Affordable Sony Xperia J goes on sale
The Sony Xperia J was unveiled as an "affordable" smartphone at IFA 2012, playing second fiddle to the Xperia T – and it is now available to purchase.
Sony claimed the Xperia J would offer consumers "a stand-out screen size for consumers looking to combine great style with affordability" – and it certainly haven't let us down as far a price is concerned.
Three is offering the Sony Xperia J for free on two year contracts starting at just £13, while if you prefer a PAYG plan, you'll need to fork out £149.99 plus a top up – not bad at all.
Value for money
At that price the Xperia J is pretty feature-packed, with a 4-inch 480x854 display, 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 5MP rear camera, 1,750mAh battery and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on board. There's only 4GB of built in storage, but a with a microSD slot hidden behind the removable rear cover, that shouldn't be too much of an issue. We hope to get a handset in soon for our in-depth Sony Xperia J review, where we'll find out if it can take on the likes of the Orange San Diego and HTC One V.
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Google TV Music and Movies heads to UK
Google TV users in the UK, Germany and France are about to get a Movies and Music injection.
The film and music services are set to hit Google's connected sets on November 13, allowing people to rent and download songs and films through Google Play.
Google accidentally announced that some other countries would be seeing the update in November too – Australia and Canada included – but had to back track hastily.
Although it hasn't revealed an actual release date for Google TV Music and Movies in those other countries, the Google TV Google+ account requests that you "stay tuned" because "we're bringing Google Play to more countries all the time".
Coming attractions
It's not clear yet exactly what you'll be able to buy and rent; no two countries are likely to offer exactly the same films and songs because of international licensing agreements and the like so we're anticipating a slightly less-well-stocked library in Europe than our American counterparts currently enjoy. But if you're a keen Google TV owning bean, you'll be able to find out for sure on November 13.
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Week in Tech: Google pushes Nexus to the next level
It's been a busy old week here at TechRadar: we've got new phones, new tablets, new e-readers and a small tear in our eye as we wave goodbye to an old friend.
First up is Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo - but is it like Apollo 11, the one that landed on the moon, or is it like Apollo 13, the one that was all explodey and Tom Hanks-y? Mary Branscombe has been investigating, and she tells us it's very much the former: "this is a real step in quality from Microsoft and gives us hope for variety in the smartphone wars."
Did someone say smartphone wars? The Nexus 4 is Google's latest weapon in that particular battle, and Phil Lavelle reckons it's a little cracker. While it doesn't "solve famine, pick up the kids up from school and decipher Mandarin Chinese in a millisecond" the Nexus 4 "comes SO close to that, it's unreal." Phil is currently having a nice lie down in a darkened room.
Did someone say ten-inch tablet? No? Okay! The Nexus 10, you'll be stunned to discover, is the big brother to the Nexus 7 tablet, and it's a big cracker. James Rogerson's Big Book of Superlatives has been given a damn good thumbing for this one: it's "brilliant", "stunning" and "swingorilliant". OK, maybe not that last one.
It's good, but is anything good-er? We've updated our guide to the ten best tablet PCs in the world today, and while we don't want to give away the ending we can tell you that the top four places are taken by iPads and Nexuses.
Big or small?
Whether you're an Android fan, an Apple one or a Windows one there's never been a better time to get a tablet - and Gary Marshall reckons that for most people, smaller is better. As he points out, small tablets used to be rubbish, and now they're great: "Processors are better, batteries are better, ecosystems are better, OSes are better... look at the huge strides Android has made in three years. Compare an early Android crapper with a Nexus 7 and you'll see what I mean." That makes them hard to beat: "They're more portable than their bigger brothers. They're lighter to hold, easier to fit into a large pocket or handbag, easier for kids to handle - and they're much, much cheaper too." Marshall is so confident that small tablets will be big sellers, he's promised to eat an iPad mini if it doesn't account for the lion's share of this quarter's iPad sales. Many people buy tablets to read ebooks, but e-ink readers are still easier on the eyes - and they're much cheaper too. Would bookworms be better off with the £59.99 Kobo Mini, or its £99 big brother, the Kobo Glo? The cheaper Kobo is nice enough, Jamie Carter says, but it's a bargain basement offering: it'd be "a great occasional e-reader". Ebook fiends would be better off with the slightly pricier Glo, which beats the similarly illuminated Kindle Paperwhite by supporting EPUB files without having to convert them first. Carter reckons it delivers "a top quality reading experience". It's a really nice bit of kit and an interesting alternative to the ubiquitous Kindle.IM off
We didn't just say hello to a bunch of new things this week: we also said goodbye to an old friend. Windows Live Messenger, the service formerly known as MSN Messenger, is closing, and Microsoft is urging users to migrate to its Skype service instead. Gary Marshall remembers Messenger's glory days very well: "For many of us MSN Messenger and Hotmail were part of the plumbing of the internet, the programs we used when we were supposed to be doing something else such as sleeping, working or studying," he says. However, "that was a long time ago... these days, most of us want to talk somewhere else."
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How to put a Mac in a Windows world
Since Apple moved their Macintosh range of computers to the Intel processor, using Macs and PCs together in the same business suddenly became much easier. The Mac long the preferred platform for the creative industries can now be used as a general business machine.
However, as Windows still reigns supreme in most companies, making sure your systems work seamlessly together - no matter which operating system is in use - can be achieved with a bit of planning.
The Mac and Windows platforms now have a great deal in common and your business can exploit this commonality to create a working network:
- Both Windows and Mac OS X can see shared drives on each other's computers over your businesses LAN (Local Area Network). Mac users will find this option under System Preferences. In OS X Lion, click the Network icon. Users of earlier versions of OS X should click the File Sharing icon.
- The file formats that are used by applications on the Mac and Windows are virtually identical. Any Microsoft Office file created on a Windows PC will open on a Mac and vice versa. You'll need to install the applications that have been designed specifically for each operating system though.
- Windows and Macs can share attached printers and network printers. Although getting a Mac to share an attached Windows printer is not a simple procedure. Once again you can find how to connect a printer in the Mac System Preferences, and once the appropriate drivers have been installed, a printer can then be selected from the available list.
- Email is vital for all small businesses. Windows PCs will most likely use Outlook, as it is part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications. Office is also available for the Mac and includes a version of Outlook as well. If your business uses the Microsoft Exchange Server both these versions of Outlook should connect without any issues. And if your business uses standard POP mail, Outlook on the Mac or Windows PC is fully compatible.
Sharing data on a Mac and a PC
Data management and access is vitally important to get right in any size of business large or small. Having a mixture of Macs and Windows PCs in your company shouldn't pose a problem. The cloud has delivered a platform agnostic approach to data storage, manipulation and distribution. Many businesses are abandoning desktop applications such as the ubiquitous Microsoft Office in favour of cloud-based platforms such as, Google Apps for Business [http://drive.google.com] and Microsoft Office 365 [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365]. For businesses that have mixed operating systems, the cloud offers an ideal way of integrating these machines together to create a seamless efficient data management environment. Anyone – no matter which computer they are using – can access their files and work efficiently as long as they have a browser and a connection to the Internet.When is a PC not a PC?
As already mentioned, the Mac and PC now use the same Intel processors. What this means in practice is that you can run the Windows operating system on any Mac. If your business wants to move to Macs, and has perhaps a number of Windows only applications, that still need to run, then creating a virtual machine will solve this issue, and allow your business to use Macs for all the applications your company needs to run. There are a number of applications you could use to create a virtual Windows PC on your Mac:- Codeweavers CrossOver XI
- Parallels Desktop 8
- VMWare Fusion 5
- Oracle VirtualBox 4.2
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Opinion: The Seven Deadly Sins of Business Process Management
Significant changes in the world of business and process are forcing organisations to rethink about how they address process management, says Matt Smith, UK Director of Business Solutions, Software AG. Here, he discusses common pitfalls and suggests strategies that offer the potential to bring closer alignment between business and IT requirements
Today, more than ever, competitiveness depends on how fast a business can adjust its business model and the speed with which its processes and applications can align with the new strategy.
Best practice business process management (BPM) solutions successfully meet this challenge by creating an agility layer that directly interlinks strategy, processes and IT.
For organisations that get it right, BPM can open the door to significant opportunities. Yet there are also many hurdles that need to be overcome, particularly in terms of misaligned organisation, inadequate technology and outdated IT systems.
CFOs and CIOs seeking to strike the right balance between 'keeping the lights on' and making strategic IT investments would do well to stick to a best practice approach to process management –and steer clear of the following 'deadly' mistakes...
1. Implementing systems that don't meet customer needs
To deliver the best possible service, customer's needs should always be taken into consideration at the start of any project. Often, systems are brought in to serve a particular business function without giving proper consideration as to whether they actually meet customer requirements. Without the necessary processes in place, the customer experience can easily become compromised and organisations may miss out on vital opportunities to improve service and grow their customer base. When combined with business-oriented processes, the capability to process vast volumes of data to understand exactly how and what can be done to improve the customer experience has vast potential. By evolving operations with business process excellence, the organisation will develop the necessary capability to continuously improve how it is perceived by customers.2. Chaotic processes and lack of visibility
Today's business processes are seldom neat, tidy and structured. In fact, they often run in a chaotic fashion. Achieving good business insight therefore requires an in-depth understanding of the relationships between process and data. Clear processes are vital to defining and extracting business intelligence and allowing chaos to reign can come at a great cost to the company. Equally, good process management will allow an organisation to see problems before they appear, enabling it to reliably deliver mission critical outcomes, at minimum cost and at the right level of service.3. Disjointed relationships and lack of process view
Many organisations are now operating hybrid cloud configurations mixing onsite and offsite solutions to deliver the required capabilities. However, with some parts of the value stream living in the cloud and others in the internal infrastructure, they could be overlooking the need to maintain intelligent data relationships across fragmented platforms. For this reason, organisations need the capability to support business processes end-to-end, independent of the platform style or location. Without a coherent process view, business break-downs are unavoidable, which ultimately can affect both customer experience and profitability.4. Inappropriate infrastructures
Like any construction, business processes need a supporting infrastructure. Without the ability to guarantee effective communication between applications, there is essentially no way to decipher business intelligence. In most cases, this needn't mean replacing an existing system but simply involves utilising a system that sits on top of existing infrastructures, minimising disruption to the existing IT landscape. Yet whether using old methods or new tools, solving problems by simply 'building another app' won't create the more agile infrastructure needed to track changing business needs. Good BPE-driven solutions can deliver tangible value in as little as 60 days, which means that it needn't be complex or expensive to create a permanent and sustainable improvement in flexibility. Rather, it is simply about getting the right focus, and executing with purpose.5. Failing to keep on top of mobile device management
The rapid development of tablet devices, smart phones and the subsequent growth in consumerisation of IT and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) strategies has given enterprises the opportunity to become more flexible than ever before. Managers are able to use mobile devices to access information, perform tasks and monitor processes in real-time. However, there is a potentially serious issue beneath the surface. A significant role must be played by integration software to ensure that data is transferred efficiently between mobile devices and back-end systems. Missing out this aspect invites workarounds and bypasses of process constraints, ultimately resulting in loss of control, management visibility and reducing the ability to react to business conditions.6. Misguided metrics
Good systems and processes are essential when gathering company data, extracting intelligence and using it to manage the business. Metrics must be consistently monitored to ensure that the business is continually improving and that targets and objectives are met. Intelligence, infrastructure and processes are all considerably less effective if the information that they generate is not then appropriately managed and acted upon. Using process visibility to measure the right thing at the right time and delivering it to the right person is essential to avoid inappropriate metrics misguiding users. Rather than wading through log files or scrolling endless columns of Excel spread sheets, information should be simply presented via dashboards that are up-to-date and by raising issue alerts automatically on events of business significance. This visibility also helps ensure that problems are predicted, dealt with and avoided in the future. 7. Limiting continued process improvement No matter how good the design of the IT application or business process management solution, it is unlikely to be effective if the staff members working with it are untrained. By identifying problems, process intelligence creates the foundation for identifying a solution, be that through process change, increased supporting context information to the users or with additional training. This is vital information that can be used to effectively run the organisation based on established, tangible results rather than trial and error. Through the correct technology, systems and appropriate support, business process management becomes business process excellence and it's this advantage which will empower an organisation to really succeed in today's competitive marketplace.
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LG EA93 UltraWide Monitor arriving...sometime soon
The EA93 UltraWide Monitor, a 21:9-inch monster made by LG, will soon be available to consumers around the world.
When will that be exactly?
Well, the best LG can offer is that the EA93, which boasts a resolution of 2560 X 1080 and movie-quality imagery, will be available in Korea sometime this month followed by a global rollout in "the weeks following."
The 29-inch screen doesn't yet have a price, though its features are pretty princely.
Watch me now
21:9 is, according to LG, close to the dimensions found on cinema screens, giving it a cinematic quality that plays films as meant to be watched. We tinkered with it at IFA 2012 and found the ratio to be totally legit - no gimmicks for attention here. While movie buffs and gamers will likely eat up the image quality, LG maintained the monitor works for graphic designers and other professionals who need a screen they can sink their teeth into. What's particularly cool about the EA93 for artists is its capacity to hookup to two external devices via Dual Link-Up, providing consistent color throughout the screen. Its IPS panel, 100 percent color gamut, USB 3.0 and HDMI linkup all make the EA93 worth a look, whenever it hits store shelves.
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Facebook revamps Friendship Pages to chronicle your relationships
Facebook has announced a big overhaul to its Friendship Pages, including dedicated couples pages.
If users are listed as 'In A Relationship' with someone, browsing to Facebook/us will now redirect them to a neat new timeline-infused page chronicling the relationship with their significant other.
The automatically-curated pages include a cover photo, joint profile pictures, the relationship status (e.g. married since 2007) mutual friends, mutual likes and events the couple has shared.
Less intimate friendships
The updates, which will start rolling out to users immediately, will also work for your less intimate friendships. These will replace the old Friendship Pages and can be viewed by browsing to a pal's profile page and hitting See Friendship from the drop-down settings menu. The newly-revamped pages will also feature a 'Share Friendship' button to allow you to push your lovey-dovey relationship history onto unsuspecting mutual friends.
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Judge rejects Fox injunction against Dish Network AutoHop DVR
Dish Network's AutoHop DVR feature has dodged a preliminary injunction brought by the Fox Broadcasting Company, even though the judge sees its ad-skipping technology as "copyright infringement."
"The court denied Fox's request for a preliminary injunction," Fox told TechRadar.
"But we are gratified the court found the copies Dish makes for its AutoHop service constitute copyright infringement and breach the parties' contract."
Dish Network, meanwhile, issued a press release about the injunction's defeat, saying that "today's ruling is a victory for common sense and customer choice."
