The world's hottest tech towns – and what makes them tick
Introduction
We've all heard of
Silicon Valley
– home to headline-grabbing US firms like Apple, Google, Facebook and
Twitter among many others – but there are several other global cities
that are just as important in the worldwide electronics and IT business.
We are talking about the places where electronics are actually
manufactured, where tech startups are sprouting like nowhere else, and
where the IT sector dominates. Silicon Valley might be where it all
started, but California has plenty of competition.
Santa Clara County: Silicon Valley
Let's
start with the capital of computing for the Western world, which gets
its name from the humble silicon chip (Semiconductor Valley doesn't
sound nearly as good) despite it being increasingly a centre of startup,
venture capital, product design and tech concepts rather than finished
products.
Although it represents one of the world's biggest ever
entrepreneurial explosions, Silicon Valley has become such a generic
term for the US-based tech industry that it's easy to forget its
geography. Silicon Valley is the nickname for the Santa Clara County
area around the city of San Jose in Northern California, which is part
of the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Stretched over 45 miles,
Silicon Valley towns like Palo Alto, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Mountain
View are home to the HQs of Apple, Google, Intel, HP, Oracle, Facebook,
Evernote, eBay, Agilent, Adobe… the list is endless.
As a visitor
there's little to see unless you're an industry bod with a stack of
meetings, but near to Google's HQ in Mountain View is the
Computer History Museum.
It's
now as much about wise investment decisions and innovative services as
about engineering degrees and technical know-how, but why is there an
unbeatable entrepreneurial ecosystem here?
Hewlett-Packard
(created in 1939 and generally thought of as the initiator), Stanford
and Berkeley universities, the US Navy's early experiments with radio,
all played a critical part in creating a post-war tech industry where
teams of engineers moved between companies and helped create names that
still reverberate today, such as Intel and Apple. It also didn't hurt
that the area was all fields and orchards, so land was cheap.
Shenzhen: Electronics capital of the world
Shenzhen is where capitalism and communism bust into each other – and an
iPhone pops out. The iPhone might say 'designed in California', but what it should say is 'born in Shenzhen'.
The
home of Foxconn (maker of gadgets for Apple, Microsoft, Sony and scores
of others) and hundreds of other manufacturing facilities that together
create
90% of the globe's electronics,
the vast and growing metropolis of Shenzhen has become the world's
major manufacturing hub in the twenty-first century, taking over from
Taiwan.
It's just a short drive or train ride from Hong Kong in
the vast Pearl River Delta, and it's growing exponentially fast. Why is
it here? The city's success can be traced back to the Special Economic
Zone status conferred on a tiny fishing village back in 1979, China's
first. It's attracted so many people that overcrowding is now a serious
problem; the population of Shenzhen now stands at 15 million.
It's
a city that is attempting to make the transition from industrial centre
to tourist hotspot, though events like the Shenzhen Open provide only
sporadic reasons to visit. If you are in town – likely as a side-trip
from Hong Kong – check out the bizarre recreations of the Eiffel Tower,
Taj Mahal and the Pyramids at the Window of the World, as well as Sung
Hing Square and the vast Luohu Commercial City shopping district.
Shenzhen
is increasingly a place of startups, product designers and capital – as
evidenced by the presence of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange – and China's
Silicon Valley is nothing short of the electronics capital of the world.
Stockholm: Home of the subscription economy
Did
you know that Spotify, Linux, Candy Crush, Skype and Minecraft creator
Mojang are all from Stockholm in Sweden? Increasingly known for far more
than the Nobel Prize, Abba and Volvo, the 800,000-strong capital of
Sweden is fast becoming famous for some of the globe's most recognisable
and successful tech services and apps.
Stockholm has almost as
many tech startups as Silicon Valley, with as much as €2.6 billion
(around £1.9 billion, or $2.9 billion) being generated per year from
Nordic tech company exports, more than half of this coming from Sweden.
A
nation of digital natives, Sweden has an outward-looking perspective,
fast broadband (1,200,000km of fibre optic cable that could wrap around
the planet 30 times) and great English skills – three key ingredients
for effective competition in the tech industry. It also has a
historically strong engineering sector and a high internet penetration
rate.
However, a further innovation that has helped put
Stockholm-based companies on the front-foot is the subscription-based
business model pioneered by Spotify. The key physical landmarks
tech-wise are Stockholm's Kista Science Park and the Royal Institute of
Technology.
Tokyo: High-tech innovation HQ
Can
Tokyo still claim to be one of the world's hottest tech cities? Despite
the incessant competition from China and especially from Seoul in South
Korea, Tokyo remains a digital city like no other. Where else do you
get iPads instead of menus, electronic toothpick dispensers, robotic
toilets and bullet trains?
However, there is a good argument to
be had over how long Tokyo can retain its grasp on all things tech. For
now it's the home of Sony and its PlayStation empire, though the glory
days of Japanese consumer electronics giants like Sony, Panasonic,
Sharp, Fujitsu and Hitachi in TVs, laptops and smartphones are surely
on the slide.
However, the likes of Nikon, Canon, Epson and Yamaha are bucking that
trend, and the precision robotics and automation industry is booming.
Japan
is a country where people of all ages are completely at ease with
technology, and it shows in Tokyo. Easily the most fun of all the cities
featured here to visit, a trip around Tokyo's Akihabara Electric Town
is a must-do for any visiting tech-head. Expect
instant language translation tech and more to debut at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which could also see the
birth of Ultra HD 8K.
Bengaluru: India's Silicon Valley
Bengaluru
(formerly known as Bangalore) in the southern state of Karnataka,
India, is home to a host of 'Bangalore tiger' companies like InfoSys,
Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro who handle operations, database
management and much more for global brands.
The epicentre of
India's high-tech and outsourcing industry, and a hub of software and
services development, the highly skilled IT workforce and unrivalled
market opportunities (India has a population of 1.25 billion) is making
affluent Bengaluru an IT investment hotspot.
The IT market in
India is booming, with massive growth in big data and analytics software
and services expected to help make the sector worth around $12 billion
(about £7.8 billion, or AU$16.5 billion) in 2015. That's no wonder; half
the population of India is under 35 – the biggest proportion of youth
anywhere in the world – and the country has the third largest online
population in the world. It's also got a fast growing middle class.
Aside
from the 43-acre Infosys Campus at Electronic City – where 20,000
people live in a self-contained town – green and spacious Bengaluru is a
great place to visit, with Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace and the grand
Graeco-Roman styled Vidhana Soudha high on tourist itineraries.
However,
wherever you go in India the huge gap between rich and poor is
inescapable – this is a place where the tech industry's reputation as
being at the sharp end of capitalism rings truer than anywhere else.
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We're double jumping with joy over the upcoming Black Hops III beer
If
you’re a gamer who doesn’t reside in the UK, you’re likely feeling a
tad jealous (and slightly parched) over the prospect of missing out on
the UK-exclusive
Fallout beer from Bethesda and Carlsberg that was announced earlier in the week.
Now
Australia has gotten in on the exclusive video game beer scene, with
Activision announcing its own beer to celebrate its upcoming shooter,
Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
The pun-tastically named Black Hops III: Midnight Pale Ale will be available in a limited run from the online beer store
BeerBud from November 2nd, just four days before the game’s release on Friday, November 6.
Unlike
the Fallout beer, which has simply thrown a Fallout label on an
existing Carlsberg beer, Black Hops III is an Australian craft beer
exclusively created for the release of next Call of Duty installment by
Black Hops Brewing – a Gold Coast brewery started by Michael McGovern, Eddie Oldfield and Dan Norris.
We
can assume that it will be better than the (presumably
room-temperature) Fallout Carlsberg beer because it is Australian, and
it’s a scientific fact that Australian craft beer is the best beer.
Take that, England (and Denmark).
Read More ...
Windows Movie Maker is most popular video editing package says techradar Pro survey
Video
editing is one of the few tasks that have truly benefitted from the
rise in computational power, the ever decreasing price of resources
(memory and storage) and the rise of multiple form factors. Who would
have thought a few years ago that you'd be able to grab 4K footage on a
£200 smartphone?
A survey carried out by techradar Pro revealed
some surprising trends amongst our readers who edit videos including
some trends that might indicate where the market is heading in a near
future.
More than 1000 respondents indicated that they edit videos
with the overwhelming majority considering themselves either as total
novice or amateurs.
While the desktop remains the platform of
choice for video editing purposes for nearly half of respondents,
laptops have caught up rapidly with more than 38% of our video editors
claiming to use them.
Desktop PC remains the best platform for
those looking for sheer value for money. However, laptops offer more
flexibility especially if you want to work from different locations. As
expected smartphones and tablets gathered single digits as did the OSes
they run on (Android and iOS).
Truly mobile video editing still lagging
In
other words, Windows and OS X still remain the preferred operating
systems for video editing tasks with others offering little competition
for now.
As for video editing tools, not surprisingly most users
opted for free video editing software with Microsoft's Windows Movie
Maker capturing the top spot with more shares than the rest of the
competition put together. VirtualDub and Lightworks are a distant second
and third respectively.
