Category Archives: Tech News

The Perfect Smartphone – BUT

July 13, 2015Tech NewsEditorial special, LG G4, Mi Note ProGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Currently I have the LG G4 with a few extras.

The G4 has one of the best cameras, great audio, comfy to hold in the hand, replaceable and user changeable battery, expandable memory with a micro SD card up to 2TB, QHD display and so much more.

Add to the fact that I also have the black leather version, which also came with a gold back cover what more could I want. Well, I also have the ceramic white cover, which in my opinion looks better than the black leather option. Ceramic white is also likely to be more durable than leather. I also have a spare battery and battery charging cradle so there is never any wait to recharge the phone back to 100%. No matter what your views of the G4, its versatility translates into an excellent workhorse/functional phone. In conclusion it performs perfectly as a phone coupled with plenty of flexibility.

BUT.

I’m not happy and I don’t know why. Sometimes I think it is because the G4 lacks emotion when you use it. I also have had/have a Xiaomi Mi 4i and Xiaomi Mi Note Pro to review along with many others. The 4i has moved on to new pastures and Steve Litchfield from Phones Show Chat has temporarily borrowed my Mi Note Pro for a week in order to review it himself. I am looking forward to using the Mi Note Pro since there is something emotionally satisfying about using it.

For some reason I enjoyed using the Mi Note Pro more than the LG G4. The camera on the Mi Note Pro is not as good as the one on the G4, but it is pretty darn close. It doesn’t have changeable batteries or a micro SD card slot, yet it is so stunning to behold, and a monster of a powerhouse android phone with higher specs in many areas than the LG G4. I also think MIUI is more engaging. All the others specs are fantastic too. But it just looks so cool and drives some emotion in use.

This got me thinking. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and Xiaomi Mi Note Pro use the latest/newer/more advanced components than many other phones at the moment. For example both these phones have done away with micro SD card and are using a fixed internal storage. The internal storage is faster than accessing the micro SD card. One reason the Mi Note Pro camera can take 20 shots a second in burst mode. Whereas the LG G4 has still stuck with replaceable batteries and micro SD card expansion. With all this in mind I do wonder if we need better processors etc or are we better with yesterday’s tech? Then finally, I thought, if the phone has all the power and storage we need, what else drives us to get that next new shiny phone? Colour? Or something immaterial because the phone choice is so vast, we can choose to be picky about every little feature or fault?

It will be interesting to see how the next 3 months pans out with new phone releases. Maybe the next big thing with a smartphone has already happened!

LG G4 – 11 Themes for the Default Launcher

July 13, 2015Android, Tech NewsLG G4 default themes - 11 classic themesGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Power on your LG G4 and you are faced with the LG G4 bright square icon theme. Some people will hate it and others will love it. LG has you covered, as you can head over to LG Smartworld and download a few others.

First up is “Suits”.

With each of these screen shots I have left the theme wallpaper alone. With Suits theme it is better to use a near black wallpaper.

Another theme from LG Smartworld is “Puzzle v2” . I think this is worse than the default theme.

Fortunately with a quick search on Google Play and via Google you can discover some more pleasing themes. These are the best I have found so far. This one is called “LG Home Flat”.

Next up is “Thin Blue Line”.

For all you MIUI fans, this one is for you. “MIUI Theme”.

Samsung fan people, time to rejoice. Here is the “S6 Theme”. I quite like this. I suppose I have got used to Samsung icons over the years.

HTC Sense UI theme is next. I don’t like this theme.

From the LG Smartworld is “Lego v2” theme. I can’t decide yet what I think about this one.

But without a doubt my favourite it “LG Home Lollipop”.

So which theme do you prefer?

Apple news

July 13, 2015Apple, Tech NewsApple Pay UK launch, iPodsGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Apple Pay seems on track for its UK launch tomorrow, Tuesday 14th July 2015.

Whilst not officially announced by Apple the evidence is ramping up. Waitrose last week confirmed in an internal memo to its staff the data, HSBC tweeted the date yesterday and many other retailers are providing small bits of evidence too.

In other Apple news, tomorrow is also the rumoured date for a possible refresh on the iPod range which hasn’t seen a refresh in years.

