Nikon Coolpix S6200 REVIEW

Nikon COOLPIX S6200 3.5/5*

£110

16 MP
10x Optical Zoom
Focal range 25-250mm
16 CCD sensor
1.7 inch LCD screen
720p HD videos
SD/SDHC/SDXC card slot

Overview

Another of the Nikon Coolpix range, the S6200 is a nice and simple compact camera packed full of features. It feels nice to hold, weighing only 160g and the buttons are simple and large enough to use. A scroll wheel allows for quicker menu navigation and everything is easy to learn and fairly self-explanatory. You will rarely need to refer to the owner’s manual, depending on how tech comfortable you are.

Battery life is superb and the battery pack with charger lasts for hours and hours, although you do need to make sure it is fully charged before you go out. It takes a few days before my camera dies, using it every so often each day. Or it will last at least a full day of heavy use.

Performance

Images

Pictures are colourful and vibrant, although not completely accurate, with very little noise at low sensitivities. Definition is clear and crisp with a lot of detail. At high sensitivity the noise increases and colour saturation drops, although it is not a complete disaster. There are many setting to play with to get the best image of what you are shooting and colour settings allow adjustment of vibrancy for more realistic colour scales.

Video

Clear, sharp and smooth. I love the one touch video button for quick shooting. As soon as you see something you can pull the camera out and press one button to record. In every day life videos are often shot without planning so this is a highly used feature. The sound quality is good and clear, even with loud concert filming the volume is controlled to try to produce the best sound without too much distort and noise. However it is not perfect. The auto-focus is rather rubbish and don’t you dare touch that zoom button! You need to make sure the image is how you want and focused, then start filming and do not change it. The focus does not adjust well if you zoom in during filming and all you end up with is a blurry image.Very disappointing, but regardless videos are brilliant otherwise.

[Find samples at the bottom of this post].

Features

You can play and adjust the picture settings quite a lot with various scenes, MP change, contrast, white balance, ISO, shooting modes, colour adjustment and selection, focus modes, quick-retouch and subject tracking features.

I particularly like the colour selection tool and you’re able to do this when retouching photos already taken. It works really well, even though the colour scale is basic it does rival simple photoshop jobs!

Disappointedly the close-up, panorama, pet & sports scenes are pretty rubbish. Close-up mode looks brilliant once you get focus but I’ve struggled getting very close to objects. My basic camera phone can focus closer up than the coolpix can. The panorama mode confuses me and the ghost effect is ok but hard to match up. My smartphone has a much better panorama setting which guides you into the right place and the results are much better. I would love to see this method on the camera. Finally sports and pets mode are not good. Photos blur very easily and a ghost appears with the slightest movement. Surely not the point of sports mode?! I find taking pictures of moving objects is satisfying enough in auto mode, only the scene modes specifically for these occasions are poor.  Defeats the object really!

Regardless other scene modes work really well and the auto mode is generally successful, making up for the lack of performance in these areas.

Verdict

A great compact overall, but nothing special. It is not all round perfect and little niggles here and there leaves much room for improvement. However if you want a quick snap with great quality photos and videos then it is a brilliant camera. Some people will never find the issues as they may not be using it for all of its features. All round it is a nice performer and the 16MP combined with 10x optical zoom produces gorgeous results.

Sample Images

Sample Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QRcMr4I_s&feature=g-upl - Mash up video of images & videos to music [some images & videos in this video are shot on camera phone and some are shot with the Nikon Coolpix 26200]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdlpqwhru00&feature=g-upl Example performing live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9guYWkhQQSY&feature=g-upl - video on full zoom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulOjiyDMjJQ&feature=g-upl - Wretch 32 performing live

 

Apple iPod Classic 160GB REVIEW

Apple iPod Classic 160GB 4/5*

(Bought new in 2009).

£180 approx.

The simple iPod with the mega memory! The Classic is rightly named for its basic features and chunky design. Apple have been the daddy of mp3 players since I was in school, a fleeting 5 years ago, and it was their original centre piece before they expanded to the phone and tablet markets.

