Noise coming out of Korea is that Samsung and Apple are looking to find ways to scale down and call off there legal battles.
I really hope this happens and this is not another fail. These patent battles just seem to benefit the lawyers and not the consumer.
According to TK Tech News this is the new Note 4. This features the new design language by Samsung.
Of course with all leaks they could be a load of nonsense but TK has already been successful with other phone model leaks.
Amazon launched its Fire phone, currently a USA only phone and via AT&T. The hard facts or should I say stats are –
A Snapdragon 800 SoC, a quad-core Krait CPU clocked at 2.3GHz, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture and optical image stablisation, a 2,400mAh battery, 32 or 64GB of fixed storage, a LCD screen of 4.7-inches with a 720p screen resolution. And then there are six cameras on the Fire phone, the main camera on the back, a front-facing camera, and then the four head-tracking, infrared cameras in the four corners of the front fascia. These 4 corner-mounted sensors are the cameras which power the Dynamic Perspective feature via infra red.
So not class leading specs in all areas just different. Also Bluetooth LE is missing. Wearables won’t be so kind to your battery with this phone. Also, the phone is designed around using gestures for quick actions. Amazon are heavily promoting the 3D user experience and software design.
So what do all the cameras do? Track you head to allow so that you can tilt the screen to create 3D images, or bring up useful info. With games you could tilt the screen to peek around corners. The Firefly button allows the phone to identify movies, music, QR codes and much more. In other words a quick way to buy on Amazon.com. The Firefly hardware button with the phone off, becomes the camera launch button. Jeff Bezo also claimed the Fire phone’s camera is better than both the iPhone 5S and Samsung Galaxy S5. As they say the proof is in the pudding but it is a clever move. Instead of producing a phone that has everything class leading, Amazom just focused on one aspect that they believe is better than the rest.
The phone is priced at similar costings to other flagships and comes with all Amazon’s armoury of media and streaming services. Amazon Prime is included for just one year. Even though this is based on Android, it is not a Google android operating systems, so unless you hack it, you won’t get hangouts and other native Google applications. But you do get all of Amazon’s packages including free unlimited storage for all photos uploaded into its cloud.
In essence this phone is just like the Kindle Fire with its aim to drive more money through Amazon’s coffers but with some hardware and software differentiators.
But can Amazon really take on Google, Apple and Microsoft in this crowded mobile space. Answer, they have already and with a strong proposition that grows larger every day.
In 3 years time, the mobile landscape will in my honest opinion feature Amazon near the top. I also hope global reach of this phone occurs rapidly.
Samsung clearly like offers and deals. A 10% pre order discount, only to be beaten less than 2 weeks with a 20% off deal, and no price guarantee in say a 30 day period.
Instead, they request that you return you current device for a refund. Next create a new order using the 20% discount code. So Samsung are happy to pay the return postage for returning the original phone, and then the outgoing postage for the same phone just ordered but at a much lower cost. What they could not do was simply refund back the difference or part thereof..
All I can say is that everyone is happy. I have the same great camera phone and at a lower price and Samsung somehow still have my custom despite everything. Heck, I’ve even been offered 10% off anything until the end of the year from their estore. And the other day, Samsung called me and offered a one off 5% discount off the new Tab S when it becomes available to order. I think I might wait 2 weeks since we all know the discount will double!
So why did Samsung offer me 10% off anything from their estore? Well, I got an email apologising for the lack of free case, a 10% off code and a promise the K Zoom case would be posted next week. Now, since I have returned the original K Zoom which had the free case offer, I’m taking a sweep stake as to whether I still get the free case. So leave a note in the comments or catch me on twitter, saying yes I will or no I won’t or something else 🙂
Amazon will announce today its first smartphone. This will be an exclusive to AT&T in the USA according to the Wall Street Journal.
BGR.com has reported that the phone will have 3D effects without glasses and support a variety of motion gestures that will open menus just by tilting the phone. This is performed by an array of internal sensors and 4 front facing infrared cameras that track the users head in relation to the phone’s screen.
Amazon’s phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and it includes 2GB of RAM and a 4.7-inch 720p display. So from a hardware point of view, nothing class leading.
The phone will also be able to automatically digitise text in photos of signs and other printed materials. This will allow the phone to perform various functions on the fly, such as translating text into another language or saving information on a business card to a new contact entry. And maybe search quicker on Amazon to buy objects.
The phone will also feature “Prime Data” the details of which are still a secret.
In addition, Amazon has announced its app store has over 250,000 apps. It is clear that Amazon will also be pushing all its cloud, shopping and media services.
It will be interesting to see what else this new phone can do too, but for now as this is a USA only phone, it will have limited impact.
The Telegraph reported that Tesco has introduced a new app to lower the cost of making international phone calls via the internet called Tesco Calling Card.
The app is free to download, through which it claims a 30 minute call made from Brazil to the UK would cost only 60p, compared to a hotel’s charge of £60.20.