Amongst paid for video editing software,
Adobe Premiere Elements remains the undisputed leader ahead of Cyberlink
Power Director and Sony Movie Studio.
Perhaps the most surprising
part of the survey was what was done to the final videos once edited.
As expected, most of you (about half of those who filled the survey)
store it on an external hard drive and about 15% store it on Youtube
with 8% trusting the cloud to take care of their beloved moving
pictures.
Online retailer Ebuyer provided with the giveaway prize, a
DIY video editing rig worth more than £500.
Read More ...
Review: LG CordZero Handstick
While it's safe to say that
Dyson has
revolutionised the cordless vacuum cleaner
space in recent years, there is still plenty of room for alternative
options in this booming market, especially if those alternatives provide
a different experience and sport a more affordable price tag ($449)
than what Dyson's products are currently selling for.
Introducing
LG's CordZero Handstick Vacuum, an attractive 2-in-1 vacuum solution
that combines impressive functionality with clever design to give you
more bang for your buck.
Having trouble deciding between a
dustbuster and a traditional handstick vacuum? Well, the LG CordZero
Handstick is both, which is perfect for people who find it impossible to
make decisions.
You can take the CordZero Handstick and transform
it into whatever you need it to be at any given time. It's that
adjustability of form that allows LG's CordZero Handstick to leave many
competing vacuum cleaners in its dust (if it actually left any behind to
begin with).
Design
The
LG CordZero Handstick Vacuum is somewhat unassuming at first glance.
Take a quick look at it, and you might disregard it as a completely
typical vacuum – kinda like a bagless version of one of those old
vacuums you see in 1950s movies (albeit more attractive).
It's only once you've taken a closer look at the device that you start to appreciate the genius of its design.
During your assemblage of the CordZero Handstick Vacuum, you'll notice that it comes with two yellow battery packs.
This
dual 'PowerPack' battery system gives you a total of around an hour of
suction time on 'regular mode', or around 40 minutes on the stronger
'power mode'.
Your spare battery pack sits in the Handstick's
accompanying stand and charging dock so that you can easily switch your
vacuum's battery out when it has run out of juice.
This gives the CordZero Handstick twice the battery life of a competing
Dyson device, eliminating the need to stop and wait several hours for your vacuum to charge up again.
Once
you've finished your vacuuming duties, you can simply drop the CordZero
on its charging stand and restore power to both battery packs
simultaneously.
As mentioned previously, the CordZero Handstick is
a transforming device, allowing you to detach the 'stick' part of this
vacuum and turn it into a hand-held dustbuster-style handy vacuum with
the press of a button.
In this form, you can use the vacuum to
clean inside cars and other confined areas. Quick-spot cleaning is also
possible with the inclusion of a built-in brush extender that can
flipped-out from underneath the vacuum with ease.
Once you're done using the CordZero in handy vacuum mode, you can simply click it back onto its stick body.
The
CordZero Handstick also features a 180-degree swivel head with a set of
LED lights on the front of it so that you can see better in dark areas,
like under beds.
And, speaking of LED, the device has an LED
battery indicator right below its power button, so you can clearly see
how much power the CordZero has left.
It also boasts an
Anti-Tangle Brush which should come in handy if you find yourself
cleaning up pet hair and shaggy carpets regularly.
In our time
using the CordZero, we did not experience a single instance of brush
blockage – something that has occurred with high frequency on some of
the Dyson units we've used in the past.
Performance
The
CordZero Handstick produces a decent amount of suction for what is
essential a fancy dustbuster sitting in a handstick frame.
Dirt,
crumbs, torn-up tissues were lifted with ease when used around an office
environment, and we rarely had to roll over the same area multiple
times.
It
won't be picking up bowling balls any time soon, but for everyday dirt,
dust and other floor junk, the CordZero Handstick is more than up to
the task.
It's 180-degree swivel head gives the vacuum a fair
amount of maneuverability, allowing you to turn on a dime (which you may
literally have to do from time to time) and around corners without much
struggle.
The roller itself performs well on bare surfaces though it will take a little more effort to push it around on carpeted areas.
One thing we noticed in our extensive use of the device is that the CordZero Handstick works best when held on an angle.
It's
quite easy to push the vacuum back and forth when held at a 70-degree
angle or below, though bringing it up an almost standing position tends
to leave it stuck in place, meaning you'll have to lean the handle back
to push it forward again.
It's a minor gripe that can be avoided
entirely once you've gotten used to using it at the intended angle, but
it did feel unpleasant on those occasions where we brought it up too
high and got stopped dead in our tracks.
In our experience, we
found that 40 minutes was more than enough time to complete our vacuum
duties, allowing us to use the CordZero Handstick at in power mode for
the entire duration of its use.
That's not to say that regular
mode is a slouch, either, but then who doesn't want to harness all the
suction power that's available to them?
Verdict
LG's
latest cordless vacuum is both functional and quite attractive to boot.
Its modular, lightweight design allows you to use it as a traditional
handstick vacuum or as a hand-held dustbuster-style vacuum with the
press of a single button, which is as clever as it is handy.
We
also appreciate the dual battery PowerPack system that allows us to
easily swap out power sources, giving it twice the suction time of its
cordless competitors.
Though its head can get stuck in place when
pulled back too far, and it's a little tougher to push around on
carpeted surfaces, its 180-degree swivel design adds a great deal of
maneuverability to this vacuum.
We also love its tangle-free roller head, which in our tests did not get jammed once.
If
you're looking for an affordable all-rounder of a vacuum that's free of
cords with better than normal battery life, LG's CordZero Handstick is
easy to recommend.
Read More ...
Hands-on review: 4GEE Capture Cam
Hands on: 4GEE Capture Camera review
EE surprised us all when it launched its 4G streaming
Action Cam
earlier this year, but the likes of GoPro now have another competitor
from the mobile network provider with the arrival of the 'world's first
wearable 4G streaming camera' in the 4GEE Capture Cam.
The Capture
Cam is smaller and lighter than its rugged brother, with it aimed at
casual users rather than those with overly active lifestyles. EE is not
just pitching this as a consumer device though, highlighting potential
benefits for business users as well.
The EE Capture Cam will be
launched before Christmas 2015, but we're still waiting on a firm
release date. Price wise I've been told the Capture Cam will cost less
than the £249 Action Cam - but exact details have not been released just
yet.
You need to be aware that it's not just the initial outlay
you need to cover - as the Capture Cam's live 4G streaming also
requiring you to shell out on a PAYG or Pay Monthly data plan so you can
share your walks in the park with friends in family.
Arriving
in time for Christmas, the Capture Cam could be a hit this festive
season if EE gets the pricing right - bring it in too expensive though
and I think it will be a difficult sell.
The easiest way to describe the general design of the EE Capture Cam? It looks like the Instagram logo.
The
cute, rounded block fits nicely in the palm and its rubberised exterior
makes it feel rugged. At 90g it's not too heavy either - you can
happily pop it in your pocket without it pulling down your jeans.
The camera sensor, which shoots HD video, is the main attraction on the front, while controls are located on top.
A
centralised shutter button flashes different colours depending on your
mode - pink/purple lets you know you're currently live streaming. Press
it twice and it'll give you a battery update by lighting up green,
orange or red.
On one side of the shutter there's a signal
indicator, while on the other is a toggle switch allowing you to select
either video or photo mode where you can take 8MP snaps.
On the
base a flag hides the SIM port, microSD slot and microUSB charging hole.
The Capture Cam supports microSD cards up to 64GB in size, allowing you
to record more footage on top of the 4GB of space built into the
camera.
Round
the back there's a handy clip built into the body of the camera,
allowing you to easily mount it on an item of clothing, belt, bag or
anything else you can find.
You also get an additional accessory
in the box which slides into the clip and makes the 4GEE Capture Cam
compatible with GoPro mounts - which is a nice touch.
The EE
Capture Cam comes with its own smartphone application which is available
on both iOS and Android. From here you can switch between live stream,
record and camera, get a viewfinder shot from the camera and see vital
information such as battery life and signal.
It's
a simple app with big buttons, and it looks very easy to set up. It's
worth noting that while the Capture Cam can record full HD, 1080p video,
when it comes to streaming over 4G the resolution is capped at 720p.
That's
not a great surprise, as it takes a lot of bandwidth to stream video in
real time, but it does mean that footage can look a little wonky.
During my brief time with the camera I noticed the live stream wasn't
always smooth, and there's some noticeable delay between camera and
smartphone.
EE
has partnered with Skeegle, allowing you to share your live stream
privately with friends and family. All you need to do is select the
people you want to share it with and hit stream, and they'll receive a
text with a web link where they can view the action.
They don't even need to sign up to Skeegle, just load the webpage and hit play on the video window.
Early verdict
The 4GEE Capture Cam is an interesting offering from the mobile network, as it double downs on its live streaming devices.
Aiming
it more at the wearable market shows the Capture Cam is much more of a
casual device rather than the Action Cam's active lifestyle focus.
This
isn't the camera pro-snowboards will be strapping to themselves before
they hit the slopes, it's aimed at those who want to share life moments
with a select few friends and family.