A massive 160GB rivals many by holding 40,000 songs, 200 hours of video or 25,000 photos. The battery life will last you anything from 36-43 hours of constant music.

Design

The Classic comes in back or silver, with the standard spin wheel and four buttons. A lock button on the top accompanies the 3.5mm headphone jack, the best and only place it should be, with the standard Apple universal port in the bottom. The Classic is quite large but it is certainly robust. It doesn’t stretch your pocket but some people may find it too large and chunky compared to the other slimline options. Size comes with a bonus however, as well as allowing the big memory, it also makes the Classic durable. I have dropped and flung mine across all kinds of surfaces which only resulted in a few scratches or minimal chips.

Ease of Use

The menu screens are nice and simple with the Genius feature available, and there are lots of options for how you want to select your music. The scroll wheel is smooth and turns nicely, a large improvement on older iPod models. There are 4 simple buttons that have one or two commands which makes confusion almost impossible. Also the nice Menu+Play restart feature makes solving any technical glitch easy peasy. Not that there should be technical glitches Apple! I would like to see a way to add songs to playlists from the iPod, without needing to do it in iTunes.

Performance

The screen is crystal clear with lovely colours. Photos and videos appear beautiful, although the screen is rather small for sitting and watching for periods of time. Sound quality depends on your headphones and speakers so no comments can be made regarding, but I do find the sound through all of my devices very nice. The volume has great range. The battery life is stated by Apple to last for 36 hours and has been found to last for 43 hours playing music by review site studies. Mine gets played for a couple of hours a day and lasts at least a week! Battery charging does not take too long. The best battery device I have even owned!

My Niggles & My Grr!

One annoyance I’ve found is that when playing songs on the shuffle setting I still hear songs twice within quite a short space of time and there are songs that I doubt have ever or rarely been played. With 20GB of music, shuffle should be self-explanatory and not be bringing up the same songs.

However that is not the big issue! After owning mine for just over 1 year, and admittedly after numerous drops, it developed a problem. My iPod will play many songs and then randomly have trouble starting a song and remain silent, unplaying for around 3 minutes before then starting the song and continuing as normal. All the buttons work while this happens and the screen displays as normal, however the song simply does not start playing. If you select other songs they load but don’t start for a few minutes. Also very occasionally if you skip through a large number of songs it will freeze for a few moments. I have restored the iPod which did not solve the problem so I live with it. It does not happen frequently enough to the point that it is intolerable, but it is annoying.

Purpose

The Classic is for people who have and want lots of music, photos and/or videos. With the 16GB Nano being the next memory option for this price range, the Classic is the only affordable choice for it’s capacity. The nearest size is the 64GB iPod touch at a whopping £300+, a lot of which will be used up by apps unless you are a smartphone user, and then there is little reason to pay the money for a Touch. The Classic comes with some basic features of calendar, contacts, alarms, games, notes, stopwatch and a screen lock. It doesn’t have sexy features as this is a simple Classic with a simple purpose.

iTunes

A weakness or strength of joining the Apple club is iTunes and the compatibility, or lack of, of the device! Welcome to the exclusive zone. You cannot take music off of your iPod and put it onto your computer. I hate this! I have 160GB to use and I cannot store 160GB on my computer. Therefore I want to keep it on the iPod and take it off when I need to. Yes it does allow music to be passed around to other people, but if you paid for it then that is your right. Rant over, another weakness of iTunes is the format music is placed in before it goes onto your iPod. Not a standard mp3 file format, therefore requiring everything to be converted first, and anything you download from iTunes comes in that format. Regardless iTunes is good and easy to use. You can move music nicely and create lovely personalised playlists. Podcasts are easy to download and transfer. One problem I’ve seen is many movie files I have on file are not compatible to go on my iPod. I am clueless as to why.

Verdict

A brilliant device with a well defined purpose. This is not a does-everything mp3 player. This is an mp3 player for large amounts of music/photos/videos and a great, but small, screen for viewing. If only Apple could provide 100% reliability it would be flawless, but then what piece of technology is 100% reliability?! At least it comes with a reset function and you can fully restore them easily. A top choice!

