Category Archives: Tech News

Microsoft to launch 7 inch surface tablet

April 17, 2013Tech News, WindowsGavin Fabiani-Laymond

The Wall Street Journal reports that a new lineup of Surface tablets is in the works from Microsoft, including a 7-inch version. It’s not yet clear what form the new Surface might take, but the WSJ claims the 7-inch model will go into mass production later this year. The news follows Microsoft’s recent adjustment of the Windows 8 specification to allow for smaller tablets with a 1024 x 768 resolution. Microsoft has also begun work on a 7-inch tablet under the Xbox brand.

Microsoft only recently decided to move forward with a smaller tablet in response to products such as the iPad mini and Nexus 7.

Microsoft clearly it not out of the game yet by any shape of the imagination.

It’s official – Apple Plymouth opens this Saturday

April 16, 2013Apple, Tech NewsApple Store, Plymouth UKGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Finally after what seemed an eternity to rebuild the inside of the store to Apple’s exact requirements, the Apple Plymouth store will be opening this Saturday, 20th April 2013 at 9am precisely.

Samsung Galaxy S4 available to pre-order in Canada but with a 3yr deal

April 16, 2013Android, Tech NewsS4Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

Canadian subscribers on Telus, Rogers or Bell are able pre-order the 16GB Galaxy S 4 for $199 on a three-year plan with shipping 27th April. Telus is committing to an in-store date of May 3rd. The handset can be had outright for $700 CAD.

Firstly, a 3 year commitment is crazy. The phone will be so out of date in the tech world, probably have been dropped several times and more. Contracts should be 12 or 24 months.

$700 Canadian Dollars off contract equates to £447. So it begs the question why are UK shops and online stores selling it off contract in the UK at £580 to £630.

Nokia Lumia 620, 820 and 920 update

April 16, 2013Tech News, WindowsNokiaGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Nokia is pushing updates for the Lumia 620, 820 and 920.

It’ll bring improved auto screen brightness / touch screen functionality, camera fixes, enhanced Bluetooth headset functionality, performance and stability enhancements, according to Nokia. You can expect to see it rollout over the coming weeks.

Once I get the update on my Lumia 620 I will document how the phone has improved if at all that is.

The Samsung Screen

April 16, 2013Android, Tech NewslolGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Samsung have the market cornered. It doesn’t matter what screen size the competition release, it has a phone at that size. It fact it probably has a screen size from 4 inch all the way up to 6.3 inches with the Samsung Mega. I honestly thought the Mega was an April fools but clearly not.

Whilst I can see Samsung’s strategy it does create its own fragmentation issues. It also means apps aren’t made specifically for every screen size, so they simply get stretched. Not ideal in my book.

Anyway, this visual via reddit made me laugh at loud. The Samsung Mega vs the iPhone.

Is this China’s answer to the iPhone?

April 16, 2013Android, Apple, Tech NewsXiaomiGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, has launched two new smartphones – the Xiaomi Mi-S2 and the Xiaomi Mi-2A.

The company, which is rapidly gaining a reputation for being the Apple of the East, is hoping that the new phones will cause frenzy amongst technology enthusiasts.

The key specs of the phones are –
Mi-2S
4.3-inch IPS display with a 1,280 x 720 pixels resolution
Quad-core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 CPU
2 GB of RAM, 16 or 32gb memory
8MP camera rear camera
2MP camera front camera
2,000 mAh battery
Jelly Bean-based MIUI

Mi-2A
4.5 inch display
Dual-core 1.7 GHz S4 Pro CPU
1 GB of RAM, 16 gb memory
8MP camera rear camera
2MP camera front camera
2,000 mAh battery

At least these phones are not trying to mimic the huge screen sizes we are seeing being released every day. For me there is nothing special about these other than the low cost.

HTC One – and the HTC A100 Car Clip

April 16, 2013Android, Tech NewsHTC OneGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Today, I was going to write a review of the HTC A100 with the HTC One.

In summary, it doesn’t work. The end.

Ironically the A100 does work fine with other brands eg Nokia Lumia 620. So as a workaround I used a Samsung HS300 Bluetooth and plugged a 3.5mm to male 3.5mm cable from the headphone jack into the car aux jack. That worked just fine.

Samsung in trouble over dirty tricks campaign against the HTC One

April 15, 2013Android, Tech NewsHTC One, SamsungGavin Fabiani-Laymond

This is really not clever stuff by Samsung. And totally out of order. Samsung must really fear the stunning aluminium HTC One. And Samsung had to resort to this dreadful behaviour despite having one of the largest marketing budgets in history.

