All posts by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

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About Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

President, CEO & Editor of https://gavinsgadgets.com Reviews & News of Technology

The Haters vs Apple – Editorial

Apple, Tech News,

A few days ago Apple presented their new hardware and software covering iPads, iPhones , Apple TV, iOS 9 , Apple Watch and so much more. 

And then became the haters or fan people of opposing operating systems. Now for the record I use a LG G4, an iPad, a BlackBerry and a windows machine everyday. I also have spent a fair amount of time with windows phone. I have owned every iPhone after the iPhone 4. So I am fairly platform agnostic. Actually, looking back at previous brands, most have been Samsung or HTC. So basically, I enjoy using all tech regardless of operating system. 

So let’s get back to Apple. Android tech geeks just don’t get it. People on the whole don’t care or know what specs their phone has. People just want their phone to work. And that is where Apple steps in. One of the new features in the iPhone 6S or 6S Plus is live photo. This records a second and a half before and after each photo to make it come alive. Immediately, people were saying Apple copied HTC and its Zoe mode, BlackBerry and Windows Phone living images. So if Apple copied , or was inspired by, how come nobody bought a HTC or Window Phone in huge numbers and or went self proclaiming the new live images. Why? Because they weren’t simple to use and required extra input. Apple just has it on. It just works. It works on all Apple devices including the Apple Watch. Facebook are going to integrate live photos from the iPhone. At this point the camera specification is irrelevant. People just don’t care. 

As another example is the Apple TV. People were up in arms saying the Amazon Fire TV did everything Apple’s new TV does. Except it does but doesn’t. I have a Fire TV paired to a Moga Pro Bluetooth Game Controller. Only one problem. Very limited gaming apps on the Fire TV. Just watch Apple TV launch from day one with better games than the Fire TV. Once again, the specs of the Apple box don’t matter. 

With android phones , it is very addictive to keep comparing another phone based on its specs. More ram or storage perhaps. Must be better. But with Apple its meagre specced iPhones play games at 60 frames per second consistently. A 4gb ram android phone may still struggle to play games at that level. 

Now if you are a blackberry fan person or windows phone fan person I feel your pain:)

Apple – My verdict on all the new announcements – iPhone 6S, Apple TV, iPad Pro and new Apple Watch options

Apple, Tech News, Wearables, , , ,

Yesterday, Apple carried out a near perfect 2 hour masterclass keynote speech, announcing a wide range of new products. Here are my initial thoughts on everything.

New iPhone 6S and 6S Plus

The new iPhone has a new 12mp camera that coupled with the new A9 processor and digital image processing chip allows for 4K video recording, live photo capture and a whole lot more. Apple made the point that by increasing the MP they did not sacrifice pixel quality. The tech specs show that the camera sensor has got smaller not larger with the iPhone 6S. Instead of 1.5 microns it is now only 1.22 microns. As a comparison , the LG G4 camera sensor is 2.6 microns in size with a f/1.8 aperture. The iPhone 6S is still only f/2.2. Despite these specs, the proof is in the pudding and time will tell.

3D Touch now comes to the iPhone (or Force Touch). The front camera is now 5mp. With all the other features and tight hardware and software integrations, the iPhone makes for a compelling package, albeit at a high price.

A new pink colour is now available too.

iPad Pro

The iPad Pro is a giant iPad with a 12.9 inch screen. It has the new A9X processor and has bespoke accessories from the new keyboard with speakers and the Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil is a stylus for the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro looks excellent but at 713g for the WiFi only model and 723g for the WifI plus LTE it is just too heavy. Also, it pricing invades the MacBook Air or Macbook line up. Surely, it is better to buy one of these and run proper desktop apps? Beautiful product if you like that sort of thing.

Apple TV

The new Apple TV with TVos shows promise. A clean user interface, using siri and a new remote control that also adds as a game controller. Proper game controller can be used with the Apple TV too. Current limitations restrict apps to 200mb with the other app components needing to be held in the cloud. So probably more of a casual gaming option. Siri searched other TV streaming platforms which I thought was a neat feature. Overall, I really liked the new Apple TV.

Apple Watch

So just in time for the holiday season, Apple launches a whole range of new straps, watch finishes and special edition straps. This is surely going to be a popular Xmas stocking filler. Watch OS2 was shown off too and looked very promising.

Data Storage Costs

Finally, Apple reduced the size of their cloud data costs, making the service far more reasonable and competitive.

Final Thoughts

Personally, I thought Apple nailed it. Tight integration of engineering, software and hardware shone through. Whilst I remained optimistic, Apple’s share price has dropped 2.16 following the keynote speech.

