Category Archives: Reviews

Episode 27 – Gav & Dave’s Tech Podcast is live – Please RT – All the latest tech discussed

Amazon, Android, Apple, Blackberry, Reviews, Tech News, Wearables, Windows,

As you know, I co-host a bi-weekly podcast with David from UKMobileTech called Gav & Dave’s Tech Podcast. It is a light hearted tech podcast broadcast bi-weekly. To subscribe click here for iTunes or copy and paste this link into your favourite podcast app.

Episode 27 is now live for your listening pleasure. Today we discuss the new Samsung Gear S, the Note 4, Note Pro and much much more.

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 .

Samsung Note 4 – First Impressions

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

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Samsung Galaxy Note 4

These are my initial findings and thoughts on the Note 4. Opening the box, it does not look anything wow, but it does look considerably better than the Note 3 (which I liked a lot). Before I started setting it up, I fully charged the phone. And that is when I got a glimpse of what the screen was going to look like when the battery indicator appeared. That was a small wow moment. In rapid time, the Note 4 was charged to 100%. The charge time was quick and that is thanks to the Fast Charge technology built in to the Note 4. I will address this again later on. So turning on after charging, a few passwords entered and voila. Note 4 was ready to rock. First thoughts. The screen is fabulous and is worth the change from the Note 3 for that alone. I have briefly tested the camera, S Health, music playing via the loudspeaker and bluetooth headphones, general usage of the phone, connected the Gear S and a few bits more. I need to get a micro sim today at some point. I added my 64gb micro sd card and that is working just fine.

My first few gripes are the bluetooth stereo. It was suffering from dropouts or stuttering every now and then. The audio quality was IMO disappointing versus the iPhone 6 Plus. I had connected my Philips Fidelio M1BT which have APT-X. The Note 4 has APT-X which is a high quality music codec. The iPhone 6 Plus does not have this codec support, yet sounds much better! Loudspeaker on the Note 4 is poor.

The design of the Note 4 now incorporates a metal band around the edge of the phone, but it is not a tight fit and it allows for expansion. This in turns means dust can drop along the gap between the edge and the glass. On one of the edges I was able to insert a piece of paper. It may not amount to anything but time will tell.

There was one software update. This installed in less than 10 minutes. There were a number of app updates but overall the process was over and done with quickly.

I tried out the S Health application, used the heart rate monitor, Oxygen Level monitor and Ozone monitoring. These all seemed to work just fine. Also, by logging back in to my Samsung Account, my S Health data was restored. In fact, I think the S Health application by Samsung is really good.

Camera. I took a number of shots and compared them with those from the iPhone 6 Plus. This could be a interesting shootout. In very low light the 6 Plus definitely has the edge. As to other conditions I will let you decide as I take more and more shots to compare, weather permitting 🙂

Battery. The first day always puts a strain on a device. The Note 4 made it to midnight from 10am with 40% charge left. That was impressive. More impressive was the fast charging. I need to time it but it really is an OMG moment when you witness the speed of recharging the phone. So 5 hours on standby and its loss 12% battery. That’s worrying as I have not yet installed all my normal apps. As a comparison, the iPhone 6 Plus after 5 hours on standby loses nothing on the battery and has 200 apps installed.

I also experimented with the S Pen. This again is a marked up improvement from the Note 3 and really really works beyond what you imagine possible. Recognition of handwriting and shapes and more is awesome.

It is early days with the Note 4. It seems to be a really good phone so far, but I have found an issue with bluetooth stereo music playing. Also the loudspeaker is poor. And then there is the comfort holding the device. Its defined edges make for an uncomfortable grip, but it is grippy. So a pay off I suppose.

Speed. It flies. Not seen any lag period. The Snapdragon 805 really powers the Note 4 smoothly. That’s it for now. More next week in more depth plus whether it is worth the premium price tag.

Samsung Galaxy NotePro 12.2 Tablet – impressions part 2

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

I have run out of time today, so just a quick note to say this is by far the most useful and pleasurable tablet I have owned. I am really pleased I sold my iPad Air to buy this. In fact the money raised by selling the iPad Air was £5 more than the NotePro cost to buy from Expansys who have a special price at the moment. Details http://www.expansys.com/s.aspx?search=samsung%20note%2012.2 .

