Guide: Linux project: How to host a photo album
There are plenty of online services that offer to host your photos for free, and sites like Flickr and Picasa are excellent tools for expanding your online social presence. But for most of us, they're not ideal for sharing personal photos with family and friends.
Even when they offer password-protected collections with restricted access, sometimes you want to keep your own photos closer to your own storage. So why not host your own photo collection?
The software we've opted to use is called Zoph. It's built using PHP and a MySQL database, and enables you to import your collection of photos through a Zip or Tar file, organise them into albums, set attributes for author and geographical location, and share them with your friends and family.
1. Install the software
Taking Ubuntu 9.04 as a base, you need to install Zoph from the package manager, and this in turn will install the several Apache 2 dependencies, which is all we'll need for a working web server.
You will also need to search for and install the mysql-server package to grab the database back-end, and the installer will ask you for a password to protect the root MySQL account. Remember this password, because you'll need to enter it after typing the following two lines on the command line.
The first will create the database that Zoph uses to store the photo information, while the second will import the default table data provided by the Zoph package install into the MySQL server:
mysqladmin -u root -p create zoph mysql -u root -p zoph < /usr/share/doc/zoph/zoph.sql
If you're using a distribution other than Ubuntu, there's a chance that the zoph.sql file could be in a different location. Your distro's package manager can tell you where if you look at what and where has been installed with the Zoph package.
2. Configuration
The next step is to set up the permissions for the database we've just created. Log into your MySQL server by typing mysql -u root -p, and type these two lines, replacing password with your own password.
grant select, insert, update, delete on zoph.* to zoph_rw@ localhost identified by 'password';
grant all on zoph.* to zoph_admin identified by 'password';
All we're doing here is creating a MySQL user account called zoph_rw and giving it the permissions required to read and write to the database. Zoph expects to find this account, and you next need to tell Zoph what password you've allocated to the zoph_rw user. You can do this by editing /etc/zoph/ config.inc.php and changing password in the following line:
define('DB_PASS', 'password');
3. Sharing photos
That's all there is to the configuration. You should now be able to point a browser running on the same machine to http://localhost/zoph, which will in turn redirect you to a login page.
Enter admin for username and admin for the password, and you'll find yourself within Zoph running on your own web server. The first thing you'll want to do is import your own photos, and this can be done by clicking on the Import button at the top of the screen.
You can then select photos individually, or archives of photos within Zip or Tar files if you want to upload a folder or collection. Each upload can be given a description, and you can also create locations and photographer accounts, which can then be attributed to each import.
This information can make a larger collection easier to navigate, but it's not necessary. After adding your photos, you can browse them by switching to the 'photos' page or, if you've sorted them into albums, the 'albums' page. You can now share your photos with anyone else who can access your LAN by giving the IP address of your machine (or the hostname if there's a DHCP router sitting at the heart of your network).
If you want to access your site from the internet, you need to make sure port 80 is forwarded from your gateway or access point to the machine running Zoph. You can then use the IP address of your internet connection from elsewhere on the internet, but you'll need to make sure that you keep Apache up to date on that machine.
You can limit who can see your photos by creating user accounts for those people, and limiting those accounts to groups of photos if you need to to.
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Review: Hannspree HF237HP 23-inch monitor
The Hannspree HF237HP impressive 23-inch widescreen monitor has inputs for VGA and HDMI, and comes bundled with a HDMI-to-DVI cable: just the thing if you want to use the same display for computing, high-definition movies and video games.
The HF237HP boasts a sturdy base and a screen that can be tilted, but not vertically adjusted.
It has decent viewing angles too, with colours that begin to shift at about 30 degrees to the screen on the horizontal plane, with the vertical angles being slightly weaker – this is very agreeable at the price.
The lighting consistency is satisfying too, though it falls short of perfection. There's an over-bright band at the top of the screen and a slightly wider one at the bottom, but neither are very intense. Only the fussiest professionals would complain.
Screen quality is also impressive. Snow Leopard's Aurora desktop is well realised, with good detail and contrast, though maybe a little bitty in the darker areas.
The colour ramps in our gradients test were smooth and clear, and it did a great job of distinguishing between 95% and 100% black, a task that proves problematic for many budget monitors. It struggled a little with 5% and 0% black, but the distinction was there.
Where the HF237 really falls down is in its integrated audio. The tinny, bass-free speakers pump out tunes that sound like overspill from the room next door, making them intolerable for anything other than basic computing.
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Review: Wacom Bamboo Fun Small
Usually, product names are either a dull series of numbers or some unfortunate, aspirational nonsense dreamed up in a latte-and-biscotti fuelled boardroom; this second generation Bamboo Fun, though, is just that – great fun.
On first inspection, this is just more of the same from Wacom; it's a small graphics tablet with a stylus that you can use both as a tool to draw and write on-screen, and as an alternative to a mouse for general interface tasks.
There are four configurable buttons to the left of the active area, as well as the traditional two-button rocker and eraser tip on the stylus.
This tablet has an extra trick up its sleeve, though: you can use your fingers as well as the stylus, so it's like a giant laptop trackpad.
You can't use both at once – as a warning, the white status light turns orange when the stylus tip is near the surface – but happily, we were able to use our fingers on the tablet surface with the stylus resting in our hand, just as you would instinctively.
In this touch mode, you don't get any pressure sensitivity; it's just about moving the cursor about on the screen and selecting stuff, as you would with a mouse or trackpad.
It is, though, smarter than that: it supports a range of basic gestures, so that you can scroll and pan on pages by using two fingers.
A two-finger tap does a right-click, a two-finger swipe left or right sends a back/forward command, and you can, at least in some applications, do the pinch/unpinch gesture familiar to iPhone users to zoom in and out.
The touch and stylus actually complement each other phenomenally well, and you get a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and the brilliant natural media app ArtRage to help you make the best of the tablet. (The Medium tablet includes Corel Painter Essentials 4 too.)
The decision to position the cable on the left edge seems a little awkward, and even this small model is quite expensive, but overall this is a great, fun package.
