Category: Recommended Products

Five Great Smartphone Manufacturers You Might not Know about

The smartphone industry is absolutely packed full of competitors. It’s got to the point where every competing manufacturer is trying incredibly hard to offer up everything they’ve possibly got. Sometimes, the OEMs with the biggest brand name or marketing budget push out the smartphone manufacturers you might not be aware of. In this article, I’d like to share five of my favorite manufacturers that I believe don’t get enough attention.

Marshall

Marshall? What? Yes, that’s right. Marshall, the same company responsible for the popular music amp lineup has now entered the smartphone space. I’m not really sure what gave them the guts to brave the smartphone industry, but as you could imagine it was based somewhat upon music.

Marshall has recently announced a new smartphone called the Marshall London and it features a nice rugged leather back, similar in design to the black leather found on many of their amps.

Whilst it’s internal hardware isn’t superb, what makes the London special is its audio setup, both software and hardware wise. Firstly, the smartphone has a dual front-facing speaker, similarly to the HTC One M9. On top of that, the Marshall London has two audio outputs so that you can share your music with a friend. Finally, you’ll find a range of audio software features including equalizers, volume controls and gain control. Basically, if you’re a music head, the Marshall London might just be of interest to you.

Oppo

Oppo is perhaps more known in the smartphone world than Marshall is, but with that being said, this smartphone brand still doesn’t have a great grasp of the smartphone market. The Oppo has a lineup of different devices that’s a bit confusing to outsiders, but their latest device is the Oppo R7 Plus – a huge beast of a smartphone.

Firstly, Oppo’s smartphones have always been incredibly thin, so if that’s your thing, you’ll be excited to hear that the Oppo R7 is one of the thinnest phablets around right now. Despite the moniker, the R7 actually only has a 6-inch display, which admittedly is still rather large. Amazingly the Oppo R7 also comes with a 4,100mAh battery, as well as 3GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 615 which features an octa-core processor.

Yota

You may have heard about Yota before. It’s because they’ve managed to build the best smartphone to rival the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony and Apple, but instead because what they’ve done is quite unique. Yota’s last smartphone was the Yotaphone 2, but soon a Yotaphone 3 and Yotaphone2c will be launched into the market.

Yota’s speciality is creating dual-display smartphones. The Yota range has always had one thing in common – on the front, users will find a standard smartphone display, whilst the back there sits a less power-hungry e-ink display, like those found on a traditional Kindle.

The idea is that the e-ink display can be used for basic tasks in everyday life, which will help lengthen out the battery life. When you’re ready to view some real content, the main display can be used.

It’s a neat idea, but it never really caught on, mostly due to the lack of decent internal hardware and Yota’s struggle with appealing to the global market.

Fairphone

What is a Fairphone? Apparently it’s a smartphone that has been constructed fairly. It’s not so much about the smartphone, but the message behind it. Here’s a little excerpt from the Fairphone website.

By making a phone, we’re opening up the supply chain and creating new relationships between people and their products. We’re making a positive impact across the value chain in mining, design, manufacturing and life cycle while expanding the market for products that put ethical values first. Together with our community, we’re changing the way products are made.

If you’re concerned about the way smartphones in today’s industry are manufactured, then Fairphone is a company you may want to get behind and support.

On top of being fair to all involved in the creation process, the Fairphone will feature a modular design, making self-repairs not only possible but viable for most consumers. The device will also come with some decent internal specifications (Snapdragon 801, 2GB RAM) and a reasonable 525 Euro price tag.

Pantech

Pantech is one of the Korean manufacturers that has been around for a long, long time. Unfortunately, Pantech hasn’t done quite as well in the mobile industry as either Samsung or LG have, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make good devices.

Yes, that’s right, they do actually make smartphones and they’re actually pretty decent. Earlier in the year, one of Pantech’s most popular smartphones was the Vega Iron 2 – this device had some flagship-worthy specs and a decent build quality.