Happy days.

Samsung Note 4 vs iPhone 6 Plus – camera photo comparison

Android, Apple, Reviews, Tech News

Just a really quick photo comparison. Don’t worry there will be plenty more and more evenly taken.

I’m not into pixel peeking too much just which phone can take the best shot. The 6 Plus is up first as is 4:3 ratio versus the Note 4 that snaps in 16:9.

So which do you prefer?

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And now the Note 4. Full resolution.

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Samsung Gear S – First looks at Samsung’s Watch that makes calls

Android, Reviews, Tech News, Wearables,

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So the Gear S has arrived. It is being charged now along with the Note 4 before I have a play. My first impressions of the Gear S is wow. I love the monstrous size. My wife burst out laughing. Said it looked like a prison tag and asked when my visiting hours were up.

So what do you think?

Screen showing the Gear S playing music with Bluetooth stereo headphones.

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Samsung Galaxy NotePro 12.2 Tablet – first impressions

Android, Reviews, Tech News

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Don’t be confused, it is Yosemite running on the Samsung NotePro 12.2 tablet but it’s using the free software Remotepc that Samsung provide. It’s seems really good too and it has a file explorer allowing the transfer of files from your computer to tablet  The above photo demonstrates just how big the tablets screen is.

Anyway, last night after allowing the tablet to charge, then spending the next hour or so downloading all the app updates from Google Play store and the Samsung App store plus the installation of 2 OTA firmwares the tablet was ready to rock 

First impressions are that it is huge. It is heavier than any tablet I have held in years. But it is also the biggest tablet screen size I have used too. In fact the screen is fabulous,  as is the default on screen touch keyboard. I have typed this post on it.

Several apps look like stretched phone apps, but on the whole the rest looked fine. The S-Pen is included and is more suitable for such a large screen for note taking and such like. Handwriting recognition appears to be really good so far. Samsung include many business type apps which I will cover off in more detail. Multitasking with 4 windows open is slick, but it is better to have 2 as the size of the windows is 6 inches a piece. This is the first Samsung product that includes a brilliant infra red software app. Very pleased about this as the dvd software includes the eject button. My dvd player eject button doesn’t work anymore and the official remote does not have an eject button either. 

If Apple release a 12 or 13 inch ipad,  the experience will be fantastic. I hope they include allowing more than one app to be displayed on the screen. Photos just shine on this tablet. In fact, they look better than on my ancient macbook. If my macbook dies I could just use this tablet.

Lag. It’s Samsung. It lags. Slows down at times. But in reality it doesn’t matter that much. There is also the magazine UI powered by Flipboard which also adds some HTC Blinkfeed options too.

I still have a lot to setup and discover. I will also be using this tablet with the Samsung Note 4 and Gear S. First impressions will be on Sunday hopefully on my podcast .

 

In the meantime below are a few screen shots. First my current home screen. The time is correct.
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Next up is a screen shot with the Magazine UI.

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You can make the tiles smaller in the above shot, so if you wanted you could have 6 items per page. Next this is Multitasking done properly.

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The above screen shot shows 3 screens open. 4 is the maximum in multi window. As I mentioned above, having 2 windows open side by side is really useful and manageable.

More soon…. questions please ask.

The Nexus 9 Tablet – review

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

The Nexus 9 review embargoes have been lifted and a number of tech sites have published their reviews.

Below is a summary of the main reviews from across the web –

Via – http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/03/google-nexus-9-review/?ncid=rss_truncated

PROS -Android 5.0 Lollipop runs like a dream,Material Design face-lift is warm, welcoming,K1 chipset is plenty powerful, despite benchmark oddities

CONS -Screen is solid, not jaw-dropping, BoomSound speakers not as good as M8’s, No expandable memory

Via – http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/03/nexus-9-review-a-little-better-on-paper-than-in-practice/

The Good –

Display: I love the 4:3 form factor, and the display itself is very nice. Great colors, what looks to be solid white balance, good brightness, and excellent viewing angles. I can find no real important faults with it.
Android L: Is pretty, adds tons of new features (many of which are quite useful), and beautiful animations throughout the OS. Easily the most mature and thoroughly styled Android has ever looked. It looks great on the Nexus 9.
Fast: The Nexus 9 is, in most situations where linear performance is the primary concern, very quick. Its single-thread benchmark results put it even ahead of Apple’s new iPad Air 2, so that K1 isn’t a slouch.
Front-facing speakers: I don’t really need to extol the virtues of front-facing speakers. They’re obvious.
Software support: OTA updates from Google mean you’ll be the first to get the latest version of Android, of course, with all the good and bad things that entails.