If EE can keep the cost to a
sub-£100 level I can see the Capture Cam grabbing some action over the
Christmas period, and its cutesy design and simple setup means those of
all ages can enjoy using it.
Read More ...
EE just launched the world's first wearable 4G streaming camera
It
seems EE isn't satisfied with having just one action camera on the
market, as it's launched its second offering this year - the 4GEE
Capture Cam.
It's being billed at the 'world's first wearable 4G
streaming camera', which is a pretty niche claim, so it will be
interesting to see how it performs.
The Capture Cam comes with a
4G SIM card inside, allowing you to live stream 720p video to friends
and family using the private sharing service Skeegle.
Life in HD
You
can also record in full HD, 1080p - but only if you save the footage to
the inbuilt 4GB of memory or on a microSD card you slide inside the
Capture Cam.
It's not just video though, as the Capture Cam can
also perform as an 8MP digital camera, and linked with the companion app
for iOS and Android you can use your smartphone as the viewfinder.
There's no word on price, but it will be cheaper than the
4GEE Action Cam, while the 4GEE Capture Cam release date is set for 'before Christmas 2015.'
Read More ...
Happy 60th birthday, Bill Gates
Introduction
Bill Gates' parents wanted him to be a lawyer.
What
if he had followed through with his parents' plan and studied pre-law
at Harvard instead of founding Microsoft. Would he be arguing cases
before the Supreme Court? Would he be sitting on the Supreme Court?
(Probably the latter.)
One thing is clear, no matter his
profession, Bill Gates would probably be good at it. We're just lucky he
chose computers instead of litigation.
Because without Bill Gates
and Microsoft, we'd still be thinking of computers as those IBM
machines office workers ran away from every weekday at five o'clock.
A BASIC beginning
Sixty
years ago today, William Henry Gates III was born. And a mere twenty
years after that, Gates and partner Paul Allen formed Microsoft (or
Micro-Soft, as it was then known) in order to sell their BASIC
interpreter for the MITS Altair 8800.
What the hell does that
mean? It means that Gates and co. put a boot in the ass of computing and
sent it careening onto the den desk. BASIC made it possible for the
average hobbyist to interact with a computer. No more time-sharing at
the local university or spaghetti-only diets in order to afford a
personal computer. The revolution would not be televised; it would be
found in your home, on your desktop, with Microsoft's Altair BASIC.
But
in 1976, Microsoft's first year of operation, few in the tech industry
saw it that way. In the early years of computing, hardware was king –
IBM had grown into a multi-national behemoth because of the success of
its time clocks and punch-card readers. Gates, however, envisioned a
different paradigm, one where software would supplant hardware as the
dominant driver of the computing space.
And thanks to the Microsoft-spurred rise of the home computing market, he was right.
One OS to rule them all
Over
the course of the 80's and 90's the rapidly decreasing cost of the
personal computer led to a rapidly increasing presence in households.
The "computer in every den" had joined "the chicken in every pot, and
the car in every garage" as an American aphorism.
And that was due in no small part to Bill Gates' Microsoft.
Microsoft's
DOS and later Windows operating systems came to dominate this new
market, thanks to their compatibility with most, if not all, non-Apple
PC's. What did consumers see whenever they pressed the power button on
their new Dells and Compaqs and Gateway 2000s? Gates' signature, flying,
multicolor-paned Windows logo.
As consumers increasingly
associated their home computing experience with Microsoft operating
systems, application developers (at least those keen on maximizing
profits) were forced to do the same.
In this way, Gates bent the
home computing market into a Microsoft feedback loop. Average Joe and
Jane used Windows because it came bundled in with their new home
computer. Developers coded their "killer apps" for Windows because
that's what the Average Joe and Jane had on their shiny new desktop. And
Average Tim and Kim, in order to get that awesome word processing
program Average Joe talked up at the last PTA meeting, had to get a
computer with this "Windows thing" otherwise Tim and Kim wouldn't be
able use Joe's touted word processor.
Clearly this was great for Bill Gates, but it wasn't bad for Average Joe and Jane either.
Just
as BASIC made it possible for hobbyists to access a personal computer,
DOS and Windows made it possible for the rest of us. Now Average Joe
could easily use and (more importantly) afford a technology previously
limited to businesses, tech-geeks and academics.
The internet tidal wave
Fairly
early on, Gates recognized the Internet would have a profound impact on
society. In his "Internet Tidal Wave" memo from 1995 he famously
described the Internet as the "most important single development to come
along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981."
Riding the internet tidal wave
It
was natural then that Windows 95 came bundled with Microsoft's web
browser, Internet Explorer. For many consumers (due to 95's incredible
market penetration), IE was their introduction to the World Wide Web.
With
a 95% usage share during its peak, IE is one of the most broadly used
applications Microsoft has ever produced. It won't be remembered for its
usability, but it will go down in history for helping to bring the
internet to everyone.
Xbox marks the spot
If Internet
Explorer fueled the Internet's rocket in the late 90's, Microsoft's
first gaming console, Xbox, would send it into orbit in the new
millennium.
While
not the first platform to introduce online gaming, Xbox, like many a
Gates product, made it a part of the zeitgeist. It was the first home
console to give gamers a built-in Ethernet port and a dedicated
cross-game networking platform. This platform, called Xbox Live, pushed
demand for an Internet fast enough to play Xbox games, and eventually
pulled America out of the dial-up age and into the broadband era. As the
YouTube's, Netflix's and Hulu's of the world feast on high-speed
Internet, this was a technological turn with powerful economic
consequences.
The world doesn't need another lawyer
Operating
systems and the Internet and are not Bill Gates inventions, but his
vision of what they could do – and who they were for – spawned the
technological ecosystem that we have today.
Yes, Apple gets the design awards, but it's Microsoft that's made technology something your grandfather can and wants to use.
So what kind of world would we be living in if Bill Gates
had
become a lawyer? No one can say for sure, but no doubt it would be
slower and smaller – and full of people sitting through commercials on
live TV.
Read More ...
Review: HTC One A9
Introduction
Let's
get a couple of things straight: the HTC One A9 isn't a flagship phone,
which explains why so many iconic elements have been left out. And yes,
it looks a lot like an
iPhone 6S.
But
that would miss the point of this phone. It's a 'fashion' device, one
for those that want a slightly cheaper smartphone with decent build and
some attractive specs, sitting apart from the usual bun-fight for
attention that happens twice a year when Sony, Samsung, HTC, LG and
Apple throw their new phones into the ring.
I'll get to the points
about design later on in the review, but let's deal with something now -
this is an iPhone in shape to the untrained eye, something most people
commented on when they saw this phone.
The argument is already
raging about whether or not this is HTC's DNA in the phone (the brand
did popularise the metal-body-with-plastic-strips look on the original
One) but the fact is: it looks like an iPhone 6S.
Whether
Apple copied HTC or HTC copied Apple is irrelevant. The iPhone is the
world's most popular single device and as such is easily identifiable.
Any brand that makes a phone that looks remotely similar does so with
both eyes open.
The desire to have this specific 'flat body,
rounded edges' look on the One A9 has led to a few things going missing,
things that are iconic elements of the HTC brand. The biggest loss is
to the Boomsound speakers on the front of the phone, which were an
integral part of why I loved to recommend HTC devices.
These
have been replaced with a small mono speaker at the bottom as HTC tried
to find ways to slim the device down and have a fingerprint sensor on
the front of the phone too.
Let's
leave the 'who copied who' debate and focus on what this phone actually
is: a well-made Nexus phone blended with a few touches of HTC's smarts.
Because it won't be a phone that any fan of the Taiwanese brand will
recognise on a software level, such is the integration with Android
Marshmallow.
The interface is much, much closer to stock Android
than ever, with loads of HTC's apps being dropped in favor of just
presenting the Google options - this is a phone that's designed to be
sleek when it comes to software, raising up the best parts of the new
Android OS instead of HTC putting its own stamp on the phone.
It's
stripped-back, clean and easy to use with just a hint of HTC's touch on
top. It's a Nexus with less of a Google stamp on it, with more freedom
from the manufacturer to create the phone it wants.
There's an
issue around price though. In the US the HTC One A9 will be coming at
$399 until November 7, when it raises to $499. In the UK, however, it'll
launch at £429, which is about $650, and that's for a lower-spec phone.
In
the US, there's 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM - in the UK, 16GB and
2GB. I'll get on to what that means in terms of performance later on,
but it's an incredibly odd strategy to have the lower-spec model more
expensive in certain parts of the world.
Is this a phone that's
only designed to compete in the US? With the raft of excellent low-cost
phones from Motorola, OnePlus, Huawei and more in Europe it seems that
HTC is already giving up the fight with such a high price - which is a
shame, as this is a phone that treads a new path for the brand and,
largely, does it very well.
New camera, better battery and finger fun
In
terms of real innovation, there's not actually not that much to talk
about on the One A9, as HTC has refined, rather than revolutionized, the
parts of the phone its touting.
That's not to say that a brand
HAS to change everything just to placate an insatiable need from today's
consumer to have the latest and greatest elements in one place.
Sometimes
just putting together some good bits in an attractive package yields
something that's greater than the sum of its parts.