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Review: Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac
When we reviewed Elgato's video encoding widget, we praised its ease of use, but at آ£90, wished it was cheaper. It looks like our prayers have been answered: Roxio has produced Easy VHS to DVD for Mac which is a third cheaper.
Best of all, it's no harder to use. In fact, it's pretty identical, since it uses the same basic software.
You hook up your video source over Composite or S-Video (unlike the Elgato model, this one doesn't come with cables or a SCART adaptor), tell the software how long the recording is and press Go.
You're given the option of stopping recording automatically after the preset time has elapsed, or you can simply click a big red button to stop it manually.
Once the video is captured – it happens in real time, of course, so don't expect quick results – you're given the option to open it in QuickTime or iMovie, or send it straight to the bundled copy of Toast Basic so you can burn it onto a DVD, provided you have a supported writer.
This dongle records in MPEG-2, which is DVD's native format, so it's quick and easy to burn DVDs. QuickTime can't, by default, open MPEG-2 files, so it has to transcode it first – it's not multi-core optimised, so it can take an age.
There's no simple way to convert files for iPod or iPhone (though iTunes could do that for you), or to upload to YouTube directly, and the MPEG-2 format is much more of a space hog on your hard disk than the H.264 files that the Elgato Video Capture produces, but if you're specifically looking for a solution to let you transfer old videos to DVD, this has you covered.
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Review: Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac
When we reviewed Elgato's video encoding widget, we praised its ease of use, but at آ£90, wished it was cheaper. It looks like our prayers have been answered: Roxio has produced Easy VHS to DVD for Mac which is a third cheaper.
Best of all, it's no harder to use. In fact, it's pretty identical, since it uses the same basic software.
You hook up your video source over Composite or S-Video (unlike the Elgato model, this one doesn't come with cables or a SCART adaptor), tell the software how long the recording is and press Go.
You're given the option of stopping recording automatically after the preset time has elapsed, or you can simply click a big red button to stop it manually.
Once the video is captured – it happens in real time, of course, so don't expect quick results – you're given the option to open it in QuickTime or iMovie, or send it straight to the bundled copy of Toast Basic so you can burn it onto a DVD, provided you have a supported writer.
This dongle records in MPEG-2, which is DVD's native format, so it's quick and easy to burn DVDs. QuickTime can't, by default, open MPEG-2 files, so it has to transcode it first – it's not multi-core optimised, so it can take an age.
There's no simple way to convert files for iPod or iPhone (though iTunes could do that for you), or to upload to YouTube directly, and the MPEG-2 format is much more of a space hog on your hard disk than the H.264 files that the Elgato Video Capture produces, but if you're specifically looking for a solution to let you transfer old videos to DVD, this has you covered.
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Amazon pays up over Kindle/Orwell fiasco
It looks like we may have not just an end to the Amazon/Orwell Kindle saga but also a precedent outlining how digital content distributors can behave, after the books giant settled a lawsuit on the issue.
Amazon brought the legal action to a halt by paying the plaintiffs $150,000 (آ£94,000) after they sued it for deleting copies of Orwell's 1984 and other titles without permission.
The books had been put up for sale by a company that didn't actually hold the rights to do so.
Charity donation
The money will be given to "a charitable organization that promotes literacy, children's issues, secondary or post-secondary education, health or job placement," presumably in the US as the case was filed in Seattle.
However, the more significant outcome may be the terms of the settlement, which state that Amazon can't delete wrongly sold e-books without customers' consent, but can do so if they ask for their money back.
Malicious code
The terms also say that Amazon may act if it believes an e-book contains malicious code that could damage the Kindle, raising the spectre of books biting the hand that holds them.
Nevertheless, the settlement could be held up as a precedent should anything similar happen with digital content wrongly distributed by other companies to not just e-book readers, but also phones and other devices.
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Review: Netgear ReadyNAS NVX RNDX4410
How much storage do you really need? That question lacks a definitive answer, but you need to ask it before considering the latest addition to Netgear's ReadyNAS family.
More space equates to higher prices, and in the case of the NVX, you're looking at the sort of money that would buy you a whole new Mac – not too surprising when you consider that this is a fully functional computer in its own right – with 4TB of storage to call on.
The ReadyNAS NVX is impressively heavy, and plastic front door aside, is sturdy enough to survive some serious knocks. It's a high-spec machine as well – boasting 1GB of RAM and two Gigabit Ethernet ports.
The capabilities list is impressive: aside from the ubiquitous printer server, you'll find it also offers an iTunes streaming server and Time Machine support for one of your machines.
Netgear has kitted the unit out with four SATA-II ports which, when used with the default X-RAID 2 (offering up to 2.7TB of fault-tolerant storage), manage read speeds of 10.21MB/s and a write performance of 10.37MB/s. Stunning, in other words.
There are problems with the NVX though, not least of which is the price – 1TB drives can be had for less than آ£60, so even allowing for the other hardware, there's some serious creative accounting at work here.
Netgear claims the unit is "whisper-quiet" too, but it really isn't. It's as noisy as a PC, which, given the high-performance internals, makes sense, but why claim it's nearly silent? We'd prefer better security on the unit itself, but hopefully its sheer weight should deter thieves.
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In Depth: Catch up: this week's most popular posts
This week saw Microsoft launch its free anti-virus app Security Essentials, while O2 lost its iPhone exclusivity.
In our in-depth articles we looked at the bits of tech we take for granted that we won't be using in a decade, we asked whether Apple has lost the plot, and as Google started sending out invites to Google Wave, we explained what on earth this new service is.
The Samsung Galaxy i7500 review proved popular as did reviews for the ATI Radeon HD 5870, the Creative Zen X-Fi 2, the Sony Vaio VGN-NW11Z/S and the Samsung LE46B750 46" LCD TV.
Top five news stories
Special edition white PS3, huge global sales
Sony used the recent Tokyo Game Show to announce a Japan-only PlayStation 3 special edition in a white case with a Final Fantasy XIII theme.
The illustrated PS3 and the new game will arrive as a bundle in Japan on 17 December for آ¥41,600 (آ£288), a figure that's sure to be inflated many times over when the consoles hit eBay's grey market.
