Running Man of Tech: How I broke the 40 minute 10K barrier with tech
Two massive races
If the title of this piece seems a little like I'm bragging, then, well, I can't really deny that. But this is one of those instances in life that just feel like you have to make a big deal about, else they just get lost in the current with the rest of daily life.Regular readers will know that I've been after the sub-40 minute 10K race for a long, long time now - and on Sunday I finally did it in London's Kew Gardens, and all thanks to some subtle training tweaks that were enabled through technology.
And, more importantly, Runner G completed her first ever race - getting people on the running train is way better than cracking times.
Missing strength
When the third time of attempting to break the 2,400 second barrier in September 2014 yielded a 40.02 result, I knew something would have to change.I guessed my issue was I simply wasn't strong enough to keep my bag of muscles together in a straight line for long enough at the right speed. Cue tech to help.
I tried the Wahoo Tickr X chest strap heart rate monitor and its 7 minute workout, which registered lunges, squats and planks and the Jabra Coach Crossfit plans - great, but too generic. Then I found a great eight week course online, with fortnightly YouTube training videos from Coach Jay Johnson - and that was a large part of it.
They weren't hard initially, but focused on really pushing the hip mobility and strength, and as they ramped up, I felt looser than ever.
Moov-ing forward
I've already written about this at length, how this little Moov sensor has helped strengthen my calves through making me run at an insanely high cadence and coaching me to maintain the right form during the sessions.The epilogue to that is what intrigued me the most: I was just doing these sessions as a good way to vary the recovery runs, but I found that over five weeks I went from doing 6 minute kilometres at 190 steps per minute to around 4:40 - without much change in effort.
I can't quantify the difference that made, but it definitely strengthened my lower legs and achilles - and helped me feel like my form was 'flowing' a lot more.
The sub-40 run
I won't bore you with the details of this in excruciating details, but I did take on board a couple of things from the professionals I quizzed: taking a two day rest before the run (thanks Colin) and trying to structure the run in a way that broke it down a little bit better (thanking you, Dame Kelly).My plan was simple: try to hit each kilometre at a couple of seconds under four minutes, building a little buffer for the inevitable fall off the cliff towards the end (pace wise, not literally. I'm not that dedicated).
My first kilometre was bang on - and that was with me having to pair some Bluetooth headphones and turn on Spotify on the go (as no sooner had I wormed my way towards the front of the pack did they say '3…2…1…go!'). While I usually don't run with music, this time I added in some theta-wave meditation sounds for the first half of the race, the same stuff they use to calm nervous flyers.
The idea was to try and stay chilled for the first half, expending as little energy as possible. I ruined that as someone flew past me after the first kilometre, and I decided to stick to their pace for a little bit to make sure I hypnotised my brain into the faster pace. I hit a 3:47 kilometre and decided to throttle back, matching pace with those around me.
That was pretty much how it went until 8.5km in - me and another chap sticking together, overtaking one another from time to time to keep the pace up. The Garmin chimed in with some lovely news every few minutes: I was hitting sub 4-min kilometres, and I could see I had built a lovely 19 second buffer over the 40-minute mark, according to the virtual pacer function on the Forerunner 920XT (a great tool I can't do without on races).
Then we exited the river towpath back into the park - and that's where I came unstuck. Trotting over the newly mown grass was horrendous, the wet blades flicking up and landing inside my shoes, and my heart rate rocketed. I looked down and saw I'd lost four seconds in a few hundred metres, and I was in trouble.
The finish line came into view, but we curved away, and I saw how far I had to go - a long loop over a field. My heart sank and my pace buddy started to pull away from me. I wanted to slow. I wanted it over… I was going to crash and burn again from my 40 minute challenge again.
I kept churning over and analysing what I'd done wrong - I started too fast. I kept up too strong a pace. I rested too much. I didn't eat right. Whatever it was, I was dropping… my buffer down to 13 seconds.