The Not So Good

Battery life: 9.5 hours of Wi-Fi browsing is, as far as my review unit is concerned, a fantasy. Like, there’s just no way. I’m getting half that.
Performance: It’s unpredictable. The Nexus 9 is fast, but it’s twitchy. Apps will randomly take longer to load than normal, longer than I would expect – it doesn’t feel fully optimized. That, or only having two cores is causing issues.
Build quality: It does not feel like a $400 tablet should feel. Not only is it fairly heavy for its size, the plastic back seems to have the same issues the Nexus 5’s did – it deforms under pressure, snaps, and creaks. It is not nice. Also, it’s a finger oil magnet.
Design: I’m sorry, but in my subjective opinion, the Nexus 9 is not a pretty tablet. It is decidedly generic, and not in a cool, stealthy way. It’s boring and drab. The press shots do it too much justice.
Price: All things considered, I find $400 ($480 for 32GB) hard to stomach for a 16GB tablet of this caliber. That’s generation one iPad Air money.

AndroidCentral.com – went on record to say they only got their device on Wednesday and they will spend more time with it so they can write a proper review. That makes sense to me!

Reading a number of reviews last night echoed the findings of the views printed above. Some loved it, some questioned its strengths and others were not blown away. Either way it is a direct take on Apple’s iPad space with a 4:3 aspect ratio but it does not beat the iPad Air at all.

Nvidia Shield Tablet – the negatives and bugs

Android, Reviews, Tech News, ,

So far I have covered off all the wonderful aspects of the Shield tablet. But I have also discovered a number of bugs and issues as below.

Nvidia Shield Tablet issues

1. Wifi Connectivity – I have noticed the range is not as powerful as my other devices. A recent OTA software update has improved matters.

2. Remote Streaming – Doesn’t work unless using an Ethernet Adapter. Wifi signal too week to stream. I have not experienced this myself, but some users have. Unfortunately, my PC is too old and does not have the minimum specs for streaming.

3. Cracks Edges on Case – Hairline cracks in all 4 corners of device. Case creaking and splitting. There are pages and pages on many forums about this. Again, I have not had this issue. But it Is worth highlighting it. Apparently Nvidia changed the manufacturing plastic bonding process with the newer LTE 32gb. However, users with this newer model have also experienced the shell suffering hair line cracks. More than likely caused by excessive heat whilst gaming at full throttle for hours at a time. The only good news is Nvidia does seem to be exchanging people’s devices. I should point out that if you get a crack, it doesn’t affect anything. Just cosmetic.

4. Poor Battery Life – 2 to 3 hours max when gaming. 5 hours otherwise. No quick charging. I have done battery tests and the gaming battery life is poor.

5. Bluetooth Controller Connectivity – Interference with 2.4GHz signal and inability to connect to certain devices.

6. OTG USB Charging and Ethernet Adapter – Not able to use a USB splitter for both the Ethernet Adapter and Charging at the same time. Not a feature advertised by Nvidia but would have been useful due to short battery life.

7. Mushy Power Button and Volume Rocker. I find these difficult to operate. Fortunately the Smart Cover turns the device on and off , and the wireless controller has volume controls.

8. Brightness Fluctuations with Screen. Auto brightness control is too aggressive and changes brightness too often.

9. Folders. I have created folders on the home screen. But apps keep vanishing out of them. Maybe I have too many apps in the folders? But then it allows me to place them inside to start off with.

Every device I have owned has issues including the Nvidia Shield tablet. However, despite all the above I am keeping this over my iPad. The Shield has flaws but it also has charm and lots of functionality that makes it a keeper.