the powerful Droid 3 take Motorola to another level? Or is the company making the same mistakes again, putting all of its mobile eggs into one Droid-shaped basket?
HP TouchPad review
As things get older they tend to get bigger. It’s the same for people, corporations, models of cars, budget deficits… and so it is for webOS. As Palm was in the process of being subsumed its great mobile operating system was being eyed for much broader things, far bigger than the little phones it had previously been flashed on. Things like printers and desktops and laptops, but for its first proper foray outside of a phone it has a tall task: compete in the brutally vicious tablet space.
Its weapon is the TouchPad, a 9.7-inch tablet from HP that got official back in February and will be available July 1st (if you don’t manage to find it earlier) — $499.99 for the 16GB model, $599.99 for 32GB. That’s exactly on parity with the WiFi iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1, current kings of the tablet court. Does this plus-sized Palm progeny really have what it takes to hang at that price point, or is this just a chubby pretender that’s outgrown its britches? Read on to find out.
HTC EVO 3D review
The first time we saw the rumored Supersonic we were blown away. HTC and Google had just wowed us with the Nexus One, and here we were looking at something even better — a 4.3-inch phone with WiMAX wrapped in a white body. This prototype was buggy and had abysmal battery life, but it was real. Four months later it landed in our hands at Google I/O. We’re of course talking about the EVO 4G which went on to become a runaway hit for HTC and Sprint as the first ever 4G smartphone in the US. And here we are a year later with the HTC EVO 3D, the legitimate heir to Sprint’s mobile kingdom — at least until the Motorola Photon 4G comes along. When we first played with the 3D-capable handset at CTIA we were suitably impressed, but we left with a lot of unanswered questions. How do the 1.2GHz dual core processor and qHD display affect battery life? Is 3D a compelling feature or just a gimmick? What is 2D camera performance like with the lower specced camera? Is the EVO 3D a worthy replacement for the EVO 4G? Find out in our review after the break.
Nintendo Wii U review
Well it’s about time. Ever since the current generation of consoles has been sat in our living rooms, annual gaming expo E3 has been bereft of any serious hardware announcements. Or at least one that hasn’t been either a handheld or peripheral. E3 2010 was dominated by Microsoft and Sony as they locked into a bizarre battle over who could best imitate the hugely successful Nintendo Wii, which this year has left Nintendo with only one choice: innovate yet again and jump ahead of the pack. The result is Nintendo’s Wii U.
Something for everyone
Nintendo says that this new machine is a revolutionary console and controller duo designed to be “something for everyone,” which in our opinion simply means packing the motion-control aspects of the Wii while also bringing what’s expected (a full compliment of controls and joysticks, for example) for core game styles like shooters and sports titles. With that mission statement in mind, you’d expect things to be graphically up to muster. They are. HD is a welcome (if late) addition, for one
via Nintendo Wii U review: Hands-on first impressions review | T3.com.
Sony NEX-C3 hands-on and exclusive photos
Sony has now officially announced its small form factor interchangeable lens camera, the Sony NEX-C3, and Pocket-Lint got a chance to have a quick play earlier today at a press event in Taipei, Taiwan of all places.
The new design looks great compared to the NEX-3 and NEX-3, mostly due to its more rounded shape, but Sony has somehow managed to shed both weight and a few millimetres here and there on the camera.
It isn’t immensely smaller – it’s just as thick as the NEX-3 – but the body is over 8mm narrower and 2mm shorter. In the grand scheme of things, this is unlikely to matter in actual usage. However, for Sony, it’s all about being able to say that this is the smallest model yet. That said, the rounded shape has improved the grip and with a larger textured surface it’s also less prone to slipping out of your hand.
via Sony NEX-C3 hands-on and exclusive photos – Pocket-lint.
Apple iOS 5 hands-on preview
iOS 5 won’t be ready for the masses until this Fall, but lucky developers — and eager tech bloggers — are able to get in on the action right now. We just got done downloading the 730MB BETA, and have decided to turn our iPhone 4 and iPad 2 into guinea pigs for all the newness. Apple says that there are over 200 new features baked into the updated OS, and we’ve run through the biggies from Notification Center to Twitter to that oh-so-convenient split keyboard for you — all you need to do is click after the br
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