Review Horizon

As I said in my previous article when I reviewed Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, both me and my wife decided we need larger screens than the ones our current iPhone 4 smartphones have, we were eligible for an early upgrade offer from At&T and it really made no sense paying again for iPhone 4S upgrade over the iPhone 4, so we looked into AT&T’s new 4G LTE capable smartphones based on Android OS, especially since AT&T run a pretty cool promotion. We got to buy the HTC Vivid for only $99 and I choose the Galaxy S2 Skyrocket for myself, the HTC Vivid going to  my wife. We got to play with them for a couple of day and the experience is described in detail in this review. Beside references to the Galaxy Skyrocket, I’ll also compare HTC Vivid to my previous iPhone 4 so you can make an informed purchase decision overall.

In case you don’t know, HTC Vivid is one of the two LTE sets AT&T  just launched. LTE is the new 4G communication standard AT&T is upgrading its network to, it stands for Long Term Evolution. With the current technology LTE should achieve download speeds of 20+Mbs, enough for pretty much everything including 1080p streaming. LTE sets owners report download speeds in excess to 50 Mbs / second, a quite impressive jump over the 3G technology and while LTE is not yet deployed in all AT&T markets, in the areas the technology is deployed you should be in for a treat.

The latest LTE sets should also help position AT&T as a solid Android provider considering that iPhone exclusivity for so many years helped it build a somewhat opposite image. Will they succeed? I guess time will tell.

HTC Vivid Unpacking

It looks like AT&T decided to customize the boxes to look more AT&T-ish than anything else, in an obvious effort to set their brand. The boxes Read More…

The way we usually like to write our gadget reviews is after we had some time to play with them and we worked out the kinks, the good things, the  not so good ones and have a comprehensive image about how the product behaves in the day to day life. While coming later that other iPhone 4 reviews,  we offer you Review Horizon’s version today to celebrate exactly 3 months since its US launch.

I bought my iPhone 4 shortly after its launch so the unpacking pictures reflects a different season Most of the current iPhone 4 users (myself included) upgraded from iPhone 3G, not 3GS due to the 2 year AT&T plan cycle so I’ll base my observations and comparisons on the older model.

iPhone 4 Unpacking

The box itself is very small and contains the iPhone 4 itself, the USB cable, a pair of headphones (microphone included) and a very tiny USB charger that you can use to power your Sony PSP, Kindle / Nook reader or any other device charging via a low power USB connection. If your PC can charge it, Apple’s mini USB charger will do it as well. Read More…

According to some unofficial reports floating around the Web, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 based phones might see the light of the day sometime around October 11th. While some Windows Phone 7 prototypes get reviewed regularly on various tech blogs, it it the first time the rumors are specifically pointing toward a certain date. The big event could take place in New York and be broadcast around the world. Microsoft’s OS would be the 3rd large competitor in the oh so crowded smartphone market (after iOS and Android devices)  but it might also bring a fresh breeze with their unique integration of Office and XBOX Live. If that will be enough for Microsoft to reclaim some of the market share it is yet to be seen but we can only be happy for the additional competition.

Netflix finally released an iPhone and iPod touch compatible application to the delight of many Netflix users around the country (including me).  Until today, only iPad featured Netflix for no specific reason other than the big screen???  What is really interesting is that it streams via 3G, not something I would have expected given Apple / AT&T reluctance to overload the already slow AT&T network…But maybe with the new data plans they figure out you’ll be the reluctant one in using the application.

Anyway, the application is free, as expected so go ahead and download it. Screenshots after the break for the ones still not convinced. Read More…

Today Microsoft proved that they are serious about gaming on Windows Phone 7 by announcing their games lineup for the Holiday 2010.

“Windows Phone 7 is the launch of a major gaming platform for Microsoft” said Matt Booty, general manager of mobile gaming for MGS. “Just like we’ve done with Xbox 360, our charter is to push the envelope and deliver definitive games that maximize the platform. We will have an incredible lineup of MGS titles, and that’s just the beginning.”

Windows Phone 7 offers the Games Hub where the gamer will be able to earn, view and track achievements, customize XBOX Live avatars, shop the game marketplace, play live against other users, etc.

Check after the break for the full games lineup. Read More…

Verizon Wireless officially announced today the upcoming release of their newest smartphone, Motorola Droid 2.