Hopper DVR's disputed technology
In addition to Dish's controversial commercial-skipping AutoHop feature, the company offers a the all-encompassing PrimeTime Anytime feature. PrimeTime Anytime allows users to automatically record all primetime shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, then save the episodes for up to eight days. The package is marketed as The Hopper DVR, and what Dish Network calls the "most advanced whole-home HD DVR." But it also has the dubious distinction of being the most lawsuit-targeted DVR on the market, drawing separate lawsuits from NBC and CBS in addition to the one from Fox Broadcasting.AutoHopping to the inevitable appeal
Fox said that it was disappointed that the court "erred" in finding that Fox's damages were not suitable for a preliminary injunction. However, the broadcaster doesn't plan on accepting the decision by Judge Dolly Gee of the United States District Court, Central District of California. "We intend to appeal that portion of the court's decision, as well as the court's separate findings concerning the PrimeTime Anytime service." At issue is proving that Fox has suffered an irreparable financial impact from this new technology. As Dish Network pointed out in its release, "Fox has not established that is has suffered irreparable harm as a result of DISH's making the quality assurance copies."
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Priceline makes Kayak a carry on in billion-dollar deal
Priceline, known as much for its William Shatner-starring commercials as its low-priced travel deals, announced it bought Kayak for $1.8 billion (£1.12 billion, AUD$1.72 billion) Thursday.
The deal is a cash and stock transaction that, according to Bloomberg, will help Priceline expand its web-based travel services.
Kayak went public in July, raising $91 million (£56, AUD$87) in its initial public offering. The site's thrust is that customers can compare prices and secure reservations for hotels, flights, car rentals and vacations all in one location.
For its part, Priceline is in an acquisition mood as it looks to weather an economy where travel doesn't rank as high as say, bill payment.
Is Captain Kirk coming?
Gobbling up the competition is also clearly motivation for Priceline's purchase as the company has reportedly done well in the travel-on-the-cheap space. Through the buyout - which sees Kayak picking up about $500 million (£312 million, AUD$480 million) in cash and $1.3 billion (£813 million, AUD$1.24 billion) in equity and assumed stock options - Kayak will remain an independent entity with a brand all its own. Although Priceline has made a name for itself through campy commercials (Priceline Negotiator, anyone?) for now it seems unlikely that Kayak will assume an entirely new identity. The deal is expected to close in the early part of 2013.
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US online holiday shopping likely to grow 15 percent in 2012
As shoppers prepare for the holiday season, more are expected to do their holiday gift-picking online then ever before.
Forrester issued its 2012 online holiday shopping forecast for the U.S. Thursday, predicting web retailers will bring in $68.4 billion in revenue, a 15 percent increase over 2011.
Individually, the average U.S. holiday shopper is expected to spend $419 online, a 12 percent increase from last year.
The shift away from brick-and-mortar retailers is driven by ease of access to shoppers who are becoming increasingly price-conscious.
Shoppers look for deals online, with 38 of 2011's top 50 online retailers prominently displaying holiday deals and shipping promotions.
Free shipping in particular is a key consideration, as Forrester notes that 26 percent of adult online shoppers in the U.S. will add unplanned items to their cart just to meet free shipping quotas.
The most wonderful time of the year
The bulk of online shopping will take place on the ever-popular Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which falls on Nov. 23 and Nov. 26, respectively, this year. Online shopping makes it easier to browse and compare Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals with each retailer, as well as avoid huge crowds at stores. Last year, the top 500 online retailers saw web traffic spike by more than 170 million unique shoppers which brought in over $2.5 billion in online sales, a trend that is expected to only continue in 2012. Tech-savvy shoppers have quite the selection this year, with the trinity of Apple, Android and Windows 8 each recently launching big ticket items like the iPad mini, iPad 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Microsoft Surface. Nintendo has also timed the launch of its new home console, the Wii U, for the weekend before Black Friday so that it hits the crucial sales window. Some retailers, like Best Buy and Wal-mart, have already started announcing their Black Friday deals, with online discounts likely to follow closer to the actual dates.
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The Australian Government's Internet filter is dead
Back before the 2007 federal election, Kevin Rudd pitched the idea of a mandatory internet filter to protect Australians from the nasties of the internet.
Today, that policy has been officially taken out the back and trashed.
Universally slammed by Internet activists, technology media, rival politicians and ISPs, the filter was championed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy relentlessly.
The plan was to filter all "refused classification" content from a secret ACMA blacklist. Those that opposed the filter were critical of the lack of transparency about the process, not to mention the questionable nature of "refused classification", especially given the discrepancies between classification standards across different media in Australia.
In August 2010, in the lead up to the federal election, the opposition finally committed to blocking any filtering legislation in parliament, all but ending any chance of Conroy's filter plan from becoming a reality.
But despite the odds, Conroy never let go of the filtering policy, keeping it on the backburner until his decision to trash it today.
Say hello, wave goodbye
The concept of filtering Australian internet hasn't disappeared entirely though. Instead of a broad, "refused classification" filter, the government has decided to force ISPs to block sites on the Interpol "worst of the worst" blacklist. Already used by Telstra, Optus and CyberOne, the federal government has decided to compel all Australian ISPs to use the Interpol filter with current legislation. Namely section 313 of the Telecommunications Act, which requires carriers to " prevent telecommunications networks and facilities from being used in, or in relation to, the commission of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth or of the States and Territories." The shift to the international agency's filter does counter many of the argument's around the mandatory filter initially proposed by Conroy, such as lack of definition around what constitutes "refused classification" and recourse for wrongly filtered sites. While the move won't please everyone, it can certainly be considered a win for the general public.
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Review: Motorola Droid Razr HD
Introduction and Design
The Droid Razr line has fast become the new flagship for Motorola, and with good reason. Last year's Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx were strong smartphone contenders, with impressive battery life and slick screens. Now, exclusively for Verizon's 4G LTE network, the Droid Razr lineup has been refreshed again, with bumped up hardware and edge-to-edge displays that earn that HD moniker. The Droid Razr HD shares the Kevlar backing and AMOLED screen of its predecessor, but of course the resolution has been bumped up to a modern 1280 x 720 resolution. The phone itself has also gotten a bit thinner.
It also bears many similarities to its Droid Razr siblings, Motorola's Droid Razr M and Droid Razr Maxx HD. All three phones run a 1.5Ghz processor with 1GB of RAM. The Droid Razr HD is in the middle of the M and the Maxx HD for storage and battery life, but it's no mid-range device. Motorola has also promised an Android 4.1: Jelly Bean upgrade for all three new Droids.
And speaking of Droids, with so much talk about Star Wars in the news lately, we can't help but mention that Motorola actually pays royalties to Lucasfilm to use the name Droid. George Lucas is nothing if not an excellent businessman.
So is the Droid Razr HD worthy of name? It's certainly no bumbling C3PO, it's as handsome and helpful as R2D2, but is it a stone cold robotic killer like IG-88? Can it assassinate the competition from phones like the iPhone 5, Galaxy S3 and HTC One X+? Let's find out.
Design
As the name would suggest, the Droid Razr HD is a sharp instrument. Thanks to a thin body, it looks the part of a premium device in either black or white. Picking it up you'll notice it's a little on the heavy side, weighing in at 146 g (5.15 oz).
Holding the phone, the Kevlar backing is pleasant to the touch. The feeling is somewhere between very soft plastic and firm rubber. It's a lot like the rubberized rear chassis of the HTC Windows Phone 8X.
The pattern is unique, sort of a mix between herringbone and hounds tooth. It's extremely smooth but grippy enough as not to be slippery. An edge-to-edge screen and tight, thin bezel give the Droid Razr HD a seamless design. At 131.9 x 67.9 x 8.4 mm (5.19 x 2.67 x 0.33 in), it's tall and thin in a way that resembles the Galaxy S3.
The display is 4.7-inches long, the same as the Droid Razr Maxx HD, and a little bigger than the 4.3-inches of visual real estate on the Droid Razr M. It's a big screen, those with smaller hands will find it takes a little shifting around to reach from top to bottom.
The Razr HD has three capacitive Android buttons: back, home and recent applications. Directly below them is a logo for Verizon, the exclusive carrier for the three new Droid Razrs.
Motorola slapped its name at the top of the device, directly above a notification light that flashes when you've got a missed called, email or text message.
On the right side you'll find the phone's only physical buttons. The lock button is towards the top, it has a ridgey-ness that feels a bit like a nail file, but not harsh. The volume rocker is below it, in the middle of the right side. It has little metal beads at both ends that make it easy to find with your thumb.
Located on the left side is a pair of ports, micro-USB for charging and data connections, and HDMI for connecting the Razr HD to a television or monitor. Just above the ports is the phone's micro-SD and micro SIM tray. Like on a late model iPhone, it pops open when you insert a paperclip or SIM tool (included) in the small hole.
A solo external speaker is found on the back, to the right of the camera lens. Laying the phone flat on its back will not completely muffle audio, but it does reduce sound quality.
Motorola claims a "splash resistant" coating on the Droid Razr HD. The phone can't be submerged in water, but it's implied that it will stand up to rain or an errant glass of water. We did not put this to the test, though, and consumers should know that the one-year warranty against defects does not cover liquid damage.
The Droid Razr HD is a bit bigger than the Droid Razr M, getting more battery life, storage space and a larger, higher resolution screen in exchange for its heftier form factor and weight. The Droid Razr Maxx HD, however, is the thickest and heaviest of the three, thanks to more storage and a huge 3300-mAh battery life.
The Razr HD's microSD option makes the Maxx HD's higher GB count somewhat negligible, and the HD already has great battery life with a 2530 mAh cell, as we'll get into later. Consumers who want something easier to carry (and afford) will likely find the Razr HD to be a balanced offering.
Size-wise, the Droid Razr HD is in the middle of svelte smartphones like the iPhone 5 and brick-like devices such as the Optimus G. It's sleek but not terribly thin, and also rather hefty. You won't forget that it's in your pocket, but it's certainly not in cumbersome phablet territory like the recent LG Intuition.
Overall, the Droid Razr HD achieves a premium feel. The big edge-to-edge display gives it a smooth, simple face that's a pleasure to touch. The Kevlar backing is resilient and grippy, and the only other phones that feel like it are HTC's Windows Phone 8S and 8X.
Users with small hands that want something they can nimbly navigate might prefer a Droid Razr M or iPhone 5, but for those that want a bigger handset with serious battery life, the Razr HD is a solid choice.
Display
The Droid Razr HD's screen is its most significant gain over its predecessors, the original Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx. By going edge-to-edge, Motorola has bumped up the screen size from 4.3-inches to 4.7 without making the handset any longer. To keep up with its neighbors, the resolution has been increased from 960 x 540 to 1280 x 720, earning that HD moniker. It's a Super AMOLED multitouch display with 312ppi. It does wonderful things with colors, making bright hues come off super-saturated and beautiful. Dark tones are equally strong, with blacks that are deep and dead of night dark. We've said before that the Droid Razr HD is distinctive, these high contrasts are yet another way Motorola's new device stands out from the competition (though whether it's actually "better" is debatable).
Gorilla Glass keeps the display safe from nicks. Walking around town, we let it hang out in our pocket amongst keys and change, and it emerged with nary a scratch. Best of all, since the display is edge-to-edge with only a thin aluminum bezel, it gives the whole face a smooth, premium feel.
Using the Droid Razr HD outside in sunlight is generally no problem. On your average sunny day the screen is almost as visible as it would be in even indoor lighting. Of course, seriously intense sunlight will wash out the display, but no more so than other devices.
When it comes to choosing the best screen, a lot of it comes down to personal preference, not ppi. In our mind, the HTC One X+ is still king in this category. While the amped-up contrasts of the Razr HD are glorious, they're also over the top. The One X+ offers more true to life color representation, also on a 4.7-inch display.
When comparing the iPhone 5's retina display, screen size is a big issue. Apple's phone has a 4-inch screen, while the Razr HD is 4.7-inches. People who play many games or spend a lot of time watching videos on their phone will likely appreciate the additional visual real estate. Still, there is something to be said for a shorter screen. Those who value ease of use above all will find an iPhone 5, or Droid Razr M, easier to manipulate with just one hand.
Finally, the Optimus G might be the best phone we've seen for reading text on the web or in e-books. It displays text that's slightly sharper, on a screen equal in size to that of the Razr HD.
Also, the Optimus G and Samsung Galaxy S3 both have nifty face recognition technology that keeps the screen from dimming while you read it. The Razr HD lacks this feature, and while we never struggled with the dim timer, face recognition makes the Optimus G and Galaxy S3 superior reading devices.
To summarize, the Razr HD has a big, durable edge-to-edge screen that stands among the best displays available. The high contrast color it conveys adds to the distinctiveness of this Motorola handset. It's a massive improvement over the original Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx, but doesn't really outshine any current phones in its price range.
Obviously, it's a better screen than what you'll find on the more compact and affordable Droid Razr M, but that's offset out by an overall smaller form factor and lower price.
Again, it comes down to personal preference. We personally liked the high contrast shades it offered. The pre-loaded backgrounds do a fantastic job of showing off just intense colors can be on this phone. They're striking to look at, especially against the simple black or white body of the phone and it's minimalist face.
Interface
Motorola has plans to upgrade the Droid Razr HD to Android 4.1: Jelly Bean before the year is out. Out of the box, however, it runs Ice Cream Sandwich at its most current version, 4.0.4. It's not vanilla ICS, though it is quite close. As with the Droid Razr M, Motorola has laid a few nice tweaks over the Android OS. The Razr HD has the ICS standard of seven home screens to deck out with icons and widgets. Generally, the Droid Razr HD's 1.5GHz dual-core and 1GB of RAM are enough to keep the OS running smoothly. You can flick across the seven home screens easily, and apps open in a snap. Back, home and recent applications are the three capacitive Android buttons that run the show. They respond with a blue glow and haptic feedback when touched.
Touching the home button brings you back to the primary home screen. From there, pressing it again will bring up the Manage Pages screen, which lets you add, delete or rearrange home screens. This is one screen that started to chug a bit with just a couple applications running.
Generally it takes real multitasking to give the Droid Razr HD hiccups. We cooked up a combination of widget-laden home screens, multiple browser tabs and a game running in the background that produced some stuttering when opening and closing apps or adding home screens. Overall, though, performance was very strong.
The Droid Razr HD's Geekbench scores were around 1430, which is just shy of the iPhone 5. Considering that the iPhone 5 has a 1.2GHz dual core, which is less than the 1.5GHz on the Razr HD, it's just an OK score. Guess that Apple engineering is good for something.
From a practical standpoint, the Razr HD is peppy and responsive. It starts up in a little over 30 seconds, and needs just a few more seconds to get all its widgets up and running. It would take a quad-core device like the Optimus G or Galaxy S3 to provide much better performance.
Getting into Motorola's interface tweaks, one its most intuitive choices was adding a Quick Settings menu. Found to the left of the primary home screen, it makes toggling WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode or changing your ringtone just a swipe away. Once inside, the full settings menu is just a touch away.