Orange iPhone to launch 'sooner than some think'
"The launch date will absolutely be in 2009 and sooner than some people think. It's not going to be Christmas day as some people are saying, we're referring to it as later this year for when [the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS] will be in the shops," says Orange.
Sony claims PSP Go is better than the iPhone
While she admits that Apple's iPhone has opened up the casual "social gaming on the go market" Sony's Claire Backhouse, Product Manager for PSP in the UK, thinks that "PSP Go is... even better than an iPhone" when you consider the range of gaming and entertainment services on offer.
Microsoft's free anti-virus software arrives
Microsoft has officially announced the arrival of its eagerly awaited free anti-virus software, Microsoft Security Essentials. The software giant is keen to ensure that computers are better protected worldwide, and its solution is to release a free application that will be available for everyone.
Orange iPhone deal: O2 responds
O2 has responded to the news that Orange will be stocking the iPhone by confirming it will continue to stock the device.
Top five in-depth articles
8 bits of everyday tech we won't use in a decade
Who'd have thought a decade ago that portable music wouldn't mean a cassette Walkman or Discman? Or that the VCR would be all but obsolete? That nobody would use fax (or even dial-up modems) any more? Or CRT?
2009 has been one of the trickiest years in Apple's recent history - lawsuits to the left and right, Steve Jobs' enforced hiatus and rumbling of discontent over the App Store and much, much more. We're going to put forward the evidence for the prosecution and defence in TechRadar's kangaroo court.
10 ways Google's made Android more awesome
The latest version of Android (1.6 or Donut) has debuted for developers, and while Google isn't calling it a major change, it does bring a good few difference to make the OS a lot more compelling. So here we run down the 10 reasons Android 1.6 is going to make your Hero/Galaxy/Magic even better in the coming months.
8 awesome augmented reality apps for iPhone
Augmented reality on the iPhone is really taking off. A load of apps have already surfaced on Apple's App Store, while many more are in the pipeline.
Google Wave: what you need to know
Wave is designed to be a ground-up reinvention of the way we communicate and collaborate. Think instant messaging, but with the open platform potential for plugging in Twitter and other methods of communication, too.
Top five reviews
Samsung's new i7500 Galaxy makes it the first manufacturer after HTC to enter the Android game, and it does so with a fairly feature-rich phone. Exclusive to O2 in the UK, the Galaxy is a sleek proposition, but is it enough to consider the Koreans firmly in the Android game?
The ATI Radeon HD 5870, AMD's new premium pixel pumper, is truly a piece of work. It's not just the fastest graphics card ever, fully capable of grinding Nvidia's mighty Geforce GTX 285 into a powdery pulp. It's quite simply the most powerful computer chip we've seen of any kind, thanks to getting on for three teraflops of raw processing power.
The VAIO laptop looks the part, but where's the innovation? It seems Apple has stolen Sony's thunder, with its iPods usurping Sony's Walkman, and its MacBooks replacing the VAIOs.
The big difference with the Zen X-Fi 2 is that it does away with the fiddly buttons of previous Zen models in favour of a resistive touchscreen interface. Battery life has also been improved due to the inclusion of a bigger cell - over 24 hours of music playback is now possible, with five hours of video.
This elegant 46-inch LCD TV giant is one of Samsung's most lusciously designed TVs and its best LCD performer yet. The LE46B750's glass screen surround is coupled with the stand's central, vitreous pole to create a sophisticated and unique look.
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EU sat-nav boosts GPS accuracy to 2m
If you're going to spend €4 billion (آ£3.7 billion) of public money, then it's probably a good idea to sell it as being incredibly useful, which is precisely what the European Space Agency has done with its new sat-nav service.
The EGNOS system went live this week, adding a greater level of accuracy to the existing GPS satellite navigation network. Now, instead of the roughly 7m margin of error from a standard GPS signal, EGNOS reduces that to 2m.
Safer plane landings
It achieves this using three satellites and 34 ground stations, meaning new applications that rely on knowing precisely where something is are now possible.
Wisely, the ESA has been trumpeting the possibilities, including a safety system to help planes when landing that might be launched in 2010 and an unspecified device that could help blind people get around more easily.
Galileo the next step
Other possibilities include more accurate crop spraying for farmers and better ways to track cars and charge drivers if they use toll roads.
However, EGNOS is merely the warm-up act for the much larger Galileo sat-nav network and GPS rival, which is where the real money is going when it, supposedly, launches in 2014.
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Why Google isn't evil
If knowledge is power, the Google revolution has empowered us all. Never in human history have so many people had access to so much knowledge, made relevant and ordered to their needs.
And while critics may decry the company's privacy-invading omniscience, from Street View to Latitude (mobile phone software that tracks your friends' whereabouts), what's less publicised are its little-known humanitarian projects through its charitable arm, Google.org.
Call it goodwill or a fluffy PR tactic: either way, Google.org is sizing up its technologies for the world's pressing issues – by getting information quickly to disaster relief teams, finding new ways to save energy, and helping impoverished communities.
The organisation is also funding other charitable groups with $100million, and has pledged one per cent of Google's profits for philanthropic purposes.
Predicting outbreaks
Last April, swine flu took the world by surprise. After the 2003 Asian bird flu outbreak died down, public health experts suspected the next epidemic would come from Southeast Asia, where dingy slums and a moist climate breed germs. If any developing country was low on the World Health Organisation's list of candidates, it was Mexico.
But days before news stations broke the April H1N1 outbreak, Google.org detected an increase in search terms from Mexico related to flu – searches like 'headache' and 'fever'. Months earlier it had released software called 'Flu Trends', which graphs estimates of flu levels in near-real time based on flu-related searches. Now it's angled the software towards Mexico.
PLOTTING OUTBREAKS: The Flu Trends software shows flu levels based on related searches
A program called 'Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico' ended up graphing the country's flu levels with clear-cutting accuracy before official figures had been made available.
Of course, there are limitations to this approach. Google doesn't have enough data on Mexico's flu levels from the past – a must for estimating current trends – and not enough people in Mexico use the internet, so the system is constantly being tweaked.