A Snapdragon 801 can be found inside, which includes 3GB of RAM, an Adreno 330 GPU, a 5.3 inch 1920 x 1080 AMOLED display, a 3,220 mAh battery and 32GB of storage among other features.

These specs are a little outdated, but this device was competing with 2014 devices such as the Galaxy S5. There’s no reason not to dismiss Pantech as a smartphone brand because they’re actually doing a pretty good job at making decent devices.

So there we have it, they’re five great smartphone manufacturers you might not have been aware of. What lesser known manufacturers are you a fan of? Let us know in comments.

September 4, 2015
What’s the Difference with SmartWatches in 2015?

The recent smartwatch trend has followed dozens of manufacturers as they have tried to release wearable devices worth a consumer’s time. Honestly, smart watches aren’t getting any smarter at this point, but I thought I’d look at the difference between 2014 and this year to see exactly what’s the difference with smart watches in 2015.

I’ll be focusing on two main smart watches and their successors in this article; the Gear S, the S2, the Moto 360 and the Moto 360 2. Because some details about the successors are currently unavailable, this article is somewhat based on rumors so take everything with a grain of salt.

Internal Hardware Improvements

Smartphone internal hardware improves at an incredibly fast pace. We’re used to seeing improvements on a yearly basis and these changes are often quite drastic. Can the same be said for smart watches? Let’s hope it’s the case because the first round of smartwatch releases were a little lacking in the hardware department.

Moto 360 vs Moto 360 2

The original Moto 360 was powered by a TI OMAP 3 processor, which admittedly caused lag and stutters when operating in some instances. This was no surprise considering the OMAP 3 is a 4-year-old processing unit at this point.

The 320 mAh battery in the Moto 360 was … decent, but the processor drained out its life quicker than a mobile processor should. With 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage, you’re also getting an on-par 2014 experience in the memory department.

The Moto 360 2 will, fortunately, take a jump towards better hardware components. We don’t know the hardware specifications for sure at this point, but we are expecting a better resolution display, a new processor and other improvements. Strangely, the Moto 360 2 may come in two variants – a premium version and a sports version, the latter having just 275mAh battery whilst the former will have a 375mAh battery. It’ll be interesting to see battery tests for both.

Galaxy Gear S2 vs S

The S2 has very similar specs to the original S – the same 512MB RAM, the same 4GB internal storage and the same or similar 1GHz processor depending on what S2 model is picked. The display will actually have a worse resolution, but it will finally be circular. The battery life will also be reduced to 250mAh in some models and will have the same 300mAh in the most expensive model.

Software and Apps

Smart watches are slowly getting more dedicated apps – as more manufacturers are pushing for smart watch development, more app developers are becoming curious about the platform. I think that over time more apps will be seen as useful utilities on smartwatches instead of additional gimmicks that can already be accessed from a smartphone just as conveniently.

More support for smart watches is coming. In fact, Google recently made the bold move to make Android Wear smart watches compatible with iPhones.

Build Quality and Design

I was actually really excited about the designs and build quality found within smart watches of 2014. The LG G Watch R and the Moto 360 both have some really dynamic designs that much better suit the whole watch theme.

This year we’re looking to see slight improvements to the designs where necessary, but what worked last year is coming back in 2015 and I’m glad for that.

Actual Utility

So are smart watches in 2015 actually filled with a utility? Can a smart watch become a useful device in my day to day life? Well, it’s hard to say for sure. Yes, there are more available features for smart watches in 2015, but it still mostly comes down to preference.

If you are the kind of person that relies on a watch or uses a watch already, I could see a smart watch being a useful addition to you. Checking the time on your wrist will already feel natural and using various apps will be easy enough to pick up.

For those who don’t already use a watch, switching to using your smart watch or checking it over a smartphone will take some getting used to, and this stage may negate any real feelings of convenience that the device is supposed to offer.