My iPod, nicknamed Ruth’s Fatpod, is a place for lots of albums and songs to put on in the car and throughout the house, with never having the hear the same song twice. (Unless the shuffle setting does not understand its own meaning!) I have numerous playlists for different occasions and would be lost with a small sized iPod. I once owned a Zen which broke twice within a few days, I exchanged once and had a refund the second time. Apple have always had my heart for iPods, although we’ve had our ups and down. An old Nano of mine that once broke beyond repair was fine after being left in a draw for 6 months. Regardless of the fact I bought a new one within the 6 months, the point is that it fixed itself! Yes lots of things do appear to break on me. However I am still sticking in Apple iPod Classic camp for mp3s. A great buy.

All opinions and information expressed in this post are of the authors own. In no way does this post represent the views and opinion of Apple or any other technology company. Any decisions made as a result of the information given in this post are made at the individuals risk and the author can not be held responsible.

Related articles

• How To Fix An Apple iPod (answers.com)
• The iPod As Accessory (fabsugar.com)

 

iPad 2 REVIEW

Apple iPad 2 4/5*

Something we have all become familiar with one way or another. I can safely assume that most people who have wandered into an Apple/PC World/other tech store will have stopped to have a play, even if that meant swiping through the home screens and back because you didn’t know how to work it.

Regardless the tablet trend has swept over us and we are now comfortably immersed. The iPad was one of the first tablets with some real power and use. Since then many competitors have come along such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Asus Transformer but many still believe the iPad is the daddy! The only King!

There are thousands of iPad reviews across the web but I wouldn’t be able to call part of this blog a techy review place if I did not review my own iPad 2!

The Stats

• 9.7inch screen
• Dual-core A5 chip
• Front & back cameras
• iOS 5
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology
• Wi-Fi & 3G option
• 680g
• Silver back, white & black front options
• 16GB, 32GB & 64GB options

Touchy Feely

In your hands the iPad 2 feels light and comfortable, but nothing revolutionary. Yes it’s light, but holding it in one hand still makes your arm ache after a “short” period of time. Realistically the iPad can only be used when resting against something, i.e. sitting in your lap, on a cushion, a table, and/or using a stand. Holding it up in two-hands while playing a game is comfortable and quite easy however holding it in one hand for reading or use is not going to happen much. Unless you’ve got crazy big forearms.

There are very limited cosmetics. Two cameras. 3.5mm headphone jack. Volume control, locking button, switch to lock rotation or mute. The standard Apple port.

NO SD card slot or USB port. If you want to plug anything of the such into your iPad you need to buy an adapter, if there even is one. The SD card adapter is £25! No small fee. To combat this you have the iCloud and the brilliant resources of the internet, Dropbox & google docs, etc.

The Touch Screen

Frankly it is fabulous and works exactly as expected. (So it should!) Typing is quick and smooth however mistakes are still easily made as you do not actually feel the keys you are pressing unlike a keyboard, so therefore typing on a screen with speed takes some getting used to and I am still yet to master it. (FYI this blog is wrote on my laptop, not on the iPad as I just couldn’t type accurately for this length on the pad). I’ve used and typed on my brother’s Asus Transformer recently and I found it so frustrating that the screen seemed really slow and less responsive compared to my iPad. However playing Fruit Ninja on the iPad, iPod Touch & a Samsung Galaxy S I noticed no difference with game speed and touch screen response, other than the colours and resolution seemed much cleared on the iPod Touch 4th Gen, surprising!

Don’t be completely wowed though. As I said, mistakes are made when typing and during general touch use and not everything is perfect. Problems are very rare. But don’t expect 100% flawless touching. Sometimes you press a button and it doesn’t work the first time or it thinks you have pressed a nearby button etc etc. However it is still superior to anything else I have used, but my experience is limited.

The screen is as much a fingerprint magnet as any other touch device! I’ve read many reviews saying the iPad is brilliant at keeping away fingerprints, however I think they were using a different iPad to mine! The fingerprints are not noticeable until you lock the screen or are on a particularly dark image and then they show up like a smack in the face! Wiping with a normal cloth does not really do much except smudge them, however a successful formula is a little bit of hand-sanitisation gel on a tissue and voila! Fingerprint-dissapearo.