Other manufacturers, like LG with the Optimus G, crowd these options in the notification center. Motorola made a great choice putting this Quick Settings menu to the left. Not only does it make the menu highly accessible, it makes the leftmost home screen the primary page, which feels like a logical choice.
The default dock icons are Phone, People, Messaging and Camera. These icons can be removed or swapped out, but you are limited to just four. We're not sure what the reason for this limitation was, other than possibly reducing visual clutter. However, ICS's native support for folders has been extended to the dock, meaning you can stack multiple icons into groupings.
This strikes us a strange choice. The dock is designed for frequent apps that you always want at your fingertips. We don't want to be pressing twice to open a folder and select an app. And while we rarely put more than four icons on our dock, it's a little odd to deny people the choice.
Also, folders on the home screen seemed to require a more dead center tap to open than regular icons. Nothing else we would touch had trouble registering, though.
We did like the way Motorola's UI displayed folders. The primary app is in front, and you can see the edges of the other icons peeking out from behind it, like they're all lined up and waiting. Label a folder and the name appears below it.
By default, Motorola's handsome Circles widget is on the primary home screen. We're big fans this tri-cluster of disc-shaped widgets, which display weather, the time, missed calls, incoming text messages and your battery level, and serve as portals to useful menus.
Touching any of them will send you into the respective app to set up alarms, time zones or get a more detailed forecast. Swiping vertically will flip them over, allowing you to toggle between an analog or digital clock, the temperature for regions you've chosen and other information. They're efficient, fun to flip and add another distinctive element to the Droid Razr HD's style.
Again, Circles look great and convey information well, but we found ourselves wishing we could separate the three circles. It's not a big issue, just something the customization-happy Android fan in our hearts thought of. Maybe next time Motorola?
The lock screen is a typical ICS style. It displays the date, time and notification icons. To wake the phone, you slide a key icon, and can also jump directly into the Phone, Camera and Text apps. It's clean, simple and private, since it doesn't display incoming messages, just an icon alerting you to their presence. We do wish it were as customizable other lock screens, where you can choose which apps are at the ready.
To wrap up, the Droid Razr HD's interface continues the phone's trend of style and efficiency. Circle widgets and the Quick Settings menu are slick, accessible ways of getting at settings and information
Motorola's tweaks are all thoughtful and unobtrusive. While they seem to have chosen visual simplicity in some places rather than further customization, it has made for some great looking design.
Performance-wise, the Droid Razr HD is everything you should expect from a dual-core, 1GB of RAM device. It navigates ICS very well, and it takes a sizeable workload to slow it down. However, given that it offers performance so similar to an iPhone 5, it's not exactly priced to move at $199, the same amount you'd pay for Apple's 16GB model. Food for thought if you're choosing between the two.
Calling and Contacts
With all the different apps and features on a smartphone, you could almost forget that makes regular old phone calls. Motorola hasn't forgotten though, and neither has Verizon. The Droid Razr HD offers excellent call quality and voice fidelity.Calling
The three new Droid Razrs, the Droid Razr M, Droid Razr Maxx HD and our current subject, the Droid Razr HD, are exclusive to Verizon Wireless. The company has a reputation for strong signals and reliable coverage, which proved to be well deserved in our tests. Using the phone on Verizon's CDMA network throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, we never had any interference or static on the line. We never suffered a single dropped call.
The handset speaker was plenty loud, making it no trouble to hear a call. The speakerphone was equally powerful, and voices only suffered slight distortion when the volume was maxed out, a level that's really quite loud. It projected well enough that a group gathered around a table of a large to medium size would have no trouble conference calling.
Our only complaint about the speakerphone has to do with the rear speaker grill. Since it's placed on the back of the handset, laying the device flat muffles sound, albeit only somewhat. The slightly bubbled design of the rear means it does not lay completely flat, but there is a noticeable drop in quality.
As far as dialing the phone goes, the keys are an attractive blue on black. Your most recent contact dialed is displayed at the top, for fast redialing. You can jump to a week's worth of call history by touching Recent at the top, or see contacts designated as Favorites, displayed as smart looking picture tiles.
There's also a microphone icon that activates the Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich voice command function. It's accurate enough that when it presents you with three contacts it thinks you've mentioned, your actual choice is always among them. Still, that means you have to make a touch selection, so voice isn't good enough to make the Droid Razr HD a hands-free device. It's also a little slow on the draw, asking us to "say a command" before accepting input. Apple's Siri is still the winner here.
One place where the Droid Razr HD does have a leg up on the iPhone 5 is in multitasking. As you may know, only iPhones on AT&T's GSM network can make a call and perform data functions (web surfing, email checking, etc.) simultaneously. While Verizon iPhones can't do this, every other device the carrier offers can, Droid Razr phones included.
This is complemented by the notification center, which displays your current call in the dropdown menu. From there you can jump right back into your call with a single touch. It shows elapsed call length, and even a little red phone icon so you can hang up without returning to the dialer.
Contacts
The People app, found on the dock by default, does a pretty good of managing your contacts. It stays close to standard ICS methods, but does a nice job of managing contacts from multiple sources.
Contacts can imported from a number of mail clients, including Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. Facebook imports are also supported.
Once imported, contacts can be sorted into groups. Family, friends and coworkers are the default groups, but you can make an unlimited number of custom groups.
Contacts can also be marked as Favorites, which makes them easily accessible from the Phone application.
Messaging and Email
Messaging
Texting is still an insanely popular way to communicate, the world over. It's convenient and inexpensive, and requires a minimal amount of that dreaded human contact to get information across.
Text messages are managed by the Messaging app, a green speech icon with a smiley face. It makes its home on the dock by default.
As is typical Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich fashion, the Droid Razr HD displays messages in the back-and-forth style of an instant message conversation, using profile pictures when available.
The second email app is, of course, Gmail. It has a different look but behaves in the exact same way as the stock Email app. Both apps can be switched between Push and Manual email checking.
Both apps also have convenient widgets that give you a preview of your inbox, allowing you to scroll through email, jump into your entire inbox or a specific message, or start composing a new message with a single touch, right from the home screen.
Keyboard
The Droid Razr HD has three keyboards: the stock Motorola keyboard, Swype and Chinese character input. The Motorola board is the default, with a design of white letters on gray keys, a period to the right of the keyboard and a microphone for speech composition the left. The top row of keys have number functions, which can be accessed with a long press. It's convenient for a digit or so, but for typing out a phone number you'll want to switch to the number keys. The size of the Razr HD's screen gives you plenty of room to type in either portrait or landscape mode. Haptic feedback gives it a satisfying oomph that some would say the iPhone 5 lacks. Predictive text was decent, coming to the rescue on longer words, and there's enough clearance between its suggestions and the top row of keys that you won't often hit it by mistake. It wasn't too clever when it came to learning our favorite words, though. We had only one major complaint about the Motorola keyboard: the lack of a .com button. .com also doesn't come up in predictive text, which seems silly given how often you type it. The Swype keyboard is a nice option to have onboard, but it's not our personal preference. Some worlds, mainly those with a lot of the same letters in close proximity, can give it trouble. Still, we'd rather have it than not.Internet
As we've mentioned, all of Motorola's new Droids, the Droid Razr M, Droid Razr Maxx HD and this Droid Razr HD are exclusive to Verizon Wireless. This gives them the major benefit of being on Verizon's 4G LTE network, which is one of the biggest and fastest in the United States.4G speeds
Testing the phone throughout the San Francisco Bay Area using the SpeedTest.net app, we experienced data connections that were generally quite fast. Speeds went between 6 to 13Mbps, usually averaging around 10Mbps.
While a home WiFi connection can reliably outpace this, these are some very good data speeds to be getting on the go.
Browser
To our most pleasant surprise, the default browser on the Droid Razr HD is Google's own Chrome. Chrome users should be delighted to find that, upon logging in, all their search suggestions, browsing data and bookmarks have followed them onto their mobile device.
The search bar found on the home screen also has access to your search history. It's so seamless that a search you just made on your PC will show up as a suggestion on the Razr HD without missing a beat.
Chrome's tabbed browsing allows for great multitasking, letting you open lots pages at once. This is one place where the phone's hardware came off as fully capable. You can move between a dozen tabs without having to reload the pages. With this many sites open at once, page previews can become fuzzy, but once you make your selection they come into focus.
Whether on Verizon's network or WiFi, browsing is fast. Even when our service had only a two bars (which wasn't often) pages opened quickly. Of course, since this is an Android phone, there are lots of other browsers available, such as Mozilla Firefox.
Media
To our tastes, a cell phone will never dethrone a tablet, laptop or good old fashioned TV for watching videos, but on the go or lying in bed, you could do a lot worse than watching a YouTube clip or Netflix stream on the Droid Razr HD's 1280 x 960 AMOLED screen. The rear speaker is plenty loud, and like in speakerphone mode, sounds don't distort unless you dial the volume up all the way. Once again, the solo speaker's position on the rear is not perfect. Since it's low on the body we never covered it completely when holding the phone, but just having our hand cupped over it could distort the sound a little. Luckily the Droid Razr HD's thin build makes it easy to hold in one hand, which helps avoid the problem.
The headphone jack is in the typical top right position. Whatever you plug in to listen with should stay out of your way pretty easily.
Thanks to 16GB of internal memory, and the possibility of an additional 32GB by microSD expansion, there's plenty of room for movies purchased from Amazon or the Google Play Store.
The Razr HD does a have an HDMI video out, which is an interesting option, but the necessary cable must be purchased separately. Most users will probably have other means of watching a movie file on their TV or monitor before having an HDMI to mini HDMI cable around.
Google Play
As we mentioned, Google Play is available on the Droid Razr HD, just like on any Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich device. Not only are there enough games, apps, books, videos and music available to make it competitive with Apple's App Store and iTunes, it can seriously ease the transition from your old Android device to your new one.
From the options drop down menu in the upper right, you can jump into My Apps to see software currently associated with your Google Play account. Each app you already own has to be selected for download individually, which is a bit of a pain, but otherwise it makes it easy to migrate to a new Android phone.
Battery Life and Connectivity
Battery life can be a difficult balance to maintain for a high-end smartphone. While a quad-core processor can give awesome performance, it tends to suck power cells dry. The same goes for 4G LTE service and a big screen. Manufacturers do have the option of allowing for removable batteries so users can swap in a back up cell, but that tends to make phones larger, and has consumer footing the bill for an additional battery. Luckily, battery life is one place where the Droid Razr HD really shines. Its dual-core processor walks the line between peppy performance and energy conservation.Battery life
The Droid Razr HD has a 2530 mAh battery. While it's not removable, it gets its handsome sealed design from this choice. We know a lot of users lament a lack of removable battery, but we think Motorola made the right decision, since we never had trouble making it through the day on a single charge. Throughout all our normal, day-to-day testing, we never managed to drain the battery, even with frequent 4G use, plenty of photo snapping and gaming. On a day of average usage, making phone calls, writing emails, text messages and surfing the web, the phone would generally end up with a battery percentage in the high 60's.
Officially, Motorola rates the Droid Razr HD for 7 hours of YouTube streaming, and 6 hours of 4G LTE. We'd say the phone definitely lives up to these numbers, give or a take a little depending on how many programs you have running in the background.
This stalwart battery life is becoming something of a signature for the Droid Razr line. The original Droid Razr from last year had just a 1780 mAh cell, so the move up to 2530 mAh is a substantial adjustment.
And the Droid Razr HD isn't even the longest lasting of the new Droid family. The Droid Razr Maxx HD has a whopping 3300 mAh battery, just like its predecessor, the original Droid Razr Maxx HD.
In addition to hefty batteries, the new Droid's have Motorola's Smartaction software, which can automatically implement charge-saving settings. WiFi, Bluetooth, push notifications and other data services can be set to automatically turn off when your phone drops to a certain level of charge.
Just to try it out, we drained the battery down to 5% and let Smartaction do its thing. The phone lasted for over an hour in standby.
We gave the Droid Razr HD the TechRadar battery test, where we maximize screen brightness, turn on WiFi, GPS and push notifications for Twitter and email, then play a video file for ninety minutes. At the end of it, the Razr HD still had 83 percent battery remaining. That's right with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3, which scored 82 and 83 percent, respectively. That's stellar battery performance, though it is less than the original Droid Razr Maxx, which scored a curve-wrecking 90%. We likely have a 4G LTE and a bigger, richer screen to blame for that. A fair trade-off, we'd say.
Bottom line, battery life is a real strength of the Droid Razr HD. We're glad that it is, since it more than makes up for the lack of removable battery. It actually makes us wonder if it's worth paying $100 more for the Droid Razr Maxx HD, since other than another 16GB of storage, its main bragging point is an even bigger battery.
Connectivity
As most Android phones, there are several clients available for moving files to an from your Droid Razr HD, whether you're on a PC or a Mac.Verizon Backup Assistant Plus
The carrier provided Verizon Backup Assistant Plus can be used for transferring, backing up and syncing files and contacts. It can be set to automatically perform these functions as soon as you connect the Droid Razr HD to a computer using the included USB cable. Unfortunately, we found it to be completely unreliable. When connecting the Razr HD to our MacBook Pro, it would crash literally every time. It never once completed a full sync.
Fortunately, as we mentioned, there's no shortage of options for Android file transfer solutions, so you won't ever need to use Verizon's garbage software.
The standard Android File Transfer software works just fine. You manipulate files just as you would with a Finder window. You can also transfer to the phone's SD card, and have your computer read from that, or vice versa.
There are also plenty of options for wirelessly uploading pcitures and videos you taken. Google Drive, Picasa, Flickr and Dropbox support are all built in, or you can easily upload to the social network of your choice.
Camera and Video
The Droid Razr HD sports an 8-megapixel camera, backed up by an LED flash. Just like its display, the Razr HD's camera tends to blow out colors with high contrasts. While it's not exactly to true to life, we liked the ultra saturated look makes already strong colors truly eye popping.
The front facing camera is 1.3-megapixels. It boasts image quality that makes it perfectly capable for Skype chatting and the occasional self-shot.
Despite this flair for saturation, the camera underperforms overall. Images are often blurry or grainy, and manual exposure adjustment is usually a must, either by using a slider or choosing a point of focus on the screen.
On the software side, there are all the typical options, including panorama, multi-shot, timer and HDR, which optimizes shots with difficult lighting.
While HDR can significantly improve a picture, it slows down the speedy shutter time considerably. We really liked how the camera would suggest HDR in certain lighting situations, where it thought it would help out.
Even with all the software perks, it's rare to get a shot out of the 8-megapixel lens that would be mistaken for anything but a cell phone picture. Also, the camera's snappy shutter speed is undercut by the need for manual light adjustment and the occasional shift into HDR. Basically, it's good enough for a plate shot or party snap, but don't capture anyone's high school graduation with the Razr HD's camera.