Sources – Waitrose, HSBC, 9to5mac

Website Updates

July 12, 2015Tech NewsGavin's Gadgets website tweaksGavin Fabiani-Laymond

I made a few tweaks to the layout of Gavin’s Gadgets.

If you’re browsing on your PC you will notice only 4 tabs on top – About, Reviews, Editorials and Princetown Weather St.

If you’re on a mobile device you’ll see the above screen shot when you tap the menu icon.

If you tap on the “Reviews Index” you will see the following.

And as an example tapping on Phones etc brings up a list of around 60 reviews of phones and more.

Each of the 4 menu options have been tidied up too.

Hope you like the small tweaks.

LG G4 – Army Warfare on Dartmoor

July 10, 2015Android, Tech Newsarmy helicopter, Camera, LG G4, zoomGavin Fabiani-Laymond

I was driving across Dartmoor yesterday evening and I spotted an army helicopter. I stopped a took the above photo.

And another shot below. Notice the startled sheep looking at the helicopter too.

So I wondered how close I could zoom in with the G4 and capture the helicopter moving along with its blades. Result is below.

And then further down the road there was another helicopter. I took this in portrait so you could gain some perspective against the moor.

Not a bad sequence of shots!

LG Watch Urbane – Posh Edition

July 10, 2015Android, Reviews, Tech News, WearablesLG Watch Urbane, milanese strapGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Change the strap and the watch face and you have a new watch.

The milanese metal strap arrived yesterday. It was so easy to swap over. I now have the black strap that came with the Urbane, a lovely brown crocodile leather and a sports orange strap.

Below are the other straps in my possession.

Without a doubt the metal milanese strap is my favourite! What is crazy is that the cost of all 3 additional watch straps cost less than one of the cheapest straps sold by Apple for their Watch.

Xiaomi Mi 4i – Review

July 9, 2015Android, Reviews, Tech NewsReview, Xiaomi Mi 4iGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Welcome to my review of the Xiaomi Mi 4i.

First let’s take a quick look at the key specifications –

– Dimensions – 138.1 x 7.8 x 69.6mm
– Colours – white, blue, black, pink, yellow
– 13MP rear Sony/Samsung camera, 5-element lens, f/2.0 aperture,Two-tone flash, Supports manual mode, real-time HDR, Torch, Supports 1080p video recordings
– 5MP front camera 5-element lens, f/1.8 aperture 80° wide angle lens, Beautify with 36 smart beauty profiles
– 5″ Sharp/JDI Full HD display 1920 x 1080 resolution, 441 PPI 95% NTSC colour gamut, Fully laminated Corning® Concore™ glass, All-new Sunlight display with hardware-level pixel contrast adjustments,IPS 178° wide viewing angle
– Snapdragon™ 64-bit octa-core processor 2nd gen Snapdragon™ 615 CPU, 1.7GHz Adreno 405 GPU
– 2GB RAM LPDDR3, 16GB Flash eMMC
– 3120mAh all-day battery
– Sony/Samsung/ATL 4.4V lithium-ion polymer battery
– SIM slots – 2 x micro SIM slots
– Networks – 4GFDD-LTE,TD-LTE B3 / B7 /B38 / B39 / B40 / B41, 3GTD-SCDMA, WCDMA 1900 / 2000MHz
850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100MHz, 2GGSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz
– Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11ac wave 2 include MU- MIMO, supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands
– Bluetooth 4.1
– Sensors – Compass, Gravity, Gyroscope, Light, Hall, Proximity
– GPS, GLonass, BDS
– Supports: H.264–Baseline/Main/High, MPEG4–simple/ASP, H.264–0,
VC-1/WMV9–Simple/Main, VC-1–Advanced
– Supports: PCM, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ , MP3, WMA – V9 and V10, AMR – NB and WB, FLAC, APE

Phone Basics

The Mi 4i looks like an iPhone 5C. But that is where the similarities stop. Dual SIM and running Android with Google pre installed. I have installed a huge selection of my apps. See below.

The 64 bit Snapdragon 615 processor provides a smooth affair and produces an AnTuTu score of 38,000.

The 5 inch 1080p screen has good viewing angles and sunlight visibility due to a special display. The new Sunlight display has hardware-level pixel contrast adjustments and a 178° wide viewing angle. The loudspeaker is on the rear and maxes out at 84db. It is a clear sound but being on the back is not the best spot as it can get covered quite easily. Headphone audio is good including bluetooth too. USB OTG is supported.