The app connects to WiFi to lower the charge of the international call. Calls made from the UK to overseas cost around 1p per minute, the supermarket said.
As well as making calls, users can also send in-app messages to each other.
Users can add credit to their account via the app, instore or online, and new joiners are credited with £1 once the app has been downloaded.
The purchased ‘card’ is valid for 90 days after purchase or from the last time the user topped up.
I do wonder if Tesco is trying to become the next Amazon, or something similar. It already had a number of media offerings using its Blinkbox services and also hardware via its Hudl tablets.
Situation 1 –
I bought the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom via Samsung’s estore. There was an offer of 10% off the retail price. £400 less 10% equalled £360. Sounded good. Less than 2 weeks after going on sale, Samsung’s estore now offered 20% off but no free case. The case is worth £20 apparently although it’s not arrived yet and according to Samsung support they don’t exist either due to an internal mess. Anyway, 20% off £400 is £320. Actually the discount is 19.66% as the new price is £321.
So a quick phone call to Samsung estore customer service, mentioning the price difference and asking what they could do to bridge the gap. Answer, nothing. Well that’s not quite true. I am within my 28 days no reason required to return my current K Zoom, and then re order another one at the lower price. So Samsung would be paying the return postage and postage to send out new order. Now is that logical or what ?
Situation 2 –
Samsung emailed me offering me 6 free video rental vouchers. Yippee. That was excellent. Except you need to use their video hub app to redeem. Guess what? There is no video hub on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. I phoned Samsung customer service and they didn’t know what to do. Logical or what ?
Does anyone have the solution to this ?
The video below shows the two models and the difference more ram makes in the benchmarks. Does size matter?
I’ve been slightly distracted as I’ve had the Sony Xperia Z2 in the house.
However, I’ve still been using the K Zoom to try and improve the user experience for me and also solve some of the battery drain issues.
Let’s start with the battery drain issues. I thought the high temperature had caused the battery to plummet but actually I’m now seeing if the new version of SwiftKey is the cause. I was using Google keyboard which worked really well but my typing speed on SwiftKey is seriously fast. When I’ve had a few more days usage I will report back. I did turn off swiftkey trending in the app settings and this seems to have helped a little.
One of the phones widgets is the camera widget. I thought it had the fixed Pro Suggest camera launch mode and then 6 app options user selectable. Then by accident I realized it moved to reveal another 6 boxes for adding more apps.
As you can see my selection is all photo editing related. I just wish you could select which mode to launch the camera.
Bluetooth music streaming with my AKG K845 headphones is still not consistent with many dropouts. Fortunately, these headphones can also be used wired.
I now have a cheap eBay case for the phone, all of £2.90. But still no case from Samsung which was promised as part of the pre order.
I think despite a few issues I’m having with this device it is by far brilliant for my needs and is going to be near impossible to change this for anything else as my main driver.
I’ve had the Sony Xperia Z2 for nearly 4 days, thanks to Clove Technology.
In this time, I’ve reacquainted myself with the Z2 after my initial time with it at release. I’ve also owned the Z1 and Z1 Compact, and without a doubt I think the Z2 is the best yet from Sony mainly due to the best screen that doesn’t feature the pre applied Sony screen protector. Also the profile size and comfort in the hand has been tweaked rather well.
So how has the Z2 performed during the time I’ve had it so far. Rather admirably to be honest. The loudspeakers are reasonable so if you did want to listen to a podcast the stereo speakers are acceptable. The screen is fine too although sunlight was a struggle to see anything on the screen. The headphone sound output was stunning. Sony really excel here with their sound quality. Sony also feature events. So for example when you plug in headphones, or connect to a Bluetooth device or plug the charger in, you can configure it to then carry out another action.
There is also a selection of Sony software from tools, media, and even aTV remote. In addition if if you have other Sony devices like a TV or Playstation then the Z2 becomes even more useful as the devices work well together in an Eco system.
The Z2 is slab like with a more pronounced rectangle shape. This means it’s not the most comfortable phone to hold, but it is one of the better looking designs so long as you like larger bezels on the front of your phone. But then the larger bezels also help provide the IP68 waterproof rating. Also, as the phone has a dedicated two stage hardware camera button, you can take photos and film video underwater.
Talking about the camera, this is by far the best incarnation of the 20.7mp sensor Sony has achieved. The shots are good, with some fun camera modes and some more serious options for photographers. Moving targets were easy to capture. Auto mode was super fast. There is an option to start the camera using the hardware camera button and take a photo immediately. On some situations the photos possessed too much noise and processing artefacts. Low light shots on still objects were okay.
I was trying to think how I would rank this against the HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5. For me personally, the S5 is the best option but even though all these phones run google android they couldn’t be more different in the user experience. So ultimately, it depends on what YOU want and what matters most to YOU.
My thanks again to Clove Technology. For all your smartphone needs head over to them. Click here..
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