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All posts by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond
Xiaomi Mi Note Pro – new features following software update
The Xiaomi Mi Note Pro has a phenomenal audio system for listening to music via headphones.
There is Hi-Fi audio toggle on or off. This is pure audio quality and in this mode will drive your 600ohm headphones. So if you have Sennheiser, AKG, Sony or Oppo Planar Magnetic headphones you really want to use this mode. It’s something special. It works with all music apps and streaming services that I have tested it with including Google Music.
In the software update received last night the headphone enhancer side got updated. This now includes the Mi Headphones which I’m using as I write this post.
The difference toggling this setting on is amazing.
There is no other phone I have ever used that is so good with music quality via headphones.
Another trick I learnt with MIUI is notifications. A badge appears on the app icon. Double tap the app icon and the notifications for that app appear. Neat!
Another aspect I find impressive is weekly updates !!
Updates – Details of new items for review
Just a quick heads up on a few new reviews that will be published at some point in the future.
Oppo HA-1 Headphone Amplifier, DAC & Pre Amplifier
Discrete Class A Balanced Headphone Amplifier, Asynchronous USB DAC Up to 384 kHz and DSD256, Stereo Pre-Amplifier with Home Theater Bypass, Compatible with iPod/iPhone/iPad and Bluetooth. This piece of kit is not only gorgeous but has some serious clout.
Oppo HA-1 Headphone Amplifier – more information from Amazon UK
Evolve Audio Soundbar SB-2501
There is a lot more to this soundbar than meets the eye. Apart from being slim, low profile brushed aluminium soundbar, it also features a high auality wireless subwoofer with HD Lossless Technology, Unique ‘Definitive Surround Sound’ For Immersive 3D Stereo Surround, 1 Pair of Lossless High Fidelity Wireless Headphones Included and High Quality Bluetooth aptX For Music Streaming. And that is just the beginning.
Mystery Item
There is one more item too.
Amazon Fire TV Stick – Impressions
Following the Amazon Primeday sale, my Fire TV Stick arrived. Before the Fire TV Stick, I had been using the Amazon app on my TV which was slow and cumbersome. I also have a Chromecast and Apple TV 2nd Gen. It seems crazy having all the dongles and black boxes but sometimes to watch the show you want, you need to make sure you have access to as many options as possible.
So what was the Fire TV Stick like to setup? A breeze. No matter how little you knew about technology, the setup is made idiot proof. Plug the Fire TV Stick into a HDMI port, plug the power in, switch the TV to the AUX input if needed, and follow the on screen instructions. It first asks you to enter your Wi-Fi router password. Next to confirm it is your name and account to be associated with this device. Then you watch a video showing where everything is and how everything works. And that’s it.
In use streaming a TV series was smooth and faultless and it plays the next episode without any wait for buffering. Amazon called this ASAP—ASAP learns what Amazon movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and buffers them for playback before you hit play. It really works!
I found there was a reasonable selection of apps, and tomorrow I am going to try and connect my Moga Pro bluetooth game controller. The interface is big and bold and again simple to use. I installed the Fire TV remote app on my LG G4 and that worked perfectly too. Voice operation was remarkably accurate from the app.
Overall, I am left impressed. However, if you’re not a Prime member then the Fire TV Stick represents less value.
For Sale – Xiaomi Mi Note Pro – Xiaomi’s Flagship Phone – £379 – Pls RT
I am selling my Xiaomi Mi Note Pro. This is the flagship phone from Xiaomi. Really stunning. Will include a clear silicone case and a screen protector (not fitted yet). I bought the phone for review on Gavins Gadgets and are now offering it for sale. It is only a few weeks old!
