I'm Watch - Android on your wrist

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First unveiled online a few months ago, I'm Watch is a smartphone-compatible wristwatch, designed to work with Android-based cell phones - although it's reportedly also compatible with iOS devices. It is being developed by an Italian producer, and is currently available for pre-order. Initially the price tag was very high, but it is now being offered in a cheaper, colored version called I'm Color. The watch is scheduled to be released this October.

The I'm Watch website showcases two versions of the product. I'm Jewel is a luxury version, designed with precious materials (titanium, gold) and jewels (diamonds), with prices ranging from EUR599 to EUR11,999 (US$840 - $16,833). The I'm Color collection is priced at EUR249 (US$349), however, you'd need to pay 20 percent of the price in advance to have your order secured. The current offer will last until July 18, according to the website.

The company behind I'm Watch is Milan-based Blue Sky s.r.l. Some of the features of the device include the following:

• iPhone 4 and Android smartphone connectivity via Bluetooth
• It will allow users to make calls and receive calls, text messages, and e-mails
• Users will be able to use its speakerphone for hands-free phone calls
• Via its touchscreen, users will be able to view Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare notifications, as well as a photo gallery
• Exclusive apps will be available for download via the "I'm Store" and music via "I'music"
• Specs include: 1.54'' 240x240 pixel color TFT display, 4GB of built-in storage, 64MB of RAM, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR support, Li-Po 600 mAh battery

The I'm Watch seems to still be some distance from completion, and its description is rather brief at the moment. Shipping is nonetheless set to begin October 31.

Motorola Photon 4G Phone Reviews

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 The Motorola Photon 4G is Sprint’s latest specimen; it’s a right super phone with a dual-core processor, large qHD display, and WiMAX with a gimmicky 3D camera. Motorola further flavored things up with a dash of WebTop functionality.

  
Display and Hardware:

• 158g (5.57oz) and 12.2mm (0.48 inches)


• Cut-off corners, subtly curved top and bottom edges.


• Sheet of Gorilla glass that protects the 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen


• It’s reddish black over the display and blueish grey around it


• Sensors, earpiece, front-facing camera and notification light above the screen, plus the space housing the primary microphone and four capacitive buttons (menu, home, back, search) below the display. Hard plastic coated in a glossy gunmetal-colored lacquer that wraps around the left and right sides.



• A pair of secondary microphones.


• Widget Clock and the home-screen.


• 1,650mAh battery, a SIM slot for the GSM / HSPA radio and a microSD card reader and 16GB built-in storage.


• Volume rocker and camera button (both ridged for grip) are located on the right side, power / lock key, headphone jack on the top edge, and a pair of micro-HDMI and micro-USB connectors


• NVIDIA’s snappy 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 SoC, a 1GB of RAM, eight (!) radios: WiMAX, CDMA / EV-DO, GSM / EDGE (quadband), UMTS / HSPA (tri-band 850/1,900/2,100MHz), WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, GPS / AGPS and… FM (phew).


• 4.3-inch qHD (960×540 pixels) TFT panel the screen is bright even in direct sunlight, with beautiful colors, ink-like blacks and wide viewing angles.


• Call and reception typically high standards Audio playback sounded with the loudness and clarity of the built-in speaker.


• Battery lasted 5 hr and 54 min and a full day on a single charge.

Camera:

• 8 megapixel auto-focus cameras takes lovely pictures and a dual-LED flash ,glass pod with the same two-tone coating


• The mechanical shutter on the original Droid X and Milestone XT720, three microphones (one on the front, two in the back).


• No night mode and pictures shot in low light just end up looking dim even when adjusting exposure offers a rather limited number of settings.


• The digital zoom can be controlled by pressing the volume rocker, touch-to-focus, flash mode (auto, on, off), scenes (like sport), effects (sepia, etc…), picture modes (including panorama) and a few additional options in the menus (such as resolution and exposure).


• For video, the scenes setting change which of the three microphones are active


• Photon captures video in HD (720p) at a smooth 30fps


•  No auto-focus of any kind when recording videos, making close-ups nigh impossible.

