Video Review - Nexus 10

Check out our video review of the long awaited Google Nexus 10! Does it live up to our standards? Watch to find out!

A written review is on the way!

Introducing Samsung Tec Tiles: Taking NFC to the Next Level

 

Since the introduction of NFC devices exactly a year ago, when Google Wallet promised a revolutionary new way of using Android phones in the everyday world, there haven't been any significant uses for the hyped up technology until now. Samsung has created these so-called "Tec Tiles," little squarish stickers that seem innocuously childish at first, but actually have the power to respond to your phone's NFC device. If you have a Galaxy S III, Galaxy S II (T-Mobile only), Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S 4G or Galaxy S Blaze 4G, you will really want/need Tec Tiles, so read more after the break!

These so-called Tec-Tiles can be mounted on just about anywhere, on your backpack, your office desk, your car's dashboard, your kitchen table, you name it. Consuming only 4 square inches of space, its portability is the reason why it brings something new. With each Tec Tile, you are able to customize what action your Android device will take when it registers the sticker, using the Samsung Tec Tiles app, whether it is muting your phone, turning off Wi-Fi and data, turning on music, etc: the possibilities are endless. So, if you want to silence your phone when you get to your office, simply place your phone over the sticker, and you're set for the day. It can really be a time-saver in some cases, such as when you are in a car and you really want to focus on the road. Having a sticker that tells your phone to turn on its navigation will be extremely helpful here. For only $14.99, having 5 Samsung Tec Tiles can really improve your life, for sure. 

Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook Video Review

After weeks with the laptop, we finally composed a video review of the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook!

What is your opinion on cloud computing? Post in the comments below!

The Galaxy S III and Bit of Comparison Between Krait and Exynos

Samsung's next superphone is set to be announced May 3rd, and there have been an awful lot of rumors leading up to the release. Similar to Apple's style of new product announcements, Samsung has been extremely tight with secuirity surrounding the S III, so we don't know know any of the following for certain.

So first things first: the internals. There have been lots of buzz surrounding Samsung's announcement of its Exynos 4212 quad-core A9 SoC. It boasts a 20% net energy savings with a higher performance. According to leaked benchmarks (below), it outperforms the Transformer Prime's pseudo-penta-quad-core Tegra 3 by a good amount. 

The leaked benchmark also reveals that the S III has a max clock of 1.4 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, 720p (1280x720 ~319 ppi) 4.7 inch screen, and an impressive 12 MP rear camera. Knowing Samsung, the screen is probably a super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors. The benchmark also states that it is running Ice Cream Sandwich.

Many are dissapointed by Samsung's choice to use year-old A9 architecture intstead of the high performance A15-based processors. Luckily, it is highly likely that US bound Galaxies are fitted with the dual-core S4 Snaprdragon "Krait". Although Krait technically does not use A15 architecture, Qualcomm states that the S4 is based off of A15 design.

Now, the common myth is that quad-core is faster and more power-efficient than dual-core processors. While this could be true in a perfect world, there are tons of other factors that affect the performance of a processor. One huge factor is heat. And in the case of S4 Krait cores, Qualcomm has gone to great lengths to increase the thermal efficiency of its processors, which, in turn, makes them more energy efficient overall. Another big factor is the GPU. Krait's integrated Adreno graphics co-processors are very fast, and the new Adreno 320 GPU in the recently announced S4 Pro line of quad-core chipsets offers four times as much graphics processing power than the already impressive Adreno 225 GPU used today. Although I cannot find any hard benchmarks, I've heard that this new Adreno 320 offers graphics power similar to that of gaming consoles (it was never specified which console though...). On the other hand, Exynos's GPU is the generation old Mali-400MP. There is nothing too exceptional about it since it is used in the current Galaxy S II lineup. In this paragraph, I hope I have debunked the myth of more cores are better! Now, to the software of the S III.

As seen to the right, there is a leaked picture of a S III in a mockup case that hides the real design. It's obviosly running ICS and, as you can tell in this leak, there are no hardware buttons. One unique thing to note is the fourth software button typically not seen in other ICS devices. This is both good and bad. Back in 2.x Gingerbread days, most Android phones had 4 hardware buttons. Android has been criticized for being too fragmented in both hardware and software. So when Google released ICS, their intent was to reduce fragmentation within both realms by switching out hardware buttons with the consistent software buttons. It seems Samsung is bucking the trend and designing their own unique style for ICS. The only good I see coming out of this is for the S II user's benefit. I'm pretty sure Samsung is making this decision because they want the buttons on the S II to be similar to the S III so that users that upgrade will not get too confused.. 

Overall, the expectations for the S III is really high. The S II was the most popular Android handset on the market, so the S III better not mess things up! Any opinions would be greatly appreciated below and get ready for May 3rd!