So what are your thoughts on the Apple product announcements?

IFA 2015 – Show Report – Part 2

Tech News, ,

Following on from yesterday’s post here are some more gadgets of interest from IFA 2015.

Gigaset (Siemens) have launched 3 smartphones with a budget, mid and pro version. The hardware looked excellent and the specs are decent too.

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The Gigaset Me Pro features a 5.5 inch FHD display, weights 195g, features a stainless steel frame, 20mp rear and 8mp front camera, 3gb ram, 32gb storage, huge 4,000mAh battery, snapdragon 810, HiFi & Dirac, Dual nano sim, fingerprint sensor, UV sensor, heart rate sensor, pedometer, WiFi Mimi and all the LTE bands. More importantly it looked good and felt substantial in the hand.

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Audio was everywhere, from budget to hi end equipment. Block was in force with its hifi equipment with each component costing around 1,000 euros. Block equipment looks rather basic but sounds rather supreme. Less is more approach.

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Another audio company, this time from the UK, iFi Audio was demonstrating their headphone and DAC components from their portable micro iDSD to a mini rack setup as shown below. The micro iDSD works with Apple and android and the power output of this headphone DAC is dangerously high. Explosive in my testing. Whilst the micro iDSD is portable it is not pocket friendly due to its largish size.

More tomorrow.

Today is the biggest day in tech – Apple Inc

Apple, , , ,

Later today Apple will be live streaming its keynote speech. All the tech world will be watching what Apple announces today.

The prediction across the globe are –

– New iPhones with an upgraded camera module to 12mp, allowing for 4K video too.

– New Apple TV box with support for apps and gaming

– iOS 9 fully revealed

– Watch OS 2 – possibly an upgrade to the Apple Watch software

– new iPads possibly although I think these will be left to another keynote speech in October.

And then after Apple have you in a feverish mode of excitement over their new products, they instruct you to buy everything on Friday.

Why is this the biggest event. Simply all competitors, fans and anyone with an interest in tech will be glued on what Apple announce. Plus the keynote speeches are super slick.

How I fixed my MacBook Pro – Brute Force needed x 10

Apple, Tech News

I fired up my MacBook Pro yesterday evening and the cursor, screen and everything on the page was dancing around, zooming in and out, text getting highlighted and more. A total nightmare and impossible to use as well.

Well, my 2010 MacBook Pro once had the trackpad replaced under warranty, but now the trackpad was truly out of coverage. I tried adjusting display settings in preferences and altering the options for the trackpad.

Nothing was working.

Then I read on some forums that the issue is cause by an older battery that has slightly increased in size pushing up against the trackpad. The solution suggested by a few people was to push down really hard on the trackpad across the whole surface.

So I pushed down once using 2 hands but this didn’t seem to fix anything. Then I thought, well what the hell, nothing to lose and went hell for glory pushing down on the trackpad for a good 10 seconds. Now everything works just fine!

I still think I may need to change the battery, replace the trackpad and change the harddrive for a SSD at some point, but for now I will live with a working machine again.

ZTE Axon Elite – IFA 2015 – Show Report – Part 3

Android, Tech News,

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At IFA 2015, ZTE were displaying the ZTE Axon Elite. I have created a separate post for this phone as I felt it deserved more attention. This is the ZTE Axon but without the 2K screen, named the Elite as this is the international model going on sale on 24th September for a mere 419 euros. The international model has all the LTE bands required. ZTE manufactures the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 that I recently reviewed. The VSU6 is probably the best value budget phone currently.

So what do you get for 419 euros? An awful lot. For a start the rear features leather strips top and bottom, concealing the antennas. The phone is made from aluminium otherwise. The 5.5 inch display is 1080p, 3gb ram, 32gb storage with micro SD card support, a rear camera of 13mp plus a 2mp camera like the HTC One M8 duo camera setup for refocus affects, a 8mp front camera, fingerprint sensor, eye unlock scanner, voice recognition unlock , snapdragon 810, quick charge 2, 3,000mah battery, front facing speakers. The phone features HiFi audio chips for an enhanced playback too.

I had a good play with the ZTE Axon Elite and it seemed a fairly reasonable offering. The duo camera setup was fun to use but as to the overall quality that will be tested at a later date when I receive the phone in a few weeks times approximately.

It does seem to me that manufacturers are struggling what to add to their phones to make them more interesting. ZTE seem to have thrown the kitchen sink in with the Axon Elite. The Eye Scanner unlock takes a 3D image of your eye, and the software is like something from a Star Trek movie. If you wear glasses it wont work. The manual suggests that you should get eye laser treatment if you wear glasses (joke).