Gaming is fast and clear. The screen is bright and colourful and a range of games are enjoyable on the iPad. Nothing more needed to be said.

Internet use

I use the internet daily through apps and safari. Webpages load exactly as you would see them on a computer, unless the website provides an iPad option such as WordPress does! Something I love! However you can always choose to see the full-site. Reading text on a website is clear due to the screen size and although sometimes text is a little small, the pinch-zoom technique is easy and clear and I rarely find a need to use it. I have a wi-fi only option and web pages and apps always load and respond at a respectable/quick speed. This will depend on your broadband connection. When connecting to my phone’s Mobile AP I have had mixed results. Sometimes I can use the internet fine, if not a little slow, and other times it simply fails to work, even though the wi-fi is clearly connected. Again this depends on your mobile signal strength and internet connection.

Apps

I am really on the fence with Apple Apps and they bring out love and hatred in me!

Yes the Apple market is HUUGEE! Not quite as huge for iPad apps but still vastly compensating! You can get an iPad app for almost anything! I stress on the almost.

However so many of the best apps are at a price! An unnecessary price considering you’ve just forked out £400-£660 on your iPad! Angry Birds is a brilliant example! Free on Android phones. Free on Android tablets. Apple want £0.69 for Angry Birds on the iPhone and £2.99 on iPad for the HD version! Justification? Doesn’t make sense to me.

So many apps I see free on Android are priced on Apple and this is my first and largest niggle with the Apple store. You pay for Apples brilliant device, but you may as well add £10-50 on top of that price to compensate for what you’ll pay on apps, depending on your iPad use. If you are a regular documents user/creator then the Pages app, a must have for document editing, will set you back £6.99.

Don’t be completely put off because there are a lot of free apps. Adequate free apps! Many of your useful, everyday apps such as facebook, twitter, wordpress and shopping brand apps are free. Plus the selection is phenomenal and you’ll always find something you want. Whether you’ll get everything you need for a price or not, only extensive searching can tell you that. However it’s unlikely that anyone can own an iPad without splashing out on a £0.69 app at least, but it is also possible that completely free app iPad users do exist.

Cameras

The iPad 2 has a front camera situated in the top middle and a rear camera, situated top right.

Brace yourself for this, the front camera is claimed to be a whopping 0.3MP, able to shoot videos at 720p HD at 30fps. The rear camera is supposedly 0.9MP, shooting videos at 1280x720p HD at 30fps.

So the video stats are pretty good but the mega pixel count is atrocious! This section wont take long as I find the cameras absolutely useless! In video calls using the front camera the quality is terrible and still photos are laughable. Using the rear camera for photos or videos is also a joke and I find the quality embarrassing. I’m aware that there are good reviews of the video quality of the iPad 2 but I’m just not seeing it. It’s probably best that you try it first and come to your own conclusion.

Regardless, I have my own digital camera for stills and a Flip HD for recording so why I would want to use my iPad for photos/videos is beyond me. If you’re an iPhone user for videos & photos the iCloud allows you to transfer your images easily across Apple products.

Battery

Apple claim 10 hours and this is probably about right, if an understatement. I haven’t recorded the battery use of my iPad but I estimate that I generally charge it every 2-3 days. My daily use of the iPad is roughly a couple of hours in the evening looking at social networking, playing games and some video viewing. At the weekend I’ll have it on standby for at least two days and use it at regular intervals without needing to charge it until Sunday night. If you sit and play a game for a long period then you’ll see the battery life drop but it doesn’t run away dramatically. I would estimate the iPad can last for about 8 hours of constant/almost-constant gaming. Charging takes quite a long time but you can use it on charge without effecting the charge too much. It differs based on personal use and perception.

Everyday use

Everyday the iPad is comfortable, easy and enjoyable to use. My iPad sits perfectly between my phone and laptop in the usage range, allowing me to browse websites, view and update social networks, research topics, short periods of typing and keeping on top of organisation. As the iPad is the only apple device I own other than an iPod Classic I cannot comment on the syncing use of the iPad to an iPhone or iPod Touch, but I expect it to be very useful, if it works successfully.