I had one weapon left: Bonnie Tyler. There's something about the place where the lightning splits the sea that fires my adrenaline, and I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to just get to the finishing straight. I pulled every trick I had: smiling, dropping my shoulders, pumping my arms, praying to whoever… and somehow I hit the finish straight with my 13 second buffer intact.
My attempt at a sprint finish was woeful, and I even got passed on the line (which I blame Bonnie for - I couldn't hear a thing). But surely I'd done it! Around 39:47, right?
Wrong. 38:36.
What? How? What? Was the watch broken? Had I not done it? Did I stop it somewhere? I grabbed the guy I'd been running with, who'd finished five seconds ahead, and checked his time. '38:30' he grinned (turns out he'd never broken 40 minutes either).
The Garmin had mis-tracked me (probably because we ran under tree cover for most of it). It was telling me I was going about 3% further each kilometre, and I'd pushed on as a result - so it thought I'd only done 9.72km.
It doesn't get much better than that feeling.
A new runner is born
Actually it does.That first race sensation is hard to beat, and Runner G completed her first 10km run, the beam on her face as she sprinted across the line something I'll never forget.I'll let her tell the story in her own words, but by golly, I'm so proud of her to come from not being able to run in May to completing the race:
'To start, I couldn't even run for 10 minutes without needing to walk but was excited by my MiCoach plan and doing something 'worthwhile' rather than just eating and moaning all the time.
'About halfway through the three month plan, I started getting addicted to running kit. Running socks, wireless earphones, an armband that didn't slip off when I sweated and Spotify Running all became indispensable, as did the Adidas FitSmart watch, which made me take my heart rate during running more seriously – sharp exhales, trying to drop my shoulders and keep my head up felt more important than before.
'Then three weeks before the race, I picked up shin splints. My confidence absolutely plummeted. I had to take training breaks, I used a foam roller which hurt more than waxing (true story) and was in bits. I took the decision to see a physiotherapist, and that helped both psychically and mentally.
'But where I had been so excited halfway, feeling I would smash the race, the week before I suddenly just didn't care anymore. I felt stressed, weak, tired and unprepared even though I'd be training for months. This was the lowest point.
'I did manage to do 8.5km the week before and after that I definitely believed in myself again. I just struggled to tell myself that what I was doing is actually something a lot of people struggle to do and I should be proud whatever the final result.
The race
'I was tired after about 10 minutes and was desperate to walk. Everyone started off so fast and I was panicking - what if my shin splints got worse and I had to crawl over the line? What if there was dog poop on the line?
'Then…everyone around started to walk and I couldn't believe it! It made me feel stronger and a tad smug. My one goal for the race (apart from to finish it) was not to walk, telling myself: whatever happens, just don't walk.
'With a good country-music based playlist, by 8 kilometres I still felt good. I was nearly finished and while my right leg had gone numb, my time was OK - still on to beat 1hr15.
'But then came the horrid part: we had to run away from the line in order to lap round and finish, which was horrid. The sun was blazing and I was tired. My heart rate was through the roof.
'I slowed down but when the finish line came into view I sprinted: I wanted my time. I couldn't feel my right leg at all but by the time I crossed the finish line and calmed down a bit (and had a little cry on my friend's shoulder) I felt an overwhelming sense of achievement. And I'd done it in 1hr 14:36!
'To come from the low of last week to this feeling made me realise what it was all about. And I've already booked another one in November, so here's hoping it's the start of many more. The sub one hour dream is on!'
- If you've got any tips, tech you want tested out or just want to mock me, I'm @superbeav on Twitter, and you can see my stumblings on Strava too.
- If you want to see more data, follow me on Smashrun - if you want to sign up, please use this link - once you see the service, you'll work out why...
- Read the rest of the Running Man of Tech story here
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iPhone 6S Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 5
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and iPhone 6S Plus are two of the biggest phones of 2015 in more ways than one, as not only are they phablet sized they were also highly anticipated flagships.
Now they're both here and the battle between them is likely to be fierce, with both handsets featuring a premium design, great cameras and top tier specs.
