Samsung Mega 6.3 to test our love of big screens and resistance to terrible tech naming
Samsung are rumoured to be working on two new large screened phones that will fall under the new Samsung Mega moniker, with 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch screens.
Both of these phones is expected to launch mid-year, according to Samsung fan blog Sammobile. This is several months ahead of the anticipated launch schedule for the also-rumoured Galaxy Note 3.
Upon hearing this juicy skerrick of scuttlebutt, the TechRadar team felt it necessary to reach out directly to Samsung with this message.
"Samsung, it's not too late to change your mind."
Not about large screened phones, of course. These devices are among our favourites in tech right now. We love the Galaxy Note 2 and happily stopped chewing gum to accommodate the enormous handset in our jeans pockets. The very thought of an even bigger Samsung phone makes us weak at the knees.
Constructive criticism
No, we're talking about calling a range of phones 'Mega'. Smartphones are a luxury item, and more than that, they are the one piece of technology that we feel intimately connected to. Calling it Mega will only cheapen that relationship for us. Here's why:- Mega is a childish word commonly used to describe a bargain bin sales and discount stores.
- Samsung Mega has the wrong mix of vowels and syllables, it doesn't roll off the tongue.
- Nothing called Mega has been cool since Megatron, and he was a bad guy.
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New Optus BYO plans: better value than the rest?
Optus today announced a small shift in its bring-your-own phone SIM plans, with changes that see the telco offering slightly better value than its competition, especially at $60 per month.
The new plans are kept simple and to a minimum, with only three options now available: $20, $40 and $60 tariffs with tiered calls, messaging and data inclusions. The $60 plan includes unlimited standard calls and messages and 2GB of data.
Vodafone offer a similar plan in Australia but charges $5 extra a month, while Telstra's $60 BYO option is shorter on inclusions by 500MB a month and with a $800 value limit on national calls, rather than an unlimited amount.
The Optus $60 plan is on a 12-month contract, though, and those customers looking for month-to-month freedom will need to consider one of the cheaper plans or any of Vodafone's offers.
There is no higher value BYO plans beyond $60 at Optus, though you can bolt-on extra data to this plan -- but it's not cheap. 500MB sets you back an extra $10 per month, 1GB is $15 a month and doubling the 2GB of included data will cost an extra $25.
Excess data charges are also worth comparing. Optus will charge $0.25 for every megabyte used over the monthly allocation. This is in-line with the excess data charges at Vodafone, while Telstra is much cheaper at only $0.10 per MB.
Time for an MVNO?
If anything, the new Optus plans show how little difference there is between the major telco players in Australia. There is a thriving collection of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) to consider, though. Amaysim is one of the high profile MVNO players in Australia and for just under $40 per month offer unlimited calls and messages plus 4GB of data on the Optus network. Kogan Mobile also has an unlimited plan with 6GB data for $29 for 30 days. Fixed-line broadband provider TPG is also a popular choice and have a plan for $45 a month that includes 5GB and $100 worth of international calls. Lesser known Live Connected is also worth a look as it is one of the few MVNOs that offers 4G services and subsidised mobile handsets. Just be sure you read the fine print on each of these offers and be aware of which network the MVNO works on. For example, Amaysim and Kogan work on the Optus and Telstra networks respectively, but both offer data speeds capped at 7.2Mbps -- much slower than the 21Mbps theoretical maximums for these networks.
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Apple call waiting patent could make being on hold less boring
A new Apple call waiting patent may put an end to having nothing to do when you're put on hold except watch the call minutes tick away on the screen.
U.S. Patent No. 8,412,164 suggests that future iPhones and Apple devices could serve up "adaptive information," including important data about the caller.
"Adaptive information can be different from traditional static information, which is information that remains fixed or the same," reads the patent first spotted by Apple Insider.
Currently, static information during iPhone voice calls consist of the call's length, name of the person on the other end of the connection, and the other user's photo.
Call waiting me, maybe?
Instead, the contextual call waiting feature could display more personal data like past communications between the two callers or future appointments. "Such adaptive information can include, for example, the name of the person's spouse and children, the date of their birthday or their hobbies," the new Apple patent indicates. "A system can also identify any unsuccessful attempts to communicate (e.g., unanswered calls, voicemails, unread emails) with another person and present a user with adaptive information related to those attempts." The adaptive information of this call waiting patent is meant to prepare a user for the rest of the communication. However, it could also bring up general data to pass the time, including the weather forecast and news headlines through both graphical and audio signals.Thanks for your time
Interestingly, the time of day could affect the contextual call waiting information. "If a user is put on hold early in the morning, the presented information can be a highlight of the events on the user's calendar for that day," the patent suggests. "Moreover, if the user is put on hold late in the evening, the presented information can be a summary of the day's news or a summary of events scheduled for the next day." Of course, while this call waiting feature could find its way to iOS 7 when iPhone 5S or iPhone 6 are announced, Apple could ironically put the idea "on hold" indefinitely like it does with some many other patents.
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It's gambling game on for Zynga starting Wednesday
We hope you've been saving your lunch money, because starting tomorrow you'll be able to gamble actual clams in two Zynga games. That is, if you live in the U.K.
Real-money versions of ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino will be the first of Zynga's forays into the realm of pay to play. Players will even be able to play a FarmVille-themed slots game (oh boy!).
The games will only be available on the web and for desktop client download, and only players 18+ are allowed to partake. Zynga plans to launch "social versions" of real money games for Facebook and mobile in the region throughout the year.
"Our long term vision is to offer our players the next generation of real money games on multiple platforms in regulated markets worldwide," a Zynga announcement read, also noting that it takes "responsible gaming seriously."
Long-term goals
Zynga's money games will be up and running thanks to bwin.party, an online gaming company. "This is just the beginning for us and we're looking forward to seeing what our U.K. players think about ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino, and creating the most valuable casino games and social experiences for them," Zynga's announcement claimed, suggesting that this could be a test period before the services are launched elsewhere. While one area of Zynga's business is getting ready to potentially boom, another bit of news from the company is a bit of a bust: OMGPOP CEO and soon-to-be-former head of Zynga's New York office Dan Porter is leaving the company. Zynga had to write-off OMGPOP as a US$95 million loss after it acquired the company behind Draw Something. You've got to hand it, Zynga: The company knows when to cut its losses and place its bets on propositions that could very well pay out.
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Twitter tip pegs Facebook Home phone as 'HTC First'
Buffy, Myst, and now First? The supposed Facebook phone by HTC is certainly running through the rumored names.
@evleaks, a normally reliable Twitter tipster, today posted an image of a phone with "htc first" emblazoned across the screen. First is styled in Facebook-esque font, while it's written in the social network's signature blue.
All that @evleaks has to say about the phone is: "HTC first, 2013."
Powers of deductive reasoning seem to suggest that this is a Facebook phone we could see Thursday, though all may not be as it seems.
Hold the photo
Some analysis conducted by The Verge discovered that the HTC First logo was likely PhotoShopped onto the image (you can also see a faint line bordering the words, as well).
There's also little in the way of distinctive markings to say whether this is an HTC phone - or device made by any specific manufacturer - or simply a generic rendering.
You may remember that before the Galaxy S4 was announced, an image supposedly of the phone popped up online (posted by @evleaks, no less) before it was found that it was merely place holder for the real deal.
The same may be true for this pic, though perhaps it does reveal the actual name of the device said to house "Facebook Home."
What's more, the First image lines up with descriptions published by 9to5Google; that the phone would resemble a slightly larger iPhone 5 with capacitive buttons along the bottom. Monday, a report indicated the phone, up until now know as the Myst, would own a 4.3-inch screen.
We don't know about you, but all the leaks and titular options are making for quite the head-spinner. TechRadar can't wait to get situated in Menlo Park Thursday so we can get to the bottom of all the rumors.
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Despite doomsday filing, Dell is investing in PC and tablet business
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There's been some speculation that Dell will restructure to focus less on PCs now that the company is going private, but CEO Michael Dell laid those fears to rest in a recent memo to employees.
The memo was published this week through the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In it, Dell described plans to "significantly increase investment" in the PC and tablet business.
"While Dell's strategy in the PC business has been to maximize gross margins, following the transaction [to go private], we expect to focus instead on maximizing revenue and cash flow growth with the goal of improving long-term sales and competitive positioning," Dell wrote.
