“Amazon on Thursday announced two new unlimited cloud storage plans for , enabling users to store an endless amount of photos, videos, movies, music, and files. Amazon users can choose either the Unlimited Photos Plan for $11.99 per year or the Unlimited Everything Plan for $59.99 per year, with a free three-month trial available for each plan for customers that want to try the service.” If you are a Prime member, you already get unlimited cloud storage. The lower-tier Unlimited Photos Plan allows for an unlimited number of photos to be stored on Amazon Cloud Drive, alongside up to 5GB of additional storage for videos, documents and other files. The more expensive Unlimited Everything Plan allows for unlimited storage of photos, videos, files, documents, movies and music with no restrictions. Amazon Prime members are already provided with an Unlimited Photos Plan at no additional cost.”
Good to see Amazon raising it game towards other offerings like Microsoft that also offer unlimited plans.
“Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick will soon be much more useful, due to an impending update. Both streaming media hubs will work in dorm rooms, hotels and other places where you have to sign in before you get online — you can pack your device on that big vacation. The two also get support for Prime Music playlists, shortcuts for screen mirroring and hidden PIN codes when you make a purchase. You’re in for the biggest treat if you have a full-fledged Fire TV box, since you’ll get support for USB storage (to hold all your extra apps and games) and Bluetooth headphones (for those late-night movies).”
Amazon have just made their Fire TV Stick available to pre order in the UK, costing as little as £7 for new prime customers, rising to £19 and if not a prime customer the Amazon TV stick will cost £35.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick according to Amazon is the Most Powerful Streaming Media Stick.
-Powerful performance—4x the storage and 2x the memory of Chromecast, plus a dual-core processor
-Massive selection—Tens of thousands of TV episodes and movies, plus millions of songs and hundreds of games
-Effortless to setup and use—Simply plug in, connect to the Internet and start streaming in minutes
-Perfectly Portable—Take it from room to room and turn your HDTVs into streaming media centres
-No buffering with ASAP—ASAP learns what Amazon movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and buffers them for playback before you hit play
-Perfect with Prime—Prime members enjoy unlimited access to thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video
– Streaming services from Netflix, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and many more available.
The Google Nexus Player is now available to buy in the UK. It is on Pre Order for £79.99 at Amazon UK with a release date of 26th March 2015, along with free shipping if you order now.
The features of the Google Nexus Player are –
-Google Cast ready – cast your favourite entertainment apps from your Android or iOS device, Mac or Windows laptop, or Chromebook straight to your TV
-Start here, finish there – content syncs across Android devices so you can start a movie on your TV and finish it on your tablet in bed.
-Say what you want to see – just press the mic button on the remote and say “Gravity” to find it without having to dig through your media library
-Remote control works over bluetooth, not infra red, so you can hide the Player (which is tiny anyway)
-Optional GamePad to play compatible games via your TV
I must admit to being excited that this is now available in the UK. With the added option to play my android games thru the TV, this is a no brainer for me. So if you want to grab one of these now, head over to Amazon UK
Last February, I signed up to one year of Amazon Prime using the special offer that was available. The service has been relatively good. Due to errors made in an order, Amazon offered to extend the membership by one month. And today is the last day.
Amazon Prime offers unlimited next day delivery, prime instant video (TV/Films), prime photos with unlimited cloud storage and Kindle lending library. It also allowed me to extend the prime benefits to my wife’s account.
As I live in a rural location, home delivery is probably used more than some people, so the unlimited next day delivery has had regular usage. As to the other parts of the membership, these have not really been used. Prime Instant Video – this was one of the other main reasons for signing up to the service last year, but being honest I have found significantly more to watch via Netflix. I had planned to stop Netflix, but this has not happened due to Netflix offering better content to watch. So the real value is in the delivery. Except next day delivery is becoming less and less, more like 2 day delivery, or in the with the order that I placed on Friday (for an in stock item), 4 days before delivery.
Anyway, whether or not you feel the service is worth £79 is up to you to decide.
The reason this post is titled “Be Careful” is because despite Amazon sending me at least 3 mailshot emails a day, I have not had one single email regarding the expiry of the Prime Membership. So be careful, add a date into your diary just in case you need to cancel the subscription.
Update – after writing this article, I realised Amazon did contact me regarding my membership, not via email, but by post, and that is why I didn’t remember anything about the expiry/renewal date.
If you are buying anything on Amazon, please use the link below. This will help support Gavin’s Gadgets with all the running costs and more and won’t be any different in cost.
This morning I noticed Amazon had on their deal of the day 30% off the Belkin WeMo range which includes the Belkin Home Automation switch and Smart Lights. I personally use both of these products. The Home Automation switch is a wireless plug that you can turn on and off via the Belkin app both whilst at home and when away from your home. I reviewed the Smart Lights https://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/01/01/belkin-wemo-smart-light-bulb-starter-kit-review/ on the 1st January 2015, and I still use these everyday in my lounge. As I said, all the range is 30% for today only. To see everything and learn more click below –
Amazon.de now has the pre order pages for both the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and Samsung Galaxy S6.