They're clearly both impressive phones but to see how mind blowing they really are, we've put these two heavyweights head-to-head to see how they compare in all the key areas.
Design
While past Galaxy Note handsets have had fairly disappointing designs it's all change with the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, a phone with a slim 7.6mm thick build, a metal frame and a glass back. The left and right edges curve inwards at the back making it easier to grip and the whole thing looks great.
The iPhone 6S Plus has a more metal-heavy design - in fact it's all metal, with a seamless unibody. It's slim too and looks just as good as the Galaxy Note 5. It's arguably better as the glass back of the Note 5 is a bit of a fingerprint magnet and more easily broken, but they're both enormously stylish.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has a huge 5.7-inch 1440 x 2560 Super AMOLED display with a pixel density of 518 pixels per inch. It's big, incredibly sharp and thanks to the use of Super AMOLED it's also bright and vibrant. In all it really is one of the best smartphone screens we've ever come across.
To help you get around that massive expanse the Galaxy Note 5 also has an S Pen stylus and even that has got a few new tricks up its sleeve, such as the ability to make notes on the screen without even turning it on.
The iPhone 6S Plus is going to have its work cut out to compete then, but it has a shot, with a smaller but still large 5.5-inch 1080 x 1920 IPS LCD display and an innovative pressure-sensitive 3D Touch feature. We'll let you know how it fares when we've put it through our full review, but coming from Apple we expect great contrast and colour accuracy.
Power and performance
On paper the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has an easy win here, with its 2.1GHz octa-core Exynos 7420 processor and 4GB of RAM. Those specs translate into beastly performance, with the Note 5 easily blasting through anything you can throw at it.
The iPhone 6S Plus on the other hand has a likely dual-core A9 processor, but don't let those specs fool you as Apple's phones are usually almost impossibly smooth during operation and we expect no less here.
Camera
Samsung has really delivered with the Galaxy Note 5's camera. It has the same 16MP sensor as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and like that phone it can take photos in stunning quality, even when the lighting isn't ideal.Optical image stabilisation surely helps with that, and along with a range of shooting modes, settings and options it should suit both point-and-shooters and seasoned snappers. The front-facing camera isn't quite as impressive, but at 5MP it gets the job done.
The iPhone 6S Plus has a 12MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing one. Like the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 it includes optical image stabilisation and given Apple's camera prowess it should hopefully be able to give the Note 5 a run for its money.
OS
Here lies perhaps the biggest difference between the two phones, as while the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 runs Android 5.1, the iPhone 6S Plus runs iOS 9. By now you probably know whether you're an iOS or an Android person, but while there are differences between them they're both exceedingly polished operating systems by this point, with a massive selection of apps.Battery
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has a 3,020 mAh battery, which is a slight downgrade from the 3,220 mAh juice pack found in the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, but its performance isn't too terrible, standing up to a day of fairly heavy use between charges. With fast and wireless charging supported it's easy to get it juiced up again too.The iPhone 6S Plus is likely to offer a day or more of battery life too. Apple hasn't confirmed exactly how big the juice pack is, but the official stats are identical to the iPhone 6 Plus at up to 24 hours of talk time or 14 hours of HD video.
Price and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 can be grabbed for around $740 SIM free, but sadly only if you're in the US, as that's the only part of the Western world where you can currently buy the phone.The iPhone 6S Plus is launching for £619 ($749, AU$1,229) and up, so it's similarly priced, but far more widely available.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 can go toe-to-toe with the iPhone 6S Plus in every area, with both phones offering a stylish design, lots of power, impressive cameras, great screens and speedy fingerprint scanners.
They're clearly two of the best phablets on the planet and with similar price tags too the real decision is whether you'd rather run iOS or Android.
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iPhone 6S vs OnePlus 2
The OnePlus 2 has been heavily billed as a 'flagship killer' and there's no bigger flagship than the iPhone 6S. Apple's latest superphone is set to take the world by storm and with a stylish metal build, smooth performance, a promising camera and impressive features, such as 3D Touch and Touch ID, it's no wonder.