The future of Dell
In this public memo, Dell made an effort to confirm that the company will continue to focus on PCs and tablets - despite the contrary message conveyed in another recent filing with the SEC. In that 274-page document, Mr. Dell and other Dell executives described the "uncertain adoption of the Windows 8 operating system" and "deteriorating outlook for the PC market as a result of, among other things, smartphones and tablets cannibalizing PC sales" as reasons for the company wanting to go private. Without stockholders breathing down its neck, Dell could presumably move in different directions. But Microsoft's $2 billion investment no doubt had something to do with Dell's continued focus on the PC and tablet market, and we can't argue with the hardware maker if it wanted to improve in its current arenas before branching out too far. But Mr. Dell also mentioned Dell's enterprise business in the most recent filing, writing, "We've made so much progress in building out our enterprise capabilities. "With leading offerings in servers, storage and networking, our Active Infrastructure is a converged solution that is second to none," he continued, indicating that hardware won't be Dell's only focus.Common sense
Dell's memo also outlined numerous other plans to help improve Dell's fortunes moving forward. Those include plans to invest in R&D, hire more more sales personnel, compete in emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India, and China, and "simplify and enhance" the customer experience. As Engadget pointed out today, that's just good business practice, or what we like to call common sense.
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T-Mobile update will open up LTE capabilities on unlocked iPhones
T-Mobile made some big waves in March with the announcement of its new Un-carrier data plans alongside the reveal of the T- Mobile iPhone 5.
While the iPhone 5 won't be coming until April 12, there are still plenty of iPhone users at T-Mobile eager to take advantage of the LTE network under the new plans.
The good new is, anyone already with an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile's network will soon have the option to partake in LTE speeds thanks to an Apple iOS update.
Due to all T-Mobile iOS devices on April 5, the update will allow for official iPhone support on the network for any device with iOS 6.1 or higher, which includes access to the LTE bandwidth.
Network optimization
According to TmoNews, Apple's update will arrive simultaneously across all of T-Mobile's current iPhones instead of a slow rollout. In addition to the opening of the LTE network, the carrier-specific update will also introduce Visual Voicemail and MMS Settings currently not available to customers. There are also supposedly other network and device optimizations included in this update, but there weren't any specific details available as to what that meant. These features all bode well for T-Mobile, which is attempting to stand out from the crowd with its new philosophy, and could entice more users to not only stay with the carrier, but also to make the jump. Considering T-Mobile's plans are cheaper than AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint virtually across the board, the iPhone support could help the company fight its way out of fourth place sooner rather than later.
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Dumbly dubbed 'Androidbook' laptop rumored to arrive in 2013
A Google Androidbook could mean that the crossover between Android and Chrome OS is coming sooner than anyone had expected, as a rumor today indicates such a laptop is happening this year.
Different from Google's Chromebook laptops, these Android-based notebooks would ditch Chrome OS in favor of the company's popular mobile operating system, according to a report from the sometimes-reliable DigiTimes.
The first Google Androidbook devices are supposed to show up at the end of the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter.
Whether or not these Android-based laptops would resemble the versatile Asus Transformer Pad Infinity remains anyone's guess.
The Taiwanese publication offered little in the way of additional detail or reasoning behind the launch of a Google Androidbook, so take the report with a grain of salt.
Chrome, Android teams merged
The existence of an Androidbook would back up the theory that Google is going to merge its Android mobile operating system and Chrome OS in the future. After all, the Android and Chrome teams have already merged, and the departure of Android founder Andy Rubin and appointment of Chrome expert Sundar Pichai suggests that the products are on the same path. Even with that knowledge, Chrome OS laptops were able to surpass 1 million units sold in 2013, estimated DigiTimes. Whether or not releasing additional hardware with a competing laptop operating system is in Google's best interest remains to be seen. What we can say is that we hope any eventual name is more compelling than "Androidbook."
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More evidence mounts for releases of cheaper iPhone, iPhone 5S
Despite Apple's adamant stance that cheaper phones wouldn't be a focus for the Cupertino company, that statement didn't rule out budget-friendlier phones entirely.
Reports of a more affordable iPhone have been circulating since the iPad mini launched late last year, though there's been little in the way of actual details about this iPhone mini.
While most of the attention has been focused on the iPhone 5S, there's still a strong chance Apple could introduce a cheaper iPhone this year as well.
According to a new Wall Street Journal report, that chance is actually more of a reality: Apple is apparently lining up production for the iPhone 5S to begin sometime in the second quarter of 2013 while also looking to launch the iPhone mini during the latter half of the year.
Eeny, meeny, mini phone
The WSJ reported Apple is currently meeting with its partners in Asia to determine the best course of action for a price-balanced iPhone. There still aren't many details about what the iPhone mini will actually be like, but the Journal indicated it would feature a smaller screen. The publication actually refers to it as a "four-inch device," indicating that is the size of the handset, not the screen. Apple is also said to have spent time researching colored shells made of a less expensive material. If this launch plan sounds eerily familiar, that's because reports have also surfaced Samsung is planning to do the same thing with the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S4 mini. Samsung's domination of the mobile landscape has put a bit of a damper on Apple's marketshare, though Apple isn't faring poorly in the least. That said, releasing both a high-end iPhone and a more wallet-friendly version could help stabilize Apple's grasp on the smartphone arena, and allow the company to potentially carve out a new niche. With the iPhone 5S reportedly on target for a summer release, it's a slightly different approach then what Apple took with the iPad mini and iPad 4 launches, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility given its past behavior. TechRadar asked Apple for comment, though we have a feeling the Cupertino company is going to keep its mouth shut on this one.
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Might Windows Blue end up as 'Windows 8.1?'
Windows Blue will officially be deemed Windows 8.1, said a new report on Tuesday.
The upcoming Windows Blue update has so far been a proper mystery, subject only to speculation and leaks, but Mary Jo Foley of ZDNET's All About Microsoft blog said the Windows 8.1 tip came from a reliable source.
If true, it could indicate that Windows Blue/Windows 8.1 will be an incremental update to Microsoft's operating system.
And while Windows 8 certainly has its major flaws, some of the more minor ones could surely be fixed in an 8.1-style refresh rather than a total overhaul.
Windows 8.1, or "Windows 8" for short
The leaked image above, which shows a version of Windows called Windows 8.1 Pro, reportedly originated on the Polish Windows message board at winforum.eu. Despite the date, it doesn't appear to be an April Fool's joke. If it is, it's decidedly lacking in humor. When Foley saw the image, she reportedly checked with her own tipster, who confirmed that the update that's being called "Windows Blue" will indeed be Windows 8.1. At the consumer level, it will still be called simply Windows 8, according to Foley's source - that means Microsoft likely isn't about to start naming its incremental OS refreshes like Apple does (OS X 10.7 Lion to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, etc.). And that's probably for the best, considering the confusion that already exists with Windows 8 and Windows RT.What about Windows RT?
Microsoft last week publicly acknowledged that Windows "Blue" really is the internal name for Microsoft's next advancement in services and products. That admission came off pretty vague, but at least it confirmed that Blue isn't a figment of our imaginations. Previous rumors have claimed that Windows Blue/Windows 8.1 is Microsoft's next, albeit small, step toward killing the desktop once and for all, and that Windows RT could die as well with the next update. But the latest report seems to have put that latter rumor to rest, as the tipster claimed that the Blue update for Windows RT will be called Windows RT 8.1. Obviously if that's true, it means that RT will continue its rather halfhearted existence. We'll have to wait on more details, but it looks as if the story of Windows Blue is finally coming together.
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Hands-on review: PAX East: Moga Pro controller
Update: Power A has announced new platforms for both the Moga Pro and the original Moga Pocket. Developers can now add controller support for titles on Windows Phone 8 and the Kindle Fire. Consumers should start seeing titles in the coming months.
Power A is at PAX East this year showing off its latest gaming concoction: the Moga Pro. If you feel like you've heard that name before, it's because you have. The original Moga controller, now known as the Moga Pocket, was a Bluetooth controller with a bracket for holding an Android phone as big as a Galaxy Note 2. Its successor has the same MO, but sports a build like an Xbox 360 controller.
Why a second stab at the same sort of device? If the number of mobile titles at the PAX Indie Showcase is any indication, there's something of a Renaissance going on in the Google Play and App Store. We'd even say that some of the games on phones and tablets are good enough to steal your attention away from console and PC titles, for a while, at least.