But HTC does
need to get those parts right - the wail claiming the brand is in
trouble has maintained for a year now, and while it can't make a silver
bullet handset that can halt that criticism, a decent device will start
to shift the momentum forwards, creating a space for the
HTC One M10 to build into and start really impressing.
Camera
The
camera on the One A9 isn't as good as some might have been expecting
from a phone like this - 13MP isn't enough to the spec fans. But it's
more than enough for day to day snapping, and combined with optical
image stabilisation it's a decent option.
For
instance, there's a RAW mode on there - this takes a little longer to
take pictures, but really does give you the full experience - and can
even automatically sharpen such snaps without needing to drag the pics
off the phone to a computer.
The pictures looks great on the
5-inch Full HD screen though - much better than the One M9. Zooming on
the snaps reveals very little in the way of over-processing, and it's
clear that HTC has worked hard to improve the camera on this phone to
ensure it doesn't see a repeat of the criticism it picked up for the
earlier model.
There are some issues - the speed of opening the
app and the shutter speed are far from industry-leading - but that,
again, is down to the chipset used.
Battery up-and-downgrade
Anyone
picking up a spec sheet will instantly be worried about the battery
life of the One A9 - it's gone from a 2850mAh cell to 2150mAh as it's
now got a much thinner frame to squish into.
Given HTC's never
been great at battery management (and generally, it's one of the worst
around in past flagships) this is never going to bode particularly well.
But,
the smaller power pack aside, there are many reasons to think HTC could
have solved the battery issue thanks to the improved efficiency of
Android Marshmallow, the sleeker software HTC's created and the lower-res Full HD screen (well, compared to the likes of the
Galaxy S6 and
LG G4).
The
phone supports Qualcomm's QuickCharge 2.0 standard for super-speedy
battery re-juicing, and will also get even better when v3.0 appears to
speed things up further and up efficiency.
Sadly, there's no
QuickCharge power block in the box, which is a real shame - HTC says
it's about giving users the choice, but in reality it's just a cost
saving exercise that sadly means most people will never get the benefit.
All about the tunes
HTC's
always been great at making its phones sound brilliant, whether it's
from using Boomsound front facing speakers, Dolby support to make movies
and music sound amazing, or just sticking a dedicated amplifier in the
mix to improve the level of sound output.
What's different this
year is that HTC has taken the stereo front-facing speakers off the
phone and shoved them into a mono speaker at the bottom of the handset.
This
is a bad move - given the fact this brand needs to maintain its
identity, to do the same thing as the iPhone and Samsung's flagships
seems a real shame.
Front-facing speakers genuinely offer
something different for the consumer, and there were multiple times in
this two week test when I bemoaned not being able to play music back by
just sticking my phone on the side while cooking or cleaning.
The
brand has added in a decent DAC to help upscale all sound a warmer (and
louder) analogue output, and combined with the 24-bit, 192Khz quality
that the One A9 is capable of, most of your tunes will sound a lot
better - the better your headphones, the better this will sound.
It'll
support Hi-Res audio files (FLAC etc) and just tune any other music
(even through Spotify) to make sure you get the best quality.
However,
it's hard to say whether this is going to be enough of a game-changer,
as LG, Samsung and Sony (the latter in particular) have been banging the
Hi-Res audio drum for a long time now, and it's not really setting the
world alight in terms of the 'must-have' feature of a new smartphone.
That
said, the sound output is really rather good - I found myself reaching
for the HTC One A9 when wanting to watch a new trailer or indulge in a
spot of Spotify music thanks to the richness and level of detail pumping
into my ears.
Is it needed? No, but it's a nice luxury.
Fingerprint scanner
No
new phone with Android on is complete without a fingerprint scanner,
and HTC's One A9 is no exception, allowing for biometric security to
lock your phone. The process of setting up the fingerprint is nice and
clear - plus thankfully swift - and the lozenge on the front of the
phone is very quick to recognise your digits.
It's not clickable,
which feels weird if you've used the Samsung Galaxy S6 or TouchID, but
it scans fingerprints really well, functions as a second home button and
should be a great addition when Android Pay turns up on a wider level.
In
longer-term testing, the scanner was excellent. It's a very good way to
open the phone when it's turned off, and the only real issue I
encountered was when the phone wouldn't switch on when I pressed my
thumb to the sensor.
The fact that the button doesn't click - and
therefore wake the phone up and tell me that the scan wasn't recognised -
feels weird and is rather annoying, but thankfully the instance was
very sporadic.
Design
The HTC One A9 looks like an iPhone.
I've covered this above, and I really don't think that it matters
compared to the phone it is underneath.
There's no way this is an
accident, of course - and I'm genuinely worried that HTC is going to
invoke the Cupertino wrath with this phone - but it was a decision for a
reason, and let's judge the phone on how it performs, rather than what
it looks like. You'll have to decide yourself whether it's something you
want to buy into.
Let's
focus on what's not the same: the power button is jagged and much nicer
to hit, the volume key is on the right-hand side of the phone and the
headphone jack is in a easier to use place at the bottom of the phone.
The smooth back of the phone is still really nice, no matter what it looks like, and invokes the smooth ceramic nature of the
HTC One S
from a few years ago. However, it's flatter and the corners far more
rounded - I'm trying hard to not to talk about the comparison, but I've
written things very similar about this recently…
The top of the
phone has a large plastic section too - usually we'd expect the infra
red blaster to live here, but that's gone - possibly hinting at a new
design direction for HTC. The strip now houses the GPS chip, and the
speed with which is locates you is impressive, so this bears out.
Overall,
I think the One A9 is a phone that still shows HTC knows how to make a
decent-looking phone, irrespective of how it looks compared to other
brands. It's certainly slimline: 7.3mm compared to the 9.6mm of the
One M9. The iPhone 6S comes in at 7.1mm, so it's certainly in that category.
But
for so long HTC was the industry leader in terms of design (and perhaps
it will continue to be with the One M10 - this is a different kind of
phone, after all) but this doesn't feel like the jewellery-grade phone
we've come to expect and it's a shame that the talk about the design
will be totally marred by its similarities to others.
The One A9
is very, very well made though. It feels like a dream in the hand and
certainly won't be subject to claims of bending any time soon - this
thing is amazingly rigid and feels premium.
However, in terms of design I'm getting a similar feeling as the one I got when handling the
Samsung Galaxy Alpha
- it's a nice design, but it's not one that will make the phone
desirable to all. Just those that crave a slimline 'fashionable' phone -
and the battery size suffers as a result.
Screen
The
screen on the HTC One A9 is squarely what you'd expect with a phone of
this price point. It's a 5-inch AMOLED display, reportedly supplied by
Samsung.
It's not a QHD resolution like many others around at the
moment, but even though it's 1080p (or Full HD to those that prefer
words) it doesn't lack for sharpness.
OLED technology brings such a
rich contrast ratio that it helps offset the issue, as the color
reproduction brings a level of sharpness to make most things you watch
look good.
There
are some issues, as web browsing doesn't look as clear and crisp
(thanks to mostly just being black text on white backgrounds) as it
might on the Samsung Galaxy S6, and viewing photos doesn't have the same
clarity either.
But in theory that's not a bad thing, as the
lower pixel count requires less of an effort from the graphics chip, and
therefore saves battery life - when you've put a 2150mA power pack in
there, anything is helpful.
It's not terrible in direct sunlight
but not brilliant either - there could definitely be some more effort
made to help with the auto brightness mode here.
It's a pretty
good screen for a phone of this size and category - it looks great with
real clarity in the colors. It's not the best out there, but the upper
limit of what we'd be happy to accept.
Specs and performance
The
new HTC Sense UI is completely changed - thanks to being much more
Google-focused. It's still Sense 7, but with a _g appended to the end in
the settings to show that this is has had Google's fingers in it.
Everything
that could look more like stock Android 6.0 has had the brush applied
to it, meaning the notification shade is now almost identical to that
offered by the new Nexus phones, the icons look more similar and the
general operation will feel very familiar to anyone with the latest
Android phone from Google.
Google On Tap is supported through the
home button (on the screen), and is a neat addition, accessed through
holding the virtual home button. It's not speedy, and does come up with
some odd options, but it's clearly going to get faster and more
intelligent as time goes on.
(In
case you've forgotten, this will look for information on the screen and
give you automatic search terms to enhance the information, as you can
see on the left here).
The key thing here is that a lot of the
apps that HTC fans have come to know and, well, not love but recognise,
have been eradicated in favor of Google's own: Play Music, Mail and
Chrome are all in.
This might not bother the thousands upon
thousands that auto-download these anyway, but it does take another
level of control - and thus ability to differentiate - away from HTC. By
removing its own stamp on a device the speed and design take center
stage and, well, we've been there in the previous section.
That's
not to say it isn't an attractive interface. The notifications shade,
for example, is cleaner and easier to use (although annoyingly can't be
customised). The layout of the icons is the same, and the menu still has
a sheen of HTC on top, looking very similar to the 'normal' Sense 7.