The OnePlus 2 is no slouch either though, with powerful innards, a big screen, a fingerprint scanner and a comparatively low price. But is it really good enough to 'kill' the iPhone 6S?
Design
The OnePlus 2 has a better design than the OnePlus One, but there's still room for improvement. Its metal frame gives it a premium edge, but it's not quite the slimmest phone around at 9.9mm thick, while its back cover is a rough plastic affair.
It's certainly easy to grip, but it doesn't look or feel particularly great. Fortunately if you stump up a little extra cash there are some more exotic and interesting options you can swap it for, such as bamboo or Kevlar.
Apple almost never disappoints with its designs and while the iPhone 6S is rather similar to the iPhone 6 it still looks great. A slim 7.1mm metal unibody with curved edges ensures it looks and feels like a sleek flagship and it's clearly a better looking phone than the standard metal and plastic version of the OnePlus 2.
Display
The iPhone 6S has a 4.7-inch screen, which makes it fairly compact by flagship standards. That may appeal though and if you want something larger there's always the iPhone 6S Plus.It's a 1334 x 750 screen, so it's fairly sharp and as usual from Apple you can expect good contrast and great colour reproduction.
The OnePlus 2 has a 1080p display, but it's a far larger 5.5-inch one, with a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch. It's a little sharper then but it's not the best screen we've ever come across. However it has good viewing angles and can be pumped up to a high brightness for improved outdoor viewing.
Power and performance
With a (likely dual-core) Apple A9 processor the iPhone 6S might not sound like a super powerful handset, but that's actually a significant upgrade over the iPhone 6 and that older phone has no problem running most apps and games.The OnePlus 2 has a 1.8GHz octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM, all of which leads to moderately impressive performance, though it can get a bit toasty during extended gaming sessions and the home button sometimes takes a moment to respond.
Camera
Apple almost always delivers an impressive camera and it certainly looks like it has with the iPhone 6S. The handset has a 12MP sensor on the back and a 5MP one on the front, which are big megapixel boosts over the great iPhone 6 camera.We'll let you know in our review whether more megapixels have translated into better pictures, but we're hopeful that this will be a class leading camera.
The OnePlus 2's snapper is good but certainly not flagship killing. It has a 13MP sensor on the back and a 5MP one on the front, so similar to the iPhone 6S. Plus it benefits from optical image stabilisation and a laser autofocus to help you snap photos fast and reduce camera shake.
So far so good and in practice it can take decent pictures, especially impressing in low light conditions, but the results are generally good rather than great.
OS
The iPhone 6S ships with iOS 9, which takes everything good about iOS 8 and builds on it, including adding new features to Siri and Apple Maps. It's not a complete overhaul but it smooths off some of the few remaining rough edges in the OS.The iPhone 6S also has 3D Touch, which adds a new way to interact with the phone, allowing it to respond differently to light and hard presses. It's a bit like the way you can get different options by tapping or long pressing an icon on many handsets, but with it records pressure instead.
The OnePlus 2 doesn't have any fancy pressure sensitive tech, but it does have a pretty great interface. It runs Android 5.1 skinned with Oxygen OS, which keeps the Android look and layout but adds a bunch of extra options, such as being able to launch the torch or camera by drawing a shape on the screen.
Battery
At 3,300mAh the OnePlus 2 has a larger battery than most 2015 flagships and it lasts a little longer than many too, comfortably seeing you through a day even if you push it a bit, but it won't likely last through a second day or even a second morning.The iPhone 6S probably won't have quite as good battery life, as we're expecting similar performance to the just-about-a-day life iPhone 6, but we'll let you know when we've properly put it to the test.
Price and availability
Price is one thing the OnePlus 2 really has going in its favour, as you can pick it up from £239 ($329, around AU$517). That's ludicrously cheap for a flagship phone, but sadly actually buying it is a little trickier, as it's invite only.The iPhone 6S has the sort of price you'd expect from a flagship, starting at £539 ($649, AU$1,079). In other words it's almost double what the OnePlus 2 costs, but it is arguably a slightly more premium phone.
