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

Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 – Camera Samples with my views

Android, Reviews, Tech News, ,

Over the weekend I have been putting the £125 Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 through its paces. My review will be live on Monday.

In the meantime, below are some camera samples with my views on each photo.

Low Light Shot

The Expendable Burger - testing the low light performance of the £125 Vodafone Smart Ultra 6

The VSU6 really does not like low light from the rear camera. Loads of noise. On the plus side, the Expendable Burger was magnificent. Auto mode used for this shot.

Close Up

The Green Shot - testing the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 - macro type shot

The lighting was good for this shot, but the result was just passable. Auto mode.

Landscape Shot

The Landscape Shot - Auto mode on the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6

Good daylight, and a reasonable photo. I would be happy to share this. Snapped in auto mode.

The Famous Church Shot

The Church Shot - Auto mode using the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6

I always take a photo of my local church with nearly every phone. That way it is easier to compare phone from phone. This is a much better result, although the sky is blown out by the sun. Taken in auto mode.

The Famous Church Shot – HDR

The Church Shot v2 - HDR mode - Vodafone Smart Ultra 6

The resolution drops in HDR, and personally I have not liked any of the other HDR shots snapped on this phone. Avoid using HDR on this phone.

Again, remember this is a £125 phone. The camera does have a wealth of extra modes which I will cover off in the main review.

Update 2 – Carphone Warehouse has been hacked – details

Tech News,

Carphone Warehouse has been the victim of a major hack.

2.4m customer details have been stolen.

More details soon on this post.

Updated – 90,000 encrypted credit cards may have also been stolen. Sites hacked include OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com and Mobiles.co.uk, and services TalkTalk Mobile, Talk Mobile and iD Mobile.

Source – Carphone Warehouse in ‘2.4m’ customer data breach – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33835185

LG G4 – New firmware changes and tip

Android, Tech News, ,

My LG G4 received an OTA changing the firmware to V10c-EUR-XX.

Apart from bug fixes and improvements that were not listed in the changelog , I have noticed the following.

image

Pressing the recent menu icon, you can now pin apps to stop them being closed out of memory.

image

The ringtone and notification volume has been separated into individual sliders.

image

SlowMo mode in the camera has been moved to the modes menu. It was under video size previously.

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A new Bluetooth icon with battery level of the connected device now appears.

Now this is a tip for those that use Google Music. For some mad reason there is no Equaliser option on the app. If you had over to XDA and install AudioFX you now have huge EQ options. You do not need to be rooted.

Link – http://forum.xda-developers.com/g4/themes-apps/cyanogenmod-audio-fx-t3115358

HTC to slash jobs, projects and smartphones – details

Android, Tech News, ,

“Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp said it would cut jobs and discontinue models as part of its strategy to focus on high-end devices to better compete with the likes of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

“The cuts will be across the board,” Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang told reporters after HTC reported a second-quarter loss and forecast another for the third-quarter. “They will be significant”

HTC’s position is sad to see. It follows a number of other companies who have fallen or that have shrunk, including Palm,Nokia and Blackberry. Now it looks like HTC is in jeopardy. This action has come about following news that HTC Corp. forecast a quarterly loss five times more than analysts’ estimates, which has occurred due to plummeting sales.

Source – http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/us-htc-outlook-idUSKCN0QB14M20150806 / http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-06/htc-expects-loss-five-times-wider-than-estimates-as-sales-plunge

Editorial – Why are we bothered about Smartphone Cameras?

Tech News,

Tavistock Viaduct, Devon

A phone is often scored by its camera. But have we lost the plot? Depending on which side of the bed you get out of, you will either say that the Samsung Galaxy S6 or LG G4 currently holds the mantle for the best camera on a phone. Of course, you might be the sort of person that is hiding under the bed with a Nokia Lumia 1020.

In a few months time, there will be even more claims from manufacturers that their new phone has an even better camera. But why are we bothering to care anymore. Nearly every phone available nowadays comes with a camera that is simply, good enough. Take the new Motorola Moto G 2015, this has the camera from the Nexus 6, minus optical image stabilisation.