I'm
still not a fan of the way the buttons pop in and out virtually on
recent versions of Android - having them as physical keys left and right
of the home button still just feels nicer, and there are times when
they don't appear when you want to, even with the swipe of the screen
you need.
I definitely want to give a shout out here to HTC's
Themes: they're really cool and help slow down the amount of time until
you download a new launcher… if at all with the new One A9, as you can
customise it to such a degree that it gives it a whole new feel.
I'm
starting to completely lose interest in Blinkfeed. It was something
that could have been so awesome from HTC, but each time I pick up a
phone to review from the brand I find myself loathing having to go
through and update my news preferences time and again.
It should
a) remember it from my HTC login and b) have become so fluid and
relevant in the three years of development that it will always be
surfacing content that I want to see.
Instead it's mostly Google+
updates, random Facebook posts and - for some reason - lunch and dinner
ideas very, very sporadically.
The best so far was suggesting lunch at the Breakfast Club. Not entirely sure that's the right idea there…
Lower power engine
The
HTC One A9 uses the Snapdragon 617 chipset and throws in 3GB of RAM.
Well, 2GB of RAM. Wait, no, 3GB… the reason for the confusion is that it
depends where you live. Europe is getting 2GB (and 16GB of internal
storage) and US 3GB (with 32GB).
Asia, the lucky devil, gets both variants. Fun.
The
difference could be marked, but I'm testing the 3GB variant and it's
pretty nippy when it comes to most tasks. It's about as powerful as the
new
Nexus 5X in our Geekbench 3 test, which runs the Snapdragon 808 chipset, and for the most part it's slick under the finger.
It's
not perfect though. Gaming is a notable issue, with the framerate
rather lagging, despite HTC claiming that the 617's GPU should be
powerful enough to handle most titles.
There are also some apps
that don't like to open speedily: the camera is the biggest culprit, and
that has to be down to the engine running it.
I hate to bring it
up as it sounds like I'm making the same comparison for the sake of it,
but there's something similar to the iPhone here.
A
lower power processor combined with a smaller battery, and the only way
to optimise it is to be vertically integrated with the software - which
HTC is doing as hard as it can.
I'd argue it could have gone quad
core here - I can't see where the heavy lifting is happening, and even
when trying to tidy up RAW files it's so slow that it might as well take
a few seconds longer.
The battery might be saved too - although
the way the chipset is split into four 'hard' cores and four 'soft'
cores to work different tasks might actually make that moot.
Music
There's
a decent amount of storage on this phone if you're a US or Asian
dweller, and you can supplement that with a microSD card to increase
things obviously.
Here's
the better news though: you can upgrade that internal storage by
formatting the microSD card to be absorbed as internal storage - that
means you can put apps, games, music and movies on there and if you've
got a decent card it'll function almost as well as the internal storage
thanks to the new 'Flex' mode in Marshmallow.
That means you can
easily the world of music on there and still have reams of space - but
Google doesn't want you to do that. It wants you to use Play Music, sync
all your files to the cloud and then pay $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$11.99 to
get the world of streaming content too.
Don't
worry, you can still play your own music on there, and the sound is
much upgraded thanks to HTC's algorithms, Boomsound enhancement and a
dedicated DAC to boost the sound and quality of the tunes.
Google
Play Music isn't the most intuitive of interfaces, but it can play the
upscaled music well and once you've had a nose around to see what's
what, it's not hard to work out how to get the best out of your tunes.
Movies
The
video playback capability of the HTC range still irks me over a half a
decade on. Put a video player on there HTC. Put a brilliant one on
there.
Make one that's like all the smart TVs out there, which
sucks up all the video playing apps on your phone and lets you choose to
go through them in one place. Let me see all my side-loaded videos on
there so I can play them in the order I want.
Make
it so that I don't have to wriggle through the gallery to just get to
the current series I'm watching - make it so that I can easily connect
to Google Play Store from it and I can finish off the series I'm
watching but don't have all the episodes for.
The issue here
is that yeah, watching Netflix or your own content on the One A9 is a
good experience visually, but the playback sucks. HTC needs to bite the
bullet and develop its own amazing app - or at least cajole Google into
making Play Movies as described above.
The screen is lovely and
sharp for video though - as mentioned before the OLED technology is
great for color reproduction and contrast ratio, so you'll get a decent
experience.
Battery life
The battery life on the One A9
was something I've been looking forward to checking out, as HTC's rolled
the dice a little bit by going smaller on the battery pack (2150mAh
compared to the 2850mA of the One M9) and keeping nearly everything else
the same.
The engine is dialled down a little bit, with the
Snapdragon 617 chipset running an octa-core design but revving at lower
power - it's newer than the 810 used in the One M9 though, so should get
some power efficiency through just being newer.
The key thing
here is Marshmallow - the new version of Android has Doze within it,
which is meant to be more efficient than ever before at keeping apps
from pinging for data when they're not supposed to (or just don't need
to).
In practice… well, it's hard to say. There have definitely
been instances where the battery life has exceeded expectations, thanks
to it being nearly 25% smaller in terms of cell size yet matching the
One M9 for power management.
Then again, that only meant I got to
to the evening most days before needing to charge. If I ever made it to
bedtime before needing to hit up the charger, it was because I'd given
it a little bit of a boost in the day.
The culprits varied too.
Sometimes it was just apps going a bit rogue and asking for a bit too
much data - but that was supposed to be culled in the upgrade to
Android.
The other times it was little things like Bluetooth
taking too much power (hello, blast from 2011) but rarely did it seems
consistent.
There
are some good elements to the power situation, as QuickCharge 2.0 is
enabled from the outset and version 3.0 will work when it begins rolling
out from Qualcomm. That will lead to even great efficiency and speedier
charging - right now it's only average.
And in truth, the ability
to charge speedily is irrelevant anyway, as the charger that comes out
of the box isn't QuickCharge enabled. HTC reckons this is to offer
choice, but it's a bit hard to tout it as a feature when you have to buy
an accessory.
The same is true of wireless charging - well,
less so as it's just not enabled full stop. In fairness, making it
happen with the all-metal back would be rather tricky, but it's
something that people are starting to look for in their smartphones now,
and it would have been a welcome addition.
In terms of out and
out battery life power, our standard rundown test yielded very
predictable results: after a 90 minute Full HD video run at full
brightness, it has lost 25% of the battery life.
This is better
than HTC devices of previous fame - 6% better than the One M9 - but
nowhere near the performance of the Samsung range, which are excellent
at media playback.
Camera
The
camera on the HTC One A9 is a 13MP affair on the rear, and the 'normal'
Ultrapixel on the front front (4MP, but with much larger pixels for
good light).
The rear camera is an odd one - HTC was all about the
Ultrapixels for the One M7 and One M8, and looked to be making a point
about what constitutes a good camera in a smartphone.
Then it
completely gave up and went for a generic 20.7MP sensor for the One M9,
and that was ripped to shreds critically by all and sundry, coming
nowhere in nearly every camera test.
There's a definite sense that
the camera on the One A9 has to be a lot better, as it seemed like it
was something of a shock to the brand that the camera on the previous
flagship wasn't deemed as one of the best.
The
One A9, well, is good enough. Given it's a 13MP sensor, it performs
well enough to create photos you'll be relatively pleased with - but
it's nothing stellar.
The shots taken by automatic mode don't have
any real aberrations or weird curling at the edge of the picture, but
the sharpness and color reproduction still seem a little, little muted
compared to the very best out there.
The low light performance is
quite impressive though - it's no great shakes, paling in comparison to
the likes of the iPhone or the previous Ultrapixel-enabled HTC phones -
but as you can see on the next page, the sharpness and level of detail
picked out is good, with the focus especially impressive for not much
light to work with.
This is down to the optical image
stabilisation offered, as it helps increase the amount of light going in
while keeping things nicely in focus.
There
are loads of modes though - and if you drill into the Pro mode
specifically you'll start to really improve things. RAW mode is rather
professional and takes (massive file size) photos, but the results are
decent - plus you can upgrade them with an enhancement to make things
look a lot nicer.
The enhancement itself takes a long time to do,
seemingly as the chipset struggles with the workload - it really heats
up the phone as well to use the camera for a while.
Macro
performance is very good - as usual from HTC - and being able to tweak
the settings in the Pro mode to tailor the photo to your desires can
lead to some much more impressive shots. It's a shame you can't save the
tailored settings, as you can mess with ISO, shutter speed and focal
length to really get some cool effects.
The
other modes are largely novelty - slow motion isn't a patch on what
Apple has inbuilt naturally, with 240fps compared to the 720p (and quite
grainy) 120fps on offer here.
Hyperlapse is pretty cool though -
you can mess with the end result to speed it up and slow it down for
different parts, which you don't see often. It makes a more cultured
video at the end, and while you won't use it a lot, the video
stabilisation is effective.
In short, the camera on the HTC One A9
is competent and capable - but unlike the Samsung or Sony phones of
this world the automatic mode isn't as impressive as it could be.
Camera samples
Click here for the full-res image
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Click here for the full-res image
Click here for the full-res image
Click here for the full-res image
Click here for the full-res image
The competition
Samsung Galaxy S6
The
Samsung Galaxy S6 is an ideal candidate as a rival as it's the same
price as the phone, yet does a whole lot more. The camera and screen are
better than that offer by HTC, and the size isn't that much larger
either.