Verdict
The Droid Razr HD is a stylish and capable piece of hardware. It looks great in black or white, and feels nice thanks to its Kevlar backing and edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass. We have only the slightest reservations about it, simply because smartphones have become so very competitive at this price point.We liked
First off, the design. The Droid Razr HD is much better looking than its predecessors, the Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx. That edge-to-edge screen gives it a bold, simple face and capitalizes on the sizeable real estate of the device. It's also pretty thin for a device with a 4.7-inch screen and a big battery. The 1.5GHz dual-core proves that not every phone needs four cores to be a premium device. The Razr HD doesn't perform as well as the quad-core packing Galaxy S3, Optimus G or HTC One X+, but it's perfectly capable of running Android 4.0: Ice Cream and a flurry of apps. It takes hefty multitasking to bring about minor stuttering.
The version of the OS it runs is close to vanilla, but the few tweaks Motorola has implemented are actually quite nice. The Quick Settings menu and Circles widgets were two of our favorites.
Being exclusive to Verizon's 4G LTE network doesn't hurt these new Droid Razrs either. While Verizon's service is by no means cheap, it was blazing fast and reliable. While using the phone in the San Francisco Bay Area, we rarely ended up with less than four bars or on 3G service.
The battery is great too. Motorola's claims of 7 hours of YouTube streaming, and 6 hours of 4G LTE came through, thanks to a big 2530 mAh battery and energy sipping dual-core processor.
Finally, we liked the Droid Razr HD's big, sharp screen. The high contrast colors are eye catching, and the extra visual real estate is great for gaming and watching videos.
We disliked
At $199 with two-year Verizon contract, the Droid Razr HD isn't priced very competitively. Don't get us wrong, it's a great phone, but at that price it's in the running with three of the hottest contenders out there: the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X+. All it really offers over them is battery life, a clean UI and big high-contrast screen. It's a not an easy choice for consumers. The camera is nothing special either. It takes pretty average to subpar pictures in anything but perfect outdoor light.
There's a decent amount of Verizon bloatware, and Verizon Backup Assistant crashed on us constantly. Consumers can surely do without it, as well as VZ Navigator, Verizon Tones, Verizon Video and NFL Mobile, all of which cannot be uninstalled.
It's also something of a middle child between the Droid Razr M and Droid Razr Maxx HD. Given its price and smaller, lower resolution screen, the Razr M is obviously a mid-range device. When choosing between the Droid Razr HD and Maxx HD, you've got an odd choice to make. Is it really worth an additional $100 for exorbitant battery life and double the storage, not to mention a heavier phone? We're not sure it is.
Verdict
The Droid Razr HD is a very good phone. The screen and overall design is very handsome. Its dual-core processor is capable, and it only sips battery power. It's a long lasting, reliable device that still has more than enough power to get the job done. Being exclusive to Verizon is no handicap either, since the company's 4G LTE service is far-reaching and fast. There's nothing wrong with the device, except for a mediocre camera. It's just that competition is so stiff. At this price you could have one of our other favorite phones, the iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3. The choice essentially comes down to personal preference. While we prefer the aluminum and Kevlar construction of the Droid Razr HD to the more plastic feeling construction of the Galaxy S3 and Optimus G, there is something to be said for quad-core power. And while many weren't crazy about what iOS 6 brought to the table (and took away. We're looking at you, Apple maps), it can't be denied that the iPhone 5 is one of the best phones out there. Ultimately, it's a very fine phone, but struggles to stand out amongst the competition. Remember how we mentioned that Motorola pays George Lucas to use the name Droid? To put our verdict in Star Wars terms, the Droid Razr HD is far more of a helpful R2-D2 than fussy C-3PO, but it's not quite capable of assassinating the competition like IG-88.
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Review: iPad 4
Introduction and design
There was much umbrage at the launch of the new iPad 4, as it basically rendered the iPad 3 obsolete mere months after launch. However, with only a minor CPU and front camera change, is there really any point thinking about upgrading? The question most people ask us when it comes to the new iPad 4 is: what's different from the old one? Or the iPad 2, for that matter? Well, in this case it's pretty easy: there's a Retina Display that makes everything look superbly crisp, an updated A6X processor with much superior performance, the same 5MP camera on the rear with a 1.3MP HD sensor on the front now to replace the VGA effort. Oh, and the new iPad 4 is now running iOS 6 out of the box (well, it's also on the likes of the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, but hey, we've already reviewed those, and you don't really care unless it's a new iPad, do you?)
The design of the new iPad 4 isn't really anything different from the original duo from Apple's tablet range. Actually, while we're thinking about it, it looks almost identical to the iPad 2 – to the point you'd struggle to tell them apart when turned off.
However, in the hand, there's a little bit of a difference, especially when it comes to the weight. The new iPad is nearly 60g heavier than the second iteration, and while it's not terrible, it does add a little arm strain during a marathon movie session.
Retina Display
Before we get onto all the normal insight over the frame of the new iPad 4, it's worth talking about one top feature: the Retina Display. Apple has packed a huge amount more pixels into the 9.7-inch screen - 1536 x 2048 to be exact. However, despite the fact that the Cupertino brand makes a big thing about the 330 PPI density of the iPhone 4S, we're looking at a screen that's technically a lot less sharp than its smartphone brethren - around 264PPI.
Apple has got around this fact by stating that the screen is meant to be held 15 inches from the face, rather than the 10 inches the iPhone is supposed to be from your eyes, and as such the sharpness is the same.
Given the fact the term "Retina Display'" really isn't a legally binding term, we don't care. What matters is the effect - and it's one of the most impressive we've seen on a tablet to date. If someone took an iPad, printed out a really hi-res image of an iOS system and stuck it on the front, we'd struggle to tell the difference - it's superb, and even squinting up close you'll be hard pushed to notice any pixelation.
The color reproduction will also appeal to many, as it's pretty close to reality - it lacks the punch of the Super AMOLED HD screens seen on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for instance, but it will depend on personal preference as to whether that's a good thing.
We like the vivid colors of Samsung's screens, but we know plenty of people that loathe them, too.
The main thing is things like internet browsing; photo viewing and movie sessions are all much, much improved over the iPad 2, and is one of the main reasons to pick up the new iPad.
Design
The new iPad, as we said, is only marginally thicker and a little heavier than the iPad 2, and if you pick it up with no knowledge of the former, you'll likely be mighty impressed. The rest of the design is premium too - given you can be paying nearly $850 for a top end model, it needs to seem like a worthwhile investment, and it does. There's also the new Lightning connector on offer, which brings the smaller, faster port for all your needs... unless your need is to use you recently purchased dock, in which case you'll need to fork out for an adaptor.
The curved edges, the oleophobic scratch-proof glass and the aluminium chassis are all the kind of thing that some Android tablets have tried to ape and failed. Of course, many will prefer the feather-light frames of some of the Samsung models but, like the screen, it really comes down to personal preference.
The buttonry on the new iPad is pretty sparse though - we're talking four buttons and that's your lot.
The iconic home button is back once again, despite rumors of its demise, and is easy to reach and hit within the thick bezel.
The rest of the buttons are all clustered tightly together in the top left-hand corner of the new iPad, with the rocker/volume key, the mute/orientation switch and power/lock key all within an inch of one another.
As you can see, Apple has been pretty efficient with the button placement, with all of them performing more than one function. And they say the iPad can't multi-task... tsk.
Interface
The new iPad 4 is now running ahead of the pack thanks to iOS 6, and with it comes a whole host of new fancy features. However, before we go through what's new, we'll take a quick tour across the operating system to show just how simple it is to operate a new iPad. The home screen is laid out in a very similar way to the iPhone, except we're seeing some much larger icons for the apps you've downloaded.
You can fill as many home screens as you like with apps as you download more from the App Store, and swiping from screen to screen on the iPad 4 is silky smooth even with loads of programs downloaded.
There's also the dock at the bottom of the display which can hold up to six regularly used apps that are present on all home screens, which is more than the four on offer with the iPhone thanks to the extra screen real estate.
Neat freaks need not despair either: it's easy to create folders of the apps you want to lump together simply by dragging an icon and plopping it on top of another – the iPad will create a name for the group based on the content, but it's easy to rename these.
iOS 6 doesn't offer too much in the way of new features for the user interface, but a trick that Apple has learned from Google's Android is the notifications bar, which can be accessed simply by swiping down from the top of the screen.
This contains information on everything from unread mail messages to notifications of new moves in games you're playing with friends. It's a simple system and one that's prevalent throughout the system, even in most apps, meaning you can easily jump in and out of applications where necessary.
You can also now post a tweet or a Facebook status update from this bar as well - while it's not the easiest place to share a link directly from, if you just saw a squirrel do the moonwalk time is of the essence when it comes to telling people.
Speaking of which, it's worth taking a look at the multi-tasking gestures on offer, as they're pretty sensational. Using a full set of fingers on the screen allows three functions: pinching in will take you to the home screen, flicking up will enable the multi-tasking window and swiping left will let you bounce between open apps.
It really works on the new iPad, and we urge you to check it out as it really makes moving through the system easy and cool at the same time.
There's a great debate over what really constitutes multi-tasking – but in our view, the iPad does enough to warrant the title. The likes of the BlackBerry Playbook are more capable when it comes to fully running programs in the background, but most users will struggle to really notice the difference when the iPad and its Android competition are asked to jump between apps.
As mentioned, you can easily multi-finger swipe up or double tap the home button to call up a list of recently opened apps, which can be deleted from the tray by a single long press and tapping of the "x" that appears.
Swiping right in the multi-tasking tray will also call up the music player, which allows you to see what songs are about to play, or change the volume or brightness. Not new, but the closest thing to a widget we'll get here.
The lock screen allows you to do some pretty funky stuff; double tapping the home button will call up the music player so you can switch tracks or pause without needing to open the iPad. Also, there's an option to have a slide show of your photos – although we've all got some we don't want to see cycling past at times.
The iPad interface is one that's a little hard to judge, as it's so subjective we're bound to be chastised for the manner in which we rate the OS. However, in our minds it's too simplistic these days, with no opportunity for real customisation, and that's something we've been hoping Apple will fix for years.
The good news is Sir Jony Ive is taking over the design of the OS, and we're hoping to see some really big changes when iOS 7 rolls around.
But then again others hate overly complicated user interfaces, and they'll love the simple icon-centric offering. There are other foibles, like apps not re-aligning when one is deleted off a screen, but there are examples of this happening on other tablets all the time, so it's hard to criticize the iPad specifically.
Does the iPad 4 really do enough to be the poster boy for the iPad generation, with the all new A6X chip adding more smoothness under the finger? Yes. It's erased the slowdown we sporadically experienced with the iPad 3, and brings a more 'flawless' nature to Apple's line up.
Compared to the iPad 2, there's an increase under the hood from 512MB of RAM to 1GB – given the previous iteration had a decent level of snap between programs, the new iPad doesn't really need to push things too much harder... but if it makes apps loads that little bit more quickly and doesn't eat battery, then we're fans.
Basically, if you want simple and a mostly slick user interface, then you're in for a treat. It's not the most complete system out there, and while iOS 6 is showing its age it's still a more than acceptable platform to power Apple's most complete iPad.
Contacts and FaceTime
When you boil down the "point" of a tablet, the lines are still very blurred between a large smartphone and a standalone device – and the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, with the 5.5-inch screen, are confusing things even more. The new iPad can do nearly everything its little iPhone 5 brother can do, and brings Siri nicely into the fold too, with some impressive command updates. However, it's the layout that impresses us, as Apple has taken some time to go through and really make use of the extra screen size. Contacts are laid out in a proper address book format: we're talking tabs at the side you can scroll down, and your own contact info all stored on the opening page. If you lose your new iPad then you'll either get a saint that knows how to contact you to return your device or a scary man who now knows where you live. The contacts are all sadly faceless at the start – you have to manually go through and give each person a picture unless you've synchronized from Google or Exchange and have already assigned one unless Facebook has been selected as a contact group. You can draw in profile pictures from Facebook now too - it really sets off the new iPad 4 being able to integrate such pictures, although they're still pretty low res, so doing it manually is still the most impressive way around. Given there's already deep integration with Twitter and Facebook in iOS it's important to have this funtionality, although there's still loads of room for improvement.
As we've mentioned earlier, getting contacts on your new iPad can be achieved in many ways: you can download them easily from a previous list on an iPhone or older iPad, and the sync process is jolly quick.
You can also pull them in from the likes of Exchange or Google, although the latter is harder than it should be – if you want to know how to get contacts on the new iPad from Google, you'll have to follow the linked instructions.
Facetime
The good news here is all those phone numbers you've brought across aren't useless, as giving the string of digits a tap will result in a FaceTime call. Of course, this is only any use of the other person a) has a compatible iPhone or iPad and b) is in a Wi-Fi zone or has the pre-requisite extortionate 3G price plan.
The actual call quality itself isn't too bad – and here's somewhere that we can actually talk about an improvement from the iPad 3, thanks to the new FaceTime HD camera on the front.
It makes picture quality look much, much smoother in practice... while it won't matter to you, the person you're speaking too will appreciate the efforts you make to give them something nicer to look at. Our screengrab proves it.
We're still not sold on the idea of FaceTime or video calling in general – but in order to achieve "enchantment" with the new iPad Apple mandates you have to call your partner from another country to look at a baby... so video calling is a must.
Just be aware there are other services on the App Store that can achieve the same thing but with much more flexibility.
Messaging
The iPad 4 is a device that's really about consuming media than creating it (at least when it comes to prose) and as such, you wouldn't label it a message-centric device. However, that doesn't mean it's not one of the best out there, as when it comes to the likes of emailing it's simply brilliant if you can get past the slightly odd keyboard.
We'll start with Apple's keyboard on the iPad, as it's consistent throughout the OS. It's a great option in our eyes if you're one of those that's invested in a SmartCover to help bring some elevation to the screen, as you can use it as a desktop keyboard pretty easily - although you'll need to get over the lack of feedback under the finger and the dull 'thunk' as your digits bash the screen.
However, it's not as good for holding the new iPad 4 and trying to get a missive out to the world; cradling it in landscape mode means you can't hit the middle keys as easily, and when in portrait you've got the issue of the device being quite top-heavy so it's again an uncomfortable experience.
You can open up a split keyboard to make it a little easier to type in the hands, but be warned this is at the expense of accuracy.
Compared to the iPad mini, it's worlds apart - that device is perfect for firing out missives in both portrait and landscape, and makes the heavy nature of the iPad 4 look ludicrous.
So in summary: accuracy of keys good, holding big iPad to type bad.
The email interface itself is also good - a unified inbox allows you to combine both work and personal life, but in truth many will prefer to bounce between to two. A list pane can be called up whenever you like, meaning it's easy to read an email and then jump back into the inbox with a flick of the finger.
And now there's a little guy that sits above your inbox list and appears whenever you pull down to refresh your emails - it morphs down until you've pulled the list far enough to trigger the refresh, and has a fun little animation that made us play with it time and again.