"More platforms" coming soon
Of course, not every game that works on your Galaxy S3 will cooperate with the Moga, but Power A has gotten a solid roster of titles to go Moga compatible. You can peep a full list here. It's grown quite a bit since the first Moga, and includes some of our favorites such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Asphalt 7: Dead Heat, and Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour. We have to say that the lack of iPhone and iPad support is a bummer, but Moga reps promised that "more platforms" are coming soon. When we pressed, they wouldn't confirm whether this meant iOS, Windows Phone 8 or even Blackberry 10.
On the PAX East show floor, we put the Moga Pro to the test with the zombie splatter title Dead Trigger. As we mentioned, you could easily mistake the new Moga for an off-brand Xbox controller, and that's a good thing. Its dual thumbsticks and triggers setup will be immediately familiar to any gamer.
Good enough to kill zombies with
Right off the starting line we were blasting the undeath out of reanimated corpses, zeroing in for headshots with the left trigger and letting the lead fly with the right. Console instincts served us well, and couldn't detect any latency between the Moga and the Android devices we tested it on. Thank goodness for that, since any lag would have killed the experience faster than a pair of rabid zombie jaws.
Mogas also play with Android tablets in way that nicely emulates the console experience. Something as big as a Nexus 7 won't clip onto the controller. Instead the wireless Bluetooth connection makes your slate feel a portable television.
Improves on the original in almost every way
While we much prefer the gaming experience on the Moga Pro to that of the old Moga Pocket, the loss of portability is something to consider. As the name suggests, the Pocket is easy to carry. It can slip into any jean pocket, skinny hipster cut or not. It's low clearance thumbpads made it safe to toss into a bag without fear of it snagging, and made it look like the lower half of a Nintendo 3DS.
The Moga Pro is bigger, but not anything you couldn't bring in your bag. It's light, definitely lighter than an actual Xbox 360 controller with a pair of double A's in it. Hauling it would be no problem, but we're not sure how we'd feel about using it in public.
Early Verdict
Loss of portability aside, the Moga Pro bests its predecessor in every way. It's familiar, comfortable and really improves the mobile gaming experience where touchscreen controls tend to be a glass ceiling. You might feel a little silly whipping this thing out on the bus, but with a battery rated at 14 hours, it'll last the whole trip. And as far we could tell, when the public transportation gets bumpy, that tight gripping bracket will keep your phone from taking a tumble.
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Blip: Funny or Die's 'iSteve' coming April 15, adjective-heavy trailer up now
Asthon Kutcher's 'Jobs' was supposed to premier April 19, but it's been delayed indefinitely until the biopic's distributor can get its marketing act together.
Not to fear, because on April 15, Apple and comedy lovers alike will have Funny or Die's 'iSteve' to nosh on.
The site released the very first teaser trailer for the flick today, which was written in five days and in shot in three. So you can expect a cinematic masterpiece. Not.
The trailer, full of more floating words than clips, is viewable over at Funny or Die, and prepare for silly-serious voice overs, epic-ish music and quick catches of Justin Long as the late Apple co-founder. There's not much to look at, but his "I am Apple!" exclamation is truly rousing.
Blips are TechRadar's new news nuggets that you'll find percolating through the homepage - or you can see them all by hitting the blip keyword below.
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Review: Liquid Image Ego HD + Wi-Fi
Introduction
When you mention action cameras, everyone automatically thinks of GoPro. And while the GoPro Hero 3 is no slouch, the silver edition is a whopping $299.99. The higher end Black Edition is a jaw-dropping $399.99! Enter Liquid Image and their diminutive Ego HD action camera. With an MSRP of $179.99 (you can even find it for much less with some digging), the Ego HD makes for a fine alternative to the more trendy and costly GoPro Hero 3. Described by Liquid Image as "a mountable HD Action Camera," the Ego is able to record HD 1080P video up to 30 fps and HD 720P up to 60 fps. In addition to video the Ego HD records 12MP images one at a time as well as in continuous mode. In our tests we particularly liked the continuous mode as you can simply hit the shutter button and let the little Ego do its thing. That said, when you return to the cabin be prepared to view a lot of photos that are more similar than dissimilar.Specifications and software
The Ego HD uses a class 6+ Micro SDHC card up to 32GB. While this is sold separately Micro SDHC cards a relatively cheap these days. According to Liquid Image a 4GB card records about two hours of video and this was consistent with our tests. Also expect to get around 1,000 for every 1GB of memory added.
While you can record about two hours of video with a 4GB Micro SDHC, this brings up another issue. The rechargeable lithium battery isn't removable and it only lasts for anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours in HD video mode. While the GoPro Hero 3 can be finicky to use its battery is removable so you can bring a pocket full of them with you as you hit the slopes or whatever it is you're into. When testing the Ego HD at Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows near Lake Tahoe, CA we had to bring a charger along to periodically keep the Ego HD up and running.
Similar to other action cameras the Ego HD uses Wi-Fi to connect to your smartphone. There are two software options available and both are compatible with iOS and Android. We tested the Ego HD with a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as well as an iPhone 5. The Liquid Image app enables you to tweak settings on the camera. For instance, while the Ego HD records 12MP still images the camera actually sports a 3MP sensor. That 12MP number is actually an interpolated resolution. Using the app you can configure the camera to record 3MP or 5MP still images.
In addition to those tweaks, seeing how limited the Ego HD's display is, it's nice that you can use the app to change other settings like exposure modes, white balance, contrast, and field of view. The Ego HD can shoot anywhere between 135 and 90 degrees and you can adjust this from within the app. You can also adjust the mic level which we found tremendously helpful. On the ride up the lift it's fun to record your conversations with your ski buddies. But on the descent all you're really gonna pick up is wind noise.
While the Liquid Image app is useful for setting up your Ego HD, it's not the best for actually shooting. For that the free third-party Action Connect app is best. Wi-Fi enabled action cameras, including the GoPro Hero 3 have a noticeable lag when using your smartphone to control the camera. The lag with Action Connect is pretty bad but the additional functionality makes it worth it.
Hardware and mounting options
The Ego HD comes in a variety colors and it's water-resistant. If you want to go full waterproof you'll have to invest in the company's Model 750 Waterproof Housing which makes the Ego HD safe up to 40m or 130 feet.
We were somewhat disappointed with the limited mounting options that come with the Ego HD. The standard package includes the Ego HD sports camera, clear protective face cover, flat mount bracket, extra adhesive foam pads, and a USB Cable. We would have liked a curved mount bracket for a helmet. Of course, considering the relatively low price of the Ego HD you can just buy those accessories and still come in at a significantly lower price than any GoPro Hero option.
In our tests we used the Ego HD with the optional chest mount and the clear protective face cover but the housing, which isn't closed, fogged up pretty bad and we lost a lot of footage. We then removed the face cover and things improved dramatically. Additionally, we mounted the Ego HD to the tip of one ski and hit some fresh powder among some trees. Upon reaching the bottom of the run we looked down only to find a broken mount and no camera! We contacted Liquid Image and they immediately sent out a new unit and requested the broken unit for some testing.
After getting the replacement unit we returned to the scene of the crime to recreate the situation and the Ego HD performed admirably.
Video and picture quality
The best way to judge a camera is to see what it can do. In our tests we were pleased with the video quality of the Ego HD. That said, the quality wasn't necessarily as good as that of the GoPro Hero 3 but for uploading videos to YouTube the Ego HD is far away good enough.
Verdict
We disliked
Compared to other action cameras the buttons on the Ego HD are difficult to push. Also, the lack of a removable battery can be problematic. In our tests we had to recharge the battery mid-shredding in order to keep getting footage. Another option we employed is carrying a portable charger. As with all of these cameras the menu system requires a learning curve. Our biggest beef with the Ego HD is the limited mounting options when compared to other cameras.
We liked
The Ego HD offers excellent still image quality. And while the video quality isn't necessarily as sharp as that of the GoPro Hero 3, it was more than good enough for YouTube. We liked that the Ego HD is Wi-Fi-enabled which makes it relatively simple to control, but we still don't understand why more companies don't use Bluetooth. More than anything we appreciated the price point. At well below $200, the Ego HD is wildly affordable.Verdict
If you're in the market for an action cam you'd be remiss to not consider options other than industry juggernaut GoPro. With their Apex HD + Wi-Fi camera / goggles and the Ego HD Liquid Image has action camera options for any sport you're into.
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Wii U claws back with monster sales leap in the UK
After a painful period of bad news for Nintendo's home console, the Wii U has bounced back this week, with an impressive 125 percent jump in sales.