Attentive users will notice questionnaires at the bottom of each page when they search for 'headache' or 'fever.' "Did you search for this topic because you have a fever or your friend has a fever?" it asks.
Weeding out those who feel sick from students researching a school project is proving a tough task. But Flu Trends' estimates are still accurate, despite the margin of error. Many believe the spread of HIV/AIDS could have been averted had Africa been monitored more in the 1970s.
That's why Google.org has laid down the motto 'predict and prevent', with the aim of preventing outbreaks rather than just reacting to them. Following that line, it gave a $5.5million multi-year grant to the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI) to collect and analyse blood samples of people and animals in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Another $2.5million Google grant to the Global Health and Security Initiative, which works in Southeast Asia, is funding similar detection networks.
Everyone's talking about reducing the amount of energy we consume. But the fact is, most people don't know how much electricity they use until they're billed, which makes it difficult to make informed choices.
Google.org is proposing equipping every electric device with a meter, then linking it to a Google service that tells you these numbers in real time. 'PowerMeter', a plug-in being tested for iGoogle, will save you five to 15 per cent on your monthly bill, Google claims, and could reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one car off the road for every six households involved.
Another Google.org project is addressing the reduction of emissions from cars themselves. RechargeIT is aimed at measuring the performance of plug-in hybrid cars with recording devices more effectively. Google claims that most measurements of hybrids are idealistic and often not taken in real-world driving conditions.
By measuring hybrid cars' performance vis-أ -vis conventional cars, and making the information available to the public, the benefits of plug-ins will be more widely recognised, it argues.
Google is trying to keep its own house in order too. The company's massive solar panel complex in Mountain View is well-known, and hybrid vehicles are being plugged into these panels. Google is testing these cars with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, seeing if they can be used as a 'battery' from the company's electricity grid. The idea is to turn plug-in hybrids into power suppliers, letting car owners avoid brown-outs and get electricity during peak hours.
Google.org's largest grants and investments are also being used to develop alternative energies. For instance, Makani Power, a designer of high-altitude power devices, has received a whopping $15million from the organisation. While low altitude wind power is an inconsistent source of energy, up high it's a different matter.
Since the power of wind is related to the cube of its velocity, wind that blows slightly faster contains far more energy. Makani remains tight-lipped about its devices, which reportedly resemble wing-shaped kites, but in theory they promise a new age of cheap and abundant energy.
Poor communities
Google has declared education for the developing world as a major focus of its philanthropic efforts, offering multi-million dollar grants to organisations in Africa and Asia. Again, this is informed by the notion that knowledge is power.
Google reasons that once enough people in a community are educated, and have easy access to information, they can bring accountability to a government's projects in their community. For instance, HaKiElimu, a Tanzanian educational non-profit organisation is using a $1.8million Google grant to distribute brochures and handbooks that teach people how to monitor and analyse government policies.
Meanwhile in India, Pratham is working with a $2million grant to do assessments of the education sector, a daunting task for a country numbering one billion people. For huge countries like India, which sports a space program but can't even feed much of its rural population, messy bureaucracy means that tackling poverty has been slow and cumbersome.
For Africa, a continent mired by strife for a century, a lack of information keeps communities in the dark. Whether Google can plug the knowledge gap remains to be seen, since most of its projects are still in development. But the company's vast funds, expertise and far reach across the world could spell good news for future generations in some of the world's poorest countries.
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Android-powered laptop finally seen in the flesh
It might seem like we've been talking about Google's Android OS making it onto laptops as well as smartphones for far too long now – and it probably is – but at least there's now one prototype that's out in the open for all to see.
French website Le Journal du Geek has photos of the Android-based Alpha 680 laptop from Spanish company Airis and it looks pretty much as you'd expect if you've ever used an Android phone.
Google search
The desktop on the swivel-screen tablet computer shows the familiar Google search box, while there's evidence of an onscreen virtual keyboard for use when the machine is folded.
Unfortunately, the report indicates that the Alpha 680 is still some way from being stable, which – as well as the fact that there's not even a hint of pricing – suggests the wait for an Android PC is only going to go on.
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New 320GB Blu-ray disk prototype from TDK
If 50GB Blu-ray disks aren't quite cutting your particular optical storage mustard, then you might want to check out TDK's whopping great 320GB prototype.
Although it's technically not a true Blu-ray disk, the new write-once medium uses the same read/write technologies as BD, so that's good enough for us.
Layers of data
The trick to TDK's breakthrough lies in getting that same blue-violet semiconductor laser to penetrate all the way through each of ten layers to properly read from and write to even the innermost layer.
With 32GB per slice, that adds up to 320GB overall – a considerable improvement on a 2006 six-layer TDK disk that topped out at 200GB.
Although there are no commercial plans for the disk yet, it will be on show next week at the Ceatec technology event in Japan.
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Review: Samsung Blade GT-S5600V
Sharp-looking or cutting edge? The Samsung Blade GT-S5600V sits in the ever-expanding Samsung touchscreen mobile range somewhere above the Tocco Lite and below the super-charged Samsung Jet.
A Vodafone-tailored version of the Samsung GT-S5600 Preston, it has most of the feature run down of the budget-priced Tocco Lite but expands its capabilities with additional 3G HSDPA connectivity.
Design-wise, the Blade takes its cues from the Jet line, sporting similarly curvy bodywork and eye-catching angular front buttons. It has that now-familiar minimalist black bodywork that tips its hat to Apple's trend-defining iPhone.
The Samsung Blade does, however, have a smaller display than its stable mates – a 2.8-inch 16-million colour QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) array that's fractionally wider, but shorter than the Tocco Lite's 3-inch screen and the Jet's 3.1-inch rich AMOLED display.
The Blade works on Samsung's TouchWiz touchscreen user interface, with support for home screen widgets, and has almost the same operational set-up as the Tocco Lite. Within its touch-operated applications are similar features too, including music and video player functionality, an FM radio and Google Maps, plus a 3.2-megapixel camera – this time with an LED flash.
Although it does offer HSDPA high-speed data at up to 7.2Mbps data rates, it doesn't have the Wi-Fi capability of the Jet, reflecting the Blade's more modest price tag.