– 4G Dual Sims Cat 9 Speed at 450bps
– 5.7 inch Sharp/JDI 2K QHD display 2560 x 1440 resolution at 515 PPI
– 1400:1 contrast ratio NEGA negative LCD technology
– 155.1 x 77.6 x 7 mm
– Sunlight Display in Mi Note uses hardware-level technology to adjust the contrast of each pixel in real time, so images are less affected by glare. 30% more power efficient than using brightness control
– Snapdragon 810, 20nm, 4gb LPDDR4 RAM, 64gb eMMC 5.0 Flash
– Adreno 430 CPU
– 3,000mAH battery
– 6.95mm thin
– Camera – 2nd gen 13MP Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor f/2,0 with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), 6-element lens, f/2.0 aperture , Philips two-tone LED flash, 93 Color Rendering Index (CPI) max rating manual mode, 32-second exposure, Quick Exposure Adjustment, HDR, and more functions. 4MP front camera 1/3 inch with large 2-micron pixels with Beautify, which intelligently guesses age and gender in order to apply 36 smart filters, 4K video recording, front camera supports 1080p video recording
– Hi-Fi audio system 24-bit/192KHz lossless playback support (DSD/DXD/AIFF/FLAC/APE) , A two-stage amplifier (Texas Instruments OPA1612 and Custom ADI ADA4896) also lets you pair your music with high-impedance 600 ohm headphones, DAC ESS ES9018K2M,
– Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Dual band 2.4GHz and 5GHz
– Sensor Hub is a co-processor in Mi Note that tracks fitness levels without draining phone battery
– Sensors – barometer, compass, gravity, light, gyroscope, hall
– GPS, Glonass, BDS
– 18 hours audio playback, 10 hours HD video playback, 34 hours 3G talk time
– Quick Charge 2
– Network – GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 – SIM 1 & SIM 2, 3G bands HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100, 4G bands LTE band 3(1800), 7(2600)
For photos and more info and specs on this phone, read my review – https://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/07/07/xiaomi-mi-note-pro-review/
Note – Google will come with this phone. From the Play Store just add whichever Google apps you want. The firmware generally receives updates every 1-2 weeks. The Hi-Fi audio system is amazing. I was listening to my AKG K702 headphones tonight with this phone with ease.
Leave a message on here. or @gavinfabiani on twitter.
£379 includes Royal Mail Special Delivery. Payment via BACS.
Xiaomi Mi Band – update
Day 15. Steps and sleep are all still being tracked and syncing to Google Fit.
But look at the battery life. 15 days on first charge and still the Mi Band has a 78% charge left!
Editorial – Amazon PrimeDay – Bonanza or Borderline?
Unless you had been hibernating yesterday, you would have heard about Amazon holding a one day sale, called PrimeDay for all its Prime members. It was billed by Amazon as bigger than Black Friday.
Well if you follow Amazon’s website you will know that prices fluctuate daily, hourly and even by the minute. Based on what I have seen over the recent years, the best deals often occur the week before Black Friday or randomly in December. Personally, I did not think the deals on offer yesterday were better than Black Friday.
These big day sales seem to offer old stock mixed with a few reasonable headline grabbing items. In fact, I noticed with PrimeDay, a percentage of electrical items from 7 months ago still being flogged. And then there was the endless cables, power adapters, power this and power that.
The next aspect of the sale was the discount being claimed. It was often overstated. Instead of using the discount from the lowest price it had been on sale on Amazon, the discount shown was typically off the RRP, or close to it. Is Amazon alone in the practice? No not at all. Nearly all online shopping stores and the high street participate in this way.
However, that is not to say it is all doom and gloom. There were several decent items available, and so long as you were actually going to buy it, then whatever amount you saved was a bonus. Also, an older electrical item is not to be discarded just because of its age. A decent pair of headphones will always sound good for example. For example the AKG K702 headphones were £110. That is unbelievable. These headphones were once over £330 and sound terrific. Another example. The original Pebble Smartwatch was being offered at £64.99 in 3 colours. The black had 40% of the stock redeemed and the red 44% redeemed. FitBit offered the Charge HR and Surge Smartwatch at its lowest prices to date. If Haribo Teddy Bears were your favourite sweet there was a good deal on a 3KG bag. That was so so so tempting 🙂
Personally, I decided to give Amazon Fire TV Stick a go. I was planning on buying this so the fact I saved a few pounds was a bonus. My wife had seen a box set of DVD’s at the weekend. I told her not to buy it just in case it was in the PrimeDay sale. It was and it was £14 less and this was the lowest price it had ever been on sale. The discount shown was also correct too.