The spike is largely attributed to the launch of Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate, one of the biggest titles to land on the Wii U so far.
HMV also slashed the price of the premium model by £140, making it £200 starting March 25, which has no doubt helped the console move from the shelf and into consumers' hands.
Good Wii Hunting
The Monster Hunter series is hugely popular, and Nintendo has been banking on the game's exclusive arrival on the Wii U to be a console shifter - and it wasn't wrong. But while the jump is great news for the Wii U, the console's weekly sales are still lagging behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, and it's likely that we'll see Nintendo's numbers drop again once the Monster Hunter launch window is over. The "build it and they'll come" approach to the Wii U didn't quite pay off for Nintendo, which quickly discovered that the console needed to do more than simply ride on the success of its predecessor. Put simply, it needed more games. It's interesting to see HMV taking matters into its own hands with the price cut. We saw a similar thing recently with the price of the Playstation Vita being cut by US retailers, while Sony stood firmly by its RRP.
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Blip: Good luck tracking down the free 4G in one of EE's 50 4G black cabs
EE is offering you free 4G when you shell out for a black cab in London or Birmingham.
However, it's only really available in a pretty specific scenario: you'll need a 4G enabled phone. You'll need to flag down one of forty 4G cabs in the capital. And you'll need to do it within three months.
If you're in Birmingham, have fun locating one of the 10 4G black cabs available.
Anyway, if that sounds like you, fill your boots - all it'll take is a text while you're in the cab. Everyone else: soz.
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Google faces EU investigation after failing to fix privacy policy
Google has found itself in hot water, with six European authorities about to launch a formal investigation into the company's unified data policy.
By unified, we're referring to the way that Google now has one privacy policy that covers over 60 services, which means the data you generate on things like search, Gmail and YouTube are used to create a more complete profile for Google to target ads against.
Naturally, this, coupled with the fact that Google didn't provide an opt-out option, set privacy alarm bells ringing. The EU put pressure on Google to revise its policy - but Google resisted and now it's facing the consequences.
Boiling point
An initial investigation was launched by the French data protection body, CNIL. Now the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands are all setting their legal sights on Google, which used to collect data from its various services separately. "The ICO has launched an investigation into whether Google's revised March 2012 privacy policy is compliant with the Data Protection Act," a spokesman said. "Several data protection authorities across Europe are now considering whether the policy is compliant with their own national legislation." EU regulators have been preparing to take on Google's privacy policy since the company did not respond by its four-month deadline. Google could be facing a fine of up to £500,000 ($757,000, AUS$723,000) by Britain's Information Commissioner's Office if it's found to be breaching the UK Data Protection Act, and that's before the rest of Europe gets in on the act.
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The weirdest, wackiest and most bizarre photo apps for the Note II
The GALAXY Note II has some formidable photography skills thanks to its eight-megapixel camera - so much so that we recently picked out the ten best photography apps for the Note II.
Though if it's quick photo-based fun that you are after, then you don't need to restrict yourself to taking pretentious snaps of your lunch or endless chin-stroking studies of urban graffiti.
The Google Play store is full of somewhat weirder apps that can really make the most of your Note II's camera.
Here is our pick of the ten best.
PicSay Pro
£2.99
This is a complete photo editor with tools for things like red-eye removal and sharpening images but it also comes with a host of fun effects including Instagram-like filters, distortion effects, the ability to make cutouts of faces and swap them around as well as plenty of options for adding text, captions and even speech bubbles and comic-like 'sound effects'.
Coolest of all, this app also supports the GALAXY Note II's S Pen to do pressure-sensitive drawing and this Pro version comes with a whole library of props and other overlays to spice up dull and boring snaps.
Color Splash FX
£1.18
Did you ever wonder how Steven Spielberg did that effect in Schindler's List - the girl in the red coat who stands out among the black and white of the rest of the film?
Well, in all honesty he probably didn't do it using a GALAXY Note II! But you can achieve something similar for still photos using Color Splash FX.
Just take a picture or select one from the Gallery and the app with turn it into a black and white shot. You can then use your finger or the S Pen to mark the areas you want to pick out in colour and the app will do the rest. Really simple, but you can get some great effects with a little care.
FACEinHOLE
£0.80
All the fun of those seaside photo-boards that place your head in a comical scene.
In fact, make that LOADS MORE fun along those lines as you can pick from thousands of scenes with one or more head holes waiting to be filled up with the faces of you and your friends.
Tiny Planet FX Pro
£2.00
Tiny Planet FX Pro will take any photograph and morph it so that the bottom of the pic gets squashed into a 'planet' and the top half gets wrapped around that planet.
Its hard to describe but feed it a picture of a field with some trees and people and it is immediately obvious - you get a small green planet with trees and people sticking out of the surface!
With some experimentation in picking the right photo and tweaking the slider bars just so you can create some really effective and unusual pictures.
FuntasticFace
Free (with in-app purchases)
FuntasticFace gives you a palette of props, hairstyles and other enhancements that you can use enhance your photos. Slap on massive Manga eyes, comedy wigs or pumped up lips to turn drab snaps into something to MMS home about.
The app is free but you can buy extra packs of props or clothes, etc. for a small fee via in-app purchase.
Paper Artist
Free (bundled with phone)
Photographs are great but what if you could knock up a sketch or painting instead of a holiday snap? You could go all out and use the S Pen to paint a masterpiece with an app like Infinite Paint but if you are maybe not quite up to that then fire up Paper Artist and let it do the work for you.
Paper Artist will turn any photo (from the gallery or direct from the camera) into a sketch, etching or painting. It just uses a bit of image processing code but it can look quite effective and - as Paper Artist was designed with the Note II in mind - you can cleverly use the S Pen to draw over the top or 'scrape away' the painting to reveal the real image underneath, which can create some brilliant effects.
Comic Strip It! Pro
99p
With Comic Strip It! you can use your photographs to build multi-panel comic strips or storyboards. You can use images straight from the camera or the gallery and apply various image effects to get the right look for your graphic novel masterpiece.
Each panel can be enhanced with titles, captions and speech bubbles as well as sound F/X like POW! KA-BOOM! and THWIP! Once you are done, export the image to your SD card or share it on your social network of choice from within the app.
WordCam Pro
64p
A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say. WordCam Pro takes this rather more literally than it was intended, but the results can be a lot of fun.
Feed the app a picture from the gallery or the camera and then give it a list of words and a selection of fonts. WordCam Pro will then make a new version of the picture using the list of words, repeated in semi-random patterns and a variety of fonts and sizes, while retaining the underlying colours of the image. It can look amazing.
WarpCam Pro
99p
This clever 'live' filter will distort an image even before you press the shutter, enabling you to get precisely the effect you want. Filters include a photo-mosaic, fisheye lens and distorted zoom to create weird, hall-of-mirrors-like effects.
You can stack two effects on each other, feeding the results of one into the other to create more varied images.
Fotodanz
Free
Cinemagrams are those clever animations that look like still photographs with just one element moving - the candle on a birthday cake, say, or a crowd scene where one person turns their face to look at you. Fotodanz is an app for creating them.
Fotodanz works a bit like a long-exposure camera. You just take a 'photo' (actually a short movie) for a couple of seconds and it will then present you with a still image.
You can draw on this using a finger or the S Pen to mark the part of the animation that you want to display. Fotodanz will then create an animated GIF file of the still with your selected animated area over the top. Once ready you can share it to Facebook, Twitter, Email, MMS or Google Drive.
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New BBC director general urges staff to seek next trends in technology
The BBC's new Director General has started his tenure by urging his new staff to keep looking to the future, with his opening email asking what big technology will come next.
The BBC has functioned as a trailblazer for UK broadcast technology since the corporation opened its doors and new DG Tony Hall is keen to continue that trend.
"In the coming weeks, I will set out how we can all shape the next chapter for the BBC as we move towards our centenary in 2022," he wrote in his first company-wide email.
"We have a unique opportunity to work together to shape the future of public service broadcasting.
Questions
"The kind of questions we need to ask ourselves include: what are the next big trends in technology and consumption that we need to grasp as we did with BBC Online and iPlayer?" A hit of the magnitude of the iPlayer would certainly be a feather in the cap for any director general - the video on demand service has been a huge hit in the UK and has been used as a showcase globally. As for the next generation, it will be intriguing to see if the BBC continues its work on Ultra HD (UHD) and beyond, as well as taking the iPlayer to the next level - whatever that may be.