However, despite any specs overload, in the 30 minutes or so that I used the phone it all worked well and the camera seemed to take some nifty shots with the duo rear camera. I can’t wait to get my hands on this full time now!

IFA 2015 – Show Report – Part 1

Tech News, ,

Over the next few weeks I will be writing small posts, detailing gadgets that I found interesting at IFA 2015. I have a huge amount of content!

Until you have visited IFA, I think it is difficult to comprehend just how “huge” the exhibition is. In fact its so huge its beyond huge! But then there were around 4,000+ exhibitors from the smartphones to the smart fridges, window cleaners, 8K TV’s , 3D TV display longer than your living room (unless you are the Queen) and so much more. In fact, IFA covers all electronics imaginable.

Below is the 3D 4K Ultra experience from LG. Wearing the 3D glasses provided a superb 3D experience with objects going around your head and all over the place.

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LG had a very impressive range of TV’s on display covering a multitude of sizes and resolutions. Even an 8K TV. The LG G4 was being flaunted heavily along with other variants of the G4, include the G4 Note. Sadly this a 1gb ram, 8gb storage with a low processor, but with a stylus. Seems like nobody wants to take on Samsung’s Note 5.

I had planned to cover several press conferences on my first day at IFA, but missed the second press conference as it took 90 mins to get from one end of IFA to the other. You need 2 days of walking non stop from 10am to 5pm to see all the exhibitors. If you actually want to stop and look at the products, then add another day.

At the Audio Technics stand was their new portable headphone DAC Amp, the PHA100 connected with the Pono player, which looked odd being triangular. No wonder sales have been lacklustre. Audio Technica also had their full range of headphones and other hardware on display.

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Cars were seen all over the place too, with Android Auto, and other related products. Kenwood was promoting its powerful in car head units for example.

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With smartphones starting to plateau, it was clear from IFA that all companies are looking at other options to rake in the money. The big push seemed to be the Internet of Things or Connected Home.

More tomorrow.

Samsung Gear S2 – my views as a Smartphone guru

Android, Reviews, Tech News, Wearables, ,

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The Samsung Gear S2 is Samsung’s latest smartwatch and they think it’s amazing.

The above photos show the classic model on my wrist. There is also a sport model which looks dull on photos but in real life is rather good to admire.

I have owned a wide selection of smart watches. See here for my reviews https://gavinsgadgets.com/review-links/wearablesfitness-trackerssmartwatch-reviews/ .

So what did I think of the new watch from Samsung. Actually, it is rather smaller in person, and consequently looks and feels consider a smaller than the LG Watch Urbane.

So what you have is a watch that looks good on wrist and not overbearing.

Then you have the news that Samsung is allowing other Android phones to connect to this watch. There is a rumour coming out IFA that Samsung will allow this watch to connect to iPhones. The only issue of using another brand of Android phone or an iPhone is the watch will lose some of its functionality.

So what is the Gear S2 like to use in real life? Actually it is the smoothest and slickest out of any watch including my own LG Watch Urbane. It scrolls really quickly between screens and with the rotating bezels makes light work of everything. I was impressed.

So what are the drawbacks? Maybe it will be the lack of third party developers developing for the platform!

However even if the number of apps out of the box are minimal, it still provides an awful lot out of the box and should be ideal for many people!

Huawei Mate S – Luxury model – hands on with Force Touch and my views

Android, ,

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The Huawei Mate S comes in various options including the 128gb storage “luxury” model. This version also includes the Force Touch screen.

The video below shows me using the Force Touch screen.

So what do I think? At the moment the uses are limited. Using the Force Touch was easy to use and zoom in on a section of a photo.

However, I do wonder if Huawei is waiting to see what Apple offers with force touch on its new iphone before launching the luxury version.

At the press conference Huawei did mention it was hoping developers would create good apps for the technology. Huawei showed the Mate S weighing an orange on this screen which was really cool. Zooming in on photos doesn’t offer anything you can’t do already on a standard screen, so I do hope extra options are created that add true benefits.

Marshall London Smartphone – my hands on plus views

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

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The Marshall London is a rare beast. It also appears expensive on paper if you view it just from the mediocre phone specs.

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I got a chance to spend 30 mins with the phone and listen to the audio quality. From a operational point of view the phone part seemed to work really smoothly. Sound from the headphones was excellent too as well as the loudspeakers.

And then there is the unique design and brand. You guessed it. You’re paying for the Marshall logo and cool rotary volume control and other unique aspects.

Overall it was enjoyable to use and likeable hardware. I am hoping to spend more time with this phone and will hopefully write my full review shortly.

Below is a short video.