Category Archives: Tech News

HTC Desire Eye – review – conclusion

January 29, 2015Android, Reviews, Tech Newsconclusion, htc desire eye, ReviewGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Over the last week I have penned my thoughts on the HTC Desire Eye. It really reminds me of the previous HTC devices that I have owned, the HTC One M8 and HTC One M7 – good design from a hardware and software point of view. I have shown this phone to a number of people and the all have liked the look, feel and speed of the device.

I believe that the HTC Desire Eye has had thought and purpose as to who might use this phone. This is a great social phone. Ideal for content creation and sharing. Cameras back and front to capture that moment, good editing tools with filters and more, video highlights and Zoe, and finally decent front stereo speakers to enjoy that moment even more.

Take all the above, add a water and dust resistant design, Sense UI which has minimal bloat and an easy learning curve, Blinkfeed, good 1080p screen and a fast snappy 801 processor and the Desire Eye becomes a good phone.

I have one last final thought. Some smartphones lack character and feel bland when you hold and use them. For some reason, the HTC Desire Eye makes me feel good when I use it.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

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. Thanks in advance.

GavGadgets@Amazon

IBM to fire 110,000 employees – Ouch

January 29, 2015Tech News000 employees, IBM to fire 110Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

I don’t think I need to say much more, but firing 110,000 employees is horrendous. The fact it will be a fast process and all these people will be jobless by this time next month is staggering.

This is the largest redundancy is corporate history and sure to impact not just the employees but all the communities connected. In fact the trial of devastation will be far reaching.

I hope these impacted people find alternative income quickly.

Say Hello to the new HTC One M9 and the HTC One M9 Plus – photos

January 29, 2015Android, Tech Newsdetails and photos, HTC One M9, One M9 PlusGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Twitter leaker @evleaks was at it again, this time revealing the press renders for the 2 new phones form HTC, the One M9 and the M9 Plus.

Looks like both phones have a decent front facing camera similar to the HTC Desire Eye and perhaps a fingerprint sensor on the front home button. Otherwise looks very HTC in design.

What do you think?

Qualcomm cuts in financial outlook – details

January 29, 2015Tech Newsqualcomm cuts outlook over snagdragon 81-Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

Telling times.

Qualcomm said Wednesday that it is cutting the financial outlook for its chip business as its Snapdragon 810 chip was dropped by a large customer.

“China continues to present significant opportunities for us, particularly with the rollout of 3G/4G LTE multimode, but also presents significant challenges, as our business practices continue to be the subject of an investigation by the China National Development and Reform Commission,” Qualcomm said in a statement. Qualcomm also said that, despite settling one dispute, it still believes some customers in China are underreporting sales of licensed chips amid the government probe.

A Qualcomm representative declined to say which phone maker has dropped the Snapdragon 810, though reports have said the chip has heat issues and that Samsung had pulled the processor from its upcoming Galaxy S6. The 810 has been announced for use in some other products, including the LG Flex 2.

The announcement came as the company released its latest quarterly earnings. The company reported it earned $1.17 per share in earnings, on a higher-than-expected revenue of $7.1 billion. Per-share earnings, excluding certain items, was $1.34, ahead of analysts’ estimates of $1.25.

For the current quarter, Qualcomm said it expects overall company revenue of between $6.5 billion to $7.1 billion, with per-share earnings, excluding charges, of approximately $1.28 to $1.40. That’s roughly in line with what analysts had been expecting. Current estimates forecast $1.28 in per-share earnings and revenue of $6.74 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.

However, Qualcomm cut its revenue and earnings forecast for the full year, saying it now expects revenue of $26 billion to $28 billion, down from an earlier forecast of $26.8 billion to $28.8 billion. Full year per-share earnings are now seen between $4.75 and $5.05, down from a prior range of $5.05 to $5.35.

Source – http://recode.net/2015/01/28/qualcomm-cuts-outlook-warning-its-snapdragon-810-dropped-from-a-flagship-device/

Sony Prepares for Life after Game Consoles

January 29, 2015Tech NewsSony prepares for life without gaming consolesGavin Fabiani-Laymond

“As Sony (SNE) forecasts its sixth loss in seven years and struggles to keep its internal files out of the hands of hackers, its lone bright spot is its gaming division. The company has sold about 15 million PlayStation 4s in the year since its release, regularly outpacing rival Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox One in the $44 billion console-gaming industry. But as the PlayStation franchise turns 20 this month, Sony is preparing for a post-console world.

The company says one of its top priorities in 2014 has been buying servers and expanding its cloud networks to make sure it can reliably stream high-bandwidth games through PlayStation Now, the service it introduced over the summer. Players using PS Now don’t need to own any Sony hardware beyond a game controller or two: The service relays its 200-odd titles directly from a data center to a player’s TV, which doesn’t have to be Sony-made.”

Without a doubt, this is the way to go. There is no money is hardware, it is all about software and services. If Sony can migrate over to a cloud based service then this could pay dividends providing they could guarantee no disruptions to the cloud streaming. Sometimes, playing offline has major advantages.

To read the full article head over to BusinessWeek – http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-11/sony-prepares-for-life-after-game-consoles

Amazon Fire Phone – reduced to £99 for one day – details

January 28, 2015Amazon, Tech Newsamazon fire phone reduced for 1 day to £99Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

The Amazon Fire Phone is reduced to £99. The 64gb version is reduced to £149.