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Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini to land this week?
The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini may leave the realms of phone fiction and become phone fact this week with word being that Samsung is bringing the launch date forward because of the torrent of leaks.
That's the word from SamMobile, at least, going against the last word we had which posited that the S4 Mini would land a month after the Galaxy S4 (slated for release on April 26).
As we've heard in previous leaks, the handset will be available in solo- and dual-SIM flavours, with the former rocking a quad-core processor and the double SIMmed version offering a dual-core one.
Mini-me
The handsets will both come with a 4.3-inch display, 8MP camera, Wi-Fi and AGPS as well as running Android 4.2.2 with Samsung's TouchWiz Nature UX. SamMobile's sources also say that the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini will be available in Black Mist (really, what is a black mist? And why would you want to evoke what sounds like a dangerous, choking haze in the colouring of your phone?) and White Frost (in what way is 'white frost' more descriptive than just white? Unless it means white that you can see a bit of green through it, which we doubt it does because that would look ridiculous). We'll try that again: the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini will also be available in black and white. SamMobile has a fairly good track record on Samsung leaks and we're pretty sure the S4 Mini is locked on for an imminent launch. As for whether it'll be this week or even this month, we're not convinced - why would Samsung cannibalise sales of its flagship S4 by giving people a cheaper option? So while there's a very slim chance this rumour will come to pass, we would strongly advise against putting money on it.
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Review: B&O BeoVision 11
Introduction
Whenever you're talking about a Bang & Olufsen TV, two things are certain. First, it will enjoy a truly unique design and build quality. Second, it will cost far more than a similarly sized TV from any other brand you might care to mention. And so it is with the 40-inch Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11, a luxury TV that costs an eye-watering £5,250 (around US$7,972 / AU$7,622) or more and looks like no other TV around right now. The key feature of its design is that it places the 40-inch screen above a large panel containing a speaker system so potent it might humble a few audio separates, and then surrounds the whole lot with a strikingly bold metallic outer frame. In the configuration we tested, this framed monolith was then mounted on a tilting bracket attached to a beautifully engineered, mechanically rotatable circular floor stand. You can even customise the TV set's design to some extent, in ways we'll discuss in the Features section.
The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's other most intriguing features are 3D playback if you stump up extra money for B&O's 3D glasses, plus multimedia playback via USB or networked PCs, the option to add a built-in 500GB HDD recording system, and even a slot on the TV's rear where you can attach one of the latest Apple TV boxes.
If 40 inches isn't big enough for you, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 can be had in spectacular 46-inch and 55-inch variations, with prices from £6,750 (around US$10,251 / AU$9,797) and £9,499 (around US$14,426 / AU$13,787) respectively.
In terms of rival products, there really isn't anything that truly sits alongside the unique B&O proposition. Loewe gets the closest, with the customisable looks and system integration potential of its Individual series.
Otherwise, so far as more mainstream pricing is concerned, we guess Samsung and Panasonic deliver the most aesthetically exciting new TVs, with models such as the Panasonic TX-L47ET60B and Samsung UE55F8000. But their appeal is based mostly on their lack of physical frames, rather than the B&O approach of making a large chassis an aesthetic positive rather than a negative.
Features
There's a lot to get through here, as you might hope with a luxury TV - kicking off with the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's truly extraordinary design.
B&O's decision to create a monolith of a TV that stands only fractionally under a metre high ((891mm/35 inches) by the time you've taken into account its aggressive metallic frame and huge built-in speaker section) flies in the face of the latest super-slim TV trends. But it's so well built, so unique, so confident and combines boldness with understated elegance so carefully that it's seriously hard to resist.
You can customise the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's looks too. The main TV frame can be had in either black or silver, the rear can be bought in white or black, and the cloth grille that sits over the speaker section in the TV's bottom third can be ordered in Petrol Blue, Red, White, Black, Silver or Grey.
There are multiple mounting options too. We used the gorgeous £725 (around US$1,102 / AU$1,052) circular and incredibly well made metal floor stand, upon which the TV can be rotated left or right via the remote. But there's also a £725 motorised wall mount option, a £365 (around US$555 / AU$530) non-motorised wall mount, and a £365 easel stand.
While we're on the subject of optional extras, you can build a 500GB hard disk recorder into the TV for £599 (around US$910 / AU$869), while the glasses you need to get to enjoy the TV's 3D playback - which uses the Full HD active system - cost £120 (around US$182 / AU$174) a pop.
Remarkably the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 can also be partnered with as many as 10 - yes, 10 - external speakers, driven by B&O's own seriously clever and flexible TrueImage system. TrueImage can decode every surround sound system variant, and upmix or downmix it depending on the speaker configuration you're using.
In other words, if your speaker configuration doesn't include any ceiling channel speakers, rather than just ignoring that channel's audio information from a source the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 will instead use processing to incorporate it into the sound produced by the speakers you do have.
Another excellent trick of the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's audio handling is that it enables you to create up to nine different audio 'groups', so that you could, say, enable two rear speakers to function as a simple stereo music system during those times when just that part of the room is being used.
The television contains a remarkable group of six 32W class D amps, with the built-in speaker configuration comprising 3/4-inch tweeters, 2-inch mid-range drives and a 4-inch woofer for each stereo channel.
This is, of course, nothing short of jaw-dropping audio provision versus the puny sonic efforts built into the vast majority of LCD and plasma TVs. Indeed, the exceptional audio provision will arguably be enough in itself to justify the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's high price for people who - rightly - consider sound to be as important a part of a good AV experience as pictures.
This is not to say, though, that B&O isn't also interested in pictures. On the contrary, it takes them very seriously indeed.
The TV has three picture modes, including a Game one that removes as much processing as possible to keep input lag low; a Movie mode that's built around the 6500K colour temperature generally accepted as producing the best video results; and an intriguing Adaptive setting with which the TV takes into account a bewildering number of factors in trying to optimise the picture automatically.
Part of the functionality behind this Adaptive mode is a sensor built into the TV's top edge that's capable of assessing light levels in a full 360-degree arc so that it can deliver a much more accurate calculation than most TVs' auto-picture settings of how to tweak the picture's colour, contrast and brightness settings in response to your room's lighting conditions.
B&O even rather cleverly uses this sensor in conjunction with an Adaptive Judder Cancellation feature, which takes account of the fact that your eyes are less susceptible to judder if you're viewing in a dark room.
You can even tell the TV how far away from it your main viewing position is, so that it can further adapt its settings accordingly.
This all makes the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's adaptive picture setting one of the few such automated picture modes you might actually consider trusting.
It's worth adding that all the processing in the TV is proprietary, developed in-house by B&O's regularly-meeting picture quality panel. And apparently the processing is extremely powerful, being capable of handling 125 billion calculations per second.
As with any ambitious TV these days, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 features multimedia playback from USB and networked DLNA devices, plus an online platform for streamed content. It carries built-in Wi-Fi to make using the network features as straightforward as possible.
We were also very impressed to find the TV's connections including an unprecedented six HDMI inputs, one of which you can access by popping out a little panel from just behind the TV's top edge. This is a great option for people wanting to temporarily attach a portable HDMI device, such as a digital camcorder.
There are a couple of weaknesses in the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's feature set, though. The main one is that B&O's online features are off the pace set in such areas by the likes of Sony, Samsung and LG.
The only video streaming services of note in the UK are BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Euronews and iConcerts. There's no Netflix, no Lovefilm, no Blinkbox, no Acetrax, no ITVPlayer, no Demand 5… This really does put the set at a disadvantage in what's an increasingly important part of TV functionality.
Other apps include Funspot, Picasa, an internet browser, Facebook, and TomTom HD Traffic, but that really is about it so far as interesting stuff goes.
The other lesser weakness is that end users can't get their hands on such fine-tuning tools as colour and gamma management systems. B&O's thinking here is that its own processing systems are so good that there's no need for such in-depth calibration tools to be put at an end user's disposal (the relevant tools are available to B&O engineers, though).
We'll find out soon enough if B&O's automated processes are clever enough to make this argument ring true, but even so, there will be a few AV enthusiasts who will feel frustrated at not being able to get deep into the nitty gritty of colour and gamma management.
Wrapping up the features section are three apparent frivolities on paper that actually contribute surprisingly well to the all-round sense of opulence the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 works so hard to capture.
First, as well as manually being able to rotate the TV on its stand via the remote, you can put preset angles into the TV for its on and off state, so that the TV can, say, turn back flat to a wall when you turn it off and rotate smoothly around to face you when you turn it back on.