The pricing is as follows –
S6 Edge 128gb – €1,049
S6 Edge 64gb – €949 (this has had a 5% discount already applied)
S6 Edge 32gb – €999 (this is correct, same as 64gb at the moment)
S6 32/64/128gb – €999 (amazon clearly doesn’t want to reveal it hand yet on the pricing, but you can preorder and you will only be charged the lowest price at the time)
To add some perspective, €1,049 equals £759. So is the S6 or S6 Edge to expensive?
“LG Electronic’s mobile chief, Cho Jun-ho, went on record to say that the G4 will be “radically different” than the G3. For starters, LG is joining the metal party by including a metal body on the G4. Moving on to software, LG will utilize UX 4.0 which will offer a major overhaul of its software design.
Cho Jun-ho then added that they plan on releasing an even higher-end smartphone later this year”
It has been rumoured that LG arr working on a dual curved edge display similar to the Galaxy S6 Edge. Does anyone think this statement has been delivered to try and combat the Galaxy S6?
As you know, I co-host a monthly podcast with David from UKMobileTech called Gav & Dave’s Tech Podcast. It is a light hearted tech podcast broadcast.
To subscribe click here for iTunes or copy and paste this link into your favourite podcast app.
Episode 32, “MWC Special” is now live for your listening pleasure.
If you have enjoyed the podcast, please leave a 5 star review in iTunes. It helps others find our podcast. Go now and leave a review !
If you have any comments, questions or feedback, please drop a line at feedback@gdtpodcast.com or in the comments below.
And finally, our thanks to Audible as today’s podcast is supported by Audible- get a FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at http://www.audibletrial.com/GavDave . Over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player. No obligation.
It’s a free trial so give it a go if you haven’t already.
If you are buying anything on Amazon, please use the link below. This will help support Gavin’s Gadgets with some of the running costs and using the link won’t cost you anymore. Thanks in advance.
Samsung held their Unpacked Event yesterday at MWC and it was one of their best presented live streams for some time.
The Galaxy S6 specs which are near identical to the S6 Edge are –
– Dimensions – 143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 mm
– Weight – 138 g
– Glass – Corning Gorilla Glass 4 back and front
-SIM Nano-SIM
– Fingerprint sensor (PayPal certified)
– Samsung Pay (Visa, MasterCard certified)
-DISPLAY – Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors,5.1 inches (70.7% screen-to-body ratio)
– Resolution 1440 x 2560 pixels 577 ppi pixel density
– Android OS, v5.0.2 (Lollipop)
-Chipset Exynos 7420,CPU Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57,GPU Mali-T760
– MEMORY Card slot No
– Internal 32/64/128 GB, 3 GB RAM
– CAMERA Primary 16 MP, 3456 x 4608 pixels, optical image stabilization, autofocus, LED flash
– Features Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, Auto HDR, panorama
– Video 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps, 720p@120fps, HDR, dual-video rec.
– Secondary 5 MP, 1080p@30fps, dual video call, Auto HDR
– WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
– Bluetooth v4.1, A2DP, LE, apt-X
– GPS Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou
– NFC Yes
– Infrared port Yes
– Radio No
– USB microUSB v2.0 (MHL 3 TV-out), USB Host
– FEATURES Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, gesture, heart rate
– Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM
– Browser HTML5
– Wireless charging (Qi/PMA/WPC) – market dependent
– ANT+ support
– S-Voice natural language commands and dictation
– Smart stay, Smart pause, Smart scroll
– Air gestures
– OneDrive (115 GB cloud storage)
– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
– MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264 player
– MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+/FLAC player
– Photo/video editor
– Document editor
– BATTERY Non-removable Li-Ion 2550 mAh battery
– Colours – White Pearl, Black Sapphire, Gold Platinum, Blue Topaz, Green
– S6 Edge features larger battery and extra Edge Panel options (People, Information, Clock)
The new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge look gorgeous and in particular the Edge. The new colours are superb too. Personally the Gold and Green colours look great. Some might be surprised by the lack of micro SD card support and a removable battery, but the new S6 has Samsung’s new fast access memory available in 32/64 or 128gb options. With its new 14nm 64 bit Exynos Chip this is meant to be 30% more frugal on the battery. Wireless charging is now implemented as standard and includes all major wireless standards. The cameras both have a f/1.9 for better low light photography. The software has been overhauled to be easier to understand and less apps have been installed by Samsung. 40% less. The fingerprint scanner now is like Apple’s Touch ID and will work with Samsung Pay when it launches later in the year. I really like the double tap to launch the camera which works in 0.7 seconds!
My overall verdict is these new phones are spec monsters but not at the loss of beautiful design. I am looking at my Note 4 and wondering how long it will last now but I do like my stylus. What about you? Tempted? The is one aspect that might impact sales of the S6 Edge and that is its price. The 128gb S6 Edge is likely to be around £799.
have just made their Fire TV Stick available to pre order in the UK, costing as little as £7 for new prime customers, rising to £19 and if not a prime customer the Amazon TV stick will cost £35. 
is now available to buy in the UK. It is on Pre Order for £79.99 at Amazon UK with a release date of 26th March 2015, along with free shipping if you order now.
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