It's elements like this that make the iPad 4 a different beast to the iPhone (although this little morphing feature is present there too), and Apple has recognized this. Text is also much more legible on the Retina Display - we're not saying it was terrible before, but we definitely felt it was a more comfortable reading experience.
The other key feature the iPad 4 has is the ability to wander through mail folders - many people are dealing with email overload these days by sticking them in separate folders for later, and it's key to be able to get access to these without having to mess about with thousands of taps.
Searching for email is similarly easy - you pull down from the top of the screen to get access to the search bar, and from there you can easily ask for any word in an email that might have been put somewhere - be it the sender's name, subject or general message text - plus the server searches are very speedy as well.
If you've got an iPhone or iPad already, the above will be of no surprise to you - the new iPad 4 doesn't really take this story on any further, except to make text more legible - but it's worth mentioning as it will be a key feature to many prospective buyers.
Siri dictation
Siri has taken the place of Dictation on the new iPad thanks to the arrival of iOS 6, and it's designed to help you understand what's being said and note it down in front of you. However, it's not improved at all over the original Dictation service, as even with slow, even speech it's only 90% accurate in our tests, which just isn't enough to consider switching from the normal keypad when writing an email. There aren't that many services out there which are better, in fairness, but that doesn't mean it makes us love Siri any more... in fact, it just makes us frustrated this awesome feature isn't better.Twitter and Facebook
It's not really messaging as such, but it's worth mentioning Apple's deep integration with Twitter. Well, deep as in you can Tweet a photo directly from the Gallery app, as there's no on board client or anything to mess around with, nor can you assign Twitter names to contacts, although Facebook makes this possible. The integration for sharing via both of these services is improved too, with the option in the internet browser making it easy to tell your buddies when you've seen something of note.
However, when you take a picture there's an option to post it straight to Twitter or Facebook providing you've linked up the account in Settings – plus you get a pleasant little chirping sound when it sends in the case of the former. Nice.
Internet
And here we come to one of the key reasons to buy the new iPad 4: the internet browsing experience. You can imagine that a device designed for internet browsing is only going to be improved hugely with the addition of a high resolution Retina Display - and you'd be pretty much bang on the money.
The screen looks superb when flicking around the internet - be it text heavy sites or those filled with pointless photos of Michael Bublé being stalked by raptors, it all looks so much better than on previous tablets or smartphones.
The odd thing is how impressive text and pictures look on the screen. Yes, we know the pixel density is stupidly high for a tablet, but most of us will have used a desktop monitor with the same level of clarity in the past, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.
It's the shine of the new iPad 4 that makes it so much more stunning - the screen isn't too reflective, but just gliding your finger over the display is a really pleasant sensation.
We know this isn't really the way we usually review an internet browser, but Apple users have a different expectation when it comes to purchasing decisions compared to picking up a Google Nexus 7 and thinking about the CPU power running under the hood.
However, if we look at the technical specifications, the new iPad 4 is no slouch as we've discussed - and that certainly shows with the internet browsing experience, and is one of the key areas of improvement over the old iPad 3.
We noticed a definite improvement in the speed with which TechRadar loaded over Wi-Fi, with a full page render nearly a second faster than on the previous iteration.
The internet browsing experience on the new iPad 4 is definitely closing in on the experience of the desktop browser, with the likes of tabbed browsing making it very easy to jump between different pages instead of having to flick out to see which windows are currently open.
There are other features that have carried across here as well, with the Reader tab in the address bar turning any text on the page into an ebook like experience.
When we first played with this feature we were excited to no longer have the issue of pictures getting in the way of our reading experience, and since the iOS 6 upgrade you can now save items for offline reading too, which is a real plus.
The web browser does have a few missing elements in our minds, and not just the lack of Flash integration. We're not going to get into the Flash debate here - it's becoming almost irrelevant on mobile devices thanks to the onset of HTML5 coding. We'll leave it up to you to decide whether you can live without web video on certain sites, but at least those sites are becoming fewer and fewer.
It's more the fact the new iPad 4 web browser hasn't quite nailed the icon sizes that we take umbrage with. Things like hitting the icon to reload the page or shut down a tab are difficult to hit, as they're pretty tiny.
Apple has clearly increased the accuracy around these, as otherwise you'd need Borrower-size fingers to use them, but we still had a large number of mis-hits when simply trying to bounce between web pages.
The other issue we've got is text reflow, where the words rearrange themselves on the screen to fit your zoom level. Apple's got that great pinch to zoom functionality on offer, but once you get too close to the text there's no way to make it wriggle about to fill the screen.
Spend any amount of time with an HTC device, and you'll see what a key feature this is... when you get to some web pages on the new iPad 4, you simply can't get close enough into the text and still see it all on the screen at once, and that's a failing in our eyes.
Overall, the internet browser on the new iPad 4 is terrific though. Web pages load very quickly most of the time, the text looks stunning on the new Retina Display, and getting the answers your require from the web is brilliant.
There are still some things Apple can tidy up: better accuracy on certain elements on the page, a clearer bookmarking system and better zooming in and out of text when viewing long web pages are the key things we'd look at.
But many will buy the iPad 4 primarily for sofa-based web browsing, and it certainly is up to that task.
Camera and video
Camera
One of the main upgrades on the new iPad 4 is the camera – we're talking a move from 0.7MP (which in itself was a move from no camera at all) to a 5MP offering. This is relatively similar to the snapper located in the iPhone 5, with a ƒ/2.4 aperture and a five-element lens offering up some pretty tasty specs for the amateur photographer that likes to take a quick snap now and again. We should also mention the 'tap to autofocus' mode as well – it helps correct the sharpness and exposure levels of the image, and really works.
Despite the upgrade in specs, it's hard to believe Apple has really made the camera a priority, as there are some elements we're struggling to understand.
For instance, you're able to take a photo using the volume key to make it easier to snap. Firstly, this is quite stiff and leads to some picture wobble, and secondly, doing it this way means it's almost impossible to not put your finger over the lens.
There's no flash to speak of, which we can kind of understand given the packaging gone into the iPad 4 chassis, but it would still be nice on occasion.
And the shutter speed, which is so impressive on the iPhone 4S with lower specs, isn't present here – we're not talking much slower, and it's pretty fast – but there's a slight delay between snaps.
There's also no hint of High Dynamic Range (HDR) options on the new iPad, which means you don't get those beautifully interpolated photos so many people like on the iPhone.
However, Apple has kept the new iPad 4 camera simple – we're happy with the results, but it's more a decent camera in case of emergency rather than your primary snapping weapon of choice.
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Video
The video camera on the new iPad 4 manages to now shoot in 1080p at up to 30 fps, with the front facing camera managing VGA quality at the same 30fps.
There's not much more to say about the camera, as there's no option to mess about with the settings when you're taking a video.
However, the anti-shake effects are very good - quality is strong and the built-in image stabilisation is deeply impressive – our best bouncy walk should have made for unwatchable footage but the new iPad shrugged it off.
Media
Now, here comes the good stuff. Most people we speak to use the iPad for two things: internet browsing and media consumption. Yes, we know it's more than half decent for a number of other tasks, but media is definitely one of the new iPad 4's strong points. The capacities aren't upped with the third iteration of Apple's tablet though; that's going to be a bit of a worry when you look at some of the media sizes now on offer and you can only choose a 16GB, 32GB or 64GB model.
With no expandable memory on display… well, Apple may have played itself into a corner for the new iPad.
Music
Music used to be the core focus of any Apple product, but that's clearly no longer the case – not to say the fruity firm has lost its way when it comes to audio playback. It's one of the few elements that Apple has deigned to give a widget-like experience too – both on the lock screen and the multi-tasking pane – and users will really feel the benefit of being able to control their tunes from anywhere within the system.
However, the main music player itself isn't actually that easy to use; we were unimpressed with the fact the controls were stuck high in the top left-hand corner of the app, and there's no way to increase their size.
It's not a terrible system, but if you're using the new iPad 4 to listen to some tunes, there's not a lot more you're going to want from the music app when flicking through tracks – larger icons would make much more sense here.
However, in terms of music quality the new iPad is certainly up there – even without messing around with the equalizer or sound check options, the results are still more than good enough for everyone but the most discerning audiophile.
In terms of music formats the device is capable of playing back, we think most would struggle in this day and age to have some incompatible formats from the list of MP3, most types of AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV files.
Video
Imagine the jump from your standard definition TV to a full 1080p video of something the BBC shot with David Attenborough… it was immense. We were expecting something along the same lines with the iPad 4, but in reality, we weren't that blown away.
That's going to sound odd to some people, and we should probably qualify it: with the Retina Display, Apple has brought tablet video watching to the level it should be at. Most users will have seen video on a smartphone at around WVGA or HD level, and been gobsmacked at the sharpness.
Tablets haven't been able to match that so far… until the iPad 4 that is. Video looks as good on a larger display as it does on a larger screened TV or tiny smartphone, and that's what we've been waiting for.
However, it's worth pointing out that, like on a full HD TV, the wow factor only comes when you're viewing 1080p content – other SD movies and TV shows just look OK in comparison. Not terrible by any means… just not amazing.
The new iPad 4 has the best video playback quality we've seen from the Apple tablet range so far, with the expected good levels of sharpness.
It sometimes still struggles with the contrast ratios (the difference between the light and dark areas of the video) on non-HD content, and the glossy screen will still annoy people that can see their reflection more than the content on the screen in bright areas.
But it's still a great movie experience when lying on a deckchair on the beach, or around a campfire in the Amazon (or whatever hip scenario the Cupertino brand is pushing this week) as long as you've got some nice content to watch.
Thankfully, Apple has deigned to give users a fully stocked iTunes portal to download video from, and there's so much to choose from. It's also pulled a neat trick by making it possible to access 1080p content without adding too much onto the file sizes seen at 720p, which should aid some users' decisions.
However, there are two areas that severely limit the iTunes store in terms of making it a really compelling video portal: price and file size.
It seems ludicrous that the first season of Modern Family should cost £35 in the UK or $AU40 in Australia when you can pick up the DVD for £10 ($AU20) in most places. We know that's at HD level, but still – it's way too expensive to be a viable alternative to just watching it on a TV.
And then there's the issue of file size – most full HD movies are between 3-4GB in size, which means if you've only got a 16GB new iPad, you're going to be severely limited in what you can take with you (and that's even before we get into the app sizes).
So it's a double edged sword when it comes to video on the new iPad 4: on the one hand the screen is pin sharp, the quality excellent at full HD and even the sound out the little grille at the side is strong and relatively powerful on the bass.
But then there's issue of paying through the nose to actually get the content onto your device (unless you happen to have a glut of M4V-ready HD video files on your home computer) and the fact it will dominate your internal storage too.
We hoped the iPad 4 was going to be the truly amazing video playing device, but this is clearly just a minor upgrade so we should be looking for the iPad 5 (or new iPad fifth generation) until we get up to 128GB of onboard storage and a more affordable video store.
Battery life and connectivity
Battery life
Apple's relationship with battery life on its portable devices has been a rocky one over the years. But we'll let you breathe a little easier: the new iPad 4 has a more than acceptable battery life in our eyes. It's an interesting situation – we reckon if the same battery efficiency used here has been put in the iPad 2, the device would be rocking a time between charges of between 3-5 days, even with more than moderate use. The battery life of the new iPad 4 is slightly improved over the previous iteration, which will obviously impress those worried about the power of the Retina display draining the life out of the device. Over our long term tests with the previous iteration we noted the battery life fell over time, but that should hopefully be nullified somewhat with the new A6X processor. And then there's the issue of 4G or 3G connectivity on top of that screen power – push that a little harder and it's highly likely you'll be seeing maybe a day's use out of the new iPad, although we've yet to test the 4G version.
If you're going to be taking the new iPad 4 on a long haul flight and are intending to consume a large amount of video, we'd reckon you could just eke things out to four movies – in our tests we were seeing consumption of around 15% per hour when firing up the screen, although popping down the brightness will see a lower consumption.
Connections
There are so many connection options on the new iPad 4 that it's hard to list them all… but we're a diligent bunch here, so we'll give it a go. The big one we're excited about is Bluetooth 4.0 – the latest version of the wireless technology, and here's our explanation from our lovely 'What is Bluetooth?' feature: "Bluetooth 4.0 uses even less power than previous versions, and enables various devices to replace propriety sensor technology with Bluetooth. "This Bluetooth Low Energy has benefits for technology in fitness, such as heart rate monitors and pedometers, which before could only communicate with a specific device controlling them. Now this information could theoretically be checked by any phone or computer."
"The use of Bluetooth 4.0 still isn't that widespread, but it's tipped to grow, with the possibility to even be used to work as a wireless payment system in a similar fashion to the slower speeds of NFC."
Above that, we've got Wi-Fi up to 802.11 n standard, aGPS and a gyroscope. If that wasn't enough for you, there's a cellular data connection that can handle up to 73Mbps depending on the territory you're in, with the likes of DC-HSPA promising speeds of over 40Mbps for those in the less well-connected territories.
As you can probably guess based on the iPhone 5, Apple has decided to once again use a smaller nanoSIM on the iPad 4 – this is annoying as you can't cut down a microSIM to a nano size very easily, so you'll have to hassle your network for a whole other card it seems.
Apps and Maps
When it comes to Apps, you'd think there's nothing much to worry about if you're using an Apple device. And you'd be mostly right: the new iPad 4 offers up over 700,000 apps, with 250,000 designed for the iPad specifically. However, there's a slight worry about those meant for the Retina Display, although probably not to the levels that some in the media are trumpeting at the moment. Sure, there are some that are pushing nearly half a GB in size (iMovie, we're looking at you here) but we still need to see how other upgraded apps fare.
We'e worryingly seeing 400MB-500MB apps becoming the norm for the iPad, as even with a 32GB model once you've chucked in a couple of HD films you'll be having to think about which apps you want on there… and that's never a good thing on a device – just ask HTC Desire owners.
Many non-corporate apps are less data hungry still, so you can still get away with not destroying the internal memory of your device just yet... but we'd still advise the 32GB model at least for good measure.
Until then, let's take a look at the apps Apple is telling us just look sooooo great on the new iPad 4 Retina Display:
iMovie
If you're a budding filmographer... well, chances are you'll want something that's a little more high power than the iPad and will want a little more effort when it comes to the program used to cut it all together. But for the average Joe Schmo making a couple of videos of his dogs and deciding it would be fun to make a mini movie of them, you know, professional-like, this is a decent addition.
At £3 / $AU5.49, it's a little pricey, but once you've made a couple of movie trailers, you'll see why it's more fun than functional - we had a blast once we'd thought about the footage we wanted to chuck in.
The main project option can be really well exploited by putting together some nice interstitials to give your home movies a bit of flair - but be warned, it's a little limited, despite how awesome the films some people seem to be managing.