You won't need an invite to buy the iPhone 6S, but stock may initially be limited given the huge demand for it.
Verdict
The biggest thing the OnePlus 2 has going for it is its price tag, as it's hard to justify paying almost double for the iPhone 6S. Price aside the OnePlus 2 is pretty great too, thanks to flagship specs, a good camera and an improved design.
That said if money is no object the iPhone 6S looks like it could well be the better handset, with a more premium build, a likely better camera and innovative features such as 3D Touch.
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Interview: Lenovo: 'Gaming PCs are like sports cars - the first thing you do is show them off'
Introduction
Lenovo took PC gaming by the scruff of the neck at this year's IFA 2015 expo, launching a plethora of gaming laptops, desktops and 2-in-1s featuring eye-catching cases and packing Intel's latest Skylake processors.The company also rolled out a number of new gaming peripherals as part of its Y-series of accessories, including a mechanical keyboard, a headset and a mouse. Aware that gamers prefer to look fashionable while fragging, it tasked a single design team with keeping the look and feel of its new products consistent. If glowing red lights and angular hardware is your thing, you'll probably think it succeeded.
TechRadar sat down with Lenovo's global PC design and marketing chief Dhilip Bhatia to find out what gamers want from their pre-built PCs, Lenovo's push into peripherals and whether it will ever launch a 2-in-1 that could rival today's most powerful gaming laptops.
TechRadar: What was behind Lenovo's decision to go big on peripherals with the launch of its new gaming systems?
Dhilip Bhatia: We asked gamers what else they buy with their systems, and they said things like headsets and mousepads. We figured out that if they're already purchasing systems, why not make it simple and easy for gamers to get a complete systems with accessories and offer that flexibility. We have one design team that looks at both notebook and desktop accessories, so the products match visually.
TechRadar: What do gamers want when it comes to the pre-built systems themselves?
DB: If you look at the PC hardware market, it's growing faster than anything else out there. We think it could be a 27 to 30 billion dollar market by 2017 or 2018. That's why we've invested in this area, and we're talked to a number of gamers to see what's missing.
The key feedback is that they want open solutions. Our competitors have proprietary solutions, so we're providing standard ATX motherboard, standard power supplies and cooling solutions.
TR: With the Ideacentre Y900, where did the idea of having a transparent side panel and removable panels come from?
DB: We observed gamers and found that they like to show off their systems to their friends, so we said hey, why don't we come up with a transparent solution. We even painted the clean-cable routing inside. It's like showing somebody a car. When you buy a sports car the first thing you do is open up the hood and show somebody the engine inside. The inside is important, but the outside is just as important. Sure we care about stuff like frames per second and low lag time, but you need a PC's design to look and feel attractive.
TR: The Y900's case is really handy for doing things like installing a cooling solution or clearing out the dust. Are there any plans to offer the case separately for people who want to build their own rigs?
DB: No - there aren't any plans to offer the chassis on its own. There are plenty of companies who do that, but we're focused on people who may want to tinker but don't have a lot of time.
TR: What overclocking capabilities does the Y900 have?
DB: Its customisable chassis goes a long way to helping gamers overclock the system. They can install a 1000w power supply, or a put a water-cooled system in there. The Y900 uses industry standard parts - that's the whole idea of it.
TR: Why did you launch two different laptops in the Medion Erazer and the Y700. Why not just one or the other?
DB: The Erazer is typically for customers in Germany. We have a long history of customers who buy Medion Erazer products there - it's a huge fanbase. Do we want to converge the product lines at somepoint? Maybe, but given that our customer base is slightly different in Germany versus the rest of the world, we decided to stick with Medion right now.
TR: Lenovo kicked off the 2-in-1 craze with its Yoga line of products. It seems that all that's missing is a really beefy gaming hybrid. Why haven't you made one yet?