The winners are clearly Amazon. Not only did the create a huge spike in sales on a single day but they also probably sold loads of Prime memberships leading up to PrimeDay. A true masterclass of marketing by Amazon! For example Amazon sold 35,000 Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets in 15 minutes and a Kate Spade handbag was sold out in a minute. However, not all shoppers were happy as Reuters reports – http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/15/us-amazon-com-primeday-idUSKCN0PP2WH20150715
So did you bag a bargain? And if so what did you buy?
Below are some tweets by frustrated shoppers –
thank you @Amazon for the crappy garage sale of the Internet. I recommended this sale to my boss… #unhappyPrimeday http://t.co/NnQpav7GU0—
Grayson Stream (@GraysonStream) July 15, 2015
https://twitter.com/Marasovs/status/621352899487010820
https://twitter.com/j_c_fitz/status/621514537288769536
https://twitter.com/charlerk/status/621514177786589185
https://twitter.com/zachheltzel/status/621501103390068737
Sources – reuters.com/wired.com/twitter.com
Samsung Galaxy A8 – Full Specs of the new phone from Samsung
Samsung has taken the wraps of the Samsung Galaxy A8. It is 5.9mm thin! But it has a 3,050mAh battery still powering a 1080p 5.7 super amoled screen. This on paper looks like a really good phone. Other specs include a Snapdragon 615, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB or 32GB internal storage with microSD expansion up to 128gb micro sd card. The rear camera is 16MP main camera, fromt 5MP f/1.9. A fingerprint scanner is included too
Source and more info – http://www.samsung.com/cn/consumer/mobile-phones/smart-phone/galaxy-a/SM-A8000ZWDCHC?CID=AFL-hq-mul-0813-
Amazon PrimeDay – Best Bargains so far – Keep coming back for updates too
Today is Amazon PrimeDay. If you are an Amazon member you can have access to some blockbuster deals.
These are my favourite so far that are live. This list will be updated throughout the day. If you don’t see the price as shown, click afterwards “Todays Deals, Deals of the Day”. These ones below are available all day until sold out, whereas the next section are all lightning deals, so speed is needed to bag that bargain.
The Sopranos – The Complete Series [DVD] [2007] £37.99
Fire TV Stick slashed to £19 All Day Deal
Kindle, 6″ Glare-Free Touchscreen Display, Wi-Fi – 33% off £39.99
Xbox One 1TB with Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Extra Wireless Controller Reduced to £329.00
Fire HD 7, 7″ HD Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB (Black) – Includes Special Offers 50% off now £59.00
Amazon Lightning Deals – Be Very Quick
This list will be updated throughout the day –
Fitbit Charge HR Heart Rate and Activity Wristband slashed to £79.99 on black finish
Belkin WeMo Smart Bayonet Fit B22 LED Light Bulb Starter Kit £49.99
Sennheiser Urbanite On-Ear Headphones – iPhone/iPod/iPad – Black reduced to £79.99
Pebble Smartwatch – Black reduced to £64.99
Pebble Smartwatch – Red reduced to £64.99
AKG K702 Open-Back Dynamic Reference Headphones now just £121.90
Garmin Forerunner 210 GPS Running Watch with Heart Rate Monitor – Black 51% off now £89
Apple Pay is live in the UK – list of places/banks were you can use Apple Pay
Apple Pay has gone live in the UK. Above is a list of all the places Apple has designated that accepts Apple Pay.
Credit cards on board include Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Banks on board are mbna, Nationwide, Natwest, RBS, Santander and Ulster Bank.
Banks coming soon. Bank of Scotland. First Direct. Halifax. HSBC. Lloyds. M and S Bank. TSB.
Barclays Bank is noticeably absent.
Coming soon is Costcutter, Dune, EAT, Five Guys, JD, New Look, ScrewFIX, wilko.
For more info – https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-pay/
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