We will say one thing: it's much easier to cut together a decent-ish film with a better looking screen, and in a side by side test between the A5X and A6X processors we noticed a fairly sharp upturn in the rendering speeds.
iBooks
iBooks is a place where the new iPad 4 really shines. It doesn't really manage to beat the likes of the Amazon Kindle when it comes to easing strain on the eyes, but the smooth way the letters are laid on the page make it a joy to use to munch through your favorite tome of the moment.
The likes of a little bookmark animation really make this app pop, and with the prices not terrible on many titles this is another decent stab from Apple at taking another cut of the ebook market.
iPhoto
iPhoto is another app that really takes advantage of the Retina Display on the new iPad 4, and it makes editing that much easier thanks to it. We were quickly applying saturation effects left, right and centre to make our pictures look a little cooler - it's basically the same as the editing tools already in the photo gallery (where you can auto fix, crop, enhance etc) but made 50x better, with a large amount of effects on offer to play with.
You can export the images to things like Twitter, Facebook and your own journal - for those that love to document their life through the iPad 4 (you know who you are) they'll love this option on the larger tablet.
Newsstand
Like iBooks, the Newsstand is a much improved version of the previous tablet app - the Retina Display is a real winner in our eyes for making your publications look that much slicker, and the magazines and newspapers that have embedded video really stand out when it comes to showing off the multimedia advantages of a digital publications.Reminders
We've included this here only because we're really disappointed with it compared to the iPhone version: there's no location-based awesomeness to play with.
This is despite the fact the new iPad 4 has a GPS chip built in (on the 3G models), but there's no way to make sure a reminder is triggered when you're in a certain area.
Maps
You've probably seen the outcry over the loss of Google Maps on iOS 6 in favor of the new Apple Maps system - and yes, it's not the best thing Apple has ever done, with the company currently advising you try other mapping apps on its phones and tablets while it improves the accuracy of its own offering.
The accuracy aside (things like being told Marylebone station is 100 metres to the right of where it actually is doesn't sound like much, but if you're navigating there using the directions on foot it can become very irritating) the new Maps app is actually pretty nifty, despite losing some of the functionality like Street View in Google Maps.
For instance, the new app can tell you where there are roadworks, has decent traffic information on the go (although we weren't able to test the exact accuracy of this as we only had a Wi-Fi version to test initially) and the like of Flyover, which gives a 3D render of real life stuff in a slightly peturbing form.
The UI is more than serviceable when it comes to real life use - the speed of rendering is swift and the Apple-esque fonts and art is impressive, especially when compared to Google Maps on Android.
Directions are now included, so free turn-by-turn navigation is available on an Apple device out of the box. It's a very clear system with lovely big blue boxes to look at and multiple routes on offer each time, which is something that it beats Google's offering on. It can also stay asleep and only wake when there's a turning coming up - which means it won't rinse the battery if you don't have a charger.
The only problem is there's no inbuilt public transport mode here, which means you have to install apps from the App Store to achieve the same thing... Google Maps can already do such a thing.
It's a decent mapping service, and can locate you very quickly when asked... something iOS devices have always been pretty adept at doing; it's just frustrating that the new option has managed to forget how to tell you where you actually are.
Hands on gallery
Verdict
It's now been a few months since the iPad 3 was unveiled, and now we already have a new version in the new iPad 4. So is there really that much there to talk about, or is it just a covert change that Apple decided to highlight as it's not got a much faster processor? Even after all this time the Retina Display still wows. With the SD card add-on it becomes a wonderful device to take on holiday (especially if you've invested in a decent camera). Checking out your photos on a beautiful screen with such a higher resolution makes everyday browsing a real pleasure. Sure, we became a bit blasé about the internet browsing experience after a few weeks, in the same way many people stop noticing HD resolution on their new TV. However, as soon as we saw another tablet or an older smartphone, we were pining for the pin-sharp viewing experience the iPad brings - we suggest you don't go and look at an iPad mini for fear of that making you sad.
It will be interesting to see how many iPad owners cast an eye over the significantly less premium, but cheaper and smaller Apple iPad mini or Google Nexus 7 by Asus and wonder if that might be a little less worrying to cart around.
It's almost impossible to give a verdict on an Apple product that everyone will agree with, as there's so much about its devices that's entirely subjective, bringing responses no other product could manage.
The new iPad 4, like many of Apple's products, is a little overpriced for what it delivers, and still lacks some key features, although these are becoming fewer and further between with each iteration.
We liked
Well, the first and most obvious highlight on the new iPad 4 is the Retina Display. We've talked about it at great length throughout this whopping review and it's the one element that never failed to impress us no matter what application was running on the screen. It's clear, it's bright, it's crisp; essentially it properly expands the smartphone experience onto a larger tablet and takes us into a new generation of displays. We're also fans of the design of the new iPad - and yes, we know it's the same as before. We're not happy about the fact it's heavier than the iPad 2, but the build quality is something most other manufacturers long for, and are constantly trying to ape. And then there's the user interface - another element that polarizes opinion. We're pretty agnostic here at TechRadar, and while we appreciate the power that can be had from widgets, there's something about the simplicity of the iOS UI that we just love - and simplicity counts for a huge amount in the burgeoning tablet market. Sure, it's ageing, but it works better on a tablet than on a smartphone. There will always be those that hate the lack of widgets, customisable home screens and more intuitive notification bars (and we salute you for that) but if you're in that camp, you're probably not even bothering to read this review as you know what you're getting with an Apple device.We disliked
For all its power, there are still some elements of the new iPad 4 that could be improved in our opinion. The first is the fact the device will still heat up under medium-term use (depending on the apps you're running), which could really disconcert some users; despite the fact it didn't seem to have a huge impact on battery life. However, this is much less of a worry compared to the older version, with the heat not reaching the same worrying levels as before. Then there's the things that make it feel like a second class citizen to the iPhone 5: no location-based fun in the Reminders and no HDR mode on the camera either. We're not going to criticize it for not being quad-core considering there's no valid reason for such a chipset as yet in a tablet - but if the market shows there's a need for such power over the next 12 months then the iPad 4 will look a little behind the curve. And there's the issue of storage too: we suggest you steer clear of the 16GB model if you're going to be using a lot of apps or downloading HD films, as you'll find the space is used up pretty darn quick and you'll have to start deciding between different types of content. For the price, you would expect the iPad to be nigh-on perfect; and although it's a mighty fine piece of kit, there are some niggles that are tricky to overlook. The SmartCover is fine in terms of protection, but we couldn't help but feel it just doesn't offer enough protection out and about. However, with the new SmartCase, that issue has been solved, although it's freakin' expensive to buy. It does save the aluminium though, so that's worth thinking about.Verdict
Despite the above negative points, there's no doubt we're once again looking at a top tablet once again. Apple's greatest strength has always been fusing together some headline features with an OS that just works, and will appeal to the largest amount of people. Sure, the price is a little high, and in a vacuum would be a real stick with which to beat the new iPad 4. But given many tablets are coming in at well over $500 these days (plus the fact so many people are willing to pay it) we can't criticize Apple's pricing too much here. We do feel there should be a touch more "awesome" for a 64GB device at a near $700 price tag, and beyond the screen there isn't too much more of an upgrade on show - at least until we get some titles that really show off the prowess of the new iPad's internals. In short: if you've got an iPad 2, or don't really care about visuals, then you should stick with / purchase the now much cheaper pad, which starts at $499 - or there's the superb iPad mini to think about. But we recommend you probably don't look at the upgraded model – once you've gazed adoringly into the Retina Display, played any of the high-power games or watched a Full HD movie in your hands, you'll struggle to not hate any tablet that isn't the new iPad 4, and for that and myriad other reasons, we've decided to make it a thoroughly Recommended tablet.
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Foxconn rumored to be planning US factory
Foxconn, the electronics manufacturer that's as famous for the iPhone 5 as it is for controversy, just may set up shop with at least one factory in the U.S.
According to a (take it with a grain of salt) DigiTimes report, market watchers say that the Chinese manufacturer is in the process of evaluating U.S. cities for a potential factory site, including Los Angeles and Detroit.
The unspecified market watchers claim that the U.S. Foxconn factory would likely be used to make LCD TVs, since the manufacturing process can be largely automated and requires fewer actual workers.
Earlier this year, Foxconn made a significant investment in Sharp, including talks to acquire two of its LCD TV factories in Mexico and China.
Coming to America
While the rumor sparks an immediate response of skepticism, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou has recently said the company plans to start a training program for U.S. engineers. The program would bring engineers to plants in Taiwan and China, where they would get first-hand experience with the manufacturing process. Foxconn made the news last month when between 3,000 and 4,000 employees were reported to have gone on strike, though the company denied anything was amiss. Workers reportedly claimed that unfair demands were being placed on them, along with inadequate training in preparation for assembling the iPhone 5. The company has a notoriously poor reputation when it comes to working conditions, with the U.S. Fair Labor Association reporting "serious and pressing concerns" after visiting an Apple Foxconn plant earlier this year. With U.S. companies typically outsourcing their electronics production to Foxconn overseas, it is certainly an interesting rumor to consider a more local Foxconn factory taking root.
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Google claims Chrome is 26% faster than last year
Google deserves a pat on the back if data released Thursday is to be believed.
According to the search engine, its Chrome web browser has gotten 26 percent faster in the last year.
Chrome is reportedly updated every six weeks, which Google Software Engineer and Compiler Wizard Toon Verwaest equated in the blog post to "a mechanic stopping by every six weeks to give your car a new engine."
That sounds extreme, but with Chrome reportedly gaining more than a quarter of its total speed since late 2011, it may be somewhat accurate.
Measuring speed with Octane
The latest Chrome beta release, Chrome 24, is available for all to try before its changes are implemented in an official Chrome update. It raises the browser's speed even further, wrote Verwaest. Google designed a JavaScript benchmark test called "Octane" specifically to "measure performance of real-world applications on the modern web." According to Google's own Octane tests, Chrome has gained a total of 26.3 percent in speed since version 15, which was released in October 2011. Google released Chrome 23 on Tuesday. The new browser version upped the speed further and added long-awaited Do Not Track support.Speed is paramount
Google's blog post underscored that though "stability sometimes takes higher priority," Google is "still manic about improving Chrome's speed." That reportedly includes wait times as well as JavaScript performance, according to Verwaest. To that end, specific changes to Google Cloud Print and the browser's start-up time have made Chrome faster, as well as new automated tests designed to detect any code that might slow the browser down. "Speed is one of our core principles," Verwaest wrote, "so rest assured we'll continue to make Chrome faster in every way possible." In May, Chrome overtook Internet Explorer and became the web's top browser. If its speed continues to improve, it may even be able to stay at the front of the pack.
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Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac gets Windows 8-minded update
Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac, the desktop virtualization software, welcomed a bunch of new updates Thursday, answering consumer calls for Retina display support plus adding features tailored just for Windows 8
The hallmark of Microsoft's new OS is that it's touch capable, meaning everyone from hardware makers to software manufacturers is scrambling to embrace the new possibilities.
Parallels is among the firms adapting to the W8 landscape, bringing tablet-touch gestures to the desktop mold with Thursday's update.
The company has also integrated a single tile to the Windows 8 interface for swift access to shared Mac apps.
Windows 8 upside
According to Parallels, its Desktop 8 for Mac software already has deep built-in integration between the Mac OS X and Windows 8 operating systems. Match that with the new updates and users can use Mountain Lion's Dictation feature in Windows applications, plus add Windows apps to Launchpad and Mac Dock. Retina display settings, as mentioned, nabbed an update that should make for easier screen optimization. Parallels has thrown in full USB 3.0 support as well as increased virtual machine limits, letting users run larger apps. Lastly, Desktop 8 for Mac users will find smoother transitions when entering and exiting Coherence mode thanks to the added USB 3.0 support.
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Wikipedia adds HTML5 video player, though no influx of vids just yet
At a glacial speed, video comes to Wikipedia.
The online encyclopedia enabled a HTML5 video player on the site Thursday to let users add multimedia content to the site's articles.
The project is a collaboration that's been in the works since 2008, one that's been mired by infrastructure upgrades, personnel changes and other problems.
However, with help from Google and the open-source video start-up Kaltura, Wikipedia finally supports moving pictures.
Out with the old
Before the launch ,Wikipedia only had about 6,000 videos on the site. It was a patchwork of vids uploaded for beta testing using an older player called Ogg Theora. The more limited player was replaced by the new TimedMediaHandler extension. It comes with advanced closed captions and other timed text support. The closed captions are easily translatable into other languages, so they won't only help hearing-impaired viewers, but also make video content more accessible to an international audience.WebM is for movie
The video player also supports the royalty-free WebM format. It's an open-source file type that allows users to easily import media to Wikipedia's media depository, Wikimedia Commons. Editors can even post free-license content from Youtube's video treasure trove as well. WebM is a flexible multimedia format that changes its quality based on available bandwidth. It works on mobile phones as well, though Wikipedia hasn't enabled that feature yet. The open format will go a long way to making videos accessible to readers regardless of connection speed.Common use is common curiosity
Unfortunately, putting video in a Wikipedia article isn't as easy as embedding a video from YouTube into a blog.The videos all have to be uploaded to Wikimedia to insure the contents' perpetuity. If videos were hosted from a mishmash of third-party sites, one of those services could go down, leaving holes in Wikipedia's articles. It also means those third-party sites won't be collecting data from readers either. To handle the influx of new content, Wikimedia spent a long time overhauling its media storage infrastructure to keep up with the increased demand - one reason the project took so long to complete.The long road
Although now, after the many hurdles, the online encyclopedia one ups its paper-bound brethren with the addition of videos, the need for content to be royalty free will mean vids won't instantly flood Wikipedia's online pages. Expect videos to slowly creep into Wikipedia articles as the knowledge site starts a new media rich chapter in its open-source service.
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Lenovo CEO says convertibles will overtake iPad-like tablets
Consumers will soon be choosing multi-functional convertible PCs over entertainment-focused tablets like the iPad, Lenovo's CEO has predicted.
During a conference call on Thursday, Yang Yuanqing said that more versatile, hybrid laptop/tablet devices like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga with Windows 8 will soon supersede Apple's traditional slate offerings.
He said the "emotional attachment" to devices like the iPad is falling, evidenced by the "competitor's recent earnings announcement."
It can be presumed, without mentioning any names, Yang was referring to Apple's recent failure to meet Wall Street expectations for iPad sales.
Best of both worlds
Yang reportedly questioned why users would want to buy a tablet when they could have more power, a traditional PC keyboard and operating system, as well as all of the touchscreen entertainment functionality with a convertible. "I think the market will become more realistic in the future," he said "I still believe the Yoga type of convertible is more usable, more user-friendly."Definitely that's the better product. That will be the future of the PC." Apple's tablet market share has fallen to 50 per cent in recent weeks, thanks largely to the launch of affordable Android devices like the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7. It will be interesting to see whether the attack of the Windows 8 convertibles can turn the tide further away from the once dominant iPad.