Powered by an impressive 1GHz TI OMAP CPU, Droid 2 also features 512MB RAM (same as iPhone 4), a 3.7″ WVGA (480×854) capacitive touch screen LCD  display and Android 2.2 OS, the phone is the latest Verizon alternative to the undisputed champ of the smartphones, iPhone 4. Other cool features include support for Flash Player 10.1, physical keyboard (raised keys this time), 5 MP camera and 8GB onboard memory upgradeable through a microSD card (already populated by Verizon with a 8GB card). The overall dimensions are 4.58″ length, 2.38″ wide and 0.54″ thick. As the price goes, Droid 2 should set you back $199 after $100 mail rebate (I hate rebates) and with a 2 year contract. Droid 2 will be available in stores around August 12th.

Note: interesting for a smartphone, DLNA support is also present, so if you have a DLNA server in the house, you’ll be able to stream your media (photos, movies, music) on the phone. Cool!

Droid 2 also features the 3G Mobile HotSpot technology (an additional $20/month) and can feed Internet for up to 5 WiFi devices.

Well, it didn’t take that long this time, at least that much is sure. Only a day after Apple officially released  iOS 4.0 for iPhone, the crafty guys from Dev-Team released redsn0w version 0.9.5b5-5 (available here for Mac and here for Windows) which will set free your beloved iphone. I made the mistake of upgrading to iOS 4.0 yesterday and I realized I can’t stand my iPhone 3G anymore. No multi-tasking, no SBSettings, no 5-Icon Dock NO NPR while surfing . Enough complaining, I already fixed all that, and I also created a small tutorial published here for your jail-breaking pleasure. Read More…

This morning when I started my computer, I noticed a new update to the iTunes. I said OK, and I went ahead with the update, since Apple releases iTunes updates regularly. After the update, I noticed that a new iPhone driver was also installed in Windows, which was rather unusual, and reserved for iOS updates. Well, that was exactly what happened, iTunes notified me that a new  software update is available for my iPhone (4.0). I still have iPhone 3G (not 3GS) so multitasking doesn’t apply to my model, but it is due for renewal this month so I’ll get the new iPhone 4 anyway. Among the most notable features of the new OS version, you can find the following: Read More…

Well, Steve Jobs unveiled today the new iPhone ver. 4 and to nobody’s surprise thanks to the leaked prototype, it has the same capabilities we have seen already, like new case, new processor – Apple A4 ,similar with iPad and 256Gb SDRAM for a total of 32GB of storage. The screen has a beautiful resolution of 960 × 640 which will improve pretty much everything, but I have high hopes to use it as an eBook Reader. Also important and a first for the iPhone line and industry as well  is a front facing VGA camera to be used in the video conferences  – called FaceTime (can we hope for a new Skype client?), a better back camera (5MB with back illuminated sensor, also capable of HD video recording at 720p, 30fps) and a 16% improvement in battery life. the official numbers are: 7hrs 3G talktime, 6hrs 3G browsing, 10hrs WiFi browsing, 10hrs video, 40hrs music or 300 hrs standby. The new gyroscope addition should make it able to better track your movements for even better games.

In terms of software, a nice addition is NETFLIX (yay) and Farmville (urgh – I played it for a month and I’ll regret the wasted time forever). Apple was also nice enough to implement a version of iMovie for iPhone. Not part of the installed package, so you’ll need to cough up some dough (@4.99 to be precise). But neat anyway! …And yeah, multitasking support (sort of)…but you already knew that as well. Bing also found its place among the available search engines, but Google keeps its default position. Sincerely, I prefer it this way. You can not image how bad Bing sucks compared with Google in terms of performance when indexing new websites…trust me on this one.

The new iPhone will cost $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB with two year agreement, starting June 24th 2010 and will be available in two colors, black and white. You’ll be able to pre-order your on June 15th.

No news today about a possible availability of the iPhone on Verizon network, although Apple should take it more seriously. Steve Jobs repeatedly asked the audience to turn off their network access so he can proceed with the demo. A wonderful example of the current troubles AT&T goes through with their network.

Wow, this is certainly interesting news. Apple just announced that iPhone OS 4.0 will include multitasking, as they finally figured it out how to do it without killing the battery. Double clicking the Home button will show a list of running applications on the bottom of the screen. You can just flick through the running apps. “It’s very efficient to use and we think people will love it,” Jobs said.

Now, of course I had multitasking for a long time after jail-breaking my iPhone, but it is nice to know that everybody finally has a change for a piece of the multitasking pie.

According to Apple, there is a total of seven services supporting multitasking including the background audio. So we can finally listen to background radio, a feature that should have been here since day one. I wonder what will Microsoft’s reaction will be since they announced that Windows Phone 7 won’t include multitasking at launch?

Edit: It looks like the multitasking will only be available on 3GS and touch 3rd gen, 3G owners are out of luck.