September 1, 2015
Take note on your Android and iOS with digital Ball-Pen: Adonit’s Jot Dash

Adonit has designed a wide range of stylus Pens for Android and iOS smartphones, extending their vision to promote one stylus pen for all your devices. Their existing product Jot Touch, and Jot Script is wildly famous among the professional users and artists. If you were missing out more traditional ball-pen experience, Adonit has announced a new stylus – Jot Dash.

The Jot Dash is a thin-tipped active stylus that has a plastic 1.9mm tip that offers more precision than a standard rubber-tipped stylus. Adonit, known for manufacturing a pressure sensitive stylus, has introduced a new feature that will allow you to initiate your scribbling with the click of a button.

The company also made some essential tweaks and design upgrade from its predecessors. The Jot Dash has a traditional carrying clip, and On/Off button, which works more like a Roller Ball pens.

Like any active tip stylus, the Jot Dash works with all capacitive touch screen devices, including all of Apple’s iPhones and iPads. Notably, it works with the iPad Air 2, which includes a different screen technology than other older iPads.

Adonit’s goal with the Jot Dash was to imitate a standard ink pen, so the Dash is just 8.5mm in diameter (about the thickness of a BIC pen) with a lightweight, rechargeable battery and a clip. According to Adonit, the Jot Dash is its most intuitive stylus to date, because it “looks like a pen, feels like a pen, and acts like a pen.”

It’s priced about the same as similar styluses, $50, and is available now from Adonit’s website, which ships internationally. There’s no word on UK or Australian launches, but that price converts to about £35 or AU$70.

September 1, 2015
Why doesn’t anyone seem to take mobile gaming seriously? – The Solutions
Joe Hindy recently wrote a great article over at AndroidAuthority listing all of the reasons why he believes mobile gaming isn’t being taken seriously when compared to other mobile gaming platforms. Like Hindy, I’m a big mobile apps guy and have played through and reviewed countless applications so I can totally understand his frustrations here. Right now, the mobile app space just isn’t the place to safely support developers looking to release serious video games.

Joe Hindy spoke a little bit about what he thought were the reasons for this and I thought I’d follow up by suggesting what could be done to fix each issue.

Money

Hindy’s argument here was that there just isn’t enough safe revenue potential for big time game developers when working in the mobile industry. Yes, mobile game revenue is very high but Hindy was right when he mentioned over 95% of revenue came from freemium games. In fact, 2014 saw 98% of all Google Play mobile game revenue come from freemium titles.

This is a big problem for the mobile game industry. How can gamers take mobile gaming seriously when they’re all filled with shoddy in-app purchases that are clearly designed to take cash from your pockets every step of the way?

The solution: There are probably a few ways to deal with this problem, but I’d like to suggest what I think could work quite well. If a developer were to make a decent, lengthy mobile game, they could provide a beginning portion of the game for free, and then charge extra for more chapters.

What’s great about this is that a developer could potentially only develop the first few chapters of a game and then work on more chapters as previous ones are purchased. If a developer reaches their revenue goals, they can continue their development process. If revenue slows down, development of the next chapter could be stopped until revenue goals are met or development could be cut out completely.

This exact example could only apply to certain types of games, such as RPGs or episodic storytelling games, but a similar model could be used for other titles. Racing games could have new tournaments. fighting games could have new arenas, fighters and skillsets.

Throw in some extra cosmetic items and set up some decent stretch goals to encourage players to help the developers reach their revenue goals and we have a payment model that could work well.
- This payment model doesn’t feel as “freemium” as many mobile games do
- Extra non-game defining IAPs could help increase revenue
- Revenue can be earned as the game is developed
Piracy

Admittedly, piracy is a huge issue for mobile gaming. It’s caused publishers to move over to the freemium model and it’s made it very difficult for hard working mobile games developers to earn a living from what they do best.

Fighting piracy is of course an ongoing battle that even has it’s prevalences in other gaming platforms. There is no real quick fix for piracy because pirates will always find workarounds and those looking for free entertainment will do so also.