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'Call of Duty: Black Ops II' live stream gameplay powered by YouTube
When Call of Duty: Black Ops II arrives on Nov. 13, developer Treyarch and publisher Activision will be giving console owners the ability to stream gameplay directly to the internet from in-game.
Activision announced Thursday the live streaming was possible thanks to a partnership with YouTube, which lets both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners post footage without any additional video capture hardware.
In fact, all any player needs is a valid YouTube account to tie his or her gamer profile to before streaming.
"With Call of Duty: Black Ops II, people can live stream their gameplay directly from the game or watch the best players live on YouTube, which is an awesome next step for the eSports community," said YouTube's Sang Kim, head of game partnerships.
Live from the living room
Activision boasted this is the first time such an innovation has been possible with consoles, and acknowledged that the service will offer more than just video streams. League Play games in Black Ops II can also stream, as will users' webcam and audio commentary on the match. In addition, anyone watching the stream can see a player's online information, as well as class loadouts, recent match data and career stats as tabulated by Call of Duty Elite. "With our competitive play and eSports initiatives, we wanted to deliver live streaming capabilities built right into Call of Duty: Black Ops II, because Call of Duty is not only fun and exciting to play, but we believe it will be just as exciting to watch," said Mark Lamia, studio head at Treyarch. "By making the capability of live streaming as accessible as possible to our fans, straight from a player's console without the need for any additional hardware or sophisticated setups, we are empowering our fans to share their multiplayer experiences." Fans will be able to view the streams on YouTube and through Call of Duty Elite, though the latter requires full registration to view individual player stats. Call of Duty: Black Ops II will also come to the PC and the Wii U (Nov. 18 for the U), though it's unclear if either of those versions of the game will offer the same streaming support.
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Analyst: Apple to sell 46.5 million iPhones this quarter
Apple could sell as many as 46.5 million iPhones in the quarter ending Dec. 31, according to one analyst.
Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu brings word from supply chain sources that the Foxconn plant has been able to up its manufacturing capacity for the new iPhone 5 handset.
The Chinese factory had experienced difficulties in the large scale manufacture of the new 4-inch handset, due to component shortages and assembly troubles, leaving Apple less able to fulfil demand.
Earlier this week, Foxconn chairman Terry Gou reportedly admitted: "It's not easy to make the iPhones. We are falling short of meeting the huge demand."
Issues resolved
However, the easing of these issues, Wu told investors, will clear the way for Apple to quickly replenish stocks and sell an ungodly amount of iPhones in the run up to, and immediate aftermath of, Christmas. If Apple achieves the lofty 46.5m prediction, it would represent a gigantic leap of well over 50 per cent year-on-year, compared with the 26.9m sales it racked up during the final quarter 2011. With Apple's share price taking a beating after missing sales expectations during the last quarterly financial report, a solid Christmas season could be the key to stocks crashing through the roof once again.
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Verizon CFO predicts mid-2013 completion for 4G LTE buildout
Despite AT&T's renewed commitment to its infrastructure this week, aggressive 4G LTE deployment will have an early payoff next year for rival Verizon Wireless as the carrier completes its own buildout ahead of schedule.
While speaking at the Wells Fargo Securities Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Thursday, Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo announced the carrier would wrap up work on its LTE network six months earlier than originally planned.
According to a report from Fierce Wireless, Shammo said Verizon's LTE network now covers 250 million people - roughly 80 percent of the U.S. population - and is expected to reach 260 million by year's end.
"You can see that people are massively migrating to that network," Shammo said in the wake of Verizon's third-quarter results, which revealed 14.9 million postpaid devices now using its LTE network.
Popular with customers
With 35 percent of Verizon's data traffic traveling over LTE, Verizon expects to complete its network upgrades by mid-2013. By comparison, AT&T announced a new initiative Wednesday to reach 300 million customers with its own LTE network by the end of 2014, long after Verizon has completed their own work. Shammo said the company was also pleasantly surprised by the rapid adoption of its new shared data plans, with 13 percent of its customer base now using Share Everything. The Verizon CFO also revealed that its recent $3.9 billion deal to purchase nationwide AWS spectrum from cable providers has given the carrier enough spectrum for the next five years, although he declined to elaborate on when it might actually be deployed.
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Opinion: Data security and your business supplier
Glyn Dodd, managing director of Centrex Services explains why businesses need to be aware of potential security issues even when dealing with a trusted supplier
Data security breaches have the potential to cripple a business. The fallout from the loss of sensitive data for example, could include legal costs, lost revenue from customer deflections and the need to repair a damaged reputation.
This applies to breaches in the supply chain, and businesses simply cannot afford to place at risk the vast amounts of personal information, and other sensitive corporate and customer data that is collected, stored and transferred via their technology.
Yet, data security and integrity is being lost and mismanaged at various points in the service supply chain on a daily basis, placing businesses at critical risk.
Storing awareness
Many organisations compromise their sensitive data when working with a variety of partners because there is a lack of understanding of where and how the data lives on - not just on computers and server hard drives, but across a wide range of devices, including printers, copiers, scanners and fax machines. Printer hard drives, for example, could contain readily obtainable data, such as copies of bank cheques and drivers' licenses. Organisations must have the necessary checks in place before placing hardware with the ability to store sensitive data into partners' hands. Otherwise, they place their critical information at great risk. While businesses need to foster a greater sense of awareness over the information stored on their technology, I believe the threat of data security breach is also heighted by critical gaps in the service supply chain. Data security integrity is at risk because partners in the maintenance sector are operating in silos. This is a key reason why complex supply chains need to be simplified; these silos have led to gaps within operational activity and data protection has slipped into these chasms.Information meltdown
We are operating within a security minefield and have already begun to see an alarming rise in data security lapses; recently a major UK NHS Trust was significantly fined by a data protection watchdog after highly sensitive hard drives ended up being sold on eBay. I fear it's only a matter of time before further breaches occur. In t would be very easy for example, for a business to place a printer or mobile device out for an off-site fix with a supplier, and for it to end up at a rival organisation, with a customer's personal information still included. These examples of data breach are unacceptable. In my firm opinion, until data security is moved up the businesses agenda, responsibility is allocated, and there is recognition that the supply chain contains very sensitive data, this danger will continue to escalate to a critical level. X-head Lean data We must act now to plug the critical gaps in the service supply chain. Businesses must put processes in place to enable them to have a greater understanding of the information stored on their technology. We must also be certain that every element of the supply chain that the component, spare part or whole unit might pass through is following the exact same standard. End-to-end ability to audit the process must also exist throughout and provide business intelligence. Businesses can also help to overcome the critical gaps in the service supply chain by considering an approach which takes the core principles of lean manufacturing and applying them to the supply chain, allowing the business to get an end-to-end handle on the supply chain they work within, and enabling it to strengthen its data security processes. This approach is called 'lean sourcing'; a methodology that questions what, where, when and why sourcing decisions are made from this very simple but effective standpoint.Plugging the gaps
Security and data protection has long been the elephant in the room. Things must change dramatically. Businesses need to figure out how to improve IT security and data protection capabilities, utilising partners that fully comprehend the nature of the threats to which businesses are now routinely exposed. By doing this, organisations can have a better grasp of how to improve their risk management exposure, or the changes to their processes needed to support any security and data protection technology enhancements. This will enable businesses to streamline, and easily manage their supply chain, by removing the complexity of maintaining technology equipment. In turn, this will bring greater transparency to the entire supply chain; helping companies to close the gaps that so urgently need to be plugged before businesses critical data is lost down the proverbial drain pipe.
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Updated: Twitter accidentally reset passwords
A number of Twitter users have received emails prompting them to change their passwords because their accounts may have been compromised.
Update: Twitter has posted a slightly shame-faced note on its status site claiming that a lot of users receievd the emails by accident.
"In this case, we unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised," the statement explains.
Seemingly affected users were also prompted to reset their passwords when trying to log in on the Twitter website.
Dodgy
Original story continues: Some accounts have been spotted posting dodgy tweets – it's fair to say if TechCrunch advises you that you could make $250 a day working from home, it's not a legit endorsement of CNBC7workhome's services. Twitter hasn't said how many accounts are affected but it seems to be a fairly large-scale hack given the outcry on the site itself. If you're at all worried about the security of your account, just go to Settings/Password to change your password even if Twitter hasn't told you to.
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Buying Guide: Best CPU cooler 2012: 12 top coolers reviewed and rated
Best CPU coolers: Introduction
High-end processors are painfully pricey. That makes us grumpy. Even if you could afford to unload £800 on a CPU, we'd therefore prefer it if you didn't. It only encourages Intel to pile on the pounds. But there is hope, and it comes in the form of improved cooling. Often, the only significant difference between chips priced hundreds of pounds apart is clockspeed. Even with the most basic of cooling, it's often possible to close, or even entirely leapfrog that frequency, and therefore performance gap, but bolt on a better cooling solution and things get really interesting. A critical factor is the price of cooling solutions. £50 here or there isn't very much when it comes to processor pricing, but it buys you one hell of an air cooler. While water cooling options tend to be a bit more expensive, even £100 or so for one is mundane money compared to a high-end processor. What's more, CPU coolers have much longer legs than the chips themselves. Six months is sometimes enough for a CPU to transmogrify from shiny to shonky. After a couple of years, you're often struggling to keep up with the latest applications. But not coolers. Generally, a good cooler today is a good cooler tomorrow. It's as solid an investment as you get with PC kit. The knock-on effect of squeezing more performance from your processor is that it should last a bit longer before an upgrade is critical. If that isn't enough, there are a few fringe benefits to boot. Running your CPU at any given clockspeed usually means it will be more reliable. Failures are pretty rare, but instability due to heat isn't. Counter intuitively, upgraded cooling is often quieter, too. In fact, sometimes it's silent. Stick all that together and give it a good stir and you have a winning mix and one of the most cost effective ways to perk up your PC's performance. With all the weird and wonderful cooling designs out there, it's also a lot of fun. Overclocking ain't what it used to be. Whether that's for good or ill depends on the moment in history you choose for a yardstick. It wasn't all that long ago that it was not only possible, but terrifyingly easy to fry a CPU via an ill-advised overclocking escapade. And remember when overclocking involved shorting circuits by drawing on the chip package with a pencil? Seriously shonky stuff. These days, it's hard, bordering on impossible, to irreversibly nuke a CPU. You have to do something very, very stupid. In fact, leave the voltages alone and you'll struggle to do lasting damage. So overclocking is a hell of a lot less scary than it used to be. Cue much rejoicing. But there have also been changes that make it much harder to turn budget chips into giant-killers. Firstly, the CPU market is much more tiered than it used to be. Back in the days of those pencil hacks, the only difference between a high-end monster and a more mundane model was clockspeed. Today, top chips are often based on different silicon from their bargain basement brethren; more cores, extra features, a different socket and all that jazz. But that's not the only change. Particularly when it comes to Intel processors, overclocking opportunities are very carefully controlled. Since the introduction of the Sandy Bridge generation of processors, overclocking has been essentially limited to the CPU multiplier. On the one hand, that's great because multiplier overclocks are the cleanest and the quickest. You don't have to worry about the knock-on effects on other sub-systems like memory or the PCI Express bus. On the other, they're not much use if the multiplier is locked. And locked it largely is on most Intel chips.Bang for your buck
You have to pay extra for either a K series or an Extreme model to get access to fully unlocked multipliers. It's all very frustrating, but that's what happens when a single vendor dominates the market. Yes, AMD offers fully unlocked chips for much less money, but they're typically lower performing and don't overclock as well.
For that reason, we've based this month's cooling spectacular of our favourite CPU of recent years, the Intel Core i5-2500K. It's not the fastest chip in all areas. Its lack of HyperThreading holds things back a little when it comes to uber-threaded software like video encoding. It's also been recently superseded by the new Ivy Bridge generation and in particular the Core i5-3570K.
But it's still an absolute beast when it comes to games, which are not only our favourite thing to do with PCs, but also just so happen to be the app type that benefits most from performance upgrades. Oh, and the 2500K is also a great overclocker, so it should help sort the high-falutin heat sinks from the clunky coolers.
Despite recent limitations on overclocking, then, there are still opportunities for modders to extract massive performance gains with a good cooler. If we've sold you on the general idea of a cooling upgrade, let's deep dive into the specifics.
Air versus water, that's the classic contest. The most obvious things air-cooling has going for it is cost and complexity. It's generally pretty cheap and almost always simple. In fact given that some air coolers have no moving parts, you couldn't get any simpler. Long term reliability, then, isn't much of an issue.
That's more than you can say for water coolers. At least, that used to be the case with the typically rather Heath Robinson affairs that used to pass for water coolers. The funky blue liquids and clear piping were fun, but they often made for an unreliable system that needed fairly regular fettling - or worse, a terminal leak onto a critical component. Yikes.
Water-tight
Such kits were also far from user friendly in terms of initial set up and installation. Fortunately, little to none of that applies to modern so-called enclosed water cooling solutions. You pretty much pull them out of the box, plug 'em in and crank up the clocks.
Okay, they do come with large radiator assemblies, which make the installation procedure a little less routine, but then fancy air coolers can be a right pain in the parallel port, too. Modern water coolers are also usually meant to be zero maintenance, which means price is the major downside to liquid cooling.
It ain't cheap. The upside, at least in theory, is improved cooling. Funnily enough, though, the principles for both water and air-cooling are essentially the same. In both cases, a block of metal sits atop the CPU and transmits heat to a cooling array via a medium, which, in turn, is cooled by air, either ambiently for a passive cooler or actively with fans.
In the case of so-called air coolers, it's actually heat being conducted through metal. With a water cooler, it's liquid being pumped around the system. So, the choice is really metal versus water cooling.
One thing you generally don't have to worry about, however, is socket compatibility. Most cooling kits are designed to play nicely with existing CPU sockets. AMD's socket has been essentially static when it comes to cooling attachments for years. Meanwhile, most kits will support sockets as old as LGA 775 for Intel kit, which we reckon covers just about everyone, but it's easy enough to check the specs.
That said, you should have a think about compatibility with your current PC case and motherboard, as well as your graphics setup. There are lots of variables to bear in mind here, so it's difficult to come up with simple prescriptions, but you need to generally be aware of the space inside you case and also consider that some of the more extreme coolers can foul the PCI Express slot nearest the CPU socket. If you've got a board with just one such slot, that can rule out certain coolers.
Best CPU coolers reviewed and rated
1. Antec Kuhler H2O 920
Price: £71 Active water cooler
When you first set eyes on the Antec Kuhler H20 920, you might think it's in the same category as Thermaltake's entry-level Water 2.0 Performance water cooler. After all, it's basically a 120mm effort with a radiator between two fans.