The Samsung Blade GT-S5600V is initially available free on Vodafone contract deals, and is available in its non-Vodafone S5600 guise for free on Orange contract deals or for around آ£120 in pay as you go packages.
With its glossy black casing and rounded slab design, the Blade has a familiar post-iPhone touchscreen phone look about it.
Its 102.8(h) x 54.8(w) x 12.9(d) mm dimensions give it a slightly squatter appearance than both the Tocco Lite and the Jet, though its 96g weight gives it a comfortably solid rather than chunky feel in your hand.
It has a very similar curvy back panel to the Jet, with even the camera and flash configuration positioned in the same way.
There's no Jet-like lenticular-ish patterning on the Blade though - its bodywork is straight black. Unless, of course, you opt for the eye-dazzlingly pink version of the Blade, which is available for the same price.
The 2.8-inch QVGA resistive touchscreen display on the front is noticeably shorter than the Tocco Lite, which gives it the sort of dimensions similar to a device like the Nokia N95 8GB rather than a longer-bodied touchscreen phone.
Still, it's bright and clear and although its resistive technology means it doesn't provide the slick Multi-Touch ease of use and smooth control of the iPhone, it does feel decently responsive to pressing and finger swiping actions.
The screen space is also sufficient for finger control without requiring a stylus (there's none provided) or improvised pen-jabbing. Samsung has thought about the layout and not cluttered it up with lots of extraneous touch buttons.
A low-resolution camera for video calling is perched discreetly above the display. There are only three non-touch external buttons on the front panel below the screen: a pair of conventional Call and End keys on a single textured panel, plus that bold Blade-mark – a large arrowhead-shaped button in the middle of these.
Out of the box, the first thing you want to do is press this large button to see what happens. In fact, the answer isn't all that exciting. With a normal short press, it acts as a Back button for menu navigation.
A longer hold of it calls up a panel of shortcuts for certain functions – call (bringing up the on-screen virtual numberpad), web browser, music player, messages and main menu (plus another 'Back' option) – two of which options are on the home screen anyway.
It's not even a navigation D-pad, as some regular phone users might initially assume.
Around the sides of the phone, buttons are kept to a minimum too. On one side is a dedicated camera button to fire up and snap with the shooter, plus a screen lock/unlock key, while the other flank sports volume/zoom rocker controls
Anyone hoping for a Jet-style 3.5mm headphone socket will be disappointed – Samsung provides only a microUSB multi-function socket on the top of the phone for earphones, charging and USB data connectivity.
The TouchWiz user interface employed here is very similar to the Tocco Lite. The home screen is styled in a similar way (albeit adapted for the shorter, slightly wider screen), with three alternative home screen 'pages' you can swipe between with a sideward finger stroke.
The home screens feature three small virtual buttons sitting on the bottom of the display – keypad, contacts and menu.
The first brings up the numberpad, which sensibly Samsung has ranged across the full width of the display. This provides plenty of room for fingers to dab the keys without mis-pressing.
With haptic feedback confirming presses, and a responsive action, the keypad is easy to use and very intuitive. Buttons at the bottom of the keypad enable you to make a voice call or start composing a text message.
However, when you press the text message option, and tap the text panel to start typing, the keypad layout changes, introducing option keys (for T9, space, clear and symbols) down the right side of the numberpad, reducing the finger space for each key.
This is presumably more a factor relating to the screen size than anything else – its relatively short length making it tricky to squeeze in extra option buttons below the number keys.
The Contacts button brings up your phonebook, either on your SIM, phone or both combined.
Ease of use
You can scroll down by swiping your finger, search by tapping a search box and inputting letters, or use a small button on the top of the screen to roll speedily through the letters of the alphabet until you get to the appropriate one for the contact you're hunting for.
Again, it's straightforward and easy to operate once you get the feel of the touchscreen's calibration.
Pressing the Menu buttons pulls up a familiar phone-style 3 x 4 grid of menu options, represented by labelled icons.
A tap on these opens up the next level of sub-menus – most of which are listed in quite conventional Samsung phone fashion, so should be easily navigable by phone users trying touch control for the first time; there's little to scare the horses…
Within the main menu screen, buttons on the bottom of the screen again enable quick access to the keypad, plus there's a photo contacts option that brings up a carousel of boxes into which frequent contacts are automatically recorded.
If you've assigned these contacts photos, their images will appear onscreen, providing another visually-enhanced way of quickly spinning through your favourite contacts.
The other button is for widgets, bringing you back to the home screen. Here you can start playing with one of the TouchWiz UI's most eye-catching features...
Samsung's Widgets feature enables users to arrange on the home screen a selection of mini-apps represented as small panels which can be used to activate functions on the phone, show information or go online to use web-based services.
These widgets can be dragged and dropped onscreen from a widgets toolbar, which pops up on the home screen by tapping the display in standby mode. The toolbar appears from the left side of the screen, and you can scroll up and down (or whiz through with a finger swipe) to browse the list of widgets available.
You can drop widgets in place on the main part home screen by pressing the widget in the toolbar and dragging it where you want it. Some widgets will open up simply by pressing them in the toolbar (calendar, profiles, world clock, and so on), though others have to be in place on the home screen to be activated, again with a quick press.
You can select as many widgets as you want to place onscreen.
These control a wide variety of apps and features, ranging from tools such as clocks, calendars, memos, voice recorder and Bluetooth, and media options including photo gallery, music player, radio and games, to online-based services such as Google (map, mail and search), AccuWeather's weather forecasting service and YouTube (just a link to the mobile site rather than an app).
A widget to launch the web browser and direct it the Vodafone Live! content portal is also included in the Vodafone-optimised Blade.
You're not just limited to the initial selection of widgets shown in the toolbar – additional widgets are available to activate from within the menu settings, while extra widgets can be easily sourced online from Samsung and quickly downloaded over the air, using a More Widgets application widget which is located in the toolbar.
While the range of Samsung's More Widgets downloads is currently limited, there are some neat ones to be found, including a well-implemented BBC news and sports widget.