The Solution: As a solution right now, providing games for free would definitely be the better choice. Even if a developer were to provide two minutes of gameplay for free and then charge for all other content via IAPs, that developer is already cutting out any quick piracy that’s done by simply re-uploading .apks and app files to file hosting websites.

We’re already seeing other gaming platforms moving towards a supplemented payment model. How many big name video games have released without DLC this year? The amount is completely outnumbered by games that do have DLC, and it’s something that gamers are now being forced to accept.

A DLC based or chapter based payment model with a free price on top could work well for game developers on the mobile platform.

Lack of Promotion

This is of course an issue for smaller developers without a name for themselves. Getting yourself seen on the app store is a bit hit and miss. App store optimization can be used to increase your chances of being seen in search results but it’s a practice that many developers now use.

Besides ASO, there are not many opportunities within the app store to get your app shown off to the world. The biggest option is the top apps charts in the Google Play store and this if course completely over run by freemium titles.

The Solution: For small time developers, once again making a game to be taken seriously that could have good revenue potential would only work well if you choose to make a free game. At this point in time it seems clear that trying to make a paid game work just isn’t the option to take.

Instead developers should focus on what they can do to stay away from that freemium feeling whilst still providing valuable and desirable in-app purchases to their players.

Big time developers and publishers shouldn’t have as much issue with promotion – they have the purchasing power to put a good marketing campaign out there. The trouble is that nobody is brave enough to take chances in the video game industry. It’s too expensive to do something that you aren’t sure will work. This is why we see rehashed games released each year by the big publishers because they know it’s familiar territory and they know it’s a concept that will sell.

Publishers should consider opening up smaller experimental branches that are given the freedom to create whatever comes to their creative minds – this kind of studio would have a much smaller budget but it could open the potential to bring something brand new to the world. Think of an experimental branch like this as an indie game studio that has backing and financial support by a big name publisher.

Hardware

Joe Hindy brought up a very big point about touch screen based mobile gaming having a huge negative effect on the potential for decent video games on the platform. Most popular genres are very difficult to play on a touch screen and mobile gaming hardware just isn’t being adopted at a big enough pace.

The solution: Video game developers need to come up with creative ways to utilize the touch screen – mobile games don’t need to follow the same categories defined by previous gaming platforms and the touch screen is a good example why.

At the end of the day, a touch screen can be interacted with at any point – any single location on a mobile display can be used as an input. I’m not the genius to figure out the solution, but there must be a way to make touch screen gaming work better than it currently does.

Mobile gaming is new – the potential of the platform has not yet been fully untapped. The inconsistencies with it have scared away big name publishers, but their only way of entering the platform is via a more creative, open minded approach. It is definitely a risk but it could pay off well.

Over-saturation

It’s very true that the mobile app stores are over-saturated. When you choose to buy an Xbox game, your choice is limited between hundreds or maybe thousands of titles. With mobile gaming, you’ll be getting thousands of titles added to the app store every day.

The solution: I honestly don’t think this needs to change. It’s a new platform and utilizing it properly will take some initiative. With that being said however, there are already plenty of ways to step up above the crowd and when this happens the oversaturation is no longer so much of a problem.

The Culture

Filled with freemium apps, pay as you go gaming and all sorts of experiences aimed at more casual players, there’s no wonder why most gamers couldn’t think about taking mobile gaming seriously.

As a result, many developers wouldn’t touch mobile gaming with a barge pole. Working in the mobile game space is a fear of many big time names in the video games industry.

The solution: In theme with other suggestions in this article, I strongly believe that publishers should attempt to open and maintain lower budget experimental branches of their development teams to give their company a more open minded, creative approach on mobile gaming.

New thinking, creativity and initiative is the only thing that’s going to change how gamers view mobile gaming. Video game publishers like EA, Square Enix and Blizzard have the presence to get creative but it’s a risk that they may not ever be willing to take.