Next, when you turn the TV off, the picture gradually disappears behind a pair of sliding black digital curtains rather than just flicking immediately off. And finally, as the virtual curtains draw across the screen, the sound also fades gradually away rather than just instantly disappearing.
As we said, this all sounds a bit gimmicky on paper. But in the flesh it feels like finery that no posh television should be without.
Picture quality
Despite our hopes being raised by some of the impressive-sounding picture features noted earlier, we weren't entirely sure what to expect from the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's pictures. Sometimes in the past we've found very design-led TVs like this lag behind a little in the performance department due to their extra development time. It takes mere seconds, though, to discover that the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's images are anything but dated. In fact, in almost every way we can think of they're as good as anything we've ever seen from an LCD TV. Seriously. The single most remarkable achievement is the depth of the screen's black level response. There isn't so much as a trace of the usual LCD low-contrast greyness hanging over parts of the picture that should look black - even in the black bars you get above ultra-wide 21:9-ratio films.
What's especially extraordinary about this is the fact that, provided you keep the backlight and brightness settings sensibly low, the pretty much perfect black level depths remain intact even when a shot contains a mix of bright and dark material. And these bright parts of predominantly dark images retain a remarkable amount of brightness and dynamism considering the amount of blackness that surrounds them.
The extent to which the screen can deliver light on a remarkably localised level without causing greyness, brightness clouding or other luminance inconsistencies is really spectacular, at least rivalling and possibly outgunning Sony's terrific HX853 series in this most important of image performance departments.
The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's outstanding light handling is, we suppose, created through a combination of B&O's image processing and a proprietary filter built into the panel that does an exceptional job of soaking up ambient light in your room, making it much easier for you to revel in the TV's explosive contrast.
There's still one more aspect of the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's black level response we need to rave about. Despite the exceptional profundity of its rendition of dark picture parts, it still manages to deliver a good amount of shadow detail in all but the very blackest of corners, ensuring that dark scenes never look hollow or forced.
Great black levels usually lead to great colours, and the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 follows this trend too. As expected, the lack of low-contrast greyness over dark scenes enables deep colour tones to look much more realistic and vivid than they would otherwise, and you can see more subtle tonal shifts too.
Skin tones look strikingly natural, subtle and nuanced (especially using the Movie preset), yet at the same time even the most vibrant, heavily saturated tones also display almost infinite detailing and finesse without losing any of their punch.
As noted in the feature section, some AV enthusiasts will still feel aggrieved at not being able to fine tune colours further. But for the vast majority of people, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's colours as they are out of the box go way beyond simply being good enough.
Another string to the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's image bow is its sharpness. HD images are immaculately judged, containing excellent amounts of clarity of detail without, crucially, making detailing look so extreme that pictures start to look fizzy or harsh.
There's a trace of motion blur if we really had to be picky, but it really is very minor, and probably wouldn't even register with us were all other parts of the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 picture experience not so exquisite.
At any rate, the motion resolution reduction is not even close to being a deal breaker - especially since the TV remains impressively free of judder even if you turn the adaptive judder control completely off (as some users will want to, to preserve the integrity of incoming 24p sources).
One other issue is the appearance of minor light pools in the screen's corners plus a little 'light blocking' caused by the local dimming arrangement of the side-mounted LED lights. These inconsistencies show up more often in 3D mode, due to the extra brightness you want the picture to contain to counter the dimming effect of the active shutter glasses.
But even in 3D mode the inconsistencies are only rarely a distraction, and in 2D mode you'll hardly see them at all, provided you keep the TV's backlight and brightness settings sensibly low - or just stick with the adaptive picture mode.
Having just mentioned 3D, now would seem an appropriate time to analyse other areas of the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's 3D performance.
The TV's barnstorming contrast proves very handy, for starters, in helping the B&O deliver a hugely convincing sense of depth, full of the sort of subtle lighting cues your brain needs in order to build a convincing on-screen space.
Colours are still very punchy in 3D mode too - maybe a little too much so using the default settings - and detail levels are as high with Full HD 3D Blu-rays as you could hope to see from an active 3D TV.
Crosstalk is extremely well suppressed too, only cropping up very occasionally, and even then sufficiently subtly that it's not really an issue.
The only thing that is an issue with the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's 3D performance is its handling of really fast motion. This looks a bit processed and flickery if you use the Adaptive or Full Judder Cancellation settings, but also a touch indistinct and stuttery without it.
However, while we have seen one or two TVs handle 3D motion better, B&O's efforts can still be considered commendable overall.
It's fair to say, then, that overall the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 has gone even further than we might have hoped for in delivering the sort of premium performance you'd like to see on a 40-inch TV costing upwards of £5,250 (around US$7,972 / AU$7,622).
One last point we should make here concerns input lag, which came in at around 62ms on average. This is touch too high to make the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 a particularly great gaming monitor.
Usability, sound and value
Usability
Considering how many features it carries, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 is mostly pretty easy to handle. Its on-screen menus are clear and comprehensive, and do a reasonably sensible job of layering their content so that novice users aren't overwhelmed with technical features unless they want to seek them out. Also appreciated is the facility to give your own labels to each HDMI input (having six could be confusing, otherwise), and as noted earlier, the way one of the HDMIs is built into a pop-out slot towards the top of the TV's rear for easy access by temporary devices such as digital cameras and camcorders is a great user-friendly touch. The remote control is in some ways a work of art, too. Its gorgeous metallic finish, elongated narrow design and flash LCD display at its top end instantly mark it out as a high-end handset, as does the gorgeous responsiveness of the buttons, and the in-places quite innovative button layout.
The remote control does, though, for all its gorgeousness, feel a bit outdated. For instance, the buttons for selecting AV inputs aren't comprehensive enough, requiring you to head in to the TV's main menus to select some of the inputs. It doesn't help, either, that one of the AV input buttons is labelled 'CD'.
It's also a pity there's no one-button access to the TV's online/multimedia features, and that the remote doesn't particularly help with surfing the net when it comes to either moving the cursor around or inputting text into search fields. Certainly a few other mainstream brands are forging ahead with their multimedia control handsets this year.
One final smaller issue is that the tiny little nub on the remote you have to use to move your cursor left, right up or down can be a tad sore on your fingers.
If you're feeling alarmed by the potential complexities of stuff like the external speaker configuration, don't worry: if you buy a Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 it will of course be installed for you by B&O.
Sound
Let's keep this simple: the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 produces the best audio performance we've ever heard from a TV. Especially if you're lucky enough to be taking advantage of its various surround sound options.
Even if you're only using the built-in speakers, though, you'll be enjoying a truly outstanding audio performance. The sheer power the built-in speakers can produce is huge by TV standards, enabling them to deliver a wide, dynamic, beautifully open soundstage that wouldn't sound out of place on a separates system.
The level of audio precision is terrific too, in terms of both the placement of effects in a stereo or pseudo-surround sound stage and the hi-fi-like way the TV is able to separate out all the audio elements. This avoids the muddiness in the mid-range that you get with most skinny TVs, without making the sound stage lose cohesion.
Just occasionally while watching Blu-rays the vocal track seemed to be coming from slightly below the image rather than within it, but such moments are rare, and you can also reduce the sensation by slightly tilting the screen back.
The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's audio is so good, in fact, that we often found ourselves using the TV to play CDs rather than our usual hi-fi system. So maybe that CD button on the remote wasn't so daft after all.
It's worth stressing again, too, just how exceptionally wide-ranging the TV's audio set-up options are, taking in such unprecedented (for a TV) fine-tuning options as frequency tilt, bass management, a fader, and spatial controls (including stage width, height and envelopment options).
Even a TV with as much power and precision as the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 can still sound a touch harsh in the treble register if the volume's extremely high and the audio being played is extremely dense.
But all this suggests, perhaps, is that B&O might have been better off if it more strictly limited the volume levels you can push the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 to. Measured against the TV world at large, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11's audio is simply in another league.