The power is off the chart in comparison, and battery
life doesn't seem to have suffered as much as you'd expect given the
thinner dimensions.
The interface is more garish and it's stuck on
Android Lollipop - but there are upgrades coming that will probably
make the battery even better. A great phone that it's hard to argue
against unless you're really opposed to the overlay or sharper
glass/metal design.
Moto X Style
In
fairness, this is a phablet vs a 'normal-sized' phone, but in price
there's a lot of similarity here. The power isn't that far off either -
Snapdragon 808 vs 617 will offer relatively similar power output in a
few areas, and both have a battery life that will last until around
twilight each day.
The X Style is slightly cheaper though, and has
a much better screen in terms of resolution - it's just whether you
fancy the larger size. Both have a less-touched interface in terms of
the manufacturer messing too much with it.
HTC One M9
The
odd thing now is the price of this phone and the new One A9 is
relatively similar - so what are you getting with the new device?
Well,
the smoother metal frame is a different direction and it comes with a
more naked interface - a lot simpler and smoother under the finger. The
camera, despite being lower-res, is better on the A9 with more ability
in the sensor, it seems.
However, once the M9 gets upgraded to
Marshmallow it's hard not to see this as a better phone, as it's just
got a better heft and a longer-lasting battery - and the front-facing
BoomSound speakers.
iPhone 6S
I'm
only putting this in the list as the design similarities have led to
three different people asking if I was holding an iPhone when using the
One A9 when out and about.
The iPhone has an inferior screen,
a much higher price tag and a simpler (and less impressive) camera. The
battery life is better, and many prefer the interface and appreciate
the larger selection of high-quality apps.
However, there's not
really a comparison here. If you're in the iPhone camp, the current crop
is perfectly decent and probably enough to entice you to stay. If you
are thinking of switching, it's only the lower price of the One A9 that
will lure you here - otherwise, it's just the design similarity.
Sony Xperia Z5 Compact
In
my eyes, the biggest competitor. It's got a reasonably similar-sized
screen, the same price and is the little brother to a flagship.
In terms of power, battery life and camera though it's got the One A9
licked - it's a little chunkier in the design stakes and the interface
is much uglier compared to naked Android (which the One A9 mostly has)
but in terms of what you can do with the thing, the Z5 Compact seems to
be a much more compelling buy.
Verdict
I've always been a fan of what HTC has done: tried to make Android into a workable thing in a shell that doesn't look horrible.
The
Desire, Hero, Legend, One S and then the 'proper' One line all have
that heritage, and people shouldn't care who much this looks like an
iPhone - more how well it works in the hand.
HTC's
got very confused with how much the phone is and how powerful it should
be, which is an indication of how little sway it has in the markets
around the world - it's a shame that it needs to kowtow to the desires
of retailers who dictate how this phone should sit on shop shelves, as
it's actually a very decent smartphone.
We liked
Similarities
aside, the design of the One A9 is the thing that marks it out so well.
It's well made, uses strong materials to create an excellent build
quality and offers a delightful look and feel in the hand.
If
you want to be blunt about it, you could say it's the perfect phone for
those that want the iPhone 6S look but prefer Android.
The
camera is upgraded and takes decent stills when your work with the Pro
mode to get the snap you want, and there are some cool other features on
there to make it worth playing with. It's certainly a step up from the
One M9, which is the key thing here as that camera simply didn't impress
at all.
The audio capabilities are also strong and above
expectations here - the amplifier that HTC has employed in the past has
been upgraded to improve things sonically and it really shows, bringing
an even further dimension to songs (and reiterating that it's a really
sad thing that the Boomsound speakers aren't being used here).
Closer-to-native
Android Marshmallow is also a great addition to the mix, and it's nice
to see how well it improves things. I'm not a massive fan of stock
Android, but it does allow you to customise it as you see fit. And being
able to still use things like the HTC Calendar is nice, given then
offer genuine upgrades over the stock Google one.
We disliked
Sigh.
Battery life again isn't brilliant - and the stupid thing is it's a
decent performance. It's just not a big enough power pack to be able to
keep this phone going all day long despite the higher efficiency.
Make
the phone slightly thicker HTC. It surely wouldn't hurt that much. At
least it means that when the One M10 appears, Android Marshmallow and
the battery optimisations will have helped to the point of being able to
last more than a day. Hopefully.
While the design is good, there
are still some loose elements in the phone that shudder when you tap the
screen - not what you'd expect even for a slightly cheaper phone.
The decision to split the spec of the One A9 across the globe really
irks as well. Europe and parts of Asia just aren't getting a phone
that's good enough really, where the more powerful model seems to be a
much better performer.
While we're here, the price is too high as
well, especially in Europe where the lower-spec model costs more than
the higher-spec variant in the US. Go figure.
I
still feel like media could be handled better here too. Letting Google
have its way with apps is fine if they're brilliant (like Google Mail)
but the movie and music experience is still sub par, and HTC could still
have made a much better model.
Early verdict
I'm still
not entirely sure what this phone is all about. It's a well-crafted
device that's almost a flagship in many ways, and yet goes in a
completely different design direction to the M line-up.
Yes, it
looks like an iPhone, and HTC should have done more to avoid that if
cries that it's a mere coincidence are to be believed. That said, there
are those that want the iFrame and Android together at last - this is
that phone.
It's a good tag that the One A9 is one of the first
non-Nexus phones to come with Android Marshmallow, but that's a title
that won't last very long and soon other brands will come with better
variants.
The size of the phone is one of it's big selling points
though. Combined with a decent finish, this is a very tactile and usable
handset, and the lower-spec chipset doesn't really harm it most of the
time.
The key question here: does the HTC One A9 warrant the cost?
It's hard to say yes beyond the polish the fact that paying more for a
phone made by a top brand usually removes some of the worry about
whether you're getting a good one.
The One A9 works well, but
there are many, many other more powerful and better specified phones out
there, with equal effort put into design.
HTC screamingly needs a
win, but despite trying to go back to basics here it hasn't quite
managed it in a way that's going to make the One A9 stand out on the
shop shelves.
Read More ...
How to watch NASA's spacewalk live stream
Tomorrow morning, you'll be able to watch US astronauts
Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren venture outside the International Space Station for a space walk.
NASA
will be live streaming the entire 6 and a half hour spacewalk, which
will see the two astronauts performing maintenance and adding upgrades
to the ISS and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is a particle
physics detector attached to the ISS.
The spacewalk will mark the
189th spacewalk for the ISS, and the 32nd for the US, and while
spacewalks are generally pretty slow and not action-packed, you will be
seeing astronauts donning heaving space suits floating around in space
in a live stream rather than through the magic of movies.
To watch the live stream, you have two options: If you're on desktop, you can head over to the
NASA TV website; if you're on mobile, you can download
NASA's app for
iOS,
Android or
Kindle Fire.
Alternatively, you can follow live updates on the
@Space_Station Twitter account.
The stream will begin at 6.30am ET on Wednesday 28 November, while the spacewalk is scheduled to begin 8.10am ET.
Read More ...
Google Play Music gets breath of Fresh Air with addition of podcasts
Google
Play Music has long been the go-to source for picking up the latest
single from your favorite pop-singer or set of tracks from your favorite
band, but starting today the service will be home to another source of
popular audio content: podcasts.
Google announced today on its
Official Android Blog
that podcasts are now welcomed to the service and will benefit from the
same bevy of features other audio sources have enjoyed the past few
years.
Namely, that means you'll be able to stream like-minded
podcasts one after another, and aims to "connect new listeners with
podcasts based on what they're doing, how they're feeling, or what
they're interested in."
So far, only a small portion of the most
popular podcasts have signed up for the service (the post specifically
mentions This Week in Tech, Star Talk, Nerdist and Tim Ferriss), and as
of the time this piece was published, they have yet to show up on the
storefront.
Regardless, Google Play Music's step into the
podcasting scene is a major acknowledgement of podcasts' growing
popularity, giving listeners a single integrated solution for all of
their listening needs.
Read More ...
Scientists have created a working Star Trek-like tractor beam
A
team of scientists from the Universities of Sussex and Bristol in the
UK have created a Star Trek-like tractor beam that uses sound waves to
move objects.
Published today in
Nature Communications,
the scientists say the tech can be used for varying areas, including
the ability "transport drug capsules or microsurgical instruments
through living tissue."
Bruce Drinkwater, co-author of the paper
and the professor of ultrasonics at the University of Bristol explained
that while other researchers had used similar methods of using sound
waves to levitate objects, it required speakers to be placed around the
object to be levitated like a sandwich, limiting the movement.
Instead,
the team from the two universities have managed to move objects, like
beads, using just a single-sided array of 64 miniature loudspeakers to
create high-pitch and high-intensity sound waves.
These speakers surrounds the object with high-intensity sound, creating "a force field that keeps the objects in place."
Force fields
The scientists can carefully control the output of the speakers to keep the object in place or to rotate it and move it.