DB: It's certainly a market we'll keep an eye on. The ThinkPad Yoga 460 actually has a discrete processor, and we have a number of other Yoga systems available with discrete graphics and capabilities. Are they high-end? I'm not sure yet, but it's an area we're already involved in.
TR: Lenovo hasn't really launched a super-thin gaming laptop like a Razer Blade just yet. Is the preference still towards performance rather than portability, and would you say that the trade-off isn't worth it for gamers at the moment?
DB: It all depends on how mobile we want to make a gaming laptop. Performance is the number one thing that maters. That's why we've focused on keeping the Y700 balanced. Sure we could make it thinner and lighter, but then the cost goes up. It's about hitting the sweet spot between power and portability.
TR: Gamers aren't usually bothered about touchscreens on laptops, so why did you put one on the Y700?
DB: That's a general move across all of our notebooks. Take the Yoga 3 Pro for example - we put a high-end display on there because certain applications can take advantage of the resolution. It's actually optional, and about giving people a choice.
TR: For many gamers, Windows 10 will make them feel like they've got a brand-new PC. Why should they care about Skylake?
DB: As Intel has pointed out, Skylake can give a three-year old PC a 33 per cent performance bump and a huge graphics bump, so it depends on what you're buying. If you're just playing basic games then you probably don't need Skylake, but if you need the best hardware, it's the way to go.
TR: The IdeaPad Miix 700 uses Intel's Core M7 processor, so who is it aimed at? More casual buyers who make pick up a Surface 3, or people who may want a more fully-fledged computer like a Surface Pro 3?
DB: We're focused on our target segments, and the feedback from our customers is that they want an affordable tablet - not everyone wants a full-sized PC. Some of our customers are attractived toward the mobility of a tablet that's also a PC, and those are the people the Miix 700 is targeted at. Value plays a big part there.
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Don't take your waterproof Xperia Z5 underwater, says Sony
Bad news if you were planning to take your Xperia Z5 for a dip: In a change to its guidelines for the device, Sony says you shouldn't take the device underwater, and you'll void its warranty if you do.
Waterproofing has long been a key selling point of the Xperia line, and the Z5 has the highest possible IP68 rating for water and dust resistance. That means it's been tested by being immersed in fresh water for 30 minutes in depths of up to 1.5 metres.
However, the language used on Sony's website has changed: "The IP rating of your device was achieved in laboratory conditions in standby mode, so you should not use the device underwater," the new policy says.
Making a splash
In other words, Sony can't guarantee that swimming and snapping photos won't damage your handset, because it didn't test the phone in every possible scenario. It remains one of the best handsets for waterproofing, however."There are... many environmental factors which we could not assess [during testing]," explains a Sony representative in a forum post. "Therefore we recommend not submerging our Xperia Z5 in water."
The updated guidelines apply to all three models of the Xperia Z5 and you can read them for yourself on the official Sony website. "You should not put the device completely underwater or expose it to seawater, salt water, chlorinated water or liquids such as drinks," it says.
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iPhone 6S vs Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is not only one of the most beautiful smartphones Samsung has ever built but one of the best and most stylish handsets ever.
A premium design, stunning screen, innovative features and loads of power propel it close to the top of the pile. But Apple's phones have always enjoyed a place at or near the top of the smartphone heap and the iPhone 6S is no exception, with a beautiful build of its own and plenty of flagship features.
Design
The iPhone 6S inherits a lot from the iPhone 6, with a similar metal unibody and a slim 7.1mm build. It looks great and oozes premium appeal, but it also looks like last year's phone.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge on the other hand is something a little different. Its metal frame and glass back may conjure visions of the Sony Xperia Z3+ but with a more rounded design, not to mention a dual curved display, it's actually quite unique and sure to turn heads. It's also ever so slightly slimmer than Apple's phone at 7.0mm thick.