Syncing is available with Google for your mail and calendar, as is other platforms such as hotmail, so it is not completely Apple exclusive. Apps provide a range of useful tools and some iPad apps are the perfect size as a larger screen is needed.

The screen is quite reflective and is difficult to use in bright sunlight or bright weather outdoors. However most apps or webpages consist of clear, bright colours and don’t cause a problem, but you do have to have the screen tilted at the right angle.

I use my iPad in a folding sleeve case (not Apple brand) which increases the weight but keeps it protected all over. After owning my iPad for merely a day I placed it down on my chest of draws and pushed it along slightly which caused quite a large scratch on the back of my iPad! This is very unimpressive as I expected it to be a little more durable,especially as the surface of my draws is not rough, and a case was bought immediately that protects the back as well as the screen.

Niggly dislikes

• The price of apps
• The Apple exclusive club – this device is not easily compatible with other devices, even connecting to a windows computer/laptop has it’s problems. Bluetooth does not work to any devices other than selected Apple ones.
• Lack of widgets/ability to customise
• Cameras are near useless
• Not one-hand usable – light, but not feather light

Overall 

The list of cons are minute and easily ignored, depending on your desired use! I’ve never regretted my iPad decision and I simply couldn’t live with a less responsive tablet screen such as that on the Asus Transformer. I want something quick and responsive for every day use. The apps I have are fine for me and many are free. I use my iPad for shopping, reading, social networking, typing, financing, organising, gaming and a whole range of daily essentials and enjoyable tasks. It saves me powering up my laptop for simple internet tasks that cannot be done on a phone and provides a quick go-to source of information when at home. If fits discretely in my medium/large sized handbag so can be taken out with me for the day or for over-night stops.

I have a 32GB and it is far substantial. I download a weekly film, have a handful of music albums, a mediocre selection of photos and around 50 apps and the memory is only 1/3 full. 16GB is likely to be enough for any average user with the exception of those heavy on music/films.

This is not a comparison review so do not read this only and think that the iPad is the best. Many tablets are competing and placing the iPad 2 as the benchmark to beat so therefore aiming higher. Many Android users will find the iPad a completely unacceptable choice due to the lack of customising and syncing and therefore the decision can be made on operating system alone.

Get out there, get hands on, and try them all our for yourself before you decide!

Take note that I have owned and used my iPad for 6 months now, unlike review companies who will be limited to a short time period with tech before reviewing.

The views and comments expressed in this post are completely the authors own and in no way reflect those of Apple or other mentioned brands and software manufacturers. 

Related articles

• How Many iPads Has Apple Sold So Far? (celebritynetworth.com)
• News on Apple iPad 3 (phonesreview.co.uk)
• Apps for iPhone – but not iPad. (ask.metafilter.com)
• Ipad – More Than A Toy (tfollowers.com)

 

Samsung Galaxy S REVIEW

Samsung Galaxy S – i9000 4/5*

£300 to buy, approx
Free from £25 a month

The first of the Samsung Galaxy S series, powered by Android 2.2 (Aug, 2011) this phone is the latest of the smartphone waves that have been titled iPhone competitors.

The ooo’s and ahhh’s of the Galaxy S:

• 16M Super Amoled display
• 1GHz CPU
• 1,500mAh Li-pol Battery
• 5.0mp camera
• 8GB internal memory
• Flash
• 4″ touch screen

Touchy feely

If you’ve never held one of the newest smartphone’s yet the first thing you will notice is the sheer size of the thing! It’s something you’ll get used to and never notice again but I could not believe how huge this phone is. After years and years of us making phones smaller we’re now making them bigger.