If you're concerned about numerous widgets cluttering the home screen, there is a canny feature in the Blade that can help you out. Like the Tocco Lite, there are in effect three simultaneous home screens you can swipe between, with just a simple left or right stroke of the finger.
These are effectively three joined up home screen 'pages' (with different screen images behind each), so you can spread your widgets around these to avoid overloading one screen. Widgets can even sit on the 'edge' between home screen pages, so can be dragged and used between two screens.
Issues
You can't, however, drop the same widget on the three separate screens (as you can do with the Jet), but in practice this is unlikely to be a real bind – as swiping between each home screen view is so easy.
The widgets interface does provide some useful home screen customisation that enables you to launch favourite features quickly. They can easily be rearranged onscreen and hidden when not required, so widgets don't have to be obtrusive if you prefer not to have them showing at all times.
One small issue some may find is that opening the widgets toolbar is arguably too easy – a short dab on the screen opens up the bar, which can be problematic if the phone inadvertently unlocks in-pocket (which can happen).
If it does, you may find widgets opening up or launching when not intended. It rarely happens, but perhaps Samsung should think of going back to a system where a press on a specific tab on the screen is necessary to open up the toolbar.
Still, at least the toolbar now closes up automatically after around 8-9 seconds if nothing is pressed, which is handy.
More issues
Another widgets issue concerns how easy they are to move around the screen when the toolbar is closed. While it makes it simple to rearrange them, on the compact display you can find that with a few widgets onscreen it's easy to inadvertently shift widgets by stray finger touching, or when you're trying to swipe between home screen views.
Again, not a deal-breaker but something that could perhaps be addressed in future.
Another interesting feature included on the Blade which we've also seen on the Jet is Samsung's Smart Unlock technology. This allows you to unlock the phone when the screen lock has been activated, simply by drawing a pre-selected alphabetic character onscreen.
This gesture function can also be used to unlock and speed dial numbers to which you've assigned a character, or to launch applications you've selected.
This operates pleasingly efficiently and is easy to set up – although the rage of apps available is limited (5) compared to the Jet (25). Smart Unlock can be activated within the Settings menu; you choose an option, select an application or contact you want to use with gesture unlock control, and then choose from a grid of letters which one you want to use for that particular function.
You can choose to assign letters to up to 18 speed dial numbers and five applications (call, music player, messages, web and java), and there are 29 characters to choose from.
Then, when the phone screen is locked, you simply draw the appropriate character and the display unlocks, app is launched or speed dial number is called. The screen backlight has to be active for this to work, which means it's unlikely to go off accidentally in your pocket or handbag.
It's a bit gimmicky; the 'unlock only' option isn't really necessary (as you'd probably have to press the unlock button to activate the backlight anyway), and the small choice of apps limits its app launch appeal – but it could be handy for speed dialling regular contacts.
We'd recommend, though, that you select your speed dial letters carefully, in case a slip of the finger unintentionally calls someone else assigned to a similar character.
Touch technology or not, voice calling is obviously a top priority in any mobile, and the Samsung Blade has no worries on that score.
Getting to the contacts lists is easy, as mentioned above, with a home screen button option, speed dialling and photo contacts options embedded in the software. Up to 2,000 contacts can be stored in the phonebook.
Dialling a number is a breeze too, with the large virtual keyboard very manageable for finger prodding. It makes for a comfortable calling experience, and the screen automatically locks when calling so there are no accidental virtual button presses when the phone's snug up to your face.
In-call options – such as using the loudspeaker, mute or bringing up the keypad – can be activated by holding down the lock button on the side.
Call quality was first rate during our extensive testing; we got clear, loud audio reception and the microphone relayed crisp balanced sound. There were no issues with network reception either.
Messaging
Naturally, users will expect an acceptable texting experience too. As we've previously mentioned, the keyboard layout changes when text messaging or emailing is used.
The relatively short screen length means that option buttons (clear, space, T9 and symbols) appear ranged down the right side of the 3, 6, 9 and # keys, rather than being slotted underneath the bottom row of keys, as most of Samsung's other recent touchscreen phones (including the Jet, Tocco Ultra and Tocco Lite) do.
This slightly reduces the finger width for each key – not an issue with the wide-ish display – but also introduces a bit more scope for mispressing by errant thumbs. We usually found that the keyboard was serviceable, the screen quick and responsive.
But the option placement is less than ideal – as we've mentioned with other similar layouts on phones, including earlier Samsung and some LG touchscreen models.
We found the space bar placing – next to the 6 key – jarred with us at first and felt odd when we were texting quickly; we reckon this may take some getting used to for conventional phone users moving to touch.
Also, we found that sometimes thumbs could accidentally brush the option buttons while hovering over the right-side numbers, which can be irritating if you suddenly discover T9 has been switched off, or you've added an unwanted space.
Generally, texting is OK once you get used to the key layout, however, and there isn't the frustration of some touch phones we've operated in the past.
No QWERTY
Unlike most recent touchscreen phones, including the Tocco Lite and Jet, there isn't a QWERTY keyboard option on the Samsung Blade, nor are there any handwriting options – odd when the phone has a handwriting recognition controlled Smart Unlock function.
The lack of a QWERTY keyboard could again be down to the short screen dimensions, which could have made it cramped. Still, it's an unusual omission for a phone of this class, and it could make it less easy to use for those who may want to write longer messages or emails, or prefer using a QWERTY keyboard for typing out long URLs when browsing.
The onboard email software provides a wizard for helping you to initially set up the phone to use your regular web mail or other POP3 or IMAP4 email accounts. Settings for aol.co.uk, Google Mail, and aol.com are pre-loaded on the Blade, though you can add other accounts.
However, you may need to get some account details other than password and email address, such as the incoming and outgoing POP3/SMTP server address, as unlike some mobiles from manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson and Nokia, the Blade doesn't automatically download or install these settings for you.
With HSDPA high-speed 3G connectivity (up to 7.2Mbps), the Samsung Blade can deliver a rapid full web browsing experience. The phone has Webkit-based Samsung Mobile Browser v0.8 software onboard that is definitely a cut above most mobiles in this price bracket.