Specs for the Fire Phone are –

-Size 139.2 mm x 66.5 mm x 8.9 mm
-Weight 160 grams
-Processor 2.2 GHz Quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU, with Adreno 330 GPU and 2 GB of RAM
-Display 4.7″ (11.9 cm) HD LCD display, with 1280 x 720 resolution at 315 ppi, 590 cd/m2 brightness (typical), 1000:1 contrast ratio (typical)
-Cameras 13MP rear-facing camera, multi-frame HDR, auto focus, optical image stabilisation, f/2.0 5-element wide aperture lens, LED flash
2.1MP front-facing camera
-OS Fire OS 3.6
-Storage 32 GB or 64 GB (actual formatted capacity will be less)
-Cloud storage Free Cloud storage for all Amazon content, and photos taken with Fire phone
-Battery Battery size: 2400mAh. Talk time: up to 17 hours; standby time: up to 285 hours. Video playback: up to 11 hours; audio playback: up to 65 hours. Battery life will vary based on signal strength, network configuration, device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results may vary.
-Video recording 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps (front- and rear-facing cameras)
Audio playback Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio processing
-Sensors Dynamic Perspective sensor system with invisible infrared illumination, gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, barometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor
-Location GPS, Assisted GPS, GLONASS, Wi-Fi/Mobile network location and Digital compass
-Mobile Penta-band UMTS/HSPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz), Duo-band DC-HDSPA (900, 2100 MHz), Quad-band GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), 9 bands of 4G-LTE (bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 17, 20)
-Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, up to 300 Mbps ; Bluetooth 3.0 wireless

If you are interested click below –

Amazon Fire Phone, 32 GB (O2)

HTC One M9 vs Samsung Galaxy S6 – Benchmarks

January 28, 2015Android, Tech Newsbenchmarks, HTC One M9, Samsung Galaxy S6Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

Bgr.com reported that “According to the test results, which were revealed by Techtastic.nl, the HTC One M9 registered a single-core Geekbench 3 score of 1,232 and a multi-core score of 3,587.

How does that stack up to the upcoming Galaxy S6? Samsung’s upcoming new smartphone racked up a single-core score of 1,520 and a multi-core score of 5,478, crushing the M9 in both tests.”

To add some comparison points the HTC One M8 has a multi-core score of around 2,900. This means that the new Snapdragon 810 will add some oomph over last years model.

But here’s the point. These benchmarks are useless. In real life the HTC is generally faster and nimbler than its Samsung competitor. So my advice is to ignore these so called benchmarks and see how fast the phone is for you with your setup!

HTC Desire Eye – review part 3 – the 2 x 13mp cameras

January 28, 2015Android, Reviews, Tech Newscameras, htc desire eye, review part 2Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

Yesterday, I wrote about my general thoughts on the HTC Desire Eye. Today I am going to take a closer look at its rear and front cameras, both of which are 13mp.

So below are some example photos. If you want to see the full size version just click on photo to jump to my Flickr account.

I was very pleased with the above photos. However, less explore further. HTC provide a comprehensive camera app that has many options. So first up is the default display on the camera app. To take a photo press the shutter hardware button or on screen shutter icon.

Tapping the 3 dots bottom right brings up the options, which include all the different modes, white balance, exposure, filters and tricks and different camera modes part 2.

So tapping the AUTO button brings up options from HDR, Panoramic, Video SloMo, Macro, Landscape, Full Manual and more.

So pressing M for manual provides finer controls from white balance, shutter speed, ISO and exposure. If you create your own manual setting you can save this as a permanent camera shooting mode.

There is also the option of using voice control to take a photo. I found this fairly sensitive and ended up taking a few more photos than needed. But no hardship really.

For the more creative type, there is filters to choose before you take your photo. It is worth exploring these as the options are quirky and even have a depth of field filter which works really well.

I mentioned camera modes. HTC include several by default

The selfie mode using the front camera, photo booth provides 4 front selfies in one pic, and split mode uses the front and back cameras at the same time. All work rather well and are fun. However, if you have been tweaking the camera settings you could save the setup, and the new camera mode would feature in the list.

So those are all the camera app options, lets look at the editing, video highlights and Zoe.

Select a photo in the Gallery app, and then edit. From here you can edit your photo will all the usual tools form cropping, adding text, rotating and more.

The photo editing app also includes a number of decent frames too.

The selection of filters is commendable too. I found I could really personalise my photos and make them shine or stand out before sharing.

And then you get so a feature that I so love with the HTC Desire Eye. Automatic video highlights. You take video and photos. The phone then collates the events into a video highlight all by itself. Just tap on the top highlight photo and it opens up all the options.

The video highlights section automatically chooses a theme and background music and takes a selection of video and your photos from an event and compiles them into a 30 second clip. The themes add special effects .

You can add your own music too, as well as remove video/photos or add as well to create your masterpiece.

You can then share these using all the usual methods or via HTC’s Zoe social network. I have many video highlights created on my HTC One M8/M7 phones and to this day they prove great memories. The fact that they were created in the background is a pleasure too. However, it seems with the Desire Eye, you create and save the video highlight. You then have to upload it to the Zoe network and from there you can download a copy. It uses 16 photos maximum to create a 30 seconds clip around 14mb in size. With the HTC One M7 or M8 you could save a video highlight without sharing, so maybe I am missing something here.

So what about the video and photo quality of these cameras. In good light they take reasonable shots. In low light they struggle sometimes. Focusing in low light is not always easy. Selfies shots are good but flash will be needed in low light. In pitch darkness I could still take a selfie due to the front flash unit. But then how many phones do you know that have a 13mp front camera with flash. I would overall describe the cameras as average quality. I have used better and also much worse. However, it is all the photo editing options that compensate and when shared on social networks will looks just fine.

In fact the video highlights being instantly created is pretty cool. On Sunday 25th January 2015, I shared a number of my dogs jumping and leaping on their walk across Dartmoor. Have a look at my twitter @gavinfabiani to see these. To see my HTC Desire Eye Flickr album, click here https://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinfabl100/sets/72157650368916456/