Camera

The Mi 4i has a 13MP rear Sony camera, with a 5-element lens, f/2.0 aperture, and supports 1080p video recordings. The front camera is a 5MP front camera 5-element lens, f/1.8 aperture 80° wide angle lens, beautify with 36 smart beauty profiles.

The camera app is a familiar Xiaomi affair. Plenty of modes and options including a manual mode. See below.

In use, I have found the camera app rather easy to use. Plenty of options to choose from and a decent auto mode.

The quality of the shots is good at this price point. I really like the macro shots, but again similar to the Mi Note Pro, panoramic shots are tiny in resolution being around 1mp. A number of third party apps will take higher resolution photos.

Camera samples

The results overall are rather good. There are 2 different HDR modes which are shown below after the normal shot.

And now some random camera shots.

MIUI

Below are screen shots from the MIUI v6 skin. The entire look can be changed with an extensive theme store. The MIUI functionality is again similar to that found on the Mi Note Pro minus a few features, but nonetheless still plenty of options. Noteworthy are the one handed mode, headphone audio options, screen calibration and the endless options for the inbuilt apps.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi Mi 4i is another example of a well built, decent phone and competitively priced for around £200. It has a good camera and audio quality and backed up with a thriving community. It is one of the few android phones that is able to be used one handed with ease and consequently makes this a pleasure to use.

Microsoft cuts nearly 8,000 jobs from its Phone Division – plus more

July 8, 2015Tech News, Windows800 people redundant in phone business, Microsoft makes 7, writes off Nokia costsGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has stated that the company needed to make some “tough choices” in areas that aren’t working.

Now, it’s announced that 7,800 jobs will be cut from the mobile division working on Windows Phone hardware.

Satya Nadella sent the following email to the staff –

“We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family,” Nadella said. “In the near-term, we’ll run a more effective and focused phone portfolio while retaining capability for long-term reinvention in mobility.”

Nadella reiterated that Microsoft is “committed to our first-party devices including phones” but needs to “focus [its] phone efforts in the near term.”

The company will also write off $7.6 billion from the acquisition of Nokia.

It also said that “the future prospects for the Phone Hardware segment are below original expectations” due to the new plans.

This is huge with the true impact of the direction of the Microsoft phone business under question now. Will Microsoft just make one or two phones or a small handful or none at all. Or is the future an Android based phone with Microsoft services?

Source The Next Web

The Press say “Apple Watch is a Doomed” or “A Flop”

July 8, 2015Apple, Tech News, WearablesApple Watch, Flop, Sales PlummetGavin Fabiani-Laymond

If you head over to macrumors.com or dailymail.co.uk the Apple Watch is heading for a disaster. Back in April 2015, 200,000 Apple Watches were being sold per day. Now that number in the US has possibly plummeted to as low as 2,000 watches.

What planet is everyone on?

I may wear a LG Watch Urbane currently, but I bet LG has not even sold 2,000 of these in the last 3 months. Apple have entered the smart watch space and taken it by storm, and now are the number one selling smart watch brand, and by some crazy huge margin.

I have looked at all the features of the Apple Watch and wish some of those were on my LG Watch Urbane. LG still haven’t sorted out their Health app and syncing the heart rate from the Urbane. Google updated Google Fit and broke the heart rate monitoring on the Urbane. Meanwhile, Apple sells thousands of watches every day. Seems Apple has the upper hand.

Some perspective. The Apple Watch is a non essential item, a luxury item, yet it sells really well. It will continue to sell over a longer period of time, as all jewellery does.

For now, Apple is in a good position. If the numbers completely dwindle, well then a new strategy will be needed.

Xiaomi Mi Note Pro – review

July 7, 2015Android, Reviews, Tech NewsReview, Xiaomi Mi Note ProGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Welcome to my review of the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro. This is Xiaomi’s flagship phone and first impressions from viewing and holding the hardware are positive. The hardware is gorgeous. Just look at the curved edges on the back. The photos don’t do it justice either. In real life this phone is such a stunner.

The Mi Note Pro is dual sim, one is a nano sim and the other fits a micro sim. I am using my EE nano sim. I have also used the phone with my 3 sim.