Look a little closer, however, and you'll notice that the Kuhler H20 920 sports a much thicker radiator. Just under 5cm thick, actually. It's also packed with a high density of cooling fins, so what we're looking at is an effort to squeeze big water-cooling performance into a more compact, practical package.
Read the full Antec Kuhler H2O 920 review
2. Corsair Hydro H100
Price: £82 Active water cooler
With a full-length 240mm radiator and what appears to be a very similar spec to the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme for two-thirds the cash, you might think it's easy pickings for the Corsair Hydro H100. In fact, the H100 goes one step further, with a digital fan control button on top of the cooling block that allows you to quickly jump between its Quiet, Performance and Balanced modes.
What's more, the H100 is fully compatible with Corsair Link Digital, which boils downs to a bunch of hardware and software components that give you control over a whole load of performance and cooling parameters.
Read the full Corsair Hydro H100 review
3. Deepcool Ice Matrix 400
Price: £30 Active air cooler
How much does fancy packaging matter? Ultimately, it can't be that critical, otherwise the Deepcool Ice Matrix 400 would have this thing completely wrapped up. Whether it's the neat little boxes or the lovely, dense white foam padding, there's evidence everywhere that somebody at Deepcool headquarters really cares.
Fortunately the attention to detail spills over into stuff that actually matters. Like the rubberised chassis for the 120mm fan, which is designed to keep vibrations, and therefore noise, to a minimum. It's an innovation that's worthy of a bona fide patent. How do you like them apples, other cooling companies?
Read the full Deepcool Ice Matrix 400 review
4. Gelid GX-7
Price: £36 Active air cooler
When we're talking coolers with aluminium fin stacks and 120mm fans, standing out from the crowd isn't easy, but Gelid reckons its GX-7 can jump up and down and scream enough blue murder to get your attention. Or at least offer something a little different.
For starters, instead of laying out the heat pipes in a row across the cooling block, Gelid uses a partially stacked arrangement. The idea is to have as many pipes as possible running through the hottest part of the block.
Read the full Gelid GX7 review
5. Nofan CR-95C
Price: £70 Passive air cooler
There's a joker in every pack, and the mantle this month falls to the comically oversized Nofan CR-95C. But is it an ultimately doomed effort à la Heath Ledger, or does this passive cooler have the longevity to slip into the Jack Nicholson category and just keep on trucking?
Strained comic-book villain analogies aside, the Nofan is certainly a little bit special. First there are the gargantuan proportions. This CR-95C model isn't the biggest beast in the Nofan jungle, but at 180mm in diameter it's still an outrageous bit of kit.
Read the full Nofan CR-95C review
6. Scythe Mugen 3 Revision
Price: £43 Active air cooler
Maintaining the low noise levels and temps, while upping the compatibility ante. That's the plan for the third version (revision B, don't you know) of Scythe's Mugen 120mm cooler. That means refined airflow and Scythe's Slipstream noise-optimised 120mm fan.
The result is a cooler with a rated noise that kicks off below 27.4dBA, even if the maximum noise breaches the 30dBA barrier. Other upsides include some of the nicest assembly instructions we've seen, with a proper annotated key to all the parts. Joy!
Read the full Scythe Mugen 3 review
7. Scythe Katana 4
Price: £27 Active air cooler
Fans 120mm and larger dominate the enthusiast and overclocking market. What hope, then, for the plucky little Scythe Katana 4 and its 92mm fan? Scythe is an experienced outfit and this is the fourth version of the compact Katana, so if it doesn't deliver, it's probably time for the towel-tossing to begin.
As before, the latest Katana is smaller than your average high performance cooler in just about all directions, measuring nearly 100mm square and 143mm in height. The upshot of this is that you're unlikely to find a remotely mainstream ATX motherboard or case that won't jive with the Katana 4. It's not going to tussle for space with your RAM or argue with your graphics card.
Read the full Scythe Katana 4 review
8. ThermoLab Trinity
Price: £38 Active air cooler
The ThermoLab Trinity looks like a pretty conventional cooler at fi rst glance. A big fan, a large stack of aluminium cooling fins and some copper heat pipes. Same old.
But this is no knock-off job. Your suspicions should have been aroused by the odd 130mm spec of the cooling fan, where most of the competition goes with 120mm. That should allow the Trinity to either shift more air for a given noise level or shift just as much with a bit less rattle and hum.
It's also a little unusual in that the fan is an integrated part of the cooling stack. It's not a clip-on item. Both of these facts have advantages, but the downside is you can't just whack on another standard 120mm spinner if you fancy pepping up the cooling performance.
Read the full ThermoLab Trinity review
9. Tt Water 2.0 Performer
Price: £62 Active water cooler
The Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer is half the size and half the price, but is it also half the man compared to its Water 2.0 Extreme sibling? In hardware terms, the most obvious loss of masculinity is the half-length radiator. That said, it's still sandwiched between a pair of 120mm fans, instead of having two across one side.
The rest of the cooling hardware, however, is a dead ringer. It's the same cooling block and water pump. In other words, you're not only getting quite a bit more than half the hardware for half the money, the result is also more compact and therefore easier to slip into a wider range of chassis. That, however, is not quite the whole story.
Read the full Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer review
10. Zalman CNPS14X
Price: £60 Active air cooler
This is a serious bit of kit. Let's start with some of the highlights. Six copper heat pipes draw thermals from a polished copper cooling block and feed to two massive aluminium fin stacks. Nestled in between is a 140mm fan that draws air through one stack of fins and squirts it out via the other.
As you'd expect from a big fan, the quoted noise specs are very impressive and top out at just 21dBA. Zalman's idea with the CNPS14X, then, is good thermals combined with excellent noise levels. If you want to tip the balance in the direction of thermals and performance, you have the option of strapping on one or two extra 140mm fans, giving mighty cooling potential,but our benchmarks show the CNPS14X with just the integrated 140mm blower.
Read the full Zalman CNPS14X review
11. Enermax ETS-T40
Price: £36 Active air cooler
Here at PC Format, we want the lowest CPU temps available to humanity. We want them here, and we want them now. This is the short version of our CPU cooling manifesto. The slightly longer version, as it applies to air coolers, goes something like this…
Obviously an air cooler needs to do what it says on the tin, namely keep your CPU cool. That includes everything from thumb-twiddling idle mode at stock clocks to balls-out benchmarking with the clocks set to full reheat. And it's not just about achieving low temps in extremis. We want those temps fast.
In particular, we want to see load temperature drop like a stone the moment the CPU goes into idle mode. We also want all that without any fuss, so noise levels low enough that they're pretty much inaudible once installed in an enclosed PC case.
Read the full Enermax ETS-T40 review
12. Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme
Price: £126 Active water cooler
Liquids and finely honed electronics. You'd be mental to mix 'em. Your correspondent recently proved this beyond all doubt by entirely submerging his iPhone in a puddle. But have no fear. The latest fully closed loop water coolers are kosher. There's none of the slightly scary shonkiness of yesteryear's home-build kits. And there's a lot less faff when it comes to initial setup too.
Less faff, that is, but not quite no faff. Thermaltake's Water 2.0 Extreme, for instance, is a bit of a chore when it comes to the sorting socket clamp and board bracket assemblies. But once you've nailed that job, it's plain sailing in terms of installation, and thereafter it's a doddle to whip the cooling block off and swap out the CPU or replace the whole shebang with another cooler, if need be.
Read the full Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme review
How we tested
Just how cool can our coolers really cool? Our test platform involves our favourite CPU of recent years it just so happens to be a great little overclocker too, the Intel Core i5-2500K. We've paired it with an Asus Z77 motherboard because Intel's latest performance chipset seems to squeeze more out of its CPUs and Asus boards are the most consistent performers. As for the settings and benchmarks, where configurable, we set fans to balanced rather than ultra quiet or high performance mode and then tested temps and performance at both stock clock speeds and the maximum overclock possible with each cooler. We chucked in some Cinebench rendering and World in Conflict gaming tests to get a feel for performance comparisons and also to quantify the impact of any clock throttling.Benchmarks
And the winners are...
Enermax ETS-T40
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme
Twelve coolers, a bucket load of thermal paste and plenty of overclocking action. But what have we learned?
The first thing you should appreciate is that water-cooling isn't the magic solution to giving you instant access to epic overclocks. At least, no more epic than you'll achieve with a decent air cooler.
Admittedly, the gap between air and water when it comes to overclocking will grow if you really put your back into the fine-tuning. But in our view, the advantage of water when it comes to achieving really high clocks isn't worth the price premium.
Part of the explanation for that is conventional liquid-cooling is ultimately subject to the same limiting factor as air cooling, namely ambient temperatures. You need some kind of refrigeration or Peltier system to overcome that.
Liquid cooling still has a place though. The reason to go with water is to achieve lower operating temps for less noise. What's more, a decent closed loop water cooler tends to have longer legs than an active air cooler since they're that little bit less sensitive to dust than an air cooler. In fact, if you locate the radiator outside of the chassis, you can give it a bit of a buff without cracking open the case.
As it happens, reduced dust build up is also a key advantage of passive air cooling, along with zero noise emissions. However, as our benchmarks show this month, even a comically oversized passive cooler can't compete with very modest active air coolers, much less water coolers, when it comes to performance.
With that in mind, it's the hilarious but ultimately almost pointless NoFan CR-95C that brings up the rear this month. Put simply, relying on convection for cooling makes for some horrible temperatures. Just as important, several of the active coolers here produce extremely low noise levels. There's just no need for a desktop computer to have a completely silent CPU cooler.
Next to fall, if largely on a technicality, is the Antec Kuhler H20 920. Thanks to a fault with the fan modulator that caused its two 120mm windmills to spin at full speed, it's hard to know what it's really capable of.
From here we get into a much closer contest. The Scythe Katana 4 was interesting in that it underlined the downsides of going for something smaller in the air-cooling category than the default 120mm option.
However, it's the Enermax ETS-T40 and Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme that really set themselves apart. The Enermax performs well beyond its pay-grade and makes the oversized Zalman CNPS14X look a little silly. It also proves you can have great cooling without the compromises that come with really massive coolers.
Meanwhile, Thermaltake's Water 2.0 Extreme, which takes the water-cooling spoils in this test, is pricey, but then liquid-cooling is a bit of a luxury, so why not have something a bit special? It's built to last, is a great performer and it's even better with that USB interface and control software. In short, it's a proper bit of kit.
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In Depth: iOS 7: 12 things we want to see
The latest major update for Apple's mobile devices, the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, was mostly hit, but with a Maps-shaped miss.
Lots of people were rightly angry about Apple ditching Google data, but beyond that mis-step there were things to like: a more useful Siri (App launching plus the recognition that a world exists outside of the USA), shared Photo Streams, handy Phone app controls such as 'send to voicemail', and major improvements to Mail, Safari, accessibility and the Camera app.
But regardless of what Apple achieves, it's never really enough. As soon as you've sat there playing with the latest iOS, ideas pop into your head regarding what you'd like to see next. This article explores a dozen of the features we're clamouring to see in iOS 7. (And by 'clamouring', we of course mean 'asking really nicely'. C'mon, Mr Cook - pretty please?)
1. Hide Apple apps
Pretty much everyone we know with an Apple device has a folder entitled 'Apple'. This isn't filled with must-have apps from the geniuses at Cupertino, but all the junk Apple installs that you can't get rid off. To be fair, what each individual considers junk is different, and these apps—Compass, Stocks, Voice Memos, Passbook, and so on—have their fans; but is it too much to ask for a switch in Settings that will hide those we don't use?
2. Better app management
Change for change's sake is rarely a good thing. Recognition is key to satisfying experiences with technology. That's why we're not yelling at Apple to change how iOS home screens work. What we would like to see is improvements to app management: more screens; by default saving app data on delete; and an alphabetical list of installed apps, perhaps accessible from Spotlight.3. Change app defaults
We're pretty certain this request would be met with wide-eyes from Apple CEO Tim Cook, swiftly followed by a full twenty minutes of belly laughing, but we want the ability to use non-default apps for important things like email and calendaring. Apple's own apps would remain the defaults, but you should also be able to pick your own in Settings.
4. Provide a guest account
It's extremely unlikely that Apple's ever going to enable multiple user accounts on iOS devices—they are, after all, designed as extremely personal computers. What is perhaps more realistic is some kind of guest account you could switch to when handing your device over to someone for a short while; something similar already exists on the Mac in OS X.5. Change Siri's voice
OS X is blessed with dozens of high-quality voices that witter away to you in various dulcet tones. By contrast, Siri is Siri. In the US, you get a slightly robotic woman; in the UK, Siri's that bloke who did The Weakest Link for a decade. It'd be great if you could choose the voice your device uses to speak. (Possible exception: Yoda voice.)6. Provide App Store demos
Apps and games might be cheap, but that doesn't figure cheapskates into the equation. Too often, people are unwilling to risk 69p on the latest release, forcing devs into irritating freemium models or making them clutter up the App Store with 'lite' versions of their output. Apple should just allow demos: 24 hours from first launch and then you buy or the app won't run. Boom.7. Power up 'Do Not Disturb'
Fed up of getting woken up in the middle of the night by the marketing efforts of [redacted, but quite possibly a well-known mobile network] or Game Center fanfares? Do Not Disturb is a great feature that enables you to time when your phone will quit bugging you. But you can define only a single schedule, and we want to see alternative options for weekends.
8. Make locking location-aware
Locking is a great thing on iOS devices, making it at least a little harder for some scallywag to get at your data if they pinch your shiny Apple joy. But it could be more intelligent, locking on a location-aware basis, and not when you're, say, happily sitting at home on the sofa.9. Improve the lock screen
There's something to be said for Apple's minimalism regarding the iOS lock screen, and it's mostly that it's too minimal. We're not sure we want to see Android-style widgets sprayed everywhere, but a little more functionality wouldn't go amiss. For example, artwork from a currently playing song is displayed on the lock screen, but there are no controls for pausing or skipping to the next track, until you double-press Home, which isn't hugely discoverable. And beyond notifications, nothing else shows up there at all.
10 Cut all iTunes ties
In recent years, Apple's made great leaps away from iTunes, and you can technically get away with never using the monstrous jukebox. However, there's still no way to easily get your existing music collection nor your photographs on to your device, and there should be. (Alas, with Apple wanting to push iTunes Match and the iTunes Store, there almost certainly never will be for the first of those.)11. Make more icons dynamic
We're hesitant at arguing Apple's home screen icons should be more like Windows 8 tiles, but there's something to be said for dynamic updates when such things work well. With iOS, you get update badges and a live calendar. It'd be nice at the least if Apple made its own Clock and Weather icons dynamic.
12. Enable cross-platform installs
On a device, you now often see iOS-style banners on websites that when tapped take you right to the equivalent App Store app. But if you're browsing elsewhere, you have to email yourself a reminder and then install later. How good would it be if you were surfing on your PC, saw a great app and could install it across your devices without going near them, nor even to iTunes?
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