The 4″ screen is amazing for a number of reasons, however it is a stretch to hold the phone in one hand although it’s wonderfully thin which helps reduce the stretch of the big screen. The chrome edging is smooth and looks wonderful and the phones texture feels nice and durable. The camera is situated in a nice place so that you do not cover it with your hands when using. The bottom back of the phone curves out which I find really useless! No matter how I hold the phone I can’t find the curve to have any use, although this may just be me. Also I struggle to use the phone with one hand as my thumb barely reaches across the phone, this is annoying as I normally do everything one handed with a phone but now I struggle to write a text or email while walking the dog or doing other things. The speaker on the back is also silly as it is a hard, rough bit of plastic that sticks out. For half an hour I thought I had damaged my phone or something as I was convinced it wasn’t suppose to be there. The sound quality is superb so maybe a little compromise is worth it. The phone packs a Super Amoled display, the big shouting point of the Galaxy S. It is wonderful! I haven’t seen many other phones to compare it to, however I feel that this is going to be the standard quality of smartphones, or at least should be and while the display is amazingly impressive, so it should be! So they all should be.

Home screen

The phone comes with 7 (yes 7!), home screens that you access by swiping right. You can customise all of them simply by adding shortcuts for any application, which appear as the rectangular icon most of us are familiar with and you can also add widgets in various sizes. A lot of apps now provide widgets so it’s very easy to find one you want and will use. At the bottom of every home screen and application screens you get shortcuts to phone, contacts, messaging and applications/home. This is nice, however if you are someone who wants a shortcut-free home page you will be disappointed. I have found myself calling friends in my pocket before and I feel this is as much due to the unlocking system as well as the shortcuts.

To unlock the screen you have to press the button on the front of the phone or the one on the side and then swipe any part of the screen to the edge. I find I often press the side button on the phone as I put it into my pocket and then it must not be that hard for the screen to be swipe unlocked in my pocket.

At first I was sure that I’d never use 7 home screens, however I now have great uses for 6 of them! Here’s a quick list if you’re looking for inspiration:

1. Keeping the first page simple: shortcuts to internet, email, gmail and camera.
2. My organisation page: Calendar widget, Task list widget, memo, shopping list, my fitness & BBC News shortcuts
3. Social networking & other internet apps: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, WordPress, BBC iPlayer, Wiki, YouTube, Movies, Job Search, UK Jobs, My Live Messenger, Shazam, Google Search, IMDb
4. Navigation, Out&About: Weather widget, Maps, Navigation, Places, Yell.com, thetrainline, RAC traffic, gvSIG Mini, Geocaching
5. Shopping: Amazon UK, Tesco, Debenhams, Famous Footwear, Superstore, Google Shopper, Vouchers, eBay, Barcode Scanner, ShopSavvy
6. Gaming: Angry Birds, Zombie, Run, Air Control, Paper Toss, Monopoly, Zoo Club, Solitare, Sudoku

Texting

To text you use a qwerty keyboard with or without predictive text. I couldn’t use the predictive text on this phone as I found that it kept putting the words in before I had chosen a word or finished typing, and therefore my texts didn’t make sense. The keyboard is nice and is just big enough when using the phone in portrait mode, however I do feel if anyone had fingers bigger than mine (easily done) then you might hit 2 keys at once. As I find problems using the phone with one hand, typing with one hand often results in many mistakes but with 2 hands typing is quick and easy. The .?123 key swops to numbers and punctuation marks and is very easy to navigate and remember where to find everything. I loved that the third page contains smiley faces that you touch once to insert! Very useful if you are a regular smiley user.

When typing web addresses or email addresses the keyboard suddenly contains keys such as “.com”, “www.” and “@”. Very useful unless you live in the UK, and then the lack of .co.uk is annoying but still a nice feature. And it’s nice how they only appear when you’re most likely to need them.

I have played with the voice input during texting a little and it was perfect! However I did not use it extensively.

The inbox is clear and easy to use and texts appear in conversation format with blue speech bubbles for you and yellow for the person you’re texting. Individual messages can be deleted or entire conversations. There is also a lovely feature where you swipe left over a conservation to message that contact or swipe right to call them. However this sometimes leads to accidental phone calls.

Calling

Calling is lovely and clear. All the options are touch screen and have big lovely buttons. When you receive an incoming call you have to swipe to answer, which I don’t like. I’d rather just press a button but I suppose it stops you from answering a call in your pocket as you have to be more precise. The best feature is the option to reject call with a text, which you access while someone is ringing you by swiping upwards. There are an array of template messages and you simply click one to send it, or I assumed you can program your own.