I think its time to prioritise what we need in a phone. So I would want a 6″ 1080p screen, Snapdragon 820, 5,000mAh battery, Qi charging, Quick Charging 2, FM Radio, Dual sims, 64gb storage plus micro SD slot, 16mp camera with OIS, 5mp on front, fingerprint scanner, USB C, APT-X, decent sounds, and made of grippy plastics. Front screen to be made of Gorilla Glass 4. With these specs what more is needed.

And with that camera scenario, just buy a small decent point and shoot, that can be always in a pocket. The photo shown above is from the Sony RX100 III. No need to worry now about how good the camera is on a phone!

Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 – Initial Views

Android, Reviews, Tech News, ,

image

The Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is a ZTE manufactured phone for Vodafone based on the ZTE Blade S6 Plus.

The specifications are –

– Dimensions (mm) 154 x 77 x 8.35
– Weight (g) 159
– Operating system Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop)
– Screen 5.5 inch 1080p, 441 ppi, Touchscreen, IPS Quantum, 70.3% screen to body ratio,
– Camera 13 megapixels, 4x digital zoom, LED flash, 5mp front
– 2G standby time (hours) 240
– 3G talk time (hours) 15
– Processor – Snapdragon 615, 64 bit,Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53,quad-core 1.0 GHz Cortex-A53,Adreno 405
– SIM type NanoSIM
– Internal memory 16GB, 2gb ram
– Memory card type MicroSD
– Connectivity
– Network region LTE FDD 2600/1800/900/800 Mhz,
UMTS 2100/900 Mhz,
GSM 900/1800/1900 Mhz
– Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP
– FM Radio included
– Wi-Fi, Wireless tethering
– Battery 3,000mAh
– Micro USB 2

Photo from the rear camera below taken yesterday.

wpid-wp-1438792468191.jpg

As you can read, you seem to get a decent level of specifications for your money, £125 on pay as you go, with Vodafone. It is locked to Vodafone, but if you search on ebay it costs around £3 to unlock.

The phone runs near stock android except for a few Vodafone apps, most of which can be uninstalled, or frozen, or hidden in a folder if necessary. The build is cheap plastic and I do worry how long the buttons will last over time. I have the anthracite colour. It is also available in white/silver.

After installing all the app updates and a 40mb software OTA update, the phone had 9.46gb free. This included space for my default Google apps and the respective data for each app.

Compared to my LG G4, the Smart Ultra 6 is the same width but slightly taller. Speed – jumping between screens and apps seems fairly fluid. The camera so far is ok. More testing needs to be done on everything, so these are just my initial thoughts. The 5.5 inch 1080p screen looks good with reasonable viewing angles. Brightness seems around 500 nits. AnTuTu scored 26,199 which is lower than the Nexus 5, LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy S5 which are around 38,000+.

However, so far so good. More soon.

Apple developing more Android apps – details

Android, Apple, Tech News

Look what we have here. Apple is looking for Android software engineers for developing Android apps!

Applications SW Engineer – Android

Job Number: 41632321Santa Clara Valley, California, United StatesPosted: Aug. 5, 2015Weekly Hours: 40.00
Job Summary

Imagine what you could do here. At Apple, great ideas have a way of becoming great products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job and there’s no telling what you could accomplish. We’re looking for engineers to help us bring exciting new mobile products to the Android platform.

Key Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have 6+ years of software development experience
Highly collaborative problem solving, critical thinking, and communication skills
Ability to rapidly iterate from prototype to shipping product
Comfortable with Test-Driven Development, Continuous Build and Test, and other Agile methodologies
Expert knowledge of Java
Broad experience in Android application development
Knowledge of C++, Objective-C or other languages is a plus
Significant mobile development experience
Experience with Apple platforms and technologies is a plus

Source – Apple – https://jobs.apple.com/us/