Value
Of course, most people won't be able to think about spending £5,250 (around US$7,972 / AU$7,622) or more on a 40-inch TV. But just as there are luxury cars, luxury yachts and luxury hi-fis, surely there's no reason why there shouldn't also be luxury TVs, right? Especially when a TV goes to such great design, feature and performance lengths to justify its premium existence as the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 does.Verdict
If any 40-inch TV can justify costing £5,250 (around US$7,972 / AU$7,622) or more, it's the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11. For starters it looks like no other TV around, deliberately shunning the current trend for barely there chassis designs and mounting its 40-inch screen atop a huge speaker-bearing section a third as high as the screen, before surrounding the whole thing in a positively chunky but gloriously finished metallic outer frame that looks like it's hewn out of solid silver. Its optional mechanically rotating stand is a stunning combination of looks and build quality too, and you can even customise the TV's final look thanks to the availability of different body, rear and cloth speaker cover options. The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 is also prodigiously featured, thanks to built-in online, network and multimedia playback, an optional built-in 500GB HDD video recorder, peerless audio flexibility and uniquely clever automatic picture optimisation systems. The best thing of all about the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11, though, is that it marries its instant design and feature appeal to one of the best picture performances and the best audio performance we've ever witnessed on an LCD TV.We liked
Its design is big, bold and beautiful, and its build quality is peerless. It's also incredibly well featured on the audio front, sports six HDMI ports and delivers far and away the best sound you'll hear from a flatscreen TV. Its picture quality, too, is outstanding.We disliked
The remote control, while beautifully engineered, feels a little dated in its layout in places. You can cause some minor backlight inconsistency if you set the brightness too high, and it's a shame B&O couldn't run to including even one pair of 3D glasses for the high asking price. Finally, B&O's online services offer less content than those of most mainstream brands.Final verdict
With its grand-standing design, exquisite build quality, healthy feature count and best of all brilliant picture and peerless sound performance, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 manages to justify its £5,250 (around US$7,972 / AU$7,622) asking price - some feat in today's competitive TV marketplace. It's not perfect, though. Its online services are a bit lightweight, you need to be careful with brightness levels to keep dark scenes looking evenly lit, and there's room for improvement with its control system. Nonetheless, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 is one of the most compelling reasons for being rich we've come across in a long time.Also consider
There isn't any other brand available in the UK that's quite in B&O's league when it comes to design, build quality or sheer opulence. The nearest would be Loewe, which tries to offer similar levels of design chutzpah and customisation as well as system building options and at least decent audio for a good deal less money than B&O. However, recent experience suggests that Loewe's Individual range, which is probably the closest current match to the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision series, is in need of a refresh where picture quality is concerned. Sony's HX853 series probably offers the closest picture quality match, since it also employs a locally dimmed edge LED array to similarly dynamic effect. Or if you want a strong-performing TV that combines a stunning but much slimmer design with more advanced smart TV features, Samsung's F8000 series is worth considering.
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Super-fast 4G LTE on the GALAXY Note II explained
If you've been keeping tabs on the worldwide smartphone market, you'll have probably noticed a pretty glaring omission last year – why wasn't the discerning UK phone buyer offered a super-fast 4G connection when many other countries were loving life with fibre-optic speeds on the go?
Thankfully that began to change in September 2012, with EE deploying the fast network throughout the UK – and it was also the first to offer the Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE too, giving this impressive phone another string to an already packed bow.
1. OK – but what actually is 4G?
4G (also known as Long Term Evolution or LTE) is the next generation of mobile connectivity that can bring theoretical speeds of up to 100Mbps on your GALAXY Note II LTE.
While in truth you'll never get that speed on the go (elements like other users and distance from the mobile mast have a huge impact on bitrate) you'll find you're still regularly rocking speeds of around 20Mbps on a mobile phone (and that will get faster in the coming months), which is still hugely impressive.
2. How does 4G work?
There are actually three different 'forms' of 4G on offer, all at different frequencies. 800MHz will allow fewer connections, but has a much greater range, so rural areas can buy a Note II LTE safe in the knowledge they'll be getting the full power of the handset even away from the cities.
1800MHz is the frequency currently used by EE to deploy its super-fast network, and can be used both in cities and further afield, plus also allows access to things like HD voice for ultra-crisp calling.
And finally 2.6GHz will be used mostly in built-up areas; unlike 800MHz it's got a shorter range but a much greater capacity, meaning far more users can get super speed from the same mast.
And the good news? The Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE supports all these bands, so you won't need to worry about checking compatibility before you buy, making it a much simpler choice in your local phone emporium!
3. How much better is 4G than 3G?
4G is both a small step and a huge evolution from the 3G speeds you'll be used to. 4G is designed for data, and is a 'flatter' signal – simply put, this means it's more efficient to get info into your GALAXY Note II, which saves on battery life and consumes less data to perform the same functions.
3G isn't too far behind though – if you can't get a full 4G signal, DC-HSPA is the latest technology to come from the engineering bods at the networks and while it is technically 3G in form and range, it's only about half as fast as 4G.
So that's nice if you suddenly wander into a 4G dead zone, right?
4. Good for gamers
There are loads of uses for 4G – it's not about doing the same things you've done in the past but faster (although you can do that just fine).
The short connection time between your phone and the mobile mast means you've now got access to a whole range of activities, like playing multiplayer games on the go – and combined with the mighty GPU at the heart of the Samsung GALAXY Note II, you've got a real gaming machine that you don't have to keep tethered to the home.
So you can all too easily find yourself in a multiplayer frag-fest with titles like Modern Combat 3 or racing to the line with Asphalt 7… all on the bus to work.
5. Movie marathons from the park
One of the biggest changes to the way people use their phone when imbuing it with 4G is video – studies show that the likes of YouTube shoot to the top of the most-visited sites when users get access to 4G.
But it's about so much more than that, and the likes of EE offer you free films to download each week – and despite being in HD, you can suck them down in no time at all to your phone, or start streaming instantly.
Tie-ins with home broadband also mean you can begin watching a title at home on the TV or PC, and continue where you left off with your phone when you leave the house.
And with the large and expansive screen offered on the Samsung GALAXY Note II, there's no reason not to enjoy the best the movie world has to offer down the pub, in the countryside or as a passenger on a long car journey; plus it's an even more impressive experience thanks to the HD Super AMOLED screen too.
6. Is 4G expensive?
The notion of 4G in the UK is that's it's an expensive option to have – certainly early tariffs haven't offered a huge amount of data for a higher cost per month to get access to the super speeds on the go.
However, the likes of Three have pledged to not increase costs when it deploys 4G later in the year, claiming that no matter if you use its 'Ultrafast' DC-HSPA connection or 4G, you shouldn't pay more for the privilege.
O2 and Vodafone are yet to announce their 4G pricing, but it's expected to be largely between Three and EE – the latter bolsters its attractiveness to consumers by offered free cinema tickets and movie downloads, which may be the route others take.
7. How can I get 4G?
Currently, there's only EE offering 4G in the UK, but that's going to change in the next few months, as summer 2013 will be the time when all networks start offering 4G speeds too.
Three has confirmed it will be bringing 4G by September, and thanks to not raising prices, is offering phones like the Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE now so users can upgrade to the great handsets and feel content in the knowledge 4G will land straight on their phones later in the year.
Vodafone is doing the same thing with the GALAXY Note II LTE, so you can buy this top-end handset now and upgrade your price plan to incorporate 4G speeds on the big red network later in the year.
8. How much faster are phones going to get?
Well, there's no doubt that 4G is going to just get faster and faster as the technology is developed. Compare 3G speeds to when it first deployed at the start of the millennium (up to 2Mbps) to now (up to 40Mbps) and you can see there's a long way to go when it comes to streaming speeds on the move.
5G is a long way off, but in 2020 you could be getting even cheaper (or free) data thanks to low deployment costs for the networks, really low battery drain or simply the ability to connect loads of users together at once from one single station with gigabit connection speeds.
But 4G is new enough to get excited about – so if you want a great gaming experience on the go, want to watch movies where you want them or simply browse the internet without speed limitations, the Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE allows you to do all that and more.
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Review: Sphero
The Sphero robot ball gaming system is a great new take on smart toys for smartphones - and big kids of all ages will love it.
Launched last year by US company Orbotix, the Sphero comprises a 74mm diameter opaque ball made from tough polycarbonate, inside which lies a multi-axis gyro, an accelerometer and a bunch of motors that can send it speeding in any direction at up to 0.91m-per-second indoors or out.
You can even dunk in the Sphero in water, if you wish, as it's waterproof and will float in your bath or sink.