I’ve had phone calls with only 1 bar of signal and I was still able to hear the other person easily and clearly.

Internet

I use my phone for the internet regularly with an 3G bundle and using Wi-Fi. I haven’t had many problems finding connectivity and the internet always runs smoothly and at a reasonably speed, nothing spectacular. The internet runs better with apps than in a browser as expected, however I opened a number of larger sites in the browser and they loaded well and quickly and were easy to navigate by pinch and zoom. The great feature this phone has is that you can use mobile AP, meaning your phone provides wi-fi internet which you can protect with a password. This is an ever-growing use as the world of tablets and other wi-fi devices develop. This week I will be purchasing a iPad wi-fi only model and will use my mobile phone network to connect my iPad to the internet when out and about.

Games

I’ve had a variety of experience gaming on the Samsung Galaxy S from the amazing Angry Birds to a medieval tower defence game, GPS games, simple card games and a zoo game. The graphics really make the games stand out and the big screen aids playing enjoyment. All games have run smoothly and unless they require internet connection, turning off my phone data network removes any adverts. Zombie, Run had a few problems loading, however when it did start off the phone kept track of my GPS position perfectly.

Apps

The android market is substantially large now. Many companies are making apps for android and it’s the second most popular operating system. I found myself overwhelmed by the choice and all the top apps I wanted were easily sourced. However I was very disappointed when looking for a bird identification app, something I thought would be easy to find. There was only one app for birds which was a logbook type of app, whereas there is a perfect app on the iPhone. This has led me to doubt the strength of android. The choice is also a problem as I have so many apps that I don’t use as I forget they’re there.

Camera

The camera on the phone is lovely and produces good quality, bright photos. However the zoom function is poor and only increases the size of the pixels and makes the photo blurry. At 5.0mp the camera is not going to replace your digital camera yet, however it is a good alternative for the quick snap moments. The lack of flash is a disadvantage, although I haven’t found myself in a situation where I needed it yet. It all depends on how you wish to use it. However you can’t use the phone as a torch.

General use

Overall the phone is lovely to use with some great features. I adore the drop down screen. Swipe downwards from the top to access a menu/screen that allows you to turn on/off the wi-fi, bluetooth, gps, silent mode & auto rotation at the touch of a button. It also displays any notifications and if you are downloading something or syncing it shows the progress and status. Very very handy.

If you hold the lock button on the side of the phone it takes you to a similar menu in a box with options to switch the phone to silent, flight mode or turn the data network on or off. I use these every day to turn my phone onto silent, turn the data network and other features off over night or when I am at work to save battery and megabytes.

The final feature that’s great is holding the middle button on the front of the phone. This shows you your most recently used apps and a button to the task manager. In the task manager it shows you all apps that are running and allows you to end these at one touch. Quite often on smartphones there is no clear way of closing or stopping apps and many can continue running in the background so a task manager is great.

Battery – With every day use of internet, GPS and wi-fi the phone generally lasts a day to a day and a half. The battery really drains with heavy internet or gaming use and it seems to sit comfortable all day but drop before you eyes when you start to use something. I was amazed that I could actually watch the battery physically fall. However this battery life is expected from smartphones that are so tech packed and a day and a half is impressive compared to it’s main competitors.

The Niggles

There are a couple of things I’ve come across that I personally don’t like:

• You can’t set a default alarm tone; every alarm you set has one of Samsung’s various pre-set tones and you have to change each one individually
• Notification tone in settings assigns one tone to every sort of notification; to assign different tones to emails, text messages and others you have to go into their individual settings separate, there is no option for them under general sound settings
• I can’t type with one hand and find myself typing and texting on the phone less than I did with my old one because of this

Overall the phone is a great smartphone that I use every day to keep track of emails, texting, calling and personal applications such as calorie counting and social networking. After 2 months I’ve not found a hatred or a love for this phone, it is simply an amazing upgrade that does what is says on the tin. The techy in me longs to find out how it would feel to own an iPhone, however the cost was simply too much on my contract. If you prefer Android this is definitely a great contender to the iPhone to get or consider the new release, Samsung Galaxy S2.