It may not have the slick, smooth easiness of the iPhone's pinch-zoom Multi-Touch operated Safari browser on the iPhone, but it does incorporate elements that make good use of the touch interface – including touch zooming.
It also has some desktop-style options displayed onscreen, such as reload, back, forward, home and bookmark buttons, and an address bar that shows a drop down of recently visited addresses.
Users have the options of viewing sites on the full screen, either in portrait or landscape orientation (there's an in-built accelerometer that kicks in when the phone's tilted), or having the virtual button array framing the web page.
Zooming in or out of web pages can be done by simply using the volume control rocker on the side of the phone or, alternatively, by finger-on-screen action. Pressing and holding the display activates the zoom option, with an upward finger slide zooming in and a downward stroke zooming out.
Double-tapping the screen is another less accurate way to zoom in and out so you can see a page overview.
The finger controlled zooming works pretty well, in conjunction with digit dragging across the display to navigate pages, although you should be careful about not hitting links while you're initially pressing and holding.
The Blade is pretty quick at downloading full websites, and supports Flash too. More data heavy elements take longer to download, but it did a decent job of handling TechRadar.com and other data heavy sites.
Mobile optimised sites like the BBC take just a few seconds to render. An RSS reader function is included too, so you can get regular updates from your favourite sites or services without having to negotiate the browser each time.
A selection of online services are available via the widgets feature too. AccuWeather.com's customisable weather forecast widget is a neat and useful option to have at your fingertips.
The Google tools widget can fire up the onboard Google Maps software, but others options – for searches or mail – take you straight to the web page rather than running a separate phone app. The same goes for the YouTube widget.
Samsung has some heavyweight touchscreen cameraphones on the market, including its flagship 12-megapixel M8910 Pixon 12, but the Blade is much lower down the pecking order. Like the Tocco Lite, the Blade's 3.2-megapixel camera is a fixed focus unit, so lacks the versatility for precise image capturing that an autofocus camera offers.
It has a digital zoom, but only at lower resolution and not in full 3.2-megapixel mode. The Blade does have an LED flash for low-light illumination, though, providing some added illumination in murky situations, but is otherwise quite a limited shooter.
SAMPLE: The Samsung Blade's fixed focus 3.2-megapixel camera cam take reasonable snaps. Here, colours are well-balanced
Its touchscreen user interface is, however, very user-friendly and intuitive, based around a system of large, clear icons framing the viewfinder image.
Press the camera button on the side of the phone, and the Blade's camera fires up in a couple of seconds, switching into landscape viewfinder mode. Three control buttons are ranged either side of the viewfinder on a see-through panel. Pressing any of these brings up further large icons onscreen, giving you easy to identify options to choose from.
SAMPLE: Again, colours are well rendered, although there isn't the level of detail you'd get from a higher grade camera
The main controls provide fast access to camcorder mode, flash mode selection (on, off, auto), brightness control, shooting mode – which includes a Smile shot option for detecting when a subject is smiling before the camera snaps, plus multi-shot and panorama views.
A settings button allows further options, including white balance control, colour effects, timer and image resolution and quality. Another button brings up a quick view of your image gallery – one of several ways of viewing and browsing your pictures on the phone.
SAMPLE: The camera does lack the precision for focusing on individual subjects in the viewfinder, though its auto metering system deals well with subdued light
Images can be uploaded straight to social networking site and online services, including Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, MySpace and Friendster.
While the camera is a doddle to operate, the limitations of the fixed focus shooter are apparent in the results you can achieve with it.
SAMPLE: On a gloomy afternoon, the camera captures reasonable shots; the screen and signs around the stadium can be read, although it does lack precision when it comes to the grey sky
It puts in an acceptable performance for this grade of cameraphone, but doesn't surprise in terms of overall quality. Images look fine for snaps, but you can't get the precise focus on some subjects that you can with an autofocus shooter.
Picture detail looks reasonable but is limited in what you can achieve and in gloomier conditions or indoors, shots can appear a bit soft. Colour rendition is generally natural and in bright light rich with vivid saturation.
SAMPLE: Mid-distance shots come out OK, but close-up definition is limited
In dark situations, the flash does help throw some light on subjects, but it's not as powerful as some of Samsung's mobiles. It only has limited brightness and is insufficient when over a metre or two away.
SAMPLE: The Blade's LED flash provides low-light illumination indoors or out. Its range is limited to quite close up, but it does allow you to capture images in dark places
Camcorder mode is average for this level of shooting device, but is again limited; it shoots in maximum QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) resolution at up to 15 frames per second maximum, so produces typically unrefined mobile phone footage.
As you'd expect, there are editing tools onboard, which are quite easy to apply using the touchscreen.
The Blade has a very decent music player onboard – and to add to the listening pleasure, it supplies a standard 3.5mm headset adaptor in-box, enabling users to upgrade to better headphones than those supplied, should they wish to upgrade.
The player interface is straightforward and user friendly; tunes loaded up on to the phone or slipped in on a MicroSD card are automatically categorised and listed by the music player software into typical MP3 player headings – playlists, recently added, artists, albums, genres and podcasts (and you can add composers, recently played and most played options from the settings menu too).
No MicroSD card is supplied in-box, though the phone can support cards up to 8GB. If you want to make good use of the media playing capabilities, you may want to buy one sharpish, as the handset has only 80MB of internal storage to play with.
The MicroSD card slot is under the battery, which means powering down if you want to swap cards.
The music player UI is easy on the eye and functional, without having anything as slick or snazzy as the iPhone's Cover Flow trickery. It works easily and effectively though. Cover art is supported, and onscreen timelines allow you to drag back or forwards through tracks, while standard control buttons are large enough for hassle free touch control.
Other buttons enable you to activate shuffle and loop options, plus there are a selection of equaliser modes to try out if you want to tweak sounds.
The supplied headset produces decent quality audio. The two-piece headset plugs in via the multi-connector slot on top of the phone, and the in-ear earphones slot in mid-way. Audio sounds quite detailed and well-balanced, with a good amount of bass, and sounds controlled when the volume's whacked right up.