Features
The 168g Sphero is powered by a lithium polymer battery, which is also stowed away inside, with recharging provided by the supplied induction charger, enabling the ball to be charged wirelessly. The real fun is provided by a series of multi-coloured lights which enable the ball to display millions of colours. And the whole shebang can be controlled by your smartphone or tablet (iOS 4.0 or higher, Android 2.2 or higher only) via Bluetooth with an operating range of up to 15m. Clever.Smartphone and tablet gaming
What's even more clever about the Sphero though are the apps that you can use it with. Orbotix has not only made around 10 of its own - mostly-free apps - available for download from the iTunes App Store and Google Play, but it's also giving game developers a chance to come up with their own thanks to a Full API and Mobile SDK. Heck, you can even have a stab at programming the Sphero yourself - thanks to a free Orbotix app called Sphero Macrolab (iOS / Google Play), giving it geek appeal aplenty.
The Sphero range of games runs the full gamut from banal right though to bizarre. The free, if basic, Sphero app (iOS / Google Play) enables you to steer the ball around using your iPhone, iPad or Android phone or tablet and makes it display lots of pretty colours; while Sphero PinWheel (iOS) enables to play a very modern version of Simon - the colourful memory game beloved of entertainment-starved kids in the early 1980s.
Game control
One of our favourites though is Sharky The Beaver - an augmented reality game, where the ball magically turns into a shark fin-wearing beaver who you have to fling cupcakes at. We also love Chillingo's Zombie Rollers (iOS), where get to roll around spooky city streets in a virtual ball splatting zombies until, that is, the virtual ball suddenly disappears leaving you to fend for yourself until you can hop into the next one. Eek!
Usability and performance
As you've probably guessed by now, Sphero is a lot of fun. Pairing with your smartphone or tablet using Bluetooth is straightforward and the controls - in freewheeling robot mode - are easy to get to grips with. Sometimes the ball can get its up / down and left / right controls confused - something that seems to happen quite a bit when you try a special trick or macro - although it's easy to get it reoriented again by holding two fingers down on your touchscreen and swivelling the ball until its blue tail light is pointing in your direction again.Frustrations
Using the Sphero as a game controller has its frustrations too - sometimes you're so busy watching the action on screen, you don't notice that the ball has shifted position on your hand until you end up crashing into that spaceship you were trying to avoid or running towards rather than away from the zombies that are chasing you. Clearly this doesn't happen with regular game controllers where you get tactile feedback from the pads, grips and buttons, but you get no such thing on a smooth-faced ball.
Luckily, your scores can and do improve do practice - although it's still a bit like trying to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time. For some games, using the device you're actually looking at as the controller is actually the best way to go.
Another frustration is the Sphero's battery life: although it'll last for up to an hour before losing its juice - pretty good for a smartphone toy - you'll face a frustrating 3-hour wait before you can get the ball rolling again.
The final frustration, perhaps, is the price: at £100 the Sphero is undoubtedly an expensive proposition, but then so are many toys and games that people like to buy themselves or their kids. Have you tried to buying a decent-sized Lego set lately or taken the family to the zoo, the cinema, a day out at Harry Potter world?
Put it into that context and the Sphero starts to look like very good value for money - especially when you consider its versatility, programmability and go-anyhere, do-anything high tech robustness. When you think of it like that, that £100 starts to look very good value indeed.
Verdict
As smartphone toys go, the Orbotix Sphero has a lot of recommend it. It's easy to setup and fun to use - thanks to a variety of largely free and low priced games. The Sphero itself isn't perfect - sometimes, the ball's controls get a little eccentric during play - but if our biggest complaint is that its one hour battery is too short that only goes to show how great it is to have this ball around.
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Twitter tips and tricks for Note II power users
Social networking with Twitter can be a lot of fun. So much fun, in fact, that it can verge on being addictive. We say, why not feed that addiction?! With a Twitter app on your smartphone you can easily keep up to date with what is going on out there in that strange, 140-character world.
And, of course, if you really want to be a Twitter power user then a Samsung GALAXY Note II is the perfect social networking companion.
Get the right app
The official Twitter app for Android lacks some of the more advanced features like user 'muting' or scheduled tweets found in other apps (of which more later) but it is guaranteed to get all the latest official features first. For this reason alone it is worth keeping a copy installed and updating it regularly.
That said, a power user is going to feel a bit constrained by the official app fairly quickly. Luckily, the Google Play store is packed with alternatives. Two of the best are Ubersocial and Twicca.
Ubersocial is a Twitter client packed with features and innovative twists on the standard formula. The app supports multiple accounts, simultaneous updates to Facebook and a unique 'inner circle' tab that just shows updates from a select group of friends.
The app's ability to preview media 'inline' without calling a separate viewer is equal to the official app, and for our money, even better.
Twicca is a decidedly minimalist app but one that consistently scores highly among power users. What it lacks in smooth transitions and slick presentation it makes up for in speed and expandability. Twicca can be expanded with plug-ins (also downloadable from Google Play) that add features like URL shortening, automatic 'Now playing' tweets, draft tweets and more. The app will also let you colour code tweets by selected users so they stand out more.
Slices is a rather different Twitter app that focuses on content discovery. It can organise your timeline into categories (or "slices") such as Workmates, Friends, Celebrities and so on. It can do this automatically or you can create your own Slices and assign people to them as you see fit.
The Explore function of Slices will trawl through Twitter to show you interesting tweets on a variety of topics. It's a great way to see what is going on around the world and to find interesting new people to follow.
Retweet like a veteran
When Twitter first started, users would post copies of tweets they liked prefixed by 'RT' for 'Retweet'. Twitter removed the ability to do this automatically from the official app in an attempt to force people to use its own Retweet function, which preserves the original tweet and is more useful for its own analytics.
If you want to use the old-school method, Twitplus is a clever add-on can do the trick. Just share a tweet to it as if you were sending it to another app like GMail, etc. and it will put it into the correct format and send it back to the official app for uploading. It can also do automatic translations of foreign language tweets and a few other tricks. Dead handy.
Popularity contest
One of the signs of Twitter addiction is a sudden obsession with how many followers you have. Tweet Followers is an elegant widget that will feed this obsession rather nicely.
Just point the widget at your Twitter username and it will keep track of your follower count. You can track multiple accounts if you want, just assign a widget to each for as long as you have room on your home screens.
The other side of that coin is tracking your unfollowers. Just Unfollow is the app for that, and more.
At first glance, Just Unfollow seems like an app aimed at the insecure and paranoid. One of its key functions, after all, is to alert you whenever someone unfollows you on Twitter or Instagram. On closer inspection it turns out to be a very useful app for the Twitter power user.
Just Unfollow will also highlight new followers, people who don't follow you back, 'fans' - people you don't follow but who follow you and inactive accounts of people you follow but who never tweet. This is important as Twitter puts a slightly-flexible limit on the number of people you can follow and this app will stop you from using up any 'slots' on dead accounts.
A little light reading
Flipboard is a sort of personal news service that can aggregate stories from around the web to create a great-looking virtual magazine that you can 'flip' through. One of the many sources for news that the app can use is your Twitter account.
Flipboard will display your timeline in a really great-looking and readable format and pick out selected tweets with interesting links and display them full-page like magazine articles. It's a unique and enjoyable way to catch up on Twitter.
Oversharing
Android makes it very simple to share images and text with apps like Twitter using Intents but the GALAXY Note II adds an extra level of ease with the S Pen.
If you are browsing the web or your own image gallery and see something you want to share, you can just circle it with the S Pen and save it to S Note where you can add text or other tweaks before uploading.
Tweet without delay
To make sure you are always ready for an off-the-cuff tweet, customise the Lock Screen of the GALAXY Note II by adding the icon for your favourite Twitter client app along the bottom row.
Normally you can unlock the screen by swiping anywhere, but swiping up from the icon will take you straight into the app where you can Tweet to your heart's content.
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Blip: Tron 3 details spilled - including a crappy working title
Tron Legacy brought us all the joys of a wholly CGI-ed Jeff Bridges and a fully-rendered look into a world that first wowed us back in 1982 - so what can we expect from the three-quel?
First up - it's working title is Tr3n, which is nearly as horrific as us using the world three-quel, but Joseph Kosinski has insisted that the film will build on the most awesome bits of the first two (rather than linger on the crappy bits that both managed to serve up).
Kosinski says he's weeks away from getting the first script draft and that it's a two-and-a-half to three year-long project.
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VIDEO: GALAXY Note II Video Features Walkthrough & Tips
If you are the lucky owner of a brand new Samsung GALAXY Note II then you need to check out our Video Features Walkthrough and Tips video below, which gives you an overview of how to capture those special moments and watch all of your favourite high definition videos.
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