EDIT: Some more details have been leaked. The unofficial blog SamMobile seem to have gotten their hands on some legitmate looking user manuals. According to this image, it seems like we've gotten it all wrong. The camera is 8 MP, not 12 MP; the Exynos 4212 reaches a max clock speed of 1.5 GHz. Most suprising, though, is the screen. It's not the rumored 4.6 or 4.7 inch screen, but a whopping 4.8 screen! It also mentions that the screen is MIPI (C-Type), which supposedly means HD RGB. Hopefully that means 720p screen with no Pentile! One small little thing that might discredit this image is the hardware buttons. The image shows three hardware buttons (back button, menu button, and trackball) and that just doesn't seem to make sense. ICS is unique because of its software buttons, so having two back buttons and menu buttons is not very plausible. But then again, this is just a rumor; and with all of these mismatching rumors, we really don't know what's certain. But May 3rd is just around the corner! Get excited!

Windows Phone Tango getting LTE

Well it seems that Verizon has given Microsoft an ultimatum. Allow LTE on its phones or say "bye bye" to Verizon's support. Read more after the break.

So bottom line, insiders have said that Microsoft will be adding LTE support with the Tango update and that HTC, Samsung, and Nokia are prepping some new phones that will take advantage of said support.To make things even sweeter, it looks like Microsoft will be adding support for superphones as well, Samsung seems to coming out with a superphone with a 4.5 inch display (according to a rumor).

There is a problem however, these rumors seem to clash with the roadmap we posted earlier, does this mean that the roadmap was a fake? Or does it mean Microsoft has combined Apollo and Tango to make a super-update? I would put my money on the prior. What do you guys think? Sound off in the comments! 

The Samsung S27A350H

A large gaming monitor with a not-so-large price tag

Since I bought this monitor, I’ve always been remarking on how long the version number is. I mean, S@&A#%)H! That thing is long. For an on-sale price of $309.99 at Costco, this monitor offers good screen real estate (although not as much as a flat-screen TV) and nice performance. It has a VGA and an HDMI (No DVI) input, both of which work very nicely, a 1920X1080 screen, 2ms GTG response time, and purportedly 300 cd/m² of brightness, although it’s actually appreciably brighter than that. It’s based on LED backlighting, but it’s edge-lit, which means there is a very limited difference in terms of black levels and contrast between it and, say, a CCFL-backlit monitor like the p2770fh or my old Dell 2001fp. For the gaming junkies out there who care only about size, price, and brightness, look no further. This is one hell of a display. Games new and old, from Age of Empires to Civilization V to DiRT 3, are absolutely gorgeous on this monitor.

Unfortunately, it has a few shortcomings. For one, it’s a TN panel, so it’s not for CRT/Plasma aficionados and photo editors. Color banding is very noticeable on this monitor, primarily because of the size and contrast ratio. Sadly, this is particularly irritating in some desktop backgrounds, so I would choose a photograph rather than a large gradient such as the default Windows 7 desktop. It’s not a complete turn-off because it’s not noticeable in gaming or movie watching, but be forewarned that it is a problem that you won’t see on higher end monitors like the Dell 3007wfp.

Another minor issue is that of viewing angle. It’s not horrendous like that of some laptops or older monitors (It is a huge improvement over the older p2770fh) but try to keep in mind that it’s much worse than, say, a plasma TV or an IPS-based monitor. It’s also only 1080p, rather than the 1920X1200 of the 28-inch Hanns-G HZ281 display. Remember, 1920X1080 is ideal on a 21 to 23 inch screen, and so this will be, essentially, a slightly bloated version of that. 81.6 DPI is a lot more pixelated than a normal monitor. For comparison, even a 20” 1440X900 monitor is 85 DPI. Laptops or professional monitors (like the Dell 2001fp) can be well over 100 DPI. In addition, there’s the aspect ratio. 16:9 is good for gaming (especially with new games) but bad for desktop work and internet browsing, where you’ll begin to value vertical space vastly more than horizontal space.

The last shortcoming is, paradoxically, in the 2ms response time. With response time set to “fastest” (accessible via the easy-to-use menu) frame rates lower than 60 FPS DO NOT look smooth. Games with lower frame rates are actually a bit more playable, especially racing games, than on slower displays, but games capped at 30 fps, like Red Alert 3, will look a bit choppy.  I guess all things come with tradeoffs, and this effect is also visible on plasma televisions, which generally have pixel response times in the nanoseconds. Unfortunately, it can’t really do 75 HZ the way older monitors could, so this choppiness effect is unavoidable. You can, however, turn down the response time via the menu, which alleviates this issue fairly well. Again, a very minor qualm and one that you’ll get used to fast enough.

The specs include pretty nice black and white levels (better than the p2770fh, the Dell 2001fp, nearly every laptop out there, and perhaps marginally better than the HZ281—images such as a white mouse pointer over a black background can be quite arresting at times) 1920X1080 resolution (Only 56 more vertical pixels than the run-of-the-mill 17-inch monitors of yesteryear) A matte coating (Much less annoying glare than most glossy monitors) a tilt-capable (but not height-adjustable) stand, a nice reddish design (But without the awesome “starlight touch buttons” of the p2770fh) and an eye-catching picture that will stay bright even in a bright room. By the way, it’s about an inch thick, and has very little backlight bleed. It’s, quite literally, radiant, but it’s not for photo editors or those who are unusually worried about color accuracy. And, S@&A#%)H! It’s big.