You can improve on this with better quality eargear – our reference Sennheisers upped the quality, as you'd expect – but the boxed headset does a more than adequate job for casual listening.
The Blade can be synced with Windows Media Player on a PC, using the supplied USB cable. You can also copy tracks over using Samsung's supplied New PC Studio software, or by dragging and dropping in mass storage mode, or via Bluetooth.
MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA and WAV files are all supported. Tracks can also be downloaded over the air from Vodafone's paid-for mobile music service; tracks download in a just a few seconds, thanks to the HSDPA connectivity.
Song identification software is included here, as is now standard on Samsung touchscreen handsets. An FM radio is included too, which is simple to tune and operate using the touchscreen controls. This can be piped through the headset or played via the loudspeaker.
You can also carry out music identification searches direct from the radio; in the same way as for music you hear around you that you want identified, it records a snatch of a tune, which is then automatically sent to, analysed and identified by a remote database. Song details then arrive back at the phone.
Both the music player and radio can play in the background, with widgets automatically appearing on the home screen enabling you to control them from standby mode.
Video content can also be downloaded or sideloaded for playback on the handset. The Blade supports MP4, H.263, H.264 and WMV file formats, although not DivX or Xvid, as some higher end Samsung's like the Pixon and Tocco Ultra Edition do.
The relatively compact display plays back cleanly and smoothly, and is bright and crisp. However, the compact screen dimensions mean it's a relatively small pocket cinema screen.
Samsung reckons the Blade's 960mAh Li-ion battery pack can keep the phone powered for up to 350 hours on standby, or for 3.5 hours of 3G chatting (or 6 hours talk in 2.5G-only coverage). In our tests, we managed to get 2-3 days with our usual levels of usage, which is acceptable a for a HSDPA touchscreen handset. As usual, the more power-sapping gadgetry you use – like the music and video player or browser – the less life you'll get out of it.
Organiser
Samsung has kitted out the Blade with a familiar mid-tier set of organiser tools and applications. It delivers the essentials well, with the applications tidily adapted for touchscreen operation.
These include calendar, memo, task, world clock, calculator and convertor functions, plus timer, stopwatch and a voice recorder function. Some, such as the world clock and calculator, are visually neater, with touch control adding to the fluency of the app.
Others, including the calendar, work efficiently enough in a functional sort of way, without the touch interface adding much to the overall experience.
Connectivity
There's no Wi-Fi on the Blade, which isn't really a surprise at this price point. However, compared to the non-3G Tocco Lite, HSDPA and 3G does boost data rates making connecting to internet services and downloading or uploading content far quicker and smoother.
Bluetooth is fully supported, so you can use stereo Bluetooth headphones or stream music to a Bluetooth device, should you want to. The set-up procedure is intuitive too.
One extra we'd like added to speed up the connection process a fraction is for the phone to automatically recall the previous Bluetooth connection when you go to use it. Now, you have to search again for nearby devices each time you want to connect.
The Blade can be synced up to a PC, using the USB connector and the supplied Samsung's PC New Studio software. You can transfer or back up content and sync your organiser info, contacts, calendar and so on.
The software is PC only (Windows 2000, XP and Vista), though Mac users can use remote syncing web-based services.
Other
Google Maps is always welcome on any phone, even if – like the Samsung Blade – the handset doesn't have a GPS receiver built in.
This version 2.3.2 of Google Maps is nicely implemented for touchscreen control, and on the Blade it uses cellsite triangulation to pin down your approximate location (rater than exact satellite positioning).
Still, you can get mapping information quickly and search easily for addresses, places of interest and nearby services and businesses. You can also plan routes and get driving, walking and even public transport directions, plus overviews and satellite images. In addition, you can use a Street View option to get street level views of routes.
It's all rather neat, and quick too, with mapping details and info downloaded via the phone's HSDPA connection (if available). It may not be a sat nav, but it's a very useful application to have on a phone.
Samsung has also included a Communities option in the Applications menu, which brings together social networking and content sharing services to which you may want to upload content. You can set profiles so you can save account access details, providing a quick way of updating services such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket and Friendster.
Samsung has also pre-loaded a selection of demo games, plus a tumbling dice basic motion-operated game.
As a relatively affordable touchscreen device, the Samsung Blade S5600V provides a decent helping of touchscreen-based functionality and media features at an attractive price. It's not the highest spec touchscreen phone on the market, but it still has plenty of finger-action phone appeal.
We liked:
The Blade ups the spec of the Tocco Lite by adding 3G, and HSDPA connectivity certainly improves its online performance. The TouchWiz UI brings some attractive features, such as onscreen widgets – but don't expect smartphone-style functionality or feature customisation.
The main user interface should generally be straightforward for anyone migrating from a conventional phone, and is generally responsive and unfiddly.
As a low cost touchscreen phone, the Blade offers some solid features, including a decent music player (with headphone adaptor included in-box) and an impressive browser performance for this grade of handset. Overall it has a good balance of usable features, even if it's no iPhone.
We disliked:
The Blade isn't intended as a do-everything touchscreen smartphone so it's a bit churlish to point out its obvious limitations. Of course, there's no Wi-Fi, GPS, smartphone functionality, high quality camera or other top-end features.
The resistive touchscreen doesn't offer the multi-touch sensitivity of a higher-grade capacitive type array, although within these limitations, the screen was responsive to touch.
There are issues with the texting set-up, with some of the option button placing affecting the easy usability of the texting numberpad, while the lack of a QWERTY keyboard option is a shame. This is presumably down to the short-ish screen requiring some software compromises.
The screen dimensions may not appeal to everyone either, with some users perhaps preferring a larger display for enjoying video playback. We were disappointed that the camera lacked an autofocus set up, but it's acceptable for quick snaps.
Verdict:
The Blade doesn't have the top end spec of some touchscreen handsets, but this isn't where Samsung is pitching this device – it has others in the range for that market. Those who want more high-tech muscle in their touchscreen will look elsewhere.
But as it is, the Blade works as a good-looking, compact and easy to operate lower-priced touchscreen handset that offers some appealing functionality for your money.
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