 

Android WordPress App

So here I am, enjoying a lovely holiday and I thought I’d check up on my blog with my WordPress app for Android.
Using the Samsung Galaxy S the screen is big and bright, allowing me to type, view and edit the text sufficiently.
Obviously features are limited but I can view my comments, posts, pages and stats well and also add new posts and pages and edit them. It also gives me  limited access to some of the blogs settings.
Overall enough to do from your phone when you dont have access to a tablet or computer.

However as post edit features are limited I would say it’s not suffient to use for keeping your blog up to date in a professional format, however I’m sure you can judge that better for yourself based on the appearance of this post.

All in all a useful app for checking your blog and you can manage several accounts or even create a new one!

 

Flip Ultra HD 3rd gen REVIEW

Flip Ultra HD 3rd Gen  (4/5)

The newest Flip handheld camcorder. The Ultra HD 3rd generation. I chose the 8GB in black.

The Flip Ultra is a small, high-definition camcorder that fits comfortably in your hand and pocket. It comes at a reasonable price of £150 which makes it cheap for a HD camcorder, however it does have a low budget feel to it.

The video quality is good and the pictures are clear and crisp, especially in high light. The camera copes well with low light, however there is some white noise with it. I have used it in low light outside and indoors and its biggest weakness is still of good quality.

Panning shots come out smooth, however it does blur the background with the slightest movement but stays well focused if you’re tracking a particular object. I found when filming my dog it kept my dog in sharp, clear focus while the background blurred.

The worst feature is that it is near impossible to use the camera while walking as it is very sensitive to footsteps. When walking very careful it is possibly to film with only a slight bounce showing up but I find it unlikely that you will be that conscious when filming. In my YouTube video I include a section of walking and running while filming.

However with this being the weakness it leaves a lot of great points. Filming without moving, hand-held and on a tripod, is extremely clear and crisp and I have so far found no need to film while walking.

With the 8GB it gives you 2 hours of filming and the battery lasts for over 2 hours. I used it to film a large number of short videos for a couple of days in a row and then 2 x 15 minute videos consecutively and the battery was quite low at the end of it all.

The flip out USB is useful, however the charm of it seems to have worn off on some flip users. It does mean that you can plug it into any computer and charge it up. Also it means you do not need to carry any leads with you if you have access to a USB port. However when it plugs into my computer it plugs in upside down, so that the display screen is pointing down. This is an inconvenience as the screen displays the battery level, however I can tell when the camera is fully charged as it makes a noise and the light goes off.

The flip is easy and comfortable to hold in your hand, with a nice rubber feel coating that looks stylish and gives good grip. Some people will find the screen small, however it enables you to hold the camera easily without covering the screen. And for basic day-to-day filming it is of perfect size, unless your eyesight is really poor. Although it is pocket-size the Flip Ultra is a little bit chunkier than the average smartphone such as my Nokia 5800 and it is definitely bigger than an iPhone. I would recommend going into a store where you can hold one before purchasing.

The Flip is very simple and easy to use. If you like your tech packed with gadgets and little features you will not like the Flip. I do miss it being gadget packed but I also like how simple it is. It has an on/button, record, menu, delete, left & right and + – .

Overall I find the Flip a nice, easy camera with great quality video for still filming of people, landscapes and any moving objects such as animals. You can take it anywhere and its great for whipping out and snapping a video. However the lack of features, digital zoom and shaking when moving means you may want to invest in a higher priced, normal sized video camera if that’s what you are looking for. However for a pocket-sized camcorder it is the best buy.

Visit my YouTube profile for a video of the quality of the Flip. I have filmed in a number of different environments such as indoors and outdoors in different light levels. I have viewed many videos of flip’s quality and found most of them are filmed in bright sunshine which gives a misleading level of quality. I am proud to say my video gives a broad experience of the flips quality including sound quality.

Ruth Turner on Youtube (Username: Middnight)

Direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JnEILhnqVA