Image credit: Forbes; Mrcrab; Howtohackforfree; CultofAndroid; Cinemablend; blog.teamtreehouse.com; Nardio.net
August 22, 2015
Google Onhub: Stupidly simple WiFi router

Google announced a Wi-Fi router which is stupidly simple and faster than any other alternatives available right now as they promise OnHub router will “give you WiFi that’s fast, secure and easy to use.” Modern Wi-Fi routers are hideous and as much as we want it to keep it in plain sight, we always end up hanging it in a corner or moving it to someplace which wouldn’t be ruined by the ugly wires plugged to a square box.

“Many of us keep our router on the floor and out of sight, where it doesn’t work as well. We replaced unruly cords and blinking lights with internal antennas and subtle, useful lighting, so you’ll be happy placing OnHub out in the open, where your router performs its best. “

Google OnHub claims to fix the basic problems that you’d face with modern routers, providing additional features along the way. Google wants to make it a centralized on the go router, which can be managed from anywhere with a mobile app.

A router that’s simple, fast and really, really ridiculously good looking? Meet #OnHub. http://t.co/KxjTzKBYvK pic.twitter.com/raL0ikZdbi

— Google (@google) August 18, 2015

The Company says setup is easy and the device automatically scans your local airwaves to find the best channel for you. “A unique antenna design and smart software keep working in the background, automatically adjusting OnHub to avoid interference and keep your network at peak performance,” Google says.

The best feature of the router would be Bandwidth prioritizing, which ensures the bandwidth allocation to your chosen device when there are multiple users connected to the Wi-Fi — No more bandwidth hog while your wife or kids stream videos over the network.

Google also claims that OnHub’s innovative circular antenna design would provide reliable Wi-Fi coverage in more directions in your home, keeping the Wi-Fi signal within reach even in the remote corners.

This new router is available on pre-order at $199.99 (approx Rs 13,000) from online retailers in the US, including the Google Store, Amazon, and Walmart.com. OnHub will be available on retail stores in US and Canada soon, there is no word about its launch in India.

Google OnHub

August 19, 2015
Xiaomi Mi Band – a cheap gimmick of premium fitness tracker [Review]

Few years ago, a fitness tracker was just some premium overpriced gadgets for those who could spend a chunk of cash to monitor daily physical activity. This is radically changed recently when Xiaomi and other competitive manufacturers jumped into the game. Nowadays, everyone wants to have a healthy life and become physically fit – the only problem being that no one wants to do what it takes to stay fit. Fitness tracker is supposedly the device that can help you track the daily physical activity and allows you to monitor your heart rate, distance walked/ran, daily diet intake, sleep analysis, body temperature monitor and so many other things to come.

Fortunately, now digitally monitored fitness is not only for those who can throw a big chunk of money to these companies – thanks to the competitive market. Xiaomi has launched a budget fitness tracker which is within the reach. However, this is not something that a professional fitness guru would seek, as it lacks some features that you’d find on high-end bands. It still is a good alternative for those who are looking for a test drive to these gadgets.

We find Xiaomi Mi Band, a great gadget at the price it is being sold at, but it certainly is not the most reliable one. Let’s figure out why.

Appearance

Mi Band was shipped with really interesting packaging, which was a slim square cardboard box, holding all the pieces inside. We said ‘pieces’ because Mi Band is not a single unit, it has modular parts which include a fitness tracker, Mi Band, and a USB charging cable.

In addition to these modular units, the box has a user manual listing the instructions to use the Mi band and help setup the fitness tracker with your smartphone.

The band looks fantastic on the wrist, and surprisingly comfortable considering the material used on this band is USA Dow Corning TPSiV material, which has an excellent elasticity, which suits the skin better.