Softwares:

• Latest version of Gingerbread (Android 2.3.4)


• Motorola-specific widgets and apps (such as Gallery, Messaging and Music) with variety popular social networks.


• In addition to seven home screens, the UI features four dock icons customized like in TouchWiz.


• The leftmost icon brings up the app tray, which can be organized in groups (defaults are All apps, Recent, Downloaded and Sprint).


• Gingerbread, 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor and 1GB of RAM


• Needing improvement is WebTop, which remains sluggish.


• News, Social Networking, Rich Location, and Tasks, file manager, Quickoffice (with support for editing documents), Skype, a task manager and TeleNav.


• Car Dock app different from Google’s


• Including NASCAR, Sprint ID, Sprint Mobile Wallet, Sprint Music Plus, Sprint Radio, Sprint TV & Movies, Sprint Worldwide and Sprint Zone (useful for managing your account).

Speaking about overall performance, the Photon 4G is fast. With its stunning display, impressive battery life and solid performance, Motorola’s and Sprint’s best handset ever. Motorola Photon 4G is a good deal but at $200 (on contract) the Photon is definitely the first super phone.

Samsung Galaxy Ace Review

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Samsung announced their latest budget Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Ace back in January, and we have just been testing the Galaxy Ace for the last week.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace comes with Android 2.2 Froyo, and it has just recently gone on sale in the UK, it comes with a range of features you would expect too see in a more expensive smartphone.

Specifications

As I mentioned previously, the Samsung Galaxy Ace comes with Android 2.2 Froyo out of the box, hardware wise you get 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels.

Processing is provided by an 800MHz processor, and there is also a five megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom and an LED flash, plus a range of shooting modes and photo effects.

You also get a built in FM Radio, Bluetooth 2.1, integrated 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, plus a microSD card slot, the model we tested came with a 2GB microSD card but it can take up to 32GB microSD cards.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace features 1350mAh battery, and the manufacturers specifications say that you will get up to 660 minutes of talk time on 2G, 390 minutes on 3G, plus up to 640 hours of standby time on 2G and 420 hours on 3G.

Design, Display and UI

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is designed to be a budget Android device, although it does feel very well made, maybe not as high as the Samsung Galaxy S, but it certainly feels better quality than the Samsung Galaxy Europa we tested recently.

The display is sharp and crisp and the design is excellent and it certainly feels very well made, and could quite easily be mistaken for a more expensive smartphone.

It comes with a pair of interchangeable covers, one black and one white, the black one features a rubberized texture which makes the phone easy to hold, whilst the white cover is smooth, and feels a bit more like plastic than the black one.

Camera

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy Ace is a five megapixel version, it also features two times digital zoom, and it is capable or recording video in a 320 x 240 resolution, no HD here unfortunately, and this is one of the cameras week points, the video recording isn’t the best, but I suppose this can be forgiven for the price.

The camera on the Galaxy Ace is pretty good ,  it does a good job at capturing pretty decent photos and it has a range of features built in which include autofocus, a range of shooting modes which include continuous and panorama plus a range of photo effects.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is designed to be a budget Android smartphone, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised with it, as it has a range of features that you would expect in a more expensive Android device.

It definitely feels a lot better quality that some of the other budget Android devices we have tested, and feels very well built, the display is sharp and crisp and the touchscreen is responsive.

The camera is decent, it will do a good jobs on photos, video is another matter and if you are the sort of person who uses your smartphone for recording a lot of videos you may want to consider something else.

Overall we really liked the Samsung Galaxy Ace, for the money it is an excellent budget smartphone, very well made and very well designed, if you are in the market for a budget Android device, I would definitely recommend you add the Samsung Galaxy Ace to your list of devices to check out.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is available in the UK from a range of mobile operators, the model we tested was from mobile network Three, who are currently offering the Galaxy Ace for £199.99 on pay as you go and also with a range of their monthly contracts.

Make sure you check out our Samsung Galaxy Ace gallery below for lots more photos of this budget Android smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy Ace

LG Optimus Black Review

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We got our hands on the new LG Optimus Black last week, which is LG’s latest Android smartphone, and we have been testing it out over the weekend, so we thought it was about time to let you guys know what we thought of the LG Optimus Black.