The headphone socket is on top.

The micro USB port is on bottom right, with the loudspeaker at the bottom. USB OTG is supported.

The key specifications are worth reading and they are –

– 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)

Phone Basics

Just take note of the phone specs. A really high quality piece of hardware and specifications. The phone has a stunning back with curved sides. The frame is metal and glass with a gold edge trim. If I had one observation, the rear back being glass is slightly slippery. The screen has excellent viewing angles and in sunlight uses hardware and not brightness to make it readable. Truly a cool piece of technology. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cell signal all worked well.

The phone comes with the official Chinese firmware from Xiaomi. Xiaomi offer 2 versions of their firmware. A weekly developer option and a stable firmware which on average receives an update every 3 to 4 weeks. So what about Google Play Services and Google apps? Well, phones sold and used in China are not allowed to have Google services installed. However, as soon as you boot up the phone from outside of China, you are presented with a splash screen asking if you have a Google account. I entered my Google account details, setup up a Mi account and then went in to the Google Play store and installed all my apps and games. That includes the full suite of Google apps and android wear. My LG Watch Urbane worked just fine with the Mi Note Pro.

After the first start up I got a over the air update to the newest firmware version and a few days ago it received a further update. The updates seem to fix a few bugs and add new features. The full changelog is available on the Mi forums. The skin Xiaomi use is MIUI. Android 5.0.2 is the base. See screen shots in gallery for all the system info. As mentioned above, I have installed all my apps and have not had any issues. As this in a Chinese based firmware and despite selecting English US as the language, occasionally you do get the odd Chinese piece of text.

The Mi Note Pro has 4gb ram and a snapdragon 810. The 810 at times does get warm but I’ve not experienced any shutdowns due to the heat. AnTuTu kicks in at 61,000.

Audio. One word. Awesome. The Mi Note Pro has a Hi-Fi audio system. This is 24-bit/192KHz with lossless playback support (DSD/DXD/AIFF/FLAC/APE). In addition it has a two-stage amplifier (Texas Instruments OPA1612 and Custom ADI ADA4896) that also lets you pair your music with high-impedance (600 ohm max) headphones. Even the Sabre DAC ESS ES9018K2M is impressive. Audio via Bluetooth, USB Audio, headphone jack and loudspeaker sound superb. The loudspeaker maxes out at 90db. This phone has the best audio I’ve ever heard in a phone.

Camera

The camera interface is a straight forward enough affair. The rear camera is a 2nd generation 13MP Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor f/2,0 with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), 6-element lens, f/2.0 aperture and a Philips two-tone LED flash.

Below are the options from the camera app.

Plenty of options in the camera mode with auto HDR as the standard shooting mode.

Xiaomi include many shooting modes in the camera from panorama, refocus and manual.

The Mi Note Pro produces good shots in decent light.

Macro shots are equally impressive.

Manual mode has plenty of control with a 32 second shutter exposure. Panoramic shots were disappointingly only 2mp in file size. Third party camera apps produced much bigger pano shots.

In low light the Mi Note Pro shows its only weakness. This weakness is in relation to all the phone’s hardware and software. The low light shots introduce noise and blur with moving targets. The answer is to use the front camera as it has huge pixels. 2 micron pixels with a 1/3 inch. The front camera is can identify if you are male or female and provide your age. A fun feature. It also has a range of 36 filters after identifying your sex and age to apply and make you look fabulous !! The front camera shots are good.

Camera Samples

Below are a few camera shots. If you wish to see more head over to my Flickr album – https://flic.kr/s/aHskbKoXBB

MIUI Interface

Below is a gallery of all the screen shots from the Mi Note Pro. Plenty of extra features included here so have a good look at the screen shots. Just click on a photo to open the gallery viewer. Features include dual 4g sim management, toggle notifications, show notifications icons in status bar, led light choice, audio hifi settings, privacy, reading screen mode, display adjustments, one handed mode which is the easiest I’ve seen to use and activate,

MIUI is a joy to use and comes with an extensive theme catalogue. I changed the Mi Note Pro to an iOS 9 replica. The theming is system deep too.

Xiaomi operates a pro active forum which active fans too. Here you can find a whole host of new features and options and I am still reading the threads and posts. Plenty to learn and explore.