Performance

Mi Band is great, but it is disappointing at so many levels — It is ultimately true that you get what you pay for. It is cheap, affordable, comfortable to use and provide good statistics of your daily activity. But, it certainly isn’t reliable fitness tracker when it comes to the only thing you’re supposed to buy it for — tracking your steps. It is so unreliable that you’d notice “Mi Fit” app reporting the number of steps you took in your dream while you were sleeping. More on to it later.

We took out the tracker module out of the box and connected it to the power source via USB cable. It took more than 2 hours to charge it to 100 percent since it was shipped with 0% battery. Once it was charged, there were 3 green LED lights indicating the fitness tracker is ready to go.

Xiaomi has done a really nice job with the LED indicators, which uses 4 different colors to push the notification on the band. The dedicated official ‘Mi Fit’ app is going to be your ‘display’ that the band lacks. You need to rely on the app for everything you want to visualize from the tracker, which is paired with your device powered by Android KitKat or higher, using Bluetooth.

Download Mi Fit app from Play Store

We didn’t notice any significant drop in battery backup on our Huawei Honor 6 Plus, which packs a massive 3600 mAh battery. The overall battery performance was normal, and if you’re not like one of those guys who wants to jump to all the notifications on the phone right away, you wouldn’t probably want to keep your Bluetooth on all the time. The Mi Fit app syncs with Mi Band every time you manually open the application on your phone — Sorry, no live sync; which is another high-end feature this fitness tracker doesn’t have. The very neat feature that we liked about Mi Band is not how it can help you with your physical activity monitoring, but the ability to get the notification and call alerts on the band.

You can setup the app to notify you for all incoming calls, which you can set 3 to 30 seconds after the first ring on your phone. You can also choose up to 3 application on your phone via ‘Mi Fit’ app for which it will push alerts on your band. Every time there is a notification on your phone, the app will push notification alert to your band, which will vibrate and blink green. This is pretty neat feature and really useful when you’re in crowded place or have your phone on silent mode but it only works if mi fit app is running in background and phone is paired with the band.

Another neat feature that we really liked about Mi Band is sleep tracker – it does work. During our testing period, Mi Band logged our sleep time perfectly. It even reported the deep sleep, light sleep and how many hours of the nap was actually taken. It is really useful if someone wants to know how much sleep they’re getting, which according to specialists should average to 7 hours for an adult to be considered as healthy. The Good thing is that it is all automated – you don’t to remember pushing a button to enable sleep mode or tell the app to activate sleep tracking, it just works. One drawback about this feature is that it will only track your sleep during the night. Apparently, Xiaomi has rigged the band to track sleep every night and skipped the day time in the process.

Step/Activity Tracking:

One thing that Xiaomi Mi Band had to be good at to be crowned as fitness tracker was to reliably monitor the distance traveled by the owner, but it managed to ruin it. We are not saying that it cannot monitor your activity, but it is unreliable. The fact that it relies on the mechanical parts inside the tracking module, and there’s no software to differentiate the false movement of the hand on which band is strapped on, makes it a gimmick. It is even tracking my steps while we are composing this article.

You should know that other premium fitness trackers has the similar behavior and they’re not precisely accurate. However, Xiaomi Mi Band manages to f*ck it up at so many levels. It just can’t be accurate, and tracks every false movement of hands or soft jerks/movement of the wrist.

Don’t get us wrong, it does track the steps you take, and log them fairly well during a single session. If you rest or do some other work between it, it will be inaccurate. So, you’d want to fire up Mi Fit app before heading out to have a walk, or jogging activity and remember to fire it up again when you’re done. It will help you determine how much steps you took during the session. Unfortunately, you cannot rely on it to analyze the data over a week or month.

What do we think?

Xiaomi Mi Band is a great alternative to other premium fitness trackers out there, but it manages to perform considerably unreliable at something it should be good at. We won’t recommend it for Profession fitness junkies, but it is a very pocket friendly mimic of premium fitness bands for those who wants to get around the gadget and know what these bands can do for them before going to the high-end options.

August 18, 2015