The LG Optimus Black is an Android 2.2 device, it comes with Android 2.2.2 out of the box, although LG have said that they intend to updated it to 2.3 shortly after release. The Optimus Black is due to launch in the UK and Europe later this month and it is scheduled to launch in the US next month.

 Specifications

The LG Optimus Black features a 4 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, there is also a 5 megapixel camera on the back, which has a range of features that include a dual LED flash, autofocus and Geo-tagging.

The camera is capable of recording HD video in 720p at 30 frames per second, and you also get a 2 megapixel up front for video chat. processing is provided by a 1GHz TI IMAP 3630 processor.

Other features on the LG Optimus Black include a built in FM Radio, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, DNLA, and the Optimus Black can be used as a mobile hotspot.

Design, Display, UI

The Optimus Black measures 4.8 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide, and it is pretty thin measuring just 0.23 inches at its thinnest part, it is also very light weighing in at just 3.84 ounces, it does fell like a wall made and well designed device.

The Display on the Optimus Black is excellent, it uses NOVA technology which is designed to provide you with a much brighter display, without using up your battery, and everything looks sharp and crystal clear on the Optimus Black display.

The Optimus Black Display is designed to give you a much brighter screen for outdoor use, and this works pretty well, and it is definitely a lot easier to use outdoors than some of the other devices available on the market.

The User Interface on the Optimus Black is very good, LG have kept things to a minimum and haven’t added a lot extra widgets, and it makes the UI very nice to use and easily customizable to suit your needs.

Hopefully this should ensure that LG will be able to upgrade the Optimus Black to future versions of Android without too much trouble.

Processor And Camera

The Optimus Black features a single core 1GHz OMAP 3630 processor, and it seems pretty snappy, there we no delays or lag when launching apps, watching videos, browsing the web, and the processor seemed to handle the majority of tasks very well.

The main camera on the Optimus Black is a 5 megapixel one on the back, it features a dual LED flash, and ge0-tagging, there is also built in autofocus, and the camera does a good job, exactly what you would expect from a five megapixel camera on a smartphone.

The rear camera is capable of recording HD video, in 720p at 30 frames per second, and just like with the still photos the Optimus Black gives you exactly what you would expect from a decent smartphone camera.

You also get a two megapixel camera up front for video chat, which is a lot better than some of the other smartphones available that come with a VGA camera on the front.

Battery Life

The Optimus Black features a 1500mAh battery, and with the bright 4 inch display I was expecting the battery life to suffer a little on the Optimus Black, I was quite surprised with the results. LG’s NOVA technology, obviously does exactly what it was designed too, give you a bright and crisp display without sacrificing battery life.

Conclusion

Overall I was quite impressed with the LG Optimus Black, it has an excellent display, and I really like the user interface, it is good too see a manufacturer just adding the bare minimum to Android, although we would have liked to see the Optimus Black come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box.

It does a good job with videos and gaming, and it well designed and light, and has a number of cool features, plus a decent camera, I would definitely recommend you take a look at the LG Optimus Black if you are in the market for a new smartphone.

We are expecting the Optimus Black to go on sale in the UK next week, and then in the US next month, we don’t have any information on pricing as yet, as soon as we get some more information we will let you know, make sure you check out the Optimus Black gallery below.

HTC Sensation Review

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HTC has been producing some great Android smartphones, and their latest flagship model is the HTC Sensation, which comes with a range of impressive specifications, we recently showed you some hands on photos of the new HTC Sensation, and have been testing it out over the last 10 days, so its time to let you guys know what we thought about the HTC Sensation.

The first thing you notice about the HTC Sensation is the size of the device, it features a large 4.3 inch qHD display. so the handset has a similar size to the Samsung Galaxy S II we reviewed recently and also features very similar specifications.

Both HTC and Samsung have been leading the pack with their Android smartphones, and HTC’s latest offering will appeal to Android fans who want the latest hardware and features in a stylish design.