Taiwan authorities investigating Samsung over dirty tricks with the HTC One

The Fair Trade Commission is formally opening up an investigating against Samsung and its dirty tricks

HTC has responded as follows :-

Taipei, April 15 (CNA) Taiwan’s HTC Corp. said Monday that it is considering legal action against Samsung Electronics Co. after the government decided to investigate recent accusations that the South Korean company deceptively attacked its rivals’ products online.

“We regret our competitor’s malicious attacks and efforts to discredit us,” HTC said in a statement when asked for comment on the investigation.

“HTC values product innovation and design, and we do not rule out the possibility of taking appropriate actions to protect the interests of our company and customers if necessary,” the Taoyuan-based company said.

The HTC statement came after the Fair Trade Commission said Monday that it had formally set up a case last week to investigate whether Samsung was deceptively pitching its products online and attacking its rivals’ devices.

The commission will check whether Samsung was guilty of false advertising and damaging the reputation of another business, the agency said.

The South Korean company could be subject to a fine of up to NT$25 million (US$837,500) if it is found to have violated the Fair Trade Act.

The case stems from media reports on a post in an online forum on April 1 that said Samsung hired workers in Taiwan to open several sock-puppet accounts as part of a marketing campaign to promote its new flagship phone Galaxy S4 in the country.

The post, which has gone viral online, said OpenTide Taiwan, a marketing company hired by Samsung, asked part-time workers to use multiple propaganda accounts on the Internet to promote the company’s phones and attack products from its rivals.

A “sock-puppet account” is an account set up to by a user to assume a false identity, usually with the intention to deceive or mislead others in online communities.

Samsung Taiwan responded to the charge on its Facebook page on April 5 by saying that it had not interfered with any online product evaluation report and had stopped online marketing campaigns involving posting or responding to messages in online forums.

The company also said it would step up staff education.

Bump removes ability to share iTunes tracks

April 15, 2013Apple, Tech NewsBumpGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Be careful updating to the latest version of Bump as it removes the ability to share iTunes tracks. Not sure why its done this, but maybe Apple’s AppStore clampdown might be involved.

HTC One – Daily Blog – Car Mode review

April 15, 2013Android, Reviews, Tech NewsCar Mode, HTC OneGavin Fabiani-Laymond

The HTC One comes with an app called car mode. This is more than an app, it is a simple launcher to use whilst driving. Everything is big, big words and icons. Bluetooth is switched on automatically, in fact even music can if you desire. Screen brightness is at max too. You also get a number of voice options, but the choice is nowhere near as extensive as Siri or S Voice, but what you get does work really well. I have set up my car mode home screens as follows.

If you need access to another app you will have to either exit car mode or add it to the launcher. Navigation is one of the options. Tap on this icon and you are presented with a number of options. All work well using either Google Navigation or Maps. The only option that is rather odd is the Previous option.

This seems to find random places, or towns. I found it was really only useful for finding towns or cities, but in all honesty it was best to avoid altogether and go straight to Google Navigation for searching. The other navigation option icons use google maps and work correctly. So if you want a restaurant, it pulls up all restaurants nearby in google maps. From maps you can navigate accordingly.

The music player options are also enlarged. See screen shots below.

The enlarged icons and text make it easy to select the music you would like. And when you have selected an album etc the music player controls are super sized on the screen. Next up is the People icon. This reveals three larger icons , favourites , frequent, and all people as shown below.

Remember that whilst in car mode tapping the home button brings you back to the first car mode home screen. To exit car mode from here, you have to either press the back key twice, or use the exit icon. Car mode has a number of settings and options, selected from within the app from auto launch with car dock, auto play music, auto connect to Bluetooth devices, options for voice call accessories and Audio out, beats on/off, read out notification , notification preview on or off.

So if you have read out and preview notifications turned on if a text message arrives, it will display new message from your contact, and ask it you want it read out or call contact. If you say read out, the text message is displayed on the screen large and clear and the phone reads the message out. You can now call or dismiss but not use voice to type reply. The other voice options using the voice icons are call contact, play music, radio on or off or listen to. And that’s it. It is certainly no Siri match or even S Voice, but it does work very well.

A little point to remember that with car mode activated, GPS running, Bluetooth on and more, the phone charges extremely slowly.

Tomorrow I will describe how it works with the HTC Car stereo clip A100.

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