Display
The iPhone 6S has a 4.7-inch screen with a 1334 x 750 resolution with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch, which is the same as the iPhone 6 and dwarfed by the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge's 5.1-inch 1440 x 2560 display.That gives it a ludicrously high pixel density of 577 pixels per inch, which is arguably overkill, but there's no denying that it's sharper than a razor blade and with the help of Super AMOLED screen technology it's rich and vivid too, though the iPhone 6S with its IPS LCD screen tends towards slightly more natural colours.
The other thing we have to mention here is the dual curved design of the S6 Edge's screen. Not only does it look good but it actually adds new features to the phone. Though, er, nothing particularly vital.
The main feature is the ability to get an overview of notifications and messages on the edge screen without lighting up the main display, but it's limited and temperamental.
Power and performance
One thing you can always count on from a new flagship is more power and the iPhone 6S doesn't disappoint. It has a new Apple A9 processor, which should give it a significant boost over the iPhone 6.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge has plenty of oomph too though, with 3GB of RAM and an octa-core Exynos 7420 processor, which has four cores clocked at 2.1GHz and the other four running at 1.5GHz. It's an extremely fast phone but we expect the iPhone 6S will offer similar real world performance.
Camera
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is capable of taking sublime photos and it's no wonder given it has a powerful 16MP snapper with optical image stabilisation on the back and a 5MP camera on the front. It's fast, full of options and strong in almost all conditions.
It's too early to say exactly how good the iPhone 6S's snapper will be, but it seems likely that it will be an upgrade over the already impressive camera on the iPhone 6, especially as it's been upped to a 12MP sensor on the back and a 5MP one on the front.
We'll let you know how it stacks up once we've thoroughly put it to the test, but we're optimistic that alongside the Galaxy S6 Edge it will be one of 2015's best camera phones.
OS
Your choice of OS is every bit as important as your choice of phone and there's quite a lot to choose between the iOS 9-equipped iPhone 6S and the Android Lollipop-powered Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.While both are slick and polished it is worth considering whether you'd rather tie yourself into Google's ecosystem or Apple's.
There are differences in the available apps too. Not as many as their once was, with both OS's offering well over a million apps, but iOS has a slightly better selection of premium ones. On the other hand Android is stillthe more open and customisable OS.
The other difference is as much a screen technology as an OS feature, but with 3D Touch the iPhone 6S can tell the difference between different amounts of pressure when you're tapping and a light press will often result in a different outcome to a hard one, giving you one more way to interact with the device.
Battery
One thing which didn't overly impress us about the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge was its battery life, as its 2,600mAh juice pack struggles to see it through a day if you use the handset as more than just a phone.While we're not expecting amazing things from the iPhone 6S's battery the suggestions from Apple are that it should have the same longevity as the iPhone 6, which would mean a little more endurance than what we've seen from Samsung's phone, so you'll hopefully at least be able to get to bed time before plugging it in.
Still, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge does support fast charging, so if you need to juice it up part way through the day you can do so quite quickly.
Price and availability
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is currently available from around £460 ($600, AU$1000), while the iPhone 6S retails for £539 ($649, AU$1,079), so Apple's phone is a little more expensive in most regions, but then it's also newer, so that's to be expected. Neither phone is cheap though, with both packing flagship prices.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is widely available though and while the iPhone 6S is sure to be sold just about everywhere it's going to be in high demand, so it may sell out.
Verdict
With the Galaxy S6 Edge Samsung has finally made a flagship that can compete with the aesthetics of the iPhone as well as the specs.
Both handsets look great, they're both powerful and both have fingerprint scanners. The iPhone 6S is likely to be able to rival the S6 Edge's impressive camera too and it might also achieve better battery life.
It's a little more expensive though and it doesn't have as sharp (or as curvy) a screen. It's too soon to say for sure which phone is best, but they're both clear flagships that do their makers proud.
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WEEK IN GAMING: Augmented Reality is the new Virtual Reality (and also the new regular reality)
"Ooooh, Oculus Rift," says General Public Member Number One. "It's so cool, and when i put it on my head, I feel like my head is twice the size. That means I have more brains."