Hardware Specifications

The HTC Sensation has a range of impressive hardware specifications, just what you would expect from the latest flagship Android device from HTC, it features a 4.3 inch 4HD display with a resolution of540 x 960 pixels, processing is provided by a dual core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, it also comes with the latest version of Android Android 2.3.3 and HTC’s Sense 3.0.

The HTC Sensation comes with 768MB of ram, you also get 1GB of storage built in, plus a microSD card slot, plus 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, a G-sensor, gyro sensor, a proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and a micro USB 2.0 connection.

The Sensation is equipped with dual camera’s, up front there is a VGA fixed focus camera for video chat, on the back you get an 8 megpaixel camera with a dual LED flash and auto-focus, the camera is capable or recording Full High Definition video in 1080p.

Other features on the HTC Sensation include, DNLA, WiFi and USB tethering, and it also comes with the latest version of HTC’s custom Android user interface, HTC Sense 3.0.

Design, Display, User Interface

The first thing you notice about the HTC Sensation is the size of the handset, it features a large 4.3 inc qHD display, which makes it feel slightly larger than your average smartphone, although it still feels slim and light, measuring 126.1mm long by 65.4mm wide by 11.33mm thick, and it weighs in at 148 grams.

The HTC Sensation takes many of its design cues from earlier HTC devices, it certainly feels very well made and it fits nicely in your hand, with all the buttons easily accessible, there are four buttons on the bottom of the display, which include, home, settings, back and search.

The display on the HTC Sensation is one of the latest qHD displays, it features a resolution of 540 x 860 pixels, everything looks clear and bight on the screen, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint, the display is great for games, and video and also surfing the web.

The UI on the HTC Sensation is the latest version of HTC’s Sense, and with previous HTC devices we have tested HTC’s Sense is a great user interface, one of the best available on the market, and it has a wide range of options which make customizing your UI a breeze.

Processor And Camera

The HTC Sensation features a dual core Qualcomm 1.2GHz processor, and it works exactly like you would expect, everything feels fast on the HTC Sensation, whether you are launching applications, playing games or watching a video, the HTC Sensation’s processor handles everything with ease.

HTC has stepped up their efforts with the camera on the HTC Sensation, providing an 8 megapixel camera with a dual LED flash and built in auto-focus, the camera is capable of recording full HD video in 1080p, and it is certainly an improvement on some of the cameras we have tested on previous HTC devices.

The HTC Sensations camera does a good job at snapping photos and recording video when the lighting is good, it isn’t as good in poor light, but you still get the sort of quality you would expect from a smartphone camera.

Battery Life

The HTC Sensation features a 1520mAh battery, and it works pretty well for every day tasks like surfing the web,checking your email, and playing games, its not quite as good as the battery on the Samsung Galaxy S II, and didn’t last as long when we tested it,  but it is still adequate for every day use.

If you are a heavy user you can expect to have to charge your HTC Sensation on a daily basis, for average users, performing normal tasks like checking email, surfing the web etc, you would probably end up charging your sensation every one and a half to two days.

Conclusion

The HTC Sensation is an impressive smartphone, things that we liked about it were the bright, clear display and the fast processor that made everything feel snappy on the Sensation.

The Design is very nice, and the Sensation feels like a quality, well built smartphone, it fits nicely in your hand and considering its large 4.3 inch display it still feels light and thin.

The user interface (UI) is also very good on the Sensation, with a wide range of features that can be customized to suit your personal needs, we already liked HTC’s previous version of their Sense UI, and Sense 3.0 adds more features and is an improvement over the previous offering.

The HTC Sensation is definitely a smartphone that would be worth checking out, comparing it to the Samsung Galaxy S II, it is a hard choice between the two devices, we would recommend that you check out both devices to find out which one would be best suited for your needs.

Have a look at our HTC Sensation gallery below for lots more photos of the Sensation and also HTC’s Sense 3.0 user interface.

The HTC Sensation is available in the UK from a range of mobile carriers, and also available in the US from various carriers, the model tested in this review was a UK model from UK mobile carrier Three, you can find out more information about the HTC Sensation over at the Three website.

Source:  http://www.geeky-gadgets.com