"In our device we manipulate objects in mid-air and seemingly defy gravity," Drinkwater said.
"Here
we individually control dozens of loudspeakers to tell us an optimal
solution to generate an acoustic hologram that can manipulate multiple
objects in real-time without contact."
The team created three
different types of "acoustic force fields" to work as a tractor beam for
different applications, including a force field that works like a
tweezer, a vortex and "a high-intensity cage that surrounds the objects
and holds them in place from all directions."
"We all know that
sound waves can have a physical effect, but here we have managed to
control the sound to a degree never previously achieved," Drinkwater
explained.
Image credit: Asier Marzo, Bruce Drinkwater, Sriram Subramanian/University of Bristol
Read More ...
Apple Pay is heading to Australia this year
Apple Pay is going (more) global, CEO Tim Cook announced today during the company's quarterly earnings call.
Thanks
to a partnership with American Express, eligible customers in Australia
and Canada will get access to Apple Pay later this year. The rollout
will continue into Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain in 2016.
Since
it launched, Apple Pay has only been available in the US and UK. While
expanding to more "key" regions is a good thing, it's also still limited
to American Express customers to start.
Cook gave no indication
when other credit cards, banks or financial institutions in these
countries would begin supporting Apple Pay.
The news of Apple Pay
expanding to more regions comes on the heels of another quarter of
record for the Cupertino firm. It clobbered revenue and profit from the
same quarter last year, sold 48 million iPhones and managed to see
growth in Mac sales. iPad sales slipped, as has been the case for
Apple's slates as of late, but the company didn't seem too phased amid
its other quarterly wins.
Read More ...
Apple Pay is heading to more countries soon
Apple Pay is going (more) global, CEO Tim Cook announced today during the company's quarterly earnings call.
Thanks
to a partnership with American Express, eligible customers in Australia
and Canada will get access to Apple Pay later this year. The rollout
will continue into Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain in 2016.
Since
it launched, Apple Pay has only been available in the US and UK. While
expanding to more "key" regions is a good thing, it's also still limited
to American Express customers to start.
Cook gave no indication
when other credit cards, banks or financial institutions in these
countries would begin supporting Apple Pay.
The news of Apple Pay
expanding to more regions comes on the heels of another quarter of
record for the Cupertino firm. It clobbered revenue and profit from the
same quarter last year, sold 48 million iPhones and managed to see
growth in Mac sales. iPad sales slipped, as has been the case for
Apple's slates as of late, but the company didn't seem too phased amid
its other quarterly wins.
Read More ...
Mac Tips: OneNote for Mac 2016: How to use the new features
Get acquainted with the new OneNote for Mac
Although OneNote has already been available on the
Mac as a free application for a few years now, it's finally made its way into the
Office 2016 lineup on
OS X alongside venerable heavyweights
Word,
Excel,
PowerPoint, and
Outlook.
If you're an Office user, it's definitely worth checking out this
note-taking powerhouse and seeing how its new features might fit into
your daily routine. And like all of the Office 2016 for Mac applications
— now available as a single-purchase bundle or as part of an Office 365
subscription - Microsoft has added support for Retina Display,
full-screen view, and multitouch gestures to make them fit in better
with OS X than ever before. Read on to get up to speed on the top new
additions.
More notebooks than you can shake a stick at
By
default, OneNote 2016 creates a default notebook with a Quick Notes
section to help new users get up to speed quickly. But did you know you
can have as many notebooks as you'd like? A visit to the fancy new File
> New Notebook menu brings up the same file browser that's now
universal to the rest of Office 2016, and from here you can select a
color theme and assign a new name for your notebook. If you have more
than a single OneDrive account available, use the Where pulldown menu to
select the correct one, click Create, and you'll be ready to start
filling it up with notes, attachments, or just about anything else.
Worth noting: OneDrive 2016 can only save notebooks to a connected
OneDrive account, so be sure to set that up first and log in, if you
haven't already.
Protection from prying eyes
Although
most of us share only specific notes with others, there are times when
it's convenient to show a colleague or friend something in the
application instead, opening up the possibility they'll see something
you never intended to show. OneNote 2016 for Mac now offers password
protection, which can be used to lock down particularly sections of a
notebook to keep those without the magic word out in the cold. To access
this feature, head to Notebooks > Sections > Password
Protection > Protect This Section, enter the desired password,
repeat again for verification, and click the Set Password button to
confirm. There, don't you feel safer already?
Sharing is caring
OneNote
2016 may be the perfect place to jot down your future hopes and dreams,
but it's also great for setting up a notebook that can be accessed by
others, too. From the Share This Notebook button in the top right
corner, OneNote users can invite people to join in the fun of
collaboratively editing your notebook, or just copy a link so folks can
view it in the cloud. But that's not all: A third option allows users to
send the currently open page, either as an email message or a PDF
attachment using your default email client. Not a mind-blowing feature
on its own, but if you're working on a project with others or setting up
a family event, it could be a lifesaver.
Drag-and-drop attachments
It
may seem fairly obvious to those familiar with Evernote and other
competing note-taking applications for Mac, but there's no need to head
to the Insert menu when tossing images, PDF files, or other attachments
to an existing notebook page. Instead, simply drag it from wherever the
file is located on your Mac, drop it into place, and you're done.
OneNote 2016 will magically sync it to the cloud along with the rest of
your notebook contents. Best of all, the same trick also applies to
Office documents and regular text files. There's also the option to add
links to websites or even copy and paste links to other pages or section
to create a wiki-like experience.
Now clip this
If
you've ever come across a potentially great recipe online or just want
to save a particularly funny or inspiring image to reference later,
OneNote 2016 for Mac provides an optional Clipper web browser extension.
To install it, head to the Clip to OneNote page and drag the
appropriate button to your Safari browser bar (it also works with other
browsers). Next time you stumble across a clip-friendly page, select
Clip to OneNote and capture an image of the entire web page, complete
with a link back to the original URL. Or, OneNote Clipper can clean up
pages and save them in a more streamlined article view to eliminate
unnecessary clutter in your notebook.
Sync here, sync everywhere
Okay,
it may not exactly be a new feature, but it's likely new for Office
2016 for Mac users, so it bears mentioning once again. OneNote actually
syncs notebook data from your Mac to OneDrive, where it can be accessed
directly from other Macs, PCs, and mobile devices connected to the same
Microsoft account. It's worth noting this isn't optional: If you're not
an Office 365 subscriber, you'll need to sign up for a free Microsoft
account, which offers 25GB for storing all of your data in the cloud on
OneDrive - regardless of whether it comes from OneNote or elsewhere.
It's easy to keep tabs on the sync process by clicking the name of your
notebook, then the arrow to the right of the name, which will reveal
when it was last synced, or what it's doing at that particular moment.
Read More ...
Here's how IBM is getting employees to use the Apple Watch
After having announced a
partnership with Apple to develop
enterprise apps
for Apple Watch, IBM is looking to take this venture to the next level
by adopting Apple's wearable in its workplace. Through the "Commit
Health" initiative, IBM employees will reportedly receive a subsidy
covering the cost of
Apple Watch.
The
program is said to be part of IBM's commitment to a healthier
workforce. In the past, IBM offered Fitbit trackers to help employees
monitor their exercise goals, and it's unclear if the new Apple Watch
initiative will replace the Fitbit offering or if it is provided as an
additional choice for employees. We've reached out to IBM for details
about the program, but did not receive a response in time for
publication.
With these wearables, employees can track how many
steps they take, and these steps are converted into points, which can be
donated to charity or redeemed for merchandise. Apple Watch also
provides notifications to get users to keep active, reminding desk
workers to stand each hour and walk around. It can also track calories,
heart rate and other fitness-related goals.
Small business users
Large corporations like IBM can use
wearables,
like Apple Watch, to encourage employees to be healthier, which can
have an affect on the bottom line. With healthier employees, IBM can
benefit from reduced healthcare costs and less sick time taken by
employees.
In
addition to financial advantages, small business owners can also gain
intangible benefits. According to the American College of Sports
Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, productivity can increase by as much
as 15% when employees are fit.
Fitness reduces stress and can
lead to better mental and physical performance on the job. The study
reported that six of ten research participants said that they were
better able to meet deadlines on days when they exercised.
Other business benefits include a boost in confidence, a positive mood and more energy.
The Apple-IBM partnership
Apple's partnership with IBM may help both companies make a play for the
enterprise.
Apple could leverage IBM's business expertise to get its hardware into
the corporate space, and IBM's cloud business could benefit as a result
of building connected enterprise apps for Apple products.
IBM is also increasing its adoption of Apple notebooks. If a
rumored deal pans out, IBM could become Apple's largest enterprise buyer of MacBooks.
Via:
MacRumors
Read More ...
Updated: Halo 5's steady 60fps comes at the expense of a stable resolution
Update:
DigitalFoundry has broken down the algorithm behind Halo 5's real-time
rendering, and has done an excellent job pointing out the finer points
of how the game looks and feels while playing it. We've added the video
below for your convenience.
Halo 5: Guardians won't be in stores
for another few weeks, but according to executive producer Josh Holmes
that despite it being one of the biggest games in 2015 it might not have
the highest resolution of any game this holiday season.