"Yes," agrees General Public Member Number Two, sipping daintily from a china cup. "I like the way I walk into walls when I am wearing it, and also how I stood on my cat that one time. It reminds me that I am in another world! Teehee!"
And that's where I step in, knocking aside their china cups, causing their monocles to pop cartoonishly from their widened eye sockets. I inform them that Virtual Reality is soooo last year, and they nod gratefully as I orate on the virtues of Augmented Reality and how it's clearly at least a billion times better. Then I stomp on their china cups for good measure, and go off to spread the word amongst the people. Such is my life.
Virtual Reality is cool, don't get me wrong - but VR has been around for ages, and just like your parents and the acronym "lol", it's just not cool anymore. It had its time. Augmented Reality makes me go "oooh" in ways VR never did - whether that's the simplistic photo mode on the 3DS which plonks your favourite Nintendo characters onto your desk, hand or face, or something way more complex like Xbox's E3 presentation of Minecraft on Hololens. VR is basically just a first-person game inside your face; AR is magical technological WIZARDRY.
The reason it's so much better (I suppose I should say this is my personal and incredibly subjective view, but I'm definitely right, oh yeah) is that it weaves reality and virtuality together, just like we always have done in our minds. Even the word is cool. AUGMENTED. It means "made better", and it does make everything better: Hololens magician Kudo Tsunoda used it to recreate his son's drawing, medical professionals can use it to actually see body parts without having to have a dead person to prod around in, and you can make Pikachu sit on your hand, which is basically society's greatest achievement to date.
One of the reasons AR is on my mind at the moment is Pokemon Go, which is single-handedly proving that Nintendo know what its doing with their new mobile game division, and they aren't just going to make free-to-play Mario games. Pokemon Go is a location-based AR Pokemon game, and if that doesn't make you all tingly like you've just rubbed minty shower gel into your bits, then I'm afraid I can't help you.
Just to summarise: Nintendo is making a Pokemon game that takes place in the real world. Picture this: you're sitting on the tube, and all the commuters around you are moping in their sweat-stained seats, eyes glazed as they attempt to read the news story about Rita Ora's new bum tattoo. You get your phone out of your pocket, and the world's most depressing tube ride turns into a magical fantasy zoo filled with electric mice and small flammable dragons.
Augmented Reality will augment life. Sure, it's not perfect yet, and I don't doubt that even Pokemon Go will have some horrific stories like Bulbasaur climbing out of a toilet or Caterpie being projected into porn, but it's not hard to imagine AR being a cornerstone of society in a couple of decades - just like all those sci-fi movies predicted. I'm excited. Life could always do with a little bit of augmenting.
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Samsung Galaxy S7 tipped for dual camera, February launch
A new batch of rumours hit the web over the weekend, giving us a few more pieces of the Samsung Galaxy S7 jigsaw puzzle. Quite a number of them confirm details we've already heard on the grapevine.
Korean media outlets are reporting that Samsung is testing a dual camera system (like the one in the HTC One M8) - one camera takes the picture and the other scans for depth and other information. It lets you change the point of focus on the fly and offers a few other tricks too.
Then there's the screen size: the new speculation has this pegged at 5.7-inches (a big jump from the 5.1-inch Galaxy S6), partly in response to the success of the Galaxy Note 5. An earlier leak hinted that we could see two sizes of the Galaxy S7, one matching last year's model and a larger one.
Internal specs
Moving on to the guts of the phone, it sounds like Samsung is planning models powered by both the Snapdragon 820 and its own Exynos M1. Apparently the latter will get the "lion's share" of the line-up.Finally there's word that the phone is going to appear in February, way ahead of the MWC event in March when we usually see new Samsung hardware. That would fit in with earlier reports of the S7 being ahead of schedule - Samsung obviously wants to squash the iPhone 6S as soon as possible.
Rumours and leaks will continue to drip down the supply chain as the months go by, and by the time 2016 rolls around we should have a fairly good idea of what the Galaxy S7 is going to look like.
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