Holmes wrote a post on the
Xbox Wire
today describing something he calls "the progressive resolution system"
that allows the game to scale the resolution based on how many objects
are on the screen at once. Using this system, he says, Halo 5 will be
able to run at 60 frames per second both in every mode - a huge
accomplishment for the series.
The team has re-engineered the
game engine to look at all the objects on the screen - the enemies,
vehicles, other players and terrain - and slide from a lower resolution
during times of complete on-screen chaos to 1080p when you're by
yourself enjoying the view.
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gQMulb6T2o
"Without
this system, we would need to either reduce the scale of our most
intense combat encounters or lower the quality of content across the
game in order to stay at 60fps at all times," Holmes wrote. "With
progressive resolution, we get the best of both worlds: epic scale
experiences that look incredible while running at a consistent 60fps."
While
games usually lock in a lower resolution to ensure a consistent
experience, Halo 5 is opting to follow in the Witcher 3's footsteps with
a dynamically rendered resolution. That said, the difference between
900p and 1080p is a small one, and Halo 5 certainly isn't the only
next-gen title to turn down its resolution.
Halo 5: Guardians comes out on Xbox One on October 27, 2015.
Via
Engadget
Read More ...
8 tips for shooting autumn leaves
What you need
What
you really need, of course, is a two-week vacation in Vermont in the
fall to capture those spectacular autumn colors, but the best most of us
can manage is a half-hour lunch break while the sun is shining and the
sky is blue and the leaves are at their best.
So all the pictures
you see here were shot in the space of half an hour, and within half a
mile of home. You may not be surrounded by spectacular landscapes –
these pictures were all taken on regular suburban streets – so the trick
is to zoom in on the details rather than trying to take in a broader
view.
We
used a Nikon D7200 DSLR and the standard 18-105mm kit lens. A DSLR
isn't essential because you can get the same kinds of shots on any
camera with a zoom lens. A DSLR's bigger sensor can give a more
defocused effect to backgrounds, and manual control of the lens aperture
will help too, but neither is essential – the main thing is to have a
good eye for light and color and a willingness to pay a little more
attention to the details.
One more tip: set your camera's white
balance to its 'Daylight' or 'Direct sunlight' preset to fix the colour
balance to a neutral daylight setting. Autumn colors play havoc with the
auto white balance settings on cameras.
01 Blue sky thinking
You
don't have to go out shooting on a blue-sky day, but the color of the
sky can make a beautiful contrast with the yellow, red and gold colors
of autumn leaves. To get the best shots, get in amongst the trees so
that you're shooting out through the branches and up towards the sky.
The brightness and tone of a blue sky varies according to where you're
standing and the direction you're looking in, so take a few moments to
look for the best effect. If you face away from the sun the sky will be
bluer, but if you aim the camera more towards the sun the leaves can
take on a luminous, semi-transparent appearance which looks more
vibrant.
02 Change the background
If
you want to make leaves really stand out, find a contrasting background
– the near-black shadows behind this leaf are perfect. This is a lot
easier if you use the lens's maximum zoom setting because this has the
effect of making the background larger in proportion to your subject.
With a longer focal length it's a lot easier to find the perfect patch
of color or shade in the background – you may have to move a pace or two
one way or the other to get the alignment just right.
03 Get closer
You
might assume you need a macro lens to get this close to the details on a
leaf, but that's not the case. The kit lens on a DSLR or compact system
camera will have a minimum focus distance that stays the same whatever
zoom setting you use – so to get the maximum magnification, use the
longest zoom setting. Like all the other shots you see here, this was
taken on our Nikon D7200's regular 18-105mm kit lens.
This
doesn't work so well with compact cameras, though, because here the
minimum focus distance often does change when you zoom in – but most
have a macro or close-up mode you can switch to instead.
04 Look at the light
This
brings us on to another point – the direction of the light. Autumn
leaves are often translucent, and if the light is behind them it can
pick out the delicate veins beautifully. You can see it in action right
here. The main image (top) is shot with the sun behind the leaf, and
while the structures aren't quite as obvious as they are in the previous
examples, the sunlight still gives the leaf an attractive, luminous
quality.
05 Look up
It's
natural to look straight ahead when looking for photographic subjects,
and to look down for leaves that have fallen on the ground. But make
sure you look up too, for a very different kind of autumn shot where you
can combine the very strong compositional shapes of tree trunks and
branches with the patchwork colors of the autumn leaves.
06 Open wide
Another
way of making leaves stand out is to make the background go out of
focus, and there are quick and simple ways to do this. The usual advice
is to use the widest lens aperture, but most kit lenses only open up to
around f3.5-5.6 – it's a start, but there is more you can do.
First, zoom right in to the lens's longest focal length – the longer the focal length, the shallower the depth of field.
Second, get as close as you can – the shorter the focus distance, the shallower the depth of field.
If you do these two things, you can get defocused backgrounds even with compact cameras with small sensors.
07 Spring cleaning!
Fallen
leaves can make great subjects, but they're often surrounded by other
leaves and debris that spoil the shot. But you're not helpless! It
hardly takes any time at all to move rubbish out of the way or even move
your subject entirely. For our main shot (above) we picked up this leaf
and put it down on the black footpath alongside the grass where it fell
– the contrast in tone and color really makes the leaf stand out.
08 Take leaves home
Our
half-hour walk was over, but we weren't finished with that leaf yet.
Here it is again in three different places in a back garden. For the
main shot (above) we rested it on a decorative blue ball to make the
most of the contrasting colors.
These
photographs were all taken on a DSLR, but it's not expensive, high-tech
hardware that's the key because you can take shots like these on
practically any camera. Even a smartphone would do – the lack of a zoom
would be a handicap for some shots, but the wide-angle views would be
easy and smartphones are generally very good at close-ups.
Read More ...
PlayStation VR: 5 things we learned from Sony's Paris event
Sony embraces the new reality
The
Paris Games Week is well under way in France, and Sony took to the
stage today to announce new games, reveal launch dates and show us new
trailers of games heading to the
PS4 in the coming months.
Sony also took the opportunity to get us excited about its
PlayStation VR headset, revealing some exciting new games for its VR headset as well as a few surprising PS4 games that will have VR support.
Here's our list of the five exciting things about PlayStation VR to come out of Sony's event at Paris Games Week.
Lots of devs = lots of content
Unfortunately,
Sony didn't reveal how much the PlayStation VR will cost nor the date
we can expect it to be released. But thankfully, we do know we'll get
lots of content when it does come out.
Between introducing new
games for the PS4, Sony announced that there are currently over 200
developers working on content for its PlayStation VR platform.
While
the content includes games, it also includes VR experiences from the
company's sister company, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
We'll just have to wait to the very vague Q1 window to find out more about the headset itself, though.
You won't have to play alone
One
of our great concerns for VR is that it could be rather isolating, but
Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, says VR "doesn't
have to be a solo experience," adding that it can be an immersive,
multiplayer platform instead.
He then introduced the perfect
example of this - Rigs Mechanized Combat League, a multiplayer
competitive, first-person arena shooter game that is being developed for
PlayStation VR.
This isn't
the first time we've seen Rigs from studio Guerrilla Games Cambridge, but the latest video shown at Paris Games Week introduces a new arena set in Dubai.
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDO7Ockyurk
Robinson: The Journey looks stunning
Crytek, the studio that's previously brought us the Back to Dinosaur Island demos for the
Oculus Rift headset, is developing a new VR game for the PlayStation VR, called Robinson: The Journey.
And if the trailer is anything to go by, it will look amazing.
"In
Robinson, you assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a
mysterious planet, and must become a pioneer of sorts as you explore
your surroundings, interact with the world around you, and discover
amazing secrets at every turn," explained Crytek's Elijah Freeman,
executive producer of the game.
Freeman said it's previous VR
demos were inspiration for Robinson, adding that the main goal of this
new game is "recreating that level of authenticity on a much, much
grander scale."
"That means not just making something visually
stunning, but also telling a story that is emotionally engaging and
which resonates with players beyond the game world."
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOZtqDhQP44
Gran Turismo Sport - driving in VR
Sony also unveiled the new Gran Turismo Sport for PlaySation 4, announcing that it will be
compatible with PlayStation VR.
Gran
Turismo Sport will include two FIA championships in the game, including
the Nation's Cup, where you'll represent your country, and the
Manufacturer Fan's Cup, where you'll represent your favorite car
company.
The beta will launch early next year, just in time, we suspect, for the launch of Sony's VR headset.
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h-Kycm8Jxo
Tekken 7. Yes, Tekken 7
"It
gives me great pleasure to announce Tekken 7 is coming to PlayStation
VR," Sony's PlayStation head, Jim Ryan, exuded during the PGW event.
Unfortunately, that's all that was said about Tekken 7 in VR.
We
have no idea how the fighting game will working in a VR environment
that's usually a first person experience, but we're intrigued.
For
the game itself, Tekken is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and the
latest iteration is set to "an intensive canon storyline" and a new
Mishima clan member, Kazumi Mishima. Expect to hear more in the coming
months.
Read More ...
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